Kant Essays - Social Philosophy, Kantianism, Deontological Ethics

Kant Kant starts off making two distinctions regarding kinds of knowledge, empirical/rational and formal/material. Empirical or experience-based knowledge is compared with rational knowledge, which is independent of experience. This distinction between empirical and rational knowledge rests on a difference in sources of evidence used to support the two different kinds of knowledge. Formal is compared with material knowledge. Formal knowledge has no specific subject matter; it is about the general format of thinking about any subject matter whatsoever. Material knowledge is of a specific subject matter, either nature or freedom. Rational knowledge is metaphysics, of which there are two branches, the metaphysics of nature and of morals. The metaphysics of nature is supposed to provide rational knowledge of the laws of nature. These are not empirical laws; they are more like universal principles of nature that any empirical physical would presuppose, such as that no event in nature occurs without a natural cause. The metaphysics of freedom is supposed to provide knowledge of the laws of freedom. These are the universal rules, which free agents form to govern them. Therefore, Kant's grounding, his initial attempt at a critique of rational reason, is an investigation of the possibility of purely rational knowledge of morals. Take, for example, the Moral Rule: Thou shall not lie. If the moral law is valid as the basis of moral obligation or duty, then it must be necessary. Kant using the word necessity means that the rule obligates or binds whatever the conditions or in all circumstances. It also means that the rule applies to all rational beings and not only to human beings. In this second sense we can say that the rule is universally binding. So in fact, moral rules are universal and necessary. If a moral rule is to be universal and necessary, the moral law must be derived from concepts of pure reason alone. Therefore, if a moral rule or law can only be derived from reason alone, there must be a pure moral philosophy whose task is to provide such a derivation. According to Kant good will and only a good will is intrinsically good. Kant distinguishes two different types of intrinsic or extrinsic goods. If a thing is only extrinsically good, then it is possible for that thing not to be good, or to be bad or evil. Intrinsic goodness is goodness in itself; if a thing is intrinsically good, its goodness is essential to it; and its goodness is not a function of factors other than itself. Kant holds that only a good will, not happiness, is intrinsically good. The idea that it is reason rather than natural impulse that guides action for the sake of happiness is false. Parts of a person perform their functions by surviving and this provides happiness for the person. Reason functions poorly in serving that purpose; instinct does better job. Natural instinct rather than reason provides better for happiness. Kant distinguishes between having a reason to act and acting for a reason. The motivating reason is the reason for which agent acts. A justifying reason is the reason that justifies, warrants, and provides the criterion of rightness for the action. The agent's motivating reason might or might not provide a justifying reason for his action. Kant then defines three types of motivating reasons. One type of non-moral motivation is natural motivation. Action in accord with duty is motivated by immediate or direct inclination. Direct inclination includes such motives as love, sympathy, instinct for self-preservation, or the desire for happiness. The other type of non-moral motivation is prudence. An action in agreement with duty, but motivated by prudence, is action motivated by the pursuit of self-interest or happiness. Since all human beings naturally desire happiness, prudential motivation is indirectly motivated by a natural motivation. Moral motivation is the third type of motivation. The action is not only in agreement with duty, but motivated by duty, done from duty, or for sake of duty. The agent's motivating reason, the reason for which he acts, is that the action is what morality demands and he wants above all to do what reason demands.

