Planning Phase of the Jalupa Company Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Planning Phase of the Jalupa Company - Case Study Example The cause of action is to generate a decent investment that will see the strategy take off for the next 5 years. The facts that support this problem definition are that Kaluga has already created a JalupaBook that will see it reap higher returns. Another fact is that the margins will remain without having to split them into other costs. Â  The future of the Kaluga solution is that will attract more clients from different age groups in a bid to keep the margins constant. This is because it will incorporate different technological advancements to control its market share. I want the new system to bring together users with different musical instrument requirements to interact and share their experiences. Â  Dave D, who is the Marketing Group Vice President, is the individual who has shown interest in the outcome of the project. He is the best person for the project because of his vast experience in the industry, political connections, and expertise in musical instrument marketing. Â  This initiative shall start in 5 years time because of impending considerations of sourcing for funds and sponsorships. The prevalence of e-marketing and social media are the internal or external events that take place to justify the date to be the perfect one. Â  The completion date shall be 2020 because the JalugaBook shall have gained prominence among the new users and advertisers. This is the best date because all stakeholders will have understood the significance of conducting online businesses. Â  There are a number of risks that the management fears might affect their planning strategies. For instance, the operational fear is the creation of JalugaBook since this is the organization’s first project in this field of online commerce. As a result, it might prove difficult to attract consumers and advertisers because some of them may not be comfortable conducting online business.

Military Industrial Complex Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Military Industrial Complex - Essay Example The Military Industrial Complex is more than just a weapons supply system. It is a unique partnership that continues to exert substantial power and influence, has sustained America's arms superiority, and reshaped the American landscape as well as its economy. The beginnings of the expansion of the MIC can be attributed to Captain A.T. Mahan and his book The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660-1783 (Liu 2). The book, published in 1890, was a series of lectures that Mahan had given at the Naval War College. Mahan's book initiated the beginnings of an expanded civilian shipbuilding business to supply the Navy with warships. Subsequent to the publication of Mahan's book, the first US battleship was built in 1893. Under the leadership of President Theodore Roosevelt 1901-1909, an advocate of Mahan's theories, American civilian shipbuilders built 129 battleships under his administration (Liu 10). This major military buildup is generally viewed as the beginning of the MIC. World War II and its reliance upon the MIC had a profound effect on America both demographically and economically. During World War II, the Department of Defense spent in excess of $70 billion on civilian aerospace and defense contracts of which most were directed into California and the Southwest ("The Rise of the Sunbelt"). This increased spending in the region gave rise to the areas massive migration and sowed the seeds of the decline in the 'Rustbelt'. With the reliance on new technology, the military depends on civilian contractors for research and production. The nuclear buildup of the Cold War was an example of the MIC at work. It has been estimated that during the Cold War, the MIC employed 1 out of 3 research scientists and engineers in the US and spent 60% of the research and development dollars available (Cypher 37). This spending in the civilian sector by the Pentagon forms the backbone of the modern MIC and fuels the powerful influence it holds and creates the anxiety that it generates. The MIC is often viewed as a partnership that was formed during the Cold War in an effort to maintain "...peacetime defense spending to 'wartime' levels" (Bruntin). The fear through the Cold War and Vietnam was that this self-interested group would promote their own agenda at the public's expense. Reports of corruption, bribery, and fraud have served to maintain this image in the minds of many Americans (Bruntin). As the Cold War wound down the public anticipated a peace dividend that never arrived. The MIC has been subsequently put to use against new international enemies and the war on terror. The MIC is a cooperative effort between the military, industry, and the government. Sometimes called the iron triangle, the alliance between these groups is a necessary factor in America's arm superiority. The military has the motivation to keep an ongoing civilian supply of weapons research and development, even in periods of peace. The contractors have a need to continue to receive tax dollars to maintain their revenue stream. Politicians have an interest in maintaining a strong military, and contract dollars are fought for as politicians seek to

