Olympic rent-a-car company Essay

Synopsis Olympic is a US lease a-vehicle organization confronting a few changes in the market it works. A contender organization (Enterprise) is changing its steadfastness program. Olympic directors need to assess the effect of those progressions and to take activities so as to react accurately to those progressions without losing piece of the pie and if conceivable exploiting the circumstance. The point of this examination is to assess those progressions and to propose a suggestion to react to these market changes. MARKET SUMMARY The vehicle leasing industry in US is a $24 billion industry ruled by 4 major players, Enterprise, Hertz, AVIS and Olympic with the accompanying business sector income shares: Enterprise is the prevailing player with half offer ($12 billion) trailed by Hertz with 24%, AVIS with 14%, Olympic with 7% and the other 5% are shared by littler players. This business is intensely reliant of the general condition of the economy and since the worldwide emergency of 2008 were there was a 6,5% break in absolute incomes, the incomes are recouping since 2009 developing somewhere in the range of 2 and 3% consistently. This income development is because of the development of costs rather to the development in the quantity of customers. There are 2 major markets for the lease a-vehicle business, the Airport rentals and the Local rentals. The air terminal rentals contribute with half of the all out income ($12 billion) and are partitioned into recreation and business customers. Expenses are higher because of charges paid to the air terminals that comprise in 10% of the income in addition to the fixed charges for counters. The nearby leasing contributes with the other half ($12 billion) and the fundamental customers are insurance agencies. The counters are situated at vehicle sales centers and fix shops. Undertaking and Hertz are the primary players in this market and Enterprise has over half offer. This industry is vigorously impacted by the adjustment of the vehicle armada to request and somewhere in the range of 2008 and 2012 in light of the worldwide emergency the all out number of lease a-vehicle vehicles was reduced by 0,5%. Client ANALYSIS In 2012, 27% of US grown-ups (proximately 59.400.000 individuals) leased a vehicle and the primary tenants were the business voyagers. In 2012 air terminal market, 20% of the explorers were business voyagers and offered cause to 80% of the income and the other 80% of explorers were recreation voyagers and speak to 20% of the incomes. Generally business explorers pay more than relaxation voyagers. This is for the most part since relaxation voyagers pay littler every day charges as they travel in lower income days, do preplanned trips and to reliability program reclamations. Business explorers will in general acquire focuses in business going and to spend those focuses in recreation voyaging. Over this industry, Rent-A-Car organizations will in general use steadfastness projects to create connection between costumers. Each organization has it’s own program however they are on the whole fundamentally the same as. The client procures focuses depending of the quantity of days they lease the vehicle and they likewise get free overhauls. The earned focuses can be guaranteed and traded for rental days. In 2013 Enterprise changed the manner in which their clients gain the dedication program focuses. Clients that got focuses situated in the quantity of long stretches of utilization presently get focuses dependent on target they spend. This implies they acquire more focuses quicker. Normally customers don’t have any sort of limitation to take an interest in dedication programs. Anybody that leases a vehicle can be a part contingent upon the quantity of days they lease, as outcome individuals are individuals from a few steadfastness programs as they lease in various organizations. The rental faithfulness programs are not so much separating rental organizations they are an advantage for clients. In 2012 10% of Olympic clients were individuals from Olympic medalist program and these clients gave 21% of the incomes. They paid for 3.996.000 days and asserted 375.000 free days. This implies $323.400.000 of income originate from individuals from Olympic medalist program, to this income we need to take away the fixed costs, the free days cost and the program publicizing costs ($28.000.000). The fixed expense is 20% of $21 ($4,2) increased by the all out rental days and equivalent $1.575.000 and the free days cost is equivalent to $7.629.552. This gives a financial estimation of $233 per Olympic medalist program client. The customary clients speak to 79% of incomes that convert into $1.216.600.000. The absolute rental days for these clients are 24.681.000 and nowadays speak to an expense of $103.660.200 (24.681.000 x $4,2). There are additionally the publicizing expenses of ($108.000.000 †$28.000.000 = $80.000.000). Taking away to $1.216.600.000 the variable expenses and the promoting costs we end with $1.032.939.800. Separating this incentive by the all out number of customary clients (11.052.000) the monetary estimation of the normal client is acquired and equivalents to $93. The end is that faithfulness program clientsâ still have a major financial impact in the income structure. Organization ANALYSIS Olympic is one of the four greatest lease a-vehicle organizations in the US with a portion of 7% of incomes witch is the littlest portion of this gathering. The organization as picked to be a supporter and has consistently evaluated lower than Hertz. It has 464 rental areas and an armada of 108000 vehicles that stay in the organization for 8 to year and a half. The pay per vehicle is marginally underneath de industry normal and the explanation behind this perhaps the strength of air terminal counters that carry a bigger number of expenses to the organization than a nearby counter. Olympic has seen an enhancement for its incomes throughout the previous 4 years and in table 1 we can see an expansion of the net benefit from lost $15 million of every 2008 to a benefit of $32 million out of 2012. The principle explanation behind these outcomes is the organization adaptability to adjust its vehicle armada to request (table 2) just as the adjustment of the quantity of counters the organization has (table 3). Suggestion The suggestion is that Olympic lease a-vehicle doesn’t follow the Enterprise methodology. About 1,45% of the complete rental long periods of 2012 included free days and a free day reward costs about $21 to take care of the fixed expenses and the installment to the franchisee. Of the 108000 vehicles armada every vehicle was leased around 232 days out of every year. With this information we can figure the absolute rental days. All out rental days are equivalent to 108.000 x 232; this implies 25.056.000 rental days per year. The 1,45% of the absolute rental days give us the all out free days out of each year in 2012 this rate speaks to 363.312 free days that duplicated by the expense of a free day ($21) will give us the expense of all the free days in 2012. The absolute expense for the free days is equivalent to $7.629.552. In the event that Olympic chooses to coordinate the Enterprise offer, the quantity of free days will increment to an incentive somewhere in the range of 1,65% and 1,95% of absolute rental days this implies various free days somewhere in the range of 413424 and 488592 and an expansion of free days out of each year somewhere in the range of 50.112 and 125.280 days, this implies an expansion in cost of the projects free long periods of $1.052.352 to $2.630.880 (1 million to 2,5 millions increment of free days cost every year). Taking into account that the interest won't increment a great deal this implies a net lessening of 3 to 8% of all out benefits. This lessening is huge for an organization that has a little working edge of 15,8%. The manner in which Olympic reacts to the endeavor activity will be unequivocal in the benefit of the organization. Coordinating the undertaking offer will prompt an expansion in the expenses and no increment in piece of the pie is ensured. Since no extraordinary increment popular is anticipated, after the Enterprise technique would basically speak to a 3 to 8% decrease in benefits, Olympic can't manage the cost of this decrease because of the limited working edge. Alongside this, the armada of Olympic lease a-vehicle is all around adjusted to de request and actualizing no power outage days would presumably let some Olympic medalist customers unsatisfied. Undertaking has a gigantic armada and accessible vehicles this implies it can bear the cost of not having power outage days. The expanding use of the Internet to contrast costs and with book administrations will reduce the dedication programs significance and adequacy. Outsider consolidators the online value examinations and appointments carry a more prominent importance to costs the lease a-vehicle organizations practice. This will influence the companies’ steadfastness programs viability. By concentrating on value, clients will picked a lease a-vehicle organization by the cost of the administration taking to a second arrangement the steadfastness programs benefits. This implies Olympic should concentrate on worldwide cost decrease so as to maintain bringing down the costs and thusly gain advantage over the contenders. Later on the companyâ that has the lower costs will overwhelm the market. One other market propensity is the decrease of business voyaging and the development of web based correspondences. This implies in future lease a-vehicle organizations will have less business voyagers, right now these customers are the overwhelming clients of reliability programs, and the relaxation customers will put on weight on the income share. Olympic ought to keep up their faithfulness program basically because of the financial estimation of the dependability programs clients ($233) a lot more prominent them the customary customers ($93) and improve the program by offering other sort of advantages that could improve the market infiltration of the program. A portion of these advantages could be quicker get and drop off an ideal opportunity for the program clients. En route the organization could assess their unwaveringness program clients monetary esteem and adjust to the normal lessening of dedication program significance by diminishing free rental days and utilizing the investment funds of this decrease on rental value decrease. Since unwaveringness programs don’t advantage business organizations Olympic offer the opportunity to this sort of client to pick between the reliability program benefits or a reduction in cost. This ought to draw in increasingly enormous organizations business keeping up the little and in dividual offer. To diminish the cost structure Olympic ought to likewise attempt to pick up advertise in the neighborhood business overwhelmed by Enterpri

