Operations and Quality MBA TMA Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 4000 words

Operations and Quality MBA TMA - Essay Example n, including engine test cells, two foundries in Worchester 50 miles west of Northampton and a low volume engine plant at Wellingborough (Kimbereley, 2000). The Company has occupied the Northampton base since 1964, with a staff of about 425 and offers technologically advanced engine design, manufacture and test equipment (Ciber, 2005). The Company’s rich and varied history is set to continue, with activities as diverse as Racing, Aerospace, Medical equipment design and Confidential Consultancy work as part of the company profile. (Cosworth, 2007). Cosworth Ltd has introduced CIBER SAP’s All-in-one solutions in order to enhance the efficiency of their business operations. The Company was operating earlier with a disparate MRP system that contained a plethora of bespoke products and several old fashioned proprietary applications, which were not dynamic and did not provide real time data (Ciber, 2005). The goals of the new SAP implementation process that has been carried out at Cosworth is to reduce costs, cut down on wastes, establish best practices and improve the overall system performance (Ciber 2005). The SAP system will also allow for increased flexibility and improvements in reporting and planning. According to Jeremy Hill, the Head of business systems at Cosworth, the biggest advantage offered by the introduction of SAP systems at Cosworth is the facility to share documents, since earlier, there was no coordinated policy and facility to share documents with documents and designs being faxed and needing reassembly at the other end or being sent around on CDs, while the new e-service has helped in the delivery of an efficient and responsive customer service (Clark, 2006). The All-in-one SAP application also allows for the establishment of cross company synergies and an end to end data supply system, ensuring that there is improved reporting and decision making across the organization. (CIBER, 2005). This report will examine the Sales processes at

Can the drivers of property investment deliver value in a global Literature review

Can the drivers of property investment deliver value in a global economic downturn - Literature review Example The risk was so big because the collapse of the housing bubble in the USA affected not only the valuations of homes, but also several other agencies, industries, and personnel that included but were not limited to the mortgage markets, real estate, foreign banks, home builders, and home supply retail outlets. The Case-Shiller home price index noted the largest ever drop in the prices of houses by the end of the year 2008. It was because of the anticipated risks imposed by the bursting housing bubble that President George W. Bush announced the housing market’s bailout for those homeowners who could not compensate for their mortgage debts. Economic recession and massive foreclosures of housing caused by the global financial crisis was a potential threat to the investors. When a financial crisis hits a country’s economy, it affects the value of property investment just like it affects all other industries, though there is variation between the value delivered by property i nvestment and other business options in such times. The real estate business has conventionally remained the best investment of all time, including the time of financial crisis. Knowledge of the potential drivers of the business of property investment provides the investors with a way to transform the risks into opportunities. Population Growth during Financial Crisis and Its Impact on Property Investment One of the most fundamental drivers of property prices is population change. People want to dwell in popular areas. Prices of popular areas are higher than the rest because there are more interest parties than the number of dwellings available. Prices of an area go down when the dwellings outnumber the interested parties. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) that conducts a census every five years to publish the trends of population growth, trends of population growth do not show abrupt changes. While the indigenous population does not show rapid changes in growth , there are other factors that contribute to the growth of population, the most important among them being the immigration rate of a country. â€Å"Things that do change population growth rapidly - and provide investors with opportunity - are changes in immigration quotas, changes in infrastructure making areas more or less attractive and accessible to live in, and changes to employment such as the booming resources industry† (Moore, 2012). During the financial crisis, there has been a decline in the rate of immigration despite the increased tendency among the governments to increase the immigration rate since every immigrant that is allowed hostage contributes to the growth of the host country’s economy. Although immigration rate is generally perceived to have negative effects on the employability of the indigenous population of a country, yet several studies have found that the long term effects of immigration are opposite of what they are generally perceived to be; immigrants increase the productivity as well as the average income (Peri, 2010b, p. 7). Immigration rate is considerably linked with the employment rate. Fig. 1 and Fig. 2 show how the rate of immigration is affected by the rate of employment in a country. Fig. 1: Variation in Immigration rate from 1995 to 2010 (Peri, 2010a, p. 3). Fig. 2: Variation in employment rate from 1995 to