Banking Industry in Malaysia Essay

Money is closely linked to our lives, so the financial institutions become an inevitable and important part of our lives and people are always focusing on the situation of financial institutions. So the banking industry is the most suitable topic to study. Then, we decided to use scenario model to analyze the industry (Showed by diagrams 1). Diagram 1 After analyzing the situation of the industry, we choose ten years because it is the most proper time for our scenarios. The environment can not reach the enough degree to support these scenarios if the time is too short. On the other hand, long period of time is hardly to forecast the future careers. In the process of searching materials about banking industry, we found the major Stakeholders influencing the industry. They are government, consumers, and competitors in term of development of banking industry. The banking industry in Malaysia started from the early 1900s , in 1913 Malaysia’s first domestic bank – Kwong Yik (Selangor) Banking Corporation (now Malayan Banking Berhad) was set up, as thriving profits from rubber plantations and the tin industry. Besides, a statutory body, Bank Negara Malaysia (Central Bank), which is wholly-owned by the Federal Government, was established to the need for a governing body to oversee the activities and operations of the numerous banks in the country. Now, In Malaysia banks mainly consist of commercial banks, Islamic banks, and merchant banks. In addition, Malaysia has become an international Islamic Financial centre (Edge, 2006). As far, the banking industry in Malaysia has made conventional banking products and services, such as deposits and loans or hire purchase, taking on more advanced features, which are facilitated by advanced technological developments and make bank customers easier and simpler methods and processes of going about their daily banking. Furthermore, it also has introduced new products and services like credit and debit cards, investment products, financing products and services, and so on. RHB bank, which stands for Rashid Hussain Berhad, from throngs of banks for some reasons. Firstly, we are more familiar with it for it is a bank surroundings our. Secondly, we think it has a great potential RHB Bank is one of Malaysia’s leading financial service providers, offering commercial banking, corporate and international banking services. RHB Bank has built an impressive 200 branch network across Malaysia and also has a number of overseas branches, the majority in neighboring Singapore what’s more, after being acquiring by government in March, 2007, it becomes more competitive compared with other banks (Edge, 2006). Identify and discuss on the main driving forces shaping and affecting the industry. Business organizations exist to turn inputs from their environment into goods and services which customer in the environment want to purchase. This transformation process within the organization cannot be seen as a steady state, because external environment influences have a tendency to be continually shifting, having the effect of undermining the current balance within the system. The environment influencing business organization mainly involves the macro-environment, the micro-environment and internal environment. In our essay, we will use macro-environment, which comprise political, environment, socio-cultural, technology, legal and ecological factors, to analyze Malaysian banking industry environment. Political The political environment is one of the less predictable elements among them. In Malaysia, the Government has proposed that Malaysian-owned banks be given five-year tax exemption on income received from their new branches or remittances from subsidiaries overseas, operating within the three-year period, from the year of assessment 2007 to encourage banks to expand overseas and establish a regional presence. Furthermore, the Government will establish an Overseas Investment Fund (OIF), with an allocation of RM100 million to provide soft loans to domestic companies to finance start-up  costs of doing business overseas (Amparo and Sickles, 1994). Furthermore, to attract more foreign funds and streamline tax treatment on profits or interest income received from all financial institutions, the government proposed that profits or interest income received by non-residents from financial institutions should be exempt from tax. Economic Malaysia has been experiencing a promising economic since 2005 under the marked growth of global economic, real economic growths in Malaysia has been strengthened and real gross domestic product of Malaysia has been expanded from 2005, with growth gaining momentum since then. This growth was driven mainly by private sector activities. Real private consumption expenditure is keeping sustained at high rate, driven by continuing income growth, stable labor market conditions and strong consumer confidence. When the business activity become flourishing, people are reluctant to keeping savings, however they have strong willing to invest to increase their money value (Aziz, 2005). Monetary transactions are conducted in Ringgit Malaysia (RM) and sen, which is the Malaysian paper and coin currency respectively (Kadir, 2007). Credit cards are also accepted widely in commercial businesses, while travelers’ cheques may also be changed at any commercial banks, hotels and authorized money changers. This will bring banks desirable opportunities along with the increase in the number of traveler to Malaysia. Government influences on macroeconomic activity through such means as fiscal policy, monetary policy. As for fiscal policy, the Government introduced a stimulus package, which focuses on selected projects with strong linkages to ensure maximum stimulus to economic growth and short gestation periods while meeting socio-economic objectives, worth RM7 billion to boost economy recovery. Since early August 1998, monetary policy has become accommodative by reducing interest rates to reinforce expansionary fiscal policy and revive the economy (Aziz, 2006). The intermediation role of the banking institutions came to the forefront during the crisis period. Banking institutions were excessively cautious in their lending decisions, causing a sharp slowdown in credit under an environment of uncertainty, to avoid a credit crunch situation. Banking institutions with sufficient capacity were encouraged to achieve a minimum loan growth rate of 8% for 1998. The motivation for the 8% credit floor was to free the banking institutions from the self-imposed credit freeze (Kadir, 2007). Technological The Government is also playing a vital role in technological development of banking industry in Malaysia by promoting E-payments nationwide. As most of the individuals and business have payment transactions with the Government. This practice will help to store and collect bank account numbers, E-payments and receipt notices and instructions for how to do these electronic payments. According to the BNM, 2005 all corporations and institutions at this forum the course of action result of reengineering in organization to fully use of E-payments that provided by financial institutions and outworkers (Appelbaum, 1991). E-channel, online banking systems are using computers, telephones and the internet. ATM is the most commonly used electronic channel through out the country facilitate bank customers to conduct transactions 24 hours in a day. Phone banking is also another e-banking option can be use 24 hours a day and can made all type of transactions. RHB is using Tele-banking known as remote banking. PC banking is the 3rd form of e-banking that could be done by downloading application software in house or office. Technology varies as the time passed like the ATM & Telephones was the first Multimedia wave invented 30 years ago after that it includes some more features of PCs & Online services. Along with them E-cash stored are smart cards and Interactive videos no need to go to ATMs to withdraw money because technology hooked to any multimedia devices such as PC, Interactive TV and also Cell phones. Onyx Software Corporation has been appointed by RHB Bank to develop its  customer relationship management (CRM) initiative and build an enterprise-wide platform designed to enhance its ability to meet customer needs and improve integration between the sales force and customer call center in an increasingly competitive marketplace (Appelbaum, 1991). Threats were disintegration, the cannibalization of existing delivery channels, risk of standardizing on the wrong technology platform and the inability to keep pace with changing technology. The obstacles included security risks, network and system instability and the difficulty of integrating different systems. Socio-Cultural This consumerism society was only created dues to the banking system encourage ‘buy today, pay tomorrow’, which makes a maintained push to drive up retail customer numbers. At present, the number of Malaysian aged 60 years and above is estimated to be 1.4 million and is projected to increase to 3.3 million in the year 2020. It also increased over the years. So number of people aged 60 can do work more number in future years. As Malaysia is the Muslim country so Islamic banking is very important factor in banking industry. Malaysia life style people love to do shopping and visitors comes from all over the world banks can extend their existing Privileges and Benefits programmes in Malaysia. Banks are targeting a new generation of life style driven people who celebrate in freedom, traveling and giving their lives new perspectives (Alexandrov, 2000). The banking system with all its complexities, challenges and opportunities touches virtually all aspects of customer’s daily lives. Using a credit card to make a purchase, writing a personal or business check, paying bills and moving funds online or accessing your funds through an automatic teller machine daily used in the banking system. There is certainly significant data to suggest that profitability,  business growth and increased market penetration could be the outcome for the banks that aggressively pursue the minority community as a business objective. Fortunately many banks across the country are recognizing the business value of minority communities as emerging markets. It is because 40% of the Malaysian population consists of minorities (Alexandrov, 2000). Ecological Business does not operate in a vacuum. Activities inevitably lead to a series of ecological and social impacts (Anonymous, 2002). At the bank, through the provision of finance and banking services to a wide variety of business customers, can be more far-reaching and profound than the direct impact of our actual operations, so they have put measures in place to ensure that this impact is managed. 1) Social Responsibility †¢ Anti-money Laundering It is the disguising of funds derived from criminal activity to give them legal respectability. It has been estimated by the International Monetary Fund that such financial flows are equivalent to between 2% and 5% of global Gross Domestic Product (Clavin, 2001). With effect from December 2001, the Financial Services Authority (FSA) has assumed greater formal powers to supervise and enforce corporate and individual compliance with laws and regulations relating to money laundering (Clavin, 2001). For instance, all bank staff are obliged to report any transaction which they suspect might be related to drugs, terrorism or other serious crimes. Equally importantly, they are instructed not to reveal to a customer that they are being investigated. Besides, the Co-operative Bank is in the process of implementing additional awareness and training measures to underpin its full compliance with FSA requirements. Additionally, a money laundering helpdesk has been launched to help staff with any queries. 2) Health and Safety The Co-operative Bank’s Health and Safety Officer has provided one to one training with managers and team leaders. The bank took part in the â€Å"European Week for Safety and Health† and was recognized by the Health and Safety Commission for its efforts towards raising Health and Safety awareness. Formal accredited training has been delivered to facilities staff to improve awareness and assist with their Health and Safety inspection responsibilities. A staff handbook has been produced and distributed to raise staff awareness of the Co-operative Bank’s absence policy. During 2002, the bank made further investment in occupational health services with the expansion of the medical services unit. 3) Protection of Natural Environment †¢ Ecologically-sound Paper Global paper demand is the single largest use of wood fibre. In order to relieve pressure on the environment and reduce the amount of paper waste going to landfill, banking industry should aim to use increasing amounts of ecologically-sound paper which is considered an efficient use of resources and protects old growth forests from logging. When compared with virgin paper, the use of recycled paper substantially reduces water consumption, energy use, air pollution, and water pollution. Furthermore, the Co-operative Bank has been seeking to use the most ecologically-sound paper available for the majority of their activities for the past five years. Likewise, the disposal of paper waste also has significant ecological impacts. During 2002, the bank recycled 657 tonnes of paper (Allsop, 2001). Analysis on models. 1) Sky Land There is no need to establish too many banks anymore! In addition, banks need not fiercely compete with each other for choosing the working places. The banks can retract the working places in order to save costs for hiring employees, paying electricity fee, and rental fee. Likewise, from the perspective of ecological environment, it can save lots of resources, such as electricity and papers. Although there is only several banks do the operation for the numerous numbers of customers, â€Å"Sky Land† makes banking industry to be more available, efficient and convenience. Pro If the banks retract some places of their business network, they can save cost, such as kinds of resources, the rent of the place, electricity, labors and the like. Therefore, the banks can save the money. Con In regard to the pace of developing technology and attitude to the new high-tech, the technology will not develop the level to support the plan to be applied in 10 years. Hence, banks can not implement this scenario. In addition, some people may not have their own computer or even telephone or phone. Therefore, they can not get in touch with banks. Conclusion This project cannot be successful, because not sure for the technology either can achieve the enough level to support this project. 2) FRV Nowadays, hackers keep increasing in technology manner. Banking industry has to summon the way to solve the problem. FRV is a system includes fingerprint, retina and even voice identification functions, the highest technology system. Every people have different voice, retina, and fingerprint, efficiently make use of them are benefit to banking industry. For instance, customers have to put their fingers on the fingerprint machine that verifies their personal identities, includes get to know the amount of money. Likewise, voice can differentiate each people and it can be used in  saving and drawing. In addition, their retina has to be checked for transferring. Moreover, banking industry invents â€Å"FRV† which includes fingerprint, retina and voice and customers have to do them in the meantime for recognizing their identities. Furthermore, it puts aside the troubles of bank book, bank card, and even credit card. For instance, fingerprint, retina, and even voice system combine together and install into the ATMs, people use their fingers or eyes to save or draw money, instead of their bank cards. Pro It is safety for customers to make transaction with banks. Besides, it brings a lot of convenience to customers who can go to bank directly without carrying anything. For banks, they can save some overheads and make more profits, for they can lay off some employees. Con It will take rather a lot of money to introduce the fingerprint and retina system in the banking industry. The system is only a tool, it is very instable. For instance, if there is a bug we do not know, it may destroy the database and loss the information of customers, and make lots of loss. Conclusion This planning can be success, because the fingerprint and retina system is already mature. This system has been applied in detecting criminal case by policeman; example is â€Å"Henry system†, which classifies each fingerprint in terms of its arches, loops, whorls, composite style prints, and the location of certain fixed points and ridges. It is easy for banking industry to put it into practice. In addition, this project will improve the safety of customers a lot. Therefore, this system will be popular in the banking industry in the next ten years. Recommendation The banks who want to introduce the FRV have many barriers, such as costly and instable. Despite of these which are also can be solved easily. They can ask the suppliers who are familiar as they can give more discounts for them.  Furthermore, government is a good supplier as they can support the banks for introducing the system. Yet, employ engineers for repairing the systems when they are spoiled. Using â€Å"Backup† and â€Å"Defragmenter† are also the ways to reduce barriers. In addition, they also can establish a department for checking the system daily or monthly. 3) Automatic Bank Operator Along with the society development keep advancing, banking industry is able to introduce much more high-tech equipments. Firstly, the banks just only have to possess computers and phones with high technology â€Å"Automatic System† which includes automatic responding and do transaction for customers. Besides, they only have to hire a few employees to operate the computers. Secondly, customers can contact with â€Å"Robot Operator† to save, withdraw, and others banking functions. Be more bravely, it is better to invent â€Å"Robot Operator† which does transaction for customers. Thirdly, customers use the computers through the Internet to have a connection with the banks which includes â€Å"Automatic System†, giving responses to the customers via â€Å"BCR† (Banking Chat Room) that chat online which can contact with lots of customers in the meantime. Moreover, banking industry merge the three functions which is called â€Å"ABO† (Automatic Bank Operator), can save much money and earn a tremendous of money in the future. Eventually, in the next ten years, banks do not need employees to transact the business. Pro The â€Å"Automatic System†, â€Å"Robot Operator†, and â€Å"BCR† can do work instead of human, and banks incline to lay-off employees. The banks directly save much money in overheads. Con It costs much money for the banks as they have to invest a tremendous of money into this high technology equipment. Furthermore, it also needs longer time to get back the costs of investment and even much more long time to get profit. When the technology system goes wrong and cannot be operated, which cause the transaction be more trouble and the banks have to pay for their  mistakes. Moreover, they also have to employ engineers repair the system. Recommendation The banks can ask government to support their â€Å"ABO† in investment as these investments have to put much capital into it which is very costly and risky. Besides, they can search the suppliers who sell the raw materials and equipments to be cheaper or given discount. 4) Loving Needy In the next ten years, there are many countries will become ageing population society, the tremendous of old folks are retire or disabilities who do not have enough money to sustain their lives. Therefore, they need money to make their lives become better or even just only need to survive. In turn, the government needs more money to the welfare work for the needy. For instance, the government does a policy that is named â€Å"Loving Needy† to require the entire banking industry reel off 10 percent to 50 percent interests of the customers’ deposits. It is available and efficient to the whole society. Pro The needy can get the money via â€Å"Loving Needy† to have better live. Besides, the banks can reduce the welfare costs in other ways. Con It seems like the banks oblige customers to real off their portion of deposits. They cannot do anything to reject the government, else they just only can do strike on the government daily for rejecting them to do it. Conclusion All the banking industry does to the needy are correct and available. They ought to do this welfare work more often and even throughout the world.

