Final RFP Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Final RFP - Essay Example This Request For Proposals (RFP) document sets out the requirements to be met by the Enterprise Resource Planning ERP package Enterprise Architecture EA design to be selected to implement these business goals within the operations and management functions of Gadget, Inc. The overall strategic results to be met by the package and design selected as part of the responses to this RFP will include : no more lost orders, eliminating the numerous errors currently made and the accompanying inconsistencies. In terms of applicable Quality Assurance (QA) activities, there will be a series of procedural reviews carried out by the personnel partially involved in the acquisition and implementation process of the ERP packages and EA design and approval The risk management requirements to be met will include a process where the Vendor’s executives identify, analyze and rank every risk noted. Proactive risk identification measures will be put in place. In order to achieve the successful integration of the ERP application and EA design in order to meet the business process improvement requirements set out above, the following requirements will need to be satisfied by the selected Vendor. Gadget Inc., although it accepts that it is relatively small enterprise, expects that each Vendor will draw up an EA design that reflects Gadget Inc.’s business requirements as expressed by the Board of Directors. Gadget Inc. will not accept duplications of previous enterprise architectures drawn up by a given Vendor for one or more different clients. This requirement will be made clear to each Vendor at the Bid Evaluation stage. Gadget Inc. has no specific preferences regarding the ERP application presented by each Vendor bidding for the Contract. Gadget Inc. initially expects that each Vendor will present the ‘standard’ version of

Fordist And Taylorist Production Systems Cultural Studies Essay

Fordist And Taylorist Production Systems Cultural Studies Essay Fordism, named after the Henry Ford from US, who refers to a variety of communal theories about production, assembling and related socio-economic phenomena  [1]  . Although Henry Ford was not the inventor of the automobile but he developed extraordinary methods of production and marketing that allowed the automobile to become reachable to the American working class. Ford always wanted to make cars that his team workers could afford easily. So, the mass production began in Detroit in 1914, when Ford discovered that a moving assembly line using interchangeable parts which could completely reduce the cost of making motor cars. After that he created the Ford Motor Company, which was one of a dozen small automobile manufacturers that emerged in the early 20th century. Mass production was really an unpleasant work, with high turnover because new production system must be oriented towards multi-skilling and rapid re-skilling workers; in order to hold the search for shifting a newly form ing market in a post mass production (cf. Piore, M. and Sabel, C., 1984). Just to retain his unskilled workforce, Ford doubled their wages to $5 per day justified by higher productivity  [2]  . After three years of production, he introduced the Model T, which was simple and light yet sturdy enough to drive on the countrys very elementary road system. He sold 18m Model T Fords, transforming to America into the first car-owning democracy, at a low price that dropped from $600 to $250 over 15 years. Henry Fords success and revolutionary techniques of production were then termed Fordism  [3]  . The scale of mass production is hard to understand. Fords River Rouge plant in Detroit, completed in 1928, he extended for a mile along a tributary of the Detroit River and employed 100,000 men workers. Raw materials like iron ore and rubber were unloaded at one end, and finished cars emerged from the other end, 72 hours later. But Fords system proved less efficient than GM  [4]  , which produced a range of models for different pocketbooks. Labour relations were troubled, sit-down strike, at the big automakers in the 1930s with layoffs and speed-ups, the end of organized capitalism has a tendency to become dis-organized in that the labour-employer relationships are fracturing (cf. Lash, S. and Urry, J. 1987) . GM was the first company forced to recognize the UAW  [5]  union after a sit-down strike closed its plants in Flint, Michigan in 1937. After more battles, the workers won higher wages and benefits, sharing in the American Dream. Unions also negotiated rigid work rules to protect workers from exploitation by foremen. Ford was even more determined to oppose unions than GM, and Henry Ford employed 3,000 service department personnel to prevent them taking hold. In 1937 they beat up key UAW union organizers attempting to hand out leaflets near the River Rouge factory. But in 1941, even Ford was forced to yield to union power, to ensure industrial peace during wartime. But the legacy of bitter industrial relations e ndured. The decline of mass production is due to Post Fordism; small scale batch production in small medium plants not mass production in large plant, only customized not standardized products, using multi-skilled workers with flexible work roles not fixed job descriptions, robots and computerized work teams instead of moving assembly lines (cf. Murray, R. 1989). Car manufacture ceased with the outbreak of World War II, but the auto manufacturers made good profits helping with the war effort, producing everything from jeeps to aircraft engines. The mass production helped the Allies win the war, and led to further consolidation in the industry. The war also brought new social groups, like women and black people, into the auto industry, but also increased social tensions in Detroit. Unemployment disappeared, and the