If I can receive some help in replying to my class mate for this weeks Discussion Question. I agree with his post but do not know how to write it. Please respond to classmate in 175 words or so in a positive matter. Thanks!!

Please see below for response:

As I recently covered in previous posts, 2020 is forcing people into cyber activity and opening them up to becoming cyber victims unlike any other year in the history of the internet. The 2020 COVID-19 pandemic has forced people into spending more time at home, more time on the computers for various activities such as virtual school, grocery shopping, zoom family time, and now with the holidays upon us, Christmas shopping. The more time we spend on line, the more information we submit to the web, the more likely we are to become cyber crime victims. I have said it many times in this class, it was one of the rules of the class that we all signed off on and agreed to, we must ensure our anti-virus software is up to date and engaged. Even with the ever changing approaches of hackers, an up to date anti-virus software will help protect you and guard you against viruses seeping into your home network. We also must make as much of an effort as possible to limit the amount of information we enter onto the web. On line purchases require billing information and identifying information to complete the transaction, so ensure you are using a secured site and not following any “round about” payment methods. Do not click on links from “sellings” unless you have verified the seller and the information they are sending you. Your strongest defense will always start with you.

For this final discussion board prompt – consider what Berger says about the role of “practical value” in making content go viral on social media. Let’s assume that Berger is correct, and that we are all now part of social media communities (on any currently existing social media platform) of social media practitioners.

Your task for this post is to create a piece of content that has “practical value” for other social media managers (content creators, etc.) that can be posted to a social media site (if you don’t feel up to creating the content, you can give us a pitch for what the content would be).

If you are feeling brave, and you think the content “speaks for itself” – put it out there. Or, you can explain how you think the content works as valuable advice/information for your audience.

Put another way: tell us something you’ve learned in this class, but you have to follow the rules of Facebook, IG, WeChat, etc. to do it.

1. Review Contagious, “Practice Value” (pgs. 155-201).

Assume that an unfair labor practice charge was filed against your company by several employees and three prospective employees. See the form linked below indicating the charge, which outlines the scenario below:

FORM NLRB-501: Case 4689-3

On July 29, 2016, Delphi Golf, Inc. and the union entered a collective bargaining agreement. The majority of the company’s employees covered by the agreement had not designated the union as their collective-bargaining representative. The agreement contains a union-security clause requiring employees who are members in good standing of the union to maintain their membership in good standing and all other employees to become members of the union on or before the 31st day following the effective date of the agreement or the date of their hire. The union instructed Delphi Golf, Inc. not to employ three servers for restaurant positions in the company because the servers were not members of the union. The company is an employer within the meaning of Section 2(2) of the act engaged in commerce within the meaning of Section 2(6) and (7) of the act.

Explain in a two-page essay in APA style the process and steps your company will have to take to defend this action. Explain the defenses to the action and if the union employees have valid claims. What actions by the employer should have been done differently, if at all? What actions by the union should have been done differently? Who, if anyone, is liable?

All original threads should be at least 250 words. This parameter helps to promote writing that is thorough, yet concise enough to permit other students to read all the postings. The thoughts and opinions expressed in your thread need to be substantiated by research and literature (from the textbook or outside sources). All references should be in correct APA style. While this is a formal discussion environment, you are allowed to use the first person perspective in all your posts since you will be expressing your personal opinions. All original threads should: Bring clarity to the issues being discussed. Raise new and novel (yet relevant) points. Relate issues to personal experience. Rationally defend your stated position.

Best Buy … The Best House on a Bad Block

The retail electronics industry had been contracting and fragmenting for a number of years, and brick-and-mortar retailers were ever more tightly squeezed by online providers. All this led Best Buy’s three closest store-based competitors to go out of business. Having fewer competitors might seem a good thing, but it just reinforced the shrinking nature of the industry. As such, Best Buy needed to analyze its position in the retail electronics industry. This activity is important because in order to deal effectively with change managers must consider all the external and internal forces of change.

The goal of this activity is to understand the various forces of change in order to manage change more effectively.

Read the case about the fragmenting retail electronics industry. Then, applying the 3-step problem-solving approach, answer the questions that follow.

