Trx Case

1. How does the strategic repositioning of the company and the use of the IPO as an exit for minority shareholders affect the attractiveness of the IPO? The strategic repositioning of the company was to gradually shift away and exist from customer care which TRX generated more than 50% in 2000, and Davis’s long term strategy was to focus on the higher margin sectors, such as data transaction and integrations. By shifting away from customer care, of course would reduce operational cost and increase bottom line for the company but I think it would affect the attractiveness of the IPO in negative way.If I was an investor I would be in agreement with TRX only if they were reducing the customer care due to the high operating cost, but I mean reducing, not totally exist. In the service based company, interacting with end consumers is critical even know it has lower margin but the company should be able to profit from it, if it continues to operate in the future which I believe would create higher customer satisfaction and strong long term relationship with end-consumers.Davis decided to use the strategy to make the financial data looking good or positioning the company for the IPO which he knows that he was going to do in the future because the company need capital to support the firm’s growth, however to exist a sector was not good way to start with the risk that they might have lower customer satisfaction, as the company went IPO, any negative issues would tank the company’s shares if they were not in good relation with end consumers.Davis had chance to improve the attractiveness of the IPO, he had two options; first one was go ahead with the IPO at the lower price of $9 per share, then he had to deal with Hogg Robinson whose intention was to exit TRX, and Sabre whose was in its best interest to sever the relationship with TRX. Their lack of agreement would eventually block the IPO, in order to prove the attractiveness of the IPO; Davis has to convince those two companies to agree upon the price so the proper managerial plan could carry forward.Second, David would just wait for some time to grow the company and complete the exit from the customer care business before the next IPO attempt while increase higher margin businesses. The use of the IPO as an exit for minority shareholders would eventually help the company better alignment of his stakeholders while offering liquidity for those minority shareholders an â€Å"easy out† which would increase the attractiveness of the IPO for small investors. 1. Estimate a preliminary file range for TRX’s shares.CSFB had prepared a valuation of the file price range by comparing TRX to comparable publicly traded companies, there are really no direct competitors as a result there were not going to be perfect comparable company. The methods CSFB and TRX’s management believed are best for them are both enterprise and price earnings multiples which would bring the com pany credit for its strong cash flow and an improving earnings outlook. In the EXHIBIT 9, by using enterprise multiple methods which a measure of a company's value, often used as an alternative to straightforward market capitalization.Enterprise value is calculated as market cap plus debt, minority interest and preferred shares minus total cash and cash equivalents. Base on the result estimated from 2005-2006, the enterprise for online travel sector were around 15, for Payment Processors were about 10 and for distribution is around 7. The calculation is based on CSFB’s financial projections on its own research and forecasts of TRX’s business, and is more conservative if compared to TRX’s management’s forecasting.The second method is price earnings, it is a valuation of a company’s current share price compared to its per share earnings and we calculated it by taking market value per share divided it by earnings per share, the ratio for online travel is around 25, for payment processors is about 20, for distribution is around 17, a high price earning suggests that investors are expecting higher earnings growth in the future compared to companies with a lower price earnings. For those two methods, a 15% discount was applied to this equity value based on the banker’s belief that a newly public firm would not trade at the same value as a seasoned firm.The proposed IPO filing ranged based on analysis should be set at least $11 to $13 per share. However, due to the investor demand during the time of TRX’s road show were really low, and the final IPO offer price will have to be $9 in order to attract more or enough investors. Technology changes so fast and brutal to make it more serious, Davis’s long term goal as discussed in question 4 might not be as good as it really is due the uncertainties of being in such shifting and fast moving tech world, it is very likely that TRX might or ight not fail, we don’t know but if the company did not keep up with the skilled workforce and future prospects, it would put the company in a very difficult position even after IPO, if they are lucky, there could be some big investor jump in and take over the company but the chance are too low because TRX’s is still too young in terms of operation, and even know that the revenue have been steadily increasing, the net income were still negative and there were too many I considered red flags in the financial statement, for example, goodwill on TRX’s balance sheet have increased dramatically from 2003-2004, and current portion of long term debt almost 7 times as higher than previous year, all those factors be main contributor to the future’s success of the company. One last thing is that while the TRX is going public, two of its main investors want to exit; if I am an investor, I wouldn’t want to invest in the company. 2.Given the situation Davis faced in September 2005, what wou ld you recommend that he do with respect to the offering? The situation Davis faced in September 2005 was tough, but the situation could be solved if he could convince Hogg Robinson, and Sabre which I recommend him to signify all the positive aspects of TRX such that they have strong relationship between majority shareholder in BCD technology, and present the fact that due to the 911 incident, the travel industry had experienced some serious headwinds and should be recover as matter of time soon in the future and company will started to make profit if IPO is successfully launched, and proper managerial plan is implemented.Besides, some strength such that its ability to automate and engineer travel and travel related processes, if Hogg Robinson and Sabre agreed to the $9 price, then Davis should proceed with the IPO which will help TRX to raise capital to support growth and accelerate the transition away from customer care, when the company started to grow so their stock price should start to increase too therefore making up the difference of the company’s expectation. I would recommend him do whatever he could at his best to proceed the IPO and I think it is the best option for the company. Otherwise chose the second option which is to withdraw the IPO and allow TRX time to grow and complete the exit from the customer care businesses, and some of TRX’s operational uncertainty would also be reduced because the time might not be right as Delta and Northwest Airlines declared bankruptcy and the overall difficulties and risk as being a technology company.The first dimension be a proper fit, TRX cannot define all major problems and issues that is facing probing and analytical investment, and its products and services were only few, the information about the future perspective of the company given by the Davis were too simple, the only thing that he mentioned again and again is that the company need capital to expand and support growth. The company has the working capital deficit almost four times higher by comparing from 2001-2005 and two investment companies for TRX have declared they want to exit even when the TRX want go to public which would indicate that there are something wrong within the company or perhaps they just aren’t in agreement about that fact that the company is going public so TRX is not proper fit in the first dimension. Second, sharing of ownership seems to be a bit problem, as Davis have indicated that going public offered liquidity for minority shareholders, and lead to a better alignment of his stakeholders.As what it sounds like that Davis did not really want to give up majority of its shares to other companies therefore is not fit on this dimension too. Third dimension is investors appeal, Davis and TRX management met with investment bank which they selected Credit Suisse First Boston because CSFB had strong analyst coverage in the online travel and data transaction sector which Davis believed wou ld help investors understand TRX’s business model therefore they do fit in this dimension in terms of helping investors to understand their business model. Fourth one is the amount raised in capital for the company, Davis decided to officially start the IPO process with a proposed IPO of 6. 8 million shares of common stock, 3. 4 million primary share, and 3. 4 million secondary shares.Even though they have all the shares planed out, Davis did not give any clear idea of how much the company really need to expand and how much ownership he is willing to abandon, as a result I will state that TRX did not meeting this dimension. Fifth, the purpose and timing of the IPO, Davis has been thinking about going public since 2000, but due to the dot-come bubble burst, he was forced to abandon its IPO. After carefully exam the technology IPO market performance, Davis finally decided to file an S-1 registration statement with the U. S. SEC. on May 9, 2005. In term of purpose and timing, Da vis has been very carefully, I think that he knows that he needs this success in IPO in order to support the company.

