Elevator Pitch Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Elevator Pitch - Essay Example itch is a communication tool presenting â€Å"an overview of a product, service, project, person, or other thing and is designed to get a conversation started† (O’Leary, par. 2). Chris O’Leary proffered the most important characteristics of an elevator pitch using Nine C’s, to wit: â€Å"(1) Concise, (2) Clear, (3) Compelling, (4) Credible, (5) Conceptual, (6) Concrete; (7) Customized, (8) Consistent, and (9) Conversational† (O’Leary, par. 6). As indicated, the purpose of an elevator pitch is to relay crucial information to the person one is talking to in a most effective manner using the limited time, typically spent in an elevator ride. In an article written by Pagliarini (2009), an elevator pitch must be designed to answer six particular questions: â€Å"(1) what is your product or service? (2) Who is your market? (3) How do you expect to make money? (4) Who is behind the company? (5) Who is your competition? And (6) What is your competitive advantage?† (Pagliarini, 2009, pars. 4 – 9). Further, Pagliarini averred that the elevator pitch must contain characteristics that catches the attention of the person one is talking to; should be very concise to comprise approximately 150 to 225 works; delivered with genuine passion and enthusiasm; and aiming to obtain a request in terms of networking through referrals (Pagliarini, 2009). In contemporary business and in an increasingly competitive environment, majority of professionals are always in such a hurry to go to one destination and transfer to another. As a consequence, communication tools, specifically designed to relay crucial information on business endeavors must be designed in a compact but holistic

Multinational running and risks management of Domino Print Plc 01272 Essay

Multinational running and risks management of Domino Print Plc 01272 - Essay Example Domino Printing owns seven distinct business units or subsidiaries which are, Graph-Tech, Citronix, Domino UK, PostJet Systems, Mectec Elektronik, Wiedenbach Apparatebau and Purex International (Marketline, 2014). The commercial printing industry has recorded a valuation of $383.2 billion, which is a 2.1% growth in the year 2011. The market has been forecasted to perform well in the coming five years (Marketline, 2014a). As of the fiscal year 2013, the company has earned revenue of $524.2 million, which is a 7.6% increase over the previous year. The operating profit of 2013 is $27.1 million which is a 66% decrease from 2012 (Morningstar, 2015). This paper is focused on the financial structure and activities of Domino Printing Sciences plc, along with the involved political and exchange rate risk in overseas transaction. The above table indicates that the revenue of Domino Printing has increased steadily over the past five years. This suggests that the company has successfully been able to make increased cash generation in the recent years. The gross profit has also increased over the years in a steady manner. The consistent increase of revenue and gross profit suggests that the company has been performing well over the years. However, according to the graph it can be stated that the company’s net income decreased severely in the year 2013 as it took a deep plunge from  £41 million in 2011 to  £6 million in 2012. It has managed to increase the net income in the next year to  £45 million. Thus it can be stated that Domino Printing Sciences has been successfully restores its loss making and rejuvenated its profitability. Domino Printing was established in 1978 and got listed in the LSE (London Stock Exchange) in 1985. Ever since the inception of the company it has expanded exponentially by making several corporate and financial activities. Domino printing sciences has bought 5,331,451 shares of Montaro,

