Definition Of Green Supply Chain Management Commerce Essay

Definition Of Green Supply Chain Management Commerce Essay There is no precised definition of GSCM (Srivastava, 2007). However in this context, the aim of the researcher and the given problems will determine the scope of there green supply chain. Whiles some researchers channel their attention at the procurement phase, others considers the entire supply chain activities (Zhu et al., 2008). To begin with, Handfield et al., (2005) and Kogg (2003) considered green supply chain in the environmental perspective whereby environmental supply chain management can be used to represent green supply chain management. Businesses are developing and introducing green strategies in order to green the supply chain activities to build common approaches towards energy conservation, pollution abatement, waste reduction and improve their operational efficiencies. Subsequently, the increasing importance of sustainability brought to bare the term triple bottom line of all enterprises highlighting the values enterprises must embrace to continue to operate and become more competitive. Thus when executing their professional duties, enterprises are required to simultaneously factor into the strategy or planning economic, social and environmental issues (Elkington, 2004). Even though social and ethical issues can be related to green supply chain management (Markley and Davies, 2007), social iss ues will not be further elaborated in this paper. In another school of thought, GSCM is viewed in another angle as industrial ecology (Jackson and Clift, 1998) and industrial metabolism (Frederick and Kurato, 2009). Industry is a collective word referring to mutually dependent firms belonging to the same economy (Chang and Singh, 2000). According to (Jackson and Clift, 1998) the industrial ecology focuses on improved efficiency and increasing production output of the whiles making the manufactured goods cheaper as well as preventing the pollution into the ecosystem. On the other hand, industrial metabolism which was conceptualise by Robert Ayres from the biological point of view whereby the convertion of raw materials, energy and labour into finished goods and waste are regarded as integration of physical processes (Frederick and Kurato, 2009). This biological metamorphosis is applicable to the manufacturing enterprises whereby the finished by-product of a firm becomes the input or raw materials for the other (Baily et al., 2005). In another approach, GSCM can be linked to the lean paradigm which was conceptualised by (Womack et al., 1990). Womack et al. (1990) stated that lean thinking which was the core practice of the Toyota Production System (TPS) the Japanese motor manufacturing and termed as muda, has close synergy with environment management (Hampson and Johnson, 1996) whereby companies were required to do more with less. Thus avoiding spoiled production, purposeless movement of employees and goods, unnecessary processing steps and services that fail to meet the requirement of customers. And by doing so, the organisational activities which do not create value but absorbs resources are cut off. So the ultimate aim of the lean concepts as developed by Womack et al. (1990) is targeted towards cost reduction in the manufacturing companies through value engineering and analysis so as to provide the optimum prices offered to their customers. Hines et al (2004) claim that lean exist at the strategic and opera tional levels. The customer value-creation strategic thinking applies everywhere in relation to cost, delivery and quality. However, Fisher (1997) argues that the lean thinking is not a supply chain strategy applicable to all sorts of product manufacturing. Yet in another approach Lin et al. (2001) green supply chain management is also connected to Environmentally Conscious Manufacturing (ECM) of which they viewed it as involving developing and putting into operation manufacturing processes that curtailing and getting rid of all forms of waste, improve material utilisation efficiency and improving operational safety as well as reducing energy consumption across the supply chain. McKinnon et al., (2010) supported Lin et al. (2001) views and added few expressions stating that issue of green supply chain focuses on the reduction of energy consumption and emissions, elimination of solid, chemicals or hazardous waste by material suppliers, contractors, service contractors, vendors, distributors and end users within the supply chain whiles increasing recycling and reuse. Ernst and Young (2008) pointed out energy savings and managing resources efficiently as the best option for green supply chain. Sarkis, (2001) Concluded that environmental co nscious manufacturing is an important strategy the enables companies to lower their environmental impact, improve efficiency whiles achieving profits and market share targets. The above opinions expressed regarding green supply chain management create the environmental consciousness will not be completed without the flow of information across the upstream and downstream. Gattorna (2006) viewed supply chain as the enterprises involved in the coordinating process, functions, activities and building relationships and pathways along which information, goods, services and financial transactions are moved from the upstream to the downstream. However for the purpose of the study, the researcher will agree to Hervani et al. (2005) definition of green supply chain management embedded with Gatornas opinion of supply chain. Hervani et al. (2005) viewed green supply chain management as the activities of supply chain in regards to the support of the protection of the environment. The activities range from green purchasing, green manufacturing, green distribution and marketing to reverse logistics. The reason is to make known the flow of both information and material as well relationship building among the supply chain members. It is equally important to note that the major practices of organisations that have introduced green supply chain management which varies across different organisation. 