Response

White's 5 Paragraph Theme Theme This short paper will be in response to my reading of Edward White's â€Å"5 Paragraph Theme Theme† essay. The following paragraphs will Illustrate my opinion of White's Idea, If I think it is an effective means of writing a paper, and If I believe It should be the way all papers, essays, and reports are written. Lastly I will finish up with an overview of what I have discussed.I believe this paper to be well written and thought out. The author follows his own aromatizing of having five parts to his paper and supporting sub-topics, and It's written In an easy to follow logical order that someone could easily duplicate. I am by no means an expert on grammar and punctuation, but It also seemed to be grammatically correct as well. Overall I think his idea of a five-paragraph theme will work for most applications. Do I think it is an effective means of righting a paper?My answer to that is two- fold; as I believe it would work perfectly for shorter reports and essays, but not very long reports that requiring complex thought organization. It is definitely effective in he aspect that White used it as a persuasive essay on convincing you that five paragraphs is the most effective when writing a paper. So, overall I would say yes, it is an effective method of writing a paper, as long as you can effectively convey all the information needed in five paragraphs with three sup-topics each.However, I do not feel it should be used for every type of report or essay. I believe that too ridged of a form can inhibit creativity due to trying too hard to meet a certain format or think of another sub-topic Just to fill a page. This can lead to â€Å"fluff in a report that can diminish its overall effectiveness. For instance when I write I don't do any formatting at all until I'm finished. I feel I can right more freely when I don't have to worry about the specifics, and I can go back and edit everything when finished.This may not be the most effective method of writing a report, but it works for me for right now. I definitely hope to improve in my writing abilities as a result of this class; as I normally struggle with creativity in the literary form and most reports lack luster due to my Inability to elaborate on a given topic. So, to recap, I believe White's paper was well written, organized, and thought out. It Is effective in the persuasion that essays and reports should be written In a five- paragraph format.I understand he did not say this Is the only way to write a paper, but It seems kind of Implied and I do disagree with that. Theme Theme† essay. The following paragraphs will illustrate my opinion of White's idea, if I think it is an effective means of writing a paper, and if I believe it should be formatting of having five parts to his paper and supporting sub-topics, and it's written in an easy to follow logical order that someone could easily duplicate. I am by no means an expert on grammar and punctua tion, but it also seemed to be aromatically correct as well.Overall I think his idea off five-paragraph theme will another sub-topic Just to fill a page. This can lead to â€Å"fluff' in a report that can diminish its overall effectiveness. For instance when I write I don't do any formatting at all until I'm finished. I feel I can right more freely when I don't have to worry about inability to elaborate on a given topic. It is effective in the persuasion that essays and reports should be written in a five- paragraph format. I understand he did not say this is the only way to write a paper, but it seems kind of implied and I do disagree with that.

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The Greatest Ever Sold - Movie Review Example It was a bold movie because Morgan Spurlock is actually making a movie that shows how prevalent advertising and product placements in our daily lives are. The movie started showing how ubiquitous brand messages are in our lives. That from the day we wake up until we sleep, we are bombarded with advertising messages. But basically I know this already that advertising are everywhere. It was however a prelude, or a case build up, of Mr. Spurlocks intention to create a movie that will show the flip flop of advertising and yet, make companies pay for it. I am not sure if it was deliberate or a coincidence with how the film evolved that Mr. Spurlock had an initial difficulty of selling his idea to companies. During the first phase of the film, his meeting with advertising executives was met with hesitance and fear. It illustrated the normal reaction of companies to be anxious about being included in a film that they do not know how will they be perceived by the audience. These brands spent millions if not billions of dollars to build their image to become what they are today and it is normal that they are going to be protective of their brands. At one point, an executive told Mr. Spurlock to turn the camera off and I thought he already had a deal that was actually documented. All the while, as told by Mr. Spurlock himself, that they do not want to be a part of it. I already expected this part of the movie. Of course companies are going to be worried that they might make a fool of themselves in a movie that will feature how offensive advertising are getting now. Moreso, that they are going to pay for it. It is like frying themselves with their own oil if the film actually negatively projects them. As the film progresses in this part, I was wondering how Mr. Spurlock is going to convince advertisers to actually pay for his film that will show how much these companies are bombarding the consumers with its advertisements. But the lessons actually starts here which I myse lf learned a lot. After this initial failure, Mr. Spurlock asked around on how is he going to get advertisers pay for his film. It was not only a tutorial to him but also to the audience especially to students like me. During this process of asking around, I understood what brand collateral really meant when it was applied in real world marketing. Of all the things that has been said about it, it just meant â€Å"what do you bring on the table?† or â€Å"what are you offering?† I also learned what brand personality was when Mr. Spurlock consulted what brands will most likely support him. He met with an Analyst (I think she was a pyschoanalyst) and from there he realized what kind of brand Mr. Spurlock is. He is playful and risk taker which is quite unusual. Because typically people are fearful of the unknown which is part of human nature. Both Mr. Spurlock embraces risk and adventure as part of his personality. He was advised that the brands that will most likely to su pport him are brands that shares his personality. Armed with this new set knowledge, his previous research seemed to work. He had a meeting with Ban deodorant whom he struck a conditional agreement that if he convinces 15 others to be a part of his film, then they are in. I was smiling in this part of the movie thinking that hard work really pays and knowing how to do things really pays off. I also had the feeling that Mr. Spurlock’s moment that his break is already coming in when he

Effects of Technology on Enviroment Essay Example for Free

Effects of Technology on Enviroment Essay Effects of technology on environment. Selection of topic Now a day the world relies totally on technologies. Therefore, it is important to discuss on the effect caused on environment due to these technologies. Aims and objectives To study about effects of technology on earth. To study its negative and positive impact on environment. To discuss how to decreases its ill effect. To analysis the energy consumed per year on technologies. Relevance The Negative Ecological Impacts of Technology One of the biggest problems the world faces today is the amount of energy that is consumed globally. With almost all of the worlds businesses using computer technology to operate, the energy consumption of the industrial world is constantly on the increase. Countries such as the United States where the average employee works more than 40 hours a week, as a result, the energy consumption of a typical office in the United States is likely to be higher than that of an office in a country where the average work week does not exceed 40 hours. Many offices run their computer systems on a mainframe server. This server is usually running 24 hours a day and is rarely shut down. To keep these servers from overheating, fans are installed within the hard drives. With the combined energy of the fans and the operation of the servers, the amount of energy being consumed is huge and results in a very high thermal count. According to the International Energy Agency or, IEA, around 4% of the worlds energy consumption in 2008 was due to the mass use of information communications technologies. This figure is predicted to rise to an incredible 40% by the time the year 2030 arrives. By this time, the demands on the worlds electricity sources will have also doubled globally and companies will need to have a viable solution to prevent computer technologies from being a major drain on the worlds energy resources. The  Positive Ecological Impacts of Technology Despite the claims that technology is to blame for many of the worlds ecological problems, technology has also served to improve the shape of our planet. Since the rise of technology in the workplace, numerous ICT companies have been designing greener technology to combat the detrimental effect that computers and their accompanying technology have on the environment. One of the best known organizations is the Green Grid. The Green Grid is an organization that consists of IT companies and professionals from around the world. The Green Grid is devising ways to improve the way energy is consumed by IT oriented businesses and their offices. One of the biggest achievements of the Green Grid is the Power Usage Effectiveness or, PUE, metric system. This system records data center energy consumption. How it works is by recording the energy consumption of a data center or mainframe server every 15 minutes. By recording in these 15 minute increments it helps those monitoring the data to notice if there are any energy fluctuations and if the data center systems are using an adequate amount of energy. The long term goal of the Green Grid is to introduce a standard system that allows business managers and IT operatives to compare the amount of the energy they are consuming and if necessary resolve ways to reduce it. Another technology that is having positive impacts on the environment is low carbon technology. Low carbon technology is a form of technology that has been developed in China. Largely developed because of Chinas low carbon footprint in comparison to other developing countries, the low carbon technology aims to offset the amount of emissions polluting the air by using renewable fossil fuels. Observation Improvements in the technology have antagonistic effects on the human life along with the positive effects. The growth of the technology leads to very severe problems like pollution, unemployment, effects social life of the humans etc.. First of all, the most serious problem is pollution, which is created by the technological inventions like vehicles, industries, etc.. Now-a-days the vehicles like cars, bikes are increasing which is leading to increase in pollution. The other problem is radiation caused by the increase in the mobile phones. Secondly, in most of the developing countries like  India the major problem is unemployment. This problem is mostly caused by the increase in the instruments, which are the results of improvement in the technology. Finally, in today’s world all the people are getting addicted to the internet like social sites, games and they also becoming victims of the google. For example, all the persons are getting involved in the facebook and they are not at all bothering about the surrounding world, this may leading them away from the social life and sometimes it also creates problems in the families. The other example, everyone in this world is depending on google for each and everything and they are not at all referring to the books. However, most of the people say that improvements in technology like software solutions creates employment, but that is not true because the employment created by the software field is less than the employments which is decreased by the instruments in industries. In conclusion, the negative effects of the technology is higher than the advantages from the improvements in technology. Conclusion As a result of the increase in the various forms of technology, there are many positive and negative ecological impacts on the planet. Through the rise in modern technology and increase in globalization, there is a high increase in energy consumption. This in turn has devastating effects on the planets climate and air quality. However, without modern technology there would not be the capability to improve energy management systems or to develop environmentally friendly products such as bio-fuels. To make a progressive step towards reducing the amount of damage technology does to the environment, it is necessary to find ways to manage new technology responsibly so that it can continue to have positive ecological impacts. Analysis

