Business Report Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words - 4

Business Report - Essay Example The most recent count of the dead in 7,000 and rising, and as rescue efforts escalate various problems are starting to emerge relating to the difficulties in distributing aid, and the challenges in successfully managing the logistics tied to the relief process. In some areas that are the most badly hit and where the people have been chronically in need of help, the aid simply has not arrived. It is in this spirit that this business report is written, with an eye to exploring new products that can be deployed and used in disaster areas such as Nepal, with the aim of helping the displaced Nepalese in the most effective manner. The logistics of delivering aid to those who are most in need of them in disaster-struck areas such as Nepal require novel solutions, and require creativity in the use of available new technologies and products in order to crack seemingly intractable problems, save lives, and give hope to both rescue providers and the most desperate and destitute victims. The ear thquake in Nepal and the dire situation of the people who are in the disaster areas highlight the importance and the urgency of the use and availability of such new products. The problem lies in unearthing these products and creatively making use of them for them precisely in order to help in the direst situations in badly hit parts of Nepal and other such zones of disaster. The purpose of this business report is to present new products that can be deployed and used in disaster-hit areas (Khan; Burke).

Allocating a Scarce Resource Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Allocating a Scarce Resource - Assignment Example According to FAO Director-General Dr. Jacques Diouf, â€Å"agriculture is the number-one user of freshwater worldwide. The agriculture sector must take the lead in coping with water scarcity by finding more effective ways to conserve rain-fed moisture and irrigate farmlands† (FAO Newsroom 2007). As validated by Rogers and Wilson (2000), â€Å"irrigation represents by far the largest use of water in the state of Kansas†. In recognizing the need to conserve this limited resource, the state has outlined guidelines for an irrigation water conservation plan which aims to assist irrigators in preparing plans for water conservation in their respective local areas (Kansas Water Office, et.al. 2006). As properly identified by state authorities and by the farmers themselves, and by preparing said guidelines for water conservation for irrigation purposes, the local residents of Kansas have recognized the imminent danger of water resource scarcity and state water conflicts. The state recognizes the need to â€Å"curtail waste of water and ensure that water use does not exceed reasonable needs† (ibid). Three state agencies are closely monitoring water irrigation practices of farmers. These are the Division of Water Resources (DWR), the Groundwater Management Districts (GMD) and/or the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS). In an important study conducted by the U.S. Geological Survey in cooperation with the Kansas Water Office, the effect of irrigation practices on water usage was determined. The results of the study revealed that despite increased efficiency in irrigation practices, water usage did not decrease or even increased significantly (US Water News Online 2006). Another study conducted by Perry (2006), â€Å"although irrigation water use for all Groundwater Management Districts showed no statistically significant trend, an apparently increased efficiency of center pivots irrigation systems with drop nozzles has allowed more water-intensive crops to be grown on  more irrigated acres†.

The Inditex-Zara case

The Inditex-Zara case INTRODUCTION In todays highly competitive and global marketplace, the pressure on organizations to find new ways to create and deliver value to the customers grows even stronger. Market development combined with new sources of global competition has led to over-capacity in many industries. Putting an incredible pressure on price, as often is the critical competitive variable. This leads to the need of more effectiveness and efficiency inside a business. It is against these new conditions that the use of supply chain management has moved to the centre stage over the last two decades (Christopher, 2004). To manage the supply chain better, is to serve the customers more effectively and yet reduce the cost of providing that service. There has been a growing recognition that it is through this kind of management that it can be achieved a twin goal of cost reduction and service improvement. Even if the concept of integration within the business and between businesses is not new, the acceptance of its validity by managers is. According to Chris Zook managing the supply chain is not an easy task (Zook, 2001). Most companies do not manage to achieve their intended goals. Nevertheless, those which are doing well today have on average low odds to be doing so in the next five to ten years. An important key to do well is to understand why some companies succeed and others do not. This to avoid common pitfalls and instead of spending time recovering from previous mistakes, the company can focus on the future. With this in mind, this coursework will look into how businesses manage their supply chain. This by looking into the supply chain of the fastest growing clothing brand in Europe and the world today, Zara, and highlight the main characteristics of the supply chain management as well as its application ( market