Company

With more than 1.36 million followers on Twitter, Sri Sri Ravishankar – the renowned spiritual leader and the founder of the Art of Living Foundation is now venturing vigorously to grab his share of the Ayurveda market. The firm entitled Sri Sri Ayurveda is experiencing a phenomenal growth over the past few years trying to gain from the fabulous route showed by Ramdev’s Patanjali Ayurved products. Though Sri Sri Ayurveda started its production activities way back in 2003, earlier their focus had been the members of the Art of Living Community. However, right from the beginning, Ramdev never hesitated to lock horns with the multinational FMCG  companies like Nestle, HUL, Colgate etc.. The path he travelled in this regard over the recent past had been overwhelmingly successful and highly encouraging for the other pioneers  of the country to follow suit.

With its strategic manufacturing base in Haridwar, Uttarkhand, Patanjali Ayurved has grown manifold since its inception. The revenues of the firm rapidly shot up from  Rs 453 crore in 2011-12 to an estimated Rs 5,000 crore in 2015-16. Today the firm delivers over 450 products under the categories of nutrition, personal care and wellness. In addition, there are about 300 medicines marketed under this brand covering a wide range of medical issues from common colds to paralysis. Over and above, Patanjali has plans to open Patanjali Mega Stores across the nation and has also decided to launch a high profile cosmetic brand named Soundarya to battle with products like L’Oreal and Maybelline. Ramdev patanjali products have entered  aggressively into online ecommerce segment as well.

For quite some time, Sri Sri Ravishankar remained a spectator before taking the market by storm with his array of products. The firm seems to be now moving with the clear intention of fast expansion and fighting the market position of the existing multinational brands. Besides its two manufacturing facilities, it is developing a third one now in addition to planning for over 2,500 stores across the nation by 2017. These units will sell a wide range of modern daily consumption products as noted by Tej Katpitia, the chief marketing officer of Sri Sri Ayurveda. The new products line being invented include atta, oils, masalas, breakfast cereals, ready to cook range of items from traditional ingredients and organic staples besides many others.Sri Sri Ayurveda products are also available on their own website & also leading websites like flipkart,BazaarCart,Snapdeal  etc.

Our times are characterized by a sharp and unprecedented rise in customer interest towards native Ayurveda products. The situation receives its impetus from the growing health consciousness of people and an added interest in participating in Make in India movement. The trust created by the newly emerging class of Ayurveda brands contributed by the social image of the personalities behind the production and the lower cost of the products have further contributed a great deal to the success of the class of products we are talking about.

Market analysts estimate that the revenues of Patanjali Ayurveda products shall touch 20,000 crores in 2020. There is a very stiff competition across multiple product categories perceived in the market today where the multinational brands are giving away to the native initiatives especially those of Sri Sri Ayurveda and Patanjali Ayurveda class of offerings. On the other hand, we find the Nestle sales fall from Rs 9,854 crore in 2014 to Rs 8,175 crore in 2015. Similarly the market leader Colgate – Palmolive lost about 0.6 percent of its sale in 2015 to Patanjali. Popular anticipations expect this trend to continue rapidly accounting for the phenomenal growth of the emerging Ayurveda brands in India. One thing is sure our own Indian Dark Knight have woken up and is going to haunt CEOs, Managers of other FMCG MNCs

“A summary step in conducting an internal strategic- management audit is to construct an internal factor Evaluation (IFE) Matrix. This strategy formulation tool summarizes and evaluates the major strengths and weaknesses in the functional areas of a business, and it also provide a basis for identifying and evaluating relationships among those areas. Intuitive judgments are required in developing and IFE Matrix, so the appearance of a scientific approach should not be interpreted to mean this is an all-powerful technique. A thorough understanding of the factors included is more important than the actual numbers.”

Internal Audit

In order to effectively compete in the industry it is important for the company to analyze the its internal strengths and weaknesses. So that strengths should be used to take advantage of the opportunities for the company in the market and the weaknesses should be removed in order to make the strategy of the company flawless. Following are the major departments, which should be addressed in order to undertake an internal audit of a company.

Major departments of Coca-Cola (Strengths and Weaknesses):

In order to identify Coca Cola’s internal strengths and weaknesses, the following key will have to be analyzed: Management; Marketing;  Finance/Accounting; Operations & R/D; and  Computer Information System and Technology.

Management

Strengths: “In order to maintain and refine the culture needed to enhance the Coca-Cola industry, they recruit people to train, and retrain current employees. The Coca-Cola Learning Consortium works with the management to help build the culture, systems, and processes our people need to stay comfortable while working hard and learning more efficient work habits.”(Casteleiro, J., and Garfinkel)

Weaknesses: “Discrimination in Promotions: Coca-Cola’s policies are not applied uniformly or fairly. The Company’s written and unwritten policies and practices regarding promotions do not require posting of all positions, but allow “management nomination,” which amounts to little more than word of mouth recommendations, and other closed procedures, including the use of a high-potential list.” (Abdallah, Clark, Ingram & Orton)

Marketing

Strength: “Marketing activities have to do with supporting Coca-Cola’s trademarks which is done by creating consumer demand for their brands. Spending on advertisements enhances consumer awareness and preference toward the Coca-Cola brand. By conducting research they establish consumer communications, and by doing this they find out how to improve their company. In order to maximize the impact of the company’s advertising they go to individual advertising agencies. With this strategy they are able to increase global marketing.” (Casteleiro, and Garfinkel) Brand name and unique product are the most important assets of Coca-Cola.