2.2 THEORTICAL FRAMEWORK OF GREEN SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT PRACTICES Sarkis (2003) assert that the decisions about the environmental practices are influenced by the four stages of the product life cycle. The introduction stage of the product is emphasised on the product research and development where investment occurs, the growth stage focuses on increasing of production capacities where the logistics channel is significant, whereas the maturity stage is concerned with the implementation of cost and efficiencies and finally the decline stage where the product divestment are necessary. According to Rao (2007) the end-of-life practices has resulted in the operational life cycle of manufacturing company which includes the inbound logistics, work-in-progress, outbound logistics and the possible reverse logistics. Sarkis (2003) focused on to the procurement decision phase as the stage that can expertly influence the suppliers and impact the environment by purchasing green products. In view of this Green et al. (1998) re-emphasize that the most effective wa y for businesses to improve their environmental performance within their supply chain activities can be achieved through green purchasing and supply. 2.2.1 Inbound Logistics (Green Purchasing) Majority of the inbound function fundamentally entails green purchasing strategies implemented by enterprises to react to the growing global issues related to environmental sustainability (Rao and Holt, 2005). Min and Galle (2001, p.1223) defined green purchasing as an environmentally-conscious purchasing practice that reduces sources of waste and promotes recycling and reclamation of purchased materials without adversely affecting performance requirements of such materials. Rao and Holt (2005) opine that engaging in green purchasing can deal with issues such as material substitution through environmental sourcing of raw materials, reducing waste of hazardous materials and other waste produced. The inbound function requires the maximum support and involvement of teh suppliers if the firms can achieve their goal. The companies develop the habit of continually managing the environmental performance of their suppliers to make certain that environmentally-friendly materials and equipments by nature are produced using environmentally-freindly processes to be supplied to the companies. A consultancy firm Carbonfund based in the United States categorically stated that acquiring any input for production should be purchased from an organisation with a carbon-free product certification. This is because such inputs will require less energy, reduce or eliminate equipment stress and lesser carbon emission during the work-in-progress as well as reducing the footprint where possible and offsetting the remaining carbon emissions through third-party validated carbon reduction projects. Furthermore the end product that differentiates the brand and product of the company, reduces its total cost of operations, increase their sales and profit margin, and improve customer loyalty whiles strengthening its CSR and environmental goals (Marshall, n.d). According to the Conservation Value Institute (2008) green refers to products, services and practices whose procurement, manufacturing and use should simultaneously facilitate economic development whiles preserving the natural resources which provides quality of life and components to the global economies for the future generations. So green produced products and services would possess any of the following attributes: the products should have low maintenance requirement, durable, energy efficient and savings; should be biodegradable or incorporate recycled content and can readily be recycled; easily to be reused; do not contain highly toxic compounds and or ozone depleting substances which can result in highly toxic by-products when undergone production stage; and finally the products are to be obtained from nearest resources and manufacturers using the lowest carbon footprint transportation. Min and Galle (1997) used a specific industry groups (heavy producers of scrap and waste materials) to outline the advantages of green purchasing as contributing factor geared to source reduction of pollution in regards to recycling, re-use and low-density packaging, and towards eliminating waste in terms of dumping or scrapping, recycling and sorting for bio-degradable packaging or non-toxic inceneration. However, Min and Galle (1997) pointed out the uneconomical recycling and re-use as the three main barriers