International Paper - Business Biography

International Paper - Business Biography Free Online Research Papers International Paper employs 66,500 employees and of those employees, 47,100 are located in the United States. International Paper is ranked 93rd among Fortune 500 companies and No. 1 in the forest products sector for the Most Admired Company. The stock is traded internationally on the New York, Swiss and Amsterdam exchanges. The customers of International Paper are distributors and chain and restaurant stores. International Paper produces bags, corrugated board and boxes. The Charlotte location produces bags. This will be the topic of this paper. International Paper’s has a long-standing policy of using no wood from endangered forests. They are also committed to environment protection and have partnered with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, State agencies and non- governmental organizations to ensure the protection of endangered species and forests. The vision of IP (International Paper) is to â€Å"be one and most respected companies in the world-as measured by our employees, our customers, our communities and our shareowners† (internationalpaper.com/Our%20Company/About). Their mission is based on why they exist, what they do and how they do it. IP upholds these by being dedicated to making people’s lives better. The employees use renewable resources. The customers succeed because of their innovative products and services. The communities welcome them because of their philosophies to protect the environment and still provide good products. The shareholders benefit from the superior financial performance. This is all done because International keeps their promises that deliver results. The Charlotte bag plant has not been able to accomplish most external and internal goals with the exception of some plant operations. Externally, they are being competitively beaten to the point where they are unable to produce a profit in the current market. Internally, the company is relatively new, 18 months on the East coast and is trying to slim operations to be competitive on the outside. The issue is the sales personnel are giving extreme pricing and rebates to remain competitive with a long-standing company who’s under-pricing is working at the moment. International Paper has been dominant on the West coast as well as in the Central part of the United States and is trying to establish a presence in the Southeastern part now. Operations have made improvement to help the overhead and the bottom line. Machine target rates have been over achieved. Waste has been practically eliminated. Two new supervisors have been brought in to help with training issues to ensure quality is top priority so re-work has been decreased by 80%. Shipments are at a 99.8% arrival rate with no shortages. The only two issues the operational overhead has had are buying roll stock and freight cost incurred. Roll shock prices have increased 20% and freight has gone up 38%. This has off set the savings described above. Even with the improvements made these aren’t in line with the other plants. Machine speeds, roll stock costs and overhead determine costing which in turn is higher than what is being charged by our other plants and our competitors. We are selling our products below what we can produce them for. Our average ROS (return of sale) is -39.10% with the largest being –106.08% for Winn Dixie. This is also due to the credit terms and the amount of rebate we are given our customers. We only make a positive net profit on 2 customers, Corporate Express and I-Supply. This is because we give no rebates to them. In the next 2 months, intensive research needs to be done on what our customers needs and wants are not what they think they can get out of us. We also need to do extensive marketing research on our competitor here on the East coast. This compile of information needs to be analyzed within 2 months of its existence so that we can compile an aggressive strategy to combat the pricing war that is going