Book review on Iacocca An Autobiography

Book review on Iacocca An Autobiography The title of the book is Iacocca: An Autobiography is completely in accordance with its content in it, as the author describes his whole life story by himself. Author The author of the book is Lee Iacocca who was the former president of Ford Motor Corporation and the former chairman and CEO of Chrysler Corporation. His major contributions in history of auto business is that of giving a new life to chrysler by saving it from near bankruptcy and putting it back on track of success. Starting Pages The book also has Acknowledgements page, accompanied by Introduction to the paperback Edition. Then it is followed by An Opening Word and before the author starts his story there is Prologue. Special Features This book specifically does not have any special features, but it does got pictures, and caricatures in it. All of the pictures are in black and white. Number of Pages The book has a total of three hundred and sixty five pages. This much amount of pages makes it a decent, light weight handy book and the reader comfortably can carry it easily. Number of Chapters This book has twenty eight long chapters and one epilogue in it. Size of Paragraphs About the size of paragraphs is concerned, it has a mixture of short as well as long paragraphs. Price About the price of this book, if we rate it on international level or for readers of United States it is $7.99 and for Canadians it is $ 10.99 which is a good price tag. On the other, if one would see its price for Pakistani readers though it is Rs. 400 but to me it is still very expensive. Publisher This book is published by Bantam Books, a division of Random House, Inc. Its trademark, consisting of the words Bantam Books and the Portrayal of a rooster, is registered in US. Patent and Trademark office and in other countries. Marca Registrada. Bantam Books, New York, New York. ISBN The ISBN of this book is 0-553-25147-3. By using this very number one can easily get this book from anywhere in the globe. Genre of Book The genre of this book is non-fiction and based on true story of the writers life. Here, all the events and happenings were revealed as it is by a single person. First Book or Second This Autobiography is writers first book, which tells us about his fabulous career and life. His second book is Where Have all the Leaders Gone. Therefore, till now the author has penned down a total of two amazing books. Target Audience This book is written for people from all walks of life, from business students to business managers. Yet, the book focuses to cars, because the writers profession and passion was auto industry business. But still as this book has no scientific formulas, technical works, and methods, so one can easily read it and enjoy what this book is all about. Edition This is the second edition of this book Iacocca: An autobiography. It is called the paperback edition and it was out in the market for readers in July of 1986, where as, the first one was called the hardcover edition and it came out for the readers in November 1984. PURPOSE OF WRITING:- The authors purpose behind writing this book is not to get royalty money from the publishers or to show off his achievements at Ford, how he had rescued Chrysler from bankruptcy and run the affairs successfully. Instead of this above all, Iacoccas purpose to help out all the present and future business graduates in various types of problems and difficulties they have to face when they start their jobs. The writer firmly believes that when this book will assist those young brains in solving their matters, only then it would satisfy my conscience of doing something positive, productive and worth to read. AUTHORS STYLE:- The writing style of author in this book is formal. If one assess the quality of writing used here is of worth mentioning. The speaker has beautifully maintained the linkages of all the way from sentence to sentence and paragraphs to paragraphs and then chapters at larger level. The vocabulary of the book is easily comprehendible and has used no jargons in it. As far as the description is concerned, here too the writer carefully revealed everything in a step by step form so the reader while going through it cannot be detracted. Especially, in autobiographies such things ought to be given a fair amount of importance. Where upon, the details given in this book is completely a self-narration and does not contain any incorrect information which did not happened in writers whole life. AT FORD:- Before moving towards the book review it is important to recall the summary and what happened in the first part of this autobiography, this covers the writers life at Ford. So in the summary part one already read that author started his journey of career at Ford as a salesman and passed through a stage when he was a novice and had to learn all about his job. He learned various types of selling tactics and practiced them. During this initial span of his career he came across many good mentors and Lee was influenced by them a lot. Moving a head in his career and became an expert in sales field he decided to give himself a break and tied the knot. When the writer was part of companys top management and became General Manager of the Ford Division he was a stranger to everybody. At this point in life, he planned to do something big; with this thought and ambition Iacocca used his skills, knowledge and gave the world Mustang. This first jewel to his name made Lee a known from the unknown. The narrator, also gave two very fine cars to Ford namely as Fiesta and Mark III. Here at Ford when Lee was president and giving an annual turnover of $ 2 Billion to the company. On the other, such a profit though was coming to the organization, and making Iacocca famous and boosting its image among its competitors. But this thing and repute of Lee made Henry Ford to think exactly the opposite. Henry took this as a direct threat to his throne because everybody eyed Iacocca as their real leader and started disliking Lee. All hatred ends up in firing Iacocca from president ship. Therefore the story of writer at Ford lasts to this day. Now we will be looking at the second part of the book, which tells us about the writers story at Chrysler. AT CHRYSLER:- To reveal the Chrysler days it is better to go and explore first what events took place in writers life when he was eventually picked up by the Chrysler people. When Lee left Ford, he got a job in a warehouse, where he only stayed for few hours. In fact, these couple of hours forced him not to give up at any cost. Leave all the negatives aside and picked