Bugen3711 | Human Resource Management Assessment Answer

Answer:

Introduction

Human resource management basically deals with staffing, employee stipend and settlement and defining job roles in any organization. HRM or Human Resource Management comprises of a set of formal system and various other process which deals with the management of employees in a particular organization (Armstrong & Taylor, 2014). These factors and set of rules varies with organization and various situations prevalent in those organizations. In today’s increasing competitive world, various companies are suffering because of the failures in human resource management policies. Many companies are held back due to this. In this report a brief discussion over the Human resource management practices and its preparation for marketing strategies is presented. In this report there is a detailed discussion of strength and weaknesses of human resource management at Apple and a detailed SWOT analysis of TESCO organization to understand its marketing stand in the international market.

Human resource management at Apple

Apple is world renowned Multinational Corporation with its headquarters situated in California. Recent days, there are several reports which shows that Apple as a company implement the best approaches in the human resource management policies in order to manage its employees (Bohatala 2018). But even after putting such efforts into these policies, there are still certain drawbacks in the overall human resource management system.

Models of Strategic Human Resource Management

The key role of people working at Apple Inc. is to focus on marketing, staff positions and various other technical aspects. The main objective of Apple as an organization is to attract more and more employees and retain them. To attract various skilled professionals, the company has adopted various strategic human resource management strategies (Bach & Edwards, 2013). The company invests in the skills of the employees so that they can get the maximum output out of the talents of workforce employed there. For overall competition, the company considers human capital as a vital element. The essential driving force for the company is its human resources; it helps in the formulation of development strategy. In order to achieve competitive advantage in the market, the company has invested in the skills of employees; this being its primary objective. The company has emerged as a most innovate firm in the market for its costumers electronics industrialization, all the great talents and people emerge due to this over the years (Costen, 2012).

The human resource department at Apple works with the primary principle of reducing the risks and maximizing the returns on the investment. The HRM department at apple is stimulated with various responsibilities and is fulfilled with great passion (Beardwell & Thompson, 2014). These responsibilities are selection, leadership development, enticement compensation, staff relations, employee development and conscription. All these responsibilities and tasks are carried in a very effective manner; there is consistency in the work done. There is various strategic human resource functions included in this in order to carry out these tasks.

In this article there will be a detailed discussion over the strengths and weaknesses of the human resource management system of Apple, which are as follows:

Strengths

Apple in its human resource management system mainly focuses on the maximizing the return on investment from human capital and minimizing any financial risks in order to achieve all its objectives (Boxall & Purcell, 2011).

The main strength of the company as a whole is that the resource managers of the company put their best efforts so that all the responsibilities at Apple are conducted in a very effective manner. There is effectiveness, consistency, fair mannerism in the work done and the responsibilities fulfilled. There are various factors of HRM of the company described below:

One of the strength is of recruitment, all the people who are hired by Apple they are involved by assessing their computer knowledge first. The prior focus while employing people is not their experience, but whether they fit well according to the culture of the company, that matters. People are hired irrespective of their experiences (Caldwell, Truong, Linh & Tuan, 2011).

The company provides everyone with equal platform and opportunities and that is what contributes to the diversity of the organization (Bratton & Gold, 2012). There are fair policies for employee compensation. The employees working at the organization are provided with a large number of benefits. The compensation on offer is highly compatible.

There is recognition for great talents working for the company. In 1995, the company created a fellow program and in that the most hard-working and successful employees are recognized talents.

Weaknesses

As it has been earlier mentioned, that there are certain drawbacks in the HRM system of the company. The poor HRM practices prevailing at Apple, have created unrest among employees and raised several questions in recent times (Bratton & Gold, 2012). There are many reports which suggest that human capital at Apple is not managed effectively, all this is due to the HRM policies which are too strict and not transparent at all. The business and personal objectives are not communicated clearly to the staff and employees, which is very necessary. Not only the business objectives, but there is lack of clarity about the strategies of the company also. This hinders in creating a healthy work environment.

It also happens that good ideas are stolen at Apple Inc. and someone else gets the credit for them. There are no specific policies in HRM that the deserving person gets all the credit and awards; there is sufficient provision for this (Buller & McEvoy, 2012). This weakens the morale of that employee and in the large run; it hinders the progress of employees working in the organization. This causes abrasion in the company.

Marketing 

This article deals with the marketing strategy of TESCO and how it has helped the company in prospering. A wrong move in marketing can lead to decline of a company. Any wrong move not only affects the brand image of company but also hinders its bottom line.  The Tesco as a brand is a tantamount with shopping in UK. The company has faced multiple scandals in 2013 and 2014 and it reduced the confidence of costumers in the brand. The company faced various losses. After such loss also managed to make things better and recovered all the financial gains. All this has been possible due to the improvised marketing strategy of the company. This shows how effective marketing strategy helped the company to rescue such grave situation.

