Mitch Albom’s Altered View of Life

After Mitch graduated from college, he headed for New York to start working on his dream of being a renowned musician of which he later discovered of failing for the first time in his life. When he lost his favorite uncle to pancreatic cancer, he realized how valuable time is and decided to get a master’s degree in journalism instead of pursuing a career in music. He became a sports writer then became a man driven by career and ambition. He later on became successful that he wrote for sports books, did radio shows and appeared recurrently on TV until he saw his old friend who was also his favorite professor in college, Morrie Schwartz, on TV.   He learned that Morrie had amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) which has no cure. When he decided to visit Morrie after so many years of not seeing him, it became a regular weekly meeting for them every Tuesday, talking about life, from which Mitch learned a different perspective, a different view. Morrie told him, â€Å"Dying is only one thing to be sad over Mitch.   Living unhappily is something else.†Ã‚   Morrie also said that people become mean only when they are threatened which is what our culture does then they start looking out only for themselves and make money their god. Morrie made him realize how he has been giving more priority to his work instead of starting a family with his wife Janine.     Mitch realized that he really did need to invest in the human family and in people as what Morrie advised him.   Morrie showed him how to courageously face things in life even on the verge of death.   Having the last few weeks of Morrie’s life spent with him taught Mitch so many things that he would always hold dear. Mitch learned what mistakes to avoid, what to look out for, when to pay attention to his loved ones and hear them as if it were for the last time.   Morrie also made him understand that there is no such thing as â€Å"too late† for anything in this life. WORKS CITED Albom, Mitch. Tuesdays with Morrie. New York: Doubleday,1997               

Question Bank Essay

What is Software Development Life Cycle? (SDLC) (2 mks) System Development Life Cycle (SDLC) is the overall process of developing information systems through a multi-step process from investigation of initial requirements through analysis, design, implementation and maintenance. b) Draw a diagram for pure waterfall life cycle. (5 mks) [pic] c)Explain the different phases involved in waterfall life cycle. (8 mks) Phase I – Modeling Phase In this phase we view the software product as part of a larger system or organization where the product is required. This is basically a system view where all the system elements are created. Phase II – Software Requirements Analysis Here we have a phase where the requirements are gathered. The information domain for the software is understood. The function, behaviour, performance and interfacing of the software are determined. The requirements of the software and the customer are decided upon. Phase III – Design This determines the data structures, the software architecture, the interface representations and the procedural (algorithmic) detail that goes into the software. Phase IV – Code Generation Here the actual programming is done to obtain the machine code; it is an implementation of the design. Phase V – Testing The testing is a process that goes hand in hand with the production of the machine code. There are a number of testing strategies. First unit testing is done and then integration testing. Alpha testing is to see if the software is as per the analysis model whereas beta testing is to see if the software is what the customer wanted. Phase VI – Installation The software is released to the customer. Phase VII – Maintenance This is the largest phase of the software life cycle. Maintenance can be of different types: to modify the software as the requirements of the customer evolve, to remove the residual bugs in the software etc. 2)What is feasibility study? What are the contents we should contain in the feasibility report? (5 mks) A feasibility study is an initial look at an existing information processing system to decide how it might be computerized or improved. The contents that a feasibility report are: †¢ A statement of purpose of the system. †¢ A definition of system scope. †¢ A list of deficiencies of the current system. †¢ A statement of user requirements. The cost and benefits of development. †¢ A conclusion and recommendations. 3)What are the purposes of Data Flow diagrams, Entity-Relationship diagrams? Give an example diagram of each. (10 mks) Data Flow Diagrams Data Flow diagrams are a means of representing a system at any level of detail with a graphic network of symbols showing data flows, data stores, data processes, and data sources/destinations. The purpose of data flow diagrams is to provide a semantic bridge between users and systems developers. The diagrams are: †¢ Graphical – Eliminating thousands of words; Logical representations – Modeling WHAT a system does, rather than physical models showing HOW it does it †¢ Hierarchical – showing systems at any level of detail; and †¢ Jargonless – allowing user understanding and reviewing. [pic] Entity Relationship Diagram E-R Diagram is a graphical representation of the data layout of a system at a high level of abstraction. It defines data elements and their inter-relationships in the system [pic] 4)What is data modeling? Give 5 examples for data modeling. (5 mks) Data modeling is the act of exploring data-oriented structures. Like other modeling artifacts data models can be used for a variety of purposes, from high-level conceptual models to physical data models. From the point of view of an object-oriented developer, data modeling is conceptually similar to class modeling. With data modeling you identify entity types whereas with class modeling you identify classes. Data attributes are assigned to entity types just as you would assign attributes and operations to classes. Examples for data modeling include: †¢ Entity-Relationship diagrams †¢ Entity-Definition reports †¢ Entity and attributes report †¢ Table definition report Relationships, inheritance, composition and aggregation. 5)What is the difference between SRS document and design document? What are the contents we should contain in the SRS document and design document. SRS Document SRS document is a contract between the development team and the customer. Once the SRS document is approved by the customer, any subsequent controversies are settled by referring the SRS document. SRS document defines the customer’s requirements in terms of Functions, performance, external interfaces and design constraints. SRS Includes: †¢ Functional †¢ Non functional User †¢ Interface †¢ System Design Document The purpose of a design is to describe how the enhancements will be incorporated into the existing project. It should contain samples of the finished product. This could include navigational mechanism screenshots, example reports, and component diagrams. Design Includes: †¢ E-R Diagrams †¢ Data flow diagrams †¢ Data Dictionary 6)Explain all the phases involved in the implementation phase. (10 mks) Conduct system Test In this test software packages and in – house programs have been installed and tested, we need to conduct a final system test. All software packages, custom- built programs, and many existing programs that comprise the new system must be tested to ensure that they all work together This task involves analysts, owners, users, and builders. Prepare Conversion Plan On successful completion of system test, we can begin preparations to place the new system into operation. Using the design specifications for the new system, the system analyst will develop a detailed conversion plan. This plan will identify Database to be installed, end – user training and documentation that needed to be developed, and a strategy for converting from the old system to the new system. The conversion plan may include one of the following commonly used installation strategies 1)  Abrupt Cut-over 2)  Parallel Conversion 3)  Location Conversion 4) Staged Conversion Install Databases In the previous phase we built and tested the database. To place the system into operation we need fully loaded databases. The purpose of this task is to populate the new systems databases with existing database from the old system. System builders play a primary role in this activity. Train Users Converting to a new system necessitates that system users be trained and provided with documentation that guides them through using the new system. Training can be performed one on one; however group training is preferred. This task will be completed by the system analysts and involves system owners and users. Convert to New System Conversion to the new system from old system is a significant milestone. After conversion, the ownership of the system officially transfers from the analysts and programmers to the end users. The analyst completes this task by carrying out the conversion plan Recall that the conversion plan includes detailed installation strategies to follow for converting from the existing to the new production information system. This task involves the system owners, users, analysts, designers, and builders. 7)List and explain different types of testing done during the testing phase. (10 mks) Unit Involves the design of test cases that validate that the internal program logic is functioning properly, and that program inputs produce valid outputs. All decision branches and internal code flow should be validated. Unit testing involves the use of debugging technology and testing techniques at an application component level and is typically the responsibility of the developers, not the QA staff. Integration As the system is integrated, it is tested by the system developer for specification compliance. †¢Concerned with testing the system as it is integrated from its components †¢Integration testing is normally the most expensive activity in the systems integration process †¢Should focus on: †¢Interface testing where the interactions between sub-systems and components are tested †¢Property testing where system properties such as reliability, performance and usability are tested System Testing the system as a whole to validate that it meets its specification and the objectives of its users. The testing of a complete system prior to delivery. The purpose of system testing is to identify defects that will only surface when a complete system is assembled. That is, defects that cannot be attributed to individual components or the interaction between two components. System testing includes testing of performance, security, configuration sensitivity, startup and recovery from failure modes. Involves test cases designed to validate that an application and its supporting hardware/software components are properly processing business data and transactions. System testing requires the use of regression testing techniques to validate that business functions are meeting defined requirements. Black Box This is testing without knowledge of the internal workings of the item being tested. For example, when black box testing is applied to software engineering, the tester would only know the â€Å"legal† inputs and what the expected outputs should be, but not how the program actually arrives at those outputs. It is because of this that black box testing can be considered testing with respect to the specifications, no other knowledge of the program is necessary. For this reason, the tester and the programmer can be independent of one another, avoiding programmer bias toward his own work. White Box Also known as glass box, structural, clear box and open box testing. White Box is a software testing technique whereby explicit knowledge of the internal workings of the item being tested are used to select the test data. Unlike Black Box testing, white box testing uses specific knowledge of programming code to examine outputs. The test is accurate only if the tester knows what the program is supposed to do. He or she can then see if the program diverges from its intended goal. White box testing does not account for errors caused by omission, and all visible code must also be readable. 8)List and explain all the phases involved in the construction phase. (10 mks) Build and Test Networks †¢ In many cases new or enhanced applications are built around existing networks. If so there is no problem. †¢ However if the new application calls for new or modified networks they must normally be implemented before building and testing databases and writing or installing computer programs that will use those networks. This phase involves analysts, designers and builders †¢ A network designer and network administrator assume the primary responsibility for completing this task. Build and Test Databases †¢ This task must immediately precede other programming activities because databases are the resource shared by the computer programs to be written. If new or modified databases are required for the new system, we can now build and test those databases. †¢ This task involves system users, analysts, designers, and builders. †¢ The same system specialist that designed the database will assume the primary responsibility in completing this task Install and Test New Software Packages †¢ Some systems solutions may have required the purchase or lease of software packages. If so, once networks and databases for the new system have been built, we can install and test the new software. †¢ This activity typically involves systems analysts, Designers, builders, vendors and consultants. Write and Test New Programs †¢ In this phase we are ready to develop any programs for the new system. Prototype programs are frequently constructed in the design phase. However, these prototypes are rarely fully functional or incomplete. This task involves the system analysts, designers and builders. 9)What is data conversion? Why is it necessary? Data Conversion is the changing of the data structure to accommodate new or different needs for the data. Different operating systems have different application software, and each application normally has its own internal way of saving data. There are some standards such as CSV files for databases and RTF files for word processing text, however, these are few and far between and often only save the basic information rather than the full structure. 10)What is change management? Computer based systems are dynamic. As the business Environment changes, there is a need of some changes to the information system. The changes occur not only during the study, design, and development phases of the life cycle of the system. In this process there are two elements that are essential to the management of change. †¢ The performance review board, which can make management–level decisions about system modifications. †¢ Baseline documentation, which can be referred to, to determine the extent and impact of proposed modifications. 11)What is user acceptance testing? Explain different testings in user acceptance testing. Why is it necessary? User Acceptance Testing is a phase of software development in which the software is tested in the â€Å"real world† by the intended audience. Different testings are: Alpha Testing Alpha testing is the software prototype stage when the software is first able to run. It will not have all the intended functionality, but it will have core functions and will be able to accept inputs and generate outputs. An alpha test usually takes place in the developer’s offices on a separate system. Beta Testing The beta phase of software design exposes a new product, which has just emerged from in-house (alpha) testing, to a large number of real people, real hardware, and real usage. Beta testing is not a method of getting free software long-term, because the software expires shortly after the testing period. User acceptance testing is used to know if the system is working or not (both clients ; in-house) 12)What are functional and non-functional requirements? Functional †¢ How the system should react to the particular inputs †¢ How the system should behave to the particular situations †¢ What the system should not do Non functional †¢ Constraints on the services or functions †¢ Time constraints †¢ Constraints on the development process 13)Explain the steps involved in the prototyping 1. Define the goal and purpose of the prototyping. 2. Make plans for iterations (number, range) and evaluations (dates). 3. Transform the conceptual design to a first outline of the user interface and a first synopsis for the users’ information. 4. Design the paper prototype. 5. Let domain experts review the paper prototype regarding completeness and correctness. 6. Test the prototype’s usability.

