Risk assessment and Epidemiology Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Risk assessment and Epidemiology - Essay Example Our discussion will be related to India where Tuberculosis or TB is a massive health problem. Here in this module we will examine the pathogen that is the cause of such a massive health disaster, and also make an epidemiological risk assessment for the same . Tuberculosis is caused by the pathogenic species Mycobacterium Tuberculosis as well as Mycobacterium Bovis. TB is spread generally through aerosols, when a person sneezes, or through cough and cold. Among the total cases in the world India caters 1/5th of the total cases with a whooping 2 million of patients .An approximately 0.3-0.4 million people die from TB in India each year .Tuberculosis affects the central nervous system, lymphatic system, circulatory system .Here the pathogen takes the most simplified route for the disease to spread i.e. through air .In 1990 The World Health Organization had declared TB to be the 7th most deadliest disease in the world. It also points out to a bare fact that TB shall continue to remain in that position till 2020 .Three years later in 1993 WHO declared TB as a global emergency. Such statistics acts as a pointer to India's position which remains grin . Exposure to the disease can take place from various fonts, these are i) nature of the contact that take place ii) the frequency of the contact iii) Frequency of the infected person in a certain region. Here the frequency may vary from villages to towns and cities .The hygiene and the healthcare habits of individuals , their lifestyle system , values also plays an important factor for the rapid spread of the disease .O'Grady and Riley in 1963 had experimentally demonstrated that Tubercle Bacilli was the causative agent that help in the transmission of the pathogenic

Afghanistan and Iraq invasions by U.S. Essay Example for Free

Afghanistan and Iraq invasions by U.S. Essay In recent years, the United States of America president, George W. Bush has vowed to continue with his invasions in both Iraq and Afghanistan simultaneously. His administration has declined against United Nations objections to war on these two nations early this year. The United Nations has suggested that the United States has erred in underestimating the obligation of pacifying the two nations but instead rushed to fulfill the Bush Doctrine that was floundering (Roberts, 2003, pp. 37). Bush has therefore shown the unwillingness to swallow his pride and has persistently compromised the international community. Bush has demonstrated the same rigidity in attacking what he described as Osama Taliban allies in Afghanistan. This has led to slashing of Afghanistan prisoners openly and thus denying them the right accorded to combatants during war time. The war on these two nations has been considered unfair since US has produced an evidence that Iraq had the capability of producing biological and nuclear weapons in the near future but not now. It has also abandoned the claims that Iraq had introduced a nuclear program. This means the nations were not legitimate enemies (Roberts, 2003, pp. 27). Interesting enough, these attacks have been characterized by racial discrimination that seems to be deepening day in day out. Arabs and Muslims have been treated as the victims of the bigotry in Afghanistan. The reports that have been released by bodies that protect human rights indicate clearly that acts of discrimination against Arabs and Muslims have increased by a margin of 1700% since Bush announced the war on both of these countries (Cordesman, 1999, pp. 40). These two tribes have been discriminated in the lines of cultural discrimination that is concerned with hatred against crimes, discrimination in employment and perpetration from those who get misinformed about them through airwaves, street corners and schools of the United States of America. The other areas in which discrimination has been pronounced include the policies that have been enacted by America relating to the immigration control procedures and ethnic profiling. These policies have damaged and frustrated the lives of many Muslim and Arab families that were innocent (Cordesman, 1999, pp. 30). It is mostly viewed all over the world that America’s occupation of these two Muslim nations is a move to Americanize the zones culturally, politically and economically. This is the reason why all international organizations are crying foul upon America troops to leave these two nations alone. This call has however received a great resistant and harsh response from America. The occupation of these nations has led to freezing of charity assets and promoted anti Islam media campaign that has angered many Muslims. This behavior has made Muslims feel that they are treated as potential terrorists not as potential individuals. According to Bush, a good Muslim allows occupation of his land, freezing of financial assets, killing of his people and destruction of social fabric. These are not acts to curb violence and terrorism but driving the country to political and economic sabotage (Dale, 2004, pp. 34). According to Article 51, chapter VII of the United Nations Charter, the concept of the Right of Self Defense has been violated by Bush. This is because it states that a country should not be disrupted by force so long as it is willing and able to provide defense for itself. Occupation of these two countries has been treated as mayhem by their nationals because they feel that they should be left alone because they have the ability to protect their citizens and their assets.This is supported by the continuous attacks of US troops by their Muslim counterparts (Dale, 2004, pp. 35). Reference: Roberts Jeffery, 2003. The Origins of Conflicts in Afghanistan. Mahwah, NJ, Praeger Publishers, pp. 27, 37. Cordesman Antony, 1999. Iraq and the War of Sanctions: Conventional Threats and Weapons of Mass Destruction. Mahwah NJ, Praeger Publishers, pp. 30, 40. Dale Stephen, 2004. The Garden of the Eight Paradises: America and Afghanistan. Oxford, Oxford University Press, pp. 34, 45.

Right or Wrong :: Free Essay Writer

Right or Wrong Introduction: Violence is not generally accepted in our society. There are different levels of violence and some violence can be categorised as not so violent while other violence is extreme. There are guidelines which are set so young people are protected from extreme violence. The Office of Film and Literature Classification places different classifications on the different forms of media. A recent example of this is the banning of GTA San Andreas for its high level of violence and low classification. However we use violence to get what we need and what we want. Hello fellow classmates, today I am here to defend Raymond’s action in killing Ron Kendall. The Action I Agree With: Raymond’s most important action in the story is surrounded with controversy. The important part is when Raymond takes the gun and shoots Ron Kendall. It begins when the war starts in Sesame Street. Raymond keeps saying that he wants a gun. Gracey, Raymond’s sister is trying to convince Ron to abandon Cooper, the racist, and his bizarre idea of war with the blacks. It almost works but Raymond gets Ron’s gun. Ron then walks towards Raymond slowly asking for the gun back but Raymond then shoots Ron. If Raymond had not shot Ron then he would have got the gun back and Raymond and the others would be at risk. So it is Ron’s own fault that he got shot because he and Cooper had threatened Raymond. And all Raymond was trying to do is defend himself from Ron. The First Point: Raymond knew what kind of men he was up against. He was up against cold blooded murderers who planned to shoot the aborigines as they escaped from their houses because of the flood. If he were to give the gun back to Ron he and everybody else could be harmed. The Evidence: The evidence is stated in the book, â€Å"Are you really going to shoot all the blacks when they come out off their houses?† Gracey asked, Ron Kendall then says â€Å"Only the young blokes.† Therefore Ron Kendall was willing to go along with Cooper and shoot the blacks. Rounding off the Point: With men like Cooper threatening Raymond’s life and planning to shoot the helpless Aborigines, we can’t blame Raymond for taking the gun and protecting himself and the others. Point Two: I don’t see how Raymond could have had any reason to hope Kendall was going to listen to Gracey’s good sense.

Meru Cabs: A spectacular growth story Essay

About Meru Cabs: Meru Cabs, operating in four metros of the country has popularised and boosted the concept of radio cabs. â€Å"Today almost 70 per cent of our passengers say that they travel by ‘Meru’ instead of calling it a ‘taxi’ and this is what has been our focus.† – Gavin Dabreo, VP-Sales & Marketing, Meru Cabs Meru now runs a fleet of 5,000 taxis in Mumbai, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Delhi and has 700 employees. The company has a top line of Rs 350crores (76mn USD) -> assets on roads. The company plans to invest $100 million and aims to generate $500 million revenue in five years. Meru’s Operational Sub Processes: Customer acquisition Booking Management Cab Delivery Service Delivery Meru Cabs: Competition Analysis: Strategy Map for Meru Cabs Technology & Development Challenges ORACLE ERP Back-end system & Siebel CRM Competitive Rivalry Internal organizational Challenges Challenges from Suppliers & Buyers Growth and Potential Challenges Conslusion: Meru cabs is doing a lot to survice in the market to maintain its positions in the markets. Paper: Growth and Potential Challenges Table of Contents AC 1.2: process involved in strategic marketing:4 Segment the market4 Profile the market segments4 Develop a market segment marketing strategy4 Situational Analysis4 Marketing Objectives:5 Marketing Strategies:5 How to Use a Strategic Marketing:5 AC 1.3: links between strategic marketing and corporate strategy:5 Corporate strategy:5 Strategic marketing.5 Links:6 AC 2.1: marketing tool for jaguar car:7 Marketing mix 4p:7 PRODUCT:7 PROMOTION:7 PRICE:8 PLACE8 PEST analysis:8 SWOT analysis9 Strengths:9 Weaknesses:9 Opportunities:9 Threats10 AC 2.3: Current customer relationship marketing by the jaguar car company:10 Email:10 Call:10 Book a test drive:11 Contact with a dealer:11 Keep informed:11 AC 1.2: process involved in strategic marketing for Jaguar: The strategic marketing process typically has three stages: Segment the market * Geographic * Demographic * Psychographic * Behavior Profile the market segments * Revenue potential * Market share potential * Profitability potential Develop a market segment marketing strategy * Market leader or product line extension * Mass marketing or targeted marketing * Direct or indirect sales After analyzing market segments, customer interests, and the purchase process, it’s time to create the strategic marketing plan. The strategic marketing plan document usually includes: Situational Analysis Where is the company now? * Market Characteristics * Key Success Factors * Competition and Product Comparisons * Technology Considerations * Legal Environment * Social Environment * Problems and Opportunities Marketing†¦

An End to Animal Abuse Essay

â€Å"Animals are dying all over the world and becoming endangered species mostly because of animal abuse and cruelty† (James Gorman). It is a worldwide problem that will continue unless people are concerned about it or stop doing it. There should be more laws regulating child labor. Animal abuse stops scientists from researching animals. Animals become endangered species. It also causes psychological effect. Animal abuse must be abolished. One reason animal abuse must be abolished is because it stops scientists from researching other animals. â€Å"Researching animals helped make medicines for terrible diseases.† (James Gorman). One endangered animal is the chimpanzee, which is endangered because of being trapped in cages. Another reason animal abuse should be abolished is that animals die and become endangered species. â€Å"Breeds of horses face endangerment and extinction because of animal abuse.† (www.horsetradition.com). These horses get slaughtered by people for their meat because people think horses can cure HIV. Some horses are killed because of religion. Last reason animal abuse should be abolished is that animal abuse causes psychological effect. â€Å"This means animals are shy and aggressive because of being injured and hurt. The most negative thing about animal abuse is psychological effect.† (James Gorman). As you can see, there are many reasons why there should be more laws regulating animal abuse. Animals getting injured and hurt badly causes many horrible things. It makes scientists give up on their research on animals, animals get close to endangerment or extinction, and most importantly, it will cause effects when animals are hurt. If you see animals getting abused or treated bad, call the ASPCA. They are professionals and save and find homes for animals every day.

