Group Counseling in Elementary Schools Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Group Counseling in Elementary Schools - Essay Example Due to this legislation school counselors are being expected to contribute more towards the academic achievements of their student body (Brigman & Campbell, 2003). The following paper aims to inform the reader about two interventions that are currently used as part of school-based group counseling. First, a brief outline of the purpose behind group counseling for elementary students shall be provided. Second two group counseling intervention activities shall be presented. Next, an outline of ethical and best practice principles shall be identified that align with a learner-centered approach to group counseling. Finally, a conclusion shall summarize the key themes of this paper. Group counseling within the elementary environment has more recently taken on a learner-centered approach to school counseling (Stroh & Sink, 2002). Recent changes to education legislation emphasize a focus on student academic achievements (Brigman & Campbell, 2003). ... School-based group counseling is proving to be an effective intervention for positive change in student behavior (Schechtman, 2002). Group counseling intervention activities may be centered around a diverse range of topics, such as friendship and social skills study, anti-bullying, organizational skills development, building self-esteem, changes to family dynamics and grief, just to name a few (Schechtman, 2002) .Group counseling has been found to significantly reduce rates of acting-out behavior in elementary students considered to be at risk (Stroh & Strike, 2002). Interventions that have included group counseling have also been found to be beneficial at improving overall behavioral adjustment of elementary students (Stroh & Strike, 2002). The use of small group counseling interventions have been found to positively affect the racial attitudes of elementary students (Stroh & Strike, 2002), as well as increase scores on measures of self-concept amongst school aged children (McGannon , Casey, & Dimmitt, 2005). In 2002 Chemtob, Nakashima and Hamada conducted a community wide school-based study of elementary students with ongoing disaster-related trauma two years after Hurricane Iniki. The sample was comprised of 2 358 children in grades 2-6 on the island of Kauai. There were 248 children who rated highest on scores of psychological trauma. Children awaiting treatment comprised the waiting-list control group. The other children were randomly assigned to either the individual or group counseling treatment. Following four treatment sessions there was a significant reduction in self-reports of trauma-related symptoms as compared to the waiting list group. Although,

The Rise of Cloud Computing in Telecommunication Industry Essay Example for Free

The Rise of Cloud Computing in Telecommunication Industry Essay Introduction â€Å"There was a time when every household, town, farm or village had its own water well. Today, shared public utilities give us access to clean water by simply turning on the tap; cloud computing works in a similar fashion.† That was the analogy used by Vivek Kundra, Federal Chief Information Officer (CIO) of the United States Government to depict the use of cloud computing in today’s society. As the corporate world has embarked on the interactive platform of Web 2. 0, some companies are progressing one step ahead to experiment data communication with cloud computing. What is cloud computing? According to Mache Creeger in the article â€Å"Cloud Computing: An Overview†, cloud computing refers a model of shift in the delivery of architecture of information services and data for economic reasons (Creeger, 2009). In this paper, I will present a brief overview of how cloud computing operate, the role of cloud computing in telecommunication industry, the advantages and challenges involved in its implementation. How does cloud computing work? â€Å"Cloud† technically refers to the data center hardware and software used in providing a pay-as-you-go data service to the public. The term â€Å"private cloud†, on the other hand, is used by organizations to refer to their internal data centers (Armbrust, et al., 2010). Cloud computing can be divided into three types of services, namely software-as-a-service (SaaS) for WAN-enabled applications, platform-as-a-service (PaaS) for new applications, and infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) for computational and storage infrastructure (Creeger, 2009). Armbrust, et al. April 2010. [Main components of cloud computing]. Retrieved from â€Å"A View of Cloud Computing† Journal Article. Sometimes, cloud is claimed to be nothing new in data services. Chris Rose, author of the article â€Å"A Break in The Cloud? The Reality of Cloud Computing†, suggests that cloud computing is the merging of existing technologies like networking and virtualization to provide new services that charges by usage (Rose, 2011). Fundamentally, the point of storing data in the cloud, compared to conventional data management, is its high accessibility from a shared and centralized hosts and low cost for the same reason. Not only that, it enables opportunities for enhanced collaboration on a shared common platform (Creeger, 2009). What does cloud computing mean to telecommunication business? Google, Amazon and Salesforce.com were among the earliest companies to set their footsteps in by building data architectures using cloud technology to support their applications. Following that was an increasing number of telecommunication companies around the globe such as KDDI, China Mobile, SingTel that were grabbing their pieces of the pie by joining the pioneers in delivering data services using cloud (Tobolski, Greenway, Tucker, 2011). For these companies, they foresaw cloud services as a lucrative loophole from traditional telecommunication. An article by Accenture entitled â€Å"Six Questions Every Telecommunications Senior Executive Should Ask about Cloud Computing† reports that â€Å"worldwide cloud services revenue was projected to surpass $56.3 billion in 2009, a 21.3 percent increase from 2008 revenue of $46.4 billion, according to Gartner, Inc. The market is expected to reach $150.1 billion in 2013.à ¢â‚¬  (Tobolski, Greenway, Tucker, 2011). Those figures are huge enough to boost revenues for the telecommunication players. Additionally, Tobolski and other authors points out in the same article that cloud computing allows companies to save cost by bypassing most expenses in installing and maintaining their own local data centers (Tobolski, Greenway, Tucker, 2011). These are among of the reasons more telecom companies are investing in the development of cloud technology. However, there are other reasons that make cloud computing an ideal option. For instance, the common application platform used in cloud allows sharing with third parties, hence allowing telecommunication companies to deploy services that either extend their services to or operate independently in cooperating with third parties (Creeger, 2009). They would enjoy a lot more flexibility and less rigidity in their operations with the advantages offered by cloud. Another article, â€Å"Privacy, Security and Trust in Cloud Computing, The Perspective of the Telecommunication Industry† also highlights that telecommunication industry is at a unique position to integrate and promote new cloud-based services by making use of its existing relationships with customers (Martucci, Zuccato, Smeets, Habib, Johansson, Shahmehri, 2012). Such effort would encourage more participation in cloud computing that helps it to grow immensely and gain trusts from more customers. Furthermore, their expertise in building and managing complex networks is another plus point to adopt cloud computing in meeting some industrial needs that traditional data technology was unable to provide (Tobolski, Greenway, Tucker, 2011). In another word, cloud computing can make up to what was previously lacking in the industry. From a technical stand, Internet Protocol (IP) infrastructure owned by telcos also lends itself well to cloud services compared to enterprise infrastructure (Gubbins, 2009). All these instances have proven that cloud computing is a good fit for the telecommunication industry in increasing