Analysis of Mc Donald’s Operations

Mac Dona's Case Study McDonald's Is one of the best-known brands worldwide and Its core business being basically fast-food: it specializes in burgers (Big Mac) and fries. While other restaurants stick to their conventional menu will rarely innovate, McDonald's on the other hand has been able to adapt to the local demand in a global environment by catering their menu to the local taste. This continuous product innovation & improvement based on detailed market research has helped keeping the brand ahead of Its competitors and contributed to further enhance the existing reputation f the brand.In order to have this competitive edge. McDonald's has taken some key measures to name a few along the years, namely: Aggressive market research to continuously adapt to the changing needs and tastes of its customer, for e. G. Seeking more food variety and gradually shifting towards healthier eating. Value added services to adapt to people's busy lives with great focus on convenience. More choice a nd better pricing strategy to ensure excellent value for money; for e. G. Extra value meals and combination of menus Process standardization and attention to details to ensure product quality In each and every outlets.Mac Dona's business model has been built on a specific target population (working people, teenagers), I. E. Those in need for fast and inexpensive menu. Now with consumer's becoming more health focus, Mac Dona's asset could be turned into liability as Mac Dona's would be the last based on low-calorie-low-cholesterol menu. Analysis of Mac Dona's Operations By Ayatollah-Shaffer McDonald's is one of the best-known brands worldwide and its core business being basically fast-food; it specializes in burgers (Big Mac) and fries.While other ahead of its competitors and contributed to further enhance the existing reputation of the brand. In order to have this competitive edge, McDonald's has taken some key ensure product quality in each and every outlets. A number of key decisi ons and food items to respond quickly to the fluctuating demands.

Blood Diamon

Delilah Crespo Mr. McParland English 101 October 24, 2010 In the article â€Å"I’m Happy with an Arranged Marriage† by Gitangeli Sapra it discusses her view of arranged marriages. Ms. Gitangeli is for arranged marriage, she stated that people who get married for â€Å"love† has a 40% rate of divorce. She also states that arranged marriages have a lower rate of divorce for the fact that the couples do not want to start a wrath between their families. I disagree; I believe that families should not have the right to set up their children with who they think best suits their child. I personally would not prefer my parents to set me up with someone who they think is a great person, because I have different standards then they do. If parents were to choose who they want their child to marry then they will be involved in the couple’s lives, therefore if the relationship is not working out the couple would be too scared to get a divorce because of what their family might do. Some countries make arranged marriage mandatory, and some people actually agree with it but others such as me do not. Fatma Uncon was a twenty year old female who was forced into an arranged marriage, which she did not want. Since she was forced she decided to commit suicide by shooting herself with her father’s handgun. Another female named Gulbahar Karokoyn was also forced into an arranged marriage, which she did not want. She was forced into marrying her uncle’s son, therefore she also committed suicide. These two young females committed suicide because they felt pressured and forced into something which they did not want. They felt that by ending their life they would finally be free. I asked one of my friend if she was for arranged marriage and she stated no, â€Å"I want to fall in love with the person before I get married not my parents, they are not the one’s who has to stay with this specific person their entire life so why should they choose who I marry†. I completely agree with her because it is true why should anyone tell me who I should marry. Altogether, as I stated before I do not think arranged marriage is a good idea. I believe that people should decide who they want to be with. Their parents should not force you to choose who you want to make your life long partner, because you will be the one who has to be with that person for life. Also arranged marriages might make people feel too trapped and that might cause them to do something to harm themselves or their partner. Therefore I believe the choice should be yours.

