Write a 3 page response to an argument presented in the reading Essay

Write a 3 page response to an argument presented in the reading - Essay Example The author points out however that happiness is a subjective feeling and what makes one person happy does not necessarily mean it will make the other happy. Happiness is a subjective feeling which has never really been completely achieved by man throughout history. In fact as time goes and years passes, happiness continues to dwindle and people become more frustrated and cases of neurotics increase. Civilization has in fact contributed greatly to the reduction of happiness in man. This is so because humans are under more pressure now and life is much more complicated than it was during the earlier years of primitive living and conditions. This is evidenced by the writing of the writer â€Å"†¦what we call our civilization is largely responsible for our misery, and that we should be much happier if we gave it up and returned to primitive conditions (Freud 33).† There is an argument that civilization has brought about technology and made man superior to the nature but this in the end has not brought happiness â€Å"one would like to ask: is there, then, no positive gain in pleasure, no unequivocal increase in my feeling of happiness†¦?† (Freud 35). Even with development of fancy technical equipment and gadgets such as ships and telephones, people are still miserable as they do not get to be with their loved ones who are away. The technology has made people grow apart and lifestyles to change for the worse. The technological advancements and the civilizations mentioned in the article lead to development of difficult situations and restrain the life of people even more and further reduce their happiness level. Happiness as mentioned in the article is a subjective feeling and which cannot be forced on people and cannot be experienced by everyone. According to Pascal (2008), happiness is defined differently by different people and what may cause happiness to one person may not necessarily emanate the

Case solution Essay Example for Free

Case solution Essay Solution: Moving from â€Å"make do† to â€Å"can do† Meeting SUBWAY’s expectations meant IPC needed topnotch management of key issues: Card programs: A newly implemented Gift card program – and management of an existing loyalty card program – brought high customer demand for IPC to handle card issues and placed a serious burden on them to respond efficiently. Customer service: Efforts to address issues were being duplicated and the process was managed manually. There was no real control of customer service, so issues were falling through the cracks. Centralization: IPC needed a system to centralize customer issues and eliminate redundancies. IPC had no way to know or track if multiple resources were working independently to resolve the same customer issue. With a holiday season quickly approaching, IPC expected higher volume demands, which meant they more support resources. They decided the timing was right for CRM Solution: Moving from â€Å"make do† to â€Å"can do† Meeting SUBWAY’s expectations meant IPC needed topnotch management of key issues: Card programs: A newly implemented Gift card program – and management of an existing loyalty card program – brought high customer demand for IPC to handle card issues and placed a serious burden on them to respond efficiently. Customer service: Efforts to address issues were being duplicated and the process was managed manually. There was no real control of customer service, so issues were falling through the cracks. Centralization: IPC needed a system to centralize customer issues and eliminate redundancies. IPC had no way to know or track if multiple resources were working independently to resolve the same customer issue. With a holiday season quickly approaching, IPC expected higher volume demands, which meant they more support resources. They decided the timing was right for CRM

A Case Study In IBM Services Information Technology Essay

A Case Study In IBM Services Information Technology Essay Improving customer relationships is the deployment and management of the customers CRM application. Outsourced call centre services are delivered by an IBM business partner. Customers choose the CRM application components that fit their needs: Marketing, Sales and Customer Service. Balancing cost, the customer experience and revenue enhancement are truly differentiate the contact centre (Pritchard, 2004). The contact centre environment has changed dramatically in recent years. Early call centres were cost centres, built to take advantage of the telephony technology of the time. Typically confined to one physical location, they relied on interaction-based, frontline support and had little financial justification of costs. Frequent handoffs among agents created inconsistencies, as did paper-intensive processes and product-based structures. Today, contact centres are becoming increasingly customer-focused and are gearing up to solve problems and generate revenue. A proliferation of channels is giving companies a variety of opportunities to communicate with their customers. And with more opportunities for up-selling and new ways to cut costs, the contact centre is transforming into a profit centre. As organizations make this transformation, they are faced with identifying areas for change, reducing service costs, providing a differentiated service, increasing sales, supporting a multichannel customer experience and leveraging technological advances. The challenges, coupled with increasing customer expectations, have created a renewed focus on transforming the contact centre (Pritchard, 2004). IBM Regional Contact Centre (RCC) exemplified what an ideal contact centre should be; a single contact point which provides effective, efficient and improved service to