Literary Criticism of Don DeLillo

Literary Criticism of Don DeLilloâ€Å"It's my nature to keep quiet about most things. Even the ideas in my work. When you try to unravel something you've written, you belittle it in a way. It was created as a mystery, in part.† –Don DeLillo, from the 1979 interview with Tom LeClairThere are a number of books and essays which are devoted to analysis of Don Delillo's writing. This page concentrates on the books only (for the most part), with most recent on top.Terrorism, Media, and the Ethics of Fiction: Transatlantic Perspectives on Don DeLillo (2010)Great to see the publication of this book of essays from the DeLillo Conference held in Osnabrà ¼ck, Germany in 2008 (see my page on the Conference). Edited by conference organizers Peter Schneck and Philipp Schweighauser.Terrorism, Media, and the Ethics of Fiction is published by Continuum, ISBN-13: 9781441139931, 2010 (hardcover, 264 pages).Contents include: Introduction – Philipp Schweighauser and Peter Schneck M emory Work after 9/11The Wake of Terror: Don DeLillo's â€Å"In the Ruins of the Future,† â€Å"Baader-Meinhof,† and Falling Man – Linda S. Kauffman Grieving and Memory in Don DeLillo's Falling Man – Silvia Caporale Bizzini Collapsing Identities: The Representation and Imagination of the Terrorist in Falling Man – Sascha Pà ¶hlmann Writers, Terrorists, and the Masses6,500 Weddings and 2,750 Funerals: Mao II, Falling Man, and the Mass Effect – Mikko Keskinen Influence and Self-Representation: Don DeLillo's Artists and Terrorists in Postmodern Mass Society – Leif Grà ¶ssinger The Art of Terror–the Terror of Art: DeLillo's Still Life of 9/11, Giorgio Morandi, Gerhard Richter, and Performance Art – Julia Apitzsch Don DeLillo and Johan GrimonprezGrimonprez's Remix – Eben WoodDial T for Terror: Don DeLillo's Mao II and Johan Grimonprez' Dial H-I-S-T-O-R-Y – Martyn Colebrook Deathward and Other PlotsTerror, Asce ticism, and Epigrammatic Writing in Don DeLillo's Fiction – Paula Martà ­n Salvà ¡n The End of Resolution? Reflections on the Ethics of Closure in Don DeLillo's Detective Plots – Philipp Schweighauser and Adrian S. Wisnicki The Ethics of FictionSlow Man, Dangling Man, Falling Man: Don DeLillo and the Ethics of Fiction – Peter Boxall Falling Man: Performing Fiction – Marie-Christine Lepsâ€Å"Mysterium tremendum et fascinans†: Don DeLillo, Rudolf Otto, and the Search for Numinous Experience – Peter Schneck CodaThe DeLillo Era: Literary Generations in the Postmodern Period – David Cowart (Sept. 6, 2010)The Cambridge Companion to Don DeLillo (2008)Above is a shot of the book ‘on location' in Cambridge, with St Johns College in the background; I found the book at the Cambridge Book Shop, and the clerk told me that the book had just come in that day! (May 13, 2008)The Cambridge Companion to Don DeLillo is a new book edited by John Duvall, and it features articles covering much of DeLillo's work by many familiar names of DeLillo criticism. Published by Cambridge University Press, ISBN-13: 9780521690898, 2008 (paperback, 203 pages). There's a hardback as  well.Contents include: Introduction: â€Å"The power of history and the persistence of mystery† John N. Duvall Part I. Aesthetic and Cultural Influences â€Å"DeLillo and modernism† Philip Nel â€Å"DeLillo, postmodernism, postmodernity† Peter Knight Part II. Early Fiction â€Å"DeLillo and media culture† Peter Boxall â€Å"DeLillo's apocalyptic satire† Joseph Dewey â€Å"DeLillo and the political thriller† Tim Engles Part III. Major Novels â€Å"White Noise† Stacey Olster â€Å"Libra† Jeremy Green â€Å"Underworld† Patrick O'Donnell Part IV. Themes and Issues â€Å"DeLillo and masculinity† Ruth Helyer â€Å"DeLillo's Dedealian artists† Mark Osteen â€Å"DeLillo and the power of la nguage† David Cowart â€Å"DeLillo and mystery† John McClure Conclusion: â€Å"Writing amid the ruins: 9/11 and Cosmopolis† Joseph Conte It's unclear how much of this material is truly new; much may be adapted from previously published work.Beyond Grief and Nothing: A Reading of Don DeLillo (2006)Beyond Grief and Nothing is a new book by Joseph Dewey from the University of South Carolina Press. The book traces a thematic trajectory in DeLillo from his first short story to ‘Love-Lies-Bleeding'. The book examines DeLillo as a profoundly spiritual writer, a writer who has wrestled with his Catholic upbringing (the title comes from the famous line from Faulkner's ‘Wild Palms' that forms a motif in Godard's ‘Breathless') and who has emerged over the last decade as perhaps the most important religious writer in American literature since Flannery O'Connor.Dewey finds DeLillo's concerns to be organized around three rubrics that mark the writer's own cre ative evolution: the love of the street, the embrace of the word, and the celebration of the soul.Joseph Dewey is an Associate Professor, American literature at University of Pittsburgh, and heco-edited Underwords (see below). 184 pages, hardcover, $34.95.Don DeLillo: The Possibility of Fiction (2006)Don DeLillo:The Possibility of Fiction by Peter Boxall (Routledge). I don't know much about this book, except for the fact that it's expensive! Dr. Peter Boxall is a lecturer in English Literature at the University of Sussex, and has previously published on Beckett (among others).Approaches to Teaching DeLillo's White Noise (2006)Approaches to Teaching DeLillo's White Noise is a new book edited by Tim Engles and John N. Duvall. From the MLA website:This volume, like others in the MLA's Approaches to Teaching World Literature series, is divided into two parts. The first part, â€Å"Materials,† suggests readings and resources for both instructor and students of White Noise. The sec ond part, â€Å"Approaches,† contains eighteen essays that establish cultural, technological, and theoretical contexts (e.g., whiteness studies); place the novel in different survey courses (e.g., one that explores the theme of American materialism); compare it with other novels by DeLillo (e.g., Mao II); and give examples of classroom techniques and strategies in teaching it (e.g., the use of disaster films).The book is aimed at folks who include White Noise in their syllabus, and it includes pieces from Mark Osteen, Phil Nel, John Duvall, Tim Engles and many more.Benjamin Kunkel on Novelists and Terrorists (2005)In the New York Times Book Review of September 11, 2005, Benjamin Kunkel offers â€Å"Dangerous Characters†, an essay on the ‘terrorist novel' of the pre 9/11 era. DeLillo unsurprisingly features in the essay. It's worth reading in its entirety, but I pull out a couple quotes here that were of particular interest to me:Terrorists might be a novelist's r ivals, as Don DeLillo's novelist character maintains in †Mao II† (1991), but they were also his proxies. No matter how realistic, the terrorist novel was also a kind of metafiction, or fiction about fiction.DeLillo saw that novelists, like terrorists, were solitary and obscure agents, †men in small rooms,† preparing symbolic provocations to be unleashed on the public with a bang. Of course this could refer only to a certain kind of novelist, starting perhaps with Flaubert and ending, DeLillo suggested, with Beckett, whose work could be taken as an indictment of an entire civilization, and whose authority when it came to that civilization was paradoxically derived from his appearing to stand completely outside it.Don DeLillo: Balance at the Edge of Belief (2004)Don DeLillo: Balance at the Edge of Belief by Jesse Kavadlo, published in 2004 by Peter Lang Publishing (ISBN: 0-8204-6351-5). Here's how the back cover puts it:Don DeLillo – winner of the Nation al Book Award, the William Dean Howells Medal, and the Jerusalem Prize – is one of the most important novelists of the late-twentieth and early-twenty-first centuries. While his work can be understood and taught as prescient and postmodern examples of millennial culture, this book argues that DeLillo's recent novels – White Noise, Libra, Mao II, Underworld, and The Body Artist – are more concerned with spiritual crisis. Although DeLillo's worlds are rife with rejection of belief and littered with faithlessness, estrangement, and desperation, his novels provide a balancing moral corrective against the conditions they describe.  Speaking the vernacular of contemporary America, DeLillo explores the mysteries of what it means to be human.Don DeLillo – Bloom's Modern Critical Views (2003)Don DeLillo was published by Chelsea House in 2003, edited and with an introduction by Harold Bloom.The book consists of previously published critical essays on DeLillo:â₠¬Å"Introduction† by Harold Bloom â€Å"Don DeLillo's Search for Walden Pond† by Michael Oriard â€Å"Preface and Don DeLillo† by Robert Nadeau â€Å"Don DeLillo's America† by Bruce Bawer â€Å"White Magic: Don DeLillo's Intelligence Networks† by Greg Tate â€Å"Myth, Magic and Dread: Reading Culture Religiously† by Gregory Salyer â€Å"The Romantic Metaphysics of Don DeLillo† by Paul Maltby â€Å"For Whom the Bell Tolls: Don DeLillo's Americana† by David Cowart â€Å"Consuming Narratives: Don DeLillo and the ‘Lethal' Reading† by Christian Mararu â€Å"Romanticism and the Postmodern Novel: Three Scenes from Don DeLillo's White Noise† by Lou F. Caton â€Å"Don DeLillo's Postmodern Pastoral† by Dana Phillipsâ€Å"Afterthoughts on Don DeLillo's Underworld† by Tony Tanner â€Å"‘What About a Problem That Doesn't Have a Solution?': Stone's A Flag for Sunrise, DeLillo's Mao II, and the Politics of Political Fiction† by Jeoffrey S. Bull White Noise: A Reader's Guide (2003)Don DeLillo's White Noise: A Reader's Guide by Leonard Orr was published in 2003. The book is published as part of the Continuum Contemporaries series, sells for $9.95 and is 96 pages.Underwords: Perspectives on Don DeLillo's Underworld (2002)Underwords: Perspectives on Don DeLillo's Underworld is edited by Joseph Dewey, Steven G. Kellman, and Irving Malin, and published by University of  Delaware Press in Sept. 2002 (ISBN 0-87413-785-3 $39.50). Here is a picture & the blurb:Don DeLillo's 1997 masterwork Underworld, one of the most acclaimed and long-awaited novels of the last twenty years, was immediately recognized as a landmark novel, not only in the long career of one of America's most distinguished novelists but also in the ongoing evolution of the postmodern novel. Vast in scope, intricately organized, and densely allusive, the text provided an immediate and engaging challenge to readers of c ontemporary fiction.This collection of thirteen essays brings together new and established voices in American studies and contemporary American literature to assess the place of this remarkable novel not only within the postmodern tradition but within the larger patterns of American literature and culture as well. By seeking to place the novel within such a context, this lively collection of provocative readings offers a valuable guide for both students and scholars of the American literary imagination.The book contains:â€Å"A Gathering Under Words: An Introduction† by Joseph Dewey â€Å"‘What Beauty, What Power': Speculations on the Third Edgar† by Irving Malin and Joseph Dewey â€Å"Subjectifying the Objective: Underworld as Mutable Narrative† by David Yetter â€Å"Underworld: Sin and Atonement† by Robert McMinnâ€Å"‘Shall These Bones Live'† by David Cowart â€Å"Don DeLillo's Logogenetic Underworld† by Steven G. Kellman â₠¬Å"Pynchon and DeLillo† by Timothy L. Parrish â€Å"Conspiratorial Jesuits in the Postmodern Novel: Mason & Dixon and Underworld† by Carl Ostrowski â€Å"Don DeLillo, John Updike, and the Sustaining Power of Myth† by