Mother’s Fight with Cancer :: Influential Person Essays

Mother’s Fight with Cancer I am learning, both through observations and first-hand experiences, that there are many mishaps in life which seem to be unexplainable and unfair, and yet have devastating consequences. Disease fits into this category. Its atrocity does not stem from the fact that it is a rare or uncommon occurrence, since illness and disease pervade our lives as we hear numerous stories of sick people and come into contact with them each day. However, there is a marked difference between reading in the newspaper that a famous rock star or sports icon has tested H.I.V. positive and discovering that your own mother has been diagnosed with cancer. Undoubtedly, the most influential people in my life have been my mother and father. It is to them that I credit many of my accomplish-ments and successes-both inside and outside of school. Throughout my childhood, my parents have always fostered and encouraged me in all my endeavors. At all my sporting events, spelling bees, concerts, and countless other activities, they have always been front row and center. My parents, in conjunction with twelve years of Catholic training, have also instilled in me a sound belief in a loving, caring God, which I have come to firmly believe. It therefore should not come as a surprise that the news of my mothers sickness would greatly alter my entire outlook on life. Where was my God? My mother, in fact, had been aware of her condition in the spring of my junior year in high school. She deliberately did not inform my sister or me of her illness because she did not want to distract us from our studies. Instead, my mother waited for the completion of her radiation therapy treatments. At this time, she brought me into her room, sat me down on the same wooden rocking chair from which she used to read me bedtime stories, and began to relate her story. I did not weep, I did not flinch. In fact, I hardly even moved, but from that point onward, I vowed that I would do anything and everything to please my mother and make her proud of me. Every subsequent award won and every honor bestowed upon me has been inspired by the recollection of my mother’s plight. I look to her as a driving force of motivation. In her I see the firm, enduring qualities of courage, strength, hope, and especially love.

Givin a Million Dollars, but Can Not Spend It on Yourself

If I was given a million dollars that could not be spent on myself, my main goal would be to have fun. I am sure there are tons of completely decent charities and organizations that could put a large cash donation to great use, but just giving away all that money to charity sounds completely BORING! I can think of some great ways to spend one million dollars, while having fun and helping people at the same time. This sounds like a great idea to me! The first obstacle I would face is to find a way to have fun, but to not officially spend the money on myself.Then I would need to find a worthwhile candidate who would be willing to share a $250,000 gift with me. I’m hoping this person would take me to Italy and the French Riviera. This has to be why people have friends. I would write a check for two hundred and fifty thousand dollars to Nathaniel Pardon, my best friend! Try to imagine your best friend in the world has just received a $250,000 sum of cash. Vacation time! We would b ounce around Europe, stay in drastically expensive hotels, and see the sites. Another part of our fun in Europe would be to host a street skateboarding competition at the local skate park.The winner would get a $100,000 grand prize, donated by me. The grand prize is enough money to draw all the professional skateboarders into the competiton. I would make some very impressive new friends. At the end of a three day competition a winner would be chosen and paid in cash. No corporate sponsors would be needed. What a lovely thought! All of this would be for the progression of the sport I love. This competition would help many people, skaters and friends alike; but most especially the winner. With $650,000 left, I would return back to the U. S. to my family.There are some serious issues in my family that a lot of money could easily correct. My mother and little sister recently moved to Louisiana due to the recession in Detroit. In order to get my family back together, I would buy my mothe r a nice house in Metro Detroit, close to where my family lives. She’s a shopper, so I would also give her $50,000 for spending money. It seems extravagant, but she has put up with a lot of trouble from me, so it is the least I could do. With a house and tremendous amount of money to handle all financial issues, my mother and sister would be anxious to move back.Even though it might seem that this money is being spent to secure my happiness, it is not. My little sister misses her family in Michigan a great deal. This would be for her, above anyone else. Once my little sister is home again and things are great, all I would wish to do is help other families in the same way. With the remaining money, I would start an organization I would call â€Å"Reconnecting Families in Need† (R. F. I. N. ). An organization of my creation, designed to help reunite family members with their loved ones and do what is necessary to keep them together and secure. I feel this is a much neede d program.After all, what in this world is more important than family? Out of the million dollars, $250,000 would be used to fund Reconnecting Families in Need. A lot of families would be helped. There are still plenty of other places and people I would like to help. In order to keep up my helping spree, I would use the remainder of the one million dollars and invest it in a non-profit investment banking firm. The firm would be run by Wall Street professionals who want to make a difference. Money made through the firm would be used to further the mission of R. F. I. N. and its affiliates.Hopefully, this would allow the R. F. I. N. to last a very long time. My money would then be lending a hand to thousands of families. If I was given a million dollars that could not be spent on myself, I would be forced to learn the value of helping others. Without the option to blow the million dollars on myself, I would focus on doing what I could to aid people in need. I would find personal uses for this money, but as I have learned, I would probably find more happiness in the pleasure of others. There are families out there who need support, and given the opportunity, I would love to be the one to help them.

