Lafleur Trading Company Selected Service Request Analysis Essay

These days, being a long-established business is not enough for success. Look at companies like Hewlett-Packard, Research In Motion, and Blockbuster Video. These companies failed in the task of collecting data, analyzing that data, and making intelligent decisions based on that data and now they are either slowly failing, losing market share, or, in Blockbuster’s case, already declared bankruptcy and doing whatever it can to stay in business. Lafleur Trading Company is currently at a crossroads in its efforts to stay viable in its market. Outdating network infrastructure and non-existent business intelligence processes could bring the company to its knees and see the doors to the business close for good. Service Request SR-lf-001 addresses this problem and outlines a solution to modernize the infrastructure and it’s data collection and retention process. The Organization Lafleur is a 37-year-old company that supplies the world with the finest foods and wines. Lafleur have trading partners across the planet. Lafleur buyers deal with reputable producers and exporters so you the consumer can be assured the highest quality. The buyers that Lafleur trade with ensure the products are â€Å"organic† and meet health, ethics, and lifestyle needs. Lafleur has the latest technology to get the products from the producers to you as quickly as possible and at the lowest price possible. Company Description Lafleur Trading Company’s mission statement is to â€Å"provide our customers with the highest quality foods at a reasonable price. While profit is important, Lafleur Trading Company recognizes that they have responsibilities to corporate citizens, customers, employees, our community, and to the world. Lafleur will act fairly and justly in the conduct of business.† (LaFleur, 2012) The life-blood of Lafleur business is the employees. They are theface of the company and the customer’s perception of the company is how the employees interact with them. Since the customer’s recognitions are through company employees, the organization of the company must meet the needs of the customer. The overview organizational flow chart shows the positions that report directly and indirectly to the Chief Operations Officer (COD) of Lafleur Trading Company. The Chief Operations Officer reports to the Chief Executive Officer (CEO). The Chief Operations Officer supervises the Director of Sales and Marketing, the Director of Human Resources, the Director of Warehouse Operations and the Director of Purchasing. Sales and marketing supervises ten Salespersons, a Marketing Manager and a Development Staff of five members. The Director of Human Resources supervises a Staffing Specialist, a Labor Relations Specialist and a Benefits Coordinator. The Director of Warehouse Operations supervises ten Supply Technicians, five Local Delivery Drivers, a Facilities Manager and a three person Maintenance Staff. The Director of Purchasing supervises ten Supply Coordinators and a Purchasing Manager. The Purchasing Manager supervises ten Buyers. Now that the description of the Lafleur trading company is been established, the CEO and executive team have identified a particular business problem that is affecting the profitability of the organization. The Busine ss Problem The one major problem within the Lafleur Trading Company is exposed within its networking topology within its local area network (LAN). The networking topology is the complete architecture of a network. Organizations such as corporations, colleges, and government agencies have all acquired large numbers of single user computer systems and upon reviewing and analyzing the Lafleur Trading Companies ‘Enterprise Sales Application’ on Microsoft Visio, there is a major problem within its network methodology. The architecture of the network is flawed. Although there is enough hardware to produce success within the companies’ infrastructure, the entire network lacks communication. This interconnection may include word processing, scientific computation, process control, or maybe general-purpose departments that perform many tasks. Interconnection allows users to exchange information (data) with other network members. It also allows resource sharing ofexpensive equipment such as file servers and high quality graphic printers, or access to more powerful computers for tasks too complicated for the local computer such as data warehousing and business intelligence processes. The problem with Lafleur Trading Company exists because they lack these basic needs to have a healthy communication between any departments. They lack in the major component of networking, which is data transfers or exchanging information. Let’s take a closer look at the company’s LAN. The company LAN is designed in what is known as a bus topology. Karl Falls describes a Bus topology as such: â€Å"A Bus topology refers to a single cable that connects all the workstations, server s, printers and other devices on the network. The cable runs from device to device by using tee connectors that plug into the network adapter cards. Each end device has a terminator on one end of the tee and a cable going out to the next device on the other end, while all devices in the middle have one cable coming in and one going out. The terminators on each end device simply stop the network signal from reflecting back into the cable and colliding with other transmissions.