Classics Oral Tradition Essays - Greek Underworld, Demeter, Hades

Classics Oral Tradition The Division of Honors and Journeying Among the Gods In this midterm essay I will discuss why Gods Journey. I believe that Gods journey for two reasons. One reason is to seek out honor for themselves. The other reason is to regain honors they have lost. To demonstrate this I will first discuss the journeys of Hades in the Homeric hymn "To Demeter" comparing it to the journey of Hermes in "To Hermes". I fell that both of these companion journeys were attempts by these Gods to win honors they did not already have. Next I will look at the companion journeys of Demeter and Apollo. I think that both of these Gods journeyed to regain honors they'd previously had, but lost. Lastly I will conclude by showing how all four Gods had to compromise and divide up the honors amongst themselves. "Earth with its wide roads gaped and then over the Nysian field the lord and All receiver, the many named son of Kronos, sprang out upon her with his immortal horses...Not an unseemly bridegroom among the immortals is Aidoneus, Lord on Many, your own brother from the same seed; to his share fell honor when in the beginning a triple division was made, and he dwells among those over whom his lot made him lord" (To Demeter 16-18, 83-87). I think that these two sets of lines show that Hades viewed Persephone as a prize. Honor was one of the things Hades won when he, Zeus, and Poseidon divided up the world. Thus Hades felt justified in journeying up from the underworld to earth to claim Persephone as his bride. I feel that he felt he deserved to have her, according to his logic, because honor was something he was entitled to as a God. I feel that Hermes journey was similar to that of Hades in that he traveled in order to win honor for himself and for his Mother Maia. "A watcher by night and a gate keeper, soon destined to show forth glorious deeds among the immortal gods. Born at dawn, by midday he played his lyre, and at evening he stole the cattle of far shooting Apollon...But I shall be master of whatever skill is best to provide for you and me forever; we shall not suffer, as you bid me, to stay right here and be the only two immortals not plied with gifts and prayers. It is better to be forever in the gods' intimate circle, rich, affluent, and with an abundance of grain, than to sit in this dark cave; and as for honor, I, too, shall claim the rite of which Apollon is a master" (To Hermes 15-18, 166- 173). Hermes much like Hades was destined to achieve glorious deeds and win honor. He felt he was entitled to steal Apollo's cattle, just as Hades felt entitled to steal Persephone, because neither he nor Maia were receiving their just honors from the Gods. I think that honor is one of the most important and significant things among the Gods. It is truly the one area in which Gods are able to distinguish themselves from other gods. I think that both of these Gods risked earning the wrath of other Gods because honor was so important to them, and they felt they were lacking of such. Both of these journeys represent one of the key reasons why I feel that Gods travel. Both of these Gods were not receiving the honors that they felt they deserved as Gods. Furthermore both of them lived in isolated places, Hades in the underworld and Hermes in an isolated cave, away from the other gods who lived on MT. Olympus. Thus these Gods could easily be forgotten and dismissed by the people, and the other Gods. I think that Hermes wanted to own something so people would honor him and his mother in the same fashion they honored the other Gods on Mt. Olympus. I feel that Hades wanted someone whom he could claim as a bride to keep him company in his rule of the underworld isolated away from the other Gods. While both of these Gods were able to temporarily steal