CHANGES Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

CHANGES - Assignment Example Often, the contactor is expected to maintain a comprehensive record of costs invested in performing the change so that they can validate its claims (Clough, Sears, & Keoki 136). 3. A constructive change in a contract is the consequence of an action, or absence of an action of the contract owner or its representative that can be interpreted as a change to the contract despite the fact that the owner might not have offered an official, written change order. For example, when the contractor is verbally directed to perform a different duty, in a different way, or in addition to that set by the contact, the owner becomes responsible for any extra time and cost. 4. If a project falls behind schedule, the owner can take a recourse or alternative of ordering the contractor to make up the wasted time without being responsible for additional costs of construction. 5. Differing site condition is   an unforeseen site condition realized after execution of a contract and differs from the conditions outlined in the specifications and plans or differ from those that should be experienced at the site. An example is an underground condition that can be discovered in remodeling a structure that existed before (Clough, Sears, & Keoki 140). 7. The main reasons why contractors should be concerned about owner-caused delay are that they enable him to recover under the change clause for extra cost of work. The contractors can also get a profit in the process. 9. Delay damages are difficult to prove because when the delay damages are hard to measure or are uncertain, it naturally means that it is hard to conclude that a specific damage rate or amount is an irrational projection of what the damages might be. 10. The three essential elements of the Revised Contract Amount in a change order: the modifications to be included change in the contract amount, and the signatures of the prime contractor and the owner. This article tries to put forward that the Changes clause is possibly the

Inventory Management Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Inventory Management - Essay Example A small pizza restaurant might face a number of issues with regard to inventory management. The most important is that pizza is a food item which is perishable along with its ingredients. Therefore, it is not possible to store these ingredients for a long time and must be ordered on a weekly or a monthly basis. Some ingredients even have a perishability of just one day. The owners of the small pizza restaurant should keep in mind the exact degree of perishability of the ingredients and then plan such an inventory level which reduces waste as much as possible. Higher waste would increase the costs of production of this business and might even affect the operations of this restaurant. Another issue is that, unlike other goods and services, food is consumed everyday and even more than once within a day. Therefore, if proper stock counting is not done then there might be a shortage of ingredients and this will directly have an impact on the sales of the restaurant as well as customer sat isfaction. Food items are also prone to health and safety issues. The owners should make sure that the ingredients used in the pizzas are healthy and clean. The inventory being stored for the pizzas should be kept in a clean and safe place as well. For the above reasons, inventory management should be done in an efficient and effective manner.    Compare and contrast the benefits of using a fixed order quantity against using a fixed period system for fresh dough purchased from a bakery on contract. A fixed order quantity system is one in which fixed quantity orders are placed with the suppliers over a period of time. Under this system, there is a reorder point and as soon as the reorder point is reached, the business places their fixed order with their suppliers (Fixed order approach, n.d.). A fixed period system, however, is one in which orders are placed periodically but the order size or quantity is different for each order. An important benefit of this system is that fluctuati ons in demand could be easily met through this system. For example, if, due to certain factors, the demand for a business increases then it can place orders of higher quantities as the order size is not fixed in this system. Another benefit with this system is that even if the orders are delayed, it would not have a large impact on the operations of the business as an ample amount of time is given for orders (Fixed period ordering system, n.d.). For the purchase of fresh dough from a bakery, the perishability of fresh dough should be kept in mind. Therefore, the restaurant has to order fresh dough everyday. The benefit of using a fixed order quantity against a fixed period system is that it does not require a regular periodic count and the business is aware of the amount of fresh dough available for a particular day. Another essential advantage is that the bakery will be aware of the order quantity required by the restaurant and therefore, there would be no delays on part of the bak ery. A fixed period system also has a disadvantage as the usage of the inventories is not constant and this might even cause disruptions in the operations of the restaurant. Evaluate which approach is better and explain your rationale.   As far as a small pizza restaurant is concerned, the best approach is the fixed order quantity system. This is because a small pizza res

