How Global Corporations Affect National Economies Essay Example for Free

How Global Corporations Affect National Economies Essay The growing size of the Multinational Companies around the world; their global operations and financial practices pose some serious questions about the implementation of best practices that do justice to everyone, including the countries with less developed economies, where many of these corporations operate. Global Corporations may create problems regarding the national balance of accounts. Every company operates globally, to maximize its profits and pay less tax. To gain the optimum advantage, they follow accounting practices that contravene the domestic ones, used within the countries where they operate. For example, corporations charge their own internal transactions and present them as expenditure. This matter has evolved in such a way, that today, global corporations are the winners, and most of the times the countries where they operate are the losers. Multinational Corporations and the Distribution of Income There is an increasing tendency among multinational corporations to transfer their intangible assets to non-domestic associates. These foreign affiliates are created for a unique purpose: to gain a larger share of their profits, by reducing operational costs. Many international businesses transfer their operations like production and services to the countries where the tax rates are lower, compared to their mother country, where the parent company has its headquarters. According to OECD Statistics, that researchers have performed, there is a remarkable growth in the transfer of all these intangible assets from 13 percent to 37 percent in a period of 28 years, from 1983 to 2011. Corporations continuously pursue the policy of getting tax benefits and find different means to get benefited by lower tax rates in the countries where the affiliates are located. They keep their main focus on increasing their profits and showing incomes in the countries where there are lower tax rates applied. They do this by transferring their intangible assets, interposing their operations, producing more in the countries where they pay lower taxes. They also tend to shift their manufacturing units to offshore locations, in low tax and cheap labor countries. They also make changes and make an affiliate into an owner and an owner into an affiliate. Naturally, an affiliate in the low tax country becomes the parent company leading to many structural changes in the entire organization and therefore, influencing business in their host countries. According to authors such as John Dunning, the ultimate result of all these activities reflects in showing a recorded low Gross Domestic Product where the tax rates are high and making the recorded Gross Domestic Product higher in the low tax countries. The raise in the lower tax countries is shown as a relative growth.

Role of Technology in Travel Management

Role of Technology in Travel Management TRAVEL INDUSTRY CURRENT PRACTICES INTRODUCTION In this chapter I will take an overview of the travel industry in order to better understand the context about which I am writing. Consideration of the value of the business travel spend, the role of Travel Management Companies and the role of technology in its operation and future vision, are the relevant issues in this regard. An outline of the various managerial approaches used by private industry will help inform my analysis of travel management in the public sector and what lessons can be learnt. VALUE OF BUSINESS TRAVEL In 2013 Hermes Consultancy Management produced a white paper on ‘Corporate Travel Management in Western Europe: Opportunities and Challenges’. The research was commissioned by Amadeus (a Global Distribution Service provider) in order to better understand how organisations manage their travel activities and to identify saving opportunities for travel managers. The white paper calculated that in 2011, business travel in Western Europe amounted to almost â‚ ¬ 200 billion, concentrated in five countries: Germany, UK, France, Italy and Spain. Hermes (2013). Eleven corporations in the UK, France, Belgium, Ireland and the Netherlands took part in the research study and numerous travel mangers, executives and travellers from these companies were interviewed. The Central Statistics Office tells us that in 2011, the Irish business travel spend was â‚ ¬548 million on 698,000 business trips (CSO 2013) of that public sector travel under the Government air travel contract was : â‚ ¬5.9 million for 18,358 trips and in 2013 it increased to â‚ ¬6,972, 477 for 25,902 trips. The increase in volume can be attributed to Ireland Presidency of EU during 2013. Business travel is a substantial and growing sector with a significant travel spend. As globalisation continues apace, companies and governments will reach out to newer markets for their goods and services, at the same time as continuing to consolidate traditional markets in a challenging economic climate. Figures from the Global Business Travel Association (GBTA) indicate that spending on business travel within the UK, Germany, France, Italy and Spain is forecasted to climb by 6% next year, an increase which may be set to come about as a result of improvements to the global economy. Government travel is predicted to increase by 4.9% according to GBTA, who believe that the slightly lower percentage for government travel might be because governments have already successfully cut travel spend, while corporate business is enjoying an uptick as it starts and continues to hire new employees who travel. Government business in Europe accounts for 4.7% (â‚ ¬940 mil) of all business travel demand compared with 5% globally. The Director of Operations with GBTA McGavock believes that, that share is expected to increase for at least the short term. â€Å"While 2012 was a difficult year, by the end of 2013 we predict an upturn, and in 2014 we believe we will see extensive growth. The next five years should see a bounce back in business travel among all of Western Europe’s major markets.