Weaknesses:

• Old image still exists.
• Inconsistent marketing message.

Finance/Accounting

• Strengths: The company does a fairly good job of disclosing its true drivers of performance and areas of concern in the MD&A and footnotes. Coca-Cola has a number of intangible assets, consisting of trademarks, goodwill, and franchise rights.
• Weaknesses: Coca-Cola showed a relatively low ROE as compare to its close rival Pepsi. (Mazumder, Stianchi & Perler, 4-12)

Operations & R&D

• Strengths: Coca-Cola has remained a major investor in “the further establishing production facilities, distribution networks, sales equipment, and technology. In order to make the investments the company forms business alliances with local bottlers. Then they find people with the expertise to work well with the current resources Coca-Cola provides. The investments they make also go into markets that they do not have a tight hold on, so they can try to create something out of that market in the future.” (Casteleiro and Garfinkel)
• Weaknesses: Relation ship with subsidiaries creates legal and territorial problems. Lack of funds for regional bottlers to continue expansion.

Computer Information Systems (CIS) and Technology

“Marketing Information System, is one part of the Business System Components and, is comprised of such functions as, Strategic Planning, Product Planning, Advertising, and Sales Promotion, to name only a few. The main goal of these functions, or the Marketing Information System as a whole, is to create customers. Coca-Cola is using the Marketing Information System to create customers through many different avenues and approaches.

Coca-Cola is one of the many organizations that use SAP R/3 Enterprise Resource planning software. This software allows all members of the Coca Cola organization to access the information at anytime where ever they are in the world.” (The geographic view of Coca-Cola can be label as global)

Construction of IFE Matrix for Coca Cola: The evaluation of the strengths and weaknesses of the Company’s performance in factors, which are significant for the analysis of company’s performance, has been resulted in shape of following IFE matrix.

Coca cola has an average score of 2.5 which means that the company is on an average situation; it has some weaknesses that cause problems in the operation of the company, but as well it has some strengths that are not utilized yet in the right way.

References

1. Fred R. David, Strategic Management Concepts and Cases, Eleventh     Edition, pp.165-166.
2. Abhijit Mazumder, Rob Stianchi & Jenn Perler, (2006).  Business     Analysis Using Financial Statements, MBA 402, March 2,  2006, pp. 4-12
3. Casteleiro, J., and Garfinkel, A., The Story Behind the Drink,     available from http://home.att.net/~paulkorn/coke.htm
4. Motisola Malikha Abdallah, Gregory Allen Clark, Linda Ingram and     Kimberly Gray Orton, United States District Court, Northern     District of Georgia, Individually and as Class Representatives, Plaintiffs, v. The Coca-Cola Company, Defendant, Civil Action No. 1-98-CV-3679 (RWS) Complaint Class Action, available from     http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/6174/coca-     cola/complaint.html
5. The geographic view of Coca-Cola can be label as global, available from     http://homepages.wmich.edu/~c1thomps/FinalProject.htm

Strengths

1. Largest Airline Company: It is the 5th largest airline company in America. It operates more than 2700 flights/day. Yearly to 58 different cities, it carries around 64 million passengers all over the United States.
2. Good Financials: Since 11 September 2001 the Southwest Airline is the only major carrier that is being profitable in each quarter. Though the airline industry was continuously going down and most of the airlines in the industry went bankrupt yet Southwest Airline is still generating profits in this alarming situation and will continue to generate in the next couple of years.
3. Good employee relationship: This airline which is one of the major strength that other companies don’t have it is that they never do downsizing. They take employees as important and never fire them. Thus they have good relationship with employees. The airline makes them feel good about whatever daily work they do. And these employees are the one who helps the airline to move towards greater success.
4. Best Customer Service: “We try to be the absolute best in terms of customer service delivery.” (www.mccombs.utexas.edu,2008), according to the President.  The airline believes that in order to bring loyal customers who could come back to our airline again and again; we must provide them with the best service from all from our heart.
5. Southwest Airline provides people oriented environment: The Airline’s low fares for short distances enable people to meet their closed ones more often. According to Barret who is the President of SouthWest Airline:  “We are literally helping people fulfill their dreams each year,” she said. “It’s very personal—it’s not just a business anymore.” (www.mccombs.utexas.edu,2008)
6. Good Customer Relationship: Southwest Airline takes customers as they are always right. Even if they are wrong the airline never abuses it’s customers but always tries to solve their issues and listen to their concerns.
7. High Market Share: It has a high market share in the domestic US Airline industry.
8. Unique Structure: It has a unique organizational structure i.e. top management is at the bottom and it supports the front line employees. This is one of the major reasons of its success from the start.

