The downfall of Enron Corporation is one of the most infamous and shocking events in financial world in the whole history of the mankind, and its reverberations were felt on global scale. Prior to its collapse in 2001, Enron was one of the US leading companies and frequently considered among top 10 admired corporations and most desired places to work, and its board was often recognized among the best five US companies in accordance with the Fortune magazine. Its revenues made up US $139($184) billion, assets equaled $62($82) billion, and the number of employees reached more than 30,000 people in 20 countries around the world.
While Enron Corporation was so highly praised by the outside observers, internally it had highly decentralized financial control and decision-making structure, which made it practically impossible to get coherent and clear view on corporations’ activities and operations. Of course, the problem was not exclusively due to poor managerial performance, all the departments of the corporation were involved in the ruining corporate ethical values and principles, but executives and managers bear primary responsibility for the absence of corporate culture, clear accountability and transparence of the company. If operations management worked properly, in its full force, and if it was given possibility to work in such a way, there could be a chance of escaping the tragedy.

Enron Corp brief history

Enron Corporation was one of the largest global energy, services and commodities company. Before it was filed bankruptcy under chapter 11, it sold natural gas and electricity, delivered energy and other commodities such as bandwidth internet connection, and provided risk management and financial services to the clients around the world.
Enron was based in Houston, Texas, and was founded in July 1985 (though company with Enron name emerged still in 1930 (Swatz, Watkins, 2003)) by the merger of InterNorth of Omaha in Nebraska, and Houston Natural Gas. Enron Company quickly developed from merely delivering energy to brokering energy futures contracts on deregulated energy markets. In 1994, the company started to sell electricity, and in 1995, it entered European energy market. By the middle 2001, Enron employed about 30,000 people globally (McLEan, Elkind,2003).
Questionable accounting methods and techniques provided Enron with possibility to be listed as seventh largest United States company and was expected to dominate the market which the company virtually invented in the communications, weather and power securities (Bryce, 2002). But instead the corporation became the largest corporate failure in the global history and an example of well-planned and institutionalized corporate fraud. Enron became wealthy due to its pioneering marketing and promotion of power and communications bandwidth services and risk management derivatives, including such innovative and exotic items as weather derivatives.
In 1999, Enron launched an initiative of buying and selling access to high-speed Internet bandwidth, and also Enron Online was launched as a Web-based trading site, making Enron e-commerce company. In 2000, the reported revenues of the company made $101 billion. It had stakes in almost 30,000 miles of gas pipelines, either owned or accessed 15,000 miles of fiber-optic network and had stakes in global operations on generating electricity (Thomas, 2002).
In the result, for five years in a row, from 1996 to 2000, Enron was named “America’s most innovative Company” by Fortune magazine, and headed the list of Fortune’s “100 best companies to Work for in America” in 2000. Enron reputation was undermined by rumors on bribery and political pressure with the objective of securing contacts in South and Central America, Philippines and Africa. The Enron was blamed to use its connections with Clinton and Bush administrations to express pressure in their contracts. The events were followed by a series of scandals involving irregular accounting methods bordering on fraud which involved Enron and Arthur Andersen accounting firm and led Enron on the verge of undergoing the largest bankruptcy in economic history in November 2001 (Emshwiller, Smith, 2001).
Since Enron was always considered a blue chip stock, the bankruptcy was a disastrous and unprecedented event in the global financial world. Enron’s downfall was definite when it was found out that a considerable share of its profits resulted from deals with so-called special-purpose entities, limited partnership under control of Enron. It resulted in the possibility of not reporting many of the company’s losses in its financial statements. The final plan of Enron’s bankruptcy included creation of three new businesses which would be spun off the company.
The reorganization process started in 2003 with the creation of three companies - CrossCountry Energy, Prisma Energy International, and Portland General Electric. CrossCountry Energy was sold to CCE Holdings L.L.C., with the money to be used for the repayment of the debts, while Prisma Energy International and Portland General Electric should emerge as independent companies descendant of Enron (Swatz, 2003).