The Resource Based View In Strategic Resources - Free Essay Example

Sample details Pages: 6 Words: 1691 Downloads: 1 Date added: 2017/06/26 Category Business Essay Type Analytical essay Did you like this example? Resource-based view (RBV) is a tool to determine strategic resources and how it affects the performance of the firm based solely on reviewing its internal environment while the external environment remains fixed. Firms using RBV competes in terms of their resources and capabilities. The aim of this paper is to study the factors that influence firms performance. The RBV emphasizes on the firms resources as the essential elements of competitive advantage and performance. It assumes two assumptions in examining sources of competitive advantage which are that the firms are heterogeneous in terms of the resources they control and that resource heterogeneity can continue over a period as the resources used to implement their strategies are not easily portable across firms (Bridoux, F, n.d).. The RBV method of analyzing firms performance is focused that other vital factors tend to be disregarded. Resources are not valuable of themselves; instead they are valuable beca use they allow firms to perform activities that in return create advantages for them. The competitive value of resources can be enhanced or eliminated by changes in technology, competitor behavior, or buyer needs which an inward focus on resources will overlook (Sheehan, N Foss, N, 2007). Resource uniqueness is essential as this differentiates between the firms. However, resource uniqueness is not sufficient to achieve sustainable competitive advantage and thus the resources must also be valuable, rare, imperfectly imitable and non-substitutable. RBV suggests that business processes that exploit valuable but common resources can only be a source of competitive equality; business processes that exploit valuable and rare resources can be a source of temporary competitive advantage; and business processes that exploit valuable, rare, and costly-to-imitate resources can be a source of sustained competitive advantage (Bridoux, F, n.d). The merits and demerits of RBV as the best strat egy route One of the important contributions of RBV is the ability of it to measure and identify the internal environment of the firm. The importance of using RBV as a strategy route is to be able to work the inside-out approach. This means that companies using RBV focus on their internal strengths more as it is the root of their competitiveness. Furthermore, RBV recommends that effective management of operations can create uniqueness in the firms resources. Louis Vuitton is one firm in a competitive industry which has the edge over their competitors because of their product uniqueness. Louis Vuittons expertises are their design skills and manufacturing efficiency (R. Duane Ireland, Robert E. Hoskisson, Michael A. Hitt, 2008). While they may not be able to control the external environment, Louis Vuitton can use the RBV model and analyze their position and work on their strategies. Many organizations have been faced with dilemmas on how to use their resources strategically. Or ganizations that fail to efficiently convert their resources and capabilities into business processes cannot expect to recognize the potential competitive advantage of these resources. The RBV has little contribution in terms of predicting firm performance because of its nature of being tautological (Truijens, O. (n.d) and its focus is too narrow. Also, as a measure which only focuses on the internal environment, the RBV cannot be taken as the best strategy route. Many firms which focus mainly on the internal environment encounter competitive disadvantages to their business. For example, when IBM, a successful company achieved its success many of their competitors entered into the market. IBMs competitors included other big names such as Hewlett Packard (HP), Dell and Compaq (McNeilly, 2000). IBM did not pay close attention to their competitors because they were focused greatly on their internal strengths and not those of their competitors. Some other firms which have experienced fa ilures from the strategies are Marlborough. Marlborough took the price cut strategy too far as they did not consider their competitors possible moves. The CEO of Marlborough started a price war by reducing their prices to attract consumers and gain more market share. However, their competitors also followed in reducing their prices which resulted in Marlborough facing losses. (McNeillly, 2000). RBV is not the only factor which determines performance of the firm. In industries such as the airline industry, other external factors such as timing and marketing are also essential. Entering into the industry requires good timing and this can be influenced by the economic position and consumer choice of quality and lower price. For example, Southwest airlines which are one of the well-known low cost carriers in the United States used the niche market strategy to maintain competitive advantage from its rivals. They avoided large airports, focused mainly on short flights which are ideal f or families and business people, as well as excluded seating requirement and on flight meals to reduce their cost (Anonymous, 2010). Porter also mentions the common strategy of lowering cost, and product differentiation allows firms to access its strengths. Firms achieve superior positions based on being a cost leader or earning price premiums at the activity level (Anonymous, 2010). In the cost leader method of achieving sustainable competitive advantage, the firm would