Weaknesses

1. No Diversity in services: The Southwest Airline doesn’t provide mixture of services i.e. their services are not diverse. Example tickets cannot be transferred to other airlines.
2. Serves only domestically: Serving internationally gives companies more room to get success and attain higher profits than just to serve locally. It only serves 29 states and is not capable enough to compete against large companies.
3.  Labor Cost issue: Other airlines are paying high to its employees. Therefore there is a negotiation being taken place between pilots and Southwest Airline. If both agree to the higher pay rates it will further affect the growth potential and profitability of this airline.
4. No use of Hub system: The hub system is not being utilized by this airline which could allow the airline to reach bigger competitors.
5. Limited to one type of airline: The airline only gives preference to Boeing 737s.  It makes the airline less flexible whenever any critical flaw is being discovered or such a model receives a bad reputation. This would result in bad publicity and costly venture for the airline whenever such situation arises. But according to the recent news, it has thought to go beyond that single carrier.

Opportunities

1. Could increase market share: It has the opportunity to increase its share in the market when larger carries are bankrupt i.e. United and U.S. Airways.
2. Expansion Opportunity: Since the airline is operating fine since September 11 attack where the other airlines in the industry are suffering, there is a good opportunity for Southwest Airline to expand itself.
3. Could increase productivity: Since the airline used to serve employees and always give them first preference, it can increase their productivity as they are already satisfied.
4.  Consolidation: It is planning to acquire another airline and it says according to some news that if we would acquire a carrier that doesn’t have 737s even then we had plans how to deal with it. We will go for it. (www.dallasnews.com,2008).

Threats

1. Intense Competition: Competition has been increased dramatically in this industry. Competitors include JetBlue and AirTran Holdings. JetBlue is the one providing lots of amenities thus creating threat for the SouthWest Airline to do something about this issue immediately.
2. Constant Increase in fuel Prices:  It is one of the major threats for Southwest Airline because it is the low cost airline where price is more important factor on which decision has been made. If the competitor would make an increase in price to a small extent it would not get noticed but the same price if increased by SouthWest Airline it will immediately come to notice.
3. Bigger companies might copy SouthWest Strategy: Since the strategy of this airline has proven so effective, there is a big chance that the big companies will imitate it and would introduce low cost models to the wider market thus could overstep Southwest Airlines itself.
4. Saturation of discount websites: The airline could lose its customers if it doesn’t take an immediate step and today more and more websites are offering special discounts and competitive rates. It’s the way to advertise so the airline has to make sure that its voice is being heard through this medium effectively.

Strategies for the coming years:

1. Further lower down the price if competitors are close to bankruptcy:This will increase the price gap which would further hurt the competitors and would take the weakest competitor out from the airline industry. Since it will lower down the profits of Southwest Airline itself so the airline has to make sure that their competitors are near to bankrupt as this strategy would be effective only in that case.
2. Upgrading:Few changes like seat and hardware upgrading would open this airline to the larger market. Though it’s costly at first place, market penetration would help the airline to gain more market share and achieve higher profitability.
3.  Listed in price comparison websites:Earlier information was not easily available. But now there are many sites that compare items and packages based on different factors like price and so on.  The strategy is that the airline should make sure that it is taking full advantage of this medium to advertise its packages.
4. Implementation of cost saving technology:With the advent of internet companies, companies are becoming more cost effective. So southwest Airline should make the use of it and in this way operating cost will be reduced which will result in better customer deals.

Plan

The airline should do the cost benefit analysis before lowering the cost. What would be the consequences of it, it should find out and measure all that. Then it should decide on how much price should be lowered in order to maintain profitability in the long run. Also the analysis should be done on how much price reduction would result in take the weakest competitor out from the industry. Once it did it then price should be fixed. How much this price would increase profits in long term and market share? The numerical value should be taken out so that company could continuously strive hard to attain that target.

Secondly it should see the market preferences and then upgrade the resources. It means airline should conduct market research in order to know customer major preferences. It would also help the airline know the trend of the industry.

Thirdly it should see the new ways of promotion. Today trend has been changed. People are more relying on websites to find out the information about different kinds of deals and packages for different products. It should make the effective use of it. Detailed investigation should be done in order to know which medium would be worthy for it’s airline and then work it out according to it.

Since technology has become very effective, it should make the most effective use of it. Appropriate technology related to the industry should be used. The company should use the technology in all aspects of its work to make it cost effective. It will also increase the productivity. Innovation always gives fruitful result thus will benefit the airline as the whole.

Methodology

Actual results should be compared with the plan results by regularly getting feedback through meetings. Along with this regular meetings; top management should observe and keep check of every work all the time and should record it on a daily basis. Surveys, focus groups, one to one interviews and similar tools could be used to evaluate the implementation results. First, it would see what happened? At what stage is the action? Does it work or not? If it’s not working immediate steps should be taken and the action should be stopped. What did you learn for the future?  Subjective comments could be taken from the key stakeholders to evaluate the action plan results. (www.eowa.gov.au, 2008)