The title of this case is the way some analysts characterized Best Buy’s position in the retail electronics industry—the best big-box retailer in a shrinking business. Hubert Joly, Best Buy’s CEO, seemed to agree when he said the following just after taking the job: “This is the most dysfunctional organization I’ve ever seen… But this is good news because this is self-inflicted, and so this is something we can correct.”¹ The company was indeed in dire straits. The key performance metrics for most retailers —same-store sales and profit margins—had been declining over a period of time.²

Causes of Pain

The electronics industry had been contracting and fragmenting for a number of years, and brick-and-mortar retailers were ever more tightly squeezed by online providers. Amazon and Walmart in particular were taking an increasing share of business from everyone in the electronics market. All this led Best Buy’s three closest store-based competitors to go out of business—Circuit City, CompUSA, and RadioShack. Having fewer competitors might be a good thing, but it just reinforced the shrinking nature of the industry.³

Best Buy also confronted internal forces that were driving change. The previous CEO, Brian Dunn, was forced to resign after having an inappropriate relationship with an employee, and founder Richard Schulze had made an unsolicited attempt to buy the company and take it private. Leadership was in disarray. The board of directors had allowed ineffective if not unethical conduct to continue, from the executive level to the store level, further eroding Best Buy’s performance and reputation.⁴

What remained in 2012 was a company with lower revenues, uninspiring product displays, dirty restrooms, and lapsed maintenance, because it had run low on cash and management had focused its attention elsewhere. However, the company still paid for private jets, trips to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, sponsorship of NASCAR and the Super Bowl, and color printers at headquarters.⁵

Customers, Employees, and Vendors

Customer preferences for products, price, and location had changed, and Best Buy no longer measured up. Some customers had poor customer service experiences with the company, and prices were not competitive. The online store was unreliable, with inaccurate stock information, and online orders took days or even weeks to arrive because they shipped from centralized distribution centers even if a nearby store had the needed item in stock. Many shoppers saw no real value in actually purchasing from the store. Instead they went to learn about and view the product they wanted and returned home to purchase it online from another source (often Amazon).⁶

When Sharon McCollam, the new CFO hired by Joly, attended her first staff meeting, the room was half-empty. Many of her corporate-based direct reports worked from home, and on any given day 20 to 35 percent of corporate employees were absent. Decision making was bureaucratic and slowed by multiple layers of management. Also notable was the amount of e-mail clutter received by store managers; they were barraged with reminders of the latest program from corporate. Store-level employees were confused about which activities they should prioritize: Was it getting more credit card sign-ups, selling extended-service policies, or reminding customers about the Geek Squad (Best Buy’s in-home tech experts)? Shari Ballard, the US retail president, wanted every store employee to know and focus on revenue per hour. And yet, despite all the data the company possessed, it didn’t know what distinguished top-performing employees and top-performing stores from the rest.⁷

Last but not least, Best Buy had less-than-productive relationships with manufacturers and vendors. Apple, for instance, had its own retail stores and also sold its products online. However, it also wanted other retailers, including Best Buy, to sell Apple products. But at the time Joly took over, the relationship between the two companies was not nearly as strong as it could be. The same could be said of Samsung. It’s one of the world’s largest electronics manufacturers, yet by its own estimate Best Buy was not meeting its potential as a retail channel for Samsung’s products. Employees did not have sufficient knowledge about different suppliers’ products, the products were not well distinguished from one another, and in-store displays and marketing were insufficient.

Assume you are Hubert Joly and have just taken the CEO job. Use the 3-Step Problem-Solving Approach to identify the problems and their causes, and formulate the actions you’d take.

Apply the 3-Step Problem-Solving Approach to OB

Step 1: Define the problem.

Step 2: Identify causes of the problem by using material from this chapter, summarized in the Organizing Framework shown in Figure 16.10. Causes will appear in either the Inputs box or the Processes box.

Step 3: Make your recommendations for solving the problem. Consider whether you want to resolve it, solve it, or dissolve it (see Section 1.5). Which recommendation is desirable and feasible?

Footnotes

1. J. Wieczner, “Best Buy CEO on How to Lead a Corporate Turnaround (Without Making Employees Hate You),” Fortune, October 29, 2015, http://fortune.com/2015/10/29/best-buy-ceo-turnaround-tips/.

2. Ibid.

3. J. Wieczner, “Meet the Women Who Saved Best Buy,” Fortune, October 25, 2015, http://fortune.com/2015/10/25/best-buy-turnaround/.

4. J. Wieczner, “Best Buy CEO on How to Lead a Corporate Turnaround (Without Making Employees Hate You),” Fortune, October 29, 2015, http://fortune.com/2015/10/29/best-buy-ceo-turnaround-tips/.

5. J. Wieczner, “Meet the Women Who Saved Best Buy,” Fortune, October 25, 2015, http://fortune.com/2015/10/25/best-buy-turnaround/.

6. Ibid.

7. Ibid.