chain). If the chances are small to succeed, what do successful companies do right that others do wrong? COMPANY PROFILE Zara is the flagship chain store of Inditex group owned by Spanish tycoon Amancio Ortega. Zara is the most internationalized of Inditex ´s chains. The group is headquartered in A Coruà ±a, Spain, where the first Zara store opened in 1975. Now Inditex, the holding group that includes the Zara brand, has over 1300 stores in 39 countries with sales of over â‚ ¬3 billion. (Zara 2009) The Zara brand accounts for over 75 per cent of the group ´s total retail sales, and is still based in northwest Spain. By 2003 it had become the world ´s fastest-growing volume garment retailer. The Inditex group also has several other branded chains, including Pull and Bear, and Massimo Dutti. In total it employs almost 40,000 people in a business that is known for a high degree of vertical integration compared with most fast fashion companies.(Cowe, et.al.2008:271) It is claimed that Zara needs just two weeks to develop a new product and get it to the stores, compared with a six month industry average, and launches around 40,000 new designs each year. Zara has resisted the industry-wide trend towards transferring fast fashion production to low-cost countries. While it spent little on ads, it spent heavily on stores. Zara is a vertically integrated retailer. Unlike similar apparel retailers, Zara controls most of the steps on the supply-chain: It designs, produces and distributes itself. The business system that had resulted was particularly distinctive in that Zara manufactured its most fashion-sensitive products internally. Zara did not produce classics, clothes that would always be in style. In fact, the company intended its clothes to have fairly short life spans, both within stores and in customers ´ closets. LITERATURE REVIEW Value Chain The idea of the value chain is based on the process view of organizations, the idea of seeing a manufacturing (or service) organization as a system, made up of subsystems each with inputs, transformation processes and outputs. Inputs, transformation processes, and outputs involve the acquisition and consumption of resources-money, labor, materials, equipment, buildings, land, administration and management. How value chain activities are carried out determines costs and affects profits. Most organizations engage in hundreds, even thousands, of activities in the process of converting inputs to outputs. These activities can be classified generally as either primary or support activities that all businesses must undertake in some form. (Cowe et al.2008:81). The outlined process of Porter ´s value chains is presented in see Figure 1. According to Porter (1985), the primary activities are: Inbound Logistics: involve relationships with suppliers and include all the activities required to receive, store, and disseminate inputs. Operations: are all the activities required to transform inputs into outputs (products and services). Outbound Logistics: include all the activities required to collect, store, and distribute the output. Marketing and Sales: activities inform buyers about products and services, induce buyers to purchase them, and facilitate their purchase. Service: includes all the activities required to keep the product or service working effectively for the buyer after it is sold and delivered. Support activities are: Procurement: is the acquisition of inputs, or resources, for the firm. Human Resource management: consists of all activities involved in recruiting, hiring, training, developing, compensating and (if necessary) dismissing or laying off personnel. Technological Development: pertains to the equipment, hardware, software, procedures and technical knowledge brought to bear in the firms transformation of inputs into outputs. Infrastructure: serves the companys needs and ties its various parts together, it consists of functions or departments such as accounting, legal, finance, planning, public affairs. Supply Chain Management Supply Chain Management (SCM) is the management of the relationships and flows between the string of operations and processes that produce value in the form of products and services to the ultimate consumer. It is a holistic approach to managing across the boundaries of companies and of processes. Technically, supply chains are different from supply networks. A supply network is all the operations that linked together so as to provide goods and services through to end customers. In large supply network there can be many hundreds of supply chains of linked operations passing through a single operations. Internal supply network, and supply chain, management concerns flow between processes or departments. Confusingly, the terms supply network and supply chain management are often used interchangeably. (Cowe, et.al.2008:244) It is worth emphasizing again that the supply chain concept applies to internal process networks as well as external supply networks. Many of the ideas discussed in the context of the operation-to-operation supply chain also apply to the process-to-process internal supply chain. It is also worth nothing that the flows in supply chains are not restricted to the downstream flow products and services from suppliers through to the customers. Although the most obvious failure in supply chain management occurs when downstream flow fails to meet customer requirements, the root cause may be a failure in the upstream flow of information. Modern supply chain management is as much concerned with managing information flows (upstream and downstream) as it is with managing the flow