Free Essays on Rocket Boys

In the days of Hal Roach’s "Our Gang" shorts ("The Little Rascals" for the TV generation), Spanky and his pals used their own ingenuity to build things they couldn’t buy. For Homer H. Hickam Jr., growing up in a small West Virginia coal town, the early days of the space race inspired him and his friends to build rockets. Rocket Boys: A Memoir is the boyhood story of a NASA engineer that did more than read about the future, he set out to achieve it. In Coalwood, the elder Hickam was the foreman of one of the better company mining towns in a state famous for its rich coal deposits. Hickam, nicknamed "Sonny," recounts how his father spent most of his time at the mine, his mother’s resigned attitude, and the stagnant cycle of the lives of the miners and their families. Sonny was a typical teenager of the era, interested in having a good time and just beginning to notice girls. On October 5, 1957, an event happened that changed Sonny’s life forever; the Russian satellite Sputnik circled the planet and marked the start of the space race. Rather than rail against the threat of Communism like his father and other adults, Sonny was inspired by the feat, and saw it as a way out of Coalwood. He decided to learn how to build rockets so he could join NASA’s Dr. Wernher von Braun in launching America into space. Teaming up with a few school chums, Sonny forms the Big Creek Missile Agency (BCMA) with the encouragement of his mother. To everyone else in Coalwood and their high school, often with some derision, they become "the rocket boys." Together, they start to learn calculus, physics and engineering in order to build rockets. At first, the football team and the girls laugh at them, but the events set about by the space race inspire the school to increase its academic workload and decrease emphasis on sports. Suddenly, the rocket boys find themselves the center of attention. And when labor troubles and accidents at the mine threate... Free Essays on Rocket Boys Free Essays on Rocket Boys In the days of Hal Roach’s "Our Gang" shorts ("The Little Rascals" for the TV generation), Spanky and his pals used their own ingenuity to build things they couldn’t buy. For Homer H. Hickam Jr., growing up in a small West Virginia coal town, the early days of the space race inspired him and his friends to build rockets. Rocket Boys: A Memoir is the boyhood story of a NASA engineer that did more than read about the future, he set out to achieve it. In Coalwood, the elder Hickam was the foreman of one of the better company mining towns in a state famous for its rich coal deposits. Hickam, nicknamed "Sonny," recounts how his father spent most of his time at the mine, his mother’s resigned attitude, and the stagnant cycle of the lives of the miners and their families. Sonny was a typical teenager of the era, interested in having a good time and just beginning to notice girls. On October 5, 1957, an event happened that changed Sonny’s life forever; the Russian satellite Sputnik circled the planet and marked the start of the space race. Rather than rail against the threat of Communism like his father and other adults, Sonny was inspired by the feat, and saw it as a way out of Coalwood. He decided to learn how to build rockets so he could join NASA’s Dr. Wernher von Braun in launching America into space. Teaming up with a few school chums, Sonny forms the Big Creek Missile Agency (BCMA) with the encouragement of his mother. To everyone else in Coalwood and their high school, often with some derision, they become "the rocket boys." Together, they start to learn calculus, physics and engineering in order to build rockets. At first, the football team and the girls laugh at them, but the events set about by the space race inspire the school to increase its academic workload and decrease emphasis on sports. Suddenly, the rocket boys find themselves the center of attention. And when labor troubles and accidents at the mine threate...

Business Model of Amazon

As the economy has moved from agrarian to industrial to information age, the focus of the businessmen or the wealthy and powerful has also shifted in terms of the ways of obtaining wealth or doing business. In the agrarian age there was shortage of land which made ownership of land as the determinant of value. Powerful land barons typically accumulated vast tracts of land and coerced people who were bound to the land and owned by the feudal lord into living on and working it. As economy moved from agrarian to industrial age, physical assets owned by a firm became the determinants of value and shortage of raw-materials led the powerful industrialists to conspire to control the supply of raw materials. In this age, the market could absorb as much product as the industrialists could produce. The current era in which we live has been defined as the information age wherein relationships and intellectual capital are more important than anything else. One is not worried about physical assets anymore. Companies don’t compete with each other over superior products as they are largely commoditized rather compete increasingly on the basis of value added customer services. The economic battles of today are fought over the mind-space of consumers. In the information age power-play customers are not passive participants, in the way that land and raw materials were in the agrarian and industrial ages. In fact, according to Zang Hailing, it is the customers’ time that is in short supply, and therefore for any firm to succeed, emphasis needs to be given to the importance of reducing the customers’ time to adopt a new product. Thus, in a world where technology is changing every day and the transformation of consumers has happened from â€Å"Price Takers† to â€Å"Price Makers† as they are armed with more options and information; the companies that control more and more customer relationships will be the ones that hold the power in an industry and reap the lion’s share of the profits. E-commerce or e-business is an important tool that enables companies to reach out to the global market at low cost and provides abundant information about the consumers’ requirements and preferences easily which was not so easy earlier. Following figure is a glimpse of the promising future that the ecommerce industry holds. The US E-commerce has seen a 40% increase in the sales over the past 5 years as a percentage of the total retail sales in US. Source: http://ycharts. com Now when thinks about e-commerce, the first name that comes to everyone’s mind is that of Amazon. com. Not only most of the people have heard about it but there are many people who have actually used its services. Amazon was not only one of the few of the companies that thrived throughout the period in which many dot-com companies struggled to survive but has been constantly performing exceptionally well in terms of revenue per visitor which is one of the key parameters for any commercial website. Amazon