Preparing People to Manage, Support and Use of ERP systems Dissertation

Preparing People to Manage, Support and Use of ERP systems - Dissertation Example , the quantitative and qualitative data were subjected to both statistical and thematic analysis. The study has found that the employees who were investigated expressed that loss of control of the organisation and complexity of ERP were acceptable in their present organisation along with the effectiveness of the alignment of ERP to business process and strategy and the resistance of users. In addition, the study likewise found that Planning was a key enabler of ERP implementation, along with management of the project and education and training. The variable of culture has particularly been disagreed upon as an enabler of successful ERP implementation. In addition, it was also found that management of the project, education and training and involvement of users are all significant, positive predictors of effectiveness of ERP deployment. As such, a number of recommendations had been presented. Acknowledgements Table of Contents 1. Introduction 1.1. Background 9 1.2. Project Rationale 1 2 1.3.Project Aims and Objectives 13 1.3.1. Project Aims 13 1.3.2. Project Objectives 13 2. Literature Review 2.1. Introduction 14 2.2. ERP systems: A Brief Overview 14 2.2.1. The Importance of ERP systems 15 2.3. Obstacles to the Effective Implementation of Enterprise Resource Planning 19 2.4. Factors that Positively Affect Effective ERP Implementation 25 2.5. Empirical Studies 32 2.6. Conclusions 37 2.6.1. Key Conclusions 38 2.6.2. Refined Research Questions 40 3. Research Methodology 3.1. Introduction 41 3.2. Research Philosophy 41 3.3. Research Strategy 42 3.4. Data Generation Methods 43 3.5. Data Analysis 46 3.6. Sampling 46 3.7. Ethics 47 3.8. Limitations 48 3.9. Conclusions 48 4. Results and Discussion 4.1. Introduction 50 4.2. Questionnaire Analysis 50 4.3. Interviews Analysis 74 4.3.1. Business Process and Strategy 74 4.3.2. Loss of Control of the Organisation 74 4.3.3. Complexity of ERP 75 4.3.4. User Acceptance/ Resistance of Users 75 4.3.5. Planning and Management of the Project 76 4.3.6. Teamwork 76 4.3.7. Support from Top Management 77 4.3.8. Communication 78 4.3.9. Management of Change/Culture 78 4.3.10. Education and Training 79 4.3.11. Overall Effectiveness of the ERP Implementation 79 4.4. Discussion 4.4.1. Introduction 80 4.4.2. Obstacles in ERP Implementation 80 4.4.3. Enablers in ERP Implementation 83 4.5. Conclusions 85 5. Conclusions and Recommendations 5.1. Conclusions 87 5.1.1. Conclusion 1 87 5.1.2. Conclusion 2 88 5.2. Recommendations 5.2.1 Recommendations 1 89 5.2.2. Recommendations 2 89 6. Personal Reflection 90 Bibliography 91 Appendices 97 List of Tables Table 1. Items measuring obstacles in ERP implementation 46 Table 2. Items measuring enablers in ERP implementation. 49 Table 3. Gender: Frequency and percentage breakdown. 50 Table 4.. Age: Frequency and percentage breakdown. 51 Table 5. Level: Frequency and percentage breakdown. 52 Table 6. Tenure: Frequency and percentage breakdown. 59 Table 7. Descriptive statistics:

Review of the Child Protective Services Investigation Process Essay Example for Free

Review of the Child Protective Services Investigation Process Essay In the beginning of 2004, the tragic death of a young boy in San Antonio, TX raised concerns about Texas Department of Protective and Regulatory Services (TDPRS) procedures relating to the investigation of the child protective services (CPS) process, including responding to telephone reports and assessing the risk of maltreatment accurately. TDPRS is currently under investigation ordered by the Governor, Rick Perry. The Governor stated, there is enough evidence from various parts of the state to suggest that some of our most vulnerable children are not receiving the protection they need from abusive situations. The evidence leads me to believe we have a systemic breakdown in the safety net that must protect abused children (www.governor.state.tx.us July 1, 2004). This paper examines current procedures in the investigation process and provides recommendations for improvement related to several of the details and feature of the operations process. Reinventing government initiatives draw heavily on supply chain management, total quality management, business process reengineering, and just-in-time delivery concepts that fall under the Operations Management umbrella.(Chase, 2003). Because this review is narrowly focused on the CPS investigation process, there are several essential elements of child welfare services that are not addressed in this paper, including substitute care and permanency services. OVERVIEW OF FUNCTIONAL AREAS The overall goal of CPS is to protect the unprotected children from abuse and neglect. This report focuses on specific CPS functions and crosscutting themes. These functions are those that comprise the child protection response to allegations of abuse and neglect. Operational definitions described in this report include: * Screening and Intake the process by which CPS receives a referral and a report concerning allegations of child abuse or neglect, and decides whether or not to respond to the referral and report. * Investigation the process by which CPS determines whether child maltreatment has occurred or if a child is at risk of maltreatment, and the decisions and actions that are needed to ensure the childs safety. * Other CPS Response and Alternative Response a response to an allegation of abuse or neglect that assesses the needs of the child or family with or without requiring a determination that maltreatment has occurred or that the child is at risk of maltreatment for the purpose of providing the family with services. For each function, there are several different features. The workflow of these functions is described in Table 1. SCREENING AND INTAKE Receiving community referrals, which includes those from mandated professional reporters and the population at large, is the gateway to CPS. Features of the intake procedures include the availability to receive reports, methods for documenting reports, and timeframes for accepting and forwarding a report. Intake is available 24-hours a day 7 days a week, and centralized in Austin, TX. Referred reports are generally categorized into two groups. In the first group, CPS caseworkers are dispatched immediately for