Analysis of Spring offensive Essay

Spring offensive; by Wilfred Owens focuses on the uselessness for war. There is a striking contrast between the first and last few stanzas, as in the beginning all is calm, slow and pleasant. From the 5th stanza onwards, there is a sudden change from the serene environment, to an outbreak of activity. The poem starts off with peace and tranquility. ‘Lying easy, were at ease and finding comfortable chests and knees, Carelessly slept.’ However even this early in the passage the last two lines connote the violence which is yet to come. ‘To face the stark, blank sky beyond the ridge, knowing their feet had come to the end of the world.’ The sky being described as blank, suggests that there is nothing good lying ahead of them and when ‘feet’ is used in the passage it implies that it is their feet that keeps them walking on ahead. It shows their reluctance, that, if given a choice, they wouldn’t be taking this path. The 2nd stanza describes the kindness of nature to the soldiers. It soothes their pain and the breeze makes them relaxed. ‘by the may breeze, murmurous with wasp and midge, for summer oozed into their veins, like an injected drug for their bodies’ pains’ Bodies’ pains connotes that they have already been fighting at another front. It is an introduction to the next two lines of the poem, which like the previous stanza are warning about the imminent war. ‘sharp on their souls hung the imminent line of grass, fearfully flashed the sky’s mysterious glass’ The imminent line of grass behind described is the battle field and the sky flashing, gives a warning for what is about to happen. As a continuation of the 2nd stanza, the 3rd stanza, also describes nature, as being on their side. ‘where the buttercup Had blessed with their gold’ However, there is increased warning. The brambles are portrayed as hands, which could clutch and try to prevent you from going anywhere ‘Where the little brambles would not yield, But clutched and clung to them like sorrowing hands; they breathe like trees unstirred’ The 4th stanza is different somewhat different to the first three stanzas as, it has little mention of nature. In this stanza, the soldiers are being  prepared for war, yet there is not mention nor indication of it. ‘No alarms Of bugles, no high flags, no clamourous haste’ However when it is said ‘the sun, like a friend with whom their love is done.’ The idea of death is reinforced into the minds of the reader, as the sun represents life and to say farewell to it, would mean death. The last two lines of the poem also describe life and what they will lose with this battle. The 5th stanza is the beginning of the war. The speed of the poem increases dramatically. The first two lines describe their initiative action and the rest of the stanza, the reaction. Instead of having an actual opponent fighting back, Owen has described nature fighting the soldiers. All the scenery created by the war, has been portrayed as things caused by nature. ‘And instantly the whole sky burned With fury again them’ this phrase was used to depict the sudden explosion of the bombs, yet to state that the ‘sky’ burned, he emphasizes the extent of the battle. By using nature to describe the fighting and the results of the it, it makes the opponent seem huge and the battle hopeless, it also gives the feeling that everything is against them. Upon using ‘earth set sudden cups In thousands for their blood’ It implies that the whole world wanted their blood to be shed in puddles on the ground. The last line also describes the death of many soldier s. ‘chasmed and steepened sheer to infinite space’ This connotes that the earth suddenly split and swallowed everyone up with it, and an effective technique of declaring the demise of many. The last stanza is the conclusion to the event, and it is also in this stanza that more of the poets dislike for war is informed to the reader. In a continuation to the previous stanza, the poet informs us with the destructive nature of war, which is also cleverly portrayed as environment being the enemy, but unlike before, there are very few still standing and fighting. ‘of them who running on that last high place Leapt to swift unseen bullets or went up On the hot blast and fury of hell’s upsurge or plunged and fell away past this world’s verge,’ After all many that were left, ended up being killed in the array of bullets and bomb blasts. There is much irony in this stanza of the poem. ‘Some say God caught them even before they fell’ The word which is striking is ‘some’ It connotes that perhaps god didn’t  catch them, and they also died, only to arrive in hell, just like those which managed to survive. The poet tells that those that remained were monstrous to their enemy, sequentially to win the war. ‘With superhuman inhumanities’ By using these expressions, the poet has highlighted the extent acted by the men as they are said to be inhumanities instead of cruelties. The last four lines of the poem shows the poets thought on war. Their battle is described as having ‘immemorial shames’, which connotes that the war was pointless and the victory empty. This is furthered by the last line of the poem ‘why speak not they of comrades that went under?’ This tells that the survivors of the war did not converse about their dead companions and it implies that it would have only brought upon pain and further the notion: that war is pointless. The poem has been written with style. Although contrast via nature is used to exaggerate the impact of war, it is very effective in the poem. Owen has clearly succeed in expressing his view of peace and the pointlessness of war.

