Features of Service Operations Management Essay

Features of Service Operations Management - Essay Example Businesses can opt to stay in current markets, move on to new domestic markets or venture out to new foreign markets. Depending upon the markets and strategic tie-ups, the enterprises then have to decide whether to continue with existing products or develop new ones. Organizations prepare strategies for long term survival and consistent growth. Operational management encompasses the contribution of all concerned stakeholders in order to achieve the objectives. Now organizations are supposed to have multiple objectives, monetary as well as non-monetary. They are supposed to have flexibility to meet changing external and internal demands. This paper is an effort to study the role of operational management, how the operational strategies keep changing as the organisation grows and how operational management strategies can addresses the speed to market of new products and services and the responsiveness to the demands of customers. The operations system of an organisation is essentially the part that produces the organisations' products. In some organisations the product happen to be physical goods (like TV refrigerator, soft-drinks etc), while in others it is service (insurance, health care, travel, tourism, hotel etc.). The products and services belong to various categories and fields, but all such diverse organisations have one thing in common within their operations systems, that is, the conversion process (Everett E Adam et al, 1995). There are some inputs into the process and after the conversion process, there are some outputs. The quality of these outputs depends upon the how the organisation manages its operations. Traditionally, a conversion process that includes manufacturing (or production) yields a tangible output, while a conversion process that includes service yields an intangible output. But in today's business there is no such dividing line, because the horizon of 'services' has been widened. At times, both of them are interdependent and appear to be overlapping in nature. Manufacturing organisation requires the services like transportation, communication, promotion etc. to procure the supply of materials, manager the supply and distribution channels, be in touch with the customers and suppliers, plan marketing communication strategies, manage the financial accounts of the company etc. Similarly many services organisations depend upon the manufacturing sector for the business. Services too are undergoing a transformation from the traditional concept of a service transaction to one of an experience (A. Fitzsimmons, Mona J. Fitzsimmons, 2005). For the operations management the general goal is to create some kind of value-added product or service, so that the outputs are worth more to consumers than just the sum of the individual inputs. Services oriented businesses now try to do the value addition by way of providing a valuable experience while dealing with them. For exam ple the retail showrooms like Tesco, Asda, Woolworth, Wal-Mart etc. all take pride in the fact that they provide their customers a big operating space, whole range of products and a wonderful shopping experience. From a humble beginning these stores have grown up owing to sound strategic moves and operational management. It was in the year 1919 that Jack Cohen founded Tesco, when he began to sell surplus groceries from a stall in the East End of London (Tesco, 2006). In those days his

Pathogenic and non pathogenic microorganism Research Paper

Pathogenic and non pathogenic microorganism - Research Paper Example Nonpathogenic organisms are organisms that do not cause disease to hosts with normal defense capacity. However, most non-pathogenic bacteria tend to be opportunistic in that they can cause diseases if the host defense mechanisms or defense in insufficient or compromised. The Session Long Project will discuss Escherichia coli (E. coli) as the non-pathogenic bacteria and Mycobacterium tuberculosis as the pathogenic microorganism. I choose E. coli because it is one of the most common bacteria found in humans. On the other hand, I choose Mycobacterium tuberculosis since it is a pathogenic bacteria that causes tuberculosis, which is a common opportunistic disease in immune-depressed disease. However, the causative agent is considered pathogenic. Moreover, tuberculosis causes several case of death especially in third world countries. E. coli is a common type of bacteria that is found in the human gut but is generally non-pathogenic. The bacterium is found as normal intestinal or bowel flora and has numerous strains. Moreover, Escherichia coli in the human intestines act as a source of Vitamin B complex and Vitamin K. The bacterial inhabits different regions of the body such as the lower and upper respiratory tract and the intestines where it is harmless. However, E. coli become harmful if it enters the blood system (Grover-Lakomia & Fong, 1998). Moreover, in immune-compromised individuals, E. coli is capable of producing toxics, which are harmful to humans. The bacterium is also harmful if taken from foods or contaminated water. Although cases of E. coli poisoning are rare, successful control of the pathogen poisoning would still be considered a significant accomplishment in the field of microbiology and public health (Funnell, Koutoukidis, & Lawrence, 2008; Grover-Lakomia & Fong, 1998) Mycobacterium tuberculosis is a non-motile, rod shaped bacterium, which causes tuberculosis.

Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior Essay Example for Free

Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior Essay â€Å"Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior†, is an article written by the 48-year-old lawyer and mother Amy Chua. The article is published in The Wall Street Journal on January 8th in 2011. In the article Amy Chua focuses on how the western parents up bring their children versus how the Chinese parents up bring their children. The receivers of the article are the western parents because she wants them to lean from the Chinese parents. Though the whole article Amy is subjective but because of her education she also seems reliable. By using the appeal form logos she refers to studies that compares the Chinese children and the western children ´s academic skills, where the result is that it ´s the Chinese children who are the wisest. The Chinese parents spend ten times more on academic activities with their children than the western parents. A fact which Amy does not mention in the article is that the Chinese children aren ´t free to spend much time with their friends and that can affect them negatively. Through the whole article Amy argues for that the way Chinese parents up bring their children is better than the western parents – therefor the title which also arouses much attention because the article was published in a newspaper which is only published in Western countries. The main statement is that the Chinese parents demand a lot more of their children when it comes to logical skills. For example Amy Chua says â€Å"Chinese parents demand perfect grades because they believe that their child can get them.[1]† followed by another statement â€Å"By contrast, I don’t think most Westerners have the same view of children being permanently indented to their parents.[2]† Indirectly Amy Chua says that the western parents are over-fond. Amy means that the western parents do not believe in thei r children. She emphasizes that the western parents should use more punishment and in general there should be more discipline. According the Chinese parents is the second best just not good enough. For example Amy Chua says â€Å"If a Chinese child gets a B – which would never happen[3]†¦Ã¢â‚¬  which shows that only straight as is good enough and everything under A would be a disaster. The Chinese parent’s reaction is a complete contrast to how the western people would react. The western parents would support their children even though they get very low grades. Seen from Amy Chua ´s perspective are the western children lazy and not good enough. It ´s like Amy thinks that she and the rest of the Chinese parents have found the perfect formula to up bring children. A very important value for the western parents is that their children also must spend time with their friends and have fun. Amy points out that nothing is fun until you ´re good at it. But if the child does not like to play the certain instrument and wants to join a football team or something likely that would neither be okay because it is the parents who decide what fun is for the child. If Amy Chua ´s children had been asked – Amy already had made the decision for them. The Chinese children does not have the same kind of freedom as any other child because their tiger mothers already have set straight lines for their life. The children are not allowed to take care of their own lives. The social qualities are being sat lowest on the list of values. The social qualities should in a modern society be more important than being good at playing the piano. In many ways it can seem right that logical skills are important now and in the future but if Amy and the rest of the Chinese parents do not accept their children ´s individuality something is completely wrong. It ´s kind of like that the Chinese children only keep improve their skills because they wants to make their parents happy which put a stop to their own happiness and goals in life. Amy Chua tries to understand the western way of upbringing but through the whole article she is pro the so-called â€Å"tiger mother technique†. Amy wants the western parents to learn something from the Chinese parents because then we could have a lot more genius people based on the result in Asia. Amy is so focused on good results and success that she forgets the social values and happiness – she overlooks her own mistakes. Her children have might never been to a birthday party after school or in the cinema with their friends – they have not experienced the social spirit which lead to loss of social values like friendship, love and free choices. There are a lot of ways and hundreds of different methods to up bring children and none of them are better than other because it ´s a very individual thing from family to family. Some people would perhaps find Amy Chua ´s formula interesting and some would say that it is a disaster. Medias, friends, family, magazines or whatever influences on how a certain mother and father decides to up bring their child/children and there will always be mistakes – for example: the western children are too lazy and Chinese children have lack of social skills – but that does not make one of them better than the other one.

