?Chemical Medications or Natural Healing

?Chemical Medications or Natural Healing Many times when people get sick they go to the doctor to be diagnosed, then they make their way to the pharmacy to pick up the prescriptions the doctors say you need to cure the problem. What if the prescription is wrong? But is there a better solution? Natural healing is much better than any chemical medication the doctor prescribes to you because they are natural and more effective. Many prescriptions are easy to overdose on, and usually end in death or serious health problems. Overdosing on NSAIDs also can damage kidneys† says transplant pharmacist McDevitt, a clinical specialist in organ transplantation at Tufts Medical Center. Prescriptions aren’t the only drug that people can overdose on. It is very common for people to overdose on over-the-counter drugs such as Tylenol, Aleve, and ibuprofen. â€Å"People play loose and free with Benadryl,† says Ausim Azizi, chair of the department of neurology at Temple University Sc hool of Medicine. â€Å"There are a lot of side effects.One is loss of memory in the imediant period after taking it, and disorientation in older people. † Experts are trying to get the manufacturers to make it harder for people to overdose, but what if they got rid of all the chemical ingredients and replaced them with natural herbs and plants? Without the chemicals made in medications, then people wouldn’t have to worry about overdosing and cause damage to their body. Chemical medications have very serious side effects that can cause death in extreme cases.Many people just ignore these serious effects because they think they have no other choice. Chemical medicines do work, but natural medications work better and longer. â€Å"The best thing is to find the best medicine that will be fast and effective. And in the health market out there, there are tons of medicines that will promise to do that, yet at the same time, the small print tells us to beware of the side eff ects. This little warning is one that we often ignore. Yet at the same time it is important to acknowledge its existence so that we do not end up making ourselves sicker.Natural health medicine has the benefits in that it is one of the few medicines that have little or no side effects. The only side effect that it might have is if you are allergic to a certain ingredient and you didn’t know it. † [Crosshealth, Emmanuel Aubrey] Approximately 25% of the prescription drugs sold in the United States are plant based. These medications are better for the body but not as good as the all natural medicine. When the chemicals are added to the pills, they cancel out the healing powers of the plant.Natural medications actually heal the sickness and infection, instead of just covering up the symptoms. Chemical medications are made to cover up the symptoms so people can go on with their days without having to suffer with misery of the illness. â€Å"Conventional medicine focuses on symptoms and uses ‘drugs’ (man made synthetics) to ‘suppress,’ (NOT heal) those symptoms. Natural health and alternative medicine focuses on the ‘causes’ and getting to the ‘root cause,’ which always improves your overall health.This is the right way of curing health problems, instead of just ‘masking’ it. † [Jonathan Benson] Natural healing does take longer than the quick chemicals, but they heal thoroughly and have a no chance of making someone sicker or killing. Doctors say that natural cures are dangerous and a misuse of public money. They call it encouraged quackery. Professor Marcello Costa of Flinders University said: â€Å"It is disturbing to see a centre of learning†¦ perpetuating health practices based on beliefs in principles that are totally unscientific. Doctors are wrong about natural healing not being proven scientifically. The NCCAM (National Center of Complementary and Alternative Medicine) has proven and backed up many alternative treatments such as chiropractic and acupuncture practices. Natural healing should be the first thing given to a patient when they have been diagnosed by a doctor. Chemical medications have been known to be overdosed on, to have caused serious side effects, and have been known to not heal the problem but to just simply cover up the symptoms that let a person know something is wrong.

The Spaces and Practice of Early Christian Assembly

The most public of spiritual assemblages in the Roman Empire were big jubilations and festivals held in the public temples.† Worshippers believed that propinquity to the Godhead within a temple that is, the comparative distance between oneself and the image or venerated artefact of the Godhead housed within the edifice imbued the person with power† ( Halgren, 1957 ) , the closer 1 could near the God, they believed, the stronger and more auspicious the connection. , accessing infinite nearest the manifestation of the God was restricted to merely a few persons, priests who had been decently educated and initiated in the significances and patterns are allowed by tradition in such a holy topographic point, Access to the temple was besides decreed by tradition and closely regulated by jurisprudence. â€Å"The longitudinal axis of the Judaic temple, for case, ran through a series of dividers and other limits that designated infinites reserved for specific groups—at the outer border of the infinite, Gentiles were allowed ; so, closer in, Judaic adult females and kids ; closer still, Judaic work forces ; and eventually, the priests† ( Richardson, 2002 ) . Religious pattern at this period was non restricted to temples, nevertheless. Smaller meetings frequently took topographic point in sanctuaries and chapels, every bit good as in rented suites. For illustration, at the same clip that the followings of Jesus began coming together, the believers of the God Mithras were besides increasing in figure and by the 3rd century were run intoing takes topographic point in little sanctuaries called mithraeums, suites designed to presume a cave or the underworld. In these irregular infinites, benches lined the two long walls and a little shrine or communion table was arranged at the terminal of the room. â€Å"The ceilings were normally vaulted and decorated with stars to stand for the celestial spheres, In this confidant scene, initiated believers enter the same infinite as the shrine and participated in communalWorship† ( white, 1990 ) . Similarly, by the 2nd century, Jews had an arranged temples and supplication halls in once private houses converted for the intent. One crude illustration, at Delos, had been created through the devastation of a wall that exist two next suites, ensuing in a individual big room. Benches linedthe walls of this assembly room, and a carven marble chair busying one wall provided a focal point. â€Å"No Torah shrine was found in this room, although Torah niches have been found in other early temples, including that at Priene, where another house renovated sometime in the 2nd century was found† ( White,1990:49 ) . Within these infinites, worship patterns were diverse, dwelling of a diverseness of supplications and Holy Eucharists. As members of the Roman Empire began to follow the Jesus spiritual group, they adapted these familiar patterns and infinites for their new intents, inculcating them with new significances. â€Å"The held meetings of the followings of Christ in the first few coevalss after his decease were of three major types, all versions of the patterns of other spiritual groups, peculiarly those of the Jews, for so the followings were Judaic, every bit good as other Roman and Greek faiths. Most of these meetings Involved a shared repast, existent or symbolic, for in the Greco-Roman universe, widening cordial reception by sharing a repast was a cardinal signifier of societal interactThese communal repasts brought Christians together to larn about their religion, to idolize, and to portion experiences, but they besides functioned to make coherence within the new community of Christians† . ( Jeanne, 2008:16 ) , Harmonizing to L. Michael White points out that, communal repasts formed ‘‘the centre of family ( koinonia ) ’’ by bespeaking that a societal relationship existed among those gathered and therefore ‘‘served to specify the worshipping community, the church ( ekklesia ) in family assembly.’’ ( White, 1990 ) . Among these meeting types, the agape repast, or love banquet, was most of import, and although it drew upon Greco-Roman pattern in many ways, it subtitute the imbibing and carousing that traditionally followed Roman banquets with instruction and worship. Those who gathered at a Christian repast would convey some nutrient point with them as an offering for the repast normally bread, wine, or angle merely as many people do today in what is normally known as the potluck supper. Harmonizing to Osiek et EL Balch, eating excessively rapidly upon reaching, nevertheless, would ensue in deficient nutrient for those who arrived subsequently, and therefore Paul adviced the Corinthians that ‘‘when you come together to eat, delay for one another, ’’ promoting those who could non wait to eat to make so at place before they came ( 1 Cor. 11:33–34 ) . Such advice, which counters common Roman pattern, indicates that the emerging Christian pattern was still comparatively flexible and informal, with new etiquette or regulations easy being introduced into the meetings.â€Å"After the repast, those gathered would portion a ceremonial breakage and feeding of staff of life, followed by a approval and sharing of a cup of vino, marking Jesus’ pronouncement for his recollection at the Last Supper† . ( Macy, 2005 ) After this, they would prosecute in a assortment of larning and worship activities, which, harmonizing to historiographer s Carolyn Osiek and David L. Balch, included ‘‘singing, instruction, and prophesying† . The 3rd type of assemblage was the Eucharistic meeting, wer they shared Meal, this was transformed into a symbolic rite focused entirely on staff of life and vino as figure of speechs for the flesh and blood of Christ. The development of the agape and funerary repasts, thath did include a sharing of staff of life and vino in recollection of Christ, most have preceded the outgrowth of Eucharistic patterns, merely when and how the strictly Eucharistic assemblage emerged is ill-defined. Like the agape repasts, these Eucharist repasts took topographic point in private places, but over the 2nd and 3rd centuries important alterations in services indicate they were going progressively formalized both in leading and in activities. â€Å"Justin, in the 2nd century, refers to the individual taking the service as the presider or the president, but by the 3rd century, the organisational Structures of the Christian motion developed into an episcopos, a Grecian term intending ‘‘overseer’’ or, in modern idiom, a bishop ; the term priest besides became popular. The service itself was altering every bit good, described by Justin and his modern-day Ignatius, the bishop of Antioch, as symbo lic or representational, a jubilation of Christ’s forfeit of his ain flesh and blood.† ( Macy, 2005 ) By the 3rd century, the turning popularity of these representational services would necessitate a particular infinite that would suit them, taking to the creative activity of formal assembly suites. ( Mercer, 1985 ) â€Å"The 4th type of early Christian meeting took topographic point out of doors, such as the meeting of the followings of Jesus on the Mount of Olives shortly after his decease, a narrative related in The Letter of Peter to Philip, which was found among other Gnostic texts at Nag Hammadi in Upper Egypt.† ( Elaine Pagels, 1989 ) Little is known, nevertheless, about such out-of-door meetings, in portion because they seem to hold been used largely by Gnostic groups, whose beliefs and patterns challenged those of the emerging orthodoxy and were accordingly stricken from Orthodox civilization and paperss. Outdoor worship therefore became associated with dissident groups and fell out of favour. What must be kept in head, nevertheless, is that despite the differences among these early types of worship, early Christian worship infinites and patterns were extremely diverse. â€Å"No individual, original, pure Christian pattern of all time existed.† ( Bradshaw, 1992:30 ) From the earliest period, Christian groups expressed their thoughts about Jesus and God in different ways, and those thoughts, runing from the eventual orthodoxy of the major episcopates in Rome, Antioch, and Carthage to the Gnostic positions of the Marcionites, Donatists, and Montanists, were extremely diverse. Early Christians expressed their spiritual thoughts through a assortment of spiritual patterns ways, merely as modern-day Christians do.2.1.2The infinites and Practice of Early Christian assemblyMost Biblical bookmans, archeologists and classicists, agree that the meeting of Christians, like those of other spiritual groups, by and large occur topographic point in the places of frequenters, that i s, in Greco-Roman houses. The phrase ‘‘meeting from house to house, ’’ found repeatedly in the Gospel texts, good characterized thepractice of early Christians. The physical worlds of those infinites, and the places in peculiar, along with the cultural imposts of the period, strongly influenced emerging Christian pattern. To understand how, it helps to hold some cognition of the physical features of those places Architectural and textual grounds of Greco-Roman houses in the first and 2nd centuries point out that several assortments existed. Give the long, hot summers of the Mediterranean part, the houses of the wealthiest place proprietors were used as worship infinites ; opening into a series of suites arranged around an oasis-like unfastened infinite that brought air and visible radiation into the house. â€Å"Entry into the house was gained through a anteroom or hallway. Within a Grecian house, this led to a room in which the family frequenter conducted concern, and beyond this was the bosom of the house: the courtyard, which was roofless but lined by columns that supported an overhead fretwork that would be covered with flora to protect the residents from the Sun. In a Roman or Latin house, the anteroom off the street by and large led right into an atrium, or unfastened courtyard, which would be unfastened to the sky and incorporate an impluvium ; a shallow pool that gathered rainwater ( fig. 2.1 ) .† ( Osiek et el Balch, 1997:6 ) the private infinites of the place surrounds the courtyard and several closed suites reserved for the members of the family. â€Å"The cardinal parts of antediluvian houses—the anterooms, atria, were considered much more public in character. Such houses, peculiarly those in which the concern of the wealthy was routinely carried out, welcomed the entry of people from the street.† ( Halgren,1957:19 ) .

