CSR for business managers, stakeholders and society Research Paper

CSR for business managers, stakeholders and society - Research Paper Example Therefore it is the duty of the companies to work in accordance with the interests of the community and environment. However, only few companies are strictly observing CSR in practice, even though most of the companies agree with CSR in principle. This paper analyses the reputation of Coca Cola in terms of corporate social responsibility. Description of the company Operating in more than 200 countries worldwide, the American company Coca cola is one among the largest soft drink manufacturers in the world at present. â€Å"In May, 1886, Coca Cola was invented by Doctor John Pemberton a pharmacist from Atlanta, Georgia. Today, products of the Coca Cola Company are consumed at the rate of more than one billion drinks per day† (Bellis). Even though PepsiCo is causing some serious challenges to Coca Cola in some part of the world, Coca Cola is able to maintain its superiority in most of the regions in the world. Issue Identification According to Jeff Seabright, The Coca-Cola Compan y's vice president of environment and water resources, â€Å"sustainability begins with the simple act of paying attention. You can't manage what you can't measure"(Making Sustainability the Real Thing). In other words, Coca Cola is well aware of the importance of concepts such as corporate social responsibility and sustainable development. However, the accusations against Coca Cola with respect to the violation of social responsibility are growing across the world. ... People from Kerala (India’s southernmost state) have recently conducted an agitation against the underwater exploitation by Coca Cola. Villagers near Plachimada, Kerala faced severe drinking water shortage because of Coca Cola’s uncontrolled underwater exploitation. Coca Cola forced to close down their plant at Plachimada because of the public agitation against them (EMJ). Significance of the Issue Drinking water shortage is one of the major problems facing by people all over the world. Because of injudicious farming activities and heavy industrialization, majority of the water resources such as rivers and streams were polluted in most parts of the world. As a result of that current generation is relying heavily on underwater resources for their drinking needs. Coca Cola like soft drink manufacturers is exploiting these resources and the people near the soft drink bottling plants are struggling to get enough drinking water from the nature. Stakeholder identification Som e of the major stakeholders of Coca Cola Company are; ordinary people, Coca Cola employees, shareholders in Coca Cola, government and local bodies. On one side, Coca Cola is trying to make profit and safeguard the interests of the company management and the shareholders. On the other side, ordinary people lose their drinking water resources and the government and local bodies struggle to take proper actions. It should be noted that as part of free trade agreements, it is the duty of the government of India to prepare enough facilities to Coca Cola like companies. Moreover, Indian government is currently trying to attract foreign direct investment at any cost to stimulate economic growth. The investments by Coca Cola would definitely help

The Arguments For Privatization

The Arguments For Privatization Privatization is transfer of state owned enterprises to private ownership. William Megginson and Jeffrey M. Netter(2000) defined privatization politically and economically, as the deliberate sale by a government of state owned enterprises(SOEs) of assets to private economic agents. According to Charles A Ntiri (2010); Privatization has been defined by economic scholars and jurists to encompass a wide range of options for involvement of private capital and management in the running and operations of public enterprises It may involve the total transfer of public ownership and assets structures to private companies or conversion of public enterprises to private entities or incorporation of new private entities in place of public enterprises which can be by management transfers etc. He also quote Heydare Kord-Zanganeh (2001) on privatization to refer to all initiatives designed to increase the role of private entities for applying society resources to produce products and services by dec reasing and restricting government or official roles. Lumbini Kulasekera (2001) in his article on Restructuring stated-owned enterprises through privatization explain that, the system of state enterprises was established to provide support. Support for consumers in form of better products and services at less cost. Support for workers in form of rewarding and meaningful employment .Support for the government in form of revenues. Many state enterprises can no longer provide this support .In fact they are in need of support themselves .These institutions in fact, should be productive national assets, making a contribution to the progress and welfare of the country. But years of politicization, corruption, mismanagement, inadequate investment, lack of vision and discipline have stripped them of their potential making them colossal liabilities.Over the years enormous amounts of money have been spent to sustain ailing state enterprises. Governments borrow heavily from the state banks and from foreign financial institutions. Aid donors will n o longer support wasteful expenditure .Therefore either unproductive state enterprises will have to be shut down or the entire economy