Can you help me with all 3 questions.

Can you help me with all 3 questions.

1. Motivation is a complex issue that is not defined by everyone in the same way. One of the things we know about motivation is that what motivates one employee may not motivate another. Furthermore, people are not only motivated by different things, but different things motivate them at different times. Another way of expressing that is to say that people are motivated to fulfill unmet physical or psychological needs. Equity theory and goal setting theory are two ways that employee motivation may be explained. Describe what you might do in relation to goal setting theory. Describe how your actions might be different with regard to equity theory. Your assignment should be 1-2 pages in length.

MAN 1733 Management Today

Week Five Case Study

SAS

Cary. North Carolina

SAS (pronounced “sass”), which is short for Statistical Analysis System, began when it set out to create statistical software to help agricultural researchers who were studying the effects of soil, seeds, and the weather on crop yields. In 1970, researchers had to write new computer programs every time they analyzed data. SAS standardized that process and made it faster. Because the statistics faculty who wrote SAS needed to generate funds to cover the expiring grant money that paid their salaries, they started leasing SAS to universities and pharmaceutical companies. By 1976, they had 100 customers. However, it wasn’t until the first SAS Users Conference later that year, when 300 people showed up, that they realized their business opportunity. As you tell people now, that was pretty much the ‘aha” moment.”

From website traffic, to credit cards replacing cash, to genome sequencing, to sentiment analysis (analyzing every tweet, blog, and discussion group comment about your company and its products), the amount of digital data that a company has to go through is increasing at exponential rates. As a result, 79 percent of Fortune 500 companies use SAS. Shell Oil uses it to analyze data to predict how long the pumps will run on its North Sea oil-drilling platforms. Kohl’s department store maximizes profits by using SAS to analyze which products to mark down for sale. Credit card companies use SAS to reduce fraud by identifying unusual credit card purchases in real time. Finally, telecomm companies offer great deals to customers who, via SAS, they’ve determined are more likely to switch to competitors.

Although SAS has been profitable every year since inception, there are threats to its highly successful business model. First, says Gareth Doherty, an industry analyst, “Most organizations aren’t in a position to be able to leverage some of the sophisticated applications that SAS offers because the No. 1 constraint when you’re working with a tool this sophisticated is the user. If you don’t have a rocket scientist sitting behind the desk, it doesn’t matter what you have running on the desktop.” Second, SAS products are expensive, starting at $1 million for industry specific products (i.e., banking or retail), followed by subscription renewals that are 20 percent to 30 percent of the purchase price. Although SAS spends 22 percent of its revenue on research and development each year, larger firms are buying business intelligence companies to compete directly with SAS. SAP paid $6.8 billion for Business Objects, and Oracle paid $3.3 billion for Hyperion. The largest threat may come, however, from IBM, which paid $4.9 billion for Cognos and $1.2 billion for SPSS. IBM combined those firms into its business analytics group, which will employ 200 scientists and 4,000 consultants and analysts. Industry analyst Bill Hostmann says, “It will be a dogfight. SAS has never faced a competitor like IBM. And I do think IBM sees SAS as a big, fatted cow.”

With competition intensifying, SAS is shortening its product development cycle from 24 to 36 months to 12 to 18 months. Change like that can’t be achieved without attracting and retaining a highly motivated workforce. That’s increasingly difficult with tech job openings up 62 percent and a 22 percent average turnover rate in the software industry. That’s why Google gave all of its employees a 10 percent raise and a $1,000 bonus. So, the first step in maintaining your competitiveness is figuring out what motivates people to join a SAS. Second, getting people to join SAS is one thing, but how do you get them to work hard and maximize their efforts? Should you be egalitarian and pay everyone the same, or should you closely link pay and performance? Finally, how do you get your most talented managers and software engineers to stay? Does SAS need to “go public” like its competitors and issue stock and stock options to its employees? Or are there other ways for SAS to reward people and remain competitive in the talent market?

If you were in charge at SAS, what would you do?

Sources:

Jessica Guynn “War heats up for top Silicon Valley talent” Los Angeles Times, 10 November 2010, http://articles.latimes.com/2010/nov/10/business/la-fi-silicon-pay-war-20101111 [accessed 23 May 2011]; D. Chow, “For SAS, Asia Presents Risks and Potential,” Wall Street Journal, 21 November 2010, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704170404575623952475539676.html [accessed 4 June, 2011]; M. Hartley, “Business Software’s ‘Cadillac’; ‘Tough Times are Good Times for Analytics,’ SAS CEO Jim Goodnight Says,” Financial Post, 17 July 2010, 3; D. Kaplan, “THE Best Company TO Work For,” Fortune, 8 February 2010, 56-64; R. Lane, “Pampering the Customers, Pampering the Employees,” Forbes, 14 October 1996, 74-80; S. Lohr, “SAS Tests Its Business Intelligence; Top Software Company Confronts New Threat from Heavyweight Rivals,” The International Herald Tribune, 23 November 2009, 16; A. Ricadeloa, “IBM vs. SAS: The Battle over Data Analysis Software,” BusinessWeek Online, 30 November 2009, http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/nov2009/tc20091129_192266.htm [accessed 4 June, 2011].

2.There is no one best leadership style. Leadership theory helps us understand the different types of leaders and define their characteristics from diverse perspectives.For this assignment: Identify a well-known leader and briefly describe the characteristics that best differentiate him/her from others. Apply Fiedler’s contingency theory, path-goal theory, normative decision theory and visionary leadership to this leader’s style. Determine which theory best describes the leader you identified. Your assignment should be 1-2 pages in length.


3.A career portfolio is a collection of work designed to highlight your abilities and qualifications. Now that you have majority of the essential elements of a powerful career portfolio completed review and implement the necessary changes from your instructor’s feedback on your individual work assignments Weeks One through Nine into one document and include the additional contents listed below.

The final version of your career portfolio should include the following components:

1) Statement of Originality and Confidentiality (Tip: Use the “Stmt of originality.doc” template) 
2) Your Work Philosophy (Tip: Use the “Work philosophy and goals.doc” template ) 
3) A Personal Assessment (Week 1 – Individual Work)
4) A Resume (Week 4 – Individual Work)
5) A Cover Letter (Week 3 – Individual Work)
6) Reference Letters (Week 6 – Individual Work) Note: In an actual portfolio, you would use Letters of Recommendation written by others and not yourself.

Optional:
7) Your Awards and Accomplishments 
8) Work Samples
9) Any other items you feel will help you get the job you are applying for.

Additional Notes: 

  • You need to include any changes recommended by your instructor based on the weekly feedback on your previously submitted work.
  • The completed assignment should be at least six to nine pages.