Mobile Application on Mindanao State University Essay

The proposed system entitled MSU Grade Module on Mobile using Android OS is a mobile version of the current Grade Module of Mindanao State University. This system enables the instructor to input grades and update INC grades at any location and at any time. Obtaining the Grade Module password is also done using mobile connection. Reasons: * With the convenience of an Android-powered mobile phone, the instructor does not need to physically go to the clerk to request for Grade Module password. * The Grade Module password is sent through email which is more secure than printed Grade Module stub. * The instructor does not need to be in their respective department or in the university to input and/or update grades. * The scarcity of available computers in the university is no longer a concern. * If the instructor is away for seminars, vacations, and other reasons, the instructor no longer needs to request favour from other instructors to input and/or update grades for them, thus the accountability of the grade resides only to the instructor in-charge and lessen bothering other instructors. * With this kind of application, an instructor can become invisible from students who keep following him/her because of various reasons. Possible Problem: * Not all instructors have an Android-powered mobile phone. * Not all instructors maintain an email address, especially those who are not technology-savvy. * Internet connection is not stable for instructors who want to input and/or update grades within the university. * The availability of online modules of the university is not stable.

Loving Our Family Essay

As a Catholic, I wish to preserve the values that were instilled in me-those that define a person. It is said that everything starts from our family. They are the one that hour as all the influence that change and lead us where are we now. Our mothers served as our first teachers. Our fathers seemed to be our first ball of our first basketball match. Our brothers and sisters portrayed the role of our first best buddies. Indeed, they are what who made us. We owe them what we are today especially our parents. So first thing, I want to instill in the minds of the next generation, the values of a Filipino family. I thank the Lord for giving me a family that is bounded with love and harmony. I wish every child would honor their mothers and fathers as what Jesus had commanded us. I wish we as a children, would not just look into our parents as mere providers of our needs and pleasures. They are more than a provider of the material entity. They give immaterial things, immortal love and endless sacrifice. How great is our sin if we don’t even at least to make a coffee for them to every morning or offer a meal whenever they are already exhausted or tired with the entire day of work. We only have one chance of having a family, once they are gone, they are gone forever. So let us preserve the closeness of our family or the close family ties we had learned in our country’s culture. Let the next generation enjoy the unconditional love of God through our family.

