Global management issues

Introduction

In the recent era of globalisation, the multinational corporate firms are facing challenges in managing their business operations across the globe. There are several problems in managing the global operational activities where the leader and the managers face problems to fulfil their organisational aim and objectives (Lasserre, 2017). The major issues in the recent era of globalisation are lack of management of the human resource, poor strategy to gain high competitive advantage and financial crisis due to failure to manage financial stability of the firms in the recent years. Lasserre (2017) suggested that, the multinational corporate firms are facing globalisation challenges including costs of production and distribution, maintaining moral standards, sustainability, and corporate social responsibility in managing their global business operations. The aim of the report is to develop in depth understanding about the global management issues in identifying the problems that are faced by the companies across the globe. The study is effective to discuss over the management issues in the organisational context like Tesco and Walmart, where it has been evidenced that, the companies have faced problems in managing their global operational activities across the international markets. Through this paper, it is possible to review the management issues and explore the strategic planning to manage the issues by developing suitable organisational culture and creating effective strategic planning.

The aim of discuss over the management issues in the organisational context like Tesco and Walmart. The objectives are,

• To identify the global management issues
• To acknowledge the organisational strategies to tackle the issues
• To recommend some suitable suggestions for managing the issues in future

Literature review on global management issues

The organisations face several issues in managing the global operations across the international markets and it is necessary for the organisational leader and the management team to manage their operations and develop appropriate strategic planning to handle the issues.

Theme 1: Global management issues affecting the business operations

There are critical issues, for which the multinational corporate firms are facing challenges in expanding their business across the globe and in this regard lack of communication is one of the major issues for which the leaders fail to share the important messages with all the employees at the workplace. In the modernisation phase, due to lack of communication, the employees are confused about the organisational aims and objectives and it becomes difficult for them to work according to their roles and responsibilities. Poor cooperation is another management issue, where the organisational leader faces challenges in managing the employees, as the staff members are not collaborative at the workplace of the firms. In this regard, the leader is also unable to handle the staff across different stores around the globe. The multinational corporate firms have different store locations and it becomes challenging to manage all the staff members across different locations (Ansoff et al., 2018). As per the cultural relativism, cultural diversity is another issue, where the global management system can be hampered. Due to cultural diversity and differences in language and values, the workers are no able to interact with others at the organisational workplace and this raise issues in working together as a partnership basis (Morozova, Popkova and Litvinova, 2019). Due to cultural diversity, there raises problems of internal conflicts and resistance to change, where the employees are not willing to accept the organisational change and the issues of internal conflicts hamper the smooth business process in the organisations. Hereby, poor communication, lack of cooperation and the cultural diversity are the major global management issues that the organisations face in maintaining their global operational activities (Rothaermel, 2016).

In addition to this, in the post-modernisation phase, lack of strategic planning of human resource management is one of the major issues in operating internationally, where the firms are facing challenges in managing the employees across the globe. It is necessary for the organisations to manage the employees, who are the major stakeholders of the companies to make the business successful and run the operational activities across the international markets (Vargas-Hernández, Jiménez and Campos, 2017). In this regard, lack of structured salary and poor wage payment to the employees is the major issue in managing the workers across the globe. Additionally, recently, the workers are not feeling safe in working in the organisation due to lack of safety and security at the workplace. Poor compensation structure and lack of initiatives in providing performance related pay are other management issue to handle the strong workforce and retain the experienced staff in long run (Pattanayak and Sahoo, 2017). Hereby, lack of monetary and non-monetary incentives for the employees is the major management issue in handing the workforce in the organisational context. The firms face the issue of high labour retrenchment and employee turnover due to lack of incentives structure where the leaders fail to create values for the employees. The employees are not encouraged at the workplace and it leads to labour turnover and it further hampers the organisational performance. In this context, another issue is poor performance management scheme in the organisation which further demotivates the employees in the workplace and in this situation the leader face challenges to retain the experienced workforce in long run (Vargas-Hernández, Jiménez and Campos, 2017).

On the other hand, there are other global management issues related to cultural relativism, which are lack of clarity, slow decision-making practice, conflicting corporate culture and disjointed conflict resolution as well as constant change, poor morale, poor marketing tactics, lack of transparency and accountability and these issues are critical for which the leader face challenges in managing their global operations across the international markets. In this regard, the leader fail to maintain transparency and accountability at the workplace and for which there is lack of fairness in treatment of the employees and this leads to the problems of lack of trust ad poor understanding (Ribeiro and Correia, 2020). In addition to this, the leader also fails to maintain proper corporate culture of which appropriate organisational rules and legislations cannot be implemented properly. In order to handle the international operations, the leaders must focus on the rules and legal obligations in the international countries which become difficult to handle the legal compliances (Kipper et al., 2019). Additionally, in the post modernisation phase, the decision making practice is another major activity which needs to be handled properly, however, the leaders and the management team face difficulties to develop appropriate decision for enhancing innovation and creativity and slow decision making behaviour further deteriorate the performance of the corporate firms (Morozova, Popkova and Litvinova, 2019).

