Business Process Management Assignment: Cases Based On Value Chains, Strategic Alignment & Ethics

Question

Task: This business process management assignment item focusses our attention on business processes, value chains, strategic alignment and ethics. For the successful development of this assignment, you need to combine theoretical concepts about particular topics and, apply them to the specific situation presented. Use your own words to build your explanations and, academic references to strengthen your arguments.

TASK DESCRIPTION.
Part 1. In this question, you will draw a Value Chain (VC) of a University (e.g. Griffith), focussing on the delivery of Online teaching (students attend lectures, tutorials, labs practice and library services solely Online).
a) Draw a value chain with as much as detail possible using Porter’s Value Chain framework.
b) Pinpoint two “strategically relevant activities” and explain why they are strategically relevant.
c) Pinpoint two ‘internal linkages’ and explain why they are strategic.

Part 2.
This question is about ethics and business processes. Based on the ‘Online Value Chain’ of the University, you developed in Part 1, address the following points:

(i) Point out one activity in the University ‘Online Value Chain’ (see part 1) that is (or that it could be potentially) related to ethical issues. Explain how or why.
(ii) What type(s) of management ethics can be associated to this activity? Elaborate an argument to support your answer. Use two academic references (minimum) to sustain your arguments.

Part 3.
This is a practical case study about offshoring. This question is independent from previous questions.
You are the new Global supply chain manager at Jabil (one of the major electronic contract manufacturers, see jabil.com). Because of high demand for modems in Europe, you need to decide the location of the next 4500 people factory of integrated circuits for drones. The last two short listed locations are Turkey and Mexico. Assuming labour costs (wages) at the exact same level at both countries, define what is the best location for the new factory.

Your Task: Elaborate a short report (800 words aprox) to analyse the situation, justify your choice (explain why) and, relate your answer to the support of SDG goals. Consider three relevant non-economic factors to base your selection and two SDG goals. To this end, you must base your arguments on (i) the information provided in the World Competitiveness Report 2019 (see link below) and (ii) research three academic articles (minimum)

Answer

Business Process Management Assignment Part 1
a)

Source: Author made

b) Management of human resources and marketing and sales can be marked as two strategically relevant activities in online teaching. The concept of virtual teaching has become popular post the outbreak of pandemic and constant lockdowns. Human capital of universities is responsible for providing library, teaching other academic services through online platforms like Google meet, Zoom and many more. The entire process is complex and coordination among human resources should be transparent to execute all these activities. Transparency, coordination and planning among employees within the university can only be possible with the help of effective workforce management. Workforce management has always been a complex process. Organizations should have strategic intent to manage and utilize the skills and abilities of its employees (Hota&Ghosh, 2013). Thus, managing workforce within the university to initiate online teaching can be marked as one of the strategically relevant activities. In addition to this, marketing and sales can be another strategically relevant activities. Marketing practitioners always have pressure for enhancing the value of the firm. They have the ability to increase the reach of the product or services among a greater number of customers and they can also regulate employees’ behaviour within the workplace (Goetz, Hoelter&Krafft, 2013). Online teaching in Griffith university or any other university is a very new thing. Students who are the customers of a university are often concerned about the quality of teaching through online platforms. Confusion among students might prevent them from enrolling in the university. Thus, it is the responsibility of the marketing and sales team to develop the campaigns that emphasizes on the benefits of virtual learning and how it can contribute to the enhancement of knowledge of students enrolled in various courses within the university. This can help Griffith university optimize their revenue and can also restore confidence among students and their parents.

c) Internal and external linkages are two major parts of value chain framework.There are two different activities in the value chain framework. They are primary and support. When there is a relationship between components of the same activities or components of two different activities it is known as internal linkages. Strong internal linkages within the firm can help the members of the firm to control activities within the workplace tightly (Alcácer&Zhao, 2012). The two linkages that can be considered from the above value chain framework is technological development and marketing and sales. In the 21st century advanced technology has become an important part of organizational activities. There is no exception in case of marketing and sales department. Marketing practitioners can use advanced technology like AI to predict the needs and demands of students and parents enrolling in the Griffith university. This can be further used for designing online courses. Moreover, E-marketing has become one of the major topics of discussion in the workplace. Social media marketing is a major part of E-marketing. Acquisition of customers through social media has become very easy and the cost is also less (Taherdoost&Jalaliyoon, 2014). Thus, the sales and marketing team can post information about online teaching in their respective social media pages and this can help them to attract students from different parts of the world. The above two internal linkages are strategic because the marketing leaders of Griffith university can use advanced technological tools to make strategic marketing decisions. Strategic decisions will not help the firm enhance the sales or enrolment; it will also help the university optimize their revenue. Optimization of revenue will further help Griffith university strive in the volatile and competitive global market.

