Business finance Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Business finance - Essay Example The nickel dealing of Anglo American plc comprises of two major procedures: in Brazil it is Codemin and in Venezuela it is Loma de Niquel. In May 2010, the company declared the sale of few French construction materials production. The Sector of the company is Basic Materials and the Industry is Industrial Metals & Minerals. The company has more than 50,000 Employees. In 2010 as well as start of 2011 the company experienced a burly restoration on the support of progressively increasing stipulate and superior prices for all of the commodities in the company’s diversified portfolio. Anglo American plc‘s clear policy of paying attention on seven means commodities, lashing cost lessening, protected operations and functioning leading industry presentation is being done productively, with all its businesses going down their industry cost structures. This was consequence by a sturdy set of operating outcome. The operating profit of group surged by harshly to $10 billion, which w as $5 billion in 2009, on the same time cash flow from operations (CFO) enhanced from $4 billion to $7 billion. Industrial Metals & Minerals is a major sector in the U.K. economy. I selected to keep Anglo American plc in my portfolio because if performed very well in the last two to three years. Net income and CFO is remarkably marvelous and good. One more thing the demand of commodities in the recent past is risen above. Gold as well as silver mount up. In these scenarios Anglo American plc was a considerable candidate to keep the company in my portfolio. Its price was 3347 pounds when I purchased it. Over the time period of investment from 11 February to 8 April 2011 the company performance remained in slightly loss of 3 pound per stock. I bought 54 stocks of Anglo American plc which closed at 3344 pounds at the end of the trading day of 8 April 2011. Carnival Corporation & plc is the leading and financially stable cruise corporation among the biggest and most gainful vacation cor porations around the globe. The mission of the Carnival Corporation & plc is to distribute outstanding vacation experiences from beginning to end lots of of the world’s popular journey brands that provide to a diversity of dissimilar geographic areas and way of life, every single one at an exceptional worth unrivalled on land or at ocean.Carnival Corporation & plc‘s collection of cruise brands is all around the globe including in Europe, North America, Australia and in Asia. The main popular brands of the company are Carnival Cruise Lines, Princess Cruises, Holland America Line. These brands functions 100 ships adding more than 191,000 lower berths with 10 new ships planned to be served between March 2011 t0 May 2014. The company traded on equally the New York stock exchange as well as in London Stock Exchanges, Carnival Corporation & plc is the barely grouping in the globe to be incorporated in together the indices of S&P 500 and the FTSE 100. The Sector of the company is consumer goods and the Industry is recreational goods. The company has more than 80,000 workers. Today, the recognition of the Carnival Corporation & plc and business feasibility are contingent on being apparent and sustainable. This implies given that fulfilling vacations while care the valued guests safe and sound, budding our personnel, and escalation relations with all the stakeholder dealings. Recreational goods are a key sector in the U.K. economy as well as growing

Pedagogical Strategy Using the Harry Potter Books Research Paper

Pedagogical Strategy Using the Harry Potter Books - Research Paper Example According to the research findings, it can, therefore, be said that making the curriculum conducive for inculcating the interest in the students of elementary age has always come as a big challenge to the educationalists. â€Å"Culturally responsive teaching implies using cooperative learning methods and strategies to discover the student's worlds and incorporate them into the world of the classroom†. The interest a child takes in his/her studies in the elementary age plays a decisive role in his/her current and future academic performance, and his/her professional career in the long run. On the other hand, children are least sincere about their studies in the elementary school because they are too little, or perhaps more rightly, too immature to conceive the importance of education in their life. In order to generate a competent workforce to serve in the market and industry in the future, measures need to be taken today, to raise children’s interest in their studies wh en they are in the very early years of their academic career. One way to achieve this is by making the elementary education compliant with the standards, norms, and culture of Hogwarts School as portrayed in the Harry Potter series. â€Å"When inculcated in the fundamental educational system, educational and other standards of Hogwarts School will raise children’s interest in all of their subjects and school in general, and English literature in particular.† Children studying in one educational level like 1st grade or 2nd grade are distributed between sections of the same class as per the seniority of registration or any other criteria. Unfortunately, the conventional sorting processes are unwatchful of a child’s association with his/her friends of his/her own age, and the friends get distributed in separate sections. This happens to be one of the reasons why children lose interest in studies.