Donald J. Greiner â€Å"In the Nick of Time: DeLillo's Nick Shay, Fitzgerald's Nick Carraway, and the Myth of the American Adam† by Joanne Gass â€Å"Don DeLillo, T.S. Eliot, and the Redemption of America's Atomic Waste Land† by Paul Gleason â€Å"The Unmaking of History: Baseball, Cold War, and Underworld† by Kathleen Fitzpatrick â€Å"Underworld or: How I Learned to Keep Worrying and Live the Bomb† by Thomas Myers â€Å"The Baltimore Catechism; or Comedy in Underworld† by Ira Nadel The book also includes a bibliography of Underworld reviews and notices by Marc Singer and Jackson R. Bryer.Don DeLillo: The Physics of Language (2002)Don DeLillo – The Physics of Language by David Cowart was published in Feb. 20 02 by the University of Georgia Press. Here is a link to more info: http://www.ugapress.org/index.php/books/don_delillo/Cowart examines the work of DeLillo with an emphasis on language; DeLillo's use of it in the novels, and the way in which characters in the books are characterized by different types of language. He divides the novels into three groups: the tentative early novels (End Zone, Great Jones Street, Players and Running Dog), the popular fictions (White Noise, Libra and Mao II) and the works of great achievement (Americana, Ratner's Star, The Names, Underworld and The Body Artist).Throughout his twelve novels, DeLillo foregrounds language and the problems of language. He has an uncanny ear for the mannered, elliptical, non sequitur-ridden rhythms of vernacular conversation (the common response to â€Å"thank you† has somehow become â€Å"no problem†). His is an adept parodist of the specialized discourses that proliferate in contemporary society – in sport, business, politics, academe, medicine, entertainment, and journalism. The jargons of science, technology, and military deterrence offer abundant targets, too. But the author's interest in these discourses goes beyond simple parody, and it is the task of criticism to gauge the extra dimensions of DeLillo's thinking about language.Underworld: A Reader's Guide (2002)Don DeLillo's Underworld: A Reader's Guide by John Duvall was published in early 2002. The book is published as part of the Continuum Contemporaries series, sells for $9.95 and is 96 pages.The book has five chapters: The Novelist, giving background on DeLillo; The  Novel, the main section of the book with an analysis of the main themes; The Novel's Reception, on the initial reviews of Underworld; The Novel's Performance, on the subsequent academic treatment; and Further Reading and Discussion.Critical Essays on Don DeLillo (2000)Critical Essays on Don DeLillo, edited by Hugh Ruppersburg, and Tim Engles, published b y G.K. Hall, appeared in 2000. Contains a section of book reviews and a section of essays, covering each novel through Underworld.The essays are:â€Å"For Whom the Bell Tolls: Don DeLillo's Americana† by David Cowart â€Å"Deconstructing the Logos: Don DeLillo's End Zone† by Thomas LeClair â€Å"The End of Pynchon's Rainbow: Postmodern Terror and Paranoia in DeLillo's Ratner's Star† by Glen Scott Allen â€Å"Marketing Obsession: The Fascinations of Running Dog† by Mark Osteen â€Å"Discussing the Untellable: Don DeLillo's The Names† by Paula Bryant â€Å"‘Who are you, literally?': Fantasies of the White Self in Don DeLillo's White Noise† by Tim Engles â€Å"Baudrillard, DeLillo's White Noise, and the End of Heroic Narrative† by Leonard Wilcox â€Å"The Fable of the Ants: Myopic Interactions in DeLillo's Libra† by Bill Millard â€Å"Libra and the Subject of History† by Christopher M. Mottâ€Å"Can the Intellectual Still Speak? The Example of Don DeLillo's Mao II† by Silvia Caporale Bizzini â€Å"Excavating the Underworld of Race and Waste in Cold War History: Baseball, Aesthetics and Ideology† by John N. Duvall â€Å"Everything is Connected: Underworld's Secret History of Paranoia† by Peter Knight â€Å"Awful Symmetries in Don DeLillo's Underworld† by Arthur Saltzman American Magic and Dread (2000)Mark Osteen's book on DeLillo, American Magic and Dread: Don DeLillo's Dialogue with Culture, was published by the University of Pennsylvania Press in June, 2000. The book examines DeLillo's work from some of the early stories thru Underworld.Modern Fiction Studies (1999)Modern Fiction Studies special issue on DeLillo (Vol 45, No. 3, Fall 1999), includes 10 essays, including work from such friends of the site as Phil Nel, Mark Osteen and Jeremy Green.Undercurrent (1999)In May 1999 an all-DeLillo issue of Erick Heroux's online journal Undercurrent appeared (Number 7). It co ntains the following essays:â€Å"Celebration & Annihilation: The Balance of Underworld† by Jesse Kavadlo â€Å"DeLillo's Underworld: Everything that Descends Must Converge† by Robert Castle â€Å"The Inner Workings: Techno-science & Self in Underworld† by Jennifer Pincott â€Å"American Simulacra: DeLillo in Light of Postmodernism† by Scott Rettberg â€Å"Baudrillard's Primitivism & White Noise: ‘The only avant-garde we've got'† by Bradley Butterfield â€Å"Beyond Baudrillard's Simulacral Postmodern World:White Noise† by Haidar Eid Postmodern Culture (1994)The January, 1994 issue of Postmodern Culture featured the DeLillo Cluster, four essays all dealing with DeLillo edited by Glen Scott Allen and Stephen Bernstein.Glen Scott Allen, â€Å"Raids on the Conscious: Pynchon's Legacy of Paranoia and the Terrorism of Uncertainty in Don DeLillo's Ratner's Star† Peter Baker, â€Å"The Terrorist as Interpreter: Mao II in Postmodern Con text† Stephen Bernstein, â€Å"Libra and the Historical Sublime†Bill Millard, â€Å"The Fable of the Ants: Myopic Interactions in DeLillo's Libra†Don DeLillo (1993)Don DeLillo is a book by Douglas Keesey, a part of the Twayne's U.S. Authors  Series, published by Macmillan, 1993, 228 pages. This book has a chapter on each novel, as well as brief summaries of the stories and plays.Keesey's reading of DeLillo's work is that his novels â€Å"engage in the intensive study of media representations of reality that threaten to distance us from nature and from ourselves.† Thus he links Americana to film, End Zone to language, etc.I found the chapter on Americana quite interesting, as Keesey rebuts those critics who categorized this book as a typical first novel, poorly constructed and lacking charcter development. He argues that on closer examination DeLillo is clearly in control of the book's structure and characters, having made â€Å"fully conscious aesthetic choices.†I tried to get this book through a store, but they couldn't get it, so I ended up buying direct – call 1 800 323 7445 to order.There's an article by Keesey in Pynchon Notes 32-33 entitled â€Å"The Ideology of Detection in Pynchon and DeLillo†.Introducing Don DeLillo (1991)Edited by Frank Lentricchia, 1991. Published by Duke University Press, 221 pages. Lentricchia is the editor of South Atlantic Quarterly and Professor of English at Duke.The book consists of 12 articles:â€Å"The American Writer as Bad Citizen† by Frank Lentricchiaâ€Å"Opposites,† Chapter 10 of Ratner's Star by Don DeLillo  Ã¢â‚¬Å"An Outsider in This Society†: An Interview with Don DeLillo by Anthony DeCurtis (an expanded version of the November 1988 Rolling Stone interview)â€Å"How to Read Don DeLillo† by Daniel Aaron  Ã¢â‚¬Å"Clinging to the Rock: A Novelist's Choices in the New Mediocracy† by Hal Crowther â€Å"Postmodern Romance: Don DeLillo a nd the Age of Conspiracy† by John  A. McClure â€Å"Some Speculations on Don DeLillo and the Cinematic Real† by Eugene Goodheart â€Å"The Product: Bucky Wunderlick, Rock ‘n Roll, and Don DeLillo's Great Jones Street† by Anthony DeCurtis â€Å"Don DeLillo's Perfect Starry Night† by Charles Molesworthâ€Å"Alphabetic Pleasures: The Names† by Dennis A. Foster â€Å"The Last Things Before the Last: Notes on White Noise† by John Frow â€Å"Libra as Postmodern Critique† by Frank Lentricchia More on Frank and Don†¦Jason Camlot delivered an interesting address entitled ‘Frank Lentricchia's Don DeLillo: â€Å"Introducing†, Postmodern Modernism and the Academic Fear of Death' which was given at University of Oregon, May 1993. I am happy to say that this work is now back on the web, hosted here at Don DeLillo's America.Here's a taste:What, then, can be said to make Lentricchia's work as a critic equally relevant and eff ective? In a most obvious sense, it is the position he assumes in relation to the important author that he is introducing that works to establish his own importance. Don Delillo was already a popular author soon after 1985, and by this time he was becoming a significant object of academic attention as well, but these two facts had little bearing on one another, but rather were two distinct phenomena. At least this is what Lentricchia's role as editor and introducer seems to suggest. It is as if the true social significance of Delillo could not exist until a critic such as Lentricchia recognized it, patented it, in a way, by introducing Delillo as the last of the modernists in the postmodern era.New Essays on White Noise (1991)This is a short book of critical essays on White Noise, which is also edited by Lentricchia, published by Cambridge University Press in 1991 (115 pages).The book has five essays:â€Å"Introduction† by Frank Lentricchia â€Å"Whole Families Shopping at N ight!† by Thomas J. Ferraro â€Å"Adolf, We Hardly Knew You† by Paul A. Cantor â€Å"Lust Removed from Nature† by Michael Valdez Moses â€Å"Tales of the Electronic Tribe† by Frank Lentricchia Here's more info on the book.In the Loop – Don DeLillo and the Systems Novel (1987)By Tom LeClair, 1987. Published by University of Illinois Press, 244 pages. LeClair is Professor of English at University of Cincinnati. This is a look at all of DeLillo's novels (through White Noise) in the context of the â€Å"systems novel†. Includes a complete DeLillo bibliography.First Epigraph: â€Å"Somebody ought to make a list of books that seem to bend back on themselves. I think Malcolm Lowry saw Under the Volcano as a wheel-like structure. And in Finnegans Wake we're meant to go from the last page to the first. In different ways I've done this myself.† — Don DeLillo, â€Å"Interview,† Anything Can HappenFrom the Preface:In the Loop also de scribes the situation of the reader who has already entered a Don DeLillo novel, as my first epigraph suggests. DeLillo consistently creates polarized structures–of genre, situation, character, language, tone–that double the novel back upon itself, questioning its generic codes, its beginnings and development, its creator's position toward it, his relation with the reader, who becomes self-conscious, reflective about both his reading and himself, a mobius-stripping away of assumptions about the forms that DeLillo uses, the charged subjects he encircles with his reversals, and the act of reading from beginning to end.Here's the text of a lecture LeClair gave in March 1993 entitled â€Å"Me and Mao  II†.Other Books with DeLillo in the TitleCivello, Paul. American Literary Naturalism and its Twentieth-century Transformations: Frank Norris, Ernest Hemingway, Don DeLillo. (University of Georgia Press, 1994, 208 pages). Chapters 8-10 deal with DeLillo, End Zone and Libra in particular.Hantke, Steffen. Conspiracy and Paranoia in Contemporary American Fiction: The works of Don DeLillo and Joseph McElroy (Peter Lang, 1994).Weinstein, Arnold. Nobody's Home: Speech, Self, and Place in American Fiction From Hawthorne to DeLillo (Oxford University Press, 1993, 349 pages). Chapter 14 is â€Å"Don DeLillo: Rendering the Words of the Tribe† pages 288-315.Back to DeLillo's America Last updated: 06-SEP-2010 Send in some news!

