Odysseus V Telemachus

Jon Dunlap3/8/12 Odysseus v TelemachusPeriod 2 â€Å"Maturity has more to do with what types of experiences you've had, and what you've learned from them, and less to do with how many birthdays you've celebrated. † – Anonymous (Thinkexist. com). Maturity is a key theme during the journeys of Telemachus and Odysseus. In Homer’s Odyssey the journeys of Telemachus and Odysseus have many similarities and differences such as their common goal and the lessons they learn; and only by overcoming these obstacles are they able to become emotionally stronger and find success in Ithaca.Odysseus and Telemachus’ respective journeys have many similarities such as the common enemy the share and the goal they are fighting towards. First, due to Odysseus’ long absence after the war, he was thought to be dead, which led to a large influx of suitors wishing to marry Penelope. During The Odyssey the suitors represent a common enemy between Telemachus and Odysseus. †Å"The sons †¦ are pestering my mother to marry them against her will. They are afraid to go to her father †¦ hanging about my father's house †¦ never giving as much as a thought to the quantity of wine they drink.No estate can stand such recklessness; we have now no [Odysseus] to ward off harm from our doors, and I cannot hold my own against them† (Butler BK 2). The suitors not only threaten Telemachus’ right as King of Ithaca, but they also threaten Odysseus’ home and marriage to Penelope. Next, in addition to sharing a common enemy, Telemachus and Odysseus both have a common goal in mind throughout their journeys; to reunite their family. Telemachus sets out to Pylos and Sparta hoping to find his father and drive off the suitors, while Odysseus is also trying to return to Ithaca to see his wife and son after his 20 year absence.He uses his powers of persuasion to gain Calypso’s favor shortly before leaving her island; â€Å"Goddess,† replied [Odysseus], â€Å"do not be angry †¦ Penelope is nothing like so tall or so beautiful as yourself †¦ Nevertheless, I want to get home, and can think of nothing else† (Butler BK 5). It is this drive and determination that Odysseus and Telemachus eventually share that eventually able aids them in reuniting at the end of The Odyssey. Odysseus and Telemachus have one final thing in common on their journeys; they are both aided by Athena.Athena had been an ally of Odysseus since the Trojan War, mainly because she reminded him of herself. Throughout The Odyssey Athena aides both heroes on several occasions; Athena begs her father Zeus to allow her to aid Odysseus, so he can go home to his family, â€Å"Father, son of [Kronos], King of kings, it served Aegisthus right †¦ it is for [Odysseus] that my heart bleeds, when I think of his sufferings in that lonely sea-girt island, far away, poor man, from all his friends† (Butler BK 1).Athena helps Telemach us by getting him his ship and crew before the journey to search for word of Odysseus, and develops a bond with both of them throughout the story. Despite the many similarities, Odysseus and Telemachus are very different; as evidenced by the way they behave, their respective upbringings, and the lessons they learn. The first main difference between Odysseus and Telemachus is the way they behave under pressure. Odysseus, having had many years of experience and the gift of persuasive speaking, tends to handle problems with patience and careful planning.This can be seen as he charms Nausicaa into aiding him on Scheria, â€Å"O queen,† he said, â€Å"I implore your aid- but tell me, are you a goddess or are you a mortal woman? If you are a goddess †¦ you are [Zeus’] daughter Diana, for your face and figure resemble none but hers; if on the other hand you are a mortal and live on earth, †¦ how proud and delighted they must feel when they see so fair a scion as yo urself going out to a dance †¦ I never yet saw any one so beautiful, neither man nor woman, and am lost in admiration as I behold you† (Butler BK 6).Telemachus, however, lacks this maturity and seems to act more on impulse. This can be seen when he has an emotional outburst in the Ithacan assembly, â€Å"Moreover, if I am to be eaten out of house and home at all, I had rather you did the eating yourselves, for I could then take action against you to some purpose, and serve you with notices from house to house till I got paid in full, whereas now I have no remedy. ’ With this Telemachus dashed his staff to the ground and burst into tears. Everyone was very sorry for him, but they all sat still and no one ventured to make him an angry answer† (Butler BK 2).One can see that by using his persuasion Odysseus is able to prevail, while Telemachus’ angry outbursts do nothing but hurt his reputation This absence of maturity ties into the next key difference be tween Odysseus and Telemachus; which is the way that they were raised. Odysseus lived a rich and fulfilling childhood as a prince on Ithaca under his father Laertes and his mother Anticlea. He was given all the guidance and enrichment needed for him to grow into the hero he would eventually become. Telemachus on the other hand, was raised without a father.Odysseus left for the Trojan War when he was only an infant and did not return for 20 years, which meant that Telemachus grew up without the guidance he needed to become a man. Athena was eventually forced to step in and help boost his confidence during Telemachus’ journey, â€Å"[Athena] led the way and Telemachus followed her. Presently she said, â€Å"Telemachus, you must not be in the least shy or nervous; you have taken this voyage to try and find out where your father is buried and how he came by his end; so go straight up to Nestor that we may see what he has got to tell us.Beg of him to speak the truth, and he will tell no lies, for he is an excellent person† (Butler BK 3). If it weren’t for this lack of a father, he may have had the courage to stand up to the suitors himself. The final key difference between Odysseus and Telemachus is the lessons that they learn throughout The Odyssey. Odysseus and Telemachus both go through a great deal of change during their journeys and each benefit from it. Odysseus learns to set his pride aside.This can be seen as Odysseus is found crying on the beach of Calypso’s island, a far different Odysseus than the cunning, arrogant hero pictured in The Iliad, â€Å"Ulysses was not within; he was on the sea-shore as usual, looking out upon the barren ocean with tears in his eyes, groaning and breaking his heart for sorrow† (Butler BK 5). This represents his ritual death, because not only is he believed to be dead by Ithaca, but he is at one of his life’s lowest points. It is only after overcoming this that he will be able to retu rn home. Telemachus learns a lesson almost opposite to Odysseus.Telemachus learns to be a man and gains self-confidence. This process of maturation is set in motion by the Goddess Athena in book two where she says to Telemachus, â€Å"You’ll lack neither courage nor sense from this day on, not if your father's spirit courses through your veins- now there was a man, I'd say, in words and actions both! †¦ Few sons are equals of their fathers; most fall short, all too few surpass them. But you brave and adept from this day on- Odysseus' cunning has hardly given out in you- there's every hope that you will reach your goal† (Butler BK 2).Here Athena is telling Telemachus that he will be great and will succeed in his ventures because he is his father's son. From this moment on we begin to see a very sudden transformation or â€Å"Rebirth† in terms of Telemachus’ hero’s journey. He starts from a young defenseless boy, and ends his journey a man. Tele machus and Odysseus’ respective journeys have many similarities and differences ranging from their common enemy, to the lessons they learn, although the purpose of these journeys is clear; to find success in Ithaca.Many factors, be it luck, cunning, or supernatural aid all aid both men in these journeys. Telemachus and Odysseus may not be the most similar heroes, but through the challenges they face, they become emotionally stronger and reunite their family once more. As an anonymous intellectual once said, â€Å"Anyone can give up; it's the easiest thing in the world to do. But to hold it together when everyone else would understand if you fell apart, that's true strength† (boardofwisdom. com)

Analyse the effects of domestic and global free trade Essay

Analyse the effects of domestic and global free trade and protection policies on the Australian economy Free trade is the unrestricted purchase and sale of goods and services between countries without the imposition of protection such as tariffs and quotas. This enables economies to focus on their core competitive advantage(s), thereby maximizing economic output and fostering income growth for their citizens. Australian exports rose from $66.6 billion in 1990-91 to $300.4 billion in 2012-13, with an average growth in export volumes of 4.6 per cent per annum since 1990-91. This is reflective of Australia’s proactive actions to phase out protection since the 1970s. The major effects of domestic and global free trade and protection policies on the Australian economy are structural change, competitiveness and efficiency, unemployment, living standards and economic growth. A move to trade liberalisation since the 1970s in Australia has drastically changed the structure of the economy. Structural change involves changes in the patterns of production that reflect changes in technology, consumer demand, global competitiveness and other factors. Protection polices affect the natural change in the structure of an economy, often leading to a decline in globally competitive industries. In 2011-12 Australia’s net tariff assistance was $1.1 billion, a very small percentage of GDP (less than 0.1%). Tariff levels in Australia have fallen from a massive 36% in 1968-9 to 1.8% in 2011, thus illustrating why Australia is one of the most open economies in the world. However, this has caused both positive and negative effects; the positive being that Australian industries have become more competitive and efficient as they are forced to focus on their comparative advantage; the negative is that heavily protected industries have suffered decline and job losses. Australia’s rural and manufacturing industries have suffered sustained negative growth over the past decade due to a reduction in domestic protection policies. On the contrary, the minerals and metals industry has grown significantly over this period. The removal of protectionism can jeopardise employment, especially in import competing industries and low-skilled labour industries. For example, Toyota and Holden will close their manufacturing operations partly due to tariffs on imported cars being reduced from a previous 50% to 5% in 2010, ending Australia’s car manufacturing sector by 2017. However, removing protectionism should lead to new employment opportunities and up-skilling of  the workforce into new and emerging growth sectors such as Biotech and Green Engineering industries etc. Australia’s composition of exports was relatively equal in 1989-90 with 33% being minerals and metals, rural 23%, services 20% and manufacturing 13%. As of 2012-13, minerals and metals dominated Australia’s composition of exports at 57%, whilst rural exports dropped to 12%, with a general decline in others. This not only shows the large impact of the mining boom on the Australia’s composition of exports, but also how a move to free trade has influenced the structure of the economy, especially agriculture and manufacturing. Globalisation has been both a benefit and a hindrance as regional trade blocs and other agreements work on a ‘most favoured nation’ principle, making export-competing industries suffer all around the world in small economies, and limiting the advancement of global free trade. Because Australia has a high level of agricultural trade (12% of total exports), and is a relatively small economy, they suffer disadvantages as a result of protectionist policies of other nations and trading blocs. One of the most infamous trading blocs in relation to agriculture is the European Union. The EU for several decades has subsidised agricultural production through the Common Agricultural Policy. Additionally, farmers receive significant subsidies in other areas of the world, such as the US, Japan, Korea and Switzerland. In 2012, the Australian Bureau of Agricultural Resource Economics and Sciences (ABARES) estimated that the removal of China and Korea’s wine tariffs would increase the export revenue of the Australian wine industry by $47 million. Unfortunately, there has been poor progress in reducing agricultural protection in recent years. In fact, if global trade liberalisation was achieved by the WTO’s Doha Round, it could have boosted Australia’s agricultural exports by US$9 billion by 2020; thus displaying how highly protectionist economies and trade blocs adversely affect the Australian economy. Since Australia’s first free trade agreement (FTA) with New Zealand in 1983, Bilateral and Multilateral FTA’s have been a great advantage and focus in securing economic prosperity for Australia. Australia’s two-way trade in goods and services was A$616 bn in 2012. Australia has seven FTAs currently in force with New Zealand, Singapore, Thailand, US, Chile, ASEAN (with New  Zealand) and Malaysia. Together, these countries account for 28% of Australia’s total trade, which displays the great benefit of bilateral FTAs to the Australian economy. Additionally, there are four bilateral FTA negotiations currently in place, two of which are substantial trading partners; China, being Australia’s largest export market (A$78.7 bn) and Japan, being Australia’s second largest export market (A$49.8 bn). The Japanese Free Trade Agreement has been negotiated, and will be a great benefit to the Australian economy, especially the agricultural sector, for example tariffs on beef and dairy exports will be reduced from 38% to 23.5% over 20 years. Australia’s main multilateral agreement is the AANZFTA which came into effect in 2010, and covers 20% of Australia’s trade in goods and services and effectively creates a free trade area of over 600 million people. This agreement is forecast to boost the Australian economy by US$19 bn during the decade following its implementation in 2010. These examples of Australia’s FTAs show the positive effects of global free trade on the Australian economy. As Australia continually lowers protection levels and trade barriers, there will be both positive and negative effects, leading to a long term decrease in the current account deficit. When protection is lowered, there will be a short term increase in the CAD, as tariffs and quotas wil l be waived leading to higher export volumes. However, since less protection leads to a more competitive economy, the CAD will decrease in the longer term as exports will generally increase. The government’s reluctance to lower trade barriers up until the 1970-80s is arguably the reason for Australia’s lower competiveness and higher CAD, being a deficit of $23 bn in 2012, and $10 bn in the fourth quarter of 2013. Australia’s growth in exports reached 6% in 2012, double the average rate over the last 10 years. However, this has not contributed to any decrease in the CAD, as export prices declined by 10.2%, and Australia’s terms of trade decreased by 10.7% mainly due to the slowing of the mining boom. As protection levels reduce, hopefully the competitiveness of the Australian economy picks up during this period of structural change, leading to a long term decrease in the CAD. The effects of domestic and global free trade, although mostly negative in the short term, will increase Australia’s competitiveness and benefit the Australian economy in the long term. Unfortunately, many regional and unilateral protection polices still remain in p lace, disadvantaging the  economy in many ways, and limiting the advancement of global free trade.