Disruptive Technology

Disruptive Technology Abstract The objective of this project is to explain the emergence of disruptive technology in the IT industry that will enable and help the organizations growth in a cost effective manner. One of the hottest topics in today’s IT corridors is the uses and benefits of virtualization technologies. IT companies all over the globe are executing virtualization for a diversity of business requirements, driven by prospects to progress server flexibility and decrease operational costs. InfoTech Solutions being dominant IT solution provider can be broadly benefited by implementing the virtualization. This paper is intended to provide the complete details of virtualization, its advantages and strategies for SMEs to migrate. Introduction 2009 IT buzz word is ‘Virtualization’. Small, medium and large business organizations seriously started to re organize their e-business strategy towards the successful disruptive technology of virtualization. Virtualization of business applications permits IT operations in organizations of all sizes to decrease costs, progress IT services and to reduce risk management. The most remarkable cost savings are the effect of diminishing hardware, utilization of space and energy, as well as the productivity gains leads to cost savings. In the Small business sector virtualization can be defined as a technology that permits application workloads to be maintained independent of host hardware. Several applications can share a sole, physical server. Workloads can be rotated from one host to another without any downtime. IT infrastructure can be managed as a pool of resources, rather than a collection of physical devices. Disruptive Technology Disruptive Technology or disruptive Innovation is an innovation that makes a product or service better by reducing the price or changing the market dramatically in a way it does not expect. Christensen (2000) stated that ‘‘disruptive technologies are typically simpler, cheaper, and more reliable and convenient than established technologies’’ (p. 192). Before we do any research on disruptive technology it is useful and necessary to summarize the Christensen’s notion of disruptive technology. Christensen was projected as â€Å"guru† by the business (Scherreik, 2000). His work has been broadly referred by scholars or researchers working in different disciplines and topics like the development of new product, strategies like marketing and management and so on. In his book â€Å"The Innovator’s Dilemma,† (Christensen 1997) Christensen had done significant observations about the circumstances under which companies or organizations that are established lose market to an entrant that was referred as disruptive technology. This theory became extremely influential in the management decision making process (Vaishnav, 2008). Christensen’s arguments, from the academic references (Christensen 1992; Christensen and Rosenbloom 1995; Christensen, Suarez et al. 1996) instead of looking in to his famous paperbacks (Christensen 1997; Christensen and Raynor 2003), explains that the entrant might have more advantage then the incumbent and it requires the understanding of three important forces: technological capability (Henderson and Clark 1990), organizational dynamics (Anderson and Tushman 1990), and value (Christensen and Rosenbloom 1995). He argued further that company’s competitive strategy and mainly its earlier choices of markets to serve, decides its perceptions of economic value in new technology, and improves the rewards it will expect to obtain through innovation. Christensen (1995) classifies new technology into two types: sustaining and disruptive. Sustaining technology depends on rising improvements to an already established technology, at the same time Disruptive technology is new, and replaces an established technology unexpectedly. The disruptive technologies may have lack of refinement and often may have performance problems because these are fresh and may not have a verified practical application yet. It takes a lot of time and energy to create something new and innovative that will significantly influence the way that things are done. Most of the organizations are concerned about maintaining and sustaining their products and technologies instead of creating something new and different that may better the situation. They will make change and minor modifications to improve the current product. These changes will give a bit of new life to those products so that they can increase the sales temporarily and keeps the technology a bit longer. Disruptive technologies generally emerge from outside to the mainstream. For example the light bulb was not invented by the candle industry seeking to improve the results. Normally owners of recognized technology organizations tend to focus on their increased improvements to their existing products and try to avoid potential threat to their business (Techcom, 2004). Compared to sustaining products, disruptive technologies take steps into various directions, coming up with ideas that would work against with products in the current markets and could potentially replace the mainstream products that are being used. So it is not considered as disruption, but considered as innovation. It is not only replacing, but improving ahead what we have now making things enhanced, quicker, and mostly cooler. Either it may be disruptive or innovative; technologies are changing the â€Å"future wave† in to reality and slowly started occupying the world. On one hand, the warning of disruption makes incumbents suspicious about losing the market, while emerging new entrants confident of inventing the next disruptive technology. Perhaps, such expects and worries produce more competition in the market place. It seems that every year there is a laundry list of products and technologies that are going to â€Å"change the world as we know it. † One that seems to have potential to achieve the title of a disruptive technology is something that has been around for a while now: virtualization. Gartner (2008) describes disruptive technology as â€Å"causing major change in the accepted way of doing things, including business models, processes, revenue streams, industry dynamics and consumer behaviors†. Virtualization is one of the top ten disruptive technologies listed by Gartner (Gartner. com). This virtualization technology is not new to the world. As computers turn into more common though, it became obvious that simply time-sharing a single computer was not always ideal because the systems can be misused intentionally or unintentionally and that may crash the entire system to alt. To avoid this multi system concept emerged. This multi system concept provided a lot of advantages in the organizational environment like Privacy, security to data, Performance and isolation. For example in organization culture it is required to keep certain activities performing from different systems. A testing application run in a system sometimes may halt the system or crash the syst em completely. So it is obvious to run the application in a separate system that won’t affect the net work. On the other hand placing different applications in the same system may reduce the performance of the system as they access the same available system resources like memory, network input/output, Hard disk input/output and priority scheduling (Barham, at,. el, 2003). The performance of the system and application will be greatly improved if the applications are placed in different systems so that they can have its own resources. It is very difficult for most of the organization to invest on multiple systems and at times it is hard to keep all the systems busy to its full potential and difficult to maintain and also the asset value keeps depreciating. So investing in multiple systems becomes waste at times, however having multi systems obviously has its own advantages. Considering this cost and waste, IBM introduced the first virtual machine in 1960 that made one system to be as it was multiple. In the starting, this fresh technology allowed individuals to run multiple applications at the same time to increase the performance of person and computer to do multitask abilities. Along with this multi tasking factor created by virtualization, it was also a great money saver. The multitasking ability of virtualization that allowed computers to do more than one task at a time become more valuable to companies, so that they can leverage their investments completely (VMWare. com). Virtualization is a hyped and much discussed topic recently due to its potential characteristics. Firstly it has capacity to use the computer resources in a better potential way maximizing the company’s hardware investment. It is estimated that only 25% of the total resources are utilized in an average data center. By virtualization large number older systems can be replaced by a highly modern, reliable and scalable enterprise servers reduce the hardware and infrastructure cost significantly. It is not just server consolidation, virtualization offers much more than that like the ability to suspend, resume, checkpoint, and migrate running Chesbrough (1999a, 1999b). It is exceptionally useful in handling the long running jobs. If a long running job is assigned to a virtual machine with checkpoints enabled, in any case it stops or hangs, it can be restarted from where it stopped instead of starting from the beginning. The main deference of today’s virtualization compared to the older mainframe age is that it can be allocated any of the service’s choice location and is called as of Distributed Virtual Machines that opens a whole lot of possibilities like monitoring of network, validating security policy and the distribution of content (Peterson et, al, 2002). The way virtual technology breaks the single operating system boundaries is what made it to be a significant part of technology that leads in to the disruptive technology group. It allows the users to run multiple applications in multiple operating systems on a single computer simultaneously. (VMWare. com, 2009) Basically, this new move will have a single physical server and that hardware can be made in to software that will use all the available hardware resources to create a virtual mirror of it. The replications created can be used as software based computers to run multiple applications at the same time. These software based computers will have the complete attributes like RAM, CPU and NIC interface of the physical computers. The only different is that there will be only one system instead of multiple running different operating systems (VMWare. com, 2009) called guest machines. Virtual Machine Monitor Guest virtual machines can be hosted by a method called as Virtual Machine Monitor or VMM. This should go hand-in-hand with virtual machines. In realty, VMM is referred as the host and the hosted virtual machines are referred as guests. The physical resources required by the guests are offered by the software layer of the VMM or host. The following figure represents the relationship between VMM and guests. The VMM supplies the required virtual versions of processor, system devices such as I/O devices, storage, memory, etc. It also presents separation between the virtual machines and it hosts so that issues in one cannot effect another. As per the research conducted by Springboard Research study recently, the spending related to virtualization software and services will reach to 1. 5 billion US dollar by the end of 2010. The research also adds that 50% of CIOs interested in deploying virtualization to overcome the issues like poor performance system’s low capacity utilization and to face the challenges of developing IT infrastructure. TheInfoPro, a research company states that more than 50% of new servers installed were based on virtualization and this number is expected to grow up to 80% by the end of 2012. V irtualization will be the maximum impact method modifying infrastructure and operations by 2012. In reference to Gartner, Inc. 008, Virtualization will renovate how IT is bought, planed, deployed and managed by the companies. As a result, it is generating a fresh wave of competition among infrastructure vendors that will result in market negotiation and consolidation over the coming years. The market share for PC virtualization is also booming rapidly. The growth is expected to be 660 million compared to 5 million in till 2007. Virtualization strategy for mid-sized businesses Virtualization has turn out to be a significant IT strategy for small and mid-sized business (SMEs) organizations. It not only offers the cost savings, but answers business continuity issues and allows IT managers to: †¢Manage and reduce the downtime caused due to the planed hardware maintenance that will reduce the down time resulting higher system availability. †¢Test, investigate and execute the disaster recovery plans. †¢Secure the data, as well as non-destructive backup and restore Processes †¢Check the stability and real-time workloads In these competitive demanding times, SME businesses organizations require to simplify the IT infrastructure and cut costs. However, with various storage, server and network requirements, and also sometimes might not have sufficient physical space to store and maintain systems, the company’s chances can be restricted by both less physical space and budget concerns. The virtualization can offer solutions for these kind issues and SMEs can significantly benefit not only from server consolidation, but also with affordable business continuity. What is virtualization for mid-sized businesses? In the Small business sector virtualization can be defined as a technology that permits application workloads to be maintained independent of host hardware. Several applications can share a sole, physical server. Workloads can be rotated from one host to another without any downtime. IT infrastructure can be managed as a pool of resources, rather than a collection of physical devices. It is assumed that the virtualization is just for large enterprises. But in fact it is not. It is a widely-established technology that decreases hardware requirements, increases use of hardware resources, modernizes management and diminish energy consumption. Economics of virtualization for the midmarket The research by VMWare. om (2009) shows that the SMEs invested on virtualization strategy has received their return of investment (ROI) in less than year. In certain cases, this can be less than seven months with the latest Intel Xeon 5500 series processors http://www-03. ibm. com/systems/resources/6412_Virtualization_Strategy_-_US_White_Paper_-_Apr_24-09. pdf [accessed on 04/09/09] The below image explains how the virtualization simplified a large utility company infrastructure with 1000 systems with racks and cables to a dramatically simpler form. Source : http://www-03. ibm. om/systems/resources/6412_Virtualization_Strategy_-_US_White_Paper_-_Apr_24-09. pdf [accessed on 04/09/09] Virtualization SME advantages 1. Virtualization and management suite presents a stretchable and low -cost development platform and an environment with high capability. 2. Virtualization provides the facility to rotate virtual machines that are live between physical hosts. This ability numerous advantages like business continuity, recovery in disaster, balancing of workload, and even energy-savings by permitting running applications to be exchanged between physical servers without disturbing the service. . Virtualization can help you take full advantage of the value of IT Pounds: †¢Business alertness in varying markets †¢A flexible IT infrastructure that can scale with business growth †¢ High level performance that can lever the majority of d emanding applications †¢ An industry-standard platform architecture with intellectual management tools †¢ Servers with enterprise attributes—regardless of their size or form factor 4. Virtualization can help you to advance IT services: †¢The provision to maintain the workloads rapidly by setting automatic maintenance process that can be configured to weeks, days or even to inutes. †¢Improve IT responsiveness to business needs †¢Down times can be eliminate by shifting the †¢To a great extent decrease, even eliminate unplanned downtime. †¢Reducing costs in technical support, training and mainte ¬nance. Conclusion: This is the right time for Small and mid-sized businesses like InfoTech Solutions to implement a virtualization strategy. Virtualization acts as a significant element of the IT strategy for businesses of all sizes, with a wide range of benefits and advantages for all sized businesses. It helps InfoTech Solutions to construct an IT infrastructure with enterprise-class facilities and with a with a form factor of Return Of Investment. It is expected that more than 80% of organizations will implement virtualization by the end of 2012. So SME organizations like InfoTech Solutions should seriously look in to their E-business strategy for considering the virtualization or they may be left behind the competitors. References 1. Adner, Ron (2002). When Are Technologies Disruptive? A Demand- Based View of the Emergence of Competition. Strategic Management Journal 23(8):667–88. . Anderson, P. and M. L. Tushman (1990). â€Å"Technological Discontinuities and Dominant Designs – a Cyclical Model of Technological-Change. † Administrative Science Quarterly 35(4): 604-633. 3. Barham, B. Dragovic, K. Fraser, S. Hand, T. Harris, A. Ho, R. Neugebauer, I. Pratt, and A. Warfield. Xen and the art of virtualization. In Proc. 19th SOSP, October 2003. 4. Chesbrough, Hen ry (1999a). Arrested Development: The Experience of European Hard-Disk-Drive Firms in Comparison with U. S. and Japanese Firms. Journal of Evolutionary Economics 9(3):287–329. 5. Chintan Vaishnav , (2008) Does Technology Disruption Always Mean Industry Disruption, Massachusetts Institute of Technology 6. Christensen, Clayton M. (2000). The Innovator’s Dilemma. When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press. 7. Christensen, C. M. (1992). â€Å"Exploring the limits of technology S-curve: Architecture Technologies. † Production and Operations Management 1(4). 8. Christensen, C. M. and R. S. Rosenbloom (1995). â€Å"Explaining the Attackers Advantage -Technological Paradigms, Organizational Dynamics, and the Value Network. † Research Policy 24(2): 233-257. . Christensen, C. M. , F. F. Suarez, et al. (1996). Strategies for survival in fast-changing industries. Cambridge, MA, International Center for Research on the Management 10. Christensen, C. M. (1992). â€Å"Exploring the limits of technology S-curve: Component Technologies. † Production and Operations Management 1(4). 11. Christensen, C. M. (1997). The innovator's dilemma : when new technologies cause great firms to fail. Boston, Mass. , Harvard Business School Press. 12. Christensen, C. M. and M. E. Raynor (2003). The innovator's solution : creating and sustaining successful growth. Boston, Mass. , Harvard Business School Press. 13. Cohan, Peter S. (2000). The Dilemma of the ‘‘Innovator’s Dilemma’’: Clayton Christensen’s Management Theories Are Suddenly All the Rage, but Are They Ripe for Disruption? Industry Standard, January 10, 2000. 14. Gartner Says; http://www. gartner. com/it/page. jsp? id=638207 [ accessed on 04/09/09] 15. Henderson, R. M. and K. B. Clark (1990). â€Å"Architectural Innovation – the Reconfiguration of Existing Product Technologies and the Failure of Established Firms. † Administrative Science Quarterly 35(1): 9-30. 16. MacMillan, Ian C. nd McGrath, Rita Gunther (2000). Technology Strategy in Lumpy Market Landscapes. In: Wharton on Managing Emerging Technologies. G. S. Day, P. J. H. Schoemaker, and R. E. Gunther (eds. ). New York: Wiley, 150–171. 17. Scherreik, Susan (2000). When a Guru Manages Money. Business Week, July 31, 2000. 18. L. Peterson, T. Anderson, D. Culler, and T. R oscoe, â€Å"A Blueprint for Introducing Disruptive Technology into the Internet,† in Proceedings of HotNets I, Princeton, NJ, October 2002. 