Napoleon was successful because his enemies were incompetent Essay Example for Free

Napoleon was successful because his enemies were incompetent Essay Napoleon was successful because his enemies were incompetent and divided. How far do you agree? Napoleon was one of the most successful military leaders Europe has ever seen; his leadership of the French army saw him control much of continental Europe. Napoleons enemies did give him a great advantage during his success through their incompetence and divisions. However the weaknesses of Napoleons opposition was not the only reason why he was so successful. One must also look at other reasons to why Napoleon had so much success. Napoleons enemies had old-fashioned, slow and immobile tactics when fighting Napoleon, this made it easier for Napoleon to defeat them, as his army was quick and mobile. This inability to produced new tactics was exposed at the Battle of Ulm in 1805. The Prussians were fighting Napoleon, they were slow and immobile, and as a result lost 45,000 men, Napoleon was able to easily expose their immobility. Napoleons enemies showed were divided and not united together as they failed to join together and forge a successful alliance against Napoleon. The Second Coalition of 1799 is an example of their incompetence to join together against Napoleon. It was between Britain, Russia, Austria and the Ottoman Empire. However it was made up of a series of separate alliances, which meant there was no single aim. Soon there was political fallout between Russia and Britain over Malta, which meant the coalition was effectively disbanded. The fallout allowed Napoleon to interfere and get Russia on side, and then bully Austria into the Peace of Luneville. Although it can be seen that Napoleon was successful in divide and rule as he was able to split the allies and forge a separate alliance, this failed coalition also shows the incompetence of Napoleons enemies to united against him. Napoleons enemies also saw him as infallible and this meant they would enter a battle against him with fear and often gave him too much respect. Evidently Napoleons enemies incompetence and divisions did play a part in his success, they had poor tactics and could not unite against him. However in order to analyse how far his enemies incompetence and divisions led to Napoleons success, one must also look at other factors which led to Napoleons success. Napoleons himself and his leadership of the French army is a key reason for his success. When Napoleon took command of the French army, he reorganised it and took lead of the whole army himself. The army was divided into corps of 25,000 to 30,000 soldiers, which increased the armies mobility. Napoleon controlled the whole army and decided every move on the battlefield. This along with the mobility of the army, allowed him to make fast decisions and his army were able to respond quickly. To increase speed and mobility Napoleon also introduced living off the land which meant his soldiers carried a limited supply of food and clothes and were encouraged to loot as they marched. This meant his men could travel from 12 to 15 miles a day. In another effort to increase mobility Napoleon also used horse artillery. Napoleon had great qualities as a military general; he would formulate a general plan of action before any battle and calculate all the possibilities. He did this at Austerlitz in 1805 to great effect. He engaged the Russians, but kept a large reserve, which allowed him to roll to victory. Napoleon was also a quick thinker and was able to improvise by using his mobile army to take advantage of enemy mistakes. This can be seen at the Battle of Ulm in 1805, where he improvised by making a quick decision to send marshal Murat in pursuit of the Austrians, which reduced their numbers from 70,000 to 27,000. Napoleon possessed great charisma. Wellington said of him his presence in the battlefield is worth an extra 40,000 men. He would fight alongside his men, which inspired his men and gained him respect. He did this at the Battle of Austerlitz in 1805, when times got hard for his soldiers. He also used emotional, theatrical language in his Daily Bulletins, to inspire and arouse the passions of his troops. This ability to inspire his troops meant he got the best out of his men at all times, increasing his chances of victory. Napoleon also understood the importance of paying his men in coin money as appose to paper money, as it did not depreciate in value. He also allowed them to loot as they conquered new lands. This boosted morale as his soldiers were payed well and it also meant they respected him. Napoleon would also play to his strengths, and as he had a weak navy, he never fought naval battles. Another skill of Napoleon was his ability to incorporate other peoples tactics into his own army with great effect. For instance he took military thinker Guiberts tactic of mixed order (a combination of lines and columns of men), and incorporated it into the army. It had a great impact as it increased mobility and meant they were less vulnerable and predictable. Although it was not his idea, Napoleon did incorporate into his army to great effect. Evidently Napoleons military skills and leadership of the French army was another reason for him been so successful. He possessed great skills such controlling the whole army, planning ahead and improving to take advantage of enemy mistakes. He was also brilliant at getting the best out of his troops through his charisma and incorporating other peoples tactics to great effect. Another reason that must be analysed in order to establish why Napoleon was so successful is the strength of the French army he inherited when he came to power. Due to conscription introduced in 1793 before Napoleon was in power, the French army was by far the largest in Europe. By 1805 it consisted of around 600,000 men. This was an obvious a great advantage to Napoleon, it enabled him to change the nature of warfare to levee on masse. The size of the army allowed him to surround enemies as he did at the twin battle of Jena-Auerstadt where by surrounding the Prussians, made them face on the wrong way when battle began, as a result they lost 45,000 men. Napoleon was also able to take huge losses himself, as on average he took on 73,000 new conscripts. Napoleon also inherited the experienced soldiers that had fought in the Grande Armee during the French revolution; these men were of great value. So evidently Napoleon was assisted in his success, as he inherited a huge army, which gave him the edge against the smaller, weaker armies of his enemies. So although Napoleon was assisted by the incompetent and divided nature of his enemies, other factors also had a great contribution in his success, particularly his military skills and leadership. Without possessing great skills he would have not been as successful. It was his skills, which allowed him to take advantage of the weakness of his enemies, and the army he inherited and as a result have so much military success.

