EEIG case, on alliances Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

EEIG case, on alliances - Essay Example A. (QA) (Fazio, 2007). The target markets for this establishment were multinational paint manufacturers and automobile manufacturers. The present case entails about the management of EEIG and also the perspective and situation after its incorporation. In addition, this case also illustrates about the strategies adopted by these companies to operate in the market. This study to a large extent enlightened us about the Quimica del Atlantico, S. A. (QA) and its business operations. This company was founded in the year 1932. It is headquartered at Baracaldo, Spain. Initially the company used to manufacture nitrocellulose paints, and air drying for the automobile body parts. It was also the first company to have supplied such products to the markets of Spain (Renart and Pares, 2010). The company had spent significant amount of resources and efforts towards research and development and for that the company has been able to introduce new products and services in the market. Through this repo rt, the internal and external business environment of the company will be analysed. Furthermore the strategic choices made by the companies will be also illuminated. Beside, how the strategies were implemented will be also emphasized. Finally based on the evaluation, a conclusion will be drawn and some recommendations will be suggested. External & Internal Business Environment Analysis Environmental analysis is often referred to as environmental scanning. According to some eminent authors analysis of the environment help companies to identify factors that may influence the operation. Additionally, it also helps the companies to forecast the impact these factors have on the company (Robinson, 2009). Through the process of environmental scanning organizations also identify opportunities and threats in the existing business environment. The business strategy of a company also remains highly dependent upon the situation of the external business environment. Apart from the external envir onment, the internal environment of a firm plays a crucial role in the formulation of strategy and also to capitalize on the opportunities of the external business environment (Von Der Gracht, 2008). In this context, Quimica del Atlantico, the paint manufacturing and marketing company of Spain embraces various strategic capabilities. However it also possesses some weakness which impacts the company’s operation and holds them back from achieving their goals. One of the major strength of the company is its competency in the field of research and development. Quimica del Atlantico spends significant amount of resources and efforts towards R & D activities. This has encouraged the company to come up with new and innovative products and systems in the market. Apart from that, the company also has the capability of utilizing technology to the fullest extent and therefore technology innovation can be manifested as one of their strategic capabilities. The company has presence in seve ral industries of the world, which provides them an opportunity to increase their total revenue. In addition, the company also enjoyed strong competitive position in the Spanish market. The biggest weakness of the company comes in the form of less export activities. The case enlightens that export has only accounted for 1.5 % of the overall sales of the company. The operational changes that were

Sustainable and Intelligent Buildings Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Sustainable and Intelligent Buildings - Essay Example Prevailing climate is hot and tropical with average temperature of 22Â °C and average humidity of 78%. There is also considerable wind exposure due to its location. From December to March, trade winds can reach average speeds of 20 km/h with peaks as high as 74 km/h. During the rest of the year, winds has an average speed of 10 km/h. Annual rainfall on the site is 1.9 m falling mostly during the rainy season of May to December. Hurricanes are not common but are damaging when they do pass by the country. Holcim wanted to create an office building in Costa Rica which highlighted their commitment to green buildings and sustainable construction. The design would have to comply with the five principles of sustainable construction set forth by the foundation. These are as follows: Ecological quality and conservation – common building projects are not only wasteful during construction but also in its entire service. Sustainable buildings should be made of durable and energy efficient materials and system thru the use of environmental energy. Economic performance and compatibility – building projects pose a significant investment. Sustainable buildings are those that realize savings in its long term performance thru the use of free natural energy. These five core principles form Holcim’s sustainable building objectives and formed the basis for the design concept of its office in Costa Rica. There were many ideas offered by architectural firms but the one that stood out was the proposal made by the firm of Bruno Stagno. The architect had in mind the idea of ‘passive building, active people’. Stagno argued that people usually relied on building systems such as mechanical air conditioning systems for making the indoor environment more comfortable hence making them passive. The Lead Architect wanted an office wherein people are actively engaged in control of

The Evolution Of Microelectronics Information Technology Essay

The Evolution Of Microelectronics Information Technology Essay The technological progress of the past decade has played an important role in the advancement of modern society by continuously supplying better quality goods which are accessible to the mass markets. Innovation has shaped our society as we know it which would otherwise be completely different from simple shopping to the achievements of modern medicine, from the hugely successful entertainment industry to the highly sophisticated education system none of these would have been possible without the solid backbone of modern technology. And technology would not exist if micro-electronics was not the highly developed and researched science it is today. A mere 60 years ago, no one would have been able to predict the impact of emerging technologies on worldwide business and economics few would have fathomed the concept of the Internet or even the remote possibility of wireless mobile telephony. The latest breakthrough in technological research is that of nano-electronics. Even if while writing this, nano-electronics is still a largely uncovered science, the odds are that over the following years it will have the potential to realign society, business and economics. Nano-electronics at the consumer level will touch all aspects of our economy, from wages to employment, purchasing, pricing, capital, exchange rates, currencies, markets, supply and demand. Nano-electronics may well drive economic prosperity or at the least be an enabling factor in productivity and global competitiveness. The Evolution of Micro-electronics. Figure 1: Evolution of Micro-electronics The intensive effort  by professionals in the electronics campus to