The Deadly Happiness of Mrs,. Mallard

Modes of Analysis Character Analysis on Story Of An Hour The Story of an Hour is short story in which many things happened during that hour. With in an hour the main character Mrs. com/story-hour-sorrowful-woman-plight-women/" class="ilgen">Mallard experience emotions that she never felt before in her life. During the process of the story we begin to see a character that is weak sick and summited to society regiment. At the moment of the unexpected, Mrs. Mallard showed a different aspect of herself. We tend to react in the different prospective ways when an unexpected event happens.We tend to have a close look at our real selves. The Story of An Hour by Kate Chopin reflects the dramatic process of Mrs. Mallard’s character through the death of her husband. It also demonstrates that the true identity cannot be sheltered forever. Mrs. Mallard character had a distinctive personality. A woman who summited her self to the mental abuse of her husband and she became sick from all the hurting she kept inside (227). She remains quiet during her life not allowing anyone to know her deepest thoughts. She was not free to do as she wanted. Mrs.Mallard had the desire of getting in touch with the world outside and to be able to speak when ever she wanted to. The detail I am interested in the most is the reaction of Mrs. Mallard toward the saying â€Å"Free Body and Soul free! †(228). It is not easy to understand her reaction. I think that reaction is the result of her inside conflict in which she hesitates about how to determine her own feelings. She doesn't know how to react, she should feel sorry about the death news, but she feels happy about freedom (228). At the beginning, when I saw her reaction about the news of her husband death, I began to analyze the character.At the beginning of the story, I saw a cold hearted character, as I continue reading; it became cleared to me that Kate Chopin was trying to send a message through her story. In the beginning of t he 19th century, this reaction was unacceptable in society. However through the modern readers' eyes; her reaction is the explosion of her true feelings which were repressed for a long time. During the time line in which the story was based on, a wife had to be subservient to her husband and her life was confined to the house. Women in those days were not permitted to divorce; the only way they would acquire liberty was by becoming widows.A traditional role like that, makes Mrs. Mallard consider her marriage as a burden and she feels free when she gets to know about her husband's death. That’s the reason Mrs. Mallard became joyful when she heard the news of her husbands death. I think that she felt overwhelmed with her everyday life of a servant, with complete dependence on Brently his decisions and maybe his dominance. To me it seems that the character of Mrs. Mallard is a person who is disappointed with the harsh reality of her everyday living, and that she is also subconsc iously looking for a chance to escape from an unhappy marriage.She loved her husband and sincerely cried for him when she hears of his death, but at the same time she is happy to acquire her freedom again(228). Through Mrs. Mallard reaction, I can see that she suffers a lot from her married life. Mrs. Mallard tries to use her will to beat the feeling of freedom and the desire for independence, but her will loses, and her true feeling takes control over her thinking. As a result, her reaction is different from what is usual and expected. Her exclamation of freedom impact the readers, because of the unexpected reaction of Mrs.Mallard, by Chopin allowing this expression in the story it helps the reader understand the inside struggle of her own life. Mrs. Mallard is a vivid character that identifies the life of Chopin. It indicates her private needs, emotion and expectations which she kept inside. Chopin lived in an era where women were not heard. Personally, I think that the saying fre e is the reaction that expresses the feelings about society condemnatory ways to women. To Mrs. Mallard it is like a prison having to be under the oppression of her husband authority.She had lived under the control of her husband, with little identity and time of her own. Maybe to under his imposed private will it was confusing for her ability to identify herself. The expression in the reaction helps the reader identify more strongly with her need for individuality. I also can identify with Mrs. Mallard with myself: she is a lady who sacrifices herself for her husband. Her reaction shows that despite a lot of suffering, she is willing to maintain the wife role the last moment. She only dares to let her true feeling pour out after she hears of his death and in a place away from public view, in her room (228).Her saying tells me that in her life she has never experienced such a moment of great joy, happiness and excitement like this. Later on in the story, she received the disappointm ent of her life when she learns her husband was alive. That brought her to her death which in another way she became free of her oppression (228). When I read this story for the first time, it seemed to be a story of many unpredictable details. To me, the story is still highly appreciated until strict social bias and peoples expectations about gender roles in general and marriage in particular are denied completely.

Interpreting Poetry Essay

Ballads have been a popular invention of troubadours since the inception of poetry. A ballad is a folksong typically with a tragic ending or a lover’s getting married ending. This paper will break down the ballad of Bonnie Barbara Allen in a stanza by stanza presentation, as well as present how the ballad’s story pertains to modernity through folk singing. Ballads are an interpretation of a common emotion. In Barbara Allen the main characters are Barbara and Sir John Graeme. Sometimes the ballad shifts in the man’s name; in other versions of this same ballad the man is called Willie Grove, sweet Willie Graeme, Sweet William, Jemmye Grove (Diary of Pepys paragraph 4). With such differences in names to describe the man in this ballad, and by use of the adjective ‘sweet’ to describe him, it may be surmised that the sympathies of the ballad-singer as well as the audience, lie with the man in the story and not with Barbara Allen. It is no doubt that in this ballad, the female is given the characteristic of being cruel. This is shown as her eventually leaving Sir John Graeme on his deathbed without returning his love. She spurns him because he slighted her in a public tavern (some versions are different) and it is this slight which makes her maintain her cruelty. Sir John Graeme dies, and Barbara Allen is so stricken with grief that she too dies (in some versions of the ballad, either lovers grave grows a rose and a thorn and they intertwine, and in another version Sir John Graeme dances on Barbara Allen’s grave). The theme of the ballad is quite perceptibly about forgiveness. In essence, as with most ballads, Barbara Allen tries to moralize the story under the cruelest conditions. In analysis the creativity of the ballad through use of word choice, setting and narrative, the reader is bombarded with Old English (for the ballad was created in the 12th century when it was written into Pepys’ Diary of Ballads, but had been travelling through England, Scotland and Ireland via oral tradition hundreds of years prior to it being written down). The first stanza places the listener or reader in a timeframe (Martinmas time, or November 11th (Wollstadt 315)). In the setting of the scene the singer goes on to describe that the ‘green leaves were a falling’ (Pepys paragraph 1). Although the first stanza tells of John’s love for Barbara, there is an immediate swift change of scene from love to death between the 1st and 2nd stanza (Oliver 10-11). Barbara is bid to come to the ‘my master dear’ (Pepys paragraph 1). The symbolism of the green leaves falling and of John’s body being so close to death represents a great use of metaphor by the writer. What should also be noted is that typically when a leaf falls, it is not in fact green, but of various colours including red, yellow, orange. This is because the chlorophyll has been ‘sucked’ back into the tree for the winter (it’s like the tree harvesting health for the upcoming colder months). Thus, for the green leaves to be falling would suggest that the tree has suffered some plight instead of them falling simply because of the season. This allusion of the ballad mirrors John’s broken heart (Oliver 11-12). He is a young man, in the prime of his days, but he dies of a broken heart. What is of further interest is that a tree will keep the green in its leaves, even when the tree is dying of what is called ‘heart rot†. Thus, the reader is prepared for the upcoming scene of sorrow for both John and Barbara. The 3rd stanza reveals a somewhat cold Barbara Allen. She does go to John’s side, on his bequest, and when she arrives, all the ballad says, she says, â€Å"’Young man, I think you’re dying’† (Pepys paragraph 1). The motions with which she uses to go to John’s deathbed are very revealing to the reader. The stanza relays that she slowly (hooly) got up upon being requested to John’s side. We must assume she knew he was dying, or that she was reluctant to see him, because of the way she feels he slighted her. However, upon the true revelation of John’s state of death, all she can say is â€Å"Young man, I think you’re dying† (Pepys paragraph 1). It is in the 4th stanza that the reader is revealed to John’s state: He’s dying of a broken heart. This is an actual medical concern known as of takotsubo cardiomyopathy, or broken heart syndrome. It may safely assumed that this is indeed what is the death of Sir John Graeme, for, upon Barbara Allen leaving him, without returning his love, the death toll rings. In turn then, Barbara Allen may also have died from takotsubo cardiomyopathy. Sir John’s statement further supports this notion as in the 4th stanza he states, â€Å"I’m sick†¦/And tis a for Barbara Allan† (Pepys paragraph 1). If John’s heart truly is breaking, it does so in the 5th stanza as Barbara states that she doesn’t love him (or hides it because she’s angry with him) because of the injustice she feels she suffered at the tavern when John ‘slighted’ her. The 4th and the 5th stanza’s are full of dialogue and not much narrative. This is done in order to get the back story of these two people and to know the emotional reasoning for Barbara’s actions. The narrative of the 6th stanza reveals more the dialogue between the couple as revealed in their actions. John turns his face to the way when Barbara tells of why she doesn’t love him. This action may be interpreted as being shame on John’s part for what he did while drinking at a tavern. The entire 6th stanza in fact reads like a domestic dispute reconciliation (or what may be a reconciliation). What is interesting to note is that John doesn’t ask for forgiveness from Barbara for what he may or may not have done while he may or may not have been drunk. Thus, in turn, Barbara doesn’t forgive him. Thus, the theme of forgiveness comes back into play; meaning, if either one had forgiven the other, perhaps their hearts would not have broken. However, both characters have too much pride to ask for forgiveness and thus they inevitably befall a tragic ending. It is interesting to not however that while John is dying his last request is for people to be kind to Barbara Allen, which signifies his fault as well as her stubbornness. (i. e. because she wouldn’t grant a dying man his last wish). The repetition in the 7th stanza of Barbara moving slowly leaving John was seen early in the ballad when she slowly came to see him. Thus, once she was slow to see him and now she is reluctant to leave him. It is in the 7th stanza that the reader begins to see the human side of Barbara Allen appear. It is with this movement and her statement in the 9th stanza of dying tomorrow, that the reader may begin to sympathize with the woman. Her cruelty can only be redeemed through her dying as well, and it is in her death that the reader realizes that she did love John, but could not forgive a man who did not ask for forgiveness. Works Cited Diary of Samuel Pepys. Barbara Allen. (2009). Online. 29 March 2009. < http://www. pepysdiary. com/p/9570. php> Oliver, Mary. Poetry Handbook. (1994). Harvest Books. New York. Wollstadt, Lynn. Controlling Women: â€Å"Reading Gender in the Ballads Scottish Women Sang† Western Folklore, vol. 61, no. ? (Autumn 2002). Pp. 295-317.