associated with green purchasing whereas lack of state or federal regulations, lack of management commitment, lack of suppliers awareness, lack of buyer awareness, deficient company-wide environmental standards or auditing programs are also important issues. Arguably, green purchasing revolves around two key element and these include the evaluation of suppliers environmental performance and mentoring to assist the suppliers to improve their performance (Rao and Holt, 2005). Green purchasing research traditionally focused on the former element wherby the companies use range of technique and tools to assess the environmental behaviour of suppliers to enable them choose supplier. Nontheless, the adoption of environmental management standards such as ISO 14001 certification accredited to the suppliers has reduced that stress (Noci, 2000). On the other hand the latter element goes beyond monitoring and evaluation, geared towards providing guidance and support for the suppliers requiring a extensive change in the attitude of the lead corporations in a supply chain (Hines and Johns, 2001). However, Hines and Johns (2001) from a positive standpoint pointed out building teamwork, non-threatening, sharing potential benefits and supplier mentoring proactive as advantages of mentoring culture, whiles the critical weaknesses is associated with cost implications, lack of physical facilities, lack of trained personnel to deliver such mentoring initiatives and above all lack of facilities. 2.2.2 Production (Green manufacturing) Handfield et al. (2005) supported the initiatives of green design, substitution, extension of products life cycle through material selection, support of suppliers and life cycle assessment (LCA) as the strategies for environmental impact reduction. The green design of the product takes into consideration the product level (thus the environmentally friendly materials to be used) and the manufacturing process of the product. The substitution is essential in the green design so as to eliminate hazardous materials in the manufacturing of the product. Also the extension of the products life ccycle linked to the green design is characterised by the reuse of the parts of an obsolete product to manufactrure new products. In doing so, there is procedures that enables the suppliers to improve their manufacturing process. Geyer and Jackson (2004) pay much attention to the end-cycle strategy of the products which includes the recycling of the end-of-life product which is redirect from being dump ed. The life cycle assessment is concern with the complete physical life cycle of the product from cradle-to- grave (Heiskanen, 2002). So manufacturer are to take into account the environmental pollution throughout the production process. Green manufacturing is interlinked to the content of manufacturing strategy (Dangayach and Deshmukh, 2001) which focuses on three braod approaches namely: manufacturing capabilities, strategic choices and best practices. Kerr and Greenhalgh (1991) viewed manufacturing capabilities as aligning cost, quality, delivery and flexibility which is termed as competitive priorities (Spring and Boaden, 1997) to the requirements of the marketplace. Spring and Boaden (1997) outline the competitive priorities as: Cost: production and distribution of product at lower cost. Quality: manufacture of products with high performance or quality standard Delivery: meet delivery schedules Flexibility: respond to changes in product, product m ix, modifications to design, fluctuations in materials, and changes in sequence. Hill (1987) enumerates the strategic choice areas of the manufacturing strategy into two pillars; the structural and infrastructure. Skinner (1969) identified the structural pillar as process and technology for operations (plant and equipment, product design and engineering and production planning and control) whiles the infrastructure provides it with long-term competitive edge through continuously improving human resource policies, organisation culture, information technology and quality systems (Hayes and Wheelwright, 1985). Best practices in manufacturing strategy has increased in recent years and these encompasses manufacturing resource planning, flexible manufacturing system, group technology, optimised production technology, just in time, total quality management (TQM) and lean production and concurring engineering (Dangayach and Deshmukh, 2001). Hayes and Wheelwright, (1985) highlighted the characteristics of world class manufacturing (WMC) as a typical example of what green manufacturing within a particular company will entail. These are: formal thrust on strategic planning; communication of strategy to all the stakeholders; long-range orientation; strategic role of manufacturing; stress on continuous improvement through TQM; supplier-customer integration and strategic focus on development of human resources. However, procedding from the above, product life cycles are shortening and the evidence is in the computer industry. The environmentalist Lee (2008) criticise the dynamic trait of technological innovation as being problematic in the sense that the rate at which technology is used by companies to create new products in order to be continuously competitive makes that same products obsolete within a short time, which poses risk to the environment. Whiles the consumers have gained from greater variety and improved performance, the trend inexorably results in increased unsold products, increased packaging materials, increased waste and increased returns (Van Hoek, 1999) therefore it is argued that shorter product life cycles has resulted in the increment of the volume of product returns and waste entering the reverse logistics network and the cost of managing them (Giuntini and Andel, 1995). 