New India

The hit-film slumdog millionaire is a well-known film about three children from the slums. Many people have watched this film, and although its storyline is thrilling, the perceptions it gives about India as a whole being poor and dirty and that everyone is a thief, killer or prostitute are misleading; although the slums are poor and dirty, not everyone in India lives in a slum. Not everyone who does live in a slum is a thief and will do anything for money, and many people in India are well-enough off and have ‘normal’ lives like the western world does. Fashion is becoming a huge part of New India and the western fashion is becoming more and more popular than traditional Indian clothes. India’s fashion imports are rising by 11% a year. This shows that India’s economy is expanding because the country can now spend money on luxury clothing like Gucci and Giorgio Armani where as before they could not. 350 million Indians also speak English as well as their native language and as English is the world’s main trading language; this means that they can easily trade and communicate with more economically developed countries (MEDCs) who can help them develop. India is a huge part of the IT industry; 40% of the world’s IT industry is based in Bangalore. This and other factors mean that India’s economy is rapidly expanding. You may have heard it said that India is at the centre of the world and this is true geographically and economically. India has had an open economy since 1991, meaning that Trans-national companies (TNCs) can set up centres and factories there. This generates a lot of income for India as 30 major multi-national firms like Lloyds TSB have Indian call-centres and lots of TNCs like Chanel and Coca-Cola have factories there. India is an attractive place for TNCs to set up a factory because in India there are over 1. 1 billion people and a high percentage of these people are of legal working age. Many of these people work for little amounts of money meaning that the TNC will get more. The factories that are being built in India are creating lots more jobs for people to work in. These jobs are being created in the city so many people who live in rural areas and do farming work, are moving to the global cities like Bangalore and Mumbai. An example of one of these people is Ganesh RC who moved from a rural area of India to Bangalore and is now the manager of the Royal Habitat Hotel. Ganesh says that globalisation and the building of factories in cities means that his hotel is getting more customers and money. Ganesh also told us that the traditional Indian food which used to be a favourite is now less popular and the children who stay at his hotel just want KFC and pizza all the time so they have to order it in. However although globalisation affects Ganesh positively and his attempt to gain employment and money by moving from his rural home to Bangalore paid off, not everyone’s does. Many farmers and families from rural areas of India move to global cities in the hope of getting a job and then being able to educate their children. However many people find that once they have moved to the city they don’t have the skills required for the jobs available, for example IT skills to work in an IT call-centre or another part of the hugely successful IT industry. Because of this lack of skill that they previously did not require, they cannot work and have no money or house. This leads to them having to live in a slum. The rate at which India’s economy is expanding is causing a great increase in the wealth for many of India’s people. However many people are also being left behind, meaning that the rich and poor live literally side by side and the wealth gap is colossal. In India 300 million people live in absolute poverty in slums and one third of the world’s malnourished children live in India. The quality of life in slums is poor and disease ridden with several hundred thousand children dying each year from dirty water. However in some slums life is better. For example in the Dharavi slums the 19 million people that live there make 700,000 pounds a year from recycling the city’s waste. That’s a lot of money to make from something that other people just threw away! However whether you think that this makes up for the fact that they are living in or right next to the waste, is up to you! India is 12 times the size of the UK; covering over 3. million sq km. This means that throughout the country there is not only a huge difference in wealth and living conditions but also in the landscape. These different environments change how the people there react and survive in them. For example, in India there is a desert outside the city of Jaisalmer in Bikaner but also in India is Cherrapunji which is one of the wettest places in the world, getting 11,000mm of rainfall per year. The people who live in Jaisalmer have adapted to life in the desert and the people who live in Cherrapunji have adapted to rain. In Cherrapunji the people face a lot more problems than in Bangalore because Cherrapunji can often get flooded which means that people can’t get to work or school and also might have their drinking water polluted. This is another example of a place which is facing huge challenges and not really getting much of the advantages or rewards from the expanding economy. [pic] In conclusion, the new India is giving some people huge advantages and more money through providing jobs, using/learning skills and by starting to develop the country generally from a newly industrialised country (NIC) to an MEDC. However most of these advantages aren’t trickling down from the cities to the people who now need it the most and are living in rubbish, by recycling rubbish. In the future it is possible for India to help the people who really need it and overcome the problems facing parts of the country and then they can use advantages that they have by being at the centre of the world to its full extent. New India is fast developing and gaining more money and status but is it leaving people and old traditions behind in order to?

Non Verbal Communication Essay

Non Verbal Communication is the process of communicating without words. Non Verbal Communication refers to the messages sent through gestures, eye contact, facial expressions, and posture. We send many more non verbal messages than verbal messages. It is estimated that 50 to 90 percent of messages are non verbal. Non Verbal Communication has few rules and often occurs unconsciously, for instance while speaking we may throw our arms around; while listening a sudden shock may result in a sharp intake of breath. Such non verbal signals add impact to a meaning, and they combine to provide an instant impression in a way that written communication or telephone calls cannot. Actions of this sort are an important part of the communication process. We must be aware of the non verbal messages we send at all times. Careless use of the non verbal messages can send the wrong message. When listening to someone, observe his or her non verbal signals carefully and try to interpret them correctly. Messages communicated by different types of non verbal communication are listed below:GesturesGestures can both complement and contradict other forms of communication. For example, when one person tells another to turn â€Å"left† while pointing right, the gesture contradicts the spoken words. If a person both says to turn right and points right, the gesture complements the words. The gestures that we see in everyday business communication include a wide range of hand and arm movements. When examined in context, they may have specific meanings:Baton-like pointing movements of the hands and arms punctuate words and may communicate control. Finger wagging and arms crossed over the chest may be signs of disagreement. A hand or finger covering the mouth may indicate that the speaker is holding something back or is too embarrassed or reluctant to speak. Hands on the hips with thumbs back communicate toughness and a reluctance to back down. Counting off on fingers may be a sign of clear thinking and logic. Although gestures can be used deliberately to communicate honesty, self- confidence, straightforwardness and control, most are used unconsciously. Eye ContactWhen people look directly into each other’s eyes, they make eye contact. Eyes can send messages as well as receive information. Indeed, eye contact can be the most powerful form of Non Verbal Communication. In business, as in personal relationships, eye contact sends different messages. Purposefully looking at someone is a signal of recognition. Direct eye contact tells a job applicant that we are interested in learning more. Purposefully looking away from someone may be a sign of arrogance or anger. The length of time that eye contact is held has a message of its own. Eye contact with a stranger is instantaneous. More than a glance makes both parties uncomfortable. Maintaining eye contact with a person of the opposite sex for too long can mean sexual interest – an inappropriate business message. Extended eye contact between men who do not know each other is an implicit threat. By contrast, it is acceptable in public speaking to hold eye contact with audience members as a sign of involvement and engagement. Eye contact is the most difficult of all facial features to fake. Even subtle changes in contact and expression have the power to show strong feelings if interpreted correctly. Facial ExpressionsClosely linked to eye contact, facial expressions are movements of the face that reflect attitudes and emotions that often difficult to read. With the vast number of possible expressions, the speed at which they change, and the ability of most people to â€Å"mask† messages they do not want to send, all but the most obvious expressions may be misinterpreted. Psychologists have identified six emotions that are expressed facially in all parts of the world: happiness, sadness, anger, disgust, surprise, and fear. PosturePosture is the position of our body as we sit or stand. It can communicate strong non verbal cues. For example:Letting our head drop, leaning back and supporting our head with our hand expresses boredom. Adopting an â€Å"open† sitting posture, with our head and body to one side and legs uncrossed, often communicates agreement. Walking rapidly with our hands moving freely at our side may communicate confidence and goal orientation. References: www.yahoo.comwww.google.com

