business blog 26-10-2013

Finally is the last week till half term, it is so exciting to have a term break, that we can take a little break from all the works, as I think most of don’t really got enough sleep due to the business law assignment. And my plans for half term is to visit London, sleep, catch up with the reading and finishing assignments.

The topic that we are learning this week is the placing organization in context – internal environment and micro environment. It is about that organization do not exist in isolation, they are very much influence by both the internal and external factors, which is illustrated by the Porter’s five competitive forces.

Before there are the five forces, organizations always only focus on their direct competitors within the industry, however, as in the five forces, we knew that there isn’t only the direct competitors will threaten them, there might also be a substitute product and new entrant. More than that the bargaining power of the customers and suppliers is important too.

I think this chart is extremely important to every organization, this can letting the management of the organization identify what might threaten their business. Take Nokia as an example, it didn’t take this chart seriously, that they don’t notice there will be a substitute product (smart phone), and they don’t even notice there will be new entrant (apple and Samsung) to the mobile phone industry. Therefore, Nokia then face financial difficulty in the recent year and being acquired by Microsoft later. The example of Nokia demonstrated how important is distinguishing the five forces for a business.

 

business blog 19-10-2013

For this week the topic for our business management class is the management models through the years, we basically study about different approaches of management around this 100 years. There are the classic management approach, which was contributed by Fayol and Urwick, it is a type of management that kind of ignore human element.

 Henri Fayol, one of the contributor of the classical management approach

Also there are the scientific management, by F.W. Taylor, which is focus on efficiency and productivity, and wastes minimize. However, I don’t think this approach is suitable for most of the company nowadays, because we are now more focus on people interaction.

Besides, there are the human relations approach that is mostly about the managers should well communicated with the workers, for knowing their feeling. And this approach is recognized by the Hawthorne experiment, which it proved that a better social and human relation will increase the output of the workers.

Finally is the system and socio-technical approach, which is like the combination of the idea of the classical and human relations management. And I think this is the best management approach for most of the normal organization, because it can be ensure the staffs are performing the tasks with the best way and being financially incentive, meanwhile the employees are having a good social relations.

Moreover, we have done a research on one of the world’s most well-known organisation in the internet industry, and I think its management approach is the system and socio-technical approach. For the classical part, Google is an organization that very business-minded, which they practiced many traditional management principles, like the division of labour and centralization. For the human relations part, Google actually provides a very nice working environment for their staff, also their provide an incredible welfares to the employees, which this will make the employees have a better feeling toward the company and willing to work harder for the company.

business blog 15-10-3013

This week is a busy week, which we got a lot of presentation; group project and work to do, even worst the content in class started become more difficult. Comparing to the previous weeks, I think I have to put more time on studying, in order to catch up the classes.

 

Organizational design and structure is the topic that I am learning this week. It’s meanly about organizational structure, division of work, centralization, Span of control, and finally matrix structure. In which matrix structure is the topic that I feel most confuse about.

 

 

More than that, I learnt how write a formal business report this week. Although it isn’t new to me, as I have heard about the format of a business report in class before and I think the style of writing is similar to the biology lab report that I used to write a lot before. However, I think writing a business report is more difficult than writing a scientific report, like sometime is hard to search for the detail information of a company, such as my business report for Samsung, it’s really hard to find the detail of how it divide it work to different department.

On another hand, I am working on a presentation about YouTube, which I am sure you must use this site at least once. It is an online video sharing website, which dominant the market of provider of online video.

I found something funny during my research, which the inspiration of creating YouTube is because the founder faces difficulty while searching a video of the singer, whose breast was accidentally exposed during her performance. Therefore he and his friend created YouTube, which let them earn thousands of dollars in the future.

Moreover, I just notice that YouTube is owned by Google, which Google acquired YouTube with $1.65 billion in 2006. In my opinion, I think Google really make a wise decision, that Google see YouTube is going to be successful in the future, as YouTube is the first and the most powerful media platform. I also think Google have a good management, as a well-organized management can forecast and predicting what might happen in the future.

In addition, I found it’s pretty amazing that YouTube can earn that such by only providing a site for people to share videos and earn through advertisements.  

 

 

first business blog(6-10-2013)

We have the first whole week of lesson this week, for the business course, we have introduction to business and management and business law for this term. Both lessons are different with what I think before, I thought business would be a quite boring subject. Like what I have in Hong Kong, business is a subject that the lesson is mostly about the teacher talking and memorizing a lot of theory. Therefore, I found studying here is very enjoyable.

In this week, we have to prepare a presentation about an organization; our group decides to work on Samsung, I was quite panic when I know we are going to work on SAMSUNG, as I am not familiar with the products of SAMSUNG.

For my study group, this is my first time to work with so many people that come from different part of the world. There is a boy from Russia, a girl from Indonesia, and girl from China and another girl come from the same place with me, Hong Kong. Therefore we all need to speak in English, in order to let everyone understand each other. Although it is a little bit difficult in the beginning, as we need to communicate in our second language, English, and we just know each other for around a week, which we are not really familiar with each other. But I still think this will be an interesting and valuable experience to work with foreigners and know more about them.

Go back to our project; my part is ‘how does SAMSUNG add value to its resources’, I basically just look up the official website of SAMSUNG and get all the information I need. However, I was quite shocked by how SAMSUNG put resource in the research and development team, such as I never thought of  there will be so many research center around the world, which I thought there are only one research center in Korea before.

Moreover, I also look up some basic information about SAMSUNG, which make me think that SAMSUNG really is legendary company. Because when SAMSUNG is founded in 1938, it was just a small trading company with only forty employees and it was trading fruit and vegetable! SUMSUNG just started to enter into the electronics industry in the late 1960s. For the rise of SAMSUNG, I think it’s started from 1980s, which it’s started to put a lot of resource on technological research and development. After that, SAMSUNG gain a huge success around the world. The development of SAMSUNG really amazed me, especially the fact that turned from small trading company to nowadays an international organization which became the world's largest mobile phone maker by unit sales(in 2012).

(The headquarters of Samsung in the late 1930s)

What a huge difference between these two pictures taken between 80 years.

(The promotional sign of SAMSUNG in times square, New York)