Emily Dickinson and Her Social Seclusion Essay

Dickinson’s I Dwell in Possibility is one great example of how the poet transforms finite to infinite through the imaginative world of poetry. Through the use of metaphors, Dickinson has shown how domestic images such as house, chambers, roof, doors and windows can be extended to infinite imaginations in the poetic world. The â€Å"fairer House† (line 2) serves as a metaphor for poetry and the â€Å"Visitors† (line 9) who are the fairest may be a metaphor for the readers of poetry. The first four lines compare poem and prose by saying poem is more â€Å"superior† (line 4) as it has more â€Å"windows† and â€Å"doors†Ã¢â‚¬â€suggesting that poems are subject to more flexible interpretations. The second stanza talks of how this fairer house can be extended to nature such as â€Å"Cedars† (line 5) and â€Å"the Sky† (line 8). The final stanza reveals writing poems as the speaker’s â€Å"Occupation† (line 10). She opens the world of poetry by the â€Å"widening† of her â€Å"narrow hands†, which serves as a metaphor for the act of writing. Wide† and â€Å"narrow† form a pair of contrast while the repetition of fairness (fairer and fairest are used in the first and last stanza respectively) reiterates that poem is fairer than prose. Dickinson has portrayed the infinite possibilities of poetry through the use of domestic imagery: from the roof of the house to the infinite sky and from the finite hands to the â€Å"Paradise† of poetry. This echoes what Wordsworth claims, Poets choose incidents and situations from common life, and to relate or describe them, throughout, as far as possible in a selection of language really used by imagination, and at the same time, to throw over them a certain coloring aspect; whereby ordinary things should be presented to the mind in an unusual aspect. The loose syntax of the poem and the frequent use of dashes have added to the overall flexibility and the many ‘possibilities’ the poem has: I dwell in Possibility– A fairer House than Prose– More numerous of Windows– Superior–for Doors– Of Chambers as the Cedars– Impregnable of Eye– And for an Everlasting Roof The Gambrels of the Sky– Of Visitors–the fairest– For Occupation–This– The spreading wide my narrow Hands To gather Paradise– The myth of Dickinson’s isolation Interestingly, Dickinson’s seclusion from the society and physical â€Å"confinement† in a house is well-known (yet also often exaggerated), contrary to the free and liberal world that is depicted in her poem. The use of the first-person singular pronoun â€Å"I† without other personal pronouns such as you in I Dwell in Possibility also seems to suggest she had no intention of gaining readership for this poem. Most of her poems were also only discovered after her death in 1886 by her young sister Lavinia. Hence, it may imply that Dickinson could be writing just for her own pleasure. Nevertheless, it should also be noted that the extent of Dickinson’s seclusion may be exaggerated as staying in the household was a common practice for women in the 19th century. As a matter of fact, Dickinson was not deprived of social life. Her family was the pillar of the local community and their house was often used as a meeting place for distinguished visitors. According to Higginson, her mentor and literary critic, although Dickinson did feel awkward in some social situations, with her close friends and sisters she could easily indulge in innocent childlike humour. The fact that she wrote letters to her family, schoolmates and friends also shows she was not as socially secluded as it was claimed to be. Hence, her confinement in the domestic setting did not actually inhabit her from expressing her thoughts. In fact, it might have even helped her in surmounting her surroundings to achieve personal transcendence through poetry. The seemingly familiar household objects suddenly become unfamiliar under the magic of her â€Å"narrow hands†. Just like what most of the poets do, Dickinson had used some of the old and familiar terms in new ways such that readers (though not necessarily intended by Dickinson) inevitably have to take part in the active construction of meanings to interpret what each of the unfamiliar terms means. So why would critics exaggerate Dickinson’s seclusion? It has to do with their romantic fantasy of how a poet should look like — intelligent but arrogant, creative but reserved. It is the paradox that makes a poet a poet, the mystery that makes a poem appealing, even though they may not necessarily be realistic.

