Tuesday, June 11, 2019

Leading in a changing word Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Leading in a changing word - Essay ExampleThe leadership styles should be capable of responding to changes in customer demands, economic changes, political changes and changes in the expectations of the employees (Judge and Piccolo 2004 755-768). check to the competency framework of leadership development, leaders are expected to deliver, build and drive organisational success. Leaders should compel a plan and make decisions with confidence while managing ambiguity (Ibarra & Hansen 2011 71). The leader should also drive change, innovation and make initiatives that unlock new disdain opportunities in order to satisfy customer changing demands. A leader should coach and mentor the subordinates while encouraging feedback and performance evaluation. Adairs leadership model is an action-centered leadership model that asserts that leadership can be applied like a tool and concentrates on the ability of the leader to inspire a shared vision. (Adair 1973). According to Adair (2003 04), the leader should provide direction, build effective teams and set an typesetters case for the followers. This model asserts that the leadership style will depend on the character of the leader and unequalled situation including the needs of the followers and level of assess oppositeiation. The leader should build the team spirit, ensure team cohesiveness and establish proper communication take (Ibarra & Hansen 2011 75). Transformational leadership model also provides the guidelines of leading in a changing business environment (Judge and Piccolo 2004 755-768). This model of leadership requires the leader to intellectually stimulate the ideas of the followers through articulating a clear vision and expressing confidence (Mullins, 2010). Individualised influence and inspirational motivation of the leader ensures that the employees express their creativity. In addition, the leader acts as an example thus modeling the behaviour of subordinates. On the other hand, the model fails in supporting the unique cultural background of the diverse workforce since employees have different norms and values depending on their cultural norms (Judge and Piccolo 2004 755-768). The above challenge can be addressed by ensuring that the leader gains the trust of followers and cordial working environment in order to support teamwork (Mullins, 2010 378). Another leadership style is the situational leadership style that combines task behaviour and relationship behaviour. According to this theory, there is no one and only(a) acceptable model of leadership. Ideally, this model asserts that leaders should change their leadership approach depending on the unique tasks and relationship with followers (Lord and Brown2001 133-152). The model is acceptable since leaders need to cultivate enabling relationship with the followers. In addition, some tasks may be clearly defined thus requiring minimal leader intervention. In the changing business environment, leaders will be required to c hange their leadership approach depending on the underlying situation such as the level of relationships, the degree of task differentiation, the use of controls such as rewards and punishments in the organisation (Judge and Piccolo 2004 755-768). The other model of leadership is transactional leadership. Transactional leaders emphasize on the task outcomes and mainly rely on power systems and control in order to attain the desired goals. This style is fair to all employees since everybody is expected

Monday, June 10, 2019

Identify the main sources of foreign currency risk confronting an Essay

Identify the main sources of foreign currency risk confronting an foreign firm and evaluate different techniques that you think may be most appropriate i - Essay ExampleIt can be seen that due to the explosive and unpredictable nature of the forex markets during times of political or economic crisis both these markets carry a considerable risk for the multinational firms. The preceding discussion pull up stakes assess the types of strategies which can be used to avoid these risks and their feasibility in the short and long term.This involves the transfer of the traffic exposure to another conjunction through and through the technique asking them to pay for a product in your currency so that they have to bear the movement exposure resulting from forex uncertainty on their own. another(prenominal) technique would be to price the export in the local currency of the other firm and demand payment immediately in which case the flowing spot rate will determine the value in your own cu rrency of the export.4A second way of minimising transaction risk is netting let out, and this technique is very helpful for foreign multinationals with large business concerns who do frequent and sizeable amounts of foreign currency transactions. In this way unexpected commute rate charges will essenti eithery net out over many different transactions. This is mainly because when payments and receipts be in many different currencies as this will spread the risks and there might even be a chance of profit.. Although transaction exposure cannot be completely netted away ,the company is better off making a small in one area of trade that a large loss overall if it literally puts all its eggs in one basket. Compared to hedging this may even be a safer way of avoiding forex risks.Hedging strategies (aimed at reducing short-term transaction exposures of roughly less than a year.5)Forward ContractsThis is probably one of the most direct methods of handling hedging risks. The obvious adv antage of this is to prevent the company from poor any loss through a depreciating or appreciating currency because the payment has already been made to a bank. The problem however is that small businesses are often discouraged by banks in this option because of the increased risk that the banks in collecting back the moneyFutures developsAnother option of hedging transaction exposure is with futures market hedge which is a lot similar to the above method .The difference begins when a short sale of a future contract puts the business in a position opposed to that of a business owning the futures contract. This happens because an increase in the value of the contract causes a loss to the company. 6When the futures contract decreases in value, it gains that amount. Another problem is that any losses in

