The fifth week

As time goes by, it's mid-term this week which means that we will have a one-week holidays. Study life is getting more and more busy these days.

In this week, we learned a lot about the five forces of Porter's which including the supplier power, buyer power, competitive rivalry, threat of substitution and threat of new entry. I am very interested in Porter's theory. I think it can be very helpful for those people who want to start a business as he will clearly analysis about the different situation about the business. It can identify whether the new products , services or business have the potential to be profitable or not.

I used to think that running a business is not as difficult as what it is, Now, after the lessons for  this week i figured out that running a business is a very hard job which we need to manage a lot of people, keep in touch with the local markets and have the good relationships with the suppliers etc.

I would like to talk about the Primark. Primark is the lagest clothes and popular retailer in the UK as their low price, they attract lots of customers. And they provide variety clothes to women and men as well.



classical economics predicts that revalry between companiese should drive profits to zero. This is partly down to the threat of substitutes. Take Primark as an example, there are many similar types of clothes retailer in the UK such as H&M, Newlook, Topshop, Jackwills and so forth. But the point is this kind of threatens cannnot hit the Primark as they have a strong point to compared with other retailers. The lower price and they have plenty of choices. They use very cheap labour costs to produce their products in order to decrease the retail price to attact the customers. But it also bring another problem out, poor labour environment. The news in the following is talking about the poor labour conditions about Primark.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-24646942

Talking about the bargaining power of buyers, buyers can choose whatever they want if they think is not reaonable to buy.In other words, customers are price sensitive. They can afftect the business directly. For Primark, they will also need to bear the bargaining power of buyers, therefore, they did a lot to save their customers and attract the potencial customers such as always have pomotions and try to lower the price as much as possible.

And the bargaining power of suppliers, there are many suppliers of a particular product. Suppliers switching costs relative to firm switching costs. Primark has enough potential suppliers as they can find some cheap factories in the third countries to produce such as India.
   

The entry of competitors,  it is not a easy job for some new companies to enter the clothing industry, there are many cut-throat competition in nowadays. The barries to entry are including the brand quity, customer's loyalty to the brand etc. Primark has advantages in this area as they provide a cheap price but good quality products to customers. Therefore, it would not be a problem for Primark because they gained enough trust from their customers and the reputation is really good always.

I think Porter's five forces are very useful, it can not only help us to analyse the possibility to run a company, but also can know about the profitability. 

The fourth week

Time is elapsing so fast, arrived here for a month already. People always say that happy time is always too soon, that's actually quite true.  


During this week, we learnt some major contributors and some important theories as well. I would like to discuss two of the contributors, they are Frederick Taylor and Max Weber and their ideas are quite similar. 

 Frederick Taylor believed the way to achieve business is to ensure each worker reached their state of maximum efficiency. In other words, the primary goal of this method of management was to improve economic efficiency and particularly to improve labour productivity. He urged scientific management which was also knowns as "Taylorism" and there are 5 principles in his classical theory. Some people might think that this theory is ceased to be in today's society as it already outdated, however, it still appear in nowadays. I think the best examples to represent scientific management are Burger King, McDonalds hamburger chain or call centres as their management structures are as same as what Taylor think. They need to ensured discipline and functioning business. 
I agreed the people who support this management structure as i think that is the most efficient way to manage a large company. If we select the best person to do the job which he or she is very good at that, it can not only minimise the time and money, but also enhance the productivity. Take Mcdonald's as an example, it is popular everywhere in the world, that's the best evidence to show us the management structure is still working no matter how old fashion it is. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxeYXGNG5Uc

Speaking to another contributor Max Weber who thinks that Bureaucracy is very important, i think this structure is suitable for some modern state or capitalism society. This type of structure allows workers to specialize in the functional area in which they work, such as Finance and Marketing. Every level and line of the authority is clearly divided. For instance, the manager is above the supervisor, the supervisor is above the normal employer. People cared about the levels which is high or not and everyone need to follow the formal rules and regulations in order to achieve the maximum productivity.  The most classical main characteristic is division of labour which means that each person just assigned to do one task only. They believe that it can help them to be more productive because workers are doing the same task everyday, it can minimise the chance of mistakes. But actually i think it will both have the positive and negative effects. Workers might feel too bored when they doing the same task everyday, they might become lass competent and fell unhappy or lose the sense of accomplishment. It will affect the productivity level as well. Therefore, using the tide control or not is all about the different style or scale of the company. It depends on the company is big or small, it's more suitable to use this tide control to manage a big company. 

finance

marketing

    I think after reading the text books and some other related books and videos, I knew more about the different types of management strategics. It is really interesting and make me fallen in love with this subject.

