Has the IMF played a condtructive or destructive role Does it serve Essay - 1

Has the IMF played a condtructive or destructive role Does it serve any purpose in the 21st century - Essay Example The IMF has grown and experienced changes over the last years. Many have embraced this change, while there has been some that have not accepted it. Its members have been increasing, from the initial thirty to over 188 members. This organisation claims to foster financial stability, global monetary corporation and economic stability to its members (Freytag pg 20-30). Its objectives are geared towards promoting international economic, Corporation, creation of employment, establishing sustainable exchange rate and availing funding to its member states. The role of the international fund about the 21st century is addressed by analysing the success and failure rate. Since its debut, this organisation has funded numerous nations, where there has been failure or success. The facts present a concrete factor that present this organisation as failing. Though there are success cases, the failures often lower the impact of these cases. One notable case is the one witnessed in Tanzania. After the IMF stepped in to save this declining economy, its economy lowered. The employment rate decreased and the literacy level dropped. All this occurred within period from 1985 to 2000 (Research Activities of the International Monetary Fund: January 1991-December 1998 pg 26-30) Conclusively, the role played by this organisation cannot be ignored. It continuously helps nations to recover from economic failures. It is lending surveillance police have benefited many and still proves to in years to come. In order to change the faulty image over the years, there must be some adjustments. This adjustment will enhance its role and make it productive as many presume it to

Kentucky fried chicken

Kentucky fried chicken Entrepreneurship: Colonel Sanders started the Kentucky Fried Chicken at the age of 65. Presently KFC is one of the leading firms in food industry around the world. Over a billion KFC chicken dinners are served featuring the Colonels â€Å"finger likin good† recipe, each year. At the age of 40 Sanders first started cooking in a service station in Corbin, KY. But soon hundreds of people started coming to the service station for food instead for car service. Soon he shifted to a hotel and restaurant that had a capacity of holding 142 people at a time. With his special cooking techniques, Sanders station became well-known and he was acknowledged for his incredible cuisine by the Governor at the time, RubyLaffoonin 1935 when he was made a Kentucky Colonel.In 1939, Colonel Sanders restaurant won the top spot on Duncan Hines â€Å"Adventures in Good Eating.† In 1952 colonel sanders got good start for his company and devoted the rest of his life in franchising business. By 1964, over six hundred franchised outlets were opened in theUnited StatesandCanadafor his chicken. The company got listed on the New York Stock Exchange on January 16, 1969, only 3 years after it had gone public on March 17, 1966.Then on July 8, 1971 the company was taken over by Heublin Inc, for $285 million dollars. Soon the company grew to an enormous three thousand and five hundred franchised and company-owned restaurants world-wide.But after being regularly travelling around the globe, Colonel Sanders died of leukemia at the age of 90 in 1980. Nowadays its part of a bigger company known as Yum Brands. Advantages To Parent Business 1. Financial:It is another source of income through franchise fee and royalty. Also there is increase in Cash flow, return on investment and profits. 2. Operational:There is smaller centralized control as compared to developing and having locations by company itself. It also ensures consistency, enhanced productivity and better quality. Self-motivation as franchisees invests their own money. 3. Strategic:It helps in dividing risk by having multiple locations through peoples investment. That ensures faster network expansion and a better opportunity to focus on changing market needs. 4. Administrative:With a smaller central organization, the business maintains a more cost effective labor force, no change in important staff members and better recruitment. Disadvantages To Parent Business 1. Franchisor is required to have enough resources to recruit, train and support the new franchisees. 2. Franchisee may spoil the image of the company if he is not capable of running the franchise perfectly. 3. Also franchisor has to tell all the internal information of the company to the franchisee. So, privacy of company is also at risk.† Marketing/ Advertising â€Å"The KFC Marketing team focuses fervently on delivering an unvarying pipeline of mouth-watering meals. They try to search the wants of the customers and bring new innovative products to meet the customers standards. Target market is divided on the basis of demographic, geographic and psychographic segments. The pricing strategy that they follow while entering new market is price skimming. In starting they try to price their product a bit high and target the middle and upper class people. Than after some time they start lowering their prices to focus on middle to lower class people. They do this to get to larger part of the market. The Marketing team gives more importance to Operations and Product Excellence. They try to find new ways to develop and execute new ideas, as well as assessing the input of the finance in the business. The Marketing team is the primary medium of communication between the company and the customers. The budget of marketing is divided in accordance to the media buying and advertising production to guarantee a year round calendar of innovative news to drive consumers back to our restaurants every time. Advertising strategies are the same as any other firm but they have their distinctive slogan â€Å"finger likin good† which relates to quality of food they provide. KFC usually charges advertisement fee of 5% of the gross revenue to the individual stores. KFC charges a Local advertising fee of 3% and fee equal to 2% of the gross revenue for national advertising fee. Operations Management KFC primary raw material is chicken. They are not breed in a normal way. These chickens are kept alive by tubes inserted into their bodies to force blood and nutrients right through their body. They do not have any beaks, feathers as well as feet. Their bone structure is considerably shrunk to get more meat out of them. This is beneficial for KFC because they do not have to pay a huge quantity for their production costs. There is rarely any plucking of feathers or the removal of the beaks and feet. However this method has been disapproved of by many animal rights organizations and has been upsetting the image of the company. There have been many cases against KFC regarding the treatment of chickens in their farms. Cost Initial Investnment: â€Å" Expenditure Low High Initial Franchise Fee $25,000 $45,000 Development Services Fee Varies Varies Real Property $400,000 $1,000,000 Construction and Leasehold Improvements $575,000 $915,000 Equipment/Signage $216,000 $366,000 Opening Advertising $5,000 $5,000 Opening Inventory $10,000 $10,000 Utility Deposits and Business Licenses $7,000 $7,000 Initial Training $3,900 $10,000 Miscellaneous Opening Costs $5,000 $15,000 Additional Funds (3 months) $13,000 $18,000 Total $1,379,900 $2,391,000† The figures are taken from the KFC website. Please refer to the URL FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE: The franchisor does not provide any indirect or direct financing. They do guarantee any lease or obligation. KFC is one of the parts of organization named YUM brands. YUM Capital is a special purpose limited liability company structured under Delaware law, the sole member of which is YUM Capital Funding Corp a non-stock corporation in Delaware. YUM Capital issues commercial paper secured by loans purchased from YUM Capital Funding Corp and made by YUM Capital Funding Corp to franchisees in YUM restaurant brands. ROYALTY: KFC franchisees have to pay royalty fee equal to 4% of gross revenues or else minimum of $600 per month. BREAK-EVEN POINT: It is the condition of a company when they are having no profits. In other words when company is just paying all its expenses. If it has to be calculated from sales than a certain number has to be found out at which company is having no profit. An estimated amount of sales revenue for 2010 is 21926 million dollars and the estimated revenue is 1452 million dollars. So break-even point should be the difference of sales and revenue i.e. 20474 (21926-1452) million dollars. This means company has to earn At least 20474 million dollars to cover up all its expenses. Human Resource Management KFC stresses upon the fact that either franchisees or at least one of the managers should complete the training program set-up by the company. But KFC is very strict about asking for employees to complete the training process as per the companys discretion. Besides basic training if company has certain additional course work or programs they can ask the franchisee, managers and employees to do those too. The training program is generally of 4 days, each having a session of 8-10 hours each day. This kind of training technique helps in growing the efficiency of workers and managers and makes them accustomed with their work hence reducing the likelihood of errors and mistakes. But on the other hand this procedure can be time consuming and can possibly become more costly due to the excessive training that the possible employees have to go through before entering the organization. References: http://www.kfc.com www.yumfranchise.com www.ehow.com www.yum.com KFC Annual report. www.answers.com Key Takeaway This assignment helped in understanding different ways of managing a new business. It made me familiar with the concept of having a franchise business, what are the benefits of having franchise and what are the additional expenses of having a franchise business. Besides that it gave me an opportunity to review franchisees of KFC all over the world and helped me significantly in analyzing all the dynamics involved for having KFC franchise. In future if I want to start my own business I might give a preference to franchise form depending upon the kind of business I want to have.

