Business Plan Coursework Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3500 words

Marketable strategy - Coursework Example Logically, this marketable strategy gives a diagram of proprietorship and structure of the proposed business alongside the group development that will be followed in the operational branch of the business. The arrangement additionally delineates the promoting methodology of the business to enter and get set up in the market of Liverpool. Relevantly, an investigation of the contenders and their qualities and shortcomings has additionally been delineated in the arrangement so as to get a complete comprehension about the serious idea of the general market. The strategic plan likewise joins a powerful and applicable estimation of speculation needs alongside the necessary spending plan for the initial three years from the beginning up of the endeavor. 2. The Business Idea corresponding to the present capricious situation of the worldwide café industry, a sensational development of the smorgasbord eatery business can be seen as getting more prominent interests of the cutting edge business visionaries. The developing pattern of the changing food propensities alongside developing execution of the world-cooking business idea have been quickly exhibiting a more noteworthy open door for the advertisers to accomplish a steady business position in the furiously serious eatery industry. ... ost liked and dependable eatery organization as far as conveying clients with uncommon and quality based multi-cooking food things, showing a wide scope of worldwide societies and in this manner, venturing out towards producing mindfulness in regards to the ethnic lavishness of the comparing worldwide countries. Besides, the other center destinations of the endeavor would be centered around accomplishing a base development of 10% in its productivity every month after the beginning up. Likewise, accomplishing the ideal deals focus of ?80,000 in the main year and enlarging its yearly deals around 15% in the second year of the endeavor can likewise be considered as the other essential destinations of the association. As to the changing patterns of the worldwide clients alongside expanding request of world-cooking cafés, the essential point of this report is to set up a successful and important field-tested strategy for setting up a multi-food buffet store in the developing UK buffet ea tery industry. The proposed field-tested strategy would be incorporated pertinent data and thought as for the administration body, operational capacities alongside money related projections to be a fruitful business visionary in the developing smorgasbord industry of the UK. So as to build the proficiency of the proposed arrangement, the proposition would likewise concentrate on gathering important data about the possession structure and the applicable lawful systems so as to shield the association from various outer dangers and issues that may be seen in its underlying period of advancement. 3. Foundation of the UK Buffet Restaurant Industry corresponding to the current pattern of the worldwide eatery industry, it is evident to perceive sensational changes in the food propensities or favored food things of the worldwide clients. Also,

Cognitive Therapy For Depression Essay Example For Students

Subjective Therapy For Depression Essay Subjective BEHAVIORAL THERAPY FOR DEPRESSIONIntroductionCognitive social treatment improves people groups mind-sets and conduct by changing their direction thinking; likewise, how they decipher occasions and converse with themselves. This type of psychotherapy assists control with peopling into intuition all the more everything being equal and encourages them adapting methodologies to manage their downturn. Psychological treatment is as a rule a transient treatment that can have long haul results. I will examine gloom in youthfulness and how it impacts individual modifications, which may frequently proceed into adulthood. I will likewise talk about despondency in the old. There are various ways to deal with treating misery, the principle approach that will be examined is subjective conduct treatment, which is an approach to break the cycle for discouragement. What is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy?Cognitive conduct treatment assists individuals with breaking the associations between troublesome circumstances and their constant responses to them. This can be responses, for example, dread, fierceness or gloom, and foolish or self-harming conduct. It likewise shows individuals how to quiet their brain and body, so they can feel much improved, think all the more plainly, and settle on better choices. Subjective treatment likewise shows individuals how certain reasoning examples are causing their side effects. This is practiced by giving individuals a mutilated picture of whats going on in their life, and causing them to feel on edge, discouraged or irate for nothing more than trouble reason.(Francis, 2000) When individuals are in conduct treatment and psychological treatment, it gives them different apparatuses for halting their indications and getting their life on an all the more fulfilling track. In psychological treatment, the advisor takes a functioning part in taking care of a patients issues. The person in question doesnt settle for simply gesturing carefully while the patient worries about the entire concern of finding the appropriate responses they came to treatment for at first. Intellectual advisors instruct patients to distinguish their negative musings, perceive their mistaken nature and devise a restorative arrangement that prompts progressively positive evaluations and a capacity to bargain all the more practically with consistently problems.