Leadership programs in First National Bank

Leadership programs in First National Bank The researcher intends to present the case of Leadership programs in First National Bank in a South African context. The leadership of First National Bank is Inspirational like many other South African organizations however the attempt of transformation has made the interesting in the view of researcher. Researcher has also prompted a unique style of research method that can best describe the case with maximum practical knowledge and implementations comparisons of various leadership aspects. A methodological design is formed by the researcher basing on the issues like data sources and methods of data generation that are potentially available, and the Ontology of the methods that the researcher had prepared a design with. The idea of the researcher in using the team Ontology is to get the nature of reality and human behavior, however lack of positivism still exists in Ontology. Multiple scientific methods and techniques are taken into consideration by the researcher to better present the case problems. According to the researchers methodological design the paradigm, methodology, methods and findings is found both qualitative and quantitative. Combining methods by mixing qualitative and quantitative methods is becoming increasingly popular in leadership research as well as in other disciplines (Klenke, 2008). There are theories drawn by various authors basing on the purposes, sources and analyses. Kezar (2002) proposes Positionality theory to explore how gender, race/ethnicity, level of administrator, and the role of a leader within the organization affect the way the leader constructs images of leadership. Positionality theory Author Purpose Data sources Analysis Kezar (2002) To examine how positionality (e.g. race, gender, etc) relate to the construction of leadership Interviews, document analysis, reports, observations, analysis of physical environment Interpretive Basing on the positionality theory, it is understood that the researcher have followed the structure of the methodological design with an interrelation of qualitative and quantitative research. There are 5 main steps followed by the researcher in the research process: Defining research questions and research methodology Research methods basing on the case selection Design research tools Collecting and coding primary data Analyzing primary and secondary data and interpret findings The literature review of the researcher has all major fact findings about the research topic and established strong background knowledge about different theoretical concepts. The researcher was successful in achieving triangulation of research methods by using all major data collection methods like observation, interviews, document analysis. It is ensure by the researcher that the triangulation of data sources was followed in all three different steps: Management issues, looking FNB in a bigger context FNBs internal issues. An overview of Leadership in Organizations South African Leadership and its Styles: Leadership is widely discussed and studied but continues to remain an elusive and hazy topic. Knowing leadership is always when it is experienced (Rosenbach, 2006). Bratton defines leadership as influencing, motivating and enabling others to contribute toward the effectiveness and success of the organizations of which they are members (Bratton, 2007). The importance of concept of leadership has started increasing it value in modern times in organizations especially when the organizations are concerned in developing strong work culture, and building high performance sustainable work practices. There have been many arguments about the interrelationship between management and leadership functions; management is associated with words like planning, organizing, coordinating implementing where as leadership revolve around vision, charisma, change agent and motivation. Traditionally there are 2 types of leaderships; Transactional Leadership and Transformational Leadership. (Taylor, 2006) Transactional Leadership: It is the equitable transaction or exchange between leader and followers where by the leader influences the followers by focusing on the self interests of both. Transactional leadership is considered as good managerial leadership skill that is used basing on the situations that can result in good performance. Transformational Leadership: The transformational leader motivates followers to perform beyond expectations by creating awareness about the importance of vision and mission. Transformational leaders enable followers to transform purpose into action. Individual organizations prefer to choose they style of leadership basing on the organizations culture and environment. According to Matthew Valle; WLQ Report [Accessed on 12th December 2010] Leadership process in stable environment: Leadership Processes Train workers to anticipate problems Outcomes Performance Satisfaction Absenteeism Turnover Anticipatory culture Work Processes Anticipatory culture Routine Problems Stable environment Leadership process in turbulent environment Leadership Processes Train workers to adapt to problems Routine Problems (crisis) turbulent environment Outcomes Performance Satisfaction less Absenteeism fewer turnovers Anticipatory culture Work Processes Adaptive culture (Mathew Valle, 2002) Therefore of the public organizations are operating in turbulent environments, the need of study in a stabilizing environment demands leadership processes to hold the control accordingly. Since 1994 South Africa has experienced dramatic changes both on a political as well as economic front, brought about by globalisation as well as a new political dispensation in SA. Discrimination during the apartheid era excluded Africans, Asians and Coloureds from the economy, resulting in little organisational leadership skills development amongst