Arnott

Problems exist through the current limited business scope to make ends meet. It also appears that the move to expand (diversify the business is meeting with â€Å"opposition† from ‘long -time employed' staff, major ‘obstacles' to the company's growth through diversifying the activities by introducing a new project have been identified and must be dealt with as far as possible and as quickly as possible by employing the strategies mentioned in my recommendations. A satisfactory resolution can only bring about a much more stable working environment and hopefully, greater profitability and business expansion.Background details: The main parts of the problems, from the company's historical background and the current situation, have come about as a result of the economic recession and the anti-change attitudes of the present staff-in particular of the inconsiderateness of the Project Manager. The business suffered significantly as a result of the drought years; the need for new grain silos diminished and resulted with a negative impact on the Company. The Managing Director correctly saw the need for expansion and diversification – especially when the company's infrastructure and staff expertise could be utilizes for the purpose.An opportunity presented itself when Christine met an old friend, Philip Thomson, who had successfully done an engineering project overseas. Another opportunity for expansion also came when It was found that a new Freeway Infrastructure was to be built using steelwork beams which the Arrant engineering firm could produce using skills Like those possessed by Phillip Thomson. The bid for the production of the beams was successfully made, with a time frame of six-months for completion. However, problems arose immediately: there were staff resentments, â€Å"unnecessary' delays occurred, and it appeared staff were â€Å"sabotaging† he project.The â€Å"old-timers† within the staff resisted change, and were resentful of the fact that they were not consulted- and used the excuse that Instructions were not ‘clear enough, that correct specifications for constructing the curved steel beams were not clearly explained to the staff, in particular, to the designer. As a result, two beams became ‘useless' and three weeks of time wasted. Major Recommendations: I would suggest Immediate action be taken to halt further production of the steel beams, In order to avoid additional losses through labor and material costs.The Motor Vehicle Freeway Infrastructure Project Authority should be contacted to inform them that there in some slight problem being experienced with the construction of the steel beams and there might be a minor delay with the completion of the 12 bridge support beams. However, your company will do its best to complete the work on time. Provide updates frequently. If necessary, suspend all bonuses to staff, with survival would be greatly, if not totally, reduced or elim inated. Have a meeting with the three senior staff members: the Project Manager, David Dobson, the QualityAssurance Manager, Heath Jones, and Philip Thomson, the new Project Manager in charge of the steel beams manufacture. Impress on them the need for the successful completion of the project as specified, and on time. If this doesn't happen then all will be lost, and most likely the Company will fold up and go under. The survival of the company is paramount; it is more important than the resentment of an individual or the unchanging views of a few. The result will affect all staff members. Success would bring greater opportunities for expansion and progress- of the Company and its staff.Mention that the current industry (the production of grain silos) has reached saturation point. Expansion and diversification is vital to industries, big or small, if they want to survive and be competitive. Seek ‘contributory remarks' and suggestions as to how the company can complete the new project work on time. The involvement would no doubt be seen as a Joint decision-making exercise, and would be more acceptable to the other staff members. Suggest that the new project must be considered more urgent, and in need of total support and commitment. All â€Å"surviving† companies have had to diversify in order to expand and prosper.Consider, when, or if the new project is successful, about establishing new â€Å"departments† within the company, so that the existing staff can be incorporated into either the ‘old' grain silos production section or move to the newer project areas whatever they may be in the future. Also consider the re-training of existing staff if seen appropriate. As well (and in complete confidence) the removal or retrenchment, of a trouble- maker' may be necessary, for the sake of the company's survival. Suggest that any further delays or ‘sabotaging of the Project would result in closure – and the end of all benefits.

