Forum: If you are one of the TOP managers, what kind values would like to inculcate in your organization? Why does it so?

Assalamualaikum w.b.t

Hi friends! How are you today? I hope all of you will be in good condition and have a wonderful day.

For this week, we don’t have any class and tutorial. Thus, we have to join an online forums tittles corporate culture. The question that we need to answer and discuss is what kind of values that I will inculcate in the organization if I am one of the top managers.

In that forum, most of my friends are thinking to have Islamic values in their organization. Their opinions are similar with me. If I am the top managers, I also want to have an Islamic value in my organization. The Islamic value does not only come on how the organization works but also in term of dress code. The implementation of work ethics such as having a tazkirah in every week, having a dhuha prayers and reciting doa in every meeting will build up the Islamic spiritual in the organization. Besides that, the dress codes are very important to show the Islamic value in the organization. Each worker has to follow the dress code which in line with Islam religious. By having this value, I think that other organization will respect our organization as we are really caring on Islamic obligation.

Last but not least, I just had my interview with IKIM where this place really takes care on the Islamic surrounding. So, I just take IKIM as one of the example where this organization has implement the Islamic values in their workplace. What I can see, even the director of the organization also wearing a 'songkok' to show the Islamic value that has been implemented there. Besides that, they also play IKIM radio where they can listen to verses of Al-quran and other segment that will motivate their workers such as morning motivation segment.

I think that’s all from me for now. See you on the next post.

Wallahualam..

Thank you.

Chapter 8: Corporate Strategy: Diversification and the Multibusiness Company

Assalamualaikum w.b.t to all of you. How are you today? I hope all of you are in a good condition with full bless from Allah. J

Today we will continue with our learning session in Strategic Management under the topic of Diversification and the Multibusiness Company. This topic is discussing on how a top management may diversified the business in many parts.

In order to have diversification or multibusiness, we have to have a look on the reason why we need to have the diversification. The other factors, advantages and disadvantages also are the main things that have to be analyze before we make the diversification of the business. Now, I will tell you three types of diversification which there are:

• Joint venture 
• Acquisition
• Internal Development

In Malaysia, we have many examples of the companies that has been diversified their business into many other sub business unit. We have Sime Darby, Tabung Haji and Khazanah Nasional Berhad. For Sime Darby, they have Sime Darby Property, Sime Darby Plantation, Sime Darby Industrial, Sime Darby Motors and Sime Darby Energy and Utilities. This is how this company diversify their business either in the related business or in unrelated business.

Any firms that wish to have diversification in their business should consider this factors:

• It can expand into business where the technologies and product complement its current product 
• It have enough resources and capabilities to be use 
• Cost can be reduced by cross-business sharing or transfer of resources and capabilities 
• Transferring a strong brand name to the product of other businesses

Last but not least, for those who currently own a business and plan to have a diversification to their business, all the factors stated above has to be consider. I hope my simple explanation on this topic will give you some brief idea about diversification of a business.

Thank you. Wassalam.  

Case study: UMW Holdings: sustaining a centennial corporation

Assalamualaikum friends..how are you? Alhamdulillah we meet again on our second case study. On this second case study we will analyze on UMW Holdings business.

UMW Holdings is one of the biggest corporations in Malaysia. The headquarters of UMW Holdings was located in Shah Alam. Currently this company has widened its business internationally in Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, Myanmar, Vietnam, Papua New Guinea, Turkmenistan, Taiwan, China, Australia, India and Oman. During year 1917, this company started the business in bicycle spare parts which currently had 110 subsidiaries operated in their core business. Nowadays, UMW Holdings core businesses is automotive assembly and distribution, while the other sub unit business of UMW Holdings are automotive component and lubricants OEM and REM heavy equipment and oil and gas drilling service industries.

As this company has many s.b.u. they have to ensure the sustainability of the company. In order to solve this problem, we have analyzed the corporate strategy of this company that has been implemented since the year of establishment. Based on our findings by using Porter’s Generic Strategy, UMW Holdings implement Broad Differentiation and Focus Differentiation in expanding and maintaining their business.

Besides that, the core business and the other sub business unit of UMW Holdings have contributed 72% and 28% in the revenue of the Groups respectively. Thus, the CEO of the Groups, Dato Syed Hisham wants to have a balance contribution in both type of business. He plans to have 50-50 contribution in revenue from core business and other s.b.u. of UMW Holdings.

