Sustainability in business Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Sustainability in business - Essay Example Finally, the project presents some of the criticisms that the companies had to face and the steps taken by them to counter the charges. Every business strives to attain sustainability in today’s world. Sustainability is an idea that every business tries to portray. A sustainable organisation is one, which tries to maximise profit for its shareholders while protecting its environment and improves the lives of those it interacts with. The business operates with the view to meet the interests of society and environment. A sustainable business always stands the chance to achieve greater success in future and remain successful for decades and generations. This project talks about three such corporations which thrive on sustainability. They are the three Italian companies, namely Fiat, Pirelli and Luxottica. Each company has its own way of maintaining sustainability. Each has been discussed in brief in this project. The project also discusses the way each company has paved its way to recovery and success. Fiat is an Italian automobile manufacturer company that also deals with financial services, media, engine manufacturer and metallurgy. The company was founded in 1899 by a group of investors in Italy. With time the company diversified its operation in different parts of the world. In 2009, Fiat was considered as the sixth largest car manufacturer in the world and the largest in Italy (Ramsey & Forden, 2009). Fiat is a multinational in true sense. The company has invested in many locations outside Italy. It has announced to invest 10 billion reais in Brazil by 2015; for developing facilities for cars, auto parts and agricultural machineries (Reuters, 2010). The company came into existence in 1899 and soon it was a great hit in the automobile industry. The company faced its first crisis after World War-I. At that time the company acquired a low cost mass production technology and introduced several new models. Fiat established many

Management theory and practice Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Management theory and practice - Essay Example The process of planning, organizing, leading and controlling the work of organization members and of using all available organizational resources to reach stated organizational goals is called management. In fact, management is an attempt to create a desirable future, keeping the past and present in mind. It is not only practiced in a specific time frame but is also the reflection of a particular historical era. Therefore management specializes in dealing with matters of time. Management plays another significant part of making and sustaining relationships. Management specializes in the art of juggling multiple simultaneous relationships. Management is a process to emphasize that all managers, regardless of their specific aptitudes and skills, engage in certain interrelated activities to achieve their goals. It is the journey towards the fulfillment of these goals that requires planning and organizing as pre-requisites. Planning implies that managers think through their goals and actions in advance and that their actions are based on some method, plan or logic, rather than a hunch. However to execute these goal-reaching plans effectively, a proper organizing is required. Organizing is the process of arranging and allocating work, authority and resources among an organization’s members so that they can achieve the organization’s goals. Therefore organizational design becomes very significant. The dynamic engagement approach recognizes that an organization’s environment is not some set of fixed, impersonal forces. Rather, it is a complex and dynamic web of people interacting with each other. Consequently, every organization’s management operates according to certain systems to take care of all in-built and ever-emerging intricacies. There are numerous schools of thought that inspire various management processes. Bureaucracy is one. Bureaucracy has been a highly successful form of organization in the preceding century. Though it

How to Maintain Reciprocity in Intimate Relationships Article

How to Maintain Reciprocity in Intimate Relationships - Article Example This will be enhanced through critical evaluation of scholarly research. Reciprocity in any relationship motivates each partner’s behavior. In every form of union, there exists either positive or negative reciprocity. This helps ensure that in society violent reactions due to anger are minimal. Negative reciprocity encourages the violent reactions and even mistreatments while positive reciprocity encourages praiseworthy deeds and humility enabling one to endure hard situations (Vetere et al, 2005). There are different types of reciprocity. It may be one on one relationship between either individuals or governments or institutions. Research conducted by Solomon & Samp (1998) shows that most of them are usually long-term relationships that expect either direct reciprocity. One-to-many or many-to-one reciprocity is usually experienced in informal ties like bridal showers, and even community comes together. There is also generalized reciprocity that happens over a large group of i ndividuals or institutions. Citizens also need to practice reciprocity with their states and communicate any possible conflict in ideas or even complains or gratitude to their rulers. According to Van Lange, & Visser (1999) research, for people to get in any relationship, they experience strong feelings towards each other. A feeling of lust, liking, and love starts to grow towards each other. Close relations start growing, and with time, they become compassionate and committed into each other. These attractions may be due to their skin color, walking styles, the way they talk, or their thinking. It may also because these two people share beliefs and have common interests. Psychologists argue that love is usually a passionate feeling, both physical and emotional. One gets utterly absorbed into the other and helps each other realize and understand themselves better by the compliments they get. Intimate relationships are cultivated as strong sexual feelings and feeling of completeness also onset. Passion and dependency on each other also are cultivated. This closeness between individuals results to complex emotions that grow for each other. Dependency for emotional support helps ensure of the well-being of each other. Partners offer each other with enthusiasm and positive personal view on their self worth. In his scholarly work, Cole (2001) depicts that the level of intimacy develops in stages. It is not cultivated within hours or one day. The links established with one another foster the closeness and trust feeling for one another. However, peer relationships that are based on curiosity may tend to be more intimate briefly only for periods of self-discovery. The anxiety to explore on new areas may cultivate intimacy but only to encourage accessibility to what they intent to explore on (Vetere et al, 2005). Adult intimate relationships are expected to have communications and expression of one’s feeling freely. Feelings of gratitude or any other significant feelings both negative and positive can be communicated without barriers. The response that one gets may be corrective, encouraging, or even punishing. In case of negative reciprocity the individuals should turn to the community for help on how to resolve the conflict. In an intimate relation, pain infliction is not encouraged and but rather repairing the harm done should be the main thing. Consoling should

