Monday, December 30, 2019

Is justice for all possible in America Free Essay Example, 1500 words

Critics has also raised the question that whether All these questions cumulatively give birth to an interesting paradigm and finding a satisfactory answer to these justice for all is at all possible in USA; is it a myth or motto? Since getting justice has become a costly affair, is it possible amid growing income inequality that all remain same before law? questions is an arduous work for a researcher. Starting from the late nineteenth century the present paper leads an endeavour to find the answer for all these questions in a just and apt manner. Justice in USA by the end of nineteenth and at the wake of twentieth century: In USA the federal courts had restrained themselves from enacting any control over state criminal proceedings till 1868. During the Cohens v. Virginia case the federal court felt the need of its intervention for the first time owing to a hastened decision by John Marshall. Even after the enactment of the fourteenth amendment the states seldom displayed any concern for change in procedure while implementing the criminal law and the first wave of cases dealt by the state courts and needed further consideration by the federal courts reached the Supreme Court around fifteen years after the concerned amendment. We will write a custom essay sample on Is justice for all possible in America or any topic specifically for you Only $17.96 $11.86/page The first of this kind came through the definiteness of statutes. When the states defined gangster, the Supreme Court criticised the definition as baseless and not well defined.

Saturday, December 21, 2019

Exercise For Today s Youth - 1552 Words

Daily exercise for today’s youth will benefit them in the long term I believe that physical fitness is very important regarding the overall health of adolescents. Throughout the growing years of teens, our bodies are always changing and with these changes which are both emotional well as physical, our bodies require more and more activity, allowing the body to burn energy along with extra calories. Although many people may feel that concerns relating to physical fitness in adolescents should be the absolute responsibility of parents, I personally believe that our educational system can also play a very important role in ensuring that teens are getting a reasonable amount of physical activity within the course of the school day. As an adolescent, I personally enjoy being involved in sports which is inclusive of physical activity. The teenage years are important in terms of both mental and physical development, and staying fit during adolescence can have benefits that are both physical and psychological. Good or poor fitness habits that a teenager develops during his or her adolescence are likely to last a lifetime, and studies have shown that exercise can be beneficial to a teen s overall health while also promoting a positive body image. The above graph represents a percentage of children. It breaks down the children into three age groups and starts with kindergarten. It also focuses on 6th graders and 9th graders. The numbers reflect the percentage of childrenShow MoreRelatedA Persuasive Thesis Statement On Youth And The Internet Essay1276 Words   |  6 Pages3 May 18, 2015 A Persuasive Thesis Statement on Youth and the Internet Dangers of the Internet, Fact or Fiction? Today’s youth are tomorrow’s leaders. They are our future. So what kind of leaders are we creating? What affects the way our children grow up today? Popular opinion today says that excessive use of the internet is damaging to the youth of the world in many ways. One of the most significant beliefs is that kids today don’t exercise enough because they are on the computer all the timeRead MoreIt Is Essential That Through Government And Community Participation,998 Words   |  4 Pagesor obese. There are so many reasons to exercise, so many benefits of leading a healthy lifestyle. In today s media conscious world we hear bout them, read bout them and are told about them almost everyday. So why do we continually ask the question.. why is Australia s youth becoming increasingly overweight and unfit? There is a simple reason behind this staggering truth, a recent study found that 80 percent of adolescence did very little or no exercise- daily activities such as walking to schoolRead MoreShould Parents Enforce The Usage Of Social Networking From Youth? Essay1518 Words   |  7 PagesShould parents enforce the usage of social networking from youth? For some youth and parents, the answer is clear - social networking does more harm than good. Not everyone thinks the same, however. For example, many people believe that allowing kids to utilize technology into kids’ or teens’ lives allows positive outcomes and new opportunities. Yet, what people have not realize is th at some people are so busy on social networking that they do not comprehend the damage that it is doing to you children’sRead MoreThe Decision, And Impact On Today s Criminal Justice System1024 Words   |  5 Pagesnations have this type of freedom. Therefore, we will take a look at one of the U.S. Supreme Court case (Gerald â€Å"Jerry† Gault) in regards to a juvenile right to consul. Then this learner will briefly discuss the case, the decision, and impact on today s criminal justice system. After which, the discussion will state if source for this case is primary or secondary and what implications that may have for that case. Gerald â€Å"Jerry† Gault (case) Fifteen-year-old Gerald (Jerry) Gault, was arrested forRead MoreThe Wearing Celebrity s Transgression And If Any Negative Implications Allotted By Purchasers1333 Words   |  6 Pagescelebrity on youth Today a youth is more likely to listen to the remarks and impact of an icon than their guardians. With this pattern it is paramount for folks to take a dynamic part in their kid s lives in order to control the negative impact that a big name can have on them. A portion of the impact originates from media sources who have a tendency to blossom with negative conduct instead of the individuals who are having a positive effect in others exists (Barbara, 2012). Sports exercises have beenRead MoreOverweight and Obesity in Australia842 Words   |  3 PagesAustralian’s should put more effort into stopping declining fitness levels and it should start with our youth. The youth of this generation is lacking a healthy amount of physical activity; growing evidence shows that the occurrence of overweight and obesity is dramatically increasing in Australian children and adolescents. If more Australians increased the amount of physical activity they did, and also decided to eat healthier then declining fitness levels would reduce. Australians would benefitRead MoreObesity A Social Problem Or A Epidemic1671 Words   |  7 Pagesis also not just a problem in the United States, but it is a problem on a global scale. I plan to present what could solve the epidemic in the United States I believe that this epidemic can be solve by doing three simple things with our children or youth of our society . By teaching our children how to cook, promoti ng or introducing a fitness programs in our schools and removing unhealthy foods from the schools lunch menus will reduce if not solve this epidemic. When we teach our children how to cookRead MoreObesity A Social Problem Or A Epidemic1670 Words   |  7 Pagesalso not just a problem in the United States, but it is a problem on a global scale. I plan to present what could solve the epidemic in the United States. I believe that this epidemic can be solved by doing three simple things with our children’s or youth of our society. By teaching our children how to cook, promoting fitness program in our schools and removing unhealthy foods from the school lunch menus will reduce if not solve this epidemic. When we teach our children how to cook, we are doing twoRead MoreImproving Sports At School Time1566 Words   |  7 Pagespaper, how How sports can affect children and youth development sports shape students physically and mentally is addressed. It also discusses how mental and social development for kids is associated with a healthy physical practice in school ( Miracle and C. Roger Rees, 1994). Physical Development: To begin with, emphasizing sports education for children can allow youth to deepen their relationship to their body and care for their health. As Robert S. Griffin says in his book â€Å"I have known athletesRead MoreSports Is A Important Part Of Society1214 Words   |  5 PagesSports are a very important part of society. There is always a professional sport going on at all times. Kids today should be involved in as many sports as possible. It is a way for them to get up and get out instead of laying around the house. Nowadays, many kids are very lazy and should be encouraged to participate in team sports, it encourages team work, personal skills, and exercise. When it comes to playing team sports, it involves team work. This is one aspect that all children should have