will go bankrupt. Privatization therefore is inevitable and necessary. This essay explain the arguments for privatization of state owned enterprises in emerging markets and why state owned banks in emerging markets have not been privatized. The essay comprises of three sections; Introductory part, arguments for privatization of state owned enterprises and why state owned banks have not been privatized in emerging markets, conclusion has been done respectively in each of the second and third section respectively. Arguments for privatization There are different arguments for privatization of state owned enterprises in emerging market in support of different researches done earlier concerning the privatization in emerging economies. William L. Megginson Jeffry M.Netter(2000) argue that, Contracting ability impacts the efficiency of state and private ownership. Government ownership of firms results in problems in defining the goals of the firm. He also quote Hansmann and Kraakman(2000), While the shareholder-wealth maximizing model of corporate organization is becoming increasingly dominant in part because of the advantages of having a well-defined corporate goal, he continued that governments have many objectives other than profit or shareholder-wealth maximization. Further, government objectives can change from one administration to the next. The inability of the government to credibly commit to a policy can significantly reduce the efficiency of a firms operations and governance. Even if the government does attempt to maximize social welfare, for example, welfare is a difficult thing to measure and use in guiding policy. In addition, the governments goals can be inconsistent with efficiency, inconsistent with maximizing social welfare, or even malevolent (he quoted Laffont and Tirole, 1993 and Shleifer, 1999).In addition, even if the government and the nations citizens agree that profit maximizing is the goal of the firm, it is difficult to write complete contracts that adequately tie managers incentives to that goal. Shleifer (1999) argues that the owners of public firms (the nations citizens) are less able to write complete contracts with their managers because of their diffuse nature, making it difficult to tie the managers incentives to the returns from their decisions. This is a subset of the broader arguments based in property rights and agency costs that there will be differences in performance between government and privately held firms because there are a broader range of monitoring devices under private ownership. William L. Megginson Jeffry M. Netter (2000) argue that, Ownership structure affects the ease with which government can intervene in the operations of a firm. Of course, governments can intervene in the operations of any firm, either public or private. However, the governments transaction costs of intervening in production arrangements and other decisions of the firm are greater when firms are privately owned. Thus, to the extent that government intervention has greater costs than benefits, private ownership is preferred to public ownership (Sappington and Stiglitz, 1987). William L. Megginson Jeffry M. Netter (2000) also argue that, a major source of inefficiency in public firms stems from less-prosperous firms being allowed to rely on the government for funding, leading to soft budget constraints. The state is unlikely to allow a large SOE to face bankruptcy. Thus, the discipline enforced on private firms by the capital markets and the threat of financial distress is less important for state-owned firms. Kornai (1998, 1993), Berglof and Roland (1998), and Frydman, Gray, Hessel, and Rapaczynski (2000) all suggest that soft budget constraints were a major source of inefficiency in Communist firms. They also note that supposedly hard budget constraints imposed by a government on SOEs are not very effective either. William L. Megginson Jeffry M. Netter (2000) also argue that, Privatization can impact efficiency through its effect on government fiscal conditions. As noted in Section 1, governments have raised huge amounts of money by selling SOEs. Such sales have helped reduce the fiscal deficit in many countries. Though important, examining the efficiency effects of reducing government deficits is beyond the scope of this paper. Davis, Ossowski, Richardson and Barnett (2000) show that privatization has significant positive effects on governments fiscal conditions. William L. Megginson Jeffry M. Netter (2000) also argue that, At a macroeconomic level, privatization can help develop product and security markets. One important motivation for privatization is to help develop factor and product markets, as well as security markets. As discussed above, welfare economics argues that efficiency is achieved through competitive markets. Thus, to the extent that privatization promotes competition, privatization can have important efficiency effects. Inevitably, the effectiveness of privatization programs and markets themselves are simultaneously determined. It has been clear in the transition economies that the success of the privatization program depends on the strength of the markets within the same country, and vice versa. Thus, the impact of privatization will differ across countries depending on the strength of the existing private sector. The empirical evidence shows that this is the case. Market Socialism: The opponents of privatization argue that neoclassical economics welfare theorems should also work in an economy with public ownership .Instead of a soviet type economy with