Report on Key Issues in Small Business Enterprises

| Key issues in small business enterprises| Personal Reflective Report| | Zdravko Mihaylov| BA (HONS) Business Enterprise Development2012| | Introduction Small business enterprises are important for the modern market economy in terms of innovation, employment and flexibility. They are the backbone of our economy. Around 98. 6% of all businesses are considered small (Goodman, 2006) and every large business was at some point small. Small business enterprises are very different to large business enterprises.They operate in different circumstances, such as having different management techniques, facing different financial constraints and production choices, and bearing different relative regulatory burdens. This report’s aim is to identify some of the key issues facing small business enterprises today, addressed in the Enterprise Finance unit, in order to give better view of the challenges presented in their survival and growth. Small business enterprises are often at a competitiv e disadvantage to large business enterprises.They may have difficulty achieving economies of scale, where large enterprises have already been well established, they often have difficulty in acquiring sources of finance and they may have problems with government policy and regulation, which are often designed to assist specifically large enterprises (Holmes et al, 2003). Other factors that may bring to small enterprise failure include: poor credit management, poor stock management, poor pricing practice, excessive profit distribution, excessive investment in long term assets and others (Holmes et al, 2003:142).They are very dependent on the founding owners and have higher business risk. Evaluation In summary, two broad forms of business failure can be identified. The first involves the start-up of the business, bankruptcy, liquidation, voluntary wind-up/closure. The second form is where the business continues to operate, but the return on capital, time and effort contributed by owner s is bellow the desired. Small business enterprises have difficulty competing with already established large enterprises.New enterprises rarely have the financial backing to set up a large-scale operation to take immediate advantage of scale economies. Except the challenges brought by the lack of history and reputation, a development of a price cutting war may become a great threat to small enterprises, as they may not have the financial capacity to withstand such competition. Some of the scale economies not available to small enterprises are listed in Figure 1. 1 in the Appendices. A way of overcoming those issues is adopting strategies to overcome some of the disadvantages or to target small niche markets in which to operate.Small business enterprises suffer from chronic undercapitalisation as they often have limited access to the capital and money markets (Tamari, 1980). Two main â€Å"gaps† can be identifies as responsible for that: Knowledge gap – lack of awarenes s of appropriate sources of finance and their relative merits resulting in restricted use of debt; Supply gap – unavailability of funds or exceeding cost of debt. Another barrier is the required higher rate of return on funds invested or lent due to the higher risk in small business enterprises (Storet, 1994).Problems can even arrive from the owners’ inclination of not wanting to share control of the business with investors. Other frequent cause of small business failure is the lack of liquidity or little financial planning and control. Two critical periods of financial needs are identified within the business life cycle: the start up and the rapid expansion. To overcome this problem and avoid overtrading1, a long-term finance source is needed. Different financial stress factors have also been identified by Hutchinson and Ray (1986) in each stage of the lifecycle, which can be seen on Figure 1. in Appendices. Another major challenge for small enterprises is the burden of complying with government regulations. Part of the burden problem can be attributed to poorly designed legislations. Two disadvantages are seen by this, listed in Figure 1. 2 in the Appendices. While a lot of studies show that small enterprises face a greater relative compliance burden than large enterprises, some consider that many of them ‘are so flawed that we must view their findings with scepticism’ (Brock and Evans, 1986: pp. 134-5).When looking at the small firm survival over a period of time, a key variable is net profit. It is defined by subtracting all operational costs from gross profits and the costs of closing down a business. For staying in business over a period of time, it is required that net profit should not fall below zero. In case of being positive, the firm might have some prospect for growth, while in case of being zero, it is just breaking even. If it stays negative for a period of years, it invites failure and exit from the market.Thus one mi ght express that for staying in business, net profit should be non-negative. Small business enterprises usually have centralized control by the owner, thus his managing skills are critical for the survival of the business. Perry and Pendelton (1983) estimated that 90% of the business failures are associated with management inexperience and/or incompetence. It has been identified that managerial roles relate to the lifecycle of a business enterprise (Holmes et al, 2003:150), so different managerial skills are required for each lifecycle stage.In other words, if owners do not have the necessary managerial skill for each stage, the business might be at a great risk. Conclusion The objective of this project was to determine the key issues facing small business enterprises today, discussed in the Enterprise Finance unit, and to draw the knowledge gained. Firstly, the report begins with