on between us and find a common ground for the plant to make a profit. The plant is losing anywhere from $300k to $800k a month so this is a time sensitive issue. While the research is progressing, certain measures already in existence need to remain there but continuous improvements in the operational area need to remain focus to help keep monthly losses at a minimum. It will take everyone to ensure that overhead as minimal as possible. The sales team needs to reconsider the pricing they have set forth. Once the research comes in and a plan of action has been established, pricing needs to reflect that plan. The sales team is going to have to â€Å"sell† this new approach to our customers. This is going to be a gradual thing. This is going to be in increments and should be completed by the end of the 3rd year of business. Monthly progress reports will have to be initiated in order to ensure that the team is on track to switching our customers over to the new sales terms and to also make any necessary adjustments needed to the plan. We also need to reconsider the amount of rebates and credit that we are issuing. We have spent $65,000 last month in credits with no foundation and over $100,000 in rebates to customers that we make no net profit on. Revising the criteria set forth on which we give rebates will help immensely with losses we currently have. New policies need to implemented and relayed to our existing customer base as â€Å"incentives† for doing business with us not used as the only way to keep our customers happy. The generic strategy that should be used is focused. The Charlotte based plant has only been open for 18 months so a pricing was is something that is not wanted but yet we need to stay competitive. The way to do this is to also differentiate the company from our competitors. This will allow for certain â€Å"higher† prices because of customer loyalty and our superior products (Pearce-Robinson, 2008). Our specialty bags will play a major role in this. We will need to continue to improve our â€Å"lean† approach to our processes to help keep cost down. There are certain products that do not produce sufficient profit and may need to be reconsidered for future sales. For example, #2 bag isn’t in demand enough to warrant keeping the bag available. The downtime and change over alone makes the bag expensive to produce. The #8 bag is in high demand and we are having to buy this bag from the outside at $250k a month. If we considered another #8 machine at $600k, the machine would pay for itself in a little over 2 months. Mean while, our sales personnel will have to revise their thinking and bring our product back to the forefront of innovation when selling it to our existing customers as well as to new customers. We need to remain competitive in the market without being edge out in a pricing war with our competitors for this will certainly put us out of business. In conclusion, research is vital to the implementation and the success of the Charlotte bag plant at this moment. The plant is in a newborn state and needs to mature with the demand of the market relatively quickly. Certain measures can be taken to help with the competitive demands of the market but it is well advise to strategically place a plan into action, to have means to measure the success and way to improve any necessary adjustments as they come up. It is also advise that the actions involved every entity of the Charlotte plant so that the greatest success can be achieved. References: 1. Pearce-Robinson (2009). â€Å"Strategic Management† New York, NY: The McGraw-Hill Company 2. www.internationalpaper.com 3. McFarren, Tracy: Finance/Planning Manager, International Paper 4. www.marketingteacher.com/ Research Papers on International PaperWhat are Stock OptionsGap Analysis: Lester ElectronicsA Marketing Analysis of the Fast-Food RestaurantGene One the Transition from Private to PublicDefinition of Export QuotasCash or Card?Exempt vs Non-Exempt EmployeesCombating Human TraffickingProject Management 101My Writing Experience

