Car Park Innovation - By Mitchell Formica & Alana Cuce

The Car Parking industry is a relatively old one, however, there is room for innovation through the use of mobile technology we have create a way for people to find parking spots easily. Whilst the demand for car spots is increasing we are hoping to get in early on a slowly developing industry so we can build up our company before others enter the market. (Parking Association of Australia Inc, History of the Parking Association, 2012).

The car parking industry involves the implication of technology to easily access and obtain information on car parking facilities so that you can locate and acquire a car parking spot. This innovation uses the subscription based business model which allows people to enter in their details so that they can be later used to further help develop our business. This vital information people are giving us is ultimately used for car parking purposes but has other useful uses.

The cost for innovation is small in the car parking industry as there isn’t a lot of technological implementations, this is good as there won’t be much spending or investments needed but also bad because there are little barriers to entry and any company could take us over.  The innovation is unlike any on the market and will fill a gap or a niche that people can utilise. The use of E-business today is a vital part of communication within and between business, as it allows more information and knowledge to pass through on to others that might be interested in the given industry. This enhances investments and ultimately allows for collaboration and more ideas. (Berthon, et al, 2008).

With this we hopefully aim to increase the company’s market share and long term think of other cities that we distribute our product to, Australia is our oyster and we need to branch out into new areas and try to get our product into more people’s pockets and phones. Through the use of E-business by using the technology to communicate with others around us it will help our product get out there onto the market, while also open up the idea of collaboration with business partners and geographically distribute our product. (Journal of Electronic Commerce in Organizations, January-March 2011).

Reference list:

Berthon, Pierre, Pitt, Leyland, Berthon, Jean-Paul, Campbell, Colin, Thwaites, Des,  Industrial Marketing Management. Jan 2008, Vol. 37 Issue 1, p83-91. 9p.

Parking Association of Australia Inc, 2012, History of the Parking Association, viewed 29 August 2013

Communications of the ACM. Jul2012, Vol. 55 Issue 7, p22-24. 3p. 1 Color Photograph.

Journal of Electronic Commerce in Organizations; Jan-Mar2011, Vol. 9 Issue 1, p17-37, 21p, 1 Diagram, 1 Graph

Managing bullying and harassment in the workplace - By Mitchell Formica

Our early days as a child on the playground may unearth memories of bullying and harassment by our peers; those memories are now being re-lived by a new bullying and harassment phenomenon that is making its way into the workplace. Nowadays it is estimated that “as many as 53 per cent of UK employees have been bullied at work at some point during their working life”, (Anas Khan, Riad Khan, 2012), and others have estimated more. On top of this, “some studies have revealed that nearly 95% of employees have had some exposure to general bullying behaviours in the workplace over a 5 year period” (A.-K. Samnani, P. Singh, 2012). This profound evidence demonstrates the seriousness for action and a growing problem that is emerging in the work environment for all employees. The issue needs to be recognised in the workplace as a serious problem and one that needs to be dealt with in a number of ways. This will help to ultimately stop bullying and harassment in all forms of working life. 

Bullying and harassment comes in many forms. It may be through the use of emails, social networking, day to day communication with peers, and may even arise from autocratic management styles, all of which can be seen as an issue in today’s business world. Simple interactions with other co-workers can cause bullying and harassment issues. But what is bullying and harassment and how can we stop it? These are the un-answered questions that need to be identified before we can start to solve the issues. Bullying “involves negative acts that occur repeatedly, regularly (systematically) and over a period of time, and the person targeted has difficulties in defending him/herself. In some definitions, the aim of harming the target or intentionality of the behaviour is included”. (Maarit Vartia-Väänänen, 2013). Bullying and harassment are much the same in many ways, although harassment differs from bullying in some instances. Bullying mainly refers to the negative acts by co-workers, supervisors or managers or subordinates, while harassment arises when one or more worker or manager are repeatedly and deliberately abused, threatened or humiliated in circumstances relating to work. So how do we manage workplace bullying and harassment and what are the rules that clearly define where they are taking place?  These are the underlining factors that need addressing in every workplace today.

The role of the Human Resource Manager is to undertake the management of the employees that make up the organisation. “Soft HRM places an emphasis on managing employees as humans instead of resources, suggesting that employees need to be treated with “consideration and a personal touch” in order to attain favourable outcomes” (Carson, 2005; Truss et al., 1997).

“It emphasizes the ability of HRM to satisfy employees’ needs, which is hypothesized to generate favorable HRM outcomes (e.g. commitment) and subsequently improved organizational performance" (Elise Marescaux, Sophie De Winne, Luc Sels, 2013). Employees can use this human resource as a way of speaking out about an issue in the workplace.

