Country Analysis- India Essay Example for Free

Country Analysis- India Essay India functions on a democratic system, which heavily influences the political situation of the country. However, this democracy stems from a caste system. A caste system is a social grouping that combines a group of particular members based on specific professions and usually leads to the isolation of each individual caste. The Indian people adopted the caste system to create an easy differentiation of communities and neighborhoods. Recently in India there has been a relaxing of the caste system depending on the part of India in which you are looking. In the cities you will see more of an intermingling and mix of the higher caste systems but as you explore the rural areas, you find a traditional form of the caste system. In recent years India has become the largest democracy in the world. The economy is highly affected by the political situation in India. The country suffers from high unemployment and poverty as two of its main issues that currently influence the economic standing of the country. With two opposing parties with vastly different views for the vision of the economy the country is found being pulled for a free market economy and an economy that strongly opposes globalization and favors a â€Å"land-for-all† attitude. (â€Å"Politics of India†) In India the legal situation highly resembles a common law model that is found in England today but is clout with Indian culture. In the courts India has a judge that acts as a neutral party that enforces the law fairly amongst each party. The government too has three branches: the executive, the judiciary and the legislative. The courts hold a common theme of carrying out justice to the people. (Srikrishna) One article says, â€Å"According to Gallups annual public opinion polls, India is perceived by Americans as their 7th favorite nation in the world† (â€Å"India-United State Relations†) Based off this observation, the relationship between the United States of American and India seems to be quite close and cordial. However, this does not mean the countries have always agreed on every matter. Back in the late 1990’s when Atal Bihari Vajpayee became the Prime Minister he began to authorize testing of nuclear weapons and the United Sates chose to form against them and eventually was mandated to cut off economic ties. In 2001 the United States under the Clinton administration began to have economic discussion, opening the door for the Bush administration to partake in close monitoring of India’s nuclear weapons and began strengthening the economic ties. The two countries have really come together in times of need such as  the attacks on September 11,2001 and the December 2004 tsunamis. The most recent development in the relationship is under the pressing of the Obama administration. Right out of the gate of the first term of his presidency, President Obama addressed the issue of the Indian-American relationship and said that he was going to take the steps necessary â€Å"further strengthen the excellent bilateral relationship† (â€Å"India-United State Relations†) This goal was communicated vastly amongst the administration, assuring the citizens of both countries that it was a beneficial relationship. The main person taking care of this relationship is Hilary Clinton. As time passed the country of India became concerned that the relationship was not being as cared for like they were assured would be done. Rather they believed the United States was more focused on their relationship with China and eventually the country of Pakistan. The issues of the bilateral relationship continued to struggle for some time, even after a visit to the White House from Prime Minister Singhin November 2010, which was to hopefully fix or strengthen the relationship. In May 2010 President Obama communicated that shared values, interests and the two larges democracies established the partnership between the United States and India. (â€Å"India-United State Relations†) The economic relation between the United States and India has been continuing to be strengthened since the Clinton administration where the bilateral economic dialogue was established. This is a system where the accountability for consultations amongst multiple high powers. (See exhibit A) (â€Å"Embassy of India†) Since this original discussion; there have been multiple dialogue mechanisms to strengthen the bilateral relationship on the economy and trade issues. This includes different forums and financial partnerships. In the first seven or so months of the year 2013 the United States of America increased the percent they did trade with India 7.4%. (â€Å"Embassy of India†) The relationship of the United States and India is perfectly summed up by the words of the National Security adviser Shivshankar Menon, From a time when we dealt with each other formally, sometimes warily, we today have a full spectrum relationship, between our governments, our peoples and our institutions. (Menon) In the year 2011 the Gross National Product increased over 8 billion INR, an increase of 11,846.1 INR since 2010. It has a forecast of following a trend and reaching almost 9 billion INR for the next year. This is also a steady view of how the inflation levels have  effected the GNP of India and will continue do so in the future. (See exhibit B) (No current data was found) (â€Å"India Gross National Product†) The most current GNP per capita was calculated using the PPP to the US dollar using the atlas method divided by a midyear population. In 2011 in India, the GNP resulted to be $1,420.00 at a ranking of 142/191. In consideration of the past is a very steady increase, however, in comparison the U.S it is hardly an increase at all. (â€Å"India-GNI per capita) As of 2006 India spends 3.11% of their gross national product on their