Managed Globalization Essay

While imperialist thinking wreaks havoc around the world, the trend toward greater globalization offers hope, provided that adequate efforts are made to ensue that globalization is managed well. Globalization is the most popular trend in international economics. Increasing integration of world markets and exchanges of information and technology are definitely expected to help the least developed nations, thereby bridging the gap between the haves and the have-nots. Thus, the thesis of Bhagwati’s book, â€Å"In Defense of Globalization† – that, in fact, globalization helps the poorest people of the world – must be agreed with. After all, foreign direct investments are an extraordinary boost for the economies of the developing world. Moreover, by importing and exporting more goods and services than before, a developing nation may very well increase its income and also improve the standard of living of its peoples. It is generally believed that an increase in international trade is accompanied by an increase in income inequality, seeing that the majority of the people in developing nations are poor and cannot afford to purchase relatively expensive foreign goods in the local market, nor form gigantic enterprises to sell to the foreign public. Furthermore, globalization involves the risk of foreign companies taking advantage of the undeveloped regulatory structures in developing nations. As an example, a foreign water company in Argentina, after the mass privatization of Argentinian business, was said to have been very ethical before it entered Argentina. The company had connections with France and the United States. All the same, the company turned to poor service in Argentina soon after privatization. The water company was eventually taken over by the Argentinian government for its careless, irresponsible behavior. If managed correctly, though, globalization is expected to help our world in significant ways. The famous observation of Thomas Friedman must also be considered in this analysis: â€Å"No two countries with McDonald’s have fought a war against each other since each got its McDonald’s. † Indeed, peace is conducive to global economic growth. But, so is equality. Even though the gap between the haves and the have-nots has been widening in recent years, good management of globalization may work wonders for the global economy. BOOK REFERENCES Bhagwati, J. N. (2004). In Defense of Globalization. New York: Oxford University Press. Friedman, T. L. (2000). The Lexus and the Olive Tree: Understanding Globalization. New York: Anchor Books. WEBSITES Hacher, S. (2007). Argentina Water Privatization Scheme Runs Dry. Global Policy Forum. Retrieved from http://globalpolicy. igc. org/socecon/bwi=wto/wbank/2004/0226argwater. htm.

Innovation and Business Growth Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Innovation and Business Growth - Essay Example Where do the other ideas or research efforts go They get into the vast Knowledge Management databases which is available to the organization as part of core business knowledge for future reference. All these products are a result of dollar intensive and highly sophisticated research which actually delves into the minds of end-consumers in a very concerted effort to focus the mind of the consumer on the company's products, services and processes. It was a quirk of an idea to increase the diameter of the tooth paste tube's nozzle by a millimeter in an effort to increase annual sales of tooth paste at Unilever. This of course caught like a wild fire and is much quoted as an example of business smartness and innovation. In this case, the above stated ides is t R & D for a global FMCG company. All it took the Australian phone company to reduce its bleed on local calls was introduction of a lead ring into the handsets of telephones. This lead ring fatigued the hands of the users who started disconnecting calls much earlier than the previous endless hours of conversation. A simple but a powerful idea directly impacted the network utilization as well as bottom lines of the Australian telephone network. That's R & D for a large telecom operator (Bono, 2003). There was this person who stuck post-it sheets with the names of the car owners on the insides of the fuel cap covers and this person spoke to each and every customer using their names. Sales increased dramatically. This person was trying to leverage customer experience at the gas station, researched to find out that people love to be addressed by their names. That's nothing but R & D for a micro enterprise (B, 2006). Xerox that spent billions of dollars in getting new products to the market place failed miserably and was bleeding at the point of machine replacements in 72 hours. As part of their service level agreement, Xerox innovated its post sales service delivery mechanism to come up with almost instantaneous resolution of over 98% of customer complaints thereby reducing the bleed due to machine replacement promise to almost nil. Today various Corporates are investing billions of dollars to leverage the R & D knowledge at the market place and this paper will specifically look at the innovations at Unilever - Unipath, Xerox - PARC and Ntt - MBD. A Product/Service - Its importance Most of the organizations, once having introduced a product / service into the market place, leverage of two different types of research. The first type of research is to find out what the consumer wants or even has in his mind. The second type of research is to how to move the current product line or introduce a new product line to meet those expectations in the mind of the consumer. It is more often in the second type of research work, which new product identification happens. Also it is in the second type of research that companies often file for patents; develop knowledge that may be leveraged in future. Marketing begins with the identification of consumer needs and wants, and culminates with successfully

SWOT analysis on Apple company Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