Impact of Strike in an Organization Essay

The impact of strike to an organization Article by Rajalakshmi Rahul on June 11, 2012 Discuss now (0) Go to comments An organizational strike not only destroys the power of labor at its source while still professing theoretical support for the right to strike, but also causes many other losses. Labor on the other hand in demanding freedom to use the organizational strike is seeking an instrument fundamental to its rising power. The right to strike restricted in any way is the right shorn of some of its power (International Confederation for Free Trade Unions, 1989). The economic losses of the employer cause by a strike are incapable of precise calculation. The loss of profits is only one item in the total losses that an employer may suffer. The employer’s business may be crippled because of the loss of the market connection beyond the period of strike; goodwill may be lost; and the idle machines may get spoilt. Additional expenditure may have to be incurred on protecting the plant and on strike breaking activities (Howell, 2005). Publicity and propaganda are yet other items adding to its costs. Besides the loss of mental peace, respect and status in the community cannot be calculated in terms of money. The adverse affects of a strike on the workers are the loss of wages, and fringe benefits contracting of debts, personal hardships and loss of employment. It is difficult to assess the wage and production losses on account of a strike. Any calculation of wage losses from pay roll gives only a partial picture. In addition the strike may leave the union weakened and divided to the satisfaction of the employer Thus, strikes involve both economic and non economic costs for the employer and if at the extreme of strike he has to concede the demands of the striker’s additional burdens are imposed. However certain other elements which mitigate the losses also form a part of the economic calculation of the cost of a strike. References †¢Howell C (2005), Trade Unions and the State, Princeton University Press, New Jersey. †¢International Confederation for Free Trade Unions (1989), Employment and structural change in Indian industries, Cengage Learning, USA.

Marketing Mix for U.S.A car market Chery Cars China Essay - 6

Marketing Mix for U.S.A car market Chery Cars China - Essay Example The Isdera Company should also go for standardization of its operations. It can be concluded that all the seven elements of the marketing mix are imperative to a successful international business. Founded in 1997, Chery Company is in the automotive industry in China, specializing in manufacture of minivans, and passenger cars (CheryInternational, 2014). Records indicate that this company is the largest exporter of passenger cars in China, a record that it has held since 2003 (AsiaTimes, 2014). The operations of this company are mainly based in China, but it has also extended its operations to other countries such as Argentina, Egypt, and Iran among others. The company’s most recent developments include the joint ventures with Qoror and Tata motors, a move which has led to the increased production of Chey Jaguar and Chery Land rover (CheryInternational, 2014). The USA car buyers and users are a unique lot. While buyers in other countries prefer big and huge vehicles, the USA consumers prefer the smaller sized vehicles (Luxury Daily, 2013). They also prefer vehicles with the latest technology. One rule under which the USA consumers operate is the â€Å"value for money†. They are not afraid to spend large sums of money so long as the product is worth it (Arguea, Hsiao and Taylor, 2006). They also consider their status when buying a car as they are a populace that values elegant appearances. Marketing mix refers to the strategies and activities that an organisation considers to ensure that the needs of its customers are adequately and sufficiently met (Bowman and Gatignon, 2010). There seven elements in this mix include product, place, price, promotions, physical environment, people and process. Each element is a great determinate of the success of a business, especially one that has grown global as Wendooth (2009) notes. In a bid to achieve homogenization, manufacturers have opted to embrace globalization and see the world as one

Annotated bibliography ( Professional research and evaluation ) Essay

Annotated bibliography ( Professional research and evaluation ) - Essay Example Hess, J., Rothgeb, J. and Zukerberg, A. (1997) Survey of program dynamics pretest evaluation report [Internet], Survey of Program Dynamics, US Census Bureau. Available from [Accessed 13 March 2012]. In order to check whether a survey questionnaire would be able to obtain necessary information as well as being easy for adolescents and pre-adolescents to answer them under a specific timeframe, pre-testing them in various sample populations were necessary, as explained by the authors. Pensoneau-Conway, S.L. and Toyosaki, S. (2011) Automethodology: tracing a home for praxis-oriented ethnography. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 10 (4), pp. 378-400. This article showed how not detaching oneself from a group being studied could give a whole new perspective to ethnographic studies, such as showing a sense of self, home, and culture and putting oneself in the other’s shoes, instead of just being an onlooker. Rodriguez, K.L., Schwartz, J.L., Lahman, M.K.E. and Geist, M.R. (2011) Culturally responsive focus groups: refraining the research experience to focus on participants. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 10 (4), pp. 400-418. The use of focus groups is very relevant, especially in qualitative research in social sciences. This article discusses how using culturally responsive researches can give respondents a chance to show their true selves, thus giving a better picture of the views and ideas of different groups, especially marginalized cultures. Sakshaug, J.W., Yan, T. and Tourangeau, R. (2010) Nonresponse error, measurement error, and mode of data collection: tradeoffs in a multi-mode survey of sensitive and non-sensitive items. Public Opinion Quarterly [Internet], 74 (5), pp. 907-933. Available from [Accessed 14 March 2012]. The authors were able to discuss the other side of surveys, which is the correction of errors obtained during sampling. The relationships between the administration style of the survey and the type of errors most likely to occur were also presented, as well as possible ways to reduce them. Schonlau, M., Fricker, R.D. and Elliott, M.N. (2002) Conducting research surveys via e-mail and the web, Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation Internet survey is considered one of the cheapest forms of surveying since there is less effort to implement it. However, certain considerations must be made in order for its success, such as appropriateness, sample size and sensitivity of the issue at hand. This book assesses the problems and the solutions for internet survey to work. Smart, C. (2011) Ways of knowing: crossing species boundaries. Methodological Innovations Online [Internet], 6(3), pp. 27-38. Available from [Accessed 13 March 2012]. In order to control a horse, not only does the handler recognise visual cues but also subconsciously read the horse’s movements, and react accordingly to it. Over time it becomes automatic for the handler, who reacts to the horse’

Pros and Cons of Legalizing Marijuana, Cocaine and Heroin Research Paper

Pros and Cons of Legalizing Marijuana, Cocaine and Heroin - Research Paper Example Currently the largest problem facing Florida is cocaine followed by marijuana. The use of heroin remains low except for Boca Raton and Miami-Dade. The greatest numbers of people turning to drug rehabilitation centers do so due to marijuana addiction. In 2007 alone more than 13,000 people entered treatment facilities in Florida to deal with marijuana addiction. Around 47% of these people were aged between 12 and 17 years of age. Similarly the number of cocaine addicts seeking help was some 10,000 in 2007. It has also been estimated that some 380,000 people in Florida are addicted to illicit drugs but did not seek any help (Narconon, 2011). When the Florida drug scene is considered, it is noticeable that the abuse of legal drugs is much higher in Florida than the abuse of illegal drugs. In 2006 alone some 1,400 people in Florida died from overdoses of benzodiazepines such as Xanax or from overdoses of a narcotic such as OxyContin. On the other hand some 633 people died in Florida in 2006 from cocaine overdose. Moreover most of the marijuana that is found in Florida is grown locally rather than imported. Between 2006 and 2008 the number of indoor marijuana plants eradicated shot up from 36,000 to 78,000. (Narconon, 2011) All in all the Florida legal and illegal drugs scenario presents a grim picture that needs further support from the government in order to deal with this menace at large. Drugs such as marijuana, cocaine and heroin have been legalized in certain parts of the world such as the Netherlands but the impact of these policies is often underplayed or overplayed in order to make an argument. In order to realize the true impacts of such policies, it is pertinent to consider the peculiar socio-economic circumstances that surround the legalization of drugs in these nations. Portugal decriminalized the possession of drugs for personal use in 2001. By law anyone caught with such drugs was subject to therapy and

