TESLA Model X , SWOT Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

TESLA Model X , SWOT - Essay Example This in itself is a source of competitive advantage for the company. The company is unique in that there is not yet any other player in the industry that has manufactured a vehicle that matches Tesla’s innovative vehicle. As noted by Porter (1985), differentiation strategy gives the company a competitive edge over other players in that its products cannot be matched by other rival competitors. This will help the company to appeal to the interests of many customers by virtue of possessing unique features which make the vehicle exceptional. The other advantage of the company is that Model X car is efficient as a result of the fact that it is an electrified vehicle. This means that the customers will experience fewer expenses in the future since the vehicle does not use any form of fossil fuel. This comes against the background of rising fuel prices across the globe. However, the major weaknesses of this model car are that it is electric and it is expensive. The price is high as a result of the fact that it is expensive to manufacture. Honestly, there may be very few customers who may be ready to fork out more than $60Â  000 buying a vehicle. The price is too much such that ordinary people may not be in a position to afford it. it can also be seen that the automobile industry is also characterised by other players some of which are reputable such as Toyota and Daimler. These cars also have their own hybrid cars that do not use fossil fuel and they may pose a threat to Tesla Motors. According to Robson (1997), competition in the environment is one major threat that can impact on the viability of the organization. This is the case in terms of Tesla since the other competitors can also offer their hybrid cars that can also attract many customers since they are environmental friendly. Therefore, it is imperative for Tesla motors to capitalise on it s strengths and opportunities in order to gain a competitive advantage while at the same

Strategy management questions Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Strategy management questions - Essay Example Innovations are largely due to hard work and systematic analysis of the opportunities available for creating something new. Innovation has strong marketing components. The best of ideas do not sell themselves. They need to get a buy in from the people involved. New networks have to be built. According to Sutton (2002) "Too many innovations succeed because they are sold better, not because they are objectively superior to those of competitors". Peter Drucker (1985, 1988) puts unexpected success and failures as managers' dilemma. When a product succeeds or fails unexpectedly, there is potential for innovation. The unexpected success is an affront to the management's judgment. Very few managers pay attention to the unexpected success. It should force managers to ask; what would it mean to us if we exploited it Where could it lead us What would we have to do to concert it into an opportunity How do we go about it What basic changes are now appropriate for the organization in the way it d efines its business, its technology and its market If these dilemmas are answered, then the unexpected success is likely to open up various innovation opportunities. Unexpected failures also create opportunities to innovate. But they are usually handled better. Any change likely to offer an opportunity for innovations. Managers often do not make adequate efforts to understand why there is a discrepancy between what is and what 'Ought' to be or between what is and what everyone assumes it to be. But they realize that these discrepancies present an opportunity to innovate. As Christensen and Raynor (2003) points out, companies who understand what job the customer is trying to get done and how the products or services fits in, will have an opportunity to innovate. In the era of global unification, the emergence of new knowledge and technology also increases the dilemma of managers knowledge based innovation is very risky because of the long lead times involved. Knowledge based innovati ons are usually not based on one factor but on the convergence of several kinds of knowledge. Knowledge based requires a careful analysis of all the relevant factors, social, economic and perceptual. To be successful, a knowledge based innovation has to be ripe. It must gain customer acceptance. The risks are not because highest in innovations based in new knowledge and technology not because of failure but perception of the public. But innovations are essential to any organization be its' product or services to meet its market its market needs. So companies must modify the traditional innovation process, companies need a flexible product development process. Top management must keep goals broad and tolerate ambiguity. It must encourage trial and error and at the same time generate creative tension by setting challenging goals. Knowing customers priority and needs is essential for successful innovation. According to Drucker (1985, 1988), nothing motivates a manager to be a better in novator than the realization that the present product or services will be abandoned within the foreseeable future. There is only one way to make an innovation attractive to managers: a systematic policy of abandoning whatever is outwork, obsolete and no longer productive. Innovation performance must be regularly assessed. Management must judge the company's total innovative performance against its innovation objectives. 2. Business strategies are the courses of action adopted by a