Challenges Library Management System Essay Example for Free

Challenges Library Management System Essay n 1981, UNESCO published a study prepared by Jean Lunn1 from Canada, Guidelines for Legal Deposit Legislation. His study is now 30 years old since its publication. Many countries have amended or significantly rewritten their legal deposit laws (Germany, Indonesia, and Norway in 1990; France in 1992, Sweden in 1994, Canada in 1995, South Africa in 1997, Denmark in 1998 and Japan & Finland in 2000). Others are in the process of doing so (Australia, India, Slovenia, Spain, Switzerland and United Kingdom). The forms of intellectual and artistic expressions have grown in different dimensions. New published media have been developed and electronic publications are now an integral part of many national publishing heritages. UNESCO was under pressure to bring out a revised edition of the Guideline in order to review the impact of it on other countries and to incorporate new forms of publishing, such as, electronic publications. The new revised and updated edition of the Guidelines of Legal 2 Deposit Legislation (2000, UNESCO) by Jules Lariviere is found to be a useful tool. The Indian relevant act, Delivery of Books Act 1954 (rev. 1956 to include newspapers and periodicals) has been under the scanner shortly after it was put into application and over the last five decades the National Library, Kolkata and the three other recipient regional public libraries, Connemara Pubic Library, Chennai, Central Library, Town Hall, Mumbai and Delhi Public Library, Delhi, and especially the publishing world directly involved with it, expressed concern and drew attention of the Government of India, of its limitations and ineffectiveness. The National Library, Federation of Indian Publishers (FIP) and several professional library organizations discussed its drawbacks and recommended revision or specific amendments of the act at various seminars, conferences and other forums. Ministry of Culture, the concerned agency of the government of India, set up several committees to deal with the National Library. The Recommendations of the National Knowledge Commission3 and its Working Group on Libraries (NKC-WGL, 2006) is completely silent on this and other national library related issues. It would be appropriate to draw attention to an article by 3. Challenges in Library Management System (CLMS 2012) Bandopadhyay (2000) former Director of the National Library, is exhaustive enough with a complete set of plan of action for the concerned Ministry to initiate the revision process at the earliest. As a follow up, the Ministry took some steps to obtain the views, of other stakeholders, including academics, library users group and senior library professionals. Based on these suggestions / recommendations a revised draft bill on this issue was prepared that is awaiting final clearance of the Ministry since 2006. Role of Legal Deposit Act: In simple terms Legal Deposit is a statutory obligation which requires that any organization, commercial or public, and any individual producing any type of documentation in multiple copies, be obliged to deposit one or more copies with some recognised national institution/s. It is important to make sure that legal deposit legislation covers all kinds of published material, that is, material generally produced in multiple copies and â€Å"offered to the public regardless of the means of transmission. † Public distribution could mean â€Å"performance† or â€Å"display† e.g. radio or television programme could be considered as â€Å"published† for legal deposit purposes when it has been broadcast. Within the electronic publications environment, it should be noted that a â€Å"one copy item† such as, a database , stored on one server, could be subject to legal deposit requirement since it is made available to the public through a technology enabling the public to read, hear or view the material. 5 (Lariviere ). Most countries rely on a legal instrument of some sort in order to ensure the comprehensiveness of their national deposit collection. In all countries with legal deposit system, â€Å"published material† would naturally include books, periodicals, newspapers, microforms, sheet music, maps, brochures, pamphlets, etc. In some countries audio-visual material (sound recordings, films, videos, etc. ) is also subject to legal deposit and there are several countries where electronic publications are also included into the legislation, but they have done this in different way; some have excluded on-line electronic publications because of the numerous unsolved technical problems related to their acquisition and preservation problems related to ever changing technological scenarios. Legal deposit legislation serves a clear national public policy interest by ensuring comprehensive acquisition, recording, preservation and access of a nation’s published heritage. The role of a legal deposit system is to ensure the development of a national collection of published material in various formats. It should also support the compilation and publication of national bibliography in order to ensure bibliographic control over a comprehensive deposit collection. In addition, an effective legal deposit legislation guarantees to citizens and researchers within the country and abroad, access to research collection of  the national published material. Countries are developing many different models, but are clearly unable to keep pace with the massive changes and challenges related to the deposit of intangible publications. Department of National Heritage6, UK (1997) brought out a consultative paper on current legal deposit of publication issues based on a questionnaire which identified several pertinent issues and posed a number of specific questions to which sought responses from individuals and organizations. This document could also help Indian group and the government agencies in formulating the revised DB Act. Profile of Indian book publishing Before we deal with Indian Delivery of Books Act let us first look at the present trends in book publishing in India. Over the last four decades a large majority of English language publishing has concentrated in and around the capital, Delhi. The city is also a major centre of Hindi publishing industry. With the rapid growth of higher education from 1960s and the pressure built-up within the faculties due to UGC’s policy of ‘publish or perish’ resulted in the increase of publications of research monograph. India is one of the few countries where 4 4. Invited Lectures theses and dissertations submitted for Ph. D. and other similar higher postgraduate degrees in humanities and social sciences particularly, get published as a routine matter, whereas in science and technology this would be a rare phenomenon. There is no reliable source of annual book publishing data in India or any comprehensive list of Indian publishers in different languages. D. N. Malhotra7 (2010), former President of FIP and an established publisher in English and Hindi claimed of having 15,000 20,000 publishing houses, mostly run by individuals or as single family business. According to Vinutha Mallay8 Senior Editor of Mapin Publishing, India is the sixth largest publishing industry in the world with annual growth of 15-20%; third largest publishers of books in English, around 90,000 to 100,000 books are published annually, there are about 19,000 publishers in the country; in addition sixty per cent of global publishing outsourcing is based in India. This growth trend is noticeable only from the 70s onwards when book trade turnover increased gradually due to numerical growth of educational and research institutions at every level. As we look back a few decades, the demand of English books grew fast in libraries of newly established universities, research institutions and other academic centres. Individual buyers of books constitute only a small percentage. Bulk of the titles was imported from the English speaking countries, mostly from the UK and USA based publishing houses. This book import business is largely handled by a few Delhi based book importers and distributors. To accelerate the book supply process from the shelves and warehouses the importers / distributers devised a practice of sending books on credit to academic staff and libraries, through local vendors or jobbers (newcomers in book trade to supply books ‘on approval’ basis). They were allowed to take back books â€Å"not selected† within a credit limit of six months only. Within a few years these jobbers turned into legitimate vendors with book stock of their own which could not be returned to the wholesalers within the stipulated six months credit limit. They start bookshops with the ‘dead stock’ of their own and continue to supply books to the institutions on prevailing terms and conditions. These vendors, having direct contacts with the researchers and faculty members on day to day basis, being the actual selectors in all educational institutions, get offers to publish research monographs of academics. Many of them grabbed these offers on their own terms thereby joining the exclusive club of publishers. We now find several of these vendors are retail bookshop owners, library suppliers and also publishers, all in one. Perhaps it would not be out of place to add a few words of Iain Stevenson9 on the recent trends in British publishing keeping in mind that India is claimed to be the third largest English language publishing country. ‘Since the beginning of this century, there have been strong trends in British publishing in the increase in concentration of publishing and book selling ownership balanced by healthy specialization and the second is an increasing awareness and impact of electronic media and delivery across sectors that have created a large impact across the book trade. In 2004 over 161,000 individual book titles were published in the U.K. as compared to 119,000 in 2001 and over 2. 5 times the number in 1990. Consumers spending on books reach 2436 m. sterling pounds (in 2000 it was 2000 million) out of which 30% was from the export sales. Individual buyers comprised the largest market share, about 70% of total book sale and 20% to academic institutions and corporate bodies’. Indian Legal Deposit Legislation or Delivery of Books Act 1954 and its aftermath The act, commonly referred to as DB Act10 was amended in 1956 to include newspapers and serials under its purview. Annual publishing of books in India during 1950s was small 5. Challenges in Library Management System (CLMS 2012) and below 30,000 titles, whereas by 2010 it is claimed to have exceeded 100,000 [estimated figure obtained from FIP in the absence of any official data from any reliable source] with substantial increase in the coverage of subjects, such as, science and technology. In a recent 11 Annual Report of the Ministry of Culture the National Library claimed to have received 29,875 publications under the DB Act which happens to be only 30% of the estimated total publications as indicated by senior executives of the Library in several professional forums. It was also being pointed out in such gatherings that the other three recipient libraries under this Act, in Chennai, Delhi and Mumbai received even less during the same period. It is worth noting that this was claimed to be the highest figure ever reached by the library ‘due to a special drive’12Intellectual resource (NACONAL 2006). UNESCO Statistical Yearbook is silent on the number of books published annually or the number of libraries in India over the last several decades, although India is one of the major contributors and active member of this international body. This sad state of affaire obviously reached, and continue to be, due to simple negligence of all concern. In most other countries annual publication figures were being provided by organizations declared as recipient/s under the legal deposit or copyright legislation of the country. There must be several reasons for the Library to reach in such a state and to argue, we guess, the limitations of DB Act cannot be the primary cause of it. Rigid administrative and fiscal rules and regulations adopted by the Library to operate under the guidance of the Ministry, is surely to my mind, a major factor but not the main one. The crux of the matter is National Library never received a large number of recent Indian publications under the DB Act. We do not know who all are claimed to be Indian publishers. A sizable number of them are ignorant of DB Act obligations. It is also a fact that number of ‘one time authorpublishers’ is also very high (15% – 20%) especially in vernacular languages. The National Library together with the Central Reference Library committed to bring out Indian National Bibliography(INB) based on the books received under the DB Act, similar in format of the British National Bibliography (BNB). However, neither the British Library (formerly British Museum Library) nor the Indian National Library is in any obligation under their respective legal deposit acts to bring out national bibliographies of books thus received under their respective legal deposit acts. . Bandhopadhyay13 points out,’rules and policy adopted are working smoothly for the British Library but similar regulations unexpectedly, failed to work in our case. One has to keep in mind the fact that default in U. K. is an exception rather than general rule unlike in India’. The provision of penalty for default in DB Act of Rs. 50. 00 sounds just notional. Either revise it to a figure e. g. , Rs. 1000. 00 or 4-5 times of the actual market price of single copy, whichever is higher or just make it voluntary, and hope for the best. The reason of suggesting the latter provision is to avoid the highly cumbersome and built-in procedural delay within our legal system. Since 1958 National Library did not take any legal action against one single defaulter till date. In UK and USA penalty clause is not mentioned as the legal deposit provision is covered under the country’s copyright acts. It is because of this factor legal deposit provision is genuinely more effective and acceptable to authors and publishers of these countries. It would be more realistic to suggest that National Library shall receive one copy of every Indian ‘publication’ and the three other regional repository libraries in Chennai, Delhi and Mumbai shall have the right to claim any current publication in their respective regional languages only, delivered free of cost under the revised provisions of the DB Act. The current practice of demanding four copies of every publication to be delivered free of cost to each of 6. Invited Lectures these four libraries (including National Library) failed to meet our expectations. This is in addition to what publishers have to comply with the demands of different state central libraries under the Press and Book Registration Act of 1867. Moreover, a large volume of these books and other publications, thus received, especially language publications that are not so commonly used in some regions are usually being ‘dumped’ or just temporarily stored as these are of ‘no use’ to the library. This is a colossal wastage of national resource. On the other hand it would not be cost effective to make these so to say, ‘unused books’ (four copies of each) routinely processed, provide costly storage space as well as maintaining them for the posterity in four regional libraries. The National Library shall receive one copy for preservation and access only; create bibliographic records for the benefit of all stakeholders. There are several categories of publications e. g. in English, Hindi, Sanskrit and Urdu (EHSU) languages shall find users in other three regional libraries. Let us accept the real time scenario in terms of availability and accessibility for application of information and communication technologies (ICT) within library systems. Bibliographic data of publications received by the National Library under legal deposit legislation will be accessible to others from INB and National Library catalogue / database online. These three libraries shall buy one copy of all selected books in EHSU languages, from any local vendor / publishers. Additional fund annually spend by three libraries on this account shall be reimbursed from a special annual central government grant. The proposed module is based on the British legal deposit act where the British Library, London receives one copy of every book / publication and the other five libraries (Wales National Library, Aberystwyth, Scottish National Library, Edinburgh, Oxford University, Cambridge University and Trinity College, Dublin) obtain direct from the publishers, one copy of every book of their choice, selected from the weekly list of books received in the British Library under the legal deposit act. We made an attempt to get some estimation of the annual cost of books published under these four (EHSU) ‘common languages’ from INB and the National library that would give an idea of the total fund required for the three regional libraries under the revised provision of the Act. All the three libraries receive some annual grant from the central government. The revised provision in the act will also bring some savings in terms of time and resources, as lesser number of books are to be dealt with by the libraries. Sooner than later, it  will be a reality (within a decade or so) of making available a digital copy of an Indian publication by the National Library online, that was not originally selected or received earlier to a library or an individual from its own stock within or outside the country. The technology is already in experimental stage at various levels. Slowly and gradually a large part of Indian publications will be brought out in e-format only, which will also change our current perception of borrowing or consulting a ‘book’ from a conventional library. Till we reach that stage in India and the transitional period of overlap (20 years? ) we shall carry on with both the systems as we are now have both bullock carts as well as a BMW 7e series cars on our roads for transportation. Indian library systems shall take a longer path and time to switch over to reach this goal. Moreover, any change in our library ‘modernization’ programme shall be fully dependent on application of technological innovations resulting in inevitable 14 acceptance of a never ending process. Thomas Abhram in a recent article expressed, â€Å"ebooks will be hugely cheaper with the removal of paper and inventory costs†¦. All things taken into account, books in print format are not certainly going away ever from circulation. And e-books, from a publishing point of view, are a ‘consummation devoutly to be wished’. We in India, specially the National Library are to continue dealing with print copies of books for several decades together with information resources available in e-books and or in any other format. 7 Challenges in Library Management System (CLMS 2012) Table 1: Books in Indian Languages Received in National Library LANGUAGE 2007 08 Assamese Bengali English Gujarati Hindi Kannada Malayalam Marathi Oriya Punjabi Sanskrit Tamil Telugu Urdu Total 97 991 5756 127 2370 687 1500 1400 2661 602 112 3685 248 521 20757 NL/DB Act 2008 – 09 35 1463 5385 348 1722 600 1200 1351 52 576 287 2526 145 304 15994 337 2189 5530 476 1237 877 866 1341 750 000 111 1186 406 292 15598 300 350 450 830 INB (2010) AVERAGE COST. The figures quoted above (Table-1) under Books received by the National Library under DB Act during 2007-08 and 2008-09 and those listed in INB for 2010 (CRL) were obtained from the respective libraries on personal requests. In a paper presented at the NACONAL 2006 by Mandal & Syed Abuzar15 (2006) indicated National Library received about 20,000 books annually during 1990 2002. They claimed the Library received about 30,000 during 2005-06 due to some special drive and about similar number of volumes during 2010-11as recorded in the Annual Report of the Ministry of Culture. Unfortunately we could not get breakdown of figures under each language of 29,875 books received during 2005-06 nor of INB listed figures for 2009 and 2011. The significant gap of Oriya books received during 2007-08 and 2008-09 was due to some special efforts put by the concerned language specialist during 2007. [Note:Average cost of recently published books in English, Hindi, Sanskrit and Urdu (EHSU) languages has been worked out from a sample of books procured by University of Delhi, Central Library, Central Secretariat Library and the U. S. Library of Congress, Book Procurement Centre in Delhi. We made here an estimation of annual additional grant amount to be provided by central government to support the three regional libraries (in Chennai, Delhi and Mumbai) under the proposed revised legal deposit legislation. The National Library shall receive one copy only of every Indian publication free of cost delivered by the publishers, and the three regional public libraries are to purchase one copy of any book (in EHSU languages) selected by a library from open market. The three libraries are entitled, under the law, to receive free of cost, one copy of a book published in respective regional languages. It is estimated that each library shall selectively acquire per year about 30,000 new Indian publications (10,000 EHSU + 20,000 in respective regional languages) out of about 90,000 books published annually. It means, central government shall reimburse annually the cost of 30,000 books in EHSU languages where average cost of a set of four EHSU books is Rs. 2000 or Rs. 60 million (30,000 x2000 = 60,000,000). In addition, another 10m (Rs. 10,000,000) would be required to cover annual subscription cost of EHSU periodicals and newspapers. Thus we reach an estimated figure of Rs. 70m or 7crore (add another 10% 8 Invited Lectures annually for inflation). These figures are being presented to get some idea of the extra cost we propose to pass on to the central government exchequer. ] If this revised guidelines are adopted in our legal deposit act (now under revision) by taking over the extra burden of book fund of the three regional libraries by the central exchequer then we could surely expect of getting better cooperation from the publishing fraternity in fulfilling their responsibilities towards the provisions of the revised act. Group of publishers bringing out EHSU language publications are to supply only TWO free copies, like all other publishers, one to the National Library and the other to Parliament Library. The only sensible expectation of the publishers from the CRL / National Library is to bring out a comprehensive, up to date online INB, listing all currently published titles thus received under the act and provide facilities of easy access to the readers within a reasonable time frame. Under the revised provision of the act, there is a strong opinion that Chennai based Connemara Public Library shall receive one copy free of cost, of every publication in Dravidian languages (e. g. Kannada, Malayalam, Tamil and Telugu). Similarly Central Library, Mumbai shall receive books in all western Indian languages, such as Marathi, Konkani, Gujarati, etc. , and Delhi Public Library shall get publications in Punjabi, Kashmiri, etc. as commonly spoken in the three respective regions. National Library is to receive one copy of all the publications. In addition to the respective regional languages publications these three libraries shall purchase one copy of publications of their choice, in English, Hindi, Sanskrit and Urdu (EHSU), from publishers / local vendors. Total annual cost of this category of publications shall be reimbursed from central exchequer. With the introduction of advanced network technologies, libraries shall be benefitted for not to process (Catalogue / classify highest cost factor) these books as relevant data can be downloaded from INB. The second alternative is to incorporate legal deposit provision within the revised copyright legislation as done in the USA and UK. It is possible to reduce the number of defaulting Indian publishers to bare minimum. Only very recently the National Library claimed to have increased intake of publications under the Act by extensive promotional work through the media and sending direct appeal to publishers that have helped it in bringing more and more publishers within the DB Act net. Secondly, if the total number of copies of each title (an average of seven copies) under both PR and DB Acts could be drastically reduced to minimum two only, there is a hope of getting full support and cooperation of Indian publishers to go by the rule book. Third and the most important factor is to make INB up to date and bring it out at regular frequency (monthly! ) with the target of putting it online within a scheduled time frame. What we need is determination and political will to make the India’s National Library the effective hub of Indian library systems. Similarly, there are several other issues, listed below, which also require attention by both the National Library and appropriate government agencies that shall help in making India proud of its National Library. Central Reference Library (CRL): In 1971 administration of the CRL was separated from the National Library by making it a subordinate office under the Department of Culture. This was an ideal opportunity we missed, for shifting the CRL to Delhi. In the middle of 1970s Central Government created a new wing of the Central Secretariat Library (CSL) and named it as Tulsi Sadan Library to collect and provide access exclusively to all Indian language (excluding English) publications, to commemorate the 400th year of Tulsidasa (of Ramcharitmanas fame). CSL could have been merged with CRL and allowed it to operate from some temporary location till a permanent ‘home’ could be found or built at the proposed site opposite to the National Museum on 9 Challenges in Library Management System (CLMS 2012) Janpath, originally proposed by Edwin Lutyens. CRL would have been the natural choice of declaring it as the fourth recipient public library in Delhi, under the DBAct (instead of making the Delhi Public Library with reluctance, during the 1970s). Ministry of Culture is now under heavy pressure for shifting the Central Secretariat Library out of Shastri Bhavan complex due to severe space crunch and security issues. It is a fact that CSL has lost its original objective of serving information needs of all central secretariat units. Today all the ministries are having their own libraries with specialized collections to cater their respective information needs. It now serves as a general reading room for Shastri Bhavan employees. Reading for pleasure is not so common with the government employees. Central Secretariat Library is administratively a subordinate office of the Ministry of Culture. A large section of its regular visitors, viz. postgraduate students and research scholars have stopped visiting the library due to overwhelming security checks involved in getting through Shastri Bhavan. Recently several thousand volumes of its rich older collections were being disposed under executive orders to make room for babus of the Ministry. It could have been easier to find a suitable location for CRL (incorporating CSL) in Delhi during 1970s. Attempts were also being made during the 1970s and 1980s to merge the CRL with the National Library but these were also stalled by staff associations of the two libraries. During this period, management of the National Library was weak as a result, library service also suffered considerably. Central government in Delhi continued to be indecisive in taking appropriate steps while local library administration in Kolkata failed to deal with the day to day issues in any effective manner. It was more of a failure of the management both at the operational as well as policy making levels. The government allowed the National Library to drift away in the absence of any suitable action plan in place to overcome the crisis. Nor there was any move or pressure from any other corner – library professionals, media or library users’ group. This long drawn uncertainty and lack of effective management control within the National Library campus directly affected services and administration of Central Reference Library thereby putting publication of INB also on the back burner. Indian National Bibliography (INB): It started in 1958 following the British National Bibliography (BNB) format. To overcome the complexity of multi-script languages it adopted Romanization of all scripts with the descriptive part of each entry in English. This has created problems for many who are not familiar with Roman script or English language. The job of printing INB monthly issues was given exclusively to the Government of India Press in Kolkata that failed to realise, from the beginning, the importance of maintaining the production and delivery schedule. After years of persuasion by CRL the Ministry allowed printing of INB through private press. Cataloguing of every title, received by the National Library under BD Act, is first to be acknowledged by the Library then sent to CRL on record, where it will be catalogued once according to INB practices and then books shall be sent back to the National Library for re-cataloguing according to its own specified rules followed by due processing for storage. This long drawn administrative procedural factors and duplication of cataloguing  process have claimed to be a major cause of delay from the date of receipt of the publication to the time its record is found in INB followed by making it available to readers of National Library This delay factor has also indirectly discouraged publishers to follow the DB Act guidelines strictly on the pretext of not finding INB to be a regular and up to date periodical either as a reliable check list of current Indian publications or a selection tool for libraries and other stakeholders; nor their publications are found in any bibliographic record of the National Library on time. National Library takes its own time, sometime nearly two years, to allow access to the books received under the DB Act. Importance of promotion and marketing of INB did never get much support from the concerned authorities. Adoption of appropriate technologies at 10 Invited Lectures different levels of administration and access to resources has been continuously lagged behind. Most national libraries of the world are having full responsibilities of preserving and allowing access to their collections by providing adequate indexing and other access tools, e.  g. national bibliographies, subject bibliographies, annotated catalogues of special collections, many of these are now accessible online on their respective websites. We must allow the National Library for setting up National Bibliographic Division with full control of bringing out INB and to provide other bibliographic services covering pan-India in appropriate standardized formats, as required from time to time. By taking full advantage of technological advances supported by a group of committed well qualified staff the Library would be able to help in both improving and widening the scope of services to individuals as well as to provide back-up services to a large number of academic and public libraries in and outside the country. For example, the day Indian libraries in general adopt the same processing format for all new titles listed in INB,India can claim to have won half the battle in modernizing our library services and systems. Without going into details one can only highlight the fact of centralized processing initiated and applied in most national libraries which have directly and indirectly helped respective library systems of these countries. We are well aware of the fact that both the CRL and INB are as if, linked with the DB Act by an umbilical cord that needs to be focused and dealt with separately for a drastic revision. Proposals l l Title of the revised act may be â€Å"Delivery of Publications (National Library) Act. Definition of Publications shall include – all printed documents, such as, books, periodicals, serials, newspapers, e-publications including audio books, CD books, DVDs and digital online publications and /or any other reformatted or original document produced for commercial distribution, e. g. microform documents. Only one copy of all publications shall be delivered free of charge, direct to the National Library of India (or at an address specified by the Library). The act shall also make adequate provision for the three regional libraries based in Chennai, Delhi and Mumbai to receive on. Challenges Library Management System. (2016, Oct 11).

