Media and Technologies as Agents of Socialization

Mangrove Forests

Mangrove Forests Free Online Research Papers If there are no Mangrove Forests, then the sea will have no meaning. It is like having a tree with no roots, for the mangroves are the roots of the sea.  ­Ã‚ ­Ã‚ ­Ã‚ ­Ã‚ ­Ã‚ ­Ã‚ ­Ã‚ ­Ã‚ ­Ã‚ ­- fisherman, Trang Province, southern Thiland Mangrove forests, together with their adjacent intertidal environments are among the most productive ecosystems on the earth. The great importance of these ecosystems to marine fauna was shown by Odum and Heald14 and has led to an interest in their conservation. Continuing loss of mangrove systems has, among other causes, been attributed to erosion of delicate coastal wetlands. In a broad floristic sense, mangroves include about 53 species in 23 genera and 16 families. However, Tomlinson15 recognises 34 species in nine genera and five families as exhibiting restriction to mangrove environments in which they play a major role and having specialised adaptations to this unique environment. Fig: 1.1: Mangrove distribution in India The name ‘mangrove’ is applied to other unrelated constituents of mangrove vegetation, such as Avicennia nitida, a bush of the vervain family, called black mangrove. True mangroves are classified in the division Magnoliophyta, class Magnoliopsida, order Rhizophorales, family Rhizophoraceae. Mangrove, a large tropical evergreen tree, grows on muddy tidal flats and along protected ocean shorelines. Mangrove ecosystems are found throughout the tropical regions of the world. They are most abundant in tropical Asia, Africa, and the islands of the SW Pacific. Several mangroves produce from their trunks aerial roots that become embedded in the mud and form a tangled network; this serves both as a prop for the tree and as a means of aerating the root system. Such roots also form a base for the deposit of silt and other material carried by the tides, and thus land is built up which is gradually invaded by other vegetation. Some mangrove species lack prop roots but have special pores on their branching root system for obtaining air. The mangrove fruit is a conical reddish-brown berry. Its single seed germinates inside the fruit while it is still on the tree, forming a large, pointed primary root that quickly anchors the seedling in the mud when the fruit is dropped. Mangroves have been harvested destructively on a large scale; the bark is a rich source of tannins, and the wood is used for wharf pilings and other purposes. Fig: 1.2: Aerial roots Fig: 1.3: Prop roots Mangroves provide a vide range of services and benefits to the mankind. Ecological and economical values of mangroves are recognized world over. They are instrumental in providing ecological and livelihood security to coastal regions and people. People are making use of mangroves by protecting them as a nursery ground for various fish and crab species, which form a part of their daily food. Good use of mangrove areas can be made for eco-tourism and tourists from India and abroad for a pleasant trip and crocodile watching. Mangroves have long functioned as a storehouse of materials providing food, medicines, shelter and tools. Fish, crabs, shellfish, prawns and edible snakes and worms are found there. The fruit of certain species including the nypa palm can be eaten after preparation along with the nectar of some of the flowers. The best honey is considered to be that produced from mangroves, particularly the river mangrove Aegiceras corniculatum. Numerous medicines are derived from mangroves. Ashes or bark infusions of certain species can be applied to skin disorders and sores including leprosy. Headaches, rheumatism, snakebites, boils, ulcers, diarrhoea, hemorrhages and many more conditions are traditionally treated with mangrove plants. The latex from the leaf of the blind-your-eye mangrove Excoecaria agallocha – claimed to cause blindness13 – but the powerful chemicals in it can be used on sores and to treat marine stings. The leaves are also used for fishing; when crushed and dropp ed in water, fish are stupefied and float to the surface. This sap is currently being tested for its medical properties and may play a part in western medicine. Certain tree species, notably the cedar mangrove, cannonball mangrove (relatives of the red cedar) and the grey mangrove, are prized for their hard wood and used for boat building and cabinet timber as well as for tools such as digging sticks, spears and boomerangs. The fronds of the nypa palm are used for thatching and basket weaving. Various barks are used for tanning, pneumatophores (peg roots) make good fishing floats while the wood from yellow mangroves (Ceriops species) has a reputation for burning even when wet. Fig: 1.4: Pneumatophores or peg roots of mangrove plants Ethnobotany and medicinal uses: Many of the substances in the wood and bark, the Diaspora and the leaves of different types of mangroves for instance the Indian Mangrove (Avicennia officinalis), the Black Mangrove (Avicennia germinans) are used in traditional medicine they are however also used as poisons. The Black Mangrove is used for diarrhoea and rheumatic aliments. The resin of black mangroves is among other things used as medicine against tumours, insect repellents can also be made out of its resin. In Uthoff (1996) one can find an outline of the manifold and long-range ethno-pharmaceutical usages. Up until today most of the substances have not been examined for their effectiveness. In the genetic pool of our mangrove ecosystem there is presumably a large potential for the discovery of powerful substances for modern medicine. The mangrove extracts were a source of mosquito larvicidal compounds, as well as of polyphenols highly active against viruses such as HIV and Hepatitis B virus16 . Ecology and Mangroves 1. Prevention from soil erosion and stabilization of coasts and beaches 2. Protection of land from tidal surges and cyclonic storms. 3. Provides an excellent home to different plant species, birds and animal 4.Useful as eco-tourism niche for educational and recreational purpose Local population put the mangroves to several uses including the following: 1.Provides fuel wood, green manure, charcoal, timber, etc 2.Used for boat / canoe making 3.Used for thatching material, cordage and rope material 4.Used for medicinal purposes. 5.Useful for to produce honey and bye products.. Threats to mangroves: The threats are as given below, Man and his greed being the greatest threat: (1) Conversion of mangrove areas : It has been observed that mangroves in private areas / khazan lands face threat due to conversion of these lands for human habitation, aquaculture, agriculture and other developmental activities. Reclamation of these areas results in damage to saplings and small mangrove plants in general. Sporadic incidents of felling of trees illegally for conversion of land have also been reported, though damage due to this is almost negligible, as per official records. (2) Unauthorized felling: Cutting of Trees and branches of mangroves for firewood purpose, house and fence construction, reclamation of land etc is common. (3) Pollution : Oil slicks, solid waste disposal, industrial effluents etc. pollute the mangrove habitat and thereby affect them adversely. (4) Fishing : Illegal fish / fishling culture / aquaculture is common in Mangrove forests. Fishing using dragnets is common. This results in damage to the young regeneration and plantations. Besides, fisherman find mangrove regeneration an obstacle in their fishing activity and they uproot / damage the young crop and this is one of the major threats to the mangroves. (5) Insect attack / diseases: There are some species of insects or borers, which cause considerable damage to the stems and therefore to the mangroves. Besides, insect attack on the leaves of Rhizophora mucronata has been observed to take place regularly, which some times results in total damage to young plants. Also, insect attack on Avicennia alba is observed at a regular interval of 5 years, where the larvae of the insect eat all the leaves of the plants and make them leafless and causes severe damage to young crop. Fungal attack on the leaves of plants has also been observed, mainly on the leaves of Sonneritia alba, and other species also found to have been attacked by fungus. (6) Barnacle infestation: Plantations and young plants are being damaged by the attachment of barnacles to their stem. The plant affected generally is Rhizophora mucronata, which probably is due to its rough bark, thereby providing a good substratum for their attachment Research Papers on Mangrove ForestsGenetic EngineeringMarketing of Lifeboy Soap A Unilever ProductIncorporating Risk and Uncertainty Factor in Capital19 Century Society: A Deeply Divided EraInfluences of Socio-Economic Status of Married MalesHip-Hop is ArtOpen Architechture a white paperMind TravelCanaanite Influence on the Early Israelite ReligionBook Review on The Autobiography of Malcolm X

Hilton world wild Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Hilton world wild - Assignment Example The rich history and success of the Hilton worldwide makes it a preferred choice by travelers, employees, developers and investors. This hospitality giant offers wide range of top class hospitality services at its various branches around the globe. The company has won several awards and accolades for the exemplary services it has offered in the hospitality industry since its inception in 1919.It was originally known as the Hilton Hotel Corporation. However, in September 2009, it changed its name to Hilton worldwide complete with a new logo and style, it also changed its image, vision and mission (Gilliana & Watson, 2004). Hilton Worldwide, originally called the Hilton Hotel Corporation, is among the top service providers in the hotel industry. The group is known for the exemplary services and products its offers to its clients around the globe. This has made it have a competitive edge over other players in the hospitality industry. Through the 94 years of service, the hotel has maintained a good reputation around the globe and has won several accolades because of this. Hilton Worldwide has diversified with hotels that serve every class of people. The company has high end hotels as well as mind priced hotels. It also offers business class services. This diversification has enabled to attract a high client base throughout the world (Gilliana & Watson, 2004). Hilton Worldwide has an effective framework that helps in facilitating effective coordination of both internal and external communication. The overall purpose of this framework that is used by this hospitality giant is to establish and maintain a good reputation across the globe. The company seeks develop and maintain a good relationship with its employees, shareholders, the media and the general public. This goes a long ways in helping it achieve its goals and winning more clients, investors and developers. This framework is

How are learning and teaching related Then, Elaborate on the business Essay

How are learning and teaching related Then, Elaborate on the business roles in the learning organization - Essay Example In general, learning can be acquired with the use of either formal or informal intervention. A good example of formal learning intervention includes the act of enrolling in formal educational courses, the provision of training and development programs, requiring employees to participate in formal business meetings, or attending conference being led by external professionals (Bull et al., 2008). On top of using self-reflection techniques and self-analysis methods, informal learning is possible when there is a two-way communication among employees, between the top management and the low ranking employees, and vice versa including situations wherein employees are able to communicate directly with the customers (Cheetham & Chivers, 2001). In order to minimize barriers to teaching and learning, business managers should establish a strong organizational culture that acknowledges not only the importance of organizational learning but also the use of effective leadership style and improvemen ts in communication skills. In line with this, the use of leadership style enables the business managers to effectively convince and persuade employees to participate in the promotion of organizational learning. References Bull, G., Thompson, A., Searson, M., Garofalo, J., Park, J., Young, C., et al. (2008).