has had one of the fastest growths in the internet’s history with revenues reaching $2, 8 billion in the first five years with Google’s revenue reaching only $15bn in the first five years. Now, just like any other traditional business in order to clearly understand an e-business one needs to have information on the following components: a) Business Strategy which determines the products and service offerings by the firm, the firms targeted customers and the firms value proposition. It also helps firms decide on the choices and the tradeoffs that the firm needs to make. b) Organizational form or structure c) Business processes which refer to the unique ways in which organizations coordinate and organize work activities, information, and knowledge to produce a product or service. ) Value Chain i. e. the sequence of activities that a firm undertakes to create value, including the various steps of the supply chain but also additional activities, such as marketing, sales, and service. e) Core Competencies which are the collective learning’s of the firms and being distinctive create long term competitive advantage for the firm. From the beginning, the focus of Amazon. com has been on offering their customers compelling value. In the current report filing dated 04/13/12, Jeffrey Bezos, the founder and CEO of Amazon. om writes â€Å"We realized that the Web was, and still is, the World Wide Wait. Therefore, we set out to offer customers something they simply could not get any other way, and began serving them with books. We brought them much more selection than was possible in a physical store (our store would now occupy 6 football fields), and presented it in a useful, easy-to-search, and easy-to-browse format in a store open 365 days a year, 24 hours a day. † The Value Proposition offered by Amazon. com is â€Å"earth’s largest selection—24/7, at competitive price. † Amazon. om has continuously focused on improving the shopping experience owing to which they substantially enhanced their stores in 1997. Though they started off with books, they now offer customers gift certificates, 1-ClickSM shopping, and vastly more r eviews, content, browsing options, and recommendation features. The company’s stated goal was to â€Å"be Earth’s most customer centric company for three primary customer sets: consumers, sellers and developers. † It targeted its first set of customers through its initial retail model where it sold only books. It offered the perfect combination of low prices, large selection and convenience or customer experience. The digital media allowed limitless inventory, boosted customer care and allowed higher margins and hence lowest prices. In 15 years Amazon went from 1 category to 16 main categories of books. Amazon began with books and needed to grow big fast. From 1995-1998, Amazon moved from books to music and again through the same combination moved to become the biggest seller of music in just 120 days! Amazon moved on develop its own digital driven supply chain and distribution network by hiring from the expert: Wal-Mart. Amazon accelerated development through its strategy of â€Å"Build, buy, partner† a) Build: Amazon keeps on creating new categories. For example, Amazon kicked off a new service by the name MyHabit. com in May 2011 that made fashion available to consumers directly from designers and boutique brands. b) Buy: When there is a lot of competition in any area and the competitors have a strong hold, Amazon believes in buying out the incumbent. Few of the acquisitions made by Amazon include Internet Movie Database  (IMDb), Zappos (an online shoe and apparel retailer) etc. ) Partner: Amazon has also entered into a lot of merchant partnerships. It offers its technological service and ecommerce expertise to third- parties. For example in October 2011, Amazon. com announced a partnership with DC Comics for the exclusive digital rights to many popular comics, including Superman, Batman, Green Lantern, The Sandman, and Watchmen. As mentioned before as well, Amazon want to be the â€Å"wo rld’s most customer-centric† company, and so their focus is on the â€Å"Customer Service†. It ensures customer loyalty through three main approaches: a) Recurring usage b) Seamless Integration c) Lock-in The following table tells us how Amazon uses all above mentioned approaches for its both customers: Sellers and consumers. | Sellers| Consumers| Recurring Usage| a. Developed a customer base close to 615mn users that can’t be ignored by sellers b. Ensures profit through optimized and reliable technology c. Developed a trusted Brand name| a. Created an ecosystem through Kindle b. Stores user’s media library c. Offers personalization to customers d. Gives special offers everyday| Seamless Integration| a. Monitors sellers rating ratings posted by consumers and expels sellers with bad ratings b. Offers Fulfillment by Amazon service(FBA) which allows third party sellers to use Amazon’s large warehouse and distribution network| a. For customers, all the sellers are highly commoditized and invisible. They buy it because of the Amazons brand value b. Get benefitted by Amazon Prime and free super saver shipping| Lock-in| a. By controlling or owning the customer accounts b. High level of infrastructure development required to ensure same level of customer service as offered by Amazon| a. By providing digital content that works only on Kindle b. Amazon Prime Program which requires annual subscription| | c. | c. | Amazon developed a value chain of itself for internal appraisal so as to identify its strengths and weaknesses that would help it add value and maintain a competitive advantage. Amazon uses the value chain model from Michael Porter’s book, â€Å"Competitive Advantage: Creating and Sustaining Superior Performance. † The first table represents the Primary activities of Amazon which are needed to produce a product or services for the end customers. Inbound logistics| Operations| Outbound logistics| Marketing ; Sales| Service| Avoids the overhead and large amounts of inventory carrying cost because it orders the books from the distributors. Easy and fast payment systems. Online customer systems and feedback. | Operates a number of transportation hubs that they refer to as injection points. Injection point locations are located in heavily customer concentrated areas. | Customer tracking  is an Amazon stronghold through which it provides personalized customers’ exper ience| Free return policy within 30 days. Uses marketplace to increase channel and range of goods through 3rd parties and customers. Highly reduced returns to suppliers (such as unsold books and media) due to available accurate forecasting technology | Customized buyer experience| Ability to aggregate orders bound for specific locations. | Interactive shipping and parceling price calculations. Free delivery based on single transaction spends. | Price comparison of new products with used products in marketplace shops. | Efficiently gathering