Last but not least, UMW Holdings was established for almost 100 years. It is not an easy thing to keep sustain in the industry with many type of business. However, UMW Holdings are successful to make them sustain in the industry for almost 100 years.

That is all for today.

Thank you. 

SHARING SESSION WITH THE FOUNDER OF O-SHIMA RESTAURANT

Assalamualaikum and good evening to all my friends.

For this week, we do not have class and tutorial. However, today we had a sharing session with the founder of O-SHIMA restaurant, Pn Asnidar Hanim Yusuf.

She set up her business on 2009 where this restaurant provides Halal Japanese Food. They serve authentic Japanese food which is traditionally and originally from Japan. The name of O-SHIMA is taken from the name of a big island in Japan. In setting up her restaurant, Pn Asnidar had faces many challenges and obstacle. Being positive and never give up make her keep sustain in the business field. She also had share with us some common strategy that can be taken in any type of business. Here are the strategies:

•  Have your niche but understand needs 
•  Have a good location
• Increase brand awareness
• Full use of social media and website
•  Retain current customer and increase new one
• Promotion, promotion and promotion.

In my opinion, today I gain a precious sharing session as now I know how though the business field. As what I have mention in my previous post, I want to help my family business which is Kelas Al-Quran Ideal. Thus, I had jot down some important things giving by Pn Asnidar. I want to implement it in order to expand my family business. I hope I will have another sharing session with any Malay and Muslim entrepreneur and businessman in order for me to gain more knowledge and learn from it. I am happy to join business field. J

I think that is all for today. I will share with you some photo of O-SHIMA RESTAURANT. If you have time, visit there and try this delicious Japanese food with the affordable price. I also hope that I will be there soon to try and enjoy Halal Japanese Food. J

For more information, you can visit O-SHIMA RESTAURANT Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/oshimarestaurant

CHAPTER 7: Strategies for Competing in International Market

Asslamualaikum dear and good evening. J

Without wasting our time, lets we continue our next topic on for this subject title Strategies for Competing in International Market.  Generally, this topic is discussing on a strategies that can be implement by the business to compete with other rivals in the international market.  

Any business can be expanding through franchising or licensing. These are the strategies on how the business can keep sustain internationally.  For example, McDonalds company. This company is very well known and worldwide. They have franchise their business and product widely. It has its own branches in many countries in this world. Besides that, McDonalds also offers their product based on their target market on that country. In India, most of their customer are vegetarian, thus McDonalds has offers some of their product based on vegetables. This is how McDonald’s strategies their business to keep sustains in order to compete with other rival in the international market.

For franchising, there are two terms that we need to know which are Home Countries and Host Countries. The explanation and the example for each term are illustrated as below:

Types	HOME COUNTRIES	HOST COUNTRIES
Definition	Where the company origin	Subsidiaries located in other countries
Example	McDonalds	McDonalds
Explanation	McDonalds is originated from US which is US is the home countries for McDonalds	The other branches of McDonalds such as in Malaysia, China, India, etc.

Based on the topic discussed above, I hope that you will understand well on the strategies that can be taken by the company to compete with their rival in the international market.

That is all for today.

Thank you. 

CHAPTER 6: Strengthening a Company’s Competitive Position Strategic Moves, Training and Scope of Operation

Assalamualaikum friends. How are you? I hope all of you are in a good condition and full of blessing from Allah. Ameen..  :)

Alhamdulillah we meet again in the new topic of Strategic Management. The topic for this chapter is quite long. However, I will focus on two things that I am interested in this topic.

For this topic I have learned on the STRATEGIC OFFENSIVE PRINCIPLE. This principle is a one of the strategy that can be use by the company to defense their current strategic planning. It is also to lower the firm’s risk from being attacked by the competitors. The strategic offensive principles are listed as below:

• Offer low cost; ex: offered by Air Asia which they provide low-cost ticket for their customer
• First to-market with next generation; ex: Microsoft x-box
• Continuous product innovation; ex: Apple product (i-phone, i-pad)
• Good ideas of other firm; ex: android
• Guerilla warfare; hit & run (social media) ex: Facebook
• Preemptive strike; ex: Nippon

The second thing that I am interested in this topic is the BLUE OCEAN MARKET.  The Blue Ocean Market is defined as a new market that does not have many competitors in the market. We can take the e-bay, Starbucks and FedEx as the examples of Blue Market Strategy.  The opposite of Blue Market Strategy is a Red Market Strategy.  Red Market Strategy is a market that consists of many competitors that compete with each others to keep sustain in the market.