(Burns, 1996-2000) Dr. Frances M. Christian, a clinical social specialist and subjective advisor at the Medical College of Virginia in Richmond, says, ?Thoughts and convictions have a great deal to do with how individuals feel and carry on. From the get-go throughout everyday life, individuals create center convictions about themselves and others and about how the world operates.?Cognitive social treatment has been altogether looked into. In a great many investigations, it has been demonstrated to be as compelling as medications in treating both sadness and uneasiness. Specifically, subjective social treatment has been demonstrated to be superior to drugs in maintaining a strategic distance from treatment disappointments and in forestalling backslide after the finish of treatment. A psychological advisor guides a patients focus toward programmed contemplations, the things individuals state to themselves, that bring about undesirable sentiments. (Stopa, 2000) For instance, somebody inclined to nervousness assaults may consequently think, Im going to fail, when taking a test, taking an interest in a school occasion or being met for an occupation. Subsequent to flopping such an undertaking, the individual may finish up, again consequently, Im a washout. In treatment, the individual is assisted with perceiving hallucinations in thought, which incorporate misrepresenting the feeling of danger, envisioning calamity as the result, and over summing up fro m one negative understanding and overlooking occasions when things worked out in a good way. At long last, when the harming programmed musings are perceived, the individual is assisted with inspecting how practical they are, and they think about elective clarifications, at that point envision different results and understand that the side effects of uneasiness are not the preface to a cardiovascular failure or some other clinical catastrophe. (Stopa, 2000) This equivalent methodology is polished for sadness. The distinction in the helpful methodology as opposed to sedating is emotional, and the alleviation individuals feel is quick. Rather than harping on the negative, which different specialists now and then do, they obtain remedial devices the discouraged can apply on their own, in the event that they may wind up slipping into old examples of thought or conduct. (Stopa, 2000)Furthermore, examines have demonstrated that the aftereffects of psychological treatment are enduring, with backslide rates a lot of lower than with different methods of treatment, including mental medications. And keeping in mind that prescription is at times utilized, in any event quickly, to diminish exceptional enthusiastic unsettling influences and improve receptivity to treatment, most patients can be saved the reactions of medications, which may incorporate the failure to work explicitly, agitated stomach, trouble resting and trouble concentrating.(Brody, 1996) While nobody way to deal with psychotherapy is suitable for everybody, a large number of patients have profited by the procedures one of a kind to psychological treatment. In the 30 or so years since the methodology was created by Dr. Aaron T. Beck, a widely acclaimed specialist at the Beck Center for Cognitive Therapy in Philadelphia, it has become the most logically tried model of psychotherapy. (Brody, 1996)What is Depression?According to Dr. Judith S. Beck and Dr. Aaron Beck, her girl, ?Patients have nonstop undesirable contemplations and that each idea extends the downturn.? In any case, these musings are not founded on realities and result in sentiments of misery this is a long ways past what the circumstance ensures, it has to do with theoretical circumstances. ?Discouraged people commit such errors again and again,? Quinn has composed. ?Truth be told, they may confound amicable suggestions as dismissals. They will in general observe the negative, as opposed to the positive side of things. In addition they don't check to decide if they may have committed an error in deciphering events.?(Quinn, 1998) Depressed reasoning frequently appears as negative musings about oneself, the present, and what's to come. The state of mind in despondency is quite often experienced as dismal. As per a patients letter composed and later distributed with the consent of William Morrow and Company, (distributer of Moodswing): from the book, ?Depression and its Treatment?, her involvement in this state of mind issue was gloom and futility. In the end she ended up resting before around evening time just to stop the on edge musings entering her psyche. The patient says her hunger deteriorated and she turned out to be truly sick with the movement of her downturn. The announcement later peruses, ?If I needed to see a therapist, it implied that I was most likely going crazy, and this idea made me much increasingly scared. It was beyond what I could stand. The dread of being intellectually poorly was ghastly to such an extent th at I chose to take my whole jug of dozing pills as opposed to confront the disgrace of being a psychological patient.?(Griest ; Jefferson, 1992) Depression can strike anybody at some random time. It influences 5% of the populace whenever and in any event 10% of the populace sooner or later in the course of their life. At any rate 10% of the individuals with significant melancholy end their lives by self destruction. (Greist ; Jefferson1992)Depression in AdolescentsHow pervasive are state of mind issue in kids and is a youthful with changes in mind-set considered clinically discouraged? Oster has said the motivation behind why despondency is regularly over glanced in kids and teenagers are on the grounds that ?youngsters are not constantly ready to communicate how they feel.?(Oster ; Montgomery 1997) Sometimes the side effects of state of mind issue take on various structures in kids than in grown-ups. Youth is a period of passionate strife, state of mind swings, miserable considerat ions, and over affectability, it is additionally a period of resistance and experimentation. In this manner, the finding ought not lie just in the doctors hands yet be related with guardians, educators and any individual who communicates with the kid consistently. In contrast to grown-up melancholy, side effects of adolecent wretchedness are regularly disguised. Rather than communicating trouble, youngsters may communicate weariness and fractiousness, or may decide to engage in unsafe practices. (Oster Montgomery, 1995) The key markers of pre-adult discouragement remember an exceptional change for eating and resting designs, huge loss of enthusiasm for past exercises, hostility and weariness. The indications of clinical misery remember stamped changes for temperament and related practices that run from pity, withdrawal, and diminished vitality to serious sentiments of sadness and self-destructive considerations. Gloom is frequently depicted as an embellishment of the length and powe r of ?typical? state of mind changes (Oster Montgomery, 1995), steady weariness, problematic