Strategic Analysis (Individual) Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Strategic Analysis (Individual) - Essay Example n, it is important that the firm must be able to look into the commercial aspects of the technology and focus on what market requires and what it can deliver. Firm’s core competencies were based upon its ability to produce high quality technology however it clearly lacked the ability to transform its core competencies into the commercially viable products. It is important to understand that the organizations have made a transition towards focusing on the mass customization where firms focus on delivering highly customizable products through a mass market. The firm though has a large and diversified market to serve however due to sheer size of the applications and potential market niches; it may not be possible for the firm to focus on developing commercially feasible products and services. This paper will discuss the internal and external analysis of Soundfacts firm and will provide strategic analysis and alternatives for the management to reposition the company and become commercially more successfully and viable. Firm operates in Denmark which is one of the advance countries in the world with favorable political system. There is little or no interference from the bureaucracy and the overall political structure of the firm favors the free markets and private enterprises. The transfer of private property laws are in favor of the organization and as such firms can easily move their assets in and out of the country with low level of political interference. Apart from this, the overall tax environment is relatively favorable for the firms with government acting as a welfare state. The higher ratio of taxes imposed on the individuals is off-set by the State being a welfare State. Further, Denmark is also part of European Union thus it enjoys the relative political support at the regional level. (Dimireva, 2009) Denmark is one of the highest ranked economies in the world with good per capita income thus suggesting that the consumers have the required purchasing

Creating and Sustaining an Organisational Learning Culture Essay

Creating and Sustaining an Organisational Learning Culture - Essay Example One such company is the centre of this paper. Look Ahead Housing and Care is a charitable housing association that offers specialist housing, care and support. It was first established in 1973 by Mary Jones and a group of concerned individuals. Jones was a retired senior civil servant from the Department of Health and Social Services. Jones and the group envisioned a company that would provide good quality and cheap accommodations for the needy and most vulnerable in the society. From a humble beginning of its first property acquisition in 1974, Look Ahead is now able to support 5000 people across more than 60 projects. The company owns a several properties that provide different types of accommodations. These include hostels for single homeless people, registered care homes, flats and studio-type accommodations for families with support needs. Customers receive support though guidance regarding benefits, budgeting, training, employment, education and general life skills to equip them live their lives fully and become independent contributors to the society. The annual income of the company is in excess of 29.5 million. Currently, Look Ahead employs around 600 staff providing service and care. In 2008, the company was recognised in the prestigious Sunday Times as part of the "100 Best Companies to Work For." It has made the company proud as an employer of choice. It is an achievement that acknowledges the passion and commitment of the company in delivering first-rate service to the society and to employees. Through the dedication, commitment and hard work of management and staff, Look Ahead Housing and Care has developed to become a leading housing and social care provider to vulnerable people in London and the South East. Strategic Objectives Look Ahead's mission is to enable those with particular needs to live ordinary lives within the community. They aim to become enablers of vulnerable people through positive transformation of their lives, and empowerment of individuals in order for them to become active participants in the community. In order to achieve the organisation's goals, Look Ahead has established several strategic objectives in the whole organisation. As a member of the charity-service sector, their first objective is to promote customer involvement, choice and citizenship. This can be achieved through supporting and enabling customers to participate in a wide range of involvement activities; using feedback mechanisms from customer survey to improve services; and implementation of a social inclusion strategy. As part of the community, their second objective is to build and maintain strong partnership. This can be attained by raising and strengthening the company's relationship with purchasers, funders and the local community. Mapping the stakeholders' relationships with the company across all services is made possible by means of local business plans, specialist forum and borough liaison meetings. As an organisation, their third objective is to achieve growth through excellence. The company aims to meet or exceed targets for new business growth and design innovative services. The company also prioritise seeking opportunities for service expansion while delivering efficiency gains. They also commit to deliver ongoing improvements in service quality and performance. As an employer, the fourth objective of Look Ahead is to enable staff to excel in their roles. The