PAPER ON DOCUMENTARY PRAY THE DEVIL BACK TO HELL ON PBS Essay

PAPER ON DOCUMENTARY PRAY THE DEVIL BACK TO HELL ON PBS - Essay Example The originally Christian women group knew that they have to encourage Muslim women to join their cause. Together they had forged a formidable alliance worthy of being noticed by the warring men. Leymah Gbowee played the major role in the women’s peace movement through the group she had organized known as the Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace. She was designated as Coordinator of the group but in essence the entire movement was her brainchild. At one point during their protests, some went to the extent of calling her General Leymah and an encounter ensued for her to be arrested for obstruction of justice. Asatu Bah Kenneth played a vital role as a member of the Liberian National Police. Her position in the government made her a confidant on what is happening on the frontlines. It was upon the information she provided on April 1, 2003 that they became aware that the war had just reached its highest tension. Janet Johnson Bryant then became the next piece of the puzzle as journalist for Radio Veritas. The story became headline and the women’s movement was made known to a larger audience. The group decided to send Asatu and Etweda ‘Sugars’ to go to Sierra Leone where the rebels are to establish the group’s existence and assess the situation. The movement’s secretary, Vaiba Flome, was among the most determined and influential member of the group appealing to other women to assert their power and take it to the streets. These women were able to show how peace could be possible and that it is important for women to take an active role when they see that something is awfully going awry in society. The women made ways to ensure that they are taken seriously. They enforced pacified and innovative ways such as the sex strike to get men to listen. The women flocking the streets in their white shirt and never backing down despite being undermined by the groups showed courage and fortitude. Their determination paved the way for

Management and Leadership Concepts on Operations Management

Management and Leadership Concepts on Operations Management Khurram Inamullah P1 Introduction It is required for a worker who enters an organization to have the ability to recognize a leader and an administrator with the goal that it turns out to be easy for him to comprehend the duties of both, at time of any issue he ought to know who to go to. (Candy, 2016) ROLE OF LEADER AND MANAGER With a similar goal of driving an organization and utilized by business improvement, a manager and a leader still differ in a number of ways. LEADER MANAGER Leader is alluded as a person who impacts a group of different people to get a goal for the advancement of an organization. A leader orchestrates with employees in a particular venture. A man who is in charge of controlling and managing different people while focusing on the goals of the organization. A leader imagines your fundamental target with his own creation. Urges and affects others to enhance their drives and data for the improvement of the organization. A leader leads his own particular association as well as tries to put his endeavors in different sectors to guarantee the organization is doing great. The leaders identity ought to be a tenacious one and a strong one. A manager is responsible for controlling all people to take after their work methodologies and leads with the rationale of getting the most advantages for the organization. This is finished by legitimate correspondence at all levels and common comprehension. A nice supervisor portrays a motivational aura and proper prioritization. Role of Leader when Working With New Team Members It is necessary for employees in a company/group to have a person, who pushes them forward to achieve their end goals, so a leader plays a gigantic part in controlling the partners and goads them to stay concentrated. He sets the targets and desires every part to lock in with their most extraordinary capacities. He makes every move to convey the associates closer to each other and breaks the ice among accomplices. The leader is the delegate of gathering or an affiliation, so he is the individual who controls and organizes everyone in the gathering remembering the true objective to improve all. When it comes down to new team members, the leader must ensure that the team members are on track and on-board with the working standards, aims and objectives. For example, a leader would welcome the new team members into the group and brief them about the project at hand. The specifics of their jobs will be left out and he or she will motivate the new members to achieve their tasks efficiently with an added factor of praise and motivation. Role of a Leader when Working on New Projects Leader is basically responsible for carrying out all new activities as he is the one behind the masterminding and view of the collaboration. The leader needs to know that this vision obliges him to check the definitive goals which will further be trailed by the wander head. Leader has all the learning and information anticipated that would control and direct the wander. Every last decision taken by the leader will directly affect the last result of the wander. The pioneer ensures that there is honest to goodness correspondence among the accomplices, himself and the manager. He manages them to adjust up to each possible condition as requirements are. The leader will make sure that the new project is on track and keep regular updates. The leader may choose to go out of their way and ask individual team members about the progress in their tasks. Role of a Manager When Working with New Team Members: Working with new associates requires more commitment from the administration as compared to the leader; a manager must be in direct contact with each new individual from the gathering freely. He needs to help them and sets destinations for every single individual in the gathering. He sets up relationship among partners and is responsible for setting up mutual correspondence and cooperation. Manager gives suitable course and helps the new comers emphatically. For example, the manager will take over from the leader after his initial briefing and assign specific tasks to each new team member in the group. The manager will then constantly monitor their performances and help them achieve their tasks by answering queries and helping with any confusion that the new team member might have in their mind. Role of a Manager When Working on New Projects Manager has a little yet basic influence in new endeavors. The supervisor chooses a group pioneer while setting up the gathering for another wander. For this circumstance, manager ensures that all endeavors in new pursuits are granted profitably and the work should be done before the due date (Candy, 2016). A manager working with a group of people on a new project would have to make sure that each member is on track with their tasks while keeping the big picture in mind. The manager serves as a mediatory between the leader and the team which makes his job more important on a project.ÂÂ   Consistent hypotheses that have been connected to the parts of pioneers are recorded beneath: THEORY FUNDAMENTAL POINTS Situation Leadership Theory The theory says that all the primary part must be done by leader and manager in such a way that all people should simply work remembering the ultimate objective to achieve their total target. In situational activity, the leader should have solid lead to give complete bearing to the new people from the gathering. There are fundamentally four endeavors that are must to be done by the leader. To be specific they are: Telling: where leader coordinates the group however has low strong direct Selling: in this, the leader co-ordinates and backs the gathering Participating: where leader appreciates the venture himself and portrays incredible support Delegating: Where leader neither shows high request conducts nor guides. Systematic Leadership It infers that the affiliation must apply new activity system. Right when working with new partners, a director doesnt consider any individual here yet focus on the target of the affiliation, which infers manager needs to expert new things to make method which incorporates the total effort of the gathering not just one person. Systemic power allows the routine reductionist perspective in light of the new connectivist perspective keeping the ultimate objective to more sufficiently approach relationship challenges. Contingency Theory The hypothesis concentrates on part of Leaders personality and the conditions in which he works. Contingency hypothesis communicates that the authority has two essential styles: Task-inspired: fulfillment of assignments Relationship-inspired: interpersonal associations The speculation depicts three main considerations: Relationship amongst partners and Leaders, their level or trust and assurance on each other. The structure of the wander/undertaking. The position control. (McNamara, no date) Scientific Management Theory This speculation improves the organization fiscally and with productive work. Its spotlights are on definitive framework for the change. By numerical examination and intelligent approach, changes can in like manner be made in the consistent assignments. This is proficient for the headway of every individual which consolidates all organizations and specialists. Behavioral Theory Behavioral theory communicates that there must be some specific personality properties and practices that differ people among leaders and disciples. The conduct of the pioneer must be relentless and a plays a crucial role in the accomplishment of association. Leadership traits and Styles Characteristics that make a pioneer not exactly the same as the different people, the consistency and his support to various people can be the refinement. Leadership styles varies from individual to individual however the style must incorporate assurance, obligation and completion. Analysis of Differentiation between the Role of a Leader and Function of a Manager: ROLE OF A LEADER Scientific Theory Behavioral Theory Leadership traits and style Should devise unmistakable systems and attempt to make the operation more practical. Should focus on his part while trying to make the work intense. Should be focused and inspirational. FUNCTION OF A MANAGER Scientific Theory Behavioral Theory Leadership traits and style Keep track of the work so that it could be completed within the time frame set by the leader. Should corporate with the associates reliably to get the latest updates. Should be participative and committed to his duties. Working with new team mates: Strength: Shared Workload Complete Motivation Combination of new mentalities Weakness: Risks increased Less proficient Decrease in the pace of work Intense need of a good leader Working on new project: Strength: New tactics to be followed Employees should be motivated for a kick start Weakness: Increase in work load Stress of meeting deadlines Contingency Approach: Contingency hypothesis shares its perspectives keeping in mind the target to enhance the approach for the leaders and managers regarding the circumstances with a specific end goal to make it more powerful. Working with new team mates: Strength: Adequate working Open to suggestions and adaptable strategic procedures Weakness: Risk of failure of new strategies Standard may decline Working on new project: Strength: Change of style could be a positive approach Weakness: Time administration could be an issue New activities could be a weight with the current ones (Business Organization and Management Gutierrez Pura Garcia) In the midst of the impermanent position in the affiliation, I have found that managing new endeavors and working nearby new accomplices can be a troublesome yet valuable errand. The leader and the part with regular understanding can ensure the effective eventual outcomes of the wander. There can be various frameworks by the leader and he has each one of the rights to change it amidst the operation with a particular ultimate objective to make the wander and operation more supportive. While working with new partners, the likelihood speculation can be associated, as it has more chance to show signs of improvement, Contingency theory works effortlessly when associated with the general circumstance of new partners and furthermore the new pursuit. Introduction: Operations management works on planning, designing, handling and overseeing different processes involved. (Operations Management- Stevenson) Some crucial approaches to manage operation organization are: Kaizen Continuous Management. Total Quality Management. Just In Time Management System. Kaizen Continuous Management Kaizen gathers solid change. It was shown by Masaaki Imai in his book Kaizen: Key to Japans Competitive Success in 1986. It for the most part imparts that a not that entire awful outcome can be obtained from a normal strategy, supplements on joint exertion and teaches to settle the basic driver concerning the issue. Kaizen aims to develop a coherent workplace by creating quality within the practices as well as the processes of business. It aims to bring a change by enforcing good and healthy ideas as well as practices which provide ease to the workers as compared to stress. According to Kaizen, an eased worker is a productive worker. Therefore, a leader would be required help the team do a better job by motivating them and eliminating fears related to workplace or job security. The leader would be required to