Threats Facing Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Assignment

Threats Facing Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) - Assignment Example The unified economic agreement between the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council was signed on November 11, 1981 in Abu Dhabi. These countries are often referred to as The GCC States. This area has some of the fastest growing economies in the world, mostly due to a boom in oil and natural gas revenues coupled with a building and investment boom backed by decades of saved petroleum revenues. In an effort to build a tax base and economic foundation before the reserves run out, the UAE's investment arms, including Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, retain over $900 billion in assets. Other regional funds also have several hundred billion dollars. The region is also an emerging hotspot for events, including the 2006 Asian Games in Doha, Qatar. Doha also submitted an unsuccessful application for the 2016 Summer Olympic Games. However, Qatar was later chosen to host the 2022 FIFA World Cup. In 2006, its GDP (nominal) was $717.8 billion (IMF April 2007), led by spectacular growth in United Arab Emirates and Qatar. In 2007, its GDP (nominal) was $1,022.62 billion (IMF April 2008). IMF predicts its GDP to reach $1,112.076 billion at end of 2008 and $1,210.112 billion at end of 2009. ... Recovery plans have been criticized for crowding out the private sector, failing to set clear priorities for growth, failing to restore weak consumer and investor confidence, and undermining long-term stability. Threats being faced by GCC countries are numerous. These threats are both internal and external. Given the vast possession of natural resources like Oil and Gas, many internal and external forces are at work against these countries. Monarchs rule all the GCC countries, although all of them have provided more or less high degree of social welfare in their states there is a growing demand by public for democracy and basic human rights first being freedom of speech. (Web- The GCC in a turbulent world ) GCC states are facing several domestic challenges headed by demographic issues, which are to blame for political and economic problems as well as others associated with security and linked to the presence of a large proportion of foreign workers on GCC soil. The issues include agg ravation of the â€Å"growing fundamentalist Threat, effects of instability in Iraq, fallout of Iranian nuclear issue, over all security of Gulf, US and EU interests in the GCC area, presence of foreign troops in the area, US strategy in the area to â€Å"prevent any force from imposing its hegemony on the GCC area†, security of oil shipments, presence of US forces in consolidating the GCC regimes, Iranian role to undermining Iraq’s stability and Iranian nuclear issue presenting a serious challenge to the stability of the area. GCC countries remain unstable due to impact of host of issues on the region directly. Major challenges being security, economy and demography. These countries face internal conflicts with each other like GCC versus Iran and Iraq.

Explain climate change and discuss three strategies that countries are Essay

Explain climate change and discuss three strategies that countries are using to help the prevention of global warming and say whether you agree or disagree with the effectiveness of each strategy - Essay Example However, this understanding has not resulted in any significant reduction in the rate of Global Warming, with the 20th Century’s last two decades being the hottest in 400 years (National Geographic 2007). Global Warming is seen as a threat to human health (Hambling et al., 2011 p. 2) with other concerns such as food security issues also expected in the future. Due to the growing awareness about this issue along with pressure-groups in the form of environmental NGOs, countries have been forced to take action in order to prevent further damage to the ecology. Initiatives such as the Kyoto Protocol have been welcomed by most of the world, which promise to reduce carbon emissions to a suitable level by a certain date. This essay will look at 3 of the many strategies that countries adopt in order to prevent global warming on a national scale, which may be due to their participation in international agreements/conventions like Kyoto Protocol or due to a national agenda of their own. Investment in renewable energy is a preferred strategy for most industrialized countries that aim to reduce their carbon emissions. $173 billion were invested into developing sustainable energy in 2009, a figure that fell after the global recession affected the financial situation of most of the involved countries (UNEP 2010 p 11-13). Some countries, like Iceland produce electricity using entirely from renewable resources, thereby leaving a minimal carbon imprint. Most countries, developed and developing possess the environmental conditions required to produce such energy; however, in the case of the latter, they do not possess the financial resources to exploit these conditions. The Kyoto Protocol aims to rectify that by encouraging developed countries to invest in reducing the carbon emission of developing countries, through such projects (UNFCC, n.d.).