increase the reliability and performance  of products while reducing their size and cost has led to the results that hardly anyone would have predicted but which we have all come to expect. In-fact many think that electronics made a revolution in human history and shaped our future in a way it would never have been possible. Through the years we saw the evolution of electronic components which decreased in size while performing increasingly complex electronic functions at ever higher speeds. It all began with the development of the transistor. Prior to  the invention of the transistor in 1947, its function in an electronic circuit could be performed only by a vacuum tube. Vacuum tubes were found to have several built-in problems. The main problem with these tubes was that they generated a lot of heat, required a warm-up time from 1 to 2 minutes, and required hefty power supply voltages of 300 volts dc and more. Another problem was that two identical tubes had different output and operational characteristics therefore designers were required to produce circuits that could work with any tube of a particular type. This meant that additional components were often required to tune the circuit to the output characteristics required for the tube used. Figure 2: A typical vacuum-tube chassis The first transistors had no striking advantage in size over the smallest tubes and they were more costly. The largest advantage the transistor had over the best vacuum tubes was that it consumed much less power than a vacuum tube did. Besides they also provided greater reliability and longer life. However, it took years to demonstrate other advantages of the transistor over vacuum tubes. The advent of microelectronic circuits has not, for the most part, changed the nature of the basic functional units: microelectronic devices were still made up of transistors, resistors, capacitors, and similar components. The major difference is that all these elements and their interconnections are now fabricated on a single substrate in a single series of operations. Several key developments were required before the exciting potential of integrated circuits could be realized. The development of microelectronics depended on the invention of techniques for making the various functional units on a crystal of semiconductor materials. In particular, a growing number of functions  have been given over to circuit elements that perform best: transistors. Several kinds of microelectronic transistors have been developed, and for each of them families of associated circuit elements and circuit patterns have evolved. The bipolar transistor was invented in 1948 by John Bardeen, Walter H. Brattain and William Shockley of the Bell Telephone Laboratories. In bipolar transistors charge carriers of both polarities are involved in their operation. They are also known as junction transistors. The NPN and PNP transistors make up the class of devices called junction transistors. A second kind of transistor was actually conceived almost 25 years before the bipolar devices, but its fabrication in quantity did not become practical until the early 1960s. This is the field-effect transistor. The one that is common in microelectronics is the metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor. The term refers to the three materials employed in its construction and is abbreviated MOSFET. The two basic types of transistor, bipolar and MOSFET, divide microelectronic circuits into two large families. Today the greatest density of circuit elements per- chip can be achieved with the newer MOSFET technology. Today, an individual integrated circuit on a chip can now embrace more electronic elements than most complex pieces of electronic equipment that could be built in 1950. In the first 15 years since the inception of integrated circuits, the number of transistors that could be placed on a single chip has doubled every year. The 1980 state of the art circuit is about 70K density per chip. The first generations of the commercially produced microelectronic devices are now referred to as small-scale integrated circuits (SSI). They included a few gates. The circuitry defining a logic array had to be provided by external conductors. Devices with more than about 10 gates on a chip but fewer than about 200 are medium-scale integrated circuits (MSI). The upper boundary of medium-scale integrated circuits technology is marked  by chips that contain a complete arithmetic and logic unit (ALU). This unit accepts two operands as inputs and can perform any one of a dozen or so operations on them. The operations include addition, subtraction, comparison, logical and and or and shifting one bit to the left or right. A large-scale integrated circuit (LSI) contains tens of thousands of elements, yet each element is so small that the complete circuit is typically less than a quarter of an inch on a side. Integrated circuits are evolving from large-scale to very-large-scale (VLSI) and wafer-scale integration (WSI). Since the transistor was invented over 50 years ago, the trend in electronics has been to create smaller and smaller products using fewer chips of greater complexity and smaller feature sizes. The development of integrated circuits and storage devices has continued to progress at an exponential rate; at present it takes two or three years for each successive halving of component size. Nanoelectronics refer to the use of nanotechnology on electronic components, especially transistors. Although the term nanotechnology is generally defined as utilizing technology less than 100  nm in size, nanoelectronics often refer to transistor devices that are so small that interactions and quantum mechanical properties need to be studied extensively. As a result, present transistors fall under this category, even though these devices are manufactured under 65  nm or 45  nm technology. Nanoelectronics are sometimes considered as disruptive technology because present candidates are significantl y different from traditional transistors. Some of these candidates include: hybrid molecular/semiconductor electronics, one dimensional nanotubes/nanowires, or advanced molecular electronics. Although all of these hold promise for the future, they are still under development and will most likely not be used for manufacturing any time soon. Economical and Social Impact of Micro-Electronics and Nano-Electronics. Fears of massive unemployment have greeted technological changes ever since the Industrial Revolution. Far from destroying jobs, however, rapid technological advance generally has created many new important opportunities. In the quarter-century, the industrial economics were flooded with new technologies while at the same time the amount of unemployed people has drastically been lowered. Lately with the help of new findings in the area of microelectronics and nanoelectronics they will have a fundamental impact on both the numbers and types of jobs in the industrial worlds in the following years. The microelectronic revolution already affected employment in enterprises ranging from steelworks to any other company and will continue to affect every aspect of work. Although microelectronic and nanoelectronic controls will not sweep through the industrial world