Nike and Vietnam Essay Example for Free

Nike and Vietnam Essay Globalization is a phenomenon that has become a fact in today’s business world. Companies, always looking to cut costs and improve productivity, often look overseas to either expand current business operations or to outsource existing business operations. Companies often make the decision to go global with the hopes of taking advantage of more favorable business environments, better technologies, or relationships with suppliers and customers. While these facts are a part of globalization, there are also positive benefits, which range from lower prices to consumers, increased education for individuals within the countries where expansion occurs, and a higher standard of life for the individuals in these countries. While arguments can be made that globalization is a positive or negative force on a country or on the world economy, the debate is not likely to end any time soon. This paper will take a look at the positive impacts of globalization by examining Nike in Vietnam. Nike has long been viewed as the poster child for problems associated with globalization. Many have accused Nike of employing workers in sweatshop like conditions in poorer countries like China, and more recently Vietnam. In addition to the sweatshop claims, people often say that Nike employs child labor, often even claiming that the child labor is forced and takes place in sweatshops. Many of these same people also suggest that Nike has taken jobs from the United States to these countries where there are fewer laws regarding work conditions and wages so that they can pay their employees less in an effort to make a higher profit with no regard to the value of human life. These are just a few of the accusations that people often make against multinational corporations such as Nike, and this list is much longer. While it is true that there have been problems at certain factories that make Nike products, the company has taken aggressive steps to ensure that all of its factories now comply with basic human rights. It is hard to argue that the conditions experienced by workers at factories in Vietnam are not still vastly different from what we experience in the West, but the culture is much different as well. Therefore, what we may view as harsh conditions may not, in fact, be so to the actual employees. What are often unnoticed, or at least is not mentioned, are the positive effects that Nike has brought to countries like Vietnam. As stated previously, many of the benefits of globalization within a company like Nike must be looked at within the context of the culture being examined. A primary example of this would be the pay. While some may argue that a monthly pay of $72 per month is essentially the same as employing slave labor, the employees at the Nike factory in Ho Chi Minh City might say otherwise. As Johan Norbert (2004) notes, the pay of $72 per month is â€Å"almost three times the minimum wage for a state-owned enterprise,† which typically involves endless days in intense heat or rain in rice fields surrounded by water and bugs. In addition to being higher paying than previous jobs, working in a Nike factory also provides a stable source of income. These higher wages have afforded the employees other benefits as well. When the first factories opening in Ho Chi Minh City, the workers had to walk to the factories, but, within a few years, they saw significant improvements to their transportation options. Norberg (2004) also writes, â€Å"After three years, they could afford bicycles three years later, they could afford scooters [and after eight years], the first workers [could] afford to buy a car. † This is a reality that few people in Ho Chi Minh City experience, with less than 5% of the population owning a car. But perhaps one of the greatest benefits that globalization has brought to Vietnam is the availability to afford higher education. In the past, many children would have been put to work on farms in order for their families to survive, yet â€Å"In ten years, 2. 2 million children have gone from child labour to education† (Norberg, 2004). Millions of children attending school as a result of globalization is a far cry from many of the child labor accusations previously mentioned. Globalization is, and probably will always be, a topic that has very passionate people on both sides of the debate. While arguments both for and against globalization have valid points to make, few people really have really taken the time to look at the direct impact of this ever growing trend. From strictly a consumer standpoint, Nike’s decision to go global and create factories in a variety of countries has led to an increase from under 200 styles to almost 1200 different styles available for purchase (Locke Siteman, 2007, p. 6). More importantly, though, are the points mentioned above, that employees in countries like Vietnam make almost 3x the wages made in their previous employment. Rarely will you hear that these employees are able to afford items such as cars while the majority of people even within their own city cannot. You will also almost never hear that, despite past abuses of child labor, millions of children have been able to get an education. This is a reality that would not have been possible if their parents were still stuck working in rice fields. This education has the abolition to create a positive cycle of growth, wealth, and education for new generations that will continue for years. If you want to see the direct impact that globalization can have, the case of Nike in Vietnam provides a solid starting point to see the positive effects that have come about as Nike has expanded to have workers in over 50 countries.

