Technical Data Corporation Essay - 7927 Words

Harvard Business School 9-283-072 Rev. December 1, 1987 Th Jeff Parker was 38 years old, and held BS (1965), Master of Engineering (1966) and MBA (1969) degrees from Cornell University. After receiving his MBA, Parker had been employed in a number of positions in the investment industry. From 1969 to 1971, he worked for Smith Barney is m This case was prepared as a basis for class discussion rather than to illustrate either effective or ineffective handling of an administrative situation. Copyright  © 1983 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means — electronic, mechanical,†¦show more content†¦The requisite data were typed into the APPLE by a clerical worker. Then, the individual 2 m Also, TDC had introduced a number of new analytical services for use by traders of longterm bonds. By April of 1982, the company had expanded the number of pages of information offered from 19 to 40. There were always new ways to analyze or present data on yields and prices. at er ia lc Over the year and a half that the business had been in existence, a number of improvements had been made in the basic product. For example, when first introduced, the analysis of bond prices, yields and futures prices was updated only once a day. However, Technical Data had recently hired someone to update the data and analysis more frequently, in some cases as often as hourly. In the longer run, plans called for continuous updating by computer. an no tb e re pr TDC charged approximately $150.00 per month per customer for access to its services. This fee was extremely modest in comparison to the other costs incurred by bond market professionals. By mid-1982, the company had over 500 paying subscribers, slightly under 10% of all the Telerate screens in existence. A representative list of customers is provided in Exhibit 2. od uc ed w Technical Data had the right to send out up to 40 pages of information over the Telerate system. Then, Telerate customers couldShow MoreRelatedTechnical Data Corporation Business Plan Essay1104 Words   |  5 PagesTechnical Data Corporation Business Plan 1. Technical Data Corporation is in the computer hardware and software business. TDC is in the business of providing liable data in regards to the fixed income market. TDC is going to provide a web based service that will relay historical price data, price analysis, and market commentary on the day to day price variances. Currently the purchases of this information are not willing to pay high amounts to access this information. Additionally, the purchasesRead MoreProject Management Case Report1168 Words   |  5 PagesAfter working as a project engineer for 14 years at Scientific Engineering Corporation (SEC) with great success, Gary Allison accepted a position as Project Manager on the Orion Shield Project. This was one decision that would change Gary’s career at SEC dramatically, as from being the best engineer in the plant ten months ago, we would be fired from the company. Let’s take a close look at the identify and discuss the technical, ethical, legal, contractu al and other project management issues that GaryRead MoreDeveloping Channels Of Communication For International Gadgets992 Words   |  4 Pagescompany is unable the new manager to communicate and gather a team of technical communicators and enhance their experience in communicating with different audiences in a business setting. The department of research development (RD) in International Gadgets has produced a new product. The International Gadgets assumed that product would make a revolutionize the industry. However, the International Gadgets in each level of the corporation department needs to understand fully how the new product is goingRead More Sun Microsystems, Inc. Essay866 Words   |  4 Pagesmicroprocessors and high performance software for operating network computing equipment and storage products. The Company also provides support, education and professional services. The Companys products are used for many demanding commercial and technical applications in various industries including telecommunications, manufacturing, financial services, education, retail, government, energy and healthcare. Sun Microsystems lines of business include Computer Systems and Storage, Enterprise ServicesRead MoreWhat Are The Major Strategic Considerations To Replace An Information Technology Project Manager?1168 Words   |  5 PagesHarris Corporation is in need of an Information Technology (IT) Project Manager (PM) after a seasoned, experienced employee announced her intention to retire in 30 days. The work of replacing this employee with a capable equivalent is time-consuming, costly to the firm, and requires attention to details with respect to strategy, a specification for announcing the vacancy, and discipline throughout the recruiting process. This paper leverages an actual Project Manager job posting and tailors it basedRead MoreManaging Risk Is An Important Task For Any Project Manager1437 Words   |  6 Pagesmanagement process includes the risk assess ment and determination of suitable technical, management, and operational security controls based on the level of threat the risk imposes (Swanson, 2001). Minimize the chances that the risk will occur, develop contingencies to minimize the negative consequences if an undesirable situation does come to pass. To create a disaster recovery and business continuity plan for Rocket Corporation including risk management, policies and procedures is to develop backup andRead MoreSample Resume : Chemical Engineering And Project Management1717 Words   |  7 Pagesthe following key areas: ï‚„ Project management of engineering projects and multi-functional project teams for the construction and operations of large scale mining and water and wastewater treatment facilities; ï‚„ Team leadership and management of technical expertise to support the implementation of water research and development initiatives and strategies in the area of water treatment technology; ï‚„ Undertaking strategic business investigations and implementation of projects and processes to optimiseRead MoreProject Proposal : Nike Inc.1354 Words   |  6 PagesNike, Inc. is a corporation that specializes in the design, development, manufacturing, marketing, and sales of footwear. Nike, Inc. was founded by Bill Bowerman and Phil Knight. The current Chief Executive Officer (CEO) is Mark Parker. The company headquarters is in Beaverton, Oregon. The company headquarters will be expanding soon and will contain two additional floors. Currently, there are twenty employees and four out of the twenty employees handle the IT part of the corporation. Nike operatesRead MoreRobotic Surgery : Technology And Equipment1335 Words   |  6 Pageshealth care today, the most common procedures would have been incredibly difficult to not only perform, but also to recover from. Robotic surgery is an advanced technology with a serious mechanism that operates patients with the use of smalles t technical instruments instead of traditional operation where a doctor directly performs the surgery. Surgical robots are designed with two arms that are used during the operation and while the surgeon monitors through a 3D camera. This system is used forRead MoreEssay On Non Technical Manager896 Words   |  4 PagesSecurity for Non-Technical Managers Information security is one of the weakest links on the information system management. Thus, non-technical managers lack knowledge on the subject. This increases the risk of threats by driving them to comply with the organization security policy. To protect, the organization information security assets, non- technical managers should be exposed to the three main areas of accountability such as Confidentiality, Integrity, and Availability (CIA). By doing so, it

Sharecroppers Essay example - 1303 Words

nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;After the devastation left from the Civil War, many field owners looked for new ways to replace their former slaves with field hands for farming and production use. From this need for new field hands came sharecroppers, a â€Å"response to the destitution and disorganized† agricultural results of the Civil War (Wilson 29). Sharecropping is the working of a piece of land by a tenant in exchange for a portion of the crops that they bring in for their landowners. These farmhands provided their labor, while the landowners provided living accommodations for the worker and his family, along with tools, seeds, fertilizers, and a portion of the crops that they had harvested that season. A sharecropper had â€Å"no entitlement†¦show more content†¦During these times, minimizing was the key for most families. Often this meant that items such as â€Å"shoes, socks and underwear were accessories† if any at all (Gentry 138). Due to this lack in app ropriate clothing, many times â€Å"the family was held back from ‘social doin’s’ because of their unkempt appearance† (Corder and Miller 42). Along with the emotional embarrassment of their personal appearance, sharecroppers and their families suffered physical consequences. Often a lack of inadequate clothing left them more susceptible to illness, and in their circumstances, that was a risk they could not afford to take. nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;Another important factor for the substandard conditions of sharecroppers was their significant lack of food. Having to survive off of low supplies of food is harmful to anyone, but to people who are lacking in so many other areas, it could be devastating. Sharecroppers everywhere were already being cheated of how much of the seasons harvest was actually theirs, in addition to the impractical rules of what they could and could not own while they lived on the landowners farm land. â€Å"Nutrition standards of sharecroppers were already low,† and these regulations increased them (Walker 37). Many sharecroppers across the south â€Å"were not even allowed to have gardens, cows, or chickens† (Walker 18). Most of the time, the only field crops that sharecroppers could have as their own foodShow MoreRelatedPoverty Of Sharecroppers And Unemployed Industrial Workers1772 Words   |  8 Pages Poverty of Sharecroppers vs Unemployed Industrial Workers Poverty has been a big issue over the past century or so and continues to be a problem to this day in the United States. Due to the Civil War, rural areas and industrial areas were affected by poverty. The poverty of rural sharecroppers in 1877 was different from the poverty of unemployed industrial workers in 1939. Even though both situations were dealing with a form of poverty, both were two completely different situations. There were severalRead MoreSharecroppers: Reconstruction Era of the United States and Field Hands1328 Words   |  6 PagesAfter the devastation left from the Civil War, many field owners looked for new ways to replace their former slaves with field hands for farming and production use. From this need for new field hands came sharecroppers, a response to the destitution and disorganized agricultural results of the Civil War (Wilson 29). Sharecropping is the working of a piece of land by a tenant in exchange for a portion of the crops that they bring in for th eir landowners. These farmhands provided their labor,Read MoreAs a son of a sharecropper and grandson of a slave, Jesse Owens created History in 1936 when he1500 Words   |  6 PagesAs a son of a sharecropper and grandson of a slave, Jesse Owens created History in 1936 when he achieved what no athlete had done before: four Olympic Gold Medals. (jesseowens.com). During this era, the United States had limited civil rights and was approaching a World War with Hitler rising into power in Germany. Although Owens was victorious on the track, because of the color of his skin, He was looked down upon and unrecognized by even his own country. Through the excessive racism, one may askRead MoreThe Plight Of The Immigrant Farmer Worker Essay1356 Words   |  6 Pagesportion of their land to the sharecropper. By doing so the immigrant sharecropper would then be responsible for just about every aspect of the farm operation. In effect he would become a pseudo farmer, but in the end would reall y hold no power or land. Sharecroppers lease the land from the farmer. The farmers will lend the money to run the farm to the sharecropper at a very high interest rate. Schlosser notes, â€Å"under the old arraignment, if things went wrong, sharecroppers simply would not be paid forRead MoreHistorical Context of Barn Burning Essay672 Words   |  3 Pagesas a sharecropper because he is white. At this time in history, many sharecroppers were freed slaves. Snopes believed that because he was white, he shouldn’t be a sharecropper. Like many sharecropper at this time, Snopes had plenty debts that needed to paid off. Instead of paying off his debts, Snopes decide to burn down his landowner’s barns. This leads Snopes and his family to move from county to county. This was a very common life for sharecroppers at this time. The life of a sharecropper was fullRead MoreEssay on The Reasons for the Failure of Reconstruction542 Words   |  3 Pagesreality, sharecroppers could n ot earn enough money to ever purchase the land. The large plantations broke up as the owners divided the land into small plots that African American and poor white families lived upon. There were conflicting interests between the farmers and the landowners, just as there were between the slaves and the plantation masters. The sharecroppers wanted to become independent landowners, which they were unable to do. The landowners sought a profit from their sharecroppers, butRead MoreAncient History and Slavery836 Words   |  4 Pages1865. Sharecropping and the Jim Crow laws maintained a chokehold on the freemen and poor white sharecroppers. After the American Civil War, sharecropping replaced the big plantations throughout the soft. Sharecropping was a response to economic depression caused by the end of slavery. Many poor white and black farmers earned a living working the land owned by someone else. The first sharecroppers were the former black slaves. The system continued to enslave the freemen to a certain degree becauseRead MoreThe Strawberry Fields By Eric Schlosser1306 Words   |  6 Pagesalternative to getting paid, the sharecropper receives half of the profits for his portion of the field, while the rest goes to the owner. While this may seem like a good arrangement, there are many variables. The weather, and therefore the harvest, is completely unpredictable. There is no telling whether the crops will be good or not. Not only that, but oftentimes the owner does not honestly split the money. More money will go to the owner, and the sharecropper is frequently left unaware of it.Read MoreAmerican Culture, English And American Literature, And English, By Dr. Neil Foley1308 Words   |  6 Pagesexceptional example of Borderlands interactions because of the nature of cotton culture as compared to plantation farming in other parts of the South. Cotton farming in central Texas relied on mostly white share tenants, and mostly black or Mexican sharecroppers. Migrant Mexican labor was also used to harvest crops. These three standards produced complex configurations as Mexicans began competing with blacks for more work and both competed with whites for tenancy. Although a southern state, Foley considersRead MoreAmerican Outcasts : The Okie Exodus714 Words   |  3 PagesSteinbeck’s Harvest Gypsies finds that those who lived in These people were tenant farmers or sharecroppers, who lost their homes and were migrant workers, and lived in extended families. A combination of rural and urban people with no government relief. Many people in the United States were tenant farmers or sharecroppers before the Great Depression. During the Great Depression, many of these tenant farmers or sharecroppers were forced off the land, because either their labor could not be afforded, or the