In the case of John McPhilbin who appeared in the article “A Slow Poison” by Jane Faure-Brac, workplace bullying is an everyday activity. (Jane Faure-Brac, 2012) John spends his day talking to people like him that are victims of workplace bullying and harassment, he tries to get an understanding of their situation and help them in any way he can. McPhilbin was bullied at work and knows how these people feel, he can associate himself with them and tries to get an understanding of their issues and helps them in any way he can. Although John’s efforts seem admirable, the reality is that “Roughly one in three employees in the workplace has experienced some form of bullying or poor behaviour and one in two has witnessed it” (Jane Faure-Brac, 2012). As a result, more and more people are becoming increasingly aware of the issue in the workplace and are implementing strategies to combat it.

In today’s global economy, managers are gathering employees from all parts of the world, with different cultures and characteristics. While this may seem like a bad thing, in reality, diversity has impacted the workplace in a positive manner. Diversity allows for a change in the vibe of the workplace, it exposes people to new cultures and beliefs for people to understand and accept. It also encourages a fair working environment where all employees can work together towards a common goal. On the negative side, sometimes different characteristics can make people stand out and thereby create a target for others to perpetrate their bullying tendencies towards.

An “employee experiencing the status inconsistency can become either a perpetrator or a target”; “researchers have found that the feeling of uncertainty resulting from status inconsistency can produce aggression in employees” (A.-K. Samnani, P. Singh (2012). This leads to workplace bullying or harassment and for the targets this means that they are consequently bullied because of a difference in characteristic or personality. For effective diversity workplace practices to be successful there needs to be policies and practices in place for the employees so that rules can be follow accordingly. This will help to prevent people from becoming the perpetrator or the target in any given situation. These policies and practices will shape the culture of an organisation and provide employees with the guidelines for proper etiquette in the workplace.

While the business world today may have a greater understanding of the effects on people that are bullied or harassed, there is still a lot of work to be done on the issue. The overall awareness of the problem has not filtered into every industry, with some HR departments not even bothering to look into and follow up on employee’s complaints. Larger organisations are taking on board this issue as a serious matter as they see the value of cultural differences and how they can help with the survival of their business. These organisations are generally watched more closely by the public and therefore would suffer negatively if unsafe environments were provided. Smaller business are more likely to be able to ignore disgruntled employees and may choose to ignore bullying or harassment complaints as they are less exposed to public opinion. If there is going to be a change for the future, it will require all employers and employees to gain knowledge of the detrimental effects of bullying and harassment in the workplace and to see how they can work together to solve this important issue.

Reference list:

Jane Faure-Brac, 2012, A Slow Poison, http://www.aph.gov.au/~/media/05%20About%20Parliament/53%20HoR/537%20About%20the%20House%20magazine/46/PDF/Poison1.ashx

A.-K. Samnani, P. Singh / Aggression and Violent Behaviour 17 (2012) 581–589http://ac.els-cdn.com/S1359178912000912/1-s2.0-S1359178912000912-main.pdf?_tid=0481b1ce-0f7e-11e3-bef6-00000aab0f26&acdnat=1377652146_d28eea41c15dd5d3dba6c587d8fed152

Anas Khan and Riad Khan, 2012, Understanding and managing workplace bullying, pg. 85 http://www.emeraldinsight.com.ezproxy.lib.swin.edu.au/journals.htm?issn=0019-7858&volume=44&issue=2&articleid=17019188&show=html&PHPSESSID=6q6c74vnjlq086ketaa6fm7d94

Maarit Vartia-Väänänen, 2013, Workplace Bullying and Harassment in the EU and Finland http://www.jil.go.jp/english/reports/documents/jilpt-reports/no.12.pdf

Elise Marescaux, Sophie De Winne, Luc Sels, (2013) "HR practices and HRM outcomes: the role of basic need satisfaction", Personnel Review, Vol. 42 Iss: 1, pp.4 – 27 http://www.emeraldinsight.com.ezproxy.lib.swin.edu.au/journals.htm?issn=0048-3486&volume=42&issue=1&articleid=17068391&show=html

Truss, C., Gratton, L., Hope-Hailey, V., McGovern, P., Stiles, P. (1997), "Soft and hard models of human resource management: a reappraisal", Journal of Management Studies, Vol. 34 No.1,.

pp.53-73

The external marketing environment (Socio-cultural) - By Mitchell Formica

Socio-cultural and the environment it encompasses involves a number of different factors such as the beliefs, customs, practices and behaviour within a population. We perceive forces in society and culture as influences on our thoughts, feelings and behaviour. For some people drinking beer is an activity that encourages good feelings and it is their belief that they it must be a part of their everyday life.

