Case study The global pharmaceutical industry Essay

Case study The global pharmaceutical industry - Essay Example However the wave of competition has caused shift in priorities, "many existing pharmaceutical compounds are standardized formulations that varies little in efficacy among manufacturers". The struggle for the differentiated product shall bring financial fortune to the agents of this industry, therefore major investment towards "advertising and sales force budgets have increased manifold in past years" (Sarah, 2004). As per research, less than 20 percent of the funds are allocated towards research and development expenditures. The investment towards research and development is further differentiated in terms of investment towards promising drug compounds in clinical human trials, which is less than 7 percent. The breakdown of the funds allocation is, "product introduction trials account for 5.8%; process development consumes 10% of research expenses' pre-clinical functions consumes 41%; extraction of chemical compounds for evaluation consumes 11.8%; and investment towards safety and toxicology consumes 5.4%". The new products consume more than 80% of expenditures of the research and development expenditures. The main environmental forces which has influenced the growth of this industry has been "expenditures towards research and development for each drug which typically last through a period of 10 to 15 years before a compound makes it to the market" (Michael, 2001). The approval from the relevant authorities essential for the public release of the product also dampens the growth of this industry; it takes more than 16 months for the specific product to get approved by the relevant authorities. The likelihood of clearances are also low, "only 1 in 5000 compounds will eventually be sold and less than one third of... It is expected that the pharmaceutical companies have the best potential to benefit from "aging population and increasing life expectancy rates throughout the world", the market for such products have expanded significantly, and it is predicted that by the end of current decade the concept of drugs for increase in life expectancy shall receive positive response in the poor countries of Asia and Africa, it this prediction comes out to be true than irrespective of the current wave of financial recession, this industry has positive scope towards financial development. It is known that the general understanding about health aspects is common in developed, developing and under-developing countries, therefore the sales of the pharmaceutical products shall not be confined to specific geography or class, and rather it is global business, having global outreach and market. As per research, "this business is attractive with operating profit margins exceeding 30% which is approximately twice th e S & P Industrial Index and net earnings as a percentage of sales averaging 17.9% versus 5.4% for general industry over the last 5 years". It is known that the running cost of this business is relatively lower than others; the business has "lower interest expenses, raw materials costs, tax rates and general and administrative cost as a percentage of sales when compared with most industries".