information about customer experiences to inform service inputs and inventory controls. | 24 hour warehouse operations to meet customer demands. |   Utilizes the capabilities of its supply chain partners to deliver orders directly to ustomers which bypass the Amazon. com internal distribution center network|   Discounts and price reductions made available with suggested product mixes. Similar products recommended to customers interactively. | Offers customers gift certificates, 1-Click SM shopping, and vastly more reviews, content, browsing options, and recommendation features. | The next table gives information about the various support activities performed by Amazon which help to facilitate or assist its primary activities. | Value Creation| Cost Reduction| Firm Infrastructure| Huge central customer data warehouse available to all business units. Amazon’s single technology platform with services being incrementally distributed to other worldwide locations, reduces costs by leveraging investments | Human Resource Management| Amazon. com has a great training for its employees resulting in talented, smart and hard working group. Offers employees unique benefits such as medical, paid time off and stock grants and relocation allowances and hence attract highly skilled workers| Amazon utilizes independent contractors and temporary personnel to supplement their workforce, particularly on a seasonal basis. Although Amazon has works councils and statutory employee representation obligations in certain countries, Amazon’s employees are not represented by a labor union| Technology Development| High investments in technology development (e. g. , Kindle) to best leverage digital products. Innovations such as personalized recommendations, one-click ordering, and search inside the book are all Amazon. com innovations. Highly customized software applications that support their supply chain business model. For example, Amazon. om is linked into Ingram’s systems to see Ingram inventory levels when deciding whether to use Ingram to drop ship an order to a customer | Building an IT strategy, IT infrastructure and Data Centre on Linux open source software thus reducing cost of technology development. Renting computing resources to other companies reduce total cost of ownership Using standard hardware systems from HP to reduce cost of maintenance and compatibility| Procurement| Utilize s a Sales and Operations (SOP) planning process to determine forecasts for each roduct that it stores in its distribution center inventoryUses the strategic business unit – Booksurge to keep a rich inventory of digital copies of books so as to make this readily available for customers through print-on-demand and reduce the time of delivery | Specially built distribution Centers, warehouses and fulfillment Centers to increase the speed of order processing thus avoiding transaction costs of contracting out| In addition to the business strategies the value chain components mentioned above, the success of Amazon. om can be attributed to the entrepreneurial spirit of its founder chief executive officer Jeff Bezos and the strong inclination of the firm towards bringing about innovation in the business model. Let us discuss both factors one by one. Entrepreneurial Spirit of Jeff Bezos: Jeff Bezos can be regarded as the forward-looking CEO responsible for the success of Amazon. com. He has not only efficiently managed the present but through his long term vision always taken steps to create the future. The computer science and electrical engineering graduate from Princeton University moved to Seattle after resigning as a Senior Vice-President at D. E. Shaw, a Wall Street investment bank. At the time Bezos didn’t know much about the Internet but he came across a statistic that the Internet was growing at 2300%, which convinced him that it was a large growth opportunity. Without knowing anything more, he plunged into the world of e-commerce with no prior retailing experience. It was his decision to locate the company in Seattle because it had a large pool of technical talent and since it was close to one of the largest book wholesalers located in Rosenburg, Oregon. Moreover, the sales tax laws for online retailers state that one has to charge sales tax in the state in which one is incorporated. Therefore it was logical to locate in a small state. Under his guidance and logical thinking Amazon. com quickly became the leader in e-commerce. Operating 24 hours a day, the site was user-friendly and encouraged browsers to post their own reviews of books and offering discounts, personalized recommendations, and searches for out-of-print books. In June 1998 it began selling CDs, and later that year it added videos. In 1999 Bezos, looking at the future trends, added auctions to the site and invested in other virtual stores. The success of Amazon. com encouraged other retailers, including major book chains, to establish online stores. As more companies battled for Internet dollars, Bezos saw the need to diversify, and by 2005 Amazon. com offered a vast array of products, including consumer electronics, apparel, and hardware. And with the Jeff Bezos vision to make every book ever in print in any language available to the consumer in 60 seconds, Amazon launched the handheld device called Kindle in 2007. Bezos is the quintessential dot-com icon. He proved to the business world that the Internet was about more than knowledge. He proved that it is possible to overcome fears about purchasing online, to drive down transaction costs, and to build an international e-commerce business over the Internet. He had the courage to attempt something that people doubted could be done. . At the age of 35, Jeff Bezos was picked as the 1999 Time person of the year. Describing why it chose Bezos, Time magazine said, â€Å"Bezos’  vision  of the online retailing universe was so complete, his Amazon. om site so elegant and appealing that it became from Day One the point of reference for anyone who had anything to sell online. † Innovation in the Business Model: Amazon survived the dot-com bust because it had a viable and innovative  business model  built around a market-changing customer value proposition and a radical profit formula and over it has been able to sustain its position as the leader in e-commerce by bringing about continuous innovations in its business model. Let us look at some of the different dimensions wherein Amazon. om has been able to bring about business innovation. a) Offerings: By offering a handheld device dedicated to reading, Kindle, Amazon. com revolutionized the books industry. By creating a product like Kindle, the created a perfect, integrated and streamlined customer experience. b) Platform: With Amazon Web Services, Fulfillment By Amazon, and Kindle Direct Publishing, Amazon is creating powerful self-service platforms that allow thousands of people to boldly experiment and accomplish things that would otherwise be impossible