How to Write Compelling Dialogue

How to Write Compelling Dialogue Skillfully used, dialogue can pull a reader into a book and mesmerize that person. It also provides easy reading and quickly moves the reader along as opposed to pages upon pages of descriptive wordings and phrases. Nobody has to learn about speech, it’s an integral part of our society. We engage in dialogue everyday whether it’s with another individual, over the phone, to our pets or even to ourselves. Dialogue is the most natural way society has of conveying information to one another. There is a trick however, to creating natural sounding dialogue in a book. When you listen to people talk, their sentences are fragmented, disjointed and typically peppered with slang, cuss words and fillers such as â€Å"uh, well, like, um†¦Ã¢â‚¬  Their facial and body expressions fill in the rest. It wouldn’t make much sense if you were to write dialogue exactly as you hear it. When writing dialogue, one must be able to convey conversation between characters in a natural , skillful way that doesn’t seem contrived. An adroit writer will use dialogue to convey the history, personality or description of a character, to create a mood or setting. Instead of droning on and on in a paragraph describing the setting, how a person looks or the mood and risk putting your reader to sleep, use dialogue to convey that information. Show the personality of your character by the way you have them speak. If you’re portraying a gangster then pepper their dialogue with slang and name calling. Convey the fact that they’re in a gang by making references to it in conversation. Portray a professional, perhaps a lawyer, by having him speak in a very eloquent manner using intellectual words. There would be no need to describe that he was a highly intelligent man who spoke well or even dressed well. Those can be shown through dialogue. You can even adopt a masculine or feminine way of speech to fit the gender of your character. What you want to do is create a picture of that character in the reader’s mind. Show the reader with your words and allow the reader to develop the picture in their minds. Make references to the past in conversations. This gives the readers an insight into what drives the character in the story. Create pictures for them using dialogue. Make it so that the reader can read and say â€Å"Aha, so that’s where he got his murderous tendencies†, after reading a dialogue showing how his father beat him senseless as a boy. Set the mood by using dialogue. Show the reader what a romantic night your characters are experiencing by having them reference the setting in their conversation. Instead of saying she got the matches out and lit the candles on the table. Use dialogue, such as â€Å"Hey babe, would you light the candles for me?† Using dialogue to show candles on a table is much more interesting than describing the action of getting the matches and lighting them. Describe someone by having two characters talk about them rather than going into an actual play by play of a physical description. For instance, if a woman had spiky red hair, you could show two other people commenting on how she must have spent a fortune getting her hair cut and dyed. Plus the fact that now she’s going to have to spend extra time every morning gelling and shaping her hair into spikes. Properly used in dialogue the reader can get a sense of resentment from the two who are having the conversation about the woman. Remember to read the dialogue out loud to yourself so you can get a sense of how it sounds to your ears. If it doesn’t flow or sound natural, then the reader isn’t going to identify with it. This is an extremely important part in creating compelling dialogue; getting the conversation to sound as if it could actually be taking place. If you find yourself hitting an awkward spot in the dialogue, then your readers most likely will too. Don’t get too carried away with dialects and slang. If it gets too complicated to read and follow, the reader most likely will put your book down. Another important thing to remember is not to get too carried away with the length of their responses. Most people speak in shorter spurts back and forth. The only time you’ll find someone going on and on would most likely be someone giving a speech or telling a story. Use dialogue to convey emotion. A simple one word response such as a curt â€Å"No† can indicate someone†™s impatience with another. Don’t insult a reader’s intelligence by telling him exactly how everything looked, felt or was. Readers have vivid imaginations and a big part of the lure of reading is to be able to figure out and visualize the spoken words into the bigger picture of the story.

Compare and Contrast the Shang and Zhou Dynasty Research Paper

Compare and Contrast the Shang and Zhou Dynasty - Research Paper Example The Shang and Zhou dynasties cover the era between 1700 and 250 BC. They were famously known for their use of bronze and jade, and for their well-trained armies and constant use of human sacrifice. One may wonder: what made the two communities rich, strong and powerful? What still make these communities to be heard in the society? These two dynasties of China are the first dynasties for which there are several historical records. Historically, Shang is the first dynasty in China. Shang dynasty emerged after the Xia dynasty of which history slightly touches on and before the Zhou dynasty. This discourse will try find out the historical background of Shang and Zhou dynasties while exploring several happenings during their dynasties. These two dynasties started as semi nomadic tribes that habituated the western side of Shang kingdom. Their nomadic lifestyle prepared them to work with different people who had different cultures. Somewhere around 1040 B.C Zhou conquered Shang during a war fare. To their advantage, Zhou got loyalty of the disaffected cities. Therefore, the Shang collapsed their morals; Zhou took advantage of this and took over Shang dynasty. This made Zhou adopt Shang lifestyle to an extent of applying Shang artisan techniques. Due to their nature of artistic lifestyle, Shang dynasty was well known to practice their art work in a distinctive manner. They majorly got engaged in bronze casting where ceramics were modeled and were used to serve food and wine to their ancestors back in those days. Another distinctive lifestyle is their fully developed writing structure. The state of development and complexity in most of their writings explicitly portrayed early development period which is not attested up to today (Dani 1996). The most discussed distinctive and characteristic image was decoration which was majorly done to the bronze vessel known as taotie. Based on ancient dynasties, the Zhou who had adopted Shang lifestyles and dynasty devised

