Question

Write a esei of introduction of the astro company in Malaysia with examples.

Answer 1

Astro Malaysia Holdings Berhad is a leading integrated consumer media entertainment group in Malaysia and Southeast Asia with operations in 4 key areas of business, namely Pay-TV, Radio, Publications and Digital Media. Astro Holdings Sdn Bhd is a company incorporated in Malaysia with its principal place of business at the Administration Building of the All Asia Broadcast Centre, located in Technology Park Malaysia.

The company is dedicated and engaged in content creation, aggregation and distribution activities, including the provision of direct-to-home subscription television, radio broadcasting services, library licensing, multimedia interactive service, magazine publishing, Malaysian film production, talent management, creation of computer animation, interactive content and television content distribution. It is Malaysia’s largest pay television provider.

With a customer base of 3.1 mil residential customers or 50% penetration of Malaysian TV households, Astro offers 156 TV channels, including 68 Astro-created and branded channels and 22 HD channels, delivered via Direct-To-Home satellite TV, IPTV and OTT platforms. Astro provides HD, 3D, PVR, VOD and IPTV services through Astro B.yond and Astro On-The-Go. Fulfilling its promise to bridge the digital divide for all of Malaysia, Astro introduced Njoi as an entry-level DTH satellite TV service and is the country’s first non-subscription based satellite TV, offering 18 TV and 20 radio channels.

Astro launched the first High Definition (HD) broadcast in Malaysia in December 2009 under the brand Astro B.yond. Following the launch of HD, Astro B.yond PVR (Personal Video Recorder) was introduced in June 2010 and Astro B.yond IPTV (Internet Protocol Television) in April 2011.

On December 2011, the Prime Minister  announced that government will collaborate with Astro to provide free satellite television to customers. NJOI were launched on 18 February 2012. The People’s Choice, Astro was awarded the “Brand of the Year” award at Malaysia’s Putra Brand Awards 2012. The award is recognition of Astro’s efforts to exemplify innovation, quality and strong corporate social responsibilities.

3.2 Analyze the human resource practices related to your topic by describing and discussing the implementation, the activities involved, advantages and disadvantages of the practices.

One of the compensation strategies used by Astro is giving out stock option to employees. Employee stock option plan is a companywide incentives plan whereby the company contributes shares of its own stock or cash to be used to purchase such stock to a trust established to purchase shares of the firm’s stock for employees. The firm generally makes these contributions annually in proportion to total employee compensation, with a limit of 15% of compensation. The trust holds the stock in individual employee accounts, and distributes it to employees upon retirement, assuming the person has worked long enough to earn ownership of the stock. Many companies use employee stock options plans to retain and attract employees, the objective being to give employees an incentive to behave in ways that will boost the company’s stock price.

By issuing employee stock options as compensation, organizations can preserve and generate cash flow. The cash flow comes when the organizations issues new shares and receives the exercise price and receives a tax deduction equal to the fair market value of the shares that are transfer to the trustee, and can also claim an tax deduction for dividends paid on ESO-owned stock. Employees aren’t taxed until they receive a distribution from the trust, usually at retirement when their rate is lower. The Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) allows a firm to borrow against employee stock held in trust and then repay the loan in pretax rather than after-tax dollars, another tax incentive for using such plans.

Other forms of compensation systems include Profit Sharing, Gain Sharing. Under profit-sharing, payouts are based on organization-wide profits. The plan has two potential advantages. First, it may provide an incentive for employees to act in the best interests of the organization, rather than pursuing narrower goals. Second, by making a portion of compensation vary with organization profits, an organization can align its labor costs more closely with its ability to pay. Thus, during business downturns, it has fewer fixed labor costs.