Free Essays on Internal And External Factors

External and Internal Factors 1 Analyzing External and Internal Factors of PepsiCo Inc. External and Internal Factors 2 Abstract We chose to look at PepsiCo Inc.’s managerial methods. We have analyzed the companies’ organizational mission, ethics management and Internet strategy. PepsiCo is a company with many different segments. The one company includes Pepsi-Cola brands, Tropicana brands, and Frito-Lay brands. Each section of the company has about ten to fifteen different brands in it. The four levels of management: Planning, Organizing Resources, Leading, and Controlling cover all of the segments of leadership in this company. External and Internal Factors 3 Analyzing External and Internal Factors of PepsiCo Inc. PepsiCo Inc.’s mission statement is as follows: â€Å"PepsiCo's overall mission is to increase the value of our shareholder's investment. We do this through sales growth, cost controls and wise investment of resources. We believe our commercial success depends upon offering quality and value to our consumers and customers; providing products that are safe, wholesome, economically efficient and environmentally sound; and providing a fair return to our investors while adhering to the highest standards of integrity.† We think that this mission statement is good because it focuses not only the success of the product, but also the success of the company’s investors (including shareholders, which shows the company wishes success for it’s consumers as well). It also clearly states how the company believes it can achieve its mission, through sales growth, cost controls, and wise investment. These are the three main jobs of the management to maintain PepsiCo’s success. We don’t think that anything about their mission statement needs to be changed. Everything is very clearly stated and it is persuasive in the sense that by reading it, a person can feel like the company knows what is b... Free Essays on Internal And External Factors Free Essays on Internal And External Factors External and Internal Factors 1 Analyzing External and Internal Factors of PepsiCo Inc. External and Internal Factors 2 Abstract We chose to look at PepsiCo Inc.’s managerial methods. We have analyzed the companies’ organizational mission, ethics management and Internet strategy. PepsiCo is a company with many different segments. The one company includes Pepsi-Cola brands, Tropicana brands, and Frito-Lay brands. Each section of the company has about ten to fifteen different brands in it. The four levels of management: Planning, Organizing Resources, Leading, and Controlling cover all of the segments of leadership in this company. External and Internal Factors 3 Analyzing External and Internal Factors of PepsiCo Inc. PepsiCo Inc.’s mission statement is as follows: â€Å"PepsiCo's overall mission is to increase the value of our shareholder's investment. We do this through sales growth, cost controls and wise investment of resources. We believe our commercial success depends upon offering quality and value to our consumers and customers; providing products that are safe, wholesome, economically efficient and environmentally sound; and providing a fair return to our investors while adhering to the highest standards of integrity.† We think that this mission statement is good because it focuses not only the success of the product, but also the success of the company’s investors (including shareholders, which shows the company wishes success for it’s consumers as well). It also clearly states how the company believes it can achieve its mission, through sales growth, cost controls, and wise investment. These are the three main jobs of the management to maintain PepsiCo’s success. We don’t think that anything about their mission statement needs to be changed. Everything is very clearly stated and it is persuasive in the sense that by reading it, a person can feel like the company knows what is b...

Brown Black and white all over essays

Brown Black and white all over essays Thoughts on: Brown and Black and White all Over Racism is a wild fire, fed by fear, and hate, sparked by ignorance, and misunderstanding. This was the feeling I got while and after viewing the play Brown and Black and White all Over, played by Antonio Sacre. Many parts of his play hit and emotional nerve inside me. Antonio Sacres play contained passages that had me riding an emotional roller coaster. Sacre, a self proclaimed storyteller had me in a state of indecision, somewhere between laughing at and feeling sorry for the characters of his story. Antonio Sacres play was put on by his drama class, which consisted of about 5 girls from a school whose average student read at 15% of the national level. Sacre had me laughing at these kids antics and speech. They spoke in broken English and slang saying Hey man. How do expect me to learn all dis man? Huh? So I gotta learn all dis words? This had me and most of the audience laughing. Haha. these kids talked with different speech patterns than most of us. They are funny. HaHaHa. Then it hit me. These were underprivileged kids who didnt think they talked funny because this was how they talked, every day. I was laughing at them because of this? How could I be that rude? I and about 300 other people sitting in a nice padded chair, in a beautiful gy m, at a private school in one of the most affluent towns in the world, was laughing at these kids who were stumbling over lines and talking with a different accent. I was hard pressed to laugh at anything for the rest of that segment. Another part of Antonio Sacres play that stood out to my psyche was when Antonio was visiting the conference on Racism in the Californian redwood forest. The group was talking about stereotypes until a person of color says: Man, I cant believe the injustices in this world, man. My bro got caught wit a little bit of pot and got 2 years....

Word Choice Espresso vs. Expresso

Word Choice Espresso vs. Expresso Word Choice: Espresso vs. Expresso Like many proofreaders, we are powered by coffee. And there is nothing quite like a powerful hit of caffeine in the morning before you set about correcting grammar. But do we want an â€Å"espresso† or an â€Å"expresso†? You might have seen both of these terms used in coffee shops. But is there a difference? And if not, which of these terms is correct? Let’s find out! Espresso (Concentrated Coffee) â€Å"Espresso† is a loanword from Italian. You’ll already know what it means if you’re a coffee fan, but we’ll offer a quick explanation in case we have any tea drinkers among our readers. Mmmmm coffee. In short, â€Å"espresso† comes from caffà ¨ espresso, which is Italian for â€Å"pressed out coffee.† This refers to how an espresso is made, with pressurized water used to make thick, strong coffee. And as well as being a drink in its own right, espresso is also used as a base for other coffee drinks. Expresso (No Longer a Typo) Time for the big reveal! â€Å"Expresso† means†¦ exactly the same as â€Å"espresso.† It is simply a variant spelling. This makes it a bit like â€Å"doughnut† and â€Å"donut† or â€Å"whiskey† and â€Å"whisky.† The main difference is that â€Å"expresso† started out as a common misspelling of â€Å"espresso.† This error may have caught on because we have more â€Å"ex-† words than â€Å"es-† words in English. Or it may just be because â€Å"espresso† looks a bit like â€Å"express† written down. Or it could even be a French influence since expresso has always been the correct spelling of this term over there. Whatever its origins, though, â€Å"expresso† is now so common that many dictionaries list it as a variant of â€Å"espresso.† Espresso or Expresso? As explained above, these terms are essentially interchangeable. â€Å"Expresso† started out as an error, but it has now been accepted as a variant spelling of â€Å"espresso† in English. Nevertheless, â€Å"espresso† is still far more common (especially in American English) and many people consider â€Å"expresso† incorrect. So to be certain your writing is error free and/or to avoid upsetting pedantic baristas, we recommend sticking to the old â€Å"espresso† spelling!

Influence of family on children Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Influence of family on children - Research Paper Example The reason behind the role of families in influencing children is explained by the attachment theory. This theory suggests that children derive most of their emotional resources from their interaction with their family members and obtain knowledge and/or awareness regarding the working models of relationships based on the type of ties they develop with their parents. It has been claimed by various researchers that one of the key reasons why families have a strong influence on the children is the fact that the children are strongly attached to their caregivers during their initial years and their relationship with their caregivers is known to affect the manner in which they react to external stimuli and interact with their peers and those around them (Spodek and Saracho, 2006). The structure of family also is one of the several key factors that play a key role in influencing children. According to the family instability perspective - a sociological theory, it is suggested that children of divorced or separated parents have a strong negative impact on the children. The instability hypothesis suggests that the structure of a family shapes the children’s' view of the real world outside their families and help them in adjusting with their external environment. Children of separated or divorced parents are known to face difficulties in coping with cohabitation. It has been observed that households with low socio-economic backgrounds tend to influence their children by instilling some crucial skills. which may prove to be helpful to them in adapting to different work environments. This includes gaining critical skills which may help them shape their creativity and foster a sense of initiative which is imperative for professionals and white-collar workers. Such families deliberately instill values such as obedience to authoritative figures since it is perceived as a critical skill, based on their own personal experiences (Sigelman and Rider, 2011). Research have indicated that children who grow up in divorced households are typically devoid of the conventional parenting i.e. receiving attention and care by their parent, usually fathers, who are

The relationship between internal and external customer service Essay - 1

The relationship between internal and external customer service - Essay Example Therefore, the recognition of the important relationship between internal and external customer service is increasing. More and more firms and international companies have publicly asserted that their business success is a result of their strong relationships with their employees. Thus, it is already widely accepted that internal customer service quality leads to both internal and internal customer satisfaction (Minjoon & Shaohan 2010). On the other hand, claims of the companies that their success is a result of internal relationships with employees often are not taken seriously by different stakeholders (Herington, Johnson, and Scott, 2006). The aim of this research is to provide a more detailed analysis of customer service excellence and to evaluate critically the role played by internal customer service in the delivery of external customer service excellence. Customer service increasingly becomes a priority item in agenda of many organizations. It is widely recognized that customer service is a great opportunity for gaining competitive advantage for any type of business. Customer service enables the organization to â€Å"win customers† especially in today’s highly competitive and globalized market (Cook, 2008). Customer service quality is a widely known driver of a company’s profit. The more satisfied the customers are, the more benefits the company gains. In addition to improved profitability, customer-centred organizations enjoy the following benefits: differentiation from competitors; increased customer satisfaction and retention; improved image in the customer’s eyes; minimized price sensitivity; enhanced reputation; improved staff morale; reduced costs; increased productivity; good internal customer/supplier relationships; encourage participation among employees; continuous improvements to the companyâ₠¬â„¢s operations (Cook, 2008). That is why many organizations have recognized this opportunity and focused their

English CASE 4 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

English CASE 4 - Essay Example Her husband being a highly repute physician by profession, constantly ignores her and never believes that she is sick (Jeffrey, 1985, p.64). He calls it a "temporary nervous  depression† and explained that it is a kind of mild hysteria that she was going through. He communicates the same thing to all their relatives and friends and Gilman’s brother himself was a renowned physician who agrees with his brother-in-law. Thus everyone believed that she is fine and doesn’t require any further treatment. She used to lead a confined life. She was never allowed to work until she gets well again. She spent her days in the company of the tonics, exercise, and journeys. She wished to take up some work and firmly believed that if a work gives pleasure and satisfaction to a person then it also aids in the fast recovery process of the person. But Gilman was not allowed to work. The narrator further mentioned that she didn’t like her room which had a single window rather she liked a room downstairs, but her husband paid no attention to her. Gilman started to feel obsessed with the yellow wall paper in her room. The wall paper made her depressed and she was gradually drifting into psychosis. It was evident from her words where she says, â€Å"Sometimes I think there are a great many women behind, and sometimes only one, and she crawls around fast, and her crawling shakes it all over†. Her thoughts connected her to the wall paper in a strange way. She hated the patterns of the wallpaper but still she felt attracted towards it. She even mentions in her journal her child’s nanny Mary who took perfect care of their baby. The narrator’s obsession regarding the wall paper grows and at a certain point of time she starts discovering faint and creeping structure behind the wallpaper’s pattern. During the night she could clearly see a lady behind the bars within the patterns of the wallpaper. She didn’t inform anyone about t hose images and structures she could see. She had become paranoid and believed that neither her husband John nor his sister Jennie would be able to find out the images which she can see as they are not deeply interested in the wall paper as she herself is. Her hallucinations made her think that the woman behind the bars is shaking those bars strongly to get rid of the obstacle. She started seeing several other women behind the pattern of the wallpaper. These images made her to strip down the wallpapers. Gradually at the end of the story we can find that the narrator turns into an obsessed person affected by psychosis. She refused to recognize her husband even and crept all over the ground (Stetson, 1892). The entire story is a tragic narration of events experienced by a confined woman. From the standpoint of a woman it can be stated that the entire journal is an outcry of Gilman where she constantly strives to be free and to go outside of the boundaries. In other words, Gilmanâ€⠄¢s journal represents the American society of those days which considered women as an object which has got no wishes, desires or ambitions. Women were treated during those days as a showpiece to be presented in front of the outsiders and then again to decorate her and place her within the showcase. The statement â€Å"

