Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) is a...

Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) is a program that helps struggling parents with children become more independent by getting more work experience and training while getting cash benefits, and eventually getting a paying job without as many cash benefits. The main goal of TANF is to help poor families stop relying on welfare benefits so they can become integrated into the workforce and economy. However, TANF is a very controversial subject because it has not been as effective in practice as the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), the welfare program that TANF replaced. This change in program effectiveness is significant to the United States as well as it’s economy because TANF is not helping as many people as the†¦show more content†¦Participants in TANF are also only allowed â€Å" a maximum of 60 months (5 years) of TANF assistance benefits† (Department of Health and Human Services) within their lifetime. The requirements that are a p art of the TANF program make it very difficult for states to use their allocated TANF resources to their full potential. For example, according to Liz Schott, â€Å"States must require recipients to engage in work activities and must impose sanctions (by reducing or terminating benefits) if an individual refuses to participate.† These work requirements depend on the structure of the individual family, however it averages around 20-30 hours of work related activities per week. Schott makes the point that the requirements to obtain cash assistance from TANF are strict, and may be difficult for people who are not able to work to meet. For example, those who have severe disabilities, medical illnesses, or who must take care of children or family members may not be able to meet these work requirements. These strict requirements are important in the implementation of TANF because they decrease the amount of people who can get help from TANF, which means that TANF’s performan ce is not living up to it’s full potential. Additionally, states must also meet certain requirements as a whole, and if they don’t succeed in meeting this they could face a fine. This is called the work participation rate. In order to not receive theShow MoreRelatedJohn F. Kennedy983 Words   |  4 PagesThe first Roman Catholic president, John F. Kennedy, fought through many hardships. Becoming the president at the age of 43, he went through many difficult trials to get that role due to his religion and health. Although he died early, he still managed to go beyond his presidential duties and accomplished a lot during his short term. John F. Kennedy was born on May 29, 1917 in Brookline, Massachusetts. Ever since he was little, he has had very poor health. He suffered from a variety of diseasesRead MoreJohn F. 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Skinner Burrhus Frederic Skinner, psychologist and behaviorist, was born in Susquhanna, Pennsylvania in 1904 to William Skinner and Grace Burrhus. His father was a lawywer and his mother was a naturally bright woman. Skinner had only one sibling; his brother died at the age of sixteen. Skinner lived most of his life in Susquhanna. He did not leave the house he was born in until he left to go to college. He was raised very close to his grandparents, who had a major impact on his early lifeRead MoreThe Legacy Of John F. Kennedy1176 Words   |  5 PagesJohn F. Kennedy did a lot for our country although his presidential term was cut short. He had a certain allure to him that Americans liked. Kennedy knew what to do to gain the votes of all different types of voters no matter their age, race, or religion. His campaign and presidency have inspired even today’s presidents and presidential candidates in multiple ways. John F. 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Marxism in The Chimney Sweeper Essay examples - 1927 Words

In his poem, The Chimney Sweeper, William Blake displays the despondent urban life of a young chimney sweeper during the coming of the industrial revolution in order to emphasize the theme of innocence through Marxism and to inform people of the harsh working conditions during the times of child labor promoting political reform. William Blake was born in London on November 28, 1757, to James and Catherine Blake. From early childhood, Blake spoke of having visions. He learned to read and write at home. Blake expressed a wish to become a painter, so his parents sent him to drawing school. Two years later, Blake began writing poetry. One of Blakes assignments as apprentice was to sketch the tombs at Westminster Abbey, exposing him to a†¦show more content†¦During the latter part of the 18th century and early 19th century, owners of cotton mills collected orphans and children of poor parents throughout the country, obtaining their services merely for the cost of maintaining them . In some cases children five and six years of age were forced to work from 13 to 16 hours a day. A Royal Commission investigated how children from the bottom of the social class ladder were forced to work in mines and collieries. The commission discovered that children began working in their very early years of life; however, most children began working at the ages of 5 and 7. The coal burning chimneys were so small that only young children could fit inside them. Starting around 5 years old, they had to learn to knee and elbow their way up the insides of these chimneys, always sore and bleeding until they formed protective callouses. Their heads were shaved to make it easier to get up and down, but many still got stuck and suffocated. They were even sent up lighted chimneys. By the time they were 12 or so they were useless to the master and to anyone else. Occupational hazards were bone-softening diseases, bowlegs from malnutrition and carrying heavy bags, and cancer of the scrotum . Many children were often critically injured, contaminated with serious illnessesShow MoreRelatedSociological Criticism of William Blake’s Poetry Essay1506 Words   |  7 PagesSociological criticism analyzes the political, economic, and cultural aspects of literature. To examine literature from the perspective of Marxist social theory is a quintessential form of sociological criticism, as Marxism primarily deals with political and economic ideas of communism and social inequality. William Blake, a Romantic poet, frequently wrote on the topic of class oppression and his opposition to the exploitation of the proletariat by the capitalists. Blake’s ideology and preferenceRead MoreWilliam Blake: a Marxist Before Marxism1941 Words   |  8 PagesIn his poem, The Chimney Sweeper, William Blake displays the despondent urban life of a young chimney sweeper during the coming of the industrial revolution in order to emphasize the theme of innocence through Marxism and to inf orm people of the harsh working conditions during the times of child labor promoting political reform. William Blake was born in London on November 28, 1757, to James and Catherine Blake. From early childhood, Blake spoke of having visions. He learned to read and write at