19. â€Å"VirtualizationBasics. † VMWare. com. http://www. vmware. com/virtualization/ [Accessed on 04/09/09] Disruptive Technology One of the most consistent patterns in business is the failure of leading companies to stay at the top of their industries when technologies or markets change. Goodyear and Firestone entered the radial-tire market quite late. Xerox let Canon create the small-copier market. Bucyrus-Erie allowed Caterpillar and Deere to take over the mechanical excavator market. Sears gave way to Wal-Mart. The pattern of failure has been especially striking in the computer industry. IBM dominated the mainframe market but missed by years the emergence of minicomputers, which were technologically much simpler than mainframes. Digital Equipment dominated the minicomputer market with innovations like its VAX architecture but missed the personal-computer market almost completely. Apple Computer led the world of personal computing and established the standard for user-friendly computing but lagged five years behind the leaders in bringing its portable computer to market. Why is it that companies like these invest aggressively-and successfully-in the technologies necessary to retain their current customers but then fail to make certain other technological investments that customers of the future will demand? Undoubtedly, bureaucracy, arrogance, tired executive blood, poor planning, and short-term investment horizons have all played a role. But a more fundamental reason lies at the heart of the paradox: leading companies succumb to one of the most popular, and valuable, management dogmas. They stay close to their customers. Although most managers like to think they are in control, customers wield extraordinary power in directing a company's investments. Before managers decide to launch a technology, develop a product, build a plant, or establish new channels of distribution, they must look to their customers first: Do their customers want it? How big will the market be? Will the investment be profitable? The more astutely managers ask and answer these questions, the more completely their investments will be aligned with the needs of their Customers. This is the way a well-managed company should operate. Right? But what happens when customers reject a new technology, product concept, or way of doing business because it does not address their needs as effectively as a company's current approach? The large photocopying centers that represented the core f Xerox's customer base at first had no use for small, slow tabletop copiers. The excavation contractors that had relied on Bucyrus-Erie's big-bucket steam- and diesel-powered cable shovels didn't want hydraulic excavators because, initially they were small and weak. IBM's large commercial, government, and industrial customers saw no immediate use for minicomputers. In each instance, companies listened to their customers, gave them the product performance they were looking for , and, in the end, were hurt by the very technologies their customers led them to ignore. We have seen this pattern repeatedly in an ongoing study of leading companies in a variety of industries that have confronted technological change. The research shows that most well-managed, established companies are consistently ahead of their industries in developing and commercializing new technologies- from incremental improvements to radically new approaches- as long as those technologies address the next-generation performance needs of their customers. However, these same companies are rarely in the forefront of commercializing new technologies that don't initially meet the needs of mainstream customers and appeal only to small or emerging markets. Using the rational, analytical investment processes that most well-managed companies have developed, it is nearly impossible to build a cogent case for diverting resources from known customer needs in established markets to markets and customers that seem insignificant or do not yet exist. After all, meeting the needs of established customers and fending off competitors takes all the resources a company has, and then some. In well-managed companies, the processes used to identify customers' needs, forecast technological trends, assess profitability, allocate resources across competing proposals for investment, and take new products to market are focused-for all the right reasons-on current customers and markets. These processes are designed to weed out proposed products and technologies that do not address customers' needs. In fact, the processes and incentives that companies use to keep focused on their main customers work so well that they blind those companies to important new technologies in emerging markets. Many companies have learned the hard way the perils of ignoring new technologies that do not initially meet the needs of mainstream customers. For example, although personal computers did not meet the requirements of mainstream minicomputer users in the early 1980s, the computing power of the desktop machines mproved at a much faster rate than minicomputer users' demands for computing power did. As a result, personal computers caught up with the computing needs of many of the customers of Wang, Prime, Nixdorf, Data General, and Digital Equipment. Today they are performance-competitive with minicomputers in many applications. For the minicomputer makers, keeping close to mainstream customers and ignoring what were initially low-performance desktop technologies used by seemingly insignificant cus tomers in emerging markets was a rational decision-but one that proved disastrous. The technological changes that damage established companies are usually not radically new or difficult from a technological point of view. They do, however, have two important characteristics: First, they typically present a different package of performance attributes- ones that, at least at me outset, are not valued by existing customers. Second, the performance attributes that existing customers do value improve at such a rapid rate that the new technology can later invade those established markets. Only at this point will mainstream customers want the technology. Unfortunately for the established suppliers, by then it is often too late: the pioneers of the new technology dominate the market. It follows, then, that senior executives must first be able to spot the technologies that seem to fall into this category. Next, to commercialize and develop the new technologies, managers must protect them from the processes and incentives that are geared to serving established customers. And the only way to protect them is to create organizations that are completely independent from the mainstream business. No industry of staying too close to customers more dramatically than the hard-disk-drive industry. Between 1976 and 1992, disk-drive performance improved at a stunning rate: the physical size of a 100-megabyte (MB) system shrank from 5,400 to 8 cubic inches, and the cost per MB fell from $560 to $5. Technological change, of course, drove these breathtaking achievements. About half of the improvement came from a host of radical advances that were critical to continued improvements in disk-drive performance; the other half came from incremental advances. The pattern in the disk-drive industry has been repeated in mar/y other industries: the leading, established companies have consistently led the industry in developing and adopting new technologies that their customers demanded- even when those technologies required completely different technological competencies and manufacturing capabilities from the ones the companies had. In spite of this aggressive technological posture, no single disk-drive manufacturer has been able to dominate the industry for more than a few years. A series of companies have entered the business and risen to prominence, only to be toppled by newcomers who pursued technologies that at first did not meet the needs of mainstream customers. As a result, not one of the independent disk-drive companies that existed in 1976 survives today. To explain the differences in the impact of certain kinds of technological innovations on a given industry, the concept of performance trajectories – the rate at which the performance of a product has improved, and is expected to improve, over time – can be helpful. Almost every industry has a critical performance trajectory. In mechanical excavators, the critical trajectory is the annual improvement in cubic yards of earth moved per minute. In photocopiers, an important performance trajectory is improvement in number of copies per minute. In disk drives, one crucial measure of performance is storage capacity, which has advanced 50% each year on average for a given size of drive. Different types of technological innovations affect performance trajectories in different ways. On the one hand, sustaining technologies tend to maintain a rate of improvement; that is, they give customers something more or better in the attributes they already value. For example, thin-film components in disk drives, which replaced conventional ferrite heads and oxide disks between 1982 and 1990, enabled information to be recorded more densely on disks. Engineers had been pushing the limits of the' performance they could wring from ferrite heads and oxide disks, but the drives employing these technologies seemed to have reached the natural limits of an S curve. At that point, new thin-film technologies emerged that restored- or sustained-the historical trajectory of performance improvement. On the other hand, disruptive technologies introduce a very different package of attributes from the one mainstream customers historically value, and they often perform far worse along one or two dimensions that are particularly important to those customers. As a rule, mainstream customers are unwilling to use a disruptive product in applications they know and understand. At first, then, disruptive technologies tend to be used and valued only in new markets or new applications; in fact, they generally make possible the emergence of new markets. For example, Sony's early transistor adios sacrificed sound fidelity but created a market for portable radios by offering a new and different package of attributes- small size, light weight, and portability. In the history of the hard-disk-drive industry, the leaders stumbled at each point of disruptive technological change: when the diameter of disk drives shrank from the original 14 inches to 8 inches, then to 5. 25 inches, and finally to 3. 5 inches. Each of these new architectures, initially offered the market substantially less storage capacity than the typical user in the established market required. For example, the 8-inch drive offered 20 MB when it was introduced, while the primary market for disk drives at that time-mainframes-required 200 MB on average. Not surprisingly, the leading computer manufacturers rejected the 8-inch architecture at first. As a result, their suppliers, whose mainstream products consisted of 14-inch drives with more than 200 MB of capacity, did not pursue the disruptive products aggressively. The pattern was repeated when the 5. 25-inch and 3. 5-inch drives emerged: established computer makers rejected the drives as inadequate, and, in turn, their disk-drive suppliers ignored them as well. But while they offered less storage capacity, the disruptive architectures created other important attributes- internal power supplies and smaller size (8-inch drives); still smaller size and low-cost stepper motors (5. 25-inch drives); and ruggedness, light weight, and low-power consumption (3. 5-inch drives). From the late 1970s to the mid-1980s, the availability of the three drives made possible the development of new markets for minicomputers, desktop PCs, and portable computers, respectively. Although the smaller drives represented disruptive technological change, each was technologically straightforward. In fact, there were engineers at many leading companies who championed the new technologies and built working prototypes with bootlegged resources before management gave a formal go-ahead. Still, the leading companies could not move the products through their organizations and into the market in a timely way. Each time a disruptive technology emerged, between one-half and two-thirds of the established manufacturers failed to introduce models employing the new architecture-in stark contrast to their timely launches of critical sustaining technologies. Those companies that finally did launch new models typically lagged behind entrant companies by two years-eons in an industry whose products' life cycles are often two y. ears. Three waves of entrant companies led these revolutions; they first captured the new markets and then dethroned the leading companies in the mainstream markets. How could technologies that were initially inferior and useful only to new markets eventually threaten leading companies in established markets? Once the disruptive architectures became established in their new markets, sustaining innovations raised each architecture's performance along steep trajectories- so steep that the performance available from each architecture soon satisfied the needs of customers in the established markets. For example, the 5. 25-inch drive, whose initial 5 MB of capacity in 1980 was only a fraction of the capacity that the minicomputer market needed, became fully performance-competitive in the minicomputer market by 1986 and in the mainframe market by 1991. (See the graph â€Å"How Disk-Drive Performance Met Market Needs. ) A company's revenue and cost structures play a critical role in the way it evaluates proposed technological innovations. Generally, disruptive technologies look financially unattractive to established companies. The potential revenues from the discernible markets are small, and it is often difficult to project how big the markets for the technology will be over the long term. As a result, managers typically conclude that the technology cannot make a meaningful contribution to corporate growth and, therefore, that it is not worth the management effort required to develop it. In addition, established companies have often installed higher cost structures to serve sustaining technologies than those required by disruptive technologies. As a result, managers typically see themselves as having two choices when deciding whether to pursue disruptive technologies. One is to go downmarket and accept the lower profit margins of the emerging markets that the disruptive technologies will initially serve. The other is to go upmarket with sustaining technologies and enter market segments whose profit margins are alluringly high. For example, the margins of IBM's mainframes are still higher than those of PCs). Any rational resource-allocation process in companies serving established markets will choose going upmarket rather than going down. Managers of companies that have championed disruptive technologies in emerging markets look at the world quite differently. Without the high cost structures of their established counterparts, these companies find the emerging markets appealing. Once the companies have secured a foothold in the markets and mproved the performance of their technologies, the established markets above them, served by high-cost suppliers, look appetizing. When they do attack, the entrant companies find the established players to be easy and unprepared opponents because the opponents have been looking upmarket themselves, discounting the threat from below. It is tempting to stop at this point and conclude that a valuable lesson has been learned: managers can avoid missing the next wave by paying careful attention to potentially disruptive technologies that do not meet current customers' needs. But recognizing the pattern and figuring out how to break it are two different things. Although entrants invaded established markets with new technologies three times in succession, none of the established leaders in the disk-drive industry seemed to learn from the experiences of those that fell before them. Management myopia or lack of foresight cannot explain these failures. The problem is that managers keep doing what has worked in the past: serving the rapidly growing needs of their current customers. The processes that successful, well-managed companies have developed to allocate resources among proposed investments are incapable of funneling resources into programs that current customers explicitly don't want and whose profit margins seem unattractive. Managing the development of new technology is tightly linked to a company's investment processes. Most strategic proposals-to add capacity or to develop new products or processes- take shape at the lower levels of organizations in engineering groups or project teams. Companies then use analytical planning and budgeting systems to select from among the candidates competing for funds. Proposals to create new businesses in emerging markets are particularly challenging to assess because they depend on notoriously unreliable estimates of market size. Because managers are evaluated on their ability to place the right bets, it is not surprising that in well-managed companies, mid- and top-level managers back projects in which the market seems assured. By staying close to lead customers, as they have been trained to do, managers focus resources on fulfilling the requirements of those reliable customers that can be served profitably. Risk is reduced-and careers are safeguarded-by giving known customers what they want. Seagate Technology's experience illustrates the consequences of relying on such resource-allocation processes to evaluate disruptive technologies. By almost any measure, Seagate, based in Scotts Valley, California, was one of the most successful and aggressively' managed companies in the history of the microelectronics industry: from its inception in 1980, Seagate's revenues had grown to more than $700 million by 1986. It had pioneered 5. 5-inch hard-disk drives and was the main supplier of them to IBM and IBM-compatible personal-computer manufacturers. The company was the leading manufacturer of 5. 25-inch drives at the time the disruptive 3. 5-inch drives emerged in the mid-1980s. Engineers at Seagate were the second in the industry to develop working prototypes of 3. 5-inch drives. By early 1985, they had made more than 80 such models with a low level of company funding. The engineers forwarded the new models to key marketing executives, and the trade press reported that Seagate was actively developing 3. -inch drives. But Seagate's principal customers- IBM and other manufacturers of AT-class personal computers- showed no interest in the new drives. They wanted to incorporate 40-MB and 60-MB drives in their next-generation models, and Seagate's early 3. 5-inch prototypes packed only 10 MB. In response, Seagate's marketing executives lowered their sales forecasts for the new ‘disk drives. Manufacturing and financial executives at the company pointed out another drawback to the 3. 5-inch drives. According to their analysis, the new drives would never be competitive with the 5. 5-inch architecture on a cost-per-megabyte basis-an important metric that Seagate's customers used to evaluate disk drives. Given Seagate's cost structure, margins on the higher-capacity 5. 25-inch models therefore promised to be much higher than those on the smaller products. Senior managers quite rationally decided that the 3. 5-inch drive would not provide the sales volume and profit margins that Seagate needed from a new product. A ‘former Seagate marketing executive recalled, â€Å"We needed a new model that could become the next ST412 [a 5. 5-inch drive generating more than $300 million in annual sales, which was nearing the end of its life cycle]. At the time, the entire market for 3. 5-inch drives was less than $50 million. The 3. 5-inch drive just didn't fit the bill- for sales or profits. † The shelving of the 3. 5-inch drive was not a signal that Seagate was complacent about innovation. Seagate subsequently introduced new models of 5. 25-inch drives at an accelerated rate and, in so doing, introduced an impressive array of sustaining technological improvements, even though introducing them rendered a significant portion of its manufacturing capacity obsolete.

