Competitor Analysis- Mcdonald's Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Competitor Analysis- Mcdonald's - Research Paper Example It operates correspondingly through a chain of restaurants, company operated and franchised across the world. Michael Porter presented a framework for analyzing competitor. The key aspects that Porter discussed are Competitors objective, Competitors assumptions, Competitors strategy and his Capabilities. In simple terms one should analyze his competitor’s strengths and weaknesses to draft his own strategy. Although both the fast food giants belong to the same family, but have specialization in different nature of products served. McDonald’s are famous for their Hamburgers and other’s in the Burger family, while KFC specializes in fried chicken. Both the corporations have the same geographical reach in the world and strong brand recognition. To its added advantage McDonald’s is listed in the NYSE giving it room for more growth through access to an enormous fund pool (McDonald’s Official Website, 2011; Porter, 2004). Toady due to its rapid expansion M cDonald’s have its presence in 119 countries with an employee base above 400,000 worldwide. KFC on the other hand has similar presence but with an employee base little above 25,000. It may be small in size but has been the most successful fried chicken chain in the world. Due to his excellence in chicken products it has not faced any social issues till date. Chicken is the most consumed protein in the world with none social or religious restrictions placed upon it. KFC has faced certain protests from animal rights groups. McDonald’s has also seen the same from these organisations. On the contrary McDonald’s apart from animal rights organisation have witnessed many social and religious obstacles throughout the world. McDonald’s specializes in Hamburgers, but the fact that it is completely banned in Islam, Muslims across the world refuse to eat it. Therefore the company has limited its product range in the Muslim world. Further McDonald’s has faced i ssues with Hindus especially in India who refuse to eat Meat on religious grounds. This again has forced McDonald’s to cut back its product range. None of these issues have been faced by KFC, and hence it has a steady and strong growth trend across the world (KFC Official Website, 2011). KFC is a private corporation and is not listed as McDonald’s; its financial results are unavailable. Still its magnificent power can be witnessed as it is present in almost similar capacity and has maintained its strength in the Fast Food sector all over the world. Based on McDonald’s capacity to capture such revenues and the pace of its expansion, due to exposure to a massive fund pool being listed at the NYSE, it can be said that McDonald’s have overpowered many Fast Food networks on the planet. It can be advocated that KFC’s policy of slow expansion or its ability to have its corporate presence in many countries without being listed, is in itself a remarkable ac hievement. There is a huge possibility that such policy might change and in a situation of a price war between the giants, KFC has definitely the ability to challenge McDonald’s on all fronts. McDonald’s should show resilience in drafting strategies for corporate expansion; as such moves require a lot of investments. In case of any turbulence in the economic environment or KFC’s idea to get listed materializes, it would ring alarms towards McDonald’s to have in its grip a lot of liquidity so should it be in a price war situation with KFC. As McDonald’

Animal Testing (speech Outline) -- essays research papers fc

Specific Purpose – To persuade my audience that animal testing is wrong and how other safer alternatives should be taken. Central Idea – By going the extra mile in using safer alternatives when experimenting with animals will not only prevent conflicts from pro-life activists, it will minimize lawsuits and morals will be preserved. Introduction I. Okay I got a riddle I made up for the class. A. What was once cute and furry but becomes a bloody rotted mess? B. You guys give up? C. Well the answer to this question is an animal that has undergone chemical testing. II. I know that wasn’t too funny but I needed some sort of attention-grabber and this hit home on the question of my topic; whether animal testing is right or wrong. A. After all, the question whether animals should be tested is often hotly debated. B. Through intense research I have discovered that the issue on whether animals should be experimented upon, or â€Å"vivisection†, has cropped up in history as early as the 17th century. III. Although animal testing is much less frequent today than in the past, I will reinforce the idea that alternatives to animal testing should be preserved today. A. I will first explain the conflicts in the past where animal testing caused many problems. B. Then I will reinforce the solution to animal testing by discussing the various alternatives that can be taken. (Transition: Let us first look at the problem of animal testing.) Body I. As I have mentioned, the question on animal testing was posed even as early as the 17th century, according to the All For Animals Newsletter. A. According to this newsletter, Philosopher Jeremy Bentham rejected philosopher Rene Descartes’ theory that because animals have no reasoning that humans have, they therefore cannot feel pain or suffering. 