Bestways Group of Companies - Management Strategies - Case Study Example

MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES KEY TO THE SUCCESS OF ORGANIZATIONS: A CASE STUDY OF BESTWAYS GROUP OF COMPANIES By Abstract The purpose of this study was to establish the strategies put in place by the management at Bestway Group in relation to management of human resource, the marketing strategies and how they are managed, as well as the mode of creation, nurturing and management of talent. The study involved collection of data from various secondary sources, including visiting the official website of the said company. From these sources, it was established that the firm employs comprehensive methods in managing these departments for the betterment of the company and its business at large. The success of this company can therefore be attributed to these strategies, which have proved to be imperative when efficiently executed with a team of talented and strongly-willed individuals. Contents Abstract 2 The purpose of this study was to establish the strategies put in place by the management at Bestway Group in relation to management of human resource, the marketing strategies and how they are managed, as well as the mode of creation, nurturing and management of talent. The study involved collection of data from various secondary sources, including visiting the official website of the said company. From these sources, it was established that the firm employs comprehensive methods in managing these departments for the betterment of the company and its business at large. The success of this company can therefore be attributed to these strategies, which have proved to be imperative when efficiently executed with a team of talented and strongly-willed individuals. 3 1.Company 5 2.Introduction 6 2.1. Scope 6 2.2. Method 6 2.3. Background 6 3. Findings 7 3.1. Managing human resource 7 3.2. Marketing strategies 11 3.3 Creation, Nurturing, and Management of talent 13 4. Conclusion 16 1. Company Bestway Group is a multinational company operating in the United Kingdom and Pakistan. Bestway began operating in the early 1960s as a specialist Asian food store. It continued to grow until by 1970 when it opened 10 general food stores dealing with a wide range of food products. In 1976, the company moved to wholesale business with the open of the first cash and carry warehouse in London. Currently it trades from 62 Bestway and Batleys branches across the UK, with around 4500 workers in UK. In accordance with the company’s vision of diversification, Bestway Group identified the cement sector in Pakistan and set up a plant in Hattar in 1995, with an annual capacity of 1.1 million tonnes. Growth in the building industry saw an increase in demand of cement, and in 2004, the company opened a second plant in Chakwal, Punjab Province of Pakistan, with an annual output of 1.8 million tonnes. A third plant was set up in 2005, Mustehken Cement, whose production capacity was enhanced in 2009 to 1.1 million tonnes annually. In addition, the company established a Waste Heat Recovery Power Plant in line with their environmental conservation strategy, a plant that became operational in 2009. Currently, Bestway is the second largest cement producer in Pakistan. In 2002, the company made a successful bid for a controlling share in the United Bank Limited. This investment has greatly transformed the Pakistani banking sector. In 2003, the bank launched the first derivative money market in Pakistan, and later in 2005, acquired the title of Authorized Derivative dealer, the first in Pakistan. In 2011, Bestway increased its shareholding capacity in UBL to 51%through the acquisition of 20% from the Abu Dhabi family. Bestway also ventured into the pharmacy sector through the acquisition of Cooperative Group Pharmacy business in 2014. The pharmacy is the third largest in the UK, with over 700 branches and over 7000 employee. The acquisition improved Bestway annual turnover with a significant margin, and took their global workforce to over 33600 people. The pharmacy is expected to change its brand name very soon. 2. Introduction The purpose of this report was to analyze the management strategies employed by Bestway group in their daily operations. As has been seen in the company’s background, it is a multinational company operating in two countries, and in four key sectors of the business industry, namely wholesale, cement, banking and pharmacy. The success of this company can be attributed to good management, an aspect that this paper attempts to explore. 2.1. Scope During the course of the analysis, it was important to consider three key departments of the company; namely the human resource department, marketing department and research and development management. 2.2. Method The information presented in this report was collected from various internet resources that included the official website of the company. It is worth noting that no apparent rules were broken in the collection of such information, and that data collected is limited to study purposes and shall/will not be used for any other purpose apart from the said one. 2.3. Background Bestway Group is an established company with quality management strategy that has helped sustain the business to this date. The company manages a large number of staff, has good marketing strategies and is known for developing talents from within. What could be behind their success in managing such a large human resource department? What are the marketing strategies that the management has in place that has enabled continued sustenance? Finally, how does the company create, nature and manage talents? 