How can we Know the Nature of Reality Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

How can we Know the Nature of Reality - Essay Example The idea of Socrates that the concepts contain the true and sustainable knowledge was the basis of Platos philosophy, but the philosophy of Socrates considered primarily ethical concepts, while Plato extended this position to all concepts without exception. Socrates did not question the relatedness between the concepts and reality: the ethical concepts could reflect reality at least in order to be its positive samples, despite the fact that nothing corresponded to them in reality. By extending the theory of ethical concepts on all the concepts, Plato had to put a new problem: what is the reality that people learn using concepts? Similar to all Greek philosophers, Plato was a realist (Kraut). For him it was an oracle that if the concepts contain knowledge, there must be a real object of this knowledge. Nevertheless, what is that object? Plato understood the matter as follows: the characteristics of concepts are their individuality and sustainability. This is the first prerequisite. Th e objects, about which people have some idea, should have the same characteristics as their concepts. This is the second premise. At the same time, all the things known to people from experience, do not have these characteristics because they are more complex and fluid (changeable). This is the third premise. Hence, Plato concludes that things are not the objects of the concepts and thus they are not real. According to Plato, stable characteristics belong to the concepts, not to the things. For example, Plato considered the question of what is the object of the concept of "perfect." Beautiful things cannot be the real object of the given concept since they are heterogeneous and unstable. It remains to assume that there is something perfect unknown to people from direct experience. It is always one and unchanging, and therefore has a genuine reality. Beautiful things are the object of experiences and

How Small Coffee Shops Can Succeed Using Social Media Essay Example for Free

How Small Coffee Shops Can Succeed Using Social Media Essay Everyone has a local coffee shop that they consider to be their favourite. That one place where they know they’ll be welcomed with open arms and the people behind the counter know their name (or at least their face). The place that even if their coffee costs almost double as much as Tim Hortons (Starbucks); that this is the place they’ll always recommend to their friends. A few years ago, it was nearly impossible for a local coffee shop to compete with the deep pocket coffee shops. Today, even the smallest cafe with the a very little marketing budget can compete. All they need – is a story worth telling and of course, a coffee worth brewing. If they have those, the clients will keep coming back – the main concern is usually getting them there in the first place. Here are some ways that social media can be used to help local coffee shops compete with the big players. Two Tweets and One Sugar As I write this post, twitter has become one of the biggest buzzwords of the year. However, the buzz isn’t unwarranted. Twitter is one of the largest social networking channels in North American consisting more than 15Million accounts. And while its still in its infancy; it provides businesses an unparalleled opportunity to communicate with consumers and current customers in real-time. So what does this mean for coffee shops? It means that they can communicate more effectively than ever with consumers. If that means setting up a search that tracks their brand and sending a simple thank you or going as far as taking a pre-order, so be it. Twitter gives these brands a chance to create a personal connection with their consumers and make their brand worth talking about. By being active in the twitter community an opportunity exists for coffee shops to offer their space for events such as tweet ups. Hosting these live events at your venue not only gaurantee that you’ll be selling your products, but also guarantees some buzz (tweets) about your brand. On top of that, some of these new customers were probably never in your shop in their life; however, because you got involved in twitter and hosted this event you were able to attract new customers to experience your shop. What more can you ask for? I’m glad you asked. How about 1 Blog Latte While blogging can be an important part of a social media strategy, its not worth having if you don’t have a strategy behind it. If your main goal is to develop an online community; it might be in your best interest to blog about different beans or maybe do a Wine Library TV segment – Coffee Style. However, if your strategy is focused around getting more butts in your cafes seats, it might be in your best interest to discuss offers on the blog. As great as a blog can be for an organization it can also be their downfall. A company that views their blog as being a great way to only talk about their brand and how great they are will never find readers. Well maybe they’ll have their spouse and employees; but customers won’t be interested. If you can provide your readers with something of value they will return. I often tell people looking to start a blog to try and offer the three E’s of Social Media. Entertainment, Education or Engagement An Extra Large Facebook Facebook has become the grand-daddy of them all when it comes to social networks. It has recently gone from being a questionable place to have your brand, to a necessity for many companies in the food industry. With its most recent changes to the facebook pages; it has become obvious that brand experience on facebook is back. Brands are now able to create facebook pages with more customization than ever and truly deepen their relationship with their customers. The frazzle-dazzle applications aren’t the only way for a local coffee shop to set itself a part from other stores. It can also use Facebook to promote other content that they