Creative Nonfiction by Jhoanna Lynn Cruz Essay

On our first Valentine as a couple, he gave me a bowl of white nondescript flowers. They had a distinctly sweet but faint scent. I had never been a fan of Valentine’s Day nor of love like a red, red rose; but that day, I became a believer. He told me they were papaya blossoms from his mother’s garden. At that moment, I knew I would one day marry him. We had started dating only three months ago, but I knew I would be Maria to his Leon. Why, he even had a younger brother the same age as Baldo! And even though they didn’t live in Nagrebcan nor owned a carabao, the town of Itogon, Benguet was remote enough for me. I have always enjoyed teaching the Arguilla story for its subversive take on the role that one’s family plays in a marriage; but having been born and raised in Pasay City, I had no idea what papaya blossoms smelled like. I imagined that my new boyfriend had read the story in his Philippine literature class and meant for me to recognize his gift as an allusion. In fact, I imagined we would defy societal norms and prove that love conquers all. Instead of a â€Å"theme song,† our relationship had a story to live up to. It was a disaster waiting to happen. In the story, Leon brings his city-girl wife, Maria, home to meet his parents for the first time. His surly father orchestrates several tests of Maria’s suitability through Leon’s younger brother Baldo, who is quickly won over by her papaya blossom scent. The first time I met his parents was on the wedding day of his eldest brother. By then, we had been seeing each other discreetly for seven months, somehow knowing that no one would approve of our relationship. In the midst of the beating of gongs and best wishes, his Kankanaey father only wanted to know two things about me: where I was from and what language I spoke. I gave the wrong answer on both points. I was a Manilena and I couldn’t speak Ilocano yet, having only recently moved to Baguio City to rebuild my life after becoming disillusioned with the institution that had once nurtured my desire to excel. But no love lost, I was only their son’s â€Å"gayyem† (friend), after all. It didn’t help that I was wearing a leopard print spaghetti-strapped dress, which exposed the tattoo on my back. I reasoned that the Cordillera culture has a long tradition of body art; so they should appreciate the significance of mine. None of us knew at that time that I was already carrying a half-Igorot child in my womb (which, I imagined, somehow made me an acceptable quarter-Igorot for the nonce). Against better judgment, we decided to get married. We were under the influence of hormones, of pregnancy, of the Catholic church, of Manuel Arguilla. We would have gotten a quickie secret wedding if he were old enough, or I, wais enough; but by law we needed his parents’ consent. Which they refused to give. For perfectly good reasons. They could have said, â€Å"You shouldn’t marry because he is too young† (and you are ten years older). Or â€Å"You shouldn’t marry because he is still studying† (and you were even his teacher). Or â€Å"You shouldn’t marry because he has a calling† (and you are snatching him from God). But instead his mother said, â€Å"We can’t give you permission because his brother had just gotten married. In the theology of the Cordilleras, if siblings marry within the same year, one of the marriages will fail. The community will blame us if we allow you to marry. † So I called my mother, who promptly came to my rescue, writing them a demand letter based on a fallacy: â€Å"If your child were the woman in this situation, you would rush to marry them! † I’m sure she was so eager to get me married off because she knew it was a fluke. What was most ridiculous (though I refused to see it at that time), was that I was a self-proclaimed lesbian feminist. Despite all the tragic relationships I had had with women, I still believed that it was worth fighting for the right of a woman to love another woman. What business did I have getting married to a very young man? And for all the wrong reasons. Must have been oxytocin overdose sponsored by the baby in my womb. Or a planetary alignment exerting mysterious forces on my consciousness. Or, gasp—Love! Whatever it was, it came to pass. My mother didn’t have to bring my grandfather’s rifle. But I had to do it all on my own: filing the license, finding the Judge, buying the rings, reserving a restaurant, paying for everything. It was a good thing his parents didn’t allow us to tell anybody about the marriage – that way I didn’t have to invite anyone — which lessened my expenses. I had to understand that they had spent all their savings for his brother’s recent wedding, where they had butchered eight pigs for a traditional Igorot wedding feast. And after all, lest we forget, we were getting married against their will. But hey, there they were, on hand to sign the marriage certificate in the sala of the Honorable Judge Fernando Cabato of La Trinidad, Benguet. The ceremony itself was quick – but peppered with omens. First, when the court clerk asked for my mother-in-law’s name, I told her â€Å"Constancia† – because I figured that was where her nickname â€Å"Connie† came from. When I asked my nervous groom, he agreed. When the Judge confirmed the information, â€Å"Constancia† objected because her name is actually â€Å"Conchita. † Judge Cabato made the correction and lectured us about how important it is not to make errors in a legal document. Then, when it came to my father-in-law’s name, the Judge refused to believe that â€Å"Johnny† was his real name. When he asked for the rings, my groom gave him the little box, but when the Judge opened it, it was empty. The elderly honorable Judge sat down and asked, â€Å"Is this a prank? † It turned out that the rings had slipped out of the box and were floating in my groom’s pants’ pocket. When it was time for the wedding kiss, the Judge â€Å"got even† with us. He pronounced us husband and wife and then said, â€Å"No more kissing, it’s obvious there’s a deposit in there! † Then he laughed hearty congratulations. I wonder now how many times he has regaled a party crowd with our story. At the reception in a Chinese restaurant, we occupied only one round table, with only ten guests. The pancit canton was very good. We didn’t get any gifts, except for a framed copy of 1 Corinthians 13: â€Å"Love is patient, love is kind†¦ love does not keep a record of wrongs†¦Ã¢â‚¬  It wasn’t the wedding of my dreams, but the whole event cost me only Php 2,500. It was as do-it-yourself as DIY could get. That didn’t include the cost of the wedding rings, for which I had to sacrifice some of my old gold jewelry. The irony of it escaped me at the time; but for a modern woman on a budget, there was no room for finesse. Thus we began our married life: full of contention, confusion, and concealment. We couldn’t live together immediately; nor was I allowed to be seen in their little neighborhood, where everyone knew everyone. A very pregnant stranger ambling up and down the steep Upper Mangga Road would have been a conspicuous mystery. I continued to live alone in my apartment, with my husband staying weekends, and I pretended in school that my husband is from Manila. I’m not sure anyone actually believed the drama, but I was bathing in first-baby-love, so I couldn’t care less. My other Igorot friends assured me that when the baby is born, my in-laws would finally accept me as the mother of their grandchild. But as I said, I couldn’t care less. I was a Manila girl – I truly believed that our marriage would succeed even without his parents’ approval of me. I was used to flouting norms and not needing anyone. And for his part, my husband argued existentially that we should live by the integrity of our own little family. You see, he was a Philosophy major under the tutelage of two young Jesuit-educated instructors, who had come to the mountains from Manila to indulge their fantasies about love and teaching (in that order). We, the migrant teachers, smiled at each other in the College of Human Sciences silently acknowledging each other’s foolishness; ignoring the fact that most of the other â€Å"native† faculty members looked askance at the three of us. When our daughter was born, we decided it was time to move into the family home. In the innocent presence of the new half-Igorot baby, all would be forgiven. It seemed the most practical thing to do. But I soon realized how naive we were. We didn’t take into account all the new wrongs that could be committed while sharing one household. Before I got married, I had a dog – a black mongrel I had named â€Å"Sapay Koma,† which is Ilocano for â€Å"sana. † It is both a wish and a prayer – difficult to translate into English, unless in context. Koma was my companion throughout the two years I had lived in my dank, quirky apartment – the mute witness to the drama and dilemma preceding my decision to marry. We took him along with us in our move, of course. But the five other dogs in the new household didn’t like him all that much and they all raised such a nonstop racket, none of the humans could sleep, particularly the newborn baby. The neighbors offered to buy him for Php 500. Igorots like black dogs because the meat is tastier. I was aghast. He was my dog, my loyal friend. If anyone was going to eat him, it should be family. So my husband invited his friends over to put Koma out of his misery. I locked myself in our little bedroom with the baby, while they did it. But despite the closed windows, I could still smell the burning hair and later, the meat cooking. The putrid scent seemed to stick to my nose for days after, accusing me of betrayal. I wept for Koma and for all that was dying in the fire – all the wishes that had no place in my new life. I decided that this was the price for what Filipinos like to call â€Å"paglagay sa tahimik. † It took two hours for the meat to be tender enough to eat and when we all sat down to dinner, I was glad they didn’t expect me to partake of the canine feast. Yet I did. I took one mouthful, which I swallowed quickly without chewing, so I wouldn’t have to relish the flavors. I may have had the stomach for it, but I didn’t have the heart. I only wanted to show them that I respected their culture, even though in fact, I would never belong. Also, I was hoping that this way, Koma would forgive me for having failed him, for offering him as a sacrifice at the altar of my marriage. This way, we could be truly together. For weeks after, every time I overheard my husband reply â€Å"Aw, aw† to his father, I would shiver at the prospect that we would have dog for dinner again. They had five other dogs, after all. Luckily, it turned out that â€Å"aw† only means â€Å"yes† in their language, Kankanaey. Besides, they only butcher dogs on very special occasions. Ordinarily, there was always the savory chicken soup dish, Pinikpikan, which features a similar charred skin aroma and taste. I was quite relieved to learn that his father did not require beating the chicken to death with a stick before cooking, as is customary in the Igorot culture. To this day, I have not been able to care for another dog. I do, however, have another child. By the same man. Accidentally. It happened on Father’s Day, when we thought having sex was a nice distraction from the confusion that arose from our growing discontent with the marriage. When we found out about the pregnancy, we agreed, albeit reluctantly, that it was Divine Intervention – a sign that we should keep trying to save the marriage. It was not just the food that was strange. I couldn’t understand why everyday, some relatives would come over and expect to be fed. I had not been raised in an extended family, and even within our nuclear family, we pretty much kept to ourselves. In my mother’s house, we were trained to share through â€Å"one for you, one for me, then stay out of my bag of goodies. You can imagine how I felt the day they served my Gardenia whole wheat bread to the â€Å"relatives,† who promptly wiped it out, because my peanut butter was delicious. Not that I was being selfish. Aside from the fact that I didn’t have any bread for breakfast the next day and the house being a ten-minute hike uphill plus ten kilometers to downtown Baguio City, I fumed about not even being introduced to these relatives as the wife of their son. They would introduce my daughter and her yaya, but I remained a â€Å"phantom of delight† flitting about the house. When I confronted my husband about the bread, he explained that n the Igorot culture, everything belongs to the community. So I took a permanent marker and wrote my name on my next loaf of bread. It was a Saussurean signifier of sorts – and it was unforgivable. My father-in-law was a man of few words. In fact, my daughter was already two years old when he decided it was time to acknowledge my existence and say something to me. In the past, he would use an intermediary (usually my husband) if he wanted to get information from me. It wasn’t too difficult because by this time we had already moved to Manila and were living in my mother’s house – which was another disaster and another story. It was Christmas Eve and we were spending the holidays in Baguio City. He was watching a replay of a boxing match and I was playing with my daughter in the living room. He asked, in Ilocano, â€Å"Do you have a VCD player at home? † I was so shocked I couldn’t reply immediately. He repeated the question in Tagalog. It turned out he was giving us the VCD player he had won in a barangay raffle. That night, as the entire family sang their traditional â€Å"Merry Christmas To You† to the happy birthday tune, I felt I was finally getting a fair chance to prove that I was worthy of being in their cozy family. In our six years together, I can think of more instances in which our separate worlds collided and caused aftershocks in my marriage. But none of it rivaled what I thought was the worst affront to me. My mother-in-law is Cancerian, like me, so her house is a pictorial gallery of her children and their achievements. She had a wall with enlarged and framed wedding photos of her children. Through the years, her exhibit grew, and expectedly, I and my husband didn’t have a photo on this wall. I figured it was because we had not had a church wedding. In fact, when we told them I was pregnant with our second child, they requested that we hold a church wedding already. They even offered to share the expense. But I preferred to save my money for the birth of the baby. However, given my theater background, I once tried to convince my husband to just rent a gown and tuxedo and then have our â€Å"wedding† photo taken so we’d finally get on â€Å"The Wedding Wall. † But he has always been the more sensible half of our couple. One day, though, a new picture was added to the wall. It was a studio photo of his eldest sister, her American husband, and their baby boy. It wasn’t â€Å"The Wedding Wall† anymore; it was now the â€Å"Our Children and their Acceptable Spouses† wall. It was their version of the Saussurean signifier. The message was loud and clear – to me and to other people who came to visit. I wonder now why it so mattered to me to be on that wall. I guess I felt that after all those years, we had been punished enough for defying the culture. Maybe I actually believed in 1 Corinthians 13. Or perhaps I also needed to be reassured that I was indeed happily married. I confronted my husband about it and demanded that he finally stand up for me and our family. And he did – he wrote his parents a letter that made his mother cry and beat her breast. We each tried to explain our sides, finally coming to terms with the bitter past. They told me that they are simple folk and didn’t mean to ostracize me; that when they agreed to the marriage, they accepted me as part of the family, no matter what. I believed them. I told them I was never going to be the woman they had probably wanted for their son; but that I am a perfectly good woman, most of the time. We tried to make amends. Our family picture was up on the wall within three days. Our kids were quite pleased. But it was too late. By then, my husband and I had been grappling with our own issues for the past five years. He had gotten tired of my transgressions and sought solace with his friends. After coming home late from another â€Å"Happy Hour† with them, I screamed at him, â€Å"What happy hour? Nobody is allowed to be happy in this house! † It was then we both finally realized that we had to face the truth about our marriage. By the time his parents were willing to start over in our journey as a family, we had given up on ours. Most couples find breaking up hard to do. It was particularly hard for us because we had to convince his parents that it was not their fault. On the other hand, I had to deal with the fact that maybe my marriage did fail because of the â€Å"curse† of the superstition â€Å"sukob sa taon† – that maybe we were wrong to insist on our choice. Yet on good days, I am pretty sure it was a perfectly â€Å"no fault divorce,† if there ever was one. â€Å"Kapag minamalas ka sa isang lugar, itawid mo ng dagat† goes the Filipino proverb. Perhaps the salt in the sea would prevent the bad luck from following you. So today I live with my two Igorot children in Davao City – fondly called â€Å"the promised land. † Everyone is astounded when they learn that I had moved even though I knew only one person here – who didn’t even promise me anything. I just wanted a chance to start over. When we moved into this house, it had a small nipa hut in the backyard. The kids enjoyed staying there during the sweltering hot Davao afternoons, especially when their Daddy called them on the phone. But it was nearly falling apart and was host to a colony of termites that had actually begun to invade the house as well. My generous landlady soon decided it was time to tear down the structure. When I got home one day, it was gone. All that was left was a dry and empty space in the yard; yet everything looked brighter too. We missed the â€Å"payag;† but soon the grass crept into the emptiness and we began to enjoy playing Frisbee in the space that opened up. It was a Derridean denouement of sorts. Last year, we spent our first Christmas without any family obligations. It was liberating not to have to buy any gifts for nephews, cousins, in-laws. All the shopping I did was for my children. I was determined to establish my own Christmas tradition with them. I wanted to show them we were happy. I wanted them to grow up never having to sing â€Å"Merry Christmas To You† ever again. I decided to cook paella for noche buena as if my life depended on it. I thought it was simply a matter of dumping all the ingredients in the pan and letting it cook – like the aftermath of a failed marriage. The recipe was so difficult I ended up crying hysterically, asking myself over and over, â€Å"what have I done? † My kids embraced me and said, â€Å"Nanay, stop crying na. But I couldn’t. It seemed as if it was the first time I had let myself cry over what I had lost. I noticed though, that the kids did not cry. Embarrassed with myself, I picked myself up from the river of snot that was my bed and finished what I had set out to do – as I always have. It even looked and tasted like paella, despite the burnt bottom. But next year we’ll just order take-out from Sr. Pedro (Lechon Manok). That night, my mother-in-law sent me a text message saying they are always praying for us to get back together, especially for the children’s sake. I do not know how to comfort her, except to keep saying that we had all done the best we could at the time; that we are always trying to do the right thing; that despite what happened, or perhaps because of it, we will always be a family. Of a kind. We are, after all, inextricably linked by a timeless story and â€Å"sapay koma. † Each of us in this story nurtures a secret wish to have done things differently – to have been kinder, more understanding of each other’s quirks and shortcomings. But it takes less energy to wish it forward. Sapay koma naimbag ti biag yo dita — to hope that your life there is good.

