Project risk and Procurement Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Project risk and Procurement - Essay Example The differences appear because the future is not known or is not exactly predictable. Thus, it is evident that risk exists from the onset of an activity. The risks generally arise because either there are hazards within the activity or there is a lack of certainty about the activity which is being undertaken. Therefore, the nature of risks becomes identifiable in terms of information, control and resources (skills, money, time and equipment). Broadly, risk can be classified as litigation, reputation risk and environmental risk (Lansdowne, 1999). For example, one of the major cigarette manufacturing companies had to recall around 3 million cigarettes once it became aware of the fact that their cigarettes were potentially contaminated. This created significant negative publicity for the company and resulted in loss of reputation (Egbuji, 1999). Furthermore, this has also resulted in reduced revenue. In the similar way, Toyota, the giant car manufacturing company had to recall a number of products because of some issues in the braking system. This hampered the reputation of the firm badly (Elsenstein, 2013). However, the activities of Toyota after this incident took place, exemplifies the way how a company should manage its risks. This report seeks to investigate about the different types of risks associated with project management. In addition, the report will also throw light on activities undertaken by companies for managing the risks in small and large projects. The risk measurement techniques usually applied by the companies will be also discussed in this project. Risk in Project Management In the recent past, major corporate disasters such as the Enron Collapse, insolvency of Lehman Brothers etc. have increased the need of efficient corporate governance (Cervone, 2004). Similarly, catastrophic natural disasters, such as Earthquakes, Tsunami and man-made tragedies such as terrorism activities have greatly increased the risk awareness and its consequences (Bar ki, Rivard and Talbot, 2001). A company involved in project activities also encompasses different risk management activities (OGC, 2007; Otway, 1992). There are several types of risks associated with projects such as mechanical engineering, construction projects or information technology projects. In the context of project management, risk is defined as â€Å"a problem that has not happened†, but is yet to occur (Pavlak, 2004, p.20). As a result of that risk management is positioned high in every project manager’s agenda (Pender, 2001). There are various types of risks associated with project management. The most common risks are as follows: - Cost risk: - Cost risk is typically the escalation of the project cost due to improper estimation of the cost and scope creep. The cost risks are directly associated with the financials of the company. One of the most common examples of cost risk is the over budget. Project managers often falter in determining the cost requiremen t of the entire project and as a result of that the budget exceeds and companies experiences financial loss (Williams, 2005). Schedule Risk: - The schedule risk is the type risk in which managers fear that a certain activity will take longer than the expected time. Such kind of

The Sugar trade Essay Example for Free

The Sugar trade Essay Oh the wonderful sweetness of money and sugar. What drove this so called sugar trade, you ask? Consumer demand, return on investment, and slavery were all very important aspects to the making of the historic events in which were the sugar trade. Consumer demand is the product of the addicting compounds which make up sugar, adding it to about everything sugar gradually became a very important aspect in the 1500s normal lifestyle. Return on investment is when you put money into something and get a profit or get your money black plus some, thus making a business out of something. Slavery was a huge part of the sugar trade, they are what made the sugar trade possible, they worked and worked constantly to provide enough sugar for familys in the New World. Consumer demand is one of many parts of the sugar trade but crucial to the survival and thriving love of the product. Sugar consumption approached nearly 10% of overall food expenditures for familys in the 1700s. After 1660 sugar imports always exceeded over all colonial products, that means that they had and wanted more sugar than any other product that was being shipped in from foreign countries. The sugar was shipped in something called a Hogshead, it was a big barrel weighing between 700 and 1200lbs, children loved to lick the remaining sugar left in the barrel after it has been emptied. People love the way sugar tastes, we have for longer than the 1500s, as a matter of fact sugar was cultivated and grown in New Guinea some 9000 years ago. The more slaves there was the more sugar was produced. Slavery is what dramatically helped the sugar trade happen and proceed for so many years before slavery became illegal and machines replaced their jobs. Slaves could be traded for many goods like powder, bullets, brass pans, tobacco pipes, and many other things. At 14 pence a day a laborer in England in the early 1700s earned about 18 British pounds a year. For instance the Hibbert family owned 1,618 slaves in 1833, that year they made 31,120 pounds. In modern day english money thats about $48523, back then that was worth a lot more than it sounds. Familys who could afford to buy slaves to start a sugar industry always made a profit and thrived at what they did. Even if you werent in the sugar trade its self you could buy and sell trades to people who were in the business and still make huge profits. The cost of slaves went up through the years of 1748-1768. Return on Investment, money in slave trade in British Caribbean doubles their money in the sugar trade. Bought slaves for 14 pounds and sold for around 32 pounds, they typically made a good profit depending on where they bought the slave and where they sold the slave. Gives England a trad position. Owned trading system, bought for cheap sold expensively. This system was called a Mercantile system or Mercantilism. This is how the system worked, the English would buy raw items for cheap and refined or made them into finished goods, in this case they would buy sugar cane and refine it until it was white refined sugar, this series of laws began in about 1660 the Parliament in England approved a entire series of new laws taking care of colonial shipping. In conclusion that is what drove the sugar trade, the financial advantages of making money influenced many familys mainly consisting of the rich to enter into the sugar industry and most if not all did very well with their business. Slavery is another huge part of the sugar trade, without them it might not have happened, people might not have made as much money either. Consumer demand, however, is obviously the most important part of what drove the sugar trade. Peoples addicting affection for the sweetening substance got greater with the increase in population and slaves. Sugar is still a huge part of our daily lives, Its branched out to many different countries now, Weve enjoyed sugar even as far back as 9000 years ago and still continue to love it today.