Information Technology and Innovation at Shinsei Bank Free Essays

9-607-010 REV: OCTOBER 4, 2007 DAVID M. UPTON VIRGINIA A. FULLER Information Technology and Innovation at Shinsei Bank Jay Dvivedi looked once more at the proposal in his email inbox, sighed and closed his laptop for the night. We will write a custom essay sample on Information Technology and Innovation at Shinsei Bank or any similar topic only for you Order Now He owed his boss, Shinsei CEO Thierry Porte, a response and he knew that he would need to send it in morning. One of the heads of Shinsei’s business units had approached Porte directly with a proposal for a new, off-the-shelf customer relationship management (CRM) system for his business. He wanted to fund it and implement with his own personnel, but he needed approval from Porte. Before Porte responded he had requested input from Dvivedi. When Dvivedi discussed the idea with his team the opinion was divided. The information technology organization had played an integral role in the revitalization of Shinsei Bank from the ashes of Japan’s failed Long-Term Credit Bank (LCTB). In March 2000, Dvivedi had been charged with the task of developing a revolutionary technology infrastructure for the newly formed Shinsei Bank. When he asked then CEO Masamoto Yashiro for some guidelines he was told to do it â€Å"Fast† and â€Å"Cheap†. Drawing on his wealth of experience in technology and operations in the banking industry he and his team were able to come up with a quick, robust, and inexpensive approach through which the reborn bank could deliver its newer products and services. Shinsei, which literally meant â€Å"new birth† in Japanese, was committed to providing an improved, customer-focused model with such conveniences as Internet banking, 24-hour cost-free ATMs, and fast service based on real-time database reconciliation1. Developing and organizing the technology required to enable this was a monumental task, but one that Dvivedi and his team were able to execute within one year (one quarter of the time that would be needed to implement a traditional system), and at only 10% of the forecasted cost of a traditional system. By 2005, the bank had 1. 4 million customers, and was acquiring new business at a rate of 35,000 customers per month. When Dvivedi discussed the proposal with his team some said that the business understood its own objectives best. If a business unit felt that it should add a new system at its own cost then that was its right. Alternatively, other team members felt that this was against all of the principles that had been used to resurrect Shinsei’s IT systems and represented a dangerous step backwards. 1 In many other banks in Japan, deposits and withdrawals did not appear until the next day in order to reconcile the transaction and primary databases. Shinsei wanted to immediately update and make visible the data for its customers. _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Professor David M. Upton and Research Associate Virginia A. Fuller prepared this case with the assistance of Masako Egawa, Executive Director of the HBS Japan Research Office, and Akiko Kanno, Research Associate at the HBS Japan Research Office. Portions of this case draw upon â€Å"Shinsei Bank (A),† HBS No. 302-036, â€Å"Shinsei Bank (B),† HBS No. 3 02-037, â€Å"Shinsei Bank (C),† HBS No. 302-038, and â€Å"Shinsei Bank (D),† HBS No. 02-039 by Professor Michael Y. Yoshino and Senior Research Associate Perry L. Fagan. HBS cases are developed solely as the basis for class discussion. Cases are not intended to serve as endorsements, sources of primary data, or illustrations of effective or ineffective management. Copyright  © 2006, 2007 President and Fellows of Harvard College. To order copies or request permission to reproduce materials, call 1-800-5457685, write Harvard Business School Publishing, Boston, MA 02163, or go to http://www. hbsp. harvard. edu. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, used in a spreadsheet, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the permission of Harvard Business School. 607-010 Information Technology and Innovation at Shinsei Bank Dvivedi needed to draft a thoughtful, well-reasoned reply to Porte and he would have to do it first thing in the morning. Shinsei’s Predecessor: LTCB LTCB, was established by the government in 1952 to provide long-term funding to rebuild Japan’s basic industries after World War II. This strategy proved successful until the 1980s when financial deregulation diminished the demand for loans by traditional borrowers and LTCB aggressively expanded in the real estate and construction markets. Because of Japan’s booming economy, land prices were skyrocketing and many loans were provided based on land collateral rather than an appropriate analysis of risk or future cash flow of the borrower. When the asset bubble burst and land prices plummeted in the early 1990s, banks were left with an enormous amount of bad debt. In spite of the increase in non-performing loans, Japanese banks were slow to take action. At the time, many still believed that the fall in land prices was temporary and that they could wait out the crisis. Furthermore, Japanese banks placed great importance on long-term relationships with their borrowers and were reluctant to raise lending rates in what seemed like a temporary business slowdown. LTCB desperately explored ways to save itself. Conditions continued to deteriorate, however, and its stock price continued to fall. On October 23, 1998, LTCB finally collapsed with nearly $40 billion of non-performing loans and was nationalized. The failure of LTCB marked the largest banking failure in post-war Japan. Acquisition by Ripplewood The events that followed were unprecedented; a Japanese landmark was bankrupt, and was subsequently purchased by a U. S. private equity fund, Ripplewood Holdings, with Goldman Sachs representing the Japanese government. Masamoto Yashiro, former president of Exxon Japan who had just retired after heading Citicorp Japan, was persuaded to join the American investors in acquiring the bank. The government initially favored selling the bank to a Japanese financial institution or an industrial company, but Ripplewood eventually won the bid. On March 1, 2000, LTCB became the first Japanese bank with foreign ownership. â€Å"New Birth† The name of the bank was changed to â€Å"Shinsei,† and Yashiro became CEO. In the first few months, Yashiro moved quickly to establish a new organization and build the bank’s business in three main areas: commercial banking, retail banking2, and investment banking. LTCB had previously generated most of its revenues from corporate loans, but Yashiro was eager to move out of this low-margin business. â€Å"The asset quality [of our loans] was extremely poor, the number of corporate and individual accounts had shrunk by 40%, the traditional business – corporate lending – was very unprofitable, and the bank’s IT infrastructure and operational capability were significantly inferior even relative to our local competition,† said Yashiro. Fortunately, the bank had received JPY 240 billion in public funds, and was able to start business with a strong capital ratio3 of 12. %. 2 Banking services for individual customers 3 The capital ratio is the ratio of a bank’s equity to a risk-weighted sum of the bank’s assets. 2 Information Technology and Innovation at Shinsei Bank 607-010 LTCB did not have much presence in retail banking, with only two dozen branches throughout Japan, while major commercial banks had several hundred branches. The bank sold debentures (instead of receiving deposits) to high net worth individuals, but those individuals conducted their banking transactions at other banks which had a broader branch network. Shinsei bank needed an entirely new business strategy, and that, decided Yashiro, would be to serve retail customers. To create a retail banking business from the ground up, Yashiro needed the help of a visionary and technologist. Dhananjaya â€Å"Jay† Dvivedi looked like the right man for the job. An experienced manager of technology and operations with whom Yashiro had worked at Citibank Japan during the 1990s,4 Dvivedi had an engineering background and sought to apply manufacturing principles to the development of the new IT infrastructure. Retail Banking Business The traditional methods of retail banking in Japan were anything but convenient. Business hours ended at three o’clock in the afternoon (to allow time to reconcile computer system information with the databases), no ATM usage outside of business hours, fees for ATMs, no Internet banking, long lead times for new account openings, separate accounts for each type of financial product, and other inconveniences had been an unavoidable, bitter pill for people managing their money in Japan. Yashiro and Dvivedi, therefore, endeavored to offer an alternative. Shinsei would have to â€Å"wow† potential customers into switching over from other banks. They had to offer something â€Å"extra† to convince customers to bank at Shinsei. The way to do this, they felt, was through outstanding customer service. Customer Service Model Yashiro believed it was better standards of service, and innovation in services, that would ultimately attract customers to the bank. â€Å"We were new. If we didn’t have something new to offer, there would be no reason for customers to come to us,† said Sajeeve Thomas, head of Shinsei’s retail group. The goal of developing new and closer relationships with customers through unique products and services became central to Shinsei’s transformation. The shift to meeting the competitive requirements of a retail bank, however, proved to be a significant undertaking for an institution specializing in corporate financial work. For the transformation to be effective, speed, flexibility, and cost control were paramount. A complete overhaul of the IT system would be required in order to enable this. The new customer-service-based business strategy required a scalable and robust operational and technological infrastructure. Such an infrastructure would help the new business segments grow by supporting enhanced, high quality, 24Ãâ€"7 customer service, product innovation and volume growth. This process involved nothing short of a revolutionary approach to information technology. â€Å"Indeed,† said Yashiro, rather wistfully, â€Å"the real challenge of transformation was not in painting the end state but in choosing the means to reach it effectively. † 4 Their work at Citibank included a major turnaround of that company’s IT system in Japan during the 1990s. 3 607-010 Information Technology and Innovation at Shinsei Bank Thinking about Technology at Shinsei â€Å"We quickly came to the conclusion that the systems that were used at the old LCTB were of almost no use to us,† recalled Yashiro, lamenting the realization that the extant mainframe infrastructure was actually an impediment to building new business at Shinsei. Its mainframes were overloaded, with no spare capacity, and they relied on separate and disparate networks which were tied closely to the old business model. Maintenance costs were unacceptably high due to locked-in contracts with vendors. The network capacity was inadequate and too expensive. At the same time, the operational processes were inefficient and full of multi-layered, repetitive paper trails. Mainframes were large room-sized computers based on models developed in the 1960s by computing giants like IBM and Fujitsu. For banks, with their enormous amounts of customer data, daily transactions involved collecting information from millions of accounts, transferring it to the mainframe computer at midnight, then refreshing the data by batch processing for the following day. Dvivedi believed that mainframes imposed great risks onto businesses; since they held the total data in the organization and this meant that if anything happened to that one computer, the business would be temporarily disabled while the system was transferred to backup machines. It was safer to distribute risks by designing systems that linked several smaller computers, such as servers, together. Servers were much smaller computers, often as small as a pizza box, based on cheaper microprocessors and standard UNIX or Windows operating systems. Such smaller servers were often combined into clusters of many hundreds of devices and were thus not only cheaper, but also more scalable