Business Process Reengineering Essay Example for Free (#3)

Business Process Reengineering Essay Business process (20) , Business process reengineering (7) company About StudyMoose Contact Careers Help Center Donate a Paper Legal Terms & Conditions Privacy Policy Complaints Whenever we order our drinks at the coffee shops on a daily basis, we are actually triggering a business process. When the waiter at the coffee shop takes the order at our table, he will pass our orders to the kitchen by yelling our orders from one end of the coffee shop to another. Most of the time, the kitchen helper will hear the order and start to prepare. The waiter will then go around taking a few other orders. After he is done with taking orders, he will collect the drinks from the kitchen and serve it to the customers. Customers will then pay up for the drinks. In the event there isn’t enough change for big notes, the waiter will have to go back to the counter to break the notes into smaller variations in order to return the correct amount of change to the customers. In some cases, he might deliver the wrong order as he doesn’t note down the orders in pen and paper, he just passes on the order to the kitchen by shouting. Restaurant scenario Many years down the road, the coffee shop has earned enough to pay for a renovation and overhaul. The boss of the coffee shop has decided to upgrade the coffee shop to a restaurant. He realises that he need to retrain his staff to operate the restaurant as the methods of operating a restaurant differs from the methods of operating the coffee shop. He also realise that he can incorporate some equipment to help him process orders more efficiently. In summary, he needs to change the way the restaurant does things (processes) and how he does things (Method/tools used to carry out the task). The boss has to do a total revamp of the methods and processes of how he was previously used to in the coffee shop. This is what is meant by business process reengineering. In definition, business process is an organizational change in its methods used to redesign an organization to improve efficiency and effectiveness (Mehta, 2011). Reengineering is the organizational change characterized by drastic process transformation. Concepts BPR focus & Objectives In order for companies to operate more efficiently, reduce waste, retain their customers and drive sales, understanding and applying BPR is essential for this change to happen. Firstly, we have to map out the organization’s goals, objectives, primary business function, the people they have and the tools they use. The second objective would be to analyse the current process and redesign/revamp them. By doing so, companies will be able to achieve better ROI and eliminate waste. This will help the company to gain competitive advantage over others in its efficiency and also profits (Muharram, 2007). Perspective of BPR BPR is a framework designed for companies to adopt. This framework helps to optimize processes by making it more streamlined. A good example to explain this point would be the difference between a vertical and cross functional organization. In a horizontal organization, the customer interacts only with one party but in a vertical structure, customers might have to deal with different departments. Figure 3 shows a customer dealing with his account manager for the application of a loan. In the process, the customer does not need to deal with the different departments involved in the application of a loan. This allows the loan application to be more streamlined (Zigiaris, 2000). A vertical structure is not as efficient as customers will have to deal with several departments to process their requests. In a call centre environment, when the customer logs a call for a IT issue, the calling department will answer his call and log the case. He will then be transferred to the technical department who will assist him with 1st level troubleshooting. In the event he cannot solve the problem, the matter will be escalated to a level 2 support and also a product specialist. After his issue has been resolved, he will be transferred to the payment department where he will pay for the IT services he has used. After making payment, he will receive an email from the feedback department where they will ask the customer for feedback for the case. This slows down the entire process of resolving the problem from end to end. One of the main goal in BPR is to optimize the processes that takes place within the organization and reduce lead time. In order to do so, businesses has to look at its processes from a clean state perspective. For a company to be able to streamline their processes, they have to add value to their customers through their processes. Processes should maintain its ability to add value to customers. For those processes that do not, we can automate them and put the focus on adding value. This will result in higher customer satisfaction, better efficiency, elimination of watse and greater ROI(Park, 2008). BPR Methodologies There are several techniques to business process redesign and reengineering. We will discuss a few in this section. Hammer and Champy A major overhaul in the organization’s process and structure is one of the keys to ensuring that cost is lowered and service quality is being improved. The means of implemeting these is via the use of information technology. Besides reorganization and using IT to power the business, redesigning the work process and optimizing it, helps the organization to reduce time taken, lower costs and improve quality (Rouse, 2009). A Case study of Ford Motor Company Ford used to employ 500 accounts payable staff in the past. These 500 staff are running the tasks of tracking faults between purchase orders, receipts and invoices. After Ford decided to reengineer their process, the number of staff needed reduced from 500 to 125. Their reengineering efforts include: * Creating an online database where all purchase orders issued by the buyers are being captured * Goods are being checked when received. The shipment being sent has to match with that in the database. This allows the staff to check if the goods were actual orders being indented. This system of checking eliminates the need to check for faults between purchase orders. * Goods being received will be marked as received and the database is being updated real-time. (Hammer & Champy, 2000) Perspective of process reengineering by Hammer and Champy 1. Organize around outcomes, not tasks. 2. Identify all the processes in an organization and prioritize them in order of redesign urgency. 3. Integrate information processing work into the real work that produces the information. 4. Treat geographically dispersed resources as though they were centralized. 5. Link parallel activities in the workflow instead of just integrating their results. 6. Put the decision point where the work is performed, and build control into the process. 7. Capture information once and at the source. (Rouse, 2009) The methodology preached by Hammer and Champy clearly reflects what was being discussed in the BPR focus and objectives at the start of this report. Its focus is to eliminate waste and also to focus on deliverables that will add value to customers. In order to do so, IT systems can be employed in order to automate processes which do not add value. This point of automation is being reiterated in the case study of Ford Motors. This concept of rethinking and redesigning the business process radically helps us to improve many areas of the business such as lowering costs, improving customer service, ensure quality is being maintained and speed up the entire workflow. Business Process Reengineering. (2016, Dec 15). We have essays on the following topics that may be of interest to you

Sociology of the Work Place Research Proposal Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 4500 words

Sociology of the Work Place - Research Proposal Example The largest segments of the population engaging in such marginal labor are the working poor, recent immigrants legal and illegal and/or ethnic minorities with/without educational credentials from third world countries whose education is not usually recognized by developed countries' formal educational and social institutions. Four ways in which marginal jobs deviate from the norms of regular expected work are important to consider. Within a regular recognized work force, there are norms that are universally accepted. It is important to understand what these norms are since they shed light on the differences in the marginal or informal labor force. According to sociologists in the field, work relationships in the regular work force, are characterized by roles, expectations, and obligations of employees and responsibilities of workers and bosses to each other (Kendall, 2003; Hodson & Sullivan, 2008; Wharton, 2006). There are also four main characteristics of regular jobs are also characterized by a) job content which is legal, b) the job should be relatively stable, c) the job should be institutionally stable, and d) the job should provide adequate wages and hours so that the worker may be able to sustain an adequate living. For jobs that are considered marginal one must first define the social norms of th at society as well as the historical time frame in order to understand the boundaries between formal and informal or marginal and regular labor. For instance, historical time period and culture or religion may affect how individuals and groups set up the boundaries between regular work and marginal work. Kendall (2003) cites the prohibition and illegal work as contemporary drug dealing as examples. Today prohibition of alcohol is not an issue but drug dealing still remains a marginal profession similar to prostitution. In countries such as Holland or Saudi Arabia there are very different norms and rules regulating these types of occupations. Sociologists of work commonly agree that individuals are commonly recruited into marginal forms of labor due to their inability to enter the regular workforce (Kendall, 2003; Hodson & Sullivan, 2008; Wharton, 2006).