Jade Peony

Having a place When somebody is supposed to be Canadian, it doesn't simply mean being one who lives on this land, or has lived on this land sufficiently long to acquire this citizenship, it implies carrying on with the Canadian life, it implies getting up in the first part of the day wearing a huge amount of layers and going outside in the freezing cold to do whatever an individual needs to do during the day, to be Canadian it additionally intends to have a place. Canada is known for the decent variety of culture, religion, shading, and convictions, just as our capacity to have the option to make a status worthy to everybody, making Canada, in spite of our individual assorted variety and contrasts, to be joined as one. In any case, what we don’t acknowledge is that Canada has not generally been like this; this is the point of view that Wayson Choy communicates through his novel â€Å"The Jade Peony†. His content and word play stresses on a world so obscure, yet so critical to our history, yet to our comprehension of what our progenitors of our different ethnic starting points battled during each time of their lives to make the world where consistently we underestimate. Where he lays his accentuation on our history isn't from the perspective of the grown-up, yet through the eyes of the youngsters who, today, are our dads and granddads. Partitioned into three significant sections, Wayson Choy starts the portrayal of his history through the eyes of Jook-Laing, a multi year old excellent young lady of Chinese cause conceived in Canada after her family moved to Canada. Disengagement is gradually beginning to turn into a significant subject in the novel, made by the Canadian Government, however by her own special family. The Canadian Government in the 1940's, the timespan the novel happens, made brutal laws against migrants, making it close to difficult to live joyfully: one was never to leave the family, as settlers should live inside a similar family unit in any event, when one gets hitched, just as cruel laws on sickness, where, if one somehow managed to get debilitated with any disease even as honest as a cold-if the administration discovered, â€Å"The Vancouver Health Inspection Board†¦ posted on our front entryway, a sign strikingly noticeable from the road: condemned† (p. 32). In any case, Jook-Laing's family's old legacy and Chinese convictions make the most profound seclusion as they evade the possibility of customary Canadian culture, where Poh-Poh, senior and Jook-Laing's Grandmother, depicts this life as â€Å"poison to youthful China young lady child† (p. 17). Jook-Laing's young and profoundly dream-filled soul motivates her to dream of the ideal world-an ideal world she never abandons as play and her â€Å"movie-star daydreams† (p. 37) have made her heart develop and realize that, profound, inside, Canada is a superior spot than China, regardless of what Poh-Poh says to her about her legacy. Be that as it may, in spite of her solid nature, struggle emerges as individual versus individual/society is presented when her ground-breaking sense and her Grandmother's words â€Å"You not Canada. You never Canada. You China. Continuously war in China† (p. 37) make her confined from turning into her own individual and catching her in a world she knows isn't consistent with her heart. As a significant position figure of the family unit, Poh-Poh is rarely rectified or couldn't help contradicting, causing Jook-Laing to feel alone in her inner fight between what she is told and her confidence in Canada. Further, Jook-Laing, alongside her other two stage siblings, are emphatically looked downward on by their exacting, old legacy grandma, who continually helps them to remember her sentiments towards them: â€Å"This pointless just granddaughter needs to be Shirlee Tem-po-lah; the futile Second Grandson needs to be dairy animals kid lah. The First Grandson needs to be Charlie Chan. All dumb absurd! † (p. 40). With Poh-Poh's interrogance towards her grandkids' play, it makes further disengagement from the standard of society and themselves, alongside disconnection from their longing to be a kid. In spite of her Grandmother starting to shape the job of the adversary of the story, Jook-Laing makes a profound association with an old family companion, Mau-lauh Bak, who comprehends the significance of play, however grasps and esteems Jook-Laing for her capacity to be free in a world so harsh towards them. that associates Jook-Laing to the subject of having a place. The second piece of the story talks about Jung-Sum, the child who was embraced because of the way that his folks have kicked the bucket since early on â€Å"I TAKE CARE OF MY SELF’ (p. 2). Jung additionally begins in the novel confinement for as he doesn’t need his new family to deal with him. In any case, Jung began to box and that is the place he found a feeling of having a place. Sek-Lung additionally fell into a similar segregation topic from Canada and too from his family, he was in conviction that Poh-Poh was all the while dropping by after she had kicked the bucket, and the entire family didn't ac cept the reality, that’s when Sekky fell into a similar example of disengagement. In any case, it was Sekky that had the most feeling of having a place with Canada towards the finish of the book, since Canada is a multicultural network there is a wide range of races that live in this extraordinary nation, and Sekky was a major hater of the Japanese â€Å"I need to recall that they are the enemy† (p. 189) however when he meets Meiying, and she acquaints him with Kaz her Japanese sweetheart, he gets the opportunity to like him. This shows the world rotates around loathe yet once you become more acquainted with individuals, a person’s point of view may change. Sekky at long last discovered his having a place in Canada.

Essay Topics For College Students - Writing Great Essays For College Students

Essay Topics For College Students - Writing Great Essays For College StudentsGood persuasive essay topics for college students should be aimed at helping the reader to consider what the writer is saying. If you are hoping to talk your way into a student's heart, or persuade him or her to support you in some way, this article will give you some tips that can help you with your quest for good persuasive essay topics for college students.One of the first things you need to know is that most college students are looking for answers. They are more interested in finding out the answer to a question, rather than getting a general idea. This is why it is important to make sure that your essay topic is asking a question in your title, and in your body, so that you get the attention of the reader.The subject of your essay is also very important. The whole point of writing an essay is to provide information and to draw the reader in. Make sure that you choose a subject that is related to the to pic of your paper. This is important because the more your audience has something to connect to, the more successful you will be with your essay.Another thing you should know is that the reader of your essay will not read every single word. In fact, most students do not read the entire document at all, and when they do read it, they will most likely skip the part of the essay that they do not agree with. Therefore, if you want to make sure that you persuade your reader, make sure that your title and body are short, easy to understand, and that your content is compelling. As long as you do this, you will be able to persuade your audience.A key to writing powerful essays is to make sure that your essay topics are constantly changing. It is not enough to write about something once and then say that you will cover it again. Rather, you need to think about other topics for your essays that you can touch on again, so that the reader keeps coming back to read more of what you have to say. By keeping your topics constant, you will keep the reader interested and will be able to encourage him or her to agree with you.Finally, make sure that your essay topics for college students have a personal element to them. For example, instead of trying to argue with someone about political issues, why not write about how you feel about the political issue? It is important to get inside the mind of the person who is reading your essay and to make sure that you show the reader that you really care about the topic. This will have the effect of making the reader feel compelled to either agree with you or ignore you.Finally, make sure that you always write your essay topics for college students out of your own experience. By doing this, you will be able to make sure that you stay as close to the truth as possible, and therefore it will be easier for the reader to remember what you have to say.So, if you want to write some excellent essay topics for college students, start by thinking a bout the kind of information you want to convey to your readers. Try to imagine yourself in the shoes of the reader, and when you can, try to find the one piece of information that is most relevant to your subject.

Kurt Maslow s Concept Of Self Actualization - 1115 Words

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Tim O Brien A Man Who Has Positively Affected The World

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Rise and Fall of Athens and Ancient Rome Essay examples

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Chinese Women Essay Example For Students

Chinese Women Essay Women Situation in ChinaYuan JiangCCF 9659 (Wednesday, December 4, 1996) The current China men and women debate was strayed off from the issue of womens condition in China. Few articles give a comprehensive picture on the condition. First, Chinese tradition, like others, believes that the right place for women is home. Contacts with the west at the turn of this century did bring changes to the treatment of women, e.g. feet bonding and education. But the destiny of women was still home. The communist revolution brought Soviet ideas and practices to China. The idea is that men and women are equal. (Most communist ideas are good). Everything men can do, women can too. But there is another idea from the Soviet guiding the practice men and women are good at different things. Women are caring and detail oriented as they show at home. The practice is that housewives were encouraged to join the work force in late 50s and have stayed there. Girls are encouraged to be doctors, nurses, biologists, textile workers and are discouraged to take up physics and engineering by their parents. The shirts, shoes and toys you buy in discount stores are more likely to be made by China women rather by men. You will not be surprised to see women doctors everywhere in China or see women biologists saturating American graduate schools, but you dont see a male nurse or secretary. The result has been a mixed jar for women. Women can get career satisfaction in some professions but are not expected to do well in others. Women brings home part, usually less than half, of the family income and make more family decisions. However, having all housewives in the work force drove down everyones salary, and every family relies on the second income from the wife. On the other hand, the wife is still expected to cook, to clean and to take care of the child, the elderly and husband. Wives end up having two jobs, one inside and the other outside of home. Further, they are denied the choice to stay home to take care children. Comparing to the west, more Chinese women are in the work force. They contribute more to the society economically, but the status and appreciation they enjoy are far less than the proportion they contribute. China lacks the womens revolution that swept the west especially the radical idea that women can live without men. I do not mean that women should or could live without men. I mean Chinese women should get out of the shadow of men, rediscover themselves and reshape the society which has been shaped by men. No surprise, many Chinese women have found that they can live without Chinese men and rediscovered themselves.