UAWs power grew. The end of the war released an enormous surge of pent-up demand, especially for cars and houses, and Detroit boomed as never before. Car workers wages soared and many became homeowners. The Big three car companies dominated production as never before. In 1955 GM became the first company to make $1bn profit. Big cars predominated, promoted by sexy adverts  [6]  . The first signs that all was not well with Detroit was the 1973 oil crisis, when Middle East producers declared a boycott. Queues formed at petrol stations, and consumers for the first time switched in large numbers to smaller, more economical cars-often made by the Japanese; which they found more reliable. The Detroit-made cars had more defects, and Detroits attempts to build a successful small car failed. The auto industry now is much better prepared to withstand the effects of an oil crisis and meet consumer demand for highly fuel-efficient vehicles than it was during the Middle East oil crisis of the 1970s, Ford Motor Company Chairman Harold A. Poling said  [7]  . Imports of Japanese cars soared in the 1980s as consumers gradually grew to prefer the smaller, more reliable cars. The unions and the US companies reacted to the threat by trying to get the US government to block imports, and by the mid-1980s had succeeded in getting Japan to agree intended export chains (cf. Womack, J., P., Jones, J.T., Roos, D., 1990). But the move backfired as Japanese firms became more profitable and moved up market, launching cars like the Lexus. The US companies determined that they could make more money by selling sports utility vehicles, built on a truck chassis. In the 1990s sales of SUVs  [8]  and minivans soared. Imported SUVs attracted a higher tariff rate, blocking Japanese rivals. They were not very fuel-efficient, but with oil prices at $18 a barrel, no one seemed to mind. As imports flooded in, the car market became increasingly dominated by foreign producers, who imported millions of cars from overseas factories. Companies also increasingly relo cated production to Canada and Mexico after the Nafta free trade agreement. GM, Ford and Chrysler thought that the Japanese had an unfair advantage due to an undervalued (low) currency. They also believed that oil prices would return to lower levels. Lean production, Japanese manufacturers like Toyota and Nissan were also building more factories within the US to escape import controls, threat from Japan,(cf. Womack, J., P., Jones, J.T., Roos, D., 1990) in the response to eliminate waste by introducing this method. These factories were based on a new and more efficient production system, and they also allowed the transplants to develop new models more quickly. They also developed closer relationships with suppliers, using just-in-time methods. Soon they were competing across the whole range of vehicles, from trucks to compact cars. Green cars, in the last year many Americans have accepted the reality of global warming, and the demand for green vehicles has grown. Toyota sells 100,000 Prius hybrids a year and is rolling the hybrid technology out across its entire range. Both Ford and GM exposed electric-powered concept cars at the 2007 Detroit Motor Show, but they may be years away from mass production. Taylorism, a system of production devised by F. W. Taylor (1911), and characterized by the division of factory work into the smallest and simplest jobs while closely co-ordinating the sequence of tasks in order to achieve maximum efficiency, as, for example, on a production line. As a result, skilled managers and technicians oversee semi-skilled or unskilled workers who are engaged in simple, repetitive chores. This system of production has had profound spatial implications, as large firms often allocate skilled and unskilled jobs to different locations, creating a division of labour  [9]  . Taylorism is often mentioned along with Fordism, because it was closely associated with mass production methods in manufacturing factories. Taylors own name for his approach was scientific management  [10]  . Applications of scientific management sometimes fail to account for two inherent difficulties: Individuals are different from each other: the most efficient way of working for one person may be inefficient for another. The economic interests of workers and management are rarely identical, so that both the measurement processes and the retraining required by Taylors methods are frequently resented and sometimes sabotaged by the workforce. Both difficulties were recognized by Taylor, but are generally not fully addressed by managers who only see the potential improvements to efficiency. Taylor believed that scientific management cannot work unless the worker benefits. In his view management should arrange the work in such a way that one is able to produce more and get paid more, by teaching and implementing more efficient procedures for producing a product. Although Taylor did not compare workers with machines, some of his critics use this image to explain how his approach makes work more efficient by removing unnecessary or wasted effort (cf. Parker M. and Slaughter, J., 1988). However, some would say that this approach ignores the complications introduced because workers are necessarily human: personal needs, interpersonal difficulties and the very real difficulties introduced by making jobs so efficient that workers have no time to relax. As a result, workers worked harder, but became dissatisfied with the work environment. Some have argued that this discounting of worker personalities led to the rise of labour unions. It can also be said that the rise in labor unions is leading to a push on the part of industry to accelerate the process of automation, a process that is undergoing a renaissance with the invention of a host of new technologies starting with the computer and the Internet. This