Friday, December 13, 2019

Case Study on Cost Efficiency Free Essays

Introduction It is not easy to compete in the market today. Rising prices, shifting fuel rates, global competition, varying labor rates around the world, and spiraling health insurance costs have made cost control a moving target. Sometimes it seems that a company gets one set of expenses under control, and in the meantime, another area of the company begins experiencing cost overruns. We will write a custom essay sample on Case Study on Cost Efficiency or any similar topic only for you Order Now It is a never ending battle to maintain company profitability. The importance of cost efficiency programs within a company cannot be overstated. Companies that are losing money, need to increase profits, or must become more competitive need to cut expenses in order to succeed. Knowing how to implement effective cost reduction strategies can be the determining factor in the survival of a business. Every organization strives to reduce cost and accomplishment of work at minimum resources to gain maximum output and financial performance. Cost efficiency is a measure of the level of resources used to create a given level of product value. How much resources are being used to create an optimum and defined level of outcomes need to work out to determine the cost of resources and cost of ultimate output it brings in existence. Company can offer lower price product for its customer benefits or can provide more features for the same price of product. While allocating Budget Company would like to maintain same level of service provisions and quality but at reduced cost and try to earn profit as much as it can. Objectives of the subject †¢ To study the concept of cost efficiency. †¢ To study importance cost efficiency. To study consequences of cost inefficiency. †¢ To study the case study on cost efficiency with reference to Google purchase Motorola mobility. Research methodology The information for the present study is collected through secondary sources i. e. from books, journal, magazines, internet, etc. Limitation of the study- The information for the present study is collected through secondary source no primary source is used. Organization’s Profile Google History of Google Google began in January 1996 as a research project by Larry Page and Sergey Brin when they were both PhD students at Stanford University in California. While conventional search engines ranked results by counting how many times the search terms appeared on the page, the two theorized about a better system that analyzed the relationships between websites. They called this new technology Page Rank, where a website’s relevance was determined by the number of pages, and the importance of those pages, that linked back to the original site. A small search engine called â€Å"Rank Dex† from IDD Information Services designed by Robin Li was, since 1996, already exploring a similar strategy for site-scoring and page ranking. The technology in Rank Dex would be patented and used later when Li founded Baidu in China. Page and Brin originally nicknamed their new search engine â€Å"Back Rub†, because the system checked back links to estimate the importance of a site. Eventually, they changed the name to Google, originating from a misspelling of the word â€Å"googol†, the number one followed by one hundred zeros, which was picked to signify that the search engine wants to provide large quantities of information for people. Originally, Google ran under the Stanford University website, with the domains google. stanford. edu and z. stanford. edu. The domain name for Google was registered on September 15, 1997 and the company was incorporated on September 4, 1998. It was based in a friend’s garage in California. Craig Silverstein, a fellow PhD student at Stanford, was hired as the first employee. In May 2011, the number of monthly unique visitors to Google surpassed 1 billion for the first time, an 8. 4 percent increase from May 2010 (931 million). Mission of Google Google Inc. s an American multinational corporation which provides Internet-related products and services, including Internet search, cloud computing, software and advertising technologies. Advertising revenues from Ad Words generate almost all of the company’s profits. Google is a global technology leader which focuses on improving the ways people connect with information relative to the industry Internet and Computer software. The company mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful. Its product lines include Search Advertising, Display Advertising, Mobile Advertising, Tools for Publishers, Local, and Enterprise. Google has became one of the most recognized brand in the world and achieved Market Share of 65. 5% (May 2011) in Search Engine Business. Google became the 4th largest technology company in USA. Rapid growth since incorporation has triggered a chain of products, acquisitions, and partnerships beyond the company’s core web search engine. The company offers online productivity software including email, an office suite, and social networking. Google’s products extend to the desktop as well, with applications for web browsing, organizing editing photos, and instant messaging. Google leads the development of the Android mobile operating system, as well as the Google Chrome OS browser-only operating system, found on specialized net books called Chrome books. Google has been estimated to run over one million servers in data centers around the world and process over one billion search requests and about twenty-four peta bytes of user-generated data every day. As of September 2009 Alexa listed the main U. S. focused google. com site as the Internet’s most visited website, and numerous international Google sites as being in the top hundred, as well as several other Google-owned sites such as YouTube, Blogger and Orkut. Google also ranks number two in the BrandZ brand equity database. The dominant market position of Google’s services has led to criticism of the company over issues including privacy, copyrigh t, and censorship. Google’s Organizational Structure According to Fortune and All Business magazines, Google is the fourth-most admired company in the United States. Google was also listed as the top company to work for in both 2007 and 2008. The main reason for this employee admiration is Google’s cross-functional organizational structure, which the company maintains though stellar leadership and innovative management techniques. Motorola History of Motorola Paul V. Galvin and his brother, Joseph E. Galvin, purchase a battery eliminator business in Chicago. In September 1928 they named the company Galvin Manufacturing Corporation. Galvin Manufacturing Corporation’s first product they develop is a battery eliminator which allows electronic devices to run on electricity rather than batter. The name Motorola was given to Galvin’s first car stereo. ‘Motor’ stands for car and ‘ola’ stands for sound. From 1936 onwards, Galvin production lines dominate by manufacturing radios for cars and receivers up to 1947 where they produce their first television and the company name changes from Galvin Manufacturing Corporation to Motorola but then continue manufacturing communications mediums. In 1967, Motorola expands into the following countries: Australia, Canada, France, Hong Kong, Israel, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Puerto Rico, South Korea, Taiwan, the United Kingdom and West Germany. In 1969, Motorola starts to supply the National American Space Agency (NASA) with radio equipment so astronauhts can communicate with their Earthly bases. The first man on the moon, Neil Armstrong communicated with Earth whilst on the Moon using a Motorola Radio. In 2000 Motorola and General Instrument Corporation merged to enhance their services and in 2001 Motorola introduces the Motorola v60 phone the world first metal mobile phone which is available on the cellular networks GSM, TDMA and CDMA. In 2002 Motorola developed released a GPS chip that could be installed into consumer electronics to enable location positioning. Also Motorola released a 3G which is transmitted over CDMA network. Finally, Motorola releases the Cross-Technology PoC product line that enables subscribers to have â€Å"push-to-talk† connectivity across and between GPRS, CDMA2000 1X, and WiFi networks and Motorola releases Ojo Personal Video Phone. Ojo promises broadband connectivity and a video phone that doesn’t break up which is commonly known with video phones. Mission of Motorola Motorola wants to make phone chargers to strap onto millions of owners’ bikes in emerging nations because mobile phones are often the only type of phone they own. For many people in those countries, he said, a mobile phone is often the first interaction with a computer or the Internet. Globally and locally, Motorola’s mission is to make everything mobile: communication, music, photos, Internet, television. And especially putting content wherever customers want it. Chris White from Motorola’s multimedia experience department discussed what Zander called the two biggest customer frustrations: getting music onto a mobile phone and getting pictures off of it. Motorola has partnered with Microsoft to bring DRM technology to its phones. Users will be able to download music from a variety of online music stores into Windows Media Player. Songs can then be dragged, dropped and synched with the phone. In regard to photos, Motorola’s new Rizr Z6 phone will have a 2-megapixel camera whose pictures can be sent wirelessly over Bluetooth to a Kodak EasyShare printer. Organizational structure of Motorola The company adopts a more flat organizational structure compared to Nokia and Ericsson and grants more authority to the second level management. Within divisions, the Vice Presidents of the respective segments are authorized to adopt the ideal organizational pattern as an example, matrix approach for new product development divisions/departments, whereas a line or staff structure for production area. The company favors interdepartmental and cross functional teaming of employees and also adopts employee empowerments schemes to make good the lacunae in organizational structure, caused due to centralization of functions. The flat organization of Motorola enables the implementations of management decisions at a faster rate. Concept of cost efficiency Definition of cost efficiency â€Å"Efficiency is the ratio of output to input. A system is cost efficient if, relative to another system, its output cost less per unit of input. A system increases its cost efficiency when it maintains output with less than proportionate increase in input. Efficiency is divided into 2 parts, they are- allocative efficiency and x-efficiency. Allocative efficiency is concerned with the allocation of given resources between alternative uses in ways that maximize social welfare. X-efficiency is concerned with producing more output without any change in the allocation of inputs. It therefore focuses on inefficiencies such as overstaffing and managerial waste†. The act of saving money by making a product or performing an activity in a better way is nothing but cost efficiency. Cost efficiency is a concept which is concerned with comparing different ways of achieving the same objective such that the most cost-effective choice will be the least costly of the alternatives being compared. Cost efficiency takes into account not only the price, but other factors too. Cost efficiency is more expensive at first but in the long run it will save money. This cost efficiency refers to the use of resources so as to maximize the production of goods and services. In accountancy, the cost is said more efficient than another (in relative terms) if it can provide more goods and services for society without using more resources. In absolute terms, a situation can be called efficient if: †¢ No additional output can be obtained without increasing the amount of inputs. †¢ Production proceeds at the lowest possible per-unit cost. These definitions of efficiency are not exactly equivalent, but they are all encompassed by the idea that a system is efficient if nothing more can be achieved given the resources available. The term cost efficiency is a situation in which an organization maximizes benefit and profit, while minimizing effort and expenditure. Maximization of efficiency is a balance between two extremes. Managed correctly, it reduces costs, waste, and duplication. The greater the efficiency, the more successful organization becomes. The organizations today attempt to be more customer-responsive than efficient in this sense, and the notion of such an ordered and impersonal efficiency has lost favor in an era when creativity and innovation are valued as a competitive advantage. A goal of media marketing that is aimed at minimizing advertising expenses incurred while maximizing product publicity to a target market in terms of breadth and frequency of exposure. Maximizing cost efficiency in a marketing campaign is highly desirable for a business since the greatest product exposure is achieved for the least amount of financial investment. Importance of cost efficiency The importance of cost efficiency programs within a company cannot be overstated. Companies that are losing money, need to increase profits, or must become more competitive need to cut expenses in order to succeed. Knowing how to implement effective cost reduction strategies can be the determining factor in the survival of a business. Keeping a Competitive Advantage A good manager understands the importance of cost reduction to the health of a company. Bloated expense accounts can eat up profits quickly. A cost efficiency plan is one that focuses on lowering costs in every business activity. The activities vary by type of business but the concept of cost reduction and its efficiency does not vary. The importance of cost reduction and efficiency plans is related to the most common reasons why expenses must be cut in a business. †¢ Need for increased profits †¢ Improved competitive standing †¢ Preserve company resources †¢ Reduce waste †¢ Improved productivity It is not easy to compete in the market today. Rising prices, shifting fuel rates, global competition, varying labor rates around the world, and spiraling health insurance costs have made cost control a moving target. Sometimes it seems that a company gets one set of expenses under control, and in the meantime, another area of the company begins experiencing cost overruns. It is a never ending battle to maintain company profitability. Cost efficiency can be achieved utilizing different approaches. A company can: †¢ Reduce existing expenses †¢ Eliminate