than mainframes as capacity could be added to the system in much smaller increments. In the past, almost all banks had run on mainframe-based computer systems, but â€Å"removing the mainframes created granularity within the system,† said Dvivedi. This drastically reduced hardware maintenance costs and allowed flexibility such that services and new products could easily be added to the system. Building a New System Once he had a skilled team in place, Dvivedi focused on centralizing the operations and creating a functional organization. Investigation into traditional methods of large-scale systems implementation exposed the significant risks and difficulties in adapting a traditional, monolithic, mainframe-based system to the dynamism of Shinsei’s freshly rekindled businesses. Indeed, new technology requirements were being developed even as the new business plans took shape, and they would need a scalable IT system that could grow with and even more importantly, adapt to the business. Technology delivers the product to the customer,† affirmed Dvivedi. Information technology had to be used as a driver of business, and a source of new business, rather than as a support function. Dvivedi also believed that Shinsei should forge its own IT strategy, rather than follow the examples set by other banks, so that competitors might one day turn to Shinsei for advice. Dvivedi could have chosen a gradual approach to creating a new infrastructure by improving the existing technology and processes over time, replacing one system and process after another. This would have minimized disruption but would have taken too long. Alternatively, he could have attempted a â€Å"big-bang† approach, replacing the existing infrastructure with a completely new set of systems and processes in one fell swoop. This approach, however, was deemed too risky, too disruptive, and too expensive. As part of building the new infrastructure Dvivedi focused on parsimony in selecting standards. There would be one network protocol, one operating system, and one hardware platform. Dvivedi 4 Information Technology and Innovation at Shinsei Bank 607-010 did not wait for consensus before moving to new standards. Choosing one set of standards, rather than allowing a patchwork of multiple standards to build up, helped keep the complexity low, which, in turn, made the system easier to manage. The skills needed to run and maintain this infrastructure were standard and people trained in them were easy to find. Instead of looking at the whole system, Dvivedi preferred to break it down into pieces. â€Å"How can we modularize pieces so they can be used again and again? † he asked. He believed that the key to success was to keep creating new elements and to introduce them into the system without stopping the enterprise. A caveat of this, however, was the challenge of keeping things safe and secure, yet not so locked-down that they became unchangeable. The approach that Yashiro and Dvivedi decided on was at once radical and accelerated, driven by the evolution of their new business strategy. It involved implementing, as needed, a new, modular operating infrastructure that operated initially in parallel with, but ultimately superseded, the existing infrastructure. Dvivedi’s Vision Dvivedi made choices not simply based on available technologies; rather, he focused first on the business problem that had to be solved. Once the problem was clearly identified, it was broken down into as many logical parts as possible. â€Å"We’d keep breaking down the elements until the solution was obvious,† said Sharma Subramanian, the IT group’s Planning and Coordination Officer. In addressing each element, the team looked to its toolkit of standard modules and components, and determined whether or not any appropriate solutions existed. If not, they went to the market and sought the missing piece of technology, looking specifically for its availability as a standard component. If it was not already available as a standard component, they would ask one of their partners to build the component. They would build it so that it was reusable. For a component to be reusable, it had to have a clear specification of the function(s) it performed, as well as a standard interface into which other components or modules could connect. The various components were assembled and reused in order to build products and services for Shinsei’s customers, and 90% of the technology components were used by more than one product. To meet Yashiro’s andate, Dvivedi devised five basic guidelines that were to govern all work going forward. His approach addressed waste and unnecessary work, and the elimination thereof, to make processes more efficient. Every job done was evaluated on the basis of these five criteria: †¢ Speed – How fast can the work be done? The goal was to build a new IT system within 18 months of conception. Changes were made in small, freque nt, and predictable steps. The use and re-use of standard components enabled the team to roll out new capabilities quickly and with minimal testing (since the components already had been tested in their previous context). Cost – How low can we keep costs? For example, Shinsei understood that they did not have to build everything from scratch. By combining a number of software packages, they were able to construct the new system in a very short time. For example, Shinsei used Intel-based, Windows servers and Oracle database servers on the back-end and off-the-shelf solutions on the front-end. They used standard Dell PCs running Windows. In the process, Shinsei became the largest bank running its back-end systems on a Windows platform. Capability – What new capabilities will IT enable? For example, to support multiple currencies and financial products for retail customers the old technology platform that handled deposits, loans and other services had to be changed. †¢ †¢ 5 607-010 Information Technology and Innovation at Shinsei Bank †¢ Flexibility – How easily can the system be changed to respond to business needs? Dvivedi assumed that the business needs of the company would change over time and that the IT systems had to respond to this rather than prevent ecessary change as the mainframe system had done. The infrastructure needed to be expandable and robust enough to support the operation as volumes grew. Re-usable component-based architecture would enable flexibility. To make its services flexible, Shinsei used alerts, not reports, to manage workflow. Machinedriven prompts notified employees when work went unattended, demanding attention and action when required. Similarly, when mak ing infrastructure decisions Yashiro made a point of focusing on the business objective, not the ‘as-is’ environment. Designing an infrastructure to support a new business objective had to begin with that objective in mind and not with Shinsei’s current capabilities. If the objective could be met without changing existing infrastructure then they would not change it. If elements of the existing infrastructure were made redundant by the new approach, then they would become irrelevant and be superseded over time. Flexibility meant not being inhibited by previous decisions. †¢ Safety – How secure is our system? Safety was built into the process by breaking down the problems into very small parts. Smaller elements meant a smaller piece of the project that went wrong if something were to fail. Furthermore, a number of small parts meant that each part could be tackled simultaneously to fix the problem more quickly. The approach to safety could be seen clearly in Dvivedi’s decision to leverage the public Internet. Back in 2000, Dvivedi met tremendous incredulity at the notion of using the Internet for internal banking transactions. Nevertheless, the Bank went with public Internet lines as opposed to leased lines. Public Internet technology allowed Shinsei to move work to any location, including lower-cost locations, such as India. ATMs, telephones, call centers, video, and data were also connected through public lines, at a fraction of the cost of leased lines. â€Å"We use the Internet in two ways, for transport both within and outside the company and we use it to run different elements of our processes. The key is to ensure that each activity or session is performed in a secure manner. We assume that everything will fail. The key task is to ensure there are no single points of failure. When components fail, we assume that staff will not notice or will be busy on something else. The safety must be passive, that is to say if one component fails, the work must seamlessly move to another component all without any intervention,† said Nobuyki Ohkawa. Ohkawa had decades of experience working on these problems and was the person Dvivedi assigned the task of designing and deploying the networks and machines on which Shinsei ran its business. To ensure that the data sent over the public Internet was kept secure, Shinsei encrypted all the data it transmitted. In addition, its networks were secured by deploying the latest in network technology and by a process of continuous monitoring for unauthorized intrusions and denial of service type attacks. Should there be any indication that an attack was attempted, the source of the attack was identified and actions taken to disable or block it. Most of all, however, Dvidedi relied simply on the fundamentals of the internet itself: â€Å"The Internet is anonymous. Your messages and our data travel over the same network in a random fashion. The anonymity is our first level of security†. Given these parameters and the scope of the undertaking, Yashiro and Dvivedi did not believe they could entrust the project to one hardware vendor. Also, the fluidity of the envisioned end-state made it difficult to engage an outside vendor economically. Yashiro and Dvivedi needed to reach out to external partners to get the resources and know-how that they envisioned, as applied to their projects. Partner companies in Dvivedi’s native India proved to be a tremendous boon. 6 Information Technology and Innovation at Shinsei Bank 607-010 Outsourced Work Dvivedi engaged multiple Indian firms to handle different parts of Shinsei’s information technology. This outsourced work focused on areas where internal development skills were lacking and where Dvivedi felt that they were not necessary for the bank to acquire. Thus, Dvivedi was free to pull together work groups of specialists without regard to their physical location. This was a major departure from existing practices in Japan, and proved to be a culture shock for the staff. In fact, Shinsei was the only company in Japan to use solely Indian software services. Nucleus Software, in Delhi, and Polaris Software Engineering, in Chennai, were two collaborators, as well as the larger Wipro and Tata Consultancy Services companies, in developing pieces of Shinsei’s financial software. By employing translators, Shinsei acquired best-of-breed engineers, and did not bother trying to teach them Japanese. They could remain in their respective silos, working on a portion of the Shinsei technology, without assimilation into Shinsei headquarters. In order to outsource work, Dvivedi and his team had to divide the work up into modular parts. Removing interdependencies was key as they believed that dependency slowed down the work; without dependency, people could work at their own speeds and avoid bottlenecks. For this reason, old systems maintenance was kept separate from new systems development. If unnecessary stress was placed on old systems, the entire system would become unstable and the speed at which new ones were developed would also be at risk. With each company, Shinsei worked to establish a relationship characterized as a â€Å"partnership† rather than one of a supplier. The bank worked with its partners without requiring competitive bids, avoiding traditional requirement documents such as RFPs (request for proposal) or RFIs (request for information). Dvivedi believed that these were superfluous process steps that added unnecessary time and overhead work to the engagement. Furthermore, Shinsei did not enter into fixed-price contracts; on the contrary, engagements were quantified on a time-and-material basis. Implementation Shinsei moved from mainframes to a Windows-based platform, supported by a high-speed, lowcost, packet based network operated as an internal utility. They centralized the decentralized, but