Clarkson Lumber Company Pro Forma Statement Essay Example for Free

Clarkson Lumber Company Pro Forma Statement Essay Assumptions. We build pro-forma statement mostly based on the assumptions given in the case. Other assumptions are following. At first, we assume that the tax rate is an average of tax rates for the past three years which is 20. 1%. We use this tax rate to calculate the provision for income taxes for following years. Next assumption is that we take Mr. Dadges approximation for the initial rate as the interest rate, 11%. Since Mr. Clarkson finished payment to Mr. Holtz in 1995, we assume that only the bank loan to Suburban National Bank and Northrup National Bank are the interest-bearing liabilities for 1996 through 1999. For account payable period, we calculated two numbers, 53. 62 days for 1995 and 54. 86 for the first quarter of 1996. We used the payable period for 1995 to calculate the accounts payables for the forecasted years because, as mentioned in the case, Mr. Clarksons business has some seasonality so hat the payable period for the only first quarter of 1996 would not fully reflect for a whole year. We decided not to include 2% discounts for early payment to the suppliers on our income statement because of the payable period. We also assume that Mr. Clarkson issued no new equities and paid no dividends during the forecasted years. Only source of the change in the net worth is the net income for the same period. New credit line. The new credit line of $750,000 would be sufficient only for 1996 and 1997. The bank loan would exceed the credit line to 858,000 and 1,109,000 for 1998 and 1999, according to our pro forma statement. Without the approval of the bank, Mr. Clarkson would not be able to expand his business at the current growth rate after 1998. With the assumption of sales growth rate of 25%, the external financing required has become double from $493,000 in 1996 to $1,109,000 in 1999. Since the new credit line is fixed at $750,000, Mr. Clarkson would have to find other ways of financing the operation such as issuing new equity.

Hospital Care :: essays research papers

Critical Care Hospital - Case Study _ Incident for Discussion: Critical Care Hospital Critical Care Hospital has planned to purchase a CATSCAN within the next six months. Though not mentioned in the text, the cost of the equipment will be at least several hundred thousand dollars, and could even exceed one million dollars. Additionally, major renovations are required to the radiology department where the equipment will be housed. Unfortunately, the construction project cannot be started until the machine is in place, which will be five months from now. The Project Manager ("PM") feels that she may be able to expedite the construction schedule by utilizing a resource allocation version of the Critical Path Method ("CPM"). Getting the machine up and running is of great interest to the hospital, as revenues generated by the CATSCAN are projected to be in the range of $25,000 per monthAccording to the text, the project is slated to have a duration of twelve months. The waiting time for the CATSCAN is five months. This leaves the PM eight months to accomplish her goal. Given that the equipment is arriving simultaneously with the onset of the construction project, I would suggest a combination of a heuristic approach using an "As Late As Possible" ("ALAP") prioritization with a fast-track approach to the actual constructionThe reason for the ALAP approach is the five-month delay prior to the equipment being delivered. Holding off on allocating resources during this slow period should, in theory, allow the PM to reserve monetary resources for the Crash period. I would imagine that part-time allocation of administrative support, to solicit construction bids, generate reports and management approval requests along with full-time PM participation would be sufficient. The PM during this time will be working with hospital management to generate a detailed project plan and Scope of Work. Several critical elements come into play in this situation. For example, two relocations of the existing radiology department, or at least the area that will house the CATSCAN will be required during the construction period. The first will be for the purpose of clearing the required space for the new CATSCAN area, including construction corridors, to a temporary location. Then, after the equipment is installed and renovations complete on this area, the rest of the department will need to be renovated as well. This aspect of the project will require extensive coordination with other departments within the hospital. This includes administrative staff, medical personnel, suppliers (pick-ups and deliveries), janitorial staff, and primarily the radiology staff itself. During the first five months of the project I would suspect that this coordination and planning alone would consume 50% of the PM's time.

My Favourite Artist

One of the things that we enjoy doing in life is listening to music. I couldn’t imagine life without music because we listen to music almost at any moment of the day and we can find music everywhere, even now, u can find music in the beating of your heart. Music gives us pleasure and makes us forget about our daily problems and tries to relax us for a couple of minutes. i would like to introduce to u guys one of my favourite artist and he was JJ Lin. JJ was born in Singapore and he is a Singaporean Chinese pop singer based in Taiwan. He may not be good looking but he is very cute and his voice is beautiful. It would definitely melt everyone’s heart if u listens to his song. Actually, JJ is among the few artists that I adore because I heard their music first and got addicted before seeing their pictures. But seriously, JJ lin is extremely talented and brilliant, He knows just how to express his emotions in his songs, and make the listeners feel that way too. He is good in composing, singing, dancing and beat boxing too. JJ Lin first started out performing as backup vocalist and writing songs for various artistes before the entertainment spotlight shone on him. JJ came to musical prominence in Asia after he scored himself a ‘Best Newcomer’ award in the 15th Taiwan Golden Melody Awards. Since then he has also won multiple awards in the region, gaining recognition and applause for his musical works far and wide. So far, JJ has released 7 albums but I only collected 3 of his albums. I went to his autograph concert twice. Each album has won him various awards in the Asian region. As a serious musician, he composes each and every song in all of his albums and he constantly seeks to do something different with each album in order to surpass his own and others’ expectations of him.

