Retirement Age Hike - Book Report/Review Example

?Aggregate Planning “Poland's lawmakers approve retirement age hike” by Warshaw The legislature of Poland decided to change the age of retirement to 67 for most Poland citizens. This decision was made as a way of trying to reduce state debt, to be able to keep confidence of investors as well as to maintain growth. Although it was not an easy task but in the end the law was voted in. Previously the retirement age was at 60 for women and 65 for men. According to the government, retiring at the age of 67 will enable the government to spend less on pension. However, there are those who do not agree with the new law and are willing to overturn, but in the end, it is up to the president and senate to make it a law (Warshaw 1). This is an attempt by the government to practice aggregate planning whereby they want to ensure that by the time people retire they have built up their pension. The government has come up with an aggregate plan on how they can reduce the amount of money they spend on pension. Increasing the age at which people will be retiring will cut government costs and therefore enable economic growth. Inventory Management “Home Depot Rolls out New Mobile Devices for Workers” by Joel Schectman Home depot has come up with a modern mobile device that will enable more workers to be able to assist customers. The device is supposed to help workers help customers locate items as well as get information on items. The device will enable home depot to be able to serve customers faster and serve new customers. The device also increases the speed of serving customers since the employees are able to scan items as customers wait on line. The device has brought huge changes in customer service at these stores (Schectman 2). The mobile device that home depot has adopted enables these stores be able to account for how much they have, and how much more they need. This is inventory management in practice and it enables organizations to calculate accurately their stock and the amount of purchases that are carried out daily. This enables them to be able to come up with accurate supply, and consequently, Home depot is able to do all this as a result of the mobile device that they have adopted. Capacity Planning “Bangkok Airport Draws New Complaints” by Newley Purnell An airport in Bangkok I going through some runaway repairs, which have been causing delays. This is said to have been caused by corruption during its construction that ended in 2006. There are also other complaints like the amount of time it takes to be cleared in immigration offices as well as lack of adequate bathrooms. The reason why this airport is highly criticized is that it serves six other airports in Thailand, an. this is said to be the reason it is in need of repair since it is used heavily. There is also the issue of capacity, the airport was built to accommodate 45 million passengers but now it accommodates more than 48 million fliers. This leads to delays because of congestion (Purnell 1). The Bangkok airport lacks capacity planning; this is because the airport management should have considered the capacity that will be needed in the future when they were constructing the airport. Capacity planning would have ensured that no more costs would be incurred in the future to expand the airport. Forecast “Forecast: New-Car Sales in June Highest in Five Years” by Jonathan Welsh There are expectations that the number of new cars that will be sold will increase. The increase is expected to be huge that it will be more than it has ever reached since 2007. Toyota and Honda’s sales are said to recover from the effects of tsunami and earthquake in Japan and Thailand. According to a forecasting company the retail cars sales will be rise to 16% compared to 6.9% in 2011 (Wels 2). Forecasting is an important part of organizations since it enables them to be able to predict the future this is done by studying various experiences and how they have affected the market. Forecasting enables organizations to be ready for market chang4s that may occur in the future. Organizations also study trends to be able to tell what will happen in the future; this is what the forecasting company that predicted more car sales used. This forecast on increase of sales of cars will enable car-manufacturing companies to be ready to sustain the demand expected. Lean Operation “GE Weighs Cuts to Lending Unit” by KATE LINEBAUGH General electric company has put into consideration cutting a huge part of their business as lenders. Some investors who feel uncomfortable that there is more money in the lenders’ hands have caused this. Since the start of financial crisis, GE has been working hard to increase capital by selling assets and shrinking their loan portfolio. There is unconfirmed news that the executives are willing to go further and sell businesses that are in GE’s portfolio. However, investors of GE are said to be unimpressed by the performance of the financial part of this company and prefers the industrial part more (Linebaugh 1). Lean operations are actions taken by companies to reduce usage of money this is done to reduce wastage and to encourage more saving of money. Thus, GE is trying to reduce spending money to reduce the amount of money they have lent to others. This will enable them to avoid any risks of losses and increase their capital. This will enable investors to regain their confidence. Location Planning “The Best Spots to Set up Shop” by CHRISTINA BINKLEY The economic crisis seems to be behind us and investors are trying to open businesses they had earlier feared opening. One example of these businesses is boutiques in Beverly hill. Many people in the fashion business are now willing to open boutiques while others are looking for space to expand. There is high competition and one of the biggest boutique chains has decided to open a store in Beverly hill. They want their store to be located at Beverly drive; this location has high competition due to its strategic location. A shoe brand company also claims to be interested in Beverly drive as well as another chain of boutiques known as Intermix (Binkley 1). Location is vital in success of a business especially for retail businesses. Businesses have to be located at a place that is convenient to demand and supply. This is the reason why all business insists on being located at a place where customers will easily access them and they will be able to access their suppliers easily. Management of Quality “Toyota Recalls More Vehicles for Sticking Throttles” by Jonathan Welsh The experience about unintended acceleration that was related to floor mats of Toyota cars in 2009 has remained to haunt them since. As a result of this experience, they recalled many of their cars as a way of trying to fix the problem. Their recall affected cars that were manufactured between November 2008 and September 2010. Since 2009, they have recalled 14 million cars and their reputation have suffered heavily (Welsh 1). Ensuring that an organization’s products are high quality is vital in its success. However, managing quality does not mean that an organization has to ensure that its products are of good quality. This means that the quality must be consistent as well as their determination to keep on improving quality. Toyota had managed to do this until 2009 when reports of unintended acceleration started to be revealed, their move to recall all cars that had this defect was a way of managing an ensuring quality. Thus, organizations are expected to raise their standards so that they can produce quality products. Project Management “Igniting the Sparks: Technology Tools for Innovation” by Ragu Gurumurthy, Innovation has become very important in today’s world and has been facilitate to a great degree through the application of technology. Innovation enables organizations to reach new markets by coming up with new products since there are several ways in which technology can fasten innovation such as analyzing data faster. This is because technology enables ideas to become reality easily since organizations can be able to check whether such innovations have ever worked elsewhere (Gurumurthy 1). Many organizations that come up with innovations require project management in making sure that their innovative products becomes a success. Thus, there is high need for the use of new technology in project management. Project management tries to save time and money and new technology enables this since there are faster devices that can be used. Technology saves money by ensuring that there less people hired to complete a task. Works cited Warsaw. ".Poland's lawmakers approve retirement age hike" Associated Press (May 11, 2012): 1. Fox news. Web. Gurumurthy, R. “Igniting the Sparks: Technology Tools for Innovation” Deloitte Consulting. (June 27, 2012). CIO journal. Web. Schectman, J. “Home Depot Rolls Out New Mobile Devices for Workers” CIO Report. (June 21, 2012). CIO journal. Web. Purnell, N. “Bangkok Airport Draws New Complaints” South East Asia Real Time. (June 20, 2012). The wall street Journal. Web. Linebaugh, K. “GE Weighs Cuts to Lending Unit”. The wall street Journal. (June 10, 2012). Web. Welsh, J.“Forecast: New-Car Sales in June Highest in Five Years”, The wall street Journal. (June 26, 2012). Web. Welsh, J. “Toyota Recalls More Vehicles for Sticking Throttles”, The wall Street Journal.( July 1, 2012). Web. Binkley, C. “The Best Spots to Set Up Shop”, The Wall Street Journal. (April 18 2012). Web. Read More