Compensation and Benefits Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Compensation and Benefits - Essay Example It wanted to be recognized as one of the finest places to work. To actualize that vision and mission, Nike implemented an incentive program in correlation with the mission. In any organizations including Nike, the workers do their duties for personal motivations like money (salary), but their motivation will get a great boost if they receive additional financial rewards, promotions and recognitions. When the reward component is analyzed from the perspective of organization's mission, it does somewhat supports Nike's mission. That is, Nike's mission is "To bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete in the world" (Nike Business, n.d.). Even though, this mission is customer centric, to achieve that mission the employees have to work effectively. To make the employee at Nike work effectively, the incentive program plays an important role. The incentive program implemented inside Nike perfectly fits with its resources. That is why, Nike has introduced an incentive program called Performance Sharing Plan, which correlates with the company's performance. "Performance Sharing Plan (PSP) - Nike has an annual bonus plan that rewards employees based on Nik e's performance (to reward team success) and individual performance (to reward your contributions to that success)." (The New York Job Source, 2008). As the program rewards the workers who perform up to the expected level, it meets the expectations of the employees. Importantly, this incentive program is fully attracting and retaining the employees. That is, Nike by rewarding and giving incentives to the deserving and 'success achieved' employees through this program and other programs is making them stick to the organization. This system is very flexible because it changes according to the performance of Nike. That is, if the employees perform optimally and raise organizational productivity and profits, they will be rewarded optimally. As this program is applicable to all types of employees, it cannot be tailor made for specific workers. On the whole, this incentive program functions as one of the main motivating factors for the employees, making them stick to the organization and thereby helped Nike reach the status of the world's number one maker of athletic shoes, equipment and apparel. When organizations fail to reward the employees appropriately, it could wean way the workers from the group decision making process and the resultant work teams. That is, some times or even frequently, the management overriding tried and trusted individuals could give important posts and responsibilities to individuals with negative attributes. If this practice is followed in the organisation, it will create disenchantment among the workers and will destroy team work. This ritual of awarding plum posts, rewards, incentives, etc, to the inappropriate members by the leader or the management team is not a norm in Nike. Nike rewards the employees in an unbiased manner. As mentioned above even this main incentive program of Performance Sharing Plan is applicable to all performing employees. Because of this strategy, workers in Nike are not banding together in a kind of mutual pr otection society with a culture of its own, but unite as work teams and are working in unison for the organizations. Unison of workers into teams with an urge to usher an organization into a successful endeavor will actualize, if the

Plato, John Dewey, Maria Montessori Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Plato, John Dewey, Maria Montessori - Essay Example To the prisoners the shadows and objects are his reality. (Cottingham, 1996, p. 67-69 512-513) In case the prisoner is allowed to turn around or even stand the sunlight coming into the cave from the entry will be too much for him. And if they are objects passing by their shadow to the prisoner are the reality rather than the object itself. He will see the sun as the source of the shadows that he has seen. Once this prisoner is taken outside and gets enlightened and has he desires to free other prisoners in the cave but they are not willing to set free. When the prisoner is back in the cave he is trying to adjust to the dim light and has to get used again. His identification of the objects on the wall goes down this makes the other prisoners to think that going to the surface has destroyed his eyesight. In the allegory the outside of the cave or the world represent amass knowledge and the cave is a representation of a dark place with limited information leading to a faulty reality. (Cottingham, 1996, p.67-69 512-513) According to Plato to get reality one had to look at the order of the creation to increase understanding of experience. 'Humans had to travel from the visible realm of image-making and objects of sense, to the intelligible, or invisible, realm of reasoning and understanding. "The Allegory of the Cave" symbolizes this trek and how it would look to those still in a lower realm. Plato is saying that humans are all prisoners and that the tangible world is our Cave. The things which we perceive as real are actually just shadows on a wall. Just as the escaped prisoner ascends into the light of the sun, we amass knowledge and ascend into the light of true reality: where ideas in our minds can help us understand the form of 'The Good'. (Cottingham, 1996, p. 67-69 512-513) In Plato theory, what we perceive through our senses is not a reality i.e. what the prisoners see as the reality on the wall are just shadows, but on the contrary when one gains knowledge then he/she is able to understand the true reality. (Cottingham, 1996, p. 67-69 512-513) Unlike Plato in the Allegory of the cave the Pragmatisms connote that action and knowledge are two different spheres and also there is a supreme truth exceeding the sort of inquisition (ways by which the organisms can get a hold of their surrounding) that organisms use to get by in life. (Shusterman, 1997, p.11, 23, 90-95) This theory provides an environmental account of knowledge. 