1. But Bentham went further in this issue, rejecting Descartes’ idea because the idea of reasoning was irrelevant on the moral issue whether animals should be tested. 2. Bentham’s philo... ... be tested upon by dangerous chemicals? Bibliography Smith, Taylor. â€Å"Animal Testing - Alternatives - Cruelty-Free Living.† All For Animals Newsletter. Issue #1, March 1998. Grigg, Bill. â€Å"NIH News Release.† 28 Dec. 1999 [last revision]. < <a href="http://www.nih.gov/news/pr/dec99/niehs-28.htm">http://www.nih.gov/news/pr/dec99/niehs-28.htm > 1999. Adams, Johnathan. â€Å"Animal Welfare Act and Regulations.† August 22, 2000 [last update] < <a href="http://www.nal.usda.gov/awic/legislat/usdaleg1.htm">http://www.nal.usda.gov/awic/legislat/usdaleg1.htm > 1996. â€Å"USDA Agrees to Regulate More Research Animals, Including Mice.† October 3, 2000 [last update] < <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2000/NATURE/10/03/research.animals.ap/index.html">http://www.cnn.com/2000/NATURE/10/03/research.animals.ap/index.html > 1990. â€Å"Cruelty Free Companies—Choose to Be Cruelty-Free†. < <a href="http://www.allforanimals.com">http://www.allforanimals.com > 2000. â€Å"ANIMAL TESTING†. May 12, 1999 [last update]. < <a href="http://vm.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/cos-205.html">http://vm.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/cos-205.html > 1996.

Federal programs Essay

Throughout the twentieth century, Congress has established a great number of federal programs administered by agencies within the Executive Branch. Through this process of a wide-ranging allocation of authority to the executive Branch, Congress has assisted in creating a massive Federal Bureaucracy. The relationship of Congress to the Executive Branch today must therefore be seen in terms of its relation to this Bureaucracy, as well as its relation to the Presidency. In order to gain some control over the operations of the various agencies which had been established within the Executive Branch, in 1946 congress began to develop a sequence of configurations and procedures designed to manage the Administration. This process was also known as congressional oversight. There are several methods through which congressional misunderstanding operations take place: the committee process, congressional administrative offices, casework, as well as a number of administrative practices. Where the congressional oversight functions take place, there are three types of committees: authorizations committees, appropriations committees, and governmental operations committees. The first type of committee is the functional committee which initially establishes or authorizes the program or agency. In the case of a military program, this would be the Armed Services Committees in both chambers. ‘In the case of an urban program, this would be the Banking, Finance and Urban Affairs Committee in the House and the Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee in the Senate. Similarly, each program area within the Federal Bureaucracy is related to at least one specific substantive standing committee in each chamber of Congress. ’ (Issa, 2011) In attempting to follow the oversight activities through these authorization committees, a number of complications are often encountered. One of these is the result from the fact that a particular governmental agency may fall within the authority of several different practical committees or subcommittees. As a result, the agency may play ‘one committee or subcommittee against the other in order to achieve those results in Congress which tend to benefit the agency the most. (Office of The Law Revision Counsel, 2012) Another problem is that a committee which establishes a program is often too involved with the outcome of its own efforts to be willing to investigate adequately the operations of the program it has initiated. One of the most substantial places where an amount of oversight activity takes place is in the appropriations process. The budget for an agency must be approved anew each year. ’ One might assume that this yearly appropriations process would lead to a careful annual inspection of the budgets of all the various governmental agencies. (Issa, 2011) This is not the case. The federal budget is so great and compound that it is impossible to consider carefully the budget of each agency and program on a year-to-year basis. What happens instead is that budgets are often routinely approved from year to year with general reviews only occurring sporadically. In addition, many agencies develop quite close relationships with the subcommittees of the Appropriations Committees which spe cifically deal with their agency. These agencies are therefore often able to abstract some special favors from these particular appropriations subcommittees. The Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs and the House Committee on Governmental Reform were initially established to manage congressional concern over governmental processes. Thus, many see these committees as an ideal place for maintaining congressional observation over the activities of the vast Bureaucracy located within the Executive Branch. However, because of jurisdictional differences and because of the hesitancy of most representatives and