Disruptive technology Essay

The first innovation that was mentioned in this case was that of an Incremental Innovation. An incremental innovation is a series of small improvements to an existing product or product line that usually helps maintain or improve its competitive position over time. Incremental innovation is regularly used within the high technology business by companies that need to continue to improve their products to include new features increasingly desired by consumers. The case describes that the old way of selling â€Å"hard copy† music, movies, and games could shift to providing new ‘e-tailing’ channels through which you can obtain the latest CD of your preference – for example, from Amazon.com or CD-Now or 100 other websites. These innovations increase the choice and tailoring of the music purchasing service and demonstrate some of the ‘richness/reach’ economic shifts of the new Internet game. This is not a drastic change in marketing to sell hard copies of these products; it is simply a shift from the brick and mortar to an online option. It does not shift the way these products are produced, but is however an incremental change in the way it is distributed. The second innovation which was described was a Discontinuous innovation. Discontinuous innovations cause a paradigm shift in science or technology and/or the market structure of an industry. As they are entirely new-to-the world products, made to perform a function for which no product has previously existed, discontinuous innovation requires a good deal of learning for the incumbent organization and its value network, including the user. This Discontinuous innovation is described in the ways in which music is created and distributed, and in the business model on which the whole music industry is currently predicated. Discontinuous innovations also disrupt established routine and may even require a very different set of capabilities and new behavior patterns. The notion of novelty is relative so a discontinuous innovation for one organization might be an incremental one for another. As the case describes, aspiring musicians no longer need to depend on being picked up by A&R staff from major companies who can bear the costs of recording and production of a physical CD. Instead they can use home recording software and either produce a CD themselves or else go straight to MP3 – and then distribute the product globally via newsgroups, chat rooms, etc. In the process they effectively create a parallel and much more direct music industry which leaves existing players and artists on the sidelines. Napster posed a huge threat to the established music business since it involved no payment of royalties. There are now many other sites emulating and extending what Napster started – sites such as Gnutella, Kazaa, Limewire took the P2P idea further and enabled exchange of many different file formats – text, video, etc. In Napster’s own case the phenomenally successful site concluded a deal with entertainment giant Bertelsman which paved the way for subscription-based services which provide some revenue stream to deal with the royalty issue. Apple was another company who saw the need for change, and successfully implemented discontinu ous innovation to shake up the music industry. With the launch of their successful iPod personal MP3 player they opened a site called iTunes which offered users a choice of thousands of tracks for download at 99c each. In its first weeks of operation it recorded 1 million hits and in February 2006. Over 1 billion songs have now been legally purchased and downloaded around the globe, representing a major force against music piracy and the future of music distribution as we move from CDs to the Internet. Works Cited discontinuous innovation. (2013, September 7). Retrieved from Lexicon: http://lexicon.ft.com/term?term=discontinuous-innovation Incremental innovation. (2013, September 7). Retrieved from Business Dictionary: http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/incremental-innovation.html#ixzz2eE7EGEmb

Importance of Physical Education at Schools Essay - 9

Importance of Physical Education at Schools - Essay Example Physical education is an integral part of elementary and high school curriculums further validating the importance of sports. The different parties involved in designing school curriculums take into consideration various factors, which when combined contribute to the holistic development of students. As such, students are encouraged to participate in extra-curricular activities such as sports and enrolling in different social clubs. Sports represent a more intensified form of physical education whereby students expel more energy and spend more time on practice with the aim of honing their skills in order to excel in competitions. Students who participate in sports competitively while in schools learn a wide range of life skills, which instructors might find difficult to teach in a classroom setting. For example, such students develop resilience, as they learn how to push themselves beyond their physical and psychological capabilities. Those who participate in team-oriented sporting a ctivities learn how to trust and rely on their teammates. In some cases, student-athletes who were previously introverted adjust their behaviors whereby they become socially active, as they frequently interact with their teammates and fans. In addition, students who participate in sports have a lower risk of developing health-related complications caused by leading a sedentary lifestyle. Obesity among students in the US remains an issue of concern. Competitive sports increases the student-athletes’ physical fitness level by increasing the efficiency of their metabolism levels. Through sports, exceptional athletes are able to access scholarship opportunities to further their education.  

