Case Study

1. Illustrate the relationship between organisational goals, objectives, and policy and justify their contribution to the effective management of Scotia Airways.

Goal is the end of result the organization strives for. It is established specific, measurable, and observable end result, which has one or more time- targeted objectives. Objectives encourage action which means there is certain effort made in order to achieve the planned task. The words objective and goal are not easy to distinguish as they both stand for something that organization wants to attain. What makes them different is period of time they are set for and order they are set in. Goals always come as first and are set for longer term. Objectives are derived from the goal and are accomplish before the goal is reached. An organization takes an action towards objectives and then through objectives achieves a goal. According to what they are focused on we differentiate goals to several types, namely operational goals, consumer goals, product goals and secondary goals. Regarding to Scotia Airways, there are various types of goals found in the case study. As to the main goals, they have set a few such as: expansion and competition in a challenging market.

To accomplish this they have decided to set an ambitious programme, which stands for an objective. – “The investors in Scotia Airways have set an ambitious programme for expansion over the next 5 years to include long haul destinations.” “The airline operates scheduled flights, mainly targeting business and leisure travellers and aims to provide exceptional value for money, unparalleled comfort and convenience to its passengers, every time they are on board. Scotia Airways is the first airline to offer full business class services, but at prices that are equivalent to the economy class of its competitors.” These are goals related to meeting customer’s needs so called consumer goals and the airline meets them through its product – flights to various EU destinations, domestic flights services provided on board, etc. There are also secondary goals, which are not the main aims of organization. For example developing staff, and maintaining social and ethnical responsibilities. Secondary goals doesn’t directly affect products and services, but influence the right company’s operation.

When applied to Scotia Airways they set staff development and also maintaining good relationships with their stakeholders- suppliers and customers by establishing a range of suppliers and clients that are seen as the extended family. Policy is set of operating rules, principles and guidelines, which organizations adopt in order to reach their goals, determine decisions and activities. Through policies the behaviour of an organization is controlled and ensures that people, when following the policy, will act in a predictable way and in the best interest of the company. There is only one policy mentioned in the case study – wide ranging reward policies, however, there may be other policies used in the Scotia Airways as well. E.g. safe and healthy policy, cancelation and customer service policy, training policy, security policy and hygiene policy. To sum up there must be a working relationship among all three- goals, objectives and policies in order for managers to manage the organisation itself and its staff to create suitable conditions for a business to be prosperous.

2. Explain the nature of Open System Theory and apply it to Scotia Airways.

3. Identify the main differences between the formal and informal organisation

These two types of organisations are formed on the basis of relationships created in organisation- whether formal, or informal. Formal organization refers to an organization, which has certain rules and regulations, which must be followed by staff. Informal organization creates its own rules and regulations and doesn’t have pre- determined objectives and goals. A formal organisation is formed by its management and shown on the organisation chart. Its structure is well defined and all the employees and managers have their duties, responsibilities and create authority within a workplace. On the contrary, in informal organisation there are personal and social relationships and it is based on feelings or emotions. As it comes to rules and regulations in formal organisation, they are put in writing, written by a formal authority, which distinguish it from informal organisation, where there are no certain rules or regulation, or they are not officially written. There is also a difference in goals and objectives set within formal and informal organisation. The goals and objectives in formal organisation are carefully set and defined in order to achieve e.g. expansion, however, in informal organisation there is just the common interest and satisfaction, what gives the formal organization more stability to operate. Also, there are several benefits formal organization offers, such as financial benefits, travelling bonuses, health insurance, however, informal organisation only provide personal benefits.

In order for organisation to operate efficiently both types are required to be combined. They both help organisation to operate smoothly. Formal organisation originates from its structure, rules and regulations and informal organisation originates from formal one. There is certain position and authority given to managers and workers, but when working towards achievement, they interact among each other and create relationships within workplace. This is illustrated in the case study when mentioned: “The vast majority of staff have also remained with the business as it has grown through the years. A culture of trust has been emphasised and developed by both the management and workers and this has served to enhance the effectiveness, efficiency, and overall performance of the business.” , and finally, “A great deal of time and though has been invested in how best to promote social harmony and integration within workplace. The company is very much regarded as a family- style business.”

Executive Summary

This paper is based on a case study about Robert L. Crandall, who was an American Airlines chairman during 1985 to 1998. He had made numerous innovative systems into American Airlines while he was the CEO of it. He is recognised with his innovative thinking and work habits. He had come out with new labour relation concept. Moreover, He had implemented the two-tier wage structure, during the period where the others airline were terminating large quantity of employees. He had asked the union to reduce the wage rate for new workers, while the salary of the existing workers will remained as same. Crandall also developed the automated ticketing and reservation system with IBM. The others innovative creation of Crandall was Super Saver fares where allowed to filled empty seats and unpopular fairs.