Sunday, June 9, 2019

Examine the structure and function of proteins Essay

Examine the structure and function of proteins - Essay ExampleProteins atomic number 18 amino group acids polymers, which are covalently bonded through peptide bonds forming a chain.In and outside cells, proteins prolong several functions including acting as transporters to ferry molecuules and ions across membranes, structural roles for instance cytoskeleton, acting as horm angiotensin-converting enzymes, and catalyzing other biological body reactions Biotechnology entails understanding, exploiting, and modifying proteins for useful purposes. In order to accomplish this, one needs to understand various fuctions of proteins and their structure. The focus of this paper is to summarize various structures of proteins, various funcions of protein molecule in the cell, the link between molecular structure of proteins and their function, and how proteins as a whole contribute to health and/or disease. Studies conducted in this field have shown that there are four categories of protein st ructure. These are the primary structure, supplemental structure, tertiary structure, and quaternary structure. The amino acids are made up of a backbone section which is available in the different types of amino acids, together with a side chain for each residue (Nelson, L. & Cox, M. 2008). Since the carbon atom remains bound to the four categories, one isomer would happen in the biological protein. In this case, the molecules would be chiral. Glycine fails to be chiral due to the fact that it has a side chain that is an atom of hydrogen. The amino acids are bonded by a covalent bond chain which are referred to as the peptide bonds (Brown EC et al. 2004). Whenever the chain is short, such a chain is called a peptide. The chains that are long are referred to as proteins or polypeptides. In many cases, the peptide bind is established in between the one amino acid carboxyl group together with the amino group. The bonding of peptides happens in the reactions of condensation, which in volve the loss of a molecule of water. Primary structure of proteins. The primary structure proteins is the amino acid polypeptide chain sequence. The basic structure is have together using the covalent bonding just like the case of the peptide bonds, which are often established in the translation process of proteins. The two ends of a polypeptides are referred to as the C- period. In this, the carboxyl terminus, and the N-terminus are the amino terminus (Mahn K et al. 2005). In order to count the residues, one would begin at the N-terminus, which involves the terminus where the group of amino acid fails to be involved in the peptide boding (Nelson, L. & Cox, M. 2008). This type of structure is identified by the corresponding gene to the protein molecule. A particular nucleotide sequence in DNA is normally shifted to the mRNA that is interpreted by ribosome in a process referred to as translation (Mahn K et al. 2005). In this case, the protein sequence is specific to the particula r protein, and identifies the structure and the roles of the protein molecule. Protein sequence could be determined through tandem spectrometry tandem mass, and Ednan degradation (Nelson, L. & Cox, M. 2008). In most cases, it is unendingly interpreted directly from the gene sequence through the utility of the genetic code. The post-translational modifications including the formation of disulfide, glycosylation, is considered as a section of the primary structure hence cannot be identified from the specific gene. For instance Insulin has fifty one amino acids classified in two chains, one having thirty one amino acids, and the other one having twenty amino acids (Mahn K et al. 2005). The primary structure is displayed in diagram 1. Diagram 1. Secondary structure. This is the second structure of proteins displaying the regular local sub-structures. The two categories of secondary structure include the betastrand, and the alpha helix (Nelson, L. & Cox, M. 2008). These structures are n ormally identified by the hydrogen bonding pattern between the key chains of peptide groups (Lukaczer D et

Saturday, June 8, 2019

Local Lawsuit Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words - 2

Local Lawsuit - Essay ExampleAccording to most researchers, the iPhone 5 has similar functionality like the previous versions of the iPhone. This information was released by Samsung in ensnare to verify the infringement of patents by the iPhone. The gripe of Samsung against Apple originally arose from the iPhone 5 support for LTE (Cole, 2012). This fussy case comprises of two standard, essential patents and six public-service corporation patents that are not related to the LTE patent portfolio. Most corporations prefer to compete in the marketplace with ground-breaking products. However, this contest is exempted from the court rooms. On the other hand, Apple is continually aggressive in most of the legal measures, which limit its competition in the business market. Therefore, in this situation the company ensures that they abide by the expectations of the law, in order to protect their innovations and intellectual property rights. Further research in the world of technology asserts that HTC also wanted to take legal action against Apple afterwards the introduction of the iPhone 5 (Parish, 2011). The most recent case facing Apple affirms that Samsung has a high probability of delighting in confidence from its legal triumph. The attack on the iPhone 5 was validated after Judge Koh dissolved the sales ban on the Galaxy Tab 10.1 (Cole, 2012). Earlier in the year, the judge had granted an mandate on the tablet after they were suspicious that it had copied the hardware design of Apples iPad.

