Financial Services Industry: Insurers, Agents, and Brokers
Changes in the Financial Services Industry
Key changes in the financial services industry include:
- Consolidation: The number of firms has declined due to mergers and acquisitions.
- Convergence: Financial institutions now sell a wide variety of financial products that were previously outside their core business area.
Types of Private Insurers
Size of the insurance market (2010):
- Life and health insurers: 1,061 – These insurers sell life and health insurance products, annuities, mutual funds, pension plans,
Management Principles and Practices
Management Functions
- Planning: Preparing for the future
- Organizing: Ensuring everything is in its proper place and time
- Leading: Guiding a group to achieve an objective
- Controlling: Ensuring everything is accurate and functioning correctly
Management Levels
- Top-Level Management: CEO, Board of Directors
- Middle-Level Management: Area or Department Managers
- Low-Level Management: Team Leaders, Supervisors, Chiefs
- Non-Managerial Employees: Workers
Types of Managers
- General Managers: Responsible for complex company
Mastering Management: Principles, Functions, and Skills
The Nature of Management
Remember when we discussed why individuals join organizations? It’s to accomplish goals or objectives that one could not achieve individually. However, this then requires us to manage those organizations.
Management defined: Management is the process of getting work done through other people.
The Importance of Management
- Management is the process designed to achieve an organization’s objectives by using its resources effectively and efficiently in a changing environment.
- Effectively
Supply Chain Flexibility and Strategy Alignment
Explain how supply chain flexibility can help align the supply chain strategy with a company’s competitive strategy.
Main Stages of a Supply Chain
Supplier – Manufacture – Distribution – Retailer – Customer
Make-to-Stock Model
In the Make-to-Stock model, products are manufactured and stocked in anticipation of customer demand, based on forecasts.
Engineer-to-Order Model
Engineer-to-Order production begins only after an order is received, ensuring that the product can be customized to specific customer
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The John Lewis Partnership: A Unique Business Model
The John Lewis Partnership is one of the UK’s leading retail businesses. Colin Goepfert is the Learning and Development Coach at John Lewis. The John Lewis Partnership came into being in 1950.
We’ve now got in the region of 78,000 people who work in the John Lewis Partnership. It includes about 32 department stores up and down the country, over 250 Waitrose supermarkets, plus our Internet business. We have a production unit up in Lancashire, near
Read MoreCapitalism, CSR, and Labor: Critical Summaries
Capitalist Philanthropy and Hegemonic Partnerships
Summary of Morvaridi, B. (2012) – “Capitalist Philanthropy and Hegemonic Partnerships”
Béatrice Morvaridi’s article explores how philanthropy—especially when done by wealthy individuals and big companies—affects global development. She argues that modern philanthropy is closely tied to capitalism and often reinforces existing inequalities rather than solving them. Instead of challenging the root causes of poverty, capitalist philanthropy
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