Business Environment Analysis of British Airways Essay - 2

Business Environment Analysis of British Airways - Essay Example British airways vision is to encourage achieving values that are very important for the organization (Katie, 2013). The organization values to achieve acceptable standards to govern individual behavior in the organization. The organizations are running their businesses all over the world. The main purpose of these organizations is to fulfill the basic needs of the human and to give good impact on the world. The businesses usually established in order to prevent or improve the human life. Many organizations in the world understand the management of organization and explicit verity of decisions making to provide direction to the organization (Bryson, 2011). The organizational purpose is to take verify of the decisions for the insiders and communicate with the outsiders. In the private sector, the organization is not part of the government. Whereas, the public sector organization, is owned and operated by the government. British Airways is originally a privately owned aviation organization that was nationalized in 1939. British airways merge the financial losses and industrial operations privately (Heinz & Pitfield, 2011). In an organization, the stakeholder relationship model make connections between the organization and its stakeholders. It is essential for the organization to establish a good understanding with the stakeholder in order to raise the profit and organizational profile. There are many stakeholders of British airways, including customers, employees, competitors, suppliers, media, environmental issues, local communities, financial institutions, shareholders, government etc (Balmer, Illia, & Brena, 2013). Below few stakeholders are discussed. The customers are the major source of earning profits for the organization, and these customers have high impact on the management of the organization. The British airways always try to attract the existing customers and move forward to attract the young or new audience. The British airways have the

Finding the Exception Essay Example for Free

Finding the Exception Essay â€Å"I remember riding my bike to school every day and seeing those two men working on their bicycles in their garage, little did I know that they would be the founders of the Trek Bicycle Corporation.† My mother told this to me a few months back when we were reminiscing on the good ol days. Waterloo, one of the smallest towns I have ever been too, is home to the success of French history. Its Trek bicycles are now the Tour de France winning frames that brought Lance Armstrong his victories and brought the midwest its spotlight on making the first American bike frames to win the worlds most prestigious bicycle race. By 1984, Trek was at its peak and sales were around $20,000 with approximately fifty thousand Treks being sold in the United States (Burke, 2012). However â€Å"Trek had grown arrogant, and the problems were starting to show† (Burke, 2012). Within business success lies problems and for this company the early years presented many because Trek did not like the bicycle retailers that they were dealing with, they had no brand strategy, and they had no money to advertise It seems that the most successful businesses start with the passion of at least one person. For Trek it was the vision of Richard Burke and Bevel Hogg. Burke was a former accountant that took interest in investments. Hogg was the owner of a Midwestern chain of bicycle stores. While Burke spent 15 years perfecting his business skills with Roth Corporation in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Hogg was growing tired of the retail business while keeping his heart with bicycles. Burke had a passion for outdoor recreation which drove him toward the bicycle market. During a meeting between the two men in 1975 when they sought to solve the issue of foreign made product. Their main competitor at the time was Schwinn bu this company dominated the specialty retail market but their bikes were Japanese made. Burke and Hogg wanted to sell American-made product for the same specialty. The company began as a five-person operation in a barn and is now a globally oriented company with distribution in 65 countries and over 1500 employees worldwide. What made the Trek bicycle so unique? Their mission was and still is simple, build the best bikes in the world. The frame sets were handmade from steel. The style was adopted from a European brazing style with its own American flavor. Tim Issac, an early frame engineer, said that a Trek bicycle could be identified without any paint on it. The company was blessed with the right designers and tolling infrastructure to use exactly the right materials to create such unique frame sets. The company had successfully found a way to distinguish itself. â€Å"In order to succeed, you cannot just sell any brand; you need to produce something special† (Burke, 2012, p. 4). Once this is established its time to settle on a distribution channel to ensure customers are being reached. At the time, Penn Cycle, outside of Minneapolis, Minnesota was Treks dealer. What attracted this dealer to Trek was that not only did this bicycle manufacturer provide lightweight, advanced bicycles, but they were also made in the United States. Market shares were quickly gaining from the Japanese and European competitors and the company was gaining dealers from Madison to San Francisco and sales had grown to over $1,000,000. After expanding the facility to allow for assembly lines and paint factories, reshaping the entire business, the company was able to hire its first true sales representatives and there in lies its customer service foundation. In 1981, sales doubles and again in 1982. In 1983, the company was already building additions to the factory. The business growth inspired a movements on the West Coast in corporations like Gary Fisher. Then in 1985, sales were over $20,000,000 But, as with any fast lane growth, Trek was facing a net loss for the second year straight. The totals sales in 1984 did not meet expectations and quality control was lacking which angered retailers. The assembly line was built but   it seemed as thought the company didnt know how to keep it moving forward. On top of that the turn over rate was lacking. John Burke, the son of Richard Burke, who worked for his fathers business remembers writing orders and them showing up at the customer two weeks later but yet having other orders written on prior sales call that still were not arriving to the customers (Burke, 2012, p. 10). The quality in the company was deteriorating. There were paint problems, frames were out of alignment, credits that were promised were not going through, etc. â€Å"I worked hard and sold a lot of product but the problems from the home office kept mounting† (Burke, 2012). Retailers were becoming more and more upset which pushed Trek even harder and the company was falling apart. Customer services makes or brakes a company in the retail world and Treks mission was to make every customer happy. It was up to their customer service department to bring this company back up and that is exactly what John Burke did. He knew that they needed to regain their focus, and that he needed to take a more active role in the companies day-to-day operations. A lot of options were being faced which