The Vision Of Dominos Pizza Commerce Essay

The Vision Of Dominos Pizza Commerce Essay Dominos Pizza is the well known company that delivers pizza and operates through a network of company-owned and franchise-owned stores in the United States and international markets including Malaysia, India, Canada, and Australia. Dominos Pizza was started out small by brothers Tom and James Monaghan at Michigan, United States with just one store called DomiNicks in 1960. After the few years, James Monaghan trades his half of the business to Tom Monaghan and Tom changed the company name to Dominos Pizza in 1965. Dominos Pizza today is the second-largest pizza chain in the United States and has more than 10,000 owned and franchised stores in the United States and more than 65 international markets. The Dominos menu features a variety of Italian-American entrees and slide dishes such as pizza, pasta, bread bowls, salads, chicken wing, and breadsticks. Having so many retail shop and variety type of food means keeping the stock and logistic is not easy task. Dominos Pizza sure have some unique way on keep it supply chain running smooth and tidy. Vision The vision of Dominos Pizza is, illustrates a company of exceptional people on a mission to be the best pizza delivery company in the world.(Dominos Pizza, 2008) Mission The mission of Dominos Pizza is, committed to an inclusive culture which values the contributions of their customers, team members, suppliers, and neighbors. 2.0 Strength of Dominos Pizza Effective inventory management Dominos Pizza took a major advantage in supply chain efficiency in 2002 when it centralized inventory management operations at its headquarters. The centralized operation allowed the company to standardize sourcing, planning, inventory management and replenishment on each distribution center across the national network. Dominos pizza is using software from Prescient Applied Intelligence; a provider of supply chain and advanced commerce solutions to help them achieve the centralized inventory management operations. In this operation, the entire distribution operation uses only 9 planners with the help of the Prescient Applied Intelligence software. The Prescient distribution planning suite works as modules for inventory and demand planning optimized order management and advanced time-phase replenishment. However, the centralized operation needs support from a new method because Dominos have a lot of retail stores around the world, the size of the distribution centers are quite small c ompare to other company. And still not only receive all ingredients and supplies, but they also prepare the dough, so it can be shipped fresh to the stores. Domino introduces matched receipts to demand module to help solve this problem. The idea is made by the Prescient Applied Intelligence software. The system monitor inventory on each distribution center and determines which product have higher demand. The data is gathering through the company PeopleSoft enterprise resource planning system and then combine with Prescient Applied Intelligence software. When the stock in the distribution center is not enough to meet the need of the retail store, the raw material will be ordered more. If the supply is adequate, the stock will not be order and the next order will be consider what was placed on the prior order and go through the same process. Though this way, the freshness of the stock also can be preserve and increase the food quality. Besides that, Dominos want its truck with smaller quantities of multiple items and let the staggered ordering system to balance inbound receipts just the way Dominos need them. Dominos also can build bigger warehouse or distribution center to keep more stocks so it can reduce to cost from ordering and reduce labor cost on daily routine in the distribution center. Automation Benefits Dominos also have a system that automates much of the standard ordering and replenishment planning, instead of spending three-quarters of the week manually putting orders together. This helps the Dominos planners to focus more time and attention on making better strategic decisions. For instance, planner review previous data indentify exception and learn the accuracy from the prior week. Planners can skip unnecessary job and make direct adjustments with this. Then the order is transmitted to Dominos ERP system and on the next day after receiving the order confirmation, planner can simply repeat the process for freight orders. Dominos growing ranks of retail stores are being replenished with a 24-hour service guarantee, even during the heaviest promotion periods, while the network of compact distribution center operates at lean levels few companies can match. This system had gain Domino a lot of advantage on preserving better stocks level and maintaining it. Delivery Tactic In the highly competitive pizza business, Dominos have to create various strategies to make sure itself comparable with other pizza company. With their long time experience on pizza business, they know that time take for the food arrive to customer door is crucial. Dominos Pizza introduced a 30 minutes delivery guarantees and free delivery idea. Dominos is the only pizza company that guarantees customers order will arrive within 30 minutes with free delivery. If the order cannot make it within 30 minutes, then Dominos Pizza will give you a free Regular Pizza Voucher. When delivering pizza, Dominos use a special heat wave bags to keep the pizzas hot during transit. These deals have significantly attracted customer to consume at dominos pizza. Dominos GPS (Great Pizza Service) Tracker Domino also creates a unique service that call Domino GPS Tracker. This GPS tracker had provides a step-by-step update on the status of customer order when customer is online order the pizza. Customer can login with username and password or customers phone number to track the online order. The GPS tracker will shows seven steps throughout the food preparation and delivery process for give customers convenient. The seven steps of tracker are including Order placed, Preparing, Baking, Boxing, Packing, Ready for delivery and the last one is delivering. This GPS tracker can gain competitive advantage because this system makes the more customers friendly and convenient to customer. 4.0 Conclusion Dominos Pizza is a great pizza company to be study. It had proved itself as a world leading pizza company as it has a lot of advantage against other pizza company. The competitive advantages are including Effective inventory management, Automation Benefits, Delivery Tactic and Dominos GPS (Great Pizza Service) Tracker. Dominos pizza has done a great job on satisfying customer needs and maintaining it pizza quality. However, through this assignment, we have learnt how Dominos Pizza gain competitive advantages compare to another pizza seller. This also will give us increase a lot of knowledge about the business logistics operations that we might face in the future.

