Discussion Question free essay sample

The Ron Jon Surf Shop is similar to the Hilo Hattie website is the sense that they both sale beach wear for men, women, and young children. They both are sunny beach wear type online stores to sale retail as well as other products. The web designs are similar in the sense that they use individuals who are happy and joyful to help sale product. They are different because Hilo Hattie is focused around Hawaiian products and clothing styles, whereas Ron Don Surf Shop not only sales clothes but surfing gear and attire. You can see organizational planning with in the Ron Job Surf Shop through out there website when you go to the â€Å"about us† section. It clearly shows that the goals of the company are (to sell clothes and surf products). It tells shoppers they not only do the company sale clothes but that they promote their products through community events, tour groups, and company partners. We will write a custom essay sample on Discussion Question or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page The site is very well organized so the customers can find which products they are looking for easily and within categories that make the search process much faster. When it comes to staffing you can see the managers have made it so customers can contact their customer service reps if any problem occurs to try and help solve them. This all shows a good control within the contents of the web page but also the company. Within the Hilo Hattie web page we see they sale clothing and product specific to Hawaiian culture and living. The organization planning is clearly put into their web content. It is very easy to find clothing, and other products throughout the website which means whoever was in charge of setting up the page had a clear goal in mind- to make it as easy as possible for customers. The goal here is also to sale retail products to as many customers as possible. This site also shows the that customer care is important to them and gives customers the chance to contact management if any problem arises with the sales and/or merchandise. This shows a positive leadership with precise direction and good company control. Discussion Question 2 Netflix a. Give an example of how the values and mission statement help to shape planning. Also give some internal and external factors that may influence the business in the future and explain how they will influence the business. Respond substantively to two other learners b. Complete a SWOT Analysis for your selected organization; applying each of the categories in evaluating the company. For this week’s second discussion question I decided to go with the company Netflix. Since distinctive competence is something a company does better than their competitors, in my opinion, would be the wide selection of shows they offer to their customers. Have this huge selection makes them stand out again other companies similar to them. The core competence is the most proficient performed internal activity in the company. Netflix is very proficient in the internal activity of monitor the show choices people watch and movies to better what selection they have available to customers. The mission statement of Netflix is to bring the best movies and television shows to customers at a low price- to basically cut out cable. The values of this mission statement are shown in the commitment to make customers happy, constantly update the available movies and shows, as well as maintaining a low and affordable price. Some internal factors that may influence a company are the management team- how the managers and co-workers come together to work for the company. They influence a company’s reputation with customers thus affecting the future business. External factors that influence the company now and in the future can be seen in the company’s website for example. This needs constant updating, work, and consistency. Having a well-run web page can drastically affect a company’s revue The following is the completion of the SWOT analysis; Strength-Opportunity What are the company’s advantages? The company has an advantage over other company’s marketing TV shows and movies with their wide selection and low price. What does the company do well? The company does an excellent job of marketing their product throughout web content, radio ads, and television ads. What relevant resources does the company have access to? The company has access to television ads, billboard ads, internet, radio, so on and so forth. What do other people see as the company’s strength? I would image that other people see the company’s strength to be low price for all they get. Strength-Threat What could the company improve? The company could improve on the selection of movies and TV shows available. What does the company do badly? I have read that the company could use some work with their video quality. What should the company avoid? I think the company should avoid to many advertisements. Weakness- Opportunity What are the good opportunities in the front of the company? The company has good opportunities for even lower prices with available discounts. What are the interesting trends the company is aware of? An interesting trend the company is aware of is, is that specialty channels like HBO have hit television shows that you have to pay extra for with cable. But with Netflix it’s included in the price. Weakness-Threat Does the company face obstacles? The company faces obstacles with the completion of cable and hulu trying to be similar to Netflix. What is the company’s competition doing? The competition is adding new shows and services at similar prices to try and get more customers. Are the required specifications for the company’s job, products, or services changing? There have been changes to the company’s products and services but it seems to add more shows that viewers. Is changing technology threatening the company’s position? It does appear that new technology is threatening Netflix. Since they don’t have live cable just shows and movies the cable company’s now dvr- allowing customers to select shows to watch that might not be on Netflix. Does the company have bad debt or cash flow problems? It is not reported that the company is in bad debt or having cash flow problems at the moment. Could the company’s weaknesses seriously threaten the business? I do not see any weaknesses in the company so far that seriously threaten them enough to put them out of business. Discussion Question free essay sample Compare and contrast six types of incentive plans. Various types of incentive plans