The Diverse Nature of Psychology Essay Example for Free

The Diverse Nature of Psychology Essay Psychology itself attempts to define people’s behavior through aspects of the human minds ability to process information and stimulants. The diversity of psychology is very evident within the many different branches of the American Psychological Association, each addressing a unique perspective within psychology of understanding human behavior (Plante, 2011). This diversity within psychology, allows psychologists the ability to expand in all areas of explanation, assessment, and diagnoses, which furthers the science of psychology through many different subfield specialties. This paper will discuss the subfields of psychology, the importance of diversity, and the practical applications of psychological principles. The Impact of Diversity in Psychology Each of the major concepts within psychology emphasizes different parts of human behavior, such as the cognitive, social, spiritual, and unconscious factors, which contribute to a person’s behavior. One main defining feature of psychology is that it is a data based scientific study of behavior, in which each step of research used to procure knowledge has contributed to advancements in the development of sound theories within psychology. Three important features related to the science of psychology include the use of systematic empiricism, the production of public awareness, and the examination of problems (Plante, 2011). Psychology attempts to understand and explain psychological phenomenon using empirical techniques to advance scientifically. As the study of psychology progresses, it has further advanced into a diverse field. Subfields within Psychology Some of the major divisions of psychology include clinical psychology, psychotherapy, forensic psychology, industrial/organizational psychology, and environmental psychology. These major fields of psychology then branch off into subfields within psychology. One such example is Abnormal Psychology, which derives itself from roots in psychotherapy, clinical psychology and even neuroscience. Abnormal psychology studies abnormal behavior and psychopathology and emphasizes the research and treatment of mental disorders (Plante, 2011). Within Abnormal psychology there are further subtopics such as each individual mental illness and their implications on behavior, in addition to treatments for such disorders, illnesses and diseases which could also vary based on subtopic. Another good example of a subfield within psychology is Lifespan Development, which derives its roots from developmental psychology, the nature vs nurture psychological debate and behavioral psychology. Lifespan Development devotes it’s time to studying the effects of childhood development on human growth and the lifespan of an individual and their experiences. Lifespan development aids in the popular ideas of raising children and disciplining unruly teens. In addition Lifespan Development seeks to understand and justify adult behavior based on childhood experiences, and then retrain the adult to more practical behavioral practices. This type of theory can be applied in contemporary society through detention and juvenile delinquent facilities (Landrum Davis, 2010). Conclusion Psychology is a scientific study of behavior and mental processes. The discipline is divided into a variety of subfields, each focusing on specific areas of psychological functioning. The diversity of the discipline allows psychologists a broader array of speculation to advance in areas of understanding, prediction, explanation, and intervention measures. Psychological principles can be applied to a wide variety of human functioning including clinical diagnosis, personality measures, legal operations, phobia treatments, and many more. The discipline of psychology focuses on behavior and mental processes advancing the field with scientific techniques to help optimize the lives of others. The diverse character of the psychodynamic and cognitive-behavioral perspectives exemplifies the distinct nature of psychological perspectives, although both support the unifying goal of psychology to improve the quality of life for people and resolve human conflict. Although viewpoints and perspectives in the science of psychology sometimes appear different in nature, each attempts to address disease and disorder from its distinct scientific point of reference. Each perspective addresses human behavior from a distinct viewpoint, although none is an all-encompassing. Diversity permeates the major perspectives in psychology as well as their divisions and subtopics, which affects other disciplines as well as secular and popular thought. Abnormal psychology and lifespan development affect thought in education and neuroscience as well as other disciplines and fields of psychology (Plante, 2011).

The Nestle Internal Documents Management Essay

The Nestle Internal Documents Management Essay The research process followed in this study is outlined in Figure 1, it began with a review of the literature related to BPM and BPIs with a particular focus on researches that tackled Innovation and particularly Packaging Innovation in Food Industry. The literature review revealed a significant gap with regard to both the integration aspect of BPM and BPIs and the application of this integrated framework in the specific field of Packaging Innovation which led to formulate the RQ. In order to identify and describe the impact of the proposed framework on the Packaging Innovation Process a Case Study methodology has been adopted as a research strategy. This is because it is considered suitable to address the research question: How and why an integrated framework of Business Process Management and Business Process Improvement could improve the Performance of Packaging Innovation Process of a multinational company? This is also in accordance with Yin (2009, Loc 453) who confirms that à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦how and Why questions are more explanatory and likely to lead to the use of case studies..as the preferred research method. Furthermore, the focus on the contemporary events of Packaging Innovation Process in its real-life context and not requiring the control of behavioural events were additional reasons for choosing the case study method (Yin, 1981; Yin 2009, Loc 310). All the 3 conditions highlighted by Yin (2009, Loc 310) are met in order to adopt the case study as the most appropriate method. Once again Yin (2009, Loc 310) argues clearly à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ case studies are the preferred method when how or why questions are being posed, the investigator has little control over events and focus is on a contemporary phenomenon within a real-life context. Case study design An embedded single case study design has been selected in this research. According to Yin (2009, Loc 740) there are four major types of case study designs. Placed in a 2ÃÆ'-2 matrix these relevant designs are: single case versus multiple case designs, then holistic with a single unit of analysis against embedded covering a multiple units of analysis. The aim for selecting an embedded single case design is to investigate a representative or typical case in order to capture the circumstances and conditions of an everyday or commonplace situation (Yin, 2009, Loc 1205). Embedded designs (multiple units of analysis) often add significant opportunities for extensive analysis, enhancing the insights into the single case (Yin, 2009, Loc 1215). Accordingly, this embedded single case is about packaging innovation process improvement in the context Business Process Management and Improvement and specifically the integration of both BPM and BPI disciplines. This involves as well several units of analysis which consist in baseline events and validation through an innovation project. In the baseline events one main illustrative project has been reviewed in order to understand the critical reasons that make a packaging innovation project fail. Then in order to assess the impact of a poorly designed packaging on the operation, twelve factories across Europe and Asia have been visited through a waste Audit methodology (Muda Hunt).The twelve factories have been chosen as subunits for this investigation because they were widely spread geographically across Europe and Asia and were using different packaging materials and technologies for various product categories. With this case study design, the emphasis is global touching the packaging innovation process and not on individual factories or on a specific packaging material or a product category. Yin (2009) stresses that a major drawback in an embedded single case is focusing only on the subunit level for example the individual factories and failing to return to the larger unit of analysis in this case the packaging innovation process improvement. On the other hand, a single case study has limitations in particular to its rigor of research and in relation to the scientific generalization of the findings and conclusions (Yin, 2009, Loc 554). Nevertheless, single case studies permit a precise analysis of cotemporary evidence in context and are generalisable to theoretical propositions (Yin 2009, Loc 573). Finally the systematic adoption of embedded case study as a research methodology using three unit of analysis gives more rigor as well, Furthermore, the validation of the proposed framework though a real packaging innovation project (Embedded unit of analysis # 3) enhances the quality output of the research and confirms its managerial implications. Data collection The data were primarily collected at Nestlà © Head Office, RD centres and affiliate markets and factories. Worldwide leader in Food and Wellbeing industries, Nestlà © uses a wide range of more than 177000 packaging materials and more than 66000 different packaging specifications in 450 production sites across the globe. Moreover, Nestlà © is also interested in improving its Packaging Innovation Process and attracted by exploring the new integrated framework which combines both BPM and BPI. Therefore the access to Nestlà © internal data and employees has been made relatively easy. Using Nestlà © posed no research bias since it gives total independence and full autonomy to conduct the whole research in order to avoid any influence neither on the research process nor on the outcome. Thus, Nestlà ©s internal documents review and semi-structured interviews with a group of concerned employees have been used in this research to collect data. To complement the second-hand data, waste audits in twelve factories have been carried out combined with a visit and interviews of tree key suppliers. The use of multiple sources of evidence, combined with key informants who have reviewed draft case study reports, helped to establish construct validity (Yin, 2009, Loc 734, 1057). All data were stored in a process Map using the BPM software Nimbus Control in accordance with Yins (2009, Loc 734, 1057) recommendations for establishing reliability. Internal