Strategic Research Project Essays

Strategic Research Project Essays Strategic Research Project Essay Strategic Research Project Essay Strategic Research Project Name: Course: Institution: Instructor: Date: Strategic Research Project Vodafone Group is a British transnational company that engages in telecommunications. It has its mother company in Newbury, United Kingdom. Vodafone is the world’s largest telecommunication company in terms of revenue and second in terms of the number of users. It operates in over thirty countries having a vast base of associate companies. The company has a slogan â€Å"Everybody’s welcome† displaying how they have made efforts to accommodate all kinds of clients with different backgrounds having the same of interest of using Vodafone products. True to their mission, Vodafone have extended their branches to cover at least all the continents in the world. The company has strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats that apply to its operations, in addition to its structures. The major strengths of Vodafone Group are that Vodafone has a wide, geographical portfolio covering much of Africa, the Middle East, plus to a small level, the US. Therefore, they enjoy a strong customer base that provides it with increasing revenue each financial year. This large customer base also becomes the consumers for Vodafone products. Vodafone has also invested substantially in their network infrastructure with signal masts to serve consumers within their vicinity. Vodafone also managed to entrench their presence in most developing states like India and Kenya. Lastly, Vodafone provides reliable data and voice services especially in cities making it a preference for corporate groups. (Vodafone Group Plc, 1900) Some of the weaknesses plaguing Vodafone include non exploitation of other markets. Owing to their heavy investment in Europe, Vodafone misses out on benefiting from the rest of the untapped markets in The Americas and East Asia which still have a large demand for mobile phones along with other Vodafone products. Vodafone has also invested very little in extending their signal range to cover most of rural areas thereby missing out on the huge rural consumers. Vodafone has also not focused their business operations in the US. Therefore, they do not maximize on the thriving demand created by mainstream American firms and entrepreneurs. In terms of opportunities, Vodafone have developed innovations in mobile commerce that seek to fuse banking with mobility that will see an increase in their revenues. Vodafone launched the mobile money transfer service, M-PESA along with Safaricom Kenya, which brought new dimensions to mobile banking. Vodafone has also launched the mHealth Solutions which is the application of mobile communications to healthcare. Apart from these products, Vodafone also launched the cheapest phone aimed for the developing world. The most dominant threat in this market is the constant change in technological approaches. The telecommunications market is characterized by a dynamic competition that constantly seeks to innovate and experiment with new ideas. Consequently, this competitive environment always threatens Vodafone with being edged out of the market. The European Union also poses a threat to the mobile usage across borders in Europe threatening Vodafone as mobile phones are their major product. Lastly, Vodafone still has a lot of ground to catch up with other American telecommunication companies that have cut a niche for themselves as solid competitors. (PLC SWOT analysis, 2011) In terms of market penetration, the Vodafone company has made huge investments in most of Africa as well as the Middle East in a bid to penetrate new markets. It operates in Egypt, in South Africa, in Ghana and in Libya under the partnership with al Madar (Working Nation, 2004). Of interest is the approach of using partnerships as the main method of going into business within Africa. This can be an attempt at mitigating political as well as economic risks that plague most of African states. Within Asia and Latin America, Vodafone has been taking a laid back approach similar to that in Africa by again opting to partner with Verizon Wireless instead of establishing their own offices independently. Within Europe, Vodafone have been more aggressive. It has engaged in past takeovers of telecommunication companies, for example, Elisa, Omnitela plus Cyta alongside other companies. Clearly, Vodafone has invested a larger bulk of their capital in Europe as compared to the rest of the continen ts. Vodafone has three main competitors in the global market namely T-Mobile, Orange as well as O2. Vodafone has taken a strategy of buying out other networks in order to reduce competition within a particular market segment. However, small network operators operating as mobile virtual network operators have lowered this barrier significantly with differentiated products alongside services identifying them as new entrants. Key suppliers of Vodafone have had less muscle to bargain owing to lack of technical advantages as well as the looming Chinese entrants who pursue cost leadership. Vodafone has responded to this by integrating all her key business activities hence leveraging their economies of scale. Vodafone has also countered the threat form substitutes by continuously diversifying its products to meet the consumer’s needs. (Myers, 2010) Vodafone has been actively engaged in domestic politics of their host countries where they possess subsidiaries dragging the firm into many blame games. In order to avoid such complications in the future, Vodafone should revise their policies concerning cooperating with the state in matters of state interest. A good example was the Egypt insurgency where Vodafone, who administers most of the telecommunication infrastructure, shut off all voice and data services to Egypt citizens after orders by the state (William, 2011). Vodafone should also engage in a vigorous campaign to establish themselves in the US where there is a large customer base. Over five years, this should translate into profit margins received by Verizon as well as ATT Mobility. References Global Perspective. (2010). Service Provider VoIP Equipment and Subscribers: Quarterly Worldwide and Regional Market Share, Size, and Forecast. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley and Sons. Myers, D. Vodafone (Firm). (2004). Working nation: Views from people at work. St. Albans: Vodafone. Vodafone Group Plc (Newbury). (2010). Annual report. Newbury: Vodafone Group Plc. Vodafone Group, PLC SWOT Analysis. (2011) (n.d.). (Business Source Complete) Cleveland: Data monitor Plc. Williams, Christopher (28 January 2011). â€Å"How Egypt shut down the internetâ€Å". The Daily Telegraph (London)

