Friday, May 8, 2020

Teaching Students About Social Issues Is A Great Way To Help Them Learn

Teaching Students About Social Issues Is A Great Way To Help Them LearnOne of the things you need to do as a school teacher is to do social issues list for students. This way, you can determine how much you will have to learn in order to make certain students understand certain issues.One of the things that teachers are asked to teach is what is work. There are so many activities that you can do for students that are not working, like school plays and sports, but they still consider those to be work. Social issues such as bullying, drug abuse, and other social issues like that will not be considered work, but it is something that can be encouraged in the classroom.Sometimes you have to make sure that you do get on board with some of the social issues that are being talked about in the news or on television, but you also need to make sure that you do teach students how to deal with those issues in the workplace or in the community. You do need to learn about these issues, but you need to do social issues list for students to show what you need to do in your class.When it comes to stories about these topics, they are not all going to be very interesting reading. Some of them are going to sound very silly or pathetic. You need to make sure that you do something to make sure that you are being encouraging about social issues in the classroom.Teaching students what social issues are and what they are about can be a very fun and interesting part of the teaching process. You will find that most students enjoy hearing about their roles in society and what their responsibilities are. As a teacher, you need to give them some opportunities to learn and be educated about the different social issues that are out there.This is an important part of learning in the classroom. The students want to be educated about what a society looks like and whatis going on in the world. Teaching them the necessary lessons can help them learn about the important issues that are going on in t he world today.By doing social issues list for students, you can teach them how to handle certain issues. You can teach them about what is working and what is not working. You can teach them about dealing with people and how the workplace works.

Wednesday, May 6, 2020

Mark Twain s Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn - 1562 Words

Mark Twain (Samuel Langhorne Clemens) Introduction Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835- April 21, 1910), commonly known as Mark Twain was an American writer whose works act as social commentary on issues including racism, poverty and class distinctions. His most distinguished novels, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and its sequel, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885) convey the vanquished way of life in the pre-Civil War Mississippi Valley and life on the river. His unpretentious, colloquial, yet poetic style and wide-ranging humor embodies the development of ideologies based upon the American Dream. Twains’ life and the literature he contributed shed light to the societal issues and culture inherent within America during the†¦show more content†¦His first success as a writer came when his humorous tall tale, Jim Smiley and his Jumping Frog†, published in a New York weekly, The Saturday Press, on November 18, 1865. Marriage (middle-class lifestyle and mobility, American culture of moving forward etc.) His wife, Olivia Langdon Clemens was born into a wealthy family with her father, Jervis Langdon owning a thriving timber and coal business. Olivia’s intellectual and progressive upbringing would become a major influence on Samuel Clemens and his writing. Her father participated in the Underground Railroad; they socialized with leading doctors, theologians and suffragists of the time. Olivia’s aunt was a pioneering itinerant teacher at a time when women were just beginning to be ‘granted permission’ to graduate with college degrees. Mark and Olivia’s marriage reflects the middle-class lifestyle with their nomadic existence and their Socialist, forward-thinking approach to life that began to emerge in America. However, the perpetual travel and Jean’s (son) need for ongoing medical care took its toll on Olivia’s health. Social commentaryïÆ'  post-reconstruction, racism, Jim Crow Laws Twain’s influence on society ultimately involves his novels and the way in which he eloquently and skillfully reflected issues embedded within American culture. During his lifetime, he watched a young United States evolve from a nation torn apart by internal conflicts to one of international power. He experienced America’s vast growth and