children believed to be in imminent risk of harm. In the second group, investigations are usually initiated within 10 days. The policies indicate that a decision protocol for forwarding cases for investigation. The hotline workers conduct quality assurance (QA) reviews on each case and decision to forward a case to investigation is made with supervisor approval. In case of sexual abuse and serious abuse, the case must be notified to law enforcement. INVESTIGATION The investigation function addresses the process of determining whether a child has been maltreated or is likely to be maltreated, and if services are needed to ensure the child will not be harmed in the future. TDPRS implemented the use of risk and safety assessment (IRA) as tools to guide decision-making as to when and how to intervene to keep children safe in the immediate future and to reduce long-term risk. The result of IRA was included at case closure, during case planning at any major decision point, or whenever circumstances suggest a childs safety is at risk. Investigators usually check if the childs family has had a prior validated report of abuse or neglect. Investigators then visit and interview the family, including initiating face-to-face contact with the children, and begin collecting information about the alleged maltreatment incident. If an investigator, during the initial investigation, believes that a child has been maltreated and needs the court to protect the childs safety, the investigator must initiate judicial oversight of the case, which can be time-consuming and complicated. While the investigator is following the procedures involved in investigating the alleged maltreatment, he or she is also developing a tentative plan to address those conditions in the home that CPS believes contributed to the maltreatment of the child. This plan ultimately becomes the case plan that outlines treatment services for the child and the family. The plan described what actions are required of all the parties involved to correct the condition that caused the maltreatment. OTHER CPS RESPONSE AND ALTERNATIVE RESPONSE The overall goals of alternative response are to provide a response option to those families whose situations did not meet the mandate or criteria for CPS involvement, to serve low-risk or low-severity situations, or to improve family situations. This is to emphasize partnering the families with the community and creating a network for the family, protect children and assist parents to recognize and remedy conditions harmful to their children, provide preventive services before the need of CPS involvement is required, and prevent the family from potentially being re-referred. The causes of child abuse and neglect are complex, and a case plan can involve referrals to an array of individuals, including caseworkers from other units in the agency, private service providers such as mental health and counseling professionals, other public agencies such as housing and transportation services. CURRENT WORKFLOW Documenting business process flows visually not only helps in ISO and QS initiatives, but it is the first step toward continuous improvement. (Gould, L. 2000) A good way to start analyzing a process is with a diagram showing the basic elements of a process (Chase, 2003) Table 1 describes the overview of current workflow from the time the report of maltreatment was reported to CPS until the completion of the investigation. Table 1 UNDERLYING PROBLEMS Because child protection is a critical service and because of the seriousness consequences of errors, CPS must seek to insure the quality, timeliness, and accuracy of the process both through detailed specifications (laws, regulations, and policy) and thorough supervisory oversight. However, the process must be balanced with systems that give workers and supervisors sufficient flexibility to apply sound professional judgment. Increases in the number of maltreatment cases, the changing nature of family problems, and long-standing systemic weaknesses have placed the CPS system in a state of crisis and undermined its ability to fully carry out the responsibilities for abused and neglected children. First, child maltreatment reports have risen steadily across the state. The caseloads of CPS have grown correspondingly, and CPS cannot keep pace with this workload. Second, these caseloads are increasingly composed of families whose problems have grown more troubling and complicated, with substance abuse a common and pervasive condition. Finally, systemic weaknesses, such as difficulty maintaining professional and skilled workforce, inconsistently implementing policies and procedures, and poor working relationships with outside resources has created a long-standing problems. The combined effect of difficult caseloads and systemic weaknesses may endanger the lives of children coming to the attention of CPS. In CPS, the staff sometimes deal with life-and-death issues, the knowledge of and consistent application of appropriate policies and procedures are critical. However, CPS staff is unable to consistently apply existing policies such as inadequate safety assessment. This is because policies change frequently, no procedures manual exists, and information is inconsistently distributed to all staff. By necessity, CPS should work efficiently and effectively with outside resources to protect children. However, the outside resources, like CPS, also face problems associated with the large volume of increasingly complex cases, budget cuts, and Medicaid reform. Unnecessary time spent to transfer or refer cases diverts the investigator from performing investigative activities on other open cases and create congestion in workflow. COMPARE AND CONTRAST WITH OTHER PRACTICE In 1994, Missouri developed a new strategy to handle the overwhelming number of reports coming into its CPS system. Missouri recognized that state government, acting alone, had neither the resources nor the local community, neighborhood, or family base to effectively alter the cycle of abuse and neglect. The agency and local CPS offices have turned to the broader community of churches, schools, mental health providers, and others to expand their reach. By developing partnerships with these community groups, CPS is able to quickly increase the number of people available to serve children and their families, without increasing CPS staffing levels. The