Cronulla Riots Essay Example for Free

Cronulla Riots Essay The beachside suburb, known by residents as Gods Country, saw the spread of violence in a series of ethnically motivated confrontations in the week of December 11th 2005. This day saw the gathering of nearly 5000 people, most of Anglo Celtic background, some locals, some from other Sydney beachside suburbs such as Maroubra and Brighton, in order to reclaim the beach after two middle eastern youths attacked Cronulla lifesavers earlier in the week. The notification of the gathering was sent via mobile text to people all around Sydney, inviting them to join in the fight for Australians right to reclaim their beaches. Violence broke out due to a combination of mob mentality and alcohol and many ethnic individuals were attacked and assaulted. Signs and t-shirts read discriminatory sayings such as Fuck Allah, Save Nulla, Love it or Leave it, Wog Free Zone and We grew here, you flew here. The following nights saw incidents of retaliatory violence and vandalism by those of Middle Eastern decent; throughout Sydney, and from Wollongong to Newcastle protests of both sides were present. Police locked-down areas of Sydney including Western Sydney, guarding those who were to enter and leave and searched cars and checked identification for those entering the Sutherland Shire area to avoid the occurrence of further incidents. The fight divided many of Sydney, and called for Australians to address their notions of the identity of Australians or more specifically, what is to be Australian? the community was shock to see such violence in a quiet neighbourhood.

The History Of Service Management Marketing Essay

The History Of Service Management Marketing Essay Conduct a critique of the following service management ideas, theories, concepts and techniques, specifically with reference to their purpose, application and limitations and with regard to how these service management ideas, theories and techniques may contribute to the development of a successful business: Definition: The nature of the business the service in mind that the organisation wishes to create. The service concept helps the organisation focus on the value that it can provide to new and existing customers 2.1 The Purpose of the service concept The service concept can be defined into 4 parts (as defined by Clark et al. (2000), and Johnston and Clark (2001): The organising idea: The essence of the service bought, or used, by the customer. The service experience: The customers direct experience of the service process, which concerns the way the service provider deals with the customer. The service outcome: The result for the customer of the service (in particular the benefit provided, the resulting emotions and assessment of value for money) The value of the service: the benefits the customer perceives as inherent in the service weighed against the cost of the service. The purpose of the service concept is for a company to help provide a concept for its employees and customers with what they selling and buying, respectively. It should give the employees (e.g. Managers and their staff) a focus on what service they are providing and how to provide it to the customers. By defining the service concept, companies are able to deliver a higher level of service to its customer. Also, the service concept can become an important in the development of a business and further re-designing the service, to better suit their customers requirements. It is also an important element between the business strategy and delivery of its service products e.g. between a Regional Manager deciding the strategy and the floor staff implanting the service, with the strategy. An important point to make is that the service concept can help show the customers the benefits of the service to them, both tangible and intangible, which in turn can indicate the overall value of the service possibly provided to them. 2.2 Application I am going to apply the service concept to Subway. The organising idea Providing its customers with sandwiches and meals, with a quick service and value for money. The service experience Multiple choices of meals, multiple food outlets, long queue/waiting times around meals times e.g. lunchtime, efficient service The service outcome Healthy food, positive feeling of fulfilment, value for money Value of the service Quick service, with a cheap meal for the customer 2.3 Limitations One limitations of the applying the service concept within a business is that different sectors or departments of the business will have different and conflicting views, especially on how to make improvements. For example, a financial executive of McDonalds might suggest that to cut costs that they should cut down on staff. However, the managers of the actual stores might go against that suggestion, and say that the service to the customer would suffer if they had less staff. Different departments of the business are concerned about different issues and as a result applying a service concept that everyone is happy with is not possible. Another limitation of the service concept theory is that it include service strategy issues e.g. the positioning of the business in the market with its competitors and type of customers that the business has. This can have a big effect on how a business decides on its strategy, and sometimes cannot be applied to all businesses. One more limitation is that the service concept theory is based on (or parts of) a business being profitable, which is not always the case with all business. For example, with a car hire company, the sales sector is based on how many revenue and profit is made, whereas the warranty/repair sector is a cost-based, and cannot be measured on the performance on how much profit is made. To add this point, not all businesses are about making profit. Some businesses/organisations are about non-profit, so it can be hard to measure the successful of the change is the service concept, if the measures were based on profit. Concept Profiling Tool 3.1 Purpose of Concept Profiling Tool Service concept profiling as a strategic tool can be used to: Help create and give organisational structure Help (assess) the significance of a potential change of the service To push for strategic advantage The purpose of service concept profiling is to apply service concept to the business and help improve its services e.g. It can help managers and executives view their business in a new way to be stand out from it competitors. Through service concept profiling, a business can examine its current service(s) that it offers and look at the possible options for changes and see what improvements can be made, or redesign the service. Once the service concept has been agreed, it can help provide all departments/sectors of a business guidance on what the service is offering, and how to make those improvements to provide the customers of the business with a better service. An important part with applying the service concept is implementing the strategy into the service delivery e.g. interaction with the customer. Lastly, assessments and evaluation are needed to put in place to measure the successfulness of the new service concept compared to previous results. Application Limitations One limitation of the service concept profiling tool is that just a diagnostic tool. One issue is that it doesnt take into the macroeconomic environment. For example, one part of the macroeconomic environment is legal factors. A service company like Starbucks might find it hard to use and adapt a new service concept, which involves needing to employee more staff, if new laws have been passed which have raised the minimum wage, it can affect the costs of the these new staff, and ultimately affect whether it possible to apply the service concept profiling tool, with the extra costs. The SERVQUAL Model 4.1 The purpose of the SERVQUAL Model The purpose of the SERVQUAL model is a method for measuring service quality. It is a strategic tool, which helps discover if there is any gaps between the perceptions of the service offered, by the business, and that of the customer idea or views of the service. Below is the SERVQUAL Model: C:UsersAlex ThimayaDesktoppicture_zeithaml_servqual_gaps_model.gif 4.2 Application 4.3 Limitations