Amiable vs. Amicable

Amiable vs. Amicable Amiable vs. Amicable Amiable vs. Amicable By Mark Nichol What’s the difference between amiable and amicable? Their etymology is identical, but their senses are distinct. Amiable means â€Å"agreeable,† â€Å"friendly,† suggesting a person or an experience marked by a congenial personality or atmosphere: â€Å"He seems like the amiable sort†; â€Å"They were engaged in an amiable conversation.† The word ultimately derives from amicus, the Latin word for â€Å"friend,† which is related to amare, meaning â€Å"love.† (The latter term is the basis of amatory and amorous, both of which refer to sexual feelings.) Amicus itself was borrowed into English as a legal term; it is part of the phrase â€Å"amicus curiae† (sometimes shortened simply to amicus), which translates literally to â€Å"friend of the court† and refers to an individual or an organization that files an amicus brief or otherwise requests of a court the opportunity to weigh in about a legal issue. Amicus also survives in the Spanish word amigo, which means â€Å"friend† and is sometimes used as such in American English. Amicable means â€Å"peaceable, marked by goodwill, as in â€Å"We were relieved when we came to an amicable understanding about the issue.† Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the General category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:Bare or Bear With Me?How to Punctuate Descriptions of Colors30 Words Invented by Shakespeare

Ethical Dilema Case 2 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Ethical Dilema Case 2 - Essay Example Hence, a decision that his activities be reported to the police officials was taken. It was justified as the police would be in a better position to investigate his motives. The ethical duty has been done as the potential threat to other people’s lives has been reported. Having stated all this, it is, however, important to state that the Middle Eastern descent was only a potential threat and this fact does not make him an offender or a terrorist. He might have had differing views but it might be possible that despite having such views, he might not be dangerous at all. After all, everyone is entitled to his or her opinion. Hence the person should investigate what had happened to the Middle Eastern man and his belongings. Have the police taken him into custody? Is he being tortured just for having such views? Or has he been deported? What happened to his belongings in his apartment? The answer to these questions must be sought to ensure that an innocent person is not being punished or tortured for what he has not even thought of doing, let alone committing the offense. The first decision can be supported by the moral rule that one must carry out his or her responsibilities. These responsibilities may include reporting a theft, a murder or reporting to the concerned authorities even if a suspicious activity is seen to be taking place. The man rightfully informed the police officials so that he and his neighbors can avoid any impending danger. In doing so, he had not only made himself secure but also others around him and had also helped the concerned authorities in maintaining law and order situation by taking the appropriate decision at the right time. The second decision is that the person should further investigate the whereabouts of the Middle Eastern man. This decision is based on the moral rule that no innocent should ever be

Enron and Ethics Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Enron and Ethics - Essay Example Arthur Anderson was recognized by the industry as one of the most prestigious accounting firms in the world. Even though the accounting scam Enron was running was a bit complex, a top accounting firm such as Arthur Anderson should have been able to recognize the accounting irregularities. The accounting firm turned a blind eye and they let the accounting scam continue for years. The Securities and Exchange Commission also did not do a good job of recognizing the scam in time. The SEC failed to perform its job of protecting the investors since they had at their disposal every annual report of the company with its financial statements and they fail to notice the scam the firm was running. The ethical meltdown the firm endured occurred because the executive managerial staff of the company was greedy and extremely unethical. They envision the company as the market leader in its industry when in reality the company had a business model that was completely flawed. At the end of the debacle when things were going down and the scam was revealed the top executives sold their shares fast before they completely lost all their value. The scam was such a secret that even president George Bush was a big backer of the company (Lashinsky, 2001). 2.

Anwar Sadat Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Anwar Sadat - Assignment Example   During his 11-year reign, he was responsible for the transformation of Egypt from the once retrogressive state to the now progressive state.   His achievements are well documented.Upon ascending to power, Sadat embarked on a corrective initiative that was meant to amend the supposed damage done by his predecessor.   The arrest of the secret police generals and the subsequent diluting of the secret police powers caused shock waves in Egypt. The expulsion of the Soviet Union military from Egypt and the transformation of the Egyptian military brought confidence amongst Egyptians on his determination to address the unchecked misuse of the military powers in the country (International Relations, 2015).In 1973, President Sadat led Egypt into the Yom Kippur War that helped in reclaiming Egypt’s land. During the Six Day War that his predecessor Nasser took part, the country was overwhelmed by the Israeli military that resulted in the country losing some of its lands. As presid ent, Sadat made the recapturing of Egypt’s land lost during the war his priority. As a result, Sinai Peninsula, which was captured by the Israeli army during the war, was returned to Egypt.   Later on, he engaged in finding a peaceful resolution between Egypt and Israel; an act that earned him a Nobel Prize Award. Even though the supposed treaty elicited negative reactions and resistance from the Arab world, it was successfully signed on 26th March 1979 in Washington D.C(Rubin, 2014).

