Air Pollution Essay

1. Introduction The Air- the atmosphere around us play an enormous part in our lives. It provides oxygen and other gases that are essential for the survival of human being and plants. The appearance of it is the only thing that would make the Earth different from other dead-planet. However, in recent year, the technological development has led to over-use harmful toxic; the Air now has been seriously damaged not only in developed countries but also in developing nations like Vietnam. A research has been carried out by EPI shown that the air quality in Vietnam is among top ten most nation (rank 123rd) (Youthnews 2012). The concentration of dust, fumes and other poison gases in metropolis namely Hanoi, HCM city†¦ are at the alarming rate. If there is nothing done about it, Vietnam will soon suffering the consequences. This paper is to give the audience a clearer view of air pollution in Vietnam including reasons, affects and suggesting solutions. 2. Discussion of finding 2.1 Reasons 2.1.2 Motor vehicles There are several causes of air pollution; the vast majority of them can be attributed by man. Many people are unaware of the serious problems they expose to the world by letting such dangerous chemical, vehicles smokes†¦in to the air. As in the big cities; one of the main sources of polluted air is due to motor vehicles (up to 70%). The economic growth in the past ten years reflects in the increasing large number of vehicles. It is undeniable that motorbikes are one of the most common transportation in Vietnam. According to IQ Air newspaper they accounted for 95 percents in total number of transport. Average, each family owns a motorbike and at the end of 2010, the number of motorbike and cars reached at over 30 millions. Cars and other vehicles produce air pollution throughout their life because the use of fossil fuel. Imagine, everyday, in the rush hour, millions of motorbikes letting out emission into the air at the same time. The VNS ( 2007 ) has revealed that in rush hour from 5pm to 7 pm the levels of dust is four time higher than normal. That means tons, millions kilograms of gases, fume, C02, N0x would poison the air and could not be able to clean. On the other hand more and more, over a thousand, new motorbikes finish each day. As a  result there will be more polluted highways, and roads and more congestion. Another striking fact that the World Air Quality Index has indicated Hanoi has the high level of PM2.5 and PM10 which mainly emitted by transports as well as stood at â€Å"Unhealthy â€Å"stage which shown that everybody living in Hanoi would be affected. 2.1.2 Industrial areas Industrial also contributes significantly to the pollution especially for areas near the sources. Although industrialization has helped in technological progress and enhance people living standard but the price we have to pay for this is too huge especially to air pollution. There are 256 large industrial sources from North to South and thousands of other small scale factories around them (Wikipedia 2006). Many of these areas contain small factories with the high levels of indoor pollutant. Factories always linked with manufacturing products and require using all kind of materials in the process. These components after being disposed have to be removed out of the factories. Each years, they released ton of toxic chemicals namely nitrogen dioxide, methane †¦ to the air throughout the chimneys. According to regular statistical investigations. in Vietnam each year there are 30,000 tons of wastes mainly industrial waste and domestic garbage as well as chemical one (Vietnamnet 2013) . Surprisingly that, industrial wastes mostly generated from industrial parks in the northern and southern areas account for 80%. It is said that 50% to 70 % of this wastes can be recycled to make up new energy but actually only 10% of them has been reuse. These amount wastes of waste continue to pollute the environment. 2.2 Health effects Health impact of air pollution depends on the pollutant type, its concentration in the air, length of exposure, other pollutants in the air, and individual susceptibility. Different people are affected by air pollution in different ways. Generally, for young people who in a good state of health, the impacts of air pollution in a short term would not be a serious problem. But a long term access to polluted air can lead to serious symptoms mainly related to lung cancer and cardiovascular systems (heart function and blood circulation) as well as skin and eyes diseases. Dr Nguyen Xuan Nghiem of the National Hospital for Tuberculosis and Lung Disease said  that their facilities were not meeting the demand of patients. He also claimed that the reason is a fall in air quality (VNS 2007). PM 10 which is defined as a collection of very small liquid , solid in the air mostly come from human activity such as burning coal , fossil fuel ..Breathing the air having a high concentration of it can massively damaged your inner organs including strokes brain, low level of oxygen in blood, increase heart rate, asthma. It is announced that 900 deaths each year in New Zealand due to PM 10. The problem is according to an environmental project , Hanoi and HCM city have the amount of it over 20 times to the rule set by WHO ( VNS 2007 ). A research by the Minister of Health indicated that in each 100000 people, 4,100 (4, 1%) has lung cancer and 3,800 has to deal with throats and tonsils problems (Vietnamnet Bridge) However the most vulnerable groups are children, pregnant women, the elderly or housewives who are use biomass fuel for cooking. A research carry Southern California Children’s Health (2013) in over 1000 children between the periods of 10 to 18 year old has shown that those living in the polluted area must deal with a higher risk of underdeveloped lungs. Their lungs only worked as 80% of a normal child that age and might never be fully recover. A further study by Environmental Health Perspectives (2014) indicates that the chances of getting high blood sugar would be twice for pregnant one. High blood sugar during pregnancy might lead to unpredictable consequences for both mother and the baby such as preterm birth and obesity†¦ Researchers produced a test in 2000 women in Boston and find out that the chief culprit is PM 2.5 near their living areas. 3. Conclusion From all the findings above, it is obvious that Vietnam air quality is witnessed a decrease in The past 10 years to now. The level of pollution increase day by day due to the enormous number of transportation and the activities related to industrial areas. This circumstance leads to many impacts as well as deadly diseases on citizen’s health. The government , recently, has been trying to increase their role by indicating some projects to enhance the air quality including building air quality monitoring stations near polluted areas ( VNS 2012 ) in the period of 2016-2020 and 3R ( reduce , reuse , recycle ) . Waste management will help to limited the environment pollution and free a large land areas using for  dumping garbage. Since 2005, Vietnam has enforced the Euro 2 ration for vehicles ‘emission (Pham Oanh 2013). The Prime Minister also delivered a law to controlling the amount of automobiles and cars in cities and province zones. Furthermore, they should improve the public transport to encourage people using them. As a result, fewer motors and cars will reduce the amount of emission. For citizens to protect yourselves and the Air here are some suggestions. For example, when you stop at the red light more than 20 seconds, turn off the engine. It is also recommend wearing mask and glasses to prevent dust and other harmful gases. We all have a responsibility to make sure that we use better practices to deal with air pollution. If there are not any actions taken seriously our lives and our next generation will be greatly threatened. Hopefully in the near future, our air will become fresher and Vietnam economy would continue to be one of Asia’s dragons without hurting the environment.