analysis of the disadvantages of barrier of entry, Overtrading1 – when a business expands withou t a solid financial foundation financial and government regulation issues of small enterprises.The report continues with examination of the survival over a period of time and the role of the owner-manager in small business enterprises. The issues listed in this report cannot be generalised for all small business enterprises, as each one has a unique structure, resources and capabilities. Further research may be required in this area before any decisive conclusions can be drawn. Bibliography Brock, W. A. , & Evans, D. S. (1986). The Economies of Small Businesses: Their Role and Regulation in the US Economy. Holmes and Meier: New York. Goodman, G. (2006).Five Challenges Every Small Business Owner Faces. From http://ezinearticles. com/? Five-Challenges-Every-Small-Business-Owner-Faces&id=158921 Holmes et al. (2003). Small Enterprise Finance. John Wiley & Sons Australia Ltd: Sydney Perry, C. , & Pendelton. W. (1983). Successful Small Business Management. Pitman Publishing: Sydney. Store y, D. J. (1994). Understanding the small business Sector. Routledge: London. Tamari, M. (1980). The financial structure of the small firm. American Journal of Small Businesses, 4:4 20-34. Appendices ————————————————-Figure 1. 1 Scale economies of large enterprises, not available to small enterprises | Longer production runs based on larger and more technologically advanced plant and machineryQuantity discounts on input purchasesEmploying specialistsMore widespread advertisingAccess to more forms of finance on better terms and conditionsMore sophisticated information gatheringLower unit costs in complying with government regulations and reporting obligations| (Adopted from Holmes et al. , 2003, pp. 52-53) ————————————————- Figure 1. 2 Government regulation disadva ntages |A greater relative cost burden in complying with many forms of government regulation, because of the substantial fixed costs involvedGovernment policy measures being designed to assist large enterprises more than small enterprises| (Adopted from Holmes et al. , 2003, pp. 54) ————————————————- Figure 1. 3 A view of the financial lifecycle of a smaller growth enterprise Stage| Finance used| Predominant financial stress factor| Inception| Owner’s resources| Undercapitalisation| Growth 1 (Take-off)| Owners’ resources plus retained profits, trade credit,

A Straight Bat Essay

Parents often have ideal ways they want their children to be; sometimes they don’t give them any freedom to choose. â€Å"A Straight Bat†, written by Roger Holt, is a short story about George who wants his son to become a great cricket player just like him even though his son, Timothy, doesn’t want to and wants to play the violin. This reading will be related to the dominant reading where readers sympathise with the son and see the father as an overbearing and oppressive man. This reading focuses on how the father forces his son to live under his shadow and how it’s represented through the actions and words of the characters. George is seen as a dominant figure who expects his son to live under his shadow. This is demonstrated through the speech of George. Before Timothy goes to his boarding school George gives him a cricket bat as a present. â€Å"What do you say?† This shows us how controlling he is towards his son. George also reminds him that he must become a good cricket player. â€Å"You must score lots of runs with it, Timothy†¦ Hundreds of them† He expects his son to love cricket and to become a star just like he was when he was at the same school. He doesn’t give his son any freedom to do what he wants to â€Å"You have a tradition to keep up. Your father still holds the record for the quickest century† he expects his son to be just like him. Through the speech of George we can see that George expects too much from his son and tries to control how his son lives. We sympathise with Timothy and see him as a weak character that is suppressed by his father. This can be seen in the speech and the actions of Timothy. After receiving the cricket bat T imothy isn’t very excited about it and wasn’t too interested. His father says â€Å"What do you say?† and he replies with â€Å"Thank you, Daddy† as if he was being controlled by his father. â€Å"Timothy stared at the wall in front of him and thought of the violins.† He is fascinated by violins and isn’t very interested in playing crickets yet his father is still pushing him to play cricket. Timothy’s individuality is suppressed by his father and this is shown through his actions and words. The one sided relationship between Timothy and George can be shown through the actions of the characters. When George gives Timothy the bat and expects him to become a cricket player it’s almost like he is caging a bird, Timothy doesn’t really want to play cricket but there isn’t much he can do. He swaps his cricket bat for a violin and it’s like he is free from his cage. When hisfather finds out about this he is furious and even smashes the violin â€Å"With a swift downward motion George smashed the violin across his knee.† The smashing of the violin is like Timothy getting his wings clipped and he is stuck in his cage forever. â€Å"He threw the ball back to his father and prepared himself for a lifetime of playing a straight bat on a pitch† After having his violin broken by his father Timothy has given up and just prepares to play cricket just like his father. In this father son relationship George is basically just forcing Timothy to live just like him and this is shown by the actions of the two. In conclusion the George is seen as restricting Timothy’s freedom to do what he wants to do, this is illustrated by the words and actions of the characters. Sometimes parents expect too much from their children and it can damage the relationship betw een them.

