To prevent the company from declining much more than it already is: It is imperative that the trend of declining sales be completely stopped and reversed. Sales have been declining for the corporation, falling 7% overall in a downward spiraling quarterly trend. The American division saw a total 3.8% fall in revenues, which was the highest percentage drop. If it weren't for the "Business first" Recovery policy, the number should have been higher at 6.5%. There is a need for a plan that will revive the business and keep it up to speed especially due to threats from competition.
The challenges that leaders in the 21st century are facing: The company leaders require understanding the challenges that most leaders in the 21st century are facing. There are numerous risks that they hold to the company if they do not understand how to deal with the challenges. These challenges include sustainability, adaptability, innovation, globalization, knowledge management and the development that each of the leaders has to develop in the achievement of a competitive edge in commerce currently (Abe, 2012).
Sustainable leadership:
Sustainable leadership involves leadership that will come up with policies that will not be swayed by any aspects of the market. This means that the policies and goals set should be able to counter, political, social, and economical aspects of any economy. Sustainable leadership should be able to move beyond temporary goals of the company. This will be able to create a lasting and meaningful improvement in the company (Abe, 2012). On that note, the consumers of the company will have confidence in the foundation policies and goals of the business in catering for their needs.
Adaptability:
Adaptability means that the leaders of the company are easily able to adjust to the changes that come with the competition in the market. For instance, technology is a speeding train that waits for no one hence every company should be on toes with the latest technological development (Abe, 2012). Adaptability of the leadership in a company is vital in the sense that they can counter their competition in any environment or challenge encountered.
Innovation:
Innovation involves the new technology and improvement of creations in the company that will attract more consumers to the company. Innovation will always give a company an edge over their competition (Abe, 2012). On that note, more consumers will be attracted towards the company mainly due to their creativity and innovative ideas to make life easier for their consumers. Innovation amongst leaders of a company will push them on top of the competition in the market due to the increase in sales and huge consumer share that they hold in the market. Innovation I mainly experienced in the IT sector due to the times that the world is at currently (Abe, 2012). The world is spinning on technology hence most things are now digitalized.
Globalization:
Globalization entails the economic incorporation of business economies all over the world. This means that the company needs to be flexible regarding expanding its territories. This will increase the market share globally; hence in comparison to regional share, the company will have a competitive edge in comparison to its competitors. In simple terms, globalization is the tendency of investments, international trade, technology and outsourced manufacturing to connect the diversity of different economies (Abe, 2012). This is only through the services that the company offers.
Knowledge management:
Knowledge management involves the systematic governance of a company through the knowledge of the company assets that they hold. This knowledge is mainly to create value and create strategies that can only be connected tactical evaluation of how valuable the assets can be to the company. Knowledge management simply involves processes, initiatives, systems, and strategies that will enhance and sustain the storage, sharing, enhancement, creation, and refinement of company knowledge (Abe, 2012). This kind of management will only be achieved through the strong ties that the management has to the companies and how well they can convert their roots to be strengths of the company. By roots, these are the goals and strategies that the company was built on and how well they hold. If necessary, there could be changes that will be for the better of the company's future.
Development of each leader:
Each leader in the company has to develop in all ways so that the company can develop as a whole. Change cannot be felt on one side of the company hence the leadership has to be a consensus to the kind of change that is required in the company (Abe, 2012). Management synchrony is vital in the sense that the company will move forward with a unified front. This means that the core of the company will be strong enough counter competition. Each leader of the company has a region that they head hence they need to work as a single unit and give ideas that will lift the fallen side of the company, for instance America.
Leadership challenges facing growing business empires:
In this growing global market, competition has become part of the day to day activities. It is, therefore, the wish of every company to stay ahead of their competitors to ensure the realization of profits. It is therefore essential to provide a competitive advantage. Leadership challenges are part of the reason why companies suffer loses. It is thus necessary to analyze each of the leadership problems, relate them with Global Delivery Direct, find appropriate recommendations for each challenge in regards to the company, and see how one should go about the implementation process.