of products and services. (See Figure 2) Information System Management In the current competition of the modern world, information relating to inputs, the transformation process and outputs is the vital resource organization owns to add value. An information system management is a planned system of the collecting, processing, storing and disseminating data in the form of information needed to carry out the functions of management. (Kotler 2006) The development of an ISM is nowadays greatly facilitated by the increasing sophistication and affordability of powerful personal computers and various other aspects of information technology (IT). Thus, technology is improving the speed and reliability with which information is passed not only around the individual organization but also around the globe, and `dramatic reductions in the cost of obtaining, processing and transmitting information are changing the way we do business (Porter and Millar, 1991). Porters value chain (Porter, 1980, 1985) was developed as a method for analyzing the sources of competitive advantage available to a firm. IS assumes that competitive advantage results from a combination of the many different activities a firm pursues during the course of its business, rather than coming from one individual source. CASE STUDY ZARA Operation Management Different organisations have to target customers in order to offer some services or product that someone is willing to pay for it. Operation management is pretty much involved with making this possible. Operation management is the activity of managing the resources and processes that produce goods and services and more specifically operation management examines how the operations function of a business produces products and services for external customers. (Cowe, et.al.2008:204). The general transformation process model (Figure 4) shows an arrangement of resources that transforms inputs into outputs that satisfy customer needs. In the case of Zara (Figure 5) the inputs of the organization are comprised of the raw materials, such as the fabrics that after design and manufacturing-retailing will produce the garments, information such as products protocol, human resources such as the designers that has the skills and knowledge to produce the garments. The transformation process consists of the manufacturing and services operations that are necessary to transform input into output, which are spitted into three basic product divisions: mens and womens and kids apparel, such as lower garment, upper garment, shoes, boots, bags, cosmetique and complements. All processes differ in some way, so, to some extent all processes need to be managed differently. In addition processes also differ in terms of the nature of their demand that is why we have to take into account those next four characteristics, which indicate how process need to be managed: Volume, variety, variation and visibility. In the case of Zara the operations process is unique and envied throughout the world: Volume: In terms of volume Zara is high. Although there is a high degree of systemization of the process to produce garments, due to the turnover in each shop is replaced every two weeks is a unique case. Variety: In terms of variety Zara is as high as the volume is. It has a wide range of products for men, women and children such as cosmetiques, suits and sport clothes respectively for each one. Variation: The variation in demand is quite high; because the demand is unpredictable and cannot be planned in advanced, extra resources will have to be designed into the process to provide a mechanism which can absorb unexpected demand. Zara will have to cope with the general seasonality of the garment market together with the uncertainty of whether particular styles may or may not prove popular. Visibility: In terms of visibility of the process is to the customer is low as they are simply presented with the final product to try on and finally purchase. All the above are summarized in Figure 6. Due to the high volume and variety involved in the process the key process choice is the batch process. A high volume of identical Items are produced together hence the flow is intermittent as each batch although requiring the same basic skills requires different variety and expertise in detail. The lay out type is undoubtedly the product layout type. Once the goods have been produced on the factory floor they are moved to store houses and quickly shipped to the high streets. Hence we can say the fit between the layout and the process type is correct as product based processes are used for high volume processes in general. Supply Chain Management Supply chain management is the management of the interconnection of organizations that relate to each other through upstream and downstream linkages between the processes that produce value to the ultimate consumer in the form of products and services. (MacKerron, G. (2009) Lectures slides for MBA) Zara operates using a vertical supply chain, which is a unique strategy in the fashion industry. Vertically integrated business undertakes a variety of activities from designing, manufacturing, sourcing, and distribution to retail stores around the world. They choose to handle design, production, and distribution in-house and concentrate the whole production close to their headquarters in Spain. By integrating the entire process, Zara can react much faster than its competitors do to both the ephemeral trends in the world of fashion and the capricious tastes of its customers. At the end of every working day the manager of a Zara store reports exactly what has been