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A Critique of Data warehousing in Enterprise Resource Planning Systems INTRODUCTION General Background There are different ways in which companies have collected and accessed the data in order to support and enhance the business. Since 1990s, with the emergence of the concept of business data warehouse, companies have been instituting data warehousing for data mining, data analysis, reporting and other business intelligence purpose (Matthias et al., 2003). Bill Inmon in 1990, defined data warehousing as à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“a subject-oriented, integrated, non-volatile, and time-variant collection of data in support of managements decisions. He also stated that the à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“data warehouse contains a very useful source of data for the explorer and data miner. The data found in the data warehouse is cleansed, integrated, organized. And the data is historicalà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚  (Inmon W. H, 2002). Data warehouse is also defined as the à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“architecture used to maintain critical historical data that has been extracted from operational data storage and transformed into formats acce ssible to the organizations analytical communityà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚  (Anne Marie, 2009). In the same decade, with the success of Material Requirements Planning 2 (MRP II) and its evolution to Enterprise resource planning (ERP), various companies implemented ERP software as à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“integrated suitesà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚  that automate core corporate activities and helps the corporate managers to coordinate the common functions of an enterprise (Gibson et al., 1999). ERP can be defined as à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“techniques and concepts for integrated management of business as a whole from the viewpoint of the effective use of management resources to improve the efficiency of enterprise management. ERP packages are integrated (covering all business functions) software packages that support these ERP conceptsà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚  (Alexis Leon, 2008). For every critical business decision taken, information is the foundation. To facilitate this, all functional areas of the organization are integrated using ERP (Chou, 2005). Most ERP vendors have an integrated business suite containing busi ness intelligence (BI) tools to access their data modules directly. However, data warehousing in ERP system is a complicated task that requires the use of various types of inputs like the historical data, and the information that are external to the ERP system (Peng and Nunes, 2008; Chaudhuri et al., 1997). Although ERP systems can integrate all business transaction data into their master databases for organizational planning, it may not be a solution for data analysis and decision support process. Selection of ERP, implementation and integration with BI is the costly and risky processes in the companys life span (Baki et al, 2005). This paper reviews the value of data warehousing in ERP systems. It identifies the power and the capabilities ERP and Data Warehousing. And, reviews the claims made by ERP vendors about their integrated BI solution. The conclusion is provided in the last section. Research Objectives The paper presents the study of features and claims by ERP vendors on its ERPs efficiency of the data warehousing in ERP system. This study attempts to critically review and question the claims by ERP vendors on their efficiency of Data warehousing in ERP systems. Research objective is also to identify those issues that occur in Data warehousing in ERP systems, and then map them in the research framework, perhaps with more detail related to the dimensions that are found. The issues are defined with the viewpoints of vendors and consultants. This paper will provide an overview of the issues and challenges that the intersection of these two IS concepts are creating. Research Design An overview of the importance of the information technology sector and a synopsis on enterprise resource planning systems are presented first, followed by a discussion on the research problem and the academic and practical motivations for undertaking the present study. The study is a review of literature, and claims made by prominent ERP vendors on the data warehousing in ERP system. Critical Literature Review The research design of this study consists of theoretical risk ontology through a critical literature review. A critical literature review was conducted by first searching for the appropriate literature. Initial phase of the literature research attempted to search and retrieve the secondary literature sources like journals, books and newspapers that are directly related to data warehousing in ERP, and data mining. In this process it was identified that current research studies on data warehousing in ERP system focus mainly on ERP selection, implementation, integration with data warehouse, and business intelligence (Chou et al, 2005; Shehab et al, 2004; Davenport, 1998; Themistocleous et al, 2006). The process involved a search of prominent Publisher of journals in information services like ACM Portal, Emerald, Wiley Interscience and Web search engine Google Scholar and IEE Explore. Journals and databases were searched by generating key words and search terms with initial reading and brainstorming. I decided to focus my study on articles that discuss the ERP and particularly the integration with BI. This paper presents the critical literature review about the data warehousing in ERP systems. ERP SYSTEMS Definition of ERP ERP system is a software package that integrates the flow information through the company, including financial, accounting, human resources, supply chain, and customer information. Yen et al (2002) defined ERP system as à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“a business management system that integrates all facets of the business, including planning, marketing and manufacturingà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ . An integrated ERP system can cover wide range of functionalities like reporting, planning, budgeting, forecasting, strategy management, scorecards, and risk management (SAP, 2009) and integrate them into one unified database. It automates core corporate activities by incorporating best practices to facilitate rapid decision making, cost reduction, and greater managerial control (Holland et al, 1999). For example, functional modules such as manufacturing, warehouse management, human resources, finance, customer relations management, supply chain management were all once stand alone software applications, typically having its own database and network (tech-faq, 2009). Best practices are incorporated as a result of the long development history of the ERPs. ERP market is led by companies like SAP AG, Oracle Corporation, Sage Group, Microsoft Corporation and Infor Global Solutions (Wikipedia, 2009). Importance of ERP An important reason for implementing ERP is that, it can help companies re-engineer their business process and compete in the market. Davenport (1998) says that à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“for managers who have struggled, at great expense and with great frustration, with incompatible information systems and inconsistent operating practices, the promise of an off-the-shelf solution to the problem of business integration is enticingà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ . Following are the benefits of ERP systems over the distributed stand alone departmental systems (Yen et al, 2002): * Business process automation a unified enterprise view of the business that encompasses all functions and departments. Improvement in the supply chain via the use of e-communication and E-commerce. * Timely access to management information an enterprise database where all business transactions are entered, recorded, processed, monitored and reported There are many reasons why organizations find ERP system very attractive. The primary reasons focus on the frustrations in using the existing stand alone systems. Convincing reasons for a purchasing ERP system may include (Chen, 2001): * Efficiency of the current system Inability of the existing stand alone systems to support organizational needs * Failure in the distributed system The use of multiple points of input using multiple application which leads in duplicated effort of capturing and storing the data in existing system * Maintenance overhead in the current system The requirement of extensive resources (man and machine) for maintenance and support of the system. * Competition Competition in the global market and the desire to reengineer its business process * Company growth The growth of the enterprise and subsequent incompatibility of several legacy information system * E-commerce Inability of employees to respond easily to questions or information requested by key customer or suppliers ERP systems provide a common platform and business practices across the enterprise that allows the real-time access. According to Davenport (1998), ERP solutions are designed to solve the fragmentation of information in large business organisations, and integrate all the information flowing within a company. ERP failures ERP system implementation can either reap huge benefits for successful companies or it can be disastrous for organizations that fail to manage the implementation process (Holland et al, 1999). The selection and acquisition of ERP software is a risky and challenging task. And a wrong purchase may adversely affect the organization. Themistocleous states many reason for the failure of ERP system. For example, * Resistance from the employs against the change in the system * Differences between organisations and consultants as a result of cost overruns and projects delays. * Non-flexibility in ERP software forces organisation to abandon their way of doing business * Conflict with the business strategy of the organization Selecting ERP and implementation In-house software system development is generally expensive, time consuming and often covered by uncertainties and integration of various incompatible software systems may not function well with each other. If different software packages are being used, data may not be consistent. On the other hand purchasing off-the-shelf ERP software packages can solve problem. Holland et al (1999) says that à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“the companies are radically changing their information technology strategies by purchasing pre-packaged software instead of developing IT systems in-houseà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ . There are different strategic approaches to ERP software implementation. It can be implemented with either a minimum deviation from the standard settings that the ERP vendor provides or with the customization of a system to suit local requirements (tech-faq, 2009). As discussed by Yusuf et al (2004) in the case study about the