How does the identification of outsourcing opportunities relate to core competencies and competitive advantages? Can this relationship also be connected to the organizational structure? Explain and provide an example.
Identifying outsourcing opportunities allows a company to disperse non-core and distracting activities. This allows the company to focus more resources on core competencies and competitive advantages. Without outsourcing, the company would have to hire new talent in and train these new hires. Also using valuable resources for non-core and distracting activities lead to companies missing strategic opportunities or missing the prime time for acting on opportunities. This can result in a competitor seizing the opportunity before you or you not being able to capitalize on the full potential.
These outsourcing opportunities can be used strategically, so they form external competitive advantages. Outsourcing can be a portion of activities and not the entire department or role within the company. The role within the company is kept as a core competency and further exploited to strengthen the competitive advantage. The outsourced activities are what the supplier does best and can result in more of a strategic alliance than pure outsourcing.
The best example I can think of is Wal-Mart and their supply chain management. They outsource many activities and turn that into an incredible competitive advantage. They develop these suppliers into efficient productive companies through Wal-Mart's mandates. Wal-Mart uses these relationship as an extension of themselves and push their agendas through their suppliers. Recently Wal-Mart is pushing waste reduction through packaging of goods that they purchase. Suppliers are to reduce "throw away" packaging by a percentage and also ensure that the more of the packaging can be recycled.
Tuesday, December 26, 2006
LJ 2-5b
How do your personal experiences, prejudices, and expectations impact your ability to objectively select the best candidates for a job or project position?
These three aspects can positively or negatively impact your decision. The main point here to be aware of your prejudices and expectations that have been molded through your varies experiences. Having a prejudice toward certain behaviors or ethics is not bad, but you need to be aware of them. Having prejudices based on race, dress, ethnic culture, body type, etc are part of reality, but can not get in the way of objectivity. Prejudices can be your danger alerts or gut feelings. Again must be aware that you have them and understand why you have these prejudices. This is the same for expectations. It is great to have high expectations, but must be relative to the job or position and not what your personnel expectations are for that job - a realistic outlook on what is expected of an individual. Setting too high expectations leads to failure and low morale/drive of that person. Too low of an expectation leads to complacency and boredom, resulting in poor use of a person's potential. Must be aware why you have an expectation and why you have it.
The reason why it is necessary to be aware of these aspects and how they interact is so you will be objective. You can not and will not be objective (will be subjective) if you allow these aspects to act as instinctual judgement calls and not as questions for you to internally rationalize logically. Choosing the correct person needs to based on how they align to the company's values, beliefs, culture, and ethical behavior. Just because you like someone personally and all of your prejudices, etc are validated does not mean they will be great employees and successful. The flip side also applies - not liking someone because of your prejudices, etc does not mean that the individual will not become a solid performer.
So these three aspects can cause you to ignore a diamond in the rough and choose the wrong person.
These three aspects can positively or negatively impact your decision. The main point here to be aware of your prejudices and expectations that have been molded through your varies experiences. Having a prejudice toward certain behaviors or ethics is not bad, but you need to be aware of them. Having prejudices based on race, dress, ethnic culture, body type, etc are part of reality, but can not get in the way of objectivity. Prejudices can be your danger alerts or gut feelings. Again must be aware that you have them and understand why you have these prejudices. This is the same for expectations. It is great to have high expectations, but must be relative to the job or position and not what your personnel expectations are for that job - a realistic outlook on what is expected of an individual. Setting too high expectations leads to failure and low morale/drive of that person. Too low of an expectation leads to complacency and boredom, resulting in poor use of a person's potential. Must be aware why you have an expectation and why you have it.
The reason why it is necessary to be aware of these aspects and how they interact is so you will be objective. You can not and will not be objective (will be subjective) if you allow these aspects to act as instinctual judgement calls and not as questions for you to internally rationalize logically. Choosing the correct person needs to based on how they align to the company's values, beliefs, culture, and ethical behavior. Just because you like someone personally and all of your prejudices, etc are validated does not mean they will be great employees and successful. The flip side also applies - not liking someone because of your prejudices, etc does not mean that the individual will not become a solid performer.
