...Microsoft Corporation Thesis Statement : Microsoft is a giant multinational organization that deals mainly in software products for computing devices. In this thesis, we shall examine how Microsoft has implemented the organizational concepts of Organizational Structure, Organizational Culture and Human Resources Practices in achieving its mega-success. Introduction to Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is a large American multinational company that develops, licenses, markets and supports software products for different computing devices especially the Personal Computer. Bill Gates and Paul Allen founded it in 1975 in Albuquerque, New Mexico. It is presently headquartered in Redmond, Washington. It has over 76,000 employees in 102 countries. Its best-selling products at present are Microsoft Windows Operating System and the Microsoft Office Suite consisting of Word (for word processing), Excel (for spreadsheets), Powerpoint (for presentations), Outlook (email client), Access (database management system). These two products enjoy 90% of the market share in their categories. An original Windows advertising blurb says "Windows will instantly deliver you a more productive present. And a leap into the future." (Microsoft timeline). History of Microsoft : In 1975, Bill Gates and Paul Allen set to work to adapt the BASIC (Beginner’s All-Purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) computer programming language to the first Personal Computer named “Altair 8800”, launched by MITS (Micro...
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...Strategic Choice and Evaluation Paper University of Phoenix STR/581 Strategic Choice and Evaluation Organizational leaders and analysts develop business strategies to ensure that the organization is successful and operates to its full potential. Several factors have a significant impact on an organization’s success and its profitability. However, these factors are not solely based on finances. Some factors that will have a significant impact on the organizational strategic approach include organizational structure, organizational culture, and the leadership strategies chosen. In addition, organizational leaders and analysts seek to improve business processes and its related costs, improve customer satisfaction by improving product or service quality, and maintain a competitive advantage when compared to organizations offering the same or similar products and services. Businesses create competitive advantages when compared to its competitors because their product or service quality is highly distinguished from its competitors within the same market segment. Another factor that has a significant impact on the organization’s competitive advantage is the business’s cost structure (Pearce & Robinson, 2011). Merck & Co. is a pharmaceutical company that manufactures pharmaceutical prescription drugs for patients diagnosed with a variety of diseases. This organization is a scientific research-based organization. Therefore, to ensure the organization grows to its full...
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...Best Snacks Problem Solution Lashanna Dipiano MMPL/550 May 12, 2011 Phillip Norris Best Snacks Problem Solution Best Snacks, Inc is a 150 year old company that has been held publicly for more than 100 years. Although the company has enjoyed many years of success, it has recently failed sustain its success due to the lack of innovation and creativity over the last 5 years. In today’s business environment innovation is necessary to sustain success and is an integral part of the business model. The ability to learn faster, better, and more cheaply than the competitor can mean the difference between maintaining market leadership and barely surviving (Davila, Epstein& Shelton, 2006). To regain its long held standing as a leader in the snack industry Best Snack, Inc must implement a plan that focuses on creating a culture that cultivates innovation, developing management systems that are aligned with the new strategy, and creating a new product line that will bring the company back to the forefront in the snack industry. Describe the Situation Issue and Opportunity Identification Best Snacks, Inc has been a leader in the snack industry for many years. As the snack industry began to change to meet the demands of a consumer market that is more health conscious, Best Snacks has failed to meet the challenge. Best Snacks has been slow to adapt to change and stray away from its tried-and-true research, development, and marketing activities (University of Phoenix, 2006). The...
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...distribution of products or services to satisfy the customer’s needs. In this paper, the subject is to review several definitions of marketing, including a personal point of view. In addition, another area of discussion will be to explain the importance of marketing in organizational success, including examples from the business world. From my viewpoint, marketing involves more than selling product. It is a combination of methods that engages the production, promotion, and provision of goods and services to consumers and businesses. Marketing creates a preference for a particular product in the market. If the process is carried out effectively, the organization marketing a product will acquire new customers and retain existing customers. According to the American Marketing Association (2011), “Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large” (Definition of Marketing, para. 2). This definition shows the range of activities involved during the marketing strategies. Another complete definition specify that “marketing is the performance of activities that seek to accomplish an organization’s objectives by anticipating customer or client needs and directing a flow of need-satisfying goods and services from producer to customer or client” (Perreault, Cannon, & McCarthy, 2009, pg 5). Marketing is an important tool in the success of organization...