Down the Road: My Personal Authentic Leadership Journey Essay

Born in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, where arms and ammunition for armed forces of Pakistan are made and distributed to different locations of the country, my leadership timeline reflects that leaders are moulded by the events they encountered and overcome to become who they are today. My story begins with a father whose sole goal in life was to provide us the education that he knew was vital to our aim to be successful as role models and leaders. Because education is not all about â€Å"book† learning, my family paid special attention to educating us about morals and ethics. Via religious education, I found the virtue of being a good man with a healthy belief system. To a leader you need to have a strong foundation in values and how those values shape our every activity. Discussion Because of this emphasis on education, I found myself even more drawn to furthering my own knowledge and uncovering my strengths and weaknesses as a contributing member of society. I saw my father as a role model who placed his family’s needs above his own. By moving out of his native village, he took the first steps towards providing his children with the best possible opportunities to get good standard education and develop high moral values and ethics in their personalities. As my father is well educated, he expected that his children too reach their full potential. Unfortunately, during my higher curriculum courses I performed poorly and was forced to work even harder to improve myself. Upon reaching college, I selected to be a class representative because I saw myself as having both good interaction skills as well as the aptitude for solving problems between individuals. This was the first time that I realized that my goals to become a good leader were indeed possible and attainable. In hindsight, I see that this interaction was the basis for some leadership traits (http://www. stewart-associates. co. uk/leadership-models. aspx). For example, during conflicts I rose to the occasion and alleviated group stresses, persistently overcame dilemmas, cooperated with my fellow classmates in solving problems, was seen as a dependable role model for lower class men, and easily adapted to situations when required. This initial experience began to give me the confidence that I needed to feel that I could successfully aid my fellow college students and being a strong representative of their requests and voices (http://www. buzzle. com/editorials/9-3-2004-58861. asp). It was only due to this confidence that I persistently applied for admission to several universities in Pakistan even though I had failed to obtain admission into any high ranking universities. To my parents, this was an embarrassment and the shame that they felt tore at my heart but though I was upset I realized I was not de-motivated. Instead, I adapted and improvised to the situation and selected to do my last year in college once again so as to receive higher marks. My self-restructuring efforts paid off and I achieved higher marks than anyone had expected from me. These implemented efforts are once again the markings of a young leader and can be visually seen in the graph below: Image taken from : (http://images. google. com/imgres? imgurl=http://api. ning. com/files/pAqrWCqLQC2AgQvsxfBsUXwOyx42-xPKmO6TQFFNQ5tMD1CBzFkfU7rWUpMX6Siqa6k*LAJmr*e4wYGKq7zMGn6UmTHdk6fy/Leadershipmodel. gif. jpg&imgrefurl=http://mylinkingpowerforum. ning. com/xn/detail/u_3jluv5gj6mp9a&usg=__AwGvnrelt3BvpCbfy005kjVXiE4=&h=278&w=320&sz=13&hl=en&start=10&um=1&tbnid=7oYMmH6hwuxfUM:&tbnh=103&tbnw=118&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dleadership%2Bmodel%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DX%26um%3D1) My hard work would never go to waste and this renewed energy gave me the needed push to start my higher education at some good university. This effort ties in to the leadership model reflected by T. McGregor (1906-1964) which specifies that managers â€Å"tend to make two different assumptions about human nature. These views he explored in his theory X and theory Y† where in theory Y he states that â€Å"The expenditure of physical and mental effort in work is as natural as play or rest. † (http://www. stewart-associates. co. uk/leadership-models. aspx) My effort had indeed paid off and my father was able to send me to the UK for my higher education. It was hard, after starting the application process, Sept 11th occurred and the British embassy in Pakistan elected to close down it’s visa division for 6 months; which forced me to postpone my studies until Oct 2002. In spite of this delay, my only recourse was to kept up the hope and continue my computer course, IELTS, and TOEFL studies until April of 2002. I believe that this element of hope despite such hardships falls under the concept of a required â€Å"trait leadership† because without hope you will not feel the drive to continue on in projects, goals or objectives. While research may have shown that there are no consistent traits which make a leader there is merit to the argument that a â€Å"hope-less† leader will not be a successful one (http://www. leadership-studies. com/documents/mgmt_standards. pdf). So here I was in April of 2002 in the UK, and excited to being a new life on my own but fully aware of the hardships that I would encounter faced with a different culture. This driving difference would force me into getting a place to live, finding myself a job, and saving while I took time off from my college, Financial Training Company (FTC). I was lucky to find a living place with my childhood friends who were very supportive and I also found a job at Burger King, a local fast food restaurant. I started my Associate Accounting Technician (AAT) qualification and completed this qualification by December 2004. It was during this time that I also made several mistakes and suffered from heavy losses, both on a socially and financially level. It was not easy adapting but I learnt from any mistakes that I made. I learnt how to deal my 5 friends (both younger and older than me) living together and how to explain and assert myself when needed. I also learnt how to juggle the complexities associated with both working and going to school full time because in March of 2003 I was forced to get a job at Sainsbury’s local store. After working for Sainsbury’s for six months, I had an opportunity to step up as a supervisor and take on more responsibilities. During the interview process, I was the lucky candidate selected to become a supervisor. There were interviews held for this position and I was the successful candidate. This was very encouraging for me as my hard work and commitment to this job had paid off. The managers checked my performance track record and they found me to be perfect fit for this role. I was taken aback when they decided that I would have to undergo more training prior to being able to run a shift by myself as manager. During this period, I completed a 3 month training only to find that upper management itself changed. So here I found a challenge: when the new managers arrived at the branch they refused to promote me and official stated that I would need training for another 4 to 6 months. At that time, this became a very depressing situation for me. Even though I had passed all required tests for the position, it was under the manager’s end discretion to allow the promotion or not. Though I was disappointed, I did not lose hope and continued to struggle to my end goal. It took me another six weeks to prove myself as a good team leader who had the necessary capabilities to lead by example. That was a victorious moment for me when the store manager called me in the office and signed my promotion certificate. Due to my exposure at Sainsbury to various leadership models and techniques, I felt especially drawn to the concept of the action centered leadership structure. Via this model, I was introduced to the value of having a leader who performs activities and through these actions shows his or her employees the significance of balancing the needs of the employees with the requirements and expectations of the team. I came across many managers with different leadership styles; e. g. manager or morning shift used to prefer shop faced up and tidied while the one running the evening shift always focussed more on tills and customer service activities. For me, I saw that the true objective of an action plan is to effectively gauge what tasks must be accomplished in order for a project to be successfully completed. The leader of this situation is portrayed as a helicopter lightly gliding over the situation and having a positive overview of what is occurring through the project lifecycle. This allows for the task to been seen and directed to ensure that clear objectives are being met, and procedures are being adhered to. In the beginning I faced resistance from my own colleagues. They sometimes refused to do what I told them or argued and made lame excuses about why they could not accomplish a task. The reason for this behaviour was obvious. They felt that I who had been their co-worker just days before was now their boss. The assignment of jobs from me made them clearly uncomfortable and they rebelled. I had to handle the situation very carefully by delegating the work as well as helping them, by assuring them that though I was a team leader I was also part of the team. I could also see if there was evidence of progress and ensure that all deadlines are being met for the assignment (http://www. skagitwatershed. org/~donclark/leader/leadcon. html). This elevated view allows for the leader to guide his employees while functions are being performed to complete the project. From a higher perspective, such a leader is enabled with the vital component of seeing all aspects of the situation from the viewpoint of the task, the team, and the individual within the team. The team will see my commitment to the task assigned, and feel the same level of purpose that I feel. This will allow the team to grow in their cohesion, drive for success, and gleam trust from each other. To an individual, this status allows for individual growth in their career objectives because they feel that their contribution is being acknowledged and is evident in the team circles. Feedback both for the leaders as well as from the leadership capacity allows for better commitments, respect, security, and change of direction if required. Key to this model is the evidence of plans being successfully outlined and modified if required (http://www. stewart-associates. co. uk/leadership-models. aspx). Such leaders are aware that sometimes change is necessary for a project to be successful. Some of my workers were habitually taking longer breaks, not turning up for work and even stealing stock. Because of my strong leadership traits I able to convert many of them into giving up their bad habits and feeling that they could be good workers. This act of situational leadership enforced the concept that I needed to coach, direct, support, and delegate activities and behaviours for my co-workers (http://www. chimaeraconsulting. com/sitleader. htm). One supportive characteristic was my decision was my decision to not take illegal action against one of my co-workers who my deputy manager disliked. I found myself faced with extra work and stress because of his anger, but because I was a strong believer in Thorton’s 3C leadership model (challenge, confidence, coaching) I felt that my personal challenge in this case was to bear up under the difficulty and coach my employees into sharing my goals and becoming inspired by them (http://www. quickmba. com/mgmt/leadership/3c/). If I had given into the deputy manager’s illegal tactics I would destroy the confidence that they had begun to feel in my and my efforts to help them be successful. My self-confidence and ambition led me to seek employment in a company which also felt similarly attuned, Dixons Plc. At Dixons, I was hired as a sales advisor, where within weeks I showed my employers my excellence in performance. They rewarded me with huge bonuses and commissions. They too believed in the Thorton’s 3Cs Leadership Model and challenged me to benchmark my progress and highlighted my strengths and how I could become even more successful. Enriched by this experience, I was only too happy to continue my learning in how to arrange credit agreements with the HFC bank and how to facilitate our customers with after sales services. This continued to build up my confidence because the challenging goals that were set by my company were attainable and they showed me that I had the ability to reach the sales goals and quotas expected from me. Concluding Remarks: My experiences have molded me from a timid young man to an assertive one. Without the guide my father, my manager, and my exposure to the working world and its expectations from me I would be unable to be the leader that I am today. I hope that by learning about new leadership techniques I may one day be able to progress into an even more experienced managerial role. I believe that my leadership traits and qualities have enriched my life and aided me in my attempts to overcome the hurdles and challenges thrown my way. References: Bass, Bernard (1990). From transactional to transformational leadership: learning to share the vision. Organizational Dynamics, Vol. 18, Issue 3, Winter, 1990, 19-31. Bolden, R. , Gosling, J. , Marturano, A. and Dennison, P. A REVIEW OF LEADERSHIP THEORY AND COMPETENCY FRAMEWORKS (2003). Retrieved March 27, 2009 from http://www. leadership-studies. com/documents/mgmt_standards. pdf Clark, Don. Concepts of Leaders. Retrieved March 27, 2009 from http://www. skagitwatershed. org/~donclark/leader/leadcon. html Chimaera Consulting Limited (1999). Situational Leadership. Retrieved March 27, 2009 from http://www. chimaeraconsulting. com/sitleader. htm Thornton, Paul B. Be the Leader, Make the Difference Thornton, Thornton’s 3-C Leadership Model. Website. Retrieved March 27, 2009 from http://www. quickmba. com/mgmt/leadership/3c/ Models and Theories. Website. Retrieved March 27, 2009 from http://www. stewart- associates. co. uk/leadership-models. aspx Leadership Qualities. Retrieved March 27, 2009 from http://www. buzzle. com/editorials/9-3-2004-58861. asp

