Monday, December 30, 2019

Ariba Implementation at MED X Managing Earned Value

Case Study II. ARIBA IMPLEMENTATION AT MED-X: MANAGING EARNED VALUE UNIVERSITY OF CONNECTICUT OPIM 5668 Project Risk and Cost Management (GROUP III) 18 Feb 2015 Executive Summary: MED-X, a Fortune 500 pharmaceutical company with headquarters in Houston, Texas with 54 plants and more than 40,000 employees world-wide, has undertaken a $2 million Ariba e-procurement project implementation. MED-X was spending $3 billion annually on indirect goods and services. It is estimated that implementation of the Ariba e-procurement system will save the company $200 million annually and also reduce spending, streamline the procurement process and expedite user adoption. An additional benefit of the project is going to be nationwide†¦show more content†¦By determining if cost (AC), schedule (PV), and work accomplished (EV) are progressing as planned, we created an integrated performance report which uses consistent, numerical indicators (like CV, SV, CPI, SPI, etc.) to evaluate Ariba Implementation project and compare its process with the estimated plan. Methodology In this case, we need to investigate the status of the MED-X implementation project. The method we adopt is EVM, Earned Value Management. Earned Value Management is a project management technique for measuring project performance and progress. We measure the project performance not only as a whole, but also by performance of its components. We used PV (planned Value), AC (actual cost), and EV (earned value) to calculate SPI (schedule performance index), SV (schedule variance), CPI (cost performance index), and CV (cost variance). Among these indicators, SPI and SV show whether a project is behind schedule or not, and CPI and CV indicate whether a project is under budget. Therefore, the statuses of the schedule and cost of technical infrastructure, software customization, and combined projects can be easily and clearly checked, respectively. MS Excel is the main software we used in this analysis, and all the information came from the case. Result In order to understand why the project could not beShow MoreRelatedProject Management and Technical Infrastructure Project2253 Words   |  10 PagesCase Study Ariba Implementation at MED-X: Managing Earned Value 1. Make a short summery of the Case (Up to 4 paragraph) 2. Take the data from Exhibits 5, 6, and 7 from the case and insert it into the EVA template in the Appendix 1. Make a table for the software project, technical infrastructure project, and the combined projects. To better interpret the results of the EVA, you may choose to graph the cumulative spending over time for the software project, technical infrastructure project