Personal Leadership Development Plan Assignment

Personal Leadership Development Plan - Assignment Example On the other hand, people have the have dreams, often have a firm vision that they follow with dedication and motivation. Successful leaders in the world of business, politics and other important dimensions are those that are motivated and driven by the beauty of their dreams (Jasper 12). It is important to realize that having dream is one thing and following it is another thing. In this case, the beauty of a dream is not in how good it sounds, but in the steps being taken towards its actualization (Field and Phil 29). In this case, it is always important that a person develop a path upon which he has to follow earnestly in achieving the dream. This calls for the development of assessment strategy and plan in order to use it in the process of achieving excellence in the identified dream, this paper examines the strategies I have developed in order develop a personal leadership plan that will enable me actualize my dream. 2.Background information Currently, I am still a junior taking my undergraduate studies where I am majoring in Pharmacy. My interests remain to excel and get an admission in Purdue University, where I hope to advance my studies and achieve my professional goals. During the summer holiday, I intend to use my time to offer my services, working at the CVS pharmacy until my time of graduation.

Oh What a Lovely War Movie Review Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Oh What a Lovely War - Movie Review Example The stage production and the film differ from each other in many ways. The stage adaptation of the World War was more lighthearted and funny. It had a backdrop on which were projected harsh images of the war, but in sharp contrast the action on the stage was more comic in nature. Attenborough’s film however, had huge sequences of the war interspersed with motifs from the stage production. The stage play made use of Pierrot costumes, but the film did not make use of them. However, what was used in the film was the ‘cricket scoreboards’ that were used in the play, depicting the number of deaths that took place. The songs in the film are filled with dark comedy depicting the madness of the war. E.g. ‘When this Lousy war is over’ and Good-bye-ee.’ The songs though highly patriotic were masked by irony that hides the hideousness and carnage of the war. One of the most memorable scenes shot by Attenborough for the film was a crane shot of the final s equence showing hundreds of graves, on a large expanse of land. This scene is highly charged with emotion and is sure to bring tears to ones

Winning in a world where hard work and talent is not enough Essay

Winning in a world where hard work and talent is not enough - Essay Example This paper offers an analysis of Reardon’s (2006) work in comparison to and in relation to DuBrins (2007) work on Leadership on the basis of concepts, principles and themes. Winning in a World where Hard Work and Talent as not enough Introduction In the book, It’s all politics; Winning in a World Where Hard Work and Talent Aren’t Enough; the author’s main objective was to bring out the fact that, this is a time when politics is the most significant factor that enables people to attain top most positions in most sectors of life, paying attention to business and economics. It shows that the world we live in today is highly competitive, and not everyone who works hard gets the expected reward. The author explains that nowadays everything is all about politics. Those who are politically strong, in that, they say the seemingly right things at the right time to the right people are the ones who emerge as winners in the end. No matter how one works as hard as an ant, with talents that one can ever imagine, the result is that politics still reigns (Reardon, 2006). In fact, in work places, the bell that rings only produces the sound of politics. Discussion Reardon (2006) brings out the concept that politics does not entail one being sly and devious, but it involves being ready to listen to fellow workmates, creating a good relationship with them and also trying to make everyone improve on his or her goals. Through these relationships, one can hold strong ties with people who can be able to offer a ladder push in terms of hierarchical positions in the work place. Politics has a lot in it other than what people stereotype about it. It involves critical thinking, being open-minded and being socially active (Reardon, 2006). When combined with both hard work and talent, politics acts like the salt that makes food tasty. It can make a person who is talented and industrious to get rewards that one can never imagine. The key theme brought out by Rear don (2006) is the theme of leadership. Leaders have to have well-defined skill set to enable them rule effectively. A leader is a person that people in the society, home, workplace or school look up to in times of problems and despair with the hope of changing their lives positively. A leader is one who can help others to live to their dreams and expectations. Leaders should be able to familiarize with the people they serve, knowing what problems they undergo and how to solve each one of them (Reardon, 2006). They should be social beings who are ready to serve their people under whatever circumstances they go through. She brings out a principle that, people who are experienced in politics, should take time to learn and practice about so many things so that they are not caught unawares by any circumstance that prevails. They know what they are to say and should be remarkably flexible in terms of conversations so that they are able to discuss anything with anyone. Leaders should know when and how to twist a discussion so as not to say things that will later be put against them (Reardon, 2006). They should think first before acting, and they should not jump into conclusions. People with an advantage in politics are those who are keen to give an ear to what other people say, and do not pay more attention to what they tell others In the book, Leadership: Research Findings, Practice, and Skills, Dubrin’s (2012) main purpose is to show what leadership entails. He gives out the skills that one who is called a leader should have. He brings out a vivid understanding of what leadership and leadership principles involve or entail. He explains the meaning of leadership and explains what it does not

Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 139

Assignment Example why? A television commercial in Japan will be extremely successful when it features a husband surprising his wife with a box of chocolate candies in her dressing room. This is because the roles during valentine are reversed, and the society expects the wife to be the one presenting the husband with a gift. In addition, Japanese women believe that store bought chocolate candies is not a sincere gift of love. Thus, the public’s attention will be shifted towards the television program airing the program (Rogers, 149). Suppose your dean of admissions is considering surveying high school seniors about their perceptions of your school to design better informational brochures for them. What are the advantages or disadvantages of doing (a) telephone interviews or (b) an internet survey on seniors requesting information about the school? The advantages of using telephone interviews and internet surveys is that they get to reach those students who could not be physically reached. In addition, it is cheaper and saves on time to the dean of admission. Conversely, the disadvantages of using telephone and internet survey by the dean is that telephone interviews are limited, and senior students will not be able to explain in details their choices. Internet surveys will waste time because the students might not be found online to participate on the survey (Rogers, 99). Suppose Fisher-Price wants to run a simple experiment to evaluate a proposed Chatte Telephone design. It has two different groups of children on which to run its experiment for one week each. The first group has the old toy telephone, whereas the second group is exposed to the newly designed pull toy with wheels, a noisemaker, and bobbing eyes. The dependent variable is the average number of minutes during the two hour play period that one of the children is playing with the toy, and the results

Define the Unique Selling Proposition ( USP) for Nordstrom. Describe a Assignment