The financing of the UK healthcare system

The financing of the UK healthcare system Since the recession, the UK debt and deficit has been at an all time high, where by the end of 2009 UK debt was reported to be  £950.4 billion, equivalent 68.1 gross domestic product (GDP) and the deficit was  £159.2 billion, which equated to 11.4% GDP (Figure 1).1 With that in mind it is a fact that all public sectors will be facing spending cuts to reduce the governments debt and deficit. Since the NHS receives its funding from the government, it is logical that it will face spending cuts too. Therefore, it is significantly important to use economics as one of the determinants in the allocation of already limited healthcare resources. Figure 1. Shows the UK government debt and deficit as percentage of GDP, from 2006 until the end of 2009.1 Economics is concerned with efficiently allocating the limited available resources, between alternative uses, to achieve maximum effectiveness.2 There is an ever increasing number of different technologies and medical interventions that cannot all be used to treat illnesses. The limited resources in the healthcare services, means decisions on resource allocation have to be made carefully so that maximum effectiveness can be achieved. In order to efficiently allocate resources, one has to consider the economic evaluation of the different alternatives before implementing the one that is the most effective and cost-effective.3 Health economics is used to improve peoples health, which is how it differs from normal economics, in that it is not about analysing consumers demand and supply, but analysing benefits of medical interventions in relation to their costs. In health economics it is also more difficult to measure health outcomes in comparison to financial outcomes in financial economics. Outcomes of healthcare interventions are usually measured in quality adjusted life years (QALY).3 Patterns of financing healthcare There are two methods of financing healthcare, which are public financing and private financing.4 Public financing of healthcare raises capital through taxation of the public (Table 1). The NHS is funded mainly through public financing. Private healthcare is where the capital is raised through the patients using the health services. The patients either pay themselves or are usually insured, so the insurance company pays their healthcare bills (Table 2). The healthcare system in the USA raises capital through private financing.5 Table 1. Describes the different methods and sources of public financing in healthcare Sources of Public Financing Description of Financing General Tax Revenues e.g. UK, Italy, New Zealand Finance is raised by taxation the cost of raising funds is low General taxation pays all the bills so patients do not Low cost per capita Two types of general taxation Regressive Falling more on the poor than rich people Includes tax on items such as tobacco, alcohol and recreational events etc. Progressive Falling more on the rich than poor people Includes tax on luxury products purchased by the rich Deficit Financing Raised by, issuing bonds with long term low interest repayments and bilateral or multilateral aid loans Borrowing and spending funds that are repaid over a period of time Deficit financing supplements general tax revenue It is used on the development and expansion in healthcare infrastructure Earmarked Taxes Tax on a particular product such as lottery and gambling for particular services such as healthcare Social Insurance e.g. France, Germany and Austria The state acts as insurer Financed by employer and employee payroll deduction Social insurance is based upon collective risk of insurance group Government might also contribute to social insurance Public Healthcare Insurance e.g. Canada, Taiwan and South Korea Uses private sector providers but payment made by government run insurance programmes. Capital expenditure are financed from tax revenues It is cheaper and much simpler to administrate than the American for-profit insurance. Wealth is transferred only from low to high risk groups, not from those with high income to low incomes Table 2. Describes the different methods and sources of private financing in healthcare Sources of Private Financing Description Private Health Insurance Social device in which a group of individuals transfer risk to another party in order to combine loss experienceby : Risk Pooling Risk Funding System of third party payments has the effect of: increasing demand Increasing of prices Inefficient allocation of resources Employer Financed Schemes Employers directly finance healthcare for their employees focusing on accident prevention and occupational health. They pay for private sector health services Employ medical personnel directly Provide necessary facilities and equipment Employees families are also covered. Community Financing It is voluntary in its nature Payment for healthcare is made by members of the community Resources are controlled directly by the community Direct Household Expenditure Health expenditure constitutes a large share of GDP through People buying more health services People buying higher quality health services Government services charge fees from users Raises household costs causing inequity A study produced by the world health organisation concluded that in healthcare services that were publicly funded, the expenditure was lower. This was as a percentage of GDP and per capita. It also concluded that the population as a whole gained better health outcomes, universal standards were in place and costs of treating illnesses were reduced by increase emphasis on preventative primary care.6 Healthcare systems in UK and USA In the UK, the National Health Service (NHS) was developed in 1948, where for the whole population healthcare was free and it is paid for by taxation, which means people would pay for it according to their means, not their needs.7 The NHS is wholly funded by the government, through various methods such as taxation and national health insurance (Table 1). Only 1.3% of the total NHS expenditure is provided through charging patients, the other 98.7% is funded by the government, where 90.3% of that comes from taxation and 8.4% comes from national insurance.8 In the UK, only 11.5% of the population purchase supplementary private health insurance, whereas in the USA over 67% of the population have health insurance.9 10 In the USA the healthcare system is not funded by the government but rather by public and private health insurances. Private insurance which is mostly employment based, funds 67.5% of the healthcare budget and the rest is funded by public health insurance. The healthcare system in the USA is funded by the demand for good health, whereas the NHS is funded by the supply of healthcare. There are various programmes of public health insurance that are used to fund healthcare in the USA. These programmes include medicaid which helps the poor, medicare which helps the elderly and the disabled, state children health insurance plan which aims to help poor children and finally other plans such as those that are offered to the military. Although these public health