New Horizons is an IT training company, providing IT training courses to businesses and individuals worldwide. These courses are provided to companies as well as individual learners.
The company is known to be one of the largest worldwide training companies, offering on-site trainings, lecturer led classrooms, Self study and distance learning options for a wide range of trainings for both IT and non IT related fields.
New Horizons students are registered in their learning centres from all over the world and are optionally given access to a large online repository of courses and study materials.
New Horizons offers a huge variety of courses, ranging from desktop and technical applications usage, as well as programs in Business Skills, Healthcare Information Management, and English as a second language.
Their IT trainings includes:
Basic IT trainings: Hardware assembling and repairing, Computer Typing, word processing, etc.
Specialised IT trainings: CCNA (Cisco Certified Network Associate), CCNP (Cisco Certified Network Professional), MCSA (Microsoft Certified Systems Administrator), OCP (Oracle Certified Professional), Linux, etc.
Business Trainings: Team management, CMA (Certified Management Accountant), Leadership Management, Time Management, etc.
Once a training centre restrained to train individuals in the late 90's, New horizons business model turned to be a corporate trainer till 2007. The economic crisis has currently pushed New Horizons to review their strategy and to target individuals as primary potential customers. The purchasing power of individuals and their inability of paying expensive trainings caused New Horizons to review their material, their delivery method and their range of products.
Task Two
The following is a project plan showing how the assignment will be carried out:
1st September 2010
Received the Assignment.
Completed 'Task One'
Started: 5th October 2010
Ended: 10th October 2010
Completed and submitted Tasks 'One' & 'Two'
Started: 12th October 2010
Ended: 15th October 2010
Completed and submitted 'Task Three'
Started: 15th October 2010
Ended: 21th October 2010
Completed and submitted 'Task Five'
Started: 22nd October 2010
Ended: 31st October 2010
Completed and submitted 'Task Four'
Started: 22nd October 2010
Ended: 31st October 2010
Completed and submitted 'Task six'
Started: 2nd November 2010
Ended: 6th November 2010
Completed and submitted 'Task Seven'
Started: 9th November 2010
Ended: 13th November 2010
Task Three
Environmental Analysis
This method of analysis is ideal as it involves the investigation of the internal and external environments of the organisation. This identifies its strengths and weaknesses, which will help in developing a strategic plan for the company.
External environment
The external factors that influence the business are:
Competitors - The rapid growth of technology brings new products and discoveries into the market and creates a lot of competition between different businesses. It is due to this rivalry that ITTS is losing its customers and faces low profit margins.
Economic factors - ITTS invests a lot on office rent and energy supply. Moreover, the higher unemployment rate causes difficulty for the business to acquire enough customers.
Buyers - Companies in the recession time are looking to cut costs by providing training only to the staff that are in critical need of it, thus minimizing the customers for ITTS. Some customers may also switch between businesses, according to the selling rate of the products. Others may purchase in bulk which causes the business to discount its prices significantly.
Advertising plays a significant role to improvement of the business in terms of the external environmental factors. Advertisements help businesses gain the interest of the general public, inducing them to purchase their product.
Internal Environment
Analyzing the internal environment of the company is a key source of identifying where it fails to meet a competitive level.
ITTS establishes its credibility by providing customers with effective training courses. However it has not introduced new IT training courses, therefore customers must rely on other companies to provide them with courses that ITTS is unable to supply. To overcome this, ITTS needs to remain updated with the latest information technology and accordingly develop new courses. Creating custom-made trainings for different company lines of business is certainly a good opportunity for ITTS to gain competitive advantage and attract the attention of new customers.
ITTS currently distributes its products to other training companies which deliver them to the public, as well as to large private sector organisations. This method of delivery can be improvised by creating a company website which encourages online training as well as delivery of training courses to the general public.
The creation of a website provides the business with a different means to sell its products and. Online surveys can help to understand the needs of customers and aid to decide what new categories of training courses can be developed and introduced. Encouraged feedback will let the company know to what extent its customers are satisfied.
Office rental costs can be reduced by shutting down the currently running branch offices and relocating the head office to an out-of-town location. An ideal alternative would be to purchase an apartment or a small house which can be converted into an office. This will help to eliminate rent as a business expense. Closing 2 offices will cause the employees of those offices to continue working from their homes.