Ethical Issues on Accounting Essay

Society is composed of many institutions that have various purpose and position. These institutions may sometime have contradicting goals. Money is something people work hard for making it such a sensitive issue. Disputes regarding money are often entangled in heavy disputes and are hard to settle. The accounting is the field that specializes in the job of taking care of other people’s money issues. Ironically, the accounting business has been bombarded by controversies regarding how they do their job and how they settle disputes if there are any. Practicing accountants consequently developed an image of being either strictly professional or, at worst, dishonest. Unfortunately for the accounting field, it is considered by many that moral standards of this field are deteriorating. This is where ethics come into play. It is very problematic to weigh issues without a set of conventions to guide them in the decision making. Ethics came form the Latin â€Å"ethos†, that means character and customs. Ethics basically deals with how people interact with each other. Ethics also sets what is good or bad, right or wrong but definitely much broader than the common notions of the rightness or wrongness of things (Cornwell University Law School). On the academic terms, ethics pertains to not just personal feelings, religion, laws. Feelings most of the time leads us to do unethical acts. Being religious too doesn’t necessarily mean that one is being ethical. Of course, religion sets very high ethical standards. But not all people are religious, non-religious people also have their own ethical standards. Also, being ethical doesn’t necessarily mean abiding by the law. Most people view the law as having the same grounds as ethics. Laws are formulated to meet ethical standards. But like feelings, the law can have certain biases, therefore can be sometimes can be viewed as unethical. Since ethics is basically right or wrong, it proves to be a very important tool such problematic fields such as accounting. Codes of professional conduct Many fields of profession formulate a highly developed detailed set of codes to guide them in their practice. They have allotted a considerable amount of their time and resources just to come up with these codes. These set of codes are more commonly regarded as â€Å"professional codes. † In the case of accounting, The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants or AICPA has Codes of Professional Conduct which serves as ethical reference. Much of these codes were later merged with the public law. The merging of the codes to the law gave it much more enforceability. Setting aside the technical education, accounting undergraduates were also given ethics courses before they conduct practice in the field. They may have discussed basic ethical. They might have been supplied a lecture of the codes of professional conduct. The generally accepted set of codes for accounting is supplied by the AICPA. One of the primary functions of the AICPA is the major role in the self-regulation of practicing accountants. Majority of the AICPA’s resources is devoted to developing the â€Å"professional codes† for CPA practitioners. Aside from the codes of professional conduct, there is also GAAP or the Generally Accepted Accounting Principles. Just like the codes of professional conduct, the GAAP serves as a reminder that accounting practitioners should keep in mind that they have to follow certain moral guidelines. It also includes rules and the agreed sanctions if these rules were violated. The Codes of Professional Conduct and GAAP both remind accounting practitioners that they must do their function responsibly. Basically, both these sets of moral codes states that accountants should not commit frauds even if the temptation of personal gain is prevalent. The codes and principles also remind them not to violate the set rules for it could mean heavy sanctions like renouncing of licenses. The use of professional codes is one way to resolve ethical deterioration in the accounting profession. On the other hand, it can be viewed as selfish on the part of accountants as it only heeds to their individualistic goals. Also, having a set of ethical codes grants accountants an image of trustworthiness and competence. Accounting is a field that has a very high demand by the public. The public, with all their money, is in need of accountancy services so that they could spend their precious time earning more money rather than the grueling task of sorting it. Accounting, as many perceives, is a very technical field, so accountants dedicate themselves to the complex technical aspects of the field leaving out on moral values. Accountant themselves see themselves as professionals that doesn’t require moral codes to conduct practice. Accountants develop an attitude which can be broadly described as lack of incorporating moral judgment on their work. Experts coin this as â€Å"ethical dissonance. † Ethical dissonance in accounting pertains to the attitude of accountants to treat their chosen field as completely morally neutral. As the word suggests, ethical dissonance is very prone to conflicts. Accountants suffering ethical dissonance have a different set of moral codes, or at worst devoid of any, so conflicts with other institutions will be very hard to resolve. The root of this problem is traceable to various issues like â€Å"self-regulation† practiced by the accounting field. Self-regulation Self-regulation of the accounting field basically means that the accounting field itself makes their own set of codes rather than extracting it from the society. Self-regulation can be something good as it can give the field of accountancy more focus on their field. Self-regulation gained popularity as it is regarded as â€Å"effective control† and the most efficient tool for minimizing errors. Accountants acquire some privileges that other members of the society don’t have. This includes the exclusive right to determine who can do the accounting work and how it should be done. These special privileges are granted to them by the state. But their acquired â€Å"autonomy† doesn’t come free. As an act of courtesy, the accounting profession now burdens having special public interests responsibilities that they should keep high competence and high ethical standards (Gaa, 1994). Once the regulations are agreed upon, it is formalized by law or by organizations of the same field. The organizations monitor and penalize its members if they abide or violate the agreed regulations. If violations are reported, investigations are done by the government or the organization, where the violator is a member. Also self-regulation allows accountants have more focus as they wouldn’t spend time and effort developing professional codes. Self-regulation can incite conflicts because in the end it will have to adjust to what the public wants. For many accountancy experts, self regulation in accounting cannot work accordingly. If extracted a tautological meaning, they are merely regulating themselves of what they should do and those that they cannot violate. The public and the accountancy field is both divided in this issue. Some people tend to go with the decision to leave their financial affairs to their accountants (Gowthorpe & Blake, 1998, pp. 1-3). They wouldn’t question however the accountants will do the job. In this respect, they recognize it that the accountants are the specialists in this field. And so they don’t bother in meddling (or arguing) with their accountants. The gray area of this point is that it is very prone to malpractice, intended or unintended, that can lead to ethical conflicts between the public and the accounting field. Since the moral code is self-regulated, what may be right or wrong for the accountants may be contradicting to those of the public. However, if the state gave the accounting industry autonomy, it means they are given more weight than other institutions. In this sense it is quite unethical for the state have certain biases. Moreover if the accounting industry is given this autonomy, in return they should provide the public quality and honest service with high regards to ethical standards and competence. Ethical lapses in accounting I have acquired examples of ethics in action in the accounting field. I will have to not name the particular agencies involved as it is unethical. Perhaps one of the biggest acknowledgements of ethical misconduct in accounting was done by an insurance company by swapping insurance assets to artificially increase their growth. This is an example of an â€Å"end justify the means. † The insurance company had only thought of its own good not minding how their action affects others. With their artificially fattened network gross, investors are lured to risk their money on a company that has not performed as the unknowingly deceived analysts say. (Flanagan, 2007, pp 38-46) Another ethical lapse in accounting is discrimination. Some insurance companies have gender, racial, and age related biases before they sell their service. This act of discrimination is highly unethical because it contradicts the responsibility of accountants to the public. Researches found out that gender seems to have a great effect on negotiations (Flanagan, 2007, pp. 60-64). (a) Women seem to be greater in number in terms of financial disputes. During negotiations, women prefer being perceived as reasonable. Men are treated to have more economic orientation so they can maximize economic income. Women are treated to have lots of self-doubt about their financial capabilities so they would have to settle with smaller financial settlements. Some companies perceive this as risk to their economic gain so they unethically reject smaller settlements. Women are allegedly to have lesser successes in negotiations in comparison to men. As gender awareness is increasing popularity these days, this ethical lapse would mean many disputes for the accounting industry. (b) There is also aversion for elderly people during negotiations. Many companies see clients with old age (65 up) as great investment risk. Elderly people seem to have more difficulty getting auto insurances. They also find it difficult to cash in their insurance as it could just be interpreted as a scam. Insurance companies group their clients in to two whereas one group is of the adult (23-60) and the other is either very young or very old. The latter group which has both extremities of the age group is treated much differently as opposed to the prior group. The latter group is perceived as to have a higher frequency of accidents that would lead to higher insurance claims. Also, younger defendants are assed more fault than relatively older defendants while all other are treated equally. Again the lapse here is that economic consequences were given more priority than being ethically agreeable. (c) Accounting services seem to have biases in terms of race. Loan default rates are higher for black applicants than white applicants. The lender cannot use race as a qualifier in whether to give out loans or not. There are also variations in insurance terms when race is being considered. Discrimination, the word itself is not obviously ethical. Ladd, 1998, pp. 63-90) Although these acts of discrimination are considered illegal, many practitioners still commit this unethical practice. If there are variations to insurance terms, the act could meet up with the legal definition of discrimination that could cause the agency legal prohibition. Although if there was a denial in loans due to gender, age, and race, even with the legal laws, it would be difficult to resolve because of the self-regulated ethical codes that the industry of accounting is equipped. Economic consequences of ethical issues Probably, one reason why it takes lot of time and discussions before ethical solutions are implemented is because corrections of errors will cause a lot of money for the accounting agencies. Profit maximizing is the priority concern of most businesses, even if they admit it or not. Moreover, maintaining and formulating proper ethical codes would cost companies much money that they would want to put into investment instead. Ruland had identified three philosophical perspectives that addresses the questions of whether accounting regulators should be guided by economic consequence issues. (Ruland 1984) The question of whether ends justify means for the accountants. It is often asked if the desired economic outcome of practicing accountancy justify what ever ethical approach they are taking. We can view this thinking as both negative and positive. On one side, we can view it as the actions should be judged weighed on its moral values. There is also the notion of â€Å"positive and negative responsibilities. † Positive responsibilities hold individuals accountable their own actions. On the other hand, negative responsibilities hold individuals accountable for actions they fail or allow to properly address. In simpler terms, positive responsibilities hold accountants responsible for their own actions, and contrastingly, negative responsibilities hold accountants responsible for the action of other people. Arguably, positive responsibilities can provide a fair presentation of accounts because the accountant’s reputation is on the line, as opposed to negative responsibilities whereas the accountants can’t be blamed for errors of other people. Many still argue that positive responsibilities should not be replaced by negative responsibilities just to avoid financial consequences. There is also the concept of â€Å"the distinction of duty to refrain and a duty to act. † Many accounting firms believe that the pursuit of the best accounting practice is the most important duty of accountants. They are tasked with a duty to refrain by any distractions. They are to focus only on their service, and nothing else, even if it may cause some ethical disputes. An important word here is â€Å"priority† as the duty to act gives more priority to addressing issue rather than refraining. Those who argue that economic consequences issues should be the main focus of regulations are favoring the duty to act.

Role of the Non-Commissioned Officer Assignment

Role of the Non-Commissioned Officer - Assignment Example One of such indispensable figures in the implementation of military structures is the non-commissioned officer. The non-commissioned officer, however, does not work untamed: for the non-commissioned officer to succeed in his role as a leader, he needs to be guided by basic military principles. This is to say that the non-commissioned officer cannot rule within his own discretion but needs to be guided by principles such as the application of the FM 6-22, counseling and the seven Army Values. A non-commissioned officer is a military officer who is given authority through a commissioned officer, but he or she is not technically considered to be in command. Non-commissioned officers rise up through the enlisted ranks, generally with several years of experience to their names before they reach positions of nominal power. The rank an officer has to reach to be accorded the position of a non-commissioned officer varies from country to country and from military force to military force. Also among the ranks, there divisions such as Junior NCOs and Senior NCOs depending on which nation is in question and which military force, be it the Navy, Army or Air Force. In the United States, for instance, all ranks of Sergeant in the United States Army, United States Air Force and the United States Marine Corps are termed Non-Commissioned Officers (NCOs) as are Corporals in the Army and Marine Corps. However, the rank of Corporal in the US Army is known to be a junior NCOs whereas Corporal s in the grades are referred to as senior noncommissioned officers. The non-commissioned officer can, however, be generalized to be ‘an enlisted member of the armed forces, such as a corporal, sergeant, or petty officer, appointed to a rank conferring leadership over other enlisted personnel’.