excluded races. After Democracy in 1994, labour legislation was implemented to redress the inequalities in society; these measures include, amongst others, Affirmative Action. Further complicating the current organisational environment is: South Africa is a blend of the 1st and 3rd world economy. The shortage of skilled African workers/managers, with lucrative offerings especially African males, lead to job-hopping. Corruption, nepotism and culturalism. (To appoint from own culture, chief of a tribe inherited by birth not based on leadership skills), political appointments, perceptions and stereotyping along racial and gender lines have high impact on the organizational leadership attitude.. All these factors influence the type of leadership that is appointed and how diversity is managed in the modern South African organisations. Other social issues such as changes in education, health systems, HIV/AIDS, housing, poverty, increased crime rate and many others, affecting the organization and employee that function within this social framework. According to Tinus Burgers, (Burgers, 2003) South Africa is just beginning to wake up from the post 1994 euphoria where whites were desperately trying to expand their blackness through toyi-toying and singing Shosoloza while black people erroneously believed that white stuff will simply disappear. There are still very deep felt differences and distrust between races making leadership in diverse organisations very challenging. After democratic elections in 1994 sanctions against South Africa were lifted. South Africa emerged as a global player that has to adapt to global trends in order to be competitive. The accelerated rate of technological development necessitates quick adjustment and the need to move away from traditional management practices. The effect of technology (electronic networks, cellular telephones, etc.), transcends national, geographical, time and organisational boundaries, increase in availability of information, influences employees and organisational behaviour as employees have to face massive and accelerated changes (Weeks, 2003). These rapid changes in the global environment and the South African situation challenged the recreation of society at all levels. According to Nkomo this recreation ranges from individuals changing identities and roles to the transformation of major social institutions and financial institutions. In sum, the leadership challenge for South African organisations is: Retiring old thinking systems in parallel with creating new ones against the reality of high speed globalization and informationalism (Nkomo, 2004). The African model of leadership differs from that of the West. Self-reliance and self-interest are subservient to ethnicity and group loyalty. Interpersonal relations are placed above individual achievements. Wealth is first of all extended family wealth and then ethnic or tribal wealth, often to the expense of the organisation (Blunt, 1996). Ethnic cleavages can affect the performance of the organisation. Leadership is paternalistic of nature. Leaders bestow favours and expect and receive obedience and deference, with consensus playing a major role in decision-making resulting in decision making within levels to be taking a long time. There is also a great capacity for tolerance and forgiveness (Blunt, 1996). It was found that the leadership style in Africa is authoritarian, personalised, politicised and a high power distance, with power concentrated at the top. In this context, the leaders job becomes one of operationalising directions received from above, making them clear to subo rdinates and providing advice and support. African leaders are therefore overwhelmingly concerned about the quality of hierarchical relationship with their superiors, rather than with individual or organisational effectiveness. This degree of dependence on seniors by the more junior individuals is seen as normal (Blunt, 1996). There is a masculine dominance across all ethnic groups. Managerial ideologies tend to reflect unitarist ideas seeing the organisation as a cohesive team (happy family) with the emphasis on loyalty and conflict avoidance, emphasizing UBUNTU (humaneness), group decision making and interdependence. Managerial styles reflect both Western values based on individualism and meritocracy and an authoritarian legacy of apartheid and colonialism. From a followers perspective Africans prefer a leader that is kind, considerate and understanding to one who is too dynamic, productive and demanding. Leaders are seen to possess genuine authority but are expected by their subordinates to use it sparingly and in a humane and considerate way (Blunt, 1996). From the above views it is understood that, to build a new South Africa, African concepts had to be reviewed that get to an end to apartheid. The case First National Bank. [Accessed 12th December 2010] The idea of the researcher in choosing a Financial Services Industry in South Africa like FNB is definitely a unique challenge. Firstrand is the 2nd largest banking institution that is born from the merger of Rand Merchant Bank (RMB), Momentum, First National Bank (FNB) and southern life in 1998. Firstrand is divided into 3 main business areas: banking (First National Bank and Rand Merchant Bak), insurance (Momentum), and health. According to exhibit 1 produces in the case Firstrand additionally divides its earnings into four clusters: Retail, corporate, wealth and health. South Africa has its unique challenges in terms of handling leadership in an African way. The leadership style in South Africa is inspirational and the relation between both the leadership have may common elements. African leadership is focused more on community, where as in inspirational leadership the focus is on individuals. Relationship Diagram Inspiration African Spirit Spirit Interconnectedness Described by African principles like