ShantanuT01/DACTYL-Pretraining huggingface dataset:
Introduction Southwest Airline, since time in memorial, has been one of the outstanding competitors in the Airline industry. Its low fares have propelled it to glory among the commuters of United States; these fares are said to be 30% lower than its fieriest rivals in the airline industry in the US. In addition to this, the company possesses a structure that is low in terms of cost, which has enabled it to record high margins of profits in spite of the financial year being bad. A good example of a bad financial year was in 2002, when the airline industry faced decrease in demand due to the September 11 terror attack. It has been identified that 2001 to 2005 were the worst years of the airline industry in its history. However while the other airlines were losing money the Southwest airline was reportedly earning money. The operations of Southwest airlines are unique from other airline thus making it distinctive. While other airlines like the United Airlines and American Airlines deal with routing passengers through hubs, the Southwest deals with routing the passengers from point to point. This enables the airline to acquire more and more passengers to obtain the required demand. Delays are hence reduced tremendously due to the avoidance of hubs. Another factor that ensures a success story of the airline is cutting of training cost, inventory costs, and maintenance costs. This is ensured by using of one kind of aeroplane called the Boeing 737. The employee to passenger ratio is the best in the airline industry (Hill and Jones, 2009, p. 105). Factors of success Integration One of the key factors that have enhanced the success of the Southwest Airline is the way the airline integrates its activities. The airline has successfully integrated its activities in a manner that has made it a headache for its competitors to try to emulate them. The strategy used by the Southwest Airline in integrating its activities is one of its pillars to successful undertaking of differentiation strategy or integrated cost leadership. This hence enables the firm to operate profitably as compared to its competitors. The sixty-fourth consecutive profits announced by the firm only confirm the success story of the firm (Hitt, Ireland and Hoskisson, 2009, p. 104). Unique culture and customer service The firm’s culture is suggested to be its key in influencing its integration and a major contributor to the existing identification of the firm’s unique service to its clients. Apart from lowering of the cost, the uniqueness of its service separates the firm from its competitors. The customer service and the unique culture of the firm are some of the success factors that have become impossible for other competitors in the industry to emulate. Competitors like Continental Airlines, US Airways, and United Airlines had attempted to emulate the Southwest Airlines by lowering their prices but were unable to offer any unique distinction to customers especially while in air. In addition to this, these competitors were unable to operate at the same range of cost as the Southwest Airlines (Hitt, Ireland and Hoskisson, 2009, p. 104). Indomit
Mark Singleton initially wanted by means of CRM package to make an additional increase of sales by using contacts of bankers and by improving relationships with them. The solution for this was Siebel CRM software now owned by Oracle (Laudon & Laudon, 2009). Also the urge for tracking relationship bankers was a core intention of CEO to provide the CRM competitive software. The problem also touched upon the need for making quick approval of credits and loans electronically. In case with Citizens National it was necessary to improve the situation which was dictated by time. It concerned the need to make business electronically instead of “old paper system” (Laudon & Laudon, 2009, p. 517). Moreover, in this respect there were several reasons which constituted tangible and intangible benefits for the company. The major one is considered with the records about customers in the electronic format, so that not to lose current customers. Siebel CRM software was a good helper in this approach. Mark Singleton “placed even greater value on the person-to-person interactions between his relationship bankers and their customers” (Laudon & Laudon, 2009, p. 517). The CRM Siebel software had some difficulties in the implementation and proper use. All in al, the Siebel software had one advantage which then was transformed in a disadvantage, namely: “it was too rich in features” (Laudon & Laudon, 2009, p. 517). In this case, the personnel spent much time to make commands within the software, because of many icons appearing every now and then. It had a complex structure of commands for call center which were uneasy to handle and which did not point out the complaints from customers in time. What is more, the paradox of Siebel was incorporated in the words by Jim Davis, an expert from Deloitte, namely: “The problem with Siebel is that it has everything” (Laudon & Laudon, 2009, p. 517). For management the software was too difficult to comprehend due to some commands to be completed manually. Bankers were not aware of the current torrents of relationships between banks and customers. Sales of bank products were badly implemented through the Siebel. Quickbase was a great solution for Citizens National due to its easiness in use and maintenance. This software also was a solution due to its price per annum and per a user. In comparison with Siebel which cost $150,000 Quickbase suggested to spend $249 for the first ten users and increased by $3 per month for the additional users (Laudon & Laudon, 2009, p. 518). Also the ability of this system to integrate with others played a significant role in relationships with bankers. The Siebel software would benefit in the organization straightforwardly related to the sphere of programming, auditing, or IT services. As for me, the implementation of the information system could be great in one of the big four companies. Due to their many-faceted activities and special departments in information systems consul