Global Supply Chain Management

Global Supply Chain Management ERP Business Administration , 3rd year Project by Arhire Alexandru Coordonating professor Pavaloaia Daniel Contents Introduction3 Chapter 1. Issues within the Global Supply Chain Management System4 Chapter 2. Global Supply Chains Management – Company Strategies5 Chapter 3. Global Supply Chain Model6 Chapter 4. The virtualization of Global Supply Chain Management8 Chapter 5. Conclusions10 References11 Introduction In order to understand what global supply chain management is we must first become familiar with the concept of supply chain management. The supply chain management is the network of services, material and information flow that link a firm’s customer relations, order fulfillment and supplier relations processes to those of its suppliers and customers. It is the science of developing a strategy to motivate, control and organize the resources involved in the flow of services and materials within the supply chain†. Nowadays, mo re and more companies source globally, sell globally, or compete with some other company that is involved in such activities. Thus, global supply chain management (GSCM) represents a central area of focus for many businesses and business schools today. Although the extraordinary growth of GSCM attests to its robustness and practical importance, the field is diffuse and complex. Many methods and perspectives on GSCM have emerged from logistics, operations, marketing, management, economics, sociology, personnel, information systems, and international relations. Their diversity and rapid growth make it hard to keep abreast of significant developments. Moreover, many of these approaches have evolved with relative independence, paying little attention to how they relate to existing methods or interrelate with each other.This makes it difficult to accumulate wisdom in the field and to develop a coherent knowledge base to guide research and practice. † Many businesses have found â₠¬Å"global supply chain management† to be an important issue when trying to outsource in regions across their borders. This can be explained by the increase in globalization. To outsource on a global level is difficult because it involves doing business with a variety of companies and suppliers which have their own codes of business conducts and various perspectives on business ethics; mainly on how to trade internationally.Global Supply Chain Management involves two big concepts: the supply chain management concept which was discussed above and the concept of globalization. This concept infers the cross-border movement of good and the emergence of global competitors and opportunities across competing supply chains with an industry. However, the current trend towards the globalization of supply chain management leaves many managers confused. Managers often question the differences between a global market and a single market, in that many of the same conditions exist in both.Alt hough this may be true, the complexities of cross-border operations are exponentially greater than in a single country, and the ability to compete in the global environment often depends on understanding the subtleties that emerge only in cross-border trade—that is, in â€Å"Global Supply Chain Management†. Chapter 1. Issues within the Global Supply Chain Management System For companies to operate on a global level is no easy task. There are many complications that arise from trying to do business across borders. 1. The first issue it faces is the costs and expenses of doing business â€Å"across borders†.Dealing with international business is a difficult task because it involves many types of different businesses in many countries. Costs for the company may involve: renting the required space, state taxes, transportation and others. â€Å"Additionally, companies need to factor in the exchange rate. Obviously, companies must do their research and give serious c onsideration to all of these different elements as part of their global supply management approach. † 2. The second factor that can put a dent into â€Å"global supply management† is the necessary time to conduct all the activities when dealing with this issue. The productivity of the overseas employees and the extended shipping times can either positively or negatively affect the company's lead time, but either way these times need to be figured into the overall procurement plan†. There are multiple factors that can influence the amount of time spent when doing business overseas, factors like: the delay of a shipment due to bad weather conditions, this can also influence the production process, or the time it takes for the merchandise to get clearance through customs.When dealing with the issue of â€Å"global supply chain management† the expression â€Å"time is money† takes a bigger and more literary meaning. 3. Another factor that managers tend t o consider important when dealing overseas is the place where you chose to do business. Some companies may choose technologically developed countries for the obvious reasons: information travels faster, the production process can be sped up and so can the shipment process. Other companies may choose poorer countries just due to the fact that the labor in those types of countries is cheap.And some companies might want to keep their activities somewhere closer to the main headquarters in order to reduce costs and expenses. 4. Probably one of the most pressing issues is that global supply chain managers deal with is the selection of the suppliers. It is a difficult task to try and get the ideal supplier because there are many and making a comparison between them is very difficult due to various issues like being pressured by time or trying to choose the cheapest supplier due to insufficient funds. A company must take its time when choosing the suppliers ost fitted for them and must ana lyze from all perspectives: quality, price, reputation, promptitude and many others. Taking the time to make a thorough research for suppliers on the market should be one of the main priorities of a company. 5. Another issue that can arise in â€Å"global supply chain management† is of logistic nature. Companies that choose to ship their products overseas can encounter issues such as: how many factories or plants does it need? How many suppliers are needed to ensure a fast manufacturing process in order to meet the market demand? Where should the company export their goods and why? For example, if a business uses a number of vendors around Bangalore, India than it may make sense to locate the manufacturing plant that would utilize those supplies in or around Bangalore as well. Not only will this provide lower employee costs, but overall shipping and tariff expenses should also be reduced. This would then save the company money†. Chapter 2. Global Supply Chains Managemen t – Company Strategies For a company to go global is always a difficult and long-term task. It has to face a lot of risks and issues that arise from trying to accomplish such a goal.When faced with the questions of what are the most challenging aspects of going global for a supply chain, managers and executives tend to reffer to the following: * Total resources required to manage supply chain * Recruitment and retention of sufficient local talent * Integration of IT systems between the company and vendors * Degree to which central manageement was required * Degree to which local management was required * Identification and implementation of risk-management strategy * Grater difficulty of managing safety and/or quality Speed at which competitive advantages from extending operations to low-cost markets evened out across us and our competitors * Infrastructure to support local workforce It is inveitable that when a company chooses to go global that it should face these challenge s. Many of them represent a great risk while others are technologically based. Technological development for a company is a key factor for success because especially nowadays, a company that has it’s own IT department and systems can easily gain a competitive advantage. Another important challenge that a company is faced with, is the recruitment of employees.When expanding to different territories finding talented people to work for the company can be a huge challenge. The company may need to transport capable employees from the mother company to new locations in order to ensure a good start for it’s activities in that area. This is why companies need to form a solid strategy for their supply chain and try to prioritize their goals. For example in a research done by McKenzy ; Company in 2008 have shown that the primary strategic goals that companies focus on are: * Reducing costs * Improving customer service Getting new products/services to market faster * Improving pr oduct quality * Reducing comapny’s carbon footprint * Maintaining majority of employees in home region The companies that are trying to emphasise on reducing costs the most are the companies that operate in developing or emerging markets. McKinsey ; Company also says that „perhaps comapnies in countries such as China are trying to anticipate the effect of rising costs (including labor costs and appreciating currencies) on the competitive advantages they currently enjoy as low-cost manufactureres†.The conclusion here is that if companies want to succeed on foreign markets they must develop strong strategies for market penetration, the speed to which the products arrive at the disposal of the customers, hiring competent personel and lowering costs. Chapter 3. Global Supply Chain Model In order for a company to be able to adapt to the everchanging global markets and to manage to keep up with the technological advances it mus have a sound „global supply chain mo del†. Researchers say that in order for a company to succeed it must have a „model of global supply chain agility†. Researchers ike Patty Swafford, Dr. Soumen Ghosh and Dr. Nagesh Murthy, define in their paper intitled „A Model of Global Supply Chain Agility and its Impact on Competitive Performance†, the concept of „global supply chain agility† as „a measure of the supply chain’s ability to efficiently adapt to a rapidly changing global competitive environment to provide and/or services†. They also state that „global supply chain agility† is determined by four componenets of flexibility, which are: * The flexibility of product development * The flexibility of sourcing * The flexibility of manufacturing * The flexibility of logisticsThey also state that „an organization’s information technology flexibility and its industry’s global competitive environment influence its level of global chain agility†. (Patty Swafford, Dr. Soumen Ghosh, Dr. Nagesh Murthy). An example of a practical „global supply chain management† model could be: Chapter 4. The virtualization of Global Supply Chain Management If a long time ago business was conudcted in the old fashioned way, like face to face trading, nowadays it is not required to physically be preasent when closing a deal or trading goods or services. This is mainly because of the Internet.This amazing invention which revolutionized how the entire world works, has rapidly made its way into the world of business and changed it forever. The birth of the Internet has brought to the business world instruments such as „E-business† or „E-commerce† which basicly means „the use of Interned-based computing and communications to execute both front-end and back-end business processes†. With the help of the Internet, comapnies can obtain a greater visibility outside their own borders on what i s happening with their activities and the activities of competitors and thus are able to quickly respond to changes in the market.The adoption of „e-business† can mean, for companies, a better global supply chain with the reductions of costs and expenses, the increase in flexibility and faster reactions in time. Hau L. Lee and Seunjing Whang, say in their paper intiteled „E-Business and Supply Chain Integration† that „ over the past decade a combination of economic, technology and market forces has compelled companies to examine and reinvent their supply chain strategies. Some of these forces include the globalization of business the proliferation of product variety, increasing complexity of supply networks and the shortening of the product life cycles.To stay competitivem enlightened comapnies have strived to achieve greater coordination and collabroation among supply chain partners in an approach called „supply chain Integration†Ã¢â‚¬ . T his means that the Internet plays an important role and will continue to play it in the development of the „global supply chain management† and provide fast and reliable ways of integration for the supply chain. The way in which a company conducts „e-business† will be an important factor in the succes of that company.If a company kows how to use the internet for its „back-end† operations like product development and design, procurement of supplies, production process, keeping inventory, distribution channels, services support, marketing and management then it is very much likely that the company will always be at a competitive advantage. Reseachers Hau L. Lee and Seunjing Whang have identified four key dimensions in which the impacts of „e-business† can be found on „supply chain integration†: a. „Information integration†. Which reffers to „the sharing of information among memebers of the supply chain†.If this system is implemented correctly, without the danger of leaking important company secrets to unwanted parties, then the communication between the memebers of a supply chain can be made easier an thus increase the overall performance. b. „Planning synchronization†. Which refers to „the joint design and execution of plans for product introduction, forecasting and replenishment†. This dimension refers to the ability of the supply chain memebers to use the information provided in order to acomplish their plans and meet their objectives. c. Workflow coordination†. It reffers to „streamlined and automated workflow activities between the supply chain partners†. This means to decide on how the provided information can be used and what is the best way to gain the most out of it. In the end it means to achieve efficiency thorugh technology solutions and to automate many of the cross-company workflow stages. d. „New Business Models†. „E-business allows partners to redefine logistics flows so that the roles and responsabilities of memebers may change to improve overall supply chain efficiency†.Taking an „e-business† approach to supply chain integration can mean improvements in effciency but can also spring new opportunities of business for the company that previously were not possible. For example with the help of the Internet a „supply chain network may jointly create new products, pursue mass cutomization and penetrate new markets and customer segments†. In conclusion, „e-business† and „e-commerce† are two powerfull tools for the integration of the global supply chain across a widespread area of industries and countries.Such instruments have the power to enable a faster and realiable cooperation between memebrs of the „global supply chain† and companies that adopt such methods will surely gain and important competitive advantage on the g lobal markets. The sharing of information benefits not only the company that does the sharing but the whole business community, thus establishing a network of „e-business† between companies all over the world is an important step towards the development of business processes and conducts.The internet not only helps develop a company but it also gives it new business oportunities which can enrich its portfolio and make it more attractive to customers. Chapter 5. Conclusions Considering all that has been said in this paper we can safely assume that the core of a business is its supply chain. Thus if the whole world is involved in doing business then we can say that „global supply chain mangement† is the core of the business world and it is what really „makes the world go round†.The main „driver† that stands behind the „wheel† of an efficient „global supply chain management† is without a doubt the Internet and the instrument known as „e-business†. With the help of the Internet companies now can gain real-time visibility into the flow of their good and services, get information on their suppliers, optimize inventory management, reduce transportation and shipping costs, the oportunity to quickly react to a change or shift in the market in order to respond to the customer needs.However, along with these benefits are the challenges that businesses need to overcome when operating globally. These challenges are related to foreign national economies, logistics, cultures, competition, and infrastructure. These challenges give rise to several risks in global supply chains. In the end â€Å"global supply chain management† is the network that opens countries to cross border trading and is an important part in global business. References * Luvai F. Motiwalla, Jeff Thompson, â€Å"Enterprise Systems for Management†, 2nd edition, Chp. 11, pg 327. John T. Metzner, Theodore P. Stank , Matthew B. Myers, â€Å"Why Global Supply Chain Management†. * http://www. epiqtech. com/supply_chain-Global-Management. htm , accessed on the 19th of May 2012. * McKinsey Global Survey Results, â€Å"Managing global supply chains†, pages 5,6,9. * Patty Swafford, Dr. Soumen Ghosh, Dr. Nagesh Murthy, „A Model of Global Supply Chain Agility and its Impact on Competitive Performance†, pg 2. * Hau L. Lee, Seunjing Whang, â€Å"E-business and Supply Chain Integration†, pages 2 and 4. ——————————————– [ 1 ]. Luvai F.Motiwalla, Jeff Thompson, â€Å"Enterprise Systems for Management†, 2nd edition, Chp. 11, pg 327. [ 2 ]. John T. Metzner, Theodore P. Stank, Matthew B. Myers, â€Å"Why Global Supply Chain Management† [ 3 ]. http://www. epiqtech. com/supply_chain-Global-Management. htm , paragraph 2. [ 4 ]. http://www. epiqtech. com/supply_cha in-Global-Management. htm , parahraph 3. [ 5 ]. http://www. epiqtech. com/supply_chain-Global-Management. htm , paragraph 4. [ 6 ]. http://www. epiqtech. com/supply_chain-Global-Management. htm , paragraph 5. [ 7 ]. http://www. epiqtech. com/supply_chain-Global-Management. tm , paragraph 6. [ 8 ]. McKinsey Global Survey Results, â€Å"Managing global supply chains†, pg 9. [ 9 ]. McKinsey Global Survey Results, â€Å"Managing global supply chains†, pg 5. [ 10 ]. McKinsey Global Survey Results, â€Å"Managing global supply chains†, pg 6. [ 11 ]. Patty Swafford, Dr. Soumen Ghosh, Dr. Nagesh Murthy, „A Model of Global Supply Chain Agility and its Impact on Competitive Performance†, pg 2. [ 12 ]. Hau L. Lee, Seunjing Whang, â€Å"E-business and Supply Chain Integration†, pg 2. [ 13 ]. Hau L. Lee, Seunjing Whang, â€Å"E-business and Supply Chain Integration†, pg. 4.

