March 29th, 2007 06:50 AM By Online Staff
This is one of the questions that can not be answered objectively. Essentially, as in any other business related services, management consulting should be considered a supplemental yet vital service or services which are aimed to assist in improvement in efficiency and effectiveness of a given organization or individual. By no means, the service of individual or companies that offer management consulting is designed to be a primary line of defense, nor are management consulting services a substitute for competent managers or employees. Management consulting should be considered as the ultimate way to receive assistance from knowledgeable and experienced entities that are either industry insiders or are neutral to particular industry in order to implement new and unbiased methodology.
Ultimately, the decision to acquire or seek assistance starts by determining that there is room for improvement in any given organization. It is not necessarily an admission of failure of neither employee nor management. It is simply a realization that no company can be ran or managed at its highest effectiveness and efficiency at all times. Hence, a third party evaluation, analysis, and recommendations can be vital in increasing the possibility to achieve a higher degree in efficiency and competence. Therefore, management consulting firms are simply a necessity in creating success.
March 26th, 2007 08:56 AM By Online Staff
Management Consulting refers to a set of services in which a third party with expertise in business management contributes to the effectiveness and efficiency of daily operations as well as overall profitability and bottom line. Essentially, a management consultant has extensive educational and practical knowledge including an MBA or PhD in Business in combination of 5 or more years of practical experiences such as junior business consulting positions, industry specific mid management position, university teaching experience, or a combination of the all above.
In essence a management consulting firm may use advanced and up to date research methodology that may include industry specific information and data, comparative advertising and marketing analysis, internal examination, as well as comparative studies to determine the weakest points of the operation and devise proper action plans to rectify those weak points.
Generally speaking, management consulting firms as well as individual management consultant rely heavily on knowledge. The most vital action that any management consulting firm has to take to create an environment in which the work of its individual management consultant is virtually guaranteed to help their clients, is the ability to continuously educate their management consultants.
Similarly it is one of the most reliable ways to differentiate between adequate management consulting firms and superb management consulting firms.
March 25th, 2007 09:18 AM By Online Staff
In the global interconnected village that we call our planet, the recent three decades have proven themselves to be of most significant impact on our social and moral behavior. In essence the technological and social evaluation have created a new and changed breed of participate named Corporate Citizen.
Essentially the new or dynamic participant is compiled of the individual private members of the given society which enhance their participation by means of capital or resource contribution to affect or benefit from the business transactions that are common to commerce oriented societies.
The participation of corporate citizen creates advantages and disadvantages that may have far reaching consequences on local, domestic, national and international level such as creation of jobs, increase or decrease of tax revenue, societal stability, commercial and political influence as well as soft power. Hence, it becomes even more important to define at least marginal guidelines that would regulate corporate citizenship.
Ultimately, the corporate citizen is faced with challenges of integration into local, domestic or international cultural and societal requirements that will not only depend on geographic and geopolitically induced necessities, but also those non prescribed external influences that are exercised by means of international interactions and their intended or unintended consequences.
March 23rd, 2007 08:41 AM By Online Staff
Interest Based Avenue refers to a particular sub category of ethical analysis in which the evaluations of the ethical and moral impact are determined by the out come, hence the means to an end is not as important as the end itself.
In its most basic form, the Interest Based Avenue attempts to assign subjective value to the “interest” of the stakeholders of the participating matter; the interest of the stakeholders trumps the individual rights. Clearly, this particular approach appears to be a rather morally flexible in order to protect material and non material interest of the participants. One might even suggest that the interest based avenue is a capitalist form of moral evaluation.
However, there are some apparent issues with this approach: first and most importantly, it seem virtually subjective to assign moral values to particular outcome. Further, it is equally discretionary to discard fundamental individual rights in exchange for tangible material interest. Additionally, it is not particularly clear if there are preset values that would mirror the stakes and interest, nor is it clear if the outcome simply justifies all possible means.
Ultimately, it appears that the Interest-Based Venue is the moral equal of capitalism, in which the maximization of the beneficial and profitable outcome outweighs the basic rights.