revenues and efficiency as well as lowering operational costs. Advantages of Cloud Computing i. Economic Advantage/ Cost efficiency As mentioned previously, the application of cloud computing in managing data saves cost for telecommunication companies. How and how much do they save? According to Mache Creeger again, sharing resources and purchasing power of very large-scale multitenant data centers in using cloud can result in an obvious cost cut, from paying as much as $3.75 per month for a gigabyte of managed storage reduced to as low as only 10 to 15 cents per month with cloud storage (Creeger, 2009). For companies that are constantly allocating a huge chunk of expense on keeping their data, cloud computing seems exactly like the great solution to saving on that. This difference in price essentially owes it to the lower physical space of only about 1,000 square feet required in a cloud data center that uses virtualization, instead of 35,000 square feet for a conventional data center. Yet compared to server utilization of between 2 and 3 percent on a usual data center, the one in cloud with virtualization can g o up to 80 percent (Creeger, 2009). Another economic benefit for using cloud is in giving small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) the affordability to invest in a disaster recovery cost. Again using virtualization, disaster recovery mechanism is more cost-effective by requiring 1.05 times the cost of the infrastructure itself, instead of double of that cost if using typical disaster recovery (Creeger 3). Therefore, not only companies get to save on paying for the storage, they even get to pay a lower price to keep their data safe just because it’s a better technology. Additionally, there are other expenses involved in the operation of telecommunication data business that can be significantly reduced. Using the concept of economies of scale, operating on large-scaled cloud data centers at low-cost locations can produce a factor of 5 to 7 decrease in cost of electricity, network bandwidth, operations, software, and hardware (Armbust et al. 3). Armbrust, et al. April 2010. [Main components of cloud computing]. Retrieved from â€Å"A View of Cloud Computing† Journal Article. ii. Flexibility and Shift in Control Besides saving costs, shifting to cloud-based data services results in a certain level of flexibility and technical advantages to the companies. In contrast with traditional data services, cloud capable of being turned on and off as needed and easily expandable by attaching more servers (Joe Tobolski et al. 4). Hence, cloud is more customizable with better control to cater to the needs of different companies. Moreover, Creeger mentions in his article that the increased automation used in cloud computing is another advantage by eliminating the need for on-call system administrators (Creeger, 2009). This means the operation of data service under cloud computing are programmed well in advance without relying on manpower. The shift to a new technology that it is so flexible and cost-effective is almost similar to the technology shift from analog to digital signals. Therefore, it is not surprising if most of the telecommunication and data management companies decide to adopt cloud computi ng in the near future. Risks and Challenges In spite of all the benefits that cloud computing bring to the telecommunication and data industry, it is not without risks in its application. In fact, there is a list of challenges posed by cloud computing that different parties are debating and companies are seeking for solutions. In dealing with data, especially sensitive and confidential ones, security and control have always been one of the major concerns. According to the article â€Å"Privacy, Security and Trust in Cloud Computing, The Perspective of the Telecommunication Industry†, In cloud computing services, telecommunication providers in have to share customers’ data with cloud computing providers in providing cloud computing services so the challenge is in ensuring they do not lose control over the customers’ data and identity (Martucci, Zuccato, Smeets, Habib, Johansson, Shahmehri, 2012). However, Creeger provides a different stand in addressing this challenge in his article. According to him, trusting information assets to a recognized and established cloud service provider could increase the security of customers’ data. Also, many data centers would continuously research and develop better ways to secure their infrastructure and data processed (Creeger, 2009). While no major data breaches cases involving cloud were heard of up to this point, telecom companies simply cannot afford the risking their customers’ data before assured that cloud computing services are at least as safe and stable as the traditional data services. Standardization is another challenge faced by companies in delivering cloud services. There is currently a lack of standardized interfaces for cloud computing and telecommunication services to integrate and it seems that the developers are only interested in making the components cross-compatible between different platforms (Martucci, Zuccato, Smeets, Habib, Johansson, Shahmehri, 2012). It may sound like a temporary solution and as the technologies mature, they will decide if standardized interfaces are necessary after all. This is just part of the lack of measurement standards that make evaluating the performance of cloud-provided services less possible at this moment. Besides security and standards, transparency of the cloud market could be a challenge if telecom companies are smart enough in maintaining good relationships with customers. Cloud computing services would be portrayed as the same as any Internet services and hence when the services go down, people would blog, post and tweet about it and share with people around the world. For example, a service outage that cut 14 percent of Google users from services in 2009 caused an outrage on social media channels (Tobolski, Greenway, Tucker, 2011). Consequently, this would negatively affect the reputation of the service providers. Therefore, aside being its part in avoiding service failures, telecom companies have to take part in social media and respond to customers’ feedbacks and complaints. These risks and challenges are not impossible to overcome but require time and collaborations between cloud providers and telecom computing to produce more promising security and standard. Conclusion Even with a relatively new emergence, cloud computing has a sophisticated and established infrastructure, ready to provide data services for the next generation of service providers. Cloud computing is a technology created to stay in the industry and continue to grow as telecommunication and other corporate companies jump on the bandwagon to benefits from it. While the advantages of implementing cloud computing seem appealing in terms of cost and technical flexibility, companies should always consider its drawbacks and understand the risks before proceeding with the adoption of this technology. With cloud computing becoming part of the telecommunication industry, it brings a new hope to the companies in generating more revenues and overcoming the weaknesses of traditional data services. Hence, it would also improve the quality of service in delivering and managing customers’ data Bibliography Armbrust, M., Fox, A., Griffith, R., Joseph, A. D., Katz, R., Konwinski, A., et al. (2010, April). A view of cloud computing. Communications of the ACM, 53(4), pp. 50-58. Creeger, M. (2009, June). Cloud Computing: An Overview. Queue Distributed Computing, 7(5). Gubbins, E. (2009, May). How Telcos Could Conquer The Cloud. Telephony, 250(5), pp. 34-35. Martucci, L. A., Zuccato, A., Smeets, B., Habib, S. M., Johansson, T., Shahmehri, N. (2012). Privacy, Security and Trust in Cloud Computing: The Perspective of the Telecommunication Industry . Ubiquitous IntelligenceComputing and 9th International Conference on AutonomicTrusted Computing (UIC/ATC), (pp. 627 632 ). Sweden. Rose, C. (2011). A Break In The Cloud? The Reality of Cloud Computing. International Journal of Management Information Systems, 15(4), 59-63. Tobolski, J., Greenway, A., Tucker, W. (2011, February 15). Six Questions Every Telecommunications Senior Executive Should Ask About Cloud Computing. USA.