Introduction The modern business environment is very volatile and complex therefore demanding more attention and dedication from entrepreneurs and business executives. If business individuals lack the necessary management skills then their business efforts are most likely to fail because businesses demand that managers make the right decisions in order for them to survive in time of emergency and even in the normal course of business (Baruch, 2004, 114). The Next Generation Management module is a module that will enable those interested in management to understand how to manage not only their own business ventures and organizations and also impart sense of social responsibility through attending various lecture, workshops, seminars, and conferences around Dublin. Contemporary management of organizations is not simple and therefore this is why this module will concentrate ensuring that attendees gain skills on: Personal and Career Development: Competence assessment, planning and development, which is important in ensuring that managers have the ability to attain skills that will assist them to have the necessary skills in both the short run and long run such skills include better decision making capability, better leadership ability, and in turn managers will be able to base their decisions on logic through critical thinking. Furthermore managers who undergo personal development programs are able to portray self confidence communicate better and even end up being creative due to the flexible approach that they have to tackling organizational issues. The Next Generation module will also help managers gain ability to appreciate the need of operating with a Global and a societal approach by attending lecturers from renown Nobel Laureate, Dr Chu the discussion made clear that the physical environment was part and parcel of the business environment and therefore needed to be taken care of because if it disintegrates that the economy and human economic activities will also fail. Additionally, discussions from this part of the model enable students of management appreciate the role of creativity and innovation together with the important role which both agriculture, ethics and Greenpeace plays in the environment. Research is a crucial part of Next Generation management module because research is able to assist managers gain the right information that will guide their decision making and logical thinking process. Discussions unveiled on the importance of carrying out systematic research and avoiding plagiarism because plagiarism can often affect the outcome of a research and compromise its quality. Research is an important part of today’s business environment and therefore it is important to gather and analyze data properly so that the information obtained can be considered useful and assist in decision making( Kourdi 2009, 114). The discussions on research did shed light on Digital media and
Overture The Clipboard tablet Co. has been selling three tablet models namely: X5, X6 and X7 for the past 5 years. The company’s organizational analysis through the use of CVP analysis shows the development of certain strategies aimed at making the company competitive. As the company moves into the future, there is a need to review strategies deployed in the past to move the company into the future. As a result, this report intends to analyze past strategies used in time warp 4 and 5 to come up with a conclusive strategy for the future. Analysis Clipboard Tablet Co., in the year 2016, will have two models of tablets for sale in the market. This is because the company will have to come up with a new tablet model, which will most likely be the X8. This tablet model will aim at replacing the X5 and X6 models which will be phased out because of changing market dynamics. Based on the past CVP analysis and strategies deployed within time warp 3, we notice certain aspects of the company that will be greatly affected and reviewed as follows: Product Development In the process of undertaking CVP analysis under time warp 3, we notice that sales units of X5 and X6 phones were on the decline since the year 2012. These tablet models were performing dismally compared to the newly introduced tablet model of X7. The CVP analysis results indicated that the sales and popularity of the X5 and X6 models were declining and thus there was a need for development of a new tablet model. Finances and resources used in the development of the old X5 and X6 models would be channelled into the development of new products. This is because the popularity and demand of the old models have been sluggish. For instance, in SLP 3 during
Critical analysis of the current business performance and strategies Google has been performing very well since it was started. It recent years, it has become more entrenched leading to increased profitability. In 2009, it reported total revenue of $ 23.6 billion. In 2010, total revenue realized was $29.3 billion. At the end of last year, total revenue stood at 37.9 billion (GOOG Income Statement | Google Inc. Stock – Yahoo! Finance, 2012). As the figures suggests, the company has been growing very fast in terms of revenue. The company capitalization stands at $198.06 billion against $18.83 billion for Yahoo, its chief competitor (GOOG Income Statement | Google Inc. Stock – Yahoo! Finance, 2012). Its stock has been rising in tandem with its good financial performance. EPS is $33 compared to 0.88 for Yahoo. Gross margin is 64.88% while revenue growth for the last quarter was at 24.10%. (GOOG Basic Chart | Google Inc. Stock – Yahoo! Finance, 2012) As the above graph shows, the price of its stock has grown from around $ 540 mid last year to the current $ 600. This shows investor confidence in the company’s ability to maintain current good performance. Google get the bulk of its revenues from advertisements placed on pages on its search engine results. It recently introduced a