An organizational appraisal is a process of monitoring an organisation’s internal environment to identify strengths and weaknesses that may influence the firm’s ability to achieve goals. The internal environment of an organisation includes forces that operate inside the organisation with specific implications for managing organisational performance. Internal environment factors, come from within. Those factors, collectively define both trouble spots that need strengthening and the core competencies that the firm can build. During the late 1980s and early 1990s, interest in the role of strategy in building competitive advantage resulted in a shift of focus towards the internal aspects of the firm (also known as a corporate appraisal or organisational appraisal).

Even where the industry was unattractive and generally unprofitable, firms that came out with superior products enjoyed good profits. For example, when TVS motor company parted ways with Suzuki after 19 years of coexistence, analysts had almost removed the company from their radar screens. In a highly competitive two-wheeler market, they felt the company had very little steam left to get ahead. But with Victor, a product of five years of R&D effort, TVS rode back to success with a vengeance and is still going strong. A systematic internal analysis helps a firm:

• To find where it stands in terms of resources, strengths and weaknesses
• To exploit opportunities that are in line with its capacities
• To assess the capability gaps and take steps to enhance its capabilities to achieve its growth objective

Internal environment relates to all the elements within the organisation’s boundaries which include human resources, other resources, mission, culture, etc.

Important aspects of an organisation’s internal environment

1. Organizational aspects

• Structure
• Communication network
• Record of success
• Hierarchy of objectives
• Policies, procedures and rules
• The ability of the management team

2. Personnel aspects

• Labour relations
• Recruitment practices
• Training programs
• Performance appraisal systems
• Incentive systems
• Turnover and absenteeism

3. Marketing aspects

• Market segmentation
• Product strategy
• Pricing strategy
• Promotion strategy
• Distribution strategy

4. Production aspects

• Plant facility layout
• Research and development
• Use of technology
• Purchasing of raw materials
• Inventory control
• Use of subcontracting

5. Financial aspects

• Liquidity
• Profitability
• Activity
• Investment opportunity

6. Managerial aspects

• Management style
• Management competence
• Managerial values and norms

Hoagland has defined Working Capital as the “difference between the book value of the Current Assets and the Current Liabilities.” But the term “current” may mean either a liquid item (e.g. cash) or a circulating item (which moves around e.g. finished goods stock changes into debtors on sale, which in turn changes into cash on realisation).

Factors Affecting Working Capital:

1. Nature of business – The working capital requirements of an organisation depends upon the nature of its business. Businesses with a lot of cash sales and few credit sales should have minimum accounts receivable. Trading Businesses will only have finished goods in inventory, whereas manufacturers will have raw materials and work in progress as well. Large companies may be able to obtain longer credit periods for their suppliers. Some seasonal businesses will be receiving most of their money at certain times of the year, whilst incurring expenses throughout the year. Examples include travel agents who will have peaks reflecting demand for holidays during the summer and Diwali vacations.
2. Size of the business – Another important factor is the size of the business or the scale of operation. If the operation is on a large scale, it will need more working capital than a firm that has a small scale operation.
3. Seasonal demand – When the demand for the product is seasonal, inventory must be accumulated during the off-season period and this leads to more cost and risks.
4. Turnover of working capital – Working Capital requirement is also influenced by the turnover of working capital. If the turnover is high, the requirement of working capital is low and vice versa. Turnover of working capital is equal to the Cost Of Goods Sold/Working Capital.
5. Credit terms – The level of working capital is also determined by credit terms granted to customers as well as available from the creditors. More credit period allowed to debtors will result in high book debts, which leads to high working capital and more bad debts. On the other hand, liberal credit terms available from creditors will lead to less working capital.
6. Growth and expansion – As a company grows and expands, it requires a larger amount of working capital. Growing industries need more working capital than those that are static.
7. Price changes – Inflation (rising prices) would necessitate the organisation to have more funds for maintaining the same level of activities. Raising the prices in material, labour and expenses without proportionate changes in selling price will require more working capital.
8. Operating efficiency – If the company can make use of the assets at maximum utilisation with reduced wastage, the requirement of working capital is reduced.
9. Level of taxes – If tax rates are increased, more working capital will be required as taxes have to be paid in advance.
10. Dividend policy – Availability of working capital will decrease if the company has a high dividend payout ratio. On the other hand, if the firm retains all the profits without a dividend, the availability of working capital will increase.

