FORCES IN INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

FORCES IN INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS - Case Study Example Religion and language are also important cultural factors that influence international business. Natural resources forces explain the significance of natural geography, topography, natural endowments, climate and sustainability of energy resources use on international business. The political system in the country reflects the will of the country in determining its course of economic growth. Political stability in the country is essential for long term prospects of business. Many countries now are more open to privatization of business. A country's economic health will determine demand for goods and services and availability of infrastructure and other resources for doing business. Maturity of legal system in a country will determine the risk of doing business in the country and is essential for fair transactions. The country's financial position in terms of balance of payments, exchange rate, inflation etc will help multinational companies to draw up strategies on investment, managem ent of finances etc. Availability of labour and labor market trends will be important in determining setting up operations in a country. The Case of Coca Cola operations in India indicates how these seven forces influenced the company in its operations and how it reacted. The company had to face ethical dilemma of operating its plant in remote locations and face accusations of making profits at the cost of depriving locals of natural resource. Socio-Cultural forces Culture affects all business functions. Hofstede's cultural dimension model will be a useful starting parting to understand how culture influences business ((Hofstede, 2001).The power distance factor could indicate how bureaucracy operates in the country. If it is high it will mean a highly centralized decision making structure and very little delegation of powers to local authorities. This knowledge will help a company in doing negotiations. Very often this also defines the relationship between consumer and seller. This will also have an important bearing on organizational design. For example an organisation which tries to bring in its organizational value of empowered decentralized decision making to its employees from a cultural background of high power distance, will face difficulties in implementation (Meade 2005, p 95). Uncertainty avoidance may influence attitudes to entrepreneurship in society and inclination to take risks in financial institutions. Individualism vs. collecti vism dimension will indicate the level of influence of unions and labors attitude to collective bargaining. This will also determine the predominance of task or relationship in interpersonal management. Religion has a strong influence on commerce. Religion is responsible for many beliefs and attitude affecting behaviour, which is brought into business and organizations by people (Ball et al 2008). Attitude to work, accumulation of material wealth

Information Management and the Digital Firm Essay

Information Management and the Digital Firm - Essay Example Cloud computing comes in different forms, and example includes; SECaas, which refers to security as a service, IaaS, which deals with infrastructure and DBaas which mainly deals with databases. (Wang,, 2012). Cloud computing has five essential characteristics, and they are (Smoot and Tan, 2012), 1. Capability of pooling resource. Cloud computing can pool the resources of the providers computer in order to serve a high number of customers, through the use of a multi-tenant model. This model has different virtual and physical resources which are dynamically assigned according to the requirements of the customer. 2. It has a broad network access. The cloud computing system has a variety of capabilities which are available over the host network, and accessed through devices that promote the use of heterogeneous thick and thin platforms such as laptops, work stations and mobile phones. 3. It has an on-demand self-service system: The system allows the customer to control its capabilities s uch as server time, network storage system, and other application, and it does not need the human intervention of the system producer/ provider.The system allows customers to configure, deploy and obtain cloud computing services by their own initiative through guidance from the cloud computing catalogues. On this note therefore, developers of cloud computing technology have templates which contain configurations that the customer can use in setting up the system. These templates contain information on the cloud computing infrastructure, and information concerning servers contained in the system. These servers can perform specialized work like hosting of websites and databases (Hwang and Fox, 2012). 4. It has a measured service system. The system allows customers to monitor, control, report and provide a feedback concerning the use of the technology. The system also automatically controls and optimizes the use of the computing resources by creating a lever on the metering capability of the system. The creation of the lever on the metering capability of the system is dependent on the type of service the clouding system provides. These services might include provision of a system that allows customers to create active online accounts with the organization, storage or processing services (Hwang and Fox, 2012). 5. Its elasticity is rapid. The cloud computing system has capabilities that are provisioned elastically, and in some instances, its capabilities are automatically provisioned. Cloud computing provisions that are available for provisioning are unlimited, and it is possible to appropriate them in whichever quantity, and time is not an issue. In my own opinion, there are only some specific elements of the cloud computing system that are used in a digitally enabled business environment. The type of cloud computing system that is applicable in a business set up is the software as a service system (SaaS). In this system, it is possible to enable customers an acce ss to the databases and applications of the software. In this system, the role of the providers is to manage the platform, and infrastructure upon which the software is installed on. This system allows a business organization to reduce the costs associated with its information