Development in Durban

Here at USAID, our mission is to provide economic development and humanitarian assistance to people located all around the world. At USAID we ave a strong sector focused on Sub-Saharan African development. We notice that Durban is an up-and-coming city, with the potential to be a thriving seven million- person city by the turn of the century. We are contacting you about your future sustainable urban development.There are rural areas located around your city which are extremely agricultural, but these farms are in need of exporting their goods in order to make money, and a high poverty level still arises in South Africa. We want to stimulate both Durban and the surrounding rural cities' economic development and growth through implementing sustainable agricultural evelopment programs throughout the area. Much attention has been raised towards sustainable economic development and growth as barriers are taken down and globalization continues to expand to the most rural parts of the world .We believe that Durban, as a booming city of more than three million people, is a perfect place to implement sustainable urban agriculture and a city where the benefits will be fully reaped. Once these plans have taken shape, countries throughout Africa will take notice of the efficient resource use and city-wide positive development that has taken place. This paper will lay out three advantages that will stem from adding agriculture into urban life: the involvement of women and children in societal development, environmental benefits, and a benefit in food security.As the 17th Conference of the Parties to the UN Conference on Climate Change in Durban is around the corner (l am sure you know but as a reminder the 28th of November), now is a perfect time to seriously consider the benefits of sustainable urban agriculture as a means towards bettering the society, economy, and environment. Why does Durban, South Africa need to involve urban agriculture within its city nd surrounding a reas? A r ca, Latin America, and Asia, by the year 2 home to 75% of urban dwellers world-wide.This same study conducted by the Resource Centres for Urban Agriculture and Food Security (RUAF) predicted that by 2020, 40-45% of the poor in Africa will be concentrated in towns and cities (â€Å"Resource Centres on Urban Agriculture and Food Security†). After taking a look at these statistics, one can comprehend the magnitude of the effects on cities that the global population increase will cause. I am going to give you some examples of urban gricultural projects from other cities worldwide before I delve into the positive effects of implementing such projects into your city.Essentially, an urban farm can be found in window sills, abandoned warehouses, and old parking lots. The magazine Farming the City highlights several examples of urban agriculture. One such community-boosting project is under way in Berlin, Germany. Here, the community has come together to convert the unused s pace of a half-century-old wasteland into an area suitable for growing vegetation and fruits. Activists and community members were the main people involved in the project.The article notes that such spaces would promote community development through the sharing of knowledge, a â€Å"mini utopia† where people enjoy fresh foods and relax (Stipo 7). Architectural design has aimed at building fixtures in the urban sectors of cities, such as in the OosteliJk havengebeid district of Amsterdam. Here, a greenhouse† plan has been undertaken. This greenhouse will feature shops on the ground floor, restaurants on the top and effective uses of window-placement that allow maximum sunlight for the cultivation of crops.The area outside of the greenhouse will be used as a locally- rown vegetable garden. (Stipo 6). Examples such as these show how community development can be achieved through organized gardens run by civilians and new building designs where sustainable practices are enfo rced. Let me start out with giving a detailed overview of why sustainable agricultural development will be implemented into Durban and the surrounding rural areas.Sustainable development, without the added agricultural term, is defined as â€Å"development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs†l . Why have humans even come to this point where there is an extremely viable chance that future generations will not be able to survive on this planet? The answer can be boiled down to misuse of natural resources and humans' inability to be environmental stewards, taking care of the land which they rely on for food and water.I Just want to include some data on Africa's deforestation and poor land use so as to drill home the point of the need for sustainable agricultural methods to be implemented. South Africa, as a growing developing country, should heed warming of the harmful effects that deforestation as to lled upon Earth and its people in recent history. For one, deforestation causes soil erosion, which eventually leads to desertification and the pollution of waterways. Sub-Saharan Africa does not need dry, infertile land.Land needs to remain fertile in order for the production of food to take place. South Africa's climate does not provide for much indigenous forest, as only 0. 5% of its surface area is covered by it (Collins). Urban agriculture will relieve deforestation, as it provides food to be produced within a city and not on large-scale farms. Much care should be put towards preserving hese forests. Urban agriculture aims at using less resources and the creativity of the human mind to create organic toods which nave the ability to keep the relationship between man and the world a healthy one.The fact that up to 75 percent of the population in 29 Sub-Saharan Africa countries was constituted as malnourished in 2004, is alarming. Most of these individuals farm for a living, not m aking much money or providing food for their families or even their selves. Malnourishment and poverty essentially go hand in hand. In fact, in the year 2000, 59 percent of people lived below the poverty line of US 1 [day (United Nations Environment). Urban agricultural development can be used to benefit the society of African areas.The fact that children and women are forced to work long hours on their farms and are still hungry is mainly due to the fact that they have no money to support themselves. They are not making enough money selling their crops and therefore do not have enough money to buy their own food. As a solution to this problem, Alex Colletta, a columnist for the University of California, Santa Barbara's daily newspaper, Daily Nexus, writes that by implementing self- ustaining farms into vacant lots and backyards, children and women can â€Å"promote community spirit†¦ rovide fresh vegetables and fruits to several businesses and homeless shelters and also help feed a dying economy by helping small restaurants get the best food for cheap prices† (Colletta 4). As urban farmers no longer have to worry about paying for food, they can make a profit to live on. While the organic farming that Alex Colletta talks about in her article is coming from Detroit, a city in northern Michigan, USA, there is no doubt that the poor in South Africa can use it as form of both a societal community booster and a form of economic development.Detroit has many abandoned factories, and these are what are being used for the new urban farms; Durban can build greenhouses and buildings in non-developed areas in order to promote the citys poor to become urban famers. Bill McKibben writes in his magazine article entitled A Special Moment in History that â€Å"Growing too fast may mean that they [poor people in slums] run short of cropland to feed themselves, of firewood to cook their food, of school desks and hospital beds† (McKibben, 400). He explains in t his part of his article how population growth akes it difficult for the poor members of society to sustain their livelihoods.One key pressure in the wake of rising African populations is food security. One major dilemma the poor face in the growing world, food security, centers on individuals' abilities to have healthy food when they need it. In Amy N. Lerner's article about food security and food production in the global south, she states that â€Å"research in Africa has found that economic and caloric needs are the primary motivations for populations in urban and pert-urban areas to pursue agriculture† (Lerner, 6).With ising population densities, there is a rise in resource necessities; while this is the case, available labor and land remains low. Urban agriculture has the ability to provide organic fresh vegetables and fruits to a growing population within Durban. Families will be working within the community in order to provide food for community-run farmers markets and for their own families. With the smart use of land-planning, which is a major part of urban agriculture, along with having more people work, smarter, less resource-intensive urban areas will bloom.Three advantages of organic farming are centralized on the society, the economy nd the environment; urban agriculture, as an organic form of farming, brings about all three ot these advantages. The advantage that organic urban farming poses towards cities and its population (society) revolves around the development of women and the alleviation of poverty, which brings about greater food security. Organic public markets, commonly known as farmers' markets, provide a place where members of society can convene and purchase locally-grown foods.So, by promoting local food production for local needs, global policy should move away from subsidizing corporate food exports and opening p to foreign food imports, which drives small-scale farmers off of their land, and towards a policy that promotes s mall-scale, environmentally sound farming that provides for local markets (Brecher, Costello, Smith 316). Due to the fact that 59 percent of people worldwide lived below the poverty line of IJS$I ‘day in the year 2000, new forms of aid for those who suffer from wages not able to sustain a healthy livelihood are pivotal in development (United Nations Environment Programme ).With development strategies in place, women and children will learn how to grow vegetables and fruits, therefore being able to feed hemselves and sell food in local farmers markets. An increasing role in women's livelihoods has an extremely positive benefit for communities. Mayra Buvinic notes in her article Women in Poverty: A New Global Underclass manors in which national and international policies can change and improve to yield great benefits for poor women and the developing world. Two implementations Ms.Buvinic recommends are to â€Å"Increase rural women's access to agricultural extension servicesâ⠂¬  and â€Å"adopt labor- intensive ‘pro-poor' economic growth policies that expand employment opportunities† (Buvinic 161). Examples of agricultural extension services include access to current news via internet and television broadcasts as well as agricultural production information and technologies (â€Å"Rural Extension and Advisory Services†). With these services, poor women in urban South Africa will become more knowledgeable as to ways they can improve their livelihoods while still being considered farmers.Urban farmers are realizing that food markets where they can share their products with other members of their community are great places to make money, socialize, and learn new ways to efficiently grow crops. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization's â€Å"The State of Food and Agriculture, 2010-2011- Women in Agriculture† report, if women had the same access as men to productive resources, they could increase yields on their farms by 20-30 percent. This increase would cause for a 2. 5-4. percent increase in Africa's agricultural output (â€Å"State of Food and Agriculture: Women in Agriculture† 3). The message essentially being conveyed here is that women who are given equal access to resources as men are will generate more food and be able to deal with food scarcity and poverty throughout their respective countries. As the Center for American Progress points out, 26. 5 percent of African women are poor compared to 22. 3 percent of African males (Cawthorne ). The societal benefits of poverty alleviation with integration of urban agriculture are great.Giving women the opportunity to work in a community- run garden where they can consume and sell foods gives them an occupation that empowers and insights them with knowledge. These women and children realize that they are helping the environment while improving their ownlivelihoods. Recreation provides physical and/or psychological relaxation, as well as act ivities where the poor an become educated about ecology, mentions an article on the reasons urban agriculture is important by the Resource Centres on Urban Agriculture and Food Security (â€Å"Resource Centres on Urban Agriculture and Food Security†) Foundation.The social impacts that revolve around women and children's participation in urban agriculture are a positive reason to enforce policies that will give them land for the creation of their own urban farms. The environmental benefits of urban agriculture are the alleviation of the costs surrounding transporting foods over long distances, ater-saving irrigation (reclaimed water), and composting materials to use as fertilizers instead of synthetic chemical fertilizers. Even with the amount of deforestation that has taken place worldwide, land is no longer suitable for agriculture.Of the 11 percent of our planet Earth that is suitable for agriculture, humans have destroyed 38 percent of it through poor natural resource mana gement practices (â€Å"Sustainable Agriculture†). Becoming good environmental stewards presents itself as humanities' last option. There is no longer enough land to provide food for the growing worldwide population. Cities will need to make use of urban agriculture to make up for this discrepancy. An overall adaptation towards organic rather than conventional methods of farming is the future of food production.With less conventional and more organic farming methods, the use of pesticides will decrease dramatically. Pesticides create harm both for wildlife and humans, as toxins seep into waterways and onto vegetation. â€Å"Overall public health and ecological integrity could be improved† through the adoption of organic, pesticide-free, farming practices, says David Pimentel, who is part of the Cornell Department of Entomology. Pimentel 573). Composting can be seen as an environmental benefit in urban green spaces because it provides the soil fertility that otherwise i s not present on old construction sites where growing operations are under way.The main benefit that composting brings to urban agriculture, according to Arne Saebo, is that â€Å"high-quality compost consists of many compounds that influence the biological processes in the soil positively, thus improving the physical and chemical soil characteristics (Saebo, and Ferrini 160). Reclaimed water – coming from treated waste water – will be an ffective way to rid of urban waste water and will save water that can be used for other reasons, such as drinking. 2 Local governmental policies need to implement these sustainable, environmentally-friendly practices into Durban's urban agriculture system, and enforce them.Urban agriculture is economically viable for civilians of South Africa for some key reasons. For one, urban agriculture in Nairobi consists of only one-third private residential land; this means that the other two-thirds of land where crops are grown in the city co nsists of â€Å"roadsides, riverbanks, and other publicly owned lands† (Romanik, 18). Clare T. Romanik, who works for the think tank Urban Institute, also notes in her article, An Urban-Rural Focus on the Food Markets in Africa, that urban agriculture has less means for the packaging, transportation, and storage of food (18).As noted in the social benefits of urban agriculture stated earlier, food security is a great benefit of growing food that can be both consumed and grown by the consumer; this is also an economically important benefit due to its aid against poverty. According to RUAF, Africa city-dwellers spend 50-70 percent of their income on food (â€Å"Resource Centres on Urban Agriculture and Food Security†). Growing one's own vegetables in vacant lots or other creative places within Durban will allow tarmers to botn provide valuable vegetables tor their own consumption as well as for profit sales.People who oppose or are speculative of the implementation of ur ban agricultural practices contend that available land is decreasing as populations in cities rise. As these populations rise, people are taking the land in informal ways and purchasing rights are not easy to obtain (Romanik 35). Also, some people may be speculative of how organic and healthy the vegetables and fruits coming from these urban farmers truly are. These speculations can be resolved through strict legislative policies. One other concern regarding urban agriculture is the question surrounding if it will support growing cities with enough food.Mr. Pimentel observed a study of both organically-grown and conventionally-grown soybeans between 1981 and 2001. Respectively, the crops produced were 2461 and 2546 kilograms per hectare (Pimentel). As we see here, it is evident that growing food the organic way without powerful pesticides still provides close to the same yield as conventional farming. Investments in sustainable development need to occur, and uickly. Population press ures are continuously throwing wood on the fire that drives legislature and human minds to create new policies and ideas which are necessary to sustain life on earth for all its inhabitants.Investments should be made that incorporate money into the public sector to meet human and environmental needs. Urban agriculture will provide locally-grown, healthy food for members of Durban. A vast sum of money will be saved from paying for food imports if city-dwellers purchase their food from farmers markets and consume food from their own organic arms. For women and children, and society as a whole, urban agriculture will expedite development through invigorating a sense of community and education of ecological processes.Currently, the state of global trade is making life very difficult for those who do not earn a living wage. Locally-grown foods will bring food and money to those who are impoverished. Essentially, I write this as an alert, an invigoration of awareness, that there is a prob lem of people suffering in South Africa who need food. Solutions to food security and hunger are available: it is within egislatures hands to create policies that allow for city-wide composting, the management of public green spaces, and the development of self-sufficient ways of life for all.

