IT Business Outsourcing Essay Example for Free

IT Business Outsourcing Essay Outsourcing basically means a process of constricting to another party. It is done at the outsourcing client’s location under their supervision. There are many essential factors which are needed to decide whether to outsource the information process or not. First major factor is the activity or the process itself. Main concern should be the process, whether it’s really needed to be outsourced (Loh et. al, 1992). If it is core job to that organization, then its better not to outsource it. If the task really requires highly efficient skills which is not available in your organization, then it’s better to outsource it. Second most important factor is the financial strategy. While deciding whether to outsource, main goal of company is to save money. It’s essential to verify, what will be the total cost in both the cases, if the task to be performed within the organization or outside. Hence, the main factors for deciding why to outsource are outsourcers cost, their capabilities and the potential end product which ultimately will reduce the risk and increase organization profit. Influence of Risk Assessment on the decision making process when seeking to outsource information processes Risk is always associated with the process of outsourcing. Many organizations who went for outsourcing, failed and few of the reasons are like cultural misalignment, end product not as per the quality and deadlines or delivery times missed. There are mainly two types of risk associated with the process of outsourcing: external risk and internal risk. Read more:Â  Essay on Business Process Outsourcing External risks are those risks which occur outside the organization and upon which organization do not have any control. these risks includes a search of outsourcer who will offer the required skills in a cost effective manner, an exchange rate fluctuation that can impact the cost savings, lack of ability to guard organization intellectual protection property and physical location of outsourcer which includes economic and political risk as well (Aubert, 1998). Internal risks are those risks which occur inside the organization while outsourcing. Language is the most targeted risk if outsourcing happen between two different countries where English is not the primary language and the ability of communicating to outsourcers in a remote location where technology is not so updated. Influence of change management requirements on the decision making process when seeking to outsource information processes One of the key factors for a successful outsourcing is the organizations effective change management policy. Organizations who failed to manage the changes effectively suffer a lot. Within an organization, the most important change management program is to create such a reliable communication strategy, so that the employees don’t feel scared about the job security. There should be proper redeployment and retention plans for all employees to make them feel secure. Proper training should be provided to make them understand how to deal with outsourcers. Few change management factors during this process are good leadership quality, crystal clear procedures, strategy safeguarding stakeholder’s interests, communication strategy and a change-over course of action for every step (Wullenweber et al, 2008). Inclusion of different entities by business when making decisions on the processes to outsource and the third party entity to outsource to Businesses include entities when time comes to decide whether to go for outsourcing or not. When an organization needs a process to be outsourced, decision of top level (CEO or a Director) is essential. Without their confirmation, company can’t think of moving ahead. After the confirmation, now its middle management turns to check whether all the important factors are going in favor of outsourcing or not. Here come different entities like finance, Hr, marketing, quality and third party. Finance department will check outsourcing in terms of cost saving, while HR will check if the company really needs outsourcing staff or it has its own (DiRomualdo et. al. , 1998). Marketing people will do a survey to acquire a list of best outsourcing companies and quality will judge whether the decision is anywhere hampering the quality and how to improve it in future. Third party will also play a vital role as their location, cost of doing outsourcing and few other factors will also effect the decision (W. McFarlan et. al, 1995).

The Fountain Head: Individualism :: essays research papers

The Fountain Head: Individualism   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Individualism, the only element which makes a person's character unique. In the Fountain Head, a character binds true to this belief and goes by the name of Howard Roark. This young architect who had his own viewpoint of the world and how he envisioned it, was condemned by the media and the public by doing so. Roark's lifestyle completely perpendiculates the mundane lifestyle that the average citizen lives. Roark conforms to only what he considers valid in his own conscience. The novel opens the door to lead the way against the oppression of conformity. The environment which Howard was placed into didn't help in his situation to freely express his thoughts on certain subjects. This was mainly made possible by the people who he had come in contact through out the years. Many examples of this type of movement are shown by the actions taken by Roark during his career as an architect.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  All of the actions taken by Roark had a deep profound effect on one key player in the novel, Toohey. Toohey with all the power he had with the public and through the newspaper, was not able to manipulate Howard into his way of thinking. The general public who read the Banner had been convinced that Toohey new what he was talking about on all subjects. His plan to manipulate the public and gather them as a whole was directly countered with every move that Howard made. One of these major moves was the building of the Stoddard Temple. With the temple, Roark had the freedom to build whatsoever he choose. This gave him a medium to express his viewpoint without having any restrictions. After the delayed unveiling of the temple, it was condemned by the public. At the head of this group was no other than Toohey. He wrote articles in the newspaper on how the temple in no way represented the human spirit. The temple allowed Howard to display his individualism, his uniqueness, and his self being. This temple was looked down upon because it did not conform to the ancient styles of architecture. Due to the amount of uniqueness found in the temple, it opposed the conventional view that life required conformity.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Howard's special relationship between himself and Gail came about because of their unique individualism. They both believe in the same ways of thinking and therefore they are very much on the same plane of conscienceless. The reason why Gail conformed to society was to play against their trust in the future. When the Banner first got started, it ran two stories to test which