Conflict and communication Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Conflict and communication - Essay Example Workplace conflict has become one of the most common issues that arise in many organisations today especially considering that individuals are increasingly being required to work in teams in order to achieve different objectives for their organisations (Esquivel & Kleiner 1997, p.89). Therefore, effective communication skills have become essential for the purpose of resolving conflicts in the workplace because they make it possible for those individuals who have differences to work them out constructively. Moreover, effective communication makes conflict resolution more efficient because individuals in the workplace have a means of making sure that the conflicts between then do not get out of hand. Conflict resolution has developed into a discipline that has a diverse number of theories designed to deal with the various conflicts that arise in the workplace. Most conflict resolution theories are aimed at ensuring that conflicts are resolved in as peaceful a manner possible. One of the most important theories of conflict resolution is the cooperative model which was developed by Morton Deutsch. This model aims at resolving conflict through encouraging cooperation between the opposing parties (Amazon & Shweiger 1997, p.101). Under this theory, it is essential for the aims and the nature of the dispute to be carefully analysed during negotiations in the attempt to resolve the conflict. According to Deutsch, there are two main orientations that result in conflict and its resolution and these are cooperation and competition (Deutsch 1999, p.5). The cooperative disposition of the parties involved in the conflict would eventually result in an atmosphere of trust in such a way that bo th parties would be willing to develop beneficial options for settlement. However, when both parties take on a competitive approach, it would lead to a situation where there is

