Objectives Flashcards
Vision statement
The vision statement states what the organisation aspires to become.
Mission statement
The mission statement expresses why an organisation exists, its purpose and how it will operate.
Strategies
Strategies outline how the organisation will attempt to achieve its objectives — they are a series of actions undertaken to achieve an end result. For example, a strategy to achieve the objective of increased profit may be the introduction of a new product range.
Objective
An objective is a desired goal, outcome or specific result that an organisation intends to achieve. An objective gives an organisation direction; that is, it provides the organisation with a path to follow, increasing its chances of being successful.
In response to an increased customer demand for air conditioners, AusClean Air’s CEO, Hilary Lopez,
has announced that ‘environmentally friendly and noiseless units’ will be produced in the company’s manufacturing plant to gain a substantial competitive advantage and increase AusClean Air’s market share. Employees have heard rumours that AusClean Air will be introducing new technologies and many of them do not welcome the change. The Human Resource Manager has been called in to help the employees cope with the transition. The Operations Manager welcomes the change.Identify two stakeholders of AusClean Air. Explain their interest in the organisation and how this
should be taken into account by AusClean Air when considering its ethical and social responsibilities.
Stakeholders are any people or group who hold a vested interest in an organisations operations, activities and procedures. Ethical management refers to the abiding of moral standards and doing ‘the right thing’ in the eyes of all stakeholders. Social responsibility refers to the obligations of the LSO above and beyond its legal responsibilities to benefit the community and environment. A stakeholder at AusClean Air are the employees, who work at the organisation. They expect AusClean to be ethically and socially responsible in their care for the wellbeing of their employees, providing possible training and development opportunities rather than turning to redundancies. The retention of employees at AusClean by possibly training them on how to use the new machinery benefits the community as it supports employment. A second stakeholder of AusClean Air are the customers. AusClean need to ensure that all its products (air conditioners) operate the way they are intended to and are of the highest quality. Ensuring no defects is an ethical and socially responsible decision as it ensures customer welfare and that there are no potential dangers or risks involved with the product. Though being ethical and socially responsible can be time- consuming and costly, it can benefit its stakeholders and potentially increase profits in the long term.
In response to an increased customer demand for air conditioners, AusClean Air’s CEO, Hilary Lopez,
has announced that ‘environmentally friendly and noiseless units’ will be produced in the company’s manufacturing plant to gain a substantial competitive advantage and increase AusClean Air’s market share. Employees have heard rumours that AusClean Air will be introducing new technologies and many of them do not welcome the change. The Human Resource Manager has been called in to help the employees cope with the transition. The Operations Manager welcomes the change. Hilary is considering altering AusClean Air’s mission statement to include its commitment to the environment and consumer expectations.
Describe the relationship between the mission statement and the planning undertaken by Hilary as
the CEO of AusClean Air.
A mission statement states the purpose of an organisation and why it operates. Planning is the process of setting organisational objectives and then implementing the strategies to achieve them. Planning links to the mission statement as all objectives and strategies set and done in line with the purpose of the organisation. When Hilary sets the objectives of AusClean she must do this in line with the mission statement. For example, Hilary will have to set objectives that aim to satisfy the mission of helping the environment and consumer expectations. When Hilary analyses the business environment, possibly seeing the strengths and weaknesses of the internal environment and opportunities and threats of the external environment, she must analyse in terms of the goals of the mission statement. Hilary will need to gather information on the environment and customer needs in order to plan. When Hilary plans and sets strategies she must ensure that these strategies help achieve the mission. Such strategies may be to reduce waste to help the environment or to lower prices for customers. Finally, when Hilary implements and evaluates the strategies she must monitor whether the strategies are helping achieve the mission of helping the environment and customers. If not, she will have to plan again and implement new strategies.
‘We Share’ is a not-for-profit organisation run mainly by volunteers, which operates by collecting second-hand appliances and distributing them to members of the community who have limited access. In the last year, manager Paul Jackson has noticed that the organisation has received significantly less donations and that many people are giving and receiving goods from other organisations. Paul has decided to use new strategies that will turn ‘We Share’ into a more competitive organisation.
a. Discuss the objectives of an organisation like ‘We Share’.
‘We Share’ is a charity or non-government organisation which operates to provide goods and services (delivery of appliances) to benefit society. ‘We Share’ may also seek to promote a public profile in order to increase competiveness and receive more donations from members of the community. They differ to for profit organisations as they do not have the objective to make a profit. They can still earn a profit but they use it to expand or invest into their social cause.