Looking At Presales Bid Management Information Technology Essay

Looking At Presales Bid Management Information Technology Essay This topic s not a primary focus of this book but this is included here for greater awareness. The chapter has a major real-time case study at the end. This chapter takes you through the preliminary concepts and then introduces the third party consultants and their role in large deals. Role of onsite relationship managers is also discussed here. What Is Presales Bid Management? Presales involves lead generation follow-ups, solution preparation, final proposals, product demonstrations, proof of concepts (POC), and many other marketing related activities till the customer is acquired. Bid Management is a vital Presales support service that provides copywriting, administrative and technical resources to ensure the quality of proposal documentation and presentations. A bid managers role is to present a proposal to client that meets their business and cost objectives, while minimizing business risks and maximizing profit margins (to her parent organization). Bid manager is the owner of proposal making process. She studies the request for proposal (RFP docs) from the client, which can be very comprehensive and legal in nature. She plans the whole proposal making like any other project and is solely responsible for keeping quality, costs and schedule for the whole bidding process. She needs to work very closely with sales, technical, delivery and commercial teams to co-ordinate the preparation of a winning proposal. The sales, delivery and technical teams can belong to different verticals and might be scattered across the globe, so the effective coordination and inter personal skills are the key here. A bid manager may not have any direct control over any of the teams, she is working with. For participating executives from different verticals, proposal making may be an extra add to their already tight day-to-day schedules, so getting quality time from them can be one of the biggest challenge in the process. The term winning proposal is very important here; because if we dont win, the whole exercise will be just a big overhead to the organization and how many such overheads your organization can absorb without significantly affecting the bottom line? Following are the main functions that can be categorized under presales and bid management. Qualification and prioritization of proposal and tenders. Co-ordination with sales, solutions, delivery and finance departments To ensure the availability of complete and quality information from each source within set timelines. Proposal documentation. Final presentations to the client with sales team that may involve technical consulting and product demonstrations. Who Fits? A good fit here would be a person who knows the company and its offerings inside out. Good communication, co-ordination, presentation, and interpersonal skills are usually required. It will help if the person for the bid manager post has work in similar projects/ products (as required by RFP) and can appreciate their commercial as well as technology aspects. She will be required to do a lot of number crunchings say for schedule, cost and scope and quick what-if computations to deal with variations in these factors. A thorough understanding of industry segment in which she is working will be a big plus. Not to forget stress and round the clock working under extreme pressures of dead lines is an integral part of this job. The Organization For Presales And Bid Management This will vary from company to company. In IT services companies there may be a few people marked working for presales function at each vertical/ department level. Typically it is headed by a manager presales. For large deals there can be a presales group working at corporate level that helps presales managers at different verticals. The corporate level presales group might involve very senior and seasoned professionals as far as the whole process of bid management is concerned. Whenever the organization receives a RFP (Request for Proposal), pre sales group may need to draw people from different verticals as per the expertise required in making proposal. Technical writers, commercial and legal managers are invariably required in case of large deals. There can be a bid manager designated for every individual RFP depending upon the size of the deal. In case of smaller deals, a single bid manager might takeover multiple bids. A bid manager is like a project manager with a responsibility of complete bid process. The bid manager typically belongs to the presales organization but there can be variations; if the stakes in proposal from a particular vertical are more, they may like to appoint the bid manager in consultation with pre sales. Once the bidding process is complete, expert from other verticals may go back to their regular assignments. Role Of Third Party Consultants In Execution Of Bids Companies typically specialize in their line of business; floating a tender and managing the whole process may altogether be a different ballgame. Its true especially when the stakes on the buyer side are high and tenders floated globally. The buyers side may find it an uphill task to manage the whole bidding process and fortunately consultants are there to help. In the whole process of bid management, consultants can be employed by both buyers as well as sellers. On buyers side they help in writing documents for RFP (Request for Proposal) and manage the whole bid process till the right vendor is selected. RFP document is important as it tells exactly what goods and services are required along with location, price, constraints and other terms and conditions. Its a legal document and forms the base for writing proposal on the suppliers side. Similarly on buyers side, third part consults help in evaluating the proposal. Typically they can take the role of a bid