UPS Business Strategy Free Essays

string(81) " on existing equity and splitting the remaining capital on debt and liabilities\." The United Parcel Service has been in business since 1907. Over 100 years of delivery services must be a result of a certain method of management and business that has allowed them such success over time. What type of structure do they use within the workplace to manage the flow of packages? What promotion system do they use and how does it affect employees’ commitment to work? What type of organizational design does UPS use to manage its employees? These are all questions I would like to answer in terms of UPS’ management structure to determine how they eve been successful for so long. We will write a custom essay sample on UPS: Business Strategy or any similar topic only for you Order Now Table of Contents 1. Title Page – Page 1 2. Abstract – Page 2 3. Table of Contents – Page 3 4. Section 1: UPS Enterprise – Page 4 5. Section 2: Management Functions – Page 6 6. Section 3: Analysis – Page 12 7. References – Page 13 8. References (Count. ) – Page 14 Section 1: UPS Enterprise Starting as a small messenger company in 1907, UPS, short for United Parcel Service, has grown into a massive publicly traded company today. Their management structure today consists of a management committee to oversee the entire company. The committee consists of the usual CEO, SCOFF, and COO (Chief Executive Officer, Chief Financial Officer, and Chief Operating Officer). Beneath each of them is a tree of management. UPS employs a Human Relations department which deals with ethical decisions for the company and how employees will be treated. They also employ engineering department which determines the flow of packages every day (UPS, 2014). They determine what the manning needs to be for each building to run efficiently every night. They also determine how many packages each building needs to process every day in order to run efficiently and effectively. The operations management section is clearly the muscle of the operation. They are the ones who determine how they are going to get the plan set by the engineering department completed. The operations department has many tiers of management stretching all the way down to the front line of package handlers. UPS also practices hiring from within as many of UPS’ Coo’s have started all the way from the bottom of the company. Some logistics regarding the company begin with the fact that UPS employs approximately 407,000 people across the world, with 348,000 of them within the United States (Statistics Brain, 2014). UPS has grown to offer many different methods of package shipment. Today they offer services such as Next Day Air, 2nd Day Air, Ground and even Sonic Air. Next Day Air being their primary source of revenue among the other methods of shipment. Sonic Air is a method not known to many because of its extremely high cost. Sonic Air allows you to ship to anywhere in the fastest time possible at an extremely high cost. UPS has gained a very large share of the market with approximately 7. 9 million customers using their services daily to ship over 15 million packages daily across the world. UPS has developed new improvements frequently with their $53. Billion revenue every year. UPS’ world headquarters is in Atlanta, Georgia, with many other regional headquarters around the world in each of the major continents (UPS, 2014). UPS has created a operational layout which resembles their management layout. They use major hubs across the world to process the majority of the packages, which are then loaded onto trucks and distributed to smaller hubs to be delivered to the communities. UPS and Feeds are strong competitors, both ruling the courier service industry. The companies do have their differences though, as Feeds is not a unionized company. UPS is a larger company, although Feeds does operate through the air far more than UPS, but UPS has a stronger ground presence. According to revenue statistics, UPS brings in about $53. 1 billion per year compared to Feeder’s $42. Billion, which translates to $5. 9 and $3. 7 billion in profits respectively. Feeds also employs approximately 100,000 people less than UPS yearly, which factors into the profits. Overall, UPS has the higher market share, holding a 46%-50% share of the entire domestic market, compared to Feeder’s 49% market share on express packages only. In essence, Feeds specializes in express shipments to make a profit , while UPS does everything to include ground and air shipments (Differ, 2013). UPS focuses heavily on businesses as primary clients. UPS actually has a program for all employees which allows workers to get contracts from any businesses around to use UPS’ services. Gaining a contract makes UPS money and is an incentive for employees because UPS will pay them a portion of the contract. Overall, UPS is the most dominating force in the courier services industry in the world, making them a very successful business. Section 2: Management Planning is of the utmost importance at UPS, it is the difference between a failing company and success. The United Parcel Service employs industrial engineers at every hub across the world. Their Job is the do all the behind the scenes work to maximize profit and create the most efficient workplace possible. They also incorporate other departments within the company which all account for certain aspects of the success the company has had. Departments such as Finance, Marketing, Industrial Engineering, Operations, and Human Resources are some of the primary reasons for the company’s continued success. Financially, UPS is one of the more successful companies in America, and is the most successful in the courier services industry. Financial analysts with UPS have made the company very â€Å"liquid†, meaning they have high flexibility. They are gaining working capital and assets faster as they continue to pay off debt. This working capital goes towards the development of innovations to better the progress and efficiency of the company. From 2005 to 2010, UPS was gaining working capital at a gaining rate of 28% per year. According the financial model, UPS is running a system hat focuses on runs largely on existing equity and splitting the remaining capital on debt and liabilities. You read "UPS: Business Strategy" in category "Papers" They continue to invest profits on working capital to better the company as a whole (Shah, 2010). UPS does focus on marketing in some regards, although they let their products do the marketing for them the majority of the time. UPS does more than Just ship packages, they also develop products such as Barbados scanning systems which get the UPS name out. They have made themselves accessible across almost any medium possible. You can reach UPS via phone, internet, in-person, through UPS drivers, at strutting centers, and retail locations. Having the company so readily accessible really promotes the use of the company for shipping needs. They price competitively, which gives them an advantage with consumers because they are so easily accessible compared to competitors (Shah, 2010). Industrial Engineering is the brain of the operational side of UPS. Millions and millions of packages come through UPS’ hubs every day, without Industrial Engineers working behind the scenes it would be nothing more than a giant flow of packages. This department analyzes the intake of packages for each of their respective hubs. They allocate how many workers need to work on each shift for the hub to be efficient and come out positive based on how many expected packages. They also plan for the expected amount of packages for each shift. They have to take into account all of the factors in this determination. Holiday times are the toughest for this department. Often they have to hire â€Å"seasonal† employees to add additional man hours for the holiday flow, called â€Å"peak season†. In 2013, UPS had a major strategic planning failure during the holiday season due to lack of man power. The engineers at the head of he company failed to make correct predictions about the flow of packages that would be coming through the system that holiday season. UPS planned to hire an additional 55,000 employees that holiday season, while also leasing an additional 23 airplanes to accommodate next day air shipments in order to make â€Å"before Christmas day’ delivery promises (Leonard, 2013). Clearly this was under planned as Christmas day rolled around and many packages were still stalled in the hubs across America forcing managers of the hubs to work hours on Christmas day and Christmas Eve, which are normally holidays for UPS employees (Banker, 2013). This goes to show how important the Industrial Engineers in UPS actually are to the company. They are paid to make the overall operations plan every day of the year, which are then carried out by the operations managers. The operations side of UPS is the muscle of the entire organization. This the department that has to perform in order for the company to be successful. These are the workers that consumers deal with on a daily basis. Planning for this department is done mostly by the Industrial Engineering department, although they can deviate from the plan as necessary. One thing the operations depart works on with planning s how many managers they think they will need in order to get the most from their hourly work force. Integrating airline, ground, and warehouse operations is key to the success of the mission of UPS. Customer service is the greatest advertising tool that UPS has, and the operations department is in control of this as they are the ones out and about working on the front lines. Finally, UPS utilizes a Human Resources department for planning that deals with hiring employees. With UPS’ vast network of employees, it is the HER department that is key to keeping these employees happy and satisfied enough to continue to work art for the company and keep the turnover rate low. Once the II department determines how many employees will need to be hired for peak seasons, it’s the HER department that is in charge of hiring those employees in time for the season. Planning for the HER department is integral for the happiness and productivity of employees. Organization I think UPS has done a brilliant Job in the way they have designed the company to manage itself. Instead of having one large chain of command, UPS has one CEO, but many different departments and many different levels. UPS has its large hubs, which all compete against each other. Hubs like Chicago and Louisville are some of the largest. These hubs flow millions of packages through them every single day, but they wouldn’t be able to do that if they didn’t have smaller hubs throughout the country. The design allows for the packages to flow into the major hubs throughout the country, and then they distribute them by freight to the smaller hubs, which then load them on to package cars and deliver them out to houses. UPS also utilizes a Human Relations department which takes care of all their recruitment procedures as well as other areas such as safety. Finally, they use an engineering department which goes all the behind the scenes work for UPS (Drake, 2012). They project how many packages each building will receive that day and take all things into account such as holidays and what not. They also determine how many people need to be hired to maintain efficiency and effective working methods. These three departments work as their own entities, but collaborate to reach the main goal. When working with the design of the company managers need to consider the fluidity of their design. Because UPS focuses largely on timeliness, their organization for the company needs to also maintain a fluid design which allows for the packages o easily flow through the system. I think UPS has maintained this type of design through the departments which they have installed in the organization. All departments work together but separate, which allows them to do their own work but unloads some of the work from other areas and allows each area to put more focus into what they do. Knowing someone who used to work for UPS, I can tell you they are very precise and fluid with their design. He worked in the management side of operations. Every day the engineers would show up in the morning to plan the day for the afternoon shifts. High level managers for the afternoon shifts would come in after lunch and begin to put the plans into action. Following them, the lower level managers would come in to prepare for the day after being briefed by their managers. Hourly employees were given a specific â€Å"start time† for each day when they would show up to work. They also had a â€Å"downtime† which dictates when the building should be completely done sorting packages into their correct destinations. If everything worked correctly, the building would be efficient for that night. The fluid motions of the company are what keep them successful and efficient. One thing I thought was interesting is that the department who plans out the routes for the delivery drivers try to plan routes that use as many right turns as possible, eliminating the wait at stop lights as much as possible. This kind of planning and organization is key to the success of the company. Leadership UPS practices promotion from within to maintain motivated employees. One longstanding principal within UPS management is that promoting the workers that are already within your company is the way to keep the company in good standing. It always gives employees something to strive for and look forward to. The current CEO, Scott Davis, was originally absorbed by UPS when they bought out his previous company. He worked his way up to being a UPS CEO, although he did not start all the way at the bottom like many leaders within the company. One thing UPS does to push employees to stay with them is they offer health insurance to all part time employees who have been with them for over a year. In this day and age, something like that is extremely hard to come across. They also offer $1 5,000 in tuition assistance for part time employees, thus encouraging student to get their degree. All of this is the season they choose to promote from within. They invest a lot of time and money into their lower level employees so that they can get their education and begin to move up the UPS employment ladder. They strongly believe in filling gaps in upper management with employees who already know the system and have been at the level of those guys beneath them (UPS Earn Learn, 2014). Motivating current employees to do better creates a sense of pride within the company, which in turn creates better leaders. Communication between the leaders of the company comes once again from the management committee that UPS uses. Orders start from the top of the organization and trickle down through the management structure until it reaches the front lines. One issue that UPS has with conflict resolution is that the company is highly unionized. UPS uses a system of â€Å"write-ups† for hourly employees. Safety has developed a set of rules that need to be followed by each employee while working, and if those rules are not followed, the manager of that employee must right the person up. The issue with this is that the union can almost always get that persons job back if they end up getting fired because of unsafe working. Directly from a UPS manager, I know that the only thing a person can be fired for and not brought back is fighting or stealing. Above this, disciplinary action becomes more regulated by UPS than unions. Managers are not part of the union and therefore cannot get their Job back if fired from misconduct or poor management. UPS and Teamsters consistently work out collective bargaining agreements for hourly employees which state the terms of raises and the guidelines of employment. For example, if an employee is fired by UPS management, they have 10 days to file a grievance with the union to get heir Job back or the termination becomes final and there is nothing the union can do anymore. This type of disciplinary action for hourly employees can cause issues in the workplace, as many employees know they have a very slim chance of losing their job no matter their performance. Control Control is something that every department in the company has to be aware of because they all work separately but together as a whole. Human resources controls the morale of the employees, while operations looks to control the efficiency and work ethic of the work force. Some control tools which UPS utilizes is the advantage of am work. One department can take an issue and pass it on to another department to work on. This allows work to remain focused on the right topic rather than dealing with something that is not commonly dealt with in that specific department. Section Ill: Analysis In summary, UPS as a whole uses a structured departmentally system to govern their company. They believe in promoting leadership from within and encouraging new employees to better themselves so they can progress with the company. It seems that UPS has created a system that is concurrent with their massive success over time. I believe UPS will continue to stay in business for a long time if they continue to treat their employee’s right and manage the way they do now. Keeping things separate but working together seems to be a working concept as each of the hubs function as their own entity in the big picture of things. I cannot think of any recommendations for the company to use at this time, as I believe they are doing things right. One thing that I do believe is an issue is the unionized workforce that can really lag their production because of employee’s mindset. However, I know this is something that cannot be taken away by UPS management and cannot be fixed easily, so I think they have done a great Job of working around it. How to cite UPS: Business Strategy, Papers