Adaptability:
Adaptability is one of the leadership challenges facing growing business empires. This proves to be a challenge because most leaders are not willing to be flexible to the changing trends (Voogt, Erstad, Dede, & Mishra, 2013). For instance, there are technical issues that keep changing every day. In global deliver direct, it is important to be adaptive to the various developments in the transport sector to improve the delivery services.
Sustainability:
Sustainability has also proved to be another challenge. Most leaders are not able to maintain their relations with the clients and thus losing them. For instance, they are not open to suggestions thus being unable to sustain a profitable relationship. It is therefore essential for them to incorporate sustainability issues into business practice. Global Delivery Direct has a vision of being the delivery company to the business world. It is therefore necessary for the leaders to maintain and be able to sustain relationships with many business companies that can be potential partners. This would help in the maximization of profits.
Innovation:
Innovation has also been named as one of the leadership challenges in this century. It is recognized that companies are facing increasing cost pressure amid the pressure to deliver quality services. The ability to innovate and come up with new ideas is, however, fading away with the development of technological advancements. Global Delivery Direct should keep embracing collaborative decisions. This will encourage the exchange of ideas and make changes easier to implement (Brenner, Leach, & Tulloch, 2014). It is also important to keep holding customer innovation workshops to listen to the opinions the clients might have to present.
Knowledge management:
Knowledge management has also become a leadership problem in many companies. It is one thing to possess knowledge but leveraging it is another problem. This is a challenge because leaders are not able to understand the value of distributable and actionable intelligence. Leaders should be able to understand that controlling knowledge only diminishes its value. According to Global Delivery Direct, their mission involves employees, which seeks to foster a personal relationship, to ensure the realization of profits in the company is essential to listen to the employees. As we know, knowledge management is more about an individual rather than the whole organization.
Globalization:
The last problem is globalization. For a company to ensure maximum profit, it needs to be embedded in as many parts of the country or world, the more you invest in the global market, the more profit you get out of it. So the company needs to realize its dreams of expanding to other continents to gain more. It is however imperative to consider the profitability of the various countries and choose one that is least likely to bring losses.
Recommendations:
For the people to understand this concept, it is vital to give practical recommendations of each of the leadership problems and explain the reasoning for doing so. For better analysis, the grading rubric will be used:
| Leadership Challenge | Recommendation | Reasoning |
|---|---|---|
| Adaptability | The leaders should be early adopters Be open-minded | To adapt to new ideas leaders should be able to resist saying no and listen to ideas. It is also essential to adopt ideas before the competitors beat you to it. |
| Innovation | Create underlying systems to enable innovation Manage the tension between managing today's business and creating tomorrow's | For innovative ideas to work, they have to be able to be used today as well as tomorrow. |
| Globalization | Look for employees with insight into both the local and international industry. Keep in check with the safety protocols and the developments in the countries. | Knowing what happens in the global market helps to know where to invest next and which is likely to be profitable. |
| Sustainability | Involving the customers in decision making Involving the organizations that have the potential of being future partners. | For a relationship to be sustainable, it is crucial for all the involved parties to be well conversant with what goes on in the company. |
| Knowledge Management | Value data, information, research, and other forms of knowledge. Protect your cooperate knowledge | It's important to make sure that all the knowledge obtained from the company remains the companies. Knowledge management is more about people than systems; it is, therefore, essential to encourage public sharing of knowledge. |
All the recommendations on what the executive directors should do are also included in the recommendations since it is their obligation as the overall head.
Reference
Abe, T., Chowdhery, S., & World Scientific (Firm). (2012). World-class leadership: Leading yourself, your team, the world and society. Singapore: World Scientific Pub. Co.
Brenner, C. T., Leach, K. A., & Tulloch, D. (2014). Plyler Children: 21st Century Challenges with Judicial- Policy Implementation Affecting Immigrant Children in New Jersey. Journal of Public Management & Social Policy, 20(1), 98.
Voogt, J., Erstad, O., Dede, C., & Mishra, P. (2013). Challenges to learning and schooling in the digital networked world of the 21st century. Journal of computer assisted learning, 29(5), 403-413.