shift in production to machines was clearly one of the goals of Taylorism (cf. Berggren, C., 1989), and represents a victory for his theories. It may not be adaptive to changing scenarios; it overemphasizes routine procedures, i.e. strictly following a given set of rules and regulations, work procedures, production centeredness etc. However, tactfully choosing to ignore the still controversial process of automating human work is also politically expedient, so many still say that practical problems caused by Taylorism led to its replacement by the human relations school of management in 1930. Others (cf. Braverman, H., 1974) insisted that human relations did not replace Taylorism but that both approaches are rather opposite: Taylorism determining the actual organization of the work process and human relations helping to adapt the workers to the new procedures. However, Taylors theories were clearly at the roots of a global revival in theories of scientific management in the last two decades of the 20th century, under the moniker of corporate reengineering or business process re-engineering (cf. Milkman, R., 1997). As such, Taylors ideas can be seen as the root of a very influential series of developments in the workplace, with the goal being the eventual elimination of industrys need for unskilled, and later perhaps, even most skilled labor in any form, directly following Taylors recipe for deconstructing a process. This has come to be known as commoditization, and no skilled profession, even medicine, has proven to be immune from the efforts of Taylors followers, the re-engineers, who are often called derogatory names such as bean counters. A complex division of labour  [11]  and the expansion of economic interdependence accompanied the emergence of industrial capitalism. The division of labour reached its logical conclusion in the emergence of Taylorism and its mass production partner, Fordism. These had their weaknesses including high start-up costs and a relatively rigid production process. Such low-trust systems can be contrasted with high-trust systems, where workers operate with greater autonomy and cooperation. A whole series of techniques and initiatives are described by the term post-Fordism including group production and mass customization. These are epitomized by the Quality Circle, a concept alien to Taylorist assumptions that workers need to be stripped of opportunities for creative input. Such systems tend to be marked by high skill levels and rapid turnover of product designs. The decline of manufacturing industry as an employer can be explained both by competition from the Far East and the increasing rate of technological change. Global production systems have also contributed to the movement of industry around the world. These processes have led to a steady decline in trade union membership since the 1970s. The separation of home and work contributed to the marginalization of women from paid employment, a pattern gradually reversed during the twentieth century. Within the economy women remain concentrated in poorly paid routine occupations  [12]  . Either work becomes recreated as womens work, or heartlands of female employment slowly have their status eroded over time. Labour-force participation is higher among childless women, though many more females now return to their full-time jobs after childbirth than they did a decade ago. Women dominate part-time employment, though their reasons for remaining in such jobs remain the source of controversy  [13]  . The most notable change in working life in developed countries has been the expansion of female participation in the paid labour market and resulting erosion of the male breadwinner model within families. Among men, the trend has been away from manual work and currently also away from routine non-manual labour. These trends have levelled off in recent years, with women remaining over-represented in routine white-collar jobs and men over-represented in skilled manual work. Despite womens advances across the economy, the top posts remain the preserve of men. Women in the most recent generation have benefited from the legislation passed in the 1970s, but the pay divide remains substantial over a lifetime. Debates on skills in the workplace have tended to become polarized between those, (cf. Braverman, H., 1974), who see capitalism as continually deskilling the workforce as new machines and technologies replace crafts and creativity; who argue that it is not technology but the way this i s used that is most important  [14]  . Unemployment has a long history and has ebbed and flowed throughout the twentieth century. There are significant effects for individuals, communities and the wider society. These are disproportionately borne by the young and ethnic minorities. A key task for individuals will be to find ways of forging long-term life plans in a society that privileges the short-term. In 1990s the the new industrial relations associated with the introduction of HRM, also seeks to create an atmosphere and a framework for union-management collaboration (cf. Guest, D., 1989, Storey, J., 1992). From the above it is possible to deduce some conclusions. First of all, there are changes in the way by which work is done and controlled. The Fordism model is dictatorial, with rigid discipline, technical and specific personnel training, taking man as a simple addition of the machine and separating the intellectual from the manual work. Classical management control is performed by rigid supervision procedures. The number of problem with general post-Fordist paradigm has implication for the potential embedding (cf. Kelly, J., 1998) The post-Fordist model presents flexible authority and control systems by which conformism and passivity open spaces for dynamism and creativity (according to the management model established earlier). However, when