model in this state is also based on the premise that not all CPS cases require the same traditional approach. Instead, the models incorporate a flexible response, whereby CPS cases can be grouped according to the nature of the allegation, recognizing that different types of allegations required different responses. RECOMMENDATIONS Build Community Partnership Different types of maltreatment require dramatically different prevention and treatment strategies. It is critical for CPS to form partnerships between CPS and community service providers. This will allow the cases to be referred and transferred more smoothly and in a timely manner. However, ultimate success will depend on the CPS staffs ability to overcome certain challenges, such as developing willingness within the community to become more active in protecting children from maltreatment and to adapt to new roles and responsibilities. Refine the Key Performance Requirement Key Performance Requirements How to Achieve These Requirements Report Receipt (Intake) * Community awareness of when and how to report * Minimal wait to reach the intake workers * Effective use of the CAPS (agency computer system) * Enhanced phone system that provide real time information, manage call distribution to available workers, and support estimation of staffing requirements Screening * Immediate response to high risk situations * Reasonable timeliness of decisions on other situations * Sound screening decisions * Screening guidelines that provide consistent direction * Immediate access to relevant information system * Real-time consultation from experienced supervisors Assessment (Investigation) * Sufficient thoroughness; reasonable and prudent efforts made to obtain relevant information * Timeliness of decisions * Decisions consistent with information and with policy * Assessment guidelines that provide consistent direction * Assessment timeliness requirements that balance thorough information gathering with responsiveness * Reasonable caseloads and adequate number of staff * Accessible consultation from experienced supervisors Management Reporting * Information that enables management to make sound judgments regarding overall performance and other matters, such as staffing requirements * Information that enables supervisors to manage caseloads and monitor quality and timeliness * Use of the information to identify targeted improvements where needed * Real-time information about on-going cases * Reports on both the detailed (by worker) and summary (by unit) level on caseloads and case status (pending, deadlines, overdue, etc.) * Reports of quality assurance findings * Designation of specific performance measures that will be tracked and monitored with comparisons across local offices * Management reports on overall program performance including workload, timeliness, quality assurance results, investigation outcomes, list of outside resources, etc. CONCLUSION TDPRS is facing increased reports of child abuse and neglect, as well as a disturbing increase in the number of families with severe and multiple problems. The burden to improve the ways CPS responds to children at risk of abuse and neglect falls on state and local governments. When a process is operating at capacity, the only way to take on more work without increasing the waiting time is add more capacity (Chase, 2003) CPS management must recognize that the traditional approaches to child protection cannot keep pace with the demand for services. CPS needs to reach out to communities to establish partnerships among service providers, as well as our citizens. Furthermore, the CPS management team must look at the entire workflow of the operations process and recognize long-standing systemic problems. It is critical to seek ways to correct deficiencies and to build and maintain the personnel that will support the operations management strategies. REFERENCES: Chase, R. (2003). Product design and process selection. Operations Management for Competitive Advantage, Tenth Edition. The McGraw-Hill Companies. Chase, R. (2003). Operations strategy and management change. Operations Management for Competitive Advantage, Tenth Edition. The McGraw-Hill Companies. www. tdprs.state.tx.us www.governor.state.tx.us Gould, L. (2004) Designing a better business. Gardner Publications, Inc. Retrieved from www.autofieldguid.com on 8/23/04 McDonald W. (2001). National study of child protective services systems and reform efforts Literature review. Retrieved from www.aspe.hhs.gov.hsp/protective01/ on 8/22/04. http://www.gao.gov/archive/1997/he97115.pdf

Strategy in Practice â€Amazon

Strategy in Practice –Amazon STRATEGY IN PRACTICE – Amazon.com Introduction to Strategy In the Words of Johnson Scholes (2002), Strategy is the direction and scope of an organisation over the long term which achieves advantage for the establishment through its configuration of resources within a changing environment and to fulfil stakeholder expectations. In some respects strategy can be seen as a reflection of the attitudes and beliefs of those who have the most influence on the organisation. According to Lynch (2000), the essence of corporate strategy is the identification of the purpose of the organisation and the plans and actions to achieve that purpose. Corporate strategy is often perceived as one of the most critical managerial activities that bring together the organisation’s internal resources and its external relationships with its customers, suppliers, competitors and the socio-economic environment in which it exists. In his conceptualisation of the Strategy concept Lynch (2002) clearly identifies three distinct aspects that have been discussed below: Resources Strategy – Companies, Businesses and firms hold or acquire a wide range of resources. A firm’s resources and capabilities include all the financial, physical, human and organisational assets used by a firm to develop, manufacture and deliver products or services to its customers Barney (1991). The purpose of strategy is to make the best use of the available resources so as to outperform competition. Environmental Strategy – The term environment includes every aspect external to the organisation. No organisation can gain competitiveness with a lack of vision for its environment. Focus that is restricted merely to what lies inside the boundaries of the firm is best criticised as incomplete and insufficient. Organisations