Management Systems in a Call Centre

Management Systems in a Call Centre ABSTRACT: Call centers are most common mean by which the Organizations can reach out to their customers and this explains their rapid growth. Many projects have been focused on call centers in order to explain their management and performance from different perspective. In this project, I have attempted to identify the two main perspectives and to explore the effective use of performance management systems found in a call centre to improve the performance of a call agents. This project was conducted in a sit-up ltd based in west Acton London, while I was working as a contact centre 1st line manager and as a customer services Team leader,. The project involved semi-structured interviews with thirty call agents and three IT employees. The analysis of the data was based on the management techniques and performance of a call centre agents on daily basis . Information systems present were standard and up to date which could also be found in any call centre and the working condition is a common issu e found in most literature. Hence the highlight of this project is on the fact that there is still the need for human interaction with information systems. We have focused on that issue that The people aspect of the call centre is been ignored, hence organizations are producing burnt out employees which in long terms could have a diverse effect on the organization despite the implementation of up to date and functional information systems. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT Firstly, I want to express my profound gratitude to the one and only Almighty God Who in His infinite mercies blessed me with this opportunity of undergoing learning at work partnership programme , M.A Computer and Business studies. Thank you all for your guidance throughout the academic year. Words are not enough to express my feelings . I want to specially thank and dedicate this project to my parents.. I want to thank Dr. Howard cowte, who taught me to believe in myself and in my work because he never let me off with a poor argument. Thank you again. Finally, I want to thank all my friends for their words of encouragement, support and friendship. Specially when I was going through hard times with my health. The CALL CENTRES. INTRODUCTION: dynaTrace is the innovator and emerging leader in application performance management (APM). The company offers the only continuous APM system on the market one that can monitor all transactions at all times and one that is used by all key contributors to application performance architects, development, test and production. Industry leaders such as UBS, Salesforce.com, Renault, EnerNOC, Fidelity, and Thomson Reuters use dynaTraces patent pending technology to gain deep visibility into application performance, identify problems sooner and reduce the mean time to repair issues by 90%. Leading companies rely on dynaTrace to proactively prevent performance problems from happening and quickly resolve those that do occur saving time, money and resources. Call centers are part of out daily life today as ATMs, self-service supermarkets and internet shopping (ebay). All of which are new age service delivery systems that the customer at large has had to accept and live with (Mahesh and Kasturi, 2006). Call centres are being used by many organizations in a wider contexts, hence the variations in their operations range from strategic purpose to the nature of technology used and finally to management style and priorities (Taylor and Bain, 2001). According to Calvert (2001), he observed that based on the several researches done on call centres, about 95% of call centres are reported to supply information to customers and about 74% process complaints. Hence it can be concluded that the 3 main drivers for call centres indentified are Improve customer services to retain their clients base. Gain new customers and after sales service. Reduce cost as compare to face to face clients and also to improve efficiency. A call centre in general, is regarded as an interface between customers and an organizations system (Information Systems and performance systems), in order to complete a well specified transaction such as generate sales; provide solutions to existing clients or advice on quite complex and technical issues like broadband support for their internet clients . Over the years, the advancement of IT, product and process knowledge as well as customer information are set into the system which has helped to reduce cost of training. This has therefore ensured core-service modules to be standardized; customized and at the same time has enabled the front line staff or call agents to concentrate on the customer and their interaction (Frenkel et al, 1998). Therefore, the purpose of this project is to explore the work environment of the call agent with respect to performance management systems, customer services and information systems. Highlighting the challenges they are constantly faced with, wh en executing their duties. Project was done while observing the performance and management in many departments of sit-up ltd, RESEARCH FOCUS This project was focused to explore the effective use of performance management systems in a call centre of sit-up ltd. The main questions this project seeks to investigate are daily tasks and targets: What are the working conditions in todays call centres and the call agents are subjected to? How do performance management systems affect the call centre working environment from the call agents? perspective? How does the work environment affect the agent emotionally? THE AIMS AND OBJECTIVES. The main aims and objectives for this project include: Identify the state-of-the-art performance management system in the call centre used in the organisation under study. This would enable us to understand the level of advancement of information systems in the organisation. Investigate the use of performance management systems in a call centre. Explore and determine the extent to how performance management system affects the working conditions of the call agent both in terms of the peroformance and improvements . In highlighting the issues and challenges the call agents encounter, it would provide an insight of the job description of a call agent from the call agents? perspective. This project also intends to bring more awareness to management regarding the issues and challenges the call agents are constantly faced with. A good knowledge of this would enable them effectively identify and address any form of resistance that may arise from the call agents. This could be done by offering adequate training and support in the use of the performance management systems. As well as improving communication with the call agents which could affect the work environment, making it more conducive. This in turn enhances better performance from the call agents and also for the management to reduce cost in hiring new agents on the floor and continuous monitoring from management and HR point of view. RESEARCH APPROACH. This project was based on learning at work method where many employees were observed and different management techniques were applied in order to improve their daily performance. This approach was found appropriate because it is concerned with understanding performance management systems from the social context, the social processes by which it was developed and construed by people and finally how it influences and is influenced by its social settings. Many employees were interviewed while generating data and statistics as call centres always have high level of absences and sicknesses. This was an easy approach to obtain information from number of employees and departments. Answers to complex questions and sensitive information which the respondents might be reluctant to give. Project Summary. This project is structured into many chapters in order to spread the information in easy and understandable way as outlined below: Call Centre This chapter is an introduction of the project highlighting the research area with a presentation of the aims and objectives of the research. Literature Review This chapter is a critical review of existing literature on call centre. It also discusses different theories and perspectives relating to the call centre. It also discusses the use of performance management systems within the context of this project. Theory and Research Methodology This chapter discusses the theory chosen for the analysis of the case, research approach and the rationale behind the methods chosen for this research. It also highlighted the research design. Project findings This chapter presents the case study, the findings from the semi-structured interviews conducted in the organization using the chosen theory as the conceptual lens for the discussion. Conclusion This chapter is an evaluation of the research findings with a reflection on its implications for practice. It also suggests some recommendations for future research. SUMMARY. This chapter has provided an introduction of call centre, identifying the focus area. It also stated the aims and objectives of this project as well as the research approach. It also presented a brief outline of the structure of the project. LITERATURE REVIEW. INTRODUCTION This chapter presents a critical review of existing literature on call centres. It discusses different theories and perspectives found in literature. This chapter also discusses the different uses of management techniques in a call centre in terms of management and the call agents. CALL CENTRES Call centre operations have become a norm in all sectors of the economy such as retailing, telecommunication, the entertainment industry (Taylor et al, 2002). They are a rapidly growing channel for service and sales delivery particularly in the financial service and telecommunication industry. These centres enable retail customers to transact business by telephone either using programmed information technology such as automatic voice response systems or through employees manipulating software to assist in answering queries resolving problems or selling products (Frenkel et al, 1998). Hence, growing number of organizations use call centres as a means of communicating with their customers directly (De Ruyter and Wetzels, 2000); managing customer complaints and maintaining customer loyalty (Pontes and O?Brien, 2000). However, despite the rapid emergence of technological innovations that have been developed to change and enhance the business processes in organisations, the call centre is still basically defined by the integration of the telephone and computer technologies (Taylor and Bain, 1999). In more details, the definition of a call centre is a dedicated operation in which computer utilizing employees receive inbound or make outbound telephone calls. These calls made or received are controlled by an Automatic Call Distribution (ACD) or a predictive dialling system. In other words, a call centre is therefore characterized by the integration of the telephone and Voice Response Units (VDU) technologies using recorded messages; Inter-active Voice Recognition (IVR) which enables customers interact with the information systems via telephone keys and speech recognition systems which enables a two-way communication between the computer and the customer using synthetic speech messages (Schalk and Van Rijckevorsel, 2007). A key feature of the call centre labour process is the integration of the telephone and the VDU technologies. Central to inbound operations is the ACD system which receives the incoming calls and automatically channels them to the available agents according to programmed instructions hence removing the need for the switchboard operators. In the case where there is no available agent to receive the call, the calls are stacked and distributed in sequence as the agents become available. Although the system can only stack a certain number of calls after which it automatically drops the calls. The agents take the calls automatically through the headset and their main assignment is to resolve the basic problems of a customer. On the other hand, for the outbound operations, it is largely based on telesales or telemarketing. The predictive dialling system works its way through the databases of their customer phone numbers and as programmed automatically dials the number of the customer as selected by the agent. At this point all the information of the customer is retrieved and displayed on the screen so as enable the agent have well info rmed communication. Their main job function is selling and advertising a particular product or service (Fernie and Metcalf, 1997). The common and defining call centre labour process is the ability for the operators to scan and interpret information on the VDU screens, manipulate their keyboards, retrieve data and at the same time communicate with the customer. Therefore, it is the integration of the telephone and computer technologies which both structures the labour process. This process also generates extreme levels of surveillance, monitoring and speed up which are manifest in a call centre. Recent technological developments are sought to minimize the wasteful manual operations and maximize the real time agents spend with customers hence this both speeds up and intensifies the work as the time gaps between calls are progressively reduced (Schalk and Van Rijckevorsel, 2007). In the author?s opinion, despite all these advancements in technologies, there is still the aspect of the h uman interaction. Employees? performance data as an instance which is either electronically displayed or in hard prints still requires human interpretation. Managers and team leaders based on the results can then take appropriate actions such as discipline or coach an underperforming agent. Hence it can be said that a call centre is a combination of technology driven measurements and human supervisors to interpret these results. CALL CENTRES AND THEORIES. In literature, there are two main theories seen to be dominant in the discussion of call centres: Foucauldian electronic panopticon which has been based on the labour process theory (Fernie and Metcalf, 1997). This is based on the preoccupation of an individual?s subjectivity which has masked the importance of a collective, trade unions organization which is a more developed form of resistance. This attempts to provide insight into the complexity of work organization and the way it is experienced by the call agents. Emotional labour which is based on the emotional labour theory (Hochschild, 1983). This requires an individual to induce or suppress their feelings in order to sustain the outward countenance that produces the proper state of mind in others. This provides insight and better understanding of how call agents in most cases have to define their outer expression so as to smile down the phone. These two theories further are explained in the chapter three. PERSPECIVES OF CALL CENTRES Literature has generally presented two distinct perspectives of call centres. First of all, there is the perspective presented by publicists who have portrayed exciting images of a call centre. It portrays a high level of co-operative teamwork among the employees, the call agents? work under very relaxed conditions and very professional in their interactions with their customers. The agents are said to smile down the phone after conversing with each customer (Taylor and Bain, 1999). However, there is the other perspective presented by Fernie and Metcalf (1998) that portrays the call centre based on the Bentham?s panopticon. It emphasizes the constraining nature of work setting described as the electronic sweatshop or panoptical wired cage (Frenkel, 1998). Based on this view, employees are