Wooden Baseball Bats Are Better than Metal Bats Essay

Wooden Baseball Bats Are Better than Metal Bats - Essay Example But, it is important to let the reader know beforehand that using a wooden bat is a tradition in major league baseball (MLB). For reasons, the reader must refer to the advantages of wooden bats described in the coming lines. Halter (1981, p. 22) asserts that â€Å"big-league rules say a bat must be wood, round, and no more than 42 inches long†. As one goes from little leagues to major ones, the use of wooden bats becomes a tradition keeping in view their material, weight, safety and affordability as compared to aluminum (metal) bats. Wooden bats are heavier than metal bats because they are solid and metal bats are hollow from within, and that is why they require more effort to sway than aluminum bats. They also have a smaller sweet spot due to which the hit remains within range, that is, the hit zone is small. In other words, the weight in wooden bats is concentrated far from hands, or in other words, the center of gravity lies in the barrel. Thus the â€Å"swing weight† (Nathan, 2007, p. 1) is higher which keeps the ball within range. A metal bat is lighter because of a larger sweet spot (Zumerchik, 1997, p. 52) and the weight is concentrated very close to the hands which will have the hit swing much higher as the swing weight is lower. Wooden bats are safer than metal bats because the exit speed of the ball is much slower in the case of wooden bats. Thus, the ball comes off with slow speed which is good as it reduces the danger of injury if the ball hits another player or pitcher. This is why MLB endorses the use of wooden bats considering the hit power of the professional players. Metal bats, as they are lighter, can easily get tossed away to injure another player. Also, the larger sweet spot in case of metal bats causes larger exit speed of the ball, that is, the ball will â€Å"jump off† (Wolff, 1997, p. 23) faster which could injure anybody within the hit zone very seriously. There have been unfortunate events in past, like, as Chandler (2010) states,

The last financial crisis 2007-2009 Research Paper

The last financial crisis 2007-2009 - Research Paper Example The economic crisis was associated with great losses of financial wealth, economic output, increased government interventions, psychological consequences among other significant costs. This paper will assess the extent to which the Qatar and other countries in the Gulf Cooperation Council were affected by the financial crisis. Impact of the Financial Crisis of 2007-2009 on the Gulf Area Introduction This paper aims at studying the impact of the global financial crisis of 2007-2009 on the countries in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), or the Gulf Area. The Gulf Area is an economic and political Union of Arab states around the Persian Gulf including Kuwait, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Oman, The United Arab emirates and Qatar. The cooperation was established in 1981 to foster unity and trade and cooperation among the member states. The Gulf Area consists of the fastest growing economies mostly due to the revenues gotten from huge deposits of natural resources such as oil and natural gas. T his paper will largely be based on the impact of the global financial crisis on the economy of Qatar with some examples drawn from the other countries in the Gulf area. Petroleum is the backbone of Qatar’s economy and accounts for about 70% of the countries revenues (Read, 2009). The GDP of Qatar ranks among the robust in the world and it has become a major player in the global economy from the region. This essay will try at analyze the impact of the global financial crisis on the economy of Qatar as well as its reaction to the crisis as well as how the other countries in the Gulf were affected. The main objective of this essay will be to answer the question as to how the last financial crisis (2007-2009) affected the economic situation in the Gulf area. The economic crisis of 2007-2009 was associated with great losses of financial wealth, economic output, increased government interventions, psychological consequences among other significant costs (Read, 2009). Although the f inancial crisis began in the Western countries, its impact was felt across the world, with most economies feeling the impact. The crisis is deemed by most economists as the worst financial crisis ever since the Great Depression that befell in the 1930s. The 2007-2009 global financial crisis resulted in downturns in major stock markets across the world, and threatening the collapse of some of the largest financial institutions in major economies around the globe (Read, 2009). This resulted in government interventions to bail out banks and other financial institutions as well as big companies in order to protect the economy from collapsing. Some of the results of the financial crisis across the globe included massive prolonged unemployment, high interest rates, and housing crisis among others. The crisis also led to a reduction in global economic activities between 2007 and 2012 and played a major role in the debt Crisis in the European countries (Fried, 2012). The global financial cr isis has been attributed to various causes, mostly from the West. According to the U.S. Senate’s Levin-Coburn report, the financial crisis occurred as a result of complex, high risk financial products and cases of undisclosed conflicts of interests among different parties, as well as the inadequacy of proper regulators. Most critics have pointed out to the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act (1999) of the US as the origin of the financial

Aviation Maintenance and Engineering Research Paper

Aviation Maintenance and Engineering - Research Paper Example All of the maintenance savvy institutions were established in the 1960’s with a sole goal, to increase safety and life of their equipment and aircrafts. The first institution that was built was known as RCM (reliability-Catered maintenance) but united airlines engineers. This was followed by Boeing’s MSG which till present is known as the standard which has to be followed (Kinnison, 2004). All the details of such practices are highlighted in this report and will try to cover the modern aspects of aviation maintenance and engineering as well. Current Issues In the modern era, the aviation industry is faced with a constant threat that is known as human error. Although a lot of research work has been carried out to pin point the loop holes in human psyche, even then there is an alarming rate of accidents caused by the negligence of the human hand and mind. The maintenance of aircrafts includes fast turnaround time, high pressure and a high number of tasks being performed a t the same time. All these factors ca n lead to the lowering of human work manners while working on an aircraft or its components. Although, the advancement of technology has taken aircraft systems to a level which were un-imagined at the time when write brothers being laughed at, for having a dream that was never dreamt before. Powered flight was a dream, let alone sophisticated systems full of avionics loaded navigation systems and flight controls. All these innovations made sure that the systems improve but made the human rely more on technology and become complacent on his routine inspections and maintenance duties. The headings are bolded and centered. You should start off the paragraph with a simple left indent and start the discussion of the assignment. There is no gap between paragraphs. The aircraft incidents in the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s made the research and development teams of different aerospace companies think about different factors leading to these crashes. The most compelling factor that came out from the research was the human factor. Majority of the crashes were due to wither the pilot error or technician error caused by negligence in the filed-line. After this astonishing discovery many agencies were constituted and the silence system was bought in to action. This was the biggest factor involved in incidents when it was an unknown phenomenon, but still takes the lives of thousand as the human falters the moment checks and balances allow him some leverage. Therefore, strict rules have been enforced to eradicate this menace from the aviation industry (Adrian, 2005). A lot of training funds and seminars are being conducted over a period of time in all the aviation related agencies so that maintenance practices can be safe form such an issue, which can hamper the safety of operations of an airline. Current Practices The recent problems and practices in an airline company were easily pointed out by an internal study in an airl ine covering the local region as a part of its internal- research department project. This report was focused mainly upon some key factors like unplanned and unscheduled maintenance, spare parts and component maintenance. Some of the common factors that were noted in the process are explained in detail in the following part of the report. Un-planned

Investing in Human Capital Coursework Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Investing in Human Capital - Coursework Example Employees are seen as assets current and future value which can be improved through investing resources on them, especially knowledge. Organizations which upholds these practices always communicate to their employee on a regular basis.   The practice of employee’s security is the one that is surprising. The business world is rapidly changing and companies are embracing policies that not only affect the operations of the organization but also the employees. It is for this reason that employees need a guarantee that despite the internal changes that occur within a given organization will not affect them. If however they are affected negatively, then, the organization would be able to compensate them accordingly. Employee security takes place in many forms for instance, in manufacturing industries where employee are exposed to machines every day, there are risks involved. Some of them include the risk if being cut by machines, exposure to chemical compounds among other. The employer of such an organization must ensure that his employees have medical assurances and cover. This will motivate employees to keep working in spite of the unconducive working environment. This is because, in case of an accident, the company will be liable and they will not have to dig their pockets to cater for any medical expenditure. Employment status of an employee is also a security to them. During the time of economic booms, many companies employ a lot of people. On the other hand, during the recession, these organizations dismiss a lot of employees. This is discouraging and such organization ends up building bad image and this may lead to its collapse.

Should Smoking be banded in New Orleans' casinos Essay

Should Smoking be banded in New Orleans' casinos - Essay Example It covers Bars, Restaurants, Casinos, Patios, Hotel and Motel Rooms, Patios, Courtyards, Balconies, Parks, Public Events, Hotel and Motel Rooms, Bingo and Video Poker Halls, Sidewalks and Streets, Private Homes, Private Clubs, Conventions, Nursing Homes and assisted living areas, Stadiums, Care Facilities, Correctional Facilities, Amphitheaters and Outdoor Areas, and Bus Shelters. Hookah and Cigar Bars and Vape Shops however will be exempted from the ban (Mahey & Miller 312-46). The Mayor argues that the ban is about quality of life, protecting citizens and making the neighborhoods safer. The City Council will proceed with an aggressive campaign to create awareness about the ban. Enforcement will be placed on the hands of City health and code inspectors. Bars that defy the ban are subject to fines and penalties. Debate is torn between those decrying the dangers of second-hand smoke and those fearing for the collapse of businesses that host smokers. The smoking debate has been raging for a long time. Those in support of smoking bans argue that many people die from lung cancer and heart disease and that the world would be a better place without cigarettes. They say that smoking harms non-smokers who inadvertently inhale second-hand smoke and that it kills more people than alcohol; car accidents and AIDS combined. Smoking kills 1.2 million people in China and 430,000 people a year in America and about 50,000 non-smokers die from smoke related diseases in America (Farley & Cohen 18-20). The National Cancer Institute, Surgeon General of the United States and National Institute of Health all support the smoking ban particularly because of the effects of second-hand smoke on nonsmokers. Banning smoking will improve air quality they say and smoking bans are becoming common in the United States and the world over. The American Nonsmokers Rights Foundation reports that 36 States and 900 cities have enacted laws requiring bars and restaurants to be smoke free. More places