Budget Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Budget - Assignment Example It constructs, reconstructs, maintains, and snow and ice removal throughout the state. It also provides funding for rail, airport, bicycle, pedestrian, and canal programs as well as local government highway and bridge construction. MTA is one operator under DOT besides other more than one hundred and thirty operators running the transportation system. The budget provides funding for DOT capital program of over $3.5 billion to facilitate capital improvement of highways, rail, bridges, aviation infrastructure, non-MTA transit, and DOT facilities. The first $150 million in the $750 million proposed above, for state and local bridge initiative to accelerate the rehabilitation of a hundred bridges serving critical freight, agricultural and commerce corridors. $477.8 million is set aside for funding local highway and bridge projects under Consolidated Highway Improvement Program (CHIPS) and Marchiselli program. DOT will also invest $50 million to accelerate planned fleet upgrades such snow plows, up-fitting heavy pickups to assist in snow removal and installation of vehicle management systems (New York State, 2015). The main transit system will get $4.8 billion of transit operating aid for systems throughout the state broken down as $4.35 billion in new funding and $464 million for other transit systems. An extra $121.5 million is proposed from downstate taxes to fund capital expenses for MTA Downstate Transit Systems. Thruway Authority is to be funded with $1.285 billion for Thruway Stabilization Program for expenditures on NY Bridge, and statewide system. The authority will also continue receiving $85 million in overall support including $21.5 million via direct appropriation. Towards the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV), the Executive proposed an all funds appropriation of $324.9 million with $199.2 million as capital funding while the rest are fees charged by various departments (New York State, 2015). The Senate agreed with a majority of the budget

Journal Assignment on Protest Art Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Journal on Protest Art - Assignment Example On the other hand, Crile so aligns the theme of her work to the unraveled scandal of brutish human rights violation in Abu Ghraib prison. Hers has assured having captured the actual scenes of grave physical, psychological, and sexual violence as in ‘Arranged: Naked Mound of Flesh’, ‘Crouching in Terror’, and ‘Obscene Intimacy’ in which each naked slim subject possesses both literal and abstract paleness under a smudged white complexion to stress an amount of innocence with shame, frailty, and defenselessness of character as opposed to a darker background of doom with men in full uniform, conspicuously in far greater authority. (2) In his abstract proposition, Alsoudani reveals how a mind would feel towards a concrete encounter of war in its most destructive form. Working the similar pieces with charcoal and pastel to enhance representation of severe disorder, the audience may be drawn to magnify that distorted images are symbolic of a heightened moment of disaster. Smoke and ashes clouding the transitory human figures impact an approach to perceive the concept of destruction that eventually leads to fading whereby the living elements, as in the soldiers, lose their distinguishable features which should have been so vivid prior to the state of chaos.

Budget Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Budget - Assignment Example It constructs, reconstructs, maintains, and snow and ice removal throughout the state. It also provides funding for rail, airport, bicycle, pedestrian, and canal programs as well as local government highway and bridge construction. MTA is one operator under DOT besides other more than one hundred and thirty operators running the transportation system. The budget provides funding for DOT capital program of over $3.5 billion to facilitate capital improvement of highways, rail, bridges, aviation infrastructure, non-MTA transit, and DOT facilities. The first $150 million in the $750 million proposed above, for state and local bridge initiative to accelerate the rehabilitation of a hundred bridges serving critical freight, agricultural and commerce corridors. $477.8 million is set aside for funding local highway and bridge projects under Consolidated Highway Improvement Program (CHIPS) and Marchiselli program. DOT will also invest $50 million to accelerate planned fleet upgrades such snow plows, up-fitting heavy pickups to assist in snow removal and installation of vehicle management systems (New York State, 2015). The main transit system will get $4.8 billion of transit operating aid for systems throughout the state broken down as $4.35 billion in new funding and $464 million for other transit systems. An extra $121.5 million is proposed from downstate taxes to fund capital expenses for MTA Downstate Transit Systems. Thruway Authority is to be funded with $1.285 billion for Thruway Stabilization Program for expenditures on NY Bridge, and statewide system. The authority will also continue receiving $85 million in overall support including $21.5 million via direct appropriation. Towards the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV), the Executive proposed an all funds appropriation of $324.9 million with $199.2 million as capital funding while the rest are fees charged by various departments (New York State, 2015). The Senate agreed with a majority of the budget

Critically assess the US foreign policy-making process. What are its Essay

Critically assess the US foreign policy-making process. What are its main strengths and weaknesses - Essay Example The United States sets interaction among its organizations, corporations and individual citizens and into other nations through the implementation of its foreign policy. The United States does not live by its own economy alone but its level of achievement in the world depends on its interaction with its surrounding environment. It is known that the United States performs its functions not just for its people but to its surrounding nations and all other countries in which it has tied up interaction with. For instance, its healthy interaction with China is another important part that it needs to take into account. China is said to be an emerging economy in Asia and it is becoming extraordinary when it comes to its capacity to influence the world economy. With this, the United States has to essentially perform the best possible option in order to maintain its healthy interaction with Chinese government. On the other hand, the United States’ interaction with oil producing countrie s is another important strategy in which its economy will be able to survive in times of financial challenges. Thus, it is important to consider healthy foreign policy that will protect its national interests in times when there is a need so. ... The international distribution of power according to realists is one of the reasons why the United States adopts foreign policy, but another approach is giving more emphasis on the political institutions of a country in the domestic setting (Trubowitz, 2004). As can be observed, power is the bottom line which is one of those that influence the United States foreign policy making. There are different motivated individuals and groups competing against each other in order to achieve flow of power and symbolism in the government and society. And this eventually affects the entire foreign policy making process of the United States (Rosati and Scott, 2010). Competition at some point is healthy. Then one of the strengths in the United States’ foreign policy-making process is the ability to come up with the best procedure because it is necessary to substantiate all the needed concerns for the purpose of ensuring national interests. However, because of this competition there is also a need to properly define the best intention of stakeholders and other competing organizations in as thorough as possible. This is a disadvantage point because the unlikely intention may have greater chance to prevail in the process and will eventually affect the entire foreign policy-making process. As a result, the output may not entirely be for the national interest alone but for the benefits of the few. This creates a considerable issue because of the inclusion of power and generally politics. For instance, private groups have the capacity to check the state’s initiatives and this is due to the weakness of the US political system at some point (Krasner, 1977). Secure global system is one of the primary expectations in instituting foreign policy (Hill, 2002). This is highly

Ways Groups of People Are Identified Essay Example for Free

Ways Groups of People Are Identified Essay 1. What are some of the ways groups of people are identified? There are many ways that a group of people can be identified but the four criteria for classifying minority groups are race, ethnicity, religion, and gender. Race is mainly determined by the color of someone’s skin, hair (in some instances eyes), height, and bone structure of the human body: big head, narrow eyes, tall short. Ethnicity is determined by where you were born and raised and what cultural patterns. Religion and is determined by what your beliefs and religious group you are a part of. Gender is determined easily enough but it does matters if you are male or female for the fact that each is treated differently. Males seem to have it easy most of the time and woman are always treated as though they are weaker. These four criteria’s are the main ones but there are so many more such as age, disability status, physical appearance, and sexual orientation they all are used to group people. There is always another factor that is sometimes over looked and that is our appearance; skinny, fat and even what we wear are we well dressed and clean all of the time or are we in regular day to day clothes or are we dressed in rags torn, ripped and dirty clothing. Also there is the money factor how much does one have or don’t have to many people the money factor matters most people like to know that they know people with money. Are these people wealthy with more money than they will every need or do they just have enough or do they struggle or worse yet do they not have anything leaving them going from home to home or street to street or going to government and privet programs for help. 2. Why do people label and group other people? I have thought about this question and it made me realize that not only do people label and group other people but we also label ourselves putting ourselves in categories that please us. Plus it gives us our sense of belonging to something that most people â€Å"need† to feel. Getting back to the question; I think it is something that we all do whether we realize it or not. Labeling and grouping help people to determine who we should or who we should not interact with. It helps people and sometimes it does just the opposite and destroys people it’s like having a power a power to have some control over other people. I can almost see it in another time a man running through the streets with a label machine placing labels on everyone’s forehead yelling â€Å"You are who I say you are! † Scary thought! We constantly label people in a negative light due to difference of opinion due to religion, political view, sexual preference, parenting method you name it we do it, even children do this and it is not done intentionally they were not taught this, too me it almost seems like it is a defense mechanism keeping themselves even ourselves safe from what we may consider to be harmful. In the end people are just that â€Å"people† we are nothing more and nothing less. People label others either to feel empowered or to praise someone but in the end we are Human Beings and that is it. We may think and act differently but we are what we are and if people could just except that then the future might not ever have to deal with the positive and mainly the negative effects that come with being labeled and tossed into a group that was thought up by others. Resources Schaefer, R. T. (2012). (Ch. 1 2) Racial and ethnic groups (13th ed. ). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.

Australia Essay -- essays research papers

The name of Australia comes from the Latin word Australis, which means southern. Since it lies entirely in the southern hemisphere, Australia is most commonly referred to as â€Å"down under†. Australia, being a country, is also a continent. In land area it’s the sixth largest for a country and the smallest continent.Australia is a very dry, thinly populated country. Very few coastal areas receive enough rainfall to support a large population. The largest group of Australian people live in two large cities, Sydney and Melbourne. The vast interior is mainly desert or grassland and there are very few settlements. As a whole, the country has a density of six people per square mile.The down under is famous for vast wide-open spaces, bright sunshine, bikini-clad beauties, enormous numbers of sheep and cattle, and unusual wildlife. Kangaroos, Koalas, platypuses, and wombats are a few of the erotic animals that live here.Australia was originally settled by Great Britain as a prison colony in the late 1700’s, so now most Australian people are of British ancestry. The immigrants brought all the customs too, such as driving on the left side of the road and their favorite warm drink, tea. They also speak English as the official language with their own Australian terms.CLIMATEThe northern third of the Australian continent lies in the tropics and is warm or hot year round. The rest of the country lies south of the tropics and has warm summers and mild cool winters. The rainfall is seasonal in Australia.In the wet season, heavy downpours and violent storms cause floods. But the droughts that plague the nation are far more serious than any flood. Just about every section of Australia has a drought in the dry season. These droughts cause severe water shortages and cause the need for dramatic conservation laws as well as droughts there is also brush fires.Rivers in Australia are one of its most vital resources. They supply the cities and towns with the much-needed water. They also supply the farms with irrigation water. Though the rivers are dry most of the year, dams and reservoirs keep water during the dry season.Australia can basically be split into 3 parts-the eastern highlands, central lowlands, and the western plateau.The highlands consist mainly of high plateaus and broken-in places by hills, low mountain ridges, and gorges. Grasses or forest cover most of the plate... ... all of their traditions but were excluded from society until 1967 when the Australian Constitution was changed so Aborigines got to vote and to have service benefits.GREAT BARRIER REEFAlong the northwest coast of Australia lies the Great Barrier Reef, the largest group of reefs in the world. This chain consists of about 2,500 reefs. In all, the reefs are also many small islands that extend for about 1,200 miles. It lies around 10 to 100 miles from the Australian coasts.Coral reefs are limestone formations that lie under the sea or just above the surface. The Great Barrier Reef is made up of a coral of dead hardened animals call polyps, which are attached to the reef. The diameter of the polyps is about 1 to 12 inches. The polyps are extremely colorful, just as all the sea animals that live there.The Great Barrier Reef supports about 400 species of polyps, about 1,500 species of fish and several kinds of birds. Giant clams, sea turtles, and crabs also live in the reef. The warm waters around the reef and the sheer beauty attract swimmers, skin divers and tourists from all over the world.Australia is truly a magnificently beautiful place with many different climates and cultures.