Physics Viewed As Difficult Subject Education Essay

Chapter 2.02.1 IntroductionPresents, the research workers are concern about the involvement of pupils in larning Physicss, as it is unhappily diminishing. As a research worker semen pedagogues, they would non wish this to go on. So they try to accommodate new manner of instruction and do the schoolroom go more piquant, originative and interacting with the pupils. The research findings are based on literature reappraisal demoing that pupils have troubles on conceptual apprehension in Physics. What are the causes that make pupils dislike Physicss? How is Physics being taught in Brunei Science Education? Furthermore, this subdivision will besides include ways to work out this job, on how teacher need to alter their instructional attack such as improvizing learning manner i.e. be more synergistic in heightening pupils ‘ better apprehension in Physicss with the aid of information and communicating engineering ( ICT ) such as Synergistic simulation. It besides include a reappraisal on how effectual is ICT and synergistic simulation in Physics instruction can be in pupils ‘ apprehension and acquisition. Likewise, attitude of the pupils besides play critical function in their accomplishment of that peculiar topics. Other surveies will besides include on how ICT or synergistic simulation can act upon their attitude towards larning Science will be included. Simulations have been around practically since the coming of computing machines, and research workers have been looking at schoolroom utilizations of simulations for over 20 old ages. We want to see the effectivity of computing machine simulations for back uping scientific discipline instruction and acquisition and foregrounding ways that simulations can be best used to make so. ( Smetana, 2000 ) Computer simulations help the lesson to be more synergistic, reliable, and give meaningful larning chances possible to pupils. Learners can detect, explore, recreate, and have immediate feedback about existent objects, phenomena, and processes that would otherwise be excessively complex, time-consuming, or unsafe. ( Smetana, 2000 ) Even though the computing machine simulations can non replace scientific discipline schoolroom and research lab activities wholly but they offer assorted advantage in footings of pupils originative thought and enquiry accomplishments. ( Sahin, 2006 ) . With the aid of computing machine simulation besides, it can assist explicate the inside informations of what go on in such as atom motions of solid atoms where it truly difficult to visualise in existent life. ( Blake & A ; Scanlon, 2007 )2.2 Brunei Education Systems: SPN21In 2009, instruction system in Brunei had reformed to SPN21 instruction system where the end is to supply holistic instruction for pupil s and to accomplish the fullest potency for all in the close hereafter. Harmonizing to Yussof, ( 2012 ) , cited in SPN21 Curriculum more balanced, 2012, SPN21 provide quality instruction for all to fix the young person for their hereafter grownup functions as capable and originative thought citizens who can lend to society. In add-on to that, Masdi, ( 2008 ) besides emphasized that Science and engineering is important in developing a competitory economic system and prolonging a state ‘s development ( SPN21 to hold new scientific discipline course of study, 2008 ) Harkirat, ( 2006 ) stated that the manner the instructor Teach scientific discipline in Brunei are largely traditional method i.e. chalk and talk. Furthermore, the instructors felt advantageous in learning this manner as this can understate the schoolroom subject as the pupils are busy copying notes from the white board. As a consequences, post accomplishment of this type of learning method shows really small betterment. ( Dhindsa, 2006 ) Surveies made by Pengiran Jadid, ( 2007 ) found out that 185 instructors ‘ learning manner in secondary school turned out to be reasonably traditional i.e. they taught the pupils with auditory and ocular method nevertheless some of the pupils would non preferred this method. ( Bostrom* , 2011 ) . In SPN21 instruction course of study, learning methods need to be alteration to accomplish with the ends. Rahman, ( 2011 ) stated that one of the instructors that join Leadership in Educational Programme ( LEP ) stating that school instructors were told to seek to use new and advanced methods of learning to assist the students cope with the execution of the twenty-first Century National Education System ( SPN21 ) . This encouraged the pupil to transport out their most suited or preferable manner of larning such as researching on the Internet. This will decrease the pupil ‘s dependence on the pedagogues while they learn at their ain comfy pace.A ( Jong, 2011 )2.3 Physics viewed as hard topicHarmonizing Abdul Qadeer Soomro, ( 2011 ) pupils find Physics as one of the debatable countries within the field of scientific discipline. Reason for this is that instructors taught Physics traditional direction. This magnetizes fewer scholars than other field of scientific discipline topics. William ( 2003 ) , province that the major general grounds for happening Physicss uninteresting are that it is seen as hard and irrelevant particularly female pupils. The worsening figure of pupils taking to take Physicss during their farther surveies continues to be a cause for concern for scientific and educational communities around the universe. ( Defty, 2006 ) Students find Physics hard as they have to postulate with different representations such as experiments, expressions and computations, graphs and conceptual account at the same clip. Harmonizing to Redish ( 1994 ) , he explains why pupils describe Physics as hard: Physicss as a subject requires scholars to use a assortment of methods of understanding and to paraphrase from one to the other, covering with tabular arraies of Numberss, graphs, equations, diagrams and maps. Physicss besides requires the ability to utilize algebra and geometry which relate to mathematics topics. This makes larning Physicss peculiarly hard for many pupils particularly those pupils who do non like to job resolution. Muhall, et Al, ( 2001 ) besides added that particularly in electricity and magnetic attraction as instructor find it hard to present this lesson as they barely show what truly traveling on inside a circuit particularly. Electricity is a peculiar job, as it involves highly complex and extremely abstract constructs and therefore wholly dependent on theoretical accounts so that pupils could easy visualise and understand the constructs. In order to make these, ICT can assist teacher in explicating the hard abstract.2.4 ICT in Physics EducationThe rapid alteration in development of Information and Communication Technology ( ICT ) has made important impact in transforming many facets particularly education in general and higher instruction in peculiar. It is besides significantly importance for the instructors to understand the accomplishments and cognition required in utilizing ICT peculiarly in Physics instruction. ICT alteration instructors ‘ function from spoon feeding the inform ation to pupils to ease pupils to research new information. ( Lubis, et al 2011 ) In order to guarantee that pupils are competent in the country of larning engineerings, instructors tend to alter their attitude and present new ICT tools and engineerings into their Physics categories. ( Jarosievitz, n.d. ) Besides that, surveies done by Tasouris, ( 2009 ) , instructors in Cyprus thinks that with the aid of ICT in Physics instruction pupils can research in-depths the hard constructs, motivate pupils and heighten their scientific apprehension by researching the alive images in synergistic simulation for case. ICT besides enhanced active acquisition among the pupils. They can work on existent life jobs in deepnesss and most significantly doing larning less abstract. With ICT besides encourage collaborative acquisition in footings of interaction and cooperation among instructors and pupils. Unlike static-text and print based text books, with ICT pupils can really see what really happens in certain phenomena for illustration motion of inactive charges in stuffs. Quite figure of surveies has stated that technology-rich acquisition environment has a positive impact on pupil acquisition. Surveies conducted by Fraser, B & A ; Aldridge, J, ( 2003 ) which look intoing whether results, focused and ICT rich larning environment promote pupil accomplishment, attitudes towards capable, attitudes to utilize of ICT and academic efficaciousness. They found out that surely technology-rich larning environment has a positive and important consequence on pupil acquisition, attitudes towards capable, attitudes to computing machine usage and academic efficaciousness. With that engineering assisted direction truly helps pupils to develop a conceptual apprehension of abstract representation of physical scientific discipline as it emphasizes simulation, visual image, life, etc. Hence, to heighten pupils ‘ deeper mental imagination ( Fisher, D, 2003 )2.5 Effective instructional attacks: Traditional Teaching Style vs. Interactive SimulationEffective instruction must include two major constituent i.e. teacher directing out information, and pupils receive and exchange feedback. Major job presents is instructors still comfy of utilizing chalk and speak as their instructional attack. This is because they do non hold clip as they were pressured to complete up course of study and continue rapidly to boring alteration. Brunei instruction system is largely assessment based. This influenced the instructor to merely learn and hotfoot to finish the course of study content without even acknowledge whether the pupils really grasp the construct. To avoid this, ICT is introduced as one of the instruction tools that might assist pupils in their acquisition and made instructors ‘ life easier in footings of explicating hard construct in Physics peculiarly. One of the ICT tools that happen to be truly assisting teacher account better is synergistic simulation. Teacher can really utilize synergistic simulation in on-line site for case Phet. Phet stands for Physics instruction engineering, where the instructors from other state come up with synergistic simulation in each topic and portion to other instructor where they can download it and accommodate it to the schoolroom. The suite includes over 50 research-based simulations that span the course of study of introductory Physics every bit good as sample subjects from advanced Physicss and chemical science. ( Perkins, et al. , 2006 ) The synergistic simulation are free and does non necessitate to utilize cyberspace services. This simulations are designed to be extremely synergistic, prosecuting and do unfastened larning environment in the schoolroom that provided alive feedback to the pupils as good. This simulation supply instructor and pupils higly ocular, dynamic representations of Physics constructs. Furthermore, the simulations seek to construct expressed Bridgess between pupils ‘ mundane apprehension of the worl and the implicit in physical rules. For illustrat ion in electrostatic, utilizing simulation as the theoretical account to explicate the inactive charges truly behave if initiation or conductivity bear downing apply to the stuff etc. Alessi & A ; Trollip S.R. , ( 1991 ) defined simulation in instruction as a powerful technique that gave pupils some facet of the universe by retroflexing or copying it. The simulations besides allow pupils to interact with it in a similar mode to the manner they would respond in existent state of affairss. Students besides play an reliable function transporting out complex undertakings with the simulations. Simulation incorporate an engaging and synergistic attack in the schoolroom as it is more towards pupil centred acquisition. This allows the pupil to research, be funny and generate critical thought. It besides helps developing in constructivism as pupils learn by constructing on their anterior apprehension through a series of geographic expeditions. This besides ignites the pupils ‘ involvement in happening out new things in certain subjects. Furthermore, this aid teacher to explicate the microscopic with the designed theoretical account available. Simulation can be used non merely in schoolroom but besides in research lab. Where instructors can utilize it to put up the experiments that are took clip to put up, or even the practical that is really unsafe to make. ( Noah Finkelstein, 2006 ) Figure 1 and figure 2 below are illustrations of synergistic simulation that can be used in the schoolroom. Figure 1: Simulation on Kinematicss and Energy Figure 2: Simulation on Force applied Harmonizing to Bozkurt & A ; Ilik, ( 2010 ) it has been seen that the groups who study with computing machine simulations are more successful than those who study with traditional methods. In add-on, the analysis that has been made sing beliefs of the groups shows that the instruction methods play a function on pupils ‘ beliefs. With the aid of a powerful simulation many of Physics topics which are hard to learn and present can be made simpler and clearer harmonizing to Zacharia & A ; Anderson, ( 2003 ) . In Shirley Pasion Caday research, the survey reveals that there is a important difference between the average pre-test tonss and average post-tests tonss of the experimental group in the trial on scientific discipline constructs. She besides concluded that computing machine simulation experiment is an effectual tool to capture the involvement of pupils toward the acquisition of Physics as a topic. ( Caday, 2004 ) Research workers analyzing the usage of simulations in the schoolroom have reported positive findings overall. Studies done by Kulik, ( 2002 ) computing machine simulations can be effectual in developing content cognition and procedure accomplishments, every bit good as assisting advancing enquiry and conceptual alteration. It besides helps pupil gained understanding and achievement capable countries, for case Physics. Harmonizing to Ajmian & A ; Fatim ( 2007 ) survey, the understanding per centum in the pupils ‘ larning utilizing multimedia oriented package is much higher, and the consequences are promoting. With synergistic simulation it can better pupils ‘ visual image and particularly in assisting pupils to see construction in phenomena and processes that are traditionally ‘invisible ‘ to pupils i.e. a procedure that can non be seen by bare oculus ‘small procedure ‘ i.e. motion of protons or even ‘big procedure ‘ i.e. motion of Eart h as stated by Lindgren & A ; Schwartz, ( 2009 ) . On top of that, with the aid of synergistic simulation it can rectify pupils ‘ misconception in Physics. However, synergistic simulation still can non replace existent research labs as pupils truly necessitate the scientific discipline accomplishment procedure ( psychomotor sphere ) in making the experiments. However, the usage of synergistic simulation gives pupils the thoughts of what to anticipate in existent research lab experiments hence, Choi & A ; Genarro, ( 1987 ) province that simulations work best and effectual if the experiments require cognitive interaction.2.6 Students ‘ attitudes and achievement towards larning PhysicssStudents ‘ attitude is likely to play critical function in any satisfactory account of their public presentation in schools which is suggested by Schunk & A ; Hanson, ( 1985 ) . Harmonizing to Hendrickson, ( 1997 ) , attitudes are the best forecaster for appraisal of pupils ‘ succ ess. One survey had been done in Turkey where they indicate that scheme direction can act upon the attitude towards larning Physics. In Mehmet, ( 2009 ) survey, he provides some grounds which indicates the correlativity of positive-ness of pupils ‘ attitudes towards scientific discipline with instructional scheme in Physics. Equally long as instructor avoided traditional attack in their instruction, this will increase pupils ‘ involvement and more positive towards the topic. It is realized that Physics is non a popular topic among the pupils and is regarded as hard. If the instructor taught in traditional instruction manner, pupils are prone to memorise the expression for tests since they do non follow the Physics constructs in the schoolroom. Therefore, traditional Physics categories frequently result in pupil failures and negative attitudes towards the topic. ( Mehmet Sahin, 2009 ) Ogunlele, W ( 1993 ) in his surveies besides stated that many pupils developed negative attitudes towards Physics acquisition as a consequence of the fact that instructors are unable to fulfill their aspiration or ends or even their wonder in Physics subjects. Another interesting survey done by Onyinye & A ; Okereke, ( 2012 ) their research showed that pupils negative attitude towards Physics were due to, instructors non leting pupils to execute practical separately because of deficient equipment in the research labs in other words non plenty hands-on experience. Students felt that they have lack motive for category battle. ( Erylmaz, 2011 ) . It is good known that negative attitude towards a certain capable makes acquisition or future-learning of the pupils hard. Therefore, Guzel, ( 2004 ) emphasized that developing pupils ‘ positive attitudes towards scientific discipline lessons is the most of import intent of scientific discipline instruction. Most research workers agreed on how attitude of pupils towards certain capable might act upon their ulterior public presentation or accomplishment in their acquisition. The more negative pupils ‘ position or involvement towards the topic, it will do pupils non to execute better in their survey. Fraser, B & A ; Aldridge, J, ( 2003 ) reveal that pupil academic accomplishment is positively correlated to the pupils ‘ perceptual experiences of the acquisition environment.2.7 DrumheadThe literature reappraisal suggested that, with the aid of ICT and synergistic simulation, these can assist to better Science instruction. In which it can assist teacher to explicate abstract things better. Students will understand more, clear out misconception and avoid rote larning finally. Teacher besides bear in head that to integrate utilizations of ICT in pupils larning, non merely utilizing ICT in explicating but allowing the pupils use the ICT in order to research new things and being syner gistic in the schoolroom. This will do the schoolroom more to pupils centred. In the hereafter, hopefully with the appropriate and changeless usage of ICT and synergistic simulation in schools might develop pupils with rich ICT accomplishments in order to carry through state ‘s vision in 2035.