† The European Commission predicts that the 27 countries it represents will emerge from recession in the fourth quarter of 2013, with its overall economy growing by 1.4% in 2014, Eurostat (2012). Accompanying this growth will be an increasing requirement for corporate travel and this expansion will require robust and innovative management in order to control costs and spend. TRAVEL MANAGEMENT COMPANIES Travel Management Companies are the medium through which organisations use to implement and manage their business travel requirements. They should not be confused with the work of a traditional Travel Agency which provides travel to the leisure traveller on behalf of suppliers, airline, hotel, car hire companies. Most travel agencies have a separate department that deals with business travel, and some travel agencies specialise in commercial and business travel only. This department would trade as a travel management company and implement the organisations travel policy. They procure travel on behalf of the organisation according to its policy on the class of travel permitted to fly, negotiate corporate fares/rates with airlines and hotels as well allowing the organisation use its corporate credit card to procure flights online via their online booking tool. According to the Buying Business Travel magazine (2013) the top five (5) TMC’s operating in Europe based on their European spend are: CarlsonWagonlit Travel (CWT), ( £1,157m) HRG Travel, ( £1,000m) American Express, ( £958.1m) Capital Travel and Events ( £525m) BCD, ( £480m) FCM Travel Solutions ( £428) All of the above have a presence in Ireland through either partner agreements or wholly owned. The current provider for the Irish Government travel contract is CarlsonWagonlit Travel. The previous government providers were; HRG (Club Travel) and FCM Solutions. Due to the size of the Government spend approximately â‚ ¬6 to â‚ ¬9 mil annually it is not surprising that the top TMC’s have continually competed for the business. In addition as it is a centralised contract, a large sized company would be required to deal with the volume of transactions generated by Irish Government travel. Each of these companies use a global distribution system (GDS) which provides a network whereby TMC’s can access fares from the various airline reservations systems and facilitates online transactions. This in turn provides a portal for clients of TMC’s to procure their air travel through the use of online booking tools OBT). The most popular GDS providers are, Travelport, Galil eo, Sabre and Amadeus, public sector has had access to Travelport through KDS OBT licensed by CWT and Galileo OBT licensed by HRG. ECONOMIC CLIMATE The impact of the global economic downturn has resulted in an increased emphasis on generating savings, as companies strive to operate within an ever decreasing resource envelope. This is relevant to all organisations and Travel Management Companies in particular. Economic stringency has allowed travel managers to take a more prominent role within their companies, and has made travel management, as a profession, an important element of a company’s strategic planning. According to the Global Business Travel Association (2014), travel managers have been asked to lead company-wide efforts to reduce travel costs, track relevant savings, and report them back to senior management. The knock-on effect of this to TMC’s is increased competitiveness within the travel management sector. The natural ambition of business organisations is specifically the transformation of inputs (resources) into outputs (goods or services) (Worthington Britton, 2006: 4). In the context of a TMC, th e company employs the relevant staff to carry out specialised travel advisory duties, and provides the necessary booking systems to their staff in order to maximise their input to output ratio; in the current economic climate this is becoming more and more challenging. So the drive is on in every sector to achieve greater value for money. TECHNOLOGY In Chapter 2, I looked at technology in relation to the procurement of travel; here I will examine it as it impacts on the business environment, in which TMC’s operate. In terms of external environmental factors, Thomas Davenport (2013) indicated that technological change is one of the main issues currently impacting TMC’s, with the potential of completely transforming the way in which the companies operate. Davenport ( 2013) and a number of other authors including Fred Gebhard (2013), highlighted that the travel industry is at a ‘Big Data’ crossroads, and that complex, large volume and unstructured datasets are beginning to reshape and transform the industry. Additionally, Davenport suggested that big data will require the industry to address a number of challenges, in order to unlock its potential: technological complexity; data accuracy and rights of use; business and technological alignment. At the corporate buyer level gaining access to accurate travel reporting data is a major factor in the effective management of air travel and presents opportunity to identify where savings can be achieved. This is very important for both the buyer and supplier of air travel. It is interesting to note that technological developments pose both an opportunity; and a threat to TMC’s. The opportunities for the companies may involve ensuring the company is up to date with technological advancements within the industry in order to remain competitive. Conversely, if TMC’s are slow on the uptake of embracing and implementing new technology in their organisation, they may be at a disadvantage within the business travel market. Overall, the rapid advancements in technology alone present a significant challenge to the travel industry, specifically to TMC’s. Voice BASED AND MOBILE TECHNOLOGY A key writer on the travel industry, Scott Gillespie (2012) identified various technological changes which he emphasised are a ‘tipping point’ for the corporate travel industry. Some of those changes mentioned include the technological advancements of voice-based user interfaces from Apple, Google. Gillespie asserted that these new interfaces may be a threat to company policy compliance, due to the convenience of using such interfaces for travellers; which may in turn cause them to purchase travel outside of company policy direction. If the traveller does not book through the proper channels directed within company policy, there is no way for the TMC or corporation to track the traveller’s whereabouts or provide them with services in an emergency (West, 2013) In Chapter 2 we looked at ‘M’ technology and the growth of that market and its increasing importance in the procurement of air travel. CarlsonWagonlit Travel has invested in this area in its rece nt acquisition of Worldmate a leading mobile technology company. This will bear fruit in CWT’s mobile app ‘CWT TO GO’. Airlines are slowly moving towards mobile phone app technology which will replaces the requirement for printing of electronic tickets and boarding passes by using mobile phone QR code (barcode) technology to check in for flights. The ongoing evolution of technology emphasises the importance for TMC’s to keep up to date with it in the provision of procurement systems for clients which are not only economical, efficient and effective but contemporary and convenient to use. CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY (CSR) The concept that organisations should be held accountable for the effects of their actions on people, their communities and the environment is known as CSR. There are many aspects of CSR which impact on the travel industry and consequently their end users. There are increasing concerns for rising carbon emissions; this coupled with rising costs naturally leads organisations to seek alternatives to air travel. These alternatives include video conferencing and