Education and Academic Career

13 Journal Describe an event that has changed your life? Describe an event that has changed your life? It's not the events of our lives that shape us, but our beliefs as to what those events mean. † So almost all of our life’s events mean, no matter whether they good or bed, their significance is unique for us. As all people in the world I have had a variety of events in my life, even though not all of them were positive. Nonetheless, an event that has changed my life is coming to study in Greece and undoubtedly I categorize this, as a great event.In addition studying in Greece made me much more independent, socialized and most important it is fulfilling my academic career. Coming to study in Greece developed further my personal independence from my family. The distance from my country and Greece obligate me to live here; therefore, I have to take care of all things which have to do with a life, besides lessons. Moreover, I am much more independent due to the fact that I organize totally my life the way I know; nevertheless, I follow the steps that my family taught me.For instance, I start a random day at 11 am and I am done at 6:30 pm, during this time I stay at ACT campus; afterward, I use some time to explore Thessaloniki city. Furthermore, according to this example of independence my manageable skills are shown as well. Although I always have been friendly, now this concept has much more wider dimensions. Socialization, a great part of human being, is another reason for fulfilling and changing my life while I am in Greece. Here, I know numerous people from different cultures, various backgrounds and friends from countries all over the world.Besides, socialization at American College of Thessaloniki functions very well, ideas, thoughts as well as actions make a perfect social group for me. In addition to personal independence and socialization, another reason for considering studying in Greece as a great event is because studying there is fulfil ling my academic career through quality of education. First of all, I am getting education from professors who have experience and teach us the most essential things. Moreover, they develop our critical thinking, as a way to understand the life better and ercept the world in different view. Second, studying all in English language with an American system make as easier involve in an international job. For example, knowing English helps us be ready in whatever kind of environment in the world. To summarize, this event clearly is very meaningful because my independence is further developed, together with socialization as well as academic career. So, obviously there are three important reasons for considering studying in Greece as an event which has changed my life.

