Upon Westminster Bridge and Kensington Market

The Kashmir earthquake happened on Saturday October 5th 2005, at 8:50am local time which had a magnitude of 7. 6. 74,500+ were dead and 106,000+ were injured in the Kashmir region of Northern Pakistan which was the 14th deadliest earthquake of all time. Its focus was 26km down and the shaking lasted for 60 seconds (1 Minute). The most badly affected area was in the Epicentral area around Muzaffarabad which is the capital of the Pakistan administered region of Kashmir. It is 80km north-east of Islamabad. 20 aftershocks were followed after the earthquake. It is said to be the strongest earthquake to hit the region in a century. The primary effects of the Kashmir earthquake included: Several trains on minor lines were derailed, 3. 3 million homes were destroyed, 79,000 people were killed and 100,000 injured. Secondary effects included: Electricity, gas and water supplies were disrupted, an outbreak of diarrhea spread from contaminated water supplies, respiratory infections such as pneumonia and people died of cold and starvation during the harsh winter season especially homeless people. Longer term effects of the Kashmir Earthquake included: The overall cost of the damage was $1000,000, 3. 3 million people had to live in temporary accommodation until rebuilding could start and in rural areas the crops mostly survived and so did the animals living there. Short term responses were: Supplying food and water, rescuing trapped people, rescue and medical teams arriving from other countries, tents supplied. Medium Term responses are: Re-establishing water supplies, building temporary, prefabricated houses, providing money for temporary housing. Long term responses are: Preparing disaster plans and carrying out regular practices, training emergency services, setting up an efficient earthquake warnings and information system using the media There are many similarities and differences from the Kashmir earthquake compared to other earthquakes such as Kobe earthquake/Great Hanshin. The Great Hanshin Earthquake occurred on Tuesday, January 17, 1995, at 05:46 in Japan. The focus was about 19km below the sea whilst the Kashmir earthquake was 26km down. This will have an immense effect on the earthquake, Also, The epicentre was between Kobe and Awaji Island whilst Kashmir`s was around Muzaffarabad. For the Kobe earthquake nearly 200,000 buildings were destroyed whilst for Kashmir there were at least 1 in very 10 buildings were destroyed which will be higher than the buildings collapsed in Kobe earthquake. 5,500 people were killed and 40,000 were injured and an estimated 230,000 people were made homeless in the Kobe earthquake. In the Kashmir Earthquake, 74,500+ were killed and 106,000+ were injured which is more than double the people who were affected from the Kobe Earthquake. Other reasons for Kashmir Earthquake being more severe are: It is a mountainous area, it is in a collision zone. These stats tells us that The Kashmir earthquake was stronger and more severe and had a bigger impact to the society, economy and physical effects. Another difference is that the Kobe government made a slow response and lack of an emergency plan when the earthquake hit. In Kashmir earthquake, the government reacted instantly. Many good and bad things happened after the quake, 1 week after the quake: the death toll continued to rise, bulldozers began to clear streets and knock down unsafe buildings, some shops and schools reopened. After 2 weeks: Overcrowding in makeshift shelters became a health hazard, cold weather led to a flu epidemic, people needed help to cope with the stress and shock of the quake.