webinars, however, it has been emphasised that face-to-face meetings still remain an important aspect of business negotiations (Forbes, 2009). This affects the competitive environment of TMC’s, since a threat of a substitute method to conduct meetings is available. Travel Management companies need to maintain their relevance in a rapidly changing business environment. And Government travel needs to be particularly vigilant as penalties are imposed on increasing carbon emissions under the Kyoto Protocol. MODELS OF TRAVEL MANAGEMENT It is not feasible to produce a definitive list of air travel procurement models, but in general they fall under the following categories; INHOUSE CENTRALISED MODEL TMC; This model is one where all travel is procured from a centralised office within the company in association with a TMC, who provides online and offline bookings. This model allows greater control over travel policy and spends and is used by both private and public sector. Business travelers would feel this model is too restrictive and doesn’t allow flexibility but that is mute point when it comes to controlling spend. INHOUSE DECENTRALISED MODEL TMC This model is one where travel can be procured by the individual employee either directly with the TMC for offline booking or online through the corporate booking tool. This model allows greater control to the individual and is favored by high-tech or internet based companies, E.G. EBay, Google, independence over their booking. This model tends to be accompanied by an incentive programme, whereby travelers can gain perks by purchasing travel within company policy and in this way costs can be controlled. INHOUSE CENTRALISED AND DECENTRALISED TMC This model is a mixture of the two above and is a very inefficient model of travel procurement as it is very difficult to control travel expenditure and policy compliance. It is generally adopted by organisations where there is little senior management buy in to control the travel spend. INHOUSE TMC IMPLANT. This model allows a staff member of the TMC to reside within the organisation to procure all of the travel requirements of the organisation. This can be an expensive option unless travel policy is strictly enforced. INHOUSE GDS IMPLANT( verify with Volker in Amadeus/ Microsoft ) This model allows for the provision of a staff member of the GDS provider to be embedded within the organisation to assist the procurement of all travel requirements of the organisation. This can be a very efficient option as it eliminates the ‘middle man’ charges of the TMC in the procurement of air travel as it procures direct with the GDS provider. Some organisations who favour this method also have a TMC contract for the provision of VIP or specialised travel only. In the public sector in Ireland government travel is purchased through a centralised contract but managed and procured in many different ways by each of the Government Departments, bodies and agencies with varying usage of online and offline methods. Some use the contract to procure only air travel, others use it for air and hotel (Brussels hotels only as per the contract) and car hire. More and more private companies are using a travel expense management system (OBT) where all expenses related to travel; air, hotel, car, and subsistence/entertainment are captured on the same system, in this way making it more transparent and easier to control and analyse travel expenditure. SUMMARY The world of business travel is a valuable, innovative and technologically evolving industry. The opening up of new markets and the drive to expand business into new frontiers is a reality. Coupled with this is the requirement to develop new business relationships which must be nurtured though face to face meetings thus giving continued impetus to this sector. We have reviewed the role and function of TMC’s and technology in the travel industry and the future challenges they face. The various models of travel management gives us an insight into how the travel industry operates and provides a framework that can be compared against the research findings when examined in more detail and assist in establishing what can we learnt by both the private and public sector in the management of air travel

Kaleidoscopes of Light: Reflecting on Namibian Faith and Culture :: Essays Papers

Kaleidoscopes of Light: Reflecting on Namibian Faith and Culture In this illuminating semester in Southern Africa, my Christian beliefs have been colored with light from kaleidoscopes of cultures and people. I have been heavily challenged, strengthened anew, and turned on my head more than once. Perhaps most explicitly, I have learned about the role of religion in social change in Namibia, from study in this course, in visiting eight different churches over the course of three months, and in building relationships with inspiring Namibians. As I prepare to make my return journey home, I wonder if I will be prepared to share and describe what religious frustrations and exaltations of faith have filled my days. I wonder if my spiritual curiosity will continue to refine and deepen my appreciation for the meaning of Christianity in my life, especially as I return to work in a Christian summer camp in Montana. I wish I could say that the message of unconditional love cradled in the scripture of my faith has struck me anew during my time here. But my experiences have filled me with more spiritual questions and concerns than answers of affirmation. This is adventuresome and stimulating, to say the least, and I am glad for the challenge provided here; faith should never be a docile and lame journey of life. Throughout our religious classes this semester, meeting religious leaders and human rights activists has fueled my understanding of the meaning of Christianity. In lectures from community leaders, pastors and counselors, our class discussions bore witness to Christianity’s original context in Southern Africa, its profound role in the liberation struggle and its potential in continuing processes of reconciliation in Namibia. Reading historical reviews and articles of colonialism and apartheid exposed me to the heart-rending effects of religion in this country. What still strikes me to the core about what I’ve learned is the good religious communities can offer this nation. As our articulate speaker Rev. Nangula Kathindi, President of the Namibian Council of Churches, demonstrates with her words and her work, church involvement in breaking the wall of silence surrounding SWAPO atrocities and human rights violations is for the empowerment of Namibians everywhere. Her posit ion of authority within the church gives a fresh perspective on the role of the church playing into everyday life in Namibia, and how its influence can be used for progressive change today. The words of Kathindi fill me with hope for the future generations of Namibia; she is a living testament to the power of churches reshaping the race-war worn lives of Namibians today.