Advantages And Disadvantages Of Charlotte Accepting The Job Commerce Essay

Advantages And Disadvantages Of Charlotte Accepting The Job Commerce Essay The advantages of Charlotte accepting job is can focus the experience and expertise. This is because Charlotte can focus in their job that he like to do. Whereas the advantages of Charlotte accepting job is the demand on the manager’s time is high, ambiguous and uncertain operating environments and resistance to change is low. QUESTION 2 Explain the change in roles and skills of management that charlotte has to play and have with her position. Charlotte firstly worked as machine operator its roles just be a staff that work at lower levels her has little experience and knowledge. She had interpersonal roles work at Coccob four year and she has opportunities be a plant supervisor. She are good employees doesn’t missed work at four year work and she had one of the high quality and quantity in organizations .she had the technical skill is the ability to utilize tools ,techniques and procedures that are specific to a particular fields. In additions,, charlotte had the human skill is the ability to work effectively with others and she had the conceptual skill that the ability to analyze complex situations like she can suitable with position that its take. QUESTION 3 Describe how Charlotte might expect to be involved in performances of the four management functions. Management process are an administrative activities aimed at defining a process, establishing responsibilities, evaluating process performance and identifying opportunities for improvement. Management process is including the four processes that is planning, control, leading and organization. Planning process can be define as a process or activities that setting a goal or list the actions necessary to achieve one goals. when charlotte become the plant supervisor, indirectly she has involve in planning process. This is because as a supervisor, she was responsible with the development and performances of company, where she was working. As a plant supervisor, she has to do a schedules work assi gnments for the junior employees to make sure the junior employees was doing their work accordingly and in systematic ways. Charlotte has to plan an schedule for her junior employees. Next process is the organizational process where the plant supervisor need to determined the task to be done, people or employees that responsible with that task and how that task will be managed and coordinated. Charlotte is responsible to organize the schedule or task to be given to the junior employees. Charlotte must ensure that, the information about the task must be stated clearly to the junior employees in order to make sure they can know what they really have to do. Next is, the leading process. As a plants supervisor, charlotte also have to leading the junior employees such as gives them motivate in order to make sure, the goal of the company can be archive. A leader must has the ability to motivate people, know the employee behavior and also has an communication effectiveness in order to make sure information can be shared to all of the people effectively. Charlotte also must be able to show the leadership quality and must be able to solve any problem. The last one process is control. Control can be define as process of controlling or monitoring the performance of the organization and its progress in implementing strategic and operational plans. Charlotte has to control the employees performances, in order to make sure that the performance can lead to the organization goals.