Police Interaction Of The Mentally Ill - 2526 Words

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Rap And Hip Hop Music - 1177 Words

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CSR Practices in Tesla Motors Samples for Students Myassignmenthelp

Question: Discuss about the Corporate Social Responsibility or Sustainability Practiced by the Companies. Answer: Introduction This report focuses on the corporate social responsibility or sustainability practiced by the companies in current market. For discussion, famous company of car industry Tesla Motors has taken. In present time, car industry is the fastest growing industry in the market. Tesla Motors are the famous company which was founded in the year 2003. The company basically deals in manufacturing, designing and wholesaling of the cars components (Tesla Motors, 2017). Now, aim of the company is to provide electric vehicles to reduce the impact of CO2 gases in the atmosphere. The strategy of Tesla Motors is to be the best technology company in the car industry by developing affordable electric cars for the consumers. Aim of the company is to reduce the dependency of customers on petroleum-based vehicles. This report is focused on the CSR activities of the Tesla Motors which are shared values and ecosystem innovation. Along with this, this report provides a theoretical approach in terms of CSR acti vities (Tyagi, 2011). Theoretical approaches The theories of sustainability have come from the chain of innovation and transformation. Basically, the concept of corporate social responsibility is the process of globalization and impacts every organization as there are many social problems which have to face by organization while expanding the business in to global market. Now, CSR is the concept of global plan which is considered as the social contract between the society and business. CSR practices are important for every organization for being accountable for the long-term need of the people and environment (McKnett, 2013). In the case of Tesla motors, there are two approaches of CSR. There are many researchers who have analyzed the practices of CSR in the business. CSR in the business activities enables the company to gain many benefits in terms of tangible and intangible benefits such as increase brand value, risk reduction, secured license to operate, cost decrease retention of customers and improved employee recruitment w ithin the company. There are two complementary theories by which effectiveness of CSR practices in Tesla motors can be measured (Matten, Dirk Jeremy, 2008). The description of those theories is described below. Stakeholder theory This is the most important theory in CSR practices which depends upon the roles and responsibilities of the company towards stakeholders. This theory provides new way to the firms to think about the stakeholders. According to stakeholder theory, stakeholders are key concern of the organization which involves customers, employees, suppliers, shareholders and government. Basically, CSR practices focus on the social and environmental concerns so; there must be collaboration between the stakeholders and the organization on the voluntary basis. In the CSR practices, it is important for the companies to understand the importance of interaction with external and internal stakeholders. Based on the research in support of CSR, it is the accountability of the organization to identify the interest of various stakeholders rather than focusing on financial or economic requirements. Figure 1: Various Stakeholders (Source: Tyagi, 2011) The arguments in the stakeholder theory depend upon assumptions that company should focus on maximizing profit through managing the interest of stakeholders. According to this theory, Stakeholders must be active in the decision making process of the organization. In case of Tesla Motors, CSR practices in the company are implemented on the basis of interest and demands of the stakeholders. Tesla is the biggest automobile company in the world and it identifies the needs of stakeholders on the top most priority. By effective corporate social responsibility, company is able sustain long-term development in terms of manufacturing electronic vehicle in the market. In Tesla Motors, important stakeholders are shareholders, employees, customers and society (Mangram, 2012). In these, the most important stakeholders are employees and shareholders which are chosen in the report. Shareholders- Shareholders are the most important group of stakeholders in Tesla motors who are supportive to achieve the business goals and objectives. Main interest of the shareholders in the company is to maximize the profit of the business in the market. They are important because they affect the capital of the company. For understanding and addressing the core interest of shareholders, Tesla is planning for electric vehicles under the guidance and approval of the shareholders. The plan of electric vehicles is helpful in reducing the cost incurred in fuel and petroleum because electric cars will be very cheap in cost. In current time, customers are very concerned for surrounding environment so, with the idea of electric vehicles, company will be able to maximize the profit in the market. Providing electric cars to reduce harmful gases is also the part of corporate