The management is the art of getting things done through people with effectively and efficiently. “Effectively” means to achieve the goals that set by an organisation. “Efficiently” means to attain the organisational goals. In other words, “efficiently” means to use minimum resources such as money, people and resources. Good managers will try to balance both of the objectives. There is one of the most basic management roles which are planning, organising, leading and controlling. It is also known as management function. The first process in management function is planning. Planning is to set the goals of an organisation and decide how to achieve them. After setting goals, the managers need to organise and arrange the tasks, people and other resources to complete the work. That is what organising means. Next step is leading. The managers have to motive, guide, to influence their employees to work hard to fulfil the final goals of the organisation. Controlling is the last step of the management role. It is to make sure that the routines are on the right path with the goals. If the performance is in an opposite way, the managers will have to take action to correct it. There are three level of management which is also known as the Management Pyramid. Commonly, there are four levels in the management pyramid. The uppermost level in this pyramid is top-level executives (managers).

The middle managers will below the top managers, followed by first-line managers. Non-managerial personnel are the normal employees who come from different department of an organisation such as marketing department, account and financial department, production department, human resource department and others. Different management level will play different roles in an organisation. The top managers usually determine the long-term decision about the general of organisation. They will initiate objective and arrange on strategies, policies that could realize the goals successfully. Middle managers will implement the policies and plan of the top managers. Middle managers will supervise and organize the activities for first-line managers in various departments. They are the people who will delicate the order of top managers to first-line managers. First-line managers are the head of department. Normally, the first-line managers are the one who direct contact with the customers. The first line mangers will direct daily routine to non managerial personnel. They will set short-term functional diagnosis and guide the non managerial personnel. According to the Mintzberg’s theory, which founded by Henry Mintzberg in 1971; managerial roles divided into three categories, which are interpersonal roles, informational roles and decisional roles. Interpersonal roles are to interact with people inside or outside of an organisation. The three interpersonal roles include figurehead, leader, and liaison. Informational roles is the most important part in the manager’s job, because Mintzberg believe that informational handling will affects the decision of a managers (Kinicki & William, 2013).

Informational roles are to receive and interact or implement the information. Monitor, Disseminator and spoke person are the informational roles. Usually the top managers will concentrate more in decisional roles. Managers use information to determine the decision on solving problems or take benefits from opportunity. Entrepreneur, resource allocator, disturbance handler and negotiator are parts of the decisional roles.

To answer the first question in the case study, Crandall performed all of the managerial functions. The most and frequently managerial function used by Crandall is planning, and then follow by organising and leading. As a topexecutive of American Airlines, he had to think about the overall organisational long term goals. Moreover, Crandall also needed to decide on how to achieve the organisation’s goals. How many percent of profit should American Airlines increase by this year? What is the targeted profit of this year? How to increase the efficiency of operating process? For example, Crandall had enhanced a system, called as SABRE (semi automatic business research environment). SABRE is improved from automatic ticketing and reservation systems. By increasing the accuracy and efficiency of the whole ticketing booking system, Crandall had invented another great innovation, which is known as Super Savers Fares. This Super Savers Fares will reduce fares available for reservations in advanced of flight in significant numbers. SABRE keeps accurate records of the seats available and the sales records. Later, American Airlines had started the first “frequent flier” program in the airline industry, in order to build customers loyalty to from the frequent customers (Case study, 2012).

To make use all of the functions in SABRE, American Airlines also rent the SABRE terminals to the travel agencies. In return, American Airlines receive more customers. In addition, travel agencies will pay rental fees to American Airlines. As a result, SABRE had committed more that 3000 million and produced a profit 150 million for American Airlines in1985. Organising and leading were also performed frequently by Crandall. He will arrange his time (time management). As shown in case study, he would wake up at 5 a.m. to have some exercise before he reached his office by 7a.m. He would also made weekends meetings with his subordinates. He try balance his life style between his working journey and health. He is a very good leader; he will praise the subordinates when they did well in their task. He would also spend time to listen to the subordinates. For second question, as a very successful top executive, Crandall had used the Mintzberg’s entire roles framework. Minztberg roles had generally divided into three roles, which are informational roles, interpersonal roles and decisional roles. After analyze the Crandall’s Job as a manager, I find out that Crandall mostly use decisional roles followed by interpersonal roles.

Top managers are the one who always make the long term decisional goals for the company. Crandall use decisional roles frequently. There are four roles in Decisional roles which are entrepreneur, disturbance handler, resource allocator and negotiator. Crandall had created several of innovation during his work in American Airlines. For instance, he had created the two-tier wage structure in 1983. Two-tier wage is to reduce unemployment rate in United State during the high unemployment period. In this example, Crandall has shown disturbance handler role. He found out a method to resolve the lower costs by two-tier wage structure. In order to get agreement or support from the Union, Crandall had to use negotiator roles to negotiate with the union. Crandall needed to allocate the resources to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of American Airline. By introducing two-tier wage structure, he could lower the wage costs and assigned the money to invest on others functions at the same time.