In the case of Arthur Anderson, this particular approach is at the hart of matter: similar philosophy may have been the cause of the intellectual and philosophical breakdown which lead to attempts to hide loses by means of fraud, in order to enhance accounting reports which in turn may have contributed to increase of share holder profits. Likewise, one may argue that though Arthur Anderson has abided by most basic principal of business i.e. creating the greatest possible profit for all the participating shareholders, they chose a morally inferior approach to ignore the means to achieve the end. But the results speak not only to failure of this mode of theory but also its practical consequences.
Ultimately, it appears that those that use Interest – Based Venue to justify non linear, obscure and dubious actions to protect material interest, simply ignore the substantial flaws of moral derivative that my result not only in less desirable income, but even may end in harming their stakeholders.
March 22nd, 2007 14:36 PM By Online Staff
The Right-Based Avenue appears to be the most viable options. In essence the Right-Based Avenues dictates pursuing those rights that are fundamentally granted to the individuals, instead of protecting rights based on particular interest. Essentially, the Right-Based Avenue virtually eliminates the conflict of interests in assigning quantitative measurement to proportionate rights which may in turn preserve those in minority interest.
The most powerful pro argument for the Right-Based Avenue, is certainly the ability to have predetermined and understood set of rights that are universal and will not be changed or challenged based on material or tangible interests. Hence leading to a sense of fairness based on societal values that emphasize the individual rights.
However, the opponent may argue that in a democratic society which the concept of majority is fundamental to social, cultural as well as financial decisions, the Right-Based Avenue creates the daunting perception that minority / individual interest outweigh the greater good of the collective / majority. Yet such argument is flawed: even in the democratic societies, the building stones are still compiled of individual units i.e. individual human beings. No collective can precede the rights of its individual units without alienating those units that form the collective.
Similarly, the concept of collective sense of entitlement can be found within the sense of entitlement by individuals. Hence, it is impossible to maintain coherent unity within the collective, by eliminating the triumphing needs of individuals.
March 21st, 2007 14:59 PM By Online Staff
Unlike the popular believe among most sales people, we believe that the process of sales is actually a process of negotiation. In many cases, if the basic requirement such as establishing credibility has been implemented correctly, the reminder of the process is much more about negotiating than selling.
The main point however, is not the differentiation between sales and negotiations, but establishing a basic concept: negotiations are not done by means of scientific examination and analysis, rather than by reading the counterpart.
In its most basic terms, negotiations are much more subjective as well as dependent on participating individuals. Equally, it is also important to know when it is time to avoid or end negotiations.
In the future we will point to particular time tested techniques that may enable the achievement of better results.
March 20th, 2007 10:09 AM By Online Staff
It is vital to examine this question in terms of it most basic premise. The employer and employee relationship are rather unique yet objective. In essence the employer and employee relationship entails a symbiotic connection in which the employers’ actions directly influence the employee and vice versa. Hence it is important to examine such relationship in terms of impact of actions.
Essentially, an employee is under legal and moral obligation to abide by the rules that are governing the work place. It is the only tangible way to determine the employee obligation without abstract interference of non objective and non tangible moral issues. Hence, it is fair to suggest that in order to set limits and guidelines to govern moral and legal obligations; one has to follow those guidelines that are exclusively prescribed by the employer which may entail industry wide standards. For instance, if the employer has an explicit code of conduct that includes confidentiality in terms of internal R&D or electronic correspondence, the employee is bound / obliged by those exclusive guidelines.
However, there may be “gray areas” which have not been defined or the guidelines are vague. For instance, in R&D matters, there may be instances in which some information is available publicly, yet in connection with internal R&D that particular information may become extremely valuable. In such cases, it is obvious that unless the employers code of conduct has a prescribe set of standard operating procedures; the employee is reasonably free to conduct him / herself with simple common sense / common courtesy behavior.
March 19th, 2007 07:36 AM By Online Staff
This is a test entry. More to come. WCG