Revolutionizing the World’s Top Corporations “SIX SIGMA” Essay

OBJECTIVE This term paper is designed as a part of the curriculum. It helped me to tap into the power of the Six Sigma movement that’s transforming some of the  world’s most successful companies. Six Sigma initiatives have tallied billions of dollars in savings, dramatic increases in speed, strong new customer relationships—in short, remarkable results and rave reviews. SIX SIGMA Six Sigma is now according to many business development and quality improvement experts, the most popular management methodology in history. Six Sigma is certainly a very big industry in its own right, and Six Sigma is now an enormous ‘brand’ in the world of corporate development. Six Sigma began in 1986 as a statistically-based method to reduce variation in electronic manufacturing processes in Motorola Inc in the USA. Today, around twenty years on, Six Sigma is used as an all-encompassing business performance methodology, all over the world, in organizations as diverse as local government departments, prisons, hospitals, the armed forces, banks, and multi-nationals corporations. While Six Sigma implementation continues apace in many of the world’s largest corporations, many organizations and suppliers in the consulting and training communities have also seized on the Six Sigma concept, to package and provide all sorts of Six Sigma ‘branded’ training products and consultancy and services. Six Sigma has also spawned many and various business books on the subject. Six Sigma, it might seem, is taking over the world. Interestingly while Six Sigma has become a very widely used ‘generic’ term, the name Six Sigma is actually a registered trademark of Motorola Inc., in the USA, who first pioneered Six Sigma methods in the 1980’s. The original and technically correct spelling seems to be Six Sigma, rather than 6 Sigma, although in recent years Motorola and GE have each since developed their own sexy Six Sigma logos using the number six and the Greek sigma character. Six Sigma is now a global brand and something of a revolution. But what is Six Sigma? Sigma is a measurement that indicates how a process is performing. Six Sigma stands for Six Standard Deviations (Sigma is the Greek letter used to represent standard deviation in statistics) from mean. Six Sigma methodologies provide the techniques and tools to improve the capability and reduce the defects in any process. Six Sigma is a fact-based, data-driven philosophy of improvement that values defect prevention over defect detectio n. Philosophy: The philosophical perspective views all works as a process that can be defined,  measured, analyzed, improved & controlled (DMAIC). Processes require inputs & produce outputs. If you control the inputs, you will control the outputs. This is generally expressed as the y= f (x) concept. Set of Tools: Six Sigma as a set of tools includes all the qualitative and quantitative techniques used by the six sigma experts to drive process improvement. A few such tools include statistical process control (SPC), Control charts, failure mode & effects analysis, process mapping etc. Methodology: This view of Six Sigma recognizes the underlying and rigorous approach known as DMAIC. DMAIC defines the steps a Six Sigma practitioner is expected to follow, starting with identifying the problem and ending with the implementation of long-lasting solutions While DMAIC is not only Six Sigma Methodology in use, it is certainly the most widely adopted and recognized. Metrics: In simple terms, Six Sigma quality performance means 3.4 defects per million opportunities HISTORY Since the 1920’s the word ‘sigma’ has been used by mathematicians and engineers as a symbol for a unit of measurement in product quality variation. (Note it’s sigma with a small ‘s’ because in this context sigma is a generic unit of measurement.) In the mid-1980’s engineers in Motorola Inc in the USA used ‘Six Sigma’ an an informal name for an in-house initiative for reducing defects in production processes, because it represented a suitably high level of quality. (Note here its Sigma with a big ‘S’ because in this context Six Sigma is a ‘branded’ name for Motorola’s initiative.) (Certain engineers had varying opinions as to whether the very first was Mikal Harry – felt that measuring defects in terms of thousands was an insufficiently rigorous standard. Hence they increased the measurement scale to parts per million, described as ‘defects per million’, which prompted the use of the ‘six sigma’ terminology and adoption of the capitalised ‘Six Sigma’ branded name, given that six sigma was deemed to equate to 3.4 parts – or defects – per million.) In the late-1980’s following the success of the above initiative, Motorola extended the Six Sigma methods to its critical business processes, and significantly Six Sigma became a formalised in-house ‘branded’ name for a performance improvement methodology, i.e., beyond purely ‘defect  reduction’, in Motorola Inc. In 1991 Motorola certified its first ‘Black Belt’ Six Sigma experts, which indicates the beginnings of the formalisation of the accredited training of Six Sigma methods. In 1991 also, Allied Signal, (a large avionics company which merged with Honeywell in 1999), adopted the Six Sigma methods, and claimed significant improvements and cost savings within six months. It seems that Allied Signal’s new CEO Lawrence Bossidy learned of Motorola’s work with Six Sigma and so approached Motorola’s CEO Bob Galvin to learn how it could be used in Allied Signal. In 1995, General Electric’s CEO Jack Welch (Welch knew Bossidy since Bossidy once worked for Welch at GE, and Welch was impressed by Bossidy’s achievements using Six Sigma) decided to implement Six Sigma in GE, and by 1998 GE claimed that Six Sigma had generated over three-quarters of a billion dollars of cost savings. By the mid-1990’s Six Sigma had developed into a transferable â₠¬Ëœbranded’ corporate management initiative and methodology, notably in General Electric and other large manufacturing corporations, but also in organizations outside the manufacturing sector. By the year 2000, Six Sigma was effectively established as an industry in its own right, involving the training, consultancy and implementation of Six Sigma methodology in all sorts of organisations around the world. That is to say, in a little over ten years, Six Sigma quickly became not only a hugely popular methodology used by many corporations for quality and process improvement, Six Sigma also became the subject of many and various training and consultancy products and services around which developed very many Six Sigma support organizations CENTRAL CONCEPTS We can clearly observe from the definitions and history of Six Sigma that many people consider the model to be capable of leveraging huge performance improvements and cost savings. None of this of course happens on its own. Teams and team leaders are an essential part of the Six Sigma methodology. Six Sigma is therefore a methodology which requires and encourages team leaders and teams to take responsibility for implementing the Six Sigma processes. Significantly these people need to be trained in Six Sigma’s methods – especially the use of the measurement and improvement tools, and in communications and relationship skills, necessary to involve and serve the needs of the internal and external customers and  suppliers that form the critical processes of the organization’s delivery chains. Training is therefore also an essential element of the Six Sigma methodology, and lots of it. Six Sigma teams and notably Six Sigma team leaders (‘Black Belts’) u se a vast array of tools at each stage of Six Sigma implementation to define measure, analyse and control variation in process quality, and to manage people, teams and communications. When an organization decides to implement Six Sigma, first the executive team has to decide the strategy – which might typically be termed an improvement initiative, and this base strategy should focus on the essential processes necessary to meet customer expectations. This could amount to twenty or thirty business process. At the top level these are the main processes that enable the organization to add value to goods and services and supply them to customers. Implicit within this is an understanding of what the customers – internal and external – actually want and need. A team of managers (‘Black Belts’ normally) who ‘own’ this processes is responsible for: identifying and understanding these processes in detail, and also understanding the levels of quality (especially tolerance of variation) that customers (internal and external) expect, and then Measuring the effectiveness and efficiency of each process performance – notably t he ‘sigma’ performance – ie., is the number of defects per million operations (pro-rate if appropriate of course). The theory is entirely logical: understanding and then improving the most important ‘delivery-chain’ processes will naturally increase efficiency, customer satisfaction, competitive advantage, and profitability. Easily said – tricky to achieve – which is what the Six Sigma methodology is for. SIX SIGMA PROCESS The term â€Å"six sigma process† comes from the notion that if one has six standard deviations between the process mean and the nearest specification limit, as shown in the graph, practically no items will fail to meet specifications. This is based on the calculation method employed in process capability studies. Capability studies measure the number of standard deviations between the process mean and the nearest specification limit in sigma units. As process standard deviation goes up, or the mean of the process moves away from the centre of the tolerance, fewer standard deviations will fit between the mean and the nearest specification limit,  decreasing the sigma number and increasing the likelihood of items outside specification SCALE OF MEASUREMENT The table below gives long-term DPMO values corresponding to various short-term sigma levels. It must be understood that these figures assume that the process mean will shift by 1.5 sigma toward the side with the critical specification limit. In other words, they assume that after the initial study determining the short-term sigma level, the long-termCpk value will turn out to be 0.5 less than the short-term Cpk value. So, for example, the Defective parts per million opportunities (DPMO) figure given for 1 sigma assumes that the long-term process mean will be 0.5 sigma beyond the specification limit (Cpk = –0.17), rather than 1 sigma within it, as it was in the short-term study (Cpk = 0.33). Note that the defect percentages indicate only defects exceeding the specification limit to which the process mean is nearest. Defects beyond the far specification limit are not included in the percentages. Sigma level DPMO Percent defective Percentage yield Short-term Cpk Long-term Cpk 1 691,462 69% 31% 0.33 –0.17 2 308,538 31% 69% 0.67 0.17 3 66,807 6.7% 93.3% 1.00 0.5 4 6,210 0.62% 99.38% 1.33 0.83 5 233 0.023% 99.977% 1.67 1.17 6 3.4 0.00034% 99.99966% 2.00 1.5 METHODOLOGY Six Sigma projects follow two project methodologies inspired by Deming’s Plan-Do-Check-Act Cycle. These methodologies, composed of five phases each, bear the acronyms DMAIC and DMADV. DMAIC is used for projects aimed at improving an existing business process. DMADV is used for projects aimed at creating a new product or process design. The DMAIC project methodology has five phases: Define the problem, the voice of the customer,  and the project goals, specifically. Measure key aspects of the current process and collect relevant data. Analyze the data to investigate and verify cause-and-effect relationships. Determine what the relationships are, and attempt to ensure that all factors have been considered. Seek out root cause of the defect under investigation. Improve or optimize the current process based upon data analysis using techniques such as design of experiments, poka yoke or mistake proofing, and standard work to create a new, future state process. Set up pilot runs t o establish process capability. Control the future state process to ensure that any deviations from target are corrected before they result in defects. Implement control systems such as statistical process control, production boards, visual workplaces, and continuously monitor the process. Some organizations add a Recognize step at the beginning, which is to recognize the right problem to work on, thus yielding an RDMAIC methodology. DMADV or DFSS The DMADV project methodology, known as DFSS (â€Å"Design For Six Sigma†),[features five phases: Define design goals that are consistent with customer demands and the enterprise strategy. Measure and identify CTQs (characteristics that are Critical To Quality), product capabilities, production process capability, and risks. Analyze to develop and design alternatives, create a high-level design and evaluate design capability to select the best design. Design details, optimize the design, and plan for design verification. This phase may require simulations. Verify the design, set up pilot runs, implement the production process and hand it over to the process owner(s). THE TOOLS AND THEMES Like most great inventions, Six Sigma is not â€Å"all new.† While some themes of Six Sigma arise out of fairly recent breakthroughs in management thinking, others have their foundation in common sense. Before you dismiss that origin as no big deal, we’d remind you of a saying: â€Å"Common sense is the least common of the senses.† From a â€Å"tools†Ã‚  perspective, Six Sigma is a pretty vast universe. The more we have learned over the years about the Six Sigma system, the more we have come to see it as a way to link together—and even to implement—many otherwise disconnected ideas, trends, and tools in business today. Some of the â€Å"hot topics† that have direct application or can complement a Six Sigma initiative include: e-Commerce and Services Enterprise Resource Planning Lean manufacturing Customer Relationship Management systems Strategic business partnerships Knowledge management Activity-based management The â€Å"process-centred organization† Globalization Just-in-time inventory/production Six Themes of Six Sigma We’ll close out this introductory look at Six Sigma by distilling the critical elements of this leadership system into six â€Å"themes.† These principles—supported by the many Six Sigma tools and methods we’ll be presenting throughout this book—will give you a preview of how we’ll help you make Six Sigma work for your business. Theme One: Genuine Focus on the Customer During the big Total Quality push of the 1980s and 1990s, dozens of companies wrote policies and mission statements vowing to â€Å"meet or exceed customer expectations and requirements.† Unfortunately, however, few businesses tried very hard to improve their understanding of customers’ requirements or expectations. Even when they did, customer data-gathering typically was a one-time or short-lived initiative that ignored the dynamic nature of customer needs. In Six Sigma, customer focus becomes the top priority. For example, the measures of Six Sigma performance begin with the customer. Six Sigma improvements are defined by their impact on customer satisfaction and  value. We’ll look at why and how your business can define customer requirements, measure performance against them, and stay on top of new developments and unmet needs. Theme Two: Data- and Fact-Driven Management Six Sigma takes the concept of â€Å"management by fact† to a new, more powerful level. Despite the attention paid in recent years to measures, improved information systems, knowledge management, etc., it should come as no shock to you to hear that many business decisions are still being based on opinions and assumptions. Six Sigma discipline begins by clarifying what measures are key to gauging business performance; then it applies data and analysis so as to build an understanding of key variables and optimize results. At a more down-to-earth level, Six Sigma helps managers answer two essential questions to support fact-driven decisions and solutions: 1. What data/information do I really need? 2. How do we use that data/information to maximum benefit? Theme Three: Process Focus, Management, and Improvement In Six Sigma, processes are where the action is. Whether designing products and services, measuring performance, improving efficiency and customer satisfaction—or even running the business—Six Sigma positions the process as the key vehicle of success. One of the most remarkable breakthroughs in Six Sigma efforts to date has been convincing leaders and managers—particularly in the service-based functions and industries—that mastering processes is not just a necessary evil but actually a way to build competitive advantage in delivering value to customers. There are many more people to convince— with huge dollar opportunities tied up in those activities. Theme Four: Proactive Management Most simply, being â€Å"proactive† signifies acting in advance of events— the opposite of being â€Å"reactive.† In the real world, though, proactive management means making habits out of what are, too often, neglected business practices: defining ambitious goals and reviewing them frequently; setting clear priorities; focusing on problem prevention versus fire  fighting; questioning why we do things instead of blindly defending them as â€Å"how we do things here.† Being truly proactive, far from being boring or overly analytical, is actually a starting point for creativity and effective change. Reactively bouncing from crisis to crisis makes you very busy—giving a false impression that you’re on top of things. In reality, it’s a sign of a manager or an organization that’s lost control. Six Sigma, as we’ll see, encompasses tools and practices that replace reactive habits with a dynamic, responsive, proactive style of management. Considering today’s slim-margin-for-error competitive environment, being proactive is (as the airline commercial said) â€Å"the only way to fly.