unnecessary expenses Modify business strategies which affect the types of business expenses †¢ Replace higher expenses with lower expenses for same items The importance of cost efficiency strategies cannot be understated, especially when a company is struggling to maintain profitability. Areas that can be reviewed for expense reductions include the following. †¢ Telecommunications †¢ Leases †¢ Materials †¢ Office supplies †¢ Maintenance costs †¢ Rent †¢ Utilities When a company must generate more cash as fast as possible, management will have to decide which costs can be most effectively reduced. If the reduction is needed quickly, expenses cut first will normally be those that are not fixed or directly tied to production. It is not a good idea to drastically reduce expenses that produce the company product or service without careful evaluation. If your company understands the importance of cost efficiency as a tool to increase profitability, the company will have a much better chance of remaining profitable no matter what stage of the economic cycle is occurring. That is because cost efficiency is an effective tool that can be responsive to a company’s need. Managing expenses is just as important as managing revenue. A regular review of costs can prevent a company from wasting money resulting from ‘bad habits’. No matter whether it is good times or bad, the importance of cost efficiency strategies never changes. Consequences of cost inefficiencies The theory of inefficiency states that the distribution of resources between alternatives does not fit with consumer taste (perceptions of costs and benefits). For example, a company may have the lowest costs in â€Å"productive† terms, but the result may be inefficient in allocative terms because the â€Å"true† or social cost exceeds the price that consumers are willing to pay for an extra unit of the product. This is true, for example, if the firm produces pollution (see also external cost). Consumers would prefer that the firm and its competitors produce less of the product and charge a higher price, to internalize the external cost. Cost plays an important role in running of the business. Unfortunately, a business or a firm or an organization faces many problems due to improper use of cash held with them. In other word, it is also said as facing the consequences of cost inefficiency. Organizations have different range of problems than their larger counterparts, due to their inability to enjoy some of the same advantages in the marketplace. Most of these problems are due to revenue and cash-on-hand availability when the bills come due. But confronting these obstacles before they become a headache can help you to prevent them from becoming a major issue for your company through the study of cost efficiency. Following are the consequences faced by an organization:- Cash Flow The most important issue to any small business entrepreneur is cash flow. It does not help a small business to have a profitable upcoming quarter already signed on the dotted line, if the payroll for this Friday does not have sufficient funds to pay your employees. Businesses which book revenue in advance, but do not realize the income for a period of months afterwards, must be especially careful with this timing. The future ledger may be showing nothing but green, but if the cash-on-hand dips into the red, a crisis may be coming sooner than your revenue can forestall it. Maintain lines of credit sufficient to keep your cash flow healthy as necessary, and keep a rainy day account if possible. Unforeseen Expenses Start-up companies and small businesses frequently run close to the bone and may be profitable only so long as unplanned events never occur. A retail store which clears $150,000 per year after expenses may seem to be in good shape, until a slip-and-fall lawsuit against the store awards the plaintiff $1. 3 million and there is no insurance coverage. Even smaller expenses, such as a one-time government levy on all businesses in a region, or a rise in the cost of goods, can cause a major change in the bottom line. Use your available credit when you need to tide over your short-term cash crunch, but keep a close eye on your long-term profitability to ensure that your overall liquidity is not threatened by the change in costs. Catastrophic Change A large corporation will probably survive the loss of a key executive to a debilitating injury or death, but these things frequently close small businesses when that person represents a large chunk of the available labor force–especially when the entrepreneur herself is that person. Likewise, a natural disaster or other major disruption can close a business for weeks or months. Whenever possible, have cash on hand and business policies to ensure that you will be able to reopen as soon as possible, or wether the temporary loss of a key employee, and then check your business plan to see if any of your prior assumptions have been changed by the new circumstances Once the organization identifies the sources of waste, and how much it is costing business, it should look at the most cost-effective way to reduce it. It’s a good idea to focus initially on quick wins – things you can do immediately that will reduce waste almost instantly. You might also want to consider uick fixes – putting in place a temporary solution to a problem to give you time to design a more permanent answer. It is essential to give priority to cost improvements, as making a change to eliminate a problem might not always be cost-effective. The main focus should be on dealing with those problems which are most costly to the business because it will have the biggest impact on your profits. A case study Google purchase Motorola mobility About the Deal The Google, online giant on 15 August, 2011 made an announcement to buy Motorola Mobility, a maker of handsets and other electronic devices. Google Management Agreed to buy Motorola Mobility for $ 12. 5 billion. This is the largest  Ã‚  Ã‚   surprising acquisition by Google paying a premium of 63% to the 12th August, 2011 closing price ($40. 00 per share) of Motorola Mobility. The deal not only treated as a surprise, it will have a big impact on the mobile industry too. Motorola shareholders will get $40 a share in cash, the companies said in a statement today. That’s 63 percent more than Motorola Mobility’s closing price on the New York Stock Exchange on Aug. 12. Both boards have approved the takeover. This is a Vertical Merger (which companies at different places in a chain of products join together). Here, Hardware Client (Motorola) acquired by the Software Client (Google) Google expects to complete the transaction by early 2012. As recently as March, the deal was slowed to a crawl when the Chinese government expanded its investigation of the purchase. China finally cleared the deal this past weekend. Google had received approval for the deal from both the U. S. Department of Justice and the European Commission in February. The purchase also was approved by officials in Israel and Taiwan, leaving China as the last holdout. The purchase will help Google defend itself against various patent infringement lawsuits over the Android operating system, since Motorola has one of the smart-phone industry’s largest patent libraries. Page also hailed the purchase as something that will allow Google to gain a bigger foothold in the mobile market. A Google phone running Android could be very marketable not only to consumers but to IT departments that need to outfit workers with mobile devices. Basically, owning both the handset hardware and the operating system could be a powerful combination that could drive Android adoption. Google has been working to expand its business into other hardware ventures. With Motorola, Google may be better able to push its way into the home entertainment market with its Google TV platform. In addition to being a world-renowned smart-phone maker, Motorola also is a major player in the home set-top box sector. Why Google plans to buy Motorola mobility? â€Å"Google is moving into hardware, which is very different from what they’ve done all along,† said Darren Hayes, a computer science professor at Pace University. â€Å"It’s very difficult for a company to be able to be a successful software and hardware company. It worked for Apple to be in the hardware and software industries, but not all companies have been that successful. † Google’s move toward Apple’s close management of software and hardware signals a departure from its previous path and suggests Google may be dissatisfied with its current software licensing arrangements, which have led to the proliferation, but also fragmentation, of its Android mobile operating system. â€Å"Google is moving into hardware, which is very different from what they’ve done all along,† said Darren Hayes, a computer science professor at Pace University. It’s very difficult for a company to be able to be a successful software and hardware company. It worked for Apple to be in the hardware and software industries, but not all companies have been that successful. † Google’s move toward Apple’s close management of software and hardware signals a departure from its previous path and suggests Google ma y be dissatisfied with its current software licensing arrangements, which have led to the proliferation, but also fragmentation, of its Android mobile operating system. Most directly, the deal marks a defensive maneuver in the high-stakes patent war that has pitted the world’s largest technology companies against one another in dozens of drawn-out intellectual property (IP) disputes. Google CEO Larry Page framed the acquisition as a means to protect Google’s Android mobile operating system against â€Å"anti-competitive threats† by shoring up his company’s arsenal of patents. Analysts agree that Motorola’s 17,000 patents and 7,500 patent applications are a major win for Google, which lacks a robust portfolio of wireless patents relative to more established players and has been vulnerable to lawsuits from the likes of Apple, Microsoft and Oracle. Over forty lawsuits have been filed against Android, and ongoing patent disputes threaten to impose licensing fees on the software Google has given away to phone manufacturers for free, potentially jeopardizing Android’s explosive growth. Google is a relatively new entrant in the mobile space and does not have a lot of mobile IP, so anything it can do to build up its IP in the wireless space will help reduce potential risk to the company from lawsuits in the future,† said Ovum analyst Nick Dillon. â€Å"If you look at Motorola’s history and role in pioneering mobile communications from the very start, you’ll see they have some really key patents that will be useful to Google. â⠂¬  Yet patents are only part of the story, experts say. The acquisition suggests that Google sees itself as unable to adequately compete in the mobility market without its own handset manufacturer. Google’s bet is that having greater control over smartphone software and hardware will help it move beyond the desktop and beyond search. Owning Motorola will allow Google, more than ever before, to create mobile devices that satisfy the web giant’s vision for what cellphones and tablets should be able to do. A new breed of Motorola smart-phones could be designed from the ground up to integrate Google products at every turn, from featuring the Google-plus social network to adding near field communication chips that allow cell-phones to be substituted for credit cards via Google Wallet. Fundamentally, Motorola offers Google a bridge from the digital to the physical world, and with it, a means of gaining valuable information about its users, such as their locations or what applications they use the most. Though Google said that it will continue to license its Android software, its mobile strategy will cease being at the mercy of third-party handset manufacturers like HTC and Samsung. Instead, Google will able to dictate the price, distribution and features of its own line of devices. Google also stands to bolster its efforts to gain inroads into the living room by preading to TVs. Google TV, which was unveiled lat year but was unable to gain much traction, may stand a better chance when paired with Motorola’s set-top box offerings. Until now, Google has been essentially hands off when it comes to hardware: it has offered its Android software to manufacturers at zero cost, without a having a say in the form of the phones Android will power. This disruptive and unorthodox strategy has allowed Google to gain enormous market share in very little time, overtaking Apple to claim 48 percent of the global smart-phone market, according to Canalys. To some extent, quality has been sacrificed for quantity as Android has expanded to more than 150 million devices made by more than thirty different manufacturers. Google frequently updates its Android software, but app developers, manufacturers and carriers are not always able to keep up, resulting in a proliferation of different versions of the Android operating system offering a range of experiences for users. Depending on Google’s relationship with the handset manufacturer, or the manufacturer’s approach to upgrades, a consumer could purchase a smart-phone running outdated software, straight out of the box. Not all Android apps perform equally on different versions of the software, an issue that has been a source of frustration for users and developers alike. Google’s new approach — controlling the smart-phone experience from end-to-end — mirrors the vertical-integration strategy Apple has pursed with spectacular success, but one that has lately been a bust for the likes of Nokia and Research in Motion. Nokia, for example, recently ceded its top spot as the world’s largest smart-phone vendor to Apple and announced it would retire its Symbian operating system in favor of Microsoft’s Windows Phone software. Google is staking billions on its ability to successfully control both the software and hardware components of its company’s devices — all while not alienating its partners, who have been instrumental in Android’s rise and with whom Google will directly compete once the Motorola acquisition is complete. â€Å"Google has had history of picking favorites, but it’s never directly competed with manufacturers,† said Ovum analyst Dillon. â€Å"Manufacturers have come out with statements of support. But what’s said in public in one thing, and what’s said behind closed doors is another. Benefits of the deal †¢ Google and Motorola Mobility together will accelerate innovation and choice in mobile computing. Consumers will get better phones at lower prices. †¢ Motorola Mobility’s patent portfolio will help protect the Android ecosystem. Android, which is open-source software, is vital to competition in the mobile device space, e nsuring hardware manufacturers, mobile phone carriers, applications developers and consumers all have choice. †¢ The purchase of Motorola Mobility by Google has excited some technophiles and alarmed others. The first point of concern, at least from the customer’s perspective, is whether or not Motorola’s Android smart-phone platform would become the exclusive domain of Google customers. The acquisition certainly puts Android operating systems on better footing as they compete against Apple’s iPhone, and with Google’s capital resources, more money is sure to pour into Android technology. Following are some reasons why the Google-Motorola deal makes sense: Integration may be all that matters in the wireless industry. Apple’s hardware-software-ecosystem business model brings better profit margins, can grab market share and seems to delight consumers. Google’s Android effort could be a bit like herding cats. The larger question is whether the vertically integrated model is the only one that works in the wireless industry. Google lands its patent treasure trove. If you consider that Google was going to pay nearly $4 billion for Nortel’s 6,000 wireless patents, $12. 