Artitic Criticism Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Artitic Criticism - Essay Example The piece of art is characterized by clouds, stars, whirling wind and a sight off hills in the background provides for a larger dimension. Vincent chose a display a dot-to-dot effect on the sky by spacing the stars and providing a curving effect to the sky composition. This was aimed at ensuring the viewers concentrate on specific details of the paint rather than the sky. The technique can be traced to the 1880s where art was influenced by specific details. The painting has a night setting thus the purpose for its name, ‘Starry Night’. The painting displays an isolated night due to absence of night animals and other creators such as the bat. This displays a gloomy night also creates a midnight impression of the area. The whirling winds in the picture try to give the setting life but fails. The only prove of life in the village in the paint is the glowing windows of the cottages. There exist a contrast in the paint, sky above displays a rough and dramatic nature of the setting but the village shows peace and calmness. The hills represents hope, the decision of Vincent to displays two contrasting moods raises questions. Then again, life in the village is minimal as the dead tree on the painting displays death. The purpose of the dead tree and a peaceful village also contradicts the mood. To evaluate the intended purpose of the Dutch, one has to look at his condition while creating the art. At its creation, the painter was on foreign land and was ill. Despite his conditions, he could see a brighter future hence the representation of a lively background and a gloomy sky. The other unbecoming of the paint is the monotony in which the yellow color has been used in that the stars , the moon , the glowing winds and the whirling wind is represented by the yellow color. The idea of Vincent van Gogh is he displays his love for color yellow. However, he tries to balance the sky composition by introducing the white

The Failures of Affirmative Action :: Argumentative Persuasive Topics

The Failures of Affirmative Action      Ã‚  Ã‚   Once upon a time, there were two people who went to an interview for only one job position at the same company. The first person attended a prestigious and highly academic university, had years of work experience in the field and, in the mind of the employer, had the potential to make a positive impact on the company's performance. The second person was just starting out in the field and seemed to lack the ambition that was visible in his opponent. "Who was chosen for the job?" you ask. Well, if the story took place before 1964, the answer would be obvious. However, with the somewhat recent adoption of the social policy known as affirmative action, the answer becomes unclear.    After the United States Congress passed the Civil Rights Act in 1964, it became apparent that certain business traditions, such as seniority status and aptitude tests, prevented total equality in employment. Then President, Lyndon B. Johnson, decided something needed to be done to remedy these flaws. On September 24, 1965, he issued Executive Order #11246 at Howard University that required federal contractors "to take affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed . . . without regard to their race, creed, color, or national origin (Civil Rights)." When Lyndon Banes Johnson signed that order, he enacted one of the most discriminating pieces of legislature since the Jim Crow Laws were passed.    Affirmative action was created in an effort to help minorities leap the discriminative barriers that were ever so present when the bill was first enacted, in 1965. At this time, the country was in the wake of nationwide civil-rights demonstrations, and racial tension was at its peak. Most of the corporate executive and managerial positions were occupied by white males, who controlled the hiring and firing of employees. The U.S. government, in 1965, believed that these employers were discriminating against minorities and believed that there was no better time than the present to bring about change.    When the Civil Rights Law passed, minorities, especially African-Americans, believed that they should receive retribution for the years of discrimination they endured. The government responded by passing laws to aide them in attaining better employment as reprieve for the previous two hundred years of suffering their race endured at the hands of the white man. To many, this made sense.