Compare and contrast the three sky's religions Essay

Compare and contrast the three sky's religions - Essay Example From these stories, Islam, Judaism, and Christianity have a reference point, the Hebrew Bible. In light to this argument, it is justified to argue that the Abramic god is the centerpiece of the three religions. Additionally, the three religions believe in God being eternal, omnipresent, and the sole creator. They are of the belief that God is holy and exists in all places, is powerful, present at all times. These aspects link the three religions to the concept of God and the role of Abraham in religion- the founder. They also believe that in prayer, the transcendent God can answer the prayer of all individuals. This means that God is the creator and controller of all humans. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are referred to as self-described monotheistic religions. They, however, have varying views in terms of their understanding of God (Ridgeon, 2003). According to the Muslims and the Jews, God is just in one form. Their doctrines emphasize on the unity of God. On the other hand, the Christians believe in the three manifestations of God- the trinity. This entails God the father, son and Holy Spirit. The Muslims and the Jews argue that the Christians do not uphold the doctrine of oneness. This means that Muslims and the Jews argue against the fact that Christians separate the concept of the unity of God. However, the Christians argue that God is a divine being and cannot operate in wholeness deviant of the three explanations. They also argue that just like Judaism and Islamism are singular existences, the same case is the Holy trinity. Christianity, Judaism, and Islam also have varying opinions on the concept of afterlife and the end of the world. According to Ridgeon (2003), Christians believe that the kind of life one leads on earth determines the kind of afterlife they will lead. Those who end up in hell are the ones who led a wicked life, and that those who repent their sins and lead a godly life will enjoy eternal satisfaction in heaven. In the case of

Cultural Evaluation Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 1

Cultural Evaluation - Essay Example India is a diverse country with having deep rooted traditions, culture, and religion which lives with one of the fastest growing economies in the world. Cohen (2001) once said, â€Å"India is an ancient state but a modern civilization.† Globalization has affected India and its culture. â€Å"India is particularistic, communitarians, diffuse, outer-directed culture that favors ascribed status and has a synchronous perception of time.† (Overgaard, 2010) The deeply rooted traditions and cultures within every part of India are gradually changing due to this phenomenon as well as the moral values of the country. Furthermore, the whole system within this country is affected including the caste system, karma, and the eternal religion. Due to this, India has resulted in a more modern having urbanized Indians who are living a life with the ancient tradition, culture, and values even after trying to change their living way according to the Western lifestyle. But they have kept a hold to some values, tradition, and culture such as religion which is important. According to Tarakeshwar, Nalini et al., (2003), religion is a very important aspect of culture and a crucial factor when it comes to analyzing culture and predicting people’s behavior. Moreover, India has developed itself and its values to ascribed status which is connected to particularism. They caste system would have failed, had India been a universalistic culture nation. Therefore, it is said that youth of the nation will now be self dependent, individual, cosmopolite, and they would belong to a global culture. This proves the fact that India and its culture is still Westernizing. â€Å"There is, apparently, an underlying assumption in the Indian tradition that no individual can claim to have seen the truth for the first time and, therefore, that an individual can only explicate, state, and defend in a new form a truth that has been seen, stated, and defended by countless others before

Can animal experimentation be justified Research Paper

Can animal experimentation be justified - Research Paper Example It can be used as well to promote interests and welfare of animals such as breakthroughs in veterinary practice. The experiment done on dogs led to the treatment of most canine diseases such as diabetes and heart irregularities (Paul, 6). The pros also argued that it is immoral to risk the life of humans for medical breakthrough when animals can be used instead. Let us take the example of Pondimin and Redux diet drugs. If the federal law would not require testing on animals before distribution on humans, disasters such as increase incidence of heart-valve defects might be experienced by millions of humans (Paul, 5). On the other hand, cons strongly believe that just like humans, animals have the right to be treated as beings and be protected against experimentation as in the experimentation infecting monkeys with AIDS. Animals should never be harmed just for potential gain in humanity. Unlike human, animals aren’t able to give their consent so it is not acceptable to test medi cines on them even if it will be used for other animals including the case of cows and sheep being infected with tuberculosis just to find the pathogenesis of the disease (Paul, 4). The cons believe that what is more immoral is to experiment animals and later on, found out that it is not a reliable guide to human reactions. Humans treated animals as a disposable and worthless biological object. The most popular examples are the experiments done on mice and rodents and later on rejected for they are not equally reliable to the human physiology. Definition of Animal Experimentation Animal experimentation is defined as â€Å"the use of live animals in research in the biological, psychological, and medical technological sciences, the state in which animals are used in the production of biological extracts and the testing of consumer products, drugs and food through partial or complete dissection of live animals for research purposes† (Monamy, 6). Practices Involved in Animal Expe rimentation There are practices that are being used in animal experimentation going back 2,000 years ago. In Egypt, animals were used to study body functions. Aristotle learned the structure and development of animals by dissection. Galen, a Romanian, used certain animals to prove that veins do not carry air but blood. William Harvey used animals in 1622 to describe the blood circulation in 1622. It was in 1846 when animals were used to determine the effects of anesthesia and in 1878 to show the relationship between bacteria and disease. During the 20th century, advances made in medicine, cure of infectious diseases and immunization, and surgical procedures became possible because of animal experimentation. In the practice of animal experimentation, several animals need to be sacrificed in achieving scientific goal. To reduce the rate of polio, hundreds of primates were sacrificed to develop polio vaccine. Monkeys were used to test HIV vaccines. Recently, a research in the Universit y of Massachusetts have taken immature cells from spinal cord of adult rats and made them grow and implanted in paralyzed rats. Soon, these rats were able to move, stand and walk. This practice of tissue engineering in animal experimentation has given hope to several people who suffer from spinal cord injury (MacKinnon, 208). Other practices involve in animal experimentation used transgenic animals as drug- producing machines. This

High School and Personality Traits Essay Example for Free

High School and Personality Traits Essay Directions: Read the following questions and write the answers on a separate sheet of paper. Include the question as part of your response. Use COMPLETE sentences—do not use fragments or incomplete thoughts. Use DETAIL in your responses. â€Å"None, nothing, I don’t know, etc.† are inadequate responses. Your goal is to give me as much information about yourself as possible! 1. Who was your English teacher last year? Describe both your successes and difficulties in the class. 2. What is your full name? Are you named after someone in your family? 3. When and where were you born? How old are you now? 4. Describe three members of your immediate family—be specific by detailing names, ages, physical characteristics, and personality traits. 5. In what places have you lived? 6. Who is your best friend and why is that the case? Describe him/her—be specific by detailing names, ages, physical characteristics, personality traits. 7. Describe any pets you have/have had/desire to have. If you could be any animal, what would you be and why? 8. Describe what you like to do in your spare time, and on weekends. 9. What is your favorite TV program(s)? Why? What kind of music do you like? 10. Where have you traveled or would like to travel? Describe what draws you to that particular place and why. 11. Describe your particular talents. What do you do well? 12. Do you want to go to college? Which one? What career do you hope to pursue when you are an adult? Why? What are you doing now to prepare yourself for these goals? 13. What do you like best about school? What do you like least about school? 14. What extracurricular activities are you involved in at school or outside of school? 15. Describe any other interesting aspect(s) of yourself. CLASS COPY!DO NOT WRITE ON THIS! Detailed Biography Directions: Read the following questions and write the answers on a separate sheet of paper. Include the question as part of your response. Use COMPLETE sentences—do not use fragments or incomplete thoughts. Use DETAIL in your responses. â€Å"None, nothing, I don’t know, etc.† are inadequate responses. Your goal is to give me as much information about yourself as possible! 1. Who was your English teacher last year? Describe both your successes and difficulties in the class. 2. What is your full name? Are you named after someone in your family? 3. When and where were you born? How old are you now? 4. Describe three members of your immediate family—be specific by detailing names, ages, physical characteristics, and personality traits. 5. In what places have you lived? 6. Who is your best friend and why is that the case? Describe him/her—be specific by detailing names, ages, physical characteristics, personality traits. 7. Describe any pets you have/have had/desire to have. If you could be any animal, what would you be and why? 8. Describe what you like to do in your spare time, and on weekends. 9. What is your favorite TV program(s)? Why? What kind of music do you like? 10. Where have you traveled or would like to travel? Describe what draws you to that particular place and why. 11. Describe your particular talents. What do you do well? 12. Do you want to go to college? Which one? What career do you hope to pursue when you are an adult? Why? What are you doing now to prepare yourself for these goals? 13. What do you like best about school? What do you like least about school? 14. What extracurricular activities are you involved in at school or outside of school? 15. Describe any other interesting aspect(s) of yourself.