documents and interviews Nestle internal documents were the first source of data collection for this investigation. These include corporate documents (General Instructions, Policies, RD and business reports, best practices library) produced by process owners, functional departments or experts. The process owners have mapped processes and issued instructions on how to implement and execute their processes. Having access to Nestlà ©s internal documents and employees helped to rely on a vast amount of relevant data. For the baseline review of a major Packaging Innovation project, semi-structured face-to-face interviews were carried out with 37 stakeholders and 3 key suppliers involved in the development process. An interview lasts between 2 to 4 hours, with a flexible schedule, according to availability of the individuals invited. The semi-structured questions were defined following a clear Process flow and Project Phases: à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢ Project Inception / Initiation à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢ Project Brief Objectives à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢ Project Organisation Planning Development à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢ Project Execution, Management, Reporting and Steering Committee à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢ Packaging Design / Specification Quality à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢ Supplier Selection, Technical Qualification Approval Performance à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢ Business Impact, Supply and Cost. Interviewees received a clear description with scope and objectives of the review as well as relevant questions before the interview. Participants were invited to comment on any phase with regard to their own experiences and learnings together with any recommendations they might have for improvement, as well as present copies of any relevant documentation that can support the review. The principle aim of the review and Gemba walk was to capture the learnings from all employees involved and who were encouraged to freely give any comments they might have related to the following questions: What happened? Why did it happen? How, and at what stage of the design / development phase of the project, could we have avoided these failures? How should we change our development / deployment approach as a result of these learnings? What went well? What did not go so well? What could have been improved? What could have been done differently? What Key Recommendations could you offer to improve the process in the future? All comments and feedbacks were grouped into a series of transcribed Notes following Miles and Huberman (1994) recommendation. The transcription is grouped by Function and Location with a summary of the inputs that were mapped in the BPM tool: Nimbus Control. This allowed an easier analysis and quicker understanding of the whole picture and piece together the complex interfaces between all entities involved in the Packaging Development Project called 24K. Field observations To collect first-hand data field observations were made using waste audits (Muda Hunt) approach in 12 factories across Europe and Asia. The concept of MUDA hunt is meant to provide awareness to obvious waste as well as none Value Added activities at the shop floor. The application of the Lean Six Sigma tools such as DMAIC methodology will help afterwards to reduce or eliminate the identified waste. Field observations in scope: Packaging areas of main production lines; Material flows in packaging areas; Packaging materials waste; Labour utilization, packaging material usage on the lines; Space utilization on the floors, storage inventory. Field observations Out of scope: Processing of raw materials; Production lines (mixing, moulding, ) The relevant filling and packing lines were selected for Muda Hunt if they are strategic to the Business and depending on their capacity utilisation, their Efficiency and Performance as well as their material waste level. All Mudas were mapped in a prioritisation matrix (see example below) depending on their impact High or Low and their effort to implement Easy or Hard. The proposals are then listed in tables as first priority in green colour and second priority in orange colour for actions planning. Limitations of Lean programs The origin of Lean goes back to the Toyota Production System which has been created more than 40 years ago. For R. Suri (Suri, 2010) a new ground cannot be forged by focusing only on refining and implementing 40-year-old approach. Based on studies with more than 200 companies during the last 15 years, he listed few limitations related to Lean. For Suri, Lean is designed originally for production system with relatively high-volumes. Organisations that are offering high variety or customised products could not see how to implement Lean principles. According to Atkinson (Atkinson, 2010), [] LEAN must grow with the culture and not be imposed upon it. The author highlighted that too much attention is focused on the technical aspect of Lean, rather than the ambition to build a real self-sustaining Lean culture. Atkinson has listed seven misconceptions regarding Lean; first, Lean is frequently considered as a toolbox of techniques and methods that are pushed down to the organisation, rather than pulled and tailored to it. Second, Lean is not a cost reduction exercise to remove unnecessary cost out. Third, Lean concepts often are not applicable to processes and functions beyond operations. Forth, Lean often doesnt impact the design and the innovation processes. Fifth, Lean is to frequently be sold, surrounded by all the exotic terminology, as Japanese approach for improvement. Sixth, Lean does not necessitate a culture of continuous improvement and finally Lean is less concerned by the culture change. In his research of the top reasons for the failure of the major Lean initiatives, Lucey focused on the other dimensions as leadership, employees engagement and communication. Atkinson on the other hand highlighted the importance of the organisational culture that decides the success of Lean or any other improvement initiative and demonstrated that applying lean principles and tools is certainly not enough to achieve business excellence. For Treat, organisations practicing BPM may apply common Business Process Improvements (BPI) initiatives for certain improvement; nevertheless the usage of these BPI tools does not mean that the organisation is devoted to the effective application of BPM. In the same context, Hammer underlined in his process audit framework the crucial importance of applying two defined groups of characteristics that are necessary for business processes to continuously improve and sustain. These characteristics as described in the first section of this research are ba sed beside process management, on people Leadership, culture, knowledge skills and behaviours. Hence its evidently crucial to compare BPM and BPI approaches not only according to the MEM but as well from the Management perspective looking at how these approaches tackled the issues of Leadership, Culture Change, Process Management, and Continuous Improvement. Leadership Management: This factor is related to the role of top leaders and their behaviour in driving the organization towards Performance and Continuous Improvement. This central role has been accepted by experts and researchers as one of the major success factors for reaching Business Performance. Management in general is more concerned about controlling, problem fixing and making short term results and Leadership is more about the ability of giving directions, developing a vision and setting strategies to achieve this vision (Kotter, 1993, Kotter, 1996). In few words, leaders foster change and transformation in the organisation. Engaging leaders and top Mangers is the key first step for a successful implementation of Process Business Excellence. Culture Change: The ultimate Culture Change objective is to drive performance across the whole organisation in order to exceed customer expectations and therefore to win in the market place. A robust culture would promote effective performance only when it contains values and norms that helps to engage people, manage the change and the shifting to a competitive environment (Atkinson, 2010; Kotter, 1993). Literature supports Kotter and states that this kind of culture will impact positively on the productivity and performance of the organisation. As an illustration, there is a clear parallel between people engagement and the sustainability of lean initiatives (Lucey et al., 2005). The research literature shows that engaged workforce can have a huge impact on growth, profitability and competitiveness (Lucey et al., 2005) therefore a measure and monitoring of this engagement is crucial for sustaining any continuous improvement process. Process Management: Businesses are driven by a multitude of various processes, but concentrating on the core and essential ones either in operation or beyond will improve the organisation Performance. Core Processes have to be continually reviewed, measured and improved and employees should focus on defining the perfect process, eliminating any unnecessary phases, challenging the lead times or the base costs. A Performing organisation is where processes are mapped, measured and improved for all core business activities. The development of a new business process is also one of the key activities affecting Business Performance and competitive abilities. The association between cause and effects, inputs and outputs of a process must be the guiding principles to applying BPI methodologies. Efforts and resources spent other than on managing processes and changing the culture to achieve strategic objectives is waste (Atkinson, 2010). Therefore getting the processes right first is a prerequisite for achieving Performance objectives. Finally processes have to be visualised and communicated in a way that each employee can see and understands the process. Visual systems should allow everyone to have the capability to answer the question, if everything is flowing the way it should be and if we are on time to customer demand? BPM helps to create a current state map of an existing flow, then develop and implement a future state based on BPI principles. Continuous Improvement (CI): As mentioned in the introduction, organisations make efforts to implement Business Process Improvement programs to improve operational performance and achieve Business Excellence. Some of them try to move from episodic process improvements to building and sustaining their ability to improve processes continually. BPI methods help these organisations to understand and implement the concept of Continuous Improvement. But according to Brad Power (Power, 2011), if an organisation tries to institutionalize continuous process improvement based on just one approach, it will run into trouble because no single method has all the elements for sustaining continuous process