In My Own Work Setting Essay

In my own work setting we have health and safety policy, child protection/safe guarding, fire safety,first aid, security ,confidentiality. In the regards of health and safety in my work setting I report any issues to Rachel Hancocks(manager) or Paul Hancocks(deputy manager). All staff have there own responsibilities to health and safety in the workplace as well. A risk assessment is the determination of the value of a risk in any working environment and a recognised hazard. In my work setting the team leader of every session does a risk assessment on the working environment. Outcome 2 A safe a challenging environment is important because we as careers have to provide a positive and safe environment to allow the child to grow in a positive manner. Although children also need challenges inn there environment so that they can develop their own skills ,personality and also become independent this is depending on the medical needs of the child or young person. A hazard is something that can cause harm to anybody such as electricity and different chemicals. Whereas a risk is the rating that shows that somebody will get hurt by the hazard. Most risks are calculated in categories of low medium and high Potential hazards to health ,safety and security in my own working environment are:- Stairs Boiler Plug sockets Keyboard wire Doors All these are controlled by risk assessments and regular staff training What is the risk? Who might be harmed and how? What is being done to manage the risk? What else could be done to manage the risk? Who will do this? When will this be done? Date completed Access to the upstairs to extension Children falling down the stairs A safety gate has been placed at the bottom of the stairs that is secured by a chubb lock Staff t monitor childrens whereabouts.Escort children down the stairs All staff  ongoing Outcome 3 There are different non medical incidents and emergencies that may occur in my work settings such as, fires ,floods and electricity failure. The actions that I would take in response to a fire are make sure that all the staff and service users(those able to) know were all the fire exits are an how to get them making sure that everybody knows where the fire assembly point is. I would make sure that all staff and service users are accounted for I would do this my taking the signing in book for both staff and services users to the fire assembly point. The actions that I would take in the response to a security incident is make sure the service user was back inside the building inform management and the rest of the staff do an indecent report and a full risk assessment on the incident and service user. The actions I would take in response to an emergency incident are do as the emergency services tell me to do so make sure that the management are aware of the situations wait for the emergency services to arrive then do a full  incident report and record the accident if this was the case in the accident book. Outcome 4 The signs and symptoms which may indicate that a child or young person is unwell are :- High temperature/fever Vomiting Running nose Aching Lethargic Diarrhoea Headache Rashes The signs and symptoms which may indicate to a child or young person being injured are :- Crying Bruising Cuts Headaches Swelling to any area of the body Redness to the skin. The circumstances in which a child or young person may need urgent medical attention are:- Persistent vomiting Skin rashes Dehydration Severe open wounds Head injuries Burns Poisoning Choking Depressive responsiveness Unconscious Persistent pain In the event of a child or young person that required urgent medical attention I would inform the management team I would phone the emergency services or get another member of staff to do so whilst I was still with the child or young person. Inform the parent/career of the service user of the situation assist the emergency services of all the information that is needed of the service user to insure that they et the right treatment. After the event I would fill in an incident report as well as an accident form. Outcome 5 The reporting procedures for any accidents that happen in my working environment are the accident book gets filled in no matter how small or large the accident may be and passed to the management team. When any incidents occur no matter how large or small a full incident report needs to be completed in detail and passed on to the management team. Any emergencies that occur such as an injury medical assistance would be called the accident book would be filled in and also a full incident report would be written all of which the management team would receive straight after they have been filled out. If there was any illness eg. Sickness and diarrhoea the management would be informed and they would contact the parents or emergency contact if the parent wasn’t available and would ask for them to be collected as in my work setting there are many service uses have different immune systems. Outcome 6 The procedures for infection control in my own work settings are whilst assisting or changing a service user would be protective gloves and aprons but also washing hands correctly after the toilet visit. Waste is disposed of appropriately Outcome 7 in my setting we do not receive,administrate or store medication however this would be kept securely and would only be instruction of the parents.

Unit 9 seminar Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Unit 9 seminar - Research Paper Example It entails measuring the costs of the program from a social view and which are measured against the willingness of the society to pay for the outcome. An advantage to this analysis is that both the benefits and program’s cost are measured in one unit; say in dollars hence creates social â€Å"profits." The third way human service professionals may consider is analyzing the impact of the program on public costs, thereby assessing intervention’s impact on the costs. All these three ways will go a long way to reflect the target audience and research budget (Kramar et al, 3013). A dropout prevention program in high school is cost effective since the benefits and key outcomes can be measured in relation to the costs. The benefits of this program are that lives will be saved and enriched, earnings increased, costs for taxpayers decreased, and quality of living increased (Schuler & Jackson, 2014). Participants will have a higher lifetime earnings since they will receive little welfare payments and have higher self esteem. To the society the government will in turn decrease its subsidies; tax paid by participants of the program will be increased, whereas social problems and crime will be decreased. Statistical significance is about measuring the importance of statistics to the results or how much statistics can be counted upon and usually based on samples. It is scanty about the magnitude of change or if the relationship is meaningful. The disadvantage of it is that it is inadequate to determine the importance of results. There s also the likelihood of getting similar results in the future (Zhu, 2013).  Where as in Practical significance provides information about magnitudes of change since it provides more digits in expressing results than makes sense. There is unlikelihood to obtain similar results in the future in practical

Change Management of People Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Change Management of People - Case Study Example Thus, from this point of view use of 3rd party option would provide them high level of software development expertise and application domain expertise. Though, they are from outside of the company they lacked the local company related knowledge. 2.0 Major Problems Encountered During the Selection and Implementation Phases of the Project Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system at present situation is in huge demand by both manufacturing as well as service organizations since they provide a strong integrated result to the information system as organization needs. With ERP package an employee can be able to run their company with a single system which can incorporate the whole business process and can make an enterprise-wide view of major corporate information. ERP software is a set of functions that connect various systems in an organization such as manufacturing, sales force, human resources, financial, data warehousing and document management. It also helps the organizations to han dle task which may include order processing along with production scheduling. Companies experience huge challenges and problems at selection as well as implementation of the all stages of ERP system life cycle (Almahdi, â€Å"Introduction†). The Chief Executive Officer of Power IT decided to implement ERP system in the organization by purchasing it from the third party vendor. The staffs were not able to develop such software due to lack of domain knowledge. Thus, through tendering process the software was acquired. For the selection process the CEO, financial director and business development manager need to undergo various selection processes. An invitation was sent to the potential stakeholder by the business development manager. The tender was then reviewed properly by comparing it to the major requirements of the system and three vendors were selected. They again made presentation about the product to Power IT and desired vendors got the contract. The process of implemen ting the software throughout the organization was discussed with the vendor. Regardless of the major benefits that ERP software packages provide in incorporating and managing multi-functional procedures of business, there are several problems and barriers that can be related to such an implementation. The most important challenge is to amalgamate existing legacy method and function with the ERP system in an attempt to provide a common interface. Moreover, implementation of ERP systems is intricate, challenging, high-priced project and time consuming for every organization. The difficulties of ERP implementation assist to plan in a better way and facilitate more successful ERP implementation. The different barriers that can be raised during implementation of ERP system are organizational, technical and managerial barrier (Almahdi, â€Å"Barriers and Difficulties of ERP Implementation†). 3.0 Problems Encountered After Implementation ERP system was implemented in order to fulfil l the requirements of the business. However, after eight months of using this system it was found that the system was not performing well and it was not meeting the business