5 billion for Motorola Mobility doesn’t look like a big chunk of change. With Motorola Mobility’s patents, Google can fend off lawsuits. In other words, Google builds out its patent portfolio. On a conference call, Page called out patents as a big reason for the Motorola Mobility acquisition. Google gets a TV play. While Google’s Motorola acquisition primarily revolves around wireless devices, there’s a significant living room play here. Why? Motorola Mobility has a significant set-top box business. In the cable box world, there are two players: Cisco and Motorola Mobility, which is the leader. Google will get significant relationships with cable providers and give Android more of a foothold. There’s a good chance that Google can keep hardware partners in the fold—for now. Page reiterated that Google will keep Android open source and work with partners such as HTC and Samsung. Also keep in mind that this Google-Motorola deal could win it some goodwill with hardware partners. Motorola was thinking about suing other Android hardware makers over patents. Google’s acquisition would put an end to that. The deal forces Microsoft’s hand. When it comes to the art of war, Google and Motorola force Microsoft’s hand a bit. With the Google-Motorola deal, Page is basically acknowledging that there’s no money in third-party operating systems in the mobile space. The upshot: Mobile software players need a hardware component. As a result, Microsoft may be forced to acquire a hardware player. Research in Motion and Nokia are prime takeover candidates. In any case, Microsoft will be distracted by a big acquisition. And Android boxes in Nokia and RIM. With Motorola, which has some enterprise credibility and Android innovations, Google can enter the enterprise easier. As a result, RIM increasingly looks like the odd man out. Nokia is already under fire as it waits for Windows Phone 7 to gain traction. RIM is betting on QNX as an operating system. Google is indicating that the wireless market is a two-platform race. And those two horses are going to be Android and iOS. Challenges of the deal: Google acquisitions may lead to serious channel conflict, it will lead to a direct competition with other hardware partners like Samsung, HTC etc. , and the hardware manufacturing is a very different area with  Google’s core business. The deal raises the following major challenges 1. HTC  and Samsung, two of the leading  Android-based smart-phone makers, feel about the fact that their â€Å"partner†Ã‚  Google  is now competing directly with them for hardware sales. 2. Need to change the perceptions of the Investors that are not perceived the deal in a positive way. 3. Management Cultures of Software and hardware companies are almost different it is one of the challenge for the Google while framing the policies that would not reach to management destructions or management failures 4. By this Acquisition Google employee strength would increase by 19000 which eventually decrease the profits of the business. It’s question to the management in effective utilization of man power in value generation. Valuation of the Deal |Swap ratio determination using market value method | |Particulars |Google Motorola | |Market capital |1,71,94,00,00,000 |11,21,00,00,000 | |Equity |46,24,10,00,000 |1,73,20,00,000 | |Market capitalization of the merged entity |1,83,15,00,00,000 | |Share of google |93. 8% | | |Share of mmi | |6. 12% | |Post merger equity of google | |49,25,57,81,959 | |Post merger equity of mmi | |3,01,47,81,959 | |Hence, 1 equity share of google is equal to | |11. 6019003 | |11. 56 of mmi | | | |Market price at the time of deal (august 12) |563. 77 |24. 47 | |Additional premium paid to mmi |280. 8921499 |49. 82% | By this Market Valuation Method this deal is Viable for Google at a premium of 50% Why is Google willing to pay a 63% premium? Google is expecting the following benefits from MMI by this Acquisition. Operational Benefits †¢ Google can Access all the product lines of MMI cell phone, set-top boxes and tablet which are having a very good market share Android software has made considerable inroads in the smartphone market with 150 million devices and 550,000 activations a day. †¢ Now, Google can compete with Global Leader like APPLE in future in hardware and software industry Accounting Benefits †¢ Tax benefit:   Acquiring loss making company by a profit making company Google can make a tax advantage each year till 2019 can utilize the losses. Synergy Expectations: Fragmentation and a Better The Android market is currently heavily fragmented but the developers facing problem for designing the applications by this synergy Google will solve this problem by building a better Android OS with a lot of applications. Diversification and Google Vallet: Despite being a little over a decade old Google maintained the same portfolio now this deal brings new business focus hardware products, mobile computing. Invasion of Living Room The Google TV user interface that was launched earlier in May, 2011and Motorola is a strong player in the set-top box and home devices market this bid can expand presence of Google TV products into the living room. Patent The mobile computing industry has become a hotbed for patent disputes and thrust in the patent war. Google having about 1,000-odd patents this acquisition gives access to more than 17,000 patents and 7,000 pending patents held by Motorola. Google will now be able to successfully defend itself against a barrage of patent lawsuits filed by Apple, Microsoft and other rivals Hardware and Software synergy (Vertical Integration): This results in product efficiency and cost efficiency. Apple secret to become No. 1 Technology Company Integrating hardware and software and the results are iPhone, iPad, and iPod – devices that have become leaders in their respective market segments. Views about the Deal Management View: †¢ Larry Page, CEO of Google, said, â€Å"I look forward to welcoming Motorolans to our family of Googlers. † †¢ Mr. Page said I was â€Å"confident this deal will be approved† by regulators it tremendously beneficial to consumers,† †¢ For consumers, Once Motorola is owned by Google the handset maker could more aggressively ncorporate a technology called Near Field Communications (NFC) that is used for mobile payments and is supported by a version of Google’s Android called Gingerbread. †¢ Investors Perception about the Deal †¢ Google: This Adventurous move in entirely different kind of business, one that could destroy its partnerships (and margins) in one of its most important new Business Lines. Early Investors not perceived the deal in a positive way it results Google stock has gotten smacked in the pre-market. Another fact that could be worrying investors is that the Google-Motorola deal includes a $2. billion reverse break-up fee. †¢ MMI: The Internal Intention of MMI to get separated from its parent company is to get out in a better price and by showing its market growth among its products it got a chance to exit in a premium price leads to huge hike in the stock prices. The official SEC report outlines how Google bid against themselves and paid $4 billion more than the initial high-end target for bidding. The Self-Bidding War In July, Google started by floating the idea of buying Motorola for a high-$20s, low-$30s (per share) figure. On August 1st, an official bid of $30. 0 per share was made. Over the course of the next week and a half, however, Google would make two additional bids – $37. 00 and $ 40. 00 per share – representing a full 33 percent increase from their initial offer, or $4 billion extra in total spent. How did Google get into a bidding war when no one else was bidding? It started before Google even made its initial offer. Google’s Andy Rubin first approached Motorola in July, looking to purchase the company’s patent portfolio. This attempt to expand mobile patent assets stemmed from a failed attempt to acquire Nortel’s patent portfolio in April. However, Motorola CEO Sanjay Jha indicated that â€Å"that it could be problematic for Motorola Mobility to continue as a stand-alone entity if it sold a large portion of its patent portfolio,† according to the SEC filing. This prompted Google to look at buying the whole company rather than just its patents. Google then floated a low-$30s bid as an initial cap. On August 1, Google â€Å"sent a letter to the Motorola Mobility Board of Directors proposing an acquisition of Motorola Mobility by Google for $30. 00 in cash per share. † Motorola has approximately 299 million shares currently, so that bid equated to $9 billion. In response, Motorola brought on Quatalyst Partners, an independent investment bank. It was a Quatalyst representative who contacted Google on August 5 and suggested a bid of $43. 50 per share – or a total bid of approximately $13 billion total, according to  the New York Times. Google upped their bid to $37. 00 per share ($11 billion), but continued to push for a fast and confidential buy. Motorola and Quatalyst leveraged Google’s intensity by declining the second bid and suggesting â€Å"a proposed price of $40. 50 or higher. † Google made the offer of $40. 00 per share, or $11. 96 billion. Added to the additional options and awards (approximately 29 million shares with alternate sources or pricing), we come to $12. 5 billion – our final figure. Did Google Overpay? From the moment the $12. 5 billion figure was released, analysts called the purchase an inflated buy, and the realization that Google’s initial cap would have been would have been closer to $9. 4 billion just affirmed that notion. After all, $40. 00 per share was a 63 percent increase when compared with Motorola’s last after-market trading value. But Google wasn’t just buying a company. More than anything, Google was buying patent protection. In the world of mobile, manufacturers are already signing patent licenses with Microsoft that cost $5 to $12 per unit, fighting battles against Apple, and Google themselves are involved in their biggest lawsuit yet with Oracle. In total, these lawsuits and licensing fees may cost Google and their partners billions of dollars, which explains why Google is willing to pay an inflated price. Google was also buying Motorola’s silence: They didn’t want to get involved in a bidding war with competitors who could then use Motorola’s patents against Android. By bidding against themselves, they removed the incentive to open the floor to public bids. It was an expensive move, but one that offered important legal protections and access to hardware technology in a key industry. Suggestions: †¢ Key factors that we feel need to implement in order to make this deal successful Google need to strengthen the following segments that creates synergy in value positioning. †¢ Management Efficiency: Focus on stretegy that make effective use of newly added 19000 manpower †¢ Patent Efficiency: First 17000 and plus remaining 7500 patents been used in new technology creation need by the market space †¢ Cost Efficiency: Strict Implementation of control mechanisms over the business. Profit Maximization: This was the ultimate objective of this acquisition if Google implemented all the strategies as per mentioned in this case it has more possibility to reduce the chances of failure of the deal. Can achieve its targeted mile stone Conclusion The concept of saving money by making a product or performing an activity in a better way i s nothing but cost efficiency. So with the help of this project we can conclude that cost efficiency helps in increasing profits of the business organization. Cost efficiency improves the standard of an organization and makes it more competitive in today’s business world. Most importantly, with the help of this theory of cost efficiency a company can preserve its resources and more obviously can use it in its future. Cost efficiency also helps in reducing wastage in organization. This leads to earning of more profit and less cost expenses. On the other hand, a business or a firm or an organization faces many problems due to improper use of cash held with them. In other word, it is also said as facing the consequences of cost inefficiency. Organizations have different range of problems than their larger counterparts, due to their inability to enjoy some of the same advantages in the marketplace. Most of these problems are due to revenue and cash-on-hand availability when the bills come due. But confronting these obstacles before they become a headache can help you to prevent them from becoming a major issue for your company through the study of cost efficiency. In case of Google purchasing Motorola mobility Huge Experts have been watching the current scenario what will be the Google’s next step, how efficiently will manage this Hardware product line. How effectively use these synergies if this synergy became successful Google will reach to the sudden highs in a short span of time can became the competitor to the Market leader Apple. Now, Google can compete with Global Leader like APPLE in future in hardware and software industry. Well, up till now Google have faced less consequences as the employees of the Google Inc. have being studying cost expenses and try to reserve its resources and patents. Bebliography and webliography List of website:- www. mba. com www. marketing. about. com www. ehow. com www. ebrd. com How to cite Case Study on Cost Efficiency, Free Case study samples