Part 2
i) Data security, ethics, privacy of organizational data are important part of management ethics. Innovation and dynamic capabilities of leaders help organizations overcome ethical concerns (Schoemaker, Heaton&Teece, 2018). Technology and use of technological tools have become one of the integral parts of modern-day business. It comes with benefits as well as disadvantages. Disadvantages associated with usage of technological tools can be portrayed as ethical challenges or issues that are faced by administrative team of firms across the world.Technological development or use of technology as a part of teaching and other operational activities within Griffith university can give rise to ethical issues. Cyber-crime that include theft of information can be one of the ethical issues that can create concerns among the external and internal stakeholders of the university. During online teaching, professors are expected to develop online learning materials and share them with the students through online databases. This information therefore become vulnerable to agents who can be malicious in nature (Morey, Forbath&Schoop, 2015). Databases can be hacked by cyber criminals and these learning materials can be further misused or leaked by them causing major losses to the university. Leaked online materials can give open access to members of other universities operating in the similar market. This is how Griffith university can lose competitive advantage. Moreover, leaked exam papers can be accessed by students. This can have a negative impact on the goodwill of the university which can further lead to lose in market share. Therefore, the primary responsibility of the admin team and other stakeholders of the organization to focus on protecting online materials, lecture notes and other financial data of the organization from any kind of theft or damage.

ii) Managers and other corporate leaders of any given firm are constantly focused on removing ethical challenges. This can be done by using various managerial strategies.Several strategies include moral, immoral and amoral management. Moral legitimacy has become one of the changing conditions of the current corporate legitimacy (Scherer&Palazzo, 2011). Thus, moral management is widely practiced by managers across the world. Among all the managerial ethics,Moral management is managerial ethics type that can be associated with the above ethical concerns. When management activities are conformed with ethical behaviour it is known as moral management. The primary goal of this type of management ethics is legal obedience. The managerial team of the organization should focus on developing strict rules that ensure confidentiality, transparency and reliability among the members of the workplace. It is often found that employees are associated with cyber criminals and they give these criminals every confidential information of the firm. Thus, strict organizational policies within the university can help the organizational leaders control any kind of information or study materials leakage from the university’s database. The human resource managers of the firm should also focus on developing strict students’ code of conduct. Students should strictly follow the code of conduct while enrolling themselves in the university. If they are not compliant with the rules and regulations of the university there should take strict actions against them. In addition to this, increased awareness among students, teachers and other members of Griffith university is also one of the major activities that is integrated within moral management. Teachers, students and the admin team should understand the impact of loss or theft of data on the performance of the organization. Increased awareness can make them more conscious. Students and teachers should make sure to keep their emails encrypted. Lecture notes, exam papers and other confidential papers should be kept password protected. Layers of protection often prevent hackers from stealing confidential information.

Part 3
Introduction
Organizations operating in the current business environment are constantly facing huge competitions in the global market. The demand and supply curve are constantly changing. Thus, manufacturing team of several organizations are constantly focused on optimization of production. There is no exception in case of Jabil. Selecting factory location has a close association with optimization of production. The aim of this report is to analyse two different country and select one of them. The country will be further used by Jabil to construct a factory where almost 4500 will work.