partners and clients through the consolidation of resources and services. The centre serves as a strategic component of IBMs own on-demand initiatives. Organizations are taking a new look at governance of contact center functions and the way calls are handled. Traditionally, contact centers have been organized by geography and business unit. Advance in telephony technology presents new opportunities for streamlining call handling and routing. Virtual contact center queues route calls to the appropriate agent, regardless of geography or department, allowing calls to be handled based on factors such as customer need, the type of transaction or function, the value of the customer or the particular customer segment. This can help boost cost-effectiveness and bring more value to callers, since theyll deal with the best-qualified agent for their particular issue. Leading companies are also adopting a cross-functional approach to the organizational structure of contact center operations. In addition to geography-based service delivery functions, companies are developing global Centers of Excellence for self-serve programs, customer data management, workforce forecasting and scheduling, metrics and reporting, and global queuing and call routing. These Centers of Excellence manage key processes globally, identify opportunities for improvement and work with the operational service delivery functions to implement transformation-related change programs (IBM Business Consulting Services, 2004). IBM Values Dedication to every clients success: IBM employees are passionate about building strong, long-lasting client relationships. This dedication spurs IBM to go above and beyond on its clients behalf. IBM sells products, services and solutions, but all with the goal of helping its clients succeed, however they measure success. Innovation that matters for our company and for the world: IBM employees are forward thinkers. IBM believes in progress, believes that the application of intelligence, reason and science can improve business, society and the human condition. IBM loves grand challenges, as well as everyday improvements. Whatever the problem or the context, every IBM employee seeks ways to tackle it creatively to be an innovator. Trust and personal responsibility in all relationships: IBM employees actively build relationships with all the constituencies of its business including clients, partners, communities, investors and fellow IBM employees. IBM builds trust by listening, following through and keeping its word. IBM Mission To Drive Client Loyalty and Profitable Growth through Service Delivery Excellence IBM Vision To be the IT Service Provider of Choice in Asia Pacific IBM Commitments Growth Client Referenceability Drive client satisfaction by aligning IBMs efforts to its clients business imperatives, priorities and challenges Delivery Service Excellence Protect its clients business through a strong controls posture and operational discipline Provide competitive high quality service through standardization and automation Enable IBM Team for Growth Develop and nurture IBM people to play an active role in the globally integrated enterprise IBM Goals Excel in delivering competitive, high quality and efficient IT services to its clients Meet and exceed all IBM financial objectives Achieve and exceed IBM Quality targets Protect the IBM brand by maintaining Satisfactory control posture and delivering with integrity Promote a culture where IBM work as One Team and promulgate best practice Equip IBMs employees with skills and knowledge to deliver quality services to its clients and make the right investment in training and certification Accelerate the development and growth of IBM leadership talent Foster communications to IBM staff and ensure key messages are delivered in a timely and consistent manner Literature Review Today, IT departments are pressured into doing more with less, and that this will require innovative approaches to management and operating staff. Innovations in technology are also supporting this, as silos within operations, and between operations and the service desk and application development, are slowly being bridged by innovative management and monitoring software solutions designed for modularity, cohesiveness and automation. Currently, IT services are delivered through a mix of structured and unstructured work activities. Structured activities rely primarily on standardized processes, procedures, and tools. In IT service support and delivery, an increasingly popular standardization effort is embodied by Information Technology Infrastructure Libraries (ITIL) which prescribes processes for capacity management, availability management, service-level management, financial management to achieve high quality IT service (Bailey, Kandogan, Haber, Maglio, 2007). As IT departments pl an to bridge this divide, it is important to keep in mind that the automation can empower us to become more efficient, but we will be sacrificing some of the gains if we are not willing to leverage the advantages of automation as a transformative, cultural and process catalyst because they are interdependent. Definition of Terms There are many terms involve in implementing Call Centre as an outsource business to the company and for IT outsource, it has its own standard to follow. For example, IBM conducts IT service delivery (ITSD) based on Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) standards. IT service management (ITSM or IT services) is a discipline for managing Information Technology (IT) systems, philosophically centered on the customers perspective of ITs contribution to the business. ITSM stands in deliberate contrast to technology-centered approaches to IT management and business interaction. Feldman (2007) mentioned that Providers of IT services can no longer afford to focus on