sold to headquarters. This information is quickly relayed to the design department where product lines can be altered, supplanted or created in a matter of days. This gives the company total business management. (See Figure 7) In an interview with CNN, Jose Maria Castellano, chief executive at Inditex, talked about Zaras supply chain and indicated its unusual structure by saying: Investment banks used to say that this model did not work, but we have shown that it gives us more flexibility in production, sales and stock management, (Zara Who we are, 2001) The Zara  ´supply chain management operation leads to customer visit the store over four times more frequently than other stores. Spontaneous design, just-in time production and rapid turnover of merchandise lead to a higher level of fashionable clothes. Even though the labor cost in Europe is higher, the efficiency of this system allows Zara to keep costs down by spending less cost on transportation and keeping inventories low refer. (Figure 7) Design Zara emphasize the importance of design in this market, its design functions are organized in a different way from those of most similar companies. Conventionally, the design input come from three separate functions: the designers themselves, market specialists, and buyers who place orders on to suppliers. At Zara the design stage is split into three product areas: women ´s, men ´s and children ´s garments. In each area, designers, market specialists, and buyers are co-located in designs halls that also contain small workshops for trying out prototype designs. The market specialists in all three design halls are in regular contact with Zara retail stores, discussing customer reaction to new designs. In this way, the retail stores are not the end of the whole supply chain but the beginning of the design stage of the chain. Zara ´s around 300 designers, whose average age is 26, produce approximately 40,000 items per year of which about 10,000 go into production. The retailer company has moved away from the traditional industry practice of offering two collections a year, for Spring/Summer and Autumn/Winter. Their seasonless cycle involves the continual introduction of new products on a rolling basis throughout the year. This allows designers to learn from customers reactions to their new products and incorporate them quickly into more new products. In the case of Zara the garment is designed; a batch is manufactured and pulsed through the supply chain. Often the design is never repeated; it may be modified and another batch produced, but there is no design as such. (Cowe, et.al.2008:271) Manufacturing In the fickle world of fashion, even seemingly well-targeted designs could go out of favor in the months it takes to get plans to contract manufacturers, tool up production, then ship items to warehouses and eventually to retail locations. But getting locally targeted designs quickly onto store shelves is where Zara really excels. The average time for a Zara concept to go from idea to appearance in store is 15 days vs. rivals who receive new styles once or twice a season. Smaller tweaks arrive even faster. If enough customers come in and ask for, say a round neck instead of a v neck, a new version can be in stores with in just 10 days (Tagliabue, 2003). To put that in perspective, Zara is twelve times faster than Gap (its direct competitor), despite offering roughly ten times more unique products. (Helft, 2002) Nearly 60% of Zaras merchandise is produced in-house, with an eye on leveraging technology in those areas that speed up complex tasks, lower cycle time, and reduce error. Profits from this clothing retailer come from blending math with its data-driven fashion sense. Inventory optimization models help the firm determine how many of which items in which sizes should be delivered to stores during twice-a-week shipments, ensuring stores are stocked with just what they need(Gentry, 2007). Outside the distribution center in La Coruà ±a, fabric is cut and dyed by robots in 23 highly automated factories. Zara is so vertically integrated, the firm makes 40 percent of its own fabric and purchases most of its dyes from its own subsidiary. Most Zara factories and their sub-contrators work on a single-shift system to retain some voume flexibility. (Tokatli, 2007) Distribution Zara has invested in highly automated warehouses, close to their main production centres that store, pack and assemble individual orders for their retail networks. These automated warehouses represent a major investment for both companies. In 2001, Zara caused some press comment by announcing that it would open a second automated warehouse even though, by its own calculations, it was only using about half its existing warehouse capacity. Zara is able to deliver the new design apparel from the drawing board to the stores in one or two weeks and therefore can respond very quickly to fast-changing tastes of their young urban customers (Walker et al., 2000). Retail All Zara stores (average size, 800 square metres) are owned and run solely by Inditex. Perhaps the most remarkable characteristic of Zara stores is that garments rarely stay for longer than two weeks. Because product designs are often not repeated and are produced In relatively small batches, the range of garments displayed in the store can change radically every two or three weeks. This encourages customers to avoid delaying a purchase and to revisit the store frequently. Below is a diagram that shows the cycle how a product is made. The companys success is because of the total control in every aspect of the business, from designing, to