Best Buy Case Analysis

Case Analysis Current Situation â€Å"Our formula is simple: we’re a growth company focused on better solving the unmet needs of our customers—and we rely on our employees to solve those puzzles. Thanks for stopping. † Richard Schulze started Best Buy and grew it to a million dollar company within four years. The future CEO of Best Buy learned that diversification in the stores’ offerings and serving various target segments led to increased market share.After going public in 1985, Best Buy changed from commissioned and specialized customer assistants to a non-exempt, hourly paid sale associates to ensure that customers’ needs are the employees’ top priority. In 1999, Best Buy successfully launched its online store. Through acquisitions of Napster, electronic sellers, and home appliances suppliers, Best Buy was able to grow and gain the resources necessary for its international expansion. By using backwards vertical integration, Best Buy was a ble to broaden their scope and have bigger economies of scale, achieving savings that were passed along to our customers.Related diversification has also allowed Best Buy to maintain revenues, even through the recent economic recession. Best Buy’s primary industries are Radio, Television, and Other Electronics Stores (NAICS 443112), Electrical and Electronic Appliance, Television, and Radio Set Merchant Wholesalers (NAICS 423620), Computer and Computer Peripheral Equipment and Software Merchant Wholesalers (NAICS 423430) and Household Appliance Stores (NAICS 443111). Price per share as of February 19, 2013 is $17. 33.In September 2011, Best Buy was named to the 2011 Dow Jones Sustainability index for corporate citizenship and philanthropy, social reporting, stakeholder engagement and operational eco-efficiency. Currently, Best Buy’s greatest struggle is facing new industry competitors. The company is losing market share to online retailers, such as Amazon, and to its p rimary suppliers, including Apple, HP, and Dell. Best Buy’s suppliers have taken an approach to reduce the intermediaries between company and its customers, strategies that have left Best Buy out of the loop.In order to stay ahead of competitors (in terms of market share and sales) Best Buy has implemented a permanent price matching policy that was launched during the 2012 holiday season. This tactical move will help Best Buy retain its existing market share, but maintaining costs low enough to support this pricing strategy might be difficult for the showroom giant. In regards to diversification, Best Buy has enlarged its scope from home and car stereos, to nearly all electronic appliances and to multimedia offerings such as DVD’s, CD’s, videogames, etc.Best Buy has also continued customer relationship managements by implementing after-purchase support and diversifying its offerings by acquiring Geek Squad, Best Buy’s task force that provides technical su pport and installation of various software programs for recently purchased electronics. General Environmental Analysis The general environmental analysis emphasizes the trends that occur in the technology, demographics, economics, political/legal, sociocultural, physical and global segments of the environment.The goal of this analysis is to help find which of these segments will have the most impact on Best Buy over the next few years. Based on research and data we believe the segments that will be the most relevant to Best Buy are the demographic, technology, sociocultural, and global segments. Demographically, the United States population is getting larger, older, and more ethnically diverse. There are approximately 315,398,676 people in the United States, making it the third largest country in the world. The United States has grown by 103% since 1950 and is estimated to have a population around 440 million by 2050.An influencing factor in the population increase is that Americans are living longer. Due to advances in healthcare, people are living and contributing to society longer. Baby boomers, the biggest segment the U. S. population, are now becoming senior citizens and have caused the 65+ population age to shift from 8. 1% in the 1950 to over 12. 4% today. The United States continues to move up the list as one of the most racially and ethnically diverse countries in the world. The prevailing trend is the significant increase in the Hispanic population, stronger in the next few years.This growth is caused by immigration; more Hispanics are coming to the United States seeking refuge, jobs, or a better life for their family. As the population continues to change, Best Buy must find ways to cater to all generations, and avoid dependency on demographics and traditional marketing. They must target specific market segments and foresee the needs and wants of different generations through relevant and integrated marketing promotions. Specific targeting of custom ers will help Best Buy retain customers and create company loyalty. Technology is another segment that will have a major impact on Best Buy in the near future.Predictive analysis, social media, and multichannel retailing are trends that are most important in Best Buy’s general environment. Knowing your customers is a critical part to any industry, and predictive analysis is becoming one of the best ways to accomplish that objective. By correctly using technology to control the high volume and availability of data, companies can understand customers’ wants. A core competency of both Amazon and Netflix predictive analysis; based on previous purchases or views Amazon and Netflix can recommend items that the customers may be interested in, and the customer can give feedback about those recommendations.Predictive analysis is becoming more prevalent online, and to stay competitive, pure brick-and-mortar companies must follow suit. Best Buy uses predictive analysis through re ward programs and by analyzing consumer purchases. The company then sends coupons or information about promotions that may meet a customer’s profile. A simple example could be a person buys a DVD player and predictive analysis could be used to send that customer offer or promotions on DVD’s. Social media continues to be a growing trend in today’s business. Customers are now turning to social media to get information about companies and their products.According to research 70% of consumer use social media to hear about other consumers experiences, 65% use it to find information on brands, products, and services, 50% share concerns, 53% compliment brands, and 47% share money incentives. A person’s influence in social media circles can determine the extent of the benefit or harm to a company’s reputation; this is especially true with celebrities and athletes with millions of followers. Best Buy can take advantage of these statistics to improve their s trategic competitiveness by targeting champions to test new products and promotions and diffuse the findings through social media.The company can also use social media to show customers that they voicing their concerns matters, and solving customers’ problems, which would lead to an increase in customer retention and brand loyalty. Multichannel retailing is also becoming one the more relevant trends in the general environment. Consumers today have more options of purchasing points than ever before. With the latest technology, consumers can order a shirt using their cell phone, computer, tablet, or the retail store. This trend mixes with sociocultural trends and offers consumers convenience and a better shopping experience.This is relevant to Best Buy because it allows more ways to reach customers. Best Buy can send information to customers’ mobile devices and take advantage of impulse buyers by offering a venue for them to buy directly, without having to go to store. O verall, Best buy has made efforts to improve a customer’s experience through a variety of tactical decisions. Trends in the sociocultural segment are another area that will have an impact on Best Buy through its general environment. One of the biggest trends in this segment is convenience.Location/ access, variety/availability, speed of service, price, and environment are all big factors when it comes to convenience and play a big part in consumer beliefs about the benefits of shopping at a specific store. Best Buy does its best to make stores convenient with a variety of displays, Geek Squad on hand, and a friendly environment. Best Buy has increased convenience by offering products online for customers who prefer to stay out of the brick-and-mortar store. Best Buy focuses on these efforts by offering free shipping and by developing the Best Buy Marketplace, which will increase the variety and brands accessible to consumers.Another change in the attitude of consumers is the trend of aspirationalism. People today have a heightened sense of aspiration and have many goals they hope to accomplish. As a result consumers expect companies to meet all of their expectations as fast as possible. This need is fulfilled by speedy service and Best Buy’s in-store Geek Squad is capable of meeting goals quickly and efficiently. To keep up with expectations and competition, Best Buy must provide the latest technology and equipment to customer whenever they need it.Global trends that are sweeping the market are expansion into international areas and environmentally friendly (or â€Å"green†) initiatives. Many companies are looking to expand to overseas markets due to the potential growth in markets such as China, and India. In fact, according to Forbes. com, China is forecasted to have 10 to 16% share of world GDP growth from 2007 to 2014. Best Buy has made a strategic decision to invest in China with their growth initiative, where they hope to open approx imately 50 stores and implement Best Buy Mobile store-within-a-store concept in 2013.Environmentally friendly or â€Å"green† initiatives are an important trend to consumers and companies. Consumers are now more aware of their carbon footprints and against companies who fail to be eco-friendly. One thing that retailers like Best Buy are doing to be eco-friendly is reducing the size of packaging. Recyclable paper is now one of the main packaging ingredients for retailers like Best Buy. This is important because it will improve the company’s reputation and keep them in a positive light with consumers. Industry AnalysisBest Buy is in the retailing Radio, Television, Consumer Electronics, and Music Stores industry (443112), which sell household appliances, home entertainment devices and electronic products. In this industry, these retailers typically sell new products from manufacturers and wholesalers and often offer repair services for their products. Best Buy their serv ices are their Geek Squad division. Over the last five years, the industry revenue has dropped an average rate of 5. 0% annually ending in 2012 at $72. 2b. This decrease is also expected to continue to decline another 2. 8% (this year? ).But in the years leading up to 2017 the forecasts state that with the continuingly recovering economy revenue for this industry will also slowly crawl up at an average of 1. 3% each year. In the Radio, Television, Consumer Electronics, and Music Stores industry, the threat of new entrants is low due to the fact that there are many barriers to entry. The biggest barrier is the large amount of competitors in this industry and similar industries. The leading competitors are online retailers like Amazon, discount stores like Wal-Mart, appliance retailers like Lowes. With Best Buy holding 49. % of the market share and RadioShack holding 4. 8% it’s hard for new entrants to play with organizations that have established brand recognition and the vari ety of products that these retailers have. Another barrier to entry is that it requires a lot of startup capital to purchase all of the merchandise that is needed to compete with Best Buy. The threat of substitute products is low because Best Buy has close relationships with manufacturers and wholesalers of many prominent brands that will usually keep Best Buy ahead of the game by receiving the newest products from the hottest brands.There is also not many substitute products that are available that the consumer would be interested in purchasing. The ability the consumer has to go anywhere from online, to discount stores, to other electronic retailers makes the bargaining power of the buyer to be extremely high. Customers are now able to find the best products at the best prices online or are able to do price matching Bargaining power of suppliers is extremely high because Best Buy buys most of its merchandise from Sony, Samsung and LG, etc. This gives these organizations the upper hand and the ability to determine the price at which to sell its products to Best Buy.Best Buy essentially is forced to pay any amount that these large organizations think is appropriate based on the demand of the products at any given time. The competition among retailers in the consumer electronic industry is high with Wal-Mart being the frontrunner in the competition. Wal-Mart’s price matching strategy has led consumers to purchase electronics at Wal-Mart for lower prices. The mere size of stores like Wal-Mart and Costco has made competition fierce for Best Buy because it is nearly impossible for them to keep up the quantity of goods that are available at the super size discount stores.Amazon is another extraordinary threat to Best Buy, as well as to the industry as a whole, because Amazon enables the consumer to view a larger range of products online at time that is convenient for them. Home improvement stores like Lowes and Home Depot have also drawn many customers to th em with their elite selection of household appliances like dishwashers, stoves, and refrigerators. Internal analysis Best Buy’s internal environment has certain qualities that have affected its primary goal of making a profit.Best Buy’s top management recently changed after its CEO Brian Dunn resigned in April 2012 after it was revealed that he had had an inappropriate relationship with a female employee. This was only a little over three short years after he came to the position in June 2009. Hubert Joly, a French businessman, took over the position of CEO on August 17, 2012. Richard Schulze, who created Best Buy and sat as chairman of the board of directors, also resigned in June 2012, and Hatim A. Tyabji was his replacement. Hubert Joly, as the new CEO, had many problems to solve when he came to the position.The stock prices were down 50% at the time. Best Buy’s financial struggles are reflected in the income statement from the 3rd quarter of 2012, which is t he most recent financial information available. In this quarter, Best Buy had a net loss of $13 million, showing a significant decrease from the 3rd quarter of 2011, in which there was a $173 million net income. Top management attributes this sharp decline in income to a lower gross profit rate, higher sales, general, and administrative expenses, and lower revenues. The 3rd quarter of 2012 showed revenues in the United States of $7. million, down 4. 