I think that all for this topic. See you again on the next topic. In Shaa Allah..

Thank you for your time and Wassalam.

:)

Case Study: " The Digital Age: Shall I Tag Along?"

Assalamualaikum w.b.t..

Hye friends..Alhamdulillah we can still meet here in my new post. :)

This week is our semester break. I'm happy to go back home and meet my family. I grab this opportunity to helps my family in running the business. I work as a teacher in Kelas Al-Quran Ideal. I hope I can apply what I have learned in the class in expanding my family business. In Sha Allah.. :)

In the previous week, I have learned on case study title "The Digital Age: Shall I Tag Along?". This article was written by my lecturer Dr Ummi Salwa Ahmad Bustamam (^^,). I am interesting with this article. It is discuss on how a business can get along with the technology as it keep changing rapidly. 

This article focus on publishing industry. As the world of technology going advance, people want to have something that easy to get, simple and cheaper. Thus, they tend to change their reading style. They may download any file from internet, read from e-book and smartphones. As this changes happen, it give a big impact to the publisher. People tend to not buy any book when they can keep downloading.

However, there is something to think back. Even though people may use the technology to have their reading, there are still many people out there who prefer to read printed book. All students in primary and secondary school are using text book in their classes. Thus, the publisher may consider this factor to keep sustain in the industry.

Last but not least, in my opinion En Rahim (the owner of the business) should maintain in the industry and keep improving with current technology. En Rahim may have product expansion by having brick and mortar concept in his business. So, people may get the books through traditional and modern ways.

That's all for today.. Hope to see you on my the next case study! hehe..

Wassalam. :)

Chapter 5: Generic Strategic

Salam friends..and happy eid adha! :D may all of us in a bless of Allah.

Alhamdulillah we can still meet in our next chapter for Strategic Management. For this chapter, I have learned on the topic of Generic Strategic. Generally, this topic discussing on how a firm able to maintain a strategic planned in order to compete with other rivals and improve their competitive performance. Under this topic, there are five categories where they are:

1) Low-cost provider
2) Broad differentiation
3) Focused low-cost
4) Focused differentiation
5) Best-cost provider

Those categories have their own way that can be used by the firm to compete and keep sustain with their rivals. I will choose Facebook as my example for Best-cost provider.

As we know, Facebook is a one of the famous places for people to meet friends and enjoy their online shopping. People eager to buy through online as they will have a lot of advantages. Facebook also is a place where we can meet a lot of product with different seller, prices and quality. Facebook falls under the category of Best-cost provider which is this category is a combination of low-cost providers and high-end differentiation. This category also known as hybrid approach.

Facebook rivals may be other online shopping website. However, most of this website will have their Facebook account as it is one of the best medium to attract their customer. Besides that, there are various type of product sells in the Facebook such as clothing, accessories, phone accessories, shoes, present and many more. All the price of the product are affordable and the quality of the product are comparable with the product at the shop.

Thus, in conclusion Facebook has provide a differentiation where it able to provide a desired places, product, and services to the user to have their online business. Facebook also provide a lower cost @ no cost to the user who open their page for promoting their product. In my opinion, Facebook is a great place for us to have online shopping as there is no other social network that provide two in one services (friendship and business).

Thats all for today.
Hope to see you in my next post.
Thank you.
Wassalam.. :)

Chapter 4: Evaluating a Company’s Resources, Capabilities and Competitiveness

Salam. Hye friends! :D

In my previous post, I have shared with you on what I have learned in the class for topic 3. Now, let’s we move on to the topic 4 which is covered on Evaluating a Company’s Resources, Capabilities and Competitiveness.  What is actually all this words meaning?