implementation of ERP in Rolls-Royce in partnership with Electronic Data Services (EDS), ERP implementation is a complicated task. The project implementation problems faced while implementing are * Cultural Problems Some of the functions and processes of the new system did not receive full appreciation from the employee. So, the implementation team had to resolve this by illustrating the improvements made to the company as a whole. Also extensive trainings were provided to the employees of Rolls-Royce. * Business Problems Because of the rigidity in the business structure of SAP R/3 ERP, employees of Rolls-Royce adjusted their working practices in order to fit SAP. * Technical Problems As the system required the retrieval of old data from legacy system which were in de-normalized form, Rolls-Royce had to run legacy system in parallel with the ERP until the expensive process of extracting the old data from legacy system was normalized, screened and stored in a sensible data format in the new database. Implementation of ERP and planning of the resources required to run the enterprise is not the end of the road for ERP. Organization will realize the full potential of ERP when it is used and properly managed (Yusuf et al, 2004). One of the main difficulties experienced by ERP implementations have been the costly development of additional software to summarize and retrieve the information for generating the reports (Themistocleous et al, 2001). A company that plans to invest into ERP needs to have a good strategy and a clear idea about the cost of ERP system. Implementation slowdowns the routine works within an organization. Customization is costly and time consuming (Yen et al, 2002). As outlined by Peng and Nunes (2009), reasons like insufficient user training, loss of in-house IT experts, bankruptcy of system vendor and barriers like inefficient communication between functional divisions can cause ERP post implementation failures Analytical and forecasting functions of ERP: Business managers will have different information needs for planning and decision making (Peng and Nunes, 2009). Decision support system can reduce the time, cost and improve efficiencies. Analytical and forecasting functions are the skills, processes used to support decision making and forecasting. Analytical and forecasting features of ERP can be accessed by managers using an interface such as web-based or graphical interface via the internet or intranet (Marnewick, 2005). If an organization does not take advantage of decision support systems, it cannot take complete advantage of the data and may lose its competitive edge. Most ERP systems today have highly integrated databases and business intelligence (BI) tools to access their data modules directly (Chou, 2005). ERP vendors, data warehousers, and third-party tool vendors have numerous products and solutions for using the ERP data. There are 3 major solutions for ERP data (searchSAP, 2009): 1. Solutions from third-party vendors that analyze data within ERP systems 2. ERP-based solutions that analyze data within ERP systems 3. ERP-based solutions that build data warehouses outside their ERP systems An ERP-based data warehouse is a classical, external data warehouse or data mart built with tools offered by an ERP vendor (Russom, 2007). ERP reports are generated using the existing ERP schema as the foundation for building the standard reports. Integrated business intelligence system pulls the data from ERP systems to a data warehouse and enables to perform data analysis and deliver superior reporting for making timely and accurate decision (Chou et al, 2005). Closer integration of corporate wide data warehousing data with ERP data potentially enhances companies return on their ERP and data warehouse investments (Wiley, 2009). ERP contains a set of analytical tools to facilitate sales planning. Yen et al (2002) says that à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“many companies deploy data warehouses for facilitating the data analysis in ERP. They will buy packaged analytic applications that include a data warehouse, analytical tools, and predefined data models to accelerate the data analysis in ERPà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ . But, in spite of deploying ERP and an integrated data warehousing and BI, there is no guarantee that the forecast generated is up to the accuracy. As discussed by Peng and Nunes, one of the reasons for inaccurate forecasting is due to inherent difficulties in predicting the fluid market. This results in significant impact in companies. ERP systems are usually designed to record business transactions data, make changes to existing data, reconcile data, keep track of business transactions, run predefined business reports, and manage business transactions. In contrast, analytical systems are designed to examine large volumes of data and then to generate essential information for decision-making. There are five major software vendors offering ERP solutions to business worldwide. According to reports from Gartner Dataquest, quoted by destinationcrm (destinationcrm, 2006) SAP is the market share leader in ERP, followed by Oracle, Sage, Microsoft Dynamics and SSA Global Technologies. DATA WAREHOUSING AND DATA MINING Data Warehousing Bill Inmon (2002) says that the à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“data warehouse contains a very useful source of data for the explorer and data miner. The data found in the data warehouse is cleansed, integrated, organized. And the data is historicalà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ . To help managers and decision makers retrieve information they need from tremendous amount of data reside in database, many enterprises have built system environments focusing on data warehousing technology, deployed that as an integral part of a decision support systems (DSS). Data warehouse is responsible for providing information needed for supporting executive decision making. As a result, data warehousing technology has been integrated into ERP systems (Zhang et al, 2006). Yusuf et al (2004) defines Data warehouse as à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“an integrated collection of data. The data is stored centrally and is extracted from operational, historical and external databasesà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ . Data warehouses are used for decision support. Historical, summarized and consolidated data is more important than detailed, individual records. Data Mining Data mining is the study and extraction of patterns from a large set of data. It can be defined as the process of analyzing data from different viewpoints and summarizing it into useful information for planning and increase revenue. It allows users to analyze data from many different dimensions or angles, categorize it, and summarize the relationships identified (Anderson, 2009). Data mining can also be defined as the à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“practice of automatically searching large stores of data to discover patterns and trends that go beyond simple analysisà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚  (Oracle, 2009). Data mining uses sophisticated mathematical algorithms to slice the data and evaluate the probability of future events. The key properties of data mining are (thearling, 2009): 1. Automatic discovery of patterns 2. Prediction of likely outcomes 3. Creation of actionable information Data Mining is widely used in applications such as product analysis, demand and supply analysis, understanding consumer research marketing, investment trend in stocks real estates, telecommunications, e-commerce and so on (Chou et al, 2005). However, a database which is new and which has only a current piece of information is not suitable for data mining as it can never detect trends and long term patterns of behaviour. Historical data is very essential for data mining as historical data contains valuable chunk of information hidden in it. Mature data is crucial for understanding the seasonality of business and the larger cycles of business to which every corporation is subject (Inmon, 1996). Data mining uses data from data source in order to provide users with meaningful indicators. Data from ERP systems is used as data source. Modern ERP systems provide advanced BI tools out of the box, avoiding the hassle of connecting a stand-alone BI system, and lowering the cost which is a critical capability to consider ERP for midsize companies, with limited staff and resources to maintain multiple systems (Newcomer, 2009). After implementing the ERP system in organizations, they tend to concentrate more on the return on investment (ROI). Chou et al (2005) says that à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“In order to justify their return-on-investment (ROI), more and more organizations are turning to BI tools that make data collected by ERP, customer relationship management (CRM), and other data-intensive applications meaningfulà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ . Since a BI system includes technologies for reporting, analysis, and sharing information, many ERP vendors have integrated these solutions with ERP systems to truly maximize the ROI of ERP. The integration of BI and ERP systems can strengthen corporate decision-making capability through utilizing the analytical capability of BI system and data managerial capability of ERP system (Chou et al, 2005). Business Intelligence (BI) can help in competition analysis, market research, economical trends, consume behaviour, industry research, and geographical information analysis and so on. Business Intelligence using data mining helps in decision-making (Naxton, 2006). ERP VENDOR CLAIMS Modern ERP systems may provide advanced BI tools, avoiding the hassle of connecting a stand-alone BI system, and lowering the cost. Integrated business intelligence contains a broad category of analytical applications that help companies in making decision based on the data in their ERP systems (Moller, 2005). Oracle and SAP are currently the only major ERP vendors with such offerings. Analytical applications can be broadly classified as follows: Financial Analytics Financial analysis refers to an assessment of the viability, stability and profitability of a business, sub-business or project (Wikipedia, 2009). It is concerned with optimising the profitability of the business. When used effectively it can provide a competitive differentiator. Financial analytics helps the business focus on the most important customers and the most profitable products and services (Brook, 2009). It helps them to (Schroeck, 2001): * Understand the overall performance of the organization * Identify ways to measure and maximize the value of intangible assets (eg. Services) * Effectively manage enterprise-wide investments and reduce operating costs * Forecast variations in the marketplace, * Optimize the capabilities of information systems, and * Business processes improvement. Integrated analytics allow organizations with an ERP infrastructure to facilitate reporting and tools required for decision-makers. Oracle E-Business Suit (EBS) is one suite of applications that contains ERP and integrated BI. Oracle says that à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“Oracle Financial Analytics helps front-line managers improve financial performance with complete, up-to-the-minute information on their departments expenses and revenue contributionsà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ . SAP Business Suite is a range of software modules with an integrated Business Intelligence. SAP states that à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“SAP ERP provides powerful analytic software that enables powerful financial analysis to help you analyze your business, develop business plans and budgets, and track performance during execution.