7% from the prior year period. Best Buy’s fixed expenses are significantly higher than its competitors because of the costs of maintaining large superstores. These brick and mortar locations are one of Best Buy’s most expensive resources, and the costs associated with them have become one of Best Buy’s greatest weaknesses. With high costs, Best Buy has struggled to compete with its competitors’ prices, causing a decrease in revenue as well. Best Buy announced in 2012 that it planned to close 50 superstores and lay off hundreds of employees.Best Buy’s products include gadgets, movies, music, computers, mobile phones, and appliances. In order to create value that its competitors cannot easily provide, Best Buy also offers services that include installation, maintenance, technical support, and subscriptions for mobile phone and internet services. In 2002, Best Buy acquired Geek Squad, a well-known computer repair service. Now, when customers buy a computer from Best Buy, they have the option to also purchase coverage from Geek Squad at a relatively low price. Best Buy’s customer service is continually improving as it is investing more in employee training and compensation.The sales associates ask customers a series of questions to get to know their unique needs and are therefore able to find the product that best suits them. This superior customer service and technical support is a core competency of Best Buy because it provides extra value for the customer, it is rare that a company can provide the variety of products Best Buy offers as well as expertise to handle issues with all of them, it is very difficult to imitate because of the high costs associated with training and compensation, and the experience of providing customer service face to face is not easily substituted.Many people expected Best Buy to see the same fate as its previous competitor, Circuit City, who had closed all of its stores in January 2009 after declaring bankruptcy. Joly, however, has made efforts to turn around the strategy of Best Buy by lowering costs, improving customer service, and decreasing store sizes in order to help Best Buy remain competitive in its industry. Identification of external opportunities and threats Best Buy has many opportunities that must be recognized before their window of opportunity expires. Proper external analyses are essential in running, and maintaining a sustainable business.There are four key components to external analyses. These include scann ing, monitoring, forecasting, and assessing. When a company like Best Buy participates in scanning they are attempting to anticipate changes in the general environment and recognize changes that are already occurring. They then monitor those changes to see if relevant trends can be identified. Forecasting will be a challenge to Best Buy because of rapid changes in technology. It is nearly impossible to predict what will happen in the future because Best Buy is unaware of the type of resources they will have at their disposal.Once Best Buy has taken the first three steps it is important that they assess the information, so that they can interpret the data and use it in a competitive manner. After Best Buy does an in depth external analyses they will realize their opportunities include growing the services offered to customers, expanding its mobile services, and growing internationally. If Best Buy grows its services offered to customers it could potentially create value through incre asing in store traffic and online purchasing. Expanding mobile services is a highly attractive opportunity for Best Buy.Although Best Buy has seen a decrease in sales in many of its stores, Best Buy Mobile has proven to be quite successful in the current market. Best Buy has seen a 5% loss in comparable stores, which would have been a 15% loss if the sales of Best Buy Mobile did not make up the damage. Acknowledging Best Buy as a global brand could have a significant impact, and presents an intriguing opportunity to Best Buy. Global innovation, consumer electronics, and the use of technology have never been more important in an international market than they are today.Best Buy has experienced success and failure in the international market. They have had success in Canada and Mexico, and have been unsuccessful in Europe and China. Best Buy needs to figure out how to adapt to foreign markets where they have been unsuccessful. If Best Buy can adapt to foreign markets more effectively than competitors it could create a competitive advantage. The way to successfully analyze an industry like the one Best Buy is in is through the Porter’s Five Forces Model. This will indicate whether or not the opportunities the industry presents are attractive enough to outweigh the threats.The first aspect of Porter’s Five Forces is the threat of new entrants. In an industry like Best Buy’s the threat of new entrants is not very high. Best Buy has already driven multiple competitors out of business. There are high barriers to entry, and Best Buy would not hesitate to retaliate if any new entrances transpired. The second aspect of the Porter’s Five Forces Model is the threat of substitute products. This is a concern for Best Buy because many of its competitors are selling similar products online.The products they sell are not highly differentiated amongst competitors, and many consumers feel their competitors provide a more convenient option. Best Buy th en must analyze the bargaining power of both suppliers and buyers in the industry. Best Buy serves as a middle man, so they do not have much power. This means that the bargaining power of suppliers is high. There are 20 suppliers that Best Buy uses for 65 percent of their products. Five of those 20 suppliers can account for 40 percent of their products.The bargaining power of the buyer is incredibly high in this industry because consumers have several different options, and different ways to purchase the products they want. Consumers can even browse products at a local Best Buy location, search for it online to see if their competitors offer a similar product at a lower price, and purchase the product somewhere else while they are in the store. The final aspect of the Porter’s Five Forces Model is to analyze the rivalry among competing firms. Best Buy’s industry provides a vast amount of rivalry among existing competitors.Purchasing consumer electronics online has beco me a common trend amongst consumers in recent years. Online retailers can maintain low costs because they don’t have the costs associated with brick and mortar locations. This allows companies like Amazon. com to steal market share from Best Buy. Other successful companies that are competitive in the industry are Wal-Mart, Costco, and Radio Shack. Based on the Porter’s Five Forces Model our analysis of the industry that Best Buy is in does not look too attractive. We would conclude that we should avoid this industry, and pursue a different direction.Strategy Development Best Buy’s big box retail stores currently follow a focused cost leadership strategy. Best Buy is best known for its big-box retail stores that offer a narrow scope of products that mainly consists of electronics. Best Buy generally advertises low prices, low price guarantees, and they offer price matching at many locations. Best Buy wants their consumers to perceive them as low cost so it can be inferred that they follow a cost leadership strategy, and since they only operate within the electronics market then that makes it a focused cost leadership strategy.The Best Buy Corporation follows a related diversification strategy. Other than the large retail locations, Best Buy currently owns Geek Squad, Best Buy Mobile, The Carphone Warehouse, and Five Stare Appliances. All of these stores have related resources, products and services. The Best Corporation tends to stick with electronics retail stores and related services. For example, Best Buy stores sell computers while Geek Squad repairs and services computers. One business serves and supports the other.Best Buy has a good corporate strategy where they only buy and operate business that sell consumer electronics or support/service consumer electronics, but best must address issues with their business level strategies. The bulk of Best Buy and its other companies business is electronics retail from brick and mortar locations where Best Buy acts as a middle man between electronics consumers and electronics manufactures, but because of internet retailers there is increasingly little need for brick and mortar retailers like Best Buy.Current trends show that more and more people are buying online because it is generally cheaper since people can buy direct from manufactures. If this trend continues, Best Buy’s big box retail stores will become obsolete and start to lose money. Best Buy has an online retail service but the brick and mortar locations still make up the majority of Best Buy’s sales. The first recommendation is that Best Buy should shift the retail part of their businesses to being more online, while keeping the non-retail services like Geek Squad.The next recommendation is that Best Buy should grow more internationally, specifically Europe. Best Buy has a strong presence in North America, but has a lot of room to grow in Europe. In Europe Best Buy mostly exists as The Carphone War ehouse, which is similar to the American Best Buy stores but the majority of The Carphone Warehouse revenue comes from selling electronics insurance and electronics repair. Best Buys could expand more into the European electronics retail market both in-store and online.Strategy Selection We believe that the better of the two strategies is to move the retail parts of Best Buy’s business to being more online. They shouldn’t move it completely online, but Best Buy should try and sell more online to try and compete with the online retailers. Best Buy has had problems with people coming into stores, looking for items, and then going home and buying them online from places like Amazon. If the customers are buying online then Best Buy should be more competitive online.The brick and mortar stores could be more like show rooms that advertise products for the online store. If Best Buy takes this route, they should then make their online prices more competitive and be sure to adv ertise those lower online prices in the stores. Implementation In the next 3 to 6 months, Best Buy can implement its strategy of increasing profit by cutting low performing stores, increasing advertising, and increasing employee training. On the tactical level, Best Buy should cut the stores performing in the bottom 2%, which would be about 28 stores.This will lower the high fixed costs associated with maintaining large brick and mortar locations. Best Buy should then move the inventory from these locations to warehouses used for online purchases and buy more warehouses if necessary. Best Buy should also increase advertising for its new price matching policy in order to gain back some of the market it lost to competitors like Amazon. On the operational level, Best Buy should increase its training to employees so that sales associates gain valuable customer relationship management skills that provide value to customers.These tactical and operational moves will cause challenges that B est Buy must address. First, a large number of layoffs can reflect badly on Best Buy, possibly causing its stock prices to be lower. Best Buy could combat this by launching a â€Å"goodwill campaign,† expressing the savings that will be passed on to its customers. Secondly, increasing warehouse capacity could lead to high costs for Best Buy. The company should combat this by controlling its inventory holding costs and ensuring that online sales match its inventory.Finally, the cost of training employees will be a challenge to meet. Best Buy must make this training worth the expense by ensuring that the quality of customer service will result in revenues high enough to cover the costs. Customer surveys would be a good quality control for the sales staff. Customers should be given the option to answer questions about their Best Buy experience via text messages, calls, or email, and sales associates should be given rewards points for good reviews.