The Customer Segmentation In Indian Banking System Business Essay

The Customer Segmentation In Indian Banking System Business Essay About two decades ago, when private players started rolling out their services, the state-run banks, who had in their grip almost entire retail customers in India, sensed it could be the beginning of a change, but probably never realised it would come with so much force and hit them hard. And they sure had no idea that after moving at an elephants pace for so many decades, they might be forced to change quickly and probably beyond recognition. The arrival of private banks, and in a limited way the foreign banks, changed the way banking was done in India. They changed retail customers expectations and the preferences and now in a fiercely competitive space, every bank wants to get a handle on the rapidly changing consumers taste and raise its service to retain and gain the market share. Our study conducted on educated middle-class working professionals in New Delhi offers an insight into how todays customers are picking their banks and ending contacts with those, which fail to satisfy them. The surveys findings underline the traditional services such as prompt and courteous services at branches are still important for bank customers. The study clearly highlights that customers value banks with bigger network of branches and ATMs as they consider it more reliable. Customers do prefer to have an account with a bank where their family members already have one. They also put a premium on a range of so-called new range of services: lower call waiting and the ability of the customer care staff to quickly understand their problem and connect them to the right executive.   Another interesting outcome was that most customers had more than one bank account and thus could pick bank for specific services. Introduction: India is on the path to become a global economy. Financial Institution specially banking industry plays a very important part in Indias growth. Banking in India originated in the last decades  of the 18th century. The oldest bank in existence in India is the State Bank  of India, a government owned bank  that traces its origins back  to June 1806. Central banking is the responsibility of the Reserve Bank of India, which in 1935 formally  took over  these responsibilities from the then Imperial Bank of  India.  After Indias independence, the Reserve  Bank was given broader  powers. In 1969 the government nationalized the 14 largest commercial  banks; another six banks were nationalised in 1980. Currently, India has 88 scheduled commercial banks  (SCBs)- 27 public sector  banks,  33 private  banks and 38 foreign  banks. They have a combined network of  over 53,000 branches and 17,000 ATMs network. Banking In India can be divided into three distinctive time period as described below. Pre-Nationalization Era: Private banks with individual holding were present in pre-nationalization era and Lockout of Banks were the reality in those days. With very little security regulatory mechanism Banks were functioning as discrete assets and there is very little presence of consumer services and security of assets. Post-Nationalization Era: With the backdrop of large no of incident regarding lock out of banks, Central Government had to take a drastic step and they had done the same by nationalization of Banks. Due to involvement of the Government, credibility of banks increased many fold and banking as a sector has started to grow in India. Due to very low or no competition at all government owned banks had started to function like monopolistic services with very little focus on customer services. IT-enabled era: After 1991 private banks with sound security mechanism were again allowed to enter into the banking segment. ICICI Bank, Axis Bank, HDFC Bank started their operation with state of the art IT infrastructure, which enable them with better service delivery and meet consumer expectation. Following the same trend and due to Government regulation Government owned banks like SBI, PNB, BOB had also started providing customer services through IT enablement. Due to some recent development like non-regularization of interest rate some banks had also gone ahead and started to offer differentiated product to make the banking more interesting. Recently government has started to think for allowing business houses for having the banking license. This can really be a game changer for Banking industry as more no of bank will open and try to fetch customers from the competitors with focus on customer preferences. As far as the customer segmentation in Indian Banking system is concerned, it is divided into three broad segments. Corporate: B2B transactions are covered in this segment Mid-Corporate: Transactions with SME is considered under this segment. Retail: Small individual customers are covered under this segment The opening of the banking sector to the private players and Indias rapid economic growth in the past decade has dramatically changed the financial sector landscape in the country. The keen competition brought customers to the centre-stage something unimaginable till about two decades ago when the state-run banks held monopoly and customers convenience was barely on their agenda. The power has now clearly shifted from banks to the customers, as private players scrambled to gain market share by raising service level, introducing innovative products and deploying technology at an unprecedented scale to woo customers. The expansion of foreign players, though limited, raised the consumers expectation and fuelled further competition. To match the private players, leading state-run banks initially, followed by regional banks, have raised the game and now probably every player is willing to give an arm and a leg to get an insight into the consumers behaviour. We have limited our research to educated working middle class