Strategic Plan Part I Organizational Structure Essay

Strategic Plan Part I Organizational Structure - Essay Example orate strategy for as long as 20 years into the horizon like what Panasonic did when its founder Konosuke Matsushita was still alive; other firms normally plan a decade ahead. This paper deals with Kaiser Permanente which is the largest health care organization in the United States today. It has 8.6 million health plan members and employs a total of 14,600 doctors and 167,000 employees. This impressive business organization was the response to the Great Depression by industrialist Henry Kaiser and Dr. Sidney R. Garfield. It was founded in 1938 because the United States is the only industrialized nation in the Western world not to have a national health plan or the so-called socialized medicine. The Kaiser Permanente operates on four core principles which are group medical practice, prepaid medical services, the focus of medical services is on prevention and the rendition of the whole set of medical services under one roof. These principles are the forerunners of what we today know as health-maintenance organizations (HMOs) by which a group of health-care providers are contracted to deliver specified pre-paid medical services to a defined group of enrollees or what is known today as health plan members (Boyer, 2001, p. 1). Today, there are close to 700 health maintenance organizations nationwide. Most of them are for-profit organizations although many of them originally started as charitable or tax free organizations designed to provide medical care access on a broad democratic basis to all people who needed them. Because of lack in the US of any socialized or subsidized national health plan, the HMO gained widespread acceptance as logical alternative to fee-for-services arrangements that existed before but which some poor people can no longer afford due to high or escalating costs. The idea of HMO gained further traction because of its emphasis on health maintenance (preventive care) and managed care that seeks to minimize health costs. The two end results of

Pharmaceutical Marketing Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Pharmaceutical Marketing - Essay Example To this effect, the companies have come under great scrutiny and they have been viewed as negatively affecting the entire medical fraternity. However, many people do not see the connection between the pharmaceutical marketing and the negative effects it has on the professionals and the patients as well (Higgins, 39). Pharmaceutical marketing is the business activity of advertising and promoting the sales of drugs or pharmaceuticals. Although many people are opposed to the fact that marketing of pharmaceutical products affects the physicians and the patients, there is evidence that the practice is harmful to both the medical professionals and the patients and it is in this effect that many countries around the world have put up some legislation that seek to limit the activity. This is because the pharmaceutical marketing strategies that the industry has embarked on have put both the physicians and the patients at a dilemma with many drug companies competing to lure the physicians and the patients into using their products. ... This is because the physicians are the most important people to the industry and this can be attributed to the fact the physicians are the people who are involved in prescribing medicines to the patients. It is in this effect that the industries concentrated on the physicians as the targets of their advertising and this meant that the industry would send many of their representatives to the medical facilities and also use other avenues to reach the physicians. One of the avenues that the industry employed was the utilization of medical conferences whereby a company would be the host. This was a very effective form of advertising but with time, it became obsolete and the industry had to come with new methods of marketing (Higgins, 39). This precipitated the direct advertising to the consumer. This has been viewed as very destructive because even the physicians sometimes cannot convince a patient on the prescription drugs that are best for a particular condition. This means that the patients have some information about some drugs and this has put even the relationship between the patient and the physician in jeopardy. This has been seen as one of the negative effect of the pharmaceutical industry advertising directly to the consumers (Polen, 39). There is controversy related to pharmaceutical advertisement and various quarters are opposed to the increased advertisement while others view this as a better way of informing the consumers. Those opposed argue that advertisements have adversely and negatively affected patients as well as physicians. It has been cited that these advertisements does not list the side effects of the drugs to the patients and also conceal some very important information pertaining to a particular drug (Parker,

Gender differences and Job Satisfaction Research Paper

Gender differences and Job Satisfaction - Research Paper Example Although subjective variable on gender difference and job satisfaction are of traditional interest to sociology and psychology researchers, many of the existing studies analyzing gender have been conducted in the field of economics for example Asadullah and Fernà ¡ndez, 2007; Sloane and Williams, 2000). There has been an increase in research especially in the field of management targeting gender differences affect job satisfaction among employees in different occupations. A key area of interest has been why women report almost equal or higher levels of job satisfaction when studies have shown they generally occupy inferior job positions compared to those occupied by men. Consequently, this scenario has led to investigations to find out how job satisfaction of female employees compares with that of male employees and what possible explanations accounts for the existing gender differences in job satisfaction. Therefore, the paper will rely on a number of empirical researches that inve stigate gender differences and job satisfaction to find out how two interact in the workplace. Investigation of gender differences and job satisfaction present conflicting results given the various areas that needs to be considered during such investigations. de Galdeano (2002) provides important insights that shows the difference that might exist in the job satisfaction of female and male employees are not related to their differences in observable characteristics nor can it the difference be attributed to a problem of sample selection. This is done by apply the propensity score which has been used by researchers such Tabellini and Trebbi (2001) to further the accuracy of their results. de Galdeano (2002) examines sample selectivity based on the belief that if female employees were dissatisfied by their working conditions they would find it equally easy to leave their employment just as their male counterparts whereby those who remain will have higher job

Why have traditional theories of assimilation consistently failed to Essay

Why have traditional theories of assimilation consistently failed to explain the nature of immigrant adaption - Essay Example In order to discuss assimilation further, it is first important to understand the primary reasons as to: why people migrate, the places where people migrate to and the different type(s) of people who migrate. Once we have looked in greater depth at the issues surrounding migration can we then start to understand the theories surrounding assimilation and the reasons why these theories consistently fail to explain immigrant adaption. As Castles and Miller (2009) state: International migration is hardly ever a simple individual action in which a person decides to move in search of better life chances, pulls up his or her roots in the place of origin and quickly becomes assimilated in the new country. Much more often migration and settlement are a long drawn out process that will be played out for the rest of the migrant’s life and affect subsequent generations too. So, if this process is so complex and long lasting why do people do it? People migrate for many different reasons these include economic, social, political and environmental. The term economic migration refers to someone who is migrating for the purpose of seeking employment or better employment opportunities or to improve their financial position. ‘Economic advantage has long been one of the main stimulants to migration – both for the individual workers seeking economic betterment and for the states attracting workers to fill labour shortages and skills gaps. With globalization and the rapid growth in ease of travel, economic migration has become an increasingly significant phenomenon world-wide. The International Organisation for Migration estimates that there are 80 million economic migrants world-wide’ (Economic migration to the EU, 2005). Economic migration is the most common cause of migration. Social migration involves either moving for a better quality of life or to be closer to friends or family where as political migration refers to someone who is migrating primarily because of

Should priciples of justice in a community begin with the maximin Essay

Should priciples of justice in a community begin with the maximin assumption evident in John Rawls' work A theory of justice - Essay Example Rawls was primarily concerned with questions of how best social justice could be organized as a â€Å"basis structure† in a liberal and democratic society (Ibid: 6). For Rawls, his idea of justice was directed at how a societys main political, social, and economic institutions should cooperate together in distributing fundamental rights and duties to everyone in an ordered society (Ibid: 6). His objective of A Theory of Justice, published in 1971, was to provide an alternative solution to the then dominant utilitarian principle of justice, which held that, a society is â€Å"right and morally just,† if major institutions maximized what is intrinsically good, to the satisfaction of the vast majority of people in a society (Ibid: 21). In rejecting the utilitarian principle of utiltiy, Rawls set forth his conception of justice, which was egalitarian in nature. It would perhaps be helpful to look at some definitions of justice, before analyzing Rawlss conception of justice. The dictionary of legal theory define justice as the set of moral and political constrains on human interactions (Bix, 2004: 108). There have been significant debates about the nature and source of standards of justice, and some sceptical thinkers argued that standards of justice were grounded only in the conventional views of society, or in a communitys traditions (Ibid: 108). Other theories viewed the principles of justice as a general agreement among people under certain ideal conditions. A traditional view of justice described standards that are eternal and unchangeable, established by God, the nature of the universe, human nature, or some combination of these (Ibid). D.D.Raphael (2001:1), a theorist of justice, recognized justice as a complex concept that pervaded social thought, and is basic to law, ethics, and politics alike (Raphael:1). In social and political ethics,

The introduction of Reddin Equipment Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

The introduction of Reddin Equipment - Essay Example Reddin Equipment utilized a customer-based model to win loyalty from its customers. In the contemporary business environment, the customers lay at the heart of the business and they have a great influence on organizational operability. Reddin equipment applies integrated communication strategies to market its products. To do this, the organization involves its customers in developing all its products. For instance, the 5M and 5E Limited Series Tractors was improved trough customer feedback (Reddin.com, 2014). The organization has opened efficient communication channels to ensure that the customers can contribute to the product design. In addition, the organization uses this approach to handle the employee issues. The organization has developed a good social relation within the organization to enhance teamwork and promote cooperation. As a result, the organization has continuously developed through both employee and customer loyalty. Loyalty from employees ensures that there is optima l production while customer loyalty has provided the organization an opportunity to increase its number of customers. However, the organization has survived amid challenges of a competitive market. In Canada, more equipment sellers have entered the market, leading to high competition. The entry on new equipment sellers has threatened the survival in this market. Competition has increased the organizations bargaining power, leading to competition in prices in this market. A reduction in the prices of products causes a great reduction in the profit margins for the organization (Profile Canada, 2014). To survive, the organization has embarked on pricing strategies to ensure that they are not face out of the business market. As such, the organization strives to satisfy the customer tastes and preferences while checking on its prices mechanism. Another challenge of the organization has been in developing an international strategy. The challenges of new market

Douglas Spalding Essay Example for Free

Douglas Spalding Essay Douglas Spalding was the architect of ethology, the scientific study of animal behavior. He started his research in the mid 1800s. His studies discounted British empiricist claims that animal skill regarding depth, distance; perception and sound localization were learned by the animals while they were young. Spalding study of ethology involved the determiner of behavior such as instinct is behavior that is predisposed or shaped by natural selection or innate pre-programmed behavior. To address the British empiricist claim that perceptual abilities did not require experience, he conducted an study dealing with instinct. He open a portion of an egg where chicks, baby chickens, not girls, where about to hatch and just before their eyes opened, he opened a piece of the egg, and covered the chicks head with a hood. After removing the hood; the chick showed no effects of not being able to see and was able to locate insects to eat, thus showing innate behavior is extremely valuable in animal behavior and not experience. Critical period research is learning that occurs at a specific age or life stage. Critical period is behavior that’s developed within a specific time frame. Spalding withheld chicks from the mother for 10 days. The chicks didn’t hear or see their mother for ten days. Spalding introduced the chicks to the calls of the mother; however, the chicks did not recognize their mother. Spalding observation showed at particular stages in life innate behavior is developed with a specific time. Spalding experiments and observations supported the claim that animals innate behaviors not experiences is a determiner of behavior.