SWOT analysis on Apple company - Research Paper Example SWOT Analysis Strength Apple has been known for its innovation strategy and is one of the most successful companies. The company is known for its innovation, its unique ability to design and develop the company’s operating systems. The strength of the company lies in providing the customers with new product and solutions with a superior ease of use. The company investment in the research and development along with marketing and advertisement also adds on to the list of its strength (Apple Inc.-a, 2011, p.1). The company products are in high demand for example, sale of iPod increased and about 100 million iPods were sold making it the fastest selling music player in history (Apple Inc.-b, 2011). The sale of its notebooks products are also very strong and represent a huge contribution to Apple’s income. Apple is one of the most influential and established brand in the world and thus has a set of loyal customers who advocates the brand. The brand not only attracts new cust omers but also retains them. Weaknesses It was reported that Apple iPod Nano had faulty screen. Apple has admitted that there was problem with its new iPod Nano due to a manufacturing problem. The company claims that this problem has affected less than a 10th of 1% of all the Nanos shipped (BBC News, 2005). The music industry have demanded to increase the price of its music downloaded file as many of the music industry makes money from iTunes rather than from the sales of the original CDs. According to Steve Jobs, Apple has made a sale of more than half a billion songs with its iTune Music store capturing about 82% of the market share in US (Cohen & MacCentral, 2005). The product life cycle of the products of Apple is very short and thus revenues depend on the launch of new products and services. Market share of Apple is behind from its competitors such as Microsoft. Opportunities As more and more consumers are getting individualistic and conscious about a brand, Apple’s oppo rtunity is to target those set of consumers. Apple can introduce more new models to cater to the needs of its customers. Apple has an opportunity to develop its iTunes into mobile phone format. Downloads could be available through USB cables, new technology and strategic alliances which would offer a wide opportunities for Apple. The music can be downloaded from Podcasts and played on the iPods where the listener can subscribe for free and revenue can be generated from sales of various other downloads. Another opportunity lies with Apple is with the company’s smart phones. At present Samsung has outshines Apple smart phone thus giving an opportunity to Apple to come up with new features and capture the market share (Whitney, 2011). Since the PC and mobile industry is growing at a steady rate, thus Apple being one of the successful brands has a wide opportunity to explore and expand itself into other countries such as into Asia. There has been an increase in the demand for onl ine music and other applications such as the cloud making a room for Apple to expand into these sectors and generate high revenue. Threats The biggest threat for Apple comes from the high level of competition from the technology markets. A successful market attracts competitors and Apple works hard on its Research and Development and in its marketing tool to retain its competitive position. The popularity of

A usability report Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words - 1

A usability report - Essay Example I measured whether each task was passed or failed by asking the participants to tell me how long it took to find the necessary links. If it took more than 5 seconds to find any of the links on the page, it was a fail. Any link that took under 5 seconds to locate was a pass. The test participants were two guys and one girl. The equipment that was used were four Macintosh MacBook laptops equipped with mice and mouse pads. 2. Describe, clearly, what parameters of usability you were testing for. E.g. effectiveness, efficiency, satisfaction or learnability – Describe how you measured these parameters in your test. Describe how you measured whether a usability problem was trivial or significant. (470 words) The parameter of usability that was being tested for was basically efficiency. Effectiveness, satisfaction, and learnability were not necessarily what were taken into account, basically because the idea was that, if a person could not efficiently use the website (read: quickly), they might be more apt to go visit another website instead. What any website wants is more traffic. Obviously, the Coventry University Student Union is no different in that regard. I measured this usability problem as being trivial or significant by asking each participant in the study, â€Å"How important is it to you—on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being the most important—that a website you visit be easily navigable?† One-hundred percent of study participants responded that they thought it rated ‘10’. One user blatantly said, â€Å"I had such a hard time finding out where the Rag Week 2011 link was, I just ultimately gave up after like 20 seconds.† The other two study pa rticipants reiterated similar thoughts. â€Å"Sorry, I didn’t find it.† â€Å"I didn’t bother looking for the link after the 5 seconds was up.† Such results were indicative that the problem in finding the link, which was buried in the middle of the page in small type, was a

How to Refinish Hardwood Floors Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

How to Refinish Hardwood Floors - Research Paper Example Some floors become thin when they have been refinished a lot of times because after numerous refinishing, there is no layer left on it to be removed. So, before refinishing, consider whether your floor is in good condition to sand. 2. Arrange the Equipment. Get a belt sander if you can because it is easier to handle. Drum sander is not only heavier to carry but also it is apt to create grooves on the wood which are hard to remove. An edge sander must also be readily available so as to reach in nooks and corners of the room where a belt sander does not reach easily. Other equipment that you need is a putty knife, scraper, buffer, safety masks, eye protection, brush, and foam applicators. 3. Prepare the floor for sanding by removing all furniture, heat grates, carpets, and old nails. Mop the floor because it must be dust cleaned before sanding. Do not go for wood putty on soft floors because deep gouges and cracks in soft woods would need replacing whole planks. 5. Start sanding from the least noticeable area to get easy with the sander. Concentrate. Place the sander forward and sand along with the floor’s grain. Start sanding close to the walls, sanding both forwards and backwards. Initial sanding will only remove the layer of old finish. Use the edge sander to reach the areas the belt sander had not reached. A drum sander will have a 20-36 grit paper in it at this point. 6. Sand again, moving in backward, forward, left and right motion. It will remove the scratches that the first sanding left on the floor. This time, a drum sander should have an 80 grit paper. Select an appropriate direction depending upon the look and feel. The edge sander must also have an 80 grit paper in it. 8. Choose a finish. Polyurethane stain which is either water-based or oil-based, or Osmo Hard Wax Oil, is used normally. The finish can be glossy or matte. Satin finish is preferred because it is known to hide the blemishes