Marketing strategy of Adidas Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Marketing strategy of Adidas - Essay Example The firm that is analyzed in the paper is Adidas, the largest sport manufacturer in Europe and has Puma and Nike as its major competitors. They have divided their whole range of products into two segments: Adidas Performance and Adidas Originals. Adidas performance aims to show the loyalty and devotion of the brand to athletes, while Adidas Originals are all about fashion and lifestyle. The definition stated by Philip Kotler is: â€Å"The science and art of exploring, creating, and delivering value to satisfy the needs of a target market at a profit. Marketing identifies unfulfilled needs and desires. It defines, measures and quantifies the size of the identified market and profit potential. It pinpoints which segments the company is capable of serving best and it designs and promotes the appropriate products and services†. Adidas have been since its inception looking for opportunities in the market by constant market analysis. It has been seen that they have been the company of many firsts and therefore a company who has been creating a niche in many sectors. They introduced Adidas originals to target the market that did not wear the sportswear as they had no relation with sports but then Adidas cashed in on the opportunity by releasing a line of casual wears which would ultimately establish them in the non-sport sector as well. Main points from the definition: science and art of exploring, creating, and delivering value to satisfy the needs of a target market at a profit.... The only new thing it has ventured into is the fashion and style apparel industry as well. It has done the promotion of its products by hiring clubs and sportsmen from different sports and countries to be their ambassadors.. As for their casuals line they have even hired sportsmen in this arena but used them to portray the use of Adidas besides the sports they play, in their routine lives. Task Two SWOT Analysis is a strategic planning method that is used by companies to identify their internal and external conditions in one go. Strength and weakness are utilized as internal analysis tools while the opportunity and threats are used for external analysis. The SWOT analysis for ADIDAS is as follows (Smit, 2000): Strength: Adidas is a very established brand. It has been in the market since 1949 producing the sportswear for the world to wear. Deliverance of the promise. Adidas is a premium brand that promises to offer the best quality and delivers the same. Brand Ambassadors. Adidas has a very long and powerful list of brand ambassadors that includes people from nearly all the sporting arenas. It has sponsorship for huge sporting events like NASCAR and the IPL recently held in India. It has also had major sponsorship for some of the famous Football events. Diversity in the product range. Excellent supplier relationships. They have never had any lawsuits in relation with child labor or poor working. Adidas has a very established network of distribution; their goods are sold worldwide. Weaknesses: They are very heavily reliant on the sports industry alone. This may prove to be a disadvantage at a point as they have to diversify into other sectors as well to increase their own portfolio and reduce risks. They are