SWOT analysis of TESCO group

Tesco group has established itself as a global retailing powerhouse. In the past, the company has faced enormous competition in the business world such as stakeholder’s pressure. They had to change the marketing strategies in order to stabilize it and move forward (Armstrong, G., Kotler, P., Harker & Brennan, 2015). This SWOT analysis will analyze company’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. This will lead to formulation of effective marketing strategy and business strategies.

Strengths:

Tesco has received various awards for its customer service and retail experience. The company has emerged as the most profitable supermarket in the world, which many other competitors have tried to imitate.  The company owns a significant amount of cash reserves and at the same time it has many underdeveloped properties in its range. This gives the company a very strong financial position and it can withstand all the economic cycles very easily. Due to its quality and services, the company has a considerable global position which helps very often. The company appeals to local and cultural needs. The company has managed to enhance its services by improvising the use of technology (Baker & Saren, 2016). The company provides a more personalized service experience in UK which attracts more and more costumers. The company has a great history in United Kingdom’s, which helps the costumer to believe that it has bright future in the long run.

Weaknesses:

The company had an adverse effect on its financial profit levels and it has yet to recover from it at the global level.  Due to the rise in competition in the market, there are various price wars which go on. The company needs to find new ways to get some competitive advantage. In certain countries Tesco has not performed very well, this may be due to the lack of marketing research. The costumers are not ready to buy those products which have less disposable income which leaves high cost of inventory. The company is mainly dependent on its sales in UK.

Opportunities:

The company can have alliances with various other companies or brands. In this way, it can attract more and more costumers and it will reach the target markets. The countries where Tesco is underperforming, there it can form joint ventures with the local companies, it can compensate for the lack of market research. In this way there can be certain improvement in performance in those areas. The company can evolve with the help of online shopping, which is the trend in recent times.  There are also new opportunities opening up in the private label markets. There are various offers in emerging market which can help Tesco.

Threats:

Around the world, there are threats like economic recession and credit crunches which will continue to threaten Tesco. There are various global giants which offer the product at much lower prices than Tesco. There are also better networks for transfer of goods in the other companies because they have access to better and new technology. There are also labor threats as they demand very high wages which contradict with Tesco’s cost strategy, there is also pressure of government regulations and political landscape on Tesco. Rising costs of the raw materials are also posing great threats for the company. There is pressure related to environment and various other social responsibilities in front of the company.

Conclusion

The above report concludes that both the human resource practices and marketing strategies are essential for an organization to grow its business successfully. In the context of Apple the human resource management of the company uses best practices to enhance the productivity as well as quality of products. At the same time the marketing agenda of TESCO concludes that tis marketing approach identifying the critical elements through the SWOT analysis of the company helped the organization to win the trust of its stakeholders and customers over the company products.

References

Armstrong, G., Kotler, P., Harker, M. & Brennan, R., (2015). Marketing: an introduction. Pearson Education.

Armstrong, M. & Taylor, S. (2014) Handbook Of Human Resource Management Practice. 13th Eds. London: Kogan Page.

Bach, S. & Edwards, M. (2013) Managing Human Resources. Oxford: Wiley.

Baker, M. J., & Saren, M. (Eds.). (2016) Marketing theory: a student text. Sage.

Beardwell, J. & Thompson, A. (2014) Human resource management: a contemporary approach. Pearson Education.

Bohatala, (2018) Strategic human resource activities at Apple Inc. [Online]. Retrieved from: https://bohatala.com/strategic-human-resource-activities-at-apple-inc/.

Boxall, P., & Purcell, J. (2011) Strategy & human resource management. Palgrave Macmillan.

Bratton, J. & Gold, J. (2012) Human Resource Management: Theory & Practice. 5th Ed. Basingstoke: Palgrave.

Budhwar, P. S., & Debrah, Y. A. (Eds.). (2013) Human resource management in developing countries. Routledge.

Buller, P. F., & McEvoy, G. M. (2012) Strategy, human resource management & performance: Sharpening line of sight. Human resource management review, 22(1), 43-56.

Caldwell, C., Truong, D. X., Linh, P. T., & Tuan, A. (2011)  Strategic human resource management as ethical stewardship. Journal of business ethics, 98(1), 171-182.

Costen, W.M. (2012) Recruitment & Selection. The Encyclopedia of Human Resource Management: Short Entries, pp.379-387.