Social Enterprise and Commercial Enterprise

Social Enterprise and Commercial Enterprise INTRODUCTION Social enterprises are businesses driven by a social or environmental mission (social enterprise coalition). They are businesses primarily set out for social purpose. Whose principal objective is to reinvest their surpluses mainly for social purpose in the business or community rather than maximise profit for shareholders and owners (The Cabinet Office. Office of the third sector). Commercial enterprises are business organisations that are set up mainly for profit. Their main objective is to maximise profit for their shareholders and owners. It could be Mobil unlimited or publicly owned companies like commercial banks or limited liability companies. Social enterprise transcends traditional non-profit sector and applies to health, environment, education and social welfare. It also applies to economic development or job creation programmes (Virtue Ventures, 2007). An example is Southampton social council that is geared towards providing quality education for the children in its communi ty. It is also involved in providing quality water for its citizens free from sodium, lead and impurities. It is also very proficient in its waste disposal by maintaining a clean environment. In order to achieve this, it organises a programme called enviro_champs where university staff and their students are involved. University of Southampton and Southampton Solent University are involved in this programme. Differences and Similarities between Social Enterprise and Commercial Enterprise Social enterprises are different from a standard charity because they use a businesslike approach to tackling social problems instead of relying on grants (Virtue Ventures, 2007). Social enterprise are designed to meet social needs and also to achieve commercial viability similar to the private sector (Virtue Ventures, 2007).Business plans and other research tools can be utilised to design social enterprise policy by analysing an organisations internal factors such as core competences, weaknesses and needs of its clients and external factors such as legal and regulatory environments, markets, demand and access to capital. Therefore social enterprise operational models are geared towards market realities, organisational capabilities and social needs (Virtue Ventures, 2007). The Environment Centre (tCE) which is an arm of energy saving trust. Its aim is to encourage and educate people about the benefit of sustainable alternative energy. The objective of tCE is to educate the people about the havoc caused by using fossil fuel for generating energy, and the pollution caused by the emission of carbon dioxide and other toxic gases. This is achieved by helping people to apply for grant from government. In doing this people are encouraged to use solar energy, wind turbines, bio fuels and hydro energy to generate electricity for their homes. Grants are also given for home insulation. This is purely a social service and not for profit (The Environment Centre, 2008). tCE obtain funding from European Union. Social enterprises raise standards for ethical business and corporate social responsibilities (Social Enterprise East Midlands). Social enterprise plays a larger role in delivering public services like provision of leisure services, recycling services health and social care for council(Cabinet Office: Office of the Third Sector) . Unlike social enterprise that are not for profit organisation. Commercial enterprises are not mainly into provision of public services; the few that are in these areas are very expensive, because they are principally for profit maximisation. Commercial enterprises raise their capital from individuals and stock markets while social enterprise raise their capital from non governmental organisations. Social enterprise can also benefit funds from the same sources as commercial enterprises. The only difference is in the range of finances available which may differ depending on the function and form of social enterprise. It could be in the form of grant, debt, equity, social venture capital or philanthropy capital (Anglia Ruskin University, 2009). Business enterprises and social enterprise s read from different bottom line, one purely financial while the other takes into account the social benefits derived from the enterprises operation. With these differences, they also share some similarities as follows, they are both ambitious, they both have the ability to look for resources in most remote places, they are creative in their solution to problems, and they also build something out of nothing (School for Social Entrepreneurs). The enterprise act 2002 which relates to competition law and the legislation for the protection of consumers (Enterprise Act Publication, 2002). The fair trade act 2003 all are legal laws regulating both commercial enterprise and social enterprise. Both commercial and social enterprises need to be legally registered according to the law of United Kingdom or anywhere in the world where they operate before they can start operations officially and legally. Commercial enterprise compete in the market place in order to maximise profit and also for t he share of the market which is geared towards growth while social enterprise only compete to make profit in order to improve their services for their environment and their community. Companies like Primark competes in the market place with organisations like Matalan, Georges, Marks and Spencers for the share of the market. Their main purpose is to maximise profit and for growth in order to be the market leader. They employ business tools and models to gain competitive advantage and to achieve sustainable leading edge. In recent time social enterprise is becoming an integral of commercial enterprise. Commercial enterprises are moving towards philanthropic activities (Porter and Kramer, 2002). They form sister companies which are basically not for profit organisations. These not for profit organisations aim is to give something back to the community where they operate. This is popularly known as corporate social responsibilities. It could be in the health sector by subsidising health bills of the people in the area where they operate. Some organisations focus on a particular area like heart diseases or cancer patients or leukaemia patients. While some are into recreation of the environment. An example is Primark which embarked on beautifying parks around Southampton (Primark Stores Ltd, 2009).Primark supports community projects across the UK and Ireland (Primark Stores Ltd, 2009). All these are in an attempt to gain competitive advantage. Philanthropy is used as a form of public relations or advertising. It is sometimes used to promote companies image or brand, through rigorous marketing or high profile sponsorship (Porter and Kramer, 2002). True strategic giving addresses both social and economic goals simultaneously unlike cause related marketing. They target areas of competitive context, where the company and society both benefit this is because the firm brings unique asset and expertise (Porter and Kramer, 2002). Organisations uses their philanthropic posture to enhance competitive advantage by aligning social and economic goals thereby bringing improvement in a companys long term business prospects. This gives rise to sustainable competitive advantage (Porter and Kramer, 2002). By addressing corporate social responsibility a company is not only giving back to the society but also leveraging its capabilities and relationship in support of charitable organisations. An example is Marks and Spencer start programme th at gives opportunity for work experience to a range of people including the young unemployed, the disabled, the homeless. Parents returning to work. Also for students who are the first in their families are encouraged to aim for higher education (Marks and Spencer CSR). Companies do not operate in isolation from the society around them. Their ability to compete