Factory location
While establishing a factory, it is of utmost responsibility to undertake infrastructure, labour market and ICT adoption because these 3 factors are closely associated with construction of factory. For developing factories, consideration of transportation infrastructure is of utmost importance. Framework that helps in supporting the networks of transport system of a country it is known as transport infrastructure. Transport infrastructure works as a multi-layer program that helps in improving logistics activities of a firm. It not only improves logistic activities but it also helps in advancing communication that further contributes to economic benefits (Porter&Rivkin, 2012). Apart from transportation, labour market should also be considered while establishing a factory where almost 4500 people will work. Corporate leaders, labour economists and governing bodies of several countries are currently worried about the constant changes in the demographics of labours in various parts of the world. Companies are constantly focused on dealing with labour variations that can help them to keep the cost of labour low (Barton&Court, 2012). As per the Global competitiveness Report, 2019, the performance report of Turkey is mixed. This means it has gained points in few non-economic factors and have lose points in other. This country has improved in various elements like ICT adoption, infrastructure and labour market. These elements are required for development of factory within the country. On the contrary, Mexico has witnessed increased points in elements like ICT adoption and labour market but the increased points have not successfully filled the gap of these elements that has occurred previously. The skills of labours in the market is not as per the global standard (World economic forum, 2019).From this report it can be concluded that growth of Mexico in terms of non-economic factors has become stagnant. Thus, from the above discussion it is clear that though the rank of Mexico as per the global competitiveness report is low than that of Turkey but Turkey can be chosen by the management team of Jabil, as the ideal location for building factory. Turkey has been chosen as the ideal factory location because the country is witnessing significant rise in elements like ICT adoption, infrastructure and labour market. On the contrary, Mexico is witnessing a downfall in these segments. It can be said that there are potential opportunities in Turkey that can further be beneficial for the production team of Jabil.

In the current scenario, governing bodies, environmentalists and corporate leaders are constantly focused on undertaking sustainable business practices to reduce the negative impact of business practices on the climate and on other natural resources. When organizational members emphasize on protection of climate and natural resources by not hampering the profit of the firm it is known as sustainable business practices. Among all these goals industry, innovation and infrastructure which is goal number 9 and sustainable cities and communities which is goal number 11 can be aligned well with this scenario.Considering SDG goals while selecting factory location is also important because SDGs proposed by UN helps in achievement of social outcomes that have link with public properties (Kramer&Pfitzer, 2016). The SDG index rank of Mexico is 80/165 and the rank of Turkey is 70/165. On the contrary, SDG index score of Turkey is 70.4 and Mexico is 69.1. Therefore, it can be said that though SDG index rank of Mexico is higher than that of Turkey but Turkey is constantly focusing on working towards Goal number 9 and 11 more effectively than that of Mexico.Furthermore, Turkey is emphasizing on ensuring sustainable cities and communities within the country and is also focused on developing infrastructure and ensuring innovation within the country.This can be beneficial for Jabil if they establish factory in this country. Governing bodies of Turkey can help the organizational team of Jabil to build a sustainable factory and it will also help the firm to focus on sustainable business practices during the process of production.

Conclusion
The main aim of this report was to analyse the global competitiveness report and SDG index of two countries named Mexico and Turkey. From the above report, it can be concluded that the corporate leaders of Jabil must choose Turkey as their factory location because the transport infrastructure, ICT adoption and labour market of this country is growing and it can thus provide several opportunities to the company’s production process while they establish a factory.

References
Alcácer, J., & Zhao, M. (2012). Local R&D strategies and multilocation firms: The role of internal linkages. Management Science, 58(4), 734-753.

Barton, D., & Court, D. (2012). Making advanced analytics work for you. Harvard business review, 90(10), 78-83.
Goetz, O., Hoelter, A. K., &Krafft, M. (2013). The role of sales and marketing in market-oriented companies. Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management, 33(4), 353-371.
Hota, J., & Ghosh, D. (2013). Workforce analytics approach: An emerging trend of workforce management. AIMS International Journal, 7(3), 167-179.
Kramer, M. R., &Pfitzer, M. W. (2016). The ecosystem of shared value. Harvard Business Review, 94(10), 80-89. Morey, T., Forbath, T., &Schoop, A. (2015). Customer data: Designing for transparency and trust. Harvard Business Review, 93(5), 96-105.
Porter, M. E., & Rivkin, J. W. (2012). The looming challenge to US competitiveness. Harvard Business Review, 90(3), 54-61. Scherer, A.G. and Palazzo, G., 2011. The new political role of business in a globalized world: A review of a new perspective on CSR and its implications for the firm, governance, and democracy. Business process management assignmentJournal of management studies, 48(4), pp.899-931.
Schoemaker, P. J., Heaton, S., & Teece, D. (2018). Innovation, dynamic capabilities, and leadership. California Management Review, 61(1), 15-42.
Taherdoost, H., &Jalaliyoon, N. (2014). Marketing vs E-marketing. International Journal of Academic Research in Management, 3(4), 335-340.
World economic forum, 2019. Global competitiveness Report. Retrieved from https://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_TheGlobalCompetitivenessReport2019.pdf