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Feasibility of Knowledge transfer

Feasibility of Knowledge transfer

The transfer of knowledge is a complex process and difficult to understand. Various elements affect the knowledge transfer success. As the world is fast becoming a village, transitional transfer of knowledge takes place not only in big companies, but also among individuals. A significant and increasing amount of efforts and activities are devoted to knowledge transfer at a transnational level.

Various scholars have given different definitions of knowledge transfer. For instance, a scholar defines knowledge transfer as a process through which one unit is affected by the expertise of another. It has also been defined as the process systematically arranged exchange and sharing of knowledge and skills between entities. Some scholars however have considered knowledge transfer as knowledge sharing while other state that knowledge transfer cannot be defined as it is related to learning. Although various definitions have been used by different scholars in defining and illustrating what knowledge transfer means and entails, majority of the explanations refer to knowledge management and its transfer among organizations or within such organizations.

The number of multinational and transnational companies and hotels are on the rise. Due to changes in business dynamics and an increase in pressure on businesses to diversify their operations and make the most out of opportunities in far away nations, there has been increasing importance of rating companies. However, despite these changes, businesses and hotels still feel immense pressure to ensure that they redesign their operations and rating systems so as to make the most out of the available opportunities. The level of competition faced by transnational and international companies is high which had led to increased emphasis on the strategies that international firms can use to improve their positioning in various market segments. Among the ways of improvements is through a properly defined hotel rating system. It is through the rating that the organizations are able to define and identify their market position in the regional and international markets. In some case, various companies and hotels have adopted knowledge transfer strategy to improve their services and remain at the top of the market for example Group–Renaissance Shanghai Yuyuan Hotel in Shanghai. It is therefore imperative on individual businesses and researchers to come up with strategies through which local and international businesses can strategize their operations such that they aid improvement of global economic conditions and their profitability.

The main reason for transfer of knowledge is to transfer knowledge source to the recipient. Additionally, Feher 2006 states that knowledge transfer is manifested through the changes in recipient’s performance. According to this author, the successfulness in transfer of knowledge is dependent on the perceived advantage and the satisfaction with knowledge management. He further defines effectiveness in knowledge transfer as the extent of institutionalization of the practice of the receiver.

Transnational knowledge transfer

The globalization trend witnessed in the recent past has pushed various hotels in China and globally to search for new opportunities, expand their present business boundaries, or collaborate with global partners. As a consequence, organization knowledge needs to be transferred across the global boundaries. The knowledge transfer can entail activities from one individual to the other, across organization or across countries.

Knowledge transfer among countries can take place in various forms from an organizational perspective for instance intra-organizational transfer in international company, international transfer within a society or partnership. The increase in the number of transnational transfer of knowledge have been helpful in assisting developing countries to advantage from the skills, best practices, technology and innovations presented in the developed countries. Knowledge transfer has also facilitated creation of knowledge at the local and international levels.

An individual or organization can acquire the knowledge to carry out his tasks through knowledge sharing and through knowledge transfer. Mostly, the term knowledge sharing and knowledge transfer are used interchangeably. However, the difference between knowledge sharing and knowledge transfer is the direction of the knowledge exchange. In knowledge sharing, knowledge is exchanged in both directions, whereas in knowledge transfer, knowledge is shared in one direction and this is common with many organizations.

Knowledge transfer and entrepreneurial opportunities

Taking into consideration international knowledge and business ideas transfers among countries in the global village; one way of dealing with the unequal status of the market in less advanced market environments is to fulfill the empty market by copying a business concept that has already been successfully implemented in a more advanced marketplace and thus entrepreneurship. Knowledge transfer is a franchise or other business transaction that allows the transfer of existing best business practice and related knowledge. In a rapidly changing and globalization business environment, networking is a way to broaden the resource base for entrepreneurship. Participation in a formal and informal entrepreneurial networks has been becomes even more topical during recent years. Knowledge transfer has become an especially essential business model in overcoming distance as a barrier in business co-operation.