The Philippines' Problems And Possible Policies Essay

The Philippines' Problems And Possible Policies - Essay Example Robert Babe (37) emphasized "Economists, after all, are inclined to limit their professional attention to those human interactions or exchanges mediated by money, barter being a notable but minor exception. Discursive Acts, in contrast, focuses on non-monetized, verbal, symbolic interactions, thereby calling attention to a bifurcation of the field of human interaction -- into the realms of the "economic" and the "no economic" (or what I will term here the "purely communicator")." The quote clearly shows that the economy of, including the Philippine human relations, is grounded on economic factors, which includes gross domestic product.To resolve the inflation issue of the Philippines, Don Paarlberg (159) states â€Å"A small group of economists, chiefly libertarians, propose taking the monetary system out of the hands of government and leaving it to private enterprise. Theoretically, the market would discipline the supply of money to keep its value at a stable level. This proposal h as won acclaim from only a few. "Money cannot manage itself," said Bagehot, a nineteenth-century economist†. The government has the power to reduce the inflation rate by increasing the supply of money into the economy. Inflation is the increase in the prices of goods and commodities. Microeconomics also states that a decline in the demand for the products will reduce the demand and price of the product. Second, the ethnic issues include a major portion of the country's population wallowing in poverty. Only a small percentage of the ethnic population is living in rich levels. The Philippines' ethical structure is 92 percent, Christian Malay, 4 percent Muslim Malay, 3 percent other ethnic groups, and 1% Chinese ethnic group. The economy is run by a majority of Christian Malays. Third, the political issues include a democracy that is filled with many contradicting forces. The government is beset by allocating its scarce financial resources. The democratic government is patterned on the United States political government. Elections are made for the President, Vice President, Senators, Congressmen, Mayors, Governors, and other political leaders for a fixed term. With the democratic government, some persons use goons to force the people to elect the goon leaders as the elected government officials. Likewise, the democratic political system allows any person to use the money to buy votes from the people. Some of the poor residents accept the tradition of accepting money for their votes. 2. Projections: There are many positive prospects for this country and its economy. First, the country’s being a former colony of the United States gives it the American educational and societal advantage. The Filipinos can apply for jobs in other countries where the main language is English. Many

Logistics and Supply Chain Management Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Logistics and Supply Chain Management - Essay Example It studies how it can be improved and gives recommendations. Since Zara is one of the industry leaders and has one of the best supply chains, it required fewer recommendations for improvement. Finally, the paper analyzes the location of the company’s plants and distribution centers to see whether they are optimal. In Zara’s case, they are in the short run but may cause problems in the long run. Zara is a Spanish flagship store of the Inditex Group and a key player in the European fashion retail market. It started operations in 1975 by opening its first store in La Coruna and since then has been operating as a fast fashion company. It is one of the largest brands, by the Inditex Fashion Retail Group, that has 723 stores in 56 countries making sales of Euro 3.8 billion (India Supply Chain Council, 2006). Its business model is simple; it imitates fashion off the runway and distributes it to the customers in the shortest time possible, even before designers themselves can reach the customers. Therefore, it has shorter lead times, more styles but scarce supply of these styles. To manage this kind of efficiency, Zara’s supply chain management must be efficient and that, it is. Zara uses a vertical supply chain management system, one of the best in the industry that allows it to implement its business model of fast fashion effectively. Zara’s position is an industry leader in the fashion retail market. It has a very high product turnover – it produces more than 11,000 products annually. It caters to the trendy, middle class man and woman of ages 14 to 35. The mother buys Zara because it is affordable and the daughter buys from Zara because it is trendy (Dutta, 2002). This paper will study Zara in the light of its Logistics and Supply Chain Management. It will be broken down into four main parts. First of all, the importance of measuring the performance of Zara’s Supply Chain will be analyzed. Secondly, key performance indicators or KPIs will

Critique of Academic Journal Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Critique of Academic Journal - Essay Example However, this diversity's gradual move into the normal corporate field has brought with it a few negative outcomes (Kelan 2009). It makes it harder to deal with instances of subtle discrimination against women (Calas and Smircich 2006). This diversity simply eliminates the more obvious types of gender discrimination while allowing the attitudes that support such practices to go unchallenged (Gill 2007). For instance, women are usually exempted from the networking that takes place among the men in the workplace, as well as from working on with the business’s most prominent lawyers (Nentwich 2006). When women are confronted with such situations in an era that has actually had laws passed to support their functioning in the workplace, they are likely to think that they are the ones who are either too arrogant, or cold, and thus are not easy to approach for workplace friendships (Johns, Schmader and Martens 2005). They are not likely to suppose that the reason for their being left out of things is because they are women (Crump, Logan and McIlroy 2007). Critique Gender fatigue is constructive because it alerts the society that even with the existing laws and regulations that encourage women to work; women are still not treated in the same way as men in the workplace (Lewis 2006). For instance, in a recent research conducted in a business environment, it was established that male workers ignore what might appear to be gender discrimination because they equate their calmness in such instances with showing tolerance or acceptance (Bailyn 2003). Female workers, on the other hand, feel that if they work harder, they will be able to change the minds of sexist employers (Blau, Brinton and Grusky 2006). In such cases, it can be pointed out that ‘gender fatigue’ is an appropriate explanation for such pusillanimous behavior on the part of workers (Ely, Meyerson and Davidson 2006).   Elizabeth Kelan’s article on gender fatigue appears to bring up a n authentic problem that might actually be one of the reasons contributing to the continuing inequality that women experience in the workplace. The fact that her survey participants indicated that they had heard of cases of discrimination showed that such cases still exist even in an era in which many people feel that the goals of women being permanently accepted in the workplace have been sufficiently addressed. The fact that the workers being surveyed mentioned that instances of gender discrimination usually happen in singular episodes and not as a whole also contributes toward the ‘gender fatigue’ theory. If the incidences of discrimination against women happened in bulk, the opposition would have been more vocal. However, instances where some women are discriminated against and not others are not as visible and can cause doubts to arise when reported.    On the other hand, gender fatigue the article by Elisabeth Kelan on gender fatigue states that the workers that she used in her study were not only convinced that their companies were gender neutral, and were examined on merit. These contributors also quoted statistics on sexism from the previous one or two decades. This means that the situation may have changed in the last few years; and that if gender inequalities still exist, the

Research 2 Artists Lena Kurvska and Marcus Krackowizer in Relation to Paper

2 Artists Lena Kurvska and Marcus Krackowizer in Relation to the Notion of Chance - Research Paper Example This paper evaluates the representational artistic expressions through the still life painting of Lena Kurovska and abstract paintings of Marcus Krackowizer. 1. Lena Kurovska Lena Kurovska is a painting artist from Ukraine and was born in 1969. She attended Kiev State Art School between 1980 and 1987 where she studies classical drawing and composition. A decade later, she graduated from the National Academy of Art and Architecture. Lena’s paintings exhibit nationally and internationally. Lena Kurovska was influenced by the works of impressionist while in National Academy of Art and Architecture. She concentrates on still-lives and landscapes, which are painted wherever she travels. Since she is a traveler, she deals with external objects like other expressionists. These objects include scenes of relaxation, objects of daily lives and so on (Moffett 142). This quality is visible and evident from her still life painting called still life with bread of 2005 and the Christmas stil l life of 2006. Both are oil paintings, which feature ordinary objects in our daily life. Lena does her still-live paintings on location, and she uses oils, pastel, and acrylics. Her paintings are done in impressionists style with all her canvases being light, lyrical colorful, and warm. Like other expressionists, Lena’s paintings have very short strokes of paint, which are thinly applied in a way that the strokes are visible (Mayer 312.). Her paintings also have rough texture on the surface and have visible patches of paint in various locations. This impressionist style is evident in the painting still life with bread where a more general image effect is created in the subject without the true-to-life accuracy. Like any other expressionist, Lena’s goal of her works is to catch the eye of her art viewers through use of bright colors, and bring their viewers close to their subject through their composition. In these two paintings, Lena uses bright colors and mixes them to create shadows and dark patches by applying different shades of complimentary colors. Her impressionist style is evident in her use of colored shadows and her saturation is colors, which creates vividness that detailed paintings could not achieve (Rosenblum 220). Since she hopes to bring her viewers closer to her subject, in each of the above four paintings, she does not rely on the notion of symmetry and for example the first two display a high horizontal line that creates a plunging perspective and the subject of the painting is not centered. Before the emergence of impressionists, painters placed their composition in such a way that the main subject guided the viewer’s attention (Rewald 323). Impressionists go against this notion and relax the boundary between the subject and the background, and the impressionist’s painting resembles a snapshot and a portion of a big reality, which is as if captured by chance (Rosenblum 228.). For example, Lena’s painting, for example the still life with bread is just a portion of a prepared table. Viewing this painting gives the viewer a feeling that something is left out in the snap, and that the view is as if was captured by chance. 2. Marcus Krackowizer Marcus Krackowizer is a British artist who lives in the UK. This artist started painting full time less than a decade ago. The artist broke his neck although, he says, did not affect his ideas he develops in his works. I addition to his original paintings, he has published his full and