Integrating the Arts Essay Thesis Example For Students

Integrating the Arts Essay Thesis As reforms have been implemented and assessed, educational leaders have begun to appear to be ready to entertain new and broader definitions of vat constitutes intelligence and cognition and what contributes to their development in children. Many who are actively involved in educational reform movements have called for a deduction in their systems reliance on standardized tests, written examinations, and other traditional assessment strategies as the most viable way to measure such complex educational outcomes as knowledge and cognitive growth in an individual. When broader notions of what the human intellect comprises are the design of the curriculum, the practice of teaching, and the training and retraining of teachers and school administrators must also be examined. Opportunities to increase the role the arts play in educating our youth then become apparent. If these opportunities are to be realized, we deed new approaches and strategies. Change becomes the order of the day. Educators have encapsulated their approaches by coining such catch phrases as interdisciplinary curriculum, infusing the arts, and integrating the curriculum, The Arts and General Education The general educational curriculum, as we know it, tends to be fragmented and compartmentalized, and, until now, transepts to develop significant linkages from one subject area to another have been rare. Therefore, schooling can be seen, at some levels, more as a series of discrete learning experiences than as a synthesis f related learning from a wide variety of academic disciplines. The issues we face as educators and, more specifically, as art(s) educators, are more varied and perhaps more critical that any issues art(s) educators have had to face in our countrys history. Increasing levels Of cultural diversity, socioeconomic disparity, and gender issues place many of our students in the at risk (of dropping out) category in terms Of public education. Often wonder how many Of our students have dropped out mentally, even though they still attend school. There can be little doubt that many Of the issues that currently face art(s) education also halogen the entire educational system. Interestingly enough. These issues often seem almost diametrically opposed to or mutually exclusive of each other, and, as yet, there seem to be no clear answers. The most pressing of these issues involves the increasing level of cultural diversity exhibited by LIST. Dents. This is followed closely by such related issues as designing curricula that are gender neutral; deciding whether a national curriculum is desirable, let alone achievable, and creating and implementing culturally unbiased assessment measures that provide an accurate measure to academic achievement. With ACH passing day, our nation becomes more culturally diverse, the verbal and visual languages spoken in our schools multiply, and the cultural values of our students become more and more disparate. The image of the United States as a vast cultural melting pot has yielded to a truer analogue-that of the United States as a cultural tossed salad. Todays teachers face huge educational problems when they attempt to design experiences that allow our students to cherish and build upon the cultural values of their own heritage while learning tolerance for the values of others and then to develop the shared beliefs that re necessary for Our nation to maintain its purpose and identity. Even achieving gender equitystructuring educational experiences to accommodate the learning styles Of both males and females, and turning away from educational stereotypes that limit the aspirations of students because of their genderseems almost impossible for the traditional school system to address successfully. In the arts, the move from one era, modernism, to the next set of artistic constructs and beliefs, postmodernism, is also causing many of us to restructure what we teach and how we seek to teach it. Ethical issues relating to the role that teachers would play in the emotional and moral development of their students can be contrasted with issues of academic freedom revolving around censorship. A major concern is to find ways to balance programmatic content that may be seen as controversial, or even radial, with values that may, or may not, he held by a majority of ones community members. In attempts to address the issues and concerns mentioned above, two separate approaches have emerged as possible vehicles tort making the arts an equal partner in general education. While these approaches share the goal of strengthening the role the arts play in making schooling more relevant to our children, they differ drastically in how this goal is realized. These strategies can be labeled the interdisciplinary-arts approach and the integrating-the-arts approach. The Interdisciplinary-Arts Approach The interdisciplinary-arts approach crosses traditional subject matter boundaries by combining them. It requires the creation of a new breed of teachera renaissance teachertrained to create and deliver interdisciplinary learning experiences in multiple art forms to children. This, according the Lengthener, marks the emergence of what could become a new paradigm for teacher reparation in arts education. On the surface, the creation off viable cadre of interdisciplinary arts teachers seems like an important way to infuse the arts into education. After all, as an forms, dance, art, music, and theatre share many common concerns. Elementary school teachers, Who teach in self-contained classrooms, are expected to prepare lessons and teach up to thirteen different subjects each day. Couldnt we create their equivalent-a group Of generalist arts teachers who have the skills and knowledge to share the arts with students in an interdisciplinary fashion? While the idea of creating linkages between ND among the arts is important, the notion of training large numbers of interdisciplinary teachers who can teach the arts as one unified, holistic subject in our schools, or of training elementary generalists to attempt this mission, is problematic for several important reasons. Chief among these reasons is the role of the arts teacher. This approach reverses most, if not all, of the reforms we have undertaken in education during the last twelve years. Much to the reform movement in education has been fueled by the conclusions of the Holmes Group, the Carnegie Forum on Education and the Economy, the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, the College Entrance Examination Board, and upcoming reports and recommendations by the National Board of Professional Teaching Standards. LS] In the arts, reform also has been stimulated by publications from working groups comprised of members of the professional arts education associations and the Getty Center for Education in the Arts and by the recent publication of parallel national standards for the teaching of each of the Without exception, each Of the major reports coming from these independent groups calls for more subject-matter knowledge on the part of teachers. In fact, the Holmes Report and A Nation Prepared: Teachers for the 21st Century from the Carnegie Foundation have helped spawn a proliferation of five- year programs in teacher education that are predicated on allowing prospective teachers to attain a bachelors degree in a specialized subject area before they spend a fifth year acquiring the pedagogical skills they need to communicate that knowledge in their classrooms. 171 In essence, the thrust of these and many other calls for reform lies in intensifying rather than diluting the content of education by strengthening and adding focus to the subject area knowledge or expertise of teachers. While each of us can think of examples of individuals who possess proclivities in more than one art form, most of those in the arts find that their talents lie in one specific art form, and indeed may lie in one medium or category of that art form, To expect large numbers of individuals to function as multivalent arts teachers who can sing dance, play instruments, read music, choreograph dances, conduct, draw, paint, sculpt, and delve into interactive media is simply beyond the scope of human capability. The Persian Empire EssayIn Other words, as a pragmatist, propose change that, because minimizes increases in costs, is acceptable to education decision makers not only during a period Of educational reform, when funding for such initiatives is temporarily available, but also during those long years between periods Of reform. First, this integrated arts program must be based on a team-teaching approach that utilizes the expertise of trained pacifists in art, music, dance, and theatre education. Currently, middle schools in virtually all states employ specialists in art, music, and physical education. Many physical education majors have strong backgrounds in movement or dance, At some point in the not-too-distant future, teacher certification in dance may become more common. But until then, we should seek to make use of the expertise currently offered by our physical education instructors. Theatre, also, is not adequately represented at the elementary and middle school levels, but until there are more theatre specialists, creative writing could be substituted or theatre, particularly it significant time is spent in the class studying, writing and performing plays. How would such a program be organized? Instead of attending art classes every day for six to nine weeks and then switching to music every day for six to nine weeks, then to theatre, and finally to dance, block scheduling students would allow them to attend art, music, dance, and