technology and their internal organization, they now have to consider the quality of the services they provide and focus on the relationship with customers. The Service Delivery Structure describes accumulations of the customers accumulated in the system. The derivative between flow-in, customer flow rate, and flow-out, service completed rate, determine stock level. The dynamics of service delivery management will be comprised of four feedback structures: labor structure, capacity structure, cost structure, and service delivery structure. Service backlog or work in process, the stock of the service delivery structure, depending on customer flow or order rate and service completed rate or order fulfillment rate. Accumulations of stock stem from derivative of flow-in and flow-out at the points of time (Phoomphuang S., 2004). Service Desk is the place where exist the receipt and resolution of service requests, technical guidance, communication, etc. The central contact point between users and IT staff (Steel, 2008). Also it is the first place that the customer contacts when they have a problem or any request. Service Level Management (SLM) ensures that the agreed services are delivered when and where they are supposed to be delivered. SLM is a very important concept concentrating on value which is an intangible concept. If this value is destroyed by breaching any part of the Service Level Agreements (SLAs), it can have some negative consequences for the service provider as the customer will be dissatisfied. Information Technologies Infrastructure Library (ITIL): ITIL best practices were first developed in the 1980s by the British governments Office of Government Commerce (OGC) formerly called the Central Computer and Telecommunications Agency. ITIL is a collection of best practices that have become widely observed in the IT service industry and a detailed framework of a number of significant IT practices, with comprehensive checklists, tasks, procedures, and responsibilities that are designed to be tailored to any IT organization. ITIL suggests that any IT operation should have some form of help desk where users of IT can ask questions or resolve problems. ITIL describes recommended best practices such as how to investigate and solve reported problems called into the operations help desk. These are the best practices and processes that are necessary for IT to process its applications in an efficient, controlled environment (Moeller, 2008). ITIL and IBM Service Delivery Process IBM has its own implementation of ITIL for IT service management. The service starts as soon as the contract is signed between the customer and IBM. Service delivery and service support team take control after contract is signed. IBM uses its own processes in order to deliver the services agreed contractually. IBM staff has to be familiar with these processes in order to deliver the services without any problem. These processes are standard and consistent across the globe for IBM and they are collected under different folders at IBM. These can be thought as related processes defined in ITIL collected under different titles. IBM procedures are confidential and cannot be described (Nazimoglu Ozsen, 2010). In business, the fit between the business strategy with respect to products and services provided to external customers and the internal structure of the enterprise is critical for economic performance and efficiency. Henderson and Venkatraman (1993) had concluded that the strategic alignment fits between external and internal business and IT strategies. Business strategy can drive IT strategy as well as the organizational and IT infrastructure, but IT strategy can also enable new and enhanced business strategies. Functional integration of business and IT makes IT a source of Competitive advantage. Environment The IBM Regional Contact Centre (RCC) has empowered IBM Malaysia to be more responsive, variable, focused and resilient by enabling the company to respond with flexibility and speed to any customer demand, market opportunity or external threat. The RCC is the sixth regional centre that IBM has established in Malaysia, after the Asia Pacific South Regional Administrative Support Centre, the Asean/ South Asia Regional Technical Sales Support Centre, the Asean Regional Support Centre for Integrated Technology Services, the Asia Pacific South Accounting Centre, and the IBM Global Financing Regional Centre for Asean/ South Asia, Greater China and Korea. The RCC supports four prime business functions: Teleweb marketing suport services, backoffice customer support services, and integrated technology support services, which cover the Asean region. The fourth business function is the strategic outsourcing helpdesk which supports the Asia Pacific region. The RCC is the latest of the companys 11 regional shared-services centres and is equipped with a multilingual workforce that caters for nine languages, including Tagalog, Japanese, Korean and Thai. Organization IBM has eleven regional centres located in Malaysia to support the IBM Corporation globally. Six of these centres are Operational Headquarters (OHQs), a status awarded by the Malaysian Industrial Development Authority (MIDA) to companies serving their offices regionally and globally. Located in Plaza IBM, headquarters in Bandar Utama, these centres are: IBM Asia Pacific Accounting centre: Provides accounting services for IBM in Asia Pacific, such as costs and revenues, Inventory/PIMS, DSW Software Accounting, monthly financial closing and reporting, expense accounting, APSC, WTAC, IGF accounting, services accounting, business control, SOX, statutory accounts and country accounting operations. IBM Asia Pacific Competency centre: Provides end-to-end administrative services, such as customer records, loading of customer orders, contract preparation, scheduling (negotiating with various plants in the world for supply to meet customer requirements), inventory management, billing, accounts receivable collection, systems controls and testing. Asia Pacific IBM Global Financing centre of Excellence: Manages most of the administrative and back-office tasks for the whole of the Asia Pacific region, such as contract creation, lease inception and booking of contracts into a lease portfolio system. Supports contract management, fulfillment, pricing, financial planning and internal controls. It also centralized financial management information and planning support to IBMs country leaders and management teams across the Asia Pacific region. Other areas of support include administration, forecasting, budgeting and financial analysis. IBM World Wide Competency centre: Delivers efficient, global common processes, tools, and applications with standardization, simplification, and automation, in order to accelerate IBMs positioning as a global integrated company. ASEAN Regional Technical Sales Support centre: Provides pre-sales technical support and technical enablement to ASEAN, Asia Pacific and other parts of the world which cover IBM hardware and software offerings. IBM Regional Contact centre (RCC): Provides integrated technology support services, pre-sales technical support and strategic outsourcing help-desk for the ASEAN region. Offers technical assistance in English, Mandarin, Cantonese, Japanese, Korea, Bahasa Malaysia, Bahasa Indonesia, Vietnam and Thai. IBM is a company that strives to lead in the creation, development and manufacture of the industrys most advanced information technologies (IT), including computer systems, software, networking systems, storage devices and microelectronics. The companys business in ASEAN/SA is primarily comprised of sales and distribution of services, hardware, and software. These offerings are bolstered by IBMs research and development capabilities. IBM can also provide financing depending on its customers needs. The fundamental strength of this model is IBMs ability to assemble the optimal mix of these offerings to design tailored solutions for customers. IBMs operations in ASEAN/SA cover countries including Singapore, India, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam. IBM in Malaysia is a wholly-owned onshore subsidiary of IBM World Trade Corporation. In IBM Malaysia, there are a few thousand employees of diverse backgrounds and talents serving in professional and support function roles, including regional positions. IBM Malaysia is committed to playing a major role in cultivating the use and development of IT in Malaysia, a mission that mirrors the Governments objective of making the country a regional and global hub of knowledge-based industries. IBM Malaysia is to be completely local organization in terms of expertise, 52% of our employees are women. The company is also heavily involved in developing local capability through a string of alliances (Are you an IBMer, 2010). Moreover, IBMers collaborate every day with their over 390,000 colleagues with growing networks of clients, advocates, experts and peers and with our neighbors, local organizations and millions of people they have never met and never will meet. This is simply how business is done in a globally integrating economy (About IBM, n.d) to support the integration of processes and operations; IBM has Globally Integrated Enterprise (GIE) governance. It puts the focus of decision makers on end users, productivity, standards, and integration to achieve maximum value from business transformation investments (BT/IT Governance, n.d). Furthermore, the GIE governance system emphasizes cross-functional and cross-unit team. Leadership and management roles are designed to pro vide clear ownership of the end-to-end business model and create a means to coordinate processes and transformation initiatives across organizations (BT/IT Governance, n.d). IBM has chosen Malaysia for its regional contact centre to serve the Asean region amid keen interest shown by other nations to have one here. The IBM Asean Regional Contact Centre (RCC) is due to start operation in Cyberjaya in the middle of the year 2003. The RCC, to be managed by some 60 staff, would provide support services to IBM business units, business partners and customers in five Asean countries namely Indonesia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia. Currently, the numbers of IBM clients have increased and the support countries among Asia Pacific have also been added China, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, India and Australia. Thus, the numbers of IBM RCC staff now have been increased to more than 100 including both local and international staff to support clients based on native languages offer. The support services include tele-sales and tele-marketing, customer support operations, and so on. Locale IBM Malaysia Sdn Bhd is investing RM 8 million to set up its Customer Support Operation (CSO) center in Malaysia that would operate as a hub for end-to-end order procurement covering 17 countries in Asean and South Asia. The CSO allows electronic ordering from IBMS manufacturing plants, receiving orders from its customers and business partners, collaboration among co-workers through e-mail and supporting of IBM Asean and South Asia business units and partners (IBM Malaysia to Spend RM8 MLN on Customer Centre, 2000). The location of IBMs CSO is in Cyberjaya. This department provides integrated technology support services, pre-sales technical support technical enablement, strategic outsourcing help-desk for the ASEAN region which cover IBM hardware and software. This department also provides post sales technical support and services and also remote technical support for all IBM hardware and software. A customer support representative also will assist the