Global marketing management Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Global marketing management - Essay Example Marketers take in to account various strategies that they feel better and effective to achieve sustainable competitive advantage in today’s competitive markets. Maintaining stronger relationship with consumers is undoubtedly a very effective marketing tactic that can certainly help a firm stay stronger for quite a long term in the market. I would suggest my friend to think about relationship marketing and he therefore needs to treat his customers always welcomed to the business and to maintain friendly relationship. Consumers are to be treated as business partners both inside and outside the firm. Relationship marketing begins with identifying and understanding the needs and wants of customers and recognizing how to satisfy their requirements and preferences (Cravens, 2002, p. 205). In order to stay very relevant and to compete with new small strips and Wal-Mart stores in the area, it is critically important that he should build stronger partner-relation with consumers by taki ng in to account the following strategic steps. Make relationship marketing and customer-contact as an important part of corporate objective of the business. Train employees and all other service-providers about how effectively and friendly they need to treat customers. Keep constantly contacting customers for better services, before as well as after sales services, customers’ feedback and analyzing the words-of-mouth from the customers. Ensure that the goods and services meet their preferences by maintaining on-going quality improvement and quality management systems, and Evaluate how potential customers think about the company in relation to the competitors with a view to implement newer ideas or strategies to achieve competitive advantages. Answer- 2 For international marketing, firms are using different types of cooperative relationships such as strategic alliance, licensing, joint ventures, R&D partnering etc. Strategic alliance is a coalition between two or more firms w ith a view to achieve strategically significant goals that are beneficial to both or all the companies partnered in alliance (Kotabe and Helsen, 2008, p.305). Strategic alliance at international level is typically a collaborative arrangement between two or more firms working across borders. In simple words, cross border alliance is a strategic alliance arrangement between firms across borders (Johansson, 2009, p. 163). Cross border alliance is based on sharing of vital information, business ideas, assets, technology and managerial functioning between partner firms. Cross border alliance can be formed in different structures. It can either be based on a simple licensing agreement or it may consist of quite rigid ties between them. High tech companies often come in alliance with others based on technology swaps. Kotabe and Helsen (2008, p. 306) described the logic behind cross border alliance to explain why companies while going global enter in to alliance with other companies with th eir core businesses. With such alliance, companies want to create a defensive position so that the firm will be able to maintain the leadership position by learning newer skills, access to new markets and by developing new technologies. With cross border alliance, the marketer wants to catch up new marketing domains, or to remain simply in the business or to restructure the market with help of others’ marketing ideas and strategies. Answer- 3 Direct marketing has emerged to be a very successful marketing strategy as many world class companies like Dell and small scale businesses across the world have achieved greater success and unique marketing stance by going directly to the customers. Segmentation is a key marketing dimension that a marketer can set strategic framework to identify the right customers of a company to design and develop products or services to ensure that their specific as well as common preferences are met

HR Strategic Planning MODULE 1 Discussion Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

HR Strategic Planning MODULE 1 Discussion - Essay Example This explains why team work is emphasized in a business organization as its various units need to collaborate together for it to function. For example, the goal of marketing is integrated into manufacturing for the factory people realize the need of customer satisfaction. Information and knowledge are also shared through the various channels in the organization to promote cohesion, knowledge and skills across organization (Kahn and Mentzer, 1998). Departments may not be well verse in other functions of the business but they are aware that their output are needed by other departments and that they are also dependent on the output of others. One of the concrete example where the various department and functions intersect with each other is through a project which is increasingly becoming common in business organizations. Projects are typically composed of people in the organization from various departments with different background and skillsets working together in order to achieve the goal of the

Nature or Nurture Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Nature or Nurture - Essay Example In the article, â€Å"Why Boys Don’t play with Dolls†, Pollitt seeks to dismantle the stereotype that girls naturally like dolls, but boys don’t; and that boys naturally like trucks, while girls don’t. In this article, Pollitt argues that children’s behaviour can solely be accounted for by nurture that the children have gone through from their parents, and not by the nature of the children. To make her point clear, Pollitt has given a number of examples and arguments to support her claim. One of the examples that Pollitt uses in her article to support her claim is the example of feminist women who neither love the Barbie doll nor hate the Barbie doll. In this example, Pollitt argues that it is not possible for the American women to either love Barbie or to hate the Barbie doll. The reason why the women are unable to love the Barbie doll is that at one time or another in their life, the women have been unable to achieve the societal ideals represented by the Barbie doll, for this reason, they can’t love the Barbie doll. On the other hand, the women are unable to hate the Barbie doll; this is because hating the Barbie doll would mean that they hate all the good societal ideals represented by the Barbie doll. For this reason, Pollitt argued that all American women, including the feminists, find themselves giving their young girls Barbie dolls, the women are culturally and environmentally conditioned to view Barbie dolls as a feminine thing that should be given on ly to the girls. Pollitt also gave another example of boys and sports. In this example, Pollitt argues that, although, some women don’t like seeing their sons spending their free times watching sports, the women, however, do not stop their children from watching sports because they are culturally conditioned to see sports as a manly thing. Pollitt goes on to argue that, it is not the children who freely chooses their playing

The market for health insurance Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 5000 words

The market for health insurance - Essay Example Rises in health insurance covers, has besmirched access to health cover (Berkowitz 30-45). Presently 7 percent of the United States nonelderly, acquire coverage through personal strategies bought frankly from insurance providers. Numerous plans at the national state and centralized, in addition to the standard propositions using the personal health insurance market as way of growing access to reasonable health policies. States license bodies that provide health insurance coverage and have determined laws that regulate their structure, finances, and responsibilities to the people that they insure (Berkowitz 46). Introduction Health care costs in the US, which have escalated quickly in actual terms in the last few decades, have put pressure on the state and national budgets. Future expansion in health insurance costs is estimated to threaten the monetary status of state and national governments unless primary strategy transformations take place. Also, for many American citizens, the la ck of health insurance coverage sophisticates access to health care. Health insurance markets are frequently focused on a single insurer accounting for over 50 percent of the market. Issues about focus on health insurance markets are connected to broader issues about the cost, value, and accessibility of health care. The market structure of the health insurance and hospital commerce may have helped is increasing health care costs and in restricting access to inexpensive health insurance and health care. Some debate market focus has amounted to higher care prices. Higher cost of health care or health insurance may then make health care less inexpensive and consequently less available for some homesteads. Patrons in the personal and small group markets characteristically face specifically challenging situations. Whilst health insurance purchased in the personal market has the advantages of being portable, and potentially being an enhanced match to an individual’s predilection f or health coverage than standards purchased via group strategies, it does have elements of essential concern. Amid these issues is how regulations and edicts surrounding the personal insurance market reflects is potential to meet numerous population needs. It is needed to comprehend these concerns to establish how market transformations would interrelate with these policies (Henderson 10-15). Others, nevertheless, agree that health care givers with strong bargaining weight should assist restrict health providers’ potential to increase costs, and that the advantage of minimal premiums coming from the potential to negotiate may be passed along to patrons. Some commerce analysts have expressed competition amid primary health care providers as strong, and some pricing trends show that competing has stalwartly impacted on insurers’ market plans. Additionally, some argue that economies of scale along with state and national control have contributed to the increasing level of focus on health insurance markets. The Obama government has made transformation of the American health insurance and health care structure utmost policy precedence. Numerous congressional attempt at broadening access to health insurance by rising the number of Americans with health care coverage, by minimizing the price of insurance faced by persons, by offering sturdy incentives for persons

How Relevant Is The Rational Model of Consumer Decision-making to Essay

How Relevant Is The Rational Model of Consumer Decision-making to Marketers Today - Essay Example The author of the essay "How relevant is the rational model of consumer decision-making to marketers today?" begins with the short introduction of the rational model notion. The rational decision-making model would tend to assume that consumer characteristics are universal, meaning that buyers of products and services generally share the same set of homogeneous cognitive thinking traits by which decision-making is a practical and sensible process. For instance, a consumer opens a refrigerator, witnesses a lack of a favorite beverage and then sets about exploring options to fulfill this need. The vast volumes of marketing literature that have conducted studies on consumption behavior would tend to strongly refute this notion. In most East Asian countries, cultures are collectivist in which group opinion and group membership are substantial social values. Shukla (2010) reports that Asian consumers have recurring tendency to consume products that can enhance their social position or gai n some sort of psychological fulfillment when important reference groups applaud their product decision-making, a phenomenon known as conspicuous consumption. The energy drink, Red Bull, for instance, may be more socially acceptable in a group that is familiar with the brand name and trust in its quality over that of a lesser-known juice brand. To choose another beverage brand and then present it to the collectivist reference group could lead to social chastisement or some other dimension of criticism that would influence future repurchases. In this type of social scenario, based on collectivist values, there would be no evaluation of alternatives since the consumer has considerable experience with negative emotions stemming from the reference group opinions and would not want to repeat this social situation again. This would certainly have implications for both Red Bull and for the lesser-known beverage brand. Schiffman and Kanuk (2010) also recognise that cultural values have infl uence on consumption behaviour and even maintain a persuasion about which brands a consumer is most dedicated to. These researchers indicate that the volume of purchases a consumer maintains toward a favourite brand is influenced by how it assists in expressing social affiliation and status. Husik and Cicic (2009) call this status consumption, which is attempting to gain psychological satisfaction by exposing others in the social environment to the choice of product or service consumed. To further lend support for the influence of the cultural or social environment by suggesting an even more complicated and dynamic set of psychological characteristics that influence purchase decision-making behaviour. According to the research, people have an inherent desire to make comparisons to themselves and others in the social environment and generally want to believe they are better than everyone else (Durayappah 2010). When witnessing members of society in less-privileged life situations, it can even enhance the individual’