Strategic Assignment Essays

Strategic Assignment Essays Strategic Assignment Essay Strategic Assignment Essay ARGOS| STRTEGIC PLANNING AND IMPLEMENTATION AND STRATEGIC MARKETING MANAGEMENT | Assignment| KEHUL KAVAIYA 7/22/2010 | Edexcel Level 7 BTEC Postgraduate Advanced Diploma Management Studies ASSESSMENT ACTIVITY: UNIT No: 04 17 UNIT NAME: Strategic Planning and Implementation Strategic Marketing Management By: KEHULKUMAR NAROTTAMDAS KAVAIYA Student ID: STUD-7266 Company: Argos Limited Type| Public| Industry| Retailer| Founded| 1973| Head Office| Milton Keynes, England, UK| Key People| Oliver Stocken (Chairman)| Type of Product| Consumer Goods| Owner| Home Retail Group Plc. | Web site| www. argos. co. uk| Revenue| ? 4. 3bn (2009)| Index * Task 1 (a) * INTRODUCTION Argos is one of the largest general merchandise non-food retail chains, with yearly revenue of over ? 4. 3bn (2009) and biggest catalogue chains in Europe and third in the world. Argos has more than 730 stores across the UK and Republic of Ireland. Argos sells general goods and home products via 730 stores, online and over the telephone. Customer can select superior range through 18000 great value products from the Argos. About Argos Richard Tompkins was launched the company in 1973 as a Green Shield Stamps in the U K. The Green Shield Stamps catalogue shops rebranded as Argos starting in July 1973. The first 17 stores started straightway on July 21, 1973. â€Å"Customer could buy products from Green Shield Stamps with cash rather than savings stamps† Argos came up with this idea. Argos established with bringing ? 1million and 1000 staff member in running a week of November, 1973. Argos was launched first catalogue with 4700 products across 250 pages. BAT Industries bought Argos worth ? 32 million in 1979. In June 1980 the company started 1st Elizabeth Duke jewellery boutique in Bristol and company was Britain’s 4th largest jewellery retailer in 1981. The company was listed in the stoke exchange with 203. p opening share price. The company was accumulated by GUS plc (Great Universal Stores Plc) in April 1990 and after that Home Retail Group which was demerged from GUS Plc in October 2006. Now Argos owned by Home Retail Group Plc. From January, 2010 opening new Argos Stores and stores also going to take new identify. * Argos made 130 million customers dealing in las t year and 26% dealing made from online internet. * Argos has biggest catalogue marketing strategy in non-food consumer merchandises. * 18million people have Argos catalogue at home at any time. * Argos is first group position in house wares market. Argos owner HRG Plc has nearly ? 9. 2bn market size in house wares market. One of the prime reason for chosen this company is, â€Å"Argos has different type of marketing like marketing via catalogue, online and over telephone and way of they provide to customer best value for money†. I like that they provide convenient way for customer to shop. Argos stores style is different in high street. This is a good opportunity for me to learn about this company. (b) * Strategic planning â€Å"Strategic planning is process of identify mission, vision and goals and create best steps for achieving goals and objective. In any successful business it’s very important to plan for future in all sorts of way, and organisation mission, vision and objective should be set for the future. Planning is very important tools for getting success in the future of a business. Main purpose of strategic planning to create the goals for an organisation and flow the steps for achieve this goals. Whic h goals should priorities for an organisation and flow steps day to day for achieving its goals. Develop Strategic plan: An organisation needs to find out and collect information on many aspects of the business. This process will concern internal and external audit of the organisation. The internal audit defines an organisation strength and weaknesses. The external audit defines the PEST analysis of and an organisation. (Andy, Alex and Judith n. d. , p. 299) Internal Audit: Organisation needs to analyse people (turnover of labour, Motivation, absenteeism, productivity), operation management (Stock control, delivery, productivity, delivery), marketing (Sales, Advertising, sales staff performance), financial department (variance and budget, profitability, Cash flow, Investment appraisal in an internal audit. A business needs identify its strengths and weaknesses in their competitor’s relation across the entire of the business. The aim of audit provide the perfect information about every particular department and if possible very good to use the accounting or statistical data for the information. External Auditing: A business needs to analyse external areas such as Political, Economic issue, Social issue, Technological change, Competition, Culture, Ethics, Environment and Pressure group. External auditing is very important for all business. All business needs to PEST analyse for getting success in future. Government authorization polices in health and safety, taxation and competition, and employment are all affect to employers and businesses. The influence of government is ascending into new location of the business environment like environmental and ethical issue. Currency value, rate of interest, unemployment, and economical changes is playing their role on getting success in the business. The business needs to be aware of changing environment. Argos mission statement is identifying customers and meeting their needs. This statement clearly state that Argos needs to deeply PEST analyse for reach to the goal. c) * Strategy by Framework Strategy is the way of the achieving goals. Argos developing strategy framework: The strategic process helps a firms to understand more about its status of strategic position and organisation can know about business environment, customers needs and requirement, organisation can find new option which is consider for success, and the way of develop compet ences meet to organisational goals and objective. By this strategic Argos looks to match its own objective for development and growth with reality of the business environment because every organisation needs to be realistic. Main for part of organisation is most important to develop its strategic such as, awareness, planning, development, and management result. Awareness: Organisation needs to examine market and competitive realities and also examine internal and external business environment. Organisation must identify the major opportunities. Organisation must have to do SWOT analysis for examine the market and competitive realities. Planning: Planning is very important to get success in the business. Organisations should make the planning behind every objective such as Short term and long term planning, strategic planning, organisational and optional planning, epartmental goals, and communicate strategy. Development: Argos developing strategic depends on marketing process because Argos is not Manufacture Company. To increase Operating performance and growth, Argos using workforce development, increasing productive and sales, sating of goals, plans and action and management development. Results of Mana gement: For Organisation is getting the expected results from the market, management of Argos taking meeting for review of performance. (d) * Strategic Models The five force of models behind the success of organisation which is Potential, bargaining power of suppliers, bargaining power of buyers, the threat of substitutes of services, and the threat of new entrants. Potential Entrants: The threat of new entrants is the defined the Organisation brand loyalty, absolute coast advantages, and the switching costs and also government regulation. Argos this force is qualitatively and ideally factors of Argos but its make very expensive to enter in the industry. Main key step for developing strategy it’s concerned with the company mission, vision, and others objective. The step is the developing realistic vision for the organisation. Organisation mission indicates it’s the goals and activities. Strategic planning Models: Strategic planning is the process to establish major objective on what organisation will accomplish in the future. Organisation to make selection of forces of models on what organisation will do and what organisation will not do. The main reason to do strategic planning, improving the performance, solving major issues at a macro level, and communicate to each other’s what is the major factor. A good strategic planning helps to find critical performance issue, organisation capability, to cover sufficient time period to reduce the gap of performance. Models are: Internal assessment depends on assets resources, culture, people, system and partnership and suppliers. And external assessment depends on marketplace, trends, technology, and economic cycles. And the internal and external assessment depends on SWOT analysis. SWOT Analysis of ARGOS * Task 2 (a) * Marketing Strategies Argos marketing strategy particularly plan of marketing which designed to meet customer’s needs and requirements with based on clear goals. Strategy and tactics of Argos will enable to achieve those goals and others objective. Current, developing strategy is concerned with the match between the external environment and internal capability of the organisation. Organisations are often embossed with externally or internally to examine their position of strategy within business industry or place of market. The first stage market research enables to identify the most important marketing mix. And the marketing mix should consist of the four ‘p’, which is the right product, sold with right price, in the right place and using the most suitable promotion technique. Customers can find product from over 18000 products in Argos catalogue. Current markets have an improving concentration by an organisation on the needs and wants of consumers. The culture changing at Argos, its management decided they need to change the extended marketing mix to increasing the consumer’s experience. Argos products price is always low and more selection of products with less hassle. Argos management team wanted to create on these values and develop the marketing mix to improving organisation sales and profits. Argos changed its logo in 1998 and after that its sales and profits increased. Argos market research was seen as a boring and stuffy. The firm has used advertising to appeal to its different market segment and Argos segmentation its market not only in terms of age and gender (demographic) but also in terms in people’s brand awareness. (b) * Stakeholders of Argos Stakeholder mines â€Å"an individual or group with an interest in the success of an organization in delivering intended results and maintaining the viability of the organizations products and services. Stakeholders influence programs, products, and services†. Argos responsible and accountable to a high range of stake holders: * Share holders Customers * Suppliers * NGO’s * Community groups * Opinion formers Share Holders: Argos one of the main stake holders is its shareholders. Shareholders is legally own share of stoke (one or more) in an organisation. Argos owner Home Retail group’s investment is very high behind the people and technology. Number of individuals shareholder s percentage is very high (86. 58%) and the corporate shareholders percentage is very low (13. 42%), that is main reason is the share holders is the very important stake holders for Argos. A more trusted brand leading to stronger stake holders especially share holders and customers. Shareholders manage to risk effectively. Employees: Argos highly skilled workforce is also one of the most important stake holders. Currently, Argos has more than 33000 members of staff. Argos high street style is not like a show room. The stores are mainly focused to directly employee for an example customer service. Customers: A customer is very important stakeholders for all organisations. As per last year Argos made 130million transactions. Argos serving more than 2. 5 million customers a week, so that is the biggest stakeholders for Argos. (c) * How stake holders have contribute the development Big firm have many kind of stake holder group such as internal stakeholders (Employee) and external stakeholders (government) as outside of the business it is necessary to identifying and balance the need and expectations of group of stakeholders. Balancing needs of all stakeholders is important for big retail chain, like Argos. Share holders: Shareholders choose the board of director and board of director create the business strategy. In Argos, share holders are the main part because Home Retail Group is owner of Argos and also owner of the Homebas. Share holders are main part of its investment. Argos main development strategy is the investment behind the people and technology. Capital requirement, reward from share of the profit this different according to share per person. Employee: Employee is one of the main internal stakeholders for every big organisation. Argos is catalogue based company in UK market. Argos has consistently stated that, its workforce is very important. Argos manager and supervisor have high level training and development is the core requirement and needs to long range success in retail industry. Employees are very important to making changes in the work. Customers: Argos main aim is to provide better service and the increasing the customer’s satisfaction. ‘Customers is the God‘this sentences is not wrong. Without the customers any company can’t develop its business. For batter business organisation needs to create good relationship. * Increasing the sales and profitability through the better timing by fulfil needs based historic trends. * Increasing Cross selling of the others products. * Easy to identify that, which customers are profitable and which customers are not profitable. All stake holder in very important for development of organisation and meet goal in the future. d) * Senior management of an organisation gain commitment to its strategies and the implementation of these from its employees Organisation requires a direction for its development. The employees who manage the business providing the direction and taking responsibility for making decision and good business are a high skill. Argos main key objective are customers satisfaction, increase profitability, growth of fleet, and employment development. Gaining employee commitment: There many different senior management style for gain commitment from their employee. This depend how leader communicate with the employee for example, Argos operating â€Å"open door policy’. This helps to everybody within the company to have direct contact with senior manager. Senior managers have implementation very good management and practices. Get promises from employee. Managers have to maintain positive employee relation. Manager can get commitment by making a planner meeting, special occasions, and the place of work more fun place (but make sure that is time for joy, celebration or play) and Making outdoor activities by organisation. Making rewards by each individual performance. Manages should helping dealing with stress of painful period. Manager should show to employee that manager believe in the benefits of consultation. As manager demonstrate organisation commitment to employee’s involvement in the health and safety. Organisation need train manager, supervisor and health and safety employee together. * Task 3 (a) * Layman’s language define the term: Vision, mission statement, objectives and value Mission definition: The declaration of the organisation core aim or purpose and focus which is remains unchanged. Different business practises and strategies may frequently be altered to take to changes circumstances. What a firm is way is exists its reason for being define mission statement of a firm. Firm’s possible mission statement is written declaration of the purpose concerned with highest priorities of a company or individual. Vision Definition: The picture of your company in the future or more that means vision and firms inspiration the framework for all your strategic planning. Vision statement means one of the terms, which are using widely. Vision should have realistic, credible, attractive and in future achievable. Objectives Definition: Goals that a firm create for itself for future sales, profitability, or return on investment define the organisation objective. An organisation or individual desire or dream or needed result to be achieved by particularly in time. Values: The corporate mission, strategy, governance, culture, communication, corporation, decision process, decision system, performance management process and reward processes, this are all values for an organisation. The greatest potential of any organisation are created by a commitment to high corporate values. (b) * Vision and Mission statement of Argos and Its Strategy Develop Mission statement and others Objective: Argos mission statement is: â€Å"Argos Provide their customers with the best value for money through the most convenient shopping experience†. Argos main purpose is identifying the customers and meeting their needs. Marketing department of Argos providing the goods and services that customers want. In future Argos wants to improve their services and best way to find out customer’s needs. Argos offers to consumers, via multi channel approaching to shopping: * Customers can reserve products from home either online or by phone to get their products from stores. * Customers can look over the catalogues and stock availability in stores. Collect goods and pay for that in stores. * Customers can select products from the online catalogue via web site and either order for home delivery or take goods from stores. * Customers can order any products from the catalogue for home delivery by the telephone. Argos vision: Argos vision is to build around its commitment to giving good choice, high value and convenience, with their passion for its customers at the core. Argos giving its customers lots of selection within such easy reach such as customers shopping in stores, online, via phone and via text, by check and reserve. Argos aim to have stores and buying points within easy reach all of its customers and expand its reneges of products to provide its customers with lots of selection as customers wants in all of products ranges. Argos always believes in â€Å"organisation is control its own destiny†. Argos main vision is the embodiment of this belief. (c) * Cultural and ethical value of Argos Argos culture is the beliefs and values that are shared over the firm. Currently it is very difficult to define to ensure the firm’s culture reflect its strategy and focus on the consumers. One of the key factors of the new approach has been to changing the culture of corporate at the company (Argos) and make and environment within the organisation that values. Argos provide its employees, job training, career development opportunities and satisfaction reward for better performance to achieve cultural change. Argos management team created its culture: * Believes in winning * Believes that change is important and necessary * Seek new opportunities * Encourages co operation This all values very important part of to increasing the organisation’s competitiveness via innovation and via working effectively in team. Argos’ new management created its new cultural values: The company talked its staff to create good workforce, who were able to improve. Argos customer service provides an experience that is very friendly, efficient and hassle free to its customers. Team work of organisation’s employee leads to good co-operation and sharing of best practice because Argos giving ownership opportunity for decision so that solve problem themselves. Employee respecting to each others because of that employee feel they are contributing. Culture of competitive will to win because of that everyone is aiming to increase and succeed. The company employee commitment is very high, which was company found in 2003. (d) * Critical success factor of Argos Argos and many more retail company facing the problem of serious challenge due to rapidly change in condition of market, improving global competition hrough fuelled, expectation of high performance via consumers and market, and also including technology. The retail industry growth is significantly due to technology innovation, through adopting management techniques of supplier’s chain, modular layouts, re-engineering processes, and involvement of employees. Critical success factor: Critical succ ess factor indicate highly accountable non profit firms. There some critical success factors are as under, balanced approach is requirement to ensure all of critical success factors contribute to firm’s culture. Technology Support: If organisation don’t have perfect technology, for an example geographical IT so that critical success factors for that organisation. The effective technology is most important for future successes and to meet the organisational goals. Some Argos technology is not proper, like ticket machine. Stakeholders: To create unnecessary dialogue with critical stakeholders that affect to negative to the organisation. For an example, Argos some stakeholders is engaged. Strategic leadership: Organisation is going to right direction and also organisation has clear and realistic goal. For an example, Argos some objective is not for development, like two time catalogue creating for customers. IT Governance: The committee of promotion chaired via PM (Prime Minister) guides and mediates the admin branches, which is directly, affect to the market. Program management based on performance: Organisation can regularly evaluate the perfect measure of performance? Right measure of performance is very difficult. Shared ownership with the employee: Company’s members of staffs have clearly and perfectly promised to achieve organisational goals. * Task 4 (a) * Strategy of Argos A strategy is a way to a firm puts into practice to get particular and objective. There are all sorts of general strategies that a firm might employ, like expanding into new market of countries. Currently, Argos’ one of the strategy is growth. From different kind of way company can be achieve growth, like opening new branches of stores, improving the ranges of products, website improvement, and increasing profitability and revenue. The strategy of Argos involving maintaining the loyalty of existing consumers: There is high number of customers, who wants to buy products directly from the Argos. Advertising through the media and on the television is very effective way to attracting people. Argos provides its customers ‘value for money’. The Argos management and administrative will be concerned with managing its system and security. Argos is the part of HRG (Home Retail Group). HRG won the Retail week Retail technology of the year award in 2008 for its project of supply chain (RACO). Argos growth record is very strong. Economic Climate: Argos has five stores in Mumbai (India) and a telephoning and online ordering service that are doing in conjunction with hyper city, with its Indian retail partner. The company said that it had completed a reward into its Indian stores combined venture and had decided not to proceed. This decision to discontinue the trial following the just for two years period of development has been kept mutually by the company and its partner. (b) * Changing in Organisation Environment Argos is highest public services trade union in UK, Such as: * 33000 Employees * 730 branches * 130million customers * Headquarters in England Argos performs many different roles for its customers. Argos changes its environment from these main public services. External environment is ncluding in changes in organisation’s environment. External environment * Social factor: Argos changing its demography, like changing patterns of population, lifestyle and behaviour and customers shopping patterns. * Legal factor: Any new laws and application of the laws that might affect a firm. * Economic factors: variable in economy that affect the demand for services and goods, which is may change environment, for an example changing in the interest rates. * Political factors: Changes arising from government initiatives or policy, which also effect to changing environment. Technological factor: The influence of changing technologies on business processes and products. The changing work company work environment An employee in latest technology would clock in and out of work. A device of mechanical recorded the start and end time for every each employee. The old type of work based on morning 9. 00 to 5. 00 evening working day and they were paid weekly based (hourly rate given). Currently situations are more women working, in general and live longer. (c) * Major functional area of Argos Main four functional are in the firm such as Marketing, HRM (human resource management), finance, and operation management. This are all functional areas are very important for an organisation. Every functional area is need strategic thinking for future. A form need to create strategy decision and keep the strategy in action. The long term direction is concerned with the strategic management of a whole firm, the different functional areas relationships and strategy implementation in a firm. Every firms working perfectly with necessary departments, such as Marketing: Marketing is very important department for Argos and all organisations. Marketing department of Argos involves a range of process affecting with finding what the customers wants, and then providing it. The marketing mix 4ps is key elements of Argos marketing strategy and Market research to find out consumers requirement. Market research via quality and quantity research involves meeting customers’ needs. Finance: Main function of finance department are providing financial support for business and operational planning to get success in future, providing the day to day financial services to its staff and department. The financial department responsible for creating a balance sheet and profit and loss account provides management information, book keeping procedures, management of wages and others. Human Resource management: HR department is very important department for all organisations. Main purpose of the HR department to attract and retain employees by all activities and ensure performance of the employees at the highest level possible to meet’s organisational goals. Human resource management responsibilities are establishing develop methods, and evaluate practices. HRM decision directly affect to the employ people, who working for the firm. (d) * Major functional areas can development the organisation The main aim of functional areas of to ensure that every important activities of business are carried out efficiently. Marketing: The marketing department is most important functional area because sales and marketing will be concerned with business objective and, achieving targets, new market developing and increasing sales. Organisation can improve its sales, brand image, finance condition by marketing. Marketing playing most important part in company’s development because marketing is designed to achieve profitable sales. Marketing is involving the use of stronger tool to manipulate the decision of individuals and of other organisation. Argos cannot development without its marketing department because firm based on catalogue. Finance: Finance is very necessary for running the organisation regularly. Finance has very close relation with marketing and operational management. Argos can increase capital via finance, generating high revenue. This are all parts of developing the organisation. Finance is very important for day to day activities within the organisation. Argos finance capacities is very high so we can say Argos’ finance department and finance is very important for developing its. Human resource management: Human resource is also one of the important functional areas within the business. HR are the workforce that work for a firm. Argos has more than 33000 employees. in the case of Argos, employee is very important for increase the sales, customers services, to achieve the goals and objective within the organisation. This all functional areas are very important for development of Argos. * Task 5 (a) * Strategy Implementation Implementation means consist of securing resources, a firm these resources and directing the using of these resources within and outside the firms. Strategy implementation define, which strategy chosen by organisation so that strategy put in to action. Strategy implementation timetable can develop certain way such as: Strategic focus: Argos business has changed substantially in the last four years. At time of the recession, as this changing result, the company was getting nearly double percentage increasing in the earning but the dividend was reduced by 21%. Argos also offers venture advisory services. Argos focus the on public sector and big corporate in the London. Assessment: Organisation evidence of competence is based on place of work activity and aim to reflect attainment within the firm. Organisation assessment assesses the achievement of standard occupational. Organisation needs to assess skilled of its workforce. Change planning and implementation: Make the business readiness planning and take into consideration such as development capability, migration data, development of technology, training and activities and activates of business require to integrate new possesses and jobs into the business environment. Organisation need to ensure that perspective on business on how the new one technically capacity will be delivered to the business. (b) * Implementation Time table 2005| 2006| 2007| 2008| 2009| Benchmark screening | 7. 9| 6. 0| 6. 1| 6. 7| 5. 1| Satellite system | -| - | | | | Process of employee atThe time of Christmas nearly Double. In each years| 18000| 23000| 26000| 29000| 33000| Profit of bench mark OperatingIn million| 320| 297| 325| 376| 304| Trends of revenue sales declinedOf 4. 8% in last years| 8. 8%| 7. 7%| 7,8%| 8. 7%| 7. 1%| Number of line in the A rgos catalogue In each years Product in total| 13500| 17100| 16700| 18500| 18900| | | | | | | Market size of Argos (? bn)For products of home environment| 9. | 8. 1| 9. 1| 11. 2| 13. 5| General merchandise (? bn)| 6. 2| 5. 5| 6. 6| 10. 1| 16. 4| (c) * Implementation Argos implementation define inter communication and buy in, aligning structure and people, developing new resources. Organisation people have to understand what the strategy implemented and how affect them and using their skill and quality to help getting implementation strategy. The company internal people understand and know the implementation strategy, organisation also necessary to align structures and people make sure the happening strategy. For examples products A and product B implementation, organisation needs to evacuate the both products and the go through step by step. Model of strategy Implementation: every organisation to adapt to change by model of developing of particular structure, objective, control, integration, and incentives for strategy implementing. Strategic changes: understanding of strategy implementation changes again forces and way to overcome necessary changes and implement change. Strategy implementation and HR: HR polices and strategy both together needs to implement. Controls and incentives: the way to motivate and control of performance involve methods of get effective coordination. (d) * Important of Implementation The implementation is easy and also implementation is more important than ideas because all start-up different makeup. Evaluation, monitoring and implementation process is very important for the organisation. Organisation need to access the problem, predict impact, implement, evaluate the performance and monitor. Every new scheme provides opportunity for learning from experience, and increase their understanding of performance and policy tool. The strategy implementation part of the business planning deals with important part of the business. The Argos set up working group to oversee the setting up of the new people benefit. Market research show the consumers wants one thing more than anything. Argos refocused and adapted its old help point services to provide all others help services. * Conclusion: Staff planning is vital if firm is to meet its future demands for employee. Argos needs to have people with the right trained and experienced to support its development and growth. By trends examining in the macro environment it is possible to identify market opportunities and perfect products. BIBLIOGRAPHY Book 1. ANDY MOTTERSHEAD, ALEX GRANT, and JUDITH KELT (2009) OCR Business studies for a2 2009. UK: Hodder Education. WWW 2. ARGOS (01/04/2005) Student Pack [WWW] Argos Limited. Available from: argos. co. uk/wcsstore/argos/en_US/images/StudentPack. pdf 3. ARGOS (n. d. ) Graduate careers [WWW] Argos Careers. Available from: https://secure. argoscareers. com/r2/graduate/index. html 4. CATALOGUE DEALS (n. d. ) Argos brief History [WWW] Catalogue Deals. Available from: catalogue-deals. co. uk/argos. aspx [Accessed 16/07/2010] 5. HOME RETAIL GROUP FINANCIAL DEPARTMENT (01/04/2009) Annual report 2009 [WWW] Home Retail Group. Available from: homeretailgroup. com/ar/2009/_downloads/HRG_Annual_Report_2009. pdf 6. THE TIMES 100(n. d. ) Marketing Mix of Argos [WWW] Thetimes100. Available from: thetimes100. co. uk/downloads/argos/argos_9_full. pdf 7. THE TIMES 100 (n. d. ) Argos mission statement [WWW] Thetimes100. Available from: thetimes100. co. uk/downloads/argos/argos_10_2. doc

