Developing a Human Resource Management Strategy - Free Essay Example

Sample details Pages: 6 Words: 1849 Downloads: 1 Date added: 2017/06/26 Category Management Essay Type Narrative essay Did you like this example? Human Resource management is term that basically describes the individuals in shape of group or labor force working in an organization. Human resource management deals with the advertisement of job for Organizations, hiring of right person for right job at right time. Human resource management is mainly responsible for all the strategy making and policies regarding organizational objectives and goals. What is human resource management? According to Amstrong, M. (2006) Human Resource Management is defined as a strategic and coherent approach to the management of an organizations most valued assets the people working there who individually and collectively contribute to the achievement of its objectives. Storey (1989), cited by (Armstrong M. 2006) A set of interrelated policies with an ideology and philosophical underpinning. Storey (1989) suggested that is the real mixture of Human Resource Management: A particular constellation of beliefs and assumptions. A strategic trust and informing decisions about people management. The central involvement of line managers, and Reliance upon a set of levers to shape the employment ship. Don’t waste time! Our writers will create an original "Developing a Human Resource Management Strategy" essay for you Create order Human Resource System: Human Resource Management walks along with Human Resource System that combines in following way: HR Philosophy: it talks about values and guiding principles that are linked in the range of Human Resource Management. HR Strategies: it defines the directions of Human Resource Management. HR Policies: it describes how philosophy and strategies, value and principles would be applied in the scope of Human Resource Management. HR Process: it shows the formal processes and ways that how to adopt and implement HR Strategic plan and policies. HR Practices: it includes casual approaches to deals in the scope of Human Resource Management. HR Program: this program enables all philosophies, policies, procedures, strategies and practices to get into practical form according to action plan (Armstrong M. 2006). Developing a HRM strategy: HRM strategy is made for the organizational objectives to deals with the coherent approach of management of people in the organizations. It is same like other strategies that are made for marketing, finance, and similarly there is a strategy for human resource management. In the process of developing strategies for human resource management one of the critical point should keep in mind (Alan Mumford, Jeffrey Gold, 2004). What kinds of people do you need to manage and run your business to meet your strategic business objectives? What people programs and initiatives must be designed and implemented to attract, develop and retain staff to compete effectively?( Alan Mumford, Jeffrey Gold, 2004) In order to answer these questions four key points of an organization must be addressed. These are: Culture: one should keep an eye on organizational culture and the beliefs, values, norms and management style. Organization: the structure, job roles and organizational hierarchy of the organization People: the skill levels, staff potential and management capability and skills of the staff. Human resources systems: one should keep an eye on the mechanisms which deliver the strategy employee selection, communications, training, rewards, and career development. In the HR strategy it is sometimes overlooked by the strategy maker focus on all the senior managers they deal with the main dimensions of the business and neglect the smaller ones. Then these companies reengineer their organizations to free managers to have more business oriented but they have some loopholes in the training and reward system. When the desired entrepreneurial behavior does not emerge managers frequently look confused at the apparent failure of the changes to deliver results. The fact is that seldom can you focus on only one area. What is required is a strategic perspective aimed at identifying the relationship between all four dimensions. If you require an organization whi ch really values quality and service you not only have to retrain staff, you must also review the organization, reward, and appraisal and communications systems. The pay and reward system is a classic problem in this area. Frequently organizations have payment systems which are designed around the volume of output produced. If you then seek to develop a company which emphasizes the products quality you must change the pay systems. Otherwise you have a contradiction between what the chief executive is saying about quality and what your payment system is encouraging staff to do. Process of developing HRM strategy: Step 1: Get the big picture Understand your business strategy. The management should indentify the key forces of business those can be technology, distribution, competition, the markets. What are the implications of these driving forces in to you organization. Noggin What are the different contribution your operations. Step 2: Develop a Mission Statement or Statement of Intent That relates to the people side of the business. In the mission statement, organization should be realistic and dont not put fake ideas to the statements. It will give a bad impression to the readers and customers. Add that what you people are going to add in this. Step 3: Conduct a SWOT analysis of the organization Organization should focus on the internal strengths and weakness, and make improvements to overcome these weaknesses. They must use current skill, and capabilities. They must do external research and look what are the opportunities they would have in future and what are the threats they are going to face in future. This SWOT will defiantly adds to the performance of the organization. Step 4: Conduct a detailed human resources analysis They must do the details analysis of human resource management to see the culture, people and the HR strategies. Must look into what you are at this time and what you want to be in future as organization. Step 5: Determine critical people issues Look into the initials on the organization from where you start; either you strategies are matching with your SWOT and PESTLE analysis. Indentify the critical issues associated with the organization. Indentify what are the failures and the reasons behind it. Always make sure that where you want to go as organization, keep eye on your goals and objectives. Step 6: Develop consequences and solutions Always try for bad time, and get ready got the back up plans and action plans. Dont stick to assumptions, try to indentify where the problem is and think about the consequences of it. Indentify what are the implications for the business HR department have with it. Take out the broad objectives of the organization out, some of them are as follows: employee training and development management development organization development performance appraisal employee reward employee selection and recruitment manpower planning communication Step 7: Implementation and evaluation of the action plans The ultimate goal of developing HR strategy is that all the objectives are set in a effective form and these objectives are achievable, and all these objectives are integrated. Intellectual capital and knowledge management: The terms refers to the all resources of any organizations have with it. They have competitive advantage of these intellectual property rights. As such, it includes as subsets the attributes that concur to building all financial statements as well as the balance sheet. According to Nermien Al-Ali, N. (2003) Intellectual Capital of an organization such intangible resources and assets that an organization can be use to create value by converting into new processes , products and services. Knowledge Management (KM)ÂÂ  comprises a range of strategies and practices used in an organization to identify, create, represent, distribute, and enable adoption ofÂÂ  insightsÂÂ  and experiences. Such insights and experiences compriseÂÂ  knowledge, either embodied in individuals or embedded in organizationalÂÂ  processesÂÂ  or practice (Wikipedia). According to Awad Ghaziri, H. (2007) Knowledge Management is newly, interdisciplinary business model that has knowledge within the frame work of an organization and it focus. It is rooted in many disciplines, including business, economics, and psychology and information management. Intellectual capital (IC) is a key driver of innovation and competitive advantage in todays knowledge based economy. At the same time, knowledge management (KM) is recognized as the fundamental activity for obtaining, growing and sustaining IC in organizations. This means that the successful management of IC is closely linked to the KM processes an organization has in place; which in turn implies that the successful implementation and usage of KM ensures the acquisition and growth of IC. Source : www.emeraldinsight.com/0025-1747.htm Strategies for management development: According to Lee (1992) cited by Alan Mumford, Jeffrey Gold (2004) the entire system of corporate activities with the espoused goal of improving the managerial stock in the context of organizational and environmental change. This definition tells the number of objectives: This is a powerful device that reengineers the organizational structure. This tool gives cost reduction but gives quality and profitability. It contributes to the development of a learning organization. It also assists in self development. Management developments ensure some benefits to the organization, that includes; This always adds to the performance of the organization. The performance can be gauge from the terms of agriculture; agriculture is way of repeating the view of some organization that we need to grow our own managers. It uses to say that if management development has purpose in the organization then this has a link with organizational strategy. Every organizations responds to global influences and environmental changes like; globalization, technological change and customer demands, here Management Development plays a role as strategic tool to the implementation of strategy development and consequently improves business and organization externally. . Figure Sustaining Model of Development (Mumford. A, Gold. J, 2004) Managers need to come up with the new role and skills to become productive. Management Developments provides the sustain opportunity to organizations to have winning positions. Sustaining model defines some points here which are: Strategy is sets of outcomes to gauge the changes occurred in the environment. Strategy provides guidance on the requirement to the managers; new skills and performance and productivity. Management development policies define that requirement to provide management developments activities. The outcomes of developments being assessed and management provides feedback to organizational strategy. There are various reasons to form a Management Development strategy, which includes: Some time it happens that there is some change in technology that changes job and work design and organizational structure. Management development strategy can be form under some mergers and acq uisitions. This strategy also forms when they are market development or come up with new services. It also helps in identifying weakness and poor performance. Employee Partnerships: There are Five Partnership Principles model. The following principles form the satisfaction axis of the model: Systems and Leadership: this is important to give job security, input on decisions, recognition, communication and information, fairwaters in employee partnership. Resources: in the employee partnership it must be including physical environment, equipment, staffing. Teamwork: including respect and coordination are part of principles. Direct management: in the employee partnership model feedback, coaching, trust, communication, recognition is important to look forward. Engagement: Job engagement: it is mandatory fulfillment from the work performed, use of skills, and feeling of accomplishment by performing the jobs. Work engagement: participating in a work group that shares attentiveness to quality and customer needs, to enhance the productivity, sense of connection. Organizational engagement: as evidenced by a willingness to stay with a facility and recommend it to others, along with pride in the organization and alignment with its values (press ganey, 2010).