Essay --

Illegal immigration has deemed to be an issue of domestic policy for the United States of America. According to statistics over 11 million people are living in the United States without legal documentation infringing immigration law. This is something the United States has been concerned for over a long period of time. Although a real solution has yet to be enforced, many illegal immigrants were a result of the â€Å"open border era†, however today many get through by visa overstay. Not only has the government addressed this issue to be an economic and security threat, but those opposed to the problem also find illegal immigrants a threat to society. Today, the views have shifted in present society focusing on benefits immigrants may bring to the country although a negative presence still exists among them. Furthermore, in this paper I will outline how illegal immigration is deemed to be a problem, the successes and failures in facilitating solutions for the problem, and weig hing out the costs and benefits of illegal immigration. Nevertheless, the population of ethnic minorities in the United States continues to increasingly dominate over Native Americans with greater challenges at stake. How has illegal immigration deemed to be such a threat to the United States? First, the fact that over 11 million people were able to cross borders illegally without proper documentation shows that the immigration system in the United States has failed. The term â€Å"illegal† induces negative stereotypes as is and â€Å"stresses criminality and otherness† (Passel and Fix) which allows the public to perceive illegal immigrants as bad people, because those â€Å"who break laws must be punished and a failure to punishment is immoral† (Passel and Fix). However this d... ...nomy of the United States. Proclamations have been made in which have failed due to inner problems within political groups or financial matters of the State. Today, Obama has issued an immigration reform with a solution of putting an end and securing the increasing population of immigration. Furthermore, with the future creation of stricter policies in regards to the immigration population, there is prospect for effective solutions. Thus, illegal immigrants have more of a positive impact on the overall society than negative. They evidently bring diversity to the country, increase employment rates of US businesses, and facilitate in a stronger population and global connections. The issue of illegal immigration should therefore focus on effective solutions for implementing security and protection not only for the country but for the immigrants residing in it as well. Essay -- Illegal immigration has deemed to be an issue of domestic policy for the United States of America. According to statistics over 11 million people are living in the United States without legal documentation infringing immigration law. This is something the United States has been concerned for over a long period of time. Although a real solution has yet to be enforced, many illegal immigrants were a result of the â€Å"open border era†, however today many get through by visa overstay. Not only has the government addressed this issue to be an economic and security threat, but those opposed to the problem also find illegal immigrants a threat to society. Today, the views have shifted in present society focusing on benefits immigrants may bring to the country although a negative presence still exists among them. Furthermore, in this paper I will outline how illegal immigration is deemed to be a problem, the successes and failures in facilitating solutions for the problem, and weig hing out the costs and benefits of illegal immigration. Nevertheless, the population of ethnic minorities in the United States continues to increasingly dominate over Native Americans with greater challenges at stake. How has illegal immigration deemed to be such a threat to the United States? First, the fact that over 11 million people were able to cross borders illegally without proper documentation shows that the immigration system in the United States has failed. The term â€Å"illegal† induces negative stereotypes as is and â€Å"stresses criminality and otherness† (Passel and Fix) which allows the public to perceive illegal immigrants as bad people, because those â€Å"who break laws must be punished and a failure to punishment is immoral† (Passel and Fix). However this d... ...nomy of the United States. Proclamations have been made in which have failed due to inner problems within political groups or financial matters of the State. Today, Obama has issued an immigration reform with a solution of putting an end and securing the increasing population of immigration. Furthermore, with the future creation of stricter policies in regards to the immigration population, there is prospect for effective solutions. Thus, illegal immigrants have more of a positive impact on the overall society than negative. They evidently bring diversity to the country, increase employment rates of US businesses, and facilitate in a stronger population and global connections. The issue of illegal immigration should therefore focus on effective solutions for implementing security and protection not only for the country but for the immigrants residing in it as well.

Feminine Roles in Othello Essay -- Othello essays

Feminine Roles in Othello  Ã‚        Ã‚  Ã‚   A variety of roles have women in them in William Shakespeare’s tragic drama Othello. Let us in this essay examine the female characters and their roles.    One key role for the heroine of the drama, Desdemona, is to support the general. David Bevington in William Shakespeare: Four Tragedies enlightens us about the hero’s dependence on Desdemona:    Othello’s most tortured speeches (3.4.57-77, 4.2.49-66) reveal the extent to which he equates the seemingly betraying woman he has so depended on for happiness with his own mother, who gave Othello’s father a handkerchief and threatened him with loss of her love if he should lose it. Othello has briefly learned and then forgotten the precious art of harmonizing erotic passion and spiritual love, and as these two great aims of love are driven apart in him, he comes to loathe and fear the sexuality that puts him so much in mind of his physical frailty and dependence on woman. (226)    At the outset of the play Iago persuades the rejected suitor of Desdemona, Roderigo, to accompany him to the home of Brabantio, Desdemona’s father, in the middle of the night. Once there the two awaken the senator with loud shouts about his daughter’s elopement with Othello. This is the initial reference to the role of women in the play – the role of wife. In response to the noise and Iago’s vulgar descriptions of Desdemona’s involvement with the general, Brabantio arises from bed. Iago’s bawdy references to the senator’s daughter present a second role of women – that of illicit lover. With Roderigo’s help, he gathers a search party to go and find Desdemona and bring her home. The father’s attitude is that life without his Desdemona will be much ... ... murder on.† Emilia is aware that she is violating social convention here: â€Å"’Tis proper I obey him, but not now.† This violation costs her dearly Emilia’s stunning interrogation and conviction of her own husband as the evil mastermind behind the murder results in Iago’s killing her. Despondent Othello, grief-stricken by remorse for the tragic mistake he has made, stabs himself and dies on the bed next to his wife.    Thus it is seen that the roles of women are many and varied – and are key to the successful development of the story.       WORKS CITED    Bevington, David, ed. William Shakespeare: Four Tragedies. New York: Bantam Books, 1980.    Shakespeare, William. Othello. In The Electric Shakespeare. Princeton University. 1996. http://www.eiu.edu/~multilit/studyabroad/othello/othello_all.html No line nos.               