Spirituality UBUNTU INDABA ISITHUNZI INSPIRATIONAL LEADERSHIP AFRICAN LEADERSHIP First National bank: Inspirational Leadership in South African context [case handout] Inspirational Leadership: Spirit and Spirituality were referred as the important aspects of inspirational leadership by the researcher basing on the South African context. High performance and innovative organizations require Inspirational leadership, stronger management skills, a highly-trained and motivated workforce, a flexible labor market that promotes diversity and fair treatment, and workplaces that recognize environmental issues and the need for greater resource productivity. Inspirational Leadership in South Africa involves the terms spirit and spirituality in handling leaderships in organizations. The leaders often tend to inspire their followers basing on the cultural values that are strongly routed in South Africa. This is one of the problems of First National Bank. FNB being into global operations, there will be many employees that will be not based from the South African culture and survival and acceptance of the work environment and implementing leadership in those prospective will become extre mely difficult. Ad defined earlier Transforming the leadership style become important, although the relationship between Inspirational and African spirit is closely associated. Anderson (1999) illustrates a graphical representation that best describes the leadership relationship: Effective learning organizations Build healthy communities High-performance teams build Successful learning organizations Effective team leaders build High performance teams Personal and interpersonal development Builds effective team members and leaders Self leadership leads to Individual and team success (Anderson, 1999) African Spirit: There are certain deep routed principles of leadership indulged in to African spirit like; UBUNTU, INDABA, VUKA. UBUNTU is the people based leadership style. This is the traditional social African philosophy of humanism which says caring for the people fist. INDABA-openness and inter-ethnic harmony in stating individual opinions is referred as INDABA. VUKA-A wake up and free yourself concept. The relationship between Inspirational Leadership and African spirit lies in African Renaissance: humanism that is referred as a system of thought that regards humans of being capable of using their intelligence to live their lives rather than relying on religious beliefs and collectivism is the ownership of land, business or industry by the people or state. A balance between individualism and collectivism has developed an integrated approach to leadership Issue: Due to cultural differences internally and externally within the organization, First National bank have decided to address these things immediately, which could be a cause of losing business in the near future. As soon as the decision is made, First Rand appointed two new leaders in FNB to address the cultural and leadership issues in the changing environment. A complex restructuring process was bought into shape that focuses mainly on the revenue growth with less cost. The result of the process is expected to be the improvement in customer service through transforming their leadership styles with in employees. The VUKA Program (Wake up): The idea of the program is to transform the company from an isolation mode of to common vision and mission within the organization. Transformational process in a company is about taking a company from an old state of being to new state of being. The senior management of the company has decided to involve them as the first step to make a difference to the program; the idea is to get every single staff member directly involved into the program as the main principle. The goal of the program is to create a work place community of new South Africans from different backgrounds. The first session of VUKA program were designed for 2 days involving topics like Barrier breaking, emptying, visioning, re-visioning, leadership and accountability and understanding the change. Merits on the program: Limitations on the program: The focus on the first days workshop session is on topics like Barrier breaking, emptying, visioning, re-visioning, leadership and accountability and understanding the change. The result of the goal of the program d Klenke, K. (2008) Mixed methods in leadership research, Qualitative research in the study of leadership. Emerald Group Publication Ltd. Bingley. pp 155-157. Kezar (2002) cited in Klenke, K. (2008) Mixed methods in leadership research, Qualitative research in the study of leadership. Emerald Group Publication Ltd. Bingley. p 163. Rosenbach, E. (2006) The heart of Leadership. Contemporary issues in leadership. 6th ed. Westview press. Cambridge, P. 1. Bratton, J (2007) Leadership, Work and Organizational behavior. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. p 131. Valle, M (2002) Cited in Rosenbach, E. (2006) Leadership and culture in public organizations. Contemporary issues in leadership. 6th ed. Westview press. Cambridge, P. 66-67. Burger, T. (2003). South Africa: musing of an ordinary citizen Part II. Management Today, June 2003. P. 16 Weeks, R. (2003). ICT and business strategy: two sides of the same coin. Management Today, June 2003. Nkomo, S. M. (2004). Leadership Dynamics. Strategic management and organizational dynamics: the challenge of complexity, 4th ed. Pp226-228. Blunt, P Merrick, L.J. (1998). Cited in ed. by Lennart, W. Jerker, C. Henock, K. Institution building and leadership in Africa, p. 186. First National Bank [online image]. Available from: https://www.fnb.co.za/about-fnb/about-us/about-us-overview.html [Accesses 12th December 2010]. MLQ Report [online image]. Available from http://www.tlcc.biz/transformational_leadership_assessment.htm [Accessed 12th December 2010]. Anderson, T (1999) Transforming Leadership and the promise of Leadership organization, Transforming Leadership. Blackwell publishing, British Library. P. 11