manager on the suppliers side and do coordination with verticals as required, and manage the whole bidding process. When third party consultants are engaged by the buying organization, they are the sole contact points for vendors for the whole bid-life-cycle. For buyers, they ensure quality of RFP and supporting documents, the right placement of the RFP (putting to select qualified vendors), the assessment of vendor capabilities and fit, the the documentation is as per agreed standards and finally help the buyers to rate the vendor proposals to conclude the bidding process. They may also monitor the transition and change management for buyer and typically oversee steady stare operations for an agreed period. Role Of Onsite/ Customer Relationship Managers (RM) Its often onsite relationship managers, who are first to know yes! Some thing right is going on there. They may bring in the lead; much before the official tender is floated. They help to ensure, their company is also a party to the bidding process. In many strategic deals the tender may not be floated publicly but the buyers place it to select companies, who they believe, have the capabilities to deliver as per their requirements. Onsite coordinators can bring in vital information about buyer groups, managers and their motivation behind floating such a tender. Some time approximate budget is also known. All this information can be vital in upbringing of a winning proposal, in fine-tuning the commercials and other details in last minutes if required. Post win onsite managers play a lead role in transition and ensure required levels of co-operation from clients end. Its the familiarity of onsite coordinators with client managers and their business (and also on what will fly) that ma kes them a crucial link in the whole process. Section B: Sales marketing of IT Companies Definitions Many of us do not appreciate the fact that sales are an important sub-part of marketing. Marketing is everything you do to promote your business. If you have an apt marketing strategy, most of the job is done. If the customer values your product services, she will herself make an effort to buy them. And you need little or no sales effort at all. The primary job of marketing is to create interest of the customer in your companys products and services. Marketing strategies deal with business development, selling techniques, communication and customer relationships. Marketing creates value for your customers as well as the company. With this, I think we understand the difference between sales marketing. Now; when we talk of IT we are generally concerned with marketing selling our solutions. For the purpose of this discussion; a solution is a mutually agreed-upon answer to a recognized problem that should provide some measurable improvement. So whats different here? We have two processes in any business scenario purchase and sale. The solution sales processes depends more on the buyer, who must feel the need for value from the organization, beyond its standard product or services being sold. The buyer must also perceive the prospective seller as having the credibility to deliver that expertise. At the same time the buyer must feel trust in supplier to discuss a problem share information that may be crucial for his survival. After that only a supplier may be allowed to do due-diligence and offer a solution and associated commercials (to the buyer). So we can make out the difference between a buyer in two situations solutions selling and selling standard products services. Fair enough! Critical Success Factors In Solutions Selling Already so much has been written on this topic in the management literature. We will discuss only a few of key points for the sake of completeness. Believing the emotional value and benefits of solution offerings: It is important to get an emotional understanding of your service offerings along with technical and business aspects. You need integrity and a strong belief in your offerings. For making a sale you should be able to transfer all this into the hands of buyer. Ability to find qualified buyers: Meaningful selling happens when you can find people who have a certain need and you can fill that need. Establish trust: Selling always requires building relationships and determining the buyers true needs. If trust cant be established; selling a solution might be extremely difficult. Match needs/wants to product benefits: It is critical to understand the buyers true needs and be able to match them with the solutions benefits. Ability to ask for the sale and deliver: Simply presenting the benefits of solution isnt enough. You must be able to ask the prospect to take an action in the form of placing an order. Once the order is placed you must be able to deliver on what you proposed. This is directly linked with your credibility to make next sale to the same customer or in the greater market place. How Technical Background Helps? It is very difficult to find people who are well-versed in selling solutions. Companies are investing a lot many $ in training qualified people with relevant technical backgrounds so that they are able to find the right solution for the customers. An effective solutions sales executive should be capable of processing a potential clients business needs, comprehend the technologies available and help designing a solution that delivers desired value to the customer and maximize the profits for her company. Most successful solution sales profiles have good engineering and business backgrounds. They have the right soft-skills, and thorough understanding of market. The key soft-skills that count here are business communication, public speaking, conflict management, and negotiation. Challenges Faced By A Customer Relationship Manager (RM) One of the most important skills RM needs is the ability to multitask and utilize various skill sets depending on the assignment at