Dental Health Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Dental Health - Essay Example In a prison there is lot of limitations for such things. "In the past, the provision of dental services in prisons has been of variable quality. For this reason, the Strategy for Modernising Dental Services for Prisoners in England was published in 2003. Every Prison was required, in consultation with the local primary care trust, to develop a Dental Action Plan for improving their dental service. 4.75 million over three years was allocated towards the implementation of these plans." (Harvey, S. et al. 2005). The authorities must provide dental check up for at least 200 to 250 prisoners per week. The dental service needs to be universal based on clinical needs and must provide all sorts of services to the patients, but inside the prisons it has certain limitations for providing all sorts of dental services. In case of trauma to the face or cheeks the person may present with severe bleeding and the prisoner should be taken to the emergency department, but this must be in line with the local health care provisions and according to the security policies in the prison. In acute dental pain is advisable to take the person to a dentist within 24 hours or at least to an appropriate practitioner within 24 hours. The prisoner needs routine follow up with in six weeks in all most every case and this is also restricted by certain prison policies. The incidence of untreated dental disease in pris... THE CHALLENGES The incidence of untreated dental disease in prisoners is much high when compared with that of the general population, so the dental health needs of prisoners is much high. Since the prisoners neglect their oral health for such a very long time the problem may in the most aggravated form. "While dental care is a critical component of overall quality health care, many prisoners enter correctional facilities in the United States with little history of good dental hygiene and even less history of access to dentists for routine dental examinations. As a result, the incarceration experience presents opportunities for inmates to receive quality dental care, often for the first time in their lives. Dental care delivered by correctional dentists is complicated, however, by the array of serious dental conditions and difficult to treat dental problems in clinical settings". (Vaughan, M.S. et al. 2006) The poor nutritional status may also aggravate the problem. Smoking must be prevented in high risk cases. "The higher proportion of drug users in prison compared to general population can also explain the greater need for dental treatment. Methadone users in particular have a high level of oral disease". (Rotary. et al. 2007)Another important problem is that the dental care sessions may be shorted by security problems. Other important issues in dental health care include the lack of space in prisons, insufficient staff for treatment, lack of funding for health promotion and outdated facilities for health care in prisons. A report published in Sage Journal describes that there is variation in dental care provided to the prisoners. "Forty-five

SWOT Analysis in Nestle Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

SWOT Analysis in Nestle - Case Study Example In a recent research carried out by the company, almost 60% of the world population must have consumed or benefited from one of the company's brand3. Most of its brands are billion sellers, and some of the brands are popular than the company itself. Some brands are only available in certain parts of the world. The company is one good corporation promoting diversity, the shareholders, and the employees come from different part of the world. The company has millions of undistributed profit, a portfolio balance sheet in billions of dollars4. Through Creating Shared Value, Nestl links its operations to long-term value both for its business and for society as a whole, and defines its success in terms of internal financial returns and external social and economic results. Ultimately, creating shared value acknowledges both the work that corporations need to do to reduce negative impacts on society as well as, and more fundamentally, how they can be part of progress on global challenges5. The SWOT Analysis, or sometimes known as the TOWS Matrix, is a strategic planning, competitive and analytic weapon used to evaluate the S trengths, W eaknesses, O pportunities, and T hreats involved in a project or business venture6. Market analysis of competitors, suppliers, customers and potential opportunities has long been a competitive preparation of the staple firm7. As the struggle for product development and market shar... 1.2 Applying the SWOT Metrix The SWOT Analysis, or sometimes known as the TOWS Matrix, is a strategic planning, competitive and analytic weapon used to evaluate the S trengths, W eaknesses, O pportunities, and T hreats involved in a project or business venture6. Market analysis of competitors, suppliers, customers and potential opportunities has long been a competitive preparation of the staple firm7. As the struggle for product development and market shares continue, firms often perform market analysis of their competitor's strength, opportunities, and weaknesses and threats in order to know how to formulate and implement subsequent strategies8. However, in the theory of perfect competition and major strategic theories it is assume firms know their industry and competitors fairly well. Anderton, (2006) postulated that firms engage in competitive analysis to gain a better understanding of their competitors' resources, capabilities, and strategies. Smith et al. (1992) went further to detail how firms in the airline industry initiate strategies and respond to competitors' strategies. Thomas et al., (1993) went further to illustrate the importance of competitor's analysis.The perception of similarities and differences among competing firms can drastically affect the types of competitive behaviors in which a firm engages9. By doing competitive analysis firms are better placed to do ma rket segmentation, develop their core products and competences and be more opportunistic in their environment. Figure 1., below provide an in-depth analysis of Nestle strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. Weaknesses Opportunities Major competitors have strong holding some countries and market segment. Some products have not been quite

Capital Accumulation for Beautiful You Ltd Essay

Capital Accumulation for Beautiful You Ltd - Essay Example This report will point out the documents need to be prepared and the various mandatory procedures Alethra Brotherton and her partner and Beautiful You Ltd. need to comply  with, in order to issue the shares to Expansion Capital plc or, alternatively,  borrow the money from the bank and create the security required.   I. Legal Procedures and Documentation Required According to Bos (1969), every business transaction is a legal activity as each business concern is a separate legal entity. In the given case, there are two options available for the Beautiful You Ltd to finance its planned expansion. One is to acquire ?150,000 from Expansion Capital plc in return of one third of the shares of the company. The second option allows the company to receive ?100,000 from the company’s bank on the strength of a fixed charge over the new shop premises. In order to proceed with both these options, the Beautiful You Ltd has to prepare certain documentations and comply with other legal procedures. If the company decides to finance its proposed business expansion plan by acquiring funds from Expansion Capital plc, it needs to issue one third of its shares to Expansion Capital plc. Since the Beautiful You Ltd is a private company, it is not required to state the authorized share capital. However, if the Beautiful You Ltd has registered before 01.10.2009, it would have an authorized share capital provision in its memorandum of association if it has not been removed. In such a situation, the Beautiful You Ltd can issue shares only up to its authorized capital amount which is stated under the capital clause of the memorandum of association. If the company has no sufficient authorized capital available, it must amend the articles before the share issue. A copy of the passed resolution, a form of G123, and the altered memorandum must be registered at Companies House. However, these procedures do not affect the Beautiful You Ltd if it had been formed after 01.10.2009. Alt hough the share allotment is a matter of management, the directors are subjected to some statutory obligations in order to prevent abuses of powers. The directors have the authority to allot shares if the company has only one class of shares; this provision is also subjected to specific restrictions in the company’s articles (sec550, CA 2006). In contrast, a special resolution (sec51, CA 2006) or a provision in the company’s articles must authorize the directors to allot shares if the company has more than one class of shares. While taking a decision regarding share issuance to the Expansion Capital plc, the beautiful You Ltd must consider the pre-emptive rights for existing members, which have been defined as statutory pre-emptive rights in sec561, CA 2006. However, the Beautiful You Ltd can exclude these rights by either a provision in the company’s articles or by passing a special resolution (sec569-sec571). When the Beautiful You Ltd takes such a capital acc umulation decision, some of its existing shareholders may waive their rights to them. Under such circumstances, the company has the legal obligation to offer shares to them. After ensuring that all the above matters has been attended, the directors of the Beautiful You Ltd may resolve to allot shares by clearly stating number and class of shares, the price paid, the allottees, whether for cash or other assets. The directors must issue share certificate to the Expansion

New concept of Marriage Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

New concept of Marriage - Essay Example Marriages are different depending on the tradition and culture of the spouses and they are carried out differently. In most African and even Asian culture for example, the beginning of a marriage is the paying of the dowry to the bride’s parents as a token of appreciation essentially which is soon followed by a traditional wedding ceremony which can be solemnized later in church or not. The whites do not care so much about the issue of bride price or paying dowry and most do not even officially seek a formal hand in marriage from the bride’s side of the family. They simply move to the wedding part and the marriage soon begins. Research has verified this by indicating that in Africa, over 60% of marriages have dowry payment paid while in Europe and America, the figure is less than that and the majority are the African-Americans (Peterson and Bush 685). It is an open secret that the rate of divorce among the whites is way higher than it is among the Africans and Asians as indicated in the article in The Economist by its editor, (2011) which explains that divorce rate in Asia is only about 2per every 1000 while in America in 3.7 and in Britain 3.4 for every 1000. Others argue that this is because of the lack of a staunch tradition on the part of the spouses and especially in engaging the parents of the spouses in the affair. For the Africans for example, during the traditional marriage ceremony and preparations and before the bride or groom is handed over to their significant other, the family and especially the same sex parent has serious discussion with the bride or groom about what marriage entails and what will be expected of them in terms of fulfillment of roles and duties and how to engage in all these. These are called trading secrets of the ups and downs to expect and how to handle each and every one of them. By the time they are officially starting the marriage, each party is aware of the reality

The Marginalists Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

The Marginalists - Term Paper Example This means that excess demand or supply in one market would be offset by another in a different market. The same phenomenon holds for the state of disequilibrium such that all markets exist at disequilibrium simultaneously. In his approach of returns to scale, Marshall noted that a firm’s productivity increase more proportionately in the short run. This occurs because of effects of specialization of labor and existence of fixed costs. In the long run, a firm experiences a proportionate increase in productivity since the fixed costs are exhausted and that the firm can no longer benefit from specialization (Canterbery 135). It is vital to note that when a firm is harnessing economies of scale, it reaches its minimum effect scale at a level that other firms cannot harness over a short period thereby causing monopoly. Clark’s arguments rest on the productive capacity of the last unit of capital. In this sense, heterogonous capital goods have a form as homogenous goods (Canterbery 127). The productivity of the last homogenous quantity determines the profit. This differed from the Karl’s view of heterogonous goods as determination of profits. The criticism of this theory regards the fact that Clark present production units as abstract concepts that do not unify to influence

Good Things About Designed by Groupism Case Study

Good Things About Designed by Groupism - Case Study Example Despite the negative experiences, I believe there are good things about designing by groupism. Sometimes, each person able to do what he does best. Everyone feels a part of project. The results of project were much better. There are good things about designing by groupism like each person able to do what he does best. Some students better with writing. Others better with speaking. Some better with doing. I was better with doing. So I did the code. Mary was better with writing. She kept notes and wrote the paper. Casey was best with speaking. He presented our project to the class. Sometimes, each person is able to do what he does best in groupism design. This is what happened in our group. We worked well together. It helped to have a good manager in the group. Other good things about designing by groupism are each person feels part of project. We each made suggestion about website. Some we used. Some we did not, but everyone made points that were used. Mary and I helped with layout. Mary and Casey did content. We all worked on code together. Each felt a part of project design by groupism. Casey really helped it all go smooth. At the end of the project, we all felt happy about how everything happened. The website was great. We were very proud of our work. The best thing about designing by groupism is the results of project were much better.