depends on the circumstances of the location where they exist. Improving education is seen as a social issue. The educational level of the local work force greatly affects a companys potential competitiveness. The more a company is involved in corporate social responsibility the better it is positioned for economic benefits. Apple is a company that is positioned as an innovative organisation; therefore it develops its professionalism in its work place by developing and training its work force (Apple, 2009). Also by giving them sound health packages and housing benefits. This is because investment in the work force is paramoun t to productivity combined with finance and materials. This gives Apple a sustainable competitive advantage in the market against its competitors. Conclusion In conclusion the long run of social and economic goals are not conflicting, instead they are integrally connected. Competitiveness in recent time depends on how organisations can combine labour, capital and natural resources to produce high quality goods and services. Productivity depends on having workers who are educated, safe, healthy, decently housed and motivated by sense of opportunity (Porter and Kramer, 2002). My placement in Southampton city council as a volunteer has thought me a lot of important things I need to know about active community group. Basically what I have gained is not much because Im still doing a research, on how to know what the community wants from the council, which I believe it will be completed soon. Also, I went for a Conference in Birmingham about community engagement, which was unbelievable, m eeting up with different regions and met the Chief Executive,CDF. Nevertheless it was a tremendous meeting which they talk about several programms like Business case for community engagement, Working with the third sector and Take part etc.It was an excellent conference because everybody had to introduce themselves and their position in city council from different county.I would gain more idea from city council because I might stay with them till end of January 2010. Bibliography Anglian Ruskin University (2009). Creating Social Enterprises.  A guide to Social Enterprise for University Staff. Cambridge and Chelmsford.[online] Available:www.anglia.ac.uk/rdcs[accessed: 22 November 2009] Apple Store (2009). [online] Available : http://store.apple.com/uk?afid=p202%7CGOUKE100801461cid=OAS-EMEA-KWG- UK_General-UK [accessed: 20 November 2009] Cabinet Office, (2006). www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/third_Sector/Social_Enterprise/action_Plan Enterprise Act (2002). [online] Available: http://www.oft.gov.uk/shared_oft/business_leaflets/enterprise_act/oft51 8.pd f [accessed: 22 November 2009] Funding For Collaboration( 2009).[online] Available: http://www.adventurecapitalfund.org/[accessed: 23 November 2009] J4b.Fit4funding.The Charities Information Bureau. [online] Available: http://www.j4b.co.uk/[accessed: 22 November 2009] Marks and Spencer-CSR. Social Inclusion and Job Experience. [online] Available: http://www.article13.com/A13_ContentList.asp?strAction=GetPublicationP NID= 1 344 [accessed: 24 November 2009] Social Enterprise Collision. Keeping it Legal [online] Available: http://www.socialenterprise.org.uk/pages/about-social- enterprise.html[accessed 20 November 2009] Porter, M.E. and M. R. Kramer (2002).The Competitive Advantage of Corporate Philanthropy. Harvard Business Review. Boston: Harvard Business School Corporation. Primark Stores Limited (2009).Corporate Social Responsibility. Local Community Report. [online] Available : http://www.primark.co.uk/aboutus/CSR[ accesses 23 November 2009] The Environment Centre tCE (2008). Sustainable Planning Centre (SISCO) . [online] Available: http://www.environmentcentre.com/[accessed: 25 November 2009] Virtue Ventures (2007 ). [online]Available: http://www.virtueventures.com/setypology/index.php?id=INTROlm=1[access ed: 23 November 2009]

Novelty Never Lasts :: essays research papers

Novelty Never Lasts One thing I have recently begun to learn in life is that the novelty of anything, given a little bit of time, no matter how fascinating or unusual it was at first, usually wears off quicker than one would prefer. I have found this to apply to nearly everything I have experienced in my life, and a frightening term comes to mind. "jaded." At least it should be frightening to a mere seventeen year old, with so much left to do in life. I am more than confident that this is just a passing phase, but nonetheless I have discovered how quickly the novelty of certain things can wear off from the experience I have had in the jobs I have held and from the repeated action of doing anything that I find enjoyable on a regular basis. Through the jobs I have held both at a local pizza restaurant and movie theater, I have found that any novelty that pizza and movies once had is no longer there. I can easily remember back before my first job at the pizzeria when I savored the opportunity to eat pizza as often as I could. Now, thanks to the fact that I ate pizza almost every time I worked during that year, pizza just doesn't taste that good anymore. Whenever my family orders a pizza for dinner, I really don't look forward to it as much as I used to. Instead, I just shrug it off, "Pizza, big deal, what else do we have to eat?" This same loss of appreciation has happened with my second job as well. I have been working at Sony Theater's Palace Nine for about four months now, and I can easily say that I don't really enjoy an outing to the movies as much as I used to enjoy them. Probably because I see them all for free now, but mostly because I know exactly how the movie theater works, I no longer experience the same thrill about going to the movies that I once did. I know all the ins and outs of the business I need to, and I am no longer fascinated by the movie theater industry. I find this loss of appreciation unfortunate to say the least, but at least I was making some money in the process. I have also found that novelty can wear off through the repeated action of doing anything that I find enjoyable on a regular basis. A couple examples of this would be billiards and traveling. Last year, my friends and I would Novelty Never Lasts :: essays research papers Novelty Never Lasts One thing I have recently begun to learn in life is that the novelty of anything, given a little bit of time, no matter how fascinating or unusual it was at first, usually wears off quicker than one would prefer. I have found this to apply to nearly everything I have experienced in my life, and a frightening term comes to mind. "jaded." At least it should be frightening to a mere seventeen year old, with so much left to do in life. I am more than confident that this is just a passing phase, but nonetheless I have discovered how quickly the novelty of certain things can wear off from the experience I have had in the jobs I have held and from the repeated action of doing anything that I find enjoyable on a regular basis. Through the jobs I have held both at a local pizza restaurant and movie theater, I have found that any novelty that pizza and movies once had is no longer there. I can easily remember back before my first job at the pizzeria when I savored the opportunity to eat pizza as often as I could. Now, thanks to the fact that I ate pizza almost every time I worked during that year, pizza just doesn't taste that good anymore. Whenever my family orders a pizza for dinner, I really don't look forward to it as much as I used to. Instead, I just shrug it off, "Pizza, big deal, what else do we have to eat?" This same loss of appreciation has happened with my second job as well. I have been working at Sony Theater's Palace Nine for about four months now, and I can easily say that I don't really enjoy an outing to the movies as much as I used to enjoy them. Probably because I see them all for free now, but mostly because I know exactly how the movie theater works, I no longer experience the same thrill about going to the movies that I once did. I know all the ins and outs of the business I need to, and I am no longer fascinated by the movie theater industry. I find this loss of appreciation unfortunate to say the least, but at least I was making some money in the process. I have also found that novelty can wear off through the repeated action of doing anything that I find enjoyable on a regular basis. A couple examples of this would be billiards and traveling. Last year, my friends and I would