insurances are in place to provide help to the poor, elderly and disabled, 45.7% of Americans do not have health insurance.10 The differences between the healthcare systems in the USA and the UK also differ in terms of health outcomes, availability and costs. In 2009 the total health expenditure in the USA was 15.7% of GDP in comparison to only 8.4% of GDP in the UK. Tables 3, 4 and 5 are demonstrate the differences between the two healthcare systems.11 Also, even though the USA has much higher health expenditure than the UK it still has a lower life expectancy at birth (78.8 years) compared to the UK (79.5). Table 3. Compares the healthcare expenditure of the USA and the UK healthcare systems in 2007.11 Indicators UK USA Total expenditure on health, % GDP 8.4 16 Total expenditure on health, Per capita US$ PPP 2992 7290 Public expenditure on health, % total expenditure on health 81.7 45.4 Public health expenditure per capita, US$ PPP 2446 3307 Out-of-pocket expenditure on health, % of total expenditure on health 11.4 12.2 Out-of-pocket expenditure on health, US$ PPP 343 890 Table 4. Compares the healthcare resources of the UK and USA healthcare systems.11 Indicators Year UK USA Practising physicians, density per 1,000 population 2007 2.5 2.4 Practising nurses, density per 1,000 population 2007 10 10.6 Medical graduates, density per 1 000 practising physicians 2006 37.7 26 Hospital beds, density per 1,000 population 2007 3.4 3.1 Acute care beds, density per 1,000 population 2006 2.8 2.7 Psychiatric care beds, density per 1,000 population 2006 0.7 0.3 MRI units per million population 2007 (e)  8.2 25.9 CT Scanners per million population 2006 (e) 7.6 32 Table 5. Compare health and disease in between the UK and the USA. Indicators of Health UK USA Life Expectancy at Birth (years) 79.5 78.8 Mortality Rate Under 5 (per 1000) 5.7 7.8 Maternal Mortality (per 1000) 8 11 Disease Diabetes Hospital Discharges per 100,000 72 197.9 Cancer Hospital Discharges per 100,000 994 563 Acute Myocardial Hospital Discharges per 100,000 153 277 The comparisons above show that increasing funding does not mean that the quality of health would improve. The USA spends much more capital on healthcare than the UK, but they still have a higher mortality rate for children under the age of 5. The table above demonstrate the fact that in NHS, the funds received are spent much more effectively than the healthcare system in the USA, showing that more effective resource allocation decisions are made and hence better health outcomes are achieved. Also due to the lack of health coverage in the USA, around 45,000 people are killed every year.12 Such figures do not exist in the NHS as healthcare services in the UK are free for everyone. Other means of showing how the NHS is better than the health service in the USA, is that in the UK, patients are treated in accordance to their illnesses regardless of their social class, whereas in the USA more income means better treatment, which of course only benefits the rich. Also administration charges in health services in the USA which are publicly funded such as medicare and madicaid cost much more than the services in the NHS making it less readily available to all the poor, elderly or disabled. The importance of application of economic evaluation in the NHS, to provide decision makers with robust information to guide resource allocation decisions. The definition of economic evaluation is that it is a comparative analysis of two or more courses of action in terms of both their costs and consequences.13 Hence in healthcare it can be thought of as a framework to assess the benefits and costs of each alternative method of healthcare intervention. The limited resources such as people, equipment and facilities in the healthcare, provide a helpful framework where alternative uses of the available resources can be compared. Economic evaluation in healthcare aims to maximise the outcomes from available resources through aiding resource allocation.13 There are three types of economic evaluations. These include cost-effectiveness analysis (CEA), cost-utility analysis (CUA) and cost-benefit analysis (CBA). Although these terms characterise different types of analysis, they do share some similar components, which include a stated perspective, a comparison group, and evidence of effectiveness, evidence of costs and a method of combining both costs and effects collectively. The differences in the analyses are the ways used to measure and value health outcomes. When the health outcomes of comparative interventions are established to be the same, then a cost-minimisation analysis (CMA), which is a sub-component of CEA is used, and only considers the inputs. This analysis aims to decide which intervention is the cheapest method of attaining the same outcome.13 Resource allocation decisions in the NHS are very important because demand for healthcare exceeds the recourses that are available, which gives health authorities many challenges to face. Due to the acknowledged resource constrains in the NHS, economic evaluations have become a recognised part of policy making.14 In England, the National Institute of Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) is in charge of providing the national guidance for promoting good health and the treatment and prevention of ill health and provides clinical guidance to improve the quality of healthcare.15 In order to do that, the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of comparative healthcare interventions are required to be considered. There is a large increase in procedures and technologies for the prevention and treatment of diseases. Therefore, there are many alternatives of treatments and prevention of illnesses with variations in efficiencies and quality of care. Rational priorities in healthcare cannot be set for current and new resources. Hence, NICE would consider whether the resources available are being used in the best way possible to maximise efficiency. Technology appraisals are recommendation by NICE on the use of existing and new treatments and medicines within the NHS, such as surgical procedures, medical devices etc. which the NHS is legally obliged to fund. These very important recommendations, are based on evidence of how well the treatments and medicines work (clinical evidence) and how well they work in relation to their cost (economic evidence), (i.e. does it represent value for money?).16 Discuss the principles and an appropriate method for conducting an economic evaluation of breast cancer screening The breast cancer screening programme aims at detecting breast cancer at an early stage in women between the ages of 50-64, who are at a significantly increased risk of developing the neoplasm. An economic evaluation of the breast cancer screening program would need to compare to cost-effectiveness of the programme and of the treatment that would follow, with the cost-effectiveness of symptomatic detection of breast cancer and the appropriate treatment that would also follow. One would have to calculate the QALY of both the screening program and symptomatic detection, in order to achieve a quantitative measure of the benefits of the