Coffee †Starbucks Essay

Starbucks is a premium coffee wholesaler which has strayed from its original service of coffee. The advent of newer technology has diminished the Starbucks experience. Howard Schultz, Starbucks chairmen, sent a memo on February 14, 2007 addressing this problem to the president and chief executive officer of Starbucks, Jim Donald. In the memo, Schultz voiced his opinion on how the rapid expansion of Starbucks is causing him to revaluate the company’s values between how it operated when it began and where it is heading in the future. Starbucks isn’t the same neighborhood store as it was when it was established and no longer shows the passion for coffee that they had in the beginning. â€Å"I have said for 20 years that our success is not an entitlement and now it’s proving to be a reality. Let’s be smarter about how we are spending our time, money and resources. Let’s get back to the core† (Schultz). Along with its expansion, Starbucks has been trying to utilize new technologies to improve the product they sell to consumers. Starbucks changed their espresso machines from manual to automatic to speed up service and efficiency. These machines â€Å"blocked the visual sight line the customer previously had to watch the drink being made, and for the intimate experience with the barista† (Schultz). People no longer have that intimate connection with the people making their coffee, or to the finished product. The employees are also more disassociated from their work because of these new machines that speed up production. Starbucks also incorporated flavor-locked packaging to supply the demand for fresh roasted coffee. This is a great service to the customer because it keeps coffee grounds or beans fresher longer, yet the effectiveness of the flavor-locked bags contributed to the loss of aroma, â€Å"perhaps the most powerful non-verbal signal†, in Starbucks (Schultz). The romance of Starbucks is lost with these improvements and the unforgettable scent is lessened along with its heritage. Starbucks is still a coffee-loving company, and consumers are still receiving the coffee delicacies they want, but at what cost to tradition. https://sites. google. com/site/hollymadalyn/writing/Starbucks-Research-paper SYNOPSIS Starbucks Corporation, originally founded in 1971, but purchased by Howard Schultz in 1987, is the market leader in selling gourmet coffee (Starbucks, 2008). Starbuck’s main objective is to establish itself as the most respected and recognized coffee brand in the world (Fact Sheet, 2008). Starbucks has accomplished this objective and experienced much success through their competitive strategy of clustering several stores within the same community and through their distinctive competencies of roasting and selling the quality coffee while providing high quality customer service. The question is, can Starbucks continue their market share growth with rising competitors? Should they focus more on their international operations? Can they continually reinvent themselves to maintain their strong brand image in the long run? PROBLEMS. †¢ Overall economic downturn can affect Starbucks’ market share if management neglects to address competitors’ strategies with lower priced offerings as consumers are becoming more conservative in spending their discretionary income. †¢ Loss of identity and authenticity focused upon the foundational Starbucks experience, which, if unaddressed by management, can result in dissatisfied customers, loss of sales, and decreased market share. †¢ Considering the economy and increasing domestic competition within the U. S. , Starbucks must address their less profitable international operations. SWOT ANALYSIS[1] INDUSTRY EVALUATION In the past two decades, the coffee industry has experienced a significant increase in the demand for premium coffee. Today, about one in five Americans drinks some type of espresso-based coffee drink each day. The average yearly coffee consumption per capita in the U. S. is around 4. 4Kg. Among these coffee drinkers, the average consumption is 3. 1 cups of coffee per day, with men drinking approximately 1. 9 cups per day, and women drinking an average of 1. 4 cups per day (Coffee Research†¦ [continues].