The Civil War And American History - 2238 Words

Rachel Lee Professor Salazar History 141 4 December 2014 The Civil War The Civil War is a war that happens within a country and in this case, the Civil War took place in the United States between the North and the South. The Civil War happened between the North and the South for various reasons. Both sides expected a short war with few casualties, and instead a little over 1 million soldiers died in the Civil War. After the war was over, the war left a huge impact on the modern world through the federal government, industry, American Nationalism, the women in the United States, religion, and philosophy. The Civil War is so important to American history because it changed and shaped our modern day economy and it happened right here on our home turf. The Civil War were four years of bloody and prolonged battles and both sides just assumed that the war would not change their societies dramatically and the Southerners were hoping and presuming that their plantations would continue to thrive. Meanwhile the Northerners were just hoping that the people in the South would soon realize their error and that they would be readmitted to the Union. However, given the circumstances of the impact on the modern world from the Civil War and the outcome of the war, these predictions that the people made were proven to be inaccurate. Both the North and South were expecting a short war and did not take the prospect of fighting all that seriously, but instead, the war lasted for four years andShow MoreRelatedThe Civil War On American History1206 Words   |  5 Pagescountry divided, the Civil War left a huge impact in history as it helped form what our nation is today. An inevitable conflict that was due in time to transform into a war, the Civil War was influenced by societal interests, economic changes along with political disagreements. Together, these influences sparked a nation into a great divide that ended in what is known as the deadliest war in American history. Just In the aftermath of the industrial revolution, the Civil War was ignited due to economicRead MoreAmerican History : The Civil War1138 Words   |  5 PagesWar makes us what we are. It changes our lives and makes our past into the future. One of the most important events in American history was the Civil War (1861 to 1865). The Civil War changed thousands of lives and our nation. At the beginning the Civil War, it divided our country but at the end of the Civil War, it brought our country back together recreating the United States. â€Å"But the Civil War defined us as what we are and it opened us to being what we became, good and bad things. It was theRead MoreThe Civil War And American History890 Words   |  4 Pages In American History many significant events took place that reflected religious faith of multiple Americans and has shaped the world we live in today. Throughout the 1800s, the most memorable times in America took place throughout the Civil War. Events that esc alated before, during and even following the Civil War resulted in a chain of reactions from many people within that period. After analyzing the events of the Civil War, I was able to draw a connection to the actions of the soldiers, womenRead MoreThe Civil War And American History1528 Words   |  7 Pages Before we discuss the Civil War, we need to discuss how and what lead to this major turning point in American History. Both sides, the Union and the Confederate had its reasons to attack each other. Whether it be the lack of contribution towards the government by the South, or the constant disturbance to free slaves from the North, tempers flared years before the first shots were ever fired. The disagreements between the North and the South were too much for the South to endure, they felt forcedRead MoreAmerican History And The Civil War Essay1287 Words   |  6 PagesOne of American history’s famous battles involves the diverging of Northern and Southern states. Even wh en this time period itself is taught, at least from my experience learning it, that divide between Northern and Southern ideology seems even more pronounced. As United States territory expanded, so did hesitations of citizens on both sides—both Northerners and Southerners thought strongholds were put in place to sway governmental opinion, and consequently, actions. In order to bring the nationRead MoreHistory And The American Civil War Essay1927 Words   |  8 PagesIn the history of the United States, African Americans have always been discriminated against. When Africans first came to America, they were taken against their will and forced to work as laborers. They became slaves to the rich, greedy, lazy Americans. They were given no pay and often badly whipped and beaten. African Americans fought for their freedom, and up until the Civil War it was never given to them. When the Civil War began, they wanted to take part in fighting to free all slaves. TheirRead MoreAmerican History And The American Civil War1610 Words   |  7 PagesThroughout American history, the United States Mint has coined several denominations that would now be considered â€Å"odd† or â€Å"strange† by the general public: the half cent, two-cent piece, three-cent piece, half dime, twenty-cent piece, quarter eagle, three dollar piece, half eagle, eagle, and double eagle. At the time, however, many of these were seen in everyday circulation, a completely normal denomination. Each of them had a purpose behind its inception and a practical use after mintage. For exampleRead MoreU.s History : American Civil War1423 Words   |  6 PagesOmer Bhatti U.S History I Professor Ojserkis U.S History I: Final Paper In early April 1861, the attack on Fort Sumter marked the beginning of the American Civil War. However, the belligerence of both sides of the war began long before the first shot. There is a great deal of possible causes of the Civil War, and in much disagreement with popular belief the war was not solely fought about the existence of slavery. Unfortunately, there is no simple reason why the war began because there were manyRead MoreThe Civil War Is The Deadliest War Of American History Essay1853 Words   |  8 PagesThe Civil War is the deadliest war in American History. Between 1861 and 1865, over 600,000 brave souls lost their lives at nearly 10,500 battles. By the end of the war, there were nearly 200,000 African-Americans that fought on the side of the North, with 80 percent recruited from slave states (Half Slave and Half Free, 240). Wars are fought over irreconcilable differences. There may not be one specific cause. Directly or indirectly, slavery was intertwined in many of these differences and the physicalRead More History of The American Civil War Essay1540 Words   |  7 PagesHistory of The American Civil War The Civil War was a brutal war between the North and South of America over the issue of slavery, which was spurred on by the secession of the southern states from the Union of a America. At the time slavery was one of the main issues in America that caused a disagreement between the north and south and these disagreements about humanity and slaves added to the tension that would finally lead to the out break of war. Slavery was almost totally abolished in

Pompeii the best

Pompeii the best-documented catastrophe in Antiquity Essay Pompeii is possibly the best-documented catastrophe in Antiquity. Because of it, we know now how the Pompeians lived because they left behind an extensive legacy of art, including monuments, sculptures and paintings. Pompeii lay on a plateau of ancient lava near the Bay of Naples in western Italy in a region called Campania, less than 1. 6 kilometers from the foot of Mount Vesuvius. With the coast to the west and the Apennine Mountains to the East, Campania is a fertile plain, traversed by two major rivers and rich soil. However, in the early days, it was not a remarkable city. Scholars have not been able to identify Pompeiis original inhabitants. The first people to settle in this region were probably prehistoric hunters and fishers. By at least the eight century B. C. , a group of Italic people known as the Oscans occupied the region; they most likely established Pompeii, although the exact date of its origin is unknown. The root of the word Pompeii would appear to be the Oscan word for the number five, pompe, which suggests that either the community consisted of five hamlets or, perhaps, was settled by a family group (gens Pompeia)(Kraus 7). In the course of the eight century B. C. , Greek and Etruscan colonization stimulated the development of Pompeii as a city around the area of the Forum. A point for important trade routes, it became a place for trading towards the inland. Up until the middle of the 5th century B. C. , the city was dominated politically by the Etruscans. In the course of the 6th century B. C. , the influence of Greek culture is also documented by terracottas, ceramics and architecture. A group of warriors from Samnium, called Samnite, invaded the region in the 400s B. C. Pompeii remained a relatively unimportant illage until the 200s B. C. , when the town entered a prosperous period of building and expansion. The Romans defeated the Samnites, and Pompeii became part of the emerging Roman state. Pompeii joined the Italic revolt against Rome, the Social War of 91-87 B. C. , and was crushed by Sulla. Although the city was not destroyed, it lost its autonomy, becoming a colony called Colonia Veernia Cornelia P, in honor of its conqueror L. Cornelius Sulla. By 79 AD, Latin had replaced Oscan as the principal language, and the laws and culture of Imperial Rome were implanted. The romanization had began. Pompeii grew from a modest farming town to an important and sophisticated industrial and trading center. In 62 A. D. , the first disaster, a terrible earthquake hit the city. As the city was being rebuilt the second disaster struck. In the summer of A. D. 79, Vesuvius suddenly erupted with violence. Hot ashes, lava and stones poured into Pompeii. The eruption caught Pompeians by surprise: They heard the crash of falling roofs: an instant more and the mountain-cloud seemed to roll towards them, dark and rapid, like a torrent; at the same time, it cast forth from its bosom a showe of ashes mixed with vast ragments of burning stone! over the crushing vines- over the desolate streets- over the amphitheater itself- far and wide- with many a mighty splash in the agitated sea- fell that awful shower. , (Bulwer-Lytton 1). The remains of about 2,000 victims out of a population of 20,000 have been found in excavations. Some of them were trapped and killed in their homes. Others died as they fl ed. Archaeologists have found the shells (molds) of the bodies preserved in the hardened ash. By pouring plaster into the shells, they can make copies of the victims, even to the xpressions of agony on their faces. Pompeii was not forgotten. Peasants in the area searched for hidden treasure and they made tunnels. In the 1500s workers digging a tunnel to change the course of the Sarno river discovered parts of a temple and the forum, but no one paid much attention. In 1748, a farmer discovered a wall and the authorities in Italy began a series of excavations. After 1860, Giuseppe Fiorelli served as director of the excavations. He directed the first uncovering of the whole city block by block. The Italian government has provided funding money for this project. After many years of work, we can now walk in Pompeii as Pompeians did. After standing in line for quite a while and paying for a ticket, the tourist experiences what are about to live are quite unique. When walking in Pompeii, you can close your eyes and feel the magic of the city, because it seems like the time has not gone by. Visitors can see the buildings as they stood 2,000 years ago. They can walk in and out of houses and up and down narrow streets, see the Temple of Jupiter, which was an ancient ruin at the time of the eruption, or sit in a tepidarium (part of a Roman public ath). Tourists can also visit the Antiquarium and see the casts of some of the bodies, houseware, the remains of food such as carbonized loaves of bread, eggs and other things that also date back to ancient Rome. The center of public life is called the Forum, and it played a fundamental role in the political, religious and economic life of the city. FATE OF MACBETH EssayThe immediate models were the illusionistic stage sets of the Hellenistic-Roman theater and the new baroque fashions of 2nd-1st cent. B. C. architecture. (Giuntoli 6). Some scholars have argued that this style also has precedents in Greece, but most believe that is roman invention. The aim of this style painters was not to create the appearance of elegant marble walls, but rather to dissolve the confining walls of a room and replace them with the illusion of a three dimensional world constructed in the artists imagination. It seems he is inviting us into his world. In the cubiculum 16, in the Villa of the Mysteries, we can see how this style is characterized by painted columns breaking through the picture plane, architectural vistas teasing the eye with perspective recessions (Pompeii 1). It seems that the aim of the artist is to make the room look larger, and also appears deeper than it really is. He uses bright colors to achieved these effects. There is an optical effect stronger than the one of the First Style. The Third Style, or ornamental, was a reaction to the illusionism of Style II, together with the preference for a more classic typical art of the Augustan period. Painters o longer wanted to replace the walls with three-dimensional worlds of their own creation. Instead they decorated the homes of rich Romans with delicate linear fantasies, The walls are once more simple flat surfaces which mark the boundaries of an enclosed space are subdivided horizontally and vertically into monochrome areas articulated by slender architectural and decorative elements. The focal point is a painting in the center, generally of mythological, religious or idyllic subject, set inside an aedicule flanked by panels with small scenes suspended in the center which depict miniature figures and landscapes. Giuntoli 7). In the North wall of the red cubiculum, from the Villa of Boscotrecase, in the Museo Nazionale, Naples, we have one of the best examples of the 3rd Style. The villa was owned by Agrippa Postumus and was decorated about 11 B. C. We can see here, a landscape, in the middle of the red wall, representing a sacred precint dominated by the statue of a seated goddess. It measures only 15 by 179, and it was appropriate to this hall of 198 by 29, one of the largest in Pompeii. It does not fill the whole wall as in the Third Style, now is only a picture in every central wall. It is almost square and has smaller dimensions. The artist wanted to give us the impression of a picture hanging on the wall. The colors have changed from lively reds, greens and oranges to broken tones, combining soft browns, a green somewhat on the blue side and an unusual violet. Now, we begin to see a contour around the figures. The Fourth Style, became popular in the period of Claudius and Nero, when the earthquake struck in A. D. 72 and the Vesuvius erupted in 79 A. D. Returns once again to the architectural illusionism. It is inspired by the Second and Third styles. It was originated in Rome. The colors are more decided and tend to contrasting lively color effects, the decorative element multiply and crowd together, alternating with illusionistic architectural views and pictures of mythological subjects often painted in the impressionistic technique. A particular type is that of suspended carpets with small pictures and figures in the center, inspired by the Hellenistic fashion of hanging decorative tapestries on the walls. ( Giuntoli 7). In the Large hall, House of Fabius Rufus, we have one of the best examples of the 4th Style. The house is situated on the southwest edge of the city and it has a plendid view of the sea, it is the largest room of the house. On a black-ground enlived by animals, vases, musical instruments and others, we can see the three-dimensional effects, enhanced, for example by the woman on the balcony on the left. Apollo, Bachus and Venus appear in the main picture, in the upper zone above them is Leda with her swan, and small personifications of muses stand alone in the sides. The decoration stands out because of the blackground. From personal experience, I can say that after touring Pompeii, I was glad that such a catastrophe preserved the city. If you enjoy art, it is a must see.

