Monday 30 July 2012

LE06



ORIGIN

The history of Kraft goes back to 1903, with $65 in capital, a rented wagon and a horse name Paddy, James L. Kraft started selling cheese at Chicago’s Water Street. His four brothers joined him in 1909, and they incorporated the fledging business as J. L. Kraft & Bros.

HISTORY
       In 1914, the Kraft brothers opened their first cheese making plant in Stockton, Illinois.
       In 1915 to produce a blended, pasteurized cheese that he marketed in metal containers as “process cheese.”
       By 1917, Kraft’s earnings were $2 million. The company rapidly expanded abroad opening an office in London (1924) and Germany (1927).
       Kraft went public in 1924; ftheir years later, it merged with Philadelphia cream cheese maker Phoenix.

VISION & MISSION
VISION

Helping people around the world eat and live better

Their vision captures the essence of who we are. Everything we do flows from Their vision. We just don't happen to be a business that sells food – it's what we're all about. Their vision is about meeting consumers' needs and making food an easier, healthier, more enjoyable part of life.

Their vision tells the world – Their employees, customers, consumers and the communities where we make and sell their products – what we care about. It captures the importance of health and wellness, but it also embodies all the ways we can eat and live better, such as the enjoyment of a dessert, the convenience of a microwave meal, the safety and value of Their products and the services and solutions we provide.

MISSION

Make Today Delicious

Kraft's mission is to provide fun, healthy food for people to enjoy. Their mission statement informs us that they care about their consumers. Their values areinnovation, quality, safety, respect, integrity, and openness. They strive as a company to communicate with the world reassuring them they're a trusted company with their products.




PRODUCTS AND SERVICES

       The world’s 2nd largest Food and Beverages company.
        A global presence in over 220 countries.
        Annual revenue of over $54 billion.
        Twelve of it’s brands have a turnover of $1billion annually.
        Eighty $100million plus companies.
        15 research and development centers around the world.

MAJOR BRANDS

It has over 100 brands ranging for all types of food and food products. They are majorly sub divided into:
       Cheese and Dairy Products.
       Snack Foods
       Sweets and Confectionary
       Convenience, Packaged Foods and Beverages



CAPACITY & MARKET SHARE

       More than 80 percent of their revenues come from products that hold the No. 1 share position in their respective categories and more than 50 percent of their revenue is driven by categories where the market share is twice the size of the nearest competitor.
       It has more than 125000 employees.
       It has revenue of over $54 billion.
       12 of its brands have an annual revenue of $1billion.
       Eighty of over $100million.


Distribution of Revenue

The revenue of Kraft is distributed over the precuts, the geographic locations and the channels
All of which are listed below
29%-Confectionaries 21%-Biscuits 18%-Beverages 14%- Cheese 10%- Convenient meals 08%- Grocery

THE DISTRIBUTION OF THE REVENUE CAN ALSO BEEN SEEN BELOW:


Management Team

It has a huge management team. Some of the prominent personals are :

       Irene Rosenfeld
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
      Irene came home to Kraft Foods in June 2006 as CEO and became Chairman in March 2007, following the company's spin off from Altria Group.  Since then, Irene has fundamentally changed the face, footprint and prospects of Kraft Foods. 

       David Brearton
     Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
       Tim Cofer
     Executive Vice President and President, Kraft Foods Europe 
       Sanjay Khosla
     Executive Vice President and President, Developing Markets


Corporate Responsibilities



Corporate Awards

It has received numerous awards all around the world for various corporate and social purposes. Some of us are listed below:
       Included in the:
  1. Dow Jones Industrial Average
  2. 2011/2012 Dow Jones Sustainability Index
  3. Global Dow Index
  4. Ethibel Sustainability Index
       Corporate Reputation and Responsibility
  1.            The Carbon Disclosure Project commended us for their approach to climate change disclosure in 2010 – adding us to the Carbon Disclosure Leadership Index for the first time.
  2.            They were listed as a Maplecroft Climate Innovation Index Leader in 2010 for their efforts to use less energy, reduce waste and promote green work spaces.
  3.       Kraft Foods ranked 23rd in the 2011 Corporate Social Responsibility Index, based on a survey of consumers created by the Boston College Center for Corporate Citizenship and the Reputation Institute.
  4.             The American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai awarded Kraft Foods China and China Youth Development Foundation the "Partnership Award" during their Sixth Annual Corporate Social Responsibility Conference.


