Fidelity Investment Company

Introduction

Fidelity Investment Company was established in 1946 by Edward C. Johnson and is owned by the Johnson family and employees. It is private company and has its major businesses in asset management services, retirement planning, portfolio guidance, brokerage, benefits outsourcing among others. It began its operations in Boston, USA which servers as its headquarters and was serving only the North American Investors at the time. Due to its exemplary results in service provision, it grew beyond its borders and is now one of the largest mutual fund and financial services provider in the world. It is a venture capital firm.

Table of contents

1. Introduction ——————————————————————————————– 3

2. Organizational factors ——————————————————————————– 3

Diversity management —————————————————————————— 3

Ethical, Social, and Legal Responsibilities —————————————————— 4

Ethical responsibility —————————————————————— 4

Social responsibility ——————————————————————- 4

Legal responsibility ——————————————————————– 5

International business ——————————————————————————- 5

General planning and strategic planning ——————————————————— 6

Organizing work and synergism ——————————————————————- 6

Organization structure and chart ——————————————————————- 6

Work teams utilization —————————————————————————— 7

Staffing ———————————————————————————————— 7

Employee training and development ————————————————————– 8

Motivating employees ——————————————————————————- 8

Leadership and management ———————————————————————– 9

Managing conflict and stress ———————————————————————– 9

Managing change ———————————————————————————— 11

Controlling ——————————————————————————————– 12

Appraising and rewarding ————————————————————————– 12

Operations management and plans —————————————————————- 12

Operations control ———————————————————————————– 13

3. Conclusion ——————————————————————————————— 13

4. References ——————————————————————————————— 15

Organizational factors

Diversity management

Fidelity Investment company has a diversity management system that has allowed it to create and maintain a positive work environment where the similarities and differences of its employees are valued, and that all have to reach their potential and maximize their contributions to the organization’s strategic goals. This has been done by the fact that Fidelity Investment Company has created a lot of opportunities for its thousands of staff. Transport industry is just but an example. Fidelity Investment Company owns the world’s third largest ground transportation network called ‘Boston Coach’. The company also owns a famous luxurious Hotel. This works well with its employees whose passion lies in the hospitality industry. The firm also owns an employment agency, a media house, a commercial lumber and building firm, to name but a few (Brealey & Myers, 2004).

Ethical, Social, and Legal Responsibilities

Over time, individuals have been questioning ethical, social, and legal issues concerning organizations. With the help of media houses, any business practice has become more transparent. It is believed that there is an increased readiness to believe negative things about corporations today, which makes it a dangerous time for companies; and the only way to remain credible in the eyes of the public, companies have to keep good moral ground (Davenport, 2003).

Ethical responsibility

This is a study that deals with proper conduct of individuals and/or companies. During the process of planning, corporations and organizations must consider setting up guidelines to facilitate easy governing of their business’s practices. This has protected Fidelity Investment Company, its employees and shareholders. This is because Fidelity Investment Company established the ethical codes of conduct. The Caux ethics for instance, is a system of principles designed to help corporations and organizations establish their ground rules for ethical practice. The first basic principle is to the responsibility of businesses beyond shareholders toward stakeholders and states that “Businesses have a role to play in improving the lives of all their customers, employees, and shareholders by sharing with them the wealth they have created” (Abrahamson, 1996).

Social responsibility

Social responsibility is a form of corporate self-regulation technique integrated into a business model. This policy has worked well for Fidelity Investment Company as it has an in-build system, self-regulating mechanism monitor and ensures its support to law, ethical standards, and internationally accepted norms. Public judgment can do a lot of good or bad to the company’s business. In order to maintain its competitiveness and win the public endorsement, Fidelity Investment Company’s unique business concepts and ideas have done them good. The mutual fund, transport industry and building and materials industry are just but examples of have chipped in aiding other sectors of economy to thrive (Borisoff & Victor, 2007).

Legal responsibility

All companies and organizations are provided for in the constitutions of the countries that they belong to. They are thus bound by law that came with other responsibilities too. They are required to follow the law to the later, which thus impact organization’s planning process. In order to operate without brushing shoulders with the law, Fidelity Investment Company has adopted and familiarized itself with external factors that govern the industry within which it operate. For example, it discloses certain information about its businesses and affairs as required by law. These legal requirements that have been followed very well by Fidelity Investment Company include periodic financial statements, insider trading reports, annual information form (AIF), press release statements and material change reports among others.

International business

Fidelity Investment Company also has many other financial products and services and financial intermediary firms is an example. Fidelity Investments also owns many unrelated businesses, including Boston coach, one of the world’s largest executive ground transportation network, a luxury hotel, and Veritude, an employment agency. Fidelity has also invested strategically in the telecommunication industries, like COLT Telecom Group in Europe, in South America, they have MetroRED, and KVH in Japan to name but a few. Fidelity Investment Company has financial analysts in more that 11 different locations and operations in 23 countries (Fisher, 2000).

General planning and strategic planning

Fidelity Investment Company has repositioned itself to fit in the ever changing business world. For example, in 1969, it was re-launched to ‘Fidelity International’. In 2010, it was rebranded to Fidelity Investment Managers’. This is part of Fidelity Investment Company plan to stay strategically in business.