† Theme Five: Boundary less Collaboration â€Å"Boundary less† is one of Jack Welch’s mantras for business success. Years before launching Six Sigma, GE’s chairman was working to break down barriers and improve teamwork, up, down, and across organizational lines. The opportunities available through improved collaboration with in companies and with their vendors and customers are huge. Billions of dollars are left on the table (or on the floor) every day, because of disconnects and outright competition between groups that should be working for a common cause: providing value to customers. As noted above, Six Sigma expands opportunities for collaboration as people learn how their roles fit into the â€Å"big picture† and can recognize and measure the interdependence of activities in all parts of Process. Boundary less collaboration in Six Sigma does not mean selfless sacrifice, but it does require an understanding of both the real needs of end users and of the flow of work through a process or a sup ply chain. Moreover, it demands an attitude that is committed to using customer and process knowledge to benefit all parties. Thus, the Six Sigma system can create an environment and management structures that support true teamwork. Theme Six: Drive for Perfection; Tolerance This last theme may seem contradictory. How can you be driven to achieve perfection and yet also tolerate failure? In essence, though, the two ideas are complementary. No company will get anywhere close to Six Sigma without launching new ideas and approaches—which always involve some risk. If people  who see a possible path to better service, lower costs, new capabilities, etc. (i.e. ways to be closer-to-perfect) are too afraid of the consequences of mistakes, they’ll never try. The result: stagnation, putrefaction, death. Fortunately, the techniques we’ll review for improving performance include a significant dose of risk management (if you’re going to fail, make it a safe failure). The bottom line, though, is that any company that makes Six Sigma its goal will have to constantly push to be evermore- perfect (since the customer’s definition of â€Å"perfect† will always be changing) while being willing to accept—and manage—oc casional setbacks. SOME SUCCESS STORIES Seeing the impact that Six Sigma is having on some leading companies sets the stage for understanding how it can impact your business. As we relate some of these results, we’ll also be reviewing the history that has brought Six Sigma to the forefront General Electric Six Sigma has forever changed GE. Everyone—from the Six Sigma zealots emerging from their Black Belt tours, to the engineers, the auditors, and the scientists, to the senior leadership that will take this Company into the new millennium—is a true believer in Six Sigma, the way this Company now works.† —GE Chairman John F. Welch1 When a high-profile corporate leader* starts using words like â€Å"unbalanced† or â€Å"lunatics† in connection with the future of the company—you might expect a plunge in the company’s share price. At General Electric, however, that passion and drive behind Six Sigma have produced some very positive results. The hard numbers behind GE’s Six Sigma initiative tell just part of the story. From an initial year or so of break-even efforts, the payoff has accelerated: $750 million by the end of 1998, a forecasted $1.5 billion by the end of 1999, and expectations of more billions down the road. Some Wal l Street analysts have predicted $5 billion in gains from the effort, early in the decade. GE’s operating margins—for decades in the 10 percent range—continue to hit new records quarter after quarter. The numbers are now consistently above 15 percent, and even higher in some periods. GE leaders cite this margin expansion as the most visible  evidence of the financial contribution made by Six Sigma. Improvements from Services to Manufacturing The financial â€Å"big picture,† though, is just a reflection of the many individual successes GE has achieved through its Six Sigma initiative. For example: âÅ" ¦ A Six Sigma team at GE’s Lighting unit repaired problems in its billing to one of its top customers—Wal-Mart—cutting invoice defects and disputes by 98 percent, speeding payment, and creating better productivity for both companies. âÅ" ¦ A group led by a staff attorney—a Six Sigma team leader—at one of GE Capital’s service businesses streamlined the contract review process, leading to faster completion of deals—in other words, more responsive service to customers—and annual savings of $1 million. âÅ" ¦ GE’s Power Systems group addressed a major irritant with its utility company customers, simply by developing a better understanding of their requirements and improving the documentation provided along with new power equipment. The result: Utilities can respond more effectively to their regulatory agencies, and both the utilities and GE have saved hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. âÅ" ¦ The Medical Systems business—GEMS—used Six Sigma design techniques to create a breakthrough in medical scanning technology. Patients can now get a full-body scan in half a minute, versus three minutes or more with previous technology. Hospitals can increase their usage of the equipment and achieve a lower cost per scan, as well. âÅ" ¦ GE Capital Mortgage analyzed the processes at one of its top performing branches and—expanding these â€Å"best practices† across its other 42 branches—improved the rate of a caller reaching a â€Å"live† GE person from 76 to 99 percent. Beyond the much greater convenience and responsiveness to customers, the improved process is translating into millions of dollars in new business. The Actions behind the Results GE’s successes are the result of a â€Å"passionate† commitment and effort. Notes Welch: â€Å"In nearly four decades with GE I have never seen any Company initiative move so willingly and so rapidly in pursuit of a big idea.†2 Tens of thousands of GE managers and associates have been trained in Six Sigma methods—a hefty investment in time and money (which is appropriately deducted from the gains cited earlier). The training has gone well beyond  Ã¢â‚¬Å"Black Belts† and teams to include every manager and professional at GE—and many front-line people as well. They’ve instilled a new vocabulary revolving around customers, processes, and measurement. While dollars and statistical tools seem to get the most publicity, the emphasis on customers is probably the most remarkable element of Six Sigma at GE. As Jack Welch explains it: The best Six Sigma projects begin not inside the business but outside it, focused on answering the questionâ₠¬â€how can we make the customer more competitive? What is critical to the customer’s success? . . . One thing we have discovered with certainty is that anything we do that makes the customer more successful inevitably results in a financial return for us. AlliedSignal/Honeywell AlliedSignal—with the new name of â€Å"Honeywell† following its 1999merger—is a Six Sigma success story that connects Motorola and GE. It was CEO Larry Bossidy—a long time GE executive, who took the helm at Allied in 1991—who convinced Jack Welch that Six Sigma was an approach worth considering. (Welch had been one of the few top managers not to become enamoured of the TQM movement in the 1980s and early 1990s). Allied began its own quality improvement activities in the early 1990s, and by 1999 was saving more than $600 million a year, thanks to the widespread employee training in and application of Six Sigma principles.5 Not only were Allied’s Six Sigma teams reducing the costs of reworking defects, they were applying the same principles to the design of new products like aircraft engines, reducing the time from design to certification from 42 to 33 months. The company credits Six Sigma with a 6 percent productivity increase in 1998 and wit h its record profit margins of 13 percent. Since the Six Sigma effort began, the firm’s market value had—through fiscal year 1998—climbed to a compounded 27 percent per year. Allied’s leaders view Six Sigma as â€Å"more than just numbers—it’s a statement of our determination to pursue a standard of excellence using every tool at our disposal and never hesitating to reinvent the way we do things.† As one of Allied’s Six Sigma directors puts it: â€Å"It’s changed the way we think and the way we communicate. We never used to talk about the process or the customer; now they’re part of our everyday conversation.† AlliedSignal’s Six Sigma leadership has helped it earn recognition as the  world’s best-diversified company and the most admired global aerospace company . IMPACT There are many well known companies that have implemented Six Sigma programs and reached astounding results. Companies like General Electric, Motorola, Ford, Honeywell and American standard have all reaped the benefits of successful Six Sigma quality programs. Motorola claims to have saved $17 billion from 1986 to 2004 by successfully implementing their strategies throughout all departments of the company. The other companies have achieved staggering results such as cutting invoice defects and disputes, streamlined contract processes, reduction in project duration, waste elimination, reduced energy costs and increased production capacity. By understanding the philosophy and deploying the program, these companies have succeeded in making themselves more efficient and more profitable for their stakeholders. Companies wishing to make changes to their quality system should research this and consider Six Sigma as an option. BENEFITS It is clear that many companies have capitalized on the application of Six Sigma to their business model. If we look deeper into the appeal of Six Sigma, past the historical quantitative gains, we will find several benefits that companies find attractive. 1. â€Å"Generates sustained success† – The only way to sustain a high level of growth is to continually innovate and remake the organization. A Six Sigma process creates the skills and culture to achieve this continuous process improvement cycle. 2. â€Å"Sets a performance goal for everyone† – a company is made up of multiple departments with different tasks and objectives. Six Sigma provides a common objective for all departments to be as close to perfect as possible. The idea is that if you understand the customer’s requirements, then you can measure for defects. 3. â€Å"Enhances Customer Value† – The focus of Six Sigma is understanding what the customer requirements are and deli vering a product or service within those requirements. 4. â€Å"Increases the rate of improvement† – Six Sigma helps a company stay on top of it’s improvement efforts by constantly updating requirements and identifying defects before they happen. 5. â€Å"Promotes Learning† – Six sigma brings experts together with novices to manage the process and teach the Six Sigma way of business. Companies that use Six Sigma view it as learning tool that is critical to their success. 6. â€Å"Executes strategic change† – Six Sigma gives you a better understanding of your company processes. The philosophy is tied back to the company goals so when it’s time for change there is a higher probability of success.† NEGATIVES Just like any other quality improvement initiatives we have seen in the past, Six Sigma has its own limitations. The following are some of the limitations of Six Sigma which create opportunities for future research : 1. â€Å"Kills Creativity† – Six Sigma gives emphasis on the rigidity of the process which basically contradicts the innovation and kills the creativity. The innovative approach implies deviations in production, the redundancy, the unusual solutions, insufficient study which are opposite to Six Sigma principles. 2. â€Å"Role of consultants† – The use of â€Å"Black Belts† as itinerant change agents has (controversially) fostered an industry of training and certification. Critics argue there is overselling of Six Sigma by too great a number of consulting firms, many of which claim expertise in Six Sigma when they have only a rudimentary understanding of the tools and techniques involved. 3. â€Å"Rigid† – A more direct criticism is the â€Å"rigid† nature of Six Sigma with its over-reliance on methods and tools. In most cases, more attention is paid to reducing variation and searching for any significant factors and less attention is paid to developing robustness in the first place (which can altogether eliminate the need for reducing variation.) 4. â€Å"Criticism of the 1.5 sigma shift† – The 1.5 sigma shift has also become contentious because it results in stated â€Å"sigma levels† that reflect short-term rather than long-term performance: a process that has long-term defect levels corresponding to 4. 5 sigma performance is, by Six Sigma convention, described as a â€Å"six sigma process.†. The accepted Six Sigma scoring system thus cannot be equated to actual normal distribution probabilities for the stated number of standard deviations, and this has been a key bone of contention over how Six Sigma measures are defined. APPLICATIONS In pharmaceutical industry, adoption of the Six Sigma technique helped the industry reduce wastage and rework involved in the production. It was said that 5-10% of medicines produced during a period were to be discarded or modified due to the defects. The adoption of Six Sigma helped the pharmaceutical companies to reduce the errors in the production. Airline industry had to adopt the Six Sigma metrics for its survival. The increased cost of fuel, the competition driven by low budget airlines, etc has made the need for lower cost without a hit to quality the need of the hour. The number of errors in handling the calls from customers, and ticketing is to be minimised drastically. It was with this intention that the airline industry adopted Six Sigma into the organisation. Indian companies like Kingfisher, Jet Airways, and Indian Airlines, all have adopted Six Sigma technique into its process. Hospitality services are another industry which benefited by the adoption of Six Sigma techniques. Providing personalised service to each and every customer by bending to their demands within a limited time without comprising the quality was aided by the Six Sigma matrices. The Six Sigma technique is adopted in every field from maintaining full occupancy to efficient housekeeping, ensuring a balanced inventory supply, and to minimise wastage in the inventory. Starwood hotels and resorts Inc was the first company to adopt Six Sigma in the hospitality sector. Steel industries like TISCO use this technique to minimise the inadequacies in the design, imperfect products, etc. I. Logistics, insurance, call centres, all embrace the Six Sigma techniques for improving the quality of service provided by them. Six Sigma goes in to the details of improving customer service, generating business expansion and gaining knowledge about the service sectors business processes. Most service industries revolve around areas of finance, human resources and sales and marketing. Hence, Six Sigma delves deeply into the subject of soft skill. Irrespective of the type of industry, all companies have to adopt Six Sigma techniques as quality and timely delivery are crucial for their survival. SOME COMMON CONFUSUIONS KAIZEN – â€Å"Kaizen†, is a Japanese word, meaning â€Å"improvement†, or â€Å"change for the better† refers to philosophy or practices that focus upon continuous improvement of processes in manufacturing, engineering, and business management. When used in the business sense and applied to the workplace, kaizen refers to activities that continually improve all functions, and involves all employees from the CEO to the assembly line workers. It also applies to processes, such as purchasing and logistics that cross organizational boundaries into the supply chain. By improving standardized activities and processes, kaizen aims to eliminate waste (see lean manufacturing). Kaizen was first implemented in several Japanese businesses after the Second World War, influenced in part by American business and quality management teachers who visited the country. It has since spread throughout the world] and is now being implemented in many other venues besides just bu siness and productivity. Six Sigma process involves employees at every level to improve a process. The theory is that a machine operator is best suited to identify the waste surrounding that machine. Employees participate in KAIZENS (a sort of quality circle) to eliminate all the waste along the process of delivering to customers. Everything left over is meaningful and profitable work. Generally, the employees themselves are empowered to recognize the need for an improvement, and to make that change immediately. LEAN SIX SIGMA – â€Å"Lean Six Sigma† is a synergized managerial concept of Lean and Six Sigma that results in the elimination of the seven kinds of wastes (classified as Defects, Overproduction, Transportation, Waiting, Inventory, Motion and Over-Processing) and provision of goods and service at a rate of 3.4 defects per million opportunities Six Sigma as well is far more data-driven than Lean Six Sigma (and Lean). A Six Sigma level is, again, 3.4 defects per million; a Five Sigma level is 233 defects per million, and so on. As Michael L. George describes, every Six Sigma improvement requires â€Å"a measure to define the capability of any process.