A short (c. 1500 words) concept note or description that synthesises Essay

A short (c. 1500 words) concept note or description that synthesises and summarises the key ideas, theories, policies and practi - Essay Example However, they used informal methods of learning which could be different from the current methods that are used. Apparently, the informal education relied on informal ways of learning which were considered social ways of learning. The old people in the society had an obligation to ensure the young generation in the society was learned through informal ways of learning (Sinagatullin, 2006: 12). Though this was at times considered an indigenous way of learning, the young generation was able to get vital teachings from the elders. With continued processes, the generation acquired the required skills in life. This led to development of better ways of teaching and learning which was passed to the next generation. This states the origin of education and how it was influential in the past decades. Globalisation is one aspect that is considered an important aspect that has led to the change from informal education to formal education. Many regions were stuck to their informal ways of educati ng the young generation. In their own thoughts, they were suitable to the upcoming generation. There are several reasons that led to the stagnation of such practices in most areas. First, mobility and immigration was unheard of. People in their ancestral land were locked in such areas and they did not feel the need to move to other places in the world. The people were living in their own way of life, which was comfortable according to their needs. These people did not have information flow from other places of the world, and as such, they did not have a comparison of the outside world. In fact, people believed that their way of life was more suitable than any other. However with the cropping up of the concept of globalisation, many other aspects of life changed. First, globalisation led to exchange of information from other parts of the world. This led to deeper comparisons between places and people felt the need to change their educational standards. For example, many people acquir ed formal information from already developed countries. This would be important in ensuring these countries are developing just like the other countries that are already developed (Zajda, 2010:101). For example, South Africa felt the need to copy the Australian way of education. South Africa was not as developed as Australia and it felt the need to adapt a different form of learning. This would improve the quality of education in South Africa to the standards of the education in Australia. Industrialisation is one of the most savoured outcomes of globalisation, especially in the education sector. The education sector needs motivations to be well equipped (Ben-Peretz, 2009:75). For example, the education sector looks at the outcomes of educating people in a certain sector and implements such education syllabuses. A concrete example is development of syllabuses that will equip people to participate in the industrialisation sector. The educational governing bodies will enhance their sy llabuses when looking for better ways of making an industrialised country. For example, the educational sector developed syllabuses for engineers, managers and other professionals that would equip the country with managers that would run industries. This led to massive improvement in education sector since the syllabuses were welcoming many people that would be professionals. This was only after the cropping up of industries that needed works, labourers and managers. Though the

Discovery Timeline Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Discovery Timeline - Essay Example Up until the 16th century, people thought that heavy objects fell faster. Galileo Galilei, in 1585, climbed to the top of the leaning Tower of Pisa and dropped two objects. One object was heavy and the other was light, but both reached the ground at the same time. Thus, he proved that objects fall at the same rate and accelerate as they fall. (Ed-Helper, n.d) Later on, Galilei expressed his theories with equations, and his discoveries and equations served as a guideline for Newton's equations of gravity, which are still used to date. In 1752, Benjamin Franklin discovered electricity. 'Ben suspected that lightning was an electrical current in nature, and he wanted to see if he was right. One way to test his idea would be to see if the lightning would pass through metal. He decided to use a metal key and looked around for a way to get the key up near the lightning. he used a child's toy, a kite, to prove that lightning is really a stream of electrified air, known today as plasma. His famous stormy kite flight in June of 1752 led him to develop many of the terms that we still use today when we talk about electricity: battery, conductor, condenser, charge, discharge, uncharged, negative, minus, plus, electric shock, and electrician.' (AmericanRevolution, n.d) In 1879, Thomas Edison discovered the incand... Incandescent light bulbs or lamps are sources of artificial light which use electricity to emit light. With this discovery, he enabled portable lighting, such as table lamps, some car headlamps and electric flashlights, and decorative and advertising lighting. References 1. Bill Arnett (last updated: 2007 Jun 02) Appendix 3:Chronology of Solar System Discovery. Retrieved May 29, 2008 from http://www.nineplanets.org/history.html 2. The Age of Discovery - Gravity and Gauss. Retrieved May 29, 2008 from http://edhelper.com/ReadingComprehension_35_204.html 3. Benjamin Franklin and Discovery of Electricity. Rerieved May 29, 2008 from http://www.americanrevolution.com/BenjaminFranklinElectricity.htm. 4. Tom Edison (n.d). Incandescent Light. Retrieved May 29, 2008 from

Do silver ions kill bacteria Lab Report Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Do silver ions kill bacteria - Lab Report Example Incubate at 37ï‚ °C in a shaker incubator for overnight culture so that the bacteria would be in log phage. After that spin cultures at 6000 PRM for 10 minutes. Remove supernatant, leaving 5 ml in each tube. Resuspend pellet in the remaining supernatant and add 1ml of sterile nutrient broth to disposable plastic curvette and blank spectrophotometer. Add 1ml E.coli culture to plastic curvette and record A600 (make sure A600 ËÆ' 0.5). For each Ag+ compound (WI, WII, WIII, WIV, and WV) and +Ve control, take 10 ml dilution. Prepare 17 autoclave from liquid culture tubes from nutrient broth. The final volume is 10 ml. Add 50 ml of E. coli for each different compound of Ag+ silver ions. In the same way, add 50 ml of S. aureus for each different compound of Ag+ silver ions. For each compound of silver ion one needs to incubate at 370 C in zero time, 4 time and 24 time to try to get a Time serious at the effect concentration to take samples at 0 hour, 4 hour and 24 hour to try get a Time: Concentration for Lethal does. At zero time for small tubes for each compound of silver ions and control, make dilution at 1:1, 1:102, 1:103 Spread plate. 50 ÃŽ ¼l of circled dilutions above on nutrient agar plates. Spread 50 ÃŽ ¼l of – ve control (no bug) controls. Incubate over night culture at 37ï‚ ° C. At 4 times for small tubes of each compound of silver ions and control, prepare before taking sample from them and make dilution at 1:1, 1:102, 1:103. Spread plate. 50 ÃŽ ¼l of circled dilutions above on nutrient agar plates. Spread 50 ÃŽ ¼l of – ve control (no bug) controls. Incubate over night culture at 37ï‚ ° C. At 24 time for small tubes of each compound of silver ions and control what I prepared before take sample from them and make dilution at: 102, 1:103, 1:104, 1:105, 1:106. Spread plate. 50 ÃŽ ¼l of circled dilutions above on nutrient agar plates. Spread 50 ÃŽ ¼l of – ve control (no bug) controls. Incubate over night culture at 37ï‚ °

The Level of Pollution Today Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

The Level of Pollution Today - Essay Example This issue is extremely important because it can cause a lot of damage to human beings if nothing is done about it in the future. It can have life-threatening ramifications should nothing be done about it immediately. Methane is another very important greenhouse gas, large quantities of methane are produced by domesticated animals which again directly affects the environment. Coal mining and oil drilling are other activities which produce methane in abundance; these activities are done on a daily basis producing unimaginable quantities of methane. These important things must be understood to be really able to restore the normal climatic conditions, there is a lot of pollution everywhere these days, the most populated countries like India and China release alarming amounts of harmful gases each day, this must be put to an end soon to ensure that there are no calamities in the future.   Methane which is an important greenhouse gas gets produced in abundance each day, activities like coal mining, domesticating cattle and so on produces this gas and it is expected to be produced even more in the coming years which would destabilize our environment and make life even more difficult for all the human beings. â€Å"Climate change may result from both natural and human causes. The importance of human causes has been increasing during the past few decades.† (Global Warming Facts)   Human beings have time and again been alerted by Mother Nature, we have been doing a lot of things which we should not be doing. Deforestation is certainly one thing which we must refrain from doing, there are other activities like mining, running air conditioners the whole day and so on, these activities release harmful gases into the environment which in turn cause climate change.

STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT ANALYSIS Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT ANALYSIS - Essay Example In this paper, we would analyze the company’s competitive position through several tools of internal audit and external audit by using matrices, like Grand Strategy, I-E and Space. The aim of this paper is to analyze the past, current and the future of the company through various strategic perspectives and also provide recommendations for sustaining competitive edge in the future. Marriott International’s headquarter is situated in Bethesda, Maryland, United States. The acclaimed and respected chain has more than 150,000 employees globally and 60 percent of them belong to female and minorities category. Marriott hotel was an idea executed in 1927 by J. W Marriott in Washington, D.C. in United States. Currently, it’s a globally renowned in the hotel and lodging industry and is presently led by J. W Marriott, Jr. Marriott International is one of the World’s finest and topmost organization running chains of hotels and extending franchisee business after extensive scrutiny of service excellence; it is perceived to be as being one of the best in providing allied lodging facilities. It boasts of 18 different brands and more than 3400 hotels and resorts across the world. Marriott chain has been recognized as one of the ‘100 Best Companies to Work For’ by Fortune for last few years consecutively. The chain has around 3100 hotels and lodging facilities operating in United States with presence in around 70 different countries across the world. In a successful journey of over 80 years, Marriott International has created a niche and enjoys a proud position among existing competitors. In the context of strategic management, the vision statement is considered to be the long term view of company’s ground objectives and operation, just like Marriott International’s vision statement: â€Å"to be the world’s leading provider of hospitality services† (Abrahams, 1999, p.293). Ever since the Marriott was funded, its management has practiced the principle

Ethics and Law in Business and Society (4 questions) Essay - 1

Ethics and Law in Business and Society (4 questions) - Essay Example Such a situation would not have occurred of the government would not have intervened. The definition of the government failure is much suitable for the study as it is also concerned with the public policy. The government policies are usually concerned with the public policies that have a direct impact on the market (Anthoff, 2010). External negativities like the taxes which is a government policy is usually responsible for the market failures. The advantage of the government regulation as an intervention includes easing the pressure on the market. However the main con of a government regulation as an intervention is the economic crowding which may result to the worsening of the situation and hence causing an imperfect market. The public goods on the other hand are goods that cannot be affected when it is used by the individuals. An example of a public good is the fresh air. It is subjected to the theory of market failure since its excessive use may lead to negative externalities like pollution and hence contributing to market failures. It also contributes to government regulations which may have considerable effects on the market and hence leading to market failure. 2. Public policy The policy foundation is a think tank that is used for the purposes of challenging the extreme and harmful policies that have been put in place by the government in terms of the compensation of the federal employees. The main goal of the policy is to ensure that the federal employees who are unable to physically or mentally fulfill their responsibilities are adequately compensated. Several political huddles were witnessed during the passing of the bill into law. The main huddle was the policy issues among the law makers for the purposes of ensuring that the federal employees benefit. The misunderstanding among the law makers contributed to the delays in terms of passing the bill. The major benefit is that the federal employees who are affected at the workplace receive compensation w hen they are affected and are unable to work. However it is costly due to the funds that are involved during the compensation. The law requires the funds that have been set aside by the federal government in order for it to be efficient (LaDou, 2010). The policy is neither liberal nor conservative. This is because it has been receiving support from both sides of the political divide. This is because the policy affects all the federal workers incase of injury. On the other hand, the policy has always been enhanced by both the liberal and conservative governments and hence and indication of the neutrality of the policy. The politicians have also been in support of the policy and hence its popularity and success. 3. Philosophy of the state According to Locke, the political obligations as well as the laws are not natural but are instead human creation and are for the benefits of the individuals involved. He further argues that the civil rights are gained through respecting the rights of others and giving up some freedom. According to Hobbes, the lack of political laws and order would result to unlimited freedom. The security and sovereignty are achieved through the social contract when a political community is established (Levitt, 2013). There is also evident that the leviathan is reaching into the American policy domain through the concepts of liberty and sovereignty. The federalist papers promoted the ratification of the constitution through influencing the votes in favor of ratification. It