Learning and Development Essay

Strategic activities in organization or at work places are approaches to human resource management that provide a framework to support long term business goals and outcomes, these approaches vary in relation to the business activities itself. Schwab (1980) noted that the growing body of strategic research can be seen in two interrelated ways which are the substantive and measurement streams. The substantive stream refers to studies which emphasizes on the physiology or character of a theoretical relationship between independent and dependent variables while the measurement stream focuses on the outcome of the correlation between the underlying theoretical concept and operationalization itself (Venkatraman and Grant 1986). This academic article tries to look at more of the measurement stream in relation to training, learning and development based on previous academic articles and my own general understanding of how truly these strategic these concepts are or not. Learning training and development are human resource development activities and over time, two factors have influenced these concepts towards being part of the evolutional role of the formulating business strategy which are the centrality of information technology to business success and the sustainable competitive advantage offered by work force expertise (Swanson and Terraco 1995) Critical business issues from new marketing strategies to innovations in production technology are based on, among other factors, the performance capabilities of those expected to use these new work systems, this means that employee expertise itself has been expanded through effective programs of employee development. Therefore activities of human resource development in the work place such as learning training and development have truly been strategic by maintaining the pace with the increasingly sophisticated information and production technologies that continue to diffuse throughout vital industries of the world (swanson and terraco1994). The conceptualization of strategic human resource management as a management system which matches business concerns with human resource activities (Beer et al 1984;miles and snow 1984) have been referred to as a high performance work system(HPWS)(Bercker et al 1196) which is characterized by provision of employee development and training activities in with the business strategy(Aurthur 1994: Huselid 1995; Jackson and Schuler 1995;MacDuffie 1995) for example,selction, development and rewards involves the internal combination of procedures across the hr function. This shows the degree of emphases placed on the link between human resource activities and business need in relation to strategy (Baird and Meshoulam 1988; Lengnick-Hall and Lengnick-Hall 1988; Fisher 1989; Boxall 1992; Mabey and Iles 1993; Schuler 1992).  Successful internal integration of HR activities results in organizational benefits (Becker et al. 1996). This essay of mine attempts to show the link among learning train ing and development as a strategy to organization. Learning and development as an approach of strategy stands for how an organization make sure that the present and future learning and development activities support the achievements of its goals by improving skills and capabilities of individuals and teams.. it should be business directed, this means that it should be designed to help the attainment of business goals by promoting human capital management(Armstrong 2009). Learning can be defined as a means by which a person acquire and develop new knowledge, skills, capabilities, behaviors and attitudes† Armstrong 2011 pg 664. Honey and Mumford noted explained learning happens when people show that they know they didn’t prior to the time they are now. The enhancement of capabilities previously had which leads to skills, knowledge and attitudes through a continual process that tends to prepare people for more responsibities in the future is the act of learning. Estherby-smith et al (2000) agreed to the fact that there is a debate whether learning should be defined as change in cognition or behaviors, thus showing that researchers would agree with defining learning as a change in organizations knowledge and is a fuction of experience. Learning and development as a strategy is concerned with creating a learning culture that will encourage learning and will provide a basis for planning and implementing learning activities and programmes(Armstrong 2011) this means that for an organization to use the concept of learning as a strategy is has to imbibe the learning culture which is one that learning that is practiced from top management, line managers and employees generally as an essential way of doing things in the firm which they commit to and continuously done. A learning organization was deined by senge(1990) as one where people learn together, where collective aspiration is set free, where there is nuturinng of expansive pattern of thinking and they continuously enlarge their capabilities to create outcomes they truly desire. I have previously mentioned development with learning because both of the them are related when one think about it generally but would like to define it now in the next paragraph. i would be explaining learning and developments together as being strategic. Development can be defined as concerned withensuring that a perons ability and potential are grown and raised in the process of learning experiences or through self directed learning. Development is the end product of true learning which can be seen through changes in outcome of pre and post learning activities i. e the change from the present state of understanding and capabilitiy to a new and higher level of knowledge, skills and abilities. These processes of learning and developments wouldnot take place not to now talk of being strategic without individuals in the organization, this means that individual members are the organism through which organizational learning and development take place. The knowledge embedded in that or those individuals have to be reposited to other people in the firm to gain competitive advantage which is the whole reason for the strategy in itself which are affected by the following factors explained by Argote(2011). Firstly, the experience of the organization affects the organizational learning,this done not by characterizing experience at a gross level , but taking a fine grained approach to describing or noting its elements along with various dimensions( Argote et al 2002). the purpose of taking this approach is to be be able to tell when experience is positive or negative in relation to the processes and outcomes in order to be able to explain relationships amongst the types of experience and to design the learning experience in order to be strategic about the learning. Secondly is the process of organizational learning itself, which is conceived as having three processes: creating, retaining and transferring knowledge. Not much research has been done on creation unlike knowledge retention and transfer. Empirical research over at least the last twenty years that there would be significant difference innovative capabilities of a firm and its knowledge through it transfers within the firm (easterby et all 2008) this is key to the success of the ensuring of the strategy of the firm. This depends on characteristics of the individual that has the knowledge, recipient, attributes of the knowledge and the knowledge transfer process itself as an mportant factor to developing learning capabilities which lead to competitive advantage of the firm (Grant 1996) Another factor is the that could lad to learning being a succes is thr stratetic management it self,peopke whoput these learning and development strategy into place itself. Dynamic capabilities which is an example of strategic management are impotant concepts in relation to organisational learning and its sub process. ‘a greater understanding of how dynamic capabilities develop through organizational learning is needed† Argate 2011 pg Contextuality is also another factor that affects learning which is characterized by the situation and envitonment in which the company finds it self. Oragnisational learniong can do well in an environment which its stability varies with time or turbulent (herdberg 981) little inducement of learning occurs in an environment that’s stable while in a too turbulent environment, the organisation would not be able to interpret environmental responses(bierly and hamalainen 1995) if care is not taken,learning under ambiguity may occur which march and olsen 1975 defined as a situation where the environment is unanalysable and the learning cyle still continues and percieved as an interpretation or meaning. â€Å" Knowledge capabilities are at the heart of the effectiveness of organizations. Since the market and competitive environment of all companies is rapidly changing, the value of existing capabilities will quickly decay, resulting in a lack of competitiveness. It is imperative for organizations to focus on developing their knowledge capabilities on an ongoing basis, or they will face extinction. Organizational development must be centered on the continual enhancement of knowledge capabilities, as the foundation of organizational effectiveness in all fields† Dawson 2000. Armstrong(2009) identified the following elements needed for learning and development to be really strategic and they go follows: it should make a major contribution to the successful attainment of the organizations objective and investments: it should be integrated with and support the achievement of business and human resource strategies: it should be designed un such a way that it would achieve improvement in corporate functional and maximum development in skills and knowledge of people in the organization; equal opportunity for everyone in the organization to develop their skills and knowledge while attaining personal development through the framework of individual and self directed learning but still maintain the primary knowledge of knowing that this is dependent on the employee themselves who be guided and supported by their manager as necessary with the members of the hr department.

Leadership Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Leadership - Essay Example This is contested by Andersen (2006) who wrote that traits alone are not enough for effective leadership and they are only prerequisite. Traits only provide people with the potential for leadership. Goleman (2008) hypothesized that great leaders are naturally inclined to show interest in others and bring about positive feelings from these people. This then allows a strong show of support. He further mentioned that learning and practice on desirable leadership style can lead to enhanced performance of a potential leader. Thus, the Great Man Theory only explains a part of a successful leader. There are various factors that influence the development of a good leader (Goleman 2008). Cawthon (1996) stated that most important leadership capabilities and proficiencies can be learned and people can be educated along these as long as there is desire to learn and there are no apparent obstacles to learning such as a learning disorder. When studying the several circumstances that play an import ant role in the lives of the great leaders, it seems hard to believe that only inherent traits contributed to their success. There are too many variables that are considered to make effective leaders. The possession of certain inherent traits does not guarantee the success of leadership. Additionally, any leadership style can be successful as long as it recognizes the path to success. Strong leadership capability goes further than genetic inheritance. House and Mitchell (1974) proposed that successful leaders have the capacity to persuade and motivate others to willingly increase their efforts to contribute to the organisation. They further stated that this can be achieved through a leader’s inimitable focus toward fulfilling the needs of their associates by providing the needed training, supervision and support. These motivate followers toward higher levels of performance. Researchers often take on the assumption that leadership comes inherently with individuals, that some o f them .possess a set of inherent traits that enable them to be recognized as great leaders. For many years, this assumption led social scientists to focus only on these traits. However, because of inconsistency in the results research, the trait theory was discarded in favor of the theory that leadership development does not espouse inherent leadership traits but only leadership styles or behaviors that may be developed and changed completely from one setting to another. There is also the notion that a person who is a leader in one setting may be a follower in another in the same way that traits which are practical in one situation may not be helpful in others. Thus, leaders are not born with any specific traits that determine effective leadership (Howard & Wilson, 1982). Even without inherent traits, a person can be an effective leader as long as he can adapt to the unique demands of ever changing organisations. According to Howard and Wilson (1982), leaders must have the aspirati on to lead. In order to be effective, a person must want to lead. However, even if a person has the ability and education to lead but has no enthusiasm, success will most likely not be achieved. History has presented the crucial roles that leaders and leadership play in the success of an organisation – these can be in the context of business ventures, educational settings and

Answer the questions after read articles (Life Science) Article

Answer the questions after read articles (Life Science) - Article Example Based on these the basic organization of life was classified under 5 major divisions namely: Animalia, Plantea, Fungi, Protista and Monera. With the advent of new technologies and fossil records many scientists believe that kingdom Protista and Fungi cannot constitute a separate lineage as higher classes of organisms are believed to have evolved from these unicellular eukaryotes. Additionally the kingdom Monera which includes the prokaryotic life forms cannot be classified along with the others as there is a primary distinction between prokaryotes and the other eukaryotic organisms. The advent of sequencing has made the molecular sequences accessible which has in turn fuelled the need for a more formal taxonomical classification using the available molecular data. Hence these scientific breakthroughs have called for a new hierarchical system of classification. Archeabacteria resemble eubacteria more closely on a molecular level. The evolution of photosynthetic eubacteria along with archea and possibly eukaryotes dates back to 3 to 4 billion years ago. Archeabacteria resemble prokaryotes in their cell cytology but on the molecular level they resemble eubacteria. However, with the exception of some differences the archeabacterial molecules bear a close resemblance to the eukaryotic counterparts. The Bt gene discovered from the organism Bacillus thuringiensis, has the ability to destroy corn borers such as caterpillars by damaging their guts. Hence this gene was isolated from the bacterium and introduced into corn. Other similar genetically modified foods include tomatoes, rice and potatoes. The monarch caterpillar eats leaves of milkweed which is present in roadsides and edges of fields. The present study revealed that these caterpillars died after munching the milkweed leaves which contained Bt corn pollen. However, in California the government has passed laws to protect the habitat of these monarch caterpillars due to the increasing threats

Insure your life Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Insure your life - Essay Example In this paper, importance of education will be discussed by comparing the lifestyle of two guys one of whom studies and the other runs away from studies. Two guys grew up together in the same neighborhood. One of them had a fight in school and he went to jail because of it. He completed studying his middle school in the jail. After two years, he came out of the jail. He tried to continue his high school but was not given admission because of his certificate from the jail. He got a job as a car cleaner for a while. Later, he got a better job as a driver. He worked hard and was improving. Now he has contract as a Director in Government’s Relations department in one of the biggest contract companies and is getting a very good salary. He got married and had children, but the children feel guilty because their father lacks good skills. Now his life is in risk since he has no certificate and the contract will expire one day. The other guy finished his high school in Saudi Arabia and went to the United States to complete his university. He had a hard time at the beginning because of the new culture. He faced troubles like Ashley Wagner who was also fearing because of studying in unfamiliar school (Wagner 317). He also had to learn a new language. He spent his time at the library and asked other students for help if he did not understand anything. He studied hard and got good grades in school. He went back to Saudi Arabia with full happiness. He made his family proud of him. He wasn’t happy that he left his friends in the United States. He got a job for the Saudi government with special offers like free house, car, gas, health insurance, best salary. He got married to a beautiful woman and got kids. Every vacation, he goes back to the U.S to show his kids his university and tells them that he will send them to study there so that they become like him. He has the best job. He is working. In the start, the first guy ran away from studies and spent time play ing with friends and wasting time in video games but the second guy studied hard and used all his time in studies. The way they spent time before is now affecting their lifestyles. â€Å"Years from now, when all the junk [first guy] got is broken and long forgotten, [second guy will] still have your stars† (Walls 41). The difference between them is that who has degree has comfortable lifestyle but the other one is nervous, stressed and has put himself and his family in the risk. In my personal opinion, the second guy bought insurance for his complete life by working hard in his childhood. He not only kept his parents, teachers, brothers and sisters happy when he was little, he is also keeping his wife, sons and daughters happy now. All the time, he kept people happy by studying but the first guy always teased his parents. His parents did not like him because he wasted time and went to jail. Then, he was not given admission because of his jail certificate. This was big failure and very embarrassing. After that, he was looking for jobs and everybody was saying no to him. Now he has a job but the contract will expire. What will he do after that? Maybe he will ask his parents for money again like a child. After comparing the life of both guys, I conclude that to live a happy good life always, you have to work hard, get a degree and do the job. It is good to go outside your country to study because of good university. After studying, one can get a very good job, get married and live a very good life

