Discuss the four ongoing challenges that characterize the business landscape and explain why they are important.

Respond to others
– You will individually
comment—reply—to your fellow learners’ posts. These responses are expected
to add to the discussion and even extend it. This should not be an “I agree or
disagree” post; rather, interject your own personal analysis of the originating
student’s posting. Please make each posting meaningful and on-point.

Chapter 1
1) Discuss the four ongoing challenges that characterize the
business landscape and explain why they are important.
The four major challenges facing the business landscape are
globalization, technological change, importance of knowledge and ideas, and collaboration
across organizational borders. Globalization is a major aspect of the modern world
as companies must no longer only compete with companies within their own
country, but with others from around the world.
Technological change is important because as new inventions come out,
demand for the inventions create new markets and make older ones obsolete. The importance of knowledge within a company
is self evident as having a employee with the skills take on multiple roles is
more cost effective then hiring multiple employees that only have one skill. Collaboration across organizational borders brings
into regards that companies are complicated and have many internal independent
parts that need to work in tandem for the whole thing to work.
2) How can leaders manage for a competitive advantage? Name
all of the elements and discuss their roles
The elements that leaders can manage for a competitive advantage
include innovation, quality, service, speed, cost competitiveness, and
sustainability. Innovation is being able to stay up to date
with the latest technology and trends so you are not selling and
outdated
product. Quality is selling a product
that holds up and does what it was intended to do for a reasonable
length of
time. Service is being able to cater to
the needs of your consumers as what one customer needs may not be what
another
does. Speed involves being able to get a
product to customer when they need it. Cost
competitiveness has to do with being able to keep your prices down
enough to
make you more desirable compared to a company selling a similar
product. Lastly, sustainability is being able to run a
business at a certain level for an indefinite amount of time without
experiencing
problems such as running out of resources or having employee burnout.
3) What are the functions of management and explain what
they do?
The functions of management can
be broken down into four areas: planning, organizing, leading, and controlling. Planning involves setting objectives and
figuring out how to achieve those objectives. Organizing involves the creation of a system
through which the plan can be enacted upon.
Leading involves being able to bring other people on board to your
organization to help you achieve your plans.
Controlling is knowing where to best use the skill sets provided by
people who have joined you and being able to changing as circumstances change
4) What are the management levels and skills and what do
each of them do?
The three levels of management are top-level managers, middle-level
managers, and frontline managers. The
skills a manager at any level must have include technical skills, conceptual and
decision skills, and interpersonal and communication skills. Top-level mangers are the most senior members
of a company and are the one ones who make executive decisions and create the
goals and objectives of a company. Middle-level
managers are the middle men who take the objectives and goals set forth by
top-level, and create the plans to achieve them. Frontline managers are the ones who implement
the plans created by the middle-level managers
Chapter 2
1) What is the internal environment composed of?
The internal environment of a company is made up different
aspects of the company itself. Things that
are have an effect on this are a company’s employees and management and the
interactions that occur between them.
The internal environment of one company will differ when compared to
another company. The internal environment
can be a selling point for the company is attracting new consumers and
employees.
2) Discuss each element of the internal environment.
The three major elements that make
up a company’s internal environment
can be boiled down to its work culture, company values, and the work
climate. Work culture is the way that employees and management
interact within the business. Company values
are the principles and beliefs a company follows when making decisions
when deciding
on a course of action on major decisions.
Work climate is the general morale of staff at a company, whether that
be positive from having good amenities and benefits or negative from
having an
overbearing boss or being over worked.
3) What is the external environment composed of?
The external environment is composed of things that are
outside the control of a company but still have an effect on the company. These can include the changing political
landscape or the forward march of technology.
It can also include new social movements and changes in popular culture.
It also includes what other business are
doing and how it affects the company.
4) Discuss each
element of the external environment.
The element of the external environment includes the economy,
laws and regulations, demographics, social Issues, technology, and natural
resources. The economy, laws, and
regulations can change depending on the country, and what the political leanings
of the current establishment are.
Technology is constantly changing, and those who fail to change with it
will often be left behind. Access to natural
resources can depend on the country the business is based in and the global political
scene. Demographics and social issues slowly
but constantly change as well as new generations come and do things in a
different way from the prior.

Last Completed Projects