Culture differences in business relations (report based on case study) Essay

Culture differences in business relations (report based on case study) - Essay Example Both Africa and China can be categorized as collectivist cultures and hence they tend to depend on groups for decision making. However as compared to China, African culture is highly masculine in terms of behavior. They display typical male attributes such as independence, and values inherent in males such as aggressive goal behavior, material possessions, and assertiveness are given precedence over feminine traits such as social relevance and welfare of others. China on the other hand, has a medium feminity culture and value relationships more, which is perceived by the Africans as a sign of weakness. Both Africa and China differ greatly in terms of their attitudes towards management of conflicts within organizations. Since China is a more feminine cultural attributes, more emphasis is given on relationships and almost all business decisions are centered on maintaining and sustaining cordial business relations. China tends to avoid conflicts and use authority and indirect influence in dealing with conflicts. They tend to avoid bringing problems out in the open and strive to resolve them privately. Africans on the other hand implement a direct approach to resolve conflicts, by using rational methods and communication to arrive at a common consensus or agreement. The various challenges encountered by people from different cultural backgrounds include communication problems, problems in amicable resolution of conflicts, problems in achieving a common consensus due to differences in risk taking abilities and attitudes, etc. These cultural differences inherent in people prevent them from understanding others and at times lead to misinterpretation of the thoughts or ideas being communicated (BÃ ¼hrig and Thije, 2006; Gudykunst, 2003). Furthermore the cultural difference in attitudes plays a key role in the manner in which a given task is executed and determines the success / failure of the

