Bad Habits: Attitudes of Filipinos That Need to Change Essay

1. Thoughtless When someone celebrates birthday, graduation or winning the lotto in the neighborhood, the party lasts through deep in the night, keeping neighbors awake by the noise of an out of tune videoke singer. 2. Inconsiderate Even after agreeing to meet at a certain time, some Filipinos manage to fail this initial agreement, using alibis as traffic, got caught up with something or lost in the way, disregarding the feeling of someone who just complied with agreed time. If these folks can’t fulfill simple tasks, can we trust them when it comes to, say lending them our prized books or CDs, loaning them money or anything they promise? 3. Racist Many Filipinos complain of being racially profiled (Filipinas in Middle East are easy to get or gullible) but some of us look down on other people such as Indians as fellows with strange body odor who live off through usury. Or on Chinese neighbors who own bigger stores in the market as penny-pinchers. But we can’t look at ourselves and fix our flaws. Worse, see #6. 4. Too self-conscious Wants to know who are his or her stalkers at social media. Installs ‘who are my top viewers’ application which turns out as a link to a malicious website. Wants to get everybody’s attention to the point that they post celebrity, semi-naked or suggestive profile photos 5. Religious fanaticism While admittedly deeply religious people, many of us Filipinos are also living a life of hypocricy/inconsistency. Outside of the Quiapo church are shops that sell abortion formula and the island of Siquijor becomes a haven of faith healers who practice black magic. 6. Onion skinned We easily go ballistic whenever the word Filipino is used as dark humor in a script of an American sitcom or acelebrity mocking our â€Å"presumed† perfect accent. We are quick to call for apology even if they’re all meant as a joke. That may be a reason we become a topic of humor. 7. Short-sighted Some Filipinos prefer to receive a few hundred pesos in exchange of favors to a politician running for office rather than resist temptation and bond together for a better society and governance. Poor tricycle drivers are allowed to ply on dangerous streets — risking the lives and limbs of passengers — just to earn a living. 8. Laziness When going to the market, some Filipinos prefer to take the motorized bike and pay a premium instead of a 20-minute walk — to ensure a favorite TV show will not be missed. At the end of the day they lament how a hundred peso bill could no longer be stretched. Or they spend the whole day staring at the television, sending SMS on shows that offer prizes to ‘home text partners’. 9. Gossipmonger Many Filipinos live off talking about affairs of other people. Maybe that’s because it’s a major function of the Filipino culture. Who impregnated a neighbor’s teenage daughter? A barrio councilor has bad breathe. The baby of a close friend has a striking resemblance of the family driver. No wonder many families are broken, trust lost and friendships gone awry because of people trying to get in the way. 10. Undisciplined Pass laws that are easily broken: no smoking on jeepneys, no jaywalking on streets, picking flowers in the park or peeing on fences, trees or truck tires. Even wearing prescribed attire (‘please wear semi-formal wear’) when attending wedding ceremonies becomes a task difficult to. When we’re overseas we find it necessary to follow rules, but we seem to take our country and its simple laws for granted. 11. Crab Mentality Once a fledgling banana cue business becomes the talk of the barrio, everyone is riding the bandwagon and put up the same business. Eventually, every single banana cue business in the neighborhood fails and shuts down operation. If someone gets promoted at work, some Filipinos are good at making up stories; did he date the supervisor? Did she sleep with the manager? It also exists in the form of protectionism. Insecurity or lack of creativity drives this attitude. 12. Nepotism A bright yet not well-connected job applicant never gets the job position because it was reserved for a family member of an incumbent official or a reward for supporters of a candidate who just won in the elections. A well-connected passenger gets the airport’s special lane while hard-working OFWs sweat it out on a long line. 13. Freebie hunters Some Filipinos have got the nerve to crash into wedding parties uninvited or show up at a birthday party because they were brought along by a friend of an invited friend. They enjoy free electricity supply through illegal connections or enjoying a bonanza of free water from busted pipes instead of reporting the apparent waste or scarce resources. Often visits the house of a balikbayan/OFW who just arrived and ask — they don’t wait — for presents. 14. Allegiance by convenience. Filipino politicians often change parties not because they found a better principled group, but to gain something — power, money or fame. When momentum shifts, be prepared to jump ship and switch loyalty. Read their biographies and be not surprised they’ve been into various alliances with no real accomplishment to show. 15. Rarely punctual Appointments are never meant to be on time as many Filipinos make it a habit of not making it on time. Meetings, parties, and so on. Teachers didn’t lack the motivation to make us punctual as tardy ones were meted with appropriate punishment. Shall we blame others for this? Traffic congestion, slow jeepney driver, hard to find location, ‘I was robbed’, and others in an endless list of alibis and excuses. 16. Propensity for ‘good time’ Gathering of friends isn’t bad. But if it always meant 20 bottles of hard liquor meant to be consumed overnight, that’s something. Just got the job? Let’s celebrate and have a drink. Just got the paycheck, let’s have a drink. When someone starts reminding them to be frugal and slow down on alcohol spending, they reason out, â€Å"it’s my money, you have no business interfering†, â€Å"this is just once in a while† or â€Å"I need to drink to forget my problems†. Yeah, right. 17. Treat OFWs as ATMs Some Filipinos are overly dependent on relatives working overseas that they don’t look for jobs or don’t attend classes because they are in â€Å"abundant supply of financial aid†. Worse, money remittance from OFWs are often spent only on luxuries like mobile phones and jewelry they can brag to friends. In many cases, nothing was allocated for savings or investment. When OFWs come home, families find it hard to explain where money was spent.