need to and must be in synchronisation with their surroundings. It is here that strategy comes to play a major role. Adding Value – Lynch has stressed on the notion of value addition. Apart from the above corporate strategy must meet the need to add value to the supplies brought into the organisation. To ensure its long term survival, the organisation must take the supplies, add value to them through its operations and then deliver its output to the customers. The purpose of corporate strategy is to bring the conditions under which the organisation is able to create this vital additional value. It must also ensure that the organisation adapts to the changes in the environment so that it can continue to add value in future. In essence Strategy provides Decision Support (Grant, 2004) â€Å"to the extent that decision makers are limited by bounded rationality, strategy in the form of guidelines and decision criteria can enhance the quality and consistency of strategic decision making. It also helps in better decision making by pooling together the knowledge of many individuals and by facilitating the application of various analytical tools.† Strategy also acts as a Co-ordinating device. The many tools and components of strategy i.e. Vision, Mission, Objectives etc. bring together the entire organisation as a single locomotive headed in one direction. With all departments and personnel aiming towards the common goals, co-ordination can be achieved with greater ease. Strategy provides the organisation a target to work for. Strategy is forward looking; it establishes a direction to guide actions. It also sets aspirations for the company that can act as motivators for the whole organisation. The strategy function, as is evident from above, permeates through all organisational membranes to pervade into all levels and is not restricted to any particular zone. Practically all authors in field of Strategic Management acknowledge the prevalence of varied levels of strategy. Johnson Scholes (2002) believe that Corporate level strategy relates to â€Å"the overall purpose and scope of an organisation and how value will be added to the different parts (business units) of the organisation. It is also likely to be concerned with the expectations of the owners. It is the basis of other strategic decisions and may well take the form of a mission statement.† Corporate strategy deals with the ways in which a corporation manages a set of businesses together. (Grant, 1995) Business unit strategy is about how to compete successfully in particular markets. Business Strategy deals with the way in which a single business firm or an individual unit of a larger firm competes within a particular industry or market. Operational strategies are concerned with how the component parts of an organisation deliver effectively the corporate and business level strategies in terms of resources, processes and people. They deal with the day-to-day working of the various sections in a firm. Operational strategies are more about implementation than planning. Thus, â€Å"Strategic management involves understanding the strategic position of an organisation, making strategic choices for future and turning strategy into action. The strategic position is concerned with the impact on strategy of the external environment, internal resources and competences and the expectations and influences of stakeholders. Strategic choices include understanding the underlying bases for future strategy at both the corporate and business unit levels and the options for developing strategy in terms of both the directions and methods of development. Strategy into action is concerned with ensuring that strategies are working in practice.† (Johnson Scholes, 2002) This report aims to analyse the strategy in practice at Amazon.com. Amazon.com is one of the most successful e-businesses and undoubtedly the champion of all online retailers or e-tailers as they are often referred to. It has revolutionised the retail sector of business and is a subject of innumerable studies and research in the current e-commerce era. The material used for study has been drawn from the Amazon.com case study[1] and the web based portal for the company Amazon.com[2]. The report shall use existing theory as a basis to realise how strategy has worked for Amazon.com in practice. Although it is challenging to capture every aspect of the organisation’s life so far, effort has been made to cite relevant examples so to get a glimpse of its strategic approach. The Amazon.com Case A summary[3] of the Amazon.com case shall prepare the grounds to lay the analysis in the light of theories discussed. A number of strategic concepts shall be cited to gain deeper insights to particular issues. With the explosive growth in internet companies’ market capitalisation positions, one would ask if some hype is at play. But the trend data clearly reveal that the internet is for real. According to Forrester research the total value of goods and services purchased online exceeded US$43 billion in 1998. Amazon.com believes that it is well positioned to capitalise[4] on this growth. According to Media Metrix 16% of web users visited Amazon.com’s stores in December 1998. ‘In a very short period of time Amazon.com has become one of the world’s most recognised brands’, said Jaleh Bisharat, Vice-president, Marketing, Amazon.com. With Amazon.com’s current strategy combined with the ongoing recruitment of entrepreneurial top management team for each business segment, the challenge for Amazon.com is on the strategic implementation front. Bezos had always been fascinated with technology. He came up with the statistic that the electronic world would grow at the rate of 2300% monthly. Bezos said, when something is growing that fast, every second counts. Bezos considered selling a variety of products online, but he settled for books because the worldwide market is large, the price point is low and the range of titles is large. Being unsure of the ideal location, Seattle was chosen because it was the location of book distributor Ingram, which has continued to provide 60% of Amazon.com’s books. Seattle also provided a favourable sales tax climate and a high-tech workforce. â€Å"I know nothing about the book industry†¦I can get them to the customer and forget about bricks and mortar†, said Bezos in an attempt to raise funds for his venture. After