27.10.2010

7S Analysis

Organization : The Koc School

Strategy:

The Koc School aims to become the best school in Turkey, both in elemantary, highschool and university. With the help and support of the Vehbi Koc Foundation, The Koc School develops itself in different categories such as the quality of the teachers in cumulative departments, the opportunities it provides for the students like the technology used in class, the dormitories, libraries and fields. These are all done to look appealing for smart and talented students, which will ascend the reputation of school in the long term.

                The Koc School is already one of the best schools in Turkey, yet becoming the very best one is the goal that the school is trying to accomplish. The Koc School claims that it raises future leaders.The strenghts of it’s strategy is the facultative teachers which ascribe high quality education to students during classtime, and abundant time to discharge during breaks. Eventhough the school currently has its strategies, additional strategies may be more efficient for the school to reach its goal.

                The Koc School enrolled all the smart and talented students, who were already attending their own schools, to Koc Highschool for free; when the school was first built. This strategy redounded the school’s reputation with a massive boost. Almost every family heard the name of The Koc School, which as a result, increased the number of its applicants. Today, families who have enough materialistic power wants their children to go to Koc School. This shows that the path which Koc School had taken worked. It may be also done again in 4 years, after all the current students in highschool graduate.

20.10.2010

Today, Mr. Sen wanted us to work in groups. The class’s assignment was to determine the opportunities and threats for a non-business company; The Koc  School. Every group was assigned a different part of STEEPLE to analyze. Our group had the first “E”, which is economic, and worked towards that. Below is what we have done.

Opportunities	Threats
·         It is supported by Vehbi Koc Vakfı. ·         The students are wealthy. ·         Dormitories.	·         High energy and supply expenses. ·         Quality teachers. ·         Lots of departments.

Strategies;

ü  The school can convince the foundation to build new buildings, libraries, sports fields for the school, so that the school will be a better place. It will become more appealing for both possible student and teacher candidates, which will improve school’s reputation and economy.

ü  The school admits students from all over Turkey since it is also a boarding school. This may effect the decision of a student living in Mardin. For example, if the school did not provide dormitories, cafeterias, etc. for a student living at a different city, then the student would not consider The Koc School as an option. So, having more dormitories and providing better service will bring more students, and as a result, more money.

ü  The school should decrease it’s energy usage by environmental friendly equipment. For instance, the school could replace all the light bulbs in school with energy saving ones to lessen the electricity expenses. The current sinks may all be replaced with sensored taps to prevent the unnecessary usage of water.

ü  For better education, the school hires more talented teachers. This may be a good thing for students and for the school’s reputation, but it costs a lot. Scouting for talented teachers with more reasonable salary expectations may be more suitable for the school; saving the finance.

Blog Rubric

11.10.2010

How can we write a good blog?

The blogs that we write should always be related to the subject. (for example: sports, food, nature, etc.) In this case, we should write our opinions about the business class. The key factors which makes a blogpost precise and correct are for it to be engaging, informative, persuasive and well-written with business terms.

It is not possible to evaluate whether an opinion is true or false. It is only possible to determine if it is rational or not. In contrast, if we write a blog about facts, it can be considered right or wrong, because a fact is a fact everywhere, it is not an opinion so it cannot be judged; questioned.

How do you a judge a good opinion from a bad one?

A more persuasive, detailed and well explained one with solid examples and accurate information is always a good one.

There are 4 key factors of a accurately well-written blog;

1.Engaging: The blog should be for a certain audience who are curious about the topic. Your blogpost should keep the readers interested so that they wii be eager to continue reading.

2.Informative: It is the owner of the blogs job to find the information that is needed. The things you learn from only one source –the class, in this case- are not always enough. Most of the time, you should provide supportive information from other resources like the internet, books, etc.

3.Persuasive:  Since we are writing about our own opinions, we should always explain it well by supporting it with solid examples, so that we can convince our readers.

