...commercial opportunities from models that were designed with the local market in mind. So, although Ford escaped the bankruptcy and restructuring that befell its American rivals General Motors and Chrysler in 2009, the automaker still found itself needing to change its business model to remain solvent and to respond to changing customer tastes. Therefore, Ford’s business plan included bringing additional models to North America, such as its B-Max crossover, along with developing global engine and transmission technologies. Today, Ford continues to offer a large portfolio of reliable, affordable automobiles at reasonably competitive prices and remains as one of the industry leaders. Background The Ford Motor Company was started in 1903 by Henry Ford in Dearborn, Michigan and made its first sale, a Model A, on July 15, 1903. Some major milestones experienced by the Ford Motor Company happened in 1922 when Edsel Ford urged his father to purchase Lincoln®, helping make Lincoln® a lasting symbol of elegance and style. From 1942 to 1945, Ford Motor Company completely shut down civilian vehicle production to dedicate all its resources to the Allied war efforts as a leader in the "arsenal of democracy.” In recent years, Ford Motor Company expanded into other technologies when it partnered with NASA to put a man on the moon by...
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...Financial Analysis of Wells Fargo Bank Analyze the company’s mission and vision statements against the performance of the organization. Then, evaluate how well the company lives out its mission and vision statement. Provide support from the organization’s performance in your evaluation. The mission statement of Wells Fargo, like most other banks, centers around getting as much money and financial obligation from each individual as possible. “We want to satisfy all our customers’ financial needs and help them succeed financially.” To further clarify that mission Wells Fargo says, “We believe our customer can save more time and money if--- after carefully shopping around and comparing choices --- they bring all their financial services to one trust provider.” Wells Fargo has lived up to its mission statement by becoming the nation’s largest financial institutions, serving one in three U.S. households and employing over in 500 working Americans. Regardless of the growing size, scope and reach, Wells Fargo common visions and distinct values form the fabric that holds the company together. As a team member of Wells Fargo, I can say it doesn’t matter what my responsibility is, or my titles, the business of the company is what I work for. Wells Fargo is one of the few American companies doing business for longer than 150 years under its founding name and in its original line of business: banking. Banking has changed in many ways through the years...
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...Henry Mai GSC 3600 Kevin Ketels Fall 2013 Ford Rouge Plant Visit Located in Dearborn, Michigan, the Ford Rouge Plant was a mile-and-a-half wide and more than a mile long. The multiplex of 93 buildings totaled 15,767,708 square feet of floor area crisscrossed by 120 miles of conveyors. Henry Ford’s ultimate goal was to achieve total self-sufficiency by owning, operating and coordinating all the resources needed to produce complete automobiles. Eventually, the Rouge produced virtually every Model T component, but assembly of the Model T remained at Highland Park. According to Henry Ford: The principles of assembly are these: (1) Place the tools and the men in the sequence of the operation so that each component part shall travel the least possible distance while in the process of finishing. (2) Use work slides or some other form of carrier so that when a workman completes his operation, he drops the part always in the same place—which place must always be the most convenient place to his hand—and if possible have gravity carry the part to the next workman for his operation. (3) Use sliding assembling lines by which the parts to be assembled are delivered at convenient distances. Also, what did I found most interesting about my visit was back in the 1930s, more than 100,000 people worked at the Rouge. To accommodate them required a multi-station fire department, a modern police force, a fully staffed hospital and a maintenance crew 5,000 strong. One new car rolled...
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...When company satisfy public needs The marketing system of all companies all over the world has been accused of adding to several “evils” in all societies at large, unlike other business functions like accounting or finance, people in marketing interact directly with the public even studies show that marketer and salesperson rank poorly in ratings of the most trusted professions. Critics have charged that the marketing system urges too much in material possessions. People are judged by what they own rather than who they are, phrases such as “greed is good”, “shop till you drop” seemed to characterize this time and this world where the false wants and the excessive materialism dominate. The critics do not view this interest in material things as a natural state of mind but rather as a matter of false wants created by marketing. Businesses hire advertisement’s means to stimulate people’s desires for goods, without forgetting the role of advertisement which uses the mass media to create materialistic models of a good life. People work harder to earn the necessary to make money with them, their purchases increase the output of the multinational or even the national industry, and industry in turn uses the advertisement to stimulate more desire for the industrial output. So when businesses will conversely react and try to establish and improve social goods? Corporate social responsibility has been defined broadly as involving a firm taking “actions that appear to further some...
