Essay --

I grew up on the fairy tales of my parents’ youth. As I was listening to the amount of interesting and superb adventures they were going through, I could not understand why I was so afraid and at the same time so excited to hear about all those escapades. It is only after a while that I apprehended that technology has hindered all our outdoors activities by being introduced prior. With the new widgets we utilize to exercise, communicate from home, and communicate outside the house, we are being very sensible to the physical and mental strength we are predisposed to have. Nowadays, children of technology have a new method of exercising. These children go to the gymnasium to exercise rather than train in nature. Girls’ exercise due to the desire of maintaing their body weight and shape. As boys, they only exercise in order not to lose their muscles. As a child who was raised in this era, I can affirm that none of the children are fond of the gym; it has become a boring routine. The cause behind it is that children no longer have the time to adventure their selves in new sports due to the massive amount they spent on gadgets. Another horrible disease that killed our outdoors sports is the electronic gadgets parents purchase to their children, such as PlayStation and Wii. As confirmed in Campbell (2011) children develop weaker and are unable to perform some physical tasks due to sport technology - practicing sports in front of the television by using a remote that monitor the activity one does. Wii and PlayStation games are virtual sports amusemen t that makes children active. But these entertainments are not at accurate and offspring do not lose use their muscles as much as previous generation and therefore do not gain the strengt... ...riends. When I am out with my friends most of the times I watch my friends pop off the conversation, text, smile, then pop back in. From experience I can confirm that people are more comfortable talking with others through the net because the net blocks one’s visual. In addition, since we spent most of our time on gadgets, we do not bother writing in a correct form, in a way or another, we lose the correct writing approach. If all my era was initiated later to technology, we would be able to have more social skills, would rely less on technology be more creative when it comes to outgoing life. Now that everything has been facilitated for us, we do not use our skills to go and reach out to someone, we use one of the multiple ways of technology. We are losing the ability of thinking. We would have been more interesting and be much stronger and capable than we are.

Case: Grupo Bimbo Essay

Grupo Bimbo continuous expansion with an ambition to become one of the five-largest bakers in the world, while the company’s performance in existing foreign markets should be improved so fore made profitable and keep company away from financial hazard due to acquiring losses and lack of substantial profit from foreign markets. Almost 70% of Grupo Bimbo’s sales came from Mexico, where the company had built a 90% market share in the packaged bread segment, the business was very profitable and the company operated in growing market. However, the investments in U.S. and Latin America, where markets were highly competitive, have not been profitable. According Grupo Bimbo’s global strategy – to become one of the five-largest bakers in the world – it had launched a series of strategic initiatives to make foreign operations successful. In March/April, it had purchased the Beijing Panrico Food Processing Center that had already established operations in China. Sub-problems†¢Grupo Bimbo should adapt its distribution networks to each country’s differences (union’s pressure in U.S., inexperienced independent operators in Brazil, modifying China’s distribution structure to rely on bicycles). Because of nature of the products (fresh bread), Grupo Bimbo must service stores directly, on a daily basis. This places tremendous demands on the distribution network to guarantee uninterrupted, fresh product deliveries. The wide geographical spread of the business created by Bimbo’s rapid international expansion called for complicated logistical planning to keep the business functioning efficiently. †¢Very different markets in Mexico, the United States, Latin America and China required distinct ways of operating activities and price setting standards. While 80% of Mexico sales still were through ‘mom and pop’ stores, allowing to control where, when, how and for what price products were sold, 80% of the sales in U.S. and 70% in Latin America transpire through large supermarkets. The power of supermarkets as a main chain of the product distribution in domestic Mexica`s, as well as Brazil and Argentina markets increases their bargaining power was very high. The company should find the  best practices how to customize the relationships with these large chains in newly established market in China. †¢Differences in cultures and in markets among multinational Bimbo divisions. One of them is a cultural difference in human resource management in South America- â€Å"even basic phrases such as -I’ll do it right way- in Spanish needed to be adjusted based on individual countries†. Even in Latin America countries in addition to the language differences there are differences in their consumption of manufactured-produced bread- â€Å"Artisanal bread is king, with neighborhood bakeries making baguettes and French bread†. In U.S. very important difference in bread consumption is based on popularity the fad and low- carbohydrates diets. Grupo Bimbo should adapt its product assortment to these differences through new products launches, favorable and efficient sales mix and strong volumes. â€Å"In Mexico, our company has been very successful, and success typically leads to rigidity and makes it difficult to see changes in the environment. We should reflect on our current situation while keeping everything open for change.†Three Dimensions of Distance:Three Dimensions of Distance according Bimbo’s operations in Chinese market:†¢Cultural Distance – The Chinese language is a very important issue what should be taken into account. The different local needs and tastes of Chinese’s customers. Grupo Bimbo should develop products for local tastes. Bimbo has very successful product position- tortillas, which is not chosen by Chinese experts for Chinese markets. Grupo Bimbo saw promise in the Chinese market for ongoing expansion of its packaged breads, buns, croissants, and sweet rolls, using store promotion and university and school road shows. The way of doing business – focus on achieving trust with people, including how you can be trusted by them. However, the two years studies of China in the pre-acquisition research phase was done by hired team of Chinese immigrants living in Mexico, but not local Chinese residents. It could result in the wrong understanding off Chinese market. †¢Geographic Distance – China is geographically far from Mexico, what could influence such business sides: control and strategic business development.  Different infrastructure approaches, for example employees in China were riding bicycles to transport the products and manage the shelf space, for example, in the America products were transported by trucks. Speaking about the size of the market – The Grupo Bimbo overestimated the size of the market, as says in the case, the large proximate market the company could serve. The size doesn’t’ guarantee the prognoses sales. †¢Economic Distance – diverse work organization approaches. Human resources side, the 775 employees acquired with the purchase of Beijing Panrico, their different work style. Bimbo successes in improving the manufacturing productivity – they made the operational upgrades in standards. Economic Distances: Chinese Bimbo Company served a regional area of 40 million people, its 186 routes were linked by a combination of trucks and bicycles and all that is maintained by only 775 employees. It was able to access over 4000 points of sale, what was too small figure for the served population number. Grupo Bimbo should expand the distribution network and improve efficiencies. Previously the Chinese plant’s company had left the local employees â€Å"largely on their own†. Grupo Bimbo should improve productivity of the plant by operational changes. If Grupo Bimbo would like to become a leader in Chinese market, the priority should be Cultural Distances. As the company acquired the plant in order to make the production process locally and already established changes in production process to make it more efficient- that’s mean The Grupo Bimbo goes for Multi-domestic strategy (low costs, high localization). As we see from the Exhibit 7, the Panrico Group, bought by Grupo Bimbo, market share was only 0,1%. But in the same time the artisanal bread has 53,8% of market share. Such a high figure shows us that Chinese do not like the industrial- manufacturing bread. It is similar to people preference in South America. To realize this strategy successfully, it has to set the priority for dealing with cultural differences due to it is most important as it served the bases for choosing the right products based on the Chinese consumer demands and  tastes, as well as language barriers according local employees and suppliers. REFERENCES: harward business school. by jordan siegel march 23 2007