Microbiology Unknowns Lab Report Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Microbiology Unknowns Lab Report - Essay Example Spurious results may be obtained in some cases that departs from the expected norms for a particular species, may be attributed to strain differences within the given species. The unknown samples are required to be handled with care and precision. Identification procedures adopted, identified four bacterial species in the unknown samples, they are: Enterococcus faecalis, Citrobacter freundii, Klebsiella pneumoniae and Streptococcus pyogenes Microorganisms are ubiquitous and they provide benefit or show their harmful impact on the human/ animal or plant population in varied ways. The body of knowledge that has accrued since these early years has been instrumental in making clinical microbiology a major component of laboratory or diagnostic medicine. It is essential to have an understanding towards these microorganisms for this isolation and identification of these infectious pathogens is imperative. This understanding aids in rapid diagnosis and treatment of the disease, prudently, intelligently and rapidly. Many experiments are being carried out that have relevance with their application in the clinical microbiology. These experiments encompass, isolation and identification of unknown cultures, the use of selective and differential media and various biochemical tests used to separate and identify various microorganisms (Messeley, 2003). The first step to onset the experiment is to perform Gram staining procedure. This segregates the gram positive and gram-negative organisms. This is followed by the streak-plating to observe the colony characteristics. The next step is the use of selective media for the preparation of pure cultures followed by the performance of biochemical tests. The present study was performed to apply all the methodologies learnt in the microbiology laboratory class designed for the detection of an unknown bacterium (Messeley, 2003). Prepare Nutrient agar broth subculture of unknown sample and refrigerate

Virtual stock exchange presentation Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Virtual stock exchange presentation - Essay Example The key to selling short in any way, shape, or form is to know when to buy into the market. In order to design and implement a strategy at the beginning of the semester, what will had to be taken into account was doing charting of what the market would look like in the semester ahead. Imagining we were able to tell the future, we could plot out when would be the best time to buy property based on the fact if the market was running high or low. If the market was running especially low, it would probably be a good time to buy in. One wants to buy in for a period of 18 months where it is mostly going to be seen as being low. This increases the chances that we, as the investor, would most likely be able to pick up a lot of properties using the $10,000,000-dollar cushion. It’s very possible that one will buy in at the right moment. After all, in this case the right moment has already practically been delineated for us. So, let us say that perhaps one buys in at the right moment. Th e next step is to amass as much property as possible while the values are still low. The same principle which holds true for selling stock on the stock market also holds true for real estate. Buy low, sell high. Now, the reason that companies not doing so well is good for other types of businesses is simple. When stock values are low, it is a good time to buy into those stocks because when stock prices rise, they will be worth more in value. Similarly, if one buys a lot of properties, but perhaps let us say that they are not particularly worth much at the time they are bought—it is untowardly possible, albeit untowardly, that the properties bought may escalate in value. When and if that happens, the investor seeks to make a profit. While values are low in stocks and in real estate, this is the investor’s dream. According to the article â€Å"Short Selling Stocks† (2010), â€Å"[One] can buy stocks and real estate relatively cheaply, since many people are in a b ad state of affairs financially, [and] will later reap the financial rewards of having taken advantage of the low prices. Investors will short stocks when [prices decline]† (pp. 1). One of the stocks which I should have made more money on was DreamWorks Animation. But, since I bought into the stock when it was at a high point, I made a mistake. According to Garcia (2011), â€Å"While the animated feature [â€Å"How To Train Your Dragon†] did capture the number one box office spot, ticket sales were below projections negatively impacting stock value†Ã¢â‚¬ ¦making [DreamWorks] lose about 9.2% of its stock value (pghs. 1, 4). Now, in the stock market, many times you may have heard buy low, sell high. So buying too high was my first mistake. Hopefully DWA stock will go up with the advent of the new Kung Fu Panda movie. I chose certain stocks for a reason at the beginning of the semester. My main four choices were DWA and NPSP (a pharmaceutical company), along with NF LX and HQP. I thought DreamWorks Animation would naturally do well because of its many hits at the movie box offices, and I thought the pharmaceutical company NPSP—NPS Pharmaceuticals—would do really well because of the fact that prescription drugs cost so much and are making these pharmaceutical companies millions. NFLX is Netflix, the company that has a mail-in DVD movie system, which I thought might be wildly popular due to the slow and timely death of Blockbuster. Health Quality Partners, or HQP, was a stock I thought would do well due to the

Nano tecnolgy Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 5000 words

Nano tecnolgy - Research Paper Example Theoretically, the ability to construct multiple devices that maintain components of nano-scale would make it feasible to install, literally, billions of different minute-size transistors onto only a single chip that are able to operate at gigahertz frequencies (Drexler). Such chips represent the physical technology of nano-tech that have the capability of producing valuable information machinery. It was in the early 2000s that the functionality and opportunities of nanotechnology came into the forefront of the scientific community consciousness. In the year 2000, American President Bill Clinton enacted the National Nanotechnology Initiative which provided federal funding for nanotechnology research and development. This funding represented a $422 million budget allocated toward this research, illustrating a massive 56 percent funding increase from 1999 (Roukes 2002). This prompted the launch of 30 different nanotechnology research centres in the United States and prompted the development of inter-disciplinary teams to teach and develop nanotechnologies in universities (Roukes). Today, this nano-mania has spread beyond the United States with the European Union committing to a â‚ ¬100 billion investment through the year 2020 (Nanowerk 2012) and Japan investing 750 million USD to facilitate advancement in nanotechnology (The Daily Star 2012). Nanotechnology, theoretically, maintains many different opportunities in multiple domains of knowledge and science. Research is being conducted to utilise nanotechnology in the production of solar cells (for solar energy), to construct what are referred to as nano-pillars designed to contest the rising costs of Silicon commonly utilised in solar energy research. Nano-pillars consist of various nanostructures that are combined together in a lattice formation that is much more efficient in capturing solar light as compared to silicon (Heng 2011). Nanotechnology is also emerging in the medical field for more efficient drug

Voting Right Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Voting Right - Essay Example However, in the years since the words of the Declaration of Independence were put to parchment, the Supreme Court has, more often than not, shown that it will uphold the status quo of society, and deny the right to vote to women and those of minorities, rather than affirming and advancing it. Though there have been some instances of advancement occurring, they are not as plentiful as those that do not. The list of cases for both protection and denial of voting rights spans not only decades of history, but could also span volumes of pages. As always with multiple examples, there are those that best exemplify things, and I believe that the cases of United States v. Reese in 1876 as well as Minor v. Happersett in 1874 are the best examples of the Supreme Court denying voting rights, while the cases of Smith v. Allwright in 1944 and Baker v. Carr in 1962 are the best examples of both advancing the right to vote and ensuring protection for it. Both United States v. Reese and Minor v. ... In United States v. Reese, an election inspector, Hiram Reese, had refused to allow William Garner, who was an African-American, to vote in a Lexington, Kentucky election, due to the fact that he had not paid a poll tax of $1.50. In Minor v. Happersett Mrs. Virginia Minor, leader of the suffrage movement for women in Missouri, brought suit against a registration officer when he refused to add her name to the list of registered voters, due to her gender. Garner alleged that he had attempted to pay the poll tax and had been refused, while Mrs. Minor alleged that she was a citizen, and all citizens had the right to vote, therefore she had the right to vote. The Supreme Court in United States v. Reese ruled that the Fifteenth Amendment â€Å"does not confer the right of suffrage upon anyone†, meaning that just because he was African American did not mean that Garner had the right to vote. The result of this case was that states were able to continually deny the vote to African Ame ricans, not based on race, but on other requirements such as literacy and nonpayment of poll taxes. In Minor v. Happersett, the Supreme Court went further, stating that though the Fourteenth Amendment gave all citizens the right to vote, and Mrs. Minor was indeed a citizen, the Constitution did not specifically give women the right to vote. This decision was all the more ridiculous because the Constitution did not provide for many things that had since come into existence in the United States and had worked quite well, yet women were still denied the right to vote because it did not exist in the Constitution. Both of these cases are examples of the Supreme Court not only denying the right to vote to citizens of the United States, but acknowledging that legislation existed that could have

Art Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 15

Art - Essay Example Thus, even if they might have been made for different purposes, at least they had similar essences because it is the same Egyptians who were using it as an important sculpture in their society. Khafre Enthroned refers to funerary statue of Pharaoh Khafre who is believed to have ruled Egypt between the years 2520 and 2570. Currently, it is exhibited in the Museum in Cairo, Egypt. It was made using gneiss rock which is closely related to diorite rocks, a valuable, dark extremely hard material that was mined 4000 miles at the royal quarries along the River Nile. The use of such a precious material in the production of this statue was necessary because it equated Khafre’s influences and authority as an Ancient Egyptian Pharaoh. This statue played a very significant role in Egypt: acting as Pharaoh Ka’s sub statue; and as a sign of peace. This explains why it still plays a significant role in the life of the Egyptians today. Great Sphinx of Giza (Sphinx) which can be literally translated as the father of the dead or a terrifying one is a statue located in Giza Plateau, at the banks of River Nile, Egypt. It was made between the years c. 2558–2532Â  BC during the time when Egypt was under the leadership of Pharaoh Khafra. Just like Khafre Enthroned, this statue has a significant role to play in the lives of the Egyptians. However, the 241Â  ft long, 63Â  ft wide, and 66.34Â  ft high statue depicts an image of a mystical creature which has got a human head and a lion’s body. Thus, it stands as the largest monolithic statue in the entire globe. For this reason, it has had different interpretations especially in the contemporary society. Whereas the London Imperial College’s Surgeon Huan Ashrafian associates it to a depiction of a person suffering from a disease in disease with lion-like conditions, it has been linked to the solar worship that was so prominent amongst the Ancient Egy ptians. This is so because the image of lion has been synonymous with the

Global marketing Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Global marketing - Essay Example The airline industry is highly competitive with a large number of market players both in domestic as well as international routes. The advent of Low cost carriers has also compounded the competition with a predatory pricing mechanism (Wensveen, 2010). The key market drivers for the growth of the industry include a robust economic growth that would mean increase in business class passengers as well as growth in the tourism industry both of which can act as good drivers for the industry (AAPA, n.d.). Virgin Atlantic was established in the year 1984 under the leadership of Richard Branson under a joint venture with Singapore Airlines that has a 49 percent stake (Virgin Atlantic-a, 2011). The company headquartered at the UK is one of the most favoured and established brand in the industry (Virgin Atlantic, 2011). Considering the fact that there are a large number of market players with heightened levels of competition the role of branding assumes considerable importance in this industry so as to help create a distinction from the other brands in the market. Virgin Atlantic is a global brand and faces stiff competition from some of the well reputed brands including British Airways, Emirates and Delta Air, Continental and American Airlines in the international markets. In the domestic front it faces competition from the legacy carriers as well as low cost carriers like Ryan Air, Easy Jet etc. The competitive advantage of Virgin airlines comes from its excellence in service delivery and a formidable brand image. The project would try to analyze the global airline industry in the context of the chosen organization and would also try to formulate a suitable strategy for the expansion and growth of the airline in the US (Los Angeles) market. Virgin Airlines is a legacy carrier and caters mostly to UK based residents who constitute 60 percent of all the passengers flown by the airline. The company caters to multiple segments with

