An inhumane practice Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

An inhumane practice - Essay Example Animals are no different from us humans, because they have the same organs and systems that we have. This is most especially true with chimpanzees, which share 99% of their DNA with us humans (Goodall 173, par. 5). That means that they are also capable of interacting socially with their own kind, or of other species, as well as feeling pain. Because humans are seen as advanced creatures capable of empathizing with what happens to other people, it is important that we remain as such by extending our empathy with creatures that are lower than our status. If we remain indifferent to the plight of animals even though we have awareness of the pain and sufferings that they endure, that itself rubs us off of the true meaning of humanity and being human. We become just like any other lower kinds of animals that only pursue their own interests and goals. While there are some people that believe in the upholding of the rights of animals, there are still a greater number of those that do not se e how the use of animals in medical research can be likened to a dictatorship that steps on the rights of the weak, which is why I firmly believe that to restore our humanity, the use of animals in medical research must be stopped altogether. ... They can also get sick and they are not immune to pain, even without the intervention of humans. For example, chimpanzees are capable of cognitive abilities and socialization, but can also experience depression, sickness and hopelessness (Goodall 175, par. 20). Like chimpanzees, animals are also capable of feeling distressed at being separated from their family or social unit, or seeing the death of their own kin. Does this not make them like us, whenever we feel a sense of loss or homesickness from being away from the people we care about? This is why we must be liable in our actions towards animal use, and not justifying it by our greater power over animals. By using them as sacrificial lambs in the pursuit of improving human health as whole, it is not any different from tyrants or dictators that show off their power by feeding from the weaknesses of their subjects (Cohen and Regan 21). It is therefore inhumane to allow the proliferation of pain and suffering, even among lower anim als. We may frown at the human rights that are being trampled upon by such dictatorship, but what about the plight of animals being used as experiments and getting pain and torment from the human captors? Letting animals experience pain is no different from other predatory animals that let instinct take over without considering what other animals might feel. Humanity loses its value because the one thing that separates us from animals, sympathy and kindness towards all other living things gets lost, making us no better than animals moving on instinct and self-preservation. In my opinion it is equally important we also exert the same sympathy towards animals because as Immanuel Kant has said, anyone who is cruel towards animals are also capable of being

Strategic Management Used At General Motors Business Essay

Strategic Management Used At General Motors Business Essay Automotive legend of the last century, GM, is one of the biggest corporations in the world. Although GM had big turmoils in its business, it still operates successfully in all over the universe. The aim of this assignment is to determine the GMs business strategies with rises and falls by looking into their history, having the data of what and how did they do in their businesses and analysing their company activities. Being a leader and pioneer of the automobile industry since this sectors infancy times , General Motors Corporation still keeps its successful place in this competitive business. Since 1908, General Motors Corporation (GM) is one of the largest auto producer in the world as measured by global industry sales, whose headquarters is in United States of America. William C. Durant was the founder of General Motors Company with being an innovator in automobile technology. As being a multinational automobile manaufacturer General Motors employes about 280 million people all around the world with the total assets of 149 billion US Dollars. The company manufacturers the cars and the trucks in 55 different countries (exluding US and Canada). General Motors has sub-brands under its management. Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, Hummer, Pontiac, Saab, Vauxhall, Holden, Saturn and Wuling are some one the names of General Motors brands. The General Motors Company placed into a global market throughout the 1920s. Meanwhile, the company built itself as a firm which provided prestige, power and the other options. As a competitor, Ford, that focused on lower costs and lower prices, reversely GM targeted customers who had likely money to spend on more featurative products. During the World War II, General Motors Company manufactured armament and military vehicles,both for Allied and Axis forces. GM had improved its business level and becomed the largest corporation in the United States after the world war II. During the 1950s, style, desing, and engineering innovations are applied into the companys production line. In 1960s, GM also focused on insurance, home appliances, financing, electronics, locomotives and banking etc. In request for the smaller cars of European producers , GM introduced Chevrolet Corvair, that was ciriticized for safety issues in following days. In the next decade, oil prices went up and as well as the oil costs , environmental problems are taken into consider at those times. Therefore, there were a shift from huge oil guzzling cars to smaller European cars increased with the first energy crisis. After that , second crisis followed quickly by rising the concern for pollution and controlling of over emission and safety problems resulted GM lose of its market share to more economical and smaller vehicles. Especially between 1980s and 1990s , the Japanese imports rocketed ( See Appendix 1) ,so that, that time of a period was a hardship for GM, which was plagued by high competition with Japanese companies. As a result of this, GM had chenged its strategies like redesingining and reengineering of its car models. However , because of the high production costs , GM had continioued its high losses in the market with huge numbers. In 1990s, General Motors Company had started to close many of its plants and also cut the jobs. With these turmoils