TK Ceramics Case Study

This case study examines the challenges faced by TK Ceramics as they expand into Indonesia, focusing on the need for effective Human Resource Management (HRM) strategies. It analyzes various HRM alternatives and provides recommendations for optimizing HR practices to achieve business growth and profitability.

Case Study

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
BACKGROUND ...........................................................................................................................3
ALTERNATIVES............................................................................................................................4
SOLUTION......................................................................................................................................4
RECOMMENDATIONS ................................................................................................................4
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................5

INTRODUCTION
Key problems and issues in the case study
Renee Nguyen, Kate Johnson and Tim Bortolli are joint owners of TK ceramics which is
a small business opened by these people after leaving college. TK ceramics earned profits
rapidly and it became the Victoria's largest importer of European ceramic tiles. It has a staff of
around 70 people and it operates in a warehouse situated in Port Melbourne. Renee has got the
title of General Manager of human resource of this company. After this the main focus is on
enhancing the growth of the company (Brewster, 2017). There was a lot of planning going on for
growth of the company. TK Ceramics got success in importing tiles from Italy, the European
Styles, designs and colours translating to Melbourne market. The main problem which Kate
faced while implementing expansion in the business was development of an effective HRM
strategy. Human resource is the biggest competitive advantage of the organisation. They are
responsible for taking decisions for organisation that will benefit the company to make profits.
Formulate a thesis statement and summarize outcome of the analysis
“To develop better Human resource practices and performance management system in order to
maximise profit in Indonesia.”
There are some essential points about HR strategy which has to be followed by TK
Ceramics to have profits in expansion of their business. This case helps in understanding the
different problems that are faced by organisations while developing business and making more
profits. In the case of TK Ceramics, Renee is hired by Kate to develop and formulate a good
strategy in order to make good profits by doing business with small tile factory.
BACKGROUND
Background information, relevant facts and important issues
According to this case, One year ago, Kate had been on a sabbatical in Jakarta Raya,
Indonesia for a vacation. Kate was on a Indonesian opportunity motorcycle tour with her partner.
A preliminary investigation of the product showed that tiles of the factory were good but they
differ in size, surface finish and strength to meet the standards. The testing of each batch of
Australia and rejecting non compliant tiles was expensive and time consuming. Thus, a quality
control had to take place at Jakarta Raya. This will going to double the outputs of the firm.
Renee, Kate and Tim have certain issues like expert human capital must design, implement and
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monitor the quality process were not available in Indonesia. This business made huge profits to
Tim , Kate and Renee.
ALTERNATIVES
In the TK Ceramics, there were issues like an expert human capital is required to design,
implement and monitor the quality procedures in Atalas factory and these were not available in
Indonesia (Reilly and Williams, 2017). Then it was decided to send an Australian expert to
Indonesia for embedding into a new factory for a year. This will ensure no occurrence of
problems with standards compliance and wastage at the Australian end.
It is important for a company to explore various Human resource strategies that will help
in managing the resources in the best possible way. TK Ceramics considered different strategies
for managing people of their company and utilising resources effectively to make profits.
Alignment to business- The Human resource processes must be aligned clearly to the
requirement of business. This is a challenging work to formulate a strategy that can help in
development. HR should work for designing and implementing people process in the company.
The most important strategy for an effective human resource management is to understand
business demands and requirements and mapping the people process. This includes the present
and future goals of the organisation.
Knowledge of people profile- The resources must be utilised properly by the company.
In case of TK Ceramics , the HR strategy Is to know about the profile of people working in the
company, diversity and demographics, skill sets and motive factors (Davis, 2017.).
Workforce of future- All people of the company should be prepared according to the
workforce for future. The initiatives taken for people development must have a future focused
approach. This HR strategy is required for effective management of the human resource. The HR
strategies made by TK Ceramics must be reliable, market linked and flexible for remaining
effective.
The role of HR department is very important when it comes to form a strategic business
position in the market. The human resource strategy includes recruitment of new talent and on
boarding employees. The organisation must be aware about developing and refining HR strategy
Legal requirement- A company like TK Ceramics must understand all legal
requirements for ensuring the protection of business and employees. In the following case, the
company should ensure that all ceramic tiles were sold in Australia and they should meet
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Australian standards- ISO 13006: 1998 10545 Methods. There are several other legal
requirements like contract between tile factory and Kate. The most important legal requirement
is compensation of workers.
Corporate Image- It is very important for the company to maintain a strong and positive
corporate image that helps in growing top talent teams. The HR strategies help in building the
image and reputation of the organisation.
Performance management system- There should be proper planning and goal setting
initiated by the company. It is difficult for employees to stay motivated and reach their goals if
there is no proper management system (Hunter, Saunders and Constance, 2016). It is advisable
for TK Ceramics to invest in a performance management system which will make mangers and
employees to measure progress of the organisation throughout the year.
SOLUTION
The solution to such problems are implementation of a good and effective HRM
strategies. There must be a proper management of testing and managing tiles of different