Aung San and Faith Bandler Essay Example for Free

Aung San and Faith Bandler Essay ?Today, lack of equality and peace are prominent issues which shape the world. Such things are demonstrated in Aung San Suu Kyi’s speech, ‘Keynote Address at the Beijing World Conference on Women’ and Faith Bandler’s speech, ‘Faith, Hope and Reconciliation’ through the use of various language devices. The common uses of emotive language between the two texts greatly affect the audience as it creates a sense of sympathy and unity. For example, ASSK states, ‘The struggle for democracy and human rights in Burma is a struggle for life and dignity. It is a struggle that encompasses our political, social and economic aspirations. ’ the repetitive use of ‘struggle’ emphasizes the hardships for the people of Burma and their desire for freedom. It is a struggle for ‘young girls’ to be driven to ‘sexual slavery where they are subject to constant humiliation’, there is a struggle for freedom, dignity and security. Her use of emotive language and repetition enables the audience to sympathise with her and the people of Burma that the causes of these struggles are lack of equality and peace in the world or our ‘global village’. Similarly in Faith Bandler’s speech, emotive language and repetition are recognised once again to unify the audience and the speaker to create a sense of sympathy which draws upon the theme of inequality and peace. It was a rather slow process for her to understand, ‘when there are millions†¦who are hungry, millions who are homeless, millions who are without work, the wrongfully imprisoned, the deaths in custody, the tortured†¦why is it so hard to find our commonalities? ’, Faith stresses the absurdity of how difficult it is for people to find ‘commonalities’ with her use of repetition of ‘millions’. Its becomes a problem when ‘millions’ are hungry, homeless and jobless as it portrays our society as unequal. The rhetorical questions asked throughout her speech such as ‘why is it so hard to find our commonalities? ’ and ‘what is reconciliation about? ’ state the obvious truths, that it isn’t hard to find reconciliation or peace within the world. Faith demonstrates a world of inequality through the use of emotive language and repetition. Suu kyi and Bandler’s speeches are effective in connecting to their audience when demonstrating the theme of equality and peace. Both activists demonstrate unity to the audience by using inclusive language and first person. For example, as Suu Kyi acknowledges the ‘strong and principled women’ who have lobbied for her release, ‘I cannot let this opportunity pass without speaking of the gratitude we feel towards our sisters everywhere. ’ The use of first person and inclusive language is evident throughout the speech, it illustrates a personal approach to her audience as well as clearly portraying her firm views of women. Bandler’s speech is also evident of the use of these devices. By using first person throughout her speech, it indicates her familiarity with the audience as she was â€Å"here once before† and also shows that she speaks from a personal experience giving the audience an idea of what she has been through such as her work in campaigning and co founding various companies. In order to move the audience about reconciliation whether it’s the ‘youth’ or the ‘not so young’, her use of first person and inclusive language connects to the audience. Both ASSK and Bandler bring their audiences together as a whole to look at common issues of the world and better ways to bring peace.

Understanding Of The Caste System In India

Understanding Of The Caste System In India There is a vast literature on Caste system in India with a long and diverse background. This chapter aims to review some of the relevant literatures pertaining to the caste system prevailing in India. Different authors might have varied perceptions about this particular topic for discussion. M.N.Srinivas (1962) in his book Caste in Modern India and Other Essays, highlights the part played by caste in democratic processes of modern India in administration and education. The author came across certain conflicting attitudes among the people of the elite class whereby one group wanted legislation to eradicate the social evils pertaining to the caste system and on the other hand, there were people who were not only determined not to fight the evil but also tried to practise this system. In his work he tries to explain the concepts of two social processes namely Sanskritization and Westernization. Sankritization is the part of social mobility as well as the idiom in which mobility expresses itself. This is said to occur within the framework of caste whereas Westernization happens outside the framework of caste. However, Sanskritisation may lead to castes becoming unpopular with their neighbours whereby the leaders of upper or dominant caste may show their bitterness by even to rturing the members of the lower castes. In independent India, the reservations and safeguards granted to the backwards sections especially the Scheduled Caste and Tribes have helped in the upliftment of the lower caste. He also brings into notice the effects of British rule on the caste system which in a way helped in taking over the power previously exercised by the caste panchayats. A new principle of justice was introduced by the British which said all men are equal before the law, and that the nature of a wrong is not affected by the caste of a person who is committing it, or by the caste of the person against whom it is committed (M.N.Srinivas, 1962). This has not been fully followed in the rural areas where caste panchayats are still functioning strongly. The author argues that the Varna system has certainly warped the caste but it has enabled ordinary folks to comprehend the caste system by providing them with a simple and candid system that is applicable to all parts of Ind ia. To the question of can castes exists in the India of tomorrow the author opines that only a minority considers caste as an evil to the whole nation and that this minority is gradually increasing every day. Moreover in rural areas it is possible to come across urbanized young people who consider caste detrimental to healthy relations between people. He concludes by saying that nothing else but the people themselves must understand that caste necessarily means casteism and that benefits it offers are bought at a heavy price for the country as a whole. Taya.Zinkin (1962) in her book Caste Today describes the caste system in India. She considers its origin, the way it works, what democracy is doing to caste and vice versa. In her work she states that caste is not class and that every caste has educated and uneducated, rich and poor, well born and ordinary born. The author also says that caste is not dependent on colour because a Brahmin will not stop being a Brahmin if he is black skinned nor does an untouchable stop being one if he is fair skinned. She also argues that caste is not based on occupation, however various other literatures may not completely agree to what this author states. According to her caste is a way of life which divides society into small groups, each of which lives in a rather different way from the rest. Due to these differences, tiny groups and important aspects of life like marriage take place within them, these groups have immense control of power and thus a better survival. Before she goes into the detail s of castes, sub- castes and untouchability she tries to explain the concept of re- incarnation. It is said that the whole system is based upon a combination of status fixed by birth and rebirth. This means that a persons birth in the existing life depends on the consequences of his deeds done in past life i.e. if one performs his duties well complying with what he is supposed to do then he may be reborn in a better situation or not be reborn at all. Marriage customs vary with castes and sub-castes. Untouchables usually make late marriages unlike the Brahmins who make early arranged child marriages. Finally Tan Zinkin(1962) talks about the beginnings of the breakdown and the loss of belief of the Hindu society. Change of attitudes among the castes and sub-castes were witnessed. More recently, loss of belief has been the result, of the spread of education to the rural areas. With education came an arousing of new expectations, which through much of the Indian peninsula produced a new non-Brahmanical leadership, a leadership which was not only non- Brahmin but positively anti -Brahmin (Tan Zinkin, 1962.pp38). Tan Zinkin has been pretty much argumentative on the concept of caste. She strongly says what caste in not rather than what caste is. The theory about re incarnation has helped me to know more about the birth and rebirth cycle with regard to the caste system. Marc Galanter (1963.pp 544-559) in his article Law and Caste in Modern India focuses on caste and laws pertaining to it during the British rule in India. He describes the way in which the legal rules and regulations affect the caste as an institution. The legal view of caste is explained under three headings namely personal law, caste autonomy and precedence and disabilities. First being legal rights and obligations of a person which is determined by the identity of the caste group to which he belongs. During the British period caste was little used for the occurrence of legal regulation and moreover all castes irrespective of their ranks had to follow the same rights and duties. However caste customs varied when it came to law of succession, law of adoption and law of marriage. Marriages between different castes or varnas were not allowed. Caste autonomy conferred some right to the caste groups to enforce certain rules which were not disturbed by the government. Precedence and disab ilities dealt with the legal interventions with regard to the relations between castes. Courts imposed certain rules such as restriction on the entry of a particular caste into temples. This shows that even though the British did help in reducing the caste discrimination, on the other hand they ended up aggravating it to a certain extent. The author also talks about the independent India where the higher castes have lost their dominance over legal matters and moreover the lower ahs castes have acquired certain government benefits regarding equality and other preferential treatments. Marc Galanter (1963) concludes this essay by saying that British period may be considered as a period ofSanskritzation in legal notion of caste. (1963.pp559) Caste- based oppression in India lives today in an environment seemingly hostile to its presence: a nation-state that has long been labelled the worlds Largest democracy, a progressive and protective constitution; a system of laws designed to proscribe and punish acts of a discrimination on the basis of caste; broad- based programmes of affirmative action that include constitutionally mandated reservations or quotas for Dalits or so- called Untouchables; and a aggressive economic liberalization campaign to fuel Indias economic growth. Says Smitha Narula(2008) in her article Equal by Law, Unequal by Caste: The Untouchable Condition in Critical Race Perspective. The author talks about the caste system and the discrimination attached to it and the inequality witnessed in India today focusing on the caste and gender- based discrimination and its impact on the Dalits of India. Dr.Santosh Singh Anant(1972) in his work The Changing Concept of Caste in India enumerates the psychological aspects of caste, inter- caste relations and of untouchability. He comments on the theory of status consistency and it is defined as the extent to which an individuals rank positions on a given hierarchies are at a comparable level (Rush, 1967). A Brahmin working as peon in an office and an untouchable or anyone from the lower caste working as a senior officer would be an apt example for status inconsistency. This is however happening due to the spread of education. He brings in one of the several views about the origin of caste system which dates back to 1500 B.C with the advent of Aryans from Central Asia. According to Nehru (1960) The Dravdians were the conquered race and Aryans the conquerors. Since the Dravidians were advanced in their civilization, Aryans considered them to be a potential threat to them. This is considered to be one of reasons why Aryans tried to push th e Dravidians to an inferior position and thus created the theory of four- Varnas or the caste system. The author also points out that socio-economic factors such as education, industrialization, and increase in mobility have abated the rate of discrimination of caste system. Sree Narayana Guru the Ascetic Who Changed the Lunatic Asylum into Gods Own Country is a biography written by Murkot Ramunny about a saint who lived in Kerala state in the Southern part of India. Narayana Guru was a philosopher as well as reformer who immensely contributed to the upliftment of lower castes in Kerala. He helped in bringing about freedom of prayer and education to millions of under privileged in Kerala. It is due to his selfless service to the society that Kerala has attained 100 percent literacy rate compared to other states in India. The author in his article informs us that, even the father of the nation, Mahatma Gandhi paid him a visit and took inspiration from Guru for the social Upliftment of the lower casts or Harijans (Untouchables). One caste one religion one god for man was his motto. It is years since I left caste and religion. Even then some people are working on presumption that I belong to their community. As a result, a wrong impression has been created in the minds of the people. I do not belong to any caste or religion. In order that only people who do not belong to any caste or religion should succeed me (Narayana Guru, 1091). This piece of literature has helped me in this dissertation to know more about the caste system prevalent in the state of Kerala. According to Harsh Mandir, in his article Burning Baskets of Shame (2010 August 9.pp3), he illustrates a real incident of manual scavenging which had happened in India couple of years back. The statistics shown by him in this article concerning the number of people doing manual scavenging was about 6.4 lacs according to the Planning Commission in 1995. He describes about a campaign named Safai Karmchari Andolan (SKA) which was started as a non-violent mass resistance to end this hideous practice of Manual Scavenging. This campaign was started by an individual who himself was born into a scavenging family who witnessed this abhorring practice from his childhood. As reported by Harsh Mandir in this article SKA is the first movement to end Untouchability in India. But it should be right to say that this was one of the many movements which had taken place in different part of India during different period. In the article The Indian Caste System by Madhudvisa Dasa (August 9, 2010) he tries to explain the caste system in relation to what has been written in the ancient scriptures. He quotes certain ideas from the Holy Book of Hindus, The Bhagavad Gita. The author sheds some light on theVedas, which says that the Varnas or castes are not differentiated on the basis of birth but my mere qualification (Guna) and work (karma). He assumes that the present caste system has degenerated to the extent that people consider men born in Brahmin families as a Brahmin even if he does not exhibit the qualities of a Brahmin. The author agrees to the fact that one takes rebirth according to his past deeds or karma but at the same time he says that in order to become a Brahmin adequate training is required and that it is not conferred automatically by birth as seen in the present generation. Indias hidden apartheid (UNESCO Courier, 2001.pp27-29); an article written by Gopal Guru and Shiraz Sidhva criticizes the abhorrent caste system in India. The article opens with a note which says Indias ancient caste system persists, subjecting millions to degrading poverty and human rights abuses. Attitudes die hard, despite government legislations to usher in change. They comment on the caste system as a means of deployment by the upper caste to suppress the lower caste and thus attain a monopoly over the wealth, knowledge, power and education. The extent of discrimination was immense that these so called untouchables were forced to use drums in order to announce their arrival so that the upper caste is not polluted even by their shadow falling on them. This article informs us that the term untouchables was abolished in 1950 under the constitution of India but there still exists a glimpse of discrimination against them. India has however tried to reduce the discrimination by reserv ing quotas and reservations for the lower castes in education and for government jobs. Caste in doubt: The Indian Census and Caste (2010.June 12, pp46), an article which had been recently published in The Economist has details about the reservations and quotas being introduced for the lower castes. This article also brings into notice the issue relating to the inclusion of caste system in the census which is to be declared in the ten yearly plan in 2011. However this had been faced with criticisms because since 1931 India has not counted caste in the census. Moreover it is impossible for it be included in the census because Indias caste system has not only the four Varnas but also various other sub-castes which may not be evidently recognised by the authorities. In spite of certain obstacles, the economic growth of the country has contributed to the lessening of discrimination on the basis of caste because a number of individuals have moved from the rigid social surroundings to the urban towns and cities in search of jobs where family background is irrelevant. Many Ind ians are becoming caste- blind and marrying across caste lines. Anidhrudda, a 20 year old software engineer in Calcutta, says his inter-caste marriage was no big deal. But even he concedes that there are limits. If he had married a dalit, he says, my family would not have been able to face the society' (The Economist, 2010.pp46). Leaders: Untouchables and Unthinkable; Indian Business (The Economist.2007.pp17) is an article which highlights the point that says that Indian business does not discriminate against the Untouchables or lower castes. Moreover, it condemns the practice of reservation in private sector because it would damage the whole business system. Responsibility for lower castes lack of advancement does not lie with the private sector. There is no evidence that companies discriminate against them. The real culprit is government and the rotten educational system it has created (The Economist.2007.pp17).It is not possible to have reservations in Business like they have it educational systems. This article says that as people get richer their concern about the caste fades. Nowadays middle class Indian families are to be seen marrying outside their caste than the rural poor and less likely to wrinkle their nose at a Dalit. Harold A. Gould in his work The Adaptive Functions of Caste in Contemporary India (1963.pg427) informs us that caste has not fully disappeared even with the advent of modern technology and other social structural changes. His research found out that in rural areas, the existence of caste in the form of ritual purity, occupation, and system of hierarchy still exists in its own way. In contemporary India, however caste system has not disappeared completely but has declined in the urban areas among the educated middle class families. From the above review of Literature and from various other reliable sources it can be understood that it is not possible to witness an India without a small aspect of Caste system. This is because it has been deeply rooted in the minds of Indians since ages and it still continues in certain spheres of their life. Caste system has been a topic of great interest to the Westerners as it fascinates them about the two ideologies- of caste system being important and not being important, existing within the same country and people. Recent articles from The Economist which are mentioned above, mainly talks about the reservations and quotas based on caste rather than discriminating against them on the basis of ritual purity and occupation. However it is not completely true to say that caste system has vanished from the Indian society. Educated Indians know that caste exists, but they are unclear and troubled about what it means for them as members of the society that is a part of the modern w orld. No one can say that it is easy to give a clear and consistent account of the meaning and significance of caste in India today (Fuller.C.J, 1996.Caste Today.pp153)