Tuesday, May 5, 2020

Operation Management System Of Apple Inc- Free Solution

Question: Discuss the operation management system of Apple Inc and link it to the theory of effective operation management. Answer: Introduction The operation functions of an organization are concerned with getting the task done, i.e. producing goods and services for customers. It has the role of making the products and services in such a way that it meets the criteria of the market. As marketing function identifies the needs of the customer, the operation function operates to produce the required goods and services. Every organization is concerned of making grand plan and strategies to meet their goals and objectives. However, a grand plan cannot succeed if not followed with perfection in operations. The operations of the organization are strategically important as every organization comprises their day-to-day activities through the operation function. The key determinant of any organization to attain long term success is the relation between the operation functions and the organization strategy. An organization can meet its goal only if its short term activities in operations are consistent with its long term strategies (Wa rd and Peppard 2016). In the paper, the organization discussed is Apple Inc which is an American multinational technology company whose headquarter is at California. The company develop and design consumer electronic, software of computers and provides online services. The most famous product of Apple is iPhone, iPad tablet computer, iPod portable media player, Mac personal computer and smart watch of Apple. The software produced by the company is ios operating. ITunes media player, macOS, iLife, Safari Web browser, iWork. The company was founded in 1976 and the founder people of Apple are Steve Jobs, Ronald Wayne and Steve Woznaik (apple.com 2016) The paper discusses the operation management practices of Apple Inc. and examines the strategies of the company towards the operation department so that the required product that has sufficient demand in the market is produced optimally. Analysis of theory and practically. Strategy is one of the most widely used word in management and it can be defined as the scope and direction of an organization over a long term that brings advantage to the company through optimum resource mix with the aim to maximise its shareholder expectations. The major three elements of strategy are the firms objectives, external environment and the companys resources. Operation management is concerned with the resources of the organization and the way the operation functions has an impact on achieving its objectives. Thus it is the integral part of any firms strategy (Seuring and Gold 2013). Strategy can be at different level, corporate, business and function. At corporate level it deals with areas like selection of business, allocation of resources between different business and maintaining relationship between business and the centre. A t business level, the strategies shall be to create competitive position, to meet the mission and to make strategic objectives. At functional level, the strategy is to decide how to manage the resource, which technology to adopt and what skills are required (Slack 2015). The operation strategies of any organization are formed to attain the objectives of low cost production, maintain quality of output, develop ability to meet the requirement of customers quickly and lessen the time between order received for product and delivery of the product. Further, objective is to deliver products in accordance to the requirement of the customers and to be flexible in operations when there is a need to change the volume of production, time taken to produce, change in product mix and innovation of new products. It is difficult for any organization to excel in all the strategic areas of operation and all firms strive to plan their operation strategy in such a manner that the cost is low, quality is high, speed of delivery is fast, and dependability is reliable and flexibility is high (Semini et al. 2014). The two important terms in operation management are order winners and order qualifiers. The terms indicate the method of how the operational capabilities internal to the organization can be converted to criteria which brings market success and competitive advantage. It shows the link between marketing and operations. The people who are at operations are responsible for obtaining order qualifying and order winning criteria of marketing that makes the product win the orders in the market. The process of order qualifiers and order winners starts with the strategy of the corporate and ends with the criteria that make the company win over the orders of the customer from the market (Ross 2013). Order qualifiers and order winners are the two criteria to be achieved in the market place by any organization. An order qualifier refers to the characteristics of the product that is required by the customers and order winner is that characteristic which will win the customer purchase. Hence any firm if want to stay in the market must meet the criteria. The firm need to be as good as the competitor to be a qualifier but they need to be better than the competitor for being the order winner. Both the concepts are equally important for operation management. The firms have to be cautious when dealing with the concepts. If the firm produce such high quality product that its cost of production rises and exceeds the market price then enhance in quality