4.Using Business Terms:  When explaining our opinions, it is essential for us to use the right language and diction properties in our writing; meaning using business terms. This helps us to get familiar to the usage of these words, and also ascends the quality of our work.

08.10.2010

Today, Mr. Sen brought two of his former students, Can Tuncer and Can Soyak, to the class for us to learn more about the Junior Achievement Program. They had the control of the class throughout the 6th period of the day and informed the two business classes who were undecided whether to join an already existing business company, or to form their own one.

They gave us the information that we needed in the given amount of time, and it was even more useful because Mr. Sen let them to teach us in Turkish. They started with giving a brief information about Junior Achievement and continued by talking about their past experiences. We learned the advantages and disadvantages of both joining a company that already exists, and forming a new one.

As you can imagine, creating your own company requires more effort and time, so it is considered harder when compared to joining one. They talked about the process of forming a new company, deciding the departments and the purpose. A company does not have to have all the departments, but there are mainly 5 departments with a CEO in charge which are production, marketing, finance, human resources and public relations.

They let us know that it is essential for the head of the departments to take a business or economy course. When those are decided, the next thing to do is for the head of the departments to choose an assistant to help them through their work. There is a meeting set when the assistants are chosen, and the purpose of this meeting is for the CEO to decide whether the assistants are capable of handling this job or not.

After this meeting, the skeleton of the company is created. Now, it is the time for admitting the associates. The head of the departments present their company to possible candidates and explain them their purpose, their difference from the other companies. The applicants are then interviewed, and it is the time for the company to choose their members; smart, ambitious and hardworking students. Can Soyak warned us about not to admit people to the company just because they are our friends, he told us that it is important to choose the right man for the job.

When all of these are accomplished successfully, the company is at last formed and can start operating. It is now more obvious; the comparison between joining and forming a company. Can Tuncer told us their invention of spagetti fork, made out of automatic tootbrush. This idea came out from one of their companies associates, Ceylan Carhoglu, and she played a great role for her company winning the Best Company Award. She basically created the thought of replacing the brushing part with a fork, so that the fork would spin and hold the spagetti together.

During the last 5 minutes of the class, Mr. Sen wanted us to come up with ideas like these and mail it to him, Can Kaya or Damla Erkiner that night. We had the opportunity of talking one-on-one to Can Tuncer or Can Soyak, and this is how I learned so much about creating a company. At the end, I decided to form a company instead of joining one, and started to work towards this goal.

Business Class Notes 06.10.2010

   Entrepreneur:
-Ownership
-Management of resources
-Leadership and taking risks (Courage) 
   You have to take risks in order to gain profit.
-Creativity
-Innovation.
   Creativity is to look at something that everyone is looking but seeing something different. (artists)
New way, pass the surface and see beyond. Creativity and innovation is to take something and interprete it to the current conditions and sell it in order to gain more profit. (McTurco, Sultanahmet K
   The main purpose of a business company is not to gain money, its what they do in order to continue operating, otherwise they would collapse. The main purpose is to fulfill customer's expectations. Provide the products they need and desire. You should find the purpose by looking at the bigger picture, its not just what the company is capable of, its deeper than that.
   Specialization has benefits and disadvantages. The upside of specialization is to increase productivity and efficiency. The downside is that the employers get bored and distracted, as a result the quality decreases. A library can specialize at history books, a car company can specialize at producing hybrid cars. The departments exist for the specialized employers. The bigger the company is, the more departments and specialized workers you need. Specialism does not mean you are capable of doing only one thing for the rest of your life. Specialism has to do something with size, scale. If you are a dean at a school, you should also be ready to be the general director one day, or to cover for him/her.
   A system is any sort of thing where you have inputs (imkan) coming in (this is called the throughput or the process) and producing outputs accordingly. Feedback creates more inputs by commenting, advising on your output so that you will make the system and the products better next time. A system can be a part of a bigger one. For example, your body is a system but it also has subsystems like the respiratory system.öftecisi) Discipline and patience. The people we are working with is as important as gaining money, they are related to each other.