Operations management scope of functions

To understand the reasons of this bankruptcy and the level of managerial implication in the quality performance of the company, particularly that of operations management, it is necessary to outline the main functions of operations management and impact it should have of functioning of the organization.
The principal task of operations management is effective transformation of inputs into “desired outputs” of the company (Shafer, 1997). The outputs are traditionally understood in manufacturing and profit-making context within the organizations. But recently it has been recognized that operations management is a discipline which is not limited with such narrow functions; it can be deployed in practically any area where the organization aims at achieving its objectives (Barnett, 1996). For instance, non-profit or public sectors have to learn to optimize their internal operations and processes in the situation of limited resources; service companies come to conclusion that by reappraising their delivery process they can revolutionize and significantly improve their approach to manufacturing companies and their marketplace. Robin Wood (2001) gives the example of such operations management implication in Daewoo company, which understood that it can specialize and differentiate its product by adding definite bundle of benefits to its product which includes additional supporting services. Operations sector is the heart of these changes that are made by leading companies to improve their performance and increase customer base.
The survival of commercial company depends on ability of the organization to focus and shape its operational resources to meet the expectations of its stakeholders: customers, employees and shareholders, expressed in organizational strategy (Russel, 1995) . Irrespective of economic sectors the company operates in, the ability of operations management of this company to fulfill those above-mentioned tasks depends on their understanding that it is necessary to make trade-offs. They cannot avoid the situation of working under constraints and have to understand their capabilities and constraints to provide significant inputs into strategic decision-making process involving further resources of the organization. [...]

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In this article the author is going to carry out custom writing services market overview providing comprehensive survey of the market divided into the following categories: market identification, market size, market segmentation, market growth speed, market customers, principles of operation, financial characteristics, regulations, and other categories. The research is structured in such a way as to group related issues in a logical order.

Market identification

Custom writing services market is a sector of the e-commerce industry. Custom writing services are fee-based.

Market size

The precise size of custom writing services market is unknown, though some rough estimate could be made. The number of competitors in the market approaches nearly 200. It is also known that around 30 percent of organizations in the industry have annual turnover equal amounting to $120,000 approximately, whereas other 70 percent have almost twice as low annual turnover. Total turnover, market size, is estimated at $10,800,000 annually. The size of the market in relation to the economy is yet unknown.

Segmentation

Segmentation is the process of allocation of particular homogeneous sub-markets within a heterogeneous market. A market is a multitude of sub-markets that have similar motivations.
In the case with the market concerned, segmentation is interpreted as follows. Companies that operate within the market could be divided in accordance to specialization differences into such categories: (a) generally-oriented companies; (b) particularly-oriented companies. Generally-oriented companies are those that produce custom-written papers on a wide variety of topics. As a rule, such organizations hire writers representing different specialties or simply those able to perform on appropriate level in one or several fields. Companies ascribed to another organizational category usually operate within a narrower framework. In the market there are companies that offer custom-written papers exclusively on math, physics, sociology, the African-Americans, William Shakespeare, Charlotte Bronte, etc.
Other products and services offered by the industry representatives include proofreading and editing services, and pre-written papers.
It is noteworthy that there are companies in the market that offer both custom-written and pre-written papers. This, however, may have nothing to do with violation of ethics, but what about privacy of those students who previously ordered a custom-written paper, which might have been later re-sold to another student?

Growth speed

Growth rates of the market are varying over the time. Thus, in 2000 there were nearly 25-30 companies offering custom-written/pre-written essays, term papers, cases studies, and other types of research papers. Over the 5-year period the number of companies in the market grew up to nearly a hundred and a half.
The leap in growth rates of the market is noticed to take place in 2003-2004 when sudden change in pricing occurred. The number of companies in the market increased almost 30 percent and now estimated around 80 companies. This leap was probably caused by the tendency towards ecommerce solutions being new to hoards of entrepreneurs in a number of developing countries like India, Ukraine, Poland and other countries. Companies with headquartered in these countries began offering similar services but with lower fees as compared to those located in the U.S., Canada, or Australia. More on pricing policies see in Pricing.
Today, market’s growth speed is rather low as the market is full-fledged due to a variety of services offered by market participants.

Geographical distribution of services

It is worth mentioning that the researched market is a subdivision of ecommerce industry. This gives ground to conclude that either products or services produced by industry’s parties are of intangible character rather than of tangible. This especially concerns custom writing services market, which offers its customers intangible products delivered to them mostly via email.
It should be clear that no matter where a company holds its general/backup office, it operates worldwide.
The only principle that regulates geographical distribution of custom-written papers is linguistic attachment. Among major countries using the service are: the United States of America, Canada, Australia, Great Britain, and some European and Asian countries.