lead to loss of order. Hence making order qualifier against order winner in the market. The firm need to strategically plan to avoid such unfavourable results (Roh et al. 2014). Both order winners and order qualifiers are time-specific and market-specific. They operate in different ways, in different combinations, in different markets and with different sets of customers. In some cases, there may be general situations but it is not stable always .In 1990s the order winners were customization of product and speed delivery and the price and quality of product were order winners which were previously order qualifiers. It implies that the market needs and customer preferences keep changing over time and firm need to develop various strategies to support the changing market needs. The matching between the customers and firms perception about order winners and order qualifiers lead to positive sales performance. In other word, favourable sales position is achieved by the firm when there is a match between the firms perception of the product strength and the customers perception of the product. However, increasing gap between the two, leads to negative sales perfor mance (Reid et al. 2016). Further order winners and order qualifiers are also affected by the different stages of the product life cycle. At each stage of product life cycle, the sales of the product depend on several factors like change in technology, level of competition in the industry and preferences of the customers. The product characteristics vary at each stage of product life cycle and it requires different processes of production to meet the changing characteristics. This is only possible if there is proper communication between marketing and operations where marketing identifies the order qualifiers and order winners and operations builds the capabilities to develop the required features of the product. Moreover, product profiling is used to compare the requirement of the product characteristics and the development of the processes to meet the characteristics. It helps to fill the gap between the two and establish a certain level of fit between the order winning criteria and the choices of process f or production (Purce 2014). The paper discusses the operation strategy of Apple Inc., the American based technology multinational company. The corporate objective of Apple inc is to continuously bring innovation of new products and develop research and development in both software and hardware and finally to create unique differentiation of its product against the product of its competitors. The launching of an unique innovative product iPhone has redefined the mobile industry and through it Apple has climbed to the higher income segment of the population to increase its service revenues. Apple has manufactured and concentrated only on single device that is iPhone and has obtained perfect balance between the company charges the same price for the product across the globe. In comparison, the competitors like Nokia, believes in multi-product strategy and charging different prices to different sets of customers and market (Naeem 2014). The target customer of Apple is high-end customers and has limited stores all over the world. It has opened separate retail channel for iPhone and has collaborated with several mobile operators so that there is an increase in the reach and coverage of the network for iPhone. The Apple has collaborated with several mobile operators to increase the network of distribution for the iPhone.The Apple product iPhone has become a potential threat for other competitors especially Nokia. The reason behind it is that Apple has a high scale advantage to meet the demand of the high end customers. Further Apple has not crowded the market with a number of products but has brought only two products in comparison to 20 products of competitors and consists of the better features than the features of the rivals product (Kerzner 2013). The order qualifiers of the market for mobile phone are divided into two segments, the low-end segment and high-end segment. In the low end segment, the order qualifiers are availability of phones and functionality. In the high-end segment, the order qualifiers are image, prestige, trendiness and availability of data content. On the other hand, the order winners are also divided into low-end and high-end customers. In the low-end customer, the order winners are low cost, durability of the product and brand reliability. In the high-end segment of the customers, the order winners are experience of the user, flexibility of the organization to accept the changing trend in the mobiles (Johnson 2014). Apple has fully outsourced in Taiwan the manufacturing operation of the company to lower the cost of production by redesigning the value chain system of the firm. The strength of the company is the low investment cost as it has outsourced its production. The weakness of the company is that it has not reached the huge market of people and is not cost-efficient. The products are high priced and only has targeted high end segment of people. The iPhone is an innovative device and has virtual distribution of data that was present in the phone. The order winner strategy is alignment with high end customers (Hu et al.2013). The operation strategy of Apple is to move from MP3 players to mobiles and to innovate new features. On framing the strategy, it focused on the experience of the users and tried to reduce the gap between what user expect from the product and what companies actually