Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Learner Statement
All work that learners submit as part of the ABE assessment requirements must be expressed in their own words
and incorporate their own judgements. Direct quotations from the published or unpublished work of others,
including that of tutors or employers, must be appropriately referenced. Authors of images used in reports and
audio-visual presentations must be acknowledged.
By clicking this box, I [ROSHEN APPUHAMY] am confirming that the work I am submitting is
☒ my own and I have acknowledged ALL the sources of reference I have used in constructing
my assignment.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS.
INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................................................3
1.Evaluate the impact of vision, values and culture on your organization’s management
practices. ....................................................................................................................................4
a.Clear understanding of vision, value and culture. ...................................................................4
b.Impact of vision, value and culture on organization’s management practices. .......................5
2. Analyse how smart working and empowerment can be used to manage an agile
organisation. ..............................................................................................................................7
a. What is an agile organisation? ................................................................................................7
b. How smart working and empowerment can be use to manage an agile organisation. ..........8
3. Examine how an understanding of the Resource Based View (Barney 1991) of the
organisation could help the organisation make effective strategic decisions. ...........................9
4.Undertake a self-assessment of my capabilities to manage an agile organisation and
propose areas for my own professional personal development to improve my capabilities. ..12
CONCLUSION. ...........................................................................................................................16
REFERENCES. ............................................................................................................................17
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INTRODUCTION
The organisation I chose for this assignment is Softlogic life, naturals at disruptive innovation,
which is manage by Softlogic holdings- one of Sri Lanka’s most dynamic and reputed
combinations, commenced operations in 1991 as a software developer with just 12 employees,
now has attacked into sectors such as ICT, Healthcare, Retail, Financial service, Automobiles
and Leisure. The group now gives employment over 8000 individuals and a turnover of more
than USD 300 million. The group’s strategic alliance with reputed global institutions and large
multinational corporations confirms its reputations. The company’s main branch is situated in
capital city and has many outlets in Western, Central, Sabaragamuwa province etc...
The main two products company sell are, Softlogic Life Universal Plan, it is a compressive
universal life product, aiming to cover all customer requirements with the flexibility to change
whenever they needed and, Softlogic Life Family Plan, an endowment plan which provides life
cover during the term of the policy. Apart from these products company offer service such as
COVID-19 Virus Coverages, Investments, Decreasing term assurance etc... When competition
faces, Softlogic Life faces healthy competition from several other insurance companies, namely
Fairfirst Insurance Limited, Union Assurance PLC, Arpico Insurance PLC, Allianz Insurance Lanka
Ltd and Ceylinco life.
Softlogic Life strive to boost the standards of quality of live, for both Young and Old by
presenting world class solutions of Life Insurance. And trying to enhance its brand positioning
and deliver their brand promise of enabling people to ‘LIVE LIFE TODAY’- while becoming the
preferred Life Insurance Provider.
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1.Evaluate the impact of vision, values and culture on your organization’s management
practices.
‘’To revolutionize insurance in Sri Lanka through world-class innovations and deliver
extraordinary stakeholder value’’
(Vision Statement of Softlogic Life)
Once in an article, Cingula (1992, pp. 499-500) has discussed organizational values, he sees
organizational values same as Softlogic sees as: ‘’ What people within organisation think is good
for organization, what needs to happen within organization and what might be needed within
organization in the future’’. In Softlogic there organizational values reflect the mission and
strategic goals of the organization. And they use organizational values as a powerful marketing
tool, since transparent organizational values are positively noted and encourage potential
buyers to use company’s product.
The five core values of Softlogic life are: Caring for people every step of the way as a partner for
life, never leaving space to deal on our authenticity, being courageous to challenge the social
condition to give customers the best solutions, boost the spirit of innovation to upgrade
customers life styles and bring together world class solutions to simplify the customer’s life.
When it comes to the organizational culture, the most common definition of organisation
culture is Bower’s 1996 ‘’the way we do things around here’’ as applied by Deal and Kennedy
(1982, p. 4). Schien (1980) defines culture as the pattern of basic assumption that the groups
learn the correct way to understand, think and feel in relation to the situation they come
across. And he differentiates three levels of culture and it explained by Guldenmund.
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Artefacts Visible Statements, meeting,
inspection report, Dress
code
Espoused (embrace) beliefs Relatively in detail and Policies, minutes of
and norms aware meetings,
1. Software
2. People
3. Risk
Vision is like a road map which shows the direction a company aims to enhance its business.
Vision is energy and an over-reaching concept that enlightens the organization’s value and
image, effective vision converts directly into an organization’s success which can be measured
by competitive advantages, improved sale, series employee commitment. Softlogic life vision
and values guide their efforts in creating a supportive work environment in order to ‘’LIVE
THEIR EMPLOYEE LIFE TO THE FULLEST’’.
So, when employees are a part of the vision process it is easier to get them together to decide
on important matters and coordinate execution activities.