included closing the operation and liquidating the business, sell the company, or turn it around. â€Å"We decided to roll up our sleeves and get it done (Burke, 2012). There is one method in business that seems to always prevail and that is the back-to-basics approach. Build a quality product, at a competitive value, that can be delivered on time while maintaining a positive work environment for customers and employees. Most importantly, deliver profit. The company first needed to start shipping orders on the same day. Cross training is always an excellent tool and this was a perfect opportunity for the business-suited employees to start putting their hand in on the factory work. The factory would get backed up and so the office workers would go into the warehouse and make sure that orders were fulfilled. Saturdays may seem like a day of rest for some but for Trek to succeed it had to require work on the weekends. Not only were deadlines met but lousy product needed to stop making it out the door. This truly shows the customer that their needs are  being met no matter what it takes. Organizational buying process is such an important business practice. With the many years of developed partnerships Trek has established, the company now has suppliers around the world that allow the fulfillment of demands of the product line. In the 1980s, when Trek was struggling, they were overlooking one very important aspect of their customer relationships-what is the actual value of their product? They were not going to their buyers and simply asking if they could help them find a vendor based on the value they were proposing. One a vendor is found there is some research that is to be done as well. Does this vendor have good history? Who has worked with them in the past? Is there opportunity to save some money in the mean time? Reliable quality product is what businesses thrive on. Any product that is overpriced needs to be discontinued and new products need to be developed that hit the right price points. â€Å"When potential suppliers are identified, theyre evaluated on four criteria: quality, delivery, capability, price, and environmental impact of their production process† (Kerin, 2005). In an industry such as bicycle production, the operational approach to management is essential. This approach is dedicated to improving efficiency, cutting waste, and improving quality (Kreitner Cassidy, 2011). By staying in line with business ethics, the manager of Trek would have put more energy into building better product so that it would support the challenges faced today such as limited mobility, issues with the environment, and now more than ever, issues with health. Essentially the bike must work well. If the name Trek is one it then there is quality behind it and this quality needs to be adhered to in the warehouse during production. At the time, Trek probably could not have seen that the bicycle would become the simple solution to all of these things but just as we embrace the availability of such innovation, managers of any business should be at least two steps ahead as to almost predict the future, therefore focusing on sustaining the reputable quality product that the c ompany originated from. In 1988, Trek introduced the Model 1200 aluminum road bike. This was the turning point for the company. This was true quality at a very competitive price. The original dollar amount was $500. Originally the company planned to sell 3,000 of these models but at the end of the year 12,000 were sold. This is when a business needs to reevaluate its retail margin. What goals are being made to improve the amount of retailers and what is the target date? Buyer centers then need to help the company find vendors to find the right place to sell new product. New strategic visions for new models and components builds a better business. Trek was learning, slowly but surely, that they needed to look at their own processes, understand how they make their product, how they source their product, and how they will continue to bring their product to the market and maybe at the end of the day, saving a dollar or two. How could Trek build bicycles that last longer, maybe even use recycles tires. Every business has room for improvement. Business owners should always be looking for ways to bring new technology and solutions into the marketplace. By 1996 Trek was now over $300 million in sales. At this point in the time the company was expanded in Europe to include Japan. However, when there is sunshine expect rain and when there is rain expect for sun. After Trek ramped up their budgets by 20 percent in 1996, 20% more product was to be produced. Sales forecasts were starting to get missed which left inventory levels shooting through the roof. The company was yet again out of balance. There were more bikes in inventory than sales. Every year bicycle products are expected to change, therefore this high inventory of product needed to be discounted heavily in order for sales to continue. This only hurts profit margins. Basically what happened was that Trek grew too big too fast. Just about an hour away form Waterloo is the Whitewater Trek manufacturing plant. When this plant was first opened in 1995, the goal seemed to still be manufacturing low-price point bikes. â€Å"We got out of 1996 making a profit, but the future was no longer bright, and storm clouds were on the horizon† (Burke, 2012). Then numbers continued to look worse and worse as the years went on. Finally in 1998, Tim Callahan was hired on to Trek to take over manufacturing. He turned over Trek manufacturing that essentially saved the business, yet another time. The concept of Kaizen, Japanese for â€Å"continuous improvement† was used first to turn the Trek factories around. â€Å"In the gift-that-keeps-on-giving department, we took Kaizen to our dealer network and it has continued to make an amazing difference to this day† (Burke, 2012). Businesses to do not There was one other thing that added to Treks new found momentum in success. Trek signed a sponsorship deal with the US Postal Service to sponsor a bike team. Thanks to Lance Armstrong, who had a good group of riders, Trek appeared in the 1999 Tour de France. Lances winnings gave Trek the opportunity to show up on the front of Sports Illustrated and The New York Times, as well as on the Letterman show (Burke, 2012). Business was great until the year 2006. Production needed a facelift. How do you keep a product backed for years by consumers by maintaining its quality and reputation? For consumers of Trek bicycles, there is customer loyalty. Just like with Apple computer or Smart phones. Why such dedication from the customer? Trek figure out that to continue this relationship they would not only have to continue to build quality bicycles-the best in the world but they would provide their customers with quality products at competitive value that would be delivered on time. Just as with Apple computers, the product continues to prove itself in quality, never leaving the customer unsatisfied. IF there is a problem for whatever reason, dedication to customer sanctification shines the most by fixing whatever issue there may be in a timely fashion. When Senior Burke fired the management team and asked John to move back to Wisconsin to run Treks customer service department, he learned the value of maintaining relationships with retailers and customers.

