Managing organisational design and change Essay

Managing organisational design and change - Essay Example The report will include an immediate action list and a longer term plan for improvement of the organisation. This report will also attempt to suggest and establish the best way the organisation can effectively utilize the strategic changes that can be implemented to ensure better performance in the manufacturing of Office System 2010 (OS 2010). There is also need to identify the agendas of the stakeholders for the initiative to be successful. Attention in this case will be on the need to sustain organisational change which requires aspects like organisational learning whereby the workers can be re-orientated through provision of basic training and development which would be closely monitored upon implementation in order to improve their performance so as to guarantee quality of the products offered. 1.1 Description of the organisation’s current strategic quality and operational performance Technology Limited (Comm Tech) is an organisation which produces electronic office and b usiness equipment. Comm Tech is number three in the UK in terms of market share, number ten in Europe but still has to establish significant sales in the wider world market. The company has of late invested heavily over the years in the areas of research and development and in proto-type design which has seen designs of several successful products. The current business strategy for the company is primarily focused on developing a range of high quality products that would underpin penetration of the wider world markets and business growth. Concern is on growing business as quickly as possible in this particular case. Comm. Tech has sought to utilise the competitive advantage strategy but as going to be described in detail, it can be noted that this strategy is posing some serious challenges to its operational performance. Porter (1985) has suggested that many businesses are strategically viable such that their competitors may not be able to exceed their performance and he termed this state of affairs competitive advantage. Such stable status can be achieved only when they apply certain strategies that can hardly be imitated by the rival competitors. Porter (1985) has argued that a firm needs to have sustainable competitive advantages. Kotler and Armstrong (2004) concur with this notion when they suggest that competitive advantage is an advantage gained over other competitors by offering consumers greater value either by lowering prices or providing more benefits that justifies higher prices. There are mainly two sources of competitive advantage namely; cost advantage and differentiation as illustrated in the diagram below. Through Porter’s generic strategies, a ‘Cost Leadership’ strategy is where a firm seeks to be a low-cost producer in the industry whereas ‘Differentiation’ is when a firm seeks to be unique in the industry through offering products that are highly valued by the customers. Fig 1. Porter’s Generic strateg y model Competitive Advantage Source: In this particular

Contract law assignment Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words - 1

Contract law assignment - Essay Example On most occasions, this clause tends to be unfair, partial and one-sided as the weaker party in the agreement could not lay claim to damages or extra-contractual compensations when the Contract is somehow broken. There are some legal cases that tend to demonstrate how the weaker parties, in recent years, have at least tried to see that such exclusion clauses are incorporated into the contracts: this report would investigate how such a clause may be included in a typical Irish legal case that involved disagreement over the commercial contract. A legal case study is used to better explain how this phenomenon works out: Analog Devices BV & ors v Zurich Insurance Company & anor. This case study is necessary in order to highlight the seriousness of exclusion clauses in contractual agreements. Which of the parties would feel cheated or be left to bear the huge losses? What is the nature and scope of the clause being excluded? Does it contain an element of insurance coverage or health benefits scheme or pension system? The legal case of Analog Devices BV & ors v Zurich Insurance Company & anor2, decided upon at the Irish Supreme Court, is a typical case to prove how exclusion clause could result in a monumental loss for one of the parties involved. This is factual background to this case as presented by Baillii3: Analog Devices BV & ors had had engaged in the commercial activities of manufacturing, researching and designing of high performance linear mix signal and digital integrated circuits that are used for several signal processing applications. These activities were carried out at Raheen Industrial Estate in County Limerick. It is a known fact that twice a year the usual manufacturing operation is shut down in order to allow the maintenance team to work on the manufacturing plants. These annual maintenance arrangements often occur in the summer