BEA System and Corporate Social Responsibility - Essay Example

BEA System and CSR Introduction The concept of management has gained due popularity owing to its extended use in regards to modern business organisations. The term management is observed to have emerged from the Latin term ‘manus’ which reflects a driver of horse cart and the like driving the cart by pulling the reign of the horses. Dictionary meanings of the term management refer to management of day to day activities and is often found used in relevance of women managing the household functions. Management now gained more strategic importance with the development of business functions like planning, organizing, coordinating and also other functions pertaining to division and management of the organisational workload among people working in different groups. Moreover the concept also gained impetus owing to its linkage to managerial activities pertaining to decision making regarding the optimum allocation and economical use of scarce organisational resources. A more current understanding of the managerial concept implies the achieving of core organisational objectives through the activities of other people. In this definition it is clearly reflected that the manager in an organisation is not required to conduct business activities by oneself. Rather such a person can manage business activities through supervising the acts of other people working under him. The above discussion henceforth holds management as a special skill or art which is practiced by the managers to fulfil organisational objectives through the acts of others (Peel, 1994, p.1-4; Liebler and McConnell, 2004, p.51-53). Having discussed the emergence and development of the management concept the focus is now rendered on one of the approaches to the management science known as the model for Competing Values Framework. It is found by different management experts like Quinn that the different approaches to management that had emerged with the development of scientific management had some common traits which helped the concepts to merge with each other. This merging of the concepts gave birth to a composite model known as the Competing Values Framework which is considered the appropriate model for future managerial uses. This model is considered best for future managerial applications owing to the prevalence of different types of mindsets which is closely integrated to help business managers to compete effectively with the competing and dynamic current business environment. Competing Values Framework model is represented in the form of a grid formed by two axes vertical and horizontal. The horizontal axis judges the effectiveness of the managerial approaches from both the internal and external respects of the organizational environment. Again the vertical axis represents different managerial traits which denote a situation of supreme flexibility at the top which trickles down to a point of absolute certainty reflecting total control. This model earns due effectiveness for reflecting the development of managerial decision making across a number of stages and thereby shows the impacts of such in the external and internal organisational environment (Pellissier, 2001, p.142-143; Smart, 2010, p.389). Thus this model depicted in Appendix A truly reflects the strategic fit in regards to both organisational values and managerial effectiveness and traits making it one of the best models for future managerial uses. Application The Organisation The organisation that would be analyzed in this context is BEA. This organisation is held to be the world’s largest company in the field of generation of application software for other companies. BEA gained its current stand in a matter of about eight years turning out to be a global leader from scratch in the field of software application. In the current scenario BEA is observed to have become a global brand in the said sector along with other competitors like WebLogic. The company having spread its operational base along 31 major countries has gained a large number of customers which has helped the company gain significant amount of revenues in the application software market. During the financial year of 2002 the company is found to gain a large amount of revenue of the order $ 1 Billion. The customer base of the company evaluated along the stated period amounted to around 15,000. This customer base is catered by a total of 3000 people working in the 78 operational branches of the company spread along the 31 countries worldwide (BEA, 2003, p.2). BEA and Corporate Social Responsibility The operation of BEA Systems Incorporation spread along 31 countries accounts for rendering large number of developmental activities along the sphere of information technology to help in the development of the social sphere. The company encourages the happening of social forums to engage large number of people coming from educational, technological and company backgrounds to share their views for the use of information technology in the development of the society as a whole. BEA Systems Incorporation for continually working to help in the development of software programs is thus widely helped by the social enthusiasts to develop such programs and software as would help in the generation of employment opportunities in the society (BEA 2003, p.1-2). Analysis