How Music Defines You Essay

â€Å"I think music in itself is healing. It’s an explosive expression of humanity. It’s something we are all touched by. No matter what culture we’re from, everyone loves music. † This famous quote said by Billy Joel does a good job describing the way music can affect people. Different songs can impact people, change their moods, or bring back memories related to a certain tune. Each person, however, has their own unique taste in music; one song can be loved by one but hated by another, it all depends on our personal taste and what we can relate to. This made me wonder, what does the music I listen to say about myself? Do the lyrics define who I am as a person, or do I simply like songs because of the beat? As I looked at my top ten playlist, I saw that some of my favorite songs do describe me to a certain point. The first song I examined in my playlist was â€Å"Kids† by MGMT. I have always loved the beat of the song, but the lyrics of it never made sense to me. The words are like a collage of random thoughts strung together with what seems like no relation. However, as I looked deeper into the lyrics, I started to realize the meaning of the words. This song is filled with many emotions of a typical college student. Feelings of happiness, sadness, naivety, and nostalgia are present throughout the entire song. Upon further digging, I discovered that this was the first song the artists, Goldwasser and VanWyngaeden, wrote on arriving at college. They were nineteen, in a fantasy college world, and had a happy-go-lucky attitude. At the same time, however, they were longing for childhood; they had a fear of growing up and losing innocence. â€Å"Kids† is a great example of the way many college students feel. For me, I do not fear growing up, but I often find myself missing the past. Childhood was bliss and easy. As I grow up, I long for the days when I was younger, when work, homework, school, and the stress of everyday life did not matter. When you are young, you have no responsibilities to deal with, and although I live a happy balanced life, I often find myself wishing I was a kid again. The second song I analyzed was â€Å"Paradise† by Coldplay. Similarly to â€Å"Kids†, the song â€Å"Paradise† starts with the idea of childhood. â€Å"When she was just a girl she expected the world. But it flew away from her reach so she ran away in her sleep and dreamed of paradise† is the opening verse for this tune. It talks of a young girl with big dreams expecting the world. As the girl in the song grows up she finds that life is not as simple as she believed. â€Å"Life goes on, it gets so heavy. The wheel breaks the butterfly. Every tear a waterfall. In the night the stormy night she’ll close her eyes. † Those lyrics are a good example of how life has some downs, tears, and storms, but it talks of how the girl stays positive when the song says, â€Å"She’d say, ‘I know the sun must set to rise. ’† I think this song is a good reflection of me. I have big dreams for myself, but as life goes on I go through some bumps in the road. I have encountered many of my own stormy nights, but I know the sun will rise to a clearer and brighter day in time. I have learned not to expect things to be handed to me, but to chase after my dreams, and my own perfect paradise to a path of success. My final and favorite song I looked at was the song â€Å"Pursuit of Happiness† by Kid Cudi. Kid Cudi is my favorite artist, so it makes sense that my favorite song is one of his most popular. However, when I tell people my favorite artist is Kid Cudi, they give me weird looks because most of his songs do not describe me. The song â€Å"Pursuit of Happiness† is actually fairly dark and depressing. It talks of a person being empty and doing things such as drugs, smoking, and getting drunk. The character in the song finds these things as his only escape from reality. I personally think the song is brilliant. When I uncover the deeper meanings of the song, Kid Cudi is someone who I can relate to. The person in his song has been through some real tough times. I see his journey of trying to escape the pain of the real world by getting involved in all these things that give temporary bliss, but at the end of the song it is obvious that partying, drugs, and alcohol will not give you true happiness. My three favorite songs â€Å"Kids†, â€Å"Paradise†, and â€Å"Pursuit of Happiness† ended up describing some aspects of my life. I found that I could relate to all three songs which could be the reason why they are important to me. However, I am unconvinced that every song I like defines the type of person I am. I love music and it was hard for me to narrow down my top three songs. If I were to go on and look at every song I love, I am positive more than half would not be a reflection of who I am. My ultimate songs may describe some aspects of me, but I am confident that they do not define who I am.

White paper on environmental friendly cars Research

White on environmental friendly cars - Research Paper Example As life kept going, different inventions took birth that enraptured the world. As a consequence, in the late 1600’s the first steam-powered vehicle was built. This led to the birth of a sequence of different generations of automobiles. Since the Industrial Revolution in 1760, fossil fuels replaced manual manufacturing processes, and in consequence of this car engines had started to be produced so as to run on the combustion of fossil fuels. For many years, even to this day, this has continued; initially the world had not known what unprecedented effect the excessive burning of fossil fuels would produce, but in the 1960’s a new discovery was made: this was Global Warming. This led environmentalists and scientists to thoroughly exhaust the subject and conclude that the excessive burning of fossil fuels is verily causing climate changes all over the world, and so it befitted the term ‘Global Warming’ (Sperling et al, 2009). In addition to this, it is also wor th noting that fossil fuels are non-renewable resources and a time shall come when the world will run out of fossil fuels, or that only the powerful will exert their absolute control over it on their own whim. In effect, the world or the poor nations, in the future years, might have to revert to former methods of transportation; that are bicycles, horses, carts, etc. When this implication was realized by environmentalists yet again, scientists again dove down and exhausted every source through which they could determine how to endure fuel shortages and still have automobiles. This has led to a breakthrough invention that can completely solve this problem. In reality the use of fuel-powered cars has never been easy for the general population. Only the wealthy have the means in current times to drive such cars. This is because several problems accompany the use of fuel-powered cars that heap heavily on a consumer with a moderate salary and a not-so-ostentatious lifestyle: one, they are expensive; this