education system. Looking to increase this percentage over the years and have lowered the illiteracy rate by 2015. (â€Å"Infochange India†) Today when discussing the opportunity for a company, of any kind, but especially a U.S company, to manufacture in India the support to do so is quite present. One major benefit of manufacturing in India is that the government has been putting into place a plan of action to create a substantial steady flow of economic progress and one of the crucial aspects is through manufacturing. It began in 2010 with the implementation of a Manufacturing Policy, that industry and the government fully supports. The plan began with the rubber industry in India and where they were choosing to invest, it has continued into medical supplies, a chocolate factory and a huge factory by the direct marketing company, Amway. The Prime Minister has stated that the commitment of expanding the manufacturing in India is of highest priority for the economic growth of the country. (â€Å"Manufacturing Sector in India†) Another great aspect of pursuing manufacturing in India versus a country like China is the possibility of lower wages in India, China continues to raise the minimum wage. There is also the language barrier that disappears when you choose to manufacture in India versus another foreign country with a different native tongue. There is also a younger work force in India than in China and with a similar government as that of the United States it is easier to do business. (Shilling) With all the rage to rush off and pursue manufacturing in India there are those who have doubts, like the unknown author of the article in The Economist, the author says, â€Å"If India is to become ‘the next China’—a manufacturing powerhouse—it is taking its time about it.† (â€Å"Manufacturing in India†) When it comes to a company from the United States and whether or not to compete in India, there is good support that says to go for it. Now a days we have so many jobs outsourced to India it seems foolish to not take it a step further. Particularly in the software industry, there is a large convention that is held there annually and the United States is greatly underrepresented and most likely missing out on big opportunities, because the reality is that the show will go on with out the U.S present. India has been focusing on the service industry over the last years but are now moving towards an industrial form of business. Also present is a strong entrepreneurial spirit, which can be wonderful for a new company coming in because the people will be willing to get in on the ground floor of an international operation, as well as bring new ideas and twists to the table. (â€Å"Americans Should Jump on the India Wave†) Another aspect in general to approach entering any country competitively is the exchange rate and currency. Look into how the country performs monetarily and see how the exchange rate and inflation will affect your business on the day-to-day operations but also over time. (Aimes) When going back and looking at the idea of manufacturing and competing in India based off the Economic Freedom Index, the index can mean multiple things for both. In general India is a 55.2 out of 100 in Economic Freedom. This is 119th out of 177, (not including Lybia) while the United States is scores a 76.0 sitting at the top as number 10 of 177. When assessing the index with the idea of a company from the Unite States manufacturing in India I look the factors that influence the index such as the labor freedom, this looks into the aspect of the legality of the labor market of the country, or in our case, India. This means that as a company we have to be cautious not to abuse or practice the immoral practice of extremely low wages or poor work conditions. As far as competing the issue that stands out to me pertaining to the EFI is the corrupt factor, with a low score like India, as a company one would need to watch closely at the practices taking place overseas. (â€Å"Index of Economic Freedom†) The Human Development Index in India is found in the medium HDI. Since 2011 India’s HDI decreased by 2 but is forecasted to increase .07 over the next year. The HDI refers to how the country’s population is take care of, such as life expectancy, education,  etc. This covers the wellbeing of the citizens of the country; I think this affects the manufacture and competitive aspect equally. If the people are not taken care of who is going to manage and operate the company, as an organization it would just be something that must be kept in mind. (â€Å"Human Development Index†) Pertaining to the Global Competitiveness Report it is hard to know how they would affect us because as a country India is not present in the top 30 for the last four years. So the assumption is made the India is not as competitive as portrayed by some people, but that does not mean there is no room for growth. (â€Å"Global Competitiveness Report†) India holds a score of 36 on the corruption perceptions index; this means that again when looking into entering the country either with manufacturing or competitive ambition one must asses the risk that is going be taken, such as how will the government treat your corporation as well as how will the patrons of the country view your corporation. (â€Å"Corruptions Perception Index†) Last but definitely not least another report that is very useful in assessing the want to on pursuing a manufacture or competitive is the World Press Freedom Index. India is in the difficult situation range in this index meaning, that freedom of speech is kind of difficult to actually have because the government watches closely to what is being spoken and said about their country and the people in it. (â€Å"Reporters without Borders†) Based off the indexes and other information presented above do not believe as a