Intel versus CarMax

Introduction

Fortune 100 is a list of best 100 private and public companies that are based in the United States. However, this list of companies does not consider international companies, even though they (fortune 100 companies) deal with international operations. Apparently, numerous retail and technology-based companies are ranked in the fortune company, depending on their overall performances, how they treat their employees, environment, and the surrounding communities (Sinha & International Academy for Quality. 2000). This paper pays high attention to the analysis of technology-based company (Intel), and non-technology-based (CarMax) company, in terms of their rates of employee turnover, demographic profiles, company values, innovative organizational and human resource behaviors among others.

Intel corporation profile

Intel Corporation is a technology-based company whose primary focus is designing, manufacturing and selling integrated digital technology platforms all over the world. The company operates in wide operating segments which include data center group, PC client group, software and services, other Intel architecture, among other segments. Moreover, the platforms of this company are used in various computing applications such as desktops, smart-phones, automated factory systems, servers, automobile infotainment systems, tablets, notebooks, and medical devices. Consecutively, the core products of this company include microprocessors that are used in processing system data; and chipsets, which are used to send data from microprocessors to storage devices such as monitors and hard drives. It also manufactures storage devices, network-connectivity products, and mobile phone products such as Bluetooth and Wi-Fi products (Intel, 2010).

In addition, the company provides endpoint security, risk and compliance, content and network security, security software products for corporate, mobile, and consumer sectors in order to protect systems of these sectors from malicious malware attacks or loss of their data. Further, the corporation offers NAND flash memory products that are used in solid-state drives. Moreover, primary consumers of this corporation`s products include; Original Design Manufacturers (ODMs) including OEM channels in the world, Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) such as makers of communication and industrial products, and distributors, resellers and retailers (Intel, 2010).

Intel company was established in 1968 by Bob Noyce and Gordon Moore, and its headquarter is based in Santa Clara, California. Since then, the company has recorded a tremendous national and international growth. For example, by the end of December 2010, the company had more than 300 facilities that are located in more than 50 countries (Intel, 2010).

Demographic profiles of Intel Corporation

Intel corporation`s mission focuses on individuals who use its technology products, rather than focusing on its technologies. The company`s mission statement involves instituting happiness to shareholders, customers, and employees by continuously delivering technological platforms and other advancements that have become essential to their working and living ways. Consecutively, the company`s vision is to create and extend the computing technology to every individual in the world in order enhance and enrich their lives. However, this vision is achieved through focusing on the strategic objectives of the company (Farfan, 2014).

Strategic objectives of Intel Corporation

The organizational activities of Intel Corporation are directed to the realization of four chief objectives. The first objective involves expanding both PC and Data center businesses with new uses and users. This involves extending the leadership of the company`s PC platform, and developing viable innovations that would deliver new user experiences, and leading in the transformation of people`s lives through cloud computing and opening data centers. Consecutively, the company also strives to extend their technological solutions to adjacent market segments and create a continuum of personal computing. In addition, the corporation provides care to both the existing population and the environment, and to the future generation (Intel, 2010). This is evident in the way the company treats its employees, reducing environmental impacts and providing solutions to the global challenges.

However, the mission, vision and objectives of Intel Corporation is made possible by the company`s culture whose backbone consists of company values such as customer orientation, better place to work, risk taking, results orientation, quality, and discipline. The values define the actions and behavior of the company`s employees, and the company in general (Intel, 2010).

Moreover, Intel Corporation has a high number of employees all over the world. For example, the company had approximately 82, 500 regular employees all over the world, out of which 55% of this number come from the United States, 26% from Asia-Pacific, 14% from Europe, middle East and Africa. In addition, most of these employees are educated since 42,000 employees are holders of first degree, 15,800 have master’s degree, and approximately 4,000 employees have Ph.D. or equivalent (Intel, 2010). According to statistics, the company had 46 countries, including the United States, china, Germany, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, Spain, and United Kingdom, that had more than 50 employees during the 2010 fiscal year. Despite having regular employees, the company also has contract employees and interns, whose number is approximately 85,000 worldwide. However, the global rate of employees` turnover remains considerably low. For example, the average rate of employees` turnover was approximately 3.4% between 2009 and 2013, which is a great reduction compared to 6.75% that was recorded during 2007 and 2008 (Intel, 2010).