senators to provide for satisfactory independent oversight activities, the efforts of these governmental operations committees have been quite restricted. The three administrative offices within Congress are used to some extent in the congressional oversight process. The General Accounting Office, The GAO has the accountability, not simply for performing accounting audits, but also for judging how various programs are being managed. In other words, the GAO often performs the task of program assessment. The GAO plays a significant role in congressional oversight. The Congressional Research Service, while preparing reports and studies to assist members of Congress, the CRS sometimes includes some information on the activities and routines of various governmental agencies. This is another important source of oversight information for members of Congress. The Congressional Budget Office gathers information on the budgets of the various governmental agencies and to report on new budgetary requirements and propositions that are made through the Executive Branch’s Office of Management and Budget. Budgetary information is an extremely important source of data upon which the various congressional committees can judge the effectiveness of specific governmental programs. Granting, the information gathered by the CBO may seem to permit for substantial congressional oversight, the fact is that it is the agencies that often use this informational link for their own purposes in pursuing their requests for additional funding directly to the congressional committee, instead of directing all their communications through the OMB. This short circuits the use of the OMB as one of the President’s management tools. Efficiency, from an overall standpoint, we can see that these three congressional offices. The General Accounting Office, the Congressional Research Services, and the Congressional Budget Office combined with the staffs of individual congresspersons and senators and the staffs of congressional committees are able to supply our national legislators with vast amounts of information and evaluations of governmental activities. ‘In fact, the United States Congress has available to it one of the most extensive research staffs of any national legislature in the world. ’ (Issa, 2011) Nevertheless, the availability of information and study alone is not sufficient for effective congressional oversight. The desire to follow through on this available information is another necessary ingredient and it is this ingredient which is often lacking. Many times congressional oversight is limited by the worries of various congressional committees and subcommittees over their particular jurisdictions and in a substantial number of instances, the burdens of organized special interests also interfere with the ability or wishes of members of Congress to significantly oversee governmental operations. Aside from these problems, there are also the boundaries of time. Congresspersons are loaded with extremely dense schedules. They have a large number of often conflicting responsibilities to perform. Representatives and senators must therefore place priorities on the use of their time. Often oversight activities lose in this shamble of priorities to legislative activities, to the creation of new programs to deal with current problems, and to casework concerns. Representatives and senators, themselves, do not usually become directly involved in much casework or fundamental services. It is their staff that deals with these matters. However, representatives and senators are usually informed by their staffs of many of these problems, and it is through these specific interactions that these legislators often get the most intense impression as to the effectiveness of many governmental programs. Casework thus provides an important source of direct, specific information which proves very useful in congressional oversight activities. Congress has also passed some major reforms and reconnoitered a number of major legislative techniques, many of which have had the effect of enlightening congressional oversight. Sunshine Laws. During the 1970s, Congress attempted to open up many facets of governmental operations to the general public. This was done through the Freedom of Information Act and the â€Å"Government in Sunshine† Act. By making information more broadly available to the public, these acts also increase the amount of information available to Congress. The Congressional Veto. Very often Congress passes rather broad pieces of legislation. It is then up to specific agencies to fill in the details of these laws, both with regard to the building of governmental agencies and the processes which they follow. One might note for example that while Congress passes general tax laws, the details of the regulations regarding the payment of federal taxes is to be found not in the tax law itself but rather in the Internal Revenue Code which is developed by the Internal Revenue Service, which is an executive agency. The problem that were presented by the executive agencies developing a great many regulations or codes is that the only way Congress is able to affect these details is through the passage of new legislative acts. As we have seen, this is often a burdensome and prolonged process. In order to avoid this, Congress now writes into