Mel Gibsons Braveheart Essay Example

Mel Gibsons Braveheart Paper Mel Gibsons Braveheart is an utterly passionate epic about Scottish hero William Wallace, a commander who, from 1927 to 1305 AD, led revolt against the ruling English that eventually led to the independence of Scotland. Until Braveheart came out, Wallace was not a particularly well known historical figure outside of Scotland. But, Mel Gibsons almost three hour tour de force of film making (of which he played the lead role and co-produced and directed the film) changed all of that. Very little is actually known about Wallace, and what is known about him is surrounded in legends that have only grown larger over the centuries. The screen writer is able to build William Wallace out of both myth and fact, and his script stresses, that even during his life Wallace was the stuff of legends, but despite his immense stature as a brutal soldier and a brilliant leader, braveheart also focuses on the more human side of Wallace. In fact, the catalyst for him getting involved with the struggle against England is the murder of his wife, Murron, who is cast as Wallaces one true love. Of course braveheart is probably best known for its extensive battle sequences. The plot synopsis is based to an unknown degree upon the novel of the same name by Randall Wallace, Braveheart epic of historical fiction about one of Scotlands national idols, William Wallace. One thing to understand about this film is that it is not an accurate reflection of the thirteenth century war of independence by the people of Scotland. The film makes this abundantly clear from the beginning by describing King Edward the first as a cruel pagan, when it is well known that meeting this description posed a great threat to ones political career, and even to ones life, in those days. We will write a custom essay sample on Mel Gibsons Braveheart specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now We will write a custom essay sample on Mel Gibsons Braveheart specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer We will write a custom essay sample on Mel Gibsons Braveheart specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer As a matter of fact, it is a widely held belief among more reliable sources that the British occupied Scotland in a similar genocidal manner to how they occupied Tasmania because the Scottish have always been known as a wild, proudly heathen race, that combined with a plethora of princess Isabelle, the whole film comes off more as an action film than as any serious historical drama. The real William Wallace was executed in 1305, but King Edward the first lived until 1307, with prince Edward and princess Isabelle being married in 1309. However, when we suppress the historical misgivings of the film in spite of the fact that they are sometimes quite grave, what we have left is a stunning epic that offers a flawed alternate perspective on Scotlands war for independence. The film begins with young William Wallace bidding his father and brother farewell as they go to fight a battle against the British occupying army. Both the father and brother are killed in battle, leaving young William in the care of his uncle, Argyle, who teaches young William to use his mind. From there we fast forward a period of time and see William as an adult, now played by Mel Gibson, returning to his village he lived in as a child. We are soon reintroduced to his childhood friends Hamish and Murron. As the film has it William and Murron marry in secret, with Murron being killed by the village English noble for breaking the rules. In reality, Williamss wife who was actually called Marian (the name change was effected to avoid confusion with the Robin hood heroin of the same name. was killed when English soldiers changed Williams home. William comes back to town and proceeds to kill all of the English soldiers in the village, which in turn ignites a rebellion. As the film progresses we are shown several battles that are depicted inaccurately, and the growing division between the clans of Scotland. What makes this film special is some stunning cinematography by John Toll and some of the best battle scenes in the history of sword swing epics. Indeed what separates this film from most others that try and depict the England of the middle ages is the fact that there are no fancy men reciting patently bad Shakespeare dialogue while waving fencing foils around. The Scottish claymore was specifically designed to cut through things, leaving a wrecked bloody mess behind, as opposed to being used to stab ones opponents. Braveheart manages to reflect such facts in its battles accurately enough to have earned a place on the Internet movie databases top 250 films, sitting comfortably at number 65 at the time of writing this essay. I like this film because once in a life time a filmmaker creates a scenario for the audience so deeply powerful that it literally tugs at ones soul, and does,t let go. Mel Gibson accomplished this with the movie Braveheart. Mels directorial prowess shines through. The most compelling aspect of the film is its portrayal of how one man galvanized a small nation against brutal tyranny. The romance and violence, the scenery and politics, and the history and passion make Braveheart my favourite film. The passion Mel Gibson through out this film is just one of the reasons not to miss Braveheart. So rarely does a film of this calibre come along . From beginning to end Mel gave his audience a vast range of emotions to deal with. Braveheart to me is one of the most moving and inspirational motion pictures ever made. Mel Gibson knows how to capture an audience even when many of his audience know that the films outcome is wrenching. Braveheart draws you in, every loss for these characters become your own, every victory a personal one. The film is unquestionably violent, but you never see as much violence as you think you do. The supporting cast simply shines including Patrick McGoohan as the evil Longshanks, Brendan Gleesen as Wallaces childhood friend Hamish and Sophie Marceau as the princess of Wales. Tie it all together with stirring music by composer James Horner, and youve got a great film experience. What the audience are going to remember from the film are the battle scenes, which are frequent, bloody and violent. Just from a technical point of view, Braveheart does a wonderful of massing men and horses for large scale war fare on film. Gibson gathers what look like thousands of men and horses, as well as foot soldiers, and archers, yet his fight scenes do not turn into confusing crowd scenes. Gibson marshals his armies of extras, his stunt men and his special affects create a fictional world that is entertaining and thrilling. Braveheart is an epic film done on the large scale, involving massive set pieces, big budget production values and a cast of thousands. The emphasis tends to be on large events of historical importance, myth or heroic figures, and the setting is usually ancient times. According to an old epic poem written by blind Henry William, Wallace unified the clans of Scotland and won famous battles against the English before being captured, tortured and executed. Apparently James McKays book is one of the most thorough books on William Wallace on the market. His research centres around the epic poem. William Wallace was a giant of a man, literally in a time when the average height stood barely at 5 foot, Wallace stood at a towering 6 foot 7, tall even by todays standards. His father did not die hanging in a barn, but bravely, fighting off English soldiers on his knees after being hamstrung by an English sword. Wallace did marry, and his wife was murdered , but theres a chance they had an illegitimate daughter before her death. Wallace in fact may have had several illegitimate children as he was seen as a ladies man. He fought his enemy bravely and savagely. Some of his deeds are startling in their cruelty by todays standards, but were the norm for this time. He was a honourable man, as well, who refused to kill women and children, when to do so was acceptable war practice. The sets costumes and special effects and grimy make up all carry the veneer of realism, putting the viewer knee-deep in the mud and blood. The battle scenes rank upon the roughest ever committed to film, and earn the film and R rating. In the 13th century, the forces fought with swords, maces, chains and anything large enough to swing. The film was shot mostly in earthly tones, and the transfer maintains the films dark, wet look very well. When there is an important piece in the film when hid wife murren is killed, it darkens then sky and becomes misty in order to let the audience know something is about to happen and as Wallace returns to the village we see the fire, which symbolises his anger and rage. The battle scenes are especially vivid, and despite all the action on-screen there was no actual digital artifacting. The lighting in this film is daylight, there is only two occasions were it is dark and that is when he is marrying murren and their love scene and of course when he meets the princess and their love scene. Mel Gibson happens to be an Oscar winning director, wildly successful producer and one of the most durable of this era. He claims to be anti-intellectual, but is, in fact a well read man with a sharp mind in the 80s he delivered the double whammy Mad Max and Lethal Weapon. His directing debut Man Without A Face 1993 Braveheart has been the proud owner of ten Oscars, best picture, best director, best cinematography, best sound effects, editing and best make up. Also nominated for best screen play, written directly for the screen, best original dramatic musical score and so on. This truly shows the great effect and memory Braveheart has left on people, and gave Mel Gibson his reward. Braveheart is a great film, it would have been better had more facts been left in and the fiction left out. I still loved the film, because I liked the story it was telling. Braveheart is a rare film with entertainment, history and passion. Its fair to say its not just a movie but also a state of mind. It allows the viewer to enter the mystical and magical world of Scotland and become a rebel fighting beside the mighty Wallace. You fall in love as he does and a part of you dies when he does.