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...Extreme year-on-year U.S. natural gas demand growth necessary to diminish infrastructure constraints and curtail producer shut-ins as storage continues to approach operational capacity Access BENTEK's Market Alert, Gas Tank Full: Henry Hub Will Re-Test Price Floor - including an interactive Analytical Storyboard click-through. BENTEK's Market Alert, Gas Tank Full: Henry Hub Will Re-Test Price Floor, reports strong weather-adjusted demand from power will have to continue if the current U.S. natural gas market is to avoid severe production shut-ins by the end of summer. Even in a scenario where production remains flat for the entire injection season, total demand will need to average 6.3 Bcf/d stronger than the five-year summer average in order to avoid infrastructure constraints. In addition, gas production will need to be curtailed 0.9 Bcf/d in non-Northeast basins. BENTEK's Market Alert projects that these fundamental factors will lead to weak natural gas spot prices this summer, with Henry Hub cash prices dropping below $2.00 this fall as temperatures drop and demand declines. BENTEK's Gas Tank Full: Henry Hub Will Re-Test Price Floor provides essential fundamental analysis on the factors influencing the 2012 U.S. storage surplus, including injection rates, power demand and production curtailments. Key takeaways from BENTEK's Gas Tank Full Market Alert: • The April-ending 0.9-Tcf storage surplus will force the U.S. natural gas market to test operational...
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...important advance of the second industrial revolution is Henry Ford’s development of mass production. Before Ford, cars were luxury items, and most of his early competitors continued to view them that way, manufacturing and marketing their vehicles for the wealthy. Ford's great stroke of genius was recognizing that with the right techniques, cars could be made affordable for the general public (“Ford”). theright technique for Ford was the assembly line. The concept of this was that employees would have one job, in one stationary position, and move the part through employees creating a Model-T. His method of making cars was efficient, while still cutting costs, enabling Ford to sell his cars cheaper than competitors. Once everyone realized mass production, and assembly lines worked so well for Ford, other factories began adopting Ford’s technique. Other car manufacturers could not compete with their luxury cars intended for the rich. In order to survive as a company, they had to follow suite. “Assembly Lines became the standard in nearly every American factory. (622)” Henry Ford’s rise to success brought any of his material suppliers with him. “The mass production of cars required huge quantities of steel; entire new rolling mills had to be built to supply sheet steel for car bodies. Rubber factories boomed with the need for tires, along with paint and glass factories. (624)” To supply the huge mass of car Henry Ford was mass producing, he needed a huge supply of materials...
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...Andrew Jackson’s effect in the American politics Andrew Jackson, the seventh president, is one of the most important and significant presidents in the history of the United States. As a vice-president and president (1824 to 1832) he reshaped and redirected the course of American expansion and democracy. Jackson believed the president is the direct representative of the people. He was the man of action and shrewd politician. He knew how to manipulate men and could be affable or abusive or abusive as the occasion demanded.(nation of nations, 2005 ) Andrew Jackson came to personify the new democratic culture. Through his forceful leadership he significantly expanded the powers of the presidency. Jackson threatened to use force against South Carolina when it tried to nullify the federal tariff using john c. Calhoun’s theory of nullification that is that a state convention could nullify a federal law. He vetoed a bill to recharter the second bank of the United States and destroyed the bank by removing its federal deposits. He called for legislation to remove native peoples west to of the Mississippi voiding treaties found legitimate by the Supreme Court during the winter months of 1835-36 to ensure the greatest suffering to these peoples. One quarter of the tribal people died in transit to Oklahoma during this move. Jacksonian era went through the deep and rapid changes. The revolution in markets brought both economic expansion and periodic depressions as its citizens competed...
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...Shortly after dropping out of the Trotskyist movement in 1978, I embarked on a systematic reading project of the world?s greatest novels. Since I had made the decision to begin writing fiction myself, I wanted to learn the craft from the masters. Additionally, I wanted a change of pace from the hard-core Marxist literature I had been reading for 11 years. (Within two years, however, I had returned to radical politics, largely under the impetus of the Central American revolution.) I soon discovered that some of these masterpieces left me cold, including those written by Henry James, Joseph Conrad and especially Jane Austen. Although I would never deny that they were great writers, their words did not resonate with me. After reading 50 or so pages of ?Pride and Prejudice,? I found myself wondering what all the hype was about. I was left cold by an endless round of country balls, dinner parties and arch dialogue that always sounded self-conscious and somewhat artificial. To illustrate: Elizabeth Bennett, the major character who is based on Jane Austen herself, is in one of her frequent 'cutting' exercises with Fitzwilliam D?Arcy--reminiscent of an old Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy movie. Like Hepburn and Tracy, these two spend most of their time hating each other until they finally discover that they really are in love. (I myself had a different take on the matter. In my experience, people generally start off in love and then discover that they really hate each other...