sell its products either at the average price to earn profits or below the average price to gain market share. The broader market usually adopts cost leadership. Wal-Mart is a cost leader. Their strategy was to form a close relationship with their suppliers which allowed them to reduce cost when purchasing in bulk (Walden University, 2010). Differentiation is another strategy mentioned by Porter. Firms produce products that vary from others and have unique features to compete against their competitors. This uniqu eness of the product also allows firms to charge higher prices for their product. However, there are a few different types of differentiation strategies. The few common ones include differentiation based on additional features, packaging, and design and positioning (Scribd, 2011). Louis Vuitton is an example of a firm that applies differentiation through design and positioning. Exploring processes, capabilities and the ability to appropriate rent and Porters industrial analysis Porters framework discusses the role of firms in formulating appropriate competitive strategy to achieve superior economic performance, and competitive approach. Also, the source of profits is not to be found in the firm but rather in the structure of the industry, especially the nature and balance of its competitive forces (Bridoux, F, n.d). However, the assumption of any relationship between firm performance and rent generation may be inaccurate. The RBV states that performance consists of rent genera tion and rent appropriation and we cannot predict firm performance from rent generation only. One such example is IBM. IBM assembled the strategic capabilities that built most of the modem for the personal computer industry. Yet Intel and Microsoft were ultimately able to appropriate a lot more of the related rent (Russell W. Coff, 1999). The factors that allow resources to generate rents should be valuable, rare, imperfectly imitable and non-substitutable. This issue was addressed by identifying the conditions under which a firms resources become valuable by bringing the external environment into the resource-based view. Through nurturing the internal competencies and applying them to an appropriate external environment, a firm can develop a viable strategy. Thus, for a firms resource to become valuable, it must allow the firm to exploit opportunities or neutralize threats in the firms environment (Russo, M Fouts, P, 1986). Resources as an option or real options refer to resour ces which are bought in present time and are either used or kept to be used in a later period. For example, land can be bought and used right away or it can be kept for use later. Real options create strategic flexibility for firms and when used effectively they can retain or increase in value. These types of resources are very useful in industries that have high competitiveness and use high technology. The pharmaceutical industry is one industry where there is high competitiveness. Firms such as Johnson Johnson, and Pfizer invest hugely in research and development in order to develop large numbers of drugs which can used to treat different illnesses although most of the time these drugs fail. Due to the uncertain nature of the products, these firms have to focus widely (R. Duane Ireland, Robert E. Hoskisson, Michael A. Hitt, 2008). However, firms resources on their own accord do not contribute to competitive advantage. Thus, these resources must be combined to form capabilitie s which in turn develop into core competencies and are used by firms to create value. Capabilities result from combining resources. Honda uses its capabilities in product design, engineering and manufacturing. Moreover, they place a great deal of emphasis on their workforce. Honda encourages their engineers to dream. This allows their employees to discover new things which add to their knowledge. This knowledge in turn will simplify their daily work. Core competencies are the capabilities which the firm pursuits and performs well. Core competencies have a competitive edge when the firms add value and outperform their competitors. The factors of core competencies which lead to a competitive advantage are valuable, rare, imperfectly imitable and non-substitutable (R. Duane Ireland, Robert E. Hoskisson, Michael A. Hitt 2008). Conclusion In conclusion, the RBV cannot be accepted as the best strategy route due its nature of being narrowly scoped and ignorant of the external enviro nment. This measure does not provide accurate information on the firms performance. However, in a stable industry the RBV can be considered as one of the best strategy route. A firms performance should undertake many other factors which include timing, marketing, and advancement of technology, competitor behavior as well as the needs of consumers. I disagree that RBV is the best route as external factors are also very crucial in determining the performance and rent generation of firms as other external factors must also be considered. Porters external environment analysis focuses on the external factors that affect a firms performance. Dynamic industries focus more on the external environment thus preferring to use Porters theory In order for the RBV method to be more effective and efficient; it has to be studied along together with the external environment. That way, firms are aware of their resources and capabilities and can nurture the internal competencies to apply them with app ropriate external environment, which will allow the firm to develop practical approaches. Don’t waste time! 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