improvement. Therefore Power emphasises the fact that if organisations want to keep their processes up to date continually, they need to be able to use many approaches to embedding improvement in their management systems. TQM started applying first the principle of Demings cycle Plan-do-check-act (PDCA) to continuously improve the quality, achieve customer satisfaction and reduce costs. While Six Sigma supporters claim that if you train enough people (belts..) and you measure performance, you achieve the cultural transformation toward continuous improvement. According to Hammer, advises organisations to continually assess their processes against his model of process maturity (Hammer, 2007). He advised to put in place the governance and the infrastructure to track end-to-end process performance and finally install the right culture of process centricity and continuous improvement. On the other hand Lean approach aims to cascade strategic objectives into implications for process improvements to have people aligned behind the same direction. To ensure continuous improvement attitude Lean philosophy trust executives to act as coaches, helping people at the front-line to understand the importance of waste elimination and problem-solving. Power underline that the few companies who succeed in sustaining their process improvement have actually selected and used the best from each of BPM and BPI approaches to embed continuous improvement in their organisation. This fact supports further the need of streamlining BPM and BPI approaches and extract the essence of each methodology hence the relevance of this research. Combining BPM and BPI approaches Mandatory elements of a method (MEM) Before digging further into the integration of BPI and BPM approaches, its relevant to describe the MEM elements used by Zellner to evaluate the methodological degree of BPI approaches. In order to have continuity and the same benchmark system the MEM five mandatory elements (Zellner, 2011) has been used as well in this research. First element is the Procedure model that consists of defining the order of activities to be completed when deploying the approach. Second element refers to the Technique which supports an activity to generate specific results. Third element is the Results as such which the output produced by an activity. The element number four is defining the Roles of who is carrying out and responsible of an activity. Finally the fifth element is the so-called Information Model which involves the above-mentioned components and their interactions. According to Zellner a good systematic approach should embody all MEM at the best. By explaining how the MEM can support the act of improving a business process, Zellner underlines the need of a structure model that can define clearly hat to do step by step, which activity has to be performed and by who and which result is expected in an improvement project. The only thing that without referring explicitly to BPM, Zellner was describing the fundamental elements of BPM: Defining and mapping step by step the process, affecting to each activity a role and responsibility or more precisely a RACI matrix (who is Responsible and Accountable and who has to be consulted or informed). Then the inputs, outputs and instruction are defined. Finally the process map will be the Information Model described by Zellner to describe the relationship with all elements and represent the results. The following table summarises the main factors identi ¬Ã‚ ed from literature search based mainly on the findings of Zellner regarding BPI approaches taken and adapted in table # 1 and then completing these findings by integrating Lean, Six Sigma and BPM. The aim of this comparative study is to have a systematic and holistic approach to develop the mentioned integrated model with relevant constructs that will answer therefore research question RQ2. Lean and Six Sigma vs. BPM Lean and Six Sigma principles are now being applied to business processes. From one side Lean philosophy and Six Sigma techniques address performance improvement by reducing wastes and process variability while BPM provides the platform to implement this performance and to sustain it on an on-going basis across the whole organisation. With ERP system, most companies find it very difficult to implement Lean programs. This is because ERP systems have been focused around transactions and not processes (Nayak, 2007). Automated business processes are a complex set of system transactions requiring human and machine interfaces that make the changes difficult and time consuming. In this context BPM is an enabler for driving business process improvement in Lean and Six Sigma (Nayak, 2007). BPM tools provide the capability for monitoring, documenting, improving processes therefore are imperative for fulfilling the objectives of Lean principles. The following table benchmarks the key characteristics between BPM, Lean and Six Sigma. BPI BPM in Innovation Before concluding this literature review section and preparing the next chapter of the cross-case study on Innovation process, it is essential to review the literature regarding how BPI and BPM tackled specifically the innovation issue. Literature shows actually that BPI initiatives were focused mainly on operations where link to product, customers or consumers is obvious. The interest of operation management lay in production, material handling and wastes, cost efficiencies, planning, etc. and all activities related to things and logic but less with people, behaviours and interfaces. BPI beyond the operations is therefore quite novel and organisations have great opportunity for improving as well non-operational processes such as RD, HR, Finance or other Support and Management processes. With BPI and BPM, organisations have great opportunity for improving processes beyond operations. Much of waste in processes beyond operations is viewed as minor in nature and therefore ignored. Despite the impressive results that BPI techniques can achieve at operational level, many organisations failed to grasp its potential benefit for their processes beyond operations such as in RD, Management or Support processes. The difference between manufacturing and other areas beyond operations is that the employees introduce intrinsically variability into their activities. Therefore the challenges become quite different from those occurred in manufacturing environment. Conventional approaches to reduce waste: In order to eliminate or reduce wastes from processes beyond operations, companies can take the four typical actions, the first action is to reduce processing failures and activities that dont add any value to the customer; then to eliminate superfluous and inconsistent controls. The third action is to speed up the processes by decreasing lead times and complexity and final action is to ensure a constant effort on detecting perfections that customers really want. Innovation process is one of the core processes which are key facture for insuring sustainable growth and Profit. This process will be considered in this research in next Chapter of a cross-case Study. From the literature review and the research conducted by IBM Institute for Business Value in 2006 looked at number of companies that used BPI approaches as Lean-Six Sigma to improve performance and succeed broad-based innovations. Researchers from IBM identified four distinguishing elements of approaches that set some organisation apart from those keeping a traditional operational improvement mind-set. These characteristics are first having an innovation vision based on accurate customer and market insights, then a committed Leadership to permanent innovation; third having an alignment across the whole company and finally setting up organizational capabilities that made innovation a routine way of working. Gartner stated in 2010 regarding Innovation Process that a [à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦] successful innovation needs a disciplined management to transform novel ideas into business value and Innovation management requires a clear strategy, a business focus and a defined process model. According to Gartner, generation of revenue will increase and operational effectiveness will also improve if Companies succeed to manage properly their innovation programs. Design for Six Sigma (DFSS): Through DMAIC methodology organizations were able to make great improvements in reducing number of defects and therefore quality costs. However the quality level of Five Sigma (233 defects per million opportunities) is hard to exceed. The only way to improve further and achieve the ultimate level of Six Sigma is to redesign completely the process, product or service using Design for Six Sigma (DFSS) methodology (Antony 2002). According to Antony DFSS is a powerful approach to designing products, services and processes in a cost effective way to meet customer expectations. The aim of DFSS is not to substitute the NPDI (New Product Development and Introduction) process but to make it more robust, cost effective and capable to achieve high performance in meeting customer expectations (Antony 2002). Antony listed several benefits that could be gained by adopting DFSS: à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢ Reduced time to market for new products development or renovations à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢ Reduced products life cycle costs à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢ Better understanding of Customers needs and expectations à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢ Reduced number of design changes and hence prototypes à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢ Enhanced quality and reliability à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢ Improved ability to manage risks in designing products services or processesà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ Methodology and tools of DFSS The methodological process of DFSS starts with Customers needs as an input and ends with high quality products, services or robust processes as an output. One popular DFSS methodology is the DMADV. It remains the number of characters and stages, and the general feeling the same as in the DMAIC acronym. The five phases of DMADV are defined as follows: Define the project goals and customer requirements (internal and external), Measure and determine customer needs and specifications, Analyze the process options to meet customer needs. Design the process to achieve customer needs. Verify the design performance and ability to meet customer needs. Another methodology of DFSS named IDOV is a known design approach especially in the manufacturing sector. The abbreviation is defined as IDOV: Identify customer needs and specifications (CTQs), Design to translate the customer CTQs into functional requirements and alternative solutions. A selection process selects the list of solutions to the best solution, Optimize uses advanced statistical tools to predict and model the performance or calculate and optimize the