Monday, January 27, 2020
Analysis of the Engineering Industry
Analysis of the Engineering Industry Executive summery: In the assignment below, the engineering industry is critically analyzed by studying its characteristics, identifying and analyzing its key areas and its current position and how it is affected by micro and macro environmental factors. All these analysis is done by using analytical tools like Porters Five Forces framework, PESTEL analysis, Industry Life-Cycle analysis, drivers of change within the industry, etc. The mechanical industry after carefully analyzed, important future long scenarios have been made demonstrating on how the industry will act and perform in innovative long term run based on the present analysis and trends in that particular industry. Also, one most likely situation has been identified, with relevant reasons, which the industry will most likely to face in the future. The entire assignment is based on the engineering industry in Indian markets being considered as the support to conduct appropriate researches. Introduction to the industry: The industry is one of the biggest and most refined in India and also in the world which provides the latest technology not only to the fast growing multinational companies but also to the global market. Some of the worlds biggest engineering companies largely depend on the automotive industry of India. It is a diverse industry with a number of segments, and can be broadly categorized into two segments as follows: (1) Heavy engineering (2) Light engineering The engineering sector is relatively less fragmented at the top, as the competencies required are high, while it is highly fragmented at the lower end (e.g. unbranded transformers for the retail segment) and is dominated by smaller players. The engineering industry in India manufactures a wide range of products, with heavy engineering goods accounting for bulk of the production. Most of the leading players are engaged in the production of heavy engineering goods and mainly produces high-value products using high-end technology. Requirement of high level of capital investment poses as a major entry barrier. Consequently, the small and unorganised firms have a small market presence. The light engineering goods segment, on the other hand, uses medium to low-end technology. Entry barrier is low on account of the comparatively lower requirement of capital and technology. This segment is characterized by the dominance of small and unorganized players which manufacture low-value added products. Classification of the Engineering Sector in India http://www.dnb.co.in/Engineering/images/Classification.gif Source: http://www.dnb.co.in/Engineering/overview.asp Portors five forces framework: Following are the external environment of engineering industry by analyzing the Porters 5 forces: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoWRfBmLkl_dmsKl4MYUYhKBna8r6JZNFR83iXgL8OxmZobUyZvLBXG3t2t7t1peBguC4rlKN-JoqgWNVj63OA8Pr2zHjX3umGq7RCOKYuipEsXzYg7C6i2jG89zp_8Q9IgGDhPrYDsj2c/s400/porter.jpg Source:https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoWRfBmLkl_dmsKl4MYUYhKBna8r6JZNFR83iXgL8OxmZobUyZvLBXG3t2t7t1peBguC4rlKN-JoqgWNVj63OA8Pr2zHjX3umGq7RCOKYuipEsXzYg7C6i2jG89zp_8Q9IgGDhPrYDsj2c/s400/porter.jpg The five forces are as follows: 1 The threat of new entrants: The threat of new entrants for engineering industry in India it is a very low threat Factors to examine for this threat of new entrant in India is include all barriers to entry into this market such as upfront capital requirements, brand equity (a new firm may have none), legislation and government policies, (safety) ability to distribute the product . 2 The bargaining power of buyers/customers: Customers consider both purpose and price; the engineering companies are attempting to produce engineering products that compete in various price segments. In India bargaining power is lower which is creating a more favorable situation for the engineering industry but not the buyers. The quantity a buyer purchases is usually a good factor in determining this force, even in the engineeringwhen buyers only usually purchase one \ at a time, they still possess considerable power (Car freaks, 2008-10). However, this may be different in other markets. 3. The threat of substitute: In Singapore the threat of substitute is high because of the numerous other forms of transportation substitutes are available, but none of them offer the utility, convenience, independence, and value afforded by sport cars. Substitutes such as rental cars, Sport bike industry, Rental Sport car clubs like Luxe sport club in Singapore Millionaire asia singapore, 2010). (For details please refer Appendix no 4) 4 The bargaining power of supplier: The bargaining power of supplier is low in Singapore because of the availability of substitutes and the amount of competition in the sport car industry. Suppliers dont have a great deal of influence in the terms of supplying the sport cars parts. The sport car industry which refers to all the suppliers for the parts, such as tires, components, electronics, and even the assembly line workers. Some suppliers are small firms who rely on the carmakers, and may only have one carmaker as a client. So this force can be tricky to evaluate in the sport car industry in Singapore market (For details please refer to appendix no 5). 