Ericsson Mobile Platforms Using Value Chain Model Information Technology Essay

Ericsson Mobile Platforms Using Value Chain Model Information Technology Essay The value grid approach allows firms to identify opportunities and threats in a more explicit way than the traditional value chain. This research aims to test the Value Grid in a multinational company: Ericsson Mobile Platforms (EMP). How does the value grid model help to define the organizations Key Success Factors (KSF)? For this case study, the value grid concept proved to be an interesting heuristic tool to locate opportunities that are not evident from a traditional value chain perspective. EMP can identify indirect ways of influencing demand by playing a coordinative role with network operators. Key Success Factors for Ericsson Mobile Platforms using Porters Value Chain model The value chain model, first depicted and popularized by Michael Porter in 1985, has proved to be an effective approach to analyze and capture the value generated along a chain of activities. But, with the increasing complexity of production and service delivery, critique has arisen from both academics and professionals in terms of value chain model applicability. The value grid approach allows firms to move beyond their industry lines and to identify opportunities and threats in a more explicit way. This research aims to test the Value Grid in a multinational company: Ericsson Mobile Platforms (EMP). How does the value grid model help to find novel opportunities and define the organizations Key Success Factors (KSF)? For this case study, the value grid concept proved to be an interesting heuristic tool to locate opportunities that are not evident from a traditional value chain perspective. EMP can identify indirect ways of influencing demand by playing a coordinative role with netwo rk operators. 1. Models of Value The purpose of this part is to analyze the evolution of value models from the value chain to the value grid through the value system, the value network and the added value chain. The intent is to clarify the relevance of the value grid choice for studying the case of Ericson Mobile Platform. The Value chain The value chain includes all the activities involved in product making. It is a useful tool to measure the value created for each activity in the process of product creation. It is a part of a firms strategic planning to arrange these activities in a way that the total value, the value that buyers are willing to pay, exceeds the total cost. According to Porter (1985), a company can create value through a cost advantage or product differentiation. Porter (1985) identifies two types of activities in the value chain: Primary activities and Support activities. Primary activities are those that create customer value. The goal of the primary activities is to produce value that exceeds the cost, thereby resulting in a profit margin. Support activities concern procurement, human resource management, technological development and infrastructure such as accounting, legal, finance, planning, public affairs, government relations, quality assurance and general management. The activities in the value chain are not independent. Linkages may exist between activities. In fact, one process may affect the cost and performance of the others. Linkage can exist between primary activities, as well as, between primary and support activities. Therefore, competitive advantages can also be derived from the linkages between activities. This is a highly relevant situation for EMP. The Value System Porter (1985) extends the concept of the value chain; a firms value chain is a part of the Value System, which is a network of interconnected value chains between suppliers and buyers. The value system includes the value chains of the upstream suppliers and downstream channels and customers. The available total margin is spread across suppliers, distributors and customers (Recklies, 2001) in the value system. The amount of how much part of this margin is received by each member depends on its market position and negotiation power (Recklies, 2001). A firm who has higher degree of vertical integration has a better position in coordinating its upstream and downstream activities and therefore get a higher margin, however a company with low level of vertical integration can also get high margins if it can achieve better coordination with suppliers and partners. The Value Network Porter (1980, 1985) measures value chain and the five forces model extracted from the organizations activities, in terms of financial value (margin) but ignore the fact that intangible assets such as competencies, internal structures and relationship with the environment are the driving factors behind the financial results (Sveiby, 1997). New methods appear to take into consideration the intangible assets. Value Network Analysis (Allee, 2003) is a method that combines tools that analyze strategy with insight into complexity of interactions among people (Middendorp, 2005). According to this analysis, the intangible assets should be considered as negotiable and exchangeable. Peppar and Rylander (2006) introduce the Network Value Analysis (NVA) method as a way to analyze competitive ecosystems. Combinations of players co-create the value in the network and the method focus not only on the company or the industry, but the value creating system itself (Peppar and Rylander, 2006). Firms cultivate an ecosystem a set of firms that can co-create value by building relationships among the different players in the industry: suppliers, partners, allies and customers (Peppar and Rylander, 2006). Firms that understand the sources of value in the network and are able to exploit them will be the winners in tomorrows more complex industries (Peppar and Rylander, 2006). The Added-value Chain According to McPhee and Wheeler (2006), focusing on the firms internal core activities is not sufficient to generate value in todays firms. The authors propose an added-value chain model that includes a set of expanded business activities from different business models and a redefinition of value that incorporates brand, reputation, and relationship-based value drivers of the firm. In the added-value chain model, the definition of value incorporates profit margin and intangible assets like leadership quality, innovate capability, brand equity and competences in strategic-alliance development. This new value definition gives to the firms the ability to evaluate how their strategies affect both hard and soft assets of the firms (McPhee and Wheeler, 2006). This model is incomplete for example in finding and exploring non-linear value opportunities. The Value Grid New research conducted by Pil and Holweg (2006) argues that this approach can also put a stranglehold on innovation at a time when the greatest opportunities for value creation (and the most significant threats to long-term survival) often originate outside the traditional, linear view. Based on this critic, Pil and Holweg (2006) develop an evolved concept of Value Chain called Value Grid, which has a variety of new paths to enhanced performance, resulting in a three dimensional grid: the vertical, the horizontal and the integrative diagonal dimensions. Regarding the vertical dimension, firms are seeking for competitive advantages