So these three aspects can cause you to ignore a diamond in the rough and choose the wrong person.
LJ 2-5a
Why is it necessary to look through the four lenses when developing an internal communication strategy?
The four lenses allows you to make sure that all groups have been identified and content/context is geared toward each different group. It also ensures that the correct amount of emotional intelligence is being employed in the strategy. Each group and individuals within a group will require different ways of communicating the main message. Top management will want to understand the benefits and strategic objectives for the message. They may also wish to have thorough explanations of the details, more to the quadrant D. Middle managers and supervisors will want to understand what? why? and how? They will be worried about effects on their departments, their staff, and themselves. This is mainly quadrant B and some A. The general workforce will want to understand "Whats in it for them" and may need reassurance. The benefits will come from the quadrant A perspective and the empathy/understanding will come from the quadrant C perspective. If the communication strategy does not use the four lenses, then the possibility of failure is greatly increased or even inevitable.
The four lenses allows you to make sure that all groups have been identified and content/context is geared toward each different group. It also ensures that the correct amount of emotional intelligence is being employed in the strategy. Each group and individuals within a group will require different ways of communicating the main message. Top management will want to understand the benefits and strategic objectives for the message. They may also wish to have thorough explanations of the details, more to the quadrant D. Middle managers and supervisors will want to understand what? why? and how? They will be worried about effects on their departments, their staff, and themselves. This is mainly quadrant B and some A. The general workforce will want to understand "Whats in it for them" and may need reassurance. The benefits will come from the quadrant A perspective and the empathy/understanding will come from the quadrant C perspective. If the communication strategy does not use the four lenses, then the possibility of failure is greatly increased or even inevitable.
Friday, December 8, 2006
LJ 1-3c
Think of the products and services of your current organization. How can the products and services be reclassified to identify different markets?
I am not sure if the products that my company produces can be reclassified to identify different markets. They can be reclassified to better position the company in some new markets and gain market share in all current markets. My comapny is in a mature industry. The refractory industry within the USA is declining, while the industry abroad is growing. China and India are probably the largest growing refractory markets. China is by far the most important and fastest growing refractory market today and near future. Locally/nationally - My company's opportunities will be from taking market share from their competitors. Reclassifying the product lines will help Allied achieve this dominance. Better organization and adding more structure to massive product offerings will allow the sales force to better serve the customer. It will also add confidence to the sale forces' offering - showing the customer that our company has new and innovative products to solve their problems. This could easily be done via an electronic database, since the vast majority of the sales force have laptops. It could be a downloadable file from an intranet and/or available on the intranet for viewing with the customer. There are numerous ways this information could be organized and provided as knowledge tools to the sales force. This would ensure that they were effective, efficient, and aware of the new product offerings for specific applications.
I am not sure if the products that my company produces can be reclassified to identify different markets. They can be reclassified to better position the company in some new markets and gain market share in all current markets. My comapny is in a mature industry. The refractory industry within the USA is declining, while the industry abroad is growing. China and India are probably the largest growing refractory markets. China is by far the most important and fastest growing refractory market today and near future. Locally/nationally - My company's opportunities will be from taking market share from their competitors. Reclassifying the product lines will help Allied achieve this dominance. Better organization and adding more structure to massive product offerings will allow the sales force to better serve the customer. It will also add confidence to the sale forces' offering - showing the customer that our company has new and innovative products to solve their problems. This could easily be done via an electronic database, since the vast majority of the sales force have laptops. It could be a downloadable file from an intranet and/or available on the intranet for viewing with the customer. There are numerous ways this information could be organized and provided as knowledge tools to the sales force. This would ensure that they were effective, efficient, and aware of the new product offerings for specific applications.
LJ 1-3b
Reflecting on your personal past experiences, discuss an idea you developed, only to have it fail during the implementation. Why did the implementation fail?