production, and to distribution. By having total control of the entire process, the company can quickly react to the fast changing fashion trend and customer taste, this provides the company an idea of the latest fashion trend. Having total control in all business activities allows Zara to produce and release new design in a short span of time. Key success factors of Zara SCM Zara concentrates the perfect success formula pretty much based on: Short Lead Time = More fashionable clothes Lower quantities = Scarce supply More styles = More choice, and more chances of hitting it Firstly, by focusing on shorter response times, the company ensures that its stores are able to carry clothes that the consumers want at that time. Zara can move from identifying a trend to having clothes in its stores within 30 days, this means that Zara can quickly identify and catch a winning fashion trend, while its competitors are struggling to catch up. Catching fashion while it is hot is a clear recipe for better margins with more sales happening at full prices and fewer discounts. In comparison, most retailers of comparable size or even smaller, work on timelines that stretch into 4-12 months. Thus, most retailers try to forecast what and how much its customers might buy many months in the future, while Zara moves in step with its customers. Trend identification comes through constant research not just traditional consumer market research, but a daily stream of emails and phone calls from the stores to head office. Unlike other retailers, Zaras machinery can react to the repo rt immediately and produce a response in terms of a new style or a modification within 2-4 weeks. Many other retailers have such long supply chain lead times that for them it would seem a lost cause for them to even try and respond to a sales report. Secondly, by reducing the quantity manufactured in each style, Zara not only reduces its exposure to any single product but also creates an artificial scarcity. As with all things fashionable, the less its availability, the more desirable the object becomes. The added benefit of lower quantities is that if a style does not work well, there is not much to be disposed during the season-end sale. The result of this is that Zara discounts only about 18 percent of its production, roughly half the levels of competitors. Thirdly, instead of more quantities per style, Zara produces more styles, roughly 12,000 a year. Thus, even if a style sells out very quickly, there are new styles already waiting to take up the space. Zara can offer more choices in more current fashions than many of its competitors. It delivers merchandise to its stores twice a week, and since re-orders are rare the stores look fresh every 3-4 days. Fresh produce, moving in step with the fashion trend and updated frequently the ingredients are just right to create the sweet smell of success. Now, the question is how does Zara achieve its three key success factors which would be a nightmare for most other retailers to achieve in such short time spans? So, let us look at the mechanisms that enable Zara to deliver on these parameters as well as some unique aspects of the retailers business model on figure 7 Supply Chain Objectives The objective of an effective supply chain management is to meet the requirements of end customers by supplying appropriate products and services when they are needed, at a competitive cost. Doing this requires the supply chain to achieve appropriate levels of the five operations performance objectives: quality, speed, dependability, flexibility and cost. (Cowe, et.al.2008:249) The quality objective: Zara brand name is synonymous with quality and the right price. Stores are located on emblematic streets likeOxford Street and5th avenue; the highest standards of products are demanded in these areas. 65% of products sold in Europe are produced in European plants where quality controls are higher and easier to manage. Flawed clothing items would erode the brand name eventually. The speed objective: hectic changes in fashion and high street tastes imply a need for logistic speed. Goods can be designed and delivered to the shelf within 6 weeks. In fact items spend so little time in the warehouse that they are already sold before they have to be paid for to their suppliers. The flexibility objective: demand for different types of clothing will changes and Zara must react accordingly. Sizes, color, quality and quality will change continuously. The customer has an active role from the start of the chain and is the drive for its business model. Customer requests are considered by the commercial and design team. The dependability objective: delivering on time to stores in a must. Customers have come to expect new items on a weekly basis on the shelves. The cost objective: affordability is vital to Zaras strategy however only 35% of goods are produced in Asia. This implies that operations management must be at its leanest as they operate within Europe where the cost structure is much higher. Zara ´s senior managers seem to comprehend intuitively the nonlinear relationship between capacity utilization, demand variability, and responsiveness. This relationship is well demonstrated by queuing theory which explains that a as capacity utilization begins to increase form low levels, waiting times increase gradually. But at some point, as the systems uses more of the available capacity, waiting times accelerates rapidly. As demand becomes ever more variable, this acceleration starts at lower and lower levels of capacity utilization. (Figure ) Information System Management of Zara Information