2.2.3 Outbound Logistics (Green distribution and marketing) The concerns of businesses and consumers mostly in the industrialised countries in relation to the environment and the future of the planet has partially been transformed into corporate organisations in pursuing green or environmental marketing. The outbound function of greening the supply chain encompass green marketing, environmental-friendly packaging and environmental-friendly distribution, an initiative combine to enhance the environmental performance of an organisation and its supply chain (Rao, 2003 and Sarkis, 1999). Business-to-business (B2B) green marketing encompasses a broad scope of activities connected to: product design, the manufacturing process, packaging, service delivery processes, recycling, construction, renovation of buildings and other areas such as communication. Green marketing involves green products as well as greening enterprises (Vaccaro, 2009). The Chartered Institute of Marketing (2007) defined green marketing as the management process responsible for i dentifying, anticipating as well as satisfying the requirements of customers and society. Packaging which also forms part of the organisational life cycle of can also be made to minimise waste and its impact on the environment (Sarkis, 2003). The use of packaging contributes to the waste stream whether it is made of plastic, paper, glass or metal. As a result, several countries now have adopted legislation and programmes with the objective of curtailing the environmental impact of the amount of packaging that enters the waste stream such as the Packaging Directive in the EU (Rao, 2001). Managing of waste and waste exchange can also enhance competitiveness and lead to cost savings (Rao, 2003). Several environmentally conscious enterprises are implementing an on-site waste management treatment facilities and waste exchange networks whereby plastic containers are collected by an outsources firm and brought back to the company for recycled or empty paper carton used as a packaging material by the supplier are sent back to them by the customer for re-use (Rao, 2001). Also othe r stakeholders such as NGOs and governments are tupping in efforts to enhance industrial ecology concepts for corporations whereby a closed loop approach utilises all the waste through recycling, re-use of energy and materials Warehousing and packaging design are the major components in the outbound logistics and distribution (Wu and Dunn, 1995). Wu and Dunn (1995) argued that good warehousing layouts, easy information access reduce storage and retrieval delays and standardized reusable containers whiac are all environmentally sound leads to operating costs savings. In terms of transportation for distribution, an environmentally-friendly transportation system such as transport type, sources of fuel, infrastructure and operational practices and enterprise should be considered (Kam, et al., 2003). An example is just recently, Tesco reveal its plan to open a green distribution center (Teesport Distribution Center) in Middlesbrough. The plans are to get rid of more than 12,000 lorry journeys off the UKs roads annually. The idea is to transport all the goods that arrive from ships by rail into the various stores throughout the UK (Just-food, 2009). 2.2.4 Reverse logistics Rogers and Tibben-Lembke, (1999) viewed reverse logistics as the method of moving a product from the consumption point to another point of with the aim of recapturing the remaining value or for the final proper disposal of the product. Reverse logistics today involves more than the sheer recycling of packaging materials and re-use of containers. Sarkis (2003) outline four environmentally conscious end-of-life practices as reuse, remanufacture, recycle and disposal alternatives of which Tan et al. (2003) included into the scope of reverse logistics logistics. Reduction which is the fifth practice is necessary during the manufacturing or production stage and distribution and its not just applicable as the end-of-life strategy. Even though the reuse, remanufacture, recycle are related, the variance is between the degree of reuse of the material. The reuse is exemplified by the impact of the physical structure of the material whiles the remanufacture uses parts of the original material a nd components are being replaced with other substitute. Finally the recycling then changes the physical structure of the material completely. Tan (1999) highlighted the importance of third-party logistics providers who are anticipated to offer complete solution for collection, transportation and other value-added services. Reverse logistics can also be used to clean out slow moving inventories or customers obsolete, in order to enable customers to buy more newer products (Andel, 1997). For example, Caterpillar Asia and other industrial equipment companies