among the company, GM followed different strategies ,like buying Saab and Daewoo, and a little portion of Subaru and Suzukis shares, that were sold later for increasing the money. As follows, GM merged with FIAT car company which lasted five years. In the late-1990s, General Motors Company seemed on the way to big recovery, with sales stabilizing and stock increasing. However, end of the 2001 September, the company started to have challenges, and the system was changed again. In the following next few years, General Motors became a survivor in the highly competitive automobile industry with the economic recession in 2008, therefore the company had bailed out by the government for avoiding bankruptcy. (bbc.co.uk, 2010) In the first quarter of 2009, the auto giant posted a 6 billion dollars loss and said that it burned through 10.2 billion dollars of cash in the first three months of the year as revenue plummeted by 20 billion dollars'(about.com, 2010). However, besides these hard circumstances, in the first half of 2010, the General Motors sold more vehicles in China than in the US. (Constantini,2010) 3. STRATEGÄ °C ANALYSÄ °S OF GENERAL MOTORS Analysing the companys internal and external environments, there are many different frameworks and models exist for companies. By having some strategies enables the firms to get better understanding of the critical factors for their future success. Some sof the strategic analysis methods are Dunnings Eclectic Paradigm (Cavusgil et al., 2008), Porters Diamond and Five forces, Directional Policy Matrix, Mintzbergs School of Thoughts (Mintzberg et al., 2003) Value Chain Analysis (Johnson et al., 2008), SWOT analysis (Kotler and Keller, 2009), etc. The suitable frameworks choosing is depends on what the company needs to address and in what circumstances it needs to do so (Johnson et al., 2008). This is because many firms today operate both on a national, regional and global basis and as such need appropriate strategy for each individual environment (Schlie and Yip, 2000). As being a multinational enterprise, GM operates in approximately 57 countries, including Canada and US, and they serve and operate in variety of services from improvement, marketing, manufacturing of cars, trucks to economy and insurance services (Datamonitor, 2009). A potent tool and a flexible framework that could assist in describing and assessing competitive pressures in an industry and industry attractiveness is the Porters five forces (FF) model (Niederhut-Bollmann and Theuvsen, 2008). The model helps a company to decide how and where to make strategic changes for gaining and sustaining competitive advantages over rival firms and thereby generating above-average return on investments (Niederhut-Bollmann and Theuvsen, 2008). Figure 1: Michael Porters Five Forces Source: Michael E. Porter The Five Competitive Forces That Shape Strategy, 2008 In addition, one the school of the Mintzberg Ten School of Thoughts, The Design School, gives us another highly essential analysis for the firms. According to Mintzberg, The Design School sees strategy formation as achieving the essential fit between internal and external aspects'(Mintzberg et al., 2003:p23). Meanwhile, strenghts and weaknesses are given as the internal capabilities, on the other hand, opportunities and threads are seen as the external possibilities. Figure 2: Mintzbergs Design School of Thought Source:http://blogtext.org/russelldavison/article/7281.html Therefore, in this assignment, the General Motors Company will be analysed through company strategies. Firstly competitive advantage and analysis will be done according to Michael Porters five forces. Secondly, internal and external analysis will be given according to Mintzbergs Design School by applying the SWOT analysis. Finally, in the last to secion Value Chain and BCG Matrix Analysis will be examined. 3.1. COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE ANALYSIS OF GM ACCORDING TO MICHAEL PORTERS FIVE FORCES The competitive analysis of a company is an essential element of identifying components which are a threat to reduce profitability. For assesing over the competitive problems , Michael Porters five forces analysis is the one of the most efficient way. Porter (2004) has brought the light of five such factors: (1) Rivalry between existing competitors, (2) Barriers to entry, (3) Pressure of price from Substitutes/Complementaries, (4) Bargaining power of buyers, (5) Bargaining power of suppliers. Therefore, General Motors Corporations competitive advantage analysis will be done according to Michael Porters five forces . 3.1.1. Rivalry Between Existing Competitors: Rivalry occurs, because one or more competitors either feels the pressure or sees the opportunity to improve position (Porter, 2004 :p.17). Additionally, The strategies pursued by one firm can be successful only to the extent that they provide competitive advantage over the strategies pursued by rival firms. ( David, 2011 :p.107-108). Therefore, if we look at the GM motors in this section, in the 1970s and 1980s, competition in the US automobile industry had become much more strong with the increase of foreign rivals such as Honda, Toyota and Nissan (See Appendix 2). Although GM was a leader of the automobile industry at that period of time, its rivals had started to compete with GM providing some different offers. For example, Toyota started to produce cars with lower price than GM cars , whereas the quality of cars were high. So that, the competitros of GM became well-known brands ,while GM had difficulties with competing with them. 3.1.2. Barriers To Entry: According to Porter, new capacity may be brought to an industry by new entrants. Furthermore, gaining the market share, and getting high proportion of resources can be achieved by new entries. Meanwhile, the presence of of new corporations in an any industry can push the prices down and may decrease the profitability. Although these entries may seem as a threat, those may protect the established companies. During the both world wars, GM made a high profit, and it enlarged its business. Being a leader of the sector and being a well-known brand placed the GMs competitors very difficult positon to entry the industry. Especially for the smaller firms, competing with the GM was very hard. In early 20s, GM invented self-starters by differentiating itself from Ford, later on , in 1970s, Japanese and European companies introduced their fuel-efficient models to the industry. 