Obu Rap Topic 13

SECTION ONE

1.1 Reasons for choosing my project topic area and case-study organisation

A rapidly changing environment, characterised by such phenomenon as the globalisation and deregulation of markets, changing customer and investor demands, and ever-increasing product-market competition, has become the norm for most organisations. To compete, they must continually improve their performance by reducing costs, innovating products and processes, and improving the quality of productivity and speed to the market. The question to be asked is can organisations achieve these without a well structured Human Resource (HR) programme in place?

The humans that make up an organisation are its lifeblood, its unique and most valuable asset. A firm possesses a sustainable competitive advantage when its value creating processes and position can not be easily duplicated. Sustainable competitive advantage results in the creation of above normal profits for a company. A highly trained and skillful human resource is imperative if any organisation is to attain and maintain its competitive position.

A reason for choosing this topic is to establish how small and medium-sized enterprises can create above normal profits by implementing sound HR policies. It seeks to give readers a comprehensive knowledge on the connection between an organisation’s HR activities and the ultimate attainment of the organisation’s business objectives and strategy.

Aspiring to be a manager someday myself, I am very keen to learn whatever contributes to organisational success. Researching on this topic will help me gain additional skills and abilities which will enable me adopt and implement better “people strategies” to achieve organisational goals in the future.

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) make up the bulk of companies in Cameroon as in many developing countries. They most often, tend to be staffed with less-educated and less well-trained HR specialists who may have more...