Disciplining Children Essay

When I was younger we used to get disciplined with corporal punishment. Not saying that this is always the answer but it is what is needed sometimes. If more parents were allowed to use corporal punishment as means of discipline it would let the children know who is in charge. Sometimes it seems the law gives most of the authority to the children. When children do something wrong there needs to be a punishment fitting to the actions. If a child writes on the wall you should talk to them and tell them that it is not ok to write on the walls and why. When you catch them a second time and they acknowledge what they did was wrong you explain to them why it is not ok to write on the walls, and let them know that they will really be in trouble if they do it again. Now if you catch them writing on the walls again at this point there needs to be something that shows them you are serious†¦ in comes corporal punishment. Depending on the age of the child and what was done decides the severity of the corporal punishment. Sometimes this could be as simple as a tap to the hand of a three year old for using foul language, up to taking a belt to the behind of a thirteen year old for taking a knife to school. I’m not saying that corporal punishment is the first means or the only means of discipline. Explaining what was done is wrong should always be the first course of action. When the same problem constantly arises that’s when it is necessary. But after you do use corporal punishment you must talk to the child and explain that you don’t like having to spank them, but you have to show them there will be serious consequences for their actions in life. If you only talk to children it could lead them to believe this will be the highest level on discipline. As children get older they base the level of punishment on what was given to them by their parents. If you constantly let your children get away with things and only talk at the problem they will think that’s what the world will do also, so acting out in school would be nothing to them even when the teacher tells them they are going to have to call their parents. But if the child receives corporal punishment often for being too out of hand when the teacher says they are going to call the child’s parents they’ll know the better get it together because there will be serious consequences if they don’t.

INFS1602 Assignment A Essay

The purpose of this report was to design a start-up strategy and IS infrastructure for Ruth & Luke (R&L) Crowdsource’s business. Research for this report identifies the focus (target market), opportunities and threats in entering the market and provides a detailed business model. This report incorporated recent statistical data in relation to online social media, various journal articles and books obtained online. Research for the target market indicates that the seekers comprise of mainly businesses of a variety of sizes that are familiar with the practice of crowd-sourcing. In regards to the solvers, findings suggest that university students and academics will be the dominant target market for R&L Crowdsource’s business. Using the five-forces model to identify new market entrants, substitute products and services, customers, suppliers, and competitive rivalry, overall there is a medium-high level of threat in entering the market. Further research recommends that R&L Crowdsource should focus more on achieving an easily accessible system with availability to an extensive range of audiences while raising reputation and credibility by advertising through online social media, the ‘Google’ search engine and newspapers. The efficiency and effectiveness of R&L Crowdsource’s business operations will be dependent on the amount of investment into the appropriate information systems, which may be financed through revenue obtained by charging a fee to seekers. Target markets (seekers/solvers) R&L Crowdsource will be commencing the online business initiative for clients who are seeking for their business problems to be solved through outsourcing the business solution. To identify potential target markets R&L Crowdsource needs to consider following characteristics: Seekers: Type of clients : R&L Crowdsource needs to determine the type of business that their client conducts i.e. retail companies or IT companies. Online and offline research needs to be undertaken to see which sectors of these markets need R&L Crowdsource’s business solution services. This is because a variety of companies encounter different levels of difficulty within the businesses operations. As this is a relatively new type of service, it has not widely adopted it yet. Therefore, R&L Crowdsource should focus more on those who have used this service previously or are in the same industry where their competitors have used due to the fact that they are more likely to be interested (Alzawahreh & Khasawneh, 2011). This can be done through online research and surveys. Size of clients : Online research conducted primarily from Innocentive.com (www.Innocentive.com) suggests that the size of clients should not be prioritised. The research revealed that regardless of whether they are operating internationally or domestically, a variety of different sized companies are likely to favour outsourcing their business problems. Examples of these companies include P&G (Spradlin, 2012). Solvers: In order to target the market for seekers effectively, the directors of R&L Crowdsource should reflect on their experiences as past seekers. Primarily, different participants will conduct each project and depending on the characteristics of the projects, it may require more time and work. People who already have a full-time job are not likely to desire spending their spare time on additional works unless it has