Promotional Strategy Essay

There are various ways to communicate with potential customers. Promotional strategy includes a mix of advertising, publicity, sales promotions, personal selling, and public relations. Each component of the promotional mix plays a role in your effort to have potential customers learn about your business and buy your goods or services. Your promotional strategy must address the who, what, when, where, and how much money to spend. The â€Å"Who† of Your Promotional Strategy No business can be all things to all people, and no business has an unlimited amount of money to spend on its promotions. You will need to be sure you direct your effort and money to your target market. The better you can identify who is in your target market, where they live, what magazines and newspapers they read, what television stations they watch, and what radio stations they listen to, the higher the probability that you will be able to get their attention and influence their behavior. If you can identify your target market’s demographics, then you can check the listenership, viewership, and readership profiles for various media, including local radio stations, newspapers, magazines, and television stations. For example, if you are opening a clothing store and the primary target market is teenage girls, then you should review the rating of radio listenership in your geographic area. Most radio stations have a copy of the ratings. You will be able to determine which radio station has the highest listenership in that age category. The A. C. Nielsen rating service does the same for television viewership. The â€Å"What† of Your Promotional Strategy The â€Å"what† involves determining the message you should communicate to your target market. Your promotional strategy is intended to take people who may have varying degrees of interest in your type of goods and services and get them to become your customers. You will need to know who they are, who they are currently buying from, why they are buying the goods and services, and to what extent they are still â€Å"customers in search of a business.† Your promotional strategy is intended to get the people in your target market to modify their behavior. The â€Å"message† you send to the people in your target market must be tailored to their mental frameworks. Your message must also provide the incentive for them to do business with you. Your promotional strategy should be based on: (1) Who do you want to influence? (2) What do you have to offer them that is better than the competition? and (3) What do I need to communicate to them to get them to become my customers? Your promotional strategy should emphasize your competitive advantage(s). Successful promotional strategies are based on the concept, â€Å"If everyone is offering a steak, then you must sell your sizzle!† You must know what your target market values. Your strategy should highlight your business’s â€Å"unique selling points/propositions.† The â€Å"When† of Your Promotional Strategy There are four major intervals for promoting your business. The first is preening promotion. It is very important for a new business to generate customer interest before your business opens its doors. You want your target market to be anxious for your business to open. Some businesses do â€Å"teaser† advertising. A teaser ad may be, â€Å"the countdown has begun; there are only 60 days until Company of Miami opens.† This business may do teaser advertising by erecting a sign where the business will be located. Your business will also need to provide ongoing promotions. Your existing customers will need to be kept informed about developments in your business. You will also need to let potential customers learn about your business and its sizzle. Most new businesses tend to have a token grand opening promotion and do little after that. You need to develop an ongoing promotional program that will keep your business in your target market’s minds. If the world doesn’t know about your mousetrap’s advantages and the market doesn’t know where your door is, then you will not sell a single mousetrap. The â€Å"Where† of Your Promotional Strategy Your promotional strategy will only be effective if its message gets to your target audience at the appropriate time. The â€Å"where† of promotional strategy involves the media you use to communicate with your target market. There are numerous avenues or media available for promoting your business. The key is to know which media will produce the best results. The media to be used will depend on to whom you want to direct your message, the nature of the message, and when it needs to be presented. Each type of media has advantages and disadvantages. Television offers color, movement, sound, and broad geographic coverage. Radio offers a means to get to a large number of people at various times of the day and night. Newspapers offer daily coverage to a large percentage of an area’s households. Direct mail permits you to send your message to a specific group of people. Billboards take advantage of a captive audience while people are in their automobiles. There is no one best medium for all businesses. There is no one best medium for every type of message. When asked which medium is the best, the answer can only be, â€Å"The one that does the best job of attracting customers per dollar cost.† Your promotion budget also influences media selection. You want to get the best return per dollar invested in promotion. One medium may cost less than another, but you need to determine which one will do the most effective job of getting your message to your target market. businesses frequently evaluate media in terms of the cost of reaching each 1000 potential customers. The â€Å"How Much† to Spend Part of Your Promotional Strategy The question of how much money to spend on promoting your business is very difficult to answer. Some businesses spend a certain percentage of projected sales on promotion-related activities. If, for example, you are trying to generate sales of $ 100,000 for the first year, then you may want to review trade data on your type of business to learn what percentage of sales you should spend on advertising. Bank of America reports that the average ad expenses for apparel stores is 2 to 3 percent of sales; for bookstores, 1.5 to 2.5 percent of sales; and for gift stores, 1.5 to 2.5 percent of sales. These figures reflect annual budgets for existing businesses. Your first year’s promotional budget will need to be a larger percentage of sales because your business will be unknown and you will be trying to divert customers from other businesses. The percentage-of-sales method may provide a general idea of how much to spend, but spending a certain percentage of sales on promotion does no t guarantee that you will generate that level of sales. The best way to determine your promotional budget is to identify what you want to accomplish. This is known as the â€Å"target† approach. If you want to have 8 people come to you each week, then you need