have created. This means they can post links to their blog, videos, pictures and even coupons; reaching an audience that may not be present on the other social networking channels. With that said, we can’t forget the meat and potatoes that Facebook was built upon. The ability to get your message out to a number of people is one of the key reasons why businesses have found such success on facebook. Those tweetups we discussed earlier can easily be cross-promoted using a Facebook event. The opportunities available on facebook are great – its up to you, to turn them into something remarkable. Whose your Manager Mayor?! Foursquare is the new kid on the block in the social media world. It will be the most talked about social networking platform for the rest of this year and will definitely be playing a big part in several social media plans. James Hoffman explains on his blog why, You have people competitively visiting you, talking about you. More than that there is a pretty sensible business model in there too, meaning that foursquare could well be around in a few years. Coffee shops seemed pretty quick to embrace twitter, and it will be interesting to see if that experience has soured social media for them, or if they’ll embrace foursquare too. Something tells me that they’ll embrace foursquare like a seat-belt embraces impact. Mayorship TechCrunch One of my favourite tactics that coffee shops can use in Foursquare is promoting the idea of becoming mayor. The basics behind this tactic is that you tell the consumers that if they become the mayor of your shop they get their beverages for free. Seeing that there is an incentive now for going to the shop more and more – You’ve ultimately created a competition that will keep the people swarming your shop. The whole idea of providing customers with rewards for loyalty has been going on for years. This race to be the mayor however, takes customer loyalty, flips it upside down and turns it into a competition. Lets not get our Mochas in a Bunch With all that said, you must always remember your companies core strategy and goals. These channels discussed above may take a similar route as hi5 or geocities in a few years time. For that reason, it is important to not put all your eggs into one basket. Facebook is already talking about their new function that will be the â€Å"Foursquare Killer.† (Keep your eyes open) Finally, remember that the value you provide your customer in the store will always out weight the value you can provide them with a social networking tool. While its important to do things to get your customers in the door – its just as important to make sure they’ll want to come back.

Characteristics of Change Management Models

Characteristics of Change Management Models 1.1 Evaluate the characteristics and application of a range of change management models for different organisational structures. Organisational structure is there to determine how the roles, power and responsibility are assigned, controlled and coordinated and how information flows between the different levels of management. There are many different structures and this depends on the organisations objectives and strategy. Hierarchical this structure has a longer chain of command, each on a different level one above the other, like a pyramid. The advantages of this is authority and responsibility are clear and well defined, opportunity for promotion motivates employees and employees can specialise and develop expertise in their field. On the other hand the disadvantages are communication between departments may be less effective, decision making can take longer, may be harder to adapt and change or even rivalry between departments. Functional this is one of the most common especially in larger businesses they do this by dividing the business via departments such as sale, marketing, finance, human resources etc. The advantages of this structure is that it is specialised so departments focus on one area of work, productivity as they are specialised the staff are skilled in the tasks they perform, accountability there are clear lines of management and clarity everyone understands their roles. On the other hand the disadvantages may be closed communication, co-ordination may become difficult and they may be resistant to change. Flat this occurs when there are no management levels, when all staff report to one overall manager mainly seen in small businesses. The advantages to this structure are: better communication and relationship between different roles, simple, fast decision making process, easier to change and adapt. On the other hand the disadvantages may be that employees may be less specialised and it is difficult to maintain this structure as the company grows. I would say we are between a flat and hierarchical structure because we are still relatively a small business but growing, there are fewer levels of management. We have our directors, managers and room leaders so it is a fairly direct chain of command with leaders having access to the directors very easily as we all work very closely together but you can see as we grow levels will be added. Change management theories Business environments are constantly changing and evolving such as social media and mobile capability have changed they way we do business which means there is an ever increasing need to change and therefore change management. Change is a key source of competitive advantage and change is all about survival. There are several key change management models such as Kotter J.P.