Impacts of Music Piracy

Impacts of Music Piracy In the future, the only way musicians will make money is by playing live. New federal legislation says universities must agree to provide not just deterrents but also alternatives to peer-to-peer piracy, such as paying monthly subscription fees to the music industry for their students, on penalty of losing all financial aid for their students. When record companies appeared, services they were providing were necessary in order for people to listen to recorded music, making and selling records was a major undertaking. This was a starting point of development of recording techniques and record studios, at that time making recorded music available to masses required a significant capital and investments, which in turn required a legal structure that would provide stable profits and return on the required investment. Music industry used to provide people with tools that were essential to listen to recorder music and the difference between that time and our days is that record companies charge people for permission to use tools people already have that they did not provide, that in fact people paid someone else for, yet the legal structure that developed during the time when that services were useful remains. The legal structure says if you don’t pay you are breaking the law therefore you are criminal and the reason it h as not been changed is because of â€Å"STARS† the entire structure of the record industry is built around their interests. Records produce good money for the industry and almost nothing goes to the pocket of musician. This particular diagram is a good example of old model of music production chain, In our days there is no need of Publisher, Distributors and in most cases manufacturers, modern technology allows to burn CDs at home publish own records using internet distributing the material across the World Wide Web physically and digitally. In old days, musician had to pay to almost every person in Music Production chain to record, studios, engineers, managers, labels, publishers, legal departments, distribution networks etc. in fact all of the departments and services belong to the same corporation and the record companies are not actually record companies at all. â€Å"To begin with, we should note that the major â€Å"record companies† are not actually record companies at all but huge media conglomerates. Most â€Å"independent† labels are owned by a corporate label. Each â€Å"major† is in turn owned by an even bigger corporation, and so on up the food chain. At the top of the chain sit a tiny handful of media giants: Time Warner, Disney, Rupert Murdochs News Corporation, Bertelsmann of Germany, Viacom (formerly CBS) and General Electric. These corporations are among the world’s largest. All are listed in Fortune Magazine’s â€Å"Global 500† largest corporations in the world. They have integrated both horizontally (owning lots of record labels, lots of newspapers, and radio stations) and vertically (controlling newspapers, magazines, book publishing houses, and movie and TV production studios, as well as print distribution systems, cable and broadcast TV networks, radio stations, telephone lines, s atellite systems, web portals, billboards, and more).† In contemporary world there are very few recording projects that actually require use of the Cutting-edge technology studios. The Internet and World Wide Web have changed the character of music distribution with laptops and desktop PCs loaded with hardware and software necessary for high-quality sound recording. All the hardware and software applications are available for the average class people not mentioning internet piracy and â€Å"cracked† software that is available to download using peer-to-peer applications. The problem of piracy has been rising for the past 10 years, and the numbers of â€Å"pirates† are growing day by day. From my personal experience every person that is using computer came across piracy and became victims or even the pirates themselves and the reason for that is simple, easy and user friendly peer-to-peer software takes only couple of minutes to setup and another minute to become familiar with interface and all the features, in another 10 minutes it is possible to find your favorite artist and download your favorite album. That is in fact so convenient that it is becoming only the question of conscience whether it is a problem or an opportunity to become pirate. Realizing the problem of piracy Sony tried innovative approach to earn money on digital music, In 2000 Sony launched online music store â€Å"the Store† where the price for a track was $3.50 that turned off many early adopters of the service moreover, users were actually only renting the tracks for that $3.50 and after a certain point the files expired and could not be played again without repurchase, which was not a successful attempt and service failed quickly. Having that experience In 2003 Apple inc. run iTunes Store, with tremendous success with the Ipod sales which no doubts influences Music industry and the policy of digital music distribution. That is a breakthrough for digital music and especially for mp3 format. According to information by Apple CEO Steve Jobs at the end of the second week of January, 2008, the store has sold 4 billion songs, accounting for more than 70% of worldwide online digital music sales. There were many disputes on the World Wide Web and newspapers and other mass media sources about Ipod users and digital music in overall, where topics like â€Å"Ipod users are thieves† were headline. My own opinion is that it looks like a Dog chasing own tail, on the one hand technologies are growing very fast and there is nothing to put on the 200 GB HDD except tons of music and movies, the same with iPods it is highly improbable to have that amount of music in physical quantity, 40gb of Ipods capacity is approximately 5000 tracks which is around 200 albums†¦ In our days it is becoming more and more difficult for the music industry to ignore the basic economics, technology progress and the outdated legal structures of the industry such as unenforceable property rights (because it is impossible to sue everyone) and â€Å"zero† production costs (Peer-to-Peer and file sharing systems became way too popular). All the big labels such as SONY BMG, Warner and others have now given up on DRM (â€Å"Short for digital rights management, a system for protecting the copyrights of data circulated via the Internet or other digital media by enabling secure distribution and/or disabling illegal distribution of the data. Typically, a DRM system protects intellectual property by either encrypting the data so that it can only be accessed by authorized users or marking the content with a digital watermark or similar method so that the content can not be freely distributed.