connected to information technology that automatically allocates work, facilitates its completion and monitors employee performance. In other words, work is conducted in relative isolation from other colleagues but under the constant gaze of management who are responsible for structuring and interpreting the electronic information. Work can therefore be regarded as deskilled and monotonous. They claim that the constant surveillance of the supervisors on the agents has enabled them have total control over the agents which eliminates any form of resistance from the call agents. Hence call centres have been referred to as dark satanic mills or new sweatshops. However, it is worth noting that their perspective was not based from a range of studies carried out on call centres but rather it was primarily based on payment systems of which they studied a call centre. CALL CENTRES AND INFORMATION SYSTEMS One main indication of call centres is in most cases defined in terms of the Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) they make use of rather than by any specific outputs they create (Frenkel et al, 1998; Taylor and Bain, 1999). Systems such as the Automatic Call Distribution (ACD) that places inbound calls in a queue and allocates them to the agents, speech recognition systems as well as screen capture are example of systems found in a call centre. But information systems has also increased the control and surveillance of calls (which could either be inbound or outbound), the agent that?s handles the call and virtually every activity they perform on real time basis (Robinson and Clive, 2006). Hence it is argued that technology found in call centres constitutes a version of technical control. According to Callaghan and Thompson (2001), technology tends to control speed through ensuring that call agents are aware of queue numbers and average waiting times. In such instances, managerial control is seen to be evident through the use of such technologies and could at the same time produce employee resistance. However, ICT has the potential to create skilled and enabled workforce (Fernie et al, 1998, and Kinnie et al, 2000). In such a situation, the improved employee independence may be resulted through the creation of alternative socio-technical systems within the call centre. This could be exhibited with self-managed work teams who have the tendency to produce more customized outputs when the dynamics of empowerment displaces the reality of control (Batt and Moynihan, 2004). This can be regarded as another concept of the call centre which is referred to as the semi-professional empowered worker (Winslow and Bramer, 1994). In this setting work is increasingly customized to the needs of the customer. The agent uses IT to seamlessly identify and render service to the customer and appropriate software assists in on-the-job learning thereby improving the agent ?s knowledge and skills. Based on the labour process, systems implemented in the call centre are based on the expected result. According to Edward (1979) cited in Russell (2007), who first classified ICT as technological control, in agreement to this Callaghan and Thompson (2001), also argue the fact that management deliberately choose a technology that is designed in such a way as to limit the worker?s independence, hence are almost seen as part of the machine (technology) which continuously directs calls at them. This was represented in the expression of Taylor and Bain (1999) stating „the assembly line in the head?, where technology supports the formulation of specific targets of which workers are held accountable for (Taylor and Bain, 2001). Another aspect of technologies in a call centre is the organizational culture or behaviour. This is an attempt in understanding how new technologies affect the (re)organization of work. Barleys (1990), emphasized the need for researche rs to focus more on how new technologies are incorporated into the everyday working lives of the organizational members. His argument was that a particular system could have different effects in various departments or jobs. This draws attention to the organizational theory which is based on the behaviour of users when a new technology is implemented focusing on how they establish patterns to either conform or deviate from the intentions of the designers (Russell, 2007). This aspect is outside the scope of this dissertation. Technology can therefore be regarded as a solution that bridges the sales and marketing functions to improve targeting efforts. In other cases, it can be viewed as a tool that is specifically for a one-to one customer interaction which is regarded as the sole responsibility of the sales/service; call centres or marketing departments (Peppers, 2000). But on the overall, it should neither be regarded as just a mere technology nor application but rather a cross-func tional , customer-driven, technology-integration business process management strategy that aims at increasing and maximising relationships which also encompasses the entire organisation. This is often referred to as Customer Relation Management (CRM) (Goldenberg, 2000). Literature has shown that CRM is based on the interaction of: People: this refers to the people working with the system and are regarded as the building block for customer relationship, Business process: this defines the overall business goal of the organisation Technology: this is an enabler for achieving remarkable improvement in the performance of the organisation (Chen and Popovich, 2003). These interactions are represented in the diagram below Diagram 2.1 The CRM Model (Chen and Popovich, 2003). CALL CENTRE AND MANAGEMENT In general, academic literatures on call centre have focused on employment, relationship and the labour process. A significant number of these literatures have focused largely on managerial perspective in terms of operations and performance. Call centres are people intensive operations and the management of the frontline employees otherwise referred to as the call agents has been identified as one of the biggest challenges for call centre managers (Houlihan, 2002). Call centres potentially contribute to customer satisfaction and retention but most organizations still fail to exploit full strategic value out of their call centre operations (Mahesh and kasturi, 2006). Traditionally service management models recommend that Organisations focus on three areas which include: Defining a service strategy Ensuring the service delivery systems are user friendly Managing for customer- oriented people especially on the frontline (Gilson and khandelwal, 2005). These models further argue that it is important for the components strategy, operations and people are all compatible but most literature show an indication of incompatibility. CHALLENGES OF MANAGERS/SUPERVISORS IN A CALL CENTRE Managers are faced with a number of challenges of which the most common and prevalent ones include: The conflict of quality versus quantity: In call centres, this conflict is at the core of many other related problems (Frenkel et al, 1998; Callaghan and Thompson 2002 dean, 2002). Measurement of both quantity and quality in most cases is based on performance. Research has shown that although management values quality, they tend to focus more on measurement and statistics which is as a result of the large amount of information provided to them. Information provided to them such as the number of calls per agent; the percentage of calls answered within a specified time frame; the average speed calls are answered, hence the shift of attention to quantity (Robinson and Clive, 2006). This has attributed to the high reliance on information systems to govern the pace of work in the call centre, provide the means to access the work of the call agents as well as monitor them. Information system can therefore be said to have shaped the social and organizational structure of the call centre (C alloghan and Thompson, 2001). But the negative consequence of this especially on the call agents include exhaustion, stress which should be of great concern to management. Organizations stress the need for customer satisfaction and have an overall strategic intent to acquire and retain their customers through high quality interfaces or interaction. But it has been observed that the aspect of quality in some case is given low priority than the efficiency of processing customer interactions (number of calls) at call centres (Mahesh and kasturi, 2006). Mahesh (1995) commented on the tendency of most organizations to move from high labour intensity and customization position of professional services to standardization and low labour intensity service. The origin of such problems could be traced back to the genesis of call centres and the reason for their rapid growth which is to reduce cost and increase efficiencies. The conflict of Control versus Empowerment: this is another common conflict observed in the call centre. According to Houlihan (2002), the orthodox design of the call centre is rooted in a control paradigm. Early literature on call centres abound with keywords such as blue-collar work; taylorism; battery farming; mental assembly line; worker resistance control and emotional labour (Fernie and Metcalf, 1997; knights and McCabe, 1998). Recent literature on the other hand has indicated the need for empowerment in service, but organisations specifically in the call centre still ignore this despite the fact that studies have indicated positive outcomes from increased empowerment. Empirical data also shows that call agents perceive themselves as less empowered than other workers in traditional office environment (Holdsworth and Cartwright, 2003). Thus the control paradigm of call centres seems to extend to the area of job design as well. Researchers also argue that the frontline agents pla y a critical role in service delivery in which their skills, knowledge motivation and loyalty are important factors to be managed by the organization (Sergeant and Frenkel, 2000). But the mass production model used at many call centres for operational efficiency assumes that jobs can be designed to be turn-over proof with workers as replaceable parts (Batt and Moynihan, 2002). Hence Wallace et al, 2000 labelled this as sacrificial HR strategy. Other common problems management is faced with in the call centre according to Taylor and Bain (1999) include: High rates of absence due to sickness High labour turnover Problem with motivating and keeping the employees committed to their jobs Lack of promotion opportunities especially in flat organisational structures. Loss of staff following investments in training. CALL AGENTS AND JOB STRUCTURE The general basic idea of a call centre operator or call agent is any worker with a telephone and a computer. This has led organisations in an attempt to differentiate their operations and services, come up with names such as Customer Service Centre or Customer Satisfaction. Various literatures have shown that agents usually work in large, open-plan offices seated in cubicles that are divided shoulder-high partitions. They are wired or connected to an integrated telephone and a computer system when they put on their headphones. In the researcher?s opinion, the job function of a call agent is basically to: Provide customers with detailed product and procedures involved Process customer transactions Attend to customer queries in an approachable, accurate and timely manner. Deliver standard service at all times to customer when interacting with them which is usually in accordance to specified service standards (scripts). In a call centre, the use of scripts either in the form of typewritten prompt or on screen template is an attempt to structure the speech of workers into a series of predictable and regulated routine queries and responses (Taylor and Bain, 1999). This could be regarded as another distinct feature of the call centre in terms of Communication between an agent and a customer. The call agents are expected to read and enter data into the computer system that is networked within the organization while interacting with the customer. This enables any other employee to easily access and retrieves the customer?s profile as well as their record history. Other expectations of call agents in relation to their work include: The call agent is expected to acquire and use lower-order and higher-order contextual knowledge in accomplishing their task (Deery et al, 2002). The lower-order contextual knowledge is knowledge about the company information; specific products; procedures; software practices an d people which may be in other departments on whom the call agents depend on for updated information as well as solution for more complex problems of the customer. While the higher- order is basically a deeper understanding of the lower, although this is not acquired during training but rather it is as a result of experience. Agents with such knowledge are seen to be more confident when dealing with the customers. But it should be noted that most of the knowledge required by the agents is embedded as information either as hard copy reference manuals or available online. The call agent is expected to display some skills when executing their duties. These skills include the computer skills which have to do with inputting data; word processing and navigating through several systems. The other skill is the social skill which is used mainly when relating to customers and other staff. A lot of attention is paid to the latter skill than the former because the social skill involves the abil ity to remain calm under pressure especially when faced with a continuous stream of customer calls; positive and tactful attitude when executing their duties as well as not getting personally engaged which protects them from customer abuse (Kinnie et al, 2000). In general, the call agent has to be systematic; creative and know who to depend on for more complex customer queries. Call centre jobs are highly specialized and simplified, thus there is a high level of division of labour which has its advantages. But there are also disadvantages such as low task variety (monotony of work), low task complexity, low utilization of educational qualification which are most times overlooked. Call agents are known to have no influence or control over their work in terms of the pace of their work (duration of calls, how many calls they receive) and also the planning and organisation of their work. These disadvantages are some of the factors that lead to depression among call agents and monotony o f their work is one of the most frequent reasons call agents quit their jobs (Deery et al, 2002). SUMMARY This chapter has defined discussed what a call centre is and highlighted the different perspectives of call centres found in literature. It identified the theories on which the analysis of this dissertation is based on, although it is further explained in the next chapter. It also discussed the call centre from different points of views such as technology which mentioned the fact that it still requires human interaction for any organisation to achieve its maximum potential, management who determine the work pace of the call centre. Although highlighting the challenges they are faced with, it also identified areas where they need to place more attention (i.e. control vs. empowerment). Lastly it discussed the general idea of call agents? job descriptions. This has served as a background to further explore in this research the working conditions of the call centre and determine the effect of information systems on their jobs. THEORY AND RESEARCH METHODOLOGY INTRODUCTION This chapter discusses the research approach adopted for this research based on the chosen theory. It also highlights the research methodolo Management Systems in a Call Centre Management Systems in a Call Centre ABSTRACT: Call centers are most common mean by which the Organizations can reach out to their customers and this explains their rapid growth. Many projects have been focused on call centers in order to explain their management and performance from different perspective. In this project, I have attempted to identify the two main perspectives and to explore the effective use of performance management systems found in a call centre to improve the performance of a call agents. This project was conducted in a sit-up ltd based in west Acton London, while I was working as a contact centre 1st line manager and as a customer services Team leader,. The project involved semi-structured interviews with thirty call agents and three IT employees. The analysis of the data was based on the management techniques and performance of a call centre agents on daily basis . Information systems present were standard and up to date which could also be found in any call centre and the working condition is a common issu e found in most literature. Hence the highlight of this project is on the fact that there is still the need for human interaction with information systems. We have focused on that issue that The people aspect of the call centre is been ignored, hence organizations are producing burnt out employees which in long terms could have a diverse effect on the organization despite the implementation of up to date and functional information systems. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT Firstly, I want to express my profound gratitude to the one and only Almighty God Who in His infinite mercies blessed me with this opportunity of undergoing learning at work partnership programme , M.A Computer and Business studies. Thank you all for your guidance throughout the academic year. Words are not enough to express my feelings . I want to specially thank and dedicate this project to my parents.. I want to thank Dr. Howard cowte, who taught me to believe in myself and in my work because he never let me off with a poor argument. Thank you again. Finally, I want to thank all my friends for their words of encouragement, support and friendship. Specially when I was going through hard times with my health. The CALL CENTRES. INTRODUCTION: dynaTrace is the innovator and emerging leader in application performance management (APM). The company offers the only continuous APM system on the market one that can monitor all transactions at all times and one that is used by all key contributors to application performance architects, development, test and production. Industry leaders such as UBS, Salesforce.com, Renault, EnerNOC, Fidelity, and Thomson Reuters use dynaTraces patent pending technology to gain deep visibility into application performance, identify problems sooner and reduce the mean time to repair issues by 90%. Leading companies rely on dynaTrace to proactively prevent performance problems from happening and quickly resolve those that do occur saving time, money and resources. Call centers are part of out daily life today as ATMs, self-service supermarkets and internet shopping (ebay). All of which are new age service delivery systems that the customer at large has had to accept and live with (Mahesh and Kasturi, 2006). Call centres are being used by many organizations in a wider contexts, hence the variations in their operations range from strategic purpose to the nature of technology used and finally to management style and priorities (Taylor and Bain, 2001). According to Calvert (2001), he observed that based on the several researches done on call centres, about 95% of call centres are reported to supply information to customers and about 74% process complaints. Hence it can be concluded that the 3 main drivers for call centres indentified are Improve customer services to retain their clients base. Gain new customers and after sales service. Reduce cost as compare to face to face clients and also to improve efficiency. A call centre in general, is regarded as an interface between customers and an organizations system (Information Systems and performance systems), in order to complete a well specified transaction such as generate sales; provide solutions to existing clients or advice on quite complex and technical issues like broadband support for their internet clients . Over the years, the advancement of IT, product and process knowledge as well as customer information are set into the system which has helped to reduce cost of training. This has therefore ensured core-service modules to be standardized; customized and at the same time has enabled the front line staff or call agents to concentrate on the customer and their interaction (Frenkel et al, 1998). Therefore, the purpose of this project is to explore the work environment of the call agent with respect to performance management systems, customer services and information systems. Highlighting the challenges they are constantly faced with, wh en executing their duties. Project was done while observing the performance and management in many departments of sit-up ltd, RESEARCH FOCUS This project was focused to explore the effective use of performance management systems in a call centre of sit-up ltd. The main questions this project seeks to investigate are daily tasks and targets: What are the working conditions in todays call centres and the call agents are subjected to? How do performance management systems affect the call centre working environment from the call agents? perspective? How does the work environment affect the agent emotionally? THE AIMS AND OBJECTIVES. The main aims and objectives for this project include: Identify the state-of-the-art performance management system in the call centre used in the organisation under study. This would enable us to understand the level of advancement of information systems in the organisation. Investigate the use of performance management systems in a call centre. Explore and determine the extent to how performance management system affects the working conditions of the call agent both in terms of the peroformance and improvements . In highlighting the issues and challenges the call agents encounter, it would provide an insight of the job description of a call agent from the call agents? perspective. This project also intends to bring more awareness to management regarding the issues and challenges the call agents are constantly faced with. A good knowledge of this would enable them effectively identify and address any form of resistance that may arise from the call agents. This could be done by offering adequate training and support in the use of the performance management systems. As well as improving communication with the call agents which could affect the work environment, making it more conducive. This in turn enhances better performance from the call agents and also for the management to reduce cost in hiring new agents on the floor and continuous monitoring from management and HR point of view. RESEARCH APPROACH. This project was based on learning at work method where many employees were observed and different management techniques were applied in order to improve their daily performance. This approach was found appropriate because it is concerned with understanding performance management systems from the social context, the social processes by which it was developed and construed by people and finally how it influences and is influenced by its social settings. Many employees were interviewed while generating data and statistics as call centres always have high level of absences and sicknesses. This was an easy approach to obtain information from number of employees and departments. Answers to complex questions and sensitive information which the respondents might be reluctant to give. Project Summary. This project is structured into many chapters in order to spread the information in easy and understandable way as outlined below: Call Centre This chapter is an introduction of the project highlighting the research area with a presentation of the aims and objectives of the research. Literature Review This chapter is a critical review of existing literature on call centre. It also discusses different theories and perspectives relating to the call centre. It also discusses the use of performance management systems within the context of this project. Theory and Research Methodology This chapter discusses the theory chosen for the analysis of the case, research approach and the rationale behind the methods chosen for this research. It also highlighted the research design. Project findings This chapter presents the case study, the findings from the semi-structured interviews conducted in the organization using the chosen theory as the conceptual lens for the discussion. Conclusion This chapter is an evaluation of the research findings with a reflection on its implications for practice. It also suggests some recommendations for future research. SUMMARY. This chapter has provided an introduction of call centre, identifying the focus area. It also stated the aims and objectives of this project as well as the research approach. It also presented a brief outline of the structure of the project. LITERATURE REVIEW. INTRODUCTION This chapter presents a critical review of existing literature on call centres. It discusses different theories and perspectives found in literature. This chapter also discusses the different uses of management techniques in a call centre in terms of management and the call agents. CALL CENTRES Call centre operations have become a norm in all sectors of the economy such as retailing, telecommunication, the entertainment industry (Taylor et al, 2002). They are a rapidly growing channel for service and sales delivery particularly in the financial service and telecommunication industry. These centres enable retail customers to transact business by telephone either using programmed information technology such as automatic voice response systems or through employees manipulating software to assist in answering queries resolving problems or selling products (Frenkel et al, 1998). Hence, growing number of organizations use call centres as a means of communicating with their customers directly (De Ruyter and Wetzels, 2000); managing customer complaints and maintaining customer loyalty (Pontes and O?Brien, 2000). However, despite the rapid emergence of technological innovations that have been developed to change and enhance the business processes in organisations, the call centre is still basically defined by the integration of the telephone and computer technologies (Taylor and Bain, 1999). In more details, the definition of a call centre is a dedicated operation in which computer utilizing employees receive inbound or make outbound telephone calls. These calls made or received are controlled by an Automatic Call Distribution (ACD) or a predictive dialling system. In other words, a call centre is therefore characterized by the integration of the telephone and Voice Response Units (VDU) technologies using recorded messages; Inter-active Voice Recognition (IVR) which enables customers interact with the information systems via telephone keys and speech recognition systems which enables a two-way communication between the computer and the customer using synthetic speech messages (Schalk and Van Rijckevorsel, 2007). A key feature of the call centre labour process is the integration of the telephone and the VDU technologies. Central to inbound operations is the ACD system which receives the incoming calls and automatically channels them to the available agents according to programmed instructions hence removing the need for the switchboard operators. In the case where there is no available agent to receive the call, the calls are stacked and distributed in sequence as the agents become available. Although the system can only stack a certain number of calls after which it automatically drops the calls. The agents take the calls automatically through the headset and their main assignment is to resolve the basic problems of a customer. On the other hand, for the outbound operations, it is largely based on telesales or telemarketing. The predictive dialling system works its way through the databases of their customer phone numbers and as programmed automatically dials the number of the customer as selected by the agent. At this point all the information of the customer is retrieved and displayed on the screen so as enable the agent have well info rmed communication. Their main job function is selling and advertising a particular product or service (Fernie and Metcalf, 1997). The common and defining call centre labour process is the ability for the operators to scan and interpret information on the VDU screens, manipulate their keyboards, retrieve data and at the same time communicate with the customer. Therefore, it is the integration of the telephone and computer technologies which both structures the labour process. This process also generates extreme levels of surveillance, monitoring and speed up which are manifest in a call centre. Recent technological developments are sought to minimize the wasteful manual operations and maximize the real time agents spend with customers hence this both speeds up and intensifies the work as the time gaps between calls are progressively reduced (Schalk and Van Rijckevorsel, 2007). In the author?s opinion, despite all these advancements in technologies, there is still the aspect of the h uman interaction. Employees? performance data as an instance which is either electronically displayed or in hard prints still requires human interpretation. Managers and team leaders based on the results can then take appropriate actions such as discipline or coach an underperforming agent. Hence it can be said that a call centre is a combination of technology driven measurements and human supervisors to interpret these results. CALL CENTRES AND THEORIES. In literature, there are two main theories seen to be dominant in the discussion of call centres: Foucauldian electronic panopticon which has been based on the labour process theory (Fernie and Metcalf, 1997). This is based on the preoccupation of an individual?s subjectivity which has masked the importance of a collective, trade unions organization which is a more developed form of resistance. This attempts to provide insight into the complexity of work organization and the way it is experienced by the call agents. Emotional labour which is based on the emotional labour theory (Hochschild, 1983). This requires an individual to induce or suppress their feelings in order to sustain the outward countenance that produces the proper state of mind in others. This provides insight and better understanding of how call agents in most cases have to define their outer expression so as to smile down the phone. These two theories further are explained in the chapter three. PERSPECIVES OF CALL CENTRES Literature has generally presented two distinct perspectives of call centres. First of all, there is the perspective presented by publicists who have portrayed exciting images of a call centre. It portrays a high level of co-operative teamwork among the employees, the call agents? work under very relaxed conditions and very professional in their interactions with their customers. The agents are said to smile down the phone after conversing with each customer (Taylor and Bain, 1999). However, there is the other perspective presented by Fernie and Metcalf (1998) that portrays the call centre based on the Bentham?s panopticon. It emphasizes the constraining nature of work setting described as the electronic sweatshop or panoptical wired cage (Frenkel, 1998). Based on this view, employees are connected