variations an sizes (Reilly and Williams, 2016.). As Renee's list of jobs was growing rapidly
good employees must be hired to work effectively. The company is benefited by the
implementation of good HR strategies which will help in utilising the management and
employees in an effective manner. When this is implemented in the company more profits are
made by the mangers.
What is the best process to redesign the internally facing and customer facing jobs?
Customers facing jobs are considered as the jobs in which employees directly deals with
customers. It can be said that it is front desk job in which employee personally interact with
customers. Customer facing job mainly includes sales and marketing which involves regular
based interaction with customers in order to influence them towards products and services
offered by company. According to the case study, it has been evaluated that Renee is handling
HJR department of TK ceramics. Thus, it is required by Renee to initially divide whole task
among suppliers and others who are working working for customer facing services. In this, it
required by Renee to recruit more staff who could work for new product. The HR will further
give training to hired employees so that they could look after issues faced in Indonesia. This
training will definitely increase sales of company. Along wit this, it will also help in fulfilling
long term goals of TK ceramics in operating countries.
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What are the advantages and disadvantages for drawing at least some of the shop workers from
existing staff?
Kate and another partner have planned to expand their business, for this they have
decided to hire employees from internal recruitment method. This chosen method has both the
advantages and disadvantage which are stated as below:
Advantages:
 It is time saving and cost saving method.
 It motivates existing staff as they feels valuable to the company.
Disadvantage:
 It ignores innovation and new ideas which comes from new employees.
 It demotivates remaining staff members who are not selected for desired job role.
How would you create job descriptions and person descriptions for jobs in the shops that do not
yet exist?
Developing effective job description and person description is a part of job responsibility
of HR of every organisation. Job description mainly includes many sub titles that is job
summary, equipments, working environment, location, designation of job and job
responsibilities. It is essential for every HR manager to develop an effective Job description and
person description in order to aware employee about their job roles. With reference to present
case scenario, Renee, HR of TK ceramics have to initially evaluate all requirement of job and on
the basis of which they will decide what actually employee have to do. On the basis of this only
employees job description will be prepared. Along with this, it will further evaluated that Renee
will also consider those employees who are aware about importing of products from Indonesia.
In addition to this, the candidates who are aware about Indonesian environment. Thus, it can be
said that by evaluating all of their factors and environment Renee will prepare effective Job
description and person description which will help in recruitng best candidate for the specific
shop that does not exist in actuality yet.
Do the field sales representatives have similar key skills and abilities requirements to those that
may be needed for the shop staff? Discuss.
Maximum number of businesses has different kind of the jobs which basically includes
back office jobs and front line job. It can be said that skills for both the designated job is
different from each other. In context to back office jobs like Human resource, finance, accounts
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etc. employees working in this zone requires computer based skills. These employees only
requires office based skills as they only have work within office premises this does not require
field related skills. For instance, HR will require effective communication and team
management skills, Finance manager requires good calculative skills. Whereas, on the other
hand, field related employees will requires better presentable, convincing, influential and
motivating kind of skills which will help employee in succeeding in field job that is sales related
job. In context to TK ceramics, it can be said that its front line as well as back office employees
will require different skills as they are planning to enter into a product. For this, the company
will require effective management and best sales team that could make their business successful
in Indonesia.
RECOMMENDATIONS
In this present case scenario, it has been analysed that Human resource management plays very
important role. Effective human resource can help in gaining competitive advantages at
marketplace. It is recommended that effective implementation of HRM strategy can improve the
overall growth and profitability at market, which increase their market share. It is also suggested
that hiring an expert for developing HRM strategies, will be helpful for the success and
economic development of the country. With the help of HRM strategy management team of the
company can enhance the overall development of employees, company as well as the economic
condition of the country. A proper management team should be incorporated in an organisation
to look after the manufacturing process of tiles. As a result, it will help in reducing defective
products and provide high quality products to their customers. With this company can maintain
their brand image and goodwill and satisfy customers requirement. Along with this company can
increase their profitability and maintain high growth at competitive marketplace. It has also been
recommended that high quality products can enhance the company image and profitability of the
company which motivates employees to work harder and achieve the optimum goal of the
company. Also proper utilisation of human resources along with scare resources can accomplish
the goals and objectives in effective manner.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Brewster, C., 2017. The integration of human resource management and corporate strategy.
In Policy and practice in European human resource management (pp. 22-35).
Routledge.
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Davis, P. J., 2017. How HR can create competitive advantage for the firm: Applying the
principles of resource-based theory. Human Resource Management International
Digest. 25(2). pp.4-6.
Hunter, I., Saunders, J. and Constance, S., 2016. HR business partners. Routledge.
Pruim, R. H. And Et. Al. , 2015. ICA-AROMA: a robust ICA-based strategy for removing
motion artifacts from fMRI data. Neuroimage. 112. pp.267-277.
Reilly, P. and Williams, T., 2016. Strategic HR: Building the capability to deliver. Routledge.
Reilly, P. and Williams, T., 2017. How to get best value from HR: The shared services option.
Routledge.
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