Contemporary Issues In Business And Management

Causes and impact of management problems

Discuss about the BABA Contemporary Issues in Business and Management.

In the modernized business there are larger numbers of contemporary issues that have risen. Due to these issues, companies need to effectively manage their operations so as to eliminate it (Maylor, Blackmon and Huemann, 2016). This will help company in ensuring its growth rate which is essential for having control over the market. This report highlights the problems that are faced by organizations. It also illustrates the ways in which managers’ uses contemporary tools for overcoming these issues as well as the theories that support the emerging management practices. 

There are many kinds of management problems that arise within a firm (Jeston and Nelis, 2014). Some of the common challenges that modern day organisation faces are:

• Globalisation: Due to globalisation not only, new opportunities for the companies have come up but they also started facing several new kinds of challenges. One of the biggest challenges is competition (Bookboon, 2011).
• Innovation: This is also the problem for the organisation as they have to continuously make innovation in their approach of business as well as the product and services they are delivering (Van Der Aalst, La Rosa and Santoro, 2016).
• Technology: In every six month the advancements in the technology that is used inside the industries are getting doubled. This has created problems for the organisations as they have to make continuous changes in their technology use which requires whole lot money (Wheelen, et. al., 2017).
• Government policy and regulation: The regulations and policies made by the government is becoming a challenge for the company as they need to make sure that they follow all the guidelines for making the business successful.
• Diversity: In an organisation there are many people that are coming from different cultural backgrounds (Stark, 2015). This has forced companies to make sure that they adopt all the strategies in a better way so that they work as a team to achieve common goals in spite of such diversity. 

There are many ways that can be adopted by the managers to make sure that all the issues that are coming to the business are taken care off in a better manner. There are various types of companies that exist i.e. national, international and local (Heizer, 2016). All these are facing different kinds of challenges. It is the role of the management to make sure that they overcome these challenges in order to ensure higher profits. There are many tools that are used by the mangers so as to check that these problems do not make negative impact on the operations of the firm. The issues that arise in the society due to these problems are as follows:

Globalisation: Due to globalisation competition has got intense. This has given choices to the people. On the other hand, it has also forced companies to make changes in the business process otherwise they may lag in their operation which can be dangerous for the survival of the company (Goetsch and Davis, 2014). For example, Coca cola is the multinational beverage brand and is facing problems related to the Globalisation. This company has to face the competition from many bigger and smaller local beverage companies. Its biggest competitor PEPSI co. has given them major challenge in almost all the markets. One of the best methods that this company has adopted is to preserve its trade secrets. This helps them in making sure that they have originality in their product which assists them in leading into the market and face globalisation. They have taken the use of management tool named benchmarking. They have set standards in the beverage industry which only few of its competitors can match. They have made particular set of standards for all their existing products and keep monitoring itself in terms of quality that it delivers in its products. This has helped them in their survival.

Ways that managers adopt to overcome these issues

Innovation: Innovation is necessary for the survival of any company. It has also helped society in solving their day to day life problems. Companies need to invest a lot in the research of new products as well as the demands and the requirements of the market (Wheelen and Hunger, 2011). For example, Fujifilm is one of the primary examples of the company that is facing problems related to innovation. This company has learned from the mistakes of Kodak who believed that marketing and branding is sufficient for the survival. This company is facing problem that they want to incorporate open innovation inside the firm. This cannot be possible without incorporating face to face communication inside the firm. They have taken use of the tool named customer segmentation. This helps them in developing products as per the demand of the target consumers. This helps them in making innovation aligned with the demands of the market which helps them in getting success in the market.

Technology: It has come up as the gift for the society as it has made the works of the people easier (Adekola and Sergi, 2016). It has also helped businesses in making the cost cuts which is major challenge for the firm. It has brought effectiveness in the operations of the firm which is necessary for manufacturing quality products and services. For example, Wells Fargo bank which is one the leading American banking firm is facing problems related to technology. The speed with which the technology is changing and the treats that are present in the use of IT mediums for banking has created problems for Wells Fargo bank. In order to reduce such type of issues they have taken use of customer relationship management. This has helped them in retaining of consumers by implementing centralised data storage and retention facility. They have taken use of such technology that helps in enhancing the efficiency of CRM.

Government policy and regulations: Companies these have to make sure that they have good relations with the government in order to influence them for having regulations that benefits them. For example, Amazon is one the biggest IT related firm in the whole world. Since the government policies and regulation related to E-commerce market have changed. Government of India in its new FDI rules have specified that now e-commerce platform can sale more than 25% products from one vendor. This has created problems for the company and hence This Company has decided to use the tool called Supply Chain Management (Chanchani, 2011).

Theories and concepts of the contemporary management tool used

Diversity: Companies need to make sure that they have a strategic human resource management plan so that they can manage the diversity at their workplace (Storbacka, 2011). With the use of strategic plan for diversity company can make sure that they have health employee relations. For example, Google which is another biggest firm in the IT industry is facing problems related to diversity. This is due to the reason that Google has employees from all around the world. Google need to make sure that they have managed their employee strength in a better way. Since diversity is strength of the company as very different types of talent comes to the company. They took the use of the management tool i.e. their mission and vision. This management tools helps in bringing all the employees irrespective of the diversity in their skills or culture into one unit. They all make efforts for achieving the common goal and objectives of the organisation. 