up only the positives and move ahead. The humiliation of being at an ordinary office right after serving as a president of a great company for so many years. There, he decided to fight back with his life and that results into reaching at the top in Chrysler Motor Corporation. Here I would like to quote Lees words as it is from the book which goes as there are times in every ones life when something constructive is born out of adversity. There are times when things seem so bad that you have got to grab your fate by the shoulders and shake it. I am convinced it was that morning at the warehouse that pushed me to take on the presidency of Chrysler only couple of weeks later. The writer before becoming boss of Chrysler was offered many jobs from other companies but none of them was from the auto industry. These were all the way from international paper, Lockheed, Charles Tandy and business school of NYU. (New York University). But lee wasnt satisfied upon these offerings, because cars were his only world, and he cant think of joining to any other profession. He is of the view that all business skills are not interchangeable at any level. The reason behind his this philosophy should only pursue that line or profession in which he/she had and has a grasp over it. Where one is a pro and not somebody who is alienated to the field and job. Thats why when he declined these non-autos industry jobs a renowned French car maker Renault, offered Iacocca the post of their Global Head of Automotive Consultant. Where upon, Lee rejected their offer, because though the job was from an auto industry, but it was not that one in which he got expertise. He refused them solel y of the fact that in this consultant job he never be able to give his best. Iacocca later wanted to form a consortium of car companies which he named as Global Motors. His intention was to build a fabulous consortium, would be based in Europe other in Japan and lastly in the US. This was all planned to break the monopoly of GM, which they have maintained from several years. Yet, this project wont work because of American Antitrust Laws. After that event, Lee learned that in the circles of auto industry there might be a possibility that Chrysler will pick him up for its very important post. And they are in need of someone who has great potential to lead and cope with any kind of difficulty. Thereby, after some time Lee was approached by the board members of Chrysler, who held couple of unofficial meetings with him which ended up in offering a job at their company. Iacocca in his heart decided that this time he would only accept the number one man position in Chrysler. So, he informed the Chryslers top management about his this plan where upon they told Iacocc a that his route of becoming the boss will be a bit different. At first he was made the president and afterwards became the chairman CEO of Chrysler on January 1st 1980. Till now we have learned that writers journey at Chrysler has just started. What is ahead of him will be revealed in the next heading. BEGINNING OF ANOTHER JOURNEY:- When the author officially joined his office at Chrysler, the same day his organization declared its losses of about $160 million. This was surely a bad coincidence with a human and the company itself. So, the beginning of narrators of another journey wasnt a good one. Problems Ahead The narrator here will discuss what were those problems regarding organization which he had faced during his tenure at Chrysler. These are enlisted below. A, Discipline. B, Functionality. C, Lack of Cohesion interaction between departments. D, No Meeting System. E, Management Structure (Planning Projecting). F, Financial matters. G, No team. H, Lousy and vehicle for an older guys car and considered boring too. I, Bad morale and deteriorating factories. J, Inappropriate placements of the work force. K, Security leaks. L, Manufacturing Quality. M, Purchasing. N, Sales and Marketing. Now well move to the next chapter and see what the speaker had for us to share and learn. THE DAY THE SHAH LEFT TOWN:- The title of this chapter reveals the same as its name goes, because the narrator here meant Shah Left Town to Mohammad Reza Pahlavi the Shah of Iran who was thrown out from his throne on January 1979 in an Islamic Revolution lead by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Here the question popped up in ones mind that what this exit of Shah had to do with America, its economy and specifically with Chrysler. Why the writer dedicated a full chapter depicting the aftermath of his departure. The reason behind all this was that, till 1979 Iran was under heavy American influence and Shah with their help made Iran quite liberal and develops its infrastructure. Along with that, Iran before the revolution was one of the greatest oil suppliers to US. Therefore, when Shah left and Khomeini took over he stopped not only providing them oil but also the diplomatic relations with the US. Thereby, in this chapter writer describes the effects of extra organizational stressors on Chryslers business which is as follows: Irans 1979 revolution ousting Shah of Iran. Prices of gas were doubled. Energy crisis. Chryslers market share gone down to 8 percent. Recession. Owners loyalty. Rumors of Chryslers demise. Out of these above problems, the main were gas price and recession. The reason was simple that cars run on oil. People therefore stopped buying their big cars with low fuel efficiency. The Recreational vehicles (RVs) and vans were two models of Chrysler cars which got affected from the gas fare. Even the parts of the cars like chassis and engines too were affecters of such a crisis. The thing which further harmed and destroyed US auto industry was that people started buying Japanese small cars instead of the Americans. Here, GM (General Motors) survived by selling their new car model called X-body. They were also successful in selling another model which was Chevrolet Citation. So, the story of boom in small cars business continues on when an analysis was done between the market share of small versus big cars. They found that in year 1979 in a period of merely five months the small cars took 58 percent of market share and the sales of vans was gone down to 42 percent. Here, when Chrysler wants to build small vehicles and try their luck in this category unfortunately the recession broke out in the country. The writer mentioned that the annual rate of sales was dropped to nearly half. After reading the above figures the narrator decided to go for an overhaul of the company in order to bring it in a stable position. For that, Chrysler initially closed its