'Real' and 'true' are used in the inquiry process and they cannot be comprehended outside of that context. The theory acknowledges an outside world which needs to be tackled or dealt with. John Dewey says 'something is "made true" when it is verified.' According to Pragmatists; 'truth is not ready -made, but jointly we and reality "make" truth.' Truth is characterized by being mutable and it relative to abstract system. (Shusterman, 1997, p.11, 23, 90-95) In the Allegory of the cave approach they are no visible importance of teaching since the students observe and learn from what they see. A teacher or a mentor is not assigned any role since in Plato view of man is as a universal being that does not learn but discover. All human beings have the ability to move being ignorant to being knowledgeable as Plato asserts. (Shusterman, 199

Properties of Plants in the Forest

Properties of Plants in the Forest Spectral properties of plants in the forest: (1st ch) Interaction of radiation with plant leaves is extremely complex. General features of this interaction have been studied but many spectral features are yet unexplained. Gates et al., (1965) are considered pioneers, who have studied spectral characteristics of leaf reflection, transmission and absorption. Optical properties of plants have been further studied to understand the mechanisms involved by Gausman and Allen (1973), Wooley (1971) and Allen et al., (1970). It is the synthesis of the parameters like reflection of plant parts, reflection of plant canopies, nature and state of plant canopies and Structure and texture of plant canopies, which will be required to fully understand the remote sensing data collected from space borne and aerial platforms. They have been attempted for crop canopies through the development of models but not yet fully achieved. It will be initially required to discuss the electromagnetic spectrum and its interaction with vegetation canopies. Subsequent factors affecting the spectral reflectance of plant canopies with its possible applications in remote sensing technology would be discussed. The vegetation reflectance is influenced by the reflectance characteristics of individual plant organs, canopy organization and type, growth stage of plants, structure and texture of the canopies. The synthesis of the above four aspects provides true reflectance characteristic. However, various authors without fully achieving models to determine vegetation reflectance characteristics have studied effect of individual parameters. Nature of the Plant: Numerous measurements have been performed to evaluate the spectral response of various categories of plants with a spectrophotometer (Fig. ***). For a plant in its normal state i.e., typical and healthy the spectral reflectance is specific of the group, the species and even of the variety at a given stage in its phenological evolution. The general aspects of spectral reflectance of healthy plant in the range from 0.4 to 2.6 Â µm is shown in figure ****. The very abrupt increase in reflectance near 0.7 Â µm and the fairly abrupt decrease near 1.5 Â µm are present for all mature, healthy green leaves. Very high; further in the far infrared >3.0 Â µm. Thus, the typical spectral curve of plant is divided into three prominent zones correlated with morphological characteristics of the leaves (Gates, 1971). Pigment Absorption Zone: The important pigments, viz. chlorophyll, xanthophylls and carotenoids absorb energy strongly in ultraviolet blue and red regions of the EMR. The reflectance and transmittance are weak. The absorbed energy of this part of this spectrum is utilized for the photosynthetic activity (Allen et al. 1970). Multidioptric Reflectance Zone: In this zone, the reflectance is high, while the absorbptance remains weak. All the unabsorbed energy (30 to 70% according to the type of plant) is transmitted. They reflectance is essentially due to the internal structure of the leaf and the radiation is able to penetrate. The reflectance from internal structure is of physical more than chemical nature. Apart front the contribution of the waxy cuticle, the magnitude of the reflectance depends primarily upon the amount of spongy mesophyll. Hydric Zone: Amount of water inside the leaf affect the pattern of spectral reflectance with water specific absorption bands at 1.45 Â µm, 1.95 Â µm and 2.6 Â µm. Liquid water in a leaf causes strong absorption throughout middle infrared region. Beyond 2.5 Â µm the reflectance becomes less than 5% due to atmospheric absorption and beyond 3 Â µm the vegetation starts acting as quasi blackbody (Gates et al., 1965). There are numerous factors either internal of the plant or external coming from the environmental conditions have an influence on the specific spectral reflectance. The above descriptions are true only for a normal, mature and healthy vegetation. The factors which affect the spectral reflectance of leaves are leaf structure, maturity, pigmentation, sun exposition, phyllotaxis, pubescene, turgidity (water content) nutritional status and, disease etc. Important factors are pigmentation, nutritional status, anatomy of leaves and water content. While, sun exposition and phyllotaxy affects the canopy reflectance, phenological state and disease are linked to the primary factors affecting the spectral reflectance (Wooley, 1971). Spectral vegetation indices: Radiant energy intercepted by a vegetative canopy is primarily scattered by leaves either away from the leaf surface or to the leaf interior. The scattered radiation is reflected, transmitted or absorbed by leaves. The partitioning of radiation a reflected, transmitted or absorbed energy depends on a number of factor including leaf cellular structures (Gates et al. 1965; Kfipling, 1970; Woolley, 1971), leaf pubescence and roughness (Gausman, 1977), leaf morphology and physiology (Gausman et al., 1969 a, b; Gausman and Allen, 1973; Gausman et al., 1971) and leaf surface characteristics (Breece and Hommes, 1971; Grant, 1985). Leaves are not perfectly diffuse reflectors but have diffuse and specular characteristics. Leaf transmittance tends to have a non Lambertian distribution, while leaf reflectance is dependent on illumination and view angles. Knowledge of soils radiation interaction with individual leaves is necessary for several reasons like special to interpret and process remotely sensed data. Typical reflectance and transmittance spectrum of a individual plant leaf indicate three distinct wavelength regions in interaction: visible (0.4-0.7 Â µm), near infrared (NIR) (0.7-1.35 Â µm) and mid infrared (mid IR) (1.35-2.7 Â µm). Thus the typical spectral curve of plant is divided into three prominent zones correlated with morphological/anatomical/physiological characteristics of the leaves and these are Pigment Absorption Zone, Multi-Dioptric Reflectance Zone and Hydric Zone, etc. The analysis of all remotely sensed data involves models of many processes wherein the EM radiation is transformed (the scene, atmosphere and sensor) and whereby inference is made about the scene from the image data. The most common strategy for relating remote sensing data to vegetation canopies has been via the correlation of vegetation indices with vegetation structure and functional variables. This simple empirical approach has yielded substantial understanding of the structure and dynamics of vegetation at all scales. These indices are capable of handling variation introduced in a scene due to atmosphere or sensor and vegetation background influence in low vegetation cover areas. The capacity to assess and monitor the structure of terrestrial vegetation using spectral properties recorded by remote sensing is important because structure can be related to functioning, that is to ecosystem processes that are ultimately aggregated up to the functioning of the local-regional-global level of ecosystem. The categorization of the various spectral indices in to approximately five types. Such as Ratio Indices, Vegetation Indices, Orthogonal based Indices, Perpendicular Vegetation Indices and Tasseled Cap Transformation, etc. Remote sensing of cropland, forest and grassland involves the measurement of reflected energy of component in the presence of each other. The development and usefulness of vegetation indices are dependent upon the degree to which the spectral contribution of non-vegetation component can be isolated from the measured canopy response. Although vegetation indices have been widely recognized a valuable tools in the measurement and interpretation of ‘vegetation condition’ several limitation have also been identified. They are related to soil brightness effect and secondary soil spectral deviations. The use of site specific soil lines reduces soil background influence. In this context SAVI, GRABS and PVI holds greater promise in low vegetated areas. The vegetation indices are simplified method to extract information about vegetation parameter from multispectral data however, their use in spectral modeling needs to be studied in context of spectral dynamics of earth surface components. Resume Forest cover is an important natural resource for the environment and socio-eco on the surface of the earth. It can bridge the gap between nature and human beings conflicts. Changes in the forest land increase the imbalance in the ecosystem, climatic conditions, temperature, land degradation, drought prone zones, soil erosion, depending manmade activities, etc. The living tribes in the mountain hill as well as foot hill area utilized forest material for their domestic usages. Therefore, the objectives of detection and delineation of the forest land by using ordinary classification methods have been outlined in the present study. The methodology has been outlined in this chapter. The Landsat-5 TM and Landsat-7 ETM+ dataset has been suggested as a source of information to achieve the objectives of the study. The basic knowledge regarding spectral properties of the forest and physiographic elements as well as spectral vegetation indices area has been proposed for the second chapter to m ake information base study for image analysis, classification and interpretation in the next chapters.

Why Americas Veterans Should Be Honored :: Argumentative Essay

America’s veterans should be honored because they have suffered through so many hardships that others could not and have not survived, and they did it for their country that they loved and still love today. I believe that veterans are our nation’s bravest citizens. I also harbor a special adoration for them because my brother is in the Army and he has already served one tour in Iraq, and is currently on his second at the age of nineteen. My family is either very lucky or very blessed because my brother has yet to be injured in active duty. One day, I hope to join the Air Force and, in turn, become a veteran, as well. Veterans can remind us just how horrible war is, and, hopefully, prevent more wars in the future. Veterans have sacrificed so much so that we may have our rights, our leisures, our hopes, our dreams, and, most of all, our freedom. Everyone should honor the veterans of our nation at all times, not just on holidays like Veteran’s Day and Memorial Day during which we are constantly reminded of our forefathers whom gave their lives and so much more for our country. Many of us take things like going for a walk in the park, hanging out with friends, or going to the church of our choice for granted. I think we all need to take a step back and really look at the situations other countries are in right now and the dealings that they are going through. Then maybe we can look at our own country and really see what we have that others don’t, and consider all the lives, limbs, labors, and loves lost for every single aspect of freedom that we have. Our own men, women, and, at times, children have been sacrificed to feed the mouth of the beast that is poverty, oppression, depression, hunger, violence, and greed.