design or performance and Validate to confirm means and ensure that the design which is developed reaches the customer CTQs. Lean product development LPD or Lean Design as the name indicates, draws on ideas from Lean Production as described above in chapter Background of Business Process Improvement which condensed Lean thinking into five principles: specify value, identify the value stream, make the value flow, create pull in the process and pursue perfection. Although lean production can be described at various levels, Shah et al. (2008) argue that the dominant view rests on a set of practices and tools used in eliminating waste. They also present the four main features of lean production as being quality management, pull production, preventive maintenance and human resource management. In the early stages of lean thinking, the focus was on the area of production. An exception, although not using the LPD label, is Kennard (1991), who uses six characteristics to summarise the Japanese approach to product development processes: information-intense, continual learning, constant customer contact, phases overlap, adaptability and spe ed/accuracy in execution. Another early describer of Japanese product development efforts is Funk (1993), who emphasised multifunctional problem-solving, close relationship with customers and suppliers, incremental improvement and learning. Karlsson and Ahlstrom (1996) specified later on the applicability of the Lean principles in product development by defining LPD as follows: Lean product development comprises numerous interrelated techniques, including supplier involvement, cross-functional teams, concurrent engineering, integration of various functional aspects of each project, the use of a heavyweight team structure, and strategic management of each development project. Another aspect associated with LPD is that the leaner way of working will eventually speed up the development process. However, as advocated by Crawford (1992) accelerated product development is associated with risks such as trivial innovations driving out break-through innovations and mistakes happening when skipping steps that did provide necessary information. Finally, Yang and Cai (2009) point out that LPD does not directly support the issues of quality, reliability and robustness in the product design. Combining BPM, DFSS and LPD The main potential seen in merging BPM, DFSS and LPD is to achieve improvements in quality by reducing unwanted variation (as advocated in DFSS), while at the same time being able to increase flow and speed in the development processes (as focused in BPM and LPD) (Chang and Su, 2007; Jugulum and Samuel, 2008). As summarised by Yang and Cai (2009, p. 97) DFSS improves product value and product quality, whereas LPD improves product development lead time, efficiency, flexibility and product development cost. BPM will provide the right platform to map, enhance and manage the whole process. One challenge pointed out by Jugulum and Samuel (2008) is the differences in implementation of Six Sigma initiatives and lean. The latter being broad in focus (looking at end-to-end processes and launching improvement events therein) while Six Sigma works with in-depth projects focusing on a small improvement area within a process. To some extent the integrated approaches proposed appear to be rather standard DFSS approaches with the addition of LPD tools. In contrast, authors like Karlsson and Ahlstrom (1996), Haque and James-Moore (2004) and Morgan and Liker (2006) emphasise the importance of viewing LPD as a system rather than as a set of tools, which impacts working methods throughout the organisation, such as seeking supplier involvement and cross-functional integration. BPM, LPD and DFSS have different focuses, such as improvement, innov

Sony Company Analysis: SWOT, PEST, 5 Forces and SGA

Sony Company Analysis: SWOT, PEST, 5 Forces and SGA Sony SWOT Analysis | Five Forces Analysis of Sony | PEST Analysis of Sony | Strategic Group Analysis of Sony Executive Summary The purpose of this paper is to analyse Sonys strategy and assess various tools which give the greatest insight into that strategy. The assessment of the company is based on four tools, mainly: SWOT, PEST, Porters Five Forces and Strategic Group Analysis (SGA). Those tools are believed to critically evaluate Sonys tactics with regards to its competition, external and internal environment. Furthermore, the tools critically assess Sonys gaps in its strategy. Introduction Sony Corporation has been very successful over several decades and has used its innovation to create a multibillion and multinational electronic empire. With products such as: transistor radio, the Trinitron, the VTR and many more the company has changed our everyday lives. Nowadays, Japanese companies such as Sony can set a good example for other international companies to benchmark the way they implement their business strategy. However, the current slowdown of global economy, the appreciation of yen and the decline of Japanese stock market had forced Sony to re-examine its current business approach (Sony, 2009). Hence, this paper critically evaluates Sonys business strategy. The assessment of the company is based on four tools that give the greatest insight into Sonys strategy, mainly: SWOT, PEST, Porters Five Forces and Strategic Group Analysis (SGA). Sony Company: A brief introduction Sony is an international corporation with major businesses in electronics, movies, video games, and finance. The Japan-based company is one of the worlds largest media conglomerates with revenue of $89.6 billion in its fiscal 2008 (Sony, 2009). Sony is a well-recognized brand name of consumer electronics and its key products are CyberShot digital cameras, Bravia LCD TVs and VAIO computers. Those products constitute 65.1% of sales and operating revenue. The three biggest markets for SONY are Europe with 25.7 % of operating revenue followed by Japan with 24.2 % and USA with 23.6%. Innovation leader Sony is an innovation leader. In fact, Sony is still among the top 10 most innovative companies in the world, according to Leberecht (2008). What is more, Sony has led the market in terms of innovative technologies and high quality items. Throughout its history, Sony has proved that the company can capture the imagination and improve peoples lives by using cutting edge technologies. Sonys Business Strategy Sonys Business Strategy is to be the leading global provider of networked consumer electronics and entertainment in the world (Sony 2008). In order to do that Sony will try to retain market shares in developed markets by introducing innovative technologies and enter new products to emerging markets to achieve higher sales growth and eventually bigger market share. As can be seen above new user groups with great response to adoption of electronics have emerged. Those groups have been called BRIC (for Brazil, Russia, India and China). They are the worlds fastest growing economies, contributing to a great deal of the worlds explosive growth of trade. By 2020, the four biggest emerging markets share of world output will double to 16.1 % from 7.8% in 1992 (IDC, 2006). Consequently, Sony will aim to grab some of it. SWOT Analysis Why does a SWOT give the greatest insight into Sonys strategy? Organizations such as Sony do not exist in a vacuum but rather exist and compete and cooperate in an interrelated environment characterized by complexity. Understanding this environment is fundamental for Sony to become a leader and gain bigger market share. Therefore, SWOT analysis is a useful aid to do that. The analysis is used at the beginning of strategic decision-making where it provides the basic framework (Hamel Prahalad 1994). SWOT creates lists of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats where an organizations use these to generate strategies that fit their particular projected situation, objectives and their capabilities (Bourgeois 1996; Pearce and Robinson 2003; Thompson and Strickland 1998).Consequently, buy conducting SWOT analysis on SONY it will be visible if the companys strategy fits projected situation. Furthermore, Valentin (2001) said that the SWOT analysis gives the greatest insights into companys strategy as it shows the companys conventional approach of realizing the desired alignment. As a result SWOT analysis is a valuable tool in the field of business strategy and gives the greatest insight into Sonys strategy because it illustrates important aspects of organisations environment and decisions made by the management. Sonys SWOT Strengths Ability to produce innovative, quality products Sonys innovations have become part of the mainstream culture. Starting with the first magnetic tape and tape recorder in 1950, then the transistor radio in 1995 and the worlds first all-transistor TV set in 1960 and many more as shown below. Ability to be successful in several different markets Sony is successful in several different markets. The company has made an impact in the PC market, video game market and especially the television market. Fast growing company Sony ranks among ZDNet Asias Top 10 fastest-growing companies for 2008/2009 (ZDNet Asia 2009). M2M monitoring technology Sony has M2M Machine-to-Machine (M2M) remote monitoring technology-based service solutions. The service solution allows cost-effectively and continually monitor and manage the various components of production (Sony, 2006). Weaknesses Products are expensive Sonys products are 20 to 30 percent higher than comparable goods (Cook, 2003). For that reason, for example, people in developing countries with minimum wage cannot afford to purchase them. Inefficient supply chain Sony is trying to close the gap with technologies companies such as Apple or Amazon which use Internet services to improve their electronics such as digital-music players. However, because of its business overload of heavy operating costs leading to inefficient supply chain Sony is missing that market gap. Opportunities Complementary products and services Sony has opportunity to sell complementary products and Internet services in saturated markets (Japan, USA) and standard products in emerging markets (China, India, Latin America). Innovative design Sony can use user- friendly applications, innovative materials and attractive visual appearance to differentiate products. New technologies 3D TV technologies that use a single image which is split by mirrors and not as in majority of 3D set ups that use two camera systems (BBC, 2009). Threats New entrants New companies can enter the market since the shift from analog to digital technology made it easier. This is because complicated functionality has become concentrated in semiconductors and easier to manufacture. Emerging markets Economic uncertainty and political instability in markets such as China, India, Russia is more violated than this of United States and Western Europe. Porters Five Forces Why Porters Five Forces would give the greatest insight into Sonys strategy Sony has to analyse and understand the industry context for