Is English a Dying Lingua Franca Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Is English a Dying Lingua Franca - Essay Example This is a contact language of those persons who are not able to speak each others’ language but they do share a specific language which facilitates them for communication when they come into contact with each other. Due to the reasons mentioned above English language is a lingua franca for many people in the world. It is shared by nearly all the communities of the world. Most of the discourse between the people of South Asia, South East Asia and Africa and Middle East takes place by using English as a lingua franca. Can we say that English will continue to command this acceptance even in future? This question has initiated a debate that has generated response in its favour or against it. It was Graddol (1997) who first came up with certain interesting predictions about the future of language. It was he who had vigilant eye on certain socio-political changes across the globe. The socio-political changes along with new patterns of demographic shifts made Graddol claim that Engli sh language may lose its popularity and the present status of a being lingua franca due to the emergence of certain South East Asian and South Asian languages. Graddol reasoned that population explosions in China and India may increase the number of speakers of these languages who may outnumber the speaker of English language. He also predicts an uncertain future of English due to certain socio-economic transitions. Graf’s (2011) research reflects a departure from assumptions of Graddol as it sees no observable shift in the world’s lingua franca from English to any other language like Chinese or Urdu/Hindi due increase in number of speakers. Graf’s study has taken into academic and economic measures like bibliometric analysis and Gross Domestic Product to ascertain the possibility of Graddol’s claims. The study describes that although Chinese language is showing some developments at global level, yet it does not seem to have assumed the role and internati onal lingua franca in near future. All the above given indicators seems to suggest that â€Å" English-language cluster seems to remain unchallenged as the world’s most important academic and economic language (p . 77). Widdowson’s stand on the issue has been explained with reference of two quotations from poetry (Jenkins, para 30-31).The first is an excerpt from Yeats's TheSecond Coming: Things fall apart: the centre cannot hold Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world The second has been taken from Tennyson's  Idylls of the King: The old order changeth, yielding place to new, And God fulfills himself in many ways, Lest one good custom should corrupt the world. Widdowson’s analogies sum up the controversy in the form of two conclusions: According to the first analogy taken from Yeat’s poem Widdowson seems to assume that if the Inner Circle is able not able to maintain its authority then there will be situation of linguistic anarchy in world which uses En glish language as its primary mode of discourse. His second observation seems to view a situation where the non native varieties of English will take the place of English language. In both cases the status of English as a lingua franca is compromised (cited in Jenkins, 2005). Jenkins(2005) also shares the views expressed in Tennyson’s poem which seem to suggest a replacement theory regarding status of English. She also views a shift in favour of

My Experience In a English Class Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

My Experience In a English Class - Essay Example I have also been able to improve on various issues relating to English as my second language. In this paper, I will talk about my experience in an English class. The English class has helped me a lot in improving both written and spoken language. It is good to inform that English is my second language and hence joining English class was the best decision I ever made. In English class, I have learned several things that are basic and important in English language. The first thing that I learned and I felt was helpful was on the sentence. In class, I learned that a good sentence was the most important thing in any communication in English language. I learned that poor sentence was not good in formal communication. Therefore, in class I learned that the sentence should have a subject that is the name of the person or things talked about. The other part of the sentence that is of value is the ones tell about the subject. Hence, a mix of the two parts makes a sentence complete and offer meaning to what is being talked about. The other part that I have learned in class is the use of various parts of speech. Examples of such parts of speech are the noun, verb and adjectives. These parts were helpful as I learned on the role they play in English language. I learned that they helped in any form of communication or writing that is concerned with English. I also learned that the combination of these parts helps in proper flow of information. On the other hand, I learned about various vocabularies in English. Learning of vocabularies was of great to me as English is my second language. I found that English hand various types of vocabularies that can have one or several meanings. Learning on various parts of English language has helped me to read some novels in English. Reading these novels has helped me improve my language. Moreover, in class I have learned various things concerned in writing