Table of Chemicals Used to Grow Crystals

Table of Chemicals Used to Grow Crystals This is a table of common chemicals that produce nice crystals. The color and shape of the crystals are included. Many of these chemicals are available in your home. Other chemicals in this list are readily available online and are safe enough for growing crystals at home or in a school. Recipes and specific instructions are available for hyperlinked chemicals. Table of Common Chemicals for Growing Crystals Chemical Name Color Shape aluminum potassium sulfate(potassium alum) coloreless cubic ammonium chloride colorless cubic sodium borate(borax) colorless monoclinic calcium chloride colorless hexagonal sodium nitrate colorless hexagonal copper acetate(cupric acetate) green monoclinic copper sulfate(cupric sulfate) blue triclinic iron sulfate(ferrous sulfate) pale blue-green monoclinic potassium ferricyanide red monoclinic potassium iodide white cupric potassium dichromate orange-red triclinic potassium chromium sulfate(chrome alum) deep purple cubic potassium permanganate dark purple rhombic sodium carbonate(washing soda) white rhombic sodium sulfate, anhydrous white monoclinic sodium thiosulfate colorless monoclinic cobalt chloride purple-red ferric ammonium sulfate(iron alum) pale violet octohedral magnesium sulfateepsom salt colorless monoclinic (hydrate) nickel sulfate pale green cubic (anhydrous)tetragonal (hexahydrate)rhombohedral (hexahydrate) potassium chromate yellow potassium sodium tartrateRochelle salt colorless to blue-white orthorhombic sodium ferrocyanide light yellow monoclinic sodium chloridetable salt colorless cubic sucrosetable sugarrock candy colorless monoclinic sodium bicarbonatebaking soda silver silver bismuth rainbow over silver tin silver monoammonium phosphate colorless quadratic prisms sodium acetate(hot ice) colorless monoclinic calcium copper acetate blue tetragonal

Engagement Strategy Presentation and Outline Research Paper

Engagement Strategy Presentation and Outline - Research Paper Example Employees are highly affected by the changes that take place within an organization including all kinds of mergers, acquisitions or takeover, management changes etc. the negative effects of these make the employees less engaged as well as de motivated and as a result, the employees become less dedicated and less satisfied and this is reflected in their work and performance. Therefore, it is extremely important for organizations to keep their staff motivated because a de motivated staff will affect the employees` performance as well as the performance of the entire organization. In order to increase staff morale and make them for satisfied, the human resource department should adopt strategies to boost staff morale and as a result, improve their performance. Employee engagement is usually low when a firm merges with another firm and there is some kind of a change in the management positions or styles. Similarly, the merge of the consulting firm with a software development agency results in low morale, low performance as well as high unrest. Employees should be given clear instructions and should be informed about the company`s mission for the future. As senior human resource leaders, it is our responsibility to introduce measures through which staff morale and performance could be restored. It is also extremely important to introduce equal policies and practices for both the new as well as old employees to deter future conflicts. Therefore, we propose the following engagement plans and strategies to help build the morale of old as well as new employees. The incentive theory of motivation includes that incentives should be given to the employees including both monetary and non-monetary rewards. These compensation strategies are in compliance with the expectancy theory which states that for a specific task given to the employees, they will exercise a certain amount of effort with the perceived level of compensation they will receive. If employees expect a greater

Dialogue of Civilizations and Modern Science Essay

Dialogue of Civilizations and Modern Science - Essay Example Those who hold this view argue that dialogue of civilizations from Europe, Asia, Middle East, and Africa is what led to the birth of modern science. One of the prominent scholars who hold this view is Noah Efron. Noah Efron, in his â€Å"That Christianity Gave Birth to Modern Science† in Galileo Goes to Jail, says that a dialogue of civilizations led to the birth of modern science (Numbers, 2009). This paper will discuss how a dialogue of civilizations really led to the birth of modern science. In addition, it will discuss what the relationship between science and religion in the Africa, Middle East, and Asia tell us about the subsequent history of the dialogue of civilizations and modern science. Critical examination by a number of prominent historians, philosophers, and scientists on the grand question of the birth or genesis of modern science have often indicated that modern science was a product of a dialogue of civilizations from many parts of the world (Brooke and Number s, 2011). There is a consensus among most of them that different cultures and civilizations is what contributed to the birth and development of modern science. ... Besides, while these views tend to acknowledge that there were developments and inventions in other civilizations that might have led to birth of modern science, they fail to acknowledge them as being critical to the birth and development of modern science (Harrison, 2010). Those holding Eurocentric views on this subject argue that modern science would not have developed in any other culture because of the absence of cultural factors that were present in Europe such as the Greek heritage, Roman concept of law, or the Christian religion (Numbers, 2009). History of science is awash with evidence of critical and unique developments and inventions that were achieved by Chinese, Arab, Indian, and Egyptian civilizations that serve to show how dialogue of civilizations led to the birth of modern science (Horton, 1997). The inventions and developments by these civilizations have had huge influence on the findings that scientists made throughout the birth and rise of modern science. The combi nation of these civilizations and European civilizations brought enormous achievements in science. Even those who argue that European civilization was the main contributing factor to the birth of science also agree that European scientists integrated discoveries across different civilizations in order to create and subsequently develop modern science (Brooke and Numbers, 2011). This point of view by those holding Eurocentric view regarding the birth of science is in itself a strong proof of how a dialogue of civilizations led to the birth of modern science (Harrison, 2010). Great findings and discoveries in various civilizations at different periods in history encouraged and guided the scientific