5. The competitive rivalry within an industry: In Singapore sport car industry competition between existing automobile companies is high because sport car carmakers are engaged in fierce competition. Prices, ad campaigns, and product developments keep them on the edge of innovation and profitability. Margins are low and pressure between rivals is high. This may cause the sport industry earning lower profits when the cost of the competition is high (Car freaks, 2008-10). PESTEL ANALYSIS: Source:http://www.business.gov.sg/NR/rdonlyres/06030A45-6CCF-45BC-8F2C-F2833D5D44B4/6514/entrepreneurguide.pdf Well use the PESTEL to analyze the macro-environmental changes and influences on the engineering industry; Political: Majority of the companies like, etc. have their manufacturing plants in India because of cheap labour and low cost of production. But these countries are usually politically unstable and can create hindrance for the companies. Economic: Economic slowdown such as the recent recession can have negative impact on production and sales of the engineering companies. Also other economic factors like the economic policies of European Union member countries make it tougher for the industry participants to penetrate the engineering market. Socio-cultural: The social and cultural restraints and obligations directly affect the buying pattern of people, the brand loyalty, female share of the market, etc. also the companies now-a-days thrive to keep up with corporate social responsibility to maintain their Public relegation status. Technological: The technology keeps changing and varying from place to place. Techonology plays a vital part in the engineering industry. The engineering manufacturing companies have to keep abreast with the changing technology so as not to give a competitive edge to competitors by speeding up their change of products and designing ability. Environmental: Many industry participants have become aware of environmental hazards and are putting in efforts to do their bit for environment and the society with activities like Legal: Companies in the engineering industry in India face many legal matters usually pertaining to labour wages, working conditions, etc. or that of contract manufacturing and copying of products or ones related to trade agreement. Structural drivers of change for Engineering industry: I have identified some of the drivers of changes that have impact on the engineering industry. The following are the structural drivers which bring about changes in the industry; Technology: Technology is the most vital driver of change in engineering industry. Introduction of internet has sky-rocketed the sales for the companies. Also it helps the RD departments to come out with new engineering products quickly and efficiently. Industry driver: lamborghini_headquarters_italy Source:http://www.egmcartech.com/wpcontent/uploads/2008/05/lamborghini_headquarters_italy.jpg Related and supporting industries are extremely important because engineering product manufacturers live and die by creative and innovative design engineering (Automotive industry, 2010). India offers support to other industries such as, steel, rubber, petroleum, oil gas, transportation industries. Indias infrastructural facilities helps to setup a engineering industry in form of power supply, machinery, capital, raw materials and labour which will raise foreign direct investments have led to the rapid growth in terms of engineering goods production and exports (European foundation, 2004). Mergers and Take-overs:- t=1usg=__vO8BPfXSsu76pCVOchvBejU2hUg= Source: http://www.vr-fullerton.com/images/223069.jpg One of the most significant drivers of growth in the engineering industry is the trend of mergers and acquisitions. Such buyouts and mergers enable manufactures to build up their technology and service scale up to the mark, the two factors essential to gain competitive edge. Outsourcing of design and engineering functions, leading to growth in companies offers high value-added Services. Life cycle model for the industry: C:UsersVishikadDesktoplife cycle.bmp Source: Adopted from (Johnson et al., 2008) The Engineering industry as per the life cycle model shown above is currently at the Shakeout stage for the following reasons: The buyers are becoming more selective of their purchases due to brand loyalty and performance according to their own preferences taste. Also as far as the competitive conditions are concerned, the major engineering products manufactures have started innovations and sales promotion activities to attract more and more buyers towards companys product range. The engineering companies also trying to shakeout their industry rivals by acquisition or merger processes with other engineering manufactures. This way they can have their monopoly over the engineering markets as well as minimising the competition within the engineering sector. Scenarios for Long term future of the industry: The following scenarios based on the research on Indias engineering industry that indicates the possible long term future of the industry (1) Scenario: Increase in sales, product diversification advanced RD: The attitude of selling the products into engineering market is changing day by day. Engineering companies trying to connect with the customer directly. This will done by opening up showroom or signing contracts with large MNCS like Also the engineering product makers will focus on advanced RD whereby, they not only focus onperticular group of buyers. Also the companies are diversifying their products more too international engineering product manufactures. This scenario will benefit the industry in the following manner; It will help engineering companies to connect with their buyers and thus understand their likes, dislikes and expectations, preferences about companies offering. The companies can get direct feedback on their products so that they can improve on overall performance of the company. .Most Likely Scenario: The most likely scenario applicable in the future is the 3rd scenario. Following are the reasons supporting my conclusion; The companies can alter their engineering products, design as per the customer reaction to their previous products. This can be done by feedbacks and data collected which wont be lost or manipulated as itll directly go to the company. The companies are already starting to do intense and advanced RD to introduce new technological aspects The customers are always keen on trying out new exciting products and the failure of such products is very rare. Also the Engineering industry is growing at a rapid pace. All other industries are now trying to sell their products at retail prices which is the same the Engineering industry is going to do in the future. Conclusion: In India the future of engineering industry seems encouraging. In terms of the expected surge in global demand and rise in foreign investments. Several trends such as developed markets, globalization, technology advances, regulation and environmental consideration, and market fragmentation and product diversification will result in the rapid growth of this Engineering industry in India.
