abhishreshthaa

Abhijeet S
Pest Analysis On Automatic Data Processing, Inc - Automatic Data Processing, Inc. (NASDAQ: ADP) is a global provider of integrated computing and business outsourcing. ADP has nearly $9 billion in revenues[4] and approximately 570,000 clients.[5] ADP offers a range of HR, payroll, tax and benefits administration. ADP is headquartered in Roseland, New Jersey.


Henry Taub, a 21-year-old New Jersey accountant, founded Automatic Payrolls, Inc. in 1949, a manual payroll processing business. In 1957, the company now known as Automatic Data Processing, Inc. (ADP), introduced an automated punch card, a forerunner of the mainframe computer, with the capability of increasing efficiency and capacity for payroll processing. ADP went public in 1961 with 300 clients, 125 employees and revenues of approximately $400,000.


Throughout the 1980’s, ADP’s annual revenues exceeded $1 billion mark, with paychecks processed for about 10% of the U.S. workforce. The 1990’s proceeded to be a growing decade for HR Outsourcing, prompting ADP to become a Professional Employer Organization (PEO). The company in turn went international when ADP Dealer Services acquired Autonom, a German company, Kerridge Computer Co. Ltd., a dealer management systems (DMS) provider to auto dealers in the UK, and the payroll and human resource services company, GSI, headquartered in Paris. In the early twenty-first century ADP introduced GlobalView, a comprehensive global service solution for payroll processing and human resources administration.


A virtualized organization uses the virtual organizational structure that is opportunistic coalition of interior competencies which are distributed among different entities in one company or even in different companies that are dependent with each other.

The structure of the company has a global management structure that has a several headquarters that is being supported by a strong and update Information Technology or IT infrastructure. It enables to have a structure that is decentralized and focus on the competence centers. The primary reason of the company in using decentralized structure instead of centralized is because the communication activities that will be done and focused inside the organization will help to decrease the benefits and advantages of cross-cultural energy, regional as well as local efficiencies, and the know how of the staff of the company, that is based in the multiple locations around the world (Puma AG 1999, p. 28).

The virtual structure of the company enables to foster a cultural mélange as well as help to enrich the mix of sports, lifestyle as well as the fashion influences that are being encountered in the different major trendsetting centers and regions in the world. The application of virtual organization structure as well as the application of IT is not considered by the company as a luxury for the business, but it is a necessity (Puma AG 1999, p. 28). This can be considered as an advantage for the company, because virtualization had enabled them to manage as well as used the different information about the cultural differences of their customers and employees at the same time, using that information in order to create new products and services that will be enjoyed by their customers. The said structure had also helped the company to focus on its continuous effort in pursuing a more flexible as well as efficient organization that is fitted to the organization in order to thrive in the increasingly dynamic as well as fast-paced industry (Walter Partner 2004, p. 1).

Virtuality can be considered as strength for Puma AG. This is due to the fact that it had helped the company to regain its position in the market as well as its brand image. One of the primary benefits of the virtualized structure is it helps the company to manage their warehouse. Due to the huge change and increase in the sales volume as well as the improved volume of orders, it causes for the company to have shortage of finished goods warehouse. That is why there is more space that is needed. Instead of building new warehouse, the company decided to use the same logistic center and temporarily rent additional warehouse, when it only needed. That is why the company implemented a warehouse management system that handle the process of storage location management that are administrates virtually each and every good, then eventually assigns it to the respective order of the customers. Each produce can be located in just one click and will be sent to the customers in quick manner. It enables the company to mange the virtual warehouse for each and every subsidiary at the same time fulfills all requirements for a better warehouse system (Walter Partner 2004, p. 2). It helped the company to manage their inventories as well as to speed up their operations at the same time saving costs. The virtual organizational structure of the company, together with its advanced technology and use of IT, had helped to maintain its inventory aspects as well as to helped its employees and subsidiaries to speed-up their services to their customers, therefore helping to increase the performance of the company.

There are different advantages that are being offered by the virtual organization. One of this is the reduction in the needs for the intervention of management and control. To a certain extent, by the process of automation, much of the processing of information will be basis on the shared of protocols, and some part by the process of facilitating the direct communications and relations between anyone in the network. In general, virtual organizational structure will help the company to save time as well as effort in the management aspects. Therefore, its use should help to allow a simplification in the process of management as well as an equivalent reduction in the directorial overheads (Child & Faulkner 2005, p. 177). Furthermore, it can also help to reduce the cost in different ways, by the process of giving a feasible and practical way of managing and controlling the outsourcing up to the lower cost of the supply (p. 177). All of the mentioned advantages and benefits of the virtualized organizational structure help the company to regain its position in the market, and maintain its good brand image.

On the other hand, the main disadvantage of virtual organizational structure is the difficulties in the part of achieving the scale-or-scope economies, difficulties in the process of transferring the implicit knowledge, problems and troubles with the proprietary information leakage, difficulty in the process of financing the critical mass level of the process of R&D, and more importantly the complexities of maintaining the commitment (Child & Faulkner 2005, p. 177). Those disadvantages are being properly managed by the company with the help of IT.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Back
Top