L’oreal and the Globalization of American Beauty

MGO403 HW4 <L’Oreal and the Globalization of American Beauty> How did L’Oreal become the world’s largest beauty company? What was the role of acquisitions in the growth? The global strategy of Loreal started first from European countries like Austria, Italy, and the Holland providing hare care and hair color products. After the launch in the USA, they decided to expand their market share by mainly M&A of many similar but way smaller companies. With proper acquisition strategy over the years, they finally became the largest company in beauty industry. L’Oreal offers consumers worldwide â€Å"American† and â€Å"French† concepts of beauty.Are there any limits to the national beauty images it can globalize? There may be some limits for Lorear to go more ‘worldwide’ even if they have huge branches and offices over the world. I think it may be related with ‘racial issues’. The society for ‘minority’ is changing faster than ever before, but still, the ‘majority’ of American and European countries are white but Asian, African American, and Hispanic. Thus, if they really care about optimal ‘globalization’ in all ways, they should probably consider making their diversified strategy in other markets (minorities)What are the global opportunities for Kiehl’s? What are the limits, if any? Even though Kiehl’s were taken over by Loreal through M&A, their products are not easily found at many stores, unlike there are so many producsts of Lorean in any store. And this is mainly because their products line are simply expensive targeting luxury market, so I think if they really want to go ‘global’ they should find proper way to make their products easily available to the customers through mega-stores like walmart, or target.

Law and the Constitution in Canada Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 1

Law and the Constitution in Canada - Essay Example Legal reasoning is essential in explaining the inherent difference between partisan and impartial legal decisions. Legal reasoning remains indispensable in arbitration of varied beliefs and values of the Canadian society towards acceptance of legal decisions2. Moreover, legal reasoning is domineering in harmonizing Canadian society perspectives about legal integrity. Furthermore, it enables the Canadian society to comply with SCC legal decisions over varied cases even though they may seem to disagree. Similarly, legal scholarship has had notable contributions to realization of a more acceptable Canadian legal system through establishment of doctrinal scholarship and creation of linkage with other disciplines. Through legal scholarship, legal scholars established a doctrinal analysis system that explains, criticizes, and analyses Canadian judicial decisions. In addition, legal scholars have created brilliant doctrinal scholarship proposals methods of decision making within judicial systems especially in constitutional law. Besides doctrinal analysis, legal scholarship has ensured incorporation of other discipline concepts such as economics, philosophy, and literary theory in making legal decisions3 (Bourne 2011). Due to the aforementioned concepts and functions of legal reasoning and scholarship, the Canadian society have accepted Aboriginals rights and title as outlined in section 35 (1). SCC have the legal rights to interpret s35 (1) to the Canadian society, a responsibility that they have achieved through legal reasoning (Turner 2006). In addition, legal scholarship and reasoning remains imperative in explaining the inherent judicial process in making decision relating to acceptance of aboriginals rights. Acceptance and affirmation of aboriginal rights required doctrinal scholarship analysis and legal reasoning of several cases including the Delgamuukw

Do you agree with the view that British politics became racialised in Essay

Do you agree with the view that British politics became racialised in the period since 1945 - Essay Example the West Indies, Pakistan and India not only affected the demographics of the country and the level of employment, it also raised a series of important racial issues that influenced the British policies in a serious manner. Therefore, this paper will analyze how Britain became a multiethnic country and will interpret different immigration acts that were passed by the government in order to better coordinate and control the racial relations within the British society over a period starting with the year 1945 up to present times. The Labour government conducted, in January 1946, a postwar economic survey that estimated a labor deficiency of 600.000 up to 1.3 million (Paul, 1997, p.4). Acknowledging the postwar labor crisis, the British Government first turned to Europe for help, attracting a large number of Poles (130 000) and Italians by using guest-worker schemes. Even constrained by a critical economic situation, Britain preferred white race immigrants, which demonstrates that British policies were dictated by a fine distinction among races and the tendency to keep the society predominantly white. Soon enough though, the Iron Curtain put an end to these efforts and France, Switzerland and Germany became more attractive destinations for migrants coming from southern Europe. However, even if Britain had an unstable economy, it also had an advantage of 600 million of people that inhabited its colonies (Hansen, 2003) and this is when the British government recognized the opportunity of putting all the skilled workers in these regions at use. â€Å"Whatever racist ideas they held were secondary to their need for workers to fill gaps in the labour market by doing the worst jobs† (Brown, 1995). In 1948, the British Nationality Act gave people that lived within the boundaries of the Commonwealth a special status, as CUKCS, which is short for â€Å"Citizens of the United Kingdom and colonies†. Due to this special legal status, â€Å"persons born in colonial or Commonwealth

Is television a boon or a bane Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Is television a boon or a bane - Essay Example The theme of the article revolves around the change our society, attitudes and priorities have undergone along with the percolation of television, internet and media in our lives. Joshua feels that our present space is becoming increasingly "virtual" than "real" like it was in the earlier days. We are no longer "with" ourselves, our loved ones and our surroundings rather, we are more focused and bothered about global issues, politics, entertainment , natural calamities in distant continents and so on . Although it is commendable to be aware of what is happening on our planet, it does not make our neighborhood problems or our loved ones' sorrows any less important. Joshua aptly sums up the scenario in a single statement- "the more we rely on our video window, the less relation there is between where we are and what we know and experience, the less there's a relationship between where we are and who we are". Television has broken down all barriers between men and women, adult and children, ethnic groups and nations. Today, if one does not have enough money to travel to exotic places, the option of clicking the remote and switching to a travel program is always there. Children of all ages are exposed to things that their earlier day's counterparts had not even heard of.