Gainesboro Machine Tools Corporation Essay Example for Free

Gainesboro Machine Tools Corporation Essay Kendle International Inc. We looked at the competitive landscape and, based on what was happening, knew we were either going to sell Kendle, grow or disappear. It was May 1997, and Candace Kendle, the chairman and chief executive officer of Kendle International Inc. (Kendle), and her husband Christopher C. Bergen, the president and chief operating officer, were reviewing the strategic options for their Cincinnati, Ohio based company. Kendle, a business they had founded over 15 years previously, conducted clinical trials for pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies to test the safety and efficacy of their new drugs. The company had grown successfully to $13 million of sales and had attracted significant business from major pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies. Kendle was competing, however, with several larger contract research organizations (CRO), many of which had an international presence that allowed them to do clinical studies outside the United States and gave them an advantage when competing for major projects. To compete more effectively, Candace and Chris had embarked on a plan to grow through acquisition, particularly internationally, and to finance this growth through a public offering of equity. Toward this end, by the spring of 1997 Kendle had lined up two potential European acquisitions—U-Gene, a CRO in the Netherlands with 1996 sales of $12.5 million, and gmi, a Germanbased CRO with $7 million in sales. To finance these acquisitions, Kendle had worked out possible debt financing with Nationsbank and was working with two investment banks on an Initial Public Offering (IPO) that would repay the bank debt if successful and provide the equity base for future acquisitions. It was now time to decide whether to go ahead with the full program of two acquisitions, a large debt financing and an equity issue. Kendle History Candace and Chris met in 1979 while working at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Candace had received her doctorate in pharmacy from the University of Cincinnati, then taught in North Carolina and Pennsylvania. Her scientific specialty was virology. At the Children’s Hospital, Candace was serving as the director of pharmacy, working as an investigator on a study of an antiviral drug for the pharmaceutical company Burroughs Wellcome. Chris, a Wharton MBA, was a senior administrator at the hospital. Research Associate Indra A. Reinbergs prepared this case under the supervision of Professors Dwight B. Crane and Paul W. Marshall as the basis for class discussion rather than to illustrate either effective or ineffective handling of an administrative situation. Copyright  © 2000 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. To order copies or request permission to reproduce materials, call 1-800-545-7685, write Harvard Business School Publishing, Boston, MA 02163, or go to http://www.hbsp.harvard.edu. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, used in a spreadsheet, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the permission of Harvard Business School. 1 Looking for something new, Candace and Chris began to discuss the idea of going into business together. One day in early 1981 Candace received an unexpected visit from a new physician, replacing the usual medical monitor for her project with Burroughs Wellcome. This physician was a pioneer in the  contract clinical research business. As he described how his business worked, Candace became more and more intrigued. When he left that day, she immediately called Chris and said, â€Å"I’ve got a business idea!† The concept was to set up a small research consulting firm that would take on outsourced research and development (RD) work on a contract basis from large pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies. Based on the positive response she received from potential clients, Candace left her job at the hospital in June 1981 and Chris left his job in December 1981. Kendle International Inc. was incorporated in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1981, with Candace taking 55% of the shares, and Chris 45%. Candace had strong ties to the Cincinnati area. Her grandfather, a coal miner, had moved there from Appalachia, and the clan had grown to about 140 members, including Candace’s two sons from a previous marriage. By January 1982, Candace and Chris were working from Candace’s parents’ home. Kendle started as a small company with a few contracts, and business grew slowly through referrals from professional colleagues. Kendle suffered the usual bumps of a start-up business, particularly in the late 1980s when it suffered a loss for two years and ran up $1 million in bank debt on a $250,000 line of credit. Afraid that its bank would call the loan, the company went through a bankruptcy scare. Fortunately, Kendle succeeded in attracting business from a new client, the pharmaceutical company G.D. Searle Co. (Searle). By the early 1990s, the company was turned around and it generated annual sales of about $2.5 million. Candace and Chris were married in 1991. The Pharmaceutical Lifecycle The clinical research process was influenced by government regulations that required drugs to pass through a series of steps before they could be marketed for public use. In the United States, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulated pharmaceuticals. To receive FDA approval, a drug had to meet safety and efficacy standards for a specific indication (medical diagnosis). A drug for hypertension, for example, would have to lower blood pressure by a certain statistically significant amount without  producing unacceptable side effects. The entire FDA approval process could take from 8 to 15 years and involve several thousand patients.1 After a pharmaceutical company discovered a new drug and completed pre-clinical testing on animals in the laboratory, an Investigational New Drug application was filed with the FDA. The drug then passed through three phases of clinical testing on humans. Before beginning each subsequent phase, the drug company had to submit additional regulatory information to the FDA. Phase I Phase I studies were primarily concerned with assessing the drugs safety. This initial phase of testing in humans was done in a small number of healthy volunteers (20 to 100), such as students, who were usually paid for participation. Phase II Once Phase I testing had proven the drug’s safety, Phase II tested its efficacy in a small number of patients (100 to 300) with the medical diagnosis. It was specifically designed to determine the likely effective dose in patients. Phase III In a Phase III study, the drug was tested on a larger patient population (1,000 to 3,000) at multiple clinical sites. The purpose was to provide a more thorough understanding of the drugs effectiveness, benefits, and the range of possible adverse reactions. Most Phase II and Phase III studies were blinded studies in which some patients received the experimental drug, while control groups received a placebo or an already approved drug. Once a Phase III study was successfully completed, a pharmaceutical company requested FDA approval for marketing the drug by filing a New Drug Application, which averaged about 100,000 pages. †¢ 200-033 Phase IV Post-marketing testing (of at least 300 patients per trial) was sometimes conducted for high-risk drugs to catch serious side effects (liver toxicity) and monitor them for long-term effectiveness and cost-effectiveness. The pharmaceutical companies traditionally designed and conducted their own clinical trials. They selected the research sites and recruited investigators to conduct the trials of the new drug. Investigators were often medical school professors at teaching hospitals, but they could also be professional investigators who conducted clinical trials at dedicated centers or occasionally regular physicians who ran trials, particularly Phase IV trials, out of their private practices. These investigators then recruited patients, sometimes with the help of the pharmaceutical company, to participate in the study. After patients were recruited, there was a considerable amount of data collection by the investigators, monitoring of the process and data retrieval by the pharmaceutical company, and analysis of the data to determine whether the statistical criteria for safety and efficacy were met. Finally, there was the complicated process of compiling the data and preparing the long report for the FDA. The Contract Research Business In the 1970s, large pharmaceutical concerns in the United States began to look for ways to outsource their clinical testing work as their RD budgets grew. At the beginning, contract research was a small cottage industry and the work was awarded on a piecemeal basis. As Chris recalled, â€Å"For years, there had been companies conducting animal testing and Phase I, but there was no one managing the entire research and development process. The acronym ‘CRO’ (contract research organization) did not exist, pharmaceutical companies gave out only small contracts, and did not have much confidence in for-profit research managers.† The growth of the CRO industry was stimulated by pricing pressures on drug companies that led them to try to transfer the fixed costs of clinical research into a variable cost through outsourcing. As Chris described, The general problem that drug companies face is balancing a variable workload with a fixed workforce. The problem is that you don’t know when the guy in the white lab coat will come running down the hall, beaker in hand, shouting, ‘Eureka, I’ve got it, it’s going to cure disease X’. When he does that, you know your workload is going to spike. Your workload is impacted by the rate of discovery, the number of projects killed in vitro and, subsequent to that, how many studies get cancelled due to safety or efficacy problems in human testing. Pure CROs like Kendle derived their income solely from the outsourced portion of the RD budget of pharmaceutical clients. In theory, any part of the clinical testing process could be outsourced. While most pre-clinical discovery was conducted in-house by drug companies, the trend in the 1990s was for CROs to receive contracts to manage the entire clinical research piece, especially 3 Phases II and III. The whole process was an incredible race against time, as every day for which FDA approval was delayed could cost the pharmaceutical client over $1 million in lost revenues. Pharmaceutical contracts ranged in duration from a few months to several years. For multi-year contracts involving clinical trials, a portion of the contract fee was paid at the time the trial was initiated, with the balance of the contract fee payable in installments over the trial duration, as performance-based milestones (investigator recruitment, patient enrollment, delivery of databases) were completed. Contracts were bid by CROs on a fixed-price basis, and the research was a labor-intensive business. The contract bids depended on careful estimation of the hourly labor rates and the number of hours each activity would take. The estimation process involved statistical algorithms, which took into account the length of the study, frequency and length of site visits, the