à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚  (SAP AG, 2009). Few of the features and functions that support financial analytics as stated by SAP are * Financial and management reporting Providing a set of tools to meet the financial and management reporting needs. * Planning, budgeting, and forecasting Support traditional budgeting, rolling forecasts, and collaborative planning, such as cost center planning. * Working capital and cash flow management Optimize cash flow, including cash flow calculations and middle- and long-term planning. Sales Analytics Sales analytics is a procedure involving the gathering, classifying, comparing, and studying of company sales data. It may simply involve the comparison of total company sales in two different time periods. Or it may entail subjecting thousands of component sales (or sales-related) s to a variety of comparisons, like comparison with s for earlier periods of time (Wikipedia, 2009). SAP says that the SAP sales analytic help the organization to obtain the data necessary to proactively address trends and measure success and revenue shortfalls. Oracle states that analytics solutions provided by its E-business suite dramatically improve the effectiveness of sales people by providing real-time, actionable insight into every sales opportunity at the point of customer contact. With more accurate sales forecasts and enhanced identification of potential problems and opportunities, Oracle Sales Analytics helps close business faster and increase overall sales revenue. It lists the following benefits: * Resource allocation Identifying critical opportunities so that executives can assign the appropriate resources to increase the chance of winning * Sales forecasts Analyzing pipeline opportunities to determine actions required to meet sales targets. Provide the information about sales documents, such as opportunities, sales orders and sales contracts. Thus, help in future revenue forecasting. Integrated sales planning and analysis enables sales managers to understand the financial status and overall effectiveness of the sales organization quickly and easily. These scenarios help users obtain the data necessary to proactively address trends, measure customer retention and revenue shortfalls, and assess future opportunities (SAP, 2009). Operational Analytics Operational analytics is a process that facilitates delivery of the in-depth and focused analysis of the performance of each key operational area of the business. Operational Analytics try to provide comprehensive and focused analysis of every aspect of the operational area of a company (Information Management, 2007). Oracle says that à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“Oracles Business Intelligence Suite delivers real-time operational analytics that enable you to make better business decisions fasterà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ . Operational analytics is also a part of SAP business suite. SAP says that à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“SAP ERP provides features and functions for operational analysis to help you optimize the entire supply chain, improve revenues, and increase customer satisfactionà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ . Few of the features and functions that support financial analytics as stated by SAP are: * Manufacturing reporting Provides various standard reports and analyses detailing production-related information. * Customer service analysis Used for monitoring financial trends, costs, and revenues per customer, as well as service contracts and operations. * Sales planning Used for opportunity planning and analysis and partner planning. * Sales analysis Provides an accurate overview of current sales performance and an overview of sales force effectiveness. Workforce Analytics Workforce Analytics is a powerful decision-making platform using business intelligence tools that offer to the management at every level the right and timely information at point of decision making process for a better visibility and accountability in regards to workforce-related issues (Information Management, 2007). Workforce Analytics is used by HR professionals, and line managers. It provides an analysis option that gives real-time insight into your workforce. They can identify trends at an early stage and make well-informed decisions, enabling you to manage your human capital more effectively, predict human-capital investment demands, and track workforce costs and the ROI associated with HR projects (Wikipedia, 2009). The focus is to analyse current and historical employee data to identify key relationships among variables and use this to provide insight into the workforce they need for the future. Oracle says that Oracle workforce analytics in the e-business suite à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“provides the strategy management and performance tracking needed to measure the effectiveness of HR initiatives. It helps to evaluate and communicate company performance, staffing, turnover, HR readiness, compensation, and competencies.à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚  Managers need information that will help guide your strategic decisions. Implementing an Enterprise Resource System (ERP) that integrates all the information and processes into one coherent environment is a first and major step towards improved decision-making. But capturing and processing data is not sufficient to give the insight into the business that decision makers need today. Only when coupled with a business intelligence system can your ERP software enable users analyse and act on that data quickly and effectively. IT industrial leader, Microsoft quotes that à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“Forecaster for Microsoft Dynamics ERP helps you manage financial performance through accurate budgeting and planningà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚  (Microsoft, 2009). A CRITIQUE OF VENDOR CLAIMS Data Warehousing In todays ever-competitive business climate, the ability to understand business conditions and gain timely insight into business performance is essential for survival. Business users have long faced the challenge of being unable to easily analyze business data in their enterprise resource planning (ERP) environment. Oftentimes, the reporting tools available are too complex for business users to utilize effectively, and IT experts do not have the business background to sufficiently understand business users analytical needs. The delay in IT departments turnaround time can quickly render information irrelevant and outdated by the time it is available to business users. ERPs serve as transaction engines in many organizations. It provides mission-critical operational workflow but do not support decision support systems (DSS) directly (Inmon, 2000). Therefore, the need to source a data warehouse from the ERP system and other legacy systems is obvious. Many organisations are now discovering that the solution to leveraging investment decisions in and retrieving useful data from, an ERP system is to undertake a Data Warehousing initiative in conjunction with the implemented ERP system. But, the harsh reality of ERP systems implementation, to the expense of those organisations that invested resources in the initiative, is that ERP only gets data into the system, it does not prepare data for use and analysis (Inmon, 2000). ERP systems lack certain functionality and reporting capabilities. It has been realised that ERP systems are good for storing, accessing and executing data used in daily transactions, but it is not good at providing the information needed for long term planning and decision making (Radding, 2000) as ERP systems are not designed to know how the data is to be used once it is gathered (Inmon, 2000). Consequently, in the post-implementation phase organisations are often dismayed to find that they havent improved their an alytical and decision support capabilities (Inmon, 2000; Radding, 2000) as ERP systems do not provide an environment for decision support activities such as analysing historical trends, drawing conclusions, scenario building and planning. Business Intelligence using Data Warehouse built on ERP System Analytical and forecasting features are provided by the business intelligence tools that are linked to the data warehouse. Some of the common functions of Business Intelligence technologies are reporting, analytics, data mining and benchmarking (Wikipedia, 2009). Integration of ERP and BI can provide a consolidated analysis of the data and user-friendly reporting capabilities and help users make and correct decisions and gain advantages over their competitors. Financial analytics, sales analytics, operational analytics and workforce analytical, may provide the facility to analyze relationships and understand trends that ultimately support business decision. However, few of the challenges faced by data warehousing in ERP systems are in its capability of providing a valuable and accurate reporting service, data analysis and forecasting. Chou et al says (2005) says à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“Organizations recognize the wealth of information within ERP systems, the challenge lies in the ways of min ing themà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ . The lack of historical transaction data in the database containing the data from ERP is the most significant obstacle in successfully implementing a BI on ERP system. One of the key elements in accurate forecasting like trend reporting is the need for historical data. Most of the ERP vendors claim that the reports and forecasts generated by ERP or a BI that is integrated with ERP environment are of high accuracy. Zhang et al (2006) says that à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“although ERP system is powerful, a serious challenge is how to make use of previous experiences and knowledge to support managerial decision makingà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ . Still the research has to be carried out to know the accuracy of the reports as ERP system does not contain the historical data in the enterprises data warehouse. Traditionally, the enterprise data warehouse needs historical data. When a large amount of historical data starts to stack up in the ERP environment, the ERP environment is usually purged, or the data is archived to a remote storage facility. When an enterprise data warehouse needs to go back in time and bring in historical data that has not been previously colle

