HRM Analysis: TK Ceramics' Indonesian Expansion - A Case Study

This case study examines TK Ceramics, a successful importer of European ceramic tiles, and their strategic human resource management (HRM) considerations as they plan to expand into the Indonesian market. The company, based in Victoria, Australia, faces the challenge of adapting its internal processes and customer-facing roles to a new cultural context. The analysis covers key areas such as redesigning internal and customer-facing jobs, training employees, and leveraging existing staff for international assignments. It also delves into the importance of job descriptions and person specifications in recruitment, and the essential skills required for sales representatives and shop staff. The case highlights the need for a well-planned and properly implemented HRM strategy to ensure the overall business success of TK Ceramics in its Indonesian venture. Desklib provides access to this case study and other solved assignments to aid students in their learning.

Running head: HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
Human Resource Management
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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1.
Internal process facing makes the business operations work efficiently, that will result in the
ultimate delivery of the product or service to the customer. Customer facing processes gives out the
source for the competitive advantage by the experience of the customers after using the product or
the service (Raab, Ajami and Goddard 2016). Customer facing solution is designed to deliver a
satisfying experience to the customers.
Here, the process to redesign can be followed after planning the business process by
predicting the outcomes and forecasting performances that are essential for the functioning of the
business. Then improving the business processes along with satisfying the customer is taken care of.
The next process is marketing, which convinces the members of the target market to buy the product.
Here the customer-facing process is highly involved and integrated. Sales and marketing are
customer facing and is delivered to the customers as per their need. Then the order processing is
another process that deals with the working of the company function. Business process such as
booking of the sales, billing, shipping according to the time and with low cost impact the customer
satisfaction as well (Abolghasemi, Khodakarami and Tehranifard 2015). The designing of purchase
factor is an internal facing that includes the structure to supply the business. Customer service is
another key factor function that implements the company success. Thus, customer facing jobs are to
be imposed with the scripts of the scenario and detailed feedback to provide the customer with the
aspect to produce satisfied customers.
In all the above practices while designing the internal and customer-facing jobs the
employees are to be trained according to standards to enhance their skills to perform their work
efficiently. Training is required in both the customer facing and internal processes where employees
need to interact with customers and with the services they provide. The most important training is
when the customer facing facets are represented in terms of their companies in a consistent way.

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The human resource department and the other branches of management must be dedicated
towards redesigning processes that will improve the revenue and productivity of the business. The
internal facing job holders are mainly responsible for the process of business operation. This can be
improved by establishing a system of Key Performance Indicator where the employees will be
responsible for their actions (Pollock, Jefferson and Wick 2015). It will be seen in the indicators how
the employees are improving in their performance. The redesigning can happen even with the job
flowchart. The management can be directly keeping a tab on the different internal departments to
understand the needs.
The customer facing job holders are the face of the company. Therefore these people need to
be trained in a way that there is maximum level of customer satisfaction (Mulki et al. 2015). There
are some very basic principles that work such as always smiling while serving and behaving nicely
with the customers. The employees working in the customer facing departments are also required to
have a high degree of knowledge about human psychology that will enable them to understand the
needs of the customers (Elmadağ and Ellinger 2018). There are ways in which customer satisfaction
can be measured through empirical means, one of these is the review and feedback system. This can
be used to understand what more can be done to redesign the customer facing jobs.
The ultimate aim of redesigning the process is improving the overall business of the
company. This should be carefully planned and properly implemented to get the desired outcomes.
2.
To draw at least some of the shop workers from the existing staff,various advantages and
disadvantages are there to this one decision. The advantages of this could be offering the employees
with the opportunity of multi-national orientation with the work experience at the parent company.
There could another advantage that the parent company would establish: guaranteeing the transfer
of the company culture in the business and management practices (Starnawska and Popowska

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2015). The advantages of drawing existing staffs to be sent as workers include the existing staff
members who are already knowledgeable enough about the job and they have understanding of the
job better than anyone who would be inducted in the future. Therefore their existing experience can
be utilized to gain success in a new scenario where the company is endeavoring to set up business.
The existing employees are already very much adapted with the work environment of the company
hence this will help them in taking the company ahead even in the new scenario (Verburg et al.
2017). The employees will already be closely involved which will create a tighter control and closer
coordination with the international subsidiaries and the headquarters of the business. Hence instead
of hiring completely new sets of employees the company can use existing employees to its
advantage.
On the other hand, disadvantages would stand for the employees who are not familiar with
the local environment and culture which would be ineffective and a drawback to the business. There
are several disadvantages in sending existing employees to the new location because this would
generate vacancies in the existing locations which would again require appointment of new
employees. This can affect the business in a negative way. This could also raise the cost of the
company by increasing the salary cost and the transfer fee of the employees. The existing business
can go down in the previous locations. Apart from that the company has to incur expenditure in
order to transport the employees from one location to the other location which is the new location. In
this case the employees being transferred to the other workplace will lead to result in personal and
family problems which can become a reason to affect the local morale and motivation of the
employees among the employees. The vacancies generated at the older locations will result in
untrained and inexperienced employees taking charge. This will also affect the existing customer
base which can reduce revenues. The organizations rate of failure will gradually increase as the
employees will be completely new to the culture which could increase the failure chances.
3.