number of sites involved, the number of patients involved, and the number of pages per report form. A premium would be added for more complicated therapeutic testing. As the chief financial officer Tim Mooney described the business, The way that Kendle makes money is like any professional service firm—We focus on maximizing labor utilization, especially at the operational level. We assume a 65% to 70% utilization rate, so profit margins are higher if we have a higher utilization rate of personnel. We have the same assumed profit margin on all levels of people, but we can charge higher rates for contracts where we have specific therapeutic expertise that is in demand. Margins can also be higher on some large projects when we can share overhead costs across more sites. The business of contract research entailed several types of business risk. With contracts running at an average of $1 million for companies of Kendle’s size, client dependence was a major risk. Project cancellation by the client and â€Å"change orders† to reduce project costs were also increasingly frequent in the CRO industry, as healthcare cost pressures intensified. On the other hand, product liability for medical risks was borne by the pharmaceutical company. Competition in the 1990s By the mid-1990s, contract research had evolved into a full-service industry, recognized by both the pharmaceutical/biotech industries and the financial community. In 1995, worldwide spending on RD by pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies was estimated at $35 billion, with $22 billion spent on the type of drug development work that CROs could do. Of the $22 billion, only $4.6 billion was outsourced to CROs in 1995. While RD spending by pharmaceutical companies was growing at 10% a year, CROs were growing at twice that rate.2 Specialized CROs could manage increasingly complex drug trials—in the previous decade, the number of procedures per trial and average number of patients per trial had doubled—far more efficiently than their pharmaceutical clients.3 Kendle participated in this growth in clinical research. Its net revenues grew 425% from $2.5 million in 1992 to $13 million in 1996. From a loss of $495,000 in 1992, its net income rose to $1.1 million by 1996. By 1996, Kendle had conducted clinical trials for 12 of the world’s 20 largest pharmaceutical companies. Kendle’s three largest clients were G.D. Searle, Procter Gamble, and Amgen, which generated 48%, 19%, and 13% of Kendles 1996 revenues, respectively. (See Exhibits 1 and 2 for Kendle’s income statements and balance sheets.) 2 J.C. Bradford Co., analyst report, January 15, 1998, pp. 5-6. 3 The Economist, â€Å"Survey of the Pharmaceutical Industry,† February 21, 1998, p. 4.200-033 The contract research industry was very fragmented, with hundreds of CROs worldwide. In the 1990s, in response to the increased outsourcing of pharmaceutical RD, and a demand for global trials, consolidation among the CROs began. A few key players emerged and went public, creating a new industry for Wall Street to watch. Many CRO start-ups were founded by former drug company executives who decided to form their own operations. After a period of internal growth, some of the start-ups began growing through a financial â€Å"roll-up† strategy. An industry publication listed 18 top players in North America, with total contract research revenues of $1.7 billion. The top five public companies, ranked by 1996 revenues, were Quintiles Transnational Corp. ($537.6 million), Covance Inc. ($494.8 million), Pharmaceutical Product Development Inc ($152.3 million), ClinTrials Research Inc. ($93.5 million), and Parexel International Corp. ($88 million).4 (See Exhibit 3 for recent sales and pr ofit data on CROs.) With its talent pool of scientists at the Research Triangle and U.S. headquarters of the pharmaceutical giants Glaxo and Burroughs Wellcome (later merged as Glaxo Wellcome), the state of North Carolina quickly became the center of the burgeoning CRO industry. Two of the â€Å"big five† companies, Quintiles and Pharmaceutical Product Development, were started there by academic colleagues of Candace’s. Quintiles Transnational was considered to be the †gold standard of the industry.† Quintiles was founded in 1982 by Dennis Gillings, a British biostatistician who had worked at Hoechst and was a professor at the University of North Carolina, where Candace completed her postdoctoral work. After raising $39 million in a 1994 IPO, Quintiles went on an acquisition spree, adding other professional service businesses. For example, the firm provided sales and marketing services to support the launch of new drug products. By the end of 1996, Quintiles was the worldâ€⠄¢s largest CRO, with 7,000 employees in 56 offices in 20 countries. A typical clinical study managed by Quintiles was conducted at 160 sites in 12 countries, involving 10,000 patients. Quintiles was more diversified than many of its CRO competitors, with about 65% of revenues derived from the  core CRO business and 35% from other services.5 Pharmaceutical Product Development (PPD) was founded in 1989 by Fred Eshelman, a colleague of Candace’s from the postdoctoral program in pharmacy. Like the founder of Quintiles, Eshelman had worked in drug research for several pharmaceutical firms, including Glaxo and Beecham. PPD’s revenues jumped 500% between 1990 and 1994, based on such work as multi-year contracts for AIDS research for the National Institutes of Health. PPD conducted a successful IPO in March 1996, with its stock jumping from $18 per share to $25.50 per share on the first day of trading. PPD bought a U.K. Phase I facility in November 1995, and in September 19 96 merged with another leading CRO. Their combined net revenues exceeded $200 million. Kendle at the Crossroads To Candace and Chris, it was clear that certain competitive capabilities were necessary for companies of Kendle’s size to compete successfully with the major CROs: therapeutic expertise (in specific medical areas) broad range of services (pharmaceutical companies wanted to work with fewer CROs, with each offering a wide range of services across multiple phases of the RD process); integrated clinical data management (the ability to efficiently collect, edit and analyze data from thousands of patients with various clinical conditions from many geographically dispersed sites); 4 â€Å"Annual Report: Leading CROs,† RD Directions, September 1997, pp. 28+. 5 William Blair Co. LLC analyst report, Quintiles Transnational Corp., June 20, 1997, p. 3. international, multi-jurisdictional presence (to speed up drug approval, tests were being launched in several countries at once); With the exception of international presence, Candace and Chris felt comfortable with their ability to meet these criteria. Kendle’s staff had scientific expertise in multiple therapeutic areas, including cardiovascular, central nervous system, gastrointestinal, immunology, oncology, respiratory, skeletal disease and inflammation. The company also had broad capabilities, including management of studies in Phases II through Phase IV. It did not consider the absence of Phase I capabilities to be an issue, since this activity was quite separate. (See Exhibit 4 for a comparison of CRO geographical locations.) To build an integrated clinical data management capability, Chris had directed the development of TrialWare ®, a proprietary software system that allowed global data collection and processing and the integration of clinical data with clients’ in-house data management systems. TrialWare ® consisted of several modules including a database management system that greatly reduced study start-up costs and time by standardizing database design and utilizing scanned image technology to facilitate the design of data entry screens, the point-and-click application of edits from a pre-programmed library, and workflow management (parallel processing). Other modules included a system that coded medical history, medication and adverse event data and a touch-tone telephone system that was used for patient  randomization, just-in-time drug supply and collection of real-time enrollment data. Against the backdrop of a changing industry, Candace and Chris felt the need to develop additional business skills and focus Kendle’s strategy. To clarify their management roles, Candace and Chris switched their existing responsibilities. Chris pointed out, â€Å"Candace became CEO as we realized that her focus was long-range and I took over as Chief Operating Officer to focus on the short-range. In addition, the marketing strength of our competitors was propelling them further and further ahead of Kendle. Candace brought her science background and entrepreneurial skills, while I brought my management. The problem was that we were relatively weak in sales and marketing.† To broaden their skills, Candace went off in 1991 to the Owner/President Management Program (OPM), an executive education program run by Harvard Business School for three weeks a year over three years. Chris followed her to OPM in 1994. After completing the OPM program, Candace assessed the situation, We have to be big enough relative to our competitors to take on large, international projects. When Searle was looking for CROs for international work, all we could do was possibly subcontract it out to small shops. In contrast, Quintiles had six overseas offices of its own. Furthermore, when Searle calls and says, ‘I just got off the phone, Quintiles will cut their price by a million dollars,’ if you’re too small, you’re not going to be able to respond to that. Candace and Chris realized that Kendle could not grow fast enough internally to keep up with its peers and did not have the cash for acquisitions. They entertained the thought of selling Kendle, and were approached several times about a sale. But by nature, they were a competitive, athletic couple. Chris got up to play squash every morning at 7 AM, and Candace was an avid rower, recently winning a gold medal in a Cincinnati regatta. Perhaps not surprisingly, Candace and Chris decided to grow the firm and take it public rather than sell. As Candace described their motivation, â€Å"We were not driven to be a public company as such, but primarily to be bigger, and for this, we  needed public financing to succeed in the new competitive landscape. The whole target was not to let the big guys get too far out ahead of us.† Preparations for Growth By 1994, Kendle had grown to $4.4 million in revenues. Candace, the driving force throughout the IPO process, sought advice from an old college friend, a well-known Cincinnati businessman. He advised her, â€Å"before you go public, practice being a public company.† Candace therefore formulated a plan for Kendle to go public in 1999. Kendle began hiring key managers to build up functional units. Between 1994 and February 1997, new directors of clinical data management, information technology, biostatistics, finance, mergers and acquisitions, regulatory affairs, and human resources were hired. As Chris described, â€Å"the plan was to put this infrastructure in place to look and act like a public company— communications, IT, finance. The idea was hire at the top and they’ll fill in their organization.