Sexism in our modern world

Since the beginning of history, sexism has always been a prominent barrier between sexes. The notion that women are not on the same level as men always been in existence, this belief stems from the creation of Eve, through a rib of Adam. From scripture, Eve’s roll was to be considered as a servant and temptress, the sole reason why Adam ate the apple. Consequently Eve is blamed as being the reason mankind is not living in paradise. Sexism has continued throughout ancient history and continues occur in our own environment to this day. Sexism affects our life even in today’s society. Sexism by definition is discrimination by members of one sex against the other, based on the assumption that one sex is superior whether physically, psychologically, or intellectually rather than their individual merits. Discrimination of gender is demonstrated in jobs, sport, school, advertising, etc. Sexism still exists in many cases when people are judged by their gender in today’s society. For example when playing sports it is more likely for a group of boys to let a boy play rather than a girl because they would assume she can’t because she is a female.

Sexism also exists when people assume that certain things are meant for a certain gender, for example that woman belongs in the kitchen.
Sexual discrimination still exists but its occurrence has drastically reduced. Ego plays a major role in sexism too, most en cannot handle being positioned under a women possessing authority, while women feel the need to gain authority to be taken seriously.
Even education plays a major role in this concept as education given to men or women may affect the factors in which they choose to use sexism in their own way for their own morale. Sexism against women allows men with a lower education than the women to get a better paying job than the women.
Sexism is a simple ideology that one sex is superior to the other the term is generally used to refer to male prejudice and discrimination against women any attitude and actions which overtly or covertly discriminate against women or men on the grounds of their sex or gender. We even know about sexist advertisement of the past. Happy housewives could not drive cars but could push vacuum cleaners. Time has changed; women are not anymore forced to be slaves of men in many societies. They are allowed to to be educated and become independent most countries in the world adopted United Nation’s The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women(CEDAW). But sexism will still exist.

Sexism in modern societies is reflected in attitudes that reinforce the sub-ordinated status of women. It’s an ideology that justifies prejudice or discrimination based on sex it results in the challenging of women into statuses considered appropriate for women and their exclusion from statuses considered appropriate for men. Sexist attitude also tend to “objectify” women, which mean they treat women as an object of sex. They do not consider women as individuals worthy of full measure of respect and equal treatment in social institutions.

“Woman is not born: she is made. In the making, her humanity is destroyed she becomes symbol of this, symbol of that; mother of the earth, slut of the universe; but she never becomes herself because it is forbidden for her to do so.”
– Andrea Dworkin.

Planning, decision-making and Control

8^th of October, my 4^th class of ‘Principles of Management’ the lesson was on ‘Planning, Decision Making and Control’ in Fashion Marketing. Prof. Northway gave a lecture on the establishment of different plans undertaken by the managers, measurement of plans, considering the role of decision making in planning and determination of successful implementation of a plan; controlled to ensure a successful business. He explained about planning, its necessities and implementation. I came to know that there are different types of plans (business plan, strategic plan and operational plans). I learnt about ‘planning to grow businesses on Managerial role and about SMART measurement.

Specific: a clear statement with a specific target.

Measurable: to illustrate how progress is being made.

Achievable: it should be challenging and attainable.

Reward: achieving the objective should be rewarding.

Time: the objective should be time specific and of a certain standard.

During the class, Prof. Northway asked us to watch the video ‘Henry Mintzberg on Decision Making’ for further information. The video was enlightening and I understood the different ways of management practice.
What I learned from this is that every business enterprise has its own predetermined objectives to be achieved. In order to achieve the objectives in the best possible manner, it requires a lo of mental exercise based upon imagination, foresight and judgment for deciding the tasks to be undertaken and the techniques to be adopted. No doubt, the success lies in the effective and sound planning, which undoubtly determines the future course of action.

In case, we do not plan our future activities, we shall pursue disorderly line of action; adopt ‘hit or miss’ method and meet the failure. We shall identify the mistakes committed in the process of action at a very late stage after washing a lot of resources. It emphasizes that the efficient management must foresee the future determine the goal, take into consideration its available resources, socio-economic environment and plan its course of future action.