conduct, peer issues, and expanded peevishness and hostility. (OConnor 1997) For some adolescents, side effects of sorrow are legitimately identified with low confidence originating from expanded accentuation on peer notoriety. For different adolescents, wretchedness emerges from poor family relations which could incorporate diminished family support and saw dismissal by guardians (Quinn, 1998). Immature self destruction is currently liable for additional passings in youngsters age 15 to19 than disease (Oster ; Montgomery, 1997). Your Own Particular Harbor EssayEffective Treatment for DepressionCognitive Therapy is a successful treatment for gloom. It depends on the possibility that how individuals think to a great extent decides how individuals feel. This type of Therapy instructs individuals to perceive and challenge upsetting contemplations. Figuring out how to challenge negative musings improves the patient feel and causes them to think all the more everything being equal. Lusia Stopa clarifies that individuals can't just simply choose to think positive. (Any individual who has experienced misery realizes that there are no straightforward enchantment answers!) Instead, she shows that individuals can start to see when and where pessimistic musings happen, methodicallly choose how precise these contemplations are, and where essential, to transform them to something increasingly supportive to individuals. (Stopa, 2000) According to the conduct parts of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy it prescribes to moni

d-d-d-d-drop date

d-d-d-d-drop date tl;dr: MIT lets you drop subjects basically at the end of the semester which is different and wonderful Oh, boy, I have been awake for many hours and in one more hour (its midnight rn) I will drive to Atlanta to attempt to fly back to Boston since essentially all of the flights out of my local airport were cancelled today and I have attendance-necessary, non-lecture classes to get to on Tuesday. This was my first year not staying in Cambridge for Thanksgiving, and I understand why now (so much work so little reliable plane). Turns out its really hard to revise that paper and do that pset when you have a puppy to play with. Thanksgiving plane tickets cost so much that I ended up skipping 3 days of classes just so that I could go home for less than a thousand dollars.  The fried turkey was nice, though. The Wednesday that I missed was a really special day for MIT that we call Drop Date. November 21, 2018, marked the deadline to remove from your transcript any class in which you were currently enrolled.  In the spring Baker House usually drops a piano off their roof to celebrate, but it’s too cold for that now. Whats so special about Drop Date? Maybe you completed a couple of midterms and a chunk of psets in a class and realized that its likely you wont pass or get the grade you want. Drop the class! Maybe you registered for like ten classes with the intention of only completing four. Drop the other five! Maybe you just want to stay at MIT forever and retake classes over and over. Drop all your classes!01 This is a joke. Please dont do this. Over the break, I was talking to my sister02 she goes to another university that recently lost the Iron Bowl about dropping classes, and she said that it sucks.03 this is true of most colleges You have a week or two to drop a class and it costs money. If you drop any later the class will show up on your transcript as a withdrawal, which looks a little ugly to grad schools and such. MIT is cool with you dropping classes 11 weeks into a 14-week semester. It will only show up on your internal transcript.04 the one that MIT keeps, not the one that gets sent to people In fact, it won’t even show up on your internal transcript if you drop before the fifth week of the semester. Perhaps best of all, it doesn’t cost money. This probably has something to do with how at MIT you don’t pay tuition based on the number of credit-hours you take. Everyone pays the same tuition, and you can take as many classes as you can feasibly absorb. It’s great for nerds who want to study rockets and music and politics and physics. Since I love to extensively plan and schedule and scheme to maximize my fulfillment of institute requirements without overextending my goblin brain, I’ve sparingly taken advantage of this resource. Nevertheless, it’s nice to know it’s there if I need it (like a Who Wants to Be a Millionaire lifeline). Every post deserves pictures, so here are some precious moments from the past week. Enjoy! Post Tagged #drop date #Thanksgiving This is a joke. Please don't do this. back to text ? she goes to another university that recently lost the Iron Bowl back to text ? this is true of most colleges back to text ? the one that MIT keeps, not the one that gets sent to people back to text ?

Ways Of Seeing By John Berger - 1522 Words

Rebecca Morin Professor Foster English Composition 10th, December, 2015 Ways of Seeing by John Berger is a set of essays used to explain different techniques used in oil paintings, advertisements, and the way people look at things differently from one another. The abstract image Altera Pars by Wojciech Grzanka is a part of his surreal photo manipulation series called â€Å"It’s All In My Head†. In this image a woman clearly with two sets of arms shows that she is control of how and what she feels. Her attire shows mixed feelings on how she wants to be looked at. She is wearing a dress that fades away towards the bottom and underneath she is wearing pants. She stands comfortably in a room that is grungy and dirty. Women and men should not be condemned to live up to society’s expectations of what is right and wrong. The third chapter in Ways of Seeing focuses on the idea that women and men have a different social presence. A man’s presence is supposed to represent how much power he has. The more power a man has the more grand a nd important he seems to other people. It represents what he can do to people and for people. A woman’s presence is represented by how she views herself and what she is willing to deal with from other people. She is also defined by her clothes, her actions, opinions, and what or who she is surrounded by. She has to act as if she was two different people, she is to observe herself and pay attention to the presentation of herself as other people do. TheirShow MoreRelatedWays