of BEA The analysis of BEA Systems Incorporation would be conducted using the SWOT Analysis and also based on Porter’s Five Forces Model. The SWOT or the acronym for Strengths, Weakness, Opportunity and Threat analyses the internal potential of the companies to grab the external opportunities and also the potential in countering external threats. SWOT Analysis Strengths One of the main strengths of the company is to render enhanced focus on the process of innovation in the formation of adequate software to help address consumer needs in a more divulged manner. Moreover the company through the process of large scale innovation also focuses to reduce the business and processing costs and also looks forward in enhancing the value chain activities to help in the augmentation of productivity in the different business segments pertaining to sales, operations and accounting. The second business strength possessed by BEA Systems Incorporations is endeavouring to move over to international boundaries through opening up of newer branches in several regions round the world. This fact would help the company in gaining large number of consumers and in enhancing its market share potential (BEA, 2003, p.1-2). Weaknesses Along with the potential strengths the software and systems development company also suffers from certain number of limitations which are taken as the potential weaknesses of the company. It is found that the enhanced focus of the company in generating value added services and thereby in enhancing the productive aspects counted largely in hampering the customer interactive mechanisms of the concern. Owing to increase in the number of value additions the people who were recruited to interact directly with the consumers like the sales and customer representatives now were facing large number of barriers before gaining potential entry to the needed corner for gaining potential data. This affected the interaction with the customers largely and delayed the process of rendering effective customer services (BEA, 2003, p.2). Opportunity In terms of business opportunity it is found that BEA Systems Incorporation through the effective partnership with leading information technology providers like Oracle has been able to develop large number of sophisticated software and programming systems as would help the former company gain a more enhanced market base. The partnership of BEA Systems Incorporation with Oracle is held to promote large scale innovation to satisfy the needs of both the consumer and enterprise segment. Thus the company owing to the above opportunity gained the potential of tapping more number of industrial sectors like retail, pharmaceutical and others (Bloomberg Business Week, 2011 and ORACLE, n.d.). Threats The information technology company is countering large scale threats both pertaining to its operations and also in regards to the eating up of the market share. In terms of operations the company is facing the rise in the activities concerning cyber threat wherein potential terrorist groups are hacking potential data relating to banks and other strategic bodies through the information technology paradigm (Verton, 2003, p.155). In regards to the company’s market share the large companies like IBM and others do render potential threat in eating up the market share of BEA (Value Line Investment Survey, 2006). Porter’s Five Forces Model The Porter’s Five Forces Model analyses the external marketing environment of the company in terms of different factors like the bargaining potential of the consumers, the dominancy of the suppliers, the existence of substitute products and the threat from existing and foreign competitors (Hill and Jones, 2009, p.42-43). The same would be analysed in regards to the BEA Systems Incorporation. Consumer Potential To address the needs of the consumer potential the information technology company is continuously endeavouring to develop its consumer interface through working in joint collaboration with Huawei Systems and information technology giants like Oracle. This collaboration is helping in innovation of sophisticated application software to tackle the growing consumer needs (Pan and Polishuk, 2006, p.15). Supplier Dominance BEA Systems Incorporation through the joint collaboration with software giants like Oracle has gained the advantage of gaining an enhanced supplier chain base which would help the company in enhancing its value chain activities. This collaboration would help the relatively small information technology company to compete with companies like IBM (Lombard and Nahon, 2008, p.147). Existence of Substitutes Large number of small software companies is cropping up in the region of United States which is producing low cost products acting as substitute to the products and services rendered by BEA. Thus these companies are focusing on forming joint collaborations to help tackle such external problems (Fonseca, 2001, p.17). Threat from Existing Competition The main competitor of BEA Systems Incorporation in the software market is IBM. Both the companies develop web interfaces to render potential solutions to business consumers. However it is found that where the former produces web technology to help render services on the intellectual and complex plane the latter renders web services based on electronic commerce applications (Khosrowpour, 2002, p.125). Threat from New Entrants While working in the web sphere the information technology company BEA Systems Incorporation is countering the threat from entry of potential entrants like iPlanet and WebSphere. These companies along with other new developers into the web field are endeavouring to grab the market share of BEA Systems (Sullivan, 2001, p.10). Management at BEA The management roles increasingly practiced at BEA Systems Incorporation refer to the Rational Goal Model for the company focuses in an enhanced manner on the dimensions of innovation. The Rational Goal Model pertaining to the development of management approach also relate to the process of innovation which gained emphasis with the emergence of the emergence of scientific management. BEA Systems Incorporation acting on the development of software technology has chosen Intel hardware architectures to help gain efficacy (Pellissier, 2001, p.140; Intel, 2005, p.37). The Challenge Corporate Social Responsibility The concept of social responsibility in regards to business organisations centres on the level of ethical work practices that helps in protecting the rights of the different stakeholders like consumers, suppliers, employees and the different governing bodies located in such area. Thus such concept helps the company in bettering up the relationship with the different people both internal and external to the company. However the definition of corporate social responsibility suffers from a serious back draw such that it fails to clearly define the level of commitment the companies should render to the society and thereby leads to confusion (Hopkins, 2007, p.15-17). Impact of Corporate Social Responsibility on BEA The focus on large scale innovation aimed at developing of software would not only help the company in reducing the cost of business operation but also in helping the customers gain faster and more effective services. This focus on the customers further helps the company in gaining a larger market share and also in gaining large amount of profitability and sales revenues. Moreover the development of the information aspects helps both the internal and external stakeholders in gaining potential information which thereby helps the company in bettering up its relationships with the large number of people (BEA, 2003, p.1-4). Recommendations It is observed that the BEA System Incorporation works more on the Rationalistic Goal Model rendering more focus to the system of innovation. The company focuses more on the development of software to catch the demands of the external market and also on the enhancements of the value chain activities. However a more detailed focus needs to be maintained with both the internal and external people to get their feedback in regards to the innovation brought about with tie up with other software giants like Oracle. Thus a major stride must be taken to increase the dimension of collaboration with the internal and external people to enhance the effectiveness of the innovations brought about. Conclusions The paper focuses on the prevalence of the system of Corporate Social Responsibility in regards to the BEA Systems Incorporation. However the paper first endeavours to understand the concept of management and the different approaches which has evolved over time in regards to it. Herein the paper draws attention to the concept of Competing Values Framework and reflects it to be the best model for management which acts as a collaborative business model enabled for the future. Further the paper also endeavours to study the concept of Corporate Social Responsibility and analyses the concept in regards to the stated organisation. The analysis shows that the company working on the process of innovation also closely works to enhance the relationship with the internal and external people like employees and customers. The customers would be satisfied in getting quality services on time while the employees in gaining access to potential data. References Peel, M. (1994). Introduction to Management, a Guide for Better Business Performance. Hyderabad: Universities Press. Pellissier, R. (2001). Searching for the Quantum Organisation. Lansdowne: Juta and Company Ltd. BEA. (2003). BEA Systems Incorporation. [Pdf]. Available At: http://soaalliance.org/yahoo_site_admin/assets/docs/BEA_IT_cs1.290214856.pdf. [Accessed on July 18, 2011]. Oracle. (No date). Oracle and BEA. [online]. Available At: http://www.oracle.com/us/corporate/Acquisitions/bea/index.html?CNT=index.htm&FP=/content/partners&origref=http://www.soablueprint.com/yahoo_site_admin/assets/docs/BEAPressReleases.290214504.pdf. [Accessed on July 18, 2011]. 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Macromedia, Allaire join in $360 million deal. InfoWorld. Vol. 23, no.4. Intel. (2005). Agility that transforms industries. InfoWorld. Vol. 27, no. 45. Hopkins, M. (2007). Corporate social responsibility and international development: is business the solution? United Kingdom: Earthscan. Smart, J. (2010). Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research, Volume 25. United States: Springer. Liebler, J., and McConnel, C. (2004). Management principles for health professionals. United States: Jones & Bartlett Learning. Appendix Figure 1: Competing Values Framework Model Source: (Pellissier, 2001, p.143) Read More