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Hitachi Construction Machinery (Australia) Pty Ltd Strategic Analysis
Hitachi Construction Machinery (Australia) Pty Ltd: Strategic Analysis
Background:
Hitachi Construction Machinery (Australia) Pty Ltd is a subsidiary of the Japan based Hitachi Construction Machinery and it deals in the sales and distribution of forestry machinery, mining equipment, quarry, construction and recycling machinery. The construction company deals in the sale of both new and used machinery. The company has presence all over Australia and employs over 1000 employees in about 26 locations in the country. The company is also attached to John Deere and Bell Construction. The company’s mission “is to be the leading supplier of excavators, mining shovels, rigid dump trucks and front end loaders with market share positions in key mining, construction and plant hire markets” (Company Website 2012).
With the above mission, the company has four main objectives that help in fulfilment of the mission. The objectives include protecting and enhancing its position as a leading competitor in the global industry and provide reliable solutions that are customer driven. Another objective also targets improvement of employee welfare while the last one targets building shareholder value.
Issues:
The company’s approach to decision making involves the use of strategic management plans that enable the company top follow on the achievement of the set objectives and company’s mission.
For instance, the company’s latest mid-term management plan covers the period between 2011 and 2013. The plan is divided into several parts, each of which is targeted to address part of business operation. The first part of the plan addresses the business and market environment. This part deals with five main areas: Hard product strategy, mining strategy, solution (sales & service) strategy, regional strategy and enhancement of management base. The other part of the plan targets performance of the company. The plan seeks to address various business risks of diverse nature. For instance, the performance plan targets to ensure that there continuous flow of information within the various stakeholders thereby mitigating the risk of information lapse and also help in ensuring that there a close and unfailing partnership between the firm and other stakeholders throughout the world.
The hard-product strategy is an instrumental instrument in the risk management plan of the firm since it has an established global R & D, which works for development of products that are market-oriented and suited for each market on the global scale. This strategy mitigates the risk of need for sudden change in product as well as the risk of losing sales to competitors. Standardisation, unification and integration of quality are some of the major strategies that are known to reduce the risk in doing business. Hitachi Construction Machinery has standardised its products and integrated the quality of these products and these reduce the risk of increased costs of production in the long run.
The company has a directional decision making procedure where the lower cadre employees receive directives from the top management. In part, while this might be a good strategy to ensure consistency and stability in decision making, it is a major source of risk for the organisation. Recent works (such as Hafeez 2009) have demonstrated that there is an overriding school of thought, which views strategic decision making process in general as leadership. This is the entrepreneurial school of thought. However, Hafeez (2009) points out that all the managers in an organisation contribute in a certain way in the achievement of the strategic decisions of the company and round-table decision making procedure makes more sense in our modern highly volatile business environment. Rather, it is the conglomeration of the minds of the different individuals in the organisation that expands the level of thinking and makes achievement of strategic objectives possible.
Recommendations:
Having looked at the company’s approach, it is important to reiterate that the risks a company is likely to encounter sprout from the dealings within the internal and external environments and with all its stakeholders. For this reason, it is important that every stakeholder is considered in the objectives. Therefore, Hitachi Construction Machinery needs to clearly incorporate all stakeholders in its mission and objectives. Moreover, it is a fact that there is need for harmonization between the mission of the governments (as stakeholders in the organisation) and the internal practices within the institution such that even though there is clear evidence of complexity in arguing for shareholder value maximisation especially if we consider organisations set for profit purposes such as Hitachi Construction Pty Ltd every stakeholder, including the government shall be well represented. This is in light of the modern organisation environment where it is evident that the stakeholders in any organisations are more aware and hence demand for their share thereby easily creating conflict of interest.
Considering that the firm has a profit maximisation objective well laid out, this basically addresses the shareholder value maximisation. While that objective would entirely set the business to take a profit-maximizing perspective, it must be harmonised with the society’s needs and objectives since it is the society that provides the charter for the business the to exist and operate. Therefore, the goals set by the organisation must reflect the values it stands for, which in turn must embody the desires of all the stakeholders. If the goals set do not reflect the values in such a way that all stakeholders’ wishes are catered for, it is likely that agency problem will soon arise.
Another suggestion for the company is to gear its targets to tapping governments as major customers. The governments world over are major customers for construction machinery companies and this reduces the risk of payment defaults. The company might also find it more beneficial to used matrix of round-table decision making process as it allows different noble ideas to be incorporated into the achievement of the set mission of the firm (Hitt et al 2002).
Lastly, the firm should use experience and know-how in sectors entailing reconstruction to make use of its resources and capabilities. Diversification is another area that firms use to manage business risks very well. Therefore, it is recommended that the firm should continue to search for new opportunities in areas where skills and know-how developed in the company can be leveraged. With increasing global competition from small business and projects, the firm can follow these by sub-units that aim to compete in low price market segments. This can be bolstered by creating a specialized unit which handles small scale customers.
Reference
Hafeez,K. (2009). Entrepreneurship & Intrapreneurship. Available: http://www.york.ac.uk/enterprise/cetle/resources/curriculum/entrepreneurship-module.pdf.. Last accessed 4th Oct 2012.
Hitt, M A. Raphael Amit, Charles E. Lucrier, & Robert D. Nixon (Jun 24, 2002). Creating Value: Winners in the New Business Environment. London: John Wiley & Sons. p114-158.
Company Website (2012).Who We are. Available: HYPERLINK “http://www.hitachicareers.com.au/about-us/who-we-are/”http://www.hitachicareers.com.au/about-us/who-we-are/ Last accessed 4th Oct 2012.