Of Seeing By John Berger902 Words   |  4 Pages In â€Å"Ways of Seeing†, John Berger, an English art critic, argues that images are important for the present-day by saying, â€Å"No other kind of relic or text from the past can offer such direct testimony about the world which surrounded other people at other times. In this respect images are more precise and richer literature† (10). John Berger allowed others to see the true meaning behind certain art pieces in â€Å"Ways of Seeing†. Images and art show what people experienced in the past allowing othersRead MoreJohn Berger Ways Of Seeing Analysis1582 Words   |  7 PagesIn John Berger’s Ways of Seeing he speaks of how the meaning of artwork is dynamic, because we cannot visit the past and truly know what each artist is thinking and feeling as he paints his work, so it changes with one’s personal experience and the context in which one experiences them. He also speaks of how critics â€Å"mystify† artwork of the past, attempting to set in stone their personal meaning of the piece, closing the door of interpretation to anyone who reads their commentary on the piece. WhoRead MoreSummary Of Ways Of Seeing By John Berger1362 Words   |  6 PagesIn â€Å"Ways of Seeing†, John Berger discusses how the way people interpret thoughts is largely based on other factors. In the second line of the text he says, â€Å" The child looks and recognizes before it speaks †(Berger 142). Be rger is telling people through this line that â€Å"Seeing comes before words†(Berger 142). Children must take in their environment before they acquire a language. This even translates to when they grow up and become adults. Adults take in their surroundings before beginning to discussRead MoreThe Way Of Seeing By John Berger1232 Words   |  5 Pagesreally good looking women are main models of the advertisements. Not only in advertisements, but also in many films and dramas, the main character is always a tall, thin and beautiful woman. This situation can be explained by John Berger’s book, â€Å"Way’s of seeing†. John Berger is an English art critic, novelist, and painter, and this book is about how people can see something critically and find deep meaning of things, especially art paintings. In chapter 2, there are only paintings and photos, andRead MoreJohn Berger Essay- Ways of Seeing1833 Words   |  8 Pagescomplexity of mummies. Throughout all these diverse cultures of art, I was questioning myself and started to wonder how I could understand art beyond others’ opinion about them. Moreover, I realized that it was a question John Berger, critic of art and author of the Ways of Seeing, raised in his essay, and it is a question that will always be raised while demanding how to understand a certain art. Walking through a room where various French artists had their paintings exposed, I fell in front of theRead MoreSummary Of Ways Of Seeing By John Berger2448 Words   |  10 Pagesview of the world around them for everything already the moment you were born. Based off of your sex, gender, religion, income, sexuality, culture, etc., everyone sees things differently through their own lenses, this is the idea of â€Å"Ways of Seeing† presented by John Berger. Expressionism is the art style where artists use their own personal and emotional experiences on to the canvas versus making art that has been influenced by their society. In a sense, Expressionism is very similar to Abstract artRead MoreCommentary and Analysis of Ways of Seeing by John Berger 1198 Words   |  5 Pagesbecome the way it shows on television. The article â€Å"Ways of seeing† written by John Berger aims to analyze the relationship between art and the society. Rather than describe Berger as a poet or artist, p eople would think it more suitable to describe him as a cultural philosopher because of his profound and impressed interpretations. This article is one of the topics of â€Å"Ways of seeing† which is around the theme of â€Å"publicity†, a word used as advertising by Berger, and capitalism daydreams. Berger wantsRead MoreAnalysis Of The Book Ways Of Seeing By John Berger1042 Words   |  5 Pages Berger, John. Ways of Seeing. London: British Broadcasting, 1973. Print. The book, Ways of Seeing by John Berger is based on the concept that the way we see things. It explores our knowledge and past experiences. The reproduction and recreation of images and how that changes our own thoughts on an artwork. The book reveiws the history of nude women in art, and the negative impacts of advertising in the art world. The book is organized in a form of chapters, including pictorials. I chose to writeRead MoreRhetorical Analysis Of John Berger s Ways Of Seeing912 Words   |  4 Pages Rhetorical Analysis Essay In John Berger’s essay â€Å"Ways of Seeing,† he shares his view on how he feels art is seen. Mr. Berger explores how the views of people are original and how art is seen very differently. By comparing certain photographs, he goes on to let his Audience, which is represented as the academic, witness for themselves how art may come across as something specific and it can mean something completely different depending on who is studying the art. The author goes into details ofRead MoreThe Reading Ways Of Seeing By John Berger And Banking Concepts Of Education By Paulo Freire1156 Words   |  5 Pageschanged in both ways in the two reading Ways of Seeing by John Berger and Banking Concepts of Education by Paulo Freire. While the first half of Ways of Seeing consists of possible positive aspects of the worlds perspective, the second half consists of the negative effects that the influences of the world have on perspectives. Also, Banking Concepts of Education provides us wi th the negative influences on perspective through perspective. In the first 66 pages of Ways of Seeing, John Berger claims several

Theme Of Family Dysfunction In King Lear - 718 Words