its entry into the market, Amazon.com had no significant rivals and there were no dominant traditional players. Even at this time Amazon.com was providing a powerful search facility as well as a host of services not provided by other online competitors. Analysts warned of a volatile internet sector with strategic plans constantly being revised. Despite aggressive competitive entry, Amazon.com passed many milestones in 1997. The most notable of these was its ability to raise net proceeds of almost US$50 million in May. This enabled aggressive investment in building the business. Amazon.com focussed on establishing its executive team, which included the recruitment of Richard Dalzell of Wal-Mart. In the same year, 1997, Amazon.com offered the lowest book prices anywhere in the world. Extensive promotional relationships with other dominant internet players were concluded which reinforced Amazon.com’s momentum, e.g. Yahoo!, Excite, AOL etc. In 1998 the company launched music, video and gift stores in the US and expanded operations to UK and Germany. Jimmy Wright of Wal-Mart joined the company in the same year. Amazon.com’s expansion programme is evidence of a growth strategy via acquisitions, strategic relations and internal development. It received the Computerworld Smithsonian Award for having demonstrated vision and leadership in the innovative use of information technology. With its highly qualified top management team and the success trends, Amazon.com continued to enhance the total customer experience of shopping, giving them wider product range to choose from and more sophisticated services to complement them. The case study then goes on to list the various achievements of the company. It also provides detail information on the financial and personnel aspects of the organisation. These details have been passed over as they are beyond the scope of this paper. The Analysis of Strategic Practices The Basic Approach The Internet is one of the most fascinating products of the developments in information technology. It received mixed reactions from the public and the entrepreneurs. While most of them were overwhelmed with the possibilities and others called it â€Å"an over hyped mania†, only a few saw it as a business opportunity. Jeff Bezos had the vision that created â€Å"Ex ante limits† to competition (Peteraf, 1993) and gave Amazon.com the â€Å"First-mover advantage†. Among the various lenses or attitudes towards Strategy that have been theorised, Amazon.com’s approach can be regarded as that of an Ideas lens. The ideas lens (Johnson Scholes, 2002) sees strategy as a result of new ideas that can come from anywhere in the organisation. It promotes innovative thinking and does not inhibit experimentation. This is well evident in the very start-up of Amazon.com as an enterprise. Further, this approach is better characterised as â€Å"Emergent† than â€Å"Prescriptive† (Lynch, 2000). The dynamic nature of the internet environment makes a planned and prescribed approach unsuitable. Amazon.com’s strategy evolved largely during the course of its life depending on its position at that instant in time. In the words of Miles Snow (1987) Amazon.com as an entity is a â€Å"Prospector† who looks for new opportunities and is willing to take risks to be able to exploit the same. Stated in general, Amazon.com’s strategy is an ambitious one. Pattern of Strategy development In his business development Bezos attempted a â€Å"Transformational change† in strategy through the creation of an entirely new service. The change resulted in success because it created new expectations that did not exist earlier; Amazon.com was ahead of its time. Further, the ability to convert the transformational change into a business winner comes from the fact that as the strategy for the firm was emerging, there was little mismatch between the intended and the realised strategy (Mintzberg Walters, 1985). It is important to strike harmony among the understanding of the environment, identified opportunity, the strategy intended to capture such opportunity and finally the actual resultant strategy that was implemented. Without this happening, the transformational change would most often end in a failure. Stakeholder Mapping â€Å"Stakeholders are those individuals or groups who depend on the organisation to fulfil their own goals, and on whom in turn the organisation depends† (Johnson Scholes, 2002). For Amazon.com the major stakeholders were its customers, investors and Jeff Bezos himself. With respect to the Stakeholder Mapping drawn up by Savage et al (1991) Bezos and the investors can be referred to as â€Å"Dominant Stakeholders† while the customers would identify as â€Å"Dependent Stakeholders†. Environment The internet industry is characterised by a high degree of â€Å"Changeability† (Lynch, 2000) i.e. there is a greater number of new problems and each problem is more complex than in other sectors. Moreover it is not very â€Å"Predictable† due to a high rate of change and uncertainty of future circumstances. This made Amazon.com’s business environment highly turbulent. As a new entrant Amazon.com had to cope with all these difficulties; but once settled these factors acted as â€Å"Barriers to entry† (Porter, 1985) for its competitors. Culture Culture within an organisation consists of the shared basic assumptions that have worked well enough to be considered valid and passed to fellow employees over time (adapted from Schein, 1985). It refers to â€Å"the way we do things around here†. While there can be several factors affecting the culture at a work place, in case of Amazon.com it is the ownership and technological factors. Jeff Bezos is the leader of the organisation and also the cultural head bringing in ambition and motivation to the organisation. The work practices, routines, plans, the entire business is largely governed by the technological abilities inside and the advancements outside the organisation. The Cultural web is another important aspect that has a definitive impact on the strategy an organisation pursues. The Cultural Web (Johnson Scholes, 2002) consists of the Routines Rituals, Stories, Symbols, Power Structures, Control Systems and the Organisational Structure. For Amazon.com its brand name acts as a major symbol that binds together the various components of the system. It symbolises the scale of operations that Bezos aimed at, thus cultivating an aggressive