made sure that everything was modular and highly flexible. Organizational silos were broken down in order to integrate processes. â€Å"We have learned to deliver precision where needed rather than trying to be precise in all things,† said Yashiro. Despite the carefully constructed approach to assembling the guiding principles for the company’s IT strategy both Yashiro and Dvivedi knew that just as many, if not more, IT transformation projects failed during implementation. As such, they spent a substantial amount of time creating principles to guide the implementation process. †¢ Parity – Parity allowed the old and new systems to coexist in parallel. Dvivedi believed that employees should choose to use the new system if it were placed in front of them. He did not want to appear as though he was convincing people to use the new technology. He told employees: â€Å"We will not change – but we will change the technology. † He believed the new systems should function much the same as their predecessors, and possess the same look and feel even if this mimicry resulted in extra cost. At the same time the new system should provide new capabilities so that employees would be excited about using them. As comfort with the new systems increased, the old systems were removed. Dvivedi mused: â€Å"Nothing must change for change to happen. † 7 607-010 Information Technology and Innovation at Shinsei Bank †¢ Incremental steps – The smaller the changes, the lower the degree of disruption in the bank. The work was done on multiple parallel paths; development occurred in rapid, short cycles, with progressive delivery of requirements. As components were tested, they were implemented and reused if they fulfilled their objectives or they were promptly discarded if they did not work. Incremental steps also kept the system accessible as changes could be made on an almost continuous basis. Inclusiveness – Yashiro believed that the business strategy must always drive infrastructure change, and it was therefore imperative that senior managers be closely involved in the technology transformation. Said Yashiro: â€Å"I have learned that technology and operations are not just support functions. They also offer capabilities that can open up new strategic opportunities and businesses for us. † Transparency – Dvivedi tried to keep the technology transparent to the customer, such that the customer would not notice anything different when the technology changed. This would allow Shinsei to remain flexible in its technology choices at no inconvenience or disruption to the customer. Ironically, this required great discipline. Dvivedi had to resist advertising the new technology because, as he said, â€Å"the moment you say ‘this is going to improve things for you,’ you create a dependency. Dvivedi felt this was important so that the bank would be free to pick and choose its technology as systems changed, while the customer would experience only consistent service. Paperless – Any paper generated had to be checked, filed, and secured while the absence of paper made work distribution easier. Paper intensive, manual processes were replaced with a nea rly paperless environment. A room dedicated to scanning services received all incoming paper correspondence and invoices. Such paper documents were scanned and then filed electronically. The paper documents did not move any further into the office than that initial receiving room. After that, everything was accessible online. †¢ †¢ †¢ All of these efforts supported Yashiro’s principle of minimizing the change required of people. Making new systems look as similar to old ones as possible, and allowing the two to co-exist in parallel, were necessary to minimize the disruption of Shinsei’s employees. Furthermore, they did not set formal replacement dates for any of the new systems they implemented. Instead, they performed parallel runs with reconciliation to ensure proper functioning of the new system. They repeated this process for as long as was necessary until they were sure that the employees were comfortable with the new systems. Only then did they turn off the old system. Getting Results Shinsei’s key success was in assembling the building blocks of its new infrastructure. The entire retail bank system was implemented faster than planned and well below budget. In the end, Shinsei achieved rejuvenation in one year (instead of the projected three years) and at 90% less than the riginal cost estimate. The cost of the overhaul totaled $50 million, while other banks in Japan had paid ten times this amount for similar initiatives. The success of the system transformation enabled 24Ãâ€"7 multiple channel access to customers rather than a single channel service that was only available from 9am to 3pm. In addition, they were able to obtain real-time balances from these cha nnels, and roll out new products quickly by leveraging standard building blocks that were already in place. Management controls were also significantly improved through the new system. The old 6-day reporting cycle – characterized by chronically late financial ledger data – was replaced with a daily one, with the added ability to provide customer and product profitability tracking data on demand. 8 Information Technology and Innovation at Shinsei Bank 607-010 They were also able to perform continuous reconciliation on all accounts and standardized what were non-standard, non-documented procedures. New Services â€Å"We have a very specific value proposition for customers,† incoming CEO Thierry Porte said. It’s based on convenience, ease of use, empowering customers, offering things on a low-cost basis, so our ATM system is free and we also offer free Internet transfers. At the same time, we offer high-quality products and services. † One of these new services was an innovative branch operation featuring â€Å"cashless tellers. † Dvivedi believed that a key tenet of the customer service model was the interaction between staff and customers. To enhance this interaction both paper and cash had to be eliminated from the hands of the branch staff. Paper and cash, Dvivedi felt, were â€Å"avoidable distractions† that merely got in the way of superior customer service. In eliminating paper and cash, the staff was absolved of the traditional duties of cash-counting and receipt-printing, and could solely service the customer. Indeed, the bank’s branch services were entirely self-completed; the staff was present only to provide assistance as needed. All transactions took place online, at Internet portals in the branch. The transaction could take place anywhere, however, that the customer was connected to the Internet. Online-only transactions effectively eliminated paper from the system, and also allowed the customer to be responsible for his own transactions. The customer was asked to double-check each transaction before authorizing it. This greatly reduced the frequency of errors. Cash was available from the branch’s ATM machines; staff guided the customers to use the ATMs for both withdrawing and depositing cash. If a customer did not have his ATM card, a staff member would electronically transfer the desired sum from the customer’s account into a teller’s account, and then retrieve the cash for the customer from the ATM. ATMs Most Japanese banks charged fees of 100 to 300 yen, when ATMs were used in the evenings or on weekends, or when customers withdrew money from other banks. Shinsei, to make up for its limited branch network, allowed customers to use ATMs any time free of charge. This distinguished Shinsei from other Japanese banks. Shinsei saw this as a way to attract customers to the bank at very low cost, for they did not have to expand their branch network in order to connect with their customers; they could do it through ATMs. The operating cost of the ATMs was relatively low. In 2001, Shinsei offered a new service enabling customers to withdraw cash free of charge from ATMs outside of Japan – 650,000, to be exact, in 120 different countries, through the PLUS system offered by Visa International. Citibank also offered no-fee use of international ATMs, but was part of the CIRRUS MasterCard network, which had only 530,000 ATMs in about 100 countries. Hours Shinsei kept its branches open on weekends and holidays in order to offer services such as same-day account openings, targeting customers who might be too busy to visit the bank during the week. Shinsei used its computer system – operated nonstop – to enable the processing of new accounts and other applications in the same day. Other financial institutions followed suit and began staying open on Saturday and Sunday, but services were limited to mortgages and asset management consulting. Anything that required the computer system could only take place during the week as their systems shut down on the weekends. Shinsei’s branch hours of 10am to 8pm every single day of the year (except New Year’s Day) enabled ustomers to do any type of banking, including sale of mutual funds and insurance policies, at their own convenience. 9 607-010 Information Technology and Innovation at Shinsei Bank Looking Back Yoshikazu Sato, a senior member of the Technology team at Shinsei, who worked closely with Dvivedi, revealed the apparent simplicity of Shinsei’s model: â€Å"If you stand back and examine what we have done, there is nothing unique about it. The p rinciples we follow have been around for years. Describe what we do to a manufacturing engineer and he may well remark, ‘what’s so special about it? ’ Anybody can buy what we buy. Deconstructing a problem until a standard component can be used, or using low-cost, easily available materials (in our case Dell PCs and Windows software) has been practiced for decades,† he said. â€Å"What makes us different is our ability to focus on applying these principles repeatedly with persistence and without deviation. The manufacturing industry has been moving its operations to the lowest cost and most effective locations for decades. We have replicated it in our use of virtual organizations; people with skills needed for our work are connected in from wherever they are located. Not having to move people around saved us time, money and gave us an extremely scalable capability,† said Pieter Franken, the architect and designer of Shinsei’s core systems. â€Å"My key task is to ensure that as we do all of this, we are also institutionalizing the work we have done and to continuously expand the technical team to take up all this work,† said Dvivedi. Looking Forward Dvivedi’s â€Å"institutionalization† of Shinsei’s system development process forced the team to think about applications of the model in the future, as well as what challenges lay ahead. Shinsei was focused on growing by acquisition and, for those acquired businesses, the objective was to change the technology and process platform to enable rapid new product roll-outs and to build better quality services. The ability to do this at lower cost would create a significant competitive advantage. â€Å"Our focus is to be able to support all the Shinsei businesses for their Information Technology needs and help them achieve the same level of technology now being employed by Shinsei Bank,† said Dvivedi. â€Å"We can add value to our businesses with our strength and know-how. In 2006, Thierry Porte succeeded Yashiro as President and CEO of Shinsei. â€Å"Thierry has a clear vision of where he is guiding Shinsei,† noted Dvivedi. â€Å"He has outlined a growth plan for our key businesses that will require us to scale up for much higher volumes, and support a whole range of new functions and features to facilitate the launch of new products and services. † As CEO, Porte was well-aware of how Shinsei’s technology would enable his plans for the bank. â€Å"Our technology is a door-opener for new business opportunities. If we can get our customers in other industries interested in the approach we take to technology design and deployment, to look at the kind of capabilities and services we can help them build, it will be a unique way to position ourselves and grow our core business of banking. If we can do this it will expand our franchise and be a source of additional revenues,† said Porte. Dvivedi’s Response After a night of reflection the time had come to respond to Porte’s request. Dvivedi opened an email and began typing†¦ 10 How to cite Information Technology and Innovation at Shinsei Bank, Essays