Achieving and Sustaining Growth at Lenovo Research Paper

Achieving and Sustaining Growth at Lenovo - Research Paper Example The Company has ranked behind only two companies – Hewlett Packard and Dell in profitability for 2006. However, customer perception of the Company does not appear good on certain issues such as installation, after sales service and availability of credit, based on a survey conducted as a part of this research effort. Lenovo must improve on these aspects, as well as build upon its success factors in order to sustain its current levels of growth. Japan, the United States and Europe represented the majority of global production and sales of computers and related products during the 2000s. One division of the computer industry is Personal Computers – which are systems with inbred processing facilities embedded in one silicon chip, and these computers are primarily intended for single users. Personal computers first appeared in the 1970s with Apple II being introduced in 1977. IBM PCs became competitive in 1981. (Snapshot). The two major types of personal Computers are PC and Macs, which are Personal Computers manufactured by the Apple Company. In the computer industry, Japan and the United States were the largest supercomputer manufacturers. Mainframe sales dropped in the 1980s and 1990s due to the development of client/server technology, with mid-range systems developing in the 1990s. With increasing sales, IBM and Hewlett Packard emerged as the major players and Hewlett Packard’s partnership with Intel has facilitated its growth in the marketplace (Snapshot). With an increase in globalization, smaller, cheaper, standardized systems like PCs have been gaining popularity. In an effort to improve sales volumes and reduce costs, PC companies have been entering into networking arrangements with other companies to share research and development costs. One example is that of Microsoft and Intel that worked together to develop the Net-PC and NEC’s PC operations with Packard Bell, forming a new venture known as Packard Bell-NEC (Snapshot).  Ã‚  

Unit 1 Individual Project Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 1

Unit 1 Individual Project - Essay Example E may look for to start a Greenfield project in Hungary as the subsequent analysis would suggest that the from the start of making its transition to the market economies, Hungary has been able to attract most of the FDI in the form of Greenfield projects. Hungary has gone through a very tough period of its economic history however the same is now seems to be paying of to the country. Hungary has traditionally remained an agriculturalist country with lot of reliance on the agriculture as the main deriver of the economic growth in the country. It has remained under the socialist school of government however is believed to be undertaking the reforms under the socialist era much before the other communist countries in the region. Due to its structural reforms and economic restructuring, Hungary has now being considered as surviving its bad patch and is now on the route of economic growth. As discussed above that the historically, Hungary has remained an agriculturalist country however after the World War II, it turn to the industrialization however most of the industrialization was state owned and most of the agriculture output was coming out of the state owned firms. Over the period of time Hungary has been able to attract more than 90% of all the foreign capital being invested in the Eastern Europe showing the strong trust of the foreign investors into strength of the country. Over the period from 1992 to 2005, the average GDP growth in the economy has remained well over 5% with drastic reduction in inflation and public debt. The economic model followed by Hungary is considered as the model for the transition economies as it is considered as one of the most successful transition model. On the whole, Hungary has the stable economic outlook as well as supporting government policies encouraging foreign direct investment as well as other means of entering into the Hungarian model. (EU Commission, 2006). Hungary has remained a communist nation with centralized and

Aleister Crowley Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Aleister Crowley - Research Paper Example He retired early even before Aleister was born because of the business. He was also a radical preacher who travelled across Britain, writing pamphlets and bible study guides. His mother, Emily Bertha Bishop, came from the Devon and Somerset lineage. Both of his parents subscribed to the Brethren faith, which was a lot more conservative variant of the Plymouth Brethren. With this background Aleister was only allowed to play with children from similar backgrounds (Poem Hunter 5-7). His father’s death on March 5th 1887 from tongue cancer proved to be a turning point in young Aliester’s life having been very close to him. He turned rebelliously against the Christian faith as his mother’s attempts to keep him in the faith turned into a desperate futility. This never went well with the mother who labeled him a â€Å"beast†. This rebellious nature was the beginning of a life mainly characterized by extremism in diverse forms such as occultism, pansexuality, magic, drugs, poetry and mountaineering. On 1st December 1947 he died of respiratory infections that developed from his addiction of heroin. The addiction developed after he went on prescription for his asthma and bronchitis (Poem Hunter 11-13; Open Culture 1). In his early days, he was home schooled until the age of eight when he move to an evangelical run private preparatory - an experience which ended up with the young boy being bullied because he was not used to such a setting of education, he was a bit chubby, and fat and vulnerable such treatment (Golden Dawn Pedia 2). He later joined the Moral Science Tripos at Trinity Collegein in 1895 to study philosophy but late switched to English literature. It is at Cambridge that he developed an interest in alchemy as he interacted with Julian Baker who later introduced him to George Cecil Jones of the Hermetic order of the Golden dawn. He later left Cambridge as he almost graduated with a degree