this analysis is centred on the objects and ideology that guide the productive process, one can conclude that no evolution has occurred. Management, yesterday and today, aims toward maximum rationalization of the production system, greater increase in productivity, profitability and competition, maintaining together the older way of production (cf. Sparrow, P. and Marchington, M., 1998). When that concentration is measured in employment terms, aggregate data for the mid-70s to the mid-80s show that larger firms in all three societies have been shedding labour, even though disproportionately. This fact must be analysed also by the quality of employment, the quality of life and the security of economic recovery, and not just from the point of view of job creation in terms of head-counts. The de-centralization of decision-making and flattening of managerial hierarchies in post-Fordist has led to a de-centralization of managerial control, or whether Fordist centralized management control is being maintained, even in spatially decentralized units, through the development of new control technologies (cf. Lane, C., 1995). In fact, there is not, in either model, a proposal that guarantee the autonomy of the worker. In both, Taylor and Ford, task obligations are reached through rigid control and supervision concerning the worker. In the post-Fordism model, task obligations occur by way of a rigid management scheme. Direct supervisory control is inhibited, assuming either the form of auto-control or control by complex technological procedures; nevertheless, it continues to exist. Beyond the work strengthening and capital concentration, the post-Fordism model maintains the division of work, although on more ample bases. If in Taylorism-Fordism the tasks were broken down into simple and routine movements, in post-Fordism the division into fractions of work happens with the attribution of responsibility to the groups that fulfil a set of specific tasks (activities). There is widespread agreement in the literature that due to the need for more flexible and speedier reaction to changing market demands, de-centralization of decision-making and flattening of managerial hierarchies has occurred (cf. Lane, C., 1995). However, there is little systematic evidence as to what form that de-centralization has taken and which hierarchical levels have been affected. To the post-Fordism is like Fordism as well as post-modernism is like modernism. Postmodernism is another version of that historical amnesia characteristic of American culture the tyranny of the new. According to the Green (cf. Green, A., 1997), postmodernism should be seen not as a development beyond modernism but rather as a continuation of a certain idealist current within it. One can make the same statement about Fordism and post-Fordism. Finally, it seems opportune to repeat the words of Ford from back in the 40s (cf. Ford, H., 1991): We are not living in a machine age; we are living in the power age. This power age of ours has great possibilities, depending upon how we use it. Of course it can be mistreated. But, it can also be used greatly to benefit mankind. If this sentence were true during that period of time, today it seems even more adequate. References

Industrial Change in Britain :: European Europe History

Industrial Change in Britain Industrial Change in Britain:'There was frequent and widespread discontent' How accurate is this statement? The Industrial Revolution is a term describing the many changes that transformed Great Britain from approximately 1760 and 1830. The main feature was the change to the factory system that depended on power driven machinery instead of manpower and the rapid growth of the cotton industry. The Industrial Revolution occurred because the scientists and inventors used their imaginations to develop new products and to exploit the opportunities of booming markets. Examples of this occurred in the textile, pottery and iron industries. The development of mining, particularly of the widespread use of coal, road improvements due to the road tolls, the building of canals, the growth of coastal shipping and the later rise of the railways were all crucial in the Industrial Revolution. The Industrial Revolution in Great Britain meant that the country could import cotton, woollen goods, iron and steel, machinery, hardware and coal on a huge scale. Other countries were not so industrialised therefore Great Britain had a strong advantage over them. Factory owners were able to move their products around the country more quickly, more cheaply and with greater safety than previously. For example, Britain's main fuel was coal. As the towns grew they needed more coal. The coal was heavy and difficult to transport by road. During this time many canals were built and soon a canal network made transporting coal, merchandise and communicating a lot easier. During the Industrial Revolution, the cotton industry rapidly increased with the invention of an improved spinning wheel powered by water. These machines were quickly mass-produced for factory use. Factories could be built in the towns and employ many workers. The cotton industry saw rapid growth and needed many workers to keep it going. The increase in factories and employment meant that there was a huge amount of work to do. Many children obtained work in the factories instead of attending school. Before the Industrial Revolution, families worked hard but could also rest when they could not work. In the factories, children and adults alike were expected to work very long hours and hardly ever had free time at home. In some cases, children worked from 3am to 10pm. Children could easily be trained to work in the textile industries because it was made up of simple tasks. Sunday was a day of rest, yet in some factories, the children had to turn up for work to clean the machinery.