Zoe’s Tale PART II Chapter Twelve

There was a rattle and then a thump and then a whine as the shuttle's lifters and engines died down. That was it; we had landed on Roanoke. We were home, for the very first time. â€Å"What's that smell?† Gretchen said, and wrinkled her nose. I took a sniff and did some nose wrinkling of my own. â€Å"I think the pilot landed in a pile of rancid socks,† I said. I calmed Babar, who was with us and who seemed excited about something; maybe he liked the smell. â€Å"That's the planet,† said Anna Faulks. She was one of the Magellan crew, and had been down to the planet several times, unloading cargo. The colony's base camp was almost ready for the colonists; Gretchen and I, as children of colony leaders, were being allowed to come down on one of the last cargo shuttles rather than having to take a cattle car shuttle with everyone else. Our parents had already been on planet for days, supervising the unloading. â€Å"And I've got news for you,† Faulks said. â€Å"This is about as pretty as the smells get around here. When you get a breeze coming in from the forest, then it gets really bad.† â€Å"Why?† I asked. â€Å"What does it smell like then?† â€Å"Like everyone you know just threw up on your shoes,† Faulks said. â€Å"Wonderful,† Gretchen said. There was a grinding clang as the massive doors of the cargo shuttle opened. There was a slight breeze as the air in the cargo bay puffed out into the Roanoke sky. And then the smell really hit us. Faulks smiled at us. â€Å"Enjoy it, ladies. You're going to be smelling it every day for the rest of your lives.† â€Å"So are you,† Gretchen said to Faulks. Faulks stopped smiling at us. â€Å"We're going to start moving these cargo containers in a couple of minutes,† she said. â€Å"You two need to clear out and get out of our way. It would be a shame if your precious selves got squashed underneath them.† She turned away from us and started toward the rest of the shuttle cargo crew. â€Å"Nice,† I said, to Gretchen. â€Å"I don't think now was a smart time to remind her that she's stuck here.† Gretchen shrugged. â€Å"She deserved it,† she said, and started toward the cargo doors. I bit the inside of my cheek and decided not to comment. The last several days had made everyone edgy. This is what happens when you know you're lost. On the day we skipped to Roanoke, this is how Dad broke the news that we were lost. â€Å"Because I know there are rumors already, let me say this first: We are safe,† Dad said to the colonists. He stood on the platform where just a couple of hours earlier we had counted down the skip to Roanoke. â€Å"The Magellan is safe. We are not in any danger at the moment.† Around us the crowd visibly relaxed. I wondered how many of them caught the â€Å"at the moment† part. I suspected John put it in there for a reason. He did. â€Å"But we are not where we were told we would be,† he said. â€Å"The Colonial Union has sent us to a different planet than we had expected to go to. It did this because it learned that a coalition of alien races called the Conclave were planning to keep us from colonizing, by force if necessary. There is no doubt they would have been waiting for us when we skipped. So we were sent somewhere else: to another planet entirely. We are now above the real Roanoke. â€Å"We are not in danger at the moment,† John said. â€Å"But the Conclave is looking for us. If it finds us it will try to take us from here, again likely by force. If it cannot remove us, it will destroy the colony. We are safe now, but I won't lie to you. We are being hunted.† â€Å"Take us back!† someone shouted. There were murmurings of agreement. â€Å"We can't go back,† John said. â€Å"Captain Zane has been remotely locked out of the Magellan's control systems by the Colonial Defense Forces. He and his crew will be joining our colony. The Magellan will be destroyed once we have landed ourselves and all our supplies on Roanoke. We can't go back. None of us can.† The room erupted in angry shouts and discussions. Dad eventually calmed them down. â€Å"None of us knew about this. I didn't. Jane didn't. Your colony representatives didn't. And certainly Captain Zane didn't. This was kept from all of us equally. The Colonial Union and the Colonial Defense Forces have decided for reasons of their own that it is safer to keep us here than to bring us back to Phoenix. Whether we agree with this or not, this is what we have to work with.† â€Å"What are we going to do?† Another voice from the crowd. Dad looked out in the direction the voice came from. â€Å"We're going to do what we came here to do in the first place,† he said. â€Å"We're going to colonize. Understand this: When we all chose to colonize, we knew there were risks. You all know that seed colonies are dangerous places. Even without this Conclave searching for us, our colony would still have been at risk for attack, still a target for other races. None of this has changed. What has changed is that the Colonial Union knew ahead of time who was looking for us and why. That allowed them to keep us safe in the short run. It gives an advantage in the long run. Because now we know how to keep ourselves from being found. We know how to keep ourselves safe.† More murmurings from the crowd. Just to the right of me a woman asked, â€Å"And just how are we going to keep ourselves safe?† â€Å"Your colonial representatives are going to explain that,† John said. â€Å"Check your PDAs; each of you has a location on the Magellan where you and your former worldmates will meet with your representative. They'll explain to you what we'll need to do, and answer the questions you have from there. But there is one thing I want to be clear about. This is going to require cooperation from everyone. It's going to require sacrifice from everyone. Our job of colonizing this world was never going to be easy. It's just become a lot harder. â€Å"But we can do it,† Dad said, and the forcefulness with which he said it seemed to surprise some people in the crowd. â€Å"What's being asked of us is hard, but it's not impossible. We can do it if we work together. We can do it if we know we can rely on each other. Wherever we've come from, we all have to be Roanokers now. This isn't how I would have chosen for this to happen. But this is how we are going to have to make it work. We can do this. We have to do this. We have to do it together.† I stepped out of the shuttle, and put my feet on the ground of the new world. The ground's mud oozed over the top of my boot. â€Å"Lovely,† I said. I started walking. The mud sucked at my feet. I tried not to think of the sucking as a larger metaphor. Babar bounded off the shuttle and commenced sniffing his surroundings. He was happy, at least. Around me, the Magellan crew was on the job. Other shuttles that had landed before were disgorging their cargo; another shuttle was coming in for a landing some distance away. The cargo containers, standard-sized, littered the ground. Normally, once the contents of the containers were taken out, the containers would be sent back up in the shuttles to be reused; waste not, want not. This time, there was no reason to take them back up to the Magellan. It wasn't going back; these containers wouldn't ever be refilled. And as it happened, some of these containers wouldn't even be unpacked; our new situation here on Roanoke didn't make it worth the effort. But it didn't mean that the containers didn't have a purpose; they did. That purpose was in front of me, a couple hundred meters away, where a barrier was forming, a barrier made from the containers. Inside the barrier would be our new temporary home; a tiny village, already named Croatoan, in which all twenty-five hundred of us – and the newly-resentful Magellan crew – would be stuck while Dad, Mom and the other colony leaders did a survey of this new planet to see what we needed to do in order to live on it. As I watched, some of the Magellan crew were moving one of the containers into place into the barrier, using top lifters to set the container in place and then turning off their power and letting the container fall a couple of millimeters to the ground with a thump. Even from this distance I felt the vibration in the ground. Whatever was in that container, it was heavy. Probably farming equipment that we weren't allowed to use anymore. Gretchen had already gotten far ahead of me. I thought about racing to catch up with her but then noticed Jane coming out from behind the newly placed container and talking to one of the Magellan crew. I walked toward her instead. When Dad talked about sacrifice, in the immediate term he was talking about two things. First: no contact between Roanoke and the rest of the Colonial Union. Anything we sent back in the direction of the Colonial Union was something that could give us away, even a simple skip drone full of data. Anything sent to us could give us away, too. This meant we were truly isolated: no help, no supplies, not even any mail from friends and loved ones left behind. We were alone. At first this didn't seem like much of a big deal. After all, we left our old lives behind when we became colonists. We said good-bye to the people who we weren't taking with us, and most of us knew it would be a very long time if ever until we saw those people again. But even for all that, the lines weren't completely severed. A skip drone was supposed to leave the colony on a daily basis, carrying letters and news and information back to the Colonial Union. A skip drone was supposed to arrive on a daily basis, too, with mail, and news and new shows and songs and stories and other ways that we could still feel that we were part of humanity, despite being stuck on a colony, planting corn. And now, none of that. It was all gone. The no new stories and music and shows were what hit you first – a bad thing if you were hooked on a show or band before you left and were hoping to keep up with it – but then you realized that what it really meant was from now on you wouldn't know anything about the lives of the people you left behind. You wouldn't see a beloved baby nephew's first steps. You wouldn't know if your grandmother had passed away. You wouldn't see the recordings your best friend took of her wedding, or read the stories that another friend was writing and desperately trying to sell, or see pictures of the places you used to love, with the people you still love standing in the foreground. All of it was gone, maybe forever. When that realization hit, it hit people hard – and an even harder hit was the realization that everyone else that any of us ever cared about knew nothing about what happened to us. If the Colonial Union wasn't going to tell us where we were going in order to fool this Conclave thing, they certainly weren't going to tell everyone else that they had pulled a fast one with our whereabouts. Everyone we ever knew thought we were lost. Some of them probably thought we had been killed. John and Jane and I didn't have much to worry about on this score – we were each other's family, and all the family we had – but everyone else had someone who was even now mourning them. Savitri's mother and grandmother were still alive; the expression on her face when she realized that they probably thought she was dead made me rush over to give her a hug. I didn't even want to think about how the Obin were handling our disappearance. I just hoped the Colonial Union ambassador to the Obin had on clean underwear when the Obin came to call. The second sacrifice was harder. â€Å"You're here,† Jane said, as I walked up to her. She reached down to pet Babar, who had come bounding up to her. â€Å"Apparently,† I said. â€Å"Is it always like this?† â€Å"Like what?† Jane said. â€Å"Muddy,† I said. â€Å"Rainy. Cold. Sucky.† â€Å"We're arriving at the beginning of spring here,† Jane said. â€Å"It's going to be like this for a little while. I think things will get better.† â€Å"You think so?† I asked. â€Å"I hope so,† Jane said. â€Å"But we don't know. The information we have on the planet is slim. The Colonial Union doesn't seem to have done a normal survey here. And we won't be able to put up a satellite to track weather and climate. So we have to hope it gets better. It would be better if we could know. But hoping is what we have. Where's Gretchen?† I nodded in the direction I saw her go. â€Å"I think she's looking for her dad,† I said. â€Å"Everything all right between you two?† Jane said. â€Å"You're rarely without each other.† â€Å"It's fine,† I said. â€Å"Everyone's twitchy these last few days, Mom. So are we, I guess.† â€Å"How about your other friends?† Jane asked. I shrugged. â€Å"I haven't seen too much of Enzo in the last couple of days,† I said. â€Å"I think he's taking the idea of being stranded out here pretty badly. Even Magdy hasn't been able to cheer him up. I went to go visit him a couple of times, but he doesn't want to say much, and it's not like I've been that cheerful myself. He's sending me poems, still, though. On paper. He has Magdy deliver them. Magdy hates that, by the way.† Jane smiled. â€Å"Enzo's a nice boy,† she said. â€Å"I know,† I said. â€Å"I think I didn't pick a great time to decide to make him my boyfriend, though.† â€Å"Well, you said it, everyone's twitchy the last few days,† Jane said. â€Å"It'll get better.† â€Å"I hope so,† I said, and I did. I did moody and depressed with the best of them, but even I have my limits, and I was getting near them. â€Å"Where's Dad? And where's Hickory and Dickory?† The two of them had gone down in one of the first shuttles with Mom and Dad; between them making themselves scarce on the Magellan and being away for the last few days, I was starting to miss them. â€Å"Hickory and Dickory we have out doing a survey of the surrounding area,† Jane said. â€Å"They're helping us get a lay of the land. It keeps them busy and useful, and keeps them out of the way of most of the colonists at the moment. I don't think any of them are feeling very friendly toward nonhumans at the moment, and we'd just as soon avoid someone trying to pick a fight with them.† I nodded at this. Anyone who tried to pick a fight with Hickory or Dickory was going to end up with something broken, at least. Which would not make the two of them popular, even (or maybe especially) if they were in the right. Mom and Dad were smart to get them out of the way for now. â€Å"Your dad is with Manfred Trujillo,† Jane said, mentioning Gretchen's dad. â€Å"They're laying out the temporary village. They're laying it out like a Roman Legion encampment.† â€Å"We're expecting an attack from the Visigoths,† I said. â€Å"We don't know what to expect an attack from,† Jane said. The matter-of-fact way she said it did absolutely nothing to cheer me up. â€Å"I expect you'll find Gretchen with them. Just head into the encampment and you'll find them.† â€Å"It'd be easier if I could just ping Gretchen's PDA and find her that way,† I said. â€Å"It would be,† Jane agreed. â€Å"But we don't get to do that anymore. Try using your eyes instead.† She gave me a quick peck on the temple and then walked off to talk to the Magellan crew. I sighed and then headed into the encampment to find Dad. The second sacrifice: Every single thing we had with a computer in it, we could no longer use. Which meant we couldn't use most things we had. The reason was radio waves. Every piece of electronic equipment communicated with every other piece of electronic equipment through radio waves. Even the tiny radio transmissions they sent could be discovered if someone was looking hard enough, as we were assured that they were. But just turning off the connecting capability was not enough, since we were told that not only did our equipment use radio waves to communicate with each other, they used them internally to have one part of the equipment talk to other parts. Our electronics couldn't help transmitting evidence that we were here, and if someone knew what frequencies they used to work, they could be detected simply by sending the radio signal that turned them on. Or so we were told. I'm not an engineer. All I knew was that a huge amount of our equipment was no longer usable – and not just unusable, but a danger to us. We had to risk using this equipment to land on Roanoke and set up the colony. We couldn't very well land shuttles without using electronics; it wasn't the trip down that would be a problem, but the landings would be pretty tricky (and messy). But once everything was on the ground, it was over. We went dark, and everything we had in cargo containers that contained electronics would stay in those containers. Possibly forever. This included data servers, entertainment monitors, modern farm equipment, scientific tools, medical tools, kitchen appliances, vehicles and toys. And PDAs. This was not a popular announcement. Everyone had PDAs, and everyone had their lives in them. PDAs were where you kept your messages, your mail, your favorite shows and music and reading. It's how you connected with your friends, and played games with them. It's how you made recordings and video. It's how you shared the stuff you loved, to the people you liked. It was everyone's outboard brain. And suddenly they were gone; every single PDA among the colonists – slightly more than one per person – was collected and accounted for. Some folks tried to hide them; at least one colonist tried to sock the Magellan crew member who'd been assigned to collect them. That colonist spent the night in the Magellan brig, courtesy of Captain Zane; rumor had it the captain cranked down the temperature in the brig and the colonist spent the night shivering himself awake. I sympathized with the colonist. I'd been without my PDA for three days now and I still kept catching myself reaching for it when I wanted to talk to Gretchen, or listen to some music, or to check to see if Enzo had sent me something, or any one of a hundred different things I used my PDA for on a daily basis. I suspected that part of the reason people were so cranky was because they'd had their outboard brains amputated; you don't realize how much you use your PDA until the stupid thing is gone. We were all outraged that we didn't have our PDAs anymore, but I had this itchy feeling in the back of my brain that one of the reasons people were so worked up about their PDAs was that it kept them from having to think about the fact that so much of the equipment we needed to use to survive, we couldn't use at all. You can't just disconnect the computers from our farm equipment; it can't run without it, it's too much a part of the machine. It'd be like taking out your brain and expecting your body to get along without it. I don't think anyone really wanted to face the fact of just how deep the trouble was. In fact, only one thing was going to keep all of us alive: the two hundred and fifty Colonial Mennonites who were part of our colony. Their religion had kept them using outdated and antique technology; none of their equipment had computers, and only Hiram Yoder, their colony representative, had used a PDA at all (and only then, Dad explained to me, to stay in contact with other members of the Roanoke colonial council). Working without electronics wasn't a state of deprivation for them; it's how they lived. It made them the odd folks out on the Magellan, especially among us teens. But now it was going to save us. This didn't reassure everyone. Magdy and a few of his less appealing friends pointed to the Colonial Mennonites as evidence that the Colonial Union had been planning to strand us all along and seemed to resent them for it, as if they had known it all along rather than being just as surprised as the rest of us. Thus we confirmed that Magdy's way of dealing with stress was to get angry and pick nonexistent fights; his near-brawl at the beginning of the trip was no fluke. Magdy got angry when stressed. Enzo got withdrawn. Gretchen got snappish. I wasn't entirely sure how I got. â€Å"You're mopey,† Dad said to me. We were standing outside the tent that was our new temporary home. â€Å"So that's how I get,† I said. I watched Babar wander around the area, looking for places to mark his territory. What can I say. He's a dog. â€Å"I'm not following you,† Dad said. I explained how my friends were acting since we'd gotten lost. â€Å"Oh, okay,† Dad said. â€Å"That makes sense. Well, if it's any comfort, if I have the time to do anything else but work, I think I would be mopey, too.† â€Å"I'm thrilled it runs in the family,† I said. â€Å"We can't even blame it on genetics,† Dad said. He looked around. All around us were cargo containers, stacks of tents under tarps and surveyor's twine, blocking off where the streets of our new little town will be. Then he looked back to me. â€Å"What do you think of it?† â€Å"I think this is what it looks like when God takes a dump,† I said. â€Å"Well, yes, now it does,† Dad said. â€Å"But with a lot of work and a little love, we can work our way up to being a festering pit. And what a day that will be.† I laughed. â€Å"Don't make me laugh,† I said. â€Å"I'm trying to work on this mopey thing.† â€Å"Sorry,† Dad said. He wasn't actually sorry in the slightest. He pointed at the tent next to ours. â€Å"At the very least, you'll be close to your friend. This is Trujillo's tent. He and Gretchen will be living here.† â€Å"Good,† I said. I had caught up with Dad with Gretchen and her dad; the two of them had gone off to look at the little river that ran near the edge of our soon-to-be settlement to find out the best place to put the waste collector and purifier. No indoor plumbing for the first few weeks at least, we were told; we'd be doing our business in buckets. I can't begin to tell you how excited I was to hear that. Gretchen had rolled her eyes a little bit at her dad as he dragged her off to look at likely locations; I think she was regretting taking the early trip. â€Å"How long until we start bringing down the other colonists?† I asked. Dad pointed. â€Å"We want to get the perimeter set up first,† he said. â€Å"We've been here a couple of days and nothing dangerous has popped out of those woods over there, but I think we want to be safer rather than sorrier. We're getting the last containers out of the cargo hold tonight. By tomorrow we should have the perimeter completely walled and the interior blocked out. So two days, I think. In three days everyone will be down. Why? Bored already?† â€Å"Maybe,† I said. Babar had come around to me and was grinning up at me, tongue lolling and paws caked with mud. I could tell he was trying to decide whether or not to leap up on two legs and get mud all over my shirt. I sent him my best don't even think about it telepathy and hoped for the best. â€Å"Not that it's any less boring on the Magellan right now. Everyone's in a foul mood. I don't know, I didn't expect colonizing to be like this.† â€Å"It's not,† Dad said. â€Å"We're sort of an exceptional case here.† â€Å"Oh, to be like everyone else, then,† I said. â€Å"Too late for that,† Dad said, and then motioned at the tent. â€Å"Jane and I have the tent pretty well set up. It's small and crowded, but it's also cramped. And I know how much you like that.† This got another smile from me. â€Å"I've got to join Manfred and then talk to Jane, but after that we can all have lunch and try to see if we can't actually enjoy ourselves a little. Why don't you go in and relax until we get back. At least that way you don't have to be mopey and windblown.† â€Å"All right,† I said. I gave Dad a peck on the cheek, and then he headed off toward the creek. I went inside the tent, Babar right behind. â€Å"Nice,† I said to Babar, as I looked around. â€Å"Furnished in tasteful Modern Refugee style. And I love what they've done with those cots.† Babar looked up at me with that stupid doggy grin of his and then leaped up on one of the cots and laid himself down. â€Å"You idiot,† I said. â€Å"You could have at least wiped off your paws.† Babar, notably unconcerned with criticism, yawned and then closed his eyes. I got on the cot with him, brushed off the chunkier bits of mud, and then used him as a pillow. He didn't seem to mind. And a good thing, too, since he was taking up half my cot. â€Å"Well, here we are,† I said. â€Å"Hope you like it here.† Babar made some sort of snuffling noise. Well said, I thought. Even after everything was explained to us, there were still some folks who had a hard time getting it through their heads that we were cut off and on our own. In the group sessions headed by each of the colonial representatives, there was always someone (or someones) who said things couldn't be as bad as Dad was making them out to be, that there had to be some way for us to stay in contact with the rest of humanity or at least use our PDAs. That's when the colony representatives sent each colonist the last file their PDAs would receive. It was a video file, shot by the Conclave and sent to every other race in our slice of space. In it, the Conclave leader, named General Gau, stood on a rise over-looking a small settlement. When I first saw the video I thought it was a human settlement, but was told that it was a settlement of Whaid colonists, the Whaid being a race I knew nothing about. What I did know was that their homes and buildings looked like ours, or close enough to ours not to matter. This General Gau stood on the rise just long enough for you to wonder what it was he was looking at down there in the settlement, and the settlement disappeared, turned into ash and fire by what seemed like a thousand beams of light stabbing down from what we were told were hundreds of spaceships floating high above the colony. In just a few seconds there was nothing left of the colony, or the people who lived in it, other than a rising column of smoke. No one questioned the wisdom of hiding after that. I don't know how many times I watched the video of the Conclave attack; it must have been a few dozen times before Dad came up to me and made me hand over my PDA – no special privileges just because I was the colony leader's kid. But I wasn't watching because of the attack. Or, well, I should say that wasn't really what I was looking at when I watched it. What I was looking at was the figure, standing on the rise. The creature who ordered the attack. The one who had the blood of an entire colony on his hands. I was looking at this General Gau. I was wondering what he was thinking when he gave the order. Did he feel regret? Satisfaction? Pleasure? Pain? I tried to imagine what it would take to order the deaths of thousands of innocent people. I felt happy that I couldn't wrap my brain around it. I was terrified that this general could. And that he was out there. Hunting us.