two interventions. In order to calculate QALY one would need to work out the quality of life during the disease stage and multiply it by the duration of the disease stage. This would provide a quantitative measure so that two interventions aimed at the same disease can be compared. Then one would need to calculate the costs of each intervention. Both of these would provide the cost effectiveness of each intervention and would show which is more cost-effective.3 Evaluate the rationale of the screening programme targeted to women aged between 50 and 64 in the UK. It is established now that breast cancer is the most common type of cancer in the UK, where 45,700 women and 277 men were diagnosed with it in 2007. Over the last 25 years, the incidence of incidence of female breast cancer rose by 50%. It is much more common in women over the age of 50 were 8 out of 10 women diagnosed fall in that age group.17 16,000 cases of breast cancer were detected in 2007/2008 through the NHS breast screening programme, and it is estimated that 1,400 lives are saved every year because of this programme. Approximately 2 out of 3 women with breast cancer survive more than 20 years with the disease. Where before 5 out of 10 women survived beyond 5 years now it is 8 out of 10 women. The graph (Figure 2) below illustrates the decreasing mortality of women diagnosed with breast cancer in comparison to the past. The earlier breast cancer is diagnosed the increased chance of survival. Approximately 9 out of 10 women diagnosed with stage I breast cancer survive longer than 5 years, whereas only 1 out of 10 women diagnosed with stage IV breast cancer survive beyond 5 years. Although so many lives are saved each year due to the screening programme, there were still 12,116 deaths from breast cancer in 2008 and 99% of these were in women. Therefore, it is crucial to detect breast cancer as early as possible to increase the chances of survival and the quality of life. In addition, detecting breast cancer at an early stage and treating it would be more cost less than the long term treatment of women diagnosed with later stages breast cancer.18 The reason the screening program is for women between the ages of 50-64 is that this age group have a much higher incidence of breast cancer in comparison to younger age groups. The average age of menopause is 50 and this is the when the breast become less dense and cancer can be detected much easier. The compliance in the age group of women over 64 years old is low; therefore it would increase costs and decrease the benefit of the screening program making it less cost effective. Figure 2. Demonstrates the age-standardised (European) mortality rates of breast cancer patients in the UK from 1971 until 2007. Conclusion In conclusion this report has discussed the different patterns of financing healthcare (Table 1 2). The health system in the USA was compared with the NHS in terms of financing, availability and cost. It was determined that the NHS has a lower health expenditure as percentage of GDP than the USAs health expenditure. However, the effective use of these recourses through guidance provided by NICE after taking into account economic evaluation of the different available resources makes the NHS a better healthcare provider than the USAs healthcare system. The importance of economic evaluations that are used to provide robust information to the NICE committee to aid in policy making decisions that are concerned with the allocation of the scarce resources of the NHS have been discussed. Also the principles and an appropriate method for conducting an economic evaluation of breast cancer screening was illustrated in this report. Finally, the importance of the breast cancer screening programme for women aged between 50-64 years was examined and the report demonstrates why the screening programme is so important and why this age group has been chosen for screening.

Strategic Planning In The Hospitality Industry Tourism Essay

Strategic Planning In The Hospitality Industry Tourism Essay The rapid development in the hospitality industry which has lead to importance of strategic planning required in order the firms can have a steady rise in the industry. The life standards of people have been improved due to globalisation which in deed contribute to the development of the hospitality industry. The diversification was a most important priority of the firms in order to utilise the high profiled customer base which they possessed .It is easy to target the customers who are in your door step and this lead to various formulation of strategic plans to target them. Key words: hospitality, strategic planning Strategic planning is an organization frame work of defining its strategy, or direction, and making decisions on allocating its resources to pursue this strategy, including its capital and people. Various business analysis techniques can be used in strategic planning, including SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats ) and PEST analysis (Political, Economic, Social, and Technological analysis) or STEER analysis (Socio-cultural, Technological, Economic, Ecological, and Regulatory factors) and EPISTEL (Environment, Political, Informatics, Social, Technological, Economic and Legal). Strategic planning is the official consideration of an organizations future course. All strategic planning deals with at least one of three key questions: What do we do? For whom do we do it? How do we excel? The  hospitality industry  consists of broad category of fields within the service industry that includes  lodging,  restaurants,  event planning,  theme parks,  transportation,  cruise line, and additional fields within the tourism industry. The hospitality industry is a several billion dollar industry that mostly depends on the availability of leisure time and disposable income. A hospitality unit such as a restaurant, hotel, or even an amusement park consists of multiple groups such as facility maintenance, direct operations (servers,  housekeepers, porters, kitchen workers,  bartenders, etc.), management, marketing, and human resources. The hospitality industry includes a wide range of organizations offering food service and accommodation. The hospitality industry is divided into sectors according to the skill-sets required for the work involved. Sectors include accommodation, food and beverage, meeting and events, gaming, entertainment and recreation, tourism services, and visitor information. (wikepedia n.d.) Strategic planning for the hospitality industry (1) The increasing popularity of strategic planning in recent times is attributed to accelerating changes in industries and economies and increasing global competition. (2) The rapid development of strategic-planning that executives find useful. Firms that engage in strategic planning tend to have higher performance. (3) A recent study of hotels in the United Kingdom found that business performance was positively associated with the thoroughness, sophistication, participation, and formality of strategic-planning processes. (4) Strategic analysis the systematic investigation of a firm and its environment is the foundation of the