glue the team together by encouraging them to improve constantly but at their own desired pace. Managers would follow the lead of the leader and pay specific attention to those who need extra help. This would increase the overall productivity of the team and ensure that everyone has played their part on the project. Leaders would be required to become a unifying force while managers would act as mentors. Just in Time Management Just in time Management would like to amplify the sufficiency through which stock is directed. Keeping stock can be disadvantageous to the relationship for a couple reasons in this way it is favorable for the relationship to keep adequately simply stock with a specific extreme goal to keep the period spouting. The technique also centers in enhancing operational association at the provider level and the affiliation level where the provider to maker correspondence ability is broadened. With just in time management, the company would aim to keep as much less stock at hand as possible. This automatically would mean or lead to more cash on hand for the company and more credit for other uses. Keeping the inventory empty requires constant monitoring of demand and this creates a certain pressure on the team working on the project. Constant monitoring and update in real time can be extremely difficult to achieve. The leader would be required to push the team on each task making sure that the team performs at its optimum level. The leader would be required to stay one step ahead of the game at all times which might lead him to put extra pressure on the team. The manager in this scenario would be required to delegate the tasks efficiently and help the team hand in hand if required or if any slacking is noticed. The manager would have to play a crucial double role of a higher authority as well as a team member as required by the situation. Total Quality Management Total quality management wears out the standard of consistently assessing and investigating operational association methodologies to guarantee that the capability of an alliance is continually overhauled from inside the connection. This alteration in quality is judged by the reaction from the clients that is refined through client criticism. TQM is an outstanding procedure since it handles an even secures of correspondence not in any way like other association approaches that work through a vertical chain of correspondence. The leader would be required to commit to the task at hand and make sure all steps of the way are laid out in an orderly fashion. The manager would be required to increase the overall performance by empowering employees and taking their inputs on the project into account. It would also include recognising any and all significant inputs presented by team members. (Operation Management by Jay Heizer) Operations management is the framework that joins the association of the broad number of operations got a handle on by the alliance. This joins evaluating and isolating the techniques performed by the connection and ensuring that they are performed in the best course as would be wise. Viewing operations management as the centralized governing mechanism for a company translates its role in business operation. For example, operations management defines designs and implements inter-office communications utilized every day, such as business and financial forms. It also designates tasks to departments, supervisors and subordinates. This coherence leads to a more focused and targeted production approach and helps to improve the overall efficiency of the business. While operations management is focused on the making of things furthermore benefits in an alliance, its criticalness to the general association cant be had a poor feeling of. Right when an alliances operations are truly dealt with, the segments of every single other division are smooth, and when a connections operations are coordinated despicably, all phenomenal work environments drive forward. With operations management, the whole process is being monitored constantly. This includes inventory management as well where the probability of waste is maximum. An inventory must be kept as empty as possible to ensure more cash on hand or credit for use. It also ensures less material waste within the company and leads to a more coherent and easier management. Therefore, operations management not only improves the overall efficiency but also reduces waste. Quality can entail the overall excellence of all operations and policies of the company as a whole. For example, it can determine how employees perceive the companys ability to provide for and protect staff in order for them to focus solely on satisfying the clientele. Operations management includes this definition of quality and makes sure that not only the desired output is up to the mark but that all processes are being taken care of to their maximum potential. (Operations and Supply Chain Management- F. Robert) The principle factors could be: Factors Influencing the Operations Management Worldwide Competition Customer Service Monetary Challenges Quality Modernization of the technical world Service sectors growth Lack of operations resources Social obligatory issues There are distinctive parts that can affect the Operations organization and fundamental power of an alliance. The style of movement, the wastefulness of work, accessibility or inaccessibility of advancement and honest to goodness culture can all effect the Operations administration and basic activity of a connection. Customer service provides feedback to the team which is necessary for constant improvement that may be missed by the management. This therefore becomes a crucial part for operations management. As customers provide their feedback, it is discussed and added to the loop of constant improvement within the company. Worldwide competition and monetary challenges go hand in hand. For a company to take on other companies, it needs to invest its finance to better people and technology. This automatically entails that within the global village today, other competitors would provide fierce competition to challenge this change. Consequently, a company must decide of how much monetary resources it wants to invest with a thorough analysis of its payback and profit in regard to taking on the competition as well as the fruitfulness of it in the current market being held by the company. With a monetary investment, quality also becomes a major issue since the company would want a positive change in terms of its quality if it chooses to invest in it. Quality is one of the core elements of operations management and a no-compromise policy is applied in large multinational companies. Therefore, quality is one of the crucial factors on which other factors depend on and decisions are made by the management. The leader has a commanding part on operations management. The association must be fit for taking split second choices in the wake of breaking down the dangers required in settling on that choice. The structure of a connection moreover regulates how the choice is made and who is attempted and genuine once the choice has been made. All choices made must be according to the vision and statements of purpose of a relationship since these portray the authoritative values and rouses agents to do a similar thing. Innovative advances and specialist limits can comparatively affect the Operations organization and central activity. New progressions may require new gifted work to be selected and new developments may comparatively incite to two or three operators being laid off. Appoint limits then again may help them to climb the dynamic walk of association which can incite masters to improve their aptitudes which will profit the alliance also. An operation administrator goes up against errands anticipated that would enhance capability and help with the headway of the alliance. One of the commitments of an operations director is to review work limits and comprehend what gear updates would enhance productivity. This joins the hoarding operations, office limits, for example, the PC structure and office gear and changes to the building itself. The operations supervisor understands which fixing changes will overhaul affiliation ampleness, profits related game plan for understanding the developments and after that shows the data to the official social event for thought. Enhanced correspondence inside an alliance can develop profit. Right when data can get starting with one office then onto the accompanying rapidly and certainly, it can animate the pace at which the affiliation can work and guards that uncommonly basic get-togethers get the data they should be significant. An operations pioneer or director is in charge of ensuring that the devices basic to bolster competent correspondence inside the alliance are set up. For instance, he may set up a sufficient PC bookkeeping structure that learns current stock and sends that data to the social occasion office to keep up thing levels for satisfying requests. The operations supervisor is in charge of charging and wage gathering. By investigating compensation total methods, the operations official can make procedures for get-together pay rapidly to ensure the affiliation has money close by. This reinforces the affiliations capacity to build up its operations and driving force buying supervises merchants. For instance, an enhanced wage through an updated pay gathering technique can affect merchants to make more noteworthy credit extensions and expansion the measure of materials the affiliation can buy to make thing. Operational supervisors work with the HR division and departmental administrators to grow more gainful courses for representatives to finish their organizations. Dissecting work points of confinement is one of the various errands that an operations supervisor plays out every day. Over the navigation of looking into the capacity of the work technique, the operations manager picks ways that the specialist can build adequacy. The operations manager then builds up an arranging program, in conjunction with the departmental supervisor that the specialist can attempt to enhance his own specific capability. (Harvard, 1999) Some key segments could be: The style of force can acknowledge a fundamental part on how operations are coordinated. An untidy pioneer would go for individual great conditions and no idea would be paid to the concentrations and goals of a connection. Then again, a capable pioneer would reasonably appreciate all choices made by the alliance, guaranteeing that every choice is made to the best of different leveled limits. Inefficient work including heads would not be able to perform and complete attempts in a given measure of time. This would depict a wasteful connection and operational administration where either the pro or the heads are not performing up to their potential. This would additionally prompt to a general overlap of operational administration. A time tested pioneer would ensure that the experts are incited and on track with the given errand. Honest to goodness structure supervises how correspondence between divisions happens. Applying Kaizen to this chain of thought, a phenomenal authoritative culture will in actuality get marvelous outcomes from every level of association. Operations administration goes for controlling every single part of the systems required in order to guarantee that the operations happen in the most ideal way. This fuses fortunate and made dispersal out of commitment, able utilization of foul materials and work and balanced examination of all segments that effect the reasonability of yield. The objective is to ensure that procedures helpfully change over the duties to stock or associations with scarcest disaster. At long last, the part of the concerned authority cant be distorted. The power of the authorities must push the specialists to satisfactorily partake in their assignments and stay before date-book to keep the surge of data smooth and fortunate. In such way, the style of association may move from individual to individual or relationship to alliance. For instance, applying the probability theory would help the pioneer to reliably overview variables and reasons affecting Operations organization and keep the staff stirred and skilled on each meander. WEB REFERENCES: [1] Candy, L. (2016) Leadership versus management: What is the difference? Available at: http://www.educational-business-articles.com/leadership-versus-management/ [2] Terms, P.I. (2016) Situational and contingency leadership theories. Available at: https://prezi.com/deurcxwytc5i/situational-and-contingency-leadership-theories/ [3] McNamara, C. (no date) Historical and contemporary theories of management. [4] Harvard (1999) Operations management. [5] Definition of Kaizen (2016) Available at: https://uk.kaizen.com/about-us/definition-of-kaizen.html BOOK REFERENCES: [6] Schedlitzki, D. Edward, G., 2014. Studying Leadership: Traditional and Critical Approaches. London: SAGE. [7] Slack, N., Brandon-Jones, A. Johnston, R., 2013. Operations Management. Harlow: Pearson. [8] Cheng, T.C.E., Podolsky, S., Jarvis, P., Cheng, P.S. and Jarvis, P.G. (1996) Just-in-time manufacturing: An introduction. 2nd edn. London, Angleterre: Springer-Verlag New York. [9] Westcott, R.T. and Krivokuca, M. (2013) The certified manager of quality/organizational excellence handbook. 4th edn. United States: ASQ Quality Press. [10] Hill, A. Hill, T., 2011. Essential Operations Management. London: Palgrave. Pettinger, R., 2013. Introduction to Managemnet. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