• Used Syringes
• Human body parts
• Animal body parts
• Blood, other body fluids
• Cotton swabs used in surgeries
• Used gloves

4.24 Lakh Kg Bio-medical waste generated by Maharashtra every month.

1.08 Lakh Kg Bio-medical waste generated in Mumbai’s municipal limits every month.

24,085 Kg Bio-medical waste generated in Navi Mumbai every month.

12,700 Kg Bio-medical waste generated in Thane every month.

Why You Should Care?

• Improper disposal of biomedical waste leads to the spread of diseases like allergic bronchitis, HIV/AIDS and Hepatitis B and C through injuries caused by syringes and other sharp instruments contaminated with infected blood.
• Often, disposables like syringes are also reused illegally.

How Bio-medical Waste Should Be Disposed Of?

• Central Pollution Control Board guidelines stipulate at least one incinerator per 10,000 beds and the facility should cater to an area of 150 km within its radius.
• The facilities – incinerator, autoclave, shredder, etc. should be upgraded as per the standards specified.
• Bio-medical waste should not be mixed with other waste.
• It should be segregated into containers/bags at the point of generation.
• Untreated waste should be transported only in vehicles authorised for the purpose.
• No untreated biomedical waste should be stored for over 48 hours.

“Optimism is the one quality more associated with success than any other”

– Brian Tracy

We all face challenges now and again, but it is our reaction to those challenges that determine how quickly we can overcome them. There are typically two types of vies people have towards challenges: Optimistic or Pessimistic. While everyone may have a natural tendency to have one outlook or the other, your ability to find an optimistic view towards challenges will impact your overall success.

So here are 5 tips that you can use when faced with a challenge to ensure that you remain optimistic.

6. Control Your Reactions And Your Responses

When faced with a challenge an optimist and a pessimist tend to have very different reactions. The optimist sees a setback as temporary, while the pessimist sees it as permanent. The optimist sees an unfortunate event, such as an order falling through or not closing a sales call, as a temporary event, something that is limited in time and has no real impact on the future.

The pessimist, on the other hand, sees negative events as permanent, as part of life and destiny. So when you find yourself in this situation, take a moment to reflect on the challenge before you react. Try to visualise the next step towards improvement rather than responding to the setbacks that you have no control over.

5. Isolate The Incident

Another difference between the optimist and the pessimist is that the optimist sees difficulties as a singular event, while the pessimist sees them as universal. This means that when things go wrong for the optimist, he or she looks at the event as an isolated incident largely disconnected from other things that are going on in their life. A pessimist will take the incident and add it to the laundry list of other things going on in their life.

They have a largely negative outlook on everything and tend to expand the stress they feel towards one issue, onto other, unrelated areas of their life. So to remain positive, try to remind yourself that just because you are facing a setback in one area — whether that be a project at work falling behind or not hitting a milestone set — does not mean that the entire goal is obsolete. You may simply need to modify your plan.

4. See Setbacks As Temporary Events

For example, if a project you were on failed to materialize and you interpreted it to yourself as being an unfortunate event, but something that happens in course of life and business, you would be reacting like an optimist. The pessimist, on the other hand, sees disappointments, as more permanent. If you find yourself in this situation take a moment to remind yourself you are always capable of making a change and nothing is set in stone.

3. Don’t Take Failure Personally

It can be extremely difficult at times to see the positive side of failure. An optimist sees events as external, while pessimists interpret events as personal. When things go wrong, the optimist will tend to see the setback as a resulting from external factors over which one has little control.

An optimist tries not to take a situation personally. Although failure is not something anyone wants to deal with, the optimist uses it as a learning opportunity. If the optimist is cut off in traffic, for example, instead of getting angry or upset, he will simply downgrade the importance of the event by saying something like, “Oh well, I guess that person is just having a bad day.”