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...The themes in the Canterville Ghost The Canterville Ghost is a ghost story. Ghost stories belong to the genre called horror literature, whose purpose is to scare the reader with situations that cause horror or fear. The most common technique is suspense, the slow insinuating of a doubt or of a frightening revelation, which keeps the reader interested. This story can be defined an inverted ghost story, because a lot of elements are different from the traditional ones. The main difference is the fact that Mr Otis is not scared by the ghost, while usually people should be. Moreover, the Ghost itself is frightened by the Otis twins. There is also comic relief bordering on farce, including buckets of water balanced on half-open doors. But the story has a dark centre. The crime and retribution which led to the haunting is ghastly, and this is really not a comedy at all, but a tale of redemption through the power of love. The innocent girl of the family, appropriately called Virginia, prays for the ghost and endures terrifying if unnamed experiences to release the ghost. Also, The Canterville Ghost is both a parody of the traditional ghost story and a satire of the American way of life. Wilde obviously intends to satirize American materialism, but he pokes fun at English traditional culture as well. American vs. British society: “The Canterville Ghost” is a study in contrasts. Wilde takes an American family, places them in a British setting, then, through a series...
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...English 102 20 February 2014 Question 5: Question 5: Women at the End of the 19th Century Daisy Miller is the female main character in the short story by Henry James. Mr. Winterbourne describes her as a pretty American flirt, suggesting she is somewhat liberal and improper, as per the young man’s impression. Mr. Winterbourne is also a relatively young American man, about twenty-seven years old. He has spent a lot of time in Europe, becoming accustomed to a different world view from that of the American family and more specifically that of Daisy Miller. When the story begins, Winterbourne is seated at the garden of a hotel in Vevey when he meets Daisy’s younger brother Randolph, a pleasant little fellow, brave enough to ask a stranger for sugar, and justifying his request by saying that he is an American boy who misses candy from back home. When his sister Daisy appears and is introduced to Winterbourne, he expects her to be as proper and uptight as the women in Geneva. He even fears for his image, as he struggles to decide what would be proper for him to say to her, considering that he found her attractive. However, Winterbourne is put at ease when he finds Daisy more liberated than he had seen in a long time. When James describes her, as “…very charming; but how deucedly sociable” (12), he gives the impression that he had expected her to exercise some form of restraint upon their acquaintance, since they had just met. He did enjoy her company, but he certainly wasn’t entirely...
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...1. Introduction 2. External Analysis Porter’s Five Forces Analysis – Ford The competitive structure of an industry is an important element of identifying factors that are a menace of decreasing profitability. One of the most adequate forms of assessing competitive issues is Michael Porter’s five-force analysis. According to Michael Porter understanding the external environment in which a firm operates in, is essential for a successful business. Porter (2008) displayed five such factors: 1) threat of new entrants, 2) the power of suppliers, 3) the power of buyers, 4) the threat of substitutes, and 5) rivalry among existing competitors. The evaluation of these five forces provides managers with the ability to form an optimal strategy, due to external opportunities and threats being taken into consideration. The existence of new entrants in the automobile industry may force prices down and put pressure on profits. However, there are barriers to entry that favor established firms; economies of scale is mildly attractive, despite the expectation of significant economies of scale, due to indications that large size may not be as significant as one would assume. Nonetheless, entry into the automobile industry requires a large capital investment from any new entrant, indicating economies of scale is a substantial barrier to entry. Opportunity factors connected to product differentiation predict product differentiation will go from mildly attractive to highly attractive;...
