Reflection Paper on Group Cases Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Reflection Paper on Group Cases - Essay Example usiness practice to be operating without having a primary infrastructure as well as use of only a particular system to take care of all other necessary elements. Any company worth its salt should be equipped with an enterprise resource planning system (ERP) to ensure that its operations are carried out smoothly. This is because, without such an effective management system, a company’s business may be unable to coordinate its work across all functions, something that may lead to serious losses, even collapse of the business. The VTB case clearly illustrates this phenomenon and the company was in a terrible rush to make sure that it has its house in order just before peak seasons such as Christmas, Valentine’s Day as well as Mother’s Day. Secondly, I have learnt that it is good to always have a single centralised command from where an application can be run to manage the business functions.VTB for instance had a lot of complicated middleware as well as incompatible applications which did not provide the company with any benefits at all. Investment into a robust IT system therefore brings with it several benefits such as seamless working by eliminating lack of standard operating procedures, facilitating transfer and maintenance of information as well as allowing for strategic development of a firm’s information system. Information system therefore can be used as a tool for competitive advantage and can strategically be used to add value to a firm’s customer service by maximising the efficiency of the supply chain as well as solving operational constraints. The second case was that of IT outsourcing gone wrong. Clean & Cure, a multinational company had engaged the services of XperTrans; a provider of human resource outsourcing (HRO) to provide its services all over the world in 44 countries. However, this was never to be, and XperTrans encountered so many problems and finally had to engage a consultancy firm to bail them out. This is a case that really

Reflective summary on Managing Diversity in Business Essay

Reflective summary on Managing Diversity in Business - Essay Example Examine that how this course helps me to analyse discrimination against women and ethnic minorities. Develop a broader perspective in relation to the benefits of this course. Reflective Analysis I selected the course of Managing Diversity in Business mainly due to two reasons. Firstly, diversity has become an unavoidable characteristic of almost any work group in the countries like UK due to globalisation and immigration. Secondly, I wished to know that what effects gender has in creating diversities; or how women are treated in a demographically diverse setting. While choosing the course, I wanted to get more knowledge in the areas I stated above. However, as I covered the course I came to know about certain perspectives, theories and information which raised some questions and issues in my mind. My initial observations had already revealed that the course highlighted some practical aspects of the corporate world. I often recall the story of one of my friends, who had found a respec table job in a reputed corporation. She was skilled and sincere; and she belonged from an ethnic minority community. At work, her ethnic and sexual identity gradually emerged as her drawback. Her superior, who was also a member of the board of directors, often harassed her sexually during the duty hours. At first, she complained to the Human Resource (HR) Manager, but her application was not processed. The HR Manager took it as a trivial issue and her superior continued to harass her even before her colleagues. In the department, her colleagues were all males and those who belonged from her community were on work visa. Therefore, nobody protested either due to racial contempt or because of fear. Finally, when she warned her superior and the HR Manager that she would seek police intervention and write to the human rights groups, she was sacked on the plea of theft and a false complaint was lodged against her. Consequently she lost her job and could not proceed to court lest she was b lacklisted in the industry. The lesson learned from such stories as that of my unfortunate friend is that ethnic minority women have almost no voice in the HR management system. Through the lecture on ethnic minority women and the suggested readings, my thoughts and indirect experiences regarding discrimination against ethnic minority women were reinforced. When it comes to racial segregation and sexual abuse, HR managers often tend to neglect the victims (Kamenou and Fearfull, 2006). So the main question regarding discrimination against women is that how can we erect an unbiased corporate HRM culture and what legal, social and technical constraints it might face? Moreover, will the Government take a sympathetic approach in this regard? Organisations like Runnymede Trust, Amnesty International, etc. are tirelessly working to raise and resolve these issues. Through the lecture on race and ethnicity, I came to know that over 300 assaults on Muslims in UK had taken place since the 9/11 Terrorist Attacks. An interesting detail on Islamophobia further reveals that racial intolerance combined with gender discrimination creates highly complicated situation for the Muslim women in the Western countries (Runnymede Trust, 1997). Hence, public awareness is needed most. I think that this course has finally reinforced my