Social Security Policy in Brazil Essay -- International Law, brazil

Brazilian social security benefits are only available to Brazilians and foreigners who have made contributions to the social security system. Some of the benefits that we will introduce and discuss are; maternity benefits, temporary incapacity or accident benefits, long-term sickness benefits, disability benefits, pensions benefits, imprisonment benefits, death benefits, and invalidity benefits. In many of the cases in order to receive benefits or assistance, the insured must have contributed to at least twelve months of working, or in the case of the old age pension at least one hundred fifty-six months of contribution are required. In some cases there are instances where the contribution is waived if the insured as hurt or injured on the job or becomes pregnant. We will also discuss the problems with the Brazilian Social Security problems and ways that we believe will improve the Brazilian Social Security Program. For the old age pension benefit the men are required to have contributed five more years of work than the women. The United States Social Security Administrative Office website states that the men must have at least thirty years of contributions. The maternity monthly benefit is paid as 100% of the workers last wage; benefits are paid to women for up to four months. Women with miscarriages get paid for two weeks. Any woman who has adopted a child under the age of one also gets paid for four months. The minimum amount paid is about 229 dollars in U.S. currency and the maximum is about 1,743 dollars in U S currency. Work injury benefits depend on the degree of risk. According to the United States Social Security Administrations Office of Retirement and Disability, the accidents that occur while commuting to and fro... ...arge like 1 or 2 percent to people who receive the welfare. Third problem that â€Å"Brazil’s National Social Security Institute (INSS) has recently published a report showing a trend of men in their 60s marrying women half their age, which is leaving a big pool of young widows collecting benefits for much longer than anticipated.† So we will question is this fair? And we believe that government can add more detail to this benefit. For example, if the women or the men are not over 50 they are not allowed to collect pension when their husband or wife pass away. Or they can collect partial pension. Works Cited http://www.oecd.org/document/37/0,3746,en_2649_34117_43225253_1_1_1_1,00.html http://www.previdenciasocial.gov.br/buscaGeral.php http://www.gwu.edu/~ibi/minerva/Fall1998/Pedro.Farias/Pedro.Farias.html http://www.lacea.org/meeting2000/ReynaldoFernandes.PDF

The Tree of Knowledge in Frankenstein by Mary Shelley Essays -- Franke

The Tree of Knowledge in Frankenstein by Mary Shelley In Frankenstein, Mary Shelley warns that with the advent of science, natural philosophical questioning is not only futile, but dangerous. In attempting to discover the mysteries of life, Frankenstein assumes that he can act as God. He disrupts the natural order, and chaos ensues. Mary Shelley goes to great lengths to emphasize the beauty and order of life when man engages in à ¬naturalà ® pursuits. She idealizes Frankenstein's home life: à ¬I feel exquisite pleasure in dwelling on the recollections of childhood, before misfortune had tainted my mindà ® (38). His family is orderly and wonderful. Clerval's à ¬presence brought back to my thoughts my father, Elizabeth, and all those scenes of home so dear to my recollectionÃâ€"I felt suddenly, and for the first time during many months, calm and serene joyà ® (58). Shelley also stresses that man should feel at one with nature, not at odds with it: à ¬When happy, inanimate nature had the power of bestowing on me the most delightful sensationsà ® (68). Certain occupations allow man to be at one with nature and his fellow creatures. Shelley feels that science should be useful and beneficial to mankind. Clerval, a clearly pure and benevolent character, studies languages. He loves poetry. These disciplines allow man to help others and glorify nature without questioning it. In childhood, Frankenstein's studies contained à ¬bright visions of usefulnessà ® (38): à ¬I betook myself to the mathematics, and the branches of study appertaining to that science, as being built upon secure foundations, and so worthy of considerationà ® (41). But Frankenstein's interests soon turned away from mathematics; he speaks of his change of mind as i... ...gnorant art thou in thy pride of wisdom! Cease; you know not what it is you sayà ® (194)! Frankenstein has finally learned his lesson. Or has he? After his excruciating pains and hardship, Frankenstein's dying words are: à ¬I have myself been blasted in these hopes, yet another may succeedà ® (210). Unless Frankenstein is referring to beneficial, pragmatic scientific knowledge, then he has not yet acknowledged that man cannot know the secrets of nature. Shelley means his final words to be a warning to the reader. Man's growing ambition and intellect will render him desperate to discover the deepest mysteries of lifeà ³it is a difficult task to halt this ambition. But this ambition is greater than man's intellect. He can never know all, though he aspires to heaven. Until he realizes his limitations, the spread of science can only lead to chaos and destruction.

