Industry Analysis Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Industry Analysis - Essay Example rs behind the recovery of the global economy, which had been adversely affected by the recent financial crisis and its financial shocks for the past five years (Pendrill 4). Currently, the industry is worth USD 800 billion, and market analysts predict that the global market for vehicles, particularly that of cars and light vehicles will increase from the current 80 million units bought annually, to reach more than 100 million by 2020 (Pendrill 4). Market analysts are forecasting that that the larger portion of the market expansion will come from emerging economies, including India and China among others. According to the statistics provided by the World Bank, car ownership in these markets stands at 58 cars per 1000 people in China and 18 for India; these figures are not comparable to those of European countries, where the average ratio is more than 500 cars per 1000 people. The high car ownership ration shows that European markets are saturated, therefore will not be the major drivers of market growth for the industry (Pendrill 4). In the recent past, the leadership of the automotive industry has featured three dominant players, including Toyota Motors, General Motors and Volkswagen AG. As of April 2013, these three giant players competed against one another, with the target of taking the top place (Muller 1). The race remained tight between the three main players, in the areas of production output and that of sales levels. During the year 2012/13, Toyota made sales of 9.7 million cars and trucks, which gave it a better standing, as compared to General Motors. General Motors, during the same year, sold 9.29 million cars and trucks and Volkswagen sold the least number of units out of the three companies; Volkswagen sold 9.1 million vehicles. However, from a comparison of the revenue levels, the profits made and the value of assets, Volkswagen was the unchallenged winner; VW made higher figures, when compared to the two other main competitors: Toyota Motors and GM

Lafarge-Aget Heracles Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 4500 words

Lafarge-Aget Heracles - Case Study Example Lafarge- Aget Heracles is one of the leading producers of cement. The company has not been able to witness rapid growth within the industry. Some of the problems which are acting as major setbacks to the growth of the company are inability to offer a differentiated product line, huge freight costs added with under utilization of capacity. Out of these problems, the most vital being the inability of the company to offer diverse products which might become one of the principal causes leading to a huge loss of market shares. The company needs to address this problem and the consequences it may suffer as a result of this persistent problem. To strengthen its competitive edge in the market, the company needs to innovate its product line with the help of sophisticated technologies. Though other problems also needs proper resolution, but in this report we limit our scope of study to the analysis of one of the most crucial problem faced by the company which is inability of offering a differe ntiated product line. One of the biggest problems challenging Lafarge - Aget Heracles is their inability to differentiate their product line. The need of a differentiated product line was constantly felt within the cement industry and Aget, being one of the major players of the industry, was very much aware of the fact. To build a niche in the market, it was becoming necessary for Aget to innovate its product line. The need of environment friendly cement mixtures and specialty cement was becoming ardent. To ensure rapid growth in an industry, businesses need to adopt strategies to render higher customer satisfaction and offer value-added products and services. Aget was falling back on this aspect. Looming under its huge cost structure, it was felt that Aget was not keen on implementing innovation strategies. This was becoming an absolute necessity for Aget in order to strengthen its competitive edge in the industry as a whole. Aget was not able to develop its existing product line or offer new products and was becoming unable to meet the changing needs of the customers. For example, government institutions were demanding certain kinds of cement mixtures and specialty cements which would be environment friendly and would not contribute to the depletion of natural resources. With the development of the infrastructure industry in various regions across the world, for example in the middle-east, the demand for a special type of cement was becoming more and more apparent which would ensure greater durability to the infrastructure. But like other cement manufacturers across the world, Aget seemed to underestimate the need of an innovative product line as it