The Poet Wallase Stevens :: essays research papers

Research Paper ;Inside the Gray Flannel Suit Rationalists, wearing square hets, hink, in square rooms, sp;Looking at the floor, Looking at the ceiling, They confine themselves To right-angled triangles. If they tried rhomboids, Cones, waving lines, ellipses- As for example, the ellipse of the half moon- Rationalists would wear sombreros. "Six Significant Landscapes" (Collected Poems p.73-75) Wallace Stevens is considerd one of the most important poets of this century. His style was unique and diffrent. The way he used words to optain the reality of something that can't be touched, is an amazing and brilant talent. Stevens was a very successful lawer and business man as well as a great peot. We usually think of peots and artists as "starving artists." Stevens was a very accommplished lawer and was still able to write beautifull peotry. His peoms useually contadicted his lifestile, but that might be were he got his insperation. He had a wife, family, and career, he had a very queit lifestyle. But, his peotry is very loud and abstract. Wallace Stevens was born in 1879, in Reading, Pennsylvania. As a child, he started out at parochial schools, and later enrolled in public schools. Wallace's parents encourage him to read, which helped him become a better writter. In school, Wallace was an excellent student. After high school, he continued his education at Harvard University, where he became involved with two Harvard newspapers, first the Advocate and then the Harvard Monthly. After leaving college, he moved to New York City. He worked as a journalist, and considered a literary career. But, his father encouraged Stevens to become a more practical career in the law business. He worked as a lawyer for a few years in New York. He worked at different firms and then at the Fidelity and Deposit Company. He finally settled at the Hartford Accident and Indemnity Company, where he became the vice president for the rest of his life. It was like Stevens led two separate lives, one of a business man and one as a poet. Stevens himself once said in a New York Times interview, "I prefer to think I'm just a man, not a poet part time, business man the rest. This is a fortunate thing, considering how inconsiderate the ravens are. I don't divide my life, just go on living." Many of Stevens' fans are often surprised when they learn of Stevens' life as a business man. As mentioned earlier, Wallace Stevens' work reflected his life in many The Poet Wallase Stevens :: essays research papers Research Paper ;Inside the Gray Flannel Suit Rationalists, wearing square hets, hink, in square rooms, sp;Looking at the floor, Looking at the ceiling, They confine themselves To right-angled triangles. If they tried rhomboids, Cones, waving lines, ellipses- As for example, the ellipse of the half moon- Rationalists would wear sombreros. "Six Significant Landscapes" (Collected Poems p.73-75) Wallace Stevens is considerd one of the most important poets of this century. His style was unique and diffrent. The way he used words to optain the reality of something that can't be touched, is an amazing and brilant talent. Stevens was a very successful lawer and business man as well as a great peot. We usually think of peots and artists as "starving artists." Stevens was a very accommplished lawer and was still able to write beautifull peotry. His peoms useually contadicted his lifestile, but that might be were he got his insperation. He had a wife, family, and career, he had a very queit lifestyle. But, his peotry is very loud and abstract. Wallace Stevens was born in 1879, in Reading, Pennsylvania. As a child, he started out at parochial schools, and later enrolled in public schools. Wallace's parents encourage him to read, which helped him become a better writter. In school, Wallace was an excellent student. After high school, he continued his education at Harvard University, where he became involved with two Harvard newspapers, first the Advocate and then the Harvard Monthly. After leaving college, he moved to New York City. He worked as a journalist, and considered a literary career. But, his father encouraged Stevens to become a more practical career in the law business. He worked as a lawyer for a few years in New York. He worked at different firms and then at the Fidelity and Deposit Company. He finally settled at the Hartford Accident and Indemnity Company, where he became the vice president for the rest of his life. It was like Stevens led two separate lives, one of a business man and one as a poet. Stevens himself once said in a New York Times interview, "I prefer to think I'm just a man, not a poet part time, business man the rest. This is a fortunate thing, considering how inconsiderate the ravens are. I don't divide my life, just go on living." Many of Stevens' fans are often surprised when they learn of Stevens' life as a business man. As mentioned earlier, Wallace Stevens' work reflected his life in many