Cannery Row Essay -- essays research papers

The minor characters in John Steinbeck’s novel Cannery Row are a contradiction within themselves. Steinbeck shows two conflicting sides to each character; for example, Mack is smart and lazy and some of his colleagues are both good and bad. Doc is a father figure with some bad habits. Dora Flood is a kind-hearted saint who happens to run a brothel. Lee Chong is a shrewd businessman who likes to take advantage of others. Henri is an artist with a French background even though he isn’t from France. Through his characters, Steinbeck shows that humans are complicated and can have many faces. Mack and his Boys are a group of down-and-out but always devious men who live together in the run-down fishmeal shack, owned by Lee Chong, which they call the Palace Flophouse and Grill. Mack is their ringleader, a smart, charismatic man who can charm anyone into anything; as one of the boys says, Mack could be president of the United States if he wanted to be, but he wouldn't want to do anything like that, being of course that it wasn't fun. Mack's attempts to do things the easy way and to his advantage often get him into trouble. Eddie, another of the boys, is a substitute bartender at La Ida, the local bar. He brings home stolen bottles and a jug filled with remnants from customers' drinks; this makes him immeasurably popular all around. Hazel is perhaps the hardest working of the boys: He often accompanies Doc on collecting trips. Ironically, though, the narrative claims he was too lazy ...

Barilla Spa Case Study

Barilla SpA (Barilla), is an Italian largest pasta manufacturer in the world manufacturer that sells pasta to retailers largely through third-party distributors. Barilla has been facing huge variability in demand which is straining the manufacturing and distribution network of the company. This fluctuation in demand, are forcing the CDCs to maintain a higher level of inventory. The proposed new system, Just-In-Time Distribution (JITD), is the solution suggested to resolve the demand fluctuation issues and lower costs.This new process would move forecasting and shipment allocation responsibilities to Barilla rather than allowing each distributor/retailer place the order amounts separately. This approach has both internal and external complications as there is much resistance from both within the company and from the suppliers and distributors. Implementing the JITD is a good idea for a number of reasons.This will streamline the information flow, reduce uncertainty in demand , reduce t he lead time, and decrease both finished and raw material inventory, thus making the system efficient and reducing the overall cost. A good plan would be for Barilla to start by running a pilot test within its own depot then with 1 or 2 distributors and  use the results of the test regarding the cost savings and improvement in supply chain efficiency to convince other distributors about how beneficiary will be to all by implementing JITD.ISSUE IDENTIFICATIONImmediate issue:The main issue in this case is the fluctuating demand imposed on Barilla’s manufacturing and distribution system. Once this is brought under control, many other problems will be solved. These following are some of the causes of this fluctuating demand that must be addressed: Demand fluctuations (Bullwhip effect)Cost of having to hold high inventory in order to meet distributor’s order Transportation costBarilla’s sales strategy relied heavily on the use of promotions Long Lead timeCustomer s ervice.Higher overall warehouse and transportation costsSales Representatives Incentives based on the amount of the products that they sold to the distributorsISSUE IDENTIFICATION & ROOT CAUSE Demand fluctuations (Bullwhip effect)As the 1980s progressed, Barilla has been facing huge variability in demand essentially affecting dry products, such extreme demand fluctuation strained the manufacturing and distribution network of the company (see Exhibit 12) Cost of having to hold high inventoryThis fluctuation in demand and the difficulty of the manufacturing process to deal with fast-track orders are forcing the CDCs to maintain a higher level of inventory in order to meet distributor’s order. â€Å" A distributor warehouse held a two- week supply of Barilla dry products in inventory†. (see Exhibit 13) Reduce the number of SkusTransportation costThe greater number of trucks that it required in periods of high demand increased its Transportation costs. Barilla’s sal es strategy relied heavily on the use of promotions In the form of price, transportation and volume discountsLong Lead timeBarilla supplied its distributors between 8 and 14 days after it received their orders, the average lead-time being 10 days. Customer service Barilla has no visibility when it comes to plan and forecast in order to meet the customer demand. Higher overall warehouse and transportation costsThe fluctuation demand may lead to overtime shifts in order to meet the demand, higher inventory of raw materials and frequent capacity adjustments, as well as higher transportation costs which all increase the overall cost of the product. Sales Representatives Incentives based on the amount of the products that they sold to the distributors. This was causing problems as the sales reps would try and push more products during the promotional period to get a bonus and were not able to sell as much during non-promotional periods.ALTERNATIVES AND OPTIONThe proposed new system, Just -In-Time Distribution (JITD), is one solution I suggest to resolve the demand fluctuation issues and lower costs. PROS:1- Resolve the demand fluctuation that often lead to the bullwhip effect. 2- Offer additional service to the customer at no extra cost 3- Increase supply chain visibility and there by fewer stock outs 4- Reduce forecasting errors5- Lower cost of capital tied up in inventory 6- Improve customer service 7- Improve the information flow, 8- Reduce the lead time 9- Decrease both finished and raw material inventory, thus making the system efficient and reducing the overall cost. CONS:1- Heavy Investment in information technology in order to implement the JITD program 2- The internal resistance to the JITD system, comes from the  production, sales and marketing divisions and the top management. The production division is concerned about the lack of a sophisticated forecasting system in order to properly use the data received from the distributors in an efficient way. The sales representatives are concerned about their compensation, they will lose their incentives, because the sale will be predictable or flat and their responsibilities will be minimized under the new mode of operation.The top management will be concerned about the added responsibility of predicting demand on Barilla without any guarantee of cost reduction. 3- The external resistance comes from the distributors and retailers. They will be concerned about the loss of control in deciding their inventory levels. The JITD system gives more power to Barilla which may be looked on with doubt by some distributors who are not sure about the long term intentions of Barilla.These distributors expressed concerns about becoming too tight to Barilla and fearful of losing control by giving Barilla the power to push products into their warehouse just so they Barilla can reduce its costs. 4- Difficulty to run trade promotions with JITD which may push the customer to switch to another brand. 5- Custo mer need to improve their equipment ( computer, bar-code, scanner..) 6- Customer will have to share their sales data with Barilla on a daily basis in order to insure replenishment 7- Loss of control in deciding their inventory levelsRECOMMENDATIONS1- Eliminate or reduce the promotional discounts to customers because it leads to demand accumulation and a release during the promotion period. 2- Volume discounts to distributors should be reduced or eliminated for the same reasons highlighted above. 3- Barilla should also move to a new compensation for sales representatives, they should be rewarded on company performance not on their own. Their responsibilities and relationships should be closer to distributors and retailer in order to improve and insure Barilla’s customers satisfaction. 4- The distributors will have to be offered collaboration incentives in order to keep them on board 5- Keep the assessment period the same but stagger the end dates for these periods over sales r epresentatives to smooth out demand fluctuations.IMPLEMENTATIONHow to effectively implement JITD at Barilla? And When?1- Start by running a test pilot within its own depot then with few distributors and use the results to convince the internal and external resistance on how the new program will reduce dramatically their cost. and improve supply chain efficiency. 1- Collaborative Planning: Barilla and the distributors can work as a team and plan on different issues. 2- Manage the demand: Barilla should not only forecast demand but also should try to shape and influence it by marketing using surveys to determine the needs and expectations of the consumers and designing products to satisfy them.3- Gather information from point of sale: This model has been successfully implemented in Wal-Mart’s distribution system. However Barilla will have to improve its relationship with retailer and that will involve a costly investment as the retailer doesn’t have the computer to commu nicate the information to Barilla.MONITOR AND CONTROLThe JITD system has the potential to substantial reduce costs if it is implemented correctly. In order to do so Barilla should begin implementing JITD within its own Depots and expand with pilot projects with the Distributors. Therefore mentioned analysis discussed a variety of methods by which to make such implementation more viable than it was in the past. However, such a list is in no way conclusive. Ideas such as reducing the number of SKUs and rearranging distribution channels should also be explored in the long term as they can also result in substantial cost savings. Barilla should be able to monitor and control the partnership with its distributors by measuring their performance, these are the following list of inclusions that may be used for this purpose:

He Written Articles Essay

Loud speech. Bravado, boasting. Overly animated or entertaining. Boisterous. Overly friendly to other guests and employees. Drinking alone. Drinking too fast. Ordering doubles. Careless with money. Urging other people to have another drink. Annoying other guests and servers. Complaining about drink prices. Complaining about drink strength or preparation. Argumentative. Aggressive or belligerent. Obnoxious or mean. Making inappropriate comments about others. Crude behavior. Inappropriate sexual advances. Foul language. Making irrational statements. Depressed or sullen. Crying or moody. Radical changes in behavior. Speaking loudly, then quietly. Drowsy. Bloodshot, glassy eyes. Slurred speech. Difficulty remembering. Slow response to questions. Spilling drinks. Rambling conversation, loss of train of thought. Trouble making change. Difficulty handling money, picking up change. Lack of focus and eye contact. Difficulty lighting a cigarette. Lighting more than one cigarette at a time. Letting a cigarette burn without smoking. Clumsy, uncoordinated. Difficulty standing up. Unusual gait. Stumbling. Bumping into things. Swaying, staggering. Unable to sit straight in chair or on bar stool. Can’t find mouth with glass. Falling down. Mussed hair. Disheveled clothing. Falling asleep. Remember, just because a person exhibits one, or even several, of these signs it does not necessarily mean that the person is intoxicated. A sober person may exhibit some of these signs as well– which makes determining intoxication even more difficult. However, if a person who is drinking alcohol shows a combination of several of these signs and/or exhibits significant change(s) in behavior, the likelihood of that person being intoxicated is increased. Ultimately, you must use your own judgment to decide whether or not a person is intoxicated. These signs are intended to help you make an informed judgment, and then articulate your decision.