The Genocide in Bosnia Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

The Genocide in Bosnia - Research Paper Example Sells (1998) suggests that it was the Serbian religious mythology, extreme nationalism, and racist theories, which contributed to the occurrence of the Bosnian genocide. The events which led to this genocide were put into motion with the death of the Yugoslav president Josip Tito in 1980 who had managed to hold the Yugoslav federation together throughout his rule. Now the Croat and Bosnian nationalists started to agitate for their independence and as a response, Serbian nationalism, which had been dormant for many decades, was suddenly given a new lease of life. The Serbians had been the dominant people within the Yugoslav federation and with its collapse they would have lost the power and influence which they had exercised over the other states within it. After Slobodan Milosevic became the Serb leader and by default the leader of the Yugoslav federation in 1987, he encouraged Serb nationalism not only in Serbia but also in the other states in which large Serb communities lived. Cro atia, Slovenia, and Macedonia declared independence from Yugoslavia in 1991 and these three new states were all recognized internationally. There followed a year’s fierce fighting between the mainly Serb Yugoslavian army and Croatia in Yugoslavia’s attempt to hang on to the Serb communities there and when this was not successful, the Serbs turned their attention to Bosnia. A sign of the increasing tensions in the area occurred in 1992 when the Serb army began shelling the National Library of Bosnia-Herzegovina in Sarajevo. Over a million books, more than a hundred thousand manuscripts and rare books, and centuries of historical records were destroyed and this can be considered to have been a systematic campaign of cultural eradication. A good case study of the Bosnian genocide would be the one that happened in Srebrenica. In July 1995, Serb troops and paramilitary units descended on the town of Srebrenica and began shelling it after dealing with the Muslim soldiers in the countryside, besieging the town’s thousands of Muslim civilians. The United Nations peacekeeping mission in the town which consisted of French and Dutch soldiers, could do little to help the civilian population and had to agree to a vague promise made by Mladic, the Serb commander, that everyone would be allowed to cross out of Serb territory but only after the screening of the men so that ‘war criminals’ could be detected. This promise proved to be false as witnessed when the men were separated from the women and children and the latter were forced into trucks and buses and deported. The men on the other hand were all killed and this process of large scale murder and deportation continued for the next four days. It is estimated that up to 7500 men and boys over thirteen years old were killed after being driven on trucks or marched to their places of death. It is said that up to 3000 were while in the act of escaping by being shot and decapitated in the field s. Thousands of bodies were buried in mass graves although most of these were later exhumed and re-buried in more secret places. According to Ching and Ching (2008) more, than 26000 Muslim civilians were killed during the Bosnian genocide and thousands more died from starvation and a lack of medical care. Furthermore, over 10000 Muslim civilia

Life after Hurricane Katrina Personal Statement

Life after Hurricane Katrina - Personal Statement Example I was forced to develop my critical thinking skills when I spent six months trying to find a job but got nowhere. I was at a crossroads where I needed to make a decision about whether my time was better spent continuing to look for work, which may or may not have been a fruitful search, or whether I should rededicate myself to pursuing academics in order to invest in my future and in my husband's future. The latter decision would be an enormous sacrifice. We really needed to make ends meet; and finding a way to boost my income rather than spending money on my education would have been the easy decision to make. Nevertheless, after seriously thinking through the options, I began to realize that making the choice to go to work now would have meant giving up on my future. I had to think critically about what I would be gaining and losing under both options. Working right away would have helped us to live more comfortably in the short term, but would have locked us into a situation where we would always be living on the edge of subsistence. Perhaps most importantly, I knew I would never really be happy. I had decided long ago that my happiness was directly linked to my work in the medical profession. I began to realize I would always harbor some resentment toward myself if I gave up on that dream in order to placate a temporary crisis in my life. Researching my options for breaking back into the medical profession led me to discover that this was the right course of action. It has been my lifelong vision to care for the health and the quality of life of other human beings. Ultimately, my ability to think critically led me to the conclusion that I needed to think with my heart and never give up on my hopes and dreams, regardless of whatever crises I might be confronted with in my life. Moreover, Katrina's impact on my life has led me to the conclusion that perseverance is the fundamental ingredient for achieving any kind of dreams that one may have. Perseverance entails not only a willingness, but an absolute resolve to stay the course in the pursuit of one's goals, despite even the most serious challenges that may arise. Without perseverance, it is easy to get side-tracked and lose focus on the ultimate objective. Perseverance enables a person to transform an apparent tragedy like Katrina into a real opportunity to further one's progress toward a goal. Without it, the ramifications of that hurricane would be affecting my life today to a much greater extent that it has been allowed to. Perseverance is the key tool for saying "no" to a tragedy: "you will NOT rob me of my goals and dreams!" Perseverance has also come into play in my life when other, less serious, challenges have arisen. It has enabled me to be true to my values at many points in my life. My values, including my prioritization of family, work and other responsibilities, my guidelines for my treatment of others, my principles for handling ethical dilemmas, and my overall life philosophy, have all been heavily influenced by various people, institutions and events in my life. Perseverance has enabled me to stay grounded in my values regardless of what life has thrown at me. There have been many experiences in my life that

Rhetorical Analysis Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words - 9

Rhetorical Analysis - Essay Example It also informs the audience of the challenges faced by various individuals who went through the school. These people are mostly blacks who sacrificed themselves to the betterment of the society. Obama as the president of the United States made the speech. In the two speeches, Obama claims that Americas are the authors of their own destiny. He also amplifies the notion that no difference that exists between blacks and whites. Moreover, he concurs that no one should be given preferential treatment based on color, but he or she must work hard to have such privileges. Obama use of ethos is highlighted in the two speeches and amplifies challenges and problems faced by American people. The perfect union speech was made when Obama campaign was in jeopardy. This was due to racial profiling that was taking place in opposing camps and some sections of the media. Moreover, his relationship with Reverend Jeremiah Wright and being part of his election campaign. He had been making speech consider ed offensive to some of the racial groups. These were mostly done during the Sunday sermons. For example, he talks of mistreatment of blacks by the whites (Carney and Sullivan 1). However, Obama disengages from the pastor by showing the history of racial differences in United States. He believes that the sentiments of the Reverend are because of what he went through during his upbringing in the fifties. He informs the audience that resentment is a characteristic of both whites and the blacks that may be caused by either missing opportunities in their lifetime. Obama connection with Reverend Jeremiah Wright was a point of concern to the audience. This is because he could be perceived as offering support to the blacks at the expense of the whites. This meant that most of the whites could note vote for him during the democrat primaries and election that were few days ahead. Moreover, other could have labeled him as a racist and thus not suitable for the unification of the American peop le. However, the speech broadcast to all Americans helped change most of the perceptions. This reached most of the people who had eligibility to vote. They identified themselves with the challenges Obama was going through. Consequently, they viewed Obama leadership as likely to be inclusive and not condoning racial profiling. Moreover, Obama strong appeals to ethos are seen as he distances himself from Wright. This occurs as he identifies himself as a person involved in the racial history of America. He considers himself a person of a mixed race background. In fact, he concurs to have been raised by white grandmother. He believes that his life has been surrounded by racial inequality. On the other hand, he is an astute politician with a form of education not achieved by many in the society. He manages to show that person’s upbringing does not shape his or her destiny. This gives him authority to make claims. He also handles the issue of Reverend Wright without appearing to da mage his character. He pleads with black Americans to â€Å"embrace the burden of our past without becoming victims of our past† (Jones 1). Obama understands these burdens as he is labeled as a racist during primaries. Moreover, he once heard the white grandmother-talking saying that she was cautious of the Black Americans in their neighborhood. Moreover, he puts Wrights views on the mistreatment of the blacks into historical context. He did this with

Explain how and why industrialization changed Northern society Research Paper

Explain how and why industrialization changed Northern society - Research Paper Example The period saw the massive replacement of the labor force by machines and production capacities of the industries involved increased phenomenally. Logistic challenges experienced before the industrial revolution in the area were quickly solved by the development of a system of railway lines1. It had a major impact on human lives of the Northern Society. People migrated in large numbers to urban areas, which led to mushrooming of cities in industrialized areas. Income disparity between the rich and poor stirred up expansive discontent. This paper discusses how industrialization changed the Northern society in early U.S.A. Largely, the Northern Society changed socially in a diverse manner. Industrialization saw the formation of new classes, which included the new rich and the working middle class. The wealthy mainly comprised of factory owners whereas the middle class were usually workers who had moved from the rural areas into the cities in pursuit of a better life. The middle class w ere those who offered labor to factories and were often better off, financially than the people back in the rural areas were. Most of them were residents to congested houses, which created a perfect breeding ground for maladies. The areas they lived in were famed for unsanitary conditions of living and below par hygiene standards. They were paid unfairly for their labor services and treated badly. Women probably benefited the most due to their improvement in their roles2. Besides being able to work in factories, they were granted many rights they previously did not have. From an economic standpoint, people from the Northern Societ

Questions to answer on Management Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3250 words

Questions to answer on Management - Essay Example The patent right enables an individual to own the idea or invention for substantial period of time so that it can be developed sufficiently into a real invention or business. Patent rights provide protection for the idea or invention from being copied or reproduced by others. Firstly, the idea or invention has to be explained in brief through an application made to the Government Patent Office by an agent or lawyer. This will be reviewed and approved if original and new. Once the first application is approved, a date will be given to the application during which he/she can work on the idea; this date is referred to as the ‘priority date.’ Once approved, a plan for its development must be prepared and produced to the patent office for further approval within 12 months. During this period, the inventor can advertise or publish the idea. After one year, the inventor needs to produce a detailed plan for its development, which is referred to as the ‘Final Specification. ’ If this idea is completely new and does not match with any of the other patents, then it is approved. If it finds any similarities with others, it is rejected. Rejection is accompanied with sufficient explanation. The applicant can also modify it in case it resembles any other idea. If the inventor fails to abide by the confidentiality of the idea or leaks the idea in some way, the patent will be subject to cancellation. Hence, confidentiality is very important during the period when first application is sent for approval. Secondly, if the idea or invention resembles or already exists in the market, then patent rights may be rejected. Patents applied in the United Kingdom are valid only within that country. To obtain patent protection in different countries, separate patents must be filed according to the respective country’s regulations. Obtaining international patents are very expensive. However, the International Convention on Patents provides a common priority da te for all patents during which ideation and development in different countries can be prepared. One common committee governing European patents is the European Patent Office (EPO), which provides patent protection in all European countries at the same time. Hence, patents issued by the EPO are enforceable by individual nations within the European Union and few other countries that come in the purview of EPO. Moreover, the patents issued by the EPO are governed by laws related to various international committees. Patents are divided mainly into 3 categories namely utility patents, design patents, and plant patents depending upon the idea or invention. In the engineering sector, utility and design patents are more common ones. National patents issued within European countries are governed by national legislation and could include aspects related to filing the patents, examination, scope of grants, invalidation, breach and revocation. Patents obtained on methods or ideas related to pr ocedures and certain products are not same in all countries. For instance, patents approved in the United States for certain products or procedures may not be approved in the United Kingdom and other countries. Under an employment agreement, ideally all inventions that are made during the employment and related to the job during working hours and with the use of official resources are owned by the employer. Therefore, if an employee invents something related to his/her job, then the rights to that invention are with the