References

1. Retrieved November 17, 2008 website: http://www.eowa.gov.au/Developing_a_Workplace_Program/Six_Steps_to_a_Workplace_Program/Step_5.asp
2. Retrieved November 17, 2008 website: http://www.prwebdirect.com/releases/2005/5/prweb235756.php
3. Retrieved November 17, 2008 website: http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/05_08/b3921090_mz017.htm
4. MAXON , T. (2008). Business. Retrieved November 17, 2008, from CEO says Southwest Airlines is ready for consolidation Web site: http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/bus/stories/020108dnbusairmerge.3774ee7.html
5. Retrieved November 17, 2008 website: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A0DE5D9163FF931A15754C0A9659C8B63
6. Retrieved November 17, 2008 website: http://www.echeat.com/essay.php?t=27535
7. Russell, M. (2008). AC Associated Content. Retrieved November 17, 2008, from Southwest Airlines: An Industry Leader Web site: http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/272656/southwest_airlines_an_industry_leader.html?page=6&cat=16
8. Retrieved November 17, 2008 website: http://www.marketingprofs.com/ea/qst_question.asp?qstID=22741

Hampton Machine Tool Company is facing problems in paying its $1 million loan, which will mature two weeks from September 14, 1979. The loan was used to buy back the stock of a group of dissident shareholders. This loan was based largely upon forecast sales that Hampton gave to the bank. But from January through August 1979 Hampton sold completed only 72. 89% of their projected sales. This failure to meet forecast sales can be attributed to three factors, albeit temporary.

First, a major component supplier failed to deliver their part on time. Second, the company bought $420,000 worth of components over its normal levels of inventory. Third, the company’s machines have given Hampton problems with maintaining capacity production. It also wants to pay a dividend of $150,000 in December 1979. For these reasons, Hampton would like an extension on the original loan until the end of 1979, along with an additional loan of $350,000 at 1.5% per month, also due at the end of the year.

The internal and external conditions for Hampton seem favorable. About half of Hampton’s assets are owned by stockholders. Hampton’s President has a good reputation, has complied with bank requirements, and his character is seemingly worthy to be extended credit. Its current assets are composed mostly of specialized goods in its inventory, while its receivables could only cover about half of the debt requested.

But collaterals are unnecessary when there is no doubt about capacity to pay. Hampton has become more liquid and profitable, based on a time series ratio analysis. But the increased liquidity is mainly due to an increase of its specialized inventories. And its increased profitability has not translated into more efficient asset utilization and a better cash management, as the its activity ratios worsened and its free cash flow significantly decreased, due to excessive investments in its inventories.

But seemingly favorable conditions would probably improve its financial position and performance, as shown by Pro-forma statements, implying an increased capacity to pay, and cash budgets based on 2 scenarios, which show that Hampton could pay both its debts on December, if granted by the bank. The decision tree shows that among alternatives available, extending payment period would be the most feasible, as it would lead to higher interest income, and less risk, since sales is expected to increase tremendously in December, and thus, more cash on January if collected.

However, there is uncertainty as to whether actual sales will continue to deviate from forecast sales in the same way it deviated from January to August 1978 or not. Furthermore, insufficient data constrained analysis. Based on the available data, the bank should grant both the extension of $1,000,000 loan until December 31, 1979, and the additional $350,000 loan that Hampton wants to borrow, payable on January 31, 1980, both at 1. 5% interest per month. However, the bank should undertake further studies and collect more data, to permit a better decision.

Coca-Cola Company is known to be the world’s largest beverage manufacturer, marketer and distributor worldwide. The company which is also one of the largest companies in United States of America also deals in non-alcoholic concentrates and syrups. Incorporated in 1892, the Coca-Cola organization is best known for its main product – Coca-Cola although it currently offers almost four hundred (400) brands in well over two hundred (200) countries. The company serves a wide client base with an approximate serving of 1.5 billion clients daily. This figure translates to over 10,450 beverages per second, and 800 million in the USA per year. In 2003 alone, the company achieved earnings in excess of 4.347 billion US dollars. The Coca-Cola Company and its subsidiaries only produce syrup concentrates which are sold to bottling companies who hold Coca-Cola franchise throughout the world. The company has several competitors across different countries some of who make alcoholic drinks.

Human resource hiring process has several steps these are: Job description, Vacancy announcement, recruitment plan, screening process, interview, finals selection and the approval process. This paper is going to make an in depth analysis of the interview process.

Methodology

This study was a retrospective explanatory study evaluating the structured interview process that is used by Coca Cola Company whenever it is recruiting candidates to fill the various posts. During this study, human resource manager and six human resources officers who are charged with interviewing candidate were told why the study was being done. This was to make them to feel at ease and to give the right information that was required. After they have been told the reason of the study they were given the go ahead to fill the questionnaires. Open ended Questioners were used because of the following advantages: they give first hand information; they are easy to use, and the interviewer can get more information from the interviewee.

Measures used to determine the baseline performance for structured interview process

The performance of the workers who were recently recruited was analyzed over the last three years. Curriculum vitae for other applicants were also analyzed and the answers that they gave to the questions that they were asked. After a careful analysis, some defects were detected.

Structured Interview process

Job inter views are the same in many ways to conversation between people, however job interview calls for more skills other than conversation skills. The Interview process can either be formal and structured or informal and conservational. In Coca- Cola, the human resource departments do recruit their staffs using structured job interview.

