Isabella operates a clothing manufacturing business in Australia. Her company CULP Pty Ltd manufactures and sells a wide variety of clothing targeting youth. CULP has lost market share to cheaper imported products in recent years. In response to the loss of market share, they have investigated relocating manufacturing to cheaper labour-cost countries in Asia and selling clothes to a larger potential market in developing economies. CULP Pty Ltd are concerned about: ● Staffing producing facilities offshore ● Marketing their products to a global audience You have been employed as a consultant to prepare a report for CULP Pty Ltd. In your report: ● Outline TWO processes of human resource management relevant to CULP Pty Ltd. ● Explain TWO global marketing strategies that CULP Pty Ltd could use. ● Analyse THREE strategies that CULP Pty Ltd should consider to overcome resistance to change. Executive Summary The purpose of this report is to address the concerns that ‘CULP Pty Ltd’ are facing with respect to issues within operations and marketing. ‘CULP Pty Ltd’ are hoping to increase staff in production facilities offshore and market their global company for the return of increased sales. The following business report will examine and provide justification and recommendations for operational and marketing procedures and strategies as well as, overcoming resistance to change for staff involved in ‘CULP Pty Ltd’. Staffing Production Facilities Offshore ‘CULP Pty Ltd’ has a concern of the staffing production facilities offshore, to overcome this the use of acquisition and development, as a human resources process, can be incorporated amongst the business. Acquisition is the stage in the human resource cycle that involves: identifying staffing needs, recruitment and selection. Comparably development involves preparing employees for future responsibilities within the organisation due to a change in the business’s strategies or growth in its size or market share. To solve the issue of staffing production facilities offshore, ‘CULP Pty Ltd’ must identify the needs of staff. Due to them having a shortage of staff, they first must identify the special jobs needed, this will result in a job description. Within this, they must analyse the duties, tasks and responsibilities involved in this job. The value of the job needs to be established and a remuneration. Much of this will depend on conditions that have been established in the legal wage agreements with which ‘CULP Pty Ltd’ must comply. The second step is to recruit staff, recruitment is the process of locating and attracting the right quantity and quality of staff to apply for employment vacancies or anticipated vacancies at the right cost. The business can fill vacancies internally (from existing employees) or externally (from outside). Examining ‘CULP Pty Ltd’’s description of their situation, choosing employees externally would be an option to lead towards. ‘CULP Pty Ltd’’s aim in the recruitment of staff is to create a pool of potential candidates for the job, and from there make a selection. During the selection process, information about job applicants is reviewed and the most appropriate applicant is chosen. A selection process should reveal differences between candidates. It may be equally as important to eliminate the poorer candidates as the process continues. The use of development would be a vital asset in ‘CULP Pty Ltd’’s issue with staffing. The constant development of staff is needed to keep the business running sufficiently and effectively. ‘CULP Pty Ltd’ can introduce ‘on the job’ or ‘off the job’ training. Training improves employees' present and future performance within the workforce. It results in upgrading skills, knowledge and competency levels in order to better meet the needs of the business. With the recruitment of new staff, ‘CULP Pty Ltd’ will need to ensure that each employee's skills are up to scratch, therefore ensuring business processes will run smoothly and allow the business to achieve great standards. Global Marketing Strategies ‘CULP Pty Ltd’ must incorporate global marketing strategies such as standardisation and global pricing to help solve the issue of their loss of market share. It is seen that other companies globally are bringing to the market, cheaper clothing than ‘CULP Pty Ltd’ is. To solve this issue of the loss off-market share due to other companies bringing in cheaper items, ‘CULP Pty Ltd’ must take into consideration standardisation. A standardised marketing approach involves creating products that do the same thing as competitors, but better. It's a global marketing strategy that assumes the way the product is used and the needs it satisfies are the same worldwide. To do this, ‘CULP Pty Ltd’ should differentiate their products, meaning create clothing that isn't on the market already, whilst still obtaining the needs and wants of consumers. By doing so, ‘CULP Pty Ltd’ will have a foot in the door to increasing its market share and raising its sales. Additionally, global pricing is a major factor that should be considered. ‘CULP Pty Ltd’ has decided to move their headquarters to a cheaper location in order to reduce their labour costs. By doing this, they will be able to decrease the cost of their clothing. In order to decide on a price that will help them make a profit, but as well keep down their prices to attract consumers, ‘CULP Pty Ltd’ can choose from three pricing methods; market customised pricing, cost plus method, or standardised pricing. With the conditions of ‘CULP Pty Ltd’, the best choice would be market customised pricing. This involves setting prices according to local market conditions. By doing so, they won't fall short of what their products are worth, and ‘CULP Pty Ltd’ will be asking for similar costs as other global competitors. In turn, this will allow them to still gain a profit but meet customer expectations of prices and therefore be able to increase their sales. Strategies Due to the amount of change occurring within the business, ‘CULP Pty Ltd’ will need to develop strategies within their company to keep employees motivated. In doing so, challenges such as inertia, retraining and purchasing new equipment evolve. Inertia is the psychological resistance to change. Change can create uncertainty and risk and therefore employees may resist it, due to fear of deskilling, job loss, higher workloads and loss of their familiar work environment. To prevent this, ‘CULP Pty Ltd’ can implement retraining for their staff, which allows for productivity while working efficiently and effectively. The implementation of comprehensive training programs can go a long way to overcoming employee resistance to changes. Additionally, purchasing new equipment is vital for the growth of ‘CULP Pty Ltd’. the business must keep up to date with new changes within the corporate world. Therefore, Managers must assess the cost of the installation of the equipment, its impact on production and the expected profitability generated by the change. This may result in a long-term reduction in operating costs, decreased time delays in communication and faster decision-making processes.
