Tesla Motors Essay Example for Free

Tesla Motors Essay The Global Business Community The first macroenvironmental factor that Tesla Motors faces is the society and subcultures. In this day in age consumers worldwide have increased their knowledge and sensitivity about its environment. Numerous companies have catered to this need of becoming more environmentally responsible by offering products that are â€Å"green† or environmentally friendly. This new growth amongst people and organizations alike of becoming more environmentally conscious has created an opportunity for Tesla Motors with its brand of product. Tesla Motors produces and sells fully electric cars as well as electric vehicle powertrain components that give off no tailpipe emissions. Also Tesla motor vehicles cut CO2 emissions in half compared to gas burning automobiles that currently dominates the roads today. Environmental consciousness is what Tesla Motors is built on and its pursuit of diminishing dependence upon a diminishing resource for their consumers is what the company values most and depends on most for increasing revenue. The second macroenvironmetal factor that Tesla Motors runs into is the demographics. The demographics factor may pose as a major problem for Tesla’s success in the future as its product only appeals to those that are able to afford their vehicles. Although Tesla Motors offers a first-rate vehicle when it comes to performance, efficiency, and class the price for the fairly new automobile company is not economically friendly. Currently Tesla’s prices can range from the base vehicle Model S which currently costs roughly $58,000 up to its â€Å"signature edition† which is estimated at $105,000. With its above average cost of the high end fully electrical cars Tesla must integrate a more concentrated segmentation strategy in targeting the correct demographics to foster the company’s success. Tesla Motors should also take into consideration of tackling demographics in regions with higher gas prices compared to others. According to the American Automotive Association California, Hawaii, Alaska, Connecticut, and New York are among the states with the highest gas prices (Kurtzleben, 2011). In accomplishing this Tesla will be able to market to demographics that can offer a higher incentive in purchasing their fully electric vehicles. The third macroenvironmental factor Tesla faces is in regards to the economic factors. One economic factor that can possibly affect the Tesla would be the prices of petroleum dropping to a low cost for consumers and possibly staying at an affordable price. With an affordable price on gasoline, consumers would be less likely to look for alternatives to combat rising gas and oil prices that we see today, making the high-priced fully electric Tesla vehicle even more unattractive. The economic downturn can also be an ailing factor for Tesla Motors as well. The economic collapse has caused the buying capacity of consumers to dramatically decrease making individuals across the country a lot more conscious about the spending their hard earned dollar. The automobile industry as a whole has struggled overall with battling record losses in revenue and waiving workers. Being that it is a fairly new competitor within the industry Tesla will find it very difficult for selling and staying above its break-even point with its high-end luxury fully electric vehicle. The forth macroenvironmental factor Tesla faces is the natural and physical factors. The increased usage of oil and fossil fuel which is mainly being used for transportation and the decreasing of the resource globally play as an opportunity and advantage for Tesla Motors. â€Å"Petroleum currently fuels 95% of the United States transportation sector, a sector that demands nearly 28% of total usage† (Musk, 2012). With Tesla Motors’ fully electric vehicles offer consumers a substantially alternative towards saving money from not ever relying on purchasing gas at an ever increasing price due to its low supply and high demand of petroleum. Minimizing the dependence on petroleum not only reduces emissions, but also will help build a stronger energy economy (Musk, 2012). The fifth macroenvironmetal factor Tesla faces is in consideration of political and legal issues. Tesla has already been involved in several lawsuits. One that has been most notarized is the lawsuit filed against its competitor Fisker Automotive in early 2008 for stealing design ideas and confidential information such as business plans, technology, and trade secrets. Henrik Fisker was hired by Tesla to design its WhiteStar model vehicle in 2007. After gaining access to designs and confidential information which is Tesla’s competitive advantage he then used the information which enabled Fisker to develop his own high-end electric car which was called Karma. After consulting with an arbitrator Tesla lost its case 7 months after filing the suit due to the finding an interim award in Fisker Automotives favor. The sixth and final macroenvironmetal factor Tesla Motors faces is technology. Tesla holds a technological advantage over all of its competitors in comparison with to the overall performance of the vehicle. Tesla’s electric powertrain found in each vehicle allows higher driving efficiencies. With Tesla’s understanding of using energy efficiently the company has created vehicles with superior design by improving technologies of vehicle road-load which encompasses wind resistance, mechanical friction, and tire rolling resistance; energy conversion losses, as well as electric vehicle efficiency. Overall the driving efficiency is 88% compared to 20-25% for traditional gas-powered cars (Musk, 2012). Although hybrids also increase the total efficiency of internal combustion they are still less efficient than Tesla vehicles (Musk, 2012). Another technological advantage Tesla’s has is its affordability in fueling the vehicle with electricity rather than gas, making it a sound financial decision for consumers. â€Å"Tesla vehicles cost as little as $5 to charge; equivalent to $0. 