Paper Example on Organizational Challenges

Introduction

Times are rapidly changing, and businesses are faced with upcoming challenges that did not exist in the past. For quite an unnoticeable period of time, companies have had to adapt to new marketing channels and decide how to invest in new markets. Web and social media markets were avenues unheard of in the past but have become one of the most exponential marketplaces in the modern times. The advancement of technology has also hit businesses with more challenges deciding on what technology fits the organisation and which to use. In as much as technology carries numerous benefits for business incorporation, it also has its limitations in the organisational structure. The global market is a more lucrative market that an organisation may tap into and reap massive benefits that include higher profits, business exposure, raw material sourcing among others. However, the global trade is a trickier market to involve and proves hard for many an organisation to survive in.

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Problems associated with international trade include but not limited to required higher capital to get into the international trade, currency exchange fluctuations and political unrest. Throughout time, business politics, powers and the relationship between different stakeholders is a challenge within the organisational structure. Leaders within a business spend most of their time unravelling and resolving problems created by the personnel in the firm. If business personnel is functioning effectively with minimum faults, leaders would be engaged in other undertakings that benefit the organisation would be highly profitable. The paper seeks to discuss the challenges as faced by organisations concerning technology, international trade, and relationships between business stakeholders.

Relationships Between Business Stakeholders

For a long time, most organisational problems are attributed to ineffective systems, poor strategies and people making up the firm. The dynamics of an organisation stand to be a daunting task to keep in check since it is the employee's relationships that matters in which direction the business takes. The intradepartmental relationship is an aspect that determines the success of an organisation (Ponte, et, al. 2016). The sales a company makes and profits dramatically depends on the relationship between the higher administration, middle and the lower staff. In the organisations that record high profits, their employees and leaders feel valued and able to contribute to the mission and vision of the organisation. More so, they are given the opportunity to better own strengths, knowledge, and skills in meaningful ways. Such organisations exhibit a leadership panel that effectively connects dots from vision to results, tactics to strategy, an idea to outcomes, and problems to solutions.

Communications is one of the significant challenges that organisations are faced with (Katz, Lazarsfeld & Roper, 2017). The leadership does not communicate priorities, information, changes, and expectations with the rest of the organisation effectively and on time. Development is a more solid challenge that firms go through in which there lack opportunities for professional growth. Lack of progress implies that employees see no clear path to the advance of career. Interpersonal challenges also exist within firms where no functioning system supports to resolve disagreements and conflicts between leaders and teams.

Lack of or existence of faulty accountability structures and systems within the organisation. Various individuals and branches do not know what responsibilities fall on who and the higher leadership is caught unaware of what is happening at, the lower levels concerning responsibilities. Lack of accountability systems causes slow processing of and avoidance of responsibilities in times of crisis. Different levels within an organisation do not trust others and do not support their divisions. It becomes hard to navigate politics within the firm since employees do not know who to trust. Henceforth, different levels and divisions fight the goals and visions of the other crippling the organisation.

Lack of integrity is another challenge that organisations face in their day to day proceedings. Lack of integrity in organisations affects the leadership of the organisation where their behaviour is not aligned with the leadership values and the corporate culture. The command of the organisation is not integrated with the ideas that the mission of the company represents. This leads to a completely different direction to what the core values of the organisation represent. Presenting a safe environment within the workplace is a challenge that every organisation grapple with. An unsafe environment in this sense implies that the lower and middle-level leaders, employees, and staff lack an effective system to provide feedback and express concerns to the senior leadership. It may also suggest that the administration is not open to receiving new ideas from the lower staff.

Technology and Organisations

Technological change refers to an increase in efficiency of a process that results to increase in output where input remains intact. Therefore, using technological change would result in more significant rewards and for the same amount of work. Technological changes have a myriad of impacts both good and bad. Effects of technology advancements include the creation of new processes and products, in which a firm can streamline its operations and come up with new products that stay competitive in the market. Technology increases efficiency and lowers costs by easing the process of production and using little effort. Production time becomes less and increased productivity thus growing sales volume and profits.