Even though the case study did not show enough evidence of Crandall in interpersonal roles, but in logically, he did figurehead role when there is new ceremony or important visitors came in. in leadership roles, he would “praise his subordinates when it is appropriate” (“Motovation – Research Papers – Ynpeck”, n.d.). In liaison roles, he had worked with people that were outside the working unit. He rent the SABRE system to the travel agencies as to increase sales and also revenue. In informational roles, Crandall had to monitor the direction of the whole organisation to achieve the organisation’s goals. Both of the monitor role and disseminator role were used by Crandall to give direction to the subordinates. Crandall always needed to give speeches to the subordinates as well as the media.

For the last question, in my opinion, Crandall needed conceptual skills and human skills to perform his functions and roles. Conceptual skill is the capability to think analytically, to picture an organisation as an entire and identify how the parts work together (Kinicki & Williams, 2013). Top managers always need to resolve complicated issue. To them, conceptual skills is a must, Crandall needed to think and analyzed the problem whenever it is happened. As illustration, he thought of the two-tier wage structure and used SABRE for created huge profit for American Airlines. He needed to keep updated on news in the world and airlines industry to manage the company. He also needed to take precaution in the future problems that may faced by American Airlines.

Secondly, human skill is needed for Crandall, where all of us know a good managers need to communicate with people inside or outside of an organisation. Human skills are the ability to work successfully in collaboration with others for the purpose of getting things done. In the context of case study, there is one part which can illustrated that he had make use of the human skills, “His work habits have been part of his tremendous success, …is his understand people” (“Motovation – Research Papers – Ynpeck”, n.d.). He worked well in coordinate with his subordinates, he was willing to “listen both side of the story” of his subordinates. He was never mean to praise his subordinates, he praise them when they work appropriate. As the CEO of American airlines, he had to be trusted by his subordinates, as well as the stakeholders. He was the one who represented the whole American Airlines. Human skill is important to Crandall because he needed to interact with the subordinates, the investors and the stakeholders. Apart from that, he needed to convince his subordinates and made them to achieve the goals.

References

1. Kinicki, A., & Williams, B. K. (2013). Management: A practical introduction. (6th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill/Irwin.
2. Motovation – Research Papers – Ynpeck. (n.d.). Free Term Papers, Research Papers, Essays, Book Notes | StudyMode.com. Retrieved from http://www.studymode.com/essays/Motovation-958585.html

David Chicago, special thanks for believing in this project from the start to this far. Cannot forget my second supervisor, Mr.. Sammie. You have been a great role model to me throughout my course. Thank you for your support. I bestow your guidance and encouragement above and beyond the call of duty. I’m indebted to my family for all their support. May the grace of the Lord Jesus be with you, my love to all of you in Christ Jesus, Amen. Very special thanks also to all my classmates and my friends Pascal, Antonym and Denis for expert advice and ‘the cold hard truth’ over the project idea.

Abstract The way notices are being communicated in various organizations is turning digital as opposed to the traditional method of sticking posters all-over. This is implemented best with the use of the thriving mobile technology where authorized people can receive notices in their mobile phones via Short Message Service (SMS), email or notifications on their social network accounts. However, a great number of organizations have not yet realized this application of technology and are still working on traditional platforms such as posters, messengers etc.

This is largely because of lack of a platform that meets the needs of both organizations as well as individuals with regard to communication of notices. Also, in most of these organizations, the notice board system(s) has had various problems such as: congestion of outdated information such that one cannot locate useful information easily; some notices are plucked down/removed before every intended person has had a chance to read them etc.

This project aims at offering a solution to overcome the current desperate approaches through developing an electronic notice board system to help organizations such as Mom university communicate their notices effectively. The distinctive features of the end-system will convey the deployment of CIT and its implications within organizations such as Mom University. The following, among other objectives were adopted for the reject: analyze the current notice board system(s), identify the challenges in communication of notices, and develop SMS, email, and later social networks- driven, highly customizable e-notice board platform for mass use.

The project was significant to Mom University, other organizations and the general public, because based on literature review, only a few organizations in the world such as Distillates of Nigeria and Firepower Ministries International (FM) in the Northeast of America; have implemented this technology in regard to communication of notices. Research was based on a case study in Mom University Main Campus (MUMS), School of Information Sciences. This case study has been chosen because within MUMS, all schools, clubs and other groups of people use posters or banners in order to communicate notices to their members.

The study will target around 50 respondents of which a sample size of 15 was included in the study. Simple random sampling and judgmental strategy methods were used; Main tools of data collection included interviews questionnaires and observations. The selection of these tools are preferred because they will guide the nature of data to be collected, mime availability as well as guiding the objectives of the study. Data collected was examined, categorized and tabulated into various frequency tables and percentages to help in the analysis of information.

This document focuses from the perspective of teachings from class 1 of Marketing. The teachings of the class 1 are: Value for the customers, customer satisfaction, marketing approach, profit making at a superior service and building relationship with customer Singapore airlines goal is service excellence at a profit. Service excellence is achieved by providing a value for the money in general. But, Singapore airlines tried to go beyond the value for the money. Value for the customers/Customer satisfaction:

Singapore airlines created a product with certain benefits and they continuously seek feedback from their front line and customers and improve the product based on the feedback. Once the product is established they don’t stop and be satisfied by that product. Instead they continue to innovate new products to replace the old products and look for ways to provide these new products without a heavy price increase. This increases customer’s satisfaction and value by not increasing the cost. Hence, they strive for increasing the customer satisfaction by keeping the tabs on the costs.