† This reliance upon precise measurement is what makes the DMAIC processlengthy; a DMAIC project may require thousands of measurements before project leaders can analyze the results. Lean Six Sigma does not ignore measurement where it is required, but does not rely upon it absolutely. TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT – â€Å"Total Quality Management† or TQM is an integrative philosophy of management for continuously improving the quality of products and processes. TQM functions on the premise that the quality of products and processes is the responsibility of everyone who is involved with the creation or consumption of the products or services offered by an organization. In other words, TQM requires the involvement of management, workforce, suppliers, and customers, in order to meet or exceed customer expectations. TQM, as its name suggests, concerns itself entirely with quality. All efforts, finances and techniques are directed at improving quality as much as possible. While Six Sigma is certainly concerned with quality as well, it extends its focus to other issues such as product cycle time and cost. Because of this difference, Six Sigma can be much more complex to implement but also can create farther-reaching benefits. The goals of TQM and Six Sigma differ in significant ways. Total Quality Management has no specific goals or endpoints at which management can aim. Basically, the goal of TQM is to always become â€Å"better,† an objective that can become both a blessing and a curse as it continually inspires both motivation and frustration. Six Sigma, on the other hand, has the very tangible goal of 3.4 defects per million. This target gives the philosophy its name, as the amount is six standard deviations (represented by the Greek letter sigma) from the centre of a bell curve Accordi ng to Six Sigma specialist Thomas Pryzdek, TQM originally featured vague and abstract guidelines that were difficult, if not impossible, for most managers to turn into tangible and implementable strategies. Six Sigma attempts to fix this problem by creating specific areas to target for improvement. In lieu of general statements about quality improvement, the Six Sigma philosophy pinpoints sectors of specialized focus. IMPLEMENTATION †¢ Analyze – Is the discovery of variations Six Sigma programs are deployed  from the Top down and implemented from the bottom up. (Cariera and Trudell, 2006) You must have upper managements buy-in and full support. This support must be communicated effectively through the organization. Upper management must be willing to invest in training for their employees and willing to embrace the changes that will come out of the initiative. Although Six Sigma can involve some complex statistical theories and measurement tools, the barriers to successful implementations usually come from â€Å"behavioural† resistance rather than â€Å"technical† issues. (Kumar, 2006) The following are what Kumar considers â€Å"Fundamental rules for significant change†: †¢ Always include affected individuals in both planning and implementing improvements. †¢ Provide sufficient time for employees to change. †¢ Confine improvements to only those changes essential to remove the identified root cause(s). †¢ Respect an individual’s perceptions by listening and responding to his/her concerns. †¢ Ensure leadership participation in the program. †¢ Provide timely feedback to affected individuals. These are all key points to implementing Six Sigma, however to a Six Sigma critic’s point, there is nothing really new here. This is very similar to many other management and quality philosophies. Regardless of what name you give it, these fundamentals are imperative for instituting positive change in an organization. Perhaps by applying these fundamentals under a recognized program such as Six Sigma, there will be a better chance for success. Each phase is important in its own right; however the key thing for long lasting results in understanding the Control phase. The control phase must include a plan for continuous review and improvement. The DMAIC roadmap should be looked at as a circular process rather than linear. During the control phase companies must continually look for new opportunities then restart the process at Design. CASE STUDY Mumbai Dabbawalas, a perfect example of SIX SIGMA. -Dr. Pawan Agrawal The food is cooked at home. Tiffin is yours. They [dabbawalas] will simply deliver it from your home to your workplace before lunch time and deliver the empty tiffin box back in the evening at your home as well. Why would you want dabbawala to carry your tiffin? There are two reasons. One is that the Mumbai local trains have lines extending 60-70 km and two, they are crowded. If you have to reach office at 9, you must start at 6. But you wouldn’t want to wake your loved ones at 5 and have them prepare the tiffin for you; that’s where Dabbawala can help you. Another reason is that even if you start at 8, you won’t be able to carry your own tiffin because of how crowded the trains are. So, for these two reasons, Dabbawala has been in the business [of carrying your home food to your office] for the last 120 years. There’s a group of people called Varkari Sampradaya in Maharashtra; they are the devotees of Lord Vitthala and there’s a place called Pandha rpur, the town of the temple of Vitthala. When they go to that place, they wear a ‘tulasi mala’. And when a person wears this mala, he will never drink or smoke because Lord Vitthala doesn’t like it and the same principle is brought into practice here. Dabbawalas feel that their customer is their Lord Vitthala. These people are poor, they are working in difficult situations, they are not qualified and they don’t use technology, and yet, they possess all these qualities and work with passion and commitment. Dabbawala was started in 1890 by Mr. Mahadeo Havaji Bachche. He was once asked by a Parsi working in the Britisher’s rank, â€Å"Will you bring my tiffin from my home?† He simply answered â€Å"Yes, I will, no problem.† From that day onwards, he started to collect tiffins from homes and delivering them to the respective workplaces. In 1890, there was one dabbawala and one customer, and now, there are 5000 dabbawalas and 200,000 customers, which means, one dabbawala carries approximately 40 tiffins. The maximum weight comes to 65-70kg; carrying that much weight in the crowded local trains is a lot of hard work. Why do they do it then? Work is worship. And, as far as qualification is concerned, you will see that the average literacy rate is 8th grade schooling; which means the dabbawalas are illiterate and yet they have managed to achieve a Six Sigma quality rating, which means only one wrong service in a 6 million deliveries. Ownership is a feeling that an  empl oyee has to instil in oneself, and unless you get that feeling of ownership you cannot work excellently. In 120 years, it has never happened that a dabbawala has failed to deliver. It’s impossible. They will never tell you that â€Å"the trains are late today,† and even if Mumbai trains are late, the tiffins can’t be late. The dabbawala knows that if he’s not going in time, his customer will eat outside food, pay money for it and waste time. The dabbawala knows the consequences of going late. So he always goes on time. The people of Mumbai say with confidence that â€Å"our lunch can go wrong but not the Mumbai dabbawalas.† So nobody can stop you from being punctual.. Let me speak about (mukadal) group leaders. A group has 10, 20, or 25 dabbawalas, depending on the density of customers in your area, and their in-charge is the group leader. The responsibility to keep the dabbawalas and the customers happy is on the group leader. Despite the fact that he doesn’t get even a rupee extra for the extra10% that he works, he feels proud to be a group leader. For example, the group leader also takes care of the train passes of the dabbawalas, to check whether they have expired or not; he reminds the dabbawalas in case their passes are about to expire in the next 2-3 days and also buys the pass for the dabbawala if he fails to do so himself in order to ensure that timely delivery doesn’t suffer. I will tell you an instance of how one dabbawala performs duty in one day. He collects 40tiff in’s from a particular area and drops them in the Vile Parle railway station because his customer is from Vile Parle. He can’t deliver all of them because he would have to go all over Mumbai, so he leaves these 40 there. That’s his first job. His second job is to collect 35-40 tiffins from his group leader and deliver them to Dadar. His third job is to deliver 30 tiffins to Chavani Road, and in the fourth job from Chavani Road, he delivers 30 Tiffin’s to Churchgate. His fifth job is to go from Church Gate to deliver 30 tiffins to NarimanPoint. Finally, in his sixth job, he delivers 30 tiffins to Express Tower to the customers before lunch time and after lunch, he will reroute back to his original area and deliver the same tiffins from where he had  collected them. After all this, Forbes has found 1 erroneous delivery out of 6 million deliveries, but they don’t accept that either. They are unhappy that that  one error has occurred. Twelve years ago, some people from Delhi came to Dabbawala and said they want to do research on Dabbawala; they prepared a project and went back to Delhi. They called after 3 months and informed Dabbawala about Six Sigma. Dabbawalas didn’t know what it meant. They told Dabbawala it was a big honour so Dabbawala asked them to send it across. They were told to go to Delhi and collect it. Sixteen dabbawalas went to Delhi to collect the Six Sigma certification. People work so hard for three and Four Sigma but dabbawalas got Six Sigma because they didn’t care about the certifi cation and cared only about customer satisfaction. It is a big achievement especially without the use of technology. Even if the dabbawalas use technology in the form of mobile phones, they can’t because both their hands are used in delivering tiffins. Technology is useless for them for delivery. And after all this, they charge only 400 rupees per month for delivery. So, the question arises is that, why do they charge so less. They say customers are poor. If they want more income, they work extra. Dabbawala then gave me an example of a teacher, who earns only Rs 5000 per month as a government rule. He said, â€Å"Despite the teacher’s double graduation, I earn more than him, so I’m happy.† For example, some customers refuse to pay bonus, but the dabbawalas don’t disrupt their services. So I asked one of them why, he said, â€Å"the customer is my God, he has paid me 12 months’ of salary so it’s ok if he doesn’t pay me one month’s bonus.† Despite the disputes there has never been a police or a court case. Every 15 days they have a meeting. The disputing dabbawalas resolve their disputes and if they can’t, the president takes a call and they follow his judgment without questioning. Dabbawalas feel satisfied. I asked one customer, what he thinks about the dabbawalas. He said, â₠¬Å"Excellent. When I get my salary I am afraid of carrying it in the local train because it’s so crowded and I can get robbed so instead, after I have lunch, I put the money in the empty dabba and send to my wife.† Dabbawalas are very honest. If you do services consistently and with discipline, then the customer, at some point of time, will believe that you are God. In one day, one dabbawala handles 500 tiffins. There is a 79-year-old man who is a dabbawala, nobody’s forcing him, but he still works because he thinks he can still provide service to his customers. The dabbawalas use bicycles. Another thing is the coding system; about 100 years ago, they were using colour codes. Then when Mumbai  grew and the number of customers increased, they started using alphabets; A for Andheri, B for Bandra, etc. And today, they write a proper code with details of the source, destination and all the dabbawalas involved in that particular delivery. When this tiffin is coded and then washed, sometimes the coding becomes unclear, so the dabbawala takes colour out of his pocket and overwrites the code. He doesn’t complain about it, he just finishes the job. Due to the overcrowded Mumbai local trains, some people enter the l uggage department, and when they do, the tiffins stick to their heads. So they start fighting with the dabbawalas and the dabbawalas also fight with them but only till the station arrives, because after that they’re more interested in the delivery. They use carts for longer distances. In running local trains, they sort the tiffins to save time. Risk is there, but it’s there everywhere. You must work with the situation. For example, they lost some income and customers because of some instances. In 1969, customers stopped taking food. In 1975, there was a railway strike; the dabbawalas lost one month’s income. In 1982, 40,000 meal workers went on strike. Till today they’re on strike. A lot of people lost their lives. Dabbawalas have gone through all this and come out shining. They have been featured on multiple channels and have been awarded multiple awards. These 50 Indians have influenced Mumbai: Tata, Birla, Ambani, Thakarey, Shahrukh Khan, Amitabh Bachhan and Mumbai Dabbawala. Somebody took a survey in Mumbai about the likes of people, and Dabbawala was one of them. I am not a Dabbawala. I’m not involved in any of the operations at all. I have done a Ph.D. on this subject and my topic was ‘A study of logistics in supply chain management of Dabbawala in Mumbai.’ It took a lot of years to complete my Ph.D. But, two days into the research, I was taken aback by the p assion of these people. I decided to do the research whether or not I complete my Ph.D. Prince Charles came to Mumbai in 2003. Six months before his visit, Mr. Jeetendra Jain, in the British Council of India, contacted dabbawala to arrange a visit. Dabbawala first refused and then, after realizing that Prince Charles is Britain’s royalty in the manner of a king, he agreed, but, with two conditions. First one was that Prince Charles should come at the Dabbawala’s convenience — between 11 and 11.40 because that’s when they’re free. Second, Prince Charles must go to Dabbawala himself. Where to? The footpath. Prince Charles accepted these conditions. Richard Branson came to  Mumbai. He wanted a photo with Dabbawala to put it up in his office in London to send a message to his employees to work like Dabbawalas. That’s the impact of Mumbai Dabbawala. There was an inauguration of a book written by Shobha Bondre. This was inaugurated by the then Chief Minister of Maharashtra, Mr. Vilasrao Deshmukh. The chief minister said that for every program he goes an hour late but for a dabbawala program he came 5 minutes early because he was scared that if he came late the Dabbawalas will go away. ANALYSIS How the Dabbawalas works? 1. Collecting food dabbas 2. Sorting +Grouping 3. Transporting 4. Receiving 5. Delivering 6. Collecting empty dabbas 1. Collecting A collecting dabbawala, usually on bicycle, collects dabbas either from a worker’s home or from the dabba makers. The dabbas have some sort of distinguishing mark on them, such as a colour or symbol. 2. Sorting + Grouping The dabbawala then takes them to a designated sorting place, where he and other collecting dabbawalas sort (and sometimes bundle) the lunch boxes into groups. 3. Transporting The grouped boxes are put in the coaches of trains, with markings to identify the destination of the box (usually there is a designated car for the boxes). 4. Receiving The markings include the railway station to unload the boxes and the building address where the box has to be delivered. At each station, boxes are handed over to a local dabbawala. 5. Delivering: The local dabbawala delivers the dabbas to the respective places. 6. Collecting empty dabbas The empty boxes, after lunch, are again collected and sent back to the respective houses or dabba makers Factors contributing to their success 1. Cost efficient and faster delivery : The dabbawalas charge a nominal monthly fee which is affordable and they have an efficient delivery network which makes them deliver on time. 2. Highly reliable: On time delivery for all the â€Å"dabbas† and hardly any errors. All deliveries have ensured 100% customer satisfaction. There are cost best in time management and have been awarded six sigma rating. 3. Using Mumbai’s railway network : Using the Mumbai sub urban railways for their daily transportation from homes to the offices. Thus making it a cheaper and more efficient system. 4. Structure: They have a flat hierarchical in the organisation. Just 3 levels of organisation: carriers, supervisors and committee members. This flat structureimplies a wide span of control. Every supervisor has about 4-5 carriers under him. CONCLUSION Six Sigma looks at all work as a series of processes with inherent variations, which can cause waste or inefficiency. Focusing on those  processes with greatest impact on business performance, as defined by leadership teams, the methodology involves statistical analysis to quantify repeated common cause variations – which can then be reduced by the Six Sigma team. Six Sigma becomes a continuous process for quality improvement and cost reduction flowing throughout the company. Originally developed from a Japanese quality control process for manufacturing electronic semi-conductors, Six Sigma developed the capability of reducing problems or issues effecting customer expectations on key business processes. Six Sigma has provided the opportunity to drive forward important customer focused initiatives across the Cummins global organisation. As an improvement and cost reduction process, Six Sigma is equally valid for marketing and product development as well as manufacturing and c ustomer services. Six Sigma improvement projects and techniques are now the cornerstone of Cummins continued success in cost reduction and quality improvement. REFERENCES LINKS http://www.experts123.com/q/who-invented-six-sigma.html as on 11/10/2012 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_sigma as on 11/10/2012 http://www.benchmarksixsigma.com/ on 12/10/2012 http://www.6sigma.us/six-sigma.php as on 13/10/2012 http://www.businessballs.com/sixsigma.html as on 13/10/2012 http://www.benchmarksixsigma.com/ as on 13/10/2012 BOOKS Pede, Peter.S (2002), Mc-Graw Hill, The Six Sigma Way (from 029-72) De Feo, Joseph A.; Barnard, William (2005). JURAN Institute’s Six Sigma Breakthrough and Beyond – Quality Performance Breakthrough Methods. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Professional. ISBN 0-07-142227-7 (from p235- 245). Ramias, Alan, The Mists of Six Sigma, (2005), BP Trends (from p5-9) Eckes, George, Six Sigma for Everyone, 2003, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ. (p 155-169)

