Timely Technology Integration - Sydney Theatre Company - Case Study Example

Heading: 5 Critical issues Your name: Course name: Professors’ name: Date The Executive Director of the Sydney Theatre Company has asked you to write a report to assist in an annual review of the organisation’s design and management processes. In your assessment of the readings and research in this unit, what are the five (5) critical issues you would recommend, for management to get right to ensure that the STC survives into the long term? Sustainable employee motivation Human resource is undoubtedly the most important resource that an organization has; employees determine the success or the failure of an organization since they are the major contributers of the company's functions. Motivated employees are therefore an important consideration for both short term and long term company's functionality and success. Human resoure or human capital is a thus critical component of organization functionality. Organization that takes advantage of human resource succeeds in the long run by gaining substantial competitive advantage. Over the years companies have learnt the importance of employees as the company's most imperative assets besides the capital invested. This is an important consideration for Sydney Theatre Company; employee motivation is not a onetime task but rather a continuous process which requires dedication and constant employee appraisal, training, compensation and remuneration. Motivated employees achieve their best and hence improving the performance of the company in the long run (Clegg & Dunkerley 2013, p.23). Sydney Theatre Company can ensure sustainable employee motivation through a number of continuous actions. Firstly the company needs to ensure that a system that monitors the performance of each employee is in place. This can be achieved by setting a more precise and relevant appraisal criteria, this need to be in line with the jobs description of every employee. The more relevant the appraisal process the better the employee monitoring process and hence an effective motivational strategies in the end. Secondly, individual employee recognition is another key factor in employee motivation process; employee recognition is imperative because it encourages the employee recognized and also gives other employees reason to work hard to achieve their best. Employee recognition also increases self esteem of the employee. This is important because it increases the employees performance rate a factor that will be beneficial in the long run. Sydney Theatre Company (STC) should be incorporate long term employee motivation as a key factor through regular employee recognition and relevant appraisal process. More so STC should ensure sustainable employee training in both technical and soft skills. This is important because employees relate with customer and other stakeholders, constant training will improve this relationship and hence making STC the place to go for every Sydney theatre lovers. Training also improves the technical skills required by every employee in order to improve their specific job performance. Another important consideration for STC is improvement and constant review of its compensation and remuneration policies, employee compensation is definitely one of the most imperative consideration, well rewarded employees are more effective and perform better than their less rewarded counterparts. Timely technology integration Technology is the modern day driving force in every company. It is therefore important for organizations to take advantage of technologies which can improve their performance of efficiency by closing inefficiency gap within the organization. Technology can also improve the work process such as supply chain management, procurement and sales and marketing. This depends on the level of adaptation and when the technology is adapted. In essence, merely adapting a technology because of its availability may not be useful, it is required to determine the use of the technology and assess the need of the technology in order to determine its relevance within the organization. Timely adaptation of technology can also prove vital and a competitive advantage over other key players in the market. Sydney Theatre Company (STC) should take advantage of new technologies in order to improve its performance and efficiency. More so, the STC should ensure that the technology adapted is relevant to its core functions by assessing how technology will save on cost, improve performance, reduce inefficiencies and create a notable competitive advantage. The STC should not only adapt technology but formulate an effective way of adapting new technologies. In this way the STC will get the right technologies for its internal operations. Merely adapting technologies may result in increase of cost of operation and irrelevant technology which does not add value to the overall working of the company. It is also important to keep in mind that technologies that work effectively elsewhere may not necessarily work well in STC. This is a vital consideration and it demands focused management and decision makers to differentiate between other companies’ internal operations and STC internal operations. In fact, it is recommended to carry out pilot test of the new technology in order to determine if relevance to the company and specifically its role within the company (Clegg & Dunkerley 2013, p.23).. It is critical for STC to keenly adapt new technologies and to adapt them in a timely manner. Timely adaptation of new technology is important for both short term and long term company performance. In essence, timely adaptation of relevant technology usually proves to be the single most important differentiator of success and failure. This is mainly because companies that adapt technology early and strategically gain more competitive advantage over other companies in the market late in the adaptation of the technology. Adapting a new technology late will only be an action of imitation or because of the relevance of the new technology and hence an expense instead of a competitive advantage. Improving Corporate Social Responsibility Corporate social responsibility is an important consideration for any company in the market hoping to be sustainable in the long run. Social responsibility is positive reaction towards the community and the environment that directly affect the immediate community. Despite the requirement for all companies to adapt CSR, it is also an internal inspiration from within the company. Making efforts to ensure CSR improves company’s performance as its customer base will widen from the created positive impression of sensitivity to the immediate community since image is important in business. STC has made considerable efforts to ensure social responsibility, STC through a number of