clients about their contract enquires, invoice enquires. IBM CSO Offers technical assistance in English, Mandarin, Cantonese, Japanese, Bahasa Malaysia, Bahasa Indonesia, Korea, and Thai. The case study was conducted at IBM Regional Contact Centre (RCC), Cyberjaya. The company is focusing on IT outsourcing which offering IT support; service desk or helpdesk to IBMs clients. There are only three main departments at RCC; Human Resource Recruitment, Financial and IT department. There are many sub departments under IT department, each department has its own name based on the client or project that their handle such as IGA (IBM Global Assistance), Merk, Maxis, Michelin, DBSchenker, Singapore Airline, BMW, Lenovo, JLL, DOW, Celestica, Philips, Affin Bank, and etc. Each department or team may have some different application based on clients application, but there are some applications and software that most of the team have such as Windows XP, Microsoft Office, Lotus notes, Sametime, Citrix (Mainframe), AS400 and others. The team will have their own Knowledge Management and Knowledge Based which provided by IBM databases, so they can find their source of knowledge, better understanding and solve the problem within short period of time. IBM provides IT outsources to the clients based on Service Level Agreement (SLA) and Service Level Objectives (SLO). In IBM RCC, one manager and one agent can handle more than one projects, at least one person should support two projects based on Global Delivery Framework (GDF) standards. Both teams that an agent or manager handle may have some different and similar applications to support. Protagonists The case was conducting at IBM, Cyber Jaya. We made an appointment with one of Transition managers to be our interviewee. His name is Trevor Thum and his position is under Integrated Technology Delivery (ITD), End User Support. Trevor is a young manager who handles many projects. He started working at IBM RCC as first level support; service desk. After few months, he had become Windows support for Affin Bank project. Two years later, he has been promoted to be a manager. During the interview session, there was a weakness; most of IBM information are confidential and cannot be disclosed. However, he provided us some guidance for our reference. Referring to the organizational chart of a team, it will consist of manager, focal manager, team leader, and agents. The agents will be more than five depends on customers request and how large the project is. Moreover, if there is any issue from customers such as complaint, an agent will raise it to Team lead, then team leader will discuss with focal manager. Later on, both of them will have a meeting with Trevor and he will decide what should the team handle this complaint and prevent it in the future. If he cannot find the solution, he will propose it to his manager or upper level for finalize and explain to the customers for the mistaken or any other reasons. Furthermore, when there is an additional application requested by clients, manager will have a meeting for more information and explain to team leader to train all agents to ensure that everyone is educated and ready to support users before it launches. In addition, if there is a new client registered to IBM RCC, the top manager will assign the project to one of team manager who deserves for the project, then the team manager will have meeting with client for SLA, SLO, and other requirements based on customers request. After that the team manager will start to hire new agents to support customers and handle the call. For recruitments, the team manager will cooperate with Manpower on staff hiring. Once Manpower got a new candidate with qualification, they will make an appointment with team manager for interview session. Then the team manager will decide whether hire this candidate or not. If IBM team manager decide to hire that agent, the agent will be first trained by Manpower staff and proceed with the training of particular project mentors by team leader and other experience agent. After one month of training, the team leader will do test call with the agent to make sure that the agent is expert enough to handle users calls and re ady to Go Live (the date of project begins with IBM starting from the day that has been signed on SLA contract. The team performance will be depended on SLA and Key Performance Indicator (KPI). However, IBM will decide either to increase agents salary or monthly incentive amount based on agents daily performance, compliment from customers, and team contribution. Figure 1. Team Organization Structure Situation Nowadays, nobody disputes the IT importance as the backbone for commerce. IT implementation helps company to reduce operational cost and increase revenue and profit significantly, although some of company not so well in utilizing IT resources. Beside many good stories from some of company, others also have the failure story in adopting IT capabilities caused by collaboration or implication on high investment, structure complexity, dependencies, changes of trends, dynamic environment, etc. Arguably, it affected the strategy direction of some company with IT and business alignment concept was proposed to improve marketplace competitiveness and increase financial performance. The concept comes at the picture to bridge the gaps of the difference between IT capabilities and business value whereby some organization fail to exploit the full potential of IT investment, adaptable infrastructure and service integration into their environment. Most company stayed still to look which product cou ld be accepted by customer significantly and then come up with clone product with achievable or imitable capabilities like the first one. It happened because the high competition in the market place to locate, not only what product customers