Fast food restaurant Essay Example for Free

Fast food restaurant Essay Introduction †¢ Franklin Pierce College was founded in 1962 by Frank S. DiPietro †¢ This research project was conducted from September to December of 2004 for the population of Franklin Pierce College. †¢ The population of our survey was based on the 1,591 Franklin Pierce College students on the Rindge campus. 2 Problem Statement Our research team came to the conclusion that there is a lack of fast food facilities in the Rindge area. We came to the conclusion that: Research is necessary to determine if Franklin Pierce College students would patronize a fast food chain in Rindge, NH 3 Research Objectives. †¢ Determine what criteria are important to consumers with respect to patronizing a fast food establishment. †¢ Determine which fast food restaurant would be most successful in the area. †¢ Determine fast food spending habits. 4 Methodology †¢ First, our team identified the problem of the lack of fast food restaurant choices in the area. We conducted primary research on the fast food industry, as well as speaking to others on campus to determine the fast food demand. †¢ We then created our problem statement. †¢ We then created our research objectives, and created our survey with our objectives in mind. †¢ We used convenience sampling, by handing out surveys to 30 students (15 boys and 15 girls) of each class standing, Freshman, Sophomore, Junior and Senior. †¢ We analyzed our data using SPSS software, which created our results so that we could determine our conclusions and recommendations. 5 Survey Questions 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. Are you on the Meal Plan? How many times a month do you go to the Raven’s Nest Pub? Please circle your response. Which fast food restaurant do you most prefer? Please Rate the following statements: I get hungry between the hours of 10pm and 3 am. I travel outside of Rindge for food. I patronize fast food establishments. I prefer fast food restaurants with the drive-thru option. Based on your own experiences which of the following restaurants has the best customer satisfaction? 6 Survey Continued 9. 10. 11. 12. If there were more fast food options in the Rindge area would you patronize them? What fast food chain would you like to see come to Rindge, New Hampshire? Check the appropriate gender. What’s you current class standing? 7 Are you on the Meal Plan? 25% Yes NO 75% Mode= 1 (yes) 8 How many times a month do you go to the Raven’s Nest Pub? 30 25 20 15 10 5 0 0 3 6 9 MEAN 9 Which fast food restaurant do you most prefer? 12% 2% Papa Johns 14% McDonalds 11% Wendys Subway 23% 38% Mode= 3 (Wendy’s). Burger King Other 10 I get Hungry between the hours of 10pm and 3am. Mean 2. 13 Strongly Disagree Disagree Neutral Agree Strongly Agree 0 10 20 30 40 11 I Travel outside of Rindge for food. 45 40 35 30 25 20 15 10 5 0 Strongly Agree Strongly Agree Agree Neutral Disagree 2. 38 Disagree Strongly Disagree MEAN MEAN 12 I prefer fast food with the drive-thru option. Mean 2. 53 Strongly Disagree Neutral Strongly Agree 0 10 20 30 40 13 I Patronize fast food establishments. MEAN 2. 37 Strongly Disagree Disagree Neutral Agree Strongly Agree 0 10 20 30. 40 14 Which of the following restaurants has the best customer satisfaction? 15% 8% 14% Papa Johns McDonalds 8% Wendys Subway Burger King 29% 26% Other Mode= 4 (Subway) 15 Cross Tabulations A you on the meal plan? * What i s your current cl ass standing? Crosstabulation re Count Are y ou on the meal plan? y es no Tot al What is y our c urrent class standing? Freshman Sophomore Junior Senior 30 30 14 16 16 14 30 30 30 30 Tot al 90 30 120 Case Processing Summary N Are you on the meal plan? * What is your current class standing? Valid Percent 120 100. 0% Cases Missing N Percent 0 .0% N Total Percent 120 100. 0% 16 Cross Tabulations. Case Processing Summary N Based on y our own esperiences, which of the f ollowing retaurant s has the best c ustomer sat isf action? * C heck the appropriate gender: Valid Percent 102 85. 0% N Cas es Missing Percent 18 15. 0% N Tot al Percent 120 100. 0% Based on you r o wn esp er ien ces, whi ch of th e fo llo win g r etaur an ts has th e b est cu sto mer sati sfactio n ? * C heck the ap pr o pr iate gen d er : Cr o sstabu latio n Count Based on y our own esperiences, which of the f ollowing retaurant s has the best c ustomer sat isf action? Tot al Papa Johns McDonalds Wendy s Subway Burger King Check t he appropriat e gender: Male F emale 6 4 7 10 15 16 16 18 6 4 50 52 Tot al 10 17 31 34 10 102 17 Cross Tabulations Case Processin g Summary N Which f ast f ood restaurant do y ou m ost pref er? * If t here were m ore f ast f ood options in the Rindge area, would y ou patronize t hem ? Valid Percent 106 88. 3% N Cas es Missing Percent 14 Tot al Percent N 11. 7% 120 100. 0% Wh ich fast fo od restau rant do you most p refer? * If th ere were more fast foo d o ptio ns in th e Rin dg e area, wou ld yo u p atro ni ze them? Cro sstab u latio n Count Which f ast f ood restaurant do y ou m ost pref er? Tot al Papa Johns McDonalds Wendy s Subway Burger King. If t here were more f as t f ood options in the Rindge area, would y ou patronize them? Y es No 2 12 5 37 9 21 7 12 1 84 22 Tot al 2 17 46 28 13 106 18 Limitations †¢ Small sample size †¢ Time †¢ Confusion of questions by our respondents (question 9) †¢ Lack of knowledge of SPSS software 19 Conclusions †¢ Based on our results the top three restaurants students selected to their preference were : Wendy’s with a 38. 3% rating. Second was Subway with 23. 3%, and McDonald’s with 14. 2%. †¢ 64. 2% reported that they travel outside of Rindge for food. †¢ 59. 2% students reported that they patronize fast food restaurants. 20 Conclusions Continued †¢ 78. 3% of students reported that they would patronize a fast food establishment in Rindge. †¢ Subway was recorded as having the highest customer satisfaction ratings at 28. 3%, Wendy’s followed with 25. 8%. 21 Discussion †¢ More than 87. 5% of respondents surveyed replied strongly agree, agree, or neutral when asked if they would patronize a fast food restaurant. †¢ We found that our research for our literature review stated that McDonald’s was the top choice for favorite fast food restaurant. Our survey showed that students would prefer a Wendy’s. †¢ We also found that our research stated that Papa John’s had the highest rating for customer service. Our survey respondents had little to no knowledge of the Papa John’s restaurant. 22 Recommendations †¢ A fast food restaurant should open in the Rindge area, preferably close to campus. †¢ There should be a drive-thru option based on our surveys results of 50% of students strongly agreeing or agreeing with this option. †¢ There should be a fast food establishment which offers late night service for students. Our survey resulted that 70. 8% of students strongly agreed or agreed that they get hungry between the hours of 10pm and 3am. 23 The end Thank you for your time Any Questions? 24.