Define the Unique Selling Proposition ( USP) for Nordstrom. Describe a USP for each keyroduct and create an Executive Summary - Assignment Example Nordstrom promises that the customer will not only get a product of high quality but also will get the best service from the product and from their staff (Nordstrom). Nordstrom has Jackets that they it calls â€Å"Jacket of all Trades†. The branding of the Jackets is the first unique aspect of the clothing. Secondly the branding proposes that the jackets they sell are for all occasions and third is that the jackets are of high quality at affordable prices and thus gives the customers value for their money and this also has the potential to attract new customers (Nordstrom). Nordstrom has a variety of key products and these include clothing, footwear, bedding, furniture, Jewelry, beauty accessories and house ware. The USP for these products is embedded in the overall companies USP of quality and service. All the products are of high quality and give the customers the service they are intended to give besides the exceptional service that the customers are given at the shops. For example their shops have personal stylists assigned to customers shopping for clothing and this shows how much they care about their customers (Nordstrom). Nordstrom, Inc. is America’s leading fashion specialty retailers. It was founded in 1901 as a shoe shop in Seattle, currently Nordstrom manage 225 stores in 30 states, including 117 full-line stores, 104 Nordstrom Racks, two Jeffrey boutiques, one treasure &bond store and one clearance store (Nordstrom 2). Nordstrom is also available online at  Nordstrom.com  selling on the internet and through its catalogs. Furthermore, the Company operates in the online private sale marketplace through its subsidiary HauteLook. Nordstrom, Inc.s common stock is publicly traded on the NYSE under the symbol JWN. Its mission is to provide the best possible customer service, selection, quality and value and this has made it attract a huge customer base (Nordstrom). The

Regional integration Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Regional integration - Essay Example The unique example that will be under discussion as far as this paper is concerned would be the south east asian region that is one of the fastest growing economies of the world along side the mighty economies of the united states and the european union (UNESCAP, 2005, pp.145). The South east Asian region comes directly under the ASEAN which stands for the Association of the South East Asian Nations. The formation of the alliances has made it possible to forge strong aliances with one another and has encouraged enhanced volumes of foreign direct investments. The region is today a preferred economic and technological investment hub and preference is mad on the basis of highly skilled human resuorces of the region, which has been possible through sustainable development initiatives of these organizations. The ASEAN has ensured that the financial and judicial backbone of the countries is strengthened, which has ensured an enhanced security to people as well as the industry. Rapid economic development of the region has led to a phenomenal rise in the standard of living of the people and creation of economic hubs such as singapore and hong kong (UNESCAP, 2005 pp.145). But, any such development has a dark side as well. The rising incomes have contributed to the widening of the gap between sections of the society. There has also not been a uniform development between countries and all this has resulted in a greater difference between the economies of any two countries. This is evident in the growth rates of China and hong kong when compared with that of singapore or malaysia wherein the former's growth is presently the highest in the world. But, the implementation of the ideas of regional integration have not been implemented to the optimum levels, with economies such as indonesia and burma (present day myanmar) left behind in the race towards economic development. The mistakes lies both within the framework of these regional organizations as well as due to a lack of initiative on the part of the respective governments of these countries (UNESCAP, 2005 pp.145-146).The seven major companies within the ASEAN have an estimated holding reserves of arou nd $100 billion, which is now many times than that of the acia-pacific region put together. The South east asian region has an annual growth of aroung 5.1% since the last 5 years. But, the most striking factor since the last 5 years has been the emergence of new countries such as China & India into the economic fora, so much so that today they are a force to reckon with. As has been previously mentioned, China has en estimated annual growth rate of aroung 8.5 %, which is the highest in the world today. Following in its footsteps is the economy of India, which has the second highest growth rate of 5.1%. Both play a major role in maintianing the economic stability of the region and are active participants in the annual ASEAN summits (UNESCAP, 2005 pp.145-146).For developed countries in the region such as singapore, malaysia and the island city of hong kong as also korea and taiwan, the real challenge as of now, is to sustain their economic growth and maintain their prosperity in the e ventuality of stiff competition from India & China, which are the most preferred destinations for FDI (UNEASCAP, 2005). The situation with the underdeveloped economies of the region is that they continue to remain underdogs and are in no

TEXTBOOK-Brinkley, American History, Connecting with the Past, Volume Essay

TEXTBOOK-Brinkley, American History, Connecting with the Past, Volume II, McGraw Hill chapters 16-19 - Essay Example Furthermore, a wonderful platform was provided for entrepreneurs to showcase their talent at the onset of this revolution. Steam power was introduced with the help of which railways came into being; water wheels were made use of in the manufacturing industry; the textile industry made use of the spinning jenny as well as various other equipments that brought about a revolutionary change in American society. These effects were not only confined to America but also spread through parts of Europe as well as North America, making America to be one of the fastest growing economies at the time. A number of powerful and wealthy industrialists came into being and were known as Robber Barons who sold their products at prices that were very questionable; this process included buying out the competition, paying the employees and workers very low wages, hiking up the prices while maintaining a monopoly in order to amass wealth. This practice was followed under the concept of laissez faire which has been discussed further during the scope of this paper however it was due to such a monopoly that the government in the country had to interfere in order to keep in check the welfare of the poorer sections of society from being exploited by these barons. â€Å"Laissez-faire† is a French word-combination that literally means ‘let them do’ and may be interpreted in the economic sense as ‘let them do as they will’ or ‘leave them to do as they please.’ The phrase was brought into question when M. Le Gendre, who led a group of French businessmen, was asked about the welfare of merchants in France and how they could contribute to the commercial structure of the country. Established in the 18th century, the concept of laissez-faire was used in order to oppose any government intervention in business affairs. In America private owners have had a bigger say in matters relating to trade and commerce. E.A.J Johnson wrote the following in his 1973 study on the economic principles established at the foundation of the United States: â€Å"The general view, discernible in contemporaneous literature, was that the responsibility of government should involve enough surveillance over the enterprise system to ensure the social usefulness of all economic activity. It is quite proper, said Bordley, for individuals to â€Å"choose for themselves† how they will apply their labor and their intelligence in production. But it does not follow from this that â€Å"legislators and men of influence† are freed from all responsibility for giving direction to the course of national economic development. They must, for instance, discountenance the production of unnecessary commodities of luxury when common sense indicates the need for food and other essentials. Lawmakers can fulfill their functions properly only when they â€Å"become benefactors to the public†; in new countries they must safeguard agriculture and commerce, e ncourage immigration, and promote manufactures.† (Johnson, E.A.J) One of the main aspects of the industrial revolution in America was the development of railways and railroads because this led to the formation of the backbone of the American economy to a great extent. It assisted in balancing out transport of essential commodities to destinations near and far in order to maintain the supply of

History of online Vidoe Games Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2750 words

History of online Vidoe Games - Essay Example 1960s, extra computer games were developed for the public (frequently running on mainframe-computers), slowly rising in complexity and sophistication (Bellis, 2009) and (FreeBase, 2009). After this early games development period, video games deviated into diverse platforms and verities like: mainframe, arcade, personal computer, console and later handheld games. Online games  have been around for a while.   They started out years ago before the Internet on terminals, then over modems and now on the Web.   The explosion of online gaming is due to the growing amount of people who have access to the Internet.   Online games vary from basic text to 3d worlds that allow the ability to play other actual users who are connected to the game.   There are also many forums and social networking sites related to online gaming. In 1952, A.S. Douglas wrote his PhD degree at the University of Cambridge on Human-Computer interaction. Douglas created the first graphical computer game - a ve rsion of Tic-Tac-Toe. The game was programmed on an EDSAC vacuum-tube computer, which had a cathode ray tube display (Bellis, 2009) and (Celia Pearce, 2007). At its most basic level, an online game is the term used to represent games that are played over some form of computer network (in most cases, this means the Internet). One of the reasons for the expansion and growth of online gaming sites is the expansion of computer networks from small local networks to the Internet and beyond. Online games can come in a number of formats, ranging from simple text-based games to extremely complex games that include graphics and even virtual worlds. In regards to online gaming sites that allow you to win money, most sites require you to download their software. This is one of the distinguishing factors between TreasureOnNet.com and other similar gaming sites (Gupta, 2009). This era of video game history bears witness to the rise of the 32-bit, 64-bit, and 128-bit processor architecture in home console