Resources: any raw material used by the company, asset, man power, machine, etc

Capabilities: how the organization and the business utilize the resources

Competitive: being better other than rival

On this chapter, I also learned on SWOT analysis as well as TOW’S Matrix. This analysis is use to know the strength and the weakness of the company to make it sustain and able to compete with other rivals. In my own thought, this analysis also can be used in any other field that we want to analyze. Even in analyzing ourselves, it is also suitable for us to use SWOT analysis.  From that, we will know our strength, weaknesses, opportunity and any threat towards ourselves. In short, an improvement can be made to overcome the weaknesses and the opportunity can be taken as chances to change ourselves to become a great person.  :D

I think that’s all for today. Till meet you again on my next post. 

Wassalam. J

3rd week of classes: Evaluating Company’s External Environment

Salam. Hye friends! How are you? 

As the time move faster, now we are already in week four for this semester. So now, I will share with you what I have learned in the class of Strategic Management for last week as well as for this week on my next post. For this topic (topic 3), we have covered on Evaluating Company’s External Environment. In this topic I learned various ways in evaluating a company external environment.

  Here are the lists on the way to analyze and evaluate company’s external environment.

1.       PESTEL analysis

2.       Five Competitive Forces

3.       Strategic Group Mapping

4.       Key Success Factors

In each method used, there will have certain things to be focused on. For example, in PESTEL analysis there are 6 elements that will help us in evaluating company’s external environment. There are:

-         - Political factor, economic condition, socio cultural factors, technological factors, environmental forces and legal and regulatory factors.

-For Five Competitive Forces, here are the things that will be focused on:

-          Buyers, suppliers, new entrants, rivals and substitute product.

As I mentioned before, each method used to analyze the external environment will focused on certain things. However, most of the methods are almost similar. Last but not least, all the methods above are used by the company and the organization to know how it will effect to the business. It is also a good analysis for the company to have their own strategic planning to keep sustain in the industry as well as to keep their business successful.

That's all for this topic. Thank you guys for your time. :)

Wassalam.

2nd week of classes: Topic 1 and 2

Assalamualaikum w.b.t.

Hye friends..today I will share with you what I have learned in my class for this week. For this week, we have learned on two topics for subject Strategic Management. For the first topic we learned on the Nature of Strategic Management and for the second topic we covered on Vision and Mission.

Here is my opinion and my thought for those topics:

Topic 1: 

1) There are several steps to be follow to have a strategic planning.

2) Strategic planning includes "formulating, implementing and evaluating"

3) Strategic management is interrelated with strategic planning.

# Strategic planning will help us to have a good plan as it is the best platform for us to achieve our target by following the guideline that has been prepared.

Topic 2:

1) To achieve the target we need to have vision and mission.

2) Vision is a short term planning to achieve the target.

3) Mission is a long term planning as well as a way on how to achieve vision.

# Everyone has their own vision an mission to achieve in their life as well as an organization. To achieve vision and mission, strategic management is important as it will lead us to follow the plan.

That's all for today. Till we meet again.

wassalam.

first week.. "if i am an engineer!"

assalamualaikum w.b.t

hye all.. :) as this is my first time to have my own blogs, i wish i can share my knowledge with all my friends.. besides, i also will update my blogs with what i learn in the class especially for strategic management subject.

for the first week of new semester! if i am an engineer! this is our first activity in the class..we had been given a lot of newspaper to build the tallest tower as we can..we can use any other sources that we have to build the tallest tower.. :)

unfortunately, my groups tower is not the highest tower..hehehe..

in this activity we learned about :

* to builds a tower we need to have a planning.

* a better plan will lead us to have an idea in using a sources that we have to build a tower.

* communication and interaction between members in the group is important in having a final decision.

* last but not least..team work in a group.

before i'm going to the end, i just want to say that i was enjoy with the activity even though it was a simple activity. :D .i think thats all for today..

"till we meet again"

wassalam.

new semester..new subject..new assignment.. :D

assalamualaikum w.b.t..

hye friends.. :) how r u?? i'm ana...i'm new here..guess what? this is my first time having my own blogs..huhuh..now,,let's me introduce about myself.. currently i'm a final year students in usim..for this semester, Dr Ummi Salwa @ Miss Ummi is teaching us for subject strategic management and operations. she had given us an individual assignment which is to develop our own blogs. this is one of the interactive way for us to give our opinions and thought based on what we learned in class every week.. thus, i hope i will enjoy having my own blogs as well as i will improve my skills in technology and communication.. :) 

.:till we meet again:.

wassalam..