The cost control objective is achieved by providing managers an opportunity to work in other departments. The managers acquire the understanding of the overall functioning of the company. They are able to bring new ideas and new perspective to the table. Marketing approach: Singapore airlines clearly use a combination of market driving and market driven marketing schemes. First, they employed the market driving marketing approach and innovated a service product anticipating the needs of the customers by observing and understanding the changing lifestyles of the people.

Once the product is introduced they improved the product by employing the market driven approach where they seek the feedback from several quarters. Profit making at a superior service and building relationship with customer: Service standardization vs. Flexible service i. e. personalization Standard service provides for consistency in service. Singapore airlines while trained the staff to be able to provide a standardized service also drilled into the staff to be flexible and think out of the box or on the fly to come up with acts that provide a personalized/need basis service.

This type of delta service approach on top of the standard service makes the customers extremely happy and increases the customer satisfaction levels. This type of approach also doesn’t cost too much to the airlines. This will make the customers to prefer Singapore airlines as their choice to fly again and again. Not only that these happy customers act as marketing agents as they go gaga over Singapore airlines with their families, friends and colleagues. In all of these things, the important thing is creating a training frame work and training to the staff. The training frame work continues to evolve.

One other thing that is extra-ordinary about the Singapore airlines thinking towards providing service is not just try to excel within the airlines industry but also across the service as a whole. This will make Singapore airlines to learn from other industries within the service sector by analyzing and observing them. Singapore airlines in it’s quest for service excellence at a profit defied the existing models in service literature. This constant look out to innovate new products and improve existsing products keeps Singapore airlines ahead of the competition.

Amazon.com is one of the biggest online retailers in the world. Jeff Bezos, the founder and the current CEO of Amazon.com, is the talent leader with many experiences in various kinds of fields as computer programming, finance, and international markets. Its products are diversified categories can meet the customers’ needs such as books, music, toys, apparel, electronics. Besides, it also supplies some services including partnerships, shops, online auctions, and web services.

Customers’ services of the Amazon.com are relatively good. For instance, the A to Z guarantee is considered as a program which protects the customer rights and helps the buyers feel safe. There are many payment methods that customers can choose for their transactions with fast and effective distribution. To do transaction more easily, Amazon.com has invested in technology that plays a significant role in every company to create more competitive advantages than the other competitors. With the attractive marketing strategies through multimedia as internet, television, print, and radio, Amazon.com draws a large number of customers and users. Company has two main segments including domestic and international market. The domestic market focuses on North America. International market focuses on Canada, Japan, France, Germany, and United Kingdom.

In management strategy, Bezos has cooperated with the other online retailers to advertise and sell its product instead of only running its own web site before. Amazon Company is focusing on the two significant targets. The first is that it promotes the business in online auctions to expand the market share and attract the participation of the customers. The second, doing business to business exchange is developed to get more and more profits in the future.

KEY LEARNING

The Amazon’s strategic policies emphasize the management strategy, marketing strategy, and policies of customer services and payment methods. Among these policies, the .com are something that focused significantly on customer services, especially payment practices and so many creative ways to supply what its customers need. Amazon.com has become an online shopping mall that is worth reliable. Besides, the success of the company has also based on partnership and affiliation agreements to broaden its goods and introduce its brand name to browsers. Taking online market share is difficult, but keeping the customers is much more different.

STRATEGIC ISSUES

Jeff Bezos, the founder and current CEO of the Amazon.com, focuses on a management style called “no delegation of power”. It means that he does not delegate powers to another one at a high level. Instead, he participates in almost management processes. Bezos checks all press releases with his quotation carefully. If he does not receive the answer from a subordinate, he will make an appointment and converse with him/her directly. However, this strategy increases the resignation rate of top management of the Amazon.com. It is higher than one of other companies. Within 2 years, there were 20 among 50 top managers left company.

MARKETING STRATEGY

Amazon.com introduced the new way for purchasing and shopping through the Internet if possible. This marketing way did not spend advertising expenses. However, in order to increase the concern of customers and expand its brand in the new market. Amazon.com had spent a very large of number of money on advertising by Television, Radio, and Print. Unfortunately, these ways were suspended because it took a lot of money while Amazon.com sold products with low prices and free shipping. Amazon decided to reduce expenses in particularly advertising.

INFORMATION SECURITY

Amazon has the strong investments in the technologies. This company creates and uses the patent technologies to run its business. This company uses the encryption technology with the Secure Sockets Layer software or SSL software that is the best software to ensure the security of the online transactions at this time. However, with the rapid development of the Internet and technologies today, there are some potential risks and mistakes that can take place.

Some specialists find out that the users can take the cookies for their private purposes through some web sites have the use of SSL software but in the unsecured condition. For example, when customers want to buy items on Amazon, they will have to use the credit card. Maybe it will be the opportunity for the information thieves to steal the records of credit card holders. Michael Zusman, a senior consultant, said that “The way we use SSL today is flawed” (Greene, 2008).