produces. The operation strategy of Apple is to produce high quality good in small volume and produce few goods. It outsourced ad re-outsourced its manufacturing of product to lower the cost of production and create less volume but of highest quality (Holmberg and Ida 2013). The production strategy of Apple Inc is to produce telephonic appliances, low level drivers and develop a plan for following the position. In case of hardware, Apple has tried to develop few products of highest quality and less in volume. The hardware in production makes strategy to gain highest quality product with reasonable price and larger volume of scales. Large numbers of mobile apps has been outsourced to reduce the cost (Tano et al. 2013). The internal organization of Apple has centralised to obtain full control on the firm. It focuses on customer service and has a long vision to obtain success in the firm. The production strategy of Apple is to have central quality control system, to take first mover advantage and to collect feedback from direct customers. The internal organization is controlled and centralised and focuses on experiences from customers. The company believes i autocratic leadership with a long visionary and has attracting talent both internally and externally (Hill et al. 2014). The key manufacturing task of any company is the basis for making strategic policies and is decided by the marketing strategy of the company. The Apples key manufacturing task is flexibility which is obtained in three different ways, new product flexibility, volume flexibility and product-mix flexibility. The order qualifiers of Apple are cost and quality. The company maintains high premium price and high gross margin, so they may not have low cost. Further, the company does not need to maintain highest quality of the product in the market and only sufficient quality is maintained to assure that they have potential customers (Heizer et al.2013). Apple has different strategy towards the labour force in different manufacturing unit. The factory of Apple in United States does not have huge labour force at cheaper rates. The labour force of Apple has several differences in terms of stability, skills, experience and motivation. The workers in the Foxconn unit of Apple do not have stable labour force and the company has kept them on one year contract basis. However, in the US unit, the workers are more stable and mature in their job. The workers in the China unit at Foxconn are literate but do not have much of experience in technical skills and industrial operations as their life is based on traditional agricultural system (Tsai et al.2013). On the other hand, American workers are comfortable with the advanced technological system as they have been growing with it since early ages. For Chinese labour force in Foxconn unit there is lack of safety on social grounds, less opportunities for employment and poverty in the region demands more labour force per unit of production compare to US unit. For every 700 workers of United States unit, the China Unit requires 700 work forces. The less use of labour in US unit is due to larger automation of work in the US factory as compared to Chinas unit. Further in cellular production system, the US unit will require further lower amount of labour force, say 500 workers. This is because of micro line imbalances eliminations and improved motivation of the workers (Heizer et al.2016) The company labour costs are different between different units and comparing them is difficult due to complexities in taxes and exchange rates. The wage structure is different in different countries as well as the benefits availed by the labour force. In Foxconn, the wage given for per hour is $2.50 to the workers whereas in U.S. manufacturing unit, the wage given per hour is $15. So comparing the labour cost, it has been noticed that Apple is able to produce at a cheaper labour cost outside United States than within the country. It implies that the company seeks to establish manufacturing unit in areas of cheaper labour cost in order to reduce its overall cost (Gle 2015). The difference in motivation and background of the workforce calls for different approaches towards the factory operation management system. The U.S factory should consider hiring stable, socialized, matured and teachable labour force. They should invest in training and education for workers and should form work groups and work in team. Further, technical support and quality check supervisors should be included in the team. Moreover, the living standards and cultural background of American labour is different from that of Chinese Labour, so the company should have different compensation structures and training programs (Eden and Ackermann 2013). The allotment of supervisors differs according to the product line and their requirement. It also depends on the quality and standards of the employed labour force. In Foxconn the production line requires lots of supervision and every four workers should have one supervisor above them to ring effective and efficient results and to increase productivity. However, in United States, as the working staff is more matured and experienced, the supervising of the task is comparatively less and the similar assembling line requires fewer supervisors to bring efficiency in the production. For example, in United States per supervisor will have around 10 workers under them than the manufacturing unit in China (David and David 2016). The allotment of technician in industrial engineering will also vary