Why does Canh reject Thoas offer of freedom and get off the train Essay

Why does Canh reject Thoas offer of freedom and get off the train - Essay Example 233). Thus instead of merely exploring the glory of victory attained by the collective people of the country, Sandy Lives tries to capture the essence of what it was to be a Vietnamese citizen living during those times. Therefore, the impacts that war had on personal lives of people as well as the relationship these people had with each other is deftly analysed and portrayed through Vietnamese cinemas such as the one under study here. Such films reveal the fact that wars do not end in the battlefields, but linger among the lives of both people involved in the war as well as their family members, thereby making it amply clear that â€Å"wars end at home† (246). The case of Canh and Thoa was similar, where the former starts a new life with another family up north, whereas the latter faithfully waits for her husband to return, thereby ignoring her social responsibility of giving birth to a child, but at the same time, fulfilling her moral obligation of filial piety. Therefore, it becomes clear that it is this loyalty and faithfulness of his wife that inspires Canh to not run away from his responsibilities, thereby rejecting to take the train ticket, which represents his escape from â€Å"marit al commitment† to Thoa (247). Thus, this highlights the protagnoist’s belief in his marital commitment as well as reiterates the long lasting â€Å"disruptive effects† of war on the â€Å"people’e lives† (Miguel & Roland 2005, p.

Field trip example for developing questions Essay Example for Free

Field trip example for developing questions Essay Listed below are some sample questions that were asked about a hand plow used in the 1800s that one group of students saw in a museum. These might give you some ideas for developing questions: †¢ What function do you think this object had? †¢ When do you think it might have been used? †¢ Who might have used it? †¢ What materials were used to make it? †¢ How do you think it was made/manufactured? †¢ Imagine using this plow all day. How would you feel? †¢ How do farmers plow their fields today? †¢ Do you think they feel any differently than the farmer using this plow did at the end of the day? Explain. †¢ Do you think there are people in the world today who still use tools like this? Explain. ACTIVITY TO BE DONE: FIELD TRIP TO A OLD-TIMECRAFT MUSEUM Questions: †¢ Are the crafts carefully made to show the culture and beliefs of the people who made them? †¢ Basing from the craft materials that you’ve seen, how might you describe the ancient generation of humans? †¢ How are you able to connect the past with the present through the crafts that you have seen? †¢ Are there any depictions of the past that you could identify to characterize the present human society today? †¢ Do you think these crafts could still be improved through the usage of modern technology? †¢ How would technology actually affect the presentation of the said crafts? Appendix 23. 07c Sample Pre-, During- and Post-Field Trip Activities for a Field Trip to a California Mission Grade Level: 4 Pre-Trip Activity: Who Built the Missions? I will read sections from â€Å"Missions of the Southern Coast† by Nancy Lemke (1996) to my students. After reading the story, we will record information learned about who built the missions on a wall chart. We will discuss how the life of many native Indians changed after the Spanish padres taught the natives Indians to speak Spanish, make adobe bricks, sing Spanish religious songs, and change their religious beliefs, etc. I will set up a computer station for students to explore the site: http://library. thinkquest. org/3615/index. shtml, which describes the layout of the missions and how the structures were built. Students will record their findings for later use in their creative story writing. During the Trip Activity: Mission Architecture At the site I will gather students around me at the entrance to the mission. Here we will take a close look at the basic architectural design of the building and compare it to the photos we examined in class, looking for similarities and differences. Students will sketch three architectural features that they see. As we walk through the mission building (using the mission’s map to navigate our route), students will make a list of the different rooms and make note of several objects or architectural design elements in each room that are similar to items in use today. We will also discuss items that are no longer used. Post-Trip Activity: Travel Brochure for the Mission After the trip, students will summarize their learning by working in pairs to design a travel brochure inviting tourists to visit the mission. Students will need to include the following information: mission name, date built, brief history about why missions were founded, a brief story unique to this mission, a statement that explains to the tourist why missions are an important part of California’s history. Brochures will also include students’ decorative artwork. Per-trip Activity: Sharing the Goals of the Trip with the Students This activity shall help the instructor outline the reasons for the fieldtrip thus guide the students with the necessary learning that they are supposed to receive from the activity that they are to encounter in the field. It is expected that through this particular activity, the students would have a logical understanding of how much they are supposed to be benefited by the said activity. During the trip activity. It is simply through the actual field trip that the understanding of the gist of the activity shall be realized by everyone involved in the project. Thus, through the activity itself, the students would realize the real impact of the process within their learning and personality as well. With the realization of the students with regards the benefit of the trip to their learning process, they are then expected to apply in themselves whatever it has been that they have learned from the trip. Post-Trip Activity Recollection of the things learned is a primary focus of the instructor after the trip is over. It is through this after activity meeting that the educators as well as the coordinators of the trip would naturally measure the success of the activity thus scale it for further pursuance during the following years of operation. Appendix 23. 07b Field Trip Planning and Implementation Form 1. Decide where you are going and record the pertinent information, including: †¢ site address †¢ relevant telephone numbers †¢ admission costs; group rates; group size limitations †¢ hours of operation †¢ content of the exhibits †¢ facilities (bathrooms, area to eat, etc. ). †¢ availability of food concessions, gift shops †¢ requirements for reservations †¢ availability of guided tours (Are they required? Costs? ) †¢ availability of curriculum materials for teachers †¢ special requirements (walking shoes, binoculars, warm clothing, etc. ) †¢ handicapped accommodations, and other relevant information (brochures, handouts) Enter Step 1 information here: 1. Craft Museum in Los Angeles: features the exhibit of the works of the families and cultures of both ancient and modern America. 2. Schedule of Tour: Wednesday or Saturday in the afternoon beginning 1pm. 3.time length of tour: 3hours 4. Exhibit Content: family crafts of the ancient and modern American civilization. 5. Facilities: With comfort rooms and lobby for resting purposes 6. Ground Rules: No eating within the premises of the showroom during the tour activities. 7. No Reservation Payment; but there is an enlisting process before the tour begins. 8. school uniforms for quick identification is required due to the continuous tours taking place in the museum. 2. Educational and other considerations for the field trip. †¢ How does taking a field trip relate to your classroom studies? †¢ What are your objectives for the field trip? †¢ What information will tell you if your students have achieved your objectives? †¢ Visit the museum/site before your field trip. †¢ Which exhibits would you like to use? †¢ Are there any special conditions you will need to accommodate? †¢ What are the rules and procedures for group visits? Lunch plans? †¢ Do you have a map of the museum/site? †¢ Do you have some pictures, slides or postcards of the site that you can use with your students? †¢ Do you know your way around the museum/site? Enter Step 2 information here: 1. The field trip is expected to enhance the knowledge of the students with regards how much ancient America connects with the modern generation of people of the country today. 2. This field trip is rather pursued to help the students see the actual display of intellect of both the ancient and modern Americans whether with the aid of technology or those others that were created without the said utilization of modern technology. 3. to ensure safety of the whole class, it is advised that the instructor sees the museum first for security measures and assessment of the place whether it would be feasible for the subject or the students the like. 4. Souvenirs are given to the students visiting there and several brochures which could later on be used for classroom discussions. The said brochures are accompanied by maps showing the interiors of the museum. 3. Make Advance Arrangements †¢ What are your school’s procedures for field trips? Do you need special permission? †¢ Have you made reservations at the site for your trip? †¢ What transportation arrangements do you need to make? †¢ Have you kept copies of forms, requests, reservations, etc.? †¢ Have you sent out and received permission slips from parents? †¢ Can you anticipate any student behavior problems? Do you have a plan to cope with them? †¢ Have you arranged for payment of field trip expenses? †¢ What is your policy about visits to the museum/site gift shop? Tell students in advance! Enter Step 3 information here: 1. Parental permission must be first received before a student is to be joined in with the group for field trip. 2. Hiring a bus is a necessary step for getting the students safe into the museum. 3. The transportation is supposed to fetch the students back and forth from the school within at least five hours time difference. 4. To avoid unruly behaviors, the instructor is to have three appointees per group who would serve as group leaders thus making the trip much more controllable and the students easier to accompany with. 5. Snacks are to be served to the students in the bus after the three-hour field-trip. 6. all ground rules are to be discussed during the pre-trip meetings with the students. 