in the value chain by reducing cost, reducing lead time between activities and improving coordination between supplier and customers. However, how the benefits are distributed across the value chain depends on the balanced power between suppliers and manufactures. Therefore companies need to focus on three areas: Opportunities to influence customer demand both upstream and downstream, opportunities to modify information access in either direction, and finally opportunities to explore penetration points in multiple tiers that are not immediately adjacent (Pil and Holweg, 2006). The horizontal dimension provides opportunities for companies to move across value chains, in order to leverage economies of scale across multiple sources of demand (Pil and Holweg, 2006). The potential of this dimension is to enable companies to manage risk, seize existing value (special products with advanced technology), integrate sources of existing value and explore new ways to create value. The horizontal thinking allows parallel value chains to be viewed from different industries, in this way companies can integrate these parallel value chains to offer package or price combinations, which cannot be achieved by the single value chain approach. Finally, in the diagonal dimension, firms explore the grid in an integrative fashion, in order to increase the control over inputs and customers. Firms looks at the upstream and downstream of other value chains for controlling the critical components of the supply chain and uncovering new ways of boosting customer demands (Pil and Holweg, 2006). Pil and Holweg describe the two strategies that take advantages from this dimension: The first is pursuing Pinch-Point mapping when companies shall monitor key component supplies and negotiate alternative source of components. The second is defining demand enablers when companies that have a particular expertise in a given value chain, can examine other value chains in other industries that can leads to new opportunities to leverage key competitive advantages (Pil and Holweg, 2006). Industry Background The telecommunications industry is undergoing radical transformations through liberalization, lowering of technological barriers to entry and the diversity of players (Li and Whalley, 2002). Originally, the process of manufacturing a complete mobile phone was finished within one company. However, as with the PC industry, the value chain for making a mobile phone has become more fragmented according to a more stratified approach (Anderson and JÃ ¶nsson, 2006). Companies like Ericsson Mobile Platforms (EMP) and Qualcomm are examples of this change in the industry. They provide technology solutions for mobile manufactures that enable them to make a new phone model much faster without having the core knowledge like radio access. New actors and new services enlarge the mobile communications value chain in both ways, functionally and institutionally (Buellingen and Woerter , 2004; Ballon, de Munck, Poel and de Pas, 2001; Fertig, Prince and Walrod,1999). The traditional concept of value chain may not be sufficient for todays firms (Buellingen and Woerter, 2004). Barnes (2002) tries to adapt the value chain analysis for m-commerce and analyses the players, technologies and activities involved. Full-size image (36K) The basic model consists of six core processes in two main areas: First infrastructure and services, and second the area of content. Pagani and Fine (2008) consider five principal actors in the supply chain: the content providers, application providers, infrastructure providers, network providers the device providers. They assume that the end consumers create demand, set the rules of engagement and then pull the supply chain system (Pagani and Fine, 2008). In the last decade with the entry of powerful new players, rapid technological developments and increasing market turbulences (Li and Whalley, 2002), the mobile handset industry has changed from a vertical specialization to a more horizontally stratified structure. A complex and rapidly evolving value network is developing (Li and Whalley, 2002). There are more parties involved in the process of making a mobile phone. Each party focuses on areas of the value chain where they have core competences such as new technology, customer relationships management, or infrastructure management. The market is then highly complex and competitive given the fact that companies compete also with companies from other industries operating under different value propositions and economics (Li and Whalley, 2002). Methodology: Research design and data collection There are several techniques for identifying Key Success Factors, Leidecker and Bruno (1984) propose the following: environmental scanning, industry structure analysis, industrial experts opinions, competitors analysis, best practice analysis, assessment of the companys internal feeling or judgment, intuitive factors and gathered data of profit impact and market strategy. This study mixes between internal assessment of a firm and industrial experts opinions. This internal assessment technique explores the firms forces and weaknesses. The KSFs are thus concluded from the interviews with experts in the industry. - Figure 1 about here - As designed in the research model, first a value chain analysis focuses on the firms core competences from an inside perspective. In parallel, the firms value chain is positioned into the value system of the industry, to identify adjacent players and external linkages and determine firms ecosystem. An analysis of the Value Chain aims to identify competitive advantages. From the Value System and the ecosystem, the Value Grid framework identifies competitive advantages from its three dimensions. The outcomes from Value chain and Value Grid are analyzed to test the Value Grid and to extract the KSF for EMP. An ideal analysis of the KSF for EMP would be to do benchmarking with other companies from the same Industry. Then it will be possible to define EMPs real strategic advantages. However, due to availability of information this research focuses on an inside-out perspective and tests the concept of the Value Grid using one source of empirical data (a single case study). Semi-structured interviews are conducted with a specific list of topics to be covered (Bryman and Bell, 2003). The advantage of this method is that the interviewer is free to reformulate the questions or simply ask new questions that may appear as a result of the answer of the interviewee (Bryman and Bell, 2003). According to Grunert and Ellegaard (1992), this type of interview with business decision makers can measure perceived KSF. Five key persons are chosen for an interview from EMP: Robert Puskaric, head of EMP, Martin JÃ ¶nsson, from Product Portfolio Management, Fredrik Dalhgren Deputy Director of System Management, PÃ ¤r Stigmer from Sourcing and Supply and Linda Wenerman from Product Management. Empirical Findings for Ericsson Mobile Platforms Ericsson Mobile Platforms is a business unit within the Ericsson Group. It was founded in 2001 as a result of a split from the Ericsson mobile handset division, Ericsson Mobile Communications. This split ended up in Ericsson Mobile Platforms (EMP) and the joint-venture Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications. Before that