Islamcis Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Islamcis - Essay Example In this section Edward Said highlights that west considers the orient as a place out of historical evolution. He points out that westerners portray India or Egypt in the same way today as they did one fifty years back as if societies here are static while west is progressing. He further points out that west created an image of east which was based upon colonial mindset in which they showed east as a mystic, ancient and non-progressive society and this attitude is prevalent in all sections of society may it be literature, science or social norms. In this section Edward Said furthers the debate with a sustained argument that history of imperial conquest is at the back of Orientalism. He explains that British and French rules the colonies for a long time and they only developed that much understanding of these societies as was required to rule over them and a human approach to understand the locals was never made. He further explains that this imperialism is not only material but also ideological in form and traces the seeds of ideological imperialism at Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt in 1789. He also stresses that American Imperialism is different from the British or French on account of two factors; Americans imperialism is indirect whereas British and French ruled thee societies directly and American Imperialism is more politicized because of the presence of Israel in the region. Section four of the movie elaborates American Imperialism in deeper details. Here, Said argues that the way Islam is projected in western media is a big problem. Muslims are shown as villains in movies, cartoon and news media and a sense is created that somehow they have to be crushed. He argues that terrorism is only one factor but US has practically sanctioned Anti Arab Racism and situation has only deteriorated in recent decades. He also refers to his book covering Islam and points

Mid term exam essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Mid term exam - Essay Example I have never had the opportunity, or the confidence, to try my hand at creative writing. In fact, the idea of becoming a writer never crossed my mind. I held the view that ‘Writing is very difficult’ and is suitable only for very gifted, clever persons. I started learning English only in the seventh grade. Unfortunately, English remained a difficult foreign language to be studied at school, and I did not do any reading outside of my classes. I completed High School in Saudi Arabia without doing any additional reading in English. On my arrival in the United States as a baccalaureate student, I was fully occupied with making adjustments to a strange country and culture. As I started my study of Respiratory Therapy at the University of Indianapolis, I was completely focused on meeting my academic requirements and did not do any reading. It is my good fortune that English 102 is a part of my course. English 102 has rekindled my interest in reading. I am totally surprised at the variety of books available in English. There is something to suit the taste of every individual. I realize that, to this point of my life, I have made the mistake of ignoring any reading or writing which did not fall into my academic syllabus. I have been introduced to poems and stories which have opened a new world for me. I consider it a success that I am beginning to understand and deeply enjoy reading stories and poems in English. The delight I get is definitely worth the effort. I am also slowly beginning to think that I can also try to write! Of course, I realize that this is going to be a very slow process, as I have a long way to go in mastering the English language. But I am developing the confidence that I can read and write good English. The piece of short fiction which has kindled a genuine delight in English literature in me is Ernest Hemingway’s story, â€Å"Hills Like White Elephants.† I am

New House Decision Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

New House Decision - Essay Example This paper will assess the consequences brought about by economics on every major decision we made. Furthermore, this will show the important things to be considered in buying a house with a purpose of helping anyone who is in the quest of deciding to purchase one. Economic Principles The first thing to be accounted for is the opportunity cost. McConnell & Brue (2005) defined opportunity cost simply as the value of the forgone opportunity to obtain something else when coming up to a decision. Opportunity costs include the possible gains from investing the same amount of money in a business or stock market instead of using it to pay for the down payment (Derrick, 2009). To obtain a house would mean foregoing the chance of earning interest from a possible investment using the same money. It would also mean foregoing the opportunity of going to a postgraduate program or a doctorate one. There were actually several things one forgoes in deciding to buy a new house. Another thing to consi der is the tradeoffs, from which opportunity cost arises. According to McConnell & Brue (2005), trade off is when you give up one thing to attain more of something else. It is more likely the same with the opportunity cost. The difference is that trade off is the decision itself while opportunity cost concerns the value of the thing given up. In decision making, most of the time, one has to choose an option rationally. In the case, one either has to choose between buying a house or not. If one will opt to purchase a house, his ability to buy another good declines. For example, if one chooses to get the house located near to his or her office, a part of the savings will be lost which could intently be used in buying clothes. So, she will buy fewer clothes, or worse, she will not buy anymore since the same amount of money was used to get the house. Another example would be the same amount used to buy a house could be spent in sending a child to a prestigious school. To others, purchas ing a house would mean sacrificing the education of their children. To arrive at a decision, one has to consider the benefits over the costs. Since buying a house is a life-changing decision, one must think of it carefully. Purchasing a house offers the soon-to-be homeowner long-term financial-related benefits like tax savings. Some people even agreed that it’s the best investment to make. Quealy & Tse (2010) said that â€Å"property taxes, the interest part of the mortgage payment, and in some cases, a portion of the common charges, are tax deductible.† Basically, homeowners can deduct mortgage interest, points or the charges by the mortgage lender, equity loan interest of up to $100, 000, home improvement loan interest, mortgage tax credit, and real estate tax or often called as property taxes. Mortgage interest deduction can be the largest among all other deductibles since one can deduct up to $1 million. When one takes a loan for major house improvement, he or she can deduct the interest payment without any limit, provided that the said improvement adds value to the house. To sum it all, it will be a huge tax savings. However, these tax deductibles can only be claimed if deductions are itemized rather than standard deduction. Another incentive a homeowner can get is that the values of real estates, over the years, have appreciated. Along with this is the fact that the value of the house appreciates. The costs to be incurred in purchasing,

Tax Havens or Offshore Financial Centre Research Proposal

Tax Havens or Offshore Financial Centre - Research Proposal Example You can have tax havens that charge virtually no tax at all or which just charge annual administrative sums of money for companies using its shores as a base for their operations, and you can have nations that simply charge a lower rate of taxation than competitor havens". (Barber, 2006) Recently some countries have emerged as evident tax havens and are attracting hefty capital inflow. Singapore, Hong-Kong, Barbdos etc are only a few to name. "In Asia, offshore interbank markets began to develop after 1968 when Singapore launched the Asian Dollar Market (ADM) and introduced the Asian Currency Units (ACUs). The ADM was an alternative to the London euro-dollar market, and the ACU rule enabled mainly foreign banks to engage in international transactions under a favorable tax and regulatory environment" (International Monetary Fund, 2000) Similarly in Europe, Luxembourg attracted investors from Germany, France and Belgium in the early 1970s (IMF, 2000) due to its low income tax rates, the lack of withholding taxes for nonresidents on interest and dividend income, and banking secrecy rules. On the same ground The Channel Islands and the Isle of Man provided very similar opportunities. Moreover Bahrain began to serve as a collection center for the region's oil surpluses during the mid 1970s, after passing banking laws and providing tax incentives to facilitate the incorporation of offshore banks. In the Western Hemisphere, the Bahamas and later the Cayman Islands provided similar facilities. Following this initial success by other countries, a number of other small countries tried to attract this business. Many had little success, because they were unable to offer any advantage over the more established centers. This did, however, lead some late arrivals to appeal to the less legitimate side of the business. "By the end of the 1990s, the attractions of offshore banking seemed to be changing for the financial institutions of industrial countries as reserve requirements, interest rate controls and capital controls diminished in importance, while tax advantages remain powerful. Also, some major industrial countries began to make similar incentives available on their home territory. For example, the U.S. established in 1981, in major U.S. cities, the so-called International Banking Facilities (IBFs). Later, Japan allowed the creation of the Japanese Offshore Market (JOM) with similar characteristics. At the same time, supervisory authorities, and to some extent tax authorities were adopting the principle of consolidation which reduced the incentives for banks to carry on business outside their principal jurisdiction. As a result, the relative advantage of OFCs for conventional banking has become less attractive to industrial countries, although the tax advantages for asset management appear to have grown in importance. In fact, reported bank intermediation on the balance sheet in IFCs has declined over the period 1992-1999, thus contributing to the overall decline in the share of bank cross-border assets intermediated through OFCs from 56 percent of total bank cross-border

Homework Wk 2 FIN444 Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Homework Wk 2 FIN444 - Assignment Example The website also contains articles and blogs that an interested party can find the information they require regarding the industry. It is also a platform where different insurance companies can prospect for business through featured products and price quotes to lure customers. What is interesting about this site is that it has information that anyone seeking to know about the industry can get. This may include students, industry competitors and customers to name but a few. In future I can use the website for different reasons which might include but not limited to seeking of an insurance product, investment in the industry and learning information lawyers.com is a website on legal matters. It contains information about the law profession for those practicing and for the potential clients seeking representation. It is divided into different categories where clients and those in the legal profession can easily navigate to get information that might be of use to them. Those who might be seeking legal representation can get one and lawyers find clients when they are featured. An individual seeking clarity on a certain legal question can post a query and get a response. The website also contains legal documents on different matters of interest to different people seeking them for this or the other reason. In future I can use the website to get information I might require for the various different reasons from the blogs, articles and through queries. I can get important legal knowledge on matters touching on different aspects of my life and situations. This is because ignorance is no defense in law. There are seven main general principles of insurance. Among them is the principle of insurable interest. Insurable interest is found when a person who taking the insurance gets financial or other kind of benefit from the use or existence of the object that was insured. In this case if it is a person, their continued