Theme 2: Impacts of the existing issues on the organisations

The above mentioned global management issues are critical and the leaders are facing challenges in managing the global operations successfully. The organisational performance would be hampered in near future for such global management issues, where the leaders and the managers fail to handle the employees across the globe and it further deteriorate the brand values and performance in the global context. Due to global management issues, the organisational international operations will be hampered where the leader and the managers face difficulties to develop effective decision to manage the global operations. The global operational issues further hamper the sales volume and deteriorate the profitability of the organisations, for which the firms fail to gain high competitive advantages in the global market (Vargas-Hernández, Jiménez and Campos, 2017). In this regard, the global management issues deteriorate the smooth pace of business operational activities and it becomes difficult for the organisations to develop appropriate strategic planning to achieve future business success (Alrahbi, Ahmad and Khalid, 2019). It also becomes complicated for the multinational corporate firms to expand their business internationally and retain the experience staff for long run to run the organisational operational activities. In this regard, the organisations fail to achieve future success and fail to fulfil the organisational aims and objectives due to poor performance in the market (Alrahbi, Ahmad and Khalid, 2019). The global management issues further raise problems in handling the employees across the globe and the leader also fail to develop suitable corporate culture to handle all the stakeholders across the international markets. In this regard, the organisations need to develop suitable tactic and strategic planning to handle the global management issues and secure future sustainable development by conducting the global operations efficiently (Morozova, Popkova and Litvinova, 2019).

Theme 3: Organisational strategic planning to tackle the global management issues

The above mentioned issues need to be tackled properly as the issues may deteriorate the smooth pace of global operations and it hampers the organisational performance as a whole. In this regard, the organisations try to develop suitable structure for giving monetary and non-monetary incentives to all the employees for retaining the experienced staff in long run so that the organisational performance can be increased in long run. Moreover, redesigning the salary structure and introducing effective performance related pay are effective to maximise the employee’s needs and preferences (Vargas-Hernández, Jiménez and Campos, 2017). On the other hand, the leader and the managers try to maintain transparency and accountability to treat the employees fairly and maximise the organisational performance through performance management system and encouraging the employee’s creativity and innovation at the workplace of the firms (Alrahbi, Ahmad and Khalid, 2019). Apart from that, decision making practice need to be developed properly, so that it is possible to structure the tactics of achieving future success and it is necessary to empower all the staff in the decision making behaviour to improve interest of the employees and encourage them to perform better (Farkas, 2016).

Case study analysis of the global management issues

Tesco as a famous retail super market chain, based on the UK is also facing global management issue, which deteriorates the performance of the company. The company aims at delivering high quality product at affordable price and it is necessary for the organisation to sustain in the global retail market by developing effective tactics to handle their operations and expand the business internationally. Lack of big store management is the major issue of Tesco, where the managers and the leaders of Tesco face difficulties in handling the labourers at the store, and maintain cultural diversity as there are many employees who are working oversees (The Gurdian, 2018). The organisation faces difficulties in managing the corporate culture across the international stores, where it faces problems in managing the strong employee base. There are several global management issues in Walmart where the leader faces problems in managing their stakeholders in long run for managing the global operational activities. The organisation faced issues in managing labour relations, where it is difficult for the firm to manage over 2.2 million employees and the issue is related to lawsuit and where the issues are involved with low wages, poor working condition at the organisational workplace, inadequate health care as well as the anti-union policies and practice. In this context, the employees are involved in strike and they are not willing to work productively (Boyle, 2019). This further deteriorates the productivity and performance of the organisation. The company also faced the issue of poor staff and understaffed store, where the staff members are not well trained to serve the customers and manage the stock of the quality products as well as there is proper presence of staff at the store which deteriorates the service quality to run the organisations efficiently. The issues further deteriorate the organisational performance in global level and there is high labour turnover for which the organisation fails to expand their business internationally (Howland, 2019).

Additionally, there are lack of transparency and management of accountability in Tesco which raise issue among the employees and for this it is also problematic for the leader to handle the employees and improve trust and loyalty across the international employees (The Gurdian, 2014). On the other hand, Tesco is facing problem in managing their marketing tactics and loyalty program of the employees, due to lack of initiatives of the marketing management. For global management of the business operational activities, it is necessary for the organisation to improve marketing tactics, however, due to lack of initiatives and creativity, the firm fails to manage their promotion across the international markets. Additionally, there is the presence of underperformed employees at the stores, which raise issue about performance management as lack of capabilities in performing in the organisational workplace hamper the overall performance of the organisation in long run. The staff members are not technically skilled in some time and it becomes difficult for the organisational leader to lead the change towards technological innovation and this is related to job cuts in the organisation (The Gurdian, 2018).There are also other global management issues of Tesco which are unpredictable price of the raw materials, rising cost of production, market shifting for globalisation, lack of knowledge about the local customers across the international countries and perception of low quality among the customers. On the other hand, the turnover rate of the employees at Walmart becomes high due to unhappy workforce in which the leader fails to create values for the employees. This is one of the major global management issues, where the global operations of Walmart depends on the employee’s performance and the staff members are the major organisational resource and major stakeholders to lead the business operations and gain high competitive advantage in the retail industry across the globe. The female workers are discriminated in terms of pay and promotion and there exists cultural diversity, for which the employees are not willing to concentrate on their roles and responsibilities and they fail to perform better in the organisational context (Howland, 2019). On the other hand, the company is also suffering from product selection, where there is issue in delivering high quality products to the customers.

