Monday, 21 October 2013

Motivating And Sustaining Non-Profit Employees Within An Organization

In non-profit organizations, the employees are driven by much more than monetary gain. Non-profit organizations cannot lure employees in with monetary perks as is the case with for-profits, nor can they motivate employees to work harder and increase productivity through monetary perks, cash benefits or paid vacations and leaves. These employees are much more likely to be motivated due to intrinsic factors than they are likely to see an opportunity for motivation in extrinsic motivating factors.


For non-profit employees, organizations need to focus mostly on the intrinsic factors that motivate individuals. The word non-profit naturally implies that extrinsic factors of motivation will not be as helpful in achieving the desired results where it concerns non-profit employees. When rewards and punishments are used as extrinsic factors of motivation, they usually result in only short term motivation, and accordingly, short term results. If an organization understands the psychological principles which are fueling employee motivation, however, and find effective ways to connect these principles to the relative business goals, individuals can be raised to much higher levels of performance than is usually thought possible. Also, connecting the underlying motivating factors with performance and, ultimately, results makes it possible for the organization to sustain the high level of performance over a longer term period.

A non-profit employee will be more inclined towards fulfilling his self actualization and esteem needs than the others. The drive to fulfill basic needs will be there, but the employee in question will be more concerned with the part that he can play in achieving the task at hand, rather than the material rewards he or she hopes to receive upon completing the task. According to McClelland’s theory of needs, a non-profit employee will be more concerned with fulfilling the need for achievement more than other of the three needs mentioned in the theory.

Non-profit organizations need to understand that the workplace is dynamic. It is a known and well established fact that neither the organization nor its workforce can be expected to be static over any period of time. Therefore, it is important to design motivation programs that are viable to survive through the dynamics of the workplace. This can be achieved through creating as well as sustaining an environment where each employee is capable of motivating themselves effectively. If developing and sustaining employee motivation is seen as an ongoing process, the results will ultimately be more fruitful.

Minimizing Political and Economic Risks In New Country

In order to minimize political risks in new country, certain steps should be taken:


Being the multinational and a developing country like South Africa, a business can make strong alliances with the current government. Many developed nations like U.S, have the political risk coverage for foreign businesses, therefore the business can aim to gain the same from government as well. 

Diversifying the assets into more than one SBU (Strategic Business Unit) can be adopted in order to spread the risks into large but safer avenues. Example, the business can invest more in bedroom sets, assuming that it is more in demand and invest less in other risky sides. 

In order to ensure the business operate smoothly, the company can even go for joint venture or acquisition agreement by using the expertise of same business, rather than setting up everything on its own. In case of optimistic results, business can later purchase all shares and take the control on its own.

While entering a new market, it is important to do a political risk assessment by hiring an expert or a consultant, weigh the likelihood of political instability, nationalization of company assets, or military intervention etc.   A company can hire its own internal capabilities to ensure a continuous political risk assessment of a country.

If the market is ready for international goods, there is a chance that competition in local and international would get fleecier, manufacturers’ especially local ones will bring in competitive products at lower rates to compete with the international business; therefore the business can minimize this risk by improving its operations and achieving cost efficiencies.

Government in order to support economic activity may give incentives to local manufacturers which would threaten the international business and its policies. Therefore while entering; it is important to understand the government policies towards current multinationals and local manufacturers.

Macro-environmental Differences between South Africa and Britain



A multinational to enter into a new market, with strong brand name, promising product quality and durability, there is a need to understand the macro-environment first in order to see if the opportunity is feasible in terms of four different factors, political, economic, social, and technological (PEST).  

PEST analysis determines the macro environmental factors that affect the business’s profitability in any country. For a business to operate successfully, it has to do PEST analyses on continual basis, understand the environment and make changes accordingly. For IMPERIAL FURNITURE, it is important to understand business scenario in South Africa as well. 

Political Factors: South Africa has previously been home of political upheavals and de-stabilized political situation. The inter-country riots among different cultures of people were a reason for racism, low economic activity and destabilized political situation. But the Nelson Mandela’s government in 1990 changed the political scenario of the country by dissolving all the discriminatory laws, rules and regulations and the situation began to improve. Since then, South Africa has been an improved and attractive opportunity for businesses, even multinationals. The end of political and social riots in the country brought stability, increasing economic performances. 