Family Medicines: a Strategic Weakness Essay

Recently the trends of urbanization and fast population increase expose several problems to healthcare system in Vietnam like shortage of healthcare manpower, low quality of care, unreasonable distribution of healthcare manpower in different geographic areas, particularly the serious shortage of physicians in Mekong Delta and North-west highland areas as specialists tend to locate their practices in urban medical centers where they could have access to advanced technology, supportive services and consultations from other specialists while rural areas are underserved and patient care becomes highly technocratic, fragmented and episodic. Furthermore, the shortage of physicians in major cities results in a seriously permanent overload at Central level and some specialty hospitals like Oncology, Pediatrics, Obstetrics and Gynecology .. etc.. In sustainable issues, deficit of Family medicine – a basic foundation of modern healthcare in the world, is identified as one of main causes of such problems in Vietnam healthcare system. The purpose of this Essay is to provide a theoretical discussion and analysis about the Family medicine weakness in Healthcare system and Family physician insufficiency in Vietnam to better understand about their impacts to the healthcare system at present and some proposed solutions and recommendations to improve these deficits. 2. Family Medicine and its roles in global healthcare system. In contemporary medicine, Family medicine remains the foundation stone of healthcare service in the community. As the most interesting and challenging of medical disciplines it is based on six fundamental principles: * primary care * family care * domiciliary care * continuing care All above principles are all designed to achieve: * preventive care * personal care (Pereira Gray, 1980). In the contemporary climate where medical services are fragmented and there are competing interests there is a greater need than ever for generalists. In those principles, primary care is the backbone of the health care system and encompasses the following functions: * It is first – contact care, serving as a point of entry for the patient into the healthcare system * It includes continuity by virtue of caring for patients in sickness and health over some period * It is comprehensive care, drawing from all the traditional major disciplines for its functional content. It serves a coordinative function for all the healthcare needs of the patient * It assumes continuing responsibility for individual patient follow-up and community health problems * It is a high personalized type of care (Rakel 2011) In the 2008 report, the World Health Organization (WHO) reaffirmed the importance of primary health care with its report â€Å"Primary health care now more than ever† and its emphasizes that primary care is the best way of coping with the illnesses of the 21st century, and that better use of existing preventive measures could reduce the global burden of disease by as much as 70%. The commentary emphasizes that ‘primary care brings promotion and prevention, cure and care together in a safe, effective and socially productive way at the interface between the population and the health system’. The key challenge is to â€Å"put people first since good care is about people† (WHO, 2008). Rather than drifting from one short-term priority to another, countries should make prevention equally important as cure and focus on the rise in chronic diseases that require long-term care and strong community support. Furthermore, at the 62nd World Health Assembly in 2009, WHO strongly reaffirmed the values and principles of primary health care as the basis for strengthening health care system worldwide. The essence of Family medicine is continuity of care and the evidence for its contribution to quality of care and better outcomes as follows: * Lower all cause morbidity * Better access to care * Less re-hospitalization * Fewer consultations with specialists * Less use of emergency service Better detective of adverse effects of medication interventions. Role definition of Family physician varies considerably both among family physicians and among people with whom they interact. Some individuals, particularly other medical specialists, see family medicine as merely another name of general practice. For others, family medicine is synonymous with primary care. A large proportion of family physicians further elaborate their role to include emphasis on personalized and humanized care. A smaller group adds a third component to their role: caring for families. The largest proportion who subscribes to this last notion refer to family physicians’ treating all members of a family (Cogswell, Sussman, 1982). In view of Family medicine, Family physicians are generalists who primarily draw their scientific medicine and technical expertise from five older specialties – internal medicines, pediatrics, surgery, obstetrics-gynecology and psychiatry-neurology. Compared to these specialties, family medicine is still a young field marked both by rapid expansion and by change, variety, ambiguity and conflict in the images and definition of the role of family physician. As the largest caring scope in healthcare services, the quality and quantity strengths of Family physician force play key roles to improve the health quality of national population. Globally the scope of Family medicine is extended with the recent view of global health care which is a field at the intersection of several disciplines: epidemiology, economics, demography and sociology. The term global health, as opposed to international health, implies consideration of the health needs of the people of the whole planet above the concerns of particular nations. That means global health has wide scope and reach to equity that the term of international health. The â€Å"global health† concept in Family medicine raises the changes in primary care nature as follows: * All population has to deal with the same risk of health due to the phenomena of traveling and immigration. Increase the gap between the poor & the rich globally. * The process of the urbanization/globalization. * Increase of the population in the world. * Decrease of the resources for health care. * Global warming phenomena. * Vaccination Era. * Evidence Based Medicine in daily practice. * Increase the bad behavior such as fast food, tobacco, stress, use alcohol†¦ * Primary health care change to Primary care concept  (Pham Le An, 2009). Such comprehensive changes upgrade the scale of Fami ly medicine in healthcare. In order to promote the global health support as well as strengthen the co-operation of national members, the World Organization of National colleges and Academies (WONCA), World Organization of Family physicians in WHO, was officially established and based in Singapore after the Fifth World Conference on General Practice in Melbourne in 1972. 3. Family medicine situation in Vietnam Although Family medicine basis had been established in the world for over 40 years, Family physicians, the most recently recognized specialists in Vietnam, are in the enigmatic situation of developing the occupational role which they simultaneously occupy. Family medicine had been only approved for establishment by Vietnam Ministry of Health since 2000. Until 2003, Family medicine specialty was established at 3 Medical Universities of Hanoi, HCMC City and Thai Nguyen province to train Family physicians and its specialists. However, its development was spontaneous with 7 Family medicine clinics (in both public and private sectors) nationwide and not strategically organized at all levels so far. There are only 59 post-graduated specialists and around 1,1 General practitioners who partly handle the roles of family physicians per 10,000 people averagely. The imbalance between Family medicine and other specialists can be seen by the ratio of 7,2 Medical doctors per 10,000 people in overall (Vietnam General Statistics Office – GSO – 2011) and the healthcare system only satisfies about 60- 70% of the demands and are lower than neighbor countries like Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines.. tc. In 2011 report, Vietnam Ministry of Health forecasted the demand of 34,000 General practitioners more to obtain 10 Medical doctors/10,000 people in 2020 and this is a significant challenge to all 19 Medical educational Universities/Colleges to educate Medical doctors and post-graduate levels in medicine which capacities supply 4,800 graduated Medical doctors every year to add around 3,500 physicians more a year. Not only the quantity of family physicians is seriously insufficient, but also their quality to fulfill the roles of a family physician does not meet the needs of the patients and social development. The General practitioner training programs don’t orient student to the WHO’s critical requirements of â€Å"good doctors† in Family medicine, even though the criteria are more and more demanding by time, for example, the newer criteria of John Murtagh in 2001 â€Å"What makes a good General Practitioner? : * Develop rapport and good communication skills * Ask the right questions * Be astute and observant * Develop optimal ethical and professional standards * Have a fail-safe diagnostic strategy * Develop supportive networks * Know essential therapeutics * Develop basic procedural skills * Be well prepared for emergencies * Know yourself and your limitations including own general practitioners. The importance of certain specific competences and soft-skills in family physician force are emphasized in many studies. An interesting survey on patient care by representative health consumers conducted at St Vincent’s Hospital Melbourne revealed that the most important attributes of good doctors were (in some order of importance) caring, responsibility, empathy, interest, concern, competence, knowledge, confidence, sensitivity, perceptiveness, diligence, availability and manual skills. Additionally, there are neither comprehensive residency programs for Family physicians at Medical Universities/ Colleges in Vietnam nor supporting policy to them and general practitioners practicing at remote or rural areas so far. With effort to resolve the overload situation of Central hospitals in major cities, Project 1816 of Vietnam Ministry of Health deployed in 2008 with the purpose of â€Å"Fielding rotated professionals from upper level hospitals to lower levels to improve the quality of medical care† achieved some initial results such as transferring some technologies and conducting on-site training to improve skills and qualifications for lower level health care professionals; initially improving the quality of medical care at lower levels, especially in the mountainous, remote areas with staff shortage†¦etc, but its couldn’t obtain one of basic goals to reduce overcrowding for upper level hospitals, especially central level hospitals because it made the shortage of central level and specialty hospital more serious by the rotation. 4. Impacts of Family Medicine weakness in Healthcare system & Family physician insufficiency in Vietnam. Due to low reliability and poorly structured family physician network, patients tend to bypass to specialists/ central level hospitals (Vietnam Ministry of Health – 2011 Report), opposite with the trend in the world in which healthcare activities for chronic diseases such as diabetes, hypertension, asthma†¦are moved from in-patient to out-patient services with comprehensive treatment protocol at each level (Dang Van Phuoc, 2012) The irregular bypass causes the overload at Central level and specialty hospitals and the overloading condition becomes more serious, i. e, bed using capacity at Central hospitals increase from 116% (2009) to 120% (2010) and 118% (2011). It’s extremely high in some specialty hospitals such as K (Cancer) Hospital: 249%, Bach Mai Hospital: 168%; Cho Ray hospital: 154%; Central Obstetric and Gynaecological hospital: 124% .. etc. High capacity occurs in some specialties such as Oncology, Cardio-vascular, Orthopaedics (at 100% of hospitals), Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Paediatrics (at 70% of hospitals) while 36,8% of General hospitals are overloaded. The similar situation also happens in Consulting Departments with 80 exams/day/doctor while 60% – 80% of patients at Central level hospitals could be examined at local level and 40% of surgery cases at Central level hospital could be performed at local levels (Ministry of Health – Plan to decrease workload of Central level hospitals 2012- 2020) With the cost in health care, the deficit of Family medicine in Vietnam is one of reason making the medical expenses of patient higher. Total Expenditure on health as % of GDP (5. 1) is fairly high while General Government expenditure on health as % of total expenditure on health (28. 5) is so low to neighbor countries (Susan, 2005). The most cost-effective healthcare systems depend on a strong primary care base. This has been confirmed by a variety of studies comparing the care given by physicians in different specialties because primary care provided by physicians specifically trained to care for the problems presenting to personal physicians, who know their patients over time, is of higher quality than care provided by other physicians. When hospitalized patients with pneumonia are cared for by family physicians or full-time specialist hospitalists, the quality of care is comparable, but the hospitalist incur higher hospital charges, longer lengths of stay, and use more resources (Smith et al. , 2002). Similarly, the greater quantity of primary care physicians practicing in a nation, the lower is the cost of health care. The cost of healthcare is inversely proportional to the percentages of generalists practicing in that nation. According to OECD Health (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development – OECD Health Data, June 2005), United Kingdom has twice the percentage of family physicians but half the cost to U. S.. Administrative overhead accounts for a major part of the high overhead cost (31%) of U. S. health care (Woolhandler et al. 2003). Countries with strong primary care have lower overall health care costs, improved health care outcomes, and healthier populations (Starfield, 2001; Phillips and Starfield, 2004). The shortage of Family physicians and Family medicine deficits also cause other problems in health care as follows: * Incomplete or unsuccessful Primary health care performance. * The gap between urban care and rural care in the health care network. * The competition among specialties: lack of cooperation in chronic disease care, increase the cost of management. * Barrier in teaching ambulatory care and doing out-patient’s research in academies (Pham Le An, 2009). In society, Family medicine meets some resistances of patients such as family hysicians are unfairly treated as â€Å"general consultants†, â€Å"home caring doctors† and even in medical community, they are considered as â€Å"incompetent doctor†, â€Å"poor specialist†, â€Å"unfair competitive doctor†.. e tc. Many other specialists and hospitals’ managements list Family physicians as one of financial losing causes to their hospitals. Such unfair treatments make many Family physicians feel uncomfortable with the specialty and their roles of Family physician. The reliability of patients and society to them is fairly low and this specialty does not attract the general practitioners to study. 