An Analysis of the Choice Essay

This study analyzes the difference of the operation model of HSBC and ICBC are operating in the UK at present, and examines the advantages and disadvantages of both separated and mixed operation for ICBC (London). Furthermore, it proposes the realistic choice of operation model for ICBC (London) under the existing Chinese financial system and the market condition of UK. This paper argues that the separated operation model of ICBC and investment banks in the short term will not change. The internally integrated operation model in terms of mixed operation which through restructuring to concurrently operate investment bank business within the ICBC (London), should be the realistic choice. The operating advantages in terms of low risk and high efficiency of the Group Banking form will be the development orientation for ICBC (London). Chapter 1 1. Introduction 1. 1 Background to the Research November 4, 1999 the U. S. Senate and House passed the â€Å"Financial Services modernization Act† to repeal the â€Å"Glass-Steagall Act† enacted in 1933(Wen, 2009). It ends the separated operation and separate supervision to the banking, securities and insurance, and opened a new era in the financial industry to mixed operation. Also it marks the mixed operation model occupied the dominant position in the international financial community. Under the role of market forces, the United Kingdom, Japan, Canada and other western countries have also given up the major sub-sector financial management system, and re-established the mixed financial system. The establishment of British Financial Services Authority (FSA) has been practiced for ten years. It has shown that the implementation of mixed operation and mixed supervision of the reform is successful for UK financial industry (Ojo, 2005). The integration of commercial banking and investment banking business became the global financial industry trends (Xu, 2002). ICBC is a market leader in the China in many business areas of commercial banking. It occupies the biggest market share among the big-four state-owned commercial banks in terms of capitalization, profitability and the volumes of deposit and loan. It operates through 16,232 outlets across China, 162 overseas subsidiaries and a global network of more than 1,504 correspondent banks as well as Internet Banking, Telephone Banking and self-service banking (www. icbc. com. cn). ICBC (London) was established in 2003, and grew dramatically on total capitalization and the scope of the business. However, under the Chinese Financial Law, it still uses the separated operation model in UK. 1. 2 Significance of the Problem The operation and supervision model of China’s financial banking are different from any of other countries’. Recalling the journey of China’s financial business operations, in 1993, the operation model of Chinese financial industry had changed from mixed operation to separated operation. Prior to 1993, China adopted a mixed operation, and commercial banks were one of the main participants at the beginning of China’s stock market established. Banks were playing a significant role in the securities market formation process which gave the support on capital, technology, personnel and organizational management. The main form of commercial banks to participate in the securities business was built on equity securities company wholly or securities department of trust and Investment Company. Their principal business was the issuance of corporate securities and agency trading. Because of the lack of capacity of self-regulatory and constraints, there was an accumulation of risks inherent in mixed operation. In the late 1992, as investment of real estate and securities were prevailing, numerous of credit funds through bank lending into the stock market result in leading to financial chaos. Therefore in July 1993, there was a great effort to rectify the financial order. Banking industry and securities industry had to adopt separate operation management model. Chinese government proposed separated operation and separated supervision model for financial industry. In 1995, â€Å"Commercial Bank Law† and â€Å"Insurance Law† followed the â€Å"separated operation, separated supervision† principle to regulate the financial industry. From that point, the separated operation model continues to today. However, due to the effects of the practice of mixed operation model by the U. S. , ICBC is trialing the mixed operation model progressively in China since 2008 (ICBC Annual Report 2009). Unfortunately, ICBC (London) is still operating as separated operation model. 1. 3 Statement of Purpose In recent years, the pace of world economic development slowed down and interest rates of countries continued generally low, result in facing a serious test of effectiveness for banks whose profitability based on the main source of loan interest rate differentials.