or impractical. ) Customers: In 2002 Amazon launched a web services platform and identified a new area of potential growth by finding another new customer—the IT community. Serving this new customer’s needs required different processes, different resources, and a different profit formulaâ€⠀in short, another  new business model. d) Customer Experience: 1-Click combined with Gift-Click and Wish List made Amazon. com the most convenient, easiest-to-use shopping destination the holiday season. Wish List allows customers to post the gifts they’d most like to receive from family and friends, while Gift-Click allows customers to send gifts easily by entering just the e-mail addresses of their recipients. e) Value Capture: By opening up its storefront to other retailers that were essentially competitors, Amazon transformed its business from direct sales to a sales-and-service model, aggregating many sellers under one virtual roof and receiving commissions from the other companies’ sales. ) Supply Chain: Fulfillment by Amazon service (FBA) by Amazon is a classic example of innovating business model through supply chain. FBA allows third party sellers to use Amazon’s large warehouse and distribution network and in the last quarter of 2011, shipped tens of millions of items on behalf of sellers. When sellers use FBA, their items become eligible for Amazon Prime, for Super Saver Shipping, and for Amazon returns processing and customer service. From the above discussion of Amazon’s business strategy, value chain analysis and the success factors we can conclude that Amazon has a robust Business model. Amazon’s business model fends off all the four threats. It has the costly-to-imitate financial and technological resources, it has developed protection against holdup by seamlessly vertically integrating its both the customers i. e. the sellers and the consumers. Reduced slack by locking-in the customers and the sellers and fights substitution through innovation in business model. Business Model of Amazon As the economy has moved from agrarian to industrial to information age, the focus of the businessmen or the wealthy and powerful has also shifted in terms of the ways of obtaining wealth or doing business. In the agrarian age there was shortage of land which made ownership of land as the determinant of value. Powerful land barons typically accumulated vast tracts of land and coerced people who were bound to the land and owned by the feudal lord into living on and working it. As economy moved from agrarian to industrial age, physical assets owned by a firm became the determinants of value and shortage of raw-materials led the powerful industrialists to conspire to control the supply of raw materials. In this age, the market could absorb as much product as the industrialists could produce. The current era in which we live has been defined as the information age wherein relationships and intellectual capital are more important than anything else. One is not worried about physical assets anymore. Companies don’t compete with each other over superior products as they are largely commoditized rather compete increasingly on the basis of value added customer services. The economic battles of today are fought over the mind-space of consumers. In the information age power-play customers are not passive participants, in the way that land and raw materials were in the agrarian and industrial ages. In fact, according to Zang Hailing, it is the customers’ time that is in short supply, and therefore for any firm to succeed, emphasis needs to be given to the importance of reducing the customers’ time to adopt a new product. Thus, in a world where technology is changing every day and the transformation of consumers has happened from â€Å"Price Takers† to â€Å"Price Makers† as they are armed with more options and information; the companies that control more and more customer relationships will be the ones that hold the power in an industry and reap the lion’s share of the profits. E-commerce or e-business is an important tool that enables companies to reach out to the global market at low cost and provides abundant information about the consumers’ requirements and preferences easily which was not so easy earlier. Following figure is a glimpse of the promising future that the ecommerce industry holds. The US E-commerce has seen a 40% increase in the sales over the past 5 years as a percentage of the total retail sales in US. Source: http://ycharts. com Now when thinks about e-commerce, the first name that comes to everyone’s mind is that of Amazon. com. Not only most of the people have heard about it but there are many people who have actually used its services. Amazon was not only one of the few of the companies that thrived throughout the period in which many dot-com companies struggled to survive but has been constantly performing exceptionally well in terms of revenue per visitor which is one of the key parameters for any commercial website. Amazon has had one of the fastest growths in the internet’s history with revenues reaching $2, 8 billion in the first five years with Google’s revenue reaching only $15bn in the first five years. Now, just like any other traditional business in order to clearly understand an e-business one needs to have information on the following components: a) Business Strategy which determines the products and service offerings by the firm, the firms targeted customers and the firms value proposition. It also helps firms decide on the choices and the tradeoffs that the firm needs to make. b) Organizational form or structure c) Business processes which refer to the unique ways in which organizations coordinate and organize work activities, information, and knowledge to produce a product or service. ) Value Chain i. e. the sequence of activities that a firm undertakes to create value, including the various steps of the supply chain but also additional activities, such as marketing, sales, and service. e) Core Competencies which are the collective learning’s of the firms and being distinctive create long term competitive advantage for the firm. From the beginning, the focus of Amazon. com has been on offering their customers compelling value. In the current report filing dated 04/13/12, Jeffrey Bezos, the founder and CEO of Amazon. om writes â€Å"We realized that the Web was, and still is, the World Wide Wait. Therefore, we set out to offer customers something they simply could not get any other way, and began serving them with books. We brought them much more selection than was possible in a physical store (our store would now occupy 6 football fields), and presented it in a useful, easy-to-search, and easy-to-browse format in a store open 365 days a year, 24 hours a day. † The Value Proposition offered by Amazon. com is â€Å"earth’s largest selection—24/7, at competitive price. † Amazon. om has continuously focused on improving the shopping experience owing to which they substantially