Abbott Alkaloidal Company Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Abbott Alkaloidal Company - Term Paper Example The common stock of the company is traded in the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) under the symbol ABT. The closing price of ABT stock on September 3, 2011 was $51.04. Abbott has a staff composed of over 90,000 employees worldwide. In 2010 the company generated $35.2 billion in sales. The company operates over 100 facilities globally. The corporate headquarters of the company are located in Chicago, Illinois and the CEO of the company is Miles D. White. SWOT Analysis A strength Abbott has is its tremendous variety of healthcare products. The company has a managerial staff that is fully committed to the R&D process. In 2010 firm invested $3.7 billion in research and development. The financials of the company are solid. The firm generated 2010 net income of $4.6 billion. The net margin of Abbott in 2010 was 13%. The firm’s profitability performance is quite impressive considering that in 2010 most companies in the industry loss money and as a result the industry average net margin was-23.9%. Abbott has paid a growing dividend for 39 consecutive years. A weakness Abbott has is that it faces lots of competition in the pharmaceutical sector. Another inherent weakness of the company is that pharmaceutical companies have to spend over $800 million to develop a new drugÃ'Ž A third weakness Abbott faces is strict regulatory environment which includes compliance with FDA rules and protocols. A threat Abbott faces is the production of counterfeit d rugs. Counterfeiting is a multi-billion industry that targets the pharmaceutical, software, and apparel industries among others. A second threat the company faces is the launch of new drugs that are more effective and cheaper than their products. A third major threat Abbott faces is not being able to recruit sufficient scientists with the specialized skills needed due to a shortage of available talent in technical professions. Another threat that Abbott must be aware of is the possibility of lawsuits by customers who claim one or more of their products are defective. These customers could claim that instead of helping the products hurt the health of the customers. There are opportunities that Abbott can exploit to achieve greater growth. The company currently does not have a market presence in 35% of the countries of the world. A goal for the company should be to achieve penetration in 100% of the world’s nations. The firm has other opportunities that can be achieved through innovation such as becoming the first company to find a vaccine for the AIDS/HIV virus. A cure for cancer is another breakthrough project that could generate the company billions of dollars in revenues. Strategic Objectives A strategic objective of the company is to use a diversified product offering to differentiate Abbott from the competition and to achieve superior operating performance. The strategic objectives of the firm were achieved in 2010 through growth of existing product lines, new product launches, geographic expansion and acquisitions (Annual Report: Abbott, 2010). Plans to Meet Objectives For the firm to meet its strategic objectives the executive management team has to implement various tactics and strategic options that will allow the firm to continue its path towards greater success. The firm can achieve better international growth by aggressively expanding its business in emerging economies outside the United States. China represents a market that must be target m ore aggressively by the

Deep Ecology Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Deep Ecology - Essay Example Deep ecology is a belief, while religion is defined as beliefs that are concerned with nature, purpose and the cause of the universe. As a religion, its dominant tenet of spirituality is that human species are part of the earth and not a separate entity. This paper will argue out that deep ecology is a religion. The main principle of deep ecology is a belief, just like humanity, that the environment which is living has an equal right to blossom and live. It is said to be deep due to its persistence questioning on â€Å"how† and â€Å"why† and as a result, it is based on philosophical questions which are fundamental on the effects of human beings life as a part of the ecosphere, rather than dealing with the minor view of ecology as a biological science branch. In addition it focuses to stem anthropocentric environmentalism that is based on environmental conservation with an aim of exploiting human objectives which buffers the philosophy of deep ecology. It seeks more vie w of the world that we leave in a holistic way, and further, seeks an application of life understanding that separates the functioning of the ecosystem parts as a whole. In addition, it seeks to eliminate the issue of supremacy in religion life, of which it is impossible to give concrete evidence that eliminates the existence of God. The happenings in the world alone can tell that there is a supreme power that is in control of the living and the non living. Policies of ecologically take into account only the concerns on pollution and resources depletion. It is relevant to note that there is deeper issues which are involved with the principles of diversity, autonomy, complexity and decentralization in deep ecological movement. The act of referencing human beings in the environment is a favor to the rationale total field image. Organisms have an intrinsic relationship. As a result of this, it dissolves concepts of the human-in-environment. In addition, the ecological field worker has a deep seated respect or the veneration for the kinds and forms of life. Human beings acquire an understanding from within. This kind of understanding is also reserved for other human as well as for narrow sections of life forms. The intrinsic relationship that is within organism in the environment is as a result of the common ground of creation that everything originates from. The world did not just come to exist, but God who is supreme brought this up, and beings cannot be the most relevant to the environment on their own. In addition, the equal right of individuals to live and flourish is clearly intuitive and value of axiom. Furthermore, its restriction to life of human is anthropocentrism with effects which are detrimental on human life quality. The quality pleasure depends on the satisfaction that is received from a correlation which is close with other life forms. The attempt of giving dump ears to our dependency and the establishment of other roles which are master levels a contribution to human alienation. The egalitarianism of ecology claims that the reinterpretation of future research variables on human population levels and loss of life is equally not taken seriously. This is because it is beyond human understanding; the life of human is unclear on how it came to be. It is therefore obvious that we are taken care of by a supreme being who gave breath to the souls on earth and at any time the ability to breathe is

Health Risks of Genetically-Modified Foods Essay Example for Free

Health Risks of Genetically-Modified Foods Essay Genetically modified (GM) foods, introduced to the American Public in 1996, involves taking the genes of the DNA of one plant or animal and transferring them to another species creating a new organism. Justification for this scientific manipulation revealed promises to eliminate world hunger, make plants resistant to pests and disease, and produce healthier foods. Agribusiness giants, like Monsanto, Bayer, and Syngenta include some of the companies first to bring products to the market. The Federal Drug Administration (FDA) took the stance, that it is the food producer responsible for assuring food safety. Companies producing GM foods ultimately regulate themselves. These companies kept their research secret and not available for public scrutiny. Insufficient data illustrate the need for ongoing exploration by independent scientists to deem the products safe for human consumption. Jeffrey M. Smith discussed these issues in his book, Genetic Roulette: The Documented Health Risks of Geneically Engineered Foods. GM of certain crops cause them to produce their own insecticide. A research study not performed by the manufacturer, involved GM potatoes fed to rats. They developed potentially precancerous cell growth in the digestive tract, inhibited development of their brains, livers, and testicles, partial atrophy of the liver, enlarged pancreases and intestines, and immune system damage (Smith 22). Additional information is warranted clarifying the exact cause. Another study revealed Monsantos MON 863 Bt corn fed to rats produced significant changes in their blood cells, livers, and kidneys which might indicate disease (Smith 26). Monsanto defends their GM corn as safe and deems it unnecessary to pursue further testing. No research conducted to date and the corn gained approval. Government and big industries continue with the development, endorsement and marketing of GM foods despite the potential health warnings. Study after study cited in Genetic Roulette by Jeffrey M. Smith , reveal health problems from every body system and even death. One investigations proved given a choice, animals would not eat GM foods. Rats that would not eat the GM tomatoes were force fed the tomato through a gastric tube. Several developed stomach lesions and seven of the forty died. The GM of the DNA of species results in widespread mutations. Soy allergies skyrocketed after the introduction of GM soy. Over half of the processed foods in the supermarket contain something made from soy. GM peas generated an allergic-inflammatory response. With some of the GM crops that produce their own insecticide, the fear of creating super weeds exists. The United States and Canada do not have GM labeling requirements (Smith 257). Exposing millions of people to unpredictable dangers of GM foods represents playing roulette. â€Å"The connections between the FDA and large agribusiness corporations are disturbing† (Teitel, Wilson 69). Large contributors to the Democratic and Republican parties include Monsanto and others. These companies employ trade and environmental administrators and government appointees in lucrative positions.

Maybank online banking system Essay Example for Free

Maybank online banking system Essay Maybank is a trade name for Malayan Banking Berhad and is the largest bank and financial group in Malaysia with significant banking operations in Singapore, Indonesia and the Philippines. Maybank was founded by Malaysian business tycoon Khoo Teck Puat, who died in 2004. The bank also has large interests in Islamic banking through Maybank Islamic Berhad and insurance via its Etiqa subsidiary. Maybank is the largest bank in Malaysia with 401 domestic branches. Maybank operates consumer banking, business and corporate banking as well as private banking services, through a network of 401 branch offices and more than 2,900 automated teller machines in Malaysia Beside its commercial banking network, Maybank operates a number of specialized subsidiaries in the insurance, investment banking and assets management, and finance sectors. Online banking is becoming more and more popular because the advantages of online banking for the majority of banking users. You can apply most of it without leaving your home, if you wish. Internet banking is a great secure and convenient way to handle your cash flow.By using the internet banking, you can make most of different transactions. It is possible to pay bills directly from the checking account online. This saves you the cost of a stamp and saves your times. It also provides you more leeway in how quickly you need to pay your monthly bill. In case you need to mail it, you can send it out long ahead of the due date.Consumers will become more comfortable with doing the majority of their shopping online. Maybank online banking system has provided its full day access to bank accounts and advanced services. Currently, users can now check their finances status with a click of button. They can also view their bank statements, check the balances or manage some transaction by using the online banking system. Recently Maybank had taken a huge step by announcing its internet banking services for the customers. This is due to achieve the same standard as other conventional banking facilities that are in Malaysia. In this era of technology, people tend to seek for things or option that could benefit them in many ways.