want tremendously but also satisfaction and prestige point as well as the consideration. It involves high risky IT investment that might lead the financial become unbalanced so some organization became really careful to make decision, better wait rather than as the pioneer. The trend of IT and business alignment such as virtual office, electronic transaction, off shoring, utilizing private cloud, clone product, high tech consumption, etc. IBM, HP and Dell see other opportunities in renting their knowledge in technical solution as the service to other companies. For IBM, the service delivery optimization is not only about cost savings. IBM views optimization as the process of producing the highly efficient and dynamic infrastructure in exploiting full potential business value from IT investments, and of course emphasizing the responsive improvement and return on investment. IBM approached with holistic and client centre by the reduction of architectural complexity, integration and automation of IT process, business innovation support, customer expectation satisfaction and scale more effectively. IBM has gone through hundred processes engaged various customers across industries in the two decades, these experience and knowledge should be treated as the cr itical asset of the organization or as the intellectual capital consists of solution templates and reference architectures. In short, IBM didnt learn service delivery optimization from a book; IBM is writing the book. By establishing a clear understanding of an organizations optimization objectives and goals, IBM can help to ensure that IT investments are in alignment with the overall business strategy so that subsequent projects can provide real value. The evolution of IT from a technology to a business focus consider various factor drivers those are the compliance, complexity, speed of change and cost. The need to evolve IT should involve the three key ingredients at the heart of service delivery optimization as well, which are IT governance, operating model and funding management while a deficiency in any of these areas will alter and disrupt the outcome significantly. Before the evolution takes the step closer, the identification of IT environment also necessary for opportunities and optimization those are application and data, network, computing and storage, finance and process. For example, the business strategy of one company need to integrate the decentralize data store into centralize data warehouse that need, its the chance to be utilized to remain competitive. Meanwhile, the different culture in organization might be consideration too, that make the difference in priorities, assets and process. IBM will elaborate the stan dard approach with the end-to-end solution that applies the industrys best practice in the reference architecture concepts. Figure 2: IBM Strategic IT Model The strength of the relationship between customers (business side) and service providers (IT organization) decide the direction of success in service management. Beginning in 1997 and 2007 (IT optimization as a source, 2007), IBM started optimizing its own complex, far-flung environment, reaping substantial benefits in operational cost savings as the figure 1 depicted. Its important for the IT organization to provide the lowest-cost operation, but its not sufficient to support business strategies and planning. IT needs to develop other strengths out of efficiency in costs, such as supporting business customers have optimistic view to compete in the markets as well as faster the operation scalability. In this case, figure 2 shows the significant changes happened in IBM company that chose to have a proven, pragmatic and holistic view that even reduce the number of manager inside the organization with the most experience person as well as single source funding by consolidating infrastru cture and application at competitive rates. The level performance is also a point of developing the maturity of the service management capabilities, which drive the operation model of the technology organization. The organizations faces the dreadful challenge of increasing the quality and quantity of services provided to the business such as cloud computing and clone products, while addressing rising technical complexity, cost pressures and tension, faster trend changes and compliance issues at the same time. However, with traditional resources and system management approaches, its clearly impossible to provide effective support for the business and efficient use of technology resources. In the end, IT service management has evolved as the standard for managing effective service delivery optimization that requires: Enable comprehensive business capabilities to support the complete service life cycle from service design to service optimization. Differentiates the value of what you offer, on what terms and in what form, so that it surpasses what customers consider as alternatives. Building a clear understanding of the uncertainty, risks, change and trends. Gather both business and technology stakeholders to define the common goals and future goals. Decide the important priorities and sequence opportunities to improve the financial performance. Competitive payment terms and single-contract simplicity to increase the flexibility. Identifying, articulating and gaining executive management support. End-to-end solutions supported by a worldwide knowledge network as the minimum standardization for supporting business plan. Reduce complexity and cost as well as improve value-added service to meet service levels. Promote customer satisfaction and internal efficiencies to obtain innovativeness and creativeness. In the easiest way, IBM tries to do approach by translating into four elements IT value in meeting with business planning which consist of enablers, improvement, reduction and promoter. The main issues in this case regard the service delivery is how to maintain the service delivery as the competitive advantages in relation with other similar offered-service company that could accommodate right solution matching with latest situation in the environment. The approach to service delivery optimization