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...International Journal of Trade, Economics and Finance, Vol. 1, No. 2, August, 2010 2010-023X Factors Influencing Activity-Based Costing Success: A Research Framework Zhang Yi Fei and Che Ruhana Isa becoming more and more popular [3-7] ABC aims to provide accurate costing information to managers to allocate activity costs to products and services by applying cost drivers [8]. Academics who advocate ABC, such as, Cooper and Kaplan [9], and Swenson [10] argue that it provides more accurate cost data needed to make appropriate strategic decisions about product mix, sourcing, pricing, process improvement, and evaluation of business process performance. These claims have led many firms to adopt ABC systems [8]. The benefits of ABC and its positive impact on firm’s performance motivated a numerous studies which examined various aspects of ABC. Among such studies are McGowan [11] who assessed the integrity of ABC success, Innes and Mitchell [4, 12] and Yanren [13] who conducted research on factors affecting ABC adoption, and Shield [3], Shields and McEwen [14], Gosselin [15] and Baired et al.[16, 17]who concentrated on factors influencing ABC success especially at the implementation stage. However, there is mounting evidence that suggests most of firms are experiencing problems in implementing ABC and, in some extreme cases, ABC implementation is not successful [3], which later resulted in abandoning the ABC systems altogether [15]. Questions arise as to why ABC implementation is...
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...Technological Forecasting & Social Change Intellectual capital and new product development performance: The mediating role of organizational learning capability Ya-Hui Hsu a,⁎, Wenchang Fang b,1 a b Department of Business Administration, Ming Chuan University, 11F, No.318, Fuhe Rd., Yonghe City, Taipei 234, Taiwan Department of Business Administration, National Taipei University, 69, Sec 2, Jian-Kuo N. Rd, Taipei 104, Taiwan a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t Previous studies rarely examined the relationship between intellectual capital and organizational learning capability. Moreover, most studies neglect the mediating effect of organizational learning capability in the relationship between intellectual capital and new product development performance. This study uses interviews and the survey method to discuss the relationships governing intellectual capital, organizational learning capability, and new product development performance. Results are based on empirical data from Taiwan's IC design industry, and are generated by the Partial Least Squares (PLS) method. Results show that human capital and relational capital actually improve new product development performance through organizational learning capability. Although structural capital positively affects organizational learning capability, managers should pay attention to possibly negative effects of structural capital on new product development performance. Relational capital is the greatest factor among...
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... Riordan Manufacturing does not have a defined management and communication plan in place. Management hired a team of consultants to write-up and define the company’s power and political structure, organizational structure, possible effects on employee behavior, details on the company’s culture, and possible sources of resistance. The plan also includes a strategy to implement the changes, determine how to evaluate the success or failure of the new plan, define the most appropriate communication channel to advise employees of the new change, define potential barriers to effective communicate the change, and how to overcome these barriers if they do occur. The following is this plan with each of the listed topics. The current power structure of Riordan Manufacturing is a formal structure concerning the entire organization’s global operations. With facilities and plants in three different locations making different cultures and time zones variables of the organizations structure, formal rules establish a clear set of objectives and procedures for each individual plant’s operations to accomplish the organizations overall objective. Because the internal structure is grouped and organized to allow the different locations to interact and share information that is vital to the success of the organization through research and development, the structure Riordan uses is a traditional structure. Characteristics of Riordan Manufacturing that identify with the formal structure are the clear...
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...Strategy Charlene McMickens Modern Management Dr. Christopher McGrath February 3, 2016 Introduction Organizational culture is the set of key values, beliefs, understandings, and norms shared by members of an organization (Daft, 2012). In this paper, I will examine the elements of Starbucks’ organizational culture that contributed to its success in a global economy and look into management’s role with creating and sustaining the organizational culture. I will next assess the effectiveness of the company’s management decisions in providing innovative offerings for its customers. Then I will look into determining one key management competency and indicate one way the competency is a good fit for the organizational culture. Lastly, I will evaluate Starbuck’s ability to achieve long-term sustainability as a global leader in the coffee industry without the organization’s CEO, Howard Schultz. Starbuck’s is a multinational company famously known for its coffee. Starbucks offers some of the world’s finest grown fresh roasted whole bean coffee. The company first opened in 1971, at the historic Pike Place Market in Seattle as one storefront. The Starbucks’ name is from the first mate in Moby Dick. In 1981, now CEO Howard Schultz first walked into a Starbucks store, his first cup of coffee had him intrigued and he joined it a year later. Starbucks maintains its great success by standing by its mission statement “to inspire and nurture the human spirit, - one person, one cup, and one...