Marketing Research Essay

Conclusion The purpose of this research is to identify whether Dilmah should continue the current campaign or modify the campaign. The result from the secondary research and primary qantative research show the total black tea sales has great increased about 13% from 2008 – 2009 which is a fantastic result in the world economic recession period of time. Dilmah has market share of 29% which is the highest share of one brand. Dilmah target customer is traditional family and age is from middle to mature group. The Larry report says their customers are satisiftied with the freshest and finest tea quality and consumers agreed Dilmah has achieved the goal of tea quality. The main tea market are in Auckland 51% in 2009, Wellington and Canterburry. From primary research findings, female has higher purchasing tea percentage than male and the age group is 36 and more. People who are employeed as income earner less than 20 hours is recall seeing the TV advertising. Dilmah doesn’t have the top of mind brand awareness for the age group 36-45 but it is mostly recognized by the age group 26-35. Dilmah issues Bell is a very strong competitetor of Dilmah in black tea market as they have a very close market share percentages over years from 2005 to 2009. Bell is more reconigized at the age group of 35 – 46 by 94% (193) but the age group of 18 – 25 and 46 and over still have 67% and 61% top of mind brand awareness for Bell. The 58% of age group 26 – 35 has top of mind brand awareness for Dilmah and the 33% of age group 18 – 25 has top of mind brand awareness for Dilmah. 59% of male and 64% female all reconigized Bell but 39% male and 13% female know Dilmah as top of mind brandawareness. 6% of less 20 hrs knows Bell but 15% knows Dilmah. 61% of non employeed knows Dilmah†¦but which they might not be the main group who purchase tea normally in the household. 32% of 35 – 46 who purchased tea Be to cafe last 4 weeks: Female purchased tea more $704,000 and is about 4 times than male $188,000 at sales. Top main 3 group purchase tea 40 – 44, 45  œ 49 and 70 and over RM: Who bought tea last 4 months: * 2 main group:64% of traditional family (middle to mature age with stable income and family oriented and traditional value) and 41% visible achievers and they have very similar family values Who purchased tea last 3 months * 36 – 45 and 46 and over for bell (29% of interviewers purchased Bell Tea) * 26 – 35 and 36 – 45 for Dilmah (30% of interviewer purchased Dilmah) * 25% purchased Twinings The market trend to drink black has started from 2007 because the black tea sale. The total black sale of 2005 to 2009 has increased steadily which presented the successful of the media and publicity from the secondary data findings. The result shows that those three major brands Dilmah, Bell and Twinings are invested into the most effective forms of media at the past three to four years. Dilmah media expenditure has always been the highest in TV advertising from 2005 – 2008 ( 67% to 91% of Dilmah total expenditure of media) apart from 2009 comparing to the major three tea brands. Bell, the second tea brand spent the most amount of money in TV advertisement at 2009 which showed the result of the total tea sale was the only one brand has had increases sales from 2008 to 2009 about few percentages. Dilmah reduced the spending for TV advertisement about 23% which has slightly reduced the tea sales about little percentage but Dilmah is still No. 1 of black tea market. As a result, Dilmah has been always focusing on the right media form for advertising their product and has been successful on the result of sales and market share. Nevertheless, Dilmah still lacks the brand awareness as it shows in the primary / qanatative research findings that Dilmah did not come to â€Å"Top of mind brand awareness† and Bell was the first tea brand comes to their mind. 62% of interviewers chose Bell and only 22% of interviewers chose Dilmah which makes Dilmah comes second. This clearly shows Dilmah has significant issue about the brand awareness which has always been an issue of them trying to achieve it. From the research findings, the main group which has been purchased tea for last four months are The total black tea market sales from 2008 – 2009 has huge growth about 13%. The total The purpose of this research is to identify whether Dilmah should continue the current campaign or modify the campaign. The result from the secondary research and primary qantative research are showing the most effective forms of media and publicity is TV advertising which the campaign is focusing on. The past few years that Dilmah has been focus on TV advertising and the result shows the sales of Dilmah black tea has been increased steadily. It proved TV advertising has achieved the result of increasing the sales of tea. The research has investigated the 5 objectives which are key trends in the tea market, key customer segments and a profile of each, levels of brand awareness and measure attitudes towards teas as a drink. The findings show Dilmah should continue the current campaign as it is. Key trend in the tea market (market size, market share and price†¦etc) Key customer segment and a profile of each Brand Awareness The most effective form of media and publicity Attitude toward to tea as a drink Recommendation Id research problems / to understand / to investigate / to explore The primary research has contained five objectives are key trend in the tea market, key customer segments, the most effective forms of media and publicity and the measurement attitude towards tea as a drink. Unfortunately, it has had 800 survey but female is almost double of male. This may because the survey accuracy as the secondary research findings shows female has much higher percentage of purchasing the tea which might affect the survey. Beside, there is one more important finding that from middle to mature age groups are also the main groups of tea purchasing. The survey also has higher percentage people at the age group of 36 – 45 and 45 and over. In the primary research, it has covered quite well at the brand awareness question but there are not enough information which required to support the campaign should keep going or modify at the objectives of effectiveness of media, attitude to buy / drink tea and profile of customer segment. The key customer segment by employment should be full time worker, part time worker or non-employed. It will be good to know who does grocery shopping of the household. Full time housewife with out job or Housewife with part time job, part time student or full time student The attitude toward to tea as drink will be good to have the question of what kind of tea is the most favorite to drink? Answer to be black, herbal and green tea which can help to know the current trend of drink tea. * Main reasons of purchasing the tea What kind packaging is the most favourite etc paper bag, tin, glass jar †¦etc†¦ * What kind of advertising comes to mind when you think about tea advertising? * What would you expect to see from tea advertising? Tea history, fashion trend, tea taste†¦etc * Attitude to buy / drinking tea? (change to actionable statement – to identify * Effectiveness of advertising * Profile of segments – behaviour (drinking tea) The secondary and primary researches have got a numbers of good information and data to support the continued campaign of TV advertisement as the most effective form of media. However, it still lack the important information and data key customer segment, attitude toward to tea as drink and the type of tea advertising to support the campaign. The key customer segment will indicate which group is main consumers purchase tea for the household and when and where will the best time to have campaign on according the life consumers. The great information of attitude toward tea as drink can modify the campaign to the advertising that consumers would expect to see and also show who main consumers are. The type of media form will encourage consumers to purchase Dilmah tea brand. Sometimes, it is very hard to encourage consumers to change the brand they have drunk for long time as tea is a very family oriented drink. Drinking tea can be the family habit which dominated by the main person who is shopping for the household. For that reason, it is essential to have the focus group qualitative research to The research requires 8 – 12 people and homogeneous in terms of demorgraphic and socio-economic characteristics. Of course, those people need to have the habit of drinking tea. The final thing is has not participated in many focus groups. The reseach will also require a relax environment and it will takes about 1. 5 – 2 hours. The research will be recorded all relvant information including facial expression and body language so the recorder will need to be in the central front of the room behind the moderator. The moderator will question the group and lead the discussion to the proper way to encourage the group not be afraid to express own ideas and opinions. A good qualified moderator will be detached but kind and Final statement Identify the need for qual research †¦ (topic) To explain yes we have got some good information but still lack some important information†¦ for support – to provide more about how to present to public†¦ to recommend what should need according to behaviour†¦ or age group†¦ Just comes one statement that is actionable to complete by the research (your task)†¦ Going to Appendix Good morning/ afternoon Thank you for taking the time to meet with us. We will honor your time by making sure that we wrap up in the next 90 minutes. Does anyone mind if we tape record this for our records? The tape will be only use for the case study of the major tea brand campaign design. We are researchers under contract with the major tea brand to conduct the tea brand awareness and the attitude toward to tea as a drink. Our evaluation is formative and qualitative. This means that our primary point is to gather information that helps the major tea brand origination finest tea product and improve the brand awareness. The information we collect is by design descriptive rather than numeric. We have a system for quantifying qualitative information, but for now, we don’t need to be concerned with counting things. We just want your ideas and opinions. There is no right and wrong for each question and each idea and opinion are all very valuable information for the research. Any question before we start? Be sure that everyone signs and completes the info on the sign-up sheet. Key themes Suggested question End the guide with some kind of thank you and conclusion – recognize that people will have gone out of their way to participate

