For the course project, you will select a country of interest (Rwa.docx
- 1. For the course project, you will select a country of interest (Rwanda) and assess the international business potential of that country and compare its characteristics to the characteristics of the United States. You will write a paper based on your research over the course of next 5 weeks. Include the following sections in the paper: · Executive summary · Macroeconomic condition · Political and cultural environment · Operations, Marketing, and Human Resource considerations · Overall recommendations and risk assessment for making business investments into this country The following organizations gather and publish data relevant to your course project. Use these resources for research. · United Nations · World Bank · International Monetary Fund · European Union · Asian Development Bank · Central Intelligence Agency · Trade Information Center · Japanese External Trade Organization · Lexis-Nexis · Ernst & Young · International Trade Centre · Dow Jones · DIALOG Leading Innovation and Change: Best Practice Case Study Client - a company synonymous with the term innovation. Since its inception, the company founders have instilled a belief in unique product creation, including life altering product innovations such as the light bulb envelope, TV tube, and
- 2. optical waveguides. This concept of innovation has been deemed one of the company's most essential quality programs, bridging functional groups within the organization, renewing itself through continued time and iterations. For the client, innovation not only challenges traditional ways to thinking, but has become a key impetus to drive change. Innovation converts ideas into opportunities. The client began its journey with the realization that the rate of new product development would be insufficient to maintain company profitability in the future. In the late 1970's and early 1980's there was a cycle of small pockets of promising technological advances, defensive moves, and diminishing returns. Previously the company's innovation processes had been defined only within the areas of research, product development, and engineering. The client began by analyzing past innovations and the successes and failures associated with each, and benchmarking their own best practices and lessons learned. The client has defined innovative effectiveness as: requiring an understanding of overall corporate and business strategies; developing organizational roadmaps based on customers, the market, competitors, strengths and weaknesses, and resources; ability to evaluate, prioritize, and select projects; and executing the selected project well. The key elements of innovation intervention are: an innovation task force, composed of key innovators; the utilization of company history as a resource for innovation; a focus on strengths and resources in a project of paramount importance, referred to as "flexible critical mass;" and a two-and-a-half-day innovation conference for 200 company leaders which focuses on reintroducing the innovation process. Through the work conducted by the task force, not only were successes analyzed, but so were areas in which the organization had fallen short over the years. By improving innovation by 10% per year, costs could be cut in half, and doubling that rate would be equivocal to doubling the RD&E spending level. This
- 3. success would come down to the restoration of simple fundamentals: - An environment and culture of energy and enthusiasm - Entrepreneurial behavior at all levels - The right people in the right places - Sound business and technological strategies - Improved processes for nurturing ideas - Organizational mechanisms that could support the organization's drive for results. Critical success factors also emerged from the client’s innovation conference, focusing on: training programs at all levels within the company which would become a part of project reviews and the deployment of employees; rise of internal entrepreneurial behavior; and continued organizational self- examination. As the innovation process continued, the company realized the need to develop links between technology, marketing, and manufacturing. It had become clear that "Innovation... was the glue that bound all functions into a cohesive team of inventors, producers, and innovators." From these successes, a program was launched -- to reengineer key business processes through continuous improvement of best practices. The overarching goal was to get the most from their innovative efforts. Together, the team sought to reengineer the process by which "creates, identifies, evaluates, prioritizes and executes against market opportunities." Additional benefits of cross-functionality during innovative processes have been: - A common language and understanding between teams of people; - A framework to hold together the team in a global sense; - All functions can actively participate in the production of the project from the beginning; - Assistance in outlining deliverables; - Shared ownership of the project; and - An ability to balance between market requirements, manufacturing capabilities, and technological capabilities.