A Structured interview is the standardizing of the administration, development, interpretation and scoring of the applicants.  The purpose of a structured interview is to have applicants undergo the same treatment when they are applying for a particular position within Coca Cola Company. In a structured interview, the human resource department gives the interview process a more objectivity by preparing questions that are based on the descriptions of the job, interview panels and rating the forms. The Structured interview used by Coca Cola Company entails 🙁 Structured interview used by Coca-Cola Company)

v  Panel interview – human resource department normally improves the validity of structured interview by using a panel of interviews, in which five to seven people meets with the job applicants.  The process of building a consensus reduces the likelihood of biasness in hiring process. The companies do give consideration in formulating the panel relative to diversity. Read also  of Coca-Cola

Job related interview – during interviews, identical and predetermined questions whose answers have already been written down are usually administered to the applicants. Job description helps the company’s interviewers to concentrate in information that are relevant to the job and also to confine questions that they are going to administer to the applicants to essential functions of the job. The interviewer has to peruse job descriptions before the interview start. Through using job descriptions, the company gets to assess the importance or the relative weight of each component of the job. The company also gets some useful frame of reference for formulating structured interview questions from job descriptions. (Structured interview used by Coca-Cola Company)

Rating forms –interviewers in Coca-Cola Company use job related information effectively under the guidance of rating forms. I.e. the interviewers write the main qualifications required for the job separately on a rating form, each of these qualifications are usually covered by a set of questions which forms part of the interview. Hence rating forms prompts each interviewer to rate each applicant on all critical behavior of the job as it has been pointed out in job description. Coca-Cola Company has further improved its rating process by anchoring questions to some specific behaviors. At this stage the company’s interviewers formulate a scoring system for all the questions. The process of scoring involves formulating examples of acceptable, excellent and marginal answers, to the questions or coming up with a type of response that they can take. After this they pre assigns numerical weights to particular answers (for example poor =1, acceptable = 2.5 and Excellent = 5) (Structured interview used by Coca-Cola Company)

Coming up with a qualified candidate for a particular job, is the number one priority of any selection process. Employment interview is usually conducted with an aim of coming up with a candidate who is more suitable for the job.  Coca Cola Company has several limitations when it comes to utilizing interviews a fact that is attributed to the human nature of the interviewing process. Whereas Coca Cola Company may find it hard to modify or change the behaviors of its human resource department charged with responsibility of interviewing candidates, the company can still improve the process.

By using predetermined questions, rating forms and interview panels Coca Cola Company appears to be impersonalizing the interview. However at the same time, it makes the interview to be job related. The company has sacrificed spontaneity for inconsistent treatment of applicants to help its rater avoid making snap judgment (Hunt 2007 pp 24-25)

While the structured interview plays a significant role in recruiting the right candidate for the job, will continue doing so, the challenge that the human resource department of Coca-Cola Company is facing is to integrate other stages that will improve the overall process. By doing so, Coca-Cola company will find the interview to be a more effective tool  because of  the high quality of conversation that it will drive between the applicants (interviewee) and the company’s interviewers. Ultimately Coca-Cola company is looking for the best candidates whenever they it is carrying out an interview. The company’s interviewers do look for the perfect fit between the candidate’s aspirations, expectations and capabilities, and both the current and the future needs of the company. In broad, the Coca-Cola Company should integrate five additional alternatives that will improve their structured interview, these are:

      First, Coca Cola has to reverse the process – The main of carrying out a structured interview is to make the interviewers to get to learn about the job applicants and what they can offer to the company, but it is also important for Coca Cola to give its prospective employee opportunity of learning about it and the roles that he or she is likely to play within the company. To match opportunity, aspiration and ability, the company needs to establish a structured process for exchanging information between the candidates and it (Coca Cola). The short listed candidates should be allowed to meet with their relevant potential work mates. The meeting should be given a structure so to enable the candidates to have a deeper understanding of the company. This will give the candidates the company’s goals and ethos, a clear idea about the skills required, aptitudes and the experience necessary for the post. In addition to this, as a two way process, it will help interviewers have an informed picture of a candidate’s attitudes, values, beliefs, expectations and approach- key considerations in coming up with the fit between the company and individual. (Hunt 2007 pp 27-29)

            Secondly, Coca Cola Company should integrate Capability testing: an interview is usually a snap shot and, ultimately a performance. Interviewees who are experienced   may at dept in telling the company what the company want to hear, and the structured interview rarely gives a company a detailed insight into what the candidates can actually do, however capability testing does. Coca Cola should start by deciding the key experience, knowledge, value, beliefs and skills that for the position that they want top fill, it should then determine ways in which it is going to test them.  The company should make the activities that it has designed to use in testing the candidates realistic and practical. This will give it an insight on how an individual performance and what she or he will bring to the post in the event that he/she is recruited. The company can choose to buy them cheaply or they can decide to design them in house specifically for the post to be filled. (Latham1987 pp 121 -122)

            Thirdly, Coca Cola Company should exploit psychometrics: the company widely uses psychometrics whenever it is interviewing candidates for a particular post, but it rarely exploits psychometrics to its full potential. If exploited full, psychometrics will allow the company to look beyond the experience and skills that a candidate has and assess her or his overall potential for the post. Psychometrics will give the company an objective scientific data about a candidate and will be vital in predicting performance of an individual in a specific situation. Psychometrics analyses how individuals perceives themselves, what qualities they possess and how these qualities can undermine or enhance their performance. Psychometrics will also add more values to the company’s structured interview process, because the results often throw up questions that will enable the company to ask more penetrating and relevant questions during the interview. (Latham1987 pp 121 -122)

