Making Sense of Strategy

Arab Open University Tutor Marked Assignment (TMA)- PT3 Form for B301B

Academic Year 2014 - 2015

Semester: First-2014-2015

Branch:

Program: Business Studies

Course Title: Making Sense of Strategy II

Course Code:B301B

Student Name:

Student ID:

Section Number:

Tutor Name:

Mark details

Allocated Marks

Questions

Q1

Q2

Total 100

Weight

60

40

Marks

Deduction

Criteria

In text referencing (0-5)

Referencing (0-5)

Word Count (0-5)

E-Library (0-5)

Total deduction (0-20)

Marks

100

Student’s Total Mark (total marks – total deductions)

Notes on plagiarism:

1. According to the Arab Open University By-laws, “the following acts represent cases of cheating and Plagiarism:

• Verbatim copying of printed material and submitting them as part of TMAs without proper academic acknowledgement and documentation.
• Verbatim copying of material from the Internet, including tables and graphics.
• Copying other students’ notes or reports.
• Using paid or unpaid material prepared for the student by individuals or firms.

2. Penalties for plagiarism ranges from failure in the TMA to expulsion from the university.

Declaration: I hereby declare that the submitted TMA is my own work and I have not copied any other person’s work or plagiarized in any other form as specified above. Tutor’s Feedback Student Signature

Tutor Name:	Tutor Signature:	Date returned:

This tutor marked-assignment is meant to assess the student’s ability in understanding, and application of the course materials provided in the class room and ideas from external sources, as well as to test his/her reflection and critical thinking. Among other ILOs, it is also intended to test the student’s ability to argue relevantly and to justify a point of view besides, constructing, defending and evaluating an argument, using relevant evidence and giving reasons for conclusions. It consists of three questions and accounts for 20% of the total grade assigned to the course.

INSTRUCTIONS

The TMA must be done with strict compliance to the guidelines and instructions stated, otherwise there will be penalties in form of marks deduction as per the university’s policy. You are encouraged to collaborate with others in studying, but submitted work copied from or written jointly with others is not acceptable. Submitting work that has been done by someone else and persistent borrowing of other people’s work without citation are obvious instances of plagiarism and are regarded as cheating. Paying for work from other sources and submitting it as your own is also cheating. It is intellectually dishonest to cheat. If a case of plagiarism is proven, this is a serious offence and the disciplinary procedures will be followed, as described under the Examination Policy of the AOU. Cases of plagiarism will receive a mark of “Zero” on the assignment. Please refer to AOU plagiarism policy.

1. TMA must be written in ESSAY format, BULLETS and NUMBERING to be avoided. Avoid writing TMAin first person tense. E.g. “I suggest that …” or “In this TMA I am going to discuss…”etc.
2. Word count should be exact with 10%(More/less) tolerance.
3. You must acknowledge all sources of information using full Harvard Style Referencing (In-text referencing plus list of references at the end) Minimum of 5 references are required. MUST include E-library and course materials.
4. Wikipedia is not recommended as a reference.
5. Copy and paste-plagiarized work will be detected by TURNITIN and heavily penalized.
6. TMAs to tutors through emails and late submission not permitted.
7. Strictly use the PT3 form with green color mark accompanying this TMA. Any other non compliance to guidelines and requirements will be penalized.

Following a rapid growth of Multinational Corporations- MNCs in your country, it was noticed that amongst other things:

• Many small business enterprises were closing down.
• Figures of imports were rising disproportionately to export figures.
• Rate of unemployment among the locals was rising
• The tenure of MNCs in the country was decreasing gradually.

As a strategist you are required to discuss: 1. Measures you would put in place to address each of the above four issues. (15x4= 60 Marks 2000 words) 2. Critically compare and contrast any MNC organization and corporate parent organization in your country based on their structure and strategy adopted by each of them. (40 marks 1000 words)  Good Luck The world is getting smaller due to the globalization and the tremendous advancements in communications. Multinational companies took advantage of the globalization and politics to expand its market by trying new countries with new experiences instead of selling their goods and services from/to their original country. Dealing with their foreign customers with their different needs and requirements according to the environment and the way of living by also being involved in the market directly and facing the same conditions that their customer is having. Due to the high competition in the market with the MNC's many small enterprises are closing down while their availability is essential and an supports the stability of the economy and also it improves the competition in the market where it will use the local internal resources and supporting services of the country that will help in keeping the money flow within the country and in return will benefit the economy, keeping in mind that most of the multination corporations started as local business , thus the government should support the small business owners by offering them capital supports to be paid in the long run with low or no profits, enhance the infrastructure and the human needs to be available and accessible, safe working environment where they can know what are their responsibilities and rights and not just been as assumptions and vague, to be controlled by the government for any illegal act or cheating, to be supported by the big companies with their experiences and knowledge, higher the quality of the work or service by educating them with experts from the government and by periodic visits to assure all the requirements needed for the specific domain are available, hire qualified and experienced employees not to be only looking for the lower rate employee. 