enhanced their stores in 1997. Though they started off with books, they now offer customers gift certificates, 1-ClickSM shopping, and vastly more r eviews, content, browsing options, and recommendation features. The company’s stated goal was to â€Å"be Earth’s most customer centric company for three primary customer sets: consumers, sellers and developers. † It targeted its first set of customers through its initial retail model where it sold only books. It offered the perfect combination of low prices, large selection and convenience or customer experience. The digital media allowed limitless inventory, boosted customer care and allowed higher margins and hence lowest prices. In 15 years Amazon went from 1 category to 16 main categories of books. Amazon began with books and needed to grow big fast. From 1995-1998, Amazon moved from books to music and again through the same combination moved to become the biggest seller of music in just 120 days! Amazon moved on develop its own digital driven supply chain and distribution network by hiring from the expert: Wal-Mart. Amazon accelerated development through its strategy of â€Å"Build, buy, partner† a) Build: Amazon keeps on creating new categories. For example, Amazon kicked off a new service by the name MyHabit. com in May 2011 that made fashion available to consumers directly from designers and boutique brands. b) Buy: When there is a lot of competition in any area and the competitors have a strong hold, Amazon believes in buying out the incumbent. Few of the acquisitions made by Amazon include Internet Movie Database  (IMDb), Zappos (an online shoe and apparel retailer) etc. ) Partner: Amazon has also entered into a lot of merchant partnerships. It offers its technological service and ecommerce expertise to third- parties. For example in October 2011, Amazon. com announced a partnership with DC Comics for the exclusive digital rights to many popular comics, including Superman, Batman, Green Lantern, The Sandman, and Watchmen. As mentioned before as well, Amazon want to be the â€Å"wo rld’s most customer-centric† company, and so their focus is on the â€Å"Customer Service†. It ensures customer loyalty through three main approaches: a) Recurring usage b) Seamless Integration c) Lock-in The following table tells us how Amazon uses all above mentioned approaches for its both customers: Sellers and consumers. | Sellers| Consumers| Recurring Usage| a. Developed a customer base close to 615mn users that can’t be ignored by sellers b. Ensures profit through optimized and reliable technology c. Developed a trusted Brand name| a. Created an ecosystem through Kindle b. Stores user’s media library c. Offers personalization to customers d. Gives special offers everyday| Seamless Integration| a. Monitors sellers rating ratings posted by consumers and expels sellers with bad ratings b. Offers Fulfillment by Amazon service(FBA) which allows third party sellers to use Amazon’s large warehouse and distribution network| a. For customers, all the sellers are highly commoditized and invisible. They buy it because of the Amazons brand value b. Get benefitted by Amazon Prime and free super saver shipping| Lock-in| a. By controlling or owning the customer accounts b. High level of infrastructure development required to ensure same level of customer service as offered by Amazon| a. By providing digital content that works only on Kindle b. Amazon Prime Program which requires annual subscription| | c. | c. | Amazon developed a value chain of itself for internal appraisal so as to identify its strengths and weaknesses that would help it add value and maintain a competitive advantage. Amazon uses the value chain model from Michael Porter’s book, â€Å"Competitive Advantage: Creating and Sustaining Superior Performance. † The first table represents the Primary activities of Amazon which are needed to produce a product or services for the end customers. Inbound logistics| Operations| Outbound logistics| Marketing ; Sales| Service| Avoids the overhead and large amounts of inventory carrying cost because it orders the books from the distributors. Easy and fast payment systems. Online customer systems and feedback. | Operates a number of transportation hubs that they refer to as injection points. Injection point locations are located in heavily customer concentrated areas. | Customer tracking  is an Amazon stronghold through which it provides personalized customers’ exper ience| Free return policy within 30 days. Uses marketplace to increase channel and range of goods through 3rd parties and customers. Highly reduced returns to suppliers (such as unsold books and media) due to available accurate forecasting technology | Customized buyer experience| Ability to aggregate orders bound for specific locations. | Interactive shipping and parceling price calculations. Free delivery based on single transaction spends. | Price comparison of new products with used products in marketplace shops. | Efficiently gathering information about customer experiences to inform service inputs and inventory controls. | 24 hour warehouse operations to meet customer demands. |   Utilizes the capabilities of its supply chain partners to deliver orders directly to ustomers which bypass the Amazon. com internal distribution center network|   Discounts and price reductions made available with suggested product mixes. Similar products recommended to customers interactively. | Offers customers gift certificates, 1-Click SM shopping, and vastly more reviews, content, browsing options, and recommendation features. | The next table gives information about the various support activities performed by Amazon which help to facilitate or assist its primary activities. | Value Creation| Cost Reduction| Firm Infrastructure| Huge central customer data warehouse available to all business units. Amazon’s single technology platform with services being incrementally distributed to other worldwide locations, reduces costs by leveraging investments | Human Resource Management| Amazon. com has a great training for its employees resulting in talented, smart and hard working group. Offers employees unique benefits such as medical, paid time off and stock grants and relocation allowances and hence attract highly skilled workers| Amazon utilizes independent contractors and temporary personnel to supplement their workforce, particularly on a seasonal basis. Although Amazon has works councils and statutory employee representation obligations in certain countries, Amazon’s employees are not represented by a labor union| Technology Development| High investments in technology development (e. g. , Kindle) to best leverage digital products. Innovations such as personalized recommendations, one-click ordering, and search inside the book are all Amazon. com innovations. Highly customized software applications that support their supply chain business model. For example, Amazon. om is linked into Ingram’s systems to see Ingram