public ownership and planning, one can imagine a market socialism (Barone 1908; Lange 1936) system where firms are publicly owned, but exchange occurs in competitive markets, and SOE managers are incentivized via performance contracts. Some adherents of market socialism argue this is exactly what has been successfully implemented in China ( Critics of this idea argue that is very hard for the government to commit not to intervene in markets .Under market socialism, the government is omnipotent and can directly control all the prices. Therefore ,it is hard to protect market competition from the government monopoly , which would not only expropriate the consumer surplus but would also undermine efficiency .It is also hard for the government to commit to the strict antitrust policy that weakens the market power of state-owned firms. Even in an open economy which imports product market competition ,the government still wields a monopoly in the labor market and in markets for nontradeables.The government is also unable to commit to abstain from political pursuit s while designing and enforcing managements contracts. Another problem of government ownership is the liability to ensure the exit of failing firms. Governments (or government banks) often bail out firms, private or public, in order to preserve employment. This problem is especially severe in the case of public firms .It is essentially impossible for the state to commit to not bailing out its own firms. The resulting soft budget constraints further aggravate the incentives problem for state owned enterprises. Yet another argument in favor of private ownership is the importance of innovation; Shleifer 1998 argues that innovation can only prosper under private ownership .While inventors can come up with great ideas independently of the predominant ownership forms; further development commercialization of innovative ideas is certainly more likely under private ownership. Government revenue: Privatization helps to raise revenues for Government. State owned enterprises comprises of multiplicity of goals, they wants to maximize profit but they focus more on social security for the citizen, increase of employment might lead to overstaffing hence increase more cost on operations, Insufficient quality of facilities like machines for production ,leads to poor and incompetent products which cannot lead to generation of more profit. According to Sergei Guriev and William Megginson (2005) comments that private ownership strengthens the incentives for profit maximazion and therefore should lead to increased productive and allocative efficiency. Market failures. SOEs (State owned Enterprises) lack innovation that leads failure in the market. This is due to the fact that government aids compensate them even when they make losses so that they continue to operate and avoid the large number of unemployment. Sergei Guriev and William Megginson (2005) said that market failure even when they exist, do not have to be collected through public ownership. Much can be achieved through regulation, taxation, and private provision of public goods (through profit maximizing firms or nonprofit organizations. They also say that Public ownership may not resolve all the relevant issues both in democrat and in non regimes politicians are often concerned with issues other than economic efficient and social welfare; they may be either driven by political motives or simply corrupt.Privatisation reduces the ability to pursue political objectives. Megginson and natter (2000) argue that, Privatization tends to help the greatest positive impact in those cases where the role for the government in licensing the market failure is the weakest. By conclusion, There is growing body of empirical evidence on all aspects of privatization that uses detailed datasets and up-to-date methodology this empirical evidence provides solid evidence that privatization generally works both for the firms that are privatized and for privatizing economies as a whole. While privatization usually results both in increased productivity and reduced employment in privatized firms, fears of negative overall effects at the economy level are not justified. An important caveat here of those benefits of privatization depends on market institutions being in place. The countries that manage to ensure property rights protection and the rule of law, impose hard budget, increase competition, and improve corporate governance reap the largest benefits. If appropriate institutions are not in place, privatization often fails to improve performance at the firm level and for the economy as a whole. Empirical evidence provides a strong case for openness in privatization .Virtually all point to a positive role of foreign investors. Firms privatized to foreign owners exhibit the highest productivity increases .Moreover, as foreign owners usually buy the assets in a more competitive biddings process, they are likely to pay a high price for privatize assets and the threat of competition from foreign bidders also tends to raise the bids of domestic investors. Receiving a high net privatization price is important, not only for fiscal reasons but also for the political legitimacy of emerging private property rights and the sustainability of reforms. Why have State-Owned Banks not been Privatized in Emerging Markets? Many emerging markets have not privatized their banking systems or face some challenges after privatization. Panicos Demetriades et al (2010) argue that, governments should not feel pressured to re-privatize the banks. Once