Kids getting lazy, fat and disrespectful Essay -- essays research pape

Kids these days are getting lazier, fatter, and more disrespectful. The baseball and soccer fields are empty, and the parks are empty. Kids are just no where to be seen nowadays. Where have they all gone? Well, if you look in the right places, then maybe you’ll see them. By the right places, I mean in front of our good friends the television, the play station or the computer. Parents should   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Here are some stats from the U.S. Surgeon General’s office. †¢Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Almost half of Americans aged 12 to 21 are not vigorously active on a regular basis. †¢Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  About 14 percent of those same kids reported no recent physical activity. Participation in any type of physical activities decrease dramatically as these kids get older. Kids are getting more sedentary every day and they’re paying the price of this lifestyle with their health. For every effect, there has to be a cause, according to the law of cause and effect. There is a specific reason as to why kids of the current generation are lazier and less active, and that is technology.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  As kids are born into the information age, new technology is readily available for their use. Life has gotten easier as the years progress, as new technology is developed it aid us in our everyday errands. Even though is aid is available to us, kids are starting to become over reliant on it, and they are slowly growing dependent on technology to do the...

Driving Test Essay -- essays research papers

I woke up at eight in the morning, being that it was May and spring was in the air I knew that my day would be perfect. As I leaped out of my warm and comfortable bed to put on my Bullwinkle slippers, my stomach nerves began to tighten. I figured it was just a small bellyache and I would get over it soon. I walked slowly to the bathroom not really realizing that the house was not filled with sunshine as it usually is during these beautiful spring days. As I began to brush my teeth my eyes caught a glimpse of the window that I now noticed was so close to the mirror. I could have died when I noticed that the rain was coming down like a storm. It was at that moment that I ran to mother’s room to tell her that I couldn’t go driving today. My whole body was tense, I knew this was a sign for me to stay home, I was scared and would never be able to drive in the horrible storm. I don’t know how, but she convinced me to just try, â€Å"It’s just a driving test,â €  is what she continued to repeat, â€Å"if you fail, your not ready.† I knew she wanted me to fail anyway. As she drove into the driveway that seemed to be the size of a football field, my stomach nerves began to tighten once again. There were a few cars in front of us forming a line, and three cars pulled up behind us as soon as the car stopped. I sat in the passenger’s seat watching a car on the winding trail, looking as if it was going back and forth on the course. It seemed as everything that was happening at that moment was irritating me, the tapping of the rain on the car, the windshield wipers swishing back and forth on the windshield and the whining of the saxophone that was playing along with the jazz song on the radio. I knew that my patience was being tested that day and I was sure I would fail. For the next ten minutes I watched as the instructors, that looked as if someone dropped a bucket of water on them even with the yellow raincoats, left one car that was on the course to get into another car that was on the line. The cars seemed to move quickly and it seemed as if my turn was coming to quick. It was at that moment that I felt like I wanted to cry, the wet figure in the yellow raincoat was approaching our car. I wanted to scream for my