few plants and by doing this they also seek help from their suppliers and informed them from our every move. In fact if one keep on closing production units then for what good reason the suppliers will give Chrysler parts to manufacture their current and future products. To lower the cost more and avoid keeping the parts at the factorys inventory (a shop where all goods are stocked) Lee devised a new system called just in time meaning all those parts which are required to assemble car arrived from supplier when they have to manufacture and will be off from the production line when it is built, so no need of putting the parts in an inventory. Iacocca kept on cutting cost from where ever he could so he can run the company. He did this even when they sent the annual report of 1979 to the shareholders of the company. Instead of printing it on a thick good paper, Lee ordered to print it on a plain white paper written in black ink. This decision was to show the shareholders that in times of crisis, Chrysler remained within its resources and didnt opt for any wasteful step. Later on, when the company is in a desperate need of money Lee sold out the business which was expanded in overseas. He kept their operations to the US, Canada and Mexico. After this measure the money they got wasnt sufficient at all, there Iacocca decided to sell Chryslers tank division to General Dynamics. In the end of this chapter the writer said that, all those above decisions he took was necessary to brought Chrysler out of the ditch. Whereupon, to him he believed that the most unimaginable and painful deed was to lay off thousands of employees. But this act gave him a lesson that, if one has to run a large company and has limited number of employees then this would be very easy to do so than with lots of people in the company. The writer while finishing wishes that, competitors of Chrysler would never learn this lesson otherwise their profit will be lessened. DRASTIC MEASURES : GOING TO THE GOVERNMENT:- To save Chrysler from bankruptcy Lee asked government to help them in this matter. He approached the rich Arabs to do the same, but of no use. Later, Volkswagen the German giant car maker agreed on a merges with Chrysler. Unfortunately when they read our balance sheet, so they refused for the merger. The reason behind this failure of merger was that Chrysler had made no money and in severe debt. Eventually, Iacocca went for proper government assistance for giving them Loan Guarantees. They plan not to plead for such a guarantee. Here, this initiative was taken up by the outgoing Chairman John Ricardo. He explained the government about Chryslers current sick condition and asked to give a two year freeze on government regulations (meaning by law to control any business activity or a process) but none gave a kind ear to it. For governments bad safety and emission controls system he suggested a combined research and development program. He stressed that our aim is not to steal any compan ys good and cheap way of controlling emissions instead they should sell it to the needy. In this statement of Lee the government listened them and realized that our antitrust laws are never be competitive with Japanese, till someone would reform those laws. Instead of doing anything regarding formation of new competitive laws government signed collaboration between Toyota General Motors. According to the antitrust laws all the motor companies namely General Motors, Ford, American Motors and Chrysler ought to work in chunks in order to fix the same problems. On the other, Ricardo once again seeks government help for a freeze on regulations but the result came out in a NO. After seeing this behavior he asked them to give a refundable tax credit. Meaning the money Chrysler spends on qualifying for governments safety and pollution standards will be refunded to the company. The writer says that our company wasnt the first who asked for such a relief. In the past car makers like American Motors, Volkswagen, Renault, and General Motors already benefited by the taxes. Over there Ricardo, in wake of getting any support for loan guarantee one more time returned to government, whereupon his efforts werent of any use. The writer here explains that though Ricardo was a nice human being, yet he was a short tempered and not good at communication skills and Congressmen never liked such traits in any human. Later, on one fine day the writer learned that G. William Miller who previously holds the post of chairman of the Federal Reserve Board. In fact in America the State Bank of the country is called the Federal Reserve. So, now Miller becomes the treasury secretary here, Iacocca shares a strange aspect of Millers personality. When he was serving as chairman at Federal Reserve Board. He told to Ricardo that Chrysler would go for bankruptcy instead of government help. On the other, when he moved to his new post, he declared that government must help Chrysler. Afterwards he accept the proposal of Tax Credit but informed Chrysler people that to seek such type of assistance they have to rolled out a complete plan of survival to the government. The writer got no choice except going to government. In this regard he learned that a British Car Company Leyland took government support but after that the company never recovered. But still Lee filed an application for government loan guarantee. Before appearing in front of Congress Iacocca did his homework. This homework was about to know that in past how many companies are there which had been benefited from such a loan. There, speaker found that organizations that already got this loan were all the way from aircraft to City of New York and from housing to subway of Washington DC. In this research Lee found one very shocking thing that, till now government had given $409 billion in loans and loan guarantees were outstanding. While ending this chapter Iacocca describes that when Chrysler put up their case to government, it gave him a feeling that in government there was no person who remember those previously given loan guarantees to the above mentioned companies. SHOULD CHRYSLER BE SAVED? Yes, this question has become the question of town. This chapter revolves around the inappropriate attitude of senators, congressmen, businessmen, business leaders and other stake holders against the Federal Loan to Chrysler. In fact to save the company Lee requested the government to give them $1 Billion loan guarantee. The first refusal came from General Motors Tom Murphy and Citi Corporations (Citibank) Walter Wriston. Then National Association of manufacturers, policy committee of the business