CUSTOMER SERVICES

Online purchasing is becoming the popular shopping way because of its usefulness such as convenience, and saving time. However, like many other online retail web sites, Amazon.com has some limitations that may cause the reduction of customer’s beliefs. The items as high technology products can become old- fashioned after some days if they are shipped lately. The Amazon.com fixes the price of a product that customers are equivocal and hard to check. The customer’s complaints are seldom resolved. The design, color, features and quality of online products are often received the reactions of consumers when it is quite different from its image on the internet.

COMPETITIVE ISSUES

Amazon’s competitors are both offline and online. It includes the largest online competitor, eBay, Google, Yahoo, and multi-channel retailers such as Wal- Mart, Sear. Amazon.com and eBay are the largest online retailers in the world. eBay has become a competitor of Amazon when it decides to sell the products which have fix prices instead of online auction. To enter the international market not only in the United State but also in the other developed countries as Japan, Germany, Amazon has a problem in competition when it enters the France market. The France government considers that free shipment strategy of Amazon has violated the law of this country about dumping because of its free shipment project. Amazon’s products are sold in the price that is lower than other both offline and online retailers by five percents.

On the other hand, physical offline stores are also the competitors that Amazon.com and the others can not be uncaring because many people still consider that they would rather pay more money for the product that they want to buy to get the satisfaction about the product without waiting shipment than buy through the internet. Furthermore, in the areas that have no information technology, Amazon.com-online retail website indirectly creates the blank in the market and it’s also advantages for offline merchandisers.

The last competitive issue of Amazon.com is when Google creates the largest e- bookstore in the world. With this project, readers can have more convenient conditions to approach the value materials that they do not have to pay money for their reading. This makes Amazon.com to face the big threat because it is one of the biggest online retail website selling books through the internet.

ENVIRONMENT SCAN

Jeff Bezos shows that his strategic vision about founding Amazon.com is judicious. His style is also the specific style of Amazon.com: the flexibility. With the decentralization method, giving a preferential treatment for the talents, and using technology in business, Bezos makes the Amazon legend and create new business model in technological and scientific economy. Amazon.com establishes a prize named “Just do it” for it employees. The winners are the employees who have considerable achievement in contributing wholeheartedly to the company without the CEO’s approval. The purpose of Bezos is that he wants every employee can take the initiative in all work.

Building a storage system is not an easy decision of Amazon.com. With 50 million dollars per one, the building and operating a warehouse is very expensive. However, when visiting a warehouse of Amazon.com, you can realize that it is quite different from tradition warehouses. Its warehouses are applied high technology and require enciphered codes to operate. In fact, when Internet became easier to use in 1995, Amazon used Java, a programming language released by Sun Microsystems, to run interactive web pages, web sites. Nowadays, one of the biggest advantages of the Amazon.com is the possibility of inventory management. Besides, it undertakes all e-commerce businesses of the other retailers such as Toys R Us and Target as a subcontractor.

Unlike traditional retailers, Bezos expands his corporation with competitors instead of finding a way to win them. Amazon.com is now selling many products of other retailers on its own web site. At the first time, it met the objections from many sides. However, after implementing, the success of the Amazon.com is unbelievable. The reason is that it has a very effective storage system. When selling products and paying commission to other retailers, the percentage of profit of Amazon.com is as high as the percentage of profit is when selling directly to consumers. In addition, the Amazon.com does not pay for advertising expenses. It helps to not only save money but also create the loyalty and belief of customers.

CASE:

1. MAI’s proposal directly gives Steve the conditional probabilities he needs (e.g., probability of a successful venture given a favorable survey). Although the information from Iverstine and Kinard (I&K) is different, we can easily use Bayes’ theorem to on I&K information to compute the revised probabilities. As such, does not need any additional information from I&K.
2. Steve’s problem involves three decisions. First, should he contract the services of an outside research agency? Second, if a survey is warranted, should he employ MAI or I&K? Third, in any case, should the new product line be introduced?

• If Steve decides not to conduct a survey, the decision is to introduce the product with an EMV of $700,000 [= (0.6)($1,500,000) + (0.4)(-$500,000)].
• If Steve decides to conduct the survey, he has to choose between MAI and I&K. If he chooses MAI for the survey, the best choice is to introduce the product irrespective of whether the survey results are favorable or unfavorable. The EMV is $800,000 if the survey results are favorable, while the EMV is only $200,000 if the survey results are unfavorable. The overall EMV of hiring MAI is $500,000 [= (0.5)($800,000) + (0.5)($200,000)].
• If Steve chooses I&K for the survey, the best choice is to introduce the product if survey results are favorable, for an EMV of $940,000. On the other hand, if the survey results are unfavorable, the best decision is to not introduce the product for an EMV of -$300,000 (the cost of the survey). The overall EMV of hiring MAI is $468,800 [= (0.62)($940,000) + (0.38)(-$300,000)].

Comparing these alternatives, Steve should not hire either firm to do the survey. He should simply choose to introduce the produce right away.