‘We Share’ is a not-for-profit organisation run mainly by volunteers, which operates by collecting second-hand appliances and distributing them to members of the community who have limited access. In the last year, manager Paul Jackson has noticed that the organisation has received significantly less donations and that many people are giving and receiving goods from other organisations. Paul has decided to use new strategies that will turn ‘We Share’ into a more competitive organisation.
Identify if they are a manufacturing or service organisation. Refer to the key elements of the operations system.
‘We Share’ is a service organisation because they perform the service of delivering goods to the community. Services are the act of helping or doing work for someone. Services are intangible, they cannot be touched. Delivering goods is the act of helping the community and it cannot physically be touched therefore it is a service.
Inputs are the resources used in production to produce an output. A resource used at We Share is the goods they collect. They use this to to produce the intangible service of the delivery of appliances to members of the community.
Processes are the activities undertaken to transform inputs into outputs. A process at We Share is the collection of goods. They undertake this process to transform inputs into the intangible service of the delivery of appliances to members of the community.
Outputs are the end result of an organisations efforts. It is the good or service they produce. At We Share their output is the intangible service of the delivery of appliances to members of the community therefore they are a service business. Services are the act of helping or doing work for someone. Services are intangible, they cannot be touched. Delivering goods is the act of helping the community and it cannot physically be touched therefore it is a service.
Explain how he could use a quality and materials management strategy to increases competitiveness.
‘We Share’ is a not-for-profit organisation run mainly by volunteers, which operates by collecting second-hand appliances and distributing them to members of the community who have limited access. In the last year, manager Paul Jackson has noticed that the organisation has received significantly less donations and that many people are giving and receiving goods from other organisations. Paul has decided to use new strategies that will turn ‘We Share’ into a more competitive organisation.
Using a Quality Control operations strategy, Paul could optimise the quality of the appliances during inspection and delivery. This would involve setting performance standards of quality and using statistical techniques to measure whether the appliances meet the standards. Paul could then make corrective adjustments if checking revealed it is necessary, and so would be more likely to deliver high quality appliances in good working condition to the community meaning more people would be attracted to using the service thus increasing competitiveness.
A material management strategy that could be used to increase competitiveness is the just in time approach. This is when the resources are collected or received from suppliers just before they are needed in the production process. This could involve not collecting goods until they are planning to deliver them. This would decrease storage costs and thus they can produce the same outputs using less money meaning an increase in competitiveness. They could use these savings to invest in better quality processes or recruiting more employees thus increasing competitiveness.
Discuss two skills that could be used when implementing the new operations strategies.
‘We Share’ is a not-for-profit organisation run mainly by volunteers, which operates by collecting second-hand appliances and distributing them to members of the community who have limited access. In the last year, manager Paul Jackson has noticed that the organisation has received significantly less donations and that many people are giving and receiving goods from other organisations. Paul has decided to use new strategies that will turn ‘We Share’ into a more competitive organisation.
One skill that could be used is communication. This is the transfer of information from a sender to receiver. The HR manager could use this skill to ensure employees understand how to use all the new processes. This ensures that employees understand the changes and know how to implement them successfully.
They might encounter various problems or decisions when implementing the changes such as determining how many quality control checkpoints to implement. They could use problem solving skills. This would involve coming up with a range of alternatives that could be used and determining the best one that would best help implement the changes effectively. This ensures that the business makes good decisions that result in the successful implementation of change.
Explain how a motivation theory could be used to increase the motivation of staff.
‘We Share’ is a not-for-profit organisation run mainly by volunteers, which operates by collecting second-hand appliances and distributing them to members of the community who have limited access. In the last year, manager Paul Jackson has noticed that the organisation has received significantly less donations and that many people are giving and receiving goods from other organisations. Paul has decided to use new strategies that will turn ‘We Share’ into a more competitive organisation.
Maslow’s theory could be used to increase the motivation of staff at We Share.
Maslow’s theory is the hierarchy of human needs. It is a five part hierarchy of different types of needs with self actualisation needs at the top, followed by esteem, then social, safety and finally physiological. Employees are first motivated by physiological needs, when these needs are satisfied they are then motivated by safety needs and thus continues until self actualisation. Once a need is satisfied it is no longer a motivator and then the next need in the hierarchy will become a motivator.
We Share would have to determine where their employees are on the hierarchy and offering items that meets their needs. They would have to provide decent lay to satisfy physiological needs, they would have to ensure that employees are safe when delivering goods for the safety needs, offering celebration nights after deliveries to satisfy social needs, promote suitable employees to meet esteem needs and offer more interesting work such as coming up with new ideas for the distribution of goods using participative decision making for employees at the self actualisation needs. Once all employees have researched the self actualisation needs, employees at We Share will be motivated to work productively and complete challenging work which would help the business work more productively and possibly find new ideas that will increase competitiveness.