new revenue stream through what it called Google Cloud-a remote storage space for companies. Source: Comscore Google leads the park as the search engine of choice in America. This explains its huge advertising revenue. To achieve its current dominant position, Google has employed a number of strategies. The most notable is acquisitions. Between 2001 and 2004, the company focused primarily on search. From 2005 and 2007, it spent much time developing software, such as Google docs and android, which is productivity software (Girard, 2009). It focused on advertisement on mobile devices, which included making YouTube profitable, in 2008 and 2009. From 2010 to the present, the company has been working on entering the phones market through purchase of Motorola, social networking with Google plus, and e-commerce through Google Cloud. The company followed an acquisition strategy. It has bought out companies but avoided joint ventures. Most of its signature products were initiated from the firm, but where need arose, they hired targeted key people and acquired rights to technologies. Google has always wanted to join the lucrative Smartphone market. The recent acquisition of Motorola was interpreted as an attempt to acquire patents by Motorola so that it can produce a Smartphone that can compete with Apple’s Iphone. Proposed strategic plan Google is now a global company with its international operations accounting for a sizeable percentage of its revenue. Operating globally is challenging as it is exciting. Global landscape keep changing constantly and companies are coming up with strategies that will promote cultural alignment. To address the problem of working in a complex globa
Introduction The management of any organization is charged with the responsibilities of steering the company or organization for continuing growth prospects. Most of the management activities involve the functions of planning, organizing, controlling, staffing and directing among others. Budgeting forms a way of controlling the organization’s operational activities as well as the resource allocation through forecasting. Ideally, the environment conditions determine the budgeting process. Although budgeting is considered a very key function of management for effective control of performance, some opinions are also raised that budgeting focuses more on the past performance basing budgets on comparisons between the actual and budgeted amounts, which does not conclusively consider the dynamism of the business environment. It is worth appreciating the changes that are diverse in the environment today due to factors of globalization, changes in consumer behaviour and technology among others. Budgeting is worth evaluating in the concept of a changing environment and forms the core part of the organization driving performance and controlling of resources through strategies and the setting of targets. This report presents an analysis of the budget of Aardvark Company. It presents the standards used, ways in which it can be used for staff motivation for the improvement of performance, its strengths as well as the techniques for producing such forecasting. It also considers the behavioural issues of the budget and offers suggestions on how the negative effects can be averted. The Role of Management in Budgeting Management determines largely the performance and growth of an organization. The role of management in budgeting is very crucial due to their disposition in making decisions for the organization. Decision making thus influences the growth of their organization. Managers as leaders have to forge the budgeting process to enable them make crucial decisions that affect the entire organization and would affect the areas of planning, staffing, motivation of staff, performance measurement, and their role of leading and directing (Juchau et al., 2004). Budgeting is an expensive process that involves the various stakeholders for it to be objective and informed. Management thus has the responsibility of financing the budgeting process. Drucker (2001) asserts of the changing environment of the business and as such suggests that managers have the role of considering the changes in the environment such as the technology, consumer behaviours and globalization. He suggests that managers thus have the role of ensuring the budget is flexible enough to deal with such changes and that more emphasis is given to competitiveness. The other roles of management in the b
In this article, Daniel Michaels (2012) discusses the possible merger of two companies, namely European Aeronautic Defense & Space Co (EADS), and BAE Systems. In particular, the author argues that such partnership can be beneficial for each of these organizations since in this they will be able to overcome their strategic challenges. Moreover, it can affect other companies that operate in the international defense industry. The paper is aimed at discussing the themes and questions that Daniel Michaels has identified in this article. First, according to the author, the merger of EADS and BAE Systems can be mutually beneficial for these companies. For instance, EADS can get access to the new technologies that BAE currently possesses (Michaels, 2012, p. 1). Additionally, these organizations will be able to reach new customers, especially those ones, located in the United States. Furthermore, the financial stability of these companies can be improved. Daniel Michaels points out that the merger can increase the competition in the defense industry, for instance, the such a corporation as Boeing will have to face a more powerful rival (2012, p. 1). Finally, Daniel Michaels notes that this new alliance can decrease the pressure of political institutions on both BAE Systems and EADS. Overall, the author emphasizes the idea that the U.S. market will be most important for the newly formed company. These are the questions that Daniel Michaels examines. Overall, Daniel Michaels’ arguments are based on the premise that the partnership of BAE and EADS can improve the core competencies of these organizations. However, scholars also note that in such cases, management should reconcile their different cultures and business processes existing within companies (Carleton & Lineberry, 2004, p. 77). Thus, this merger can give rise to unexpected difficulties. Therefore, it is necessary to find ways of coordinating the work of various divisions and departments. This is the main problem that should be addressed. Furthermore, in his article, Daniel Michaels discusses the influence of governments on this organization. To a great extent, t