Political Economy of Pakistan free essay sample

Politically, religious fundamentalism, sectarian violence, ethnic differences, terrorism and regional economic disparities have made country unstable which contributed toward the unsatisfactory economic condition. It is usually believed that economy grows in presence of political solidity but in the case of Pakistan it rejects the conventional wisdom. Much of countries economic growth has been witnessed in the military regimes which ruled country for nearly three decades. The reasons for this will also be discussed later. Pakistan has been ruled for 29 years by four Military Governments . Army has a significant role in Pakistan’s politics, foreign affairs and supporting individuals. Moreover, the growing economic and corporate interests of the Pakistan army, makes it an important stake holder in decisions regarding trade, investment and issues of property rights . No doubt, Pakistan’s military is the most power institute of the country. The fact that military dominates Pakistan’s political, domestic, regional and global scene, is reflection of power of military but it also how the failure of civil society and political institutions. We will write a custom essay sample on Political Economy of Pakistan or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page In order to examine the nature of Pakistan’s economic and political past, a history can be divided into seven different periods which are chronologically discussed below. Civilian Bureaucracy and Industrialization: 1947-58 Pakistan came in to being as a devastated country after partition of united India. The geographic location of East Pakistan with India separating West Pakistan put the country at a serious disadvantage. The country started with meager resources. The old remnants of British regime were the bureaucracy which became powerful and started running the state and they were responsible to ensure the survival of the country in hard time with their policies. The political entities included landowners, feudal and a number of tribal leaders. Since there was no industry, there was no industry related individual class and this led to the domination of bureaucracy in politics. The political equation consisted of bureaucracy, land owning politicians and tribal leaders. After making unexampled gains from Korean War bonanza, the mercantile capitalists emerged and strengthened their economic position in the society. Many traders who earned money and made profits in 1950 started investing in industry and later emerged as industrialists in 1960. The industrial process which took place in mid and late 1950’s was encouraged by the bureaucracy which played an important role in establishing industrial units in the country. State owned institutions like PICIC and PIDC encouraged the development and growth of industry. The import substitution industrialization policy was adopted by the government institutions and bureaucracy and it acted as an impetus to the nature and direction of industry. The first decade seem to bureaucracy led and assisted industrialization. The bureaucracy led the political settlement and determined the outcomes of policy and purpose. Industry became the subordinate partner in that process. Other political groups had very little to offer at that time because of being nascent. The landlords and tribal leaders have little to say in politics and the economic policy was not directed toward well being of them. The growth rates in agriculture were poor and industry was prioritized over agriculture which was the livelihood of 80% of country’s population which dwelled in rural areas. Since much of bureaucracy was composed of urban migrants from India, they had little interest in agriculture. Industrialist gained high profits in early year but they never become a political force and were reliant on bureaucracy. Political wrangling between landowning class politicians did not allow them to become a force. With porous ranks among political groups, the military stepped in to reinstate law and order and continue to run bureaucratic capitalism. Civil and Military Bureaucratic Capitalism: 1958-71 The military emerged as a stabilizing actor under whose authority and rule, industrialization with the help of bureaucracy and emerging industrialists could grow more. The very high growth rates in the economy and large scale manufacturing (LSM) would not have been possible without a central command and military was the only institution able of reliable at that time. Ayub Khan took full control of state in October 1958 and this was the golden era of Pakistan’s history. GDP growth rate rose to 6% from 3% in the 1950’s. The manufacturing sector grew by 9% annually and agriculture at a respectable 4%. The agriculture sector was revolutionized by increase in production and land reforms. This resulted in the rise of capitalist agriculture development. This produced a consumer class for industrial products without which industrial revolution could not have taken place. Shahid Javed Burki argues that, â€Å"toward the late 1950’s, landlords were again emerging on the political horizon, and Ayub Khan’s shifting of power from Karachi to Lahore and Rawalpindi resulted in more representation from indigenous and rural Pakistan, which is on reason why agriculture gained prominence throughout the decade†. 1 The 1960’s was a decade of emergence of new political groups and economic classes. In agriculture the control of large landowners was not completely broken but it was certainly loosen due to the emergence of middle class farmers resulting from the green revolution. In rural areas small manufacturing units and skilled and technical workers emerged to provide services to new economy. The Basic democracies system accommodated the new agriculture capitalists and the rural politicians were now the part of the alliance of military and bureaucracy. Elsewhere, the income inequalities between East and West Pakistan increased and resentment grew in Bengalis against the West Pakistan which resulted in widespread movement, which ultimately led to separation of Bengal in 1971. The Socialist Seventies of Bhutto: 1971-77 Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto emerged as a popular political leader after the glorious decade of development and growth. Groups, other than industrialists, bureaucracy and military, rallied behind Bhutto and became source of his power. Bhutto was a staunch supporter of socialism and this is reflected in his government policies. In the early years of his regime, labor, peasants, farmers and rural and urban educated class hailed his socialist policies. Bureaucracy and industrialists became target of his socialist policies along with large landowning class and were discredited. However, bureaucracy, military and landowning class again emerged after few years. Bureaucracy became more powerful in the awake of nationalization and strengthened its hold over means of productions. The military became favored due to an armed rebellion in Baluchistan. The 1972 land reforms did not proved to be a success and land owners again gained prominence and a number of large landowners became members of Pakistan People’s Party. Educated left leaning middle class was against this but persisted with his social reform agenda. The nationalization of banks was carried out and it broke the link between industrialists and finance sector and industrialists fled the capital away. Small scale industry and informal sector became backbone of country. The journey to modernization and economic growth ended and along with natural disasters and oil price shock of 1970 became the reason of removal of Bhutto. The urban middle class, military and bureaucracy were instrumental in removing Bhutto. Hence, between 1947 and 1977 large scale development took place and an urban middle class emerged which was economically sound and young but was non-existent in politics. Industrialists who earned good profits and put country on growth track became ghosts in 1970 and feudal gained a good hand in politics in Sind, Punjab and parts of Baluchistan. However, bureaucracy was the only class which does not lost its importance and continues to influence on the political structure of the country. A Military State and the Middle Classes: 1977-88 The overthrow of Bhutto government by a military coup in 1977 brought General Zia ul Haq to power. It strengthened the supremacy of the civil and military bureaucracy not just on political map of Pakistan but also on allocation and production of economic resources. With the political and governmental roles and authority in hand, the civil and military bureaucracy emerged as an important and well-established unit in economy. Although, Zia was a staunch supporter of private sector in economy but the nationalized industries were not denationalized because it allowed the bureaucracy to play an important role in the economy. Many retired and serving military personals were posted on lucrative positions in the public sector. The private sector looked up to the military and they established close ties with the military in order to foster. Also one important factor was the large amount of military and economic aid by USA due to Soviet-Afghan war. Corruption, smuggling, drug mafia, sectarian violence and AK-47 culture were introduced which proved to be a disaster for country in future. The Gulf remittances were also an important factor in lifting up the economy. Almost 20 billion dollars were remitted to Pakistan from 1977 to 1987. Economic conditions improved as GDP grew at 6. 