- 4. Continually, the company requires that employees undergo innovation training and follow a thorough set of guidelines and tools geared toward product innovation. As time passes, these training opportunities have been extended to more teams and functional units, continuing the idea of establishing and cementing a common language. This effectiveness on behalf of innovation has yielded large returns for the client; in 1994, total sales of products less than four years old was 30%, by 2001 that number increased to 80%. Through morning meetings, technical tutorials, research reviews, and communities of practice, is creating awareness. "It is about how scientists, engineers, technicians, and commercial managers are sharing knowledge, experience, and perspective on a regular basis. In doing so, they are optimizing, leveraging, reusing this key knowledge, experience and perspective... this translates into new product and process innovation - ideas into dollars." Through this mechanism, the company increases the number of people and disciplines involved, increases sharing between functionalities, and provides necessary tools for reuse. The innovation process is viewed as an iterative process where learning ties together the organization. An example of continued innovation at the company is the fusion process and success of the Eagle2000 program. In the 1960's the client manufactured automobile windshields, a market which did not produce success. In the 1970's they were a producer of sunglass lenses and television tubes. Extending their presence in the display market, they began making flat panel glass for liquid crystal display applications like laptop computers, PDA's, and flat screen televisions. The Eagle2000 program allowed the company to make larger, lighter, thinner, and higher resolution displays for computers and home entertainment systems. Through the innovation process incorporating manufacturing, marketing, and technology, the client has guaranteed that the production process has met all performance requirements. A cross-functional team was established at the program's inception to diminish the existence
- 5. of problems that may arise down the road when manufacturing is not involved in the early stages of development. At the company, technology is never lost. There remains a continuous focus on the "knowledge reuse quotient" and the "learning machine." The company increases the number of perspectives they obtain within the organization, therefore extending the knowledge reuse base. Building a "knowledge (technology) warehouse," or archive, increases reuse by creating an area in which one can research and identify areas of past technology attempts and growth. The type of collaboration taking place ensures interactive collaboration, which will yield greater resource availability, contain costs, assist in company growth and stability, and create larger target populations. The client also utilizes learning coaches who become learning advisors within the organization. These coaches are trained to be innovation project managers, skilled in the areas of adult learning and innovative effectiveness. Coaches join teams of participants and encourage them to share their knowledge, cross boundaries, and become effective collaborators. By being involved with more than one team, the coach acts as a bridge, cross-fertilizing the population of participants with knowledge. The client has learned many lessons through the initiation of this innovation project; they know to: · Start with a strong and visible champion who has a passion for innovation; · Establish a link between the initiative and the company's goals and values; · Form an iterative yet flexible process; · Encourage cross-functionality; · Leverage best practices and lessons learned; and · Know who the customer is and what their requirements are. Today, innovation is a continued focus. This dynamic process which features cross-functional and cross-disciplinary integration has enabled the company to make better, faster decisions. The rigid flexibility allows people and projects to overcome internal and external obstacles and provide increased
- 6. opportunities. The client nurtures its innovation processes and uses them as a means through which to succeed. Leading Innovation and Change: Best Practice Case Study Client - a company synonymous with the term innovation. Since its inception, the company founders have instilled a belief in unique product creation, including life altering product innovations such as the light bulb envelope, TV tube, and optical waveguides. This concept of innovation has been deemed one of the company's most essential quality programs, bridging functional groups within the organization, renewing itself through continued time and iterations. For the client, innovation not only challenges traditional ways to thinking, but has become a key impetus to drive change. Innovation converts ideas into opportunities. The client began its journey with the realization that the rate of new product development would be insufficient to maintain company profitability in the future. In the late 1970's and early 1980's there was a cycle of small pockets of promising technological advances, defensive moves, and diminishing returns. Previously the company's innovation processes had been defined only within the areas of research, product development, and engineering. The client began by analyzing past innovations and the successes and failures associated with each, and benchmarking their own best practices and lessons learned.