to determine what type and amount of promotion you will need to do to achieve that goal. You may find it will take 3 primetime radio spots per day on two different radio stations; a two column, 3inch ad in the local newspaper on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays; 2 billboards located on two major thoroughfares; and 1000 direct mail promotions per month to achieve your goal. The target approach recognizes that you must reach a â€Å"critical mass† before your promotions will have an effect on the market. The percentage-of-sales approach indicates what businesses spent. The target approach determines what you think it will take to achieve your sales goal. The target approach is particularly appropriate for a new venture. There are two other approaches businesses may use to determine their promotional budgets. Some businesses simply try to match their competition. They monitor the number of radio spots aired and the amount of ad space in the newspaper. The businesses then match their major competitor’s promotional program. This approach has two flaws. First, it assumes that your competitors are doing the right type and amount of advertising. Second, if you don’t do a better job of promoting your business than your competition, why should your target market do business with you? The other approach to developing a promotional budget is based on how much you can afford to spend. This may be the least effective approach. It assumes that you have allocated money to all of the other aspects of your business. Any money that is left is what you can spend on promoting your business. You must recognize that you need to do promotions to generate sales. If you hope to have enough sales to leave you with enough money to do promotions, then you have things backwards. It is interesting to note that most people are reluctant to spend much money promoting their business. This reluctance is quite natural. Money spent on promotions offers no assurance that it will bring in enough customers to justify the expense. One of the sayings about advertising is, â€Å"Only one-half of advertising works. The problem is that you don’t know in advance which half it will be!† However, promotions should be viewed as an investment that is necessary to generate the level of sales needed to produce your targeted level of profit. The Promotional Mix Most of the discussion of promotional strategy has been focused on advertising. Promotion also includes the name you choose for your business, its sign, personal selling techniques, point-of-purchase displays, special sales promotions, public relations, and publicity. Publicity may be particularly important for a new business. Publicity is defined as media coverage for which you don’t pay. Many radio stations, newspapers, and television stations do features on new businesses when they open. If your business is the first of its kind in your area or if it has some special â€Å"sizzle,† you may be able to get the media to do a special feature on it. You should make every effort to get in touch with the media before your business opens. Publicity can be equivalent to thousands of dollars of free advertising. Publicity is also valuable because potential customers tend to pay more attention to features than to advertisements.

Human Resources Issues in Mining

Human Resource Strategies 660 Monday, Trimester 1 2011, 18th April Assignment 3 HR Case Analysis at Workplace Word Count:2500 I. Introduction The Global Financial Crisis (GFC) in 2008 affected lots of industries including the miners. Employment in mining is particularly vulnerable to a cycle of rapid expansion and contraction, as changing economic circumstances cause demand and prices for certain commodities to rise or fall. Eventually the GFC resulted in lots of labour cutbacks in the resource industry (Australian Government, 2009).The key human resources (HR) challenges facing the West Australian mining industry for the next few years are considered to be: replacing retirees; the retention of key talent; growing the talent pool training and development; and keeping staff motivated (Dickie and Dwyer, 2010). On the other hand the WA Chamber of Minerals & Energy (CME, 2006) identified a number of HR strategic issues for the WA resource sector like; skills shortage, employee attraction and retention, flexible workplace practices, indigenous employment opportunities and community-regional services.The company I work for decided to go through downsizing in order to reduce the operating costs during GFC. This article aims to delineate several HR issues as a result of global downsizing process in the organisation. The main focus will be sudden redundancies, decrease in motivation, labour shortage, health and safety issues and recruitment of new employees. Since several HR issues are interrelated to each other, with the purpose of this article, the main focus will be mainly on downsizing policy and its short and long term effects in the organisation. II. The Downsizing Policy and Its EffectsOrganizational downsizing is a prevalent strategy designed to improve organizational performance while selectively decreasing costs. It refers to â€Å"an organizational decision to reduce the workforce in order to improve organizational performance† (Kozlowski et al. , 1993 ). Therefore stemming from the desire to become more efficient and effective, firms in both the private and the public sectors has adopted downsizing strategies (Cameron, 1987). Furthermore, the increasingly dynamic and competitive workplace and the trend toward globalization have prompted many firms to downsize (Appelbaum et. l, 1999). The GFC created considerable uncertainty, in the mining industry. In addition to the recruitment and retention issues, organisations were faced with trying to keep staff motivated at a time when more job losses were predicted and budgets became getting tighter (Dickie and Dwyer,2010). My current employer decided to go through global downsizing as a response to GFC. Fifty percent of the employees were made redundant and number of the projects was tremendously decreased due to the limited budget. The HR department played an active role in that period to manage the downsizing process.One of the strengths during this process was keeping good communicatio n between HR and the upper level managers. The process was completed with collaborative work between HR and management. The professional assist received from consultants involved improvement the employees’ self awareness levels, increase their motivation and confidence as well as creating effective CVs. However during downsizing process several HR related issues started to rise in the company. The employees who remained in the company lost their trust and motivation.Besides due to loss of skilled labour the productivity decreased and the incident numbers dramatically increased. The turn-over rates were high and the team dynamics were damaged. Eventually the sudden decision given by upper managerial level due to economical downturn resulted