George Berkeley Philosophy Summary Essay

George Berkeley Philosophy Summary Essay George Berkeley is a prominent thinker and philosopher of the 18th century which is known for his system of spiritualistic philosophy. He developed the thesis that â€Å"existence is the thing that is perceived or the one who perceives (Berman 1995). He lived and worked in the era of the industrial revolution, technological progress and the great scientific discoveries that shed light on the nature of the world; in an era when religion began to lose its centuries-long position in the minds of people, giving place to the scientific and philosophical outlook. Originally from Ireland, the oldest British colony, Berkeley was the eldest of seven children in the family of the landed nobleman. From a young age his life was connected with religion and schooling, he put all his strength into the creation of a philosophical system, designed to eliminate atheism and the related materialist philosophy. The history of philosophical thought Berkeley entered as one of the most prominent representatives of idealism. His works pursue the only goal to remove the cornerstone of matter from the system of atheists, after which the entire building will inevitably collapse.† (Turbayne 1982). The philosophical system created by Berkeley, was exposed and is still subjected by the deserved criticism. At the same time, it has its followers. His works are still being studying and are of a great interest for philosophers. The English philosopher George Berkeley (1685-1753) criticized the concepts of matter as a real basis (substance) of bodies, as well as the Newton’s theory of space as a repository of all natural bodies, and the J. Locke’s theory of the origin of the matter and space concepts. Berkeley remarked that the basis of the matter is the assumption that we can, apart from the particular properties of things, form the abstract idea of the common for all of them material as a kind of substrate. However, according to Berkeley, it is impossible: we do not have the sensory perception of matter; our perception of each item is expanded without any residue on the perception of a certain sum of individual sensations or ideas. Indeed, in this case there will nothing remain from the matter: it seems to be dissolved in some â€Å"fog† of uncertainty, which in general can not influence anything. So, here is an aphoristic postulate of Berkeley: â€Å"To be – means to be in perception.† (Ewing1957). The philosophical ideas of Berkeley and his atheist position lead us to the following conclusion. If there is no God, then the things we consider the material objects must have a spasmodic life: suddenly emerged at the moment of perception, they immediately would disappear as soon they leave the field of view of the perceiving subject. But, Berkeley argued that due to the constant vigil of God, everything in the world (trees, rocks, crystals, etc.) exists constantly, as a good sense befits. Berkeley was an outstanding writer, who had an elegant style (by the way, his numerous works he wrote when he was 28!). He was not only a priest (Bishop in Cloyne,Ireland) and a philosopher but a psychologist also.Berkeley tried to prove that we perceive only the properties of things: how these things affect our senses, but we do not grasp the very essence of things, even though the properties are relative to the perceiving subject. Sensory impressions are the phenomena of the psyche. The philosophical doctrine of George Berkeley is aimed at a refutation of materialism and the justification of religion. For this purpose he used the nominalistic principles, established by William Ockham. The doctrine, created Berkeley is a subjective idealism. Rejecting the existence of matter, it recognizes the existence only of the human mind, in which Berkeley distinguishes the ideas and souls (minds) (Berman 1995). Also, Berkeley created the theory of material objects and the theory of idealistic sensationalism, using a notion of secondary qualities of Locke. Berkeley wrote a lot of works and the most famous works of them are: An Essay Towards a New Theory of Vision(1709), Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge(1710), Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous (1713), Alciphron, or The Minute Philosopher(1732), Siris: A Chain of Philosophical Reflexions and Inquiries (1744) and many other (Hughes 1865). Berkeley was one of the founders of idealism, taking an active part in the struggle between the two philosophical camps; his teaching put vividly the fundamental question of philosophy. The philosophy of Berkeley continues to attract the attention of contemporary philosophers because of its educational value, because it clearly shows all the greatest evils of philosophical thought. Without a doubt, Berkeley is an outstanding classic of idealism. He formulated all the basic arguments of idealism, which can be put against materialism. He clearly raised the question of the relationship between objective and subjective in the feelings and the question about the causes and types of existence. His works affect the fundamental scientific knowledge and raise questions which are still not answered.