either a high level of reimbursement or it is an area of interest. Therefore, R&L Crowdsource should initially seek university students and academics that are qualified in certain fields so that the outcome will be more reliable. Implementation of 5 forces model New Market Entrants This type of business initiative is fully based on the supplier and they are free to participate and exit for the given challenges. The company will have a middleman role, which connects the suppliers to its clients. There are few economies of scale in place because there is no significant capital investment required and specialised technology is not required. The company will likely encounter other competitors coming into the market when it commences sooner or later. However, its strong brand development achieved by successful and stable customer relationship established will lead to a low threat of new entrants in the market. Substitute products and services Those who request these services would be less concerned about the process, caring only about the outcome. The assumption based on this initiative is that â€Å"the wisdom of crowds† will come up with optimised ideas for the challenges. Furthermore, clients who are considered as conservative will have a tendency to solve the business problems with internationally well-recognised business consulting companies as they can work collaboratively. They provide more systematic ways of solving problems and can work interactively with the companies as their group of employees will work for the company with well-trained and qualified human labours while it costs more. This may result a high level of client satisfaction rate. Furthermore, there is the likelihood that large sized companies would substitute this type of service by using their internal resources. This means that there is a medium to high level of threats of substitute services. Customers At the present, the bargaining power lies with the customers until R&L Crowdsource has built up a reputable audience consisting of both seekers and solvers. The main feature of this business initiative is that clients do not know who will be participating in the task and this will seem unattractive to more conservative companies due to the fact that they would be prefer to spend their resources on reputable companies and individuals instead of taking a risk through Crowdsourcing. Suppliers Suppliers will be those who are willing to attempt given challenges with other people collaboratively to discover the ideal solution. Since the business has a fundamental idea that collaborative work with other people who have different background will come up with better ideas, supplier bargaining power will be considered as relatively lower in this business type. This is because development of Internet accessibility has allowed a large number of users to facilitate a variety of internet resources regardless of their geographical location. Therefore, we assume that there will be a large number of potential participants who would like to take challenges with certain level of reimbursement. Competitive Rivalry This type of an online business is not widely recognised so far and only few existing competitors have provided the services. However, this does not benefit the R&L Crowdsource’s business because it also has a disadvantage, which is the lower level of switching costs for clients. A differentiated feature of this business from its potential competitors in the market is that the business problem will be worked on by a group of people who have different background knowledge rather than one individual. Therefore, even though this business market is considered as a blue-chip business, there is medium to high level of industry rivalry between competitors. Business Strategy R&L should utilise a click only strategy to assist their online business. The strengths of an online business lie with the low start-up capital and overhead costs, consisting of mainly purchasing a domain, designing the website and promoting the business. In this case, however, we will be promoting the business mainly through online social media which no cost. In order to gain exposure or popularity, something essential for every business, after designing the website, marketing should be invested in to find potential customers. Re-iterating the target markets from above, solvers would primarily consist of people who may not have full-time jobs and for people who may be full-time studying. However, knowing the target market will not increase website traffic, advertisements and other methods should be used in establishing R&L’s company’s reputation. R&L should advertise firstly with ‘Google’s AdWords’. As ‘Google’ dominates the search engine market, with 83% of search users using ‘Google’ and just under 1 trillion uses per year it emphasises its popularity. This online advertising program would allow for R&L’s advertisements to appear on ‘Google’ and its partner websites and will only charge R&L when someone clicks their ad. Using online social media is another method they should undertake in order to attract more seekers and solvers. Creating a page on ‘Facebook’ will allow R&L to announce co-creation projects and communicate with the public. If, for example, a large business ‘likes’ this page, it will be opened to a greater number of people, increasing credibility and reputation. Other sites such as twitter may also be used for announcements and increasing popularity. Advertising on newspapers or magazines should also be considered. Placing advertisements on the business section of newspapers may appeal more to seekers whereas advertising on other sections may appeal more to solvers. However, this may be less effective in finding solvers if we consider our target market for solvers to be full-time students in comparison to advertising on ‘Google’ and online social media websites. Once a Crowdsourcing project