Sanpshot for PR class Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Sanpshot for PR class - Assignment Example The campaign aims at encouraging them to seek appropriate support and care for psychological health concerns. Print materials including brochures and advertisement cards were used for informing veterans, service members and their families on the presence of help for psychological and other support measures (Ruolo, 2013). Real warriors collaborated with organizations and individuals to aid in spreading the resources and information on the help available to the affected as well as the avenues through which they can be able to access this treatment including Deployment Health Clinical Center, National Center for Telehealth and Technology, and Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center. Mobile websites and an interactive website were the other strategies used to ensure access to campaign materials to the supporters of the campaign and ensuring the resources, videos, social media, live chat, and other outreach areas provided for the affected members of the community Social media were used in the Real warrior’s campaign through reaching out to military personnel and their families with information on psychological help and support as well as requesting other members to join the course The Real warrior’s campaign has been successful in meeting the needs of the audience to which the campaign was directed and has been able to achieve augmented numbers of veterans, family, and service men receiving treatment and rehabilitation. In my opinion, the campaign is well handled and received with an emphasis on the messages tailored for the veterans, service members, and their families. The messages of the campaign and objectives are well stated, and testimonial videos from military personnel and veterans suffering from mental illnesses are very compelling (Acosta et al., 2012). The campaign is creative and uses innovative measures coupled with technologically advanced

Social work; Critically evaluate its implications for social work Essay

Social work; Critically evaluate its implications for social work practice in challenges in transracial adoption and racial identity - Essay Example In addition, social workers work together with birth families to establish their abilities to continue to engage in their children’s lives as well as to parent, and/or to cope with cessation of parental rights. Social workers assist with placement transitions, and give post-adoption services in order to guarantee enduring and strong adoptive families. It is apparent that adoption is an alternative for young children and older teens, for children of varying ethnic and racial background, and for children with diverse educational, developmental as well as medical needs. This paper will discuss different aspects surrounding transracial adoptions, in particular, the transracial adoption of black children. Transracial adoption is the joining of parents and children of different racial background together in adoptive homes as well as families. It usually occurs through varying types of domestic adoption such as foster care, stepchildren and children in interracial marriages, and international adoption. In transracial adoption, the issue of racial identity features prominently (Lee 2003, 712). Some individuals argue that transracial adoptions will lead to loss of racial identity, particularly if a child is adopted in a family of different race at a very young age. Racial or ethnic identity issue concerns the use of racial or ethnic self-descriptors among transracial adoptees. It also involves attitudes of adopted children towards their race and determines whether they are comfortable or proud with their ethnicity and race. One of the significant elements of transracial adoption is the actual relationship between ethnic and racial occurrences of transracial adoptees and their psychologic al adjustments (Steinberg & Hall 2011, 262). Transracial adoptees exhibit a great deal of variability in their racial or ethnic identities. They have considerably lower racial or ethnic identities compared to same-race adoptees. Domestic

READING AND RESEARCHING SOCIAL RESEARCH Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

READING AND RESEARCHING SOCIAL RESEARCH - Essay Example In order to come up with an appropriate literature review, it is important to understand the kind of research one is doing. This will lead one to the type of literature one is likely to do. An applied literature review surveys known information about a topic and helps identify information that is not yet known so that decisions for action or for further examination of a situation can be made (Kumar, 2005 p. 30). In other words, this type of review is not interested in filing the gap in the literature of a certain topic. The main goal is an understanding of existing and missing knowledge. A literature review can also be of a simple nature. In this type of review, the question will be more general, as will the survey of the literature conducted (Dawidowicz, 2010 p. 7). The question will be one that dictates an overview of the information provided in numerous sources on the topic considered. It will also be one that lays the groundwork for future research of greater depth. In other words, a simple literature review will provide insight into areas that will each be reviewable in greater depth in future research. After establishing the type of literature review one is going to write, the next step is to consider the time that it will take. A literature review for a secondary school or undergraduate class might take a month to three months. If the review is meant to support a grant proposal, a project development plan, or a case study of a program, a literature review development process might take more than a month or even a year. The depth of research required and the broadness of the topic at hand will determine the time constraints (Fink, 2009 p. 12). After determining the time constraints of the literature review development process, the next step is to narrow the topic of the research. The topic is narrowed until the question or hypothesis is specific enough for a comprehensive literature review to be completed. Managing to narrow a topic

Medical and Environmental Electronic Devices Corporation Essay Example for Free

Medical and Environmental Electronic Devices Corporation Essay Background Medical and Environmental Electronic devices corporation was founded in 1959. Initially the core business was related to applications in medical device technology. The company started new business of Environmental control applications and achieved its current name in 1964. By 1979, MEED achieved 31% market share in its market area. MEED’s competitors had only 20% and11% shares. MEED has headquarters 21 countries around the world including Westland and Michigan. Integrated Circuit Group was set up MEED to meet its need for the customized circuits as semi-conductor industry is shrinking due to the backward integration of major competitors, redirections and acquisitions. Hallmarks of MEED culture were ambiguity, freedom, flexibility, risk taking and a supportive attitude towards employees. There was no formal planning in MEED or even firs loosely coordinated companywide plan was undertaken in 1980. Sales were growing at 30% per year for t he last five years, topped $1 billion in 1979. Profits for 1979 were $107 million. Tom Duglass is the manager of MEED since 1977. ICG is experiencing a shortage of human resource and is only providing 5-8% of MEED’s annual demand. New plant set by ICG is also experiencing problem in startup. The HRD Department headed by Barbara Hamlin is unable to fulfill their duty of providing the human resource which is required for the sound working of ICG. Employee’s profile Tom Douglas Group manager Dom Raffaelli Manager, ICG Advanced design Les Hogan Manager, ICG material Kenny Lash Manager of operations, ICG plant Barbara Hamlin Director, Human Resource Development and planning Qualitative facts The Jackson Michigan, manufacturing plant, which began operation in July 1979, was still experiencing difficulties in start-up and it was now the beginning of 1980. Barbara Hamlin in HRDP position was in charge for the forecast of the IC Groups human resource needs, with special attention to professional and managerial personnel and to design and implement programs to meet those needs. MEED designed, manufactured, sold and serviced complex medical and environmental control systems. The labor market was exceedingly tight for exempt employees, especially the highly trained engineers critical too ICGs work. MEEDs culture was unstructured, informal; make it happen, rapid growth, positive approach towards people. There was no emphasis on formal planning Douglas sought to reorient ICG recruiting toward meeting needs with existing employees and recent college graduates. Given the MEED culture, it was also unreasonable to except that any one program manager would remain long enough to see one component through its entire life. Materials acquisition function was divided into two groups an operation group that focused on such functions as production purchasing and a strategic group that deal with the commodity managements, IC Group manufacturing and custom projects. In the past a buyer in the operations group could become a supervisor in operations, now a buyer had the additional option of staying with the acquisition but moving to a job in a strategic group The greater attention to manpower planning might have led MEED to locate ICG closer to the major sources of trained engineers, or perhaps even to recast its plan to enter the semiconductor industry. Employee mobility need at MEED also made planning difficult. According to  personnel policy, an exempt employee was considered movable after he or she had been in a job for one year. Bosses and subord inates found it difficult to conduct regular performance appraisals; they were supposed to be conducted at least once a year as part of an employees salary review. Quantitative facts Medical and Environmental Electronic Devices Corporation was founded in 1959 Sales, growing at more than 30% per year for the last five years, topped $1 billion in 1979; profiles for 1979 were $107 million. The goal was to ensure that by FY1985, 50% of professional hires would be new college graduates. At the beginning of 1980, Ambrose’s group had openings for two out of five supervisory positions, and 13 out of 37 subordinate engineering slots. In 1980, ICG had 623 employees (plus 8 staff personnel), and 106 open positions to be filed. Annual turnover, while not high by industry standards, was running close to 10% among exempt and 20% among non exempts. The average number of employees for 1979 totaled 24,900 and another were expected to be hired as MEED continued its rapid growth during fiscal 1980. Starting as an idea and a group of 5 people in 1972, ICG had 66 people in 1975, but began its real growth in 1977, reaching 448 employees at the beginning of fiscal year 1980. ICG was only manufacturing 5% to 8% of MEEDS semiconductor needs instead of the 20% planned. It took about 3 years of work at ICG for a college graduate be fully trained, but by working with these colleges to develop programs and by providing equipment and dollar donations, ICG hoped to shorten on-the-job training to 1-1/2 years. A week lost could mean approximately $100,000 lost in profit before taxes for MEED. Core Problem The main issue that MEED was facing was that there was an urgent need that there was no formal planning due to which there was a need for the company to make a proper amendments in HRM of the company and to make policies and procedures and implement them effectively as there was a shortage of Human Resource management at all levels at MEED. They were not having specialized engineers and managers in the required numbers is affecting the corporation. There was a significant problem in attracting engineers capable of the state of the art work that ICG technology demanded. The option of simply hiring  in good people now met resistance from those who pointed out that there were no free slots for these people until the growth actually took place. An estimation was made that IC group’s exempt attrition would rise to an average of 15% per year and non exempt to 35% unless the group improved its recruitment, career development, performance, appraisals and promotion practices. ICG would need 241 hires in order to bring the employee total up to the target for the end of FY 1980. If we look at the exhibits 4 and 5 it could be observed that Barbara is at a very lower level in the hierarchy, and is given vey less authority. If a separate HR department is created with giving all HR responsibilities to the HR department than possibly all most the problems could be solved. Other problems Recommendations Repositioning of Barbara Hamlin in organizational structure We think that she should report directly to Dave Bertram, the president of MEED’s to minimize the distortion between them and Barbara can stamp the authority and she will not have to take approvals from group heads. She is the one who have identified the problems in the system so she should be able to exercise authority so she can solve the problems. Having the backing of the president of MEED’s, people will know that she is a credible source of high authority and she should be followed. Once there is clarity in chain of command, then Barbara should concentrate in making of new human resource department which will include recruitment and selection, compensation and appraisal, training and development which is not addressed in the company till now. Hiring the right people Problem of ICG can be solved as there is low performance by the managers and engineers are working as managers and company don’t have to hire right workforce and as a result they are performing at the top level. Supply of efficient workforce is also limited; that is also one of the reasons engineers are working as managers. Moreover, it is told in the case study that other companies have made collaborations with universities and they  hire their technical staff and engineers automatically after they graduate. It is best for both student and company because student will get job immediately after he graduates and company can get fresh graduates that are fit for the organization. In exhibit 8, it is written â€Å"at institutes, we work with real projects†; that means student can get a taste of professional life and projects even when they are students. Good compensation to retain employees The employment industry of China is very competitive. In order to get best results in the company, company should be able to retain the right employees who are worth it. HR department should make organized and intelligent decision in retaining particular employees. As it is written in the case that giving $1000 a month and working for 20 years has become a standard of industry. Other than that, when an individual leaves the job, he or she gets a 30% pay rise on an average; that means when labor in the market start doing job hopping it will take employees pays up automatically. Standardize the operating procedure The first and foremost step that Barbara needs to take is that she should make procedure same for everyone. For e.g. in this case it was written that managers thought HRD is just for training the employees. So, Barbara should start working and should make everything formal including job analysis, job description, training development and compensation plans. Employees should have awareness of HR department of the company and employees should know clearly that what are they required to do. Once HR department comes in and take steps to make things formal; then company’s environment will also become professional as it is desired by HR department. Training and development Company is not very serious about the training of the employees as position of management development is vacant from some time. Training is only given to manufacturing department in the company but it should be also offered to the designing department of the company. Training of design department will lead to more innovative designs and less flaws in the system. Exit interviews When an employees is leaving the company; he just have to go but one thing that company can do extra is the exit interviews; as company can get a new point of view of the employee about the flaws of the company and how they can be improved. Cause of leaving company should be asked from the employees that also point out significant errors in the company’s operations. Analysis of exhibits If we compare FY80, 81 and the current year in association to number of employees (exempt and non exempt) to the departments (advanced design, manufacturing and material) it could be clearly seen that currently there is a decrease in the number of employees in comparison to the year 80 and 81.Currently there are 6 managers in advanced design, 11 in manufacturing and 6 in material, where as in the FY 1980 there were 30 managers and 1981 there were 47. Moreover, in the advanced design there are currently 97 employees with 116 in 1980 and 150 in 1981. In manufacturing currently 322, 1980 there were 564 and in 1981 there were 854. In the materials currently they have 204 employees in comparison to 1980 where there were 266 and in 1981 there were 425. Overall a decrease in number of employees could be observed. Exhibit 2 talks about the hiring requirements projections. The exhibit depicts the year period. It could be clearly seen that for all the three departments in association to the years there was an increasing trend. Exhibit 3 talks about the financials of 10 years from (1970 to 1979). It could be clearly seen that there was an increase in sales net income and stockholders’ equity of MEED since the 7 year period. Though the sales were not steady but and increasing trend is observed.