A Serious of Unfortunate Events King Lear is play about a king who decided to step down from his throne and split his kingdom evenly among his three beautiful daughters. He put them through a test to see who loves him the most to his surprise only one loves him the most out of all three. Gloucester have one illegitimate son and one by law but soon knows that they both want him dead. Throughout the play, not only did King Lear had family problems but other people that was surrounded around King Lear was having problems as well. In this paper, it will discuss how two different families have a similar theme which is family dysfunction and how both handle it differently. King Lear question his daughters about their love they have for him.†¦show more content†¦He jokes about this because he does not want to acknowledge his illegitimate son because he was conceived outside of marriage. Edmund is mad at the fact that his own father does not want to claim him, so he goes after his b rother, Edgar. â€Å"Legitimate Edgar, I must have your land. Our father’s love is to the bastard Edmund. Well, my legitimate, if this letter speed and my invention thrive, Edmund the base shall top legitimate. Now, gods, stand up for bastards† (1.2.2-23). Edmund is furious because he is not part of the family. He seeks revenge on Edgar by going after his land and for being a bastard that his father thinks he is. Edgar and Edmund works together to take over their father’s wealth. Edgar writes a fake letter to his brother and Gloucester finds it and was furious to find out that they were plotting his death. â€Å"Conspiracy? Sleep till I waked him, you should enjoyed half his revenue. My son Edgar! Had he a hand to write this? A heart and brain to breed it in? -When came this to you? Who brought it?† (1.2.49-61). His relationships with his sons have same issues surrounding primogeniture which means that the oldest sons inherit their father’s wealth. The letter proves that they want to kill their father just so that they can take power over their father’s lands. Family will go to extreme measure when it comes to money. Some families have their problems and some do not. In this play, two different families were struggling

Cost-Effective Service Excellence Lessons from Singapore Airlines Free Essays

string(35) " customers with high expectations\." Cost-effective service excellence: lessons from Singapore Airlines Singapore Airlines is well known as a paragon of in-flight service. It is also a remarkably efficient and profitable airline and has been for decades. Loizos Heracleous, Jochen Wirtz and Robert Johnston explain how it combines service excellence with cost effectiveness. We will write a custom essay sample on Cost-Effective Service Excellence: Lessons from Singapore Airlines or any similar topic only for you Order Now Singapore Airlines (SIA) has achieved the Holy Grail of strategic success: sustainable competitive advantage. It has consistently outperformed its competitors throughout its 30-year history. In addition, it has always achieved substantial returns in an industry plagued by intermittent periods of disastrous under-performance (see Table 1). Cost-effective service excellence: lessons from Singapore Airlines SIA has done this by managing to navigate skilfully between poles that most companies think of as distinct – delivering service excellence in a costeffective way. SIA’s awards list is long and distinguished. In 2002 alone it won no less than 67 international awards and honours including â€Å"best airline† and â€Å"most admired airline† in the world in Fortune’s Global Most Admired Companies survey. Spring 2004 G Volume 15 Issue 1 Business Strategy Review 33 Since Michael Porter’s influential suggestion that differentiation and cost leadership are mutually exclusive strategies and that an organisation must ultimately choose where its competitive advantage will lie, there has been fierce debate about whether a combined strategy can be achieved – and sustained over the longer term. SIA is proof that the answer to both these questions is positive. So, how does it consistently deliver premium service to demanding customers in an industry where both price pressures and customer expectations have been continually rising? In common with many other organisations with a reputation for providing excellent service, SIA has top management commitment to service, customer-focused staff and systems, and a customer-oriented culture. However, our research into SIA, spanning many years and at all levels in the organisation, has uncovered a umber of insights into developing and maintaining a reputation for service excellence that is applicable to a wide range of service organisations. Ultimately, SIA’s success is attributed to a customer-oriented culture, its recognition of the importance of its customers. â€Å"Our passengers are our raison d’etre. If SIA is successful, it is largely because we have never allowed ourselves to forget that important fact,† s ays Dr Cheong Choong Kong, former CEO of SIA. However, what distinguishes SIA’s culture is that these are not just abstract, â€Å"motherhood† statements. The values of cost-effective service excellence are enshrined in a unique, selfreinforcing activity system that makes the values real for all employees. We found that the five pillars of this activity system (see Figure 1) are: G rigorous service design and development G total innovation (integrating continuous incremental improvements with discontinuous innovations) G profit and cost consciousness ingrained in all employees G holistic staff development; G reaping of strategic synergies through related diversification and world-class infrastructure. Rigorous service design and development Twenty years ago Lyn Shostack complained that service design and development is usually characterised by trial and error. Unlike manufacturing organisations, where RD departments and product engineers were routine, systematic testing of services, or service engineering, was not the norm. Things appear to have changed little since then. SIA, however, has always regarded product design and development as a serious, structured, scientific issue. Performance metrics Revenues $m SIA United Northwest Continental American Delta BA Cathay KLM Quantas 5,133 16,138 9,905 8,969 18,963 13,879 12,103 3,903 5,788 5,207 Net income (loss) $m Net profit margin (%) Operational profit margin (%) Revenue / cost ratio Revenue per $1,000 labour cost Net income per Load Tonne – Km $0. 001 343. 2 (2,145) (423. 0) (95. 0) (1,762) (1,027) (206. 1) 84. 2 (138. 2) 212. 3 6. 68 —— —— —— —— —— —— 2. 16 —— 4. 08 10. 4 —— —— 0. 016 —— —— —— 2. 73 —— 6. 83 1. 12 5,310 0. 81 2,279 0. 92 2,499 1. 02 2,969 0. 88 2,361 0. 93 2,266 0. 99 3,581 1. 03 3,989 0. 9 3,739 1. 07 3,995 2. 73 (10. 53) (3. 06) (1. 02) (8. 64) (6. 27) (1. 55) 1. 03 (1. 35) 2. 