The efficacy of the principle of supremacy of EU law depends on its Essay

The efficacy of the principle of supremacy of EU law depends on its reception in national constitutional courts. Discuss - Essay Example Despite being recognized by member states, there are particular reservations made by the national constitutional courts that challenge the principle of supremacy of the Community law. They view supremacy as an ideology rooted in national constitutions instead of being derived from the nature of Community legal order.1 Based on this notion, the constitutional courts possess the right to evaluate whether the European Union institutions conduct themselves within the competences given to them and respect the fundamental human rights and constitutional norms. An example of such cases include the Maastricht and Solange I and II decisions made by the German Constitutional Court, the Maastricht decision made by the Danish Supreme Court, and the Frontini and Granital decisions made by the Italian Constitutional Court. France offers a good example of how the supremacy of the European Union law depends on the reception of the national constitutional court. In France, the Constitutional Council frequently subjects new treaties to preliminary evaluation. The Constitution can be amended before the ratification process if an incompatibility is seen and this practice is crucial because it significantly minimizes the risk of constitutional conflict with the Community law.2 The acceptance of the Community law supremacy remains a contentious issue for case law. This is specifically evident in the possible conflicts between the national constitution and the European Union norms. The principle of supremacy can give rise to delicate and complex matters. It is crucial to state that no case law has ever addressed the issue of EU law supremacy and the national constitution. When a conflict exists between the ordinary domestic legislation and primary EU law, it is anticipated that the courts cannot hesitate to offer influence to the principle of supremacy.3 For the constitutional courts, the mere acceptance of the supremacy of EU law over the national constitutional law is equated to re ndering the courts redundant.4 The supremacy of the European Union law is among the four constitutional doctrines of the European Union (EU) law. The supremacy has no formal foundation in the original or first Treaty of European Community. Nonetheless, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) based on the conception of the new legal order established it. This can be well illustrated by its landmark case (Flaminio Costa v. ENEL) in which it was established that there existed a conflict between the Italian laws on national electricity monopoly and the EC (European Community) provisions permitting the free movement of goods. The ECJ created a clear hierarchy between the national law and EC by stating that in contrast with the normal international treaties, the EEC had established its legal system in which an entry into the Treaty force became an important part of the member states’ legal systems and in which their courts are required to apply.5 The court further ruled that the law em anating from the Treaty (that is, a self-governing source of law) was not possible to be overridden by the domestic legal provisions because of its original and special nature. The reactions to the principle were different among the Member States. It is important to note that the principle of supremacy over the national laws has been recognized by the Member States. Difficulties have emerged in acknowledging the absolute supremacy over the

