MGT502-Spr12

The Raise and Fall of a University

Posted on by ahmadf502

Our recent class discussions about Product Life Cycles made me think about the rise and fall of the New York Institute of Technology (NYIT) – Bahrain. After being one of the best universities on the island, the Management decided to phase-off their program from Bahrain, leaving behind thousands of Alumni, a team of staff members and two large campuses.

“If I can make it there.. I can make it anywhere!” was the thought of NYIT’s Middle East Chairman, Dr. M. Husain, after he succeeded in entering the United Arab Emirates education market with the first NYIT campus in the Middle East. His next mission was Bahrain; he believed that a campus in Bahrain could attract potential students living in Saudi’s eastern provinces and other GCC countries as well.

Like other organizations, Universities have a life cycle. They introduce their products as degrees to the market.

Introduction:

In October 2003, NYIT-Bahrain opened its doors for new applicants in a medium size villa in Juffair with a small team of academics and staff members. It was the first American university in Bahrain, offering limited Majors in Business and Information Technology. Students liked the idea of studying locally and earning an international degree and many were looking forward to attend the annual graduation trip to New York once they complete their programs.

 

Growth:

A year later, NYIT had to triple its intake capacity to fulfill the increasing demand. A new campus was built, more sections and classes were offered and the many part-time professors converted to full-timers. Several universities were established in the same year, but NYIT managed to stand out and to gain a large share of Bahrain’s higher education market by introducing new degrees in Interior design and Computer graphics as well as having a very creative and active student life.

 

Maturity:

The university was running at an ideal capacity, where the number of the graduated students was equal to newly accepted freshmen. NYIT was doing great until 2009, when the Higher Education Council of Bahrain decided to come up with a new set of regulations, aiming to standardize all private universities in Bahrain. This would be done by standardizing courses, degrees and majors names and interfering with the Management and the Board’s regulations. NYIT could not adapt to the changes like the other local competitors, as all NYIT campuses around the world must follow the same American standard programs, otherwise they would be threatened to lose their International License and Accreditation.

 

Decline:

Many attempts were made with the ministry to prevent further downturn, but all were unsuccessful.

Unfortunately in May 2010 NYITs’ Advisory Board officially declared the phase-off plan of the Bahrain branch, and started cost-cutting and shutting-down departments in order to reduce capacity. NYIT-Bahrain will continue to run until all students graduate by 2013.

 

Do you think that NYIT made the right decision by closing the Bahrain Campus? Were there any alternative solutions that they could’ve taken to extend their life cycle in Bahrain?

My friends..do you remember Nokia ?

Posted on by mohammeda502

 

 

My First Nokia Mobile Phone

 

 

 

Do you remember Nokia? Yes the mobile phone that was used by almost everyone five years ago. To most of us who were born in the 1980s, Nokia was our first mobile phone.  Nokia was dominating the market, everyone had Nokia. Nokia was very successful from 1998 up until 2008 when Blackberry and the iphone started to dominate the market and attract not only businessmen but also teenagers. Nokia lost a lot of its market share due to its weak forecasting of changing consumer tastes and preferences and its lack of sufficient research and development as well as its inability to compete with its competitors especially when it comes to adding innovative features and applications that are smarter and effective. Nokia lost its target market from all different ages whether it is the high school student or the university student or even the sophisticated business professional. It is sad to see that 5 years ago all my friends had a Nokia mobile phone and currently none of my friends have this mobile phone anymore even though it is still being sold in all our local mobile shops.

 

                We studied in our operations management class about Product Life Cycle that states that product goes through 4 stages: Introduction, Growth, Maturity and Decline. Nokia is definitely now in the decline stage for many reasons. The first reason is Nokia’s poor product design which did not attract consumers  because they looked very dull and stale unlike the Blackberry and the iphone.  The second reason why Nokia reached its decline stage is that they were always one step behind their competitors mainly Blackberry and iphone especially when it comes to adding innovative features such as 3G and free chatting and social media applications such as Facebook and Twitter. A third reason why Nokia reached its decline stage is its strong dependence on its brand equity. Its dependence and reliance on its brand equity for a long time led the company to focus less on research and development and less monitoring of all existing and potential competitors. A fourth reason why Nokia reached its decline stage is the changing technological environment. Nokia was very famous for its simplicity however people have changed because they started demanding smarter phones rather than simple phones. They started demanding phones with many smart applications rather than few simple applications. Therefore, the change in the taste and preferences of the consumer led Nokia to the decline stage as consumer demand decreased significantly in the past couple of years.