CarMax Company Profile

CarMax is the largest retailer of used-cars and a member of Fortune 500 Company in the United States. The company specializes in purchasing used cars, reconditioning, and then selling them to potential customers. The first store of CarMax Company was opened in Richmond, Virginia, in 1993. Since then, the company has extensively expanded such that by 2009, the company had approximately 100 used-car super-stores, and seven new-car franchises (Mitsubishi, Jeep, Toyota, Chrysler, Volvo, BMW, and Ford), which are co-located or integrated with its super-stores. Moreover, by 2014, the company had established 120 used car superstores, which are located in more than 30 US states, especially in Mid-west and southeast. In addition, a typical store of CarMax Company is approximately 59,000 square feet and accommodates a total of 300-400 vehicles. However, the primary focus of this company is on buying vehicles that are between 1-6 years old, which have covered less than 60,000 miles, and must their individual price must range between $11,000 and $31,000 (CarMax, 2014).

Consecutively, reconditioning of vehicles involve comprehensive and certified quality inspection of major parts systems and parts of the vehicle, such as brakes, transmission, cooling, fuel, air conditioning, electronics, steering, and other interior and exterior parts of vehicles. Though the technicians of the company are mostly involved in performing mechanical and minor body repairs, the company engages some third parties in carrying out some reconditioning especially those which requires intense repairs. Vehicles take approximately 12 hours on average in the reconditioned stage in order to meet the conditions for sale. To be precise, each car passes through 125-point-inspection process before being rendered fit for sale (CarMax Inc, 2010).

Mission, vision and values of CarMax Company

The company’s mission involves providing customers with high-quality cars at fair prices, and outstanding customer services. Consecutively, the company`s vision is founded on the virtue of integrity, which involves offering transparency in every phase of car-buying process, including thorough reconditioning, guaranteed quality, selection of wide range of vehicles, no-haggle pricing, and a variety of financing alternatives (CarMax, 2014).

Moreover, the company`s culture is made of numerous values that include customer focus, diversity, communication, teamwork, respect, associate development and fun. The company`s customer focus value involves striving to go higher levels in giving its customers the best working experience, while the value of respect involves acknowledging the personality of its associates, and honoring their contribution to the company. Moreover, the teamwork value involves working together as a team in the attempt of delivery the best to the customers, while associate development involves giving every associate a chance of growing and succeeding through providing them with training, mentoring and coaching services (CarMax, 2014). However, through these values, the company manages to create a workplace that is emulated and respected all over the world.

CarMax Company has a relatively high number of full-time, part-time and contract employees, which were approximately 13,349 by February 2010 (CarMax Inc, 2010). However, the rate of employee turnover is high almost in every department. This high rate of employee turnover is contributed some aspects such as the presence of some managers who are unprofessional and inappropriate to most employees. In addition, the working environments are poor, to the extent of risking the health and safety of employees. For example, employees are forced to work in offices that are characterized by hot temperatures, especially during the summer season. Moreover, even after employees forward these complaints to the management, the latter do nothing about it, leaving employees with the alternative of quitting. Consecutively, cater for the uniforms of the employees, such that every employee is deducted money for his or her uniform, horrible time off and lack of salary increment.

Innovative human resource and organizational behavior practices of Intel Corporation

Innovative practices of an organization involves activities that are employed by managers and organizations in order to stimulate employees to develop satisfaction that in the long run contributes to their improved performance and innovation potentials (Perkins & Arvinen, 2013).