            Fourthly, Coca Cola Company should emphasize on research tasks during interview – Coca Cola is operating in a market where there is stiff competition from various companies. There is need for the company to continue improving their products. Therefore whenever they are interviewing their potential employees, they have to ensure the candidates cab easily carry out research in his area of specialization. The ability to present and manage information has become vital for all companies that want to succeed. While the structured interview that Coca Cola Company is using allows candidates to air his views or his experience and his capabilities in that job, it doesn’t reflects how the candidates will go about communicating, managing information and researching relevant information in practice. To test this, the company should give candidates a project to research on, and then observes and assess her or his ability in manage research. Amongst some issues that Coca Cola interviewers should look at are: they should find out if the candidates are asking the right questions, they should also analyze their way that candidates are collating and evaluating all the data that are available, they should look at how the candidates are analyzing, distilling and presenting their data (Latham1987 pp 121 -122)

            Lastly Coca Cola Company should establish a well equipped recruitment centers –these centers should combine the four previous steps and a two way feedback. They should allocate enough money and time for this process.  The specific requirements that the company has formulated should be the starting point for all activities that are geared towards finding the right person for the job.

Conclusion

Ultimately, if Coca Cola want to be confident of recruiting the right candidate for the job, it needs to be prepared to enforce in effort and time to the process of recruitment. While the structured interview that the company is currently using is a significant tool in their recruitment process, the company should take time and consider their current practices, they should integrate the five processes that have been proposed in this paper.

The writer of this paper is of the opinion that if the Coca cola Company can integrates the measures that have been suggested in this paper, they will be recruiting the best candidates this is likely to improve the quality of their products which also translates to increase in their profitability.

References

1. Hunt S 2007 hiring success- the art & science of staffing assessment & selection of employees John Wiley & Sons publishers pp 24 – 32
2. Latham V 1987 Interviewee training – a review of some empirical literature career development journal Springer Publisher Vol. 14, NO.2 pp 121 – 126
3. Pell A 2001 Complete idiot’s guide to HRM Alpha Books Publishers pp 28 – 61
4. Structured interview used by Coca- Cola Company retrieved from www.librariesanddirectories.com/lib on March 21, 2009www.cocacola.com official Coca Cola Company website

The ethical issues and dilemmas that the Coca-Cola Company has faced since within the last few decades have brought into question the responsibility that a company has to the consumers, financial stakeholders, employee’s and the environment. Companies throughout history have all dealt with ethical issues but Coca-Cola has used these incidents to understand and increase their ethical standards and compete in a morally conscious business environment (Ferrell, Ferrell & Fraedrich, 2011).

The types of dilemmas that The Coca-Cola Company has include a contamination scare, racial discrimination allegations, inflated earnings, trouble with distributors, and employees leaking of trade secrets. The company responded to these ethical issues differently in which they seem to never be resolved completely (Ferrell, Ferrell, & Fraedrich, 2011). During the 90’s Coca-Cola consumers were getting sick after drinking some Coca-Cola products. After the first incidents the Coca-Cola Company activated a regional recall where the sicknesses in the regions where it was happening, but that wasn’t enough for the area affected.

The government of Belgium ordered that all Coca-Cola products be recalled. The government recall escalated with other countries such as Luxembourg and the Netherlands following suite and recalling all the Coca-Cola products as well. It took days for the company to find the culprit of what was causing the sickness. Coca-Cola’s timeliness to formally respond to the sicknesses caused uproar with the media and the public. This ethical issue here is that consumers of their product are the most important part of the business (Ferrell, Ferrell, & Fraedrich, 2011).

Coca-Cola has an obligation to their customers to keep them safe from harm and sickness. They have an obligation to keep them safe from harm at all costs. Anti-trust laws in Europe are strict and its governments do not allow companies to have large market dominance or monopolies of industries. Coke was interested in purchasing both an Italian and French drink company. They also were accused of un-lawful marketing and distribution policies by other companies producing a probe by the governent, which found wrong doing by Coke.

These actions led the governments to decline their purchase of the drink companies and reprimand Coke for their unlawful marketing practices. This is proof that Coke did not immerse themselves in the culture or learn the practices of the lawful business practices in Europe (Ferrell, Ferrell, & Fraedrich, 2011). Coke was negligent in their practices and abiding by the law. Financial documentation and accounting was questioned when the Security and Exchange Commission found they inflated their profits numbers and by using “Channel Stuffing” which inflated numbers and earnings (Ferrell, Ferrell, & Fraedrich, 2011).

This is not a good practice for any business, but it is still legal. The company needs to be more responsible with its record keeping and practice better accounting techniques with their customers. Unions have always been a topic of ethics. But for Coca-Cola, they were being blamed for union members deaths in Columbia when workers were becoming unionized. Coke was blamed for these deaths but deflected it stating that most of the deaths were because of the civil war raging there (Ferrell, Ferrell, & Fraedrich, 2011).