Supporting Child Learning and Development

Supporting Child Learning and Development Supporting children`s learning and development Childrens learning and development plays a very important role in their lives. This is the foundation of their lives. It is important to teach the child and promote his / her development. Development and learning consists positive relationships and enabling environment. Childrens learning is divided into two parts. The first one is the prime learning areas, while the second is the specific learning areas. The prime area consists of three areas of the branch. This is communication and language development, physical development and personal, social and emotional development. Good. Well, there are four specific areas. This is literature, mathematics, understanding the world and expressive art and design . I would like to talk more about all the areas. Let`s start about prime areas. The prime areas is a work together in supporting the development and movement of other areas. The prime areas are divided into three groups and the groups are divided further into several aspects. Communication and language development is divided into three aspects. Its listening and attention, understanding and speaking. The second area of à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â‚¬ ¹Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â‚¬ ¹physical development is divided into two aspects. It is a movement and handling. The third prime are a of à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â‚¬ ¹Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â‚¬ ¹personal, social and emotional development is divided into three aspects, which is making relationships, self-awareness and self-confidence and managing feelings and behaviour. Good. We can not also forget specific areas, which are also divided into aspects. Literature is divided into two aspects. This is a reading and writing. Mathematics is divided into three aspects which are numbers, space, shape and measures. Understanding the word is divided into three aspects, too. Its the people and the communities, the world, technology. Well, and the fourth specific area is expressive art and design. It is divided into two aspects, which are exploring and using media and materials and second one is being imaginative. A clear outline of the prime and specific areas of learning, well done. Children learn quickly, so practicioner needs to help create the conditions for children to have the best possible start in life. Children are born ready to learn. However, this is not an automatic process. It depends on each child, because they are unique. It is also influenced by the opportunity to interact in positive relationships and interactions. Planning can be divided into the individual childs needs promotion. How? First of all you need to know what constitutes learning and development. These are three very important parts. This is a unique child, positive relationship and friendly environment. Every child is unique and he / she can continually learn and be flexible, capable, confident and independent. So, a practicioner must understand and monitor each childs development and learning, assess progress and plan the next steps. Good point. This person also has to support infants and children to create their own positive identity and a sense of culture. Also, practitioners must identify any additional support needs, create and assess the safety of children, and respect all children and families equal. Children learn to be strong and independent within positive relationships. These relationships are described generally. It is a warm and loving relationship that promote a sense of belonging, but also sensitive and responsive to childrens needs, feelings and interests. Positive relationships support childrens own efforts and independence, consistently defines clear boundaries, promotes and is built on relationships between a key person in early years setting. Children are developing well and learn in enabling environment, which purpose is to respond to their individual needs and to have a strong partnership between staff and parents. Enabling environment, it is an environment where are valued all people, learning, promote resources, appropriate for all childrens cultures and communities, has a rich learning opportunities in games and playful learning and sup ports children to take risks and explore. Children learn and develop in different ways. The system includes the education and care of all children, including children with special educational needs and disabilities. Practitioners teach children to ensure complex, playful and key opportunities in specific areas of learning and development. They promote effective early learning and playing characteristics of the study of active learning and critical thinking and creating. When planning to achieve their developmental needs a practitioner must be aware of what is specific to each age group. Age groups are divided from birth to eleven months old, from eight to twenty months, from sixteen to twenty-six months, from twenty-two to thirty-six months, from thirty to fifty months and from forty to sixty months or more. Practitioners need to evaluate and see what skills and knowledge a child shows and then plan according it. This will ensure that the individual childs needs are particular impor tant and pursued. There are many ways to determine the childs developmental needs. This may be finding out information about the childs interests and opinion. This shows, the assessment of the childs opinion and interests and also shows respect for his contribution and evaluation. Information is easily accessible and it is found in communication with parents, creating a challenging activities. It involves children into interesting activities and can express themselves and feel important. Practitioner supports childs learning and development. I will discuss how to make learning in each of learning areas. So, we should keep in mind that not less important is the age groups which i mentioned earlier. The first is the prime areas of learning, which is divided into three parts. The first aspect of communication to the development of language is divided into three aspects. The first aspect is listening and attention. Ill add descriptions of the chosen one group of age. Lets start from the first age group, which includes children from birth to eleven months. There is an ongoing monitoring what the child learns. This child in this group of age turns to a familiar sound, hear, releases and responds to voices and intonations. He / she also responds to others by smile, look, motion, carefully looks for the speaking person, hears familiar sounds, words or combinations of fingers, etc. So an adult may be close, make an eye contact, communicate by touch or voice, encourage playful ness, sing songs or say poems, use the sounds and repeat it so the baby starts to recognize it. An adult can provide an enabling environment for telling stories, sharing songs from all cultures, showing pictures. The next prime area of à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â‚¬ ¹Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â‚¬ ¹the first aspect is understanding. From eight to twenty-month-old baby develops your ability to follow the others body language, in response to a variety of things, understands the individual words. So made an eye contact by saying him / her the name, speaking what is happening and what is being done is a great way to create positive relationships. The third key aspect of communication and language is speaking. From sixteen to twenty-six months of age child copies expessions, begins to use two related words, for example, want ball, and starts to ask simple questions. So, we can allow the child to make his / her own choice, accept and praise for the phrases, encourage parents to speak their native language at home, t elling stories with recurring phrases, read loud. The second prime area is a physical development, which is divided into two aspects. The first is the movement and handling. From twenty-two to thirty-six months old groups of children run with the full foot safely, can kick a big ball, turn over pages of a book, control the items keeping, imitates simple shapes. It should be noted that the child may be very active and require a short period of rest. So, it should be given the opportunity to move freely, both indoors and outdoors, to help explore new movements, promote activities to provide safe spaces and the real and role-playing opportunities. The second aspect of physical development is health and self-care. Thirty – fifty months old children can tell when they feel hungry or tired, understand how to use items safely, can wash and dry hands, dress up with a little help. Practicioner can plan their active work, talk about the importance of hand washing, promote to monitore c hanges in their body and promote actively organize cheerful games. This is because physical activity is important to maintain a good health and it protects against obesity in the future. The third prime area of à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â‚¬ ¹Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â‚¬ ¹personnel, social and emotional development is divided into three aspects, one of which is making relationships. Group of children from forty to sixty months old and more initiate conversations, and take care of what others say, explain their knowledge and understanding, give the steps to resolve conflicts. At this age children need to ensure that between them and adults is the opportunity to listen to each other and explain their actions. The practitioner must be sensitive and considerate, pay attention to the specific needs, ensure that they have the ability to communicate between their age group childrens. The second aspect is the self-awareness and self-confidence. Children from the same age group speak confidently, can expess their nee ds, interests and opinions. They also able describe themselves positively and talk about the possibilities. It is therefore necessary to encourage children to explore and hang on what they learn in terms of their ideas and ways of doing things. Children have a sense of recognition. So as a practitioner you need to enjoy success with them and give time to pursue and complete the activities. The practitioner should give children the opportunity to reflect on the success and talents and provide regular opportunities for children. A good idea is to involve children in the drawing and pursue them to describe their individual preferences and opinions. And third aspect is managing feelings and behaviour. Children from these age of group understand that their actions can affect other people, feel frustrated and trying to comfort them, sets the expectations of the environment, can negotiate problems solving without aggression. Practitioner should discuss honest and dishonest situations, chil drens feelings, justice, be vigilant, allow children to decide and resolve situations. We also encourage children to think about the other approach, ensure that children have the ability to set limits, listen to children and respectfully and kindly explain to anyone why this is important to them and to organize activities where children have to share. Last issue is about how the effective characteristics can promote childs learning and development. It is easy to observe by determining needs of the unique child in theirs groups of age. This is discussed a bit earlier. So what is the effective development? Learning is a building activity, behavior with others,learner promotion. Effective learning is the best result from all of that and monitoring and surveillance to ensure are the methods or strategiesare effective for a specific purpose and context. In other words, the ways in which children become interested. Therefore, effective learning components is a game and exploration, active learning and creative and critical thinking. Playing and exploring is the engagement. Children find and explore playing with what they know and are ready „ to go â€Å". Active learning is the motivation. Child got concentrated and participated, not stop trying, enjoy in oder to perform what they were planned. And the development of creating and thinking critically. Child takes his / her ideas and makes links, choose the ways to perform things. As an example is art, music, dance. This is an opportunity to explore and share ideas, feelings, and thoughts. Creativity is a risk and union and it is strongly associated with the game. Creativity occurs when children goes futher into action and explore ideas, express them through movement, make transformation and aspiration through the media and materials, such as paints, scissors, crayons, words, sounds. Creativity involves children initiate their learning and their choices and decisions. Playing and exploring, learning actively children are engaged with other people and their environment and this supports the learning and development of all areas. And it also supports the child staying efficient and motivated.