Benefits of Activity Based Costing Essay

In order to make a profit on production, the firm would have to charge a price that is greater than the cost of production. Generally, the cost of production is understood to be the cost of producing a good plus the cost of transportation to the consumer. In order to stay in business, and therefore, to avoid losses at all possible costs – the firm must cover all costs related to the production of the good and include all costs to deliver the same to the consumer at a price that is higher than the cost of production. The operating or overheard expenses of an enterprise are generated by its activities to perform its business and/or manufacturing processes successfully. As its name implies, activity based costing relates the costs facing the enterprise to its various activities. By so doing, this system of costing provides pretty accurate information about costs, allowing businesses to effectively manage their overhead expenses in order to increase their revenues (Cooper, 1988). It is but commonsensical that companies may work on cutting their costs once they know what is driving these costs. By improving their processes in order to cut costs, businesses may realize greater profits than before. What is more, by identifying high costing activities needed to produce certain goods or serve certain customers, companies may decide to focus instead on low costing products or customers by reducing their production of or service to high costing products or customers. In this way, they may shift their focus to products or customers that are more profitable to produce or to serve. Thus, management experts cite the following benefits of activity based costing as opposed to traditional methods of costing: Identifying the most and least profitable customers, products and channels. Determine the true contributors to— and detractors from—financial performance. Accurately predict costs, profits and resource requirements associated with changes in production volumes, organizational structure and resource costs. Easily identify the root causes of poor financial performance. Track costs of activities and work processes. Equip managers with cost intelligence to drive improvements. Facilitate better Marketing Mix. Enhance the bargaining power with the customer. Achieve better Positioning of products. (â€Å"Activity Based Costing,† 2008). Businesses that benefit the most from activity based costing are those with high manufacturing operating expenses or overhead costs. These costs may result from a diverse range or products, intensity of capital, or vertically integrated system of manufacturing. Activity based costing may help such businesses not only to understand but also to control their operating expenses so as to increase their revenues (O’Guin, 1991, p. 76). Organizations with large marketing, sales or distribution costs may also reap great benefits from activity based costing. As mentioned previously, this method of costing identifies those customers that are most profitable from those that are least profitable. This provides insight to management on how to improve operations. With activity based costing, such businesses may be able to answer questions such as: â€Å"What discounts are appropriate for large orders? What size accounts should salespersons no longer call on? How effective is advertising to different markets? † (O’Guin, p. 76). Firms that are experiencing sluggish or low profitability on increasing sales may be suffering from growth that is unmanaged. It may very well be that these businesses are selling products at losses to a number of customers. The accounting system of accurately measuring costs, that is, activity based costing, would allow these firms to determine which of their customers and products are generating revenues and which are not (O’Guin, p. 76). O’Guin describes another benefit of the activity based costing system thus: Even with a diverse product line or customer base and very high profitability, a company lacking an ABC system is surprisingly vulnerable. Product profitability probably varies widely across the company. Highly profitable products present an irresistible target to new market entrants. Management should know which products are reaping enormous margins, so they can erect barriers to entry. (p. 76). Also according to O’Guin, the activity based costing system provides not only strategic but also tactical benefits to businesses that implement it. Whereas benefits that are strategic in nature may be realized only once in a blue moon, for the simple reason that organizations cannot be expected to change their pricing, business operations, distribution or manufacturing processes each year – tactical benefits may be realized constantly. Indeed, activity based costing could help businesses not only with reduction of overhead costs, but also just-in-time support, improvement of quality, decisions about design, and investment in capital. Thus, businesses that implement the activity based costing system may improve their profitability on an ongoing basis (O’Guin, p. 76). In the twenty first century, companies that have a competitive edge are those that maintain flexibility, a trend that has been recognized as a critical factor for success since the 1990s. Life cycles of products have been shortened and focus on the customer has become increasingly important. As economies of scale virtually disappear, manufacturing plants that are successful are those that are able to quickly introduce innovative products and economically produce small quantities. Activity based costing system can help businesses tremendously to achieve these goals. What is more, this system of costing could assist businesses of the twenty first century to achieve their goal to increase employee motivation. With the activity based costing system in place, employees increase their understanding of business activities and therefore their involvement in business operations. So, for example, whenever they see a mound of papers they would see overhead costs, leading them to the following questions: Why do we have so many bills? Why are there so many process involved in our purchase orders (O’Guin, p. 76)? Thus, the activity based costing system encourages businesses to push their rates of cost drivers down. This helps in the reduction of time to setup, streamlines buying, in addition to time taken to development a product. When costs are attached to each of these processes or activities, management may not only measure but also plan improvement (O’Guin, p. 76). As mentioned before, some of these improvements may entail reducing production of goods or service to customers that cost more to produce or service than the others. Hence, the activity based costing system may also lead the business that implements it to improve upon its marketing mix or positioning of its products. If products and customers that cost more than the others are required by the company to produce or serve in the same quantity as before, however, activity based costing system helps the organization to improve its processes in order to decrease its costs without reducing the quantity to produce or serve. After all, it is only possible to improve inefficient processes. Because activity based costing allows the company to weigh the costs of activities against their benefits, firms that use it are in a great position to increase the efficiency of all of their processes so as to gain competitive advantages. References Activity Based Costing. (2008). Value Based Management. Retrieved Jan 27, 2009, from http://www. valuebasedmanagement. net/methods_abc. html. Cooper, R. (1988, Summer). The Rise of Activity-Based Costing – Part One: What is an Activity-Based Cost System? Journal of Cost Management, pp. 45-54. O’Guin, M. C. (1991). The Complete Guide to Activity-based Costing. Chicago, IL: CCH Tax and Accounting.