Sunday, December 22, 2019

Eating Disorders And Anorexia Nervosa Essay - 1857 Words

Although there is a relationship between the wanting the â€Å"perfect† body and eating disorders, there is no general agreement as to what the main cause of eating disorders really is. The prevailing belief is that eating disorders are a product of one or more behavioral, biological, and social factors including genetics, horrible experiences, being traumatized, being a victim of peer pressure, being teased and family members with eating disorder. There are numerous types of eating disorders. Both women and men are affected by eating disorders each day. Eating disorders can occur from an early age or become developed over time. Social media is an example of one of the main contributors of eating disorders because it makes people think they have to look a certain way to be considered â€Å"attractive.† Comorbid conditions often accompany eating disorders; these include anxiety and depression. Eating disorders are serious mental illnesses that are becoming more prevalent in the United States. The most commonly known eating disorders are anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa. Anorexia nervosa can be defined as â€Å"a serious, potentially life-threatening eating disorder characterized by self-starvation and excessive weight loss.† People with anorexia have an intense fear of gaining weight and are obsessed with the way they look. These people either exercise excessively or to prevent them from obtaining any more weight, they will restrict the amount of food they eat. This can lead to aShow MoreRelatedEating Disorder : Anorexia Nervosa1622 Words   |  7 Pages Bulimia Nervosa To be diagnosed with eating disorder, someone must meet certain criteria. The criterion for diagnosis slightly varies depending on if you are referring to people who (A) fear gaining weight, and have significant weight loss,(B) eating a huge amount of food , then use laxative to remove the binged food, (C) the use of excessive exercise and fasting in order to remove or to reduce the amount of calories consumed, and (D) distorted body image, no matter how thin they become, theyRead MoreEating Disorder : Anorexia Nervosa1658 Words   |  7 Pagesbeen affected by this disorder. The specific disorder that is being referred to in this paper, an eating disorder, is Anorexia Nervosa, the restricting type. An eating disorder â€Å"involve[s] disordered eating behaviors and maladaptive ways of controlling body weight† (Nevid, Rathus, Greene, 2014, p. 335). Another well-known eating disorder is Bulimia Nervosa which is characterized by binging and purging (Nevid, Rathus, Greene, 2014, p. 338). Bulimia is different than anorexia since victims of bulimiaRead MoreEating Disorders And Anorexia Nervosa Essay1948 Words   |  8 Pagesnotion of an â€Å"ideal† body and eating disorders, there is no consensus as to the root cause of eating disorders. The general belief is that eating disorders result from one or more biological, behavioral, and social factors including genetics, unpleasant experiences/trauma, peer pressure, teasing, and family members with eating disorders, among others. There are numerous types of eating disorders. Both women and men are affected by eating disorders each day. Eating disorders can occur from an early ageRead MoreEating Disorders : Anorexia Nervosa1493 Words   |  6 PagesIllness Paper – Anorexia Nervosa February 28, 2016 According to the Mayo Clinic (2016), eating disorders are â€Å"conditions related to persistent eating behaviors that negatively impact your health, your emotions, and your ability to function in important areas of life.† One such eating disorder is anorexia nervosa. Not to be confused with anorexia, which is simply a general loss of appetite that can be attributed to many medical ailments, anorexia nervosa is a serious eating disorder and mental illnessRead MoreEating Disorders: Anorexia Nervosa1653 Words   |  7 PagesAnorexia Nervosa Anorexia Nervosa is one of several subtypes descending from feeding and eating disorders. It is a crippling life-threatening condition marked by a patient placing restriction on energy intake relative to needed energy requirements, resulting in a relentless pursuit of low body weight in the context of age, sex, development and physical health. According to American Psychiatric Publishing of diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (DSM-5) â€Å"Anorexia Nervosa, often timesRead MoreEating Disorders And Anorexia Nervosa947 Words   |  4 PagesEating disorders such as anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, and binge eating disorder consist of emotions, attitudes, and behaviors surrounding weight and food issues. Up to 24 million people of all ages and genders suffer from an eating disorder in the U.S (ANAD, n.d.) bulimia nervosa as well as the other eating disorders are considered to be a female eating disorder, a disorder that only affects women which limits males to seek treatment let alone make aware to other that they suffer from bulimiaRead MoreEating Disorders : Anorexia Nervosa974 Words   |  4 PagesI have always been intrigued with eating disorders, particularly Anorexia Nervosa. When I was 18 years of age, my mother questioned whether or not I was Anorexic and she took me to the family practitioner, who then informed me that I was three pounds shy from being considered underweight. I knew I was thin, but I was really thin, but also really proud of my size. In an African American urban environment being thin was related to illness and drug abuse. I was often teased about how thin and fragileRead MoreEating Disorders : Anorexia Nervosa889 Words   |  4 PagesANAD Eating Disorder Statistics about thirty million people in America of all ages and genders suffer from one of the three main eating disorders. Many people suffer from more than one of the eating disorders. Only 1 in 10 individuals receive the treatment that is needed to recover(AND A). Often eating disorders are known to be triggered by outside factors in their life, but studies show that it is more likely to be a part of their genetics. According to Webster the definition of an â€Å"Eating Disorder†Read MoreAnorexia Nervosa- Eating Disorder1685 Words   |  7 PagesEffects of anorexia are mostly seen on the outside of the victim’s body, but do not be fooled. This detrimental eating disorder affects one’s mind just as much as it would the body. What Anorexia does to the mind is that it distorts the way one views their body. Victims of anorexia become fixated on their body image and overly critical about their flaws and weight. Even being obviously underweight, Anorexics will continuously deny that they have a problem and continue with their fatal practices.Read MoreEating Disorders : Anorexia Nervosa1462 Words   |  6 Pagessuffer from many illnesses, one in particular is eating disorders. There are many types of eating disorders, but there are three common ones that are known today, which are anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, and binge-eating disorder. Eating disorders are not healthy, thi s type of disease can be very fatal and crucial to one s health   mentally, physically, and socially. The purpose of this report is to provide background information about eating disorders, strategies to prevent this illness from occurring