02 per mile. Alternatively, a gasoline-powered car that is rated at 20 mpg cost $0. 15 per mile† (Musk, 2012). Tesla’s has a competitive advantage in regards toward its technology used within its product. However, the main concern is how long Tesla Motors will be able to hold its competitive advantage in regards toward its technology over time. The Market Heading into the microenvronmental analysis of the paper the first factor that Tesla Motor’s faces is the collaboration. Collaboration with other companies can be beneficial and viewed as a positive for both parties if performed properly. With Tesla Motors’ technological advancements for its electric cars the company has teamed up with major automobile company Toyota towards supplying the company with control systems, batteries, and motors Toyota’s new electric vehicle the RAV4 SUV (Bullis, 2012). Tesla has also recently agreed to provide similar electric car supplies for Mercedes-Benz in a similar deal (Bullis, 2012). The collaboration microenvironmental factor can be turned into an opportunity for Tesla Motors as leverage. If the company manages to not succeed as an independent automobile manufacturer, Tesla still can have the ability to produce the proper technologies needed in developing an electric car for larger manufacturers. Through collaboration Tesla can also develop itself in become an attractive company to be acquired by larger automobile companies such as Toyota and Mercedes-Benz respectfully. The second microenvironmental factor Tesla Motors faces is in regards to competition. With nearly every major automobile manufacturer gearing up plans to roll out with their very own electric car Tesla now has to compete with the likes of General Motors, Ford, and Nissan. However these companies will be indirectly competing with Tesla for market share within the niche. Companies that will be directly competing with Tesla are Mercedes and BMW in the market for high-performance luxury electric vehicles (Bullis, 2012). Competition has been expanded into a much broader scope for Tesla Motors since the company was founded back in 2003. Along with other smaller automobile manufacturers that Tesla must compete with, Tesla has to also compete with companies that provide other energy efficient alternatives such as hybrids, hydrogen powered, flex fuels, and compressed natural gas. The third microenvironmental factor Tesla Motor must account for is its suppliers. It is imperative for companies to have a positive relationship with suppliers in order for the procurement process to be run efficiently and effectively especially when there is more than one supplier needed to fulfill the completion of the overall product. Procurement is a series of steps that a company takes to obtain or acquire necessary materials (Magal Word, 2009). It is vital that Tesla stays in complete control of its product lifecycle process as the company deals with many suppliers from different countries all over the world. Besides the company’s powertrain which is built at Tesla’s at headquarters in California, car parts for design such as body panels are produced in France, as well as battery cells shipped from Japan (Musk, 2012). Tesla can use strategies such as locking in lower prices for different supplies to ensure savings overtime if prices were to be raised. The fourth and final microenvironmental factor that must be taken into consideration on behalf of Tesla Motors are the regulators. Tesla has to be aware and make proper adjustments to its business plans once government regulation occurs. In January of 2012, California, adopted the strongest new clean-air regulation in the United States. California will mandate that one out of seven cars sold in 2025 are plug-ins or full electrics (Woodyard, 2012).

uniforms in school :: essays research papers

Most teenagers, when asked about wearing uniforms say they hate the idea. I am a teenager myself and before researching this topic I thought I would never wear them. I have found in my research numerous reasons uniforms should be implimented. First, they protect us. You may be asking how an article of clothing can protect you. It is much more difficult to conceal a weapon in a uniform that it is to conceal it in a traditional baggy pair of jeans. Second, uniforms eliminate competition. Students need to learn that school is not a fashion show. I know it's fun to go shopping for the latest trends and fads but school is a learning environment thus we should be there to learn, not check out who is wearing what. Next, uniforms are much less expensive than traditional clothing worn by teens. Some schools provide programs where kids can recieve the uniforms at little or no cost. In addition, it prepares students for the workplace by requiring them to dress in attire suitable for work. You may have heard you are what you wear. If you are dressed conservatively you are much more likely to act conservatively. If all students wore uniforms, intruders to the school could be easily recognized. This could prevent unauthorized visits as well as incidents that could be more severe. The biggest argument from opponents of uniforms is that they eliminate individuality. That is a bunch of crap. How is it that a person can be an individual when all kids dress alike? Okay so there are a few who get a little crazy with the multicolored hair or ripped jeans, to those people, I give props. I know they take a lot of shit from other kids. But, there are other ways to express yourself.