inventory levels when deciding whether to use Ingram to drop ship an order to a customer | Building an IT strategy, IT infrastructure and Data Centre on Linux open source software thus reducing cost of technology development. Renting computing resources to other companies reduce total cost of ownership Using standard hardware systems from HP to reduce cost of maintenance and compatibility| Procurement| Utilize s a Sales and Operations (SOP) planning process to determine forecasts for each roduct that it stores in its distribution center inventoryUses the strategic business unit – Booksurge to keep a rich inventory of digital copies of books so as to make this readily available for customers through print-on-demand and reduce the time of delivery | Specially built distribution Centers, warehouses and fulfillment Centers to increase the speed of order processing thus avoiding transaction costs of contracting out| In addition to the business strategies the value chain components mentioned above, the success of Amazon. om can be attributed to the entrepreneurial spirit of its founder chief executive officer Jeff Bezos and the strong inclination of the firm towards bringing about innovation in the business model. Let us discuss both factors one by one. Entrepreneurial Spirit of Jeff Bezos: Jeff Bezos can be regarded as the forward-looking CEO responsible for the success of Amazon. com. He has not only efficiently managed the present but through his long term vision always taken steps to create the future. The computer science and electrical engineering graduate from Princeton University moved to Seattle after resigning as a Senior Vice-President at D. E. Shaw, a Wall Street investment bank. At the time Bezos didn’t know much about the Internet but he came across a statistic that the Internet was growing at 2300%, which convinced him that it was a large growth opportunity. Without knowing anything more, he plunged into the world of e-commerce with no prior retailing experience. It was his decision to locate the company in Seattle because it had a large pool of technical talent and since it was close to one of the largest book wholesalers located in Rosenburg, Oregon. Moreover, the sales tax laws for online retailers state that one has to charge sales tax in the state in which one is incorporated. Therefore it was logical to locate in a small state. Under his guidance and logical thinking Amazon. com quickly became the leader in e-commerce. Operating 24 hours a day, the site was user-friendly and encouraged browsers to post their own reviews of books and offering discounts, personalized recommendations, and searches for out-of-print books. In June 1998 it began selling CDs, and later that year it added videos. In 1999 Bezos, looking at the future trends, added auctions to the site and invested in other virtual stores. The success of Amazon. com encouraged other retailers, including major book chains, to establish online stores. As more companies battled for Internet dollars, Bezos saw the need to diversify, and by 2005 Amazon. com offered a vast array of products, including consumer electronics, apparel, and hardware. And with the Jeff Bezos vision to make every book ever in print in any language available to the consumer in 60 seconds, Amazon launched the handheld device called Kindle in 2007. Bezos is the quintessential dot-com icon. He proved to the business world that the Internet was about more than knowledge. He proved that it is possible to overcome fears about purchasing online, to drive down transaction costs, and to build an international e-commerce business over the Internet. He had the courage to attempt something that people doubted could be done. . At the age of 35, Jeff Bezos was picked as the 1999 Time person of the year. Describing why it chose Bezos, Time magazine said, â€Å"Bezos’  vision  of the online retailing universe was so complete, his Amazon. om site so elegant and appealing that it became from Day One the point of reference for anyone who had anything to sell online. † Innovation in the Business Model: Amazon survived the dot-com bust because it had a viable and innovative  business model  built around a market-changing customer value proposition and a radical profit formula and over it has been able to sustain its position as the leader in e-commerce by bringing about continuous innovations in its business model. Let us look at some of the different dimensions wherein Amazon. om has been able to bring about business innovation. a) Offerings: By offering a handheld device dedicated to reading, Kindle, Amazon. com revolutionized the books industry. By creating a product like Kindle, the created a perfect, integrated and streamlined customer experience. b) Platform: With Amazon Web Services, Fulfillment By Amazon, and Kindle Direct Publishing, Amazon is creating powerful self-service platforms that allow thousands of people to boldly experiment and accomplish things that would otherwise be impossible or impractical. ) Customers: In 2002 Amazon launched a web services platform and identified a new area of potential growth by finding another new customer—the IT community. Serving this new customer’s needs required different processes, different resources, and a different profit formulaâ€⠀in short, another  new business model. d) Customer Experience: 1-Click combined with Gift-Click and Wish List made Amazon. com the most convenient, easiest-to-use shopping destination the holiday season. Wish List allows customers to post the gifts they’d most like to receive from family and friends, while Gift-Click allows customers to send gifts easily by entering just the e-mail addresses of their recipients. e) Value Capture: By opening up its storefront to other retailers that were essentially competitors, Amazon transformed its business from direct sales to a sales-and-service model, aggregating many sellers under one virtual roof and receiving commissions from the other companies’ sales. ) Supply Chain: Fulfillment by Amazon service (FBA) by Amazon is a classic example of innovating business model through supply chain. FBA allows third party sellers to use Amazon’s large warehouse and distribution network and in the last quarter of 2011, shipped tens of millions of items on behalf of sellers. When sellers use FBA, their items become eligible for Amazon Prime, for Super Saver Shipping, and for Amazon returns processing and customer service. From the above discussion of Amazon’s business strategy, value chain analysis and the success factors we can conclude that Amazon has a robust Business model. Amazon’s business model fends off all the four threats. It has the costly-to-imitate financial and technological resources, it has developed protection against holdup by seamlessly vertically integrating its both the customers i. e. the sellers and the consumers. Reduced slack by locking-in the customers and the sellers and fights substitution through innovation in business model.