       Awards for Workplace
  1.            100 Best Companies, "Working Mother" magazine -- 2011 for the sixth consecutive year and 10 times in the past 11 years. 
  2.            100 Best Places to Work in IT, "Computerworld" magazine, third consecutive year -- 2010.
  3.            Top 50 Companies for Diversity, "DiversityInc" magazine -- 2010.
  4.            Top 50 Best Employers for Latinas, "Latina Style" magazine – 2011 (10 consecutive years).


       Brands reputed all around the world

  1.             Consumers ranked Kraft Foods ftheirth on "Forbes" magazine's list of the Top 100 Brands.
  2.             "Fast Company" magazine ranked Kraft Foods second in its list of the top 10 innovators in advertising and marketing.
  3.             Kraft Hockeyville received a Gemini Award from the Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television.
  4.             Toblerone chocolate won its second consecutive Tambuli Award for the "Thank You Day Philippines Campaign."


Future Plans

       It plans to Split up parent company into two company. Major subdivision will be based on:
  1. Snacks
  2. Groceries
       Consolidating U.S. Management Centers
When the North American grocery company is spun off later this year, it will reduce its U.S. management center locations from four to two. "Consolidating their management locations is a sound business move," said Tony Vernon, Executive Vice President and President, Kraft Foods North America and CEO of the future grocery company. "Having the majority of their business units together in one location will provide greater development opportunities for their people and will help us continue building their brands more efficiently and collaboratively."

       Workforce Reductions

Throughout 2011, the North American business has been lowering costs to provide funds to invest in its brands. With leaner structures planned across both the future grocery company and the North America Snacks region,Kraft plans to eliminate approximately 1,600 positions throughout the United States and Canada over the next 12 months, primarily from sales, corporate and business unit areas. About 20 percent of these job eliminations are currently open positions.

      Realignment of U.S. Sales

The grocery and snacks businesses have distinct portfolios and routes to market. By realigning the U.S. Sales structure to create more focused teams, each company can customize its approach to in-store sales and execution to maximize impact. 


Here are some advertisements aired in India and US that support their Vision and mission statements

Thursday 19 July 2012

LE05


FIRE IN THE TEMPLE RUN RUN RUN!!!!!!


The cartoon from the 1980s called “ Three Bonzes”  shows 3 Buddhist monks trying to achieve a common objective of filling up buckets of water and carrying it to the top of the mountain in a temple where they store it in a drum and use for drinking.



Condition 1: WORK HABITS

Initially the situation was that a monk descend the mountain everyday to fill up the water. 



After every few days a new monk would join the temple and they just had the responsibility of filling up the water vessel. 
The following observations were made:

UTLIZATION OF RESOURCES
The monks had a rod on which they could hang buckets and carry it to the lake to fill the water and bring it back to the temple. They tried different combinations like, 1 monk carrying 2 buckets, 2 monks carrying 1 bucket……..in this scenario the monks carrying the buckets also kept on changing. When there was only 1 monk there was no problem as he was self sufficient. With the increase in the number of monks the water demand increased but due the limited resources the availability was constant.

DIVISION OF WORK
As soon as the new monk entered the old monk tried to put the whole responsibility on the new monk hence trying to avoid any efforts. Consider a similar situation in any organization, if that is done every employee will have to spend more time in learning new things than implementing the things that he already has learnt so minimizing possible output.