Supply Chain Inventory Management

Question: Discuss about the Supply Chain Inventory Management. Answer: Introduction: Traditional purchasing values method involves various steps such as material requisition, bidding, purchase order, shipping advice, invoice and payment. This method have been deemed to be slow and labour intensive as each transaction require its own paper trail and the process is repeated sequentially with every new transaction. On the other hand, Just-in-time method (JIT) is a production and stock management system in which materials are purchased and or material units produced or ordered only when actually needed to meet actual customer demand. In JIT system, the manufacturing system inventories are minimized whereas in some cases they are zero. It requires the producers to forecast demand in advance and consequently producing and maintaining an efficient inventory level: an inventory level that ensures improved quality, reduced costs and reduced lead time (Cachon Fisher, 2015). The traditional purchasing method can be viewed as one with a number of resulting inefficiencies such as it consists of a sequence of non- value adding activities which more often than not result into excessive documentation and consequently excessive order processing time. The overall result of this method is excessive administration cost with respect to transaction handling. This method also involves large lot sizes which increase holding costs and probability of wastage. The idea is less deliveries of large quantities. However, this system ensures that inventory is always available as and when needed since there are items in store or being manufactured always (De Toni Nassimbeni, 2014). On the other hand, the JIT system reduces the waste associated with inventory and it also delivers the ability to make frequent and timely deliveries to the customers. The buyer is able to exercise options on the delivery schedule and the method calls for increased innovation in the manufacturing systems. JIT systems makes use of technology and consequently ordering and carrying costs are reduced in the process. Processes are automated and as such, purchase orders can be processed through the systems, inventory records updated automatically therefore reducing manual handling and labor costs. However, the system has its shortcomings in that it involves a major overhaul of business systems during implementation and hence it may be difficult and costly to introduce. JIT also makes the business to be susceptible to a number of operational risks pertinent to the supply chain and a few distortions in supplies can bring into halt the production process (Fazel, Fischer Gilbert, 2013). The benefits accrued by the shop when it maintains both methods are several. While JIT ensures automation of the production and operations, traditional method ensures availability of some optimal inventory at all times hence hedging against the risk of interruption in supplies. JIT system is also expensive implement and therefore a hybrid of the two helps to meet the operational costs almost halfway as traditional method is ideal in cost savings involved with carrying costs and set up or ordering costs of inventory (Wilson, 2014). For the purposes of this discussion, lets assume a situation where the chairs shop uses the JIT system entirely and another scenario where it uses the traditional approach entirely. The advantages involved in maintaining a JIT system in the chair manufacturing shop is that the system ensures improved productivity and quality. This yields a higher customer satisfaction level. Since the shop is manufacturing different types of chairs, the system can be designed such that an optimal product mix of the different types of chairs can be arrived at based on the buyers preferences and buying trends (Gunasekaran, 2014). JIT system is also able to update and monitor inventory levels therefore it will maintain a minimum inventory level such that there is no single time that each type of chair is not available in the manufacturing line. By minimizing the inventory levels, JIT frees up resources to employ elsewhere in the company and therefore working capital which would otherwise be held up in stock will be employed in other business processes. The main disadvantage that would arise in this case would be when there is a disruption on the supply chain and there is no inventory already maintained. This will result to stock outs and possibly the chairs shop may incur reputational costs associated (Monden, 2014). Lets now assume the chairs shop uses the traditional system altogether. The advantages that accrue on maintaining a traditional system is that at no time are there stock outs as the shop will be keen on ensuring that the chairs are available for production and delivery to the buyers. Even where there is a disruption on the supply line, there is always as a safety stock in holding available to the customers. The system also allows for the workers to excise human skills in all the processes and therefore improving interpersonal relations between them, the suppliers and the buyers and in this way they can be able to plan and determine the optimal inventory level that will minimize holding and ordering costs. However, the main disadvantage with this approach is that it may increase waste when not all inventories are purchased. It also increases the inventory costs as well as operational costs (Monczka Trent, 2015). While traditional approach assumes a functional organization devised to bring manufacturing costs to minimum for the particular component, the JIT system assumes an intermediate processes to that addresses the demands for subsequent stages of production directly. From a cost comparison view based on the ability to utilize economies of scale, a tradeoff may exist if the economies of manufacturing derived from the traditional approach are more significant and in this case a traditional system will be preferred from a cost dimension. However, a total cost comparison arising from other costs savings accrued for example in JIT system such reduction of waste, reduced inventory cost and improved quality of products may lead to the shop arriving at a compromise between the two systems so as to tap on the benefits accrued from the two approaches (Pearson Gritzmacher, 2013). References Cachon, G. P., Fisher, M. (2015). Supply chain inventory management and the value of shared information. Management science, 46(8), 1032-1048. De Toni, A., Nassimbeni, G. (2014). Just-in-time purchasing: an empirical study of operational practices, supplier development and performance. Omega, 28(6), 631-651. Fazel, F., Fischer, K. P., Gilbert, E. W. (2013). JIT purchasing vs. EOQ with a price discount: An analytical comparison of inventory costs. International Journal of Production Economics, 54(1), 101-109. Gunasekaran, A. (2014). Just-in-time purchasing: An investigation for research and applications. International Journal of Production Economics, 59(1-3), 77 84. Monden, Y. (2014). Toyota production system: an integrated approach to just-in-time. CRC Press. Monczka, R. M., Trent, R. J. (2015). Purchasing and sourcing strategy: trends and implications. Center for Advanced Purchasing Studies. Pearson, J. N., Gritzmacher, K. J. (2013). Integrating purchasing into strategic management. Long Range Planning, 23(3), 91-99. Wilson, D. T. (2014). An integrated model of buyer-seller relationships. Journal of the academy of marketing science, 23(4), 335-345.