Organizing work and synergism

Fidelity Investment Company has been able to maintain its growth and a competitive edge in business due to it ability to re-organize its working environment, create more departments in each of its business industry and ensure that all work together as a team. It has invested in a lot of other un-relating industries and been able to manage them all.

Organization structure and chart

Fidelity Investment Company management structure is not standard. Its all business operations are run from independent and regional offices. The managers in charge report to other subdivisions that in turn report to the company’s headquarters in Boston, USA. These operations in Europe like in France, Belgium, Italy, UK to name but a few; those in Asia like in Japan, India and China apart from the many others in the states of America; all these report to Boston, though not directly as each s different industry majoring itself in and demands and deadlines to meet.

Work teams utilization

The ability of Fidelity Investment Company to identify talents and organize the structure of service delivery not only to suit the clients’ needs but also considering the employees potential to deliver the needed service or goods puts this company in a strategic position in the market.

Staffing

Fidelity Investment Company owns an HR solutions firm. This puts them in a very good position when recruiting its employees. This is because the recruits who best-fits-where are identified then and deployed there basing on the specialized field of interest and talent.

Employee training and development

The quality of employees and their growth and development through training and education are major factors in determining long-term profitability of businesses. When hiring, it is always a good policy to invest in the development of the skills of employees, so they can increase their productivity and maintain a competitive edge in the ever changing business world. For instance, when an employee leaves or moves up in the organization, advancement in technology, expansion to newer programs and investments, Fidelity Investment Company has greatly benefited since it trains its staff and ensures all are well equipped incase of any of this developments. In turn, it has experienced increased productivity, increased efficiency resulting to financial gains, reduced employee turn over, and decreased for supervision (Carr, Hard & Trahant, 2002).

Employees who have been taken through the goals and objectives of the organization, always stand a great chance of defending the company at the time of crisis, instills them with a sense of responsibility and self worth thus delivering the expected results.

Motivating employees

Although training of employees motivates them, other means of motivation must be developed to suit specific Fidelity Investment Company needs of these important aspects of production. For instance, if one is very stressed out, it seems like everyone else is, too. Enthusiasm seems contagious. Actually, it is. Owners and top company officials of Fidelity Investments Company are enthusiastic about their jobs; thus much easier for others to be. The owners and founding family take care of theirselves and their own jobs, thus making it much easier for the junior staff to emulate them and have a clearer perspective on how things are done (Ehrenberg & Smith, 2001).

Increasing employee salary, giving gifts, holiday tickets and organizing staff days to issue the rewards is part of a crucial element of motivating employees. At the time of crisis like the recession periods, Fidelity Investment Company was honest enough to tell its employees of the challenges they were facing. Employees who have been known to be doing well in their area of duty are always respected. Their opinions and recommendations are always sort before adoption and implementation of any change. The management is under no obligation to agree on everything they say but the fact that their counsel given a hearing goes a long way in motivating them as they feel a sense of worth in the places of work (Drucker, 2002).

Leadership and management

Leadership is setting direction or vision for a group to follow while management is the act of controlling people or resources in according to the already existing set of principals or values. In the case of Fidelity Investment Company, employees have been trained over time to be leaders thus when an investment opportunity comes up, those already working for it takes up the new roles. The managers who manage finances in various offices and mutual funds and brokerage firms all over the world for instance are not only manager, but also leaders since they not only instill the principals and values of the umbrella company but also able to lead them in setting up their own standards and hence delivery of services becomes simple (Hammer, 2000).

Managing conflict and stress

It is the duty of the leaders in Fidelity Investments Company to create an environment that is conducive for the people in the organization. The leader should be in a position to intervene in case disagreements, interpersonal conflicts and differences in opinions among the workers arise. The extent of the success that Fidelity Investments Company is to achieve depends greatly on the ability of the leaders to resolve conflicts and working in situations that appear to be difficult. It is important for the leaders to have a clear understanding of the causes, the varieties as well as the levels of the conflict that appear in the organization so that the relevant actions towards its effective management can be put in place once such a situation is anticipated. The ability of the leader to understand personal reaction to a situation of conflict will greatly influence the participants in the course of overcoming it in case it arises (Borisoff & Victor, 2007).

The current scenario in business requires the promotion of an emotional environment and status that may concern the organization’s ability and the consequences that such decisions may have on the work performance of other employees and the overall goal of the organization. The environment in Fidelity Investments Company determines the success of good working relationships. The idea of the fear of attending to the workplace is not appreciable among the majority of the workers. The human resource development is dependent on the extent of the friendliness of the environment of work (Fisher, 2000). The temptation of the participation in the conversations that may result to a toxic workplace is avoided. The rumors related to the changes in the workplace are dismissed that may bring about some fears because most of the people fear changes which in most of the cases results to a decrease in the morale of the workers. The thorniest issues are addressed in a direct manner. In the case that the performance of the employees is appreciable, it is usually good to show a sign of appreciation. This is a gesture that is good and it has some important implications in the process of initiating innovations in Fidelity Investments Company (Borisoff & Merrill, 2008).