to information technology that automatically allocates work, facilitates its completion and monitors employee performance. In other words, work is conducted in relative isolation from other colleagues but under the constant gaze of management who are responsible for structuring and interpreting the electronic information. Work can therefore be regarded as deskilled and monotonous. They claim that the constant surveillance of the supervisors on the agents has enabled them have total control over the agents which eliminates any form of resistance from the call agents. Hence call centres have been referred to as dark satanic mills or new sweatshops. However, it is worth noting that their perspective was not based from a range of studies carried out on call centres but rather it was primarily based on payment systems of which they studied a call centre. CALL CENTRES AND INFORMATION SYSTEMS One main indication of call centres is in most cases defined in terms of the Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) they make use of rather than by any specific outputs they create (Frenkel et al, 1998; Taylor and Bain, 1999). Systems such as the Automatic Call Distribution (ACD) that places inbound calls in a queue and allocates them to the agents, speech recognition systems as well as screen capture are example of systems found in a call centre. But information systems has also increased the control and surveillance of calls (which could either be inbound or outbound), the agent that?s handles the call and virtually every activity they perform on real time basis (Robinson and Clive, 2006). Hence it is argued that technology found in call centres constitutes a version of technical control. According to Callaghan and Thompson (2001), technology tends to control speed through ensuring that call agents are aware of queue numbers and average waiting times. In such instances, managerial control is seen to be evident through the use of such technologies and could at the same time produce employee resistance. However, ICT has the potential to create skilled and enabled workforce (Fernie et al, 1998, and Kinnie et al, 2000). In such a situation, the improved employee independence may be resulted through the creation of alternative socio-technical systems within the call centre. This could be exhibited with self-managed work teams who have the tendency to produce more customized outputs when the dynamics of empowerment displaces the reality of control (Batt and Moynihan, 2004). This can be regarded as another concept of the call centre which is referred to as the semi-professional empowered worker (Winslow and Bramer, 1994). In this setting work is increasingly customized to the needs of the customer. The agent uses IT to seamlessly identify and render service to the customer and appropriate software assists in on-the-job learning thereby improving the agent ?s knowledge and skills. Based on the labour process, systems implemented in the call centre are based on the expected result. According to Edward (1979) cited in Russell (2007), who first classified ICT as technological control, in agreement to this Callaghan and Thompson (2001), also argue the fact that management deliberately choose a technology that is designed in such a way as to limit the worker?s independence, hence are almost seen as part of the machine (technology) which continuously directs calls at them. This was represented in the expression of Taylor and Bain (1999) stating „the assembly line in the head?, where technology supports the formulation of specific targets of which workers are held accountable for (Taylor and Bain, 2001). Another aspect of technologies in a call centre is the organizational culture or behaviour. This is an attempt in understanding how new technologies affect the (re)organization of work. Barleys (1990), emphasized the need for researche rs to focus more on how new technologies are incorporated into the everyday working lives of the organizational members. His argument was that a particular system could have different effects in various departments or jobs. This draws attention to the organizational theory which is based on the behaviour of users when a new technology is implemented focusing on how they establish patterns to either conform or deviate from the intentions of the designers (Russell, 2007). This aspect is outside the scope of this dissertation. Technology can therefore be regarded as a solution that bridges the sales and marketing functions to improve targeting efforts. In other cases, it can be viewed as a tool that is specifically for a one-to one customer interaction which is regarded as the sole responsibility of the sales/service; call centres or marketing departments (Peppers, 2000). But on the overall, it should neither be regarded as just a mere technology nor application but rather a cross-func tional , customer-driven, technology-integration business process management strategy that aims at increasing and maximising relationships which also encompasses the entire organisation. This is often referred to as Customer Relation Management (CRM) (Goldenberg, 2000). Literature has shown that CRM is based on the interaction of: People: this refers to the people working with the system and are regarded as the building block for customer relationship, Business process: this defines the overall business goal of the organisation Technology: this is an enabler for achieving remarkable improvement in the performance of the organisation (Chen and Popovich, 2003). These interactions are represented in the diagram below Diagram 2.1 The CRM Model (Chen and Popovich, 2003). CALL CENTRE AND MANAGEMENT In general, academic literatures on call centre have focused on employment, relationship and the labour process. A significant number of these literatures have focused largely on managerial perspective in terms of operations and performance. Call centres are people intensive operations and the management of the frontline employees otherwise referred to as the call agents has been identified as one of the biggest challenges for call centre managers (Houlihan, 2002). Call centres potentially contribute to customer satisfaction and retention but most organizations still fail to exploit full strategic value out of their call centre operations (Mahesh and kasturi, 2006). Traditionally service management models recommend that Organisations focus on three areas which include: Defining a service strategy Ensuring the service delivery systems are user friendly Managing for customer- oriented people especially on the frontline (Gilson and khandelwal, 2005). These models further argue that it is important for the components strategy, operations and people are all compatible but most literature show an indication of incompatibility. CHALLENGES OF MANAGERS/SUPERVISORS IN A CALL CENTRE Managers are faced with a number of challenges of which the most common and prevalent ones include: The conflict of quality versus quantity: In call centres, this conflict is at the core of many other related problems (Frenkel et al, 1998; Callaghan and Thompson 2002 dean, 2002). Measurement of both quantity and quality in most cases is based on performance. Research has shown that although management values quality, they tend to focus more on measurement and statistics which is as a result of the large amount of information provided to them. Information provided to them such as the number of calls per agent; the percentage of calls answered within a specified time frame; the average speed calls are answered, hence the shift of attention to quantity (Robinson and Clive, 2006). This has attributed to the high reliance on information systems to govern the pace of work in the call centre, provide the means to access the work of the call agents as well as monitor them. Information system can therefore be said to have shaped the social and organizational structure of the call centre (C alloghan and Thompson, 2001). But the negative consequence of this especially on the call agents include exhaustion, stress which should be of great concern to management. Organizations stress the need for customer satisfaction and have an overall strategic intent to acquire and retain their customers through high quality interfaces or interaction. But it has been observed that the aspect of quality in some case is given low priority than the efficiency of processing customer interactions (number of calls) at call centres (Mahesh and kasturi, 2006). Mahesh (1995) commented on the tendency of most organizations to move from high labour intensity and customization position of professional services to standardization and low labour intensity service. The origin of such problems could be traced back to the genesis of call centres and the reason for their rapid growth which is to reduce cost and increase efficiencies. The conflict of Control versus Empowerment: this is another common conflict observed in the call centre. According to Houlihan (2002), the orthodox design of the call centre is rooted in a control paradigm. Early literature on call centres abound with keywords such as blue-collar work; taylorism; battery farming; mental assembly line; worker resistance control and emotional labour (Fernie and Metcalf, 1997; knights and McCabe, 1998). Recent literature on the other hand has indicated the need for empowerment in service, but organisations specifically in the call centre still ignore this despite the fact that studies have indicated positive outcomes from increased empowerment. Empirical data also shows that call agents perceive themselves as less empowered than other workers in traditional office environment (Holdsworth and Cartwright, 2003). Thus the control paradigm of call centres seems to extend to the area of job design as well. Researchers also argue that the frontline agents pla y a critical role in service delivery in which their skills, knowledge motivation and loyalty are important factors to be managed by the organization (Sergeant and Frenkel, 2000). But the mass production model used at many call centres for operational efficiency assumes that jobs can be designed to be turn-over proof with workers as replaceable parts (Batt and Moynihan, 2002). Hence Wallace et al, 2000 labelled this as sacrificial HR strategy. Other common problems management is faced with in the call centre according to Taylor and Bain (1999) include: High rates of absence due to sickness High labour turnover Problem with motivating and keeping the employees committed to their jobs Lack of promotion opportunities especially in flat organisational structures. Loss of staff following investments in training. CALL AGENTS AND JOB STRUCTURE The general basic idea of a call centre operator or call agent is any worker with a telephone and a computer. This has led organisations in an attempt to differentiate their operations and services, come up with names such as Customer Service Centre or Customer Satisfaction. Various literatures have shown that agents usually work in large, open-plan offices seated in cubicles that are divided shoulder-high partitions. They are wired or connected to an integrated telephone and a computer system when they put on their headphones. In the researcher?s opinion, the job function of a call agent is basically to: Provide customers with detailed product and procedures involved Process customer transactions Attend to customer queries in an approachable, accurate and timely manner. Deliver standard service at all times to customer when interacting with them which is usually in accordance to specified service standards (scripts). In a call centre, the use of scripts either in the form of typewritten prompt or on screen template is an attempt to structure the speech of workers into a series of predictable and regulated routine queries and responses (Taylor and Bain, 1999). This could be regarded as another distinct feature of the call centre in terms of Communication between an agent and a customer. The call agents are expected to read and enter data into the computer system that is networked within the organization while interacting with the customer. This enables any other employee to easily access and retrieves the customer?s profile as well as their record history. Other expectations of call agents in relation to their work include: The call agent is expected to acquire and use lower-order and higher-order contextual knowledge in accomplishing their task (Deery et al, 2002). The lower-order contextual knowledge is knowledge about the company information; specific products; procedures; software practices an d people which may be in other departments on whom the call agents depend on for updated information as well as solution for more complex problems of the customer. While the higher- order is basically a deeper understanding of the lower, although this is not acquired during training but rather it is as a result of experience. Agents with such knowledge are seen to be more confident when dealing with the customers. But it should be noted that most of the knowledge required by the agents is embedded as information either as hard copy reference manuals or available online. The call agent is expected to display some skills when executing their duties. These skills include the computer skills which have to do with inputting data; word processing and navigating through several systems. The other skill is the social skill which is used mainly when relating to customers and other staff. A lot of attention is paid to the latter skill than the former because the social skill involves the abil ity to remain calm under pressure especially when faced with a continuous stream of customer calls; positive and tactful attitude when executing their duties as well as not getting personally engaged which protects them from customer abuse (Kinnie et al, 2000). In general, the call agent has to be systematic; creative and know who to depend on for more complex customer queries. Call centre jobs are highly specialized and simplified, thus there is a high level of division of labour which has its advantages. But there are also disadvantages such as low task variety (monotony of work), low task complexity, low utilization of educational qualification which are most times overlooked. Call agents are known to have no influence or control over their work in terms of the pace of their work (duration of calls, how many calls they receive) and also the planning and organisation of their work. These disadvantages are some of the factors that lead to depression among call agents and monotony o f their work is one of the most frequent reasons call agents quit their jobs (Deery et al, 2002). SUMMARY This chapter has defined discussed what a call centre is and highlighted the different perspectives of call centres found in literature. It identified the theories on which the analysis of this dissertation is based on, although it is further explained in the next chapter. It also discussed the call centre from different points of views such as technology which mentioned the fact that it still requires human interaction for any organisation to achieve its maximum potential, management who determine the work pace of the call centre. Although highlighting the challenges they are faced with, it also identified areas where they need to place more attention (i.e. control vs. empowerment). Lastly it discussed the general idea of call agents? job descriptions. This has served as a background to further explore in this research the working conditions of the call centre and determine the effect of information systems on their jobs. THEORY AND RESEARCH METHODOLOGY INTRODUCTION This chapter discusses the research approach adopted for this research based on the chosen theory. It also highlights the research methodolo