Sunday, January 19, 2020
Ken Kesey Research Paper
When writing a story, an author uses themes and elements which are related to his life. Many of Kenneth Elton Kesey’s novels including One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest sustain messages which can be interpreted by discovering his life events. Ken Elton Kesey was born 1935 in La Junta, Colorado and lived with his parents Frederick Kesey and Geneva Smith. Ken moved to Springfield, Oregon where he spent his early years hunting, fishing, and swimming. In his teenage years, Ken spent his time wrestling in both high school and college. In 1956, while attending college at the University of Oregon Kesey fell in love with his high-school sweetheart, Norma Faye Haxby, whom he had met in seventh grade. Ken and Norma then had three children: Jed, Zane, and Shannon. Later, Kesey had another child named Sunshine with a woman named Carolyn Adams. Kesey attended the University of Oregon's School of Journalism, where he received a degree in speech and communication in 1957. He was awarded a Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship in 1958 to enroll in the creative writing program at Stanford University, which he did the following year. While at Stanford, he studied under Wallace Stegner and begun his project which would later be known as One flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. In 1959, Kesey volunteered to take part in a CIA-financed study. The project studied the effects of psychoactive drugs such as LSD, psilocybin, mescaline, cocaine, AMT, and DMT, on people. This most likely influenced Kesey to write about a psychiatric environment in his story One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Also inspiring to Kesey’s works were his night shifts at the Menlo Park Veteran’s Hospital. There, Kesey often spent time talking to patients which were under the control of hallucinogenic drugs. Kesey believed that â€Å"the patients were not insane rather that society had pushed them out because they did not fit conventional ideas of how people were supposed to act and behave. †(Cliffsnotes Art. 2) Kesey proves how just because someone may seem different than the rest of the crowd, society dumps them into a ward. Furthermore, Kesey introduces a normal person (Mcmurphy) into the ward, so he can challenge the authority of the nurses and can inspire the patients to believe they are just like any other human beings and their abilities to live a normal life should not be restrained by a nurse. In 1963, when the novel was published, it became an immediate success. Kesey was not only an author, but a playwright director. Many of his ideas were Shakespearean as well as real life themes which were inputted into his novels. Some reoccurring themes in Kesey’s novels include the fight for sexual freedom, and rebellion through the introduction of a leader. â€Å"Harding shuts off the buffer, and leaves it in the hall and goes and pulls him a chair up alongside Mcmurphy and sits down and lights a cigarette too. ‘Mr. Harding! You return to your scheduled duties! ’ Then Cheswick goes and gets him a chair, and then Billy Bibbit goes, and then Scanlon and then Fredrickson and Sefelt, and then we all put down our mops and brooms and scouring tags and we all go and pull chairs up. You men-Stop this. Stop! ’†(Cuckoo’s Nest 144) One of the many examples of rebellion through a leader is seen through this passage. This is Kesey’s way of freeing the patients under the conformity of the hospital when Kesey took part in the financed study. Many of Kesey’s famous novels and playwrights include: One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Sometimes a Great Notion, Demon Box, Caverns, The Further Inquiry, Sailor Song, Last Go Round, and Twister. Some of Kesey’s most popular genres also include mystery and realistic fiction. In 1965 Kesey was arrested for possession of marijuana. Interestingly, he moved to Mexico and faked a suicide. When he returned back to the states, he served a five-month sentence in the San Mateo County Jail. After he got out, he bought a farm house in Pleasant Hill, Oregon and settled down with his wife to raise his children. He was going through major complications later in his life at this time as he had surgery on his liver to remove a tumor. He never recovered from the operation and died of difficulties on November 10, 2001, aged 66.