company of the United States need to enter the market in India. I believe this is so because of the uncertainty of the market, as stated above India has great potential to grow and be the next China but it has been heading in that direction since the 1950’s and not much change is evident. There are aspects about the country that would be desirable to enter into and if doing so I recommend the company use the strategy of global standardization. This strategy uses the low cost of the country to its advantage and in the United States outsourcing is chosen for that very reason, so instead of just outsourcing I believe it would be wise to use this method to pursue a start up of an international branch in a country like India where there is low labor cost and where it is not necessary for the people to respond due to the fact that there is a low economic freedom and instead it relies more on the main office back in the United States rather than the host country, or in our case, India. (Aimes) Exhibits Exhibit A Exhibit B Works Cited Aimes, Frederico. Foreign Exchange. Online Lecture, Stillwater. 07 Oct. 2013. Lecture . Aimes, Frederico. International Business Strategy. Lecture. International Management Lecture. D2L, Stillwater. 09 Oct. 2013. Web. 09 Oct. 2013. Americans Should Jump on the India Wave. Web log post. Boston.com. N.p., 21 Feb. 2012. Web. 11 Oct. 2013. Corruption Perceptions Index. Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 10 Aug. 2013. Web. 11 Oct. 2013. Embassy of India Washington DC (official Website) United States of America Economic Relations. Embassy of India Washington DC (official Website) United States of America Economic Relations. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Oct. 2013. Global Competitiveness Report. Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 21 Sept. 2013. Web. 11 Oct. 2013. Index of Economic Freedom. Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 10 June 2013. Web. 11 Oct. 2013. India GNI per Capita. India. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Oct. 2013. India GDP per Capita. TRADING ECONOMICS. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Oct. 2013. India Gross National Product. TRADING ECONOMICS. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Oct. 2013. India–United States Relations. Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 10 May 2013. Web. 10 Oct. 2013. Infochange India. India Invests Just 3.3% of Its GNP on Education. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Oct. 2013. List of Countries by Human Development Index. Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 26 Sept. 2013. Web. 11 Oct. 2013. Manufacturing in India: The Masala Mittelstand. Editorial. The Economist 11 Aug. 2012: n. pag. The Economist. Web. 11 Oct. 2013. Manufacturing Sector in India. , Manufacturing Industry, Indian Industries. India Brand Equity Foundation, Sept. 2013. Web. 11 Oct. 2013. Menon, Shivshankar. India, US Ties Have Come a Long Way: Shivshankar Menon. The Economic Times. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Oct. 2013. Politics of India. Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 10 June 2013. Web. 10 Oct. 2013. Reporters Without Borders. Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 10 Oct. 2013. Web. 11 Oct. 2013. Shilling, A. Gary. Why India Will Displace China as Global Growth Engine. Bloomberg.com. Bloomberg, 16 Dec. 2012. Web. 11 Oct. 2013. Srikrishna, B. N. (2008) The Indian Legal System, International Journal of Legal Information: Vol. 36: Iss.2, Article 8. Available at: http://scholarship.law.cornell.edu/ijli/vol36/iss2/8

School Dicipline :: essays papers

School Dicipline With a closer look into our educational system, it is clear that students are causing more trouble in schools today because of the lack of discipline. Many Americans believe that zero tolerance and possibly corporal punishment are ridiculous and even to an extent, a form of abuse. In reality, these policies, if enforced properly, could be the solution to the growing discipline problems in our schools today. Already, there have been too many injuries and deaths of students in schools. Physical fighting and the possession of weapons in schools need to be banned and more seriously dealt with. Some people believe that strict zero tolerance policies and corporal punishment in schools would reinforce a fear of the consequences, which would bring the students to think a little harder before inflicting such irresponsible acts upon others. I am interested in this issue because I believe that greater discipline in schools will decrease the student violence and the growing crime rate. School dropout rates have been continuously increasing for a long time. This may be a result of innocent students being mentally and physically bullied in schools. I would like to see young teenagers enjoy their education and to leave high school with a firm foundation for college and soaring dreams for their futures. I am sure that all parents desire success and the best in everything for their children. I understand that students do not enjoy serving the consequences of discipline, but I do believe it is the best way to settle the matter of school violence and the student attitude problems towards teachers and other authorities. More discipline in schools may reduce the crime, violence, and vandalism in the schools so that the students can better focus on their schoolwork. Parents are concerned with their children graduating from school. If there is not enough discipline, it is possible that some students who want to learn and be educated, may be kept from schools due to the fear of violence they may face. I know that students will disagree with policies of stricter school policies concerning discipline, but I believe that greater discipline is a logical step in the right direction.

