Portraiture and the Conversation Piece essays

Portraiture and the Conversation Piece essays Much painting had been done in England by a handful of native artists well into the eighteenth century, although it was foreign artists that had dominated the market for paintings. British artists could not form a style that was original and one they could call their own, thus they were seldom admired. In the early eighteenth century British aristocrats usually employed foreign artists to do their portraits. It was not until William Hogarth, local artwork would be noticed. He promoted distinct British traditions to his artwork and became the first native artist to be known on an international scale. He paved the way for future artists that would come to follow him. By the mid-eighteenth century it became fashionable to have paintings done by British artists, instead of foreign painters. It was not only popular, it showed that the owner of the painting had taste. Hogarth was not only noted for his portraiture, but was responsible for popularising a new form of portraiture cal led the conversion piece. The conversation piece was a step back from the formal portraiture, but gained widespread interest all over England. In this essay I would like to examine the two forms of artwork that were most popular during the eighteenth century, portraiture and the conversation piece. To observe the two forms a bit closer I will compare two pieces by a well-known British painter, Thomas Gainsborough, one of a portraiture and one of a conversation piece. Lets begin by taking a closer look at portraiture. What is portraiture? According to Websters Dictionary, a portrait can be defined as the likeness of a person, painted, drawn or engraved; commonly, a representation of the human face painted from real life. What this is saying is that portraitures are paintings or drawings of the human figure. During the eighteenth century only the upper class could have their portraits done by the most prestigious artists, these were usual...

Sustainable Supply Chains

Sustainable Supply Chains Introduction to Sustainable Supply Chains A supply chain is a system in organizations, technology, information, people, resources, and activities that involves moving a product or service from the supplier to the customer.Advertising We will write a custom report sample on Sustainable Supply Chains specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More Sustainable supply chains are supply chains with the ability of helping organizations to grow, protect, and create long term social, economic and environmental value for shareholders involved in bringing products and services to the market. Supply chain sustainability is the management of social, economic, and environmental impacts and the encouragement of practices of good governance through the lifecycle of services and goods. Sustainable supply chain management is the transparent and strategic achievement and integration of economic, environmental, and social goals in an organization in a systematic coord ination of key business inters of successful sustainable supply chains are those that practices of collaboration. An example of collaboration is investment in alternative modes of transportation to reduce environmental impacts and cost of deliveries.Advertising Looking for report on business economics? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Some of the modes of transportation include airports, ships and canals. A successful sustainable supply chain is also in major components of management of supplier relationships. It is applied to create efficient way of cutting costs in the retail business (Krause, Vachon Klassen, 2009). For example, Wal-Mart has a Supplier Energy Efficiency Project that are aimed at emission elimination the company’s supply chain.The project’s suppliers reduced 3300 metric tons of GHG emissions saving approximately $200,000 costs of energy in 2009. The suppliers of Wal-Mart were requeste d its suppliers to show efficiency in management of environmental footprint as a measure of reducing cost and realize this benefit. This could save energy, time, and cost for the company. IBM has a sustainable supply chain in which it conducts studies annually to address the issues in its supply chain. The company prepares strategies to overcome global challenges that arise from globalization to create business value (Pagell Wu, 2009). Difference Between Traditional Supply Chains and Sustainable Supply Chains Have Created Competitive Advantage For OrganizationsAdvertising We will write a custom report sample on Sustainable Supply Chains specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More When accurately designed, traditional or conventional supply chains present clientele the advantages of quality enhancement, reduced overheads, and rapid delivery. Sustainable supply chain offer reduced costs and create value in the supply chain. Supply chain managers face challenges of changes in requirements of expertise in today’s business long-term trends. Business trends in recent years involve increasing intensity of competition and demand in environmental protection, resource scarcity, and security arising from the ongoing globalization. Businesses have to adopt better business systems that have the potential of satisfying stakeholders and customers. This makes the traditional supply chain insufficient in the modern business world. Under the objectives of a variety performance, a new prototype of a more complicated supply chain is emerging that caters for the needs of sustainable and developing competitiveness. The main differences between the traditional and sustainable supply chain is that the traditional supply chain is a drive of prices and decouple strategically but the sustainable supply chain is a drive of value and couple strategically. This means that management and design of supply chains should deliver specific outcomes, such as security, sustainability, innovation, cost reduction, and resilience (Pagell, Wu Wasserma, 2010). Paulraj (2011) identified that sustainable supply chains create competitive advantage in businesses by managing risks, creating sustainable production, and realizing efficiencies.Advertising Looking for report on business economics? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Managing business risks minimizes disruptions in business from social, economic, and environmental impacts. Managing business risks also protects the brand value and reputation of the company. Companies can protect themselves from interruptions in their potential supply chains associated with labor, human rights, governmental practices, environmental practices, and suppliers’ human rights by ensuring that suppliers comply with management systems and programmes covering sustainable supply chain management principles. Managing risks ensures that a company has access to resources. A company with a sustainable supply chain has the potential of reducing future liability and additional costs. Therefore, companies with sustainable supply chains understand the different strategies to undertake to ensure productivity and efficiency. Realizing efficiencies occurs when sustainable supply chains reduce costs of energy, transportation, and material inputs. Realizing efficiencies also incr ease labor production and create efficiencies across the entire supply chain. Creating sustainable products involve meeting the requirements of business and customer partners and innovating to satisfy the changing market. A company can reduce costs of supply through creating strong health, safety, and labor practices, increasing the understanding of key processes in the supply chain, and designing systems and processes that reduce required inputs. Companies create competitive advantage through developing new products and improving existing products through collaborating with suppliers on sustainable issues that foster product innovation. Sustainable supply chain creates competitive advantage by providing understanding of the business value and incorporated ideas in the market by competitors. This is addresses as benchmarking against the competitors. Sustainable supply chain enables an understanding of customer, suppliers, and shareholder expectations creating maximum return on the i nvestments of the company. A sustainable supply chain creates a vision for the company providing direction of the company’s strategies and defining the company’s commitment to achieve competitive advantage. The company can evaluate and identify areas that need improvement to create competitive advantage (Reuter, Foerstl, Hartmann Blome, 2010). Challenges in Building Sustainable Supply Chains Supply chain managers face challenges because of the increase in the requirements of management expertise in the long-term trends of companies today. These trends include the increasing intensity of competition, ongoing globalization, environmental protection, resource scarcity, and the growing security demand in businesses. Businesses are also requiring cost efficient, flexible, and reliable business systems that have the capability of supporting customer differentiation. Modern supply chain managers have to confront complex and dynamic supply chains becoming difficult to predict developments and trends in the long term (Paulraj, 2011). Supply chain management has to come up with additional plans that extend beyond the operational scope of the current activities. Supply chain managers need to understand and identify the new sustainability issues in their businesses and company environment to respond to respond to the changes in the long term trends and to remain competitive. This challenges calls for international, global, and the fragmented supply chain to apply skills of networking and creating efficient supply chain operations that adapt to sustainable demands to create sustainable customer focused supply chains in the long term. This is because sustainable supply chains must be able to create sustainable competitive advantage (Pullman, Maloni Carter, 2009). Challenges of building sustainable supply chains can arise from the weak and non-built relationships of companies with suppliers. It becomes difficult for companies to form strong relationships with suppliers because some of the suppliers are untrustworthy in that they fail to deliver the quantity and quality paid by the company. The owners or managers have to inspect the suppliers, especially in cases in which the suppliers can corrupt the employees easily. Challenges can arise when the company has inadequate capital to pay the suppliers at the required time. The company can strain to pay the suppliers or the suppliers can reduce business relationships with the company. Challenges in building a sustainable supply chain can arise when the suppliers create inconsistencies in price and quality without providing notice to the purchasing enterprise. This means that this change would pass to the customers creating inefficiency in the supply chain (Reuter, Foerstl, Hartmann Blome, 2010). According to Pullman, Maloni and Carter (2009), challenges can arise when the suppliers have a poor record from the purchasing entity making it difficult for the purchasing enterprise to keep a tre nd of their suppliers in frequency of supply, quality of supply, and prices of supply. This makes it difficult for the purchasing enterprise to build a strong relationship with the supplier. Challenges in building sustainable supply chain can result from poor planning where the purchasing enterprise makes quick decisions on the supplier without taking time to understand the competence of the supplier. This makes it difficult for the supplier and the purchase enterprise to create good relationships when the problems in the supply chain begin to occur. Other challenges arise from unfair competition based on prices, high prices for poor quality of products, lack of customer records and statistics, and interpersonal challenges, such as religious differences, race, and social status. Cases of corruption can arise from the purchase enterprises to suppliers passing on the costs through price increments on the customers. Corruption destroys the sustainability in the supply chains. Challenge s can arise from changes in government levies and taxes. Government taxes and levies affect cost of operations to both the suppliers and the purchasing enterprises leading to additional costs that have to depict in changes in the quantity, quality, and prices of products and services in the market. These changes affect the satisfaction of the shareholders and customers forcing them to shift to competitors. The company profits and resources decrease leading to collapse of some of the supply chains (Pagell Wu, 2009). Management Implications to the Importance and Challenges in Building Sustainable Supply Chains Various enterprises strive to build positive public relations to improve image and reputation essential for attracting and maintaining potential and competent suppliers and customers. A company can improve the nature and frequency of communication to customers and suppliers to maintain or improve sustainable supply chains. Some enterprises offer promotional items and credit to customers in efforts to build strong relationships for sustainable supply chains. Business enterprises reduce prices below that of competitors and improve quality of products to attract customers. This is difficult because cost of production match prices, quantity, and quality and reducing the prices means that the quality or quantity will decline. Enterprises have difficult time managing sustainable supply chains with prices, especially when the business has obligation of satisfying the stakeholders, customers and suppliers (Paulraj, 2011). According to Reuter, Foerstl, Hartmann and Blome (2010), business enterprises provide quality and unique services to loyal customers and suppliers to attract and maintain them. This action strengthens their relationships making it easy to build a sustainable supply chain. This has been possible through creation of clubs, especially in retail shops and food points (Lamp, 2011). Enterprises result to supporting sporting events, channels, and teams to nurture prestige and good reputation of businesses. Businesses offer sponsorships and donations to the society to attract the attention and interest in the members in the supply chain. Business enterprises also offer newspapers and special seats to the members of the supply chain to ensure good relationships and image. Businesses enterprises have also put extra efforts in building sustainable supply chains by paying its suppliers promptly and involving the suppliers and customers in their business and personal functions and initiatives. For example, Unilever is multinational company that earns annual revenue of more than $50 billion in approximately 400 brands. It sources from 100000 non-production suppliers and 10000 suppliers of raw materials. The company approximately purchases 3% of the world’s palm oil and 6% of the world’s black tea (Krause, Vachon, Klassen, 2009). Securing sustainable supply chains is critical for sustaining growth and the success of the bu siness in the future. The company has developed tangible benefits in business through sustainable supply chains. The company invests resources and time in building strong relationships with suppliers, customers, and stakeholders. The company achieves this by providing good wage incomes, managing environmental issues, such as climate change and waste, and ensuring good working conditions in the supply chains. Unilever’s ability to maintain sustainability in chain of supply helps in creating cost efficiency in the company operations, improve company’s reputational image, and assist in securing and stabilizing business long-term operations.. Unilever has created competitive advantage successfully through building sustainable supply chains (Pagell, Wu Wasserma, 2010). References Krause, D., Vachon, S., Klassen, R. (2009). Special topic forum on sustainable supply chain management: introduction and reflections on the role of purchasing management. Journal of Supply Chain Management, 45(4), 18-25. Lamp, C. (2011). Essentials of marketing. New York, NY: Cengage Learning. Pagell, M. Wu, Z. (2009). Building a more complete theory of sustainable supply chain management using case studies of 10 exemplars. Journal of Supply Chain Management, 45(2), 37-56. Pagell, M., Wu, Z., Wasserma, M. (2010). Thinking differently about purchasing portfolios: an assessment of sustainable sourcing. Journal of Supply Chain Management, 46(1), 57-73. Paulraj, A. (2011). Understanding the relationships between internal resources and capabilities, sustainable supply management and organizational sustainability. Journal of Supply Chain Management, 47(1), 19-37. Pullman, M., Maloni, M., Carter, C. (2009). Food for thought: social versus environmental sustainability practices and performance outcomes. Journal of Supply Chain Management, 45(4), 38-54. Reuter, C., Foerstl, K., Hartmann, E., Blome, C. (2010). Sustainable global supplier management: the role of dynamic capabiliti es in achieving competitive advantage. Journal of Supply Chain Management, 46(2), 45-63.

Computer security Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Computer security - Term Paper Example Once, one comes to terms with this astounding fact that then comes in the concept of computer security. Simply speaking the purpose of the computer security is to look to it that the data residing within the computers remains safe and sound. The arrangements for computer security within organizations look to it that no harm gets done to the computers owned by the organizations and the information saved in those computers remains inaccessible to the unwanted people and organizations (Gollmann, 1999, p. 9). Most of the computer security systems have been designed with the help of the logical technologies. The concept of computer security is mostly relevant in the situations where a computer or computers in an organization are connected to other computers and networks with the help of the accompanying networking technologies and services (Gollmann, 1999, p. 10). The primary and essential objective of the computer security is to protect the organizations from unwarranted data loss and th e resultant financial and intellectual losses. The Debilitating Consequences of Data Loss The data saved in the digital hardware and computer networks within corporate and financial organizations could be considered to be the very backbone of these institutions. Any loss to the organizational data in the form of a data theft or a virus threat or say a natural disaster does always have the potential to bring an organization to its knees. Most of the times it is almost impossible to recover the lost data and any recovery if possible is not devoid of a serious threat to the viability of the concerned organization (Vacca, 2009, p. 40). As already said, the businesses in the 21st century are totally digitized and do tend to depend on their hardware and computer networks for survival and sustenance (Vacca, 2009, p. 469). In this very fact lies the very vulnerability of these businesses, which if not safeguarded with the help of proper security, could give way to irretrievable losses and damages. The consequences of a data loss to an organization owing to a lack of computer sec urity or a breach of this security could be manifold. It is not exactly possible to financially quantify the losses owing to data loess, but it would not be wrong to say that such losses at an international scale do run into billions of dollars (Vacca, 2009, p. 136). Research has shown that many companies every year have to contend with data loss, which also includes some of the most reputed companies of the world (Vacca, 2009, p. 136). Many of such companies when struck with a data breach or data losses get immediately shut down and even those which manage to strive, a considerable number have to deal with dire consequences in the following years (Vacca, 2009). Realistically speaking it is not always possible to estimate the losses incurred by a company owing to data loss. In the age of brand considerations and intellectual property, if the impact to the perceptions and views of the customers and trading partners owing to data loss could be considered to be tangible assets, then th e looses to a company owing to loss of sensitive data and information is no doubt invaluable and debilitating. Hence, the biggest loss that an institution, corporation or organization could face owing to data loss