Turbulent Marketplace Research Articles

Emerging from a Turbulent Marketplace

Coming out of the perfect storm of a bear market in equities, poor credit markets, and low interest rates, the U.S. insurance industry faced a number of new realities based on changing consumer demand and expectations. Consumers wanted new guarantees in their investments, choice and flexibility in distribution, and simplicity in their financial products. The baby boomers echo this new consumer demand through their desire for retirement security. The life insurance industry is well positioned to deliver to this population. No other financial services industry can help individuals accumulate wealth, protect its value, convert the wealth into lifetime income, and transfer it to future generations like the life insurance industry can. There are risks ahead for the U.S. life industry; however, it can take advantage of opportunities in the future if it can continue to put consumer needs first.

Design of an adaptable logistics workflow management system for e-business

Owing to the rapid development of information technology, there is a growing interest in e-commerce and trading on the internet. However, the downturns of e-business in recent years have indicated that the supply chain dimension of e-business has not received the attention it deserves. If the basic logistics performance is not assured, the advanced technologies and well-defined business infrastructures of e-business applications will never save an e-company; the company will not make profit without the physical support for the concepts behind the virtual store. To meet the existing turbulent and volatile global and virtual marketplace, it is necessary for the supply chain network to equip itself with some degree of flexibility and ability to adapt to unforeseeable changes in the market. This paper focuses on the supply chain and logistics dimensions of e-business and suggests practical approaches and models to avoid their poor management, thereby improving productivity and cost-effectiveness to support the virtual stores.

Assessing the firm's strategic knowledge portfolio: a framework and methodology

It is now widely acknowledged that knowledge rather than capital assets is the source of wealth in today's global economy in which firms increasingly are competing in knowledge-intensive markets. Consequently, firms are seeking to gain a better understanding of how their organisationally-embedded knowledge can be exploited to gain and maintain competitive edge in a turbulent marketplace. To be competitive and successful, firms are creating and sustaining a dynamic portfolio of knowledge repositories and processes. The authors contend that the outcomes can be much enhanced if this is based on a systematic approach to knowledge management. A consensus in leading edge firms about the importance of knowledge has resulted in considerable investment in the analysis of technology portfolios and such processes as technology mapping. Nevertheless many firms, particularly smaller and medium enterprises, have still not translated a concern for improved knowledge management into even the most rudimentary analysis. Consequently, many firms do not have the means for really understanding the strategic impact of their knowledge capital on their competitive performance. Practical tools and methodologies which assist in this process of assessing the breadth and depth of an organisation's knowledge portfolio can assist significantly in such cases in enabling firm's to get the key issues onto the board agenda. In this paper the authors present a conceptual framework for mapping a firm's knowledge portfolio in terms of four domains - content, process, infrastructure and culture. The mapping approach is designed to help guide the thinking process in the firm with respect to ways in which its knowledge is being created, stored and applied towards competitive advantage. The methodology begins with a mapping of the firm's business processes from a knowledge perspective. Core business processes are unbundled in terms of their specific knowledge domains. They are subsequently classified according to their degree of tacitness. Next, the competitive impact and competitive positioning of each area is evaluated and compared to the principal competition. Gaps in the firm's knowledge portfolio are identified; a strategic framework is provided for a proactive approach to strategic knowledge management. The methodology provides a systematic approach to building a strategic knowledge map. It represents a strategic tool for assessing a firm's knowledge portfolio - it is a map pointing to where knowledge resides in the firm; to key knowledge processes; and to the flow of knowledge between processes and between people.

Organizing for creativity, quality and speed in product creation processes

Current research in industrial engineering and management sciences shows that organizational architectures are of critical importance for a better performance of product creation processes in terms of creativity, quality and speed. For many companies, streamlining those processes - including engineering - is of vital importance for their survival in a global and turbulent marketplace. However, the most commonly used solution - the matrix structure - does not support this effort sufficiently. Based on diagnoses of both problems and solutions in 11 industrial companies in the Netherlands and the United States, a new configuration emerged: an organizational arrangement consisting of several temporary team network organizations, one for each product creation project, to be drawn from a sustainable pool of professionals representing multiple competencies. This novel, dynamic organizational architecture is clarified in terms of its opportunities for improved creativity, quality and speed, using chaordic systems thinking as a lens.

Why There's Nothing Wrong With Systems Thinking a Little Chaos Won't Fix? A Critique of Modern Systems Theory and the Practice of Organizational Change It Informs

We find ourselves at the dawning of a new millennium, uneasy denizens of a world of growing flux. The models of reality on which we rely in our continuing effort to master the turbulent and hypercompetitive marketplace are failing us. Even the much touted 20th-century innovation referred to by Peter Senge in his 1990 bestseller of the same name as the “fifth discipline,” that is, systems thinking, turns out to be less than adequate to the task. Therein lies the central purpose of this paper: to demonstrate why there's nothing wrong with systems thinking that a little chaos can't remedy. My intent is twofold: first, to expose the problematic partialness of this paradigm, given its tendency to direct one's focus to not to the whole system, but to its exterior “half,” and, second, to introduce the reader to Chaos, the powerful cosmology now emerging from 20th-century science, as a science of whole wholes—one that enables the practitioner of management and systems sciences to comprehend the system's externality, its subtle within, and most importantly, the crucial relationship between them.