‘’The way our employees feel is the way our customers will feel.’’
Source: Softlogic life Annual Report (2018)
Softlogic life vision statement impact and ensure the ability of cooperation to continue over
longer periods of time and they use vision strategies as a powerful tool to implement changes.
Softlogic life use values to motivate their employees as well their customers and it is positively
affected to the organisation. Organizational values playing similar role as values do in lives of
people, managing behavioral patterns and influencing relationships within the organisation.
Organizational values tend to be more successful because employees have a high level of job
satisfaction and ultimate objective of creating a productive and innovative workforce. And the
organisation has selected as ‘’ Great Place to Work’’ in Sri Lanka for the third consecutive year.
Also, one core value of Softlogic life is bring together world class solutions to simplify the
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customer’s life with that intention organisation has come up with innovative solutions like
DOCTORS’ VISIT TO CUSTOMERS’ DOORSTEP, MEDICINE DELIVERY TO CUSTOMERS’ DOOR STEP
etc. (Softlogic Life Annual Report, 2018)
Softlogic life imagine the organisation as a fish tank, organisation culture would be the water
which provide food and oxygen for the fish to survive and nurture. Which tells that they have
open culture where they instituted a warm and a friendly working environment that nurtures
learning and development. Also, it upholds the two-way communication model as they value
their employee’s ideas and suggestions and their culture supports local and internationally
recognized rights and avoid any involvement in the abuse.Continuous professional
development is a part of their corporate culture and the company produced 87 Million Dollar
Round Table (MDRT) qualifiers recording second highest MDRT qualifiers in the industry. This
shows the quality of customer engagement customers expect from their field staff. Further,
they believe ethical aspects of their advertisement is important for redevelopment of their
culture, norms and the creation of value for all stakeholders by take part in their product
promotion. Which tell all advertising are legal, truthful and agrees to the principle of fair
competition and do not use advertisements to abuse the trust of the customers.
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2. Analyse how smart working and empowerment can be used to manage an agile
organisation.
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Employee productivity and job satisfaction – When performance is measured based on outputs,
rather than number of hours, workers are encouraged to spend their time more on important
tasks that push on organisational goals. Recent COVID 19 case has shown the Softlogic
organisation that work from home are more productive and happier than physical workplace.
When employees are motivated and engaged at work, this leads to increased organisational
performance and more works done.
Results Only Working Environment (ROWE) is another contemporary management practice
developed by Thompson and Ressler where employees are pay based on hours worked and
efficiency. Benefits of ROWE include higher rate of productivity, accountability and less labour
turnover among essential staff. This technique allows for more flexibility with schedules and
designed to increase productivity. This technique also benefits for both employer and
employee.
b. How smart working and empowerment can be use to manage an agile organisation.
A new way of organising work is known as ‘’smart working’’, mostly large companies make use
of it. Smart working encourages managers to questions how work can be reorganise to increase
performance and the biggest advantages is the opportunity for employees to maintain a better
lifestyle. In smart working employees feel more independence and helps the organisation to
optimise their time and increase their company’s productivity. In order to absorb smart working
into an organisation, training is the factor to which value is attributed. This applies throughout
the company hierarchy. The other factor is, restructure performance evaluation process. After
absorbing the above two factors, company needs to have up-to data technological systems.
Softlogic organisation engage in various activities to allow smart working. Firstly, they offer the
technology to be able to work remotely. Secondly, they engaged in internal communications
campaigns on explaining the motives for change management. For example, Softlogic life users
Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality to provides a better experience to customers in learning
about insurance products and services. This can be applied in remote claims handling process,
education and advisor training. Also, they use Robotic Process Automation for repetitive task
and to reduces the non-value adding workload. This will reduce cost whilst saving time, money
and increasing customer satisfaction. These digit trends would bring them in line with the
principle of smart working (Softlogic Life Integrated Report, 2019).
Earlier we discussed about smart working. Empowerment is about giving authority to
employees. It is based on a belief that worker’s abilities are often under used, and that
employees can make a great contribution if empowerment to do so. Through empowerment,
employees are work together to achieve a common goal. Over time the team develop
cooperation and becomes high performing. When management empowers the employees to
make decisions, the team moves fast. Empowerment encourage trust, workers satisfaction and
creativity. The greatest benefit of empowering employees is ability to manage pandemonium.
Applying to an organisational level, empowerment builds strong relationships, leading to
improvements in efficiency and performance. It allows the full range of skills and experience.
Softlogic life use empowerment to ensure effective management and supervision of the
company’s core area of business operations.
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3. Examine how an understanding of the Resource Based View (Barney 1991) of the
organisation could help the organisation make effective strategic decisions.