PZT Material for Excessive Vibration

PZT Material for Excessive Vibration In this study it is designed and implemented a robust control technique to suppress excessive vibration and also perform health monitoring of a structure using a single piece of PZT material. The main idea is to use sliding mode controller to achieve the vibration suppression, impedance-based structural health monitoring technique, and to implement sliding mode observer to prevent any undesirable interaction between the health monitoring system and the control system, when they are implemented together. The usage of smart materials to perform nondestructive assessment of structures is of great interest to civil engineering and other engineering fields, since the integrity of the structure is not compromised. In addition, the modern each day more flexible structures bring to researchers in the field the need to find alternatives in vibration suppression.   Implementing health monitoring together with vibration control is therefore the combination of these two need in a practical and economic manner, in the sense that uses the smart materials and control devices/techniques. Smart materials have the ability of changing their properties when subjected to certain external conditions, such as electric or magnetic fields, for example. In this study the smart material used is in the form of piezoelectric patches. The health monitoring technique used in this research is the impedance-based health monitoring, which is based in changes in the structural impedance. The fundamental idea of this approach is to screen the changes in structural mechanical impedance brought on by damage. An experimental set up was performed in a free-free aluminum bar in order to check the applicability of this method. In this experiment, five pairs of PZT patches had been attached to the bar and an electrical impedance analyzer measured the electrical impedance. Damage was simulated by attaching two ten millimeters bolts between the third and the fourth PZT patch. As far as the control technique goes, it is implemented a sliding mode controller, which is designed to attain a robust v ibration control performance in the presence of the uncertainties and disturbances. Sliding mode control is a nonlinear control strategy that adjusts the dynamics of a nonlinear system by forcing the system to slide alongside a surface of the systems regular behavior. One problem this study has to deal with is the health monitoring signal that enters the feedback control loop, since the same PZT patch is used to simultaneously perform health monitoring and to sense the control system in the feedback control loop. In order to try to solve this issue, a sliding mode observer is designed. In order to evaluate the feasibility of the method proposed, both experimental and numerical studies were performed to a single cantilever beam. The controller and observer were designed based on the four lower vibration modes of the beam. The experimental set-up performed to assess the impedance-based health monitoring technique showed that a great change in impedance happens in the region where damage occurs. The experimental and numerical results showed the sliding mode observer was capable of filter the high frequency content that comes from the health monitoring, and the sliding mode control was able to suppress successfully the excessive vibration even after disturbances were introduced. The results from both numerical study and experimental set-up show that this integrated approach can provide significant vibration suppression, while simultaneously detecting damage. The research is important in the sense that brings together the concepts of health monitoring and structural control, and confirms the feasibility of this using sliding mode control/observer and impedance-based health monitoring. However, the study has that are some weaknesses, for example, not much detail is providing regarding the health monitoring of the experimental set-up of the cantilever beam, only vibration suppression results. Also, is not very clear if the results shown are from experimental or analytical evaluation. Only impulse response was verified in this study, and it would be interesting to see how the control behaves in the presence of different types of more complex loads, such as seismic. It is not practical or economically possible to use 4 to 5 PZT patches to every beam a complex civil engineering structure, so the study fails to address how to choose the location of the patches so they can be enough to suppress vibration and detect damage to a more complex struc ture, such as a building.

The First World War (WWI) :: World War 1 I One

World War 1 World War 1 was called â€Å"The Great War†, â€Å"The war to end all wars†, and â€Å"The first modern war†. It had many causes and a few repercussions and I will describe them in detail. The most widely known reason for the start of World War1 was the assassination of the Arch Duke Ferdinad of Austria-Hungary in the Serbian capital of Sarajevo. The ArchDuke was there to talk to the Serbian leaders about peace in the Balkan Peninsula. After a Serbian was arrested for the assassination Austria-Hungary pulled out of the peace talks and declared war on Serbia. Germany who was allied with Austria-Hungary also declared war on Serbia. Russia who was allied with Serbia had to declare war on Germany and Austria-Hungary. When Germany invaded France and Belgium, Great Britain declared war on Germany. World War 1 had begun. As the German Chancellor, Bethmann-Hollweg said, â€Å"Once the dice are cast nothing can stop them.† Indeed once the dice were cast on World War 1 nothing stopped them until 22 million people had died. Besides the assassination of the archduke there were four other reasons for the start of WW1. 1. Militarism- the building of large armies. All the nations in Europe at that time were engaged in what today could only be called an arms race. As soon as one nation built a new weapon, all the others followed suit. 2. Alliance System- The building of alliances to strengthen the borders of a country. In theses alliances if one country went to war all the other countries in the alliance were forced to go to war also. 3. Imperialism- The practice of colonizing other lands by large European nations. 4.Nationalism- The feeling of Patriotism in a country that makes it compete with all other counties in the area in all areas. In my opinion WW1 was an unnecessary global conflict in which 22 million people needlessly lost their lives. I think that this conflict could have be prevented or stopped in 2 ways. One if the Serbian leaders had more closely guarded the car that carried Archduke Ferdinad. If the assassin had not been able to get near the car perhaps the