The Inditex-Zara case

The Inditex-Zara case INTRODUCTION In todays highly competitive and global marketplace, the pressure on organizations to find new ways to create and deliver value to the customers grows even stronger. Market development combined with new sources of global competition has led to over-capacity in many industries. Putting an incredible pressure on price, as often is the critical competitive variable. This leads to the need of more effectiveness and efficiency inside a business. It is against these new conditions that the use of supply chain management has moved to the centre stage over the last two decades (Christopher, 2004). To manage the supply chain better, is to serve the customers more effectively and yet reduce the cost of providing that service. There has been a growing recognition that it is through this kind of management that it can be achieved a twin goal of cost reduction and service improvement. Even if the concept of integration within the business and between businesses is not new, the acceptance of its validity by managers is. According to Chris Zook managing the supply chain is not an easy task (Zook, 2001). Most companies do not manage to achieve their intended goals. Nevertheless, those which are doing well today have on average low odds to be doing so in the next five to ten years. An important key to do well is to understand why some companies succeed and others do not. This to avoid common pitfalls and instead of spending time recovering from previous mistakes, the company can focus on the future. With this in mind, this coursework will look into how businesses manage their supply chain. This by looking into the supply chain of the fastest growing clothing brand in Europe and the world today, Zara, and highlight the main characteristics of the supply chain management as well as its application ( market chain). If the chances are small to succeed, what do successful companies do right that others do wrong? COMPANY PROFILE Zara is the flagship chain store of Inditex group owned by Spanish tycoon Amancio Ortega. Zara is the most internationalized of Inditex ´s chains. The group is headquartered in A Coruà ±a, Spain, where the first Zara store opened in 1975. Now Inditex, the holding group that includes the Zara brand, has over 1300 stores in 39 countries with sales of over â‚ ¬3 billion. (Zara 2009) The Zara brand accounts for over 75 per cent of the group ´s total retail sales, and is still based in northwest Spain. By 2003 it had become the world ´s fastest-growing volume garment retailer. The Inditex group also has several other branded chains, including Pull and Bear, and Massimo Dutti. In total it employs almost 40,000 people in a business that is known for a high degree of vertical integration compared with most fast fashion companies.(Cowe, et.al.2008:271) It is claimed that Zara needs just two weeks to develop a new product and get it to the stores, compared with a six month industry average, and launches around 40,000 new designs each year. Zara has resisted the industry-wide trend towards transferring fast fashion production to low-cost countries. While it spent little on ads, it spent heavily on stores. Zara is a vertically integrated retailer. Unlike similar apparel retailers, Zara controls most of the steps on the supply-chain: It designs, produces and distributes itself. The business system that had resulted was particularly distinctive in that Zara manufactured its most fashion-sensitive products internally. Zara did not produce classics, clothes that would always be in style. In fact, the company intended its clothes to have fairly short life spans, both within stores and in customers ´ closets. LITERATURE REVIEW Value Chain The idea of the value chain is based on the process view of organizations, the idea of seeing a manufacturing (or service) organization as a system, made up of subsystems each with inputs, transformation processes and outputs. Inputs, transformation processes, and outputs involve the acquisition and consumption of resources-money, labor, materials, equipment, buildings, land, administration and management. How value chain activities are carried out determines costs and affects profits. Most organizations engage in hundreds, even thousands, of activities in the process of converting inputs to outputs. These activities can be classified generally as either primary or support activities that all businesses must undertake in some form. (Cowe et al.2008:81). The outlined process of Porter ´s value chains is presented in see Figure 1. According to Porter (1985), the primary activities are: Inbound Logistics: involve relationships with suppliers and include all the activities required to receive, store, and disseminate inputs. Operations: are all the activities required to transform inputs into outputs (products and services). Outbound Logistics: include all the activities required to collect, store, and distribute the output. Marketing and Sales: activities inform buyers about products and services, induce buyers to purchase them, and facilitate their purchase. Service: includes all the activities required to keep the product or service working effectively for the buyer after it is sold and delivered. Support activities are: Procurement: is the acquisition of inputs, or resources, for the firm. Human Resource management: consists of all activities involved in recruiting, hiring, training, developing, compensating and (if necessary) dismissing or laying off personnel. Technological Development: pertains to the equipment, hardware, software, procedures and technical knowledge brought to bear in the firms transformation of inputs into outputs. Infrastructure: serves the companys needs and ties its various parts together, it consists of functions or departments such as accounting, legal, finance, planning, public affairs. Supply Chain Management Supply Chain Management (SCM) is the management of the relationships and flows between the string of operations and processes that produce value in the form of products and services to the ultimate consumer. It is a holistic approach to managing across the boundaries of companies and of processes. Technically, supply chains are different from supply networks. A supply network is all the operations that linked together so as to provide goods and services through to end customers. In large supply network there can be many hundreds of supply chains of linked operations passing through a single operations. Internal supply network, and supply chain, management concerns flow between processes or departments. Confusingly, the terms supply network and supply chain management are often used interchangeably. (Cowe, et.al.2008:244) It is worth emphasizing again that the supply chain concept applies to internal process networks as well as external supply networks. Many of the ideas discussed in the context of the operation-to-operation supply chain also apply to the process-to-process internal supply chain. It is also worth nothing that the flows in supply chains are not restricted to the downstream flow products and services from suppliers through to the customers. Although the most obvious failure in supply chain management occurs when downstream flow fails to meet customer requirements, the root cause may be a failure in the upstream flow of information. Modern supply chain management is as much concerned with managing information flows (upstream and downstream) as it is with managing the flow of products and services. (See Figure 2) Information System Management In the current competition of the modern world, information relating to inputs, the transformation process and outputs is the vital resource organization owns to add value. An information system management is a planned system of the collecting, processing, storing and disseminating data in the form of information needed to carry out the functions of management. (Kotler 2006) The development of an ISM is nowadays greatly facilitated by the increasing sophistication and affordability of powerful personal computers and various other aspects of information technology (IT). Thus, technology is improving the speed and reliability with which information is passed not only around the individual organization but also around the globe, and `dramatic reductions in the cost of obtaining, processing and transmitting information are changing the way we do business (Porter and Millar, 1991). Porters value chain (Porter, 1980, 1985) was developed as a method for analyzing the sources of competitive advantage available to a firm. IS assumes that competitive advantage results from a combination of the many different activities a firm pursues during the course of its business, rather than coming from one individual source. CASE STUDY ZARA Operation Management Different organisations have to target customers in order to offer some services or product that someone is willing to pay for it. Operation management is pretty much involved with making this possible. Operation management is the activity of managing the resources and processes that produce goods and services and more specifically operation management examines how the operations function of a business produces products and services for external customers. (Cowe, et.al.2008:204). The general transformation process model (Figure 4) shows an arrangement of resources that transforms inputs into outputs that satisfy customer needs. In the case of Zara (Figure 5) the inputs of the organization are comprised of the raw materials, such as the fabrics that after design and manufacturing-retailing will produce the garments, information such as products protocol, human resources such as the designers that has the skills and knowledge to produce the garments. The transformation process consists of the manufacturing and services operations that are necessary to transform input into output, which are spitted into three basic product divisions: mens and womens and kids apparel, such as lower garment, upper garment, shoes, boots, bags, cosmetique and complements. All processes differ in some way, so, to some extent all processes need to be managed differently. In addition processes also differ in terms of the nature of their demand that is why we have to take into account those next four characteristics, which indicate how process need to be managed: Volume, variety, variation and visibility. In the case of Zara the operations process is unique and envied throughout the world: Volume: In terms of volume Zara is high. Although there is a high degree of systemization of the process to produce garments, due to the turnover in each shop is replaced every two weeks is a unique case. Variety: In terms of variety Zara is as high as the volume is. It has a wide range of products for men, women and children such as cosmetiques, suits and sport clothes respectively for each one. Variation: The variation in demand is quite high; because the demand is unpredictable and cannot be planned in advanced, extra resources will have to be designed into the process to provide a mechanism which can absorb unexpected demand. Zara will have to cope with the general seasonality of the garment market together with the uncertainty of whether particular styles may or may not prove popular. Visibility: In terms of visibility of the process is to the customer is low as they are simply presented with the final product to try on and finally purchase. All the above are summarized in Figure 6. Due to the high volume and variety involved in the process the key process choice is the batch process. A high volume of identical Items are produced together hence the flow is intermittent as each batch although requiring the same basic skills requires different variety and expertise in detail. The lay out type is undoubtedly the product layout type. Once the goods have been produced on the factory floor they are moved to store houses and quickly shipped to the high streets. Hence we can say the fit between the layout and the process type is correct as product based processes are used for high volume processes in general. Supply Chain Management Supply chain management is the management of the interconnection of organizations that relate to each other through upstream and downstream linkages between the processes that produce value to the ultimate consumer in the form of products and services. (MacKerron, G. (2009) Lectures slides for MBA) Zara operates using a vertical supply chain, which is a unique strategy in the fashion industry. Vertically integrated business undertakes a variety of activities from designing, manufacturing, sourcing, and distribution to retail stores around the world. They choose to handle design, production, and distribution in-house and concentrate the whole production close to their headquarters in Spain. By integrating the entire process, Zara can react much faster than its competitors do to both the ephemeral trends in the world of fashion and the capricious tastes of its customers. At the end of every working day the manager of a Zara store reports exactly what has been sold to headquarters. This information is quickly relayed to the design department where product lines can be altered, supplanted or created in a matter of days. This gives the company total business management. (See Figure 7) In an interview with CNN, Jose Maria Castellano, chief executive at Inditex, talked about Zaras supply chain and indicated its unusual structure by saying: Investment banks used to say that this model did not work, but we have shown that it gives us more flexibility in production, sales and stock management, (Zara Who we are, 2001) The Zara  ´supply chain management operation leads to customer visit the store over four times more frequently than other stores. Spontaneous design, just-in time production and rapid turnover of merchandise lead to a higher level of fashionable clothes. Even though the labor cost in Europe is higher, the efficiency of this system allows Zara to keep costs down by spending less cost on transportation and keeping inventories low refer. (Figure 7) Design Zara emphasize the importance of design in this market, its design functions are organized in a different way from those of most similar companies. Conventionally, the design input come from three separate functions: the designers themselves, market specialists, and buyers who place orders on to suppliers. At Zara the design stage is split into three product areas: women ´s, men ´s and children ´s garments. In each area, designers, market specialists, and buyers are co-located in designs halls that also contain small workshops for trying out prototype designs. The market specialists in all three design halls are in regular contact with Zara retail stores, discussing customer reaction to new designs. In this way, the retail stores are not the end of the whole supply chain but the beginning of the design stage of the chain. Zara ´s around 300 designers, whose