The Benefits of the Statehood for Puerto Rico :: essays research papers

Benefits of the statehood for Puerto Rico The intention of this essay is to demonstrate to a vision rational, concordant political leader to the Puerto Rican, American and worldwide reality. It responds to the necessity that to the statehood it is necessary to imagine it and to expose it with all the evidence available, since many Puerto Ricans, including many political leaders, do not know like defending it or exposing it before the peculiar ones or our adversaries. Puerto Rico is smallest and Eastern of the Greater Antilles. The north of Venezuela has left approximately to 500 miles, 80 miles to the east of the Spanish, and to 1.200 miles to the Southeastern of the city of Miami, in the North American state of Florida. The U.S.A. annexed to Puerto Rico to the closing of the Hispano-American War, in 1898. Within the American constitutional system, Puerto Rico is considered a "territory organized, not incorporated." This adjustment, formulated by the Supreme Court of the U.S.A. in a series of opinions known like the Insulars Decisions there by year 1903, treats to Puerto Rico like a foreign property of the U.S.A. in terms of internal relations, but like part of the North American national territory before the international law. In order to complicate the things, like not-incorporated territory, Puerto Rico never it was put in automatic route towards a possible statehood since it they have been all the other incorporated territories, as it they have not either been the other not-incorporated territories of Guam, the Virgin Islands and the Marianas Islands of the North. Confused contradictory and, the situation have been evolving gradually to one of gradual integration of Puerto Rico with the U.S.A. The legal and constitutional evolution of the law and precedents that has been accumulated through the years from the promulgation of the Insulars Decisions have tended to treat to Puerto Rico more and more like a state federated in very many areas of their political and economic subjects, except in the most important subject of their last sovereignty. Why he would be to him advantageous to the U.S.A. to admit to Puerto Rico like state? A political reason - the American generation founding, who underwent in own meat the colonial humiliation, never contemplated that his newborn Republic it became a colonial power. The one is implicit in the American Constitution that all territory acquired by the U.S.A. is directed to a possible statehood.

Ageing Population â€Any Resolutions?

Ageing population –any resolutions? According to the World Health Organization , a country or a city is defined as an ageing society if the number of elders who aged 65 or above exceed 7% of the whole population. With 14% of elders in population, the country would be considered as an aged society. Worse still, if the amount of elders still keep on increasing and reach 20% of the population, the country would be classified as an hyper-aged society. Recently, the ageing population has been under the spotlight all over the world.This worldwide issue has aroused public concern and surely Hong Kong is not an exception. According to the Hong Kong Population Projections published in July, 2012, there are in total 13% of elders who aged 65 or over in our population, which means that Hong Kong is going to transform into an aged society. What’s more, it is predicted that we would turn into hyper-aged society in 2026, with 23% of elderly people in population. Such shocking data ac tually did a good warning effect , which successfully remind government to take long term measures at once to tackle the problem.Or not, ageing population would lower Hong Kong’s labour force, which would then affect Hong Kong’s productivity and hence our competitiveness in the world market. Furthermore, the ageing population would also burden the health care system. To solve the problems, people from all walks of life have raised different suggestions. It is proposed to import talents from other parts of the world, and implement effective policies to convince children born here to non-local parents and their families to stay here in order to alleviate the shortage of labour force.On the other hand, the tension in existing health care system can be eased by several programmes held by the hospital authority, like the psychological support programme , which can help strengthen staff morale and address their work stress. As the above mentioned, one of the severe problems provoked by ageing population is the shortage of larbour force. According to the Summary Results of the 2011 Population Census published in February,2012, the labour force participation rate has dropped from 61. 4% in 2001 to 59. 7% in 2011.In addition, with reference to the Hong Kong Population Projections , the overall dependency ratio is predicted to rise from 352 to 712 ,which is over a double increase. Besides, it is also estimated that every three persons in the workforce will need to support one elder by 2029. Therefore, we can see that ageing population not only lower our larbour force, and hence Hong Kong’s productivity and competitiveness in international market , but it would also put more burden to the workforce, which bring great challenges to Hong Kong economy. To increase the supply of labour force in near future, it is believed there are few ways to do so.Firstly, we can introduce more talent admission schemes and seriously investigate both push and pull facto rs affecting talents to stay or to leave Hong Kong. For instance, the government are now expanding the international school system. There would be in total 5000 additional international school places in the coming four years. Furthermore, the government is planning to invite the international schools to express interest in expanding their school by using several vacant school premises. These actions definitely help import talents from other countries, but the government should note that it should not be a short term measure.The government should keep improving the education in international school and try best to assist international school to have more resources so that more school places are available for the talents and talents would stay here for better education. Or not, the students from outside Hong Kong may choose to study in other countries with better education, other than Hong Kong. Yet, there are some critics believes that it is totally not enough to solve the population problem by only those talent admission schemes.Therefore the babies born in Hong Kong to non-local parents have been seen as a simple way to alleviate the problem. But whether those babies and their families would stay here or not later on, it mainly depends on the government efforts to implement policies for that purpose and see whether the city can promise them a stable and good enough future. Compared to the talent admission schemes, it is a more effective means to meet the uprising demand of manpower as the number of mainland families who stay here is greater than those talents.This can be proved by the results of our 2011 Population Census . According to the Hong Kong Population Projections, about 77% of the Mainland women whose husband is a Hong Kong Permanent Resident, would bring their children back to Hong Kong later. And about 53% for those Mainland women whose husband is not a Hong Kong Permanent Resident would also later bring their children back to Hong Kong. Other tha n the shortage of labour force, the ageing population would also burden the health care system. More elderly people would definitely increase the demand of medical services and it would ncrease the work stress of frontline staff in hospital and the financial burden to the government. To strengthen the staff morale and ease their work stress, it is suggested the Hospital Authority can hold more relaxing measures , for instance, improving the working conditions, recruiting more full-time and part-time staff and preventing excessive overnight duties. All these are useful ways to reduce frontline workload, and it is believed it can help lower the staff turnover number, and hence help prevent the manpower shortage in public hospitals.Just like the psychological support programme which help staff deal with work stress has lower the overall turnover rate of physicians in public hospitals from 5. 2 % in 2010/11 to 4. 8% in 2011/12. And the overall turnover rate has further decreased to 4. 4 % in the first 4 months of 2012/13. All in all, it is the responsibility of the government to stop our aging situation from being worse. The government should plan detailed and long term policies to solve the aging situation. Or not, Hong Kong will be suffered badly with economic and social problems in the near future. Word count: 1035 words) REFERENCES Peng,P. (2012, February 24). The problem is not ‘non-local’ women but intermediaries. Retrieved from http://www. cdeclips. com/en/hongkong/The_problem_is_not_'non-local'_women_but_intermediaries/fullstory_72200. html Demographic Statistics Section, Census and Statistics Department. (2012,July). Hong Kong Population Projections. Retrieved from http://www. statistics. gov. hk/pub/B1120015052012XXXXB0100. pdf Pang,F. C. (2012, October 12). Letter to the Editor . Retrieved from http://www. ha. org. k/haho/ho/pad/121016chi1. pdf Li, A. (2006,August 12). Coping with old age. Retrieved from http://www. scmp. com/article/559945 /coping-old-age Census and Statistics Department. (2012, February 21). Summary Results of the 2011 Population Census. Retrieved from http://www. censtatd. gov. hk/FileManager/EN/Content_1214/presentation_summary_results. pdf HKSAR. (2012, May 30). Government releases Steering Committee on Population Policy Progress Report 2012. Retrieved from http://www. info. gov. hk/gia/general/201205/30/P201205300456. htm