Canterbury Tales - Wife of Bath :: essays papers

Canterbury Tales - Wife of Bath â€Å"The Prologue to the Canterbury Tales† had numerous unique characters, but the Wife of Bath struck me as the most interesting personality. Through the narrator’s use of direct and indirect characterization, significant details, and motivations for actions I was able to analyze the distinct traits of â€Å"the worthy woman from beside Bath city.† The narrator was very successful in portraying the wife. The wealth of the wife was distinct. â€Å"Her hose of finest scarlet red† shows the fortune she possesses. The wife also had enough fortune to travel to the most important shrines in Italy, France, Spain, and Germany. The narrator’s described her appearance well. â€Å"Bold was her face, handsome, and red in hue† allows the reader to picture the wife as an attractive woman of her time. The middle-aged woman had impressive large hips and â€Å"gap-teeth† which express lust. Her corpulent figure was a very favorable aspect of the time; it indicated wealth and beauty. â€Å"She’d had five husbands, all at the Church door† allows the reader to grasp much about the wife. Having five husbands shows that she is sociable and interested in love and marriage. Her experiences with marriage allow her to be very knowledgeable of love, which is â€Å"an art in which she knew the oldest dances.† â€Å"†¦ All at the Church door† shows her devotion to tradition and her faith. Her dedication to the Catholic Church and the forbidding Church rules of the time, allow the reader to infer she did not divorce her husbands. Therefore, all of her husbands passed away, which allows us to conclude she may have married older men. This wealthy world-traveler, on a pilgrimage to Canterbury, is not motivated by her faith as she travels on this mediocre trip.

Ways the Human Race could Destroy Itself :: Apocalypse

The End of Humanity: Could the Human Species Destroy Itself? There are lots of ways humanity could be wiped out - although I don't think any of them are particularly likely. Natural causes - An extinction-level asteroid impact would probably be sufficient, although not much else would - a disease epidemic, major climate shift, etc. would still leave many survivors to rebuild within a few hundred years. The window for such an impact is, however, extremely short, because it's extremely likely that within 300 years or so we will have the means to predict and avert all dangerous impacts. And the chance of that happening is, from historical comparison, 0.001% or less. There are a few other possibilities that would be much more catastrophic, though. One is a supernova very nearby, which would blast Earth with intense gamma radiation and most likely kill all macro-organisms. However, there aren't any stars large and old enough for this to be a risk for hundreds of thousands of years. Another is orbital destabilization of Earth (such as ejection from the Solar System) by a close-passing star - but the chance of that is extremely remote, and in addition we'd have thousands of years of warning. And the last that I can think of is alien invasion†¦ which is really out there, obviously. The eventual solar threats to life on Earth are not really relevant to humanity/posthumanity. The Sun is not large enough to supernova, but it will eventually engulf the Earth when it runs out of internal fuel and swells into a red giant. That's a good 4-5 billion years away, but well before that, though, the Sun will have become bright enough to heat Earth's surface enough to trigger a major atmospheric shift by overwhelming the "cloud effect" (which keeps temperatures on Earth stable) with a runaway greenhouse gas effect, boiling the oceans and making the planet Venus-like, uninhabitable except by micro-organisms. But even that is about 2 billion years away, plenty of time for posthumanity to rise and either avert the problem or simply head elsewhere. Accident - A scientific experiment run awry, or an unexpected side-effect of some new technology could potentially wreck some serious havoc. One possible horribly catastrophic scenario would be the unforeseen generation of a miniature black hole somewhere on Earth. If the hole did not evaporate instantaneously (and it would have to be pretty large not to, so I don't know how it would be possible to generate one accidentally) it would quickly bore a hole to the center of the Earth, absorbing more and more mass as it went, and eventually implode the planet.