The third week

Hi, blog, haven't see you for a week already, kind of miss you! This week was so enjoyable and fun for me i did and learned a lot.

Speaking of my group project for Business and Management, it was great and i think we all did a great job. We chose Hollister co. for our presentation topic. In order to make our project perfectly we all tried our best and gained a lot during this project. It is my idea to choose this organisation as i used to work for Hollister during the summer holiday in Hong Kong, therefor, i can know more about the organisation which will help us a lot when doing the project. And another two of my group mates agreed me a lot because they are also the fans of Hollister as well. I feel so lucky that we have the same ideas.

This is the logo of Hollister

This picture was the last summer i work in HK  

They are my colleagues

 preparing before the presentation!  we all dressed in Hollister style 

colleagues 

After the project, i think i have more concepts about an organisation. For instance,  how does the company run, what is the challenges that they might face, how does the organisation add value to its resources and how is the management of the organisation structured. I used to think that running an organisation is not as difficult and complicated as it, but now i know that is not easy to run a business. And another main point that i leant is how to cooperate and coordinate with my group mates. We did face some difficulties when doing the project such as we are not good at using the prezi, therefore we need to learn it as quickly as we can. Furthermore, we need to find a suitable time for everyone in order to do the project and need to keep to an agreement of our ideas. I think team spirit is very important for everyone as we need to work in a team now or even in the future.


Moreover, we leaned about organisational structures. There are many key terms we need to remember, such as about the informal and formal structures. After the lesson i just noticed that informal structures like network of relationships, the grapevine and communication are that important for an organisation. That's very interesting for me. We also learned about the purpose of structures and different structures including Tall, Flat, Matrix, Mechanistic and Organic. And some other important terms of span of control, chain of command, centralisation and decentralisation etc.

I found that Silo Culture is quite interesting, therefore i did some research about it. I figured out that silo culture can occur in an organisation that when a team or department shared common tasks but derives their power and status from their group. They are less likely to share their resources or ideas with other groups or welcome suggestions as to how they might improve due to the reason that every group thinks  they are the best. And silo culture is very popular in the business and organisational communities.

My second week

Time flies, it's already the second week for me already! It makes me love Sussex University this big family very much! Everyone enjoying the time here, studying, living, having fun together.

We will hold some house party sometimes, like hot pot! All of us have dinner together and have fun! It actually not only can get to know each other better, but also can train us the ability of managing a gathering, such as how to separate the jobs and how to spend the money and get the best food. Business and management are always happen in our daily life. If we can master it, we can definitely master well our life! 

They are my lovely classmates! We are having fun together always!

We had Hot Pot last night! We all enjoy it very much!

This is the hot pot! 

This week's business lesson, i learned a lot of basis concepts. For example, we learned about what is  management, what is the principles of management, and some important people of management. They are Mintzberg, Herzberg, Henry Fayol and Frederick Taylor. I'm kind of interested in each of them and i will do some research about them as well. 

Henry Mintzberg

Henry Fayol------Principle of Management

Frederick Herzberg

Frederick Taylor -----Classical school of management

I would like to talk about the best management approach to the company's development. I think is Mayo's human relations. Human relations approach is a school of management that emphasises the importance of social processes at work. The reasons are in the followings.

First, Mayo cared about the relationships between employees and employers. He thinks that employees will directly affect the company's profits. It is very important for managers to interact and communicate with the employees, know about what they need and what they want. Take Google as an example, they provide a very good working environment to their employees such as gyms, nice restaurants and they can provide a free working place for them which means they can choose the project they like and want. I think that is the reason why Google nowadays is one of the best company in the world.

i agree with Mayo's theory. I think is very important to have a good relationship with employees as they are a part of the company.

                                                         
                                                         
And we joined the small group this week and we will study in group for this whole year!
And we are working hard on our first presentation which will hold on next Monday! I'm looking forward to that! Hope we can have a awesome presentation.

They are my business group mates! Victor & Vivian