Role of Women in the Odyssey Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Role of Women in the Odyssey - Essay Example He learnt most of his traits due to his encounter with different cultures and dangerous assignments. This evident in the story where the Greek army commander sends Odyssey to gather information from the Trojan camp, a task requires him to be brave and wise so that the Trojans do not to capture him. The adventure of the Odyssey has also had various challenges, most of which are posed by women. These ancient women in the story reveal the role of women through various encounters with the Odyssey. Women in the story have a great influence on the actions of men. The roles of women have been portrayed in the story where the immortal Calypso, the goddess of Calypso Island, is seducing Odyssey and his fellow warriors while on their mission on the island. She manages to do so by using her sweet melodious voice to capture the attention of the men on the island. She successfully does this and lures them closer to her home. She takes this advantage and turns some of them into swine. Luckily enough, Odyssey possessed a potion that reversed Calypso spell and used this chance to escape. Calypso falls in love with Odyssey and holds him captive on the island for about 18 years. This shows how women are used to seduce men even in present day situations. They can do anything to men to accomplish what they want to do. According to Homer, women use their beauty to put men in to temptations that is against the culture of ancient Greece (188). Calypso uses her immortal powers to prevent Odyssey from leaving the Island. After sometime Odyssey decides to return home to his wife Penelope but calypso does not agree to that. She uses her charms and manipulates Odyssey to stay on the island. The act of manipulation reveals how women can be scheming when they have the power over male gender. Women who become leaders by controlling the society can act as a hindrance to men who want to attain their dreams. Odyssey’s love to Penelope and his son Telemakho’s gives him the will to try overcoming the immortal Calypso for him to return home. Calypso is not aware of what would make Odyssey want to leave the immortal life and prefer the mortal life. She tries to relate her beauty to that of Penelope saying, â€Å"I think I can claim that I am not her inferior either in build or stature, since it is n ot likely that mortal women can challenge the goddesses for build and beauty† (Homer 24). According to Homer, calypso plays the role of a seductive monstrous woman who aims at destroying the society beliefs and culture. Penelope also portrays the role of women in caring for the family. She wanted Odyssey back as the father of her son. Women fights for the rights of their family when other women tend to come between them. The story reveals the role of women as wives and mothers. Penelope is a woman portraying the image of an ancient Greek woman. The role of a woman as a mother is evident where she has raised her son Telemakho’s until maturity even in the absence of Odyssey. Penelope being Odysseys wife she poses a unique character that reveals a strong female gender. After many years of people claiming that Odyssey was dead, Penelope did not lose the faith that one day his husband would come home. She encounters the challenge of many suitors trying to court her but her l ove for Odyssey kept them off.

Eating Breakfast for Success Essay Example for Free

Eating Breakfast for Success Essay Abstract In this experiment, we will study the impact of breakfast on learning in school. Students in several classes will be surveyed on their breakfast eating habits and their personal test scores. It will be a one-time survey over the course of one test. Factors that will be put under consideration are the amount of times each individual studied and the amount of sleep they had the night before. Many researches have been conducted proving that there are significant relationships between eating breakfast and educational performances. This study hypothesizes that students who ate breakfast will do significantly better on tests than students who didn’t eat breakfast. Impact of Breakfast on Learning in School Boschloo, Annemarie, et Al. (2012) conducted a survey with 608 adolescents age 11-18 investigating whether skipping breakfast has an impact on educational performances. The survey was to determine if those who eat breakfast daily have a better end-term-grade than those who skips breakfast. As a result, those who eat breakfast daily performed better in school than those who don’t eat breakfast. The result also shows that people who slept late tend to slip breakfast, but sleep had no effect on performances. The results applied to older and younger students also boys and girls. Another crossover trail has been done by Widenhorn-Muller, Katharina et al. (2008), the trail was applied on high school students age 13-20. Students were assigned to two groups: one with breakfast and who without breakfast. They compared cognitive functions of students in each group. As a result, Breakfast had no effect on paying more attention in class among students, but it has a short term effect on self-assessment and personal performance among the students. Pollitt, Ernesto et al. (1982-1983) found that â€Å"the timing and nutrient composition of meals have acute and demonstrable effects on behavior. † They conducted research on kids 9-11 yrs. old in controlled groups of fasting (breakfast) and non-fasting. They gave these children many tests such as assessment of IQ, the Matching Familiar Figures Test, and Hagen Central–Incidental Test. Glucose and insulin levels were also measured. Pivik, R. T. et al. (2012) found that â€Å"neural network activity involved in processing numerical information is functionally enhanced and performance is improved in children who have eaten breakfast. † Meanwhile students who did not eat breakfast will require more mental effort to solve mathematical problems. This founding was possible by measuring the electroencephalographic (EEG) activity of kids age 7-11 while they are solving math problems. Kids who ate breakfast showed higher frequency EEG activity whereas vice-versa for kids who did not eat breakfast. The proposed study is designed to investigate whether breakfast has an impact on how well a student perform on his/her test. We can assume that each student has a general knowledge on the subject and that they are prepared to take the test. Questions that will be raised during this experiment are 1. whether a person should eat breakfast before test and 2. how much should we eat for it to be consider a healthy breakfast. Method The proposed study is a survey for students age 15-22 in high schools and colleges. Surveys should separate participants into male or female. This survey is conducted on students taking math courses and numbers of males and female should be even in each age group. It is best to conduct the survey on participants within the same classes. Questions will be asked is number of sleep each students had the night before. Whether they had breakfast in the morning. How often do they eat breakfast. Also have the students list the breakfast they had in the morning. Discussion This discussion section will address practical and methodological difficulties in carrying out this survey. Also ethnical background issue will be put under consideration. Some difficulties we might encounter when taking a survey might be each individual’s eating habits, some might eat more than others and the food they consume are different. Also health issues might affect a person’s performance, for example, a person that weighs 130 pounds might have different results in performance compared to a person who is weigh 220 pounds even if they consume the same amount of food for breakfast. Also personal views will affect the survey. Some people have higher standards than others and naturally, the people with higher standards will try harder to get a higher grade than students with lower standards. This also brings up the issue of ethnicity and backgrounds because some people have higher expectations and different cultures have different habits of eating. In future studies, I would like to conduct this survey to a wider age group such as kids from age 5-13 and adults from age 25-40. The adult brain is more developed than children’s brains and breakfast might have a different effect on children and adults. Also this survey can be expanded into testing on a wider range of tasks. Instead of math tests it can be test on other subjects, and other jobs such as a person’s performance in an office or ground work. The survey should also study different types of people such as people with special needs compared to a person with normal functions. References Boschloo, Annemarie, et Al. (2012). The relation between breakfast skipping and school performance in adolescents. Mind, Brain, and Education, Vol 6(2), Jun, 2012. pp. 81-88. Widenhorn-Muller, Katharina et al. (2008) Influence of having breakfast on cognitive performance and mood in 13- to 20-year-old high school students: Results of a crossover trial. Pediatrics, Vol 122(2), Aug, 2008. pp. 279-284. Pollitt, Ernesto et al. (1982-1983). Fasting and cognitive function. Journal of Psychiatric Research, Vol 17(2), 1982-1983. pp. 169-174. Pivik, R. T. et al. (2012). Eating breakfast enhances the efficiency of neural networks engaged during mental arithmetic in school-aged children. Physiology Behavior, Vol 106(4), Jun 25, 2012. pp. 548-555.