Round table too spoke bitter words for our company. Iacocca blamed the government for Chryslers current bad condition, especially government regulations and its unequal effects. But along with governments role Lee believed that previous managements inability to rectify various problems too brought them in this position. These problems were like, producing cars on basis of speculation, their decision of taking Chrysler to foreign markets, and lastly doing business of used cars. Instead of su ch doing things they ought to focus on quality of Chrysler cars. When Lee started appearing before Congress, he straight away informed them that Regulations was the first and last element which made Chrysler to beg for loan. In the end of this chapter Lee shares that American people is of the view that Chrysler had received $1 billion in cash which they never had to pay it back. CHRYSLER GOES TO CONGRESS:- In this chapter Iacocca talks about lot of things including passing of $1 billion loan, repaying it, and series of appearances before Congress and Senate committee etc. The speaker describes that this whole process of hearing was a gigantic task. In fact the layout of those hearing rooms forced the witness to first look up and then answers the questioner, because members of the committee sit at a semicircular table which was few feet above the floor. Before moving on to Chryslers hearing in Senate and Congress, here it is important to learn the so called allegations and scolding done by committee members. These were as below: A, Sins of management. B, Lack of foresightness for not building 30 miles per gallon as Japanese did. C, Not prepared for the aftermath of Shah of Iran. D, Not prepared for the screwed up fuel allocation, result in riots at gas stations. E, Chrysler missed the market and deserved punishment. Punishments:- They were held up in front of the whole world for asking government help. Disgraced on editorial pages, by cartoonists who painted Chrysler into the grave. In public places their wives and children became the target of jokes. Now one would see the relation about the passing of loan guarantee from writers eye. Iacocca, made his first appearance before the House Subcommittee on Economic Stabilization of the Committee of Banking, Finance and Urban affairs on October 18th, 1979. The writer explains the committee about Chryslers present condition and the exact words from book are I began my testimony by stating our case very simply. I am sure you know that I do not speak alone here today. I speak for the hundreds of thousands of people whose livelihood depends on Chrysler remaining in business. It is that simple. Our one hundred forty thousand employees and their dependents, our forty seven hundred dealers and their one hundred fifty thousand employees who sell and service our products, our nineteen thousand suppliers, and the two hundred fifty thousand people on their payrolls, and of course, the families and dependents of all those constituents. Lee made it clear to the committee that guarantees loan is not to receive an official gift from the Carters government (Jimmy Carter was the 39th President of the United States from January 20, 1977  Ã‚  January 20, 1981). Instead, Chrysler will pay back each cent and dollar of this loan including its interest. When the Loan Guarantee Act was passed, after few weeks the Republicans (name of political party in America) came to power. On the other hand, in this whole event Democrats (name of another political party in America) were in the government. But these Republicans talked very negative about giving loan to Chrysler. And that was the point where Lee realized that he should now start favoring the Democrats. The speaker describes that at the time of their companys bad condition if Democrats wasnt in government then Chrysler wouldnt have any existence today. The $ 1.2 billion dollar of loan was passed exactly before the Christmas and surely this Christmas had really given a priceless gift to all those people who were associated with Chrysle r. In the end the narrator reveals that Chrysler paid back their loan seven years early from the given time. Along with that they paid taxes of millions of dollars and fee of the Loan Guarantee Board. Last but not the least the opponents of their company too said that government loan given to Chrysler was a very noble idea. EQUALITY OF SACRIFICE:- From the title of this chapter the writer meant everyone has to sacrifice on basis of equality whether you are a Head of the company or a Worker. He further explained that though they need the loan desperately. But what really worked and brought Chrysler back on its feet was a team effort and cooperation. In fact the real story of Chryslers survival started now, because that loan Guarantee Act requires them to provide various concessions. Thereby, Lee reveals that our existence based on cutting cost from wherever one can. So, Iacocca decided that he should start this process of cost cutting by deducting $1.00 a year from his salary. This move of withdrawing one dollar was necessary to make others do the same. He says that as a leader of the company he should be the first one to show sacrifice in any form. Because for a leader its mandatory to come up with such examples, otherwise his followers would never follow on his footsteps. Lee describes that reducing his pay, never meant that he wont take his meals. What he is of the view that such a giving up, is to display a team work, familys job and togetherness. Here, for the first time he came to know that people can do anything if they knew that others are experiencing the same pain as they are feeling. Iacocca, repeat his words that all this collective and oneness took Chrysler out of the trouble and not those dollars, which they definitely required just like blood. Moreover, the speaker sadly discussed the worst part of the cost cutting which though lifted the company but finished peoples lives and that was about firing many workers. This act of ours destroyed the social fabric of masses which results in, that they got divorced and had to stop sending children to college etc. Later, he explained that when public and celebrities came to know about our goal to save Chrysler, by any way or means. They showed fabulous support by writing letters to the writer. Then all the way big celebrities of that time joined us i ncluding Bob Hope, Bill Cosby, Pearl Bailey, and Frank Sinatra were the people who performed at our premises, encouraged the workers to show collectiveness in this hour of struggle but they never charged us a single dollar. At the end of this chapter, writer wants