Friday, June 7, 2019

The concepts of empowerment Essay Example for Free

The concepts of empowerment EssayQuestion 1Explain the concepts of empowerment, self-managed teams, and cross-functional teams, and develop an essay that argues for their inclusion in either a tall or flatcar organizational grammatical construction.Empowerment is the process of giving employees the authority to make important decisions and to be responsible for their outcomes. Empowerment should exist in tall organizational structure because if the size of the tall organizational structure is bigger is operating process or more tasks appear or tasks become more and more complex, managers at the top of hierarchy will gradually lose the control regarding their work. Self-managed teams reflect self-lead work groups consisting of people who atomic number 18 jointly responsible for ensuring that the team accomplishes its goals.Self-managed teams should exist in flat organizational structure because self-managed teams need to be control well with a few levels to avoid hindering com munications. Cross-functional teams are groups of employee from across an organizations different functions who are empowered to direct and coordinate the value-creation activities.Question 2Bureaucracy is a phenomenon that presents itself in varying degrees in organizations. When does bureaucracy become a problem in an organization? How can the principles of bureaucracy help managers to design the organizational hierarchy? What can managers do to prevent bureaucratic problems from arising?Bureaucracy becomes a problem when it hampers the work of the organization. When there are too many steps involved and too many people involved to solve issues and make fast decisions, then bureaucracy is a problem. When the hierarchy is inflexible and difficult to wade through, it is a problem. Decisions should not be made without adequate in formation and time, but when the decisions are bogged down in bureaucratic red tape, the rules and layers of approval, then companies can lose business and opportunities toact in tune with the market. The principles can help identify the form and the job functions. It helps design the jobs and the technical skills needed to do the jobs so that the best people can be hired to do the job. The principles establish the rules and the focus of the phoner so there are firm expectations and goals. When all of these are put in place the managers then have the path to follow to create a successful company.Managers must remember that each person is hired because of their skills if the principles are followed. The need for decisions must not be hampered by a top gruelling group of decision makers and the rules are in place to guide the decision making process. The hierarchic structure is a form, not a law and when rules and the hierarchical are the only considerations in decision making the systems becomes bogged down and inflexible, or worse, time consuming. In addition, the job and the functions of the company should be impersonal and so sho uld the discourse of employees. Equality is important in an organization. Listening to everyone, accepting diversity in culture, experience, and knowledge can help a company avoid many problems in a bureaucracy.Referencehttp//www.bustingbureaucracy.com/excerpts/weber.htm

Thursday, June 6, 2019

Synchronization Of Federal And Dod Procurement Policies And Ethical Standards Essay Example for Free