the black sheep of high finance, government owned banks can reassure depositors about the safety of their savings and can help maintain a focus on productive investment in a world in which effective financial regulation remains more of an aspiration than a reality. Privatization of banks has been done in some of emerging markets for example Mexico, India and China. Mexico face banking crisis in 1994, India face some challenges as private owned banks could not meet their pre-privatization objectives, while China face crisis but were able to maintain. Privatization can cause banking crisis. Times of India, article on Privatization can cause banking crisis of by TNN, 16 November 2001; Prof V.S. Vyas, chairman of the governing board of institute of development studies, Jaipur, has given a call for preventing banking crisis through reckless privatization. He was delivering the valedictory address at the recently held national seminar on `privatization of banks at Mangalagangothri, organized by corporation bank chair in bank management. Vyas, also a member of the central board of directors of the reserve bank of India and Nabard, said the content and phase of the economic reforms are different in different countries. Therefore, any sweeping measures to privatize banks would cause a severe banking crisis. On the banking crises in south-east Asian countries, he said the government should not give absolute freedom to the private financial institutions and foreign banks. Any move to give market orientation to ownership of financial instit utions like banks must be judged by applying three criteria; better initiative and transparency, better efficiency, better capital accumulation and growth. There is no conclusive proof to show private banks is better than the public sector banks when these criteria are applied, he said. Mexico has been cited as having to privatize its banks and face financial Crisis. Haluk,Unal Miguel Navarro (1999) said that shortly after their privatization, Banco Union (BCH), Cremi, Grupo Havre, and Banpa is failed. Following the peso devaluation of December 20, 1994, the entire banking system needed to be re-privatized at great cost to the tax payer. What went wrong? It is safe to argue that the lack of a previously enhanced legal and regulatory framework was a major obstacle in the full achievement of objectives relating to bank privatization in general. Although several attempts were made to overhaul the banking system, efforts were insufficient at the beginning of the bank privatization process to increase supervision. Changes in the legal and regulatory framework of the financial sector should have begun long before the privatization process started, as they usually are a slow and gradual process. The newly privatized banking system in Mexico operated under an outdated regu latory environment and with a set of supervisory agencies unable to implement new regulations or enforce existing rules. Performance of private owned banks could not outweigh the performance of government owned banks. Times of India, article on Privatization can cause banking crisis of by TNN, 16 November 2001, Prof Vyas lauded the achievements of the public sector banks in India in the last 36 years, particularly in reaching out to the masses in the hither to neglected villages. Even in china, the banks could not reach the level of rural penetration which the Indian public sector banks have been able to. The solution to the stagnation of banks is minimizing bureaucratic control, not hasty privatization, he argued. Former syndicate bank chairman and Thingalaya alleged the government made the proposal to privatize banks to satisfy the international monetary foundation (IMF) and the World Bank. Thingalaya, also a member of the Karnataka state planning board, said while the private sector banks in India account for just 6 per cent of the rural lending, it is the public sector banks which have been helping the rural masses in a big way. P.V. Subbarao, Chief General Manager, reserve bank of India, Mumbai, said while the private sector banks in India operate only in limited areas with very little staff, these banks are serving numerous villages and towns. The new generation private sector banks, the old private sector banks and foreign banks have yet to develop the mass participation approach, he observed. According to D. Beim and C. Calomiris (2001) If banks are privatized before SOEs, bank owners may engage in buying more companies and become industrial empires. Foreign banks may out-complete domestic banks and leave them seriously weakened. D. Beim and C. Calomiris (2001) added that Capital inflows (short term loans and portfolio flows) can easily go into reverse (e.g. outflow) and create liquidity crisis. In conclusion we cite Panicos Demetriades et al (2010), at the moment, there is calm among bank depositors but premature privatization of government owned banks could change that. The empirical evidence suggests that the very existence of government owned banks has its roots in bad regulation. Privatizing banks without fixing the underlying cause could result in greater financial instability, not less. Moreover, as experience and other research shows, privatizing banks can only increase the power of bankers which can create fertile ground for more bad regulation. And if you thought that government owned banks are bad for long run growth, you need to think again. The empirical evidence suggests that government ownership of banks during 1995-2007 has, if anything, been associated with higher growth rates.