overnight, most experts expect them to be firmly established in production processes. Set against these concerns, however, its a fact that nanoelectronic technologies will increase productivity over a broad range of industrial enterprises. In theory this should lead to enhanced economic growth, which in turn will translate into new roles. Put crudely, the extra production made possible by technological changes coincided with rising wealth and increased demand for manufactured goods and services, a combination that leads to high rates of economic growth and near-full employment. As is well known, combination of technological changes and economic pressures led to a sharp reduction in the worlds agricultural work force over the past half-century. In every major industrial country the agricultural labor force now represents less than 30 per cent of the working population. While the number of agricultural workers has decreased, however, output has risen substantially in general due to manufacturing firms which thus have replaced the workforce needed. At the same time, output, while fluctuating in tune with recessions, has increased. The phenomenon of jobless growth (growing in manufacturing but decreasing or maintaining the same level of employees) has now become established in the goods producing companies, this because mainly through technological change. Underlying this trend is the fact that investment in new production technologies has sought largely to streamline production processes rather than to expand output at a time demand is low and there is a high average wage rate. While these jobs and investment patterns have been developing, employment in the tertiary sector of finance, insurance and government services has been expanding rapidly. It is important to note that it is the productivity increases in the manufacturing industries that have themselves created the economic growth that in turn led to the increased demand for the services of the tertiary sector. This transition from agriculture to industry, and more recently to tertiary sector employment, has not been smooth or even. First, it is clear that microelectronic technologies will create jobs in those industries which manufacture electronic products. There are billions of money which are being lavished on mobile phones, electronic gadgets, computers and other microelectronic products which have spawned a whole industry that did not even exist a decade ago. It was found that about 10 million people are now employed in the electronics industry in the United States only. Through research and technological advancements micro-processors are much more efficient and cost effective that these are being used in almost everything. Micro-processors nowadays can be found in washing machines or incredibly enough also in toys, where years ago one would need to be very wealthy to have a micro-processor working and the phenomenal speeds which they work now. The use of microprocessors in manufacturing industries has essentially intensified the jobless growth that has been taking place in industrial countries in recent years. One should also note that the use of computers and other intelligent machines will lead to increased employment in some areas such as the growing industry of e-business. Today almost every person of the world bought something from the Internet, may it be clothes, electronic products, or any other thing. This industry nowadays is producing so much money that is very difficult to quantify. Computer programming, for example, is a labor-intensive activity that is a likely source of many thousands of new jobs. Demand for programmers is already outstripping supply, and some analysts have even suggested that this shortage could constrain growth in the use of computers in the coming years. But in most other areas of the tertiary sector, microelectronics is likely to lead to slower rates of employment growth or even to job losses. In areas such as insurance and banking, which arc labor intensive occupations that rely primarily on printed paper for their transactions, the application of electronic technology could have a major impact. Nowadays everything in the office is automated . The introduction of word processors, computers, and emails is also another aspect which has affected the economy both from a positive side and from the negative side. In todays offices only a few clerks are needed for what used to be a 50 person job in the 1960s like for example, a word processing task which is done using a computer and which has indeed resulted in unemployment., The positive side is that companies are much more efficient and communication is much more reliable. A simple example is a clerk who is employed with a company which deals with shipping of goods. Nowadays with the help of VPNs (virtual private networks) the clerk connects to his companys server through the internet and can work easily from home. This would alleviate electricity costs for the company as the employee is working from home, while the employee is comfortable working from home. Another simple example how reliable communication has advanced through technological research is by the use of emails. To day one sends an email to any recipient with some simple keystrokes. In turn the recipient receives this email in relatively a few minutes, and if there is a failure the system automatically notifies the sender that a communication has failed and he needs to resend it again. When postal mail was used it was a common thing that mail was lost and neither the sender nor the receiver would know where the letter is and if it has been delivered. The corporate computing environment has witnessed dramatic changes in the last few years, with a shift from rapid expansion of IT infrastructure in support of growing business needs, to carefully managing existing assets and investing in new strategic technologies that provide specific competitive advantages. Information technology managers today are challenged with providing more services to more users, meeting ever-increasing performance expectations, storing and managing exponentially increasing amounts of data, better protecting the network, a nd ensuring system stability-all with limited possibility to expand data centres because of shrinking budgets The advance in microelectronics and nanoelectronics affects not only the number of jobs in industrial countries, but also the type of jobs which will be available. The early use of robots on assembly lines has largely been dangerous and dirty. But as automation extends into design shops and machine rooms, highly skilled occupations were affected. And, at the other end of the sale, the use of computers and storage area networks have eliminated many filing and routine clerical jobs. Microelectronics thus has the potential, to decrease skill requirements in some jobs and increase them in others. Another example where micro-electronics has succeeded is in the area of robotization. The main purpose of robotization is certainly to improve the productivity of manufacturing processes and the qua1ity of products, which help increase competitiveness of produced goods in the market and bring in gains for the companies. From a broader view point, the increase in process