International Human Resource Analysis - the King Choice Soft Drinks Company - Case Study Example

International Human Resource Analysis Name Tutor Course Date Case Study: The King Choice soft drinks company Introduction The King Choice soft drinks company is a real global firm whose main products are recognized worldwide. The firm organizes and structures itself in a manner that reveals the fact that it is a global firm. Additionally, the firm strives to meet the specific requirements of regional markets sensitively which is also shown by its structure. This paper analyzes the structure and organization of king Choice soft drinks Company with a bias on the human resource management of the company. It also evaluates viability of opening a new branch of the company in China. This is done by analyzing the socio-economic institutional mechanisms and employment/HRM systems of China to find out what human resource management practice needs to be transferred to the subsidiary branch (Golding, 2010). A global and local strategy King Choice Soft Drinks Company is one of the largest beverage firms and is one of the leading firms in terms of producing and marketing soft drinks. The company markets soft drink brands such as KC Diet drink, KC Super drink, and KC Super cool. The success of the firm is based or is dependent on five main factors. The company has a unique and recognized brand which is easier to market in the global environment. The firm also produces high quality products and is consistent in providing the highest quality possible of its products to its customers. In marketing, the company is ever determined to deliver creative and innovative marketing policies globally. Another factor is that the company ensures that its products are easily available to its customers worldwide. The last factor is that the firm has an ongoing innovative program that ensures that it effectively meets all its customers’ needs. It has started marketing and producing products such as KC Diet drink which takes care of the customers’ health status (Storey, 2007). Although king Choice soft drinks Company operates on an international scale, the firm actually operates in local environments around the globe with each state having its own distinctive needs and requirements. The company’s main objective is to ensure that its main drink King Choice Super drink gains a worldwide recognition and to ensure that it is sold and enjoyed by every consumer. The main challenge that the firm is facing at the moment is to ensure that it establishes an organization structure that will ensure that it achieves its global and local strategy (Paauwe, 2009). Structure vs. structure A company’s strategy is its plan for the entire business that determines how the firm will use its major resources. A company’s structure is the manner in which the various sections of the organization link together internally. It also covers the association with external organizations like the partners. Fro a company to accomplish its plans, the strategy and the structure must be linked appropriately. The main objective of King Choice Soft Drinks Company as one of the leading marketers of soft drinks is to provide consistent and profitable growth and to exhibit the highest quality products and processes. To achieve this objective, the firm has established several strategic priorities and has implemented these into every aspect of its business. Some of these strategic priorities include increasing the growth of its carbonated drinks and expanding the family of products that it produces. It is also determined to expand its profitability and capacity of growth in terms of bottling and creativity in serving customers (Becker & Gerhart, 2006). The firm has been investing intelligently in marketing growth and is making cost effective practices using technology and large scale production to control costs. The company management also makes efforts to enable people to achieve extraordinary results every time. Organization structures need to be put in place in order to achieve the objectives of the firm. These structures involve combining suppleness of decision making and the sharing of best ideas in the entire company management with appropriate levels of management and control from the central point. The company just like other modern international firms has established flexible structures which wherever appropriate encourage teamwork (Kochan &Barocci, 1995). Every time the company launches a new product, it brings together teams of employees with various expertises to ensure that the launch is successful. At such forums, marketing specialists elucidate the findings of their market research and testing, food technologists describe what changes need to be implemented and describe the type of products that are viable. Financial experts also provide reports on the cost implications of change to facilitate the launching process (Delery & Doty, 1996). The corporate segment King Choice Soft Drinks Company has a corporate segment that is responsible for directing the company’s entire operations. The main strategic decisions of the company are made by the executive committee in the company’s main offices. The chairperson of the executive committee chairs the board meetings and acts as the figurehead for the firm. It has representatives in various regions which include Asia, Africa and Europe (Prahalad & Hamel, 1990). Regional structures that encompass centralization and localization As a firm whose success depends on its ability to link with local customers. It has its organized into a regional structure. The company at the moment operates five geographical operating segments as well as corporate segment. The physical structure recognizes that markets are geographically separated and tastes and lifestyles differ from one region to the other. This is dependent on the incomes and consumption rates and patterns of particular regions (Armstrong, 2003). Product support King Choice Soft Drinks Company operates in a manner that reflects the culture of every country of its operations. At the moment the company produces and markets products in over 100 countries all over the world (Kotler, 2008). The most crucial part of the company’s structure thus centers on ensuring that particular products are accorded the best possible support in regional markets. Within the firm, various teams focus on particular products and apply their expertise of the brands and consumer needs to sustain the sales and promotional effort. Some of the products that the firm has currently launched in the market include carbonated soft drinks, juice and juice drinks and waters. Others are energy drinks, sports drinks and squashes (Armstrong, 2003). Structure and culture Structuring a company is