3.1.3 Pressure of Price From Substitutes/Complementaries : All of the companies are in the competition broadly with the industries manufacturing substitute and complementary products (Porter, 2004). In this highly competitive automobile industry, any change in the prices on complementaries such as gas, tires, could have a important effect on the demand for automobiles. If we look at the GM, recent rising gas prices are highly to get a bigger effect on GM. Because, generally GMs cars are energy inefficient. Therefore, this will have great impact on GM. 3.1.4. Bargaining Power of Buyers: Buyers compete with the industry by forcing down prices, bargaining for higher quality and more services, and playing competitors against each other, all at the expense of industry profitability'(Porter, 2004 p:24). As a result of highly improved information technologies, and as well as with globalization, customers of the GM (like for the other companies) became more aware of the what were they buying and how much were they paying. Furthermore, getting the information the rivals of GM from the internet increased the bargaining power of dealers of GM. 3.1.5. Bargaining Power of Suppliers: Suppliers of an industry plays a significant role for their businesses. They may reduce the quality of the products, or may raise the prices up. For GM, raw materials and machine parts suppliers threat is very low, because there many suppliers for those sections (Nytimes, 2011). However, the powerful labour union, United Auto Workers (UAW), is a potential threat to GMs economical capability and endurance. For example, the liability of pension and health-care costs acquired an additional 1,400 to the cost of every vehicle comes from GM place compared with competitor products (The Economist, 2008). This is a magnificent amount and GM needs to search ways to cut this liability, therefore, GM may get more economical improvement and the growth of the company. Figure 3: Michael Porters Five Forces adopted to GM Source: Author 3.2. INTERNAL EXTERNAL ANALYSIS OF GM ACCORDING TO MINTZBERGS DESIGN SCHOOL Mintzberg explained The Design School as in the following: The Design School sees strategy formation as achieving the essential fit between internal and external aspects'(Mintzberg et al., 2003:p23). In this definition, internal factors are given as strenghts and weaknesses. Besides this, opportunities and threats are described as external factors. Therefore, for analysing the GENERAL MOTORS external and internal factors we should do a SWOT Analysis with the light of Mintzbergs Design School. 3.2.1. Strenghts: During the 20th century, GM has been the automotive leader in car industry. Although the company had some turmoils, its market share is still very much competitive in the sector. GM is well established not only in US but all around the world. Moreover, GM also have an rising share in the Chinese market (See Appendix 3). If GM takes the right decisions, there will be no reason for GM becoming a boss of the car industry again with. In addition, GM has wide range of brands such as Cadillac, Chevrolet, and Vauxhall. Company operates in more than hundred countries in the world with employing the approximately 250,000 people (gm.com, 2010) . Therefore, General Motors, with its global experience and its huge market share in the world, is still keeps the professional place in the automobile industry. General Motors Corporation uses OnStar Satellite Technology. This technology provides its customers security and safety facilities. For example, in the event of emergency , the system allows the driver to communicate with OnStar personnel just away a button immediately. GM has been controlling the costs by alliance and partnership with corporations like Shanhai Automobile Industry Corp., Toyota Motor Corp., Daimler AG. So that, GM improved its cost reduction system by sharing the company costs. 3.2.2. Weaknesses: For analysing the GMs weaknesses, first, we should consider that, this company is an US firm. So that, from its early years until present times, it is still over dependent to US market. The company should take the benefit for expanding globally. According to an article issued by Associated Press (2010), GM had low credit ratio which is determined as junk-credit (BB-). On the other hand, another problem is downsizing. GM put on the market some of its brands and it closed them completely. Additionally, the inactive profitability is the other issue of GM. After the global economic recession in 2008 , companys profit margins and sales went down dramatically. Staying one step behind on alternative energy movement is the biggest weakness for General Motors Company. The competitors of GM like Honda, Toyota, are using fuel efficiently, and also that are producing more ecological and environment friendly vehicles. Therefore, this may led problems such as decrease of market share and loss in company profit. GMs organizational structure is designed vertically. This causes a lack of information between the levels in the company, from bottom to top. So that, many problems can be occur because of the operational and top managerial levels uncommunicative situation. 3.2.3. Opportunities: One of the lightly opportunities of GM is maintaining the Global Expansion . In the last few years, GM achieved a substantial rise in the Chinese market, that made the GM alarm to major on the foreign markets. The other advantage for GM to take is the catching up the hybrid technology cars. Although they had lagged behind the alternative energy, it is not late for the automotive giant becoming again once it was. Recently, GM started to operate Green-Manufacturing systems, such as water-borne technology, reduction goals for hazardous and non-hazardous waste at source ( See Appendix 4). Developing new vehicle models and designs is the big advantage for GM. Because, as we know, what is in today will be out tomorrow. Therefore, focusing on innovations should be the urgent mission through the GM company. 