Applied research method - topic to be defined out of the assignment Essay

Applied research method - topic to be defined out of the assignment - Essay Example The difference in organizational culture is perceivable and culture has been recognized as a strong determinant of beliefs, attitudes and behavior. The strategic decision of M&A would have to take into account the impact of the differences in culture between two organizations or even between two nations. A high percentage of mergers and acquisitions fail to meet expectations and a very strong argument is that cultures were not integrated. This makes it interesting to know the impact that M&A has on the culture of an organization. To determine the impact of cultural differences when M&A take place, literature review would be conducted. There is a broad stream of literature available but since it is not possible to go through or include the entire database, select academic journals would be used to determine the impact that culture has during mergers. Three academic papers are recent while two papers are decades old. This has been done to understand how the mind set of people has changed over time. Literature review permits quick and easy collection of general information on the issue. The literature review would help to arrive at the research question. Cultural differences have been blamed for high failure rate in M&A but research suggests otherwise (Teerikangas & Very, 2006). Differences in top management styles have been found in top US companies but not in rewards and evaluation system to have a negative performance impact. Functional background had a positive impact on post-acquisition performance. A buying firm’s behavior throughout the buying process is influenced by its national background. According to some authors, differences in national cultures are not an impediment but a potential success factor for M&A. Research suggests that decision-makers give disproportionate attention to strategic fit as compared to integration issues (Olie, 1994). One of these issues is the ‘cultural fit’ where the fundamental differences

EWRT 211 Lessons Personal Statement Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 13

EWRT 211 Lessons - Personal Statement Example To begin with, the lessons in organization and analysis helped me to improve upon my reading and comprehension skills because I was forced to read and understand the new language that I was learning. I will admit that it was a struggle at first and I wished to have translations available for me but I knew that it would defeat the purpose of this class. So I applied my analytical skills as best as I could and, even with my grammatical mistakes, I am able to say that I was able to understand the lesson. Although my own thoughts on the topic might have been unclear to the reader at the start due to my language limitation. I found myself improving quite a lot when the lessons allowed me to develop my own vivid examples, which in turn helped me to better convey my thoughts in complete sentences. The chance to proofread myself also afforded me to catch my grammatical errors and correct them whenever possible. As my professor, you will also note the great improvement in my written assignments as I progressed in class. Finally being able to provide specific evidence for claims and discussing them in depth has helped me mature as a writer and developed my brains language skills as well. The result of my hard work in this class is that I am now a more accomplished writer in the English language. I am also able to completely analyze the written word and convey my own opinions on the matter in a method that is easily understood by others. My academic maturity in terms of English language use has become more pronounced and has resulted in a remarkable improvement in my confidence as a student when submitting my written work.

Analyse or evaluate macroeconomic problem using appropriate macro Essay

Analyse or evaluate macroeconomic problem using appropriate macro economic theory. (no keynsian cross or IS-LM model) - Essay Example The results were evidenced in the forms of reduce activity in the stock market and collapse of financial institutions. This caused massive job losses and it had a direct impact on the price of goods. Prices of most commodities went up due to economic effects of cost in production and unavailability of capital which had an inflationary effect on the country’s economy (Buttet & Roy, 2014). Since the occurrence of the credit crunch, countries have been on different recovery paths that have been determined greatly by the policies and financial strategies laid by their leaderships. Since the main focus of this paper is to compare the different growths, the paper shall also look into how the DAD-DAS model has been applied and how it has or has not worked in both the best performing country and the worst performing country in the G7 group (Chiarella et al, 2013). The information available indicates Britain to be the best performing G7 country with a GDP growth rate of 2.6% compared to the United States of America whose GDP growth rate comes second at 2.4% per year. The economic performance in Britain has been attributed to improved consumer confidence, stabilisation of interest rates and reduced inflation rates in the country. Other G7 countries such as Germany, France, Canada, Japan and Italy have recorded low growth rates which have also been attributed to a slow growth in consumer confidence and high inflation rates (Ghosh & Ghosh, 2012). There exists several relationships that make up the DAD-DAS model and they are inflation, interest rates, demand shocks and supply shocks. These are based on the thinking that if there is an expectation of inflation then it will definitely occur. This means that if a population expects inflation to be at a certain level at a particular point in time, then inflation will possibly occur even without the causative effects from other factors. The second reasoning is that excess demand will most likely cause