Rooms Division Operation Plan Essay Example for Free

Rooms Division Operation Plan Essay The rooms division comprises the front office, reservations, bell service, concierge, housekeeping, laundry including health and recreation. (NZQA 2005) Since the resort operates as a full-fledged 4-star category, the reservations, bell service and concierge are made separate sections from the front office and the laundry is made separate from the housekeeping. As a resort, the rooms division extends its scope to the facilities of surfing, spa, swimming pool, maintenance and gardens which are specialized functions are under the Health and Recreation department. The next 12-month operation strategies for the Rooms Division will aim to overcome the weaknesses as determined in the SWOT analysis which are lack of conference facilities and meeting rooms, high employee turn-over, shortfalls in planned maintenance activities and will focus on full blast redesigning and refurbishment, upgrading the service quality, augmenting market research, enhancing service capacity and upgrading management competencies. Refurbishment Any service company, particularly hotels and resorts will always have to consider sufficiency of infrastructure and facilities. The quality of service will always rely on these factors. (Gray 1992) Refurbishment will be necessary to achieve the resort’s major strategies especially in the expansion of conference rooms and meeting rooms. The refurbishment program for the rooms division includes expansion of the ballroom which now becomes a grand ballroom that is breakable into 4 mini ballrooms to accommodate 100 to 150 persons per ballroom, additional 8 function rooms that can accommodate 50 persons and 10 meeting rooms with a capacity of 20 persons. This will encourage local markets to book more parties, meetings and conferences and the resort will be able to accommodate to as much as 600 persons in one sitting at the same time be flexible enough to accommodate small groups. Because of this major move of the resort, some guestrooms will have to be refurbished which are those to be included in the packaging of the conferences and meetings. The 214 guestroom are in resort motifs and there will have to be at least 40 guestrooms that will be redesigned to match the conference package of the resort. It is expected that the conference and meetings engagement will generate the intended occupancy rate increase of 15% in the next year and the targeted increase in sales from the New Zealand and Asian markets. Aside from these more amenities will be supplied to the guestrooms as add-ons to increase occupancy rates particularly during off peak seasons along with refurbishments undergone in for the conference halls and meeting rooms. There will be two (2) business centers to be set up beside the ballroom areas to facilitate easy access to communication and printing requirements of the guests that are booked for the conferences and meetings. These business centers will be equipped with the latest IT facilities and state of the art communication systems that will answer to all types of needs of customers at all levels. These facilities are also expected to contribute to the income generated by the resort. Service Quality Since the resort saturate efforts to increase occupancy rates through massive promotional campaigns to be led by the resort Marketing Department. The rooms division will have its share of strategies and complementary efforts to upgrade the quality of service provided by the rooms division, particularly in the front desk, concierge, bell service and health and recreation departments which are the front liners of the resort. All staff at the front line would be required to learn Japanese Nippongo, Chinese Mandarin and Italian which are the most common language barriers as determined in the previous years. Aside from those, the staff had to improve their English communication skills. All staff of the division will have to undergo re-training and series of seminars on improving service quality. Butlers will be hired to provide special service to the guests at the VVIP suites. Flowers, chocolates, fruit baskets, beach bags, bathing suits and rubber sandals will be provided for the guests as promotional amenities. The image of the resort will depend on the excellent quality of service that the rooms division staff will provide the guests, as they enter the resort and reach the comforts of their rooms. (Branson 1998) Correspondingly, as a move to control the movement of customers, particularly those who will attend meetings, functions and parties, a separate route will be allocated for them, to protect the in-house guests from losing their privacy particularly those staying at the pool area. It is important to consider always, the privacy and comfort of the guests in the resort. This is what customers look for in hotels and resorts and that they are willing to pay much for that. (Gray 1992) Entrance to the pool area will therefore be limited to in-house guests although other restaurant and party patrons may be allowed discretely. Market Research  While there is a Marketing Department that specially focuses on finding the clients and developing strategies to attract guests and bookings (Gray 1992), the Rooms Division provides its counterpart move to market research. The early operations stage of the hotel will need the support of all the staff especially the expertise of the key people, like the Front Office Manager, the Executive Housekeeper and the different managers of the other departments in the rooms division to help determine the hotel’s target customers, their profile and their needs as well as determine how the rooms division services can satisfy them. The division will hold a strategic planning session to give inputs to market research. Here, the staff will give their expert ideas as to who the targeted clients are, where to find them, how the hotel can get them to book and most especially, how the hotel can satisfy them when they finally try the hotel services. The integrated inputs will be submitted to the Marketing Department for integration to the marketing plan. (Lane 1998) Production Development A major weakness identified in the plan is the deficiencies in providing maintenance services especially in the guestrooms. Guest complaints received in the previous year mostly were pointing to unserviceable facilities like the hot and cold water, busted bulbs, defective appliances, and even clogged bathtubs. In any service company, maintenance is as important as the other services provided. (Branson 1998) The division’s response to solve the problem would be to develop a maintenance preventive system that will require regular monitoring of facilities and assure that all is working well. Additional employees will be hired in the housekeeping department, those who already possess technical skills in maintenance and engineering so that housekeeping department can immediately solve minor technical problems without waiting for the engineering team to respond. Management Competencies The resort has been affected by fast employee turn-over and this will be answered by package incentives programmed by the Human Resource Department. Aside from the capability building programs being conducted for the staff skills upgrading including teambuilding and values development, the rooms division will institutionalize a regular learning session among management, which includes supervisors, assistant managers, managers and the division manager to improve the management competencies and benchmark on best practices. Food and Beverage Operation Plan The Food and Beverage Division comprises the FB Service and FB Production departments. FB Service will cover all restaurants, bars and the banquet; FB Production will cover the cold and hot kitchens, pastry and stewarding. Each of these departments is most critical and will contribute significantly to the total make-over of the resort. . The next 12-month operation strategies will aim to overcome the weaknesses as determined in the SWOT analysis which are lack of conference facilities and meeting rooms, high employee turn-over and the resignation of the Head Chef, shortfalls in planned maintenance activities and will focus on full blast refurbishment, upgrading the service quality, augmenting market research, enhancing service capacity and upgrading management competencies. Refurbishment In determining the courses of action to take, it is the SWOT that provides information on the focal concerns. (Branson 2002) Major problems identified in the SWOT were the lack of conference and meeting function areas. Management has decided to answer these needs and provide additional function areas. The focus of the Food and Beverage division on the refurbishment will be on the additional kitchen and storage facilities including kitchen fixtures, tools and equipment that will be put up specifically for the banquet areas. This will cater to the clients of the ballroom, conferences and meetings. The setting up of the banquet kitchen and storage beside the ballroom area will facilitate smooth and speedy transport of food for the specific banquet clients. The kitchen and storage must be able to provide food for at most 1,200 persons, which is the maximum capacity of the ballroom, conference rooms and meeting rooms all together. The expansion of the banquet will encourage local markets to book more parties, meetings and conferences and the resort will be able to accommodate big groups at the same time be flexible enough to accommodate small groups. Likewise for the food and beverage service, additional facilities, glassware, chinaware and silverware and other service tools and equipment will have to be procured for this purpose. Market Research The contribution of the food and beverage division to the over-all marketing strategy is the detailed identification of the targeted clients and how the resort will be able to satisfy them. (Cousins 2002) The general strategy of the resort for the next year is to improve food and beverage revenues through expansion of banquet services. The division will organize a special team of chefs and other banquet experts to study the preferred tastes of the target clients for the banquet and develop special menus that will appeal to prospective engagers. Series of food tasting sessions will be done and this will be coordinated with the resort PR department to invite media personalities and other influential people to promote the food and the service styles that are in store for the new resort image. Surveys may also be conducted to prospective companies and target groups to get their preferences in terms of service, food and the price. The team of FB leaders will have to find ways of developing menus that have lower cost so corresponding, lower prices will be offered to customers. This strategy intends to attract a wider margin of the market including those who would prefer practically priced menus and food and beverage package. Service Quality One of the possible causes of the fast turn-over of employees is the inability to cope with the demands of their jobs. Hotel work is not easy especially for those hired without skills. Employee involvement is very important in every move that the food and beverage division will undertake. (Gray 1992) The division will augment the activities conducted by the Human Resource department through coaching, mentoring and job rotation. This move will prepare next-in-line subordinates as alternates. The division will establish safety nets to protect the operation from being affected by employee absences or resignations. FB Managers and Chefs will work closely with the Human Resource Department to get the best and skilled people. Kitchen staff, particularly Chefs and other key positions like the Maitre-d’Hotel, Ice/Butter Carvers (Cousins 2002), will require special qualifications and ample experience. All staff will be trained on the company standard of values and service including the health aspect of food handling, aside from the specific skills training they will undergo. Simulation exercises and food and beverage tasting will have to be conducted to perfect the quality of food and beverages that will be served to guests. Special effort will have to be made to source for the Head Chef who will have to be provided special package incentives. Precautionary efforts will have to be made to retain hard to find skilled employees, which will be of utmost concern, not only by the Human Resource Department but also the FB Manager who oversees the work of the Head Chef and down the line chefs. Special commitment will have to be made by the Head Chef to be hired, whose role is very crucial to the success of the resort business. Production Development The expansion of the division particularly in the additional function areas will need complementing augmentation in terms of resort warm bodies and systems to equally make the service satisfying to the customers. The division will be expecting customers who are not â€Å"in house guests† for the parties, conferences and other meeting, therefore extra caution will have to be made by the staff, especially in billing guests to avoid losses for the restaurants. Procurement of supplies is critical in the production aspect. (Gray 1992) The key officers from the FB will have to be involved in the procurement as well as the design of the different kitchens and outlets. Their expertise will be needed for the sourcing and selection. All items to be procured will have to suit the standards set by the resort and the varying motifs of the FB outlets particularly the banquet functions. The resort will have will have to scan resources within reach and establish suppliers of hard to find facilities, supplies and ingredients. New technology on order taking and billing will be installed in all the food and beverage outlets. This is an on-line system that will centralize the billing and order taking to the computer which directly will generate summaries in the cashier. This computerization intends to systematize the process and prevent errors in the manual communication of orders and computation of bills. It is noted that this problem has caused stress to many staff in the restaurants, specifically for the waiters and order takers who made significant errors in orders and billings. The computerization intends to minimize these problems. Enhanced Management Competencies The rate of turn-over is highest among the chefs for the past years. Chefs have varying expertise that is crucial to the resort and hard to find. The resort will have to create special package of incentives for the chefs to assure that they are satisfied with the jobs. Chefs as well as the other supervisors and managers of the food and beverage division are relied on in terms of their expertise as well as their management capabilities. Many of the supervisors and managers have technical skills but lack the necessary management competencies. (Cousins et. al. 2002) Stephen Covey emphasized in his â€Å"Seven Habits of Highly Effective People† his seventh habit, which is most important is the â€Å"sharpening of the saw†, which means, every person no matter how effective and efficient will need to improve himself continuously to stay relevant. The food and beverage division will coordinate with the Human Resource department to prepare and package capability programs for the division management staff particularly on people handling, time management and stress management. They will also have series of IT enhancement particularly in Microsoft Office programs so that they will be able to cope up with the computer-based reporting systems being installed in the resort. These moves hope to improve the relations within the division and improve employee relations.