3.2.4. Threats: The threat of the increase in the supply costs is very common in automobile industry like as the other industries. This threat pushes the firms to reduce manufacturing and production costs as much as possible, without carrying away the product quality. For instance, the fluctuation in the steel prices between 2005 and 2010 had a negative impact on GMs production costs, especially as a result of the economic crisis , the rise in 2008, put a negative impcat on GM ( See Appendix 5). The other danger for GM is the increase in fuel prices (See Appendix 6). As same with the rising in the steel prices, after the economic recession in 2008, the sales have plummeted considerably. Therefore, soaring in fuel costs has played a magnificant role in enhancing the advantage for development of hybrid and more fuel efficient vehicles respectively. The increasing competition factor is the another big threat for General Motors. Because, GM is not a leader once it was, currently there are many different brands in the industry, which are working hard for competing with their rivals. Therefore, GM should always keep the innovation on top for competing in the industry. Figure 4: SWOT Analysis of General Motors Source: Author 3.3. VALUE CHAIN ANALYSIS OF GM Value Chain is called to add value to the product and remove excess waste of resource consumption, in other word, to maximize the value of work done by the systematic and asset management. Supplier of products and processes that increase the effectiveness of all stages up to final customers and to maintain, so used to gain competitive advantage. Value Chain   Management focuses on the destruction of waste inside the company and also focuses on the customers satisfaction inside the company . Value Chain assits to the companies to identify activities where it may well apply its presence potentials (Diez-Vial, 2009) and also identify which activities to outsource in order to decrease prices by getting opportunity of country-specific advatages. One of the compenent of manufacturing is outsourcing which is congress the features of GMs activities that needs a much more labour to the other countries where labour costs are cheaper, and this could relieve GM from employment responsibility . Additionally, recently GM could be able to resolve problems with United Automobile Workers. Michael Porter (2004) examined a set of interconnected generic activities common to a variety of companies. According to Porter, Value Chain Analysis is described as below: Figure 5: Value Chain Activities Table Source: http://www.netmba.com/strategy/value-chain/ GM, for instance, gives highly importance on its customer relationships. For the theory part, Service activities are the activities that continue and enhance the products value including customer support, repair services, etc. Meanwhile, for the GM strategy, they are using OnStar Technology which enables the customers get in touch with the call center of GM in an emergency situations. 3.4. BCG MATRIX ANALYSIS OF GM The BCG Matrix method is based on the product life cycle theory that can be used to determine what priorities should be given in the product portfolio of a business unit ( Lancaster and Reynolds, 2004) . To ensure long-term value creation, high-growth products and low-growth products should be undertaken by the companies in need of cash inputs and generate a lot of cash respectively. Figure 6: BCG Matrix adapted for GM Source: (LancasterReynolds, 2004) As I mentioned above, determining the factors of industry and as well as firms businesses is playing an essential role for gaining competitive advantage in the global market. Till before the two decades, oil prices had gone up with high percentages. So that, this and the environmental factors had oushed the automobile sector to the fuel efficiency vehicles. With the consideration of BCG Matrix applied to the GM, GM should pull off the brands like Pontiac, Hummer which are fuel-efficiency and oil-guzzling cars. Furthermore, more investment should put into producing smaller fuel-efficient vehicles, and also HEVs ( Hybrid Electric Vehicles). 4. CONCLUSION In conclusion, analysing the General Motors Corporation is done by using some strategical analysing methods, such as Porters FF, Value Chain, BCG Matrix, and Swot Analysis. Searching and applying the systems into the GM is quite broad because of the companys long time history which is more than a hundred years. In to the this content, the Company is analysed in detail according to factors of competitive advantage, internal and external. Therefore , I reached up a conclusion for GM. Of course, every single company and firm can make mistake in their business life cycle, however, minimizing those mistakes is one of the essential area for the firms. If we turn to GM, they had been really successful in the industry when there were no any other competitors. However, once GMs rivals entered to the business, GM started lose its market share globally. Because they overlooked at them, they didnt do many things until they lose their profits. After that , they changed some system, they started to struggled with their rivals. So that, with consideering all the analysed strategic forces above and the company, some recommendations should be done. For forthcoming improvements, first of all, General Motors should describe possible and suitable sector to serve. And also GM should concern about arrangement application and differentation strategy. For example, Focus strategy may assist GM to enable to reduce the costs as GM diverge from broad-line manufacturer to another varieties. By doing his, GM will be able to differntiate its product from the other rivals , because of focusing on a specific niche market that may perform much more better . The other one is to stay ready for even every hard and difficult circumstances, such as financial crisis. Although , generally it is an unexpected factor, companies, and also GM, should gain their SWOT analysis under the line of Threats. Staying in prepare positon always gives high competitive advantage with the other competitirs in the global industry. Last but not least is maintaining the speed of rivalry environment, GM should enhance and improve its product development. Alongside with the product development, environmental factors should be considered as well for gaining the high quality of business. 5. RECOMMENDATION In my opinion, General Motors should follow some strategies such as restructuring, product development, liquidation and market development. If GM does the product development, this would allow them to sustain the speed of rivalry environment. As a pratic example of this theory is Hybrid SUV vehicles, which matches the GM shape with continuing the portion of SUV, basically that allocate the company to keep on with trend models. My another recommendation for GM is reevaluation of the market. Global market is a market that which changes frequently. First GM vehicles had got tradition style, however, among the changing industry, they started to produce big cars, especially for the US market. One practical example for that case is to produce ultra-modern vehicles. If they manufacture that futuristic cars before the Honda or Toyota Company, they would gain an advantage in competitive industry. Lastly, liquidation is very essential for GM. The reason for that is, its assets are much more than its incomes. If General Motors can get the assests through the cash, therefore, GM could be more available finance. Moreover , when they achieving that process, GM wouldnt have to rely on US market, they could be independent in global industry. 