Chinese Lion Dance

Chinese Lion Dance The lion dance is a traditional dance performed in the Chinese culture. The performers mimic the moves of the lion inside a costume that looks in a way like a lion. Many people who are not very familiar with the Lion Dance often gets it confused with the Dragon Dance, since both are performed, for the most part, for the same occasions. It is simple to tell the two dances apart. The Lion Dance is performed most of the time with only two people. The Dragon Dance is performed with many people.In the Dragon Dance multiple people are inside the dragon costume holding up poles, whereas in the Lion Dance, there is someone holding the head of the lion and another person in the back of the lion costume acting as a rear of the lion. Lions were not originally from China. They came there through what was called the Silk Road. The rulers in what is today known as Iran and Afghanistan sent the lions over to the Chinese emperors as a gift in exchange to get the right to trade wit h the Silk Road merchants. This form of Lion Dance dates all the way back to the Han Dynasty, which was from 205 B.C. E. to 220 C. E. in China. The peak of the Lion Dance was during the Tang Dynasty, which was from 716 to 907 C. E. It was mainly danced during religious festivals to celebrate. The dance eventually became so famous that it was exported to Japan as a formal court entertainment. The Lion Dance soon made its way to Korea and Taiwan. The Lion Dance is not exactly the same in all the countries, but the meaning and symbol of the dance are similar. There are many different stories of how the Lion Dance got its origins. One famous story is called â€Å"The Emperor’s Dream. This story states how the emperor of the Tang Dynasty had a dream about how a strange creature came to his rescue. When he described his dream to some advisors, they told him that the creature he described resembled that of a lion, a creature from the Western Hemisphere. The emperor then created the lion dance to honor the creature which saved his life inside of his dream. Another story of how the Lion Dance got its origins is called â€Å"The Story of the ‘Nian’. † Legends say that there was a fierce monster by the name of â€Å"Nian† that liked to kidnap children.He attacked villages every year until one year, a lion defeated the â€Å"Nian† and chased it away. The monster promised that it will be back to seek revenge. This time the villagers did not have a lion to protect themselves. As a result, they solved the problem by creating a costume like that of a lion and two villagers wore the costume to scare â€Å"Nian† away. This is the reason the lion dance is performed every Chinese New Year, so that â€Å"Nian† would not come back. The legend also says that loud noises from the drum, other instruments, and firecrackers helped scare the â€Å"Nian† away.The color red is worn during the New Year’s celebration becau se it was also believed that the â€Å"Nianâ€Å", was afraid of the color red. The word â€Å"Nian,† thought the yearly ceremony, has become the Chinese word for year. There are two different styles of the Chinese Lion Dance, the Southern Style and the Northern Style. The older and traditional form of Chinese Lion Dance is the Southern Style. The Chinese Southern Lion Dance originated from Guangdong, a providence of China. The costumes of Lion Dance vary widely, but the lion head designs shows much differences.The traditional Fo Shan Lion, has bristles instead of fur and weighs more than the current costumes. The tails are extremely long and are perpendicular to the head for three fourths of the tail's length. The eyes also move left and right. On the back of the costume, there are gold foiled rims and traditional characters saying the group’s name. Older Liu Bei lions also have black in the tail, while the new ones do not. The Gwan Gung has a red and black tail wit h white trim. The Huang Joon has a full yellow tail with white trim. The Zhang Fei has a black and white tail with white trim and a white underside.The Zhao Zi Long lion is a green lion with a green tail with black trim and also a white underside. All the traditional style Fo Shan have pop-up teeth, tongue, swivelling eyes, and a gold gilded area on the back for the school's name and also the underside of the tail is white. The designs of the tail are also squarer and contain a diamond pattern going down the back; it is also common to see and hear bells attached to the tail. Although most lion dance costumes comes with a set of matching pants, some practitioners use black Kung-Fu pants to look more traditional. The Wong people perform the lion dance using this type of lion.The newer styles of lions for Fo Shan replace all the bristles with fur and the tails are shorter than the traditional ones. They eyes are fixed in place, and the tongue and teeth do not pop up. The tail is curvie r in design. The tail does not have a diamond pattern, and lacks bells. In addition, the dancers wear flashier pants which lack the ease of movement allowed when wearing Kung-Fu pants. The Chinese Northern Style of Chinese Lion Dance is performed usually with two lions. The lions of the North have shaggy orange and yellow hair. The way to tell these lions apart by gender is to see the bow on the head.The females don a green bow while the male lions wear a red bow. Acrobatics are very common with the Northern Style, with stunts like lifts or balancing on a giant ball. Northern lions sometimes appear as a family, with