Task Four kindly refer to the attachment
Task Five
The introduction of home working may give way to the following communication barriers:
Distractions around the house - A homely environment causes employees to feel very relaxed and to take their work less seriously. This leads to a significant decrease in work productivity, employee creativity and customer satisfaction. Moreover, certain distractions around the house such as the intervention of family members may affect the concentration of a working individual, causing a decrease in work efficiency.
This difficulty can be overcome by monitoring the output and results of each individual's work, carrying out gatherings and introducing bonuses for good work performance.
Unequal distribution of work - Some colleagues may be allocated more work than others due to lack of knowledge and updating about each employee's work. This affects the work efficiency and creativity of the employees, causes great stress and may lead to a decrease in productivity. This can be overcome in two ways:
By making use of an e-room, a chat room exclusively meant for the distributed workspaces, so that colleagues can exchange information with each other.
By introducing a web portal through which managers assign tasks for each employee. The portal should be regularly updated to achieve efficiency and maximum work productivity.
Channel breakdown and limited or no system access - Access to the company's system files may be unavailable or limited. Staff will not be able to access company files that are related to their work. This affects the productivity and efficiency of the employees and decreases customer satisfaction. A channel breakdown may occur when either an employee or an online student faces a technical or internet problem at home. This may be in the form of an internet problem, temporary electricity shut down or a problem with the computer system. This will not allow the staff member to carry out his regular operations and will result as a loss for the business, as the important operations are unable to be carried out. Such a difficulty can be resolved by regular maintenance of the computer system and by using other mediums of communication such as phone/video calls and text messaging.
Lack of emotional relationship between colleagues - Colleagues that are communicating with each other over chat rooms and phone calls will lack emotional bonding and understanding. As a consequence, some messages may be misunderstood and could cause unnecessary quarrels between the colleagues. This problem can be overcome by holding more gatherings and social events to strengthen the employee relationship to attain maximum productivity and work cohesion.
Task Six
BRIEFING NOTE FOR THE HUMAN RESOURCES DIVISION
Recruitment of Telesales Staff
Purpose:
The purpose of this briefing note is to illustrate a suitable method for recruiting telesales staff.
Background:
A downfall in the company's profits has led to a restructuring of the business, for which it has been decided to establish a telesales team.
Current situation:
Our business is looking to exploit new business opportunities through the recruitment of 3 telesales staff.
Options of recruitment methods:
Option 1: Interviews
This method includes evaluating each applicant and getting to know more about them by asking questions.
Advantage: Face-to-face communication allows the interviewer to test the candidate's oral and communication skills.
Disadvantage: Interviewers may hold a biased view during selections.
Option 2: Selection tests
This method involves carrying out tests, some of them being aptitude tests, verbal tests and personality questionnaires.
Advantage: Test takers can recognize the qualities and potential of the job applicant, which is difficult to find out through other methods.
Disadvantage: It is expensive and requires a lot of time and effort to be carried out.
Option 3: Assessment centres
Assessment centres help organizations to identify competent candidates by carrying out tests, exercises and simulations to test their skills and abilities.
Advantage: Reduction of training cost by identifying and selecting the most skilled and potential candidate.
Disadvantage: It is expensive and time consuming, especially since only 3 employees are being recruited.
Recommendation:
Option 2 is recommended.
Task Seven
A corporate budget is an anticipation of expenses and revenues over a particular future period of time, usually a year.
The main components of a corporate budget are:
Sales budget - showing the expected sales for the budget period
Materials budget - showing how much material will be needed for production and how much material must be purchased for this
Labour budget - showing the expected labour costs over the budget period
Overhead budget - showing all anticipated manufacturing costs except for direct labour and direct material
Capital budget - showing planned spending on fixed assets and acquisitions of other companies
Research and development budget - showing planned spending on projects
Cash budget - showing an estimation of the cash receipts and payments
Budget balance sheet - showing expected assets, liabilities and capital at the end of the budget period
The performance of a company can be measured by comparing the actual revenues with the predefined target. A good company performance is that which is able to accomplish its targets. If a manager fails to achieve his/her budget target, the budget must first be reviewed to see if it is fair and realistic. After this, a market survey may be conducted, which should help in making the current budget more flexible and achievable (budget review). If the target is still not met, the problem may lie within the organization and a manager should try to solve the matter by communicating with the employees, holding counselling sessions, developing quarterly budgets and constantly measuring performance levels.