and communications technology is at the heart of Zaras business. Zara is careful about the way it deploys the latest information technology tools to facilitate these informal exchanges. The company undertake different devices in order to increase the speed which basically gives them the competitive advantage over its competitors. The information system management of Zara are the followings: Collecting information on consumer needs; customized handheld computers support the connection between the retail stores and La Coruà ±a. These PDAs supplement regular, often weekly, phone conversations between the store managers and the market specialists assigned to them. Through the PDAs and telephone conversations, stores transmit all kinds of information to La Coruà ±a, such hard data as orders and sales trends and such soft data as customer reactions and the buzz around a new style. While any company can use PDAs to communicate, Zaras flat organization ensures that important conversations do not fall through the bureaucratic cracks. PDAs are also linked to the stores point-of-sale (POS) system, showing how garments rank by sales. In less than an hour, managers can send updates that combine the hard data captured at the cash register combined with insights on what customers would like to see. All of this valuable data allows the firm to plan styles and issue re-buy orders base d on feedback rather than hunches and guesswork. The goal is to improve the frequency and quality of sense making for the design planning teams. In this way, Zara avoids costly overproduction and the subsequent sales and discounting prevalent in the industry. (Rohwedder and Johnson, 2008) Standardization of product information different or incomplete specifications and varying product information availability typically add several weeks to a typical retailers product design and approval process, but Zara warehouses the product information with common definitions, allowing it to quickly and accurately prepare designs, with clear cut manufacturing instructions. Product information and inventory management being able to manage thousands of fabric and trim specifications, design specifications as well as their physical inventory, gives Zaras team the capability to design a garment with available stocks, rather than having to order and wait for the material to come in. Distribution management: its State-of-the-art distribution facility functions with minimal human intervention. Approximately 200 kilometers of underground tracks move merchandise from Zaras manufacturing plants to the 400 chutes that ensure each order reaches its right destination. Optical reading devices sort out and distribute more than 60,000 items of clothing an hour. Zaras merchandise does not waste time waiting for human sorting. CONCLUSION Zara has an unordinary supply chain, which gives them a highly competitive advantage. In a time of globalisation and a constant search for lower cost, Zara is a notable exception. They choose to handle design, production, and distribution in-house and concentrate the whole production close to their headquarters in Spain. By integrating the entire process, Zara can react much faster than its competitors do to both the ephemeral trends in the world of fashion and the capricious tastes of its customers. At the end of every working day the manager of a Zara store reports exactly what has been sold to headquarters. This information is quickly relayed to the design department where product lines can be altered, supplanted or created in a matter of days. BIBLIOGRAPHY Cowe, A., Mackerron G. And Milliken, A. (2008) Creating Competitive Advantage, Harlow, Pearson Education Linited Institute of Personnel Management. Echikson, W.,(200) The Mark of Zara, BusinessWeek Gentry, C., (2007) European Fashion Stores Edge Past U.S. Counterparts, Chain Store Age Heller, R. (2001), Inside ZARA, Forbes, New York, NY. Helft, M. (2002) Fashion Fast Forward, Business 2.0. MacKerron, G. (2009) Lectures slides for MBA students of Napier University. Porter, M. E. and Millar, V. E. (1991) `How information gives you competitive advantage, in M. E.Porter (ed.) (1991) On Competition and Strategy. Harvard Business Review Paperback No. 90079. M. Christopher (2004), Logistics and Supply Change Management. Pearson Education, Great Britain. Porter, M. E. (1980) Competitive Strategy: Techniques for Analyzing Industries and Competitors, Free Press, New York. Zook, C. (2001), Profit from the Core. Harvard Business School Press, Boston, Massachusetts. Porter, Michael E., Competitive Advantage. 1985, Ch. 1, pp 11-15. The Free Press. New York. Rowe, Mason, Dickel, Mann, Mockler; Strategic Management: a methodological approach. 4th Edition, 1994. Addison-Wesley. Reading Mass. Rohwedder, C., and Johnson, K., Pace-Setting Zara Seeks More Speed to Fight Its Rising Cheap-Chic Rivals, The Wall Street Journal, Feb. 20, 2008. Tagliabue, J., (2003) A Rival to Gap that Operates like Dell, The New York Times. Tagliabue, J. (2003), Spanish fashion chain Zara rivals Gap by operating like Dell', New York Times, 9 June. The Economist, (2005) The Future of Fast Fashion Tokatli, N.,(2007) Global sourcing: insights from the global clothing industry the case of Zara, a fast fashion retailer, Journal of Economic Geography. Kotler, Philip; Keller, Kevin Lane (2006). Marketing Management (12 ed.).Pearson Education. Harvard Business Review, Vol. 82, No.11, November 2004. INDITEX (2008) Who we are Walker, B., Bovet, D. and Martha, J. (2000), Unlocking the supply chain to build competitive advantage, Journal of Logistic Management, Vol. 11 No. 2.