Free topic Research Proposal Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Free topic - Research Proposal Example In fact, Harter et al. [3: 276] indicate that employee satisfaction and engagement are related to company performance. The plan is to prepare an analytical report of the problem at Wal-Mart, highlighting the impact on the business and making recommendations. Wal-Mart has been plagued by high rates of employee turnover and this has resulted in long check out lines in some cases while some of the company’s store shelves remain virtually empty because of insufficient staff to restock them [1]. This has led to customers turning to Wal-Mart’s competitors. 1. R. Dudley. â€Å"Customers Flee Wal-Mart Empty Shelves for Target, Costco.† Internet: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-03-26/customers-flee-wal-mart-empty-shelves-for-target-costco.html, Mar. 26, 2013. [May 16, 2013] 3. J.K. Harter, F.L. Schmidt, and T.L. Hayes. â€Å"Business-Unit-Level Relationship Between Employee Satisfaction and Employee Engagement, and Business Outcomes: A Meta-Analysis.† Journal of Applied Psychology, vol. 87(2), pp. 268 – 279, 2002. I am requesting your authorization in carrying out a project on the ‘Employee and Customer Satisfaction Issues at Wal-Mart.’ The project will last for approximately one month and will be carried out by two persons – myself and another colleague. The project will provide an analytical report describing the problem faced by Wal-Mart and recommend the best from a set of three options provided for solving the problem. The project is budgeted to cost approximately $6,400. The proposed plan along with details of the timeline and budgeted costs are