is established and seekers are found, if the project is successful, R&L should attempt to increase popularity and credibility through their client’s business in an attempt to continue the network effect mentioned earlier. Web 2.0 Mainstream and emerging Web 2.0 technologies and applications have greatly enabled users to share with and communicate to the broader world through online media. By advertising R&L’s business through social media, there is a higher potential to develop and expand this business. This business strategy relies partly on the network effect, as it will be dependent on the amount of users. As more users participate, the network will grow exponentially. Statistics also reveal that 60% of social media users are willing to post about products/services on ‘Facebook’ if it is of interest and that 91% of experienced social marketers see improved website traffic due to social media campaigns . As seen from these statistics, it is evident that the use of online social media such as ‘Facebook’ and ‘Twitter’ will be of benefit in increasing website traffic and exposure to the broader population. Also, in order to establish this liaison system, many applications or programs of web 2.0 should be employed to enable the operations of the business. As they are just starting the business, the use of free web-based tools such as ‘Google Docs’ and ‘eGroupWare’ will enhance the ability for the solvers to collaborate as any work submitted or edited will be updated automatically for everyone to read. As with any content management systems, roles must be set in order to maintain an efficient workplace. Having editors who can only edit material and administrators to watch over the work and behaviour of the editors will dissuade solvers from abusing their editing privileges. Using web based email clients such as ‘Gmail’ or ‘Hotmail’ will allow for seekers and solvers to communicate with R&L in regards to any problems outside of the work. As these web-based clients have options to organise emails into separate areas or folders, the emails won’t be as cluttered and be easier to deal with. Business Model: An organisation’s business model is essentially the blueprint of their business logic and ideologies (Ludeke-Freund, 2013). As such, it is critical that an effective business model is both established and adhered to. Osterwalder’s business model canvas is explained in nine different pillars. Key Partners Key Activities Value Proposition Relationships Clients Key Resources Channels Cost Structure Revenue Stream Source: Alexander Osterwalder Value Proposition RL Crowdsource needs to provide a universal crowd sourcing service, which connects solvers and seekers alike. The competitive advantage that RL Crowdsource should be striving for is an easily accessible system, which provides access to an extensive range of audiences. Whilst crowd sourcing is freely available on the Internet, R&L should implement a system that easily connects a seeker directly to the best available solvers. In an increasingly global generation, RL Crowdsource should also have the ability to bypass language issues, which would normally stop a seeker from outsourcing work. The presence of RL Crowdsource as an intermediary will also enable easier transactions. Payment and reward incentives would be transacted through RL Crowdsource, decreasing the possibility of fraud and enabling peace of mind for many users. Other solvers may be motivated by the social benefits derived from creations that benefits society greatly. Some others may not be motivated by recognition or monetary incentives but instead, choose to â€Å"free reveal† ideas (Krogh, 2006). R&L Crowdsource should endeavour to harness these different sources of motivation by being the delivery system for any rewards and incentives. The communication and collaboration between solvers and seekers in the project should produce greater satisfaction and results. It should be noted that the satisfaction and results were facilitated through RL Crowdsource’s C2C business system, and thus forms part of the value proposition to R&L Crowdsource’s clients. Pathak (2009) articulates this through emphasising the efficient nature of platforms, which allow consumers to cooperate and collaborate with each other in real time. RL Crowdsource will conduct advertising and recruiting activities on behalf of the client. This is particularly important because a large part of RL Crowdsource’s target audience will have little or no expertise and experience in this area. Key Activities To successfully enable the value propositions stated above, R&L Crowdsource must establish a system to connect consumers. A key element of that aspect would be a search RSS feed that connects a solver’s characteristics and qualifications with that of a seeker’s. The feed should have different categories alongside a onsite search engine. De La Torre-Diez (2013) educates that an RSS Feed is an extremely effective method for sharing frequently updated information on the Internet. It is also a low-cost method of creating universal access to the offerings of the firm through the Internet (Ning et al., 2008). A customer relationship management system and a multilingual search engine within the company’s website would also be useful for developing customer relationships and achieving the value propositions. The implementation of these systems would be dependant on the availability of capital. As the firm invests in these information systems, the key is for quicker and more accurate connections between seekers and solvers. This will thus create more value for everyone as more users use the site. Key Resources Capital is clearly the most important resource. It will enable R&L Crowdsource to obtain technological requirements such as computers, networks, databases and customised ERP systems. A physical location to store these items will need to be available as well. As