developed markets in order to sustain its strategy which is to be an innovation leader and the worlds leading consumer brand. The model of the Five Competitive Forces developed by Porter can facilitate. Porter (1980) identified five competitive forces that shape every industry and every market. These forces determine the competition and show the attractiveness of an industry and its potential. Furthermore, Porters model is based on the approach that a corporate strategy should meet the opportunities and threats in the organizations external environment. Particularly, competitive strategy should focus on understanding industry structures and the way they change. Consequently, it is one of the most effective tools to give insight into Sonys strategy. Porters Five Forces Analysis The following model illustrates Porters Five Forces Analysis: Threat of New Entrants Low Any beginner will need economies of scale to be successful in this market. A small player will require strong relations with suppliers and efficient manufacturing processes otherwise it will not be achievable for him to produce at a low cost. This may result in incurring losses and failing to gain bigger market share. Furthermore, every company that wants to compete in this market will require sophisticated technology and well developed RD unit. Bargaining Power of Suppliers- Low Due to the fact that there are so many suppliers bargaining power of them is low. Companies in the electronics industry are looking for cheaper imports from countries such as Taiwan or China (Armstrong Kotler 2008). Many are relocating manufacturing facilities to these countries, as price competition is on the rise. Suppliers are forced to cut their prices or go bankrupt due to the price war as their customers can go to other suppliers who are offering lower price. What is more, manufacturing has shifted from brand owners to mass logistics manufacturers in order to cut the costs associated with the production (Sony, 2009). Large companies from similar industries can now enter this market and that is why bargaining power of suppliers is low. Bargaining Power of Buyers- High First group- buyers, who purchase from retailers: (Curry, Argos) that have long term relationships with global brands such as Sony, Canon, Kodak, Nikon, Olympus. Curry or Argos has high buying power since it offers customers great value by checking competitors prices and securing exclusive deals from key manufactures, and making a decision which product to choose. Second group- individual customers even though they have limited buying power and they do not have much impact on the company directly, they are the one who buy products from Curry or Argos and they influence those retailers over which product they will choose in future. Threat of Substitutes- High The threat of substitutes is very high example digital cameras. Camera phones are ideal substitute for all digital cameras. According to Lyras research, a digital imaging research firm, mobile phones are selling faster than digital cameras. Lyras (2006) estimated that the camera phones reached 850 million units in 2006, and this number is expected to grow to more than 1.5 billion units in 2010. Competitive Rivalry between Existing Players- High There are numerous and rather equally balanced firms competing in this market with Sony the biggest ones are Panasonic, Phillips. The competition is fierce; there is a short product life cycle, high cost associated with RD that gives low profit margins and finally high exit barriers. It is noticeable that over the years, the nature of the business has forced manufacturers such as Sony to offer innovations with enhanced models (Johnson et al 2008). Moreover, brand name is no longer as important as it used to be (Anderson, 2008). Consumers are now looking for electronic goods that offer their most wanted features at the lowest price, regardless of brand. PEST Analysis Why PEST analysis would give the greatest insight into Sonys strategy Another strategic tool that can help to evaluate Sonys strategy is PEST analysis. It is a valuable tool for understanding the big picture of the environment in which an organisation is operating (Bowman Faulkner, 1996). PEST analysis is a framework that categorises environmental influences as political, economic, social and technological forces (Jones Hill 1992). In view of the fact it is important to identify those factors as they might have affect on Sonys supply and demand levels and its costs especially in emerging markets. Furthermore, PEST gives the greatest insight into Sonys strategy since it will show the market growth (emerging markets) and decline (developed markets), potential and direction for Sonys operations. What is more, PEST analysis will show whether it was worth to enter Sonys business operations into new markets and new countries. Consequently, PEST analysis with SWOT and Porters Five Forces model will help to review Sonys strategic direction. Political Tariff reduction in EU Tariff reduction in EU countries will affect directly import and export procedures in Sony corporation, as the price will be modified due to this policy. Emerging markets Unfavourable political factor including unforeseen legal or regulatory changes such as foreign exchange, import and export controls, political instability and potential conflicts among developing nations. Economic Products Sonys products are rather expensive and people in developing countries with minimum wage cannot afford to purchase them. Uncertainty The economic situation in developing markets can get worse, which could result in future effects on earnings (Jeanet Hennessey 2004). Foreign exchange Foreign exchange rate fluctuations can have an effect on financial results since large portion of Sonys sales and assets are denominated in currencies other than the yen. Social Customer preferences In some markets, customer needs and preferences are becoming more similar (Johnson et al., 2008 p. 69). Electronics goods are standardised products therefore culture no longer has a big impact. In fact, the more standardized product, the better chances to sell it worldwide. According to Slack, et al. (2007) this helps organization to have transference of marketing across countries. Technological Advanced technology Advanced technology to be more competitive in the market is a key issue (Armstrong Kotler, 2008). Sony knows that to manufacture very innovative products that will be hard to copy and help to lead in the market the company needs to invest and constantly improve its RD department. Strategic Group Analysis Why Strategic Group Analysis gives the greatest insight Strategic Group Analysis is useful for every company as it can be performed in a short period of time. This tool would give insight into determining different competitive positions of companies in the industry (Mintzberg et al 2003). The analysis can illustrate intensity of rivalry within and between groups and implications of competitive position (Bourgeos, 1996). This is because Strategic Group Analysis is a collect of companies in an industry. Furthermore, groups of companies are clustered around a similar competitive approach or strategic position. Finally, the companies in a group are similar to each other but different from companies in other groups. Consequently, this tool is useful in assessing Sonys position among its rivals and provides insight into its strategy. The diagram above shows strategic groups that are in competition with each other. These are analysed according to price and customer perceived value (branding). Strategic spaces are opportunities for companies. For example in order to fulfil those spaces Sony could lower its prices and LG could change the perception of the brand to the higher value. However, this opportunity might be a threat as Sony could lose profits and customers by lowering prices and its perceived value. In LG case, the company would have to spend a lot of money on the marketing campaign to change the perception of the products and invest in RD to actually change the product to a higher standard. What is more, the company would have to charge more for its products and therefore it might lose customers. Mobility barriers The mobility barriers restrict enterprises in electronics industry to go from one strategic group to another. If Sony moved from one group to another, it could incur higher costs or threat of lowering perceived value. However, with more flexible manufacturing and fast development of new technologies in the future the barriers to mobility may be lowered and it might be easier for Sony to go from one strategic group to another. Conclusion Sonys strategy has been analysed using SWOT analysis, Porters competitive forces model, PEST analysis and Strategic Group Analysis. Those tools gave the greatest insight into the companys strategy. This is because they analysed the companys competition, its competitive advantage, internal and external environment. By understanding those, the company can retain market shares in developed markets and enter new products to emerging markets to achieve higher sales growth and eventually bigger market share. Consequently, those tools are vital for assessing the companys strategy as they take into consideration existing factors but also forecast change for the future. This way Sony can adjust its strategy to the environment in which it operates. Furthermore, appreciate its investment into RD by assessing its clients needs. This further leads to Sonys competitive gain. References: Anderson, C. (2008) Future of the Business available from [accessed 21 November] Armstrong, G. and Kotler, P. (2008) Principles of marketing 13th ed., New Jersey, Pearson Prentice Hall. BBC (2009) Sony shows off 3D TV technology available from http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8285187.stm [Accessed 20 November] Bowman, C. and Faulkner, D (1996) The Essence of Competitive Strategy Prentice Hall. pp.25-19 Bourgeois, J.L. (1996), Strategic Management from Concept to Implementation, The Dryden Press, Florida pp. 34-40 Celik A. (2008) Emerging Markets available from http://celikalper.wordpress.com/2008/11/18/emerging-markets/ [Accessed on 22 November] Cook B. (2003) Sony Powered Brand Channel available form http://www.brandchannel.com/features_profile.asp?pr_id=128 [Accessed on 21 November] Grant, R.M. (2005) Contemporary strategic analysis. London: Blackwell pp. 56-62 Hamel, G. and Prahalad, H.K. (1994) Competing for the Future, Boston, Harvard Business School Press pp. 36-39 Jeanet, J.P., Hennessey, H.D. (2004) Global marketing strategies 6th ed., Boston, Houghton Mifflin pp. 41-45 Jones, G.R., Hill, C.W. (1992), Strategic Management: An Integrated Approach, Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston pp. 28-33 Johnson, G., Scholes, K. and Whittington, R. (2008) Exploring Corporate Strategy (8th Edition) Text and Cases, Prentice Hall, Harlow pp. 28-43 Leberecht T (2008) The worlds 50 most innovative companies available from http://news.cnet.com/8301-13641_3-9926227-44.html [Accessed 20 November] Lyra Research