Coke could have done a better job to ensure that their workers were able to be productive in a safe environment. Racial discrimination and employee’s selling trade secrets are also ethical issues that have come in business practices. These are both very important issues that Coke has been unable to manage in the past but should be at the top of their agenda. Determine which of the issues/dilemmas you identified was the most significant. Explain your reasoning. The issues/dilemmas that are most significant are racial discrimination and employees selling trade secrets.

These two are significantly different than the other but have monumental effects when it comes to running an international business. An international company like Coca-Cola has an ethical responsibility to ensure that they treat everyone equally and hire the right employees to ensure there is not breach of security. Allegations of racial discrimination should not be taken lightly; Coca-Cola was accused of discriminating both with pay, promotions and performance evaluations. Even though many higher-level managers knew this type of discrimination was taking place they turned a blind eye to the matter.

Once the litigation had begun Coca-Cola decided to settle the case out of court and create a council that would preside over equal pay and diversity (Ferrell, Ferrell, & Fraedrich, 2011). It is the responsibility of a company to comply with federal regulations and not turn a blind eye to discrimination. The Civil Rights Act of 1964, implemented national laws that made it illegal to discriminate based on sex, race, color, religion or national origin (Deszouza, Paludi & Paludi, 2011).

Since the law was in effect at the time of the allegations Coke had a responsibility by law to ensure discrimination did not happen. Discrimination accusations can hinder the relationship of the customer and the business. It is unethical to treat people that work for a company differently that have the same or better work ethics of another employee, the same people that work for an organization reflect the community that it does business in. Another significant ethical incident that Coca-Cola could have managed better was the illegal dispersion of trade secrets.

Trade secrets are what determine the unique business merchandise or idea business model of the company; it gives it a competitive advantage (Hannah, 2005). An employee of Coke who had access to the classified information leaked the trade secrets. The employee who leaked the information has an ethical interest to keep the trade secrets a secret: therefore, broke ethical standards in the industry. Determine what steps Coca-Cola should have taken to prevent the issues you identified from arising in the first place.

In regards to racial discrimination Coca-Cola could have abided by the law and introduced policies that ensured that their hiring policies included ensuring diversity in the workplace, making sure that employees were paid equally for the same or similar job descriptions that other employees were doing. Performance reviews should be completed by panel and not just one individual. Salaries should be set and raises should be analyzed and reviewed by human resources in which they researched the job description and pay of the job in the geographic location and set it accordingly.

Company stakeholders should have ensured that the company was abiding by the Civil Rights Act. In regards to the dispersion of trade secrets, Coke should have implemented a safeguard against one person have access the trade secret. A safety system where it is stored in a lock box where two or more people must be present to have access to the box. Upon hiring the employee should sign a trade secret agreement where they will be held accountable and liable for damages if secrets were leaked. Analyze how Coca-Cola responded to the crisis and determine if this was the best possible response or not.

In both cases Coca-Cola could have responded better. Coke seemed to have waiting until the situations were escalated before actions were mitigated and got out of control. Discrimination should never be tolerated, ignored, or swept under the carpet. The trade secret dispersion could have been reported to the FBI as soon as Pepsi reported it to them. Therefore by following ethical guidelines and timely reporting and documentation of possible ethical conflicts Coke can eliminate the loss of money and productive time by thinking ahead and following ethical norms and educating their employees to identify and stay away from unethical behavior.

There are two alternative plans in order to introduce customized shirt manufacturing in the factory. In the first plan, we are looking at the option where existing line is used with addition one new machine. In the second plan we will look at the option of introducing a new line dedicated to manufacturing the customized shirts with resources drawn from main line. The main line will work with reduced resources.

Metric Definitions (& associated assumptions):

• Bottleneck Time (Actual Cycle Time): This is the maximum cycle time in the entire process.
• Production Capacity: Production capacity is the total manufacturing capacity of the machinery of the plant in the time the labor is normally available.
• WIP (Work in Progress) Inventory: This includes the entire set of unfinished items on which the workers are working.
• Manufacturing Lead Time: Time to get all the WIP shirts to a finished state so that a new order can be fully manufactured.
• Current Running Capacity: The number of shirts that are being manufactured with current machinery and labor.
• Direct Labor Content: Total time spent on each shirt by all labourers excluding the 4 material handlers.
• Direct Labor Cost: Total cost of all labor that are directly involved in the manufacturing process (we are excluding the material handlers and supervisors).
• Direct Labor Utilization: This is the proportion of time that labor available is utilized in the production process.
• Scenario One: Current State Of Production

The bottleneck in current production scenario is the make cuffs process which is 0.5 minute per shirt .  Since, the process takes 0.5 0minute per shirt, therefore the production capacity for 8hrs per day = (8*60)/0.5 = 960 shirts per dayBefore the early 1990s, outsourcing was not very popular because of the high costs associated with vendor interaction in terms of coordination, exchange of information and measurement of quality delivery. However, in the later part of the 90’s, the BPO market grew significantly owing to increased automation of processes, improvement in telecom infrastructure and the reduction in communication costs.

Akin to “outsourcing”, a business strategy widely adopted is “Off shoring”. Though often used interchangeably, outsourcing differs from off shoring. Outsourcing is a make-or-buy decision whereby an organization chooses to purchase an item that was earlier made in-house or a service that was earlier performed in-house. In other words, it is a practice whereby the organization transfers its functions to a third party. “Off shoring,” in contrast, represents the transfer of an organizational function to another country, regardless of whether the work stays in the corporation or not.