- 7. The client has defined innovative effectiveness as: requiring an understanding of overall corporate and business strategies; developing organizational roadmaps based on customers, the market, competitors, strengths and weaknesses, and resources; ability to evaluate, prioritize, and select projects; and executing the selected project well. The key elements of innovation intervention are: an innovation task force, composed of key innovators; the utilization of company history as a resource for innovation; a focus on strengths and resources in a project of paramount importance, referred to as "flexible critical mass;" and a two- and-a-half-day innovation conference for 200 company leaders which focuses on reintroducing the innovation process. Through the work conducted by the task force, not only were successes analyzed, but so were areas in which the organization had fallen short over the years. By improving innovation by 10% per year, costs could be cut in half, and doubling that rate would be equivocal to doubling the RD&E spending level. This success would come down to the restoration of simple fundamentals: - An environment and culture of energy and enthusiasm - Entrepreneurial behavior at all levels - The right people in the right places - Sound business and technological strategies - Improved processes for nurturing ideas - Organizational mechanisms that could support the organization's drive for results. Critical success factors also emerged from the client’s
- 8. innovation conference, focusing on: training programs at all levels within the company which would become a part of project reviews and the deployment of employees; rise of internal entrepreneurial behavior; and continued organizational self-examination. As the innovation process continued, the company realized the need to develop links between technology, marketing, and manufacturing. It had become clear that "Innovation… was the glue that bound all functions into a cohesive team of inventors, producers, and innovators." From these successes, a program was launched -- to reengineer key business processes through continuous improvement of best practices. The overarching goal was to get the most from their innovative efforts. Together, the team sought to reengineer the process by which "creates, identifies, evaluates, prioritizes and executes against market opportunities." Additional benefits of cross-functionality during innovative processes have been: - A common language and understanding between teams of people; - A framework to hold together the team in a global sense; - All functions can actively participate in the production of the project from the beginning; - Assistance in outlining deliverables; - Shared ownership of the project; and - An ability to balance between market requirements,
- 9. manufacturing capabilities, and technological capabilities. Continually, the company requires that employees undergo innovation training and follow a thorough set of guidelines and tools geared toward product innovation. As time passes, these training opportunities have been extended to more teams and functional units, continuing the idea of establishing and cementing a common language. This effectiveness on behalf of innovation has yielded large returns for the client; in 1994, total sales of products less than four years old was 30%, by 2001 that number increased to 80%. Through morning meetings, technical tutorials, research reviews, and communities of practice, is creating awareness. "It is about how scientists, engineers, technicians, and commercial managers are sharing knowledge, experience, and perspective on a regular basis. In doing so, they are optimizing, leveraging, reusing this key knowledge, experience and perspective… this translates into new product and process innovation - ideas into dollars." Through this mechanism, the company increases the number of people and disciplines involved, increases sharing between functionalities, and provides necessary tools for reuse. The innovation process is viewed as an iterative process where learning ties together the organization. An example of continued innovation at the company is the fusion process and success of the Eagle2000 program. In the 1960's the client manufactured automobile windshields, a market which did not produce success. In the 1970's they were a
- 10. producer of sunglass lenses and television tubes. Extending their presence in the display market, they began making flat panel glass for liquid crystal display applications like laptop computers, PDA's, and flat screen televisions. The Eagle2000 program allowed the company to make larger, lighter, thinner, and higher resolution displays for computers and home entertainment systems. Through the innovation process incorporating manufacturing, marketing, and technology, the client has guaranteed that the production process has met all performance requirements. A cross-functional team was established at the program's inception to diminish the existence of problems that may arise down the road when manufacturing is not involved in the early stages of development. At the company, technology is never lost. There remains a continuous focus on the "knowledge reuse quotient" and the "learning machine." The company increases the number of perspectives they obtain within the organization, therefore extending the knowledge reuse base. Building a "knowledge (technology) warehouse," or archive, increases reuse by creating an area in which one can research and identify areas of past technology attempts and growth. The type of collaboration taking place ensures interactive collaboration, which will yield greater resource availability, contain costs, assist in company growth and stability, and create larger target populations. The client also utilizes learning coaches who become learning advisors within the organization.
- 11. These coaches are trained to be innovation project managers, skilled in the areas of adult learning and innovative effectiveness. Coaches join teams of participants and encourage them to share their knowledge, cross boundaries, and become effective collaborators. By being involved with more than one team, the coach acts as a bridge, cross- fertilizing the population of participants with knowledge. The client has learned many lessons through the initiation of this innovation project; they know to: • Start with a strong and visible champion who has a passion for innovation; • Establish a link between the initiative and the company's goals and values; • Form an iterative yet flexible process; • Encourage cross-functionality; • Leverage best practices and lessons learned; and • Know who the customer is and what their requirements are. Today, innovation is a continued focus. This dynamic process which features cross-functional and cross-disciplinary integration has enabled the company to make better, faster decisions. The rigid flexibility allows people and projects to overcome internal and external obstacles and provide increased opportunities. The client nurtures its innovation processes and uses them as a means through which to succeed.
- 12. Running head: COURSE PROJECT TASK 1 1 COURSE PROJECT TASK 1 4 Course Project Task 1 Introduction There are many organizations which strengthen the international business opportunities of different countries of the world. Some of those organizations include the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. These international bodies play a critical role in ensuring that international trade takes place. This paper seeks to analyze the specific role of each of these international bodies. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank play very significant macroeconomic roles (Woods, 2006). They ensure that there is worldwide monetary cooperation. They aid international business by facilitating international trade. It also ensures that different countries of the world are financially stable. These international organizations ensure that there is sustainable economic growth, poverty reduction, monitoring the rate of inflation, a reduction in the rate of unemployment. The United Nations (UN) is an international body made up of 193 member states. It ensures that there is political stability in different parts of the world (Richmond, 2004). When there is political instability, there would be no suitable environment for businesses to thrive. The international business potential of such a country would be low. The UN restores peace in war tone countries so as to ensure that normal activities are restored in such countries.