I actually can not think of an idea that I developed and failed at implementation. Most of the ideas that I developed or developed with others were successfully implemented - if the idea was deemed worthy of going forward with it. The only idea that went partially to implementation, before being killed, was a part of my Master's thesis work. This novel idea was created by my advisor, a professor, and validated by a myself and a peer. The possibility of the idea was validated and at least one paper was published on this subject. Through the university, we started through the patent process. This idea made it through the first part of the process, but was killed in the due diligence review. The idea was not marketable enough to develop a product or process into a viable, money making process for ceramic manufacturing.
Other implementations I have been involved in could have been much more efficient if planning and listening to others perspectives and experiences were paid more attention. Sometimes people in charge of implementations tend to manage every aspect of the implementation instead of leading everyone through the changes the implementation process creates. Unfortunately implementation plans include people to carry out tasks and objectives. Autocratic and "know-it-all" attitudes or approaches typically results in a bumpy implementation. Including everyone at the start and keeping them engaged throughout the implementation process ensures that any missed issues are handled and addressed efficiently. This approach is also effective in ensuring that the process will support itself after all the "managing resources of implementation" leave. Implementation process needs to be about having the people who will be left with the processes implemented to create and develop the processes and NOT told what to do by "You" without any of their input. Again - engage the people in the implementation and future issues will be minimal.
I actually can not think of an idea that I developed and failed at implementation. Most of the ideas that I developed or developed with others were successfully implemented - if the idea was deemed worthy of going forward with it. The only idea that went partially to implementation, before being killed, was a part of my Master's thesis work. This novel idea was created by my advisor, a professor, and validated by a myself and a peer. The possibility of the idea was validated and at least one paper was published on this subject. Through the university, we started through the patent process. This idea made it through the first part of the process, but was killed in the due diligence review. The idea was not marketable enough to develop a product or process into a viable, money making process for ceramic manufacturing.
Other implementations I have been involved in could have been much more efficient if planning and listening to others perspectives and experiences were paid more attention. Sometimes people in charge of implementations tend to manage every aspect of the implementation instead of leading everyone through the changes the implementation process creates. Unfortunately implementation plans include people to carry out tasks and objectives. Autocratic and "know-it-all" attitudes or approaches typically results in a bumpy implementation. Including everyone at the start and keeping them engaged throughout the implementation process ensures that any missed issues are handled and addressed efficiently. This approach is also effective in ensuring that the process will support itself after all the "managing resources of implementation" leave. Implementation process needs to be about having the people who will be left with the processes implemented to create and develop the processes and NOT told what to do by "You" without any of their input. Again - engage the people in the implementation and future issues will be minimal.
LJ 1-3a
Consider your own leadership traits. Do you more closely fit with the creative nature from MBA 715 or the organizational nature of MBA 725? Explain your response.
I would say I am a better fit in the organizational nature of MBA725 or the launch stage of a company. My leadership traits have been influenced by my engineering background and procedure writing assignments over the years in manufacturing. My background has been focused in bringing technology from Research and Technology or Development (R&T or R&D) and ensuring that the scale up was successful. My college experience was in basic research and this background allows me to communicate effectively with research engineers, so transfer/scale ups of processes are successful.
So from a leadership stand point, I lead people through change and build their confidence by solving problems. I solve problems by thoroughly investigating the issues and interviewing people involved in the processes. Through listening and acknowledging their concerns, some problems are proactively addressed and I strongly advocate the proactive approach and NOT the reactionary approach. Embracing change and ensuring that the implementation goes as smoothly as possible is what I basically have done at three different companies.
I would say I am a better fit in the organizational nature of MBA725 or the launch stage of a company. My leadership traits have been influenced by my engineering background and procedure writing assignments over the years in manufacturing. My background has been focused in bringing technology from Research and Technology or Development (R&T or R&D) and ensuring that the scale up was successful. My college experience was in basic research and this background allows me to communicate effectively with research engineers, so transfer/scale ups of processes are successful.
So from a leadership stand point, I lead people through change and build their confidence by solving problems. I solve problems by thoroughly investigating the issues and interviewing people involved in the processes. Through listening and acknowledging their concerns, some problems are proactively addressed and I strongly advocate the proactive approach and NOT the reactionary approach. Embracing change and ensuring that the implementation goes as smoothly as possible is what I basically have done at three different companies.
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