(2012) invented the eight step model for leading change. Create a sense of urgency if people think the organisation is doing fine there will be little motivation for change. It is important that your employees see the need for change. This is the most important and difficult step to make sure everyone is on the same page in order to make the change happen. Bring everyone together it is essential to have a strong leader to convince employee that the change is necessary. Create a clear vision and strategy having a clear vision allows people to remember easily what your are asking them to do. Communicate your vision to others- share the visions and make sure all staff understand what we are aiming for. It is important to talk about your vision often and use it daily to make decision and solve problems. Remove obstacles- to clear obstacles and have a can do attitude this will help empower employees execute your vision and move forward. Motivate with short term wins- this will build confidence and allowing staff achieve short term goals will give them a taste of success. You want it to be achievable with little room for failure, so that they will want to get to the final stage of the change process. Build on the change- saying the above you need to be careful not reward too early and keep moving forward and building on the change. Change to become the core of the organisation- to avoid old habits creeping back in the change that came in place needs to be imbedded into the heart of the company. The real change requires a subtle motivation driven approach and is broad based rather than narrow and built on inclusion. Therefore collaboration is the base for success and to achieve that there must be a wide spread perception for change. We need to look at our own competitive situation and effective communication is key to getting the word out and achieving employee engagement. Change is only possible if everyone participates. In relation to how this Kotters change model is suitable for a change process with our organisational structure can be shown through an example of change we have currently put into action in our company. As part of a requirement by our governing body in the childcare industry we must keep a learning journal for each child, tracking and tracing the developments in their learning during their time in our nursery. For many year this was a manual hand written process, each child had a large word processed book that our members of staff needed to complete throughout the childs duration in the nursery. We then needed to keep these records for numerous years. Looking back on this now it was a lot of paperwork and you need a lot of space to store these records. Over the last two years we have introduced a change in this form of record keeping procedure and are now processing everything on a on-line program called Tapestry. This on-line learning journal is an innovative, time effective and kind to the environment form of keeping these records. We can give this change as an example of how we can use Kotters theory to bring this change to life. As stage one says the hardest job of this change was to explain the need of it to the staff. It was important to educate the staff and get them to understand the urgency for this change. The urgency being to move with the times and go paper less and digital, this was a daunting thought for them as many did not have strong IT skills and feared this process being difficult. We need to match our competitors and make sure we were part of the change that was happening in the industry. This application Tapestry is not only for inputting information about a child but it has an interactive live element to it where parents can log in and see the work we are doing and their childs achievements. This was a major reason for us wanting to introduce this change so that we can improve our communication with parents and give them a live insight to what we do with the children in our setting. After numerous meetings and discussions with our staff they understood the need for this change which really helped us move forward. By educating them and giving them so much information about the program, training them how to use it and explaining the benefits to us all they all came on board excited to get started. We created a clear vision and made sure it was communicated and brought in to our daily working lives. We set them small and achievable steps to show them they can do it and motivated them with rewards for their achievements. We recognised the staff that did a great job and told them all that by working and helping each other we can be better.ÂÂ   We offered a lot of training in groups and one on one so that no one was left behind or struggling. We empowered them by setting deadlines for information about their key children to be inputted and then checked their work and give them feedback on their achievements. This really motivated them as they were proud of what they have accomplished and felt that we really took time out of our day to say well done. Now two year into this change we are about to go live to parents and are looking forward to this being the start of a new era. Using this programme has really become a part of our daily working life and cant imagine going back to the old way. There are so many ways we can and are moving forward in our industry today but this is just one example of how we can manage change. In saying the above we can look at how Kubler-Ross (1960) change curve model can be discussed in relation to the example of us changing programs to Tapestry. Kubler- Ross Change Curve is a reliable tool to understand change and the stages associated with it, it is about us being able to help our employees adapt to change and move towards success. As we can see from the model above it is translated into the 5 stages of the grieving process. The 5 stages included in this model are denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance, this also holds true when it comes to business or employment and we need to understand during the change process at what stage our employees are at. If our employees do not make personal changes or transitions during our change process we will not see the benefits of this change or move forward. It is important to support our staff through every stage of any change we implement in order for us to ensure success, this can be shown in the amount of training we invest in and support we give our staff to give them the tools they need to achieve. Â   At stage one this can be