Speaking in a broader sense, effective management and resolution of arising conflicts within the organization in addition to trying to achieve attitudes coherence has great positive implications to the stakeholders of Fidelity Investments Company and the achievement of the set goals and objectives. The management in Fidelity Investments Company should concentrate on the urgency, timeliness as well as adequacy pertaining to the underlying conflict and its identification assessment as well as resolution. Human resource development and management is considered one of the most advancing and growing departments of Fidelity Investments Company. (Ehrenberg & Smith, 2001). Business proposal experts argue that the success of any organization is entirely dependent on the techniques and methods put in place for the management of employees in particular organization.

Managing change

Management of change in an organization is the ability of individuals to adapt to new structured approaches by the organization from the current state to a desired future state. It is a process aimed at powering the employees to accept and embrace changes in a business environment. For instance strategy, technological, structural and change in attitudes and behaviors of personnel, has been dealt with accordingly at Fidelity Investment Company by the structures already in place. Employee trainings and development and leadership trainings and seminars ensure that change is embraced smoothly and adapted simply. Change in technology is inevitable; and therefore already trained employees have no problems in adopting the changes. The company’s effective communication strategy ensures that there is no gap in understanding the change benefits and its implementation strategies

Controlling

Most managers exercise control over their juniors. This is a bad norm. Good managers ensures that employees working under them have control over their departments and divisions they are working in. organizations like Fidelity Investment Company for instance have perfected this art in that everyone working for the company is empowered to have control and responsibility for the own productions. Fidelity Investment Company is one of the very few companies whose employees own shares in the company. This ensures that the employees not only deliver their best nor have a sense of responsibility but also control in the activities of the company.

Appraising and rewarding

Employees have been known to be propelled by some factors to deliver beyond expectations. Increase in salary for instance as a result of good and steady productivity makes employees feel appreciated. Those known to have a more sense of responsibility in their areas of duty are always rewarded by appointments. Fidelity Investment Company owns a luxurious hotel and hence, a way of motivating those who have done well in their areas of duty, they are taken for a dinner party at the hotel. Other have won paid tickets for holidays, given commissions for targets exceeded among others (Jick & Peiperl, 2002).

Operations management and plans

Fidelity Investment Company has a management system that ensures that all its operations and plans in its firms in different parts of the world are accomplished. In every firm for instance, the marketing division ensures that there is massive awareness for the public and its customers. This unit of production is very essential as it the one mandated to ensure a high turn over in the company’s sales. The lead marketing division is based in Boston, Massachusetts in the USA and ensures that the other branches of Fidelity Investment Company follow suit in creating awareness to new products and services. By ensuring that each employee is a share holder ensures that all the policies are followed to the latter since the course of formulation was to ensure that their investments are safe.

It also has a sales division that ensures that the awareness raised by the marketing teams do not go in vain. The fact that the company owns a communication and data services firm illustrates that the sales data in all the companies subsidiary firms worldwide are transmitted in real time; thus easy management of records and transmission of the same to the regional offices for analysis. Its HR system ensures that there is a chain of command and effective transmission of communication to any intended party (Guha, Kettinger & Teng, 2001).

Operations control

All the operations in such an international company are computerized. This is aided by the fact that the company owns the largest software development firm in Asia situated in Mumbai, India. This further ensures that the management and control of its operations and goods are computerized and thus fastening the company’s operation’s control (Greenbaum, 2005).

Conclusion

Fidelity Investment Company has made enormous strides in investment and expansion of its business empires all over the world. The vision and mission statements of the company is very clear to its employees as well as the management since its growth rate and expansion rate in eminent. Companies are advised to adopt systems like the ones adopted by Fidelity Investment Company so as to enhance their growth and maintain a competitive edge in today’s competitive business world.

References

Abrahamson, E. (1996). (Management fashion” Academy of Management Review, 21, 254-285.

Brealey, R. & Myers, S. (2004). Principles of Corporate Finance, 2nd ed. NY: McGraw-Hill.

Borisoff, D. & Victor, D.A. (2007). Conflict Management. 2nd ed. Boston: Allyn and Bacon,

Carr, D., Hard, K. J. & Trahant, W. (2002). Managing the Change Process. NY: McGraw-Hill.

Davenport, T. (2003). Process Innovation. Boston: Harvard Business School Press.

Drucker, P., (2002). Work and Tools. New York: Prentience Hall

Ehrenberg, R., & Smith, R. (2001). Modern labor economics: theory and public policy, 5th edition.

Fisher D., (2000). Mood & emotions at work. Journal of Organizational Behavior 21.

Greenbaum, J. (2005). “Windows on the workplace”. Sloan Management Review, Summer 2003, pp 11-27

Guha, S. Kettinger, W. & Teng, T., (2001). “Business Process Reengineering”: Information Systems Management Vol. 6 34-67.

Jick, T., & Peiperl, M.A. (2002). Managing change: Cases and concepts (2nd ed.). New York: McGraw

Hammer, M. (2000). “Change Management”. Harvard Business Review,1990, pp 104-112