A History Of Flexible Manufacturing Systems

A History Of Flexible Manufacturing Systems Now once you have a Flexible Manufacturing System in place, it cannot function in isolation. The department has to make its other processes and work conditions conducive enough to take full advantage of FMS. There are a lot of other design variables involved in the decision making process. It is very important for every manager in charge of FMS to address the question What are the activities an FMS adopter has to carry out in order not only to implement an FMS but also to realize the requisite organizational conditions; and what are the possibilities for the adopter to organize this manufacturing innovation process effectively? Stating a few examples of the extraneous factors: Maintenance Department Process planning, Production planning, and quality control processes The people carrying out these processes and production resources used to make these processes feasible The organizational arrangements used to divide and coordinate the processes Introduction A Flexible Manufacturing System (FMS) is a manufacturing system in which there is a certain degree of flexibility that allows the system to react in the case of changes, whether predicted or unpredicted. According to Maleki  [1]  , flexibility is the speed at which a system can react to and accommodate change. To be considered flexible, the flexibility must exist during the entire life cycle of a product, from design to manufacturing to distribution. Flexible Manufacturing System is a computer-controlled system that can produce a variety of parts or products in any order, without the time-consuming task of changing machine setups. The flexibility being talked about is generally considered to fall into two categories, which both contain numerous subcategories  [2]  . The first category, Machine Flexibility, covers the systems ability to be changed to produce new product types, and ability to change the order of operations executed on a part. The second category is called Routing Flexibility, which consists of the ability to use multiple machines to perform the same operation on a part, as well as the systems ability to absorb large-scale changes, such as in volume, capacity, or capability. The main advantage of an FMS is its high flexibility in managing manufacturing resources like time and effort in order to manufacture a new product. The best application of an FMS is found in the production of small sets of products like those from a mass production. FM systems are supposed to provide the manufacturer with efficient flexible machines that increase productivity and produce quality parts. However, FM systems are not the answer to all manufacturers problems. The level of flexibility is limited to the technological abilities of the FM systems. FM systems are being used all over the manufacturing world and though out industries. A basic knowledge of this kind of technology is very important because FM systems are involved in almost everything that you come in contact with in todays world. From the coffee maker to your remote control FM systems are used all over. History of Flexible Manufacturing Systems At the turn of the twentieth century, FMS did not exist. There was no pressing need for efficiency because the markets were national and there was no foreign competition. Manufacturers could tell the consumers what to buy. During that period, Henry Ford had been quoted as saying People can order any colour of car as long as it is black. All the power remained in the hands of the manufacturer and the consumers hardly had any choices. However, after the Second World War a new era in manufacturing was to come. The discovery of new materials and production techniques increased quality and productivity. The war led to the emergence of open foreign markets and new competition. The focus of the market shifted from manufacturer to consumer. According to Maleki, the first FM system was patented in 1965 by Theo Williamson who made numerically controlled equipment. Examples of numerically controlled equipment are like CNC lathes or mills which Kusiak says are varying types of FM systems. 1980s 1970s 1960sDuring the 1970s, with the ever-growing developments in the field of technology, manufacturers started facing difficulties and hence, FM systems became main-stream in manufacturing to accommodate new changes whenever required. During the 1980s for the first time manufacturers had to take in consideration efficiency, quality, and flexibility to stay in business. According to Hoeffer, the change in manufacturing over time was due to several factors. (Hoeffer, 1986) Increased international competition, The need to reduce manufacturing cycle time, and Pressure to cut the production cost. Everyday new technologies are being developed and even FM systems are evolving. However, overtime FM systems have worked for many manufacturers and hence will be around for the time to come. The Process of Flexible Manufacturing Systems As has been discussed above the flexible manufacturing system can be broadly classified into two types, depending on the nature of flexibility present in the process, Machine Flexibility and Routing Flexibility FMS systems essentially comprise of three main systems.  [3]   The processing stations: These are essentially automated CNC machines. The automated material handling and storage system: These connect the work machines to optimize the flow of parts. Central control computer: This controls the movement of materials and machine flow. The FMS as a system stands out because it does not follow a fixed set of process steps. The process sequence changes according to requirement to allow maximum efficiency. Sequence of material flow from one tool to another is not fixed nor is the sequence of operations at each tool fixed. Key Features of the Process  [4]   Some characteristics that differentiate FMS from conventional manufacturing systems are their technical flexibility, i.e., the ability to quickly change mix, routing, and sequence of operations within the parts envelope and also complexity resulting from the integration, mechanization, and reprogrammable control of operations i.e., parts machining, material handling, and tool change. Some key features of the process are discussed below. Cell: It consists of several groupings of two or more automated machines within a company. Each grouping is called a cell. All the machines present are controlled by a computer. They are programmed to change quickly from one production run to another. A key feature is the automated flow of materials to the cell and the automated removal of the finish item. Several cells are linked together by means of an automated materials-handling system, and the flow of goods is controlled by a computer. In this manner a computer-integrated manufacturing process is initiated. Random bypass capability: The material handling system has a random bypass capability, i.e. a part can be moved from any tool in the interconnected system to another because the transport system can bypass any tool along the path, on demand. This implies: Each part can traverse a variable route through the system. Again, this flexibility in material handling, in combination with multipurpose tools, makes it possible for a flexible manufacturing system to process a great diversity of parts. Automation: Computers are the heart of automation. They provide the framework for the information systems which direct action and monitor feedback from machine activities. As FMS involve a wide variety of components, each with their own type of computer control, many of these computer components are installed as islands of automation, each with a computer control capable of monitoring and directing the action. Each of the computer controls has its own communication protocol based on the amount of data needed to control the component. Thus, the task of computer integration is to establish interfaces and information flow between a wide range of computer types and models. Computer software provides the ability to transmit timely and accurate status information and to utilize information which has been communicated from other computers in FMS. Component redundancy: In FMS as the equipment is highly integrated, the interruptions of one component affect other components. This results in a greater time to trace the problem when compared with isolated components. In some cases, the interruption might be due to some other integration effect, and greater downtime may result before the actual cause of the problem is found. In this situation, component redundancy provides flexibility with the opportunity for choice, which exists when there are at least two available options. Flexible manufacturing contains functionally equivalent machinery. So in case of failure of one machine the process flow is directed towards a functionally equivalent machine. Multiple Paths: A path in flexible manufacturing represents a part sequence and requisite fixtures to complete its required operations. In a conventional machine environment, only one path exists for a part because a single fixture remains at a single machine. However, this is not the case within flexible manufacturing systems, where there are multiple paths. The number of paths which are present within flexible manufacturing is a measure of the degree of flexibility. Obviously, the higher the number of paths, higher is the degree of flexibility. Flexibility ranks high in Japanà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ²s manufacturing strategy but not in Americaà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ²s. A true flexible factory will not only build different versions of the same car, like a coupà © or a station wagon, on the same production line, but also a completely different car. This is what the Japanese factories are setting out to do. The cost of one factory can be spread across five or ten cars. Apart from lower fixed cost, it is also less painful to stop making one of those cars if it fails to sell. Stand Alone Machine Flexible Manufacturing System Transfer Lines High Medium Low Low Medium High Productivity Volume Part VariationsFMS as a system of manufacturing process can be compared to other processes in terms of the product volume it generates and its capacity for creating part variations. The figure above depicts the position of FMS vis-à  -vis that of stand-alone machine and transfer lines. The horizontal axis represents production volume level and the vertical axis shows the variability of parts. Transfer lines are very efficient when producing parts at a large volume at high output rate, whereas stand-alone machines are ideally suited for variation in workplace configuration and low production rate. In terms of manufacturing efficiency and productivity, a gap exists between the high production rate transfer machines and the highly flexible machines. FMS, has been regarded as a viable solution to bridge the gap and as a gateway to the automated factory of the future. The Process: With Reference to particular companies  [5]   Though the features of this manufacturing innovation process are similar across all types of firms, the manner in which they are adopted and implemented depends on product type, manufacturing, maintenance, process planning and quality control processes. It is also contingent upon the people carrying out these processes; the productive resources being used and the organizational arrangements used to divide and coordinate the processes distinguished. The description of the layout of a company that has adopted the flexible manufacturing system gives a clear idea of how the system works in practical life. It has all the features as mentioned before of a typical FMS. Flexible Manufacturing System at The Hattersley Newman Hender (H.N.H.) This company, located in U.K. manufactures high and low pressure bodies and caps for water, gas and oil valves. These components require a total of 2750 parts for their manufacture. That is why they decided to go for the system of F.M.S. to fulfill their machining requirements in a single system. The process described below shows how FMS is used for efficient production for this company. Their FMS consists of primary and secondary facilities. The primary facilities include 5 universal machining centres and 2 special machining centres. The secondary facilities consist of tool settings and manual workstations. System layout and facilities: Primary facilities: Machining centres: The FMS contains two 5-axis horizontal out-facing machines and five 4-axis machining centres under the host control. All the machines have a rotating pallet changer each with two pallet buffer stations. These stations transfer pallets to and from the transport system which consist of 8 automated guided vehicles. The 5 universal machining centres have 2 magazines with capacity of 40 tools in each magazine. The special purpose out-facing machines (OFM) each have one magazine having a capacity of 40 tools. The tool magazines can be loaded by sending instructions to the tool setting room either from the host computer or the machines numerical controller. Processing centres: The system contains two processing centres a wash machine and two manual workstations. Wash machines: It contains two conveyor belts where one is for input and one for output of pallets, each with a capacity of three pallets to transfer the pallets. The wash booth has a capacity of three pallets. The pallets are washed in the booth and turned upside-down to drain out the water. Then they are dried with blown air. Manual workstations (ring fitting area): The operator fits metal sealing rings into the valve bodies at the manual workstations. He receives work instructions via computer interface with the host. Secondary facilities: Auxiliary stations: Load/unload stations: The FMS has four-piece-part load and unload stations. Loading and unloading is performed at these stations with the instructions again received via computer interface with the host. Fixture-setting station: At these stations the fixtures are readjusted to accommodate different piece parts. Administration of tools: Tools are assembled manually. The tool-setting machine checks the dimensional offsets of the tools and generates a bar code for further identification of the tool that has been set. Auxiliary facilities: Transport system: The transport system consists of a controller and 8 automated guided vehicles (AGV). The system also contains an A.G.V. battery charging area. Buffer stores: The FMS has 20 buffer stores in order to store the empty and loaded pallets while they are waiting to be taken to another transfer station (i.e. a load/unload station or a machine tool etc.). Maintenance Area: This facility caters to pallets that may be damaged or need servicing or for storing scrapped piece-parts. Raw Material Stores: These stores are located in front of the load / unload stations and are used to store the raw materials (like forged valve bodies etc). The store is served by two fork-lift-stacker cranes and motor roller conveyors. It has a capacity of 80 containers. Fixture store: The fixtures that are not stored in FMS are stored here. It has a capacity of storing 120 fixtures. The store is served by a stacker crane and motor roller conveyors. Flexible Manufacturing System at TAMCAM Computer Aided Manufacturing (TAMCAM) Lab. This is an example of flexible manufacturing system that is used to describe the TAMCAM Simulation-Based Control System (TSCS)  [6]  . This system is located within the TAMCAM Computer Aided Manufacturing (TAMCAM) lab. The system consists of three CNC milling machines, one CNC turning centre, two industrial robots, and an automated cart based conveyor system. In addition to the automated equipment, human operators are used to load and unload some machines and perform assembly and inspection tasks. Advantages of Flexible Manufacturing System Why would firms embrace flexible manufacturing systems? What benefits does FMS provide? Answers to these two questions are important to the success of flexible manufacturing systems. It is important to understand the impacts on product life cycle, direct labour input and market characteristics. Various advantages arise from using flexible manufacturing systems.  [7]  Users of these systems enlist many benefits: Less scrap Fewer workstations Quicker changes of tools, dies, and stamping machinery Reduced downtime Improved quality through better control over it Reduced labour costs due to increase in labour productivity Increase in machine efficiency Reduced work-in-process inventories Increased capacity Increased production flexibility Faster production Lower- cost/unit Increased system reliability Adaptability to CAD/CAM operations Since savings from these benefits are sizeable, a plethora of examples from the manufacturing industry are available to illustrate these benefits. A major Japanese manufacturer, by installing a flexible manufacturing system, has reduced the number of machines in one facility from 68 to 18, the number of employees from 215 to 12, space requirements from 103000 square feet to 30000 and processing time from 35 days to a 1.5 days Ford has poured $4,400,000 into overhauling its Torrence Avenue plant in Chicago, giving it flexible manufacturing capability. This will allow the factory to add new models in as little as two weeks instead of two months or longer. The flexible manufacturing systems used in five of Ford Motor Companys plants will yield a $2.5 billion savings. By the year 2010, Ford will have converted 80 percent of its plants to flexible manufacturing. The benefits enlisted above are the operational benefits.  [8]  Flexible Manufacturing Systems also give rise to benefits in terms of strategy for the firm. Operational Benefits Strategic Benefits Lower Costs per unit A source of competitive advantage in present and future. Lesser workstations Less space in plant required. Reduced Inventories Less of Storage Space. Plant Layout gets simplified. The space is freed up for other activities. Increase in labour productivity Lesser workforce required. Operational Flexibility Ability to meet varying customer demands in terms of numbers (seasonality) and choices. Improved Quality Increased customer satisfaction Less inspection costs Lesser lead time Increased Machine Efficiency Less technical workforce for handling maintenance and repair Less Scrap and Rework Consistent Production Process On a macro level, these advantages reduce the risk of investing in the flexible manufacturing system as well as in ongoing projects in such a firm. Let us look at how flexibility helps firms. To maximize production for a given amount of gross capacity, one should minimize the interruptions due to machine breakdowns and the resource should be fully utilized. FMS permits the minimization of stationsà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ² unavailability, and shorter repair times when stations fail. Preventive maintenance is done to reduce number of breakdowns. Maintenance is done during off hours. This helps to maximize production time. Cost of maintaining spare part inventories is also reduced due to the fact that similar equipment can share components. Hence we can see that higher the degree of flexibility of the workstation, the lower the potential cost of production capacity due to station unavailability. To make a product every day, the trade off between inventory cost and setup cost becomes important. However, each time the workstation changes its function, it incurs a set-up delay. Through flexibility one can reduce this set-up cost.  [9]   CAD/CAM aids in computerized tracking of work flow which is helpful in positioning inspection throughout the process. This helps to minimize the number of parts which require rework or which must be scrapped. FMS changes the outlook of inspection from a post-position to an in-process position. Hence, feedback is available in real time which improves quality and helps product to be within the tolerance level.  [10]   Flexible manufacturing systems (FMS) are virtually always used in conjunction with just-in-time (JIT) order systems. This combination increases the throughput and reduces throughput time and the length of time required to turn materials into products. Flexible Manufacturing Systems have a made a huge impact on activity-based costing.  [11]  Using these systems helps firms to switch to process costing instead of job costing. This switching is made possible because of the reduced setup delays. With set-up time only a small fraction of previous levels, companies are able to move between products and jobs with about the same speed as if they were working in continuous, process type environment. To look at another aspect of strategic benefits, enterprise integration can be facilitated by FMS. An agile manufacturer is one who is the fastest to the market, operates with the lowest total cost and has the greatest ability to delight its customers. FMS is simply one way that manufacturers are able to achieve this agility.  [12]  This has also been reported in many studies that FMS makes the transition to agility faster and easier. Over time, FMS use creates a positive attitude towards quality. The quality management practices in organizations using FMS differs from those not using it. The adoption of flexible manufacturing confers advantages that are primarily based upon economies of scope. As a result of aiming simultaneously at flexibility, quality and efficiency, the future manufacturing industry will strive towards: producing to order, virtually no stock, very high quality levels, and high productivity.  [13]   Disadvantages of Flexible Manufacturing System  [14]   Now that we have looked at the multiple advantages flexible manufacturing systems offer, the next obvious question is, if they are so good and so useful then why are they not ubiquitous by now? It is essential to look at the other side, especially the impact these systems have on costing, product mixes decided by the company and the inevitable trade- off between production rates and flexibility. Following are the major disadvantages that have been observed Complexity These sophisticated manufacturing systems are extremely complex and involve a lot of substantial pre planning activity before the jobs are actually processed. A lot of detail has to go into the processing. Often users face technological problems of exact component positioning. Moreover, precise timing is necessary to process a component. Cost of equipment  [15]   Equipment for a flexible manufacturing system will usually initially be more expensive than traditional equipment and the prices normally run into millions of dollars. This cost is popularly known as the Risk of Installation. Maintenance costs are usually higher than traditional manufacturing systems because FMS employs intensive use of preventive maintenance, which by itself is very expensive to implement. Energy costs are likely to be higher despite more efficient use of energy. Increased machine utilization can result in faster deterioration of equipment, providing a shorter than average economic life. Also, personnel training costs may prove to be relatively high. Moreover there is the additional problem of selecting system size, hardware and software tailor made for the FMS. Cost of automation in the form of computer integration is the most significant cost in a flexible manufacturing system. The components require extensive computer control. Also, the costs of operation are high since a machine of this complexity requires equally skilled employees to work or run it. Adaptation Issues There is limited ability to adapt to changes in product or product mix. For example, machines are of limited capacity and the tooling necessary for products, even of the same family, is not always feasible in a given FMS. Moreover, one should keep in mind that these systems do not reduce variability, just enable more effective handling of the variability. Equipment Utilization Equipment utilization for flexible manufacturing systems is sometimes not as high as expected. Example, in USA, the average is ten types of parts per machine. Other latent problems may arise due to lack of technical literacy, management incompetence, and poor implementation of the FMS process. It is very important to differentiate between scenarios where FMS would be beneficial (ex, where fast adaptation is the key) and those where it wouldnt (ex where a firms competency is based on minimizing cost). Product/Job Costing  [16]   Arguably the biggest disadvantage of flexible manufacturing systems is the difficulty faced by the company in allocating overhead costs to jobs. Usually, several products share the same resources with different consumption characteristics. Ideally, the overhead allocation should be directly proportional to the resource consumption. But this becomes complicated in the case of flexible manufacturing systems since it is very difficult to estimate which product used which machine for which purpose and for how long. Often this leads to under costing of some products and consequently over costing of others. In systems that use FMS, usually the fixed costs are quite high due to the following reasons: The machines are costly, material handling is more expensive and the computer controls are state of the art, thereby leading to a higher depreciation than seen in traditional manufacturing systems. A lot of items which are otherwise usually treated as direct costs are counted under indirect costs in case of flexible manufacturing systems. For example, labour is normally attributed to the job directly done, but in FMS, the same workers work on machines that usually run two jobs simultaneously. Hence even labour costs are to be treated as overhead or indirect costs. In order to ensure smooth running of the flexible manufacturing systems, a lot of support activities carried out by engineers and technicians. Keeping the above points in mind, we can infer that in order to cater to these scenarios, Activity Based Costing techniques are used with FMS to reduce distortion of product costs. FMS Adoption in Automobile Industry The Flexible manufacturing system has been adopted extensively in the manufacturing industry in this day and age. It addresses the issue of automation and process technology which is a key area for concern of manufacturing management along with inventory production planning and scheduling and quality. One industry which has extensively adopted this system is the Automobile Industry. Almost all global giants now follow the Flexible Manufacturing system and many have developed their own manufacturing system keeping FMS as an integral part of it. The Big Three of the American Automotive Industry namely General Motors, Ford Motors and Chrysler Motors enjoyed a monopolistic environment for a very long time. This in some way inhibited their innovation capabilities as there was no competition in the market which could drive them to innovate. These companies, therefore, maintained production facilities that were suitable for mass production of any single model, which ensured economies of scale and plant profitability. But gradually as Asian car makers gained prominence in the automotive market, the Big Three of the United States faced huge challenges across all product lines. The main Asian competitors that came into picture were Toyota, Honda, Nissan and Mitsubishi from Japan and Hyundai from South Korea. With these Asian countries exporting vehicles to the United States of America, competition heightened and the profitability of the Big Three decreased. To improve its profitability and maintain its market share Chrysler Corporat ion, General Motors and Ford Motor Company employed Flexible Manufacturing System in their production lines following what had been started in Japan. The essential driving force for adoption of FMS in Automobile industry is The emphasis on increasing product variety and individualization has created a strong need to develop a flexible manufacturing system to respond to small batches of customer demand. Cost savings were required to be more competitive. Newer varieties needed to be introduced in lesser time and at lesser cost. Given below are examples of some companies and their motive for adopting FMS as well as the benefits that they have achieved through it Japanese Companies and Latest FMS Toyota Toyota has been at the forefront of adopting flexible manufacturing system which has been in place since 1985. In 2002, Toyota unveiled its Global Body Line (GBL), a radical, company-wide overhaul of its already much-envied FMS.  [