6. APPENDIX Appendix 1 Imported Japanese Cars Develoopment: Source: http://www.emeraldinsight.com/journals.htm?articleid=1501956HYPERLINK http://www.emeraldinsight.com/journals.htm?articleid=1501956show=htmlHYPERLINK http://www.emeraldinsight.com/journals.htm?articleid=1501956show=htmlshow=html Appendix 2 Auto Sales Monthly Change: Source: http://www.wstreet.com/investing/stocks/19359_gms_fire_sale_and_auto_sales_preview.html Appendix 3 -China Car Market Soars: Source: http://seekingalpha.com/article/243737-outlook-2011-china-says-no-more-cars-down-goes-auto-industry Appendix 4 Green Manufacturing Processes: Source: http://www.emeraldinsight.com/journals.htm?articleid=1863551HYPERLINK http://www.emeraldinsight.com/journals.htm?articleid=1863551show=abstractHYPERLINK http://www.emeraldinsight.com/journals.htm?articleid=1863551show=abstractshow=abstract Appendix 5 Steel Prices Between 2005 and 2010: Source: : http://www.ttiinc.com/object/ME_Materials_Steel Appendix 6 Rise in Fuel Prices Between 2009 and 2010: Source:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12098981 7. REFERENCES 1. Associated Press, 2010. General Motors Gets Junk Credit Rating From Fitch. Michigan Live LLC. [Internet] Available at: http://www.mlive.com/auto/index.ssf/2010/10general_motors_gets_junk_credit.html [Accessed 28 January 2011] 2. BBC News, 2011. Petrol Duty and VAT Rises To Increase Price Of Fuel. Business. [Online] Available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12098981 [Accessed 28 January 2011] 3. Cavusgil, S. Knight, G., and Riesenberger, R., 2008. International Business, Strategy, Management, and the New Realities. New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall. 4. Chu, D.L., 2010. China Says No More Cars, Down Goes Auto Industry. Outlook 2011. [Online] Available at: http://seekingalpha.com/article/243737-outlook-2011-china-says-no-more-cars-down-goes-auto-industry [Accessed 31 January 2011] 5. Constantini, F., 2010. General Motors. The New York Times. [internet] . Available at: http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/companies/general_motors_corporation/index.html [Accessed 10 February 2011] 6. Datamonitor, 2009. General Motors Corporation. Company Profile. [Online] Available at: www.datamonitor.com [Accessed 28 January 2011] 7. David, F.R., 2011. Strategic Management Concepts. 13th edition. New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall. 8. Diez-Vial, S., 2009. Firm Size Effects on Vertical Boundaries, Journal of Small Business Management, 47 (2): 137-153. 9.Generals Motors, 2010. Company Profile. [Online] Available at: http://www.gm.com/corporate/about/company.isp [ Accessed 10 February 2011] 10. Hamer, T. Hamer, M., 2010. General Motors-It Wasnt Always This Bad. Learn About Classics. [Online] Available at: http://classiccars.about.com/od/classiccarsaz/a/GM.htm [Accessed 10 February 2011] 11. Johnson, G. Scholes, K. and Whittington, R., 2008. Exploring Corporate Strategy, 8th edn. London: Prentice Hall. 12. Kotler, P. Keller, K. L., 2009. Marketing Management, 13th edn. New Jersey: Pearson Education. 13. Mintzberg, et al., 2003. The Strategy Process: Concepts Cases. New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall. 14. Niederhut-Bollmann, C. Theuvsen, L., 2008. Strategic Management in Turbulent Markets: The Case of the German and Croatia Brewing Industries. Journal for East European Management Studies, Vol. 13, No.1, pp. 63 88. 15. Nunes, B. Bennett, D., 2010. Green Operations Initiatives in the Automobile Industry: An Enviromental Reports Analysis and Benchmarking Study. An International Journal. [Online] Available at: http://www.emeraldinsight.com/journals.htm?articleid=1863551HYPERLINK http://www.emeraldinsight.com/journals.htm?articleid=1863551show=abstractHYPERLINK http://www.emeraldinsight.com/journals.htm?articleid=1863551show=abstractshow=abstract [Accessed 13 February 2011] 16. Nytimes, 2011. United Automobile Workers. Organizations. [Online] Available at: www.nytimes.com [Accessed 31 January 2011] 17. Porter, M.E., 2004. Competitive Strategy: Techniques for Analysing Indystries and Competitors. New York: Free Press. 18. Seidenfuss, K. Kathawala, Y., 2005. Voluntary Export Restraint (VER) Without Market Restraints?: The Case Study of the Monitoring Agreement (1991-1999) Between the Japanese Car Manufacturers and the European Union. European Business Review. [Online] Available at: http://www.emeraldinsight.com/journals.htm?articleid=1501956HYPERLINK http://www.emeraldinsight.com/journals.htm?articleid=1501956show=htmlHYPERLINK http://www.emeraldinsight.com/journals.htm?articleid=1501956show=htmlshow=html [Accessed 10 February 2011] 19. Silver, D., 2009. GMs Fire Sale Auto Sales Preview. Wall Street Strategies. [Online] Available at: http://www.wstreet.com/investing/stocks/19359_gms_fire_sale_and_auto_sales_preview.html [Accessed 8 February 2011] 20. Schlie, E. Yip, G., 2000. Regional Follows Global: Strategy Mixes in the World Automotive Industry. European Management Journal, Vol. 18, No. 4, pp. 343-354. 21. The Economist, 2009. In Pieces. The American Car Industry. [Online] Available at: www.economist.com/node/13145718 [Accessed 8 February 2011]

The Real Macbeth :: essays research papers fc