Csr Activities of Hul

VIRAJ TAMHANE _____________________________________________________________________________________________ HINDUSTAN UNILEVER LIMITED Meeting Everyday Needs of People Everywhere _____________________________________________________________________________________________ CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY (CSR) Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in Hindustan Unilever Limited (HUL) is rooted in its Corporate Purpose – the belief that â€Å"to succeed requires the highest standards of corporate behavior towards our employees, consumers and the societies and world in which we live†.HUL's CSR philosophy is embedded in its commitment to all stakeholders — consumers, employees, the environment and the society that the organization operates in. HUL believes that it is this commitment which will deliver sustainable, profitable growth. HUL’s key CSR initiatives are undertaken with a long-term view. Initiatives that are sustainable have long-term benefits and an on going business purpose linked to them is accorded priority focus.As early as in the 1950s, HUL focused on import substitution when balance of payments was an issue. Since the 1980s, most of HUL’s investments have been in designated backward areas and zero-industry districts, spreading industrialization. HUL has revived sick industries and has developed local entrepreneurship Furthering this rich tradition of contributing to the community, HUL is focusing on health ; hygiene education, women empowerment, and water management.In addition to these important platforms, HUL is also involved in a number of community support activities, like providing audio-visual packages for basic education in primary schools, education and rehabilitation of special or underprivileged children, care for the destitute and HIV-positive, and rural development. In recognition of these initiatives, HUL received the prestigious TERI-CSR Special Award for the year 2002-03 from The Energy and Resources In stitute (TERI). As is well-known, TERI, which was established in 1974, is world famous for its commitment to and initiatives in every aspect of sustainable development.Among HUL's major CSR initiatives are: PROJECT SHAKTI – Changing Lives in Rural India Project Shakti is HUL's rural initiative, which targets small villages with population of less than 2000 people or less. It seeks to empower underprivileged rural women by providing income- generating opportunities. Project Shakti also aims to improve the standard of living of the rural community, by providing health and hygiene education. In general, rural women in India are underprivileged and need a sustainable source of income. NGOs, governmental bodies and other institutions have been working to improve the status of rural women.Project Shakti is a pioneering effort in creating livelihoods for rural women, organized in Self-Help Groups (SHGs), and improving living standards in rural India. Project Shakti provides critical ly needed additional income to these women and their families, by equipping and training them to become an extended arm of the company's operation. Started in 2001, Project Shakti has already been extended to about 20000 villages in 196 districts in 11 States – Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Chhattisgarh, Uttar Pradesh, Orissa, Punjab, Rajasthan and Maharashtra.The respective state governments and several NGOs are actively involved in the initiative. Project Shakti already has about 6200 women entrepreneurs in its fold. A typical Shakti entrepreneur earns a sustainable income of about Rs. 1, 000 per month, which is double their average household income. Project Shakti is thus creating opportunities for rural women to live in improved conditions and with dignity, while improving the overall standard of living in their families. In addition, it involves health and hygiene programmes, which help to improve the standard of living of the rural comm unity.The project's ambit already covers about 15 million rural populations. Plans are also being drawn up to bring in partners involved in agriculture, health, insurance and education to catalyze overall rural development. HUL's vision for Project Shakti is to scale it up across the country, covering 100,000 villages and touching the lives of 100 million rural consumers by 2005. LIFEBUOY SWASTHYA CHETANA – Health & Hygiene Education Lifebuoy Swasthya Chetana is the single largest rural health and hygiene educational programme ever undertaken in India.Its objective is to educate people about basic hygienic habits. It has been developed around the insight that people mistakenly believe â€Å"visible clean is safe clean†. The programme establishes the existence of â€Å"invisible germs† and the associated risk of infection. In India this is important, because diarrhea, caused by invisible germs, is the second largest cause of death among children below the age of 5. The project will help reduce incidence of such diseases, by raising awareness of preventive hygienic practices. The campaign has been divided into various phases.In the initial phase, a Health Development Facilitator (HDF) and an assistant initiates contact and interacts with students and influencers of the community, like village community representatives, medical practitioners, school teachers etc. A number of tools like a pictorial story in a flip chart format, a â€Å"Glo-germ demonstration†, and a quiz with attractive prizes to reinforce the message are used. The â€Å"Glo-Germ demonstration† is a unique tool to make unseen germs visible and emphasize the need to adopt hygienic practices. The first interaction with students is then replicated with the rest of the community.Subsequently, follow-up visits and communication are undertaken at periodic intervals which reinforce the message and learning’s. Started in 2002, the programme has as of now covered a bout 15000 villages in 8 states — Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Orissa, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Maharashtra; it has already touched about 70 million people, imparting