Lab Essays -- essays research papers

1 Abstract   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The experiment conducted regarding Memory Processes tested individuals on their ability to store and retrieve words. The levels on which words were stored were structural, the lowest level, phonetic, the next highest level, and semantic, the highest level of processing. The experiment is based on the recall and reorganization of the words from group they show during the experiment. The experiment conducted supported hypotheses regarding a subject’s performance on retrieving words at different levels. The independent variables were the encoding levels, and they manipulated the dependent variables by affecting the time in which a word could be received due to its placement on a processing level. This experiment was an extension of Craik and Lockharts Depth of Processing Model, that explored the effects of â€Å"deeper† processing by an individual, and the likely-hood that those words processed deeper were retrieved better. 2 Introduction   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  In 1970, Craik and Lockhart proposed that there are different levels of processing a person uses while encoding information. Thus, they devised a model to represent these levels of processing called the Depth of Perception Model. In this lab, the levels of processing were based on a person’s ability to recall certain words according to the category in which they were presented to the subject. The three levels of these encoding categories were orthographic (structural) processing, or identified physical characteristics; phonetic processing, or the sound a word makes and that auditory relationship to other words; and semantic processing, or the representational meaning a word has when used in context with other words. Respectively, a word when recognized by the subjects passes first through orthographic processing, then phonetic processing, and finally semantic processing. According to Craik and Lockhart, when a word has gone through these three levels of enc oding it is more likely to be stored and later retrieved than a word that has only gone through the first level of processing. This lab tested a subject’s ability to store, or hold learned information for later use, based on the three levels the word was possibly processed on. There were thirty-six words presented to each subject in the Psyk.Trek experiment. These words were process... ... than basing an experiment on selected students with relatively the same ability, in the same college course, all participating for the same reasons. The internal validity in this experiment could have also been improved if serial positioning was included in the experimental data. Since serial positioning was important in the conduction of this lab, its lack of final representation was also a lack of internal validity. To further research on the topic of memory, not only can these faults be addressed, but also if words were repeated under the same encoding processes and then tested more than once, a better understanding of how effective each process is may be reached. Also different sections could be added to the experiment that called for the retrieval of a word on another level from which it was stored and on the same level it was stored. The reaction times it takes to process these words on different levels could prove as interesting data, either to support that a word is 8 retrieved at the same time for the level on which it was stored, or that a word’s retrieval depends on its context, not the level at which it was stored.

Mississippi Burning

The 1988 movie â€Å"Mississippi Burning† directed by Alan Parker, is loosely based on true life events surrounding an FBI investigation that followed the 1964 murder of three civil rights activists by members of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) in a small Mississippi town.   The investigation led to the conviction of some prominent figures in the town including members of both the sheriff’s and mayor’s offices who were also members of the KKK. The movie documents the methods used by the KKK to control the black community at that time.   The well masked intimidation, violence and murders of black people in the community by the KKK must be seen as acts of terrorism and therefore, the unorthodox methods employed by the FBI to uncover the crime can be justified as necessary and appropriate given the circumstances. The movie portrays a war waged by the KKK against non-Anglo Saxon people in the South during the early 1960’s.   Blacks, Jews, Catholics, Turks, Mongols were all targets of the KKK.   In fact, the list of unacceptable races or origins was extensive, but in the South at that time, the main target of KKK aggression was black people. The KKK used violence, intimidation and coercion as means of controlling the black people and creating a culture of fear in the community.   So effective were these tactics that even non-racist members of the community, such as the deputy’s wife in the movie (played by Frances McDormand), who were sympathetic to the plight of the black people, were afraid to speak up or voice their opinions for fear of backlash and reprisal. While an all-encompassing definition of terrorism is difficult to pin down, the Jackson, Mississippi Division of the FBI defines terrorism as â€Å"the unlawful use of force or violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives.† The United Nations goes further to state that terrorists are usually clandestine and that â€Å"the immediate human victims of violence are generally chosen randomly or selectively from a target population, and serve as message generators.†Ã‚   Based on these definitions, it is clear that the actions of the KKK were indeed terrorism.   The violence perpetrated by the KKK against the black people in the community was unlawful, intimidating to the civilian population, anonymous (KKK members wore cloaks), and random means of sending a message to the larger population. In the movie, two very dissimilar FBI agents head the investigation into the disappearance of the three activists.   In the beginning, the investigation is lead by Agent Ward (played by Willem Dafoe), a young, very correct and by-the-book northerner.   He does not understand the unwritten rules of the South and therefore, his methods fail to yield the results that he hopes for or has achieved elsewhere in his short but successful career. In fact, his investigative techniques actually jeopardize the safety of the black people in the area because the KKK, watching every move the FBI make, go to great and sometimes violent lengths to make sure no one speaks to the investigators.   Agent Anderson (played by Gene Hackman), on the other hand, is from Mississippi and understands more about the culture of the South.   Only when he employs more extreme and rather questionable methods that mirror the methods of the Klan themselves, do the FBI close the case and convict the killers. If the KKK is to be classified as a terrorist group, then it must follow that all members of the Klan assume some of the responsibility for the crimes they committed.   In the case of this film, one could extend the guilt even further to include the entire community.   It was clear that the actions of the Klan were cruel, deadly and well known amongst the townsfolk and yet almost everyone stood back and allowed them to continue their reign of terror.  Ã‚   In light of the greater good therefore, the FBI were justified in taking the actions they took to stop the KKK and thus hopefully curtail further violence and intimidation in the community. The atrocities committed by the KKK against non-white members of the community were more than crime.   These actions were terrorism and all members of the group played a role in perpetuating the terror.   We are all responsible for hatred. References Federal Bureau of Investigation, Jackson Division. (n.d.). Retrieved November 5, 2006 from http://jackson.fbi.gov/cntrterr.htm Definitions of Terrorism.   United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. (n.d.). Retrieved November 5, 2006 Zollo, Frederick and Robert F. Colesberry. (Producers), & Parker, Alan. (Director). (1988). Mississippi Burning [MotionPicture]. United States: MGM.      