according to the requirement of the unit and perfection of the labour force. A unit in U.S. will require less number of technicians for every lot of workers compared to the unit in China. Regarding automation and equipment the company has to consider several key issues like the workflow and layout of the plan, changes in the volume of production and the support requirement for the installation of automated equipments. The requirement varies according to the products and the place the plant is established (Chase 2012). The manufacturing strategy towards maintaining qualifiers should include strong component of quality and the product need to satisfy the six sigma of total quality management. Further other areas of operation management like, supply chain system scheduling of task and allocation of work need proper planning and strategic movements to obtain efficiency in management of operations (Brown et al.2013). Conclusion and recommendation In conclusion, the brief of the paper is given, The paper basically discusses the operation management system of Apple Inc and link it to the theory of effective operation management. The operation functions of an organization are concerned with getting the task done, i.e. producing goods and services for customers. It has the role of making the products and services in such a way that it meets the criteria of the market. The order winners and order qualifiers are the important area of discussion in the paper. Apple Inc. has a widespread and efficient operation management system. However, seeing the increasing production cost of the product, it is recommended that the manufacturing unit are to be established in countries that have cheaper resources both in term of labour and capital. The training programs for the labour force should be more rigorous for the workers in developing countries than in developed countries. The company should make survey study to analysis the required order qualifiers and order winners of different market in different countries and according should try to minimize the gap between the expected requirement of the customers and the actual requirement met in the product. References Apple. 2016.Apple. [online] Available at: https://www.apple.com/ [Accessed 18 Jun. 2016]. Brown, S., Bessant, J.R. and Lamming, R., 2013.Strategic operations management. Routledge. Chase, J., 2012.Operations management. Tata McGraw-Hill. David, F. and David, F.R., 2016. Strategic Management: A Competitive Advantage Approach, Concepts and Cases. Eden, C. and Ackermann, F., 2013.Making strategy: The journey of strategic management. Sage. Gle, A., 2015. A relationship framework and application in between strategy and operational plans for manufacturing industry.Computers Industrial Engineering,86, pp.83-94. Heizer, J., Render, B. and Munson, C., 2016.Principles of operations management: sustainability and supply chain management. Pearson Higher Ed. Heizer, J., Render, P. and Zu'bi, Z., 2013. Operation Management (Arab World Edition). Hill, C.W., Jones, G.R. and Schilling, M.A., 2014.Strategic management: theory: an integrated approach. Cengage Learning. Holmberg, E. and Ida, M., 2013. Identification and Categorization of Order Qualifiers and Order Winners in Knowledge Intensive Business Services.ISRN LUTVDG/TVTM--2013/5258--/SE. Hu, H.Y., Yen, T.M., Chiou, J.L. and Cheng, C.C., 2013. Integrating Kano's Model and Gap Analysis to Identify and Improve Order-Winners.Journal of Accounting, Finance Management Strategy,8(1), p.97. Johnson, P.F., 2014.Purchasing and supply management. McGraw-Hill Higher Education. Kerzner, H.R., 2013.Project management: a systems approach to planning, scheduling, and controlling. John Wiley Sons. Naeem, M., 2014. An Analysis of the Emirates Airline Operation Management System. Purce, J., 2014. The impact of corporate strategy on human resource management.New Perspectives on Human Resource Management (Routledge Revivals),67. Reid, I., Ismail, H. and Sharifi, H., 2016. A Framework for Operational Agility: How SMEs Are Evaluating Their Supply Chain Integration. InManaging in a VUCA World(pp. 151-168). Springer International Publishing. Roh, J., Hong, P. and Min, H., 2014. Implementation of a responsive supply chain strategy in global complexity: The case of manufacturing firms.International Journal of Production Economics,147, pp.198-210. Ross, D.F., 2013.Competing through supply chain management: creating market-winning strategies through supply chain partnerships. Springer Science Business Media. Semini, M., Haartveit, D.E.G., Alfnes, E., Arica, E., Brett, P.O. and Strandhagen, J.O., 2014. Strategies for customized shipbuilding with different customer order decoupling points.Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Part M: Journal of Engineering for the Maritime Environment,228(4), pp.362-372. Seuring, S. and Gold, S., 2013. Sustainability management beyond corporate boundaries: from stakeholders to performance.Journal of Cleaner Production,56, pp.1-6. Slack, N., 2015.Operations strategy. John Wiley Sons, Ltd. Tano, M., Data Tec Co., Ltd., 2013.Operation management device to be mounted to a moving object, portable information terminal, operation management server, and computer program. U.S. Patent 8,421,864. Tsai, S.B., Lee, Y.C., Wu, C.H. and Guo, J.J., 2013. Examining how manufacturing corporations win orders.South African Journal of Industrial Engineering,24(3), pp.112-124. Ward, J. and Peppard, J., 2016.The Strategic Management of Information Systems: Building a Digital Strategy. John Wiley Sons.