3. Findings 3.1. Managing human resource The art of managing people in any setting has greatly evolved. This evolution is due to the necessity to exploit the potential of the employees to maximize their output, and eventually that of the organization or business. In order to establish a high-performing business, the management, especially the human resource management, ought to understand fully the relationship between the strategy of the business, the organization and the people that drive the business, what Doppelt (2009:147) terms as an ideal vision that is fully packed with guidelines for sustainability. Eigenhuis and Dijk (2007: 5) came up with a checklist that the management of an organization that aims to succeed should ensure is in place. In this checklist, the two outlines four major topics that revolve around the presence of good leadership, availability of strategic priorities that are clear and consistent, a winning spirit and track record of delivery and success in the business, as well as the presence of elaborate HR terms, the last one being our point of interest in this study. The study established that Bestway Group, through the human resource department, sources for, employs and retains talented individuals within the organization. Bestway, being a company with high performance business strategy, is aware of the need for managers who are not only talented, but are able to spot opportunities and non-conventional career paths for the people that work under them. Eigenhuis and Dijk (2007) observe that even in a situation where organizations are more inclined to a structure with few or no middle management level between staff and executives, the need to hire people with the right qualifications for particular jobs, and ensuring that sufficient conditions to keep them around is in place, and which also sustains their career advancement, is imperative. Bestway identifies the importance of technical skills, and that humans are dynamic and hence can be taught and learn such skills. However, the firm knows the quality of having employees who are thoughtful, emotionally intelligent and who can show great maturity while working with people, qualities that, according to Mullins (2008: 113-125) are not easy to learn since they are innate, and hence the need to search and retain individuals with such traits. Besway, through assessment and calibration, has in place an effective pay for talent program that helps on the identification of staff suitable to handle key departments and/or duties. Coupled with compensation management, the approach has been lauded as quite efficient. As expressed by Eigenhuis and Dijk (2007), six key categories that the modern human resource department ought to consider exist. Bestway has a formula that exploits these sections as follows: a. The company has a well-energized leadership that leads the business through changes. The human resource management at Bestway that project-manages the implementation of efforts geared towards change, but also works in close association with executives and managers to lower resistance to change and obtain the necessary information from other levels of the business. The human resource management has adopted dynamic change implementation methods that include the Empirical-Rational strategy, which Nickols (2010: 7) observes that rests on the fact that people tend to pursue their interests, and thus creativity and innovation. b. The human resource management also provides a sounding board that offers a platform for the top management of the company to discuss high-ranging management topics on development that aims to enhance board dynamics, and thus help individuals overcome personal crises and other pertinent issues (Emanoil, and Nicoleta, 2013). This rests with the idea of centralization of management. With this comes improved and quality decision-making, as well as consistency in strategy across the organization. To achieve this, Lassere (2012: 78-108) notes that the HR must work as a close confidant to the CEO, providing the link between the CEO and the employees, a phenomenon that is deeply rooted in Bestway’s daily practices. c. The human resource manager also acts as the guardian to the management of senior talents within the company. Globalization, technological innovation that, according to Bidgoli (2010: 267), should enable the provision of high degree services quality, and demographics undergo frequent changes which has resulted in a more volatile, uncertain and ambiguous market dynamics that foster great competition. The human resource department at Bestway has initiated plans that aid in the creation of an inclusive culture and a positive work environment, good working conditions that attracts, retains and develops quality talents, identifies key talent gaps and evaluates the strategic options that can aid in solving them, among others. This has been made more effective by the adoption of action-centered leadership that among other things looks into the needs of employees with an aim of making them more satisfied and thus more productive, provision of relevant training where necessary. d. The ability to manage industrial/employee relation that leads to the building of negotiation and good relation strategies which then eases the flow of information, and hence work. This, according to Zaman (2011: 2) is achieved through the adoption of effective communication methods, understanding personalities of the various employees, and handling them with the decor and honour that each deserves. In addition, proper clarification of issues while maintaining focus on the core ones, as well as provision of realistic outcomes as substitutes to the perceived best outcomes with the aim of betterment of both production and employee satisfaction (Employment Essentials, 2013: 1-4), are also put in practice by the HR at Bestway. The company engages its employees on almost all issues pertaining to the daily business through the creation of authentic real-time dialogue between and among employees. By focusing on elements that are of great importance, use of open-ended questions in sourcing for ideas, giving room for anonymity regarding submitted feedback, etc., the company is able to quickly and effectively transform the feedback into employee engagement, then to actionable strategies. e. The human resource department has in place a proper schedule that allows for working on other important yet non-value adding activities in the organization. This is in line with the role culture of the organization, that of maintain good relationship with other players in the respective field, especially through defining roles and allocating time for their performance (Juul Andersen and Minbaeva, 2013). Other bodies, such as the European Union, do require companies to avail specific information. These requests are always sporadic and can sometimes disrupt the normal business of an organization if no proper procedure is set down to tackle them as and when they come. The human resource department is critical to the daily running of the organization. For this reason, multinational companies such as Bestway persistently outsources for ideas from other outlets, thereby leading to significant improvement in the overall performance of the company. Employees at Bestway have a strong belief in the company, they firmly belong and creatively contribute to improvement efforts, and hence the operational advantage realized. 