Budgeted Airlines In The Airline Industry Management Essay

Budgeted Airlines In The Airline Industry Management Essay This report in-depth analyzes the European airline Industry and reports the challenges the budgeted airline faces in the industry and especially for Ryanair. Here it shows how structure, system, leadership, culture environment focus in order to see Ryanairs position and growth in the low cost market. It clearly states the Ryanairs current strategy and identifying its long term strategy. The Business Plan ranges from an industry analysis to an internal financial capability. An integrate understanding of the functioning of the company in terms of human and technical operations, leadership, customer relationship and financial structure. This material critically analyses the internal functioning to create viable strategic positioning and discus any approach changes of Ryanair for its improved sustainability. It refers its capability, structure, system, leadership, culture, people and environment in the low cost European market. The analysis has been done by using some major theories such as 7s matrix, balance score card, double loop learning of Ryanair, ansoff matrix and culture web. Accordingly, this material primarily analyses the current business strategies of Ryanair to understand the nature of their operations. Subsequently, conducts a PESTEL analysis, Porters five forces and value chain analysis to understand the environment of Ryanair, drivers of profit in the industry at present and the future and financial analysis. In addition to balance score card analysis also has been done to understand finance situation in the context of Ryanair and to evaluate its performance. Finally, this report will recommend the recommendations where its applicable. The analysis of this report was complete with the support of the case information provided and through industry related information from academic books, journals, websites and other publicly available secondary data sources. Introduction Ryanair is an Irish airline started its operation in 1985 competing in European budgeted airline industry in the recent years. Ryanair is one of the most profitable and key players in the European budgeted airline market. (Refer Appendix 1) Low cost business model was intruded by the US biased southwest in early 1070s. In 1992 Ryanair was the first to introduce low-cost business model in European market. Easyjet is the main low-cost business model competitor for Ryanair in European market, The reduction of the cost is the center point for low-cost business model. Some of the innovative choice made by Ryanair to maintain low-cost, no-frills service are eliminating traditional in-flight catering and by that reducing labour-related cost, use of on-line booking system, connecting point to point network using secondary airport, comfortable but not spacious seats by that increasing seating capacity, use of similar fleets. This report carries out detail study of Ryanait by analyzing Ryanairs current strategy and the management of the strategy. It recognizes how the business functions and operations are affecting the customer and leadership with their overall strategy. Critical success factor of Ryanair Currently Ryanair is facing lot if problems especially in cost strategy but it overcome from these problems by adding new strategies and grow up in market place. It uses different strategies to have Ryanair alive and to competitive with competitors. It gets a positive competitive advantage from competitors. Ryanair become the first largest low cost airline industry in Europe. Recently Ryanair is awarded for punctuality. It keep up times when flies through countries. Ryanair adopt new strategies to grow in market place and use tactics to keep low cost for flying and remain to get profits. Ryan airs goal is to meet the need of travelling places in low cost. Critical success factor are low cost, customer satisfaction with pricing, reliable and comfort service for customers. Ryanairs main critical success factor is to provide low cost. For that it eliminates in flight services. Seats adjustment and drinks but for their target market they prefer on time facilities, frequent departure and seat reservation. Low cost carrier business model The Low cost airline concept first was used in America by Pacific Southwest Airline in 1949. Southwest is now grown to become one of the largest profitable airlines in the United States. European history low cost airline model started in late 1990s. Low cost airline business model could be defined by the following three key elements. (Refer Appendix 2) Simple product: No in-flight catering and catering on request with extra payment. Plane with beiger capacity with narrow seat. Only single class without any seat allocation. Positioning: Price-conscious business passengers. High frequency point-to-point traffic using secondary airport. Aggressive marketing and competition with all transport carriers (Refer Assignment 1 appendix 6, p.25 and Appendix 10, p. 29) Low operating cost: Uniform fleet low maintenance cost, reduced crews training cost, low airport fees. Low wages, high usage of recourses and productivity, simple boarding process reduces ground waiting, high percentage of internet advance reservation, reduced clearing time and no hub service. Ryanairs current strategy Ryanair is an Irish airline competing in the low cost European airline industry. They are the most profitable and key players in the market. Ryanairs main objective to establish leading low-fare schedule passenger airline in the European market through continued improvements and expanded efficient low cost service. Low fare: Ryanairs low price policy increases price-conscious leisure and business travelers otherwise they would have used other mode of transport such as train, couch and cars. Ryanair sell one way air ticket for the schedule service by eliminating minimum stay requirement. Customer satisfaction: Ryanair achieved grater customer satisfaction by reduced cancellation and few lost baggage compare to other airlines. Achieve better punctuality by using less congested secondary airport. Regular point-to-point flights on short-haul routs: Ryanair provides regular point-to-point flights on short-haul routes around major populated centers by connecting secondary airport. This benefited higher rate of on time departure and faster turn around tine. Point-to-point non stop flying benefited Ryanair by way of cost of providing service for connecting passengers, baggage transfer and cost associated with transit passenger. Market segment: Early entrance in France, Italy, Scandinavian low cost airline market creates more profit brand recognition in the Europe budgeted airline industry. The success of the company is being able to attract more passengers at the both ends of their routes. This creates a name for Ryanair stating that Europe first number one no frills airline. Ryanair identify it maket growth through ansoff matrix (Refer Appendix 10) Competitive advantage: The main competitors for Ryanair in the low cost market are carriers including easyJet, FlyBe and ThomsonFly. All they try to attract potential customers by lowering the ticket price. In early stage favorable relationship with airport operators helped Ryanairs aggressive pricing until EU commission ruling in 2004 (Refer. Assignment 1, Appendix 11, and page number 30). Dispute with EU commission gives free publicity across the Europe continent. (Refer Appendix 7) Business functioning: Internal resources of the business and its functioning are extremely important for the business to prosper. Ryanairs important function and how this will affect business decision explained in SWOT analysis (Refer Appendix 15, Assignment 1- Appendix 9.p 28) Employees and Technical operations. Human resources are one of the most important functions in an organization. Ryanair keep their staff more happy and motivated. This they do by introducing incentive scheme for all operational employees and share option scheme which allow employees to participate for the success of overall company. Customer relation. Ryanair continues to offer no frills low fare service to keep the ticket rate at minimum level. Also Ryanair uses regional airports instead of national airport in order to keep the ticket price at lowest level and helped them for their punctuality due to less congested in the airport. Customers are looking for cheapest way of travelling; hence any bad publicity does not affect sales figures. Profitability. Ryanair have consistently year by year increased its profitability with customer satisfaction by keeping low cost ticket pricing and comfort service to the customers. Ryanair announced profitability despite bad year for airline industry such as gulf war and an outbreak of SARS. (Refer Appendix 6) financial statement published in Ryanairs annual report and also profit in euro for the period 2005 2008 and projection for 2009, passenger numbers and average fare for 2007 Less operating costs: Ryanairs operating cost is the lowest compare to other European airlines. It control major schedule airline operating cost such as aircraft equipment cost, personal productivity cost, customer service cost and airport handling and access cost Aircraft equipment cost Ryanairs aircraft acquisition strategy is to purchase single type aircraft. In 1998 Ryanair has taken a decision to purchase Boeings latest generation aircraft Boeing 737-800 replacing Boeing 737-200A and starts to use from 2005 onwards. Purchase of aircraft from single manufacture benefited Ryanairs barraging power for the new aircraft and cost advantages from personal training, maintenance and purchase and storage of spare parts. Also it has greater flexibility in terms of scheduling crews and equipment. Personal productivity Ryanair control their labor cost by continuously increasing its productivity with highly competitive work force. Ryanair pay productive-based incentives for employees including flight attendants for in-flight product sales and payments based on number of sectors and ours flown by pilots and cabin crews with limit of industry standard of maximum number of hours. Ryanair average salary per employee is high compare to its competitor easyjet, Lufthansa, British airways, Lberia and Acer Lingus. Customer service cost Ryanair has entered into competitive log term third party agreement for certain airport passenger, aircraft handling and ticketing and other services. Approximately 96% of the ticket sales through Ryanairs website and telephone and by this eliminating travel agent commission cost. Airport access charges Ryanairs constantly high volume of passenger traffic many of the airports benefit them to favorable contracts with those airport for access their facilities. Booking Advantage on internet The Ryanairs internet booking system Skylight reservation system allows internet users to access Ryanair host reservation system to make a reservation and to pay the confirmed reservation in real time. The company advertises heavily about reservation system though newspaper, radio and television As a result 94% of the reservation comes through the companys reservation system. Safety and quality maintenance Ryanairs management fully committed for the safety and quality maintenance to the aircrafts. The company operates latest Boeing 737-800 with additional safety features inbuilt in it. Also the company committed to hire and training pilots, cabin crews and maintenance staffs in accordance with highest European airline industry standards. In past 24 years Ryanairs operating history, it does not had any major incident injuring pilots or cabin crews or passengers. Although Ryanair aggressively practice low cost model, it gives high importance for the aircraft safety, maintenance, training and quality assurance. Increasing operating results through ancillary services Ryanair provides various ancillary passenger services connected to its main air passenger service such as in-flight sale of food, beverage and merchandise and also it provides through telephone reservation officers and Ryanairs internet system accommodation service, travel insurance and car rentals. Ryanairs corporate strategy The Ryanairs corporate strategy (Appendix 3) has been defined much advance and its main objective developed before it commence. Emerge of Ryanairs corporate strategy is the final objective is developed during the course its life. Ryanairs business visor, mission, main objective please. (Refer Assignment 1, Appendix 1 and p. 16-17) Ryanairs business strategy Ryanairs business strategy is to offer very competitive affordable fare for the airline users to reach their destination in the European market. Ryanairs long term marketing plane and its position: Ryanairs long term marketing plans please refer Appendix 2 and its position please refer (Assignment 1 and p. 8 Appendix 6.p 25) Porters competitive strategy model for low cost carrier Porters (1980) competitive strategy model (Appendix 5) describes that there are three types of strategies are used by business for their long term survival. They are cost leadership, differentiation strategy, and market share and market segmentation strategy. These strategies are measured along with business strategic scope and strategic strength. Stuck in the middle OVERROLL LOW COST LEADERSHIP FOCUSSED DIFFERENTIATION COST FOCUS BROAD DIFFERENTIATION Differentiation Narrow Market Cost Low cost Broad Ryanairs business strategic scope Ryanairs business strategic scope is to become number one low cost airline in the European market for cost conscious business and leisure travelers. Ryanairs business strategic scope Ryanairs business strategic scope is to become number one low cost airline in the European market for cost conscious business and leisure travelers. Ryanairs business strategic strength. Ryanair was first Europe discount airline capitalized by the EU decision to deregulate the airline industry stating that any European airline can operate anywhere in the Europe Its aggressive pricing and grater customer satisfaction for the punctuality, reduced cancellation and few lost baggage compare to other airline. In 2005 it became market leader in the low cost airline market. Cost leadership Use of secondary airport: Ryanair did not fly to the major hub airport bur instead it uses secondary airport some distance away from the main airport for low airport access charges. Rapid turnaround: Ryanair maximize use of aircraft by turning around the aircraft within 25 minutes Point-to-point routing: Ryanair fly point-to-point and it avoid cost connected with passenger and baggage transfer Boeing aircraft: Single aircraft family the being 737. It palace big being aircraft order just after September 11 2001 benefiting purchases price advantage. Aviation fuel: Major portion