Nisbette and Wilsons Article Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Nisbette and Wilsons - Article Example In order to classify the result and manifestations of mental processes, Nisbette and Wilson categorized the subjects into different forms. In the awareness in the existence of the response, mental processes depend on other external contributions of the environment. A person could not act based on this theory without the acceptance or judgment of other people. In this case, a person will become knowledgeable or responsive into a certain action with the verification or response coming from the extrinsic force. In the awareness of the existence of a change process, there is a process of change in the mental awareness of a person. Subject of change varied depending on the opinions of other people as part of the environment of a certain person. Because of this, existence of the person's response will depend on the rationality of the opinion of others rather than his or her own. When it comes to cognitive process, mental processes will depend on the cognition of knowledge and learning. ... (239) In the subliminal perception, logical interpretation and existence is the focus. In this theory, it is said, "we cannot perceived without perceiving, but we can perceive without remembering." This theoretical statement shows that logic thinking is the primary base of subliminal perception. Because subliminal means subconscious, the subconscious mind will process the cognition of subjects. Therefore, perceiving can be done through the subconscious without the process of recalling. However, those observations, and researches contained different erroneous reports that lead to undetermined justifications as basis of those researchers. Erroneous reports came from the topics of stimuli influencing associative behavior, position effects on appraisal and choice, anchoring effects on predictions, the influence of an individual's personality on reactions to his physical characteristics, and emotional impact to the literary passage. Other than these are the effects of distractions on reactions to the film and the effects of reassurance on willingness to take electric shocks. Erroneous reports on these mental processes can be a disturbance to the needs of the research foundation of mental processes but still, it can be a form of outlet to define the concept of truth and reality. When it comes to the accuracy and inaccuracy of verbal explanations, Nisbette and Wilson gave different perceptions towards the report of verbal acquisition and occurrence towards their subjects. They have obtained different strategies and researches in order to avoid erroneous reports. It should be noted that the individual's private access to content would sometimes allow him to

Implementing Strategies Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

Implementing Strategies - Essay Example Strategy is the direction and scope of an organisation over the long term, which helps it to achieve one or more objectives through interrelated activities which are undertaken over a specific period of time. These activities form part of the strategy cycle which provides the plan of action for the organisation. This strategy cycle is illustrated in Figure 1.0 below.The first of the stage involves the strategy identification, which plays an important role as the resulting activities of the organisation will be based on decision made at this stage. In order to identify the best strategy to follow, the organisation has to have an understanding of their stakeholders' expectations Stakeholders can include customers, as they are ultimately the service users or consumers. By understanding their expectation, the process of identifying options becomes simplified. For example, if stakeholders expect superior quality or service, then the resulting strategic options could include a focus on cre ating a unique specialisation, novel approaches or even the introduction of equipment and/or technology to enhance this aspect. The second stage of formulating the strategy involves determining the appropriate courses of action to take to enable the organisation to achieve its objectives (Alan 2001, Doyle et al 2002). This can include increasing recruitment, job redundancies, relocation, expansion and other visible aspects of the plan. This is then appraised in Stage 3, a process which includes critical and feasibility assessments. The strategy is then implemented in Stage 4, and this stage is the practical part of the strategy where management actively put a strategy into place (Alan 2001, Doyle et al 2002). However, the implementation of a strategy is likely to be influenced by the dynamics of the organisation in terms of its culture and identity, as strategy implementation can sometimes be part of a change management process. Corporate culture can be defined as the set of beliefs, experiences and attitudes within an organisation (Alan 2001, Doyle et al 2002), and this is often entwined with corporate identity which tends to reflect and represent the culture. Corporate culture and identity have a significant influence on employees, as they dictate simple aspects such as the number of hours worked a day or a week, commuting options, interaction, dress code, benefits, training, office space and professional development (Morris 2005). For example, IBM will have a different corporate culture and identity to say a medical organisation. One can already make out the differences in work hours, as medical organisations tend to have variable working patterns, which in turn influence the amount of office space allocated to an individual, which can also influence the level of communication and interaction with other colleagues. This means that the strategy formulation and implementation processes cannot exclude corporate culture and identity, as these will ultimately determine the parameters of success for the organisation. THE INFLUENCE OF CORPORATE CULTURE AND IDENTITY ON STRATEGY FORMULATION Strategy formulation includes undertaking feasibility, techno-economic, strategy decision/network, input, financial, cost-benefit and pre-investment analyses (Toyohiro 1998, Matson 2001). Feasibility analysis This is where a proposed strategy is examined for its influences and effects on its consumers and/or other competitors (Toyohiro 1998, Alan 2001, Matson 2001, Doyle et al 2002). For instance, if a strategy is formulated that has the effect of increasing the level of competition in the industry, then there has to be some thought how this strategy will affect working hours and motivation of employees. It could be that the proposed strategy will result in a commission based system of work, which will conflict with employees especially if other aspects such as office space are not configured.

Factors in Asian Urban Growth Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Factors in Asian Urban Growth - Essay Example In relation to population and size, Asia is the world’s largest and most populous continent. Its gross domestic product is the third highest in the world. With the rise of globalization, world economies had structural adjustments which influenced production, resource utilization and wealth creation (Clark, 2003). Asian economies experienced high development in the manufacturing industry supplemented by the availability of cheap labor. According to Keiner, Schretzenmayr and Schmid (2005), urbanization in Asia has occurred at some of the fastest rates in history with a rise in large urban agglomerates. The urban growth is expected to increase more as time goes by, especially within the least developed, low income economies in Asia. This fast rate of urban growth in Asia has been linked with the population dynamics, economic markets and socio-political conditions of the region. Population growth has always been a factor in economic development. The Malthusian theory on population is that a high population can lead to a crash in the economy by leading it to acute poverty while trying to sustain the population’s needs. There are better views to population in that a large population means the availability of a large labour force and domestic market. An increase in population also encourages technological advancement and innovation in a bid to meet the rising need for certain goods and services according to Clark (2003). Asian population levels have been high over time even before this burst of urbanization. The population has a big role in the urbanization and development since they occupy the urban cities and engage in economic activities that sustain the rise of urban centers. Likewise the socio -political environment is also important to the urban growth. Success in economic development depends greatly on the political and administrative officials. These government officials also influence infrastructural development in the urban centers and rural ar eas of a country. Asia is a politically, economically socially and culturally diverse region. With globalization, countries in the region have been able to integrate especially to facilitate trade and economic activities. The rate of infrastructure growth in many Asian cities has been inevitable given the rising population. Roads, hospitals, schools and housing facilities in the urban centers had to be expanded in order to accommodate this population. The other factor related to urbanization is the economic markets. Compared to the other two factors the effects of the economy in the development of cities are more pronounced. Most Asian economic markets are characterized by free trade, booming capital markets, reduced regulations economic freedom, and security of property rights. In addition to this, economic integration in the region and with other economies of the world has led to a further increase in economic activity in the region (Landau, 2001). Economic integration led to conn ectivity among cities in the Asian region in order to facilitate the flow of goods and services, people, investments and communication between them. Free trade in the area has been encouraged by the formation of trade blocs. They include Asian pacific cooperation (APEC), whose aim is to promote free trade and economic cooperation the Asia pacific region. The Asia- Europe meeting (ASEM) works towards security of economy by deepening relations between Asia and Europe at all levels. The major trade bloc in the are which is the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) has its main objectives to have a free trade area , with common external preferential tariff