A Line in the Sand - Original Writing :: Papers

A Line in the Sand - Original Writing A line. A simple, one-dimensional mark. It may be the edge of a square, the shortest distance between two points, or markings on the road. Lines, gentlemen, are boring yet useful tools in life. Right? Wrong! There is one line I would like to tell you about. If you were seen stepping over this line, it would result in your death on the spot, no questions asked. This is a line drawn in the sand. This line has caused the largest population movement ever witnessed by humankind. Upon construction of this line, 3.5 million people had to move from one side and 5 million from the other. There are estimates that more that 20 million people were left homeless after the construction of this line. Who said lines were boring, not me! However, it runs deeper than that. Not only did people have to move, more than one million people were butchered on the construction of this line. The positioning of this line has been the cause of three wars: three bloody brutal wars. Now can I ask you, who in the right mind would make such a line as this? They would have to be mighty inhuman to draw a line that would kill a million people. But in the end, all they had done, was to draw a line in the sand, just a line in sand†¦nothing more, nothing less So where do you think this line is? Between Israel and Palestine†¦no Between North and South Korea†¦no. Between the former north and South Vietnam,†¦wrong again. The line, gentlemen was drawn in the state of Punjab, in 1947, in what was then undivided British India. The line created and separated Pakistan from India. Ancient India, which gave us modern numbering system, which gave us steel, which gave us surgery, was destroyed by a line in the sand. Culture and civilisations spanning thousands of years were split apart by a line in the sand. A country was shattered†¦.shattered by a line in the sand. Fifty-five years on and the trade of insults from leader to leader

Scheduling and Project Management (PERT and CRM)

Project Management is an important aspect of every business in the current scenario. The importance of project management was recognized at a very critical stage. The importance of working on projects has been emphasized since then. The study of managing projects relates to activity or an endeavor undertaken to achieve a certain business objective. Project Management at Dell helps them in many ways. While working in cross functional teams on any project the project team faces new and interesting situations which result in the increase of the knowledge and experience level of every member. Interaction between people of different fields also results in increasing a person’s diversity of jobs he or she can handle. Project Management also works on bringing close all the departments of Dell to stand as a mutual entity (Project Management Institute, 2004). Collaboration with each other in different departments helps in improving communication and reducing the barriers. The nine major knowledge areas of project management are well followed at Dell. Difficulties in implementing CRM in Dell are basically common problems faced by any company. These are the huge amount of data and finance required to run this operation. Other limitations are the integration of the Customer Relationship Management System with the original ERP. The constant technological changes might tempt a company for getting the latest technology first. CRM also requires a highly professional and dedicated marketing approach, which is feasible in situations of high competition (Roger J. Baran, Robert Galka and Daniel P. Strunk, 2007). There are difficulties or limitation faced by Dell while implementing PERT in their organization. PERT is a tool for time estimates of various activities of a project. As PERT only gives estimates hence it can be subjected to biases. A person making the estimates might judge differently than the person actually performing the task.

Disease in News

This article has been penned by Dr. Abigail Zuger who is an associate professor of Clinical Medicine at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons (JournalWatch ® Specialties, 2010).She is also the Senior Attending Physician at St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital Center (JournalWatch ® Specialties, 2010). Dr.  Abigail Zuger has exhibited expertise and special interest in the infectious diseases and specifically HIV infection as can be evidenced by her role as HIV specialist and a board certified internist in infectious disease and specifically HIV.In this particular peer-reviewed article, â€Å"Can Counseling Change Heterosexual HIV Transmission Rates,† Abigail bases her argument on a program conducted specifically on African-American heterosexual couples to assess the impact, if any, of the counseling on heterosexual transmission (Zuger, 2010).It is from the findings of this study that she came up with her conclusion that there is negligible, if any, impact of counseling on heterosexual HIV transmission within a number of communities, this therefore exonerates her from blame or accusation of bias in coming up with such an argument especially bearing the fact that counseling has been enlisted by majority of countries as a tool of reducing HIV prevalence rates within their population.Introduction For almost twenty years now most people have come to know of their HIV status through the Voluntary Counseling and Testing (VCT), a client-initiated AIDS testing and counseling. Because of its effectiveness in creating HIV awareness almost all governments have employed it in one way or the other in their effort at decelerating the rate of this killer disease (Buckley, 2002).One thing that this article notes that most of the us might not be familiar