Facebook Addiction Disorder

Facebook Addiction Disorder Facebook Addiction Disorder The social networking site ‘Facebook was officially launched in the year 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg together with his friends Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes. Facebook, launched by the worlds youngest billionaire Mark Zuckerberg, has over 300 million users worldwide, half of whom log on to the site every day. He made it as a private site for their high school only. Facebook is currently the number one social networking site, thrashing one-time social network leader MySpace. A program a guy (Mark Zuckerburg) created in his dorm room for a project has had a phenomenal growth with more than 300 million active users of which 50% log on in any given day and has over 70 language translations. With the aid of some friends, the initial aim was to help students keep in touch over the internet and get to know each other better. Within 24 hours, 1,200 Harvard students had signed up and soon after that the network was quickly extended to other colleges and universities. The site has created a platform for over one million developers and entrepreneurs from more than 180 countries and every month, over 70% of Facebook users engage or connected with many applications as close to 20,000 websites, devices and applications have implemented Facebook Connect since December 2008. Communicating has never been easier and Facebook has become the top social networking site that helps people keep in touch. A duplicate of the Harvard University version of ‘Facemash, ‘Facebook is privately owned by Facebook Inc. Initially meant only for university, companies and high school networking in the year 2006 was available for everyone older than 13 years of age, holding a valid email id. It starts with people reconnecting with friends from the past. Then start adding friends from work and then maybe even their friends. Facebook, launched by the worlds youngest billionaire Mark Zuckerberg, has over 300 million users worldwide, half of whom log on to the site every day. Furthermore, about 2 billion photos and 14 million videos are uploaded on various Facebook pages a month and about 6 billion minutes are spent on Facebook a day, worldwide. According to Willis Wee, founder of the social media, this is twice as much time that people spend on Google.The global socia l networking website allows users to post and share content (like photos, links, videos, and notes), play casual games and applications, and interact with friends and family through messaging and chat. . Further, about 2 billion photos and 14 million videos are uploaded on various Facebook pages a month and about 6 billion minutes are spent on Facebook a day, worldwide. This is twice as much time that people spend on Google.[1] The global social networking website allows users to post and share content (like photos, links, videos, and notes), play casual games and applications, and interact with friends and family through messaging and chat. Facebook has become a great way to find old friends, schedule events, play games and even send virtual gifts. But if somebody doing more living online than off, it might be time to reassess. Millions of individuals worldwide are signing up for friendship through a screen. Half of young people aged eight to 17 have their own profile on a social networking site. With more than 200 million active service users throughout the world, Facebook can be visited at www.facebook.com. This social networking site enables users to join one or more networks t o connect with the members of the same group. While earning so much profits from advertising, this network is available for its members at zero cost. Facebooks banner advertising is served by Microsoft Corporation. Some may argue that since these have become just as much as part of daily life as water coolers and word processing programs, these cannot be said as addictive so much as just another daily life tool in the world of the 21st Century. However, just as infatuation with the relation and immediacy of email and web surfing led to a society concern about Internet Addiction or addictive Internet use, the phenomenon of social networking has left the arena of personal and group networking to a very public and constant arena which allows for strong reinforcement of exhibition. Facebook truly is the power of social networking sites, and it would take time to displace it from its present position. When you first heard about Facebook you probably wondered what the big deal was. Then after dealing with more peer pressure than you have probably encountered since you were a teenager, you finally decided to sign up. Now you find you cant go more than 2 hours without checking for updates. There are some clues that showing Facebook has ruled the habitual activity. First is your everyday conversations with friends are peppered with references to Facebook. Second is Facebook is blocked in your office or campus so you bring your own laptop with your own broadband connection. Thirds is using Facebook Mobile. You surf Facebook even on your phone and when you feel the urge to use it, which is often. Fourth is you receive huge pleasure in showing off your old photos to everyone on your friends list, even if it takes 12 hours for you to scan and upload them. Fifth is you think about your farm or your restaurant games even when youre at work or in a business meeting or campus. Youre more worr ied that your plants will wilt and your food will be spoiled. Sixth is your friends are amazed at your level of progress in Facebook games. Youre the Poker King, master farmer in Farmtown and gourmet queen in Restaurant City. Seventh is Google and Twitter come second in your life. Facebook has reached a point where its more important than work and go to campus. Eighth is youre doing like Miss Facebook Congeniality. You dont really know too well half of your friends in your network. Ninth is you go out of your way to add friends. You adding friend just because you have so many mutual friends which is there are possibility where you dont know who he or she is. Tenth is you update your Facebook status five times a day. Eleventh is you spend 20 minutes thinking of a funny status update. Twelfth is youre excited about your planning trip to Bali or wherever, but youre more excited to showing it all off on Facebook. Thirteenth is you are crazy over Facebook so much, youve even think that y ou was born to love those Facebook ads and apps. Fourteenth is the place where you met your boyfriend or girlfriend. Fifteenth is Facebook chat has replaced Yahoo Messenger and Google Talk in your list. Many people want some evidences about the persuasiveness of Facebook that happen in this globalization era. That is so simple actually, if you have a Facebook account, you already know about the real and imagined friends and online acquaintances, school buddies from the past, ex-spouses, military leaders, even the functionary of the state, all addicted and agree to the power of having a Facebook account presence. The amazing thing is that, like cell phones specially Blackberry, nobody seems to notice or realize the huge amount of time, money and energy whether it is at work, at home, and now while on the move, people are most likely adhere to Facebook. It has become a trend among people. Commercial television features closing credits inviting viewers to follow-up via Facebook or Twitter. Even computer hardware advertise their new small pocket PC product by Facebook or Twitter. More and more links on web pages invite sharing on Facebook or RSS feeds or Twitter, then they are all conne cted. Most people are get crazy over the games in Internet or games contest, or games on Facebook, which is can be addictive. We as college students are under the spell of a new modern culture hysteria: the Facebook. People can make new friends and keep in touch with their alumni or the student who just graduate from the high school. By putting some information on Facebook and wall-to-wall, many people get connected. Facebook started to connecting people from time to time. Many Facebook users recommended this â€Å"Facebook† to another people who were not intended to go to the same high school as Facebook made for. By then, Facebook started to be known as the most popular site that people usually visit every day. Many people from worldwide upload photos and videos to Facebook. Even Facebook beat the Yahoo popularity by enriching the application in it, such as chatting, online games, etc. The most shocking point is that Facebook can earn more than millions dollar a day by uploading pictures, videos and advertising from all over the world. Internet Addiction Disorder is becoming a real problem, the most common one is Facebook Addiction Disorder. This â€Å"Facebook Hysteria† may lead us to F.A.D (Facebook Addiction Disorder). Facebook Addiction Disorder describes it as a situation in which Facebook usage overtakes daily activities like waking up, getting dressed, using the telephone, or checking e-mail. Facebook Addiction Disorder could be classified under the more broad internet addiction disorder or internet overuse. It seems that, not surprisingly, mainstream media (like online and off) has become interested specifically in Facebook Addiction Disorder. There so many symptoms that could mean to a Facebook Addict, such as lose sleep over Facebook, spend more than an hour a day on Facebook, become obsessed with old friends reconnect with, ignore work in favor of Facebook, logging off causes anxiety, need for increasing amounts of time on Facebook to achieve satisfaction, important social activities are reduced and transferred it to Facebook, you check your Facebook page before having your first cup of coffee or even before going to the bathroom in the morning, stopping before you leave the house to inform everyone that you are about to leave the house, you are spending more time changing your status update than actually doing anything worth comment on, you are changing your profile picture every time you change your clothes to keep it recent, every time you take a picture you wonder if it is going to be Facebook worthy, you leave a party early because you cant wait to get all of the pictures you just took up on the computer and tagged , you plan all of your social activities on Facebook instead of using the phone, you get jealous of other peoples plans and feel left out even though you dont personally know them, you feel you might need therapy because someone you barely knew 20 years ago wont accept you as a friend, you purposely try to recruit people you do not even know to up your friends count, you pretend that you are doing some really exciting things so others will find you interesting enough to want to be your friend too, Facebooks bookmark takes long time to scroll from top to bottom or 8 of 10 people in your friends list you dont know who they are, start introducing our self by following see you in Facebook when start to meet new person. Facebook addiction is a problem center is starting to see more of, especially in combination with Internet and gaming addictions. Researchers have reported on some of the research and theory relating to Facebook Addiction Disorder or as known as F.A.D, and have silently observed what appears to be a commercially-pleased wave of cell-phone addiction as distinct from social networking addiction[2]. Actually, there are so many addiction disorders in Internet. First is Facebook Addiction Disorder (FAD). Second is Youtube Addiction Disorder (YAD). Third is Google Search Addiction Disorder (GSAD). Fourth is Widget Addiction Disorder (WAD). Fifth is Twitter Addiction Disorder (TAD). Sixth is Blackberry Addiction Disorder (BAD). Seventh is Mac Addiction Disorder (MAD). But Facebook Addiction Disorder (FAD) appears to be the most adhered and self-reinforcing of all scenarios, reinforcing through shared experience, shared creativity, and the ability to be the complete and total leading of the ones Facebook home page. For some the of the applications seem to be totally compelling for hours on end, for others Facebook is used more like email to keep in touch with a group. It could be sometimes serious, sometimes playful, sometimes simply only sharing whole things in mind. But the fact of how adhering Facebook has become culturally is one which is easy to be missed, because everybodys doi ng it or so it seems. The irony of who is most certainly addicted, as included to homework, relationship, or work avoidance even without such a seductive companion as Facebook, is that nobody may be left to observe or treat this huge behavioral phenomenon, as everybody is too focused on walls and apps and networks and finding old new friends. Facebook can unite people from all over the world. Many people using Facebook to seeking the old friend, making new friends, even to post advertising. Many people are used to visit Facebook website every day, every hour, and every minutes. There will always be new post in our new homepage. People are getting lots of fun by this, that it will be able to make them forget about the things that they used to do. This â€Å"Facebook Addict† has been defected many people all around the world, especially in Indonesia. Facebook can bring benefit from us, but it can also bring bad effect for us if we cant control our self. â€Å"I do not believe that any of us would exchange places with any other people or any other generation. The energy, the faith, the devotion which we bring to this endeavor will light our country and all who serve it. And the glow from that fire can truly light the world. (Inaugural Address, by John F. Kennedy (1961)) The Facebook has become extremely addictive. Many people were addicted to Facebook. They usually forget the things that they used to do before they visit Facebook homepage. There are so many addictive users that should have be warned, like employees, housewives, and children. They should have limitation to visit Facebook homepage. They have their own responsibility when it comes for them to do their duty. Those that may seriously labelled and treat Facebook Addicton Disorder as a behavioral addiction will clearly need to use context in determining if a behavior has become certainly harmful to overall social, work, or interpersonal compatibility. This is one of my friends testimonials about Facebook. She said that she signed onto Facebook in 2006, and when she began, she thought it was just another silly site that she would eventually stop visiting. Perhaps she would forget her password or just not need it at all. Well, she was wrong. As we all know you can get poked which many people have different explanations for it, get listed as a friend, view others profiles or update your own, upload pictures, give a detailed explanation on how and what criteria for you to meet your friends, the list goes on and on and on. Anyone who stops at the Campus Computer Center during lunchtime is definitely and absolutely to see at least two people on the first or lower level on the Facebook. This can be frustrating to those who really need to do things like check their e-mail or bank account. Recently, as discussed in a television show, â€Å"Apa Kabar Indonesia Pagi†, F.A.D or Facebook Addiction Disorder is becoming more infected. It spreads among youth generation and elders as well. The guest speaker of the show says that its not just the hours spent on Facebook that really matters. The games, features and everything in it also. Facebook offers a variety of topic on its groups, its games and its members. As we join, we get in contact with any of this, some good and some bad and we do get some stimulation from this. Those younger than 18 are the ones affected most. They had a hard time differentiating reality from game world, so that thinking of what they do there can be done for real. As the show says, supervision is highly needed for these youngsters and if old enough, pays attention to games life. At times, we live our own life without noticing that our time is