Resource based view of the organisation (RBV) receives great attention in strategic decisions
management because of dynamic change caused by globalization. Resource based view analyze
and identify the resources of the organisation offers to human resource strategic management
a valuable conceptual framework, to analyse the ways in which organisation try to develop
their human resources with the intention of transferring them in a sustained competitive
advantage (Wright and McMahan, 1992). Resources that cannot be easily transferred, that
require a major change in the organisation culture, are more like to be unique to the
organisation and therefore difficult to imitate by the competitors.
Resource base view takes an inside-out on why firms succeed or fail in the market. It helped in
understanding of drivers of performance of each insurance industry taking each of the variable
as a resource. This opened up to evaluate the best practices among insurance companies in
organising their capabilities and competencies in use of such resources as product
differentiation to aid growth. Resources that are rare, valuables, inimitable and organized make
it possible for business to maintain and develop competitive advantages. A resource must
contain VRIN criteria (value, rare, inimitable and non substitutable) in order to provide
competitive advantages and sustainable performance. Valuable means the resources which
provides strategic value to the firm. For example, wealth planners of Softlogic life has been able
to create a fully holistic approach which enhance the value of the firm.
Rare means resource must be difficult to find among existing competitors of the firm. Hence
resource must be unique to offer competitive advantages. Resources that are dominated by
other firms in the market place cannot provide comparative advantages, as they cannot design
a unique business strategy in comparison with other industry. For example, Ashok Pathirage
who is the chairmen of Softlogic group is a leading visionary thinker which fulfilled all VRIN
criteria and helps in making effective strategic decisions.
Imperfect imitability implies imitate the resources will not be feasible. Bottleneck for imperfect
imitability can be interpret in many ways, difficulties in acquiring resources, ambiguous
relationship between capabilities and competitive advantages. For example, brand name of
Softlogic life which cannot imitate by the competitors. The main reason why resources can be
hard to imitate because competitors cannot identify the particular resource that are cause of
competitive advantage.
Organized to capture value means the resources itself do not benefits any advantage for the
company if it is not organized to capture the value from them. The company must organize its
management system, policies, process, organisational culture and structure to realize the
potential of its valuable, rare and imperfect to imitate resources and capabilities. Only then the
firm can achieve sustained competitive advantage. Below table indicates the types of resources
and capabilities that Softlogic life PLC have to achieve sustained comparative advantage and
each of these factors are evaluated based on VRIO framework or variables.
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Table 2 Types of resources and VRIO table (Source: Softlogic Life Annual Report, 2019)
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HUMAN
RESOURCES
CAPITAL
RESOURCES
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4.Undertake a self-assessment of my capabilities to manage an agile organisation and
propose areas for my own professional personal development to improve my capabilities.
For the opportunities section, look at the external factors I can take advantage of to pursue the
goal. Allow for strategic networking, take advantage of new trends, enter new market and offer
some great training seminars are some examples for opportunities. Finally, look at any threat to
my career growth. This part accounts for the external factors that could hurt my chance to
attain my goal. Current economic condition, lack of resources and lack of technology is a major
threat when it comes to career goal. Therefore, SWOT analysis can be a useful self-assessment
tool that can help me in personal development.
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have worked on my professional development and able to accomplish the set goals. An
example of my personal development plan is set out over the following table.
What do I want What do I have What support How will I Target date to
to learn? to do? and resources measure review?
will I need? success?
I need to
identify my
passion. Inborn
motivation is
what will drive
me to make a
difference and
lead.
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Deeper- Engage in Training Centre Course Post 31 march
understanding training courses. assessment report
of directing the report.
business
external
activities
Able to know my
department
team and build
their confidence
and trust in me.
Complete training course in order to become eligible for engagement in business project.
The next step in PDP is to identify the activities which will support in achievement of the goals
identified. PDP will count towards my Continuing Professional Development (CPD). CPD may
help me to keep up with ever-changing world of work. if I am looking for a way to reach greater
success, CPD is a proven route. CPD is a process of developing professional skills and knowledge
through interacting and self-directed learning. It enables me to proactively develop my
professional capabilities through variety of activities. There are main five source of
development activities: these are shown in the below table 5.
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Table 5 Source of developments activities and examples.
Other opportunities outside the scope of my Activities which help to develop skills and
employment. experience. For example, engage in charity
services.
CPD ensures that my knowledge stay up to date. Because I am aware of the changing trends
and directions in my profession and CPD helps me to continue to make a meaningful
contribution to my career goals. I can become more effective in the workplace and this assist
me to advance in my career and move into new positions where I can lead, manage and
influence others. Finally, CPD safeguards my profession, contributes to improved quality of life,
sustainability and economy.
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CONCLUSION.
It is clear that the organizational culture, values, vision impacts to an agile transformation.
Successful implementations need support from the smart workers and executive or empower
employees to embrace new ways of completing work. Every activity in the organisation will be
affect in some way, and by understanding what is different from others and what drives success
in each part. Organisation is better positioned those resources for the strategic decisions,
increase in productivity and customer satisfaction that can be delivered by becoming agile.
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