Synchronization Of national And Dod Procurement Policies And Ethical Standards Es expressThe United States is non just admired of its technological advancement, its economic status and its military power but also of its sound and tight laws including its internal rules and regulations covering government agencies. In the case of the surgical incision of exculpation, federal Laws and rules were kept updated as untold as possible in the sense that revisions of internal policies were carried off. New versions of rules and regulations kept on attack in with reference to new laws or executive blesss being approved and released. The biggest problem however, as it has also been with different agencies is that there is indeed a drop of strict implementation of much(prenominal) rules and regulations. This problem is proven by the increasing number of fraud cases in the procurement transactions under(a)gone by the defensive measure. In order for us to find the flaw on the imp lementation brass, let us evaluate the performance of the agencies wherein policy implementation on DOD were being delegated and entrusted. These agencies were not merely responsible for the implementation of the policies and procedures, specifically on procurement process but also for its monitoring.Let us closely look into the Office of the governance Ethics which is, check to Executive Order 12731, will be responsible for the administration of Principles Of Ethical Conduct For Government Officers And Employees. Specifically, EO 12731 (Section 201) should be administered by (a) Promulgating, in reference book with the Attorney General and the Office of Personnel Management, regulations that establish a single, comprehensive, and clear set of executive-branch standards of conduct that shall be objective, reasonable, and enforceable. b) Developing, disseminating, and periodically updating an morals manual for employees of the executive branch describing the applicable statutes , rules, decisions, and policies.(c) Promulgating, with the concurrence of the Attorney General, regulations interpreting the provisions of the post-employment statute, air division 207 of title 18, United States enter the general conflict-of-interest statute, section 208 of title 18, United States Code and the statute prohibiting supplementation of salaries, section 209 of title 18, United States Code. d) Promulgating, in hearing with the Attorney General and the Office of Personnel Management, the regulations establishing a system of nonpublic (confidential) monetary disclosure by executive branch employees to complement the system of public disclosure under the Ethics in Government Act of 1978. Such regulations shall entangle criteria to guide agencies in determining which employees shall submit these reports.(e) Ensuring that whatever implementing regulations deald by agencies under this order ar consistent with and promulgated in accordance with this order.The main poi ntedness of determining the responsibilities of the Office of the Government Ethics is to have a clear basis of determining who is supposed to be overseeing the ethical policies and the implementation thereof. Since this office has been in particular designated for such a responsibility, it is expected that it should have specially designed delegation and communication tools of coordinating such policies to other agencies under it. The methods ar clear promulgation, delegation, consultation and dissemination of the policies and procedures with other agencies and of course DOD is not an exemption.It is accordingly but fair to conclude that communication tools and the power to use them are available at anytime for the Office of the Government of Ethics to use for synchronizing policies by dint ofout all agencies. Section 301 of Executive Order 12731 specifies how synchronization of ethical policies and standards should be done through the specifications of the responsibilities of the Office of the Government of Ethics. This section directs the office staff to a) Supplement, as necessary and appropriate, the comprehensive executive branch-wide regulations of the Office of Government Ethics, with regulations of special applicability to the particular functions and activities of that agency. Any subsidiary agency regulations shall be prepared as addenda to the branch-wide regulations and promulgated jointly with the Office of Government Ethics, at the agencys expense, for inclusion in Title 5 of the Code of federal official Regulations. (b) Ensure the review by all employees of this order and regulations promulgated pursuant to the order.c) Coordinate with the Office of Government Ethics in developing annual agency ethics hireing plans. Such training shall include mandatory annual briefings on ethics and standards of conduct for all employees appointed by the President, all employees in the Executive Office of the President, all officials required to file pu blic or nonpublic financial disclosure reports, all employees who are assure officers and procurement officials, and any other employees designated by the agency head.d) Where practicable, consult formally or informally with the Office of Government Ethics prior to granting any exemption under section 208 of title 18, United States Code, and provide the film director of the Office of Government Ethics a copy of any exemption granted. (e) Ensure that the rank, responsibilities, authority, staffing, and resources of the Designated Agency Ethics ex officio are sufficient to ensure the effectiveness of the agency ethics program. Support should include the provision of a separate budget line item for ethics activities, where practicable.The enumeration of such responsibilities appears to be just a matter of written rules for federal agencies. This is especially in the procurement process where more and more deal are getting involved in procurement fraud. Every family, millions and millions of dollars are being recovered by the Department of Justice for running after the contractors and DOD personnel who acted in bad faith. Looking at the brighter side of things however, it can be stipulated that such events can be considered an indicator that these policies and rules on ethical standards are now being implemented quite well.Either way, we cannot consider each effort to be successful not until we have the occurrences of fraud lessen to a considerable amount. What should always be the goal is zero tolerance of any type of fraud. The synchronization efforts of the federal government must go beyond the fortune of agencies. It is always recommended that the lawmakers be vigilant liberal in evaluating every policy and laws governing the federal procurement process. It is their job to look into the flaws in the laws and recommend go against and more efficient laws to be implemented.To be fair with enforcement agencies, policies are now in the process of strict im plementation as more and more efforts are being done to revise and tighten procurement rules especially in contracting information. The governments central repository of contracting data has desire been criticized for being incomplete and inaccurate. Last year, the Office of Management and Budget launched an effort to clean up what gets fed into the Federal Procurement Data System (FPDS) by directing agencies to sample their data for accuracy.The Defense Department is still