being consumed by social networks alone. Many people in the world also complaining and frustrated over Facebook. Here is one story from my friend in High School. The Facebook has become extremely addictive. During mid term, she took an intensive eight hour Japanese course, and before the last day of the course she and her friends were told to get ready to do a debate the next day, without being told specific information on which side we would be debating. Having been told beforehand that the debate would be accounted and worth for 20 percent of their grades, everyone worked hardly the night before to be equipped and ready to debate any possible side of the upcoming debate. The next day, they were given their own sides and were given time until 1:00 p.m in the afternoon to work in the computer lab to do more research to strengthen their positions. They were so panic, especially having less than three hours to prepare for something that accounts more and worth for their grades than anything else. Being in this position, peopl e think everyone would get up to stretch out or have a drink of water before starting. Guess where all the majority of the class went after signing on to their computer accounts? They would say 90 percent went on the Facebook and 5 percent were on AOL Instant Messenger. The worst is that they were on Facebook for at least 20 minutes and they began doing research just to find themselves on the Facebook. It is ridiculous when seeing these people that busy on their Facebook rather than thinking and practicing about their 20 percent accounted grade debate. Many students (and adults) are now seeing Facebook more as an addiction than a networking tool, and psychologists are starting to agree. Students, who have recently observed of taking breaks from homework to take quizzes on what many kinds of other element like lover, animal, serial killer, doctor or rock star one most similar, have already integrated everything from Facebook to texting to I-phones, Blackberry, SMS, and PDA into normal daily life. But there is seems to be a new experience among oldsters and seniors who seem to enjoy the same treats which were intended for college students and then adapted by high school students as well. As with all people are essentially addictive to online activities, people constantly change in their involvement, some periodically checking in to stay in touch, others checking once or twice a day, as an addition information or notifications to phone and e-mail checking, and some are seem to spending quite big portions of time in activities which mi ght be called creative, self-expressing, competitive, or purely social. Certainly, different age groups especially teenagers or students focus on different important activities. Students often sharing their miseries about assignments or gossip about peers, as well as creative videos and self-revealing photos or quiz results. Some students checking in occasionally or only when notified of incoming messages to inbox or wall, but still others are variously posting multiple messages every day relating to habitual daily life activities, or quiz results, or feeling states on Facebook of the moment. One of the ironies is that the smart people who might otherwise be working with people professionally to treat addictions, social isolation, and many more, seem to be anyone else among the most active Facebookers. Employees who work in office often using Facebook during working hours. It is not forbidden for the employees to do so, but they should have a big responsibility also to make a priority for their job. They often out of focus when doing their job. They were so focus on their Facebook that they forget about their duty. The government policy now forbid the existence of Facebook users during working hours. Facebook addiction is costing businesses  £123m each day. Facebook addicts are costing firms at least  £132 million every day in lost productivity. Researchers say the Facebook hysteria is already costing employers  £30.8billion per year and the site is expected to grow ever more popular.[3] Company has revealed the results of a new survey to examine the potential produ ctivity for businesses that allow their employees to access Facebook during office hours. The result shows that almost 50 percent people who work in the office, visit Facebook twice a day during working hours. Each time they visit their Facebook account, it takes them more than 3 hours busy on their Facebook rather than their job. The government have mentioned recently that workers should be given time to use social networking websites such as Facebook in their office. Local companies have banned workers from accessing the site during working hours. Employers fear Facebook is damaging workers productivity. Admittedly, some of the professionals in office hours used to spend their time working on their online games, or knowing who is the best at Bejeweled Blitz and these are often mental health professionals who assumedly spend at least some time off of Facebook, and might be able to absent for a day or two without permission. The most shocking point is that even professionals cannot maintain their working hours, I do speak with adult professionals who say they cannot imagine a period of one whole day or less without checking ones social world via Facebook. One told me it would be like life stopped. Facebook has enabled addicts seem to be busy on the availability of apps, whether self-oriented quizzes or game-playing or being at the center or core of nonstop social opportunity. Like the Internet generally, Facebook has it all, but in a convenient package all in one master home page. Many people have so influenced that Facebook is a part of normal life. We can still hearing people saying â€Å"I woke up in the morning and check out my Facebook†. That habbit has overtaken the peoples usually do like waking up, getting dressed, and finding or checking the cell phone which is that it has become as much as part of the invisible decoration of normal daily life as using the telephone or checking email. For better and worse, like many Internet tools, this can be both an opportunity and challenge, and for many employees it is easy to strike a perfect truancy at work. For many people especially those who not already invested and addicted in maintaining personal homepages, blogs, photo-sharing collections, IM networks, Facebook offers the perfect menu of opportunity. It may be similar to the proverbs like the kid in the candy store who cannot turn away from every temptation in sight, for hours of time supposedly spent on work, homework, housework, or relationship wo rk, who may have a problem. It is when one person cannot leave the continuous activation or reinforcement of a daily or hourly or constantly activity that one may assess it has become a problem. For others, its a wonderful activity like Facebook-ing available whenever one person is in the mood for hanging out with friends online or checking in without the need to do so on a constant and urgent basis. The situation can lead them to depositions from the office, they can lose their job if this is keep happening. It is so pathetic to see those people who we thought they were working behind their computer but the fact is that they were busy with their Facebook. Many companies are now aware that Facebook brings with it a series of security concerns, particularly the risk of employees revealing sensitive or confidential information to the wider world. When combined with the threat of an accompanying productivity decline, they may well decide that social-networking at work is simply more trouble than its worth. In modern life, the appeal of social networking sites to children is easy to understand. As many parents now consider playing outside too dangerous, a child confined to the home can find at the keyboard the kind of freedom of interaction. Facebook can be ruined our time management also. Children are the must-concerned case nowadays. They visit their Facebook homepage every day that it will reduce their time to study. Facebook stands as a revolutionary way for friends to stay in touch, regardless and no matter what of the age. It also stands as being highly addictive to adults and children alike, according to psychologists. If we think children is spending too much time on Facebook to the exclusion of their real life, we may be wondering what we could do to prevent it. It can also lead somebody to be a procrastinator by putting off doing things which it can damage our time management skills. It can bring bad effect not only for the result of the work, but also for the future of the employee itself. The majority of people in the world have Facebook accounts, and if the Facebook progresses and adds cool features like be able to add video to our profiles or, iTunes collaborated, most of us will need a break just to function normally. Along with television, instant messaging, and the daily jokes, people could conclude that the Facebook is the biggest far procrastination tool against college students. Many newsletters have been warned many people by reporting case by case that caused by â€Å"Facebook Addict†. Domesticity is also affected by Facebook Addiction. Spouse separation is a common thing that happens in this life, but it is not common until that separation is caused by Facebook. Facebook status which can be updated anytime and based on that persons mood can also ruin relationship between this spouse. It is surely that everybody is all aware by now, Facebook, when it is used recklessly, can get you into trouble. Firings, break-ups and general crime are no strangers to the social networking site. But Facebook trouble can be much more horrifying than all that. Take a look behind the break and catch a glimpse of Facebooks dark criminal. Facebook has so many users from all over the world. Each users have their own password to protect their privacy on their account. We cant look at someones homepage without knowing their password. We cant even look at their message without logging in to their protected homepage. Sending any personal info or incriminating pictures to someone on Facebook is a huge mistake for many reasons. One of the worst possible outcomes is getting blackmailed for money, sex, or, well, anything these sickness of dream up. It is happening whether theyre using a fake profile or not, its a horrible idea. Read up on the story of an 18-year-old who blackmailed 31 male classmates after he posed as a girl and asked for nude pictures. Thats give us lesson enough to not blackmailed. Cyber crime can be happened anytime in Facebook without knowing who has done it. Privacy policy is strongly implemented in Facebook except we know how to hack it. Many cyber crimes happen in Facebook as it has become the most popular website that people are common to visit it every day. Yet, privacy doesnt guarantee us to slip away from cyber crime. It can be also surely harmless to imitating a celeb online or create a fake profile for a movie character. But seriously, theres a definite line or limit that you shouldnt have crossed when pretending to be someone else and it can lead to several consequences for you. Social networking sites has been blamed for a lot of things, fair or unfair, but in my opinion, the worst offense has been their indirect involvement in suicides. Obviously, there are a lot of factors responsible in each case, but there is seem to be links between social networking and suicides. A man killed his wife just because of a posting that she made on the site. The m an has been jailed for life for stabing and sending his wife to death just because she changed her online profile to â€Å"single† days after he had moved out. It sounds really funny and impossible, but it is real and its happening. The news has reported that there is a man on wanted by Indonesian Police Force because he deceived people by his crime case. He was found in his guilty by updating his status on Facebook whereas people will notice that it is him. Facebook inbox can also fully loaded of junk mail. Many advertising or some unimportant mails were received in the inbox. Facebook also send us a notification in the e-mail inbox to inform us that notification. Some people consider it as a junk mail also. This is not so important to send it to e-mail inbox, as it can be seen when the users visit their homepage. Facebook is not only give bad effect for the users. Of course, there are so many benefit from Facebook. Advertising in Facebook is a common thing that occurred in every users homepage or profile. Facebook also provide some columns for advertising to advertise some products in the website. There are so many kinds of advertising in Facebook. It is always shown in the right side of the homepage. Facebook can also make a good media for advertising company to post their ads. It is saving money to post ads in Facebook. They have so many ways of advertising. Many people advertise their products by creating new account or group from users, so they can visit the ads profile every time they logging in. it doesnt cost a lot of money, they just have to spend money for the internet pulse. Facebook is a good strategy for advertising. Trillions of people in the world know Facebook, even they have made Facebook as their first homepage every time they log in. If the ads is already posted, the users from all over the world are automatically will see the ads. It is not only saving money, but also a good strategy for advertising media. By post advertising in Facebook, it can also saving time. It is an efficient and effective way to post an advertising. Many people get busy and complicated when it is time for them to advertise a product. They have to cooperate with some advertising media and company which can take lots of time and money by doing it. Advertising in Facebook doesnt need to do so, cause all we have to do is upload the ads and just pay the internet bills per kilo byte to post the ads. So, it is an efficient and effective way to maintain time management. If you are not already making use of Facebook as a method of marketing your business or niche marketing, then we are absolutely miss out on a great opportunity to reach out to hundreds and millions of active users. Today, Facebook has become one of the most popular online social networking websites, making it a quite untouched network for traffic and business. People spend a great amount of time online on the Facebook website looking to make new friends, interact and get connected with people, play games and interact within interest groups. When you make it possible for our advertising message to travel to these people through Facebook, we will absolutely see a big chance in the amount of website traffic that we attract with, and we will also see more members, more subscriptions, more sales and more inquiries as well. Here are three of the possible ways for us to advertise your business, product or service through Facebook social networking. First is Social Ads on Facebook. This is one of the most straight forward ways that we can promote yourself on Facebook. We can use social ads to target people based on a number of different functions including age group, gender and interest for example. By targeting our ads in this manner, we can increase our product interest, which is our click through rate. This will give us more visitors to our site and also an increase in the number of customers that we are able to attract. Make sure to throw a picture up in our ads because ads with images capture more attention and tend to attract more clicks as well. Second is Groups and Pages on Facebook. We can create groups and pages for our business, company or website on Facebook, and then we can get people to become a fan of our page or to join our group. Use the invite function for groups to get all of our friends to join, or tell our friends about our page so that they can become a fan. Both pages and groups are two excellent channels that we can use to gather more potential customers as well to build more brand awarene