Process Improvement Essay

ABSTRACT This document will be evaluating an existing process within Toyota during the time of their accelerator crisis. A problem statement will be defined around the process of internal communication of concerns and ideas between foreign-based Toyota employees and the authoritative management of Toyota based in Japan. PROBLEM ANALYSIS OF SELECTED PROCESS Problem framing is a very important, but easily overlooked, part of decision-making. Framing a problem can have a heavy influence on the decisions that are made. It isn’t enough to frame the problem; it should be framed with the solution in mind. This helps to keep the end goal of the decision-making process in mind so that the correct choices are made. In the case of Toyota, at the highest level, they had a major problem with some of their products involving unintended acceleration and their handling of  customer reports of the problem led to a whole mess of other problems. So from the outside looking in, it seems that many processes internal to Toyota had room for improvement. Although there are many different business sections of Toyota with their own respective problems such as customer service, public relations, manufacturing, the problem I would like analyze and offer improvement on is internal communication process between management and foreign employees and how the breakdown in this process affected some of the business decisions made by Toyota’s upper management. â€Å"As Toyota grew into a global powerhouse in the auto industry, the organizational structure that emerged was a centralized design †¦Ã¢â‚¬ that put key decision-making in the hands of executives in Japan†¦Ã¢â‚¬  Some believed that Toyota’s structure in the U.S. ultimately impaired its ability to prevent the safety problems before they reached the crisis† (Greto, Schotter & Teagarden, 2010, pg. 7-8). A quality tool or method used to help with the identification and prioritization of the potential causes of quality problems in a process is cause-and-effect analysis. In a way, this is a reverse engineering method used to identify the elements of a specific quality problem and to identify the causes so that it can be corrected. The problem wasn’t the unintended acceleration of certain vehicles; the problem was the internal management decision-making that impacted the engineering of those vehicles which created the engineering problem. For some background information, the defining and founding philosophy of Toyota, the Toyota Way, has been around for a long time but it wasn’t until the late 1980s in which they began production of their vehicles in the U.S. Specifically the problem of ideas from U.S.-based employees has been largely ignored for almost 20 years when it comes to key engineering or financial-based decisions. â€Å"Despite the global sales volume gain, Toyota reported revenues of US $211 billion for 2009, a decrease of 19% for the previous year† (Greto, Schotter & Teagarden, 2010, pg. 2). Even though Toyota has been making large profits throughout the past 20 years, they experienced a decrease in 2009 and part of this was related to the ambitious initiatives and business decisions made by Toyota’s upper management. â€Å"Japan is notoriously consensus oriented, and companies have a strong tendency to mediate differences among individuals rather than accentuate them† (Porter, 1996, pg. 63). Japanese culture and Toyota’s centralized decision-making structure made it difficult for U.S. based employees to offer ideas, suggestions for improvements, or to elevate critical problems to upper management in Japan. Toyota’s upper management, in their minds, let the U.S. employees do what they do best, which is supposedly marketing and selling. The process used by Toyota to communicate foreign employees’ ideas to upper management was heard, but not listened to. Even the process of internal communication between management had its breakdowns because of the perception by family-oriented managers of nonfamily managers in that nonfamily members didn’t have such thoughts as safety and quality in the forefront of their minds. Overall, the communication process seemed to be that ideas were submitted from employees, whether by Japanese or foreign employees, to management and ideas were reviewed and pushed up the management chain when it was appropriate. However, ideas that might have some bearing on engineering, manufacturing or financing were largely ignored when the source of the ideas were from U.S.