Leading Supply Chain Turn Around

Five years ago, salespeople at Whirlpool said the company's supply chain staff were â€Å"sales disablers† Now, Whirlpool excels at getting the right product to the right place at the right time-while keeping inventory low. What made the difference? by Reuben C Slone a Supply Chain Turnaround ^ ^ eading T hings would be very different today-for me, my colleagues, and my company – if the votes of Whirlpool's North American leadership team had swung in a different direction on May 3,2001.It was a move I hadn't expected; Mike Todman, our executive vice president at the time, decided to go around the table and ask each member of his staff for a thumbs-up or thumbs-down on the investment that Paul Dittmann and I had just formally proposed. Did I look worried? I can't imagine I didn't, even though we'd spent hours in individual meetings with each of them, getting their ideas and buy-in. We thought we had everyone's support. But the facts remained: Our proposal had a bigger pr ice tag than any supply chain investment in the company's history. We were asking for tens of millions during a period of general belt-tightening.Some of it was slated for new hires, even as cutbacks were taking place elsewhere in the company. And Paul and I, the people doing the asking, were coming from the supply chain organization. Let me be clear: The supply chain organization was the part of the business that Whirlpool's salespeople were in the habit of calling the â€Å"sales disablers† in 2000. We were perpetually behind the eight ball, tying up too much capital in finished goods inventory – yet failing to provide the product availability our customers needed. Our availability hovered around 87%. Our colleagues grimly joked that in surveys on the delivery performance f the four biggest appliance manufacturers in the U. S. , we came in fifth. 114 HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW OCTOBER 200 U HBR The 2Xst-Century Supply Chain. spotlight And here, with all the credibility that track record conferred on us, we were proposing an ambitious new suite of IT solutions – something, too, for which the company had little appetite. It had been just 20 months since Whirlpool North America had flipped the switch on a massive new ERP system, with less than desired effect. Normally, Whirlpool ships close to 70,000 appliances a day to North American customers.The day after we went live with SAP, we were able to ship about 2,000. A barrage of bad press followed. Even though the situation was soon righted (SAP remains a valued partner), the experience of being treated as a sort of poster child for ERP folly had left scars. So imagine our relief when we heard the first voice say â€Å"yes. † It was the executive who headed up sales to Sears. Paul and I looked anxiously to the next face, and the next. The heads of our KitchenAid, Whirlpool, and value brands followed suit-a watershed, given that the funding would have to come from their budgets.I could see that J. C. Anderson, my boss and senior vice president of operations, was happy, too. He had tried to voice his support at the beginning of the meeting, but Mike Todman had asked him to wait. Now that it was his turn to vote, he did it with a fiourish:†I am fully committed,†he said,†to moving our supply chain from a liability to a recognized competitive advantage. † Only after Todman had heard from everyone in the room – brands, sales, finance, human resources, and operations-did he cast his vote. costs. Sales had risen to record levels in 2000 as our launch of some nnovative products coincided with an uptick in housing starts. With the rest of the company chugging on all cylinders, there was only one thing holding us back: our supply chain. Jeff called me into his office and gave me a two-word order: â€Å"Fix it. † If that constitutes a mandate, we had one. But it was up to us to figure out what fixing the supply chain would entail. At the to p level, of course, it's a simple formulation: getting the right product to the right place at the right time – all the time. That gets complicated very quickly, however, when you consider the scale of the challenge.Whirlpool makes a diverse line of washers, dryers, refrigerators, dishwashers, and ovens, with manufacturing facilities in 13 countries. We sell those appliances in lOO countries, through retailers big and small and to the construction companies and developers that build new homes. In the United States alone, our logistics network consists of eight factory distribution centers, ten regional distribution centers, 60 local distribution centers, and nearly 20,000 retail and contract customers. M We needed to formulate a battle plan that would include new information technology, processes, roles, and talents.But before we could begin to imagine those, we needed to define our strategy. Looking to the future, what would it mean to be world-class in supply chain performa nce? The decision we made at this very early point in the process was, 1 think, a pivotal one. We decided that we could answer that question only by focusing on customer With that last yes, the tension broke, and everyone was requirements first. Our approach to developing our supsmiling and nodding. Paul and I had a sense of triumphply chain strategy would be to start with the last link-the but also trepidation.Because now, we knew, there could consumer-and proceed backward. be no excuses. We were on the hook to deliver some serious value. It's an obvious thought, isn't it? Fxcept that it wasn't. The overwhelming tendency in a manufacturing organization is to think about the supply chain as something Devising the Strategy that originates with the supply base and moves forward. It's understandable; This is the part of the chain over y responsibility at Whirlpool today is for the which the company has control. But the unfortunate performance of the global supply chain.But effect is th at supply chain initiatives typically run out of in 2001,1 was focused only on North America, steam before they get to their end point-and real point. and I was utterly new to the supply chain organization. Whether or not they make customers' lives easier be(I had come into the company a few years earlier to lead comes an afterthought. its e-business efforts. ) By contrast, Paul Dittmann, the vice president of supply chain strategy, was a Whirlpool vetUnderstanding Customers' Needs. If you start with the eran with a tenure spanning a quarter century. ustomer, the customer can't be an afterthought. The way I expressed this to my colleagues was to say,†Strategic relOur lots were cast together in October 2000 by Jeff Fetevance is all from the consumer back. † And conveniently, tig. Jeff is now Whirlpool's chairman and CEO, but at the we had new research to consult on the subject of contime he was president and COO – and he was good and sumer needs. Whirlpool and Sear s had recently engaged tired of hearing about spotty service and high logistics Boston Consulting Group to study consumers' desires Reuben E.Slone [email  protected] com) is the with regard to appliance delivery. The top-line finding vice president of Global Supply Chain at Whirlpool Corpo- was that people value what I call â€Å"delivery with integrity. † That is, your ability to get it there fast is important, but ration in Benton Harbor, Michigan. 