the value propositions are primarily based online, R&L Crowdsource should mitigate a lot of resource expenses attributed to traditional brick and mortar businesses (Pure-Play e-Business Development, 2000). Key Partners The key partners of a firm are those who support and aid the firm’s success on a professional level (Clark, Osterwalder & Pigneur, 2012). As such, R&L Crowdsource should consider its I.T department or outsourced I.T consultants to be a key partner. This is because the firm’s value propositions rely entirely on the ability of its information systems. The design and accessibility of the system will also determine the success of the system. Other key partners could include large business customers whose reputation can give credibility to R&L Crowdsource’s legitimacy. Likewise, R&L should consider all users as a key partner simply because it relies on its users to create the value proposition for other users. Customer Relationship Managing customer relationships is critical for every business that aspires to attain a competitive advantage. The nature of a customer relationship is defined by how responsive, attentive, personalised and customised it is (Bankston 2013). A key aim to maintaining customer relationship is therefore to increase efficiency and effectiveness for every seeker or solver. Due to the low switching costs attributed to many businesses based primarily online (Pure-Play e-Business Development, 2000), customer loyalty is often defined through the value and customer service attained by the customer. Therefore, R&L Crowdsource must continue investing in the key resources defined above to maintain customer loyalty. Other methods to enhance customer loyalty can be through discounts and lower pricing. Channel Communication between the firm and its customers is a vital element. For a firm whose value proposition is primarily based online, it is rational to have communication channels based primarily online as well. Milburn (2004) states that the challenges faced by companies, involves encouraging a behavioural change to electronic communication. This makes sense for the company because electronic communication is often the method of communication with the lowest cost as well (Milburn, 2004). Methods such as email and enquiry forms on the website should be used. The advantage of electronic communications lies in the fact that it is accessible at any time of the day. However for electronic communication to be successful, it must be quick, responsive and easy to navigate (Bernier, 2013). Customer Segments R&L Crowdsource should be creating value for both seekers and solvers. It is paramount that both segments of the market see value in order for R&L Crowdsource to deliver its value propositions. The most important customers are the customers who generate the most revenue for the firm. These typically include organisations that use R&L Crowdsource extensively . Cost Structure The most important costs in this business model involve the business systems that deliver the value proposition to our clients. This includes the database (which needs to be constantly updated), alongside server bandwidth and RSS Feed design. These resources are likely to be the most expensive as it also incurs a constant maintenance cost. Legal support will also be required to make sure R&L Crowdsource abides by national and international legislation in its activities. Revenue Streams The revenue streams for R&L Crowdsource should be primarily from the seekers. An example of this can be seen by eBay.com, where the seller pays a percentage of the final sale price to eBay, alongside administration fees. This is a model that R&L Crowdsource should adopt. Bonakdar et al. (2012) educates that misguided revenue gaining ideals will hurt all business models. Therefore, R&L Crowdsource should refrain from charging fees on solvers. This will allow the number of solvers to increase because the service is free to them. Revenue will thus rise naturally as the number of seekers increases. References 1. Alzawahreh, A., Khasawneh, S. (2011). Business Strategies Adopted by Jordanian Organisations: The Key to sustained Competitive Advantage. Interdisciplinary Journal of Contemporary Research in Business, Volume 3 . 2. Amir Bonakdar, T. W. (2013). Transformative Influence of Business Processes on the Business Model: Classifying the State of the Practice in the Software Industry. Hawaii: Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences. 3. Bankston, K. (2013). What’s Your Top Goal. Credit Union Management . 4. Bernier, P. (2013). Taking the Customer Experience Mobile. Business Source Premier (7), pp. 8-11. 5. Clark, T., Osterwalder, A. (2012). Business Model You: A One-Page Method For Reinventing Your Career. Hoboken, New Jersey, USA: John Wiley & Sons . 6. Cherry Tree & Co. (2000). Pure-Play e-Business Development. USA: Cherry Tree & Co. 7. ComScore, 2011. Statistic Brain. [Online] Available at: http://www.statisticbrain.com/google-searches/ [Accessed 16 April 2013]. 8. Kristin Purcell, J. B. L. R., 2012. PewInternet. [Online] Available at: http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2012/Search-Engine-Use-2012/Summary-of-findings.aspx [Accessed 16 April 2013]. 9. Krogh, v. (2006). Free Revealing and the Private Collective Model for Innovation Incentives. R&D Management , 36 (3), 295-306. 10. Ledeke-Freund, F. (2013). Business Models for Sustainable Innovation: State-of-the-art and Steps Towards a Research Agenda. Journal of Cleaner Production , April Edition, 9-19. 11. Milburn, P. (2004). Customer Communications: Keeping Pace in an Ever-Changing Environment. Keeping Good Companies , 56 (8), 458-459. 12. Pathak, B. (2009). C2C Business Models: Beyond Online Marketplaces. Hershey, PA, USA: IGI Publishing. 13. Pring, C., 2012. The Social Skinny. [Online] Available at: http://thesocialskinny.com/99-new-social-media-stats-for-2012/ [Accessed 16 April 2013]. 