hand. Each day can bring its own set of unique responsibilities and challenges. For example it is anchoring a series of client meetings to discuss a large proposal for outsourcing their infrastructure ERP maintenance. It can well be a networking event to congregate the important stake holders, both from business and IT for a big project. Managing several different tasks at the same time might be challenging. The variety of responsibilities a RM has, to keep the business and relationship running can be very interesting at times. Back in office, there can be reviews of ongoing projects in onsite- offshore model with a couple of meetings per week. There can be one-on-one meetings with the client and other stake holders. Other meetings can be with the offshore teams late in the evening. Effective presentation and negotiation skills are very important for a RM. It can be periodic presentations to clients CIO on overall engagement or it can be presentation regarding resolution to a major break down in IT services. At times RM is there only to listen and make a compromise or mediate difference of opinion on project scope between project owner and the offshore project manager. One major task for RM is Bids and new initiatives as we have discussed in earlier sections. RM is one of the very few persons present on client side (from vendor) so she is the one who takes the first reaction from the client for both good and bad of offshore teams. She needs to be a true diplomat if you want to say it short! RM vs. BRM We are very much familiar with the role of customer relationship managers (RM) in solutions selling. The role of Business Relationship Manager (BRM) is a relatively new role in IT organizations. The BRM is an important link between IT and the business. The BRM needs to have significant knowledge pertaining to both technology and the commercials. BRM generally talks for the business within an IT organization, without any additional responsibilities to sell products or work on upcoming business deals. BRM role was actually created by CIOs in IT as a solution to what business sees IT as a barrier. Many times business doesnt understand how swiftly IT organization can respond to their fast changing needs or simply doesnt appreciate the capabilities of IT? BRM is supposed to fill this communication gap. BRM needs to know both business and technology to a reasonable level. This position also requires an ability to understand the business adequately to communicate the substance of projects t o the technology teams. On the other hand, BRM also needs to comprehend the technology sufficiently to communicate its complexity in simple terms for the business. Case Study: A Complete Bidding Cycle for a Multimillion $ IT Outsourcing Deal Y Inc. is a US based IT outsourcing company dealing in Information Technology products and services. It has marketing and development offices in more than 50 countries all over the world with sales revenue running in multi billion dollars from services alone. The services IT portfolio covers almost every segment ranging from high end ERP consulting, internet, mainframes to legacy applications. Y Inc. has development centers in all Indian metros with total staff exceeding 40,000 in India alone. ERP services and Web Applications are the most revenue earning activities throughout the globe. Y Inc. had received a request for proposal (RFP) from a European conglomerate (AtoV inc.) for managing their IT operations worldwide. They wanted to outsource their entire IT operations in order to achieve better operational efficiencies, substantially , reduce IT operations costs and get an ability to focus more on their core manufacturing and retail business. AtoV Inc. has diverse interests throughout the world that include heavy engineering, consumer goods, house hold electronic equipment, electric distribution grids, automobiles and retail businesses. They also have a fully owned IT company (IT Ltd.) that is supposed to manage IT operations for all their group companies. The group IT Company (IT Ltd.) is seriously short of skilled manpower to support other group companies in a cost effective manner. Also there is a lot of interference in the operations of IT Ltd. itself by the corporate (AtoV Inc.) and its not free to price its services as per market standards. Many a times IT Lt d. is forced to give resources free of cost or at nominal rates to other companies in the conglomerate to manage their IT operations. Appointments at top level in IT Inc. are also dictated by the corporate (AtoV Inc.); and there are many more such reasons, this group IT arm (IT Ltd.) is fast becoming economically not-so-viable for providing IT services to the group. The corporate was forced to look outside for better options (vendors) that are market driven and can be held responsible incase of non performance. This was the first occasion in past several decades where AtoV Inc. had floated a RFP outside to its group empire for outsourcing IT operations. They were extra cautious and are taking every possible effort to make it a success. The RFP was not advertized publicly but only a few major players across the globe were invited to put forward their proposals. AtoV Inc. thought these were the IT services companies who could sale up to their standards in terms of quantity, quality and reliability. Total nine global IT service providers were invited to participate in this prestigious worldwide bidding exercise. Each one of the participants had annual sales revenues well exceeding $ one billion. All were global players. They all had expertise build up over the years in the areas desired by AtoV Inc. These nine service providers were selected based upon a comprehensive research project undertaken as a part of preparing formal RFP documents. The selection of final vendor would depend upon how well these service providers understand the requirements of AtoV and present a