† Many of these new managers had previously worked together at other companies. To prepare for Wall Street scrutiny, Kendle began issuing internal quarterly fi nancial statements and sharing them with employees in an open-book management style. Candace and Chris tried to make the growing number of employees feel like â€Å"part of the family† in other ways, too. The Kendle â€Å"photo gallery† displayed professional portraits of employees with their favorite hobbies. In 1995 Chris led the development of a corporate mission statement and a document on strategic plans that was shared with all employees. Kendle was organized in a matrix fashion (see Exhibit 5 for organizational chart). Each department was treated as a strategic business unit (SBU) with a director who established standards and carried profit responsibility. At the same time, each research contract was managed by a project manager who assembled a team from across the various SBUs. Clinical trials involved five functional SBUs at Kendle: 1. Regulatory Affairs recruited investigators, helped them with FDA registration forms, and obtained approval from ethics boards. Regulatory Affairs maintained a database of 5,000 investigators. 2. Clinical Monitoring sent clinical research associates (CRA) out to the testing sites (every 4 to 6 weeks) to enforce Good Clinical Practice regulations. The CRAs were typically young, single health care professionals who spent a significant amount of their time on the road. The CRA would collect data from investigators, resolve queries generated by Clinical Data Management, and promote patient enrollment. 3. Clinical Data Management produced a â€Å"locked† database that could be submitted to the FDA. Data from case report forms were input into a computer system and â€Å"cleaned† through a manual review of the forms and an automated check of the databases. The challenge was to lock a database quickly while maintaining data quality. 4. Biostatistics would â€Å"unblind† the locked database and analyze it to determine if the data confirmed that the test results met the criteria for safety and efficacy. Biostatistics also defined the scope of new studies. 5. Medical Writing generated â€Å"the truckload of paper submitted to the FDA† for a New Drug Application, including a statistical analysis, a clinical assessment, preclinical and clinical data, a description of the manufacturing process, and the supporting patient documentation. 1996: The Celebrexâ„ ¢ Study, Filing Preparations, and European acquisitions 1996 was a busy year for Candace, Chris, and Kendle’s new management team. They simultaneously began conducting a major drug study, working with underwriters on IPO preparations, and looking for overseas acquisition targets. In 1996 Kendle managed 62 clinical studies at 4,100 sites involving approximately 20,000 patients. Celebrexâ„ ¢ Study In January 1996, Kendle began working on a major drug called Celebrexâ„ ¢ (celecoxib). Its client Searle was engaged in a neck-and-neck race with Merck, the largest U.S. drug company, to be the first to market a COX-2 inhibitor. A COX-2 inhibitor was a new type of anti-inflammatory drug that promised low incidence of bleeding ulcers in long-term, high-dosage users such as arthritis patients. The Searle-Merck race was closely followed in the business press. Searle awarded the international portion of the Celebrexâ„ ¢ contract to another CRO, since Kendle only had facilities for testing in the United States. However, Kendle did win the contract to conduct all the U.S. Phase II and III trials. The Celebrexâ„ ¢ contract was a â€Å"huge feather in our cap,† recalled the chief financial officer. â€Å"In order to beat Merck, we worked very hard and kept compressing the timelines.† To head the Celebrexâ„ ¢ project, Kendle hired Bill Sietsema, PhD, as assistant director of clinical research. A therapeutic expert in skeletal diseases and inflammation, Sietsema had worked at Proctor Gamble for 12 years. While Sietsema served as overall program director, Chris acted as the operational project manager, meeting with his Searle counterpart in Chicago on a monthly basis. In early 1997, Kendle also set up a new regional office in Chicago, close to Searle headquarters. For Kendle, the Celebrexâ„ ¢ project was a chance to â€Å"show what we could do and to develop a reputation as a leader in the field of skeletal disease and inflammation.† Kendle actively helped investigators recruit arthritis patients, running television advertisements, directing interested volunteers to a call center. Three hundred  investigators enrolled over 10,000 patients, producing over one million pages of case report forms. Most importantly, through close integration of information systems with Searle, Kendle was able to beat an industry standard. Instead of taking the typical six months to one year, the time span between the last patient in Phase II and the first in Phase III, which began in June 1996, was only 22 days. Preparation for SEC Filing By the time the Celebrexâ„ ¢ program rolled around, Candace and Chris felt that they might have to go public earlier than intended because of the competitive landscape. The new chief financial officer, Tim Mooney, took a leading role in the preparations. Prior to joining Kendle in May 1996, Mooney had worked as CFO at The Future Now, Inc., a computer reseller and Hook-SupeRx, a retail drugstore chain. At Kendle, Mooney replaced the controller with an audit manager from Coopers Lybrand to beef up his staff. Mooney also led the building of many of the other financially related departments at Kendle. To act as the lead underwriters on the IPO, in August 1996 Mooney chose two regional investment banks, Chicago-based William Blair Company, L.L.C., which had handled the 1995 IPO of Kendle’s competitor Parexel, and Wessels, Arnold Henderson from Minneapolis. William Blair began putting Kendle through the paces of preparing to file a preliminary prospectus with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The process of going public generally took from 60 to 180 days. One of the key steps in the process was the conversion of Kendle from a subchapter corporation to a C corporation at the time of the IPO. (Subchapter S corporations were entities with 35 or fewer shareholders that were treated like partnerships for tax purposes. Corporate income tax was passed through tax-free to the owners who then paid personal income taxes due.) U-Gene In October 1996 Mooney hired Tony Forcellini, a former colleague, as director of mergers and acquisitions (MA). Tony had worked at Arthur Andersen in the tax department, and then as a treasurer at Hook-SupeRx with Mooney. The search for European acquisition targets was mainly conducted by Candace and Tony Forcellini, with back-up support by Tim Mooney and Chris. All the while, Chris and Bill Sietsema were working away on the Celebrexâ„ ¢ program. Forcellini’s first decision was easy—whether to pursue an offering memorandum that landed on his desk shortly after he arrived. The company for sale was U-Gene Research B.V. (U-Gene), a CRO based in Utrecht, the Netherlands. U-Gene was represented by Technomark Consulting Services Ltd. (Technomark), a London-based consulting firm uniquely specializing in the healthcare industry. Technomark had an extensive database on European CROs and was primarily in the business of matching its pharmaceutical company clients’ trial s with appropriate European CROs, but it also had a small investment banking division. U-Gene, a full-service CRO, was an attractive target for Kendle. The venture capitalist owners were actively looking for buyers. With a 38-bed Phase I facility in Utrecht and regional offices in the United Kingdom and Italy, U-Gene could increase both Kendle’s service offering and geographic presence. Since its founding in 1986, U-Gene had served more than 100 clients, including 19 of the worlds largest pharmaceutical companies. In 1996, U-Gene participated in 115 studies at approximately 500 sites involving approximately 4,700 patients and recorded net revenues of $12.5 million, a 37% increase over the prior year, and operating profit of $1.3 million, a 47% increase over the prior year. Because of its U.K. and Italian offices, U-Gene viewed itself as on the way to becoming a pan-European CRO.  (See Exhibit 6 for U-Gene financial statements.) With momentum building, in November 1996, Forcellini seized upon U-Gene as Kendle’s possible entry into Europe and submitted a bid, offering cash and private stock. Unfortunately, Kendle lost out on this bid to a competitor, Collaborative Clinical Research, Inc, as U-Gene’s owners either wanted a full cash deal or stock from a public company. Collaborative was a competitor slightly larger than Kendle ($25.7 million in revenues) that had gone public in June 1996 and had established a software partnership with IBM. Although it had access to investigators outside the United States, Collaborative also viewed U-Gene as the establishment of a European presence. On February 12, 1997 Collaborative announced that it had signed a letter of intent to acquire U-Gene in exchange for 1.75 million newly issued shares. While this put Kendle out of the picture, the prospects of a deal were not completely killed. On the same day, February 12, 1997, Collaborative also announced that its first-quarter 1997 earnings would be significantly below expectations. On the next day, on analyst speculation that a major client contract had been lost, their stock fell by 27.3%, closing at $9.00.6 This put Collaborative’s UGene deal in jeopardy. Underwriter Concerns About two weeks after Collaborative’s announcement, on February 25, 1997, another CRO, ClinTrials, also suffered a drop in stock price. ClinTrials’ stock lost more than half its market value,  dropping 59%, to $9.50 per share. The fall began when an analyst from Wessels Arnold downgraded the ClinTrials stock to â€Å"hold† from â€Å"buy,† citing a number of key management departures, and continued after ClinTrials announced that its first-quarter earnings would be half its year-earlier profit. The reason for the unexpected earnings decline was the cancellation of five projects totaling $37 million, with the possibility of even lower earnings due to an unresolved project dispute with a client.7 ClinTrials’ negative performance began to affect other CRO stocks, including that of Quintiles.8 With client concentration an issue in ClinTrials’ stock performance, William Blair developed doubts about the timing of Kendle’s IPO. Although Kendle was close to filing its preliminary prospectus, on the day after ClinTrial’s stock dropped, William Blair analysts had a meeting with Kendle’s management and told them that they had decided to withdraw as lead underwriters in the IPO. Candace was resolved to keep going. She said, â€Å"There’s no way out of the concentration issue. We can’t buy our way out of it, because we can’t do MA deals until we have a public currency, and every day Searle is bringing us more work, we won’t tell them no.† She then asked Mooney to find new investment bankers, and he thought, â€Å"what am I going to do now?† Hoping for a lead, Mooney called up a former security analyst from Wessels Arnold who had gone to work at Lehman Bros. Although Kendle was smaller than Lehman’s usual clients, Lehman agreed to underwrite Kendle’s IPO, with the reassurance that â€Å"we think we can sell through the client concentration issue.