116 HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW Leading a Supply Chain Tux*naround not as important as your ability to get it there when you said you would. â€Å"Give a date, hit a date† is what they're asking for. This sounded familiar to me, coming from the automotive industry.In my previous position at General Motors, I'd been involved in several studies that emphasized the psychology of delivery date commitments. Identifying Trade Partners' Priorities. Moving upstream, we needed to understand the desires of our direct customers better. We conducted our own interviews to define requirements by segment. As well as looking at smaller retailers versus larger ones, we focused individually on Sears, Lowes, and Best Buy, our three biggest customers. And within the contract-builder market, we studied many subdivisions, from contract distributors and apartment developers to ingle-family-home builders. We asked about their overall availability requirements, their preferences in communicating with us, and what they would like to see along the lines of e-business. We asked about inventory management and how they might want Whirlpool to assist in it. In all, we discovered 27 different dimensions along which our performance was being judged, each varying in importance according to the customer. Benchmarking the Competition. Naturally, our customers' expectations and perceptions were shaped in large part by what others in our industry were doing.So we benchmarked our competitors-primarily GE, which was our biggest rival. We obt ained cross-industry information and competitive intelligence from AMR, Gartner, and Forrester Research to make sure we had a broad and objective assessment of supply chain capabilities. Then we mapped out what would be considered world-class (versus sufficient or transitional) performance for each of the 27 capabilities and how much it would cost us to reach that top level. It turned out that to prevail on every front would require a total investment of more than $85 million, which we knew wasn't feasible.It was time to get serious about priorities. Now that we had established the cost of world-beating performance, we asked ourselves: For each capability, what improvement could we accomplish at a low investOCTOBER 2004 ment level, and at a medium level? We quickly staked out the areas where a relatively small investment would yield supremacy, usually due to an existing strength. A few areas we simply decided to cede. Our plan was to meet or beat the competition in most areas, at mi nimum cost. Building for the Future. Strategy, of course, does not simply address the needs of the moment.It anticipates the challenges of the future. A final component of our supply chain strategy was identifying the probable range of future operating scenarios based on industry, economic, and technological trends. The point was to assure ourselves that our proposal was robust enough to withstand these various scenarios. To date, the planning has worked. Having set a course, we've been able to deal with situations we hadn't conceived of and to continue evolving in the same basic direction. Selling the Revolution I t's always a difficult decision-when to involve your internal customers in the planning of a major capital investment.Their time is scarce, and they typically 117 HBR T h e Spotlight Chain. don't want to be embroiled in the details of what you, after all, are getting paid to do. You must have your act together and have a solid plan to which they can respond. On the other hand, you can't be so far along in the process that you've become inflexible. You need to maintain a careful balance between seeking their guidance and selling your vision. Paul and 1 liked to think we had that mandate from Jeff Fettig to get the supply chain fixed. But it wasn't the kind of mandate that comes with a blank check.Like most well-managed companies, Whirlpool will not undertake a capital investment without a compelling business case. As a cost center in the company, we had to justify our project wholly on expense reductions and working capital improvements. Even if we believed that better product availability would boost sales, we couldn't count those chickens in the business case. We spent an enormous amount of time talking with the brand general managers and others who would be needed. They said they had nothing more to add. But we persisted. I remember telling Paul, â€Å"If they won't let us in the door, we'll go through the window.And if they lock the window, ther e's always the air vent†¦. † Along the way, we'd been particularly concerned about cherry-picking. We knew that, in a company of smart businesspeople, the first reaction to a multimillion-dollar price tag would be, â€Å"OK, what can I get for 80% of that total? † And indeed, from a project management standpoint, we knew it was important to break out each component of the plan into a stand-alone initiative, justified by its own business case. Yet we knew the whole thing came together as a sort of basket weave, with each part supporting and relying on multiple other parts.What helped here was our competitive analysis, in which we had plotted our capability levels against others'. We charted our current position against our number one competitor on each dimension valued by customers, then extrapolated to show how, depending on the level We staked out the areas where a relatively small investment would yield supremacy, usually due to an existing strength. affected by the changes we were proposing. The Japanese call this kind of consensus-building nemawashi (literally, it means â€Å"root binding†), and it is impossible to overstate its importance.Yet it is often neglected in the midst of a complex project. Note that, at the same time we needed to be meeting with key decision makers, we were also in the thick of the analysis and design of the solution. In those early months, the project needed leadership in two directions – the kind of work people typically refer to as needing a â€Å"Mr. Inside† and â€Å"Mr. Outside. † I made sure we had sufficient consulting resources for the inside work while Paul and I devoted 50% of our time to the outside work – interfacing with the trade, outside experts, and internal stakeholders.In our initial meetings with these key people, we'd essentially say, â€Å"Here's what we're doing. What do you think? â€Å"Typically,the executive would half pay attention, half blow us off . But we'd get some input. In a second meeting, we'd show how our work had evolved to incorporate their ideas and others'. Usually, we'd see more engagement at this point. By the time we were asking for a third meeting, reactions were mixed. People were more or less on board, but some felt another meeting wasn't 118 of investment, we could overtake that company or allow the gap to widen.Sure enough, the competitive instincts of our colleagues kicked in. No one wanted to fall behind. Getting Focused O ne of the earliest successes in the turnaround of Whirlpool's supply chain was the rollout of a new sales and operations planning (S&OP) process. Our previous planning environment had been inadequate. What passed for planning tools didn't go far beyond Excel spreadsheets. Now, we had the ability to pull together the long-term and short-term perspectives of marketing, sales, finance, and manufacturing and produce forecasts that all the participants could base their game plans on.We soon pushed our forecasting capability further by launching a CPFR pilot. The acronym stands for collaborative planning, forecasting, and replenishment, with the collaboration happening across different companies within a supply chain. The idea is straightforward. Traditionally, we forecast how many appliances we will sell through a trade partner (Sears, for example) to a given HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW Leading a Supply Chain TumarouiuL market And at the same time, that trade partner develops its own forecast.Each of us has some information that the other lacks. With CPFR, we use a Web-based tool to share our forecasts (without sharing the sensitive data behind them), and we collaborate on the exceptions. As simple as it sounds, it