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The job description is used as an object that lists a specific set of attributes related to the job
that can be used by the applicant to understand his or her skills that would mark as eligible for the
job (Kerzner and Kerzner 2017). The key responsibilities and expected competencies to do the job
are detailed in the job specification. It is useful for the potential applicants to understand the job role.
In order to create job description at first the main purpose of the job is to be described in one
sentence. Then it follows the main duties and the roles of the job to focus directly on the key
responsibilities to be performed while in the job, there will be clearly stated the scope of the job.
Core activities are to be clearly justified to be prepared to make reasonable adjustments. The job
description is made from the perspective of the department of the organization instead not from the
applicant side (Cook 2016). The job description has to be current and in subjective terms, while
opinions or recommendations are to be avoided. The templates are created and used by the
organization to understand the corresponding parameters of the job (Guo, Alamudun and Hammond
2016). It is often the first factor that is looked upon by the potential hire (Board 2017). There is no
such significance to described with the duties that are to be performed in the future.
Person specification is useful for a number of reasons to an organization and the applicant as
it helps the applicant to understand and to take decisions to decide to apply for the job. It is used to
underpin the documentation regarding the practice of strategic recruitment and selection. In order to
create person descriptions it is important to consider profile of the personal skills, qualifications,
abilities and experiences that are to be implemented in the time of recruitment. The person
description is classified in two different types of criteria namely, essential and desirable. Essential
criteria are those that are satisfactorily needed to perform and become considerable eligible for
appointment. On the other hand, desirable criteria are those that enhance the capacity of the person
to do the job successfully. It cannot be expected as essential rather it can be acquired in the
employment. The significant job related skill or ability has to be mentioned in the specifications
along with the essential function that is assumed. The preferred elements are achieved by the

5HUMAN RESOURCE MANANGEMENT
individual is to be mentioned to provide. Several factors are to be considered such as skills and
knowledge, type of experience, education and training and personal qualities to interview the
applicant. The person specifications are to be build carefully and must be capable of objectively
justified such that it can suit the designation effectively. It is necessary to state the level of
knowledge with experience that is required for the job. Person specification does not only focus on
the good educational background but also to an individual’s skills and experiences that will be
required to perform the task efficiently.
4.
The skills and abilities of the field sales representatives and that of the shop staff are
somewhat similar. The most significant skill that both the sales representative and the shop staff
would require are the time management skills. The list to do the job in the shop or in the field is
endless. Hence, it becomes important to thrive for the employees that can manage various tasks at a
time. Both the representatives are to excel in customer service quality and to react calmly with the
customers in all kinds of situation including in the time of stress (Johnston and Marshall 2016). Then
both the staff are in a willingness to take the ownership of the situation they are good at are mostly
practiced. The shop staff and the sales representative have another quality in same that is handling
the situation and the customer with the effective problem solving skills (Shi et al. 2017).
It is necessary as in a whole day they need to interact with several of the decisions related to
the interest of the customer. They both keep in mind that the strategies used while in the decision
making to handle the situation is made carefully such that it brings benefit to the company and
satisfies the customer as well (Arnold and Boggs 2015). Both the sales and shop staff are to be
ensured that they have organizational awareness. They should keep themselves updated with the
knowledge of the product that they are representing and of the company they are working for. It is
beneficial in situations when the customer cross checks their knowledge or come to clear their doubt.

6HUMAN RESOURCE MANANGEMENT
It is the duty of both to start their job with knowing all the related knowledge. All these processes are
completed then it starts the job analysis part.
However, to some extent there is a difference in the situation that the sales representatives
working in the field are more engaged in strategic planning to build a quick seller-buyer agreement
where as the shop staffs are less effective in this criterion but are partly involve in the process. The
communication skill and active listening skill are the most essential skill that one requires at the time
of facing the customers (Hannington 2016). It can be concluded from both the state of job roles that
the skills and abilities are similar in both the sales representative and the shop staff.

7HUMAN RESOURCE MANANGEMENT
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