Ethnic Market Essay Example for Free

Ethnic Market Essay With mounting western influence and focus on revival of traditional Indian fashion elements, diversity in India sees many faces. To maintain the dignity of the culture and to provide a platform to small Indian brands, future group initiated ethnocentrism concept by opening ethnicity store in Ahmedabad, Gujarat. This initiative has provided new format insights to organized retailers to expand their horizons in highly volatile Indian consumer oriented market. A new format has always been a challenge to any retailer to sustain into the market. In the changing face of market, to regain preference of consumers towards nationalized brands, can be looked from a confronting angle. This created an anxiety in the mind of researchers and inspired them to undergo the research to understand the ethnicity concept. Ethnicity format is studied based on the first ethnicity store set up in the city of Ahmedabad, Gujarat and glimpses are taken from the second and third store set up in Mumbai and Pune respectively. Research is secondary followed by primary in nature. This paper gives insights into the overall set up of ethnicity format that includes differentiating Criterias of ethnicity in comparison to regular retail formats based on observation at the store. Questionnaire based survey is also performed to get opinion on ethnicity store and paper gives insights into preferential category for purchase for future developments Consumers have given a very good response to the new concept. Along with shopping, experiences of consumers with the format have given a lasting impact on their mind-set. Further Raja market, Rani Market, Thoda aur market are found attractive to consumers and have gained good preference of consumers followed by Sona-chandi market Chota India and Ghar aangan market. The insights into concept development and suggested potential extended formats of ethnicity may readily work as a pillar to stand into the market for new retailers. Keywords: Ethnicity, Ethnocentrism, Organized Retail, Nationalized brands. Introduction Indian fashion industry is moving towards westernization due to high level of acceptance of foreign brands by the consumers. Due to this ,western brands are getting a wider platform than the ethnic brands across the country. As a result, national/ethnic products are even overlooked by consumers and time may come that such products may disappear from the market. To protect the Indian heritage, Future group took up the maiden initiative to provide a space to Indian products and brands under its own name and fame Future Group, Indias leading business house with strong presence in retail sector, launched a new retail format, family lifestyle store Ethnicity, in Ahmadabad to market ethnic brands and products of India in 2008. This chain is a major family format developed after the launch of *Professor, G. H. Patel Post Graduate Institute of Business Management, Sardar Patel University, Vallabh Vidyanagar. **Assistant Professor, N. R. Institute of Business Management (GLS-MBA), Gujarat Technological University, Ahmedabad. Pacific Business Review International 2 highly successful family formats like Pantaloons, Big Bazaar, and Home Town. The new store format that has been billed as Everything Indian, seeks to promote ethnic brands, ranging from ethnic and fusion wear, Jewellery, handicrafts, home decor, beauty products to accessories and gifts. Thus ethnicity showcases a large number of small Indian brands under one roof. Ethnicity besides promoting the culture of ethnic products, provide a modern platform to augment the presence of the retailers into the industry. Research Objectives †¢ †¢ †¢ To understand the concept of ethnicity as a new retail format To understand differentiating factors of ethnicity store in comparison to the modern retail stores. To understand the consumers preference towards the new format. Scope of the Study The study has explored the concept of ethnicity. In includes understanding of the theme and concept development, merchandise development and differentiation criteria of format in comparison to existing formats. Further to understand acceptance of the new format, consumers preference towards the offerings has also been analyzed Data Collection Sources Secondary data sources have been used to understand the concept the ethnicity. Information has been taken from leaflet provided by ethnicity store of Ahmedabad, and Company website to get insights into ethnicity store of Pune and Mumbai. Articles kept on the websites are also used at the launch of ethnicity. Primary data has been collected through questionnaire to know consumers preference towards the new format. Respondents were the consumers of Ahmedabad who visited ethnicity store. Sample of 100 respondents was administered out of which 94 responses identified as valid sample for the study. Literature Review Ethnic origin has been defined as a group of people who share a common descent, a sense of collective identity and usually a shared cultural heritage and tradition (Crysdale and Bettie, 1973). Ethnicity implies common customs, values, and attitudes within a group of people who are bound by a common cultural identification. Because values reflect a standard or criterion that people use in the guidance of behavior, they act as a norm for ethnic consumer behavior and an influence on many consumption motives. Ethnic Marketing Ethnic marketing is an important aspect of lifestyle marketing, a strategy that tailors a companys products and services towards the customers lifestyles. According to Technopak Analysis, the current market of sarees and ethnic wear stands at Rs 31,000 crore and is projected to grow at 10 per cent to reach Rs 45,000 crore in 2014. Views expressing rationale towards ethnic marketing Mr. Arvind Singhal, chairman of management consulting and retail specialist firm Technopak Advisors (201011) said, Overall apparel category spends are rising, with special focus on ethnic wear brands, where many new brands have emerged as market heroes. They sensed the vacuum in the market, ease of entry, and attracted women the most interesting target consumer, which places the Indian ethnic wear market at Rs. 56,800 Crore, growing at 9% annually. Govind Shrikhande, customer care associate and managing director, Shoppers Stop said Branded ethnic Volume 5 Issue 5 (November 2012) wear is one of the top selling categories in our stores. For the past few years this segment has seen double digit growth, Mr. Gaurav Mahajan, CEO, Westside, a Tata group company said ,Indian ethnic wear is an integral part of our customer promise. We widened the Westside range and introduced Zuba, which offers silks and authentic handlooms. This autumn will see the launch of two more brands, Mr. Rakesh Biyani, joint managing director, Future Group said ,There is a significant rise in demand for womens ethnic clothing. There is a big gap between the opportunity and what is being delivered today by organized players. This gap identification generated a lead to cover the untapped ethnic market and future group took up the initiative to establish ethnicity store as a revolution in the existing apparel format. Concept development of Ethnicity Store by Future Group. Store Design Future Group has launched the first of a chain of stores aimed at retailing Indian wear in 2008 in Ahmedabad city. It is the branded Ethnicity store that keeps the a range of ethnic and fusion wear, jewelry, handicrafts, home decor, beauty products and accessories and gifts. All the products are India inspired. The store is having a spread over an area of 25,000 to 30,000 sq. ft. Store Objective The apparel labeled as traditional and indoor clothing a decade ago, has laid the foundation for todays contemporary Indian ethnic chic. Ethnicity proudly follows the Indian values of being sensitive to Ahmedabad city, environment and community. It provides a platform to bring together traditional or ethnic 3 retailers and consumers. It recreates the know-how of a traditional ethnic market in a modern retail format and is an aggregator of the multi-faceted ethnic merchandise and traditional selling practices. It revives and rejuvenates anything and everything that is Indian. It aims to truly open out the urban ethnic market and redefine the scale of ethnic merchandising. Ethnic-Theme Positioning at the Store The concept Ethnicity is not limited to ethnic clothing but it is a destination to get the unique experience. The key differentiator for Ethnicity lies in its 360-degree shopping experience. Ethnicitys store design reflects a distinctly ethnic character visual merchandising tools include artifacts, paintings and decor pieces from Rajasthan, Orissa and Gujarat. Visual merchandising at ethnicity is like the synopsis of a story book. Ethnicity has gone the Desi way (Highly traditional) to become attractive and communicative. It is vital to not only be a differentiated retailer but also to draw out the true essence of the products. Branding in ethnic wear has been led by region of origin of the product like Benaresi sarees, Lucknowi kurta, Kutchchi Bandhani. The store is colorfully designed and the flashiness gives it an ambience of luxury and festivity. Atmosphere at Ethincity Store Atmospheric at ethnicity store is a reflection of Indian heritage. Instead of halogen lights, everywhere light is reflected by lanterns. Instead of room freshener or perfumes, a raw fragrant of essential oil from flowers known as attar is used to mesmerizes the entrant and bring them to the Indian culture. All the racks for display of merchandise are developed from wooden and outside decoration is of handicraft, which gives a reflection of Indian art. Instead of having all the racks or shelves for display, few of the merchandise is displayed on cot. Store assistants are dressed in ethnic kurtas for refreshments, Coconut water is served in a lorry (Cart) which gives a flavor of typical Indian culture, on the road serving. Pacific Business Review International 4 Use of multi colors, art and fancy designs, air fragrance and traditional lightings give all time festival feeling experience. market. Chosen name for the market is based on arterial language of India. With the theme of ethnocentrism, the collection represents only Indian brands in all the merchandise. Merchandise at Ethnicity Store. All the offerings are divided into a Niche name of Overall Analysis of Ethnicity Store Table 1 Store Sections Generic category name Ethnic name at ethnicity store Women’s wear category Rani market-everything ethnic for women Men’s wear category Raja market-everything ethnic for men Kid’s wear category Chota India market Jewellery/ accessories Sona –chandi market- ethnic Jewellery Home accessories Ghar –aangan- ethnic ideas for your home Stationary/medical items Thoda aur- ethnic accessories and more Source: http://www. indiaretailing. com/organising-ethnic-retail. asp Data Analysis Regular formats of organized retail stores have their specific offerings. While ethnicity store has differentiated the same to give a new experience to the consumers. Based on observation at ethnicity store, the following comparison has been made to derive the differentiation criteria Table 2 Comparative Analysis: Organized Regular Retail Format V/s. Ethnicity Format Parameter Organized Retail Organized retailOutlet outlet Theme A move culture Objective To give exposure to western To give platform to Indian brands culture dynamics and appeal to ethnocentrism Size of the outlet Large size Comparatively small size Structure Vertical departmentation Horizontal departmentation. Availability of brands Global brands Only Indian brands Atmospheric Exclusive halogen lights lantern /yellow lights towards Ethnicity Store Ethnicity store western A move towards Indian legacy Volume 5 Issue 5 (November 2012) 5 Decoration No additional decoration Fully decorated with colors, lamps, handicraft ,puppets etc. -looks like all time festival Music Western songs Indian instrumental Fragrance Room fresheners Raw fragrant of essential oil from flowers known as attar Shelves Racks Along with racks Traditional village themed cots with four legs Merchandise division Products are separate Gender wise product bundling. Apparel gets displayed in one section, accessories other section, footwear another section and so on e. g. Raja market includes apparel ,accessories ,footwear addressing men. Rani market includes apparel, accessories, footwear for women Merchandise name English names Traditional Indian names Store assistant’s dressing Western formal wear Traditional Indian kurta Packaging Plastic printed bags Paper bags with traditional look Merchandise Western outfits western designs and indo- Indian traditional embroidery work outfits with Shoes Mojaris and chappals Indo-western painting Handicraft Cosmetic products. Natural ayurvedic products and aromatherapy Perfumes Incense stick, fragrances Light chandelier Candles and Lantern Artificial jewellery Stone work, Kundan jewellery Refreshments Food court with multi cuisine Small push cart/lorry with coconut water Deliverable Shopping Experience attar, natural Source: Primary data collection through observation Analysis of Consumers Preference Towards Ethnicity Store: Consumers survey has been performed to get insights into their experience towards the format with the help of questionnaire. Respondents were the consumers who visited the ethnicity store. Pacific Business Review International 6. Figure 1 Consumers Preference towards the Market based Merchandise at Ethnicity Store with Mean Rank ( where 1 is least and 5 is maximum) 0 1 2 3 4 5 4. 