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...Ford Pinto Case Ford Pinto Case If we were involved in the Ford Pinto dilemma we would have used Deontological Ethical reasoning to decide whether or not to disclose the danger that the Pinto posed and/or use that reasoning to determine whether or not to install the part(s) that would make the Ford Pinto safer. Our decision would be to do what is morally right and avoid doing what is morally wrong, regardless of the consequences. True enough Ford was not obligated by government regulation or any law, to disclose the potential hazards of the Ford Pinto however; at the least they should have presented the option of purchasing the part to make the care safer - an option we would have made available to the customer. It is apparent Ford use the Utilitarian Ethical approach to come to their decision – choosing to do what produced the greatest amount of good for the greatest amount of people; a subcompact car that cost $2,000 and weighing no more than 2,000 pounds (Ford & Newton, 2008, p. 296), sold to 11 million customers as opposed to the only 180 people who lost their lives! Valuing a human life at $200,000 against a part that if individually purchased cost $11, Ford felt that it was less expensive to settle fatality claims at $200,000 per life – so they thought, until jury’s started awarding multi-million settlements – so much for their cost-benefit analysis. When a person comes to a conclusion on a decision, many times there are influences from outside sources that...
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...Ken Lewis’ Ethical Dilemma by Kristen Carmichael Professor Kelly Global/Ethical Issues in Business August 20, 2010 Two years ago, Ken Lewis, the former CEO of Bank of America, was confronted with an enormous predicament when Ben Bernanke and Henry Paulson requested that his company immediately acquire Merrill Lynch to save them from declaring bankruptcy. With the financial system of the United States on the verge of collapsing, how do you say no to the Federal Reserve Chairman and the Secretary of the U.S. Treasury? Thus, Lewis agreed. Now fast forward one year later to September 2009. At this time, Lewis has agreed to step down as CEO. He has also been indicted for fraud for “deliberately misleading his shareholders about the ballooning losses at Merrill Lynch” before the bank bought the firm, which includes failing to disclose the year-end bonuses that were paid out to Merrill executives (Fitzpatrick and Eckblad). Furthermore, this begs two questions: what ethical dilemma was Lewis facing during this crisis and how could he have better handled the request from Bernanke and Paulson? Assuming I was Ken Lewis when Bernanke and Paulson requested me to acquire Merrill Lynch, I believe I would have gone through with the acquisition as well. According to House Republican staffers in a memo obtained by Bloomberg, “the Federal Reserve and U.S. Treasury overstepped their authority and pressured Bank of America to complete its Merrill Lynch purchase” (Lanman and Torres). The memo...
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...Can You See The White Elephant? Have you ever been forced to make a life altering decision? A decision where you much choose one option or the other? The short story Hills Like White Elephants depict a situation in which many, if not all readers can relate to at one point in their lives. The author Ernest Hemingway describes this scenario with a young couple who are at a crossroads in their life, and they are unsure of the future. The young couple are forced, but shying away from the rather large “white elephant in the room”, deciding to go through with having a child or an abortion. The theme in Hills Like White Elephants is expressed using typical thematic literary elements. Hemingway uses elements such as character, setting, conflict, and irony all to express the short story theme and symbolism. All of these elements help to develop the theme of decision making and sacrifice. The reader gets very little background on the relationship of the young couple but at the same time receives insight into the norms of the relationship between the “American man” and Jig the “girl” who is pregnant. Jig is represented as a young dependent girl, in article Tim O’brian writes, “Even the nickname "Jig" develops this central conflict. The name suggests a dance, the music for the dance, and a joke, for instance, and thereby exposes the man's ultimately condescending attitude toward her: she is entertainment, material for an interlude, perhaps. “Hemingway uses the character as an element...
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...Goldman Sachs Stockholders The group and I have decided that Stockholders are fourth in line when it comes to importance. Stockholders are important to the Goldman Sachs because they’re the individuals and/or groups whom provide the initial capital for the corporation. Stockholders also meet annually to determine if the corporation is heading in the direction they want. If not, they can vote for new board of directors. Stockholders are mainly interested in how the company is managed in order to maximize the return on their investments. Also, stockholders are interested in how the managers and employees are behaving. If they’re behaving unethically, this could hurt the company’s reputation, putting the stockholders capital to waste. In terms of needs, stockholders need to know that the capital they invest is not wasted in the long run. They expect the business to be highly profitable, and to be honest with them. Stockholders also expect to have some level of control over the board. This was if members are not performing as expected. Stock holders also expect greater protection of investment, as well as greater returns. When Goldman Sachs was hit with all the legal woes, stockholders called a meeting to clarify what should and shouldn’t be done. At the meeting the stockholders had a number of proposals that would need votes to determine the outcome. Among them: executive compensation, collateral increases for derivatives trading and splitting the chairman/CEO position (Washington...
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