† After an agreement with New York-based Lehman was reached, Mooney searched for a regional firm because, as he decided, â€Å"I didn’t want two New York-size egos. J.C. Bradford, based in Nashville, Tennessee, had a good reputation in the industry, and struck us as a nice regional bank. They were more retail-oriented than institutional-oriented, so they wouldn’t directly be competing with Lehman in types of clientele.† Bradford had managed the IPO of the first large CRO to go public (ClinTrials, in 1993) and Lehman had led the IPO of PPD in January 1996. Gmi and U-Gene revisited At the same time, Forcellini was moving ahead on the acquisition search. In January 1997 he tasked Technomark with using its CRO database to generate a list of possible European acquisition targets that met the following criteria: â€Å"ideally a CRO with United Kingdom headquarters; $5 million to $7 million in revenues; no Searle business; certain types of therapeutic expertise; strong in phases II through IV; and certain country locations.† The initial list had 50 European CROs, which Kendle narrowed down to 14 prospects. Technomark then contacted these 14 prospects to sound out their willingness to sell, bringing the number down to five candidates: three CROs in Germany, two in the United Kingdom, and one in the Netherlands (not U-Gene). To assess the prospects, Kendle used information from Technomark on comparable MA deals. Candace and Tony Forcellini then traveled around Europe for a week visiting the five companies. They decided to further pursue two companies: a small, 15-person monitoring organization in the United Kingdom and one in Germany. The U.K. prospect was quickly discarded because of an aggressive asking price and accounting problems. Kendle then moved on to the German target, a company named gmi. Its full name was GMI Gesellschaft fur Angewandte Mathematik und Informatik mbH. Founded in 1983, gmi provided a full range of Phase II to IV services. gmi had conducted trials in Austria, the United Kingdom, Switzerland and France, among other countries, and had experience in health economic studies and 7 â€Å"ClinTrials Predicts Sharply Lower Profit: Shares Plunge 59%†, The Wall Street Journal, February 26, 1997, p. B3. 8 David Ranii, â€Å"Investors avoiding Quintiles,† The News Observer, Raleigh, NC, February 27, 1997, p. C8. professional training programs. In 1996, gmi participated in 119 studies at multiple sites and recorded net revenues of $7 million, a 32% increase over the prior year, and operating profit of $1.4 million, a 16% increase over the prior year. At March 31, 1997, gmis backlog was approximately $9.6 million. gmi considered itself to be especially good at Phase III trials. (See Exhibit 7 for gmi financial statements.) While Candace and Forcellini were narrowing down European targets, Mooney was hunting for cash. In February 1997 Kendle met at a special lunch with its existing bankers, Star Bank (later renamed Firstar), in Cincinnati. Mooney recalled the conversation vividly: â€Å"After Candace and Chris described their plans, Star Bank’s CEO made a proposal, ‘If you keep Kendle a private company and avoid the hassles of being public, we’ll lend you the money you need for acquisitions.’† With the financing in hand, Candace and Forcellini visited gmi in Munich. While gmi’s owners were willing to talk, they did not have much interest in selling. As Mooney described it, â€Å"gmi was a classic case of having grown to a certain size, had a comfortable level of income, but weren’t interested in putting in the professional systems to grow beyond that level.† After several conversations in March, it was not clear that Kendle and gmi’s owners w ould be able to reach a mutually agreeable price. At this point in early April 1997, the possibility of U-Gene as an acquisition candidate heated up. After the U-Gene deal with Collaborative Research began to collapse, Kendle had initiated a carefully structured inquiry about U-Gene’s interest in renewed discussions. This inquiry led to further discussions and a request in April for Kendle to meet in Frankfurt to try to reach an agreement. With the gmi deal in doubt, Kendle agreed to try to reach closure with U-Gene. After some discussion, both sides agreed on a price of 30 million Dutch guilders, or about US$15.6 million, $14 million of which would be paid in cash, and the remaining $1.6 million would be in the form of a promissory note payable to the selling shareholders.  U-Gene wanted to complete the transaction within the next several weeks, so it would have to be financed at least initially by borrowings. Even if Kendle went ahead with an IPO, the equity financing would not be completed until the end of the summer. Discussions with gmi continued through this period since Kendle was confident about its ability to obtain financing from Star Bank. Ultimately, Kendle’s team was able to agree upon a price with gmi. The owners were willing to accept a price of 19.5 million Deutsche marks, or about US$12.3 million, with at least $9.5 million in cash. They would accept shares for the remaining $2.8 million, if Kendle successfully completed an IPO. The owners were willing to hold off the deal until the IPO issue was resolved. Closing the Deals and IPO Decision To complete both the U-Gene and gmi deals, Kendle would need to borrow about $25 million to $28 million, so financing became critical. Mooney went back to Star Bank to take the bankers up on their promise. He described their reaction: â€Å"Star Bank said they couldn’t lend $28 million to a company that only has $1 million in equity. Nobody did that. They might be willing to finance one acquisition, with the help of other banks, but there was no way that they would provide $28 million.† Mooney was quite angry, but had no choice but to look for other sources of financing. He first tried to get bridge financing from Lehman and Bradford, but they refused, saying that they had â€Å"gotten killed on such deals in the 1980s.† There was also a possibility of financing from First Chicago Bank, but this did not materialize. Finally, in late April 1997, Mooney contacted NationsBank, N.A., which was headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina and provided banking services to the CRO industry. Nationsbank expressed interest, but only in a large deal. Even $28 million was a small amount to Nationsbank. In 11  a few short weeks, Nationsbank ended up structuring a $30 million credit for Kendle, consisting of a $20 million, three-year revolving credit line and $10 million in five-year, subordinated notes. The interest rate on the credit line was tied to a money market base rate plus 0.50% (currently totaling 6.2%), and the subordinated debt carried a 12% rate. †So NationsBank stepped up in a pretty big way. They could have ended up with Kendle as a private company, with $30 million in debt.† Because of the risk, Nationsbank would also take warrants giving the bank the right to purchase 4% of Kendle’s equity, or up to 10% if the IPO was delayed and Kendle had to borrow the full amount to do both acquisitions. Lehman Brothers was confident about an IPO. The underwriters felt Kendle could raise $39 million to $40 million at a price between $12 and $14 per share, and that Candace and Chris could sell some of their shares as well. Premier Research Worldwide Ltd., a CRO with $15.2 million in 1996 revenues, had raised $46.75 million from its recent IPO in February 1997. Kendle felt they had a much better track record than Premier. Kendle now faced some difficult decisions. It could do the full program, including both acquisitions, taking the $30 million Nationsbank deal, and planning for an IPO in late summer. The successful acquisitions of gmi and U-Gene would establish Kendle as the sixth largest CRO in Europe, based on total revenues, and one of only four large CROs able to offer clients the full range of Phase I through Phase IV clinical trials in Europe. The pricing on the two acquisitions of 8 to 10 times EBITDA seemed in line with recent CRO deals (see Exhibit 8). And, once the IPO was completed, Kendle would have both a cash cushion and stock as a currency to help finance future growth and acquisitions. Assuming an IPO of 3 million new shares at a price of $13.00, Kendle would have a cash position of about $14 million and no debt in the capital structure. (See Exhibits 9 and 10 for pro forma  income statements and balance sheets showing the impact of the acquisitions and the IPO.) A related issue was how many of their shares Candace and Chris should sell if an IPO were done. Their current thinking was to sell 600,000 shares. Thus, a total of 3.6 million shares would be for sale at the time of the IPO, including a primary offering of 3 million shares and a secondary offering of 600,000 shares. This sale would reduce holdings controlled by Candace and Chris from 3.65 million shares (83.1% of the shares currently outstanding) to 3.05 million shares (43.4% of the new total outstanding). Doing the full IPO and acquisition program, however, was unprecedented among Kendle’s peers. â€Å"Nobody does this combination all at once—an IPO, senior- and sub-debt financing, and MA deals,† as Mooney described the situation. Furthermore, the stock prices of public CROs had been falling since last February (see Exhibits 11 and 12 for stock market valuation and price information). If Kendle bought into the full program and the market crashed or the IPO was unsuccessful, the company would have almost $30 million of debt on its books with a very modest equity base. Perhaps it would be better to do just the U-Gene acquisition and use Star Bank to finance it. After completing this acquisition, it could then pursue the IPO. This approach was safer, but of course Kendle might miss the IPO window and miss the opportunity to acquire the second company. Indeed, instead of discouraging Kendle from doing an IPO, the fall in CRO stock prices might be taken as a signal tha t Kendle should forge ahead before the window closed completely.

biodiversity Essay -- essays research papers

"BIODIVERSITY" Biodiversity, as defined by E.O. Wilson, "is meant to be all inclusive- it's the genetic based variation of living organisms at all levels, from the variety of genes in populations of single species, through species, on up to the array of natural ecosystems." This includes plants, animals, insects, fungi, bacteria, and all microorganisms. All of these things create what is known as a web. These things interact with each other in some way there for they depend on one another throughout their lifetime. There are many separate ways in which we can study biodiversity. These ways include, genetic, species, community, ecosystem, and taxonomic diversity. Biodiversity can be best number of species in a given area, or scientifically, "species richness." Today there is a biodiversity crisis facing us. This is caused mainly by the destruction of habitats. This dramatically increases the rate at which species decrease in number and become extinct. It is appalling to know that we are the main cause of this. Over fishing, pollution, over cutting, and an increase in population contribute to this problem. An example of this is the gold mining operation that we saw in the video. While mining, Mercury was dripping into the water. The mercury then got into the fish and into the humans who ate the fish. Biodiversity promotes a healthy environment. Environments...