†) Music Companies still trying to charge for their music, but it’s becoming more and more clear that as long as there is a free alternative (Peer-to peer and other file sharing systems), the price of music and other media will have to fall. â€Å"LONDON — U.S. rock star Prince gave away his new album for free with a U.K. tabloid newspaper, weeks before its official launch, in a move that has caused dismay among music retailers.† Some artists already started to use the situation and instead of fighting with the â€Å"problems† started to look for the advantages and opportunities. Marginal production costs are zero and like in case with software applications, it doesn’t cost anything to produce another digital copy that would be as good as the original, as soon as the first copy exists anyone can create additional copies. Unless effective technical, legal or other artificial barriers to production can be created, simple economic theory dictates that zero marginal cost plus competition (The possibility that consumer will create and spread another copy) results in a zero price, unless government creates artificial barriers to a free market. â€Å"Sure, Radiohead is on a sustained run as the most interesting and innovative band in rock, but what makes In Rainbows important — easily the most important release in the recent history of the music business — are its record label and its retail price: there is none, and there is none.† In October 2007 Radiohead announced that their new album â€Å"In Rainbows† will be available to download free of charge, the fact is, the networks and peer to peed file sharing systems have grown into easy-to-use distribution methods for music even easier than what Radiohead has bee offering. According to Forbes website (www.forbes.com) about 240.000 users has been downloading album using Peer-to peer (BitTorrent) sources â€Å"according to Big Champagne, a Los-Angeles-based company that tracks illegal downloading on the Internet. Over the following days, the file was downloaded about 100,000 more times each day—adding up to more than 500,000 total illegal downloads.† Radiohead offered to download their album for free the only requirement was to set up an account on the website, but according to statistics that turned out to be not â€Å"cheap† enough! The recorded music industry †¦ has for too long been dependent on how many CDs can be sold, writes Guy Hands, EMIs chairman. The industry, rather than embracing digitalization and the opportunities it brings for promotion of product and distribution through multiple channels, has stuck its head in the sand. Radioheads actions are a wake-up call which we should all welcome and respond to with creativity and energy. Nokia made a step forward offering music downloads for free on their mobiles by signing contract with Sony BMG â€Å" Nokia will offer free 12-month access to music from artists of Sony BMG, the worlds second-biggest label, to buyers of its particular music phones, the worlds top cellphone maker said on Tuesday. Last December, Nokia unveiled a similar deal for its Comes With Music phones with the top record label Universal.Comes With Music is expected to launch in the second half of 2008 on a range of Nokia devices in selected markets, Nokia said in a statement.Nokia gave no financial details.Sony BMG, home to artists including Beyonce, Bruce Springsteen and Celine Dion, is jointly owned by Sony Corp and German media group Bertelsmann AG.The new music offering from Nokia the first cellphone maker to push heavily into content would differ from any other package on the market as users can keep all the music they have downloaded during the 12 months.† My personal opinion is whether you agree or disagree that the prices for the music will be zero or about zero but it is going to happen if the authorities would not take drastic measures to solve the issues as it appears that there is no â€Å"easy† solution†¦ The new era is coming, the era of free recorded music and my believe is that everything is going in a right way, recorded music will become one of the marketing tools to get people to pay for the live concerts, that will put emphasis on organizational skills and on new dimension of the performances and performance quality which will result in cultural socialization and stronger community. In countries like Brazil people already started to use situation as an advantage and opportunity, people doing huge amount of remixes which resulting in new styles and music cultures like Techno Brega â€Å"In the North of Brazil, you have the Techno Brega movement. [..] You have a music producer who has a recording studio. [..] Probably a small one with good equipment. They invite the artists to these studios to make the CDs. They deliver it to the street vendors, so that they can replicate them. The only people making a profit out of CD sales are the street vendors. The musicians dont expect any money from releasing the CDs.† People realized that CD sales model is not an effective way to earn money in our days it is outgrown to promotion side of business and what people are doing now is using CDs to record actual performances and then sell it to people who have attended the performance which is a good souvenir and memory of the event. Services and web resources are developing for the benefits of artist. Web resources such as www.myspace.com or www.sellaband.com could be of great benefits to artist. Sellaband is a very perspective web project which is aimed to promote artist but in slightly different way then www.myspace.com, Artist creates a profile, uploading all the necessary information and maximum of 3 demo songs and looking for â€Å"believers†, each believer have to invest at least 10$ in artist and as soon as the amount of believers will reach 5000 the artist will receive 50000$ to record the album, after the album has been produced the believers will receive limited edition CDs with all the bonuses, all services are absolutely free as for believers as for the artist, that is a very bright idea as the â€Å"believers† could be a very good source of money which is very important for the first album, the amount of believers could be less then 5000, the main concept is to rise 50000$ therefore, i n this case it is possible for artist to divide the source of money between believers and himself so that it could be 50% from artist and 50% from believers. In conclusion, record labels are going down and struggling to make profits from CD sales and it appears that digital music selling is more reliable for revenue then CD sales. Copyrights and intellectual property rights law have to be updated to cooperate with current issues of piracy and file sharing protocols. CD Sales model has to be reincarnated to CD promotional model in order to regain the value of physical product with the emphasis put on live performances which should result in quality and cultural aspect of performances.