Move for Opportunity Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Move for Opportunity - Essay Example The author also talks about the issues that the move for opportunity tends to create and how the moves can create not only physical stress but also a strong element of emotional distress as well. The author has not only focused on the affects of the relocation on the person but has moved a step ahead to also consider the effects of the relocation on the families. The needs of the families and how the attractive relocation packages can seem to be very beneficial yet not be as useful as to be able to provide the families with the best and the life that they need to give up for the package. There has also been noted by experts that these opportunities have proven to be very beneficial for the country as well. At the John Holland Group, HR [Human Resources] manager Darren Nelson agrees. ‘It’s these opportunities that have built both this country and people’s careers.’ He points to Karratha, WA, as the well-publicised focal point for opportunities created by skills shortages and a resources boom. ‘I know people moving here from the east who will have a 110 per cent salary increase.’ The article presented by Fran Cusworth is a very effective article to help people think about the options of relocating their job for the purpose of newer opportunities. This section will deal with an analysis of the article. The article will be analyzed under six main heading. This is as in the sub section below: i) Overall Effectiveness: The author has discussed the article in a advisory fashion to bring up a strong light on the issues as well as benefits of relocation packages that are provided by the recruiters and the relocation specialists. The intended audiences are the individuals due to have relocation and also families of these people. The overall article is straight forward with a very strong tone that has been used. The author has brought about a number of details like the affects of a failed move and how much it could affect the individuals

Online Privacy Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Online Privacy - Research Paper Example Most U.S citizens dont want to be watched while surfing on the Internet or sending text messages to their friends. This essay will argue that the Constitution should protect the privacy of all online users. People, especially the ones who work for the government prefer that privacy continue to be monitored than staying private. It is right that having access to Internet research is strongly useful for police because of criminals that are online users. However, Government should recognize that watching Internet research of US citizens affects their privacy. Firstly because staying anonymous is impossible today, people who want to stay anonymous can’t live in the society. Everything in everyday life requires our personal information. Secondly because some sources of information picked up by the government could be wrong and these mistakes have important impacts on innocent people. And thirdly because online misuse is a breach of the constitution, knowing everything on people thanks to these new technologies is unconstitutional. A lot of technology is being invented and reinvented every day. This is makes technology dynamic which is the major reason as to why the government should prevent invasion on any individual’s privacy (Colbridge, 2012; Price 2012). Individuals have the right to privacy, Kyllo v. United States: technology v. Individual’s privacy, Colbridge, poses the question â€Å"do individuals have an actual expectation that their activities will remain private?† (337). It is from this statement that Calbridge backs it by saying that the fourth amendment expresses that the government should have a search warrant when it does an invasion. When one is online it can be said that he is on a private situation and trying to grasp what he is doing can qualify to be a form of intrusion to privacy. As much as the privacy of online users is permitted the

Gaining a “sense of the arts” through music Essay -- Music, Language

Gaining a â€Å"sense of the arts† through music The arts are forms of personal and social expression. They stimulate imagination, thinking, thinking, and understanding. The arts are fundamental in the development of children, who can feel as well as think, and who are sensitive and creative. In early childhood education children identify and express the feelings and ideas in different forms such as music, dance, drama, and visual arts. This essay highlights the key ideas of how young children between the ages of three to five make sense through art such as music. Furthermore, this essay makes links to early childhood curriculum as a bicultural perspective. It concludes with the role of teachers and adults in providing support during music. Art as music Music is a unique way of making sense of sound. It is also a way of knowing how children see the world, express their views and how they come to know the world. Feeney et al, (2006) emphasises that arts such as music help children to develop their senses and they are essential part of children’s growing up. Listening to music is fundamental to all forms of music-making and musical experience. To hear music is relatively easy, provided no physical barriers exist. However, to listen to music with understanding and comprehension requires repeated exposure and guided learning. The ability to listen with understanding and comprehension enhances all learning activities, and should therefore become an integral part of early childhood learning centres. Developing this ability at such a young age will have long-term benefits for a life-long learning program. Many musical activities require children to wait their turn, listen to each other, hold their instrument still until they h... ...vidually and in groups, provides opportunities for purposeful contributions† (MOE, 1996, p. 96). One of the main responsibilities of teachers is to facilitate creativity and not to limit or extinguish the natural talent of children. For example, as teachers we should move with children, so that they learn to move their bodies to the rhythm of the music. As teachers we should encourage with words such as: â€Å"you are a good singer† Or â€Å"do you like this music?† (Brownlee, 1991). Conclusion It is extremely important for teachers to motivate and encourage children to be involved through the arts. Additionally, teachers should stimulate children’s reflective thinking. Moreover, professional development is extremely important for teachers. Teachers can participate in programs to learn the techniques of an arts-integrated approach to education. (1343 words)

European Airlines 1993-1997 Essay