25 Raja Market 4. 02 Rani Market 2. 80 Chota India 3. 20 Sona Chandi Ghar Aangan 2. 05 4. 15 Thoda aur Source: Primary data collection through questionnaire Consumers preference towards the ethnic theme based markets is analyzed to know the preferred market. This analysis is aimed at developing the market to increase the preference †¢ †¢ †¢ †¢ Consumers are highly satisfied with Raja Market offerings followed by Rani market and thoda aur market. New introductions in thoda aur market like lamps, candle and fragrances, ayurvedic products etc have grabbed attention of people which gives a lead to introduce more unique and Indian traditional items. Sona chandi market has got a good response. Thus it can be interpreted that fashion accessories in ethnic look are keeping tune with the ethnic garments. As per consumers opinion, Chota India is yet to gain preference may be because of traditional designs that are not preferred more for kids in †¢ comparison to western attractive outfits with cartoon characters Again as per consumers opinion, Ghar aangan is also yet to gain preference may be because of bed sheets, utensils, toys , purchase for rituals like puja ka saaman etc. have pre-existence of established unorganized market. Volume 5 Issue 5 (November 2012). 7 Consumers Preference towards Ethnic Products for Three Most Preferred Markets Figure 2 Preference has been Analyzed towards Offerings for Females as Rani Market Source: Primary data collection through questionnaire Fusion wear and Mix Match are able to attract consumers as it is a new and unique base of ethnic products. As Saari, salwaar kamiz have become a common purchase and many platforms are available to address the demand, preference is found at the moderate level. Figure 3 Preference has been Analyzed towards Offerings for Males as Raja Market Source: Primary data collection through questionnaire In mens wear traditional wear in the form of Jodhpuri, Chudidar and kurtas along with traditional mojaris have attracted consumers to larger extent Pacific Business Review International 8 Figure 4 Preference has been Analyzed towards Offerings for Thoda Aur Market Source: Primary data collection through questionnaire Full range of Fragrances and Candles Incense has been introduced by ethnicity store. It has got extra ordinary preference of consumers. Thus it has contributed towards maintenance of Indian legacy Consumers preference towards Aromatherapy Aromatherapy is the use of aromatic plant oils, including essential oils, for psychological and physical wellbeing. Aroma therapists blend therapeutic essential oils especially for each individual and suggest methods of use such as topical application, massage, inhalation or water immersion to stimulate the desired responses. Aroma therapy oils may include : †¢ Peppermint Digestive disorders †¢ Rosemary Muscular pains, mental stimulant †¢ Sandalwood Depression, anxiety and nervous tension †¢ Sweet orange Depression and anxiety. †¢ Tea tree Respiratory problems, antifungal, antibacterial and antiviral †¢ Lavender Headaches, insomnia, burns, aches and pain Ethnicity store has provided the platform for Aromatherapy. Full range of essential oils has been displayed to generate the awareness and preference towards the same. It is aimed at generating awareness towards ayurvedic medicine in the arena of allopath for better and secure treatment. Ethnicity has taken maiden initiative to mould the consumers psychology towards naturopath. (Graph on next page) It can be interpreted from figure-5 that first hand response has been satisfactory with 49% for. Aromatherapy and thus it enjoys the potential to increase the preference in future. The atmospheric of traditional products is supporting the purchase of traditional way of health supplements. The advice and explanation given along with the product has played important role in making realization to go for natural products Volume 5 Issue 5 (November 2012) 9 Figure 5 Preference has been Analyzed for Aroma Therapy Source: Primary data collection through questionnaire Figure 6 Analysis of Consumers Satisfaction towards Ethnicity Store: Consumers level of satisfaction towards the differentiated offerings has been analyzed. Such analysis is aimed at identifying the most appealing differentiation for future positioning of the store and developing the strategies that may lead to future satisfaction Competitive Assessment Matrix with Mean Rank ( Where 1 is least and 5 is maximum) Regular Organized Retail Formats and Ethnicity Store Consumers’ satisfaction on competitive assessment matrix 0 1 2 3 4 5 4. 05 4. 95 Theme 2. 30 2. 60 Price 3. 25 4. 00 Variety 3. 94 4. 35 Display 4. 00 Experience Source: Primary data collection through questionnaire Keys : Regular organized retail outlets Ethnicity store 5. 00 Pacific Business Review International 10 †¢ †¢ †¢ †¢ †¢. Competitive assessment matrix depicts that ethnicity theme is highly appealing to the people. The differentiation point of giving experience to the consumers than only to provide a platform for shopping is getting correct positioning in the mind set of consumers as it is applauded by consumers with the mean rank of 4. 95. Unique display of ethnicity is highly appreciated by consumers in comparison to regular organized retail formats. On the dimension of variety ethnicity is lagging behind in comparison, the contributing reason may be limited number of Indian brands into each category. As far as pricing is concerned none of the outlets satisfied the consumers expectation. It brings out the fact that price structure is too high. Here opportunity lies with ethnicity store to discriminate pricing strategy to get competitive edge over other formats. It might be feasible to reformulate the pricing strategy due to nationalized brands. †¢ †¢ †¢ †¢ †¢ Suggestions †¢ Major Findings †¢ †¢ †¢ Ethnicity is indeed a revolutionary move towards consumers ethnocentrism. National players have also joined hands with the big retailer and accepted the opportunity to address the mass market. Thus it has contributed to a greater extent in providing a wider platform to small retailer of India. Further is has contributed towards generating awareness of ethnic products and brands of allover India which were not noticed by the consumers and importance was not realized by consumers. It is an absolutely unique model into organized retail formats. Everything starting from atmospherics to collection of brands, merchandise display and packaging is uniquely positioned with the nationalized theme. It provides a feel-good factor and thrilling experience to the consumers. Consumers are getting attracted by the theme and getting exposed and penetrated by ethnic products. Today consumers look for fashionable clothes. National brands which were not recognized earlier, have provided a platform of fashion to explore Consumers are highly satisfied with Raja Market offerings followed by Rani market and thoda aur market. Fusion wear, Mix Match, Jodhpuri,Kurtas, Chudidars, Mojaris and fragrances ,candles and incense are able to get preference of people. Aroma therapy is able to get good welcome form the consumers. Ethnic designs are getting acceptance in the form of novelty. In all this innovative concept well applauded by consumers as they are getting exposed to all the variety and designs of products of all the corners of India under one roof. †¢ †¢ †¢ More Indian retailers should be motivated to provide huge collection of ethnic products in the categories of mens wear and womens wear to provide more varieties. There is a need to increase the range of aroma therapy offerings to increase the awareness and consumption. Fragrances, candles and incense offerings have brought Indian values back in the preferences. This has showcased a very good business potential as a whole. There is a need to provide more and more offerings into the segment with more and more varieties. Potential revolutions into existing format of ethnicity for India. Format can be expanded by introducing specialties of major states/cities of India †¢ Rajasthan market Art craft †¢ Jamnagar market-Bandhani Volume 5 Issue 5 (November 2012) †¢ †¢ †¢ †¢ †¢ †¢ †¢ †¢ †¢ †¢ †¢ Bangalore -Silk garments Chennai- Pearl jewellery Kerala market-Spices Format can be expanded by introducing specialty food of major states/cities of India it may help to give a back shift to the consumer trend which is moving towards western food Gujarati food Punjabi food South Indian food Rajasthani food North Indian food Kathiyawadi food Potential revolutions into existing format of ethnicity for other countries. It has been witnessed that countries are getting specialized into technological innovations but spread of such innovations into the same continent reflects questionable behavior of consumers. Many a times it is because of lack of awareness. Such type of format may provide a common platform to explore the small innovative products at consumer end E. g. European countries. Fashion based Ethnicity- As fashion industry is one of the major growing industries in Europe, all fashion statements can be displayed under one platform †¢ Fashion statement of Italy †¢ Fashion statement of France †¢ Fashion statement of United kingdom Technology based ethnicity- Technical Research innovation driven countries, all innovations can be displayed under one platform †¢ Big to small innovative products of Finland. †¢ Big to small innovative products of Germany †¢ IT Renewable technology based products from Sweden †¢ Electric technology innovations of Netherland E. g. Asian Countries 11 Technology based ethnicity †¢ Robotic technology based innovative small to big products from South Korea Japan References Crysdale and Bettie, 1973, Retrieved from, http:// www. manifolddatamining. com /html /products/ ethnicmarketing. htm on 15/02/2012 Anuradha Shukla, Ethnic wear market booms in India retrieved from http://wonderwoman. intoday. In/ story/ethnic-wear-market-booms-in-india/1/ 88440. html http://indiatoday. intoday. in/story/ethnic-wear-marketto-grow/1/124981. html retrieved on 06/02/2012 koregaonparkplaza, pune (2011) retrieved from http:// w w w. k o r e g a o n p a r k p l a z a . c o m / s t o r s details. asp? id=77catid=1st=1 retrieved on 06/ 02/2012 Runul Vashistha, (2009) retrieved from http:// www. indiar et a iling. com/ R et ailC oncep t _ details. aspx? Id=58 retrieved on 02/02/2012 Pooja nair, (2009). retrieved from http://ahmedabad. metromela. com/Lamps+and+ethnic+ wear+at+. Ethnicity/article/3183 retrieved on 15/02/2012 Shailesh Shah, (2012). Ethnicity: Towards organising ethnic retail, retrieved from http: // www. indiaretailing. com/organising-ethnicretail. asp retrieved on 02/02/2012 http://www. pantaloonretail. in/pdf/ethnicity_karigari. pdf Reference Book Jr. Churchill Gilbert A. , Lacobucci Dawn, Israel D. , (2009),Marketing Research- A South Asian Perspective, India Edition, Delhi: Cencage Learning. Additional material Leaflet circulated at ethnicity store 12 Glossary Attar: A fragrant of essential oil typically made from rose petals Ayurvedic: It is a Hindu system of traditional medicine native to India and a form of alternative medicine. Ayurveda can be defined as a system, which uses the inherent principles of nature, to help maintain health in a person by keeping the individuals body, mind and spirit in perfect equilibrium with nature Bandhani: A process of patterning cloth by tie-dyeing in which the design is reserved on the undyed cloth by tying small spots very tightly with thread to protect them from the dye especially popular in Rajasthan and India Chappal: An item of Indian footwear, similar to a flipflop with a toe strap Chota (India market): Younger, junior child related products. Pacific Business Review International Kundan Jewellery: Kundan is a traditional Indian gemstone jewelry, a method of gem setting in a jewellery piece, consisting of inserting gold foil between the stones and its mount, usually used to create elaborate necklaces believed to have originate in royal courts of Rajasthan and Gujarat. It is the oldest form of jewellery made and worn in India Kurta: A knee-length, collarless shirt worn over pajamas by men in India Mojaris: A style of South Asian handcrafted footwear mostly using vegetable-tanned leatherproduced in India Organized retail: Organized retail has been defined as a network of similarly branded stores with an element of self service Raja (Market): A prince, chief, or ruler related products in India Rani (Market): Indian princess related products Ethnicity: Ethnicity implies common customs, values, and attitudes within a group of people who are bound by a common cultural identification Saree: a dress worn primarily by Hindu women; consists of several yards of light material that is draped around the body Ethnic groups: A group of people who share a common descent, a sense of collective identity and usually a shared cultural heritage and tradition Sona-chandi (market)-Gold silver related products/jewellery Ethnic Marketing: Ethnic marketing is an important aspect of lifestyle marketing, a strategy that tailors a companys products and services towards the customers lifestyles Ghar -aangan (market):Home decoration related products Handicraft: Items made by hand, often with the use of simple tools, and are generally artistic and/or traditional in nature . They are the objects of utility and objects of decoration. Incense stick: It is composed of aromatic biotic materials, which release fragrant smoke when burned Thoda aur (market): somewhat more than the existing here in the context of more than the regular offerings.