Stages in Consumer Decision Making Process Essay Example for Free

Stages in Consumer Decision Making Process Essay An individual who purchases products and services from the market for his/her own personal consumption is called as consumer.To understand the complete process of consumer decision making, let us first go through the following example:Tim went to a nearby retail store to buy a laptop for himself. The store manager showed him all the latest models and after few rounds of negotiations, Tim immediately selected one for himself.In the above example Tim is the consumer and the laptop is the product which Tim wanted to purchase for his end-use. Why do you think Tim went to the nearby store to purchase a new laptop ?The answer is very simple. Tim needed a laptop. In other words it was actually Tim’s need to buy a laptop which took him to the store.The Need to buy a laptop can be due to any of the following reasons: * His old laptop was giving him problems. * He wanted a new laptop to check his personal mails at home. * He wanted to gift a new laptop to his wife. * He needed a new laptop to start his own business. Look more:Â  the consumer buying process begins when essay The store manager showed Tim all the samples available with him and explained him the features and specifications of each model. This is called information. Tim before buying the laptop checked few other options as well. The information can come from various other sources such as newspaper, websites, magazines, advertisements, billboards etc. This explains the consumer buying decision process. 1. Step 1 Need is the most important factor which leads to buying of products and services. Need infact is the catalyst which triggers the buying decision of individuals. An individual who buys cold drink or a bottle of mineral water identifies his/her need as thirst. However in such cases steps such as information search and evaluation of alternatives are generally missing. These two steps are important when an individual purchases expensive products/services such as laptop, cars, mobile phones and so on. 2. Step 2 When an individual recognizes his need for a particular product/service he tries to gather as much information as he can. An individual can acquire information through any of the following sources: * Personal Sources He might discuss his need with his friends, family members, co workers and other acquaintances. * Commercial sources Advertisements, sales people (in Tim’s case it was the store manager), Packaging of a particular product in many cases prompt individuals to buy the same, Displays (Props, Mannequins etc) * Public sources Newspaper, Radio, Magazine * Experiential sources Individual’s own experience, prior handling of a particular product (Tim would definitely purchase a Dell laptop again if he had already used one) 3. Step 3 The next step is to evaluate the various alternatives available in the market. An individual after gathering relevant information tries to choose the best option available as per his need, taste and pocket. 4. Step 4 After going through all the above stages, customer finally purchases the product. 5. Step 5 The purchase of the product is followed by post purchase evaluation. Post purchase evaluation refers to a customer’s analysis whether the product was useful to him or not, whether the product fulfilled his need or not?

An analysis of the conventions the soap opera genre Essay Example for Free

An analysis of the conventions the soap opera genre Essay In this essay I intend to explore the genre of Soap Opera and some of the conventions that determine the genre. The Soap Opera genre is defined as A serialized drama usually dealing with domestic problems. Eastenders and Coronation Street are prime examples of the Genre. Soap Operas originated in America in the late 1950s and started being shown in England in the late 1960s. Soap Operas are named after the sponsors of the shows were Soap Products. These shows were a marketing strategy to sell the soap products. The ratings for the 2 Soap Operas mentioned are constantly at the top of the list. The ratings for particular episodes in which a story line is thickening have been up to 10 million viewers watching one episode. Increasing popularity in this genre has provided a phenomenon in spin-off products such as magazines devoted to the soaps. Actors and actresses are becoming celebrities and are appearing on talk shows because of their increasing popularity. The Soap Opera Genre has its own identifiable conventions, some of which will be explored. My particular soap that I will be analyzing is Eastenders. The episode that I will be analyzing is the episode on Monday 25th of November 2002. The time this episode was on TV was 8:00pm. Eastenders has a great slot in the channel schedule. Prime time t. v. is from 7-9pm and Eastenders popularity has also come from the time it is broadcast. The episode is half an hour long. This soap opera is shown before the watershed, which means there are certain things, which cannot be shown. There is never any swearing and hardly any violence used. I selected this soap because it has been going on for over 30 years and is one of the most popular soaps in England. The story lines that are used in this episode are: Phil Mitchell wants to find out what the postcard from Lisa says. Laura and the Doctor are having a meeting to find who wrote the poison pen letters. In the scenes that I will be focusing on the conventions of character will now be explored. There are mostly characters that have a history and meaning they are more rounded characters. There are 2 or 3 stereotype characters. Phil Mitchell is a very aggressive person that few people like. When people that he doesnt like tell him what to do he gets angry and threatens them and doesnt care what trouble he can get in. When he talked to someone about a postcard that had been sent from Lisa he was very aggressive and demanded to read it. The other man said no and told him to stop interfering with his life. Phil told him maybe he would maybe he wouldnt. He does what ever he wants and doesnt care who he tramples along the way. He loves his mother and protects her. He thinks that he can control everybody in the square. He has got into trouble with the police before and is a recovering alcoholic. He has 2 children and when with them he is made to look as if he such a soft character and a loving father rather than what he is everywhere else. Different camera shots are used when filming Phil to make him look powerful and menacing. He is filmed to look as if he is more powerful than anybody else in the same room. He is one of the main characters of Eastenders and is there to cause trouble and tension in the soap. I will now analyze my chosen 5 minutes where there is tension and many conventions used. The 5 minutes that I have chosen are where some of the people from the square are having a meeting to try and find who is writing poison pen letters. As the tension builds up the scene changes to the pub breaking the tension and prolonging you from knowing what was going to come if the scene hadnt been changed. The camera shots used only show 1 or 2 peoples faces to let the viewer see the facial expression of the person. When the scene changes to the pub the camera shots change and a panning shot is used to distinguish who is in the pub. The shot stops to people having conversations in the pub. When the scene changes you can see the lighting is different. It gets darker but there is enough light to see the people and their expressions. The camera focuses in on one of the people when they have something to say. The camera at the beginning of the scene turns around showing all the people in the room but from then on the camera doesnt turn but cuts from person to person. As the scene gets to the end someone is walking in to the room hearing something that shouldnt have been heard. The camera changes back and forth from the person speaking, to the person walking into the room. Eventually when the person walks into the room the camera angle is changed and shows the person who walked into the room taller than anybody else making the rest of the people in the room feel small. The camera cuts very quickly to all the different peoples faces showing their surprise and emotion. The camera stays on the person who walked in on the people until she has finished what she has to say. Then the camera cuts back to the peoples faces. This gives the effect of the people being caught out and the person who wouldnt normally be in this situation the person who caught them out. I think that Soap Operas will be an important part in the TV industry for many years because it has domestic issues and provides entertainment for a whole variety of people and for most age groups. It will also be popular because it opens up many conversations on suggested story lines and what will happen next in the next episode. The soap opera has become more than a marketing strategy for selling soaps.