Candid Communication Essay Example for Free

Candid Communication Essay Due to the costly failed attempt to expand to the European market, and recognition of the major underlying cultural problems which resulted in the unsuccessful expansion, our team has been tasked with proposing plans for revitalizing your corporate culture. Key personnel, who could have provided advice to avert the flawed expansion strategy, did not voice their concerns or advice because such actions were not culturally encouraged. As an executive management team, you have recognized that this failure to uphold a corporate culture which values candid communication at all levels was the ultimate cause of this setback. This proposal is designed to uncover potential obstacles to creating a culture which foster candid communication, and present a plan of action to alter the corporate culture from the ground up. Question 1: The obstacles of fostering candid communication can be categorized into three areas: personal, physical and cultural. When discussing personal obstacles, the outer layers peel back to find both interpersonal and intrapersonal barriers that your organization will find in their journey to value candid communication. For example, interpersonal barriers occur between team members, such as differences in personality styles or behavioral preferences. Ignoring or not addressing these differences can lead to rivalry, competition and fear of speaking up due to retaliation or further dislike from other co-workers. Though individuals in your company may not like or be willing to work with one-another, the major obstacle is to first get them talking to address their differences. Furthermore, even if your employees hold similar behavioral or personality styles, another obstacle may be that their relationships might not be strong enough to support constructive criticism from others, indicating a lack of trust. The absence of trust is the first dysfunction of a team, according to Patrick Lencioni. â€Å"Trust is the foundation of a team† and the lack of trust is the team’s inability â€Å"to understand and open up to one another† (Lencioni, pg. 43-44). Strong, trusting relationships support providing feedback to other employees and supervisors without fear of future scrutiny. Lack of trust within a group also holds a strong influence on intrapersonal barriers to speak freely. Intrapersonal barriers are those that occur within the individual self or mind but are strongly influenced by their surroundings. For example, without the feeling of trust, employees may revert back to their safety zone by keeping quiet and holding back opinions in order to protective themselves (Lencioni, pg. 195). Likewise, other intrapersonal barriers can be as simple as the individual’s self-confidence level or working with individuals who prefer not to provide criticism for fear of rejection from the group. In addition, another obstacle is the absence of individual’s sense of belongingness to the company, one of Maslow’s steps in his Hierarchy of Needs. Belongingness comes from the company support of employees through personal development and job enrichment which play a critical role for employees to recognize that they and their opinions are valued enough to be shared. Secondly, physical barriers of separation, such as the physical distance between locations, geographic barriers like oceans or even walls between offices, can also hinder the ability to communicate openly to employees,. For example, as your company expands internationally, it will face the creation of virtual teams. Virtual teams are at a disadvantage to build trusting, strong relationships because they do not have the luxury of sitting across the table from one-another to work out disagreements. And, even if they wanted to, it would be extremely expensive for the company to fund trips back and forth across the pond. On the other hand, co-located employees may still feel that physical barriers impede their ability to share from blocked areas and closed doors providing visual cues to employees that they are either not needed or wanted. Last, as your company grows it will face both society and company built cultural barriers. Societal barriers, such as international relations and generational differences can influence the effectiveness of conducting business and building relationships in the future. For example, do the companies that we are working with international hold the same emphasis on candid dialog? Do cultural barriers or age differences enable employees to provide productive feedback or criticism without violating a social norm or without fear of creating adversarial relationships? Both examples of societal based barriers greatly influence the ability of people to feel they can share openly. Likewise, company built cultural barriers continue to obstruct straight talk if the culture does not reward such behavior and the population contains individuals who do not fit the cultural mold. For example, Nordstrom employees who are not fanatic about how amazing you Nordstrom’s is will â€Å"be ejected like a virus† (). Employees who do not see rewards for behaviors or do not agree with the cultural behaviors will not be comfortable to share candidly. Question 2: In order to combat these negative obstacles the company must first create and communicate a solid value structure, mission statement and form committees to help implement and generate ideas. The assurance that people feel valued needs to be the primary focus of the company citing the well known fact that employees are the number one customers. A credo similar to the one mentioned in Built to Last (p. 9) for Johnson Johnson, listed open for all to see, must be presented to the employees specifically listing core values including but not limited to: welcome change, be honest/open, recognize success but not shun failure, treat everyone with respect and spend considerable amount of time nurturing culture. For maximum impact management needs to proactively practice (MBWA) by walking around displaying, encouraging and measuring the success of all these values. These values and structures need to be engrained early in the employees so that the culture will become second nature. The objective is for the employee to be culturally rooted early. This is why the processes of recruiting, hiring, socializing and training new employees is critical, similar to Nike within Built to Change â€Å"the company fostered a â€Å"just do it† identity that was reflected in its structure, the people it hired†(p. 46). Once hired, the cultural foundation has been set and injection into the company’s system will receive little resistance making it simple to promote candid communications. Disregarding early processes may allow people to slip into the company who don’t fit the cultural mold and/or they are not properly adjusted into the system. These outcasts have a possibility of being rejected from the system resulting in employee turnover or a multitude of other problems. Recruiters can ensure recruits fit into the open communication culture by various techniques of evaluation, starting at first contact, including socializing events and interview processes. Events that require potential employees to socialize with current employees at their peer level will help evaluate their compatibility within the system and the employees. Employees administering interviews are encouraged to ask more behavioral questions rather than job function related questions. This will also ensure that new candidates are on the right path to successful transplant into the company. Once hired, new employees are to be indoctrinated with the concept of free speech. In order to build relationships and foster vertical communication, all new employees regardless of position, are to attend a high level onboarding training that is done within one large room. Next they participate in a communication building scavenger hunt requiring them to find and speak to certain individuals within the organization. The new employees are then paired with existing employees in their own department for 3-6 months because it typically takes a while for employees to become situated and comfortable in their new environment. By training employees in this way you guarantee little deviation from expected culture and instill the free speech initiative, making it easier to have candid conversations. People tend to respond positively to change when they receive recognition from managers. Displaying exceptional behavior is often overlooked leading employees to believe that the attribute is not exceptional or essential to success. When establishing a system for rewarding positive behaviors, especially those that revolve around the core values and candid communication, the rewards need to be in high regard to the employee and not necessarily monetary, Microsoft shows this in Built to Change when it â€Å"employees have challenging work and, of course, one of the most highly rewarding stock plans around†¦. hereby attracted some of the country’s top software engineers and marketing geniuses†(p. 47). Equally important within the innovation process is having more time to develop new ideas shown in Built to Change 3M’s â€Å"policies and practices that give employees time to experiment, and its reward system recognizes innovative work† (p. 39). The rewards and time provided for ideas generated will bring about open communication but would be ultimately ineffective in the event that there isn’t a way to evaluate these ideas and innovations. Therefore a committee consisting of white and blue collar workers should be assembled to evaluate and investigate ideas that are submitted for validity or cost effectiveness. To instill a culture that embraces and utilizes open communication candidly the company must have a way to promote and judge the performance of the changes. A committee will be formed in order to set goals, establish who will be in charge, schedule mingling events, enrich communications and ultimately ensure that this initiative isn’t forgotten. The mingling events would serve as a tool to not only build relationships between employees, breaking down communication barriers, but to strengthen and reinforce ties to the company. Some examples of the events would include speed mentoring, company picnics, benefit fairs, blood drives and fundraising events. Next the committee would be responsible for enriching communications throughout the company by fostering goodwill, laying out company-wide changes and compiling and maintaining the medium for communication disbursement. Mediums of communication can vary from newsletters, memos, banners or blogs. In Corporate Culture and Performance, Tandem Computers practices this by displaying achievements â€Å"are regularly recognized on bulletin boards as Our Latest Greatests†(p. 16). Communication transmitted must be professional to avoid wasting time across the organization. Some additional information, including information about the CEO’s family, may be added to show that she is human and the message is genuine. The committee would also explain new product information, organizational issues that might be confusing and benefit changes that might seem to only benefit the employer. By doing this managers can build rapport to increase employee understanding of the company, products, ethics, culture, and external environment, showing that the managers are not hiding information. This builds trust and fosters open communication. In order to facilitate information sharing, the company must utilize various ways of mentoring. Level mentoring should be skipped so that employees get an opportunity to meet with someone above the direct management. Reverse mentoring will be also instilled in the company as the younger person might have some fresh ideas and new tools. Sometimes, a new set of ideas might be the solution to a lingering issue in the company. Training sessions are organized by putting the management and employees on the same teams. Likewise, large group information sessions are implemented to talk about issues related to employees with management information similar to Merck’s communication meetings that are held three times a year. These meetings will have the full support of upper management and are used to open communication, improve the flow of information among all levels of management and to provide employees with information they need to do their jobs better. There could also be an improvement in information sharing by having no doors on offices or no physical barriers between management and lower level employees. Honda and Harley Davidson have an open door policy as described in Built to Change (p. 9). The company should clearly define fair policies and procedures. This will help the employees to know what is expected of them. If employees know what the company expects, it is easier for them to be accountable for their own behavior and contribute accordingly. Clear guidelines for professional conduct will be established by the company so that co-workers treat each other with respect regardless of their position in the company. Also, a process of performance review system will be implemented to ensure the employees are promoting the company’s value structure. A 360 degree review process will be utilized by the company which will help to provide on-going feedbacks to all the employees. This will enable all the subordinates, peers and supervisors to have their input towards the company. This will also help to assess all employees on a continual basis on how they are performing to business needs as well as adapting to the values of the company. The results from these reviews can be used to make administrative decisions as well as to plan for training and development in the future. The company should also not sway from their core values no matter what, as described in Built to Change (p. 4) in the Southwest Airlines example. This will enable the employees to stay loyal and feel comfortable knowing that their jobs are stable. Finally, the company will provide proper benefits to the employees including fair pay based on individual performance, team performance and seniority so that the employees feel valued. A proper organic organization structure will be designed to empower people and allowing them to make their own decisions. This will make the employees accountable with their decisions. A flatter organization structure will be designed in order to enable employees to speak freely to higher levels of management for advice. This will also enhance the mentoring process and help to build effective relationships. After assessing the culture and gathering input, the company should identify the system, policies and procedures that must be either changed or implemented to support the new culture. The new infrastructure should address role expectations, accountability, rewards and selection systems. The company will also have defined job descriptions and encourage people to switch departments so that employees won’t feel pigeon-holed. In other words, the company will also allow mobility within the organization in order to get the most out of their employees and employees will be more flexible. The employees should also understand other roles and jobs in the company to be able to relate to them and provide input for improvements. The company will focus more on team based design that will eventually help to elevate individual performance in the company. Individuals in the company will be cross trained or conditioned in order to improve the overall performance of the whole team. Although the word â€Å"team† is heavily used in the industry today, teams often play a major role in initiating organizational change. A cross functional team design will create mutual accountability for results and joint ownerships of work products. Above all, a properly designed organic organization structure will positively impact the ability to focus, directly affects the communication channels and empowers people by giving the employees a drive to make their own decisions. Question 3: While designing and implementing an effective, company-wide communication structure is vitally important, the activities performed by leaders at all levels are paramount to sustaining an effective communication culture. Managers are the face of your company’s culture and their interactions with their direct reports will be the frontlines of the company’s culture battles. Beginning with the hiring process, managers must be mindful that they are not only assessing the potential hire’s technical skills and abilities, but also their fit within the culture. They must abide by and practice recruiting and hiring techniques that will reasonably ensure that the company is hiring candidates that will express the desired behavior and align with the culture. These techniques could include maintaining relationships with contacts at local universities and recruiting firms. If these contacts are familiar with your company and culture they could aid in providing a stream of potential new hires and would be able to â€Å"pre-screen† for cultural fit. Mangers should openly discuss the company’s culture and ask explicit questions regarding how the potential hire feels he/she will fit within the culture. This will set cultural expectations of open and candid communication with all interviewees long before any are hired. Also, managers should use behavioral type interview questions to test the candidate’s attitudes, trust and ability to speak freely. Additionally, the interviews should be conducted by employees of varying levels of the company, both managers and non-mangers, with a single manager soliciting feedback from all other interviewers regarding their assessment of the recruit. Once potential employees are deemed to be a cultural fit and are hired it is important to continue the initiation process into the culture. Managers need to immediately begin teaching new employees about the open communication culture and submerging them in it. The Container Store, for example, submits all new hires to a weeklong orientation in which they are taught the inner workings and philosophy of the company (FoE, pg. 75). Socialization techniques can be utilized to build the relationships between the new and established employees, understanding that well socialized employees are more likely to share information freely. Managers can organize gatherings of new and current employees to introduce the new hires to their co-workers. Examples would be ice cream or pizza socials in which ice-breaker type games are used to introduce and socialize new hires to their peers. Mangers can also take new hires to lunch with a small group of their fellow employees in an effort to socialize the new employee in an environment outside the workplace. An emphasis should be made at these types of gatherings to learn about the employee’s life outside of the work environment. Other practices like a mentoring or buddy system could also be utilized to engage the new employee in an open communication culture. The focus of these activities should be to build trust and a sense of value within the new hire. Employees that perceive themselves as being valued and have strong trust relationships with their direct reports and co-workers are more likely to give of themselves, that is, to invest their â€Å"heads and hearts† with your company. While recruiting and initiating new hires into the culture is vital, most of a leader’s time will be spent maintaining the open communication culture. These tasks can be broken down into activities that build relationships, empower employees and provide reviews and feedback. Mangers should spend a considerable amount of time getting to know and nurture relationships with their direct reports. Leaders should adopt a Management by Wondering Around system where managers spend time with employees getting to know what they are doing, how they are doing it, what kind of problems they are facing, and what help is required to solve the problems (Dynamic Business Strategy, info from Vick). This type of communication should be seen as an integral part of managing people, not as an additional burden to a manager’s already busy schedule. An open-door policy should be utilized so that managers are available to their employees as much as possible. Leaders should also maintain a database of employee birthdays and employment anniversaries and recognize these occasions with cards and/or gifts. Management could also hold monthly get-togethers to celebrate the birthdays, anniversaries and milestones that occurred that month. Managers should be encouraged to spend time with their direct reports outside the work environment. Informal gatherings like lunches and happy hours could be utilized to get to know direct reports on a more personal level. Managers should hold occasional casual days in which employees are allowed to wear themed casual attire like university t-shirts to kick off football season or Hawaiian shirts at the start of summer. Additionally, leaders could send out daily or weekly e-mails informing employees of what is going on around the company.