two large â€Å"adult† lions and a pair of small â€Å"young lions†. Different colors on the costumes of the lions represent the different elements of life. The yellow represents earth, black represents water, green represents wood, red represents fire, and white represents metal. The nose of the lions is usually a green color. Green symbolizes good luck, p rosperity, and the â€Å"influence of heaven. Attached to the forehead of the lion is a mirror. The mirror is said to scare away evil spirits by reflecting their own image against them, and also the ability to travel between heaven and earth. The costumes of the lions used for Chinese Lion Dance can only be custom made in specialty craft shops in rural parts of China and have to be imported at considerable expense for foreign countries outside Asia. For groups in Western countries, such as the United States, is made possible through funds raised through subscriptions and pledges made by members of local cultural and business societies.Special hand-made costumes with different add-ons can run up to 2000 dollars on some websites. Some countries, like Malaysia for example, has a really big Chinese population. As a result, local expertise may be available in making the lion costumes and musical instruments without having to get them imported from China. The head of the lion contains a symbol of many different animals itself. The horn is shaped like a bird for the phoenix, symbol for life and regeneration, also associated with representing the female element.The ears and the tail are shaped like a mystical creature, the Chinese unicorn, representing wisdom and good luck. The spine represents the snake, charm and wealth. The back hump of the head represents the tortoise which is the symbol for living a long life. The forehead and the beard are from the dragon, strength, leadership and the male element. The music associated to the Lion Dance is with instruments used live, right next to the performers. The music of drums, cymbals, and gongs are heard and the dance is synchronized with the beat of the song.There are also firecrackers, which is used to add on to the sounds as well. During Chinese New Year, different groups from different Chinese martial art schools visit the house and businesses of the Chinese community to perform what is called â€Å"cai ching. † The word â€Å"cai ching† translates to â€Å"plucking the greens. † What this is, is when a lion goes on a quest or journey to pluck the green, normally vegetables, like lettuce which in Chinese called â€Å"cai† and fruits like oranges tied to a â€Å"Red Envelope† containing money; either hang highly or just put on a table in front of the premises.The lion will dance to approach the â€Å"cai† and red envelope in a manner of that of a curious cat. It will then get the vegetable and red envelope. After, the cat will â€Å"eat the vegetable† (rip it up and throw it back out), and keep the red envelope containing money for their group. The lion dance is said to bring good luck and fortune to the businesses. Not only is the dance only done during Chinese New Year, but also in other religious festivals, business openings, birthday celebrations, and wedding celebrations.In the old days, the lettuce was hung 15 to 20 feet above ground and onl y a well-trained martial artist could reach the money while dancing with a heavy lion head. These events became challenging so a very large sum of money was rewarded, and the audience expected a good show. Sometimes, if lions from multiple martial arts schools approached the lettuce at the same time, the lions are supposed to â€Å"fight† to decide a winner. The lions had to fight with lion moves instead of chaotic street fighting styles. The audience would judge the quality of the martial art schools according to how the lions fought.Since the schools' reputation was at stake, the fights were usually fierce but civilized. The winner lion would then use creative methods and martial art skills to reach the high-hanging reward. Some lions may dance on bamboo stilts and some may step on human pyramids formed by students of the school to reach the â€Å"cai ching. † The performers and the schools would gain praise and respect on top of the large money reward when they did well. During the 1950’s to 1960’s, areas with many Chinese communities, such as Chinatown, had people who resembled that of a gangster who joined these Chinese Lion Dance groups.There were lots of fights between these Lion Dance groups and kung fu schools. This worried many parents, which caused the parents to avoid letting their children join these schools. During festivals and performances, when Lion Dance groups met up, there would be fights between the groups. Some lifts and acrobatic tricks are designed for the lion to â€Å"fight† and knock over other rival lions. Performers even hid daggers in their shoes and clothes, which could be used to injure other lion dancers’ legs.Some even attached a metal horn on their lion’s forehead, which could be used to slash other lion heads. The violence got so extreme that at one point that the Hong Kong government had to put a stop to lion dance completely. Now Lion Dance groups must attain a permit from t he government in order to perform the Lion Dance. Although there is still a certain degree of competitiveness, the groups are a lot less violent and aggressive than they were in the 1950’s to 1960’s. In modern day, the Chinese Lion Dance is seen as a sport and is more of something to do during free time.