Advantages of Activity Based Costing

In modern business environment, the use of traditional costing system is no longer relevance to the company to achieve competitive advantage. Nowadays, Activity Based Costing is considered as one of the effective tools to enhance the ability of the organisation to meet global competition. This had resulted in the change from traditional costing system to an increasingly popular costing system such Activity-Based Costing (ABC). ABC system has emerged as an alternative to traditional costing system to meet the need for accurate cost information about the products, services, customer and processes. ABC performs the arithmetic to provide accurate cost information while Activity Based Management (ABM) is focused on using this information obtained from ABC to manage activities in order to improving business (Gunasekaran et al. , 2000). Generally ABC systems enable indirect and support expenses onto each activity. Following by identify the cost drivers to measure the activity used by cost objects and allocate them to cost driver. In order word, ABC helps the manager to understand about the cost and expense in each production by giving managers a clearer picture of the economics of their operations to managerial decision making at a strategic level (Kaplan and Copper, 1998). Apart from that, in twenty-first century market which is global consumer markets and rapidly changing product technologies have forced global manufacturers to make dramatic changes in their products, markets as well as production strategies. In order to stay in the global market, organisations are advice to adopt ABC not only produces products at faster rates, but they produce with greater consistency and conformity to quality specifications. Also, ABC system allows the manufacturers to reduce the time between customer order and product delivery which can gives the manufacturer a competitive advantage in improving customer service (Gunasekaran et al. , 1999). Therefore, it is necessary for organisation to adopt ABC system which can assist managers in identifying the value-added activities which they could further improve to meet customer’s demands and enhancing the product quality and process simplification and efficiency (Marx, 2009). For example, MelCo is the company that implements ABC and gets the benefits from it. MelCo is the only manufacturer of engineering components in Melbourne. Its previous costing system was a conventional costing system where overheads were allocated to products based on labour hour utilised (Sohal and Chung, 1998). However, management found that implement ABC system in the organisation is seem to be useful because it can assist high level of flexibility and responsiveness that demanded by the marketplace. Besides, ABC system can generate true costing and pricing which automatically give performance measures and product profitability as well as provide a variety of information for management in strategic decision making. Even though it incur high cost, MelCo think that it is worthiness because it provides a tool for management for commercial decision making although it just implement for 12 months (Sohal and Chung, 1998). Due to the changes of business environment, the company requires to manufacture very wide product range for a large customer base with high quality and innovative products in order to fulfil the demand of the consumer. By implementing ABC in organisation, ABM guides efforts to adapt business strategies to meet competitive pressures as well as to improve business operations. ABC information enables ABM to yield continuous improvement process. By continuous improvement, organisation can yield the maximum profitability as well as improved the customer’s satisfaction (Gunasekaran et al. 2000). Nowadays, customers want products and services that fit their specific needs; they want quality service at affordable price to be right now. However, since traditional costing system is volume-based, inaccurate information will be generated which lead to company make wrong decision (Gunasekaran et al. , 1999). Apart from that, stable product and mass production are no longer valid for today manufacturing system. Thus, manufacturing companies have reduced the implication of traditional cost accounting system by implementing ABC systems. In contrast to standard costing, ABC can identify value-added and non-value-added activities. To clarify this, all activities should be compared with similar activities in another company or within the organisation in order to perform the best. Hence, benchmarking should be encourages to be carried out for both value-added and non-value added activities because it is a best practice which is mostly used in real-life situation (Gunasekaran et al. , 1999). For example, 100% on time delivery of customer orders is an essential activity. Apart from that, non-value-added activities such as inspection and material handling can be reduced by using different quality assurance methods and techniques such as total quality management and just in time. With ABC, the company has a better access to decision which related to TQM and JIT (Gunasekaran et al. , 1999). To achieve cost reduction in a strategic way, activity-based costing presents to be more accurate in determining costly activities in order to