Customer Service Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Customer Service - Assignment Example The needs and requirements of the different types of customers visiting the hotel are as follows: Backpackers and Solo Travellers These travellers spend a lot of time exploring the city alone and prefer convenient amenities and services at affordable prices. They are regarded as one of the most important customers as they are regarded as one of the most important customers, which contribute highly to the hospitality industry (Capozzi, 2013). Couples They form an important part of the hotel industry and have tailor made hotel accommodation like couple and honeymoon suites. These customers also expect special types of discount and incentive packages to be offered to them (Capozzi, 2013). Families Families visiting the hotel have few specific needs, like kid friendly environment, spacious rooms, and discounts. They also require some additional amenities like booster chairs, wide stroller friendly paths and changing station (Capozzi, 2013). Corporate Customers Their requirements are very different from the individuals and services like fast speed internet access, detail to quality of hotel accommodations rooms and services, and various other service offerings (Capozzi, 2013). (b) The reliance on customer service methods like, feedback survey would be significant in improving the hotel structures, procedures and quality, which would be for the betterment of the entire organization (Capozzi, 2013). A customer feedback survey was drafted to understand the customer requirements and is provided in the appendices. (c) Service Current Policy Feed Back Evaluation Method Customer Expectations Travel services Customer is supposed to book the rental car and travel facilities six hours before the required time. It includes travel facilities only to immediate travel locations. The feedback was collected through the customer information filled in the complaint register (Chilisa, 2011). Customers want booking of travel services through telephone and also flexibility of timings. T ourist services As per the current policy only visitors of the hotels are allowed for the service and need to book the tourist service 3 months in advance. The information was collected through the feedback form during their travel visits. Customers are happy with the existing services only the timing factor poses to be a hindrance. Customers want to book the travel prior to one month instead of three months. Pubs, nightclubs and bars. The bars and the nightclubs, pubs are located separately and the timings of these facilities are 10:00 am to night 2:00 pm. The members of the hotel and the visitors are only allowed to visit the hotel. The feedback was collected through the survey conducted by the researcher. Customer wants the extension of timings of the nightclubs, pubs and bars till 3:30 pm. Catering The catering services are offered to corporate and individual customers as per advance booking. The feedback was collected through the survey polls conducted through an opinion form. The catering service needs to be upgraded as per the menu by inclusion of more menus. Membership Clubs The member ship clubs are given on the annually and half yearly basis and discounts, special privileges are provided to customers. No customer survey was conducted, but the opinion of the members was taken into general consideration. None The management has considered various changes in