My question is what should Nokia do now to restore its glory and fame? Can it regain its market leadership one more time and become the number one mobile phone by defeating Blackberry and i-phone or is it too late?

Sophie: A Global Teething Trend

Posted on by noora502

Can a product regain a strong market position and become a trend after 50 years? Yes, it can! Sophie the French Giraffe was the champion baby toy. An interesting article by “CHRISTINA PASSARIELLO” in the Wall Street Journal’s about a popular rubber toy that almost every French baby had for the last 50 years. We all know Barney, Elmo, Mickey Mouse, but Sophie?!

Sophie is invented by a French company “Vulli” it is made of pure rubber shipped monthly from Malaysia straight to the factory, and poured into a plaster with a capacity of 10 shaped Giraffes. After that they are put into an oven for couple of hours, and then
the Giraffes stay in boxes for two months until they are ready for the final touches of polish, inserting a whistle, sprayed by food grade paints and marking them with their tracking number via laser.

The story started when the company changed its CEO in 2006, he started to think outside the box, that if Sophie was that successful in France and sold 816,000 Sophie’s in 2010, It probably can compete with the different baby toys produced all over the globe; because from a philosophical point of view when we are born our brains are “Blank Tablets” so what makes a French baby different from an American or Chinese?  Mr. Jacuqimere decided to hire a Psychotherapist who concluded that babies are attracted through their five senses and accordingly Sophie was designed. Coming across the first barrier to globalization,
by translating the product attributes into 7 languages helped Sophie to become famous today. Further, Sophie is made of rubber not plastic which required more specialization in production; because it is difficult to be repeated.

On the other hand, safety is a major concern when it comes to babies and the most important thing parents
consider when purchasing a toy is the chemicals exposed to their babies, especially in Sophie that it has a direct contact to the baby’s mouth through their teeth. The CEO declared after the recent criticism Sophie received that
the product meets safety standards that are far beyond the EU standards and it ““must be irreproachable.””.

Finally, Villu can be a great example for any company on how to bring their products back on the track. My questions
to you are: 1) at which phase of the product life cycle Sophie is today? 2) Despite the fact that Sophie ““must
be irreproachable.””, if the company wished reconsider that, how can they do so? 3) What other products you

can think about that can regain their position like Sophie? Fashion is one and will always be.

 

 

Celebrity Parents prefer Sophie for their Babies.

 

 

 

 

 

 

How Sophie attract Babies.

 

 

 

 

Asian Babies are in Love with Sophie too.

 

 

 

Below is the article link and there is  and interesting video that illustrates how Sophie is popular in the States.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203458604577265400437898444.html?KEYWORDS=Chinese+Product+standards

Peace of Mind

Posted on by maryama502

Nowadays it’s rare to hear about someone who did not shop or order a product online. I remember my first time I decided to buy a book from Amazon since year 2000 and I felt that I’m not going to receive the book and the money I paid is gone as I didn’t shop online before. The second step after placing the order is the invoice; there were multiple options for shipment based on duration and the higher the duration (number of days from placing the order to delivery) the cheapest it costs. As a result, Amazon allows me to adjust my invoice based on my preferences and urgency on receiving my order; I place my choice as the most urgent as I remember it was three days. Next day my friend told me that I can track the shipment then I login to Amazon and look for tracking shipment, it was showing that my order has left the U.S. and it’s in London ready for shipment to Bahrain. At last I got my book after three days as I requested and I was happy and surprised at the same time.

Amazon packages

How Can Amazon or any online shopping portal handle customer orders shipment? Do they do it by them self or do they outsource it to other company?

When I receive my order it was packed in FedEx box then I realized that Amazon is outsourcing the function of online tracking,
handling delivery and customs clearance.

We have learned from our first session that Operations Management has ten critical decisions and one of them is supply chain management. It is obvious that Amazon supply chain manager find outsourcing logistics is advantageous in improving delivery reliability and speed.

As Amazon is focusing in its core business, the concept of outsourcing supply chain is now entrenched as best practice in most sectors. Whether the business is shipping within Asia or across the globe, FedEx is in the business of providing integrated supply chain solutions to customers. The many benefits of an efficient supply chain will help contribute to the business most important goal – improvement of bottom-line profits.