shock or denial to the fact that change needs to occur and they may need to adapt to something new. Information is key at this stage, it will take time to digest and giving them knowledge and constantly communicating will empower them to be confident in the change. Stage two once all has settled and everything becomes clear they may begin to feel fear of what lies ahead of them. It is natural to panic and believe that you can not make this change happen and question yourself and your capability. It can also make them feel anger or resentful because they may have been comfortable in what they were doing and change means learning something new. This is an important stage to manage and ensure it is controlled so that employees stick with you. Once again communication is essential. Stage three at this point employees understand the change and may start to bargain and possibly learn only what they think is necessary. This is when training is key and vital to ensure that everyone receives the best information and access to mentoring. It is important not to rush this stage and why we have taken nearly two years for our staff to trial the program before it goes live to parents. Allowing them to make mistakes and learn from them so that we are well equipped when this system is introduced. Stage four is the point at which moral and motivation can be low so when providing our training we try and make it as interactive and fun as possible so not only do they remember what is being taught but enjoy themselves in the process meaning they will do their best. Stage five is when we all really start to embrace the change and when we will really start moving forward. There are numerous other theories available for us to look at when discussing change management but for the two that I have analysed we can clearly see the difference between the two model but their relevance and importance are still the same in the example I have given regarding Tapestry. In conclusion it has shown me that when it comes to any change within the organisation we need to ensure everyone is on board, educated, supported and enthusiastic about the project in order for it to succeed. Change can not be made to happen by one person it takes the whole company to want to come together to move us forward, therefore we need to make sure we are able to manage the change/project, our staff and ourselves throughout the whole process. 1.2 Analyse stakeholder mapping techniques used for managing and evaluating change When it comes to managing projects and implementing ideas the actions you take can effect a lot of people and some of these people will have more influence over the success of our project more than others. Therefore knowing who these people areÂÂ   before you start is incredibly important. This is because you are more likely to succeed if you have the support of your key stakeholders.ÂÂ   Stakeholders are people interested in our business they can be internal i.e. employees and owners or external i.e. suppliers, customers and government. It is important to understand who our key stakeholders are, this is where you would use a stakeholders map. The actions you take when you look at the power versus interest the stakeholder has being high or low. Stakeholder Power and Interest Mapping Bryson (2004) (Sourced: Mindtools.com) From the drawing above you can see there are four types of stakeholders, those of:Â   High power/high interest these are your most important stakeholders that you should keep informed and close to your project. For us this would be our Directors and managers High power/low interest these stakeholders are to be kept satisfied, their power is high so they can influence your project but their interest is low so this is unlikely. Low power/high interest keep these people informed as this can support your project. For us this would be our employees and customers. Low power/low interest to be monitored with little effort as these stakeholders cant influence your project and are unlikely to be involved. This analytical tool will help you better understand where to focus your energy and time. It is important to spend a lot of strategic effort thinking about where your real power is held and knowing how to keep our key stakeholders engaged. In relation to keeping them engaged we need to ensure we are communicating with them using the right channels and tools of communication. The disadvantage of this tool is that unless you really know your stakeholders well you can place them incorrectly on your grid. A common mistake is by putting a stakeholder where you want them to be not where they really should be. Thats why it is important to know who they are, meet them, interview them and understand their values and beliefs, this knowledge will help place them in the correct position on the grid and will really give us a clear picture of who to focus on. In regards to managing and evaluating change such as the example I gave above of us introducing a new on-line learning journal Tapestry I would use this grid to pin point all stakeholders and approach them about my project. I would do research on their thoughts and ideas for this new system and use this information to make my decisions. Making informative decisions is the key to success and having lots of information from the relevant people will make my project and change run smoothly. The more preparation we take at this beginning stage the easier the transition will be to make a big change in our business. Stakeholder Salience model (Mitchell 1997) Unlike the power/interest grid above this model uses three parameters to categorise: power is the ability to influence the business, legitimacy is the authority and level of involvement they have on a business and urgency is the time expected to respond to their expectations. Source: Creative communication From the diagram above where these three factors meet shows you who your ultimate stakeholder is and these are the people you need to focus on. The other type of stakeholder that should have your