Pirate ship theme party for kids Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Pirate ship theme party for kids - Essay Example The guests’ tour in the ship along with planned events would be calculated in advance. Upon enterance there would be a treasure hunt expedition where the guests would be given a series of clues and instructions in order to search for the treasure. As guests would mingle with staff in the ship, they would be engaged in numerous activities such as games such as paintball, puzzles or trick games, pirate shows and other activities like music, dance and food. Time-consuming activities such as search for treasures or paint-ball will have a great effect on the fun quotient of children as they would engage in the party and lose sense of time. How is staff used to create the sense of theatre created? ? Of the four realms of experience provided by Pine and Gilmore, the Pirate theme would be designed as Escapist with active levels of participation and emersion. Firstly, all the staff will be dressed in pirate costumes to induce a feeling of being in a pirated ship. Most of the staff woul d be wearing uniforms of capitan, officers and ordinary seamen. Adapting the real diversity of Pirates, the staff would speak in a number of accents such as English, American, West Indian, Scottish and Spanish. Other theatrics adopted by the staff in creating a sense of theatre are the use of props such as parrots, pistols, swords, playing cards, box of jewels, board games, dices, musical instruments such as harmonica and fake tobacco. Frequently the staff would engage guests in trick games, converse with them in their accents and show them their visual props. There will also be sound effects in background as lightening or splashes of water, sea storm or voices from another ship. Is the guest‘s role is explained? ? The concept of Experience Economy as explained by Pine and Gilmore dwells upon two particular dimensions of the experience – customer participation, and connection. The escapist realm of Pirate theme experience would actively engage guests by explaining them their part and making them aware that they are active participants of the theme. The guest will be prepared for the role by dressing up as a pirate. Purposefully, each guest would be classified into pirate camps and given different dresses such as a Carribean pirate, an English pirate (seaman) or a Welsh officer. Variations would also be made by giving them different hats, eye patches, beads, hairdos, swords and other accessories. To complete their get-up as a pirate, kids will have a make-up session with their face airbrushed and dark eyes. Before entering the ship, guests would receive a small bag of their belongings including some fake jewels, their prized possessions, tips on playing games and winning treasures etc. Is the proposed transformation of the guest explained? The proposed transformation of kids into a Pirated Ship will be based upon the following activities: Costume designing: Both guests and staff would be wearing pirate themed costumes giving a sense of seventeenth century era. Five Senses: All senses of guests would be stimulated such as Owning pistols (Touch), Pirate ship/costumes/parrots (Sight), Lightening and ship sounds (Hearing), Smell of fresh paint/wood (Smell) and Sea-food (Taste). Games: There will be a number of games such as board and dice games, ship adventure games that will help transform kids into the world of pirates. Pirate Ship Environment: The Pirate Ship Environment such as wooden planks, presence of water, ship sirens, maps and compasses will also assist in guests’

The impacts in Canada of the collapse of the financial markets Essay

The impacts in Canada of the collapse of the financial markets - Essay Example Bank analysts forecasted that the federal government may encounter a budget deficit of $40 billion for 2009 (Annis, 2009). Among the first institutions to fall is Nortel Networks, a century-old telecommunications company. However, Nortel’s problems are not caused by the crisis alone; since 2001 the firm had become prone to market weakness when it bought two companies for $ 15 billion just before the Internet crash in the US market. The company’s recovery after that was cut short, this time by an accounting scandal for which then CEO Frank Dunn was fired and seven corporate officers charged with massive accounting fraud (Duffy & Greene, 2009; Brieger, 2007). As a result of the collapse of Nortel, it filed for bankruptcy protection from creditors in January 2009; unfortunately, it also stopped paying severance, transition allowances, deferred wages and pensions to its former employees and retirees. This has brought untold suffering to many of these who have no other source of income. Despite its problems, I believe the Canadian government did not bail out Nortel because of the financial recklessness of the company officials in embarking on a massive acquisition program in the high-tech boom for which it incurred a high amount of debt. But more than this, it is likely due to the accounting fraud that company officials committed in 2004, to the disadvantage of corporate operations. A timeline diagram shows the facts about Nortel: Many causes have contributed to the US financial crisis, all traceable to the failure of regulatory procedures applied to banks and financial institutions. Firstly, the Basel II Accord provisions ensuring the financial safety of banks were circumvented by cosmetic financial reporting (Jones, 2000), although regulators would have been able to detect these violations had they been more vigilant.

Debt Crisis in Developing Countries Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Debt Crisis in Developing Countries - Essay Example However despite the many problems associated with developing countries it is still possible to solve the debt problem and to attain high levels of development, this can be done through well laid strategies that involves all the sectors in an economy and this will be analyzed in this paper. Debts in developing countries have increased over the years, many factors have caused this increase in debts including unfavorable terms of trade, rising international interest rates, increasing protectionism in the international market, irresponsible lending by international finance organizations and the rescheduling of punitive terms where countries delay payment.2 The above mentioned factors are external factors and that there exist internal factors that have led to the increased problem of debts include economic mismanagement, unsustainable government deficits and the maintenance of unrealistic exchange rates. All the above factors have led to the increased debt problem in developed countries.3 As a result of unfavorable terms of trade countries are faced with the problem of balance of payment, developing countries mainly export agricultural goods and in turn import machinery and electric goods, the value of imports in most cases exceeds the value of exports and as a result the increasing debt problem, countries are faced with an increasing balance of payment which lead to rising debts. Rising international interest rates: Most international finance institutions will raise their interest rates which in most cases affect developing countries, for example a country may obtain funds from a financial institution but the country may face increasing interest rates on the loan which will increase the pay back value where in most cases the country may end up paying more than double it acquired from the institution, therefore this has added to the problem of debts in developing countries. Increased protectionism in the international market: Increasing protectionism in the international markets has led to an increase in the debt problem in the developing countries, most of the products produced in developing countries are exported to developed countries, when the products are faced with high levels of protectionism in the developed countries the developing countries will experience a reduction in exports leading to unfavorable balance of payment, this means that the country will experience debt problems. Irresponsible lending by finance institutions: Financial institutions will lend money to countries without taking into consideration the current state of an economy, a country may receive a lot of funds which will end up not being used for their intended purpose, finance institutions will lend the developed countries large sums of money and also they lend money even before previous payments are not yet complete leading to the increased debt problem in the developing countries. Rescheduling of payment terms: Financial institutions will change payment terms over time and this may end up increasing the debt problem in developing countries, such terms include the increase in interest rates, the delay of payments has also led to the increasing debt problem in d