have implemented liberal returns policies that enable them to collect obsolete componenets and spare parts back from their appointed dealers. In return, they then remanufacture these mechanical spare parts to recaliam many remaning value (Fites, 2000). However in the case whereby much sale is not made on the new spare parts held by the dealers, the companies will reimburse their dealers with generous allowance in excahange for spare demanded by their customers. Catterpilar also uses e-commerce program for their dealers to return their existing spare parts in the exchange for those required by new products (Tan et al., 2003). However, the execution of reverse logistics encounters several obstacles or barriers such as lack of manangement attention and company policies, concerns about competitive and legal issues, shortage of personnel and financial resources, the absence of standardized processes and technologies, etc. the poor managing of reverse logistics is due to the fact that more than one firm is generally involved in the process (Rogers and Tibben-Lembke, 1999). Significance of green supply chain management It is vital for the various enterprises to know the importance of practicing green supply chain management since the environment is a major concern to lots of stakeholders such as the customers, consumers, governments, competitors, trade associations and sector bodies, environmental regulators, community groups, business support organisations, partnership groups and Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) are becoming environmentally conscious and that firms supply chains are being scrutinise currently than former (Simms, 2006; Holt et al., 2001; Min and Galle, 2001). Policies (existing scm) Prooceeding from the unfolding regulations and legislations from Montreal Protocol (Mascarelli,n.d), Kyoto Protocol (Kolk and Pinkse, 2006) and Copenhagen Climate Summit (Black, 2009) point towards the significance of environmentally conscious manufacturing and distribution will contuinue to develop. The acceptance of the ISO 14001 to provide an international standard for environmental manangement system (Alexander, 1996) is to pressurise enterprises to pay more attention to environmental concerns in the supply chain reproduction so as to prevent exclusion from markets requiring compliance (Thomas and Griffen, 1996). Though the research bodies that are meant to tackle environmentally conscious supply chain management is quite scanty (Thomas and Griffen, 1996), research on environmentally manufacturing has primarily concentrated on product and process design including the concepts of Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) and Design for the Environment (DFE) (Cattanach, 1995). The recent developments on environmental policy motivated Bloemhof-Ruwaard et al. (1995) to argue that the shift in focus from end-of-pipe control to waste prevention through integrated modelling approach, similar to supply chain management is to adequately address environmental issues. Beckman et al. (1995) presented a qualitative discussion by illustrating TQM concept to be corresponding with environmentally conscious supply chain management which Handfield et al. (2005) and Kogg (2003) term as green supply chain management (GSCM) in addressing supplier relations and product design. Beckman et al. (1995) concluded that modification or development of environmentally conscious supply chain management as an integrated model can assess the impact of the flow of products throughout the supply chain. Rao and Holt (2005) cited an example of 212 US manufacturing firms, 75 per cent respondents identified pollution prevention as important to their overall corporate performance of which 37.7 per cent identified customers as a key component in pollution prevention whereas 49.1 per cent of the firms pointed out the suppliers as the key players of pollution prevention (Florida, 1996). Reverse logistics- Clegg et al. (1995) design a linear programming model to find out profit-maximizing materials flows for both new and recycled or reclaimed parts in manufacturing operations. The reclaimed parts can either be partially or totally disassembled and the various part or parts may be discarded (perhaps sold) or reused in manufacturing. Clegg et al. (1995) concluded that the model can be used to check the sensitivity of the models parameters such as disassembly capacity, availability of reclaimed parts and limits on disposal. Rao (2002) and Ho et al. (2002) commented on the concept of green by throwing the challenge to suppliers, manufacturers, distributers, etc to welcome the concept since it fosters collaborative decision-making process that promotes creative thinking resulting into environmental-products innovation through cost reduction, waste and pollution minimisation and efficient use of resources. Citing example, Nikes official team jerseys for the 2010 World Cup were produced through the recycling of plastic bottles found in landfills. These eco-friendly shirts required 30 per cent less energy to produce the shirts compared to the use of traditional materials. Through this green practices, Nike prevented almost 13 million plastics bottles (approximately 254,000 kilogram of polyester waste) from being dumped to the landfill sites (Messenger and Alegre, 2010). Billington et