attention is the dominant one as their power and legitimacy is high but their urgency is low. 1.3 Analyse techniques to evaluate change It is important and vital for us to evaluate the changes we make and measure their results. We need to know if we were successful or not in order to learn for future projects. Evaluating ourselves and our projects allows to better make decisions and helps reduce uncertainty, increases learning and control of what we are doing. One method of evaluating change is through Key Performance Indicators (KPI) this is when measures can be set against our objective to see if they are working. We need to gather data and information over time. By doing this it gives us a snapshot of our company and give us warnings to something that may be wrong. We need to look at what the key factors of our business for us is our customers and ensuring that people keep enquiring and joining our nursery. We can measure the number of enquires we get and then look at the success rates of those enquirers, did they register and did they join the nursery? These questions and results will give us a clear picture of what we are doing wrong and how we can do better. What can come out of this is that we need more training for the people who are giving the nursery tours, educate them in marketing and sales techniques to ensure every person that steps through our door leaves wanting to be a part of our business.ÂÂ   When we look at a KPI we need to make sure they are meaningful to us and that we are tracking something that will help us make better decisions. In relation to the example I have been giving above use moving to using Tapestry we are currently at the piloting stage where we are going live to 4 parents to trial the system and learn about the other side the customers point of view, what do they see, how useful is it, what problems do they have using it etc. We are using this trial period to educate us before we go live to the whole nursery, we are selecting a variety of parents and children to get a broad perspective of their views. This evaluation stage is key to seeing if this change was worth the effort and time. Obviously before this point we are confident that we made the right choice to move the company forward in regards to technology and moving with the times but we could be wrong and that this system will not bring that many benefits but until we listen to our customer, ask the questions we need answering we will not know, we would be assuming. 1.4 Evaluate the relationship between change management, business continuity and crisis management This is a process of preparing for something that most likely will never happen, we may find this a waste of time but it is important. Change management as we have seen is about thoughtful planning, implementation, consultation and involvement of the people affected by the change. From this we have learnt that there are many theories and models to manage change but overall its about preparation which links into business continuity. Its all about being ready for example like the Y2K crisis everyone believed the whole world would shut down in the year 2000. Business continuity is about anticipating the worst and being as ready as you can for this. Anything that interrupts normal business activity such as power outages, system failure, natural disasters etc can happen and we need to think about this and be prepared. An example of something basic we do is fire drills, invacuations, risk assessment etc. These are small examples but if we are well prepared then it can not end in disaster. Crisis is not about if it will happen to you its about how, when and why will it happen. It may seem like a single event but its not it can set off a chain reaction. It is important to identify the things that are creating conditions where crisis can happen and proactively form a divert crisis portfolio. This about preparing for a wide era of crisis and pick up early warning signals, look at key assumptions, build a damage control plan, think and act. Coming out of a crisis well can really move your business forward or not being crisis prepared can damage our company to points of no return. Examples can be what if our utilities failed such as our toilets, heating etc, we need to have maintenance companies on hand to have things repaired quickly so that we dont need to close the nursery. This happened last week when on of our toilets broke, I have a contract with a company that can help with plumbers, electricians, decorators etc so if I call they can send me anyone to repair the problem. It is important that I am prepared if something goes wrong, closing the nursery is the last measure. I have to have contacts and information of people who can help me in times of need. Another crisis issue we deal with is recruitment, we can do our best to have a bank of staff CVs but once a staff member has handed notice we dont have long to find someone to replace them. The only way to avoid this crisis is about prediction and having good communication with your staff and knowing if they are unhappy or are looking to further their career. If we have this information then we will not b e surprised if they want to leave or we can try and get them to stay with incentives like pay increase, further training, promotions etc. This simple information can really make a difference to the way we prepare for these events. Knowledge is power and allows you to be in control. I need to know how to identify risk and how to handle them. We do daily risk assessments and check our building to make sure we are catching early signs of anything going wrong to ensure it doesnt become crisis point, its about being aware and proactive. Because we are taking these proactive measures everyday to instil trust in our employees, customers and stakeholders that we know what we are doing. If something was to happen we are well prepared and trained in handling the situations. If you are not prepared for the worst it can destroy your company and you will loss your reputation.