customized solution. Pricing and other commercials of the proposal were to play an important role. However the contract could be awarded to a vendor who se quality and solution perfectly suited the needs of AtoV. In that case the pricing could be second or even third best (amongst all the bids submitted). We see therefore, the pricing was not the sole criteria. The total pricing of goods and services asked by AtoV Inc. was likely to run into several hundred million $, spread over the contract period. Depending on the annual performance reviews, the contract was likely to be extended up to 5 years. As expected, this bidding exercise attracted the attention of business press, the worldwide. In India it was in headlines in national business news papers, as much of the contract was likely to be executed from India (that is perceived a low cost region). Almost all the contestants for this contract had major back office presence in India. Executives of AtoV had no prior experience in dealing with the bidding processes of this magnitude and geographical spread. So they engaged a third party consultant (TP Con.), specializing in bid management for large deals, to manage the selection of most suitable vendor for them. TP Cons were given complete responsibility from concept to closure. The selection of a suitable vendor was the closing point of the bidding process. TP Cons were also supposed to monitor the transition and work out a plan for change management. Both AtoV Inc. and TP Cons were headquartered in California. TP Cons started talks to various department heads and CXOs of companies within AtoV group that were likely to be parties in this off shoring exercise. It required almost a months due diligence for TP Cons to figure out the IT needs of various participant companies. It was decided to contract out IT operations in phases. For the first phase Infrastructure Services (IMS) and ERP were chosen. These services ba dly needed an overhaul and they were the ones, consuming the maximum portion of IT budget; almost in all the cases (Companies). After everyone agreed in concept for inviting proposals in order to contract ERP and IMS services, the first step was to write a request for proposal (RFP) document. RFP is a comprehensive document that mainly focuses on the scope of goods and services requirements and conditions governing the bidding process and the contract there after. As stated earlier this was to be a multimillion $ contract spanning over 5 years. The RFP document itself was running close to hundred pages including many annexure. The main document had many sections. The first section included company back ground (AtoV Inc.) and the intentions behind floating the RFP. Various acronyms used in the main RFP document and its annexure were defined. It had contact points for the purpose of proposal from AtoV side. It also had proposal submission timelines and terms and conditions governing the whole process of proposal making. It also had the general requirements that a vendor and its proposal needs to fulfill as a prequalification note. It had executive summary of the overall scope being outsourced. And as main content it had two sections on the detailed scope of goods and servi ces sought from prospective vendors. One section contained detailed description on ERP services and the other one detailed infrastructure service (IMS) outsourcing requirements. It had a NDA (non disclosure agreement) to be signed by prospective vendor as AtoV was sharing a lot of confidential information regarding their applications and infrastructure. All this information was vital to the prospects for an accurate proposal making. The RFP also had a template (an outline format) for proposal and broad guidelines on what proposal would contain terms of solution and commercials. Apart from the said details in the main body of RFP; there was a number of supporting annexure documents in including some detailed spread sheets. They included NDAs, formats for commercials, legal terms and conditions governing proposal, application landscape and their interface details with multiple ERPs in the scope of proposal, details of servers and diagrams of network architecture and many other details to work out the solution and commercials of the proposal as accurately as possible. After issuing RFP, the suppliers were given a chance to raise their questions regarding proposal and bid processes. The proposal was to be submitted by email before a stated due date (fixed) and time that was to be followed very strictly. After two weeks of making proposal, each one of the 9 prospects was to be given a chance of oral presentations to a selection committee comprising of senior executives from AtoV and TP Cons. The period between floating of RFP and final award of contract was approximately 2 months that is typical to deals of this magnitude. After the contract award date, there was a transition period of 3 months to transfer application and Infrastructure services to the bid winner, Y Inc. in our case. TP Cons were to chalk out and execute a plan for transition and change management. During transition all expenses were 50-50 between Y inc. and AtoV. Expenses included salaries for Y Inc. and AtoV, all overheads, software/ hardware and whatever it takes for smooth trans ition of services to Y Inc. The transition was to work under an onsite/offshore model from India as offshore base. Main onsite locations were spread in North America, UK, Germany, Japan, Singapore and Australia. After all transition is done TP Cons were to monitor the steady state operations for an additional quarter. Once Y Inc. officially received the RFP; a RFP response team was to be formed. First member, the bid manager was from presales team as it happens in many cases. He was the project manager for this mega proposal making exercise. The team members were required from infrastructure group and ERP competency. Almost