Essay on Picture of Dorian Gray: The Rotting of the Spirit :: Picture Dorian Gray Essays

The Rotting of the Spirit in The Picture of Dorian Gray      Ã‚  Ã‚   Oscar Wilde, author of The Picture of Dorian Gray, makes Basil's life change drastically by having him paint a portrait of Dorian Gray and express too much of himself in it, which, in Wilde's mind, is a troublesome obstacle to circumvent. â€Å"Wilde believes that the artist should not portray any of himself in his work, so when Basil does this, it is he who creates his own downfall, not Dorian† (Shewan 36).    Wilde introduces Basil to Dorian when Basil begins to notice Dorian staring at him at a party. Basil "suddenly became conscious that someone was looking at [him]. [He] turned halfway around and saw Dorian Gray for the first time" (Wilde 24). Basil immediately notices him, however Basil is afraid to talk to him. His reason for this is that he does "not want any external influence in [his] life" (Wilde 24). This is almost a paradox in that it is eventually his own internal influence that destroys him. Wilde does this many times throughout the book. He loved using paradoxes and that is why Lord Henry, the character most similar to Wilde, is quoted as being called "Price Paradox."    Although Dorian and Basil end up hating each other, they do enjoy meeting each other for the first time. Basil finds something different about Dorian. He sees him in a different way than he sees other men. Dorian is not only beautiful to Basil, but he is also gentle and kind. This is when Basil falls in love with him and begins to paint the picture. Basil begins painting the picture, but does not tell anyone about it, including Dorian, because he knows that there is too much of himself in it. Lord Henry discovers the painting and asks Basil why he will not display it. Lord Henry thinks that it is so beautiful it should be displayed in a museum. Basil argues that the reason he will not display the painting is because he is "afraid that [he] has shown in it the secret of his soul" (Wilde 23). This is another paradox because he has not only shown the secret of his soul, but the painting eventually comes to show the secret of Dorian's soul also.      In the preface to The Picture of Dorian Gray, Wilde explains that "to reveal art and conceal the artist is art's aim" (Wilde 17).

Supply Chain Risk Management

Supply Chain Risk Management is the concept of trying to foresee disruptions to timely supply of goods or services required by the organisation and creating systems to mitigate these at the lowest possible cost to the organisation and by so doing ensure that there will be continuity in the normal operations of the business. Supply chain risks have the potential to cripple a business’ operations and can have long and short term effects which may be difficult to recover from.A delay along a route is a short term problem whereas the presence of a monopoly supplier in the chain holding up stocks to force an increase in prices or shutting down for whatever reason is long term. Certain types of disruptions are both difficult to anticipate and rare, but very damaging when they occur; for example, natural disasters such as earthquakes are difficult to predict but have the potential to ruin entire factories and road networks wreaking havoc to the entire supply chain.Disruptions to supp ly can be anticipated and countered by building inventory or by having multiple redundant suppliers since it is highly unlikely to encounter a scenario where multiple suppliers are simultaneously disrupted. Both of these processes can be described as building supply chain reserves. Concept of Risk Risk can be perceived from various angles; one of its basic definitions being the probability of threat of quantifiable damage, injury, liability, loss or any other negative occurrence that is caused by external or internal vulnerabilities and that may be avoided through pre-emptive action.1 In developing an understanding of risk, it is necessary to incorporate its two fundamental facets; the first being the exposure to the uncertainty and the second being the actual outcomes upon occurrence of the event. 2 Hence, risk can be expressed as the product of probability and consequences of an event. Along with this, one must also be able to know the sources of the identified risk. 2 It is commo n to analyse risk by means of a matrix with 2 dimensions, probability and consequences but such an analysis has the main disadvantage of being reliant on risk perception.Risk perception depends on time, experience, location, attitude, position and possibilities to decide and scale of events. 