Fantastic Elements of Saint George and The Dragon :: Saint George and The Dragon

Fantastic Elements of Saint George and The Dragon      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Margaret Hodges adapted "Saint George and The Dragon" from its original work that was written by Edmund Spencer. "Saint George and The Dragon" is a short story that was published in 1984. Margaret Hodges, who adapted this fantastic literature, is from North America. " Saint George and The Dragon" shows many characteristic of Magical Realism; however, it is Fantastic Literature.    "Saint George and The Dragon" is similar to Magical Realism because the characters within the story treat the events as a normal occurrence. The way in which reality is mixed with a touch of non-reality supports that the story is one of Magical Realism. Another essential part of Magical Realism is the normality of the characters. The lead character within "Saint George and The Dragon" is ordinary or mundane. Unlike fantastic literature with its Hercules and many unreal heroes, Saint George is just a normal human being. Finally, the one element that carries the largest weight is no limitations are set through out the entire story. The way that the story sets no boundaries is extremely important. It is for that reason that "Saint George and The Dragon" is probably teetering on the balance of being listed under Magical Realism.    "Saint George and The Dragon" does have its differences from Magical Realism, though. For instance, many things within the short story could never happen or even exist. Dragons, Fairies, and Dwarfs are all unrealistic. What is even more unrealistic is the fact that Saint George battles the dragon and defeats it.    Biblical allusions are sewn throughout the short story. The biblical allusions seemed as if they where almost subliminally encoded. Perhaps the simplest clue is in the title, Saint George. However, if one reads closely one can begin to pick up on the biblical allusions:    But the old hermit said, "The Fairy Queen has sent you to do brave deeds in this world. That High City that you see is in another world. Before you climb the path to it and hang your shield on its wall, go down into the valley and fight the dragon that you were sent to fight. It is time for me to tell you that you were not born of fairy folk, but of English earth. The fairies stole you away as a baby while you slept