hygiene education to over 25 million children. The vision of this on-going project is to make a billion Indians feel safe and secure by focusing on their health and hygiene needs.FAIR & LOVELY FOUNDATION – Economic Empowerment of Women The Fair & Lovely Foundation is HUL’s initiative which aims at economic empowerment of women across India. It aims to achieve this through providing information, resources, inputs and support in the areas of education, career and enterprise. It specifically targets women from low- income groups in rural as well as urban India. Fair & Lovely, as a brand, stands on the economic renowned Indian women, from various walks of life, as its advisors. Among them are educationists, NGO activists, physicians.The Foundation is implementing its activities in association with state governments. In India, low-income families, albeit unwillingly, tend to discriminate against girl children, in providing opportunities for education and enterprise, because of resource constraints. The support provided by Fair & Lovely Foundation will help girl children avail opportunities of higher education and acquires skills in appropriate professions. Launched in 2003, Fair & Lovely Foundation seeks to impact the lives of women. This will be done through scholarships and enterprise initiatives.For career guidance, it seeks to touch millions of aspiring women and students in an ongoing programme, currently covering three states and all main metros in the country. GREENING BARRENS — Water Conservation and Harvesting HUL's Water Conservation and Harvesting project has two major objectives: a) to reduce water consumption in its own operations and regenerate sub-soil water tables at its own sites through the principles of 5R — reduce, reuse, recycle, recover and renew; b) help adjacent villages to implement appropriate models of watershed development.Water scarcity is one of the biggest crises facing India in terms of spread and severity. Water conservation and harvesting in HUL's own operations will help conserve and regenerate this scarce resource. An attendant benefit will be reduction in the consumption of energy that would have been spent in converting and using that water. The support to communities in developing watersheds will help in the economic development of areas adjacent to HUL sites. Water management is a focus area for all HUL factories. Water conservation has been made one of the key performance indicators of an HUL factory.Through a series of technology innovations and novel processing routes HUL has reduced its ground water consumption by over 50%. HUL has also applied technologies that recycle effluent water after treatment – 70% of HUL sites are now zero discharge sites. There are many other measures — Reverse Osmosis Plants and Solar Evaporation Ponds to name a few. A simultaneous benefit is saving in energy that otherwise would have been consumed in drawing, pumping or converting water into steam — HUL's energy consumption per unit of production has come down by 61% since 1996.Since 2003, all HUL sites have begun to harvest rain water. Rain water falling on factory premises is accumulated in ponds, thereby renewing sub-soil water tables. HUL is also committed to extending its efforts on water management to the larger community, and has engaged in community projects in water adjacent to manufacturing sites. The Khamgaon soap factory is located in a dry and arid region of Maharashtra and gets limited rainfall. Seven years back the factory started a pilot on ‘Watershed Management’ on a 5-hectare plot to prevent soil degradation and conserve water.The efforts have resulted in the creation of a green belt, which is the only visible green patch in the area. The 5-hectare green belt is now a veritable forest of about 6300 trees, including over 1400 ornamental plants and over 600 fruit- bearing plants. There has also been a remarkable improvement in the quality of soil, and significant conservation of water. This has been documented in a booklet, ‘Greening Barrens', so that industry, government bodies and communities adopt this widely.Encouraged by the results, HUL has extended the model to a neighboring village, Parkhed, in association with the TERI and the Bharatiya Agro Industries Foundation. The community at Parkhed has already constructed 37 check dams. More than 20,000 saplings have been planted during the 2003 monsoon. For the first time, villagers were able to collect water and utilize it for irrigation post monsoon. The initiative received appreciation at the Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable Development.In association with an NGO, Vanrai, HUL's Silvassa manufacturing hub (in the Union Territory of Dadra & Nagar Haveli) too has embarked on a long-term project of water harvesting, which aims to dramatically change water availability, taking it up to year-round availability from 4 months at present. At Karchond village, near the Silvassa site, the community has built 18 bunds. Seven of them are on a river running through the village, and 11 smaller ones at different water run-off points. This has enabled the community to sow a second crop, thereby significantly increasing their incomes.Through an Integrated Village Development Programme, the project's ambit also includes alternate income-generating activities through SHGs, forestry management, education of children, nutrition. HUL's vision is to continuously innovate technologies to further reduce water consumption and further increase conservation in its operations. Simultaneously, HUL sites will progressively help communities, wherever required, to develop watersheds. HAPPY HOMES – Special Education & Rehabilitation Under the Happy Homes initiative, HUL supports special education and ehabilitation of children with challenge. ASHA DAAN The initiative began in 1976, when HUL supported Mother Teresa and the Missionaries of Charity to set up Asha Daan, a home in Mumbai for abandoned, challenged children, and the destitute. Subsequently, Asha Daan has also become a home to the HIV- positive. The objective in supporting Asha Daan was and continues to