There are various theories and concepts that have been given by various researchers in order to support emerging management practices (Pappas and Cannon, Optimum Outcomes LLC, 2011). Some of the major theories in this regard are as follows:

Benchmarking theory: This is theory that is generally utilised by the firms in order to understand the gap they have in their processes and make changes accordingly (Johnson, 2015). It is understood as the quality management theory which aims to enhance the quality of the products and services. This theory suggests finding the gap by continuously measuring the products and services against the set standards inside the firm as well as with products of other competitors. It helps Coca-cola to enhance consumer satisfaction in terms of cost, product, quality etc. It motivates them for making improvement in the overall operations within the firm. It also helps in stimulating continuous performance that can give them competitive edge over other competitors. On the negative side it does not account for the fact that under which circumstances competitors like Pepsi co. have gained those standards. It gives arrogance and complacency in the firms like Coca-cola which stops them from developing further.

Customer segmentation theory: This theory explains the need of making smaller segments in the whole market. This helps company in producing products as per the demand of the smaller segments. These segments are made according to some criteria then company develops products according. This helps them in achieving higher level of consumer satisfaction. It also helps to appeal to the consumers as per their demand which is necessary in the case of Fujifilms who are facing such a large competition. It helps Fujifilms to capture the market that competitors have not pursued. Fujifilms also need to be take care of the fact that this theory generally confuses company about the customers. In the use of this theory costing is not taken into consideration which can be dangerous for the company.

Customer relationship management: It is a holistic process of retaining, acquiring and growing consumers. It involves all in-line and off-line relationship management. As mentioned above it is very helpful for the banking sector that is facing the challenges like technology, commoditisation, globalisation and deregulation. It helps in increasing consumer loyalty. It will assist Wells Fargo bank to manage its increasing database and speed of growth process. It also helps in centralisation of data that may generate at any branch of the bank that may help in making automations in many services like sending of emails. On the negative side implementation of CRM is difficult as switching from manual modes of operations to automatic modes in banking. Apart from this when CRM is implemented within an organisation then there is a chance of computers getting hacked.

Mission and vision: This concept helps in communicating the objectives of the organisation as well as defining the purpose of the firm to stakeholders (David, 2011). It also helps in binding the whole organisation in one knot so that everyone works for achieving the common goals of the company. This concept when implemented helps in aligning the efforts of the stakeholder in one direction. Defining mission and vision in a more elaborated manner can help Google them in showing the paths to the stakeholders about the ways in which they have to do their work at the workplace. This will help in managing the diversity at the workplace. It also assists in making sure that company does not practice any wring means to achieve success. On the negative side setting mission and vision tends to overburden the stakeholders to follow some specific norms for achieving higher growth.

Supply Chain Management: This theory advocates maintaining the flow of goods and services so that they can maintain the demand and supply chain. This involves movement, storage of work in process inventory as well as the final goods and products. This will help Amazon in managing the problem related to new regulations by Indian Government. A new investment in suppliers’ service will be done by the company in the coming years so as to reduce it by the use of SCM. 

Conclusion

There are many problems or challenges occur in the daily operations of the firm. It is the role of the managers within a firm to make sure that these problems does not have negative impact on the operations of the firm. Due to various kinds of reasons these problems pose both negative and positive impact on the society. There are various tools that are used by the managers so as to manage the impact and causes of these problems. They also take use of the various theories and concepts related to contemporary business management which can help in tackling these issues.

References

Adekola, A. and Sergi, B.S., (2016) Global business management: A cross-cultural perspective. Routledge. pp. 16-20

Bookboon. (2011) How globalisation affects business. [Online]. Available at: https: https://bookboon.com/blog/2011/10/how-globalization-affects-business/. [Accessed on: 9^th March 2018].

Chanchani, M. (2011) With clarity in FDI rules, Amazon will invest more: Amit Agarwal, Amazon India. [Online]. Available at: https: https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/opinion/interviews/with-clarity-in-fdi-rules-amazon-will-invest-more-amit-agarwal-amazon-india/articleshow/52285116.cms. [Accessed on: 14^th March 2018].

David, F.R., (2011) Strategic management: Concepts and cases. Pearson/Prentice Hall. pp. 130-164.

Goetsch, D.L. and Davis, S.B., (2014) Quality management for organizational excellence. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson. pp. 20-27

Heizer, J., (2016) Operations Management, 11/e. Pearson Education India. pp. 67-69

Jeston, J. and Nelis, J., (2014) Business process management. Routledge. pp. 1-7

Johnson, M.P., (2015) Sustainability management and small and medium?sized enterprises: Managers' awareness and implementation of innovative tools. Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, 22(5), pp.271-285.

Maylor, H., Blackmon, K. and Huemann, M., (2016) Researching business and management. Palgrave. pp. 4-18

Pappas, G. and Cannon, J., Optimum Outcomes LLC, (2011) Business management tool. U.S. Patent 7,945,472.

Stark, J., (2015) Product lifecycle management. In Product Lifecycle Management (Volume 1) (pp. 1-29). Springer, Cham.

Storbacka, K., (2011) A solution business model: Capabilities and management practices for integrated solutions. Industrial Marketing Management, 40(5), pp.699-711.

Van Der Aalst, W.M., La Rosa, M. and Santoro, F.M., (2016) Business process management. pp. 2-6

Wheelen, T.L. and Hunger, J.D., (2011) Concepts in strategic management and business policy. Pearson Education India. pp. 42-87

Wheelen, T.L., Hunger, J.D., Hoffman, A.N. and Bamford, C.E., (2017) Strategic management and business policy. Pearson. pp. 10-23