Case Problem Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Case Problem - Essay Example Such a business case demonstrates yet again how statistics can be used to reduce uncertainty. In particular, simulation modeling enables quantification of events and outcomes with varying probabilities. Previewing all possible outcomes with unknown probabilities of occurrence helps to assess potential costs and benefits. Monte Carlo simulation is one such procedure that applies (Doane & Seward, 2007; Stout, 2007). These parameters require the use of a uniform model, where RV values vary within a given range with no central tendency or standard deviation assumed. For the first step of estimating randomly varying demand, the result of 52 iterations of revenue simulations (see Table 1 below) yields a somewhat skewed distribution with a mean of $540 daily, a median of $542 and a standard deviation of $184. Gross annual revenue before simulating the effect of mechanical breakdown would be $28,109. This is the baseline. Next, we factor in the incidence of breakdowns and the lead time for repair. We employ the RAND function to estimate the probability that the copier will be trouble-free all days of the week (instead of defining as â€Å"6 times the square root of r†). For the first week in the all-year iterations, therefore, the RAND value of 0.487 translates to a probability that the main copier will break down after just three days of operation. That same week, repair lead time is calculated using the VLOOKUP function based on the same column of RAND values. Since RAND=0.487 is lower than the 0.65 cumulative probability associated with two days’ repair lead time, the VLOOKUP function returns 1 day. Hence, revenue loss for the week comes to gross revenue times the proportion of 7 days that the main copier can reliably be predicted to

Royal Thai Airways Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Royal Thai Airways - Case Study Example s of Thai culture, its customs, and traditions.' The goal of the research study is to examine the extent and nature of Thailand's reach as a tourist economy within the global market. Focused on RTA's Royal Orchid Plus (ROP) market segment, the project proposes to engage the topic of globalization through inquiry into ROP passenger membership, and in particular high wealth, male customers from cosmopolitan hubs in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and United Kingdom (UK). At the global level, RTA and by extension the Thai tourist economy has at present, a significant share of the available demand. Well known for its personal service tourism (i.e. sex tourism) economy, Thailand's beauty and tropical surroundings are compliment the dream world of male fantasies attained through association with luxury market advertising of those services. Nevertheless, Thailand's sex tourism industry has an alternative image, which is predicated upon the policy concerns of human rights activism against such activities. AIDs and interrelated discourses o n 'health' utilized by medical, public health and 'spa' businesses are also considered. A full service provider of commercial airline service to customers around the globe, RTA faces a challenge in identity management that is perhaps unparalleled elsewhere in terms of market analysis and communication. Business development, then is fostered through negotiation of gender terms, and precisely so; RTA employs Thailand's 'Spa Culture' as a benefit to ROP members, yet retracts from association with anything pertaining to 'sex.' The royal orchid carrier is in the last instance, 'traditional.' How this impacts investment underscores the nature of this study. Participation in the Star Alliance was the result of various changes in the world's economic situation, RTA claims, as single carriers 'cannot sustain and respond to these changes effectively and sufficiently.' The 2008 'Open Skies Agreement' between the EU and US set the pace for a radical restriction on nations that did not follow suit in regard to free-trade at international airports. Marketing 'paradise' has now become more expensive. Revenues generated by RTA's frequent flier customers more important to the airline than ever. To this end, the project focuses on the high wealth, male ROP client, and in particular those of the UAE and UK, working together in the heavily sanctioned social environments (i.e. dictating prohibition on sexual relations) of the Gulf States. The theoretical prospectus on the project is focused on globalization and identity, and specifically addresses critical marketing theories dedicated to activist