Counselling, Caring and the Ambulance Service Essay Example for Free

Counselling, Caring and the Ambulance Service Essay Introduction In order to discus counselling and its meaning both generally, and in my workplace, it is necessary to come up with a definition. The dictionary describes it in terms of advice but this interpretation is a traditional one and carries an immediate implication of inequality for those involved. It is a narrow interpretation of the concept when compared to modern attitudes, which usually include a psychological aspect. Nevertheless, the traditional view still bears three of the fundamentals of counselling. These are: * That it involves at least two people, thus constitutes a relationship. * That there is agreement about the nature of the interaction, i.e. it is cooperative. * The aim is to help those involved. According to Stephen Murgatroyd (1990, P.5) counselling is not the sole prerogative of professional counsellors. It is a process that is widely used in within a community, which can take many forms. I have found this particularly true in my own profession. As a Paramedic within the NHS for ten years I have used techniques, which I now recognise as essentials of counselling practice, but have never considered myself a counsellor. Rather a professional who can learn much from the subject. In my workplace I find frequent examples of the more traditional model of counselling, as described by Murgatroyd (1990 P.7) as prescriptive or directive but also of other the facilitative or developmental forms, which seek to encourage patient centred self-actualisation. These I will seek to analyse. I hope to draw out some of the problems involved and discuss ways in which to improve. Counselling, Caring and the Ambulance Service Once upon a time ambulance staff had a clear job specification, or at least their managers liked to believe so. Crews were told their mission was to preserve life and transport to hospital with the minimum of deterioration in the patients well-being. In reality things are not that simple and ambulance staff deal with a myriad of human responses and emotions every day. In the past many of my colleagues thought of counselling as a nebulous concept, which had no place at the cutting age of ambulance work. More attention was paid to physical trauma than emotional. With hindsight we can see that the best ambulance staff were those that used the skills that we now identify and welcome, in a natural and confident way. Usually they were also those that had plenty of experience. Just as my job covers a range of human conditions, so counselling and guidance demands a range of approaches to those being counselled. In my job these can be patients, their friends, relatives, bystanders or other professionals. Also though, it includes my colleagues. I have discussed briefly the nature of counselling, now I would like to examine it in more detail. Nelson-Jones (1983) talks of a distinction between skills and specialism or counselling relationships, whereby counselling is the primary activity, and helping relationships in which counselling skills form part of the helpers relationship with another person. Clearly the latter applies to my own job as well as many others. Our primary role is not that of counsellors but we use some of those skills so as to be effective practitioners. Davis Fallowfield examine four models of psychological theory that have had a major impact on counselling. These are: * Behavioural * Cognitive Behavioural * Person Centred * Psychodynamic Each of these allows us a better understanding of the processes of helping by affording us a different view of the human psyche. In my work I can recognise elements of all the models in patients and colleagues. Rogers, (Person Centred), gives insight into the importance of the conditions necessary to create an effective relationship. Based on humanistic philosophy he espouses the belief that all people have the capacity to achieve self-actualisation, if the basic conditions can be created. Freud, (Psychodynamic) demonstrates the importance of the relationship, the unconscious processes which arise from them and the insight into them in dealing with problems The behaviourist theories espoused by Pavlov, Skinner, Ellis and others, deal with the nature of behaviours learned and observable, and how maladaptive thought processes can be unlearned by the use of cognitive processes. A fifth model, that of Gerard Egan, integrates many of the ideas of the former to create an eclectic model that I believe has particular relevance to my workplace. In The Skilled Helper (1994) Egan incorporates some of Rogers and Maslow`s humanistic ideas in a pragmatic way, to outline some of the counselling skills that we use so much as teachers or carers. As Egans model is concerned with problems other than just psychological it provides a more relevant ethical base for those in teaching or healthcare and has been increasingly embraced by those professions in recent years.(Burnard 1990 P.27) Egan mirrors modern healthcare by treating the patient in an holistic way. He proposes a need for empathy, respect, genuiness and mutual respect. All of these are very necessary to accomplished ambulance staff. The Three-Stage Model Egan uses a three-stage model to outline the helping process. The first stage concentrates on the social skills that I find so important to my job, setting the scene and allowing a warm relationship to flourish through showing genuine empathy. Skills such as body language active listening and attention giving are prerequisites. Communication is established and advanced. Stage two moves the process forward by drawing out themes to allow the subject a new perspective. The subject is gently challenged so as to recognise themes, feelings and experiences. . Building on the previous stages, the third seeks to encourage a creative ambience. Problem solving drawing on points raised, maybe seeking solutions and encouraging the subject to establish a plan of action. The establishment of communication is common to the whole process. This is a massively important. The process may also move backwards or forwards. It is not intended to be prescriptive but rather to draw out the empathetic human qualities that can help. I can recall so many instances where Egans ideas have been used in my workplace that it is hard to select examples. We are often called upon to assess our patients well being in a very short time. Once we have established that avenues of communication are possible, i.e that the patient is able to communicate in a rational way, we embark on a dialogue that seeks to put them at ease, allow them insight and hopefully afford them a feeling that they have some measure of control over the situation. Power thus becomes an important issue. In Davis Fallowfield (P.15) the patient/practitioner relationship is discussed. They state that one of the most common problems encountered is the need for medical staff to take on the role of expert in order to reach conclusive goals. Very often this leads to neglect of the patient as a whole. Sanders (1994) identifies two qualities that he describes as non-counselling. One of them, he describes as being distant and expert. Sometimes, in a medical emergency, this is a necessary quality but creates feelings of guilt. I have often left relatives at the scene of a cardiac arrest at home whilst taking the role of expert and wondered at the emotional carnage that we have just encountered as we speed towards hospital with their loved one. Many times I know that we have not even begun to address their needs. It is certainly easier not to shoulder that sort of emotional involvement, as mentioned by Burnard (P.148), when he talks of the possibility of burnout. But sometimes assuming the role of expert can be used as an excuse to avoid emotional involvement. I believe that in my workplace this is a very common problem and have many times taken issue with colleagues who have deliberately refused to move away from the expert mode and address the patient as a whole person. In one such incident a young female patient was brought by chair into the AE department by a crew. Wheeled into the centre of the busy department she sat hunched, clearly embarrassed, and hiding her face. One of the crew held a large collection of empty pill packets, making it obvious to those who could see that the patient had overdosed. Overdoses are a very common emergency and can bring out negative attitudes from all medical workers. Whilst the patient remained on public view the ambulance man walked up to the nursing station and ritualistically poured the packets onto the desk in an obviously condescending way. The patient began to cry quietly. The behaviour of this colleague incensed me. He had ritualistically humiliated his patient presumably because of his intolerance and judgmentalism and a refusal to see the patient as anything but a manipulator. I believe that the ability to extract necessary information and perform tasks in an empathetic way is not only achievable using Egans techniques, but also vital to patient well-being. During my time in the ambulance service time I have passed through stages that have been identified by Maynard Furlong (1998) as distinct points in development, from early idealism to realism and occasional disenchantment. I have found that after several years a degree of cynicism is a common occupational hazard and is probably to be expected. Staff have to come to terms with what is achievable within the constraints of the job and workplace stress is common. Very often in my workplace I witness a range of abilities in communication. Simple techniques such as positioning, eye contact and general body language can be taught but I am convinced that without a genuine love for ones fellow man these techniques are not convincing. The humanistic approach that I have discussed is not always easy. It is easy to dismiss, especially when staff are tired and demoralised. Judgmental attitudes are commonplace and to some extent inevitable. The ability to rise above these and retain an open mind is something that can be massively affected by peer pressure in a working situation where crews work in twos. Usually one crewmember is senior and the dynamic of the relationship is affected by experience, sex, strength, (psychological and physical), age etc. This can often create an imbalance of power, between crewmates. This particularly affects less experienced younger staff in a workplace where experience is such a valuable commodity. Sometimes staff suffer because of their role as unofficial counsellors. Burnard (1990) talks of the potentially painful relationship between the parties. I believe that prolonged exposure can lead to problems and in my workplace this had lead to the formation of a structure designed to aid the problem. Five years ago the ambulance service started an in-house Staff Support Scheme network, in order to create a pathway to help to reduce the impact of psychological problems. It was thought that staff who had been trained to identify some of the symptoms of psychological or emotional problems were in an excellent position to guide the subject to help in the form of professional counselling. Whilst I wholeheartedly supported the concept and became a member, I had doubts about some of conditions attached, particularly about the principles of confidentiality and supervision. We were trained in debriefing techniques (not as counsellors) by a very experienced professional counsellor. However the trust felt bound to encourage us to disclose not only health safety and legal confidences, but also those that may contravene trust rules. This I felt was unethical and impractical. They also had no formal supervision structure in place and no mechanism for further development. All these factors left the idea profoundly flawed. I continue to serve as a staff support member but refuse to create reports on individuals or to pass on confidences. This is a position that is supported by Nelson-Jones (P.143) who maintains that breaking confidences is a serious breech of ethics. Counselling and helping work colleagues outside the classroom can be a much more intimate affair. Crews routinely spend twelve hours in each others company, often on standby or on station, alone, un-chaperoned and unsupervised. Thus if there are emotional needs and issues the workplace can become extremely intense. Staff obviously have issues themselves, quite apart from the problems they may face with patients and support can be close at hand. But the operational ambulance environment can also become a minefield of ethical limits and the process of helping can be impaired as well as enhanced. Burnard (P.139) discusses the problems of transference and countertransference. In the above-mentioned situation where an inappropriate relationship develops he suggests the transfer of the client to a more senior counsellor. Although the obvious solution, this is not always possible and it is obvious that problems will continue to occur. Development The back of an ambulance is no respecter of class and ambulance work can be a great leveller. As a developing teacher of ambulance staff I am in the privileged position of teaching those who I believe are routinely placed in a position of power and privilege that can be used or abused. I believe a major part of my teaching role is to encourage the use of the humanistic approach, and to encourage students to reflect on their own attitudes and judgements in order to allow them to better use the skills described by Egan and the key aspects required as described by Carl Rogers in Kischenbaum Henderson, (1989). The humanistic approach is already practised in my workplace and has been by the more experienced staff for years. Even though they did not attach labels to their skills they were using the humanistic approach espoused by Egan, Rogers and others. In the emergency care setting they have honed these skills to bring benefit to their patients as quickly as possible. It remains a joy to watch I see my future role as that of a champion for the humanistic approach, by my actions and my teaching methods. As more demands continue to be heaped on staff this may become more difficult. We are in danger of becoming more concerned with the product than the process. Bibliography Murgatroyd. S (1985) Counselling and Helping. Haworth Press Nelson-Jones.R (1997) Practical Counselling and Helping Skills. Cassell Davis.H and Fallowfield.L (1993) Counselling and Communication in Health Care Wiley Sons Burnard.P (1990) Counselling Skills For Health Professionals Chapman Hall Borck.L and Fawcet. S (1982) Learning Counselling and Problem Solving Skills. Haworth Press Kirchenbaum Henderson (1989) The Carl Rogers Dialogues (From Course Handout)