5. Some proposed solutions & recommendations to improve Family medicine. In order to improve the Family medicine in Vietnam, it requires a comprehensive strategy with strong supports of government, educational institutes and society. Within the limit of this essay, I would like to propose some solutions and recommendations as follows: a. Increasing the quantity of Family physicians with additionally trained General practitioners and using the retired medical doctors: The greater the number of primary care physicians in a country, the lower is the mortality rate and the lower cost (Rakel, 2011). In the United States, a 20% increase in the number of primary care physicians is associated with a 5% decrease in mortality (40 fewer death per 100,000 population), but the benefit is even greater if the primary care physician is a family physician. Adding one more family physician per 10,000 people is associated with 70 fewer death per 100,000 population, which is a 9 reduction in mortality (Rakel 2011). A study of the major determinants of health outcomes in all 50 U. S. states found that when the number of specialty physicians increases, outcomes are worse, whereas mortality rates are lower where there are more primary care physicians (Starfield et al. , 2005). Starfield (2000) states, â€Å"the higher the primary care physician-to-population ratio, the better most health outcomes are† (p. 485). Researches in England reveal that with each Family doctor more in 10,000 people (about 20%), adjusted mortality will reduced about 5% in chronic diseases (Gulliford 2002). The increase of Family physicians obviously reduces the workload at Central level and specialty hospitals (49. 3% of out-patient and 59% of in-patient totally) because with many researches in the world, over 90% of patients are taken care with better service by Family physicians in developed medical or developed countries (Didier, 2011). They can help patients and their relatives in 80% health problems: acute or chronic diseases without complications or no need to transfer to Specialty hospitals (Dang Van Phuoc, 2012). To compensate the continuing decline of the number of students entering primary care as a common trend in the world (Bodenheimer et al. 2009) and insufficiency of graduated general practitioners, a policy to support general practitioners and retired medical doctors to practice as Family physicians such as additional training about Family medicine, financial supports, incentive†¦should be prepared and implemented. Rather than other countries where Family physicians usually work at home or their private clinics, Vietnam has a wide network of local level medical centers at wards/hamlets and popularly private clinics/medical units. This advantage allows Family physicians to practice and deploy the primary care programs easily and popularly. b. Family physician residency training programs: Quality of care and the inadequacy of medical training are two major concerns of Family physicians. Eventually, medical schools and residency programs graduated more specialists and fewer physicians trained for primary care. To improve their quality of care in accordance with global health principles, proposed solution is to build emerging curricula of family practice residency programs to envisioning family physicians as â€Å"horizontal specialists† who can deal with the large majority of patients’ needs on a continuing basis (Rakel, 2011) and envisioning this role as integrating humanized care with a high level of competence in scientific medicine. In contrast to the training of the general practitioner, the additional training that family physicians receive is intended to make them more proficient generalists in scientific medicine through formal training in appropriate interpersonal skills and in the behavioral and social sciences. Implementation of this role, however, requires reorganization within the medical system (Folsom, 1966) for continuing, comprehensive care by primary physician is difficult if not impossible within the normative organizational structures of highly specialized medical centers. As Family physicians play the important role in primary care, the Global health awareness program should be combined into General practitioner and Family physician’s training curriculum for being sure about the quality of â€Å"primary care† as follows: (i) Clerkship: adding knowledge of burden global disease in the world such as: tuberculosis, malaria, Preventive care: vaccination; improving skills such as clinical making decision, communication. ii) Orientation: Adding knowledge of new   emerging infectious disease like SARS, non communicable diseases, traumatism care, HIV/AIDS; (iii) Residents: adding knowledge of prenatal care,   neonatal care,   chronic care, mental health care, adolescen t care;   Emergency care in disaster; improving skills such as: doing research and practice Emergency care in disaster, Behavioral care after disaster, Kangoroo’s program, Obs-Gyn care program; building up the relationship center care with WIN- WIN theory for both developed and developing countries to increase of cooperation and Team work. In addition, the cooperation among experts in different medical fields should be strengthened for teaching, managing, doing research to promote the concept â€Å"relationship center care† through many activities: * Establish Continue Medical Education, Patient’s clubs. * Build the bridge or integrate the teaching contents   in Family medicine   with the other specialties like Pediatrics, Traditional Medicine ( Oriental nutrition, Shiatsu), Cancerology (Palliative care), Multidiscipline (Disaster care, EBM, chronic care). Communication through Internet/ Video conference and Electronic medical: The WHO 2008 report emphasiz es the appropriate ‘use of information and communication technologies to improve access, quality and efficiency in primary care. The writer has made a small contribution to basic patient education (also known as doctor education) by the production of common patient handouts which are available for print out from General practitioners’ computers or for one page photocopying from the book ‘Patient Education’ (Murtagh J; 2008). Besides the residency training programs, on-going training courses to improve the competences and skills of Family physicians should be set for attributes considered most important for patient satisfaction (Stock Keister et al. , 2004a). Overall, people want their primary care doctor to meet five basic criteria: â€Å"to be their insurance plan, to be in a location that is convenient, to be able to schedule an appointment within a reasonable period of time, to have good communication skills, and to have a reasonable amount of experience in practice†. They especially want â€Å"a physician who listens to them, who takes the time to explain things to them, and who is able to effectively integrate their care† (Stock Keister et al. , 2004b, p. 2312). c. Others solutions and recommendations (i) Building an incentive scheme and financial supporting policy to Family physicians, especially whom working in remote and rural areas: The effectiveness of this model had been proved in many countries, particularly in Thailand and Malaysia where healthcare conditions are fairly similar to Vietnam. Contrarily, the recent P4P (Pay for Performance) policy of Thailand’s of Ministry of Health to replace the incentive scheme to Family physicians creates several problems to healthcare force and patients and is considered as a main cause leading the Family physicians moving to major cities. With relation between income and satisfaction, in an analysis of 33 specialties in U. S. , Leigh and associates (2002) found that physicians in high-income â€Å"procedural† specialties, such as Obs – Gyn, ENT, ophthalmology and orthopedics, were the most dissatisfied. Physicians in these specialties and those in internal medicine were more likely than family physicians to be dissatisfied with their careers. Among the specialty areas most satisfying was geriatrics. Because the population older than 65 years old in U. S. has doubled since 1960 and will double again by 2030, it is important to have sufficient primary care physician to care for them. The need for and the rewards of this type of practice must be communicated to students before they decide how to spend the rest of their professional lives. Patient satisfaction correlates strongly with physician satisfaction, and physicians satisfied with their careers are more likely to provide better health care than dissatisfied ones. Physician satisfaction is associated with quality of care, particularly as measured by patient satisfaction. The strongest factors associated with physician satisfaction are not personal income, but rather the ability to provide high-quality care to patients. Physicians are most satisfied with their practice when they can have an ongoing relationship with their patients, the freedom to make clinical decisions without financial conflicts of interest adequate time with patient and sufficient communication with specialist (DeVoe et al. , 2002). Landon& colleagues (2003) found that rather than declining income, the strongest predictor of decreasing satisfaction in practice is the loss of clinical autonomy. This includes the inability to obtain services for their patients, control their time with patients, and the freedom to provide high-quality care. ii) Compulsorily assigning General practitioners/ Family physicians to practice at local level hospitals, the servicing term at local level hospitals must be reasonable and acceptable. (iii) Improving facilitates of local level hospitals/clinic s, enforcing the lower level hospitals to implement modern technologies and quality control. This allows Family physicians to better serve patients as some achievements of Project 1816 of Vietnam Ministry of Health. (iv) Involving patients for private and family health care and prevention, structured information supporting treatment. (v) Improving the reputation of Family medicine and physicians in society through public media channels like television, newspaper.. etc, medical education programs and medical community. Even after the specialty is formally acknowledged by institutionalized medicine, family physicians have experienced a variety of negative responses from medical colleagues in other specialties. Carmichael (1978) perceived 3 stages in the reactions of those in medicine to Family medicine: first, the field was ignored; second, it was actively opposed; and then, family medicine is entering a third stage of possible co-optation by medicine. 6. Conclusion The weakness of Family medicine and insufficiency of family physicians cause many strategic consequences to the healthcare system in Vietnam. Their correction requires a long-term strategy to increase the quantity of Family physicians, quality of care, revise the residency training programs, improve its reputation in the society .. etc. In conclusion it seems appropriate to paraphrase Dr Robert Rakel in his keynote presentation to the 14th WONCA World Conference to reaffirm the Family medicine era in the contemporary medicine: â€Å"Regardless of how computer literate we are or how high our technology or whether the setting is urban or rural, good medical care in the future will continue to depend on patient care provided by a concerned and compassionate family physician. The physician will be governed by ethics, not economics, by a partnership with the patient, not politics; and by compassion and communication, and not by capitation. Good medical care in the future will depend, as it does now and always has, on the quality of our interaction with the patient† Dr Robert Rakel – 14th WONCA World Conference) REFERENCES 1. Alain J. Montegut, The Power of Primary Care for the Future of health care: Is Family Medicine the Answer? 1st International PHC Conference Doha, Qatar 1 – 4 November 2008 2. Bod enheimer et al. , 2009. Bodenheimer  T. ,  Grumbach  K. ,  Berenson  R. A. :  A lifeline for primary care. N Engl J Med  Ã‚  2009;  360:2693-2696. 3. Cogswell BE, Sussman MB, Family Medicine: A new Approach to Healthcare (Marriage & Family review, ISSN 0149-4929; v. 4, no. 1/2), The Haworth Press Inc. 1982. 4. Dang Van Phuoc : Plan to decrease workload of Central level hospitals 2012- 2020 – Vietnam Ministry of Health, 2012. 5. Didier L. Roles of Family medicine, Texbook of Family medicine for the co-operation between Liege University – Brussel and Vietnam, Medicine Publisher, 2009. 6. DeVoe et al. , 2002. DeVoe  J. ,  Fryer  G. E. ,  Hargraves  L. ,  et al:  Does career dissatisfaction affect the ability of family physicians to deliver high-quality patient care?. J  Fam Pract  Ã‚  2002;  51:223-228. 7. Gulliford, J Public Health Med 2002; 24:252-4, and personal communication 9/04. 8. Landon et al. , 2003. Landon  B. E. ,  Re schovsky  J. ,  Blumenthal  D. :  Changes in career satisfaction among primary care and specialist physicians, 1997–2001. JAMA  Ã‚  2003;  289:442-449. 9. Leigh et al. , 2002. Leigh  J. P. ,  Kravitz  R. L. ,  Schembri  M. ,  et al:  Physician career satisfaction across specialties. Arch Intern Med  Ã‚  2002;  162:1577-1584. 10. Murtagh J: The road to excellence. Australian doctor 3 2008, 46-8. 11. Murtagh J: Paradigms of Family medicine: bringing traditions with new concepts; meeting the challenge of being the good doctor from 2011, Asia Pacific Family Medicine, 2011, 10:9 12. Murtagh J: Patient education. 5 edition. Sydney: McGraw-Hill; 2008. 13. Pereira Gray DJ: Just a GP. J R Coll Gen Pract 1980, 30:231-239 14. Pham Le An, Integrate the issue of global health in FM curriculum: promising solution for improving the quality f Primary care in Hochiminh city, Vietnam  , Introducion FM concept: global healh, texbook of Family medicine, Vietnamese version, Medicine Publisher, 2009. 15. Pham Le An, Global health perspective in Vietnam, A â€Å"Train the Trainer’s Workshop†   WONCA   ASIAN PACIFIC Vietnam Ho Chi Minh city, 2008 16. Phillips and Starfield, 2004. Phillips  R. L. ,  Starfield  B. :  Why does a U. S. primary care physician workforce crisis matter?. Am Fam Physician  Ã‚  2004;  70:440-446. 17. Rakel RE: Family medicine-meeting new challenges. Australian Family Physician 1996, 25(9 Suppl 2):S91-6. 18. Rakel RE: The Family Physician, Textbook of Family Medicine, Eight Edition, Elsevier Saunders, 2011, pp4-15 19. Rivo et al. , 1994. Rivo  M. L. ,  Saultz  J. W. ,  Wartman  S. A.   et al:  Defining the generalist physician’s training. JAMA  Ã‚  1994;  271:1499-1504. 20. Smith et al. , 2002. Smith  P. C. ,  Westfall  J. M. ,  Nicholas  R. A. :  Primary care family physicians and 2 hospitalist models: comparison of outcomes, processes, and costs. J Fam Pract  Ã‚  2002;  51:1021-1027. 21. Starfield, 1994. Starfield  B. :  Is primary care essential?. Lancet  Ã‚  1994;  344:1129-1133. 22. Starfield, 2000. Starfield  B. :  Is U. S. hea lth really the best in the world?. JAMA  Ã‚  2000;  284:483-485. 23. Starfield, 2001. Starfield  B. :  New paradigms for quality in primary care. Br J Gen Pract  Ã‚  2001;  51:303-309. 24. Starfield et al. , 2002. Starfield  B. ,  Forrest  C. B. ,  Nutting  P. A.   et al:  Variability in physician referral decisions. J Am Board Fam Pract  Ã‚  2002;  15:473-480. 25. Starfield et al. , 2005. Starfield  B. ,  Shi  L. ,  Grover  A. ,  et al:  The effects of specialist supply on populations’ health: assessing the evidence. Health Aff (Millwood)  Ã‚  2005;  24:W5-97-W5-107 26. Stock Keister et al. , 2004a. Stock Keister  M. C. ,  Green  L. A. ,  Kahn  N. B. ,  et al:  What people want from their family physician. Am Fam Physician  Ã‚  2004;  69:2310. 27. Stock Keister et al. , 2004b. Stock Keister  M. C. ,  Green  L. A. ,  Kahn  N. B. ,  et al:  Few people in the United States can identify primary care physicians. Am Fam Physician  Ã‚  2004;  69:2312. 28. Susan JA, Vietnam’s Healthcare system: A Macroeconomic Perspective, Paper Prepared for the International Symposium on Health Care Systems in Asia Hitotsubashi University, Tokyo, 2005. 29. Vietnam Ministry of Health: Plan to decrease workload of Central level hospitals 2012- 2020, 2012. 30. Woolhandler et al. , 2003. Woolhandler  S. ,  Campbell  T. ,  Himmelstein  D. U. :  Costs of health care administration in the United States and Canada. N Engl J Med  Ã‚  2003;  349:768-775. 31. World Health Organisation: The World Health Report 2008: Primary Health Care now more than ever Geneva; 2008. 32. World Health Organisation: World Health Report 2009: Promoting health and development-closing the implement gap Geneva; 2009. -oOo-