Seasonal character of the market

Another aspect of the market is its seasonality. Seasonal character of the examined market is sharply defined. As services offered by the market participants are oriented at student needs throughout the academic year only, the season of active sales almost coincides with the academic year. The first half of September - usually passive - is compensated with several weeks in June.
Such seasonality of the market explains its instability of prices. It was noticed that prices for services increase throughout the year with peaks in December - January and April - May; and drop dramatically during the summer season.

Customers/Clients

Customers of online services such as custom writing services are usually students of high schools, colleges, and Universities, of 16 to 25 years old. As pricing in the market is relatively low, target group of the market covers the so-called middle class and higher. A research shows that in 2005 from 14 percent to 23 percent of students (considering seasonality correction) have in due time applied to custom writing services. In other words, one-seventh to one-fourth of students has bought at least one paper during 2004-2005 academic years. The same research provides data that gives ground to conclude about the growth of the market. It is declared that in 2003 peak rate of students who applied to the service at least once was 25 percent, whereas in 2005 it is estimated to reach 36 percent.

Customer loyalty

Customer loyalty is obviously a behavior demonstrated by frequent or systematic purchases of a company’s product or service. Customer loyalty could be achieved through customer-friendly pricing policies, various discount programs, incentive plans etc. Customer loyalty is also an aspect of a company’s customer retention or loyalty programs. Customer retention programs are usually complex systems that include two or more elements listed above. As regards the market of custom writing services, the following was noticed in the course of the research held by the author: (a) more than 80 percent of the market uses basic techniques in acquiring customer loyalty such as permanently variable prices that depend on demand for the product or service throughout the year, bonus plans (such as bonus key that allows up to 4 percent reduction), and other techniques; and (b) nearly 10 percent of companies within the market use complex customer loyalty programs such as flexible discounts (sometimes up to 30 percent!) in a combination with weekly feedback bonuses, personal selection of a writer, order status check, 24/7 customer care, and other modes of customer attraction.

Factors that influence buyer’s choice

Among factors that have impact on customers’ choice in the market of custom writing services are price, quality of products and services (including exclusiveness, professionalism, and compliance with the requirements), and delivery time.
As to price and quality of a specific service, these two factors are the most important. It is vital for companies to balance between price and quality values since optimum correlation between these two categories benefits both a service provider and a customer. It is worth mentioning that there are companies that offer papers written by Ph.D.s for “as low as $8.95 per page”. Quality of a paper is directly related to its price and vice versa.
In respect of the delivery time, many companies offer urgent order accomplishment within 12 (and sometimes even hours. Some of them limit the volume of an order to certain number of pages, though there are some companies that accept urgent orders without volume limitation.

Pricing

Custom writing services market has been experiencing a decline in prices lately. As it was mentioned earlier in this research, there had been fall in prices in 2003-2004 caused by sudden increase in market’s growth rates. By far, average fees are kept at the level of $15 per page for regular (5+ days) orders, $20 per page for urgent (24 to 48h) orders, and $30 a page for extremely urgent orders (within 24h).
There are companies offering custom-written papers half price as compared to average pricing. This fact may indicate that a company either hires instant workers from developing countries or is new to the market and provides such a low pricing policy in order to enter the full market and gain certain status.

Principles of operation

Principles of operation are the same throughout the industry. Intangible nature of products produced by competitors in the market implies single system of relationships between a company and a customer irrespective of an organization’s capacities.
Companies that offer custom-written papers (essays, term papers, case studies, literature reviews, executive summaries, dissertations) operate through their websites. Websites are supplied with all necessary and optional features such as credit card processing system (necessary), online customer service (optional), and auto-responder to provide existing customers with automated thank yous and newsletters, and other features.
A customer places an order, which is then forwarded to a writer. This step is omitted in small companies where two or three people wear several hats, e.g. one person could perform as an administrator, a writer, and a customer service representative. If there ARE a couple of writers working for a company, one of them accomplishes an order, which is then delivered to the customer via email.
It is worth noting that major attention is paid to a company’s website. It is common for a company producing custom-written papers to have as many webmasters as writers. Hard to believe? In your opinion, what is the correlation between webmasters/programmers and book reviewers working for Amazon.com?