6% annually with agriculture at 4% and large scale manufacturing at 9% but fiscal deficit widened to 8%. Domestic borrowings in long run affected economy and Pakistan approached IMF in 1988. Zia regime as a whole produced military industrialists and businessmen with armed forces personal making fortunes from Soviet-Afghan war invested in business and became bosses in the private sector. Since, political activity was banned until 1985. Due to restrictions, those with means, especially the rising middle class, were to contest the elections for first time in local bodies’ elections. They were able to enter politics because of the absence of rich, significant and established political actors. However, the military had full control of political scenario in the country. The Unstable Democratic Interregnum: 1988-99 After the death of General Zia ul Haq in a plane bomb blast in 1988, Pakistan began its journey of democracy again. In this democratic period four elections were held of which most were rigged and manipulated. Nine different governments (four elected, four interim and one military after October 1999 coup) ruled country in this time period. Mian Nawaz Sharif contested from platform of IJI in 1991, most of his compatriots in IJI were those who benefited from the Zia regime, who were industrialists and joined class of politics. The 1990s was the time when the economic interests of middle and influential Pakistan became expressed into politics and into a desire to use politics for economic gain and political control. The 1990s witnessed high instability in Pakistan. The bureaucratic and other hierarchical non-democratic institutions and organizations interfered in the democratic transfer of power. The rise of middle class continued but it was not powerful enough to be a political force and relied on military in this regard. The economic situation on the other hand deteriorated. The GDP rate lowered to 4% and foreign investment ratio fell to 13. 9%. The fiscal deficit remained above 7% and external deficits 4-5% led to amassing of large domestic and foreign debts. Social sector expenditures were cut down to service the debt. Pakistan lost its share in world trade and the economic progress become stagnant. Overall, if the political governments have been able to complete their tenure, it would have been much better in economic terms as policies implemented would have brought fruits in long term. The Return of Military to the Power: 1999-2007 General Pervez Musharraf led the military coup in 1999 to seize the power and removed the Prime Minister, Mian Nawaz Sharif from the office to save the country from corruption and put economy on the course of growth. The Musharraf regime was similar to other military regimes with regard to Local Government Election and devolution of power. Like the regime of General Zia ul Haq, Musharraf also became part of the Afghan war after 9/11 attacks and it brought Pakistan good fortunes in term of military and economic aid which for a time period strengthened the economy but it was temporary. General Musharraf instilled military personals into different public institutes military actively took control of every public sector department and strengthened the control over economy. Unlike previous military governments, Musharraf faced a more powerful, free and vibrant media in the country which in the end much contributed to his demise and downfall. In addition to that, the external influences like the Super power, USA much determined Pakistan’s domestic and foreign policies in the awake of Afghan invasion. Pakistan’s religious parties for first time formed an alliance and took a number of seats in parliament and dominated it and provided a shield to the regime. General Musharraf also won the support of urban middle class and elites who supported him as an enlightened military ruler and who benefited from his economic policies. The economic situation of the country became better and growth rates averaged at 7%, poverty and unemployment fell by 5-10% and 6. % from 8. 4% respectively. The investment rate grew to 23% of GDP and foreign reserves also showed a significant improvement. The global financial crisis and recession in 2007 hampered Pakistan’s economic progress and growth halted as the demand for Pakistani products in OECD markets fell. The judicial crisis and the return of important political leaders f rom abroad along with governance problems and military operation in Baluchistan added to unpopularity of the military government and it finally ended after 2008 elections. The Post Musharraf Era: 2008-Present After the 2008 elections, Pakistan People’s Party came into Power and the democratic vehicle started to move forward but it has not been as effective it should be in order to improve the political and economic situation. With a slender majority in parliament, the government is reliant on its allies and it is not able to refuse their illegitimate demands and to keep everyone happy, the government is over spending and domestic and foreign borrowings have put the economy in a situation of jeopardy. Inflation has jumped up to double figures and the lower and middle class have severely been hit by it. Rise of oil prices, energy crisis, and violence in Karachi, KPK and Baluchistan has lowered the economic growth rates and hampered the progress. Industrialist class has been severely hit by energy crisis and textile products export has fell down. The unemployment rates are high and according to a UN report the 50% of total population is estimated to be living in poverty. GDP growth rate is around 3% and fiscal deficit is above 6% and currency is at all time low against dollar. Natural disasters like floods have also lowered the agriculture productivity which is major pillar of economy. Overall services sector has grown and government has actively created new jobs on political basis to accommodate its supporters and allies. There is unrest among the population and this situation has given a chance to parties like PTI, which is a youth party to become popular and it can bring a change in the politics of Pakistan in future. External Influences External influences have also been an important factor in shaping Pakistan’s political and economic structure. From early days, Pakistan allied with USA gainst communism and this contributed much to an elite capitalist state in which large landowners and industrialists dominated the political and economic scenario along with military and bureaucracy. The IMF and World Bank led Structural Adjustment Programs put Pakistan on the path of liberalization and privatization which has resulted in a more powerful economic elite industrialists and politicians. The result of such capitalist programs is that income inequality has gro wn over the period of time and there is a wide gap between the income levels across country. The poor and lower middle class has almost no say in politics as they are not much educated and aware of their civil and political rights and cannot think further than earning for livelihood. The long enmity with India has also a major impact on the country’s economy. Much of resources and funds have been directed toward defense to secure the country against any military threat from India. It is also a cause of not having trade relations with India, which could have proved to beneficial for Pakistan in terms of economy. Recently, both countries have opened negotiations on trade and commerce. India emerged as powerful and dynamic economy in last decade and it has been largely due to a stable political environment unlike Pakistan where military has ruled mostly. Conclusion In a nutshell, Pakistan has not developed politically and economically in 64 years because of historical bureaucratic structure, an elite landowning politician class and most importantly a political military institution. The middle class has been a junior partner with military and bureaucracy for its own vested economic interests and due to this there has been no significant positive change in the political and economic structure. The external western influences have also played a part to strengthen the military and bureaucratic class and politician because of their particular interests and their funds and aid have been much used for political purpose rather for economic growth. The widespread violence in the aftermath of Soviet- Afghan war and US led invasion still haunts the country and most severely poor masses have been affected from this situation. A friendly neighbor in form of India could have been a blessing but on both sides of border it never happened to be a good fortune. Much of resources have been diverted for arms and ammunition rather than for education and economy. This all has contributed to a porous social, political and economic structure and a bleak future for democracy in the country. References: * Burki, Shahid Javed, Pakistan: A Nation in the Making, Westview Press, Boulder, 1986, p. 112. Bibliography: * S. Akbar Zaidi, Issues in Pakistan’s Economy, Second Edition * Dr Isharat Hussain, Pakistan and Afghanistan: Domestic Pressure and Regional Threats, The Role of Politics in Pakistan’s Economy.