Saturday, December 14, 2019

Managing challenges for the 21st century Free Essays

â€Å"Drucker’s ideas continue to display a force and resonance that leave him pretty much in a class by himself. It is impossible to read the man without learning a lot.† —Fortune Magazine Advent of globalization has reformatted the business principles and this book is a perfect guide to show the way to conquer new world which is more dynamic, confident and aggressive. We will write a custom essay sample on Managing challenges for the 21st century or any similar topic only for you Order Now Before Peter Drucker, most people thought about their businesses with a manufacturing mindset, defining a business based on what it produced. Today, the marketing mindset prevails. It was Drucker’s critical insight that instead of buying a â€Å"product† the customer buys the satisfaction of a need. Drucker has reinvented the management principles to make them fit into the present world and can be proved more suitable in the current management framework. Drucker identifies new assumptions for the social discipline of management.  He has claimed that Management is NOT only for profit-making businesses but Management is the specific and distinguishing organ of any and all organizations. This revolutionary concept can bow the seed of future methods of business and can turn around the whole institutive scenario to create a completely different set of business leaders. Gone are the days when companies were making big profits and hence were focusing the management principles only towards profit earnings. Today’s world is flat and the competitions are monopolistic, in fact tends to perfect competition. In this scenario adhering to old management principles are like suicide. Second assumption is that never think that there is only one right organization which is again very relevant in present context. He has made a significant point over management of people. In Drucker’s view, One does not â€Å"manage† people. The task is to lead people. And the goal is to make productive the specific strengths and knowledge of each individual. Next assumption he made is that technologies and End-Users are NOT fixed and given. Increasingly, neither technology nor end-use is a foundation of management policy. They are limitations. The foundations have to be customer values and customer decisions on the distribution of their disposable income. It is with those that management policy and management strategy increasingly will have to start. Drucker’s book critically emphasizes the role of customer in today’s market scenario. He focuses on the point that now customer are the central point and business has to start and end at customer. Three things are important to run an effective business set up in present marketplace and that is customer, customer and only customer. Business has to be woven around the needs of the customer and ultimate goal should be customer satisfaction. He has quoted next assumption saying that Management’s scope is NOT only legally defined. The new assumption on which management, both as a discipline and as a practice, will increasingly have to base itself is that the scope of management is not legal. It has to be operational. It has to embrace the entire process. It has to be focused on results and performance across the entire economic chain. He also said that Management’s scope is NOT only politically defined. National boundaries are important primarily as restraints. The practice of management  Ã¢â‚¬â€œ and by no means for business only  Ã¢â‚¬â€œ will increasingly have to be defined operationally rather than politically. This assumption has to be adopted by new world immediately in light of the â€Å"open world concept† and â€Å"world is flat† concept. Seventh assumption he made on the organizational atmosphere. He explained that the Inside is NOT the only Management domain. The results of any institution exist ONLY on the outside. Management exits for the sake of the institution’s results. It has to start with the intended results and organize the resources of the institution to attain these results. It is the organ that renders the institution, whether business, church, university, hospital or a battered woman’s shelter, capable of producing results outside of itself. Lastly he declared the most important assumption that Management’s concern and management’s responsibility are everything that affects the performance of the institution and its results – whether inside or outside, whether under the institution’s control or totally beyond it. This way he brought the managerial concept at the core of all the issues whether be political or economical or anything. His point of opinion is that the new world will be a economic world where money will be the most important thing and managerial discipline are the most efficient organ of the nation which can help keeping the country self sufficient and create bonhomie everywhere. Therefore Drucker explains in a instructive tone that managers has to be responsible and they have to start thinking out of the box to consistently keep taking the extra steps in right direction. In the course of the discussions, Drucker also addresses the ultimate challenge of managing oneself while still meeting the demands on the individual during a longer working life and in an ever-changing workplace. He has always understood that people are deeply-and rightly-resistant to being â€Å"managed.† This point is especially relevant for knowledge workers, who know more about their jobs than their bosses do. For them, supervision is a special kind of hell. This is why good managers help people manage themselves by focusing consistently on performance and results and by teaching them, often by example, to think about what they are good at, how they learn, what they value. Such self-knowledge is essential to performance. Drucker has also introduced the effect of being a change leader. In the course of discussion he gives four requirements for change leadership:- 1. Polices to make the future. 2. Systematic methods to look for and to anticipate change. 3. The right way to introduce change, both within and outside the organization. 4. Policies to balance change and continuity. In chapter-4, Drucker has navigated through the concept of information technology. Information is no doubt the most important tool to create a successful business setups. Drucker describes the new information revolution that is gaining momentum as follows. So far, for fifty years, Information Technology has centered on DATA -their collection, storage, transmission, presentation. It has focused on the ‘T’ in ‘IT’. The new information revolutions focus on the ‘I’. They ask, ‘what is the MEANING of information and its PURPOSE?’ And this is leading rapidly to redefining the tasks to be done with the help of information and, with it, to redefining the institutions that do these tasks.† As long as the world continues to become more complex and specialized, information management is essentially a critical part of all businesses and act as blood and vein for industry. The last chapter of the book, managing oneself, is completely devoted to the individual. Drucker advises persons to work on their strengths in order to maximize performance. Conclusion: This book is highly recommended for tyros and young turks. This book is envisaging enough eye opener facts, which can help company grow to the maximum level by reinventing and managing the organizational principles and the level of knowledge workers who will face new challenges in the 21st century. Incisive, challenging, and mind-stretching, Drucker’s new book is forward-looking and forward thinking. It combines the broad knowledge, wide practical experience, profound insight, sharp analysis, and enlightened common sense that are the essence of Drucker’s writings, which are continuing international bestsellers and â€Å"landmarks of the managerial profession† (Harvard Business Review).             How to cite Managing challenges for the 21st century, Essay examples