International Game Technology IGT Essay Example for Free

International Game Technology IGT Essay International Game Technology (IGT) Introduction            The short term and long-term debt for International Game Technology as at 31st March 2014 stand at $ 1,426,400 and $ 1,760,500 respectively. The total liabilities for the company sum up to 3,186,900. This information is generated from the company quarterly report. The market value of equity of IGT is $ 3.98B and the outstanding share is $ 24M.            The debt ratio helps a company compare its total debt to total liability and equity. This ratio is used by the company to have the general notion as to the value of leverage being applied by a company. A lower value implies that the business is less reliable on borrowed funds. The less the ratio or leverage the business is applying, the stronger is the equity position of the company (Tamari, 1978). On the other hand, the bigger the ratio the higher the risk the business considered to have invested on. Debt to equity ratio is less the same as debt ratio. This is another gearing ratio that compares the business liabilities to its outstanding shareholders’ equity (Tamari, 1978). The same case with debt ratio, a lower value implies that the business is applying less borrowed fund and the better is its equity stand.            Therefore, in both case I consider these ratios too large for the IGT Company. It implies that the company is highly exposed to risk such as creditors’ lack of confidence with the company and increase in interest rates. IGT Company should consider paying off its debt. It can raise capital for paying debt by issuing more stock.            Among the three companies, IGT Company has the highest debt to equity ratio. The company may have opted for this approach in order to benefit from deductible interest tax and build the credit for the business. This approach will also ensure maintaining completely ownership of the company. The challenges with issuing large amount of stock means those shares outstanding of the company become more diluted and the current investors earn smaller ownership fraction with every extra share issued (Wiehle, 2005).            On the other hand, Multimedia Games Holdings has the lowest debt to equity ratio. It might have opted for this option in order to enables it investors raise capital without facing debt. This will allow the company owners to concentrate on making their outputs more profitable instead of paying back to lenders. Multimedia Games Holdings may have also opted for this approach to allow the company owners and investors to create a long-term association throughout the lifetime of the business. According to Wiehle (2005), the cash flow for the company will be utilized on investments instead of paying interest and outstanding debts. Moreover, this compare can be termed as a small company if you compare it with the other two companies; hence, it might have opted for this method for the fear that it will face liquidity issues and fail to pay its outstanding debts (Wiehle, 2005). References Tamari, M. (1978). Financial ratios: analysis and prediction. London: P. Elek. Wiehle, U. (2005). 100 IFRS financial ratios (1. ed.). Wiesbaden: Cometis AG. Source document