isn't easy to pull off. But we have, and it's been a real home run. Within 30 days of launch, our forecast accuracy error was cut in half. Where we had close to 100% error (which isn't hard, given the small quantities involved in forecasting individual SKUs for specific warehouse locations), today we're at about 44% or 45%.To put this in perspective, a one-point improvement in forecast accuracy across the board reduces our total finished goods position by several million dollars. These were just two of many initiatives we launched in rapid succession after May 2001. A couple things were absolutely critical to keeping them all on track: a highly disciplined project management office and stringent performance metrics. The key was to think big but focus relentlessly on near-term deadlines. We organized the change effort into 30-day chunks, with three new capabilities, or business releases, rolling out monthly-some on the supply side, some on the demand side.The job of the project management office was to ensure the completion of projects on time, on budget, and on benefit. Paul oversaw this for me. Also keeping us honest were new metrics – and the man 1 brought in to enforce them. My colleague John Kerr, now general manager of quality for the North America division, was then in charge of Whirlpool's Six Sigma program. He's a real black belt when it comes to performance management. It took some persuading, aimed at both John and the North American leadership team, before he was freed up and allowed to dedicate himself to the supply chain turnaround.But we absolutely needed his data-driven perspective. When one of my team would say, â€Å"We need to take this action tofixthis issue,† John would always counter with,†Please show me the data that allowed you to draw that conclusion. † Were these demands sometimes a source of irritation? I'd be lying if 1 said they weren't. But they forced all of us to rebuild the metric â€Å"fact base† and hone our problem-solving skills. By the third quarter of 2001, we had already done a lot to stabilize product availability and reduce overall supply chain costs.And, after a challenging fourth quarter, we took a huge step forward by implementing a suite of software products from i2, which specializes in supply chain integration tools. That was in January 2002. Six months later. Whirlpool had historic low inventories and a sustained high service level. Before the year was out, we were delivering very near our target of 93% availability across ail brands and products. (Momentum has since carried us OCTOBER 2004 well into the mid-nineties. ) We delivered slightly more than promised by reducing finished goods working capital by 10% and improving total cost productivity by 5. 1%.Our customers were voicing their approval. By May 2002, a blind Internet survey given to our trade partners showed us to be â€Å"most improved,†Ã¢â‚¬ easiest to do business with,† and â€Å"most progressive. † I remember that after these results came out, our VP of sales said, â€Å"You're good nowbut more important, you're consistently good. † It was a turning point in the trade's perception of Whirlpool. Engaging Talent I ‘ve t ouched on the state-of-the-art technologies we've employed in our turnaround-the Web-based collaboration tools, the planning software, i2's rocket-science optimization-but let me correct any impression that this is a tory about technology. More than anything. Whirlpool's supply chain turnaround is a talent renaissance. It's sometimes hard for us to remember how demoralized this 3,000-person organization had become. In 2000, many people in supply chain roles had been with the company for years and had watched in frustration as competitors outspent and outperformed us. Part of the problem was the massive effort required by the ERP implementation. As an early adopter of enterprise systems in our industry (SAP and other vendors got their start with process-manufacturing concerns like industrial chemicals).Whirlpool had bitten off a lot. With limited attention and resources to spare, it put other projects on hold. We took our eye off the ball in supply chain innovation and fell behind. A s a newcomer, I tried to inject some fresh energy into the organization and give people a reason to be confident Paul Dittmann told me this project gave him a â€Å"second career wind. † He's a brilliant guy, with a PhD in operations research and industrial engineering, and suddenly, he had the opportunity to innovate in ways he had only dreamed of in his first 20 years at the company.Other people benefited from changes to how we develop, assess, and reward talent. With help from Michigan State University and the American Production and Inventory Control Society (APICS), we developed a supply chain â€Å"competency model. † This is essentially an outline of the skills required in a top-tier organization, the roles in which they should reside, and how they need to be developed over time. And we created a new banding system, which expanded the compensation levels in the organization. Now people can be rewarded for increasing their expertise even if they are not being pro moted into supervisory roles. 19 The 21st-century Supply Chain^ We also put a heavy emphasis on developing people's project management skills. Here, we relied on a model developed by the Project Management Institute (PMI), a sort of standard for assessing and enhancing an organization's project management capabilities. I wanted as many supply chain professionals as possible to become PMI-certified, and not just because of the glut of projects we were facing at the moment. My view is that project management's disciplined planning and execution is just as vital to ongoing operations management.After all, the only real difference between running an operation and running a project is the due date of the deliverable. Over time, my operating staff stopped dismissing project management as a lot of â€Å"overhead† from a former management consultant and car guy. Now they're the ones insisting on things like project charters and weekly project reviews. Meanwhile, we hired at least 13 new people on the business side and at least as many more on the information systems side, and I made sure that every one of them was top-notch.To fill out our project management ranks, we recruited young people from companies with strong supply chains and from premier operations-oriented MBA programs like Michigan State and the University of Tennessee. Perhaps we were lucky that our talent drive coincided with a downturn in the consulting industry. On the other hand, it might have been the excitement of a turnaround situation that drew the best and brightest to Whirlpool. Finally, I wasn't so arrogant as to believe that my senior team and 1 didn't need development ourselves. We assembled a supply chain advisory board and chartered its members to keep challenging us.The group includes academics Don Bowersox of Michigan State and Tom Mentzer of the University of Tennessee, and practitioners Ralph Drayer (the Procter & Gamble executive who pioneered Efficient Consumer Response) and La rry Sur (who mastered transportation and warehouse management in a long career at Schneider National and GENCO). Get a group like this together, and you can count on creative sparks flying. These experts keep us on our toes in a way no consulting firm could. Sustaining Momentum refrigerators, washing machines, and other products that appeal to a broad range of consumers.They are the equivalent of a supermarket's milk and eggs; running out of them has a disproportionately negative impact on customers' perceptions. We're now formulating a supply chain strategy that allows us to identify these SKUs across all of our trade partners in all of our channels and to ensure that the replenishment system for our regional warehouses keeps them in stock. That constitutes the â€Å"plan to sell† part of the program. At the same time, for our smallest-volume SKUs, we are taking out all the inventory and operating on a pure pull