Assessment 3: Group Presentation And Essay.

Contextual Factors

You will work on this presentation and report task as a group. You will be required to show understanding and application of the materials presented in weeks 9-11. Once completed, you will be required to record your presentation as a group, and have one member of the group submit your video file and powerpoint presentation file through the Assessment 2 link on Moodle.

Distance students

You will complete this task in the same manner as on campus students, working as a group, and recording your presentation using videoconferencing software like Zoom.

Policies and Procedures for Assessment

You should familiarise yourself with the following policies and procedures.

• Assessment and examination policy and procedures
• Assessment of Coursework Policy
• Assessment of Coursework Principles
• Assessment of Coursework Procedures

You can also find useful information pertaining to assessment submission and support services on the CQU website:

The School of Business and Law generally uses the APA (Author/date) style of referencing. More information on the styles used by various schools can be found.

Applying for assignment submission extensions should be done through the assignment extension system. 

Contacting Teaching Staff

During the course, you should initially contact your class facilitator to answer any queries related to the course that you may have. Contact details for local teaching staff can be found on the Moodle course website. Distance students should contact the course coordinator with any questions regarding the course, its content, and assessments.

If your class facilitator cannot fully answer the query, or it is of a personal nature, all students can contact the Course Coordinator, Dr Geoffrey Chapman.

Student Contact

The University allocates every student an individual email address, the format of which is [email protected] (e.g. [email protected]). This is the official email address that the university will use for all email correspondence. You can access your student email account through.

You are requested (and expected) to check your official email address on a frequent and consistent basis (at least once weekly, but ideally more often). You are also encouraged to review the new Student Email Principles university policy relating to email communication at which has been introduced to ensure all course and program updates are received. Regular student access to email is required for this course. Regular student access to the Internet is also required for this course. Students are expected to follow a self-directed study schedule which meets the required deadlines.

Student use of the course website is mandatory. This is provided through Moodle MGMT20144 uses the Moodle site extensively. If you have difficulty logging into Moodle sites, please contact IT Helpdesk on (07) 4930 9233 or 1300 666 620, Monday to Friday between 7.30 am to 5.30 pm. 

About the organization

Assessment 3 – Group Presentation and Report Demonstrating Contextual Knowledge Due date: Monday 5^th February (Week 12)

Weighting:          30% Length:Presentation: 15-20 minutes

Referencing:       Author-Date Style (APA)
Objectives
This assessment item relates to course learning outcomes numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6.
Purpose
This is a group assessment task in which students will examine critical issues related to business and management context. The purpose of the task is to assist you in gaining a greater understanding of the internal contextual factors that impact on a business and the way that decisions are made in an organisation, as well as to build your skills in working collaboratively with others.

Before starting this assessment please read the marking criteria (available on Moodle) and refer to other resources provided on the Moodle site for this course.

Description

Your group will take the role of a team of consultants presenting to the CEO of the organisation you have been allocated. Your group will be giving a short presentation that outlines a key contextual factor in relation to the organisation, and gives clear recommendations for how the organisation based on this contextual factor.

As Masters students, you are required to engage in research as per the Australia Quality Framework (AQF) guidelines. Two specific requirements need to be considered. 1. Students need to demonstrate “a body of knowledge that includes the understanding of recent developments in a discipline and/or area of professional practice, and 2. Students must demonstrate "knowledge of research principles and methods applicable to a field of work and/or learning”.

This unit has a number of required weekly readings in terms of academic texts, journals and business publications that represent the appropriate body of knowledge and recent developments referred to by the AQF. In order to demonstrate the ability to engage in appropriate research, students should read and utilise these texts and journals and publications. As Masters students, you are expected to research beyond this minimum standard through additional texts, journals and studies to demonstrate an ability to engage in independent research.

Details

Your group will take on the role of a team of consultants tasked with helping an organisation to improve their business, with a specific focus on one key contextual factor. Your group will be allocated an organisation, and you can then choose one of the following contextual factors to focus on:

• Governance, OR
• Innovation and Entrepreneurship, OR
• Knowledge Management and e-Commerce

Your group will prepare a 15-20 minute presentation that outlines the contextual factor, and provides clear recommendations for how the organisation could utilise this factor to improve their business. Your presentation should also demonstrate that these recommendations are well justified.

The marking criteria is also provided on the Moodle site, however, is also shown here for convenience. Your assessment will be marked based on how well it addresses the following areas: 
Students are to demonstrate knowledge of the subject matter by:

• Defining relevant terms, theories and concepts presented in Topic 9, 10 or 11 (5 marks).
• Utilising the specific contextual factor, explaining key details and assessing its impact on the relevant business organisation (5 marks)
• Displaying an ability to develop appropriate recommendations to improve the performance of the business organisation (5 marks).
• Developing a concise and structured presentation with introduction, main presentation, conclusion and recommendations (5 marks).
• Effectively using audio visual and verbal communication delivered within the allocated time to expected professional standards (5 marks)
• Demonstrating a breadth and quality of research by using a minimum of 12-16 academic sources referenced in the APA style (2 marks).
• Collaborating and working effectively as a member of a team (3 marks).

