Executive Briefing Paper Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Executive Briefing Paper - Essay Example Mentorship is not new to Burberry, although its experience is largely external, philanthropic, and along the line of corporate social responsibility. Presently, the Company is a corporate sponsor of IntoUniversity, a charity organisation dedicated to educating the youth through mentoring. Through its local learning centres, some of Burberry’s employees and managers are already dedicating time and effort as volunteers mentors and e-mentors, to Britain’s poor but deserving ‘young people [who] are inspired to learn’ (IntoUniversity, 2010). In 2011 alone, Burberry associates volunteered 5,500 hours of mentoring. For one particular Burberry associate, more than 200 young students were mentored globally in programmes ranging from three months to three years (Burberry Annual Report 2011/12, p. 64). Recent studies have highlighted the use of internal mentoring, as a technique to improve performance and enhance competitiveness. It is believed that by adopting intern al mentoring, the firm will benefit competitively. II. Proposition This paper proposes that Burberry engage in internal mentoring throughout the organisation until the highest levels, in order to enhance its competitiveness. Mentoring is seen as a tool not only for implementing social development programs external to the firm, but is also perceived as an effective instrument in pursuing the company’s strategic goal of remaining competitive. The viability of mentoring in Burberry will be discussed. III. Theoretical background Mentoring is ‘an intense and complex relationship where the mentor plays the role of peer and parent’ and functions as ‘teacher, advisor, sponsor, and friend’ (Ehrich & Hansford, 1999, p.93). Academic literature states that mentoring improves individual behaviour and performance, particularly in the training and encouragement of the young. However, the impact of mentoring on firm behaviour and outcomes has not been established, p articularly in the highest policy levels. Offstein, Shah and Gnyawali (2011) propose a model whereby the board of directors (BOD) mentors the chief executive officer (CEO), for the purpose of improving the CEO’s ability and motivation to ‘competitively engage the firm’ (p. 75). In the diagram that follows, the mentoring role of the BOD is depicted in terms of sponsorship, protection, and coaching or counselling. By providing legitimacy, a proper sense of discretion and risk-taking, and knowledge and learning, the mentoring exercise is expected to lead towards a greater firm competitiveness. Competitive behaviour is defined by their magnitude and complexity. Source: Offstein, Shah and Gnyawali, 2011, p. 80 According to the theory by Offstein, et al. (2011), competitive actions are ‘purposefully directed, specific, and observable.’ The model adheres to the principle that companies that undertake bold and complex competitive actions benefit as a result, because such actions disturb the status quo and establish new rules by which the competitive stage is reset. According to Schumpeter (1934) in his seminal study, first mover advantage (i.e., the advantage of being the first firm to undertake an innovation that defines a new competitive environment) generates abnormally high profits, until such time as other firms catch up and themselves pursue innovative actions in an effort to overcome the market leader. From the executive levels, mentoring by CEO to his division heads, and from them to the

ORGANISATIONS, PEOPLE AND PERFORMANCE POST MODULE ASSIGNMENT

ORGANISATIONS, PEOPLE AND PERFORMANCE POST MODULE - Assignment Example By achieving these HR competencies, it will then be easy for Samsung to overcome most of the issues it is having. Talent management Talent management is a central part of any strategic business management (Deb, 2005). Samsung should include this as part of its HR strategy. Talent management will be managed by a process of hunting for talent and nurturing talent as a way to make sure that the firm will have a good pool of talent with regard to all its human resource areas. This will be important especially for the technical departments such as engineering in order to guarantee that Samsung will always be ahead of its competitors in producing the best technologies. It will also be important for the other departments because as Silzer and Dowell (2009) say, a formidable human resource is necessary for an organization to be competent in any industry. Training Training is the base of any human strategy and should be taken seriously if the organization is to be able to manage its employees (Brewster, Mayrhofer and Morley, 2004). It is training and recruitment that offers the organization an opportunity to get the kind of employees that they want. It also helps in training ordinary employees into competent managers and this means that the organization does not have to look outside for managers (Pynes and Lombardi, 2011). Figure 1.1, from: http://www.hrps.org/blogpost/736528/HR-Management-Strategies Samsung needs to look at the various ways in which it can develop its training program in order to get the best employees. Well planned training will help Samsung to have employees who will; Be ethical in their conduct thus avoiding issues such as copyright infringement. One of the issues that Samsung has had in the past is the fact that it has been involved in copyright infringement. This is something that reduced the strategic position of the organization due to the legal issues and the negative publicity which the firm gets from such. As a result, recruitment and trainin g of employees in the firm should be done with this in mind. Issues such as copyright infringement are as a result of inadequate human resource. It is also an indication that the firm is having poor talent and therefore not being able to develop its own portfolio (Nejati et al, 2008). This has also been seen in the fact that Samsung does not have an operating system for most of its products. As a result, this makes Samsung to have a weaker strategic position compared to its major competitor, Apple, that has an own operating system for its product and never has to use third-party products. By training the right people, it will be easier for Samsung to be able to have people who can be innovative and productive enough to deal with these issues. There are other issues which need to be considered with regard to Samsung’s human resource. These include the commitment of the employees. As Kumar (2010) says, it is hard for an organization to be able to have a competent human resource if the employees are not highly committed to the organization. In this case, Samsung will have to focus on increasing the commitment of the employees. This will help the organization to be able to improve its talent management and to make sure that there is enough talent in the organization