all the elements of IT infrastructure like mobile devices, phones, copiers, PCs, servers, data centres, software, networks and the processes including help desk were involved and IMS was the biggest component of RFP. Three to four senior experts were needed to cover all the areas of IMS required in the proposal. As usual the resources were already busy doing other billable projects. Making a proposal was important to organization but it cant be billed to any client obviously. So taking a project manager out from his billable role for a couple of month was a difficult call for any functional head. For ERP stream we required experts from SAP, Oracle Apps and People Soft HRMS syst ems both technical and domain experts. Though the size in terms of $ value of ERP stream was smaller but we needed many more members there because of diverse nature of functionalities involved and we had 3 core ERPs to support. In ERP stream also the story was the same all designated members for proposal making were busy in billable roles. To start with, the members in both the streams were put in dual roles of working in their regular work and contributing in proposal making s well. All the team members including bid manager were busy in study and analyzing the RFP documents from the client. Legal and finance teams also studied the proposals. Around 35 questions from all the streams were sent to the client for clarifications. Sending too many questions is considered as if you have not done your home work in analyzing information supplied in RFP and at the same time sending too few (of them) may be taken as if you have not studied the RFP in the depth required for making the proposal (so its a fine balancing act). All the nine prospects sent in their list of questions to AtoV for getting more information and clarifications, which they thought were required to make a decent proposal. AtoV executives took about one week to get back with answers. QA from all the 9 prospects was combined and this combined list was circulated to each participant. This is a typical practice to make sure each prospect is benefitted by the questions raised by others and all of them have maximum possible information (right information) before they start working the proposal. AtoV along with TP Cons also hosted a pre-bid face-to-face meeting in whic h all the prospects could discuss the answers and ask on any remaining questions. This was the last chance for all the participants to raise their questions or ask for more information. After closing of this meeting till the submission of final proposals, any officials from the potential vendors (9 prospects) were not supposed to talk to ANYONE from the client (AtoV). Any such attempt could disqualify the prospect from making a proposal. With all this information now it was imperative for Y Inc. to work on proposal on a war footing. They had 40 calendar days time left and team was not in place yet. Except bid manager himself nobody else was confident on content, clauses and scope of the proposal. Y Inc. decided not to engage a third party consultant for writing a proposal. Being an IT services major, making such proposals was routinely done. More over they had a specialized team under presales for such large deals. Even with large deals team, the experts were to come from respective team of ERP and IMS competency verticals. Including bid manager and two members from the large deal group a total of 14 members were identified for making this proposal. All had prior experience in making such proposals. Two technical writers were also included in the team. One of the team members from large deals group was of the level of general manager. The day came when all designated proposal team members were detached from their regular work and they were all packed in a conference hall of the corporate office. No land lines in the conference hall (conf hall) and all mute cell phones only hot discussions! They were sometimes useful and sometimes not so useful. But great, all team members were available in a room to exchange ideas and technical writers standing, to take notes and make things presentable. First bid manager presented a schedule on how to make it who will do what by what date? A net 30 calendar day program no offs; not even weekends. Start by 7:30 or 8:00 AM till half past mid night sometimes but no compulsions. Breaks for tea and smoke; snacks made available inside the room; all make to order. The motto only one, get it done whatever it takes. You can take your offs later. Some model proposals were studied and things start taking shape. 0.1 draft versions was ready first everybody is seen disappointed. A senior member from the large deals wanted everything to be redone. The onsite manager insisted inclusion of everything as per ITIL standards as it was very important from the clients perspective. One ITIL expert and one graphics designer were also added to the team now. First draft was ready. Technical writers had to compile 485 pages for it. But finally things started taking shape. Suddenly a new policy decision came from the client side. Written proposal was OK but more emphasis was now on the oral presentations. So everything was redone on power point slides. Thanks to the timely inclusion of a graphics designer in the team. Commercials, the heart of proposal was still under making. Commercials took about a week but they occupied only two slides in the final proposal. It was close to $300 Million proposal. Real strategic for the company! Need to win it any cost. Nearly 8 to 10 what-if scenarios were worked out using different combinations in schedules, effort, resources, onsite-offshore ratio, scope and rates. Approval for all of them was taken from the corporate and the finance department in advance. These scenarios were for accommodating last minute changes prior to or during live proposal presentations. Excel work sheets were kept ready to