-based employees and this violated the Toyota Way. To add to the complexity, the process for communicating ideas became more convoluted depending on the audience, nonfamily or family-based managers. To sum this up into a problem statement: â€Å"Toyota has violated their founding philosophy of employee empowerment, especially for non-Japanese employees, and continues to make important business decisions without any regard to concerns or ideas from foreign employees when appropriate. Employees may have ideas that could be used in the decision-making process to achieve better quality solutions. Toyota needs a better mechanism or improvement to this internal communication process to capture the knowledge and ideas of all employees and to share these ideas across the organization. All in all, it’s to improve the internal communicat ion process between employees and management in order to support the idea of continuous improvement and quality.† CONTEXT OF SELECTED PROCESS FOR IMPROVEMENT â€Å"The _Toyota Way_ mandates planning for the long term; highlighting problems  instead of hiding them; encouraging team work with colleagues and suppliers; and, perhaps most importantly, instilling a self-critical culture that fosters continuous and unrelenting improvement† (Greto, Schotter & Teagarden, 2010, pg. 3). Two cores ideas from the statement above are the idea of team work and most importantly employee empowerment. These two values are what made Toyota into a successful global corporation during their fast rise in the 1980s. Employees were encouraged to offer ideas for improvement for any process within the organization and this helped with continuing the idea of continuous improvement. An important part of making business decisions is having real-time and critical information. The selected process for improvement: improving the communication of ideas and concerns and the sharing of foreign employees’ ideas to Toyota’s Japanese management team needs to be addressed immediately. The process selected for improvement is the process used to capture the ideas of all employees, U.S.-based included, and to have these ideas be properly represented and presented to management for review in real-time. â€Å"You know the joke that every bank branch has a president – well, every Toyota facility has a president, and one can’t tell another what to do† (Greto, Schotter & Teagarden, 2010, pg. 8). This statement touches the surface of why the internal management communication process needs improvement at Toyota. The way the process is currently being represented in Toyota’s organization is a complete violation of their founding philosophy. During the 2000s, Toyota pushed for a lot of initiatives that in hindsight were either short-term profit driven or too ambitious. For example, â€Å"despite the savings of more than US $10 billion over the six years since CC21’s inception, Watanabe set out to achieve even more cost savings through the new â€Å"VI† (Value Innovation) strategy† (Greto, Schotter & Teagarden, 2010, pg. 5). This was a business decision made to further drive up profits despite the respectable amount of savings already made financially. If the knowledge, ideas and concerns of employees were properly captured and communicated to management, it could have prevented some of the poor business decision-making made and the impact of these decisions on engineering and manufacturing. Two impacts of the poor decision-making was the decision to become leaner with the manufacturing process and  overstretching existing resources in trying to supplant GM as number on in the automobile industry. Toyota’s has employees in many different markets who most likely had concerns regarding these decisions or ideas on how to improve the ideas and _communicated_ these ideas but these ideas weren’t being heard in time or heard at all by management. To put this all into context, the process for communicating ideas and concerns internally is impacted by the culture and internal structure of Toyota. These are both tough things to change but the process used to capture and represent ideas to management is something easy to improve. IMPLICATIONS OF THE PROCESS If the current internal communication process continues as is, there will continue to be a breakdown in the communication of potentially important ideas and concerns from employees to management. If employees feel as if their input isn’t listened to or even heard, they will become apathetic or not even bother trying to communicate important ideas or concerns. As a result, this can lead to the cycle of poor business decisions being made resulting in more damage to the company. Even worse, this will continue to cause Toyota to stray away from the core values of the Toyota Way that made them a successful global corporation. Already what has happened as a result of the ignoring of ideas and making business decisions with only the goal of short-term profits in mind is that Toyota during the oil sludge crisis had to pay millions of dollars as a result of class action lawsuits and took a hit to their business image. Fast forward to the accelerator crisis, Toyota experienced losing $2 billion dollars during the recall, had to pay a $16.4 million dollar civil penalty under U.S. law, experienced