Benefits After the Russian Revolution

15-Minute Oreo Pie * 1 package Oreos * 1/2 stick butter (or margarine) * 1 1/2 cups cold milk * 2 packages (4-serving size) vanilla-flavored instant pudding * 1 8-oz. tub Cool Whip, thawed Crush 24 to 30 cookies (I’d recommend doing this in a blender or food processor. I tried using a rolling pin and zip top bag and it was a bit more time-consuming than it likely would be in a blender. ) Mix with melted butter and pressed onto the bottom and sides of a 9-inch pie plate. Beat milk and pudding together until thick (approximately 1 to 2 minutes). Carefully stir in whipped topping and blend well.Crush or chop at least 12 Oreo cookies and fold into the pudding mixture. Spoon onto crust. Garnish with Oreos and refrigerate for at least four hours. OREO ICE CREAM PIE| | Read more about it at www. cooks. com/rec/view/0,1937,150160-228199,00. html Content Copyright  © 2012 Cooks. com – All rights reserved. 1 pkg. Oreo cookies (lg. ) 5 tbsp. melted butter 1/2 gallon vanilla ice cream, softened 1/2 tbsp. vanilla 1 (13 oz. ) container Cool Whip 1/2 c. chopped nuts Chocolate syrupCrush Oreo cookies with rolling pin. Combine with melted butter and press into a greased 9 by 13 inch pan.Combine ice cream, vanilla and 1/2 of Cool Whip. Place on top of crust and freeze until firm. After frozen, spread rest of Cool Whip on top. Sprinkle with nuts and drizzle chocolate syrup over the entire surface of pie in a lacy pattern. Keep frozen. Serves 15. | * 32 OREO Chocolate Sandwich Cookies, divided * 1/4 cup butter or margarine, melted * 2 cups cold milk * 2 pkg. (4 serving size) JELL-O Chocolate Flavor Instant Pudding & Pie Filling * 1 (8 ounce) tub COOL WHIP Whipped Topping, thawed, divided Directions 1. Finely crush 24 of the cookies; mix with butter.Press firmly onto bottom and up side of 9-inch pie plate. 2. Pour milk into large bowl. Add pudding mixes. Beat with wire whisk 2 minutes or until well blended. (Mixture will be thick. ) 3. Spoon 1-1/2 cups of the puddin g into crust. Gently stir 1/2 of the whipped topping into remaining pudding; spread over pudding layer in crust. Chop remaining 8 cookies; stir into remaining whipped topping. Spread over pie. 4. Refrigerate 4 hours or until set. One package of Oreo cookies One stick of butter or margarine Two eight ounce packages of cream cheese, softenedThree one ounce packages of instant vanilla pudding Four cups of milk ? tub of whipped cream Directions Before getting started, it is very important to take the cream cheese out of the refrigerator and let it soften for at least an hour. If the cream cheese is cold, it will not blend into a smooth mixture. Step 1 Place the Oreo cookies in a gallon size plastic bag, removing all the air before sealing it. Crush the Oreo cookies with a rolling pin or mallet. The Oreos do not need to be crushed into a fine powder, make sure and leave some chunks. Step 2Melt the butter. Mix the melted butter with about half the crushed Oreos. Press the mixture into the bottom of a 9 x 13 pan to for the pie crust. You can also use a regular pie plate if you prefer. Step 3 Mix the cream cheese, vanilla pudding, milk, and whipped cream. It is best to use an electric hand mixer on medium speed to get a smooth texture. Taste the mixture, you may want to add some sugar if you would prefer a sweeter flavor. Pour the mixture over the crust. Step 4 Pour the remaining crushed Oreos on top. Refrigerate for an hour or until cool. INGREDIENTS: (9-inch size) graham or cookie pie crust 8 ounces cream cheese, softened 1 cup powdered sugar 8 ounces instant vanilla pudding mix 16 ounces Cool Whip 1 1/2 cup milk 20 Oreo cookies, crushed 1 teaspoon vanilla extract DIRECTIONS: Beat cream cheese and sugar together. In another bowl, beat pudding and milk until thick. Add cool whip and vanilla to pudding. Add cream cheese mixture to pudding mixture, stirring well. Layer the cookies crumbs and the pudding mixture into crust beginning with a layer of cookie crumbs and res erving enough cookie crumbs to cover the top.