Business Ethics in an Organisation Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Business Ethics in an Organisation - Essay Example The organisation that was chosen for the purposes of this assignment is the global for-profit education giant known as Career Education Corporation. According to their website, "Since it was founded in 1994, CEC has progressed rapidly toward the goal of becoming the world's leading provider of quality educational services. CEC is the world's largest on-campus provider of private, for-profit postsecondary education and has a rapidly-growing presence in online education" (Career Education Corporation, 2008, pg. 1). Career Education Corporation has more than 95,000 students worldwide and is made up of a number of different, well-recognized, and widespread brand names of colleges, schools, and universities. Their main specialty is offering career-oriented degrees to their students in a short period of actual classroom time. "The 80-plus campuses that serve these students are located throughout the U. S., Canada, France, the United Kingdom, and the United Arab Emirates and offer doctoral, master's, bachelor's, and associate degrees and diploma and certificate programs. Approximately one third of students attend the web-based virtual campuses of American InterContinental University Online and Colorado Technical University Online" (Career Education Corporation, 2008, pg. 1) As mentioned above, Career Education Corporation operates under a number of brand names that span the entire globe, including the online environment. "Those brands include, among others, the Le Cordon Bleu schools of North America; the Harrington School of Design; the Brooks Institute; the Katharine Gibbs schools; American InterContinental University; Colorado Technical University and Sanford Brown" (Career Education Corporation, 2008, pg. 1). The company proudly displays its mission on its main website, claiming that, "The mission of CEC, through its schools, its educators, and its employees is education-their primary goal, to enable students to graduate successfully and pursue rewarding careers." Their mission statement itself declares, "We are a dynamic educational services company committed to quality, career-focused learning led by passionate professionals who inspire individual worth and lifelong achievement" (Career Education Corporation, 2008, pg. 1). Ethics In order to understand how an organization adheres to business ethics in values, it is first important to understand what those are. In this section, perspectives on business ethics and values, ethical issues in business, ethical theories and how to use them, personal values in the workplace, individual responses to ethical situations, corporate responsibility, corporate governance, corporate citizenship, sustainability and the responsible corporation, ethical conformance: codes standards, culture, leadership, and citizen power, global and local values and international business, and ethics in practice will be covered in detail (Fisher and Lovell, 2006, Ambrose and Schminke, 1999 and Boyle, 1990). According to Wikipedia, "Business ethics is a form of the art of applied ethics that examines ethical principles and moral or ethical problems that can arise in a business environment. In the increasingly conscience-focused marketplaces of the 21st century, the demand for more ethical business processes and actions (known as ethicism) is increasing. Simultaneously, pressure is applied on industry to improve business ethics through new public initiatives and laws (e.g.

Give an account of the main causes of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Essay

Give an account of the main causes of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade and its impact on African societies - Essay Example 177). The other cause of the trade was because the labor from Africa was cheap unlike the labor they used to get back in the colonies. This therefore increased the trade even more as more laborers who were cheaply bought in auctions and ship paddocks were easily available. The higher the demand, the more the Africans were captured in Africa and shipped over only for them to go and become slaves being mistreated and humiliated by their white employers and being worked mercilessly and tirelessly. The other cause was that the African traditional leaders such as the chiefs wanted prosperity and they sought it through selling off some of their people to the European traders to be shipped over as slaves in return for getting riches such as ivory, gold, beads, clothes, shoes among others. These goods they were given in exchange with the slaves were not commonly available and hence brought about not only wealth but prestige and more power to the leaders. The slave trade caused conflicts among the African themselves splitting some communities, resulting into deaths and permanent rift that is still present in some West African states to present. These conflict were brought about because he slaves were captured during raids of communities and once the raid took place, then conflicts between the communities ensured resulting in more fighting, death, destruction of property and political system among other negative consequences (Green, 2012, pg. 179). Male slaves that were muscular and energetic were the ones sought after to be sold and this happened in large numbers as slave trade was at one point the main source of export in West Africa. This resulted in disproportion in the male population as well as break-up of the traditional family setup as women were forced to be the heads of households as well as offer security to their homesteads in addition to being the bread winners. Without strong males, the Africans became vulnerable to attacks as well as dwindle in farm