al. (2009) openly stated that it is obvious that the reputations of organisations that fail to be socially responsible in their operations will be tarnished through bad publicity and mostly become vulnerable to and open to attack from NGOs. Hayes and Wheelwright (1985) in their four-stage framework of manufacturing emphases the need for companies to deploy sustainable or environmental policies throughout their operations and incorporating into their missions since that could help them to attain their strategic goals. Significance Preceding from the inbound perspective authors such as Bowen et al. (2001)and Rao (2002) argued that greening the supply chain has several benefits to an enterprise, ranging from integrating suppliers in a paticipative decision-making process that enhance environmental innovation and cost reduction. Authors such as Rao and Holt (2005) recognize that other stakeholders and customers all the time are unable to distinguish between a firm and its suppliers and in the case of environmental liabilities incurred by a company, the stakeholders intend to charge the leading company in that particular change responsible for the poor environmental impacts of all the enterprises within a particular supply chain for a specific product. Chatterjee (1998) claim that companies greening the supply chain is a concept that matches customers satisfaction, product and external business which increases the market shares of the company. Vaccaro (2009) stated that manufacturing and marketing green products differentiates the product to create competitive advantage for the company to become global leader as well as saving costs. Also, it is perceived that green supply chain management promotes efficiency and synergy among supply chain members and their lead corporations and enable them to minimise their waste, enhance their environmental performances and attain cost savings. The synergy is anticipated to improve the corporate image, marketing exposure and eventually to achieve competitive advantage. However Bowen et al. (2001) argue that enterprises will only implement green supply chain management practices provided only if they are able to identify that the practice will be lead to particular financial and operational benefi ts. CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK OF GREEN SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT Challenge of green supply chain management Johri and Sahasakmontri (1998) identified high costs, variability in demand and unfavourable consumer perception as the main challenges of green marketing. Several consumers complain of the high prices and unglamorous image of ecologically-freindly products even though the increased awareness of environmental concerns is also resulting into constant development of eco-demand (Johri and Sahasakmontri, 1998) whereas consumer sceptism is used as ecological claims against some enterprise (Polonsky et al., 1997). However Min and Galle (1997) argued that the most serious hindrance towards effective green purchasing is the high cost associated to its environmental programmes. Min and Galle (2001) further raise the concerns about purchasing enterprises who reckon that investing in green products by way of having strong commitment towards environmental programs increases the total purchasing costs of the enterprise which eventually decreases their competitiveness. The reason is as a result of the added cost incur through its commitment in terms of employee training and environmental auditing which positions the company at an economic disadvantage as compared to the other less environmentally responsible companies since the incurred cost will be definitely pass onto the customer or end-user (Vance, 1975). In fact, it will be very difficult for a purchasing firm who has limited financial resources to be willing to adopt green purchasing tactics that can curtail the upstream waste sources which can eventually improve its overall environmental performance (Min and Galle, 2001). Thierry et al. (1995) found out that at the operational level particularly, managers of companies encounter the decision of buying more expensive environmentally friendly materials or purchasing traditional products based on cost, quality or lead time objectives as well as the challenge of locating the suitable information and data concerning green supply chain management. Nonetheless, Hevani et al., (2005) attributed the bottlenecks to green supply chain implementation to the higher cost of environmentally friendly products, lack of protection for innovations, lack of lead time to provide environmental friendly solutions, existing procurement specifications and technological issues. Nonetheless, considering the impact just-in-time has on the environmental performance of a company Nathan (2007) concluded that, the just-in-time approaches actually conflict with the objective of green supply chain management since the more empty trips of trucks makes their operation less efficient. It is obvious that the developed market is the main market of green products, mainly North America, Western Europe, Australia and South-East Asia. However, the demand of ecological products cannot be met by a particular economy thereby creating the opportunities for enterprises in transition economies or developing countries (Borregaard et al., 2003). Meanwhile enterprises in the developed countries take advantage of their reputable brand to expand their