Rubric for Written Response to Performance of Communicating Doors Essay

Rubric for Written Response to Performance of Communicating Doors - Essay Example The set is great, and cover the entire stage, from the balcony windows to a some feet close to the audience on the left side of the stage further to the door close to the door, and the posh time travel door, to the overt walled washroom, bedroom doorway that has a furnishing accompaniment and the antique additions that are throughout the stage. On stage the couch is tailored for the play, and the audience become perplexed that the exterior in the at time spunky play. The concept of tie travel is rather simple on stage, and during the play there is a door in which it frequently occurs. A mere walk through the door and the cast can land either twenty years in the future or twenty years in the past. The direction in time (future or past) depends on who the cast member might be. However, only a single individual can travel at any given time, further one can come to the present from either the past or the future. In the play the concept is wide and unlimited and the concept of time travelling is captured aptly within the play. The British accent filled the environment, and the players performing in different ages, and hence the need to change their wigs and posture to reflect the change in their ages over the flip sides. The 1978 periods is when some are young, then the age when the play was set as the present, and in the future, 2034 and 2018 is reflected by changes in the age manifested by wigs assuming different colors. The scenery is also frequently captured by the lighting to show different time periods, and the concept is achieved when this is achieved through shifting of the time changing room. To achieve this change seem to take quite a while to be realized, the change, time switch and for the audience to predict what is time, then change in time, and convince the audience that the time has changed and things like that takes time to be achieved. The characters put on very colorful costumes which do not betray the play as they are seem to be fully

Development of Railways and it's impact on the society Essay

Development of Railways and it's impact on the society - Essay Example 1). This paper studies the factors causing the growth of railways in Europe and its impact on the society. The birth of railways happened in the year 1767 when the iron rails were laid for the first time ever at Coalbrookdale. The early railways were used in the French Wars that were carried out between 1790s and 1800s. At Pen-y-Darren, in the year 1804, the Trevithick’s Wylam locomotive was used which was one of the first forms of railway. Four years later at Euston, the Trevithick’s Catch-me-who-can was used. The Blenkinsops rack locomotive and the Hedleys Puffing Billy were introduced successively in the years 1812 and 1813 respectively. The Stephenson’s Blocher was used in 1815. Stephenson created the Stockton to Darlington railway line that was 27 miles of 4 8Â ½" track in the length was opened in the year 1825 (historyhome.co.uk, 2011). The first passengers were carried by the Locomotion 1. Joseph Hall in 1825 developed the Cort’s puddling process as well as the rolling process. Coke was replaced by coal with the hot blast method proposed by Neilson in 1828. The 30 miles long railway line leading from Manchester to Liverpool was commenced in the year 1830. In 1833, a railway line for the transportation of coal was started from Liecester to Swanington. Daniel Gooch engineered the project of the London – Bristol line construction. The Isambard Kingdom Brunel undertook this project in 1835. This marked the beginning of the Great Western Railway that was completely flat over a length of 85 miles. The London - Bath – Briston railway line and the Birmingham to London railway line were started in 1838. Till the year 1838, the total length of railway lines that had been made was 500 miles. In just a matter of ten years till 1848 the growth of the railway became so rampant that the total length of railway lines increased from 500 miles to 5000 miles.  "The

Present and evaluate J.C. Maxwells version of the Golden Rule as Essay

Present and evaluate J.C. Maxwells version of the Golden Rule as discussed in class and in your reading. (Again, this means discussing the argument) - Essay Example What you do is important; but how you do, what you do is more important. Meaning, the process of living is supreme than achieving success in life. In business, seeking wealth is perfect. What is inappropriate is the intentional manipulation of business practices to deceive others. Desires are not bad; but motivated desires and causing intentional pain to others to secure monetary gains is undesirable. Great business projects are fine, but the prerequisite about such projects is creating noble individuals to implement them. When ethics is the foundation stone of an individual viewed from perception of life as a whole, nothing can go wrong for such an individual. He can be a businessman, politician, bureaucrat, farmer etc. The fundamental rules of ethics will not change, only their application in a particular situation may vary. Scandals originate in the heart. An individual must have a cause to be ethical, the heart to be ethical, and pursue the ethical principles with grit, stamina and heroism, and finally receive the rewards or any other types of accruing results with a balanced mental attitude. Even if the results are not favorable in a given situation, one will have the inner satisfaction of following the Golden Rule of ethics. One has to be truthful at all times and at all costs and avoid ‘pressure, pleasure, power, pride and skewed priorities’, to uphold the Golden Rule. In that ideal situation, societal environment will be

Cultural and social experiences - Body image Essay

Cultural and social experiences - Body image - Essay Example The essay "Cultural and social experiences - Body image" discovers the concept of body image in the fashion. Examining the importance of body image and how it relates to society creates a specific association with society, culture and the associations which are made among individuals who are searching for different ideologies about how to approach their personal identity. The concept of fashion and body image in society links together through the use of mass media and the associations as a part of the cultural order. This begins with fashion and dress becoming a way in which one operates with their body and how one shows their level of health. The concept of fashion becomes associated with society specifically because of the fashion system that is surrounding fashion and dress. These are interrelated to the ideas of body image through the structure of fashion and the importance of the body in defining how the body should look. When associating with fashion, there is also a specific l ink to one being a part of the right social order while defining identity, personality and a sense of attractiveness within society. The belief of attractiveness comes from the definition of what beauty means, specifically which correlates with the ideas of fashion and how these link to society. The definition of beauty and links to social order come from fashion and further with the beliefs that are created from fashion and dress. The ideology of human beliefs and values comes from not only the ideologies. that an individual has within the family or experience. The environment of culture and social order also creates different standards about what one believes and the self – image which they carry. The association is one which is created from the psychological beliefs that are a part of society and the way in which this builds and develops with needs for a culture to hold specific standards. The individual then creates the same beliefs based on the influences from society, s pecifically which come from industries, media and other components within society. The result is an understanding of attitudes and values that are surrounded around a consumer society and which create an understanding that fashion builds a sense of identity, value and belief in one’s role within society (Porter, 2000:15). The Body in Society and Psychology The structure and beliefs within society and culture are furthered with the way in which the body image becomes linked to psychological beliefs about the body. The concept of fashion is one which has a specific link to body image and what it means to be beautiful. The image begins with adornments, fashion statements and dress that define the latest trends in society that one will look the best in. This is followed with models that are required to have a thinner figure or which have to be fit at a certain level. This creates a sense of what it means to have the right body image and figure while discounting other images that are within society. The result is the concept of idealizing the different factors that are stressed in society and from the fashion that is a part of the main image. As this occurs, there is a sense of internalization that occurs with women and men with what it means to look beautiful and in the best fashions (Thompson, 2001: 91). There are a variety of examples that lead to the internationalization of what it means to be thin and the pressures which come from the models in fashion that all have the same look. Figure 1 shows a series of models that depict the ideology of remaining thin while