mother to turn around but I was stuck in the moment I didn’t know what to do. My mother called me and it reminded me of summer nights when she would call me to come in ... ...ualities as he kindly explained that I should relax and adjust my car seat to make me more comfortable. He stressed to me to take my time as I was preparing to drive so I wouldn’t be uptight. He then handed me the piece of paper, the same one he scribbled on the whole time I was driving, and told me to make an appointment to take the test over again. I then watched as the medium framed man got out of the car and walked to the next car on line. When my mother returned to the car, yes I cried, but she made me feel better by promising ice cream and saying that I would definitely pass the next time. On the drive home we blamed everything for the failure, the weather, my nerves, the test trail and even her insistence. I thought that my life was over without a driver’s license. I started at that moment to strategize and decide how I would take the test next time. I would be much calmer whether the sun was shining in the eighty-five degree weather or the snow was coming down in minus twenty. I knew that I wasn’t ready a, but I figured it still wasn’t a waste of time because I was able to take the valuable advice that the instructor gave me that day and even apply it to my next test.

Women, Words, Writing :: Gender Literature Papers

Women, Words, Writing During my morning commute, I cut myself off from the world around me and think. The last thing I see before "shutting off" generally starts a process of free association that is carried on by memory. For instance, this morning a woman sat beside me, reading The Alchemy of Race and Rights by Patricia Williams. Williams is someone I have heard of and read. I remembered her essay "And We Are Not Married"-a wonderful sample of women's writing. For the rest of the time I traveled by subway, I thought of pieces of writing I have read that, somehow, bear the mark of their writer's gender. Now I'm home, at my desk, and I am re-reading the texts I have thought of in the morning, trying to understand why and where I feel the mark of gender. Take, for example, Williams's essay; as I go along, I am fascinated by its complexity, by its huge network-or should I say labyrinth?-of ideas, so huge that the reader can easily get lost, become powerless, and abandon the struggle. Williams argues, among other things, that the practice of certain forms of rhetoric constitute acts of ideology, that style is never neutral, so that types of writing and behavior are always suffused with political content. One of her primary rhetorical tropes is the telling-and retold-anecdote, which always requires interpretation. With each story she relates, new possible paths appear, and one doesn't know which of them is the right one: the "Benetton incident," with its three consecutive versions. Then Tawana Brawley. Maxine Thomas. Mrs. Williams, her mother. Herself. Professor Bell and Geneva Crenshaw. Mr. Williams. Finally, the dream. The stories are presented at length, and commented upon; each affirmation is supported-either because of the author's juridical experience or because of her exactness-by footnotes. This makes the overall structure of the essay a bit confusing. For example, the listing of opinions expressed about Maxine Thomas is backed up by eighteen footnotes. The reader's eye has to go back and forth in order to read everything, and going back and forth eighteen times can be very challenging. In addition to that, the language is sometimes difficult; at times even impenetrable: "the rhetoric of increased privatization, in response to racial issues, functions as the rationalizing agent of public unaccountability, and, ultimately, irresponsibility" (696). One has to stop reading and figure out what she means, to figure out the idea behind that gathering of legal (and thus certainly esoteric) terms.