Boston tea party Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Boston tea party - Research Paper Example Protests may be successful because it awakens the government to revise its rule, as in Congress can amend legislations. In the history, Americans found their protests for exorbitant taxes for tea effective. Their protest actions led to recall of the 25% tax on tea leaves by the parliament. Finding that a protest is a significant weapon, nationalism among the Americans became a widespread action that eventually led to a revolt for a cry of independence. How this transpired will be the topic of this paper. The Boston Tea Party The love for tea of the Europeans started importation, competition and monopoly. Since the tea leaves are not grown in the West, Europeans had to import it from the East Indies.1 Seeing fortune opportunities, many companies sought to compete and started importing tea leaves to the West. The costly war between France and India was just over and British storehouses were nearly empty. In subsequent events, the action of King George III was a fiscal monetary policy, because he imposed taxes to the American colonies. He had two economic visions at that time. One was to regain money lost, and the other is to reinstate their authority to the American colonies which they have neglected because of war.2 Taxes and monopoly When the monarchy started to tax products sold to America, people began to despise the rule. People became angrier when the royalty declared the tea a monopoly of the East India Company. And this was seen by historians as the biggest mistake of the King because this sparked nationalism that started the revolution. As a protest, the Boston Tea Party began. It was not really a party in the real sense, but a nomenclature given to protests to the levy imposition. On December 16, 1773, the first protest was done by a group of Boston patriots who posed themselves as Indians to gain access to the three English ships that held tea cargoes3. Protesters split open every chest and dumped its contents to the sea. Overall, the protesters in the first Boston Tea Party threw to the sea, three hundred fort-two chests of tea4. Similar protest actions followed in several seaports. On the Second tea party, done on March 7, 1774, 16 chests of tea were again thrown off to the sea. Of course, throwing of the tea into the sea is a only symbolic gesture that is a lead up to revolt for independence and a sign of protest. Shown below is a manifesto urging the citizens to protest, posted all over Boston on November 29, 1773, shortly after the arrival of 3 ships carrying tea owned by the East India Company5 Since tea has grown to be of much importance to the Americans and they found English tea to be very expensive because of taxes, Bostonians looked for alternatives such as smuggling. They found cheaper source from Holland thus evading the 25% tax slapped on them. Smuggling resulted to about half a million pounds and reduction of the English’ income6 This loss resulted to another economic policy from the parliament. To address t hese losses another fiscal policy repealed the 25% tax imposition on tea thus making the Dutch leaves much affordable.7 The Act further strengthened campaign for anti-smuggling. Seeing that Tea Law aroused more protests and was not very effective, The Stamp Act of was put into effect on March 22, 1765. This required every Americans to â€Å"pay a tax on every piece of printed paper they used. Ship's papers, legal documents, licenses, newspapers, other publications, and even playing cards were taxed. The money collected by the

Berlin Wall Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Berlin Wall - Research Paper Example After the Second World War, Joseph Stalin of the Soviet Union established an informal union of states which would be known later as the Eastern bloc, with Poland, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia as its allies (Wettig, 2008).   It was a grouping of nations which he planned to maintain together with the Soviet-controlled portion of Germany.   His plans were to compromise the power of the UK over its portion and when the US would later withdraw, he then wanted to push forward with his plants to create a united communist Germany (Wettig, 2008).   In order to funnel Soviet communist ideals to Germany, Marxism-Leninism became a standard part of the German school curriculum and this prompted many students, as well as scholars to defect to the West (Wettig, 2008).   East Germany was however under close monitoring by the German police as well as the Soviet secret police, also known as the SMERSH (Wettig, 2008).   This made defection difficult, but not impossible for thousands of East Ge rmans.     With disagreements regarding the introduction of new German currency, Stalin implemented the Berlin blockade which prevented the entry of food and other supplies from the Western occupied blocs (Pearson, 1988).   The Western bloc countries then airlifted some supplied into West Berlin.   The Soviets launched their public relations campaign against the Western bloc protesting the policy changes of the Western countries (Pearson, 1988).   As 300,000 Berliners protested against Stalin’s actions in stopping the airlifts.