Say â€Å"Macbeth† and the first thing that comes to mind is probably the play by the famous playwright, William Shakespeare. This classic story has become a mainstay of high school English literature classes around the world. However, few people realize that there was a real king Macbeth who lived long before the Shakespearean character evolved. In fact, the only verity of historical truth in the play is King Duncan’s death at the hand of Macbeth. The â€Å"real† Macbeth was not exactly as weak and unsuccessful as Shakespeare portrayed him. The â€Å"real† Macbeth had reasons for murdering Duncan, had a successful sovereignty, and had a very different defeat.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The real Macbeth was born a grandson of King Kenneth II who ruled from 971-995. His father was Finlay McRory who was a Mormaer (lord) of Moray. His mother’s name was Donada but it is unknown whether she was the daughter of King Kenneth II, Kenneth III, or Malcolm II. He married Grauch (â€Å"Lady Macbeth†), a descendant of King Kenneth III, who ruled from 997-1005. Lady Macbeth already had a son, Lulach, by a first marriage to another Mormaer of Moray.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Becoming king in eleventh century Scotland was not strictly hereditary. There was a practice called thanistry. This meant that nobleman chose kings from a large selection of possible kings called thanes. In theory, thanistry should have worked. But in practice, what often happened was that the strongest and most cunning of the thanists would rise to power. As a result, the best person did not necessarily become king because thanistry encourage open conflict as well as the assassination or reigning kings and other thanes (Scotland 4). But, the â€Å"real† Macbeth’s murder of King Duncan I in 1040 in a battle, was seen more as a good move than as a catastrophe. Duncan’s rule in Scotland was not the golden age as described in Shakespeare’s Macbeth. In truth, Duncan was described by Arthur M. Gunn as an â€Å"impetuous and spoiled young man whose six years of kingship brought glory neither to Scotland nor his family.† (Famous Scots 2) This differed from the public fury that was scene in Shakespeare’s Macbeth when innocent King Duncan was murdered in his sleep.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Unlike, the Shakespeare Macbeth, the real Macbeth was a powerful and successful king who ruled for seventeen years. He had enough power to leave on an expedition to Rome in 1050 and then return to reign seven more years. That was a remarkable achievement in those times. Contrasting, Shakespeare’s Macbeth had a very unsuccessful monarchy. He is so caught up in his guilt that he doesn’t have time

Emilia in Othello: A complete Transformation

During the sixteenth century, men were able to control their wives and women were not able to speak out against their husbands, including Emilia, a character in William Shakespeare's play Othello, is completely underestimated by every character, including her husband, Iago. In the beginning of the play, Emilia is submissive, but in the end she transforms and stands up to her husband and doesn't let him get away with any of his manipulations. At the beginning of the play, Emilia is completely submissive and couldn't argue with Iago whatsoever, no matter what he said and she was willing to do anything, as long at it helped him succeed.When Iago talks about women, he really has nothing nice to say. In fact, when Iago is slandering women and talking about Emilia and she doesn't stand up to him, only Desdemona does, telling Iago to stop talking about Emilia so harshly. He says, â€Å"players in your huswifery and huswives in your bed,† saying that women are only good for cleaning a nd in bed (2. 1. 121-125). Iago goes on to say women talk to much and are practically useless. Desdemona refutes Iago, but Emilia cannot.Another example of Emilia's submission is when she and Desdemona are talking about why people cheat and Emilia says that she would cheat on her husband, not if there was any benefit to her, but if it would benefit her husband, she wouldn't think twice (4. 3. 81-87). Emilia begins the play completely submissive to her husband and unable to defend herself against the awful things he says. Then, towards the middle of Act five, Emilia begins to put Iago's manipulations together and is wary of his motivations.As soon as Emilia hears that Desdemona has been killed, she, Othello and Iago are speaking and Emilia begins to question Iago, saying, â€Å"disprove this villian if thou be'st a man,† Iago responds saying that he told Othello what he thought was true and Emilia continues to try and figure out what Iago has spun together (5. 2. 210-214). The n, when Emilia pieces more of Iago's complex puzzle of manipulations, she begins to get angry saying to Iago, â€Å"you told a lie, an odious, damned lie! Upon my soul, a lie, a wicked lie! † (5. 2.  216-218).Emilia makes an accusation, claiming her husband is the reason everyone has been killed, in front of many other men. This was extremely bold of her because during this time, women were taught to obey their husbands. Emilia is the one who Iago should've known best, the easiest to trick, but instead she's the only one who can and does begin to reveal Iago's complete manipulations of every single other character. Here, Emilia begins her complete transformation from being completely submissive to defying Iago's commands.As the drama continues, Emilia completely reveals Iago's manipulations along with the many lies that he has told all the other characters. Emilia finally puts all the pieces of Iago's web of manipulations together, and realizes the complete terror that he h as caused. When Emilia is questioning Iago, he tells her to be quiet and leave them alone. Emilia responds back angrily, â€Å"I will not charm my tounge. I am bound to speak. My mistress here lies murdered in her bed† (5. 2. 220-221) Emilia knows what has happened and knows that she needs to tell everyone before the situation gets even worse and even more people die.Then, Emilia continues on telling everyone what happened and Iago continues to threaten her to be quiet. Here, Emilia begins her ultimate reveal. She tells Othello, â€Å"O thou dull moor, that hankercheif thou speak'st of, I found my fortune, and did give my husband-For often, with a solemn earnestness, more than indeed belonged to such a trifle, he begged of me to steal it† (5. 2. 267-272) Emilia finally tells everyone that she is the one who found the hankercheif, that Cassio did not get the hankercheif from Desdemona and that there is no way Desdemona was cheating on Othello.The end of act five is wher e Emilia completely makes her transformation from being an silent, obedient wife, to accusing her husband of murder in public. Therefore, Emilia is underestimated by every character because of her complete obedience to her husband, Iago. Then, as Iago's plans come to light, Emilia is the first to solve Iago's puzzle of manipulations and bring them to light in front of many other Venetian men, which was completely surprising to everyone because women at this time were not meant to speak out in public against their husbands and their husbands were supposed to have their wives in complete submission.