basis, with a new, more flexible build-toorder process. The inv entory avings on the small-volume SKUs helps offset the costs of stocking up on the highvolume SKUs. We're also working on the capability to set service levels by SKU. That is, instead of having one availability target for all our products, we are recognizing that some products are of greater strategic importance than others. Some of them, for instance, are more profitable. Some hold a unique place in our brand strategy. Again, it's easy to grasp the value of being able to vary service levels accordingly. But in a sprawling business like ours, shipping thousands of different SKUs daily, it's a very difficult thing to accomplish.We continue to develop new Web-based tools. Recently, we've been focused on system-to-system transactions, in which our system talks directly to a customer's system for purposes of transmitting orders, exchanging sales data, and even submitting and paying invoices. We've rolled out this capability with a number of trade partners over the past i8 months. At th e same time, we keep enhancing our Partner Store, which allows customers to check availability and place orders via the Internet. The site allows them to find near equivalents of models, for those times when a SKU is out of stock or retired. They can even find deals on obsolete inventory.By the time this article appears in print, we'll also have implemented event-management technology, which will allow us to be more on top of the movement of goods through the supply chain. An event manager provides an alert whenever an action in the process has taken place-for example, when a washer is loaded into a container in Schomdorf, when that container full of washers is loaded onto a ship in Rotterdam, when the ship departs, when the ship arrives, when the container is unloaded from the ship in Norfolk, when the container leaves the port via truck, and, finally, when the washer is unloaded at the Findlay, Ohio, warehouse.The result is that people's attention is directed to what needs to be d one. We'll also be further along in our application of HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW T 120 hree years into the project now, we continue to assign ourselves and deliver three new capabilities per month. This doesn't get simpler over time, either. As I write this, for example, we're focused on something we call â€Å"Plan to Sell/Build to Order. † Here, the notion is that certain high-volume SKUs should never be out of stock. These are the heart-ofthe-line dishwashers. .l^ading a Supply Chain Turnaround ean techniques (usually associated with manufacturing operations) to our total supply chain. This involves using pull concepts and kanbanlike triggers to speed up processes, reduce inventory, and enhance customer service. On the Hoz4zon W hirlpool has much to show for its supply chain efforts. By the end of 2003, our product availability had reached over 93%, up from 88. 3% in 2001. (Today it's more than 95%. ) That allowed us to attain an order fill rate for key trade partners of ove r 96%. The number of days' worth of finished goods we were holding in inventory had dropped from 32. 8 to just 26.We drove freight and warehousing total cost productivity from 4% to 7. 2%. From 2002 to 2003, we lowered working capital by almost $100 million and supply chain costs by almost $20 million. Does all this add up to value in excess of the expense our leadership team approved? Absolutely. In fact, total payback on that original investment occurred within the first two years. Still, our work is far from finished. In October 2001, just months after we kicked off our turnaround, we were fortunate in that the new executive vice president brought in to run Whirlpool's North America region had deep supply chain knowledge.Dave Swift, who came to us from Kodak, believes strongly in the strategic importance of the supply chain both for building brands and for creating sustainable competitive advantage. Immediately after joining us, he elevated our sales and operations planning proce ss by personally chairing monthly executive S&OP meetings. These meetings have become the model for the company and the basis for much of our just-started global supply chain efforts. In the future, we'll face greater demands for end-toend accountability. We're already responsible for the resale of any returns. Soon we'll be accountable for the disassembly of products in Europe.It's only a matter of time before similar laws are enacted in the United States. And we'll be taking an even closer look at the design of the products themselves. If we can redesign a productOCTOBER 2004 make it in a smaller plant, make it with smaller parts, ship it in smaller pieces – we can dramatically affect supply chain economics. It's great to improve forecasts, optimize transportation, and speed up our processes with existing SKUs. But what if we could push the end stages of production closer to the consumer and get higher leverage from those SKUs? That's the kind of thing that can change the r ules of the game.It's a wonderful thing about our business: We have fierce competition all over the world, and on top of that we have very smart trade partners who deal with numerous other suppliers. We may be a white goods, big box supplier, but because our customers also buy electronics and apparel and so on, we're constantly being challenged by the benchmarks of other, more nimble industries. Technologies continue to evolve, channel power continues to shift, and the bar is constantly being raised. But I'm confident that the talent in Whirlpool's supply chain organization will be equal to it all. ^ Reprint RO4IOG To order, see page 159. 121

Week 6 Discussion Board Example

Week 6 Discussion Board Example Week 6 Discussion Board – Coursework Example Expressing Emotions in the Christian Faith October 13, Expressing Emotions in the Christian Faith Emotions can affect our thoughts, attitudes, and behaviors (King, 2013). The Bible counsels us to control our negative emotions, express more positive emotions, and deepen our relationship with God and other human beings through loving God and His teachings. The Scripture wants people to show temperance in expressing their emotions. Proverbs 29:11 asserts the importance of self-control, especially in controlling our anger: â€Å"Fools give full vent to their rage, but the wise bring calm in the end.† The Bible says that wisdom promotes tolerance, not recklessness. In addition, the Bible indicates that people should express more positive, than negative, emotions. Proverbs 15:13 describes how emotions affect people’s states of being: â€Å"A happy heart makes the face cheerful, but heartache crushes the spirit.† People should choose happiness than heartaches because th e latter are bad for the soul, while the former helps them have a happy life. Furthermore, emotions play a large role in relating to God and deepening our relationship with Him. Proverbs 4:23 says: â€Å"Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.† We must guard our heart and use our emotions in developing a better relationship with God. God does not want us to live by our emotions, however, because they are fickle and can lead us to evil. Jeremiah 17:9 reminds us that the heart is unreliable: â€Å"The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?† God wants us to live by His Word, not by our emotions. The only passion that should guide our emotions is our love for God. 1 John 4:16 says: â€Å"And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.† God is love and His love will steer our emotions to the right directions. Expressing love that f lows from God is an emotion that can deepen our relationship with Him and others around us. Hence, our emotions can be our means for expressing our love for God, while His love will help us in nurturing positive emotions in life.ReferencesBible. Retrieved from https://www.biblegateway.com/King, L.A. (2013). Experience psychology (2nd ed.). New York: McGraw Hill. ISBN: 9780078035340.