work culture. If one was to draw out the power structure at Amazon.com, it would be a flat pyramid with Jeff Bezos at the peak. Although the investment came from outside, Amazon.com was his dream and â€Å"his† venture. He did not promise any profits in the first 5 years, but his faith in the idea won the investors’ confidence. All this clearly indicates the prevalence of a â€Å"Power Culture† at Amazon.com (Handy, 1993). Key Strategic Highlights Based on its first mover advantage Amazon.com was able to capitalise on the heterogeneity of its resources. It reaped benefits from the Ex post and Ex ante limits to competition (Peteraf, 1993). Its technological knowledge behind the search engine was imperfectly imitable for the competitors. Even if the rivals came up with substitute systems, the â€Å"first mover† position always allowed an edge in favour of Amazon.com. Employees and technicians at Amazon.com learnt to adapt and innovate better than the competitors, simply because the latter were merely copying what Amazon had done. The Knowledge at Amazon.com was rare, valuable, not easily imitable and well organised to allow the company to enjoy a resource based competitive advantage over its rivals (Barney, 1995). The technological skills were Amazon.com’s core competence that was used to create the Search facility – their core product which was at the heart of Amazon’s web based store/services – the end product (Hamel Prahalad, 1990). However, it also needs to be mentioned here that the Amazon.com was rich in dynamic capabilities (Teece, 1997) to be able to successfully carry out the above. The top management team which consisted ex-Wal-mart employees, were aware of their strengths as well as the business environment to be able to identify their core competence. They ensured carrying out the best use of their resources and maintained the momentum gathered from the initial push. Even with the best resources and opportunities a business may not succeed, if those managing it are not aware of their responsibilities. It is the management that lays out the strategy and takes all decisions that are critical to the overall success. Expansion Given the knowledge of Ansoff’s Matrix Amazon.com for a start pursued Market development i.e. offered the existing products to new markets. It also used Cost leadership (Porter, 1985) to expand its customer base. As the website served more and more customers over time, Amazon.com introduced new products to the existing market – a product development effort. Finally, with a secure market position Amazon.com was capable of Diversification i.e. offering new products to new markets. Not all of Amazon.com’s offerings were indigenous. It had partnered with several other wed based companies. While most of the early partnerships were aimed at gaining a greater exposure to the target audience, later excusive relationships were created to add to the existing list of products and services that were offered on the website. The motive behind these alliances was largely â€Å"Exploitative† (Koza, 1998). Such business alliances were primarily aimed at tapping into each others’ customer bases and render mutual benefits to the parties involved. Amazon.com’s approach to collaboration is well explained by the M-B-A (Make, Buy, or Ally) matrix. It allied with services such as Yahoo and Excite because the service was not important to Amazon’s business – it sought more traffic. However, in case of similar companies such as Bookpages and Telebook, Amazon.com preferred a â€Å"Buy† because of the importance to the business activity. It also had the requisite skills to run these companies. Amazon.com did not want to allow these smaller companies to grow and later pose a threat to them. Conclusion Amazon.com can be easily regarded as a strategy champion. It had all the components of a great Entrepreneurial tale, and shall be cited in many more academic works in future. However, it must not be overlooked that for the first five years Amazon.com did not make any profits. Moreover, with the growth in market share, loss per share also grew. If all other competitors would have grouped together to attack Amazon from all fronts, it could have been a different story. Essentially, Amazon’s first mover advantage was crucial. The fact that Amazon possessed the above resources and capabilities at the emergence of e-commerce is of vital importance. Therefore, it is questionable whether or not Amazon would have managed to achieve similar results if it were to launch today in 2004 in such a hypercompetitive market. Primarily, Amazon’s success was due to effective leveraging of its resources, especially knowledge and managing the capabilities derived from these resources. REFERENCES Barney, Jay B.. Firm resources and sustained competitive advantage From: Journal of management vol 17 (1) 1991 p.99-120. Grant, R. M. (Robert Morris), 1948- Contemporary strategy analysis : concepts, techniques, applications / Robe.. 5th ed . Oxford : Blackwell, 2004 Johnson, Gerry. Exploring corporate strategy / Gerry Johnson, Kevan Scholes. 6th ed.. Harlow : Financial Times/Prentice Hall, 2002. Lynch, Richard L.. Corporate strategy / Richard Lynch. 3rd ed. Harlow : Financial Times Prentice Hall, 2003. Mintzberg, Henry. Strategy safari : the complete guide through the wilds of strategic manage Harlow : Financial Times Prentice Hall, 2001. Mintzberg, H. and Waters, J.A. Of strategies, deliberate and emergent Strategic management journal. John Wiley and Sons Inc. Vol 6 (1985) p.257-272 Peteraf, M. The cornerstones of competitive advantage: a resource-based view Strategic management journal. John Wiley and Sons Inc. Vol 14 (3) 1993 p.179-191 Porter, M.E. From competitive advantage to corporate strategy. Harvard business review Harvard Business School Publishing Corporation, 1987 Prahalad, C.K. and Hamel, G. The core competence of the corporation Harvard business review. Harvard Business School Publishing Corporation. Vol 68 (3) 1990 p.79-91 Schein, Edgar H. (Edgar Henry), 1928-. Organizational culture and leadership. 2nd ed. San Francisco, Calif. : Jossey-Bass, 1992. (Jossey-Bass management series). Teece, D. et al Dynamic capabilities and strategic management Strategic management journal vol 17 (7) 1997 p.509-533 Whittington, Richard, 1958- What is strategy and does it matter? / Richard Whittington 2nd ed . London : Thomson Learning, 2001 1861523777 Footnotes [1] Amazon.com – from start up to the new millennium, Stockport Street in Johnson Scholes (2002) [2] www.amazon.com [3] This is a self prepared summary using the information provided in the Amazon.com Case study by Stockport Street. The purpose of the summary is informative and allows connection with the report – it has therefore been included in the main text. [4] Such text in bold are exhibits of strategic highlights