From the knowledge co-operation point of view, participation in knowledge transfer have different meanings when applied by entrepreneurs that are oriented towards imitating the best business practices, creating a new business concept on the bias of individual innovation or co-operating a new business direction within broad network of entrepreneurs, clients and other stakeholders. Entrepreneurship theory has progressed tremendously in the rule assigned to knowledge in the process of opportunity recognition and exploitation. It has evolved- form a strict economic approach, whereby knowledge was implicitly conceived as being modifiable, to a cognitive conceptualization of the entrepreneurial activity based on the working of tacit knowledge.

It is known that knowledge retention and transfer results to business creation. Entrepreneurial firms may provide important opportunities for examining how knowledge is created in organizations. Most entrepreneurial firms are small enough that researchers can more readily observe learning processes in them than in large established organizations. In addition, entrepreneurship firms are new enough that one can study organizational learning from the beginning of a firm’s operation. Thus, researchers could observe the building of connections and establishment of relationships that are central to organizational learning models. Thus, entrepreneurial firms seem to be especially promising sites for studying knowledge creation.

Feher, P., 2006. Proceedings of the 7th European Conference on Knowledge Management. Corvinus University of Budapest, Hungary. Publisher Academic Conferences Limited.

Group–Renaissance Shanghai Yuyuan Hotel in Shanghai

Fanny and Felix Mendelssohn were in an extraordinarily complex relationship – Copy

Fanny and Felix Mendelssohn were in an extraordinarily complex relationship. The two were very close to one another throughout their lives, and it seems like they had an erotic aspect that linked them to the intimate relationship. The connection between their relationships was more than that of a brother and a sister as the two were very close helping one another in times of need.

Felix was more famous than his sister fanny who remained in shadows. The reason as to why Felix was famous is because he composed all the songs including those of his sister. During their time, women were not allowed to compose songs, and as well they were not allowed to issue their work publicly and therefore to put this in a mask, Fanny had asked her brother Felix to publish the songs on her behalf. With Felix being the composer, he was more exposed to the audience while Fanny was left in shadows as a pianist. The reduced exposure made Fanny less famous than her brother.

During their time, women musicians were not allowed to present their work in public and therefore had to find shade under other men. It was no different for Fanny as she was compelled to give her written works to her brother Felix who would present them on her behalf. With the females being denied the same platforms as men, men were therefore endorsed by the society to present all the music, and this is evidenced by the testimonial by Felix during his presentation at Buckingham Palace that his sister wrote the song that the queen loved.

Feasibility Assessment

Feasibility assessment

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Institution

Feasibility Assessment

Feasibility analysis refers to the process of evaluating a business idea to determine if it is viable. The process ensures all projects are carefully understood before spending resources on them. It also calls for extensive research before any decisions are made. Decisions made in this case really heavily on strengths and weaknesses of proposed ventures or existing business, attention is also drawn towards opportunities and threats brought about by environment, resources required and other prospects for achievements. In other words, feasibility study provides a comparison of cost required to execute a project and value attained after it has been completed. A properly executed feasibility analysis explores four main areas; product/service feasibility, industry/target market feasibility, organization feasibility and financial feasibility. However, all these areas are structured towards achieving a common objective; evaluating a project’s credibility or potential for success.

Product or service feasibility analysis focuses on the overall appeal of the product or service that is under review or development. The analysis can be divided in two main areas namely desirability and demand to ensure it focuses on all essential aspects. Before a prospective firm introduces a new product or improve the existing products, it should be sure that is what the customers want. To establish product/service desirability the organization should prepare a concept test of about a page and distribute it to different people to fill. This move will provide feedback on the prospective product thus assisting the organization to improve the development strategy even further before proceeding. In product /service demand, the prospective firm should carrying out two main steps in assessment; provide a buying intention survey and then conduct a secondary research using the internet, library and gumshoe. Buying intention survey comprises of statements about the product and assists to evaluate customer interest on the same.