4. Pre-Trip Activities: Introduce Museum/Community Site †¢ What pre-trip activities have you planned to introduce your students to the field trip site? †¢ What pre-trip activities have you planned to enable your students to try out and practice perceptual skills? (touch-boxes, sounds, smells, same-different, matching, sketching, color) †¢ What pre-trip activities have you planned that pertain to the subject matter of your field trip? (vocabulary, experience chart, artifacts, speakers, research groups, developing worksheets) †¢ Design six questions to ask your students that will help them think about something that they will see on the trip. Enter Step 4 information here: 1. Each student is advised to bring short note pads where they could take down their notes for review purposes in class. 2. Questions: †¢ Are the crafts carefully made to show the culture and beliefs of the people who made them? †¢ Basing from the craft materials that you’ve seen, how might you describe the ancient generation of humans? †¢ How are you able to connect the past with the present through the crafts that you have seen? †¢ Are there any depictions of the past that you could identify to characterize the present human society today? †¢ Do you think these crafts could still be improved through the usage of modern technology? †¢ How would technology actually affect the presentation of the said crafts? 5. Plan Field Trip Activities †¢ Will your students be participating in a site-led program or tour? †¢ If so, have you talked to the guide about your students’ background and preparation for the trip? †¢ Will your students be using worksheets you’ve developed as a basis for their site activities? †¢ What other activities will your students do at the site (beyond a guided tour)? †¢ Have you planned the work in small sections (in case some children finish sooner than others)? †¢ Are the activities varied intellectually? †¢ Review field trip plans with chaperones. †¢ When will you meet with chaperones to review your plans for the trip? †¢ Have you recruited the chaperones you need? Do you have a back-up plan if a chaperone fails to show up? †¢ Have you prepared an information packet about the trip for each chaperone? †¢ Do the chaperones clearly understand what they can do to support the educational objectives of your trip? Enter Step 5 information here: Each group leader is assigned with a name of list in their groups who they would be appointed to check on time and again. Nevertheless, after the three-hour tour, everyone is expected to be intact in their groups as their grade on the said activity shall well depend on how well they behave during the tour activities. Making necessary pre-announced quizzes about the trip would also help the students more attentive and interested in the discussions presented to them during the tours and keep them safe with their groups as well. 6. Field Trip Day †¢ Review plans and schedule with students and chaperones. †¢ Give the bus driver a map, parking information and a schedule. Get the bus number. †¢ Bathroom stop before boarding the bus. †¢ Give a brief orientation to the site upon arrival; review what to do if anyone gets lost. †¢ Conduct at-site activities and adjust pace as needed. †¢ Finish activities and stop at the gift shop if planned. †¢ Move to the exit, do headcounts and board the bus. †¢ Notify the school office when you return. †¢ Discuss the trip with students. Enter Step 6 information here: Headcounts are to be performed, before, once during, and after the tours. The headcount is supposed to be a security check on the whereabouts of the students. If incase anyone gets lost, the enlisting before the entrance of the students in the museum shall be a great help thus alerting the museum securities of the said lost student. Once the trip begins to pursue, the administration should be notified as well as when it is already over. This would give the administration less frustration in handling activities as such in the future. 7. Post-Trip Activities †¢ What activities have you planned to continue your students’ learning back in the classroom? (murals, dioramas, newspaper, letters, tape recordings, posters, plays/skits, creative writing, travel brochure, museum memory capsule) Enter Step 7 information here: Poster making and role playing shall be the main activity inside the classrooms once the activity is over; so as to help the children recover about what they have learned from the touring activities held. 8. Evaluation of the Field Trip †¢ Does the kind of feedback you received from your students allow you to tell if you met your objectives for the trip? †¢ Did you meet your trip objectives? †¢ How did your students evaluate their trip? †¢ What were your students’ reactions to the trip? †¢ What did they learn from their worksheets or other activities? How do you know? †¢ Were there any problems you could avoid next time? Surprises? †¢ What improvements or changes would you make next time? †¢ Have you recorded your thoughts for future reference? Enter Step 8 information here: It should be understood that part of the activity is the assurance that each student is given the careful attention that they need, simply for them to benefit well from the activity. Through post-activity class discussions and presentations, the said matter could be then well measured as to how the activity applied well for the development of the students with regards their learning as considered within the curriculum that they are to discuss along with the integrated goals of the field trip within the development of the lesson. (Adapted from: â€Å"Teach the Mind, Touch the Spirit A Guide to Focused Field Trips† Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago) †¢ Describe your class, their interests, cultural backgrounds, SAT9 profiles, English language levels, reading abilities and special needs levels. The class to be dealt with is comprised of multicultural population that ranged from the fast and the slow as well as the average learners the like. This particular diversity on the part of the class make up actually makes the instruction of integrated lessons quite a challenge for the instructor. Moreover, the ways by which the instructor should deal with the situation should integrate both lecture and practical implication of the lessons as well. Seeing the cultural differences of the students, the instructors are rather required to have a quality that needs to be handled to the said specific types of students. It is understood that with a multicultural population in class, it is needed that the educational instructors utilize the different strategies to approach the learning diversity of all the students catered through the lessons presented in class. †¢ Profile your school culture, family involvement and home/school communication. Because of multiculturalism, the need for long understanding is required. For this reason, it is understood that the instructors could not be able to be expected to do the entire job. The cooperation of the parents and guardians of the students is highly regarded for the treatment within this particular situation. The communication between the parents/guardians and the instructors is to be treated as a primary source of success in this process. Thus it is encouraged that updating the parents/guardians with the development of their students as well as the extra needed attention that the young learners require be made known to the individuals needing the information. Doing so would give the instructors and the parents as well as the guardian of the students give full focus to the advancement of the young learners as primary receivers of the education that they are due. B: Learning Goals †¢ Select goals that are developmentally appropriate, culturally responsive, student-interest-based and drawn from the California academic content standards. There are numerous academic goals that actually outlines the need of increasing the capability of the students to deal with the challenges of life in a more practical process that would be most beneficial for their own good. Among the said goals is to teach them to become reliable at almost all the times needed. With regards this, it could be noted that understanding the primary issues that are related to life and the challenges that it offers shall give the students the real and right motivation to advance further with their learning. It is through this that they become motivated to hone their capability of being reliable at most especially during the times that their support and understanding are highly needed. Another goal is to help the students relate their school lessons with their real life situations. Being practical in dealing with real life situations could be stressed out during classroom discussions that are expected to be presented during class. Handling this particular responsibility is of utmost need for the instructors to consider during class operations. References: Shapiro, B. L. (1994). What Children Bring to Light: A Constructivist Perspective on Childrens Learning in Science; New York. Teachers College Press. Helm, J. H. , Katz, L. (2001). Young investigators: The project approach in the early years. New York: Teachers College Press.

Case Study of European Budget Airlines

Case Study of European Budget Airlines Ryanair is one of the leading airline companies of Europe. This airline company is known for its low cost and high quality service. It operates more than 1,400 flights per day from 44 bases and 1100+ low fare routes across 27 countries, connecting 160 destinations (Ryanair-a, n.d.). This paper endeavours to analyse Ryanair, with special emphasis on situation analysis, decision making, planning and controlling process, leadership and organisational structure. This paper will conclude with some plausible recommendations on future growth and progress. Situational Analysis SWOT is a very helpful management tool for analysing the situation of a company. Ryanair was established in 1985, and despite its shortcomings it established a strong position in the market. Strengths Ryanair has developed a strong brand name in airline industry as a low cost service provider. Ryanair has been in the airline company since the last 25 years and has gained sufficient experience in it. Ryanair has developed its internet facilities and has made it an important selling point. This helps the company to eliminate the costs of agents. Ryanairs fleet includes aircrafts with high sitting capacity and low maintenance cost. Ryanairs services performance is of high standard with punctual fleet timing. Weakness To save cost, Ryanair charges its passengers for services like refreshments, wheelchair etc. It creates very impression among passengers about the company. It is not a preferred airline with the high class passengers. Opportunities The European Union market is expanding with time and most of the passengers prefer low fare for their air travel. Regions like North America and Asia have greater scope for low cost provider like Ryanair. Threats The existing airline companies are following strategies that lower the cost and hence competition within the industry is increasing with time. The oil market is a major supplier to airline business. In recent years, price of oil has increased significantly. The customers are becoming very price and service sensitive. Porters 5 Forces The bargaining power of suppliers is very high as the number of aircraft manufacturer and oil suppliers are very less in the market. Availability of proper airports is also very important for this industry. However, airports bargaining power is quite low as they depend on aircraft companies. The bargaining power of customers is very high as they have many airline service providers to choose from. The barrier entry of airline industry is quite high as it requires heavy investments and technical expertise. Airline is the fastest mode of transportation for overseas and long distance travel. No other substitute can match the service of airline industry. Competition among existing rival is the most import factor in this industry. The rivals are competing with each other for increasing their market share. In European Union, Lufthansa, Ryanair, Easy jet etc are leading airline companies. 