Sustainable Tourism Development Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3750 words

Sustainable Tourism Development - Essay Example 6 b)Evaluate the significance of interactive planning systems and processes in tourism development. 9 c)Evaluate different methods available to measure tourist impact. 9 There are certain financial tools and methods available to measure tourist impact on the economy, livelihood and financial prosperity and wellbeing of the region. 9 One such tool is the GDP or the Gross domestic Product. Per Capita income is another financial calculation that is capable of measuring the financial impact of tourism in a certain region. Foreign institutional investment is more when tourism industry is doing good in a particular region and key foreign investment can also be used as a parameter to measure tourism impact. 9 Understand the need for planning for sustainable tourism. 9 a)Justify the introduction of the concept of sustainable tourism development. 9 b)Analyse factors that may hinder or prevent sustainable tourism development. 10 c)Analyse the different stages in planning for sustainability 11 (Pineda, 2004, p.1) 11 Task 4 11 Understanding current issues related to tourism development planning. 11 a)Evaluate methods of resolving conflicts of interest to ensure to ensure the future well being of a developing tourism destination. 11 (Pineda, 2004, p.1) 11 b)Analyse the implication of balancing supply and demand 12 c)Evaluate the moral and ethical issues of enclave tourism 12 Task 5: 12 Understand the social, environmental and economic impacts of tourism in developing countries and destinations 12 a)Compare issues associated with tourism development in a developing country and an emerging destination where the impact of tourism is different 12 b)Evaluate the recommendations, future development of tourism in these destinations 13 References: 15 Task 1 Understand the rationale for planning in the travel and tourism industry. a) Explain briefly rational for planning tourism development. Tourism generates significant national and state income. Whether it is foreign or national t ourism the amount of income generated through tourist footfall is very high as compared to other government and private profit making enterprises. As a result planning tourism development, optimum utilisation of tourist hot spots, preservation and adequate maintenance of tourist sites becomes very important for sustainable and profitable tourism. Planning tourism development is the first and most important step towards building a strong and formidable foundation for a sustainable tourism industry that is capable of self funding, consistent profit generation, growth and development. The need for planning tourism development arises due to the following factors: 1. It is cooperative in nature due to the involvement of vast and diverse stakeholders a) Natives of the tourist place b) Local state government c) National government d) Transport Authority e) Foreign Exchange f) Law Enforcement g) Roads and Railway etc 2. It is dependent on the cooperation and efforts of multiple state author ities like a.) Ministry of Tourism b.) Ministry of Forests and Natural Reserves c.) Department of Rural Planning d.) Ministry of transport Tourism is a multifaceted department having interfaces interlinked with multiple industries and ministries like: Transport Department, Public Works Department, Forests Department, Environment Department, Foreign Exchange etc. (CPT MTM.,

Early Christian Architecture Essay Example for Free

Early Christian Architecture Essay Early Christian Architecture We have spoken of how one style of architecture develops from another, and we are now to look briefly at a form which is chiefly important as being a link in the chain of styles. There are not many important buildings of the Early Christian style. It came into being at a time when not much building was going on that is, during the early centuries of Christianity, and what good examples there are, are nearly all churches. During the first three centuries of the Christian era Christianity was under the ban of persecution, and there was not much chance for it to manifest itself in great architecture. But, early in the fourth century, Constantine became Emperor and was converted to Christianity. He made Christianity the State religion. Constantine founded three large basilicas in Rome, all of which have been buried or destroyed. The chief objects to be thought of in these churches was to build without too much cost, to do it quickly, and to accommodate large congregations. A great structural principle which they used in roofing, or spanning spaces, is the truss. This is a frame of beams, or of beams and rods, so disposed and fastened as to make a continuous support or bridge across an open space. The truss was used by the Romans in roofing their basilicas. CHIEF FEATURES As the great Romanesque style grew out of this early Christian architecture, let us look at the main features of the earlier and simpler style. Some of the most important of these features are preserved also in the Gothic church and we shall wish to see, as we very easily can see, how they grew out of this first early Christian style. The buildings of this style were simple in form, but of noble proportions, and, though very plain without, they were often gorgeous within. A notable circumstance about the early Christian work is the fact that its monuments were built largely from ruins and fragments quarried from earlier Roman work. No doubt much beauty was ruthlessly destroyed in this way. Before the Christian era Cato borrowed from the Greeks their hall of justice; the first one being erected in Rome about 190 years before Christ. These basilicas usually had a large hall connected with a portico, and encircling galleries often enclosed the whole. When Christianity became a State religion these buildings came to be used for religious purposes. The basilica always had a central aisle; and this nave or central portion was usually separated from the side aisles by rows of columns. At the further end of the nave was the sanctuary or apse, in front of which stood the altar. In front of the whole was usually an atrium or fore-court, surrounded by a covered arcade. The exterior was extremely plain, and the interior resplendent with marbles and mosaics. A wooden roof covered the edifice. Figure 29 is the ground plan of a basilica which will show us the general arrangement, although this basilica does not happen to be an old Roman example. Above the columns that surrounded the nave there usually arose another story called the clerestory (clear story), the walls of which were pierced with windows. This is a feature which persists through later styles, and it is interesting to see its simple and plain beginning. Some of the Egyptian temples had clerestories, but the European examples date back only to early Christian architecture.