not only about managing internal relationship, but also involves external ones. King Choice Soft Drinks Company has established well-structured relationship with a variety of external groups including bottling partners. The relationship of King Choice Soft Drinks Company and its partners worldwide is a key source of strength of the Company. The firm works together with the partners to ensure that concentrates and syrups are converted to finished products. These finished products are then distributed to customers all over the world with unmatched quality and service. Every firm in addition to structure has a culture which describes the typical manner in which it operates including key practices and patterns of behavior and associations. Significant aspects of culture at King Choice Soft Drinks Company in specific regions usually reflect King Choice Soft Drinks Company’s culture as a whole. These emphasize on teamwork and empowerment (Marchington, 2002). The company sees its employees as some of its most significant asset. Motivated workers provide the engine that offers the firm’s growth. Organizing workers into teams which include marketing, sales or product teams encourages individuals to feel valued. Within a team the workers are encouraged to give ideas and to be innovative (Kondratieff &Stolper, 2000). If they feel that something could be executed in a better way they are encouraged to air their views. By establishing a friendly, innovative culture, King Choice Soft Drinks Company is able to depend on a high quality workforce that assists in maintaining brand leadership in various areas and in every other market in which it operates. The company’s culture and mode of operation is based on trust. Trust is build between the customers and the company and the bottling partners and the firm. The company has won the employees trust and recognizes their contribution towards the achievement of the firm (Marchington, 2002). Open communication channels offer a way of supporting culture which is dependent on relationships. King Choice Soft Drinks Company main communication channels include weekly leadership team meetings, weekly departmental team meetings and consultative employee group meetings. Consultative worker groups for every region form another channel of communication (Pfeffer, 2004). China’s Human Resource Management system With an expanding working population estimated at 744.32 million in 2003, China’s 11th five-year plan ending at (2006-2010) focuses on creating and maintaining a proactive employment policy that aims at increasing job opportunities for all sectors of the population (Paul, 2007). The Public Employment Service (PES) system, which originally came about in response to China’s transition from an organized to a market-oriented economy and has since been improved into a nationwide system to cater for the various development needs of the country (Perez, 2002). The PES system runs at six levels distributed within the provincial, municipal, county, township and community level. PES organizations are state organizations that offer free employment services to the people. These services include offering advice on employment practices, laws and regulations to the workers, brokering jobs, offering labor market information and analysis, administrating unemployment benefits, offering vocation training and providing special support to disadvantaged individuals. PES organizations also collaborate with the state and private sector workers, schools and training institutions (Perez, 2002). This TA handles special problems of remote areas and minority regions and minority groups in the Western Region. The western region encompasses more than 70% of China’s landmass but only 28% of the state total population (Joshi, 2005). The economy is mainly rural and agricultural based. The region has a small population spread over large area. Remoteness is a challenge because it is associated with poor or lacks of infrastructure as well as transportation services which are make provision of PES a challenging task. King Choice Soft Drinks Company can capitalize on this form of set up to launch and market its products because most of the areas particularly in the rural areas have not been covered by other beverage companies. More than 80% of PRC’s ethnic minorities live in the western region. Most of these citizens engage in agricultural activities while women have poor access to employment. King Choice Soft Drinks Company can capitalize on this unemployment issue and employ more women to supply its products in the area (Hansen, 2000). Nature of labor relations in China At the moment, the market economy in China which is the most basic and primary resource allocation is the allotment of labor and capital. This also forms the basis of basic social relations. After 30 years of reform and opening up, the country’s economic and social development has made brilliant developments, indicating that this period of labor relations are in agreement and stable. But with the growth of market economy, labor relations are becoming largely diversified, complex with labor cases on an increase. The main factors that affect labor relations in China include labor-management conflicts enterprise and institutional factors. Some organizations pursue profits by lowering the wages of their employees to minimize their operation costs. The lag in legislation exhibited by legal regulations of space, as owner of, as owner of getaway and arbitration, labor disagreements emerging from fraud, and frequently no laws, labor department irregular powers and responsibilities affect labor relations (Hansen, 2000). Labor coordination mechanism in China The country is determined to strengthen its labor laws and regulations through the implementation of a comprehensive legal system. The country has been strengthening labor laws and regulations of product promotions by making its labor laws known. It is also concentrating efforts to create an optimum atmosphere for business organizations. King Choice Soft Drinks Company will benefit from the improved and strengthened labor coordination mechanisms to launch and market its products in the country (Summers, 2000). Human resource management practice King Choice Soft Drinks Company has to incorporate some of its human resource management practices in order to effectively launch the subsidiary branch in China. The key management practice that the firm will transfer to the new country in order to excel in its launch of the subsidiary in China is organizing the human resource department as a separate department. The management of the firm recognizes that the department holds an important place in all the major operations of the firm. All the managers in the firm are however given the