be to share the origination’s prosperity in supporting the Mother's mission of serving the â€Å"poorest of the poor†.Asha Daan has been set up on a 72,500-square feet plot belonging to HUL, in the heart of Mumbai city. HUL bears the capital and revenue expenses for maintenance, upkeep and security of the premises. The destitute and the HIV-positive are provided with food, shelter and medication for the last few days of their lives. The needs of the abandoned challenged children are also met through special classes of basic skills, physiotherapy and , if possible, corrective surgery. At any point of time, it takes care of over 300 infants, destitute men and women and HIV-positive patients.ANKUR In 1993, HUL's Doom Dooma Plantation Division set up Ankur, a center for special education of challenged children. The center takes care of children with challenges, aged between 5 and 15 years. Ankur provides educational, vocational and recreational activities to over 35 children with a range of challenges, including sight or hearing impairment, polio related disabilities, cerebral palsy and severe learning difficulties. These physically and mentally challenged children are taught skills, such as cookery, painting, embroidery, bamboo crafts, weaving, stitching, etc. epending on their aptitudes. The center has rehabilitated 10 children, including self-employment for 6 children by providing them with shops, and 3 girls have been provided employment as creche attendants. It has also moved to normal schools 18 children. Since inception it h as covered about 80 children. Ankur received the Lawrie Group World aware Award for Social Progress in 1999 from HRH Princess Royal in London. KAPPAGAM Encouraged by Ankur's success, Kappagam (â€Å"shelter†), the second center for special education of challenged children, was set up in 1998 on HUL Plantations in South India.It has 17 children. The focus of Kappagam is the same as that of Ankur. The center has 17 children, being taught self-help skills, useful vocational activities like making of paper covers, greeting cards, wrapping papers, fancy stationery, and napkins, brooms made out of coconut leaves, candles, and also some home care products. About 12 of the children have become relatively self-reliant by earning through crafts learnt at the center. Since inception, it has covered about 28 children. ANBAGAMYet another day care center, Anbagam (â€Å"shelter of love†), has been started in 2003 also in the South India Plantations. It takes care of 11 children. Bes ides medical care and meals, they too are being taught skills such that they can become self-reliant and elementary studies. Over 20,000 individuals have benefitted from the Happy Homes initiatives since inception. HUL is wholeheartedly involved with all four centers and will continue to be involved in the future. Among HUL's other significant CSR initiatives are: YASHODADHAMHUL has reconstructed a village in the Bhachau Taluka of Gujarat's Kachchh district. The village, which has been named Yashodadham, was dedicated to its 1100 residents in December 2002. The residents belong to Nani Chirai village, which was completely wrecked by the devastating earthquake of January 2001. Yashodadham, spread over 25 acres, comprises 289 homes. HUL has also provided a school building, an exclusive playground for children and a multi-purpose community center, including a creche, health center, and community room and village administration office.All the structures are earthquake and cyclone-resist ant. Space has been left all along the village for parks and public squares, where villagers subsequently will plant trees. Each house is of 400 sq. ft. built-up area, with running water and electricity, in a 1600 sq. ft. plot. As desired by the villagers, the design and foundation of houses and the plot size is such that they have the scope to build extra rooms in the future. HUL has constructed both an underground reservoir and an overhead tank for water.HUL, which had launched immediate relief after the quake in areas adjacent to its Kandla Exports factory, subsequently decided to reconstruct a village, which was completely wrecked. The objective was to help a completely wrecked village, because such settlements had the greatest need for help. Forty such villages were inspected, around Kandla factory, and Nani Chirai was chosen. VINDHYA VALLEY In 2002, the company took up a project in Madhya Pradesh, which will impact the entire state's rural population.The mainstay of Madhya Pra desh's economy is agriculture. Prosperity thus means increasing the income of farmers and small town and village entrepreneurs engaged in agro-processing and cottage industries. This is where HUL is contributing its expertise. It has helped the state government create ‘Vindhya Valley', an umbrella brand, and support software for its marketing, manufacturing and distribution. The state government has been substantially investing every year to finance small town and village entrepreneurs.But the lack of marketing skills and market access denied them the desired success and eventually resulted in most of these ventures becoming unsustainable. The launch of ‘Vindhya Valley', with support software from HUL, is helping overcome the impediment. It is a truly unique and sustainable form of livelihood generation. This has resulted as of now in the establishment of 20 small units, based in rural areas, providing direct engagement to about 1000 families involved in the production o f spices, honey, papad, pickles, agarbatti etc.The success of ‘Vindhya Valley has been recognized by various state governments. HUL has recently begun work with the Karnataka Government in similar projects to improve the income and quality of life of rural communities. An umbrella brand, ‘Stree Shakti', is being created for Self-Help Groups (SHGs). The initiative will generate higher sales and higher returns for the SHGs. In its business operations and in its principles and practices, Hindustan Lever thus straddles the Indian corporate world, single-mindedly identifying itself with Indian aspirations and needs in every walk of life.