54 Table 1 Singapore Airlines’ performance relative to competitors Sources: Annual Reports for the airlines’ most recent financial year. IATA World Air Transport Statistics 2001; www. exchanger ate. com (past rates based on respective report dates). 34 Business Strategy Review Spring 2004 G Volume 15 Issue 1 Cost-effective service excellence: lessons from Singapore Airlines Cost Effective Service Excellence Ingrained profit consciousness Rigorous service design Figure 1 The five pillars supporting SIA’s cost-effective service excellence SIA has a service development department that hones and tests any change before it is introduced. This department undertakes research, trials, time and motion studies, mockups, assessing customer reaction – whatever is necessary to ensure that a service innovation is supported by the right procedures. Underpinning continuous innovation and development is a culture that accepts change as a way of life. A trial that fails or an implemented innovation that is removed after a few months are not seen as problems. In some organisations personal reputations can be at stake and so pilot tests â€Å"have to work†. At SIA a failed pilot test damages no-one’s reputation. In some organisations, service, and indeed product, innovations live beyond their useful years because of political pressure or lack of investment resources. SIA expects that any innovation is likely to have a short shelf life. The airline recognises that to sustain its differentiation it must maintain continuous improvement and be able to kill programmes or services that no longer provide competitive differentiation. According to Yap Kim Wah, senior vice-president, product and service: â€Å"It is getting more and more difficult to differentiate ourselves because every airline is doing the same thing†¦the crucial fact is that we continue to say that we want to improve. That we have the will to do so. And that every time we reach a goal, we always say that [we’ve] Cost-effective service excellence: lessons from Singapore Airlines got to find a new mountain or hill to climb†¦you must be able to give up what you love†. Customers as well as competitors raise the stakes for SIA. A company with a high reputation attracts customers with high expectations. You read "Cost-Effective Service Excellence: Lessons from Singapore Airlines" in category "Papers" SIA’s research team has found that SIA draws a disproportionately large number of very demanding customers. â€Å"Customers adjust their expectations according to the brand image. When you fly on a good brand, like SIA, your expectations are already sky-high. And if SIA gives anything that is just OK, it is just not good enough,† says Sim Kay Wee, senior vice-president, cabin crew SIA treats this as a fundamental resource for innovative ideas. Weak signals are amplified. Not only written comments but also verbal comments to the crew are taken seriously and reported back to the relevant sections of the airline. An additional source of intelligence is SIA’s â€Å"spy flights†, where advisors travel with competitors and report on their offerings. Finally, SIA recognises that its competition does not just come from within the industry. As a rule, SIA sets its sights high and instead of aiming to be the best airline its intention is to be the best service organisation. To achieve that, SIA employs broad benchmarking not just against its main competitors but against the best service companies. Spring 2004 G Volume 15 Issue 1 Business Strategy Review 35 Holistic staff development Total innovation Strategic synergies NewsCast High flying: but also ‘outstanding service on the ground’ â€Å"It is important to realise that [our customers] are not just comparing SIA with other airlines. They are comparing us against many industries, and on many factors. So when they pick up a phone and call up our reservations, for example, they are actually making a mental comparison, maybe subconsciously, to the last best experience they had. It could be a hotel; it could be to a car rental company,† says senior vice-president, product and service, Yap Kim Wah. â€Å"If they had a very good experience with the hotel or car rental company and if the next call they make is to SIA, they will subconsciously make the comparison and say ‘How come you’re not as good as them? ’ They do not say ‘You have the best telephone service system out of all the other airlines I’ve called’. Being excellent, our customers, albeit subconsciously, will benchmark us against the best in almost everything. Total innovation: integrating incremental development with unanticipated, discontinuous innovations An airline has a multitude of sub systems, such as reservations, catering, maintenance, in-flight services and entertainment systems. SIA does not aim to be a lot better but just a bit better in every one of them than its competitors. This means constant innovation but also total innovation in everyt hing, all the time. Importantly, this also supports the notion of cost effectiveness. Continuous incremental development comes at a low cost but delivers that necessary margin of value to the customer. â€Å"It is the totality that counts. This also means that it does not need to be too expensive. If you want to provide the best food you might decide to serve lobster on short haul flights between Singapore and Bangkok, for example; however, you might go bankrupt. The point is that, on that 36 route, we just have to be better than our competitors in everything we do. Just a little bit better in everything. This allows us to make a small profit from the flight to enable us to innovate without pricing ourselves out of the market,† says Yap Kim Wah. While cost-effective, incremental improvements are an important basis for its competitive advantage, SIA also implements frequent major initiatives that are firsts in its industry, both on the ground and in the air. One example is its â€Å"Outstanding service on the ground† programme. This initiative involved working with the many other organisations that impact on customer service before and after a flight to ensure a seamless, efficient and caring service. SIA’s latest service excellence initiative, called â€Å"Transforming customer service† (TCS), involves staff in five key operational areas – cabin crew, engineering, ground services, flight operations and sales support. The programme is about building team spirit among staff in key operational areas aimed at