to tells us about one major helper without whom this saving of Chrysler never be executed. This was Doug Fraser, president of workers union. Then Lee made him part of Chryslers board of directors. Who was extremely good at negotiation, got good know how about politics and would speak out the same what goes through his head. THE BANKS: TRIAL BY FIRE:- When the Congress passed Chryslers loan of $ 1.5 Billion dollars, it was time to collect the money from the designated banks. These banks were based in the whole country as well in other parts of the world. But these banks made Lee and associates to be on toes in order to receive their loan. The writer said that the banking sector started showing bad attitude to them, even before when Chryslers hearings initiated in Congress and Senate. When giving the amount in chunks the bank representatives never bothered about Chrysler and after how long its going to rise. What they always concerned was about their banks money, meaning when Lees Chrysler will pay back loans money to them. Eventually, after lot of hassle and hard time with bank people, they received Chryslers first installment. Thus, it will result into a rebirth of a motor company. THE K-CAR AND A CLOSE CALL:- The moment, day, month, and year was there for Chrysler to stand on its feet. In fact Lee and his very brilliant ex-Ford colleague and current coworker Hal Sperlich had dreamt to launch small American built cars, from the days when they were at Ford. Unfortunately, Henry Ford, chairman and CEO of Ford motor company never permitted them to do so. But now they had the time, resource to fulfill that dream but no need of seeking permission, because Iacocca was in charge at the company. So they built, researched its name, advertised and launch K-Car. This model of Chrysler was rock solid, got a decent style, and has four cylinders engine with a fuel efficiency of 25 miles per gallon in intra city. Whereupon its consumption on the highway (motorway) it has mileage of 41 miles per gallon. Apart from its features the best thing of K-Car, that it was the first vehicle that can fit in six Americans but remain light in weight and gives amazing fuel efficiency. PUBLIC MAN, PUBLIC OFFICE:- The writer describes here that when Chrysler was back on track in market and started doing well. He learned the news that he too is campaigning for President of US but truly it wasnt correct at all. Iacocca believed that people made such rumors on the basis, because he did lot of advertisements for Chryslers promotion. He further explained that people write many letters to him saying that he should run for president. Another well-wisher of Lee wrote to him: I will write exact words of book here and they are why dont you turn this country around? Why are you wasting your time selling cars? Iacocca, analyzed and observe that why people of America wants him to be their next President because from the day Eisenhower (34th President of United States from January 20, 1953  Ã‚  January 20, 1961) left Oval office (the office of US President is called Oval Office) America started going down. And all the way after Eisenhower, none would turned up to be a great President and stayed long to fl ourish the countrys economy. In the end he said that he is very grateful to all those people who think that he would be the next President of America. But he believes that these priceless statements of people made my day and gave lot of contentment, which cant be expressed. A BITTERSWEET VICTORY:- Chrysler right after producing K-Car, then manufacturing fantastic line of cars all the way from Le Baron, Chrysler E Class, Dodge 600, the New Yorker, in sports car category it was called Dodge Daytona and lastly Chrysler Laser. So, now Iacoccas great company was back in business and started making good profit. Whereupon, writer decided to do a press conference in which he wants to brief the media on their success. The primary purpose of this conference was to abandon those titles which media gave them when Chrysler was on the edge of bankruptcy. While talking to the press Lee said as: Effective immediately, Chrysler is no longer cash starved or struggling or financially troubled. If you insist you may continue to call us the nations number three auto maker. But those other phrases are now banished forever! Afterwards, the profit they made in next year surpassed Chryslers previous history of profit earnings. Further, writer talks about the promises they made to lift Chrysler. These promises includes, modernization of plants on basis of latest technology, converting the fleet of cars to front wheel drive technology, to become leaders in fuel economy, promised to maintain employment for half a million workers. Last but not the least promised to produce exciting products. The writer called this bittersweet victory to two things. He refe

Fate vs. Free Will (Oedipus Rex)

Sophocles creates a world that makes the reader think about the complex and mysterious battle between fate and free will in his play Oedipus The King. To the characters, fate is real and that’s what they believe in. The audience sees that Oedipus is the one making the divisions and altimetry it is himself that leads to his downfall. Apollo, the Greek god of prophecy, intellectual pursuits and pelage, told Oedipus about his tragic future. When we first encounter Oedipus we don’t see any way that he could escape such a tragic down fall. Oedipus is in search of the truth, he does everything in his power, even when every one warns him to stop searching. When he refuses to listen he shows that he does have some sense of free will. There is no oracle that says that Oedipus had to find out about the truth of what has happened. Sadly his stubborn temper lead him to make the bad decisions. When Oedipus goes to Thebes, he is presented with a choice, to become the king or to continue to move on. Oedipus' choice to stay puts him one step closer to fulfilling the prophecy. Oedipus is not forced into marrying Jocasta, this is simply his decision. By the end of the play Oedipus admits to himself and the people of Thebes that it was his choices that lead to his fate. â€Å"Now loathed by the gods, son of the mother I defiled coupling in my fathers bed, spawning lives in the loins that spawned my wretched life. What grief can crown this grief? It's mine alone, my destiny-I am Oedipus! † (Sophocles) Oedipus clearly says that he married his mother, that he was the one who had children with her, and the grief is all his. Even though he may believe that this was his destiny, he takes responsibility for fulfilling it. Oedipus has no trouble seeing the error of