Business Environment Essay

Business environment refers to the conditions prevailing in a society in which a business is to be operated. It is defined as the total of all things external to business firms and industries, which effect their organization and operation. The number and scope of environmental factors, which effect business, is broad. There should be included all aspects of our social, scientific, economic, political and cultural life which have some bearing upon business. Relationship of Environment to Business To understand fully the nature of business, its structure, its organization and its behavior, one must look not only at the business properly, but also at the environment within which business operates. More specifically, this means that business exists in surroundings external to its direct or operating components of firms and industries. The significant elements of environment for a business house comprise persons, physical resources and climate, economic and market conditions, altitudes and laws of the land. These elements effect the course of action of the company. Business and its environment interact. In our business-oriented society, business has influenced environmental conditions probably as much as or even more than environmental forces have shaped business. The firm depends upon its environmental conditions for the resources and opportunities necessary for its existence. The environment determines the limits of the firms’ activities. The environment contributes valuable resources to the business firm only if the firm provides the desired goods or services to the environment. A firm must look to public needs and attitudes remain sensitive to human values and alert to the social set up. Good businesses, therefore, are always responsive to the total environment in which they operate. Economic Environment Business is greatly influenced by the economy of the country. Its operational success depends upon an adjustment and meeting the requirements of the economy. The important factors that are to be looked into and effectively handled are: 1. Desires, Customers and Markets The purpose of business is to anticipate desires of people and purpose goods and services accordingly to satisfy them. Let these goods and services so produced be carried effectively to the place of customers. But it is not possible unless businessman produces them at proper time and makes them available to customers at reasonable price. Hence, timing of production and reasonable price. Hence, timing of production and reasonable price of products are important considerations. Further, the intensity of competition existing in the market and the degree of marketing strategies to be adopted also are important points to be considered by a business entrepreneur. 2. Availability Businessmen must assess the source or sources of capital as well as the cost at which it is available. For a developing country like ours, obtaining capital is not so easy. It is definitely a problem as its availability depends upon will and capacity of people to save and invest, existence of good capital and money market, and economic and financial policy of the government etc. 3. Availability of Labour Operational efficiency of a business enterprise greatly depends upon the availability of labour at a reasonable price. If such manpower in the shape of skilled and unskilled workers is sufficiently available to a business according to its requirement and within reasonable wage rate, it can carry on its activities and expect profit. But to get workers at right time and at right price is not so easy. There are many factors that influence their availability. 4. Level of Productivity Productivity at a reasonable level depends upon how the activities are planned, organized, directed and controlled. The use of the latest production techniques, machines, manpower, and motivation and techniques of people to work sincerely and devotedly are some of the requirements to achieve the desired level of productivity. 5. Imaginative Entrepreneurship The success of an entrepreneur depends upon the quality of his imagination and skill. More he is intelligent, imaginative, and farsighted, more he is effective in grabbing the opportunity and playing his role in the economic growth and betterment of people. 6. Qualified and Capable Manager The competent role of managers has greatly improved the efficiency of work operation, reduced cost and enhanced capability to face challenge of competition. The science of management is undergoing a fast improvement in the light of research, study, experiences and observation. Every business enterprise is struggling to avail the benefit of intelligent, qualified, and competent managers. 7. Market Size Market size of a business depends upon its production policy and programme. If its production target is limited, it will have a small market. On the other hand, if it has a large-scale production programme, it has to expand its market. Such business enterprises even go to international markets. Desire to expand the size of market causes them to adopt new marketing strategies and planned efforts to go as deep to different places as possible and create as many customers as it could be. 8. Price Levels and Inflation In case if price level is changing fast, it becomes difficult for a business enterprise to plan its activities that would ensure a reasonable gain. Changing price, levels make the cost of capital, production, distribution, and profit unpredictable and uncertain. But still then we find entrepreneurs coming up with fair guess and estimation to make their business operate with better results and survive the vagaries of changing price levels and inflation. 