Babel Movie Analysis Essay

Babel Movie Analysis Essay The Book of Genesis tells the story of the Tower of Babel. After the Great Flood all of the humankind spoke the same language. People decided to build a city with the tower that can reach heaven. The Tower was built not to worship God, but to make a name for the builders: Then they said, Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves; otherwise we shall be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth. Afterwards, God came down to Earth, and was displeased with the intentions of the builders and the purpose of the Tower of Babel, and he confused their language to break the main principle of their power unity. God also scattered the citizens of Babylon all around the globe. Before going into the analysis of the movie, I would like to make use of the Clifford Geertz argument of cultural interpretations. Social facts and culture are different things, but they are interconnected. If to apply Geertzs terminology we can call a movie director an ethnographer. And whatever the ethnographer researches or studies is highly interpretive to him, to his social facts, culture, norms and values. Culture tends to resist, or is permitted to resist and thus can escape systematic modes of assessment. You either grasp interpretation or you do not, see the point of it or not, accept it or not  [3]  . Therefore, this film in interpreted through the lens of directors perception, so I as a viewer interpret it further through my perception of culture and social facts. The movie Babel was directed by a Mexican director Alejandro Gonzalez. The plot of the movie tells the story of 4 different families American, Moroccan, Mexican and Japanese; and all of these families are interconnected by a series of events and face different social facts imposed by diverse societies with various values and cultural norms. Emile Durkheim defined social fact in two ways. First goes as following A social fact is any way of acting, whether fixed or not, capable of exerting over the individual an external constraint  [4]  . In this definition, Durkheim introduces the idea of social constraint which identifies reasoning behind actions as social facts. Meaning that there are various pressures on an individual on how to act, or of to act in the first place. If he/she violates and breaks this constraint, the consequence of this might be moral (sense of wrongdoing; being judged by people around you) or on the greater scale legal  [5]  . In the movie we can see examples of social constraints to a different extent in all of the 3 story lines. For example, in the beginning of the film the father of the Moroccan family purchases a rifle for his young sons so that they can defend the sheep from jackals. When both of the sons test the rifle, it appeared that younger brother (Yussef) shoots better that the ol der one (Ahmed). This can be interpreted as a social constraint for Ahmed, who felt being judged by the others, even if he was not. What might have given boost to this feeling of judgement is the case of a strong patriarchal rule in Morocco, where more pressure, to some extent, is put on a man. To some level this led to the incident of the bus shooting, where Ahmed was trying to prove that he can shoot better than his younger brother. Another example can be given from this storyline. Yussef was spying on his sister while she was bathing. She knew that her brother was spying, but did nothing to stop it, which on the contrary meant encouragement on some level. This brings the topic of incest taboo to the table. This is constraint which will be not just judged upon, but the legal action can be taken as well. The topic if incest is extremely sensitive and is not tolerated in modern days, although it was acceptable from ancient times in various royal families (e.g. Cleopatras first husband was her brother). Later on, when father found out about what was going on, he physically and verbally punishes children. One of the Durkheim arguments included the way that the children are brought up: Parents impose upon the child ways of seeing, thinking and acting which he himself would not have arrived at spontaneously  [6]  . Further more, Spencer argues that rational education should be reject in favour of giving the child complete freedom. I personally disagree with this view. I do realize that not all of the people are parent material, but this sort view is extreme. Children should be taught certain limitations, rules and values; but the correct balance should be found. As the saying goes Children are their parents reflection. Durkheims second definition was that social fact is general over the whole of a given society whilst having an existence of its own, independent of its individual manifestations. This definition takes more general approach to social facts. In order to better understand this concept Durkheim introduced the term social currents  [7]  which are collective emotions, feelings and thoughts