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...In the past two years, sales have dropped radically, the market shares have decreased and stock prices were spiraling down. The Vice President of Organizational Development, Sabrina McKay is a valuable asset with extraordinary expertise that includes several organizational development initiatives. However, due to the severity of Best Snack’s situation, the company has been forced to assess the likes and dislikes of their components in order to compete with success. Best Snacks will need to engage their stakeholders throughout the process and will have to make innovation and creativity a part of everyday life at the company. Describe the Situation Issue and Opportunity Identification In order for Best Snacks to regain its firm stand in the snack food industry they will have to tackle the issues there are currently facing. Such as, the decline in sales, market share decreases resulting in their stock prices dropping significantly, the possibility of losing their long-term popular place in the snack food industry due to the lack of their innovation and creativity. Best Snacks has the chance to integrate in a cultural change program aimed to increase employees’ creative thinking skills resulting in their increase in innovation and creativity at work. By doing this, Best Snacks would open up new realm of strategies in organizational theory, design and change. In examining and recognizing what opportunities are available, taking into account the issues it would be critical...
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...International Journal of Trade, Economics and Finance, Vol. 1, No. 2, August, 2010 2010-023X Factors Influencing Activity-Based Costing Success: A Research Framework Zhang Yi Fei and Che Ruhana Isa becoming more and more popular [3-7] ABC aims to provide accurate costing information to managers to allocate activity costs to products and services by applying cost drivers [8]. Academics who advocate ABC, such as, Cooper and Kaplan [9], and Swenson [10] argue that it provides more accurate cost data needed to make appropriate strategic decisions about product mix, sourcing, pricing, process improvement, and evaluation of business process performance. These claims have led many firms to adopt ABC systems [8]. The benefits of ABC and its positive impact on firm’s performance motivated a numerous studies which examined various aspects of ABC. Among such studies are McGowan [11] who assessed the integrity of ABC success, Innes and Mitchell [4, 12] and Yanren [13] who conducted research on factors affecting ABC adoption, and Shield [3], Shields and McEwen [14], Gosselin [15] and Baired et al.[16, 17]who concentrated on factors influencing ABC success especially at the implementation stage. However, there is mounting evidence that suggests most of firms are experiencing problems in implementing ABC and, in some extreme cases, ABC implementation is not successful [3], which later resulted in abandoning the ABC systems altogether [15]. Questions arise as to why ABC implementation is...
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...Organizational Behavior at Apple Inc Brandi Hobbs Upper Iowa University Organizational Behavior at Apple Inc Thesis statement “The success of Apple Inc is the result of effective organizational culture and organizational behavior at the organization.” Introduction Apple Inc is an US based global organization. The company’s headquarter is located in California. The company designs, sells and advances computers, consumer electronics and software. The famous hardware of Apple is Mac series of computers, the iPod music players, Smartphone and iPad tablet PCs. The famous software are iOS & OS X operating systems, the media browsers of iTunes, the safari web browser and iWork and iLife production and originality suits (Yohe, 2011). The company was founded in the year 1976 by Steve Jobs. It was incorporated as Apple computers Inc. However, later on the word computer was eradicated from its title, since the launch of iPhone Smartphone mobile. Apple has achieved the second position in information technology industry after Samsung Electronics with respect to income. Moreover, the company is the third largest mobile making organization after Nokia and Samsung. The company has been considered as the most regarded firm by Fortune magazines and all over the world. All the credit for these achievements goes to the organizational commitment and management approach at Apple Inc. the management at Apple Inc is most organized with focus on employees and job...