Development Of Psychological Thoughts In The Philippines

Development Of Psychological Thoughts In The Philippines It started during the 1980s. In the context of Philippine colonial education, Filipinos believe that scientific psychology came from the West. Murray Bartlett, an American established undergraduate psychology courses in the College of Education, University of the Philippines. American textbooks and English language were used as the medium of instruction. The good thing here is that literary writing was in Filipino language that was in dominance. Francis Burton Harrisons policy of attraction was also introduced during this time.  [1]   The works of del Pilar, Jacinto and Pardo de Tavera were rich sources of psychological theories even though they were propagandists and not psychologists. Even Gen. Emilio Aguinaldo mentioned the term Psicologos del verbo Tagalog in his speech. They were not title holders in Psychology but they still have this innate nature. The English language and the American system of Education were the instruments used. During the twenties American psychology teachers were replaced by Filipinos.  [2]   The Philippine objection to uncritical importation of Americans Psychological models challenged some of the Filipinos. The first attempt was done by Sinsiforo Padilla who took over from Alonzos position as a chairman at the University of the Philippines. Nevertheless, it was his colleague Manuel Carreon who took the cudgels for appropriate relevant psychological testing. 1926 he published in New York his Ph.D. entitled the Philippine Studies in Mental Measurement. The arguments he presented was valid but the his wrong move was he published it in English. Nobody listened to him because during that time most of psychologists were ahead and they administered American tests. Some understood part of Carreons message were modified to fit the Philippine context. change-apples-to-bananas  [3]   Isidoro Panlasigui identified the new culture of Psychology. The third generation of American brainwashed Filipino psychologists like Panlasigui. Due to this, Panlasigui admires America and it was clearly showed when he wrote about the psychology of the Filipino as he fought for the colonial language to be used. Alfredo V. Lagmay and his colleagues were sent to the United States not to neutralize the department. Lagmay studied Psychology in Harvard where he was trained in the area of Experimental Psychology. He came back to the Philippines during the poor unrest under Hukbalahap with Luis Taruc, as the head. During that time, the Department of Psychology in the University of the Philippines was part of the College of Education. It was then Lagmays first move to transfer it to the College of Liberal Arts by changing the educational point of view to a more scientific basis of orientation. Experimental Psychology is now an integral part of the undergraduate curriculum in Philippine schools and it was because of him. The U.P Department of Psychology was perceived as behavioral orientation form the 50s up to early 70s. His students continued some remarkable and significant studies in the field.  [4]   The History and Lines of Filiations in Philippine Psychological Thought Psychology-Academic This aspect of psychology became part of university curriculum under Francisco Benitez during 1922. It was first taught in the University of the Philippines as a part of the education curriculum. This is the period wherein several studies in psychology such as Experimental Psychology, Educational Psychology and Psychology of Advice Giving were introduced. It was said that the Western Psychology first entered the UP system but it was spread widely in UST (University of Sto. Tomas) and University of San Carlos in Cebu. During the year of 1954, Joseph Goertz established the Department of Psychology and used English as the medium of teaching. On the other hand, in the midst of its growth in Manila this discipline was also introduced as a course in the University of St. Louis in Cordillera. It was facilitated by Fr. Evarist Louis a missionary priest.  [5]   Psychology-Academic Philosophy However, Psychology-Academic Philosophy was established first at University of Sto. Tomas by Spaniards and improved by the Jesuits. This aspect was older than the aspect mentioned before. It started and founded in many universities like UST (University of Sto. Tomas) and other Spanish institutions like San Ignacio and San Jose. In such institutions the medical and philosophy courses started. The ideas and written records on that time were seen to be related to Psychology. In a deeper analysis those can contain the way of life before. It includes the language , how the indio perceive the concept of self ,its criticisms and the activities of the ancient civilization. Ethnic Psychology The third aspect of Psychology known as Ethnic Psychology. It originates from the Filipinos and through the influence of other countries. It is not only older but also much complicated compared to the previous aspects. It has many strands to be entangled and one of those is the psychology that came from the Filipinos themselves. An indigenous psychology that is owned or influenced by other countries. The language is a cone attributing factor especially those activities that can show the collective experiences of Filipinos. The works of Jose Rizal and Isabelo de los Reyes were consisted of Filipino Psychology and it was greatly connected to the Psycho- Medical Psychology of our forefathers.  [6]   Social Psychology The study of Social Psychology is defined as a systematic study of the nature and causes of human social behavior. Primarily, its concern is about human social behavior. It includes a lot of matters regarding the individuals impact on other people, the processes of social interaction and the relationship that exist between individuals in the society. It is not just concerned with the nature of social behavior but also with its causes. The study seeks to unravel the reasons and pre conditions of social behavior. It also depicts the analysis of social behavior in a dynamic way. It relies on methodologies, findings, experiments and surveys. In asking what the study is all about its 4 main concerns were also considered as a means of knowing it clearly. Basically it is about the impact that one individual has on another, the impact that a group has on its members then vice versa and the impact of a group to another group.  [7]   In the context of the discipline in a working definition. Psychologists focus their attention in understanding the behavior of individuals within the context of society. It is primarily concerned with the understanding of the how and why individuals behave, think and feel as the way they do. In dealing with behavior we mean feelings and thoughts as well as overt actions.  [8]   Consequently, it is defined as a scientific study of how a persons behavior, thoughts and feelings are influenced by several factors that can be real or imagined in the form or the presence of others. The field looks at behavior and mental processes including the social world in which we exist, as we are surrounded by other whom we are connected and by whom we are influenced in so many ways. It focuses on influence.  [9]   The definition of Social Psychology in the Filipino context was explained through the interview that I have conducted. According to Ms. Leslee Natividad from the Department of Social Sciences, University of the Philippines, Los BaĠos ,when I asked her what is the role of Filipino Social Psychology in the deeper understanding of Filipino behavior? She gave me a definition to answer the question . First we have to define first what Social Psychology is soà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Social Psychology is the study of how individuals affect the society and how the society is affecting the individual .If were going to relate Filipino into that on how the Filipino is affected by the society that we have here in the Philippines and maybe in the world in general. Now the world and the Philippine society affect the Filipino individual. As a person, everything that we are experiencing around us. Things that we are seeing, things that we are hearing, things that are affecting each and every moment of our lives that is part of Filipino Social Psychology. All of our behavior is shaped by the kinds of experiences that we have.  [10]   3 Main Areas of Social Psychology Social Influence It is the way in which other people affect our behavior. It is a process through which the presence of others can directly or indirectly influence an individual. These are ways in which other people affect our behaviors through thoughts and actions. How we are raised by certain people to whom we interact can affect our behavior. It varies with Conformity, Compliance and Obedience. Conformity which pertains to the changing of ones own behavior to more closely match the actions of others, Several studies suggest that individuals will change their behavior to conform to those of the group. They can be influence by private vs. face-to-face contact Plus, the gender and culture. Compliance is the act of changing their behavior due to another person or group asking them to change. Particularly, it happened when there is absence of authority and power. Obedience is also a way of changing behavior at a direct order of an authority figure. Social Cognition It is defined as the ways how people thinks about other people and how they act toward other individuals. It varies because of attitudes which consist of the way a person feels and thinks as well a person behaves. Impression formation is also a part of cognition which is forming the first knowledge or judgment about a person seen for the first time. Attribution is the process of explaining self behavior or others. They use this to make sense of the social world through mental processes.  [11]   What was once called the objective world is a sort of Rorschach ink blot, into which each culture, lack system of science and religion, each type of personality, reads a meaning only remotely derived from the shape and color of the blot itself.In this aspect of judgment of are beauty are based on the way we think about things. There is no universal concept or characteristics of people and object that are beautiful for them. Whatever we see around us is as much the sum total or our biases, thoughts and feelings as it reflects what physically exist. Those perceptions are active process of selecting, organizing and interpreting various bits of information so that we can create our reality.  [12]   Social Interaction It is a way of knowing the positive and negative aspects of behavior. It is the area of Social Psychology which involves interaction and relationship between people. It includes prejudice which happens when an individual holds an unsupported and negative attitude towards other members of the society. It also varies with discrimination as treating people differently because of prejudice. Liking and loving, aggression were also developed here.  [13]   The liking and loving in our society known as interpersonal attraction is widely observed. Each one of us is attracted to some personalities in our society. It can be influenced and proved by the similarities, position, physical appearance and familiarity of both sexes  [14]  . The nature of aggression involves hurting others. It has been defined as any form of behavior directed towards the goal of harming or injuring another living being who is motivated to avoid such treatment. (Baron and Richardson, 1993) According to psychologists they have identified three types of aggression. Firstly, is the Person-oriented aggression wherein the main goal is intentionally hurt someone. Secondly, is Pro active aggression when an aggressive behavior is done to achieve some desired outcome like gaining possession of an object. Lastly, is Reactive aggression is the reaction of an individual to an aggressive act.  [15]   In a positive way one of the best examples of pro social behavior is Altruism. It is a helping behavior that is costly to an altruistic person. It is a desire to help even there is no possible reward. It is always expected to depend on empathy. Empathy is the ability to share emotions and understand another person.  [16]   Projects of Filipino Psychology The first project is to develop indigenous psychological concepts. Ethnic concepts and theories can be translated into another language but deviations in meaning will occur especially with respect to location. There were some concepts that Filipinos exhibited and some foreign researchers tried to analyze and study. The first was the concept of Shame or Hiya which was studied by Frank Lynch in 1961. Sibley during the 1965 analyze this behavior. During 1981 Salazar studied it thoroughly and said that it was a complete societal feeling that is not only passive but also active. He showed the external aspects hiyain, ikahiya at manghiya and also the internal aspect that involves the feelings and emotions like the act of kahiya hiya and mahiyain. The second concept was Fatalism or Bahala Na. Bostrom in 1968 was the first psychologist that become inquisitive about this Filipino behavior. He compared it with American Fatalism but in Filipino Psychology it has a different orientation. Before , Osias explained way back the 1940s that bahala na attitude is the combination of fatalism and determinism. On the other hand Lagmay corrected it and said that for him it is not about fatalism it is more of determination and courage to face unguaranteed times. Lastly, is the concept of Utang na Loob which was translated by Charles Kaut into English known as debt of gratitude. Enriquez disagreed and Holnsteiner gave his opinion that utang na loob is contractual.  [17]   The second project is utilization of indigenous research methods. The role of Santiago and Enriquez in building a concept of Filipino oriented research was very important. They suggested a model to be used in research. The model will serve as a guide of researchers of indigenous ways. It was divided into two scales. First is used in knowing the idea and diwa of an member of a society. It includes Pagmamasid, Pakikiramdam, Pagtatanung- tanong, Pasubok, Pagdalaw dalaw, Pagmamatyag, Pagsubaybay, Pakikialam at Pakikilahok. The other scale is for the researchers to know what will be the future or end of their study. They use several stages such as Pakikitungo, Pakikisama, Pakikisalamuha, Pakikibagay ,Pakikisangkot at Pakikiisa The third project is to create an authentic and appropriate social scientific psychology. In the deeper analysis of constructing a real version of social psychology social behavior is a must. The society of Filipinos revolves smoothly because of their Pakikisama and Pakikipagkapwa. In dealing with both concepts it has been discovered that between the two pakikipagkapwa is more important for Filipinos. It has a more deeper sense and implication. It means treating other people as fellow man. In English the context was changed. The word other perceiving the self and other self in an individualistic way.  [18]   The Bases of Filipino Psychology Primarily, Prior knowledge of Psychology was the first basis of Filipinos for it involves important parts of Filipino Social Psychology. The knowledge of psychology Babaylan or Catalonan for the native Filipino people was an important part of Filipino Psychology. The Babaylan was the first Filipino psychologists. Aside from this were the prayers and whispers of various ethnic groups in the Philippines. Those were rich sources and stream of Filipinos prior knowledge of Psychology. We were also used in the psychology of the Filipino literature, even if it was expressed in oral or written way. It includes proverbs, stories and legends. The values and attitudes that Filipinos inherited were significant bases of Psychology. It includes most of Ethnic Psychology.  [19]   Man and his Thoughts The second is the basis of man and his thoughts and it denotes giving importance to man and his or her ideas. This is where Filipino Psychology and Psychology in the Philippines met. Filipino psychology was a part and always been a part of the worlds psychology. This basis has a clear influence of rational psychology that has been developed and improved in the University of Sto. Tomas. This was considered as traditional philosophy rooted in the ideas of Descartes and written works of Aristotle. Psychology is an aspect of Filipino Psychology as an academic discipline in some universities in the Philippines.  [20]   Period of changing mind It was the third basis because it is associated with Filipino personality. There were a lot of bases seen in this period. Particularly, this basis was evident in the written works of some Filipino writers like Pedro Serrano Laktaw and Isabelo delos Reyes. Even before the psychology of language was seen in written outputs produced by Filipinos. It somehow showed the shallow orientation of Filipino in terms of experiences in researching and conducting studies. Filipinos should not dampen their spirits instead they should hope for some improvements. Period of giving value to societal problems The time of giving importance to societal problems was the fourth basis because this serves as a witness of the society. Hartendorp is one of the American psychologists who become interested in our Psychology. The theory of Osias in 1940 is about the relation of language to the society and in connection of the knowledge of paralanguage in the actions of the individuals. However, his period is also the time of some Filipino psychologists. In such a way Filipino Psychology have this sure basis and it includes the works of Isidoro Panlasigui, Sinsiforo Padilla and Alfredo Lagmay who all gave importance to the acts and capabilities of an individual.  [21]   Societal problems Problems in the society were the fifth bases because it gave value for improvement and development. Aldaba- Lim is known for giving high value in societal problems. He often encourages Filipino psychologists to listen to the problems of the society. All doubts in his dedication will vanished if a person will examine all his efforts and contribution in some of his researches in Psychology. The period of Activism served as a witness of this basis. Language, culture and Point of view Language, culture and Point of view were the sixth bases because it is the most fundamental of all bases.Filipino language and dialect is very significant because it is a witness in the many studies conducted and translated into foreign language. The field must still use medium, system and ways to guarantee the wide scope of study. Regarding culture there are none or very few Filipinos who still doubt about the language and culture of the Philippines. According to some professors and psychologists there was this acquiescence effect in the can be seen in a scale used and answered by Filipinos. The American perspective was used in analyzing this. It must be done primarily in a Filipino oriented point of view.  [22]   The Concept of Language The concept of local language as a source of concept for Filipinos is a helpful tool because it gives a clear connection to their culture. Language is not just one effective way of communication but also a rich source of information. It is an affluent basis for the better understanding and orientation of culture. It is suggested to formulate a certain Filipino concept from the broader and wider scope it has. Language is the primary source in the study of Social Psychology of Filipinos. The native language is a rich source of concepts meaningful for and significant to the local culture. As a source of insight, some concepts were proven to be important in understanding the Filipino personality, worldview and behavior. Some of those were the concepts of hiya(shame), utang na loob(debt of gratitude) , pakikisama(yielding to the will of the leader or the majority, bahala na (fatalism) and amor propio (sensitivity to personal affront) which even some American psychologists attempted to study those.The problem with the token use of Filipino psychological concepts in the context of a western analysis is that it can lead to the distortion of Philippine social reality and can affect the education of Filipinos.It still preferable to use the language as a main resource.  [23]   Most Filipinos speak Filipino, the national language; and English, the language for commercial and legal transactions. The Philippines is the worlds third largest English-speaking country, after the United States and the United Kingdom. Literacy rate is a high 96%.Approximately 111 languages and dialects are spoken in the country and most Manileà ±os speak at least one other dialect besides Filipino.  [24]   The Concept of Kapwa The concept of kapwa in Filipinos is an important aspect of Filipino social life. Kapwa is reflected because interaction among other individuals especially in the Philippines is an essential aspect of social life. Language reveals a lot about Filipino nature. For this reason, social interaction should be an evocative core of analysis in the process of classifying the concept of kapwa. The Filipino language in this notch, gives a conceptual division in several levels and modes of social interaction. Santiago and Enriquez identified eight in Filipino. The Levels of Interaction Interaction of Filipinos were categorized into levels namely pakikitungo (transaction/civility with), pakikisalamuha (inter-action with), pakikilahok (joining/participating), pakikibagay (in- conformity with/ in- accord with), pakikisama (being along with), pakikipagpalagayan/pakikipagmalagayang-loob (being in rapport), pakikisangkot (getting involved) and pakikiisa (being one with).  [25]   The concept of Kapwa as a shared inner self turns out to be very essential psychologically and philosophically speaking. While pagtutunguhan (dealing with/acting toward) is another term which can be used to refer to all levels of interaction. Besides, pagtutunguhan also connotes the most superficial level of interaction: the level of amenities while pakikipagkapwa refers to humanness at its highest level(Santiago,1976)  [26]   On the other hand aside from the concept of kapwa According to Russell, In 1922 there were several explanations in essay forms about the high Filipino Self Concept. One of the most ordinary is it being the character of race as Filipinos got from the Malays. In 1965 Fox said that this is a trait of Filipino culture that is paid to be in the social context because of its fortitude to produce close family ties. .  [27]   The Concept of Human Interaction The concept of Human Interaction includes the distinction between (Pakikisama or Pakikipagkapwa?) It is an essential part because it is very consistent in Filipinos. Aside from the good sides of interaction, previous work on Philippine values pointed our three evil characters in Philippine interpersonal relations. These are the walang pakisama (one inept at the level of adjustment); the walang hiya, (one who lacks a sense of propriety and the walang utang na loob, (one who lacks adeptness in reciprocating by way of gratitude. In a deeper analysis some studies were conducted, It was argued that pakikipagkapwa is more important for Filipinos. According to Enriquez, in spite of the fact that western psychology works in the Philippines, the use of Filipino has led to the identification of the value pakikipagkapwa which is more important that pakikisama. The barkada (peer group) would not be happy with the walang pakikisama but the Philippine society at large cannot accept the walang kapwa tao. Pakikipagkapwa is both a paninindigan (conviction) and a value. It includes all the other mentioned modes and levels of interaction. Pakikisama is a form of pakikipagkapwa but not the other way around. In fact pakikisalamuha is even closer than pakikisama in meaning to pakikipagkapwa.  [28]   Application of Filipino Social Psychology Filipino Culture The Social, Political, Ideational dimensions are diverse into aspects which were exhibited by Filipinos. The study of the customs and beliefs of Filipinos serves as a function of social and economic dimension of Filipino culture. The Philippine culture is such very rich. It was very evident in the following ways. In courtship and marriage most of the Filipinos regard this as a process of love as a parental affair. The marriage is the family affair which is measured as a success based on the number of children. Filipinos also believe in Babaylans and Catalonan which were said to posses supernatural powers to supplicate God. They were also fond of charms and they believe that when they perform their rites particularly on the Good Friday they will gain magical powers like anting-anting, lucky cards, stones and other stuffs. As a part of their social life they celebrate feasts to commemorate important events like Fiestas, Holy Week, New Year, Christmas and etc. It really played an essen tial role in the economic security and social solidarity of Filipinos. They are also known for their superstitious beliefs which are greatly connected to their rituals and ceremonies. In connection to supernatural beings they follow these beliefs to avoid bad luck. It was seen in birth, illness and death which control the psyche of Filipinos. In religion when Christianity was introduced by Spaniards, it became a driving force to the life of the Filipinos. They were also thoughtful especially when someone is sick and in need. They are afraid of what other people might say. Some of their practices include giving dowry, carrying of guns, choice of padrino and carrying bow and arrows, sibat and kris. During the time of our ethnic groups laws were also made with regards to property ownership an settling arguments.  [29]   Filipino Values Filipinos use values to fill the demand for democracy. The Filipinos are known to be hospitable. But aside from this trait, there are many other values that the Filipinos possess which help them live harmoniously with their neighbors. These have also made the Filipinos appealing towards others due to their pleasant demeanor. The following are some of the Filipino values such as Bayanihan is the creation of an association with neighbors and helping whenever one is in disastrous need. Close Family Ties are something the Filipinos are well-known for. The primary social welfare system for the Filipino is the family. Many Filipinos live near their family for most of their lives, even as independent adults. Pakikisama or harmony, involves getting along with others to preserve a harmonious relationship. Hiya is shame and a motivating factor behind behavior. It is a sense of social decency and compliance to public norms and behavior. Filipinos believe they must live up to the accepted standa rds of behavior and if they fail to do so they bring shame not only upon themselves, but also upon their family. Utang na Loob or Debt of Gratitude, is owed by one to a person who has helped him great. There is a local saying: Ang hindi marunong lumingon sa pinanggalinangan ay hindi makakarating sa paroroonan, meaning, One who does not look back o where he started, will no get to where he is going.Amor Propio is concern for self image. Filipinos believe that how they present themselves to others is an important aspect to be accepted in society. Delicadeza or sense of propriety refers to sensitivity regarding the limits of proper behavior or ethics in a situation. Filipinos try to avoid even the appearance of impropriety. Palabra de Honor or word of honor is very important to the Filipinos. They believe that one must keep their word whenever they make a promise for the person to whom one has made a promise will count on it.  [30]   Filipino Family The study of Filipino Family is valuable because they value family relationship. In a traditional Filipino family, the father is considered the head and the provider of the family while the mother takes responsibility of the domestic needs and in charge of the emotional growth and values formation of the children. Children see their mot