Corporation (2006) Mobile phones available from: [Accessed 23 November] Mintzberg, H., Lampel, J., Quinn, J., Ghoshal, S. (2003), The Strategy Process: Concepts, Contexts and Cases, 4th end., Prentice-Hall, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey. pp. 45-49 Pearce, J.A. and Robinson, R.B (2003) Strategic Management: Formulation, Implementation and Control (8th Edition), McGraw-Hill, New York, NY pp. 56-62 Porter M.E. (1980) Competitive Strategy Free Press, New York pp. 27-45 Slack N., Chambers S. and Johnston R. (2007) Operations Management, Fifth Edition, Harlow, Prentice Hall. pp 35-37 Sony (2006) Sony Annual Report 2006. Available from: http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/IR/financial/ar/2006/index.html > [Accessed 15 November 2006] Sony (2008) Sony Group Corporate Strategy Update FY2008 FY2010. Available from: http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/News/Press/200806/08-080E/ [Accessed 22 November] Sony (2009) Sony Annual Report 2009. Available from: http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/IR/financial/ar/8ido180000023g2o-att/SonyAR09-E.pdf [Accessed 22 November] Thompson, Arthur A., Jr., and Strickland, A. J. (1998). Strategic Management, 10th ed. Boston: Irwin/McGraw-Hill. pp. 12-24 ZDNet Asia (2009) Sony is a leading consumer electronics and entertainment company globally Top Tech Index 2008/2009 available from http://www.zdnetasia.com/toptech/2008/0,3800017271,62048727,00.htm [Accessed 19 November] Sony aims to continue being one of the worlds leading consumer brands in the 21st century, providing customers with a wide range of attractive products, content and services (Sony 2009 p 3). Sony will aim to achieve higher sales growth through gaining bigger market share. PEST analysis can help to understand risks associated with the market growth or decline, and the position, potential and direction for an individual businesses or organizations (Grant, 2005). PEST analysis is frequently used as a generic orientation tool, that can help to find out where a company or a product is in the context of what is happening externally (Jones Hill 1992). The four elements shape a structure for reviewing a situation and strategy or position. PEST analysis needs to be carried out on a regular basis to be effective. Companies can gain competitive advantage when they do analyses regularly and systematically as they can spot trends before others and exploit them fully. Thus, PEST is a tool that would give the greatest insight into Sonys strategy. Effect of Yoga on Bed Wetting in Children | Study Effect of Yoga on Bed Wetting in Children | Study EFFECT OF YOGA ON BED WETTING FREQUENCY IN CHILDREN A Pilot study ABSTRACT Bed wetting or Nocturnal enuresis is a common problem in children. It refers to the unintentional passage of urine during sleep. Bed wetting is normal till the age of 5yrs, if continues over the age is due to physical as well as psychological connection. 15% of populations have this problem globally. Yoga is a traditional Indian medicine which was now used up for many clinical conditions. The aim of this study is to find out the effect of yoga on reduction of bed wetting frequency in children. 10 children with complains of nocturnal enuresis were selected by purposive sampling method. Structured yoga programme was given to the children. The yoga programme was conducted alternate days for 4 weeks. Voiding dairy was used to evaluate the improvement on bed wetting frequency. Following the 4 weeks of programme the collected data’s were analyzed using the descriptive statistical method. This study finds that yoga is useful method in reduction of bed wetting frequency. Thus the stud y concludes that yoga play a major role in reduction of bed wetting in children and it also promotes psychological and moral boost to the children. Key words: Yoga, Bed wetting, Voiding diary. Nocturnal enuresis. INTRODUCTION Bedwetting is also called as nocturnal enuresis, it is the involuntary discharge of urine in children during night or during sleep1. When the child tends to voids involuntarily for at least three times a week after 5 years without any congenital defects is termed as nocturnal enuresis.2 In India about 15 million children were having bed wetting problem. It is one of the commonest problems in young children. Usually it is found more common in boys3. 1.6% to 15% of children wet their bed during night, it is found that 10% to 15% of five-year-old children and 6% to 8% of eight-year-old children, and it declines to 1% to 2% by 15 years of age4. Nocturnal enuresis is one of the common urological problem. Actual cause of the bed wetting is unknown. It was considered to be one of the most disabling problems during child physical as well as psychological development. Though it looks a simple problem there may be various other conditions underlying like, neuromotor problems, attention difficulties, learning disabilities, and the possibility of being the cause of psychological status. 5,6,7 Bed wetting without day time symptoms are termed as mono-symptomatic nocturnal enuresis whereas bed wetting occurs both day and night are termed it as Non-monosymptomatic 9. Delvin conducted a population survey on 1800 Irish children with the age of 4—14 years and he found that 33% of children void less than once a week, 11% voids once a week and 25% voids two to four times per month10. Bed wetting will cause enormous emotional impact in child as well as their parents. Children with enuresis are commonly punished and are at the risk of emotional and physical abuse11. Parents should understand that bed wetting is never done on purpose or not done as laziness 8. Many studies have identified the impact of bed wetting may cause anxiety, embarrassment, loss of self-esteem, concentration difficulty, learning difficulty and may impact the psychological status of the children12. Bedwetting tend to run in families. Many children who wet the bed have a parent who did, too. Most of these children stop bedwetting on their own at about the same age the parent did.13 Most children outgrow bed-wetting without treatment4. However, some child may need some additional assistance from physician. Bedwetting is typically seen more as a social disturbance than a medical disease because it creates embarrassment and anxiety in the child and conflicts with parents. The single most important thing parents should do is to be supportive and reassuring rather than blaming and punishing. The many treatment options range from home remedies to drugs, even surgery for children with anatomical problems14. Primary management of bed wetting is behavioral modification and positive reinforcement15. Yoga isan ancient tradition that has been westernized and often practiced for its proposed health benefits. Yoga therapy was described by Indian authors 2500 years ago, but it still plays an important role in everyone’s life16. It often translates union of the mind, body and spirit17. Yoga is considered as a mind and body exercises, it helps to unite the body and mind; it brings the physiological state of the body and shape emotions, thoughts and attitudes18. Yoga becomes a promising therapy for the children. It plays an important role in development of several aspects of cognition and executive functions19. Certain yoga postures or asanas have proved to help the child to overcome the bed wetting. Though there were extensive articles on benefits of yoga in bed wetting, still there is no study to prove its efficacy. There is no head to head comparison of the yoga on its role on nocturnal enuresis. This pilot study tries to identify the effectiveness of yoga in the nocturnal enuresis. The study hypothesized that there will be no significant difference in reduction of Bed wetting frequency following yoga therapy. METHODOLOGY Subjects were selected through purposive sampling method with descriptive study design. 10 children complains of bed wetting were included in the study. Prior to the selection of the children for the study, a clear analysis was done by urologist and an approval from pediatrician who states that there was no other medical reason for the nocturnal enuresis. A clear examination was done by the senior physiotherapist to rule out any bony deformities (Structural). Clear instruction to the children and the mother about the benefits of yoga and its physiological role on urinary system was clearly explained. Informed consent was obtained from the mother. Upon obtaining the concern 10 male children were included with the age group of 6—10 years, having normal life style, complains of nocturnal enuresis at least 3 times in a week, well-nourished children, school going children and those who are willing to do yoga, and those who wish to continue yoga regularly. The study excludes mental retarded children, children with urinary infections, mal nourished, underweight and any other structural deformity. A detailed session on yoga and its benefits was given to all children and the mother / guardian. Queries and Questions raised by the parents were addressed, and advised all parents to bring the children compulsory. The yoga programme was conducted for 4 weeks of duration, and a session of the program was conducted alternate days, each sessions consist of 30—45 minutes of duration. All subjects were taught yoga postures (i.e asanas). Six asanas were chosen for this study, the asanas were chosen as per discussion with the stalwarts in yoga and yoga guru. Asanas were trained to the children by the researchers, all the postures / asanas have to sustain for ten to fifteen counts. For the first three sessions the children were taught to do asanas and difficult postures were assisted by the researcher, later, once they mastered the technique, they are all practiced to do these postures without support. List of asanas trained to the children are Konasana, Sakrasana (Standing), Yoga mudra, Sarvangasana, Savasana ,Nisbandabhava. Before commencement of the study a warm up programme was given with Suryanamaskar for 10 mins. Once they completed then the children were initiated the asanas. At the end of the program savasana was given to relax the muscles. The programme was conducted initially in groups, all the queries were cleared on every session. This study was accepted by the Institutional ethical committee. There was no harm involving the participants in this study. There was no drop out in this study. Voiding dairy given to the mother and asked them to fill up when their children does bed wetting. The data were collected in likert scale (i.e 0—5 scale), and the data are used for the analysis and it was tabulated in percentage. RESULT AND DISCUSSION The data was analyzed by using SPSS statistical package, 19.1. The table I shows the general information about the children. All children included in the study are males. There are various studies suggest that male children are mostly involved in nocturnal enuresis. Voiding history noted in these children is only during sleep and at the night time only. 80% Parents of the children has the family history of nocturnal enuresis. We also gathered that 85 % of parents scold or punish their children for the bed wetting. Table II shows the voiding history of the participants which was shown in percentage. It shows that 57 % of participants are with the age group of 6, 8 years. 