time, Ericsson produced mobile platforms for in-house use only. Through EMP, Ericsson started to license open-standard 2.5G and 3G technology platforms to other mobile phone manufacturers and other mobile communication devices. EMP offers stable platform deliveries that include ASICs and development boards (hardware), platform software, reference design, development and testing tools, training, support and documentation. The EMP platforms contain integrated circuits and softwares needed to build a GPRS, EDGE and/or WCDMA phone. It provides all the system functions such as Network Signaling, Data communications and Multimedia services. The system architecture of EMP is a modular design that is built on a use case analysis (Kornby, 2005). Examples of use cases are: imagining, video telephony, voice call, multimedia streaming, call handling, audio and video. The following criteria have been taken into account to develop this system architecture (Kornby, 2005): complete platform software (not only protocols), stability, flexibility, scalability to different market segments, adaptability to customer software applications, one single architecture for different mobile systems (GPRS, EDGE, WCDMA), maximum reuse of components and customer applications; and backward compatibility in software over the time. Customers build their applications on top of EMP platform software stack. Examples of customers applications are: multimedia players, phone call applications, web browsers, etc. EMP also supplies a suite of core applications where customers can use as a starting point for building their applications. EMP provides a complete application suite to support customers who do not build their own applications. This is especially for customers who want to focus in the low-end market. The goal of the EMPs Application Suite is to reduce time-to-market for customers in launching their phones. EMPs business model The EMPs business model consists of two parts: to license its core technology and to sell engineering support services to the customers. EMP charges a one-time up-front fixed payment for a Platform license and a royalty per unit that represent the major source of revenue (Kornby, 2005). EMP has built an ecosystem in order to ensure the maximum value creation for EMP. The five players in the EMPs ecosystem are depicted in figure 2. - Figure 2 about here - The first set of players relates to Network Providers; these companies offer the telecom infrastructure such as wireless communications systems. The main partner with EMP is LM Ericssons network group. They work hand-by-hand to provide end-to-end solutions, align roadmaps and ensure that EMP platforms can support the new network functionality offered by Ericsson (Kornby, 2005). Second, EMP has a closer relationship with the customers to ensure that new customer requirements are collected promptly in order to implement new functionality as early as possible. The third set of players in EMP ecosystem relates to Network Operators. These companies provide the services to the end-users (subscribers). They also purchase phones from mobile manufactures that are sold to the operators subscribers. Very often operators request mobile manufactures to use a specific mobile platform (Kornby, 2005). Thus EMP has built an important relationship in order to understand future operators requirements to secure that new functionality is available in the EMPs platform. Fourth, EMP and LM Ericsson are active at work with the standardization bodies such as 3GPP, OMA, JCP and OMPT. This is done in order to ensure interoperability of EMPs mobile platforms worldwide. And finally EMP works actively with ASIC, peripheral, IP and software suppliers in order to get fair prices for building EMP products. 4.2 The EMPs Value Chain and Value System The direct activities of EMPs value chain are: supply chain Management, hardware design activity, Software development and integration activity, a system reference design activity, a System Test and Interoperability Test (IOT), Product Use, External Networks and finally a customization activity. EMP has also a prototype unit that builds prototype phones for testing early functionality. The EMPs value chain and value system are depicted in figure 3. - Figure 3 about here - 4.2.1 Supply Chain Management EMP basically does not have any regular material flow, but outsource software and hardware through licenses. The task of the sourcing and supply department is to act as an internal consultant at EMP for deciding whether to buy an IP or develop hardware/software in-house. The sourcing department works tightly with the product definition and the RD organization; they work proactively to ensure fair prices. The decisions are based on three aspects: comparing the prices of buying from others and developing by itself, assessing the risk of buying and finally evaluating the total value by an in-house development. For example, to get a new IP in the platform, the sourcing department evaluates the total cost composed of the getting IP cost from supplier and the using IP cost (license) per ASIC. In this case customers pay the license directly, the cost of integrating an IP into the suppliers ASIC (a supplier may have already the knowledge of adding this IP, thus it becomes cheaper) and the co st of the final integration into the platform (how difficult is to make drivers and APIs to control the IP). The sourcing and supply department acts differently depending of what wants to outsource. For IPs, the negotiations are based on case, for ARM and DSP cores it builds long term relationship with the suppliers, and for a specific component such as Image Signal Processor (ISP) it chooses the best price in the market. Since ASICs are costly, EMP co-develops the design with suppliers and builds long term relationship. 4.2.2 Hardware design (HW) Regarding the Hardware, EMP only designs and specifies requirements for the different hardware components in the platform. As is shown in the Error: Reference source not foundASIC suppliers (or fabs) test and manufacture the hardware. EMP verifies the hardware components only when it builds the reference design. The design of the HW is divided into two main parts, Front-End and Back End design. For the Radio Frequency (RF) hardware EMP designs the Front-End and Back-End. For the Digital Base Band (DBB) EMP only does the front-end design. Finally, the analog base band (ABB) ASIC, EMP only specifies the hardware requirements and leaves the rest to the ASICs suppliers 4.2.3 Software development and Integration Software development and Integration refers to developing software solutions for the different stacks in the software platform architecture. This activity also involves developing EMP (in-house) software stacks such as Network Signaling protocols for WCDMA, GSM/GPRS and EDGE; data communication protocols such as, TCP/IP, RTP, and IMS; multimedia protocols for streaming music and video; developing a set of application platform interfaces to control the software platform and hardware. DBB, ABB, RF, and peripheral are to implement low level drivers to control hardware components inside the mobile platform. This activity also involves integration of third party proprietary software components such as, music codecs (like MP3 and Windows media player), and operating systems. This activity also involves testing the software at different levels: module tests, regression tests and integration tests. 