The Taming of the Shrew Katherine :: Taming Shrew Essays

The Taming of the Shrew Katherine In William Shakespeare's play, The Taming of the Shrew, the shrew played by Katherine, had a terrible outlook on life and just about everything else. Her negativity was caused by her younger, more beautiful sister Bianca. Bianca wanted to get married. She had all of the men's hearts, Katherine had none. If Katherine got married then Bianca could get married. She truly was a shrew who needed to be tamed. Petruchio came to Padua. Petruchio could tame Katherine for the right amount of money. Before Petruchio's arrival, Katherine, the terriable, untamed shrew, caused problems with everyone. All that knew her hated her. She felt very jealous of her beautiful sister Bianca, because of her suitors and her beauty. Katherine tries to start fights with Bianca all of the time. She even hit Bianca. No one wanted to marry Katherine until Petruchio arrives in Padua to find a wife. "I come to wives it wealthy in Padua; If wealthy, then happily in Padua" (ShakespeareIii76-77). He and one of Bianca's suitors, Luciento had a conversation. As a joke, Luciento mentioned to Petruchio marry Katherine. Petruchio though of the profit and thought it could be great. "Petruchio can have no illusions about the fabled shrew, Katherine, for others are quick to tell him quite frankly what to expect"(Vaughn27). Petruchio and Katherine's father meet and decide that Petruchio will get twenty-thousand crowns if he weds Katherine. Petruchio and Katherine meet and they do not start off on the best of terms. But Petruchio decides they should get married anyway and he sets a date. Petruchio then leaves to get ready for the wedding . The wedding day arrives and Petruchio arrives at the wedding in ridiculous clothing and drunk. During the ceremony he hits the priest. During their own reception Petruchio demands that they shall leave, now the taming begins. Now the taming begins. Once they leave the wedding and are en route to Petruchio's home in Verona, Kate has to ride a burrow through the rain while Petruchio rides a horse. During their trip back many bad things happen to Kate. When they arrive at Petruchio's home Katherine could not fufill her needs of sleep and food with Petruchio's excuses of the food not being good enough and the bed not being good enough for her.

Are Unions Still Relevant in USA Essay

Labor Unions, which formed to represent the workforce when needed, its rights to be discuss with the organizations management. Unions bring matters as wages, and benefits to the Collective Bargain to get an agreement with the management. Unions where big up to the 2000; from there on where power and the number of members is experiencing declining. In 2009, 771,000 members left the movement; because of the recession of 2008-2009 the majority of the member are from the public sector and not the private organizations (Devinatz, 2010). It is true that the idea of an institution that works on benefit of employees hand to hand with employers is the ideal to have in every organization; however, how can somebody said is working on employees behalf if their needs if the requirement can put the organization stability in danger. With a good number of companies closing their doors, going to bankruptcy, or moving their manufacturing overseas the workforce forthcoming is turning to small businesses and entrepreneurship collective bargain turn out to be unnecessary and irrelevant (Subramani & Ramdas, 2011). Been raised and grownup in a country where unions were called federations, usually only participating at organizations relate to technical and trade professions, have not had a close relation or even learned to much about. Maybe this influenced in acquiring the concept that there is no need for an institution to deal the benefits and needs of employees. Organizations have developed and today management and human resources worked together on behalf of the organization and its employees. Human resources on an organization are who take care and seeks for the benefits and needs of the employee as well as the organization (Heizer & Render, 2011). Because the people who conform the human resources department is part of the organization would try to do what benefits employers and employees. After reading a handful of comments and experiences with unions and their work on different businesses and organizations, my personal point of view is that unions at the beginning of it history maybe was the solution for unfairness and illegal actions from bosses and managers to its employees. Indeed their ideology, thoughts, and what they express said they worked 100% to get the best for employees we are seeing today lots of manufacture businesses closing their doors and big businesses outsourcing their jobs because they cannot afford the unions requests on keep raising wages. Of course this influence in workers wanting a union at their jobs; but is not more rewarding and satisfying to know you are receiving what your personal review is saying; at the same time having more stability, meaning that the institution we are working for does not run the risk of having to reduce personnel or worst close its doors. It is also true that organizations need to have representatives that would attend management meetings and present the employees’ point of view, concerns, aspirations, and those bright ideas that would help to have a better working environment and job satisfaction. In 2008, Reynolds article on Labor Unions showed how union are declining its power with employees and the number of members in the private sector is being minimum comparing with the public sector. Reynolds also suggested that workers associations, formed by regular employees and that would work closely to the organization’s human resources department could replace the unions. People would always think that employers do not worry or work for the employees’ benefits, that they take advantage and the only goal is to make them work hard and generate bigger profit. Unions said they will bargain the best for them, making their wages raised, but who is worrying of the quality of the job and service? Who is worrying of having a secure income and not having the fear of layoffs or bankrupts? In conclusion, we can see unions is declining in the number of members, also in the power they had over employees to convinced they are working only on their benefits without any political interest; and that the actual corporation organization with its human resources department do not have the need of unions trying to tell what the employees need or want because they can do it themselves.