ALLIANCE BOOTS PLC: INTRODUCTIION: Alliance Boots is a leading international pharmacy-led health and beauty group serving a wide range of products and services to customers over 100 years in the UK. We are trying to identify how the Boots works internally and externally to reach its goal. We are also trying to find out how the Boots motivates its employees to be productive. We will also discuss its organizational structure and design to communicate each other function of the organization. We will discuss its appraisal system and organizational record keeping.

We will also find out about its brand image to the stakeholder. Customers are at the heart of their business and they are devoted to providing extraordinary customers and patients care by offering innovative products ‘Only at Boots’ with exceptional values. People are their strength and tell us that Boots is a excellent place to work. They always aim to be the employers of choice by attracting and retaining the most talented and passionate people. BACK GROUND OF THE COMPANY: Boots had established its roots in the mid-19th century by John Boot, an agricultural worker, at Nottingham, in the UK.

He opened a small herbalist store on Goose Gate in 1849. After John’s death in 1860, his widow, Mary, continued trading, with the help of her young son, Jesse, who became a full partner when he was 21. The store continued to thrive. In 1877, Jesse took sole control of the Boots. In 1920, he sold Boots to the United Drug Company of America. In 1933, the United Drug Company sold its holding in Boots to a group of British financiers led by John Boot, Jesse’s son. Under John’s chairmanship, the first overseas store opened in New Zealand in 1936; key brands No7 and Soltan was both launched in the 1930s.

He also continued his parents’ tradition of staff welfare – improving working conditions, reducing hours and introducing pensions for all employees. More recent decades, the introduction of successful brands such as 17 cosmetics and Botanics and new business ventures such as Boots Opticians are more popular to the customers. A new chapter in Boots history started on 31st July, 2006with the merger with Alliance Unichem, to become part of Alliance Boots, an international pharmacy-led health and beauty group.

Their product and services are Health and beauty, Personal care, Cosmetics and toiletries, Baby care, Dental & health care, OTC and Prescription medicines, Perfumes, and Skin care. (www. bized. co. uk,) MISSION: Their mission is to be the world’s leading pharmacy-led health and beauty group. They seek to develop their core business activities of pharmacy-led and beauty retailing and pharmaceutical wholesaling and distribution across the world and become a significant player in many leading international markets. PURPOSE: Their purpose is to deliver products that help people look and feel their best.

VALUES: They believe in making a difference for the well being of the communities they serve. The core values are described below. * PARTNERSHIP: It includes respect, understanding and working together. They create and build value through partnerships and alliances, inside and outside the business. * TRUST: The essence of the way they do business. People trust because they deliver on their promises. * SERVICES: They hold high standards of care and service for customers and their people. * ENTREPRENEURSHIP: They are innovators, seeking new challenges and having a winning entrepreneurship. SIMPLICITY: They are proud of being lean and efficient, uncomplicated and easy to do business fairly. (www. allianceboots. com) AT A GLANCE: * Operating over 20 countries. * It has115, 000 employees. * Operating more than 3,250 health and beauty retail stores. * Dispensing more than 245 million items each year. * 1500 Stores in the UK and Irish Republic. * Serving 420 million customers (pa). * Operating over 360 pharmaceutical wholesale distribution centers. * Cash generated from operation ? 1130 million. * Revenue is ? 22. 5 billion. * EBITDA is ? 1,360 million. * Trading Profit is ? 1,074 million. www. allianceboots. com) BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT OF THE BOOTS: The organizational environment consists of internal and external environment. Alliance Boots operates in highly attractive markets with potential for significant long term growth. The Company expects to increase life expectancy and product innovation to continue to drive demand for prescription medicines and related healthcare services. At the same time, they believe that a growing customer focus on personal well being will drive demand for health and beauty consumer products and related services. Fig: The Organizational Environment of Boots:

Legal Environmental Technological Political Social Economic External Environment Communication External Environment ————————————————- Innovation Strategy Change Internal Environment (Writer’s observation) INTERNAL ENVIRONMENT: In order to sustain an organization, it is necessarily to adapt internal structures, process and behaviors to enable to cope with complexity and the pace of external change. It is concerned about organization’s strategy, teamwork, management, leadership style, working practices, empowerment, employment patterns, etc. * STRATEGY:

Johnson et al (2008) say that strategy is the direction and scope of an organization over the long term, which achieves advantage in a changing environment with the fulfilling stakeholder expectation. The Boot’s strategy is to focus on its two business activities of pharmacy-led health and beauty retailing and pharmaceutical wholesaling and distribution, while increasingly developing and internationalizing product brands to create a third dimension. * CHANGE: According to Mullins (2007), every change becomes welcomed as an opportunity for increasing efficiency and building new organizational success.

Boots increased female participation in the workforce and growth of services. It also changed the sophisticated information technology where cognitive skill demands. It has created fast flat and flexible organizational design. The company plans to further increasing the number of Boots stores through new openings and pharmacy acquisitions and have also just commenced a trial with Waitrose to sell selective product ranges in each other’s stores. * INNOVATION: According to Mullins, innovations arise from technological advancements, new processes, and improvements in all major areas of organizational activity.