Irratable Bowl Syndrome :: essays research papers fc

Bo Moore E-Block Irritable Bowel Syndrome   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Irritable bowel syndrome (usually referred to as IBS) is a disorder of the large intestine that lasts for a long period of time. People who have IBS experience symptoms like constipation or diarrhea. These symptoms can occur one after another. A person can experience constipation at some times and diarrhea at other times. Occurrences of lower bowel irritation may also be accompanied by mild pain, swelling of the stomach and a lot of digestive gas. Other names for IBS are spastic bowel, spastic colon, irritable colon syndrome, and functional bowel disease.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  A person who has IBS can lead a normal life. One would think that with continual diarrhea that a person with IBS would lose weight, be malnourished, or that they would develop more serious digestive problems. However, these are very rare. Only in a very small number of cases does IBS become so disabling that it can interfere with a person’s normal activities. But some people withdraw from activities because the diarrhea or constipation bothers them. In such cases, doctors may recommend mental health counseling.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Most patients who have IBS seek help from a gastroenterologist. A gastroenterologist is a doctor who specializes in the digestive system. Tests to diagnose IBS might include lab analyses of feces and barium X-rays of the lower digestive tract. For a barium X-ray, a patient drinks a special kind of liquid drink that contains barium. With the barium, the doctor can see how the liquid flows through the digestive system. A doctor may also perform a sigmoidoscopy. This is an instrument on a long thin tube that is inserted through the anal opening up inside the colon. With this test, a doctor can visually examine the inside walls of the intestine. If these tests are negative, it is typically determined that a patient has IBS because all other possibilities are eliminated. Statistics show that about twice as many women develop IBS when compared to men. Most people who have IBS are adults rather than children.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  There is no underlying cause for IBS. It is known that a person who has IBS has abnormal contractions, or spasms of the muscles of the colon. However, through research, it has not been found that IBS is caused by abnormal action of the colon. The colon is what moves food wastes through the large intestine. Some of the contractions cause constipation, pain, and gas.

Haroun And The Sea Of Stories Character Analysis

She leaves her husband with her neighbor Mr.. Sanguine, which may be the reason for Harpoon's turn of events. Briefly describe the character and his or her relations with other characters (a solid paragraph or two). This is a more detailed factual description of your chosen character. You may combine your own factual description with quotations from the text. Give page numbers. When Sorry is first introduced she was said to have a â€Å"sweet voice raised in song† (15). Readers are seemingly given an image of her being a sweet and loving wife and mother..But things go terribly wrong once she no longer sings (16). It's also evident that Sorry was very vulnerable. She was so tired of being left home while her husband told fictional stories that Mr.. Cantata's criticisms of Raised soon enveloped her heart like the darkness of Chatham- Shut. It may be Mr.. Cantata's statement, â€Å"what's the use of stories that aren't true? That finally got to the lonely Sorry (20). Sorry was a ticking time bomb that blew up. It's almost to be expected seeing as her family was the only happy one in a sad city.Even love for her son couldn't get her to stay. Although, just as things had turned around for Rasher and Harmon, Sorry had realized her mistake. Ironically, she described Mr.. Sanguine the same as the narrator had described Chatham-Shut. Lover, mother, and wife, Sorry as a full package. Luckily, she was able to see the light of the day, instead of the darkness of the night. Explain why you find the character interesting, and discuss how the character affects your understanding of the novel (a solid paragraph or two).Sorry is a very minor character whom only appears in the beginning and the end of the story. The best thing about Sorry is that her small part had a huge impact on the way the story went. First, lets observe the way she left her husband. She simply asked him to look for some socks that their son Harmon may have lost, and in that instance she disappeared. Her leaving with the stairs neighbor was very contradictory with her character. Readers can only sympathize with the openwork Rasher and their precious son Harmon.Rasher was so distraught over his wife leaving him that only after taking out his anger by smashing every clock in their home, he loses his ability to tell stories. The plot thickens as he no longer wants to tell stories and is visited by the Water Genie to have his story line disconnected. Moving over to Harmon, he was so heartbroken that he couldn't concentrate on anything more than 1 1 minutes; this was the Same time that his mother left them (1 1 o'clock). All of these these are significant. Had it not been Corpora's choice to leave her family for boring old Mr..Sanguine, neither Hardbound nor Rasher would have helped save Kahn. It was her choice that led to Rasher's choice to no longer tell stories. It was her choice that caused Harmon to take If's tool hostage to get to the Walrus and keep his father's storytelling abilities. Corpora's choice kept Harmon from focusing on his first wish that would have kept him from ever going into Gulp City. Corpora's choice led them both into gulp City. Corpora's choice helped the sad city remember it's name. Basically, without Sorry, no one would ever know about the sea of Stories.