3. Decision Making 3.1. Decision Making Process in Ryanair Ryanair provides low cost and high quality airline services to its customers. It places customer satisfaction above all other priorities. The decision making process is primarily centred on concerns regarding ways to provide higher customer services. Fleet planning, airline fare, fleet scheduling etc are some of the chief aspects of Ryanairs effective decision making process. 3.2. Decision Making Approach Decision making approach can be defined as strategic approached of an organisation. Ryanairs management team aims to follow rational decision making approach. The rational decision making approach is an ongoing and dynamic process. This approach helps to identify the underlying problems and to find relevant solutions (Kroon, 1995 p.187). For example, in 2004, when the company was passing through a financial crisis, rational decision making approach not only helped it to overcome it but also paved the path of growth. 3.3. Types of Problems and Decisions Making In Ryanair In 2004, Ryanair was one of the worst performers in FTSE Eurotop 300 index. During that period, competition in airline industry was very high in the European nations as many new companies entered the market. Despite the stiff competition, the company enjoyed a healthy growth rate till 2003. But the managements inability to understand and rectify the inherent weakness of its decision making process stunted its growth. 3.4. Decision-Making Conditions in Ryanair While framing the strategic move for any decision making process; Ryanairs first priority will be to analyse the elements of external competition. The European airline industry is crowded with many leading companies like Lufthansa, Virgin, Aer Lingus, and British Airway etc. Consumers needs are also very important for Ryanairs decision-making. Prior to 2003, the companys concern for customer service was very low, except the low fare advantages. 3.5. Decision-Making Styles The decision making style of Ryanairs management team seems to be affected by different factors. However, the decision making methods are quite flexible. After analysing its rapid growth during 2002-2003, it can be claimed that it focuses on short term objective rather than long term goals. Creativity is another major feature of its decision making style. 3.6. Decision- Making Biases and Errors Ryanairs temporary fall during 2004 brought into fore many drawbacks of its decision making process. Robbins has identified some unexplained prejudices and errors of decision making like biases relating to overconfidence, anchoring, confirmation, availability, escalation of commitment etc (Robbins, 2009, p.126). Ryanairs decision was affected by two major biases i.e. anchoring biases and status quo biasness. Its decision making was based on the past success that failed to take in to account unfavourable macro-economic conditions resulting from 9/11 attack on WTC. 4. Planning 4.1Vision and Mission Statement Vision and mission statements help an organisation to prepare a roadmap for its operational activities. Ryanairs official website does not have the vision and mission statement of the company. However, the public statements of Michael OLeary and other higher executive member of Ryanair indicate that it aims to achieve growth and success by being the lowest cost provider in airline industry (Box and Kent, 2007). 4.2. Purposes of Planning In general, the purpose of planning is to bring effectiveness and efficiency in the operational activities of a business. The implied mission and vision of Ryanairs clearly states its purposes of planning. To counter the increasing competition, the company has decided to follow low cost strategy. Hence, its planning is designed after taking into consideration this objective. 4.3 Planning And Performances in Ryanair According to Riezebos, planning is a very crucial element of operational activity that affects the performance level (Riezebos, 2001, p.12). Planning is one of the major tools of motivating participants to achieve the common organisational goal. Due to rational decision making approach, the company is able to plan its operational and strategic activities properly. Ryanair is able to achieve its target with the help of an efficient planning process. 4.4 Types of Goals in Ryanair The primary goal of Ryanair is to become the lowest cost airline service provider in Europe. The idea of offering low fare proved successful for the company. However, initially it failed to understand the necessity of good service for customer. Currently, the company is committed to provide lower fare, high quality service and punctual air schedule (Ryanair-b, n.d.). 4.5 Types of Plans in Ryanair Ryanairs decision making process follows rational approach and it also follows rational model for its planning process. Basically, planning can be divided as short term goal and long term goal. The companys management team was concerned only with the short term goal. The company often changes its plan as per the requirements of the market. In 2002, the companys plan was to provide low cost fare and after 2004, its planning process also took note of service quality. 4.6 Contingency Factors in Planning Ryanair faces three major contingency factors. Firstly, the organisational level affects the operational planning of middle and low level managers. Secondly, the uncertainty of macro-environmental or other external factors affects the planning process. Therefore, Ryanair aims to develop a flexible planning system. Thirdly, the long and short term objectives of Ryanair affect its planning process. The company always tries to concentrate on its current objective. 4.7 Objectives The primary objective of Ryanair is to attain cost leadership in European airline market. However, to achieve this objective, the company needs to concentrate on other long term goal. These include increasing its operational activities to enter new markets like North America, developing customer centred business model and increasing the use of internet as a major selling point (OCuilleanain et al, 2004). 4.8 Management by Objectives (MBO) Management by objective (MBO) approach of management leads to increase in the performance of organisation. MBO is a result-oriented, non-specialized managerial process for the effective utilization of organisational resources by integrating individuals with the organisation and the organisation with the environment (Goyal, 2005, p.304). During 2004, in order to overcome its crisis situation, the company introduced MBO approach to improve its performance. 4.9 Strategic Management Process Ryanairs strategic management process is based on its objective of achieving cost leadership in European airline industry. The company has improved its positioning by implementing proper strategic management process. The key elements of its strategic management include low fares, high frequency of point-to-point flight within short routes, proper route choice, reduction in operating cost, increase the internet use for selling, maintenance of safely and high quality service etc (OCuilleanain et al, 2004) 5. Organising 5.1 Organisation Structure and Design: Proper organisational structure and design helps to develop efficient management performance. There are four elements of organisation structure and these are departmentalisation, span of control, centralization and formalization. Appendix 1 depicts the organisation structure of Ryanair. Michael OLeary is the CEO of the company and there are seven Directors and a Chairman. For each department like customer services, finance, HR etc, there are individual head management personnel having a team. 5.2 Chain of Command The Chain of command in Ryanair is based on its organisational structure. The appendix 1 portrays that the CEO is the chief person of command of the organisation. However, the decision making process in Ryanair includes all the senior managers of each department. To maintain high level of transparency and to develop two-way communication system in cross functional departments, the chain of command is very essential. 5.3 Span of Control The span of control in Ryanair is effective and helps to maintain a sound organisational growth. The span of control of the CEO Michael OLeary is the highest and most effective. As per appendix 1, the entire department is required to report on the ongoing activities to the CEO. The CEO along with the Directors and Chairman is responsible for making the final decisions of the organisation. However, for better planning and implementation, the employees should be involved in the decision making process. 5.4 Centralization and Decentralization The decision of centralization or decentralization depends on the nature and expansion of business. Ryanair is a multinational company having different units in European countries and North America. For the airline industry, decentralization is more preferred over centralization. However, Ryanair follows a centralized organisational model. Decentralization of organisation will help it to compete with the major competitors of different markets. 5.5 Mechanistic and Organic organization The mechanistic organisations are those having a well defined hierarchy. Ryanair has a centralized organisational structure and it is an example of mechanistic organisation. Appendix 2 shows the major difference between the mechanistic and organic organisation. The company has been very strict in maintaining its relationship with the employees. However, such organisational structure of Ryanair creates biases and errors in decision making process. 5.6 Contingency Factors There are many factors that affect the organisational structure of a company. The industry trend, the growth structure, the social and demographic characteristics of employee customers and vision and mission of the company etc are the major contingency factors that help in designing the organisational structure. The leadership quality of the higher management also affects the organisational structure. The organisational structure of Ryanair is also affected by external competition and its leadership style. 