Sports Nutrition Essay Example For Students

Sports Nutrition Essay 1.An athletes diet has a large effect on his/her athletic performance 2.What an athlete eats is an integral part of his/her training, and will effect every aspect of their athletic performance B.State why Sports Nutrition Essay is different from general nutrition. A. How many servings of each food group should an athlete eat? (food pyramid) B.RDAs What they are, What they mean, How to use them C.The Goal is to gain weight by increasing muscle mass and losing fat. 1.Eat foods high in protein, complex carbohydrates, and nutrients 2.Avoid junk foods; foods low in anything good and high in fat and sugar. D.Dont eat too much or too little food. 1.Eating too much food will increase your body fat percentage 2.If you dont eat enough food, you will not have enough energy to work out, and you will not have the nutrients and protein available to build muscle. 1. We will write a custom essay on Sports Nutrition specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now Increased benefit from training, for both aerobic (endurance) and anaerobic (power). 2.Increase muscle mass, and Reduced fat. 3.Bigger, Faster, Stronger. This is good for any competitive sport B. In General: Eating well will help everything in your life, from your mood to your appearance. Also eating well reduces the risk of every disease under the sun. IV: Effects of a poor diet for athletes: F.Decreased fuel in muscle for intense (anaerobic) activity 1.Eat a variety of good foods, Try to stick to the groups in the food pyramid, and eat a variety of foods within each group. 2. Balance the amount of food you eat with your amount of activity. a.While you are in season or while you are working out intensely, you will need more food than when you are laying on the beach on your vacation. 4.Lots of Grain products, Vegetables, Fruit, Complex Carbohydrates, Fiber, and Protein. 5. Cut back on Fat (especially saturated fat), and sodium (salt) 6.Dont Drink, or at least dont drink too much too often. 2. This section will be a bunch of substitute foods that will help improve an athletes diet. VI: Conclusion: What you eat effects your performance on the field. When you are eating keep this in mind. For a general rule dont worry too much about how much you eat worry about what you eat. Try to eat foods that have high nutrition density, that is foods that have a lot of nutrients for the amount of calories that they have. Note: All of the research that I have done so far comes from my fitness and wellness textbook and my football summer conditioning manual. I cannot turn either of these things in. Bibliography: .

How does Alan Bennett make effective use of the dramatic monologue to hold the interest of the audience Essay Example

How does Alan Bennett make effective use of the dramatic monologue to hold the interest of the audience Essay Example How does Alan Bennett make effective use of the dramatic monologue to hold the interest of the audience Essay How does Alan Bennett make effective use of the dramatic monologue to hold the interest of the audience Essay A Cream Cracker under the Settee is a dramatic monologue. A dramatic monologue is a drama piece performed by only one person. By examining the characterisation, humour, timescale and pauses of this monologue this essay will look at the ways Alan Bennett holds the interest of the audience. Characterisation is shown through voices and memory. Doris is the central character in the monologue. She is a 75-year-old down to earth, Yorkshire widow. She is a conscientious lady who, throughout her life has taken a pride in keeping her home spotlessly clean and tidy. She disapproves of Zulema, her home help sent in by the council, doing household chores that she has always managed to do. Doris has high standards where cleanliness is concerned and she is upset that Zulemas work does not meet these standards. In Doriss opinion, Zulema only half dusts and Doris is upset to find things that she would never miss being missed. For example Doris finds dust on top of her wedding photo that has been missed by Zulema. Doris never did like untidyness even when she was younger. This is shown through her recollection of conversations with her late husband, Wilfred. The reason for Doris not wanting a garden was because she thought the trees, plants etc would create mess by dropping their leaves. Wilfred wanting a garden complete with bush caused great debate. Is it a bush that will make a mess Doris asks. From hygiene point of view Doris would be happier with concrete. Although Wilfred argued that concrete lacked character Doris pointed out that it could be kept clean and tidy making Doris feel easy in her mind. Another way Bennett shows Doriss dislike for untidiness was when Wilfred expressed a desire to have a dog. Doris was against having a dog because of the mess it would make with all the dog hairs that would need cleaning up. During their marriage Doris unfortunately had a miss carriage. The midwife came and wrapped the baby in newspaper and Doris never saw him. Wilfred, she thought, just took it in his stride and it was after this he started talking about getting a dog. Doris wished shed had children particularly a daughter because a daughter would have looked after her and she wouldnt be where she was now. If she had had children she might not be as miserable or lonely. There is a strong battle of wills between Doris and Zulema. Doris wants to keep her independence and continue her own cleaning whilst Zulema wants her to forget cleaning and be a lady of leisure. Zulema takes harsh actions and bans Doris from dusting and using the Ewbank. However, Doris is stubborn and houseproud and pays no attention to Zulema. She climbs on to a buffet to examine the cleanliness of her wedding photo and subsequently falls hurting her leg. This makes Doris feel that Zulema is one up because she warned her that this would happen. While Doris is sat on the floor she notices a cream cracker under the settee. This makes Doris mad because she cant remember the last time that shed had cream crackers and obviously Zulema hadnt cleaned thoroughly under the settee. Doris keeps the cream cracker to show to Zulema the next time she lectures her about Stafford house. To get her own back on Zulema, Doris threatens to send it to, The director of social services and put Zulema in the unemployment exchange. Another character referred to in the monologue is Wilfred. Wilfred is Doriss late husband. When Doris reminisces about Wilfred she often add a small joke to help keep the audience interested in Doriss situation. Wilfred and Doris were different in character. Doris was the busy one keeping the home clean and tidy and Wilfred was very laid back with lots of little job to do that were never accomplished. Wilfred always told Doris not to worry when things needed doing, Hed put it on his list. However Doris never saw this list and consequently jobs never got done. A good example of this was the loose sneck on the gate and the allotment, which would allow them to become self sufficient in the vegetable department. Neither materialised. Wilfred and Doris didnt have any children so Doris was lonely after Wilfreds death. The way in which the language portrays Doriss age is when she refers to Wilfred. Doris calls Wilfred Dad, Wilfred calls Doris Mum, these terms are often used by the older generation as terms of endearment. Doriss attitudes towards folk in the neighbourhood also make it clear that she is from an older generation. Her attitude towards the younger generation is that they are disrespectful. For example she says, would you credit it when the boy uses her garden as a toilet. This means that she couldnt believe what she had seen. When Doris was younger marriage was considered to be a commitment were people stayed together for better or worse and every body in the neighbour hood knew each other. Doris looking out of her window noticed that she doesnt know any of her neighbours, not even the people opposite and half the couples together arent married. Doris comments, you see all sorts, then you loose track. The younger generation would not make these comments and would just accept the different types of people and relationships. Doris has a very down to earth sense of humour. This is portrayed through Doriss understanding of the irony of life. For example Doris says after Wilfreds death, Hes got his little garden now. This is ironic because when Wilfred was alive he never accomplished his goal of having the garden he wanted. Doris also shows humour through one-liners. After the glass on her wedding photo cracked she says, weve cracked Wilfred. This not only means that the glass has cracked around the picture, she implying that she might have cracked as well. Her Yorkshire dialect and her use of colloquialisms often portray Doriss humour. A good example of this is when the boy upsets Doris by using her garden as a toilet she says, Hes spending a penny her use of term makes the action humorous. Pauses are used through out the monologue. These are used for effect and to allow the audience time to make sense of Doriss situation. Longer pauses are used to make an impact on the audience and also allow the audience to reflect on Doriss situation and understand the impact this has on their own thoughts and feelings. In conclusion Alan Bennett uses four effective ways to keep the audiences interest. The characterisation of the monologue is effective. The characters recalled through Doriss memory are kept brief and this brings interest because the audience wants to know more. Doris has a good understanding of the irony of life, in her situation this is comical and interesting bringing in humour. The Yorkshire derelict and use of colloquialisms also adds amusement. By mixing the past and the present the interest of the audience is held and the pauses are used to good effect to build drama and give the audience time to take in what has been said.