ensuring that the whole journey from the purchase of the ticket onwards is as pleasant and seamless as possible. SIA employs an innovation approach called the â€Å"40-30-30 rule†. It focuses 40 per cent of the resources on training, 30 per cent on the review of process and procedures, and 30 per cent on creating new product and service ideas. In addition to continuous incremental innovations, SIA’s reputation as a service innovator is also based on unanticipated, discontinuous innovations in the air. Examples of current innovations include the full-size â€Å"space-bed† and on-board email and Internet services in business and first class. In addition, SIA has made the strategic choice to Cost-effective service excellence: lessons from Singapore Airlines Business Strategy Review Spring 2004 G Volume 15 Issue 1 be a leader and follower at the same time. It is a pioneer on innovations that have high impact on customer service (for example in-flight entertainment, beds and on-board email). However, it is also a fast follower in areas that are less visible from the customer’s point of view. In doing so, SIA relies on proven technology that can be implemented swiftly and cost-effectively. For example, SIA’s revenue management and customer relationship management (CRM) systems use proven technology where its partners had the experience to ensure a smooth and costeffective implementation rather than going for the latest technology, which would not only be much more expensive but also carry a higher implementation risk. Profit-consciousness ingrained in all employees Though SIA is focused on the customer and providing continually improving service, managers and staff are well aware of the need for profit and cost-effectiveness. All staff are able to deal with the potentially conflicting objectives of excellence and profit. This is created by a cost and profit consciousness. â€Å"It’s drilled into us from the day we start working for SIA that if we don’t make money, we’ll be closed down. Singapore doesn’t need a national airline. Second, the company has made a very important visionary statement that â€Å"We don’t want to be the largest company. We want to be the most profitable†. That’s very powerful,† says senior vice-president Yap Kim Wah. Performance related reward system Team concept Peer pressure to perform Ingrained profit consciousness Related diversification High profitability Cost Effective Total innovation Service Excellence Strategic synergies Competitive intelligence, spy flights Extensive feedback mechanism Benchmarking against best-in-class Holistic staff development Supporting infrastructure Rigorous service design Demanding customers Developing the Singapore girl Figure 2 Singapore Airlines’ self-reinforcing activity system for developing cost-effective service excellence. Cost-effective service excellence: lessons from Singapore Airlines Spring 2004 G Volume 15 Issue 1 Business Strategy Review 37 As a result, any proposed innovation is analysed very carefully on the balance of expected customer benefits versus costs. Station managers and frontline staff constantly trade-off passenger satisfaction versus cost effectiveness – the customer has to be delighted but in a costeffective manner. Second, and like many service organisations, SIA has a rewards system that pays bonuses according to the profitability of the company. The same formula is used throughout the company. As a result there is a lot of informal peer pressure from individuals within the organisation; staff and managers appear quite open in challenging any decisions or actions if they see resources being wasted or money being inappropriately spent. SIA builds team spirit within its 6,600 crew members through its â€Å"team concept†, where small teams of 13 crew members are formed and then fly together as far as possible for at least two years. This leads to the development of team spirit and social bonds within the team that reinforces the culture of cost-effective service excellence and the peer pressure to deliver SIA’s promise to customers. Developing staff holistically Senior managers say that â€Å"training in SIA is almost next to godliness†. Everyone, no matter how senior, has a training and development plan. New stewardesses undergo training for four months, longer than any other airline. This includes not only functional skills but also soft skills including personal interaction, personal poise and the emotional skills involved in dealing with demanding passengers. In addition to training, SIA also encourages and supports activities that might on the surface be seen as having nothing to do with service in the air. Crew employees have created groups such as the â€Å"Performing Arts Circle†, staging full-length plays and musicals, the â€Å"Wine Appreciation Group† and the â€Å"Gourmet Circle†. These activities help to develop camaraderie and team spirit as well as personal knowledge of the finer things in life, which feeds into the service the crew delivers in the air. Achieving strategic synergies through related diversification and world-class infrastructure SIA uses â€Å"related diversification† to achieve ost synergies and at the same time control quality and enable transfer of learning. Subsidiaries serve not only as the development ground for management skills and a corporate rather than a divisional outlook through job rotation but also as sources of learning. In addition, related operations (such as caterin g, aircraft maintenance, airport management) have healthier profit margins than 38 the airline business itself because competitive intensity is lower and the industry structure is more favourable. SIA Engineering, for example, ensures that SIA does not pay expensive aircraft maintenance fees to other airlines; rather, it sells such services to other airlines at healthy margins. SIA’s fleet, the youngest in the world, ensures low maintenance costs, low fuel expenses and high flight quality. SIA’s Inflight Catering Centre produces SIA’s own inflight cuisine, ensuring high quality, reliability and responsiveness to customer feedback, but also caters for other airlines at a healthy margin. SIA’s SATS Group subsidiary manages Changi Airport, which is regularly voted the best airport in the world. This airport management and infrastructure entices passengers who are travelling on to Australia, New Zealand or other countries in the region to