The Declaration of Bankruptcy as a Legal Way Research Proposal

The Declaration of Bankruptcy as a Legal Way - Research Proposal Example Most bankruptcies would not only involve one creditor but many. Debts are usually classified as secured and unsecured (Bankruptcy Alberta, n.d.). Secured debts originate from valuable assets that come with a security agreement allowing a creditor to take back the assets if a debtor fails to pay or abide by the terms of the agreement with the creditor. Car leases, home mortgages, rent-to-own, and other installment purchase contracts are examples of secured debts. The assets such as the car or house in these contracts are given up as collateral if the debtor is unable to pay. The second type of debts is unsecured debt. This type of debt includes credit cards, overdrafts and the general day-to-day bills that people pay on a regular basis. These debts are often referred to as trade debts. For secured debts, when a debtor is declared bankrupt, the creditor cannot make him pay and his chance to take back the assets from the debtor is very limited. For unsecured debts, the creditors cannot force a debtor who is declared bankrupt to pay regular bills. Unsecured contracts are terminated by a bankruptcy. If a debtor receives a discharge from bankruptcy, the creditor’s right to collect no longer exists. Several laws including the Bankruptcy Code enacted in 1978 govern all bankruptcy cases. The primary goal of these laws is to give debtors a financial fresh start from burdensome debt. It allows the debtor to start anew, uninhibited by the pressures and discouragements of preexisting debts. The goal to cancel debts is accomplished by a bankruptcy discharge. It is a publication that basically releases the debtor from being liable for specific debts and forbids the creditor to take any action against the debtor to collect those debts. The bankruptcy discharge is in a question-and-answer format. It seeks to provide information regarding the timing of the discharge—which of the debts are discharged and which are not, any objections to the discharge and how the dis charge can be revoked. It also includes the actions a debtor can take in the case that the creditor still collects a discharged debt after the bankruptcy is concluded. There are other parties involved in the bankruptcy. Filing bankruptcy cannot be easily done by any person who wishes to be relieved of debts. He must first be qualified to be declared bankrupt. The party responsible for this is the bankruptcy judge, who functions as a judicial officer. He decides whether or not a debtor is eligible for bankruptcy and whether or not he should be should be discharged of his debts. More often than not, the bankruptcy process is conducted away from the courthouse because it is administrative. In some cases, another party, the trustee is appointed to oversee the case. The trustee is appointed through the United States Trustee Program of the Department of Justice. He administers the bankruptcy and represents the interests of the bankruptcy estate (Shoemaker & Dart, P.S., 2010). By far, ther e had been many types of bankruptcies but generally, there are three main types. The types of bankruptcies are named after the chapters in which they appear in the Bankruptcy Code. In most resources, these three types of bankruptcies are considered the main types: Chapter 7, Chapter 11, and Chapter 13. Chapter 7 type of bankruptcy is entitled Liquidation. It is sometimes. This involves the sale for cash of nonexempt property (includes such assets as bank accounts, stocks, and bonds) and the