The Acquisition Strategy Of Bankinter Marketing Essay

The Acquisition Strategy Of Bankinter Marketing Essay Bankinter is a small independent national bank, positioning itself as an innovative, multichannel, low-cost financial services provider. The bank uses various customer acquisition networks and distribution channels (brick-and-mortar branch, virtual banking and agents, telephone, internet). The firm realized that the Internet is a low-cost channel suitable for a smaller bank like itself, and launched its online site, e-bankinter.com in 1997, which ranked as the best online financial site in Spain. The Internet branch of the bank is called Branch 8700. In 2001, the Internet was the main source of entry of new consumers, so it was important part of the customer acquisition strategy of the firm. The Internet acquisition strategy of Bankinter was based on three channels: alliances, e-collaborators and 8700. I prepared a table to describe the advantages and disadvantages of the alliances and e-collaborators acquisition strategies. As from the table can be seen, the e-collaborator strategy was much more efficient in terms of acquiring new customers and it resulted in lower acquisition costs, so Bankinter decided to terminate the alliances with the portals and focused on e-collaborators. Alliances E-collaborators Pros High trafficked portals Co-branding High traffic sites Difficult to copy by competitors (customer-based CRM-system) Lower acquisition costs Higher number of new customers Cons Co-branding (brand was hidden, adaptation) High costs: Replication of systems Creation and maintenance costs Customer acquisition costs (promotion, advertising, fee/each customer acquired) Up-front annual fee Ease to copy by competitors Sites regardless of content No targeting High number of nonformalized customers Number of new customers/year 2000: ~5,000 clients 2001: 2,096 clients 2001: 43,433 clients 1st table: Pros and cons of the different Internet acquisition strategies of Bankinter The following table shows the performance of the three online channels in terms of new customers. The Branch 8700 acquires the most customers, followed by e-collaborators and alliances. The nonformalization rate is the highest in case of e-collaborators (76%, 33,003 clients). The acquisition rate is not only the highest in case of 8700 but this option has the lowest nonformalization rate (47%), as well. 8700 Alliances E-collaborators Total clients 68,175 2,096 43,433 Formalized clients (active) 35,859 1,015 10,430 Nonformalized clients 32,316 1,081 33,003 2nd table: Customer acquisition rate of the different acquisition strategies and channels at Bankinter 2) Which channel (8700, alliances, e-collaborators) performs better for the bank, and why? To analyze the performance of the three online channels, I computed the customer lifetime value for each channel. The excel tables containing the detailed analysis can be found in the Appendix. Due to the lack of information on interest rates, I used a 10 % interest rate in all scenarios to make the calculations transparent and the results easily comparable. I used two decimals at the calculations, except for the retention rates, where I used rounded numbers. When calculating the retention rates I used the first years retention rate as a base to calculate each years retention rate. I assumed a short-term and long-term period to show the results: 5 years and 10 years period also because at some scenarios the expected years in bank exceeds the 5 years period. By adding the first five years discounted values (including year 0 with the acquisition cost), or by adding the first ten years discounted values we arrive at the customer lifetime value. Based on the customer lifetime value, the 8700 is the best performing channel, because in this case the profitable clients have the highest customer lifetime value among the three scenarios. However, the customer lifetime value of the nonprofitable clients is also the highest in case of 8700, which means the highest costs. As there are only slight differences among the customer lifetime values of the nonprofitable clients of the three channels, it is less important. I mentioned in the previous part that the rate of the nonformalized and formalized customers is the best in case of 8700 (47% to 53%). Based on these calculations the 8700 is the best performing channel. E-collaborators is the second best option, as it has the second biggest customer lifetime value in case of profitable clients. 3) What (acquisition) strategy would you recommend to Bankinter? What actions should be taken by Ana Peralta? Bankinter is a multichannel bank known as the leader in online banking in its respective country. As both the traditional brick-and-mortar and online channels are essential for the bank, it should keep both focusing on the Internet branch. The brick-and-mortar channel still plays an important part, because of customer loyalty and cross-selling opportunities, as well as the high number of branch transactions (36% Exhibit 5). However, Bankinter could persuade customers to reduce the branch transactions and use Internet banking instead; it would result in lower transaction costs for the bank. Focusing on the Internet branch is also important because in 2001 it is the main source of entry, which means that it is an acquisition strategy of great relevance. Moreover, the Internet marketing campaign of the bank was successful, as the acquisition costs dropped and the number of new customers increased exponentially. I would suggest continuing the campaign, however changing some elements. Bankinter should focus on 8700 customers as their customer lifetime value is the highest. Among 8700 customers e-brokers and e-mortgage customers are the most valuable; Bankinter could try cross-selling to them. As for the other customers, finding new ways through introducing new services and attractive packages can help them turn into profitable clients. Drop alliances (as Bankinter did), and use e-collaborators instead. The problem with e-collaborators is the high number of nonformalized customers and the fact that the rate of the new customer acquisition strategy was correlated to the amount of incentives offered. By using the CRM system of the bank, it can recognize which marketing segments are the most valuable, and it enables the bank to use targeting. By using targeting in the e-collaborators channel Bankinter can attract more valuable customers. Finding the appropriate target groups also reduces the drawback of incentives. Bankinter should also find out what factors are behind the high number of nonformalization by conducting surveys, analyzing information on the nonformalized customers and the process itself. This way, they can introduce new services or alter their registration process.