IAQ & Thermal Comfort Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

IAQ & Thermal Comfort - Research Paper Example Both regional and international standards have been developed to prescribe indoor environmental conditions that are safe for buildings’ occupants. In order understand how these factors (Thermal comfort and indoor air quality) affect the quality of life people leave indoors, it is important to know the various aspects affecting them. This research paper, therefore, aims at discussing and understanding the various factors that affect the quality of indoor air (known as Indoor Air quality, IAQ), and factors that affect human thermal comfort. The paper also aims at discussing the relationship that exists between thermal comfort and Indoor Air quality. The research paper will also discuss challenge of combination and maintenance of these factors (Thermal Comfort and Indoor Air quality) in Saudi Arabia, among others. Indoor air quality Description Indoor air quality can be described as the quality of air around and within structures and buildings which people occupy (Amissah, 2005). This quality of air is related to the comfort and health of individuals who occupy these structures and/or buildings. An â€Å"accepted indoor air quality† can be defined as an air condition in which majority of the occupants are satisfied with it, and in which there is no accumulation of contaminants to levels that can affect humans negatively (harm occupants) (Amissah, 2005). The quality of indoor air depend on a number of factors, among them include: quantity, strength and type of indoor emissions and quality, quantity and type of air outdoor. In order to ensure that indoor air conditions are comfortable and at accepted levels, the spaces that exist indoors must receive sufficient amount of clean outdoor air (Al-ajmi, 2010). In addition to receiving sufficient amount of air, indoors should be ventilated. During ventilation it should be ensured that all the spaces indoors receive air that is not contaminated with harmful microbiological components or chemicals which are ha zardous in nature (Amissah, 2005). In summary, the quality of indoor is normally affected by outdoor climate, variations in operations that take place in buildings or structures, and activities of the building occupants. Before proceeding to discussing more about the factors that affect quality of indoor, it is important that certain terms and expression that relate to indoor air quality are understood. These terms include: a) Perceived air quality b) Standard person c) Olf (Amissah, 2005) Perceived air quality Perceived air quality can be defined as the fraction of percentage of people who are dissatisfied (Amissah, 2005). Meaning that, it is the fraction of people who feel that the quality of air in a space just after entering in is not acceptable. Perceived air quality is measured in decipols. One decipol is considered as the quality of perceived air in a space that is polluted with a pollution source of one olf, and is ventilated using clean air fed at a rate of 10 liters per se cond. Olf This is unit for measuring amount of pollution generated by occupants of a building or a structure (Al-ajmi, 2010). It is estimated a standard person generates pollution of one (1) olf. Standard person A standard person can be defined as an average sedentary individual (adult) who works in an office, and feels neutral in terms air and thermal quality, or an average office worker who is not

Shopster Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Shopster - Case Study Example The retailers make this business to be what it is. They form the customer base, thus making the business to be vibrant. The customer base is the single most important entity in the business. Thus, retailers sustain the business by shopping for products online, hence boosting the capital base of the business. Retailers also help in reaching other customers who with time get to know this online business entity. The strength of this business entity is that it does not face a lot of competition from other businesses. This makes it capitalize on sales in the absence of other business entities. The business also uses less capital to operate, thus being able to maximize on profits. The business should be able to perfect their businesses through proper and serious marketing. Through marketing, the business becomes well known thus it does not struggle to have customers come on board. Branding should also be done to make the business more unique and versatile. This should not only be on the products, but also on the online

Ethics Reflection Paper Term Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Ethics Reflection - Term Paper Example This situation does create the impressions that businesses do not really have a set of ethical principles to follow as it conducts it operations and that these do not feel any responsibility toward society. Such notions may be the result of certain corporations that are indeed callously advancing activities that negatively affect people while reaping great profits at the same time. One proof is the prevalent concept that, â€Å"from an economic point of view, one can only afford to be ethical as long as one remains competitive† (Duska 2007, p.62). In order to reduce the intensity of the conflict between business and other sectors of society, as well between it and the employees, there is a need to focus on the education and reeducation of the management and the owners on business ethics and social responsibility. Ferrell, Fraedrich, and Ferrell explain that â€Å"business ethics comprises the principles and standards that guide behavior in the world of business† (2010, p. 6). This definition emphasizes the need for companies to refer always to such moral precepts and standards as they embark on activities related to their respective businesses.