Competitors and leaders

As mentioned above, the number of competitors in the market estimates nearly 120. Leadership in the market where companies offer custom-written papers of any kind is defined exclusively due to a company’s website’s ranking in various search engines. The most powerful search engines are Google, MSN, Yahoo!, Altavista, and Alltheweb. Moreover, websites are ranked in accordance to their content oriented at different key words. Thus, different websites could be leaders in the same search engine, though for different keywords or phrases.

Regulations

Being a subdivision of the ecommerce industry, custom writing services market is regulated by nothing but several codes like BBB Online that refer to web entrepreneurs. In general, ecommerce industry is poorly regulated.

Current trends within the industry and market success factors

Among current trends in the market particularly three aspects are worth mentioning: (a) constant fall in price; (b) constant increase in the number of competitors; and (c) diversification of services offered by companies.
Constant increase in the number of competitors is obviously caused by simplicity of operations and growing number of freelance writers who once decided to start out their own business.
Permanent fall in price is caused by growing number of competitors and similarity of services offered by companies in the market.
Finally, diversification of services is a logic consequence of the same increase in the number of competitors.
Among factors for success in the market the following issues could be mentioned: [...]

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bio = Serge Chepurko is one of the best - though relatively young - writers employed by Your Personal Writer. Over the year that Serge’s been writing for living he produced more than 200 quality essays, case studies, research papers and term papers on management, sociology, history, and literature. Serge is MA in oganizational management. Get to know Serge better at Your Personal Writer’s website. We’re not offering you custom written essays and term papers, we offer you freedom.

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Why is an All Natural and Holistic to Pet Food Gaining Importance?

There is a significant increase in the market share of Natural and Holistic Pet Food, and it is predicted to double over the next five years. But why the sudden increase in our pets health? It seems that as we become more concerned with our own family’s health and what we eat, it’s natural to also be more concerned about what our pets eat, as they have truly have become part of our families. Today, it is now easier to provide a complete healthy meal for our pets. In fact, our pets may be eating better than we are!

What to Expect from All Natural and Holistic Pet Food?

1. Switching to All Natural and Holistic Pet Food, produces substantial results over time. We all are accustomed to using synthetic drugs which can stop symptoms quickly. But, in many cases, the problem reoccurs because it was treating the symptons, not the problem. Holistic Pet Foods provide an environment that allows the body to health itself, not just treat the symptoms. This results in a more permanent cure and a healthier pet.
2. A good, high quality diet is the foundation of your pet’s health. What we find in the market today for our pets, often contain chemical additives that can be detrimental to their health. Many commercial premium foods contain chemicals known to be toxic, as well as low quality meat that is not fit for human consumption. Many of the ingredients are hard to digest, so the nutritional value is diminished becuase it doesn’t reach their bloodstream. An animal’s immune system is worn down over time because of poor diet and the lack of a complete balanced diet doesn’t foster a long life. There has been a significant increase in kidney and liver failures in young dogs and cats that has recently been linked to the amount of chemical preservatives. That’s why the FDA recently recommended the manufactururers of pet food cut the amount of certain chemical preservatives in half. Our pets eat the same food everyday, so the food they eat will have a heightened effect over time on their health, that’s why a good, high quality diet is best for your pet’s health.
Domestic pets are descendents of animals that have been existing in the wild. Many vets feel that pets should eat natural and less processed food. They recommend feeding pets fresh food with some supplements, or choose an all natural or holistic pet food. Your choice is to select the healthiest food for your companion pets.

What is All Natural and Holistic Pet Food?

