A New Computer System for Staples Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2750 words

A New Computer System for Staples - Essay Example Also corresponding Technology Road Map for the project was presented. Staples, Inc. sells a wide range of office products, including supplies, technology, furniture, and business services. Headquartered outside of Boston, Staples operates approximately 1,695 office superstores and also serves its customers through mail order catalog, e-commerce and contract businesses. Staples, Inc. has a website available at www.staples.com. Each Staples superstore carries over 7,000 brand name products for businesses and home offices, including supplies, furniture, small business machines, computers and peripherals - all at Guaranteed Low Prices. (Staples, The Office Superstore, 2005) With the Big Three of office supplies, Staples, Office Depot, and Office Max, accounting for only 20 percent of the $285 billion market, Staples is focusing on two key areas for growth: small businesses and the Internet. The company hopes to offer small businesses such high tech services as videoconferencing, messaging, and Web-site design. The office giant already bought Quill Corporation, which specializes in direct sales, and telecommunications firm Claricom Holdings while it forged partnerships with Bell Atlantic, Nortel Networks, and CompuCom Systems. Staples also invested an additional $10 million into its new on-line site, which allows customers to purchase over 6,000 items over the Internet. Its rapidly expanding virtual office market is already worth billions of dollars; efforts to improve and refine the site are never-ending. Expansion-happy Staples has surged into 2000. It strengthened its Internet presence by allying with VarsityBooks.com, CloudSource, MarketTools, and TVisions Inc. In early-2000, the company announced that it would offer insurance online as well. Also in 2000, Staples formed strategic alliances with Manhattan Associates, Inc., a producer of management systems; with Plumtree Software, a corporate portal leader; and with Pre-Paid Legal Services, Inc., a national provider of legal service plans. (Staples, The Scoop, 2000) Staples' customers are various companies from home-based businesses to Fortune 500 companies in 21 countries throughout North and South America, Europe and Asia. There are a lot of complaints from Staples' customers that they cannot get the complete information about the goods, fees, discounts and rebates; and therefore they make wrong decisions about purchase. Nevertheless, corporate culture of Staples stated at its website says, "At Staples we strive to be a model of corporate governance and ethical business practices. We are committed to acting with integrity in everything we do and hold ourselves accountable for doing business honestly, ethically, and legally. At Staples, we have built a reputation for

Research paper Critique Of Human Resource Managment Essay

Research paper Critique Of Human Resource Managment - Essay Example Secondly, is the complete documentation of data and methodology, which could be made available to other researchers upon request, thus enabling others the opportunity to test the viability of research results, critique a research or establish statistical measures of reliability of the research results (Polit et al, 2001; Bozinovski, 1995). Research in the field of International Human Resources Management is intended to expand what is known in the practice of Human Resources (HR), empower the professional HR manager to capably foresee and manage the complex and constantly changing challenges facing the human resources management, as this is paramount for the continuous relevance of human resources management as a tool for achieving the developmental and market competitive goals of firms and companies, in the emerging global market (Parahoo, 1997). Critiquing a research work, therefore, involves a caref... The purpose of this paper is to critically analyse a chosen piece of human resources management research report titled 'The Impact Of Human Resource Management Practices On The Implementation Of Total Quality Management: An Empirical Study On High-Tech Firms' a recent paper presented earlier this year by Ching-Chow Yang (2006) and published in the TQM Magazine Vol. 18 No. 2, pp. 162-173. Generally, the research paper looks into what relationship exists, if any, between Human Resources practices and the implementation of Total Quality Management (TQM). This is reportedly, due to the high failure rate in the implementation of TQM despite its perceived numerous benefits in generating improved quality and efficiency, increasing customer satisfaction and market competitiveness. The researcher argue that, although, this high failure rate of TQM implementation has been attributed to the fact that companies and firms place little importance on human resources management, as it affects TQM, little or no empirical research efforts exists to back up this argument. This has therefore given rise to the necessity of the research at hand. Objectively evaluated, this appears to be a reasonable premise upon which the research effort is based, thus enhancing the utility of such a research results for the implementation of TQM and improvements of human resources practices. As suggested by Stevens et al. (1993), this research therefore fulfils the requirement of adding to knowledge and expanding what is already known in the field of enquiry. Research Structure Quoting Confucius, Farh et al. (2005) stated that "a mechanic who wishes to do his work well must first sharpen his tools." They explained that when conducting high quality empirical