Horace Miner – Nacirema Tribe Location

â€Å"Body Rituals among the Nacirema† is an article written by Horace Miner about a group of people, the Nacirema, and their everyday functions or rituals. Miner relates the culture, practices, values, and beliefs of a seemingly exotic and strange tribe. He vividly and descriptively describes behaviors and activities that are interpreted as unusual and strange. The tribe Miner depicts seems primal and uncivilized, and yet somewhat familiar. They are a â€Å"North American group living in the territory between the Canadian Creel the Yaqui and Tarahumare of Mexico, and the Carib and Arawak of the Antilles† (Miner).This area is the United States of America and upon recognizing the location, the reader starts to become cognizant of the presence of an ulterior message. Miner’s depiction draws us in but shortly, we realize he is referring to American society; read backwards, Nacirema spells ‘American. ’ Instead of describing a far-away and exotic tribe, a s the reader first expects, the article describes very ‘normal’ aspects of American life, such as dental hygiene and medicine. The use of language like â€Å"mouth-rite,† â€Å"holy-mouth-men,† and â€Å"medicine men† frames these aspects in a very abnormal way.Miner does an exceptional job of disguising the American culture as ‘Nacirema. ’ Once unveiling this disguise, many references can easily be seen and the article is interpreted in a whole new way; for example, the â€Å"cleansing shrine† as the washroom, â€Å"magical potions† as medicine, and â€Å"latipso† as hospital. This article is written as an observation on American society but could be generalized as ‘North American’ practices. The article demonstrates that attitudes about the body have a widespread influence on many social institutions.Many of the rituals that we have in North America involve manipulating our image and this value contra dicts the enlightened and rational creatures we sometimes imagine ourselves to be. Miner effectively convinces the reader of the somewhat ridiculous nature of (North) America’s obsession with health and visual appeal. This is accomplished by provoking readers to form an outside opinion of themselves before realizing they are their own subject. His analysis portrays himself and the reader as superior, civilized beings studying this tribe, which creates a distance and differentiation leading to comparison.By describing American culture from the perspective of an external observer, we can realize how a different perspective or standpoint can perceive our rituals as quite strange. As such, Miner’s article can be seen as speaking to how other cultures could view our own, and shows how ethnocentrism can affect how we see and interpret culture. Miner uses his style of writing to prove his apparent point that Americans are ethnocentric. Furthermore, the tone of the article dis plays how this ethnocentrism can lead to judgment of other, unknown cultures.A resonating point for me throughout this article is Miner’s success in translating Peter Berger’s concept of the sociological perspective, making the reader see the strange in the familiar. By thinking of these familiar rituals as strange, a new perspective is formed and our regular, ‘normal’ world can be seen in a fresh, unique way. Importantly, the sociological imagination begins to engage and develop as we recapture the ability to be astonished by what we normally take for granted.This broadening of perspective and how we look at ourselves can lead us to think beyond our standpoint and better understand someone of a different background. Upon first reading, the rituals/institutions described have a familiarity, but in everyday life we have become socialized so as we do not see the odd and sometimes illogical actions we perform. As Miner begins, â€Å"the anthropologist has be come so familiar with the diversity of ways in which different people behave in similar situations that he is not apt to be surprised by even the most exotic customs. I believe Horace Miner wrote this piece to touch on all of these points; to make us see the familiar as strange, to develop the sociological imagination, and to bring awareness to the ethnocentrism of our culture/society. The targeted audience may be fellow anthropologists, sociologists, scholars/ students, or even the general public. Miner challenges all North Americans to look at themselves in a new light, to look critically upon our own society. He is effective in conveying his messages through his unique approach to the idea, and ability to re-arrange our thought process.He seems to challenge the way cultures, and American culture in particular, may have been previously represented or misrepresented. Furthermore, the article breaks the barrier of viewing American culture as ‘normal’ and that which othe rs may be measured against; he breaks the barrier of ethnocentrism. Another reason to comment on these points may have been to try to stimulate better, less biased research and inspire colleagues, students etc. to consider the existence of perspective and potential for ethnocentrism in all that they do.I find the article relevant, personally, as a student studying sociology and business, and as a North American. Our society is continually becoming more culturally diverse, and international interaction (whether in business, academics or elsewhere) is becoming commonplace. Therefore, it is increasingly important to learn to step outside of our accustomed perspective and to be aware of others we interact with, as well as of our own biases, viewpoints, and barriers.The clever way Miner provokes looking at the familiar as strange lead me think of the many ways we view the ‘familiar,’ having become accustomed to our social norms and values. I have begun to see these in a new way, and will further keep in mind the sociological perspective and presence of potential ethnocentric views when evaluating situations. We naturally look at other cultures or societies through the lens of our own but if we are able to understand our own culture – our social context – the water in which we swim, we can develop our relationships and interactions with those from other waters.