Julius Caesar - Mark Antony Essay -- essays research papers

Mark Antony, in the play The Tragedy of Julius Caesar, was a brave, intelligent, pleasure-loving, and cunning man. He was loyal to his friend, Caesar, whom he considered a true friend. He looked at life as a game in which he had a signified part to play, and played that part with excellent refinement and skill. Antony was devoted and preferred to be dependent upon Julius Caesar since he rather have enjoyed life than to claim the highest position in the government. He wanted the crown to be given to Caesar so that all conflicts could be avoided. However, this additional power contributed to the conspirator's motive to assassinate him. Antony was distraught with Caesar's death and sought revenge first by speaking to the crowd in his speech. He showed how clever and cunning he could be when he convinced the crowd at Caesar's funeral ceremony to side with him and not with the murderers. The people became excited and rowdy when he teased them about the will, waving it in the air and pretending as if he was not going to read it. Reverse psychology is used when he first pretends to respect the conspirators calling them honorable men, and then slowly proving that they are not. He speaks out against them because he wanted power for himself, and unlike Brutus, he is politically ambitious and so belie ves that if he can take control while the state is in turmoil, he will remain in power. He was alone in making this oration, yet he was confidant in himself and courageous. Rome began...

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder & Autism in the Classroom Ess

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder & Autism in the Classroom When teaching it must be expected that there will be students that have behavioral disorders. These disorders must be taken into consideration when giving these students the best education possible. Teachers must accommodate to these children and incorporate them into the daily classroom. Every teacher has their own methods of doing this and can use their creativity to come up with these strategies for teaching. Some strategies may not work, so instructors must put much thought into how they are going to accommodate to these particular students. A very common disorder in children is attention deficit hyperactivity disorder or ADHD. These students have a difficult time holding attention due to the lack of the ability to concentrate. These students tend to act impulsively, have attention deficits, and sometimes exude hyperactive behaviors. Children that have ADHD do not qualify for special education unless they also have another disability. Approximately 7.8 percent of children from the ages of 4 to 17 have been diagnosed with ADHD, research also shows that males are more likely to be diagnosed with ADHD over women. These ratios vary from 4:1 to 9:1. These students with ADHD can be impulsive, which means they act before they think or before considering the situation that they are currently in. They also have a hard time concentrating and find it difficult to sit still. There are medications for ADHD, and they are prescribed often, there are also a variety of drugs that have been proven to make a child with ADHD more a ttentive and improve their academic performance. Unfortunately, these drugs have side effects such as weight loss, blood pressure chan... ...ed or wanted. I would also encourage parents to enroll their child in to sensory therapy such as occupational therapy, sensory integration, and developmental optometry therapy to help with possible vision issues. Medication wise I would encourage parents to prescribe their child to Prozac to assist in lowering anxiety, I would encourage this in older aged students. Both ADHD and autism are disorders that all teachers must be educated in before going into this profession. It is important to know the different strategies that can be used to be the most helpful instructor to these students. It is also very important to incorporate these students into the classroom and encourage good social skills with peers. By paying close attention to these students instructors are able to come up with the best strategy to provide the best education to these individuals.

In the country of men paragraphs Essay

Matar emphasise the fact that women are influential even in a patriarchal society by highlighting the theme of male which he incorporates within the patriarchy. He eradicates the allusion that women in Libya have no rights, â€Å"I cried because I understood that I was now the property of another man†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (Pg 173) this powerful quote chosen by Matar, portrays the pain and emotions experienced by real women in cases where arranged marriages occur. However he also shows how Suleiman didn’t understand his role in the society, when he uses the character of Suleiman to say â€Å"We are†¦two open pages of the same book†, this gives us the meaning of equalisation, between man and women, which as Matar knows in the time of 1979 in Libya women were never equal to man. Matar describes how Libyan men are cruel and vicious towards traitors of Libya, he uses the character of Ustath Rashid, to show the cruelty of the regime. As the character, Ustath Rashid is hanged on live television for being a â€Å"traitor† (Page 187). Matar uses this scene to revolt and distress readers about the realisations of Libya, and if you were suspected of crimes against ‘Qaddafi’, you would be captured and killed. â€Å"They looked like children satisfied with the swing they had just made†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (page 187). This shows how the people of Libya supported the ideas of Qaddafi, Matar wanted to expose this as it is important to understand that not all people in Libya were fearful of Qaddafi but rather some agreed with him and his cruel ways. â€Å"They say the man melted like ice in a fire†, â€Å"The cheering became louder and more furious†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (page 187). Matar wanted to demonstrate how people can disappear and to show how powerful Qaddafi was. Through the novel, Matar values children and makes this clear that children are seen as another innocent casualty of Qaddafi’s totalitarian regime. The author’s deliberate use of Suleiman, a nine year old narrator, as opposed to the adult Suleiman, as it shows how children aren’t able to fully comprehend what is going on around them, which gives us an indication that by having a child narrate the novel, would have an unbiased perspective rather than an adult who would be against the regime but also because children don’t hold back from handing out private information.