† The most common type of network cable used for a bus topology is RG-58 thin net. The network speed is limited to 10 megabits per second, making it a suitable media for only 10 BASE 2 Ethernet. There are also network size limitations. You may have a maximum of twenty network devices on a segment, and the segment cannot exceed 185 meters in total length. By using a device called a repeater that boosts the signal, you can have up to five segments on a network. However, only three of these segments can have devices attached to them. The other two segments are used to link the three populated segments, giving you a maximum number of sixty devices with a to tal network length of 925 meters. This topology works equally well for either peer to peer or client server. There are advantages and disadvantages to this set up or architecture of the organization. Some of the advantages include being less expensive to install because it is a one-cable network that requires no switches or routers for messaging. This is good for a small network like dental office or an optometrist. However, the disadvantages outweigh the advantages. Some of the disadvantages are that the trading company is too big for such a LAN because the company limits itself in size and speed of meeting the demands of a competitive trading market. Moreover one bad connector can take down entire network and that is very costly and difficultto troubleshoot. This leads to a quote by Gordon Bell, â€Å"The easiest way for an enterprise to fall is to select cheapest, fastest, and most unreliable components for its big business network.† Lafleur Trading Company is guilty of cutting corners in its initial networking topology and this leads to problems within the hardware infrastructure, problems within the client to company relations, problems in the speed of the network, problems in the repair of the network, problems in the maintenance of the network, problems in the communication between departments that need to talk with each other, problems with privacy in the upper ranks of the company, problems with data management and analysis, and problems keeping up with the competition. SR-lf-001 presents the opportunity for Lafleur to bring it’s network infrastructure to a place where it can handle the advanced data storage and analysis operations it needs to conduct in order to stay competitive in their market and look forward to a profitable, intelligent future for the business. The Benefits of This Approach Having a high quality network for communication between departments and branches of a company brings with it a certain set of advantages when it comes to data warehousing and business intelligence. Some of these benefits include quick, efficient retrieval of information from data warehouses, more efficient queries when analyzing data, the ability to make educated decisions based on that data, and effective reporting processes. Business intelligence systems are important in a company because they allow an organization to collect sales data and quickly analyze trends in order to respond to changes in customer demand resulting in increased sales. A business intelligence application supports and provides intelligence for Business Process needs. A good business intelligence system delivers information that is insightful, timely, and reliable. This information is delivered in a way that is useful (i.e. not complex. The data is understandable and actionable) and relevant to what is currently happening in the company. This data is also retained for enough time for analysts to look at historical data and make decisions and determine future trends based upon customer activity shown in that data. (McQuigg, February 2009). Business intelligence applications retrieve their data from data warehouses. A Data Warehouse (DW) is simply a consolidation of data from a variety of sources that is designed to support strategic and tactical decision-making. Its main purpose is to provide a coherent picture of the business at a point in time. Using various Data Warehousing toolsets, users are able to run online queries and ‘mine† their data. (data-warehouses.net, February 2012) Being subject-oriented enables the data to be analyzed based upon a particular subject, making the analysis process more streamlined than if the BI process had to loop through bytes of unrelated data in search of relevant information. These things are very important for a company that wants to stay competitive in their market. Up to date, accurate and integrated information about a company’s supply chain, products, and customers are critical for the company’s survival. (data-warehouses.net, February 2012)Without these things, a company has no intelligence on their customers, what is happening with their product, and no way to make decisions about how to go forward in the future. If a company is unable to probably store, retrieve, and analyze their data to make business decisions, the company will fail. By implementing strong, modern, fast networking infrastructure and data collection channels, Lafleur Trading Company positions itself as a competitive, forward-thinking company that will be able to succeed. This is due to their ability to make smart decisions based on actual, relevant data retrieved from their business intelligence process. Conclusion Lafleur Trading Company is the type of organization that can live or die based on the whims of its customers. Especially in this modern, computerized society, without the infrastructure in place to collect customer data, analyze that data, and make intelligent decisions based on that data, Lafleur cannot hope to be competitive in their market and will likely fail as an organization. The completion of SR-lf-001 and the development of a strong data warehousing plan and business intelligence application will allow them to be successful, profitable, and will stimulate growth and expansion for the entire company. REFERENCES LaFleur.com (January, 2012) Human Resources. Retrived from https://ecampus.phoenix.edu/secure/aapd/CIST/VOP/Business/Lafleur/intranet/human-resources/cio.asp Bell, G. (June 29, 2011). Network Infrastructures. Retrieved from http://quotes.cat-v.org Falls, K. (jan 7, 2011). Network Topologies. Retrieved from http://fallsconnect.com 1keydata.com (Januray, 2012) Data Warehouse Definition. Retrieved from http://www.1keydata.com/datawarehousing/data-warehouse-definition.html http://data-warehouses.net (February, 2012) Guide to Data Warehousing and Business Intelligence. Retrieved from http://data-warehouses.net/guide/introduction.html