The Right Fabric Sourcing Practice for Apparel Manufacturing By: Arun Chattopadhyay

(Views expressed in this article are the personal opinion of the author) Purchasing the right fabric can be sometimes a tough challenge faced by apparel manufacturers. Out of the total cost of manufacturing a garment piece, the cost of fabric can contribute between 50 and 65 per cent. Furthermore, even a minor oversight in selecting the right fabric and right manufacturer may spoil the entire apparel programme. Interestingly, though the fabric constitutes the main part of a garment, many of the apparel merchandisers have a very limited knowledge about fabric. They consider fabric as another component of raw material like buttons, care labels, and hang tags or packing materials. Unfortunately, describing a fabric in terms of specification to fulfill its end use is much more complicated than communicating the requirement of any other component of a garment and many apparel merchandisers do not have the necessary knowledge or training to order the right fabric from the right manufacturer at the right price. To be on the safer side, they simply ask various suppliers to bid for their lowest price and finally select the one who offers the lowest price or the most favourable term. Consequently we often see the adverse effects of poor fabric sourcing strategy every day in the apparel industry. Garment air shipment cost is prohibitive and applied as penalty only when the apparel manufacturer fails to deliver the consignments beyond acceptable delays. The cost of air-freight is so high that air shipment of a single consignment of garments may wipe off the profit of a few months for the garment manufacturer. A study revealed that more than 80% of all garment air shipment is caused due to poor fabric sourcing management. Fortunately, such critical errors can be avoided when sourcing woven fabric for manufacturing garments and the procedure is easier than we think about it. When discussing with the garment buyer, do not just talk about the target price he or she is giving you. Ask about the fabric in more detail. This is not only about the counts, construction and weight of the fabric but about some important and critical points. Here are certain things to keep in mind to ensure a trouble free fabric sourcing. Know the end use – that clarifies the required quality standards like colour fastness, pilling / abrasion resistance, tear and tensile strength, stability towards special types of www. fibre2fashion. com garment wash if any etc. Do not feel hesitant to ask those questions because at the end of the day if something does not match the buyer’s requirement, everyone will suffer losses. Special requirements like shade / strike off approval conditions, finishing standard, feel of the fabric, etc. , to be discussed, noted and shared with the buyer and the fabric manufacturer. The garment delivery lead time should be calculated after taking the fabric delivery lead time into consideration. Many garment buyers demand very short, sometimes unrealistic delivery lead time. You should consider the lead time required for each necessary activities like LC opening, sample approval, lab dip approval, one or two re-submits that may be required, inspection and shipment time for the fabric, clearance and transportation to the warehouse and all related activities. Inspection of the fabric and grouping those according to shades are to be done with extra care. For example, if one particular colour is having a large quantity, it is natural to have 2-3 batch wise variation. Mixing shade batches on the cutting table can result in disaster. To make the process easier, the fabric supplier should be instructed to supply the shade grouping charts with roll number mentioned against each shade swatch. The garment buyers also should be informed clearly that for large volume orders that require fabric processing in more than one batch, there would be small batch to batch variation in properties. Fabric with special surface finish like peach finish, microsanding, etc. needs special care. Firstly, the supplier must be instructed to roll such fabric with face inside and put arrow marks on each piece showing the direction of such finish with clear arrow marks at both ends. This is to avoid massive shade variation due to stitching pieces finished in different directions, together. Transportation and storage – Avoid buying fabric that may change properties during the reasonable time required for transportation storage. For example, do not buy a postcure resin finished fabric from a faraway place because during transport and storage, the www. fibre2fashion. com resin may start cross-linking in the fabric, thus spoiling the required DP rating after garment finishing process. Last but not the least; orders should be placed with fabric manufacturers of reputation. Giving 10 cents more to a responsible and reputed manufacturer may prove to save lot of costs and penalties going forward. Failing to supply garments on time also badly affects the reputation which is priceless. The products of reputed companies also give better realization, lesser wastage and higher efficiency at garment making process. At the end of the day, we should keep in mind that real prosperity does not mean only buying cheap and selling high to earn short term profit. The apparel manufacturing company that focuses on delivering quality, punctuality, communication and value to each customer will never have any shortage of business and riches in the long run. About the Author: The Author is specialized in management of Apparel Fabric business. During his more than 30 years of managerial experience of working with a number of Indian textile fabric and apparel manufacturing companies, he has observed that more than 80% problems in the Indian Textile and apparel Industry is related to managing people and lack of adequate HR Development initiatives. Besides having his consulting profession in textile fabric marketing, he also offers Executive Coaching and Consulting in the textile and apparel industries.