his ways. Although Oedipus takes responsibility, he is not the only person to blame. Over all, the blame could altimetry fall on Jocasta and Laius. They were warned that their child was going to have such a future when Oedipus was very little, but instead of having Oedipus killed and actually seeing the proof, they carelessly had the baby pinned on a mountain. Jocasta and Laius never actually made sure that Oedipus was killed. Oedipus references this at the end of the play: â€Å"If I'd died then, I'd never have dragged myself, my loved ones through such hell† (Sophocles) If this play is only about fate that takes control of Oedipus' life, then Sophocles theme was that no man really has free choice, no one can make, then learn from their mistakes. That life is governed by something other than himself. Instead, Sophocles leaves the argument of fate versus free will open for more interpretations. The truth is that Oedipus' choices are what led him to fulfill the prophecy. While Sophocles never directly says, what happens to Oedipus is a result of his own choices, it’s the end of the play is makes you resize that he was responsible for his own actions. Oedipus is responsible for his own down fall. Fate and free will are two completely different ideas that Sophocles is some how able to put into one in this play. As a writer he leaves it up to the reader to interpret the difference between free will and fate. Oedipus is given many chances to make choices, but do to his stubbornness, he is the one who leads to his own down fall.

Essay About Smart-Phones Industry Essay

Question 1 According to the task, I select the smart-phones industry as an example to figure out my own opinion. The marketing environment always consists of particular elements within a business’s external competitive environment and operating environment which is related to the demands of one product’s target consumer, that is also known as the target market member. The operating environment includes investors, employees, customers, creditors, and the marketing environment, and how to use a business and its obtained resources. The elements beyond the scope of the company’s control is a company’s remote environment composed of . Elements about the remote-environment incorporate current and expected economic, social, technical and political factors. The industry environment, which describes the situations of businesses supplying a similar kind of product or service, is also called the competitive environment. Analyzing the remote business environment is doing good at helping business people understand the innate character and tendency of the nowaday conditions. Remote analysis tells hidden issues and predicts directions. Competitive or industry analysis lends a hand for business managers knowing how can they make their outputs diverse and better than their competitors’. Operational analysis provides people an wide profile about the company. The operational profile benefits analysts in learning which business strategies are efficacious and after all which strategies may be needed to be optimized or abolished. The macro environment involves the external factors which can totally influence a business or industry. However, these factors are not often in the control or the management ability that a company equipped with. Factors typically also include economic, demographic and social, political, technological, and legal forces in business. Business managers as well as the owners often spend a lot of time and efforts to evaluate the worldwide economic environment to finally make a determination about the number and the effectiveness of all these factors. Economic factors are generally comprised of supply and demand, the actual number of competitors in this given market, availability of recently economic resources, and efficient manufacturing methods used by companies. All these factors influence this company’s output and latent profit margins while they are selling goods and services to their consumers. Free market economies obviously have more competition for the sake of that more individuals and businesses can benefit themselves through the raw materials, labor, and facilities in the market. Demographics and society refers to information which is about the buyers in this economic market. This information involves statistics on not only the consumer age, sex, race, religion, education, but also their household size, marital status, and also other similar information. Companies that use that information to create productions and marketing strategies in order to meet the demands of all the consumers in the designated macro environment. Whatever, this information interacts on general economic factors. Companies must have the ability to decide the consumer supply and need by assessing consumer benefits. Political forces generally indicate that the government agencies or apartments and policies must be responsible for this particular nation’s economy. Policies may involve business taxes, interest rate as well as the availability of currency. Otherwise, companies regular make a business decision that is based on the government involvement within a set business industry. Creating business distributions in these regions sometimes can reduce one company’s incomes and make it adapt to more regulations and laws, which also rises operating costs. Technological changes these recent decades have changed the method companies do trades in the very macro environment. Websites, network station, software based on Internet, and the fulfillment centers permit companies to put their goods and services in multiple and international economic markets. Strategies and performance reviews can favor owners as well as the managers to use the macro environment elements to product a few competitive advantages for their subsidiary companies. Recognition of strategic groups is the crucial side for industry itself analysis. A strategic group is comprised of firms in this industry which is following almost the same strategies that aimed at the same target market groups. Marketing environments are related to the stage which the product stand on in the whole business marketing life cycle. The life-cycle marketing environment, thus, the four marketing life-cycle stages incorporated introduction, growth, maturity or decline. New products emerge on stage Introductory which is often described by an invention or an original service. Environments in the growth stage are with high competition, that means there are many firms attempting to divide shares of the similar target market. When it comes to the maturity stage, sales are growing slowly