P2 Cycle in WDM Networks

P2 Cycle in WDM Networks P2-CYCLE IN WDM NETWORKS M.DILEEP Smt K .APARNA Abstract The Failure Independent Path Protection (FIPP) p cycle is efficient scheme. If failure occurs in pre configured cycle it is protection is reconfigured between those two nodes. In this paper we use Parasitic Protection Links (PPL). PPL’s are p-cycles with have attached links. PPL’s are used to protect the not only failure nodes but it connected to PPL to cycle. P2 cycle is known as p cycle with parasitic protection links. We address The P2 cycle in mesh networks can be analysed by using single link failure. We further propose two P2-cycle based heuristic algorithms, Strict Routing Protection (SRP) and Flexible Routing Protection (FRP), to address the dynamic traffic case. In the dynamic case, both SRP and FRP outperform FIPP p-cycle schemes in terms of blocking probability in most scenarios considered. In general, the P2-cycle protection scheme outperforms the p-cycle based in terms of capacity efficiencies which being slightly slower in terms of traffic recovery speed. Key words: Parasitic Protection Links (PPL), Strict Routing Protection (SRP), Flexible Routing Protection (FRP). I. INTRODUCTION Network survivability, defined as the Continuous operations of network are performed in case failure occurred in the network [3]. In generally optical networks carry information in terabytes. A failure in network causes lot of loss of data. Ring based networks can easily come due to their structure and fast recovery management. In ring based it takes 50-60ms but it gives capacity redundancy high. As mesh based networks emerged, more capacity efficient protection schemes were proposed which allow backup capacity sharing. These schemes are into three categories: link-based, segment-based and path-based [29]. Link-based protection schemes produce the fast traffic recovery speed but suffer from the worst resource efficiency . Best resource efficiency is achieved by path based protection scheme. Shared Backup Path Protection (SBPP) is one of the path protection schemes. it is high capacity. upon a network failure. It takes long time o recover from traffic. Segment based protection schemes lie between the link-based and path-based schemes, and offer a better combination of bandwidth efficiency and recovery time. Path-based protection schemes usually achieve the best resource efficiency. Among them, a path protection scheme, namely, Shared Backup Path Protection (SBPP), was shown to be the most capacity efficient protection scheme [8]. However, it suffers from long traffic recovery time upon a network failure. Segment based protection schemes lie between the link-based and path-based schemes, and offer a better combination of bandwidth efficiency and recovery time . The pre-configured protection cycle is known as p-cycle, combines the good qualities of mesh and ring based protection schemes and achieves the recovery speed of ring- based with the capacity efficiency of mesh protection. P-cycle has been proven theoretically to be the most efficient pre-configured protection scheme in terms of capacity efficiency and recovery speed . II. Dynamic Traffic Scenarios In dynamic traffic without the prior knowledge of arrival time of future requests. Due to the pre-configuration property of traditional p-cycles, it is extremely difficult to re- provision all the protection cycles whenever a new session arrives in order to minimize overall cost. Each provisioning takes large computation cost and complex network reconfiguration. Therefore, most of the work in the literature assume that established p-cycles should not vary with time or traffic. The authors in proposed three different routing algorithms along with link-based p-cycle protection scheme to deal with dynamic traffic. The results indicate that the proposed p-cycle based design performs better than SBPP in dense networks but worse in sparse networks. Protected Working Capacity Envelopes (PWCE) is another method to address dynamic traffic scenarios. It divides the entire network into two partitions: working and protection. Both static and dynamic traffic can be accommodated as long as the tot al traffic do not exceed the limit of working envelopes. Although some decent results have been shown in the literature, p-cycles still have such intrinsic weakness in dealing with dynamic traffic. If an incoming session whose end nodes do not lie on any cycle, it cannot be protected and a new cycle has to be constructed to protect this session, or the existing cycles must be reconfigured. An example shown in Figure 4.2 illustrates such weakness and also reveals the advantage of P2-cycles. In Fig. 4.2(a), session1 has been provisioned and protected by cycle C1(ECBFE). As session 2 arrives, the primary path of session 2 is provisioned as P2(ABCD). Under FIPP p-cycle scheme, cycle C1 cannot protect it and thus a new cycle C2(ABCDEFA) is constructed to protect it as shown in Fig.4.2(b). However, instead of building a new cycle, using P2-cycle approach we can add two PPLs (A,F) and (D,E) to connect the end nodes of P2 such that C1 can also provide a protection segment (AFED) for P2 as shown in Fig.4.2(c). Therefore, both sessions are protected by a P2-cycle with much less cost. Fig 1: P2-cycle deals With Dynamic Traffic III. Problem Statement In dynamic traffic scenarios, a WDM mesh network is given with network resources, such as the maximum number of wavelengths and the cost on each span. Each traffic request arrives to the network in a dynamic fashion such that it needs to be considered individually based on the current network status. The network status consists of the detailed working and available wavelengths on each span as well as all the accepted sessions and P2-cycles provisioned in the network. Given a network modelled as an undirected graph G = (V;E) where each undirected span e2E has a cost ce, the current network which includes the currently used and available wave- lengths on each span e, each accepted session l and their protection P2-cycles. Provision incoming unicast sessions against any single-link failure with the minimum overall blocking probability by using P2-cycle scheme. The assumptions required in this dynamic traffic case are the same as that in the static case. We design two heuristics to address the dynamic traffic case. In the first method, named Strict Routing Protection (SRP), the primary and protection path for each incoming session are computed separately. The primary path is firstly provisioned using Dijkstras shortest routing algorithm. Based on the primary path, either an existing P2-cycle or a new cycle is found to protect it. In the second method, named Flexible Routing Protection (FRP), the primary and protection paths of an incoming session are constructed jointly. The existing P2-cycles will be preferred to being used first. If no existing one is able to protect the session, a new cycle will be formed. We allow spare capacity sharing between different sessions to increase the capacity efficiency. A. Strict Routing Protection (SRP): The motivation of SRP is to always choose the shortest path to route the primary traffic in order to leave more spare capacity for protection, since the capacity used for primary path cannot be shared among different sessions. And then we check whether any available P2 cycle can be exploited to protect this newly established session. Once being set up, the cycle for a P2-cycle cannot be changed. The protection links that are added to PPL’s are one hop away from end nodes. The detail of the algorithm SRP described in following steps: 1. As a new session dl(sl; tl) arrives, establish the primary path fl between sl and tl under current network status by using Dijkstras algorithm. If it fails, the session is blocked; 2. Sort all the existing P2-cycles, cp â‚ ¬ C, in the increasing order of (dl; cp), which is One hop indicates that there exists a span in the network that connects a node to the cycle. If (dl; cp) = infinite 1 for all cp â‚ ¬ C, then no existing cycle is able to protect this new session. Thus, a new cycle needs to be constructed to protect dl. 3. For each existing protection cycle, cp, we construct a temporary graph G0, consisting of only the cycle spans of cp and all the spans connecting the source and destination nodes of l to the cycle . All the spans used by fl should be removed to ensure that its protection path is link-disjoint. Then, all the sessions protected by cp are checked and if an existing session in D can share the same cp with the new session l, we should make sure that either their primary paths or their protection paths are link-disjoint. we remove the protection paths of all the sessions in D whose primary paths are not link-disjoint with fl. If a protection path can still be found in the remaining G0 this protection path will be ql for l. Accordingly, the protection cycle is also determined, which should be updated if some PPLs are also used. 4. If every existing cp fails to protect dl, a new cycle will be constructed to protect it. We first attempt to find two diverse paths to form a cycle that is link-disjoint to fl. If such cycle cannot be found, then we find a path, ql, link-disjoint to fl and the cycle is formed by combining ql with fl. B. Flexible Routing Protection (FRP): Different from SRP, the flexible routing protection scheme considers primary and protection paths jointly for each arriving session. Instead of determining the primary path in advance, we examine each existing P2-cycle and find each potential protection path along the cycle that can connect the source and destination. For each potential protection path, we try to discover a primary path for it. If it succeeds, the session is accepted. Otherwise, a new cycle is constructed to protect the session. Flexible Routing Protection (FRP) Scheme Algorithm FRP is explained in following steps: Given a new session dl(sl; tl), all the available P2-cycles cp â‚ ¬ C are sorted in the increasing order of (dl; cp). For each available cp, list all the possible protection paths for dl. If the end nodes sl and tl are on the cycle, there are two possible segments along the cycle. If sl or(and) tl is not on the cycle, the path will be composed of parasitic links connecting sl or tl to the cycle and an on-cycle segment. We assume the average node degree in a given network is denoted by  µ. Each cycle can provide two on cycle segments between any pair of on-cycle nodes. Each end node, sl or tl, can be connected to the cycle by at most  µ PPLs given the node degree  µ. Hence, the average number of candidate protection paths provided by any P2-cycle For each candidate ql, run Dijkstras algorithm to find a primary path fl in G that is not only link-disjoint to ql but also link-disjoint with other primary paths protected by the same cycle if their protection paths are not link-disjoint. If it succeeds, we store the combination in a temporary set T, which is initialized as ;. After checking all the existing P2-cycles, we check set T and find the combination with minimum cost of fl. We recover the spans removed from G and update the network status. If no existing P2-cycle can be used to protect session dl, we use Bhandaris algorithm to find two link-disjoint paths between si and ti to form a new P2-cycle. If it fails, the session is blocked. Otherwise, the session is accepted and one of the paths (usually the shorter one) is used as the primary path fl, and the network is updated. IV. Results for Dynamic Traffic Based on two P2-cycle protection algorithms, SRP and FRP, proposed for provisioning dynamic requests, we conduct a simulation study to compare the performance of these algorithms under dynamic traffic. The networks used in the simulations are NSFNET, COST239 and USNET, in which USNET network, shown in Fig. 2 has 24 nodes and 43 edges and the average node degree is 3.58. Fig.2 USNET(24 nodes, 43 edges) In each simulation run, 1000 randomly generated unicast requests are loaded to the network sequentially and the reject ratio is recorded. The arrival of traffic follows Poisson distribution with  ¸ requests per second and the duration of an accepted connection is exponentially distributed with a mean of  ¹. The traffic load measured in Erlangs is ÃŽ »Ã‚ µ Each connection requires an entire wavelength to transmit the traffic. The maximum capacity on each network link is set to 16 wavelengths. Figures 3,4,and 5 show the blocking probability of dynamic traffic using SRP, FRP and FIPP p-cycle in NSFNET, USNET and COST239 networks, respectively. Each point in the figures is the average value of 200 simulation runs for each traffic load. For FIPP p-cycle scheme, the primary path of each arriving connection is provisioned first by using Dijkstras algorithm, and then protected by a p-cycle. Fig 3(a):Comparison of blocking probability in NSFNET(W=16) Fig 3(b):Comparison of blocking probability in COST239(W=16) Fig 3(c):Comparison of blocking probability in USNET(W=16) The results show that both SRP and FRP achieve lower blocking probability than FIPP under most of the network scenarios. In NSFNET, SRP achieves better performance than the other two schemes. In USNET, FRP outperforms SRP and FIPP under every scenarios. In COST239, however, SRP and FIPP achieves the same session blocking ratio, which is better than FRP, when the traffic load is relatively low. As the traffic load increases where the network is very saturated, FRP turns to perform better than SRP and FIPP. Based on the results, SRP performs better than other two schemes in relatively small and sparse networks at a low level of traffic load. FRP achieves the best performance in larger and denser networks, especially when the network is very saturated. One of the reason that SRP performs better in small and sparse networks, such as, NSF, is that to provision a session always using the shortest path will save some capacity for protection in a long run. Hence, more capacity can be used for protection such that more cycles can be established. in a network with high nodal degree, a cycle is more likely to reach a large group of nodes compared with a sparse network. In this case, FRP has a higher chance to protect a given session by using existing P2-cycles when network load is very high and the network is over saturated. Fig 4(a).Comparison of NOR in NSFNET(W=16) Fig 4(b).Comparison of NOR in cost239(W=16) Fig 4(c).Comparison of NOR in USNET(W=16) We also studied the average NOR of each accepted connection as in dynamic traffic scenarios and the results are shown in Figures 4(a),4(b) and 4(c). As expected, FIPP achieves the best solution with exact two node reconfigurations for each connection. Meanwhile, SRP also performs better than FRP in three networks. This reveals that connections protected by FRP use more PPLs than those used by SRP, which follows from the basic concept on which the two algorithms are based. It is worth noting that the average NOR achieved by SRP is almost stable below 2.4 in NSF and USNET and 2.7 in COST239. This indicates that most of the connections only need two no reconfigurations upon a network failure, especially in NSF and USNET. FRP has larger average NOR because it iterates every existing p-cycle in the network to protect each session and choose the one with minimum cost but not the one with minimum NOR. Shorter primary paths always results in longer protection paths such that more PPLs are us ed to protect each session. Therefore, based on the simulation results, SRP and FRP both achieves the lowest blocking probability than FIPP in most of the network scenarios considered and each scheme has advantage over the other in different network scenarios. SRP has better failure recovery performance than FRP. In dynamic traffic scenarios, the P2-cycle protection scheme is faster protection scheme provides an enhancement of capacity efficiency over the FIPP p-cycle with asmall change in the recovery time. VI. Extension The p2-cycles can be extended to link failures can be obtained. If one node can be failed then the data will be passed through alternative paths to reach to the destination. The p2 cycle can be defined as the original p-cycle The protection links that are added to PPL’s are one hop away from end nodes. For p2-cycles the network data can be efficiently transferred to destination which is one hop away from the nodes. V. Conclusions In this paper new p cycle protection is done in mesh based protection networks. By using the parasitic protection links (PPL), FIPP p-cycle can be extended through paths from end nodes which are one hop away from the failure nodes of p cycles. In dynamic traffic scenarios., in dynamic their are two algorithms are proposed Strict Routing Protection (SRP) and Flexible Routing Protection (FRP), to handle dynamic traffic demands in order to minimize the total number of blocked sessions. In dynamic traffic case the blocking probability less by using algorithms SRP and FRP comparing with FIPP p cycles. The numerical results shows the P2-cycle protection scheme is a more highly capacity efficient than the Failure Independent Path Protection p-cycle scheme in dynamic traffic case. the P2-cycle protection scheme is a more effective alternative of existent p-cycle-based and path-based protection schemes, Considering the factors of capacity efficiency and recovery speed References D. Zhou and S. Subramanian, â€Å"Survivability in optical networks,† IEEE Networks, 2012 P. Arijs, B. V. Caenegem, P. Demeester, and P. Lagasse, â€Å"Design of ring and mesh based WDM transport networks,† Optical Networks Magazine, vol. 1, no. 3, pp. 27-41, 2011. S. Ramamurthy and B. Mukherjee, â€Å"Survivable WDM mesh networks. Part I-protection,† in Proceedings of IEEE INFOCOM, vol. 2, pp. 744-751, 2011. S.krishna â€Å"Survivable WDM mesh network,†, vol. 21, no. 4, pp. 870-883, 2009. P. H. Ho and H. T. Mouftah, â€Å"shared protection for optical networks,† IEEE Communications Magazine, pp. 97-103, February 2002. Bharat T. Doshi, Subrahmanyam Dravida, P. Harshavardhana, Oded Hauser, and Yufei Wang, â€Å"Optical Network Design and Restoration,† Bell Labs Technical Journal, JanuaryCMarch 1999 Caihui Ou, J. Zhang, H. Zhang, L. H. Sahasrabuddhe and B. Mukherjee, â€Å"New and Improved Ap-proaches for Shared-Path Protection in WDM Mesh Networks,† IEEE Journal of Lightwave Technology, VOL. 22, NO. 5, MAY 2004 Dahai Xu, Y. Xiong and C. Qiao, â€Å"Novel algorithms for shared-segment protection,† IEEE Journal of Selected Areas on Communications, v21. p1320-1331, 2003 Janos Tapolcai and et al. â€Å"A New Shared Segment Protection Method for Survivable Networks with Guaranteed Recovery Time,† IEEE Transactions on Reliability, Vol. 57, pp. 272-282, 2008. W.D D. Stamat, â€Å" Next Generation networks,† in Proc. IEEE ICC’ 98, 1998, pp. 537-543