14. Spradlin, D. (2012). Are you Solving the Right Problem?. Harvard Business Review 15. Torre-Diez, I. d. (2013). Development and Performance Evaluation of a New RSS Tool for a Web-Based System. Journal of Network and Computer Applications, Volume 7. 16. X Ning, H. J. (2008). RSS: A Framwork Enabling Ranked Research on the Semantic Web. Information Processing and Management . Overview of the Report The main purpose of the assignment is to illustrate how our client should commence their own business initiative into a viable business venture with our recommendation as a team of Information System consultants. Basically, we had to design a ideal and optimized business model for our client with reasonable explanation and how Information System will accelerate their business initiative. During our preparation for the group project for INFS1602, we started from reviewing the lecture notes and prescribed text book individually for the brainstorming stage. This was suggested by Justin as we did not fully understand all concepts and theories that the lecturer explained during the week 1 to 5 lectures. This idea was an absolutely good starter for our group work and we were able to find the right direction and it gave us a clear way of completing the work After the brainstorming stage, we had to discuss more details regarding of the assignment as none of us had the identical idea such as which target market we should decide as well as how we can recommend which business model Ruth and Luke should adopt. Throughout the brainstorming process, we came up with a variety of different ideas for potential target markets and Porter’s competitive forces model described in the text book was used in order to justify why we chose the target markets for the client’s business. This textbook resources were quiet useful, however, we needed to do further researches since it illustrated mainly generalized ideas and we wanted to see how actual Porter’s competitive forces model is adopted in practice. Therefore, we found some samples of the Porter’s model and this gave us very clear ideas about the first part of the assignment. When we were doing the second part of the assignment which is describing how our client should use information systems and technology to create value and how mainstream and emerging Web 2.0 technologies and applications could be used to enable the strategy and operation of the business, we referred to our textbook mainly from chapter 3 to chapter 4. Some case studies from the text book were significantly helpful to understand how actual information system is working for existing companies. Particularly, in terms of answering how the business initiative can generate revenue, the case study in chapter4 was a time-saver as we discussed these issues during workshop and various different opinions and perspectives from classmates stimulated when we were doing the brainstorming. In conclusion, while we were doing the group assignment, we encountered some conflicts as they had different point of view for the same issues and we effectively solved those issues cooperatively. Workshops, textbook and the lecture notes were the main resources that we used and a bit of supportive online researches were conducted in order to verify our recommendation for the client. Also we all agreed that information system is a combination of all different business knowledge and can maximise a business strategy if we can apply properly.

Gothic Epistemology - 746 Words

Criticism on the Gothic novel has been plentiful, yet such work tends to view the Gothic novel within the constraints of genre rather than investigating its wider influence in the nineteenth century. â€Å"Gothic Archives† will track this influence, arguing that the Gothic novel indicates changing attitudes toward reading, and especially toward reading history, in the nineteenth century. Gothic novels such as Melmoth the Wanderer (1820), and the meta-Gothic of The Antiquary (1816) presume that authentic historical experience is difficult, if not impossible, to represent accurately, emphasizing in their plots the misunderstandings that result from attempts to read and write historical experience. It follows that the Gothic novel typically stages†¦show more content†¦Far from being limited to the Gothic novel, however, â€Å"Gothic Archives† contends that this approach to—and suspicion of—representing history is distinguishable in other nineteenth c entury texts not generally thought of as Gothic. Texts such as Carlyle’s The French Revolution (1837) and Ruskin’s The Stones of Venice (1851-53) demonstrate the same anxiety described above, attempting to reconstruct authentic historical experience by interpreting relics. Significantly, these histories, like the Gothic novel, attempt to surmount the problem of historical distance (and the representational slippage which, for the Gothic, distance makes inevitable) through the invocation of extreme emotional states. In its attempt to reconstruct the whole from its parts, the Gothic novel’s popularity in the nineteenth century can also be usefully paralleled to a contemporary intellectual development: the nascent discipline of literary studies. This project will argue that the current enterprise of literary criticism is historically indebted to Gothic ways of thinking, and seeks to trace that influence across the nineteenth century. In so doing, â€Å"Gothic Archives† advances a link between the Gothic histories of Carlyle and Ruskin and the work that modern literary critics do. That is to say: by comprehending the mutual influence of fiction upon criticism andShow MoreRelatedThe Conscious Good Of Unconscious Evil Essay1296 Words   |  6 Pagestruth of humanities frigid evil. This evil he alluded to justified his bad actions with questioning his reality that filled him with self awareness. 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