working on validating its data. Depending on the agency, data is accurately entered into FPDS between 85 percent and 100 percent of the time. Automated reporting has made it easier for agencies to load data into the system and reduced the errors associated with manual entry under the old system. But the record book of contracts has grown, making the issue of validating data more important and more challenging. While the quality of the data in the database is improving, there are still problems, say some criti cs who use FPDS regularly.Even with automated reporting and validation steps, people entering data still make mistakes the current software cant catch. The rate the accuracy of the data is a seven out of 10. The new certification requirement has raised the importance of data accuracy to the highest levels of management. Agencies are much more focused on getting data right than they have been in the past. With more than $400 cardinal spent through procurements each year, the data is particular to managing functions and determining the type of staffing needed, OMB procurement policy chief, in a March memo to agencies.The launch of the federal spending Web site, USASpending. gov, in celestial latitude has given new insight into the accuracy concerns with FPDS. As of Jan. 31, 6 percent, or $23 billion, of the 2007 contract dollars reported in the system had an unknown level of competition, which marrow a box in FPDS didnt get checked. The inaccuracies found in FPDS come from the push to be current, which meant GSA had to relax some of the verification rules. The government had the pick of waiting months for perfect data or entering data as contracts were awarded to provide transparency.GSA is seeking smarter validation technologies when it upgrades to the next generation of FPDS in 2010. Instead of evidently telling users which fields in their system are missing, GSA hopes to create a system where fields can be compared to make sure the data makes sense, Fornecker said. For example, the system would be able to flag a $6 billion award to a small business or question conflicting information, such as when a contract award is labeled as not competed even though two or more bids were received.The Defense Department wont have an assessment of the accuracy of its data until spring, said Shay Assad, the departments procurement policy chief. Software bugs and missing data fields in FPDS were causing some inaccuracies, and those are being fixed, Assad said. The biggest cause for inaccurate data is man error, but system errors also play a role. For example, the Energy Department reported that between 8 percent and 17 percent of its errors came from how FPDS interpreted the data sent by its contract writing system. The remaining errors were human errors, according to the Energy report.The ever-popular multiple-award contracts long praised by acquisition professionals and contractors as a speedy way to get competitively priced goods and services without threat of protest are near to get a makeover. The conference report for the Defense authorization bill includes a new rule that would give contractors who are eligible to bid on a multiple-award contract order the right to protest an order worth more than $10 million. The White reside and industry have opposed this provision, claiming it would advertize unnecessary litigation.Contracting officers would also be prohibited from awarding a task order worth more than $100 million to a single contra ctor without written justification, further limiting how the contracts are used. The conference report also includes another controversial provision that would require agencies to report all critical inspector general audit findings, including questioned costs, to Congress. Industry groups have opposed this provision saying it could misrepresent routine audit questions and misunderstandings as major contracting irregularities. new(prenominal) contracting provisions in the bill include new associate administrator position within the Office of Management and Budgets procurement policy office that will be sacred to acquisition work force programs, permanent acquisition work force training fund, and contingency contracting training for people outside the acquisition profession including whistleblower rights for contractor employees. One more thing to reconsider in the policies synchronization is training needs.A yet-unreleased survey of government acquisition employees shows the work f orce needs more training in contract negotiations, program management and performance-based contracting, a White House official said today. OMB is working with Federal Acquisition Institute and the Defense Acquisition Institute to craft training that targets these and other areas identified in the survey, he said. OMB has approached Congress to renew procurement offices direct hire authority, which expired on Sept. 30, to allow agencies to quickly fill these critical positions, he said.OMB is also encouraging agencies to rehire retirees to train and mentor new workers and fill openings. Apart from training rules synchronization, the Department of Defense is also accused of discrimination is hiring or employment procedures including contract awarding against minorities and women. Still, this issue is an important consideration in ethical rules and standards set by the Federal Government. There are critics in an online publication that pinpoints the following areas of improvement in congress to ethical rules synchronizationReorganization Some observers emphasize the need to rationalize and coordinate the web of federal programs serving minority- and women-owned loyals. For example, in 1992 the U. S. Commission on minority Business recommended the creation within the Commerce Department of an government activity for the Development of Historically Underutilized Businesses which would assume SBAs responsibilities. Graduation The program now requires graduation after nightclub years, and has phased requirements of non-8(a) and non-federal business mix designed to wean firms from sheltered competition and dependency on federal contracting.In February 1995, of the 1,038 firms in the fifth through ninth year of 8(a) participation, nearly two-thirds met or exceeded the minimum non-8(a) business levels. Some observers have emphasized the need for analogous graduation and business-mix requirements in the DOD and DOT programs. Regional/Sectoral submergence Our analy sis found SDB contracts and limited competition concentrated in certain industries and regions, which is undesirable for minority and non-minority firms alike.For example, while DODs overall goal for SDBs was only 5 percent, more than 35 percent of all DOD verbalism awards went to SDBs, and more than two-thirds of these were awarded under sheltered competition. Moreover, in ten States, more than 40 percent of all construction contracts awarded to small business was awarded to SDBs. This concentration occurs at particular sites as well, where in rare instances virtually all small business contracting is with SDBs.On the other hand, some degree of sectoral concentration in SDB procurements is inevitable to balance the many sites and sub-industries with virtually no SDB participation, and huge procurements for weapons systems and the like, for which no SDBs are available as set up contractors, and still too few as major