strategic management process. STRATEGIC PLANNING IN JACK IN THE BOX Jack in the Box recently announced plans to open 100 to 150 restaurants combined with convenience stores over the next five years. The stores will feature full-size restaurants and also sell gasoline and other typical convenience store items such as bread and milk. How did Jack in the Box arrive at this decision? According to the companys CEO, Bob Nugent, an analysis of the convenience-store market indicated that there was plenty of opportunity, primarily because no individual company dominates. The largest player in the convenience-store industry which dominated the market, 7-Eleven, Inc., controls slightly over 4 percent of the market. Compare this to fast foods, where McDonalds controls 43 percent of the market and Jack in the Box a mere 4.6 percent. Nugent also justifies his decision on the basis of research which indicates that a convenience-store customer is twice as likely to eat fast food as a non-convenience-store customer. (5) Strategic analysis can provide excellent information on which to base long-range decisions such as this one. Knowledge is one of the most important competitive weapons a firm can possess. (6) As the Jack in the Box example illustrates, detailed knowledge about a firm and its environment can be used to generate new ideas for business  and to evaluate the feasibility of ideas before they are actually implemented. Strategic analysis also allows a firms managers to become more aware of the companys strengths and weaknesses and to understand the reasons behind successes and failures. Knowledge about the competitive environment can help to anticipate and plan for changes and predict how competitors or other stakeholders such as customers or suppliers will respond to new strategies or other organizational activities. Strategic analysis can open up channels of communication between high-level managers and subordinates, allowing them to share ideas and perspectives. The participative process will help subordinates to accept changes more readily after decisions are made. (Harrison April, 2003) STRATEGIC PLANS AT FelCor LODGING TRUST For FelCor Lodging Trust, one of the largest hotel real estate investment trusts (REITs) in the United States, a strategic planning exercise led the company to rethink its strategy. Calling itself the New FelCor, the firm has made dramatic steps toward repositioning itself. The firm business strategy is to dispose of nonstrategic hotels, including all of its Holiday Inn Hotels located in secondary and tertiary markets. After the sale, it will have lower exposure to markets with low barriers to entry. Other elements of the new business strategy are (1) To acquire hotels in high barrier to entry markets (2) To improve the competitive positioning of core hotels through aggressive asset management and the judicious application of capital in the industry (3) To pay down debt through a combination of operational cash flow and the sale of nonstrategic hotels. The company will become a lower leveraged company with a stronger and fully renovated portfolio of hotels. STRATEGIC THINKING AT STARWOOD When Starwood thought of expanding their business to a field which is relevant and easy to attract customers .They in hotel industry and had a close association with the luxury segment customers so they thought Expansion through Diversification strategy in order use their same luxury customer base to sell their newly introduced Heavenly Bed . Westin Hotels Resorts, with 169 hotels and resorts in more than 31 countries and territories, is owned by Starwood Hotels Resorts Worldwide, Inc The Heavenly Bed, first launched by the Westin brand of Starwood Hotels Resorts, has transformed the bed, a basic feature of any hotel room, into a luxurious object of desire, enhancing the revenues of the chain and leaving many hotel operators to follow suit with copycat linens and custom bedding of their own. The strategic process at Starwood began with consumer analysis and product testing. First, Westin conducted a study involving 600 business executives who travel frequently. The results showed that 84 percent said a luxurious bed would make a hotel room more attractive to them to enjoy the comfort. What is more, 63 percent said a good night sleep is the most important service a hotel can provide. Half of those surveyed said they sleep worse in hotels than at home. After testing 50 beds from 35 lodging chains, Westin developed its prototype all white Heavenly Bed with a custom designed pillow top mattress, goose down comforters, five pillows, and three crisp sheets ranging in thread count from 180 to 250. Once the product was designed and tested, the firm introduced the bed with a carefully planned marketing strategy are USA Today ran a story on the front page of its business section. The same day, 20 pristine white Heavenly Beds lined Wall Street up to the New York Stock Exchange in New York City. Inside the Stock Exchange, Barry Sternlicht, the then Chairman and CEO of Starwood Hotels Resorts rang the opening bell and threw out hats proclaiming, Work like the devil Sleep like an angel. Meanwhile, at New York Grand Central Station, 20 more beds graced one of the rotundas there, and commuters disembarking the trains were invited to try them out. Similar events were staged the same day at 38 locations across the United States, tailored to each city. Savannahs event featured a bed floating on a barge down the river with a landing skydiver. Seattle s event took place atop the Space Needle. To reinforce the message, a concurrent advertising campaign asked, Whos the best in bed? AN EMERGING RETAIL STRATEGY FOR THE HEAVENLY BED In the early stages of introducing the heavenly bed .In the first week of launching the Westin Heavenly Bed, 32 guests were interested to buy the bed. A light bulb went on. Westin executives put order cards with a toll free number in every room. They started placing catalogs by bedsides and desks and set up a web site. By June of 2004, Westin had sold 20,000 pillows $ 75 for the king sized version and 3,500 bed/bedding combos, at $ 2,965 each, enough to spread the idea throughout Starwood, with the Sheraton, St. Regis, and W lines all turning into retailers. The unanticipated success of the Heavenly Bed has spawned a new business companies that help hotels run their retail arms. Boxport, a spin off of San Francisco based hotel procurer Higgins Purchasing Group, operates web sites and catalogs for several chains that now sell bedding. In order to determine where it is going, the organization needs to know exactly where it stands, then determine where it wants to go and how it will get there. The resulting document is called the strategic plan. It is also true that strategic planning may be a tool for effectively plotting the direction of a company; however, strategic planning itself cannot foretell exactly how the market will evolve and what issues will surface in the coming days in order to plan your organizational strategy. Therefore, strategic innovation and tinkering with the strategic plan have to be a cornerstone strategy for an organization to survive the turbulent business climate.