In order to run the organisation successfully, and ensure future sustainable development, the company Tesco needs to restructure the organisational policies and practice and design appropriate strategic planning to mitigate the global management issues, so that it would be possible for the leader to retain the experienced staff and lead them towards achieving future success (The Gurdian, 2018). The company has strong employee base and it is the responsibility of the leader to handle the employees and managing their performance so that the issue of underperformed can be resolved well. Introducing quality program, providing personal insurance coverage to the employees and giving them appropriate training and developmental program are effective for the organisation to tackle the employees and enhance communication for building trust and loyalty among all the staff members across the international countries. Moreover, the company focuses on improving the quality of products by utilising quality and fresh raw materials and developing the strategic planning of promoting the brand and managing the price of the products are effective for the company to strengthen their customer’s base and retain long run buyers to secure future sustainable development. On the other hand, it is necessary for the organisation Walmart to develop proper strategy for handling the issues so that the organisational leader can run the operations globally and maximise the organisational objectives in long run. The company focuses on making difference at the workplace by restructuring the employment rules and legislations, so that the company Walmart can maximise the organisational performance (Howland, 2019). In this regard, the leader is efficient to support the employees through arranging effective training program including cultural training so that the staff members can improve their knowledge and skill and improve understanding about managing diversify culture in the workplace. On the other hand, for managing the workforce globally, the organisations try to restructure the internal workplace policies and practice where the staff members can feel safe and secured to work together. In this regard the organisational leaders try to provide safety and insurance coverage as well as maintain hygienic factors to create values for the employees.

The employees become able to handle the workplace activities and manage internal conflicts and cultural diversity by improving communication and cooperation. In addition to this, the strategy of introducing loyalty program, attitude cards, developing workplace structure and the strategy of gold star are effective for efficient performance review and encourage the staff for better performance. Additionally, Walmart aims to develop proper structure to improve corporate culture in the organisation (Boyle, 2019). The strategy of managing transparency at the workplace, giving appropriate wage to minimise the issue of low wage at Walmart and performance related pay are effective strategic planning through which the company aims to tackle the global management issues and ensure future sustainable development. Through effective product selection, developing organisational culture and managing employees through providing monetary and non-monetary incentives, it would be possible for Walmart to gain high competitive advantage in near future. Additionally, the issue of cultural diversity needs to be managed by the workers, where the leaders try to develop cultural training process and enhance cooperation and communication among the employees so that the staff members can understand each other’s values and beliefs and they would be able to collaborate and work as team. Hereby, team building activities and the organisational policies and suitable corporate culture are effective to provide effective circumstances to work and achieve future organisational aims and objectives (Khan et al., 2017).

Conclusion

The leaders and the managers are facing serious challenges in managing the operational activities across the international markets. It is the responsibility of the organisational leader to develop effective way to tackle the challenges and management issues so that the organisational aims and objectives would be achieved efficiently. In this regard, the major issues of managing the global operational activities are such as lack of strategic planning for managing human resources, poor performance management tactics, lack of communication and non-cooperation, as well as lack of clarity, slow decision making behaviour, lack of utilisation of organisational resources and capabilities, poor corporate culture, cultural diversity and high employee turnover. These are the major management issues, for which the leaders and the managers fail to achieve future organisational objectives and the performance of the firms will also be deteriorated.

In order to improve the organisational strategic planning and enhance the organisational performance in long to maximise profitability and gain high competitive advantage, it is necessary for the corporate firms to restructure their human resource management practice, implementing legal rules to develop suitable corporate culture, enhance the decision making practice and maintain transparency of the global operations, so that trust and loyalty among all the stakeholders can be developed and they are willing to contribute positively and productively in achieving future organisational success. In this regard, the famous organisations Tesco and Walmart also faced critical issues in managing their global operations due to poor marketing strategy, lack of corporate culture, poor management of cultural diversity and lack of efficiency in creating values for the employee. It is the role of the leaders of both the corporate firms to restructure their strategic planning and maximise values for all the stakeholders by providing suitable corporate culture, giving them high return on investment and conducting fair organisational activities across the international markets.

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