PER CAPITA REQUIREMENT
The consumption of water of all the three monks differed. The 1st monks needed least amount of water whereas the 3rd needed the most. Also the height, weight and the working capability of every individual was different. Such is the case in each organization. But organizations are not built for the employees, the employees are selected for the goal of the organization and it is the responsibility of a manager to provide them with a condition where they can give maximum results.



AVAILABLITY OF SPARE RESOURCES
In case of emergency like the monk was choking after having some food there was no water available in the bucket but he had stored small amount in the vase which helped him in such urgent situation.

Condition 2: APPROACHES


Second condition was when the house was on fire. Different approaches were employed to put out the fire. They are listed down

INDIVIDUAL APPROACH


When suddenly the house was on fire there was no water left in the bucket as it was already utilized by the monks. To put out the fire each monk got panicked and tried his best to run down to the river and bring the bucket full of water. But this process was ling and tiring, and also had to many glitches on the road. So it proved to be ineffective.

COLLECTIVE APPROACH


With the co ordination between the 3 monks all 3 of them were given responsibilities of the same importance but had tasks different from one another. With the help of a synchronized approach they were able to put out the fire but it took a lot of effort and a process time was too long.

SCIENTIFIC APPROACH


After the fire was put out the came up with an innovative way of filling up water from the lake. They used a pulley system. Use of this approach not only reduced the time and efforts but also the importance of the employee as each employee(monk) could do the same work with equal efforts which was lesser than the earlier approach and hence Per capita requirement of resources also reduced.




CONTINUOUS VS DRASTIC INNOVATION
During the normal days the monk introduced continuous innovation with instances like use of more employees so as to reduce work load, use of a common scale of measurement, new techniques of placing buckets on the rod, and so on. They were effective but did not change the way in which the organization performed. There was gradual and slow improvement which is undesirable in any organization

At the time of fire the synchronized their work patterns and used their ability to do just one work: eg monk 1 only filled the water, monk 2 only delivered the water, monk 3 only put out the water. So clarity of roles of an employee in an organization was introduced and hence helped in betterment. Also, after the fire was put out they introduced a totally innovative method that changed their work patterns drastically and enabled them to work more effectively as the work load was reduced and hence they felt less fatigues. Hence it is clear that this method is far superior than any other method.


CONCLUSION
Organizational management with Scientific management will avail new and the most effective ideas and ways of performing the most difficult tasks in the easiest of manners.

Monday 9 July 2012

LE04


Teamwork is an important concept in any kind of organisation. It is impossible to function in an organisation without the teamwork. Efficiency in any organization is dependent on the amount of trust team members have in on another. The best example of teamwork that I can give is that of a CIRCUS. When a show man swings from one rope to the other he must have utmost trust in his partner who is suppose to catch him.



CONCEPT:

In order to understand the importance of teamwork we must 1st look at the types of people in an organization:

1) Theory X : The managers who assume that the people working under them are lazy and are bound to avoid work if they get a chance. The only way to make people work is by threat and use of power. More often than not this theory does not allow employees to gel amongst themselves and know each other.

2) Theory Y : Contrary to Theory X , lies the motto for Theory Y . This management style assumes that the employees are self motivated and are ambitious. A Theory Y manager believes that, given the right conditions, most people will want to do well at work. This allows employees to learn from one another and have a positive attitude towards work.


For an organization to function we need people with Theory Y people throughout the organization. If there was no team work the organization would some what look like this where the load has to be borne by just 1 individual.



EXAMPLE:

To understand the concept of teamwork let take an example of 3 people who are trying to cross a valley:



Factors to be assumed are:
1. The valley is bigger than 1 step and smaller than 2 steps.
      2.   It needs only 3 people who are equidistant from one another.
      3.  The log must be longer than 3 steps.

We can observe here that all the 3 people have crossed the valley without much of a trouble. It has been possible due to teamwork. Had they been walking alone and tried to cross individually, this couldn't have been possible or could have been more difficult and time consuming.


OBSERVATIONS:


Why were they able to complete the task?