The Bogart Essay -- essays research papers

Have you ever wondered how great it would be to inherit a castle in Scotland? What if it was haunted by a sprit called a Boggart? The book I read called The Boggart by Susan Cooper is a story based on something like that happening. The main story takes place in Toronto, Canada. The Volink family inherited a castle in Scotland from Mr. McDevon the mother’s uncle. The two children in the story are Emily and Jessup. Emily is the oldest. She is smart brave and very sensitive towards the Boggart, once she understood him. Jessup is very smart, loves computers, and was a member of a computer gang called the Gang 5. The parents of Emily and Jessup were Robert and Maggie Volink. Robert works in the theater and Maggie owns and runs an antique store. The Volink family were excited and amazed that they inherited a castle. But what the Volink’s did not know was that a spirit called a Boggart lived there. The Boggart is a sprit that is neither good or bad. He mainly plays practical jokes on people. It is like a little child that can be friendly towards mortals. Boggarts cannot be seen or heard.. The Volink family sold the castle right away because it would be to expensive to keep. Emily and Jessup kept two pieces of furniture to bring home. What they didn’t realize was that a Boggart was sleeping in the desk they took home. When the Boggart got up he realized he was no longer home in Scotland in his castle. As the Boggart got comfortable he began his practical jokes in Toronto. He wou...