3.2. Marketing strategies Marketing is another core department of any organization or company. Marketing provides a link between what a society needs in terms of materials and the response pattern the society initiates towards such a need. Characteristic of marketing is the aim to satisfy the needs through an exchange process, which also help build a long-term relationship between the parties involved. Bestway, being a wholesaler in the UK and a manufacturer of cement in Pakistan, understands the need for cutting-edge marketing strategies that helps keep the trading chain well ahead of its competitors. But exactly how does it do this? The answer is in the strategies that their marketing department has put in place. According to Satell (2013: 1), marketing is no longer a matter that requires the identification of needs and communication of benefits, but rather requires the building of immersive experiences that engage the consumers, and necessitates the need for a seamless integration of a set of skills to obtain the desired results. Different strategic marketing styles are in use at Bestway, some of which include adoption of a strategic planning process, analyzing market orientation, quality branding, services and relationship marketing, to name but a few (Moran, and Gossieaux, 2010). Strategic planning process, for instance, relates to concise clarification of the objective of the business. Bestway Group is quite aware of the fact that the business world is an ever-evolving one, with new competitors coming up and new marketing challenges spring. This, coupled with the pressure to progress has led to Bestway having a comprehensive plan that defines the intent of the projected impact towards achieving success. The company, through the marketing department, employs relationship marketing through evaluation and integration of awareness, sales and advocacy, a system that has led to the success of the business recorded this far. Bloom and Reenen (2007: 44) notes that customer advocacy provides marketers and business owners with a way to leverage their most honourable customers as brand ambassadors to build awareness, drive sales and increase revenues. Good advocates are majorly repeat customers who tend to buy more. Bestway exploits this opportunity and even entices more customers by offering good deals and after-sales services. Next in this list is digital marketing that entails the use of innovation team to identify, evaluate and activate emerging opportunities within the market. The leaders of Bestway Company, and any company for that matter, are always very busy and hence keeping up with the search for knowledge and latest developments and opportunities in the market is always challenging. For this reason, they have come up with a team of reliable individuals dedicated towards identifying emerging opportunities, organizing for test-runs to investigate viability of potential projects , to name but a few. Through such pilot programs, Ferell and Hartline (2012: 139-156) observe that the company identifies viable endeavors to pursue, and hence the success in the marketing sector of this company. Another principle espoused by Satell, which Bestway uses immensely, is the principle of separating innovation from strategy. Satell observes that most organizations tend to believe that the two are inseparable, while research shows that separating the two is actually more beneficial to the success of the business. Bestway banks on the idea that while strategy aims to achieve specific objectives, innovation focuses mainly on the creation of something new, whether an idea or a product. Hence when the two are separated, the taskforce on innovation and that entitled to coming up with strategies do not get meshed up in unnecessary information squabbles. This approach also goes a long way in curtailing commoditization within the industry. Finally, Bestway Company identifies the fact that adopting marketing promotions do not necessary yield positive results as was the case in the past century. Ryan and Jones (2012: 113-165) notes that in this digital era, brands have become platforms and hence in addition to driving purchases, they have to inspire the consumers to be active participants as well. Satell notes that this has brought the need for firms to focus more on Application Programming Interface (API) and Software Development Kits (SDK), which leads to more internet search and thus awareness and sales. Ryan and Jones further observes that the internet has transformed the once passive consumers who accepted everything they watched on their screens in the form of advertisements, to active participants who check the net for their products of desire, and hence are able to make comparisons on a wider range of products, a fete that has stiffened competition even more. 3.3 Creation, Nurturing, and Management of talent Organizations know that in order to succeed in this hypercompetitive global economy, the presence of quality talent is vital. Talent gaps exist in almost all organizations, especially in the upper echelons of management. For this reason, the available talent should be properly managed to the fullest effect. At Bestway Group, the emphasis on talent management is driven by a number of reasons that include a demonstrated relationship between better talent and better business performance, which has led to quantification of investment returns on talent input. Secondly, talent, being a rapidly increasing source of value creation, implies the financial value of any organization depends on the quality of talent available. Wellins, Smith and Erker (2010, 3-7) observe that a greater percentage, around 80 percent, of the value of any company is attributed to physical assets compared to intangible assets, which stand at 20 percent. Another driving factor is the dynamicity of the context in which business is done, as