Outline Procedures for Infection Control in Own Work Setting

Outline procedures for infection control in your own work setting At Gap Club to reduce the risk of infections we: 1. Provide protective clothing and equipment for staff in accordance with company procedures. 2. Have daily, weekly and monthly routine sterilising processes in place. 3. Outside contract cleaners clean premises daily. 4. If an outbreak does occur then a deep clean is completed in the appropriate area/s by Gap staff and contract cleaners.It is a fact that children will get ill and by following the guidelines in our policy it reduces unnecessary exposure to illnesses and ensures infections are managed effectively creating a happy and healthy club for all children and young people. If at any time there are any infectious diseases present at the Nursery this will be clearly displayed at the entrance to the room where the infection has occurred. At Gap Club to reduce the risk of infections we: 1. Provide protective clothing and equipment for staff in accordance with company procedures. . Have daily, weekly and monthly routine sterilising processes in place. 3. Outside contract cleaners clean premises daily. 4. If an outbreak does occur then a deep clean is completed in the appropriate area/s by Gap staff and contract cleaners. It is a fact that children will get ill and by following the guidelines in our policy it reduces unnecessary exposure to illnesses and ensures infections are managed effectively creating a happy and healthy club for all children and young people.If at any time there are any infectious diseases present at the Nursery this will be clearly displayed at the entrance to the room where the infection has occurred. At Gap Club to reduce the risk of infections we: 1. Provide protective clothing and equipment for staff in accordance with company procedures. 2. Have daily, weekly and monthly routine sterilising processes in place. 3. Outside contract cleaners clean premises daily. 4.If an outbreak does occur then a deep clean is completed i n the appropriate area/s by Gap staff and contract cleaners. It is a fact that children will get ill and by following the guidelines in our policy it reduces unnecessary exposure to illnesses and ensures infections are managed effectively creating a happy and healthy club for all children and young people. If at any time there are any infectious diseases present at the Nursery this will be clearly displayed at the entrance to the room where the infection has occurred.

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.

The Importance Of The Progressive Era - 1310 Words

The Progressive era was a time in America’s history when people started to call for the government’s help to face the problems industrialization brought. This era was extremely important because it helped the people achieve better conditions and helped the government to make better use of its powers. One of the most potent groups of progressivists were muckrakers; they used journalism to bring forward problems and injustices in society and the work industry (McKeown). The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire was one of the most devastating industrial tragedies from the early nineteen-hundreds (McKeown). Over a hundred women died because they were unable to escape the building because of its locked doors and improper conditions (McKeown). Most of the†¦show more content†¦Frank Norris was able to educate the public on the corruption which soon enough led to the establishment of the Hepburn Act by President Theodore Roosevelt (McKeown). The Hepburn Act basically stated that t here was no longer going to be any free passes or fluctuating rates, railroads would now have to hand over their books and could be condemned by the government if it was found that they were violating the act (McKeown). Frank Norris’ The Octopus was successful in bringing light and eventually reform to the railroad systems, creating a fairer system. Another muckraker whose work led to progressive political reform was Jacob Riis. He authored How the Other Half Lives (1890), which exposed the issues of poverty and tenement houses in New York during the late 1800’s. In his introduction, Riis writes, â€Å"the half that is on top cares little for the struggles, and less for the fate of those who are underneath so long as it is able to hold them there and keep its own seat† (p. 2). In this quote Riis explains how the rich do not care for the poor and that the upper class just continue to feed off the lower class instead of helping them. One of the main reasons the te nement houses became as bad as they did was because of the rich’s greed. Owners would charge tenants high prices but not provide satisfactory conditions. The tenants complained thatShow MoreRelatedEssay about The Progressive Era: Conflicting Viewpoints1651 Words   |  7 PagesThe Progressive Era: Conflicting Viewpoints Works Cited Missing Two people witnessing the same event can have very different views on it depending on their information and perspective. The presentation of history also changes depending on the resources and prior prejudices and personal views of the historian. Four historian’s interpretations on the