subcontractors. Additional efforts are clearly needed to expand SDB opportunities more broadly. Self-Certification Because DODs program is based on self-certification by SDBs, it may be prone to abuse, particularly through front companies.For example, DODs IG investigated Tyco Manufacturing and referred the case to the US Attorney. The companys owner pled guilty to charges that he falsely represented his firm as Hispanic-owned and controlled. Top officials of Automated Data Management, Inc. were convicted of conspiracy to defraud the government for concealing the firms ownership structure to participate in the 8(a) program. Self-certification has obvious advantages in harm of reduced administrative expense and regulatory intrusion.Nevertheless, this must be balanced with the importance of ensuring that affirmative action measures are fair, which means as free of abuses as can reasonably be achieved. Subcontracting In FY 1993, the most recent data available, small businesses received about $63 billion of federal contract dollars, out of roughly $180 billion in total. About one-third of that amount was from subcontracting. SDBs, on the other hand, received a little over $13 billion in federal contract dollars, but only one-sixth of that was through subcontracting.These figures are consistent with the widely held view that SDBs face greater obstacles to subcontracting participation than do other small firms. The SBA and other agencies believe that expanding the use of SDBs in subcontracting is both feasible and desirable as a strategy for creating more SDB opportunities. Other computer program Changes Several earlier analyses by the GAO, the SBA Inspector General and commentators have raised criticisms of the 8(a) program, several of which SBA is moving to address by aggressively implementing recent statutory amendments which had languished under the prior Administration.These are reviewed more specifically immediately below. Past criticisms are that too many 8(a) contracts were awarded on a sole-source basis, i. e. , witho ut competition of any kind. This criticism has more often than not been addressed by recent and pending reforms. The 1988 law reforming the 8(a) program requires that companies in the program compete among themselves for contracts valued at $3 million or more. (There is a higher competition threshold of $5 million for manufactured goods.Currently, however, many of the larger 8(a) contracts are open-ended agreements that started out as small contracts and grew well beyond the competition threshold when a contracting officer renewed the order. To increase the number of contracts available for competition, SBA has proposed regulations to change this procedure so that an estimated value will be set on these open-ended contracts, which probably will be higher than the initial value. This means more 8(a) contracts will be subject to competitive bidding among participating firms.In all these cases, the Office of Federal Procurement Policy must now especially tighten its implementation te chniques. This office does have roughly $350 billion annual spending (Office of the Federal Procurement Policy, Whitehouse, 2008). According to their website, The Office of Federal Procurement Policy (OFPP) in the Office of Management and Budget plays a central role in shaping the policies and practices federal agencies use to acquire the goods and services they need to carry out their responsibilities.Established by Congress in 1974, OFPP is designed to provide overall direction for government-wide procurement policies, regulations and procedures. Given special authority for the procurement policy administration and implementation, OFPP is expected to find the means of having such procurement policies implemented in accordance with the Federal Ethical Standards. OFPPs statutory authorities and responsibilities are set forth in the Office of Federal Procurement Policy Act, 41 U. S. C. 401, et seq. OFPPs primary responsibilities.First, it is appointed to oversee the development of a cquisition regulations. The Offices primary focus is on the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR), the government-wide regulation governing agency acquisitions of goods and services. OFPP staffs are to review and coordinate such changes with the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. It is also its responsibility to germinate and coordinate acquisition legislation. OFPP oversees the formulation of the executive branch position on all legislation relating to procurement.In close consultation with the major procuring agencies, OFPP develops legislative proposals for the Administration and formulates positions on congressional bills addressing acquisition issues. OFPP staff works with OMBs Legislative Reference Division, Office of Legislative Affairs, and congressional committees to explain and refine legislation as it proceeds through hearings, markups and conference to final passage. Apart from this, OFPP is required to lead the activities of the Chief Acquisition Officers Cou ncil (CAOC).The OFPP Administrator leads the Councils activities on behalf of OMBs Deputy Director for Management, who officially serves as the death chair. OFPP staff provides support to each of the Councils working groups, which currently are focusing on competitive sourcing, contracting with small businesses, human capital, electronic government, performance management, and contingency contracting. The office also is responsible for collecting, developing, and disseminating procurement data. This responsibility is accomplished through several government-wide data collection tools, the most meaningful being the Federal Procurement Data System (FPDS).OFPP directs the Federal Acquisition Institute to improve the caliber and professionalism of the acquisition work force. For example, FAI provides core acquisition training and workforce support to the civilian acquisition community and actively partners with the Defense Acquisition University to leverage workforce development opport unities. In 2004, OFPP chartered a Board of Directors, which reports to the OFPP Administrator, and ensures that FAIs focus is synchronized with government-wide policy priorities.OFPP is responsible for developing policies, in consultation with SBA, that promote maximum participation of small businesses in government contracts. Lastly, it serves as Chair of the Cost Accounting Standards Board (CASB), an independent board which has exclusive authority to establish standards for use by contractors and subcontractors to achieve uniformity and consistency in the measurement, fitting and allocation of costs to government contracts. The CASBs cost accounting standards are promulgated as regulations. OFPP provides staff support to the CASB.It is now but fair enough to say that Federal Laws on Ethical Standards relative to procurement policies are well defined, clear and tight enough. The problem arises on the implementation of such rules. It is therefore a strong recommendation to begin t he strict implementation of such policies as soon as possible. The step can rightfully begins with appointing or hiring able, dedicated people to oversee the agency and those people whose morality and principle cannot be bought by material things, especially with money where the Federal government and the Department of Defense are undeniably abundant of.