Hofstede Cultural Dimension Essays

Hofstede Cultural Dimension Essays Hofstede Cultural Dimension Paper Hofstede Cultural Dimension Paper Hofstede Geert Hofstede’s five cultural dimensions are individualistic vs. collectivism, power distance, quality of life vs. quantity of life, uncertainty avoidance and time orientation. Power Distance The term of power distance in the Hofstede’s framework means measurement of power in an institution and organization being distributed where the society able to accept (Bergman et al. 2006, 141). Both Australia and Sweden has a low power distance in their society. Low power distance countries tend to work in a decentralization environment and have greater power in decision-making (Lere and Portz, 2005). With decentralization, managers are more independent in the development of a company with leadership quality instead of just position and status (Lere and Portz, 2005). Australia and Sweden organization tend to be flatter and team-oriented structure to have better communication between subordinates and their bosses (Business Culture, n. d). Therefore opinions and decision-making are encouraged to voice out and information are easier to be pass around in the company. Therefore in Sweden matrix organization is common when there are any projects coming up (Business Culture, n. d). Uncertainty Avoidance Uncertainty avoidance means a measurement of tolerance risk and behaviour where the society’s culture able to accept (Bergman et al. 2006, 141). Both Australia and Sweden has low uncertainty avoidance. Countries with low uncertainty avoidance will have less concern on uncertainty and ambiguity and focus more on tolerance with each other (Lere and Portz, 2005). There will be more risk taking and less unwanted arguments. In this society, there will be less rule-oriented and would be able to adapt to changes of environment (Lere and Portz, 2005). Swedish are more willing to take risk than any other countries (Business culture, n. ). When judging a person, their performance is the greater importance in a working place (Business culture, n. d). Therefore equal amount of men and women are normally seen in high position (Business culture, n. d). While in Australia, they have a more relax and laid-back culture, where they will not fear the future and walk towards it instead (Bassett, 2004). This shows Australia prefer to move forward rather than being stop by an obstacle. Moreover, Australians believe in their legal rights and documents are normally interpreted literally due to their loyalty towards British Common Law (Bassett, 2004). Time Orientation In Australia, a culture with a short term orientation values such as maintaining personal stability or happiness and living for the present which look in the short run. Australian people prefer to follow clear rules and procedures. They prefer to work on one task at a time and may feel frustrated when other competing tasks distract that focus. (Robert et al. 2004) Furthermore in short term, the old once is easily kicked off and the new once can easily come in no matter in what industry. Where as in Sweden, they are in the medium time orientation. (Clearly Cultural n. d. ) For example, in Australian if two officers agreed to meet at 2. 0pm, they really mean to be there by 2. 30pm sharp or even earlier. So promptness in personal habits is important to them. Individualism Individualism is â€Å"the degree to which people in a country prefers to act as individuals rather than as member of groups† (Robbins and Decenzo 2004, p. 48). Individualism refers to the â€Å"strength of the ties people have to others within the community† (Mind Tools, 2008). In a high individualism country, there is a loose connection with people and there is also a lack of interpersonal connection and little sharing of responsibilities, beyond family and perhaps a few close friends. Sweden and Australia scored highly under this category. â€Å"This individuality is reinforced in Australian’s daily lives and must be considered when traveling and doing business in their Country. Privacy is considered the cultural norm and attempts at personal ingratiating may meet with rebuff† (ITIM International, 2003). To communicate better in an individualistic culture, as an individual you are expected to work on your own and take initiatives. Business environment will be less reliant on relationship and personal contacts which will separate business and personal life. Coworkers or subordinates will expect to have a chance to work on projects or solve issues independently. It is common for people in this culture to try to stand out from the rest during meetings, presentations, or even during group work. As for Malaysian, they are less individualistic. They work more in groups to get the best outcome so that they can fulfill the mission that they want to achieve. Quantity Vs Quality of Life In Australia, most of the Australians are actually scored high in quantity of life compared to quality of life. They are characterized by assertiveness and materialism. For example, Australians tend to follow each other. This happens because of the stability of Australian institutions and the strong economy. For example, since the beginning of 2003 there has been a boom in the housing market, in every place everyone is talking about houses. So, this may happen to the car industry too. Australia is considered one of the most competitive nations on earth (Yes Australia n. d. ) Because of this stability, Australians tend to buy more by following the trend. But there is a partial place in Australia where quality of life is high where people are friendly and helpful. Recommendation As we are a Swedish base company trying to expand our business in Australia, employees and managers from Sweden should learn how to communicate better with Australians. In the power distance dimension, we know that both Australia and Sweden is rank low. The Swedish managers should try to introduce him or her self in an informal manner. Decision making should also involve others. Australians and Swedish are more towards individualism. Employees from Sweden should learn how to work on their own and take more initiatives. They should also be prepared that business environment are less reliant on relationship and personal contact. As for uncertainty avoidance, Australian and Swedish scored low. This means that Swedish should learn how to be more flexible or open in the approach to new ideas. Agreed plans should be realized quickly. Swedish employee should also learn how to execute their task on their own with only guidelines from superior. Swedish are more medium term oriented as Australians are more to short term oriented. Swedish should expect to live by the same standards and rules which we create. Swedish should also be respectful to others and should not hesitate to introduce necessary changes.

Medicine essays

Medicine essays Unquestionably, I gained an early taste for the field of medicine through the influence of my parents. While they never made an attempt to persuade my career endeavor, their experiences in the medical profession gave me an early exposure and interest in health care. While neither of my parents are doctors, their stories and knowledge from their medical experiences have always captivated my interest and left me wanting to know and understand more about the human body. After a conversation one night with my father, who has a license in medical technology, about the health effects of smoking, I decided to do my junior high science project on the effects of smoking on hemoglobin's binding capacity to oxygen. Even though I received first place for this project in the biochemistry category, and also was the only student who did a project in that category and yet didn't even know what biochemistry was then, that honor did not have a direct effect on my desire to become a doctor. Rather the impact of both my grandparents, whose blood samples I used for this experiment, decision to suddenly and successfully quit smoking after twenty plus years is what turned my career objectives toward the dream of becoming a doctor. I learned from this project that successful treatment takes more than just knowledge and technology, but a true sense of care through proper motivation. If my grandparents never knew how concerned I always was about their habit (and m y desire to convince them to quit) all the statistics and data would never have made such an impact. A few years after my junior high research project, the summer of my junior year in college, I had the opportunity to work in the same hospital lab where I conducted the research, with qualified guidance, for my junior high science project. This work experience played a significant role in shaping my idea of what is required to becoming a doctor. I learned that this opportunity d...

Analysis Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 2

Analysis - Essay Example Hence a nation could be conducting a ‘legal’ operation upon another nation without a legitimate basis for it. The ongoing occupation of Palestine by Israeli forces is a case in point, where the concocted legality betrays the lack of legitimacy of the occupation. The same analogy could be applied to the American occupation of Iraq, where even legality could be questioned. ’Triumph of the Will’ is a term used by politicians when a policy action succeeds against all odds. The term is mostly employed in the context of a military venture or an economic crisis, where much tenacity, resoluteness and foresight was required to meet the goal. The term is sometimes used alongside ‘legitimacy’ as a way of justifying the efforts and expenditure that went toward the fulfillment of the goal. In other words, the ‘legitimacy’ of the cause allowed a whole-hearted approach to meeting the goal. The term was adapted as the title of the film on Nazi Germany because the rise of the Nazi party to power and its near-completion of world domination is symbolically captured by the words. Given that the Nazi party did not even have one fifth of total vote share in late 1920s, it’s meteoric rise to highest office is nothing short of a Triumph of the Will. In the context of the contents of the documentary, the term denotes the legal means with which the Nazi party was able to achieve its illegitimate goals. In the end it proved ironic that the Allied Forces, under the leadership of Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin were able to fulfill their legitimate cause – namely to defend their sovereign nations from the sweep of the Third Reich. Both the terms in discussion are useful in comparative politics because they highlight the subtleties and shades of meaning that official rhetoric imply. Politics being as much an art as a it is grounded on theory and

That which is accepted as knowledge today is sometimes discarded Essay - 4

That which is accepted as knowledge today is sometimes discarded tomorrow. Consider knowledge issues raised by this statement in two areas of knowledge - Essay Example For instance, as proven by Albert Einstein, it is known that the highest velocity that can be possible is the quickness of light, but it was observed that there is quicker velocity than the quickness of light. It is worth mentioning that whatever a person believes is based upon the authority as it decides what has to be accepted in the society. However, as there is a change in time accordingly there is a change in knowledge as well. Thesis Statement. Correspondingly, the objective of the essay is to discuss the issues relating to knowledge that have aroused and how the knowledge attained before can be discarded due to the changes occurred in today’s prevailing situation. Knowledge issues or problems associated with knowledge are terms which do not have a single definition as this definition might cause confusion. However, these issues are directly related to understanding the world. These issues are open to exploration and enquiry of strength along with problems relating to knowledge. These issues help in finding out how knowledge can be of assistance along with limitations of knowledge in collaboration with the approaches of explanation and confirmation in different aspects of knowledge. In a broader perspective, knowledge issues include an assortment of aspects which could be approached from the Theory of Knowledge (TOK) viewpoint wherein it allows exploration, discussion and development of the issues. For instance, most frequently raised questions by students, â€Å"Are the textbooks and questions provided by the teachers’ right?† is a knowledge issue when it is framed appropriately in TOK objectives along with aims context (Carroll , â€Å"Knowledge Issues†). Moreover, it can be expected that if the knowledge issue is treated properly then it would certainly deal with aspects that can be interlinked in different relevant ways. This is the reason because of which the knowledge issue is treated in