Food security is one of the most important factors that define quality of life in a given country. Candel and Biesbroek (2018) define food security as “all people, at all times, having physical, social and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life” (p. 196). As shown in the definition above, food security is defined by a number of factors. First, the issue of reliability is critical when a country is trying to ensure that it is food secure. Secondly, it should be sufficient. Having a supply of food that only meets the needs of a section of the society, especially the rich, is a sign of food insecurity. A food secure country should be able to meet nutritional needs of all its citizens irrespective of the socio-economic status. The third factor in the above definition is the affordability of the available food. It is not the responsibility of the government to buy food for its citizens. However, it is critical to make sure that the price of food is affordable to all citizens. Finally, the definition emphasizes the need to ensure that food made available for the citizens is nutritious. Food security is a major concern in most developing countries. Several cases have been reported where people die of hunger in parts of Asia. According to Sahn (2015), extreme poverty is common in countries such as Bangladesh, Indonesia, and parts of Asia. One of the major problems that people in these regions face is poor harvesting and storage strategies. During harvest periods, a significant amount of food is lost because of poor storage. A few months after harvesting, citizens are left with little amount of food that cannot meet their needs. In Asia, such problems have been witnessed in countries such as Cambodia, Yemen, North Korea, Bangladesh, and Myanmar (Ulrichsen, 2017). Some of these countries are affected by prolonged drought while others suffer from constant internal armed conflicts. Food insecurity is a great hindrance to a country’s economic growth. Importance of Food Security Having a food secure country is critical for enhancing economic growth. According to Gardner (2013), food scarcity is one of the leading causes of various type diseases. Marasmus, kwashiorkor, and diarrhea are some of the leading causes of deaths among infants in the developing countries. Severe lack of nutrition and limited balanced diet may lead to marasmus or kwashiorkor. On the other hand, when a child has to eat unhygienic food items because of poverty may lead to diarrhea (Trauger, 2015). Such conditions not only affect the family of the victims but also the government. More resources have to be set aside for the healthcare department because o
Background Active Server Pages (ASP) is a scripting technology developed by Microsoft Corporation and is based on the server side, contrary to other scripting approaches that are integrated on web-based applications that are based on the client side. Scripting is one of integral technologies used in the development of web services. An example is Java script, which is client based (Francis, 1998). The ASP facilitates the creation of web -based applications and services that are dynamic and incorporates some interactive elements. A basic structure of an ASP page comprises of a Hyper Text Mark-up Language (HTML) page that has server-side page scripts, which run on a web server before it is sent to a web browser application. ASP is combined with other platforms such as the Component Object Model (COM), HTML, and Extensible Mark-up Language to develop web services that are more user-interactive compared to other scripting technologies (Francis, 1998). Scripts that are based on the server are usually executed when a web browser application requests for an .asp file from the web server. The web server usually responds to the requests through executing the commands in the script. The web server then transforms into a standard format for a web page, after which it sends it to the user (Shaw, 2003). ASP scripts used in the development of web services can be extended using COM and XML components. COM components provide a platform through which the scripts can be reused and made compact. In addition, they provide a secure means through which information can be accessed. Automation is a significant concept during the implementation of a scripting technology (Mitchell, 2000). On the other hand, ASP scripts that have been extended using XML deploy the use of a mark-up language that formats the data in a structured manner, through the use of tags. ASP was originally developed as an add-on that functioned under the Windows NT 4.0 platform through the Internet Information Services. Later developments saw its integration into the server operating systems of Microsoft Corporation as a free component (Francis, 1998). The ASP used the .asp file extension. Active Server Pages under the ASP.NET platform use the .asp x file extension. ASP.NET is supported only on the.NET framework of Microsoft (Strahl, 2002). The.NET framework is faster and can robust scripting commands compared to the classic ASP. The development of ASP.NET was based on the frameworks of the classic ASP (Francis, 1998). Introduction This research paper attempts to provide an insight into understanding of the ASP scripting technology and its relationship with the development of web services. It provides an outline of the history of the ASP technology, the basics of the ASP technology, the functions of the ASP technology, ASP versio