Wednesday, June 5, 2019

Easy Jet: Company Operation Strategy

escaped Jet Comp whatever Operation StrategyThis report is intimately the favorable Jet airline company operation dodge and illustrates it come in winner qualifier and its supply chain manipulatement. slowly Jet, creation of Stelios Haji-Ioannou, the son of a Greek shipping magnate who founded the company, based on the low- apostrophize, no-frills model of the US carrier Southwest, in 1995. In November 1995, informal Jet started flights from Luton to Glasgow and Edinburgh with two lease Boeing 737-300s with at a price of 29 one way. As it was the beginning belatedly Jet acted as a virtual airline which contracts in everything from pilots to report staff. Reservations and Seats be being sold over a telephone reservation system single. In 1996 behind Jet takes delivery of its first of all completely owned aircraft and goes international with first services to Amsterdam from Luton. In 1997 Easy Jet launched its website, www.easyjet.com which than from 1998 onwards form a n vital part of the business notion and this erects for virtually 90% of the meshs today. In January 1999 first of five Airline series is transmitted on ITV, giving the company nationwide opening to an audience of around order million viewers, providing free publicity. Now Easy Jet offers 88 routes from 36 European airdromes. Easy Jet further expanded its fleet and routes by acquiring British Airways low-cost subsidiary Go. The grouping deal was completed in August 2002 and created Europes biggest low-cost airline, before rival Ryanair. Easy Jet main foc applys is to provide its customers with safe, good value, stain-to-point air services. Easy Jet offers a regular and reliable product and f bes appealing to leisure and business markets on a represent of European routes. To attain this they provide develop their citizens and set up lasting associations with their suppliers. The achievement of Easy Jet is based on some fundamental trade features which fork up costs, at the same eon as continuing to attract people flying. Easy Jet uses internet for online booking and issuing of travel vouchers which in progenys saves commodious fees normally paid to travel agents. The www.easyJet.com web site is open for business 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a twelvemonth for public and this website is designed as user friendly for providing better services. Easy Jet offers one-price, one-way tickets, giving passengers greater litheness, not forcing them passengers to be away from home. If any changes to be made in tickets Easy Jet merely charges 10. Easy Jet focus on the short term travel business and focuses only on the 149 seats Boeing 737 aircraft. This operation strategy maximises services, whilst dropping maintenance costs. Easy Jet prefers smaller, less congested airports where landing charges are lower and turnaround times are faster. Easy Jet does not offer free in-flight food or drinks. Snack food and drinks can be bought before or during the flight. Easy Jet favours an casual business culture with a very flat system configuration, which eliminates unnecessary and uneconomical layers of organization. All workforces are encouraged to dress casually, (Source www.easyjet.com).In order to maintain the good reputation and to maximise the profit company needs to make and maintain long term plans, and this plan includes company goals and intelligence challenges so that to get outmatch outcome from the implemented strategies and to differentiate companies from its competitors. As in this competitive world, internet based and global open market, it is very innate for companies to have a subject plan for attaining their targets (Hill, 2005). To maintain the shareholder value so called business strategy, for the success of company business strategy essential be supported by others operations like finance, administration and marketing. Like a football team, players support the team strategy same in the company everyone compon ent in the company supports the business strategy.Operation strategy is long term plan for the operation function that helps in outlining the design, procedure and making sure the reject use of resource and man power to support the business strategy. Operation strategy must be aligned with the business strategy to get the best of the best outcome. For the smooth racetrack of operation and maximising the profit it must be known that what customers company is serving, what are the companies values. Secondly market environment must be known, markets trends, economic status of the market, political values and trends in the society. Environmental scanning let the company knows to explore opportunities and treats, exploring gaps in what consumers need and what competitors are doing to litigate those requirements (Waller, 2003).Operation strategy can be formulated when business strategy is finalized. Operation strategy of Easy Jet can be best illustrated on its order winners and order q ualifiers. Order winner and qualifiers are both very much authorised, with the order qualifier an organisation needs to qualify and re-qualify to stay in competition and in the market, order winner and qualifier is based on time and depended on market status, so they both changes over the time in the market, (Hill, 2005).Order winners and order qualifiers are the backbone for the successful operation management, (Hill, 2005). The first and main order winning of Easy Jet is low cost, it means that Easy Jet offers services at a low cost and prices, and this is their main business strategy, and this strategy helps Easy Jet to maximise its profit margin by implementing low cost strategy. Easy Jet mostly focuses on cutting costs in their operations, like reducing labour cost, materials and other facilities which can be avoided in providing services. Easy Jet emphasises on giving some extra training to employees to get the maximum outcome and lowering the fragment. Facilities which are provided by Easy Jet are rationalized, using mostly single type of airlines so that minimizing the cost on maintenance of different types of aeroplanes also routes of Easy Jet are mostly short so it can help Easy Jet to minimise cost of crew changes, maintenance, inventories of parts and many other administrative charges which varies from airport to airport. Easy Jet mainly uses low crowded airports and prefers secondary airports in major cities to avoid high administrative charges. Mainly route is point to point so that they dont have to invest extra on onward connection for passengers and baggage. No meals provided and passengers can buy what they want on board and no printed boarding passes to avoid convolution and speed up ticketing and boarding. Easy Jet human resource department also plays important role in this strategy, they train impudently employees to perform multi tasks and emphasis on team work to maximise the customer services. Quality of service is Easy Jet order qu alifier as their strategy focuses on the service regularity which means how much their attribute fulfils customers demands and single class configured cabins. Dependability is order qualifier for Easy Jet, as Easy Jet fast and reliable deliveries of parcels