However, technology has its negative sides and prove a challenge in deciding on which technology best fits an organisation. Moreover, the use of technology makes companies vulnerable and may lead to losses in case of a breach or when such technological systems malfunction. Privacy issues and cybersecurity are the top issues faced within organisations (Sicari, Rizzardi, Grieco & Coen-Porisini, 2015). In the modern world, technology is an integral part of organisations in the running of day to day functions. This makes companies vulnerable to hackers and IT experts who may have ill intentions against a firm. Most firms have fallen short of protecting assets inform of money from crooks who target them stealing the money leading to the companies incurring losses.

Privacy problems are a challenge that many firms fight with on a daily basis (Sicari et, al. 2015). Securing the internal information about the transactions, processes, personal information of employees and consumers, and classified information is a task that most companies are yet to perfect. Access of such information may lead to worse situations such as bankruptcy and death of trustees. Incorporating emerging technologies is another challenge that organisations grapple with. This is a result of a lack of expertise to successfully start off and maintain the systems. The vulnerability of new technologies is also an issue that challenges firms. The innovation of new technology, the transformation that it effects, and the disruption of activities within the firm are issues that an organisation has to consider before adopting an emergent technology. The adoption of technology leads to the loss of employment in firms, and it becomes a challenge to firms in deciding the cap of people that need to be laid off.

International Trade

Although international trade has significant benefits for organisations over involving in only local business, it has ups and downs that pose challenges for the firms. For the organisations that deal in international trade, they have to deal with different trade patterns among various countries of the world. A firm has to consider the policies governing imports and exports respective of countries they trade with. The practices and procedures impose certain limitations and restrictions on international trade that the organisations have to deal with when trading with such countries. A company selling in global trade has to face the international accounting. For businesses involving in international trade, tax compliance is probably the most crucial step in enjoying the benefits. Accounting sets a significant challenge for companies that may be liable for corporate tax abroad. The difference in tax rates, systems and compliance requirements make the accounting of a multinational organisation considerably challenging.

The pricing strategy of commodities within a local market is a simple task for many businesses. However, calculating the cost of production and the global pricing strategy becomes a daunting task for organisations in international trade (Epstein, 2018). For businesses undertaking trade overseas, they must consider costs to remain competitive and also ensure they gain profits. Cost of shipping, labour, marketing, distribution, and expected profit margin are all factors to consider while pricing products which is a challenging task given that it is in a foreign country. While cost calculation and price setting are significant considerations, currency exchange rate fluctuations is a challenging problem for businesses involving in international trade. In as much as international businesses make it a central strategy to monitor the exchange rate in the global market, it becomes hard to predict profits when the rates fluctuate at unpredictable levels.

A common challenge throughout international businesses is deciding whether to get into a promising foreign market. A promising market in different countries that offer opportunities for expanding the company may also pose challenges such as political uncertainty and instability. Before a firm considers expansion to a new and unknown market, an assessment of the political and economic landscape is crucial which proves a challenging task for most organisations. A business sourcing services, products and raw materials from overseas, managing supply chains and suppliers is a tricky process for most firms (Short, Toffel & Hugill, 2016). The complexity and length of the supply chains increase the chances of working with suppliers having illegal and unethical practices (Schleper, Blome & Wuttke, 2017). Risk of forced labour is a growing concern in international trade which may have unpleasant consequences for the organisation.

To remedy such situations calls for the strategic analysis of the underlying problems and cultivating towards the formation of approaches that will ensure a firm overcomes the challenges at hand and ahead of times. For starters is to improve relationships of influences in which the conversations between key stakeholders and influencers is cultivated aiming at evoking collaboration between the company (Lindlof & Taylor, 2017). Such strategies involve making time to socialise ideas between departments and divisions, lobby for support and decide on what is supposed to be communicated to who. Raise professional wisdom of teams that exhibit conflicts within the organisation. Leaders should mention dysfunction as noted within the firm and take to resolving disputes as opposed to letting them fade off.

Synthesising ideas, functions, and strategies through seeking ways to encourage collaborative opportunities between and among departments, divisions and teams (Carmeli, Dutton & Hardin, 2015). Moreover, note where communication is low and work towards reviving the connection. One of the effects that these challenges cause is overworking of leaders such as CEOs as they try to get the personnel together and acquire a state of equilibrium in the dynamics between the firm and marketplace. There is no employee or CEO can have the expertise to tackle all th...