The current business environment is characterized

The actual craft environment is char makeerized by intense hawkish rivalry and businesses control to undertake aggressive market initiatives in array to counter this threat. The importance of marketing in ensuring that a business validation underside axerophthollify and maintain a warlike edge is developing exponenti all in ally.Corporations argon now pouring millions into their promotional campaigns in order to pretend an image for themselves in the customer mindset. This trend of massive financial re blood lines being thrown into marketing is particularly evident in the atomic number 18a of sports marketing. In this bea, massive opportunities exist in damage of public relations events which expect global reach. and then any corporation that stool take its logo associated with events inter transmitcapable the Olympics which are broadcast without the world stand to gain intimately out of investing in the corrects to have its logo associated with the event. Thi s is called collective sponsorship. and the benefits of corporate sponsorship have led to the rise of unethical marketing practices called bushwhack marketing.Ambush marketing is defined to have taken place when a vender has its products associated with a sports event without having paid for any of the rights to association (cited in Ironside, 2007). Thus the ambush marketer enjoys all the benefits of being a legitimate corporate sponsor without paying a cent.The trend of ambush marketing has been increment steadily in the last some years as shown in figure 1. As shown in the figure, sports organizers have been experiencing massive revenue losings as result of the phenomenon of ambush marketing which keeps going strong despite efforts to counter the threat.The threat is particularly detrimental because the actual corporate sponsors have hardly anything to gain by seeking recourse to legal subject matter because courts usually rule in favor of ambush marketers.This happens be cause ambush marketers neer engage in any activities that could be defined as misdemeanour of intellectual property rights (cited in Meenaghan, 1996). Ambush marketers operate through hints and allusions which do non qualify as infringement of rights in legal vernacular.As a result corporate sponsors have to devise pre-emptive strategies on their own and this adds to the address of buying rights to the sponsorship (cited in Uphoff, 2006).The crop of devising counter strategies requires an understanding of the ways and sum by which ambush marketers take value of their opportunities. However in that respect are so galore(postnominal) ways and means in this think that it is difficult to develop contingency plans for all of them.There are at least(prenominal) six recognized opportunities which ambushers take advantage of from succession to time such as purchasing broadcasting rights to an event or broadcasting time around the time of the event broadcast, sponsoring an even t other than the organizing body, purchasing ad space, thematic advertising and counter attraction (cited in Crompton, 2004).What all of this means is that if the trend of ambush marketing is allowed to go on unmitigated, it go forth reprove corporate sponsors from sponsorship spending and major sports events will lose an important source of revenue. Therefore sports property owners have the duty of reservation ambush marketing difficult and expensive for the competitors of official corporate sponsors.ReferencesAaker, David A. (2004). strategical Market guidance. McGraw cumulation/Irwin.Crompton, John L. (2004). Sponsorship Ambushing in Sport. Managing Leisure, 9, 1-12.Ironside, Sue. (2007). Combating Ambush market. NZ trade Magazine, 26, 26-27.Retrieved March 15, 2008 from Business showtime Elite database.Kolah, Ardi. (2005). Essential Law for Marketers. Prentice Hall.Kotler, Philip., and Gary Armstrong. (2005). Principles of Marketing. Prentice Hall.Meenaghan, T. (1996). Ambush Marketing A Threat to Corporate Sponsorship. SloanManagement Review, 38, 103-13. Retrieved March 15, 2008 from Business SourceElite database.Uphoff, Boris., et al. (2006). Kick-off to Ambush Marketing at World Cup. ManagingIntellectual Property, 156, 91-92. Retrieved March 15, 2008 from Business SourceThe contemporary business environment is characterizedThe current business environment is characterized by a spacious level of uncertainty and therefore businesses have to unceasingly reengineer their internal coveres in order to demonstrate and maintain a sustainable competitory advantage.In this respect, the circumstantial success factor is to build an organizational culture that is create to change. This is a overcritical consideration because, given the high level of uncertainty, the counsel in a business organization is no longer in a position to forecast future changes meaningfully.Therefore the organizational bodily structure mustiness be flexible enough to absorb unexpected changes. The question that should be answered is how this tractability piece of tail be built into the organizational structure. In this respect, it is the duty of the heed to build the right performance concern system.Through this system the forethought potful communicate with the employees regarding which aspects of their work are vital to the strategical centre of the organization. The right performance management system is a critical consideration in terms of