across Europe in low cost gives them strength to attain and sustain their customers. Flexibility is the order winner for Easy Jet as they provide wide range of basic and frequent services, changes the brashness of services and changing the timings of services to fulfil the customers demands. paltry cost administration gives them to attain maximum profit and Easy Jet focuses on entirely IT system which can accessed from anywhere in the world so they are embraced with the concept of paperless offices. Strong work force, highly trained, quick responsive to the customers, flexible in performing multi-tasking and strong customer and technical capabilities of the employees are the order qualifiers of Easy Jet. Low price of tickets i s the order winner of Easy Jet, Easy Jet offers very cheap tickets to different destinations of Europe as compare to the other airlines, which not only attract more(prenominal) customers scarce also this strategy playing important role in maximizing their profit as Easy Jet already reduced other unwanted costs. Using of latest IT system is order qualifier for Easy Jet, Internet has greatly uplifted electronic commerce and profoundly linked customers and suppliers. Minimising the overall journey time is order winner for Easy Jet, fast turnaround keeps Easy Jet services continue for high earning and avoiding its planes to return to main point, and by doing so it has its number of flights increased with low number of planes. Consistency and reliability is the order qualifier for Easy Jet as more than 90% of the flights arrived within 15 minutes which is nearly equal to British Airways. Easy Jet increased its customer service and save 750,000 on lively functioning costs by signing an on demand CRM deal with Right Now Technologies. With Europes leading low-cost airline growing its passenger volume by 20% each year, additional operational costs will be achieved with a series of on-going modern customer service projects. At first Easy Jet will set up Right Now Service across all seven of its European web sites to help manage the linked enlargement in customer communication, (Source DataMonitor).For the successful business there must be interactions and collaboration between operations and marketing. The operations department are accountable for providing the order-winning and order-qualifying criteria identified by marketing group, that empower products to win orders in the open market. This process starts with the corporate strategy and ends with the standards that either keeps the company in the running order qualifiers, (Hill,2005).The main airport for Easy Jet is Luton airport. Although Easy Jet flights to many Europe major cities, Easy Jet still misses som e important airports to stay like London Heathrow airport. People who live in London, this is a very problematic point to move to Luton airport to get the flights. Although by this Easy Jet save extra charges but loses some customers as well so at one side Easy Jet saves money on other side it loses customers. Online booking service is indeed order winner for Easy jet but some elder people and people who dont use internet find difficult and not very convenience to book, so Easy Jet must have telephone line services for booking which will not cost them much but this service will indeed attract more customers and booking services of Easy jet will be more user friendly, and this use of IT services and online booking services can become their order winner for the company. Low cost air tickets is order winner for Easy jet as they dont have any interaction with travel agents but as the flying demands are getting more and more day by day so Easy Jet needs to establish some business to busi ness relationship with travel agencies to attain more customers especially corporate customers which normally get tickets from travel agencies, (Source easyjet.com).From 1995 until now, Easy Jet has increased their aircrafts from only two to 92 aircraftsincluding 21 aircrafts of Airbus A319, 33 aircrafts of Boeing 737-700 and 38 aircrafts of Boeing 737-300, at the end of September 2004. And for the expansion of its market, they prepare to increase their Airbus aircraft to 117 during the next three years. As the airline industry of whole world is not prosperity afterwards 9/11 attacks. So that the aircraft deal from, Easy Jet is a very big deal for the suppliers and there is really big benefit for the suppliers. From this point, it is clear that bargaining power of Easy Jet is higher than the suppliers. The direct point of Easy jet supply chain management is to deliver the exact material to the precise position at the right time. The next objective is to manage the parts, procuremen t and supply chain function as resourcefully as achievable. At this time the company divided its service into seven segments, Parts trading, allotment, additional remarketing, preliminary provisioning and sourcing, inventory letting, revamp managing, stockroom and logistics. With the integrated supply chain concept, kinda of providing these functions on an individual or a little at a time basis. Easy Jet offers a sustain alternative that embraces the whole range of its various services. It helps in holding much more functions an operator requires in a consistent overall plan that is shaped in alliance with the airline, (Harvard product line Review).So according to Porters generic strategies, which is purely based features of the operation of Easy Jet, main operation strategy the Easy Jet engaged is focus cost management, which is called low cost, no frills,(www. www.bized.co.uk)So it concluded that Easy Jet adopted simple straight forward low cost strategy, minimizing and avoiding unwanted cost to be in competition with other airlines operating in the sky. Easy Jet operation strategy mainly works with effect because quick and on time turnaround, cheap services, avoiding paper work like paper used in ticketing during boarding and reduced the cost of travel agents. Numbers of planes are few but utilisation rate is perfect and exact, mainly using low rate airports for landing and take-off. Some threats and risks are there for Easy Jet, as time goes on and Easy jet gets bigger and renewal of contracts needed so there are chances of raise in cost. Easy Jet key to success is rest undemanding so that cost can be remained low and keep the usage of planes high so that they can guarantee their constant profit and quality service.References-Hill,T. (2005), Operation Management, Plagrave Macmillan NewYork.Waller, L.D. (2003), Operation Management, Gray Publishing Kent.Information available on www.easyjet.com, accessed on 10th December 2010.Information available on www .datamonitor.com, accessed on twenty-fifth November 2010.Information available on www.crm2day.com, accessed on fifteenth November 2010.Afuah, A. and Tucci, C. 2002, Internet Business Models and Strategies Text and cases, 2nd edition, McGraw HillInformation available on www.businessteacher.org.com, accessed on 15th December 2010.Journal paper of Harvard Business Review, Strategies to flights low cost rivals.Information available on www.www.bized.co.uk, accessed on 25th December 2010.Information available on www.www.docshare.com, accessed on 25th December 2010.