Quality and Systems Management in McDonalds

Quality and Systems Management in McDonalds McDonalds, as we all know is the worlds largest chain of fast food suppliers. The business began in 1940, with a small restaurant Bar B Que run by two brothers Dick and Mac McDonald in California. It was a drive way restaurant which served a limited menu of burgers, fries etc. Mr. Ray Kroc, a paper cup and multi-mixer salesman got an order of multi-mixer from the McDonald brothers. He was impressed by the organization of the restaurant and came up with the idea of McDonalds Corporation, which was founded in 1955 by Mr. Ray Kroc. The first McDonalds was opened on April 15, 1955 in Illinois. By 1960, he bought the exclusive rights to the name McDonalds. And by 1965, there were 700 restaurants throughout United States. It was the first time that McDonalds shares went public at $22.50 per share. McDonalds opened the first international restaurant in Canada in 1967. In 1974 McDonalds opened its first restaurant in the UK. Today, it has a chain of restaurants in 118 countries around the world. It celebrated its 50th anniversary on 15th April, 2005. Philosophy Mr. Kroc had the vision of creating a restaurant system, known for its consistency and quality of food. To achieve this, he needed his franchisees and suppliers to work with McDonalds and not for McDonalds. He promoted the slogan, In business for yourself, but not by yourself. He encouraged entrepreneurship as much as the commitment to his visions. This has led to the introduction of many new products into the supply chain, most of which were the contributions of franchisees. If I had a brick for every time Ive repeated the phrase Quality, Service, Cleanliness and Value, I think Id probably be able to bridge the Atlantic Ocean with them. -Ray Kroc. This very well illustrates the significance of these four aspects in the excellent execution of the restaurant services at McDonalds. The quality and cleanliness is unparalleled. But, what is unique in this restaurant chain that has travelled past 50 years and emerged as a market leader and promises to continue the same. Business Model McDonalds business runs on 3 pillars: The suppliers The franchisees The McDonalds corporation itself The business model that the organization follows is Franchisee Model. The company provides training to the prospective franchisees and operators regarding the ways a McDonalds is run. There is a Research and Development Lab that provides facilities for all trainees to experiment in cooking. McDonalds as a company owns only 15% of the restaurants. The remaining 85% are taken care by the franchisees. There are stringent policies of monitoring the franchisees to assure that they are adhering to the McDonalds promises of Quality, Cleanliness, Service and Value offered to its customers. The Product Consistency across all the outlets is guaranteed by a supplier networked operation and distribution system. This has resulted in consistency not only across the restaurants in a region but worldwide. The brand building mechanism of McDonalds is not to cater the needs of the current market demand, but also ensures the brand value in years to come. The organization ensures that the promises to the customers are not compromised which ensures repeat business. Operations Management It is considered to be the management of an organization capable of transforming an input to output. This transformation is performed by following a particular process. The transformation can be applied to different categories based on the nature of the business. The three main categories being materials, customers and information. Most of the organizations rely on a combination of these. However, in this particular example, the input is the raw materials going into the making of any of the eatables in the restaurant. The process is the conversion of these products to deliverables. These processes are repetitive throughout the organization except for the minor changes resulting due to an introduction of a new recipe which, at a later point of time, become repetitive. The output is the finished eatable that is been supplied to an end user, here the customer. Strategies of Operations Management Operations management plays a very significant role in the building up of any organization. The Operations, when put into place, help the organization achieve its basic goals. It is well established by the Potters value chain model. Value is the amount the byers are willing to pay for what an organization provides them . . . creating value for buyers that exceeds the cost of doing so is the goal of any generic strategy. Value, instead of cost, must be used in analyzing the competitive position. . . Potter M. (1985) According to Potters analysis, the value chains consist of basically two activities, viz. primary activities and support activities. The Primary activities are Inbound Logistics Operations Outbound Logistics Marketing and Sales Service The Support activities are Procurement Technology and Development Human Resource Management Organization Infrastructure Further, the operations management is not constrained to value addition task alone. It is a process of Planning, Organizing and Controlling of the operations to ensure that the customer satisfaction is achieved. Planning and Control Planning is the major step in Operations management. Planning helps serve many objectives that can contribute to the profit of an organization. Proper planning helps reduce the cost of the production. This is achieved because proper measures are taken to ensure availability of raw materials at reasonable cost even in bleak periods, hence avoiding a stall in the production scenario. Moreover, proper planning also takes care of measures to avoid excess production. There is a better control of the cash flow, which can be the expenses incurred and future investment of the profit earned. Moreover, the planning strategies will also help make proper use of available resources, raw materials as well as human resources. It also mitigates the causes of dissatisfaction among the employees at times of unexpected workload and among the customers at times of unexpected delay in the services. Any organization would perform to the best of its abilities when the planning is proper and the plans are put into action as well as process control systems are enforced to make sure that the system is running as per the planned schedule. The control can be implemented by system or manually monitored by people. It does not matter as long as the processes are being followed without fail. The process is monitored meticulously and the reports are created for every output produced. In the case of our example, the reports would be the profit and the customer feedbacks obtained. These reports are analyzed to detect the deviation from the expected outcome. If the deviations are trivial, corrective measures are taken at the franchisee level. If the deviations are significant, corrective measures are incorporated at an organizational level. The challenge for fast food joints like McDonalds in structuring their strategies are better ways to provide variety of end products to the consumers in large quantities, at the same time maintaining the quality and value of the product and keeping it cost effective. Performance Measures Since the fast food joint McDonalds has a global presence, the competitive priorities can be analyzed on the following parameters. Cost Quality Delivery Flexibility Service Cost Any customer of a fast food joint has various options to choose from. This leads to tuff competition for an organization. The cost is sometimes the major factor influencing a customer choice. The customer in most cases wont be able to distinguish the difference in the cost of the commodities put together to produce the end product. So, the organization needs to make sure that the cost of the end product is lucrative for any prospective customer. Quality The product quality also plays a significant role in customer satisfaction. Low cost ensures initial customer flow, but low cost put together with superior quality ensures repeat business. The quality of product is an impact of the quality in process. The process quality is significant as it takes care of delivering product to the customers worldwide having a uniform taste and quality. This is very important for fast food joints as their taste is expected by the customers at various geographic locations to be same. Delivery Another major significant priority is the speed of delivery. Most of the customers going to a fast food joint are expected to be short on time. Hence, they would prefer places which have the fastest customer service even at peak load times, like lunch time. But even with the best processes in place, there can be delays due to unanticipated circumstances. McDonalds has schemes in place to avoid customer dissatisfaction on such uncommon situations. They offer the ordered items for free in case of delay beyond a threshold time. Some joints provide additional items free of cost too. Flexibility Flexibility can be the variety of products provided to the customer. Since during a peak time, there would be far too many customers ordering a variety of items, the supply chain is well organized to cater to the requirement of each and every customer in the least time possible. Moreover, it also requires the organization to adapt to the changing demands of the customers, which may vary based on basically the geographical locations. McDonalds is dominantly a fast food joint which specializes in beef and pork varieties, but they have a wide range of menu for the Asian customers, where vegetarian and chicken recipes are more in demand. Service Since fast food joints are a service oriented industry where in business depends not only on the above mentioned factors, but to a large extend on the customer interaction. The customer service employees, who are responsible for interacting with the customers while taking orders and delivering them, undergo a proper training before being assigned the job. This gives an advantage over the competitors as customers tend to prefer joints having better customer services. Along with all of these strategies, the competitive nature of the global fast food market requires the organization to keep on innovating new products to lure various ranges of customers. McDonalds has in place various product packages that cater to the needs of customers of various age groups. The ranges include the inclusion of HappyMeal option for kids which include toys from the latest animation movies along with food for the kids. Quality Customer satisfaction is the key to success for any fast food joint. According to David Garvin of Harvard Business School, quality is defined as transcendent, product based, user based, manufacturing based or value based .Based on these five definitions, Garvin(1984) compiled together eight quality dimensions which are as follows . Performance Features Reliability Conformance Durability Serviceability Aesthetics Perceived Quality With respect to our example of fast food joint McDonalds, only a few of these are significant. They are as follows Conformance This is one of the major concerns of a product developed by any organization that it should conform to some pre defined standards that are expected for that particular range of product. The fast food joints are expected to conform to the food quality norms and nutritious value. Performance Performance is the measure of how efficient a product is to perform its intended purpose. In case of fast food, the objective is to relieve a customer of hunger and provide the necessary nutrition to the body. The better the performance of a food item in this respect, the more is the demand for that particular item. Features These are the additions to the product that can enhance its performance. The addition of accessories in electronic equipment can enhance its performance. Similarly, fast food joints provide a wide range of additional products like soft