Anonymous

INDIAN INSTITUTE OF MANAGEMENT AHMEDABAD INDIA Research and Publications The Logistics Sector in India: Overview and Challenges Pankaj Chandra Nimit Jain W. P. No. 2007-03-07 March 2007 The main objective of the working paper series of the IIMA is to help faculty members, Research Staff and Doctoral Students to speedily share their research findings with professional colleagues, and to test out their research findings at the pre-publication stage INDIAN INSTITUTE OF MANAGEMENT AHMEDABAD-380 015 INDIA INDIAN INSTITUTE OF MANAGEMENT AHMEDABAD INDIA Research and Publications The Logistics Sector in India: Overview and ChallengesPankaj Chandra Nimit Jain Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad Vastrapur, Ahmedabad 380015 [email  protected] ernet. in, [email  protected] ernet. in Abstract The logistics industry in India is evolving rapidly and it is the interplay of infrastructure, technology and new types of service providers that will define whether the industry is able to help its customers reduce their logistics costs and provide effective services (which are also growing). Changing government policies on taxation and regulation of service providers are going to play an important role in this process.Coordination across various government agencies requires approval from multiple ministries and is a road block for multi modal transport in India. At the firm level, the logistics focus is moving towards reducing cycle times in order to add value to their customers. Consequently, better tools and strategies are being sought by firms in order to enhance their decision making. In this paper, we provide a perspective on these issues, outline some of the key challenges with the help of secondary information, and describe some interesting initiatives that some firms & industries are taking to compete through excellence in managing their logistics.IIMA INDIA Research and Publications 1 Introduction The Indian economy has been growing at an average rate of more than 8 per cent over the last four years (Srinivas, 2006) putting enormous demands on its productive infrastructure. Whether it is the physical infrastructure of road, ports, water, power etc. or the digital infrastructure of broadband networks, telecommunication etc. or the service infrastructure of logistics – all are being stretched to perform beyond their capabilities.Interestingly, this is leading to an emergence of innovative practices to allow business and public service to operate at a higher growth rate in an environment where the support systems are getting augmented concurrently. In this paper, we present the status of the evolving logistics sector in India, innovations therein through interesting business models and the challenges that it faces in years to come. Broadly speaking, the Indian logistics sector, as elsewhere, comprises the entire inbound and outbound segments of the manufacturing and service supply chains.Of late, the logistics infrastructure has received l ot of attention both from business and industry as well as policy makers. However, the role of managing this infrastructure (or the logistics management regimen) to effectively compete has been slightly under-emphasized. Inadequate logistics infrastructure has an effect of creating bottlenecks in the growth of an economy, the logistics management regimen has the capability of overcoming the disadvantages of the infrastructure in the short run while providing cutting edge competitiveness in the long term.It is here that exist several challenges as well as opportunities for the Indian economy. There are several models that seem to be emerging based on the critical needs of the Indian economy that can stand as viable models for other global economies as well. Chandra and Sastry (2004) have pointed towards two key areas that require attention in managing the logistics chains across the Indian business sectors – cost and reliable value add services. Logistics costs (i. e. inventor y holding, transportation, warehousing, packaging, losses and related administration costs) have been estimated at 13-14 per cent of Indian GDP which is higher than the 8 per cent of USA’s and lower than the 21 per cent of China’s GDP (Sanyal, 2006a). Service reliability of the logistics industry in emerging markets, like India, has been referred to as slow and requiring high engagement time of the customers, thereby, incurring high indirect variable costs (Dobberstein et. al, W. P. No. 2007-03-07 Page No. 3 IIMA INDIA Research and Publications 2005).However, the Indian logistics story is one with islands of excellence though there has been a general improvement on almost all parameters. It is this aspect that we explore further in this paper. The paper is organized as follows: the next section gives a brief introduction of some of the peculiarities of the Indian logistics sector. In section 3 we discuss the determinants of growth in this industry. In section 4 we prov ide some interesting initiatives that point towards a renewal of the sector. The challenges facing the sector are discussed in the last section. 2 Some Peculiarities of the Indian Supply ChainsThe Indian logistics sector has typically been driven by the objective of reducing transportation costs that were (and often continue to be) inordinately high due to regional concentration of manufacturing and geographically diversified distribution activities as well as inefficiencies in infrastructure and accompanying technology. Freight movement has slowly been shifting from rail to road with implications on quality of transfer, timeliness of delivery and consequently costs except for commodities which over long distances, predominantly, move through the extensive rail network. More on the infrastructure issues later.Figure 1 shows the relative value of transportation costs vis-a-vis other elements of the logistics costs in India. The transportation industry is fragmented and largely unorga nized – a large number of independent players with regional or national permits that carry freight, often with small fleet size of one or two single-axle trucks. This segment carries a large percent of the national load and almost all of the regional load. This fragmented segment comprises owners and employees with inadequate skills, perspectives or abilities to organize or manage their operations effectively.Low cost has been traditionally achieved by employing low level of technology, low wages (due to lower education levels), poor maintenance of equipment, overloading of the truck beyond capacity, and price competition amongst a large number of service providers in the industry. Often, one finds transportation cartels that regulate supply of trucks and transport costs. However, the long run average cost of transport operations across the entire supply chain may not turn out to be low. W. P. No. 2007-03-07 Page No. 4 IIMAINDIA Research and Publications Figure 1: Elements of Logistics Cost in India Trans por tation 40 War e hous ing, Pack aging & Los s e s 24 26 Inve ntor y Or de r Pr oce s s ing & Adim ins trative 0 5 10 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 percent contribution Source: Sanyal (2006a) Table 1 gives a breakup of the logistics cost across different sectors of the Indian industry and the changes therein over the last five years. It shows how the logistics spend is increasing, sometimes dramatically, across various industrial sectors. Steel, harmaceuticals, food & agro-business, and auto have also been the sectors that are growing most rapidly in the national economy – it is no surprise that their logistics costs have been increasing at a faster rate. A few observations are in order here. The low change in order processing & administrative costs in the cement sector could possibly be due to the use of call centers by various producers for order processing and dispatch planning. Steel and pharmaceutical sectors have seen maximum changes in compon ent costs.The distribution practice of pushing goods down the channel might be responsible for high increase in the inventory and warehousing costs in the pharmaceutical industry. Investments in new cold chains and losses might be the causes of high change in the warehousing, packaging & losses related costs. Warehousing, has also been typically dominated by small players with small capacities and poor deployment of handling, stacking and monitoring technologies. While it has had detrimental effect on almost all sectors, the food sector has been the one that has suffered the most due to low investment in cold chains and allied machinery.Erratic power outages have also meant low dependence on technology and a more manual operation. Another fact that has affected both the location as well cost of operating a W. P. No. 2007-03-07 Page No. 5 IIMA INDIA Research and Publications warehouse has been the â€Å"octroi tax1. † Firms have been locating warehouses outside city limits. Ta ble 1: Distribution of Logistics Costs across Some Sectors (2000-2005) Logistics Cost Components (in US $ mn) Transport ation Inventory holding Warehousing, packaging & loses Order processing & administrative Total Logistics cost SectorAuto Cement Consumer Durables FMCG Food Garment Pharmaceutical Steel Source: IAEIS 2000-01 2005-06 Avg. Change 2000-01 2005-06 Avg. Change 2000-01 2005-06 Avg. Change 2000-01 2005-06 Avg. Change 2000-01 2005-06 Avg. Change 2000-01 2005-06 Avg. Change 2000-01 2005-06 Avg. Change 2000-01 2005-06 Avg. Change 285. 0 406. 5 20. 3 50. 6 55. 4 4. 8 331. 9 398. 9 11. 2 201. 5 280. 7 13. 2 398. 7 524. 5 21. 0 337. 3 454. 4 19. 5 174. 0 310. 0 22. 7 438. 3 693. 6 42. 5 171. 0 243. 9 12. 2 30. 4 33. 3 2. 9 199. 1 239. 3 6. 7 120. 9 168. 4 7. 9 239. 3 314. 7 12. 6 202. 4 272. 11. 7 104. 4 186. 0 13. 6 263. 0 416. 1 25. 5 185. 3 264. 3 13. 2 32. 9 36. 0 3. 1 215. 7 259. 3 7. 3 131. 0 182. 5 8. 6 259. 2 340. 9 13. 6 219. 2 295. 3 12. 7 113. 1 201. 5 14. 7 284. 9 45 0. 8 27. 7 71. 3 101. 6 5. 1 12. 7 13. 8 1. 2 83. 0 99. 7 2. 8 50. 4 70. 2 3. 3 99. 7 131. 1 5. 2 84. 3 113. 6 4. 9 43. 5 77. 5 5. 7 109. 6 173. 4 10. 6 712. 6 1016. 4 50. 6 126. 5 138. 5 12. 0 829. 6 997. 3 27. 9 503. 8 701. 8 33. 0 996. 8 1311. 2 52. 4 843. 2 1135. 9 48. 8 434. 9 775. 0 56. 7 1095. 7 1734. 0 106. 4 They delay moving goods into retail network as late as possible.It has also led to the development of a unholy business-government nexus to avoid the tax and extract rents. Use of technology is quite limited – both IT and engineering equipments in order to increase productivity and service. An in-appropriate evaluation of the diverse benefits of technology has led to higher usage of manual labour across the logistics industry whether An entry tax on goods coming into a city. The tax is a major source of revenue for city municipal corporations. W. P. No. 2007-03-07 1 Page No. 6 IIMA INDIA Research and Publications it is in the distribution activities or within pla nts.Many firms try to compete through the factor advantage of low wages which have necessitated hiring low or no skill personnel thereby sacrificing productivity related gains in the long run. Understanding the linkage between inventory and transport planning is a key to reducing operational cost of distribution. Chandra and Sastry (2004) identify transport & dispatch planning as an area of concern in a survey of manufacturing firms in India. Ninety eight per cent of sample firms in that survey have a contract with trucking companies for making dispatches and only 11 per cent own their own fleet of trucks.While 36 per cent of these firms use third party logistics (3PL) service providers for making dispatches, about 30 per cent use 3PL service providers for procuring their material from their suppliers. Somehow, transport planning has remained a unglamorous area within Operations despite the fact that about 10 per cent of the cost of sales comes through physical distribution (Sanjeev i, 2003). Transport planning (e. g. , optimal dispatch quantities & frequency of dispatch, vehicle routing, loading pattern in the trucks etc. ) does not appear to have received the required attention.For example, in the same survey, only 21 per cent of sample firms report the use of some software for scheduling dispatches. It is worth understanding the structure of the Indian supply chains, in aggregate, to get a better appreciation of many of the issues raised earlier. In Figure 2 Chandra and Sastry (2004) present the structure of the supply chain of a sample of firms. It can be seen that about 4 per cent of firms have less than five suppliers, about 85 per cent of firms have less than five plants, about 14 per cent of firms have less than five regional distributors, and about 9 per cent of firms have less than five retailers.A similar statistics is obtained for other ranges of suppliers, plants, distributors, and retailers. What is worth noting is that 63 per cent of firms have m ore than 100 suppliers, about 39 per cent of firms have more than hundred distributors, and 77 per cent of firms have more than hundred retailers. In addition, about 17 per cent of firms claim to have more than 500 suppliers. The same for distributors and retailers is 22 and 54 per cent respectively. This is perhaps where difficulties in managing logistics in India lie – larger the number of suppliers or distributors, higher is the cost of coordination.W. P. No. 2007-03-07 Page No. 7 IIMA INDIA Research and Publications Figure 2 : Structure of the Supply Chain of Sample Firms 90 80 70 Percent of Firms 60 50 40 30 20 10 5000-10000 1000-2000 2000-5000 500-1000 100-500 50-100 10-15 15-25 25-50 0 5-10 0-5 more than 10000 Range Suppliers Plants Approved Retailers Regional Distributors Source: Chandra and Sastry (2004) When we look at the spatial distribution of both plants and suppliers, the above statement becomes even stronger. Of the sample firms that operate more han one plant , 48 per cent of these plants are located more than 100 kilometers away from each other, 33 per cent of these plants are located more than 500 kilometers away from each other and 18 per cent of these plants are located more than 1000 kilometers from each other. Similarly, on an average, only 4 per cent of suppliers are located within 5 kilometers of the manufacturing plant, about 13 per cent are located within 5-25 kilometers of the plant, 16 per cent are located within 25-100 kilometers of the plant and about 67 per cent of suppliers have facilities that are more than 100 kilometers away from the plants.Location policies of the past may have forced some firms to locate plants away from each other. However, this may be coming to haunt today as the cost of coordination increases and the ability to provide quick response to customer requirements might reduce. This problem gets exacerbated with suppliers. Manufacturers have to either develop suppliers separately for each location (ther eby increasing the number and affecting consistency in quality, price & delivery times) else material has to travel longer distances if there is a common supplier to all plants. W. P. No. 2007-03-07Page No. 8 IIMA INDIA Research and Publications The logistics challenge in such an environment is immense – build the infrastructure, manage the requirements of a changing structure of various sectoral supply chain, change industrial policies to facilitate efficient production and movement of goods and services, deploy effective managerial practices and technology to enhance the competitiveness through better management of logistics networks, and develop new models for new sectors especially in the service sectors as well as traditional areas like agri-business etc.It must be mentioned that the logistics industry in India is transforming itself very interestingly despite its peculiarities by developing innovative business models and by chipping away at the such structural and polic y based rigidities. In a later section, we discuss some of these innovative initiatives that are leading the renewal of the logistics industry in India. 