elaborated by Wellins et al., the hypercompetitive nature of the market makes it a little difficult to sustain long term competitive advantage. To rectify this, Bestway makes use of available technology expertise to stay ahead of their competitors. The expectations of both the board and the employees have also changed significantly, with the board expecting more from the employees, who in turn expect better working condition in order to deliver beyond par. A healthy scenario in this case translates to better talent creation and management. The company achieves this through the creation and proper management of its talent pool to ensure a continuous stream of succession is in place. Wellins et al. also notes an evolving demographics as a drive to talent creation and management. Bestway overcomes the problem of talented employees feeling stuck in a particular level due to older staff members’ choice of extension of retirement age by adopting a more or less flattened organization structure. The first talent management practice adopted by Bestway Group is aligning talent with the business strategy. Caplan (2011: 140-156) observes that effective management of talent requires that the nature of talent in terms of quality and quantity should drive the objectives of the business, and not the other way round. This is exactly the case with Bestway Group, as their talent search and management is usually engraved in the objective of the business. The management at Bestway understands the need to be active participants in talent sourcing and management, and thus is always at the forefront when it comes to discussions concerning talents. This ability to lead from the front is what distinguishes leaders from managers (Bedek,2011), as this type of leadership inspires trust between the leaders and other employees. Cheese, Thomas and Craig (2008: 109) observe that the HR and senior leaders must work together in the discovery, exploitation and management of talents within the organization, the execution of which requires leaders to set the table other than waiting for another person to set it, after which they just sit at it. It is also essential for the management to be aware of the type of talent they are looking for (Shukla, 2009: 87). The key pointer attributes include competency, personal attributes, experience and knowledge. This is what distinguishes Bestway from other companies since its managers are always aware of the status of their organization, the gaps, talent wise, that need to be filled, and hence the upward trend in terms of the quality of talent present in the company. The leadership at Bestway identifies the weakness in links of the talent pipeline, and ways through which factors, both internal and external, can negatively affect this pipeline. This knowledge, according to Goldsmith and carter (2009: 167-213), is key to deterring any possible damages to the talent line, and thus the business practice as a whole. As Wellins et al. notes, the ability of an organization to compete effectively depends on the ability to develop and promote talent, which can be achieved by proactively managing career transitions, thus ensuring a stable link. In addition to this, Bestway Group knows that there is a difference between potentiality, performance, and readiness. Wellins et al. also notes that these three aspects never imply the same thing. Vaiman and Vance (2008: 102-111) points that while potentiality connotes an innate immature ability, readiness is time dependent and relates to actual performance of certain duties. The two observe that getting an individual with the necessary potential ready for the execution of the same sometimes require good mentoring and usually takes time to accomplish. However, with good leadership similar to the one at Bestway, focusing on people and having an eye on the horizon reduces this transition period considerably. Putting the right persons in jobs that need their skills is another key feature that is characteristic of talent management practice at Bestway Group. Oakes and Galagan (2011: 56-78) concur that any good management should place more priority on selecting a talented workforce as opposed to trying to develop talents through learning from within. The reason behind the convenience of such a move is because not everything can be learned, and the learning process can sometimes be time consuming, and thus detrimental to the success of the business. Effron and Ort (2010: 84-103) confirms that good talent management entails eliminating complexities by understanding key aspects of what ought to be done, then integrating them with the ways through which they can be done. This, they observe, can lead to better execution, accountability, skill development and alignment to the goals of the organization, as well as determination of the extent to which the impact of such execution can go. Finally, Bestway is fully aware of and has drawn a line between software and talent management. Ariss (2014: 56-67) espouses that software cannot manage talent exclusively, but can only be used as support tools in talent management. For good talent management, Bestway has in place a potent blend of content, expertise and technology. 4. Conclusion The study managed to establish some of the key factors that have led to the success of Bestway Group as a multinational entity, in a market fraught of hyper-competition. The company has an excellent management strategy and an effective human resource department that oversees the daily employee development, as well as individual input that improves the overall turnover of the company. Further, the company has a marketing department laden with talented individuals whose creativity has seen the continued sustenance of the business. In addition, the company exploits quality talent management practices that act as a magnate to the existing employees, and attracts great talents from outside as well. The management of such talent has been and continues to be vital in the success of the company, as has been witnessed through the years. Works Cited Ariss, A. A. (2014). Global talent management: challenges, strategies, and opportunities. Available from http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-05125-3. [Accessed 10 May 2015]. Bedek, A. (2011). 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