Coca cola Company is one of the companies that have strongly embraced product feasibility assessment. The company ensured that proper brand desirability and product demand are well analyzed before launching the company’s new product cocacola-zero a sugarless brand of the company’s popular beverage; coke soda. Coke Cola Company management possessed questions like Is the product reasonable?, Will it assist in filling the marketplace gap? Is it a good time to introduce the product?. Answering these questions meant that the company analyses the product before launching it to the target market.

Industry/ target market feasibility analysis focuses on the industry and target market of the prospective firm. An industry refers to a group of organizations producing related products and services. Target market on the other hand, is the limited section of the industry that the prospective firm intends to focus on. Feasibility analysis in these two areas revolves around two wide components; industry attractiveness and target market attractiveness. Industry attractiveness analysis will involve comparing the industry characteristics to those of the firm. This means that the firm will require monitoring environmental and business trends are improving and not declining in comparison to those of the industry. Target market analysis will assist the firm to find a market that is large enough for the desired product or service but at the same time attracting few competitors from the same industry. It is difficult to establish the attractiveness of a target market than that of the industry; therefore the firm should employ detailed research and ingenuity to attain accurate results about a specific target market.

Organizational feasibility analysis establishes efficiency of the prospective firm in areas relating to management, organizational competence and besides availability of resources. Organizational feasibility pays close attention to the non-financial resources of a firm thus establishing ability to introduce new products or improve existing systems. The components of organizational feasibility analysis are management prowess and resource sufficiency. Management prowess will establish the firm’s management team on it passion and expertise on the business idea. This important analysis will determine the passion the financing team has on the business idea. It will also establish the market understanding of the funding team or the entrepreneur before the firm participates in any venture. Resource sufficiency on the other hand, assesses whether the firm has sufficient resources to launch the business idea. In carrying out this assessment the firm should make a list of all non-financial resources required for the venture and evaluate it. At this level, if it is found that some critical resources are not attainable the project should be discontinued.

Financial feasibility analysis provides the final analysis of an elaborate feasibility analysis. At this point the firm should pay attention to the financial resources required for the venture. The components of this analysis that are quite essential are funds required for the start up, financial performance of related firms and overall financial attractiveness of the project. Start-up funds refer to the total cash to be invested before the firm can make the first sale. At this stage the firm should prepare a budget comprising of capital purchases and operating expenses that will be required to generate initial revenue. This move will ensure the venture financial requirements are realistic and will not affect the firm previous performance. The second component of financial feasibility analysis which is financial performance of similar business involves comparing financial situations or related businesses. There are several ways in which the firm can undertake this process; analyzing financial records that may be available for other firms and also simple carrying out simple observation research on customer spending. Lastly, financial feasibility analysis requires monitoring overall financial attractiveness of the venture which requires the firm to make financial estimates on the venture that will yield positive results with existing factors.

Feasibility analysis achievements can best be explained using Coca cola company achievements, Milk Company Inc and Budweiser Black Company all of which concentrate heavily on advertising. For instance, during the Super bowl game on February 1st they took time to market their new products to their target markets. Coca cola advertised using security cameras, Milk Company gave samples the milk shake and Budweiser briefed the clients using the black crown celebration advertisement. All these companies strictly observed the four main areas of a feasibility assessment before introducing a product. They researched on their product, identified the target market, established organizational resources and established financial stain for the venture.

With that discussion, we can confidently establish that feasibility analysis evaluates and analysis the viability of a business venture. It is more effective if the four main areas are well explored which are; product feasibility, industry/target market feasibility, organizational feasibility and financial feasibility. When these four areas are correctly done a company’s prospects for a new business will be well timed and properly conducted thus assuring excellent returns.

References

Justis, R. T. & Kreigsmann, B. (1979). The feasibility study as a tool for venture analysis.Business Journal of Small Business Management

Young, G. I. M. (1970). Feasibility studies. Appraisal Journal