theatre for a double period on four successive days each week of an entire semester and then to meet together with all four arts teachers in a large group on the fifth day of the cycle for the semester (see table I). As you can see, the total length Of the program remains the sameone semester-and the staffing, with the exception Of theatre or creative writing, is also the same. The major differences lie in the team-teaching approach, which allows the arts teachers to plan together and reinforce the students learning experiences in the arts program. For the first time in the history of arts education, opportunities for developing the abilities to respond, produce or perform, appreciate, value, and create a cultural/historical context for all the arts become attainable. The content for the integrated arts aerogram would be drawn from the four artistic disciplines and sequenced so that the themes, concepts, styles, cultures, and periods covered in each of the visual arts would also be covered and reinforced in the others. The cultural, critical, social, historical, and aesthetic implications of such in-depth study are enormous compared to the piecemeal way in which we currently cover the arts. At present, we can only guess at how much more powerful and efficient our arts programs would be. But the thought to middle school students studying the works, mastering the techniques, and examining the aesthetic beliefs of he impressionist painters while listening to and performing the music that was being played, seeing and dancing the ballets and folk dances that were being performed, and reading and performing excerpts from the literature and theatre of Western Europe at that time is more than a bit enticing. Indeed, how much more relevant would schooling become if an equal amount of time and effort was spent in exploring the culture of native Americans or African Americans through an in-depth examination of their art works, while listening to and performing the music they played, seeing and dancing the tribal and folk dances that ere part of the everyday lives of their ancestors, and reading and performing excerpts from the Oral histories that have been passed down from generation to generation by members of these or many other American and non-western cultures? Arts programs in our schools hue been based on gifted and talented models of education. Traditionally, as children passed through our educational system, eve have tended to encourage those Who could produce or perform and discourage those who appeared to be less physically or overtly dexterous. In short, we have tended to concentrate on developing the gifts of a talented minority rather than creating generations of connoisseurs of the arts. Our programs have suffered accordingly. Integrating the arts with each other could well begin to reverse this trend by providing multiple opportunities for achieving success while studying the arts. How many new avenues for success in studying the arts could be uncovered in addition to producing or performing is an open question that begs to be investigated. Finally, you may think that my vision tort an integrated arts program is overly broad, lacking clarity or definition, In part, must agree. These musings are meant to stimulate, not prescribe. There is no en right way to achieve the kinds of aims have placed before you in this brief article. One cannot and should not attempt to teacher-proof a curriculum by creating a curricular cookbook bursting with cant-fail teaching recipes. Teachers must tailor their curricular, and their pedagogical, efforts to meet the needs of their students, and the approach outlined here is an attempt to encourage the kind of unified thinking and curricular bridge building that we so desperately need in our educational system. If we can integrate the arts with each other, we can accomplish two vital goals. We can once again serve as a model for the est.. Of the curriculum (as we are currently doing in the areas Of evaluation and assessment), and we can make it possible for arts educators to participate significantly in the restructuring Of general education With the arts at its core. Integrating the Arts with the Rest of the Curriculum Historically, eve have failed to carve out a niche for the arts in education that makes us equal partners in the educational process. Perhaps the leap from frill to essential, from fluff to requirement, was simply too great a vault for any field to make. However, once the arts have been successfully integrated with each other, here is a very real possibility that they may be able to document their academic relevance and intellectual discipline to prove that they merit full partnership in the educational system. The question for us as individual teachers of the arts and as teachers in related fields, therefore, is not simply, How do we get better at doing what we do? Rather, we should ask, What must we do to move our titles into the educational mainstream? As efforts to refine and strengthen the general school curriculum continue, infusing the arts into general education is a goal we must accomplish. This goal, however, will not be realized through the creation of new breed of interdisciplinary arts teachers who, fear, could never hope to do justice to the art forms they seek to teach A more reasoned approach to making the arts more central to education is to eliminate the isolation that arts teachers encounter in their teaching situation and to make it possible for arts teachers to work together, to exchange ideas, and to plan in teams as we look to guarantee the future of the arts in educational] The goal of integrating the arts with each other and then with general education certainly merits serious exploration.

Public Administration Officers

Free Essays on Jesus Vs You

The world has gone through a revolution and it has changed a lot. We have cut the death rates around the world with modern medicine and new farming methods. For example, we sprayed to destroy mosquitoes in Sri Lanka in the 1950s. In one year, the average life of everyone in Sri Lanka was extended by eight years because the number of people dying from malaria suddenly declined. This was a great human achievement. But we cut the death rate without cutting the birth rate. Now population is soaring. There were about one billion people living in the world when the Statue of Liberty was built. There are 4.5 billion today. World population is growing at an enormous rate. The world is going to add a billion people in the next eleven years, that's 224,000 every day! Experts say there will be at least 1.65 billion more people living in the world in the next twenty years. We must understand what these numbers mean for the U.S. Let's look at the question of jobs. The International Labor organization projects a twenty-year increase of 600 to 700 million people who will be seeking jobs. Eighty-eight percent of the world's population growth takes place in the Third World. More than a billion people today are paid about 150 dollars a year, which is less than the average American earns in a week. And growing numbers of these poorly paid Third World citizens want to come to the United States. In the 1970s, all other countries that accept immigrants started controlling the number of people they would allow into their countries. The United States did not. This means that the huge numbers of immigrants who are turned down elsewhere will turn to the United States. The number of immigrants is staggering. The human suffering they represent is a nightmare. Latin America's population is now 390 million people. It will be 800 million in the year 2025. Mexico's population has tripled since the Second World War. One third of the population of Mexico ... Free Essays on Jesus Vs You Free Essays on Jesus Vs You The world has gone through a revolution and it has changed a lot. We have cut the death rates around the world with modern medicine and new farming methods. For example, we sprayed to destroy mosquitoes in Sri Lanka in the 1950s. In one year, the average life of everyone in Sri Lanka was extended by eight years because the number of people dying from malaria suddenly declined. This was a great human achievement. But we cut the death rate without cutting the birth rate. Now population is soaring. There were about one billion people living in the world when the Statue of Liberty was built. There are 4.5 billion today. World population is growing at an enormous rate. The world is going to add a billion people in the next eleven years, that's 224,000 every day! Experts say there will be at least 1.65 billion more people living in the world in the next twenty years. We must understand what these numbers mean for the U.S. Let's look at the question of jobs. The International Labor organization projects a twenty-year increase of 600 to 700 million people who will be seeking jobs. Eighty-eight percent of the world's population growth takes place in the Third World. More than a billion people today are paid about 150 dollars a year, which is less than the average American earns in a week. And growing numbers of these poorly paid Third World citizens want to come to the United States. In the 1970s, all other countries that accept immigrants started controlling the number of people they would allow into their countries. The United States did not. This means that the huge numbers of immigrants who are turned down elsewhere will turn to the United States. The number of immigrants is staggering. The human suffering they represent is a nightmare. Latin America's population is now 390 million people. It will be 800 million in the year 2025. Mexico's population has tripled since the Second World War. One third of the population of Mexico ...