Proc 5850 Logistics Essay

1. KLF Electronics is an American manufacturer of electronic equipment. The company has a single manufacturing facility in San Jose California. (20 points) KLF Electronics distributes its products through five regional warehouses located in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, and Los Angeles. In the current distribution system, the United States is partitioned into five major markets, each of which is served by a single regional warehouse. Customers, typically retail outlets, receive items directly from the regional warehouses in their market area. That is, in the current distribution system, each customer is assigned to a single market and receives deliveries from one regional warehouse. The warehouses receive items from the manufacturing facility; typically, it takes about two weeks to satisfy an order placed by any of the regional warehouses. In recent years, KLF has seen a significant increase in competition and huge pressure from their customers to improve service levels and reduce costs. To improve service level and reduce costs, KLF would like to consider an alternative distribution strategy in which the five regional warehouses are replaced with a single, central warehouse that will be in charge of all customer orders. Part A: Describe how you would design a new logistics network consisting of only a single warehouse. Due to increasing competition in the world, the company has to advance its logistics system. To meet the ever increasing demands of the customers, the company is planning to form a single regional warehouse that will be in charge of the customer orders. Logistics is responsible for the movement of people and materials in the organization. Logistics department of the company decides as to how and when, the raw materials or other finished or semi-finished products should be moved and stored. If the company plans for a single warehousing system, then it is basically focusing on the centralized warehousing which is responsible for serving the whole market. The network will be designed with the help of complete analysis of the company’s operations. This will help to design an efficient strategy for the company. The location and size of the warehouse will be decided. The transportation and facility costs will also be calculated. The cost set up will be properly estimated. The network will consist of various facilities like manufacturing center, vendor, distribution center and customers. There will also be a variety of raw materials and finished products that flow among these facilities. Part B: Provide an outline of such an analysis; what are the main steps? There are various steps that will be involved for designing a new logistics activity. In the first step, the currently operating network in the organization should be analyzed. In the second step, the network optimization database should be designed and populated. After this in the third step, the alternatives for network design should be created. In the fourth step, the network optimization model should be adopted. In the fifth step, the tool for network optimization should be selected. In the sixth step, the network optimization should be implemented. In the seventh step, the alternative network designs will be evaluated. In the last and the final step, the reconfiguration costs for the network will be analyzed. Part C: Specifically, what data would you need? The data that will be required for this design network is as follows: 1Â · A list of all the products of the company. 2Â · The location of the customers. 3Â · Warehousing cost and transportation cost. 4Â · Demands of the customer for each product. 5Â · Size of shipment by product. 6Â · Cost of processing the order. 7Â · Patterns of the orders by size, content and frequency. Part D: What are the advantages and disadvantages of the newly suggested distribution strategy relative to the existing distribution strategy? The newly suggested strategy will help the company in a number of ways. It will help in speeding up the production activities of the company. It will reduce the facility cost of the company. The safety stock required in centralized system is also less. It will also reduce the inbound transportation costs. The disadvantages of such a system are that the lead time will increase and it will become difficult for all the customers to easily approach a single warehouse. The activities will become complex and the outbound transportation cost will increase. 2. As the Purchasing Manager in a manufacturing firm, you would be expected to identify and know various aspects related to transportation/traffic in order to effectively perform your job. Today, during the staff meeting, your boss asked you for advice on two aspects of transportations: (20 points) a. What are the major considerations when handling materials? i. Discuss the following: 1. Load Unitization, 2. Space Layout, 3. Storage Equipment Choices, and 4. Movement Equipment Choices. There are various considerations while handling the materials and care should be taken, while working over this activity. The following things need to be considered: Load Unitization: This is an important factor of consideration for material handling. Load unitization is the packaging and arranging of the item or items in a particular manner that can be handled as a unit. It should be considered that the items are banded in a securable manner. In this, the physical packaging of the product needs to be considered for its protective packaging. Overhang pallets for packaging should not be used as they can damage the product (Lock, 1998). Space Layout: It is also an important point of consideration in material handling. The space layout should be such so that the materials can be handled in an easy and comfortable manner. The space layout should be according to the products and for the ease of the workers. Storage Equipment Choices: It is to be considered as it is the greatest factor that contributes to the storage cost. The storage equipment choices include automated storage and retrieval systems, carousel storage and retrieval system, automated guided vehicle system and power & free conveyors. These equipment choices need to be considered to check the efficiency and cost effectiveness of the logistics network. Movement Equipment Choices: it is also an important consideration in the material handling and it will help in allocating the movement of the materials for transport. The equipment choices help in managing the movement of the equipment for storage and transport. b. What legal forms of transportation are available to the company? ii. Identify the legal forms of transportation. iii. Discuss the legal forms of transportation. iv. Provide one example for each legal form of transportation. There are various forms of legal