in New Delhi a retail sub-segment that is attractive to banks because of paucity of time and resources. The findings cannot be generalized for the entire country. Review of Literature The Ernst Young Global Banking Consumers Survey 2011 has highlighted how customers were increasingly switching banks and preferring transparency to loyalty. The report said pricing was critical to customer satisfaction, although most customers had no idea how much they pay each year for services. Transparency over pricing and service promises is vital if banks are to deliver something customers value. An under-delivery of promised service was a big turn off for customers. Uppal, R. K. (2010), analysed in his study the complaints against Indian Public sector, private and foreign banks. The majority of complaints received were against the public sector banks and the complaints were related to deposit, credit cards and housing loans, clearly showing how state-run firms were unable to raise the quality of services. The study recommends the strategy to mitigate the complaints. RBI Report, Committee on Customer Service in Banks (2011), analysed evaluation of customer services in Indian Banking History. The main objective of the study was to find existing customer services in the Indian Banking system and future roadmap on the same. Authors have emphasized on customer education, involvement of stakeholders for launching any new services, comprehensive banking regulation. Focus on technology will also become major indicator for rolling out and success of services such as Internet Banking. Performance Assurance scheme for enforcing the banks to follow strict performance guideline is also mentioned in the report. Various other improvement aspects like issuing Photo ATM card and fraud detection procedure were also listed in the report. In his research on customers preference (2012), Md Nur-E-Alam Siddique of ASA University in Bangladesh has concluded that the most important factors influencing customers in selecting a private banks are speed and quality of customer services, image of the bank and quality online banking facility. The customers, however, chose a nationalized bank mainly due to low interest rate on loan, safety of deposits and convenient location, the report said. Mosad Zineldin, an Associate Professor at Stockholm University, brought forth some interesting trends in his research on bank customers preferences. The study said the price and advertising had a minor effect in a bank selection, while functional quality such as friendliness and helpfulness of staff, accuracy in account transaction management, efficiency in correcting mistakes were the major determinants of bank selection. Kannan. P., et al. (2012), emphasized in their study that service quality was an interesting field to evaluate the customer satisfaction. The main objective of the study was to examine the consumer preference towards the banking services in rural areas on the basis of (i) demography (ii) type of banks (public, private and cooperative bank). (iii) customers preferences. This study concluded that the satisfaction level of the rural customer was good. Research Methodology: We have adopted Descriptive Research Design for conducting the Research. Under Descriptive Research design we have conducted cross-sectional design, where data have been collected only once from the target audience. Another important point for emphasis in the research design part is that Indian Banks segment its customer mostly in three major category i.e. Retail, Mid- Corporate Corporate. For the purpose of this research project we will only consider the retail segment or the individual customer. As we have only followed the Convenience Sampling method for collection of data that too only for a segment of consumers, so it will not be possible for generalizing the result across the other segment. After reviewing the literature we have segmented customer preference in five key segments as shown below in the picture. Skill, responsiveness, friendliness Variety, cost, suitability Credibility, Technological efficiency Processes, Rules, Waiting time, Speed Network, location, phone/online Among the 5 segments shown above, image and personal of a Banking System is very difficult to change. Access of the banking system is majorly related to the investment that the Bank can undertake for improving its IT backbone. Product and services are can easily be changed if the entire infrastructure is already available with the bank. Survey questionnaire was designed based on the five key factor of customer effectiveness, as shown above. Flow of the questionnaire is described in the diagram below. Questionnaire was designed in the Google spreadsheet and link of the survey was shared in the mail for the sake of convenience. Another important aspect of data collection through Google spread sheet is that, a high amount of data integrity check is already built into the system as user can not pick up any alternative other than mentioned in the web format. Conclusion:- The research findings have brought good news for the banks. Most respondents (81 percent) are happy with customer services at banks, thereby giving the existing banks a pat on their back, while signaling that new entrants will find it extremely difficult to find a toehold in the fiercely competitive banking market once the RBI were to issue new licences. Family again has come to the rescue of the banks in India as majority of our respondents prefer a bank if their family members already have an account there. Banks with greater network of branches and ATMs are preferred over those with smaller networks. Customers see high value and reliability in dealing with large-network banks. Customers naturally also value lower service charges. So for any new entrant in the Indian Banking Sector has to offer low cost services to consumer for attracting them in their fold.