The Blue Ocean Strategy

The Blue Ocean Strategy Indian bus service industry was extremely unorganized till recently before redBus emerged and took the industry by its neck and brought a sort of revolution never imagined for such an unorganized industry. This was primarily because the information flow and availability in this industry was very difficult and there was a lot of mismatch. The bus ticket industry was highly fragmented with small players active regionally. All these were small small agents competing against each other. Due to lack of any major player there was not much competition for redBus and hence it was able to create a marketspace for itself through entering the bus ticket industry online. By the time redBus entered the horizon there were settled names both in airline and railway ticket booking industry who were operating online. But even for them it was a huge task to enter bus ticketing industry due to the sheer complexity present in the industry and emulating the online model for bus ticketing industry was perc eived to be almost impossible even by these major players in e-commerce. This study deals with how a disruptive model can change the scenario of the complete industry. redBus which at the time of its inception was confined in a small flat of 2 rooms is now a 400 million company with over 400 employees and offices across India. Currently it is the only major player concentrating completely on bus ticketing industry with a market share of over 70%. In this research, I have tried to analyze the bus ticketing industry and how redBus identified the opportunities present in this segment and created a value chain which not only gave them a distinct product but also at competitive cost. It is a perfect example of Blue Ocean strategy where entry of redBus changed the entire landscape of the industry. It revolutionized the way the people buy bus tickets in India. One of the unique bus ticketing system of its kind in the entire world, competitors have leaped in this market but none has receive d success like redBus. This study further covers how redBus has sustained its competitive advantages and what are the challenges and growth opportunities going forward. CHAPTER-1 INTRODUCTION: Blue Ocean Strategy As the authors of the book Blue Ocean Strategy, W. Kim Chan and Renee Mauborgne say: Although the term blue ocean is new, their existence is not. They have been a part of business transformation in past as well as in present. If we look back in the past say a century ago, How many of todays industries were then known? The answer will be majority of todays industries were unknown in their current form. Many industries such as automobiles, aviation, health care, and management consulting were unknown or were just beginning to emerge. Now lets look at the industries 3 decades back. Again, multibillion-dollar industries like mutual funds, computers, mobile phones, smart phones, gas based power plants, discount retail, biotechnology, nanotechnology, express parcel delivery, coffee bars, video games, home videos, and CD player and many other such industries were all non-existent in a practical or popular way. Similarly, lets turn the clock forward a bit and try to look into the future. Lets say after 30 years or say 50 years how many of the now unknown industries will emerge and will exist. If history is any indicator of things to come in future, the answer is there will be many such industries that we cant even think of right now which will emerge. This is the reality; industries are dynamic. They never remain the same over a long period of time. They change continuously and evolve. The participants, the process, the market and the operations everything changes. Operations improve, markets evolve and grow, and non-customers become customers. History tells us that we have huge potential to change the existing industries and recreate them and not only that it teaches us that we underestimate our capability to create new ones. To have an idea of how dynamic things can get, the 50-year old Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) system, which was published by the U.S. Census, was substituted by the North America Industry Classification Standard (NAICS) system in 1997. The reason being the number of industry sectors that SIC covered were half the number of sectors that actually existed in 1997. The old SIC system covered only 10 industry sectors. The new NAICS system doubled it to twenty sectors to reflect the emergence of new-age industries. For example earlier the service sector included all that is now fragmented into different specialized industries like IT, healthcare, social assistance, etc. Given that these systems are made to ensure stability, continuity and for keeping standards, such a substitution shows the significance of growth of Blue Ocean industries. Yet the dominant emphasis of strategists has been on competitive strategies also known as red ocean strategies. Part of the explanation for this is that its roots in military strategy heavily influence corporate strategy. Strategy is about fighting different competitors over the same area of land that is constant and not unlimited. Unlike battles though, the history of industry tells us that the universe of market is unlimited and there is a place for everyone; rather, blue oceans have been always in existence. They have continuously been created. To believe and restrict oneself to red ocean is therefore to accept the constraints that are associated with war-limited piece of land and the need to fight and defeat an opponent to succeed-and to reject the unique strength of the business world: the capacity to create new market universe that is uncontested. Blue Ocean v/s Competitive Strategy (Red Ocean) Blue Ocean emphasises the importance of value innovation that can completely negate the competition replacing competitive advantage with value innovation as the firms primary goal thus highlighting the importance of creating demand and exploiting untapped maket rather than risking competition. There is a debate in the academia and research groups as to which strategy is better suited but all evidences are as case studies on different companies which is not enough to define any one of the two strategies as a clear winner. Rather the two strategies co-exist and should co-exist because a firm on the foundation of Blue Ocean strategy may ultimately have to face competition depending on the imitability of the business model and then before they have more value innovation to differentiate themselves and still remain cost competitive, they must also have a competitive strategy to ensure they do not fall behind of competition. Research results of researchers like Andrew Burke Andres van Stel and Roy Thurik suggest that the notion that blue ocean makes competition irrelevant may not be true. When combined, the two provide a more holistic and realistic depiction of economic performance. Thus, in real life the any strategy must be adopted after evaluating the business and market circumstances appropriately as these define the degree of scope for effectiveness of either Blue Ocean or competitive strategy. Furthermore, what emphasis and mix should be given to either form of strategy across short and long-term time horizons is apparent in most innovative companies competing in short term red oceans while significant time and resources are devoted to the long-term goal of developing innovation that creates consumer demand and new markets. Figure 1: Red Ocean v/s Blue Ocean Strategy Source: www.blueoceanstrategy.corporatestrategy.com Blue Ocean and White Space The term white space has been used in business parlance to mean uncharted territory or an underserved market. But as Mark W. Johnson perfectly writes in Seizing the White Space the term is the range of potential activities not defined or addressed by the companys current business model, that is, the opportunities outside its core and beyond its adjacencies that require a different business model to exploit. White space is a subjective valuation: one companys white space may be another companys core. What matters is that it describes activities that lie far outside a firms usual way of working and presents a series of unique and perplexing challenges to that organization. Its an area where, relatively speaking, assumptions are high and knowledge is low, the opposite of conditions in the companys core space. The chance to seize a piece of white space presents a tantalizing opportunity. Success here can bring the transformational growth that so many business leaders seek. Yet understandably, a play for the white space feels risky, and often the numbers dont appear to add up. The market seems too foreign, or core capabilities wont apply. Some executives, having made one unsuccessful foray, just wont risk failing again. Figure 2: White Space Source: Seizing the White Space, Mark W. Johnson Blue Ocean Strategy and Applied Concepts The Strategy Canvas The strategy canvas is the central diagnostic and action framework for building a compelling blue ocean strategy. The horizontal axis captures the range of factors that the industry competes on and invests in, while the vertical axis captures the offering level that buyers receive across these entire key competing factors. There are two purposes that are served here: It captures the current state of play in known market space, which allows users to clearly see the factors that the industry competes on and where the competition currently invests. Then, it propels users to action by reorienting focus from competitors to alternatives and from customers to non-customers of the industry. The value curve is the basic component of the strategy canvas. It is a graphic depiction of a companys relative performance across its industrys factors of competition. A strong value curve has focus, divergence as well as a compelling tagline. Figure 3: The Strategy Canvas Four Action Framework This framework can also be referred to as the Eliminate-Reduce-Raise-Create Grid. To reconstruct buyer value elements in crafting a new value curve, we use the Four Actions Framework. As shown in the diagram, to break the trade-off between differentiation and low cost and to create a new value curve, the framework poses four key questions to challenge an industrys strategic logic and business model. Which of the factors that the industry takes for granted should be eliminated? Which factors should be reduced well below the industrys standard? Which factors should be raised well above the industrys standard? Which factors should be created that the industry has never offered? Figure 4: Four Actions Framework By pursuing the first two questions managers gain insight into how to drop their cost structure vis-à  -vis competitors. Rarely do they systematically set out to eliminate and reduce their investments in factors that an industry competes on. The result is mounting cost structures and complex business models. The other questions provide insights into how to lift buyer value and create new demand. Collectively, they allow exploring how to reconstruct buyer value elements across alternative industries to offer buyers an entirely new experience, while simultaneously keeping your cost structure low. Eliminating and creating are vital as they push companies to go beyond value maximization exercises with existing factors of competition. They prompt companies to change the factors themselves, hence making the existing rules of competition irrelevant. Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) The PDCA Cycle is a checklist of the four stages, which one must go through to get from `problem-faced to `problem solved. This concept was developed by Walter Shewhart, the pioneering statistician who developed statistical process control in the Bell Laboratories in the US during the 1930s. It was taken up and promoted very effectively from the 1950s on by the famous Quality Management authority, W. Edwards Deming. Consequently, PDCA cycle is also commonly known as `the Shewhart Cycle and the Deming wheel. This cycle diagram can be applied in team meetings to take stock of what stage improvement initiatives are at, and to choose the appropriate tools to see each stage through to successful completion. Here is what we do in each stage: Plan to improve operations first by finding out what things are going wrong (that is identify the problems faced), and come up with ideas for solving these problems. Do changes designed to solve the problems on a small scale first. This minimizes disruption to routine activity while testing whether the changes will work or not. Check whether the small scale changes are achieving the desired result or not. Also, continuously Check nominated key activities (regardless of any experimentation going on) to know what the quality of the output is at all times to identify any new problems. Act to implement changes on a larger scale if its successful on small scale. Also Act to involve other persons (other departments, suppliers, or customers) affected by the changes and whose cooperation is needed to implement them on a larger scale. If the experiment was not successful, skip the Act stage and go back to the Plan stage to come up with some new ideas for solving the problem and go through the cycle again. Plan-Do-Check-Act describes the overall stages of improvement activity, but how is each stage carried out? This is where other specific quality management, or continuous improvement, tools and techniques come into play. The diagram below lists the tools and techniques that can be used to complete each stage of the PDCA Cycle. Figure 5: PDCA Cycle VRIO Framework VRIO is an acronym for Value, Rarity, Imitability and Organization. This is also a 4 questions framework where one asks about a resource or capability to ascertain its competitive potential: the question of Value, the question of Rarity, the question of Imitability (Ease/Difficulty to Imitate), and the question of Organization (ability to exploit the resource or capability). The Question of Value: Is the firm able to exploit an opportunity or neutralize an external threat with the resource/capability? The Question of Rarity: Is control of the resource/capability in the hands of a relative few? The Question of Imitability: Is it difficult to imitate, and will there be significant cost disadvantage to a firm trying to obtain, develop, or duplicate the resource/capability? The Question of Organization: Is the firm organized, ready, and able to exploit the resource/capability? The VRIO framework, in a wider scope, is part of a much larger strategic scheme of a firm. The basic strategic process that any firm goes through begins with a vision statement, and continues on through objectives, internal external analysis, strategic choices (both business-level and corporate-level), and strategic implementation. The firm will hope that this process results in a competitive advantage in the marketplace they operate in. VRIO falls into the internal analysis step of these procedures, but is used as a framework in evaluating just about all resources and capabilities of a firm, regardless of what phase of the strategic model it falls under. CHAPTER-2 LITERATURE REVIEW Paper 1: Blue Ocean Strategy versus Competitive Strategy: Theory and Evidence. Burke, Andrew, Andrà © van Stel, and Roy Thurik. ERIM Report Series Research in Management (May 2009) Theme: Empirical analysis of blue ocean strategy versus competitive strategies based on data assembled from 655 retail shops through 41 shop types in the retail industry in Holland. Summary: This paper addresses the debate surrounding Red Ocean (competitive strategy) v/s Blue Ocean (New Market) strategy. The authors note that Blue Ocean seeks to emphasise the importance of value innovation that can completely negate the competition replacing competitive advantage with value innovation as the firms primary goal thus highlighting the importance of creating demand and exploiting untapped maket rather than risking competition. This results in increased profitability in the industry. There is a debate in the academia and research groups as to which strategy is better suited but all evidences are as case studies on different companies which is not enough to define any one of the two strategies as a clear winner. Rather the two strategies co-exist and should co-exist because a firm on the foundation of Blue Ocean strategy may ultimately have to face competition depending on the imitability of the business model and then before they have more value innovation to differentiate themselves and still remain cost competitive, they must also have a competitive strategy to ensure they do not fall behind of competition. Research results in this paper suggest that the notion that blue ocean makes competition irrelevant may not be true. To test the superiority of either tools the authors looks at the two strategies from both long term and short term perspectives and outline a theoretical model which suggests that every market will experience new vendors arriving to share the profits that are there on the offering in the industry. Thus the composition of the pie chart of market share will continuously exhibit different set of players with some fading off while others entering the market but only until the saturation point is reached where everyone will break even. Looking at the industry an its players over a period of time in this manner will give us an understanding about whether the new market strategy or the competitive strategy is more viable for the industry. If companies succeed over a long period of time by creating value innovation (new market strategy) as the new companies entered, both the i ndustry profits as well as the firms profit will grow steadily and so will the number of vendors in the strategy. On the other hand, if the profitability of the blue ocean firm went down with increasing number of vendors in the industry, it would be an indication of the dominance of the firms that followed competitive strategy over the firms that followed new market (blue ocean) strategy. After studying the complete data from 1982-2000 of 655 retail shops over 41 shop types in the Dutch retail industry and after testing and analyzing the premise the authors concluded for half the shop types, the firm profits were directly proportional to the number of firms while the blue ocean strategy was dominant over a long term with number of vendors and firm profitability rising/falling together over all shop types in the whole period under consideration. The authors also concluded that in short term Red Ocean strategies were at work. The study highlights that the two strategies co-exist and cross each other throughout the industry life and there is no particular choice that any manager prefers. Paper 2: Synthesizing a Blue Ocean. Master Thesis. Vester, Daniel. Aalto University, 2012. Theme: Applicability of New Market strategy frameworks and techniques in the electronic musical instruments industry for innovating new products. Summary: In this paper, the author targets to show how value innovation could be used in case of an electronic musical instrument company to add value to their product and create new market space. To explain this, he choses to compare the traditional strategies like competitive strategy, Porters 5 forces strategy to the blue ocean strategy. Blue ocean strategy is eventually selected for the process of product development of ArturiaMiniBrute, an analogue synthesizer reason being 1) Its attention on constructing new uncontested market space and at the same time targeting lower cost and product differentiation as well; and 2) The ease with which the analytical tools and frameworks in a Blue Ocean strategy could be blended into the product development process and usability of the instrument thus developed. Blue ocean strategy tools such as the Strategy Canvas, Four Action Framework, Buyer Utility Map and Three Tiers of Noncustomers are applied after quantitative analysis of sales figures in the electronic musical instrument industry for identifying Arturias closest competitors in various synthesizer markets and to design the strategy for ArturiaMiniBrute. The authors observations and interpretations show that the Blue Ocean Strategy techniques and frameworks can aid electronic musical instrument firms add value to their instruments/products/offerings and create new market space. Subsequently, the author advocates that companies should shift focus from technical features of the musical instrument to the emotional appeal of the musical instrument, and urges that companies