transportation which involves regulation of the operating rights. The forms of legal transportation are common carriers, contract carriers, exempt carriers and private carriers. Common carriers provide services under closed regulation, as per the published tariff. They operate in a particular geographical area and for a specific commodity. Example of common carrier can be ‘highway transportation’. Contract carriers provide services at individually negotiated rates and operate under a regulatory authority. They have pricing freedom and have no service compulsion. They operate on the guidelines that there should be no rate discrimination between the customers. Example of contract carrier is ‘rail transportation’. Exempt carriers are those which are not liable for taxation and free from obligations. These are used for agricultural commodities in the United States. Example of exempt carriers is water transportation. Private carriers look after their own goods transportation. They are not governed by cost and service regulations. They cannot carry the goods of others, although many regulations have now permitted to do so. Example of private carrier is air transport. 3. Consider the supply chain for breakfast cereal. Discuss the competing objectives of the farmers who make the raw materials, the manufacturing division of the company that makes the cereal, the logistics division of the company that makes the cereal, the marketing division of the company that make the cereal, the distribution arm of the grocery chain that sells the cereal, and the manager of the individual grocery store that sells the cereal. (20 points) In the supply chain for breakfast cereals, everyone has its own competing objectives which inspire them to produce the product by giving his best possible effort. In the supply chain, the objectives of the farmers are to produce the best quality raw materials and earn maximum profit for him and his family. He wants to sell it at the best possible price and puts all his efforts to produce the cereals. The competing objectives of the manufacturing division of the company are that they should produce the quality and type of product that is demanded by the customer. Its main aim is to acquire efficiency in production and to produce better than its competitors. The logistics division of the company also has certain competing objectives. It works with the objective of managing all the materials and manpower related activities. It handles the storage of materials in an efficient manner. The management of transportation, purchasing of raw materials, storage and supply of finished products are the main aim of the logistics division. The objectives of the marketing division of the company will be to market the product in an attractive and effective manner. The packaging should be attractive and should display the special qualities of the products. It also has the objective of deciding the pricing and promotional activities of the product. The objective of the distribution arm of the grocery chain is to distribute maximum quantity of the product to the retailers and cover more targets as compared to their competitors. The objective of the grocery store that sells the cereal will be to sell the best quality products to the customers. They also serve the customers and fulfill their requirements. 4. You have been called in as a consultant to a large drugstore chain which has 24,000 inventory line items. Explain how inventory classification could help this company to better control its inventory. (20 points) Inventory classification is very helpful for controlling the inventory when a company has such a wide variety of inventory line items. There are basically five different types of inventories that are fluctuating inventories, anticipation inventories, cycle inventories, transportation inventories and decoupling inventories. Fluctuating inventory will help in managing the irregular demand of the products. Anticipated inventory helps in managing the unpredictable demand of the product. Cycle inventory helps in equating the consumption and production of the products. Transportation inventories are managed, where the time taken to transport a product is more and so meet the demands, it is maintained. Decoupling inventory is maintained to cover up the increasing demand of the product or the increasing purchases of the product. Inventory classification will help the company in inventory control, as, it will help in proper planning of the production system as materials will be available wherever and whenever required. It will also help in satisfying the orders of the customers as per the commuted date. It can also help in solving the problem of rush order inventory. It will also help in timely management of the inventory. 5. Discuss how each of the following helps to alleviate the bullwhip effect: (20 points) c. E-Commerce and the Internet d. Express Delivery e. Collaborative forecasts f. Everyday low pricing g. Vendor-managed inventory Bullwhip effect is the enlargement of the demand fluctuations i.e. increases and decreases in demand. This is often caused by price fluctuations, rationing, misperceptions of feedbacks, ordering panics, forecasting errors etc. It can be alleviated with the help of various tools like internet, express delivery, collaborative forecasts etc. Internet and e-commerce helps in giving more accurate information to the suppliers about the demand of a product. It helps in prevention of deformation and wrong communication of the demand related information. It also assists in reducing the lead time, as; it eases the order processing activity. Express delivery helps in reducing the demand variance and also reduces the lead time. It refers to timely and very fast delivery of the products to the wholesalers and to the ultimate customers. In collaborative forecasts procurement, product management and sales participate. Collaborative forecasts help the stakeholders in arriving at a particular demand forecast and alleviate the bullwhip effect. Everyday pricing also alleviates the bullwhip effect. There are certain demand hikes, which are created by periodic promotions and this leads to increase in demand fluctuations. Everyday pricing helps in preventing the increasing demand fluctuations and alleviates the bullwhip effect. Vendor managed inventory is helpful for the supplier as, it assists in monitoring the downstream demand. With this, the supplier can make a good and effective decision related to various activities like what quantity should be shipped for the customers and what quantity should be kept on hand. So, with the help of vendor managed inventory, the supplier does not have to depend upon the order data. Thus, the supplier does not have to rely on order data for demand estimation and alleviates the bullwhip effect.