Challenges Facing Eastern Foods - Research Paper Example

Eastern Foods Table of Contents 1. Overview of the challenges facing Eastern Foods in the next few months with regard to HRM, Accounting, Marketing and Operations Management 3 2. HRM issues in Eastern Foods 4 3. Marketing issues in Eastern Foods 6 4. Recommendation of a plan for how the organisation moves forward as from May 1st 9 References 10 Appendix 11 1. Overview of the challenges facing Eastern Foods in the next few months with regard to HRM, Accounting, Marketing and Operations Management In the next few months Eastern Foods is expected to face a series of challenges in regard to different business areas, including HRM, Accounting, Marketing and Operations Management. These challenges would be analyzed as follows: a) HRM: the firm’s workforce needs to be appropriately trained in order to be able to meet the standards set by the firm’s strategic managers. Reference is made in particular to the quality of food prepared but also to the quality of customer services. In the context of HRM another issue should be addressed: employees may be asked to work overtime and in different positions, especially during high peak seasons. Employees need to be ready to meet the challenges set by changes in the workplace so that their performance is kept at high levels. At this point, HR managers would have to face the following challenge: they should use effective criteria when allocating job positions, ensuring that each employee is assigned tasks to which he can respond. Additional or different duties could be assigned to employees gradually so that they have time to be adapted to the needs of other roles according to the organizational needs. In addition, equality and fairness in compensation would be of critical importance for securing high employee motivation; b) Accounting: the firm needs the support of an accounting consultant; emphasizing on accounting standards and principles will help the organization to control its costs and income more effectively so that its performance is kept high; c) Marketing: the firm has to employ a marketing plan that will be aligned with the local culture and market trends; traditional marketing techniques would be combined with advanced marketing strategies, such as the social media; d) Operations Management: the cooperation between various organizational departments should be carefully organized; daily operations should be set in hierarchical order ensuring that all business activities are monitored and checked as of their alignment with business standards and ethics. Particular emphasis should be given on innovation and creativity, as factors that could enhance the firm’s competitiveness in its industry. 2. HRM issues in Eastern Foods Business environment incorporates a high range of elements, including ‘economic, socio-cultural and administrative factors’ (Goyal and Goyal 2007, p.6). Organizing and distributing tasks are critical duties of managers in modern organizations so that conditions in internal organizational environment, where the firm’s HR are incorporated, are effectively controlled. In fact, it has been proved that the ability of HR managers to assign tasks aligned with the skills/ background of employees can help to avoid conflicts across organization and to keep employee performance high (Goyal and Goyal 2007). On the other hand, in the food industry competition is high. Customers’ expectations tend to be continuously increased a fact that creates pressures for changes in the firm’s practices (Simms 2005). Employees need to be willing to support organizational changes otherwise the relevant plans will fail. Employees have a key role in another factor affecting organizational performance: innovation. Promoting innovation is a necessary prerequisite for firms that aim to keep their performance at high levels (Limberg 2008). In the food industry also, a similar issue appears. However, innovation and creativity cannot be enhanced within a particular organization unless they are adequately supported by employees; reference is made not only to employees’ willingness to support innovation but also their ability to participate in schemes that promote innovation (Limberg 2008). In any case, the HR strategy of each firm needs to support the achievement of organizational goals. This target can be achieved only if ‘HR strategy is aligned with corporate strategy’ (Soberg 2011). The interaction between HR strategy and corporate strategy in modern organizations is presented in Graph 1 (Appendix). In the particular Graph the following fact is made clear: within each organization HRM needs to be aligned not only with the corporate management plan but also to the plans related to the firm’s financial and technology management (Graph 1). Such approach could be also used in Eastern Foods, so that the success of the firm’s HR strategy is secured. As noted above, in Eastern Foods there are certain HRM issues that need to be effectively addressed: a) the training needs of employees would be covered through appropriately customized seminars; practice in real work terms could also help the firm’s employees to understand the needs of tasks assigned to them; b) the responses of employees to change cannot be precisely estimated in advance; normally, due to the nature of the business it is expected that employees would show understanding in case of need for overtime work without prior notice. Still, since in the particular industry creativity is critical, it