Erp implementation and change management

Erp implementation and change management ERP Implementation and Change Management Abstract In this research paper, we will analyse the problems and issues faced by a business / enterprise during the ERP project implementation project. And why is there a need for a proper change management as part of their ERP project implementation. As businesses are reengineering their business processes, they are expected to readjust their business methodology to suit the need or demands of market. Business will need a highly reliable management system to support their daily business processes, to reduce inefficiency and inaccuracy within the organisation business process. During the project implementation process, organization will commonly faces unwanted resist from the potential users. The study wills reveals what are the pitfalls and approach needed when organisation are facing resistance to ERP, which could lead to implementation failures. INTRODUCTION As business getting more competitive in today world, it is not enough for business to get content with producing only better and more reliable product and services. In order to provide better customer service internal or external, minimise or reduce overhead, daily production and operation costs, they need the assistance of a better, highly reliable information system to provide a more efficient management over the business processes. ERP Systems are introduced to handle more complex transactions as a highly dependable system. (Lukman Susanto, 2003) The enterprise resource planning (ERP) system is a set of integrated Business Applications that provides support for core business process activities such as Manufacturing Production and Logistics, Finance and Accounting, Sales and Marketing, and Human resources. An ERP system integrated and helps the different departmental units of the organization to share data and knowledge, reduce costs, and improve management of the business Processes. (Adel M. Aladwani, 2001) Despite of having so many benefits, lot of ERP projects still fail (Stratman and Roth, 1999). Most of the ERP system implementation that fail are due to workers resistance. A good and careful change management strategies are requires facilitating a successful ERP implementation. (Adel M. Aladwani, 2001) The goal of the this paper is to show how â€Å"change management† could play a significant roles, how to market the ERP within the organization and what are strategies available that are useful to overcome workers resistance to ERP implementation. What is change management? Change Management is a planned change approach within an organization. The goal of Change Management is to maximize the benefits and lower the potential risk for the organization related to changes due to ERP implementation. In any ERP implementation undertaken by a business, Change management is one of the biggest tasks are heavily involved by the organization. Not only that this require a significant amount of funding from the organization but also require a high level of commitment throughout the whole organization. It is a deliberate approach to ensure a change in peoples expectations towards the major changes in the work process bring about by the implementation of ERP to move the business forward smoothly. (Commonwealth of Pennsylvania). An effective change management must touches on all aspects of psychological reaction, such as resistance within an organization, which the potential users are going through. Measuring attitudinal changes are part of the key process in Change Management in the ERP implementation to record how people feel and their expectation towards the anticipated changes in the technology implementation. This will definitely help the organization to know how to manage the shift. Huge amount of communication, and training for the users are needed. WHY IS IT CRUCIAL TO AN ERP IMPLEMENTATION? The whole concept of change management involvement in ERP implementation is building mutual trust and understanding between the organization and its employees throughout the business component, during the implementation phase. The focus of change management in the business should be customer oriented managing expectation of the potential end user rather than technology or product oriented. End user will not be amazed with the state-of-the-art equipment, if the new ERP system or business process failed to fulfil peoples expectation. While ERP implementation requires the business to standardise its business processes, change management will be needed to make sure the damages can be avoided / minimised that are caused by transformation. With proper change management strategy in place, businesses can minimise costs involve due to rapid changes to bring in new system within the organization, while trying to maintain the consistency and existences of its employees. Change management can also help the company to deal with future changes with increase in the business flexibility, thus increase the business productivity as well. (Mark Schweiker Jeff Beatty) REASONS FOR RESISTANCE TO CHANGE This is part of the human nature to resist. According to Bonnie Mincu   â€Å"resistant to have their expectation disrupted† (Bonnie Mincu, 1999). How the top management handle and deal with the resistance is important. Resistance are unavoidable but can be manage. The two basic reasons why people are resisting change are(Bonnie Mincu, 1999): Ø Lack of motivation If the employee are not well informed on the purpose of the change and how it may beneficial for them, people will not feel motivated to change and support the new system. A good communication and vision sharing are needed to resolve these issues. Ø Lack of ability People may understand and agree on the reasons on why there is a need for change, but if they do not have the needed ability, this will add unnecessary resistance and anxiety to all the mist of changes around them. Good proper structure job base training is needed for individual who will be operating the business on the ground within the organization. Ø Change in Habit People who are so used to do their daily job in a familiar business process, will find it a hesitant and hard to break out of it and need some time to adjust to the new system and business process. Majority of people by default would prefer to do their jobs in ways they used to, instead of being innovative or to find a better way to get things done. (Adel Aladwani, 2001).   If businesses fail to handle such conditions, this might upset the employees and valued employees might leave the company. Thus a good project leader must be able to carry a good change management to avoid this unfortunate scenario. Change management Strategy Just like other system implementation, the role of change management is to build trust and understanding throughout the organization, so that the potential users in different separate functional area, where the change will be applied, such as finance, human resources and manufacturing, will understand the benefits and are well prepared to accept the change will be applied. (Island Consulting, 2000). Problems will surface the moment when the actual implementation of the system started, and for a successful implementation its use would require a lot of communication and collaboration within the well-established departmental organization. Although they maybe aware that the purpose of implementing the ERP system was to eliminate unnecessary double or redundant operationally work within whole organizational structure. (Kemppainen, Ilkka, 2000) Most of the project implementation potential risks related to the company are connected with the factors like the level of acceptance or support from company personnel and the top management. Factors like working skills, knowledge, and experience will also affect the outcome of the ERP project implementation. One typical potential risk factor is the resistance to change. People who are going to run the business or potential user may not see how the benefits of the system will help in their own work and, may not be fully committed to the new business model. With the mindset of resistance to change in place, people will not be using the system in a disciplined manner. Normal daily business activities also disturbs the ERP implementation, and people working on the ground may not be willing to put time or effort to assist the development work due to busy schedule. Without strong top management support for the ERP project, the project is set for failure. Beside those factors having a good project manager is also critical for ERP project implementation success. (Pà ¤ivi Iskanius, 2009) In change management things like synchronisation or communication between management and operation level with the project team are very important. The management need to focus and prepare a proper appropriate strategies, communication channels or plan to gather feedback and market the new ERP system that is going to be implement and a proper structure training program or schedule for the potential users to ensure the daily business activities are not being disrupt and able to achieve the desire expected outcomes / results. The organization needs to make sure that the employees are carefully instructed to help them overcome all the challenges during the mist of changes during the ERP project implementation. Effective change management strategies are (Island Consulting, 2000): Ø Communications Strategy Constant communication is a need between the key person in the management and those in working in the daily business operation. The organization needs to ensure a thorough approach in their project strategy such as preparing for their project plans, project costs analysis, project progress reports as well as employees training to prepare the workers for the new system. Good working collaboration will help in resulting a better outcome of the project. The purpose of communicating is not to make everyone happy and it is not possible to make everyone happy, but to deliver the message and request for possible cooperation within the organization. Constant communication can effectively help in reducing the worries and anxiety on the management and the people on the ground on the changes. Ø Impact Analysis Impact Analysis is a method to determine the impact on the current business system and how the business environment will be affect by the new ERP system. Data flow / work flow diagram will be included as part of those formal and informal information to show how business flows and tasks are being run and carried out within the organization. Information like job description and history are being documented will help the project team to make comparison on how the actual business processes to what has been documented (Island Consulting, 2000). With all the information gather above, the project team can analyse the impact the ERP implementation may bring, who are the personnel that will be affected by the implementation and the sort of training are required to ensure a smooth transition to the new system that is being implemented. Ø Skill Analysis Proper training program and schedule are very important in ERP implementation as well. With the implementation of a new system, majority of the operator / end user will need to go for specific job training to get them ready to work on the new system. In order to find who are the individuals need to be train, the project team need to work with all stake holders, usually departmental head to perform skills analysis. Those employees who might need to work with the new ERP system will be audited by their qualification, skills and experiences to allocate the most suitable and best position for each of them. And at the same time, to ensure the business process operates adequately, the company might need to hire new staff or external consultants. The analysis will produce a list of detailed results on appropriate personnel for each position, training required and the cost in training.   CASE STUDY Case Study 1 Marine Cargo Specialist (Kemppainen, Ilkka, 2000) Marine Cargo Specialist is a relatively small global company, which provides marine cargo flow handling solutions and products. Their customer base mainly consists of companies like shipyards that provide services such as building of new ship, modernisation or upgrading and conversation of older ships for the ship owners or ship operators. All the old existing operational IT systems were deliver, maintained or supported by the local IT departments and their local suppliers. No common standards were established for such systems, thus the decentralised information systems architecture made it very difficult to share information on a global basis. Global business activities are often delays due to unavailability of quality, accurate and timely information. Due to the complexity of the new ERP system, problems started to surface gradually. The ERP project team did not place too much attention to these problems initially, as they are considered not critical. Instead, the main focus was on getting the system configuration completed and the system up as soon as possible. But to their dismay, for the potential users of the new ERP system, proper coordination and communication were fundamental. Soon frustration between the project and reference teams start to surface. With the numbers of unsolved issues keep increasing; mistrust and frustration start to grow among the project team and reference team. And project team find it harder to get approvals from the reference teams for crucial design due to other outstanding unaddressed issues. Eventually the system configuration was not being able to be completed, due to inadequate information and resources. And there was a clear indication that the consultants hire did not had a true knowledge and understanding of the system. Majority of the external consultant were kicked out of the ERP project in the process. The level of commitment and support for the project from the top management, started to diminish ad the project was clearly running into problems. CFO of the company as example, who used to be the true sponsor or supporter of the ERP implementation project, seem to be trying to move away from the project involvement. In 1997, due to the result of ownership change in the company, a new board of directors together with a new company CEO was appointed. The new CEO evaluated all the projects carefully and appointed an external consultant to assist him. The new CEO clearly demonstrated and shows his commitment towards the ERP implementation. And with the CEO support, the ERP project was back on the agendas of the senior management. The new CEO even made it clear on his vision of having a more integrated business system with a common, shared values and culture. He even initiated a management development program to address all openly cultural and trust related problems. Thus after the adjustment of implementation methodology result in better match for the changed circumstances. After so many struggles in the project, the implementation was now considered successfully amazingly, by not just the organization itself, but by other external parties from consulting companies as well as SAP. Case Study 2 WZM Werkzeugmaschinen GmbH (Benjamin R. Hoetzel, 2005) WZM Wekzeugmaschinen GmbH (pseudonym name) is a German manufacturing company that specialise in producing tools for presses in the automotive sector. It has two production sites in Germany, which employs 120 people. In 2004, driven by the fast expanding business growth and second plant being set-up. The company faced additional pressure to expand its production. But the growth also mean there was a need to redesign their business process with the implementation of a new ERP system in order improves control over the processes, and the need to reduce costs. Resistance started to evolve as the project advanced. Especially from the key administration users, who were not willing to do their daily work with the ERP system. Reasons for the resistance were clear: Ø The computer experience of some of these employees who 50 years old and above were limited. Ø Due refusal to abandon old habits, some employees are not ready to accept the change of their processes. Due to changes in the workflow, there was strong resistance during the post-implementation phrase from the finance department, including the financial director.   Some employees for example are not willing to accept the new screen layout of the ERP software and it will be difficult to let those employees to abandon their old habits and adapt to the new system. Without realizing the importance of this change, WZM Werkzeugmaschinen GmbH, started the project without a full time project leader to lead the project. Instead, tasks were divided to some of the employees on top of their daily operational work. Beside that, they engage the services of two consultants to assist and lead the project in the integration of the new ERP into the company workflow. To make things worse, the employees were also not convinced that the consultants were competent. WZM Werkzeugmaschinen GmbH fail to identify what are the problems and evaluate actual needs, and be attentive to people and their social behavior before implementing and adapting a technical solution. The company also fails to provide proper support, education or training to its employees in the ERP modules. The finance department of WZM Werkzeugmaschinen GmbH for example, opposed the change heavily due the very fact that they lack the necessary skills for using the new ERP system. In the case of WZM Werkzeugmaschinen GmbH, People focus was missing, which explain why their ERP projects fail. Conclusion This research paper has show that in order for any ERP system implementation to be successfully, good fully functional change management must be establish within the organization or company. Strong and committed support from the management, and a good change management strategy and plans are required for preparation of any existing businesss resources such as human resources and infrastructure to match ERP system needs and requirement. There are various aspects that need to be considered when establishing change management. For example the nature or type of the business, size of the company and the geographical area of the business. Rush implementation of ERP is not recommend as ERP itself is a complex system, which requires a lot of careful analysis or study as well as depth understanding before proceeding to implement. Without a proper change management planning in place, ERP implementation will cause disaster and big lost for the company.