Project Report On Wipro Limited

Project Report On Wipro Limited Scope Though Wipro Limited is a group of companies, our main focus in this report will be on the IT services business segment of Wipro Limited. IT Services account for more than 70% of Total Revenue and more than 90% of Operating Income for the Wipro Limited. Wipro Limited Wipro Limited (NYSE:WIT) is amongst the largest global IT services, BPO and Product Engineering companies. In addition to the IT business, Wipro also has a profitable presence in niche market segments of Consumer Products, Lighting, Furniture, Eco Energy, Water treatment and Hydraulics. The company has been listed since 1945 and started its technology business in 1980. Today, Wipro generates USD 6 billion (India GAAP figure 2009-10) of annual revenues. Its equity shares are listed in India on the Mumbai Stock Exchange and the National Stock Exchange; as well as on the New York Stock Exchange in the US. With more than 100,000 associates from over 70 nationalities and 72 plus global delivery centres in over 55 countries, Wipros products and services span financial services, retail, transportation, manufacturing, healthcare services, energy and utilities, technology, telecom and media. Wipros focus has been on business transformation with innovation in service delivery and business models. More than 800 active clients that include governments, educational institutes, utility services, and over 150 Global Fortune 500 enterprises have benefited from this approach. Strategy Wipro is in more than one line of business, so it has got a Corporate Level Strategy. This corporate level strategy has identified following business lines for Wipro. http://www.wipro.in/img/comp_org_wipro_heading.gif Each of the above business lines has its own Business Level Strategy. The business level strategies, that determine the products and services that each division offers and the customers it caters to, are listed for each division below. Wipro Technologies Wipro Technologies is the global IT services business division of Wipro Limited. With over 20 offices around the world, Wipro Technologies is a provider of integrated business, technology and process solutions on a global delivery platform. Wipro Infotech Wipro Infotech is the strategic IT partner for companies across India, the Middle East and Asia-Pacific offering integrated IT solutions. Wipro Consumer Care and Lighting Wipro Consumer Care and Lighting, a business unit of Wipro Limited, has a profitable presence in the branded retail market of toilet soaps, hair care soaps, baby care products and lighting products. Wipro Infrastructure Engineering Wipro Infrastructure Engineering was Wipro Limiteds first diversification in 1975, which addressed the hydraulic equipment requirements of mobile original equipment manufacturers in India. Over the past 25 years, the Wipro Infrastructure Engineering business unit has become a leader in the Hydraulic Cylinders and Truck Tipping Systems markets in India. Wipro GE Medical Systems Limited Wipro GE Medical Systems is a joint venture between Wipro and General Electric Company. Wipro GE is Indias largest exporter of medical systems. Wipro GE manufactures Ultrasound and Computed Tomography systems in India and is a supplier for all GE Medical Systems products and services in South Asia. Now that we have the knowledge of various business units of Wipro Limited, we will analyze the strategy pursued by Wipro using Contemporary Strategy-Structure Theories. We will use following three theories to analyze the strategies of Wipro. Miles and Snows Four Strategic Types Porters Competitive Strategies Millers Integrative Framework Miles and Snows Four Strategic Types If we use Miles and Snows four strategic types to analyze Wipro, its evident that Wipro uses Analyzer strategy. It seeks to minimize risk and maximize opportunity for profit. Knowing that Cloud Computing is becoming the trend and vendors such as Amazon, Salesforce, Microsoft, and Google have invested heavily, Wipro too partnered with leading providers like Salesforce and Microsoft to provide professional and system integration services for enterprises. Wipro did so only after the risk and profits associated with cloud computing was clear to it. Wipro has the ability to respond to the lead of key prospectors. At the same time, it has maintained operating efficiency in its stable product and market areas. With enhanced business performance at the core of its deliveries due to its strong RD and Innovation focus, Wipro gets 95 percent repeat business. Its operating margin has been more than 20% in the IT Services business for last couple of years. Wipro has a structure made of components that provide it both flexibility and stability. It has clearly identifiable verticals dedicated to different industries like banking, automotive, energy, manufacturing, etc. These verticals are highly standardized and they use routine technologies for efficiency. Wipro has different RD and Practice Centers dedicated to new and emerging technologies. They provide the much needed flexibility whenever Wipro enters into new undertakings. Porters Competitive Strategies As per Porters competitive strategies, Wipro follows the differentiation strategy. It emphasizes heavily on the quality, innovation, and its technological capabilities. It is worlds first SEI CMM Level 5 Company. One of the worlds largest third party RD services provider, Wipro has been a pioneer in adopting and adapting several improvement methodologies like Lean, Six Sigma, Kaizen, etc. to further the efficiency of its processes. Wipro was the first to adopt Six Sigma in IT delivery in 1998. Lean methodology was adopted from the world-class Toyota Production System for improving the efficiency of the delivery engine in the year 2005. All these things have clearly set Wipro apart from its Indian counterpart who has been lagging behind Wipro in their RD services and highest standard of certifications. Millers Integrative Framework As per Millers Integrative Framework, Wipro fits best with the strategic dimension of marketing differentiation. Wipro draws its competitive advantage vis-Ã  -vis the other Indian IT service providers from five specific differentiators. Technological Excellence The biggest differentiator for Wipro against its Indian competitors is that Wipro entered IT services through the engineering route, given its entry into hardware in the 80s and then later to positioning itself as an engineering lab for hire to the IT multinationals that entered India in the 90s. The lab-on-hire business was eventually scaled up and today accounts for one-third of Wipros revenues, making it one of the worlds largest third party RD provider. Innovative Solutions Wipro offers its clients customized innovative technological and process solutions. In 2000, Wipro set up an Innovation Initiative with an internal innovation council, which worked like an internal venture capital fund. Today there are more 800 people working on such innovative ideas. This approach has helped the company to position itself as an innovator rather than a commodity provider of technological products. Operational Excellence Over time Wipro has come to stand for operational excellence. The commitment to quality has been a critical part of Wipros product offering. The company is very process-oriented and focused on operational excellence. Today, Wipro has built up its reputation and credibility by being a stickler for process excellence and delivering on quality commitments is a key brand benefit. Global Footprint with Emerging Market Knowledge Wipros global footprint is also an important differentiator among its Indian rivals, especially given its higher portfolio split towards emerging markets. The Asia-Pacific (APAC) region contributes to $1 billion in revenues and is considered to be a key differentiator vis-Ã  -vis Infosys. Company Culture of Linking Values to Business Performance Wipros cultural fit with its clients is also important in the self-selection process. Wipros company culture is less flashy and less aggressive than some of its Indian rivals. This culture resonates with Wipros clients in the manufacturing and retail sector who prefer a more laid-back approach at building a relationship. The companys cultural tone has been set right from the top, with Chairman Azim Premji often being quoted as saying that the brand Wipro is all about humility. We can see that above three theories, Miles and Snows Four Strategic Types, Porters Competitive Strategies, Millers Integrative Framework, clearly indicate that Wipro is practicing differentiation strategy. Structure Wipro has been constantly restructuring itself based on the differentiation strategy that it follows. It has been getting projects in different verticals like insurance, banking, securities, retail, transportation, manufacturing, healthcare, consumer electronics, energy, medical devices, government, etc., so it restructures itself to deliver the projects as per customers specifications. Now, we will analyze the level of complexity, formalization, and centralization that exists in Wipro. Complexity Wipro ranks high on overall complexity. Complexity is the degree of differentiation that exists within an organization. As described earlier, Wipro operates multiple business lines and each business line has its own verticals depending on the industry it provides products and services in. Horizontal Differentiation Nature of the tasks performed by the employees of IT Business unit is different from task performed by the employees of the Infrastructure unit employees which is different from the task performed by the employees of Consumer Care Lighting unit. So, each unit requires specialized knowledge, skills, and trainings. There are more than 20 verticals in the global IT Business Unit of Wipro itself each requiring different functional and social specialization. Due to this high number of specialization, Wipro demonstrates high horizontal differentiation. Vertical Differentiation As can been seen in the figure given below, vertical differentiation is moderately high because of more levels of hierarchy. Average span in Wipro is about 5 to 6 i.e. a manager can direct 5 to 6 subordinates effectively. Spatial Differentiation Wipro has more than 72 global delivery centres in over 55 countries and it employs citizens of more than 70 nationalities. Considering this fact, it can be easily observed that Wipro ranks very high on spatial differentiation. Formalization Jobs within the Wipro are highly formalized. Employees of Wipro Technologies use Wings Within, a job portal for existing Wipro Technologies employees to look for another job within Wipro Technologies itself. Other business lines provide similar job portal for their employees. MyWipro is the intranet portal available to the employees of Wipro Technologies. Clearly defined procedures covering work processes in the organization are available on this portal. These work processes include career progression policies, financial policies, leave policies, attendance policies, timesheet information, etc. Wipro has a well established recruitment policy. Selection of employees is done by the certified interviewers. These interviewers are from the Band C or above and they have passed certain examinations to be an eligible interviewer. Talent Transformation is the training division of Wipro Technologies. It has dedicated full time trainers in almost all domains and technologies Wipro Technologies operates in. This division provides one to three months of induction training to campus recruits. It also provides training on demand. Centralization Centralization in Wipro is moderate. Each business unit in Wipro Technologies has many accounts. Each account acts as a development centre for a dedicated customer and gets a business target from its corresponding business unit. Decisions on what projects to work on are taken at the account level. Decisions on how to work on the projects are taken by the project managers, team leads, and team members. So, concentration is not at a single point in the hierarchy. So, we can see that the high complexity, high formalization and moderate centralization support the differentiation strategy of Wipro. Organizational Design Design Components These are the five basic components of the organisational design at Wipro. The Operating Core The operating core at Wipro consists of the various professional and technical experts relating to the different 24 verticals of the Wipros business. These are highly trained specialists working in various fields such as Aerospace, Automotive, Banking, Business Consumer Services, Communication Service Providers, Computer Peripherals, Computer Software, Computing, Consumer Electronics, Consumer Packaged Goods, Energy, Government Healthcare, High-Tech, Hospitality Leisure, Insurance, Manufacturing, Media, Medical Devices, Mobile Devices, Pharmaceutical Life Sciences, Public Infrastructure, Retail, and Securities Capital Markets. The Strategic Apex It consists of one Chairman, 2 Executive Director Joint CEO, IT Business, 1 Executive Director CFO. And apart from this, there are 8 independent non-executive directors forming the strategic apex of the company. The Middle Line This part consists of the team of highly motivated individuals who anchor the organization to relentlessly provide world class IT and business solutions. The management team comprises global leaders, with excellent domain knowledge and across-the-board cross-functional experience, who nurture successful relationships with the client community. It includes 7 business unit heads, 8 service line heads and 6 geographical heads. The Techno Structure However, this part has very small role to play at IT Business line of Wipro but in the consumer care and other business lines of the Wipro it forms the core part, hence giving rise to machine bureaucracy type of organisational design. And here we are referring to the organisational analysis of the Wipro Technologies and Wipro Infotech. The Support Staff This part consists of the supporting functions of Wipro which handles the general management functions and administrative functions to smoothen out the working of the various business units. There are 7 functional heads under it such as technology, quality, information, financial, marketing, global delivery (logistics) and human resources. Internal Complex Clustering and Inter-Relationships At Wipro, Business divisions are highly overlapping, so the add on growth and problems arising from the uncertain environment add to the complexity of inter-relationships between these 5 components. And specially the business units (service wise and geographical), verticals in each and the functional heads are having overlapping projects and relationships are thus complex. Domination of Operating Core Analysing the various components of organisational design, we found that most of the technical capabilities to perform the various projects is with the operating core. However, the decisions