⇠¨ Back ground and PEST analysis For many years, European Airlines are considered to be feed by the government. Before 1990s, the introduction of deregulation, this market was highly controlled by the government. Automatically, the result is high price as well as poor management and service. Consumers, of course, complained about the bad perform of them. Like most of the state-owned businesses, although some of the airlines intended to lower their price by cost cutting, redundancies and reorganization because of the increasing competition pressure, most of them failed because of the government interfere and strong labor reaction. Back in 1978, Airline deregulation first introduced to Americans. The new act allowed new airlines to come, permitted them to choose lines individually and release the pricing power. Till 1993, the price had decreased about 20%. A highly profitable service, transcontinental long haul flying, had exceeded 35% of the total. There in another one thing needs to mention: U.S. applied aggressive strategy, which is considered illegal in Europe. Refer to the fifteen years innovations in U.S, European politics finally made up their minds to repeal their restrictions in 1993. It is predicted that the European airlines environment might be completely open up in 1997 hopefully. In other words, there is five years for domestic airlines to adjust their strategies. Poter’s 5-force model âž ¢ The extent of competitive rivalry/industry competitors. Considering European market as a whole, the threat comes from airlines of other continents. This refers to those except cross-Europe and domestic routes. If we choose one airline specifically, for example Lufthansa airlines, its competitors most are inside the Europe. (E.g. British Airways, Deutsche BA, Air France, Alitalia etc. Further more, it was also threaten by some new entrants âž ¢ The threat of potential new entrants This involves airlines that ready to enter during this period. Generally speaking, these new entrants are relatively small size but more flexible. It does not have much burden of either the government or labor responds. As a result, they usually have low-cost so that the price might be even half less than the original ones. As a small size of the firm, their service is usually short haul and has constant demand of customers. âž ¢ The bargaining power of buyers This refers to organization/individual who buys the service. They are price/service sensitive. âž ¢ The bargaining power of suppliers Before deregulation the suppliers are disjointed with the airlines. Being centrally controlled by the government, either suppliers or airlines cannot fit efficiently and effectively. However, both sides might be automatically matched after they are release from the control. This will be mentioned later. âž ¢ The threat of substitutes Here means some other transport tools that cause airlines loss their consumers. ⇠¨ Analysis of Strategy Look back to the U.S. strategies. The whole model was set up based on a mass computing network, complex operating technique and pricing system, large investment and continuously attention to cost cutting. However, although this serious of activities are effective and improve the productivity and investment ability, it does not exceed the increasing marketing pressure. Potentially, these tactics might fit for specific European airlines, but not all of them. Except the political factors as I have mentioned before, another problem is that most of the companies operate separately form check-in to maintaining the motor. What they really need is set up a new competitive strategy in order to reorganize the business structure with their core ability.

How Empress Agrippina the Younger Scandalized Rome

Roman Empress Julia Agrippina, also known as Agrippina the Younger, lived from A.D. 15 to 59. The daughter of Germanicus Caesar and Vipsania Agrippina, Julia Agrippina was the sister of Emperor Caligula or Gaius. Her influential family members made Agrippina the Younger a force to be reckoned with, but her life was plagued by controversy and she would die in a scandalous manner as well. Marriage Woes In A.D. 28, Agrippina married Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus. He died in A.D. 40, but before his death, Agrippina bore him a son, the now notorious Emperor Nero. After a short time as a widow, she married her second husband, Gaius Sallustius Crispus Passienus, in A.D. 41, only to be accused of fatally poisoning him eight years later. That same year, A.D. 49, Julia Agrippina married her uncle, Emperor Claudius. The union may not have been the first time Agrippina was involved in an incestuous relationship. She is also rumored to have had sexual relations with Caligula when he served as emperor. Historical sources on Agrippina the Younger include Tacitus, Suetonius, and  Dio Cassius. Historians indicated that Agrippina and Caligula might have been lovers as well as enemies, with Caligula exiling his sister from Rome for allegedly conspiring against him. She wasn’t banished forever but returned to Rome two years later. Thirst for Power It’s unlikely that Julia Agrippina, described as power hungry, married Claudius for love.  A year after they wed, she persuaded Claudius to adopt her son, Nero, as his heir. He agreed, but that proved to be a fatal move. Early historians argued that Agrippina poisoned Claudius. She certainly profited after his death, as it led to Nero, then roughly 16 or 17 years old, assuming power, with Julia Agrippina as regent and Augusta, an honorary title given to women in imperial families to highlight their status and influence. Unexpected Turn of Events Under Nero’s reign, Agrippina did not end up exerting more influence over the Roman Empire. Instead, her power waned. Because of her son’s young age, Agrippina tried to rule on his behalf, but events did not turn out as she’d planned. Nero eventually exiled Agrippina. He is said to have considered his mother overbearing and wanted to distance himself from her. Their relationship grew especially strained when she objected to his romance with his friend’s wife, Poppaea Sabina. His mother also challenged his right to rule, arguing that her stepson Brittanicus was the real heir to the throne, the History Channel notes. Brittanicus later died in mysterious circumstances likely orchestrated by Nero. The young emperor also plotted to kill his mother by arranging for her to board a boat designed to sink, but that ploy failed when Agrippina swam safely back to shore. Still determined to commit matricide, Nero later ordered his mother to be assassinated in her home. Nero would rule Rome until his suicide in A.D. 68. Debauchery and religious persecution characterized his reign.   Sources https://www.britannica.com/biography/Julia-Agrippina http://www.history.com/topics/ancient-history/nero