9. Government Fiscal and Monetary Policy Government collects revenue through taxes, duties, fees etc, and spends the same on administration, public utilities like roads, bridges, canals, buildings, hospitals etc. Greater burden of taxes imposed by the government on people may reduce their ability to save and could affect investment climate. Similarly, monetary policy, which influences supply of money within the country, does also have its impacts on business activities. Central Bank of the country as controller of credit plays its role to regulate money supply together with the government. Social and Cultural Environment Businesses produce goods and services for people who dwell in the society. Thus the number of people, their age and educational composition has great significance for business. What a person buys or the service he consumes is a reflection of his religious and cultural constraints. Thus the cultural religious and ethnic pressures have a vital bearing on the affairs of the business. 1. Population Growth for a businessman, population growth presents both opportunities and problems. Opportunities arise from the fact that there are continually more consumers to buy business output and more workers to produce and sell it. Problems are caused by the fact that as more people want and need jobs, businesses must make them available otherwise the society will have to face the menace of unemployment. 2. Population Composition (a) Age-Wise Composition Different age groups have different demands. Young people are interested in automobiles, musical instruments, sport equipments etc. Older people may be interest in medical care and health, food etc. (b) Education Standard An illiterate population can be easily deceived. Gone are the days of the sellers society. The society where consumers are educated is the buyers society. People can well judge between good and bad and reap the economies of modern technology. (c) Economic Standards Higher income people can afford to satisfy tastes that people of lower incomes cannot. Thus when the medium family income increases, the market for business products and services also expands. (d) Changing Job Opportunities With increased investment in human resources, the opportunities to improve labour productivity are enhanced. The occupational shifts have been towards professional, technical, managerial jobs and in service industries. The opportunities for farm workers, craftsmen, machine operators etc, is declining substantially. 3. Social Attitudes and Beliefs Businesses have to take into account the attitudes, desires, beliefs, tastes, problems and customs of the consumers. These aspects vary in individuals, groups and even nations. Americans hold attitudes like respect for all individuals, strong regard for education, faith in science and technology, belief in innovation, belief in competition, belief in an environment cleansed of air and water pollution, lovable communities with decent housing, safe streets, efficient transportation, educational and cultural opportunities. Such social beliefs have a considerable impact on business climate. 4. Pluralism The society is broken down into many kinds of groups’ consumers, investors, labour organizations, managers, government’s bureaucrats and politicians, religious groups, racial groups etc. In everything that business managers do, they must be alert to this pluralistic feature of the society. While the existence of so many interest groups tends to complicate business operations, they constitute a major safeguard against dominance of the society by any single interest group. Technological Environment There has always been a strong link between business and technology. Any business that wishes to survive in a changing world must be aware of the modern technological changes and also use technology to develop and modernize its products or services, to meet cost competition and to improve marketing. The alert businessman must not only be aware o technological changes affecting his operations and his customs, he needs to forecast the state of the art so that he will have time to use it successfully before he finds his products or processes obsolete. This he must also do so that he is the first one to put up a new product at the suitable time in the market and not lag behind which will be a degrading position in the world of competition. Political Environment Political environment has a great impact on the establishment, operation, growth and expansion of business. Stable political climate makes things more certain and predictable. Businessman fined themselves in a better position to estimate future and plan their business. In other worlds, greater is the political stability, better may be the opportunity for successful business. That is the reason why we often witness flight of capital from the country where there is political instability or where policy of government frequently changes. Legal Environment Every business is encircled by the laws, regulations, and court decisions of the land. Almost each and every decision made by a businessman should be within the permissible limits of laws and regulations of the country. He should know that his action or decision might be subjected to a challenge in the court of law. Thus all decisions and steps should be within the framework of the law of the land. This success depends upon how he meets all legal requirements. We know that in certain cases rules and regulations may be burdensome. But they all aim at creating an atmosphere that is best suited to good conduct of business and protect the interests of customers and workers as well. Social Responsibility in Business A large part of an organization’s response to its environment is called SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY. â€Å"Social Responsibility has been defined as the organization’s obligation to take actions that protect and improve the welfare of the society as a whole, along with advancing its own interests.† Basically business is said to possess this responsibility because of its extreme power to influence societal conditions.