Information Systems Essay example -- Business, Technology

Introduction The use of information technology or Information System has defined the way business is conducted globally over the past several decades. The internet has led to high rate of globalization; this is of special significance to the various industries (Reponen 2003). Goods and services can now be offered or sold in a large scale and in various part of the globe. The consequence of this is the growth in customer base for many business entities, especially the supermarkets (Reponen 2003). Due to large markets, various business entities have found it more convenient to adopt the use of information system and Information technology to both manage the large customer data and also reach them in the global market (Burgess, 2002). This report centers on the use of Information Technology/Information System in Tesco Supermarket. It begins by giving a brief overview of the supermarket and examines the benefits and challenges faced by the supermarket as it utilizes Information System (Burgess, 2002) . Description of Tesco Supermarket Tesco Supermarket was founded by Jack Cohen; he started by selling groceries in the market of End of East London from1919. The brand of Tesco first appeared in 1924 after Jack Cohen bought a large volume of tea shipment from T.E Stockwell (Blythe 2008). He came up with the name Tesco by picking the first two letters from T.E Stockwell (TE) S from Stockwell; he then combined these letters with the first two letter of his surname (Co) to form Tesco. The fist Tesco Store was opened 1929. This was followed of opening of the first self-service store in 1948 in St Albans. Subsequently, in 1956, the first Tesco Supermarket was opened. Tesco Supermarket has since established numerous subsidiaries all over ... ...formation technology has helped Tesco Supermarket to link up with its subsidiaries spread over a wide geographical area (Nag & Sengupta 2007). The supermarket has also managed to engage in electronic information interchange with its business partners and clients. The Information System has enabled the supermarket to reduce cost of its operations, increase its efficiency and win the trust and loyalty of its customers. Nonetheless, Tesco Supermarket has experienced some challenges with the use of Information Technology. These challenges have been occasioned by, amongst other factors, system failure, the need to train its workforce every time a new technology is introduced. In some cases, these challenges led to reduced profit margin and increased overhead costs. Moreover, during such challenges, the supermarket experiences slowed rate of work (Singh, et al 2005).

Wind Power in the Near Future Essay -- Energy Mechanics Essays

Wind Power in the Near Future Today many people are anxious about energy for the future, as it seems realistic that petroleum energy will someday run out and since some environmental problems caused by petroleum use are getting worse. As alternatives to today’s main energy source, oil, some others have been proposed already, such as solar, water, biomass, and nuclear. Wind Power is the one of the ways that has the biggest potential and is the most practical. And it is predicted to play an important role in electrical generation for the new era. But to think wind power will be the dominant energy source can be too optimistic. How will wind power be used? To what extent will wind power take the place of petroleum? We can find the answers in some recently published articles. The article â€Å"Wind Farm to be Established in the Netherlands,† refers to the case of BA and Chevron Texaco, the major petroleum companies, which are constructing a wind farm near Rotterdam. The article reports that this wind farm will generate the low emission electricity for 20,000 households and help the stability of the electricity market. And in the article â€Å"Power into the Future,† Ken Eastwood reports on the position of wind power in Australia. Until now mainly coal has been used in Australia, but in 2001, the federal government of Australia announced that within 10 years an extra 2 per cent of the country’s power must be produced by renewable sources, in order to reduce global warming. Eastwood said the electric generating system would shift from a small amount of huge generators to smaller but widely distributed ones. Wind power can be produced locally on a small scale. One example from Ravenshoe, a small town in northeast Australia, is shown. There... ...leum based energy, but up to a single digit percent of total. It seems that the use of wind power will be limited in both it’s amount and location. And most likely, it will be used in combination with other methods. Works Cited American Wind Energy Association. â€Å"Wind Energy: An Untapped Resource.† Ken Eastwood. â€Å"Power into the Future.† Australian Geographic, Jul-Sep 2002, Issue 67. Harris Cassius A. â€Å"Wind Farm to be Established in the Netherlands.† Civil Engineering, Mar 2002, Vol. 72, Issue 3. Walt Patterson. â€Å"Pioneered the Concept of Distributed Micropower Generation.† Scientific American, Dec 2004, Vol. 291, Issue 6. Joe Provey. â€Å"Off the Grid.† Popular Mechanics, Mar 2005, Vol. 182, Issue 3. Peter Schwartz and Reiss Spencer. â€Å"Nuclear Now.† Wired, Feb 2005, p 78~83. â€Å"Wind Turbines Taking Toll on Birds of Prey.