2 It is also important to realise that risk has no technical value in and of itself, hence in developing a risk management process, the aim is to always do it at a minimum cost. 3 Risk Variety An overview of business risks in general is useful in understanding supply chain risk. Risks can be externally driven (environmental, external factors, competitors, customers, regulations), internally driven and decision driven.3 At times, managing supply chain risk may be difficult because of the interconnection of individual risks and actions that mitigate one risk may end up exacerbating another. For example, nitrogen gas used for bottling in large amounts may displace the local atmosphere and cause asp hyxiation. Increasing local stores may minimise the effects of a shortage of supply but immediately it increases storage costs and the possibility of leaks in a larger vessel.Broadly speaking, risks can be categorized as those that bring about delays in the supply chain and those that disrupt the normal flow. 4 Delays The occurrence of delays in material flows is the result of either of several possible factors such as; Inflexibility of suppliers hence inability to respond to changes in demand Poor output at supplier plants High levels of handling or inspections at border crossings In a scenario where these are frequent, historical trends can be used to create a forecasting tool against which with proper demand planning, these effects can be mitigated.In the local case of SZL, sugar is may be delayed by a day or two at the Limpopo Border post and analysis of past trends has allowed a conclusion to be drawn that a minimum and maximum stock level of 3 days and 1 week cover is sufficie nt to both cover for these drawbacks and at the same time neither be too much of an impedance to the cash flow of the organisation nor create a significant rise in local storage costs. Disruptions Disruptions by nature tend to be infrequent, difficult to predict and forecast but very damaging when they occur.Examples that fall under this category include labour strikes, terror strikes and fires. Some disruptions have effects that transcend over various industries and can even be international such as earthquakes or the tsunami in Japan in recent memory. Disruptions also adversely affect material prices which can pose a significant problem to business operations. These can be countered by building inventories or having multiple redundant suppliers. The decision making process however as to which path of action is governed by the following factors; Cost of inventoryCost of keeping inventory Accuracy of prediction of the disruption and available information Rate of obsolescence of mate rial whilst in inventory Likelihood of disruption For instance, MM juice concentrates are a high cost in storage, requiring refrigeration to maximise on lifespan but the decision is made to keep a significant amount within stock because of the uncertainty of the supply delivery time and the reality that upon the sea, there may be unforeseen disruptions.However, in the case of bottle preforms, not more than a week’s cover is normally kept because of the usual reliability of the suppliers and low likelihood of low supply. A recent incident however has necessitated to review this as an intra-factory incident at Megapak caused a mini-crisis within the organisation. Risk Handling Often, the strategies employed by companies protect against recurrent relatively low impact risks in the supply chain but tend to ignore high impact low likelihood risks.Suppliers with quality problems represent a common recurrent problem (labels with SZL for instance). Top manufacturers will deal with th e range of supply chain risks encountered by holding reserves in the form of excess inventory, excess capacity and redundant suppliers. 4 The key challenge facing management is to intelligently position and sizing of supply-chain reserves with a minimum impact on profits i. e. attain the greatest possible profit regardless of the level of supply chain risk and achieving this in an efficient manner.To development a risk management strategy that will work, it is necessary to first create a shared organization-wide understanding of supply-chain risk and then determine how to adapt general risk-mitigation approaches to local organizational circumstances. 4 This is achieved by stress testing and tailoring. Stress Testing This is a team exercise that aids managers and their organizations to both understand and prioritize supply-chain risk. A what-if scenario analysis can be employed to assist the key players to focus on the supply chain 1-link at a time.It is a brainstorming exercise that helps the company prepare for unforeseen events rather than the platform to debate the likelihood of such events. Such an exercise allows for risk-mitigation priorities to be made for the near, medium and long term. In addition to this, it leaves all involved parties with a clear idea of what risks might have an impact on sales, procurement costs, revenues, prices and possibly even reputation. 4 Tailoring Tailoring is the process of suiting the response to a risk to the organization and continuously monitoring to ensure that procedures and systems in place are suitable for the purposes of the business. Supply Chain Risk Management Supply Chain Risk Management is the concept of trying to foresee disruptions to timely supply of goods or services required by the organisation and creating systems to mitigate these at the lowest possible cost to the organisation and by so doing ensure that there will be continuity in the normal operations of the business. Supply chain risks have the potential to cripple a business’ operations and can have long and short term effects which may be difficult to recover from.A delay along a route is a short term problem whereas the presence of a monopoly supplier in the