should get out of the traditional mindset, challenge established rules of the industry by eliminating factors that have been ignored and not given due importance but which may be of great value to the customer. Paper 3: The Impact of Blue Ocean Strategy in Low-cost Transport. Ã…Â  tverkovà ¡, Hana, Michal ÄŒervinka, and Vlasta Humlovà ¡. In 2012 International Conference on Traffic and Transportation Engineering. Belgrade, November 29-30, 2012. Theme: Applicability of blue ocean strategy theory to Ryanair (air transport industry) Summary: This paper illustrates how blue ocean strategy can be vital and have an important influence in the low cost aviation sector. The authors chose to analyze the low-cost air transport industry in the European Union. They report that the market is highly competitive and the regional players fight amongst themselves on the base of cost competitiveness. The authors show that a cordial relationship between regional airports and any carrier firm can enable budget airlines to provide distinguished value for airline passengers at a low cost to the companies. The authors also suggests using the case of Ryanair that infrastructure improvement for non-core activities at the smaller airports might be essential to facilitate such relationships between budget airlines and small regional airports. CHAPTER-3 EXAMPLES OF BLUE OCEAN STRATEGY Air Asia One of the major developments that the airline has experienced has been the evolution of the budget airlines. For instance, emergence of Air Asia in Malaysia is a classic example. Air Asia have avoided the competitive strategy or the red Ocean (competition against Malaysia Airline and other airlines like Tiger Air, Jet Air and other regional airlines) by considering factors that are important to customers but easily taken for granted by most of the other airlines. With the Four Actions Framework proposed by W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne, Air Asia have ensured they make Malaysia Airline, Tiger Air, Jet air and regional players irrelevant by implementing many important strategic moves explained below. STRATEGY Eliminate: 1) OTC booking 2) Seating Class booking arrangement 3) Free breakfast/lunch/dinner on the plane Reduce: 1) Number of attendants serving on the plane 2) Luxury facilities delivered 3) Quality of the seats Raise: 1) Increased flight hours for their aircrafts: frequency of flight 2) Selected key endpoints/destinations catered frequently Create: 1) Booking system became online 2) Travel system: point-to-point Through these strategic moves, Air Asia has been able to concentrate on factors that really matter for the customers like better booking channel, point-to-point travel system, etc. that makes customers lives simpler and adds value to them. This is a perfect example of Value Innovation, as not only does this help Air Asia increase the value to the customers but at the same time reduces cost for Air Asia significantly Value Innovation. This also allows Air Asia towards customers who were not traditionally target thus creating a new market space and targeting non-customers in the traditional airline industry. Current Airline Customers: 1) Corporates and business fraternity in Malaysia or ASEAN region. 2) Those individuals who can afford to buy expensive airline tickets from airlines like Malaysia Airline and other regional players. Non-Customers: 1) Officers from the government and other government staff 2) Those individuals who cannot afford to buy expensive tickets such as students or recent graduates or lower middle class and rural people. With effective execution of Blue Ocean strategy, Air Asia has furthered expanded their gamut and has ventured into other businesses like they started Tune Hotel and Tune Money. The model is again towards creating Blue Ocean market space. Crocs Inc. Company Snapshot Crocs Inc. is one of the major players in shoe industry who have been very successful. It designs, fabricates and markets bright-colored, comfy-branded footwear and accessories for all segments men, women and children. Blue Ocean Strategic Move Crocs Inc. with its distinctive lightweight clogs created a blue ocean market space in the shoe industry. These types of shoes gave customers a perfect combination of comfort and fashion at an affordable price point. Crocs shoes have mass appeal because not only are they branded but also in a way they are refreshing, they are different from traditional sandals and casual shoes and add a fun element as well as they come in a wide array of bright colors which provide a funky look. Combined with their new crocodile logo on their shoes it also gives them a bold look. Crocs have been a run-away success also because they provide customer what they never even thought of, they satisfy their customers by adding value to their customers usage by giving features like lightweight, waterproof, ergonomic comfort and anti-microbial and anti-skid. à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¨Success Founded in 2002 as a new type of boat shoemaker initially, the company has grown into a global sensation in casual footwear industry with sales across the globe in over 90 countries and reaching 1 billion US dollars in 2011. Figure 6: Crocs Four Actions to create Value Innovation Source: Frontier Strategy, LLC Nintendos Wii The video game business has a huge market and is a multi-billion dollar industry. Video consoles, which form a big portion of this market, were very recently in the past controlled by two major players: PlayStations (PS12 and soon PS3) from Sony and Xbox (Xbox and Xbox360) from Microsoft. Nintendo, however, a distant third player created ripples in the market space with its launch of the Wii. This is an especially interesting case study from a strategy perspective since its a brilliant example of the so-called blue ocean strategy. The graphic below demonstrates Nintendos Wii strategy with the help of the strategy canvas and is quite clear. Figure 7: The Strategy Canvas of Nintendo Wii On giving a closer glance to the above graphic, one will notice that Nintendo is competing on a completely different strategic landscape as the attributes are completely differently focused for Nintendo in comparison with Sony and Microsoft. The Wii is not only affordable for general public, it has no Hard Disk, no DVD, no Dolby 5.1, weak connectivity and comparatively low processor speed, but enthralls the user by its innovative motion control stick. The stick is designed such that it integrates the movements of a player directly into the console of the video game, The user gets an interface where he gets a live feel of himself playing in the screen. With this feature Nintendo not only won the existing customers in the video game world but also brought in a completely new set of customers to the business. We can again think of the Four Actions Framework in all of the above descriptions of features. I will explain here with a couple of those features: Reduction in cost through elimination of some features like Hard Drive, DVD, Dolby 5.1 and low processor speed A raise in demand by creation of motion stick: strong value innovation for new gamers/customers. These 2 features disregard the traditional belief in competitive strategy of either going for cost leadership or product differentiation and not simultaneously for both. In other words, through this example we see that while Sony and Microsoft are fighting in the same old bloody Red Ocean of existent market, Nintendo created a new market space for itself in the form of Wii and is now sailing calmly in this Blue Ocean that it created for itself. CHAPTER-4 BOS: A Case Study on redBus Story of redBus One fine evening an electrical engineer in Bangalore planned to travel to Hyderabad to celebrate Diwali with his family but the answer he got from the agents when he reached at bus stands was that all tickets were sold out and he could inquire about the availability from some other agents. Although the person got frustrated but an appalling question was making rounds in his minds; why werent there other methods to get bus tickets booked rather than moving from one agent to another? He questioned why cant bus tickets be booked online like airlines and railway tickets? The person was Phanindra Sama and his frustration lead way to a revolution in Indian bus industry and redBus was born. Phani discussed the idea with his friends (Sudhakar Pasupunuri and Charan Padmaraju) and they started working on the idea. Initially they decided to develop an IT based inventory system for bus operators but the idea was dismissed by the operators and agents as the task seemed huge to them. Meanwhile they came in contact with the Bangalore chapter of TIE (The Indus Entrepreneurs) which accepted their venture and mentored the team and guided them with various assignments pertaining to market surveys and market research. The TIE mentorship enabled redBus to get venture capitalist interested in them and a VC named Seedfund funded them with $500000. This is how redBus was born on 18th August 2006, Indias first online bus ticketing website, a concept which was in use for airline and railway booking but no one had realized that it could be feasible enough for the bus travel also. Exhibit 1 gives company details. Exhibit 1 The Team Major Milestones Exhibit 2 Company Details Bus Ticket Industry- Overview in India The Indian bus travel industry was highly fragmented with a large number of small operators and agents having very little orientation towards technology. Most of the operators were regional players having small fleets of ten buses where few were long route players having 100 or more fleets of buses. Exhibit 2 gives the details of the industry structure. Long route buses were known as contract carriages and their tickets were to be bought in advance whereas short haul buses known as stage carriers and their tickets were sold in the coach itself. The booking system was agent driven in which each agent had contract with three of four operators and tickets were allocated to them on the basis of quota system by the operators. Each agent used to sell its quota of tickets and all the unsold tickets were informed to the operator before some fixed time of bus departure. No centralized inventory was maintained by either the agents or by operators