Becton Dickinson: World Wide Blood Collection Team Essay

Problem Identification Becton Dickinson a manufacturing company, with operations worldwide, and revenues of over $2.7 billion was founded in 1897, and had ten core businesses organized into two product sectors: medical and diagnostic. Mainly US domestic operation was beginning to give way to expanding international sales, warranting a separate division in Europe. By 1970s, the company was organized by business divisions centered in US and focusing on the largely domestic US market, and an International sector. Since most revenues were earned from the domestic market, priority tended to be domestic, which frustrated managers in foreign countries who wanted to focus more on the resources on their local market. Going international, better said, transnational was the beginning of an evolving problem that Becton Dickinson would face in the upcoming years. Causes of Problem Becton Dickinson and Company (BD) was a supplier of medical products and diagnostic systems to healthcare professionals, the medical industry, hospitals and the general public which included mostly medical gloves, hypodermic needles and intravenous catheters in the medical sector. Blood collection devices, automated systems to detect and identify bacteria and blood cell analysis systems were one of the few diagnostic products that Becton Dickinson produced. During the 1970s BD’s managers did not really take the international market as serious as they should do. Orders were only processed, when the domestic ones were filled out and completed. Furthermore, the managers’ refusals to accept and consider new product requests from abroad were a big threat to the company. In 1980, BD’s senior executives decided to take attempts to develop products and strategic ways to meet the worldwide demands of marketing needs for medical technologies. The competition did not sleep and started expanding into Europe, which began to be another threat to Becton Dickinson not only for the international sector, but also for the US market. Realizing this, BD started to build European Strategic Business Units (SBUs) that reported to the headquarters in the US. Growing concerns about emphasis given to international sales,  especially with European managers voices becoming loud, concerns led to a study senior management’s readiness to consider a new structure of BD’s worldwide activities. A consulting firm offered two structural solutions: â€Å"The Worldwide Product Division† and â€Å"Europe as an Equal Partner†, which was appealing as a way to ensure greater dedication of resources to Europe, but also threatening to duplicate efforts and costs, with the danger of different strategies slowly emerging in each division. After meeting with Harvard professor Christopher Bartlett and his colleague Sumantra Ghoshal â€Å"The Transnational Solution† was born in cooperation with the senior managers. The solution has three faces to it. The first was the challenge faced by MNCs to simultaneously achieve global efficiency, local responsiveness and worldwide innovation. The second was that these objectives needed an environment of international differentiation and asymmetry. Thirdly, they advised firms not to merely change formal reporting lines, but to focus on underlying cultures and values. A typical chain reaction was, that these circumstances affected how Becton Dickinson faced a challenge in implementing a structure that would overcome challenges posed by the growth of business outside of USA. Lack of clear vision and goals by previous management, a lack of clear articulation of the same to second line management and other employees down the chain of command are just some of the few problems that BD had to solve. Alternatives Changes to the existing organizational structure. A change to the existing structure is urgently needed, so that there’s a shift from a corporate mentality to an organization driven by Strategic Planning. This would include meeting the need for a global collaboration and local flexibility that they so badly needed as a fast growing multinational company. Managers and company itself were not prepared, which the case showed, and the lack of anticipation for the need of a suitable structure for a growing company then led to the issue, of quick fixes. This means that whenever managers in other parts of the world were discontent, only then did top management in the US would start to respond and make quick fixes to structural issues.  Cooperation and commitment between top management, middle management and employees is another important part of the change. With no cooperation, and divisions going in different direction the company soon showed signs of urgent need for structural re-designing. Disadvantages to this re-designing could result in a complete departure from the existing task based matrix structure, while others wanted to retain the structure but with minimum changes. This could as well lead to dissatisfaction within the managers and even employees. Secondly, another problem to restructuring is how well conflicts are managed or avoided all together as the company continues to have more divisions out of its central control. Open Research and Development plants in Europe and Japan. With the more and more growing market in these two sectors, Becton and Dickinson should focus on creating R&D centers within these areas and not only in the US with organizations in non-US divisions. Kozy’s thoughts about the future should also include that the European sector is