Benefits that can be achieved by working with FedEx include:

  • Visibility of inventory flowing through the company supply chain
  • Reduction of unnecessarily high inventory levels
  • Enhanced customer service by meeting tight deadlines and complex requirements
  • Reduced warehousing costs

 

Is FedEx more efficient in handling shipment, delivery and custom clearance than if Amazon did it by itself? Is Amazon driving down cost by having FedEx as a partner ?

Watch the amazing video about FedEx http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cdm2t952jYg

For more information about FedEx please visit www.FedEx.com

Tails: The Bahraini Pet Food Brand

Posted on by nadat502

“Tails” is the regions first all natural pet food brand that has been officially launched in February 2012.  Their aim was to provide healthy pet food that is free of preservatives, added colors and flavors as well as the use of 100 percent natural human grade ingredients. They club their services with the Highest Quality, the Best Customer Experience and Value for Money.

Being the first of its kind in the region, and with the general lack of data availability, i immediately thought ” How did they know that this was going to be successful?”

Leap of Faith 

i was fortunate to meet with the owners, in class we talked about all the different forecasting techniques and determined when it was best to use each technique. But what do you do if you had no history/data to use?

Well in this particular case there was no entity in Bahrain that actually registers or even keeps track of Dogs in Bahrain. The owners did alot of research and found that the only entity closest to giving them information was the airport customs office, and they only recorded how many dogs came into Bahrain and how many dogs went out. Moreover they started to get samples and estimates from vets. And the final number they came up with somehow met their expectations and they were comfortable with getting even 10% of it.

Capacity Issue

Within a four month span, sales at Tails has doubled . This led to a bottle neck in their production ( remember the paper puppet activity?) , the machines they had were not able to package and seal fast enough to meet the demand of their customers.  They tried to overcome it by cooking more on and storing it  but they did not have enough storage capacity to meet this unanticipated demand. to overcome this Tails had to quickly invest in new machines that will be able to seal and package faster in order to meet the demand of their customers, gives more flexibility on variety and size, and to start distribution to supermarkets.

Tails are slowly keeping up with their demand however it has been stressful for them because they were not able to accurately forecast.

So i leave you with a thought : how do you forecast with no data? and which forecasting method should Tails use today in order to help them predict their future sales?

 

For more information please visit www.tails.co to get your free dog food sample today!

 

 

 

Ethics and Social Responsibility

Posted on by tariqa502

At the drop of a Hat, as I heard the professor describing the ethics and social responsibility part, I thought it’s like a cock and bull story, as I just came to the class from doing the same job, which is to incorporate the essence of Ethics and Social Responsibility in the company’s operation. It was just icing on the cake.

To keep your chin up, it is slightly harder at times when you find that operation managers should be able to produce safe and quality products without hindrance and also have to maintain clean and safe workplace environment. The phenomenon of workplace safety is of utmost importance but still we have this dilemma where we sometimes end up losing our colleagues at work site. To my way of thinking, all companies should try and ensure safety of their folks, therefore in the class discussion came up the idea that, How would DHL be ethical and socially responsible, this idea amplify my inquisitiveness and I turned on to their website where I found really appealing specifics.

DHL considers people and organizations, their stakeholders. DHL believes that “Our image as a company depends on how employees conduct themselves in the business world. There is no substitute for personal integrity and sound judgment”. It is embedded in their corporate values to strive for sustainable development of the business which is founded on the three pillars: economic performance, environmental stewardship and social responsibility.

The most astounding statement which appealed to me was DHL’s principal stance of following global laws where they operate and most significantly in terms of Human aspect which are guided by the principles of the United Nations’ Global Compact. DHL respect human rights within their sphere of influence and conduct the business in a manner that makes the organization, an employer of choice. And most importantly they adhere and respect the principles of the 1998 International Labor Organization’s “Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work” in accordance with national law and practice. This is to implement the safety and clean workplace environment, which in return will increase employee confidence at work and then DHL will profoundly be the preferred employer.

By reading the code of conduct DHL in respect of ethical and social responsibility, I wish our company embark on the same principal journey, but do you guys think that:

Are your organizations ethically and socially responsible? Do they honor shareholder commitments at the cost of losing their teammates by not providing clean and safe environment?

The link of the info is here: http://www.dp-dhl.com/en/about_us/code_of_conduct.html

After midnight.. Mannequins become alive!