3 The Changing Logistics Infrastructure With rising consumer demand and the resulting growth in global trade, the role of infrastructure support in terms of rails, roads, ports & warehouses hold the key to the success of the economy.In this section we provide a quick overview of the status of the logistics infrastructure in India and the current initiatives, both private and public, in that area. Goods are transported predominantly by road and rail in India. Whereas road transport is controlled by private players, rail transport is handled by the central government. With the second largest network in the world, road contributes to 65 per cent of the freight transport (Rastogi, 2006). Road is preferred because of its cost effectiveness and flexibility.Rail, on the other hand, is preferred because of containerization facility and ease in transporting ship-containers and wooden crates. Sea is another complementary mode of transport. Ninety five per cent of India’s foreign trade happens through sea (Deccan Herald, 2006). India has 12 major ports, six each on the West and East coasts and 185 minor ports. Table 2 maps the various modes on different performance indicators, clearly indicating the vitality and importance of road transport in Indian economy. There is also evidence of an, across the board, increase in freight traffic for all modes indicating an increased logistics activity.For instance, the per cent change in road, rail, air and sea cargo traffic has increased, between 2001 and 2005, from 5 to 14 per cent, 4 to 7. 5 per cent, 6 to 20 per cent and 3. 5 to 11 per cent respectively (CMIE Database, 2006). W. P. No. 2007-03-07 Page No. 9 IIMA INDIA Research and Publications Table 2: Comparison Chart for Various modes Rail 214760 10. 66 0. 11 Road 3487538* 5. 12* 3. 34 Sea 806 7. 9 12 Number (wagons, tr ucks, ships) Freight Capacity(mn ton) Route Length (mn km) /Number of major ports Freight Revenue (US $ bn) 7. 00 coal, steel, petroleum, primary metals 38. 64 automobile, electronic items, garments etc. 304 iron ore, coal, petroleum (and industrial and consumer products on the outbound export) Major Products Source: IAEIS, 2005-2006, Financial Express, 2006a *This figure is for 2002-03 1 US$ = Rs 44 In keeping with the increasing demand for road transportation, the National Highway Authority of Indian (NHAI) has been strengthening and widening national highways in multiple phases. As part of the National Highways Development Project, the work on the development of golden quadrilateral (connecting Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata) and the North-South and East-West links were started in 1998.It will build 13000 km expressways that would connect the nation (Surabhi, 2006). NHAI is investing about $650mn towards the development of an Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) which will make transport services on the highways (like reducing congestion, advance signaling, medical assistance, accident management, etc. ) efficient and automating many processes like toll collection etc. (Sanjai, 2007). Because of the growing opportunity and potential for high revenue, the Ministry of Railways has been taking measures to expand the rail connectivity and recapture the market share of freight business.By focusing on improving wagon utilization, the Railways have managed to reduce the freight cost from 61 paise2 per net tonne km (ntkm) in 2001 to 56 paise per ntkm in 2005 (Rastogi, 2006). At present, goods train run on same 2 100 paise = 1 Rupee W. P. No. 2007-03-07 Page No. 10 IIMA INDIA Research and Publications railway tracks as passenger trains at an average speed of around 25 kmph (Gill, 2006). With the proposed dedicated west and east freight corridors, the goods trains are expected to run at 100kmph. The West and East rail corridor of 1469-km and 1232-km will be bu ilt with an investment of $2. 0 bn and $2. 40 bn respectively and will be equipped with the latest centralized traffic control systems (Acharya, 2006a). Indian Railways has also decided to collaborate with bulk users of freight transport to build the rail network in a Public Private Partnership (PPP) mode. The first project on this line comprises nine public and private sector companies that are building a 82-km rail line between Haridarpur and Paradip at a cost of $ 120mn (Telegraph, 2006). Recently several steel companies have also shown interest in linking iron and coal mines in Orissa with a 98-km rail line (Business Standard, 2006).Multi-modal transport in India was a monopoly of the Container Corporation of India till 2005. With licenses being given to 13 new private players (Acharya, 2006b), rail trade should improve considerably. In order to encourage trade by small scale industries, Indian Railways has started a â€Å"road-railer†system where container vehicles are c apable of running both on highways hauled by trucks and on rail (Guha and Sinha, 2006). In 199899, the Konkan Railway (one of the railway zones in South-Western India) pioneered the ‘roll-on, roll-off' (‘RO-RO') concept between Mumbai (Kolad) and Goa (Verna).Privately owned trucks are loaded with their goods which are driven on to a rake of flat cars and are carried (trucks and their cargo) to the destination. In 2005-06, the ports handled 456. 20 million tonnes of cargo traffic. This is expected to increase to 700 million tonnes by 2011-12. In keeping pace with the growing demand, the government plans to increase port capacities to around 1 billion tonnes per annum in the next six years (Raja, 2006). Under the National Maritime Development Programme (NMDP), the government is encouraging public-private partnership to build and maintain ports.This scheme will cover 276 port related projects at an investment of $12. 40 bn (Raja, 2006). With rising congestion levels at majo r ports and with high average turnaround time, the government has decided to develop minor ports in seven states to ease the traffic of major ports (Financial Express, 20006b). Tables 3 the operational performance of various ports in India – while there is an improvement in performance, the pace is slow. The estimated cost of this development is expected to be around $350 mn. Further, private sector is likely to invest $ 7. 67 billion over the next six years.W. P. No. 2007-03-07 Page No. 11 IIMA INDIA Research and Publications Table 3: Average Turnaround Time At Ports (in Days) Port Chennai Cochin Haldia Jawaharlal Nehru Kandla Kolkata Marmugao Mumbai New Mangalore Paradip Tuticorin Vishakhapatnam Average Source: IAEIS 2000-01 2001-02 2002-03 2003-04 2004-05 2005-06 CAGR 6. 40 5. 80 5. 30 3. 70 4. 60 3. 80 (9. 90) 3. 23 3. 10 2. 37 2. 19 2. 22 2. 33 (6. 32) 5. 21 3. 96 4. 01 3. 02 2. 87 3. 00 (10. 45) 1. 72 2. 48 2. 34 2. 28 2. 04 1. 84 1. 36 6. 15 4. 72 6. 55 5. 94 5. 06 4. 62 (5. 56) 6. 59 5. 50 4. 71 4. 47 4. 29 4. 7 (8. 75) 4. 30 4. 25 2. 04 3. 86 4. 47 4. 35 0. 23 5. 60 5. 20 5. 47 5. 06 4. 10 4. 21 (5. 55) 3. 80 2. 89 2. 73 1. 90 2. 35 2. 96 (4. 87) 3. 89 4. 16 3. 99 3. 37 3. 42 3. 41 (2. 60) 6. 39 4. 10 4. 11 3. 59 2. 59 2. 66 (16. 08) 4. 75 3. 71 3. 51 3. 72 3. 33 3. 20 (7. 60) 4. 84 4. 16 3. 93 3. 59 3. 45 3. 38 (6. 92) Currently, fifteen private sector projects are operational at various major ports and four more projects are under implementation (Raja, 2006). One of them aims to build the deepest port in the world at an investment of $ 1bn (Financial Express, 2006c).This project is handled by a three-firm Chinese consortium with a Mumbai-based partner, Zoom Developers. Interestingly, firms like Ambuja Cement have been using barges for transport of clinkers from their factories to crushing and packaging plants all over the coast, thereby, reducing transport costs considerably. It can be seen that there is a fury of activity in enhancing the in frastructure capacities in the country. 4 Determinants of Logistics Growth in India The Indian logistics business is valued at US$ 14bn and has been growing at a CAGR of 7-8 per cent.As mentioned earlier, the logistics cost represents 13-14 per cent of the country’s GDP. The market is fragmented with thousands of players offering partial services in logistics; it is estimated that there are about 400 firms capable of providing some level of integrated service (Mahalaksmi, 2006). The economy is expected to grow around ten per cent over the next ten years and sectors like chemicals, petrochemicals (especially distribution), pharmaceuticals, metals and metal processing, FMCG, textile, retail and automobile are projected to grow the fastest.New business models are emerging as new firms, both domestic and foreign, enter the market. As a result of the ensuing competition, linkages with global supply chains and domestic market growth W. P. No. 2007-03-07 Page No. 12 IIMA INDIA Resea rch and Publications promise to change the face of logistics industry beyond recognition. In this section, we discuss how these are going to determine the growth of the sector. The scale of operations in manufacturing is changing and so are their markets and sourcing geographies.Growth in manufacturing in India has happened across clusters that are located in different parts of the country, e. g. , Ludhiana, NCR, Baddi and Dehradun in North, Rajkot, Jamnagar, Pune and Mumbai in West (along with Ankleshwar, Vapi, Aurangabad, and Kolhapur and most recently Kutch), and Coimbatore, Vishkahpatnam, Bangalore, Hosur, Chennai, Pudduchery and Sriperumbudur in the South. Assembly plants at these locations are being fed with raw materials and intermediate products from all over the country and abroad (as well as these locations).Moreover, distribution networks with emerging hubs in Indore and Nagpur (i. e. , Central India) supply all over the country and abroad. This is going to increase the n ature and extent of movement of goods and services across the country. This has been accompanied by the expansion of domestic production capacity (e. g. , ORPAT in Morbi has added capacity to produce 40,000 units of quartz clocks and time pieces at a single location) as well as a big MNC entry into the Indian manufacturing scene (e. g. NOKIA’s new factory at Sriperumbudur produces 1 million mobile phones per month). As the volume of production grows, so will the extent of movement of goods either to the ports for export or to the rest of the country. Some of the large players to enter (or expand significantly) the Indian market recently have been Reliance Retail, Big Bazaar Hypermart, Pantaloon and RPG in Retail; Nokia, LG, Samsung, Motorola, Sony, Blue Star in Consumer Electronics; Bajaj, Hero Honda, Maruti, Honda, Toyota, Audi,Volkswagen, Renault, Volvo in the Automotive sectors; Holcim in Cement; etc. It can be expected that their operations will drive the growth of logist ics industry. The liberalizing Indian economy is experiencing entry of large domestic and global firms in new businesses as well as enlargement of distribution network of many regional Indian firms. The announcement of large retail projects by Reliance and Bharti (in collaboration with Wal-Mart) will bring new technology, add additional warehouse capacity and will require fast and reliable movement of goods across the country.Reliance is thinking of establishing large warehouses in Thailand to take advantage of low cost sourcing from South-East Asia once the Free Trade Agreement with Thailand (as well as ASEAN) gets finalized. Similarly, regional food & grocery retail leaders like W. P. No. 2007-03-07 Page No. 13 IIMA INDIA Research and Publications Subhiksha who are present very extensively in the South Indian market are now entering the rest of the country with more than 600 new retail stores in 2007. Their logistics strategy and needs are transforming very significantly with this nationwide expansion.New retail chains are entering the non-metro towns and non-State capitals. It may be mentioned that the growth of the courier industry post-liberalization has helped change the parameters of service evaluation in the industry from cost alone to cost, time, and reliability. This sector has also seen a number alliances between regional and local players especially in the small package (less than 500 grams) market thereby creating networks of small players who are not only cost effective but also more flexible than the large national players.This segment of the industry has taken advantage of the large manpower and is gradually moving away from â€Å"Angadiyas† or manual inter-city couriers to a more organized network that shares transport infrastructure (and even consolidates sub-packages from various small couriers in a single large courier bag to be transported by air cargo or road transport rather than these sub-packages being carried by several manual couriers on the train; the courier firms are gaining on service and are sharing fixed costs).The entry of large third party logistics (3PL) carriers like Federal Express and DHL and the expansion of domestic networks of Indian firms like Gati and Shreyas Shipping is also transforming the nature of services and the business practices across the sector. Table 4 gives an idea of the investment plans announced by the various firms for the coming financial year and gives a sense of their increasing activity. Another trend driving growth in this sector has been the consolidation amongst the logistics player.Mergers & Acquisitions amongst Indian and MNC logistics firms is starting to increase the reach of MNC 3PLs in the domestic Table 4: Investment Plans of Major 3PL Service Providers Firms DHL TNT Gati *Shreyas Shipping and Logistics Investment Details/ Plans (2007-08) (in US $ mn) 260 115 200 350 Source: Baxi (2006), Sanjai (2006a) W. P. No. 2007-03-07 Page No. 14 IIMA INDIA Research an d Publications market while consolidating the business (e. g. , DHL acquired Blue Dart, TNT acquired Sppedage Express Cargo Service, Fedex bought over Pafex etc. ).Consolidation is expected to be beneficial to both the service providers as well as the consumers. Initially MNC 3PL firms were providing only custom clearance and freight forwarding facility to their international clients. With the logistics market growing we should see a shift in this trend. The complexity of managing the supply chain in the pre-consolidation era is illustrated through the following scenario at Nokia (Figure 3) . Logistics activity for Nokia’s India Hub was maintained by a large number of Figure 3: Typical Logistics Supply Chain of NokiaDHL, Panalpina Inbound logistics Nokia Hub in Sriperumbudur Gati, Blue Dart Domestic Outbound logistics UPS Warehouse in India Export Market International Outbound logistics DHL Source: Mishra et al. (2006 service providers. Coordination and handover was a problem at times. With DHL acquiring Blue Dart, it is now able to provide seamless end-to-end integrated supply chain solutions. Downstream distribution