5.7 Job Characteristics Model One of the primary objectives of Ryanair is to provide high customer services and in this respect the employees are the most important resource. In order to enrich the quality of job, the company motivates its employees to achieve the common organisational goal i.e. growth. The company aim to offer competitive salaries with excellent benefits that are simple and easy to understand (Ryanair-c, n.d.). 6. Leadership The leadership style is an important influencing factor organisational growth and success. The major leadership skills of Ryanairs management focus on the low cost fare for airline. The fleet of Ryanair includes single-class aircraft that increases the seating capacity. However, the leadership skills of Ryanair have led to its success of 2002-2003 and failure of 2004. The leadership in Ryanair strives to focus on position, seniority and authority. Control 7.1 Control Process The control process is the key element for Ryanair as it wants to achieve the lowest cost leadership. In order to facilitate effective and efficient control system, employees must be properly organized. Ryanair has developed proper system for regulating the control process by managing its employees. 7.2 Types of Control Ryanair strategic moves and policies control various aspect of the organisation. Firstly, cost controlling activity is the major criteria for low cost fare airline and it includes labour cost, marketing cost, airport charges. It also reduces the service cost by controlling many activities. For example, in 2003, it did not offer meals of refreshments to passengers who faced delays (O Higgins, 2004,). 7.3 Managerial Approaches to Implement Controls Ryanairs management team approach for implementation of control, strives to bring down the financial expenses. However, proper organisation culture and operational activities are also very important to improve its service qualities. Fleet control and market control are necessary for achieving the competitive strategy. The market control managerial approach of Ryanair involves the comparison of profit and expenses with that of its competitors. 7.4 Management Information System For establishing better management system, Ryanair has brought technological advancement in its organisations non-operational activities. For example, it has developed its website for using it as a major selling point. The increasing use of internet has made the managerial activity more efficient. At present, the company is aiming to achieve 100% internet ticket booking. Contingency Factors in Control Like the decision making process, controlling activity of an organisation is affected by uncertainty of macro-economic factors and the cultural and social characteristics of employees. In the airline industry, the major contingency factor is the competition and conflicts related to organisational objectives. Ryanairs management aims to avoid these contingencies factors related to employees by rewarding them for their efforts. 7.6 Corporate Governance Ryanair is listed on London and Irish Stock Exchanges in Europe. The company is responsible for following proper business ethics and compliance as per the corporate governance. The entire management teams including the Directors and CEO are committed to maintain the standard corporate governance. Its business policy clearly defines the role of Directors and other members in meeting its corporate responsibility. Balanced Scorecard Balanced score card is the most popular management tool used by organisations. Ryanairs strategic management system can be explained with balanced score card. To bring efficiency in its operational activities, Ryanair concentrates of four major areas i.e. finance, customer, business process and learning and growth. 8.1 Benchmarking To achieve the objective of becoming the lowest cost provider in the European airline industry, Ryanair has set its benchmark for cost controlling activities. At present, it is the lowest cost provider in the industry and hence, it has developed its own benchmark. For example, in 2003, the company reduced its cost for wheelchairs services by bringing a third party wheelchair suppliers who charged passengers for supplying wheelchairs. 8.2 Value Chain The value chain of the company strives to provide the lowest fare possible. Appendix 4 portrays the value chain which includes other important aspects of the airline industry. To develop a cost effective operational process, the company has combined its balanced score card, benchmarking and value chain. RECOMMENDATIONS To ensure success, Ryanair must bring some changes in its management and business model. Some of the useful recommendations are given below. It must focus on its services to meet the passengers minimum expectation. The company should include the employees in the decision making process. As many other rivals are also following low cost strategy, Ryanair can bring certain innovations in its service process. Internal communication should be encouraged for better transparency and motivation. It should develop its public image by increasing corporate social activities. For maintaining low cost fare, it should emphasise on the financial aspects. 10. Reference Box, T. M. and Kent, B. 2007. Ryanair (2005): Successful Low Cost Leadership. [Online]. Available at: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa5452/is_200705/ai_n21289700/pg_2/. [Accessed on November 03, 2010]. Goyal, R. C. 2005. Hospital Administration and Human Resource Management. 4th Edition. PHI Learning Pvt. Ltd. Hellriegel, D. and Slocum, J. W. 2007. Organizational behaviour. 11th Edition. Cengage Learning. Kroon, J. 1995. General Management. 2nd Edition. Pearson South Africa. OCuilleanain, E. S. et al, 2004. Ryanair Plc. [Pdf]. Available at: http://dev.ulb.ac.be/cours/alle/PDF/BuspPresRyanair04.pdf. [Accessed on November 03, 2010]. O Higgins, E, 2004, Case Study Ryanair. Riezebos, 2001. Design of a period batch control planning system for cellular manufacturing. University of Groningen. Robbins, S. P. 2009. Organisational behaviour: global and Southern African perspectives. 2nd Edition. Pearson South Africa. Ryanair-a. No Date. About Us: History of Ryanair. [Online]. Available at: http://www.ryanair.com/en/about. [Accessed on November 03, 2010]. Ryanair-b. No date. About Us: Passenger Charter. [Online]. Available at: http://www.ryanair.com/en/about/passenger-charter. [Accessed on November 03, 2010]. Ryanair-c. No date. Careers. [Online]. Available at: http://www.ryanair.com/en/careers/working-for-ryanair. [Accessed on November 03, 2010]. The Official Board. September 15, 2010. Ryanair. [Online]. Available at: http://www.theofficialboard.com/org-chart/ryanair-holdings. [Accessed on November 03, 2010]. The Performance Institute. 2009. Balanced Scorecard. [Online]. Available at: http://www.performanceweb.org/events/training/program-performance/sub7/. [Accessed on November 03, 2010]. Jack Baskin School of Engineering. No date. Airline Industry Analysis. [Ppt]. Available at: http://www.soe.ucsc.edu/classes/ism158/Winter03/istcch04.ppt. [Accessed on November 03, 2010].

Virgin and Child with Four Angels by Gerard David Essay -- Paintings A

Virgin and Child with Four Angels by Gerard David The Virgin and Child with Four Angels was painted by Gerard David in about 1510, right in the middle of the Renaissance. The painting is rectangular in shape and appears to be about two feet long by maybe a foot and a half wide. It is oil painted on wood and it looks to be in very good condition. The painting is an image, as its title suggests, of the Virgin with the infant baby Jesus. This, of course, was a very common subject during the renaissance and for years before and after it. There are countless paintings of the Virgin and Child from that time period, probably because of the power and influence of the church at the time. People were much more involved in the church and, therefore, the subjects they painted or requested to be painted were typically religious themes. Many also felt that by commemorating such religious figures it might even help them gain a spot in heaven. In any case, in this particular version of the Virgin and Child there are also four angels in the scene - two who are flying above the Virgin holding a crown over her heard, and two who are sitting on either side of her playing instruments. Beyond her there is a large archway that opens into a landscape with a view of some grass and trees, some architecture, and some mountains in the far distance. The virgin is wearing a red garb and the baby Jesus is barely draped in some white cloth. That, of course, is a basic description at a quick glance. In examining the painting further, it becomes obvious that this is prime example of Renaissance painting. To begin with, the composition is completely balanced, almost symmetrical. The four angels are placed evenly around the Virgin, with two on each side. On one side an angel plays a harp and is balanced by an angel on the other side, strumming some type of guitar. The two flying above Mary are basically in the same position. Even the church in the background seems to be matched with a mountain in the distance. The columns and archway that border the painting are, in fact, completely symmetrical. And the Virgin and Child are in the center. It is, again, a beautifully balanced composition, typical of the Renaissance. The composition is also completely filled, but not overcrowded. Even with the flying angels, the painting appears rational; ... ...ead, which can also be seen on the wings of both of the angels holding it. Then again, that goldish hugh is seen in the instruments that then angels on both sides of Mary are playing. Blues and greens are used in a balanced manner throughout as well. On one side, the angel playing the harp is dressed in a light blue that is similar to the blue of the sky. The other angel is dressed in green, like the greens used in the trees and grass of the landscape beyond. The way these colors are painted, too, is very much in the style of the Renaissance. There is no visible brushstroke whatsoever. The entire painting is smooth, almost as if it wasn't really painted. This, too, adds to the realistic effect of the painting. The influence of the Italian Renaissance can clearly be seen in this painting by Gerard David. The composition is balanced; illusionism through perspective creates a recession in space; detailed modeling and shading make the painting appear realistic and human; vibrant colors are spread throughout; and a smooth, brushless texture adds to that realistic appearance. This work demonstrates the beauty and detail that was brought to if during the Renaissance.