social responsibility of Tesla motors which is helpful in improving the performance of the company in the car industry (Hardester, 2010). Employees- This group of stakeholders has the interest in the career development, equal treatment and opportunity and high wages. They are very crucial as they always impact on the production and capacity of services in the business. To identify the interest of the employees, Tesla has many activities related to CSR i.e. global learning, sustainable workforce, and global leadership programs. To protect the productivity, health and capabilities of the employees, company has initiatives in terms of sustainable workforce. Along with this, there are some development programs i.e. monitoring the profit and performance of the employees etc. managers in Tesla motors to motivate the employees to achieve the goals in the organization. They provide leadership programs i.e. experienced leader program for the middle level managers. These all programs come under the CSR activities and dedication of the company to address the interest of employees (Ashtiani et al, 2011). Creating shared value (CSV) Creating shared value is the link between CSR and the competitive advantage of the company. Shared value is not only sustainability but it is the new process also to get success. The objective of shared value is to implement the change in the business operations of a company in terms of people, process, strategy, structure and reward. In simple words, CSV is related to getting benefit in the business by using CSR activities (Porter Kramer, 2011). Figure 2: Customer Shared Value (Source: Porter Kramer, 2011) In case of Tesla Motors, there are many reasons of the company to use value principles in the business operations. Provided values by the Tesla Motors are described below: Leader- This is the key reason to create value for the customers. The aim of the company is to improve the lives of the people in the community. Elon Musk is the person in Tesla motors who has created and run the company. He is the leader in the company who believe in generating energy in the sustainable way. Because of his efforts, company is now famous in the car industry. That person has capacity to influence and motivate the culture of the company to get success. Value- Objective of Tesla Motors is to develop and maintain sustainable transportation by offering electric cars to the customers. By providing this value, the mission of the company is to do research on sustainability and provide benefits to the customers. Tesla is now providing benefits to the customers in terms of social and economic benefits related to price (Lantos, 2001). Open innovation- This is another reason to create shared value principles in the business. Open innovation is helpful for the company to attract more and more customers. Innovation of Tesla Motors includes creating transportation sustainable for the travelers. To achieve business goals, it is important for Tesla Motors to create electric vehicles. This is the market of innovation with the shared values provided by Tesla Motors (Maula, Keil Salmenkaita, 2006). Agenda- Values provided by Tesla motors are linked with the overall strategy and agenda of the company. Shared values of the company are connected with the sustainability. This is helpful for the company to run business in the operating market. To achieve long-term goals, shared values are also important for Tesla motors (Karamitsios, 2013). Tesla motors are focused on the innovation for the whole environment. Objective of the company is to give importance for the humanity and customers in the society. To achieve this goal, Tesla will use solar batteries in the electric cars. Along with this, Tesla is developing the system of energy storage devices to develop more and more renewable energy in the environment. Now, in current time, Tesla is appropriate company to reinvent of future ecology. Customers are finding for stylish vehicles with sustainability. So, Tesla is just right in providing such type of vehicles to the customers. The shared values provided by Tesla Motors can be evaluated by some factors i.e. vision, and strategy (Kearney, 2013). Vision- Vision of the company is to provide values to the customers in terms of electric vehicles so that the harmful gases in the environment can be reduced successfully. Strategy- The main strategy of Tesla Motors is to create values factors or the customers and society by new ecosystem innovations. The objective of the company is to create sustainable transportation for the customers. Conclusion This report provides supportive arguments for the CSR activities in the business. By the above discussion, it can be said that Tesla is going on the right way in terms of CSR practices. Tesla is providing values and shared principles and addressing stakeholders interests for the future growth and success. The company is focusing on CSR practices having the aim of providing values and ecosystem innovation References Tyagi, R.K. (2011). A Conceptual Study of Corporate Social Responsibility and Its Persuasion on Employees. pp. 2837 Porter, M. E. Kramer, M. R. (2011). The Big Idea: Creating Shared Value: Harvard Business Review. 89 (1/2). 