The country became more as consumer than a producer thus the imports are rising and the exports are being lower, which is a red alert that the funds of the country will be transferred outside, so the need to control what are the accepted imports and what can be produced internally has the priority to be consumed, Trade protectionism is an aim to protect the country's economy or a weak sector from low quality or/and better quality imports than the locally produced and also when the government feels that the industries are being threatened by unfair competition from the foreign industries. Doing this will be through adding tariff barriers that will increase the price for the imported goods compared to the local ones, the government supports the locally produced goods to lower the prices, quality regulations, unordinary and time consuming inspections will also help in reducing the imports, open manufactures for assembly or production and attract the experts of the weak domains to invest in the country. these used as a defensive measure and usually is motivated by politics. It can be effective in the short run, but it's not recommended for the long run where it usually does a negative impact by doing the opposite intentions by turning the country and the industries it is trying to protect to be less globally competitive.

 Thus there must be a plan to what and when to protect to create a competition that will increase the quality of the products or services which will affect the quality of the life. All Exports and imports should always comply with islamic Shareea thus restricting importing or producing what is against these roles is fatal and should be treated strictly and control other countries access the technology or resources and delivery specially countries with political problems. The unemployment of the locals is raising due to that the foreign companies bring their employees from the mother country to assure the stability of their company specially at the start up period. Usually big companies go to cheaper countries to benefit from the lower rates of the locals and the materials so that and as a step to reduce the unemployment rate, these companies should hire, train and develop the skills of the locals and to be agreed on a percentage of the locals hired keeping in mind that we need to keep the stability and performance of the organization. Also to invite students from schools and universities to attend and get trainings that can be added to their experience before they start looking for jobs and it can be an opportunity to expand their way of thinking and can help in deciding in what major to continue.

Additionally the government should attract the investors where the market is in need for the weak sectors and invest in having factories to produce or as an assembly so it can help in reducing the cost of imports and create new vacancies and domains for the locals. Also try to attract visitors and tourists which will also can create different opportunities for the locals Foreign investors are a good opportunity for the countries where they bring their capitals and experiences to invest and increase the flow of money with doing business locally and globally through the country services and also will create new vacancies that will have an impact on the country where the business is located. 

Therefore attracting those companies to invest is a must to be able to compete internally and globally, keeping in mind that all investors should be doing a business complied with Shareaa where the islamic culture is the base of the country, so restrictions should apply to businesses which are against the islamic culture. Supporting the investors through offering security and capital for low rates with legal support and benefits like citizenship which will help in securing that will keep the business for longer time and invest in the country in other domains. Also that the government should take care of its currency which will help these investors to keep and save their wealth not to lose their money in such changes which might cost them a lot of losses, set rules between the competitors not to be allied against the market for their own profits and to encourage them to use the universities research centers or known places to do their studies and researches so they can benefit from other experiences and not to waste too much time and money in doing the same researches , control the monopoly and big investors from controlling the prices in the market and to help new investors specially in weak domains to compete which will help lower the prices and improve the quality. 

The definition of MNC varies among different dimensions and each company been called a MNC is with a separate perspective, some are called because that the parent company or the headquarter is in another country, others been called as MNC because the higher managers are two or more different nationalities, etc. FedEx is one of the multinational companies where the parent company is located in USA and has different branches all around the world. FedEx structure is functional and is divided into 5 global regions and in each region consists of countries and each country has its own headquarter each country has its own headquarter dealing with the location separately and including each country there are several companies working under FedEx Integrated applications through companies competing collectively and managed collaboratively under FedEx brandname; FedEx Express, FedEx Ground, FedEx Office, FedEx Freight, FedEx Custom Critical, FedEx Trade Networks, FedEx Supply Chain. FedEx Services, Thinking of these companies as a portfolio of solutions that Compete collectively and face any challenge in the world of global commerce. Each network operates independently by focusing on the independent networks to meet the customer needs so it can deliver the best service without compromise. That means each individual network can be fine tuned to deliver the best possible service depending on the country and the situation while Managed collaboratively by working together to sustain the loyallity in the relationship with the investors, workforce and customers.  

References:

1. https://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/multinational-corporation-MNC.html
2. https://www2.econ.iastate.edu/classes/econ355/choi/mul.htm https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/24533/joseph-s-nye-jr/multinationals-the-game-and-the-rules-multinational-corporations
3. https://www.mci.gov.sa/en/AboutMinistry/pagemin/Pages/pagemin04.aspx?AspxAutoDetectCookieSupport=1
4. https://www.yourarticlelibrary.com/microeconomics/foreign-investment/role-of-multinational-corporations-mncs-in-foreign-investments/38224/ https://constructionlitmag.com/politics/international/the-rise-of-the-multinational-corporation/
5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_companies_of_Saudi_Arabia https://useconomy.about.com/od/glossary/g/Trade-Protectionism.htm https://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:570419/FULLTEXT01.p
6. https://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/protectionism.html#ixzz3YCsgTOYn
7. https://smallbusiness.chron.com/organizational-structure-multinational-company-61542.html
8. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/parentcompany.asp https://smallbusiness.chron.com/important-small-businesses-local-economies-5251.html

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