Language in Wilfred Owens The Sentry :: essays research papers

Wilfred Owen’s ‘The Sentry’ To me Wilfred Owen’s poetry is visually descriptive, so much so that he seems to be able to effortlessly transport you into whatever situation he is describing. This particular poem leaves you in no doubt as to the horrors of war and the terrible atrocities these poor men endured. In the opening line he says ‘and he knew’ using the technique of personalisation he has turned the massive opposing force into a single person, someone who was actively trying to single them out, to attack them personally. This shows you just how desperate they felt and how to them no matter where they seemed to find shelter ‘he’ was never far behind. He goes on to say ‘and gave us hell for shell on frantic shell hammered on top, but never quite got through’. By using the word ‘hell’ he is actively describing the terrible endlessness of their situation or the perseverance of the enemy and the fact that they cannot escape. enduring the onslaught, hour on hour, day by day. ‘Frantic shell’ the word frantic to me describes the non-target based shelling, as the enemy knew they that their enemy was somewhere in front of them, so just seemed to shell anywhere within that vicinity in the sure hope that they would be causing death eventually. The use of the rhyming words ‘hell’ and ‘shell’ automatically connects the two words in the reader’s brain, forming a connection and reinforcing the idea of the battle being ‘hell’. ‘Hammered’is also a very thought provoking verb used in this line, this word used in this particular sentence is brilliant, it not only describes the noise, as you cannot hammer quietly, but describes the repetition, when hammering something you repeatedly strike it. Hammered is a violent verb and its two syllables makes the word sound short and harsh. In the following line, ‘rain, guttering down’ this makes me think the guttering I have on my house, a purpose made moulded channel used to transport water. He deliberately used this word to convey just how much rain had fallen that it had naturally moulded gutters out of the mud, channelling the slime and slurry into waterfalls. There is also assonance in this sentence emphasising the guttering (which I have already analysed above). Wilfred Owen is cleverly able to relate to you a description of a bomb without ever actually calling it a bomb.

High School and Peter Essay

1.In his senior year of high school Peter Martin was sixteen. He was built like a rock, but no one noticed him in his school until the day of the first football game. When he scored three long-running touch downs. At the high school dance Peter was very excited to be going. He had never been to a high school dance before because he didn’t really have any friends. After the game Peter felt good about himself for leading his team to victory, and wasn’t so shy and starting to talk to people that he didn’t know. The high school dance was at a really big house close to the high school. When Peter gets to the high school party he doesn’t know what to really expect. The first thing that happened at the party was that a girl that he didn’t really know came up to him and wanted to dance with him. Peter says yes to the girl, so they go and dance for a very long time. After they were done dancing the girl gives Peter her phone number. Peter and the girl that he meets start dating each other. Peter is a very smart kid and has very good grades. The types of friends that he hangs around are athletic people. On the weekends Peter sleeps in to around 12:30pm to 1:00pm. The way Peter and his family act to one another is that they treat each other with respect. 2.One implied detail about Peter is that he is timid. â€Å"His shyness, his shrewd and dogged ways, his blue eyes gazing from underneath a shock of dark hair†. This quote shows that Peter doesn’t like being around people. The second implied detail about Peter is that he is not easy to hit down. â€Å" 3.(A) The people that are there from Peter’s family are his dad, his mom, Joe, Mickey, Ruth, and Elizabeth. (B) It is cold outside, so everyone has to keep warm. â€Å"All bundled up in warm clothing and flushed from the cold wind.† Peter’s family might not know a lot about football. â€Å"It was the first football game in the Martin’s mother’s experience. 4.(A) One point that the coach give to his team is to don’t give up in this game because it isn’t going to be easy. Another point that the coach states are that he is comparing the sizes between his players and the Lawton Boys. (B) I think that the player â€Å"love† the old man because he is a good coach, but also the get the whole point of the speeches that he gives to them. 5.(A) One of the first things that happen is that the ball is kicked to Peter and Peter loses it in the sky and it drop right in front of him, but somehow he returns it for 30 yards. The second thing that happens in the game is that Peter run wide and gained five yards. (B) One thing that happens in the stands is that Peter’s family is shouting to him saying positive things. The second thing is that Peter’s mother never sees anything that Peter does on the field. (C) At half time the score ended 0-0. 6.At half time the coach states that he wants them to do more passing plays. Another thing that the coach says it that he wants them to do a trick play. The final thing that the coach says at half time is that he wants them to try the forty- seven in their end zone.