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...Organizational Structure MGT 230 April 8, 2012 Dr. John Opinski Organizational Structure Organization and planning are an essential asset for organization’s to attain the highest level of efficiency and achieve success. Microsoft is an organization with a structure composed of a chief executive officer (CEO), who is Steve Ballmer, a board of directors, executives, and senior and technical leaders. Microsoft has grown since it was founded in1975 and is currently a worldwide leader in services and software (Microsoft, 2009). Microsoft has an efficient and productive organizational structure. This paper will show a comparison to other organizations to demonstrate the importance of an organizational structure and show similarity and also distinctness in structure. An evaluation of how organizational functions such as finance, marketing, operations, and human resources influence and determine the organizational structure of Microsoft is given. Additional examination of Microsoft defines the outcome of organizational functions to the organizational structure. Microsoft’s organizational design illustrates the best structure to achieve the organizations goals. Last, Microsoft’s organizational structure of management, functions, and design work together to achieve success. Companies need to have organization and levels of authority to function successfully. The first level of any company’s organizational function is employees. Employees are divided into different departments...
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...BUS 519 WEEK 3 ASSIGNMENT 1 – ASSESS ORGANIZATIONAL READINESS To purchase this Click here: http://www.activitymode.com/product/bus-519-week-3-assignment-1-assess-organizational-readiness/ Contact us at: SUPPORT@ACTIVITYMODE.COM BUS 519 WEEK 3 ASSIGNMENT 1 - ASSESS ORGANIZATIONAL READINESS Note: The assignments are a series of papers that are based on the same case, which is located in the Student Center of the course shell. The assignments are dependent upon one another. Review the assigned case study (attached) and complete this assignment. Write five to seven (5-7) page paper in which you: 1. Analyze how the Critical Success Factors (CSFs) apply to the facts of the case study. Provide examples to support your analysis. 2. Determine the project benefits, organizational readiness, and risk culture of the company in the case study. Provide justification for your response. 3. Develop at least three (3) project risk recommendations based on the analysis from criteria number 1 and 2 of this assignment. 4. Identify the initial categories of risk (RBS Level 1 and 2) that you see as being present in the case study using the Example Risk Checklist (Figure A-2, Hillson & Simon text). 5. Use at least four (4) quality resources in this assignment. Note: Wikipedia and similar Websites do not qualify as quality resources. Click Here to Buy this; http://www.activitymode.com/product/bus-519-week-3-assignment-1-assess-organizational-readiness Activity mode aims to provide...
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...satisfy individual and organizational goals." American Marketing Association Definition of Marketing Continued The management process through which goods and services move from concept to the customer. My personal definition Marketing is identifying a need for a product good or service in the community then executing the pricing, promotion, and distribution of that good or service to a customer. The Importance of Marketing in organizational success The idea of marketing is the result of a general concept of sales which came from the theory of exchange. This idea originated from the fact that people want things they do not have and they want to get rid of things that they have to much of. The position of marketing in organizational success has changed over the years as marketing has become the essence of a businesses success. Most parts business rely on the success of marketing. The working parts of marketing include advertising, public relations, promotions and sales. Marketing is the process of planning and executing the pricing, promotion, and distribution of goods, ideas, and services to create exchanges that satisfy individuals and organizational goals. The very hart beat of the organization is its ability to market the product, goods, or service it provides to the community. In order for a business to be successful the manufactured goods or service it provides has to be known to potential customer. Proper use of marketing strategies creates product or awareness. Popularity...
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... 8/448/8 Prevention costs are investments made to keep nonconforming products from occurring and reaching the customer, including the following specific costs: • Quality planning costs, such as salaries of individuals associated with quality planning and problem-solving teams, the development of new procedures, new equipment design, and reliability studies • Process control costs, which include costs spent on analyzing production processes and implementing process control plans • Information systems costs expended to develop data requirements and measurements • Training and general management costs, including internal and external training programs, clerical staff expenses, and miscellaneous supplies Appraisal costs are those associated with efforts to ensure conformance to requirements, generally through measurement and analysis of data to detect nonconformances. Categories of appraisal costs include the following: • Test and inspection costs associated with incoming materials, work-in-process, and finished goods, including equipment costs and salaries • Instrument maintenance costs due to calibration and repair of measuring instruments • Process measurement and control costs, which involve the time spent by workers to gather and analyze quality measurements Internal failure costs are incurred as a result of unsatisfactory quality found before the delivery of a product to the customer; some examples include the following: • Scrap and rework costs, including...
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