An Introduction to Visual Anthropology

An Introduction to Visual Anthropology Visual anthropology is an academic subfield of anthropology that has two distinct but intersecting aims. The first involves the addition of images including video and film to ethnographic studies, to enhance the communication of anthropological observations and insights through the use of photography, film, and video. The second one is more or less the anthropology of art,  understanding visual images, including: How far do humans as a species rely on what is seen, and how do they integrate that into their lives?How significant is the visual aspect of life in any particular society or civilization? andHow does a visual image represent (bring into existence, make visible, exhibit or reproduce an action or person, and/or stand as an example for) something Visual anthropology methods include photo elicitation, the use of images to stimulate culturally relevant reflections from informants. The end results are narratives (film, video, photo essays) which communicate typical events of a cultural scene. History Visual Anthropology only became possible with the availability of cameras in the 1860s- arguably the first visual anthropologists were not anthropologists at all but rather photojournalists like the Civil War photographer Matthew Brady;  Jacob Riis, who photographed 19th-century slums of New York;  and  Dorthea Lange, who documented the Great Depression in stunning photographs. In the mid-nineteenth century, academic anthropologists began collecting and making photographs of the people they studied. So-called collecting clubs included the British anthropologists Edward Burnett Tylor, Alfred Cort Haddon, and Henry Balfour, who exchanged and shared photographs as part of an attempt to document and classify ethnographic races. The Victorians concentrated on British colonies such as India, the French focused on Algeria, and the U.S. anthropologists concentrated on Native American communities. Modern scholars now recognize that imperialist scholars classifying the people of subject colonies as others is an important and downright ugly aspect of this early anthropological history. Some scholars have commented that visual representation of cultural activity is, of course, very ancient indeed, including cave art representations of hunting rituals beginning 30,000 years ago or more. Photography and Innovation The development of photography as a part of the scientific ethnographic analysis is usually attributed to Gregory Bateson and Margaret Meads 1942 examination of Balinese culture called Balinese Character: A Photographic Analysis. Bateson and Mead took more than 25,000 photos while conducting research in Bali, and published 759 photographs to support and develop their ethnographic observations. In particular, the photos- arranged in a sequential pattern like stop-motion movie clips- illustrated how the Balinese research subjects performed social rituals or engaged in routine behavior. Film as ethnography is an innovation generally attributed to Robert Flaherty, whose 1922 film Nanook of the North is a silent recording of activities of an Inuit band in the Canadian Arctic. Purpose In the beginning, scholars felt that using imagery was a way to make an objective, accurate, and complete study of social science that had been typically fueled by an extensively detailed description. But there is no doubt about it,  the photo collections were directed and often served a purpose. For example, the photos used by anti-slavery and aborigine protection societies were selected or made to make the natives more human and needier, through poses, framings, and settings. American photographer Edward Curtis made skillful use of aesthetic conventions, framing Native Americans as sad, unresisting victims of an inevitable and indeed divinely ordained manifest destiny. Anthropologists such as Adolphe Bertillon and Arthur Cervin sought to objectify the images by specifying uniform focal lengths, poses, and backdrops to remove the distracting noise of context, culture, and faces. Some photos went so far as to isolate body parts from the individual (like tattoos). Others such as Thomas Huxley planned to produce an orthographic inventory of the races in the British Empire, and that, coupled with a corresponding urgency to collect the last vestiges of disappearing cultures drove much of the 19th and early 20th century efforts. Ethical Considerations All of this came crashing to the forefront in the 1960s and 1970s when the clash between ethical requirements of anthropology and the technical aspects of using photography became untenable. In particular, the use of imagery in academic publication has impacts on the ethical requirements of anonymity, informed consent, and telling the visual truth. Privacy: Ethical anthropology requires that scholar protect the privacy of the subjects that are interviewed: taking their picture makes that nearly impossibleInformed consent: Anthropologists need to explain to their informants that their images may appear in the research and what the implications of those images might mean- and get that consent in writing- before the research beginsTelling the truth: Visual scholars must understand that it is unethical to alter images to change their meaning or present an image that connotes a reality not consistent with the understood reality. University Programs and Job Outlook Visual anthropology is a subset of the larger field of anthropology. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the numbers of jobs projected to grow between 2014 and 2024 is about 4 percent, slower than the average, and competition for those jobs is likely to be fierce given the small number of positions relative to applicants. A handful of university programs specializing in the use of visual and sensory media in anthropology, including: The University of Southern California MA at the Center for Visual AnthropologyHarvard Universitys Ph.D. program at Sensory Ethnography LabThe University of Londons MA and Ph.D. in Visual AnthropologyThe University of Manchesters MA at the Granada Centre for Visual Anthropology Finally, the Society for Visual Anthropology, part of the American Anthropological Association, has a research conference and film and media festival and publishes the journal Visual Anthropology Review. A second academic journal, titled Visual Anthropology, is published by Taylor Francis. Sources: Cant A. 2015. One Image, Two Stories: Ethnographic and Touristic Photography and the Practice of Craft in Mexico. Visual Anthropology 28(4):277-285.Harper D. 2001. Visual Methods in the Social Sciences. In: Baltes PB, editor. International Encyclopedia of the Social Behavioral Sciences. Oxford: Pergamon. p 16266-16269.Loizos P. 2001. Visual Anthropology. In: Baltes PB, editor. International Encyclopedia of the Social Behavioral Sciences. Oxford: Pergamon. p 16246-16250.Ortega-Alczar I. 2012. Visual Research Methods, International Encyclopedia of Housing and Home. San Diego: Elsevier. p 249-254.Pink S. 2014. Digital–visual–sensory-design anthropology: Ethnography, imagination Arts and Humanities in Higher Education 13(4):412-427.and intervention.Poole D. 2005. An excess of description: Ethnography, race, and visual technologies. Annual Review of Anthropology 34(1):159-179.