A movie review of the film The Insider Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

A movie review of the film The Insider - Essay Example The film revolves around two people: Wigand, who was recently fired from a tobacco corporation, and Bergman, a veteran reporter in search of a story. The bombshell that Wigand holds in his possession is the information that Chief Executive Officers of tobacco corporations – The Big Seven – had known all along that tobacco was addictive but had concealed this information from the public. From there, the story unfolded masterfully – telling in gripping fashion how the influences of money and the legal system bore down on Wigand and Bergman, all in order to suppress the truth. Wigand was even the subject of extreme character assassination and despite his attempts to live a quiet life as a professor, was always followed by the story he chose to tell. He became the subject of death threats, the FBI was on his trail, his personal life was in disarray. In the meantime, a bigger context was unfolding. There was a lawsuit poised to be filed against the Big Seven in order to recover what the State paid in medical expenses to treat tobacco-related illnesses. Two legal concepts then emerged from the movie. The first one is the concept of tortuous interference – which basically means that if two parties have an agreement, and a third party induces a party privy to and bound by that agreement to break that agreement, that third party may be made liable for damages. That legal concept is used in connect to the confidential agreement, which is the second legal concept featured in this movie. In the film, Wigand was bound by an iron-clad confidentiality agreement that he was made to sign with his former company. The movie then forces its viewers to reflect: are there limits to a confidentiality agreement? What happens when a confidentiality agreement comes into conflict with public welfare, public health, or even simply the right of the public to know? It is important to situate the movie against the larger social backdrop on which it operates. The m ovie came out in the late 1990’s – a period in history when tobacco politics had reached a crucial juncture. It was at this period that the impunity of the tobacco firms to lawsuit had ended and for the first time, they were being held liable for the addictive consequences of cigarettes. How dangerous really is tobacco? As early as 1964, the U.S. Surgeon General had come out with a landmark report that spoke of the dangers of smoking on one’s health and issued a categorical statement against its use and its spread. In an article, it was stated that: Each year three million people around the world die from tobacco-related illnesses. In the US, tobacco kills more than 400,000 people each year, and medical care for tobacco-related illnesses costs $50 billion annually. The World Health Organization projects that the yearly death toll from tobacco will rise to 10 million by the 2020swith seven million of those deaths striking economically poor countries. Of the one m illion US teens hooked each year on cigarettes, one-third or more will eventually die from tobacco-related illnesses. If current trends continue, over 200 million of today's children and teenagers around the world will lose their lives to this addictive product. (InFact: 1997) Despite these findings, the tobacco corporations have won every single legal battle against attempts to hold them accountable for putting public health in jeopardy. It is said that Philip Morris and other tobacco corporati

Matching the Differences in Grammar

Matching the Differences in Grammar Matching the Differences in Grammar and Lexicon in Translation Process Introduction In Nidas view, Translating consists in reproducing in the receptor language the closest natural equivalent of the source-language, first in terms of meaning and secondly in terms of style (Nida, Eugene A., 1975: 14). In other words, translation is the process of transformation from a speech product (or text) produced in one language to a speech product (or text) in another language. During this process of transformation the level of content in the source text should remain unchanged. However, the modes of thinking and expression of English and Chinese are very different. The influential European-born American literary critic, translator, and educator George Steiner remarks, The difficulties of translating Chinese into a western language are notorious. Chinese is composed mainly of monosyllabic units with a wide range of diverse meanings. The grammar lacks clear tense distinctions. The characters are logographic but many contain pictorial rudiments or suggestions. The relations betwee n propositions are paratactic rather than syntactic and punctuation marks represent breathing pauses far more than they do logical or grammatical segmentations. (George Steiner/After Babel, 1998: 271) Chinese is a refined language with a tightly knit structure. Though it is one of the most ancient languages in the world, it still has strong expressiveness and utility value. During the process of translation, various differences between the grammar and lexicon are very common. The Chinese translator can never be so cocksure of what an English sentence or passage really means without being crystal clear about its syntactic and textual structure as well as the lexical and grammatical meanings of the expressions it contains. And a well-trained bilingual translator should have the ability to handle all these differences and give out a compete transcript of the original work, making sure the style and manner of writing are of the same character as that of the source text. In the following part, I will analyze some features in the grammar and lexicon of English and Chinese and give some translation strategies. Lexicon English has a large vocabulary. Historically, it absorbed a giant number of words from other languages, i.e. French, Latin and Greek. Given the various origins and the synonyms already existed in English, the English speaker always have several choices to express a certain meaning. Hence there are many synonyms and near-synonyms in English. Also, polysemy appears widely in this language. Chinese has copious synonyms as well as near-synonyms, too. So the translators need to carefully consider the differences between all of the options and find the right word to use in particular situations. There is no change of forms in Chinese vocabulary. The Chinese language users mainly express the meaning of a sentence through the words, the word orders and their internal logical relations. The English vocabulary has copious changes of forms, for instance, the nouns have singular and plural forms; the verbs have different forms when the person, the case, the tense, or the mood is changing; the adjectives and adverbs both have the comparative degree and the superlative degree; many words also can add the prefix or the suffix to change its meaning. While translating English to Chinese, the translator needs to add some words or change the form of Statement to show the change of forms in the English text. While translating Chinese to English, the translator should change certain forms to match the tense, the mood and the voice in the Chinese text. Here are two English sentences and their Chinese translations. His being neglected by the host added to his uneasiness (). With defenses rig idly constructed in our own childhood and beyond, we can become frozen in our ability to adapt to the new role of caring for our children in a consistent and clear manner. Normal aspects of our childrens experience such as their emotionality, their helplessness and vulnerability, and their dependence on us can feel threatening and become intolerable (,,,,) In the first sentence, added to is translated as not which is translated word by word because uneasiness means which does not fit well with . The second sentence comes from a psychological book about parenthood named Parenting from the Inside Out which was translated to Chinese by me. There are two children in the text, I translated the first to and the second . The reason is that the first one is in the text of the new role of caring for our children, it is improper to say which is too redundant. Based on the code of the Chinese language, I omitted ? which stands for the plural form and which is a part of the   subject th at needless to mention. Generally speaking, in English, nouns, prepositions, adjectives and adverbs are more active and can express more meanings in the sentences while in Chinese, verbs, phrases and clauses are more powerful. Some adverbs in English are very informative which can be translated as a separate Chinese sentence or clause. In contrast, some Chinese clauses can be translated as a certain English word. For example, ,(He is a greenhand). Grammar The overt cohesive relationships between parts of the texts are necessarily linked to a languages grammatical system (Halliday and Hasan 1976: 44). Thus, grammatical differences between languages will be expressed by changes in the types of ties used to mark cohesion in the source and target texts (Shoshana Blum-Kulka, 1986: 18). I will analyze the grammatical differences between English and Chinese in terms of sentence word order, sentence structure and paragraph awareness. Sentence Word Order There are some similarities in the word order of the sentences between English and Chinese, for example, the orders of the main part of a sentence (the subject, the predicate, the object and the predicative) are the same. The differences lie in the positions of the attribute and the adverbial. Position of Attribute In Chinese sentences, the attribute is always in front of the modified noun. As for English, if the attribute is a word, it is placed in front of the modified noun too; if the attribute is a phrase, then its position is always behind the noun. For example, The man you saw yesterday is his cousin(). Position of adverbial If the adverbial is a word, it should be placed in front of the modified adjectives and other adverbials, no matter in English or Chinese. For example, He works very hard (). While the adverbial (a word) is modifying a verb, for Chinese, it should be placed in front of the modified word; for English, the position is more flexible. For instance, IT industry has been developing rapidly in these years(IT).The molecules of a gas are moving about extremely fast in all directions (). If the adverbial is a phrase, when it is modifying a verb, in English, the position of the phrase is flexible while in Chinese, in most cases, the phrase is in front of the modified part, e.g. William left the shop without a word (). Sentence structure The English sentences value hypotaxis while the Chinese sentences pay more attention on parataxis. The English language always use morphological changes, conjunctions, prepositions, attributive clauses and absolute structures to indicate the grammatical relation between sentence elements. Having no morphological changes, attributive clauses and absolute structures and few conjunctions and prepositions, the grammatical relations between elements in Chinese sentences are often indicated implicitly. The Chinese sentential form is more casual than English. For instance, They are striving for the ideal which is close to the heart of every Chinese and for which, in the past, many Chinese have laid down their lives (,,,). Paragraph awareness In English, if the whole paragraph only mentioned one person or a certain thing, the subjects seldom change which keeps coherence of the text. As for Chinese, there is no such rule for maintaining the subjects in a paragraph. Hence, while translating a Chinese paragraph to English, the translator should pay attention to the subjects. Here is an example. ,,,,, (She got into her chair and was soon carried through the city wall. Peeping through the gauze panel which served as a window, she could see streets and buildings more rich and elegant and throngs of people more lively and numerous than she had ever seen in her life before) (Yang Hsien-yi/ Gladys Yang, 1995: 72). This sentence comes from the Classical Chinese Literature A Dream of Red Mansions and the English version was translated by Chinese translators Yang Hsien-yi and his wife Gladys Yang. The Chinese paragraph does not even mention the subject, but we can define that there are two subjects in this paragraph the person and t he street. As for the English version, in order to keep the coherence, the translator skillfully merges the second subject into the text by taking it as the object. Conclusion One of the translation standards put forward by Chinese translator and reformer Yan Fu in the 19th century is faithfulness (and the rest two are comprehensiveness and elegance). It is obvious that faithfulness is the most important standard among the three. However, there are disparities between one language and another disparities in lexicon, in grammar and in linguistic structure, etc. So it is impossible to achieve the absolute faithfulness. But a professional bilingual translator can achieve the real faithfulness in a possible sense a faithful translation in good formality with not only the original context, but also the original form and style. Though there are many differences in lexicon and grammar between Chinese and English, as long as the translators mind these differences and take the related translation strategies, they still can contribute very profound translations and help people speaking different languages communicate with each other. (1,942 words) References Halliday, M. and R. Hasan, 1976. Cohesion in English. London: Longman. George Steiner, After Babel, 1998. Aspects of Language and Translation. Oxford: Oxford University Press Nida, Eugene A., 1975. Language Structure and Translation. Stanford: Standford University Press, California Shoshana blum-kulka, 1986. Interlingual and Intercultural Communication: Discourse and Cognition in Translation and Second Language Acquisition Studies. Tubingen: Narr Yang Hsien-yi/ Gladys Yang, 1995. A Dream of Red Mansions. Beijing: Foreign Languages Press 12/16/2009   Page7 of 7