Offshoring Service Sector Jobs Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Offshoring Service Sector Jobs - Essay Example 1-10, 2011). In addition, this has also created a single platform for the businesses that can develop, broaden, and extend their business operations and activities from local to international arena. Indeed, these elevations and progressions has augmented the element of competition in the business community, hence it has now become one of the most imperative aspects for all corporations and businesses. As an outcome, the key emphasis of the organizations is now on the amplified productivity of goods and services (Feenstra & Taylor, pp. 1-10, 2011). The trends of the current market in the recent years have also depicted the fact that the businesses are constantly struggling with the challenges in order to survive and persist in the marketplace for which they are striving to work in the most effective and efficient manner. The notion and idea of globalization and globalized production has also broadened its capacity to the service industry as well. However, the human resource has always comes under the consideration to be the most valuable asset, because they can either make the organization witness the heights of success or can be the prime reason for its failure (Feenstra & Taylor, pp. 1-10, 2011). The records divulge the fact that the global economy is experiencing a structural change. With the increase in the global competition, pressures on profit margins have also come under its influence, which has given rise to the concept of offshoring. Through offshoring, likelihood of productivity increases as the enterprises have the option to work round the clock to send the data back and forth from the host country to the home country (Farrell &Â  McKinsey Global Institute, pp. 3-10, 2007). Therefore, offshoring has become a prominent part of the recent trend, predominantly in the service sector that is the relocation or repositioning of an operational unit or process of the organization that include information technology, accounting and several others from one pla ce to another either on a local or international basis. In addition, offshore also comes under association to outsourcing of people that has gained significant importance from the latter half of the twentieth century (Farrell &Â  McKinsey Global Institute, pp. 3-10, 2007). The below graph is a representation that undoubtedly and noticeably demonstrates the idea that offshoring in the service sector is intensifying with the passage of time. (Schaaf, pp. 11, 2004) This is due to the reason that offshoring saved a huge amount of expense of the wages as the under-developed nations produce more skilled workers on relatively less wages when compared to the workers of the developed countries. Lower production cost coupled to the lower cost of labor is one of the leading and principal reasons that lead to offshoring in the service sector. The studies expose the piece of information that there is a huge difference between the labor costs of the underdeveloped nations when compared to the de veloped countries. Besides, the other costs such as health insurance and pension costs are also much lower in the underdeveloped countries relatively. Nevertheless, the saved amount can come under utilization for the telecommunications, data security, or the service quality of

Introduction to Business Law - legal system Essay

Introduction to Business Law - legal system - Essay Example It's not something that is justifiably in the normal life of a teenager but it doesn't mark him as a threat in regards to becoming a repeat offender. Either way this isn't something you have to worry about with this candidate. I assure you that you won't return to your complex one day to discover graffiti all over the front of your building. (Building Blocks for Youth, Fact Sheet 1, 2005). The other candidate that I do believe should be considered for a position placed within your company is candidate number 5. His background record shows that although he served 1 year in prison because of his crime involving credit card fraud, several years have passed since then and he seems to have been decently rehabilitated by the judicial and prison systems. After researching this candidate's background thoroughly myself I feel secure in advising you to offer him employment. The Federal Bureau of Investigation follows all white collar crime, especially those involving identity theft and credit card fraud among many other types of fraudulent activities.

Who Should Be Responsible For Policing The Internet Essay

Who Should Be Responsible For Policing The Internet - Essay Example Even an innocent research in search engines can turn out to be an accidental sexual offense. Aggressive marketing ploys of many pornography websites trick online users to visiting porn sites using hot links, pop ups with lewd photographs, or trapping users by bouncing them from porn site to porn site, making it hard to leave. The chat rooms are also favourite hangouts of determined paedophiles. These online predators share information with other paedophiles usually in a network, on how to seduce or â€Å"groom† a victim. They constantly roam chat rooms for possible victims. Online predators use social networking sites such as Myspace or Tagged as a way to meet potential victims. Paedophiles also frequent Usenet newsgroups to post and exchange illicit materials and even to discuss various approaches to victimize. The internet is safe haven for many computer child molesters because of the internet’s accessibility, affordability and user anonymity. Several research studies have underlined harm exposure to pornography among children poses. Dr. John Money of Johns Hopkins University presented a theory on sexual deviance in his 1986 book Lovemaps. According to Dr. Money, â€Å"sexual deviance can be traced to experiences in childhood (Laaser, 2000, quoted in Cothran, 2004, p.34).† Many clinical psychologists support that pornography causes violence among children. They point to the possibility of desensitization of children. It is general fact that children model what they often see and hear. Exposure to obscene materials may result to children â€Å"accepting and carrying such sexual preferences to adulthood (Laaser, 2000, quoted in Cothran, 2004, p. 34).† Sexual addiction also causes alarm. Sex as an addiction almost always begins with viewing soft-porn material and gradually shifts to hard-core. Laaser (2000, quoted in Cothran p. 35) says that â€Å"for substance or activity to be addictive it must create a chemical tolerance.