is important that employee motivation is enhanced. Using fair rewards related to performance (Daft and Marcic 2010) could motivate employees to emphasize on creativity and innovation when performing the tasks assigned to them. Appropriate rewarding could also help employee to accept increased job demands, such as the need for overtime work, easier, so that conflicts in the workplace are avoided (Daft and Marcic 2010); c) a critical issue in regard to the firm’s HRM would be the distribution of roles across employees; using an existing HR model (see Graph 2, Appendix) could help the firm’s managers to take more accurate decisions in regard to the roles in which each employees would perform higher; in this way, the competitiveness of the firm within its industry would be secured. In any case, when developing their firm’s HR strategy, HR managers in Eastern Foods should take into consideration the following facts: a) HR strategy is a framework incorporating a series of opposing trends that need to be balanced (Graph 3) and b) HR strategy is not related only to people but also to other elements of the organization, such as ‘the systems, the processes and the organization as an independent entity’ (PricewaterhouseCoopers 2005, p.8, Graph 4). 3. Marketing issues in Eastern Foods Another organizational sector which is critical for the success of each organization is marketing. In Eastern Foods marketing has a particular role: to make the business known to the public, primarily locally. Then, marketing should focus on the increase of the firm’s customer base. Different marketing approaches could be used for achieving these targets. The marketing strategy chosen for covering the marketing needs of the firm could vary, according to the conditions in the internal and the external environment but also to the perceptions of the firm’s leader. Reference should be made to a well known marketing framework: the marketing mix. Marketing mix, as presented in Graph 5 (Appendix) focuses on four different factors that can influence the performance of a marketing strategy: Product, Place, Price and Promotion (Ferrell and Hartline 2010). These factors are equally powerful in influencing the effectiveness of a firm’s marketing plan. In the case of Eastern Foods, the above factors could be analyzed as follows: a) Product; the products of the firm should be differentiated, even slightly, from existing products of same characteristics; creativity and innovation would be critical in this case, so that a competitive advantage is created for the organization (Piperopoulos 2012). However, in order for the above target to be achieved it is necessary for the firm’s employees to be appropriately skilled (Piperopoulos 2012). Employees can support innovation and creativity not only if they have the willingness or the skills to do so but also if they are allowed to proceed to such initiatives (Piperopoulos 2012). At this point the leadership style of the organization is critical, meaning that innovation and creativity cannot be promoted within a particular organization without the consent of the leader (Rogers 2009). This means that the leader of Eastern Foods should offer to his followers the chance to take initiatives and make suggestions in regard to the tasks assigned to them. In other words, in order for Product, as an element of the Marketing Mix, to be competitive, it is necessary for the support of employees and of the leader to be secured (Goi 2009); b) Place; place, as an element of the marketing mix, shows the areas in which a product is available (Goi 2009). According to the scenario, the products of Eastern Foods will be mostly available in the firm’s units/ branches. Gradually, it is possible for plans for delivery to the customer’s place to be developed, according to the firm’s performance and the local market trends; c) Price; in order for a product/ service to be competitive it is necessary for its price to be at low level, as possible, compared to the prices of competitors (Heulsmann and Pfeffermann 2011); competitiveness through price can be achieved only if the potentials for profit are important, i.e. if the cost of products is low (Doujak 2008). Otherwise, it would be preferable to set a price equal to the average price of the product in the relevant market; d) Promotion; the promotion of the firm’s products should be developed using not only traditional but also advanced marketing techniques, such as social media. The figures presented in Graph 5a (Appendix) should be taken into consideration when developing the plan for the promotion of the firm’s products. Indicative marketing techniques for promoting the firm’s products in the local market would be the following: a) advertisements in local press and TV, b) participation in local events, meaning especially events developed by the local community and c) employment of social media; different types of social media could be used for promoting the firm’s products; c1) a blog could be established through which the firm’s news would be announced to the public, c2) advertisements should be uploaded in social networking sites; accounts should be also creates in these sites, in the name of the company, so that the communication between the firm and its customers is further enhanced. In addition, the firm’s website should be continuously updated so that the attractiveness of the firm is kept high. After deciding on the marketing strategy that would be more appropriate for the organization