serious HR issues in the company. The downsizing process and its long and short term influences for this case study is summarised in Figure 1 below. Global Downsizing Global Financial Crisis HR Issues Redundancies Survival syndrome in remai ning employees Increased turn-over records Skills Shortage Increase number of injuries in the companyManagement of HR Issues Aggressive recruitment policy (overseas transfers, secondments , graduates) Employee Engagement Survey Re-evaluation of salary packages and staff benefits Job Analysis and Talent Assessment Improved Graduate Development Program Maintaining trainings and developments Improvement in Health and Safety System Figure 1. The HR Issues of company. II. A. Survival Syndrome Since company mainly focused on those who lost their jobs; the employees who remained in the company suffered more after redundancies. Employee resentment and concern, loss of morale was high among the remaining employees.The labour shortage created several issues for employees like job burnouts, working longer hours, increased pressure, and role overload and decrease morale. Unfortunately the bad influence of downsizing on the psychology of remaining employees was not well managed by HR department of the company. Brockner (1992) defines ‘the survivor syndrome’ as impact of downsizing on the remaining employees. There is considerable evidence that remaining employees feel shocked, embittered towards management, fearful about their future and guilty about still having a job whilst colleagues have been laid off.Such employees are more likely to have lower morale and increased stress levels, be less productive, and less loyal with increased quit levels. According to study 70 percent of senior managers who remained in downsized firms reported that morale, trust, and productivity declined after downsizing those who lose their jobs may seem the most affected by downsizing, it is more likely that the employees who remain suffer the more negative effects (Appelbaum et. al, 1999). Eventually the HR was not able to create good strategy to keep the remaining employees’ motivation high during downsizing process.Shook and Roth (2010) explained that failure to identify e mployee issues in the pre-downsizing due diligence phase creates a chaotic workplace atmosphere and increases employee fears and stress levels. These change events affect career uncertainty, fear, and stress in employees. Employees have long-term memories of their old comfortable culture and they fight to keep it. Employee resistance includes a variety of passive as well as aggressive techniques. Culture change may take years to complete and can be difficult to manage, even when HR is fully engaged and supported.These transitions are more difficult to manage when HR is not involved. In fact, culture change may never be fully realized without HR support because of the human resistance (Szabla, 2007). Furthermore due to limited professionals the remaining staff started to have difficulty to maintain the work and life balance. The consequences of imbalance between work and personal or family life were visible at the workplace. The emotional exhaustion, cynicism and burnouts were common . Unfortunately The HR department was not fully aware of the situation until the employee turnovers increased and also effectiveness decreased.With shortages of professionals and an active economy the pressures on existing employees looks set to rise and therefore this is an area which needs to be benchmarked and revisited with a view to adopting best practice throughout the sector (Wilkinson, 2008). II. B. Skills Shortage On the other hand downsizing affects employees’ affective commitment to the organization both directly and indirectly. However, its indirect impact is much stronger (Lee and Corbett, 2005). Apart form the short term sudden effects the long term effects of the downsizing started in the organisation.Working with less force resulted in company to have inadequate supply of talent, increasing number of health and safety incidents at workplace and delays in production due to limited talented labour force. Especially after the recent mining boom, the company decid ed to increase the number of production activities in spite of limited skilled labour. It is a big challenge nowadays to find the specialised professionals in the mining industry. Apparently the HR division and management team chosen to concentrate on short-term needs rather than the organisation’s long term eeds during GFC. Sheaffer et. al (2009) claim that whereas downsizing affects the short-term performance of larger and established companies positively, it generally affects long-term performance inversely. A common mistake for HR managers is to concentrate on short-term replacement needs rather than on the organisation’s long-range HR requirements. Such a non-strategic approach causes management to be caught unawareness by changes in employee availability and quality of labour, creates a series of short-term dilemmas.Stone also adds that of the right numbers of qualified and skilled employees are not available, an organisation may not be able to meet its strategic business objectives (Stone, 2010). The mining companies are now beginning to acknowledge that the current supply shortage is already impacting the productivity, efficiency and profitability of their operations. The shortage of skilled workers in combination with high turn-over rates are among the top factors impacting industry growth, either by stopping or delaying projects that would otherwise proceed, or by significantly adding to the cost of new projects (Schultz and Grimm, 2008).During boom times, mining companies find it difficult to attract staff, even though huge salaries are on offer. This highlights a challenge quite unique to mining; namely, attracting highly skilled people to the remote location of most mine sites (Ednie, 2004). Eventually the skills shortage is still one of the biggest issues in the organisation. Since most of the experienced (high-cost) employees were made redundant company faces challenges in finding the experienced professionals. The HR department st arted the recruitment process however the mining market is still sparse of skilled professionals in specific roles.This is one of the biggest challenges for the HR department. II. C. Health and Safety Issues Poor occupational health and safety (OHS) performance equates with poor human resource management (HRM), and poor ethical, legal and social responsibility (Stone, 2010). Since the mining boom hit the market recently the mining organisations increased their production activities in order to compete among the resource market. However the number of the staff stayed same while the number of projects was tremendously increasing. This lead to enhance health and safety related incidents at work place.Specifically in this case during the downsizing process most experienced staff with extensive safety culture made redundant. This created a big gap in management of health