Hong Kong Style

HONG KONG STYLE An Interview with Victor Fung BY JOAN MAGRETTA UPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT is Working its Way onto the strategic agendas of CEOs in an expanding list of industries, from autos to personal computers to fashion retailing. Propelling that change is the restructuring of global competition. As companies focus on their core activities and outsource the rest, their success increasingly depends on their ability to control what happens in the value chain outside their own boundaries. In the 1980s, the focus was on supplier partnerships to improve cost and quality.In today's faster-paced markets, the focus has shifted to innovation, flexibility, and speed. Enter Li et) Fung, Hong Kong's largest export trading company and an innovator in the development of supply chain management. On behalf of its customers, primarily American and European retailers, Li et) Fung works with an ever expanding network PORTRAIT BY LANCE HIDY 103 SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT, HONG KONG STYLE of thousands of su ppliers around the globe, sourcing clothing and other consumer goods ranging from toys to fashion accessories to luggage.Chairman Victor Fung sees the company as part of a new breed of professionally managed, focused enterprises that draw on Hong Kong's expertise in distribution-process technology-a host of informationintensive service functions including product development, sourcing, financing, shipping, handling, and logistics. Founded in 1906 in southern China by Victor Fung's grandfather, Li &) Fung was the first Chinese-owned export company at a time when tbe China trade was controlled by foreign commercial houses. In the early 1970s, Victor was teaching at the Harvard Business School, and his younger brother, William, was a newly minted HarvardM. B. A. The two young men were called home from the United States by their father to breathe new life into the company. Since then, the brothers have led Li et? Fung through a series of transformations. In this interview with HBR edito r-at-large foan Magretta, Victor Fung describes how Li &) Fung has made the transition from buying agent to supply chain manager, from the old economy to the new, from traditional Chinese family conglomerate to innovative public company. Victor and William Fung are creating a new kind of multinational, one that remains entrepreneurial despite its growing size and scope.Victor Fung is also chairman of a privately held retailing arm of the company, which focuses on joint ventures with Toys R Us and the Circle K convenience-store chain in Hong Kong. He is also chairman of the Hong Kong Trade Development Council and of Prudential Asia. How do you define the diHerence between what Li & Fung does today-supply chain managementand the trading business founded by your grandfather in 1906? ing which quotas have been used up in Hong Kong, for example, tells you when you have to start buying from Taiwan. Understanding products was also more complex. We knew that in Taiwan the synthetics were be tter, ut that Hong Kong was the place to go for cottons. We could provide a package from the whole region rather than a single product from Hong Kong. By working with a larger number of countries, we were able to assemble components; we call this â€Å"assortment packing. † Say I sell a tool kit to a major discount chain. I could buy the spanners from one country and the screwdrivers from another and put together a product package. That has som. e value in it-not great value, but some. In the second stage, we took the company's sourcing-agent strategy one step further and became a manager and deliverer of manufacturing programs.In the old model, the customer would say, â€Å"This is the item I want. Please go out and find the best place to buy it for me. † The new model works this way. The Limited, one of our big customers, comes to us and says, â€Å"For next season, this is what we're thinking about-this type of look, these colors, these quantities. Can you come up with a production program? † Starting with their designers' sketches, we research the market to find the right type of yarn and dye swatches to match the colors. We take product concepts and realize them in prototypes. Buyers can then look at the samples and say, â€Å"No, I don't eally like that, I like this. Can you do more of this? † We then create an entire program for the season, specifying the product mix and the schedule. We contract for all the resources. We work with facto- When my grandfather started the company in Canton, 90 years ago during the Ching dynasty, his â€Å"value added† was that he spoke EngUsh. In those days, it took three months to get to China hy hoat from the West; a letter would take a month. No one at the Chinese factories spoke English, and the American merchants spoke no Chinese. As an interpreter, my grandfather's commission was 15%. Continuing through my father's generation, Li &Fung was basically a broker, charging a fee to put buyers and sellers together. But as an intermediary, the company was squeezed between the growing power of the buyers and the factories. Our margins slipped to 10%, then 5%, then 3%. When I returned to Hong Kong in 1976 after teaching at Harvard Business School, my friends warned me that in ten years buying agents like Li & Fung would he extinct. â€Å"Trading is a sunset industry,† they all said. My brother and I felt we could turn the business into something different, and so we took it through several stages of development. In the first stage, we cted as w^hat I would call a regional sourcing agent and extended our geographic reach by establishing offices in Taiwan, Korea, and Singapore. Our knowledge of the region had value for customers. Most hig buyers could manage their own sourcing if they needed to deal only with Hong Kong-they'd know which ten factories to deal with and wouldn't need any help. But dealing with the whole region was more complex. In textiles, quotas g overn world trade. Know104 HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW September-October 1998 SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT, HONG KONG STYLE ries to plan and monitor production so we can ensure quality and on-time delivery.This strategy of delivering manufacturing programs carried us through the 1980s, but that decade brought us a new challenge – and led to our third stage. As the Asian tigers emerged. Hong Kong became an increasingly expensive and uncompetitive place to manufacture. For example, we completely lost the low-end transistor-radio business to Taiwan and Korea. What saved us was that China began to open up to trade, allowing Hong Kong to fix its cost problem by moving the labor « intensive portion of production across the border into southern China. So for transistor radios we created little its-plastic bags filled with all the components needed to build a radio. Then we shipped the kits to China for assembly. After the labor-intensive work was completed, the finished goods came back to Hong Kong for final testing and inspection. If you missed a screw you were in trouble: the whole line stopped cold. Breaking up the value chain as we did was a novel concept at the time. We call it â€Å"dispersed manufacturing. † This method of manufacturing soon spread to other industries, giving Hong Kong a new lease on life and also transforming our economy. Between 1979 and 1997, Hong Kong's position as a trading ntity moved from number 21 in the world to number 8. All our manufacturing moved into China, and Hong Kong became a huge service economy with 84% of its gross domestic product coming from services. So dispersed manufacturing means breaking up the value chain and rationalizing where you do things? That's right. Managing dispersed production was a real breakthrough. It forced us to get smart not only about logistics and transportation but also about dissecting the value chain. Consider a popular children's doll-one similar to the Barbie doll. In the early 1980s, w e designed the dolls in Hong Kong, and we also produced the olds because sophisticated machinery was needed to make them. We then shipped the molds to China, where they would shoot the plastic, assemble the doll, paint the figures, make the doll's clothing-all the labor-intensive work. But the doll had to come back to Hong Kong, not just for final testing and inspection but also for packaging. China at that time couldn't deliver the quality we needed for the printing on the boxes. Then we used Hong Kong's welldeveloped banking and transportation infrastructure to distribute the products around the world. You can sec the model clearly: the labor-intensiveHARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW September-October 1998 middle portion of the value chain is still done in southern China, and Hong Kong does the front and back ends. Managing dispersed manufacturing, where not everything is done under one roof, t akes a real change of mind-set. But once we figured out how to do it, it became clear that our r each should extend heyond southern China. Our thinking was, for example, if wages arc lower farther inland, let's go there. And so we began what has turned into a con- forced us to get smart about dissecting the value chain. † stant search for new and better sources of supply.Li& Fung made a quantum leap in 1995, nearly doubling our size and extending our geographic scope hy acquiring Inchcape Buying Services. IBS was a large British hong w ith an estahlished network of offices in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka. The acquisition also brought with it a European customer base that complemented Li &. Fung's predominantly American base. This Hong Kong model of borderless manufacturing has become a new paradigm for the region. Today Asia consists of multiple networks of dispersed manufacturing-high-cost hubs that do the sophisticated planning for regional manufacturing.Bangkok works with the Indochinese peninsula, Taiwan with the Philippines, Seoul with northern China. D ispersed manufacturing is what's behind the boom in Asia's trade and investment statistics in the i99os-companies moving raw materials and semifinished parts around Asia. But the region is still very dependent on the ultimate sources of demand, which are in North America and Western Europe. They start the whole cycle going. What happens when you get a typical order? Say we get an order from a European retailer to produce 10,000 garments. It's not a simple matter of our Korean office sourcing Korean products or ur Indonesian office sourcing Indonesian products. For this customer we might decide to buy yarn from a Korean producer but have it woven and dyed in Taiwan. So we pick the yarn and ship it to Taiwan. The Japanese have the best zippers and buttons, but they manufacture them mostly in China. Okay, so we go to YKK, a big Japanese zipper manufacturer, and we order the right zippers from their Chinese SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT, HONG KONG STYLE LI & FUNG'S GLOBAL REACH Li & Fung prod uces a truly global product by pulling apart the manufacturing value chain and optimizing each step.Today it has 3 5 offices in 20 countries, but its global reach is expanding rapidly. In 1997, it had revenue of approximately $1. 7 billion. San Francisco Paris Oporto, Portugal San Pedro Sula, Honduras †¢ Brussels †¢ Istanbul †¢ Cairo Mauritius plants. Then we determine that, because of quotas and labor conditions, the best place to make the garments is Thailand. So we ship everything there. And because the customer needs quick delivery, we may divide the order across five factories in Thailand. Effectively, we are customizing the value chain to hest meet the customer's needs. Five weeks after we have received the order, 0,000 garments arrive on the shelves in Europe, all looking like they came from one factory, with colors, for example, perfectly matched. Just think about the logistics and the coordination. This is a nev*? type of value added, a truly global product that has never heen seen hefore. The label may say â€Å"made in Thailand,† but it's not a Thai product. We dissect the manufacturing process and look for the best solution at each step. We're not asking which country can do the best joh overall. Instead, we're pulling apart the value chain and optimizing each step – and we're doing it globally. 