Posted on by ahmadf502

“Where Shopping meets Entertainment” is the slogan of the mall I work at. To keep up with our statement, the management works hard to ensure visitors overall satisfaction, present a new shopping and entertaining experience and to operate at full capacity during trading hours. To do so, extensive amount of work must be done after hours, after the last customer leaves the mall.

 

So what happens at midnight when the mall is closed? The answers would be: the mall becomes alive! Over 340 stores open their doors one more time to be cleaned, new inventory moved in, showcase items are replaced and mannequins are re-dressed. The mall’s Operation Team has to provide enough security members to ensure nothing is stolen from stores, they also issue work permits for external suppliers and cleaning companies as well as create a daily working schedule covering all the activities that will happen between midnight to 8am.

 

The real challenge..

Besides coordinating stores related activities, the Operation Team plays a huge role prior to launching new promotional campaigns along with other departments. This includes Marketing, Finance and Maintenance, as they have to plan and schedule setting-up and dismantling large promotional displays in less than 8 hours, also including the following tasks:

–  Shipping the display items into the mall through loading bays, and providing proper transportation

–  Replacing signage and banners around the mall, including banners hanging from the mall’s sealing 40 meters high.

–  Monitor the storing of old display items and banners.

–  Ensure all extra waste is removed and the mall is ready to open its door for visitors.

 

We learned in our last class about project scheduling and performing Critical Path analysis. I realized that our mall management uses the same analysis while planning campaign launches. As we will be working against the clock, the management creates a Backward Pass plan, beginning with the last event that is due at 8 am and working backwards. Time is always a priority in such projects, and if extra costs are needed to meet the 8 am deadline the management can only agree to pay.

 

3am Surprises..

Although the team spends over a month planning an 8 hour project with the suppliers and assembling company, there is always a chance for unexpected errors that might affect the project’s working path. It happened in several occasions that a supplier would discover in the middle of the working progress that there is a missing piece from the display, or banners need to be re-printed as they are in the wrong size. Solving such problems is not easy, as printing and production companies are closed, arranging extra staff is challenging and some decision makers will be in deep sleep at the time of these tragedies.

 

Fortunately, the mall management was able to solve such problems, bearing extra costs of course. The question is what can be done to prevent such problems and can this be done without additional costs?

MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS

Posted on by nadaj502

During the last two sessions we covered the topic of Project Management, and the importance of having the right skills and knowledge in order to manage project successfully, meeting its agreed time, cost, scope without compromising on quality. We’ve also briefly discussed the roles and responsibilities of the Project Manager, but would you like know more about the roles and responsibilities of the Project Manager? Well MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS!!! If you are a Project Manager, do you start your work every day thinking about ways to move your company forward?? Well again, MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS!!! Or do you think of how to get better deals for your procurement processes? One more time, MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS!!! Yes, you read correctly, MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS.

In most of the projects the Project Manager is minding the business of the cost controller, the Human Resource Manager, the Risk Manager, the Quality Manager, the COO, the CFO and sometimes even the CEO.  Why is that? Because Project Managers always feel that they are in charge of the entire project and its end result, and tend to forget that they are not solely in charge of it, and that other team players are also in charge.

Think of it as channeling your energies toward successfully completing your own assignments – your domain of responsibility.  If everyone in your project focused on his/her own domain of responsibility, the project will do just fine.  In fact if your entire company started to think with this mentality, then not only your project will be more successful, but also your company will be more successful than it is today.

Let us agree on the definition of “Your domain of responsibility”, it includes all responsibilities and commitments that fall within the score of your assignment.  And this applies whether you are a one-person project, or a member of a 10-person project, of a 1000-person project, your project success is directly related to how well you perform within your domain of responsibilities.  It has been my experience that if you focus superbly within your domain of responsibility, your contributions will be the most effective and your career will shine brightly even without the extra credit.

I once worked in a company that did not have well-defined project management best practices that we could adopt as project managers for our projects, nor it had well-defined roles and responsibilities of the project manager, so we – the few project managers – worked together and developed clear “domain of responsibilities” as per the project management best practices and aligned with the PMI’s PMBoK Guide (Project Management Body of Knowledge Guide).  Examples of the items we included in our domain of responsibilities that project manager often pursued weakly include:
– Seeking out a project sponsor and establishing an effective relationship
– Adopting/defining project management best practices for your own project
– Ensuring client participation
– Obtaining commitment from others and then holding them accountable

Some might think that focusing on your domain of responsibility is selfish and that you do not care about your company, I don’t think so, so what are your thought on this? Will you MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS or Not?