RR communications Essay Example for Free

RR communications Essay At RR communications, it is obvious there is a problem that needs to be handled if they are to avoid losing customers. The problem lies with the decentralized operations where each business unit has a mandate to operate independently. The business units have the power to make and implement new projects and make decisions without having to involve the whole firm. This has led to many problems such as customers complaining of having receipts for each of the four products offered by the company and would prefer having one receipt for all their transactions. Due to the division among departments, the company has been unable to meet reporting requirements for the Sarbanes Oxley Act. It has proved obvious that a shared IT service, which is standardized among all the units, is needed to ensure everything goes well. The first problem we see at RR Communications is that there is a definite lack of centralized and concise IT governance. Currently all of the separate functions of the company have their own individual leadership with no central leadership. For this reason, each of the sections takes actions and makes decisions based only on how it affects their own particular departments. There is no coordination to ensure that the act of one area does not negatively affect the rest of the firm. This in turn has led to a significant lack of uniformity across the organization, which is hurting customer relations. There are unified databases and each section maintains their own set of records; this is causing great frustration among their customers who continually have issues when dealing with more than one area. Much of the division of departments has been caused by a lack of central leadership. The CEO of the firm has failed to unify the department or assert any control over the individual IT vice presidents. Even though they reported to him, each had acted entirely independently. This continuous failure of leadership has caused the department heads to develop a sense of isolation and self-survival. Even though a new executive VP of IT has been appointed to bring unity to the firm, there has been severe resistance as each department feels it will suffer. The lack of centralized management for so long has caused significant discord between the departments that will take considerable effort to overcome. In addition, this company attitude has filtered down from the VPs to the middle and lower management creating an overall atmosphere that is dangerously disjointed. Even the suggestion of bringing together the database systems and management has caused a near  mutinous uprising and rejection of leadership. The current managerial atmosphere has been around so long, the attitude of individualism has been deeply imbedded in the corporate culture. While, individual thinking is useful to foster innovation and creativity, when the entire organization acts to satisfy only its individual requirements, the firm overall will suffer. Unless this attitude can be overcome, any attempt at bringing unity to the company will fail. From the technical standpoint, RR Communications is suffering from a severely fractured information management system. Every section of the company maintains its own individual customer databases, which are in incompatible formats. If a customer maintains relationships with more then one division, they get bills from each individual area. Customer issues often fail to get resolved because the departments do not communicate or share information. This is causing problems with diminished customer satisfaction. In addition, without a centralized database, full customer information and statistics are impractical to collect. In addition to suffering by not being able to collect detailed records, the company is facing regulatory issues by not being able to provide complete information on the company’s activities, and significant resources are being wasted to assemble simple reports. Currently management and associates at RR Communications believe that a collective solution is impossible, and any attempt to do so will cause them to suffer. While it may be true that the initial implementation of such a system will require a significant collective effort, the end result will be well worth it. It is also clear that much of the perspective of management is extremely short sided; projects are selected only based on a very narrow and limited benefit view with no regard for their long-term viability. As more and more systems have been patched together to fulfill immediate gaps, the overall collection of programs has become a cumbersome, inefficient, and unmanageable mess. A truly efficient system would be one that is all-encompassing and communicates across all facets of the organization to deliver a unified and fully integrated information system that can add real value to the firm. One other major issue at RR Communications is the proliferation of rouge projects completed without oversight or regard for how they will affect the firm. In a large company every project should be examined to determine how it could provide value to the organization before being launched. At RR  Communication projects are being launched that benefit only select areas and may in fact be causing a significant negative impact to the rest of the firm. The company currently does not have a steering or operating committee to oversee and exert control over these projects. Without any form of centralized control and governance, these rouge projects will continue to sabotage the effectiveness of the organization. Lack of common information and enterprise IT strategy has caused several problems for the business and the IT departments of RR communications. Customer service has suffered and customer dissatisfaction has grown. Lack of common information has made it difficult for management to monitor the businesses as a whole. Business units are unable to exchange information and remain unaware of the other divisions’ work. There is little sense of how the divisions work together to meet the company’s overall goals. The accounting problems make it difficult to present shareholders with accurate financial information, and the system is not cost-effective in any case. Furthermore, each division working at individual level to attain its success makes them rigid and unable to adapt to changing requirements; under these circumstances even the implementation of new technology will be extremely difficult. The organization cannot operate efficiently as a whole or at division levels, and the costs are bound to keep increasing. Analysis: As many annoyed customers can probably agree, being transferred from one department of the company to another over and over again to resolve a simple issue is one of the main reasons many companies lose customers. This is certainly an issue at RR Communications. The main cause of the problem seems to be the division of the different business units. This lack of unity is caused by a faulty commission system that rewards individual performance over company profit. The fact that the four CIOs refuse to work together and resort to sabotaging the efforts of the others, serves to show that they are more interested in their own selfish financial goals. While the president of the company may have been a visionary and brilliant entrepreneur, he lacked the managerial skills to recognize the need to have a unified commission system which would foster participation in a common goal, and thus a common  commission which is interdependent on all four business units would be most beneficial to the company. Unifying IT Resources The most important problem for RR Communications to correct is a significant deficiency of successful information management, reflected by the confused state of their customer information databases. Currently customer data is disbursed in separate databases for each section of the company, so that data from one department is not available to another. Thus, customers are forced to maintain relationships with multiple departments and receive billing from each. This separation means that valuable information resources are not being effectively utilized, hurting the firm’s productivity and efficiency. To improve the state of information capital at RR Communications, a complete overhaul of the current systems will be necessary, from both an IT and business standpoint. Information represents a vital asset to any company. This can be in the form of customer accounts, sales records, research development, financial statements, etc. However, in order to realize full benefits, the same information must be readily accessible by all individual units, so that the company can leverage it in the most efficient manner. The first step to correct the issues at RR Communications is to create a unified data architecture that combines all information resources into a central database that is accessible to all sections of the firm. By providing a centralized database clients will be better served by allowing complete access to customer records throughout the company. This will also improve reporting abilities, lower administrative costs, and greatly increase the value of information resources. To achieve the greatest benefit to the company, RR Communications could consolidate its data from multiple silos into a unified enterprise data warehouse (EDW) (Smaltz, 2011). This architecture provides multiple benefits including a single location for all information storage reducing the amount of duplicated efforts. This also greatly improves the integrity of data by providing a ‘single version of the truth’ (Smaltz, 2011). When data is spread throughout multiple databases, invariable some of it will differ. For example, a customer’s address may have been changed in one department but not another. These differences can prove costly to a company. A centralized EDW means that only one record should exist for each customer and reduce  data discrepancies. Having such a centralized system would also satisfy customer needs in a more efficient manner and would help to cross-sell products, which in turn would result in higher profits and more profit for the company. By allowing customers to have a single point of contact, and sharing information by standardizing software and databases across the organization, information will flow more freely and readily available thus giving the employees the ability to communicate in real time with accurate data and maximizing customer contact to increase profits. Having a decentralized IT function is not conductive to achieve an enterprise vision because by keeping the separate business units separated, it keeps pertinent information out of reach of other business units, and thus allows missed opportunities to maximize profit. Also, the lack of communication among the units creates chaos and disorganization in the organization and gives precedence to individual goals above company goals, which in turn will end up hurting the overall enterprise vision and may even spell the end of the enterprise altogether. Finally, having a decentralized IT function creates customer frustration such as in the case of getting several bills for different products. This frustration may cause the company lost customers and lost profits. Information Stewardship Information Management Policy The difficulty in implementing this solution is the current state of the databases scattered about the firm; many are in incompatible formats, so that significant effort will need to be invested to bring together all of this data into a single, shared IT service system accessible to all. In addition, not all data is equally valuable to each unit. Efficiency necessitates allowing employees access to the information that is most pertinent without inundating the various departments with extraneous details. For this reason, whatever IT solution is implemented must be able to adapt dynamically to the storage and retrieval needs of each department. Another challenge to creating a centralized system is the role of information stewardship. Information stewardship involves the ownership and control of information to reduce discrepancies and redundancies. To maintain the consistency and accuracy of data, information stewards need to be appointed. â€Å"Information stewards are businesspeople. They should be responsible for determining the meaning of information ‘chunks’ and their  business rules and contextual use. They should be responsible for the accuracy, timeliness, consistency, validity, completeness, and redundancy of information† (McKeen Smith, 2009, p. 76). A serious challenge to the consolidation of data at RR Communication will be consolidating all of the disparate information from around the firm into a single enterprise data warehouse. It is very likely that there will be duplicate information, conflicting records, incompatible data formats, and other inconsistencies that will not lend themselves to easy integration. However, the reduction in duplicate and conflicting information will be vital to the success of RR Communication. Duplicate data means an increase in administrative work and overhead, a nd conflicting and inconsistent information means the company is not performing at optimum levels. The reduction of duplicate data, or data deduplication â€Å"can improve the performance of virtual systems, reduce network traffic and cut the costs associated with data protection. In addition, deduplication allows backup data to be replicated more efficiently to other sites for disaster recovery† (Symantec, 2011). Duplication increases the amount of data a corporate network must process, reducing efficiency and increasing costs. Storage costs increase as the same information may be stored and backed up across multiple databases, again wasting resources. Finally, duplication of data significantly increases the amount of labor required to utilize it in any useful manner. Clearly, RR Communication will need a significant amount of data deduplication to create a useful, consolidated enterprise data warehouse. To facilitate the proper stewardship of information, an information management policy needs to be created that addresses these issues in a way that prevents such confusion and disarray. An information management policy will dictate the rules and guidelines for how information is handled, who is responsible for maintaining and updating it, and outline the policies and practices to do so (McKeen Smith, 2009). To begin to unravel the data mess at RR Communications they should define an encompassing information management policy that will effectively address the issues of what information is retained, who is responsible for updating it, how it is to be maintained, and who should have access to it. Critical to the success of this policy will be the involvement of management from all functional areas of the company. Each should be given the opportunity to contribute to the policy,  and each individual needs should be addressed. In addition, the problem with this solution will be gaining acceptance from the different functional areas of the business. There will obviously be conflicts of ideas and differences of opinion in how the policy should be created and enforced. To improve the effectiveness of the policy it needs to be thoroughly enforced from top management down. This means to gain compliance, RR Communications’ CEO needs to set the example and pressure all levels of management below to do the same. Another strategy to encourage the support of the