106Not only do the benefits outweigh the costs of logistics and transportation, but the higher value added also lets us charge more for our services. We deliver a sophisticated product and we deliver it fast. If you talk to the big global consumer-products companies, they are all moving in this directiontoward heing best on a glohal scale. So the multinational is essentially its own supplychain manager? Yes, exactly. Large manufacturing companies are increasingly doing global supply-chain management, just as Li & Fung does for its retailing customers. That's certainly the case in the auto industry.Today assemhly is the easy par t. The hard part is managing your suppliers and the flow of parts. In retailing, these changes are producing a revolution. For the first time, retailers are really creating produets, not just sitting in their offices with salesman after salesman showing them samples: â€Å"Do you HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW September-October 1998 SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT, HONG KONG STYLE Beijing Dalian Qingdau Shanghai Liuyang New Delhi Karachi Guangzhou . Shantou Dhaka Hanoi f† Bombay Bangalore †¢ Taipei Zhanjiang Bangkok Manila Saipan Colombo JohorBaharu . . Singapore Jakarta want to buy this?Do you want to buy that? † Instead, retailers are participating in the design process. They're now managing suppliers through us and are even reaching down to their suppliers' suppliers. Eventually that translates into much better management of inventories and lower markdowns in the stores. Explain why that translates into lower markdowns for retailers? Companies in consumer-driven, fast-moving m arkets face the prohlem of obsolete inventory with a vengeance. That means there is enormous value in heing able to huy â€Å"closer to the market. † If you can shorten your buying cycle from three onths to five weeks, for example, what you are gaining is eight weeks to develop a better sense of where the market is heading. And so you will end up with substantial savings in inventory markdowns at the end of the selling season. HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW September-October 1998 Good supply-chain management strips away time and cost from product delivery cycles. Our customers have hecome more fashion driven, working with six or seven seasons a year instead of just two or three. Once you move to shorter product cycles, the prohiem of obsolete inventory increases dramatically.Other businesses are facing the same kind of pressure. With customer tastes changing rapidly and markets segmenting into narrower niches, it's not just fashion products that are becoming increasingly time sensit ive. Several years ago, I had a conversation about ladies fashion garments with Stan Shih, CEO of Acer, the large Taiwan-hased PC manufacturer. I jokingly said, â€Å"Stan, are you going to encroach on our territory? † He said, â€Å"No, no, hut the PC business has the same basic problems you face. Things are changing so fast you don't want to wind up with inventory. You want to plan close to the market. He runs his husiness to cut down the delivery cycle SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT, HONG KONG STYLE and minimize inventory exposure by assembling PCs in local markets. So what I have to say about supply chain management for fashion products really applies to any product that's time sensitive. Supply chain management is about buying the right things and shortening the delivery cycles. It requires â€Å"reaching into the suppliers† to ensure that certain things happen on time and at the right quality level. Fundamentally, you're not taking the suppliers as a given. The classic supply-chain manager in retailing isMarks ik Spencer. They don't own any factories, but they have a huge team that goes into the factories and works with the management. The Gap also is known for stretching into its suppliers. Can you give me an example of how you reach into the supply chain to shorten the buying cycle? Think about what happens when you outsource manufacturing. The easy approach is to place an order for finished goods and let the supplier worry ahout contracting for the raw materials like fabric and yarn. But a single factory is relatively small and doesn't have much buying power; that is, it is too mall to demand faster deliveries from its suppliers. We come in and look at the whole supply chain. We know the Limited is going to order 100,000 garments, but we don't know the style or the colors yet. The buyer will tell us that five weeks before delivery. The trust between us and our supply network means that we can reserve undycd yarn from the yarn supplier. I can l ock up capacity at the mills for the weaving and dying with the promise that they'll get an order of a specified sizc; five weeks before delivery, we will let them know what colors we want. Then I say the same thing to the factories, â€Å"I on't know the product specs yet, but I have orga- the retailer hold off before having to commit to a fashion trend. It's all about flexibility, response time, small production runs, small minimum-order quantities, and the ability to shift direction as the trends move. Is it also about cost? Yes. At Li & Fung we think about supply chain management as â€Å"tackling the soft $3† in the cost structure. What do we mean hy that? If a typical consumer product leaves the factory at a price of $1, it will invariably end up on retail shelves at $4. Now you can try to squeeze the cost of production own 10 cents or 20 cents per product, hut today you have to be a genius to do that because everybody has been working on that for years and there's not a lot of fat left. It's better to look at the cost that is spread throughout the distribution channels-the soft $3. It offers a bigger target, and if you take 50 cents out, nobody will even know you are doing it. So it's a much easier place to effect savings for our customers. Can you give me an example? Sure. Shippers always want to fill a container to capacity. If you tell a manufacturer, â€Å"Don't fill up the container,† he'll think you're crazy.And if all you care about is the cost of shipping, there's no question you should fill the containers. But if you think instead of the whole value chain as a system, and you're trying to lower the total cost and not just one piece of it, then it may he sm^arter not to fill the containers. Let's say you want to distribute an assortment of ten products, each manufactured hy a different factory, to ten distribution centers. The standard practice would be for each factory to ship full containers of its product. And so those ten cont ainers would then have to go to a consolidator, who would unpack and epack all ten containers before shipping the assortment to the distribution centers. Now suppose instead that you move one container from factory to factory and get each factory to fill just onetenth of the container. Then you ship it with the assortment the customer needs directly to the distribution center. The shipping cost will be greater, and you will have to be careful about stacking the goods properly. But the total systems cost could be lower because you've eliminated the consolidator altogether. When someone is actively managing and organizing the whole supply chain, you can save costs like that. We think about supply chain management as ‘tackling the soft ‘ in the cost structure. † nized the colors and the fabric and the trim for you, and they'll be delivered to you on this date and you'll have three weeks to produce so many garments. † I've certainly made life harder for myself no w. It would be easier to let the factories worry about securing their own fabric and trim. But then the order would take three months, not five weeks. So to shrink the delivery cycle, I go upstream to organize production. And the shorter production time lets 108 HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW September-October 1998SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT, HONG KONG STYLE So when you talk about organizing the value chain, what you do goes well beyond simply contracting for other people's services ot inspecting their work. It sounds like the value you add extends almost to the point where you're providing management expertise to your supply network. In a sense, we are a smokeless factory. We do design. We huy and inspect the raw materials. We have factory managers, people who set up and plan production and balance the lines. We inspect production. But we don't manage the workers, and we don't own the factories. Think ahout the scope of what we do.We work with about 7,500 suppliers in more than 26 countries. If the average factory has 200 workers – that's probahly a low estimate – then in effect there are more than a million workers engaged on behalf of our customers. That's why our policy is not to own any portion of the value chain that deals with running factories. Managing a million workers would he a colossal undertaking. We'd lose all flexihility; we'd lose our ability to fine-tune and coordinate. So we deliherately leave that management challenge to the individual entrepreneurs we contract with. Our target in working with factories is to take nywhere from 30% to 70% of their production. We want to he important to them, and at 30% we're most likely their largest customer. On the other hand, we need flexibility-so we don't want the responsibility of having them completely dependent on us. And we also benefit from their exposure to their other customers. If we don't own factories, can we say we are in manufacturing? Absolutely. Because, of the 15 steps in the manufactu ring value chain, we prohably do 10. Our basic operating unit is the division. Whenever possible, we will focus an entire division on serving one customer. We may serve smaller customers hrough a division structured around a group of customers with similar needs. We have, for example, a theme-store division serving a handful of customers such as the Warner Brothers stores and Rainforest Cafe. This structuring of the organization around customers is very important – remember that what we do is close to creating a customized value chain for every customer order. So customer-focused divisions are the building hlocks of our organization, and we keep them small and entrepreneurial. They do anywhere from $20 million to $50 million of business. Each is run hy a â€Å"What we do is close to creating customized value chain for every customer order. † / The way Li & Fung is organized is unusual in the industry. Can you describe the link between your organization and your strateg y? Just about every company I know says that they are customer focused. What, in fact, does that mean? Usually it means they design key systems that fit most of their customers, they hope, most of the time. Here we say-and do-something different: We organize for the customer. Almost all the large trading companies with extensive networks of suppliers are organized geographically, with the country units as their profit centers.As a result, it is hard for them to optimize the value chain. Their country units are competing against one another for husiness. HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW September-October 1998 lead entrepreneur-we sometimes call them â€Å"little John Waynes† because the image of a guy standing in the middle of the wagon train, shooting at all the had guys, seems to fit. Consider our Gymhoree division, one of our largest. The division manager, Ada Liu, and her headquarters team have their own separate office space within the Li & Fung building in Hong Kong. When you wal k through their door, every one of the 0 or so people you see is focused solely on meeting Gymhoree's needs. On every desk is a computer with direct software links to Gymhoree. The staff is organized into specialized teams in such areas as technical support, merchandising, raw material purchasing, quality assurance, and shipping. And Ada has dedicated sourcing teams in our branch offices in China, the Philippines, and Indonesia because Gymboree buys in volume from all those countries. In maybe 5 of our 26 countries, she has her own team, people she hired herself. When she wants to source from, say, India, the branch office helps her get the joh done.In most multinational companies, fights hetween the geographic side of the organization and the product or customer side are legendary – and