Candide and Free Will

Voltaire's Candide is a novel that is interspersed with superficial characters and conceptual ideas that are critically exaggerated and satirized. The parody offers cynical themes disguised by mockeries and witticism, and the story itself presents a distinctive outlook on life narrowed to the concept of free will as opposed to blind faith driven by desire for an optimistic outcome. The crucial contrast in the story deals with irrational ideas as taught to Candide about being optimistic by Pangloss, his cheerful mentor, versus reality as viewed by the rest of the world through the eyes of the troubled character, Martin.This raises the question of whether or not the notion of free will is valid due to Candide’s peculiar timing of his expression for it. Some readers might think that Voltaire's novel Candide suggests that belief in free will is absurd. However, a close reading of the text suggests that Voltaire does not deny free will altogether. Candide is in complete control of his actions and ideas during times when an agreeable reality poses not to be enough, which explores Voltaire’s message that true reality is the ability to identify the deficiency of human conventions.Candide’s journey to attain the balance between submitting his will completely to the opinions and actions of others and taking control of his own life through blind faith highlights the notion of free will throughout Voltaire’s novel. Throughout the novel, Voltaire represents mankind as being consumed by immediate personal problems. When the characters of Candide virtually have no troubles or dilemmas, Voltaire illustrates how they do not express their happiness and contentment for it, but rather portray their feelings of boredom and a desire to involve themselves within the complex social constructs of the world.In chapter eighteen when Candide and his valet Cacambo enter the glorious city of El Dorado, Candide expresses the city’s extravagance and how it i s incomparable to any other, even when compared to his overvalued Westphalia. Voltaire described â€Å"the public edifices raised as high as the clouds, the market places ornamented with a thousand columns, the fountains of spring water†¦which were paved with a kind of precious stone which gave off a delicious fragrancy like that of cloves and cinnamon† (45) to illustrate the decadence of El Dorado, and how it was virtually a utopia that no man could resist.However, Candide held enough free will within himself by opting to leave the splendor in order to â€Å"recover Miss Cunegonde† (46). This event solidifies some readers’ opinions that belief in free will is absurd, for Candide uses it for irrational and perverse means by hoping for a finer future. El Dorado serves as a symbol to Candide that there is more the world has to offer after having been taught that he was already living in the best of all possible worlds while in Westphalia.The fact that he came across such magnificence paradoxically influenced his choice to leave since he thought he could find better than El Dorado, which demonstrates the faults of human conventions about how Candide could not distinguish between true and optimistic realities when he already had quite possibly the best world right in front of him. Once again, this substantiates readers’ ideas that free will is outlandish and nonsensical. â€Å"If we abide here we shall only be upon a footing with the rest, whereas, if we return to our old world†¦we shall be richer than all the kings in Europe† (46).He is not aware of the ramifications of his actions, of his professed free will, and believes that only good things will come to him as a result of his foolish autonomy. Voltaire presents the characters as having emotional lives that shift between worries and boredom with almost no periods of prolonged happiness. Pangloss’ influence instructs Candide to submit to blind faith that the o utcome of all will be well, and that all events happen for a reason. â€Å"It is demonstrable that things cannot be otherwise than as they are; for all being created for an end, all is necessarily for the best end† (1).Under these assumptions Candide says, â€Å"There can be no effect without a cause [†¦] The whole is necessarily concatenated and arranged for the best† (6). This philosophy that everything is fated to be good omits the validity of free will that Candide later claims to have since he is man and therefore above the animal world, because no matter what man does in part to shape the entirety of his future, Candide was taught that the outcome is predestined to yield an optimistic and hopeful reality. The belief that everything happens for a reason and where the reason is good is incompatible with the act of free will.Therefore, any efforts of free will are futile because they cannot change the predetermined outcome, making its concept essentially nonexi stent. This