† USA Today, Jan 05, 2005. Wind Power in the Near Future Essay -- Energy Mechanics Essays Wind Power in the Near Future Today many people are anxious about energy for the future, as it seems realistic that petroleum energy will someday run out and since some environmental problems caused by petroleum use are getting worse. As alternatives to today’s main energy source, oil, some others have been proposed already, such as solar, water, biomass, and nuclear. Wind Power is the one of the ways that has the biggest potential and is the most practical. And it is predicted to play an important role in electrical generation for the new era. But to think wind power will be the dominant energy source can be too optimistic. How will wind power be used? To what extent will wind power take the place of petroleum? We can find the answers in some recently published articles. The article â€Å"Wind Farm to be Established in the Netherlands,† refers to the case of BA and Chevron Texaco, the major petroleum companies, which are constructing a wind farm near Rotterdam. The article reports that this wind farm will generate the low emission electricity for 20,000 households and help the stability of the electricity market. And in the article â€Å"Power into the Future,† Ken Eastwood reports on the position of wind power in Australia. Until now mainly coal has been used in Australia, but in 2001, the federal government of Australia announced that within 10 years an extra 2 per cent of the country’s power must be produced by renewable sources, in order to reduce global warming. Eastwood said the electric generating system would shift from a small amount of huge generators to smaller but widely distributed ones. Wind power can be produced locally on a small scale. One example from Ravenshoe, a small town in northeast Australia, is shown. There... ...leum based energy, but up to a single digit percent of total. It seems that the use of wind power will be limited in both it’s amount and location. And most likely, it will be used in combination with other methods. Works Cited American Wind Energy Association. â€Å"Wind Energy: An Untapped Resource.† Ken Eastwood. â€Å"Power into the Future.† Australian Geographic, Jul-Sep 2002, Issue 67. Harris Cassius A. â€Å"Wind Farm to be Established in the Netherlands.† Civil Engineering, Mar 2002, Vol. 72, Issue 3. Walt Patterson. â€Å"Pioneered the Concept of Distributed Micropower Generation.† Scientific American, Dec 2004, Vol. 291, Issue 6. Joe Provey. â€Å"Off the Grid.† Popular Mechanics, Mar 2005, Vol. 182, Issue 3. Peter Schwartz and Reiss Spencer. â€Å"Nuclear Now.† Wired, Feb 2005, p 78~83. â€Å"Wind Turbines Taking Toll on Birds of Prey.† USA Today, Jan 05, 2005.

The Relatioship Between Mental Illness and Child Abuse Essay -- Violen

Child abuse affects millions of children every year. Child abuse is defined as â€Å"the hurting or causing harm to a child† (Stewart, 2003, p. 6). Most people do not understand why a parent would want to hurt their children. â€Å"The general belief is that parents who maltreat their children are pathological and certainly not like us† (Polonko, 2005). It is not just parents that abuse the children it is also teachers, babysitters, and daycare workers (Stewart, 2003). Lingern (2008) reported the following: Child abuse was not recognized as a serious problem in the United States until the 1960s. The number of cases reported has increased each year since 1976, when statistics were first kept. In 2004 almost 1.9 million child abuse and neglect cases were reported in the US. Of those reported, nearly 80% of perpetrators were parents. The most common types of child abuse are physical abuse, mental maltreatment and neglect, and sexual abuse (Olive, 2007). â€Å"Physical abuse includes scalding, beatings with an object, severe physical punishment, and a rare form of the abuse called Munchausen by proxy† (National Research Council, 1993, p. 59). Mental abuse is when there is a â€Å"continuing pattern of parental behavior that is psychologically destructive to the child† (Olive, 2007, p. 67). Neglect happens when a child is â€Å"ignored or left alone so much that their well-being is endangered, yet the parent is able, but fails to provide for their basic needs.† (Olive, 2007, p. 67). Lastly, the most unreported type of child abuse is sexual child abuse. Sexual child abuse is â€Å"sexual activity between an adult and a child that is initiated by the adult, and from which the adult receives some sort of sexual gratification† (Olive, 2007, p. 78). ... ...(2007). Child abuse and stress disorders. New York: Infobase. National Research Council. (1993). Understanding child abuse and neglect. Washington D.C.: National Academies Press Polonko, K. (2005). Child abuse and neglect: The need for courage. Retrieved Febraury 20, 2011 from Old Dominion University, Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice’s website: http://odu.edu/ao/instady/quest/ChildAbuse.html Rinaldi, J. (2009, October 5). Mom’s depression tied to child abuse in some families. Reuters News Agency. Retrieved February 20, 2011 from http://www.reuters.com/article/2009/10/05/us-depression-abuse- idUSTRE59455Z20091005 Stewart, G. B. (2003). Understanding issues: Child abuse. Farmington Hills, MI: KidHaven Press. Thurston, C. (2006). Child abuse: recognition of causes and types of abuse. Practice Nurse, 31, 51-57. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.