Crime Statistics Comparison

Crime statistics endeavour to provide statistical measures of crime in societies. They provide a point of analysis and comparison, allow countries to form long-term patterns and trends and can help to develop and reform criminal justice policies as well as being more meaningful than raw numbers. Using the countries of Bahrain and the United States as a comparison point for the following issues which surround crime statistics such as biases, agendas and general influences like education and religion; this essay will be focused around analysing the statistical factors and wider influences which can allow a country to have low or high crime rates. Crime Definitions Definitions of what exactly constitutes being a crime differ not only across countries but even across states. This can be an issue with statistics as in order to measure and compare crime consistently crimes need to be classified and placed into groups of similar offences. While murder is a crime recognized and agreed upon by most nations, what makes up a homicide may be more challenging and then even simply just a ‘crime against the person’ can vary widely. This often means that what makes up a crime for many offences can vary throughout jurisdictions. This is a problem when categorizing offences for international statistical comparison. An example of this is the way that laws differ state to state within the United States, while ‘offences known to police’ is a statistic seen as quite a high representative figure of the offences, a lot of researches see that no official measure can ever come close to the actual amount of criminality that exists in any form in society (Archer, 1984) Definitional problems are concerned with whether or not crimes have equivalent meanings between nations, which in most cases a lot of crimes seem not to have. Countries most often vary in behaviours which can sometimes be seen as coming within the space of the law. So for any kind of comparison of crime rates to work at all, it is crucial that the definitions of crimes and the categories they are placed in are similar. The next issue with definitions is that even the different organizations that compile crime statistics differ within their own definitions. Interpol for example defines murder as: Any act performed with the purpose of taking human life, excluding abortion but including infanticide (and including attempts). Kalish, 1988) While the World Health Organization (WHO) does not distinguish between intentional or unintentional homicides but does not include attempts under this organization attempts fall under a separate legal distinction(Kalish, 1988). And again, the United Nations have a different definition for homicide: Death purposely inflicted by another person, including infanticide. (Kalish, 1988) Due to major issues with the above topics across all countries, due to definitional and categorical differences, crime statistics can differ significantly. In Bahrain, crimes against the individual are ranked in relation to the seriousness of the offence, murder, attempted murder, murder by error, assault, threatening and others. In the United States, offences are not classed separately, but into broad categories which are homicides, robberies and assaults. Bahrain does not report rape as a single category and in response, no reports of rape have been sent to their criminal investigation unit (Ministry of Information, 1985). Reporting Issues The quality of the way crime is reported is likely to be influenced by a wide range of practices and techniques in different jurisdictions. For example in Bahrain, individual police departments participation in reporting crime rates is compulsory, but neither the numbers of convictions or the final outcome of cases are reported, whereas, local police departments in the United States are under no obligation to report back crime rates from their areas as participation is voluntary (Newman, 1993). Honesty or dishonesty of police who are involved in the collection and compilation process of statistics (Adler, 1983) and the manipulation of the data compiled for political reasons – which will be discussed later – are some other examples of things than can influence the quality of the crime that is reported. In the United States for example, every case involving multiple offences by the same person that are compiled by police, the statistic noted down is only in relation to the most serious offence that has occurred (Reichel, 1994). Underreporting is an influence on the reporting of crime as it affects basically every area and any data that is compiled by police. In many occasions and for many different reasons people do not report offenses they are victims of or that they witness. There is a ‘dark-figure’ of crime in both Bahrain and the United States, there have been no victimisation studies conducted in Bahrain to date, but on the opposite side, the victimisation surveys that have been conducted in the United States show higher crime rates than the Uniform Crime Reporting System shows (Federal Bureau of Investigation, 1981-1987). Another reason there are issues with extremely low or quite high crime rates is the issue of political influences. Police may exaggerate statistics in their areas to draw funding to their area for upgrades and to gain more police numbers, or even down the crime statistics to reflect success of their force, to show the people of the country and the world that they are doing their job correctly and well. The government can also do the above, by altering the statistics, they can create a sense of fear in there people to gain votes through public advertising that they will combat the high rates of crime in certain areas, or downgrade the rates to adhere to international requirements, to attempt to get the country placed on the ‘best of’ lists within