predictable. From the product side, it's â€Å"How can I get hetter service for my customer? It may be small for you in Bangladesh, hut it's important for my product line globally. † A nd from the country side, it's â€Å"Look, I can't let this product group take unfair advantage of this particular factory, hecause it pro109 SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT, HONG KONG STYLE duces for three other product groups and I'm responsible for our relationships in this country overall. Here's our solution to this classic prohlem: Our primary alignment is around customers and their needs. But to balance the matrix, every productgroup executive also has responsibility for one country. It makes them more sensitive to the prohlems facing a country director and less likely to make unreasonahle demands. Can you tell us more about the role of the little John Waynes? The idea is to create small units dedicated to taking care of one customer, and to have one person running a unit like she would her own company. In fact, we hire people whose main alternative would be to run their own business.We provide them with the financial resources and the administrative support of a hig organization, h ut we give them a great deal of autonomy. All the merchandising decisions that go into coordinating a production program for the customer-which factories to use, whether to stop a shipment or let it go forward-are made at the division-head level. For the creative parts of the business, we want entrepreneurial behavior, so we give people considerable operating freedom. To motivate the division leaders, we rely on substantial financial incentives by tying their compensation directly to the unit's bottom line.There's no cap on bonuses: we want entrepreneurs who are motivated to move heaven and earth for the customer. Trading companies can be run effectively only when they are small. By making small units the â€Å"We think of our divisions as a portfolio we can create and collapse, almost at will. † heart of our company, we have been able to grow rapidly without becoming bureaucratic. Today we have about 60 divisions. We think of them as a portfolio we can create and collapse, a lmost at will. As the market changes, our organization can adjust immediately. What role, then, does the corporate center play?When it comes to financial controls and operating procedures, we don't want creativity or entrepreneurial behavior. In these areas, we centralize and manage tightly. Li &. Fung has a standardized, fully computerized operating system for executing 110 and tracking orders, and everyone in the company uses the system. We also keep very tight control of working capital. As far as I'm concerned, inventory is the root of all evil. At a minimum, it increases the complexity of managing any business. So it's a word we don't tolerate around here. All cash flow is managed centrally through Hong Kong.All letters of credit, for example, come to Hong Kong for approval and are then reissued by the central office. That means we are guaranteed payment before we execute an order. I could expand the company by another 10% to 20% hy giving customers credit. But while we are ver y aggressive in merchandising – in finding new sources, for example-when it comes to financial management, we are very conservative. I understand^ though, that Li & Fung is involved in venture capital. Can you explain how t hat fits in? We've set up a small venture-capital arm, with offices in San Francisco, London, and Brussels, hose primary purpose is corporate development. If you look at a product market grid, Li &. Fung has expertise in sourcing many types of products for many types of retailers, but there are also holes in our coverage. A big piece of our corporate development is plugging those holes-the phrase we use is â€Å"filling in the mosaic† – and we use venture capital to do it. Let's say Li &. Fung is not strong in ladies fashion shoes. We'll have our venture group look for opportunities to buy into relatively young entrepreneurial companies with people who can create designs and sell them but who do not have the ability to source or to finance.Th at's what we bring to the deal. More important, doing the sourcing for the company lets us build presence and know-how in the segment. At the same time, we think it's a good way to enhance our returns. All venture capitalists will tell you that they bring more than money to their investments. In our case, we are ahle to back the companies with our sourcing network. One of our biggest successes is a company called Cyrk. We wanted to fill a hole in our mosaic in the promotional premiums business-clothing or gift items with company logos, for example. We bought a 30% stake in Cyrk for $200,000 in 1990. We ended p doing all the M&M gum hall dispensers with them, but the real coup was a full line of promotional clothing for Philip Morris. After five years, we sold our investment for about $65 million. We're more than happy with our investment results, but our real interest is in corporate developHARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW September-October 1998 SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT, HONG KONG STYLE SUPPL Y CHAIN MANAGEMENT: HOW LI & FUNG ADDS VALUE LI & Fung does the high-value-added front- and back-end tasks in Hong Kong front end design engineering production planning back end quality control testing logistics It organizes the ower-value-added middle stages through its network of 7,500 suppliers, 2,500 of which are active at any one time. raw material and component sourcing ment, in filling in the mosaic. We're not looking to grow by taking over whole companies. We know we can't manage a U. S. domestic company very well because we're so far away, and the culture is different. By hacking people on a minority basis, however, we improve our sourcing strength and enhance our ability to grow existing client relationships or to win new ones. That's real synergy. You've grown substantially both in size and in geographic scope in the last five years.Does becoming more multinational bring any fundamental changes to the company? Since 1993, we've changed from a Hong Kongbased Chinese compan y that was 99. 5% Chinese and probably 80% Hong Kong Chinese into a truly regional multinational with a workforce from at least 30 countries. We used to call ourselves a Chinese trading company. (The Japanese trading companies are very hig, and we wanted to he a big fish in a small pond, so we defined the pond as consisting of Chinese trading companies. ) As we grow, and as our workforce hecomes more nationally diverse, we wonder how Koreans or Indians or Turks will feel bout working for a Chinese multinational. HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW Septtmber-October 1998 managing production We're torn. We know that if we call ourselves a multinational, we're very small compared to a Nestle or a Unilever. And we don't want to he faceless. We are proud of our cultural heritage. But we don't want it to be an impediment to growth, and we want to make people comfortable that culturally we have a very open architecture. We position ourselves today as a Hong Kong-based multinational trading company. Ho ng Kong itself is hoth Chinese and very cosmopolitan. In five years, we've come a ong way in rethinking our identity. As we grow and become more multinational, the last thing we want to do is to run the company like the big multinationals. You know – where you have a corporate policy on medical leave or housing allowances or you name it. How do you avoid setting policies, a path that would seem inevitable lor most companies? We stick to a simple entrepreneurial principle. For the senior ranks of the company, the mobile executives, we â€Å"encash†-that is, we translate the value of benefits into dollar figures-as much as we can. Cash gives individuals the most fiexihiiity. I annot design a policy to fit 1,000 people, so when UI SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT, HONG KONG STYLE in doubt we give people money instead. You want a car? You think you deserve a car? We'd rather give you the cash and let you manage the car. You buy it, you service it. The usual multinational solution i s to hire experts to do a study. Then they write a manual on car ownership and hire ten people to administer the manual. If you ask yourself whether you would rather have a package of benefits or its equivalent in cash, m. ayhe you'll say, I don't want such a nice car, hut I'd prefer to spend more money on my home leave.Cash gives individuals a lot more freedom. That's our simplifying principle. month is still doing so this month. The committee of 30 not only shapes our policies hut also translates them into operating procedures we think will he effective in thefield. And then they hecome a vehicle for implementing what we've agreed on when they return to their divisions. There are few businesses as old as trading. Yet the essence of what you do at Li & Fung-managing information and relationships-sounds like a good description of tbe information economy. How do you reconcile the new economy with the old?At one level, Li &. Fung is an information node, fiipping information hetween ou r 350 customers Since you operate in so many countries, do you and our 7,500 suppliers. We manage all that today have to index cash equivalents to local economies? with a lot of phone calls and faxes and on-site visits. That's the guts of the company. Soon we will need Wherever we operate, we follow local rules and hest practices. We do not want uniformity for lower- a sophisticated information system with very open architecture to accommodate different protocols level managers. If they say in Korea, â€Å"We don't rom suppliers and from customers, one rohust want bonuses hut everyhody gets i 6 m onths enough to work in Hong Kong and New York-as salary,† that's the market. What we do would probwell as in places like Bangladesh, where you can't ahly drive the HR department in a multinational crazy. But it works for us: for the top people, we fig- always count on a good phone line. ure out a cash equivalent for henefits, and for the loI have a picture in my mind of the ideal tr ader for cal staff, we follow local hest practices. It's fine if today's world. The trader is an executive wearing e do things differently from country to country. a pith helmet and a safari jacket. But in one hand is a And rememher, we are an incentive-driven commachete and in the other a very high-tech personalpany. We try to make the variable component of computer and communication device. From one compensation as hig as possible and to extend that side, you're getting reports from suppliers in newly principle as far down into the organization as possi- emerging countries, where the quality of the inforhle. That's the entrepreneurial approach. mation may he poor. From the other side, you ight have highly accurate point-of-sale information from the United States that allows you to reAs you spread out geographically, how do you hold plenish automatically. In other words, you're mathe organization together? The company is managed on a day-to-day hasis by neuvering between areas that have a lot of catching the product group managers. Along with the top up to do-you're fighting through the underbrush, so to speak-and areas that are already clearly fomanagement, they form what we call the policy committee, which consists of about 30 people. We cused on the twenty-first century. meet once every five to six weeks.People fly in As the sources of supply explode, managing inforfrom around the region to discuss and agree on polimation becomes increasingly complex. Of course, cies. Consider, for example, the topic of compliwe have a lot of hard data about performance and ance, or ethical sourcing. How do we make sure our ahout the work we do with each factory. But what suppliers are doing the right thing-by our cuswe really want is difficult to pin down; a lot of the tomers' standards and our own-when it comes to most valuable information resides in people's issues such as child lahor, environmental protecheads.What kind of attitude does the owner have? tion, and countr y-of-origin regulations? Do we work well together? How good is their interCompliance is a very hot topic today-as well it nal management? That kind of organizational memory is a lot harder to retain and to share. We