with is that counseling has not been able to directly reduce the HIV rates; instead it has created awareness about this disease thereby making knowledge of HIV status more prevalent and enabling peop le living with HIV to join care and treatment initiative of HIV while enabling those living without it to avoid HIV exposure and remain negative (World Health Organization, 2010).Therefore Abigail argument can be interpreted to mean that HIV rates are only indirectly influenced by counseling services but not directly as some people might think, therefore there are other factors that have to be present for counseling to be effective in reducing the rates of HIV prevalence and incidence. The reason why the program that Dr. Abigail bases her opinion on was carried out on African-American community is due to the fact that HIV incidence and prevalence has been disproportionately high within this community and especially heterosexual transmission (Zuger, 2010).The article’s content This article is all about the effectiveness of counseling has a tool of reducing the incidence and prevalence of HIV, in exploring the effectiveness of this method the author analysis a program undertake n on 535 HIV serodiscordant couples to check on whether their sexual behaviors before the counseling sessions are influenced in any way by the counseling itself (Zuger, 2010).It is disappointing to note that they seem to put into effect the sexual-risk reduction measures that they are taught for only a short period (12 months) and then revert back to business has usually which explain why HIV prevalence and incidence rates are high within this community more than any other in the United States. There is little evidence that members of this community avoid high-risk sexual behaviors after a counseling session providing them with sexual-risk reduction strategies. Article’s ClaimsEven though the author makes the humble submission that there is little that counseling can do to reduced the incident and prevalence of heterosexual HIV transmission within the African American community she which she bases from a didactic program, she is quick to note that further research, most proba bly not based on education program, should be conducted to reinforce the findings of this one that she bases her argument, this is captured in the comment section of this article where she declares her reservations when it come to data taken just after a didactic program just like this one (Zuger, 2010).Article’s claims HIV treatment The article might be silent on the probable treatment of this infection but the author offers advice on the best course of action in reducing HIV infection. This is best captured when he suggest that â€Å"similar counseling tools could be streamline into a long-term effort that would have more palpable success. (Zuger, 2010)† One thing about the finding of this article that a keen observer would note is that they might not apply in all circumstances, however the Multipronged approach that the author advocates for can and should be applied in all places because of its universality.It is evident that there are some communities where members have adopted sexual-risk reduction practices permanent after attending sexual-risk reduction counseling session. I also agree with the author that didactic programs are not always the best to draw a general conclusion on matter as sensitive as a HIV transmission. This therefore denies this article a national or even a global application. The inapplicability of the finding of this article in the national or global stage is further reinforced by the lack of the any scientific evidence to support the claims that this article makes. ConclusionThis article opens a case for further investigation, based on the findings of that programs that the authors bases her arguments it is likely that HIV incidences and prevalence are not sensitive to counseling in certain setting, it might also be possible that in other settings, like Brazil for instance where counseling has positively been credited with the reduction of incidence and prevalence of HIV (AVERTing, HIV and AIDS, 2010), the prevalence and incidence of HIV have responded to counseling and testing thereby making it an important procedure not just in enabling people to know their HIV status but also in empowering those not found living with HIV with information and techniques, like sexual-risk reduction practices, that will prevent them from contacting HIV and thereby reducing its prevalence and incidence among this population. One of the reasons which cast doubt on the finding of this program that the author bases her arguments is the fact that counseling and testing have been employed in almost all places and communities where HIV prevalence and incidence have been high thereby giving it a thumb-up (literary) when it comes to reducing HIV prevalence and incidence. That is the reason why counseling has been noted to be more helpful to people who have HIV because it has taught them on how to reduce HIV exposure and remain negative majority of whom have obeyed that call and backed it with actions. ReferencesZuger, Ab igail, Can Counseling Change Heterosexual HIV Transmission Rates, Journal watch HIV/AIDS Clinical Care 26 July 2010 World Health Organization, (2010). HIV Testing and Counseling. Retrieved 9 August 2010 from http://www. who. int/hiv/topics/vct/en/index. html JournalWatch ® Specialties, (2010). About The Journal Watch HIV/AIDS Clinical Care Editorial Board. Retrieved 9 August 2010 from http://aids-clinical-care. jwatch. org/misc/board_about. dtl#aZuger AVERTing, HIV and AIDS, (2010). HIV and AIDS in Brazil. Retrieved 9 August 2010 from http://www. avert. org/aids-brazil. htm Buckley, R. Michael, (2002). HIV Infection in Primary Care. Amsterdam: Elsevier Health Sciences