Six Markets Model Of Relationship Marketing Marketing Essay

Six Markets Model Of Relationship Marketing Marketing Essay An Organization must exceed customer expectations in order to retain them and develop a healthy relationship with them. The methods and tactics involved to develop long term relationship with the customers in order to retain them is termed as Relationship Marketing. (http://www.learnmarketing.net/relationshipmarketing.htm) To attract and retain its customers the company must put into place some tactics and methods which may include promoting the product and brand, offering good quality product/services at competitive prices. At the same time its very difficult to keep the customers 100% satisfied reasons could be any as needs and wants of the customers change. So its a good practice to keep monitoring them in a number of ways. Internal Markets: The process of bringing support for a company and its activities within its own employees, in order to encourage them to promote its goals is defined as Internal Market. Internal Marketing did not play a vital role in traditional marketing but relational marketing sees the importance and treats the employees as an enabler to enhance external market place performance. If internal market is neglected external market would collapse. Its always the employees who create the trust and build the relationship with the customers. Therefore the firm must meet the needs of the employees are the basis to meet the customer needs. Customer MarketsSupplier Markets: Establishing long term relations with suppliers is a departure from traditional supplier positions. This development means that suppliers are seen as collaborators or partners in improving quality and managing costs.Relationships with suppliers is the main focus in recent years in relationship marketing. In traditional marketing the suppliers were unable to invest in the new plants and technologies which allowed them to deliver better products and services, faster and more cheaply. In relationship marketing manufacturers choose to build less exploitative relationships with fewer suppliers creating integrated and relatively stable supply chains thus allowing quality and flexibility in the system with low costs. Recruitment Markets: Recruitment marketing is the vital area for any organization to conduct strategic and effective partnerships with intermediaries in order to expose the company and capture the best trained and experienced workforce. Getting and retaining best people to work in the profession to build sustainability with the customers. Referral Markets: Developing relationships in referral markets means to link up with those people or institutions that have the power to direct business to the company. Key existing customers are often referral sources, and so are intermediaries, third party buyers, agencies and business networks. This is often the most effective part of an overall marketing plan and the best use of resources. (http://www.economicexpert.com/3a/Relationship:marketing.htm) Influence Markets: Influence markets are important to an organization in terms of relationship marketing as members of this market include bodies that directly impact on the organization. They involve sub markets like government regulators, stockholders, venture capitalists, financial analysts, stockbrokers, consumer associations, environmental associations, and labor associations. Developing relationships in referral markets means to link up with those people or institutions that have the power to direct business to the company. These activities are typically carried out by the public relations department. Customer Markets: The goal of customer markets is to get the customers and retain them. Sustained growth in business usually depends upon the same customer coming back again and again. Existing relationships with customers cost less to sustain than new ones. Traditional marketing: Marketing is the process to identify and retain the customer i.e. to know what products or services are of interest to the customer. In order to stay profitable companies should shift focus from production and build strong customer relationships. These factors are considered as the cutting edge over its competitors. Traditional marketing is a marketing mix with Four Ps. They refer to the four factors that a marketer has to consider comprising of Product, Price, Promotion and Placement. The first is the Product its production and management; second is the price; and the third is its promotion with advertising and branding etc finally the fourth is the placement or the distribution of the product. Before launching any product these four elements are to be well planned by any organization. (http://ezinearticles.com/?Overview-of-Traditional-marketingid=374128 ). Limitations of Traditional Marketing: Traditional marketing is company focused and product based with the intension to increase the visibility of the company and its brand. Its a failure since brand recall is very minimal as customer is exposed to many brands. The company becomes the active participant while the customer becomes inactive. Traditional marketing uses USP (Unique selling proposition) which is exclusive to a particular product from a particular brand. In todays world every brand is has all the features offered by its competitors therefore the USP marketing is becoming passive. Advertising is the main strategy for any business to give product visibility and boosts its sales. Traditional marketing uses Above the line advertising method which uses media as the main source like Newspapers, Magazines, TVs, all kind of mailers and leaflets. Its a drawback since the online marketing is offering a lots of hope to the marketer reaching out to a prospective customer at a faster pace. Internal Marketing is given little or no attention. Market share is taken as customer satisfaction indicator. Commitment to customers is very limited. (http://ezinearticles.com/?Overview-of-Traditional-marketingid=374128 ). Market Segmentation: Examples to evaluate the effective use of relationship marketing: New use of technology as marketing tools: To maximise organizations goals the companies have to adopt latest technologies and developments such as the Internet, Social Networks, Intelligent commercial websites, Media / Advertising using Billboards, Networking and Direct mail etc. (http://appreciativeinquiry.case.edu/uploads/E%20J%20Pullicino%20-%20MBA.pdf) Promoting the products through internet is termed as E-Commerce it is a network enabled business for selling products and services on the website. It is a practical medium for realizing the benefits of Relationship marketing. Consumers get greater and easier access to the market because information about competing offers is searchable and marketers are provided with the information they need to do their job more effectively. Email marketing strategy is used to build business through email marketing campaigns and online surveys. Advertising using Billboard is most common in 21st century. The use of signs along roadways to advertise a wide range of products, services etc. The signs used in these roadside advertising campaigns must be over a certain size in order to be referred to as a billboard and must be large enough for a driver or passenger in a vehicle to be able to clearly read the lettering while navigating the vehicle along a road. The effectiveness of these advertisements led to creating an entirely new branch of the advertising industry, as clients demanded newer and more attractive ads that would catch the eye and entice the traveler to stop and spend money. (http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-billboard-advertising.htm) An integrated social media marketing strategy can help ecommerce site increase brand visibility, improve customer loyalty, and gain important insights about the markets served. (http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/961-Ecommerce-Know-How-Social-Media-as-a-Marketing-Tool) Mobility Marketing: Universal mobility programs are marketed through Mobility Marketing. Mobility programs consist of public, private, and human services modal alternatives. Mobility program is a success by implementing developing Techniques, Strategies, and Public Relations tools. Viral Marketing: A strategy that facilitates and encourages individuals to pass along a marketing message is termed as Viral Marketing. It depends on a high pass-along rate from person to person. If a large number of recipients forward something to a large number of friends, the overall growth rises very quickly. If the pass-along numbers get too low, the overall growth quickly falls down. Hotmail is cited as the first example of viral marketing. (http://www.marketingterms.com/dictionary/viral_marketing/) Its been referred as word of mouth, creating a buzz. Effortless and instant inexpensive communications to people is done through internet which is working out well in Viral Marketing. Another way to propagate the message is use others websites like placing text, graphics etc basically giving adverts in various websites to pass on the message. (http://www.wilsonweb.com/wmt5/viral-principles.htm) Guerrilla Marketing: Guerilla Marketing is unconventional marketing intended to get maximum results from minimal resources and it is specifically used in small business and entrepreneurs. Marketing is done in an unusual way at public places, street giveaways etc. In order to sell a product or a service, a company must establish a relationship with the customer build trust and support and understand the customers needs, and it must provide a product that delivers the promised benefits. Guerilla Marketing uses several tactics as follows: Providing service which is beyond customer expectations. Aiming efforts to impress the customers. Working hours that matches the customers requirements. Use of extreme specialization skills to market a product. (http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/guerilla-marketing.html) Importance of Social Networks in Marketing: Social Networking is defined as grouping of individuals into groups like communities to make new friends and connect with old ones. Professionals use social networking to improve their career. In 21st century social networking is mainly done online through websites termed as Social sites. They function as online communities for internet users. Depending on the websites the users share their experiences, hobbies, politics etc thus socializing themselves from home. Another benefit is diversity because the internet gives individuals from all around the world to access the social sites. These sites are designed focusing on the interest of the individual. The websites without a main focus are referred to as traditional social networking sites and have open memberships. At the same time there are hidden dangers associated with these sites like data theft and viruses. These crimes are termed as cyber crimes. Depending on the cyber surrounding proceed with caution online conversations, marke ting etc. There are several Forums and groups such as Friendwise, Friendfinder, Facebook, Orkut, Twitter and many more. (http://www.whatissocialnetworking.com/) Promoting Products and Services using Social Networks: Facebook: Businesses large and small are actively connecting with customers through Facebook which has a number of tools that make it powerful helping them to spread brands by attract potential customers. It also helps business to review ways to make it better. Facebook is the second largest website with more than 321 million people. Ways Facebook can help business: Facebook Pages: Businesses can create their own profiles on Facebook using Pages. These pages help the business to give an identity by publishing companys information, photos, videos etc. When a individual is interested in a certain brand a note is written in those pages. These pages are posted back for all the friends to see thus promoting the product. Individuals are spreading the good word about products they are using making it easier for companies to market their products through word of mouth. People can know instantly about any news that they have to share. Applications: With powerful API developers write software helping to promote business on Facebook. For instance Visa Business Network application which takes information about users and allows them to better network with small business owners. Advertising: Facebook is a free application but gets its revenue through its powerful advertising engine that enables businesses to specify a specific demographic target, see how many people that demographic will hit, and advertise to that demographic. It also has advertising links at the bottom promoting products and services. Polls: Its a boon for marketers looking to get a quick answer about a particular feature theyd like to implement, or just to find out information and opinions. (http://www.insidefacebook.com/2008/07/28/facebook-for-business-what-it-needs-what-it-has/) Twitter: Twitter is one of the fast growing free online platforms that is being used for communication and conversation with over 1 million users and broadcasts over 3 million messages everyday. It can be used as a marketing tool, but the users must do it right by following the Twitter etiquette in order to be effective. (http://marketing.about.com/b/2008/10/07/twitter-a-marketing-tool.htm) Twitter is an application that allows to tweet with individuals. Search queries can be performed and notified if someone is searching for us. Its a great tool that can consistently run on the desktop. With the help of Twitterfeed one can post blog posts directly into ones Twitter account. Ubertwitter is a tool to get blogs on cell phone the users can reply and direct messages. Twitter is used as a media outlet by posting news and updates of the company or products. Ultimately Twitter provides an excellent source of free publicity. Twitter marketing is all about talking to the prospective customers, interacting with them thus providing optimal customer service. Its a fantastic tool giving the brand a voice and identity. It can be made as a best marketing tool by following unique style while twittering.

Strategic Management Essay -- Information Technology

Strategic Management and Planning is a course of decisions and actions which ultimately lead to the development of a strategy to help a company achieve their objectives. Strategic planning focuses on the company’s long term range and how to accomplish what is laid out. Effective planning will help to prevent problems, provide a response if problems occur, and make available information and support needed to maintain public awareness, safety, and confidence. How do the two UCB's strategic IT plans stack up against the Baldrige criteria for assessing strategic planning? The Baldrige criteria are a series of questions that are not routinely asked on how an organization or company can function more efficiently. The purpose of these questions is to describe how the organization sets its strategic objectives into action plans, what are the organization’s action plans, and how is the organization able to project future performance on these key performance indicators or measures. In this paper, I will address these questions as they relate to UC Berkeley and the University of Colorado’s Campus-wide IT Strategic Plan. I will describe how each university used the strategic planning process to address their needs. What are the university’s current strategic objectives, the goals for each objective and the timetable for achieving these objectives? How will each university adapt to potential growth in technology? And what measures do the universities use to track the achievement and effectiveness of their action plans? In each report, each university clearly defined what there IT strategic plans and objectives are for their future success. By clearly defining what are their goals and needs, they mirror the Baldrige criteria. UC Berkeley d... ...essfulness of their strategic plan. In my research, this is not a problem that is isolated to just UC Berkeley or UC-Boulder. There seems to be a common practice among the IT community to not take into account the importance of measuring the effectiveness of their IT strategies. When discussing measuring for effectiveness of the IT plan at UC Berkeley, Mr. Jack McCredie explains, â€Å"It is much more of a description of an end state that we are working for. We are more goal oriented, not number oriented, in our process. One UC Berkeley goal was to wire the campus, not count the number of nodes that are actually installed. Our board doesn’t seem to require particular dashboard numbers that say we are 38 percent of the way to accomplishing our goal.† Both of the universities do not put enough thought into establishing proper measures of effectiveness into their plans.