The Hobbit By J. R. R. Tolkien :: essays research papers

The Hobbit By J. R. R. Tolkien The story begins with a small fellow by the name of Bilbo Baggins â€Å"The Hobbit† he lives is in his house and doing what hobbits do during the day. The first few chapters tell you what a hobbit is and what a hobbit looks like and also what his home looks like. Hobbits are smaller then dwarves and eat much more then dwarves do, hobbits eat six meals a day. Bilbo is cleaning his house and preparing for a meal when an old friend of his comes past his doorway and starts to chat with Bilbo about all his adventures he has been on. After a while of talking in Bilbo’s hobbit home he tricks poor Mr. Baggins into join a journey with Thirteen dwarves to revive their lost city that was over ran by â€Å"Smuag†, a mysterious dragon that was used for delivering messages from dwarves and elves. To continue with the story after the talk with his friend, who is a wizard. Gandalf invites himself over again and ask to bring some friends, and Bilbo, a polite and well-mannered hobbit could not say no. The next morning the doorbell rings and Bilbo happily opens the door, but in his shock it is not Gandalf but it is a group of dwarves twelve dwarves in hoods. As he invites them in they all introduce themselves and at the end of their introduction the last words are â€Å"at your service†, their names are Balin, Dwalin, Kili, Fili, Dori, Nori, Ori, Oin, Gloin, Bifur, Bofur, and Bombur, and last but not least Thorin Okensheild these were the last of their kind. They were the cities last hope of bringing back the city. That night the dwarves stayed at Bilbo’s house with extra bedrooms. And the next morning they would start the real journey to their destiny. That morning Bilbo got up late and was left with dishes from his company and was the only one to clean them up. After washing the dishes he sat down to have a smoke with his pipe and was disturbed again, but it was Gandalf telling him that they are staying at the town inn. As he rushed to meet them he made it they’re just in time and they started discussing the plan (for Bilbo was their burglar and his job was to find the entrance to the secret door on the mountain where Smuag lay asleep) after the plan was discussed they set out on their journey to revive the lost city.

The Humanization of Gods and Kings in Renaissance Art

The Renaissance period of history was one that provided profound changes in the way in which people viewed traditional modes and models of thought, self-awareness, science, religion and art. What is interesting is the in the art of the Renaissance period is that the pulse of the time period is clearly reflected because much that was not explicitly stated in other modes is clear in the subtext of the artwork as subtext often appears below the radar of, for lack of a better term, censors of the period.When Galileo announced that the earth revolved around the sun and that the commonly held belief that the sun revolved around the earth was a fallacy, he was promptly thrown in jail. Therein lies one of the most forgotten aspects of the revolution of the Renaissance: much of what has become accepted in today’s day and age that derived from the brilliance of the Renaissance thinkers was not exactly welcomed by the traditionalists of the day. However, if there was a common flaw presen t within the realm of traditionalists it would be the fact that traditionalists are not known for possessing the common faculty of creativity.As such, much of the anti-traditionalist viewpoints of the Renaissance are present within the artwork of the Renaissance period and this anti-traditionalist, anti-classical approach found in the artwork are revealed upon closer examination of said artwork. Caravaggio’s The Calling of St. Matthew looks somewhat benign on the surface, but its underlying subtext betrays a profound departure from what is commonly considered the imagery of artistic representation of gods and kings.In order to understand this radical departure one must examine what was the common classical imagery of religious figures in the traditional era. That is to say, the traditional and classic imagery of religious figures was primarily one of idealization. The figures presented in Greek sculpture, for example, were generally depicted as flawless entities. The imagery was devoid of imperfections and it was clear that those represented and displayed in the artwork were presented as being ‘otherworldly’ and definitely not representative of the average person.(This lack of imperfection in the imagery of the gods is where the colloquialism â€Å"a body like a Greek God† derives) Now, this imagery of perfection was not designed in such a matter to be deceptive. Rather, it was done in such a way because there needed to be a distinct representative difference between Gods and Kings vs. plebian populace members. To a great extent, this was done in order to facilitate a belief in the gods. While there are many myths and legends found in the tales of the Greek gods, much of what is found in these tales was completely absent from the average daily life of the Greeks.The entirety of their religion was based on the premise of the existence of constant interference in the lives of ‘regular’ by mythic creatures, deities and enti ties, despite the decided lack of presence of any of these fantasy images in the daily life of those who believed in the legends. Hence, the legend of the myth must b preserved and in order to preserve the belief clearly no representation of the gods could invoke any criticism. Because of this, the visual imagery of the gods often wallowed in images of absolute perfection as a way of separating the gods from the common people.In Caravaggio’s world, the artist takes the opposite approach and in doing so the artist is consistent with the Renaissance approach to art which generally promoted a radical departure from classical art. To put it bluntly, classical art had long since become passe and was fairly boring and repetitive by the time the Renaissance occurred. The art world required a compelling new format and in The Calling of St. Matthew there is clearly evident a major departure from the classical art because religious figures are clearly de-mythicized and made far more hu man.Hence, religion becomes more real because it is in the hands of the people and not in myths. When one looks at the image of St. Matthew in the painting, there is an interesting psychology present within the frame: it is clear that St. Matthew is an everyman. That is, he is not a mythic god or a hero born of the gods. He is a normal person who lives in the real world surrounded by real people. Hence, St. Matthew is far more believable and more credible a figure than a mythic legend. Furthermore, to be like St. Matthew is attainable.For the average human to be like Hercules is impossible. However, to be like St. Matthew is attainable for all one needs to do is to turn one’s back on vice and live a life of faith. In the painting, there is a clear representation of Matthew turning his back on the world of money lending which is a life of vice. As such, to be like Matthew is attainable and this is an ideology that is thoroughly removed from the classical representation This ty pe of imagery is further seen in the neoclassical work of Jacques Louis David’s The Death of Marat.Jean Paul Marat was a hero of the frnch Rvolution who gave up a very successful life as a scientist to join the â€Å"good fight. † This would prove to be his undoing as he would later be assassinated. As such, Marat has bcome a symbol of selflessness and revolution in world imagery. What makes this painting interesting is the fact that there is a mix of humanizing and deifying the subject matter that while seemingly paradoxical on the surface is crafted into logical sense in the actual presentation within the painting.In other words, Marat is pictured at the moment of his death and his death appears remarkably unremarkable. In other words, he does not die in a cinematic or melodramatic manner. He collapses and dies like any other human. While a hero and an individual who achieved in his life more than what any other person in the world may achieve, he returns to â€Å"n ormalcy† in death. In a way, the subtext here is that any person can be a hero if they so seek to achieve such heights and one does not need the mythic powers of the classical heroes in order to make a difference,Additionally, Marat’s death imagery is very derivative of the common images of Jesus Christ’s death. Again, there is much subtext at work here as the similarity in the imagery would infer that Marat’s sacrifice was Christ like and selfless. Furthermore, it would also infer that the ability to be like Christ is found within everyone and can be achieved if one dedicates his or her life to such Christ like values. This is a RADICAL departure from the unattainable heights the classical gods and heroes embody in the ancient myths of antiquity.If there ever was a painting of the period that thoroughly lambasted the classical notion of gods and kings it would be Goya’s Saturn Devouring One of His Own Sons. In the legend of Roman (Greek) myth, Satu rn believed that his own sons would supplant his rule so he ate them. Now, this may seem morbid when reading the words, but there never was an image that depicting such a description much less one that depicted Saturn in such an unflattering manner. There is good reason for this: in Ancient Rome one would have been tortured and put to death for such an unflattering image.With Goya, the image is presented and it is presented in about as unflattering a manner that it could possible be presented: Saturn is depicted as a homicidal, maniacal lunatic. The expression in his face is that of insanity and mania. He is depicted about as far from a god as possible and the ugliness of his actions is clear for the world to see. In a way, this painting provides the proverbial final nail in the coffin of the traditional image of gods and kings by essentially stripping away any veneer of anything positive.The actions of the god are despicable and there is no attempt to put a positive spin on it. In a way, it would seem that those classic thinkers who repeated the tale of Saturn were nothing more than apologist for bad behavior and with his painting Goya essentially kills off the classical notion of what it was to be a god not by creating a false image, but by creating a realistic image. Bibliography Schneider, L. (2001) Italian Renaissance Art. New York: Westview Press. Snyder, J. (2004) Northern Renaissance Art. New Jersey: Prentice Hall.