Financial management Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 1

Financial management - Essay Example The Return on Equity, ROE, measures how much profit a company earned in comparison to the money shareholders have invested. Generally, the higher it is the more promising a company is. Potential investors rely on ROE when deciding whether or not to invest their money in a company. Furthermore, financial institutions use the ROE to assess capability of a company meeting its loan repayment obligations (Bull, p.29). Net profit margin is the ratio of net profits to net sales of a company.   This ratio reflects companys efficiency especially within its industry.   Investors are attracted to stocks of companies with high net profit margin (Moyer, James and William, p.70) It is the ratio of company market share price to Earnings per share and is mostly used as a valuation of investments indicator. P/E reflects the premium paid for a share and thus growth investors look for higher P/E ratios in contrast to value investors. It reflects future earnings growth of a company and consequently implying it has no debt risk to banks. . It is important for investors and financial institutions to note that financial ratios are subject to weakness in accounting methods. In addition, some ratios on their own are meaningless and thus need to be combined with others to draw a conclusive financial decision. Thus, in my opinion financial ratios should be used as indicators and not as complete evidence of company financial position (Beyer,

Answers of qustion the Business process management (BPM) Essay

Answers of qustion the Business process management (BPM) - Essay Example The Support activities in an organization that increases the added value of the product are; Organizational Infrastructure, Human Resource management, Technology development and Procurement. The primary activities of the value chain are inbound logistics, Operations, Outbound logistics, Marketing and sales and Services. Theses nine operations of the value chain play an important role in making the product more valuable in terms of utility and the profit. The Primary Activities – Inbound logistics: This process consists of receiving, storing of raw materials, and distribution of the raw materials to the various operations of production. This involves the inventory maintenance, transportation scheduling and return of the defective parts back to the suppliers. Operations: This process includes the various activities that transform the raw materials or unfinished products into final products. This area involves processing the raw materials through machines, equipment maintenance, testing of machines and other methods to optimize the production. Outbound logistics: This process involves the distribution of the finished products to dealers, distributors and to the warehouses. The entire process of delivering the finished goods to the end customers is handled under this operation. Warehousing, material handling, delivery operation, processing of the order and scheduling the delivery transportation is taken care of under this operation. Marketing and Sales: This process deals with the sales and marketing of the finished product. Functional areas like advertisement, promotion, stationing of the sales force, channel selection and pricing. Services: These operations include the after sales services like repair and maintenance. Functions like installation, repair, training, part supply and production adjustments. These services play an essential role in increasing the value of the product. The Support Activities- Firm Infrastructure: The infrastructure of the organi zation adds immense value to the product. The kind of facility available at the organization increases the value of the product. A general firm infrastructure is represented by the general management, planning and finance department, the legal department. These departments ensure smooth functioning of the entire production process. Human Resources Management: this operation regulates the recruiting and training of the employees. Human resource is the backbone of any organization. Managing the issues related to the employees such as benefits and compensation. Cost of hiring and training the employees and most importantly assigning the right job to the right person add a lot value to the product. Technology Development: An organization’s most important initiative in being effective and innovative is the stress given on technology development. Having the most efficient technology ensures fast and cost effective production. The quality of the product also increases with incorpora tion of latest technology. Procurement: Procurement deals with the function of purchasing materials for further processing. A cost effective and quality effective procurement ensure the cost and quality effectiveness of the finished product. When these nine basic yet essential operations are run efficiently by the organization the Value is added to the product. T

Opportunities of Emerging Market Multinational Enterprises Assignment

Opportunities of Emerging Market Multinational Enterprises - Assignment Example There are numerous opportunities in developed markets that can be tapped by EMMEs. The first opportunity that EMMEs have in developed countries is the high number of middle income consumers. Developed markets normally have a large proportion of people in the middle income category as compared to emerging. Middle income consumers comprise of the largest consumer base in developed markets (Tse, Russo, & Haddock, 2011). The middle income earners have a high purchasing power which presents a valuable opportunity for EMMEs in the developed market. Middle income consumers are willing and able to pay high prices for products and services from the EMMEs. Middle income consumers are able to drive up the profitability of enterprise. EMMEs can tap into this segment by embracing innovation, branding and implementing effective marketing policies targeted at this category. The EMMEs should be flexible enough to develop product lines that can attract this segment of consumers. The company must carr y out market research to identify the product attributes that are desirable in that particular consumer segment and comply accordingly in order to attract more customers. Developed markets present the opportunity of highly advanced technology and equipment. Unlike the home bases in emerging markets, developed markets have more advanced technology and equipment. The lack of technological and machinery advancement in emerging markets puts a strain on the effectiveness and productivity of the EMMEs.