productivity may accelerate growth of these industries and then contribute to the growth of the national economy. The preceding discussion indicates that robotization gives rise to reduction in employment in manufacturing processes, which will be at least partly covered by expansion of the market in the long run. It is obvious that seriousness of the employment impact will be greatly eased by the latter effects. Therefore we should estimate how much these effects will be, and if possible in what time spans these effects will emerge. However, it should be noticed that the compensation is only to a certain degree even if it takes over the first type impact in number. The job pattern in a factory or a company will change and transfer of labour force from the jobs for which robots are introduced to those created by market expansion is unavoidable. Another type of economic impact of robotization is as described before impact on the international market. Expansion of exports or at least the reduction of imports of manufacturing goods due to increase in their competitiveness in the international market gives positive impacts on the national economy, but in many cases with the sacrifice of worsening trade balance of partner countries. It means that the competition in the international market is likely to be a zero sum or a1most a zero sum game at least in the short run. All developed countries are certain1y members of the game, new1y industrialized countries or emerging countries will be more sensitive to changes in market competitiveness of member countries. Though the microelectronic revolution already impacted most of the countries in the world, nanoelectronics is likely to have a major impact on the numbers and types of jobs available in the industrial world over the next few decades, every expert who has studied the subject has reached the same conclusion: More jobs will be lost in those countries that do not pursue the technology vigorously than in those that do: Because nanoelectronics will enhance productivity so greatly, the industries that move swiftly to adopt the technology will have a competitive advantage in international markets. As the global economy continues to be transformed by new technology, there will always be need for talent, intellectual property, capital and technical expertise. We see many of these factors responsible for shaping how nations today compete, interact and trade. Technical innovations will increasingly shape economies and market robustness. Technology will continue to drive global and domestic GDP. Competition will be fueled increasingly by fast breaking innovations in technology. Today this is obvious as rapid technological changes in telecommunications, life sciences, and the Internet demonstrates the emergence of entirely new economic and business realities. If the proliferation of todays technologies to form new business models is any indication of the speed and power of change in the economy, future nano-technologies will make for an even more dramatic shift. Rates of progress in microelectronics suggest that in about a decade 80% of the people in the world will possess a notebook-size computer with the capacity of a large computer of today. The future increase in capacity and decrease in cost of microelectronic devices has not only given rise to compact and powerful hardware but also bring qualitative changes in the way human beings and computers interact. Computing and storage capacity are many times that of past microcomputers: tens of millions of basic operations per second manipulate the equivalent of several thousand printed pages of information. The personal computer can be regarded as the newest example of human mediums of communication. Various means of storing, retrieving and manipulating information have been in existence since human beings began to talk. Although digital computers were originally designed to do arithmetic operations, their ability to simulate the details of any descriptive model means that the computer, viewed as a medium, can simulate any other medium if the methods of simulation are sufficiently well described With the technological advance in nanoelectronics multi-core processors represent a major evolution in computing technology. This important development is coming at a time when businesses and consumers are beginning to require the benefits offered by these processors due to the exponential growth of digital data and the globalization of the Internet. Multi-core processors will eventually become the primary computing model because they offer performance and productivity benefits beyond the capabilities of todays single-core processors. Multi-core processors will also play a central role in driving important advancements in PC security and virtualization technologies that are being developed to provide greater protection, resource utilization, and value for the commercial computing market. One particularly frustrating process is compiling software after the code has been written. Compiling is notorious for overloading computer processor capacity and causing, in many cases, lengthy development cycles. During these periods, software engineers are at the mercy of their computer resources. In many cases, the speed at which software code is being compiled results in greater productivity for the programmer. Overall, that translates into a more efficient software development cycle. Consumers, too, will have access to greater performance than ever before, which will significantly expand the utility of their home PCs and digital media computing systems. Multi-core processors will also have the benefit of offering performance without having to increase power requirements, which will translate into greater performance per watt. Placing two or more powerful computing cores on a single processor opens up a world of important new possibilities. The next generation of software applications will likely be developed using multi-core processors because of the performance and efficiency they can deliver compared to single core processors. Whether these applications help professional animation companies produce more realistic movies faster for less money, or create breakthrough ways to make a PC more natural and intuitive, the widespread availability of hardware using multi-core processor technology will forever change the computing universe. Computer processor design has evolved at a constant pace for the last 20 years. The proliferation of computers into the mass market and the tasks we ask of them continue to push the need for more powerful processors. The market requirement for higher performing processors is linked to the demand for more sophisticated software applications. E-mail, for instance, which is now used globally, was only a limited and expensive technology 10 years ago. Today, software applications span everything from helping large corporations better manage and protect their business-critical data and networks to allowing PCs in the home to edit home videos, manipulate digital photographs, and burn downloaded music to CDs. Tomorrow, software applications might create real-world simulations that are so vivid it will be difficult for people to know if they are looking at a computer monitor or out the