and safety issues in the company. When employees leave, they take valuable process knowledge, customer and supplier re lationships and a host of organizational know-how with them (Schultz and Grimm, 2008). The inexperienced new employees (i. e graduates, overseas staff) have difficulty in implementing the high quality safety standards due to their sparse knowledge about the safety system of the organisation.Therefore increased emphasis on HR management is particularly important to the development of safety culture in the organisation. On the other hand once the crisis in the division was more visible due to increased number of incidents and low quality work the HR department started to take active role in collaboration with upper management. The pro-active recruitment strategy implemented in order to attract more skilled employees. Moreover â€Å"global employee engagement survey† was performed in order to evaluate the current employee’s satisfaction and asses the major HR related issues at that time.This survey added tremendous value to the group to define the major problems in the or ganisation. The HR department in collaboration with upper managers performed well by initiating extensive survey and also by following up the survey results. III. Improvement in HR Strategies Successive HR planning is essential in order to solve any HR issues at the workplace. During the downsizing process HR department has an important role. Chadwick et al. (2004) indicates that downsizing is more likely to be effective in the longer term when accompanied by accompanied by practices that reinforce the contribution of HR to financial success (e. . , extensive communication, respectful treatment of redundant employees and attention to survivors concerns over job security). Levin (2009) identified three broad priorities in Australian businesses: (1) Retention strategies. (2) Downsizing or â€Å"Right sizing† activity will continue. (3) Organisations need to continue to invest in their people. In a downturn economy, HR practitioners need to be emphasising to their organisations that it is necessary to do the right thing for the long-term value and sustainability of the business (Levin,2009).This includes recognising the link between leadership and performance, and hence ensuring that leadership talent is retained, developed and, most importantly, allowed to lead through the tough times (HRL, 2009). Based on the literature survey several strategies are proposed in this section to manage the previously defined critical HR issues: A. Investment in HR systems in the organisation: Especially during the global decisions the HR should be in collaboration with all levels of management.Alignment between the business and human resource management (HRM) strategy is the key factor of success for organisations (Wylie,2005 and Wang and Shyu, 2008). Implementing proactive HRM practices and succession planning programs should be one of the targets. B. Gap Analysis: Clear understanding of the problems is severe in HR practice. In order to manage the ‘survivor syndrom e’ HR should focus on motivation of remaining employees. The department can make detailed gap analysis and survey in order to assess the staff morale and expectations. This should be followed by upper management actions.C. Optimising Human Capital: Mining companies needed to communicate the reasons for staff redundancies and budget cutbacks and engage their staff in decisions going forward in order to generate trust among their remaining workforce so that they could remain competitive once the economy improved. HR should create serious strategies in order to make people connected to the organisation (Dickie and Dwyer, 2010). D. Talent Assessment: The employee talent assessment in collaboration with HR and line managers will address the current skills gap in the organisation.This will also give good understanding about the skills and expectations of the current staff. E. Training and Career Development: Developing a collaborative, cross-industry strategy for training/education al programs and employer-provided training to facilitate the availability of a skilled labour force is one of the retention strategies. Company should actively support and enhance the people skills and relational abilities of all employees through training and development programs (Dickie and Dwyer, 2010).With this perspective well structured graduate and mentoring program also can be attractive especially for the Gen Y workers. F. Focus on improvements in leadership: Training managers to actively manage retention in their areas also adds value. Besides the leadership competencies of the management should be improved ino der to solve the current challenge. Pick et. al (2010) proposes action reflection learning (ARL) methodology as an HR tool to improve the skills of leaders in the organisation. G. Improvement in Health and Safety: The current safety culture should be measured by HR.Sexton et al (2006) describes Safety Attitude Questionnaire (SAQ) as an HR tool which helps to measure the team work climate, job satisfaction, perceptions of management, safety climate, working conditions and stress recognition. Also learning from incidents as well as improved safety system should be managed by HR. On the other hand visible leadership and supervising on sites should be maintained to assist the new employees. H. Growing the Talent Pool: Since it is a big challenge to attract the best employees in the market, employee benefit offerings such as full medical, dental, profit sharing and wellness programs could be effective.Attractive packages in a work culture with a family-oriented atmosphere need to be developed. Recruitment strategies should be improved to persuade the skilled specialists in the market. I. Communication: The mostly effective companies have two-way communication between senior leaders and employees. A good communication plan on how to deliver HR initiatives would be beneficial (Dickie and Dwyer,2010). IV. Conclusion Since mining operations operate wit h a finite resource, often remote locations, require specialised skills, with high capital intensity and are subject to political, social and environmental global issues.Downsizing policies will be choice of the organisations in the market with plunging commodity prices and falling demand (Dickie and Dwyer,2010). Strong HR strategy creating a link between leadership and performance is a key factor to cope with these trends in the resource sector. References Appelbaum, S. H. , A. , Everard, and L. T. S. , Hung. 1999. Strategic downsizing:critical success factors. Management Decision, 37(70): 535-552. http://www. emeraldinsight. com. dbgw. lis. curtin. edu. au Brockner, J. 1992. Managing the Effects of Layoffs on Survivors, California Management Review. (34): 9-27.Cameron, K. S. , D. A. , Whetten, and M. U. , Kim. 1987. Organizational dysfunctions of decline, Academy of Management Journal, 30: 126-38. Chadwick, C. , L. W. , Hunter, and S. 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