help companies to better manage those activities. Unlike the information available under traditional management accounting, ABC systems are capture the significant information among customer orders and provide strategic decision making with the indication of the changes in the customer’s specifications (Lere, 2000). By implementing ABC system, it also can reduce non-value activities as well as cost of their products to compete in today competitive market. Non-value added activities can be eliminated with the implementation of strategies such as total quality management, just in time and business process re-engineering. Managers should pay more attention to those activities which will incur high cost but does not add any value to the product. Besides, managers prepared with the ABC systems were able to reduce overall costs, identify the opportunities for continuous improvement of the products. Nowadays, technology plays a dominant role of integrating various functional areas. Although the automation in advanced manufacturing environment has reduced the labour component, at the same time overheads have increased (Gunasekaran et al. , 1999). Therefore, in manufacturing environment, it is necessary for organisation to minimize non-value adding activities to reduce the cost of their products to compete in the market. By implementing ABC system in organisation, it will help to reduce direct labour component, increase in overheads as well as productivity of knowledge workers. Apart from that, ABC also helps organisation in better communications and team working environment as well as reduce time required to perform an activities due to knowledge workers and re-engineering the suggestions by employees to reduce the non-value activities (Gunasekaran et al. 1999). In contrast, the traditional costing systems do not provide non-financial information such as defect rates, level of quality about the organisation. However, implementation of activity based costing is not an easy task as there are several difficulties in implementing ABC system. One of the first fundamentals for the success of an ABC implementation is top management support for the project (Zhang and Che, 2010). The failure of ABC projects can generally be attributed to lack of visible and active management. If the organisation’s senior managers do not show the commitment and act passive in the program, it will negatively reduce the motivation of the employees. Apart from that, the productivity of the employees will also affect as well. Therefore, top management should be give full support with clear understanding of goals and objectives of the whole organisation to the employees. Besides, they should meet regularly in order to advise the management on the strategic and technology business problems (Gunasekaran et al. , 1999). Commitment of employees is one of the important factors in implementing ABC system. For the successful implementation in ABC, the employees must have a clear understanding of its capabilities, goals and objectives (Zhang and Che, 2010). As a result, education and training are necessary for the employees to make sure that they understand the objective of ABC system. When the employees are well trained and educated, they can easily reduce the time and effort required to perform an activity, on-time delivery as well as reduce the cycle time of the product. Also, employees should be provide with internal and external company training facilities to ensure them gain latest knowledge and trend in order to maintain company’s standard in today global market (Zhang and Che, 2010). For example, MelCo is a company that implementing ABC system and it found that the problems during implementation was lack of available skills in-house which means that they do not have considerable amount of education and training. Therefore, MelCo are recommended that training of employees should be taking into consideration (Sohal and Chung, 1998). As a conclusion, the changes of global business environment had changes the way of the company doing the business and shift traditional management accounting to strategic management accounting for cost management in organisations. However, it does not means that traditional management accounting is usefulness and not applicable in today business environment. Relevance of traditional cost accounting is very subjective in each view of the organisation. It may be suitable for some companies treated standard costing and variance analysis as a tool that enhances planning and control and improves performance evaluation rather than abolished it. To compete in today business environment, strategic management accounting is the most suitable accounting system for the organisation as ABC method can provides more accurate and better cost information which can helps manager to understand and make strategic decision making. Furthermore, ABC system can eliminate the non-value added activities which added value to the product cost, by doing so, organisation can reduce those unnecessary costs. Thus, ABC system is most appropriate management accounting costing in today business environment. However, there are several problems and difficulties in implementing ABC system, company should take into consideration when implementing ABC in order to maximize the fully benefits for ABC systems.