window; however, advancements like this will only come with significant performance increases nd inexpensive computer technologies. Multi-core processors have the potential to run applications more efficiently than single-core processors-giving users the ability to keep working even while running the most processor intensive tasks in the background, like searching a database, rendering a 3D image, ripping and burning music files to a CD, or downloading videos off the Web. For years, independent software vendors delivered imaginative and robust solutions to solve real-world problems, benefiting both businesses and general consumers. Businesses rely on constantly improving software for automating exceedingly complex processes, including those dealing with e-commerce and information management. Consumers are doing more complex tasks on their PCs, including manipulating digital photographs and media, and running cutting-edge games. The sheer number of new applications, and the exciting functionality they provide, is a credit to software engineers. However, in their quest to design more sophisticated applications, while at the same time making them easier to use and more cost-effective, these professionals are regularly pushing the limits of current processor capacity. Multi-core processors will solve many of the challenges currently facing software designers by delivering significant performance increases at a time when they need it most. With increasing competition and market demands, engineers need to provide more functionality into their designs in less time. Whether enhancing and updating large, enterprise applications or developing the next generation PC game, software developers are acutely aware of the computational requirements during each phase of creation. In additional to what we have read already, nano-electronics affects also the academic part in our society, the knowledge and competencies required for working in the field of future nanoelectronics which are evolvingvery fast. At both ends (material/devices and circuits/systems) there is the need to renew and redefine the content of the knowledge portfolio that colleges provide to students or to company employees for continuous education. Micro-electronics and nano-electronics not only allow us to work comfortably or to enjoy high quality videos but it helps us to travel as well. The old 1950s vision was to have a car which would drive without the need to touch the steering wheel or that it would have everything which a person would dream about. Nowadays almost every car uses microcontrollers in order to control the car from many different ways like controlling the safety of the car itself. In fact most modern cars have embedded the system of traction control which has a microcontroller which constantly monitors the traction and if there is any fluctuation of loss in traction it will quickly compute the necessary adjustments which are needed to regain traction. Apart from this many modern cars incorporate automatic sensors which in turn are all adjusted, monitored and switch on or off by a controller. It is normal as well to see cars which are switched on simply by pressing a button from the key itself, which is indee d a breakthrough in cars history. Micro-electronics has also effected our lifestyles in so many other ways, making our everyday routine a little more comfortable.. For example, nowadays it is easy to find a complete kitchen system which enables us to set the oven to a pre-defined temperature and cook our meal while we surf the internet or perhaps communicate with our friends through social networks which have become very popular. Other home appliances, like washing machines or electric water heaters, can be set in motion using the internet, from practically any location. Micro-electronics has also contributed effectively in administering the use of electricity more efficiently. Todays appliances incorporate sensors and controllers which continuously monitor energy consumption and if there is anything which is not being used in-turn they will turn it off in order to consume less power. The above examples are proof that research in the area of micro-electronics and nano-electronics has contributed hugely to change our society in many positive ways. Teleworking is slowly becoming a reality for many people, enabling them to commute from their own homes, eliminating the need to travel to work, thus giving parents more flexibility. Communication has been made easier because of better telephony as well as more advanced mobile technologies. Scientists are able to carry out research using extremely sophisticated and intelligent machines which was only possible with advancement in the micro-electronics and nano-electronics fields. Conclusion The debate about the social implications of microelectronics and nanoelectronics is ongoing. The past has shown us how the switch from old technologies to micro-electronics has affected all aspects of life, from the standards of living to employment, from a more organized social environment to the manifestation of socio-cultural problems such as modern depression, alienation, helplessness and growing resistance against changes. Mankind is now on the brink of another major change that of changing over from using microelectronics to the newer technology of nanoelectronics and this implies another impact on everything we know. This time, influences on employment will be profound but difficult to predict, because different sectors are affected differently. Nanoelectronics will have a significant impact on the semiconductor industry. All electronics related items like memory devices, storage devices, display devices, and communication devices will be swept away by the nanoelectronics wave. From transistors to the computers they fit in, every single device will undergo transformation. Nano-scale devices will enable the creation of a new world of innovative products, such as biosensors, molecular memory, spin based electronic products, and flexible and light-weight photovoltaic cells. The change is inevitable. The future is nano-electronics.

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The Micro and Macro Environment Analysis Macro Environment Analysis On the enterprise marketing management, macro environment can be analyzed from two aspects, beneficial is business opportunities and adverse impact is being threated. Facing different opportunities and threats, industry need environmental analysis to assess the market and put forward corresponding countermeasures. By using PEST analysis, I will analyze political, economic, social and technological factor between SIA and Singapore. Political Factors: Government politics can make a decision whether open a market or not, such as aviation industry and transport service. Previously, the Singapore government decided to open the aviation industry progressively, Low-cost airlines allowed to operate which attend less-demanding customer. Thus, SIA are receiving allowances from the government to improve competitiveness. Economic Factors: The stability of politics affects the currency market, output prices of goods, etc. Recently, oil-producing countries facing political instability, erratic fuel price have a significant im...