Friday, December 6, 2019

Grayson Chemical free essay sample

Grayson Chemical Company I. Problems A. Macro 1. Grayson Chemical Co. over the past few years has declining earnings and sales. Grayson has steadily lost market standing and profitability. 2. Tom Baker was recruited as the new CEO and tasked with turning the company around financially. B. Micro 1. The 40-year-old company has been run by a stable management and has only had two presidents and grown complacent with the changes needed within the company. We will write a custom essay sample on Grayson Chemical or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page 2. The upper management has grown stagnant and has not supported change within the company. II. Causes 1. Grayson is an open system and has not been practicing the renewing/transformational management to help with the environmental change that is going on around them, also know as sluggish management. 2. Incompetent managers were often promoted to higher-level jobs that have lead the company into the position that is currently in. III. Systems affected 1. The entire sociotechnical system can be affected by the changes needed within the company. The change has already started with the hiring of Baker as the new CEO. 2. The structural subsystem will be affected by changes needed in the company to help prepare it for the every changing environment. The new CEO needs to evaluate all areas of the company and management and then decide how to begin the intervention process. Baker needs to decide on who is competent and who needs replaced. With little change in the company over several years, there will be some cultural norms that will need to be overcome in order to make the company successful and profitable. They need to get the existing employees involved with changes and make them responsible for ideas and changes in specific areas. Involve the board members with changes being made so they can help answer any questions or concerns that may arise.