Purchasing Optimization Levels

There are several purchasing optimization levels in the book production, which are the following:

The importance of reading in a country. The demand for books increases as people realize the importance of reading. As a result, this increases the book production process by different book publishing companies in a country. In such countries, people tend to purchase books more than in those countries, where people have not embraced the importance of reading.

The quality of a book and a paper and their presentation. This helps to differentiate the quality of books among competitors. Most companies do not make any compromise on the quality of books since this would put a company at the risk of losing their esteemed customers for the benefit of their competitors. Those companies, which print books on papers of high quality, sell more book copies as compared to those using printers, which print books using low-quality papers, in the same country. Book readers purchase books of high quality.

Long-lasting relationships of mutual trust connected with the use of printers. The relations of mutual trust among book publishing companies enable these book publishing companies to maintain the high-quality standard, because of the use of specific printers. This enables these companies to produce and deliver books on time and to avoid a situation being out of stock. Book readers gain confidence with companies, which have long-term relationships with their clients, and they purchase more books from them. A company with short-lasting relationships suffers a blow, because of a lack of book-readers’ purchase.

High-level market positioning. When a large market increases the demand for books, the book production process is also increased. Countries with a large market tend to have a high demand for books.

Marketing constraints. Correct and up-to-date information, obtained by means of an excellent book marketing research, can be of great importance for a book publishing company in gaining and maintaining its competitive edge. However, a number of constraints may cause these benefits not to be realized. These constraints include the following:

Constraints on budgetary. Collecting and processing book production and marketing data can be extremely pricy. Some book publishing companies may lack the knowledge to carry out broad surveys in order to collect primary production data and lack money to pay experienced market research agencies for collecting such data for them. In these cases, a book production company may be forced to rely on incorrect data that can be accessed more cheaply from the secondary sources. Book publishing companies need to have a lot of experience to know exactly the process of book production, its form and presentation. A book publishing company requires investing in these research agencies in order to gather quality information.

Time constraints. The book publishing companies often require equating the need to build up an elaborated image quickly, regarding their customers’ needs, and to draw decisions as quickly as possible, in order to raise their position in the competitive market. Time constraints may cause a company to run out of a stock of books in the market and, thus, lose their clients to their competitors’ advantage.

Constraints in the reliability of data. The importance of any research findings concerning the book production process and marketing depends on the accuracy of data gathered. The quality of data can be determined by leading questions, untypical samples and biased data collectors. The standards of data accuracy add to the cost of the research. Besides a tight financial control, these companies have to be quite autonomous choosing authors and titles of books to publish in order to keep their company on the top.

Legal constraints. The financial control law has a number of implications for the book production process and marketing companies. Regular auditing by a financial controller causes constrains to these companies.

Organizational constraints. In the book production process there are the following organizational constraints:

Time-imposed constraints. The book publishing companies inflict deadlines on their decision-making and long-lasting relations with a supplier. Clear decisions must be arrived at as quickly as possible in order to remain on the top of the competition and to keep company’s esteemed customers gratified. These decisions are restricted by some deadlines. Such conditions make time pressure on decision-makers and sometimes make it hard to collect all necessary information to come up with a good conclusion.

Constraints in rewarding systems. The company’s rewarding system determines decision makers by proposing preferable choices in situations of individual payment. Book publishing companies can decide whether to give out promotions to their customers to promote their purchases. This may cause these companies to have difficulties in making these tough decisions.

Formal regulations. The book production companies have to create procedures, rules, policies and regulations to standardize conducts of their members. They make their members accomplish notable achievement without incurring extra costs and this limits their choices in making decisions.

Centralized decision-making process means that decision-making process is concentrated in the hands of few persons. The top management is responsible for making key and weighty decisions and their implementation according to the guidelines of the top level. At the lower level subjects are to be approved by the top management before their implementation. It involves the reservation of the top management to have decision-making power, the middle level to make operations and the low level to make operations according to the guidelines from the top level.

On the other hand, decentralized decision-making refers to the delegation of authorities to all managers at all levels systematically. The top-level retains the authority for making crucial decisions and the rest have the authority delegated to middle and lower-level managers.

In book publishing companies with the centralized decision-making process, top executives make many decisions and communicate these decisions to lower-level managers developing a top-down management style in a company. Divisions, departments and locations in a company adhere to policies and procedures approved by top managers without any failure in the centralized form of decision-making. This develops a streamlined process allowing the whole company to equally utilize resources. This creates an efficiency process, although it does not allow employees of a company to make or implement their own decision without approval of top managers.

Few centralized procedures and policies characterize a decentralized company. Every group or division in a company creates its own policies, procedures and practices based on the company’s values. This empowers employees to make decisions and implement them to solve their own problems. An employee requires regular training because of the multiple reproduction of a process. Company’s employees may leave out their daily activities, since there are some workers, which do not thoroughly concentrate on them, and this may cause a company to lose its core value. It allows the top management to concentrate on company’s long-term strategies, since they are not involved in day-to-day activity of a company.

Combining both the centralized and decentralized class of management, companies can achieve results more easily. This can be caused by employees feeling an individual responsibility to influence a company. The feeling of individual contribution and ownership gives employees morale to perform following higher criteria, resulting in high performance system. This also enables employees to make decisions according to the expectation of the top management.

Employees, highly valued for their knowledge and skills, make significant decisions, which have a significant effect on a company. Most companies tend to practice decentralized decision-making.

Decentralized decision-making has such implications as less burden for the top management, a chance for employees to make a decision and to implement it, an operation coordinated at any level, unlike centralized decision-making, when operation can only be coordinated at the top level, and diversification, promoting professional development, since all employees play a significant role and all reforms originate from the bottom level and move to the top level.

Conclusion

To sum it up, it is important for book publishing companies to make clear decisions, which must be arrived at as quickly as possible to make companies remain on the top of competition and to keep their esteemed customers gratified. There must be some deadlines for these decisions. Such conditions make time pressure on decision-makers, and sometimes make it hard to collect all necessary information to come up with a good conclusion.

Centralized decision-making fits those companies, which are faced with a crisis and require a single source of decision-making. Those employees in an organization, which know their defined mission in a company, tend to make consistent decisions according to the core values of a company.

Decentralized decision-making has a demerit in those managers, which are subject to their supervisors concerning their subordinates’ actions. It has a multifaceted concept, since it allows transferring a responsibility and authority from the central management to subordinates. It also shows different traits, success conditions and policy implications.