in a group, which have stronger impact than any individuals own emotions. The groups experience originates outside of the individual and moves on to all of the members of the group. Durkheim argues that this has certain coercive effect, meaning that while individuals in the group allow shared experience to strengthen, they also keep an illusion of having created, that which actually forced itself from without  [8]  . Moreover, if an individual separates himself from the group emotion, he will find out that the emotion was not his own and will be met by resistance from the rest of the group, if to attempt to show another felling or emotion. This is exactly what happened to American family in Morocco. American woman got accidentally shot while on the bus tour. Bus driver goes to a nearest village, which only had a veterinarian who sewed the wounds. But the wounded woman still needed full medical care because of severe blood loss, so they were waiting for the ambulance which was driving from the nearest hospital (3 hours away). At the same time other tourists on the bus wanted to leave the woman and her husband (Richard) in the fear of another attack (the first attack was quickly labelled terrorist) and concerns over heat. The tour group and Richard engage in several arguments, eventually resulting in tour group leaving while Richard was on the phone. So if we put this example in previously mentioned Durkheims arguments we can see that after the accident the bus group was divided. The groups experience originated from outside, which in this case was the shooting. But Richard and his wife were quickly separated from the group; because now the group did not share same emotion and the same goals. Consequently, the tour group resisted Richards arguments and left. It is not certain what would have been the outcome of this situation if someone else would have shoot. Every group has a leader, which in the movie was played by a British tourist. What if he got shot? Would have this made a different outcome? Or just actors change and the end result remains the same? I guess the outcome will vary significantly depending on parameters of the situation. The next issue of the movie I would like to address is suicide. We observe the story of a Japanese family Yasujiro and Chieko Wataya. Yasujiro is a widower, whose wife committed suicide and is confronted with communication difficulties with his daughter Chieko, who is deaf mute. Because of Chiekos disability, she is seen as an outcast in the society, with people constantly shutting her down while she is in need of a simple human contact. Later in the movie, she told a police officer that her mother committed suicide by jumping off the balcony, while the truth was that she shot herself. And in the end of the movie we find Chieko standing on the edge as the balcony, which I interpreted as suicide intent. Durkheim wrote extensively on topic of suicide, implementing social current into the issue. He took various approaches such as quantitative and statistical, analysis of weather and season, etc  [9]  . But this data just showed statistics and patters, but not the cause, which in Du rkheims view was social. Durkheim argues that one of the most important aspects for explanation of suicide rates are the degree of integration into and regulation by society. Also depending on the size of the family the larger the family, the lesser the chance of suicide within it. Thus, Japanese families in general (inc. the Watayas) tend to be small in size, which according to Durkheim makes members within them more prone to suicide. Coming back to the role of the society, Durkheim gave a sociological explanation: Each social group really has a collective inclination for the act, quite its own, and the source of all individual inclination, rather than the result. It is made up of the currents of egoism, altruism or anomy running through the society. These tendencies of the whole social body, by affecting individuals, cause them to commit suicide.  [10]  We can see an example of this in the movie, when Chieko and her friend are approached by the boy who invites them for a drink with his friends, but as soon as he realises that both girls are deaf mute, he leaves and laughs with his friends. Such tendencies can cause intent to commit suicide. But what Durkheim does not mention, is how and what people attribute to the actions and behaviour of others, which undermines his theory significantly. Overall, Babel brings out various interesting issues in sociological terms. The movie after all is fictional, and so are the characters; but the social facts and culture are real. Durkheims theories are sound, clear, and are easy to put into real-life situations. But on the other hand, if to completely follow his idea of social facts, our behaviour is more or less predicted by them, and we almost have no option but to accept them. People can do anything they like as long as it does not harm others J.S. Mill On Liberty