Encountering Organisations: Experiences with Business Organisations - Essay Example

Encountering Organisations Day, Month, Year Experiences with Business Organisations I am a of Business Management studying various subjects related to Management, Business Communication, Human Resource Management, Marketing, and Business Finance etc. The theoretical concepts are well defined in the text books while further explanation can be sought from other reference books. However, the elements of observation and experience have their own unique values. The impressions marked in the mind as a result of observations and experiences are more lasting than those discussed in the class room. There are multiple ways through which I came across the organisations, philosophies and practices. The primary one is the course projects which are to be done in the perspective of organisations. The interaction with the employees gives a fair idea about how they practice the corporate theories, sheds light upon their way of thinking and how they cater for diversity and complexity. The meeting of students with the organisations helps the students in comprehension and application of the business concepts and theories. The students of today who are experiencing insights into the organisation are the future employees of the organisation. It provides the organisation with an opportunity to create awareness about their products, their competitive edge and their increase in market share. If these benefits are ignored, even then it can be perceived as an act of Corporate Social Responsibility on part of the organisation in grooming the youth. I have listed all these benefits on the basis of my theoretical knowledge, but it does not comply with the organisational practices. Hardly, any organisation lends open arms to the student in helping them in their projects. The organisations prefer to perform their core functions on routine basis and discourage the students approaching them for assistance. They consider it as a useless and time consuming activity. I have experienced the same response in the case of contacting manufacturing organisations, service organisations or NGOs. The typical way of thinking as observed among organisational employees is to pretend to be focused on their defined job description regardless of not performing the job well. They tend to shift responsibility to others and many of them fear decision making and the accountability issue. When contacted them over the telephone, they guide me to contact the respective department by giving their extension. They even hesitate to tell the name of the person who should be contacted in the department. In the department, everybody suggests contacting his senior and the secretary at some level refuses to respond. People belonging to different backgrounds serve the organisation and their perceptions shape the overall environment. With the emerging business of call centres and telesales, the youth is also included in the workforce. The trend of equal opportunity employment has encouraged females to serve the workforce. Globalization has opened doors for job creation for people belonging to various cultures. All this adds on to the complexity of workforce and makes it more challenging for the employer to maintain a serene work environment for its employees, where all are satisfied with their jobs, pay scales, and management behavior and career progression. Personal and Professional Goals When I got admission in the field of Business Studies; I was quite uncertain of the scope of this field and anticipated opportunities for the chosen field. It was in fashion and every other student was getting admissions in the field of Business Studies. Having no passion for medical sciences and engineering, the option of Business Studies looked highly convenient. It was related to everyday life and required less cramming and more understanding. I had strong desire of earning fame, had creative mind and vision for doing something different. Though the thorough plan of what I want to do and how to do it was never conceived by my mind. Soon after the commencement of first semester, I pleasantly found myself in the ocean of interesting concepts that were present in my mind in an unstructured form. It helped me understand myself through the personality dimensions and communication styles. It gave me fair idea about my potential and interests. Going through various subjects, I finally established my goals based on entrepreneurship. This area was depicted to be aligned with my dreams and could lead me towards name, fame and creative goals. It was observed that most of the businessmen are profit oriented while the text books teach them to be customer oriented. While reading the books, I thought about my rights as a customer and it gave me immense pleasure that I am the king and boss of the commercial organisation. But the practices totally negated it. During the course of study, I came across many organisations whose salesperson did not adhere to my need properly, did not guide me towards the right product and provided misleading information about the features. Instead of winning loyalty, they further discouraged me from using their brand. Through books, it was learned that any unsatisfied customer recalls about his bad experience to nine individuals on the average. It was a peculiar feeling about establishing my business thinking that I may not satisfy all the customers. But then it was learnt that there are certain target markets to be catered and the trend of customization is increasing gradually day by day. It is not mandatory that all the customers will be satisfied. There is a concept of leaky bucket and zero defects and these concepts are still not possible despite all the improvements undertaken by six sigma belts and Kaizen (Lim & Lihann, 2010) specialists from time to time. Discussing from the personal perspective, I had a strong desire to be the best in every role that came my way, or if I am not the best, I should be among the reasons of joy for the ones associated with me. This was possible through understanding them and dealing with them the right way. Business Studies helped me understand that there is a component of personality known as emotional intelligence and empathy. People value consideration more than the abilities and potential. It brought me closer to the people and let me forgive their mistakes which occurred because of misunderstandings. The Business Studies helped me look into the real causes of conflicts and judge the interests of disputants before getting angry at them and arriving at the irrational decisions that could have caused grievance even after settlement. Information is a powerful tool for Business Organisations Information is the basic source of decision making in organisations. Complete and correct information is the key to successful decisions. No matter how strong and perfect the analysis is; if the gathered data is incorrect, all efforts will go in vain. Organisations put serious and extensive efforts in data collection whether it is market search or feedback generation. Many organisations maintain data in information systems which are known to store huge data and retrieve it within no time. There are also decision making tools, the intelligently designed software for transaction processing, managing information and decision support are commonly found tools in organisational settings. Nowadays, organisations have their own virtual private networks and intranets which keep them connected with their partners and employees to ensure ready and secure transmission of corporate data. Many organisations prefer to keep hard copy of data along with its digital version. I would like to quote an example of a feedback collection method implied by many service oriented organisations. They provide the customer with suggestion book and ensure follow up calls for feedback. In a telecommunication organisation, the executives used to call the customers to know about quality of service and the way connection installation were performed. The information was recorded properly and was reflected in the standard operating procedure if it had enough worth and frequency. The transportation services often offer their passengers with comment card to provide them feedback about quality of their service. The feedback is recorded in the system and the acknowledgement email is forwarded to the address of the passenger. While developing the new product or realising the need of expansion, organisations prefer to conduct market survey. The survey is usually conducted by a research firm or the research and development department of the organisation. There are specialist firms in the field of market research that provide relevant and required information about the customer to the organisations. The information is valuable to the organisation as it reflects upon strategies and operations. The success of the firm is dependent upon its sensitivity to the external environment and its flexibility to adapt itself according to the dynamic requirements. Organisations do not operate in isolation or vacuum and it is essential for them to consider the information flowing in the organisation through any means, be in terms of customers’ needs or responses. Organisations have rich data about the particulars of their customers and it is ethical and legal requirement that they keep this data confidential and do not use for any purpose other than for which it is gathered. Organisations conduct privacy impact assessment before gathering the data so that they can comply with the regulations related to use and security of customer’s data. In this era of global village, the data protection has become a major cyber challenge. IT industry is striving hard to develop systems that can provide maximum possible security to the data. The organisations restrict access to unrelated data even to their employees. Conclusion While encountering organisations many valuable details were learned about the corporate world and all this experience would definitely help me in achieving a successful position in my professional life ahead. There is a huge difference in the theoretical knowledge attained for conducting business and the actual implementation of the way business operate and perform their work and all these were experiences during my tenure of studying the business management field. References Lim, M. & Lihann, C. (2010). Living Kaizen. New York: Morgam James Publishing. Read More