4.2.4 Reference design EMP builds reference boards and real-size reference phones. These non-commercial phones are produced in small quantities that are internally used for software development and hardware verification, interoperability test and early-stage test of hardware for customers. 4.2.5 System Test and Interoperability test The system test consists of the verification of the complete reference design. The tests are conducted in lab, with network vendors and interoperability test with major live networks operators in the world. This is a very costly task and it is done to uncover ambiguities in the basic standards and specification. It also covers informal type approval test for the phone (Kornby, 2005). Value Chain Analysis According to the theoretical framework a company can generate competitive advantages by analyzing the different activities in the value chain. EMPs value chain basically works only in the service domain. EMP licenses its platform solutions and let the customers manage the manufacturing process with EMPs suppliers, thus the EMPs core activities are design (both in hardware and software), integration and testing of the platform (of the whole system). EMPs advantage appears in the fact that the firm has designed a holistic system architecture which makes easy to develop and test the functionality independently. This saves considerable a considerable time amount at the integration phase. Moreover, the system is designed to be flexible and scalable, so it is easy to re-use and add new functionality. Therefore, EMPs main strength is that the firm successfully manages to develop, integrate and test very complex new technologies to deliver a stable cost-effective platform solution when techn ology development is not in a mature phase. The main EMPs competitive advantage is to be the leader in providing cost-effective solutions for the mass market when the new technologies are emerging. Another interesting strength found is that the brand image of Ericsson plays an important role when meeting with new suppliers. The reputation of the Ericsson corporation is transferred to EMP and it facilitates the starting of new agreements and business opportunities. Potential Risks The value chain is an analytical tool that helps to find value in each activity; this can also be used for finding weakness and improvement areas. From the value chain we can identify two main weaknesses. First, the base band ASICs are the most costly part in the platform, despite that EMP says that it has managed to get fair licenses prices for the ASICs. The power of the suppliers is relatively high, thus EMP cannot have full control of the hardware prices. It seems that high margins still go to ASIC manufactures. Second, at this moment, EMP does not have the competence and the resources to integrate vertically in the upstream value chain. According to the interviewees, the most valuable strategic resource at EMP resides in personnels competence in the area of radio access technology and in the skills for designing a flexible and low cost system. These two competences are the driving forces for providing a cost-optimized mobile platform. The main risk in the value chain comes from the suppliers side. When technology reached a mature market, there is a risk that the technology becomes a commodity product and thus, suppliers can acquire knowledge on how to implement these technologies in their own ASICs. This implies that ASIC manufactures can produce ultra low cost platforms, due to the fact that they can control the price of the hardware. Another identified potential risk relate to how much EMP should outsource (Varadarajan, 2009). As is shown in the value chain (figure 3), EMP outsources a number of software components. An indiscriminate software outsourcing policy may lead to the loss of competences inside the EMP value chain (such as signal processing knowledge) thus reduce the value of the platform offering. 5.2 Benchmark What are the EMPs keys factors that are considered important for success? EMP is constantly evaluating and comparing with competitors in terms of cost, size, performance and power consumption of the product offering. From an end-users perspective, EMP is interested in delivering high quality multimedia functions for providing good speech and audio quality. Other benchmark measures are purely financial measures. All the interviewees agree that there are areas of improvement for EMP from a value chain perspective. 5.2.1 Horizontal integration In most of the interviews, a potential improvement for EMP consists in the integration of the value chain from a horizontal perspective by adding others technologies for example to offer an integrated solution with WLAN, BT or FM radio. The platform today provides the flexibility to add these peripherals, but this is a work that the customer must do when he done the product design (and it doesnt add a real value for EMP). This extended platform function offering in EMP platforms has the following impacts: 1) As customers will have less control over the price for these peripherals, they will not be able to bargain the prices 2) the cost of the EMP platform for customers will increase, 3) the total PCB area will go down due to integration of the peripheral in the ASICs and 4) the final product from a customer perspective (i.e. phone ready to launch with everything in place) will result in a total cost reduction. Thus, EMP would add value into the platform and customers will benefit fro m cheaper phones. In order to integrate these peripherals, EMP should create alliances with these suppliers in a cost effective manner (HÃ ¥kansson and Ford, 2002). It is not enough to just integrate any peripheral; it should be a peripheral that can be used by almost all customers in the different platforms, in a way that provide a common platform offering. Otherwise it will end up in a customized platform and the total value added from a portfolio perspective may not be that clear. An example of a peripheral that may fit with this approach is BT devices. The goal of EMP will probably be the re-use of the same platform as much as possible; however this is not defined yet. EMP has managed to have more than one ASIC supplier. This has increased the possibilities of getting fair prices. EMP is still looking to increase the number of suppliers to gain bargaining power. 