Concept of Value Proposition Essay Example for Free

Concept of Value Proposition Essay The concept of value proposition is often used in marketing literature [Anderson et al. 2006, Clarke III 2001]. Value proposition is understood in this paper as a composition of values delivered to customers by a company in order to satisfy their needs. Values are delivered to customers through products or services, other instruments of marketing or in other ways (e.g. by corporate credibility). They can be differently categorized. Probably the simplest categorization of values includes functional and symbolic values. In the traditional economy a very common rule of value proposition formulation is combining the price level with the values for customer. According to this rule, companies offering inferior values charge customers lower prices than companies offering superior values. Hence, there can be several strategies of value proposition distinguished (e.g. inferior value – low prices, superior value – high prices). The application possibilities of this rule on the Internet are constrained. The rule explains well the strategies of companies taking part in a monetary value exchange, such as online stores. Among them there are companies selling a product with inferior customer service and charging low price and other companies that enrich the same product in great customer service and expect higher prices for it. Referring values to price level may not always be used on the Internet for several reasons. In the online environment many companies offer superior customer values for free. To these companies belong newspapers publishing content or companies offering communications services on the Internet, such as e-mail or instant messaging providers. Moreover, according to Kim on the Internet the strategy of offering superior values and charging high prices is rarely adopted [2004]. In traditional economy this strategy is most often used when marketing high quality, well-branded products to affluent customers. Author distinguished five following strategies of value proposition on the Internet: strategy of efficiency, free values, complete customer solutions, unique values and value co-creation. It is worth mentioning, that these strategies have been formulated according to different criteria and may be merged. Strategy of Efficiency Efficiency strategy consists in offering values to customers, which are to lower their transactional, interaction and other costs and in this way allow savings of time and money. The examples of companies adopting this strategy are online auctions. Due to supply aggregation they offer wide range of products, which leads to lowering customer transactional costs within offer search and analyses. Moreover, these companies decrease also customer costs by reduction of information asymmetry. This phenomenon occurs when one of the transaction parties has greater knowledge than the other party and is able to take advantage of it. Usually, this is the seller who has greater knowledge, which is the best seen on the second-hand market. Online auctions reduce the information asymmetry using the seller’s evaluation performed by buyers. It is worth mentioning that online auctions also deliver knowledge on buyers, which allows reducing the risk and the transactional costs of sellers. Research of Garciano and Kaplan showed that transactional costs of buying or selling a used car with the use of Internet is twice as low as without it [Zott, Amid, 2001]. Many Internet companies apply the efficiency strategy while offering values related to communications. These solutions such as e-mail services, instant communicators, social networking websites also reduce the transactional costs of a customer. Strategy of Free Values Free value strategy is based on offering values to customers, for which they are not charged. This strategy has been popular since the early years of commercial use of Internet. As a consequence many companies, among which newspapers, charge customers outside Internet, while offering these values for free online, which in turn leads to problems with generating income. Strategy of free values can be a part of a broader business strategy assuming the revenue generation. This can be performed twofold: revenues can be generated by another group of customers or the company can charge customers for premium values. The first concept assumes that the company is acting on a multisided market and needs at least two distinct groups of customers to generate revenue [Evans, 2003]. Internet portals have two distinct groups of customers. The first one are final users who take advantage of values offered by the portal for free such as news, e-mail or search engine. The other group of customers are advertisers, who provide the portal with revenues, for which they can display advertisement. In this case the free value strategy is used in order to build customer base, on which company will offer paid services for the other group of customers (advertisers). The other method of offering free values is based on acquisition of customers, who take advantage of free values and are also offered premium values, for which they have to pay. This strategy is often called freemium, which is the composite of free and premium. This strategy may seem to be very attractive, however its biggest challenge is the necessity of offering so precious values, for which customers – who already receive free values – will be willing to pay. Strategy of Complete Customer Solutions Strategy of complete customer solutions relies on offering a broad scope of values from certain categories[*]. Internet technologies enable presenting a high number of products in online stores, which results from low technological constraints. As a consequence online stores often shape their offer according to the long tail rule, which assumes offering both best-sellers, as well as niche products. Moreover, many companies offer values based on the economies of scope. This concept consists in offering products from different categories. A travel agency taking advantage of economies of scope would also offer insurance, car rentals etc. An often quoted example of complete customer solution is Amazon.com. The company offers wide range of products (long tail) including niche products, and at the same time offers products from other categories such as household electronics (economies of scope). The strategy of complete customer solutions describes well also the strategy of Google. The company delivers different sets of values (products) allowing search, exchange and management of information in the online environment. Strategy of Unique Values The next of formulated is the strategy of unique values. A company follows this strategy, if it offers scarce values on the market. This situation is very attractive, as it allows charging high prices and thus taking advantage of high margin. The greatest disadvantage of this strategy are difficulties in creating scarce values and then sustaining the scarcity in long term. The adoption of unique values strategy may result from innovations, privileged access to resources or operating in a niche. Innovations in value offerings may lead to situation in which a company offers unique values to customer. Examples of companies following this strategy are Skype and Google with its search engine. A company may offer unique values which result from a privileged access to resources. This strategy is adopted by media companies, such as newspapers, TV or radio stations, that offer online content unavailable on other websites. Uniqueness of values offered may also result from operating in a niche, in which consumer needs are different and should be satisfied with different composition of values. Acting in a niche is often combined with a low competition pressure and a higher level of margin. A example for this strategy may be an online store offering shoes in large sizes. The strategy of unique values is attractive as it allows to burden customer with higher financial and non-financial costs. It means that a company may charge higher prices or impose higher transactional costs on them (such as slowly operating website). In an opposite case, when a company offers common values, which are also offered by a numerous number of competitors, reduction of monetary and non-monetary customer costs may be a method of increasing values for a customer. This is easily to notice in the sector of online stores offering household equipment, books, music or websites allowing hotel reservation or airline ticket purchase. In these industries, companies often compete on the Internet with low prices, which may lead to deterioration of their margin. Strategy of Value Co-Creation The strategy of value co-creation assumes that customers actively participate in shaping the value proposition, which will be delivered to themselves or to other customers. According to Prahalad and Ramaswany, this is the value co-creation with customers that is the essence of competition in modern economy [2004]. The scope of the strategy is broad. It includes the situation, in which a customer co-creates composition of values with a company for himself. The customers may also create values orientated not at themselves, but at other customers. In both cases, the process of value co-creation must be developed on the basis of mutual commitment [DobiegaÅ‚a-Korona, 2009]. In the first case, customer’s activity can be described as mass customization. According to Kleeman and Voss mass customization refers to „isolated activity of individual customers (..), not to the collective activity of many individuals† [2008]. Within the mass customization the value exchange can be described as one-to-one and the participation of other customers is not required. The examples of implementation of mass customization are numerous. Consumers may build their own computer, change the equipment of a car or design clothes. Value co-creation orientated at other customers assumes that a customer actively participates in activities aimed at creating values for other customers. The scope of these activities is also broad. They include creating and publishing content on the Internet, interaction and communication with other customers in social networking websites or software development in the Open Source movement. Usually a numerous number of customers (users) create values for other more numerous group of customers – recipients. The value exchange can be described as all-to-all, as opposed to the former one-to-one. Conclusion Competing on the Internet requires an adoption to the new environment. The way in which companies shape their values propositions is also a subject of change. Author proposed in this paper five strategies of customer value proposition. The proposed strategies are an alternative to the traditional approach combining values for customer with price level. Porter’s competitive strategies comply with the traditional approach to value proposition. According to his conclusion a company should act either as a price leader and offer low value for low prices, or as a differentiator and offer differentiated values for higher prices. New approach to value proposition on the Internet requires then new ways of achieving competitive advantage. A research combining the proposed strategies with new approach to competitive advantage may be a continuation of this paper.