average age is 26, produce approximately 40,000 items per year of which about 10,000 go into production. The retailer company has moved away from the traditional industry practice of offering two collections a year, for Spring/Summer and Autumn/Winter. Their seasonless cycle involves the continual introduction of new products on a rolling basis throughout the year. This allows designers to learn from customers reactions to their new products and incorporate them quickly into more new products. In the case of Zara the garment is designed; a batch is manufactured and pulsed through the supply chain. Often the design is never repeated; it may be modified and another batch produced, but there is no design as such. (Cowe, et.al.2008:271) Manufacturing In the fickle world of fashion, even seemingly well-targeted designs could go out of favor in the months it takes to get plans to contract manufacturers, tool up production, then ship items to warehouses and eventually to retail locations. But getting locally targeted designs quickly onto store shelves is where Zara really excels. The average time for a Zara concept to go from idea to appearance in store is 15 days vs. rivals who receive new styles once or twice a season. Smaller tweaks arrive even faster. If enough customers come in and ask for, say a round neck instead of a v neck, a new version can be in stores with in just 10 days (Tagliabue, 2003). To put that in perspective, Zara is twelve times faster than Gap (its direct competitor), despite offering roughly ten times more unique products. (Helft, 2002) Nearly 60% of Zaras merchandise is produced in-house, with an eye on leveraging technology in those areas that speed up complex tasks, lower cycle time, and reduce error. Profits from this clothing retailer come from blending math with its data-driven fashion sense. Inventory optimization models help the firm determine how many of which items in which sizes should be delivered to stores during twice-a-week shipments, ensuring stores are stocked with just what they need(Gentry, 2007). Outside the distribution center in La Coruà ±a, fabric is cut and dyed by robots in 23 highly automated factories. Zara is so vertically integrated, the firm makes 40 percent of its own fabric and purchases most of its dyes from its own subsidiary. Most Zara factories and their sub-contrators work on a single-shift system to retain some voume flexibility. (Tokatli, 2007) Distribution Zara has invested in highly automated warehouses, close to their main production centres that store, pack and assemble individual orders for their retail networks. These automated warehouses represent a major investment for both companies. In 2001, Zara caused some press comment by announcing that it would open a second automated warehouse even though, by its own calculations, it was only using about half its existing warehouse capacity. Zara is able to deliver the new design apparel from the drawing board to the stores in one or two weeks and therefore can respond very quickly to fast-changing tastes of their young urban customers (Walker et al., 2000). Retail All Zara stores (average size, 800 square metres) are owned and run solely by Inditex. Perhaps the most remarkable characteristic of Zara stores is that garments rarely stay for longer than two weeks. Because product designs are often not repeated and are produced In relatively small batches, the range of garments displayed in the store can change radically every two or three weeks. This encourages customers to avoid delaying a purchase and to revisit the store frequently. Below is a diagram that shows the cycle how a product is made. The companys success is because of the total control in every aspect of the business, from designing, to production, and to distribution. By having total control of the entire process, the company can quickly react to the fast changing fashion trend and customer taste, this provides the company an idea of the latest fashion trend. Having total control in all business activities allows Zara to produce and release new design in a short span of time. Key success factors of Zara SCM Zara concentrates the perfect success formula pretty much based on: Short Lead Time = More fashionable clothes Lower quantities = Scarce supply More styles = More choice, and more chances of hitting it Firstly, by focusing on shorter response times, the company ensures that its stores are able to carry clothes that the consumers want at that time. Zara can move from identifying a trend to having clothes in its stores within 30 days, this means that Zara can quickly identify and catch a winning fashion trend, while its competitors are struggling to catch up. Catching fashion while it is hot is a clear recipe for better margins with more sales happening at full prices and fewer discounts. In comparison, most retailers of comparable size or even smaller, work on timelines that stretch into 4-12 months. Thus, most retailers try to forecast what and how much its customers might buy many months in the future, while Zara moves in step with its customers. Trend identification comes through constant research not just traditional consumer market research, but a daily stream of emails and phone calls from the stores to head office. Unlike other retailers, Zaras machinery can react to the repo rt immediately and produce a response in terms of a new style or a modification within 2-4 weeks. Many other retailers have such long supply chain lead times that for them it would seem a lost cause for them to even try and respond to a sales report. Secondly, by reducing the quantity manufactured in each style, Zara not only reduces its exposure to any single product but also creates an artificial scarcity. As with all things fashionable, the less its availability, the more desirable the object becomes. The added benefit of lower quantities is that if a style does not work well, there is not much to be disposed during the season-end sale. The result of this is that Zara discounts only about 18 percent of its production, roughly half the levels of competitors. Thirdly, instead of more quantities per style, Zara produces more styles, roughly 12,000 a year. Thus, even if a style sells out very quickly, there are new styles already waiting to take up the space. Zara can offer more choices in more current fashions than many of its competitors. It delivers merchandise to its stores twice a week, and since re-orders are rare the stores look fresh every 3-4 days. Fresh produce, moving in step with the fashion trend and updated frequently the ingredients are just right to create the sweet smell of success. Now, the question is how does Zara achieve its three key success factors which would be a nightmare for most other retailers to achieve in such short time spans? So, let us look at the mechanisms that enable Zara to deliver on these parameters as well as some unique aspects of the retailers business model on figure 7 Supply Chain Objectives The objective of an effective supply chain management is to meet the requirements of end customers by supplying appropriate products and services when they are needed, at a competitive cost. Doing this requires the supply chain to achieve appropriate levels of the five operations performance objectives: quality, speed, dependability, flexibility and cost. (Cowe, et.al.2008:249) The quality objective: Zara brand name is synonymous with quality and the right price. Stores are located on emblematic streets likeOxford Street and5th avenue; the highest standards of products are demanded in these areas. 65% of products sold in Europe are produced in European plants where quality controls are higher and easier to manage. Flawed clothing items would erode the brand name eventually. The speed objective: hectic changes in fashion and high street tastes imply a need for logistic speed. Goods can be designed and delivered to the shelf within 6 weeks. In fact items spend so little time in the warehouse that they are already sold before they have to be paid for to their suppliers. The flexibility objective: demand for different types of clothing will changes and Zara must react accordingly. Sizes, color, quality and quality will change continuously. The customer has an active role from the start of the chain and is the drive for its business model. Customer requests are considered by the commercial and design team. The dependability objective: delivering on time to stores in a must. Customers have come to expect new items on a weekly basis on the shelves. The cost objective: affordability is vital to Zaras strategy however only 35% of goods are produced in Asia. This implies that operations management must be at its leanest as they operate within Europe where the cost structure is much higher. Zara ´s senior managers seem to comprehend intuitively the nonlinear relationship between capacity utilization, demand variability, and responsiveness. This relationship is well demonstrated by queuing theory which explains that a as capacity utilization begins to increase form low levels, waiting times increase gradually. But at some point, as the systems uses more of the available capacity, waiting times accelerates rapidly. As demand becomes ever more variable, this acceleration starts at lower and lower levels of capacity utilization. (Figure ) Information System Management of Zara Information and communications technology is at the heart of Zaras business. Zara is careful about the way it deploys the latest information technology tools to facilitate these informal exchanges. The company undertake different devices in order to increase the speed which basically gives them the competitive advantage over its competitors. The information system management of Zara are the followings: Collecting information on consumer needs; customized handheld computers support the connection between the retail stores and La Coruà ±a. These PDAs supplement regular, often weekly, phone conversations between the store managers and the market specialists assigned to them. Through the PDAs and telephone conversations, stores transmit all kinds of information to La Coruà ±a, such hard data as orders and sales trends and such soft data as customer reactions and the buzz around a new style. While any company can use PDAs to communicate, Zaras flat organization ensures that important conversations do not fall through the bureaucratic cracks. PDAs are also linked to the stores point-of-sale (POS) system, showing how garments rank by sales. In less than an hour, managers can send updates that combine the hard data captured at the cash register combined with insights on what customers would like to see. All of this valuable data allows the firm to plan styles and issue re-buy orders base d on feedback rather than hunches and guesswork. The goal is to improve the frequency and quality of sense making for the design planning teams. In this way, Zara avoids costly overproduction and the subsequent sales and discounting prevalent in the industry. (Rohwedder and Johnson, 2008) Standardization of product information different or incomplete specifications and varying product information availability typically add several weeks to a typical retailers product design and approval process, but Zara warehouses the product information with common definitions, allowing it to quickly and accurately prepare designs, with clear cut manufacturing instructions. Product information and inventory management being able to manage thousands of fabric and trim specifications, design specifications as well as their physical inventory, gives Zaras team the capability to design a garment with available stocks, rather than having to order and wait for the material to come in. Distribution management: its State-of-the-art distribution facility functions with minimal human intervention. Approximately 200 kilometers of underground tracks move merchandise from Zaras manufacturing plants to the 400 chutes that ensure each order reaches its right destination. Optical reading devices sort out and distribute more than 60,000 items of clothing an hour. Zaras merchandise does not waste time waiting for human sorting. CONCLUSION Zara has an unordinary supply chain, which gives them a highly competitive advantage. In a time of globalisation and a constant search for lower cost, Zara is a notable exception. They choose to handle design, production, and distribution in-house and concentrate the whole production close to their headquarters in Spain. By integrating the entire process, Zara can react much faster than its competitors do to both the ephemeral trends in the world of fashion and the capricious tastes of its customers. At the end of every working day the manager of a Zara store reports exactly what has been sold to headquarters. This information is quickly relayed to the design department where product lines can be altered, supplanted or created in a matter of days. BIBLIOGRAPHY Cowe, A., Mackerron G. And Milliken, A. (2008) Creating Competitive Advantage, Harlow, Pearson Education Linited Institute of Personnel Management. Echikson, W.,(200) The Mark of Zara, BusinessWeek Gentry, C., (2007) European Fashion Stores Edge Past U.S. Counterparts, Chain Store Age Heller, R. (2001), Inside ZARA, Forbes, New York, NY. Helft, M. (2002) Fashion Fast Forward, Business 2.0. MacKerron, G. (2009) Lectures slides for MBA students of Napier University. Porter, M. E. and Millar, V. E. (1991) `How information gives you competitive advantage, in M. E.Porter (ed.) (1991) On Competition and Strategy. Harvard Business Review Paperback No. 90079. M. Christopher (2004), Logistics and Supply Change Management. Pearson Education, Great Britain. Porter, M. E. (1980) Competitive Strategy: Techniques for Analyzing Industries and Competitors, Free Press, New York. Zook, C. (2001), Profit from the Core. Harvard Business School Press, Boston, Massachusetts. Porter, Michael E., Competitive Advantage. 1985, Ch. 1, pp 11-15. The Free Press. New York. Rowe, Mason, Dickel, Mann, Mockler; Strategic Management: a methodological approach. 4th Edition, 1994. Addison-Wesley. Reading Mass. Rohwedder, C., and Johnson, K., Pace-Setting Zara Seeks More Speed to Fight Its Rising Cheap-Chic Rivals, The Wall Street Journal, Feb. 20, 2008. Tagliabue, J., (2003) A Rival to Gap that Operates like Dell, The New York Times. Tagliabue, J. (2003), Spanish fashion chain Zara rivals Gap by operating like Dell', New York Times, 9 June. The Economist, (2005) The Future of Fast Fashion Tokatli, N.,(2007) Global sourcing: insights from the global clothing industry the case of Zara, a fast fashion retailer, Journal of Economic Geography. Kotler, Philip; Keller, Kevin Lane (2006). Marketing Management (12 ed.).Pearson Education. Harvard Business Review, Vol. 82, No.11, November 2004. INDITEX (2008) Who we are Walker, B., Bovet, D. and Martha, J. (2000), Unlocking the supply chain to build competitive advantage, Journal of Logistic Management, Vol. 11 No. 2.