Influences of Service Quality on Customer Satisfaction and Customer Loyalty in Restaurant Industry in Malaysia Essay

Malaysia is a rapidly developing country in Asia and economic growth is projected to moderate to 5. 2% in 2011 (Suzy, 2011). According to the World Bank Group, Malaysia GDP per capita is 14,215 USD, which is adjusted by purchasing power parity. This shows that the purchasing power and standard of living of the Malaysians is growing adequately. Consequently, Malaysians allocate largest amount of household expenditures to their food budgets (Nezakati et al. , 2011). In today’s fast changing social and lifestyle trends, more and more Malaysian households are eating outside due to time constraints. More women are involving in the working force. Parents are working all day long and they are no longer willing or able to spend some time in preparing dinner for the family at home after a tiring working day (Nezakati et al. , 2011; Jangga et al. , 2012). This is especially true in the big cities like Kuala Lumpur where the people spend most of their time working. Besides, the number of people dining out is increasing due to movement away from extended family hosueholds (Nezakati et al. , 2011). In addition, some families spend their weekend gathering with other family members in restaurants (Jangga et al., 2012). On the other hand, Generation Y (Refers to those who were born from 1979 to 1994 and under the age groups between 16 to 33 years old) prefers to eat outside or involve in social gathering activities at the restaurants (Kwek et al. , 2011). In the Chinese culture, restaurants are a common venue for social gatherings and business entertainment. Food consumption in restaurants provides an experience of excitement, celebration, and establishing social connections (Feng, 2003). The best option is to get a pleasant restaurant that could provide quality service and good dining experience. All these factors contribute to the great potential of the Malaysia’s restaurant industry in terms of profitability and economic growth. The restaurant industry is one of the key contributors for the service sector in Malaysia. The restaurant industry is relatively competitive in nature with stiff competition within the industry due to the arising of more local and foreign full service restaurants as well as the increasing number of new entrants offering differentiated food products and services (Voon, 2011). On the other hand, customers are becoming more demanding and their needs are rather diverse (Stevens et al., 1995; Kueh and Voon, 2007). With increasing competition within the restaurant industry, attracting new customers can no longer guarantee profits and success, but retaining existing customers is more vital to the success of the restaurant businesses (Shoemaker et al. , 1999; Anderson and Narus, 2004; Gee et al. , 2008; Haghighi et al. , 2012). Parasuraman et al. (1985) and Zeithaml et al. (1990) stated that the key strategy for the success and survival of any business is the delivery of quality service to customers, and this especially important in the service sectors like restaurant industry. The quality of service offered to the customers will influence customer satisfaction and attitudinal loyalty, which will then lead to success of the businesses (Ravichandran et al. , 2010). 2. 0Background of Research Customer service quality is a crucial source of distinctive competence and is often considered as a key success factor in sustaining competitive advantage in service industries (Palmer, 2001). Thus, the delivery of a higher level of service quality is a very important strategy by which service organizations can position themselves more effectively in the market place. The success of restaurant businesses relies on providing superior service quality, value, and customer satisfaction, which in turn enhances customer repeat patronage (Heskett et al. , 1997). The important relationships between service quality, customer satisfaction, and customer loyalty have thus been an important area of research (Zeithaml et al. , 1996; Pettijohn et al. , 1997; Dabholker et al. , 2000; Sivas and Baker-Prewitt, 2000; Kueh and Voon, 2007; Qin and Prybutok, 2008). Parasuraman et al. (1994) emphasized that SERVQUAL is a lasting and reliable scale of service quality and it is applicable in an extensive spectrum of service domains such as financial institutions, libraries, hotels, medical centers and restaurants. Many researchers have tried to use SERVQUAL in different service domains such as medical services (Swartz & Brown, 1989; Lam, 1997), tourism (Tribe and Snaith, 1998; Atilgan et al. , 2003), libraries (Nitecki, 1996; Coleman et al. , 1997), banks (Angur et al. , 1993), restaurants and hotels (Hokey et al., 2002), and government services (Donnelly et al. , 1995). Past researches in the restaurant industry has identified several factors that determine the level of satisfaction experienced by customers when they visit full service restaurants. The factors are such as quality of food, service and physical environment (Han and Ryu, 2009), atmosphere of the restaurant (Ladhari et al. , 2008), service and delivery (Goyal and Singh, 2007), cleanliness and service quality (Lockyear, 2005), and appropriate cost and attentive service (Namkung and Jung, 2010). Most restaurant quality related studies have focused mostly on the ambience and service delivery as a core competency of a restaurant (Namkung and Jang, 2007). Ladhari et al. (2008) mentioned that service quality has the most significant effect on dining satisfaction, followed by product quality, hygiene, menu diversity, price-value and convenience. 3. 0Problem Statement What are the key service quality dimensions influencing the customer satisfaction and customer loyalty in Malaysia’s restaurant industry? 4. 0Research Objectives The main objectives of the study are: 1. To identify the key dimensions of service quality that affect customer satisfaction and customer loyalty in Malaysia’s restaurant industry. 2. To study the importance and impact of service quality on customer satisfaction and customer loyalty in Malaysia’s restaurant industry. 3. To determine the current customer satisfaction and customer loyalty levels in Malaysia’s restaurant industry. 4. To recommend some guidelines for improvement of service quality from the customers’ perspective in Malaysia’s restaurant industry. 5. 0Justification of Research There is a lack of researches in measuring the service quality with the five generic dimensions of SERVQUAL in Malaysia’s restaurant industry. This has spurred on the interest of the study in identifying the importance of service quality from the customers’ perspective in Malaysia’s restaurant industry especially on the full service restaurants. This study will offer important practical implications especially in service quality for the Malaysia’s restaurant industry. This will provide the restaurateurs with detailed information in service quality to help them to identify the key service quality dimensions for success and competitiveness. This can help the restaurant managers and staffs to focus their efforts on improving customer perceptions of service quality and enhancing the dining experience of their customers. Due to the intensive competition in the restaurant industry, therefore, there is an urgent need to identify the key service quality dimensions influence the customer satisfaction and customer loyalty to their preferred full service restaurants which in turn increases patronage rates of their preferred restaurants. The focus of the study is mainly on the role of service quality adopted from SERVQUAL in the full service restaurants in Malaysia.