Progressive Era and Progressivism were reviewed to determine whether their arguments and use of evidence were sound. Also, the particular knownRead MoreUnited States Constitution and Progressive Movement775 Words   |  4 Pagesï » ¿What, in your opinion, were the key principles of the Progressive Movement? In your opinion, what were Progressivism’s most significant successes and failings? Can the First World War be regarded as a particularly Progressive conflict, or did it derail the Progressive Movement—or are both of these statements true? What, in your opinion, were the key principles of the Progressive Movement? Characteristics of the Progressive Era include refining of the government, rebuilding, a concentrationRead MoreModernization Of Morality And Manners945 Words   |  4 Pages Historians tend to attribute the modernization of morality and manners to the decade between the Progressive Era and the New Deal. The short span of time between the Progressive Era and the New Deal saw the abandonment of Victorian Era moral guidelines, coupled with a new emphasis on the individuality of women. Flappers, young free-spirited girls embracing their newfound social freedom, embodied this period of rapid change. Promiscuity flourished, female clothes covered less, and the roles of womenRead MoreThe Progressive Era Of The Gilded Age1455 Words   |  6 PagesThroughout the progressive era there were many reform movements due to the abundance of political, social, and economical corruption in America in the gilded age as seen by political machines like William Marcy tweed and American financiers l ike J.P. Morgan. Some of the many issues that made themselves present in the gilded age include the large wealth gap, child labor, women’s lack of rights, influx of immigrants, Urbanization, Indian wars, monopolists, political machines, and alcoholism. All ofRead MoreEssay on The Progressive Era873 Words   |  4 PagesThe Progressive Era The turn of the century was marked by a movement known as the Progressive Era, during which many groups sought to reshape the nations government and society in response to the pressure of urbanization and industrialization. Progressives were mainly members of the Post-Civil War generation that made an attempt to master a world much different then that of their parents. With the rise of big business and industrialization came several problems associated with the economicRead MoreProgressive Reformers Essay example625 Words   |  3 Pages10/08/12 Progressive Reformers The Progressive movement has had a tremendous impact on society and preserving the doctrine of a democratic nation. The Progressive Era, which initiated between the years 1890 through 1920, was instituted because progressives who wanted to rid politics of corruption and inefficiency. Progressives wanted to curtail the power of the business trusts, and protect the general welfare of the public. The Progressive name derived from forward-thinking or progressive goalsRead MoreThe Deadly Politics Of Industrial Pollution1604 Words   |  7 Pageslead using the mascot of the Dutch Boy Painter and slogans, such as â€Å"ethyl is to gasoline what vitamins are to food.† However, by the 1970’s with the introduction of safer elements and the decrease in public support, the lead industry lost its importance in the world. The second section of the book focused on the chemical industry, specifically vinyl chloride, where it was explained there was little known about the effects of chemicals. Because of this, there was the question of whether â€Å"a productRead MoreThe Conflict Of The American Civil Rights Movement Essay1309 Words   |  6 Pagesideology, showing us where he got his ideas from. In some regards, it mirrors what some historians have thought of him: a complicated intellectual. In Moses’s view, DuBois is more complicated than other leading Black figures. He notes that DuBois is a Progressive but even some of his ideas are different such as his â€Å"double consciousness†. Like Lewis, Moses invokes the religious connections in DuBois’s message to the people. He writes, â€Å"DuBois progressivism†¦ was a secularized social gospel with roots in†¦Read MoreProgressivism And Social Criticism In The Progressive Era893 Words   |  4 Pages The Progressive Era The Progressive Era was an influential period in history, as it protected social welfare, created an economic reform, and overall, promoted moral improvement. Progressivism has propelled people into the modern world, in which people are treated equally and the business relations do not interrupt the political decisions, or the government. Most importantly, if the concept of progressivism did not exist, our business industry would not have thrived, labor conditions would notRead MoreAmoretti Xxx : My Love Is Like To Ice, And I To Fire By Edmund Spenser1598 Words   |  7 Pageshave provided varying opinions and interpretations regarding the motif of love. In the Elizabethan Era, poets idealized love and ignored all potential hardships. In the Victorian Era, the concept of problematic relationships had gained popularity, but poets maintained the idea of making the best of one’s circumstances and remaining complacent. The poems of the Modern Era became increasingly progressive , highlighting the problematic aspects of romantic relationships. Over the centuries, love in poetry