4 times in a week is the maximum voiding frequency by the children. Two children has the history of voiding 2 times in a week, others are having the frequency of more than 3 times per week. Table III shows the voiding history before the yoga programme and after the yoga programme. The table value shows that there was a significant difference existed between the groups. There was a marked difference between the pre and post test values. The result of the study revealed that the yoga programme has showed a marked reduction on bed wetting frequency in children. Yoga helps to promote retention control, regular practicing helps to postpone urination by few seconds to few minutes. Bed wetting is a shameful situation for children as well as parents, but it is not a serious problem, and it is common in boys20. Yoga play a major role in control of bed wetting, the retention exercises should be increased gradually without putting pressure on the children, and the exercises would help to increase the control in bladder muscles and also increases bladder capacity20. Yoga helps to strengthen muscles which control urination. It also helps in increasing bladder capacity. Regular practicing yoga will stimulate the nervous system, and thereby influence the micturition system in the spinal cord lead to better control and coordination of the process21. Yoga also helps in reduction and prevention of the psychosomatic stress disorders 22. Studies found that yoga help in improving the bladder control in patients with urinary incontinence. Few researches conducted for women who show that yoga improves pelvic health and helps in gaining control over the urine leakage. Yoga programme directs the mind awareness and increases relaxation and relieves anxiety and stress23. The study confirms that the yoga programme will improve the bladder control in children and it was a beneficial one for the treatment of bed wetting. Regular practicing of yoga provides additional benefits like improvement of flexibility and also help to improve the concentration, memory and reduction in stress level. However, the study was done in a small group, the results can’t be generalized, and there was an elaborate and large group of participants needed. The other factors like psychological or pharmacological factors were not considered in this study, future study need a holistic approach in the management. REFERENCES: Dalton R. Enuresis. In: Behrman R, Kliegman R, Arvin A, Nelson W, editors.Nelson Textbook of Pediatrics.15th edn . Philadelphia: WB Saunders; 1996. pp. 79–80. Forsythe, W. I., Butler, R. J.: Fifty years enureticalarms.Archives of Disease in Childhood, 64: 879, 1989 Caldwell PH, Edgar D, Hodson E, Craig JC. Bedwetting and toileting problems in children.Med J Aust.2005;182(4):190–195 Mark Feldman et al., Management of primary nocturnal enuresis, Paediatr Child Health Vol 10 10(10): 611–614..December 2005. von Gontard A, Freitag CM, Seifen S, Pukrop R, RÃ ¶hling D. Neuromotor development in nocturnal enuresis.Dev Med Child Neurol.2006;48(9):744–750. Okur M, Ruzgar H, Erbey F, Kaya A. The evaluation of children with mono symptomatic nocturnal enuresis for attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder.Int J Psychiatry ClinPract.2012;16(3):229–232. Coppola G, Costantini A, Gaita M, Saraulli D. Psychological correlates of enuresis: a case-control study on an Italian sample.PediatrNephrol.2011;26(10):1829–1836 American Psychological Association.Diagnosis and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.4th ed. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association; 2000. pp. 108–110. vanGool, J. D., Nieuwenhuis, E., ten Doeschate, I. O. et al.: Subtypes in monosymptomatic nocturnal enuresis. II. Scandinavian Journal of Urology Nephrology Supplementum, 202: 8, 1999 Devlin, J. B.: Prevalence and risk factors for childhood nocturnal enuresis. Irish Medical Journal, 84: 118, 1991 Kaplan, Harold, I and Sadock, M.D, Synopsis of Psychiatry, eight edition, 1998, Baltimore: Williams and Wilkins. Moffatt ME. Nocturnal enuresis: psychologic implications of treatment and non-treatment.J Pediatr. Apr 1989;114(4 Pt 2):697-704. Katz ER, DeMaso DR. Enuresis (bed-wetting). In: Kliegman RM, Behrman RE, Jenson HB, Stanton BF, eds.Nelson Textbook of Pediatrics. 19th ed. Philadelphia, Pa: Saunders Elsevier; 2011:chap 21.3. Ramakrishnan, K, Evaluation and treatment of enuresis, American family physician 2008, vol 78, 4, 489-496. Glazener CM, Evans JH. Simple behavioural and physical interventions for nocturnal enuresis in children.Cochrane Database Syst Rev.2004. Garfinkel M, Schumacher H. Yoga Effects.Rheum Dis Clin North Am.2000;26:125–32. Satchidananda S.The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali.Yogaville, VA: Integral Yoga Publications; 2005. Cowen VS, Adams T. Physical and perceptual benefits of yoga asana practice.J BodyMovTher.2005;9:211–9. Chen TL, Mao HC, Lai CH, Li CY, Kuo CH:The effect of yoga exercise intervention on health related physical fitness in school-age asthmatic children.Hu Li ZaZhi2009,56:42-52. Nadeem Naqvi, 2011, Bed wetting problem: How to deal with bed wetting, http://www.studyvillage.com/resources/2899-Bedwetting-problem-How-deal-with-bed-wetting.aspx. Udupa, K. N, 2000, Stress and its management by yoga. New delhi, MotilalBanarisdass. Huang, Alison J.; Jenny, Hillary E.; Chesney, Margaret A.; Schembri, Michael; Subak, Leslee L.A Group-Based Yoga Therapy Intervention for Urinary Incontinence in Women: A Pilot Randomized Trial Female pelvic medicine Reconstructive surgery May/June 2014-Volume 20-Issue 3 pp:123-184 Huang, Alison J.; Jenny, Hillary E.; Chesney, Margaret A.; Schembri, Michael; Subak, Leslee L.A Group-Based Yoga Therapy Intervention for Urinary Incontinence in Women: A Pilot Randomized Trial Female pelvic medicine Reconstructive surgery May/June 2014-Volume 20-Issue 3 pp:123-184. TABLE I General Information’s Table II VOIDING HISTORY Table III VOIDING HISTORY 1

The Pit an the Pendulum :: essays research papers

The Pit an the Pendulum By: Edger Allen Poe The Pit an the Pendulum by Edger Allen Poe is what this essay came from. The story starts with the heretic getting sentenced the death penalty. He is thrown in a big pitch black pit, with a swinging pendulum hanging from the roof, to eventually be killed in some way. I believe that this character is a dynamic character because he goes through a lot and changes a lot.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  One thing that was interesting was, that the heretic might have been post humus. He says â€Å"I was sick, sick unto death,† he referred to his sickness as past tense by saying â€Å"was.† Unto death means that he is dead. So he was saying that he was sick until he died. So is he post humus or does it just sound that way?   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚     Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  I think if you read this story you will agree that he is delusional. In fact he says â€Å"I saw angels for a few moments of delirious Horror.† So he also knows he’s delirious. For a while he saw angels, then their heads burst into flames and eventually into candles. He also sees the judges again and some other images.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  As you would guess he was scared. He said that he trembled at the sound of his own voice. He is scared about the horrible death and he’s not even sure what it is. The blade, at the end of the story, comes down so far that when he’s lying down on the floor it is slowly cutting his robe.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Finally he becomes relived. He actually was not just relieved at the end but also in the middle of the story. He stated that his distress had left him. The rats bite through his straps that were holding him down and I’m sure that led to a lot of relief. At the end of the story he sees an outstretched arm and then is pulled out of his cell, which was the ultimate relief.

Star Trek :: Television TV Show Star Trek Essays

Star Trek While Cold War tensions were growing in Europe and civil rights were causing upheaval in the United States, a new show was first airing on American televisions. The series took place in space, onboard a starship. Its creator, a World War II veteran and ex-policeman named Gene Roddenberry, had imagined a show that would go on capture the imagination of the world. Often describing his show as a â€Å"wagon train to the stars,† Roddenberry named his new creation â€Å"Star Trek.† From its humble beginnings in 1966, Star Trek continues to push the limits of visual technology as it creates stunningly impressive and often beautifully breathtaking artistic imagery. Star Trek is enjoyed by many people for many reasons. Without a doubt, the sheer visual masterpieces created by the show offer a large incentive for watching. Taking place in the future, the show must always portray futuristic devices and techniques that push the limit of visual and computer technology. Perhaps the most notable of such devices is the transporter. Lawrence M. Krause, author of The Physics of Star Trek, writes that â€Å"it was really the transporter that seduced me† (xv). Krause is not alone in his judgment. In 2003, Howard A. Anderson Jr. was awarded the prestigious American Society of Cinematographers President’s Award in part for his contributions to the development of the transporter effect (â€Å"Creator†), a fact which illustrates the impact the transporter has had on the world. But the transporter effect has indeed evolved greatly over the years from its humble genesis under Roddenberry and Anderson. Beginning as â€Å"aluminum ‘flitters’ shot through a 5000-watt light and a column of smoke† (â€Å"Report†), it was this simple visual effect that spawned the interest of thousands. The transport effect has recently become digitally rendered, using computer technology to achieve stunning results. People have even been inspired to create tutorials for generating the transporter effect using the popular vector graphics program, Macromedia Flash (Rossi). Considering the impact that Rodenberry’s dream technology has had, it becomes clear that transporter effects have become synonymous with impressive visual art. Other visual techniques continued to improve in subsequent series. Fire-like and other organic-looking elements were created using the newly available medium of liquid nitrogen. The impressive temporal anomaly from The Next Generation episode â€Å"All Good Things†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (1994) was created by utilizing liquid nitrogen (Stipes 89-92). In the days when motion control was the norm and computers were still not viable for television effects, Star Trek’s visual effects team reached out for the next generation of science-fiction imagery.