Apple and ATT

Apple and ATT Executive summary Apple and ATT, the largest U.S. mobile service provider entered into an agreement that would see both companies introduce the iPhone into the U.S. carrier market of handsets. According to the agreement, ATT would be the soul service provider for iPhone while the iPhone company would be the sole distributor with the latter holding 10% of iPhone revenue.Advertising We will write a custom article sample on Apple and ATT specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More IPhone as a brand did much better in terms of sales than their previous brand, the iPod reason being that the iPhone encompassed the iPod in a cell phone and in nearly 74 day had sold one million set of the new iPhone, which is the highest number of handsets ever sold by any cell phone company in the history of US mobile handset industry. Although the iPhone had done much better than iPod which had taken two years to sell a similar number, the iPhone faced steep challenge s from other smart phone and cell phone providers. Analysis of Facts The new iPhone displayed Apples prowess in developing new application like the user interface (UI) technology. This application allowed iPhone handsets to have a multi-touch wide screen than having a key pad; the screen took most of its surface giving the new handset a unique and catchy shape. The touch screen functionality improved the iPhone video quality and functionality. Problem Statement By apple signing with ATT mobility meant that phone users in the U.S. had to subscribe with ATT Mobility. This locked users into a commitment which lasted for two years with the same carrier. ATT offered GSMs voice network which was in contrast to other network providers who used the CDMA standard, ATT mobility offered it clients unlimited access to its Edge network. This limited the iPhone. On top of this, the new iPhone handset faced a lot of pressure from other quarters. Firstly, the handset could not support the 3G networ k, it was relatively slow to other smart phone handsets that were on the market, according to business this was a raw deal as the phone could not much modern business enabling trends like e-mail and browsing, the iPhone manufacturer could not upgrade the handset because it relayed on the Edge network, which provided only 2G to 2.5G.Advertising Looking for article on business economics? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Also, the plan by iPhone to face out cheaper models of the brand and reduce the price of the 8GB and the 4GB iPhone provided unprecedented challenges especially with its customer. The Solutions of facts The iPnone set to resolve the problems of the handset by Promising to launch a 3G enabled handset by late 2008, but in the meantime advised its customers to migrate and tap into the Wi-Fi technology that was generally faster than the Edge network. The iPhone general manager, Steve Jobs, decided to tackle the problem of facing out cheaper iPhone handsets by mollifying those customers with cheap iPhone handsets with a $100 Apple store credit. The other problem that presented itself with the new iPhone was that its memory was too low to other music players and also its capacity could not be expanded. In addition to this, the handset relied on a non-replaceable battery that had a lifespan of only one year. This problem was eradicated by coming up with a handset that had a high memory and also having a replaceable battery. Competition from other players The iPone faced a lot of competition from other handset makers who offered music enabled cell phones and smart phones like Research in motion BlackBerry, LG Prada, Samsung F700, and Nokia N95. These cell phone manufacturers offered similar applications to those of iPhone and some went further to offer quality video definition and high music storage capacity like the Sony Erickson walkman phones that could store up to 8,000 songs. To beat the high competition, iPhone had to diversify its market where it ventured to other countries like Germany where it partnered with Deutsche Telekoms T-Mobile.In France, iPhone partnered with Orange division of France Telecom. In Britain, iPhone was in agreement with Mobile operator O2 as their sole distributor and service provider.Advertising We will write a custom article sample on Apple and ATT specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More All these new markets offered an edge over other competitors in terms of customer volumes, making the iPhone emerge as the most successful cell phone manufacturer in the shortest time in the history of cell phone industry. Recommendation For iPhone to keep its market base, then it needs to improve on a few of its applications. This include increasing the memory of the iPhone to be popular with its young clients who are interested in storing large files of music and also its business class customers who are i nterested in saving information either through downloads or emails. Lastly, iPhone should take into consideration the fact that majority of phone carriers in America use handsets that are less than $100 and iPhone handset retailing at double this amount reduces their clients’ realism, although, they may argue that the cost is compatible to quality.