Benjamin Franklin by Edmund Morgan Essay

One of the most famous biographies ever written is said to be made by Edmund Morgan, when he accounted that of Benjamin Franklin’s life. He did so by presenting a very special style in analyzing Franklin’s existence. He made it possible by not narrating an everyday account with the use of dates, but instead accounted for the overall legacy of Franklin’s life. After reading the book, it can be said that the book establishes a broad view of Franklin’s existence. Franklin has been discussed as universally well-known for three things: his discovery of electricity, his writings, and his participation in the American Revolution. In this way, Morgan was able to present how Franklin has influenced the American, the government and the society as a whole. Born on January 17, 1706, young Franklin was presented by the author as a vigorous and curios one. It was also mentioned that his favorite past time was playing chess and singing songs. A further reading of the article shows that he also has his own belief in religion, which is â€Å"Sin is not harmful because it is forbidden, but it is forbidden because it is harmful. Nor is a duty beneficial because it is commanded, but it is commanded because it is beneficial. † As an individual, though he believes that God is the creator, he does attend mass and does not read bible. Nevertheless, it was at this stage of his life where he started writing about the virtues he believed in. A decade later, Franklin’s curiosity was instigated, when his English friend sent him Leyden jars for static electricity storage. Immediately, he started his own experiments with electricity. Subsequently, he discovered that a metal rod with a sharp end can ignite a spark from a greater distance than that of a rounded one. Based on the said findings, he proceeded on and proposed to conduct an experiment with a kite and a key to confirm that lightning is indeed electricity. His efforts proved him right, and his successful experiment discovering electricity made him famous. Among the study Franklin has made, includes that of the effect which ocean current has on travel and the pre germ theory. Morgan also touched the life of Franklin being a writer. According to Morgan, Franklin, though he left the field of printing earlier, he never left it totally. This was possible because he continuously carried out his work secretly as a printer in the field of philosophy, alongside with the renowned Poor Richard’s Almanack. He also succeeded in circulating numerous satirical hoax discourses. One of the popular speeches he made talks about a woman who had five illegitimate children and ironically claims to be following God’s word to increase and multiply. Franklin’s prominent pieces of writing talks about the qualities which he said would lead one to moral perfection, which includes Temperance, Chastity, Cleanliness, and Humility. It bears stressing that Franklin wrote these articles based from his own insights of good deeds against faith and not from religious dogma and sermons. The core of Franklin’s writings on religion imparts that a human being can be moral and god-fearing even without dogmatic presence of the church. As for Franklin’s participation in American Revolution, it can be gleaned from Morgan’s statement that the transition of America into an independent nation may not have been as easy were it not for Franklin’s efforts. His international relations with the British government and the French before, during, and after the hostilities proved very useful to America in instituting and re-instituting alliances. In the book, Franklin was presented to be one who is so influential in defending a pre-Revolution Philadelphia from French privateers, evenly allowing the British to preserve their influence in America and the colonies to resist division. This was due to Franklin’s belief that the British government was unyielding, but necessitates several modifications. All the complexities which were faced by Franklin in his life were discussed in the later part of the book. This occurred after he was sent to England in 1764 as a colonial agent, where he realized how complicated for someone from America to tackle these corrections, principally that of the colonists’ aspiration to elect their officials and to enjoy rights. On an ending note, Morgan went further when he made statement that depicted Adams as the most contentious colleague of Franklin during that time, and the reason for making living miserable for Franklin. BOOK REVIEW A reading of the book reveals that it was written in a narrative form, which trails more chronological events in Franklin’s life. Morgan made this possible by utilizing several quotations and pictures from Franklin’s works in telling his account. These help the person who reads in appreciating the events and thoughts from Franklin’s viewpoint. In some way, it can be said that the book is the best speech ever written, which comprises of an all-encompassing prologue, followed by a comprehensive series of events that is supplemented with optimistic tales and motivating truth imparted by Franklin. At this point of view, readers can say that Morgan’s writing technique is interwoven efficiently and wittily. Furthermore, he vividly sketches the outlines of Franklin’s growing outlook while unremarkably helping his readers grapple the details of his life in politics and the surfacing international condition during the American Revolution. From time to time, he even personally directed statements to the reader and alludes to what he himself is trying to understand about Franklin. On a different note, it could also be said that the story is of an adventure type that take hold of readers with the anecdotes of Franklin’s participation in the political events of 18th-century America. Nevertheless, the author did not lose sight of the significance of the other facet of the man’s qualities and the opinion and actions of others toward him. This was the reason for the biography’s success since it engages readers’ attention in the grand live stage show of this intriguing man’s life. One of the topics which were concentrated by Morgan in Franklin’s life, is his being diplomat. It was presented by the detailed account of Franklin’s vital role in the lengthy progression of calculations and miscalculations that pressed the loyal and dutiful British colonies into revolution and forged them into the United States of America. As written, Franklin, can be seen in every event, frequently behind the picture, but always exceptionally influential, a compelling catalyst for change, which has left an impact in the life of Americans and British government and society. Importantly, in this book we can learn that Franklin is the sole man whose signature maybe found on all four of the important founding documents of the American republic which are the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, the Treaty of Paris, and the Constitution. As for the impact Franklin’s life and this book may have in the society and public policy, it is important to mention that even if he did not believe in bible writings and the of the existence of God, he seems to have lived in an otherwise moral existence and have not lost sight of the need for people to be living with such religious morality. The most essential aspect of Franklin’s personality was his unselfish way of sharing to others and his belief that what is right is that which is beneficial. Thus, it can be inferred that one of the lessons in Franklin’s life which is being taught is that, being useful means providing the needs of other inhabitants, not only for one’s self, and that a man with an intelligence concerning him comes only to those individual who possesses a great heart. As for the economy, this book made us learn that Franklin, after experiencing his first achievement, had launched several successful commercial partnerships which lead to the development of the law of partnerships in America. This is said to be one of the many contributions Franklin has made in the history. Aside from the foregoing influences of Franklin has given to the society, it is of everyone’s knowledge that his greatest contribution was his discovery of electricity. This discovery was the product of his scientific curiosity which has originally established his fame in the world. In sum, it can be said that Morgan’s biography of Franklin imparts a representation of the renowned man with the kite that one might not anticipate in an intellectual biography. It is manifest from the opening that Morgan wishes the person who reads to see beyond the characterization of Franklin that we often read in books and articles. In this work, we came to learn, as stated at the outset, that Benjamin Franklin is famously known for three things: his experiments with electricity, his writings, and his involvement in the American Revolution. However, it is important to note that the behavior that Morgan actually wishes for the reader to be aware of is that to successful in this world, one should posse’s inquisitiveness and enthrallment with the world around him, coupled with a serene obsession for the intellectual strength of persons, and a benevolent social servitude. Reference: www. class. uidaho. edu/Engl440/NYRB/NRYB_Edmund_Morgan. htm, Retrieved April 09, 2007. http://www. brothersjudd. com/index. cfm/fuseaction/reviews. detail/book_id/1183/Benjamin%20Fra. htm Retrieved April 09, 2007

Battles at Ypres essays

Battles at Ypres essays During the first battle of Ypres, both sides tried to use the best tactical features possible. Ammunition in this battle was so low that most guns were withdrawn from the line and some of the guns with ammo left were limited to one shot every half of an hour. The City of Ypres was virtually at sea level resulting in a complex drainage system. The Belgians warned the British that their position on the Germans would destroy their complex drainage system of dykes and canals from all of the heavy artillery fire. Some very harsh lessons were being learned in this battle as well. One of these lessons were that it was unsafe to have an important headquarters in a vulnerable position. The British made this mistake once and they were sure not to do it again. The Germans were doing unusually better than they had thought. They did not realize they had roughly 50,000 British casualties and 20,000 French casualties resulting in mass OVERKILL. They also didn't realize that they were kill ing some of the best and most experienced regiments of the British army. As winter set in , and that meant snow, rain, sleet, hail, and floods, both sides dug into the trenches as best they could. The Germans had the higher and dryer ground so they could build stone establishments near the front. Looking at the British side, they were all wet, sticky, smelly, had had some of the worst cases of trench foot in the war. The second battle of Ypres was not meant to be a major one. This battle also introduced poison gas to the Western Front. Later on, the whole Ypres area would be saturated with gas of every kind, mainly mustard gas, but phosgene and others would soon appear. Troops were trained on how to smell the different gasses. The CO's said phosgene smelt of musty hay. Some of the troops reported that it smelt of sweet hay but by the time they smelt it was usually too late. The G ...