How Is Miss Ruddock’s Terrible Loneliness Conveyed In Alan Bennett’s Es

How Is Miss Ruddock’s Terrible Loneliness Conveyed In Alan Bennett’s A Lady Of Letters? Miss Irene Ruddock is an ordinary middle-aged woman who lives on her own. She was close to her mother who had recently passed away. Miss Ruddock has no real friends and finds it difficult to fill her time so she is often sitting in her chair, looking out of her window and noting what is going on in other people’s lives. She has no social life and she only leaves the house when she has to. Alan Bennett shows Miss Ruddock’s loneliness through her obsession of writing letters. She uses these letters as a way of communicating with the world outside her home. In the drama, before going to prison, we do not hear Miss Ruddock have a meaningful conversation with anyone other than her doctor, who she is talking to, not about her own health, but about her neighbour’s child, who she feels is being neglected. This shows that she is lonely because she has no close family or friends around her who she can talk to so she think that by writing letters she is helping the people around her and making herself feel useful. In the monologue Miss Ruddock writes letters to a wide range of people. All of the letters have one thing is common, which is that they are all letters of complaint. She goes to the funeral of somebody she barely knew and complained to the funeral directors about ‘grown men sulking in the rhododendrons with tab ends in their mouths’. She also, after a trip to London, wrote to the Queen to complain about some dog poo in front of Buckingham Palace. This tells the viewers that she is lonely because she will talk about the smallest things if it means she will be communicating with somebody. Miss Ruddock also replies to ... ... things with which to occupy her time. ‘I am that busy †¦ I’ve opted for bookbinding and dressmaking’. With these things she has had no time with which to write letters and she has nothing to complain about. The viewer also knows she is lonely as her last words in the monologue are ‘I am so happy.’ For most people prison is the worst time of their lives but prison gave Miss Ruddock a new license of life and now she has so little time for herself and feels so wanted and needed she loves life. I think that when Miss Ruddock is released from prison she will not continue to write letters. I think that, for most people the story had a sad ending, but Miss Ruddock learned a lot from prison, it helped her to overcome her ‘terrible loneliness’ by making her feel she had a purpose. It also taught her how to communicate with people orally, and how to make friends.

Chemical Reactions in Our Daily Life Essay

Science being a subject of common interest, it is very intriguing to analyze visual experiments happening in day-to-day life. There are a plethora of products that you use everyday, which are formulated with application of chemical reaction. Say for example; toothpaste, soap, shampoo, cleaning agent, etc. are all results of chemical reactions. Following are some of the most profound chemical reactions, which we encounter in everyday life : Aerobic Respiration Do you know indulging in physical movements is associated with a chemical reaction? The process requires energy, which is yielded by aerobic respiration. Over here, respiration helps breaks down glucose (an energy source) into water, carbon dioxide and energy in form of ATP (adenosine triphosphate). The balanced cellular respiration equation is represented as: C6H12O6 + 6O2 → 6CO2+ 6H2O + Energy (36 ATPs) Anaerobic Respiration Due to overexercising, sometimes our body cells run out of oxygen and respire anaerobically. This cause synthesis of lactic acid and cause muscle cramps. Anaerobic respiration is observed in some bacteria, yeast and other organisms. In contrary to the aerobic type, it breaks down glucose in the absence of oxygen, resulting in production of ethanol, carbon dioxide and energy. Anaerobic respiration equation is: C6H12O6 → 2C2H5OH + 2CO2 + Energy Photosynthesis Photosynthesis is the process by which green plants manufacture their own food. This occurs in presence of sunlight and other raw materials, namely carbon dioxide and water. The chlorophyll pigment harvests the light energy from sunlight, which is then converted into glucose by the phenomenon of photosynthesis. In short, it is the opposite of aerobic respiration. The equation for photosynthesis is: 6 CO2+ 6 H2O + Light energy → C6H12O6 + 6 O2 Rusting of Iron Very often, you notice a coating of rust over unpainted iron surfaces, which gradually leads to disintegration of iron. This is nothing, but a chemical phenomenon called rusting. In this case, iron (a very reactive metal) combines with oxygen in presence of water (more precisely, atmospheric moisture), resulting in formation of iron oxides. The chemical reaction behind rusting can be simply represented as: Fe + O2 + H2O → Fe2O3. XH2O Propane Grill Have you ever prepared meat in a propane grill? The meat placed over the burner is cooked with the help of heat energy released after burning of propane gas. Thus, propane is the reactant which when burnt with the help of oxygen gives heat energy and other byproducts. Check out the balanced equation for the combustion reaction that take place in a propane grill: C3H8 + 5O2 → 4H2O + 3CO2 + energy Whether you consider cooking, souring, fermenting or burning, there is a chemical reaction accompanying these everyday processes. Thus, it won’t be wrong to say learning chemistry and chemical reactions start at home.