a customer relations nightmare and even had some of their car models dropped from Consumer Reports. The dollar amount lost due to the alienation of customers, lack of accountability at first by Toyota, and corporate reputation and image hit is immeasurable. Implementing some mechanism to improve the communication process between  employees and management and even management can be improved with the use of something such as a knowledge management system. â€Å"Effective knowledge management tools can help firms reduce internal costs of maintaining electronic filing systems and reduce the administrative expense of locating documents. Second, just as efficiency can improve profitability, leverage can have the same effect where knowledge transfer enhances the quality of work performance, and therefore, its value. In this context, leverage is the ability to delegate work to the most cost-effective resource. The transfer of knowledge is, in fact, the essence of knowledge management† (Martin, 2002, pg. 1). Although it is a large internal expense, the benefits of a KM system would have a great effect on the general business results and business relationships of Toyota with its employees, management and even their supply chain. POTENTIAL OUTCOMES OF IMPROVING THE PROCESS Improving the current internal communication process of ideas and concern helps to improve employee relations between management and their reports. It helps to re-establish a culture of knowledge sharing and representing that captured knowledge in such a way that it can help to improve the business decision-making by upper management. Any important business decisions made by upper management have a direct impact on the shareholders. So any improvement in the process that results in better business decisions being made will have a direct positive impact for the shareholders. The current decision-making and straying away from the founding principles of the Toyota Way has damaged the company and continuing down this path will only make the future worse for Toyota. So having an internal mechanism to capture ideas and improve communication such as a KM system can only improve the situation. Employees would feel like their ideas are being heard and will continue to offer suggestions for continual improvement. An improvement in communication can help to break down the false perceptions that family-oriented managers have of nonfamily managers. For example, a family-based manager might come across an idea from an unexpected source, a nonfamily manager, and come to respect that person for their knowledge. In a  way, this could help to improve the Japanese culture way of making decisions internally. Toyota is almost in the top of their market, so they are their own worst enemy when it comes to being competitive. So an improvement in their internal decision-making around all important financial, engineering and manufacturing decisions will only help to sustain and further their current competitive edge. Sometimes an organization has to make a large internal expense in order to position themselves differently from their competitors. â€Å"Strategic positioning means performing _different_ activities from rivals’ or performing similar activities in _different_ ways† (Porter, 1996, pg. 62). So collecting ideas internally and using them to make better business decisions will help Toyota to strategically position themselves even further away from their competition. SUMMARY Overall, Toyota is its own worst enemy with the current decision-making process they have in place internally. Even though the centralized decision-making structure is what Toyota currently has in place, the decision-making needs to take into account employee input, whether foreign or not. Employee input has been a cornerstone of the Toyota Way and Toyota has strayed from this founding principle. The implications of continuing down this path will result in more crises which in turn results in loss business, damaged business reputation, lawsuits and losing the competitive edge. Improving this process will result in better employee relations; establish a knowledge sharing culture which is needed for an environment that is striving for continual improvement and better business decisions being made. REFERENCES Greto, M., Schotter, A., & Teagarden, M. (2010). Toyota: The accelerator crisis. Thunderbird School of Global Management. Martin, K. (2002). Features – â€Å"Show Me the Money† – Measuring the Return on Knowledge Management. LLRX. Retrieved from http://www.llrx.com/features/kmroi.htm Porter, M. E. (1996). What is strategy? _Harvard Business Review, 74_(6), 61-78. Russell, R.S., & Taylor, B.W. (2011). _Operations management: Creating value along the supply chain_ (7th ed.)_._ Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons. ISBN: 9780470525906

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