Introduction
During a company’s growth and venture into emerging global market, it would experience numerous transition periods with different consequences. Each transition period could pose an obstacle to the company in its bid to sustain its production and market share.
The probable growth and transition obstacles force the firm to rethink some of the best ways through which it can carry out its activities to achieve the best in the market that is getting increasingly competitive. Since transition is a gradual process, its events happen in series. This analysis prioritizes the P dimensions in a company using an automated process that is explained herein. The P dimensions include: people, power, process, politics and politicking, policy, prioritization, practice, performance, and productivity.
Automated Process at Dells Marketing Department
In order to prioritize the P dimensions in a company, understanding the automated chart is important. The chart below shows the stages that should be taken by marketing department in order to make the process successful. Ideally, all the units identified in the chart below are units within the marketing department (Huser et al., 2011).
They consist of sections of the marketing department and their heads/managers report to the marketing manager. Nevertheless, the accounting and finance units also report to the marketing department. Logistics unit is answerable to the Logistics Department.
Figure 1: Automated Process
The above chart is a computerized process of Dell Company that would enable the customer to receive orders, deliver products, and receive payment electronically. The above process assumes that customers have knowledge of the products they need. Customers might have acquired product information from various promotional points that the firm uses.
Others might have prior knowledge about the existence of the product, having purchased the product earlier. Moreover, customers might be aware of the existence of the product through friends and relatives. As such, the process starts from the ordering stage.
Order Receipt
At this stage, the sales unit is expected to receive orders from customers. Customers would place their bids and the sales unit would receive the bids appropriately. Because the entire system is automated, orders would automatically be given order numbers to help in the process of identification.
The order number would be sent to the customer at the processing stage, which would still be done by another section of the sales unit. This section would first confirm the availability of the product and the ability of the firm to deliver it to the customer within the desired time before sending the order number to the customer, which in essence, is a confirmation to the customer that the order will be delivered (Hacking, 2011).
One every is done, the complete transactional information for the entire product should then be submitted to the Marketing Manager who should then compile the process to come up with comprehensive details of the sales process. The P dimensions could be ordered as follows.
People
The highest prioritized dimension in business is the aspect of people. Since all business processes and transactions are carried out by people, they form an integral part of the transition. Literally, the people lead the transition process because they perform all the tasks of ensuring that the firm remains competitive in the face of stiff market competition (Ryan & Lee, 2009).
In fact, managing the company processes is one of the most difficult tasks, which need people who are adequately knowledgeable. In the company, the people help in promoting the operational philosophy of pulling the human resources to realize the organization’s objectives despite numerous transitional obstacles such as resistance and impracticality of the policies (Brenkert, 2010).
Power
Influencing the company processes needs the implementers to exercise some forms of power. The leaders use such powers endowed on them to make company decisions and run daily operations. This makes power be ranked the second dimension in running businesses. Basically, the leaders get the power to articulate the company policies through legitimate authority and position that they hold (Ryan & Lee, 2009).
This means that power is directly proportional to the level of the leader. In most cases, the power to implement policies originates from the highest decision making organ in the company, and the person holding the position manifest that power.
Process
In the production system, process is the third ranked aspect. This reason for this position is that it is mainly practical if there are people using power and position of authority to manipulate the system (Brenkert, 2010). Importantly, operations aimed at realizing the company objectives are carried out systematically so that the company could achieve its objectives.
The systematic and consistency of the operations is called the process. Apparently, the company has several processes going on at the same time, meaning that they are very significant in the organization (Curcin, Ghanem & Guo, 2010). Some of the processes include production, sales, marketing, politicking, human resources development, and management.
As continuous undertakings, production and promotion of goods would be done progressively via the internet to improve the sales. In our context, one of the most current and very popular automated processes in the marketing department is the online marketing. Notably, it involves selling most of the products through the company’s website and links in other websites.
Politics and Politicking
Basically, politics and politicking are inevitable in an organization and ranked fourth aspect in the company. The struggle for control of powerful positions and allocation of resources are the political processes in the company (Luftman, 2004).
Since politics is a contest among several contenders, the process is normally marred with chaos as each person tries to outdo the opponent. In addition, the most powerful individuals try to influence the allocation of resources to their advantage, thus resulting to conflict. It is ranked fourth because it is a process that tends to define the most influential and powerful people in the organization.
Policy
Policy is ranked fifth among the organizational aspects. The organization’s policies are made and implemented by the leaders who would have assumed power through a political process (Ryan & Lee, 2009). The organization may have various policies to help in managing its different departments to make sure that it achieves its objectives.
Prioritization
This organizational aspect is ranked sixth in the transition in terms of its affect as the company moves from the old processes to the new ones. Since it follows the organization’s policies in ranking, it is important to note that the guidelines, which the company uses in its production process, should be prioritized in a descending order (Laudon & Laudon, 2008).
This means that the most important policies, which aim to benefit the company, would be prioritized first, and then implemented in an orderly way to make sure that a lot of resources are not wasted in non-viable resources.
Practice
This aspect of the organization is ranked seventh because it is mainly manifested once the organization’s management has prioritized the policies to be implemented in the entity, it would use all means to make sure that the practice helps achieve the objectives (McNurlin, Sprague & Bui, 2008). The practice that the company adopts in its entire production system must be in line with the policies and objectives. As the company moves from the old processes to the new ones, its practice matters a lot.
Performance
In an organization, performance is ranked the eighth aspect that determines the extent to which the company is able to realize its objectives. As the company moves from the old processes to the new ones, the workers’ performance is critical success.
For instance, poor performance management would result in low quality products and affects the quantity of goods manufactured, while good performance is the key to improvement in the organization, in terms of value and number (Schiesser, 2010). It is ranked eighth because all the organizational practices are performed in a particular order to ensure that the intended output is realized.
Productivity
In this context, productivity is ranked last because it depicts the outcome of all the organizational processes. As the company moves from the old processes to the new ones, its main objective would be to improve the quality and quantity of the products. Improving the production processes intends to boost productivity, and this is the driving force in every production department of the company (McKeen & Smith, 2009). In addition, coordinated processes could improve the quality or quantity of production.
References
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