62-77 McKnett, C. (2013). The investment logic for sustainability. Retrieved on 29th April 2017 from https://www.ted.com/talks/chris_mcknett_the_investment_logic_for_sustainability Maula, V. J., Keil, T. Salmenkaita, J. (2006). Open innovation in systemic innovation contexts. Oxford University Press Matten, Dirk Jeremy M. (2008). Implicit and Explicit CSR: A Conceptual Framework for a Comparative Understanding of Corporate Social Responsibility: Academy of Management Review. 33(2). 404-424 Mangram, M. E. (2012). The globalization of tesla motors: a strategic marketing plan analysis. Routledge. 20(4). 289-312 Lantos, G. P., (2001). The Boundaries of Strategic Corporate Social Responsibility: Journal of Consumer Marketing. 18 (7). 595-632 Kearney, A. T. (2013). The Contribution of the Automobile Industry to Technology and Value Creation. 3-6 Karamitsios, A. (2013). Open Innovation in EVs: A Case Study of Tesla Motors. Sweden Hardester, E. (2010). The profitability of the electric car (Thesis). Brigham Young University Ashtiani, C., Cullen, G., Davis, P., Greenwald, J., Hardigan, P., Eladio, K., Zimmerman, D. (2011). Plug-in electric vehicles: A practical plan for progress. Expert Panel Report, School of Public and Environmental Affairs at Indiana University Tesla Motors, (2017). About Tesla. Retrieved on 29th April 2017 from https://www.teslamotors.com/en_CA/about

Mastering Semantic Technology for Success with Ontotext Live Online Trainings

Mastering Semantic Technology for Success with Ontotext Live Online Trainings How It All Started Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.Albert EinsteinDecember 2016. This is when the first live online training in Semantic Technology organized by a bunch of enthusiasts at Ontotext took place. It was certainly not the first training on the subject in the world. But it was an important step in our efforts to proactively communicate the advantages of Semantic Technology.Ever since Ontotext started piling up knowledge in the field, we have been sharing our expertise through trainings. However, these have always been created as a result of specific requests from clients.But in the winter of 2016, we decided to change that. Instead of waiting for people to approach us, we wanted to be at the forefront of educating them about how certain semantic tools could help them solve various data analytics challenges. Here’s our story. A Closer Look at Who We AreFor more than 20 years, Ontotext has been in the business of developing and providing Semantic Technology-based solutions for various domains. As a result, we’ve accumulated (often after some trial-and-error) a lot of valuable experience. This has helped us understand which solutions would work best depending on specific domains and use cases.It has also made us aware of the major pain points that people could come across when adopting Semantic Technology solutions. So, it was almost a matter-of-course that the idea of organizing all this knowledge into a coherent and easy-to-grasp learning journey was born. The Challenge of Designing Have-it-all TrainingsThere are three things to remember when teaching: know your stuff, know whom you are stuffing, and then stuff them elegantly.Lola J. May, Mathematics EducatorOnce you know your destination, you just need to start walking, right? Wrong. Before we could share our experience, first we needed to clearly define the audience that would benefit from such broader training courses. To do that, we had to decide which Semantic Technology adoption pain points we wanted to focus on to best meet people’s needs.Equally important, we needed to determine the format and the kind of content coverage that would be most useful for it. We didn’t just want to go in front of people and talk about what we knew and found interesting. We wanted to shape our expertise to fit what people actually needed to know. And do it in a way that made it easy and intuitive for them to apply when dealing with their own use cases.The Matter at HandAfter some consi deration, we decided that we wanted to focus on two areas where we thought our impact on people’s needs would be most significant.The first was to improve people’s understanding of the importance and the practical advantages of using Semantic Technology when solving various knowledge management and data analytics problems. This is how our Designing a SemTech PoC training was born.The second was to provide the best (and quickest) way for people to delve in and start working with our leading semantic graph database, GraphDB. This is how our GraphDB for DevOps training came about.Ways and MeansOnce the scope of the new training courses was defined, we looked at the pros and cons of different formats.Based on our experience from the tailored trainings, we decided that the best setup for sharing our practical experience and nurturing a community of like-minded Semantic Technology enthusiasts was to offer a live online format to a small group of participants. In this way, we could have more space for interchange and we could keep a close eye on people’s progress.We also anticipated that if our guidance proved beneficial for people, we could establish a schedule of recurring trainings. As an additional benefit, having recurring courses would also allow us to check if we were on the right track.Shaping Our OfferTo teach is to learn twice over.Joseph JoubertWhen we designed the original curriculum for our training courses, we