international media as a way to gain tourism by showing they are a safe place to visit. Wider Influences: Bahrain is a country which operates on all levels in relation to the teachings of the Qur’an. This makes up the fabric of life for the Bahraini people, the influence of the Islamic religion can be seen in the economic, political and social pathways of life within the culture of the country. In Bahrain, religion is the most important structure. The Islamic religion opposes wrongdoing in all its forms and that any wrongdoing can lead to the downfall of society. The teachings of the Prophet attempt to get rid of all forms of crime before it happens by influencing the individuals who follow the religion. Acts against the law therefore is not only a crime against society in the eyes of Bahraini people it is also a violation of the principles of God. In Bahrain there are even ‘moral police officers’ who regulate the dress and public behaviour of citizens (Helal, 1991). As the Qur’an provides the basis for society, it also provides the base for which laws are made. All laws however have major influence from the Western cultures, apart from marriage, divorce and succession which all fall under the Shari’ah. Souryal, 1988)Therefore religion is a major influence in relation to everything, right down to helping explain the low crime rate in Bahrain. Citizens are able to speak directly to the ruler of Bahrain for a few days each month this allows the people to feel that they are in touch with their government as they are able to voice their concerns directly (Helal, 1991). Therefore crimes against the state are less likely to be committed as people feel as if they play a greater role than just an individual in a wider community. Souryal (1988) has noted in his studies that since firearms, drugs and alcohol are all banned, the opportunity for violence is reduced. Ontop of this, the way the law is applied to Muslim offenders acts as a deterrent to the Bahraini citizens. The penalty for committing a crime is harsher if the offender is Muslim and has committed an offence against a Muslim, the Islamic penal code is also enforced against non-Muslims in the country. Some punishments that can be given out include amputation, stoning, flogging and death which can be executed in public (Moore, 1987). The influence of education within Bahrain is a major factor that can be related back to the low crime rate of the country. Islam religion is tied tightly into the education at all levels in Bahrain, and education is compulsory for all children living in the country also (Helal, 1991). The United States however has a separation between church and state, which is not the case in Bahrain. Within the United States, there is a separation of powers, it is a multicultural society which also makes it multi-faith, to base all laws on just the one religion within the United States would most likely cause more crime rather than decrease the rate. Within the United States alcohol and firearms are legal once of a certain age, therefore the high crime rate within the country can be related back to the availability to things that aid criminal acts and violence. Education within the United States changes in relation to the age of compulsory education, it ranges from between 14 to 18 (State Compulsory Attendance Laws, 2007). Religion is not taught within all schools due to the adversity of religions within each state and the country as a whole. There are schools which focus on specific religions, these however are private schools and advertise that they do these teachings (Religion in Schools, 2004). The major difference between the two countries, other than the rate of crime, Bahrain’s crime rate being quite low compared to the United States, is the issue of religion within not just the country, but as the basis for all the laws and the way the entire community of Bahrain lives their life. In conclusion, there are so many reasons by which crime statistics can be altered due to not only issues with reporting and recording, but definitional issues and wider societal influences. It is not until recently that any one organization has attempted to compile and compare cross-national crime statistics, for this to be done however, organizations need to find a way to combat the above issues outlined. The United Nations have pushed for a standard level of classification of offences and the collection of statistics across continents which would set out minimum standards for the collection, analysis and presentation of the statistics. (Vetere, 1977). This is just one way we can start to remove bias and definitional errors. The true rate of crime is impossible to compare or even start to determine. The amounts of crime reported demonstrate that there is a major difference between the two countries in terms of crime rates. The Islamic religion within Bahrain lays the foundations for life and can be seen woven into critical social areas within the community, all in which can create the basis for crime to become a realty; within Bahrain however, due to the tight influence religion has on one’s conscience, it has the opposite impact (Helal, 1991). The United States has the separation of church and state, therefore fewer values are shared throughout the country, which allows for breaks within society and these can be seen as the basis for crime to be committed, therefore raising the crime rate rather than lowering it. It would be simply ridiculous to implement the way Bahraini society is run into the United States(Helal, 1991). But the influence that the combination of church and state within a country like Bahrain has on the Bahraini people is simply just one way in which can be shown to keep crime rates low.References http://www.edweek.org/ew/issues/religion-in-schools http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0112617.html