Thursday, December 5, 2019

Sir Anton Dolin Essay Example For Students

Sir Anton Dolin Essay Dancer and choreographer Anton Dolin has been called â€Å"one of the most colorful and vital figures in modern ballet. † As a member of internationally known ballet companies or as director of his own troupes, this British-born artist has toured Europe and America for the past twenty years. Anton Dolin, originally Patrick Healey-Kay, was born on July 27, 1904, in Slinfold, Sussex, England. He is one of the three sons of George Henry and Helen Maude (Healey) Kay. When he was ten years of age his parents moved from Slinfold to Brighton. It was at about this time that the boy made up his mind to become a dancer. Although his parents tried to discourage him from dancing, they sent him to Miss Claire James’ Academy of Dancing and later to the Misses Grace and Lily Cone, who came to London each week to give lessons in Brighton. After the boy danced and acted at the Brighton Hippodrome Theatre, the manager of the theater suggested that he be sent to London for training in dramatics. In the metropolis Pat studied under Italia Conti, and at the same time he attended the Pitman School for instruction in stenography In 1917, a month after attending a performance of Princess Seraphina Astafieva’s Swinburne Ballet, the thirteen-year-old boy registered for lessons with the Russian ballerina. A former pupil of the Imperial School and at one time principal dancer in the Diaghilev Ballet Russe, Astafieva was then conducting the only school of Russian ballet in London, which stressed the importance of the individual dancer in ballet. After Pat had been her student for about four years, the famous Diaghilev visited the school one day in search of promising young dancers for extras in The Sleeping Princess. It was then that the seventeen-year-old youth was given his first dancing it, a part in Diaghilev’s chorus. The Sleeping Princess had a three-month run, after which the young dancer returned to school for two more years of instruction. On August 26, 1923, under the name of the Anglo-Russian Ballet, Astafieva put on a large scale production with her pupils as the principal dancers. For this first solo appearance Patrick Healey-Kay decided to choose a Russian name as he thought it would be an excellent joke. He found â€Å"Anton† in a Chekhov volume, but had difficulty in selecting an easily pronounced surname until someone at the school suggested â€Å"Dolin. The program for the performance thus announced that Anton Dolin would appear in two solo dances of his own composition: Hymn to the Sun and Danse russe. And Astafieva, feeling that her pupil was now ready to be accepted for Diaghilev’s Ballet Russe, sent Anton Dolin to Paris, where she had arranged an interview with the producer. In November of that year (1923) Dolin was made a member of the Diaghilev company, which was then dancing in Monte Carlo. Before his next appearance before an audience, however, he devoted two months to intensive practice with Bronislava Nijinska, maitresse de ballet. His debut was made on January 1, 1924, in the role of Daphnis in the classical ballet Daphnis and Chloe. His next appearance was as Beau Gosse in the production in Paris in June 1924 of Jean In the next two years Dolin developed rapidly as a Diaghilev artist, but at the end of the 1925 season he and the impresario quarreled, causing Dolin, then the premier dancer, to leave the company. The following July Dolin appeared in the Punch Bowl Revue at His Majesty’s Theatre, and after the show closed, at the beginning of 1926, he accepted an offer to dance in the musical revue Palladium Pleasures. .ucc57401836ba6bfe4b80b0d04b3f5e50 , .ucc57401836ba6bfe4b80b0d04b3f5e50 .postImageUrl , .ucc57401836ba6bfe4b80b0d04b3f5e50 .centered-text-area { min-height: 80px; position: relative; } .ucc57401836ba6bfe4b80b0d04b3f5e50 , .ucc57401836ba6bfe4b80b0d04b3f5e50:hover , .ucc57401836ba6bfe4b80b0d04b3f5e50:visited , .ucc57401836ba6bfe4b80b0d04b3f5e50:active { border:0!important; } .ucc57401836ba6bfe4b80b0d04b3f5e50 .clearfix:after { content: ""; display: table; clear: both; } .ucc57401836ba6bfe4b80b0d04b3f5e50 { display: block; transition: background-color 250ms; webkit-transition: background-color 250ms; width: 100%; opacity: 1; transition: opacity 250ms; webkit-transition: opacity 250ms; background-color: #95A5A6; } .ucc57401836ba6bfe4b80b0d04b3f5e50:active , .ucc57401836ba6bfe4b80b0d04b3f5e50:hover { opacity: 1; transition: opacity 250ms; webkit-transition: opacity 250ms; background-color: #2C3E50; } .ucc57401836ba6bfe4b80b0d04b3f5e50 .centered-text-area { width: 100%; position: relative ; } .ucc57401836ba6bfe4b80b0d04b3f5e50 .ctaText { border-bottom: 0 solid #fff; color: #2980B9; font-size: 16px; font-weight: bold; margin: 0; padding: 0; text-decoration: underline; } .ucc57401836ba6bfe4b80b0d04b3f5e50 .postTitle { color: #FFFFFF; font-size: 16px; font-weight: 600; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 100%; } .ucc57401836ba6bfe4b80b0d04b3f5e50 .ctaButton { background-color: #7F8C8D!important; color: #2980B9; border: none; border-radius: 3px; box-shadow: none; font-size: 14px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 26px; moz-border-radius: 3px; text-align: center; text-decoration: none; text-shadow: none; width: 80px; min-height: 80px; background: url(https://artscolumbia.org/wp-content/plugins/intelly-related-posts/assets/images/simple-arrow.png)no-repeat; position: absolute; right: 0; top: 0; } .ucc57401836ba6bfe4b80b0d04b3f5e50:hover .ctaButton { background-color: #34495E!important; } .ucc57401836ba6bfe4b80b0d04b3f5e50 .centered-text { display: table; height: 80px; padding-left : 18px; top: 0; } .ucc57401836ba6bfe4b80b0d04b3f5e50 .ucc57401836ba6bfe4b80b0d04b3f5e50-content { display: table-cell; margin: 0; padding: 0; padding-right: 108px; position: relative; vertical-align: middle; width: 100%; } .ucc57401836ba6bfe4b80b0d04b3f5e50:after { content: ""; display: block; clear: both; } READ: Overpopulation EssayAfterward, with Phyllis Bedells as his dancing partner at the Coliseum, he produced several â€Å"nursery rhyme† choreographies. Further ballet and revue engagements were followed in 1927 by an appearance in the revue White Birds (1927). With Vera Nemchinova, one of his former colleagues in the Diaghilev company, Dolin next formed the Nemchinova-Dolin Ballet, dancing in Swan Lake and his own The Nightingale and the Rose. During the following two years Dolin and Nemchinova toured Holland, Germany, France, and Spain, offering among other compositions, Dolin’s Revolution, Espagnol, and Rhapsody in Blue. The Nemchinova-Dolin company was disbanded early in 1929, Dolin rejoining the Ballet Russe. The second engagement lasted only a short while-Diaghilev’s death in August 1929 causing the termination of the group. But Dolin had, with the Diaghilev company, created important roles-in Balanchine’s Le Bal and Le Fils prodigue. It was at about this time, too, that he danced with the budding ballerina Alicia Markova, eventually to be called â€Å"the greatest Dolin’s first New York appearance, on February 25, 1930, featured him, together with Argentina and Gertrude Lawrence, in The International Revue, but the American critics were not enthusiastic and the revue closed after a few months. Dolin then returned to London, where he danced in two more revues, Charlot’s Masquerade and Stand Up and Sing. His next engagement took him to Berlin as ballet master and dancer for Max Reinhardt’s production of The Tales of Hoffmann. Upon returning to his native land, Anton Dolin joined the newly established Camargo Society Ballet, a British organization trying to revive ballet in England. It was with this group that Dolin danced the role of Satan in Job for the first time. From 1931 to 1935 Dolin appeared in revues and was guest dancer with the Vic-Wells Ballet, of which Markova was the new premier dancer. After four years of this dual arrangement, Dolin and Markova in 1935 left the Vic-Wells company to form their own ballet troupe with Dolin as director and both the artists as stars. Early in 1938, however, Markova left to become the principal ballerina of Massine’s newly organized Ballet Russe, while Dolin continued to dance in revues in England and later in Australia. As principal dancers of New York’s Ballet Theatre Dolin and Markova resumed dancing together in 1941. As choreographer with the troupe, Dolin recreated for modern audiences the nineteenth century classics Giselle, Swan Lake, Les Sylphides, and The Sleeping Beauty, and composed his own ballets, Romantic Age, Quintet, and Pas de Quatre. In the winter of 1944-45 Dolin and his partner Markova were seen in Billy Rose’s production, Seven Lively Arts. In October 1945 manager S. Hurok announced the formation of a new Markova-Dolin ballet troupe devoted to classical ballet, which he had booked for a irst-season engagement of sixty appearances throughout the United States. The ensemble dancers would be both selected and trained by Markova and Dolin. The group’s initial tour, which began in November, had capacity audiences, and its special booking arrangement brought it together for a joint appearance with Ballet Theatre in the larger cities of the United States. In June 1946 Dolin ventured upon another acting experience and essayed the title role of the play, The Dancer. When the Original Ballet Russe returned to New York in October, Dolin was among the performers. Aside from his stage performances, Anton Dolin has appeared in several British motion pictures, which include Invitation To Waltz, Chu Chin Chow, Forbidden Territory, and Dark Red Roses. In 1945 Dolin and Markova were brought to American screen in Republic Pictures’ musical A Song for Miss Julie. The dancer has had two books published, Divertissment (1931) and Ballet Go Round (1938). He has lectured at Oxford and Cambridge universities and over the radio in England, Australia, and the United States. Dolin was knighted in 1981 and died in 1983,