Maya Angelou 20th-Century Poet - Free Essay Example

Sample details Pages: 4 Words: 1184 Downloads: 8 Date added: 2019/10/30 Category People Essay Level High school Tags: Maya Angelou Essay Did you like this example? Famous poet Robert Frost once said, â€Å"Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words.† In other words, poetry can describe an emotion that the speaker is feeling. This quote directly relates to the 20th-century poet, Maya Angelou, and her work. Maya Angelou has gone through many major events throughout her life such as the Great Depression, World War II, and the Cold War. Don’t waste time! Our writers will create an original "Maya Angelou: 20th-Century Poet" essay for you Create order The most ]important event that she lived through is where African Americans faced racial segregation and were treated unequally because of the color of their skin. The poem, Caged Bird, written by her is also about the racism African Americans faced during that time period. The racism and discrimination Angelou experienced during the time of segregation had a great impact on her poetry.   Marguerite Annie Johnson or Maya Angelou was born on April 4, 1928, in St. Louis, Missouri. Angelou has had a rough childhood such as her parents had a divorce when she was very young and she and her older brother, Bailey, had no choice and were sent to their Grandmother’s house. Once she returned home to her mother at the age of seven, Angelou was raped by her mothers boyfriend. Then, as punishment towards this experience, one of Angelous uncles had killed him. Since she was so mortified by this experience, she stopped talking and spent years noticed as a virtual mute. A quote that explains this experience is, â€Å"A second image from Angelou’s childhood involves the seven year old’s rape by her mother’s boyfriend. When no legal punishment followed, the rapist was murdered, possibly by the victim’s uncles. Guilt following this incident drove Angelou inward, and she began reading the great works of literature.† (Taylor). At the age of sixteen, she has gotten married and had a son named Guy. In order to earn a living for the family, she had many jobs such as being a waitress, singer, and a dancer. She has received many nominations for being a given actress such as a Tony Award and Emmy Award nomination along with others. She enjoyed dancing, but her knees caused her great deal of pain so she devoted time to writing. Some of Angelous best-known poetry and books are Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water Fore I Die (1971), On the Pulse of Morning, All Gods Children Need Traveling Shoes (1986), Wouldnt Take Nothing for My Journey Now (1994) and A Song Flung Up to Heaven (2002). She was mostly inspired by Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X to pursue her passion for writing. Angelou then died on May 28, 2014, in Winston- Salem, North Carolina but, her death had a positive impact on society and she is now a role model for the world today.   Angelou lived during the 20th century during a time of racial segregation in America towards African Americans. In America, African Americans represented a various set of backgrounds and political standpoints. They have also taken up approximately 25% of the population, making them the most powerful minority in the country. By the early 20th century, blacks faced a ton of segregation in America. The civil rights movement began in 1954 in the south of the United States and ended around 1968. They fought for racial equality and freedom for not just African Americans but for all people. The movement also consists of African American leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr., James Farmer, and James Baldwin. Rosa Parks was one of the biggest inspirations of the civil rights movement when she refused to give her seat away to a white man on a public bus which led to her arrest. This also led to the Montgomery Bus Boycott which was also protest against segregation. Brown v. Board of Education allowed blacks to integrate into all white schools. This movement had gained success such as achieving the Civil Rights Act (1964) and the Voting Rights Act (1965), which pleaded to make certain that blacks could get their right to vote. As stated here, â€Å"The movement enjoyed brief victories with the passage of the Civil Rights Act (1964) and Voting Rights Act (1965), which promised federal assistance to ensure that blacks could exercise their right to vote nearly 100 years after the pa ssage of the Fifteenth Amendment† (Newman). Their battle through slavery and the civil rights movement gained them a passage of federal laws supervising equal rights for all Americans. This brief event had a major impact on Angelou’s writing because she was struggling with being a segregated African American during this time. The poem, Caged Bird by Maya Angelou is contrasting the conditions and emotions of being a free bird and a caged bird. Throughout the poem, Angelou addressed her feelings to American citizens of being a segregated and discriminated African American woman during the 20th century. This African American speaks of the fear of being a caged bird but also mentions the hope the bird still has of freedom by opening his throat to sing. This leads to the overall tone of the poem which is sympathetic but, hopeful. Angelou’s message of this work is during the difficult times, it is important to remain optimistic.   In Caged Bird, Maya Angelou uses auditory imagery and repetition to show how when life gets tough, it is important to remain hopeful. Auditory imagery is being shown when Angelou states, â€Å"The caged bird sings†(15). The caged bird is singing to be heard and is still remaining optimistic even though it is being treated unfairly. This supports the extensional message of the poem because instead of the bird accepting oppression and remaining hopeless while it is being denied rights, it sings for hope and freedom. Repetition is being shown when she repeats, â€Å"so he opens his throat to sing†(30). It is seen in this element that even though the bird is caged, it is still proud and sings for independence which is also referencing African American preaching for free rights during a time of segregation. This quote supports the subject matter because Angelou is emphasizing how the caged bird still remains happy even tho it is caged with no rights.   The segregation and discrimination Angelou encountered during a period of racism had influenced her poetry. Some events that have influenced her poetry was at a young age, her parents had divorced and had no choice but to live with her grandmother. Eventually, she was raped at the age of seven by her mother’s boyfriend and a couple days later the culprit was killed by her uncle which caused her to be noticed as a virtual mute. She also faced segregation and racism due to being an African American. As Angelou grew older many good changes have occurred in the world today such as there is less discrimination towards African Americans and other racial groups today. America has even gotten there first African American president and his name is Barack Obama. In conclusion, Maya Angelou learned throughout her struggle of racial segregation that you have to fight for freedom in order to make an impact on the world.