Existing recruitment and selection process ITcom in India

Existing recruitment and selection process ITcom in India Imagine that you have been asked by an organisation to review an area of HR practice and suggest ways in which it could be improved so as to contribute to HRM strategy and organisational goals. Draw on research literature and contemporary organisational practice to address this issue, and ensure that your answer also pays attention to issues of the methodology employed in the studies you quote. You can choose any area of HR practice that we cover during the second half of the course (that is, recruitment, selection, talent management, performance management, employee involvement and participation). You will also need to provide a short description of the organisation on which you are basing your recommendations so that answers can be evaluated within the context of their application. Objective: The objective of this essay is to undertake an examination of the existing recruitment and selection process forming an organizational framework. The current author will review an Indian based Multinational Company ITcom (Organizations name changed) with respect to globalisation and international market, emphasising on finding the effectiveness on cost/time and quality parameters to identify areas of improvement and suggest ways to improvise on its recruitment and selection procedures drawing on the literature and analysing the research methodology of studies used. Introduction: Increased global competition coupled with enhanced customer/client expectations makes the growth or even the survival of any firm difficult (Back S, 2005). Organizations need to perform and respond to a rapidly changing global environment and thus require attracting and retaining a dedicated, high quality workforce by means of recruitment and selection. From the psychometric perspective (UK Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development), jobs are defined in terms of their tasks or descriptions which are specific. Recruitment is a process of attracting individuals who might meet specifications of task or description. Selection is the process of measuring differences between these candidates to find the person who is best fit. The importance of hiring should not be underestimated because a poor recruitment decision can cost an employer an amount equal to 30 per cent of the employees first year earnings (Hacker 1997). These costs can include: lower productivity; potential loss of clients; training costs; advertising costs; recruitment expenses and redundancy packages (Smith and Graves 2002). According to the CIPD, 20 percent of employees leave within the first six months. This is sometimes called the induction crisis. It was found that numbers varied dramatically by industry, clothing industry figure was 26.5 percent, with 45 percent leaving during first three months, only a third remaining beyond a year (Tarpin et al, 2003). Overall turnover rates in the UK/Ireland fell from 25 percent per year (2000) to about 18 percent per year (2007). However, more people left voluntarily than through dismissal, redundancy, or ending of contracts. Thus it is imperative for an organization to have a strategized HR policy in place for recruitment for selecting and retaining the workforce. Although its recognised as crucial to many organisations, recruitment is often done in an ad hoc and reactive manner. Eight in ten employers rank attracting and recruiting key staff to the organisation in their top three resourcing objectives, but only 50% of organisations in the UK have formal resourcing strategies in place. Many employers acknowledge that they experience tremendous recruitment difficulties (86% according to CIPD). Hence given the costs of filling a vacancy, its important for firms to recruit well and select the most appropriate employees. About the company: ITcom Business, a division of ITcom Limited, is amongst the largest global IT services, Business Process Outsourcing and Product Engineering companies. In addition to the IT business, ITcom also has leadership position in niche market segments of consumer products and lighting solutions. The company has been listed since 1945 and started its technology business in 1980. Today, ITcom generates USD 6 billion (India GAAP figure 2009-10) of annual revenues. Its equity shares are listed in India on the Mumbai Stock Exchange and the National Stock Exchange; as well as on the New York Stock Exchange in the United States. ITcom makes an ideal partner for organizations looking at transformational IT solutions because of its core capabilities, great human resources, commitment to quality and the global infrastructure to deliver a wide range of technology and business consulting solutions and services. ITcom enables business results by being a transformation catalyst. It offers integrated portfolio of services to its clients in the areas of Consulting, System Integration and Outsourcing for key-industry verticals. It has a wide geographical diversity of operations with over 50 development centers and 10 near shore centres spread across India, Japan, China, France, Austria, Sweden, Germany, UK and USA. In recent years, ITcom has faced a number of workforce challenges, such as an increasingly diverse workforce, increased cut throat competition in market giving rise to attrition rate and uncertainty of workforce requirement. As one of the strategies to address these challenges, a need rises to review and streamline recruitment and selection business processes to support ITcom as a leading organization and to increase the ability to make high quality hires and meet workforce needs. Literature Review in Context with ITcom: The Recruitment Process: Organizational review and Job Analysis: Perhaps the most one can say with any certainty is that many UK companies continue to express a commitment to the idea of HR strategy and planning. How this translates into practice, however, is less clear (Liff, 2000 p.125) When the pattern of planned human resource deployments and activities [is] intended to enable an organization to achieve its goals'(Wright and McMahan 1992: 298), HRM can be said to be strategic. More specifically, for recruitment to become strategic, HR practitioners must answers to the following questions (Breaugh 1992; Breaugh and Starke 2000): Whom to recruit?, Where to recruit?, What recruitment sources to use (e.g. the web, newspapers, job fairs, on campus, etc.)?, When to recruit? And (5) what message to communicate? HR planning is regarded as essential for at least four sets of reasons (Marchington, 2005): Clear links between business and HR Plans: It draws the link or degree of fit between HR planning and strategic plans, so that the ability of HR function can be measured to deliver precisely what the business requires. It can also be viewed as a relationship between corporate and HR plans, where HR plans will contribute to the development of the corporate. In either ways HR planning can be viewed as major facilitator of competitive advantage. Better control over staffing costs and numbers employed: Making projections about anticipated staffing needs is imperative, irrespective of whether a growth or decline in numbers is predicted. This makes it easier to match supply and demand and therefore make decisions about recruiting from the external labour market, relocating staff, or preparing for reductions in numbers employed in order to achieve greater control over staffing costs (Taylor, 2005. P.101) More informed judgements about the skills and attitude mix in the organization: It is very critical to get the right mix of skills in the employed workforce to attain the confidence of customer and for productivity and profit generation. In case of ITcom, some of its customers are domain based, for example one of its clients is Boeing, which has specifications of employing only citizens in the USA geography and highly skilled professionals in Product Life Cycle Management (PLM). In this scenario what is expected is either ITcom should search and acquire people skilled in this field or get professionals who can be trained on these platforms to give quality results. Maintain a profile of existing staff: By maintaining a profile in terms of age, gender, race and disability etc helps any organization to claim for providing equal opportunities. Without accurate and up-to-date figures on existing staff numbers and their breakdown by grade and position, it is impossible for employers to make decisions about how equality management can be achieved (Liff 2000, p103). In 2008, ITcom was asked by the DOJ (Department of Justice) of US legislations to prove that it offers equal employment opportunity for all. ITcom was using online software (known as SYNERGY) for database generation. This software had a peculiar questionnaire (like age, sex, nationality etc) to understand the background of the candidate applying for jobs. Later these questions were omitted as it was believed that interviewers might get biased at the initial stage of application and may not proceed ahead with the prospective employees candidature. Hence all the details of employee were transferred and saved in the SAP software for internal use and data storage, it helped the company to keep track of its existing employees along with amendments in Synergy software which helped in refraining its managers and recruiters to avoid any discriminatory practice by human error at the stage of recruitment and selection. The primary step in the recruitment process after HR planning, involves a systematic review of the organizational requirements which lead to a thorough analysis of the requirements of jobs called job analysis. The above process of HR planning and job analysis which translates demand for labour, leads to forecasting the internal and external supply. Based on these decisions can be made about the balance between external recruitment, internal staff development or workforce reductions. Table I is an example of a typical seven days of business taken from a hotel operation. The figures have been reduced to two functions: for example, rooms and food and beverage or restaurant and bars, and for simplicity it is assumed that functional flexibility covers two skills, i.e. staff from function A would be able to work in function B and vice versa. In operational terms the seven days depicted here would be a point in a rolling forecast that would change daily. The demand patterns described here are typical of departments within a hotel operation but could also represent patterns in restaurant operations, retailing and many tourism attractions. ITcom has been able to work well in this area of HR planning and setting up a stringent policy to which all the employees/recruiters are bound to be compliant. The Executive Vice President of Human Resource Management personally regulates the HR policies which are formed by the leaders and Senior Managers of the company. A dedicated team continuously works on mapping the market trends and predicts the upcoming problems and opportunities to work pro-actively on demands to incur with supply of labour. Job description, person specification and competencies: Once the job analysis has been collected, the next step is to develop a job description. They are particularly prevalent in public sector and large organizations. A job description usually includes: Job title, location, responsible to (job title of supervisor) and for (job titles of members who will report directly under the job holder), main purpose of the job, responsibilities or duties, working conditions (contains contractual agreements, fringes and benefits etc) other matters such as if travelling is required etc and performance standards along with any other duties that might be assigned by the organisation. (Marchington, 2005) Traditionally, it is divided into two main topics: work-oriented analysis (focussing on the job itself) and worker-oriented analysis (focussing on the worker) (Searle, 2003). Rodgers seven-point plan (Physical make-up, attainments, general intelligence, special aptitudes, interest, disposition and circumstances) and Frasers five-point plan (Impact on others, acquired knowledge and qualifications, innate abilities, motivation and adjustment) rely heavily on personal judgment to specify human qualities associated with successful performance (Newell and Shackleton 2000, p115). The significance of these job descriptions is that they focus on the behavioural aspects of the candidates. Therefore it is not required to make inferences about personal qualities that might underpin behaviour (Newell and Shackleton, 2001, p26). Job descriptions and specifications of person often exist alongside the competency-based approaches (Taylor 2002c), not least because they set a framework within which subsequent HR practices, for example performance management, training and development, pay and grading can be placed (Whiddett and Hollingforde 1999). According to IRS (IRS Employment Review 782 2003, p45) the most commonly used competencies are team orientation, communication, people management, customer focus, results orientation and problem solving. Surprisingly, ethical behaviour, responsibility, enthusiasm and listening are rarely used. Competency can be differentiated in four types (Roberts 1997, p71-72) a) namely: natural which is made up by the big five dimensions of personality; extraversion/introversion, emotional stability, agreeableness, conscientiousness and openness to experience b) acquired: where knowledge and skills acquired through work or other avenues. c) Adapting: this competency area revolves around the ability to adapt natural talents and acquired skills to new