Imagery in Johnny Got His Gun and Cry, the Beloved Country Essay

We all have wished to change something in our lives. Everything would be perfect if we could control what happens in the world. However, we know that life offers us no choice but to accept changes that occur in life. Therefore, we grieve at piteous downfalls but rejoice great transformations. Trumbo and Paton efficiently depict changes that their main characters encounter in life. Trumbo and Paton use imagery to show positive and negative changes throughout the lives of their main characters. Trumbo uses imagery to portray Joe’s pleasant past life. For example, Joe feels loved when he pictures â€Å"the sled† that was â€Å"his Christmas present† and his mother who is â€Å"laughing like a girl† and his dad who is â€Å"grinning in his slow wrinkly way† (11). The sled symbolizes familial love not only because it is given to Joe from his parents but also because the sled allows the family to spend loving time as a whole, making memories. Joe further remembers the time he spent with his family when he thinks about his mother’s rolls that were â€Å"steaming hot† and â€Å"melted† when â€Å"you put butter inside them† (16). Trumbo highlights not only Joe’s ability to smell and taste but also Joe’s emotional pleasure associated with sharing his favorite foods with the people he loves. Furthermore, we see that Joe is sociable and lively as a boy when he â€Å"got into his heavy clothes and his mackinaw and his boots and his sheepskin gloves and went out with the rest of the kids† into the snow (18). In his childhood, Joe is like any other ambitious boy who enjoys nature and social time even through the harsh and numbing cold. In addition, Joe feels accepted by society during his time in Shale City, the â€Å"prettiest town in the world† to him with a â€Å"pale blue† sky and with † about a million stars shining† (51). Joe is able to call Shale City home because he is comfortable with the people and the activities in this town. His friends and the town’s beautiful physical aspects make Joe feel like a part of the town, like he belongs there. Through imagery, Trumbo allows the reader to gain a positive view of Joe’s past. In contrast, Trumbo uses imagery to give an uncomfortable and negative view of Joe’s present life. For instance, Joe paradoxically describes his unconsciousness to be â€Å"a kind of fear yet not like any ordinary fear. It was more of a panic it was the panicky dread of losing yourself even from yourself† (127). Unlike his past, Joe is constantly in fear because he has no boundaries to help him differentiate his dreams from real thoughts; Joe feels that he can no longer trust his own mind. Furthermore, Joe wishes Kareen to be the unknown visitor beside him until â€Å"just as he could feel the touch of her hand his delight turned suddenly to shame† because unlike old times, Joe no longer feels confident about his body (157). His physical aspects weaken his self-confidence: with the thought of Kareen looking down upon his debilitated body, Joe feels humiliation and embarrassment. Unlike his past, Joe would not spend time with his loved ones even if he were given a chance because his pride would prevent him. Furthermore, after the nurse taps â€Å"Merry Christmas† to him, Joe â€Å"heard the sound of sleigh bells and the crunch of snow and there were wreaths of holly with red berries nestling like hot coals against them† in his mind, contrasting his past days of Christmas where he is physically able to celebrate (200). Trumbo uses a simile to portray the fresh memories of Christmas in Joe’s mind that are now Joe’s only keepsakes for internally celebrating the holiday. Finally, Joe falls into despair when â€Å"he could almost hear the wail of pain that went up from his heart† after his hopes are rejected by the doctors (235). Trumbo uses personification of a heart that wails to contrast the feeling of acceptance Joe felt in Shale City to the sense of betrayal Joe now feels from the doctors and society. Although Joe has put forth his whole heart and effort into his tapping, society has rejected him. Through imagery, Trumbo allows us to see the changes in Joe’s present lifestyle from that of the past. Similarly, Paton uses imagery to portray transformations in the characters that Stephen Kumalo loves. For example, when Stephen meets Gertrude in Johannesburg, he notices that â€Å"the voice that was once so sweet has a new quality in it, the quality of the laughter that he heard in the house† because Gertrude has transformed into a new being (60). The laughter Stephen refers to is shameful, so he relates the laugh to Gertrude because she is no longer an innocent and respectful being. Like Gertrude, John Kumalo transforms but into a man that is ravenous for power; thus, Stephen notices that he â€Å"sat with his hands on his knees like a chief† (65). Paton uses a simile to compare John to a chief because John is no longer a quiet man who follows tradition or someone else’s command; John is like a chief because he now takes his own leadership to speak his ideas. Stephen also sees that â€Å"there was a change† in John’s voice, that â€Å"it became louder like the voice of a bull or a lion† because John has an air of authority and demand in his voice (67). Paton uses simile to portray John’s voice as powerful as that of a bull or a lion. Furthermore, when Stephen finally sees Absalom in Johannesburg, he observes the boy’s sinful change as he â€Å"twists his head from side to side, as though the loose clothing is too tight for him† (130). What greatly disturbs Stephen is the fact that Absalom does not even have a justifiable reason for his murder, merely shaking his head when Stephen questions him. Like Gertrude and John, Absalom has diverted from traditional values and thus grieves Stephen. Paton uses imagery to show negative changes in major characters of Stephen Kumalo’s life. Paton also uses imagery to show changes in both Johannesburg and Nodtsheni. For example, Kumalo notices â€Å"how the grass had disappeared† and â€Å"how the maize grew barely to the height of a man† and grieves over his gradually debilitating town (52). Kumalo feels despair because he merely observes Ndotsheni growing ill without being able to help it. Furthermore, Kumalo feels emotionally stronger when he observes the natives boycotting the buses, starting to walk early in the morning with â€Å"a bite of food, and their eyes are hardly closed on the pillow before they must stand up again, sometimes to start off with nothing but hot water in their stomachs† (74). The sight of the natives working laboriously for justice gives Kumalo hope in Johannesburg, a city filled with novel ideas that contrast his traditional beliefs in Ndotsheni. Furthermore, after Jarvis comes to Ndotsheni, the town starts to make progress: the men no longer plough â€Å"up and down† but â€Å"throw up walls of earth, and plough round the hills, so that the fields look no longer as they used to look in the old days of ploughing† (299). Jarvis’ young demonstrator teaches the men of Ndotsheni ways to preserve the earth and rebuild the town; Jarvis brings a positive change to Ndotsheni. In addition, Stephen shows his emotional change towards Jarvis, taking a cypress branch and making it â€Å"into a ring, and tied it so it could not spring apart† and â€Å"put the flowers of the weld, such as grew in the bareness of the valley† (298). This wreath symbolizes Stephen’s gratitude towards Jarvis; Stephen’s guilt and pride no longer prevent him from accepting Jarvis’ warm offerings of help. Through imagery, Paton portrays changing aspects in Ndotsheni and Johannesburg. Through imagery, Trumbo and Paton successfully express the physical and emotional changes throughout Joe and Stephen Kumalo’s life. However, Trumbo is more efficient than Paton because his imagery contains more vibrant descriptions to help the reader feel the gravity of Joe’s changes. Trumbo gives the reader a more vibrant picture of Joe’s life through the use of powerful similes and personification. Trumbo’s imagery of the changes in Joe’s life reminds us of our weakness to control our own lives.