Collective Happiness And Individual Happiness

Collective Happiness And Individual Happiness Happiness is the concern both to the public and the philosophers. But the contradiction of individual happiness and the collective happiness is always the argument in many theories. In the view of Utilitarianism, collective happiness should be in the most significant status. In order to achieve this aim, it is worthy to sacrifice the minoritys individual happiness. But whether that is the most efficient and effective way? And in such a circumstance, whether the individual happiness can be fulfilled? The essay is talking about that under the points of Utilitarianism; the social aim is to achieve a greatest happiness for a greatest number of people. And according to this guide, as long as the action can lead to a good outcome, this action should be agreed and protected, even that is an action of killing innocent people. However, to be a human being living in such a society; the individual happiness cannot be remained because of the demand from the whole society. On the other hand, the individual happiness is the personal business which did not related with the collective happiness according to Chuang Tzu. The changes happened in outside world, no matter good or bad, are just the nature course of development. The individual wills and power cannot change it at all. The theory of Utilitarianism is talking to achieve the collective happiness, while Chuang Tzu focused on the individual happiness. But both of them are too extremely to peruse the one and abandon the other one. However there is no an original contradiction between these two happiness. The crux in it is the different understanding of the concept of collective happiness as well as the freedom to choose a happy life for individuality. In summary, there is no conflict between the collective happiness and individual happiness, and the freedom to choose constitute a part of human happiness, which will in turn help construct a happy society. The case of two patients According to the points from John Harris (1975), let us support that organ transplant procedures have been perfected; in such circumstances if two dying patients could be saved by organ transplants then, and these two patients named Y needs a new heart and Z needs a new lung. If a doctor cannot save the patients because of no spare organs in stock, no one will blame the doctor. If there are no spare organs in stock and none otherwise available, the doctors have no choice; they cannot save their patients and so must let them die. In this case we would be disinclined to say that the doctors are in any sense the cause of their patients deaths. (Harris, 1975) But if a doctor didnt save the patients in the situation of that there are other organs available. Everyone will criticize the doctor for his activity just like he has shot the patients dead. If surgeons have the requisite organs in stock and no other needy patients, but nevertheless allow their patients to die, we would be inclined to say, and be justified in saying, that the patients died because the doctors refused to save them. (Harris, 1975) These situations always happen in reality; everyone will make decisions and make some judgments following the common sense. But supposing that patients Y and Z own a chance to argue for their lives, they insist that the doctor should kill another healthy people to get the new organs for them. Although obviously that breaks the law, it is really a reasonable account in the side of the patients. They point out that if just one healthy person were to be killed his organs could be removed and both of them be saved. We and the doctors would probably be alike in thinking that such a step, while technically possible, would be out the question. (Harris, 1975) In the whole process, all of the steps seem to be justifiable. But we can find the contradiction in the difference between killing and letting die. The analysis of this case from the view of utilitarianism There are three core ideas in the theory of utilitarianism; the first one is the consequentialism. According to this first core idea, consequences are the unique standard to determine whether the activities are right or wrong. Therefore, killing people will become an action can be considered for the correct reason. There are a great many people believe that whether an action is right or wrong depends upon its consequences. So what makes something like killing another person wrong is that it is an act with a very bad consequence. (Driver, 2006) Back to the case of those two patients, the doctor killing a healthy people for the reason to save another two persons. The purpose of killing is to save life, so that the action of killing people is totally right and necessary. And in the view of utilitarianism, it suggests that we should do the things to purchase the best consequence which will have the best effects for the most people in the collectivity. Following this logic, doctor should and must kill the third the one to maintain the lives of his two patients because the number of two is greater than one. Saving two lives is meaningful to lead a good consequence, and killing one people to save another two is worthy. On the other hand, the principle of utility from the view of Bentham is also the basic of the theory utilitarianism. And both law and the individuals actions should be scrutinized according to this principle. By the principle of utility is meant that principle which approves of every action whatever, according to the tendency which it appears to have augment or diminish the happiness of the party whose interest is in question; orà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦to promote or to oppose that happiness. (Driver, 2006) As the result, happiness or pleasure is the basic good in this theory, and it is also the intrinsic value; but what has intrinsic disvalue is pain-that is the basic bad. (Driver, 2006) And according the view from Bentham, the pleasure or happiness can be measured along with the following parameters: Purity (how much pain is accompanied by it); Intensity (degree of pleasure); Duration (how long it will last); Fruitfulness (ability to produce further pleasure); Likelihood of any act to produce it (probability of an actions bringing about the expected consequence.) (Driver, 2006) Back to the two patients case again, using the elements to calculate that whether it will lead to a pleasure or a pain. Purity Intensity: although one life will be lose in the process to save the two patients, but the pleasure of the two patients alive is great than the pain to lost one life. Whats more, saving the two lives, their lives will be extended by sacrificing the other one, and they can create more happiness and pleasure in the rest of lives, which is what they expect. Therefore the other elements are totally matched. Under the logic of utilitarianism, a doctor killing a healthy and innocent people to save his patients is the action can be calculated to achieve the greatest good for the greatest number of people and avoid the pain. We can treat this case happened in a society which just has four persons-the two patients, the doctor as well as the healthy and innocent people. However this situation can be extended to the real society. Support that the whole society is a big machine which was consisted of many different components. Once some components were destroyed, and sacrificed the other one can fix these problems, we should absolutely abandon this one to maintain the whole. That is the reason in the utilitarianism to scarify the minority to achieve the majoritys happiness or pleasure. That will also construct a good society as Bentham described. A good society is constructed according to the logic of utilitarianism The definition of a good society Human being always consider to build a good society in which each people can perform his/her strengths in a professional scope; and then the society will be developed and consolidated in a high degree cooperation. For instance, a man who has talent in learning and running, but his ability of learning is better than running, while he like running more than learning. As the result, in order to make the best effect to the society and earn the most for him, this man should stay in university to be a professor rather than take part in the Olympic Game to be an athlete. From the view of utilitarianism, that is the most efficient and effective way to fulfill the aim to build a good society. Because everyone in the society will have their own talent, as long as people can be in a status which is match with their strengths, that will make the greatest good for the greatest number of people. Otherwise, live in the circumstance like that; people can earn their most happiness or pleasure. Back to the choice of that man, if he prefers an athlete to a professor, that will diminish the positive effect to the society and go against the principle of utility. But there may be a contradiction between the individuals strength and the personal choice. Maybe someones favorites are not the things which he is good at. That is a dilemma for us-whether to choose the favorite or the strength? Following the logic of Utilitarianism, we should choose to develop in the scope of our strength rather than our favorite, because that will contribute to the collectivity, and construct a good society. The human being living in such a society Living in such a good society, everyone will have their own status, just like a component working in a big machine. Although it will make the machine work smoothly, it also makes the component lose its existence value. Because when there are some new or more valuable components appear, or other parts have some problems which need the component to scarify to fix, this single one will be put away. That will be ok in a machine, but talking about the reality, it will produce lots of social problems. Also use that man as an example; he is good at learning and running, and he should choose to be a professor because he is more talent in learning than running. In order to make the society gain the maximum happiness, he have to spent all his time in learning but not any other things. This is acceptable in Utilitarianism, as well as the view from consequentialism. Although it will lead to a good consequence, the individual engage in it will become a component working in the big machine which represents the collectivity, and lose his personality, but just passively contribute himself. Give an example about that, the man spent his life to study and finally became a professor to make a greatest happiness for the collectivity, but he know nothing except learning. If he is replaced by others or there is no need of professors for the further development, this man will be abandoned because of the principle of utility. Whats more, though this mans favorite is running, but for the purpose to achieve the aim of a good society, he have to choose to learn as his life career. And that is the individuals cost for the good society. But we have to ask whether that is the unique definition of a good society? And whether there must be a contradiction between a good society and personal choice as well as individual development? Personal happiness in the view of individuality from Chuang Tzu Relative happiness and absolute happiness According to Chuang Tzus theory about individuality, happiness can be divided into two different concepts; the first one is relative happiness while the other one is absolute happiness. Relative happiness will come true when someone follows ones nature which is various from different individuals. This happiness is non-controllable because it depends on the circumstance which including nature environment as well as human condition. Therefore, each ones happiness is unique, no one should impose his or her likes and dislikes on others. Happiness is relative to the nature of each being: what may be happiness for the marquis is not the necessarily happiness for a bird; what is happiness for the duck is not happiness for the crane. (Imamichi, Wong, Liu, 1998) However there are many ways in which freedom can be obstructed, for the reason that ones happiness is not always within ones own control. On the other hand, although the relative happiness is out of individuals control, human being can also pursue the absolute happiness. The general conditions to achieve this goal is that we have proper understanding of the nature of things as well as unaffected by external things or changes as it not dependent upon them. In a word, that required us to follow the nature, but identify the nature firstly. There is another line of Taoist thought, however, which emphasizes the relativity of the nature of things and the identification of man with the universe. To achieve this identification, man needs knowledge and understanding of still a higher level, and the happiness resulting from this identification is really absolute happiness. (Fung, 1960) According to Chuang Tzu, there are two ways to achieve the absolute happiness, that is the forget(à ¥Ã‚ ¿Ã‹Å") and understand(à ¥Ã…’-), and that is also the attitude to the outside world. This attitude insists the external factors are not regarded as significant. As a result we will not be affected by the changes of the world. Furthermore, changes, good or bad from the outside society are accepted as part of the natural course of development, so that the individual activities and happiness will not and should not be affected by the outside society. He is absolutely happy, because he transcends the ordinary distinctions of things. He also transcends the distinction between the self and the world, the me and the non-me. Therefore he has no self.à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦He may rule the whole world, but his rule consists of just leaving mankind alone, and letting everyone exercise his own natural ability fully and freely. (Fung, 1960) In conclusion, Chuang Tzus theory insists that happiness is totally an individual business. If someones happiness has to depend on something, thats just a relative happiness, because this man cannot control or change his own relative happiness. However, in a society, everything is related with the nature development, therefore, the absolute happiness just can come true in the condition of staying alone and living far away from the collectivity. A contradiction or a combination There is an obvious diversity between the ideas in Utilitarianism and Chuang Tzu. The theory of Utilitarianism focuses on the collective happiness which can be extended to the individual scope. While according to the view from Chuang Tzu, individual happiness will be achieved by personal choose, but no related with the collective happiness and the outside world changing. Use the man talented in learning and running to explain the difference between these two theories. On the basis of Utilitarianism, even this man prefer running to learning, he still should choose to learn to be a professor for the reason that this will make the a greatest happiness for the whole society. But it ignores his individual happiness. Besides, according to the principle from Chuang Tzu, this man should prefer to be an athlete because of his talent and interested. Even his choice will make less happiness for the society than to be a professor; he should persist in it as usual. Because no matter the society become good or bad is the nature development for individual, this should not and cannot be influenced by the personal choice, ever worse to scarify the personal happiness to satisfy the social development. The theory of Utilitarianism treats the individual happiness and the collective happiness is completely a contradiction, and requires one to scarify itself to realize the other one. But from the points of Chuang Tzu, actually there is no relationship between individual and collectivity; individual person should be loyal to his or her interest and happiness and let alone the social development which is just the nature course. The first theory treats the individual happiness and collective happiness is entirety. But the collective happiness should be put on a more important status, and the individual persons living in it is just in the status to cooperate and service for the whole society. There is a separation in the process, once there is an interest conflict between them; the individual will be given up for certain. And that is the opposing view from Chuang Tzu; individual person and collectivity is totally different and irrelevant. Although this theory gives a specific definition about the individual happiness, it makes them separate from the whole society. And there is some objective voice for this theory. If an individual person lives outside the society, he or she will lose his or her social connection and social function. That makes the individual person cannot achieve his or her happiness without a specific social circumstances. Therefore, no matter describing these two kinds of happiness as a contradiction or treating them as two independent units, there is an alternative. But there is no original contradiction between two of them, the combination of them should be an appropriate way to be consider and achieve the win-win outcome. Conclusion Happiness cannot be calculated by adding the number of lives Happiness is the consequence what human being pursues for; but there is no a specific definition of happiness. In the case of those two patients, happiness means a greater number of lives and longer lives. As the result, it is worthy to sacrifice another one to save their lives. But that will bring out another problem. If these two patients are old people, even a successful organ transplant surgery can just give them a few years of life. And unfortunately, the doctor killed a young people to gain his organs. Whether it is still a happy ending of this case? It might of course be objected that it is likely that more old people will need transplants to prolong their lives than will the young, and so the scheme would inevitably lead to a society dominated by the old. (Harris, 1975) In the situation like that, the formula of happiness is not feasible. Although a greater number of lives will remain, there is another problem come along come with itwhether the number of lives will equal to the value which these lives can create? Does the productivity of elderly people correspond to the younger people? Obviously, human being cannot be measured by the value they create. No matter the number of life or the value of life can not represent the greatest happiness which the theory of Utilitarianism talking about. Because each people in the society are unique, the value of this life is incomparable. As the result, the happiness cannot be measured by the number of lives in a society. The freedom to choose constitutes a part of human happiness, which will in turn help construct a happy society. The freedom to choose is a part of personality as well as a part of individual happiness. In the case of those two patients, both the doctor and the innocent have no choice because of saving the two dying patients. That is the same with the talented man. Superficially the man has free choices, but under the requirement of a greatest happiness, actually this man can just choose to be a professor to create the most goods for the society. In a word, that is no choice. According to the view of the Chuang Tzu, the freedom of individual people should be protected because that did not relate to any other one or the outside world which is considered the nature course of development. Although both of the ideas from these two theories seem too extreme, they also can give us a concept about collective happiness and individual happiness. Thinking too much about the collective interest and happiness will make the individual lose their freedom to choose. This will construct a society in which the individual people have to shoulder a heavy burden, because he or she cannot freely plan his or her life, but have to follow the social demand. Or the people living in such a society will be the next one to be victims to sacrifice for the collective happiness that will make individual people live in a nervous circumstance. In addition, individual happiness cannot be achieved without interacting with others in the society. Because only in the society and the relationship among people can create the circumstance for the people to plan their lives and fulfill the individual happiness. There is no conflict between the individual happiness and the collective happiness The individual happiness and the collective happiness are closed connected; each of them cannot be come true without the other one. In general idea, a collective happiness is represented by the amount of wealthy and the quality of peoples life. But that is just one elements of happiness, the other one as well as the more significant one is the freedom choice of the individual person. Although the freedom choice of person may not maintain the wealthy of the whole society, it will guarantee the quality of life which has divers understanding of different people. Also using the talented man as an instance, if this man has the freedom to choose what he really wants but not to follow the demand of the society, this will lead him to reach the maximum individual happiness. If this man chooses to be an athlete and join in the Olympic Game, maybe he can never be a champion, but the process to achieve this dream is the greatest happiness for this man. Whats more, that is also the process to constitute the collective happiness. In a word, the freedom to choose and fulfill individual happiness can also construct a happiness society. The happiness here is so different from the general happiness. This happiness cannot be calculated by the number of lives and the amount of social wealthy, but was accumulated by the individual happiness. And that is also the most stable and developed happiness both to collectivity and individuality.