divisional presidents for the shared customer service is by creating awareness that the free information flow would be beneficial for all and would simplify business processes, thus allowing then to increase their bottom line, and thus their bonuses. Finding opportunities to demonstrate small success would help show the support being given to the divisions. To aid in compliance, a large corporate training program should be initiated to ensure the policy is well known by all associates. Gaining compliance by all of the business areas will be the most difficult part of this solution; the ingrained attitude of self-preservation that exists at RR Communication will be difficult to overcome. However, change is not impossible, but only by dedication of management. The initial implementation period will be the most difficult, and if enforcement waivers the policy may fail. Creating Useful Information from Raw Data One characteristic of an enterprise system is ensuring seamless integration of a company’s information among all divisions, including financial and accounting Markus, M.L., Tanis, C. (n.d.). Hence, to achieve a successful enterprise system, a company must have its IT systems centralized to ensure information runs smoothly and is relevant among all divisions, especially the financial and accounting information. Considering the accounting problems brought up at the final meeting, the company obviously needs to implement a centralized IT function. Moreover, it will be far more expensive to have an enterprise system with a decentralized IT function, which is contrary to the aim of achieving an enterprise system. While a centralized information management system will indeed offer benefits at RR Communication, if there is no way to utilize and interpret that data, it is useless; this is analogous to being data rich and information poor. Just  because a company has loads of data does not mean that is fully informed. A company such as RR Communication collects vast quantities of data, but having the resources to convert that into useful information can be an extreme challenge. At RR Communication, they are facing a double-sided problem; they have neither a collective data warehouse, nor do they have any effective information management. Once the problem of centralization has been addressed, information management can be. One potential way to improve the use of massive amounts of data is using a metadata repository. A metadata repository functions much like the card catalog of a library; while it does not specifically contain the information, it provides an index of what is available, including the relevant points on what it contains, as well as a pointer to locate the information (Moss Brodie, 2002). This index provides an extremely valuable resource tool to quickly locate pertinent information. In addition, the metadata repository should be designed with the ability to hook into other systems that are developed to provide information to mother systems as necessary. Establishing this framework now will offer increased benefits as more systems are built off the central repository. Addressing Corporate Culture As seen in RR Communications, lack of common information and enterprise IM strategy can cause several problems to the business and the IT department. RR Communications has encountered serious customer service problems, due to lack of common information and enterprise strategy. In addition, lack of common information makes it hard for the overall management to monitor the businesses. Business units are unable to exchange information, and none is aware of the other divisions’ work. The company is not in a position to strengthen its brand since no divisions work together. To remedy this, a unification of the firm needs to take place from more than just an IT standpoint. The disjointed nature of the firm’s information assets reflects a deeper separation of the personnel at RR Communications. Departments work for their own ends with naught but passing concern for their effects on the company as a whole. This lack of cohesion manifests itself in the behavior of the CIOs, divi sional managers, and even the employees, and has resulted in the severe fragmentation of corporate culture. The fragmented IT systems are only a symptom of a much larger problem. Before addressing the IT  problems at RR Communications, the underlying culture of the business needs to be transformed. This begins at the very top, with the president of the company and the highest leaders; they need to be the first to set the example, and it is clear their current attitudes have set the company on the disastrous course it is on. Removing the CIO team which has hampered the company’s efforts at unification up until now was a good step, but serious considerations now need to be taken to prevent things from getting worse. Other associates could easily see firing the CIOs as a usurping of departmental sovereignty; however, they need to use this as an opportunity to show that the company can be brought together without sacrificing any of their needs. To capitalize on this opportunity the president and vice president should bring together the next level of management into a council of members to set the direction and culture of the firm in a way that promotes unity and mutual respect. This council should be responsible for creating and fostering an atmosphere that shows the benefits of the firm functioning as one. They need to prove to the management and associates that their departments will have a say in decisions, and their needs will not be overlooked. To improve the odds of acceptance, the council should be selected from leaders that have proven themselves as examples of good leadership and who are respected in the firm. Key to the success of this council will be keeping everyone on equal footing and ensuring that no one area is given preference over another, especially in the beginning. It is obvious that certain departments will have greater needs then others, and sometimes priority will need to be given to one area; however, if this behavior is present from the outset they will receive much resistance from the firm, as this will reinforce existing fears. Once a unity of the firm has been established, people will be more flexible to accept changes after they see the benefits. It will be up to the president and vice president as leaders to maintain these policies and be the example. As demonstrated in previous cases, the president has been lax in demonstrating himself as a leader and this could prove damaging to any such plans to unify the firm. Leadership must begin at the top, and the success or failure of a company often reflects the abilities of its leadership. Implementation Challenges The advantages of a shared IT system eliminate some of the above-mentioned  problems. A single centralized and standardized IT operating system will enhance quick decisions across all the departments, since all units will be looking at the same data. Furthermore, with a shared service, customers will not have to visit different databases for the same company; rather, all their queries and purchases can be done from one site that will serve them with all that they need from the company. Another advantage will be easy monitoring of the divisional units—their individual performances as well as their contributions to the whole company. Another advantage for the company will be the ability to monitor financial operations, since all operations will be reflected on one database centrally (Amces, 2010). To implement the shared service strategy, it will be important to seek support of the divisional presidents, considering they will be in charge of the units, which are the moneymaking branches. Their willingness to participate in the construction of the shared service will benefit the whole company. The first step to the implementation of this strategy will require assurances that it will benefit the whole company far more than the current system that is facing opposition from not only the customers but also other stakeholders such as the suppliers. In turn, since employees’ remuneration is awarded on performance, improved performance for the whole firm will be an added advantage. Since the divisional heads are used to being in control, it is important to remind them that having a shared service will not mean the imposition of decisions from above. Rather, the shared service will make the operations of the whole organization work in harmony for the purpose of easy monitoring customer convenience. They should be included as part of the implementation team, so they can offer input on what they may not want to change. For instance, many are worried they will have to do away with specific projects. Ensuring them that these projects will continue after implementation of the shared service would increase their support, as would helping them understand that the new, shared system will enhance the harmony and efficiency of whole organization; eventually they will come to see that their roles will remain mostly the same. Another way to improve the odds of success to a centralized data structure is by appointing a team to oversee the maintenance of the data warehouse fr om an enterprise level. Ideally the members of this team should be comprised of analysts from the important functional areas of the company. This can help gain buy-in from the company  due to the fact that the members of this team have already proven themselves to be knowledgeable and capable in their previous environments (Smaltz, 2011). In addition the benefit of incorporating these individuals is that individual departments will feel that they have representation in the new system, and that their interests are protected. This will increase the potential for global acceptance in the program. Another way to increase compliance with the new systems is to implement an incentive program that would drive associates to achieve the best results. Incentive programs drive people to reach specific targets by offering them tangible rewards beyond their current compensation. At RR Communications, an incentive program could be implemented to increase compliance and adoption of a new centralized system. For example, the company could offer monetary bonuses to departments that lower their operating costs using the new system the most. Another more abstract idea would be to have a small bonus program for departments that offer ideas to enhance the productivity of the system. Many of the departments have complained that a shared system would cause them to be overlooked; however, offering this type of inventive would both encourage them to make enhancements of the system while simultaneously demonstrating that their opinions count. Positive reinforcement, such as an inventive program, help gain the compliance of the workforce in a much more efficient way then punishment or negative reinforcement. There are governance mechanisms and metrics that can be used to encourage the implementation and use of a shared enterprise data system. The governance that needs to be put in place is the alignment of divisional units with the IT department. The metrics must be aligned with transparency to ensure that IT is in congruence with business operations. The governance mechanism should involve all departments focusing on regulatory issues, risk alleviation and opportunity enhancement. The metrics used should be concerned with making divisional data fit into an enterprise system. These metrics will identify areas of weakness and avenues of improvement. To quote an analogy, â€Å"Rome wasn’t built in a day;† and it will take significant time and effort to remedy all the problems at RR Communications. Close governance and metrics will aid in any improvement plan. Recommendation: It is evident that RR Communications need an intervention in its customer  service center. The lack of a centralized customer care center is making it hard to provide unified services to customers. More so, a lot of time is wasted by customers who have to be referred to different department for billing. Customers are forced to have several accounts with the company for each division since each division is held with its independent operations including billing (Smith McKeen, 2007). This makes it hard for customer care provision. Considering consumer service is very crucial for any business, RR Communications need a centralized customer service center. A centralized service center will have many benefits to the whole organization such as cost reduction, time saving, good management of customers’ data or information, and customer satisfaction. I recommend a centralized customer service center for RR communications for its advantages as predetermined below. The divisional IT service means having separate audits for every division. Having each division with an individual audit is expensive for the company since several auditors will be needed. Eliminating the divisions will save some costs that would otherwise be used for the services of the auditors at every division. With a single it department, data can be fed there and only one audit team will be required for the whole company. This also means reduced time for audits since with divisions audits have to be put together after each department has completed its audit (Smith McKeen, 2007). Coordination among the auditors will be efficient since information is collected from one point where all information concerning company accounts is stored. Therefore, having a centralized service center will enhance such operations across the whole organization. In addition, with a centralized customer service center as well as IT, it will ensure information is collected at one point making it easy to access information concerning any department from any point within the company without having to refer to the division in charge. Hence, for the auditors, complying with the set Sarbanes Oxley act will be easy since information about customer billing and accounts of the whole firm will be centralized ensuring accuracy. Having the customer service centralized enhances business operations and processes, ensuring best practices such as timely audits are realized. With data consolidated in one central place, information can be exploited to breed new opportunities for the company. When data is at one place for all the divisions, it is easier to have a broader picture  concerning how the divisions can create a new opportunities. Exploiting these opportunities jointly among the divisions is better than going individually. Moreover, security can be more enhanced with a shared service center since monitoring will be done by one entity. This will further reduce costs associated with having each division taking responsibility of storing and maintaining its own data. Considering that RR communications is currently having several softwares, consolidating information together for the whole company is hard. Smooth flow of information across departments to ensure easy sharing is vital; not only for the whole com pany, but for divisions too, considering information consolidation is a fundamental instrument for doing business. Consolidating the IT services to one centralized structure will require removing of service center hardware from each division to one central department that will mitigate risks and have a common structural design as well as policies that are easily reviewable for updating. A common security procedure will reduce risks associated with information breech. Through the same procedures