Monday, March 9, 2020

Terracog Case Study Essays

Terracog Case Study Essays Terracog Case Study Paper Terracog Case Study Paper TerraCog Case Study Background TerraCog, Inc. is a privately held company specializing in high quality GPS and fishing sonar equipment. Although TerraCog was not always first to market with their new products, they were known for surpassing their competitors in addressing consumer needs because of their innovation in creating exceptional product design and functionality. In 2006, TerraCog’s competitor, Posthaste, launched BirdsI, the only handheld GPS with satellite imagery. Caught off guard by the product’s success, TerraCog President, Richard Fiero, makes a snap decision to satisfy the â€Å"gadget† appeal of BirdsI by launching the company’s own version of the competing GPS called Aerial. However, as TerraCog moved forward with the initiative, the estimated costs of developing Aerial threatened to thwart the launch. Needing to finalize decisions on cost, pricing and initial production volume, key department managers gathered in a series of dubious meetings laced with frustration, disagreement and reluctance, but produced no effective conclusion. In the end, the onus fell to Emma Richardson, a newly-promoted Executive Vice President to push the group toward a go/no-go decision. Problem Definition TerraCog Inc. is suffering from a stalemate in the development and execution of Project Aerial brought on by poor decision making and an ineffective team structure. Relevant Theories and Models The overall decision making process at TerraCog seems a bit puzzling. Management’s decision to underestimate consumers’ response to the satellite imagery technology featured in BirdsI led to a valuable loss in time and market share. As a result, Fiero, under the sole advice of Vice President of Sales, Ed Pryor, hastily chose to start Project Ariel without the due diligence of consulting with key stakeholders to understand the implications of producing such a product. There was no discussion regarding the technological capabilities that Project Aerial would offer leading to a major disconnect in pricing Aerial. Furthermore, there was no consensus around the timing of implementing Project Aerial given that the product team was already working on several other projects. As a result, departments greeted the decision to launch Aerial with a not so enthusiastic response. Because group decision making generates more complete information and knowledge and offers an increased diversity of view, the executives would have benefitted more by meeting with stakeholders and explaining the challenges the company faced with not initially responding to BirdsI and discussing the go forward plan to develop a competing product. When choosing group decision making techniques, the best approach for TerraCog seems to be the interacting group technique. This approach is most effective for achieving commitment to a solution which in this case, is the decision to launch Aerial. When stakeholders participate in decision making, they are more likely to enthusiastically support the decision and encourage others to accept it. Not only was there a weakness in the decision making process at TerraCog, Project Aerial was also operating with a working group and not a true working team. A work group’s goal is to share information leaving each individual accountable for their own work while the group’s synergy is neutral, sometimes negative. Furthermore, the group lacked cohesiveness as each department worked in individual silos. The sales team did not have input into the product, nor was the production team given a chance to review the design and offer recommendations on managing product cost. The handoff approach from product development to production to sales meant that the problem was not discovered until the launch date was at risk of being missed. There was also a lack of clarity around who should be on the team and the nature of each individual’s role. At each key meeting regarding Aerial, there seem to be an absence of key stakeholders present. The inconsistency of participation at each meeting suggests that this is not a dedicated team but rather a manifestation of individuals forced to complete a task. As a result, TerraCog should implement a cross-functional team to effectively allow individuals from different departments to exchange information while promoting cohesiveness. Moreover, the establishment of a team leader is imperative to Project Aerial’s success as it operates in a multi-team system that allows different teams to coordinate their efforts to produce a desired outcome Alternatives There are three alternatives that Emma Richardson should consider when identifying the go forward plan of Project Aerial. The first alternative is to launch Aerial at the full retail price of $475. The advantage of launching at this price point is that TerraCog would again be a competitive force in the industry and would be answering the call of Posthaste’s launch of BirdsI with a superior product. This would allow TerraCog to remain the leader in innovation and prove that they are in fact successful in satisfying consumer demands. The disadvantage of launching at this price point is the price itself. Although TerraCog is a reputable name in the industry and may receive some product acceptance because of this, the price would more likely lead to lower sales causing a major loss in profit. Furthermore, retailers may not even give Aerial shelf space as they’re not only selling an expensive product, they’re late to market. Internally, the product development and production teams would carry the blame of failure since they were not able to produce a stellar product that was competitive in price and higher in quality during the time period required. Another alternative that Richardson should consider is launching at the lower price point suggestedat $400 per unit. Again the advantage here is answering consumer demands at a quicker rate than taking the time to develop a feasible product with low price and high quality. At this price point, TerraCog should be successful in recapturing lost share from going to market so late. Because the sales team was already promised by Fiero that Aerial would be priced at $400, that’s one team that would be on board with the project. The disadvantage of retailing the Aerial at $400 is the lost of margin and production costs. Furthermore, in order to recapture any loss revenue, launching at $400 would also mean TerraCog should lower the quality of Aerial. Internally, the production team would suffer the most since they’ve been reprimanded in the past for producing a low quality product. Moreover, given that TerraCog’s business was built on quality performance and innovation, the company’s reputation would take a huge hit when Aerial’s technology doesn’t perform to desired consumer standards. The last alternative that should be considered is to abandon the launch of Aerial altogether and focus on the other more exciting projects that the product team was initially working on. The pro to this alternative is that TerraCog could capitalize on the grown in cycling and fitness GPS applications and become a competitive force there. TerraCog could realize the inability to quickly make a quality product at a competitive price by cutting its losses now rather than realizing a greater hit when going to market. The con to this approach is that the company would suffer sunk costs with the amount of time and money already invested in the project. Moreover TerraCog would miss out on potential sales and new customers. They may also lose their valued reputation as they could be considered incompetent by not having the ability to create a competing product to BirdsI. Solution Given all of the possible alternatives for the go forward decision of Project Aerial, Emma Richardson should decide to move forward with the launch of Aerial at a reduced price of $425 while simultaneously working on a product redesign to re-launch a new and improved Aerial at a later date. The pro to this solution is that the price would allow TerraCog to remain a viable competitor while recapturing lost market share. Additionally the product team will still be able to explore more advanced technology to re-launch Aerial 2. 0. The con is that TerraCog would still be launching a lower end product which could ultimately turn off customers and not want them to even buy the future redeveloped product. Next steps is for Richardson to develop a cross-functional team by reeling the group back in to work more cohesively. To improve decision making, a clear vision needs to be clarified and agreed upon by all parties. Rather than arguing during meetings, the team should brainstorm objectives, discussed amongst the team, but ultimately decided upon by Fiero and Richardson. Both Fiero and Richardson should improve their leadership skills and be more confident articulating goals and supporting the team.