Qatar Petroleum Essay Example for Free

Qatar Petroleum Essay Qatar Petroleum aims at maintaining high level of safety by trying to reach a zero level of people and environmental harm. The company uses Electronic Document Management System (EDMS) to maintain its daily operations. The methods helps them to save their documents in an organized format, retrieve them for future use share and use them. They also have a team which holds regular surveys of the whole petroleum plant especially of the pipelines. A record of all their daily activities is kept using the EDMS system as mentioned above. A report on the organizations activities can be obtained from their website as well as a book written by P. Tuson Records of Qatar: primary documents, 1820-1960; ed. P. Tuson. Archive edns, 1991. (8v) . Since any oil company poses numerous threats , benchmarks have been set to avoid them or reduce their occurance. Limitations have been set on their expansion, to share mproved ideas and information , maintain an unbreachable security checks and register them regularly. Workers undergo regular physical check-ups and their protective suits are also regularly scrutinized for emission penetration. There are also regular checks held by the government to ensure all the safety activities are being followed regularly. Qatar Petroleum is however not free from threats. Any oil company , Qatar being the biggest is susceptible to terrorist attack as the destruction caused will be massive , eading to a high death rate and heavy financial losses. Avoiding intrusion will be difficult as these companies are located by the sea and remote areas. The attack can be on refineries, distribution system, maritime transport , developmental and exploration sites. Oil companies pose their own threat too as any fault in the whole plant, being of the minutest nature, can lead to the same type of damage as would be caused by any terrorist attack.