had a pretty good idea of what we wanted to demonstrate the content coverage, the exercises, the individual assignments, etc.However, each iteration of a training was a chance to change and, hopefully, improve important details from content to delivery. This was mostly thanks to people’s feedback, but also the selected format allowed us to see what worked best and what didn’t.The most important lesson we have learned is that a training is always a work in progress. Each following edition has the potential to be better than the previous one both in terms of what we teach and how we teach it.Eight Editions of Designing a SemTech PoC LaterOur Designing a SemTech PoC training has evolved significantly from the first basic demonstration of what we considered to be the most important techniques. In the beginning, our live sessions focused on cramming as much useful information as possible about data integration (through OntoRefine) and data exploration (with SPARQL). We presented a sample workflow that illustrated how existing resources could benefit from Linked Open Datasets and how to best analyze the available data. As a successful PoC is, in our view, the result of efficient data analytics, we wanted to let the trainees get the feel of such a workflow with the help of some hands-on experience.However, we found that many people struggled with SPARQL. So, with the help of the participants’ feedback, we went through several iterations of redesigning the way we introduced it. We focused on the value of good technical skills in the process of solving an interesting problem. We also introduced a variety of means for data analysis. But most importantly, we decided to simplify the live session as much as possible to make it less difficult for trainees to follow what was c overed and give them more chances to interact.We reworked our use cases and interwove everything we demonstrated into a single story to engage our participants. This made all components of building a PoC easier to understand and refer to at a later stage.We also exported all non-interactive content to the off-line set of additional materials so that participants could study them at their own pace. Instead, we engaged everybody with quick quizzes and discussions on the covered topics.Now, we have a smooth workflow involving a real PoC design that covers all the necessary steps and demonstrates best practices. Shifting our focus to best practices around a single use case story and providing more space for exchange resulted in more lively and productive sessions and happier students.First Steps in GraphDB Training for DevOpsThe GraphDB Training for DevOps is a new course we have designed and started offering this year. It targets developers and operations specialists who interact with GraphDB on a daily basis and need a more in-depth understanding of our semantic graph database. So far, we’ve had only one internal and one public edition of this course, so it’s too early to talk about its progression. But already the internal training has contributed significantly to the improvement of the initial materials.The Bigger PictureA teacher is one who makes himself progressively unnecessary.Thomas CarruthersA year and a half later, Ontotext has offered a total of 14 training courses. This includes our two recurring courses: Designing Semantic Technologies PoC and GraphDB for DevOps. It also includes some custom courses for clients such as Semantic Technologies GATE; Linked Data Sources, Robust Text Analysis and Semantic Search; Gold Standard Corpora; etc.We’ve also collaborated with some universities. We’ve provided materials for the courses Knowledge Modelling and Representation and Knowledge Bases for FMI, University of Sofia. We’ve participated in the preparation of the course Knowledge Representation and Reasoning for the Uni versity of Aberdeen and we have contributed to ESSLLI 2018.Our training courses have had participants from many geographical locations. The use cases of the participants who came to improve their understanding of Semantic Technology in order to further their projects have also been quite diverse. Some were developing flexible data models for representing unstructured or semi-structured data from various domains. Others were working in the area of predictive analytics, or were trying to match and structure information across various sources, or were focused on cancer research.Or, as in the case of Culture Creates, the aim was to make cultural events in Canada findable for voice-powered and AI-powered search assistants. This is possible thanks to metadata enrichment, integrating and linking data from various data sources and, ultimately, dumping, structuring and querying that data with Ontotext’s GraphDB.All Roads Lead to the ClassroomAll in all, our experience has shown that by sharing our expertise in Semantic Technology, we can make a difference. Accommodating all types of busy schedules and non-work related commitments, our training courses allow you to join us from any location.The only disadvantage is that you don’t get to have any of our fragrant coffee and delicious cakes while you follow our demos on your screen at home, but, hey, maybe that’s not such a bad deal either?Interested? Go to our training page where you can learn details  or contact the team for specific questions.