flow from top but there is considerable amount of autonomy with the operating core in view of their highly specialized and professional knowledge. This is what is in the fashion or trend in the IT industry as a whole. Also it has become internally consistent and hence selected out naturally as most sustainable in the field of IT. The Organization Design (Present) The Professional Bureaucracy Professional bureaucracy fits well for Wipro Limited as a group of organization. It is consistent with its requirement of high formalisation/standardisation and moderate to low centralisation. Wipros vertical structure divides the company into units such as Telecom Service Providers, Product Engineering Solutions, Finance Solutions, and Enterprise Solutions. These units further cater to industries such as banking, insurance, securities, and so on. Each vertical is like a self-contained business. It is like a mid-sized company even by U.S. standards, because each vertical generates about $300 million in annual revenues. Though they work under a common structure, with resources such as Finance, HR, Quality and Marketing, each vertical has people who represent these functions. So, in effect, each vertical is like a separate company. There is intention to delegate more authority and responsibility to these self-contained companies. Matrix in Functional Terms (For IT Business Only) Wipros organizational design is complex and sometimes baffles outsiders. The IT business has two organizations Wipro InfoTech and Wipro Technologies. The latter handles the global business while Wipro InfoTech serves India, West Asia and Asia Pacific. In functional terms, the company has a matrix structure with three verticals and two horizontals. The verticals are the $1.06 billion technology business (which is in the product engineering and the telecom service provider space); the $1.4 billion enterprise business (targeted at manufacturing, healthcare, retail, etc.); and the $799 million financial services business. The two horizontals are the $1.1 billion global practices business (testing, package implementation and technology infrastructure services) and the $290 million BPO (business process outsourcing) operation. Major Transformations: Radical Changes and Transformation in the Organization Structure in 2005 After Mr. Vivek Paul left the company, the then CEO, the company went through major transformation process. The reorganization, tried to bring Wipros leadership closer to the customer. In the process, there was de-layering the organization and empowering business leaders with a much higher degree of PL and growth responsibility. The reorganization also brought the mainstream of the company, which is really our global technology business, closer in alignment with the original corporate staffs, which has now become our business staff. Leadership at this level speeds things up and gets decisions made faster. It empowers people more, and it allows them to further empower those who report to them, because their jobs have suddenly become much more responsible. Future Prospects for Organisational Design and Structure The 21st Century Virtual Corporation! With more supply of products and services than there is demand, the customer is in a position to demand an ever changing array of tailored products and services. In order to be successful, businesses need to be much more client centric and far more agile and flexible than ever before. Wipro is responding to this need for radical change by taking an objective approach to the matter. By lending a patient ear to clients and analyzing dozens of outperforming companies, Wipro has realized that businesses must become far more customer centric and develop a highly flexible value chain that can sense and respond with new products and services quickly as market conditions change. The changing needs of the 21st Century Virtual Corporation demands new business designs that facilitate faster and more extensive collaboration on a global scale. Given this demand, Wipros mega alliance strategy of 360Â ° relationships is a unique differentiator. Environment The environment is the set of forces surrounding an organization that have the potential to affect the way it operates and its access to scarce resources. Wipros transaction with its environment can be analyzed based on the forces in specific and general environment. Specific Environment The specific environment consists of forces from outside stakeholder groups that directly affect an organizations ability to secure resources. Forces in specific environment, that affects Wipro and how it handles these forces, are described below. Competitors As has already been described in the section on Millers Integrative Framework, Wipro draws its competitive advantage vis-Ã  -vis the other Indian IT service providers from five specific differentiators. They are technological excellence, innovative solutions, operational excellence, global footprint with emerging market knowledge, and company culture of linking values to business performance. Customers Wipros customers remain cautious after the downturn prevalent in western economy about technology spending, with budgets flat to slightly higher as they look for transformational projects. Customers are taking a lot more time making decisions than spending. A geographic breakup of Wipros revenues from customers: Wipros US based customers decision to spend less has forced Wipro to divert its effort towards some other areas like knowledge management. The company is now more focused on building technical competencies in its work force. All its employees below band C are mandatorily required to successfully clear the assessments mapped for them in a particular appraisal year. Customers are also demanding more robust Business Continuity Plan (BCP) for their accounts operating off shore. This led Wipro to launch an organization wide BCP revamping plan. Emphasis was more on the Banking, Finance, Securities, and Insurance (BFSI) customers as they are the most vulnerable verticals of Wipro due to the inherent nature of their businesses. For Wipro, changes in customer information technology budgets year on year ranged from flat to an increase of 4%. Company is increasingly focused on technology projects that yield long-term changes in their operations, such as cloud computing, as opposed to those that merely made existing processes more efficient. Today Customers are looking for partners versus suppliers. Wipro has started a new initiative that is aimed to build better client understanding, business alignment and consultative selling in large accounts, called the Client Engagement Manager (CEM). It has already delivered incremental growth in existing accounts and the increased sales in these accounts are a sign of the success of the initiative (rolled out in 52 key accounts). Wipro plans to move beyond the market perception of a low price bidder to occupy a position that is viewed as operating in multiple models to offer assets to clients through professional service. The company is also orienting towards providing more business value for clients, consulting led account development. Wipro is also creating Customer Satisfaction Leaders. In 2009, Wipro also undertook a key initiative to strengthen the consulting and customer management skills of our frontline employees by running an academy. The Customer Leadership team of CHRD in conjunction with Enterprise Application Services (EAS) business, in its drive to create world-class consultants launched the EAS Consulting Academy. Suppliers Distributors As Wipro diversified into different sectors it has changed its distributors and suppliers as it best suited for business development. Being an old company, having its presence in India since independence, it has developed a good network of suppliers and distributors all over the country. As the time passed by, based on the need of the business, efficiency and the nexus the company has created; it went for different strategies of distributing its products like in case of its hydraulic products, Wipro has its own dedicated department which takes care of the distribution. Similarly after 2000 when it studied the use of internet and mobile in marketing and distribution sales, it started distributing its products online especially in case of products where customers prefer online transactions over retail if available like Baby care products. The network of distributors is based on the sales of products, for example in case of Santoor soap which is more sold in Southern part of the country, the distributors network is more dense here rather than in other part of the countries. In service sector as Wipro is acting as a mediator, using mediating technology, it does not have a dedicated suppliers or distributors, but it changes with the changing parties which are being served. Product Distributor SmartLite (CFL lights) Sales and Sales Lion Industry Inc Dentsply Infant hygiene products ( Baby soft soap and diapers) US2guntur.com (Online distributors) Farsons Marketing Company Personal Care Products (Santoor soap and talc) Wipro Consumers Care pvt Ltd (self organized distribution network) Hydraulic Products Wipro Infrastructure Engineering Ltd (self organized distribution network) Government Exchange Rate Falling exchange rate increases the exports and price of imports. Reducing the price of exports by decreasing the exchange rate makes them more attractive and competitive in export market. Hence demand for export increases. Same applies to It services industry as well. Hence by controlling exchange rate and appreciation for currency, government plays a role in dynamics of this industry. Outsourcing Policies President of USA Barrack Obama has proposed an anti outsourcing policy suggesting increasing the tax on the benefits gained from outsourcing the jobs from U.S. The idea is to provide lesser incentive to the companies to outsource their jobs. The policy mainly aims at creating and conserving jobs in US market but it has implications on Indian outsourcing industry as well. The policy will greatly affect the foreign companies that are operating in U.S. if this is applied it will mean that the foreign companies will have to pay heavy tax on the labour imported by them. WSJ and LA estimate a tax rate of 55% on foreign companies. That will be a setback for countries like India, which is the biggest player in outsourcing industry. A present slump in number of H1B visas taken up is also a reflection of the same. In the long term, it will hurt all the economies, since U.S investment is a big factor and reduced investment from U.S means reduced money in all the markets, especially India. But there is a high likelihood that comparative cost advantages that countries like India might still provide, would outweigh the loss incurred by the tax loss that the companies are going to face in the US. General Environment The general environment consists of forces that shape the specific environment and affect the ability of all organizations in a particular environment to obtain resources. Forces in general environment, that affects Wipro and how it handles these forces, are described below. Demographic and Cultural forces India Demographics Population:1,180,166,000 (2010 estimated) Age Structure: 0 14 years 31.1%; 15 64 years 63.6%; 65+ years 5.3% Languages: 14 official languages Bengali, Telugu, Marathi, Tamil, Urdu, Gujarati, Malayalam, Kannada, Oriya, Punjabi, Assamese, Kashmiri, Sindhi, and Sanskrit (2001 census) Literacy Rate: 61% (2001 census) Per Capita GDP: USD 2941 (2009 estimate) Labour Force: 523.5 million (2008 estimate); 60% Agriculture, 12% Industry, 28% Services Number of colleges for general education 11549; number of colleges for professional education 4991; number of universities, deemed universities and institutes of national importance 350 (HRD Ministry, 2005-06) English enjoys associate status but is the most important language for national, political, and commercial communication Wipro reflects the Indian demographics. It has a young and experienced work force having average age of 24 to 25 years. 35% of the employees are having less than one year of work experience in Wipro. Average tenure of top 100 managers in Wipro is 11 years. Its workforce comprises of 66% of university graduates. 28% of employees are having master degree. Technology The study of effect of changing technological factors in the general and specific environment of Wipro led to the following analysis: Identification of Wipro technology on the basis of various theories proposed to understand the relation between technology and the structure of organization is given below, but due to the conglomerate nature of Wipro different businesses are analyzed separately to avoid any kind of confusion: Theory Infotech Technology Consumers and lighting Infrastructure Engineering Medical System Woodward Process Process Mass Mass Process Perrow Engineering Engineering Routine Routine Routine Thompson Mediating Long-Linked Long-Linked Long-Linked Long-Linked Future Technologies Technology Adaptive strategy/Structure Development of LED technology for domestic lighting As it is already in the domestic lighting sector, Wipro can definitely take advantage of this technical development by taking the first mover advantage, by being the first company to introduce LED based lights in India. Use or development of Mobile-phone based supply chain Would support in reducing the investment in IT, especially in distribution sector Virtualization software technology for reducing the power consumption Since Wipro is trying to produce environment friendly products, it would be a landmark effort if it introduces the virtualization software technology which combines various different machines into single virtual machine running on a single powerful base system. Political Forces In the near future, the Central IT spending is projected to grow positively. A positive overall growth in the macroeconomic environment of India projects an increase in the central IT spending. For instance, central IT spending is expected to reach about $75.5 billion in 2010. This total spending will consist of civilian agencies accounting for $41.5 billion and the defense department for $34 billion on IT goods and services. Indian political structure seems to be stable for IT industry but due to lack of clear majority in the parliament, fears of hung parliament are created leading to the change of consumer psychology in relation to investing and thereby reducing the capital for IT industry. The decision of Indian government to contract IT job to Indian IT companies will create more opportunities for the IT companies and the IT industry at large. With the growth of offshore outsourcing receiving increasing political and media attention there have been concerted efforts to enact new legislation to restrict offshore outsourcing or impose disincentives on companies which have been outsourcing. This may adversely impact Wipros ability to do business in these jurisdictions and c