Boots concentrates in expanding their core business in existing markets, continuing to deliver productivity improvements and other cost savings, pursuing growth opportunities in selective new high growth markets. Boots is always launching products in the new markets. * COMMUNICATION: Boots always focus on customers/patients needs and services. Their communication and distribution channel is well updated which improves productivity. EXTERNAL ENVIRONMENT: The external environment is the pressures of the organization from outside that can influence and affect the performance of the organization.

The significant environmental pressures are the PESTEL which locates for Political, Economic, Social, Technology, Environmental, and Legal factors. * POLITICAL: The political environment of a country predisposes by the political organizations such as philosophy of political parties, ideology of government, legislation, taxation, employment law, trade union policy and activities. Boots are also affected for political decision in the UK. The UK government is cutting the employees from most of the sectors. As a result, people will have no enough money to spend on health and beauty. ECONOMIC: It is mainly concern about total GDP of the country as well as consumers’ expenditures and disposable income. It is also included currency exchange rates, tax regime, wage rates, raw material prices etc. Boots is a multinational company. So, during recession, UK’s currency rates fell down and Boots lost lots of money to exchanged currency from other country to UK. * SOCIAL: It concerns about demographic trends, lifestyle preferences, social values, distribution of incomes, education and health, labor mobility, attitude to work, discrimination trends, skills availability, etc.

Boots never discriminates any employee. Boots always tries to adopt different life style in different countries, languages, traditions, people expectations etc. * TECHNOLOGICAL: The technology adopted by the industries determines the type and quality of goods and services to be produced and the type and quality of plant and equipment to be used. The technological environment influences the business in terms of investment in technology. It refers to the innovations of IT, nanotechnology, new production methods and process, level of expenditure on R&D by organization’s rivals etc.

Boots uses to invest more money on research and development of its cosmetics and medicines. ENVIRONMENTAL: It links to the ‘Green issue’ of the environment, reducing toxic emissions, pollution, spills, hazard prevention, disposable of wastes or rubbishes etc. Boots dedicates to reducing the carbon intensity of their business and continued to launch specific carbon reduction initiatives. For example, Boots UK launched in August 2009 an awareness campaign aimed at reducing energy use in its retail stores.

In February 2010, Boots UK received the Carbon Trust Standard in recognition of recent achievements in reducing its ‘carbon footprint’. Over 50% of the waste, they create as a Group recycles. * LEGAL: It deals with international law, legislation and taxation, human rights concerns, local regulation. It also concerns international trade agreements, employment and safety law, and product safety issues etc. Alliance Boots operates in regulated markets. It could be adversely affected by changes to existing regulation, new regulation such as licensing regimes for pharmacies, prescription processing regimes. www. boots. com) ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURES OF BOOTS: Director Director Director Finance Director Chief Executive Health & Beauty Chief Executive Legal Chief Executive Health & Beauty CEO Chief Executive Pharmaceutical Wholesale Division Chairman of the Board Director Director Director Director Chief Finance Director (www. theofficialboard. com) Organizational structure is the formal system of task and reporting relationships that controls, coordinates and motivates employees so that they work together to achieve organizational goals. (Buchanan and Huczynski, 2004. P. 874)

It is the pattern of relationships among positions in organizations and among members of the organization. Structure makes possible application of the process of management and creates a framework of orders and commands through which the activities of the organization can be planned, organized, directed and controlled. Mullins (2007, p. 564) Alliance Boots has a flat organizational chart. In the structure, we can see that there are eight directors including Board of Chairman and non executive directors. Under Board of Chairman, there are six Chief Executives who are responsible to report to Chairman.

All the Executives are the same level in decision making. This structure helps Boots to do better communication between top management and employees as well as increased team spirit too. Hence, we can see less bureaucratic power which helps to make decision easily. It also improves sound coordination and timely passing information among the different department within the Boots which increases productivity. This flat structure is mostly helpful to do faster responses to changing condition. This flat structure has demerits in Boots.

Here, workers may have more managers for one job which creates confusions. It is mostly helpful for a small organization but Boots is such a large organization, where it will have demerits. As a result, this will reduce the growth of the organization. (www. learnmanagement2. com) (www. blurtit. com) MOTIVATIONAL FRAMEWORK: MOTIVATIONAL Individual Colleagues The Manager Customers Organization FRAMEWORK (www. ashridge. org. uk) ORGANIZATION: The organization will provide the structure and processes such as performance management and reward schemes, training, interesting work.

In the organization, leaders and managers must earn the respect of others, create an appropriate working environment and provide opportunities for people to grow and develop. THE INDIVIDUAL: Individuals need to be more open about share values with colleagues and managers. Organizations need the accurate strategy and processes that make it abundantly clear that individuals have a responsibility for their own development. THE MANAGERS: The Boss provides a crucial role in the motivation process not only acting as a role model but valuing each of colleagues in a way that makes them feel motivated.