chain holding up stocks to force an increase in prices or shutting down for whatever reason is long term. Certain types of disruptions are both difficult to anticipate and rare, but very damaging when they occur; for example, natural disasters such as earthquakes are difficult to predict but have the potential to ruin entire factories and road networks wreaking havoc to the entire supply chain.Disruptions to supp ly can be anticipated and countered by building inventory or by having multiple redundant suppliers since it is highly unlikely to encounter a scenario where multiple suppliers are simultaneously disrupted. Both of these processes can be described as building supply chain reserves. Concept of Risk Risk can be perceived from various angles; one of its basic definitions being the probability of threat of quantifiable damage, injury, liability, loss or any other negative occurrence that is caused by external or internal vulnerabilities and that may be avoided through pre-emptive action.In developing an understanding of risk, it is necessary to incorporate its two fundamental facets; the first being the exposure to the uncertainty and the second being the actual outcomes upon occurrence of the event. 2 Hence, risk can be expressed as the product of probability and consequences of an event. Along with this, one must also be able to know the sources of the identified risk. 2 It is common to analyse risk by means of a matrix with 2 dimensions, probability and consequences but such an analysis has the main disadvantage of being reliant on risk perception.Risk perception depends on time, experience, location, attitude, position and possibilities to decide and scale of events. 2 It is also important to realise that risk has no technical value in and of itself, hence in developing a risk management process, the aim is to always do it at a minimum cost. 3 Risk Variety An overview of business risks in general is useful in understanding supply chain risk. Risks can be externally driven (environmental, external factors, competitors, customers, regulations), internally driven and decision driven.At times, managing supply chain risk may be difficult because of the interconnection of individual risks and actions that mitigate one risk may end up exacerbating another. For example, nitrogen gas used for bottling in large amounts may displace the local atmosphere and cause asphyxi ation. Increasing local stores may minimise the effects of a shortage of supply but immediately it increases storage costs and the possibility of leaks in a larger vessel.Broadly speaking, risks can be categorized as those that bring about delays in the supply chain and those that disrupt the normal flow. 4 Delays The occurrence of delays in material flows is the result of either of several possible factors such as; Inflexibility of suppliers hence inability to respond to changes in demand Poor output at supplier plants High levels of handling or inspections at border crossings In a scenario where these are frequent, historical trends can be used to create a forecasting tool against which with proper demand planning, these effects can be mitigated.In the local case of SZL, sugar is may be delayed by a day or two at the Limpopo Border post and analysis of past trends has allowed a conclusion to be drawn that a minimum and maximum stock level of 3 days and 1 week cover is sufficient t o both cover for these drawbacks and at the same time neither be too much of an impedance to the cash flow of the organisation nor create a significant rise in local storage costs. Disruptions Disruptions by nature tend to be infrequent, difficult to predict and forecast but very damaging when they occur.Examples that fall under this category include labour strikes, terror strikes and fires. Some disruptions have effects that transcend over various industries and can even be international such as earthquakes or the tsunami in Japan in recent memory. Disruptions also adversely affect material prices which can pose a significant problem to business operations. These can be countered by building inventories or having multiple redundant suppliers. The decision making process however as to which path of action is governed by the following factors; Cost of inventoryCost of keeping inventory Accuracy of prediction of the disruption and available information Rate of obsolescence of material whilst in inventory Likelihood of disruption For instance, MM juice concentrates are a high cost in storage, requiring refrigeration to maximise on lifespan but the decision is made to keep a significant amount within stock because of the uncertainty of the supply delivery time and the reality that upon the sea, there may be unforeseen disruptions.However, in the case of bottle preforms, not more than a week’s cover is normally kept because of the usual reliability of the suppliers and low likelihood of low supply. A recent incident however has necessitated to review this as an intra-factory incident at Megapak caused a mini-crisis within the organisation. Risk Handling Often, the strategies employed by companies protect against recurrent relatively low impact risks in the supply chain but tend to ignore high impact low likelihood risks.Suppliers with quality problems represent a common recurrent problem (labels with SZL for instance). Top manufacturers will deal with the ra nge of supply chain risks encountered by holding reserves in the form of excess inventory, excess capacity and redundant suppliers. 