Health care workforce and health care delivery Essay

How are the health care workforce and health care delivery affected by generational differences? Millions of generations have worked so hard to contribute to some of the challenges within the workforce. Every generation has inner deep values formulated by the era in which they were born and some life experiences. The work ethics, perceptions of others and communication styles are the inner deep values that affect experiences at work. According to research, the workforce transitioned from a two generation workforce (Matures and Boomers) to three generations (Matures, Boomers and Generation X).The mature generation’s characteristics developed from experiences in the Great Depression. Responsibility and quality are key expectations of the Matures, as well as structure and respect. The Boomer generation, a larger part of the workforce who experienced an era of growth and prosperity requires praise and recognition, putting company needs before personal needs, while juggling multiple responsibilities with competence. Some nursing leaders have experienced some challenges in generational diversity as well as differences in perceptions, values, attitudes, work ethics and beliefs. It is important to develop the skills to look at generational differences through different perspective to allow the leaders to extend their leadership qualities and productivity, decrease conflicts and increase the contributions of every staff. It is important to resolve conflicts within the nursing team, otherwise if unresolved it can lead to a loss of productive time, errors, staff turnover, and decreased patient satisfaction. References Swenson.C.Human Resource Solutions. NURSING ECONOMIC$/January-February 2008/Vol. 26/No. 1.Retrieved on June 25, 2014 from https://www.nursingeconomics.net/necfiles/hrsolutions/hrs_JF08.pdfMorrison, J.L. (2007). Ideas to consider when Discuss the shortage of health care staff, aside from doctors and nurses. The health care system has been experiencing a shortage of health care workers for a number of years. This is difficult to understand because a number of people struggle to understand how the organization could suffer from worker shortages in the time of economic recession, when many Americans does not have a job and the unemployment rate is high. This is an explanation that points to the different employees that the healthcare organizations need, for the organization to work in an efficient manner. The health care workers at a professional level who provide direct health services such as doctors, nurses, pharmacists and laboratory technicians or those who offer support services such as financial officers, cooks, drivers and cleaners are integral to the organization. According to a World Health Organization (WHO) report, a shortage in just one part of that complex web of workers can stop other parts from functioning at their best. A perfect example is at the hospital where I work, there has been a few times when there has been no house keeper to cover the floor because they felt sick and had to leave. On few occasions it has created some problems whereby there was no one to do their work, because housekeeping supervisor could not find any one to cover that shift and it became a problem in a number of ways you could imagine. There was no house keeper to throw the trash that was filled up, no one to mop the dirty floors and clean the toilets. All the nurses and the doctors were busy with the patients and it was difficult to find time to start doing the house keeping work. I believe every job is very important whether professional of or unprofessional, we all do different tasks in the health care field to reach one common goal of impressing our consumers or patients. The World Health Organization (WHO) observed that developed countries, such as America are going through a shortage due to an increasing number of baby boomers in the population and increasingly high-tech healthcare. Research shows that the government and university leaders have underinvested in education for health care workers, with not many new health workers to replace their retiring colleagues. Reference: Internet Article-Why Healthcare is Experiencing Work Shortages. Miracle Workers Retrieved on June 25, 2014 from: http://www.careerbuilder.com/Article/CB-1806-Healthcare-Why-Healthcare-is-Experiencing-Work-Shortages

Capital Punishment An Unnecessary Practice - 1630 Words

Capital Punishment: an Unnecessary Practice I. Introduction The debate of whether the capital punishment is morally and politically appropriate has historical origins. The practice of capital punishment in America started when British settlers discovered the new world and created the first American colonies. Despite of the practice of the death penalty being ancient, capitals crimes have changed over time. Throughout the eras, the abolitionist movement against the capital punishment has been present, presenting arguments about the constitutionality and morality flaws of the death penalty. Indeed, in 1972, the Supreme Court abolished the capital punishment due to inconsistency with the Constitution; nevertheless, the Court authorized it again in 1976, demonstrating how confrontational this dilemma has been (Williams). Abolitionists as James Gray, a retired judge of the Orange County Superior Court in Los Angeles, claim the capital punishment is a complicated process not necessary in today’s society since it creates more detriments than benefits. By evaluating the procedures and consequences of the capital punishment in a constitutional and philosophical perspective, this study reveals how capital punishment is an unnecessary technique in criminal justice. Despite murderers deserving to die, the death penalty should be abolished since its practice is neither morally nor politically correct. The arguments against the capital punishment lies on the fundamental significanceShow MoreRelatedThe Death Penalty Of The United States Essay1631 Words   |  7 Pageswith life on death row. Due to the inconsistencies of our federal justice system, one could say that it is better to let one hundred go free than to kill one innocent man. 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