History, Lyndon Johnsons Great Society
History, Lyndon Johnsons Great Society
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Lyndon Banes Johnson who was initially a majority leader in senate before becoming Kennedy’s vice president was a great politician who quickly established himself in the office of the presidency. LBJ who took the office of the presidency after the shocking assassination of Kennedy was a man with extraordinary ability to get things done by either pleading or threatening people. As a president, he sought to use his supremacy insistently to get rid of poverty among the citizens. He further required spreading the benefits of prosperity to all by continuing with the work left by Kennedy. LJB’s ability to turn things around in America could not be evident if Kennedy was not assassinated to allow him get to power (Lerner 2012, 38-42).
Banes only had 11 months to prove himself to Americans that he was a true leader that America wanted. Johnson used his persuasion skill to have the civil rights bill which prohibited unfairness based on race and gender employment and further ended public facilities segregation passed. Johnson used the name “Great Society” to describe his reform program when after he declared war on poverty and this further intensified when he won a decisive victory over Barry Goldwater of Arizona. Economically, he pushed for economic act of 1964, which was aimed at fighting poverty, cutting tax, training for the poor and use of federal funds to attack unemployment and illiteracy (Boyer et al 2010, 673-675).
Indeed, Lyndon’s three years in power proved his sheer determination and hard work which he undoubtedly surprised liberals. Johnson successfully provided support for elementary and secondary schooling by allowing funds to be used in helping both public and private schools. Furthermore, an Omnibus housing act gave rent supplements for the less privileged in the society and provided funds to construct low-income housing. He additionally addressed transportation safety matters by signing two important transportation bills (Ahlberg 2008, 43-48).
During Johnson’s reign, American liberalism was at high tide due to a number of signed acts that greatly empowered the citizen. Some of the additional signed acts are wilderness protection act that saved almost 9.1 million acres of forestland from industrial development as well as the immigration act that ended discriminatory quotas based on ethnic origin. Besides, there was the national endowment for the arts and humanities, which allowed the use of public money to fund artists and galleries thus promoting art and creativity among the talented populace that could not afford to sponsor themselves (Boyer et al 2010, 673-675).
In addition, Baines Johnson introduced Medicare law to compensate the cost of healthcare for the old people and the voting rights act that banned literacy tests and other discriminatory methods of denying suffrage to the lager American population. He believed in universal stable democracy, political stability, financial stability, health, and education. Johnson based his foreign policy on universal stability through his Great Society belief.
Bibliographies
Ahlberg, Kristin L. Transplanting the Great Society Lyndon Johnson and Food for Peace. Columbia: University of Missouri, 2008.
Boyer et al.The Enduring Vision: A History Of The American People. Boston: Wadsworth/Cengage Learning, 2010.
Lerner, Mitchell B. A Companion to Lyndon B. Johnson. Chichester, West Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012.
NYC Transportation Vs NYC Chauffeurs VIP
NYC Transportation Vs NYC Chauffeurs VIP
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New York City being the largest city in the United States, has a transportation structure that combines multifaceted systems of infrastructure that includes aerial tramway, subway systems, New York City bus and Island railway. The transportation system in the NYC was facilitated by the second industrial revolution which led to the development of Erie Canal, elevated trains and subterranean transportation between 1867 and 1904. However, around 1930, private transportation came into existence which notably changed the city transportation (Sansone 2004).
The NYC is known for significant use of public transportation with almost 54.2% of the employees using public transport. NYC is the only city where almost 50% of the households do not own a car and has the longest mean travel time among the US cities. Metropolitan Transportation Authority is the agency managing transport system in New York City that serves 12 counties and carries over 11 million passengers on an average weekday and further 800,000 vehicles on toll bridges and tunnels every weekday.
MTA which is the largest public transportation provider in the Western Hemisphere with almost 65, 000 employees is responsible for increasing and implementing an integrated crowd transportation policy. There are several other subsidiaries of the MTA that help in implementation of its policies and managing other sections of the transportation such as MTA Staten Island Ferry and other previously private operators that formed the Metropolitan Suburban bus Authority (MSBA) which currently does business under MTA Long Island Bus (Sansone 2004).
Public transportation in the NYC has two main options that work on the same system with the same tickets. The public transportation’s options include the subway which is almost the fastest way to get anywhere except late at night and the bus system which are rarely used by the visitors. There are vending machines selling the 7 day New York Metro Card. The use of subway system can be a bit intimidating especially when the passengers are rushing for the systems and the gadget fails to work. The safety of the subways is usually questionable due to increased crime and the reputation of it being dirty. Another alternative to the subways is the hop on hop off buses which is quick and will take you to most places in the city. There are also trains, ferries, helicopters and taxies that greatly help in the NYC. Due to inadequate satisfaction of the people with higher socioeconomic status in the public transportation in NYC, NYC Chauffeurs VIP Transportation was found to offer stylish services to the rich, top middle class and the VIPs (Sansone 2004).
NYC Chauffeurs VIP Transportation is committed in providing professional service by providing superb customer service for scheduling tours, transportations, attractions, dining, accommodation as well as maintaining the privacy of the passengers and fully customized service where an individual only gets what he wants unlike in public transport where such elements are not taken into consideration. NYC Chauffeurs VIP Transportation is also known to be flexible and provides a chauffeured service both in the urban area and beyond as well as provision of first class vehicles that are new, clean and equipped with sophisticated technology and navigation systems. They offer classy services to the corporate clients by transporting them in a first class sedan with an extra leg room. They further offer airport sedans , limousines, New York SUV limousines that facilitate top first class transportation service for the New York, new Jersey and beyond with well trained chauffeurs who are trained to pamper their clients.
Reference
Sansone, G. (2004). New York subways: An illustrated history of New York City’s Transit Cars. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press.