werepresented in the text, including piecework plans, straight and guaranteed plans, standardhour plans, plans for salespersons (commissions and combination plans), and groupincentive plans. With the piecework plans, earnings are tied directly to what the individualworker produces, and are more appropriate in a manufacturing organization. Commissionsare more appropriate for salespeople in situations where they are largely unsupervised. Ingroup incentive plans like the Scanlon Plan, all workers involved in developing andimplementing cost savings share in the benefits of the suggestions. (Pages 440-460) 2. Explain five reasons why incentive plans fail. When incentive plans fail, it can be for avariety of reasons like: employees do not believe that effort will obtain the reward, badmanagement overrides the plan, rewards tied to the wrong measures, plan is complicatedand difficult for employees to understand, or standards are too high or too low. See the liston page 462 for more reasons and details. We will write a custom essay sample on Discussion Question or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Pages 461-463) 3. Describe the nature of some important management incentives . Two widely usedmanagement incentive plans are merit pay and profit sharing plans. Merit pay is any salaryincrease that is awarded to an employee on his or her individual performance. Advocatesargue that only pay tied directly to performance can motivate improved performance. Profitsharing plans distribute a portion of the companys profits to employees in the form of abonus. Research shows that benefits are more subtle than increased productivity—possiblyin the form of better worker commitment. There are additional management incentive plansstudents might cover, including long-term incentives such as capital accumulation plans,various alternative stock plans, and performance plans. (Pages 443-449) 4. When and why would you pay a salesperson a salary and commission combined? Salary plans work well when your objective is prospecting work or where the salesperson isprimarily involved in account servicing. They are often found in industries that sell technicalproducts. A commission plan is appropriate when sales costs are roportional to sales. Thiscan reduce the selling investment for fixed costs. The straight commission also providessalespeople with the greatest possible incentive and there is a tendency to attract high-performing people. Combination plans are used when the firm wants to direct itssalespeoples activities by detailing what services the salary component is being paid for  while the commission component provides a built-in incentive. (pages 451-452) 5. What is merit pay? Do you think its a good idea to award employees merit raises? Why or why not? Merit pay is a salary increase that is awarded to an employee based onhis or her individual performance. It is a good idea to award merit raises when you have agood performance appraisal system and employees individual effort can be fairly andaccurately evaluated or measured. (pages 452-454) 6. In this chapter we listed a number of reasons experts give for not instituting a pay-for-performance plan (such as rewards punish). Do you think these points (or any of  them) are valid? Why or why not? All of these reasons are, or can be, valid. There will 99 Human Resource Management, 8/e also be organizational situations where one or more of them will not be valid. Studentsshould describe situations in which the reason is (or is not) valid. (page 462) 7. What is a Scanlon plan? Based on what youve read in this book so far, what featuresof a commitment-building program does the Scanlon plan include? This is an incentiveplan that was developed in 1937 by Joseph Scanlon. It includes features such as aphilosophy of cooperation, identity, competence, involvement, and sharing of benefits. Allthese are features of a commitment-building program. The Scanlon plan is actually an earlyversion of what today is known as a gain sharing plan. (Pages 457-458) 8. Suppose your instructor decided to award final grades to teams of students in thisclass, instead of to individuals. What would be the pros and cons of such anapproach? Would you like the idea? This is a good question for students to be able tostep out of the idealism they sometimes have about concepts and into the reality that theconcepts create. This approach would encourage students to work together (which is animportant skill they need to have as they go into the working world), and to learn from eachother. The negatives include the dependence on the quality of their teammates and the lackof individual accountability. Individual and Group Activities: 1. Working individually or in groups, develop an incentive plan for the followingpositions: chemical engineer, plant manager, used-car salesperson. What factors didyou have to consider in reaching your conclusions? I would give the chemical engineer  a merit raise system because he or she has little perceived control or impact over theproduction or profitability of the company. The plant manager should receive an annualbonus tied to the profitability of the plant, as well as a stock option plan to encourage long-term planning as well. The used-car salesperson would likely receive a straight commissionplan because sales are more directly dependent on his or her ability to sell those cars toprospective customers. 2. A state university system in the southeast recently instituted a Teacher IncentiveProgram (TIP) for its faculty. Basically, faculty committees within each universitycollege were told to award $5,000 raises (not bonuses) to about 40% of their facultymembers based on how good a job they did teaching undergraduates and how manythey taught per year. What are the potential advantages and pitfalls of such anincentive program? How well do you think it was accepted by the faculty? Do youthink it had the desired effect? This program would put a premium on undergraduateteaching as opposed to research or graduate teaching. If it were to work, the best teacherswould be motivated to teach at the undergraduate level in order to increase their earnings. The pitfalls are many. Some research or graduate faculty may actually make more throughconsulting or other outside means, thus they will not be motivated by this system. If researchis important to this organization, or the graduate programs are vital, this program coulddamage those programs. The awarding of the moneys is likely to be inconsistent becausespecific guidelines have not been spelled out. More likely, the rewarding of the raises may