Causes and effects of fluctuation in oil price

Causes and effects of fluctuation in oil price This report discusses about the most essential energy resource and the core in economics that is oil. Since it is now used in a variety of ways to operate any machines for everyday life especially automobiles, its needs and wants has been grown rapidly. However, such unsustainable and finite amount of oil now does tremendous matters to global economics. When it was not fully used for running machines, people in history used for constructions and medicines. However, with its discovery of many usable ways such as lighting, the wants of oil has been rocketed. After many years have been used oil for running machines and other fields, economists found that oil price is actually affected by some crucial reasons and events occurred. Following this, it explains with examples about how such natural disasters, wars, recession, and oil crisis can cause the oil price changed. Also, it talks about effects as what would happen to politics and economics after the fluctuation in oil price. Since the re is high in demand of oil and limited supply, the price of oil is very high. Also, environmentalists claim that even it has replaced coal successfully in running machines and automobiles, it still emissions harmful pollutant to nature. Therefore, many researchers have been made a research for an alternative energy source to oil. Actually, there are many renewable energy sources found to use as alternative energy to oil after it is depleted, but it still has to study more on it due to new technology required to be usable. Hence, there are many arguments about whether we should keep oil as main energy source or change it to new energy source to lessen the current oil price and care about remaining amount of crude oil even it costs a lot. We infer that the oil price fluctuation can make significant changes economically, socially, and politically. We also think that searching for alternative energy sources can help the environment and maintain more stable economy. 1.0 Introduction The oil, which is used for everyday life, is just as important as water and air. Oil is used not only for running automobiles and producing electricity but also producing plastics, clothes, and electrical goods as well. Thus, we could say oil is a fundamental material to produce goods we need in everyday life. This research paper will mainly discuss oil and recognize how the money in exchange for oil, in other words, the oil money affects global economy. Also, we will see how other economists think about viable alternatives to oil in future. 2.0 History of Oil use Oil has been known as one of the most significant and essential energy sources used and progressed for numerous purposes since thousands of years. Despite modern major oil use is to run automobiles such as cars, buses, trucks, and ships, ancient people used in many other ways. According to history, ancient people used pure oil not only as a material for binding materials and as a sealant for waterproofing various surfaces but also as worked materials to pave asphalt on walls and roads. With its numerous effects has brought economic growth, the world started to recognize the importance of oil use. It was also discovered that the Chinese were the first knew the importance use of oil and to discover underground oil and drew from the wells in order to use for lighting around 500 B.C. Ever since that time many countries has begun to find oil wells around the world due to the important roles for the use of oil (BERA The Oil Gas Industry). Moreover, oil development has been quite active s ince long time ago. For example, Poland was the first country in the world trade the oil that was in 1853, and then comes Romania in 1857. In North America, the first commercial was in 1858. In 1959 Titusville was very famous for its oil well production of twenty five barrels a day. The U.S started to produce millions and millions of barrels during the past 50 years after the first production. For example; 2000 barrels in 1859 after 40 years 57 million barrels were produced in a year and still increasing until now. (Wilson, 2010) 3.0 Causes of fluctuation in oil price Knowing the reasons for oil price fluctuation is very important; since knowing such information can help the investor to invest at the right without any risk. It is very perplexing to know the exact cause of fluctuation in oil price; however, we will highlight the main causes and effects of phenomenon. 3.1.0 Causes There are four main causes change oil price; hurricane Katrina, middle-east wars, recessions, and oil crisis in the 1970s. 3.1.1 Hurricane Katrina Hurricane Katrina in 2005 caused the oil production in the Southern Gulf Coast in the U.S to stop completely, and due to the demand and to the lag of oil production; the price of oil barrels increased suddenly to $70 per a barrel. The prices declined when the U.S government decided to release 30 million oil barrels from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) (Editorial Dept, 2009). 3.1.2 Middle East wars The wars happened in the Middle East between Iraq and Afghanistan in July, 2008 caused the prices of oil to increase to more than $136 per barrel. The Middle East is known that it is one of the richest regions of oil. Therefore, due to the high prices of oil at that time, the demand for oil dramatically decreased; people started to demand less and save money. Due to this low demand, the prices of oil started to return back to normal (Editorial Dept, 2009). 3.1.3 Recession Recession caused the oil prices to change in two ways. First, the recession caused the employees to work lesser, and some even started to work from their homes; therefore, they are not demanding often for oil (e.g. transportation). Hence, the prices of oil decreased due to the low demand. Secondly, the demand for other products (e.g. electronics) decreased due to recession. The manufacturing countries which supply these products started to supply less since they started to lose proifit, so less shipment of products occurred less use of oil and this caused the prices of oil to decline (Editorial Dept, 2009). 3.1.4 Oil crisis in the 1970s The prices of oil in the Middle East were low, most of the developed countries such as the U.S decided to rely more on importing the oil. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) decided to limit their production of oil in order to make the higher oil price (Wright Boorsw, 2011). 3.2.0 Effects There are two effects showing what would be likely results of politics and economics after the changes in oil price. 3.2.1 Political effects Because of the negative effects of oil price fluctuation in the United States, the citizens decided to vote for Barack Obama in the 2008 elections. (Crenshaw, Maniam Subramaniam, 2010). 3.2.2 Economical effects There is a relationship between oil price fluctuating and income rate. For example, when the price oil increase, the income rate of the labors decrease in order for the industry to make up for the loss and make profit. Also, when the prices of oil increased, some storeowners couldnt pay for the gas deliveries and they had to shut down their businesses. Not to mention the increase of shipping fees, transportation, and food prices (Crenshaw, Maniam, Subramaniam, 2010). 4.0 Alternative energy sources to Fossil Fuels Countries around the world are reconsidering other energy sources to oil due to its increasing prices, polluting waste and the remaining amount left of it. Oil is formed over millions of years from the remains of animals and plants, covered with a layer of sand and silt. Crude oil and petroleum are also known as rock oil, developed by heat and pressure on the layers. Today oil is used to fuel vehicles, heat houses, and make numerous products ranging from medicines to plastics. However, a great pitfall of oil is the emission of harmful gases when burnt. Before the age of oil, coal was the dominating fuel, as stated by BBC (Alternatives to oil, 2000).Not only was it a reliable provider of electricity, it [was] also an essential fuel for steel and cement production, and other industrial activities (World Coal Association, N.D). However, it lost its popularity due to the fact that a large amount of poisonous gases, like carbon dioxide and sulphur dioxide are produced in its burning process, contributing negatively to the change in climate. Moreover, nuclear power is said to be friendly regarding the global warming. For example, the United Arab Emirates has been depending on oil for a very long period as a main income generator. However, the emirates are trying their best to stimulate other inflows from tourism, manufacturing and plans for research and development of new energy programs since they know that oil would eventually run out one day. According to the Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation (ENEC), the development of nuclear power plants in Abu Dhabi will help serving the growth in energy needs in the future. On the other hand, some countries fear to take the risk of having nuclear plants because of the rising rate of tragic accidents. The recent leakage of nuclear and radioactive substances in Japan, due to the 8.9 Richter scale earthquakes, is an example. Technology innovations are creating a path to the usage of new, more environmentally sociable fossil fuels. Renewable fuels include hydro-electric energy, solar energy, biomass energy, wind energy and hydrogen. Renewable fuels promote countries to use nature and a high technological plan to produce power. In Norway for instance, hydro-electric power is used to the fullest as reported by BBC (Alternatives to oil, 2000). Wind and wave power are another promising fuels. Solar power is coming on by leaps and bounds. There are already photo-voltaic cells which will provide power on a cloudy à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ winters day, or even by moonlight (Alternatives to oil, 2000). However, the hesitation and reluctance of countries to use such power sources falls under the aspect of price. A lot of money will be required to build wind turbine, solar panels, and hydrogen in conversion of technologies. All in all, there is a wide variety of alternatives to oil, however the users should evaluate the benefits and drawbacks for each power source and the effects generated to the society from the global view. 5.0 Conclusion To sum up, our world consists of variety of sources. Oil is one of the most important sources that are used in todays life, yet it is a non-renewable source. Therefore, looking for alternatives for oil can help stabilize economy and environment. Furthermore, due to some environmental and humanistic behaviors, oil prices began to increase and decline; this affected the world in many ways economically, politically, and socially.

Children Need to be Encouraged :: Teaching Education Essays

Children Need to be Encouraged As we know, children spend about thirteen years of their childhood (if they graduate) in school around their peers and teachers. Most children go home to busy households where parents do not spend quality time, such as; listening, and disciplining them like they need to. So when these children go into the school the next day, they need and adult to pat them on the back, listen to them, discipline them, and encourage them to keep on trying. Children need to be encouraged so they will try harder. I want to there to give them that extra push that they deserve because many teachers gave me that encouragement to me. These days encourageable, energetic, and determined teachers become evermore important in today’s busy society. Teaching children I would incorporate all of these philosophies such as; perennialism, progressivism, behaviorism, essentialism, existentialism, and social reconstructionism in my instructional curriculum. For example, including perennialism in which, it is necessary to teach elementary students morals, such as; sharing, not cheating, and even playing fair (like in sports). Progressivism will be used in my instruction because cooperative learning activities will take place. I will use reinforcement rewards with computers, stickers, and candy; which will display the philosophy of behaviorism reflected in my classroom. I will encourage free-will in my students by letting them make choices such as; the book they want to read or letting them decide whether or not they want to do extra credit; which would demonstrate a small part of the existentialism philosophy I support. I believe it is also necessary to educate elementary students on other cultures so they will be aware of the similarities and differences compared to their own culture; which is how I will incorporate social reconstructionism into my classroom. However, the basis to hold everything into a functional curriculum I would use the essentialist philosophy; in which I would include all of the basic subjects in every week’s lesson plan to create a structural predictive atmosphere so the students know what is happening next. Students need repetition.