drinks, sweets, coffee etc. along with the burgers which fetch more revenue as well as result in the increased service quality and performance. Some of the food packages include additional items like toys etc. that further result in rich features. Reliability Reliability is the property of achieving customer trust. A customer should be able to rely on a product for its consistency across various geographic locations. This is crucial for fast food joints as a person travelling to an unknown place around the globe would be more tempted to walk in to a familiar food joint and hence would expect the same taste and quality that he is used to in his own country or region. This leads to an increase in global business by catering to regular customers. Aesthetics It is the biggest concern for any organization dealing with food and drink market. Its the subjective sensory characteristic. There are a lot of competitors in a fast food business. The customers along with the nutrition and value for money also care for the aesthetic value of the delivered products. These may be the taste, look and feel etc. This may also be the ambience in the fast food joint. The customer prefers a place where he finds a good combination of all the above concerns. A very nutritious burger in a shabby wrapping wont be popular among the customers on the contrary vice versa can be a market leader. The Sand Cone Model Cost Efficiency Speed Dependability Quality An Operations Management Competence Model Slack et al (2008) Quality improvement methodologies Improving the product quality is an evolving process in any business organization irrespective of the domain or range of product it deals with. A variety of norms and paradigms are in place to monitor the Quality improvement processes. Total Quality Control (TQC) Total Control Quality is the philosophy of continual improvement in the quality. Its based on the adherence to the 5 Ss that are a sequential process that organizations follow to ensure that result in high quality processes and in turn high quality products. According to Ramasamy(2005) The 5 Ss are Seiri This is the organization by getting rid of unnecessary items. These may include a wide range of objects. The cleaning up of the old files and records in one of them. The old machineries which no longer give optimal results can be discarded or replaced with new one. The machineries may include cutting instruments, baking ovens etc. The constraint for removing the machineries and tools is the once that have been unused for past 2 3 years. However, the organization can override these constraints based on their domain and requirements. Seiton Its the cleanliness as a result of performing a Seiri. In case of a fast food joint, keeping the area neat is extremely important as it concerns not only the aesthetics but also hygienic issues of prospective customers. Food outlets need to be well cleaned and maintained so. Seiso The equipment and plant where the production happens should be clean to avoid dirt and resultant obscure problems. In case of fast food joints, the plants where the raw materials for making the food items, the farms from where the vegetables and poultry are being used etc. must be scrutinized to make sure that there is no compromise on the quality of the products used. Moreover, the kitchen in which the food is made should be cleaned. The food items should not at any point of time be touched by bare hands unless it reaches the customer. All these ensure that the food is safe and free from any germs or disease carriers. Seiketsu Standardizing the locations of all the items is another way of enhancing quality. The places of raw material in the kitchen needs to be standardized in order to facilitate fast assembling of various items and hence reduce the time of delivery. Moreover, the cash counter has a well-organized cash box which facilitates easy and faster transactions as it becomes easier for the employees to return the change to the customers. Shetsuke It is the disciplined way in which the above four Ss are implemented and adhered to in any organizations. This doesnt only include the management to take care of the enforcement of these rules. The responsibility lies with each and every employee be actively involved in ensuring that the quality processes are followed. The three Universal Processes of Managing for Quality THE JURAN TRIOLOGY DIAGRAM Quality Planning Quality Control Quality Improvement Determine who are the customers Evaluate actual product performance Establish the infrastructure Determine the needs of the customer Compare actual performance to product goals Identify the improvement projects Develop product features that respond to customers needs Act on the difference Establish project teams Develop process able to produce the product features Provide the teams with resources, training and motivation to : Diagnose the cause Stimulate Remedies Establish controls to hold the gains Transfer the plans to the Operating force Copyright  © 1989 by Juran Institute Inc There are many standards in place to ensure that Quality norms are followed. But, these policies seem useless unless there is proper and timely audit for the same. The Quality audit processes would require a team of quality experts to evaluate each and every process for its quality. The above table gives an overview of all the quality planning, control and improvement strategies. According to Summers (2009), the various standards and criteria that exist globally to support effective quality management systems are: ISO 9000 International Organization for Standardization has representatives from the national standardization bodies of over 90 countries. The main objective is to satisfy customer by quality assurance and increase the level of confidence of a customer in an organization. A company can audit itself to gain this particular internal certification. The customers can audit an organization against the set of standards for second party certification. ISO 14000 This is an extension of ISO Standards regarding environmental issues. The organizations are evaluated for environment protection and pollution prevention. These are followed by organizations to reduce negative impact on the environment. The organizations can implement various strategies to achieve this. Like, providing bio degradable wrappers and glasses instead of using plastics. SIX SIGMA The goal of this process is to reduce the process variation to the point where there are only 3.4 defects per million opportunities. This is especially significant for industries whose business involves mass production. Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award (MBQNA) This is another evaluation process which was designed by consulting lots of experts. The main evaluation dimensions are The soundness of the system. The deployment of the system across the organization. The outcome of the deployment. Organizational Performance If you dont drive your business, you would be driven out of business. B. C. Forbes. This is the basic principle of business in todays world. The business world is very competitive and doesnt leave room for compromise on any of the aspects of business, be it, Quantity, Quality, Operations Management, Process Management etc. The responsibility of a successful business lies with each and every employee, as was the theory of Ray Kroc, which led him to implement the franchisee business model. But, implementing alone would not ensure adherence. Adherence can be assured only when measured. Measures literally mean dimensions or capacity of anything. For an organization, the performance has to be measured as well as recognized and rewarded. The performance can be measured for employees, processes, services, suppliers etc. Any parameter that plays a significant part of the organization needs to be measured against certain standards to ensure quality. Measures of good performance The performance of the processes in place can be measured on the basis of certain parameters like expenses, income, quality, throughput, delivery time, safety, cleanliness etc. In a fast food joint like McDonalds, the service time to the customer is a major concern. This can be ensured only if the production time for the food in the kitchen is well defined. Any delay in the production time would delay delivery to the customer hence violating the standards. So, standard time constraints need to be put in place. Moreover, the cleanliness is important as its a matter of hygiene. The quality of food depends a lot on the incoming raw materials like flour, vegetables, fruits, poultry, oils used etc. All these have to be of superior quality for the proper working of the organization. The organizational results performance measures are focused on the strategic interests of the organization. The results involve both the organization and customers equally. The customer satisfaction is one of the measures, which can be measured by the amount of repeat business and the number of customers per day. All satisfied customers tend to recommend the organization to their friends hence increasing the business. The performance measure with respect to the organization can be based on its annual financial results, quarterly financial results, deviation of these results from the predicted results, the profits etc. The organizational performance can be measured also by the brand value generated by the organization. The measures discussed so far were materialistic, but its the human resources that make a service oriented organization like McDonalds achieve its objectives. There are measures to monitor the efficiency and performance of these human resources. This can be done yearly or half yearly in the form of appraisals. The employees can be rated based on performance. The excellent performers should be rewarded to encourage them to keep up the work and also motivate the rest of the employees to perform better. The extremely poor performers should be given proper mentoring to help them perform better. The internal process measures are meant to measure the effectiveness and efficiency of the plans and processes that are incorporated inside the organization. The Learning and Growth measures are focused on the growth and well being of the human resource i.e. the employees. It also encourages innovations, in case of McDonalds, the innovation of new recipes in the RD department by the franchisees. Financial measures are put in place to analyze the business progress of the organization world-wide in the context of the monetary gains or profits. These performance measures are used by the organization leaders to analyze and review the existing strategies, plans and processes, and make changes if necessary to improve the present conditions. The quality management systems and Six Sigma are used by organizations to ensure that the organization is moving towards progress in business by balancing the cost, quality and availability of products to the customer satisfaction. Conclusion For any fast food joint, in this case McDonalds, to be a success, the first principle should be Customer is the King. A service oriented industry can flourish only by providing the best customer service in the least possible time. But, service is not the only factor. The quality of the products delivered must be hygienic and nutritious so as to serve their purposes. The competition is fast food industry is on an all time high, so the cost along with the quality would be a deciding factor for the customer. An organizations success doesnt rest in the managements hands. The responsibility lies with each and every employee and franchisee. The employee has to work for the organization as their own. The process of the organization has to be adhered to. This measure of these adherences and changes in the organizational strategies according to the requirements would lead to better business. The organizational leaders should not only Implement policies but also incorporate performance measure exercises to ensure that the processes are being adhered to.