Free College Admissions Essays: I am a Dynamic Figure :: College Admissions Essays

I am a Dynamic Figure    I am a dynamic figure, often seen scaling walls and crushing ice. I have been known to remodel train stations on my lunch breaks, making them more efficient in the area of heat retention. I translate ethnic slurs for Cuban refugees, I write award-winning operas, I manage time efficiently. Occasionally, I tread water for three days in a row.    I woo women with my sensuous and godlike trombone playing, I can pilot bicycles up severe inclines with unflagging speed, and I cook Thirty-Minute Brownies in twenty minutes. I am an expert in stucco, a veteran in love, and an outlaw in Peru.       Using only a hoe and a large glass of water, I once single-handedly defended a small village in the Amazon Basin from a horde of ferocious army ants. I play bluegrass cello, I was scouted by the Mets, I am the subject of numerous documentaries. When I'm bored, I build large suspension bridges in my yard. I enjoy urban hang gliding. On Wednesdays, after school, I repair electrical appliances free of charge.       I am an abstract artist, a concrete analyst, and a ruthless bookie. Critics worldwide swoon over my original line of corduroy evening wear. I don't perspire. I am a private citizen, yet I receive fan mail. I have been caller number nine and have won the weekend passes. Last summer I toured New Jersey with a traveling centrifugal-force demonstration. I bat .400. My deft floral arrangements have earned me fame in international botany circles. Children trust me.       I can hurl tennis rackets at small moving objects with deadly accuracy. I once read Paradise Lost, Moby Dick, and David Copperfield in one day and still had time to refurbish an entire dining room that evening. I know the exact location of every food item in the supermarket. I have performed several covert operations for the CIA. I sleep once a week; when I do sleep, I sleep in a chair. While on vacation in Canada, I successfully negotiated with a group of terrorists who had seized a small bakery. The laws of physics do not apply to me.       I balance, I weave, I dodge, I frolic, and my bills are all paid.

Evolution Theory Essay

Darwin spent five years exploring the world. Darwin traveled to many places mainly in the Southern Hemisphere. As he traveled from place to place, Darwin was surprised, by the similarities between the species. He wrote in his journal of the Galapagos Islands, â€Å"†¦there is even a difference between the inhabitants of the different islands; yet all show a marked relationship with those of America, though separated from that continent by an open space of ocean, between 500 and 600 miles in width.† At this early stage of his life, along with graduating college Darwin soon began collecting evidence for his theory of Evolution and natural selection. While on his journey Darwin made many observations. They were mainly about the different species he saw on the Galapagos Islands. Each island had a different variation of birds. He noticed that the beak sizes of the finches were different on each island because of the size seeds they ate. Darwin noticed that organisms reproduce more offspring than can survive. Each individual offspring has unique characteristics that can be hereditable. Most of Darwin’s observations focused on the idea of natural adaptions. Darwin noticed that the body parts an animal used the most for survival, evolved over periods of time. Meaning if a giraffe tends to use its neck a lot, it will extend in length throughout time. This is an organism’s natural adaption to, living within its environment. These observations lead to the theory of Evolution. Aside from this Darwin observed the competitive field among organisms. An organism’s physical adaption can either make or break them. Survival of the fittest is key in every habitat. Through evolution, organisms have been allowed to make physical and behavioral adaptions that can be beneficial towards survival. In his theory Darwin states that organisms have visible differences. This difference can be inherited from the offspring’s parents. Another point is that organism’s produce more offspring than can survive. From these organisms that are produced, many do not reproduce later on in life. Since so many organisms are reproduced there is a fight for the survival of the fittest. Individuals best suited to their environment survive and reproduce most successfully. The characteristics that make them best suited to their environment are passed on to offspring. Individuals whose characteristics are not as well suited to their environment die or leave fewer offspring. Organisms change over time, this is the theory that Darwin tries to prove known as evolution. It is believed that organism adapt t their environment and change over periods of time. The species that live in present day are descendants form those in the past. All organisms on Earth are united by one common ancestor. These are the major points form Darwin’s theory of Evolution. I feel that Darwin’s theory is very accurate. Organisms adapt over time and this adaptions help with natural survival. Evolution occurs over periods of time and has leaded us to our modern state. Every organism is the descendant of a prehistoric ancestor. There are visible similarities, but sometimes it may be hard to tell an organisms’ ancestor. I feel that if changes occur gradually it can be easily noticed that organism’s physical, behavioral and outer appearances change.