Essay on Congress

AP Essay- Congress The framers of the Constitution created a bicameral legislation where there were two chambers of congress made. There was the Senate and the House of Representatives and these two chambers split the necessary duties that congress needed to fulfill. The framers of the Constitution chose a bicameral legislature because they did not want all powers of the government concentrated in a single government institution as they would have been if a unicameral legislature was used. They feared it would lead to rule by oppressive or impassioned majority. They believed that a bicameral legislature would balance powers in congress so that neither chamber would ever gain tyrannical power. When making congress, the framers also knew that the states were jealous of their independence and would not consent to a national constitution if it did not protect their interests and strike a reasonable balance between large and small states. There were many disputes between small and large states on how representation in congress should be gained by delegates at the Constitutional Convention. This was the reason a bicameral legislature was created, and this was known as â€Å"The Great Compromise†. This gave small states equal representation in the Senate and large states their proportional representation in the House. The House of Representatives is the lower house and it contains 435 members. Members are chosen by districts based on population. Some of the House of Representative’s powers are to impeach the president and initiate taxing and spending bills. One unique power the House of Representatives holds is that it gets to select the president for the country if no candidate wins the electoral vote. This was almost the case during the 2000 election between Bush and Gore, the winner was in question after the votes in Florida went uncounted. The framers of the Constitution gave the House of Representatives this power because this chamber is closer to the people than the Senate and is more informed on what the people want. The Senate is the upper house and it contains 100 members. Election time is on a rotating basis and 1/3 of the senate runs every 2 years. Some of the Senate’s powers are to accept or reject treaties and tries the president after the House of Representatives impeaches them (HIST). One unique power the Senate holds is that it can approve presidential appointments such as cabinet positions, Supreme Court judges, federal judges, and heads of agencies. The Senate approved Clarence Thomas as a Supreme Court judge. The framers gave the Senate this power because in order to carry out checks and balances, they wanted the congress to make sure that the President was not holding too much power. By approving or disapproving presidential appointments, the president’s power is weakened and the executive branch does not contain more power than the legislative branch.

The Impact of Digital Marketing on Consumer Behaviour Essay

The Impact of Digital Marketing on Consumer Behaviour - Essay Example This study sought to determine the influence of digital marketing on consumer buying behaviour. Specifically, this research sought to attain the following objectives: 1. To determine the change in customer buying behaviour brought about by digital marketing among internet and mobile users in the UAE market. 2. To analyse the consumers’ attitude towards interactive digital advertising. 3. To examine the academic literature related to consumer attitude and digital marketing, thereby establishing the relation between both the concepts. For a marketer, communicating with customers anywhere at any time is an essential way to effectively promote products and services. Nowadays, this type of marketing communication has been revolutionized by the development and innovation of digital technology. According to Stewart, digital technology has paved way for immediate interaction between marketers and consumers through digital advertising. In the study done by Radzeviciute & Sliburyte, it was revealed that the most common form of digital marketing tool is the short messages where photographic images can be transferred to computer, mobile phones, and online community. With this, four sub-types of digital marketing strategies were also identified and these are the internet-based and email advertising, and mobile-phone-based SMS- and MMS-type advertising. Over the years, the growth and development of digital marketing has largely been due to its precision, personalization, precision, measurability, easy targeting, and customization.