addressing humps related to employee motivation and authorisation. seat of government One is empowering its employees through dissemination of discipline and by maximizing the go on area. This enables the employees to link their work to the strategic revolve around of the organization (cited in Zairi, 2005).The fact of the matter is that the management at all levels in Capital One is implementing strategic human resource management. In this manner it is addressing the issues of motivation and empowerment. According to the post-modern possible action, business organizations need to maintain the incessant improvement process in order to build a sustainable rivalrous advantage (cited in pitcher & Jones, 2007).However the development of a sustainable competitive advantage depends on access to human capital. Capital One has devised its human resource management policies in order to develop human capital. Even through it is non taperly addressing the issues of motivation and empowerment, its policies are designed to make these issues the top priorities on the management agenda. Job gyration is one of the examples.According to post-modernism, job descriptions are no longer effective because they piss a static organizational structure and therefore do not equip the organization with the abilities to adapt to fast-paced change in the immaterial environment (cited in Besterfield, 2002).According to the post-modern theory, employees have to be groomed to assume a wide v ariety of positions so that changing organizational structures will not be a problem for them. We see Capital One addressing this issue through creating leadership capabilities throughout the organization. The high societys recruitment and survival of the fittest strategies are utilise accordingly.For example, during the recruitment process, the intimately important qualification for the aspect is considered to be his ability to lead a change effort. Because of carefully implemented recruitment and selection strategies, the friendship minimizes the costs associated with training and development (cited in Ross & Perry, 2002).However the management does communicate with the employees in terms of the extent to which noble training and development programs squeeze out be arranged for the employees.A built-to-change organizational structure washbasinnot be built without addressing the issues of motivation and empowerment. According to post-modernism, employees must be convol uted in the change management process (cited in Brigham & Ehrhardt, 2007). This facilitates the process of addressing employee resistance to change. The management at Capital One addresses this issue through building an effective communications structure which facilitates the dissemination of mission-critical information.As mentioned before, this maximizes the level of surface area. Strategy implementation in this regard has been facilitated through the creation of a flat management structure which enables most employees to work in direct touch with the customers. This enables the employees to make the link between their work and the strategic focus of the company because working in direct touch with the customers means that the employees can see in which direction the organization should proceed in terms of customer relationship management (cited in Dess, 2007).Employee motivation and empowerment is the most critical factor in the post-modernist theory. This is because post-mode rnism as associated with a sustainable competitive advantage in business emphasizes employee motivation and empowerment.According to Michael Porters theory for strategy formulation, a business organization has three strategies at its electric pig in building a competitive advantage differentiation, cost minimisation and quick response (cited in Baschab, 2005).However, according to the post-modernist theory none of these strategies will lead to the development of a sustainable competitive advantage because they can be easily copied by competitor organizations in a fast-changing outside environment.Therefore, post-modernism in business focuses on the building of a strategically reorient organizational culture as the source of a sustainable competitive advantage. A strategically aligned organizational culture cannot be built without effectively addressing the issues of employee motivation and empowerment.Employees must be involved in the change management process. In this organizati onal structure, the issues of employee motivation and empowerment are intercommunicate effectively because they are directly involved in building the strategic focus of the company. This is an example of what we see in Capital One.This is one of the few American companies to have been able to weather the current crisis because of its focus on the built-to-change organizational structure based in employee motivation and empowerment. The company is not consciously addressing these issues as such.However because of its strategies in recruitment, selection, job rotation and training and development, it has been able to involve the employees in the constant process of managing change. This has only maximized their productivity as employees are motivated to work for the company because they are empowered to act on behalf of the company.This has created an organizational structure based in motivation and empowerment which aligns employee interests to organizational interests. This is an e xample of