Thursday, November 28, 2019

Netflix 2010 Case Study free essay sample

How strong are the competitive forces in the movie rental marketplace? Do a five-forces analysis to support your answer. Five Forces Analysis of Movie Industry Rental: Rivalry among competing movie rental: The movie rental industry is intensely competitive and will continue to be in the future. The rivalry between the competitors is to strategize to set them apart from one another. Some marketing maneuvers are prices for rentals, instant DVD’s, promotional products, and its reputation. Netflix, blockbuster, iTunes, Hulu, and many more are among the competitors. They send Blockbuster, Movie gallery and its associated stores to bankruptcy and it even ended with companies closing doors for good. Google announced their abilities of Google TV. This let households combine their regular TV experience while accessing music, videos, and photos anywhere on the internet. Hulu who was owned by NBC Universal was also a free online video service that offered TV shows, movies from a few cable networks and movie studios. We will write a custom essay sample on Netflix 2010 Case Study or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Also offering a larger library as Netflix offered it customers by purchasing plans. The concept was based on promoting â€Å"TV everywhere†, having such devices ad iPad, iPod, or smartphones with wifi capability you could watch TV practically anywhere. Changes in 2009 technology required all TV stations to use digital technology. Promotion is very important between these rivals when you are trying to promote in a highly competitive environment. For instance, Netflix free trials that the company took to make a new tactics paid off for the company. Redbox and Blockbuster put kiosks at every street corner that you could think of to attract customers. Price is one of the biggest attractions that a company has to bring consumers to its company. A way that Netflix brought that was giving potential customers 30 day free trials of instant shows, movies, as well as DVD’s shipped to your front door. This gave customers a feel of what Netflix was offering and gave them 30 days to see if they wanted to continue a membership with more offerings than the trial had t o offer. They had trials of 4. 99 subscriptions for a limited time to bring in customers. This also led the company to the fore front of the rental industry. Redbox charge $1 for a day of DVD rentals. * Hulu a free movie and cable network online video service. They had the concept of watching cable anywhere. Hulu consisted of t networks popular shows and movies you could watch anywhere from your came systems, iPods, iPad, or smartphones. They also offered customers the option of purchasing a plan where you could reach a larger library as Netflix offered. * Redbox gave customers the option to rent DVD’s got $1 from kiosks at different areas in your city. They were placed by supermarkets, gas stations, and retail stores such as CVS, Walgreens, and Wal-Mart. Blockbuster also had a kiosk around different areas as Redbox did. * Netflix gave companies a run for their money. They made stationary movie rental stores to go bankruptcy or go out of business. * Video on Demand has started to increase as well. Watching movies over the internet instantly to any internet ready computer, gaming console, and wifi enabled televisions. This increased competition between Redbox and Blockbuster which will presumably take away from their plans and they will soon have to market a new plan. Conclusion: The movie rental industry is intensely competitive and will continue to be over the next couple of years. Video on Demand will be a bigger household name going over its competitors. Netflix and Google offering â€Å"TV everywhere† have already shown that people prefer the online streaming. Thus putting end to retail rental stores such as Blockbuster, Movie Gallery, and its associated store that closed its doors. Threat of new competition: In mid 2010, N etflix marketed a plan that would take them to the top movie rental industry. They made it very difficult for any new entry to enter into the r movie rental industry. Netflix especially made it had to surpass them in the online subscription. They built and are continuing to build a comprehensive library and maintaining relationships with entertainment video producers. Netflix entered agreements with Universal Studios, Twentieth Century Fox, Warner Bros, and more to expand and broader its ability to stream movies and TV episodes. Video on demand streaming movies directly to your in-home device has become and will become the fast growing movie rental segment. With these barriers being high it makes the competitive entry somewhat low because the industry continues to grow. It has become more and more attractive to its loyal customers and potential customers * Netflix, Redbox, Blockbuster are households names. They have attracted and attached their brands to make it difficult for people to move into the industry. * An important factor for new entrants into the mov ie industry would be brand recognition. Many suppliers or distributors make it harder for new entrants to come into the marketplace. Most of the time they are putting their own capital up, or have a great marketing plan to build it clientele. * Customer loyalty will be a slow process considering the competition has a great amount of cost to be put up. * Government agencies can limit or stop the entry of new companies in the movie rental industry. The government controls the entry not just for cable but for telecommunications, electric and electric utilities, radio and television broadcasts. * New entrants may face a harder time when they enter the market because its well competitors with a loyal customer base may use incumbents against them. They may use price cuts with its movie rentals, increase advertising, new improvement of its services and products, also launch legal attacks to prevent building a new clientele Conclusion: VOD or video on demand is now and will be the fast growing streaming movie segment to come. Netflix has the made the competition even harder and the competition is high. They have higher brand recognition and will make it harder for other companies to come close unless they market and have a lot of capital in order to enter the market. Bargaining Power of Suppliers in Movie Rental: Movie suppliers bargaining power is a competitive pressure in the movie rental industry that they are supplying. Movie suppliers who supply to Netflix and its other competitors may charge premium prices. This reason is why the rivals continue to raise prices in order to meet the prices of their suppliers. The only way that Netflix, Blockbuster, Redbox, and etc will survive is if movies suppliers because they make prices for their DVD’s. Movie suppliers have pricing leverage over these companies. They have the authority to make release dates for their products. Movie suppliers have the upper hand against these rival companies because they can choose a pattern of competition within the marketplace. In the end result, the rivals should face the facts that they will be paying higher prices to be supplied the necessary product. All these rivals want to keep their library growing to meet the needs of its current customer and potential customers and to always be in the fore front of the competition. * Conclusion: Movie suppliers have the upper hand in the bargaining power. They choose when, what, and how they distribute to these rivals. However, since Netflix has a better brand recognition it shouldn’t be too hard for them to be the first that these retailers sale to. Bargaining Power of Customers Movie Rental: Customers will continuously use online streaming and video on demand. This is why rates are going up because customers are so comfortable with the situation that they are in. Thus they will pay more if the companies were to increase. Netflix customers enjoy the video on demand with their favorite television shows and movies. Customers also can switch between rivals for lower prices, which can negotiate leverage between them and they suppliers. Switching between can easily encourage them to change plans and prices to fit the consumers. Netflix picked up on the weak strategy that other movie competitors lacked from. They made sure that there were enough DVD’s to supply people with. In-store DVD’s usually sold out of DVD’s and had upset customers. Netflix informed customers about the purchase of their DVD’s. You had no limit to turn them back in. In-store movie rentals you usually had 1, 3, or 5 days to return you DVD’s. Netflix marketed its plan on website, mail, and commercial ads. Substitutes in Movie Rental Industry: Substitutes that are readily available would be premium movie channels. These would include Starz, Encore, HBO, and Showtime. These cable channels are available through cable and satellite providers. * Movie theaters are still grossing profit through new released movies. People still want to have that movie theater experience. You want to catch movies in HD, 3D, and IMAX to experience new movies. * Consumers also want to buy movies just to have them on hand. You can buy these at various retail stores such as (dollar store, supermarkets, Wal-mart, K-mart, Target, Best Buy, and other retailers. The movie rental industry should not forget that substitutes are always available. In some cases they are by far more available than their products may. Some customers would well off buy DVDs, watching movies, or watching premium channels than streaming or renting DVDs. There are plenty of substitutes so companies should always be reminded of that. Conclusion of Five Forces Analysis The competition in the industry of movie rental is strong and will continue to grow in the next few years. The rivalry between the competitors is to strategize to set them apart from one another. Promotion is very important between these rivals when you are trying to promote in a highly competitive environment. Video on Demand has started to increase as well as watching movies over the internet instantly to any internet ready computer, gaming console, and wifi enabled televisions. Movie suppliers bargaining power is a competitive pressure in the movie rental industry that they are supplying. They have the authority to make release dates for their products. Movie suppliers have the upper hand against these rival companies because they can choose a pattern of competition within the marketplace. All these rivals want to keep their library growing and meet the needs of its current customer and potential customers and to always be in the fore front of the competition. Customers will continuously use online streaming and video on demand. This is why rates are going up because customers are so comfortable with the situation that they are in. Video on demand will grow and squeeze the competitor for a sizeable amount of money. No one in any of these industries should ever under estimate what their sales are. Movie Gallery one of the second largest movie rental in the U. S. closed its door because of these new technologies.

Sunday, November 24, 2019

Diante Hardy Hardy 1 Essays (455 words) - Bartleby, The Scrivener

Diante Hardy Hardy 1 Essays (455 words) - Bartleby, The Scrivener Diante Hardy Hardy 1 Mr.Nerney AP English 9 November 2016 Bartleby is a strange guy. The narrator refers to Bartleby as a "pale" man in Bartleby the Scrivener . Bartleby is a scrivener; he does his job well, hardly ever stops working and he gets things done quickly and efficiently. However, he is a man of few words. In fact he is a man of one phrase: "I would prefer not to." He says this to anything that is requested of him other than to copy documents. He actually outright refuses to do anything else that his boss asks him to do. What is to be said or done about the many "Bartleby's" of the world? They come in many shapes and sizes and are misunderstood and boggled about for different reasons. They all trigger a sense of softhearted humanity in all they touch. The narrator of the story is the boss of Bartleby and yet his employer just cannot seem to get angry. Bartleby simply states that he would rather not perform his instructed duties. He does not say in vain but in a sadness of some sort. There is something about Bartleby that calms the reader yet makes them slightly angry over Bartleby's stubbornness. The narrator felt calm but also confused by Bartleby's way of going about things. Although the narrator, an attorney, employed quite a strange few of scriveners to work underneath him, Bartleby was by far the most different out of the whole group. For each time an employer requested for him to examine a copied paper, Bartleby would reply, "I would prefer not to" and proceed with what he was doing at the moment. "I looked at him steadfastly. His face was leanly composed; his gray eyes dimly calm. Not a wrinkle of agitation rippled him. Had there been at least uneasiness, anger, impatience or impertinence in his mannerhad there been anything ordinarily human about him, doubtless I should have violently dismissed him from the premises." This shows the significance that Bartleby holds, in the way of him making another human think and act. "I would prefer not to" is always Bartleby's reply. The narrator did beyond what most good-hearted people would have done for Bartleb y and finally, he said, "I think he is a little deranged." Humanity affected Bartleby and the narrator. Bartleby handled dead letters and he must have seen humanity and inhumanity with those letters. Those letters left Bartleby dead inside and let nothing after matter to him anymore. He may as well preferred not to live, and the attorney who tried to make Ba rtleby human again was too late. Something so simple and innocent turned out so sad and unclear.