Stuttering :: Biology Essays Research Papers

"IIIII Can Can Can't Heeeelp It: Stuttering to the Truth" "Stuttering is something the stutterer does, not something he has, because of something he is." --Wendell Johnson Can you imagine not being able to introduce yourself without struggling to pronounce your own name? What would your life be like if you had to battle every time you said "hello"? How would you feel if a mob of security guards surrounded you at Wal-Mart because an employee had mistaken you for being mentally ill ((1))? These are just a few scenarios that 42-year-old Kurt Salierno, a carpenter and minister from Atlanta, encounters everyday. Salierno has a stuttering disorder, which more than 3 million people in the United States and 55 million people around the world struggle with daily. Salierno describes his problem as similar to being trapped in a glass capsule; "I can see out, but there's no way to get out" ((1)). Salierno's feelings and views about what he experiences raises some interesting questions. What is reality like for a person with a stuttering disorder? Is the "I" that is trapped inside the capsule representative of the self that he cannot express due to his disorder? Internally, Salierno is conscious of the words, which he wishes to express. However, Salierno is seldom able to produce these words externally. Does a stutterer create his or her own reality within his or her mind? To the stutterer, does independent experience become reality? With reference to the philosophical thought e xperiment about the tree falling in a forest, does a stutterer make a sound if no one can hear him or her make that sound? Stuttering is a neurological disorder of communication, from which the normal flow of speech is disrupted by repetitions (neu-neu-neuro), prolongations (biiiii-ol-ooogy), or abnormal stoppages (no sound) of sounds and syllables. Rapid eye blinking, tremors of the lips and/or jaw, or other struggle behaviors of the face or upper body may accompany speech disruptions ((3)). Why does stuttering worsen in situations that involve speaking before a group of people or talking on the phone, whereas fluency of speech improves in situations such as whispering, acting, talking to pets, speaking alone, or singing ((1))? In ancient times, physicians believed that the stutterer's tongue was either too long or too short, too wet or too dry. Therefore, practitioners from the mid-1800s tried surgical remedies such as drilling holes into the skull or cutting pieces of the tongue out to eliminate stuttering ((1) ).

Goethes Faust - A Man of Un-heroic Proportions Essay -- Faust Essays

Faust: A Man of Un-heroic Proportions In Faust, Goethe builds a dramatic poem around the strengths and weaknesses of a man who under a personalized definition of a hero fails miserably. A hero is someone that humanity models themselves and their actions after, someone who can be revered by the masses as an individual of great morality and strength, a man or woman that never sacrifices his beliefs under adversity. Therefore, through his immoral actions and his unwillingness to respect others rights and privileges, Faust is determined to be a man of un-heroic proportions. It is seen early in the poem, that Faust has very strong beliefs and a tight moral code that is deeply rooted in his quest for knowledge. Sitting in his den, Faust describes his areas of instruction, "I have, alas, studied philosophy, jurisprudence and medicine, too, and, worst of all, theology with keen endeavor, through and through..." It is obvious that through his studies he has valued deep and critical thinking, however with the help of Mephisto, he would disregard his values and pursue the pleasures of the flesh. Faust's impending downward spiral reveals the greed that both Mephisto and Faust share. Mephisto's greed is evident in the hope that he will overcome Faust's morality and thus be victorious in his wager with God; also because he is the devil and that is what he does. For Faust, greed emerges because of his desire to attain physical pleasures and therefore become whole in mind, body and spirit. Faust's goal to become the ÃÅ"berminche is an understandable desire, however, the means at which he strives for those ends are irresponsible and unjust. It is through this greed that Faust with the help of Mephisto exploit others in the pursuit... ... dishonest and greedy to such a wondrous and magical location only because he admits that what he did was wrong. Attaining passage into heaven is the only accomplishment that Faust makes in order to attain hero status. Even this final accomplishment is questionable, because God would not allow a man so unworthy to accompany people who have such a high moral standard and irrefutable grace. Faust then, neither falls under the classical definition of a hero except that he was, "...favored by the gods" and he does not fit into my personal definition of a hero. For Faust is not someone whose actions should be followed, he sacrificed his beliefs under adversity and most importantly; he destroyed anyone's life if it conflicted to any aspect of his plan for superiority. Faust then, may be considered the greatest un hero to have ever attain passage into heaven.

Arthur Miller and the American Dream

As Voltaire once said, â€Å"Each player must accept the cards life deals him or her: but once they are in hand, he or she alone must decide how to play the cards in order to win the game. † Similarly, my grandfather compares people to decks of cards. He believes that for each person, different cards are missing from the deck, accordingly giving each person different abilities. In this example, fate is literally in the cards. Though an unsuccessful salesman, Willy Loman’s infallible belief in his dream shows that he never considered the salesman card was â€Å"missing† from his deck.The notion of the American dream falls back on the blind optimism and faith of Americans. In Death of a Salesman, by Arthur Miller, Willy Loman futilely chases the American dream, which is an unattainable, impossible fantasy to Miller, used to show the blind faith in Americans, and depicted as a character flaw rather than attribute in the protagonists of the play. To begin, the tone o f the novel set by Arthur Miller is a critical and cynical attitude towards the idea of the American dream.A widely accepted definition of the American dream is the perception that through hard work, one can achieve a life of personal and material happiness. Moreover, the representation of the American dream in the play is at odds with the general belief that hard work generates success. Willy tells his sons, â€Å"Be liked and you will never want† (33). If this were actually the case, his hard work combined with being well-liked would have been the recipe for personal and materialistic happiness.Though Willy Loman is constantly working, his obsession with the superficial qualities of being liked contrasts with the more tenacious and rewarding understanding of the American dream. Miller shows us just how unbelieving he is in the American dream when he wrote the plot of Death of a Salesman, in which the protagonists chase unattainable desires. Through Miller’s critical take on the American dream, he is trying to portray that Americans are blindly faithful and optimistic; Miller openly criticized such a principle. Happy says on page 23, â€Å"You’re a poet, you know that Biff?You’re a—you’re an idealist! † Making Biff an idealistic, underachieving son of a daydreaming failure adds to the irony of the American dream in the play. Another example of the author’s perspective was the way in which Miller suggests that the idea of the American dream hinders people from enjoying the success they have already achieved, in Willy’s case, having a loving family. The Lomans were optimistic during situations where it was unwarranted; their expectant approach to failure and disappointment is more proof of Arthur Miller’s disapproval of the American Dream.Because Arthur Miller believed the American Dream was chased in vain, he portrayed it as a character flaw rather than an attribute in the protagonists in th e play. Willy Loman, the protagonist (as well as his own antagonist), brought himself to his own demise when he could not discern his own life from his Dream. Miller’s antagonistic approach towards the various get-rich-quick dreams Biff, Happy, and Willy entertained also shined through at the impossibility of their execution. His hostility towards facets of the American mentality comes through in the self-destruction of Willy because of his all-consuming dream.For the same reason, Biff’s longing for the symbolically free West showed that Willy instilled his blind faith and materialistic desires in his son’s dream as well. Biff asked Happy with enthusiasm, â€Å"Listen why don’t you come out West with me? † (23). Although intending to come to terms with his own life, Biff’s longing for the West is glorified by his father’s undying faith in his own Dream. Biff and Willy Loman’s dependency on their fantasies show another, more neg ative, aspect to having dreams.Death of a Salesman is one of the foundational texts describing the American dream. Arthur Miller wrote the play in the mindset of an adversary to the American dream. Death of a Salesman displays Miller’s disapproval for the American dream and blind optimism, and displays chasing a dream as a weakness rather than a strength. In the play, Arthur Miller shows us that although it is important to teach of success, it is equally important to prepare for failure. In a game of cards, you can have all the strategy in the world, but fate is in the draw.