and practices, the company can reduce file systems redundancy within the organization and enhance efficient document retention as well as reduce costs. Another reason to have one service center is to match the technical capacity of the company with its vision. At the current divisional independence, the divisions exploit their own visions that are not in congruence with the organization’s vision and mission. Considering the company’s vision is to have a consistent brand across all the divisions, it is necessary to have cross-shared services across all divisions to achieve this vision. The vision can be achieved through cross- sales of all the company services to its customers, as opposed to each department having its selling strategy. Having a shared sales service will serve to reduce the costs incurred when divisions do it individually hence creating a better chance for profit across all departments. Having a central service center will ensure that the overall vision of the company is followed since the central service center will be inclined towards the vision of the whole company. This way, each division can have a chance of benefiting form other divisions, hence the company as a whole (Smith McKeen, 2007). Having a single service center will allow easy outsourcing for the organization. Currently, businesses are outsourcing majority of their operations to other professional companies for reductions  of costs. With independent divisions and IT strategies for each individual division, outsourcing will be quite complicated. Having a central service center to oversee all requests will enhance efficiency as well as value. More so, through the consolidation of IT services and information at one common place will reduce security risks associated with outsourcing services. This will further ensure reliability and security of information. A consolidation of information and IT services will enhance cross-services for customers such as billing (McKeen Smith, 2011). The company divisions at current circumstance hold their information secret from each other, making it a competition within the divisions that raise the problem of billing where customers have to be referred to other divisions for other services. With the consolidated information, customers will only need to visit one department from which other information concerning other divisions can be met. This will improve the perception of their whole company as a brand and the standing of the company can be improved as well as customer satisfaction. There is need for the company to realize that in the current world information is one of the drivers of businesses, which all businesses need to survive. Having each division with its own information center reduces the chances of the company improving in the future since the harmonious climate needed among the divisions for this achievement is minimal. Having stipulated the advantages bound to arise or reasons why a central service center should be achieved, it is important to consider how RR can be able to implement this recommendation with ease and least resistance from the divisions. This is the first most likely problem to arise during implementation. Hence, the first step should be generating support form all divisions, which has been quite hard up to now especially from the managers who are self centered and concerned with their earnings that depend on their performance. The managers also have a negative attitude towards merging of information and data among the divisions through one central service. A three-point strategy can be used to gain their support. It includes financial strategy, mitigation of risks associated and compliance to regulation. Financial point can emphasize the advantages the shared service is bound to raise, which will for the benefit of all the divisions and organization as a whole. Risk mitigation will arise from security of information through monitoring by one entity in a standardized  way, while regulatory will be concerned with abiding to set accounting rules of the Sarbanes Oxley act which the company has been having problems with (Schwartz, 2007). The next step would be to lay out the vision of the company and show why it cannot be achieved with division of operations among the divisions. This will impart some reasoning among the leaders, and support fore all divisions should be ensured. The main aim is to make everybody in the divisions aware of the role they will play and their stake to ensure thee is compliance and acceptance of the strategy to build a one services center (McKeen Smith, 2011). One of the problems that could arise after implementation of a shared service center is ease of adoption. Some employees who have been used to the old system will require to be trained how to work harmoniously with a single service center. Many will be required to handle more information concerning not only their divisions, but also other divisions. Hence, there will be need to have them trained to provide a central service to the customers. Another problem would arise for the culture set by the independent divisions prior to the implementation of a single service center. The current culture is of rivalry among the divisions considering they have been competing among themselves. Killing the culture will be a little hard. To deal with the problem the company will have to sta rt early through brining people together and coming up with tasks that can be incorporated in all divisions that allows all members to interact. The shared tasks will enhance cooperation among the different divisions. Conclusion RR is having problems because of lack of a common service center. All divisions are held with their own operations that aim at achieving divisional goals at the expense of corporate goals. The company is lacking a strong unified brand to sell to customers since all divisions are accounted for independently. This has made it obvious that a shared service will be the best for solving these issues. RR needs to put in place an alignment of their IT services with the business units. Transparency must be encouraged and joint responsibilities of IT ad businesses to achieve shared service center (smith McKeen, 2007). The company should also have a common enterprise vision for their systems. All the departments should be included with emphasis on joint business opportunities and risk mitigation. The top  management should be in forefront to creating an atmosphere of improvement continuously with a key focus on customer service to ensure the shared service center is successful. References McKeen, J. D., Smith, H. A. (2009). IT Strategy; Issues and Practices (2nd Edition ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, Inc. McKeen, J. D., Smith, H. A. (2011). IT Strategy; International edition (2nd Edition ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, Inc. Moss, L., Brodie, M. (2002, July). Data Rich, but Information Poor? Retrieved October 26, 2011, from Information Management: http://www.information-management.com/issues/20020701/5341-1.html Schwartz, K/D. (2007). IT Governance Definition and Solutions. Retrieved from http://www.cio.com/article/111700/IT_Governance_Definition_and_Solutions#what Smaltz, D. H. (2011, July/August). Are You Leveraging Your Data or Is Your Data Leveraging You? HIT Exchange , pp. 8-9. Smith, H. A., McKeen, J. D. (2007). Shared Services at RR Communications. Queens School of Business. Symantec. (2011, May 2). Deduplication and Efficient Data Storage. Retrieved October 26, 2011, from PR Newswire 1. List the advantages A single customer service center will yield both financial and human resource savings for RR Communications by eliminating the allocation of duplicated resources to the multiple divisional and regional customer service centers. With valuable resources freed from these multiple customer service centers, the company will be able to allocate more resources to its value added activities and improve operational efficiency. RR Communications run four divisions, each with a distinct but a complimentary product. They are internet, mobile, landline, and cable TV service. There is a deregulation in the telecommunications industry and its becoming a norm for competitors to offer multiple services like RR Communications. RR Communications’ customers  have been complaining about double billing because the four divisions have no working collaboration and thus, no way of knowing when the other division may already have sent the bill. A single customer service center will consolidate the da ta of the customers of all divisions and by addressing the problem of inaccurate billing, it will potential save the loss of dissatisfied customers to the competitors. A single service center will also yield growth opportunities by marketing the company’s other services to customers that they may not already have and offer discount incentives on the purchase of multiple products. A single customer service center will allow comparison among the company’s divisions in terms of product quality, customer satisfaction, and retention rates so that more resources could be allocated to troubled areas. A single customer service center will also make it easy to gather data about the company’s divisions and store them in standard formats for management analysis. By having access to all the relevant information about the customers, the customer service center will be better able to address customers’ questions and market company’s products which would not have been possible with separate customer service centers. It will also be convenient for the customers to call only one place for all their questions and thus, will increas e goodwill for RR Communications. 1. Is it possible to achieve an enterprise vision with a decentralized IT function? The answer to this question really depends on what the meaning or intention is behind the idea of an enterprise vision. If this simply means of having certain departments existing and able to complete their tasks and accomplish their goals, basically that the enterprise is functioning, than the answer is certainly. As demonstrated in the case study, there were multiple divisions for IT that were each doing their own thing, and while it wasnt pretty, compatible or optimal, everything did, technically, work allowing each department to function. As soon as the vision of an enterprise expands to a desire to work more efficiently, unify tools and platforms, have stronger compatibility or be one company a decentralized IT function becomes a massive hindrance. Turning to the case study again, each department was replicating the efforts of the other departments by finding their own software/data vendors, creating unique database systems and having their own support staff. This not only made it difficult for clients who  needed assistance, but meant there was excessive spending, and an inability for multiple departments to come together to function as a a single entity within the enterprise. 2. What business and IT problems can be caused by lack of common information and an enterprise IM strategy? There are numerous business and IT problems that can arise from the lack of common strategy. In terms of IT there can be duplication of efforts, systems and tools leading to not only multiple expenditures to yield the same results, but this may mean there is no strong outline of how systems are set up or designed, there may be no map detailing the hardware and software in place, which makes it far more difficult to not only run inventory, but ensure that new expenditures are needed and not (again) duplicating tools that have already been purchased or implemented. When different software and hardware solutions are used across departments, this also leads to difficulties in compatibility. When the organization wants to implement something new, it would be difficult if not impossible to determine if it can be integrated into the existing tools, or this may result in unanticipated technical errors arising from compatibility issues. Business problems stem primarily from an inability of data to be effectively shared across groups, thus limiting the ability of various departments to work together. Not only could this cause rifts to form between various groups, but it also means that there could be issues with data consistency. This is especially troubling for client data, as a change in one department may not be updated elsewhere due to data being stored in different databases, the inability for data to be updated across databases, and even opens up the potential for technical errors causing data that is normally consistent to suddenly become dispar ate from similar data elsewhere. Additionally, when the business requires technical assistance it is likely to be difficult to find the correct person with the knowledge needed to resolve a particular issue if that department is using specialized systems that are not consistent across the organization. 3. What governance mechanisms need to be put in place to ensure common customer data and a shared customer service center? What metrics might be useful (think service level agreements, etc.)? Common customer data will require a standardized database, as well as regular auditing procedures to ensure that data is only being modified/updated by those individuals who are supposed to have access, as well as verifying  accuracy for these modifications. Customer service really depends on the objectives of the company. I worked on an inbound phone line at a call center for 3 years while this was technically brokerage service, arguably it was a cutomer service center. Training had to be farily comprehensive so we could assist clients with almost any issues they had, and on top of that reps have to know what departments specialize in certain topics in case they need help figuring out what happened or resolving a complicated problem. On top of that, there is regular review and QA of random c alls to ensure representatives are giving correct informaton and assisting the client based on the standards and expectations set by the organization. Call reviews are measured on a scale where there are certain objective actions that are required on every call, then measured more subjective terms such as professionalism. I work with a tremendous amount of shared customer data, and everything is monitored, recorded and subject to audit procedures. There is always the abilty to find out who did what, when, and every phone call is recorded and maintained for a period of time. This of course protects the client as much as it helps protect the firm. As far as data is concerned, I dont know if there are specific service level agreements in place, but I do know that there is regular testing of what is referred to as host fallback where all the primary systems are taken down for a period of time, then brought back up. While this is frustrating for reps and clients who need access to the data, the very small number of times I experienced an unscheduled outage the backup systems performed well, all reps knew how best to work within the confines of the backup system, and the discussion with clients about why certain things could not be done went far more smoothly than if regular testing was not performed. The case study this week describes the classic example of an organization which is heavily decentralized into distinct lines of business (each with its own IT group) that realizes their need for a flexible and responsible IT function, a common view of the customer, and the elimination of redundant systems