Li Fung: An Analysis

Li Fung: An Analysis Rahul Jacob, Inside Track: Traditional Values at the Click of a Mouse, Financial Times, August 1, 2000, p. 14. Online bookseller Amazon.com transformed the book industry forcing traditional book retailers to respond. Some information in this section comes from previous Harvard Business School Case Studies: Li Fung: Beyond Filling in the Mosaic-1995-98, (HBS Publishing No. 398-092) Michael Y. Yoshino, Carin-Isabel Knoop, Anthony St. George; January 1, 1998; and Li Fung (Trading) Ltd., HBS Publishing (No. 396-075) Gary Loveman, Jamie OConnell, October 26, 1995. With a press conference the following day, William was confident of the Groups performance and lifung.coms prospects. But he knew that important issues remained unresolved: Was there any chance of channel conflict or cannibalization between the offline business and the start-up? How would the market react to the start-up once it was launched the following year? And how specifically would e-commerce ultimately transform his familys century-old company? Company Background Li Fung was founded in 1906 by Williams grandfather, Fung Pak-Liu and his partner, Li To- Ming in Guangzhou, China as an export trading company selling to overseas merchants. In the 1920s and 1930s the company diversified into warehousing and the manufacture of handicrafts. Shortly after Fung Pak-Liu passed away in 1943, his son Fung Hon-Chu assumed charge of the company. Two years later, silent partner Li To- Ming retired and sold his shares to the company. The company retained Lis surname, a homophone Im not an Internet guy, Im a business guy, quipped William Fung, managing director of Li Fung Trading Co. Clad in his chinos and black American Eagle T-shirt, Fung looked much more like a new economy entrepreneur than the selfdescribed offline, old economy relic: Im 51, Im more than a grey hair in Internet terms, Im a fossil.1 Nor did lifung.com, his elder brother Victors new online company, resemble a typical Internet start-up, particularly with a 96-year-old parent born at the end of the Qing Dynasty. In August 2000, the day before beta launch of the new business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce portal, William described the challenges facing Li Fung: About three or four years ago, Victor and I discussed the Internet and how it impacts us. Our starting point was a defensive posture: Would the Internet disintermediate us? Would we get Amazoned2 by someone who will put together all of the information about buyers and factories online? After a lot of research we realized that the Internet facilitates supply chain management and we werent going to be disintermediated. The key is to have the old economy know-how and yet be open to new economy ideas. EXHIBIT 1 Li Fung Consolidated Income Statement (December 31, 1999), in HK$* 2000 1999 1999 1998 (HK$ thousands) (HK$ thousands) (HK$ thousands) (HK$ thousands) (June 30) (December 31) (June 30) (December 31) Turnover 10,267,606 16,297,501 6,583,730 14,312,618 Cost of sales (9,262,171) (14,585,881) (5,895,432) (12,891,709) Selling expenses (191,616) (354,124) (143,136) (287,524) Administrative expenses (87,741) (867,842) (56,436) (747,725) Profits before taxation 328,943 613,861 208,936 471,098 Taxation (29,805) (36,638) (14,536) (16,425) Profit after taxation 299,338 577,223 194,400 454,673 *In August 2000, US$1 _ HK$7.78. for profit in Chinese, which, along with Fung, a homophone for abundance, had an auspicious ring when combined. Li Fung relocated permanently to Hong Kong at the end of World War II, expanding its operations to include toys, garments, plastic flowers, and electronics. In the early 1970s, both Fung brothers had just returned from the United States: William had earned his MBA from Harvard Business School and returned to the business in 1972. Victor had recently completed his PhD in economics at Harvard University and, following a two-year stint teaching at Harvard Business School, rejoined the business in 1974. Their return heralded Li Fungs transition from a family-owned business to a professionally managed firm, with a planning and budgeting system in place for the first time. William and Victor, the third generation to run the company, felt that the next logical step in growing the company was to go public. In 1973, Li Fung became the holding company for the Group and was listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange (HKSE). Throughout the 1980s, Li Fung expanded its regional network of offices throughout the Asia-Pacific region as more sources of supply emerged in the rapidly industrializing Asian economies. In 1988 the Group was privatized and streamlined, incorporated in Bermuda in 1991, and its trading activities were again listed on the HKSE in July 1992. With the 1995 acquisition of Inchcape Buying Services (formerly Dodwell), Li Fung expanded its customer base in Europe while simultaneously shifting its sourcing network beyond East Asia to include the Indian subcontinent, the Mediterranean, and Caribbean basins. By 2000, Li Fung was a $2 billion global export trading company with 3,600 staff worldwide, sourcing and managing the global supply chain for high-volume, time-sensitive consumer goods. (Exhibit 1 shows recent Li Fung financial data.) By 2000, 69 percent of LiFungs sales were in the United States and 27 percent in Europe. Key customers included The Limited, Gymboree, American Eagle,Warner Brothers, Abercrombie Fitch, and Bed Bath Beyond. Tesco, Avon Products, Levi-Strauss, and Reebok had become customers within the last two years; Royal Ahold, GUESS? jeans, and bebe had signed on in 2000. Li Fungs product mix included hard and soft goods. Soft goods referred to apparel, including woven and knit garments for men, women, and children. Hard goods included fashion accessories, festive or holiday products, furnishings, giftware, handicrafts, home products, fireworks, sporting goods, toys, and travel goods. Hard goods provided higher margins than soft goods because, despite a generall y lower item value per unit, they required higher value-added services for orders that were also usually much smaller than soft goods orders. Hard goods items such as watches, shoes, suitcases, kitchenware, or teddy bears required an inspector for quality control evaluation for even the smallest batch order, thereby greatly increasing what Li Fung could charge. Margins for soft goods were roughly 6 percent to 8 percent, while we get an order from a European retailer to produce 10,000 garments. We determine that, because of quotas and labor conditions, the best place to make the garments is Thailand. So we ship everything from there. And because the customer needs quick delivery, we may Product Development Raw Material Sourcing Production Planning Factory Sourcing Manufacturing Control Quality Assurance Export Documentation Shipping Consolidation Fashion Accessories Festive Products Furnishings Garments Giftware Handicrafts Home Products Sporting Goods Toys Travel Goods Li Fung Total Value-Added Package EXHIBIT 2 Li Fung Total Value- Added Services Source: Company documents. divide the order across five factories in Thailand. Effectively we are customizing the value chain to best meet the customers needs. Five weeks after we received the order, 10,000 garments arrive on the shelves in Europe, all looking like they came from one factory.5 Li Fung clients benefited in several ways: supply chain customization could shorten order fulfillment from three months to five weeks, and this faster turnaround allowed clients to reduce inventory costs. Moreover, in its role as a middleman, Li Fung reduced matching and credit risks, and also offered quality assurance to its customers. Furthermore, with a global sourcing network and economies of scale, Li Fung could offer lower cost and more flexible sourcing than its competitors. In addition, through acquisitions and global expansion, Li Fung was extending this knowledge base to sub-Saharan Africa, Eastern Europe, and the Caribbean. Finally, Li Fung provided up-to-date fashion and market trend information to clien ts. As a result of its Camberley acquisition in 1999, it started offering clients virtual manufacturing or product design services. According to Victor, Li Fung does not own any of the boxes in the supply chain, rather we manage and orchestrate it from above. The creation of value is based on a holistic conception of the value chain. In recent years, however, Li Fung had begun to improve operations by controlling or owning strategic links in the chain. In some cases, Li Fung offered raw material sourcing. In the past when clients placed an order, Li Fung would determine the manufacturer best suited to supply the goods, and that factory would source its own raw materials. But Li Fung understood its clients needs better than its manufacturing plants did, so by offering raw materials to its suppliers, the company both ensured greater quality control and bought larger and thus more cost effective amounts of raw materials, thereby producing cost savings for each manufacturer. In such cases, Li Fung also earned revenue by charging its factories a commission on each raw material purchase they made. By mid-2000, ne arly 15 percent of Group sales involved Li Fungs raw material sourcing service. Joan Magretta, Fast, Global, and Entrepreneurial: Supply Chain Management, Hong Kong Style, An interview with Victor Fung, Harvard Business Review, September-October 1998, p. 106. Corporate Culture and Compensation From the 1992 privatization on, the division of labor between the Fung brothers was clear-cut: as Group chairman, Victor was primarily concerned with the Groups strategic issues and long-term planning; as Group managing director, William attended to everyday operations of the publicly listed trading arm, or as he joked in a recent interview, Victor is the deep thinker, and I just make the money.6 In another interview, Victor joked that William calls me the visionary, meaning that I dont really know whats going on.7 But both brothers lived in the same apartment building as their mother and sisters and conversed every day to keep abreast of developments at Li Fung. The duo created a strong synergy that was described by the CEO of the Groups e-commerce venture as A combination of both thought leadership and execution, with the unique relationship between Victor and William cementing the entire organization. They create a very particular kind of culture that blends pragmatism and, at th e same time, a recognition of and openness to innovation. According to