Robert Cohns Struggle for Respect in The Sun Also Rises Essay

Robert Cohn's Struggle for Respect in The Sun Also Rises    Jake Barnes: "You're not an aficionado?" Spanish waiter: "Me? What are bulls? Animals. Brute animals... A cornada right through the back. For fun-you understand." (Hemingway, 67)  Ã‚  Ã‚   Why does everybody hate Robert Cohn? At the beginning of Hemingway's novel, The Sun Also Rises, Jake Barnes, the story's point-of-view character, wants us to believe that he has at least some appreciation for Cohn. He relates some of Cohn's life for us, how at Princeton he was a middle weight boxing champ, how despite his physical prowess he had feelings of "shyness and inferiority...being treated as a Jew," (Hemingway, 11) his turbulent career as a magazine editor and his failed marriage. It's easy to begin to feel sorry for this guy. The only mistake he made was falling for Lady Brett Ashley. Cohn's infatuation with this heartless wench, coupled with the jealousy and competitive nature of the novel's other bon vivant characters, lead to his disgrace.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Brett Ashley is, from the start, a careless woman. A lady by marriage only, she has affairs with many men, breaks many hearts, and drinks lots of liquor. She wants to be the center of everyone's attention. She may be physically stunning, but she lacks class and restraint. Like the rest of the novel's main party, she has a taste for living the good life in disregard of the feelings and actions of others. It seems everyone loves or has loved her, including Jake Barnes. So Robert's unfortunate attraction to Brett Ashley has already heightened tensions between the male characters.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   For a significant portion of the novel, Cohn is defending himself from the threats and name-calling of Mike, the man to whom Brett... ...on, he posed no great threat to the group and was more a victim of racism than of unrequited love. If his interest in Lady Brett amounted to anything, it was as a target for the jaded sentiments of his "fellow" bon vivants; someone should have clued Cohn in and told him he'd be better off staying in Paris. I suppose these sordid affairs only prove Hemingway's feelings, as expressed by Bill in the novel: "You're an expatriate. You've lost touch with the soil. You get precious. Fake European standards have ruined you. You drink yourself to death. You become obsessed by sex. You spend your time talking, not working." (120) Maybe Robert Cohn, a victim of this ruination, will know better than to waste his time with these dark-hearted dilettantes who hold costly ideas of enjoyment. Works Cited Hemingway, Ernest The Sun Also Rises. Scribner Paperbacks: NY, 1997.

Criminal Trial Process Paper :: essays research papers

Criminal Trial Process Paper Introduction:   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  In Canada, our criminal trial process is based around an adversarial system. What this means is that the disputants are represented by professionals in the field of law. These professionals are called lawyers. The lawyers work so that the truth of the trial is brought forward and justice is served for the greater community. In the adversarial system it is believed that the search for truth is best served by the parties themselves, through their lawyers and not through the judge. This means that lawyers determine the issue in dispute and decide the best way to argue them. Judges generally play a very passive role in the trial process. Their job is merely to ensure a fair trial for the accused, and to make an unbiased, neutral decision at the end of the trial. This decision is based upon the evidence brought forward by the two teams of lawyers during the criminal trial. Key Players:   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  In the adversarial system there are three, and sometimes four key players that make up the criminal trial process. These key players are the Crown attorney, the defence attorney and the judge or justice or the court. There is however in some cases juries involved in the trial process as well. The Crown attorney represents what is seen as the king or queen of the country, however they in actual fact represent the police officers and other law enforcers as well as the general public. The Crown has a very difficult and burdening job. They must find the accused, which is the person being charged, guilty of committing the crime. This decision must be considered and thought to be without a reasonable doubt. Reasonable doubt is a very hard concept to define. It is based around the â€Å"golden thread† of English law, the accused is presumed innocent until proven guilty by his or her accuser. The courts, themselves can not even come up with an exact definition, but have tried their best through this explanation. The concept of whether or not the general public would see as a calmative group a bona fide and required limit on the situation. This limit must be logical and for the purpose of a greater good. Thus the Crown attorney carries an extremely heavy burden when attempting to find the accused guilty of his or her charges. This is thought to give the accused the fairest trial possible.

The Effects of Sport on Levels of Mindfulness and Experiences of Flow:

The area of research that will be of focal concern is conscious awareness in relation to the concept of ‘mindfulness’. In addition to this, analogous research surrounding the topic area will be integrated, with particular attention being paid to an important aspect of sport psychology known as ‘flow’. Mindfulness has its roots in ancient spiritual traditions, namely Buddhism (Keng, Smoski, & Robins, 2011), and is commonly defined as â€Å"the awareness that emerges through paying attention on purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgmentally to the unfolding experience moment by moment† (Kabat-Zinn, 2003, p. 145). Definitions like the preceding are common in contemporary literature, however many authors have suggested that mindfulness is a somewhat elusive construct and that defining it in concrete terms is difficult (Brown & Ryan, 2004). It was recognised that the word ‘mindfulness’ had been used in array of contexts to describe a psychological trait, a state of awareness, in addition to a meditative practice, which together leave the concept ambiguous in nature. In an attempt to clarify its meaning, Bishop et al (2004) proposed a two-component operational definition, with the first component involving the self-regulation of attention, and the second involving the adoption of an open, curious, accepting awareness of experiences in the present moment (Anderson, Lau, Segal, & Bishop, 2007). ‘Being mindful’ can therefore be contrasted with ‘being mindless’ or ‘being on automatic pilot’, and is predominantly characterised by sustained attention on the present-moment experience (Keng, Smoski, & Robins, 2011). The relevance of the application and integration of mindfulness into psychological theory, and subsequently into practice (Sh... ...enhancement. Journal of Clinical Sports Psychology, 4, 291-302. Morgan, B. G. (2010). Review: Psychological skills training as a way to enhance an athlete’s performance in high-intensity sports. Scandinavian Journal of Medicine & Science in Sports, 20(2), 78-87. Shapiro, S. L. (2009). The integration of mindfulness and psychology. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 65(6), 555-560. The Melbourne Academic Mindfulness Interest Group. (2009). Mindfulness-based psychotherapies: A review of conceptual foundations, empirical evidence and practical considerations. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, 40, 285-294. Thompson, R. W., Kaufman, K. A., De Petrillo, L. A., Glass, C. R., & Arnkoff, D. B. (2011). One year follow-up of mindful sport performance enhancement (MSPE) with archers, golfers, and runners. Journal of Clinical Sport Psychology, 5, 99-116.

Receptive and Expressive Language in the Classroom Setting Essay

Receptive or expressive language plays a significant role in a typical lesson plan. The efficiency and success of a lesson plan, when implemented in the classroom, is partly dependent on the communicative skills and responsiveness of the students. The lesson plan contains all the learning objectives, activities, and learning outcomes that must be completed by the teacher and the students within a given period of time. In addition, the lesson plan is designed to produce learning and desirable results from the students, as well as the teacher. For this to happen, there is a need for students to apply receptiveness and expressiveness in language. For instance, if the teacher presents the lesson, the students should be receptive or in other words attentive and focused to be able to understand the information presented to them and retain it in their minds. For the teacher to evaluate whether learning took place within the classroom, the students should be able to express and communicate what they have learned through formative tests, and other evaluation techniques administered by the teacher. Students who are not receptive and expressive enough would find it difficult to participate in classroom activities because they may not be able to understand the lesson or they cannot express or communicate their difficulties during the learning phase, thus resulting to unfavorable results during evaluation. When this happens, this means that the lesson plan failed in meeting its objectives of affecting learning and desirable results within the students. For students with communication disorders, it would be best to put them in special education programs that are specifically designed to meet the unique needs of students who are deprived of communication skills. Other alternatives would be to include them in the regular classroom setting, however, making sure that teaching aids and specialized techniques (ex. sign language, mechanized communication programs available through the use of computers, etc. ) are provided and implemented for them to facilitate learning and desirable results despite their condition.