The link between the socio-cultural environment and the consumption of beer is a part of our every day’s lives. ‘The pub and bar have been geographically widespread social settings in many societies, symbolically as well as physically and socially central to popular culture, and yet in many ways they are unique leisure locations, warranting more attention than the sparse research to date’, (Northcote, J, 2011). Nowadays more and more places are accepting BYO beer and allowing consumers a wider range of beer products available for purchase. This change in society is due to a demand for the product, as more and more people are starting to drink socially the businesses that don’t cater for this are at a disadvantage and may even lose customers.

In today’s society there are many festivals and public activities like markets that involve beer in their social circle. It is becoming a part of our culture to incorporate whatever we are doing with alcohol. Opportunities such as these will envelope the beer products within our society as not a bad health risk but a more of a social pleasure that can be consumed without risk.

However in future there may be more opportunities for beer as technology changes and through automation and robotics we could see the beer industry redevelop itself in-terms of producing the overall product.

There have always been threats for the beer industry as they are seen as a bad health risk for consumers. Ad campaigns for beer have recently moved away from promoting their product with perfect videos of the beer just sitting there, to a different setting that involves younger diverse groups sipping away on a nice beach somewhere with the sunset in the background. This change is due to negative influences on beer and the ad campaigns are trying to move away from promoting the beer to instead promoting a place that you would rather be in with a beer.  

References

Northcote, J, 2011, ‘Young adults’ decision making surrounding heavy drinking: A multi-staged model of planned behaviour’, Vol.72 (12), pp.2020-2025.

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The external marketing environment (Demographic) - By Mitchell Formica

The external marketing environment is made up of many different factors such as, social, demographic, economic, technological, political and legal. These elements categorise people and help marketers to segment and target an audience that they want to advertise to (Polonsky, M J, 2011).

The two environments I have chosen are demographic and socio-cultural. Within the beer industry there are many different types of brands that cater to different needs and wants. The beer market is mainly divided up into two different categories, gender and age. Beer is seen as a more mainly type of product so gender roles are a key factor when marketing beer toward a consumer. Also age is another determinate factor as there is a changing demographic and socio-cultural behaviour toward drinking beer.

The demographic environment is what makes up the characteristics of a consumer, it is based upon influences such as: ‘age, race, sex, economic status, level of education, income level and employment’ (Investopedia, 2014).  Demographics in marketing help to segment a market into different categories so that any given organisation can target towards a certain population. What organisations have learnt through demographics is that not all people are the same and they have different needs and wants that correspond to the same product. To combat this business’s market the same product in different ways with small variations like colour or size. In the beer industry there are normally two distinct categories that people get grouped into when being marketed, the wealthy and the average. These categories are based on income levels and using this edge marketers can appeal to whichever population they like. 

Simmons Market Research Bureau undertook a Study of Media and Markets in the article ‘The demographics of beer’, it is stated that the percentage of drinkers by age and gender for domestic regular beer like Budweiser is 72.1% of males and 27.9% for females. Imported beers such as Corona and Heineken have similar results ranging from 61.9% for men and 38.1% for women that drink corona and 68.4% for men and 31.6% for women that drink Heineken. Whilst in the age category between the ages of 25-34 the percentage of drinkers is only 28.2% for Corona and 24.8% for Heineken. As compared to an older age group that of 55-64 who drink much less with only 8.8% that consume Corona and 10.1% that drink Heineken (Beverage Dynamics July-Aug. 2005).

The opportunities for beer demographically are changing throughout time. Traditionally lower class men were the biggest consumers of beer as they would leave from there hard day of work to go to the pub. Nowadays there are more and more people drinking socially and it is becoming more prevalent in daily activities despite harsh laws on public drunkenness.

The opportunities for beer to spread over all demographics is becoming a reality as more and more people take part in the social leisure.

In recent years wine and spirits have become more prevalent in the alcohol market taking over the need for beer. However there is still a strong demand for beer products although breweries are finding it hard to promote new products and market to new audiences. The change from beer owning the majority of the alcohol market to wine and spirits taking over is due to younger and older generations that are drinking more wine and finding it easier to buy a shot of alcohol instead of drinking a whole beer. 

References

‘The demographics of beer’, Beverage Dynamics July-Aug 2005, Academic OneFile, Web, 26 Mar 2014.

Polonsky, M J, 10 Jan 2011, ‘Journal of Strategic Marketing, The incorporation of an interactive external environment: an extended model of marketing relationships, Vol 7, Issue 1, pp.41-55. 

Encyclopaedia, 2014, Demographics, Definition of ‘Demographics', Investopedia, Wednesday 26 march 2014, http://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/demographics.asp.

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