logical cycle strengthens and endorses readers’ ideas that free will is incongruous with faith. Candide is a naive character that is in complete control of his ideas and actions despite the influence from others. In chapter two when he is captured by Bulgarians and given the choice between death and running the gauntlet, he groundlessly uses his free will to receive an intense degree of torture and anguish. He was asked which he would like the best, to be whipped six-and-thirty times through all the regiment, or to receive at once twelve balls of lead in his brain. He vainly said that human will is free, and that he chose neither the one nor the other† (4). Candide tries to argue that having free will meant not having to choose, because being a human retaining that free will meant he had the choice not to make a choice. However, his attempts are thwarted when he is forced to make a decision for his fate, where â€Å"he determined, in virtue of that gift of God called liberty, to run the gauntlet six-and-thirty times. He bore this twice† (4).During a time when death clearly presented itself as the unusual superior choice, Candide foolishly picked the lesser of the two options. By choosing â€Å"four thousand strokes, which laid bare all his muscles and nerves, from the nape of his neck quite down to his rump† (4), Voltaire proves to readers that having free will is an absurd notion. He reinforces readers’ ideas that preserving belief for free will only leads to self-destruction due to Candide’s imprudent use and inappropriate application of it. Voltaire’s Martin provides a slightly more realistic albeit largely negative slant of the world that readers can more easily identify with.Martin says that the world has been formed â€Å"to plague us to death† and that â€Å"it is a chaos – a confused multitude, where everybody seeks pleasure and scarcely any one finds it† (54-55). In chapt er 21, Candide asks Martin if he believes â€Å"that men have always massacred each other as they do to-day, that they have always been liars, cheats, traitors, ingrates, brigands, idiots, thieves, scoundrels, gluttons, drunkards, misers, envious, ambitious, bloody-minded, calumniators, debauches, fanatics, hypocrites, and fools† (55).Martin is deeply struck with pessimism, feeling the world is doomed to evil and destruction, and responds with a valid question as an answer: â€Å"Do you believe hawks have always eaten pigeons when they have found them? † (55) Martin’s insight to the fixed cycle of nature demonstrates how he perceives man’s nature to be just like one of beasts. Candide firmly counters and says â€Å"there is a vast deal of difference, for free will† (55) Candide, though easily influenced, senses that there is something more which exists between the contrasting worlds that both Pangloss and Martin have presented to him, which is free will.However, this claim is inconsistent with his belief that blind faith is the key to an optimistic reality, because once again, faith and free will are concepts that counteract and negate each other. At this point, readers’ opinions that free will is a meaningless and hollow notion is underpinned because of the fact that it is the only aspect that Candide cares to explore as the sole difference between man and animal that ultimately proves to be insignificant since man does not use it wisely or properly.In chapter two, Voltaire describes how â€Å"it was a privilege of the human as well as the animal species to make use of their legs as they pleased† to justify going for a walk (4). Here, Candide states that animals in fact have their own will to walk, which contradicts what he says to Martin in chapter 21on the discussion about what differentiates man from animal. Throughout Voltaire’s satirical novel Candide, readers are exposed to the two major themes reg arding fate and free will, and how each belief is exemplified through various hollow characters such as Pangloss, Candide, and Martin.Candide frequently wavers between the two beliefs, and Voltaire ultimately comes to the conclusion that people have free will and must shape their own future based on their actions in the present rather than pursuing the idea that blind faith driven by desire will lead to optimistic results. In the end, Candide achieves equilibrium by accepting that he must exist between spiritual devotion and unpredictability through free will, when he says, â€Å"we must cultivate our garden,† as Voltaire famously declares in the ultimate chapter (87).This seemingly superficial parody engages the reader and makes them reflect about whether or not free will is actually free will and what aspect of Candide is in control of it. Readers perceive how human nature is incapable of constant happiness because of how desire handicaps free will, and are ultimately made aware of how Candide must create his own reality based on action rather than blind faith.