The Dalai Lama And The Tibet Politics Essay

The Dalai Lama And The Tibet Politics Essay General Background: The Tibet is an autonomous region which is located in China and beside Nepal, this region was an independent country in 10th century, but it has suffered many invasions from the Mongol empire until an English invasion. In 1904, a British army gets to the Tibet and in 1906 the Tibet becomes a British protectorate; in 1907 Great Britain and Russia gives sovereignty to China; in 1912, 1931-1933 and in 1949 there are several attempts of Tibets independence. The Dalai Lama has been involved in this problem since 1904 when he was exiled in Mongolia, since this date he has been promoting the liberalization of the Tibet. Since 1949 that China invaded the Tibet there has been a loss of the Tibets liberty by the communist ideology of China, since this year China gave the power to the Dalai Lama in terms of internal issues but education and culture is managed by China. China and Tibet have had several disputes through many years because of the want of the Tibet for independence and the want of China of the Tibet as a definite region of China and the Dalai Lama has been affected by this conflict because he is a pacific mediator and has lost his credibility. The Dalai Lama as a politic figure does not recognize: the social system, the Tibet as a part of a Chinese territory, he insists in making The Tibet an independent republic and take out any person who is not a Tibetan citizen. This situation is a conflict, not only because it is a long term issue but also because it has involved a lot of persons and it has been difficult to find a solution to the problem. Since the conflict starts, around 1900-1907 with the invasion of the Tibet by United kingdom and China and continue escalation all the XX Century, this conflict has involved a lot of Chinas generations and Tibets generations, now the kids of both regions not only know the conflict, but also are determined to fight for the specific objectives that each region has. This conflict has a lot of issues that apparently are not able to negotiate: the different cultures of the regions are the protagonist (parties) of the conflict, and like every culture around the world they are trying to protect their believes and values as hard as possible, no one wants to negotiate even a custom. This issue has faced some of the most important people in the history, Mao Tse Tung and Dalai Lama, both with no congruent objectives what made so difficult a negotiation between them. The conflict starts not only by a land interest but also cultural affairs en which both sides dont want to give a step back in order to protect their culture and their sovereignty, unfortunately this has caused a lot of damage in the region, a lot of violent deaths. Human Rights organizations estimate that a many more than 1 million people lost their lives, and also that a lot more than 100,000 people are living in exile in India, Nepal and other countries; frustration in some people who want to protect their family and rancour (Ill feeling). The above confirms the affirmation that the Tibets conflict is a cultural derived problem: as it was told before, the parties are trying to protect their cultural and economic believes, but also each leader has entered the game to protect their own thoughts and culture with which he was raised There are many perceptions in this conflict; China argues that Tibet is part of china since hundreds of years, because of the dynastic unions between them and the conquerors made by China through history. This contrasts with the argument that gives the Tibet that China has controlled them using the force and has imposed them his traditions also the Tibet views China as a different country with its own traditions. Tibet civilians feel that the China government does not respect them and that they are treated in a different way than the China civilians are treated. This conflict is intractable now that Tibet and China have had strong discussions and wars, both have suffered many deaths because of this and there still exists a conflict of values and customs between both, in spite of the fact that many countries have gotten its independence either in pacific or horrible ways since the Tibet doesnt have the support of the strong countries nor NGOs it is really complicated for it to get to its main objective. In a future the conflict could be tractable if they start to develop a good international relationship and try to find a way to solve their differences and get to a win-win situation. This conflict is systemic now that it involves more than two parties, there have been third parties involved such as Great Britain, Nepal, Mongolia and nowadays United States is mediating. Also, there have been several issues such as geographical, resource issues, ideological issues and custom issues. There are three main sources of the conflict: conflict of interests and values because both have the same interests but here comes the goal conflicts which are different, while China wants the Tibet to be part of his domain, the Tibet wants freedom. This conflict is presented in an intergroup level of organization now that it is between China as a whole and the Tibet as a whole and having the Dalai Lama as a mediator but more towards defending Tibet. A big problem is that in spite of the fact that there are two distinguished parties; one is inside the other one, because Tibet is located in the south west of Chinas territory. Stages Latent conflict: the conflict started to appear when Great Britain and Russia give the sovereignty over Tibet to China, because since then China has the government of Tibet, controls almost all the factors that influence the region. Conflict emergence: Dalai Lama had had the government of Tibet for a while and the Chinas army made an invasion where Tibet was forced to face the direct loss of life and freedom. Escalation: Dalai Lama was ruling in parallel with Chinese government but when Tibetan territory was considered a Chinese province, there was developed a rebellion against China. Chinas army killed a lot of Tibetans so Dalai Lama had to escape to India. This conflict reached an escalated form because several characteristics, among them are the constant search for independence from Tibet, the disrespect of human rights for Tibetans, coalition of ideologies (Tibetans are against communist ideology or social system) and the principal is that China is not willing to lose Tibet because that land is very rich in minerals. In general there are a lot of issues in terms of politics, the nature of society, law, human rights, religion, culture, the identity of people, the economy, and the state of the natural environment. The condition that most encouraged this escalation was that China killed a lot of people and its trying to impose communism, and by the other side, China sees Tibetan religion as a big threat to the communist party so they dont let Tibetans to act against their principles and Tibetans dont want to accept them because their unique leader is Dalai Lama and rightness is what Buddhism establishes. This escalation is considered a rational action because there have been simultaneous activities that have encouraged this conflict, Dalai Lama and Tibetans are defending their culture, religion and territory, and China is reacting to Tibet rejection to its ideologies and is not willing to lose this land. Both parties tend to use distributive strategies because they look for keeping the same territory and their own ideologies so their motivations and interests are incompatible, where a win-lose situation takes place, for example, Tibetans ideal situation is having freedom, being directed by Dalai Lama and the right to develop their own religion and culture not the ones that Chinese government is imposing them, so they use strategies like claiming for peaceful negotiation and agreements to get to a deal where they can get the so called Tibetan independence, but instead, China uses stronger strategies like invasion and imposition. This conflict is being managed in the way that there have been some temporal agreements that are good for both and help maintaining peace but sometimes they have been disrupted by one of the two parties. Nowadays, Dalai Lama has a government in exile, hes directing Tibet from the outside but Tibetans and he will fight until he can get back to his motherland and reach independence. The conflict is mainly of competitive nature since both territories are fighting over the domain of the Tibet. They are trying to earn international trust and support from other countries to each one of them get to its goals and interests. This is why it is a continuous competition. Is there any trust within the parties? To answer this question we have to say the types of trust that we know: The identification based trust, and the calculus based trust. So the first one is inexistent in the conflict, because this kind of trust is based on the identification with the other since you have the same goals, interests, meetings, activities and other things (in common), and it is evidential that the Chinese government and the Tibetan population have different interests, goals and activities, for example: the Goal of the Chinese government is to control The Tibet, and the goal of the Tibetan is to control herself. So according to the latest, there is one trust yet, the calculus based trust,   this one is the one in which you analyze the possible rewards or punishment that you will have if you trust the other. As well as the Identification based trust, the calculus based trust is inexistent too, why?, it is because of the continuous attacks made by the Chinese and Tibetan , government and population respectively, so both motivated by the past have a perception in which they won`t trust each other, because they have been punished in the past. We think that they in the future can trust each other, but the first step to do it is by the calculus based trust, they have to be concern that they are causing problems to both sides so they have to create this calculus based trust by no attacking the other, by accomplishing what they say and finally negotiate about this conflict in a problem solving way, and maybe in a far future they can have an identification based trust. If a specific tactic is scheduled as unethical, it will depend of the ethical approach: for example, it could be said that the military massacre that occurred in 1959 by the hands of China is ethical if we analyze the issue in an End result way, but if we analyze it in Social contract way (Point of view of the countries outside the conflict) it will be said that is totally unethical. Based and the Social Contract analysis, it has been unethical tactics for both parties: China has invaded and killed in the Tibet area, also China has tried to create a bad reputation of the Dalai Lama. By the Tibet side, it can be said that some militia has used the force, and there are some comments about the manipulation that Dalai Lama could do through culture and regional feelings (emotional manipulation). The conflict had some negotiations, for example in 1950, China -commanded by Mao Tse Tung- entered to the Tibet with 40000 soldiers, this attack impose to the Tibetan leaders to accept a an alliance called Agree of 17 points, in which the communist leaders of China and the leaders of the Tibet, agreed in the restoration of the China`s sovereignty in Tibet, this alliance was signed in May of 1951. According to this we can conclude that the Chinese government had negotiated, and in this negotiation the Chinese government put his interests over the Tibetan population using his power to dominate them, so is a domination style. CONCLUSION The conflict between China and the Tibet comes since hundreds of years, across the history the Tibet has done revolutions to be free and China has made campaigns to dominate the Tibet , and fewer times that China has negotiated, China has used a dominated style (win-lose situation), the winner has been China, who is the owner of Tibet. The Dalai Lama, leader of the Tibet is hidden on India, he had been attacked by China with a bad-image campaign, and the China government is discriminating the Tibetans population, China puts his interests over the Tibet interests. China has some interests on the Tibet like the geopolitical strategy -The Tibet has a lot of natural resources that China is interested in-, the power, the cultural issues and the imposition of socialism.