HR Management and Motivation Essay

High employee motivation is a function of many internal and external factors and can be intrinsically or extrinsically led. Many employers feel that the real objective of the supervisor or HR manager is to ensure that employees are intrinsically motivated. This is because such an employee works hard on his job because he enjoys it and wants to do it, and he may continue to do so regardless of extrinsic rewards to a certain extent (Schop, 2). I myself faced a situation recently where I had immense drive and enthusiasm to do that work and it was majorly sourced by intrinsic motivation. One of my professors was starting a community welfare club and requested students to join in as volunteers. We had to go to different organizations that worked with special people and spend time with them and do various activities. I joined in as a volunteer as well and started at a school that worked for the rehabilitation of special children. The first day was an eye opener for me. There were kids of all ages there, handicapped in some way or the other, and yet they were the sweetest and the most adorable children. Not only had I felt thankful to God for making me such a complete human being and for bestowing such blessings on me, but I also felt deeply for those children. I started visiting them twice a week and did various different activities with them for hours. Time always flew by quickly and all the children would hug and kiss me when I was leaving. After leaving that place, I always felt a strange sense of tranquility over me and great personal satisfaction. It was a great feeling to be doing something for those who are less privileged than us. The love they showed me, the thankfulness in their gestures and the smiles in the eyes was enough to take me there every other day. I started to love spending time there with those people, and started to visit them more and more regularly, taking various things with me for them. From twice a week to thrice, I started spending ten to fifteen hours a week over there. This was all because I loved going there and enjoyed every minute I spent there. The pleasure, the comfort and the satisfaction after spending time there intrinsically motivated me. Seeing my dedication, my professor made me the leader of the volunteers working there, which added to my motivation. He gave me full autonomy and freedom to decide and plan activities, shifts and rotations. I had a chance to introduce more fun activities there for the children and plan the work of volunteers, and this also added to my motivation. Encouraging leadership and responsibility opportunities serves as one of the true motivators (N. a, 3) and proves to be very encouraging for the worker. Not only this, my professor also from time to time encouraged me and complimented me on my efforts. These things added to the drive I already had because the appreciation made me feel even nicer about my work. I was then asked to expand our volunteer network and organize a proper recruitment drive from various other schools and colleges. I planned the whole process with my team and we went to different institutions and did interviews. The entire responsibility for this was on me and I this again served as a great motivation tool. I started worked harder and harder on it and gave in my full energy and dedication to this activity. My professor was highly impressed by my drive and the contributions I was making to his cause. At the annual dinner for students, he gave me a certificate of appreciation for being the most effective contributor in front of the entire student and faculty body. I felt a great moment of pride at that point and it further instilled in me the drive to work for this cause. I still volunteer for the children and our network of volunteers, which started from fifteen students, has now expanded to over a sixty students. My motivation was highly intrinsic and self instilled because of the satisfaction I got from doing something for those people. But it was also complemented and enhanced by my professor who from time to time encouraged me, and added to my drive by giving me an opportunity to exercise freedom and autonomy. The reward in the end was an extrinsic tool that also encouraged me to further pursue it with more energy and enthusiasm.