Corus Case Study Draft

Corus Case Study Introduction: ? Corus businesses. ? Market, Steel ? CCI needs to differentiate itself from the competitors in order to grow in the business. Model of Planned Organizational Change (Pg 336) Forces for Change: External: Low cost of Steel Internal: Lack of Capital for a Green field site Need for Change: ? CCI needs to differentiate itself from the competitors in order to grow in the business. ? They need to concentrate on the process improvements in order to get the best out of the existing infrastructure. Performance Gap (Disparity between existing and desired performance levels. ? SWOT (if possible ) Implementing the Change: Vision of the company [pic] Vision â€Å"We aspire to be the world steel industry benchmark for value creation and corporate citizenship. † Value creation Corus differentiates itself through innovation and delivering leading edge solution from its competitors for company’s growth. Steel industry is the big market. The raw material i s inexpensive. In order to standing out from the crowd, Corus add value creation by offering premium products and services. They used TQM, continuous improvement and KPI to create value and meet customer satisfaction. Corporate citizenship Corus trains its workers on how to act with a sense of responsibility, integrity and respect. They provide knowledge how the production flow and how to eliminate cost and waste. This can help Corus to work effective, reduce unnecessary cost, on the other hand, this process is also concern about environment as well. Work Culture Team work is one of the key factors in Corus. Manager coordinated with 40 Coaches for facilitating improvement training. Corus believes that success is from emerges from the person engagement with the company, not just depend on employees’ expertise and effort. It In order to create engagement, Corus encourage two way communications. Employees can forward their comments on the points that they think those will help to improve organization or how to change to make better. Everyone in organization understand and support the plan. Workshops have taken place to explain company’s vision and why some small and continuous change is very important to different Corus from its competitiors. TQM (Pg 593) TQM Techniques: Continuous Improvement ? Since they found that they can improve the performance by reducing the Waste they dealt with Lean Production Model. o Lean Production Model o (If possible we can include Horizontal Linkages Pg 325) This is for taking the process maps in the Manufacturing process and identifying the change. o KPIs ? Quality Circles (CI Coaches) ? Reduced Cycle Time (Lead time) ? Bench Marking Implementation Tactics: (Pg 342) ? Communication and Education ? Participation Top Management Support Conclusion? KPI is the measuring tool for helping organization defines how successful it is in each area that want to measure. Without measuring tool, organization will not know how well they are, whether For Corus, they use KPI to measure the backlog of customer orders, meeting targets for rolling steel plat. After they get the KPI result, they can review result internally among each division and then compare, benchmark with their competitors and other produc ers in Steel industry. Without KPI and benchmark, they will not know how well they are and what their standing point in the steel market. KPIs can be help to answer the question, â€Å"What is the area that they are good at? † â€Å"How well they can control inventory? †Ã‚   â€Å"What are the areas that they should improve in order to get customer satisfaction? KPI is a key part of a measurable objective, which is made up of a direction, KPI, benchmark, target, and time frame. KPI help to evaluation the progress towards its vison and long-term goals.