National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 Essay

National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 - Essay Example Science and technology emerged into rapid changes. Many innovations and inventions came out to show how far human knowledge has been. The invention of machineries, the use of electricity, petroleum products and chemicals showed how science and technology stepped forward. This gave a lot of advantages to human population and also to the immediate environment. Modern researches can be found helpful to human habitat out of the newest discoveries in science. By understanding a lot about things that exists in this world, scientist most especially environmentalists can tell which causes environmental degradation and which could be helpful to environmental protection. The advancement in science and technology seemed to emerge into two contrasting findings which are; 1) the fact that the advancement in science contributed to the deeper understanding with regards to environmental preservation and protection, 2) but, in the same way that the industrialization brought by science and technology becomes the same tool to destroy the environment because of pollutions and chemical wastes that contaminates water and pollutes the air. These facts create an echoing and awakening reality that those technological advancements bear the consequence that destroys the world humans live because of its by-products. Because of those awakening facts, many people of the world, most especially the government has been motivated to make steps in order to prevent the alarming situation that the world faces because of the negative outcomes of industrialization.

What extent can we speak of a uniform impact of the cold war on Essay

What extent can we speak of a uniform impact of the cold war on western europe in the period from 1950 to 1980 - Essay Example The discussion here will focus on Western Europe, more specifically Britain, Spain, and Italy. After WWII, Europe was divided by Western Europe, allies of the United States, and Eastern Europe, which was controlled by puppet Russian communist regimes. The United States wanted an independent Western Europe. However, the United States only wanted an independent Europe, if the countries were capitalist. Whereas the Western Europe countries did not like having Russia control half of Europe, with America influencing the other half, they accepted it to the alternative. Brogi (2001, 76) quotes John Gaddis following statement: the hard reality was that Britain, France, and their smaller neighbors preferred the known risks of influence to the imponderables of a unified third force that could conceivably fall under German or even Russian control. Thus for the avoidance of a third world war, Western Europe tolerated the United States influence. â€Å"Indeed the Europeans proved incapable of overcoming their ancient rivalries, but were able to adapt and even promote dependence on the United States† (Borgi, 2001, 76). By depending on the United States, Britain, Spain, and Italy could transfer the responsibility of protecting their nations from Russia to the United States. The United States became the protector of Britain, Spain, and Italy during the Cold War. When before the Cold War, these countries were more dependent on European and self preservation against Russia and Germany. Great Britain and the United States have been allies before and since both world wars. However, the United States, during the Cold War, proved to Great Britain where the true power lay. For example, when the Suez Canal crisis arose, Great Britain and France wanted to resolve the issue militarily (Fraser, 2002, 74). The United States did not want to provoke the Russian backed Egyptian president, Nassar for fear of another world war. To stop France and

NT in Review (Biology) Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3750 words

NT in Review (Biology) - Essay Example For it is evident that man has been trying to explain the world around him for almost as long as he appeared on earth. We do not know whether there exist other species with similar proclivity, but with humans this need is evident. Despite warnings of dire consequences, Adam did pluck the fruit of knowledge didn’t he? At one level questions were of metaphysical nature and on the other they involved scientific knowledge. Earliest scientific study was mainly in the areas of Physical Science, questioning the nature of matter, energy and motion. The Greek philosophers applied their minds to these questions using logic alone in a dialectical reasoning. Aristotle made an attempt at compiling all that was known then. He wrote an entire treatise catalogueing hundreds of living animals. Following this tradition Biology was confined to making detailed observations about plants and animals right uptil the 17th century. As the data grew a need was felt to work out an effective system of classification. A Swedish botanist Carolus Linnaeus formulated the system of binomial nomenclature (naming a living organism using two different names, one of its genus and the other of its species). For example, Homo sapiens is the biological name for the modern man. This was an important step in systematising biological kno wledge. Even in its most rudimentary stage it was recognized that living beings were distinctly different from the rest of the physical world. One group of scientists proposed that there was some kind of ‘vital force’ acting within them that accounted for this distinction while others argued that living things were reducible to physical and chemical laws. Their theory was called the ‘mechanistic’ theory. The advocates of the ‘vital force’ theory declared that certain aspects of living organisms could not be explained with science and in fact science should not even attempt to meddle with the study of