Company †BlackBerry mobiles Essay

BCG matrix is a portfolio planning model, which is used to determine position of the product in the product portfolio of the company. Under this model, company divides its business units into four categories on the basis of combinations of market growth and market share comparative to the leading opponent. This model helps the management to analyze the future growth of different business units. We can take the example of BlackBerry mobiles. It is the Canadian telecommunication and wireless equipment company best known to the general public as the developer of the BlackBerry brand of smart phones and tablets. At one point of time, BlackBerry mobiles were considered as best mobiles in the market. They use to give direct competition to the Nokia and apple mobile phones. In 2011, the market share of the BlackBerry mobiles was 14.3%. But, over the last few years, company market share has declined to 0.6%. In BCG Matrix, we can place the BlackBerry mobiles into question mark category. We have placed the BlackBerry mobiles into question mark category because the market of mobile is increasing with the rate of around 40% but the market share of the BlackBerry mobiles is deceasing every year. Apart from BlackBerry, all other major mobile phone companies such as Samsung, Apple, Huawei, and Lenovo are growing with good pace. Actually, unlike other companies, BlackBerry did not focused on innovation. It was the last major mobile manufacturing company, which introduced the smart phone. They do not able to match the expectations and needs of the people, due to which company lost its market share into the hands of other mobile manufacturing companies. References http://www.quickmba.com/strategy/matrix/bcg/ http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/2665715 http://bgr.com/2014/02/12/blackberry-market-share-q4-2013/ http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-05-28/blackberry-market-share-to-fall-to-0-3-in-2018-idc-says.html

Slavery and Red Stick Creeks

Tale of Angola: Free Blacks, Red Stick Creeks, and International Intrigue in Spanish Southwest Florida, 1812-1821. Tale of Angola: Free Blacks, Red Stick Creeks, and International Intrigue in Spanish Southwest Florida, 1812-1821 by Canter Brown Jr. talks about the relationship between free blacks of Florida who were also known as the maroon people fighting a long with Red Stick Creeks Indians and international help against European men to keep the black people free.Also it talks about a piece of history in the state of Florida that no one knew anything about. With the help of these people the free blacks and some slaves were able to keep their freedom. Since there where not too many documented information much of the information comes from memories of past marooners or ancestors of those who knew the free blacks and/or the Red Stick Creeks. I think that this article gives a good examples on how black people and Indians fought together and formed military tactics to have the only slav e revolt in US history.According to article, Individuals who had arrived from the United States after the Revolutionary War who were unsuccessful of overthrowing Spain rule in the colony started the Patriot war of 1812-1814. The text states that in September 1812 Seminoles and blacks allied with Spain turned back a patriot advance only to run away when they thought that the white men would return. After hearing about the people called Angola which spread within the Spanish empire and also to the British, not only did These blacks also received help from Indians they also was helped by two British officers named Edward Nicolls and George Woodbine.These two men helped to created Florida’s second free- black refuge of the period and helped them bill a fortified outpost known as Negro Fort. These men and women got guns and weapons from the British and Spanish connections. They learned how to use them and the Indians knew the land so it was easy for them to escape capture. They la unched a series of diplomatic initiatives. In 1819 the Spanish tried to protect blacks and Indians by agreeing to the Adams-onis Treaty that transferred the colonies of east and west Florida to the united states by utting a certain language in the pact. Even though this did not work it showed that Spain was trying to use political power to help them. Also, many of times after these attacks on these people the ones who could get away to safety got picked up by fisherman and taken to the Bahamas were British officials allowed them to stay. This was a good article to read because I don’t know too much about Florida’s history because I am not from here and I never heard of the Angola people.I found it interesting that British and the Spanish tried to help. I always wondered why slaves in America never tried to revolt against slavery cause the history I know only talks about certain people who tried to revolt. It was always made to believe that black slaves and Indians were to dum to from an army. Weather all this information is true or not because most of it is told from second hand stories and can not be accounted for, but I would like to believe that the natives did fight with the free blacks and slaves to save each other.Jackson, David H. , and Canter Brown. â€Å"Tale of Angola: Free Blacks, Red Stick Creeks, and International Intrigue in Spanish Southwest Florida, 1812-1821. † Go Sound the Trumpet! : Selections in Florida's African American History. Tampa, FL: University of Tampa for the Florida A & M University Dept. of History, Political Science/Public Administration, Geography, and African American Studies, 2005. 5-18. Print. Jessica Geralds AMH 2091. 7 Response Paper 1 09/11/2012