The potential of a Singapore Signature Treatment Dissertation

The potential of a Singapore Signature Treatment - Dissertation Example The paper tells that the tourism industry is very huge in Asia especially in South East Asia where a lot of tourists flock the region to enjoy. As a result, these tourists need to be treated and afforded quality services. There are various forms of relaxation and some of these methods include swimming, sightseeing and personalized services. Over the years, the personalized services industry has grown tremendously to include more specialized services such as foot messages or even hair treatment. One of the industries where people look for personalized services is the Spa industry. Singapore is one of the countries whereby Spas are operated by professionals who are recognized globally. Several top notch beauty companies have set up operations in Singapore as part of their strategy in tapping the Singapore market. Several established companies such as Mintel oxygen have produced reports that have shown that one of the reasons that stop people from paying for spas is the lack of appeal a nd this concept applies both on visual effect and treatment menu. As a result it is necessary to develop special treatment which is recognized in the Singapore market and the globe. Several countries such as Thailand and India have developed signature treatments that have attracted a lot of consumers. Due to the high completion in the Spa industry it is prudent for a country or region to a unique selling point that will attract customers the attention of customers. Therefore, Singapore should be geared towards development of a unique Spa experience in tandem with companies such as Decleor. The use of natural ingredients without preservatives and essential oils has had the result of easy penetration to the skin and therefore acting as an effective way of curing heart conditions. The combination of the highly skilled tourism industry in

Investment and Portfolios assignment Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Investment and Portfolios assignment - Essay Example When a trader can foresee these changes, it provides a clear picture of the market trends. For these reasons, traders would be in a better position to make entry when the chances of making profits are high and make an exit when the trends are not favorable. According to Murphy, (1999), there are three concepts that describe technical analysis. These were described as market action discounts everything, prices move in trends, and history repeats itself. Murphy (1999) defined market action discounts everything as source of information availed to traders. Such information may include volumes of data or prices of commodities. The concept assumes that the market action discounts everything, which illustrates that everything that is likely to influence the prices like psychology, politics, and other fundamentals were integrated and therefore reflected in the volumes of data or the prices. Therefore, the price provides a direct measure that could be used to study trends in demands and supply. Rises in the price would signify that the demands ought to exceed the supply while ensuring that the fundamentals are kept positive. Price trend denotes the directions taken by the stock’s price over a given period. Technical analysis dwells on prevailing patterns of price data to signal reversal or continuation of the trend. It offers the opportunity to recognize continual situations that guide continual ‘riding on the values’ to get optimal out of it. Although, most the basis of doing price move in trend is to recognize continual signals, it also offers the opportunity to identify any signals for reversal so that the owners can sell their stock before the trend goes bad. Technical analysis examines data on the stock prices to establish price patterns that could assist in the prediction of the next direction for future prices. If existing data on pricing shows that past projections were

EN102 Exam 3 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

EN102 Exam 3 - Essay Example Social networking through the Internet is rapidly gaining attention from the public. This has potentially changed people’s lifestyle including purchasing habits. The ability of social media to form virtual networks is an opportunity to enhance the effectiveness of advertising and to gain more consumers. The chance for interaction in most virtual communities is helpful to marketing improvement if businesses avail this kind of advertisement. Wood and Solomon (2009) contend that virtual communities are influential in examining the "differences in consumer perception of virtual and real-life recommendation sources" (p. 66) and would offer companies a practical look on what the consumers need. Social media offers an extensive marketing for the products and services of various companies considering the internet’s speed in disseminating information, while companies are able to keep track on the level of customer satisfaction through online interaction of virtual communities. Social media, amidst its disadvantages, is undeniably a useful tool in adapting to new age consumers’ preferences and needs. The onset of modern technology changes the trends of various aspects in the society, including marketing. The cost-efficiency of using social media to introduce the product to virtual communities is helpful in the development of the business’s market and profit. With a suitable brand online strategy, the business is introduced to the social media users. An advantage that social media has that other forms of marketing does not have is the chance to listen to a direct feedback and the chance to know what the consumers like or dislike about the product. If taken as a constructive criticism in the part of the management, such comments can be an opportunity to develop their products and services. Based on the information discussed at the previous parts of this paper, three

Trace the changes and developments Essay Example for Free

Trace the changes and developments Essay This is a character study on a character from the play Hobsons Choice by Harold Brighouse. The character I am going to study is Hobsons principal bookmaker, Willie Mossop. The story of Hobsons choice is about Hobsons single mindedness, which is shown in the way he attempts to live his life, run his household, and to rule his daughters. It is seen In the eldest daughter Maggies dominance and the grooming of Will and not least in her finally, at the age of 30 standing up to her own father. The other two daughters Alice and Vickey also inherit this characteristic. What sets Maggie apart from the rest of her family is that she uses this quality not only for her benefit of others, not least though he is initially unconvinced, Willie Mossop. Thos play is also the story of the transformation of Willie. Willie was a working class man who worked in Henry Hobsons boot shop, he had little future until Maggie Hobson spotted talent and developed him into a successful man. When Willie is first seen in Act 1 page 9 he is described as a  Lanky fellow, about thirty, not naturally stupid but stunted mentally by a brutalised childhood. He is a raw material of a charming man but at present, it requires a very keen eye to detect his potentialities  One thing I notice about Willie is that he is an extremely shy and nervous man as Mrs Hepworth a member of the Upper class says  Take that  Willie in worry bends over rather expecting That to be a blow. Then he raises his head to find she is holding out a visiting card with her address apon it. As Willie tries to read what is written apon the card he finds he cant, his excuse is that the print is funny as he tries to hide his embarrassment. As Mrs Hepworth carries on talking Hobson thinks Willie has done something wrong and says. I assure it will never happen again  By this you can see Hobson doesnt have any faith in Willie. The thing is because, Mrs Hepworth has searched everywhere in Manchester for a pair of boots and there havent been any ones see has liked these are the best she has found. Therefor Mrs Hepworth asks Willie to let her know whether he ever moves shop, as she wants him to make her shoes for her  When the play begins nothing is said of Willie and no one talks of him until Mrs Hepworth spots a great talent in him. No one can really see Willies potential apart from Maggie, who can see beneath the surface of Will. Willie gets his first taste of praise when Mrs Hepworth demands to see him to congratulate him on his ability to make boots,  Ive tries every shop in Manchester, and these are the best made pair of boots Ive had. Now youll make my boots in future. This is not much to Willie, as he does not really take it in he just wants to disappear down the cellar where he can hide away from the company of other people.  Willie is very shy and has no confidence at all and he has no idea of his future, apart from work by himself quietly! When Will is approached by Maggie he is very scared of her and wants to go away from her. He wants no business with her at all because he is not good at communicating, he gets embarrassed easily and hates attention.  Other people just ignore Willie, to them he is just the young man that was employed to make the boots for Hobsons boot shop. Hobson thinks very little of him and underpays him as one part says:  Mrs H: The mans a treasure and I expect you underpay him. Hobson: Thatll do Willie. You can go.  Mr Hobson immediately dismisses him, as he knows that he does underpay him, and wants to change the subject, this shows how little Mr Hobson thinks of Willie.  The sisters also dont think much of Willie, and they go for the upper class rich people. When Maggie tells them that she intends to marry Will they are very shocked.  Alice: Youre going to marry Willie Mossop! Willie Mossop!  They are very shocked because Willie is a working class man and they are considered to be posh also they believe that if Willie is in the Family then no one else will want to marry them as they wont want Will as a brother in law. Maggie is in charge of the shop and she can see that Will is a very hard worker who deserves more in life.  Do you know what keeps this business on its legs? Two things: ones the good boots that sell themselves, the other is the bad boots other people make and I sell.  Maggie knows that this is how the shop works and without Will they would be nothing. She knows that he can get more out of life so she tries to make him marry her but he wont because he has been forced to marry someone else. This shows that he is pushed around and cant stick up for himself.  Will is almost pushed around with Maggie, as he has no confidence. Will is afraid to try to do well and he has no career plans for the future as he is too shy to try, he says  Nay, Id be feared to go in them fine places.