Friday, February 21, 2020

IT Architectural Considerations and Solutions Details for Proposed Case Study

IT Architectural Considerations and Solutions Details for Proposed Technology Solution - Case Study Example Themistocleous et al (n.d.) indicates that ERP systems were introduced in businesses as a means of solving different types of problems and integrating their IT infrastructure. The EpicorVista is especially suited for all kinds of businesses including manufacturing, retail and services. The solutions encompass all the requirements pointed out in the memorandum which was sent earlier. The company is involved in all three areas and putting a system in place that would facilitate the efficient and effective operations of the businesses would be worth the expenditure. This would reduce SUH’s operating cost. Instead of having three different information systems there will be only one. The number of license required could be reduced with the introduction and use of the internet as a part of the architecture. Therefore, instead of having a license for each branch of each business unit there would be a maximum of three licenses, incorporating the three business units. The diagram in th e Appendix illustrates how the IT infrastructure will look. The Progress Database that is in use at CarbonTech could be considered for all three business units. According to Smart IT Consulting (2006) Progress RDBMS supports almost an infinite number of both users and transactions and requires little maintenance and administration. In addition to that it allows for flexibility and scalability of the system and has a lot more elements to recommend it. In fact, Laudon and Laudon (2006) indicate Relational DBMS offers more flexibility in that it facilitates various types of queries. It also combines information from a variety of sources, and allows for additional data to be included without causing disruptions (Laudon and Laudon 2006). Important IT Characteristics In arriving at a decision on the information system that is required certain characteristics are of paramount importance. The IT characteristics that are most important for the proposed solution at SUH are maintainability, po rtability, scalability and usability. These are discussed in detail as follows: i. Maintainability – The system has to be adequately maintained if it is to achieve the desired results. The business environment is changing and the system has to be capable of facilitating all the necessary changes that may be required. This has to be done quickly in order to facilitate timely reporting and decision making. Additionally, the company needs to see some improvements in its operations as a result of its implementation within a limited time period. ii. Portability – The system is capable of being used on various types of devices. It allows for use by sales staff that is in the field securing business. Internet connectivity will allow them to spend more time in the field instead of returning for updates. iii. Scalability – This is a major advantage of the EpicorVista software. It can be scaled upwards in order to facilitate increased business including additional users a nd transactions. Therefore, the success that CarbonTech has achieved with the use of this system can be achieved by the other business units which are much larger. iv. Usability –

Wednesday, February 5, 2020

Crimes Against Humanity and Genocide in India Essay

Crimes Against Humanity and Genocide in India - Essay Example The violence that broke out was patterned on the themes of political/religious intolerance and ethnic cleansing. Pertinent issues of concern include the lack of proper police response, as well as organized perpetration of crime that went unabated by concerned security agencies (in Delhi). The involvement of government officials will be discussed, as well the Indian Army’s role-play. The massacre of the Sikhs in Punjab, India was an organized crime that was supported by the government following the assassination of Indira Gandhi who was Prime Minister at the time of her death, having had a massive influence on India’s political landscape because of her relation to Mahatma Gandhi, India’s most revered personality. The massacre led to the death of many people and destruction of a lot of property following the effective organization of the massacre. It is during her administration that the Indian Emergency (the 1970s) was imposed with this subsequently resulting in the detention of thousands of Sikhs who were politically agitating for some form of autonomy (Deol 78). During this era, sporadic violence was present, resulting from the increased armed activity of an armed Sikh separatist group. The Indian government’s apt designation of this separatist group as a terrorist entity further worsened the already tense political atmosphere (Deol 75). This culminated in the commencement of Operation Blue Star, where Prime Minister Indira ordered an attack on the Golden Temple by the Indian Army. This was in response to the violent occupation of the Temple by Sikh separatists, who being viewed as insurgents, were reported to have been stockpiling weapons (Singh). Her tough stance towards the group resulted in this direct order that was to focus on eliminating any insurgents founds, with later armed operations initiated in the larger Punjab state’s countryside.Indian paramilitary forces were commanded to clear any separatists that were hosted in the countryside with no option of negotiation (Rana).