Shotover to quality: the world’s most exciting jet boat ride

Reports that tourism today is a global business in which the competition and the customers span international boundaries. Replication of tourism products and services in this turbulent marketplace, has become an inevitable facet of business. Organizations such as Shotover Jet in Queenstown, New Zealand, with their intense focus on the customer and the quality of the experience that they wish to offer, have convincingly proved their leadership in spite of intense competition. Proposes that Shotover Jet thus serves as a model company for tourism establishments around the globe.

Building a Framework for Multiple Improvement Initiatives

As health care organizations struggle to compete and even survive in today's turbulent marketplace, they often juggle a variety of initiatives addressing cost reduction, quality improvement, critical pathways, accreditation, clinical guidelines, strategic planning, and organizational development-each with its own priorities, advocates, methods, and language. One large health care system that had adopted continuous quality improvement (CQI) as a major strategy then responded to significant cost pressures with additional initiatives in reengineering, cost reduction, and physician guidelines, with varying connections to the quality language, principles, and methods. The senior leadership committee for the quality initiative undertook the development of a framework to explain the connections among the diverse projects and approaches-a framework still in use after two years. In this period of enormous change, health care leaders must quickly and effectively mobilize all available resources to optimize organizational effectiveness. Too often, management's response patterns have overemphasized a "splitting" tactic, managing multiple distinct initiatives. The creation of integrated delivery systems, mergers, acquisitions, and alliance exacerbates this problem, as the number of initiatives multiplies in the new organizations. Development and application of an integrating management framework will accelerate the pace of organizational improvement by increasing shared understanding of the current desired states of the organization; linking strategic, cultural, and method needs and behaviors; aligning various management initiatives in relation to organizational goals and one another; increasing the fit of management methods with specific situations; and providing a unifying perspective and language for organizational members to act and learn collaboratively.

Use of project-management information system for planning information-systems development projects

To achieve success in the global and turbulent marketplace, project-oriented organizations must have an appreciation of the part that project management plays. The paper focuses on providing answers to three main questions, relating to (a) how PM fits into the organization's strategy, (b) how to map project management and information-systems planning, (c) how a company that designs and manufactures high-technology products developed an IS project and resolved the mapping problem.

Market-driven strategies for competitive advantage

C omplacency is a forerunner to disaster in the turbulent marketplace. Automobile industry experts were skeptical about Honda's plan to enter the European-dominated luxury import segment of the car market. Attracted by the higher profit margins and growth opportunities of the luxury import segment, Honda's management positioned Acura as an allnew market entry with an exciting design offering high-quality performance. Two years after its 1986 entry into the U.S. market, Acura gained first place in sales and customer satisfaction ahead of BMW, Mercedes Benz, Volvo, and Audi. Attempting to duplicate the success of the Acura, Toyota introduced the Lexus in the U.S. in 1989 and Nissan introduced the Infiniti, also targeted to the luxury auto segment, in 1990. While it is too early to judge the success of Toyota's and Nissan's entries, initial reviews from Car a n d Driver magazine compared Lexus and Infiniti favorably to German automobiles costing twice as much (comparing manufacturers' suggested retail prices). The Japanese have an impressive success record for planning and implementing market-driven strategies for competitive advantage. Unprecedented global competition is only one force driving executives to alter their business and marketing strategies to improve competitive advantage. The marketplace is becoming increasingly dynamic, influenced by massive demographic and socioeconomic shifts in the population base. These changes are accompanied by dramatic compression in the length of time for competitive reaction to be felt and changes in consumer behavior to be incorporated into product design. In response to these market changes, executives are drastically altering their business and marketing strategies. Strategic actions may include downsizing, repositioning, market niching, altering the business portfolio, and strategic alliances between companies. These actions pervade many industries. For example, over onehalf of the Fortune 500 companies restructured during the 1980s. Designing effective business and marketing strategies is essential in coping with a turbulent global business environment. Our objective is to identify global competitive challenges and describe means by which executives may respond Today,s turbulent marketplace will require companies to serve their markets or lose out to those who will.

A belief network model for forecasting within the electricity sector

This paper presents a scheme amenable to simulating the decision-making process associated with forecasting the demand and required generating capacity of electricity. The model comprises a belief network based on a relatively simple influence diagram of the demand formation and supply decisions. A dynamic simulation algorithm, which takes into account the feedback effects of decisions to demand, is applied to the belief network. The basic assumption behind the scheme is that the dependencies guiding the decision process remain relatively stable even in a turbulent marketplace. To illustrate the advantages of this approach the model is validated by reconstructing the demand and supply changes in Finland over the period from 1971 to 1987. A series of case studies are examined where the simulation is extended to projections in the future. It is concluded that the simulation scheme provides a convenient tool for examining both past decisions and their extrapolations into the future.

EDITORIAL — THE OLDEST PROFESSION CAN LOOK AFTER ITSELF

The Centre for the Study of the Professions, the first of its kind in the United Kingdom, was formed at Aston University Business School last September in response to a number of unprecedented challenges which confront professional people and their associations. These include government policies, a turbulent marketplace, changing client and professional attitudes, new forms of organisation and working practices, the impact of information technology, the prospect of a single European market, and such issues as fragmentation, limited liability, professional indemnity and multidisciplinary practice.