5.2.2 Vertical integration Almost all the interviews discuss the fact, if the vertically integration must be in the upstream or not. As was described, the most costly part in the platforms is the ASICs and in order to offer competitive price, alliances must be created with ASICs suppliers. However, what if EMP chooses a fabless model? EMP would need then to focus more on the design of the hardware devices (today, it leaves it to some suppliers to design the hardware). EMP should start to do more IP designs, to focus on the back-end design of all the hardware components (ASICs) and create cell libraries for them. This vertical integration implies that EMP would leave ASIC manufacturing to a silicon foundry (for example, companies like TSMC, UMC, Chartered, etc). The advantage is that EMP would be able to choose suppliers, to get better prices and thus to get higher margins. For instance the EMPs competitor Qualcomm has this approach and uses TSMC as ASIC manufacturing. Nevertheless, complete back-end design requires EMP to build specific competence and skills for the complete hardware design. Moreover, EMP would need to take care of production issues like yield management, quality and logistics. This could lead to an expensive learning experience. Since EMP is a rather small company in global terms which focuses mostly in software design and system integration, a solution would probably be to invest in a company who has already the skills and experience. But in the near future this option will be not considered. Test of Value Grid Value Grid offers a variety of new paths to enhance performance, resulting in a three dimensional grid: the vertical, the horizontal and the integrative diagonal dimensions (Pil and Holweg, 2006). 6.1 Vertical Dimension From the theory of Value Grid and the analysis of the value chain in the previous section, there is a match between the External Networks from the value-added chain concept and how to influence customer demand in the downstream. In this case the relationship between EMP and network operators plays an important coordinative role (Andersen and Christensen, 2005). EMP cannot influence demand directly since this activity is mainly driven by EMPs customers who manufacture, distribute and sell the phones to operators and end-users by other distribution channels. Indeed, network operators distribute a great part of the mobiles phones to the end-users due to their infrastructure. In order to increase traffic in their networks, they finance partly the cost of the phone by tying it with contracts (fixed subscriptions periods normally for one or two years) or offering a phone at lower cost with the restriction that the phone can only be used exclusively with prepaid SIM cards. Therefore, to inc rease sales and market share, EMP can build a strong relationship with operators and persuade them to buy mobiles phones from EMPs customers. 6.2 Horizontal Dimension In this dimension similarities were detected betwee

Use of the Female Gothic in Beloved Essay -- Toni Morrison Beloved Ess

Use of the Female Gothic in Beloved      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Toni Morrison’s novel Beloved is a slave narrative, but it encompasses much more than slavery.   Unlike many slave narratives that focus on the male perception of slavery, Morrison's novel portrays slavery from a feminine point of view.   The main characters are Sethe, her daughter, Denver, and the mysterious Beloved.   In the beginning of the novel, Sethe and her daughter live alone in 124, a house that is haunted by the ghost of Sethe's first daughter. Sethe's two older boys, "Howard and Buglar, had run away by the time they were thirteen years old. Soon after the sons have fled, Baby Suggs, Denver's grandmother, dies.   The novel centers on Sethe's past, in particular, the death of her first daughter.   This event dominates the book and the action of the novel revolves around this terrible incident.   In Beloved, Toni Morrison utilizes characteristics of the female gothic novel such as mothering, living within enclosed spaces, and the doubli ng of characters, coupled with dilemmas involving memory and repression, to address the issue of slavery.    Beloved illustrates the notion of the gothic mother through the character of Sethe.   Her motherly love is turned into a horrific image of mercy, one that many find difficult to understand. At the time, slaves were valued as property.   They were bred as if they were horses, with their young snatched away from them, often at birth, and no chance of having a family.   Many children were "permanently separated from any other family members, [and] did not know if or when they would ever see their mother[s] again" (King 527).   Sethe describes her own childhood experience with the woman she knew as her mother and it is typical of the experi... ...illions of lives and Morrison gives those lives names and faces.   The narrative form is an effective tool to bring the reality of slavery and all its misery into everyday life.    Works Cited Goddu, Teresa A. Gothic America. New York: Columbia UP, 1997. King, Wilma. "Within the Professional Household: Slave Children in the Antebellum South." The Historian 59.3 (1997): 523-540. Kristeva, Julia. Powers of Horror. New York: Columbia UP, 1982. Morrison, Toni. Beloved. New York: Penguin Group, 1987. Samuels, Wilfred and Clenora Hudson-Weems. Ed. Toni Morrison. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1990. Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky. The Coherence of Gothic Conventions. New York: Methuen, 1976. Smith, Valerie. "Circling the Subject: History and Narrative in Beloved." Toni Morrison. Henry Gates, Jr. and K.A. Appiah. Ed. New York: Amistad Press, 1993.

Virgin :: Renaissance Writing Essays Virginity

Virgin Virgin: Not yet touched, handled, or employed for any purpose; still undisturbed or unused; perfectly fresh or new (Oxford English Dictionary online, definition 16b). For the Renaissance writers, virginity was a precious ideal and a favorite theme. It went by many names: virtue, chastity, purity, maidenhead; but it signified that rare thing that was untouched, fresh, new. In a large sense, it was everything that the Old World of Europe ached and searched for: a new thing, the New World. Virginity was a thing men wanted to admire and treasure, but also to conquer and consume. And to the bearer, the virgin, it was an invaluable asset. Virginity is bounty, riches, and treasure. When European explorers first set foot on the ‘virgin soil’ of the Americas, they were awestruck by the profusion of life, resources, and beauty. This land, innocent of the European touch, "†¦ had many goodly woods full of deer, coneys, hares, and fowl, even in the midst of summer in incredible abundance (Barlow 1067)." The plowing of earth is often compared to the ‘tilling and sewing’ of a virgin woman. Sir Walter Raleigh (1064) explicitly employs this sexual metaphor when he writes "†¦ Guiana is a country that hath yet her maidenhead, never sacked, turned, nor wrought; the face of the earth hath not been torn †¦" Virginity is so admired that the word ‘virtue’ is a synonym for it. But in large part, it is prized only because of the difficulty of overcoming it. The deflowering of a girl or a new-found land is an exciting challenge to be surmounted. Raleigh goads his Queen to take the challenge of colonizing Guiana when he writes of her: "For whatsoever prince shall possess it shall be greatest, †¦ shall hereby hear the name of a virgin which is †¦ able to †¦ invade and conquer so great empires so far removed (1066)." While virginity retained leaves the suitor unsatisfied, it does likewise to the virgin. This mutual yearning and frustration seems to drive Renaissance writers to new heights of poetic expression. For example, Stella reassures Astrophil that, while she must make him wait, she too burns with passion: "Trust me while I thee deny, In myself the smart I try, †¦ (Sidney 993)" In Shakespeare’s first sonnet, he laments that his would-be lover, by denying him, is "Making a famine where abundance lies, Thyself thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel (1169).