4 The key challenge facing management is to intelligently position and sizing of supply-chain reserves with a minimum impact on profits i. e. attain the greatest possible profit regardless of the level of supply chain risk and achieving this in an efficient manner.To development a risk management strategy that will work, it is necessary to first create a shared organization-wide understanding of supply-chain risk and then determine how to adapt general risk-mitigation approaches to local organizational circumstances. 4 This is achieved by stress testing and tailoring. Stress Testing This is a team exercise that aids managers and their organizations to both understand and prioritize supply-chain risk. A what-if scenario analysis can be employed to assist the key players to focus on the supply chain 1-link at a time.It is a brainstorming exercise that hel ps the company prepare for unforeseen events rather than the platform to debate the likelihood of such events. Such an exercise allows for risk-mitigation priorities to be made for the near, medium and long term. In addition to this, it leaves all involved parties with a clear idea of what risks might have an impact on sales, procurement costs, revenues, prices and possibly even reputation. 4 Tailoring Tailoring is the process of suiting the response to a risk to the organization and continuously monitoring to ensure that procedures and systems in place are suitable for the purposes of the business.

Muet

Extracurricular activities are a good chance for every student to improve himself/herself in many different ways. These activities are offered by educational establishments, but they are far more interesting than common lessons. In SMKPJ, the MUET drama festival had became one of the compulsory activities for all the Lower Six students. As one of the participants in MUET drama festival, I strongly agree that the MUET drama festival should be made as a yearly event for the Lower Six students. The MUET drama competition had contributed many benefits to the students. Drama competition is a tremendous way to build confidence.By overcoming innate fear of speaking in front of others, they are stepping outside of your comfort zone in a very healthy way. The skills you acquire translate to increased confidence in the their life as well as improved communication skills with others. If the ‘old one' suffered from doubt and anxiety, they will find it gradually replaced by a new self image . In this one they will see themselves standing tall, talking easily and communicating well. Besides that, the involvement in the group activity and interaction with other people develops students' socializing skills and they become more open with people.Putting themselves forward makes it easier for you to meet others. The increase in sociability which is a crucial ability for personal development and an important criteria for job interviews in their future. People's ability to make friends or to become a part of a group promotes self-confidence and creates a better atmosphere of liability among people. Moreover, the drama competition requires students to embody various characters with situations, personalities and life style which vastly different from the student's own.In order to portray the character realistically, students have to find ways to relate themselves with the character. This practice of putting themselves in someone else's shoes enhances students' ability to empathi ze with people in their personal lives and promotes compassion and tolerance for others. Furthermore, participating in drama competitions requires great reserves of imagination. The drama requires students to make creative choice, think of new ideas, and interpret familiar materials in new ways . It is a fun way of challenging students to think quickly, to act on impulse and to react to their surroundings.The consistent practice of using their imagination can translate into success at other art forms as well as creative problem solving skills. As Albert Einstein said,† imagination is more important than knowledge. † Last but not least, through drama, students learn different forms of communication which help in developing language and communication skill. They are encouraged to express themselves both verbally and through facial expressions and body language. It improves the voice projection, articulation of words, fluency with language and persuasive speech which is key to making them better and more effective communicators.Subsequently, the listening and observation skills are developed through the process of rehearsing, performing and even being an audience which other groups were performing. In conclusion, it is important that the MUET drama festival should be continued organized and make it as one of the traditions of SMKPJ. I hopes that not only the Form Six students but the whole school includes all the students and teachers should give their supports to the drama festival. Thus, the MUET drama festival can be held successfully every year.