channels have also seen some consolidation.Manufacturing firms, particularly, in the FMCG sector have started to reduce the number of wholesalers (and at times, distributors) so as to increase the reach and consequently the returns to each wholesaler. This also induces them to invest in new productivity enhancing technology and effective managerial practices. Technology in the logistics chain is being upgraded bringing better visibility on customer off-takes (though an absence of cash registers and the accompanying regulatory discipline to avoid tax evasion stand in the way of automated data updation).Introduction of more efficient transport technology and mobile communication has the potential of changing the logistics practices in the industry. Increasing competition and the low penetration of IT also implies that the scope for change is immense and imminent. The agri-business sector’s supply chain, for example, has changed significantly with increasing investment in coldchains across the country. With this, fruits and vegetables are being transported long distances (often more than 1500 kms) and milk grid is able to pickup and deliver liquid W.P. No. 2007-03-07 Page No. 15 IIMA INDIA Research and Publications milk from and to remote areas more frequently. Here the role of cooperatives like AMUL has been exemplary both in increasing the size of the distribution network and also in reorganizing the supply network very efficiently along with enormous buildup of social capital – a pre-requisite for growth in emerging economies (Chandra and Tirupati, 2003). Low penetration of hand eld technologies for order processing and tracking, product tracking and material handling accessories, as well as IT for improved decision making can be seen as opportunities for growth. Mobile technologies also hold the potent ial for rapidly using information for real time decision making as well as for coordinating both the inbound and outbound logistics. Indian customers exhibit strong value and variety seeking behaviour hence developing capabilities in the process of product and service delivery will induce loyalty (i. e. , process loyalty).Government policies have been another driver of change in the logistics industry. The trend towards a higher road cargo traffic as compared to rail is going to require better logistics control and coordination. The golden quadrilateral road project and the east & west rail corridors are expected to change the reactiveness of Indian firms through shorter lead times as well as lower maintenance costs on the transport equipment. They also have the potential of reducing the procedural delays on highways by reducing the number of checks and related stoppages of vehicles.Its impact on perishable good will be most significant. Thirteen States and three UTs have already am ended the State laws allowing private sector participation in direct purchases of farm produce from farmers (Ahya, 2006) which is making procurement more efficient and is bringing better technology as well as products in the rural production and distribution network (e. g. , see ITC echoupal in the next section). Banks have developed venture capital funds for logistics players. Small Industries Development Bank of India or SIDBI, for instance, has invested $ 2. mn in the Mumbai based firm Direct Logistics (Baxi, 2006). The unbundling of the logistics supply chain (both the physical pickup, storage and movement of goods as well as allied services like invoicing, order management, freight forwarding, customs clearance, octroi tax management etc. ) will lead to business opportunities and add value to the customers. An interesting example is that of Reliance Connect Service Centres that have been established on Indian highways by Reliance industry along with petrol stations.The Connect Centres provide a place for truckers to relax (sometimes with overnight stay facilities), send information (including data) to parent firms on their location, completed transactions etc. , receive material/instructions from the firm, remit money to parent firm, W. P. No. 2007-03-07 Page No. 16 IIMA INDIA Research and Publications etc. It has become a one-stop shop for truckers and their companies to keep in touch. Similarly, once VAT is introduced, it will simplify the process of goods servicing and will lead to rationalizing of many operational decisions.The implication of the emergence of a strong service industry on logistics performance is not well understood. Perhaps, a new business segment will emerge that is technology driven and will help coordinate activities across business channels. For example, there is a need to integrate the flow of information, goods and services between a medical physician, a diagnostics center, hospitals & nursing homes, and retail medical outlets à ¢â‚¬â€œ all of which are un-coordinated independent entities at the moment.This could range from digital transmission of MRI scans from a diagnostics center to a computer to blood collection and delivery from physician’s various city centers to nursing homes/blood banks or directly to dispersed operation theatres. The role of a coordinating agency becomes, organizationally, valuable in such an environment. The need is to link physical logistics processes with communication technologies –building on the strengths of the IT and mobile communication industries. 5 The Renewal of the Sector: Some Innovative ExperiencesThere have been several instances of firms undertaking innovative re-design of their logistics systems or deployment of interesting business models to enhance the effectiveness of their networks in order to deliver value to their customers. Sometimes it was done to overcome an inherent disadvantage that may exist in the supply chain. In this section, we presen t a few such experiences both at the firm level and at the industry level, through brief caselets highlighting their innovative contribution. They also represent the renewal process that is transforming the logistics sector and the distribution strategy of firms.GATI3 Established at a time (in 1989) when firms in India hardly outsourced their logistics requirements, Gati has transformed itself from a cargo movement company to become one of the leading end-to-end logistics and supply chain solutions provider in India. Continuous innovation and high end technological investments to improve service 3 Source: www. gati. com, Sharma and Thakur (2006), Prowess (2006), Reddy (2007) W. P. No. 2007-03-07 Page No. 17 IIMA INDIA Research and Publications quality, speed and efficiency can be ascribed as the reasons behind their success.It is staring to connect with mass retail market in several cities through 1500 Customer Convenient Centres. It is also the first Indian company to operate in th e far-east market with its own subsidiary in Hong Kong. On the service front, there have been several firsts in India by Gati – a money back guarantee on cargo services, cash-on-delivery and a tollfree number for convenience of customers. Gati operates one of the largest road networks linking 594 districts out of a total of 602 districts in India at a turnover of $104mn in 2005-2006. It covers 3. 2 lakh4-km every day with a fleet size of 2000 trucks.Its automated shipment tracking ability has brought it closer to the customers – for example, the SMS based tracking system has allowed the customers to continuously get an update on the status of their consignment. Another feature also enables customers to get email based conformation of any delivery. Gati has also transformed the warehouse management practices in India with its modern system, WMS – a web based warehouse management system that provides both functionality and flexibility to customers in managing thei r warehouse operations. WMS enables Gati and its customers to track inventory status in real time.Along with its transportation related capabilities, this has allowed Gati to manage the entire outbound logistics (i. e. , warehousing, transport and dealer/retailer replenishment) of Blue Star for his home air-conditioning division. Order processing times and shipping errors have decreased and customer service levels have improved, as a consequence. Currently, Gati operates with 10 warehouses and plans to setup another 25 over the next three years at an investment of $100mn. It is designing these new warehouses with mechatronic systems that could lead to a paradigm shift in warehouse management in India.It has implemented CRM and ERP systems, using IT to full advantage delivering value to the customers. AMUL5 The Kaira District Milk Cooperative Union or better known as AMUL was established in 1946 in Anand in the western State of Gujarat with an aim to remove the intermediaries in the milk procurement and distribution process and thereby increase return to milk farmers. The milk farmers were mostly marginalized members of the society and most of 4 5 1 lakh = 100,000 www. amul. org; Chandra and Tirupati (2003) W. P. No. 2007-03-07 Page No. 18 IIMA INDIA Research and Publications hem barely poured a few litres of milk each day. They, however, depended on this for their livelihood and any money lost to the middleman or to uncertainty in the environment meant a threat to their existence. Thus was born AMUL (which means invaluable in Hindi)! The Story of AMUL is an extraordinary story of vision, effort and power of networks for the benefit of the poor. From being a net importer of milk in 1947 when India became independent, India has now emerged as the largest milk producer in the world. This remarkable story has been scripted by a network of cooperatives called AMUL.The AMUL network is coordinated by the Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation (or GCMMF) which markets milk and milk products that are produced by 12 Milk Unions (each having several factories) one of which is AMUL at Anand. The Unions are spread in twelve districts of Gujarat. Each Union collects milk from farmers through cooperative Village Societies. (This structure is now replicated in almost all the States of India. ) In 2005-2006, GCMMF had a sales turnover of $860mn through milk and milk products (its Unions or plants produce 15 categories of milk products with several products in each category).The 12 Unions collect about 6. 3million litres of milk every day from 2. 5 million farmers through 11,962 Village Societies. (with an annual collection of 2. 28 bn litres in 20052006). Each village society may have 100 to 1000 member farmers who pour milk twice a day. Twice daily, about 500 trucks collect milk from these Village Societies and bring them to either of the five chilling centers or the processing plants (or Unions). The Unions process the liquid milk – produ ce milk of various types for consumption, convert some to powder as inventory and use both powder and liquid milk for producing milk products.These products are distributed to consumers through a channel comprising 4000 stockists (or distributors) and 5,00,000 retailers. It is not difficult to imagine the complexity of coordinating such a network of perishable products with an explicit social objective, in addition to a commercial one. The network realized the need for a unique model to deliver value to customers and through that serve the key objective of setting up of the cooperative – making a producer out of a poor consumer and helping her get better returns. W. P. No. 2007-03-07 Page No. 19 IIMA INDIA Research and PublicationsBriefly, we will illustrate the unique mechanisms used by this network to coordinate the complex supply chain through the intervention of a number of third party service providers (distributors, retailers, logistics service providers and IT support groups). The network practices frequent delivery and works with low inventory levels in the chain, supported by extensive information network and IT kiosks at the milk pickup locations that provide a variety of services. Payment to farmers for RM procurement is instantaneous (well, almost! ) – during the same or in the next pouring shift by the Village Society staff.Milk is carried in cans by trucks (twice daily) or in chilling trucks, once in a day, to the plants. The routes of the trucks are well established and the arrival timetables at each Society well known and rarely is there any delay. This helps provide visibility to every member of the chain and improves the return on investment in the channel. The network operates with a zero stock out through improved availability of products and quick delivery. Disciplined planning to reduce variability at each stage helps in maintaining timeliness in the channel.GCMMF coordinates the production plan between the twelve Unions and ensures matching of geographic markets with supplies. TQM and Hoshin Kanri are the key tools used to plan and implement daily production and change programmes – these have facilitated a six-sigma performance throughout the network and has led to a doubling of sales revenue in the last ten years. Most interestingly, AMUL has the largest market share in every product category that it competes in – its competitors are both large MNCs and large & small Indian firms.AMUL illustrates how good managerial practices can help bridge the gap between profits for the supplier and low cost, highy quality products for consumers – all through exceptional coordination of logistics operations across an extensive network. AMUL operates with one umbrella brand for products from all its member Unions – a testimony to strong quality and cost coordination across all Unions and Village Societies. In addition, its has been singularly responsible for pulling out several million o f its members from poverty, ill health and illiteracy through its business model (called Anand Pattern) and social programmes.For details on this case study see Chandra and Tirupati (2003). W. P. No. 2007-03-07 Page No. 20 IIMA INDIA Research and Publications The DABBAWALLAHs of MUMBAI6 The â€Å"dabbawallah’s† or the ‘lunch box delivery people’ of Mumbai pickup and deliver lunch boxes from homes or restaurants and deliver it to the customer’s office – all within a specified time frame – and then deliver the empty box back to the place of pickup. It is an example of how processes can play an important role in coordinating logistics of an important service industry in India.The Nutan Mumbai Tiffin Box Charity Trust of Mumbai was established in 1891 to provide pick-up and delivery of lunch for Britishers working in Mumbai. Since then it has become the leading lunch delivery cooperative in the city. It picks-up and delivers 200,000 lunch boxes in a standard container every day and returns the same to the place of pickup. The firm has an annual turnover of about $12 mn and employs 5000 people for pickup and delivery – almost all of them are uneducated. However, there are less than 10 boxes mis-delivered or un-picked in a month!We discuss, briefly, the processes that help make this logistics network errorproof and deliver such an astonishing performance. The operations of the group has attracted global attention and won them many awards. They represent a growing group of service providers that exist as an element of the logistics network, provide niche service and generate value in return for the customer. The Trust which is organized as a cooperative is operationally organized in hierarchical teams – pick-up teams, consolidation teams, delivery teams (and then the reverse logistics for empty boxes with reversing of the functions for the teams).Typically, each dabba or the lunch box passes through more t han four pair of hands and may be transported up to 60 km each way. Pickup is done between 7. 