since most buyers who buy this kind product are those people who have already bought the product before. Sales slow to a halt in the decline stage. However, there may be some types would not go through every stage in this marketing life cycle. Marketing environments could also be depictured obviously of no concern of the marketing life cycle. None market leaders exist in Fragmented marketing environments. And this kind environment consisted of plenty of relatively small firms. The global marketing environment is the station for worldwide selling products businesses. Smart phone companies are illustrations of businesses which connected close with this free global marketing environment. Question 2 Since I am one of Samsung’s loyal customers, let’s take Samsung LTD as an individual firm within the cellphone industry. Samsung is a famous company selling smart phones all around the world. When we go back to see the last ten years, the rapid development of the mobile technology is an very outstanding phenomenon which really forever changed nowadays society we live in. In spite of the challenges that the current mobile industry environment brings, mobile future buyers growth are continuing without stopping with the emergency of markets to lead the way. However, the mobile industry is facing with a good many key issues, the economic downturn as well as the saturation of the spectrum concerns included. Before going next, we must say something about marketing assets. It can fall into four categories as the following: Internal or marketing support assets is the first sort. For instance, cost advantages emerge when Samsung try many ways to save its cost; while, on the other hand, information systems together with market intelligence is also of consequence; moreover, Samsung do business bases on the feeling of their existing customer; technological skills is irreplaceable in today’s mobile industry. There are many other aspects in this professional realm. The next is called the Alliance-based assets which can be described by the following questions: do the company have a market access to entry the big market? How to access to this market? And what is their management skills? How to share technology and so on. Supply chain assets is another category. In this part, Samsung pays enough attention to distribution network and the relationships between workers and buyers; they deal wel l with the pockets of strength; they ensure the delivery lead times and security of supply which is hard to come by. The last one is Customer-based and reputation assets. Relationships between Samsung supplier and customers is good. Samsung has great company name as well as good reputation; nowadays Samsung really have the smart phone market’s domination and it can not get without superior products and the after-sale services. In order to develope Samsung’s marketing capabilities which refers to its ability to perform their fixed marketing-mix activities this firm must marshal all kinds of resources they have and then deliver the value to customer. Fortunately, Samsung did this, too. We can see advertising of Samsung’s product wherever we go, such as GALAXY S4. Resources portfolios are related to the project that organizations is described as collections of resources, assets, and capabilities. The crucial dimensions of resources portfolios are the significance of resources when it comes to create values for customers together with resource advantage relative to other smart phone producer, namely, competitors. What is the competitive advantage of Samsung? First, they save costs as possible compared to competitors based on the large-scale production or intensive production. Second, they have unique production and after service. Otherwise, Samsung has done good job in developing and exploiting all their resources. Since the emergency of Apple’s iPhone in phone market, most rival mobile manufacturers are spot in a hard ‘catch-up’ stage due to they fell behind after they did not find out how to use ‘touch screen’ technology through their cellphones’ production process. However, Samsung is a winner just like Apple. It exploited not only a unique system for Galaxy but also good screen-touch technology and applications. Around this rapidly developed world, the mobile industry is standing out. America is moving forward faraway but other countries keep banging away at their spectrum plans. The mobile industry, obviously, wants their governments to say something to clarified and regard their spectrum policies. Samsung start to research and develop spectrum since that more spectrum is needed whether they want many new opportunities to use mobile and wireless broadband technology to offer this society and the worldwide economy more help. With the number of mobile users are growing up day after day worldwide, the mobile industry is still put up with the declining Average Revenue Per User. The economic downturn, nevertheless, would not be the only element that driving down the ARPU; I believe that price wars involving in the increasingly competitive market and the trend for mobile users growth. Total cellphone sales and the mobile phone revenues were also decreasing in early years after the strong financial crisis. There is also evidence showing that the whole sales of smart phones are mounting while the handset sales totally being declining. Since Nokia has been losing its hegemony in market shares in the recent times. In spite of only this recent two or three years in the mobile market, Samsung has also become very very popular. Question 3 Sellers have three choices when they come in a market. Mass marketing is decided by a mass-produce mode and mass divide one product into pieces and try to attract each types of consumers. Target marketing is the decision to distinguish the different groups which make up a market to develop corresponding products and marketing mixes for each target market. Sellers in the last decade are continuing moving away from the mass marketing and they are moving towards their established target marketing since the latter is more helpful in cramping out market opportunities and developing successful product marketing mixes. Market segmentation is the procedure of dividing and measuring distinct groups of customers or potential buyers finally into subgroups in view of the same needs or preferences. Competitive positioning pay attention on how consumers consider about the sundry providing on the mobile market contrast with the other mobile producers. Not only the competitive positioning but the market segmentation must be formulated in this way so that the demand for consumers