Modernisation of the Royal Mail

Modernisation of the Royal Mail This report has been conducted to investigate and critically evaluate the modernisation of the Royal Mail. In doing so it will analyze the organisations activities and conduct using theory to discuss its impacts. 2.0 Objectives Investigate how modernisation was planned and implemented and evaluate its effectiveness Identify and deal with resistance factors to the change Clarify how to establish when the planned change has been completed and how its effectiveness should be measured 3.0 Introduction Organizational change Significant organizational change occurs, for example, when an organization changes its overall strategy for success, adds or removes a major section or practice, and/or wants to change the very nature by which it operates. It also occurs when an organization evolves through various life cycles, just like people must successfully evolve through life cycles. For organizations to develop, they often must undergo significant change at various points in their development. Thats why the topic of organizational change and development has become widespread in communications about business, organizations, leadership and management (McNamara, 2010). This is confirmed by Richard Whittington and Michael Mayer (2002) argument that adaptive reorganization, the ability to redesign structures frequently, is now critical to organizational performance. Organisational change has three models (Jawad, 2010): Incremental Change Model The Incremental change model states that individual parts of an organisation deal incrementally and separately with one problem and one goal at a time (Burnes 2009). (Jawad, 2010:19) Punctuated equilibrium Tushman and Romanelli (1985, cited in Passmore Woodman, 2005, p207) state this model assumes that fundamental organizational change occurs in short periods of discontinuous, revolutionary change , which punctuates long eras of relative stability typified by incremental, convergent changes (Tushman Romanelli, 1985) (Jawad, 2010:20) Continuous Transformation model of change Only by continuous change and adaption will organisations be able to be aligned with their environment and thus survive (Burnes, 2009:354) (Jawad, 2010:21) History of the Royal Mail The Royal Mail was reorganised in the 1930s and again in the 1960s. Eventually it became a public corporation in 1969. Restructuring continued in the 1980s and 1990s, with the separate telecommunications section being privatised in 1984. In 2001 the Post Office became a public limited company (PLC), named Consignia which was replaced by the Royal Mail brand in late 2002 (Royalmailgroup.com, 2010). The company primarily operates in the UK. It is headquartered in London, the UK and employs 193,000 people. The group recorded revenues of  £9,179 million during the fiscal year ended March 2007, an increase of 1.4% over 2006. The operating loss of the company was  £10 million during fiscal year 2007, as compared to the operating profit of  £145 million in 2006. The net profit was  £286 million in fiscal year 2007, a decrease of 27.6% as compared to 2006 (Datamonitor, 2008). 4.0 Reasons for change Transportation costs Paul Bateson, Royal Mails managing director, logistics, said: There is a marked difference between the price we believe we should be paying for rail services and that which was on the table. Quite simply, other forms of transport can give us the same benefits, in terms of flexibility and quality, but at a lower cost (Independent.co.uk, 2003). Inefficiency The Royal Mail is the third most inefficient postal service operating in the UK with an estimate of 40% less efficiency . The European couriers already have automatically sequencing machines which sort 90% of the letters they deliver at operates at a lower costs whilst the Royal mail operate a walk-sorting and walk-sequencing procedure which only sorts 70%. (Hopper et al 2008:47). Competition The Royal mail faces competition from the digital media. The royal mail reported losses of  £500 million in 2007-08 (Hooper et al 2008:48) Technology This has led to reduced volume of sales (Hooper et al 2008). The way in which customers communicate has altered to online, email, mobile telephony, text messaging and digital broadcasting as they have low marginal costs, flexible and faster. It is estimated that the substitution from postal to alternative digital media reduced its operating profits by  £500 million in 2007/8 (Hooper et al 2008:48) (Hooper et al, 2008:9) Pension Deficit Royal Mail  has a found a  £10bn black hole in its retirement postbag, the biggest pension deficit in UK corporate history (guardian.co.uk, 2009). (Hooper et al 2008:55) Universal service The universal service is important to the UKs economy as it enables trade (Hooper et al 2008:3) in 2008 Royal Mail reported that the universal service had made an operating loss of  £100 million. Strained relations In 2007 over 67,000 employee days were lost as a result of industrial action (Hooper et al 2008:56). The consequence of this was the loss of contracts including Amazon (Guardian.co.uk, 2009). Working practises The organizations working practises are outdated, as a result act as a barrier to their efficiency (Hooper et al 2008:51). The employees are able to finish their morning rounds up to three hours early (Hooper et al 2008:51) and continue to be paid until the end of their shift. 5.0 Lewins group dynamics Lewin research in this area has been cited as one of his best-known research topics.  In this study Lewin, along with Ronald Lippitt, looked at the effects of democratic, autocratic, and laissez-faire methods/styles of leadership on group structure and the behaviour of group members.  Results showed numerous insights into group structure.  Also groups with efficient change that occurred in democratic ways lead to superior group results.  Ã‚  Superior results were found with the basis that as all individuals can participate and become an identifiable part of the group, change is more easily accepted (Kariel, 1956). Groups that contained more authoritarian structures were found to be more rigid, hindered creativity and lead to dysfunctional decision making processes.  Groups that contained laissez-faire styles were found to be very inefficient and unproductive (Daniels, 2003). Overall results of these three leadership styles showed that democratic leadership styles lead friendliness, conscientiousness for group members, and more originality than the other leadership styles (Buchanan et al, 2004).  Ã‚  Autocratic and laissez-faire groups showed significantly greater amounts of discontent, hostility, scapegoating, and aggression than the democratic leadership style. Lewin concluded that changes resulted not from individual differences but from group dynamics.  Ã‚  He also emphasized need to facilitate and guide change, as autocracy is imposed on individuals, but democracy is learned (Smith 2001).   With the Royal Mail being under the control of the UK Government it can be argued that they are subjected to a more authoritarian leadership structure. Unlike a corporate business organization where decisions are made by senior management, in the Royal mail decisions must be made in consideration of the UK budget, strategies and actions are all subject to parliament, leaving management in the Royal Mail with lesser powers to do their job. 6.0 Planned Emergent change Lewins (1951) three-stage model of unfreezing, movement, and refreezing often underlies planned change. This planned approach to change is long established and held to be highly effective by many (Burns, 2004), but it has been criticized at least since the early 1980s (Kanter, Stein Jick, 1992). Firstly it tends to ignore that environmental factors in which an organization is situated may be inconsistent with planned change initiatives, apparently assuming that organizations can move in a pre-planned manner from one stable state to another (Bamford Forrester, 2003) in ways that are not strongly impacted by outside factors. Royal Mails initial efforts to implement change were of a planned nature, Weick (1999) suggests that organization change is a more open-ended and continuous process than a set of pre-identified self-contained events. Emergent change emphasizes that change should not be perceived as a series of planned linear events within a given period of time. Rather, it is best viewed as a continuous, open-ended process of adaption to change circumstances and conditions (Burns, 2004). 7.0 Resistance to change Where change is incremental and aims only at organisational realignment, it can be viewed as adaptive. Where such incremental change is more punctuated, but still aiming at organisational realignment, it is known as reconstruction. The process of reconstruction is more likely to result in employee resistance than adaptation because such significant changes in business processes could negatively impact upon the roles of some employees. However, unlike transformational change, whether this happens incrementally or in a punctuated fashion, adaptation and reconstruction are less likely to have either an organisation wide impact on employees or require a paradigm shift in thinking. Evolution and revolution, on the other hand, do require such a shift because they can involve significant shifts in organisational culture and may also have deep impact on job roles and even redundancies (Balogun and Hailey, 2004). The change plan suggested by the Independent Review of the Royal Mail involves the political separation of the Royal Mail to provide it will commercial confidence, the separation of the Royal Mail from the Post Office, the transfer of the Royal Mail Groups pension risk to the government, a strategic investment in modernisation, and the use of a strategic partnership between the Royal Mail and a private sector firm to help bring about the change process. This is clearly indicative of revolutionary change, such that it is no surprise that not only are the forces for and against very strong, but they are equally matched between those desiring changing (management) and those opposing it (employees and their representatives). To effectively manage employee resistance to change at the Royal Mail, a number of solutions can be suggested. In presenting these solutions, it should be emphasized that management at the Royal is required to manage through revolutionary change. Here, the speed of t he change process adds to the impact that the change initial will have on the firm, also creating greater levels of fear, suspicion, uncertainty, and ultimately, resistance. First, effective leadership is a critical component of effectively implementing change that the Royal Mail. According to Bennis and Nanus (2003): The new leader is one who commits people to action, who converts followers into leaders, and who may convert leaders into agents of change (p.3). In this respect, effective leaders are not only visionary in their motives and actions (Nanus, 1992; Collins, 2001), but also they are the ultimate agents of change. Here, emotions play a central role. As Boyatzis and McKee (2005) state: Even if they get everything else just right, if leaders fail in this primal task of driving emotions in the right direction, nothing they do will work as well as it could or should (p.3). This can be especially important during periods of transformational change, and especially the revolutionary change proposed at the Royal Mail. Here, leaders not only need to have personal competence in the form of emotional competences such as transparency, but also social compe tences such as empathy and organizational awareness (social awareness competences), but also conflict management and bond building (relationship management competences) (Goleman et al., 2002). As Boyatzis and McKee (2005) state: Great leaders face the uncertainty of todays world with hope: they inspire through clarity of vision, optimism, and a profound belief in their and their peoples ability to turn