- 13. The country selected for the course project is Rwanda in the Africa continent. The country is selected because according to the reports published in the World Bank, IMF and UN websites, the country has great international business potential. There is also political stability in the country. The country has well developed human resources. The country also boasts of smooth business and marketing operations. All these considerations justify the reason why the country is selected for the course project. The two back-up countries which have similar characteristics to that of Rwanda include India and Japan. These countries have good recommendations when risk is assessed for the potential of business investments to thrive. Conclusion There are various factors that determine whether a country is a suitable destination for business and investment opportunities. As indicated above, there are various international bodies which ensure that countries are suitable for different investment opportunities. When all underlying factors are okay, then a country’s ratings in terms of potential for international business becomes high. Reference Richmond, O. P. (2004). UN peace operations and the dilemmas of the peace building consensus International Peacekeeping, 11(1), 83-101 Woods, N. (2006). The globalizers: the IMF, the World Bank, and their borrowers. Cornell University Press 1 How It Feels to Be Colored Me Zora Neale Hurston
- 14. I am colored but I offer nothing in the way of extenuating circumstances except the fact that I am the only Negro in the United States whose grandfather on the mother's side was not an Indian chief. I remember the very day that I became colored. Up to my thirteenth year I lived in the little Negro town of Eatonville, Florida. It is exclusively a colored town. The only white people I knew passed through the town going to or coming from Orlando. The native whites rode dusty horses, the Northern tourists chugged down the sandy village road in automobiles. The town knew the Southerners and never stopped cane chewing when they passed. But the Northerners were something else again. They were peered at cautiously from behind curtains by the timid. The more venturesome would come out on the porch to watch them go past and got just as much pleasure out of the tourists as the tourists got out of the village. The front porch might seem a daring place for the rest of the town, but it was a gallery seat to me. My favorite place was atop the gate-post. Proscenium box for a born first- nighter. Not only did I enjoy the show, but I didn't mind the actors knowing that I liked it. I usually spoke to them in passing. I'd wave at them and when they returned my salute, I would say something like this: "Howdy-do-well-I-thank-you- where-you-goin'?" Usually the automobile or the horse paused at this, and after a queer
- 15. exchange of compliments, I would probably "go a piece of the way" with them, as we say in farthest Florida. If one of my family happened to come to the front in time to see me, of course negotiations would be rudely broken off. But even so, it is clear that I was the first "welcome-to-our-state" Floridian, and I hope the Miami Chamber of Commerce will please take notice. During this period, white people differed from colored to me only in that they rode through town and never lived there. They liked to hear me "speak pieces" and sing and wanted to see me dance the parse-me-la, and gave me generously of their small silver for doing these things, which seemed strange to me for I wanted to do them so much that I needed bribing to stop. Only they didn't know it. The colored people gave no dimes. They deplored any joyful tendencies in me, but I was their Zora nevertheless. I belonged to them, to the nearby hotels, to the county-- everybody's Zora. But changes came in the family when I was thirteen, and I was sent to school in Jacksonville. I left Eatonville, the town of the oleanders, as Zora. When I disembarked from the river-boat at Jacksonville, she was no more. It seemed that I had suffered a sea change. I was not Zora of Orange County any more, I was now a little colored girl. I found it out in certain ways. In my heart as well as in the mirror, I became a fast brown-- warranted not to rub nor run.