Life on Earth During the Precambrian Time Span

The Precambrian Time Span is the earliest time period on the Geologic Time Scale. It stretches from the formation of the earth 4.6 billion years ago to around 600 million years ago and encompasses many Eons and Eras leading up to the Cambrian Period in the current Eon. Beginning of Earth The earth was formed about 4.6 billion years ago in a violent explosion of energy and dust according to the rock record from Earth and other planets. For about a billion years, the earth was a barren place of volcanic action and a less than suitable atmosphere for most types of life. It wasnt until about 3.5 billion years ago that it is thought that the first signs of life formed. The Beginning of Life on Earth The exact way life began on Earth during the Precambrian Time is still debated in the scientific community. Some theories that have been posed over the years include the Panspermia Theory, Hydrothermal Vent Theory, and Primordial Soup. It is known, however, there was not much diversity in organism type or complexity during this extremely long period of Earths existence. Most of the life that existed during the Precambrian Time span were prokaryotic single-celled organisms. There is actually a pretty rich history of bacteria and related unicellular organisms within the fossil record. In fact, it is now thought that the first types of unicellular organisms were extremophiles in the Archaean domain. The oldest trace of these that have been found so far is around 3.5 billion years old. These earliest forms of life resembled cyanobacteria. They were photosynthetic blue-green algae that thrived in the extremely hot, carbon dioxide-rich atmosphere. These trace fossils were found on the Western Australia coast. Other, similar fossils have been found all over the world. Their ages span about two billion years. With so many photosynthetic organisms populating the earth, it was only a matter of time before the atmosphere started to accumulate higher levels of oxygen since oxygen gas is a waste product of photosynthesis. Once the atmosphere had more oxygen, many new species evolved that could use oxygen to create energy. More Complexity Appears The first traces of eukaryotic cells showed up about 2.1 billion years ago according to the fossil record. These seem to be single-celled eukaryotic organisms that lacked the complexity we see in most of todays eukaryotes. It took about another billion years before the more complex eukaryotes evolved, probably through endosymbiosis of prokaryotic organisms. The more complex eukaryotic organisms began living in colonies and creating stromatolites. From these colonial structures most likely came multicellular eukaryotic organisms. The first sexually reproducing organism evolved around 1.2 billion years ago. Evolution Speeds Up Towards the end of the Precambrian Time period, much more diversity evolved. The earth was undergoing somewhat rapid climate changes, going from completely frozen over to mild to tropical and back to freezing. The species that were able to adapt to these wild fluctuations in climate survived and flourished. The first protozoa appeared followed closely by worms. Soon after, arthropods, mollusks, and fungi showed up in the fossil record. The end of the Precambrian Time saw much more complex organisms like jellyfish, sponges, and organisms with shells come into existence. The end of the Precambrian Time period came at the beginning of the Cambrian Period of the Phanerozoic Eon and Paleozoic Era. This time of great biological diversity and rapid increase in organism complexity is known as the Cambrian Explosion. The end of the Precambrian Time marked the start of the more quickly progressing evolution of species over Geologic Time.