Fedex Vietnam Strategic Annalysis Marketing Essay

Fedex Vietnam Strategic Annalysis Marketing Essay Established in 1973 under the name Federal Express by founder Frederick Smith, the company quickly became leading transportation service provider. In 1994, the company changed its mane to FedEx Corp. Nowadays, FedEx Corp includes seven subordinate companies that are FedEx Ground, FedEx Freight, FedEx Kinkos, FedEx Customs Critical, FedEx Trade Network and FedEx Service. These companies focus on its core services but also support each other in providing customer with full range of transportation services and logistics. FedEx is handling more than 3.6 mil packages a day and is very famous for its excellent services and for the innovation that it brings to the world of transportation.Eng-logo-4C.jpg FedEx Express operates with 2 sub-companies, which are FedEx Express International and FedEx Express US Domestic, FedEx Express is providing its services to more than 220 countries and territories worldwide. Under FedEx Express International are 3 Regional Divisions which are FedEx LAC (for US, Canada and Latin American), FedEx EMEA (for Euro, Middle East and Africa) and FedEx APAC (Asia Pacific region). FedEx Vietnam belongs to FedEx APAC Division (Federal Pacific Inc) with head office in Hong Kong. Mission and Strategy: Mission FedEx Corporation will produce superior financial returns for its shareowners by providing high value-added logistics, transportation and related business services through focused operating companies. Customer requirements will be met in the highest quality manner appropriate to each market segment served. FedEx will strive to develop mutually rewarding relationships with its employees, partners and suppliers. Safety will be the first consideration in all operations. Corporate activities will be conducted to the highest ethical and professional standards.  [1]   With this mission statement, FedEx defines the industry it develop the business, the financial returns for shareowners, relationships with shareholders. FedEx also commit for high quality and professional standard as well as safety to compete and develop the business. This mission is also going with P-S-P philosophy which stand for People Service Profit meaning FedEx focus and invest in People and believe that only best people can create valuable service. And certainly, valued service will bring money to the company. Strategy FedEx also defines the objectives which must work seamlessly and simultaneously on three levels: Competition: collectively  compete by standing as one brand worldwide. Just one FedEx brand and speak one voice. Operating must be independent  by focusing on independent worldwide networks to meet customer needs. Managing collaboratively  by working together to gain loyal relationships from workforce, customers and investors. FedEx Express in Vietnam Business history FedEx has established its operation in Vietnam since 1994, right after US government lifted the trade embargo to Vietnam. Its business model in Vietnam is agency in which FedEx services are provided to customers through FedExs partners. And FedEx global service partner (GSP) in Vietnam was Post and Telecommunication Express JSC; a company belong to Vietnam Post Corporation which has nationwide network for pickup and delivery until 2009. Since then, the contract with this GSP was terminated and Seabornes and Danatrans were appointed to be new GSPs in Vietnam. At the same time of launching its services in Vietnam, FedEx representative office was opened. The office role is to carry out market research, coordinate the communication among FedEx in VN and other countries, facilitating the implementation of contracts/agreements between FedEx Pacific Inc and other Vietnamese organizations Under the agency contract, the GSPs provide manpower, facilities, and vehicles to bring FedEx service to customers. It is also responsible for customs clearance site for import and export activities. FedEx take responsibilities of all sales and marketing activities. It also supervises and supports GSPs in making the service meet with FedEx global standard and customers requirement. These supports include but not limit to customer service, informatics technology, pricing, billing. Currently FedEx Vietnam provides country wide services with 2 main stations in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh city but direct service is only provided to major provinces/cities. The station in Ho Chi Minh City handles all inbound and outbound shipment to and from the south of Vietnam (southern of Hue). It has its own gateway for customs clearance and 4 world service centres. The station in Hanoi handles shipments to and from north of Vietnam. Beside its own gateway in Hanoi, it also has 3 world service centres for walk in customers. FedEx is providing direct pick up and delivery service to all major cities/provinces in Vietnam. For the other areas, the pick up and delivery is made by using domestic express service of Vietnam Post Corp. Mission and Objectives: Mission: FedEx Vietnam together with its partners will implement FedEx philosophy People-Service-Profit. We will be market leader with the best international express service at global standard. We will gain profit base on our core business competitiveness and the efficiency of the investment in Vietnam. We will bring customer with satisfaction for each and every transaction. (FedEx Vietnam Mission statement) Main objectives: Standardize service in Vietnam at global standard by having its own employee to generate service to customer. Become customers top in mind express service Annual growing rate at 15% In the context of current recession in developed countries, these are challenging objectives. The downturn in industrial countries will lead to a decline in export of developing countries and Vietnam is not an exception. Demand for transportation of export commodities is predicted to be declined until 2014 along with a weak economy. To maintain the annual growing at 15%, FedEx needs to both extend the operation to new markets and expand its market share at current service area by promoting its competitive advantages. This is a hard time for all companies in air express industry, but it can be a good opportunity for FedEx to consolidate its position over the competitor. Competitive advantage is the key and more than ever a right strategy to promote competitiveness is very critical to FedEx. Organization: FedEx Representative Office With the roles to support and supervise GSP in providing FedEx services to customers, FedEx representative office is organized as functional model. Figure 9: FedEx VN representative office organization chart Country manager HAN Operation manager HAN Sales Manager HAN ramp manager SGN Operation manager HAN CS manager SGN CS manager Country coordinator SGN ramp manager SGN Sales Manager Inside sales Manager Revenue ops Manager Accounting Manager Marketing Manager Technology service Manager Direct report Indirect report Source: FedEx country Review, 2011 At top of the representative office is Chief Representative, Senior Manager for FedEx Indochina and Myanmar who has very good knowledge about market, culture and working style of Vietnamese people. He directly manages operation function and also gets indirect reports from other functional groups. Operations: This group includes station operation (for pick up and delivery), gateway operation (for customs clearance), ramp operation and customer service operation. The group is responsible for managing all operation activities in accordance to FedEx service standard Airport ramp: This group is under operation and responsible for aircraft operation include loading and unloading of shipment on/from aircraft, landing/take off paperworkà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ Country Coordinator: Admin the communication to all GSPs in Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar on policy, regulation issues Sales: This group report to regional sales. They are responsible for selling FedEx services to customer. Marketing: Perform market research, design and implement marketing plan under direction of regional marketing management. Billing and collection: Control all GSPs invoicing and collecting activities. All customer debts are managed by this group. Accounting: Control all payment transactions of FedEx in Vietnam and perform all other accounting activities. Technical service: Responsible for FedEx communication network, customer technology solutions. GSP organization GSP has two independent teams to work at FedEx agency in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh city. They both report to Seabornes head office. But in daily operation, they are under supervision of FedEx functional groups from representative office. The team in Hanoi includes 69 GSP employees with 1 General Manager and 4 functional managers. In Ho Chi Minh number of employees is 125 with 1 General manager and 7 functional managers Business result overview Figure10: FedEx Vietnam revenue from 2006 to 2011 (Unit: 1000 USD) Source: FedEx country review 2011 As indicated in Figure 10, FedEx had very good growth in revenue. Total revenue grew by 3 times from 2006 to 2011. The revenue increased at 100% in 2008 after FedEx up gauged it feeder capacity from 3 tons to 6 tons to Ho Chi Minh city. FedExs core products International Priority (IP) and International Priority Freight (IPF) are the main contribution. After the sharp increase in 2008, revenue of these core services grew steadily at 10-12% a year. Revenue of IXF (air port to airport) service took a relatively small part of total revenue. However growing rate of this product has been extremely high since 2009 when the company sell this service to some forwarders to explore their existing customers. Figure 11: FedEx business performance from 2006 to 2011 (Unit: 1000USD) Source: FedEx country review 2011 Figure 11 shows both revenue and profit of FedEx on good growth. However with increased ratio of IXF shipment (which are low yield per kg for big shipments), expense was getting bigger and made profit growing rate in 2009, 2010 and 2011 lower than revenue growing rate. Strategic Annalysis Internal Factor Evaluation (IFE) Human resource The philosophy P-S-P (People-Service-Profit) is cornerstone of FedEx. This can be considered a success cycles of FedEx in which the company take care of its employees and assist them in generate excellent service to customer. That excellent service in return brings Profit to FedEx and enables the company to take a better care to its work force. Thank to this, FedEx is many times voted as most admired company by Fortune Magazine. In many major markets in LAC and APAC, FedEx is voted as one of the best companies to work for. Bring that philosophy in business, FedEx attracts a very excellent team for its representative office in Vietnam. Figure12: FedEx rep office personnel (Experienced and Education) Source: FedEx VN HR profile. Figure 12 shows number of FedEx employee divided by work group and education/experience categories. All FedEx managers (1 senior manager and 6 managers in Ho Chi Minh city, 4 managers in Hanoi) are very experienced in express industry. Sales team is young but very aggressive in selling with 10 for Ho Chi Minh city and 5 for Hanoi. Ramp team includes two groups with equal number of employee, one at Noi Bai airport and the other one at Tan Son Nhat airport. Functional group include employee at marketing, accounting and billing/collection As reflected, 100% FedEx representative office employees are graduated with 29.31% of the employees are holding master degree. With this strong back ground and excellent human development programs through training, couching all FedEx employees are skilful and knowledge in the field that they are responsible. Most of FedEx employees have long term commitment with the company. Many of them stay with the office since it was established. The package benefit and the reward program at FedEx not only keep its employees commit to stay a long time with the office, but also encourage them to perform their best in daily job. But in contrast, the FedEx GSP is a Vietnamese and young company so the recruitment, human resource policy is very different. This leads to poor quality of the work force and impacts to the image of the company in Vietnam. Employees in many cases are not care about productivities. Their attitude in making service is not very much acknowledged and appreciated by customers. This hit the level of FedEx service in Vietnam. However in recent years, with the changes of GSP management and higher demand from customers, some positive changes have been made. The GSP frontline managers and employees attitude to customers and to the service quality issue has been improved. Those employees that could not adapt to this change have been replaced. This in long run will have positive contribution to FedEx operation. But in short term, high turnover of employee impacts to the operation, especially when the new one lack of experience. Over all, the working skills of GSP employees are met with job requirement. However their English is not so good. Especially the couriers who are directly handling shipment for customers. This is room for improvement that FedEx can do to further standardize its service in Vietnam. Finance FedEx Vietnam is a dependent branch of FedEx Pacific Inc. All finance planning and management is performed at division level. The two major finance activities that done at local level are customer debt management and operation cost management. Customer debt management At FedEx, 90% of the shipment transportation charges are billed to customer accounts and the billing options can be to shipper, to consignee or to third party. That makes it very convenient for customer to ship with the company. But on the other hand it brings risk to the company if the payers refuse to pay and the re-bill is done in late (Shipper must takes the final responsibility to pay transportation charge when using FedEx service. In case the charge billed to recipient or 3rd party but payer refuse to pay, then it will be billed back to the shipper). Under agency contract GSP takes responsible for collection of the debt from customer. However their limitation in managing this area makes the on time collection of the payment is not high. Bad debt at 2% and over due debt at about 15% lower the working capital. However as reflected in Figure 11, FedEx revenue is increased year on year and the company has a good profit ratio. In addition, with FedEx Pacific Inc as a mother company, FedEx finance is on strong base. Operation cost management Though most of the ground operation costs are covered by GSP