Research Paper on Autism

Research Paper on Autism Writing autism research paper needs the proper attention of writer. Writer should be able systemize the data when writing Research paper on autism. Writer should be clear in his findings, thought and ideas. Understanding the idea is the only way one can develop and organize a quality Research paper on autism. If you are not clear or your research paper on autism is not complete your readers may lose their attention or they might get confused. At CustomWritings.com we help you in writing a Research paper on autism. We have put the format of Research paper on autism in an order and you just have to follow it while writing a Research paper on autism. To take a start, do a research paper on autism topics. Once the topic is chosen go ahead. First of all you should put some introduction in your research paper on autism and you should discover the topic when taking a start of Research paper on autism, you should state definition then smoothly going through the, background of that topic of Research paper on autism. You should then motivate your audience toward topic of Research paper on autism. This introduction section of Research paper on autism is ended now. In the second part of the research paper on autism you should reveal some study, quotes, some literature background that support your topic. You should have brief knowledge of literature for the autism research paper. In Research paper on autism you should briefly analyze in order to collect the authentic data. This section calls the literature review and it should include few Research papers on autism in an organized manner. Systemized data is much important in order to put a value in you research paper on autism. Here ends this literature background section of your Research paper on autism. This third section of your Research paper on autism should contain all the methods and solution that support your idea. You should include all the research methods and data collection techniques in Research paper on autism. You have researched a particular method or your own findings in that particular topic of Research paper on autism should be mentioned. Things should not be messed up with your Research paper on autism or with original findings or you will loose credibility. This is the main body of the Research paper on autism. Now it is the time to conclude everything which you have scattered while discovering your Research paper on autism. Here you put the summary that is a small story of your whole work and also the results of Research paper on autism. You should make a list of what is done and then decide which part covers which aspect of research paper on autism.   This part should not exceed from one or two paragraphs of Research paper on autism. The last part of the Research paper on autism is adding the work cited or bibliography page. This section contains references from where you have studied with the publisher name, date, edition, chapter number, page number, year, place of publication or in case of website it should include the URL of that site. Above are the parts that if we put together form autism research paper. We entertain you in custom research papers on autism. Our company writes autism research paper in MLA and APA formats. If you need help in custom research papers on autism, or need to buy a research paper on autism we are just here to provide you original research papers for High School, College and University. We also help write a research paper on autism.

Aerobioc Respiration and Photosynthesis essays

Aerobioc Respiration and Photosynthesis essays Aerobic Respiration is the sixth and final event in the history of metabolism. This cellular process harvests energy by stripping energetic electrons from organic molecules. Aerobic respiration is the portion of cellular respiration that requires oxygen as an electron acceptor. Aerobic respiration employs the same kind of proton pump as photosynthesis and is thought to have evolved as a modification of the basic photosynthetic machinery. It was perhaps inevitable that among the descendants of these respiring photosynthetic bacteria, some would eventually do without photosynthesis entirely, subsisting only on the energy and hydrogen derived from the breakdown of organic molecules. The mitochondria within all eukaryotic cells are thought to be descendants of this bacteria. The process of aerobic respiration is quite simple. The energy of a chemical bond is contained in the potential energy of the electrons that make up the bond. Cells harvest this energy by breaking the bonds and shifting the electrons from one molecule to the next. During each transfer, the electrons lose some of their energy. At the end of this process, the high-energy electrons from the initial chemical bonds have lost much energy, and these depleted electrons are to the final electron acceptor, which is oxygen. In aerobic respiration, the cells harvest energy from glucose molecules in a sequence of four major pathways: glycolysis, pyruvate oxidation, the Krebs cycle, and the electron transport chain. Oxygen is the final electron acceptor. To harvest energy, the cells carry out a complex series of enzyme-catalyzed reactions that occur in four stages. The first stage captures energy by substrate-level phosphorylation through glycolysis; the next three stages carry out aerobic respiration by oxidating the end product of glycolysis. The difference between aerobic respiration and photosynthesis is that aerobic respiration requires oxygen as an electro...