situation. And lastly, performing: which comprises observable behaviours and output. Recruitment Methods: Choosing a cost effective method for recruitment is essential and depends on factors specific to organisation. Recruitment is typically regarded as poor relation to selection, typically afforded limited space in most of the publications and gives very little evidence of the theoretical underpinnings (Breaugh and Starke 2000). Recruitment provides the candidates for the selector to judge. Selection techniques cannot overcome failures in recruitment; they merely make them evident (Watson, 1994, p203). It is very important that the organisation decide whether or not to recruit, which sources to be used and what cost. Legal issues are also to be borne particularly while using media and publishing the adverts (Taylor 2002c). Internal and External Searches: ITcom uses various tools for recruitment internally and externally. Internal Sources: It moves its potential employees from one department to another which fills the vacancies and proves to be a career development for the employees. The knowledge transfer from one position to another embarks the capabilities in the staff and enhances their skills and abilities. These practices are more prevalent during rationalisation than in boon or recession (Marchington, 2005). Staffs are also transferred from temporary posts to open ended contracts or from agency work onto the direct payroll. This provides employers with a form of quasi-internal labour market where they can observe people at work before committing to a more secure employment offer (Rubery et al 2002, 2004). There is indication from wider research on agencies that they are progressively taking up strategies to expand markets in which potential recruits, as well as employers, are receptive to temporary opportunities and for whom the profit of agency working outweigh the costs. * There is also an internal marketing team in recruitment department in ITcom which focuses on publishing the job vacancies in the company and gain the references from the existing employees. The CIPD survey showed that word-of-mouth recruitment remains widely used though it is sometimes hard to differentiate from speculative applications. A major advantage of referral programs is the quality of candidates, as most employees are unlikely to recommend friend who will not fit the culture of the organization and who is not suited for the role. The Coventry Building Society filled nearly a quarter of all its posts through this method (IRS Employment Review 804 2004). In ITcom there are various award schemes for recruiters to encourage employees to refer their friends and families. Although it is cheap and readily available, organizations such as Acas, the EOC and the CRE are worried such ring-fencing may strengthen the existing imbalances (gender, race and disability), upsetting the attempts to encourage greater workforce diversity. (Marchington, 2005) One of the major and critical hiring in ITcom is for the Sales division, where the Industry experts like evangelists, practice managers, sales director etc are required to lead the business. ITcom has a dedicated team of leadership hiring professionals who evaluate the candidature for these positions. The current author suggests that the company should try to engage with head-hunters for sourcing and recruiting for such high-level and critical roles. Head-hunters may have extensive contacts which can be beneficial. This method is expensive, and is used much in private sector than in public or voluntary bodies (Marchington, 2005) Apart from the middle and senior level positions, for the fresh recruits the most effective way can be campus placements and the CIPD survey found that it was on a par with the companys own website in popularity. Sources of external applicant and Methods of attracting applicants: Largest number of lists comes under external sources which constitute the open sources. Advertisements in national and local papers are amongst the most widely used methods, and for the specialist posts trade press can be more effective (CIPD 2004b). Radio and TV adverts are rarely used. ITcom in 2009 advertised its employee referral programmes which were based on theme of friendship, aired the adverts on a local radio channel (94.3 Radio One FM in Bangalore), to let the message be conveyed to mass. This had helped the company to gain many applicants through existing employees. E-Recruitment is another one tool which has gained its significance in recent years. According to IRS 90% of firms use some form of e-recruitment. Like job boards (monster.com, dice.com, careerbuilder.com. jobsahead.com etc) for advertising the vacancies. Social networking sites (linkedin.com, myspace.com, facebook.com etc) are also gaining popularity amongst the job seekers and recruiters for filling the positions. Main advantages of e-recruitment are reduced costs, improved corporate image, reduced administration, etc. The Selection Process: Consulting various sources such as Cook (1998), Taylor (2002c), Cooper et al (2003) and Searle (2003) it is conferred that no single technique, no matter how well it is designed and administered, can be capable of being perfect selection decision. Employers are advised not to rely on one method (Marchington, 2005). According to a CIPD survey of more than 1000 employers, it is concluded that the most common and widely used techniques were traditional interviews, competency-based interviews and tests for specific skills. Robertson and Smith (2001) also indicated that most techniques have very low levels of accuracy in terms of producing effective selection decisions. Of techniques used on their own, work sampling offers the highest likelihood of success, closely followed by intelligence tests and structured interviewing (Schmidt and Hunter, 1998) Various authors (Newell and Shackleton 200; Taylor 2002c; Cooper et al 2003 and Searle 2003) discuss the criteria for assessing the value of selection methods: Practicality: According to Cooper et al (2003, p94), it is the most important criteria of all. The method suggested has to be economical in terms of cost and benefits, the time required to administer it and should be within the capabilities of those who are supposed to run it. Most critical is the cost issue. For example, it makes very less sense to run a sophisticated and complex personality test if only one candidate has applied for the post. Sensitivity: A lot of care must be taken to avoid any kind of discrimination based on race, gender, age or disability. Reliability: comprises of different elements but refers essentially to consistency of method used to select individuals (Newell and Shackleton 2000, p119). It should not be too much influenced by chance factors (Cooper et al 2003, p 50-52). For example: inter-rater reliability is crucial if many interviewers take interview, where one rejects and other selects. In ITcom, at many occasions this problem exists, as for certain job roles, several levels of interviews are conducted. It must be taken in consideration to measure the accuracy of each interviewer before concluding a rejection or selection of the candidate. Validity: This defines the correctness of the inferences that can be drawn from the selection methods. (Newell and Shackleton, 2000, p121) define this as the relationship between the predictors (the result from the selection methods used) and the criteria (performance of the job). Key Themes and Recommendations: The assessment of market scenario of ITcom suggests that while there are quite a few areas for upgrading and improvement, there are also many areas that are working well, including: ITcom appears to have more flexibility in identifying the suitable appointment method, establishing the merit criteria to be considered in determining the most suitable candidate with its strong value based strict compliance policies. The range of options (internal and external sourcing) available to recruit staff provides flexibility and supports timely and effective hiring decisions. The Jobs Websites (monster.com, dice.com, careerbuilder.com, linkedin.com etc) appears to be an effective method of attracting successful candidates, and feedback about the job postings, application and interview process and the quality of hires seems positive. Staffing Operating Principles related to fairness, integrity and selection of the most suitable person was seen as both useful and being achieved. The staffing proce ss was perceived to be transparent and able to withstand scrutiny. Executive Search recruitment and screening processes were generally considered to work well and support hiring high quality executive management and senior leaders, in a timely fashion. Opportunities for improvement: Themes emerged including the need to formalize processes that will progress into a more strategic approach to recruitment: Focus must be increased on long-term forecasting of workforce needs in new development centres (e.g. newly opened development centre in Atlanta, GA in USA and Germany), which will help to directly connect workforce planning to the staffing function and developing strategies to address gaps. In this context of globalization, many multinational organizations search for suitable employees from across the globe and apply similar selection criteria with limited attention to effectiveness and less knowledge of different cultural backgrounds (Searle, 2003). Searle also believes that this is an area where practice is far ahead of research and comment. One way firms are trying to manage their operation within this new global context more effectively is by using sophisticated selection assessment practices. If the underlying basis for their assessment is flawed, then these more high-powered tests and assessments will inevitably be a further waste of resources. Increase focus on recruitment planning and implement a project management approach to the hiring process. Increase focus on branding and candidate sourcing for active and passive candidates, including more targeted sources of media. Research has indicated that the media exposure of a firm is a sign of its reputation (Newell and Shackleton, 2001). Technology in form of media and internet helps reducing the cost and time of travel for both applicants and companies. ITcom with most of its offices across the globe uses the telephone and video conferencing for conducting interviews. Expand methods for facilitating the identification of potential internal candidates for executive positions, including if possible, information from succession management and workforce planning initiatives. Enhance utilization of summer employment, work experience, co-op and internship initiatives as a strategy to attract and develop students and recent graduates in conjunction with workforce forecasting needs. Improve efficiency and effectiveness through increased collaboration and use of technology. Increase all stakeholders knowledge of staffing process including the recruitment strategies available. Conclusion: The Recruitment and selection within the wide organizational context highlights the relationship between organizational strategy and human resource policy and procedures. Key changes in methods and practices are identified responsible for increased attention and use of selection systems. Application of techniques enhances the confidence of HR processes. The growth in process oriented research highlights an alternative view of selection and recruitment and is at odds with the psychometric approach. As there is increased sophistication in the selection methods, it is often forgotten that without a proper set recruitment method, there would be less number of applicants for selection; this can have reverse impact on the performance of employment contract. Conversely, usage of well chosen methods can be helpful in choosing the staff which can be fit to meet targets of the organization. Recruitment is one area of HRM where assistance might be sought from the external providers, as being aw are of the limits and using the right techniques are equally important. It is very important that recruitment and selection processes be well organised, delivered and evaluated for the organisational growth. Methodology: The research work or sample used in the essay are pure and applied (from the perspective of application in various situations) and descriptive, co relational, explanatory or exploratory (from the perspective of objectives of the literature view). Most of the information is gathered by the literature from texts and journals and was related to real life experience of the current author from ITcom. Data collection of most of the articles and references cited in the essay are from the companies which is generally the primary data, secondary data is the one used from literature. Wherever required while collecting the data, the interviews were commenced, questionnaires were formed, and observations were made for example the IRS employment reviews and CIPD conducted surveys (which are quoted in the essay) in such styles or formats. Each of the articles and examples portrayed in the essay were based on literature review which brought in the clarity and focus to research problem and improved the methodology by enhancing the knowledge base. The literature pertinent dealt with two types of information, one universal and second specific (local trends). In some of the journals, a number of sources were used to compile databases, for example data was collected from local employment agencies, yellow pages along with interviews and surveys were conducted. These give a broad platform to compare and relate the data by empirical methodology of data accumulation.