SWOT Analysis of E-Commerce Opportunity

SWOT Analysis of E-Commerce Opportunity Description and Market Potential Description Introduction: Describe what an e-commerce opportunity is. Cite sources. The current system was developed as part of an internal intranet define terms clearly with sources. This allows staff to set up alerts based on requests by existing clients or through new clients brought in by sales. This process could be automated into a website that allowed clients to review, purchase and setup their own alerts for their company without the need for manual processes by internal employees. This model favours a higher volume of sales at a lower cost with the potential to access new B2B what is this? sales outside of the current high value business clients. The single unit of sales for the site is an alert. A single alert covers: A number of twitter users to follow, these can be defined and grouped by the user for management convenience. A key area of the product will be pre-defined groups maintained by social360 that identify the influential journalists, bloggers and social media commentators from specific business sectors and geographical areas. Limitations are imposed on the user for numbers of â€Å"influencers†not yet defined per alert or group depending on the package selected and price The keywords the customer wants to follow. This requires an easy to understand process that defines the words to match or exclude and the logic that joins them together, either AND or OR. The people that the user sets up to alert, these can be managed as groups that can be shared across alerts or as individuals. Process requiring that the intended recipient is invited and accepts the receipt of alerts and can manage their subscription to alerts is required to avoid the sending of unsolicited email. SWOT Analysis (what are you analysing – Social 360? You have not yet identified your product or service for your proposed e-commerce activity – state your service idea clearly at the beginning – paragraph 2) Strengths Already tested as a concept. Good feedback from clients using the existing service. Few competitors offering similar services. Low running costs. No stock or inventory, a digital product. Weaknesses Reliant on suppliers of data services, rapidly changing marketplace. Requires proprietary software which could increase development time. Opportunities Potentially large market unlimited by import/export taxes. Possibility of licensing to agencies in the future. Good expansion possibilities, creation of new products/services. Application can be localised for international sales. Threats Competitors offer limited services for free, need to focus on our differences. Services require high-availability service interruption must be avoided. Time to market is key in fast moving sector. Cost reduction devalues product for high value clients. PESTEL Analysis Political Changes in State and European law could affect service providers and their ability to provide the basic services required for the product. Economic Scalability of costs what is this? from suppliers needs to be assessed. Internal limits on staffing requirements and costs. Social Modern social landscape online provides potential customers interested in marketing, brand analysis and monitoring. Trends towards greater public sharing of data and opinions. New Public Relations in corporations moving from print media towards social media. Technological Fast moving changes in licensing of data from social media platforms could disrupt data suppliers Reliability of product is key, technology must be selected to provide continuity in services as missed content is unlikely to be tolerated. Use of freely available APIs provided by social media platforms should be exploited to improve informational content behind core services. Environmental Low general environmental impact. Data centres are the most significant use of energy, possibility of researching most efficient providers. Legal Must adhere to the data protection act concerning customer information Must be aware of requirements outlined in the e-commerce regulations act of 2002 Must be aware Suppliers terms and conditions Strategy/Vision The primary e-commerce strategy is to exploit new markets that are not currently reachable through traditional sales methods. Designing a system that is configurable through a public facing website removes the need for company employees to configure and administer alerts. When combined with a package selection process and payment system this creates a product with a sales process that removes a significant portion of the cost. Reducing the cost and improving the scalability of a virtual package selling allows for smaller businesses in a larger marketplace to to become targets for the product. Another significant factor is being able to pay minimal costs to translate and localise the interface into regional versions that can reach markets that would traditionally need sales staff who potentially need to speak the language and reside within the timezone. Objectives Vision Create a product of value to anyone marketing a brand or product or requiring social media tracking of a subject relating to their organisation. Provide a satisfying and intuitive user experience throughout all aspects of the site. Achieve levels of reliability befitting of a service for use in times of organisational crisis and for sending critical information. Produce alerts of social media content matching the clients needs delivered in a timely and reliable way to the organisational members that need it. Maintain the privacy and security of users of the site. Goals Primary initial objective is to produce a working and testable â€Å"beta† version of the site within 4 months this entails: Research market potential of the product, assess competitors offerings. 1 week. Analysis of the current system used internally to identify its strengths and weaknesses, proposing areas for improvement specifically in usability. 1 week Research and planning; research available technology that can be used, specifically frameworks to assist with development and APIs relating to suppliers of data, email and payment services. 2 weeks Development of site to alpha version, unit, integration and component interface testing. 2 months System testing and deployment, acceptance testing. 1 month Market Research Applicable primary market research is based around feedback from existing clients using a similar product that fulfils the same function. Formulated questions and their responses can become part of account managers normal communication with clients communications departments. This allows for the gathering of data from questionnaire style responses conducted in a telephone interview style without the need to mail drop the client with what could possibly be off-putting marketing material. For existing clients the specifications for current alert configurations contain valuable data about the market. Clients can be separated into sectors showing their usage of the system based on the keywords, trends and influential people that they choose to follow. The marketing usage for these clients will allow for more targeted advertising to different business types. Possible selling points include: Brand management. Tracking social media conversation surrounding a brand or product. Product Launch. Analysing conversation on social media follow a product launch. Consumer Dissent. Providing data to help formulate response to criticism or protest. Political/Legislative. Tracking a core political issue or legislation change that affects the market place. Secondary research includes the use of publicly sourced data to understand the use of social media in the marketing and public relations departments of potential clients. This is a rapidly changing environment in marketing as companies realise the potential for using social media for marketing purposes and the need to monitor outlets that have influence. Social media marketing budgets will double over the next 5 years (Pam Dyer, 2013) From 2010 to 2012 the percentage of Americans following any brand on a social network increased from 16% to 33%. An increase of 106%. (Van Den Beld, B, 2012) Competitor analysis The closest competitor providing service of this nature is Yatterbox. Yatterbox provide a real time alert service limited by numbers of keywords and following fixed lists of influential accounts. SWOT analysis of yatterbox from the point of view of our product: Strengths Well maintained lists of influential social media commenters. Existing user base, current market leader. Good coverage of social media platforms. Graphical analysis of data history Weaknesses No provision for self maintained lists of influential sources. Limited number of search terms allowed on basic accounts. No real time alerts on basic accounts. Our Opportunities Provide greater control over lists of sources Allow user maintained lists Provide unlimited keyword search terms. Compete on price, offer limited free subscription to build user base. Offer real time and scheduled alerts Our Threats Not the first to market Comparison is inevitable, must compete on their strengths and highlight our own unique selling points. Competing on price doesnt allow us to set our own pricing. Yatterbox Pricing (Yatterbox, accessed 16 May 2014) 3.2 Systems Evaluation Service Providers A significant part of the product relies on services provided by third parties as a reliable platform for key functionality. The e-commerce part of the site also requires payment services to complete transactions. Data There are 2 main players in providing data streams from social media platforms who have licenses to provide social media data from a number of online platforms. Initially the main platform of concern is Twitter as this has been identified as the man driver of news within social media. Datasift and Gnip both provide APIs to allow for connection to streams of content based on rules to filter data. For our purposes we only require data from users accounts that are requested by users of our product. Streams can also be filtered by keywords but we intend to provide the setup for this within our own users accounts allowing them to decide what subjects are important to them. Main concerns affecting the choice are the ease of integration of the product, quality of documentation, reliability of the stream and cost. It may not be possible to completely asses these factors without trialling the services of both providers. Email The reliable delivery of email alerts is a critical factor in provision of the service. Usage of standard SMTP services within standard email accounts is unlikely to meet the requirements of sending large volumes of email due to concerns over spamming and unsolicited email. There are a number of services that are designed to provide a high volume email delivery platform. These also generally give better logging and information about delivery statuses and failures which we can transfer to the user to allow them to manage the recipients of their alerts. Providers include: Sendgrid Amazon SES Socketlabs Mailjet The relative advantages and disadvantages of each would have to be assessed using demo services and investigating the APIs in applicability to our own needs. At a first look Sengrid appears to be a good fit with clear documentation with examples of integration in a number of platforms, favourable independent reviews and a competitive pricing plan. Registrar/DNS services The main reason for the registrar is the registration of the required domain name for the website, but other concerns include the ability to manage DNS Explain meaning . This requires that the registrar used provides good online services for the administration of DNS records. Hosting For this type of project shared hosting (where servers are shared by a number of customers) is unlikely to provide the level of control and reliability required. Some of the processes we intend to setup on the server, such as the stream connections and management of email queues and processing, require a level of access that is generally limited or non-existent on shared servers. This leaves Cloud Computing service or Dedicated Servers as possible platforms for the services. For this project there are a number of unknowns that mean the usage of cloud computing is undesirable. Bandwidth, disk and memory usage and SQL storage costs are difficult to predict and can be expensive on cloud platforms. These are easier to assess as a known cost quantity on a dedicated system where it is possible to buy services with unlimited bandwidth and hardware more than capable of hosting the site for a reasonable length of time into its launch. The downside is reliability of a single point of failure in the hardware but this can be addresses by mirroring important services across colocated servers and using load balancing to route requests. SSL Certificate Most Service Providers who sell Secure Socket Layer certificates have a number of options ranging from basic encryption certificates that just offer the encryption required to secure data in transit to those offering users greater confidence through vetting processes to ensure the organisation using the certificate is who they say they are. The certificates offered are usually 1 one of four of 4 types: Simple SSL security, offering encryption services identified by the use of https protocol prefix in the browser address bar and the browser â€Å"padlock† symbol. Domain Validation SSL, same as the simple with added checks for the validity of the domain. Users can click on â€Å"Site Seal† icons to check the validity of the domain with the certificate issuer. Organisational Validation SSL, same checks as the domain with extra vetting process for more information on the organisation when clicking the â€Å"site seal† icon. Extended Validation SSL, the most stringent checks are carried out by the certificate issuing authority to validate legal, physical and operational existence of the organisation and that this information matches official records. This results in the browser displaying a highlighted green validation bar in the the address area with details of the verified company. (GlabalSign Ltd, accessed 19 May 2014) Whilst not all forms of payment integration described below strictly require the use of an SSL certificate any transfer of user information is best encrypted in this way and is essential if when hosting localised checkout pages. The use of encryption coupled with verification checks that can be performed by the user increases their confidence in the site, however I am unable to find any study or clear statistical evidence that there is an increase in user confidence or sales conversion rate through using Extended Valuation SSL over the simpler forms. Payment Gateway Considerations for payment gateways include: Charges imposed and how they scale with volume Applicability of the integration. Quality of the API and documentation Security Some payment gateways are linked to a merchant bank account and provide the possibility for a more seamless checkout experience with a greater level of customisation and control over the checkout experience. Sagepay, a popular UK payment provider has 4 possible levels of integration a serves as a good example of possible solutions: Form integration. No customer data is stored on site, entire checkout process handled by Sagepay. Simple and quick to integrate, shortest development time. No on-site security issues from storing customer data. Limited customisation, no control over checkout steps Limited opportunity for customer data recording. Server Integration. Customer transaction details can be stored locally, card details and payment pages handled by Sagepay. Card transactions simplified by sagepay. Advantages in storing customer transaction information, improve user experience on site. Limited customisation, no control over checkout steps. Increased security issues by handling customer data. Server inframe integration. Similar to the server integration but allows greater control through embedding the sagepay card payment step into and iframe in the checkout process. Card details handled by sagepay. Store customer transaction information locally. Full checkout customisation, only the card details step handled by sagepay. Greater opportunities for customer interaction during checkout. (help, chat, feedback etc) Increased development time, checkout steps need to be created and tested. Increased security issues through handling customer data. Direct integration. All aspects of the payment process are handled on site including customer card information, greatest level of control over the checkout and completely seamless as it only communicates with sagepay at the point of transaction processing from the local server. Greater control over customer checkout, data handling and checkout flow. No front-end considerations for integration, user experience entirely customisable. Longest development time, requires greatest consideration of implications. Greatest security risk. Requires PCI DSS certification (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard) (Sagepay, accessed 15 May 2014) Other payment solutions do not require merchant accounts and can not be seamlessly integrated into the checkout flow. Systems such as PayPal offer solutions for easy integration that will always require that the user leaves the payment issuing site to go through the payment process (although PayPal does offer merchant account solutions as well), transaction reporting can be provided through call back systems such as PayPal Instant Payment Notification. There are advantages in using PayPal as it has a very large user base. This user base has become accustomed to the convenience of faster checkouts as there billing data and preferences are already stored and do not require re-entry during the checkout procedure helping to increase sales conversions for new customers. (PayPal, accessed 15 May 2014) Project Management/Version Control As with any software development version control is essential to manage the codebase. There are currently 2 main considerations for version control that are both open sourced and have online services to provide remote repositories for code. Git is a widely used Version Control System and can be hosted on github.com Mecurial provides similar functionality and can be hosted by bitbucket.org Other services go further than just version control by providing project management tools that fit in with software design methodologies such as Agile. These include: Assembla Basecamp