Corrupt Utopian Societies Essay

Have you ever imagined living in a society where everyone is the same? Can you imagine living in a society where people don’t ask questions, they just do as they are told? Winston Smith from George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four and Bernard Marx from Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World live in worlds very similar to these. They live in worlds where corruption is scarce among the common population. Winston and Bernard are from entirely different settings; however, they have an abundance of thoughts that lead them to similar places in different stories. These thoughts and actions taken by these characters are fascinating to the reader when drawn into perspective. Few times in the two novels Winston and Bernard’s thoughts draw them close to danger within their worlds because of consequences with their dictators or government. Bernard is exiled from his society to a different continent while Winston is sentenced to death after vigorous amounts of testing and torture. It is interesting to see how these characters thoughts are so different and similar at the same time, and how they lead them to their dismay. The title of my essay relays how I think about these novels in two ways. The first one being that I believe both of the books are attempted Utopias. The second reason being that although both societies are attempted utopias they turn out being the complete opposite and result in being crooked and dissatisfying. In Huxley’s Brave New World Bernard is set as an individual from everyone else right from the start. He is classified as an alpha, but is much shorter than all the other alphas. Rumors were spread that when he was in the bottle he was mistaken as a Gamma and had alcohol slipped into his blood surrogate. Bernard became more of an individual because his peers passed judgment upon him, casting him away from the social normality. By being treated like this Bernard develops an unusual way of thinking compared to others in his world. Bernard has a desire to be excluded from the social body. He wants to pursue happiness in way that is not a part of everyone else’s happiness; he wants to create his own happiness. When Bernard is with Lenina on their first date he says â€Å"†¦the real problem is: How is it that I can’t or rather-because, after all, I know quite well why I can’t-what would it be like if I could, if I were free-not enslaved by my conditioning. † (Huxley 90). What Huxley is portraying in the readers mind about Bernard, is how he hungers for diversity among himself and his peers. He wants to know how himself and others would act if they weren’t so condemned by their conditioning. This thinking is very similar to Winston’s thoughts in 1984 when Winston goes hunting for evidence that society used to be different before the party existed. When Winston is thinking about the Party in general it frustrates him that the Party claims inventing airplanes, when he knows for a fact they didn’t. To resolve this issue in his mind, he sets out on a mission to ask someone of age who might remember. These two scenarios of Winston and Bernard’s show how they want their societies to be different, but are infinitely hopeless in doing so. While Winston and Bernard share a common situation in these two novels, so do two sub-cultures. In 1984 there was a group of people called the Proles who were sanctioned off from the outer and inner Party. The Proles were left to do as they pleased, undisturbed by the Party, for the most part. Unlike outer and inner Party members, Proles are not forced to show support for the Party. Proles are also aloud to partake in sexual acts, unlike Winston, an outer Party member, who must sneak around to participate in such acts. Now, switching over to Brave New World, we recall a similar group to the Proles called Savages who live on the Reservation. The Reservation is in New Mexico and the savages are left alone there to do what they want. They are left alone because their beliefs and impacts are far too abstruse for The World State. In these ways the Proles and Savages on the Reservation are very similar. Nineteen Eighty-Four and Brave New world both share intriguing similarities but there are equally as interesting differences. One of them is the viewpoint within the two novels on love and relationships. In Nineteen Eighty-Four the party abolishes anyone who commits thought-crime. Having a sexual relationship with someone falls under this category and could get you nto a lot of trouble just as Winston and Julia did. For Winston and Julia to be able to partake in even the smallest amount time together, alone and away from surveillance, they had to construct a well thought-out and thorough plan as to not get caught. On the other hand we have Brave New World where everyone is expected to have a relationship with multiple people at the same time, and move on shortly afterwards. When Lenina tells Fanny about seeing Henry Foster exclusively for the past four months, she replies â€Å"No it really won’t do. And you know how strongly D. H. C. objects to anything intense or long-drawn. Four months of Henry Foster, without having another man-why, he’d be furious if he knew†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (Huxley 46). This shows quite well how frowned upon it is to not have multiple partners. Characters in Brave New World are expected to not only switch partners often and have multiple partners at one time, but also have sex after the first date. The government has conditioned the people to the point where there’s no real sensation in anything. Normal sensations such as tasting something, loving someone, and sexual intimacy do not exist in Brave New World or Nineteen Eighty-Four. Winston and Bernard both experience complicated love affairs in these novels, ones that have no feeling. Winston is brought up in his society with the idea that sex and relationships are prohibited. His relationship with Julia is short and only has one point, to be rebellious and get pleasure out of it while he can. In Bernard’s society he is conditioned with the idea that relationships should be short, and dissipate after a short while. In his vacant relationship with Lenina he has no genuine feelings for her. In these two contrasts you can see how well relationships and love have such a large impact on the stories. Relationships clearly made an impact on Winston and Bernard’s development throughout their stories. Another influence that affected themselves and their societies was literature. In Nineteen Eighty-Four Syme helped edit and create the book of Newspeak. Syme became obsessed with book and was highly knowledgeable with its contents and the reason it was being made. The Party eventually vaporized him due to the fact that he was became so informed about its reasoning and the point of even making it. A similar character in Brave New World, Helmholtz was convicted of almost the same thing. He produced a poem that encouraged too much thinking; it was too intellectual for The World State. This comparison examines how both governments in the two novels don’t want their people to induce too much thinking upon themselves, as to create a possible rebellion. This comparison isn’t directly about the two main characters, but it does have an effect on how they think. Nineteen Eighty-Four and Brave New World have so many strong similarities and contrasts that it makes it very difficult to only pick a few and go in depth with them. These contrasts I talked about are all evidence as to how Winston and Bernard can be so similar in their worlds and be impacted in lots of different ways. Winston and Bernard act the ways they do because no matter how many dystopian society scenarios you come up with, if you become curious enough, you will seek individualism, change, and rebellion from that society.