pass through Changi and to choose SIA as their carrier. SIA’s subsidiaries operate under the same management philosophy and culture that emphasises cost-effective service excellence. Even though they are part of the group, they are quoted separately on the Singapore Stock Exchange and are subject to market discipline with clear profit and loss expectations. In SIA the conventional wisdom of outsourcing (outsource â€Å"peripheral† activities and focus on what you do best) does not apply. External suppliers would not be able to offer the value that SIA’s own subsidiaries can offer it. This kind of related diversification within SIA leads to strategic synergy in terms of reliability of key inputs, high quality, transfer of learning and cost effectiveness. Loizos Heracleous (bizhlt@nus. edu. sg) is associate professor of strategic management at the National University of Singapore. Jochen Wirtz (bizwirtz@nus. edu. s g) is associate professor of marketing, director of the APEX-MBA (Asia-Pacific Executive MBA) Program, codirector of the UCLA-NUS EMBA Program, and a member of the management committee of the NUS Business School, National University of Singapore. Robert Johnston (bob. johnston@war wick. ac. uk) is professor of operations management at Warwick Business School. Bringing it all together: building a self-reinforcing activity system How, specifically, do these elements lead to costeffective service excellence? The five pillars of SIA’s cost-effective service excellence are made real through a self-reinforcing activity system of virtuous circles (see Figure 2). The cultural values of cost-effective service excellence are more than just abstract ideas. They are ingrained into the minds of both employees and organisational processes. This may help to explain why SIA’s competitive advantage has been sustained for so long. While it is easy to copy single elements, it is much harder to reproduce an entire, self-reinforcing system. I Resources: Porter M. , Competitive Advantage, Free Press, New York, 1985 Shostack G. L. , Designing services that deliver, Harvard Business Review, vol 62, no 1, JanuaryFebruary 1984 Cost-effective service excellence: lessons from Singapore Airlines Business Strategy Review Spring 2004 G Volume 15 Issue 1 How to cite Cost-Effective Service Excellence: Lessons from Singapore Airlines, Papers

Invisible Man And Glaring Blindness Essays - Invisible Man

Invisible Man And Glaring Blindness Blindness is a very interesting and important theme to Ellison's Invisible Man. Oftentimes throughout the novel the Narrator is blinded and is unable to see the events, which are happening to him. The Narrator is a black man who thinks of himself as invisible to the rest of the world. Many times the Narrator is given hints and clues on how to better himself, but his own blindness prevents him from being a visible member of society. His own blindness prevents him from being nothing more than a silhouette of a person to not only himself, but the rest of the world as well. The Narrator is first blinded when he is supposed to participate in the "battle royal." This battle is a contest where many Negro boys were blindfolded in a ring and were supposed to fight for the white men who were watching. The Narrator is blindfolded and is supposed to fight, "But now I felt a sudden fit of blind terror. I was unused to darkness. It was as though I had suddenly found myself in a dark room filled with poisonous cottonmouths" (21). The Narrator is blinded and he is very scared of what is going to happen to him. Many times in situation, the Narrator is given hints on how to survive and better himself, and this is no different. When he is fighting, he notices that he is able to see the other fighters through his blindfold, "I finally discovered that I could see the black, sweat-washed forms weaving in the smoky-blue atmosphere like drunken dancers weaving to the rapid drumlike thuds of blows" (23). He uses this to his advantage for a while, but ends up having to go one on one against the biggest boy. Instead of taking full advantage of the situation and leaving the ring like the others, he gets beaten up badly by the winner of the "battle royal." The Narrator then goes to further his education by going off to college. When he goes to college, he runs into the statue of the founder of the college. The bronze statue is of the founder taking off a veil of a young Negro boy. The Narrator does not see the statue in the same way, "and I am standing puzzled, unable to decide whether the veil is really being lifted, or lowered more firmly in place; whether I am witnessing a revelation or a more efficient blinding" (36). Event though the Narrator is in college and he is trying to become a more educated man who can possibly do something in the world, he is unable to see that the college might actually be helping the young Negroes. Instead he thinks that they are still continuing to push him down. After he gets expelled from college, he runs into an old vet on a bus ride up to New York. The old vet can see that the Narrator is blinded and is not looking clearly at the world, so he tells him, "Come out of the fog, young man. And remember you don't have to be a complete fool in order to succeed" (153). This advice is very similar to the advice in which is grandfather gave to him. They are both telling him to step out into the world and begin looking at it clearly. They are also telling him to get along with the world; you do not have to necessarily like what you are doing, but go with the flow if you want to survive. The Narrator finally gets a job working for the Liberty Paint Company. In Chapter Eleven, we see much irony as a reader. The Paint Company is known for making the whitest and best paint of anyone. It is interesting how the Narrator can notice a gray tint to the paint, which is supposed to be the purest of all. So pure that it is going to be used on government buildings. This is a good example of how the white men look at the world as being very pure and white, but instead it is becoming filled with more and more Negroes, which make they white tinted with gray. While working in the basement, the Narrator has an accident. He gets into a fight with his boss and forgets to watch the gauged like he is supposed to be doing. The explosion covers him and blinds him with white paint, "into a wet blast of black emptiness that was