Saturday, January 11, 2020
Customer Service VS. Manufacturing Essay
The difference between the manufacturing industry and customer service industy is seen in the marketing performances of both. These days, there are lots of call centers that has been built into different establishments. In fact, there are call center agencies that has been a business alone of big companies around the globe. It’s being used by many entrepreneur and businessman.            Why? Is it because of the weakening appeal of the manufacturing agency? Is the customer service more effective than manufacturing?            No. It’s not because the manufacturing is weakening, but because of the larger chances or opportunities that the customer service offers than the manufacturing.            In a customer service strategy, if the employee or the customer service representative has the ability or one of the promising and outstanding employees, those who are reliably working, and the company can expect more customer satisfaction from the employee there’s a high risk for the company to get bigger and earn more because what the employee promotes and builds a good customer relationship which is basically needed in a business.            But this big chance to inspire the company is also a big chance for the company’s failure because it also causes negative feedback from the customer.            It has been happening in many call center agencies that only few of the call center agents of their employees last because of different kinds of reasons: personal or any, they do not last in the job. The tendency of a customer service’s impact to the business is that, the risk of the transaction between the customer and the company is on the performance of the employee.            Paul Simpson and Dr Vishnu Kanhere (2007) says that â€Å"service, by its nature, deals with intangibles. Auditors should not expect to see much in the way of product. When auditing a reception/security team, for example, it is important to check that they know what is required of them in terms of routine responsibilities, but you can guarantee that no day will be the same and thus you’ll need to see that the team adapts to situations presented to them at any time. The ‘quality’ of the service they provide is down to the individual, their own personal characteristics and the training they have received – a combination of nature and nurture.†           The risk is to the company to get along with tHe performance of the employee, whether they will show a good performance or not.            In manufacturing, it’s easy thing that what they have just decided to manufacture is only what they will do. The good thing here is the certainty or the assurance of the dealings with the client or the customer. Accuracy, because they the company is woking with tha machines and equipments, so the performanc of those will be based on the command of the people working with it.            The competition between the customer service and the manufcturing strategy is that, in customer service, there’s an open window for opportunities and good customer relationship. That is only if the employee works nice and with the intention to help for the company’s growth. But if not, it’s a high risk. Gamble, but for sure, companies doesn’t make it to the point that the company is already in danger before they’ll act on it. It’s the quality of the employee’s performance that the company must secure.            In manufacturing, the issue is the quantity of the product to produce because the risk here is that, there are counts on how many is to produce and how many is to be manufactured by the machinery. Aside from the thing that there can not be adjustments sometimes, there are products that are not repeatable to produce. Once that there are damagea at the begining, it’s a continuous process until the edge because the the machineries are systematically programmed and it is already a set up. There is a need to maintain the production quality of the equipments just like the quality that the customer service company must impose on their employees.            In an abstract of an article by Slotnick and Sobel (2005), â€Å"Inaccurate production backlog information is a major cause of late deliveries, which can result in penalty fees and loss of reputation. We identify conditions when it is particularly worthwhile to improve an information system to provide good lead-time information. We first analyze a sequential decision process model of lead-time decisions at a firm which manufactures standard products to order, and has complete backlog information.†           Both of he strategy has it’s problem when it comes to time management for the company’s workers. The only difference is just that, the equipments will be repaired but the an employee will be replaced or terminated. â€Å"†¦this reveals when the partial-information method does well and when it is worth implementing measures to improve information transfer between operations and sales (Slotnick and Sobel, 2005).†REFERENCES: Simpson, Paul., and Dr. Kanhere, Vishnu. Auditing: service sector vs. manufacturing.  from http://www.irca.org/inform/issue15/Simpson.html// Slotnick, Susan A. and Sobel, Matthew J. (16 June 2005). Manufacturing lead-time rules: Customer retention versus tardiness cost. Production, Manufacturing and Logistics, Volume 163, (Issue 3), Pages 825-856 Director, Product Marketing. (February 2002). Guidelines for  Preparing Customer  Service Standards. Water Industry Asset Management and Standards //www.nrm.qld.gov.au
Friday, January 3, 2020
A Democracy Is Built On The Foundation That The Citizens...
A democracy is built on the foundation that the citizens or elected officials participate in construction of the laws under which a country is run. This can lend itself to creating an environment where the majority rules or where those with the most influence can sway legal decisions in their favor. On the other hand, lawyers by nature are loyal to the ideas of protocol and structure, which serves as a natural counterbalance to democracy. Tocqueville equated a lawyer’s influence to that of an aristocratic government. In an aristocratic government, those people considered as ‘elite’ or the ‘most able’ are given the responsibility of being the governing body. In our culture, he believed that lawyers are considered somewhat ‘elite’ because they have the advantage of being able to follow changing laws and understand precedents significantly better than the common person. 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