some authorization bills requirements for a congressional veto. According to this procedure, when an agency disseminates rules filling in the details of congressional legislation, Congress automatically has the power within a specific time period to veto some of these rules and to demand that the agency fill in the details in a different way. The important thing is that Congress can do this without having to go through the process of passing a new law. Although this procedure is rarely used, it does offer the prospective for a far greater legislative control over the procedures by which the Bureaucracy operates. Sunset Legislation. In starting governmental programs or agencies, Congress usually sets no time limit on the functioning of the program or agency. Since the 1970s, a practice developed by which Congress authorizes the existence of a program or agency for only a inadequate amount of time. In other words, Congress specifies a date by which the agency or program will conclude to function. In order for the agency to continue its operations after that time, a new bill must be passed allowing its continued existence for another specified period of time. This practice is obviously intended to avert the continued existence of agencies or programs which no longer meet a legitimate need or which fail to meet a legitimate need effectively. A dissimilarity on sunset legislation is the procedure of annual authorization. According to this procedure, the continued existence of governmental agency must be approved on a year-to-year basis. While this practice obviously creates tremendous difficulties in the ability of such an agency to engage in long-term planning, it does suggestively increase the potential effectiveness of congressional control. ‘Zero Based Budgeting (ZBB). Zero Based Budgeting is a technique through which administrators must carefully justify their entire agencies’ budgets. Zero based budgeting requires a continual top-to-bottom assessment of all agencies’ programs designed to insure their cost effectiveness. ’ (Issa, 2011) We can see that many structures and techniques have been developed to allow Congress to be more effective in its oversight activities. However, jurisdictional disputes and pressures from various well organized special interests continue to prevent these new techniques and sources of information from being used effectively. In many occurrences, the actual nature and effect of government policy depends less on the actions of our elected officials than it does on the activities of non-elected bureaucrats who often remain totally immune from the pressures of the general public–although not necessarily from those of well-organized special interests. One of the major political issues determining our national future is the question of how well our government is able to represent effectively the needs and desires of the American people. As we have noted, the role of Congress as a representative of the people was one of the most important functions of this â€Å"first branch† of government envisioned by the Founders when they drafted the Constitution. However, the many new needs which our national government has had to meet in this century have placed this role of representation under great stress.

Analysis of Moral Luck Views of Aristotle and Epictetus Essay

Analysis of Moral Luck Views of Aristotle and Epictetus Aristotle, the founder of western science, and Epictetus, one of the greatest stoicists, both has their theories for the issue of Moral Luck. To have a basic idea about the topic, I believe we should describe it from a non-philosophical point of view. After doing that we can compare both Aristotles and Epictetus points of views and distinguish between them with examples from Into Thin Air(ITA), written by Jon Krakauer. Moral Luck, if described from general perspective, consists of the actions that happen by luck and result in moral ends. What I mean by moral ends is the situations that have something to do with moral or ethical†¦show more content†¦(ITA, pg47) This example illustrates what I am trying to say. Things that are not in our control are other peoples actions, and things that are not up to us are those actions consequences. Moreover, things can be in our control one minute and not the next. In a car accident, steering the wheel might save you from the accident in a specific time. After that time, no matter how much you steer the wheel you cant escape the unavoidable truth. This, as a matter of fact, concerns the issue of chance. However, since chance is related to luck, we are concerned with this as well. Lets concentrate on each philosopher more deeply now. First lets take a look at some of the issues that Aristotle points out in his book Nicomachean Ethics. He states that moral luck is concerned with situations that are not in our control. Moreover, if someone is virtuous he cannot escape from moral luck. However, you have to be virtuous to get away from it. That is to say, only the virtuous man has the greatest chance of dealing with moral luck since he will not need it. He also states that everything has a function. Human beings for instance have the function of reasoning. To define function of something we first need to find its genus, and then search for particular uniqueness that differ it from the others in the same genus. Lastly, he