Thursday, November 21, 2019

Operation Management Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words - 2

Operation Management - Essay Example Tactical issues deal with the plant structure and layout, project management methods and also equipment selection as well as replacement. Finally, an operational issue involves production scheduling, production control, quality control & inspection, inventory management, equipment maintenance policies and traffic & material handling (Chary, p. 88). Construction firms require the use of construction management techniques in order to be able to direct and coordinate the workers and the material resources required throughout the timeframe of a given construction project. Management techniques are quite important when it comes to the implementation of a management system. Benefits attributed to various management techniques are that they are able to increase a firm’s success based on cost, quality, time, and scope and participation satisfaction (Chary, p. 91). With regards to project management in a construction firm scenario, what is involved is a set of objectives that are meant to be accomplished through implementation of operations that are subject to the resource constraint. Based on the concept explained above on operation management, this paper is going to focus on the best method of implementing a management system for a construction company following the necessary essentials in the concept. There is need for most business companies to adopt an operational management method that will help in achieving most of their goals especially in the production of quality goods that will definitely increase their financial gain (Chary, p.93). Satisfying the customers’ needs is the major priority for any business organization. The construction companies which are referred to as one of the highly ranked performing organizations are required to have their own processing bodies which are meant to be the foundation of the company’s standard

Wednesday, November 20, 2019

Carbon footprint Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Carbon footprint - Research Paper Example According to a research conducted by University of California, average American household carbon emissions are about 19.8 metric tons of carbon emissions. However, some of our activities increase the average level of carbon emissions. In my daily routine, I use to travel in my car to a fair distance to the gym where I workout for about 1 hour and then take sauna for about 15 minutes and then travel back to home. The total distance to gym from my home and form gym to my home is about 10 miles that adds 1.43 metric tons of carbon emission to my individual carbon footprint. Working out at gym for 1 hour further adds 0.28 metric ton of carbon footprint per year. In the similar manner, my food carbon footprint is also high, as I do like cheese and beef that have the most carbon footprint (Environmental Protection Agency, 2014). I have an old inefficient refrigerator at home that makes a lot of noise but less cooling. The carbon footprint of the refrigerator is about 175 Kg. My television footprint is about 215 Kg that is the exact value of emitted carbon-dioxide from a television if we use it for 4 hours daily. I almost utilize the watching machine daily that adds about 91 Kg of carbon emission to my individual carbon footprint (Vaughan, 2009). In order to reduce my personal carbon footprint, I must change my lifestyle, particularly, some of the activities that have higher carbon footprint. The activities like sauna, workout, driving in car to the gym, watching television and using incandescent lights are required to be changed (Sovacool & Brown, 2010). At very initial stage, I will calculate the calories that I reduce during the workout at gym and sauna. It is better to do any alternate exercise like cycling, jogging or any other activity. Cycling for short distance for grocery reduces the travels carbon footprint as well as reduces the calorie count of the body and makes a person fit. I will

Monday, November 18, 2019

Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words - 8

Assignment Example Housed in the short-term demands includes: the day to day running of the hotel, customer relations, regulating operational costs and capitalising on returns. The long-term goals however, are more of a wholesome approach on the running of the entity and may include: monitoring and dissemination of information regarding the entity and resource allocation for hotel projects. For hotel managers to fulfil their long term goals, they have to abide by an intermediate path that entails the recruitment, training and development of a subordinate staff. They are also tasked with the duty of outlining the operational procedures that the hotel staff must abide by. These obligations go as far as the internal running of the hotel is concerned. The external factors however, cannot be ignored for they play a crucial part in shaping the business prospects of the hotel. Changes in the external environment are at times unpredictable and require a proactive mind to effectively counter them. The hotel personnel must also be able to have creative and critical minds to enable them to tackle any unprecedented events. The structural organization of the entity therefore comes into view. A structure that is flexible to deal with external commitments for the sake of the smooth running of the entity is necessitated. Putting in place such a system is tasked to the General Manager. Evidently, all these operations require a constant and effective interaction system between the manager and their subordinates. Effective communication is therefore a factor that is crucial to the success of a hotel operation. When a manager recruits and trains personnel, he/she makes use of the human resource segment of the company. The human resource department is a division of the hotel that handles matters affecting the welfare of the staff. By using the human resource programs and goals, the manager is able to advance the long-term goals. This role involves

