Tuesday, February 18, 2020

SKL 3A1 Business Study Skills Case Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

SKL 3A1 Business Skills - Case Study Example The Report is written by (Your NAME) for the purpose of evaluation of Samsung’s strategy and provide recommendations for further improvement in its strategy. The report is intended to be used by the business Analyst, John Deen for information purposes only. This report is issued on November 16, 2013 and is valid only for the purpose described. 2. Procedures This report is based on secondary research and contains information from books, news articles, online journals and websites. The claims are supported with the sources used. 3. Findings Samsung is no longer a small player in the business environment. Samsung has earned its name in the biggest players of the electronics industry over a period of time. However, the recent boom signals some clear and clever strategic moves by the company. Samsung is competing by providing a wider range of products than its competitors. Samsung is a South Korean multinational corporation with its head office in Seoul. Lee Byun-Chul laid the foun dation of Samsung in 1938 (Peng, 2012). The company moved towards the electronic industry in the late 1960s and after Lee Byung-Chul passed away, the company was divided into groups including CJ Group, Hansol Group, Shinsegae Group and Samsung Group. Samsung group flourished and is still growing its profits steadily since 1990. Despite the success stories of Samsung, the credibility of Samsung’s strategy in the long run is questionable. Is Samsung taking too much risk to avail first-movers advantage or does it have a clearly defined and thoroughly designed strategy for investing in newer technologies to capture, increase and retain its market share? 3.1 Samsung’s Strategy Samsung uses a multidimensional competitive strategy with differentiation and rapid response strategies as the core of its success in the business industry. Samsung is more likely to create and introduce newer technologies and innovative products in minimal possible time. The products of Samsung under different categories are quickly designed and produced with an effective supply chain management to support the success of its products. The company is continuously investing in the unique product offerings (Nisen 2013). 3.2 Response Strategy Samsung has a clearly defined and well thought strategy working underneath the operations that are carried out regularly. Samsung’s note is a living example of how Samsung identifies and accommodates customer’s needs and expectations in its offerings. The Research and Development department of Samsung takes the lead in understanding customer demands and competitors’ current and future acts. The company, in an attempt to deliver differentiation along with a rapid response to the customers’ need for having a drawing and hand-writing feature in their smart phones, merged the characteristics of a phone and a tablet and introduced Samsung Note which was highly applauded and accepted. The R & D department found out the ne ed of Asians to have such a device to support their needs with ease. Samsung is spending a lot on Research and Development area. It has been identified that it is spending 5.7 percent of its revenues on R&D which is 3.3% higher than Apple. This clearly shows Samsung’s aggressive attempt to innovate and avail the first movers’ advantage. 3.3 Differentiation Strategy The distinct product

Monday, February 3, 2020

Wicked Environmental Problems Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Wicked Environmental Problems - Research Paper Example This mixture of water, sand, and chemicals will hold the fractures open and let the gas trapped inside seep back through the drilled holes to the surface. This process has the problem of the quantity of water and chemicals used. The process has its benefits in the clean fuel and economic growth. This paper will explain the negative impacts of the process and why the negative impacts are difficult to manage. Negative Environmental Impact Drilling in Allegany county of Marcellus Shale seems like a brilliant idea and an excellent opportunity that many people seek to explore. There are many flaws, however, associated with this renowned energy source. This paper only discusses the proven and documented problems. First, the focus is on the many gallons of water that will be utilized in the process. In the drilling process, to retrieve the gas, approximately four million gallons of water are required (Campbell and Laherrere 79). This water is harnessed form the nearby rivers and streams and is used until the whole process is completed. Some may say that this volume of water is insignificant compared to the average water from the municipal council that is used on a daily basis (Campbell and Laherrere 83). The water from the municipal council is used in homes and institutions, whereas the water used in the drilling process is said to be a consumptive water loss; this water does not return to the water cycle, and most of it remains deep in the ground for many years. Regulation measures should be provided to ensure that the demand for water is not as high as to debilitate the local waterways (Olsthoorn and Anna 23). Water is just one of the many ingredients of the drilling process. The second alarming concern lies in the many chemicals that are used for the effective retrieval of the gas and to hold open the cracks in the earth. These chemicals include benzene, kerosene, hydraulic acid neurotoxins, and many other dangerous chemicals (Harvey 90). For each drilling process, more than 15,000 gallons of these harmful chemicals are used. The chemicals are transported via large trucks to the drilling site where they are mixed with water. The procedure of mixing the two is risky – if a spill occurs even in small scale, the great concentration of the chemicals will have many devastating effects on human health and the environment. Small scale spills are a common occurrence and collectively these small spills have a large cumulative impact (Harvey 96). Handling and treatment of the waste water that is generated is the other problem that is associated with the drilling process. The current municipal water treatment facilities are not equipped to handle the chemicals (Marion 44). Proper treatment of the waste water is an expensive process, and, in most cases, the water is left to sit in man-made ponds, which pose significant threat to the human population in the area due to potential leaks and the wild animals that may wander into the exposed chemical p onds. Such infractions have been witnessed in the drilling processes in Pennsylvania (Marion 28). Environmentalists have claimed that the process of hydro-fracking is an extremely detrimental to the water supply and natural habitat. The process has become controversial and has received a lot of debate in the recent years (Cunningham and Mary 34). A significant amount of forestland loss and surface damage should be available for an area to undergo the process of hydro-fracking. The effect is elevated when there are multiple drill sits and an increased number of access roads. The environmentalists have argued that the process causes earthquakes and many explosions above the ground and is responsible for draining stream water, which is a precious resource in many places (Cunningham and