work out any more custom scenarios if required. In the last minutes inputs from sales team become very important and y ou might need to change the commercials accordingly. The final day in a San Francisco hotel witnessed three different committees from consisting of client and TP Con officials. And the final presentations made. Written proposals were submitted a couple of days advance in emails and seven print copies in sealed envelopes. All dropped in a designated physical mail box. AtoV wanted a month to study different aspects of the proposals made. They came back in just two weeks. Now its up to you to guess who was the winner? TP Con made evaluation matrices and criteria and the whole process was transparent only to AtoV. Now it was transition of a huge number of applications and infrastructure. TP Con was the boss. They explained the process to transition team. They gave around 30 elaborate templates and forms to be filled for each stream at each step. All this was to be loaded in an orderly fashion on a web portal, designated for this transition. The progress of transition in real time was now available to everyone including top management of Y Inc. and AtoV, one more challenge, probably tougher than making the winning proposal. Main transition sites were offices and plants in Texas and New York. A couple of them added from Germany, UK and other places too. Y Inc. roped in 4 transition managers one each in California, Texas, Chennai and Noida. The transition team structure was 50-50 for offshore and onsite. More onsite presence was required to cover the learning curve and attend face to face learning sessions with AnV subject matter experts. Later the onsite offshore was to be reduced to 80 20 an d finally 90 10 in the long term. TP Cons deployed not more than 3 members from RFP till the transition was over. A total of 6 months; end to end! As it was learned later TP Cons walked away with a handsome consulting fee. Much better than one could have imagined in the starting! Want to manage bids as third party consultant Summary RFI, RFQ, RFP, Bid manager, Large Deals, raising a Team For Proposals, Proposal making, What Ifs, Commercials, legal,

Cults Essay -- essays research papers fc

  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The word cult is defined as an alternative religion. Most cults are started because someone doesn’t like the way the world is, and feels that his/her church isn’t doing anything to make it better, so they leave and create what they believe to be the perfect religion. Then this person strives to make others believe as they do so they will join (Miller, 1991, p. 15). There are somewhere around 3,000 to 5,000 of these cults throughout the United States, but only 75 to 100 are documented (Miller, 1991, p. 15-16). Satanism is the oldest form of such cults. A few other commonly known cults are Reverend Jim Jones and the People Temple, Heavens Gate, and Charles Manson and the Family. In the early 20th century, Allistar Crowly, AKA â€Å"The Black Pope†, started modern Satanism. It is said that Anton Lavey brought Satanism to the United States. Anton believed that he was the reincarnation of the â€Å"Black Pope†. He set his church up in San Francisco in 1966. Within one year Anton’s cult grew to more than 200,000 members (Miller, 1991, p. 28-29). Anton then went to Hollywood to help make movies about Satanism. He succeeded in doing so and was involved with the making of many movies including Rosmary’s Baby (Miller, 1991, p. 29). During this time Lavey and his assistant Michael Aquins wrote The Satanic Bible, which instantly became a best seller. The Satanic Bible told of the main concepts of Satanism. Basically, it is the reverse of Christianity. The main idea projected is â€Å"Do what thou will† (Miller, 1991, p. 31). One of the peculiar rituals of Satanist is the sacrifice of a newborn child. They believe that the newborn has a special power, and if they sacrifice the baby immediately after birth, that its power will go into the coven (Miller 1991, p. 33).   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Reverend Jim Jones was the leader of The Peoples Temple. Jim thought of himself as the reincarnation of Jesus and Lenin. His vision of world domination was nuclear war, and the only cities that would survive are Ukiah, California and Belo Horizonte, Brazil. Because of this belief, he moved his cult to Ukiah and awaited the war (Cults R Us, 2000, September 27, p. 1). After awhile he grew tired of waiting for what he claimed would be â€Å"WW 3†, so he relocated his church to San Francisco. There he practiced a ritual know as â€Å"White Nights†. In this ritual members prepare... ...ly where to go first. Manson’s first victim was Terry Melcher. Several members of â€Å"The Family† went to his house and killed him. When they were finished they wrote â€Å"POLITICAL PIGGY† on a wall to make it look like the Black Panthers had committed the murder. The next victim was Cielo Drive. Once again several members of â€Å"The Family† went to her house and killed her. They killed five other people. One of the members wanted to cut a baby from the stomach of a pregnant woman they had killed and take it to Charles. She also thought about cutting out the baby’s heart and eating it (Cults R Us, 2000, p. 1). Manson’s antics were put to an end one day while â€Å"The Family† was out in the desert riding dun buggies where marshals arrested Charles and other members of the Cult (Cults R Us, 2000, p. 1). Statistics have shown that most Satanist lack self-confidence. They enter the religion because of the false sense of power and security it offers. Although   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Bibliography 1.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Cults R Us (2000, September 27) [online] Available: www.mayhem.net/crime/cults1/html 2. Miller, M (1990). Coping With Cults. Rosen Publishing Group, INC. New York.