EXL is a leading end-to-end business process outsourcing solution provider, incorporated in April 1999 in Delaware, US, by a group of experienced professionals including Vikram Talwar and Rohit Kapoor. Vikram was then the CEO and Managing Director of Ernst ; Young, and Rohit managed international investments for clients at Deutsche Bank. Overall EXL have 10 operation centres in India and U.S. It offers integrated outsourcing solutions to its clients. Indian operations of EXL commenced from October 2000.

Its head office is in New York while corporate office is in Noida. EXL’s core strengths as a domain and process led, pure-play BPO company include a seasoned management and operations team, a highly demonstrable track record of seamless process migration and consistent service delivery, positions it uniquely in the offshore BPO industry. EXL’s deep industry and process knowledge provides innovative and cost effective solutions enabling clients to achieve greater business efficiencies. EXL has approximately 50 clients and offers integrated outsourcing solutions. EXL has successfully migrated more than 225 processes covering a broad array of products and services to our operations centers.

Main Businesses ExlService Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ: EXLS) is a recognized business solutions provider. EXL’s offerings provide a competitive edge to its clients by transforming and outsourcing business processes. Transformation services enable continuous improvement of client processes by bringing together EXL’s capabilities in reengineering including Six Sigma process improvement, research ; analytics, and risk advisory services. EXL’s outsourcing services include a full spectrum of business process services from offshore delivery centers requiring ongoing process management skills. Headquartered in New York, EXL primarily serves the needs of Global 1000 companies. Offerings of EXL are aligned to sector-focused services and specialized cross sector capabilities. These services include:

Business process outsourcing services are structured around industry-focused solutions – insurance, banking and financial services. They also offer solutions to other sectors with similar needs – like utilities, healthcare and media, by leveraging our operational expertise. Its cross-industry BPO solutions include finance and accounting services, collections, transaction processing, exception processing, and customer service.

Research and Analytics services facilitate effective, data-based strategic and operating decisions by their clients using statistical and quantitative analytical techniques. The recent acquisition of Inductis (a provider of consulting and analytics Services), has brought in synergies by expanding the types and sophistication of their research and analytics services and hence has developed a world-class analytical outsourcing service offering. The service lines include analytical consulting, management consulting and analytical services.

Risk Advisory services provide a spectrum of solutions, which enable companies to independently identify, prioritize and manage business process risks. It provides focused solutions for compliance, internal audit, accounting and financial reporting and information technology risk management. Process Consulting services include on-shore and offshore process consulting for improving / re-engineering processes as well as executing Six Sigma projects towards process improvement and enhancement. EXL has developed MOST, a unique methodology for identifying process optimization and BPO opportunities, migrating those processes and developing appropriate BPO services that we can customize to meet our clients’ requirements.

Areas of Specialization

The key strength of the company lies in its expertise in the banking and financial segment. Another key strength of the company lies in the extent of its process capabilities. It delivers over 70 processes, which includes back office and transaction processing as well as phone and Web-based customer contact services. Some of the areas of specialization of EXL include tax processing, claims processing, billing services, accounting transactions, general accounting, credit/debit card services, benefits and administration, tax consulting, compliance and other financial activities. In addition, it also provides payroll and other HR services, telesales/telemarketing, customer care, Web sales and marketing.

Sources of Advantages Domain Focused BPO Specialist

EXL is a proven and trusted service provider to several focus industry segments including banking, financial services, insurance, utilities, media, and healthcare. They have a distinction of having migrated from single or discrete transaction processes to end-to-end functional solutions across industry segments. Also, their leadership team has extensive experience in the financial services sector, providing unmatched understanding and insights into the business.

Their operations centers are currently located throughout India. This enables them to leverage India’s highly skilled, English speaking, professionally qualified talent pool. EXL hires only the best and the brightest professionals. Their investment in employee recruitment, training and retention provides them the ability to rapidly increase the scale of operations to respond to the needs of their clients.

Real and Sustained Process Improvements

Process Excellence is given the greatest importance to ensure true and continuous value to the clients. The Process Excellence program at EXL is driven by Six Sigma methodology for reducing defects in business operations and Kaizen initiatives, which stress continuous incremental improvements in each stage of a business process. ‘No Surprises’ Migrations: Their process migration expertise has enabled EXL to successfully transfer more than 225 processes. It combines industry knowledge, process and project management techniques and a consultative approach to meet the client’s specific needs, Deployment of Design for Six Sigma (DFSS) methodology for minimizing outsourcing risks, ensuring smooth migration of client’s business processes.

Infrastructure

EXL’s facilities spread across India, US and Singapore have been built to provide a superior working environment for attracting and retaining the best talent and providing world-class service to customers. Currently, EXL has 4,871 workstations on a single shift basis across operations centers in India. These centers have been built to international standards with the latest operations and technology infrastructure.

Information Security

EXL’s information security framework addresses compliance requirements and protection of their clients’ and their customers’ information. Their information security policies comply with international standards, including British Standards 7799, for optimal management of various aspects of information security, including personnel, physical, systems and facility security.