The optimist doesn’t think they were cut off because that person had malicious intentions against them. The pessimist, on the other hand, tends to take everything personally. If the pessimist is cut off in traffic, he or she will react as though the other driver has deliberately acted to upset and frustrate them.

2. Remain Calm

This is easier said than done when challenges arise. The hallmark of the fully mature, fully functioning, self-actualising personality is the ability to be objective and unemotional when caught up in the inevitable storms of daily life. The superior person can continue talking to himself positively and optimistically, keeping his mind calm, clear and completely under control.

The mature personality is more relaxed and aware and more capable of interpreting events more realistically and less emotionally than is the immature personality. As a result, the mature person exerts a far greater sense of control and influence over his or her environment and if far less likely to be angry, upset or distracted. If you feel overwhelmed or like your blood is boiling, practice being calm in these situations.

1. Look At The Bigger Picture And The Long Run

You have to recognise the inevitable setbacks you face are temporary and external. View the negative situation as a single event that is not connected to other potential events and that is caused largely by other external factors over which you can have very little control. Simply refuse to see the event as being in any way permanent, pervasive or indicative of personal incompetence of inability.

Resolve to think like an optimist, no matter what happens. You may not be able to control events but you can control the way you react to them. The earlier you learn this, the happier you will be in life.

How will you implement these tips to become more optimistic in your life? Thanks for reading. And remember as Brian Tracy always says “If you want to change your future, take action and take action now.”

A friend of mine has just written a book called “Words Of Brain” and what he has found based on years of intensive work on neuroscience is that certain words have a tremendous impact on the way you feel positive or negative so the part of this segment is to change your language for a positive outlook for example in flying the word attitude refers to the flight of your approach relative to the horizon with your lower or raise the nose of the plane you change the attitude of the plane. The way you deal with a problem determines your attitude or approach as well here are three words that you can use to change your approach to any difficulty you face.

1. Change “problem” to “situation”

Problem is a negative word that triggers feelings of fear and anxiety, “situation” is a neutral word so instead of saying “we have a problem” you can say “we have a situation”.

2. Change “problem” to “challenge”

My personal preference is to change the word problem to the word challenge. Whenever something goes wrong immediately say “well we have an interesting challenge facing us today”, you see “challenge” is a positive word when you think of a challenge you think of something you rise to, something that brings out the best in you and others. Challenges are what makes life exciting and worth living. By rising to the challenges of day-to-day life you fulfil more and more of your potential.

3. Change “problem” to “opportunity”

Perhaps the best word of all is “opportunity”, instead of saying “we have a problem” you can say “we have an unexpected opportunity.” Napoleon Hill was famous for saying “every problem or difficulty you face contains the seeds of an equal or greater advantage or benefit, your job is to find the benefit.” Look for the good in every situation and this way of approaching a problem is determined by your attitude.

The attitude of looking for the good in every situation or looking for the advantage or benefit in difficulty is the way that most successful people think most of the time, superior people and leaders face the inevitable ups and downs of their daily life on the way to their destinations by taking complete control of their thinking and their emotions, and they do this by choosing the words they use to describe a situation, their tone of voice and their behaviour in dealing with a problem.

A mark of maturity, a vital quality on the road to success and happiness and balance in life is expecting problems and difficulties as natural, normal and unavoidable parts of life. You can never avoid them, they come as they say like the waves of the ocean, problems never stop. Becoming a superior person requires accepting so that when you set off towards a big goal or destination, you will experience unexpected turbulence.

One of the marks of leaders is that they don’t like to fail but they know they’re going to fail over and over again on the road to success. Thomas.J.Watson Sr. the founder of IBM was once asked by a young journalist how he could be successful faster? He replied, “if you want to be successful faster, you must double the rate of failure.” Success lies on the far side of failure and the way that you succeed and fail and fail and succeed is to learn from every experience. Look for the good, call it a situation, a challenge, or an opportunity to keep your mind positive and creative as you work on your way through it.