Of course, we know that the proper mix of protein, vegetables, carbohydrates, and fats are needed for a healthy diet for our pets. Along with the 23 essential amino acids, pets also need vitamins and minerals. But the types of proteins, vegetables, carbohydrates, and fats is what holistic pet food is all about. Holism is the theory that animals should be viewed as interacting, complete entities, that are more than the sum of their elementary particles. Holistic food is naturally balanced, and provides the pet’s body with much more than just the sum of its ingredients. Each ingredient is chosen for not only it’s nutritional value, but also for it’s interaction with other ingredients. In selecting ingredients, manufacturer’s must know how an ingredient aids digestion, and select the ones that provide the most health benefits. Many ingredients are known to be good anti-oxidants, so why not choose an ingredient that has that added value. Then the combination of ingredients as a whole can be evaluated to understand the total value of a complete and balanced diet.
Holistic pet food manufacturers choose the most digestible meats, vegetables and carbohydrates so that the nutrients are almost 100% bio-available, meaning that it actually gets into their bloodstream. If it is a meat that can’t be easily digested, then it just passes through their digestive system, and less is really available. The sources of proteins, vegetables and carbohydrates are just as important as the amounts. We also know that certain meats, vegetables and carbohydrates are prone to produce food allergies, and therefore it makes sense to avoid using those ingredients which are known to have a high incidence of digestive problems or allergies.
Given that we can determine the proper mix of ingredients, it also makes sense that we should utilize the best available ingredients for your pet and avoid using questionable ingredients such as by-products or meat digest. The source of the ingredients should be held to the highest standard of human grade food, and as natural as it can be. That means meat that is free from contamination from animals that were not given steroids, antibiotics or hormones, and to avoid meat by-products or meat digest. Vegetables should be free from pesticides or herbicides. We should avoid known food allergenic ingredients (beef, wheat, or soy), and not use chemicals preservatives, dyes, or genetically modified organisms. Holistic pet foods come as close to organic in nature without any chemicals or drugs, or as we say, “The Very Best for Your Best Friend!”
bio = Fred Ege provides All Natural and Holistic Dog and Cat Food, the very best for your best friend. To learn more about our All Natural and Holistic Dog and Cat Food, go to:

http://www.foxvalleypetfoods.com

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Causes of Obesity

Just like there is no weight loss pill or single “magic potion”
diet plan to cure obesity there is no single cause of obesity.

We are living in an age of two income families, job loss,
stress, and time constraints. It makes it difficult to prepare
and eat healthy foods. The ad agencies, the big food companies,
and the 35 Billion dollar diet plan and diet supplement
industries are taking full advantage of the American people’s
need for instant gratification.

What weight loss research has uncovered is that there is no
quick fix for permanent weight loss. A person who is considered
obese must realize that no weight loss pill, no shake, no diet
plan or reduced calorie bar, is going to make him or her slim
overnight. Weight loss pills are unhealthy because they tend to
induce jitters in people, and the Food and Drug Administration
(FDA) oftentimes does not verify their safety. Just a few years
ago, weight loss pills containing ephedra were removed from the
market because they were believed to cause heart problems in
people.

What we struggle with as a nation is the idea that everything
has to happen now; no, make that yesterday. If we cannot have
immediate results, we don’t want to know about it.
Unfortunately, weight loss research clearly shows that we cannot
expect to lose fat weight quickly; nor can we do so in a healthy
manner. The only path to permanent weight loss is through a
commitment to a healthier lifestyle that incorporates regular
exercise and a nutritious diet.

Depending on how much weight you have to lose, you may need the
guidance of your doctor to begin a new workout program for
weight loss. If you merely have five or 10 pounds to drop, you
can begin to take some steps to lose that weight safely. First,
take a good look at what you are putting in your mouth. Replace
processed foods with natural foods, and make sure to drink at
least 64 ounces of water each day, more if you exercise heavily.
Limit alcohol and caffeine, as both can dehydrate you quickly.

Permanent weight loss can only result from burning more calories
on a daily basis than you consume. One pound of fat equals about
3500 calories. You need to burn off those excess calories or
they are stored as fat, it’s that simple.

Rapid weight loss from fad diets usually is made up of water
loss. Muscle contains four times as much water as fat. So rapid
weight loss reduces lean muscle, causing the metabolism to slow,
making the diet program eventually level out and stop.

Educate Yourself about Weight Loss, nutrition and the causes of
obesity.

The point of my book, Living to Be Younger, is to educate people
on weight loss research. I wanted people to know the facts so
that they could make informed decisions regarding their own
health.

Only you can make the decision to live a healthy life by eating
well, exercising regularly, managing stress, and getting enough
sleep. If you want to look and feel fabulous, you can. Just
remember that you must put in the necessary work to reach your
health goals. I believe you can do it, and more than that, I
believe you deserve to live your best life. Why not go for it?

bio = Take the first step to a younger, fitter, more active lifes