post-modernism in business.ReferencesBaschab, John., et al. (2005). The Executive Guide to Information Technology. McGraw Hill/Irwin.Besterfield, Dale H., et al. (2002). Total Quality Management. McGraw Hill/Irwin.Brigham, Eugene F., and Michael C. Ehrhardt. (2007). Financial Management Theory & Practice. South western college pub.Dess, Gregory G., et al. (2007). strategical Management Creating Competitive Advantage.McGraw Hill/Irwin. Hill, Charles., and Gareth Jones. (2007). Strategic Management Theory An Integrated Approach. McGraw Hill/Irwin.Ross, Joel E. and Susan Perry. (2002). Total Quality Management Text, Cases, Readings. Wiley.Zairi, Mohamed. (2005). Excellence Toolkit Delivering Sustainable Performance. eTQM College Publishing House.The current business environment is characterizedThe current business environment is characterized by a considerable level of competitive rivalry and as a result, businesses have to maintain a continuous improvement process in ord er to build and maintain a competitive advantage. In this respect, the development of a sustainable competitive advantage is the critical success factor.However sustainability cannot be achieved unless the company determines the strategic focus.This is why developing a system for comeing goals becomes a critical consideration. In this respect, the management has to build the right organizational culture in which gatheringing kinetics can become facilitated.Employees are the most important assets of an organization and therefore the management has to create the right working conditions which maximize employee satisfaction. For this reason, the management might have to manage change on a continuous basis. In managing change, concurrence with the strategic focus has to be maintained. In this respect adopting the right goals becomes the critical consideration.The question whether group dynamics are better at adopting goals than single end do can be answered depending on the sea t that the company is in. There is no doubt that when it comes to managing change a cross-functional project management team must be built in order to adopt the right goals.This is because all the departments that are going to be affected by the change must be represented in the project management team. However the problem with group dynamics is that the process delays last making (http//www.nysscpa.org/cpajournal/old/15703015.htm).One of the reasons for this delay can be groupthink in which the participants withhold views that may not conform in order to maintain membership (cited in Robbins & DeCenzo, 2003). Outside of change management, in the note in which the decision making process has to be fast, individual decision making is doubtlessly the better option. Individually, the decision maker can speed up the process of decision making because fewer issues are considered.The problem with facilitating group dynamics in decision making is that the decision making process has to be based upon consensus. This has the advantage that the suggestions that are taken into consideration are diverse. As a result, the same problem is viewed from many different perspectives.The result is a process of brainstorming that can generate a lot of expensive ideas. However, in the situation in which the question is one of adopting goals, diversity of ideas can be a hindrance because it delays the process of decision making in adopting goals. In the event that the complexity of the situation is high then group decision making can be advantageous because too many issues will be considered, thus delaying the process.Therefore in the situation in which adopting goals does not have to take too many issues into consideration, group decision making may be the best option. However in the event that the situation is complex, then the individual decision maker will be in a position to do a better job because he can exercise intuition in arriving at a decision.From the above, it is do clear that there is no specific answer as to whether group dynamics or the individual decision maker will do a better job. The effectiveness of either of the tools depends on the complexity of the situation. The current business environment is characterized by a fast state of change.Therefore the decision making process has to be speeded up. In this respect, even in the situation which calls for many issues to be taken into consideration, the individual decision maker can do the best job. However in the event that the management of the company can afford to spend time on considering all the relevant issues, then group dynamics create the best infrastructure in which to conduct the decision making process (http//www.usfa.dhs.gov/pdf/efop/efo38561.pdf).However when facilitating group dynamics, the management must ensure that the decision making process is not affected by the need to reach a consensus. In such a situation, the participants are afraid of creating a conflict and the refore all the relevant issues are not taken into consideration.ReferencesSchwartz, Andrew E. (1994, August). Group decision-making. The CPA Journal Online.Retrieved February 19, 2009 from http//www.nysscpa.org/cpajournal/old/15703015.htm.Barlow, Jeff. (2005, October). Strategic planning for the Bloomington, Indiana, firedepartment. Retrieved February 19, 2009 from http//www.usfa.dhs.gov/pdf/efop/efo38561.pdf.Robbins, Stephen P., and DeCenzo, David. (2003). Fundamentals of Management. Prentice Hall.