under agency contract, there are areas for FedEx to control and save cost. They include: Cost for using commercial flights (where FedEx flight is not in operation) Cost for revenue supplies (Supplies that provided to customer for them to use FedEx service like airway bill, packing materialà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦) Cost for claim settlement (for damage, late or missing shipment) At FedEx there is an index call cost per package in which all costs raise from handling a package is taken into account and bi-weekly management has a meeting to review it. This is a good tool for continuous improvement of cost saving. In 2010 the company had saved in average 2.3% of its cost per package in compare to the previous year. Facilities All the ground facilities are under GSP charge. But with booming business in past few years, the investment of the GSP on to this did not meet with requirement. Size of business in 2011 was almost 3 times larger than the one in 2006, but there was no major investment to expand ground facilities. That makes the station buildings and warehouses become too congested for FedEx operation and impacts to productivity and the service quality. Figure 13: FedEx ground facility Current Required  [2]   Gateway 800 sqm 1500 sqm Station 2000 sqm 2500 sqm Number of van 24 26 Number of truck 5 5 Number of motor-bike 20 20 Source: FedEx IE report 2011 Beside ground facility, communication network is very critical for FedEx. The network is not only for communication among FedEx locations, but also for posting and updating of shipment status. The network is considered as back bone of FedEx service. In Vietnam the company has its own lease lines to Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh. The lease lines are upgraded to meet with demand of growing business. The latest upgrade in earlier 2010 increased the lease lines capacity to 256 KBps. A broad band line was also established to be backup network for the lease line. This helps to avoid service impact due to communication problem. Marketing Marketing function in Vietnam is more on the implementation. Marketing planning is done at regional level by marketing management. With this arrangement, there is only 1 marketing specialist in FedEx Vietnam to cover the whole country. She has very limited decision making power on marketing plan. Most of the marketing campaigns in Vietnam are small with very limited budget. There is lack of big campaign in media that attracted mass audience. In Vietnam the new emerging market, FedEx does not have commercial TV advertisement while its major competitor DHL spends heavily on this. In past few years, FedEx involved in numerous of activities for community benefit like building 3 schools in Nam Dinh and Quang Nam, sponsoring transportation of medicine and equipment for Heart to Heart organization, major sponsor for OBIS flying hospital to Vietnam in 2007 and 2010, APEC summit in 2006. These activities were very efficient in bringing benefit to the community, but were not very well promoted by marketing and the number of earned media was not large. In terms of product that FedEx introduced to Vietnam market, the service is more diversify to provide customs more option for their shipment. Currently FedEx provide following services: International Priority (IP): This is fast, customs-cleared, door-to-door pickup and delivery of shipments to all international destinations for package weighted lower than 68 kgs. For those destinations in AsiaOne (all major cities in Asia) net work, document or packages sending under this service will be delivered on the day after ship date. This is FedEx Express core service in Vietnam International Economy (IE): This service is similar to IP service, but the transit time is longer than IP service and shipping rate is lower than IP. International Priority Freight (IPF): This is priority service using for package heavier than 68 kgs. This service is only available in designated cities/countries International Economy Freight (IEF): This is a new service launched in 2010 using for packages over 68kg. Customer use this service does not need a fast transit time. The price rate is lower than IPF and transit time is longer certainly. International priority Distribution (IPD): This is customized service using for customer who send shipment at different consignees at same country. The shipper can send all of them under 1 shipment and FedEx will separate the shpt to delivery to each consignee. This service is only available to some country and normally for global customer Beside the range of services provided, FedEx rate to each customer is different base on the customer volume. However this is not the main competition tools of FedEx. The company is more focus on its differentiation by excellent service. Despite of some weaknesses in marketing in Vietnam, FedEx brand is quite well known in business society thanks to its global image. However, to reach the level on brand awareness that FedEx has in other markets, marketing function in Vietnam should play a more active role. Sales In 2008, FedEx took over all sales activities from GSP. All sales personnel belong to FedEx. This enables the company to recruit and keep talent employee for this important function. The performance of sales team has been improved since then Currently sales team is organized under 3 sub-teams to take care of different groups of customers: Global sales: Take care of global accounts. These global customers are big accounts and very demanding for service quality. As many big international companies are setting up their business in Vietnam, revenue from this group of customer is growing very fast. In 2006, it took only 8% of total revenue, but in 2011 it took up to 27% Telesales: Take care of small accounts. There are low revenue customers but most profitable ones. Revenue from small customer takes 18% of the total FedEx Vietnam revenue. Field sales: Most of customer that taken care of by field sales are local importers/exporters. This area of sales have steady annual growth at 20% in recent year thank to strong growth in international trade in Vietnam With this arrangement, sales team can be more focus on targeted customer, hence the performance is improved. Figure 14: FedEx sales volume from 2006 to 2011 (Unit: 1 package) Source: FedEx country Review 2011 Before 2008, sales only focus on selling outbound, but with global sales network, both outbound and inbound volumes are taken care by sales. This supports strong growth of inbound volume (Figure 14). The exception in 2010 the inbound volume was down turn due to the fisrt year sales under direct management. Operation Air craft operation: With the launch of A310 to Vietnam in September 2009, FedEx increased its aircraft capacity to 5 times bigger than before  [3]  . The aircraft upgrade enables FedEx to introduce more services in and out of Vietnam. The company now can better secure space for its shipment and reduce the risk of dependence on commercial flights. The A310 serves both Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh city. This first time ever FedEx aircraft arrives in Hanoi making big service improvement for the capital city. Transit time reduce by 1 day for both inbound and outbound. This was an excellent preparation for FedEx Asia hub relocation to China in first half of 2009  [4]  . Station operation: Operating under agency contract, FedEx is facing with number of issues for its station operation because of differences in business strategy. Investments in work forces, vehicles, equipments are not adequate. Coverage area of FedEx service in Vietnam is large while number of couriers is limited with 30 in Hanoi and 60 in Ho Chi Minh city making it a big challenge for pick up and delivery, particularly on the surge volume dates. With booming of EPZ and Industrial Park country wide, many provinces become potential markets for air express service. However FedEx direct pick up and delivery service is only available in big cities/provinces. In other provinces, pick up/delivery is provided through a domestic express service. It means any customs in non-direct service want to use FedEx service they have to send the shipment to FedEx by domestic service first. And the same arrangement for delivery, FedEx will have domestic service to deliver package to customer in these areas. This not only makes transit time for the package longer but also impacts to service quality that customer suppose to receive when they use FedEx service. FedEx in Vietnam operates with standard procedure of FedEx global. However the ability of courier team, especially English speaking and reading skill is not good making barrier for them to learn and consult customers on shipping requirement. There is lack of rewarding program to encourage courier team, so productivity and the over all performance is not very good. Gateway operation: FedEx has 2 gateways in Vietnam, one for Hanoi and the other for Ho Chi Minh city. Both gateways are in the same buildings with stations. That makes it convenient for customers in case they have to come to do customs clearance. But it is a disadvantage for the company to maximize the use of air craft arrival time. The main job of gateway is to ensure shipments are clear customs at shortest time, reduce number of shipment pending in customs warehouse. In Vietnam, FedEx is the first company that was selected by Vietnam customs to implement electronic clearance. By applying technology in to clearance process, this area of service has been improved remarkable. The percentage of shipment released for same day delivery in 2010 is 50% higher than the one in 2007. However the constraints of ware houses and clearance facilities and the lack of customs regulations on express clearance make this clearance still not yet reaches its height of potential. Customer service operation: Customer oriented system and excellent internal communication network are very supportive tools to customer service agents to successfully handle transaction with customer. However, the weakness of call centre which under GSP control with lack of necessary equipments makes it difficult for FedEx to measure and control call quality. There is considered number of complaints regarding to customer service in Vietnam. This is contrast with FedEx customer service in other countries where most of customer praise FedEx for professional, helpful and customer oriented service. In addition, shortage of manpower for this group in Hanoi (with only 3 persons) reduces the ability to handle customer calls to FedEx at this city. Service quality management: Service quality is non-compromised issue at FedEx. It makes FedEx different from competitor. The quality driven management concept has been put in FedEx today business. With that strategy, service quality is also one of the top priorities for FedEx in Vietnam. The company is very good in making all KPI (key performance index) in service to be measurable and has strong systems to control it. Service quality is measured by both network system (base on system scan) and data collection from practice. A group of operation excellence is formed up. This group is supported by advisors at regional level. The group is doing root cause analysis for all service issues and coordinates with respective operation teams for corrective action plan. The quality report is made on daily, weekly, bi-weekly, monthly depend on KPI. Bi-weekly there is meeting among all managers to review service quality issue for necessary actions. With this mechanism, quality improvement is continuous process at FedEx. Information Technology (IT) Information plays very important role with express company like FedEx. Provide customer with accurate and updated information is as important as on time delivery of the package. Within FedEx operation teams, information exchange and communication among the teams is also very critical for its success. FedEx in Vietnam has its own lease line to ensure the connection of network. This system is operated and managed by very experience and skilful IT team. Numbers of IT projects have been implemented in past few years to bring benefit to FedEx and its customers: Automation shipping tool: With software installed at customer site, customer does not need to wait for FedEx to bring in shipping forms for manual completion but they can create the form on their own at any time. With this customer can complete shipping document for many shipment just in few minutes. This helps FedEx to save cost while provide more convenience to customers. Transmission of shipping documents images: FedEx Vietnam now can transmit all shipping documents of its export shipments to countries of destination before shipment departs. With this ability, FedEx in destination does not need to wait for shipments arrival to retrieve the documents but having these documents much earlier than the physical shipment arrives. So they can do pre-arrival customs clearance and ensure that the shipment is immediate released for delivery once it arrives. This tremendously improves the service and saves FedEx hundred thousands of UDS a year for fax fee, storage fee. In conclusion, FedEx Vietnams major advantages are: Operating FedExs own flight to both Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh city Best express service from Vietnam to US, North America and Japan the key export markets of Vietnam Management awareness of service quality and use it as differentiator. A good service quality control system is put on place. Innovative service base on information technology Meanwhile, FedEx major weak points are operating under agency and poor quality call centre for customer operation. With above analysis, an IFE matrix is formed up by strategist team. The IFE matrix for FedEx Vietnam includes 12 factors with seven strengths and five weaknesses. Values of weight and rate for each factor are calculated base on average scores of the team members with some minor adjustment after review with the whole team (Appendix H). The final IFE matrix for FedEx is reflected in Figure 15. Figure 15: IFE Matrix of FedEx Vietnam No. Factors Weight Rate Weighted score 1 FedEx has 5 flights a week to both Hanoi and HCMC 0.14 4 0.56 2 Well known brand 0.12 3 0.36 3 Hub Operation Model Global Network 0.09 4 0.36 4 The best express service to US, North America and Japan 0.12 4 0.48 5 Wide range of services 0.04 3 0.12 6 Management awareness of service quality issue and use the quality of service as differentiator. 0.05 4 0.2 7 Innovative service on the base of information technology 0.04 4 0.16 8 FedEx operates under agency contract 0.15 1 0.15 9 Low quality call centre 0.13 1 0.13 10 High over due debt ratio 0.03 1 0.03 11 Poor marketing activities