should be. Because our inspectors are in and out of see the capturing of such information as the next the factories all the time, we probably have a hetter frontier. You could look at us as a very sophisticated window on the prohlem than most companies. If IT system. So that's the modern side of who we are. we find factories that don't comply, we won't work ith them. However, because there is so much subcontracting, you can't assume that everyone is doWbat about the more traditional side? ing the right thing. That is, you have to make sure In the information age, there is an impersonality that a supplier that was operating properly last that seems to say that all the old-world thoughts 112 HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW September-October 1998 SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT, HONG KONG STYLE about relationships don't matter anymore. We're all taken with the notion that a bright young guy ean bring his great idea to the Internet, and it's okay if no one knows him from Adam. Right?Maybe. But at the same time, the old relationships, the old values, still matter. I think they matter in our dealings with suppliers, with eustomers, and with our own staff. Right now we're so big, three of our divisions could be seheduling work with the same factory. We could be fighting ourselves for factory capacity. So I'm in the process of creating a database to track systematically all our supplier relationships. We need something that everyone in the company ean use to review the performance history of all our suppliers. One of my colleagues said, â€Å"We'd better guard that with our lives, because if somebody ever ot into our system, they could steal one of the company's greatest assets. † I'm not so worried. Someone might steal our database, but when they call up a supplie r, they don't have the long relationship with the supplier that Li & Fung has. It makes a difference to suppliers when they know that you are dedicated to the business, that you've been honoring your commitments for 90 years. I think there is a similar traditional dimension to our customer relationships. In the old days, my father used to read every telex from eustomers. That made a huge difference in a business where a detail s small as the wrong zipper color could lead to disastrous delays for customers. Today William and I continue to read faxes from customers-certainly not every one, but enough to keep us in personal toucb with our customers and our operations on a daily basis. Through close attention to detail, we try to maintain our heritage of customer service. As we have transformed a family business into a modern one, we have tried to preserve the best of what my father and grandfather created. There is a family feeling in the company that's difficult to describe. We don't care much for titles and hierarchy.Family life and the company's business spill over into each other. When staff members are in Hong Kong to do business, my mother might have tea with their families. Of eourse, as we have grown we have had to change. My mother can't know everyone as she once did. But we hold on to our wish to preserve the intimacies that have been at the heart of our most successful relationships. If I had to capture it in one phrase, it would be this: Think like a big company, act like a small one. A TRADITION OF INNOVATION In the company's early years, Li & Fung dealt in porcelain and other trnditidnal Chinese products, inclLidinK bamboo nd rattan ware, jade and ivory handicrafts-and fireworks. Li ik Funj;'s invention of paper-sealed fireerackers in 1907 to replaee the traditional mudsealed firecracker was a major breakthrough. At that time, the U. S. import duty on firecrackers was hased on weight. The paper-sealed fireeraekers not only ineurred lower unport duti es by being lighter but also eliminated the problem of excessive dust produced by the discharge of the mud-sealed variety. Li &. Fung's paper-sealed manufaeturing process has become the industry's standard. i Is the growing importance of information technology good or bad for your bnsiness?Frankly, I am not unhappy that the business will HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW September-October 1998 113 SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT, HONG KONG STYLE be more dependent on information technology. The growing value of dispersed manufaeturing makes us reach even further around the globe, and IT helps us accomplish that stretching of the company. As Western companies work to remain competitive, supply chain management will become more important. Their need to serve smaller niche markets with more frequent changes in products is pushing us to establish new sources in less developed countries.We're forging into newly emerging centers of production, from Bangladesh to Sri Lanka to Madagascar. We're now landing in northern Africa – in Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco. We're starting down in South Africa and moving up to some of the equatorial countries. As the global supply network becomes larger and more far-flung, managing it will require scale. As a pure intermediary, our margins were squeezed. But as the number of supply chain options expands, we add value for our customers by using information and relationships to manage the network. We help companies navigate through a orld of expanded choice. And the expanding power of IT helps us do that. So the middle where we operate is broadening, making what we do more valuable and allowing us to deliver a better product, which translates into better prices and better margins for our customers. In fact, we think export trading is not a sunset industry but a growth business. Was the professional management training you and William brought with you from the United States helpful in running an Asian family business? It's an interesting question. For m y first 20 years with the company, I had to put aside-unlearn, in act-a lot of what I had learned in the West about management. It just wasn't relevant. The Li & Fung my grandfather founded was a typical patriarchal Chinese family conglomerate. Even today, most companies in Asia are built on that model. But a lot has changed in the last five years, and the current Asian financial crisis is going to transform the region even more. Now, instead of managing a few relationshipsthe essence of the old model-we're managing large, complex systems. It used to be that one or two big decisions a year would determine your success.In the 1980s, for example, many of the Asian tycoons were in asset-intensive businesses like real estate and shipping. You would make a very small number of very big decisions-you would acquire a piece of land or decide to build a supertanker-and you were done. And access to the deals depended on your connections. 114 The Li & Fung of today is quite different from the company my grandfather founded in 1906. As it was in a lot of family companies, people had a sense over the years that the company's purpose was to serve as the family's livelihood. One of the first things William and I did was to persuade my father o separate ownership and management by taking the company puhlic in 197 3. When our margins were squeezed during the 1980s, we felt we needed to make dramatic changes that could best be done if we went back to being a private company. So in 1988, we undertook Hong Kong's first management buyout, sold off assets, and refocused the company on its core trading business. Later we took our export trading business public again. I'm sure some of our thinking ahout governance structure and focus was influenced by our Western training. But I'm more struck by the changes In the company's decision making.Right now in this building, we probably have 50 buyers making hundreds of individual transactions. We're making a large number of small decisions instead of a small number of big ones. I can't be involved in all of tbem. So today I depend on structure, on guiding principles, on managing a system. Of course, I think relationships are still important, but I'm not managing a single key relationship and using it to leverage my entire enterprise. Instead, I'm running a very focused business using a systems approach. That's why I say that in the last five years, everything I learned in business school has come to matter. Li &

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â€Å"Corporal punishment is defined as the use of physical force with the intention to causing a child to experience pain, but not injury, for purposes of correction or control of the child’s behavior† (Walsh). This form of punishment has been used and accepted for many ages. However, during the last twenty years the debate on whether or not this kind of punishment is acceptable has continued to grow. There are many different views on the acceptance and uses of corporal punishment and those views seem to be dependant on a few different characteristics. â€Å"The characteristics associated with spanking a child are the age of the child, age and gender of the parent, socioeconomic status, circumstances, and cultural norms.† Yet all of these characteristics could easily be put under cultural norms. For it seems that as society and its views on corporal punishment change so do the views of the parents. Parent’s views have been changing throughout the years in a progression, which seems to be leading to the extinction of corporal punishment. Why has this change been occurring? â€Å"One reason for this change in attitudes is the heightened awareness of child abuse and its often devastating effects on children’s mental and physical development†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (Corporal Punishment). Some have said that they used corporal punishment and now regret it. â€Å"When I had children growing up in the 60’s corporal punishment was the thing used to discipline children. Now with all that has come out [about corporal punishment’s effects] I look back and wished I hadn’t followed what society’s norm was† (Pawlak). Many today try to encourage the use of other forms of punishment, such as sitting a child in a corner for time-out. â€Å"I always tell my kids that when they punish my grandchildren they should never hit them.† In the 1940s and 1950s corporal punishment was a very prevalent and acceptable form of punishment. Many thought hardly an... Free Essays on Legally Beaten Free Essays on Legally Beaten â€Å"Corporal punishment is defined as the use of physical force with the intention to causing a child to experience pain, but not injury, for purposes of correction or control of the child’s behavior† (Walsh). This form of punishment has been used and accepted for many ages. However, during the last twenty years the debate on whether or not this kind of punishment is acceptable has continued to grow. There are many different views on the acceptance and uses of corporal punishment and those views seem to be dependant on a few different characteristics. â€Å"The characteristics associated with spanking a child are the age of the child, age and gender of the parent, socioeconomic status, circumstances, and cultural norms.† Yet all of these characteristics could easily be put under cultural norms. For it seems that as society and its views on corporal punishment change so do the views of the parents. Parent’s views have been changing throughout the years in a progression, which seems to be leading to the extinction of corporal punishment. Why has this change been occurring? â€Å"One reason for this change in attitudes is the heightened awareness of child abuse and its often devastating effects on children’s mental and physical development†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (Corporal Punishment). Some have said that they used corporal punishment and now regret it. â€Å"When I had children growing up in the 60’s corporal punishment was the thing used to discipline children. Now with all that has come out [about corporal punishment’s effects] I look back and wished I hadn’t followed what society’s norm was† (Pawlak). Many today try to encourage the use of other forms of punishment, such as sitting a child in a corner for time-out. â€Å"I always tell my kids that when they punish my grandchildren they should never hit them.† In the 1940s and 1950s corporal punishment was a very prevalent and acceptable form of punishment. Many thought hardly an...