30am-9. 00am, delivery between 12. 00 and 1. 00pm and return between 2. 00-5. 00pm. These represent tight time-windows where a team of 20-25 members (and supervised by a team leader who also fills in as a pickup person in case of any absence) pick-up lunch boxes from homes – about 30 per pick-ups person. The boxes are carried in a specialized fixture on a bicycle to the nearest train station where the boxes are consolidated by destination.A consolidation team performs this task and carries the boxes (which may have been picked by members of different teams but need to travel to the same destination geography) into the train. Often tiffin or lunch boxes are un-loaded at intermediate train stations – re-consolidated with boxes coming from other locations (i. e, cross-docked) and carried on a third train to its 6 Lecture of Mr Megde, President of the Nutan Mumbai Tiffin Box Suppl iers Charity Trust at IIM Ahmedabad, 2003; Chandra (2004) W. P. No. 2007-03-07 Page No. 21 IIMA INDIA Research and Publications estination station. At the destination station, the lunch boxes coming from various origins/cross-docking destinations, are once again segregated by the building where the delivery is made. Finally, a delivery team picks up their boxes, i. e. , boxes that they will deliver to specific owners in specific buildings, carry them on their bicycles and deliver them in the office of the owner of the box. Later in the afternoon, the same person picksup the empty box and pursues the reverse logistics and the box is ultimately delivered at its point of origin – either a home or a restaurant.With this as the complexity, what may be plausible reasons for such low errors? Contextually, the group members see their role as very important – they are responsible for delivering food to their customers – socially, it enhances their commitment to their tas k and establishes a critical customer-service provider link. Operationally, the handoff is done successfully through simplification or breaking down of tasks, codification and repetition. The designed process is simple and easy to understand for each operator.More important, each operator has a limited yet definite role. This role is one of pickup, consolidation & transfer and delivery (and the similarly for reverse logistics). Each pickup operator does not pickup more than 25-30 boxes as that is the number of addresses etc. that he can remember accurately which helps in avoiding mistakes. The lunch box is enclosed in a standard container which carries a unique code for the destination station, the building where the box is to be delivered and the floor number in that building where the office of the customer is located.Each operator recognizes a limited set of codes that are relevant to him (and does not have to learn the entire coding scheme). And finally, repetition of the task ( i. e. , same pickup location, same place for cross docking, same delivery location etc. ) helps in making the task foolproof. Of course, what helps is the linear geography of Mumbai, the punctuality of trains, relatively stable demand and strong inter-dependence between operators. It is an example of how manual logistics systems can be organized to effectively deliver value to the customer.ITC e-choupal7 The e-choupal project was launched by ITC (a large diversified company with strong FMCG presence) in 2000 in the central Indian State of Madhya Pradesh (MP) to reorganize the distribution of soyabean in rural markets. Today e-choupal reaches out to Source: www. echoupal. com, Talk by the eChoupal CEO S Sivakumar at IIMA, 2003, Mitra (2004), MBS CS (2006) W. P. No. 2007-03-07 7 Page No. 22 IIMA INDIA Research and Publications more than 3. 5 million farmers in 31,000 villages through 5,200 internet enabled kiosks and now covers a variety of agri-business products.The e-choupal was a u nique venture which aimed to eliminate the middlemen from the agricultural commodity supply chain and reduce information asymmetry for the farmers. It is an extremely profitable rural distribution system with its unique design features. The e-choupal was started with an objective to re-organize the soybean trade which was operating in an inefficient manner. Farmers used to sell their produce through government mandated markets called â€Å"mandis. † Mandi trading was conducted by commission agents who bought and sold the produce.As the produce was sold through auction by these traders, farmers would find out the market price only upon arrival at a mandi. If the buyers had purchased enough for the day at this mandi then either the auction prices fell dramatically or the farmers had to wait for the next day’s auction. While all this may have been happening at one mandi, the farmers were unaware of the auction status at other mandis where there could have been shortages. The decision regarding the quality of the produce was also dependent on the trader.Similarly, distortions in price and quality effected agro-business trading firms like ITC who were, by government law, required to purchase from the mandi and through these traders and not directly from farmers. Under the e-choupal model, kiosks were setup in villages providing farmers information in local language on agricultural inputs, best practices in farming, market price realized at various mandi auctions, weather details etc. Nevertheless, it enabled ITC to purchase products directly from farmers (through a change in the law), enhancing quality of products and significant cost reduction (e. . , it saved $5. 40 per tonne on soyabean). The e-choupal now has just two service providers in its procurement chain – the sanchalak, a person between the kiosks and the farmers who inspects the produce and based on his assessment of the quality, the price of the commodity is decided (he gets 0. 5 p er cent commission on the volume sold) and samyojak, a person who manages the ITC warehouses (he gets 1 per cent commission on transactions). Samyojaks also handle much of the logistics at the procurement hub like storage management and transportation from the hub to processing factories.ITC was able to overcome the hurdles posed by infrastructure inadequacy in villages. It uses solar energy to power the batteries of the computer kiosks and has shifted from W. P. No. 2007-03-07 Page No. 23 IIMA INDIA Research and Publications dialup connection to satellite based technology (VSAT). Farmers are now able to make informed decisions as they understand the market better leading to higher productivity. Various seed and fertilizer companies are now able to reach wider market with lesser transaction cost.The e-choupal has provided a market for more than 64 companies (to name a few, Monsanto and Nagarjuna Fertilizers). This innovative direct procurement channel is a win-win mechanism for all the involved parties. ITC is now building a rural retail infrastructure on the foundation of the e-choupal network thereby changing the rural distribution landscape. Transforming the Auto-Component Replacement Supply Chain With changing government policies and consumer preferences, the distribution supply chain of Indian companies has been effected significantly. This poses new challenges for various channel partners.We illustrate this transformation process through the lens of the auto component replacement market supply chain and discuss its implications. We surveyed 21 manufacturers and 22 channel members (distributors, wholesalers and retailers) spread equally in Northern and Western clusters of auto component Industry in India for this purpose. The auto component industry produced parts worth $6. 7 billion (2004-05) with 57 per cent of the demand coming from the replacement market (ACMA, 2005). Low entry barriers have led to a large number of players in the replacement market.T here are about 400 firms in the organized sector and more than 5000 in the unorganized sector. Another feature of this sub-sector is the long duration of ownership of vehicles in India which leads to high requirement of parts. It is also found, anecdotally, that willingness to pay for parts decreases with the length of ownership. This has led to an intense segmentation of the parts market by price. Pre–1991, this industry was still in a nascent stage. It was characterized by few manufacturers and low demand. Consequently, the distribution network was flat (Figure 4a).Availability of spare parts was a key issue with long delivery lead-times and manufacturers sought large order sizes. This also led to the growth of un-branded parts or parts branded by regional producers (often supplied by small firms) in the replacement market. The product was sold chiefly on personal relationship with the buyer; quality, brand and price were not the selling propositions. Maruti Udyog Limited h ad created a W. P. No. 2007-03-07 Page No. 24 IIMA INDIA Research and Publications network of suppliers of quality parts for its vehicles.Hero Honda had done the same for its motorcycles. Post-1991, the liberalization of the automotive industry led to an entry of many foreign auto players. Because of the impending automobile industry boom and high margins for distributors, the demand for spare auto-parts was expected to grow. The distribution channel was modified with the entry of two more channel members, i. e. , wholesalers and semi-wholesalers (Figure 4b). The latter were smaller versions of the former and locally oriented. The period 1994-2007 saw a major transformation of the distribution structure (Figure 4c).OEMs started to operate in the replacement market through a parallel supply chain selling parts through their service stations. Additionally, the entry of large number of channel members caused semi-wholesalers to move out of the supply chain – they either moved up the chain to become wholesalers or moved down to become retailers. To strengthen the coordination of this extended supply chain and to buffer against the differential tax structure across states, companies started to operate with Carry and Forwarding Agents (C&FA). Transportation related activities are carried out by all the members of the supply chain.Manufacturers use services of 3PL for transferring their stock to C&FA and distributor locations. But thereafter, the transportation activity is solely managed by channel members themselves. An analysis of the available IT infrastructure and its usage pattern for all the channel members in our sample survey indicates that there is a high deviation in the usage of IT in the replacement market supply chain. Eighty seven per cent of the sampled firms use an ERP package – most of which is customized and developed locally. The main impediment in the use of a branded packages is the high cost of purchase and mplementation. These pac kages are used to generate sales report, order from suppliers, account for the financial transactions and track the level of inventory at plant and C&FA. Manufacturers order the stock from suppliers mostly through emails. In order to track inventory in the channel, firms also made IT investments both at C&FA and within the firm. Linking the C&FA to the company website enabled firms to check stock status at the C&FA and reduce the order processing and customer response times. Larger firms are also providing a similar setup to their distributors.Since the C&FA is mostly owned W. P. No. 2007-03-07 Page No. 25 IIMA INDIA Research and Publications and managed by the firms, manufacturers are also able to check the inventory status, dispatching status and customer records. Distributors have invested primarily in computers for keeping track of the inventory and updating accounting details. On the other hand, rest of the channel partners (wholesalers and retailers) don’t even own comp uters. Parts are ordered primarily on the phone. Interestingly, most distributors were found to be following periodic review olicy while the rest of the channel members were following continuous review policy because of their low sales volume. Post 2007, with the implementation of a uniform tax structure across all states, there will be some changes in the way firms operate. The C&FA will, perhaps, become redundant as most manufacturers will prefer to deal directly with distributors. The concept of an exclusive distributor is expected to vanish. It is expected that with the increase in variety of components, distributors might become wholesalers and will stock multiple brands for the same product.Two parallel distribution channels are expected to be in operation – the OEM chain and the non-OEM chain (Figure 4d). OEM network will primarily handle the passenger car replacement parts and the non-OEM distribution network will sell parts for Light Commercial Vehicles, Heavy Commer cial Vehicles, 2-wheelers and 3-wheelers as the car customer is becoming more brand conscious even while replacing parts which comes along with superior service. Further, we perceive that the more advanced automobiles, Free Trade Agreement with other Asian countries and VAT are going to change the way the replacement market operates.There will be a rationalization of this market in terms of number of firms competing thereby leading to an improvement in quality, delivery time and availability of parts. The size of the firms is expected to increase with an emergence of large national players (in addition to OEMs). This may reduce the number of producers exclusively focusing on the local markets. W. P. No. 2007-03-07 Page No. 26 IIMA INDIA Research and Publications Figure 4a Manufacturer Figure 4b Manufacturer Distributors Distributors Retailers Institutional Buyers SemiWholesalers Wholesalers Institutional Buyers RetailersGovernment Agencies & Transport Companies Garage-station Govern ment Agencies & Transport Companies Garage-station Vehicle owners Vehicle owners Figure 4c Manufacturer Figure 4d Manufacturer Institutional buyers C&FA OEMs Institutional buyers OEMs Wholesalers Distributors Authorized Service Stations Authorized Service Stations SemiWholesalers Retailers Wholesalers Vehicle Owners Vehicle Owners Retailers Government Agencies & Transport Companies Garage-station Government Agencies & Transport Companies Garage-station Vehicle owners Vehicle owners W. P. No. 2007-03-07 Page No. 27 IIMA INDIA Research and Publications Challenges Ahead Several challenges remain before the Indian logistics sector and its future success will depend on the ability of the industry to overcome these hurdles. Some of these impediments are at the firm level while others are at the policy level. At the policy level, the issues of infrastructure and integration of the nation’s logistics network remain the two most critical areas that require attention. The growth of inf rastructure, since 1991, has been quite extensive (covering a wide geographical area) as well as strategic – linking the key industrial, consumption and transshipment centers.However, some imminent weaknesses need be addressed. Movement beyond the golden quadrilateral is required to bring goods from upcountry production sources to main shipment centers. The rate of growth of expressway has to increase. Poor road conditions increase the vehicle turnover, pushing the operating cost a