In order to successfully do this we need to follow 3 stages:

     1.       Structuring the task:  Step by step analysis of how to go about doing a particular task is structured and charted out.

     2.       Defining team rolesResponsibility of each individual must be clear. Load on all individuals must be similar so as to allow smooth functioning.

     3.       Preparation and Execution: Training individuals to do the task and finally executing it successfully.

RESULT:



      1.       All (3) member Roles have equal distribution of different kinds of situations:
                                Risky --- 1 situation;
                                Half risky --- 2 situations;
                                Fully Safe --- 2 situations

      2.       All (3) members have similar roles in terms of effort and risk. Nobody was overloaded or was allowed to relax.

      3.   They were able to cross the valley because of proper synchronization and understanding between one another.
   

      CONCLUSION:


A team without team work is like a body without heart. It has all the components but doesn’t have blood circulating to keep every part alive.

Tuesday 3 July 2012

LE03


Khan academy founded by Mr. Salman Khan in late 2004 is something which started as tutoring an individual online lead to an evolution that became the future of education all over the world.

VISION

Providing education to every student in the world in the most simplistic and innovative manner.

MISSION

Bringing classroom on the Internet. Making education easy, fun and effective.

Technical - Human- conceptual skill

Consider yourself sitting in a classroom where the professor is teaching you a chapter on algebra. You do not understand a concept but are too shy or scared to ask thinking that you might make a fool of yourself. Rather if you are watching the same thing online you can pause and go back to the concept taught, refer to some material or revise the basics again.


In today’s age man and machine are meant to go hand in hand. It not only eases the work but also enables the optimized result required. By providing an online platform there are advantages like optimized utilization of time & resources, possibility of graphical representation & animations and overcoming barriers of geographical constrains.


New Generation Organization

Students can learn a wide variety of topics in math, science, economics, history, and much more at the click of the mouse. They can watch thousands presentations given by experts, do math exercises, and keep track of their progress with different tools. With high-quality lectures and an interactive format, Khan Academy empowers kids to set goals and learn at a comfortable pace.


Revenue/Business Model

The project is funded by donations. Khan Academy is an NGO with significant backing from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Google. Several people have made contributions resulting in total revenue of about $150,000 in donations. Additionally, it also earned $2,000 a month from ads on the Web site in 2010, until Khan Academy ceased to accept advertising. In 2010, Google announced it would give the Khan Academy $2 million for creating more courses and for translating the core library into the world’s most widely spoken languages, as part of their Project.

Business Model is based on the concept of uploading videos on YouTube. These videos consist of the experts in respective fields. Provisions for test, reviews and analysis are also provided to enable students, teachers and parents to understand and work on the strengths and weakness of each individual.


Bounded rationality

Rationality of an individual is bounded by the information they have. Khan academy provides a varied source of information for students to learn and understand every concept in detail and proficient manner.
The tutor can also have better access about the student’s abilities as it provides graphical information regarding the performance of an individual. Assume a case where a student has given an online test. After submitting the result a graphical display of the answers given is shown. Here he/she can have access to the number of answers answered correctly, time spent on each answer and strength and weakness on a particular subject. The graph below shows the same:


The idea here is to provide as much data to the teacher as possible. This will help him/her evaluate and understand the problem of every student. Hence resulting in max results


Teamwork/Organization Control

Any organization is incomplete without a team. Teamwork is very essential for an organization as it helps to build and grow. This academy is incomplete without Academic team featuring in different videos, innovation team, technical team and sponsors. Each one of them has different roles and with absence of any, the organization cannot function.
Organization control is equally essential as it is required to set parameters, evaluate the performance and make changes according to the feedback received. If there is no scope for improvement then the organization comes to a stagnation and there always are competitors ready with new ideas and take away your market share.


Future

Online education is the near future as it has several advantages over classroom tutoring both in the student’s and teacher’s perspective. This could be the DNA for a physical school where students spend 20 percent of their day watching videos and doing self-paced exercises and the rest of the day doing whatever pleases and interests them the most.