bb king :: essays research papers

B.B. King Back in 1951, a young blues guitarist named Riley King had his first hit song titled "3 O’clock Blues.'' The song was so great, promoters whisked the young man from his Memphis, Tennessee home to the big top of New York City, where he shortened his stage name from Beale Street Blues Boy to "B.B.'' Boogie woogie pianist Robert "H-Bomb'' Ferguson recalls the first time he met B.B. King before the legendary guitarist's first show at the Apollo Theater in Harlem. "When I saw B.B., man, I laughed. This cat came out on stage with a purple suit, red shirt and green tie,'' says Ferguson. King agrees with Ferguson's memory, but notes that the color scheme was different. " It was a red suit with a red tie with red shoes. Red and black sock and black shoes,'' notes King. Over the past forty years, King has established himself as the indisputable king of blues guitarists. His creative style of blending gospel, jazz, and deep Delta blues has influenced two generations of blues and rock guitarists. Unabashedly, King admits that he's an original: "There's a whole lot of things I don't do as well as other people, but I can do and do very well being B.B. King.'' King launched his career as a professional musician on the streets of Memphis during the 1940s. He played gospel and blues on street corners for tips. Standing in-between blues and gospel, King took the path offering the promise of more financial rewards. At 66, King remains indefatigable. He does about 300 concert dates annually. Few artists who have attained the success that King has continue to drive themselves at such a grueling pace. The force pushing King to stay in front of the spotlight is simple. He wanted to be remembered. "If you're out there, people never forget you. That is one of the things I believe in today, never being forgotten. I would like to be remembered as a person that loved people and wanted to be loved by them''. King has wrought a unique style of blues often imitated, but never duplicated. Despite an unorthodox approach to the music, King has helped to shape the blues by bringing it into the mainstream. He hates when people label the blues as sad music. "Blues to me is many things,'' notes the King. "It has to do with people, places and things.

Mark Twain and the Lost Manuscript of The Adventures of Huckleberry Fin

Mark Twain and the Lost Manuscript of Huckleberry Finn      Ã‚  Ã‚   On November 30, 1835, Samuel Langhorne Clemens was born in the town of Florida, Missouri.   He had four siblings, three were older than him and one was younger.   When Clemens was four, his family moved to the town of Hannibal, Missouri.   Hannibal was a town located on the Mississippi river and would later become the setting for most of his stories ("Twain").   In 1847, when Clemens was twelve his father died.   Clemens grew up in an educated family (Works of Twain: Biographical Sketch).   At age twelve he was apprenticed to a printer and at age sixteen he worked under his brother, Orion who was a newspaper publisher in Hannibal.   Clemens made an early attempt at writing by sending comical travel letters to the Keokuk Saturday Post in Iowa under the pen name Thomas Jefferson Snodgrass.   These letters contained purposely inserted errors typical of Clemen's later work. When he was twenty-two he fulfilled a childhood dream by becoming apprenticed to a riverboat pilot named, Horace Bixby.   After his apprenticeship, he worked as a river boat pilot for four years.      The Civil War stopped riverboat traffic in 1861.   Clemens was out of work for several weeks before he traveled with his brother Orion to Nevada.   Orion had aspirations of becoming Territorial Secretary of Nevada.   Clemens became a reporter and later a feature editor for the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise, a Nevada newspaper.   During his reporting of the Nevada Constitutional Convention, Samuel Langhorne Clemens officially adopted for himself the pen name "Mark Twain" (Works of Twain: Brief Account).... ...   Simon and Schuster, Inc., 1990.    Outline    Thesis Statement:   An original draft of Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn exists containing material excluded from the first printing of the book.    I.   Twain's biographical information   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   A.   Childhood   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   B.   Education   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   C.   Professional life   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   1.   Jobs   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   2.   Literary works   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   3.   Financial conditions   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   D.   Personal life   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   1.   Life style   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   2.   Family life II.   Original manuscript of The Adventures   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   of Huckleberry Finn   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   A.   General information   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   1.   Discovery information   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   2.   How the manuscript was lost   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   B.   Legal battle for printing rights   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   C.   Difference from the first publishing III.   Conclusion

The Hero Essay -- essays research papers

The Hero   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Zorro, Lassie, Hercules, and Beowulf all have something in common, they are all considered hero’s. It does not matter if the hero is a man, woman, animal or an intimate object that springs to life. It does not matter where the hero comes from or how old he or she is. The only thing that a hero needs to do to be a hero, according to Joseph Campbell, is follows a predefined path of a hero and have some common characteristics of one, too. Joseph Campbell in one of the most knowledgeable people on the subject of a hero. According to Joseph Campbell many hero’s have completed the same deed over and over again throughout history. He points out that a hero is not limited to one particular time or place. Campbell explains the details about what makes a hero a hero in his discussion The Hero’s Journey. The story of the hero must have a mystical quality. A hero’s characteristics should include doing something beyond the normal range of a human and giving up one’s life for something bigger. A hero’s sequence of events is began by the hero intentionally setting out on ones own to complete a physical deed for a moral objective. The hero is trying to shape a savage world out of his existing world. The hero departs from his home to fulfill his deed and then returns home again. The hero undergoes a mental development throughout the story through different trials that he or she is facing. This transforms the heroes state of consciousness. The hero learns to live in the system in which he or she is and does not fall victim to it. Lastly whatever is accomplished by the hero is lost when he or she dies. In the story of Beowulf the main character follows Campbell’s outline of a hero. It is an Anglo-Saxon poem that recounts the life of the hero Beowulf and this poem is one of the oldest existing poems in the English language.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  First of all for a hero to be a hero he needs to be present in a story that has a mystical quality about it, according to Campbell. The reader can see this mystical quality in Beowulf everywhere he or she looks. First of all as the story begins it talks of a tribe of people, called the Danes, rescuing a castaway baby at sea. The baby that the tribe rescues turns out later to be their king. Another mystical quality t... ...the path of a hero. First by setting out on one’s own to complete a physical deed for a moral obligation. Beowulf leaves Geatland on his own to kill Grendel to repay Hrothgar for his kindness to his father. Fulfilling each moral obligation is a step on the path of being a hero. Beowulf kills each monster because of a moral obligation and gives his king the riches he receives from each because it is his moral obligation to do so. A character departs from his or her home to go on an adventure and then return home again. Beowulf leavs his land to kills two monsters and then returns home again. Next a character will shape and savage world and through trials transform to a different state of counciousness. By fighting monsters and ruling the land Beowulf grows smarter and less selfish than he was before. The last step is to live in a system and finally have everything that is gained by the character lost. Beowulf lives in his system without becomming corrupt and in the end the peace and treasure that he fought for is lost by his people. When a character has the characteristics and follows the correct path then he or she is a hero. Beowulf is a hero.