Case Brief

Case Brief Brendan FulcherCase Brief 2Tor Wynn8 May 2013Case Brief 2This crime occurred on October 5, 1983. A man and his significant other (who occupy the same house) ate dinner together, and then met at a pool hall at separate times. The woman arrived first, when the man (also the defendant) arrived he saw his significant other talking to another man, he was angry because he thought that she was cheating on him. He states that the anger quickly subsided. He left the bar alone and walked home, 10 minutes later she arrived at their shared residence and told him that he had one week to find another place to live. He consented and went upstairs to change. She followed him and proceeded to attempt to choke him. He punched her in the face in order to force her to release him. She then told him that he needed to leave that night.Deutsch: Messerbnkechen (versilbert) mit Messer ...He said he was tired of her antics, but proceeded to get re dressed and follow her out of the room and in to the kitchen. When he entered the kitchen she swung a 9in long knife at him. He wrestled the knife out of her hands, he has stated that he could have left then, but she grabbed for the knife again, in the struggle the man states that she pulled the knife towards herself, when he pulled the knife away there was blood on the blade. She had stabbed herself in the struggle for the knife.The man was convicted of manslaughter; he argues that it was self-defense and that the jury was not properly instructed on the stand your ground ruling in self-defense. The jury says that since he had an opportunity to get away, that deadly force was not needed,

Can We Define Art

Can we define art? Of course we can define art. According to dictionary, art Is the quality, production, expression, or realm of what is beautiful appealing or of more than ordinary significance. But in the eye of some artist included Morris Welts, they believe art Is undefined for many reason. According to Morris Weitz, he point out a few theories of art and argues in his article The Role of Theory in Aesthetics, that they are lacking to the extent that they cannot satisfactorily cover all of the range of things we would like to consider artworks. In addition, they dont accurately capture the concept of art. Weitz argues that where previous theories go wrong Is in their attempts to establish a set of necessary and sufficient condition of art, when in fact what we should do Is ask about art the concept. Once this concept Is understood, he argues that it will make clear the logical impossibility of defining art in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions. Furthermore, Weitzs main argument for why theories of art fail comes from his application of Wittgensteins thoughts about language. pecifically the word game. o art. In fact, according to Wittgenstein, he highlighted the difficulty of defining the word games, he said let us consider what we call games: I mean board-games, card-games, ball-games, Olympic Games, and so on. What is common to them all? Dont say: there must be something common to all. For if you look at them you will not see something that common to all, but similarities. relationships. and a whole series of them at that . He was showing there is no one common feature to all games. And the word games cannot be simply defined; he argues that games have amily resemblances to each other. Some games resemble other games in some respects; there is no more to it, no necessary and sufficient condition. In addition, Weitz argues, this same resemblance principle may apply to art. The problem of the nature of art is like that of the nature of games, at least in these respects: If we actually look and see what it Is that we call art, we will also find no common properties only strands of similarities. He also said, The basic resemblance between these concepts is their open texture. In elucidation them certain cases can e given, about which there can be no question as to their being correctly described as art or game but no exhaustive set of cases can be given. Art is an open concept. Its nature Is such that new cases will constantly arise which will require a decision on the part of those interested on whether to extend the concept to include the new cases. He said that the expansive, changing and creauve nature of art would make defining properties or closure of the concept logically impossible. It is for this reason that he claims previous attempts at defining art have been in vain. Weitzs houghts we may actually find ourselves closer to arts definition. And Weitz says: What I am arguing, then, is that the very expansive, adventurous character of art, its ever-present changes and novel creations, make It logically Impossible to ensure any set of defining properties. It means is that If you were to take a wide range of instances of artworks, there would be no one feature common to them all. However, they are all the common concept products, namely one that is expansive and adventurous. Its necessary, so for a work of art to embody this creativity at least to Of2 human mind product that possesses this concept. In addition, objects in nature arent made by someone with art concept as unbound, adventurous creativity; they also arent creation from a concept in a human mind, furthermore, their existence is independent of human intellect or observation. For example, mountain, trees, flowers and something like that arent works of art. For more information, whoever is producing the object; they wont be doing as an exercise of creativity and unbound expression and so is not necessarily producing the object with an artistic conception in mind. For example, it is not necessary to have a concept of art in mind when creating a map or a floor plan or a scale model. As Weitz claimed, artworks can be differentiated from non-artworks is a hint that perhaps attempting to define art is not quite such a vain pursuit. Furthermore, I do not think defining and elucidation of the concept are different tasks as Weitz would have us believe. If a given artwork has art the concept behind it then this appears to suffice as a necessary condition for its being a work of art. Which leads me to believe the word art may be defined by the oncept behind its instances. A relevant comment on this approach is the response that, in allowing art to be defined by the concept behind it, anyone may place or point to some object or mark and proclaim; that is art. For example a piece of paper scrunched up and thrown on the floor, or an everyday object bizarrely placed may be declared art. My response to this is that in proclaiming such objects as art the proclaimed is correctly commenting on and employing the concept of art previously established. An attempt at challenging previous artistic convention does not onstitute creation outside of art the concept. Furthermore, I would like to extend the set of non-artworks to contain all things that exist, in their current state, independently of intervention by a person with artistic intent. In short, to declare an object an artwork is not enough for the declaration to be true. Since it would have existed and continues to exist in its current state regardless. This I feel is analogous to why objects in nature are not artworks. In conclusion, I feel Weitzs comment on the nature of art are important, but as opposed to leading to the conclusion that art s undefined. In fact, it gets us well on the way to a definition free from the problems faced by previous theories. Weitz is happy to be very specific in his description of the concept of art, which I have argued allows us to rule out many things as non- artworks. By considering the differences in artworks and non-artworks, we can see that where something is a work of art, the artistic concept has been present in a human intellect, which has conceived and created the piece. Non-artworks exist in their current state independently of any such concept.

United States Vs. Afghanistan Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

United States Vs. Afghanistan - Research Paper Example During prison period, American prisoners are not allowed to vote, they are not registered as members who can participate in the voting section of elections and neither there are any voting facilities within the prisons. This means that more than 1 million US citizens who have the right are not allowed to vote during US elections even though their age complies with age required to vote. Voting is a right that is awarded to all citizens of US except the citizens who are serving time in prisons. In 12 states of US certain rules and regulations have been created due to which US prisoners are not even recognized as complete citizens of US (Cnaan, 2004, p.9). Prisoners who have completed their time in prisons have no right to vote within the states of Florida, Virginia and Kentucky. Nine more states participate in such measures but for a limited period of time. Ex-prisoners within various states of US are not even allowed to work in public offices and certain states allow them to gain empl oyment in public sector after they have spend certain amount of time in the society since the time of their release. Â  In US when a criminal is arrested he is detained in local jails before the final jail is selected for him. Once sentence period is announced, certain numbers of prisoners are shifted to their assigned jails and certain prisoners spend more time in local jails before being finally shifted to their assigned jails. Local jails where prisoners are first detained are located within the areas of arrest.

Images Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Images - Essay Example Hence, it is vital for firms to have a consistency between their channel image and their brand image (Marconi, 1996). This paper will analyze the importance of maintaining a channel image and a brand image. Firms sometimes seem to forget that customers do not think in terms of channels. Customers, owing to that, have expectations of marketers (Armstrong, 2007). However, sometimes marketers do not see these prospects. The perception of a consumer being in control goes back a number of years and the idea will probably never change. The real hurdle is how firms give them what they anticipate and make sure that they shop with them in the future. In business-to-consumer environment, firms in the past opted to eliminate middlemen. If a firm had a pleasing product and an attractive offer, then it could create a list of consumers and never assign budget to brand marketing (Gregory, 1999). That, however, is no longer the case. These days, every functional area of a company needs to serve as a middleman and offer the help that a customer requires to make a purchasing decision and become a steadfast buyer. Therefore, brand image has a significant influence on a firm’s channel performance. Also, as the article 7 rules of global distribution (2000) emphasizes, a multinational firm needs to have authority over its marketing strategy (Arnold, 2000). This will help the firm in determine the way the distributor perceives the image of their company. This, at the same time, may be damaging and favorable. In addition, a group’s notoriety may also assist in the selection of foreign partners. This is because distributing well-known products is always quite an â€Å"honor† for a partner abroad and the willing marketers are always many. Finally, a firm depends on the â€Å"win-win speculation† and so a distributor is anticipated to respect the firm’s rules before his or her own interests (Arnold, 2000). In relation to L’Oreal, the company takes