ABC Co. Marketing Strategy Case Essay

ABC Manufacturing Company is a manufacturer of fine furniture designed to resemble the furniture used in various historical periods. The company’s furniture is sold by approximately fifty dealers throughout the United States and in several foreign countries. Dealers are carefully selected by ABC to be sure they maintain the high quality imagine that ABC has established in its 100-year history of making fine furniture. Most dealers sell only ABC’s furniture, but a few also sell noncompeting lines of similar quality. Dealers who sell only ABC’s furniture are franchised to do business under ABC’s trade name and would appear to the public to be branch stores rather than independent business. ABC’s factory is a three-story building of heavy timber (mill) construction located in a New England town of 2,500 population. The first floor is used for warehousing and office space, and the two upper floors house the production facilities. The building is 75 years old and has been occupied by ABC since its construction. The local fire department is above average for towns of this size, but its water supply system does not have adequate reserve capacity to maintain pressure for fighting a major fire over a period of several hours. See more:Â  First Poem for You Essay Adjacent to the factory building is a large frame structure used by ABC to store seasoned lumber for its furniture. Lumber is first air dried in the yard adjoining the shed, with the exact drying period depending on the kind of wood involved. The air-dried wood is then kiln dried in ABC’s own kiln, after which it is stored in the frame storage building until needed. ABC’s power plant is located in a brick building about 50 feet from the main plant. It furnishes heat and steam for all operations. Water for the stream boilers is drawn from a large river adjacent to the power plant. Electricity is purchased from a public utility. Due to the length of the seasoning period, ABC usually has on the premises a supply of lumber adequate for four months of operations. Much of the lumber is purchased within a 200-mile radius of the factory, but substantial amounts are purchased from more distant sections of the United States or from foreign countries. For example, mahogany lumber, which is used in almost half of ABC’s products, is imported by ABC from Latin American and Africa. Most of the lumber arrives at ABC’s yard by railroad and is shipped FOB point of origin. The imported lumber is shipped by water to the nearest port, approximately 100 miles from ABC’s factory, and then by train to the factory. Some locally produced lumber is delivered to ABC by truck, FOB ABC’s yard. Workers in ABC’s factory use some small power tools, such as saws, planers, lathes, and similar equipment. However, the production process is primarily manual. Highly skilled craftsmen build the company’s products, using many of the same techniques that were used two centuries ago. Furniture finishing is done by hand, and most of the stains, varnishes and other finishing materials are compounded by ABC’s employees according to the company’s proprietary formulas. ABC’s labour force is very stable because each craftsman undergoes a lengthy apprenticeship in the plant and because ABC pays wages that are relatively high by the standards of the community. Management considers the high wages to be necessary because of the time and expense required to hire and train a replacement for a craftsman who leaves the firm. Some finished furniture is shipped by railroad, but most of it is shipped by contract carrier trucks. The contract with the trucker does not include any provision relative to liability for damage to goods in transit. Export shipments are transported by truck to the nearest port and by water to the country of destination. All shipments are made FOB purchaser’s warehouse. All sales, including export sales, are made on open account and only to ABC’s established dealers. Export accounts usually are denominated in and payable in the currency of the importer’s country. Accounts receivable, on the average, are equal to about one-eighth of annual sales. Accounts receivable records are kept on ABC’s computer in the office section of the first floor of the factory building. The computer is also used for inventory and production control, payroll management, and other accounting functions. The computer equipment is owned by ABC. The office is cut off from the warehouse section of the first floor by a wood partition. The office and computer room are air conditioned, but the remainder of the building is not. Duplicate computer tapes, updated weekly, are stored in a well-protected vault in another part of the city. A monthly fee is paid for the tape storage. ABC owns several small trucks that are used to move lumber about its own premises and for local pickup and delivery. The trucks are kept in the lumber storage shed when they are not in use. Several lift trucks are used for moving lumber and other heavy items in and around the factory and lumber storage area. A freight elevator moves materials, finished furniture, lift trucks, and other equipment between floors in the factory. Automatic grillwork gates have been installed to prevent workers from falling into the elevator shaft. There is no passenger elevator. Workers use either the freight elevator or the open stairwells when moving between floors. Steel fire escapes have been installed on the exterior of the building to facilitate evacuation of the upper floors in case of fire or other catastrophe. ABC Manufacturing Company is wholly owned by its president, Mr. Carpenter, who is the grandson of the company’s founder. Mr. Carpenter is considered wealthy by local standards. However, his fortune consists almost entirely of the stock of ABC Manufacturing Company, and he is dependent on his salary and company dividends for his livelihood. Nearly all of ABC’s operating profit has been paid in dividends in recent years. Consequently, the company has only a modest cushion of liquid assets in excess of its operating needs. Profits have been consistent, but they have been relatively low because of the inefficiency of the present factory facilities. Although the dollar amount of ABC’s sales has increased steadily because of price increases, the physical volume of sales has remained almost constant over the past several years. The lack of growth has resulted primarily from two factors. First, the present plant cannot accommodate greater production because of space limitations, and there is no available land adjacent to the plant to permit expansion. Second, the long training period required for new employees prevents rapid expansion of