Sales staff have also been trained to use different language styles and sales efforts when dealing with different consumers, again tailoring each individual consumer's experience to their own personal needs and preferred methods of conducting business. By simply presenting and describing the largely technological offerings available at Best Buy stores in different manners to different consumers, sales have increased and the store's profitability has risen, as well. The continued success of the company depends on its ability to continue this process of incremental innovation, adjusting and developing as new consumer trends come to the fore.
Encouraging managers and employees to become intrapreneurs, making profitable incremental innovations to the company's operations, is fairly easy. Encouraging employees and managers at all levels to approach superiors with suggestions and providing ample recognition for successful efforts will likely encourage large portions of Best Buy staff to develop such ideas. Intrinsic as well as extrinsic rewards will encourage this behavior.
Conflict and Politics Rage at News Corps and Viacom
A large part of the internal conflicts and unnecessary political battles being waged within Viacom is found in the fact that Summer Redstone, the company's long-standing CEO, has run the company largely unilaterally and in...
The same can be said of News Corps' Rupert Murdoch. Both of these leaders are nearing the age where they will need to step down yet they have showed very little willingness to do so, or to share power as a means of easing the transition that will take place after their departure.
Pondy's five stages of conflict can provide a basic understanding of thee issues these companies are facing. The latent conflict stage occurred for Viacom and News Corps over the years of dictatorial rule by Redstone and Murdoch, respectively. Perceived conflict arose at it became clear that these leaders would not be sharing power as a means of transferring authority, and this became felt conflict the closer these leaders came to retirement, necessitating some shift and transition of power. The conflicts have manifested at different periods in these companies, and are largely ongoing for Viacom and just beginning for News Corps; neither company has come through the conflict to the final stage identified by Pondy of the conflict aftermath, in which a new balance of power would be achieved.
Collaborative mediation would be an effective means of ending these conflicts, if the parties were willing. Unfortunately, with unilateral power held by these company leaders, little canbe done without their willing cooperation.
