Corporate Influences (3.4.1)

Question 1

What are KPI’s?

Answer 1

KPIs, or Key Performance Indicators, are measurable values that determine how effectively an individual, team or organization is achieving a business objective.

Question 2

What are the bits of data that you might track to assess whether your business is performing well? (5)

Answer 2

-Sales
-Profit
-Market Share
-Reviews
-Waste

Question 3

What are some examples of short-term decision making decisions?

Answer 3

-Cutting R+D, workers, equipment
-Give profit to shareholders
-Sell assets and lease them back
-Reduce size of the workforce
-Move workers to zero-hours/temporary contracts

Question 4

What are the Advantages of Short-Term Decision making?

Answer 4

-Costs are reduced
-Profit will improve quickly
-Shareholders are happy
-Performance will look good on paper

Question 5

What are the Disadvantages of Short-Term Decision Making?

Answer 5

-Lack of innovative technology
-Lack of growth (economies of scale)
-Unmotivated workers
-Changed wants/needs of consumer

Question 6

What are considered examples of Long-Term strategies?

Answer 6

-Expansion to new geographical areas
-Adding Green technology/vehicles
-Investing in staff training/wellbeing
-Improving product quality/features
-Building new infrastructure

Question 7

What do the long-term strategies do?

Answer 7

Improve long-term profitability and sacrifice short-term profit

Question 8

What do long-term strategies depend on?

Answer 8

-How much influence shareholders have
-Attitude of management (Corporate Culture)
-Requires timescale for success

Question 9

What is Evidence-Based Decision Making?

Answer 9

Using data and analysis to justify decision-making

Question 10

What is subjective Decision-Making?

Answer 10

Using intuition and ‘hunches’ of influential staff to make a decision. When data is uncertain or incomplete. When markets are unpredictable. In crisis situations where it isn’t possible to gather data