Financial Statement and Operating Indicator Analysis Essay

Financial Statement and Operating Indicator Analysis - Essay Example The current ratio is a liquidity ratio and indicates the extent to which an organization can cover its short term liabilities by its liquid assets. It is calculated by dividing the total current assets in the organization with the total current liabilities.This ratio seeks to examine the revenue of the organization as a function of its expenses. It includes the revenues of the organization from all sources in its calculation. The ratio is usually derived by dividing the net income of the organization with the total revenue. A high ratio means that the organization can cater for its costs efficiently, and indicates profitability. On the other hand, a lower ratio indicates that an organization could be experiencing financial difficulties, and may not have the ability to give viable returns to investors (Chandra, 2010).A major challenge concerned with financial statement analysis relates to the inability of the statements to recognize the seasonal qualitative changes, which occur in the course of normal business. These changes include changes in management, government policies, as well as labor strikes. Such changes affect the financial position of the business, thus including them in the financial analysis is significant. Therefore, users of analysis should require financial analysts to assess the implications of such factors on the organization’s profitability, and report to them (â€Å"Foundation of the American College of Healthcare Executives†, 2008).

Management and Delegation Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Management and Delegation - Essay Example The researcher states that in one scenario, a nurse assigned leg ulcer dressing to a new staff nurse without evaluating the new nurse’s capability in wound dressings and associated skills.   What was good about the situation was that the staff nurse delegator was able to assign the task to a newly qualified nurse who had the rudimentary skill in dressing wounds. The wound was therefore properly cleaned and dressed without any errors and without any delays. The designation of the task eased the burden on the staff nurses who were already shorthanded and overworked. All in all, the risk of administration delays or even missed medications was reduced with the delegation of the task. In addition, the delegation also allowed the new nurse to improve on her skills. There were several unfavorable aspects of the approach to delegation applied by the staff nurse. For one, the nurse-delegator did not ascertain first whether the delegatee had sufficient knowledge and skills in carrying out the task. It is important for the delegator to first establish the skills of the delegatee before any task is assigned in order to prevent any medical errors and prevent any patient risks. The staff nurse was just fortunate that the delegatee happened to be knowledgeable and to be relatively skilled in leg ulcers wound dressing. Nevertheless, the staff nurse took a major risk in assigning the task to a delegatee before doing a preliminary assessment of the delegatee’s skills and knowledge. Moreover, simply assigning the task without waiting for the delegatee’s agreement is tantamount to an authoritarian leadership, one which often results in unfair outcomes for the delegatee. The manner of delegation could have been improved by the delegator by first assessing the delegatee’s knowledge and skill in leg ulcer wound dressings, and then waiting for the latter’s agreement. The delegator could also have stayed to supervise the delegatee’s wound dre ssing in order to ensure that the delegates knew what she was doing and to prevent errors during the procedure. The situation could definitely have been handled better. The delegator could have made the proper assessment of the delegatee first before any task was delegated and the delegatee’s permission could have been sought before the task was delegated. The delegator also could have supervised the procedure before leaving the delegatee to carry out the task. Management includes various processes and personnel within the health care profession as it helps achieve improved patient outcomes. Different styles of management may also be applied by the health professionals in order to ensure such outcomes. These styles of management are based on specific skills and job descriptions for the health professionals and through the coordinated working of these professionals, efficient patient care can be ensured. Management is important because it provides an orderly, systematic, and e vidence-based process in ensuring the efficient intervention of any issue or problem.