Same Sex Marriage Should be Legal Essay -- Homosexual Couples Should H

Marriage is the sacred bond between two people who love and cherish one another. Traditionally this bond has been held between man and woman. With so many changes in the world, there are more openly homosexual people in our society. Though people have become more accepting of the existence of homosexuality, gays and lesbians are still considered unequal when it comes to marriage. Homosexual couples should have the same rights to marry as heterosexual couples. Denying this right is unjust and is discrimination towards a group of people. Same-sex marriage has become more of a political issue when it really should be left up to one’s own personal and religious beliefs. Even though there are a few states that recognize legal same-sex marriage or domestic partnership, couples still have to face feeling inferior because of the little to no benefit they are given, while heterosexual marriages have an abundant of rights, privileges and benefits. If it is our constitutional right to get married to the person our choice then let it be. It should not matter what the next person feels because they have the right to feel the way they want to feel just as a person can fall in love and marry their significant other. Marriage is supposed to unite two people together for better and worse for the rest of their lives. Why would anyone want to deny another person the opportunity to commit their life to another person regardless of gender? According to a chart by Christine Vestal, a staff writer at Stateline.org, there is only six states that allow same-sex marriage: Massachusetts, Connecticut, Iowa, Vermont, Maine and New Hampshire. New Jersey and Connecticut are the only two states that recognize civil union for same-sex couples al... ...d religion. Many may feel that it is simply tradition for a man a woman to be married and homosexual marriage is just not the norm. On the other hand, what I just mention was also not normal and yet we as a nation have overcome them. It has taken time and great effort to win these rights and the privilege to make our own choices. Today many are more open-minded and tolerant of the existence of homosexuality and homosexual couples and there are a handful of states that are more accepting of the ideal of same-sex marriage. It is only a matter of time before the rest of the nation accepts this. Works Cited Oison, Theadore B. â€Å"The Conservative Case for Gay Marriage† Newsweek 09 Jan, 2010: Web. Saunders, Cat. â€Å"Gay Marriage? Absolutely!† The News Time July 2000: Web. Vestal, Christine â€Å"Gay marriage legal in six states† Stateline 04 Jun, 2009: Web.