How to Reduce Employee Turnover with Motivation Essay

Nowadays, a word is very popular in white collars. It is â€Å"luo ci† in Chinese, which means people leaving their current work without a new job. With the development of society and the improvement of the level of people’s life, the phenomenon of â€Å"luo ci† become more and more common. As we know, the employee turnover of hospitality industry is quite higher than other industries. In 2004, Wildes warned that hospitality would face a significant work force deficit of quality managers in the near future. Not only is there a shrinking labor pool due to other industries attracting our potential managers (i. e. retail, banking, and healthcare) (American Express, 2006), but turnover continues to be a significant problem. High turnover not only causes the hotels lose their good employees and makes the level of service declined, but also increases the costs and expenses of recruitment and training. So, those hotels should take some measures to reduce employee turnover. Through some information, there are four main reasons: salary and welfare, personal development, sense of achievement, and interpersonal relationship. Clark and Estes (2002) suggest that employee turnover may not be purely a function of remuneration but rather of employee motivation. From this sentence, we know employee motivation plays a very important role in hospitality industry and it is an effective way to solve the problem of brain drain. The methods of employee motivation can be divided into two parts: substance incentive and spiritual incentive. According to the reasons of leaving, the management should pay more attention on their employees’ needs and motivate them from material and spiritual. Substance incentive means motivating and encouraging employee by some material, such as salary, welfare, bonus, or penalty. It is the main mode of motivation. Besides, it is the most common motivation mode. A study from a salary survey by Hewitt Associates showed that the human resource department in the hotel groups offering at least one plan of pay to performance rise from 51 per cent in 1991 to 77 per cent in 2003 (Jeffrey Pfeffer, 2007). Except carrying out the necessary substance incentive, the spiritual incentive is especially important, because it is a key factor to improve employees’ career happiness. According to different needs do some different spiritual incentive, such as, empowerment, make a future career development program for employees, making some effective communication and so on. In onclusion, with the improvement of living standard, more and more people begin to pay more attention on their internal happiness and pursuit. Taking substance incentive purely cannot meet the demands of the employees. Therefore, substance incentive and spiritual incentive are equally important and complement each other, are indispensable. And the proper motivation not only can retai n the best employee, but also can improve the productivity. 2. The current situation of personnel in hospitality industry The current situation of personnel in hospitality industry is structural shortage and non-normal loss. And as a labor-intensive enterprise, the turnover of the hospitality industry should be no more than 15%. But a survey from China Tourism Association suggests that the employee turnover in hospitality industry in nearly 5 years are 25. 64%, 23. 92%, 24. 2%, 22. 56%, 23. 41%, and the average turnover rate is as high as 23. 95%(Zheng Lu, 2009). With the widely and increasingly fierce competition, the employee turnover rate always remains high and personnel training and supply of the hotel cannot keep up with the speed of development of hospitality industry. In China, we have learned the foreign hotel management for more than twenty years. And large numbers of hotel managers and service personnel have grown up. Except part of high-quality employees are hired by some foreign companies, there is a good deal of personnel retaining our domestic hotels. Therefore, the problem is whether those good employees can be retained or not. 3. The reasons of brain drain Through researching some information, there are four main reasons that causing people leaving their jobs. They are salary and welfare, personal development, sense of achievement, and interpersonal relationship. 3. Salary and welfare A survey (Zheng Lu, 2009) suggests that in all influence which leads to employees leaving their job voluntarily, the most important influence is relative wages. In recent years, with the rapid development of hospitality industry, the number of hotels is increasing gradually, which lead to the benefit of hotel is not as good as before. Besides, for the price rise, the employees’ salary that most of hotels offer just can supply for their daily living expenses. But the income level in some foreign high-grade hotels is much higher than others. And, lots of employees measure their own value by their salaries. So, after they find another job that can provide a better salary, they maybe choose job-hopping. Thereby, this phenomenon makes the speed of employee turnover up. 3. 2 Personal development People who are committed to their work always have their own purpose. Some people want to get high wages and treatment, while, some people pursue high positions, in order to realize their own value. The fact states that thinking about from personal career development space and view of vision, some employees choose change their job, enter a new work environment, even though the salary of new job is less than before. Although their salary is less than before, they firmly believe that their abilities can get more development and their future is much brighter. However, on the contrary, some people give up their management positions and jump to a condition superior hotel. Their purpose is getting much more high-quality trainings and practices and they expect to gain more wide development space. 3. 3 Sense of achievement A lot of hotels think that the higher education, the stronger ability. Therefore, those hotels always focus on those employees who have high education, and give them higher position and more training, often send them to study and investigate. And those hostellers think that only they can bring benefits for the hotels, while ignore the importance of primary-level organizations. Thus, sometimes, the primary-level employees think their abilities cannot be confirmed and their jobs cannot meet their sense of achievement. Finally, in order to find a leader who can accept their abilities and get sense of achievement, they choose quit their job, and change another one. 3. 4 Interpersonal relationship As we know, the most things working in hotel is dealing with people. Some hotels, especially some state-owned hotels always exist some complex and tensional interpersonal relationship. In state-owned hotels, the employees compete with each other; the awareness of teamwork is weak and only pay attention to personal performance. The employees working in the hotel, especially the front-line service employees, their great workload always make them mental and physical exhaustion. Sometimes, a few of customs purposely make difficulties for them, even insult employees’ personality. It makes employees feel that they cannot get the proper care and respect. Therefore, due to cannot stand the depressive work environment, some employees quit their job and to look for a better work environment. 4. Incentive is an effective way to solve the brain drain As we all know, the high employee turnover will cause the management cost of training and recruitment increasing, and the quality of management and service decreasing. For this reason, how to steady the staff, minimize the employee turnover and then realize the steady development of hotel is a difficult problem to many hotel managers. From some researches, I find that employee motivation is an effective way to solve the brain drain. According to a survey conducted by The Ohio State University (Wilson, 2005), the top ten factors that affect employee motivation included: â€Å"interesting work, good wages, full appreciation of work done, job security, good working conditions, promotions and growth in the organization, feeling of being in on things, personal loyalty to employees, tactful discipline and sympathetic help with personal problems. † And in a word, it should be undertaken from two parts: substance incentive and spiritual incentive. 1 To establish a substance incentive system combining compensation and performance According to Festinger (Turner, 2006), â€Å"rewards would affect the attitude of individuals toward their work and their understanding of why they are working. † Establishing a reasonable and effective substance incentive is one of the most important factors that whether company can retain employees. Practice has proved that substance incentive is an important way that can stimulate employee aggressive and improve employee performance effectively in the hospitality industry. Therefore, how to properly hold substance incentive is very important. First, the company should choose the best employees who performed well through the fair and reasonable employee performance evaluation, and do some financial incentive to them, for example, increasing their salary as a reward. It can make employee feel sense of achievement and realize their own value. Motivating employees by using performance-contingent rewards is a long-established management practice. Pay-for-performance is used to promote two ends. First, it is expected that these systems will motivate employees to increase their effort and thereby their performance. Second, these compensation plans are often introduced to better align the efforts of employees with organizational goals and objectives the belief that performance will lead to reward (instrumentality) (Turner, 2006). However, it is worth to think about the demands of employees. According to their needs give different rewards, rather than simply showering them with undesired gifts. Spending money at a problem is often thought of as a quick fix rather than a long-term solution. Therefore, some people begin to seek cheaper alternatives to replace spending money, and to achieve the same aims, such as do some spiritual incentive. 4. 2 Do some flexible spiritual incentive In addition to make some material incentive to employees, spiritual incentive is very important for employees in hospitality industry. In some situations, too much material incentive will bring some distorting effects, because high bonus will lead to the information or messages blocked with each other. It will directly reflect various aspects of the normal work. In the book Concepts and Skill Building (Certo, 2004) says that,â€Å"Motivating employees requires employers to study the employee’s monetary, physical and psychological needs, because individuals are motivated by a number of items namely intrinsic and extrinsic rewards. † Therefore, only use material incentive is not perfect, and spiritual incentive is necessary to a company. It can roughly be divided into the following kinds. 4. 2. 1 Empowering employees can help them take more responsibility. Employee empowerment is defined as a strategy and philosophy that enables employees to make decisions on their jobs. Employee empowerment can not only help employees serve customers at the level of the organization, but also help employees take more sense of responsibility. Empowering employee enables employee to have more right to do their job, that is, they do their job with their own brains rather than carry out managers’ order mechanically. Employee empowerment means the managers trust their employees’ abilities of judgment and dealing with problems. This trust is an honor and appreciates to employees. And it can make employees love their jobs and do not willing to leave their jobs. And there are four most important principles to reinforce employee empowerment, accomplishment, and contribution. 1) Share Leader Vision. It can help people feel that they are part of something bigger than themselves and their personal job. Do this by making sure they know and have access to the organization’s overall mission, vision, and strategy plans. 2) Share Goals and Direction. Sharing the most important goals and direction to your group can motivate people responsible for accomplishing the mission. 3) Trust Your Employees. Trust people can do the right thing, make the right decision. It can make your employees get more confidence and passion. 4) Provide Frequent Feedback. Make frequent feedback so that people know what and how they are doing. Sometimes, the purpose of feedback is reward and recognition (â€Å"Employee Empowerment. † n. d. ). 4. 2. 2 Make a future career development program for employees Nowadays, some people leaving their job just because they cannot see the future in their work. In hospitality industry, the average age of employees is generally young, so most of them always have lots of expectations to their future career. They always want to undertake some challenging jobs, so that achieve their own goals and personal development. While, the most important point to do this is training. Due to the requirements of recruitment in hospitality industry are less than other industry, when some people come into the hotel, they still have none knowledge on the hospitality industry. So, on the one hand, the career development program can help employees have a thorough knowledge of the development of hospitality industry and the demands to the personnel. On the other hand, it can help employees establish their own goals, take advantages of their ability, realize their own value, improve the job satisfaction and sense of belonging and responsibility. From the perspective of hospitality industry, an effective training can help employee improve their professional skills and their mood in their work, so that improve customer satisfaction and hotels market competitive power. From the personal development, an effective program can help people understand their own positioning in their hotels, and establish a practical goal for themselves. In a word, the program is an effective way to help employer find employees’ interest, advantages, and some potential ability and help employees exactly know themselves and improve themselves by proper methods. In order to be successful in today’s challenging economic environment hospitality organizations must demonstrate a commitment to helping their employees learn and develop new skills. This is essential if organizations hope to increase retention and create career growth by promoting from within Lee & Bruvold, 2008). Moreover, employee development programs often signal the degree of investment the organization is willing to make in an employee. From the employees’ perspective, this investment indicates how much the organization supports its employees (Wayne, Shore, & Liden, 2007), genuinely cares about the long-term professional growth of its employees, and values the employees’ contributions. So a good employee development program is very important to the employee turnover. A review of the recent hospitality literature further reveals that employee organizational commitment significantly influences employees’ turnover intentions (Johanson & Cho, 2007) indicating that the more committed or attached an employee is to an organization, the less likely that employee is to leave. And it states that the program has the potential to enhance an employee’s commitment to the organization, so, the program could also reduce turnover in the hospitality industry. 4. 2. 3 Making some effective open communication Open communication is extremely important and considered a top priority by the majority of employees (Honore, 2009). Most of employees often feel their managers and supervisor lack of open communication. This phenomenon causes the employees lack of care from their company and their managers cannot understand their needs, in turn, causing brain drain. Therefore, the managers and supervisors must often talk and listen to their employees. And the simplest way to make an open communication is giving employees the opportunity to ask question. And then obtain an answer to the questions and provide the answers in an honest and timely manner. It will help them avoid some further doubt and misunderstandings with each other. An open communication can create a relaxed and happy working environment for employees. It will reduce the working pressure of employees. In addition, open communication makes managers and employees more understanding with each other and is a good opportunity to enhance relationship between each other and clear the air. An effective communication should be clear, consistent, and correct. It is vital to understanding employee needs and make employee willing to work harder to get better performance. Communication should be accurate, prompt, and well organized, and managers should listen to employees carefully, help employees with the problems, and care for employees. An open communication can make employees feel respect from their managers. If employees receive their managers’ care and respect, they will return more care and efforts to their company. And it can reduce the rate of employee turnover effectively. 5. Conclusion Times change; society change; people’s minds change. More and more people begin to pay more attention t their internal happiness and pursuit, rather than just limited to their salary, position, and other material factors. So companies must conform to the requirement of the times, understand staff needs, and meet their needs from different aspects. In order to retain the employees, companies must make material incentive and spiritual incentive together. The motivational effect of material incentive and spiritual incentive is different. If companies want to motivate their employee effectively, they must take proper measures according to the specific situations. Employee motivation is very crucial to reduce the rate of employee turnover and retain the employees. According to the reasons of people leaving, the hotels mainly make some substance incentive to their employees. But it is not enough to meet employees’ needs, the spiritual incentive is also important for employee to meet their desires and decrease the high employee turnover. There are three main methods to make a spiritual incentive. They are empowerment, open communication, and making employee career development program. Besides, praise and respect the employees are very important. It can make employees become more loyal to their company and maximum the satisfaction of employees. The more satisfied employees feel about their jobs, the less likely they are to leave, which further reduces organizational turnover (Costen, 2010). 6. Summary The hospitality industry is, in every sense of the word, big business. U. S. restaurant industry sales are expected to reach a record $537 billion in 2007, employing 12. 8 million individuals, adding two million new career and employment opportunities in the next decade (NRA, 2007). However, the rate of employee turnover in hospitality industry is very high. Therefore, reduce the rate and retain employees is a pressing concern. The key to keeping employees in hospitality industry is rewarding employees for what they do every day and having an employee-friendly environment where people can feel comfortable bringing their concerns to the manager. Therefore, both substance and spiritual incentives are necessary management methods to motivate employees in the hospitality industry. Substance incentive can provide material demand to employee, while spiritual incentive provides spiritual demand to employee. Most hotel managers always like pay more attention to pay for performance and ignore the role of spiritual incentive, which leads to a high turnover rate and high cost of human source department. However, according to the increasingly higher demands of both employee and customer, non-financial incentive to motivate employee is more and more important. In the hospitality industry, the most common methods of spiritual incentive are empowerment, making future career development program, open communication and praise and respect etc. Their functions are meeting employee’s satisfaction which is defined as a sense of recognition, achievement, responsibility, improvement and promotion, interesting work, and awareness for future development. Through different methods can meet employees’ different needs, it can make employees prefer their job, rather than quit their job. Employee motivation can not only keep the best employee for hotels, but also save cost of training and recruiting. It will improve the competitive power for hotels and make their business better and better.