Diversity management programs Essay

Diversity in the workplace is an important aspect of the workplace, which if not followed, could lead to a society that doesn’t have respect for different cultures. It is important to develop diversity management programs, were aspects of diversity such as religion, different cultures due to outsourcing, age, women and single parents, disabled team members, flexible work hours, are discussed which will lead to redesigning jobs to better fit the individual. When developing a conceptual framework for such programs to be implemented, it is important to view how lack of diversity in the workplace has affected other countries around the world besides America. According to Begum (2005), social care organizations in the United Kingdom are affected greatly by lack of diversity amongst there staff. Information, in the United Kingdom, is not distributed fairly to the population, is distributed on a socio economic basis. It is important for social care organizations to become diverse in their workforce, if they are to embody the essence of the communities that they serve. Studies have indicated that gender and culture diversity create barriers to effective interactions and hinder employee performance (Managerial Issues, 2000). When outlining a possible course of action to take when implementing diversity management programs within employee workforces, we could include information on how lack of diversity in the workplace has affected countries like the United Kingdom. People tend to feel more comfortable working in groups with people who share their ideals and beliefs, which is something I think we are all guilty of at times. I think it is important when outlining the possible courses of action to take when implementing diversity management programs, that employees share their different ideals and beliefs in an open environment. I think that employees sharing their different ideals and beliefs help the workforce grow, and the company they work for as well. Michael Bird (2007), a college professor at De Vry University in South Florida, has implemented a diversity management program in which he has developed a five step program in order to ensure that his team succeeds. Michael’s five step program required, these students to one, understand and define diversity, to understand the organization’s value and necessities, effectively manage the resistance towards, evaluate our overall team’s performance, and last of all use the experiences shared to improve or groups management techniques. Flex management should be implemented in order to ensure that people feel like they are assets to the company, and are taken care of properly. During the development of a conceptual framework for a diversity management program, teambuilding exercises have proven to be the most effective. It is important for the employees to have different cultural backgrounds and different beliefs, in order that they may share those with the corporation in which they work. I think that when different cultures, different peoples with different ideas and beliefs, come together and share their ideas, truly inventive things can take place within the corporations they work in. America is a melting pot of different cultures and beliefs, which is what makes our country unique and truly produces unique individuals, tolerant of other people’s beliefs, with truly innovative ideas. One great way to go about instituting diversity management programs within the workplace would be to organize groups within the workplace that shared similar beliefs, and have them share their beliefs as a whole, and attempt to implement any new ideas obtained. The next step after instituting diversity management programs is to organize employees that share the same ideals, and discuss their shared ideals, and find common ground. In order for the employees participating in a diversity management group to share their ideas and implement them on a level on which they all agree, it is important that the employees learn to work together and respect each other’s ideals. With a proper management support, workers can have the proper training in order to train our employees to be more culturally sensitive. It is important that management is effective in their approach to dealing with culturally diverse issues. By training our employees and diversity management, they will benefit greatly. Although most of these successful companies the United States show’s significant efforts to include people with disabilities in a diverse workforce, there is still room for improvement. I hope that by implementing this diversity management program within the workplace, policies can be enforced specifying what is meant by diversity, in terms of race or gender, and also provide more information pertaining to those employees that have disabilities. With everybody’s help, we can be certain that we can implement this new diversity management program within the workplace, and that this program will be a success.

Dog Food Essay

Dogs are probably the most common and numerous pet in World, and Mexico is not the exception for this rule. The purpose of this work is to analyze the characteristics of the demand for the dog food business in Mexico. This business has shown a CAGR of 3% during the last six years. Dog Food business is divided in three categories based on food type: Dry Dog Food, Wet Dog Food and Treats / Mixers. The most important category is Dry Dog Food with 89% far followed by Wet Dog Food with the 6%. There is another category division based on price: Super Premium, Premium and Standard. In terms of Market players there are 13 competitors in this category: The most important producers are EFFEM with 48% of market share and Nestle with 21%. Regarding brands, the most important are: Pedigree: 33%, Dog Chow 7%, Perfect Fit 5% and Eukanuba with the 5%. DogFood Brand Shares % 2008 DogFoodCompanyShares % 2008 Methodology For the analysis of the dog food market, it was necessary to do a research for the market trends (increase/decrease of dog population, education of the dog owners about benefits of dog food); the view of the dog owners about the dog food and its presentations, prices and quality. As well as the willingness of the dog owners to continue buying the dog food in the changing circumstances of the market (price raising, economic crisis, market substitutes, etc. ). The steps followed to achieve this objective are: 1. Bibliographic investigation of the market size for dog food in the Mexican market, the view of the dog owners, the companies producing dog food, price, substitutes. 2. Comparison of the indicated characteristics through and between years 3. Interpretation of the collected data to observe the market behavior for this particular industry, when faces changes in the dog owner view of the market, crisis or rising of prices. 4. Determination of the challenges faced by the industry. 5. Conclusions. Determinants of Demand: 1. -Price As up year 2008, the demand felt down 21% in comparison to previous year. Among the main reasons for this fall are: The row material cost of producers increased due to the Mexican currency devaluation. This fact â€Å"forced† the manufacturers to transfer the cost increase to the consumers. Since this market is considered an Oligopoly, the demand is elastic to the price changes. In addition, it is easy to find substitutes products; such as: Human food leftovers. The outcome of the described situation pushed the demand down. The â€Å"Mon and Pop† distribution channel leveraged the circumstances and offered the market Dog food in bulk. This strategy allowed them to maintain their sales in spite of the reduced total market. As a result, the producers decided to launch smaller size presentations, which in the long run stopped the sales fall, reducing the sales fall from 21% in 2008, down to only 3% in 2009. . -Marketing Initiatives -Dog owner emotional engagement fuels potential market growth Manufactures realized that the ratio of dog per household was still low, making evidence that there was still a significant growth potential. As a consequence, dog food producers encouraged diverse nonprofit associations to promote emotional engagement to the dog wellness. Dog owners started to care more about: Nutrition, health care and dog pampering. Therefore, the manufacturers found new market niches for new products, such as super premium brands focused on health enhancement or treats to pamper the dog. The current dog owning households ratio in Mexico has grown from 38. 3% in 2004 up to 40. 5% into to 2009. In order to exploit this booming market, different efforts have been done by producers, launching marketing campaigns such as: â€Å"Adopta un perro†. – Awareness of Dog Food benefits In addition, manufacturers realized that the ratio of dog food prepared vs. none prepared was too low in Mexico. Therefore, manufacturers began to develop marketing strategies in order to create a higher awareness of dog food benefits. These strategies were mainly implemented through: ) TV advertising campaigns Emotional situations between owner and pet were exploited by producers to encourage pet care i. e. EFFEMS Perfect fit showing a situation suggesting that the dog wants a balance life, such as the owner enjoys. b) Point of Purchase material. Additional exhibition at key seller â€Å"hot spots† were implemented to promote the different products benefits i. e. Hill Pet Nutr ition, which sells only through veterinary sale points, spread out brochures in the veterinary clinics and pet stores. c) Consumer Promotions Producers decided to increase sales volume in the short term by encourage the consumer through give away attractive items for each product bough i. e. Dog Chow promotion in which a dog bed was gave away when customer purchased a package of four kg and above; in a similar promotion, premium brand Beneful offered a free dog bowl. d) Sponsorships Producers developed different sponsorship programs to increment brand awareness i. e. â€Å"Incredible dog challenge†. e) Product Innovation In order to maintain, and even increase profit margin, producers improved the food formulations and packages. I-e. (Nestle’s effort to re-launch Campeon brand with a different formula using the slogan of â€Å"looking similar to human food†. All these efforts helped to reduce the shortfall of 8 pps showed between 2007 and 2008 down to only 1 pps between 2008 and 2009. Conclusions The market of dog food has changed in last few years, due of the changes in the perception of the pets inside families, mostly in developed countries. Dogs are the most common and numerous pets, and nowadays are treated as another member inside the family. Dog owners pamper their dogs, and care about the nutrition and general wellbeing of their animals. One of the findings about this market is that it has an elastic demand, strongly dependent of the income of the families in Mexico; as income decreases, the demand for dog food decreases as well. Besides, the dog food in Mexican market has one mayor (and almost free) substitute: the human food leftovers. Commonly, the families, mostly the low income ones, feed their dogs with the food they don’t use, or the parts of the meat markets that is not sold for human consumption. Because of that elastic demand, the industry had the need to change the ways producers do business. First, market players need ongoing innovation to adapt themselves to the changing needs of the market, such as: New and smaller size presentations, sales and marketing promotions, effective campaigns of education on how to feeding dogs with specialized and prepared food. These initiatives, along with dog adoption programs were key elements to increase market penetration. Currently, the industry of dog food is facing new challenges as low recovery of world economy, need of new formulation and customized and specialized products (aged dogs, puppies, small breeds, active dogs and sedentary dogs) demand from producers more effective sales promotions to change the mindset of the Mexican consumer about feeding dogs with the â€Å"leftovers†.