of fuel porches hedged hence increase in fuel price not affected to the company. In-flight service: No free in-flight service such as free drink or snacks. No refund for no-shows. Staffs and overhead: Ryanair staffs are non-union and pilots and cabin crews get low salary but compensated with other benefits. Differentiation strategy: Ryanairs operation provided several positive features for the passengers towards its punctuality, reduced cancellation, few lost baggage compare with other carriers. Passengers always were assured to reach their designation on time with their baggage. Many other revenue generating service such as travel insurance, car hire, couch and train ticket. Market share and market segmentation strategy: Ryanair has taken grater market share in the low cost airline business in the European continent and it became market leader in that sector. (Ryanairs route map in Europe Refer appendix 8) Organizational Structure DIRECTOR Paolo Pietrogrnde CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD David Bonder man DIRECTOR James Osborne DIRECTOR Klaus Kirchberger DIRECTOR Michael Horgan DIRECTOR Emmanuel Faber DIRECTOR Kyran McLaughlin FLIGHT OPERATIONS David O Brien COMMERCIAL REVENUE SF HUMAN RESOURCE EW PILOT RC ENGINEERING Michael Hickey CUSTOMER SERVICE Caroline Green LEGAL SECURITY JK COO Michael Cawley CFO Howard Millar CEO (Source www.ryanair.com, last update February 14th 2010) This diagram shows the organizational structure for Ryanair. The airline is operated with the name of Ryanair Ltd. Subsidiary for this Darley Investment Ltd. In this organization all international dealing are done by Ryanair.com. Nature of this business is aircraft trading. These boards of directors are responsible for the strategic view and functions which are in Ryanair Ltd. Chairman is Michael OLeary and other directors responsible other activities such as audit, executive, remuneration, nomination and the air safety committee. Leadership. Ryanair fight for its survival in early 1990s. In 1992 Ryanair introduced low cost no frills business model in Europe market under the leadership of Mr. Michael O Leary. Despite huge success Mr. Michael O Leary has come under both praise and criticism about his leadership and management style. Financial Times Magazine Mr. Tim Jeans argue that Mr. Michael O Leary genius in his ability motivate people with single-handedly transforming European air transport. Mr. O Leary leader ship style doses not fit rigidly into one style. His characteristic highly task oriented controlling cost, aircraft acquisition, and rout development. Also at the same time he is highly people oriented both with customers and people. His outspokenness has made him to expose into public-eye. EU commissioner for Belgium describes him in the Financial Times as irritating and arrogant Creaton (2004). But former and present staffs prized his leadership style in an interview with Financial Times Magazine. (Refer Append ix 4) There are three main characteristic of leaders in an organization Finley (2000). They are Leader should have strong held vision Mr. Michael O Leary took the leadership of Ryanair with very clear vision to the model the carrier on Southwest Airline and to create low fare no frills carrier in Europe. Leader should be able to communicate the vision External communication concern Ryanair was well recognizing one of the first budgeted airline in Europe. Internal communication concern he motivated and created incredible energy among the people to achieve the desired objective. Leader should be able to convert the vision into reality. Certainly the vision has turned into reality Ryanair grown and created a record profit low cost no frills airline in the European market. Culture The culture web describes the paradigm of an organization and physical manifestations of an organizational culture. (Johnson and schools, exploring corporate strategy, p.230) culture basically explained the organizational behaviors. Culture will include stories, symbols, system, structure, routines and rituals. (Refer appendix 11) Ryanairs pricing strategy Ryanairs cost leadership is the backbone for its lower piecing strategy. Ryanair is the lowest cost in Europe and its 40% low compare to closet competitor in Europe. (Refer Appendix 6) Implementation of gap Strategic implementation is complex and time consuming but success of an organization lies on this stage. However good the business or corporate strategy is, it is off little value unless implemented (Hubbard R.C, 2008, pg 349). Therefore, during this phase, strategy makers should consider the question of who implements that strategy, what must be done and how the strategy is implemented (Fletcher, 2001, p.2). Hence, 7S framework has been applied to Ryanair to identify gaps the issues that should be addressed during implementation phase (Refer appendix diagram 9) Recommendation Ryanair continues to attract customers with heavy advertisement stating that they are not going to charge furl surcharge with the aim to keep the fare low. Davey (2006) states that the figures release by the Ryanair shows that its low cost formula is continue to work. Ryanair in order to increase the business travelers who needs punctuality, the carrier reduce the turnaround time from 30 minutes to 25 minutes by dropping there cargo service even they new that they are going to lose à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬ 500,000 per year However budgeted airlines continues to enjoy its boom with low cost and opening new routes in the European market. If there is drop in demand Ryanair would certainly suffer and they might have to change their strategy by offering drink vouchers and making alliances with hotel groups in order to offer complete package and attract more people to its carrier. Also Ryanair should pay attention technology changes happening such as on line check in and would able them to cut their cost. Ryanairs innovating action creates future sustainability. In future if they found new routes reach places quick it will bring more tradition of getting more passengers for Ryanair. Ryanair for low cost uses secondary airport it will cause inconvenient for some customers to reach their place so they have to consider this point to get a solution for customers to reach their place easier. Conclusion Overall RYANAIR is in good position when compared to other players. The strategies implemented seem to be more effective since they have helped to match RYANAIR with its external environment. The adoptability flexibility of RYANAIR to the environmental changes have contributed to the success of RYANAIR. Ryanair seems to be using their strategy sensibly which work for them. They aware the environment and understand the importance of monitoring and they are the first to come into low-cost market in Europe. However they constantly monitor the environment and any change they should be ready to change their strategy. The flexibility adoptability to environmental changes was possible especially because of the value adding factors RYANAIR has focused. The value chain of RYANAIR has been designed to deliver the low cost concept by emphasizing only in value adding activities and by eliminating non value adding activities such as eliminating catering. In my point of view I believe RYANAIR was successful in managing the strategic management process by matching itself to its external environment. However, it does not have a major market share as the leader though it has beaten the market leader in many areas. Therefore, I suggest following recommendations for RYANAIR to achieve its potential improve its market share. References Cavendish, Camilla, A policy that pretends we can all fly on the cheap is a policy that wont fly, The Times, 5 January 2006 Doganis, R., 2001, The Airlines Business in the Twenty-first Century, Routledge, London Fletcher J (2003) .Strategic management Study guide and plan Edith Cowan University Perth Australia Hubbard, G. Rice, J. Beamish, P. [2008] Strategic management Thinking analysis action 3rd edition Pearson education Australia Lynch, Richard (2000), Corporate Strategy 2nd Ed. Pearson Education Ltd, ISBN 0- 273-64303-7 Miller A, (1998), Strategic Management, McGraw Hill, 3rd Edition. New York. Study Guide: Strategic Management Ryanair industry details retrieved on the 21st may 2010 from www.ryanair.com Viljoen, J. Dann, S. 4th edition (2003). Strategic Management, Frenchs Forest, New South Wales: Pearson Education Pty Ltd. Appendix Appendix 1 Ryanairs Introduction Ryanair started its operation in 1985. In the first year more than 5,000 passengers traveled between South Eastern Ireland and London. The company expanded continuously and 600, 000 passengers traveled per year in 14 aircrafts by 1989.Past four years the cost increased substantially and ends up with loss of  £20 million. In 1990 the current CEO Mr. Michael OLeary took over the management and conducted major changes in the company. Ryanair followed the low cost-low frills concept and reduces the routes from 19 to 5 by 1991. The company increased the fleet to 21 over the next 6 years and remarkable increase in passenger traveled in Ryanair due to its low pricing policy. European regulation restricted Ryanair to take advantage to implement low pricing policy. Ryanair took full advantage in 1997 open new routes in Continental Europe due to deregulation of European Union air transportation regulation. Ryanair established 160 routes by 2001 and hubs established around the continent in London, Glasgow, Brussels, Frankfort, Milan, Now Ryanair is the most profitable and key players in the European budget airline market. Appendix 2 Low cost carrier business model (Source MERCER management consulting 2002) Appendix 3 COPORATE STRETEGY. Corporate Parenting Parenting strategy Portfolio Analysis BCG Matrix Directional Strategy Growth Stability Retrenchment Corporate strategy basically explains about the direction of the firm. It go through in three ways. They are as follows: Directional strategy This strategy includes three points which are growth, stability and retrenchment. Growth explains expansion and growth of the company. Here we are going to look at the growth perspective of Ryanair. Stability explains ryanairs did not change its current activities. Retrenchment explains strategies reduce the companys level of activities. Portfolio Ill explain about the BCG Matrix. BCG Matrix is a best analysis part to analyzing and managing the performance of a business unit within the organization. It developed to identify the growth rate of an industry by classifying its business unit. This BCG matrix relies on lifecycle and experience curve Relative market Share Low High DOGS CASH COWS PROBLEM CHILDREN STARS Industry Growth Rate% High Low This BCG Matrix growth strategy explains the growth of the company. If we looked at this case study Ryanair is in stars position that means high industry growth rate and having high relative market share. COPORATE LEVEL Low High Cost reduce Need for local responsiveness High Low Global strategy Export strategy Multi domestic strategy Transactional strategy Ryanair is moving from export strategy to transactional strategy. Export strategy which explains products are standard but can varied, market is usually main market, operation location done in home market, and strategy control is done by home. Here coordination level and local responsiveness is low. Transactional strategy explains the product are same as export strategy, market means all markets, operation location done in two way organizational structure, strategy control varies with a product are within global framework and coordination level as well as local responsive level is high. Ryanair moves from export strategy to transactional strategy to adopt more strategies to survive in the world. Ryanair evaluate on No Frills segment, low fare cost leadership, ancillary revenue into focus differentiation and adopting transactional strategy and no fares relationship. Appendix 4 Leadership vs. Management Leadership and management are two terms used to define a group behavior in a professional setting. Leadership and management are inter-connected and inter-dependent concepts. Leadership Management Setting up new goals, vision or planning a new strategy Contorting the organizing to achieve realistic goals and objectives Managing the group properly Help the leaders to achieve the goals on collective vision of the group Seeks effectiveness do the right thing Seeks efficiency do things right Provides direction to the group Enforces control Thrives on opportunity Lives for the job well done Make people go down in history as great men to inspire generations. Only behavioral aspects that alter with environment and requirements Leaders are made, not born According to Great Man theory, Leaders are born and not made. In my point of view leader are made and some or all of the following helps them to become a great leader, their background, education, knowledge and experience, and their career path. If we further explain leadership as anyone in a position whose success requires the support of others can play the role of a leader. Leaders have ability to discuss, communicate, influence, and control others to do things is absolutely indispensable to everything you achieve in life. Of course, everyone you meet has different values, opinions, attitudes, beliefs, cultural values, work habits, goals, ambitions, and dreams. Successful leader should have leadership traits. When you become capable in your job or skill, then you become skillful at understanding the motivations and behaviors of other people. Michael OLeary deeply believes leaders are made not born. Mr. Herb Kelleher is the one born with leadership quality the founder of original budgeted airline, Southwest Airline in the United States Mr. Michael OLeary is made leader who flowed budgeted Southwest Airline model in the European market Leadership Skills Getting and giving information Getting and giving information is probably number one competency required from leaders. Leaders should be communicating effectively and must be able to exchange information effectively and accurately. In Ryanair Michael OLeary is the leader who gives decision to others to do. He has the charismatic power to control all its staff and work under him. Understanding the needs and characteristics of the Group As the group plans and carries out activities, Michael OLeary learns more about the individuals needs and characteristics. Knowing and understanding the resources of the Group Knowing group peoples skills, attitudes, backgrounds and experience and to use an effective technique for bring a group together and creating commitment to common goals. Controlling the Group A group exists for a purpose. As a leader exerts control, he needs to balances to get the jo