These are the minimum requirements as outlined in the marking criteria. However, students should note that satisfactorily meeting the minimum requirements will typically only result in the minimum pass grade being awarded. Higher grades will be awarded for students that exceed these minimum requirements. See the marking criteria for further details.

Your attention is drawn to the University’s stated position on plagiarism. THE WORK OF OTHERS, WHICH IS INCLUDED IN THE ASSIGNMENT MUST BE ATTRIBUTED TO ITS SOURCE (a full list of references must be submitted as part of the assessment).

The external environment of a business is extremely complex It consists of a variety of players, which influence the business With the advent the digital era, parcel industry has been facing a variety of problems (Dalkir & Beaulieu, 2017).

This presentation will concentrate on :

Contextual factors 

definition and meaning Background of United Parcel services Application of Knowledge Management and E-commerce as a contextual factor on the chosen 

Contextual Factors

Contextual factors can be define as those characteristics of the environment which are related to the functioning of a business enterprise.Contextual Factors can be defined as certain elements of external environment that are important to the business.Contextual factors may relate to any area of the business which may lead to a problem in the business environment of a firm (Hislop, 2013).

These factors may include:

Governance Innovation and Entrepreneurship Knowledge Management and e-Commerce Contextual factors in the discussion In the presentation, the primary contextual factor with respect to which the company is being discussed is : Knowledge Management and E-commerce.

About the organization

United Parcel Services is an American  multinational package company which provides companies with supply chain management solutions (Jones & Sallis, 2013).  The company  is headquartered in Greater Atlanta in the United States. The company as found b James Casey in 1907.

Operations

The following services are offered by the company: United States Domestic Package International Package (Liebowitz & Frank, 2016).Supply Chain & Freight

Problems affecting UPS

Problems relating to the work load during the peak season:

During the peak season, especially Christmas, the company deals with increased number of packages which then leads to :

Elevated level of packages over a short period of time On time deliveries (Sultan, 2013). Dipping profit margins

Problems relating to Capital Spending

The second issue that the company has been facing is due to the increase in the online sales with the advent of e-commerce:

Ecommerce has caused: Increased pressure New infrastructure (Slack, 2015). Building Delivery capabilities  

Application of Knowledge Management.

Hence, the company has been facing problems with respect to the given areas: Unable to manage their information and resources carefully. They are unable to apply knowledge management in their system.They are not being able to cope up with the e-commerce sales with respect to increase in volume (Wheelen et al., 2017).The application of knowledge management and e-commerce will come handy in the given scenario.Knowledge management can be described as the creating, storing and continuously updating the knowledge base of the company to adapt to the environment.

Conclusion

Therefore, The company United Parcel Services has been in business almost for a century. It has been facing problems with respect to the increased volume of business due to e-commerce.The management has been unable to manage the information dissemination and the resources of the company

Recommendations

How to apply knowledge management and e-commerce into business? A good knowledge management program increases the productivity of the business, increases staff morale and delivers consistency.It involves People, Process, Technology and structure into the business organization (Barney & Hesterly ,2015).There is a 8 step recommendation plan to apply the factor in the organization to solve the various problems. These are :

Step 1: Establishing the Program Objectives

Step 2: Preparing for the Change

Step 3: High-Level Process Definition

Step 4: Determining and prioritizing the Technological Needs

Step 5: Measuring Current Status

Step 6: Forming an implementation road map

Step 7: Implementing the program

Step 8: Testing and improving the program of Knowledge Management.(Rothaermel, 2015).

Hence, if the United Parcel Service, takes these recommendations and implements the plan. It will achieve success.It may also hire useful and professional workforce to complement their plan.

References

Barney, J. B., & Hesterly, W. (2015). Strategic management and competitive advantage concepts and cases. Pearson.

Dalkir, K., & Beaulieu, M. (2017). Knowledge management in theory and practice. MIT press.

Hislop, D. (2013). Knowledge management in organizations: A critical introduction. Oxford University Press.

Home: UPS. (2018). Ups.com. Retrieved 1 February 2018,

Jones, G., & Sallis, E. (2013). Knowledge management in education: Enhancing learning & education. Routledge.

Liebowitz, J., & Frank, M. (Eds.). (2016). Knowledge management and e-learning. CRC press.

Rothaermel, F. T. (2015). Strategic management. McGraw-Hill Education.

Slack, N. (2015). Operations strategy. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Sultan, N. (2013). Knowledge management in the age of cloud computing and Web 2.0: Experiencing the power of disruptive innovations. International journal of information management, 33(1), 160-165.

Wheelen, T. L., Hunger, J. D., Hoffman, A. N., & Bamford, C. E. (2017). Strategic management and business policy. pearson.