- 16. But I am not tragically colored. There is no great sorrow dammed up in my soul, nor lurking behind my eyes. I do not mind at all. I do not belong to the sobbing school of 2 Negrohood who hold that nature somehow has given them a lowdown dirty deal and whose feelings are all hurt about it. Even in the helter-skelter skirmish that is my life, I have seen that the world is to the strong regardless of a little pigmentation more or less. No, I do not weep at the world--I am too busy sharpening my oyster knife. Someone is always at my elbow reminding me that I am the granddaughter of slaves. It fails to register depression with me. Slavery is sixty years in the past. The operation was successful and the patient is doing well, thank you. The terrible struggle that made me an American out of a potential slave said "On the line!" The Reconstruction said "Get set!"; and the generation before said "Go!" I am off to a flying start and I must not halt in the stretch to look behind and weep. Slavery is the price I paid for civilization, and the choice was not with me. It is a bully adventure and worth all that I have paid through my ancestors for it. No one on earth ever had a greater chance for glory. The world to be won and nothing to be lost. It is thrilling to think--to know that for any act of mine, I shall get
- 17. twice as much praise or twice as much blame. It is quite exciting to hold the center of the national stage, with the spectators not knowing whether to laugh or to weep. The position of my white neighbor is much more difficult. No brown specter pulls up a chair beside me when I sit down to eat. No dark ghost thrusts its leg against mine in bed. The game of keeping what one has is never so exciting as the game of getting. I do not always feel colored. Even now I often achieve the unconscious Zora of Eatonville before the Hegira 1. I feel most colored when I am thrown against a sharp white background. For instance at Barnard.2 "Beside the waters of the Hudson" I feel my race. Among the thousand white persons, I am a dark rock surged upon, overswept by a creamy sea. I am surged upon and overswept, but through it all, I remain myself. When covered by the waters, I am; and the ebb but reveals me again. Sometimes it is the other way around. A white person is set down in our midst, but the contrast is just as sharp for me. For instance, when I sit in the drafty basement that is The New World Cabaret with a white person, my color comes. We enter chatting about any little nothing that we have in common and are seated by the jazz waiters. In the abrupt way that jazz orchestras have, this one plunges into a number. It loses no time in
- 18. circumlocutions, but gets right down to business. It constricts the thorax and splits the heart with its tempo and narcotic harmonies. This orchestra grows rambunctious, rears on its hind legs and attacks the tonal veil with primitive fury, rending it, clawing it until it breaks through the jungle beyond. I follow those heathen-- follow them exultingly. I 1 Exodus or pilgrimage: Hurston refers here to the migration of millions of African Americans from the South to the North in the early 20th century. (All notes from Norton Field Guide to Writing with Readings unless otherwise cited) 2 Barnard: Barnard College in New York City, where Hurston received her BA in 1927. 3 dance wildly inside myself; I yell within, I whoop; I shake my assegai3 above my head, I hurl it true to the mark yeeeooww! I am in the jungle and living in the jungle way. My face is painted red and yellow and my body is painted blue. My pulse is throbbing like a war drum. I want to slaughter something--give pain, give death to what, I do not know. But the piece ends. The men of the orchestra wipe their lips and rest their fingers. I creep back slowly to the veneer we call civilization with the last tone and find the white friend sitting motionless in his seat, smoking calmly.
- 19. "Good music they have here," he remarks, drumming the table with his fingertips. Music! The great blobs of purple and red emotion have not touched him. He has only heard what I felt. He is far away and I see him but dimly across the ocean and the continent that have fallen between us. He is so pale with his whiteness then and I am so colored. At certain times I have no race, I am me. When I set my hat at a certain angle and saunter down Seventh Avenue, Harlem City, feeling as snooty as the lions in front of the Forty- Second Street Library, for instance. So far as my feelings are concerned, Peggy Hopkins Joyce4 on the Boule Mich with her gorgeous raiment, stately carriage, knees knocking together in a most aristocratic manner, has nothing on me. The cosmic Zora emerges. I belong to no race nor time. I am the eternal feminine with its string of beads. I have no separate feeling about being an American citizen and colored. It merely astonishes me. How can any deny themselves the pleasure of my company! It's beyond me. But in the main, I feel like a brown bag of miscellany propped against a wall. Against a wall in company with other bags, white, red and yellow. Pour out the contents, and there is discovered a jumble of small things priceless and worthless.
- 20. A first-water diamond5, an empty spool, bits of broken glass, lengths of string, a key to a door long since crumbled away, a rusty knifeblade, old shoes saved for a road that never was and never will be, a nail bent under the weight of things too heavy for any nail, a dried flower or two, still a little fragrant. In your hand is the brown bag. On the ground before you is the jumble it held--so much like the jumble in the bags, could they be emptied, that all might be dumped in a single heap and the bags refilled without altering the content of any greatly. A bit of colored glass more or less would not matter. Perhaps that is how the Great Stuffer of Bags filled them in the first place--who knows? 3 Assegai: a weapon for throwing or hurling, usually a light spear or javelin made of wood and pointed with iron. (Wikipedia) 4 American actress and celebrity (1893-1957). Boule Mich: Boulevard St. Michel, a street on the left bank of Paris. 5 A diamond of the highest quality (Answers.com)