A investment deal going through 3 stages

Posted on by mohammeda502

 

                In our first operation management class we conducted an exercise called the paper puppet activity.

The first exercise reminded me when I was working in one of the investment banks in Bahrain. I was working as a private equity specialist. We created investment products and then we sold the shares of the investment product to investors all over the Arabian Gulf region with an expected rate of return at maturity. For any investment deal there is 3 stages. The first stage is the pre-acquisition stage. The second stage is the placement stage. The third stage is the post acquisition stage.

 I was responsible for the first stage. In order for an investment deal to be successful, all three stages must work smoothly and efficiently. Therefore, my role my was to create the right investment product by analyzing the company we will invest in and by analyzing the country the company is operating in and its competitors and in other words I would determine if there is an upside potential for growth in the company which will lead to an increase in its share price. After making the decision to invest in this company, I would sit with the team that is responsible for the second stage which is the placement stage. The placement team would try to understand everything about the investment product because they will travel to all the Arabian Gulf Countries in order to sell the investment product to the investors who will be encouraged to invest in the product after realizing the excellent rate of return. After collecting the necessary funds from the investors in order to invest in the product we will reach the third stage which is the post-acquisition stage. In this stage we would use the fund collected by the placement team from the investors to invest in the companies which is usually by purchasing a majority share in the company in order to establish a majority control on the company. Moreover, the post-acquisition team would carefully monitor the investments in those companies and would undertake the necessary changes that will add value to the company and will eventually increase its market share and will benefit our investors who we invested in their behalf.

                The problem occurred when we had a very strong pre-acquisition team and a very strong placement team but a weak post-acquisition team. Therefore, we created a good investment product that was able to meet the needs and requirements of the investors however we had problems in delivering our promises to the investors because our post-acquisition team was not able to perform or deliver good results by achieving or exceeding the target rate of return.  But to be honest with you, the duties and responsibilities of the post-acquisition team is the hardest because they have to get involved in the company we invested in by changing their systems and their management and to implement strategies that will add value and increase its market share. So their task was very challenging. Nevertheless, we have to find a solution in order to meet the target rate of return we promised our investors that we would achieve. My question is how can we solve this problem because our only problem is in stage three or in other words our real problem is specifically with the post-acquisition team?

Project Managers vs Workers

Posted on by Ali Almahdi

During our first class, we got to do our first exercise. This exercise was making the paper puppets. Though I was not involved with the workers or even the timer guys. I was observing the whole operation. The teacher acted like the project manager, and 5 class colleagues were doing the assembly line workers job.

During this exercise, each worker was given a task to be done. The teacher was putting pressure on them as she was acting like the project manager. As a result, they were trying hard to finish as much paper puppets as possible. I was observing the behavior of each worker, since the last three workers were sitting idle until the second worker finishes her job. Her task was a longer task than the rest, thus she was a bottleneck. The class was fun and we have learned a lot.

Some of what we have learned from this class was:

  • The way you layout the operations space, is going to influence the production and product quality, it even influences the communication between the workers. During our exercise, though they were close to each other, each worker was only talking to the one right next to him/her.
  • During the exercise, the first worker tried to optimize the way he worked but the project manager which is the teacher told him to follow the process. This teaches us that if we ever want to  re-engineer a process, we need to talk to the workers. They see the obstacles, they most probably know how to optimize their work.
  • During the exercise, the workers found defected paper, but due to the pressure, they passed it on just to finish the process. What we could learn from this, when project managers or management puts so much pressure on workers, workers will have ethical issues and lead to high rate of defected products.
  • After we were done with the exercise, the teacher asked the workers how did they feel about their work load. Some said they were doing so much work, others said they didn’t have to do much. It is probably one of most faced issue with operation workers. Work isn’t divided equally among workers.
  • We also have discussed what we could have done to help our second worker which she had more complicated work to do, we have came with so many solutions which seemed to help, like hiring one more worker with her. Or distributing the work among other workers too.
Here are some pictures that I took during class while we were doing the exercise: (Note: Some faces are blurred because they asked me to blur their faces). Edit: One more colleague asked for her picture to be blurred., so I re-uploaded the images.