Soil and Water

When I was researching for this essay explaining what soil and water conservation means to me, I found two quotes that really stuck out to me. One written by Franklin D. Roosevelt stated, â€Å"A nation that destroys its soils destroys itself. Forests are the lungs of our land, purifying the air and giving fresh strength to our people. †, and another that was written by an unknown author read, â€Å"Water is life’s mater and matrix, mother and medium. There is no life without water. † I am not sure about you, but I love the life I live. Where would we be without soil and water? We wouldn’t be that’s the thing. Many people could care less about saving our soil and water, but they do not understand that soil is the base to everything, and water is a mixture that is inside everything, even you. An average adult human body is composed of about 55 to 65 percent water, and soil is in fact both the direct and indirect form of food. It is the base of every living thing; soil has everything depending on it. Think about it, you eat steak that comes out of a pasture right? Well, that cow gets its nutrients from grass, feed, and water. That grass and feed gets its nutrients from the soil, which has to be watered to grow that grass and feed. Until the last couple months the state of Texas has been in a severe drought since 2005. In 2006, farmers in south Texas lost an amazing amount of 87% of their crops losing about 34. 3 million dollars. That damaged those people’s wallets, especially if they were commercial farmers raising crops to sell to big industries, which will later be put on the average Americans table. Then, when rice farmers would go to the Lower Colorado River Authority to get water irrigated into their rice fields, there would either not be any water or only be enough for one of the two usual crops they plant every year. Even though it has been raining like crazy lately in Texas, those severe drops in lakes and rivers has not been renewed. Now, the big debate is, is there a thing as global warming? Depending on what side you are on you have a different perspective of how we can conserve water. Simple things you do everyday change the climate, which affects the amount of water we have, and the amount of ice bergs melting every day. Now wouldn’t it be nice to have soil and water a little bit longer?

Drugs and there effect on society Essay

We opened the chapter with the story about an outdoor company, and we end it with a story about another outdoor company. The company we’re discussing this time, based in Portland, Oregon, was the brainchild of a small group of executives who left big times jpbs at Patagonia, Nike, and Adidas. These individuals shared a belief that ‘ in addition to generating a profit, companies have an equal responsibilities to create positive social and environmental change.’ Putting their beliefs into action, the group formed Nau (which is Maori for ‘Welcome! Come in†). and Nau id not just another outdoor company! When deciding what Nau was going to be like and how it was going to do business, the founders knew they didn’t want to do things the way they’d always been done by traditional businesses. CEO Chris Van Dyke said, â€Å"We started with a clean whiteboard. We belived every single operational element in our business was an opportunity to turn tr aditional business notions inside out, integrating environmental, social, and economic factors.† From design to sales to finances, Nau is driven by these factors. Everything in Nau’s operation had been approached with sustainability and social justice â€Å"filter.† In the design area, the company, in partnership with its suppliers, developed 24 of its 32 fabrics to be more sustainable and to combine performance and visual appeal. Each supplier, manufacturer, and even Nau itself is bound by a code of conduct. To ensure that all parties are living up to the standards, their actions are overseen by an independent, nonprofit auditing and research firm. In the sales area, the way the company retails its products is also unique. Using a concept it calls a â€Å"Web-front,† Nau has combined the efficiency of the Web with the intimacy of a gallery like boutique. In the â€Å"store†, customers can try on clothes, but they use self-serve kiosks to purchase from the Web. Because in-store inventory is greatly reduced, the stores are small 92,400 squares feet compared to the standard 4,000 plus square foot outdoor retail store) . This approach saves operating expenses because less energy and fewer materials are used. Good for the planet†¦..good for the business. Finally, Nau has a unique financial approach it calls â€Å"aggressive altruism†. The company has pledged 5 percent sales to charitable organizations dedicated to solving crucial environmental and humanitarian problems. The â€Å"philanthropic  gold standard† is 1 percent of sales, and the average among all corporations is 0.047 percent. But although the amount it gives is unusual, what happens with Nau’s dollars is really exceptional: Nau puts the giving decision in the hands of its customers. They’re asked to indicate which â€Å"Partners for Change† they’d like their 5 percent to go to. Using this â€Å"conscious choice† process, Nau is â€Å"calling its customers out, daring them to connect the dots.† Discussion questions 1. What do you think of Nau’s approach to doing business? Is it being ethical and responsible? Discuss. 2. Will Nau’s approach have a limited appeal, or do you think it had staying power? What drawbacks might there be to what Nau is doing? 3. Is it a business’s responsibility to get customers to â€Å" connect the dots’ and make choices about social issues? 4. Are there lessons here for other businesses? Discuss. INSTRUCTIONS: 1. Students are required to form a group of 4 (FOUR) to 5 (FIVE) persons. One of the group members should be assigned as the group leader. Deadline: Submit your report in Week 5, which is 18.04.2014 (FRIDAY) before 12pm. * Late submission will not be entertained and you should bear the consequences.