dreams into reality. Great leaders face sacrifice, difficulties, and challenges, as well as opportunities, with empathy and compassion for the people they lead and those they serve. Whilst the current predicament for employees is stark, a visionary, inspirational leader will be able to communicate the long-term, optimistic view of the Royal Mail; that is, an organisation where employee pensions will have been secured by the Government, a more efficient work environment and organizational structure that will enable employees to develop through greater investment and innovation by man agement, as well as greater job security for those that remain. Whilst this does nothing to quell the resistance amongst those that believe they will not be chosen to remain, the Independent Review clearly highlights that the change has to happen or the Royal Mail Group will not be able to continue in its current format. Leadership has to emphasize how it can help get the company and its employees through a bad situation in the best possible way. Second, change agents can be particularly effective in helping to overcome employee resistance. The change agent starts out where the strategist left off. They are charged with making change programmes a success at the implementation stage. With information scarcity and poor communication being a central factor causing employee resistance to change, the change agent is an important part of the communication process between management and employees. The use of change agents can have a particularly strong effect because of their impact on relationships. As Tierney (1999) states: Strong relationships between supervisors and employees, and among employees and their team members, is associated with employees perceiving that they work in a context characterised by risk-taking and departure from the status quo, open communication, trust, operational freedom, and employee development, five of the necessary conditions for the emergence of individual and organisational change (p.129). Change a gents therefore play an important role in building a psychological climate that is conductive to change (Schneider and Reichers, 1983; Porras and Hoffer, 1986; Tierney, 1999). As a general rule, internal change agents are no more successful in implementing change than their external counterparts. The appropriateness of choosing one over the other depends on the nature of the change, the change outcome, and specific organizational circumstances. An external change agent may benefit the firm by providing experience and advice based on knowledge developed during other change processes that the firm itself is not privy to. The external change agent is also an appropriate choice where employees do not trust management. Alternately, the internal agent may be more sensitive to and knowledge about local conditions within the firm, helping the agent to communicate in a more appropriate manner. This may help in convincing employees that would not be prepared to listen to external change agent s that have no vested interested in them as individuals (Balogun and Hailey, 2004). In the case of the Royal Mail, the problem is that management and employees have a very bad relationship, with employees having a stronger relationship with their unions. As such, unions may be one of the best potential agents for change, even though these have been one of the biggest problems impeding innovation and change in the past. Finally, it has often been suggested that change management is more successful when a pilot of the proposed change is carried out in order to assess the potential problems that could be faced, enabling the organization to re-engineer how the change process is rolled out (Balogun and Hailey, 2004). However, this would be difficult for the Royal Mail because the change it is facing is revolutionary. Such change provides little time to test out different change scenarios. 8.0 Force field analysis Figure 1 is a force field analysis to illustrate why Royal Mail employees may resist change. This highlights not only how difficult it will be to achieve change without significant employee resistance, but also the reasons why relative tensions exist. The rationale for employee resistance is based on the potential for significant job losses, the loss of union power following a restructuring, and the potential costs and disruption that this may cause to employees and customers. Significant job losses anticipated: The transformational changes made to date, which are slight in comparison to what is needed, have resulted in over 40,000 job losses. The proposed change in the Independent Review would mean a significant number of additional job losses, most of which would happen in the Royal Mail, not the Post Office. With the power of the major unions in the postal sector, such job losses will be met with fierce resistance and most likely some industrial action. As such, it has a 5 rating. Weaker union position because of restructuring: The relationship between the unions and the management at the Royal Mail Group is extremely poor, not only because of the power of the unions and their propensity for industrial action and heavily resisting almost any form of management change, but also because of the ability of unions to take their complaints straight to Minister, circumventing management at the Royal Mail Group. The transformation would break up this arrangement and provide the Royal Mail with the autonomy and commercial confidence it needs, but it would also significantly weaken the position of the unions. 5. Cost and disruption could reduce customer numbers: The Royal Mail is relied upon to process and deliver 99% of the UKs post. The level of transformation required, the loss of staff, the inevitable industrial action that will be taken, and so forth will not only be costly but will also damage the Royal Mails reputation and potentially reduce customer needs. 3. Plan: Strategic partnership  between Royal Mail  and private sector  companies to help  bring about change   Political separation of  Royal Mail Transfer pension risk  to government Separation of Royal  Mail and Post Office Strategic investment  in modernisation Massive pension  deficit needs to  be resolved Structural decline  in major product  markets Inefficient structure  and poor labour  relations Significant jobs  losses anticipated   Weaker union  position because  of restructuring Cost and disruption  could reduce  customers numbers Forces for Change Forces against Change Employee resistance is not only reflected in the forces against change, but also the overall pressure of the forces in each direction. In this case, the score for forces against change is 13 whilst the forces for change also scores 13. Out of a possible score of 15, therefore, not only are there considerable forces against change, but employees are also being heavily resisted by the firm, which is pushing equally strongly for change. This increases the overall levels of employee resistance. 9.0 Securing effective change A professor at Harvard Business School and world-renowned change expert, Kotter introduced his eight-step change process in his 1995 book, Leading Change  (Buchanan et al, 2004). Establish a sense of urgency Form a guiding coalition Create a vision Communicate the vision Empower people to act on the vision Create short term wins Consolidate improvements to produce further change Institutionalize new approaches Other models in management literature include Ulrich (1998) seven-steps, Eccles (1994) four step and Collins (1998) n-step guides, all of which echo the same principles as Kotter, vision, leadership, communication and involvement. (Buchanan et al, 2004) What is imperative to carry out the model effectively is a change leader. Change leaders can be thought of as persons who create enough disconfirmation in the organisation to arouse motivation to change (Bennis, Nanus, 1985). Change leaders should therefore have three characteristics if they are to arouse motivation to change and learn: Credibility whatever they say must be believed Clarity of vision Whatever they say must be clear and make sense Ability to articulate the vision They must be able to state verbally and in writing what it is they perceive and what the implications are for the future of the organization (Schein, 1999). In implementing Kotters (1995) 8 steps to change the Royal Mail can follow these actions. 1. Examine opportunities that should be, or could be, exploited. Identify potential threats, and develop scenarios showing what could happen in the future. Start honest discussions, and give dynamic and convincing reasons to get people talking and thinking. Request support from customers, outside stakeholders and industry people to strengthen the argument 2. Identify the true leaders in the organization.   Ask for an emotional commitment from these key people.   Work on team building within the change coalition.   Check the team for weak areas, and ensure that there is a good mix of people from different departments and different levels within the company. 3. Determine the values that are central to the change.   Develop a short summary that captures what is seen as the future of the organization.   Create a strategy to execute that vision.   Ensure that the change coalition can describe the vision. 4. Communicate the change vision. Openly and honestly address peoples concerns and anxieties. Apply the vision to all aspects of operations from training to performance reviews. Tie everything back to the vision.   Lead by example. 5. Identify, or hire, change leaders whose main roles are to deliver the change.   Look at the organizational structure, job descriptions, and performance and compensation systems to ensure theyre in line with the vision.   Recognize and reward people for making change happen.   Identify people who are resisting the change, and help them see whats needed.   Take action to quickly remove barriers. 6. Look for sure-fire projects that can be implemented without help from any strong critics of the change.  Ã‚   Thoroughly analyze the potential pros and cons of the targets.    Reward the people who help the organization meet the targets. 7. After every win, analyze what went right and what needs improving.   Set goals to continue building on the momentum achieved.   Learn about  kaizen, the idea of continuous improvement.   Keep ideas fresh by bringing in new change agents and leaders for the change coalition. 8. Communicate the progress at every opportunity. Tell success stories about the change process.   Include the change ideals and values when hiring and training new staff. Publicly recognize key members of the original change coalition, and make sure the rest of the staff new and old remembers their contributions.   Create plans to replace key leaders of change as they move on. This will help ensure that their legacy is not lost or forgotten. Conclusion The Royal Mail is in a position where change is a necessity to survive, and it must do so quickly. The organization requires better communication from its leaders to enable a joint commitment of its managers and workforce. To enable this it must separate from political leadership. It is essential that a new change strategy is formulated which fits the circumstances. Progress has been show through the Communication Unions (2010) agreement which will help defuse employee resistance. Basic pay will rise by a minimum of 6.9 per cent   Further payments will accompany the phased introduction of change in the workplace   The CWU will play a full part in the introduction, deployment and review of change   The working week will reduce by one hour with no loss of pay   Royal Mail will remain a 75 per cent full-time industry   Existing job security will be further enhanced   Further steps must now be taken to implement modernisation around the agreement, implementation of Kotters 8 steps of change can solidify plans which will help take Royal Mail into modernisation past the 3 year agreement.