an immensely fast growing one. Within seven years the net trade sales increased by over a $100 million, whereas the US sector increased by â€Å"only† $80 million. Looking at the numbers, you can see that Europe is on the move. A Research and Development center in England, for example, would help to produce local needs and act faster than going through the whole process of talks with US R&D departments and the European R&D organizations. Knowing that with Dufresne BD has a â€Å"champion† on its boat, he should be able to set up his own team of researchers, build a real Development center and take some things in his, better said, the European division’s hand. Japan not to exclude, which has also rising numbers and different marketing needs would also profit from an own R&D plant. Different needs require different solutions, therefore having the US as the only R&D plant, will not help the company nor its divisions. Even with regional R&D managers, like Dufresne, and R&D organizations outside the US, he still does not have team to work and interact with on a day-to-day basis. This would also help to accelerate new product development and quality standards, while maintaining the current distribution systems Budget restrains are a major disadvantage in BD’s case. Total expenses are high in Europe and the numbers jumped in the years from 1985 – 1992 from ca. $10,000 to a high $31,000. The plant would not only bring extra costs, but land had to be bought, people would have to be hired, and machines would have to be purchased. Another negative aspect looking at a plant in Europe or Japan would be the loss of power that the US headquarters and R&D currently have. Becton Dickinson’s US division still wants to have a certain power over its foreign ones. Therefore giving up the R&D department to a certain extent would not be everyone’s favorite in the senior management’s committee. Give Europe and Japan divisions more operating power. As for now, BD’s European and Japanese divisions are quite under the control over the â€Å"parental† guidance and supervision of the US division. The evolution from this classic structure to a new transnational company is a very important part in the future of Becton Dickinson. Even with the introduction of World Blood Collection Team (WBCT), I think that a division in itself should have more power in deciding which products to introduce, which marketing steps should be taken, etc. In the early 80’s the Japan division suffered from not being heard upon on what is need in this division. BD lost small market share in that time. The WBCT illustrated in Exhibit 8(p. 385) illustrates the Strategic, the Operations and the Marketing Team within the whole company including the whole World Blood Collection Team. In my eyes, a smaller group separated in regional divisions would help the success of the company. For example, they could combine the President BC Europe, the Director Manufacturing Europe and the Director of Marketing Europe in one group to run the regional division Europe. They would then have the power to decide which steps should be taken, what to manufacture and how and where to do the marketing. The negative aspect of this approach is that this might leave the path that WBCT and BD in general have taken up until now and again this alternative might run into problems and dissatisfaction with the headquarters. It could also lead to complete separation of the diverse division from the headquarters mission and plans on where the company wants to go. Best Alternative Looking at Becton Dickinson’s past and the way they used to business, the best alternative would be the first one mentioned of the three. Changes to the existing organizational structure, which is also part of the third alternative, would be affecting the outcome the most. The way the company will be working, how the employees will be situated within the company and most importantly how the whole company will be structured, not just domestically, but in the transnational field, is what makes them more competitive. Implementation Steps It would appear that the phenomenal growth of the business was an ambition in the managers’ plans, but they did not make any efforts to construct a structure that would suit for a company whose operations were growing with big leaps. However, there is need to make some changes to the existing structure, so that there’s a shift from a corporate mentality to an organization driven by Strategic Planning. In order to create organizational learning, top management has to create a sense of shared purpose and belonging for all divisions and individuals in the company. There is no better way to do it than to implement an organizational structure that allows and pushes free flow of information from division to division, and back to corporate headquarters without a feeling of restrictive set-ups. The main task of the top management is to shape behaviors of people and create an environment that enables them to take initiative and be more and more cooperative. Another important step is to restructure systems to reflect a willingness to accommodate different geographical and product needs. The old system was structured to suit an operation around the US, and was only slightly changed to accommodate European operations, which were still not considered equal by the US headquarters. Now with sales and operations fully developed outside of the US, it is wise to decentralize some decision-making centers so as to  allow for innovation, local responsiveness and flexibility.