Beowulf, the Tragic Hero

Beowulf, the Tragic Hero In the epic poem â€Å"Beowulf† the protagonist, Beowulf, portrays a tragic hero in a variety of ways. Although Beowulf was not a perfect being, he embraces many characteristics of a tragic hero. Beowulf’s ego put him into many difficult situations. For example the battles he fought against Grendel, Grendels Mother, and the dragon. Other then his enormous ego along with his cockiness that put him into bad situations, he also embraced the characteristics of a great leader that many looked up to.In many parts of the poem Beowulf performs many courageous tasks that no one else would even try, making him one that should be idolized. To start off, Beowulf plans out his battle with Grendel. In the very beginning Beowulf tells his people and Hrothgar that he wants to battle and kill Grendel with his owns hands. This part shows his over confident ego because he thinks he is so mighty and strong. While Grendel made his way to attack Herot, Beowulf preten ded that he was asleep just as Grendel would see.As it says in lines (739-746) Grendel snatched at the first Geat†¦ (Line745) He then stepped to another still body, clutched at Beowulf with his claws. Beowulf suddenly leaned up against Grendel’s arm attempting to get back at him. Grendel was very fearful and at that very moment he didn’t even want to kill, he wanted to get away. Grendel struggled until he was free, but he ran free without his arm. Beowulf ego once again ties into this because he claims that it was â€Å"fate† that he got away and was not his fault. On the other hand, Beowulf went out of his way to protect Hrothgar and his people when no one else would stand up.The second instance where Beowulf finds himself in another situation is when Grendel’s Mother demands to avenge the death of her son. She then decides to kill one of Hrothgars men, who so happens to be Esher, his dearest advisor. After finding out that he had been killed, Hroth gar had summoned Beowulf asking for help once more. Beowulf agrees and battles her at her wretched home. In this confrontation Beowulf decides yet once again to be on his own and defeat the nasty old hag. With one slash of his sword he gets rid of her and is repeatedly praised for his courageous actions. As mentioned reviously, Beowulf always put people before himself, which embraced his characteristics of a tragic hero. Last but not least, Beowulf battles the dragon. It began with a slave that had stolen a golden cup from the dragon’s lair. For the final time, Beowulf’s over confident ego ties into it one final time. We know at this point in time, that Beowulf is at an old age and is becoming weak. Therefore, he insists to fight the dragon by himself. Beowulf’s decision to fight alone is a reoccurring action, if you can not tell. Ultimately the dragon begins to beat Beowulf; his haughty attitude does not comply with his initial strength.At this moment in time, it leads to Beowulf’s downfall with his final attempt at battle. As he dies he finds the strength to slay the dragon hoping to save his people, one last time. With the death of Beowulf he achieves the fame he has always longed for. Beowulf’s courageous and brave actions along with his tragic death prove that he is a true hero. The events of this epic poem conclude that even heroes too are acceptable to tragedies. Although Beowulf was not perfect, he without a doubt portrayed the definition of a tragic hero.