Microsoft Marketing Plan

Microsoft Corporation 1. 1 Executive Summary The purpose of this article is to highlight the current marketing strategies of Microsoft Corporation and also to identify the lacking areas where Microsoft should develop new strategies to with stand with the throat cutting market challenges. 1. 2 Mission Statement Empower people through great software anytime, anyplace, and on any device. 1. 3 Our Values As a company, and as individuals, we value integrity, honesty, openness, personal excellence, constructive self-criticism, continual self-improvement, and mutual respect.We are committed to our customers and partners and have a passion for technology. We take on big challenges, and pride ourselves on seeing them through. We hold ourselves accountable to our customers, shareholders, partners, and employees by honoring our commitments, providing results, and striving for the highest quality. (Microsoft Corporation, 2010) 1. 4 Company Profile At Microsoft, everyone one is motivated and insp ired every day, by how their customers use their software to find creative, solutions to business problems, develop breakthrough ideas, and stay connected to what's most important to them.Microsoft run business, in much the same way, and believe in their five different business divisions, which offers the greatest potential to serve customers. They are: a. Windows ; Windows Live Division: Includes the Windows product family, and is responsible for our relationships with personal computer manufacturers, as well as online software and services through Windows Live. b. Server and Tools:Software server products, services and solutions, include: Windows Server operating system, Microsoft SQL Server, Visual Studio, Silverlight, System Centre products, Forefront security products, Biz Talk Server, and Microsoft Consulting Services. c. Online Services Division: Consists of an online advertising platform with offerings for publishers and advertisers, and online information; offerings such as Bing and the MSN portals and channels. d. Microsoft Business Division: Includes the Microsoft Office suites, desktop programs, servers, and services and solutions; Microsoft Dynamics; and Unified Communications business solutions. . Entertainment and Devices Division: Consists of the Xbox video game system, including consoles and accessories, Xbox Live operations, Zune digital music and entertainment device; Mediaroom, mobile and embedded device platforms, Surface computing platform, and Windows Automotive. We are committed long term to the mission of helping our customers realize their full potential. Just as we constantly update and improve our products, we want to continually evolve our company to be in the best position to accelerate new technologies as they emerge and to better serve our customers. (Microsoft Corporation, 2009) 1. 5 SWOT Analysis . 5. 1 STRENGTHS: i. Microsoft is one of the huge reputable global brands currently in the market. It is recognizable for couple of reasons, it was known to be one of the largest software developers and it’s developed a customer base of near about thirty million people all around the world. ii. It has built its brand image on the successful development of its computer software namely the Windows series of products. iii. Brand is everything, Microsoft is one of the best established, highly visible and healthy IT brands in the World, and holds a very loyal set of passionate customers that advocates and uses the brand.By loyal customers, it means that Microsoft retains old customers as well as recruits new ones too. iv. The corporation is alienated in several central offices inside the United States and all around the globe making the distribution channel and development of its products easily approachable to every consumer. It helps the company to launch new products and services across the globe at the same time. 1. 5. 2 WEAKNESSES: i. Microsoft lacks a solid client age and service support centre on the in ternet.This issue has to be rectified in order to overcome since problems and bugs with regards to their products must be fixed rapidly to attain efficiency. The lack of a customer service centre would erode the integrity and quality perceived by costumers on Microsoft products. ii. Generally Microsoft products have compatibility issues with different hardwares and softwares platforms manufactured by other companies, hence this sort of compatibility issue would then limit the ability of the customer to buy all products made by Microsoft since it would affect the stability and performance of a computer. ii. Microsoft does not share the programming codes of its softwares making modification difficult if bugs and other malfunctions are detected by programmers not affiliated to the company. 1. 5. 3 OPPORTUNITIES: i. Microsoft has expanded its market share by entering into the Chinese market by producing computer programs based on the Chinese language and giving discretionary authority t o the Chinese government to censure and to eaves drop on emails, documents and webpage. ii. Microsoft has also diversified its products.During the past years the company has ventured into fields such as game design, game developing and publishing and the production of game consoles such as the Xbox. iii. The company has also branched out to provide free email and news services to its customers. It has also developed softwares and computer programs that are vital in organizing business spreadsheets and data. 1. 5. 4 THREATS: i. Microsoft has created a set of example for all existing and forthcoming software developing houses to follow the same footsteps for such a drastic success. ii.Early competitor of Microsoft in the operating systems industry is the Linux program which was developed by independent programmers. this program gave very though time to Microsoft due to of its user friendly and can be obtain free of charge. iii. Because the company is diversifying in various fields it started to compete with the products being produced by such companies who have been experts in their parent industry. The company might eventually lost its battles in making its products competitive when put side by side with products made by corporations which has established heir name and reputation to the customers. iv. Microsoft is losing its market share steadily, due to increase in competition and diversified products offered by their competitors. A recent publication (Thinking Made Easy: SWOT Analysis of Microsoft) 1. 6 PESTEL ANALYSIS APESTEL analysisis a set of tools or an investigation of the important factors that are chronologically changing which influences on a businessexternally. PESTEL is abbreviated as Political, Economical, Social, Technological, Environmental ; Legal impacts.Politically influences on organisation like abrupt changes in government, inconsistency in their policies. Economic changes relate to changes in the macro economical conditions such as unstabl e economical conditions, rise in people standards or fluctuations in interest rates, etc. Social changes relate to changes in society (either globally or locally) such as changes in lifestyles e. g. more women going out to work, changes in customers buying behaviours. Technological changes relate to the entrance of new high tech inventions and ideas such as the development of the robotics and internet as business tools.Environmental changes means the impact on production oriented organisation with the environmental policies like all textile manufacturing units were transferred to Asian markets from Manchester UK due to its adverse effect on the environment. PESTEL Analysis a. Political Microsoft is highly affected by the political scenario there in USA. Microsoft is becoming one of the giant companies globally. It has created huge monopoly across the globe. US government is now trying to break up Microsoft into several different companies so that to maintain equal competition throug hout the market.One of the other reasons in splitting up Microsoft Corporation that it is becoming so much stronger that it could be a threat for even US government in near future. b. Economical Being such a versatile company and the market share they have, Microsoft plays major role in bringing up the country economies they have set-upped their businesses. According to an independent studies that the economies of the country shoots up three times when Microsoft starts businesses in that country. c. SocialMicrosoft has an edge on all of its competitors that socially more people are inclined towards Pentium platforms so naturally it helped a lot to have more market share rather than others. Market segment of Pentium users is considerably very huge but it would be threat for Microsoft that they are losing its share with an average pace, due to their unsatisfied customers. d. Technological It was a decade earlier that Microsoft was the leader in producing high tech softwares and gadget s, but now they are getting tough competition from global phenomenon brand ‘Apple’.No doubt Microsoft adopts and market new technology as soon as it could be but still i e. Environmental Microsoft follows very strict policies to make sure that the company remains in full compliance with international environmental regulations and the specifically environmental requirements of each country/region where they are doing their business. Microsoft reduces waste disposal, where possible through source reduction and recycling at company facilities. All waste safely and responsibly handled and disposed of properly. f. LegalMicrosoft is playing vital role in legal aspect of their pirated products like Windows and other softwares. They are trying their level best to reduce the usage of their pirated softwares. They are introducing different security features which may reduce the usage of pirated products. 1. 7 Porter’s Generic Strategies Michael Porter has proposed three ge neric strategies that provide a good starting point for strategic thinking; overall cost leadership, differentiation, focus and combination of all these three strategies is known as stuck in the middle.Microsoft is a versatile company it produces series of products and services which caters different market segments, and according to every particular segments they developed their specific strategy for different product segments. a. Overall cost leadership Microsoft’s has out scoured its major software houses towards Asian markets, that help them to develop efficient and yet low cost softwares with low overhead or manufacturing cost.The added benefit of companies going globally is that they get access to their local market, and one of the reasons Microsoft has established software house in India is to expand their Indian market share. b. Differentiation The other strategy which Microsoft is keep following since very early stages, is of their differentiated products and softwar es. With the launch of Windows the most user friendly and c. Focus Microsoft has narrow down its market segments, they identified the need of their customers and created segments within the segments.For example at first there was only one segment of computer games lovers but now Microsoft has narrow down this segment and created a separate gaming console for gamers called Microsoft Xbox 360. 1. 8 Implementation Plans As a marketing adviser, I would redefine the marketing structure by improving their segmentation, targeting and positioning strategies. Last year Microsoft launched Xbox 360 gaming console, it was segmented for kids to teens gaming needs and it was positioned as a complete home entertainment solutions which merges video gaming, internet and DVD playback.The Xbox 360 is the most robust and high tech gaming console in current market. Sony Playstation 2 is currently the market leader with almost more than 50% of the gaming console market share. The Xbox was launched the pr evious year and positioned as the complete home entertainment solution combine video gaming, the Internet and DVD playback. The Xbox is the most robust gaming console on the market, but faces stiff competition in its product category. Microsoft is trying its level best to become the market leader in this category by dethroning Sony.To accomplish this goal, Microsoft has to restructure its targeting strategy; specifically they should stick to a specific age group people so that they could focus their efforts on them. They should more focus on people aged between 16 to 24, due to the high tech device and this age group are very high gamers. This age group people are substantial knowledge how to use high tech equipment and themselves fascinated by the entire features Microsoft is offering. Secondly, these age group people are good source of marketers by influencing their friends and family circles by introducing them and flavouring them its joy.Considering various opportunities and cha llenges ahead, Microsoft must continue to narrow down their campaign specifically on the heavy male gamers, since this demographic category are usually trendsetters in the society and they are even very early innovators too. Microsoft should work out on the differentiation strategy, in the current market scenario Microsoft is the only one who is offering online and network gaming on their gaming consoles where as Sony and Nintendo are not offering such features, so Microsoft should invest more capital for marketing in such area which make them set ahead among their competitors.In the software development side, Microsoft is facing huge customers losses by one of its competitors namely OpenOffice, they are offering complete range of office softwares free of cost, thus giving very tough time to Microsoft Office software, in such critical situation my opinion would be going towards differentiated strategy.Technically Microsoft should develop such uniqueness in their Office software so t hat customers (majority of them are students) can’t think to adopt free softwares rather than paid one, customers should have high perception in their mind that paid must have great value rather than free one. This can be achieved if Microsoft creates a monopoly by creating incompatible extensions of Office which can only be viewed and edited on exclusively Microsoft Office. Bibliography Hollensen, S. (2004). Marketing Management.Illinois: Pearson Education Limited. Kotler, P. (2002). Marketing Management (Eleventh ed. ). California: Prentice. Microsoft Corporation. (2010). About Microsoft: Your Potential. Our Passion. Retrieved March 12, 2010, from Microsoft Website: http://www. microsoft. com/About/default. mspx Microsoft Corporation. (2009, December 4). Our Commitment to Our Customers. Retrieved March 12, 2010, from Microsoft Corporation Website: http://www. microsoft. com/about/companyinformation/ourbusinesses/business. mspx