Proforma: Generally Accepted Accounting Principles and Judgmental Approach Essay

In addition to forecasting cash flows, managers and investors are also interested in forecasts of the firm’s financial statements. These projected financial statements are called pro forma financial statements. They give both the management and investors an insight into what the financial statements will look like in the future and a signal as to any need to raise long-term funds. The starting point in the creation of the pro forma financial statements is the construction of the pro forma income statement (do you remember why? ). Like the cash budget, it also relies heavily on the sales forecast. Significant errors in the sales forecast will result in errors in the income statement which, in turn, will cause errors on the pro forma balance sheet. Pro Forma Income Statement There are two approaches to creating the pro forma income statement: the percentage of sales method and what I will call the judgmental approach. The percentage of sales approach is simplistic and prone to error (estimating financial statements is tricky enough without compounding the error using an inferior technique). The percentage of sales method assumes that all items on the income statement except interest expense and tax expense vary in direct proportion to the change in sales. This is simply usually not true. Some items will change with sales, but others will not. See the criticism of the percentage of sales approach at the top of page 116 in your text. My illustration will focus on the judgmental approach which allows the analyst to apply judgment to forecast the level of those items that are not expected to vary with sales. My vehicle for illustrating the creation of a pro forma income statement appears below: Assume that sales for the BMX Corporation are expected to be $12 million in 2008 and that sales in 2007 were $10 million. Further assume that cost of goods sold can be divided into two parts: a part that varies with sales and a part that does not (i. e. , cost of goods sold has both fixed and variable components). Further assume that operating expenses can also be divided a fixed portion and a variable portion. Further assume the firm plans to increase its borrowing in 2008 which will increase interest expense on the income statement. The first step in the analysis is to determine the percentage increase in sales: (2008 sales – 2007 sales)/2007 sales = percentage change in sales ($12 million – $10 million)/$10million – 1 = . 2 or 20% The second step in the analysis is to construct the 2008 proforma income statement assuming those items that vary with sales will increase by the percentage change in sales (20%) and that those items that don’t remain fixed. An example of this process is given on the Excel worksheet below. Double click on the worksheet to access it, then scroll up or down as needed. Notice the variable expenses are found by taking the 2007 expense and multiplying by 1 + the percentage change in sales (1. 2). This increases those expenses by 120%. A common error students make is to simply multiply the variable expenses by the percentage change in sales. If we did that here, we would be multiplying the variable expenses by 20%. In other words, we would not be increasing variable expenses by 20%, we would be reducing them by 80%. Notice the pro forma net income for 2008 is $600,000. You may wish to analyze the effect using a strict percentage of sales approach would have had on pro forma net income. Would net income be higher or lower as a result? You would be correct to sense the potential for an exam question here. Finally $200,000 in dividends are deducted from the $600,000 net income giving us a $400,000 addition to retained earnings. The third step is to use the $400,000 pro forma additions to retained earnings in addition to a number of other assumptions to compute the Pro Forma Balance Sheet. I will also use the judgmental approach in this step. The 2007 historical balance sheet and the pro forma balance sheet for BMX Corporation appear in the Excel worksheet below. To access the worksheet, double click on it, then scroll up or down as needed to see view the worksheets. I will make the following assumptions regarding the pro forma balance sheet: 1. The firm wants to continue to maintain a minimum cash balance of $100,000 2. Marketable securities will increase to $75,000 in 2008. 3. Accounts receivable have historically been 36. 5 days of sales. Since sales for 2008 are expected to be $12,000,000, accounts receivable will be $12,000,000 x (36. 5/365) = $1,200,000 (you could also do the following which is algebraically identical: ($12,000,000/365) X 36. 5). 4. Inventories have historically been 20% of cost of goods sold. Since cost of goods sold for 2008 are expected to be $9,000,000, inventories will be $9,000,000 x . 20 = $1,800,000. 5. Vectra will increase fixed assets by $750,000. Depreciation expense for 2008 is estimated to be $200,000. Net fixed assets for 2008 will be: Net fixed assets (2007) + additions to fixed assets – depreciation expense 2008 $5,000,000 + $750,000 – $200,000 = $5,550,000 6. Annual purchases (all on account) have historically averaged 60% of cost of goods sold. The accounts payable balance, in turn, is typically 20% of purchases. Accounts payable will therefore be $9,000,000 X . 60 X . 20 = $1,080,000 7. Taxes payable will be approximately one quarter of the tax expense shown on the 2008 pro forma income statement. Taxes payable will equal $400,000/4 = $100,000. 8. Notes payable will increase to $1,000,000. 9. There will be no change in other current liabilities, long-term debt, or common stock. 10. Retained earnings on the 2008 pro forma balance sheet will change by the additions to retained earnings ($400,000) shown on the pro forma income statement. Since the 2007 retained earnings was $1,000,000, the retained earnings for 2008 are expected to be $1,000,000 + $400,000 = $1,400,000. Notice the 2008 pro forma balance sheet did not initially balance: e. i. , total assets ($8,725,000) did not equal the sum of total liabilities and equity ($8,332,500). In other words, the firm’s need to fund assets of $8,725,000 in 2008 will not be met at anticipated levels of debt and equity. This is the firm’s signal that it will have to raise funds by issuing additional debt or equity in the amount of $392,500.

Strategic Planning Essay

Strategic Planning Essay Strategic Planning Essay This is a free sample essay on Strategic Planning: Introduction A Whole School ICT Policy is a crucial document that describes how and why a school is developing ICT. It should be seen as a dynamic document, which is reviewed regularly. The policy is intended as a statement of the beliefs, values and objectives of the school and aims to ensure that staff can work collaboratively within the context of utilising ICT as a functional tool within school. The purpose of the policy is to both review current practice and plan for the future needs of all in the school. As an essential management tool the policy should encompass aspects of why the school is heading in a particular direction, set realistic goals leading toward the ultimate intention and how milestones will be achieved. Scenario This assignment will discuss key issues in the development of a whole school ICT policy for a secondary school consisting of eleven to eighteen year old pupils. The school intake is 180 pupils per year, with an average of 50% entering the sixth form. The number of pupils enrolled is calculated as 1080 with six classes of thirty pupils in each year, from Year 7 to Year 11 and a Lower and Upper Sixth form of 90 pupils each. I have adopted the strategy that pupils in Years 7 to 9 work in Form Groups of 30, with GCSE Groups in Years 10 and 11 being split into groups of ?. Whilst seeking to improve the overall ICT facilities and curriculum within the School, it is intended to honour the commitment to cross-curricular use of ICT, a provision that has been described by the recent OFSTED inspection as patchy. In response to OFSTEDs comment, the school Senior Management Team (SMT) and the Board of Governors have agreed to provide the necessary financial support for an immediate improvement to ICT provision. Furthermore, it has been agreed that additional ICT teaching space will be made available by developing the library into a Learning Resource Centre (LRC). Strategic planning Strategic planning is â€Å"aimed at total concentration of the organisations resources on mutually predetermined measurable outcomes (Cook, W. Jr. 1988). According to this definition, an effective plan encompasses the schools entire resources and purpose. Strategic plans are typically comprehensive and hence should include everything essential to a schools Vision Statement the starting point of any strategic plan. It is crucial for strategic planning that schools periodically establish and monitor aims and objectives around which any school policy must be constructed. Strategic planning enables people to influence the future and change. The very act of planning enables schools to exert influence over their own future amidst the restraining and constraining influences of socioeconomic forces, Local Education Authorities (LEAs) and government. Wise planners pay particular attention to demographic changes, shrinking financial support, strengthening curriculum, and attracting, developing, and retaining effective teachers. They must also plan to fully utilise computers and other new instructional technologies and to prepare students for employment. Research shows that everyone concerned with education should participate in the planning process and that even the most carefully formulated policy will be irrelevant if sufficient time and money are not dedicated to meeting its objectives. Cook asserts that â€Å"the best plans are based more on the collective intuition of the planning team than on so-called hard data. He urges planners to meet regularly while Hart (1988) recommends using several small groups to begin the planning process in order to discuss, prioritise and report back to SMTs so that everyone shares a sense of cohesion, consensus and ownership. This is particularly pertinent if the plan is to evolve into a â€Å"Whole School Policy†. The role of strategic planning in relation to the whole school ICT development is extremely complex as most of the components involved are inter-linked with each other in a complex of environments, inputs and outcomes. It can be equated to a web site with multiple links and alternative pathways. Compared to other curriculum subjects ICT is not only a subject in its own right but also overarches the whole institution. Therefore, ICT demands careful planning in order to effectively control and harvest its full potential and benefit and to avoid misuse and waste of funds, facilities, time and resources which collectively result in purposeless underachievement. Strategic plans should span at least five years. They should be reviewed annually, with a particularly thorough review at the end of the first year. A strategic plan, after all, is not simply a document; it is a schools road map to the future. Evaluation of ICT An ICT strategy is required to enable an overview of school activities to fulfill school curriculum aims and ICT ambitions. Its design should enable change while determining a route for all to follow in order to achieve a shared vision of determination and commitment by all (Freedman, T., 1999 p27). The ICT policy transforms token gestures into specific aims concerning curriculum, staffing and roles, resources and expenditure. In order to facilitate these aims, certain management issues need to be addressed. Ideally, the school would have a Steering Group (SG) in place ideally composed of representatives of the SMT (School Head and Chair) the Board of Governors, the ICT Coordinator, IT teachers and Technician/s and Heads of Departments. These would formulate data protection, licensing, security, finances, ethics, ICT and the NC, monitoring and evaluation, access, timetabling and training. The SG should meet regularly to monitor, evaluate and review planning to resolve implementation of ICT policy, departmental ICT teaching and usage monitoring, responsibility for ICT schemes of work and their monitoring and review (www.becta.org.uk). OFSTED stipulate that the school SMT are responsible for the provision and implementation of a whole school ICT policy. It is common practice for the ICT Co-ordinator, in conjunction with the SG, to write and maintain the ICT policy document. However, the starting point of such a document is to ascertain the current situation by undertaking an audit (ICT activity, staff competence, resources) to frame an action plan. Individual stages of an action plan must undergo evaluation. Hargreaves et al, (1989) suggests that school development planning consists of four cyclical processes: Audit, Construction, Implementation and Evaluation. This is commensurate with Kolbs (1985) model of the Learning Cycle. It refers to the process by which individuals, teams, and organisations attend to and understand experiences, and consequently modify behaviour. The cycle is based on the idea that reflection offers opportunity to modify and refine efforts. The logic of the learning cycle is to make incremental improvements that constitute major improvement over time. The cycle also comprises of four steps: Doing; Reflection; Interpretation and Planning. Coupled with these models, any implementation schedule should be drawn up with clearly defined review dates. However, as Crawford (1997) points out, it is foolhardy to plan the development of detailed ICT resources more than one year in advance as technology and prices constantly change and therefore impact directly on school provision. Thus, the ICT policy is like a car MOT it is only a snapshot of how things stand at a particular time. Consequently, it is essential that the ICT policy is reviewed and updated annually. ______________ is a professional academic writing service which can provide high school, college and university students with 100% original custom written essays, research papers, term papers, dissertations, courseworks, book reviews, book reports, lab reports, projects, presentations and other assignments of top quality. More than 700 professional Ph.D. and Master’s academic writers. 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President Theodore Roosevelt Fast Facts