Theological Reflection Approach on Practice

Theological Reflection Approach on Practice A written reflection on practice (1,500 words) Rational of the Theological Reflection Approach I have decided to use the Imagination and Spiritual Wisdom approach to this theological reflection because it allows for a deep understanding of the experience and the feelings involved. Then it progresses into creating an image from those feelings and by questioning the image we may develop an insight to what was really happening and use theology to help us to understand this insight. Thus, leading to action or an understanding of future actions in similar events.[1] Thick Description Someone in the church (A) was organising a surprise party for the vicar and his wife (VW) for their 25th wedding anniversary with permission from the rest of the family. They were organising it as a friend and not as a member of the congregation and therefore it was a non-church event. It was mentioned to people in the church as they would obviously be invited as friends of the couple. There was an element of tension between certain members of the congregation as they felt that it should have been done through church and this was expressed to the church wardens, who had also been asked to help with the party, and A. This led to a disagreement between A and another member of the congregation (B) one Sunday morning before the service. This was witnessed by a few people although they could not hear what was being said. It did however turn out that this issue was resolved quickly once tensions had calmed down. The pastoral situation came from someone (J) who had witnessed this altercation. J has been a member of the congregation for many years and has developed a close pastoral relationship with the vicar and his wife and the member of the congregation. She was concerned about how B had be treated through this situation. Over the course of the week various messages had been sent via social media between A, J and various others in the congregation about this altercation, the party in general and views about it. The messages had become somewhat hurtful and not appropriate. J had become quite upset about it and went to speak to the VW to ask if A would stop sending messages to her. J did say that she could not go into detail about the messages and why they had started in the first place as she did not want to spoil the surprise. It transpires that the messages continued to be sent with A convinced that the surprise had be spoiled and was placing the blame towards J. Due to wanting to keep the surprise J contacted myself. I met with J on a Friday evening in church with most of the meeting explaining what had transpired over the past week. J was very agitated and angry about what was happening in terms of the messages. I allowed her to speak and reassured her that I was listening to what was being said but clear that I was not agreeing with her opinion about A although was sympathetic towards her feelings about what had happened. I was also aware that J did not like A but the reason for this was unknown to me. Others had also noticed this dislike and I mentioned this to J. I also pointed out that A was a liked person and people were viewing Js actions as not very nice. J took exception to this comment and defended what she had said and done by saying that something had happened with A in a previous church that none of us were aware of. The meeting concluded with a decision that I would speak to A and ask for the messages to stop, that I would reassure A also that J had not spoiled the surprise, J agreed that she would not respond to any messages that were sent to her in regards to the party or anything else along similar lines. We finished by praying and J thanked me for listening. Feelings 2.1 Reflections on Personal Feelings of the Situation Personally, the whole situation felt a little petty and had no feelings towards this situation and felt that this could be sorted out. Yet I was aware there would need to be further reconciliation of J and A as feelings ran deep of dislike towards each other. 2.2 Reflection on Js Feelings of the Situation The feelings that were clearly visible by J in this situation were: Anger towards A because of the altercation with B Frustration asked for the messages to stop and they had continued Shock she had been challenged over her attitude towards A Power knew information that no one else knew about A When reflecting on these feelings being displayed I felt that the underlying elements to all of this was a sense of jealousy towards A and the VWs newly formed friendship and therefore an element of displacement by J in her relationship, which was ultimately a pastoral one, with VW. Image Based on the feelings mentioned above the image that comes to mind is: This image shows the child-like nature of the situation (the messages sent via social media), the exclusion or perceived exclusion of one from a group, and finally the two who have paired off not being aware of the person or the feelings of the person who has been excluded. Theology 4.1 Biblical Passages The biblical passages that reflect jealousy which could speak into this situation are: Genesis 37 Joseph and his brothers being jealous of his relationship with their father. Proverbs 27.4 Anger is cruel and fury overwhelming, but who can stand against jealousy? Luke 10.38-42 Mary and Martha being with Jesus Genesis 4 Cain and Abel and the jealousy of how God favoured them Mark 10:35-45 James and John asking to sit at the right and left hand of Jesus and the reaction of the rest of the disciples Reflections on the Biblical Passage Genesis 37 The passage that I felt reflected this situation the best was of Joseph and his brothers being jealous. Joseph receiving his coat from Jacob is a sign of love towards his son to the exclusion of the other sons/brothers. The brothers reaction to this situation was one that led to Joseph being separated from his family as they sold him to be a slave. The brothers reaction could not be hidden within them but was publicly acknowledged between them and towards Joseph himself with a lack of greeting or salutation.[2] The selling of Joseph should not have happened, and was not actually planned but the opportunistic nature of the brothers, brought a situation to pass which ultimately was used by God for a greater purpose (Gen. 50.20). The hatching of a plan to tell Jacob about the death of Joseph had wider issues for the brother as their fathers grief was great. [3] The brothers jealousy led to the pain of Joseph as a slave and then in prison. The pain of Jacob in the act of grief over Joseph, the story does not tell us of the life of the brothers and Jacob but the grief would have been a long running issue within the house hold. The brothers had to live with knowing that they had caused this grief. Parallels between the Thick Description and Biblical Passage If the people in the thick description were the biblical characters it would be: A was Joseph, J was the brothers, VW was Jacob and to an extent I was the caravan of Ishmaelites. Js jealousy of A was great and in effect trying to sell A to me as someone who was of no value and a trouble maker. Reflecting on this now I could see that if this was to carry on then there could be great pain for VW in the long term and then the ripple effect of this amongst the church community. New Insights and Action Reflecting on the theology of Joseph and this pastoral care situation I would have addressed it in the following way: Not challenged Js behaviour towards A in the initial instance. I should have listened to the problem that was being raised and dealt with that in the way that I did. I would have then arranged another meeting with J to discuss her behaviour and attitude towards A. In a follow up pastoral care situation I would have addressed the feelings of J towards the relationship between A and VW. I would have asked her to share how seeing the relationship form made her feel and why she felt that this might be an issue. Hopefully over time she would have seen her jealousy was not necessarily something that should have been an issue. This may have taken a few pastoral encounters to come to a conclusion. There may have also been a need for a time of reconciliation between J and A and also a session between J, A and VW to discuss the feelings between the three of them. I would have been a good person to facilitate this as I was neutral in the situation and had a relationship with the people involved where there could be honesty and openness. Word Count: 1563 Appendix 1 This situation was part of a larger situation that soon unravelled within the church community so the new actions and insights are speculative as to how I would have handled the situation if it had continued. Bibliography Killen, Patricia OConnell, and John De Beer, The Art Of Theological Reflection, 1st edn (New York: Crossroad, 2014) Longman, Tremper, How To Read Genesis, 1st edn (Downers Grove, Ill.: Authentic Media, 2005) Mounce, William D, The Crossway Comprehensive Concordance Of The Holy Bible, 1st edn (Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Books, 2002) Thompson, Judith, Stephen Pattison, and Ross Thompson, SCM Studyguide To Theological Reflection, 1st edn (London: SCM Press, 2008) UpChurch, John, and Association Counselors, Genesis 37:4 Commentary John Gills Exposition Of The Bible, Bible Study Tools,2017 [accessed 17 March 2017] [1] Killen and Beer, The Art of Theological Reflection, p. 21 [2] UpChurch, Exposition of the Bible, [3] Longman, How to Read Genesis, p.151