responsibility to choose motivating, developing and evaluating strategies of their own to the employees (Beaudreau, 1996). All managers thus have human resource responsibilities irrespective of the departments that they hold. The major responsibilities of the human resource department that are particular to the company include policy making, welfare, supportive, bargaining and negotiation, administrative and job analysis. Just like the other areas where the firm operates, King Choice Soft Drinks Company will deploy as many workers as possible in the China subsidiary to ensure that all its operations run effectively. This will also assist the management to have a better understanding of the various responsibilities and duties that need to be accomplished in order to achieve its main objective (Burns & Mitchell, 2000). Job analysis The management will ensure that every employee has a specific position with specific duties and responsibilities to implement. This will ensure that the human resource department holds every employee accountable in case anything goes contrary to the planned. The jobs in the subsidiary will be defined in a hierarchical manner beginning from the crew member to the highest rank-store manager. The trainee manager which an entry level managerial position in the subsidiary will be responsible for ensuring that every employee is well trained in their areas of operations. Trainee managers will deal with various areas of professional excellence. Some of the areas that the trainee managers will handle include sales, product quality and safety and security in the stores (Burns & Mitchell, 2000). Customer care representatives will mainly be females. This is because many customers are satisfied when their issues are handled by women as opposed to the males. The company will also be making efforts to capitalize on the untapped female workforce in the country. The females are better placed to handle human resource issues because in many homes they are assigned the roles of organizing functions such as birthday parties and other parties. They are thus conversant with the type of drinks that customers require in such events. This practice will assist in the marketing of the firm’s products in China. The crew members will be at the core of every operation in the subsidiary. They will always be ready to serve the customers at the store level while offering various options for the customers depending on their tastes and preferences. This position will be described as either a delivery rider or just a crew member. The employees at this level will receive extensive training because they will be involved directly in the marketing of the company products (Eckstein &Allen, 1990). Planning and forecasting personnel needs in King Choice Soft Drinks Company King Choice Soft Drinks Company will employ the method of trend analysis to predict the personnel requirements in running the new subsidiary. In this method, the company will apply the studies done previously on employment needs in the firm to predict future personnel needs in the China subsidiary. King Choice Soft Drinks Company has been in operation for a long period of time and has now collected adequate information to guide its forecasting strategy. The forecasting plan in the company is guided by the trend of the company sales, revenues and labor requirements in running the firm. One of the ways that the firm will employ to predict its personnel requirements is through the use of management estimates (Eckstein &Allen, 1990). In this method, the top and middle level mangers will be required to predict the requirements of their employees. This will carry out this task through the assistance of past, present and the probable future requirements. Another method that the company will use is the work study technique. In the work study technique the specialists will evaluate the duration of time taken to execute every duty in the company through the use of the available equipments and techniques. Through the use of the estimated sales, they will then calculate the number of workers required and the duration of time they are needed to work to accomplish the given tasks. The number of workers required will thus be employed by either inside supply or outside supply of the candidates. In the inside supply of candidates, the type of forecasting information collected will be based on the number of employees already working in the organization. This will thus employ the qualification inventory system. A qualification inventory of the existing workers provides clear information concerning the employees’ skills, level of education, career as well as other interest which are significant in employee recruitment (Paul & Marx, 2001). The human resource requirements of King Choice Soft Drinks Company in the Chinese subsidiary could be met by training and developing current staff instead of recruiting candidates from other sources. Although this will be effective in running the new subsidiary as far as experience is concerned outside recruitment will be preferred. This is because employing people from around the areas that the stores are located will assist in the marketing of the company’s products. Outside supply of candidates will be determined after evaluating the staff members that can be hired from the firm. This will also depend on the economic conditions and employment rate predicted from the forecasting information (Paul & Marx, 2001). Recruitment Recruitment will be necessary to fill the vacancies determined through the forecasting plan. This will include assessment of the vacancies, evaluation of the sources of appropriate candidates and contacting the candidates and evaluating their applications. This will be followed by interviews and actual induction of the candidates. Each of the inducted candidates will be assigned specific roles and duties to execute in the subsidiary firm (Paul & Marx, 2001). Conclusion King Choice Soft Drinks Company has established internal and external structures to sustain the execution of the company’s business objectives. The regional structure is the most effective way of sustaining the growth of the firm because it allows for the attention to local needs while at the same time building on a clear tactical direction from the center. A culture of improvement, teamwork and partnership implies that the firm has a firm basis of relationship and open communication channels on which to establish its growth (Pfeffer, 2004). Bibliography Armstrong, M. 2006. A Handbook of Human Resource Management Practice (10th ed.). London: Kogan Page Personnel management". 2005. The Columbia Encyclopedia (Sixth Edition ed.). Columbia University Press. Golding, N. 2010. 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