production. Mr. Carpenter has considered building a new factory at another location in the same town. However, such a move is not financially feasible unless the present plant can be sold, and no prospective purchasers have been found. A move to any location outside its present hometown would not be practical because of the company’s dependence on its well-trained craftsman. The sales manager estimates that both the dealer network and sales could be increased by 30% over the next 5 years if production facilities could be provided. The cost to rebuild the present factory building in its present form would be $2.5 million. However, Mr. Carpenter has indicated that he would not build a new mill-type building to replace the current structure because of the high cost of the thick brick walls and heavy timber interior construction. A new, one-story, noncombustible masonry and steel building of comparable floor area would cost approximately $2 million to build and would be more efficient for ABC’s purpose. The actual cash value of the present factory building is estimated to be $1.5 million, and ABC has insured it for that amount against fire and the extended coverage perils. The lumber storage shed, power plant, table and lumber kiln are also insured for their actual cash values. The following table shows the actual cash value and replacement cost for each of the structures. Table 1: ABC Company Building Values ___________________________________________________________________________________ BuildingActual Cash ValueReplacement Cost Factory$1,500,000$2,500,000 Lumber shed 150,000 200,000 Power plant 230,000 300,000 Kiln 270,000 320,000 ___________________________________________________________________________________ ABC’s annual premium for fire and extended coverage insurance is $136,000, including the coverage for contends of the buildings and for lumber stored in the yard. There have been no fire or extended coverage losses during the past five years and only minor losses prior to that time. The company’s estimated annual workers’ compensation premium is $165,000. Loss experience has been fairly consistent from year to year. Based on past experience, with adjustments for inflation and current benefit levels, normal losses of $104,000 can be expected. The most frequent claims have been small and have resulted from such minor injuries as splinters in hands, several minor dermatitis cases, and sawdust or metal particles in eyes. The more serious injuries have included back strains and loss of fingers in power saws and other power tools. ABC now has 15 percent debit under workers’ compensation experience rating plan. (That is, they are paying a rate 15% greater than manual rates). Questions 1. Identify the following loss exposures faced by ABC Manufacturing Company: 1) Direct property loss exposures 2) Indirect property loss exposures 3) Liability exposures 2. Your suggestions in risk management for ABC Company Case 2: Bite-O-Burger Company (Risk Management and Insurance) Description of Operations The Bite-O-Burger Company is a publicly held corporation. It owns and operates 843 fast-food restaurants located in eleven states in the United States. The restaurants feature a limited menu consisting of hamburgers, French fried potatoes, fried chicken, chili, related food items, and nonalcoholic beverages. The restaurants vary in size, but each is located in a free-standing building and surrounded by customer parking areas. All of the buildings were built to Bite-O-Burger’s plans and specifications and share enough architectural characteristics to make them easily recognized as units of the chain. All have forced air heat and are air conditioned. At current prices, the average replacement cost of the restaurants is estimated at $125,000 per unit for the building and $100,000 for the equipment. Because of differences in size, the replacement cost, including building and equipment, ranges from $175,000 for the smallest restaurants to $300,000 for the largest. The average actual cash value is $205,000 for building and equipment combined. The restaurants vary in age from a few days to approximately 20 years. All of them are owned by Bite-O-Burger, but the newer ones are subject to substantial mortgages. The home office of the company is located in leased space in a building in the business district of a midwestern city. Bite-O-Burger occupies the upper three floors of the thirty-story building. The company’s data processing centre is located on the top floor. All of the computer equipment is leased from the manufacturer. Bite-O-Burger also occupies a leased warehouse near the home office. It is used for storage and distribution of supplies (paper cups, wrapping materials, etc.) and nonperishable food items. Perishable food items are purchased from local suppliers near the restaurants in which they will be used, and they are delivered directly to the restaurants by the suppliers. There is no refrigeration equipment at the warehouse, but each restaurant has a large, walk-in refrigerator. Items from the company warehouse are distributed to the individual restaurants by a fleet of 30 owned tractor-trailer units. The same units also transport goods from the suppliers to the central warehouse when truck-load quantities are purchased. Smaller lots are shipped by common carrier FOB point of shipment. The values of the contents at the warehouse and home office are $15,750,000 and $3,200,000, respectively. Values at both locations are relatively constant throughout the year. Bite-O-Burger advertises extensively in newspapers in the cities in which it has several restaurants. Many of its advertisements feature endorsements of its products by prominent athletes and theatre personalities. Some advertisements feature pictures of local people and their favourable comments on the company’s food and service. The company also sponsors softball and bowling teams in some cities as a part of its public relations program. Bite-O-Burger’s profit and loss statement and an abbreviated balance sheet for last year are shown in Tables 2-1 and 2-2. The company’s operating results for last year were typical of past years, but sales and assets have been growing at a rate of approximately 20% per year. Bite-O-Burger’s fire and extended coverage losses for the five years are shown in Table 2-3. The quotations shown in Table 2-4 have been obtained for fire and extended coverage protection–blanket on buildings and contents on an actual cash value basis. Bite-O-Burger is well aware of the fire exposures associated with restaurants. Extensive fire control equipment has been installed in the kitchens of all units, and especially in the range hoods and in the cooking areas.