Strategic Analysis of Orange UK The WritePass Journal

Strategic Analysis of Orange UK Chapter 1. Orange Mobile Service and its Context Strategic Analysis of Orange UK Chapter 1. Orange Mobile Service and its ContextKey elements in service deliveryDesigning the serviceImplementing the service:AssumptionsService from a customer’s viewpointSkills and knowledge a customer needNature of competition in the marketTerminals and end-user devicesChapter 2. The Service Supply ChainShared ResourceSoftware architecture and cloud-based configurationChapter 3. Governance StructuresQuality of serviceResponsible for ensuring the serviceSLAs between suppliers for offering this serviceTypes of variabilityAlternative ways to define/measure quality of serviceDealt with problemsProcesses/systems for dealing with faultsChapter 4. Service Management SystemsOrder takingProvision of service to a customerBillingFault managementChapter 5. Risks involved in launching Orange UK mobile serviceRisks during Orange UK design stage prior to its launchOrange’s on-going risks and the ways to be amelioratedChapter 6. Improvements to the ServiceImprove customer serviceImp rove quality of serviceMake change to servicePredict changesChapter 7. ReferenceRelated Chapter 1. Orange Mobile Service and its Context Orange Mobile service contains calling, messaging, information service, mobile entertainment, mobile email, mobile data service, etc. Key elements in service delivery Designing the service Ensuring that:   Customer needs are clearly identified Reasonable expectations are set Services are easy access, responsive, timely and reliable Where possible, some choice is provided for users Those delivering the service have appropriate skills Implementing the service: Ensuring that:   Service delivery is consistent regardless of where or by whom it is delivered Services are simple to understand and receive Services are cost effective Assessing achievement Ensuring that:   Quality of service is regularly reviewed Users have easy right of address for poor quality services There is a programme of continuous improvement Value of the service to customers The main value of Orange mobile service to customers is to provide calling and cost.   Orange provides not only general calling services as other communication companies, but there are also many different styles of calling service for consumers to choose. HD Voice is one of revolutionary technology Orange possesses. There will be a crystal clear HD Voice when customers making phone calls. It is a better, more natural experience, less background noise, taking any strain out of listening, no matter in the street or at the station. Orange also provides conference calling service, which can support talking to up to five people at the same. Definitely, if customers have 3G handsets and in the 3G area, they can also make video calls whenever they want. There are also several types of messaging service for orange users to choose. Orange can guarantee customers sending or receiving photo messages and video messages as fast as text messages. Customers can also use photo messaging to send pictures to their social networking pages. As above, orange provides UK customers a convenient and high quality mobile service. And customers can choose either â€Å"pay monthly† or â€Å"pay as you go† to obtain all the mobile service. No matter using 3G functional benefits or international communications, the price always accounts for a lower level when comparing with the other communication companies in this profession. Therefore, Orange provides a high value mobile service to customers in UK. Assumptions A reasonable assumption for Orange to segment customers is quite important. Customers with different ages, occupations and family status will have different needs and usage of the service. For young people, messaging and mobile data services are their main purpose. For businessman, their main uses are calling services. For overseas students, international calls will be an important part to contact with their family. Some people are mad about music. Some people are sports fans. Some people don’t use mobile phone so much. Orange classifies customers by their different status and demands. With these segmentations, Orange offers different bundling service packages to meet various requirements. Orange also names the different packages with the animals which are very interesting and attractive. Monkey: The customers are mad about music. They can get free tunes and texts on Monkey, plus news, competitions which Orange think customer will like, and offers straight to their phone. Dolphin: The customers love to socialize. They can text, poke or tweet as many times as they like with Dolphin. With their top-up, they can get free text and internet on their phone. Canary: The customers love to chat. They can talk to friends and family for hours on Canary with free evening and weekend calls to any mobile. They can alternatively share great moments with free texts or free photo messaging every evening and weekend. Racoon: The customer in a no nonsense talker. Racoon is a simple, low cost plan thats great for talking and texting. Customer can get lowest call rate of just 12p per minute and send a text for only 12p too. Camel: The customer often calls abroad. They can stay connected with friends and family in more than 50 countries with free minutes on Camel. Plus, even when they run out of their free minutes, they will still get great rates starting from as low as 5p. As above, the five packages will be suitable for most of the customers. Orange also has a lot of other bundling services which satisfied all their customers. Service from a customer’s viewpoint From a customer’s viewpoint, Orange not only offers great services on calling and messaging, but also stands in consumers angle to furnish many humanized services. The most popular one may be the Magic Number. Magic Number is based on an old-fashioned chat but is a new way to â€Å"help you stay in touch with those who matter to you most.† There is another intimate design in all of callings which received a widespread praise Network Performance Promise. Orange is the only network to give customers up to a minute of talk time back, in the unlikely event that youre cut off during a call. It means if the calling between A and B is cut by some reason, and A calls B again within five minutes, Orange will credit 1 minute to A’s account to cover A’s loss just now. Call Barring is also a useful service to users. Customers could block either incoming or outgoing calls whenever they like, and Orange won’t charge for this. Orange Chat and Orange Messenger enable the consumers to enjoy immediate chatting fun as well as BlackBerry mobile service. In the Insurance and protection aspect, Orange Care has exempted customers’ worrying about lost, stolen, damaged or develops a fault on their phones. Orange also provides a useful service named Payforit, which is the trusted payment service developed by Orange and the other networks, and operated and provided by approved payment service providers known as Accredited Payment Intermediaries. Payforit is the easy way to buy goods and services using customer’s mobile phone and charge the amount directly to bill or pre-pay credit. Other services that make consumers to relish are Orange Wednesday, Reserve Tank and Tiny Top Up, ect. Orange customers could buy 2 for 1 cinema tickets and 2 for 1 pizza on Wednesdays. And if someone runs out of his/her credit on the phone and does not have means to top up, he/she could text and call Orange customer service to apply for extra 2.50 pounds to continue the important business. Therefore, in the customer’s viewpoint, Orange provide a series of humanized services to convenience and perfect the whole mobile experience in customer’s daily using. Skills and knowledge a customer need To gain maximum value from the service, customer needs to be familiar with Orange services, know exactly what the service include and choose a most suitable service which is Consistent with their usage. As mentioned, Orange has many kinds of service package for different types of customers. Customers can go to the Orange shop and talk to the salespeople about the service they want. A personalized service will be more emotional and acceptable to customer. Customer can also call to the customer service or visit Orange website to find any latest new service and changes. Subscribing to Orange E-mail tips about their news will be an efficient way. Nature of competition in the market Currently market competition in the communications industry is already very fierce. The core of competition is no longer a contest of mobile communication technology or price, the customer service is the aspect both mobile service companies and consumers most focused on. Nowadays, 3G technology is widespread, and 4G technology is under developing, so there is nearly no technical differences between major communications companies such as O2, Vodafone, Orange, T-Mobile and 3. However, the relatively fixed market structure makes these companies have no much choice space and leeway in the pricing because the cost is little different. Hence, the customer service of a company becomes the most valued quality in consumer’s view. The number of retail stores and the attitude and steps of telephone customer service determine the quality of service of this company. Mobile service companies should divert the competitive focus to the bottom level, which means making more investment in the e xpansion of retail stores, enhanced the function and convenience of telephone services, employee training and so on. By improving these services motioned above to enhance competitiveness. And at the same time, improve customer satisfaction, thereby improve Customer Loyalty. Terminals and end-user devices Handsets are terminals and end-user devices for Orange mobile service. In Orange shops, the display of different kinds of mobile phones and to have a tryout free of charge gives customers an intuitive image about the services. Queries, orders and complaints handling can also be dealing with in Orange shops. It makes customer understanding the service better Chapter 2. The Service Supply Chain As a mature telecommunication company, Orange UK has a complete supply chain in delivering service, which is in order to provide better and more comprehensive mobile services to customers. Therein, Orange cooperates with Cisco and HUAWEI to set up infrastructures, and shares 2G Network with T-mobile to expand the signal coverage, and also cooperates with some handset manufacture, banks, post office, cinema and other companies to Improve and expand the business scope. Orange constructs and operates Retail stores, Telephone customer service and website to provide customers more various and more convenient service. Structure of Orange UK mobile service supply chain As the supply chain show above, Orange cooperates with infrastructure suppliers, such as Cisco and HUAWEI, to construct base stations and lay basic cables. Orange bought large switches and some other core devices from these companies and signed the agreement on the daily operations of the maintenance. In addition, this part cooperation in the supply chain is one of the most basic and important parts which could not be elided in further alternative structures. On October 2010, the merger of Orange and T-Mobile is formal implemented. 30 million customers’ phone will phones would automatically switch to whichever of the two networks has the strongest signal mid-call. And the underlying system is similar to that used when a phone roams on a different network abroad. The first practical benefit from this cooperation is the advantage of network coverage. Though the cooperation at this stage is limited to 2G network, it has been praised by experts and consumers. In addition, this part is one of the alternative structures in the Orange mobile service supply chain. Orange has a long cooperation with many handset manufacturers to provide Orange customers a variety of mobile phones to be paid monthly or â€Å"pay as you go†. There are Blackberry, HTC, Nokia, Motorola, LG, Sony Ericsson and some other brand mobile phones for customers to choose. Customer could get the phone he/she liked for free and enjoy bundling package calling discount if sign a contract to pay monthly. Customer could also choose â€Å"pay as you go† to get phones in a lower price than the market price. The most popular pay monthly plan is iPhone, with which customer can enjoy iPhone applications, music and games by installment payment, greatest experience with low price. As for the SIM only plans, in addition to the variety of different specified packages designed for different groups (introduced in Chapter 1), Orange also provides Orange Business for small and medium companies or groups. On the basis of the general package plans, Orange Business adds free calls and texts between sharers within the group, which is convenience and cheap for business. In addition, various plans are the main service and steady income of Orange, so it could not be elided in further alternative structures. Orange also has other cooperation projects with some companies in other area to get win-win and offer users more services. For example, on Wednesdays, customers can enjoy 2 for 1 in cinemas and Pizza Express; customers can pay by their SIM card account by Payforit; Orange also cooperates with BT Landline to provide home broadband service, ect. In addition, these extra services are alternative structures in the Orange mobile service supply chain. As discussed in the Chapter 1, another important competition factor in the communications industry is customer service. Orange constructs and operates over 300 retail stores in UK and 24 hours telephone customer service system. Retail stores are around the streets in major cities with complete sales system, plenty of mobile phones and other goods and well-trained employees, which can reach customer’s requirement. Services in retail stores are mainly focus on sales, and follow-up services almost rely on the telephone customer service system. Complete automated voice service system can help users solve problems themselves 24 hours. Plenitudinous and well-trained employees ensure the manual telephone service can satisfy customers quickly and accurately. In addition, customer service is too important for a telecommunication company to be elided in the supply chain. Orange also constructs and operates the Orange website to rich the content and ways to service. Customers not only can find all information about Orange, but also can discover many useful functions on Orange website. On the homepage, there are lasted news all over the world, sport matches report, weather information and so on. The mobile entertainment page provide music download and various handset games which come from the cooperation between Orange and some music companies, pc game companies. There is also available for topping up online or ordering new SIM cards through the website. The last but not least, customers can manage their account online including check electronic bills. In addition, Orange website service could be seen as an alternative structure in the supply chain. Shared Resource There are still another two parts of important cooperation in delivering the mobile service, whose controller are banks and post office. Orange sign a contract with a customer must be through a bank to charge the customer monthly. And if someone uses the online top up service it is still related to the cooperation between banks and Orange. But in the telecommunication market, other companies use the same way to charge users, so banks service on mobile phone is shared by financial markets, savings business, lending business, other mobile service companies (such as O2, Vodafone, T-Mobile and 3) and so on. Orange will send paper bill every month to each contract customer by post. And if someone orders a new SIM card online or lost the handset under the insurance, orange also will deliver the package by post. As for the case of sharing resources, post office is roughly same as the Banks, which is share by postal services and also other mobile service companies. It is clearly to find out that banks and post offices are in operation or under the control of national macroeconomic regulation by the government, both banks and post office have strong business management and processing capabilities, and also the Orange only takes a little bit of these sharing resources, so there won’t be any influence on the Orange mobile service by sharing resources on bank and post office business. Software architecture and cloud-based configuration Figure1 [1] Cloud-based configuration would be appropriate as Cloud computing is a model for enabling convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction.[2] Cloud computing provides computation, software, data access, and storage services that do not require end-user knowledge of the physical location and configuration of the system that delivers the services. Parallels to this concept can be drawn with the electricity grid, where end-users consume power without needing to understand the component devices or infrastructure required to provide the service.[3] Cloud computing describes a new supplement, consumption, and delivery model for IT services based on Internet protocols, and it typically involves provisioning of dynamically scalable and often virtualized resources[4][5] Cloud-based Configuration has many advantages. First, cloud-based configuration provides the most reliable and secure data storage center, users do not have to worry about data loss, virus attack and other problems. econdly, the cloud-based configuration requires quite low on the client devices and is most convenient to use. n addition, it is easy to share data and applications between different devices. Finally, cloud-based configuration can reduce operating costs and maximize the commercial interests. As above, Cloud-based configuration would be an appropriate architecture of this service. Chapter 3. Governance Structures Quality of service Quality of service in the field of telephony is formed by 6 primary components: Support, Operability, Accessibility, Retainability, Integrity and Security.[6]  Ã‚  Ã‚   Bit rate, bit error rate, jitter, delay and packet dropping probability should meet the required standard. Voice call quality directly reflects the quality of service. Stable signal should be guaranteed to customers. A communications network forms the backbone of any successful organization. These networks transport a multitude of applications and data, including high-quality video and delay-sensitive data such as real-time voice. The bandwidth-intensive applications stretch network capabilities and resources, but also complement, add value, and enhance every business process. Networks must provide secure, predictable, measurable, and sometimes guaranteed services. Achieving the required Quality of Service (QoS) by managing the delay, delay variation (jitter), bandwidth, and packet loss parameters on a network becomes the secret to a successful end-to-end business solution. Thus, QoS is the set of techniques to manage network resources. [7] Responsible for ensuring the service The QoS is ensured by the Infrastructure. More base stations can provide a better network. Now Orange shared their 2G network with T-mobile. It means Orange customer can use T-mobile network and better to be connected. Central switch(Cisco, HUAWEI) with fast speed and powerful processing capability can also improve the QoS by reducing the packet dropping probability. Orange customer service accesses their network quality by being contacted to the customers directly and getting the feedback. Then Orange RD department solve the problems which are collected by customer service, upgrade the network system and develop new ways to access to the network better. Therefore the quality of service are ensured to meet the standards. SLAs between suppliers for offering this service A Service-Based SLA is needed for offering this service. Service-Based SLA is an agreement for customer to use the service which is delivered by suppliers. It is consist of a definition of services, the levels of availability, warranties, problem management, billing, performance measurement, disaster recovery, customer duties and termination of agreement.[8] Penalties may be agreed upon in the case of non-compliance of the SLA. It is important to note that the agreement relates to the services the customer receives, and not how the service provider delivers that service. Types of variability The basic type of variability is contractual agreement to be changed or terminated. The contract which has been signed between customer and provider would be terminated in certain circumstances. For example, the poor performance of the network and customer service will dissatisfy customers. In this case, Customer has the right to terminated the contract and change to another supplier. Once customer find their usage is always outside of contact allowance, or customer’s status has been changed and need a more suitable bundling package service, they will also want to terminate the current contract and change to a more adaptive contract. To manage the above variability, Orange needs to make a precision performance measurement and keeps improving their network. A patient and efficient customer service will give customer a good impression and increase the customer loyalty. New contract and bundling package service which is advance in time can attract both current customers and potential users. Alternative ways to define/measure quality of service In a telephony system, quality of service can be divided into two parts, â€Å"human† and â€Å"technical†. Human factors include: stability of service, availability of service, delays, user information. Technical factors include: reliability, scalability, effectiveness, maintainability, Grade of Service, etc.[9] QoS is not only referring to the ability to reserve resources, but also referring to the level of quality of service, for example, guaranteed service quality. An alternative definition of quality of service is requirements on a metric that reflects or predicts the subjectively experienced quality. In this context, QoS is the acceptable cumulative effect on subscriber satisfaction of all imperfections affecting the service.[10] Dealt with problems In this case, customer service becomes a great section to do deal with problems. The attitude of the customer service will be a decisive factor. A patient and friendly customer service will be helpful in contacting with customers. Most of customers get confused in automation services during the endless pressing the number keys to find the solution of their problems or to access to the manual service. Establishing an easy way to access to the manual service and reducing the fare rate will be considerate. Submitting the problem via official website or by email is also convenient for customer. Processes/systems for dealing with faults A quick reaction system should be established based on an internal platform. Once a fault has been informed to the customer service, it should be immediately classified to the defined types and passed to the maintenance department. Then the maintenance department can solve the faults according to the priority which is determined by the types of problems. Once the faults has been solved, the details of the faults and the methods used should be recorded in data-base. If the same fault occurs next time, it takes no time to find a solution, instead, just need to check the faults data-base and find the prior method to deal with it. As above, this system provides a quite efficient way to dealing with faults. Chapter 4. Service Management Systems The service management system can be split into four sections, order taking, provision of service to customer, billing, fault management. Order taking Orange customers can order their there service directly from the retail store or over the website. A mature order taking system should have the ability  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   to respond to customers’ requests quickly. The order taking system can show the storage of each retail store. It is a real-time monitor. In some case, once a retail store is out of stock, the nearby store can support it immediately. The system can also make a prediction based on the past sales status and then provide a reasonable sales strategy. Order taking trough Orange website needs to deliver the service in a limit time which is also controlled by the system. The system has an efficient mail order service and attracts and keeps customers. It can also increase accuracy of order details, miss no more sales orders and enhance security. The ultimate aim of the system is to ensure services are accessible to customers. Provision of service to a customer A system is established to support and manage the service provision. Orange customer can contact the call centre, and then call centre will record the request and distribute it to the related department. For store management and work-force management, they offer technician support. For network management, it provides the maintenance and test service and network capacity assignment. The aim of the system is to ensure service in a high quality. Billing Orange provides both paper and electronic bills. It clearly shows the usage of the service and helps customer manager their uses. Billing systems is used to collect information about telephone calls and other services that are going to be billed to the subscriber. It can be divided into two parts, call detail record system and call accounting system.[11] Call detail record system is the computer record produced by a telephone exchange containing details of a phone call that passed through it. It can be used for supporting the operations by providing information on faulty calls, and measures of the amount of traffic taken along particular routes.[12] Call accounting system captures, records, and costs telephone usage events. Call accounting systems can detect outbound and inbound calls, call ring outs, call routings, abandoned calls, and other activities.[13] Orange provides both paper and electronic bills. It clearly shows the usage of the service and helps customer manager their uses. Fault management Fault management system can detect, isolate, and correct malfunctions in Orange network. It can examine and maintain errors. Once a fault appears, the system will send a notification to the network operator. Then it will carry out a series of automatic test to correct the faults. A mature system can automatically correct potential problem-causing conditions and resolve actual malfunctions. Details about the system see above 3.7. Orange has cooperation with other companies which interact with the service management system. For fault management system, if the core switch is broken, it needs experts from the manufacturer to deal with it. A contract about a series of after-sales service is needed. Chapter 5. Risks involved in launching Orange UK mobile service In the past three decades, mobile communication industry has completed development, progress and popularization. The advances in technology, the increase in consumer demand and the exacerbated competition among communications companies made it difficult to estimate the risk about this industry. Not only because it has high requirements for technology updates, but also due to the large customer group leads to the required standards of service quality is inconsistent. Risks during Orange UK design stage prior to its launch Orange UK was founded in 1994. [15] Before that, there were lots of difficulties and risks during the service definition and design stage prior to Orange’s launch. At that time, communications market was underdeveloped, and the market was mainly occupied by landline telephones. The citizen preferred to use public telephones than bought expensive mobile phones themselves. As a beginner, the first risk of Orange was the huge investment on developing Infrastructure, constructing retail stores and telephone customer service, cooperation with other companies to provide service and advertisement. The payback period and the profit were both unsure. Second, the popularization rate of mobile phone was decided by the price of handsets and monthly fee to use, which were big challenges to citizen. Third, O2 UK had been founded for 10 years and already had a complete service system and a fixed customer group; [16] One2One (which is T-Mobile UK now) was launched in September 1993 and had al ready started normal operation; [17] Vodafone is the originator of mobile communication, as early as 1980, began its operation. [18] Hence, as a new company, Orange must faced to the competition and found ways to occupy a certain market share. Finally, there perhaps were unspecified risks in the development. Orange’s on-going risks and the ways to be ameliorated Although orange is now under well functioning and has a complete customer service system, there still are two main risks existing. First, the stability of cooperation with the companies in the service supply chain decides whether the whole mobile service could be continued. Second, more and more fierce competition in the communication market nowadays affects Orange’s profits directly. There are several methods to avoid and reduce these risks. First, accelerate the pace of new technology research. Second, expand the cooperation with T-Mobile from sharing 2G network to 3G network or even other technologies. Third, Increase the quality of mobile service to improve customer satisfaction which is order to improve customer loyalty. Finally, make contingency plans to reduce other potential consequences. Chapter 6. Improvements to the Service Improve customer service Contact with customers on a regular frequency. Collect the feedback from customers and see if they are satisfied with the service. Solve the customers complaints quickly and successfully. Offer as many contact methods as possible and make it easy for customer to contact to Orange. Give customers more than they expect. E-mail them online greeting cards on holidays or birthdays. Always be polite to your customers. Build strong relationships with your customers. Improve quality of service Update the equipment and system to obtain fast speed and high stability. Use new technology to have a high quality service Deal with the fault within a limit time. Make change to service Orange should develop new service to customers which is more suitable for different kinds of customers. Some new bundling package can be set to meet customer’s needs. More cooperation with other companies or organizations Orange can cooperate with other companies to extend their service. An existing example is the cooperation with MSN, Orange customer can use their account to send instant message on their phone with MSN. In this case, Orange can attract more users and keep their existing customers. Predict changes The changes in technology will cause the need for enhancements. Changes from 3G to 4G network is the future of Orange. This new technology will provide customers better service which has more functions and applications. Orange now has an industrial project, â€Å"conquests 2015†, which is involved in four parts, employee pride, networks, customers, international development The aim is to: Offer its employees a beneficial working environment. Increase coverage and bandwidth for both fixed and mobile networks, in both mature and emerging countries. Offer a superior customer experience compared to other operators. Sales are expected to double over the next five years in emerging markets.[14] Finally, Orange plans to grow from close to 200 million customers at present to 300 million by 2015 across its entire footprint. Chapter 7. Reference [1]hill2dot0.com/wiki/index.php?title=Image:G2407_GSM-Architecture.jpg [2]NIST.gov–Computer Security Division–Computer Security Resource Center. Csrc.nist.gov. http://csrc.nist.gov/groups/SNS/cloud-computing/cloud-def-v15.doc.Retrieved 2010-08-2 [3] wikipedia.org/ [4]Gartner Says Cloud Computing Will Be As Influential As E-business. Gartner.com. gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=707508 Retrieved 2010-08-22. [5] Gruman, Galen (2008-04-07). What cloud computing really means. InfoWorld. infoworld.com/d/cloud-computing/what-cloud-computing-really-means-031 Retrieved 2009-06-02 [6]Defined in 1994 in the ITU-T Recommendation E.800 [7]cisco.com/en/US/products/ps6558/products_ios_technology_home.html [8]An outline of the core elements of an SLA. The Service Level Agreement. sla-zone.co.uk/ [9]Peuhkuri M., IP Quality of Service, Helsinki University of Technology, Laboratory of Telecommunications Technology, 1999. [10]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quality_of_service [11]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billing [12]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Call_detail_record [13]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Call_accounting [14]orange.com/en_EN/press/press_releases/cp100705en.jsp [15]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orange_uk [16]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O2_uk [17]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T-mobile_uk [18]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vodafone