Stream Order - The Classification of Streams and Rivers

One of the most important aspects of physical geography is the study of the worlds natural environment and resources—one of which is water. Because this area is so important, geographers, geologists, and hydrologists alike use stream order to study and measure the size of the worlds waterways. A stream is classified as a body of water that flows across the Earths surface via a current and is contained within a narrow channel and banks. Based on stream order and local languages, the smallest of these waterways are also sometimes called brooks and/or creeks. Large waterways (at the highest level the stream order) are called rivers and exist as a combination of many tributary streams. Streams can also have local names such as bayou or burn. How It Works When using stream order to classify a stream, the sizes range from a first-order stream to the largest, a 12th-order stream. A first-order stream is the smallest of the worlds streams and consists of small tributaries. These are the streams that flow into and feed larger streams but do not normally have any water flowing into them. Also, first- and second-order streams generally form on steep slopes and flow quickly until they slow down and meet the next order waterway. First- through third-order streams are also called headwater streams and constitute any waterways in the upper reaches of the watershed. Over 80% of the world’s waterways are estimated to be these first- through third-order or headwater streams. Going up in size and strength, streams that are classified as fourth- through sixth-order are medium streams, while anything larger (up to 12th-order) is considered a river. For example, to compare the relative size of these different streams, the Ohio River in the United States is an eighth-order stream while the Mississippi River is a 10th-order stream. The world’s largest river, the Amazon in South America, is considered a 12th-order stream. Unlike the smaller order streams, these medium and large rivers are usually less steep and flow more slowly. They do however tend to have larger volumes of runoff and debris as it collects in them from the smaller waterways flowing into them. Going Up in Order If, however, two streams of different order join neither increases in order. For example, if a second-order stream joins a third-order stream, the second-order stream simply ends by flowing its contents into the third-order stream, which then maintains its place in the hierarchy. Importance Stream order also helps people like biogeographers and biologists in determining what types of life might be present in the waterway. This is the idea behind the River Continuum Concept, a model used to determine the number and types of organisms present in a stream of a given size. More types of plants, for example, can live in sediment-filled, slower flowing rivers like the lower Mississippi than can live in a fast-flowing tributary of the same river. More recently, stream order has also been used in geographic information systems (GIS) to map river networks. The algorithm, developed in 2004, uses vectors (lines) to represent the various streams and connects them using nodes (the place on the map where the two vectors meet.) By using the different options available in ArcGIS, users can then change the line width or color to show the different stream orders. The result is a topologically correct depiction of the stream network that has a wide variety of applications. Whether it is used by a GIS, a biogeographer, or a hydrologist, stream order is an effective way to classify the world’s waterways and is a crucial step in understanding and managing the many differences between streams of different sizes. Sources Horton, Robert E. â€Å"EROSIONAL DEVELOPMENT OF STREAMS AND THEIR DRAINAGE BASINS; HYDROPHYSICAL APPROACH TO QUANTITATIVE MORPHOLOGY.†Ã‚  GSA Bulletin, GeoScienceWorld, 1 Mar. 1945.â€Å"River Continuum Concept - Minnesota DNR.†Ã‚  Minnesota Department Of Natural Resources.Water Quality, Center for Educational Technologies.