Victor, once the business was successful, it was essential to keep an open mind and rather than resting on their laurels, that the challenge was to move past success and look forward. Furthermore, Victor held that it was imperative to cultivate a corporate culture that not only tolerated but encouraged diversity, or in his words, keep the culture so that it remains humble, agile, and responsive all the time and keep the people externally focused. Biannual retreats were held in Hong Kong, senior management meetings attended by division-level managers in order to foster communication across the Group. Li Fungs 3,600 employees were spread around the globe in offices ranging in size from 6 staff in Saipan to 1,100 in the Hong Kong head office. Five of the 48 offices were hubs-Hong Kong, Taiwan, Korea, Thailand, and Turkey. Each 8 Joanna Slater, Corporate Culture, Far Eastern Economic Review, July 22, 1999, p. 12. (except the Hong Kong office) had 200 to 300 employees. Li Fung was entrepreneurial, allowing senior managers to run 90 small, worldwide management teams as separate and individual companies. These dedicated teams of product specialists focused on the needs of specific customers and were grouped under a Li Fung corporate umbrella that provided centralized IT, financial, and administrative support from Hong Kong. This decentralized corporate structure allowed for adaptability and rapid reaction to seasonal fashion shifts. As a meritocracy, performance-based promotion and compensation were cardinal principles. Each of Li Fungs top executives negotiated individual compensa tion packages. In contrast to companies that restricted executive bonuses to a fixed percentage of salary, Li Fung bonuses were based on profits with no ceiling. Its not every company that calls its executives little John Waynes. But for Li Fung, the image captures perfectly the drive, dedication, and independence of the companys far-flung managers. As Li Fung extended its geographic reach, it also expanded its mix of cultures. And to manage the mix it uses a simple formula: give managers the freedom to work as they see fit, so long as they get the job done.8 Tripartite Growth Strategy In 2000 Li Fung saw its future growth coming from a combination of organic growth, expansion through acquisition, and extension of its supply chain to new markets via the Internet. Organic Growth Since 1995, the Group had grown organically by receiving more orders from existing clients and by securing new mandates from strategic clients. Li Fung further extended its network and diversified its sourcing around the globe with new offices in places as diverse as Bangladesh, sub-Saharan Africa, and Manchester, England (see Exhibits 3 and 4). Louis Kraar, The New Net Tigers, Fortune Magazine, May 15, 2000, p. 310. Joanna Slater, Masters of the Trade, Far Eastern Economic Review, July 22, 2000, p. 10. The Mediterranean Cairo Denizli Florence Istanbul Izmir Oporto Tunis Turin South Africa Durban Madagascar Mauritius South Asia Bangalore Bombay Chittagong Colombo Dhaka Karachi Katmandu Madras New Delhi Sharjah North Asia Beijing Dallan Guangzhou Hong Kong Liuyang Nanjing Qingdao Southeast Asia Bangkok Ho Chi Minh City Jakarta Johor Bahru Manila Phnom Penh Saipan Singapore The Americas Guatemala Honduras Mexico City New York Vancouver Seoul Shanghai Shantou Shenzhen Taipei Zhanjiang EXHIBIT 3 Li Fungs Global Network Source: Company documents. Central America 3% Hong Kong/PRC 40% Southeast Asia 20% South Asia 8% Korea 12% Taiwan 9% Europe 6% Africa 2% EXHIBIT 4 Li Fung Sourcing Markets (Q1 and Q2, 2000) Source: Company documents. David Wilder, Internet Key to More Gains for Li Fung, South China Morning Post, September 4, 2000, Business Post, p. 1. In 1996 Li Fung adopted a three-year plan system, one which William described as having been adopted directly from the economic planning system of the Chinese Communist Party, that allows the company to look ahead, but not too far ahead. William elaborated: We thought that the Chinese had a neat system. They have five-year plans, fixed; we have three-year plans, fixed. We dont want moving goalposts, we want set goals. At the beginning of every three-year plan we sit down and look at the business from its fundamentals. We use backwards planning, we recognize where we want to be in three years time, identify the gaps between that and where we are now, and see what we have to do to get there. During its first three-year plan (FY1993-1995), entitled Filling in the Mosaic, Li Fung focused on filling in the gaps in its network of offices to cover new sourcing markets. The second three-year plan (FY1996-1998), Margin Expansion, was launched immediately after the Inchcape acquisition to in crease its profitability. A third three-year plan Doubling Profits (FY1999-2001), established the goals of doubling profits every three years and achieving $3 billion in annual sales. Investors liked the results: Li Fung outperformed the Hang Seng Index by over 75 percent in 2000. The reward was inclusion in the Morgan Stanley Country Index for Hong Kong in May 2000, subsequent inclusion in the HSI in August 2000 and on the FTSE World Index Hong Kong Section in September 2000. With a market capitalization of $6.6 billion, by mid-2000 Li Fung was the nineteenth largest Hong Kong stock trading with a company record price to earnings (P/E) ratio of nearly 60_. A local newspaper declared: It is difficult to find a bad word [about Li Fung]. It could be a poster-child for shareholder value, with a return-on-equity of 60.2 percent at the end of last year. The firm is well positioned to benefit from the opening of the mainland market and Beijings accession to the World Trade Organization, with 40 percent of sourcing on the mainland and Hong Kong.9 Acquisitions Li Fungs acquisition strategy was based on buying rival sourcing companies, thereby gaining new client accounts, integrating their operations, and eventually bringing the operating margins of these acquired units up to Li Fung levels. In 1995 Li Fung acquired Inchcape Buying Services, a 100-year-old company roughly the same size as Li Fung and its closest competitor. The Dodwell acquisition brought access to sourcing markets on the Indian subcontinent and European export markets. This acquisition took nearly three years to be fully absorbed into Li Fungs operations. Within three years, Dodwells operating margins increased from 0.8 percent to 3 percent, primarily through the provision of Li Fung value-added services to Dodwell customers. In December 1999, Li Fung acquired the export trading operations of the Swire Group, Swire Maclaine and Camberley, which were Li Fungs next two largest Hong Kong-based competitors, and in the process became the only listed supply chain management company in Hong Kong. Like Li Fung, Camberley did not own its factories. Instead, it provided virtual manufacturing in the form of in-house design, pattern and sample making, and raw material sourcing. Manufacturing was subcontracted to factories in China. Through Camberley, Li Fung gained access to the design process- another link in the value chain-as well as access to new clients such as the Asia buying offices of Laura Ashley and Ann Taylor. As it had with Inchcape, Li Fung expected to bolster its own bottom line by raising the operating margins of these two companies. With a robust cash flow and the solid financial performance of past acquisitions, Li Fung was in position to continue growing its business by further acquisitions. By August 2000, Li Fung was nearly five times the size of its two closest local competitors, William E. Connor and Associates and Colby International, which had twice postponed the IPO of its B2B portal in 2000. See Appendix A for more details on the intranet and extranet. E-Commerce A core element of Li Fungs three-year planning system included an introspective look at whether we are still relevant, including whether or not we are going to be disintermediated. Part of its response was an Internet initiative of its own. In 1995 Li Fung launched an intranet to link the Groups offices and manufacturing sites around the world, thereby expediting and simplifying internal communications. The progress of orders and shipments could be tracked in real time, and digital imagery allowed for online inspection and troubleshooting. For example, past quality problems with Bangladeshi production would require an on-site Li Fung inspector to send physical samples to Hong Kong by express mail, whereas the intranet now allowed a high-resolution digital photo to be sent via the intranet for real-time response and remedy. In 1997, Li Fung launched secure extranet sites. Each site linked the company directly to a key customer and was customized to that customers individual needs. By 2000, 10 such extranets were in place, each taking nearly 6-9 months to fully implement, from design to testing of the user interface. Through each site, Li Fung could carry out online product development as well as order tracking, obviating much of the cost and time necessary to send hard copies of documents back and forth. Furthermore, with Li Fung as the key link between manufacturers and retailers, the extranet provided a platform for the two to interface, thus streamlining communications as the order moved through the supply chain. Customers could track an order online just as it was possible to track a UPS delivery. This monitoring of production also promoted quick response manufacturing. Until the fabric was dyed, the customer could change the color; until the fabric was cut, the customer could change the styles o r sizes offered, whether a pocket or a cuff would be added, and a number of other product specifications. According to William, some customers went as far as connecting their entire ERP (enterprise resource planning) system to Li Fungs extranet system. Li Fungs IT division had 60 people, all based in Hong Kong, but software development of both the intranet in 1995 and its extranets in 1997 was outsourced.10 Successful implementation of these systems provided the initial building blocks of Li Fungs e-commerce solution and with them in place, the Fungs became further aware of the extent to which integration of Internet technology enhanced internal efficiency and improved communication between Li Fung divisions and customers and began to consider extending the organizations online presence. Competitive Threats The Fung brothers said that they decided to go online to avoid being disintermediated. But a closer examination of local B2B portals and online exchanges led