Innovation has been a central part of Intel’s culture. The company believes that innovations are based on; setting aggressive goals, defining challenges correctly, and assigning the right individuals to the right problems. In this company, numerous innovative human resource and organizational practices are adopted and implemented. For example, the company provides open and direct avenues of communicating between the managers and employees. The wide range of interpersonal and electronic channels includes collaborative web-jams, intranet news articles, cyber-chats, open forums, small group executive roundtables, periodic business meetings and offering informal lunches. In addition, numerous social media channels of the company, such as wikis, blogs and online forums enable employees to comment about their views on various business activities, and in providing innovative ideas (Intel, 2010).

In addition, the company employs employee recognition and appreciation measures, which range from thank-you to formal rewards for their accomplishments. In addition, the company has a comprehensive compensation program that is designed to retain, attract and reward individuals who contribute to its continuous levels of innovation and long-term growth. Consecutively, the company`s form of compensating employees (based pay plus bonuses) is occasionally above-market averages, especially when the company`s performance is better than or comparable to the performance of its peer companies. In addition to employees compensation programs, the company also provides numerous benefits programs to its employees. Among them includes health benefits, which focuses on providing comprehensive health coverage to all employees and their families, in order to ensure a productive, healthy and engaged workforce. The health benefits program provides vision, dental, and mental benefits among others (Intel, 2010).

Moreover, the company gives retirement benefits to its employees in order to provide them with a comfortable and secure retirement. Furthermore, special leave programs such as sabbatical, pregnancy, personal and military absence leave area provided by this company, besides the normal absence and vacation policies. These employee benefits and compensational programs contribute to the lower rates of employee turnover, making it to be ranked in position 46 of the fortune 100 companies (Intel, 2010).

Moreover, in order to maintain a culture that limits life or work barriers, the company focuses on three major areas. First, the company supports flexible work options such as compensatory time off, job sharing, alternative start or stop times, part-time schedules, telecommuting and compressed work weeks, which are negotiated by the managers and employees. The second involves provision of resources such as intranet site, which provides employees with information such on topics such as how to cope with employees, weight management among others. The third aspect involves offering services and conveniences to its employees. Some of these reduced prices of products such as cars, computers, and mobile phones among others (Intel, 2010).

Additionally, the company provides educational training to new employees and managers. Consecutively, these new employees are connected with existing employees who orients them to the job skills. In addition, in order to measure the effectiveness of managers, the company conducts surveys twice a year, whereby employees are required to respond to the effectiveness of these managers in terms of motivating, communicating and developing employees (Intel, 2010).

Innovative human resource and organizational behavior practices of CarMax Corporation

CarMax Company employs numerous human resource and organizational innovative behavior practices. For example, when the company opens new-used-car storehouses, it incorporates experienced management teams that are drawn from existing stores. The company also rewards employees who record behaviors that exemplify the company`s culture. Moreover, the company anticipates maintaining and attracting qualified employees through its compensation programs and favorable working conditions. Additionally, CarMax Company provides outstanding training programs to its customers, with the aim of attracting, developing and retaining qualified employees. To be precise, the company requires each store associate (employee) to attend and complete at least 20 classroom or online courses, which amounts to approximately more than 44 hours training duration per associate (CarMax Inc, 2010).

Consecutively, the company provides structured and self-paced employee training, which orients the latter in their job specifications. This training is bestowed at KMX university, which is the company`s intranet-based tracking and testing system. KMX University is equipped with customized applications that enable the company to author, deliver and monitor training events, and to assess the competence of the associates after they complete their training. Furthermore, the company also assigns mentors to new associates in order for the latter to be equipped with on-the-job support and guidance. In addition, the company, sponsors employee retirement benefits plan (CarMax Inc, 2010).

Comparison between the innovative human resource and organizational behavior of Intel and CarMax companies

Both Intel and CarMax companies have numerous similarities and differences of innovative human resources and organizational behavior practices. Some of the similarities include; the two companies adopted and develop ways of training their employees. For example, CarMax Company has numerous training programs such as KMX university courses, and through the provision of mentors, who orients new employees about their job requirements. Similarly, Intel Company provides training to new employees through offering them university courses and degrees, and also assigning mentors to them in order to facilitate their orientation in their jobs (Intel, 2010). In addition, both companies provide retirement benefits to their employees.