COLLEAGUES: Colleagues can play a crucial role in motivation at work. By sharing skill and ability, every employee will be motivated in the work place. THE CUSTOMERS: People will be motivated by feedback from both internal and external customers and clients. We should regularly review and share the results of feedback with staff. FACTORS AFFECTING EMPLOYEES PRODUCTIVITY: The proportion that measures the efficiency of the resources concerned in production of products and services is called productivity. It is also the ratio of inputs and outputs of the production. (www. ayushveda. om) The factors that affect the employee productivity are as follow: * TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT: If the employees are not trained properly in their particular job role, then the organization cannot get the benefit from the employees. Sometimes Boots cannot get enough time to schedule the training timetable. COMMUNICATION: There will be constant communication among top management, middle management and the employees. But sometimes there is miscommunication or take time to communicate within the Boots because of managers’ holiday, Internet break down etc. * WORK LIFE BALANCE:

If the husband or wife works together and there are kids, there will be a problem to match the time table. Boots gives priority to those families. * PAY AND BENEFITS: If the employees get under pay, a late payment, or wrong payment, then they will not be encouraged to perform better the job. * REWARD AND RECOGNATION: Sometimes employees are not rewarded for meritorious services which create employees opposition to complete the job. * WORKING ENVIRONMENT: If the working environment is not suitable for employees or the coordination and cooperation is lacking, the productivity will be low. EQUALITY AND DIVERSITY: If there is any discrimination, the productivity will decrease and employees will dissatisfy. Boots strictly follows the rules and regulation about equality. * OTHERS: There are few more factors which affect the productivity, such as poor management, slow decision taking, lack of trust, stress level, conflict, frustration, etc. WAYS OF MOTIVATING KEY EMPLOYEES IN BOOTS An organization has many attributes to its success one of which is motivation of staff of the organization.

Boots has various ways of motivating their workers leaving them satisfied which encourage them to go ahead and deliver. * TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT: Boots provides an online module and training for their staff. This enables them to fulfill their potential at work. The organization makes a significant investment in the development of a range of training. This helps new employees of the organization feel as part of the team and makes them more confident. This year, Boots put additional investment into developing their pharmacists and registered technicians supporting them with their continued professional development. DISCOUNT FOR STAFF PURCHASES: Employees get discounts for purchases on Boots and non-boots products. They obtain 12% discount on Non-boots products and 25% discount for boots products. Every employee, within a year gets double discounts for 2days, which means 25% and 50% for non-Boots and Boots products respectively. This makes them want to stay in the organization. * HEALTH INSURANCE: Boots believes that their responsibility is to look after their colleague’s health which will help them deliver better customer service.

This is particularly beneficial to the employees though this is not compulsory. It encourages them to stay with the organization hence longevity of service, intimate working knowledge and greater output. (www. boots. com) * RETAINING AND PROMOTION: The organization is decidedly particular about recruiting, retaining and promoting diverse employees in the organization. Therefore they strive for this through hard work and hence contribute enormously to the success of the organization. * ATTRACTIVE REMUNERATION: Salary is also another factor that encourages employees to work.

If they are well paid they feel like coming to work coupled with a enjoyable working environment at Boots, their employees get an increase in salary every year especially when the economy is stable or growing. * HEALTH AND SAFETY: Boots always provide the right equipment to do the job. All the training regarding health and safety provide every employee to protect them as well as customers. (www. allianceboots. com) APPRAISAL SYSTEMS OF BOOTS: As mentioned above Boots appraises its employees once a year. They are informed when they are going to be appraised and what is expected of them.

A form is given to each line manager for every employee just to tick the most suitable one. It describes the employees work performance. Feedback is given to employees, so they will know where to improve. The performance management cycle of Boots Plan for performance appraisal Informing employees about appraisal Feedback and working to achieve goal Performance appraisal of employees Appraisal systems depend upon the individual performance which includes quality of services, customer care knowledge, flexibility of working time, competences, skills, learning achievement, relationships with colleagues etc.

ORGANISATIONAL RECORD KEEPING: It is where an organization records information from the time it creates to the time of its disposal. Record keeping is truly essential for an organization because it helps keeps the organization on track and thus achieves organizational goals. Record keeping helps the organization to monitors its financial transaction. In Boots, record keeping uses for verification financial transaction and recording information about employees such as employees personal data, training records, how many times an employee has been absent.

Boots keeps its records for two years then at the end of the two the last year records destroyed and a new one is started again. (http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Records_management) Boots always keep employees personal data secretly and maintain the rules and regulation of the Data Act. All employees have personal record file where all the information are stored in secret. (www. 123helpme. com) CONCLUSION: Boots has a outstanding reputation about health and beauty products at the UK as well as all over the world. It is a delightful place to work everyone says.

They have to work closely with manufacturers and pharmacists to improve health among the local communities as well as national level. Boots should give priorities about customers’ loyalty, retention, communication and in store marketing. In the current economic recession in the UK, they have to monitor all the financial activities to minimize the cost. There will be commitment and clear indicators from top level to lower level. Motivation is essential to business success. Boots needs to pay more attention about employees’ learning and development to meet the future demands of the organization.