programs aimed at ensuring that the company participates positively in tackling environment issues. In 2008, STC showed its commitment to tackle climate change issues by pursuing wide and sustainable environmental measures, in 2011, the company put finishing touches on transformation of historic wharf building which became undoubtedly the 21st century sustainable practice. Notably, the scale and the effective approach of Greening The Wharf made the STC a global sustainable leader within the performing arts. The program involved company-wide behavioral change, infrastructure projects, environmentally responsible theatre production and community engagement as well as education. More so, the STC has invested on Australia’s third largest solar array, a huge below water harvesting system with extensive energy efficiency measures and effective waste management system. STC has evidently discovered the importance of CSR as a result of its efforts to participate in shrinking environmental footprint through sustainable measures that safeguard energy and create alternative options to cleaner energy and water resources. More so, STC has shown proactive actions in ensuring more community involvement through its disability and inclusion plan for the organization which is set to be implemented throughout 2013. This is an important step that will ensure the company’s sustainability throughout (Clegg & Dunkerley 2013, p.23). The company should continue with the current efforts of community involvement and also increase other options available in order to guarantee long term sustainability in its business. Many companies may ignore SCR as an important issue; SCR may look more to be an expense instead of an asset, but what many companies forget is the implication of sensitivity to the external environments. In fact, most companies which largely participate in SCR and other philanthropic activities tend to attract less internal wrangles and other external; this is not the case with less participative community involvement. SCR is therefore an important consideration that the STC should ensure to foster in order to remain competitive in the performing arts. Management restructuring According to Hassard & Pym (2012, p.34) the management is an imperative consideration for any organization that is keen on being competitive. Management restructuring is thus a critical consideration for a company especially in the modern day competitive environment. This is the case within the performing arts. It is the responsibility of the stakeholders to ensure that the company becomes competitive by constantly monitoring the performance of the management. More so, in conjuction with the board, these stakeholders should ensure that the management performs as mandatet within the set period of time in office. If the management is not monitored, then the overal performance of the company is compromised. This is the case in STC, despite the past good performance on the part of the management in place. It is not time to relax but instead the management needs to be pushed in order to ensure competitiveness in the market. The management ought to improve its current performance to a higher level. This is important because the perfoming arts standards are improving with time. The advent of the internet is a major factor inspiring competition in the industry. This is not only in the performing arts but also in other sectors of the economy. Improvnig the performance of the management will involve constant appraisal of the existing STC managemnet and also the existing policies in place. The performance of these executives should be done regularly. This will be important since the performance of the company is a daily task and every single failure means that the company is not getting the revenues it needs within the shortest time possible. STC management should also be improved by changing the management after the expiry of the contract period and those managers whose performance meet the standard re-elected to their respective positions. Close monitoring of the managers on a personal level should also be encauraged, this is because of the need to know both team perfomance as well as the individual perfomance which is essenital in setting new standards or integrating necessary training for the management in order to get the best possible results. More so, individual performance levels should consider the talents, the skills and the education level of the individuals involved in the process. The board should take time to analyse all the details in order to give comprehensive results of every manager differently. Quality of performance improvement perfomance is important in every industry and more so the performing arts, good performance means more clientele and vice versa (Clegg & Dunkerley 2013, p.23). Quality of perfomance should thus be improved whenever there is an opportuniy. In the perfoming arts, poor quality presentation in the theater means reduction of audience in the next shows. This is a sensitive issue which should be constantly monitored in order to ensure that the clientele is always satisfied. Innovation is important in the performing arts, this is because it improves the quality of performance which is vital for the survival of the company. The STC has been in the forefront in encauraging growth of new talent within and outside the company. This initiative has been important because the quality of performance has also been developing with time. With the consideration that quality performance is important, STC should foster this initiative to a new level in order to encaurage growth of new performing talent as well as improving the existing talent in the company. Another way of encauraging growth of performance is by analysing what is happening in the industry, this is within the country and outside the country. The level of performance is always changing as new themes and innovations are encauraged. In the US for instance, the level of performance in the theater has been improving and hence setting new global standards that other countries should emulate. In other parts of Europe, the same is true and hence the need to ensure that the quality of performance is not ignored at all cost. Encauraging improvement of perfomance also mandates the stipulation of new policies, new visions and missions for the new period. By doing so, the level of perfomance will be improved and hence playing a vital role in the long term quality improval process. New themes and aims for every period is also helpful as the level of achievement can be measured and hence encauraged. Reference Hassard, J & Pym, D 2012, The Theory and Philosophy of Organizations: Critical Issues and New Perspectives, Routledge, Sydney.pp.23-45 Clegg, S & Dunkerley, D 2013, Critical issues in organizations, Routledge, New York. Pp.45-56. Read More