Apparently, though both companies have these similarities, they also have some differences. For example, though both companies have informational platforms such as intranet, their usage differs depending with the company. For example, Intel company uses intranet as a platform for of sharing information with its employees, whereby the latter can post their comments or ideas relating to the company`s operating process, product design among others. In contrast, CarMax Company uses intranet platform as a tracking and testing system (CarMax Inc, 2010).

Consecutively, CarMax Company concentrates on training of employees, and some limited employee compensation and benefits. In contrast, the innovative practices of Intel Company are extensive and integrated, and this is a contributing factor to the reduced rates of employee turnover (Intel, 2010).

Key similarities and differences in approaches between the tech-based company and Non-tech Company

Both technology-based and non-technology-based companies have an integrated approach towards environmental sustainability. For example, Intel Company believes that in order to design sophisticated products, the company must carefully manage its air emissions, energy consumption, and resource conservation. Consecutively, the company had to develop ways of conserving water resources, manage solid wastes through recycling, reusing and reducing. In addition, the company uses technology to solve environmental challenges and conducting self-assessment in order to ensure effective compliance assurance to environmental health policies. Similarly, CarMax Company Corporation observes environmental laws and policies during its operational activities (CarMax Inc, 2010).

Consecutively, both types of companies have some similarities in empowering their employees. For example, both companies incorporate training of new employees in order to furnish them with the necessary knowledge and skills that would help in improving their performance. However, tech-based companies` employee empowerment approach is comprehensive than non-tech companies. For example, Intel Company has numerous ways of empowering employees besides offering training services to them. The company offers its employees special leave programs, enhance employee diversity by employing even female employees, and enhances work or life effectiveness, health and safety programs among others (Intel, 2010). Most of these employee empowering mechanisms are unavailable in non-tech companies.

Moreover, tech-based companies have numerous approaches to community contribution. For example, Intel Company is committed to enhancing economic opportunities, transforming education and making its neighboring communities better living and working places. This is not the case in non-tech companies. In addition, tech-based companies employed integrated strategic management approaches which enable the companies to apply their expertise and technologies to the environment and the society, which the help in identifying new market opportunities, mitigating risks, protecting the value of their brands, and reducing costs (Intel, 2010). This is not the case with non-tech companies.

Conclusion

It is, therefore, evident that tech-based companies have better, and intensive employee empowering approaches, integrated management approaches, and numerous community contribution approaches compared to non-tech companies. For example, the intensive employee empowerment approaches of Intel Company enable the company to experience low employees` turnover rates compared to CarMax Company. Moreover, technology-based companies more concerned with maintain a healthy environment than non-tech based companies. These companies observe environmental laws and policies and sensitize their employees to maintain a healthy environment through educating them on environmental issues.

References

Carmax, (2014). Our Cultures And Values. Retrieved on 5^th November 2014, from, http://www.carmax.com/enus/company-info/culture.html

CarMax Inc. (2014). Cyclical Consumer Goods & Services/Retail – Specialty. Retrieved on 5^th November, 2014, from http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/companies/carmax-inc/index.html

CarMax Inc. (2010). Annual Report Fiscal Year 2010. Retrieved from www.annualreports.com/HostedData/AnnualReports/PDF/KMX2010.pdf

Intel, (2010). Corporate Responsibility Report Year 2010. Retrieved from http://csrreportbuilder.intel.com/PDFFiles/CSR_2010_Full-Report.pdf

Farfan, B. (2014). Company Mission Statements – Complete List of World’s Largest Retail Missions. Retrieved on 5^th November, 2014, from, http://retailindustry.about.com/od/retailbestpractices/ig/Company-Mission-Statements/Intel-Mission-Statement—Values.htm

Perkins, S. J., & Arvinen-Muondo, R. (2013). Organizational behaviour: [people, process, work and human resource management]. London: Kogan Page.

Sinha, M. N., & International Academy for Quality. (2000). The best on quality. Milwaukee: ASQ Quality Press.