marketers in Eastern Foods should periodically ‘assess the firm’s current marketing objectives, the strategy and performance’ (Ferrell and Hartline 2010, p.92). In this way, any potential failure or gap can be identified early and suggestions can be make for appropriate update of the relevant part of the firm’s marketing strategy. The use of a tool used in evaluating the performance of marketing plans could increase the chances for success of the above efforts. Such tool would be the Open Graph application, available in Facebook. The terms of operation of this tool are presented in Graph 6 (Appendix).The Open Graph is an application that ‘models the relationships between people in Facebook’ (Extole 2012, p.3), including the ‘likes’ added on specific websites/ brands. In this way, marketers are able to check the number of ‘likes’ made on particular brands (Extole 2012). Through this tool, important information can be gathered in regard to consumer trends both locally and internationally. 4. Recommendation of a plan for how the organisation moves forward as from May 1st From May 1st the organization should move forward according to a particular plan. In this way, the costs involved would be controlled and any failure could be identified early. Such plan is presented below, in the form of a Gantt Chart. The Graph highlights two requirements for the successful establishment of the firm: organizational processes could be developed simultaneously under the terms that are closely monitored and b) at the beginning of each week, an assessment of the plan’s progress within the 7 days passed, should be developed, so that amendments are made, as appropriate. In the following chart week 1 refers to the first week of May. The chart covers a period of 2 months. After the end of the second month a practice similar to the 8th week of the chart should be followed. The areas in red show the periods during which emphasis should be given on the relevant business sector(s). Weeks 4 and 5 are considered as the most critical, being related, simultaneously, to the support of three business sectors. Week/ Task 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Accounting Operations Management HR Marketing References Daft, R. and Marcic, D., 2010. Understanding Management. 7th ed. Belmont: Cengage Learning. Doujak, A., 2008. Strategic Innovation: Building New Growth Businesses. Wien: Goldegg Verlag. Extole, 2012. What Facebook’s Open Graph means to marketers. Whitepaper. June 2012. Available at http://www.mangostorm.co.uk/media/cmsplugin_documents/docs/Facebooks_Open_Graph.pdf Ferrell, O. and Hartline, M., 2010. Marketing Strategy. 5th ed. Belmont: Cengage Learning. Goi, C., 2009. “A Review of Marketing Mix: 4Ps or More?” International Journal of Marketing Studies, Vol 1, No 1, pp.2-15. Available at http://ccsenet.org/journal/index.php/ijms/article/download/97/1552 Goyal, A. and Goyal, M., 2007. Business Environment. New Delhi: FK Publications. Heulsmann, M. and Pfeffermann, N., 2011. Strategies and Communications for Innovations: An Integrative Management View for Companies and Networks. New York: Springer. Jackson, S., Schuler, R. and Werner, S., 2011. Managing Human Resources. 11th ed. Belmont: Cengage Learning. IAB, 2010. “ Interactive Advertising and the Optimal Marketing Mix. Available at http://www.iab.net/media/file/IAB_WHITE_PAPER_FINAL_AUGUST-3-2010.pdf Ireland, D., Hoskisson, R. and Hitt, M., 2008. Understanding Business Strategy: Concepts and Cases. Belmont: Cengage Learning Limberg, T., 2008. Examining innovation management from a fair process perspective. New York: Springer Piperopoulos, P., 2012. Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Business Clusters. London: Gower Publishing, Ltd PricewaterhouseCoopers, 2005. “Human Resources management strategies to support organizational changes” Ministère de la Fonction publique et de la Réforme administrative. Luxembourg, 2005. Available at http://www.dgaep.gov.pt/media/0601010000/lux/hrmorgchanges.pdf Rogers, D., 2009. Business Success Through Innovation: An Insider's Guide to the World of United States Patents. Scottsdale: IsoPatent LLC Simms, H., 2005. Organisational Behaviour and Change Management. Garden City: Select Knowledge Limited Soberg, A., 2011. The Link Between Strategic Planning and Human Resource Planning. HR Voice Org. Available at http://www.hrvoice.org/the-link-between-strategic-planning-and-human-resource-planning/ Vokic, N. and Vidovic, M., 2007. “HRM as a significant factor for achieving competitiveness through people: the case of Croatia” University of Zagreb. Faculty of Economics and Business. Working Paper Series. Paper 07-01. Appendix Graph 1 – Interaction between HR strategy, Financial strategy, Technology strategic plan and Corporate strategic plan (source: Soberg 2011) Graph 2 – HR practice as a tool for achieving competitive advantage (source: Wright, P., McMahan, G. and McWilliams, A., 1994, ‘Human resources and sustained competitive advantage: a resource-based perspective’ International Journal of Human Resource Management, 5, 2, pp.318, as cited in Vokic and Vidovic, 2007, p. Graph 3 – Trends within HR strategy (source: PricewaterhouseCoopers, 2005, p.5) Graph 4 – Elements of HR strategy (source: PricewaterhouseCoopers, 2005, p.8) Graph 5 – The Marketing Mix (source: http://www.marketingplan.net/marketing-mix/) Graph 5a – Time spent by Media (source: IAB 2010, p.1) Graph 6 – Open Graph of Facebook – terms of operation (source: Extole 2012, p.3) Read More