President Theodore Roosevelt Fast Facts Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) served as Americas 26th  president. Nicknamed the Trust Buster for fighting corruption in the industry, and more affectionately known as  Teddy, Roosevelt was a larger-than-life personality. He is remembered not only as a statesman but also as an author, soldier, naturalist, and reformer.  Roosevelt was Vice President of William McKinley  and became President after McKinley was assassinated in 1901. Fast Facts Birth: October 27, 1858 Death: January 6, 1919 Term of Office: September 14, 1901–March 3, 1909 Number of Terms Elected: 1 term First Lady: Edith Kermit Carow Theodore Roosevelt Quote The first requisite of a good citizen in this Republic of ours is that he shall be able and willing to pull his weight. Major Events While In Office Panama Canal Rights Acquired (1904): The U.S. earned the right to occupy the Canal Zone in Panama, leading the way to the construction of the Panama Canal, which it would control until 1979.  Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine (1904-1905): The Monroe Doctrine declared that foreign encroachment into the Western Hemisphere would not be tolerated. As President, Roosevelt added that the U.S. was responsible for enforcing the Monroe Doctrine  in Latin America, with force if necessary.Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905): Japans campaign to claim Port Arthur on the coast of Manchuria from the Russians began a brief but devastating war. The heavy artillery and battle methods used foreshadowed the conditions of modern warfare that would come of age in World War I.  Nobel Peace Prize (1906): Roosevelt was one of a handful of presidents to win the Nobel Peace Prize. This award honored his efforts to resolve the Russo-Japanese War and his work for international arbitration.  Ã‚  San F rancisco Earthquake (1906): San Fransiscos massive earthquake destroyed almost 30,000 buildings and left many of the citizens homeless.   States Entering Union While in Office Oklahoma (1907) Related Theodore Roosevelt Resources These additional resources on Theodore Roosevelt can provide you with further information about the president and his times. Theodore Roosevelt Biography: An in-depth look at the 26th  president of the United States, including his childhood, family and early career, and the major events of his administration.Progressive Era: The Gilded Age, a term coined by Mark Twain, referred to the overt opulence exhibited by the wealthy in the industrial era. The Progressive Era was partly a response to the disparity between rich and poor. Individuals at this time were campaigning for economic, political, and social reform.Top 10 Influential Presidents: Theodore Roosevelt is considered one of the most influential presidents in American History.Bull Moose Party: When Theodore Roosevelt was not nominated by the Republican Party to run for president again in 1912, he broke away and created a new party which was nicknamed the Bull Moose Party. Other Presidential Fast Facts William McKinley: McKinley was assassinated shortly after winning re-election and beginning the second term of his presidency. During his time in office, American officially established itself as a world colonial power.  William Howard Taft: The president who succeeded Roosevelt may be best known for his policies of Dollar Diplomacy, aimed at promoting security and influence abroad in the interest of American commercial ventures.

Kwon's Investigation to the Artists Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Kwon's Investigation to the Artists - Essay Example Traditionally, the word â€Å"art† had a limited meaning but with the passage of time, it has broadened its meanings and forms. Public art has faced many controversies from the critics all over the world. But feminist art has emerged in the history as a strong and the most controversial medium through which the efforts and achievements of the feminist artists have sought a medium to reflect the experiences and various colors of a woman’s life. This has changed the idea of contemporary art. The history of feminist art has its roots deeply ingrained in the history of art and therefore, the changes brought by the feminist artists have contributed greatly in changing the history of art. In other words, we can say that feminist artists have intervened in the history of art. The feminist art movement started with the idea that everyday experiences in a woman’s life should be represented through art, where they have been either neglected or underestimated by various fac tors such as the society, culture, politics etc. The emergence of feminist artists took place even before the rise of the feminist art movement in early 1971. ... In addition later in year 1971, women artists were excluded from the exhibition and art galleries by Corcoran Biennial in Washington D.C. which provoked an organized protest from New York Women in Art against the gallery owners for their discriminatory actions. Later in the same year, Judi Chicago founded Feminist art program at Cal State Frenso. Judi Chicago was one of the most recognizable activists in the Movement. She has played a key role in creating awareness among the feminine artists for their roles, rights and contributions in the artwork. In 1972, Judi Chicago came up with another masterpiece entitled as â€Å"WomanHouse† along with Miriam Schapiro at California Institute of Arts. WomanHouse drew the attention of crowds as well as gained the national publicity for the active work from the activists of the Feminist Art Movement (Harper; 1985). This was a collaborative effort by the students to display their artwork; expressing their feelings for being discriminated an d condemned by various performances. It is imperative to understand the term â€Å"feminist art.† This has raised a debate between the art historians and theorists around the globe. It is still difficult for them to understand and extract the exact meaning of feminist art as a movement, a milestone in art history or is it a diversified shift in artwork. Many critics have compared this form of art as an unreal and challenging way of performing art and making it to be seen by the audience. Feminist art has raised many questions that are closely associated with Postmodernism. Feminist art gave a new meaning and dimension to its form. However, Postmodernism has denied the inflexible nature

The World Marketplace Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

The World Marketplace - Assignment Example Code of conducts the policies, procedures, etc to run the business effectively. The need of avoiding the infringing by the company needs great precautions. For example, during the invention of any product, the authorities of company get information about the already invention of same patent product, then there is need of rules and laws help to proceed the process from the law department (Martire, 2014). In 1776, many economists favoured the concept of free trade amongst the nations to improve the economic welfare. There are many benefits of free trade for those the countries like it rather than trade restrictions, such as; no tariffs, quota system, no trade barriers, promotion of domestic industries, subsidies from the governments, etc (Irwin, 2014).European Union is an example to describe the encouraging aspects of free trade, such as; promotion of competition and innovation, generation of economic growth, disseminates of democratic values, fostering of economic freedom, prosperities and opportunities for every citizen, etc (Froning, 2000) . For the development of international business development, there are different types of barriers that influence the revenues of a firm. There are two types of barriers for the organisations to overcome, internal barriers( controlled by the companies, such as financial matters, production and distributions matters, etc.) and the external barriers (uncontrolled by the organisations, such as political environment, legal issues, distributor matters, socioeconomic issues, socio cultural issues, technological needs, etc. There are some suggestions to overcome the business barriers to get more revenues, such as; Collaborations with the large and well-established firms, taking the advantages from the government programs for the exporters, taking advantages of useful rules and regulations in specific countries, etc (BV,