A Brief Note On Post Traumatic Stress Disorder - 1677 Words

Mariela Rangel Prof. L. Poulton English 1301 P50 8 December 2015 PTSD Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is a mental health condition caused by experiencing or seeing a terrifying event. It has been known to affect mostly war veterans but has also affected people who are not veterans. Rape victims and people who have suffered severe abuse have also been diagnosed with PTSD. In most cases, veterans have a higher percentage than others. David J. Morris, a Marines veteran, and the author of The Evil Hours, states that over the past four decades, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder has permeated every corner of our culture. Morris states a species of pain that that went unnamed for most of human history, PTSD is now the fourth most common psychiatric†¦show more content†¦She adds that with PTSD, changes that are part of the â€Å"flight of fight† response can persist long after the danger has passed (Hansel 3). Morris states that PTSD is often thought of as being a syndrome of remembering things too well. He adds that â€Å"the ones who ‘forget,’ they suffer later† (Morris 35). Victor Monjaraz, a former Marine, says that he felt he could handle PTSD on his own, but his emotions did not allow him to. His wife had to convince him to visit a psychologist at the VA and see what the doctor had to say. Monjaraz already felt that he had PTSD before the visit. He was diagnosed with anxiety, depression, and PTSD. Monjaraz experienced night terrors and road rage. He was easily irritated and could not be in crowded spaces. The disease also took a toll on his marriage and says, â€Å"The Marines taught me to turn off my emotions but didn’t teach me how to turn them back on† (Monjaraz). Morris states that the worst things in the world enter the brain in an instant, though it may take the rest of someone’s life to understand what they saw (Morris 45). Monjaraz says that he saw brutal things and did not get affected by it until the night time came around. He cried in his sleep, made groaning noises, mumbled things and had night sweats (Monjaraz). Morris states that fundamentally, we do not know why some people are damaged by terror and some are not. He adds that according to the Comprehensive Textbook of Psychiatry, the