These political conditions are different from that of the company’s home country on the basis that the political scenario in UK has been very stable with no apparent political problems. Britain is home for many multinational and internationally recognized big retail stores, IMPERIAL FURNITURE being one of the examples in home furnishings. However, the tax policies and other legal issues for a business are very stringent and the companies have to abide by them all the time. Whereas this in South Africa is an attractive factor, with the recent policies and tax structures, it is easier to operate in that market; the government for the businesses is flexible and a new entering multination can easily develop relationship with government. 

Economic Factors: Over the last few years, the economic conditions for the country have been improving given the fact that the country policies for few years have been designed to attract businesses by lower costs for doing businesses, lesser taxes for businesses and business friendly policies. South Africa is a developing nation, therefore the economic growth in terms of GDP is expected to grow as well, not only this, the income levels of the average south Africans have also been improving due to gradual increase in economic activity. The barriers to entry in the country are low, gradual increase in consumerism among South Africans is the major reason that the opportunity seems lucrative for a new multinational.

Social Factors: South African market is a mix of different languages, cultures, norms, value and traditions. The country is also divided among high and low income groups due to high income disparity. This can also be seen as an opportunity for the merging businesses as they will be able to choose the target market very clearly, and target the ones who can afford and are relevant to meeting the overall business objectives. Almost the whole population has access to basic facilities whereas a sizeable number is able to exploit the upscale products and services as well. 

These social factors in South Africa are different from UK as there are not many cultures and communities in latter one; there is a growing sense of consumerism and individuality, the concept of societies and togetherness is less prominent, the divorce rate is higher as well; whereas in South Africa, the communities and cultures are still there, making the opportunity more lucrative for the business.

Technological factors: The technological environment of South Africa is attractive as it gives access to the basic infrastructure and technological facility. The cheaper manpower in terms of operating technology is also available which can support the business infrastructure very well. Other than that, the support activities like telecommunication, travelling, internet and broadcasting facilities are present for the business.
United Kingdom is more technologically aware and far advanced than South Africa, therefore the business from Britain going in South Africa, would have to make some efforts in the field if it has to work with technology savvy operations.  



Legal factors: The legal environment of South Africa is favorable for businesses of any type. The world-class progressive framework of the country enables organizations to settle in the country without facing a lot of obstacles. The legislation dealing with the labor and commerce issues is highly developed while international laws and conventions should be adhered in dealing with competition, patents and copyrights. On the other hand, the legal environment of UK is very strong and strict they have rules and regulations that have to be followed and this affects the company’s activities and operations tremendously as breaking of the laws results in penalties for the business.

Just-in-Time Application at Vodafone The Cellular Company

Just in time concept is a relatively new concept in the industries and its application on one hand is very successful in terms of inventory management, but on other hand, the implementation of the system is costly and not each and every organization can afford it. Most of the successful companies introducing just in time inventory system includes biggest US super store chain Wal-Mart, and leading computer hardware manufacturer Dell.

Just in time system in the cellular industry has not been introduced so far, however, the application can be possible and will be successful as it will help serving the customers amazingly well. The companies have huge data bases of customers available and it will be very helpful for the company to introduce the just in time system.

There have been researches in the aspect of introducing just-in-time inventory systems in the cellular industry. One of the comprehensive studies in this field has carried out to find out consumer readiness towards mobile learning and just-in-time systems in the cellular industry.

The objectives of the study specifically were to find out the level of consumer involvement in the mobiles and their readiness towards accepting the complex systems like just-in-time. One of the applications of this system can be applied in student’s interest towards m-learning, which is the mobile learning in shape of SMS, MMS, and voice mail and can be a great way to save time and costs of physical learning environment. SMS is the most widely used two way communication systems being used by the youth, especially the students all over the world. Therefore, if just in time were to be implemented in the m-learning systems for student’s, it would bring substantial shift in the use of mobile technology, apart from usual communication methods.

In the mentioned research, the just-in-time systems was asked in three major dimensions that included a scenario of using m-learning for test revision, the situation where reminders for assessment deadline and groups meeting etc was needed and the situation of using JIT for important announcements.



Various application of the models and students feedback resulted that the students were inclined towards using mobile learning for the academic purposes. More than 70 percent of the student agreed that they can use the mobile technology for learning and this will benefit them greatly. Out of the three styles the majority of respondents agreed that they will use SMS for m-learning and will use these systems for the entire semester instead of yearly or during exams.

Therefore, there is a chance of using just-in-time systems in purely service industry like cellular and depending upon the target and demographics of the Vodafone market, it can successfully implement the technology in various aspects, one of them being students benefiting for the academic purposes.

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