Finding Out about Real Businesses

Increasing over the next nine months you will be expected to demonstrate your knowledge of Real Businesses. what you will have to show is how big businesses work, competition in industries and how businesses tackle certain situations.

You task is to start to get some information about two of the following industries:

Leisure and tourism (especially airlines and hotels)
Manufacturing industires
Pharmaceuticals
Banking and Insurance
General Retail


Do not pick an industry because you like it. Pick industries because you can get information from the internet, newspapers, etc.

So mwhat do you need to know?

Initially, who are the major players in the industry; annual sales; foreign competitors; and, what are the companies doing. Focus on large plcs!

Deadline for initial research: Monday 13 September 2010

Competitive Organisational Structures - Progress Asessment

Short Essay Question

Businesses can adopt the following organisational structures:
Line,
Line and Staff,
Enttrpreneurial,
Matrix

Explain why a business might adopt a matrix style organisational structure

Employer-Employee Relations - Activity 1

Case

Online Daily News

The industrial action between Key Terms Financial Services plc and their workforce is escalating. Negotiations over changes to contracts, pay and working conditions broke down yesterday. The employees, through their representatives, are deciding what they should to negotiate a better position. Shareholders are worried by the effects of industrial action on profitability and competitiveness.

Tasks

1. Investigate and how employees can be represented in the workplace3.
2. If an agreement cannot be reached, what type of industrial action can the employees take?
3. How are industrial actions resolved?

Competitive Organisational Structures - Activity 2

At one time businesses did everything. They did their own admin, cleaning, providing canteen facilities, producing their own goods. Nowadays, businesses have a choice: do it themselves or get someone else to do it for them. The second approach is called ‘outsourcing’. In this task you are going to explore why businesses outsource and the problems outsourcing can bring.

Task

1. What are the advantages of outsourcing? And to whom?

2. What are the problems of outsourcing?

Competitive Organisations and Structures - Activity 1

At the board meeting of BRQ plc, the CEO was musing about how the business could remain competitive. BRQ operate in the dynamic retail technology market selling mainly latest hi-tech gadgets. The competitive nature of the this market means that consumers are expecting high quality products at low prices. BRQ has numerous competitors are driving their costs lower and offering substantial guarantees on their products.

New technology is at the heart of the firm’s production capability. The business has invested heavily in new technology and most of their production is now capital intensive. This increase automation has led to a dramatic increased productivity and quality. However, new, and specific, skills are needed to run this equipment. The company expects to change its machinery every two years.

To have a competitive scale of operation, it manufactures from a number of sites around the world. The company’s headquarters are in the UK with one of their main productive facilities. They also have production sites in the Far East, India, South America, USA. Direct control from the head office is becoming difficult.

The following diagrams represent the firm’s organisational structure and industry averages.

Industry Averages:

Size of Workforce: 1000 workers
Hierarchical Layers: 5 Layers
Dedicated Marketing Teams in Each Market

Tasks

1. Decide how BRQ can make its organisational structure competitive.

2. Decide how BRQ could implement any changes to their organisational structure.
• What they need to do
• When they need to do it (Timeline )

Workforce Planning – Activity 5 (Progress Assessment)

Essay Question:

Discuss the benefits and issues of a flexible workforce.

Now, you will be asking yourself how you start to answer a question like this. Below are a few hints.

1. There is more than one answer! Your answer may be different to everyone else’s, but it could still be right!

2. Benefits for whom? The business? The workers? What are these benefits?

3. Issues are problems are difficulties. While benefits are positive, issues are negative points.

4. Structure of the essay.

Introduction – Definition!

Benefit 1 - What is the benefit? Who benefits? What are the consequences of this benefit?

Benefit 2 - What is the benefit? Who benefits? What are the consequences of this benefit?

Issue 1 - What is the issue? Who experiences this? What are the consequences of this issue?

Issue 2 - What is the issue? Who experiences this? What are the consequences of this issue?

Evaluation - Decide which will have the most effect, benefit 1, benefit 2, issue 1 or issue 2? Explain why it will have the most effect?

Each of the six sections should be a separate paragraph

Workforce Planning - Activity 4

As with most things in business, workforce planning is difficult. Although you will know how many workers you need now, even with the best forecasting techniques, the future is always difficult to predict. In this final activity for workforce planning you are going to look at an approach that can help a business ensure it has the right number of people with the right skills at the right time.

Focus for the Lesson:
• How does the Handy ‘Shamrock Model’ help a business plan its workforce?
• What are the problems of having a smaller core workforce?
• What are the issues of a increasing flexibility and a ‘contractible fringe’?

Your task is to investigate the above three questions