Friday, November 15, 2019

The Issue Of Underage Drinking Social Work Essay

The Issue Of Underage Drinking Social Work Essay The issue and prevalence of young people (under 18) drinking alcohol in recent years has become a matter of increasing public concern, with current trends amongst the worst in Europe (Gunning et al 2010). Drinking during childhood, particularly heavy drinking is associated with a range of problems including physical and mental health problems, alcohol-related accidents, violence, and anti-social behaviour (Gunning et al 2010). Young bodies are still growing, and alcohol can harm their development; regular drinking can lead to cancer, liver disease, and heart disorders in later life (Bateman 2011). Deaths from liver disease have risen vastly in the 25-34 age groups over the last 10 years; thought to be a consequence of increased drinking starting from an earlier age (Thomson et al 2008). In England in 2007/2008, more than 7600 children under 17 were admitted to hospital as a result of drinking alcohol (Gunning et al 2010). It is believed that young people who start drinking alcohol at an early age, drink more, and drink more often than those who delay the onset of drinking until they are older. They are also more likely to develop alcohol abuse/dependence problems in adolescence and adulthood; dependence is also likely to occur from a much younger age (Gunning et al 2010). A recent survey carried out in 2010 by the National Centre for Social Research (NatCen) to determine the smoking, drinking and drug use of secondary school pupils aged 11 to 15; (7,674 pupils in 247 schools through the use of questionnaires) interestingly found that the proportion of young people who have drunk alcohol had decreased in comparison with earlier findings from 28 per cent in 2001 to 21 per cent in 2006 (DH 2008). However it must be stated that although there had been a marked decrease in the number of young people who had drunk alcohol; many of the 11 to 15 year olds who do drink were described to be consuming larger amounts of alcohol, more often, to deliberately get drunk (Bateman 2011). This study also conveyed that 18% of pupils had drunk alcohol recently, is equivalent to around 540,000 young people (Gunning et al 2010); suggesting that more still needs to be done to reverse these prominent trends, as despite the marked decrease alcohol misuse in young people is sti ll a serious problem that is affecting the health of the youth today and greatly impacting the wider community, in that alcohol misuse carries a financial burden; and has been estimated to cost nearly  £11,000 million each year, in terms of health, social welfare and criminal justice resources (Waller et al 2002). Collecting this type of data can prove difficult, as drug and alcohol misuse are of a sensitive nature and often individuals do not wish to share this information candidly when questioned. It is particularly difficult to obtain from young people (under the age of 18), as this often has to be carried out within a school environment, via questionnaires. The extent to which honest reporting occurs is again complex, as young people will often exaggerate to peers, and conceal from parents (Gunning et al 2010). Honesty is not the only factor affecting accuracy of responses in young people, precision of estimates and the recall of the amount of alcohol drunk can also be problematic, given that pupils patterns of behaviour between the ages of 11 and 15 may be described as experimental and sporadic opposed to habitual and regular (Gunning et al 2010). The National Treatment Agency (NTA) has recently stated that young peoples substance misuse is a relatively new area of academic study and so r esearch on effective treatment interventions are inconsistent (NTA 2010). It is widely acknowledged that alcohol misuse in youth is inextricably linked to a number of factors; including the influence of parents/family, peers, environment, culture and socio-economic status (Templeton et al 2006). According to the Acheson report (1999), dependency upon alcohol is significantly correlated with socio-economic position, suggesting that the problem is one that is beyond the chemical impact of the substance itself (Nacro Youth Crime Section 1999) coinciding with more recent National statistics and research studies that indicate, as well as sex and age, socio-economic status, ethnicity and geographical area of residence are among the factors linked to levels and patterns of harmful alcohol consumption (Waller et al 2002). In order to target the issue of alcohol misuse within young people, these factors needed to be taken into account and have since been the guide by which policies regarding youth and alcohol are implemented (DH 2008); therefore providing alcohol education in schools; beginning in the primary phase, well before patterns of regular drinking become established, designed to educate and advise young people on sensible drinking patterns and the dangerous effects it may have upon them (DH 2008). Parents and carers also have a responsibility for whether their children drink, at all, and if they do, how much and how frequently they drink. However, for parents to feel confident when talking to their children about alcohol and to empower them to set appropriate boundaries they need guidance from the appropriate services (DH 2008). In terms of government strategies, to target the issue of alcohol misuse in young people; the coalitions programme for government published in May 2010, outlines proposals designed to restrict the supply of alcohol to young people, less than 18 years of age, by increasing the control given to councils to close outlets that persistently sell alcohol to children; and to increase the maximum fines for under-age alcohol sales. Additionally, there will be a ban on the sales of alcohol at below cost price (Gunning et al 2010), and a review of alcohol pricing and taxation, both policies expected to have particular impact on young drinkers (Gunning et al 2010). Whilst these policies are currently weighted towards prevention, and adopting preventative strategies, recent statistics suggest that the majority of young people accessing services and interventions have problems with alcohol (37%) and cannabis (53%) (NTA 2010), thus suggesting that more needs to be done in the preventative stages of alcohol awareness in children; as evidence suggests that the problem is clearly still on-going. The choice and effectiveness of treatment approaches is typically dependent on a range of factors, such as the individual characteristics of the client for example motivation, family life, social circumstances and environment; in addition to the particular drug or drugs that are being used (Crow Reeves 1994). The National Treatment Agency (NTA) defines young peoples treatment as: à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ care planned medical, psychosocial or specialist harm reduction interventions aimed at alleviating current harm caused by a young persons substance misuse (NTA 2010). Young people with drug related needs are supported by interventions and services within a four-tiered model of drug and alcohol interventions which consists of a General Frontline service delivery for young people and their families (first port of call) (tier 1), open-access services (such as drop in) (tier 2), Drug treatment within the community (Shared care) (tier 3) and residential drug treatment (specialist services) (tier 4) (NTA 2006). Young drug and alcohol users are believed to differ from adults as they will typically not have used drugs for a prolonged period of time, in order to have developed a dependency to a substance; and as a result affecting the type of treatment generally provided to young people (Frontier Economics 2010). Young people are most likely to require psychosocial, harm reduction and family interventions, opposed to treatment for addiction, which most adults but only a small minority of young people require (Frontier Economics 2010). Psychosocial interventions are known as non-pharmacological interventions typically involving structured counselling, motivational enhancement, case management, and care-coordination, psychotherapy, and relapse prevention. The intention is to encourage behavioural and emotional change, with the support of lifestyle adjustments and the enhancement of coping skills (Frontier economics 2011). The most common form of therapy offered for substance misuse is some form of counselling; this may take the form of counselling for the drug problem itself, for example thoughts about using, coping strategies for reducing or counselling concerning the surrounding issues that impact on drug use (Lewis et al 2009). Counselling is a flexible approach and can be used to respond to a wide variety of circumstances surrounding misuse (Rounsaville Carroll 1992). It is possible to identify two general approaches to counselling in use in community drug services, the first being, counselling to tackle the personal problems, underlying drug misuse and the second being that of support and advice to help manage the consequences of drug misuse (Bryant- Jeffries 2001). The vast majority of young people accessing specialist treatment need and receive counselling, sometimes alongside their families to address the underlying causes and consequences of substance misuse. Such psychosocial interventions are the most common form of support accessed by under-18s (Frontier Economics 2011). The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) coincides with the idea of the counselling theory, and has recommended that offering brief, one-to-one advice on the harmful effects of alcohol use, and how to reduce the risks and find sources of support, is an effective approach for tackling harmful drinking amongst children and young people (NICE 2007). The most common counselling approach to drug treatment has been cognitive behavioural approaches. The cognitive behavioural approach relies greatly on getting the user to focus on identifying problems and solutions. Cognitive behavioural counselling can be used to promote abstinence or gradual control of drug use, with an emphasis on teaching cognitive and behavioural techniques to resist drug use and related behaviours. The cognitive element of CBT is concerned with getting users to identify the reasons why they misuse, and in particular getting them to identify maladaptive thought patterns that lead them to engage in destructive behaviour (Jarvis 1995). The behavioural aspect of CBT is about helping people to look at the signs that encourage them to misuse drugs and to help them develop alternative ways of behaving (Jarvis 1995). NICE has recommended cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) as an effective intervention for treating young peoples substance misuse (NICE 2007). Providing CBT in a group setting may help young people to role-play and practice coping with high-risk experiences. The group setting allows young people to share similar problems, develop social skills, model, rehearse and gain peer feedback (NICE 2007). NICE also recommends that brief interventions using motivational interview techniques can be used as one-off interventions, or to facilitate engagement with more structured specialist substance misuse treatment (NICE 2007). Implying that individuals with social networks supportive of drinking will benefit especially from a programme that encourages attendance at AA meetings, because it is the most effective means of eliminating heavy drinking friends and acquaintances from the social network (Connors, Tonigan and Miller, 2001). Although NICE states that a group setting is beneficial in helping young people overcome their alcohol abuse it may in fact be criticised, as young people, especially troubled young people may be overwhelmed by group influences, either in treatment among peers who are also recovering from chemical dependence or else after leaving treatment, in the form of familiar drug-using groups (Peele 1987). And so the most successful types of counselling approach used for young people needs to take into account their age, as being amongst adults with alcohol issues would not be beneficial to a young person as adults are often described as dependent requiring more intensive forms of treatment; young people will have often not reached this stage of dependence and so these adult influences may cause further negative impacts on the impressionable young (Geldard 2010). Type of personality needs to be taken into account in order to discover which counselling approach would be most appropriate and succ essful for them as an individual, as some individuals may respond best to a one-to-one approach, being able to fully open up to one person (the counsellor). Whereas some may find it easier to speak within a group setting with peers, learning from others experiences. Counselling is often described as a flexible approach (Rounsaville Carroll, 1992) and therefore can be adopted to meet the needs of individual cases and respond to a wide variety of circumstances surrounding misuse; in addition utilising a flexible approach suggests that it allows for the young person to access this service around other commitments such as school, so as to not jeopardise other important aspects and influences within their sphere of activity, flexibility of counselling will also allow for the involvement of the family, with evidence to suggest that family involvement enhances assessment and intervention and increases motivation in treatment (Kaufman, 1992). As young people are often depicted as not yet i ndependent, family interventions are believed especially important in addressing the basis of their drug and alcohol involvement; (Kaufman, 1992). Also important is helping the family initiate and support the persons involvement in an appropriate treatment program (Kaufman, 1992). Within individual treatment, compared to group therapy it is believed that much more time can be spent on issues that are unique to the individual involved, a trait that needs to be evident when working with young people (Rounsaville Carroll 1992). Motivational interviewing has a number of similarities with cognitive behavioural techniques but has a somewhat different emphasis in that the role of the counsellor is less directive and the responsibility is very much on the client to identify ways of changing (Bryant -Jeffries 2001). It aims, through the counselling relationship, to engage clients in a process of change and assumes that an individuals level of motivation can be influenced by the interaction between the client and the therapist. Motivational interviewing assumes that behaviour is a prospect that can be worked on and developed (Bryant Jeffries 2001). It is concerned essentially with working with clients to address the confluence of factors that drug misusers consistently feel about changing their behaviour and hopefully encouraging them towards reducing or abstaining (Jarvis 1995). The theoretical basis of this approach is Prochaska and Di Clementes transtheoretical model of behaviour change or, as it is most frequently referred to, the stages of change model (Turnbull 2000). The stage of change model is a social cognition model; focusing upon readiness to change a potentially destructive form of health behaviour i.e. drug misuse. The model has been applied to other health behaviours such as eating disorders as well as to substance misuse (Wilson Schlam 2004). It refers to a five or six stage process that people go through in their thoughts about their readiness to change. A study of alcohol users found that the number of clients motivated to change was increased by 77% when motivational interviewing was used (Miller Sanchez 19 99). Motivational interviewing is believed to increases the effectiveness of more extensive psychosocial treatments; often the chosen method of treatment used in young people (NTA 2010). Motivational interviewing although successful, in adult treatment programmes, may not be the best choice of treatment to use when young people are concerned. As previously stated they are unlikely to have used drugs for a prolonged period of time, to develop dependencies (NTA 2010) and so readiness to change, or to contemplate change may not be something they have even thought about and so a pre-occupation with lifelong abstinence in a young population may not only be unnecessary but unrealistic, and may actually encourage regular relapse episodes (Peele 1987). Young people require guidance and cannot often think about the consequences of their actions, or the harm they are causing themselves by heavy drinking (DfES 2004). It is suggested that therapy should encourage the assumption of values toward work, accomplishment, family, and social institutions that facilitate the maturation process (Peele 1987). Harm Reduction is one of the key public health approaches to drug use in recent years (Riley et al 1999). The harm reduction approach attempts to define and discuss drug use in terms of the harm it can be said to cause, and respectively to look at ways of reducing levels of harm (Riley et al 1999). Harm reduction is a term that defines policies, programmes, services and actions that work to reduce the health and social economic harms to the individual, the family, communities or society that are associated with the use of drugs (Newcomb 1992) without necessarily reducing drug consumption (Wodak 2011). A harm reducing approach to illicit drug use focuses on attracting users to services, in the realisation of the fact that many people who have problems with their drug use are not in touch with services (Wodak 2011). Thus, harm reduction policies and programs are offered to those not willing or able to cease their drug use in the short-run; aiming to make services more accessible to drug users as a first step towards treatment; however, this philosophy remains compatible with an eventual goal of abstention (CAHM 2009); Programs requiring abstinence as an immediate goal cannot therefore be considered harm reduction (CAHM 2009). A goal sequence produced by the Aids and Drug Misuse report (ACMD 1988) provides a clear example of a harm reduction approach to drug use; firstly to discourage sharing, encourage the shift from injecting towards oral use, reduce the overall levels of illicit drug use and finally abstinence (ACMD 1988). Harm reduction accepts that some use of mind-altering substances is inevitable and that some level of drug use in society is normal (CAHM 2009), for young people and alcohol use this is most definitely the case, as most individuals have their first experiences of alcohol during their early teenage years (Marlatt Witkiewitz 2002). Based on the recent evidence young people would benefit from prevention programmes aimed to reduce the amount of harm experienced by young drinkers this may be seen as a more realistic and effective method for educating individuals about the possible consequences associated with alcohol consumption as opposed to abstinence within this particular age group (Marlatt Witkiewitz 2002). This suggests that Harm reduction in this sense is the best approach when looking at young people and alcohol misuse, as abstinence may be described as unlikely within this age group, acknowledging that most adolescents will drink, speaking of the possible harms may be enough to reduce harmful levels of drinking by the young person (Marlatt Witkiewitz 2002). The Life Skills Training Program and the Alcohol Misuse Prevention Study (AMPS) in the United States and the School Health and Alcohol Harm Reduction Project (SHAHRP) in Australia are described as large scale intervention studies that have been systematically designed and evaluated based on a harm reduction philosophy (Marlatt Witkiewitz 2002). The life skills training programmes is said to adopt a cognitive behavioural approach to drug abuse prevention; thus providing education on the effects of drugs, teaching skills for resisting social pressure to use drugs, and promoting the development of self-esteem and social skills (Marlatt Witkiewitz 2002). Whilst SHAHRP combines a harm reduction philosophy with skills training, alcohol education, and activities designed to encourage positive health behaviour change (Marlatt Witkiewitz 2002); Results from a study comparing an intervention group of students who participated in SHAHRP with a control group over a 3-year period, conveyed tha t students in SHAHRP had significantly lower levels of alcohol consumption and alcohol related harms (Marlatt Witkiewitz 2002). In conclusion, harm reduction seems the best approach for young people and alcohol use, it must be stated that they are not as advanced as adults who misuse alcohol thus require harm reduction leading to abstinence. Young people will often eventually mature out of harmful drinking behaviour (Marlatt Witkiewitz 2002) and so harm reduction at such a stage should be an appropriate practice in order to highlight the harmful effects to young people enough so that it reduces overall consumption. We need to be able to convince children that life is worth living and that they are capable, not only of avoiding drugs, but of achieving a worthwhile existence (Peele 1987); presenting them with the values of achievement and positive accomplishments; of friendship and community; of health and self-preservation; of fun and adventure; of responsibility for self and contribution to others; of consciousness and intellectual awareness; and of a commitment to life that goes beyond personal protectiveness and fear (Peele 1987).