Electoral College Proposal Essay -- Papers Government Politics Electio

Electoral College Proposal Imagine for a moment that a young man has been working hard all day on his own farm. He is the typical hard-working, middle-class American, not unlike Americans today. Normally this young man puts in a good twelve hours worth of work, but on this particularly special day, he relieves himself early. It is Election Day. He considers himself patriotic and takes this day very seriously. He casts his vote and comes home just in time to tuck his son into bed. He sleeps soundly through the night, knowing that he has helped to shape the country he loves so dearly. The next day, he learns that the man he voted for is not his new Commander in Chief. This man is not typically a sore loser, but in this particular instance, he is furious. The man he had voted for received the majority of the popular vote, but had not been elected as President by the Electoral College. We should amend Article II, Section 1, the portion of the Constitution that calls for the Electoral College, because the current system of presidential elections does not necessarily represent the will of the people. With all of the problems surrounding our country?s most recent election, it is easy to recognize that something is not right with our current system of presidential elections. If this system of elections is flawed and needs to be changed, then why was it ever implemented in the first place? Our founding fathers implemented this system for several reasons, primarily to prevent ?the masses? (Parkinson) from electing someone whom the educated political leaders did not think was best for the nation. Dumbauld says that in 1787, the year of the Constitutional Convention, there was fear that a foreign power could put forth a... ...s ?represented of the people, by the people, and for the people.? If we, the people, do not agree with something in the government, it is our right and responsibility, to take action. Speak or write a letter to the area?s congressmen. They are required to listen. Remember, in a truly democratic society, every voice is heard and every voice counts. Bibliography: Blight, Chudacoff, Escott, Katzman, Norton, Patterson, and Tuttle. Since 1865. New York: Houghtom Mifflin, 1998. Vol. 2 A People and a Nation. 2 vols. 1998. Dumbauld, Edward. The Constitution of the United States. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1964. Hamilton, Alexander. Anti-Federalists versus Federalists: Union as a Barrier to Faction and Insurrection. 1788. Ed. J. D. Lewis. San Francisco: 124 Spear Street, 1967. Parkinson, Thomas J. Personal interview. 23 Nov. 2000