Victor to conclude that the online threat to their offline business was far less than first imagined. People from the first wave were so far out and garbled in their thinking that we felt that there was no immediate threat, he noted. Therefore, we needed to think through e-commerce properly, to formulate a proper response. In Victors words, B2B exchanges were a molecule thick and a mile wide, based on many depthless relationships. Li Fung preferred narrow and deep relationships nurtured with fewer customers and including value-added services. As William professed, The same reason why we were not disintermediated by the offline guys is going to be the reason why were not going to be disintermediated by the online guys. However, William discovered on a 1999 visit to the United States that Li Fungs old economy retail customers felt seriously threatened by Internet pure plays. At first this hype did not make much sense: I asked my friend at Toys R Us, Why are you concerned about eToys? It does about $28-$30 million in sales whereas you do $11 billion, and it loses as much as its entire turnover? How can you worry about them? And the first lesson I learned was that its not their size that is the threat but the fact that investors are throwing money at them. William discovered that Internet companies could use the money that was pouring in to damage offline competitors, often by acquiring them or their key people. They can hire away all of the talent that you have. The biggest weapon is the money they have. At one point, they could have hired away my entire management. Other possible threats came from online companies acquiring an old economy trading company, or from offline companies like Japanese trading companies or local sourcing firms that could partner with a dot-com and become a competitor overnight. William hinted that the Swire Maclaine acquisition was a defensive move to preempt acquisitions by new economy companies. William gave his view of the Internet revolution: I started off saying that the Internet is just another technology that affects the way information is transferred and people communicate with each other. It has a very dramatic impact, more dramatic than the fax. But for me its yet another in a series of technological changes that affects our business that we have to be keenly aware of. It may be the most important change until now, but it is probably not the last. According to Victor, The Internet is a revolutionary technology, but new technology is nevertheless still technology. Li Fung always has been aggressive in adopting new technologies. When the telephone came along, my grandfather was shocked. When the fax came around, the technology changed our turnaround time into just days. With Internet technology, now we get answers within hours. When broadband and WAP comes online, there will be even less lag. Bubble In Once the Fungs determined that Li Fung needed an e-commerce strategy, the remaining question was how and in what shape it would emerge, how specifically e-commerce would eventually add value to Li Fung, and whether it would use the existing IT department of 60 or absorb a new team of entrepreneurs. Victor felt strongly that their e-commerce strategy should come from within the company, not outsourced as the intra- and extranets were, or as he phrased it, bubble in, not bubble out. According to Victor, only if the solution was an internal one could he be certain that the technology would pervade the entire Li Fung organization. Neither did Victor care to start a brand-new entity separate from the parent: Im not interested in starting a dot-com division, getting a high valuation with, a $13 million cash flow, and then spinning it off. I want Li Fung to be around for another 100 years, not just 5 or 15. To start a pure Internet division is as equally absurd as starting a fax division, a division that exclusively uses faxes. To better grasp the fundamentals of embarking on a new IT venture, Li Fung added two new technical directors to its board, one a technology company CEO, the other an academic. According to William: The one thing certain about our business is that it will be constantly changing, so we need to install a mechanism for monitoring external environmental changes that impact our business. We decided a long time ago that we were an information and knowledge-based services company, so anything to do with information technology is crucial to us. We keep up with whats happening with board members who can help us scan the horizon. Enter Castling In 1997, Michael Hsieh (HBS 84), president of LF International Inc., Li Fungs venture capital arm and 15-year Li Fung veteran, received a telephone call from John Suh (HBS 97), CEO of Castling Group, an Internet start-up company that, like the chess move allows you to defend your king and simultaneously position your rook for attack, used the Internet to both defend the offline, old economy companies against online companies threat to their markets while simultaneously extending their own online presence. The two met in San Francisco to discuss how a focused combination of technology and supply chain reform could transform retail. Hsieh, well aware that Li Fung was working on its own e-commerce strategy, noted: As a VC, I see numerous business plans that say that with Li Fung behind an online exchange, we create significant value and therefore offer you 5 percent if you join us. However most of the plans do not make sense. They offer very little value and the founders lack either industry or technology expertise. John had the right blend of technology and business sense, the right mix of right and left brain. Like the Fungs, Hsieh favored a bubble in approach. He compared outsourcing e-commerce implementation to a third-party consultant for a $10 million fee as putting the fox in the chicken coop. It created a risky dependency on outsiders, particularly if future design changes were required and also provided outsiders with proprietary information, strategy, and the entire business model. Finally, Hsieh remarked: As a venture capitalist, I always have to think about the strength of the management team and what could go wrong with the venture. Can they deliver? Do they know the industry? Is this a credible business proposition? What if there is a negative reaction? By late 1999, the time was right to act on their initial meeting. Hsieh commented that both the evolution of Castling from B2C to B2B and Li Fungs needs complemented each other nicely; John had a real appreciation for the supply chain and a record for building successful e-commerce models. In December 1999 Hsieh joined Castlings board and LF International invested in Castling. They subsequently co-invested in an initial round of financing for lifung.com, and Castling committed key managerial staff to lifung.com. Suh described Li Fung as the perfect strategic partner. They have an entrepreneurial philosophy rooted at the core of their system. Theyve got an aggressive and visionary leadership team at the for efront of supply chain management. And theyre ready to operate according to the rules of the new economy. In one fell swoop, San Francisco-based lifung.coms management team was immediately staffed with Castlings professionals, serving as vice president of Business Development, vice president of Operations, director of Marketing, and CTO (Chief Technology Officer). Suh stepped down as CEO of Castling, retaining the position of nonexecutive chairman, and signed on as CEO of lifung.com. Apart from Suh and CTO Derek Chen, 20 percent of lifung.coms initial staff came from Castling, amounting to an in-house e-commerce incubation team that represented a slight twist on Victors bubble in strategy. Suh and Chen, the latter formerly of Andersen Consultings Advanced Network Solutions Group, brought along their experience from Castling e-commerce strategy projects for jcrew.com, hifi.com, giftcertificate.com, and ferragamo.com. The rest of the team came from either within Li Fung (e.g., the se nior vice president of Merchandising) or from outside the Li Fung organization (e.g., the vice presidents of Sales and of Marketing). To facilitate the integration of the new online entity into the Li Fung fold, a senior manager was tasked to provide an interface between the two groups. By Q3 2000, lifung.com had 40 full-time professionals and 25 consultants, with 80 full-time staff expected by years end. For B2B ventures, moving first and fast was often a prerequisite for dominance. Scarcely a year had passed since the initial meeting with Castling and its first round of financing. According to Suh, there were three stages of launching an online venture: the business strategy, the design-build-test phase, and then actual execution. Moving quickly, Suh remarked, Requires a fundamental trust in an organization that best arises from the experience of a team that has built things together, with members who know each others strengths and weaknesses. We do a lot of team building, becau se without trust you cannot move at the speed required. There are certain elements critical to the success of a dot-com . . . openness and constant communication are essential because there are so many skills and inter-functional dependencies that must be navigated for a successful launch. At lifung.com, we have a great mix of people, individuals with 30 years of merchandising experience, a deep operations staff,

Childhood Memories in My Papas Waltz by Theodore Roethke and Piano by

Childhood Memories in "My Papa's Waltz" by Theodore Roethke and "Piano" by D.H. Lawrence "My Papa's Waltz" by Theodore Roethke and "Piano" by D.H. Lawrence are two poems in which grown men recall memories of their childhood. "My Papa's Waltz" has a quietly sad, almost resigned tone as Roethke relives his nightly dances with his father as a young boy. Lawrence's "Piano" is somewhat dreamy as a man is taken back by a song to his childhood. While both are presented to us through similar personas, striking differences are apparent throughout the two poems. "My Papa's Waltz" is the pensive recollection of a boy's nightly waltz around the house in the arms of his father. Roethke's poem gives a voice to the often silent internal conflict that the children of addicts struggle with. The sad resignation of the young boy is solidified early on in the poem. In the first stanza Roethke sets a tone of both pain and loyalty with the line, "But I hung on like death: Such waltzing was not easy" (479). "My Papa's Waltz" provides readers with the opportunity to see life through the eyes of...