are fulled in ways which are better than competitors. Talking about so much, the definition of market positioning is not told. It is a sure process about formulating competitive positioning for each kind of product and the detailed mix of the product in marketing. The firm should be quite sure about their plan for how to introduce the function and advantage of the product to all these the consumers. How Samsung’s consumers think about it on significate attributes and decide the product’s position. That is to say, a company’s positioning relates to Samsung finding the appropriate ‘location’ among a group of buyers as well as their market segment is good so that they could d evelop a new product or provide better service in a customer desired way. While we define market segmentation as the process of placing the buyers in our target product-market and then divide them into multiple sub-groups for the members in every segmentation showing similar respond to a special positioning strategy. Market segmentation bases on the real information but not the marketers’ intuition. Obviously, Samsung catches the value of the procedure of market segmentation. They find out that customers are not all the same and other different products may probably take the fancy of buyers on multiform stages through their lifetimes. Considering about the mobile industry, for the sake of an illustration of this conception, Samsung practices what one preaches. The segmentation procedure refers to separating the big market into different groups of customers who might require separate products or marketing mixes, recognised that all buyers have unique needs and wants. It is generally possible in buyer markets to ensure comparatively homogeneous parts or segmentation of the whole mobile market rely on shared preferences, views, or actions that separate them from the others in the smart phone market. Diverse products and separate mixes may be needed in these segments, and one-to-one marketing approach segment is a decisive step in this contemporary. Generally speaking, B2B or B2C mode are used bu Samsung for a long time and its markets can be divided into parts using geographical and demographic descriptors, while diverse forms of behavioral descriptors and psychographics. Demographic descriptors include age like how old their customers are, gender which means female or male, household life cycle, income about their benefit, their occupation, their education degree, and race. Behavioral descriptors contain a plentiful collection of segment bases that benefits sought, behaviour about purchasing, usage about this kind of product, loyalty to distinct brand, their attitudes towards product and relationship seeking characteristics are included. Psychographic descriptors include personality and lifestyle, Samsung research every class for their buyers to gain more. References Hooley, G., Piercy, N., & Nicolaud, B. (2012). Marketing strategy and competitive positioning (5th ed.). New York: FT Prentice Hall. Oviatt, B. and McDougall, P. (1994), Toward a theory of international new ventures, Journal of International Business Studies, Vol. 25 No. 1, p. 45-64. Knight, G., Koed Madsen, T., Servais, P. 2004. An inquiry into born-global firms in Europe and the USA. International Marketing Review, 21/6, p645-665 Gleason, K., Madura, J., Wiggenhorn, J. 2006. Operating characteristics, risk and performance of born-global firms. International Journal of Managerial Finance. 2/2, p96-120 Lee, Li, Gongming, Qian, Zhengming, Qian. 2012. Early internationalization of small high tech ‘born-globals’. Strategic Marketing Review. 29/5. p536-561. Johanson, Jan and Jan-Erik VAHLNE. 1990. The Mechanism of Internationalization. International Marketing Review, vol. 7, no. 4, p. 11-24. Baird, Inga S. and ali. 1994. The Choice of International Strategies by Small Businesses. Journal of Small Business Management, vol. 32, no. 1, p. 48-59. Forrest, Janet E. 1990. Strategic Alliances and the Small Technology-Based Firm. Journal of Small Business Management, vol. 28, no. 3, p. 37-45. Larson, A. 1991. Partner Network : Leveraging External Ties to Improve Entrepreneurial Performance. Journal of Business Venturing, vol. 6, no. 3, p. 173-188. Doukas, J. and Lang, L. 2003. Foreign direct investment, diversification and firm performance, Journal of International Business Studies, Vol. 34, p. 153-72. Agmon, T. and Lessard, D.R. 1977. Investor recognition of corporate international diversification†, The Journal of Finance, Vol. 32 No. 4, p. 1049. Knight, G. and Cavusgil, S. 2004. Innovation, organizational capabilities, and the born-global firm, Journal of International Business Studies, Vol. 35, p. 124-41.

Assess the Impact of Key Influences on the Personal...

There are many factors that can have an influence on my learning. One of them is my friends. My friends can influence my learning by distracting me during lessons and also by helping me to catch up on work. In some ways, friends can motivate me because they encourage me to do my work and to get my assignments done on time. They also motivate me because they assist me with my work when I need it instead of waiting to ask a tutor which cannot be done as easily; I can easily call a friend. Friends have a positive influence on me because they are aware of the things that I am doing so that they know what I should be working on, mainly because my friends are all doing the same course as me. A negative affect that they have on my learning is†¦show more content†¦Employment can have a positive effect on my learning because it motivates me to do the best I can so that I can achieve my career goals. It would also benefit me because if I was employed with a part time job, I could have money that I would buy nice things with. I enjoy luxury things so by getting a snippet of what I can buy with the money I’m already earning can be a motivator for me to do well so that I can get a proper job and earn a lot more money which means having nicer things which I would enjoy and be my reward for doing well. Informal learning is the things that we learn in our day to day life. They don’t necessarily have to be taught (formal learning) but we do learn them. We do this by figuring things out by ourselves. (Jeffs, T. and Smith, M. K) Informal learning has taught me a lot more things about the world and why things happen. It’s where I’ve learnt most of my general knowledge. I can work out why things happen due to things that are related to it. An example is me discovering that my eyelid primer that I use for my eye-shadow and eye make-up is sticky. 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