Definition of planning;

“Planning I  mental predisposition to do things in orderly way, to think, before acting and to act in the light of facts rather than guess.”-Urwick

“Planning is deciding the best alternative among others to perform different managerial operations in order to achieve the predetermined goal.”-Henry Fayol

“Planning is selecting and relating of facts in the visualization and formation of proposed activities believed necessary to achieve desired results.”-George R.Terry

“Planning is a thinking process, the organized foresight, the vision based on fact and experience, that is required for intelligent action.”-Alford and Beaty

  

BUSINESS STRATEGY

The main objective of this lecture given by my Prof.Tom was on how a firm would seek to employ a business strategy and side by side how to understand the processes implemented and communicated by a firm to denote its purpose and position within the industry sectors.

All the management activities consists of their own organizational culture as well as structure, corporate social responsibility . It even consist of developing strategy along with planning, controlling and measuring performance, the main point is their innovation and team building.

MISSION STATEMENT:

The mission statement should guide the actions of the organisation, spell out its overall goal, provide a path, and guide decision-making. it provides "the framework or context within which the company's strategies are formulated." Its like a goal for what the company want to do for the world.it aligns with the stakeholders and enables employees to focus on the same goal. it actually defines the philosophy of a firm-what it stands for -why the firm exists.

EXAMPLES:
APPLE:"As a leader in innovation, the mission statement of the apple company should be equally innovative, inspiring and somewhat lofty, but officially and unofficially Apples mission is barely a mission at all."

GOOGLE: “to organize the worlds information and make its universally accessible and useful.”

E Bay: “provide a global trading platform where practically anyone can trade practically anything.”

The BCG Growth-Share Matrix is a portfolio planning model developed by Bruce Henderson of the Boston Consulting Group in the early 1970’s. it is based on the observation that a company’s business units can be classified into four categories based on combinations of market growth and market share relative to the largest competitors
Market growth serves as a proxy for industry attractiveness, and relative market share serves as a proxy for competitive advantage. The growth –share matrix thus maps the business unit positions within these two important determinants of profitability.

This framework assumes that an increase in relative market share will results in an increase in the generation of cash. This assumption often is true because of the experience curves; increased relative market share implies that the firm is moving forward on the experience curve relative to its competitors, thus developing a cost advantage. A second assumption is that a growing market requires investment in assets to increase capacity and therefore results in the consumption of cash. Thus the position of a business on the growth-share matrix provides an indication of its cash generation and its cash consumption.

Managing a changing environment

In my this lecture I learned how to consider the macro-environment through the framework of PESTEL influences to establish the environment context. Even how to position the firms environment through Poster’s five forces.

The environment context consist of both macro as well as micro environment. Macro-environment that’s the external of the firm is of economic, social, political, legal, technological and international. These factors should not be seen as independent factors. Factors such as technological advances may probably affect the social and economic conditions in different markets.

And micro-environment the internal of the firm are the suppliers, distributors  customers and competitors.

PESTEL FRAMEWORK

The PESTEL framework is designed to provide managers with an analytical tool to identify different macro-environment factors that may affect business strategies, and to assess how different environment factors may influence business performance now and in the future.

Political factors

         Stability of government,  Social policies, Trade regulations,

          Tax policies, Entry mode regulations

Economic factors

         Disposable income of buyers,   Credit accessibility,  Unemployment rates

         Interest rates, Inflation

Social Factors

        Population demographics,

         Distribution of Wealth,Changes in lifestyles and trends, Educational levels

Technological factors

      New innovations and discoveries,  Pace of technological innovations and advances,  Pace of       technological obsolescence,  New technological platforms .

Environmental factors
   Environmental protection laws

          Waste disposal laws, Energy consumption regulation, Popular attitude towards the environment

Legal factors     Employment regulations,Competitive regulations, Health and safety regulations, Product regulations

The key for business managers is therefor to discover the main  drivers of change that may affect business strategies and to discover the factors most likely to influence the performance of the business.
In conducting a PESTEL analysis, business managers may create strategies that take several macro-environment factors into consideration, so that the strategy formulation process will be as sensitive to current and future environment factors as possible.

PORTER’S 5 FORCES:

Assessing the Balance of Power in a Business Situation

The Porter's Five Forces tool is a simple but powerful tool for understanding where power lies in a business situation. This is useful, because it helps you understand both the strength of your current competitive position, and the strength of a position you're considering moving into.
With a clear understanding of where power lies, you can take fair advantage of a situation of strength, improve a situation of weakness, and avoid taking wrong steps. This makes it an important part of your planning toolkit.
Conventionally, the tool is used to identify whether new products, services or businesses have the potential to be profitable. However it can be very illuminating when used to understand the balance of power in other situations.