Find Similar Products Like Anastasia @ Amazon.com
|
Executive summary Its revenues made up US $139($184) billion, summations equaled $62($82) billion, and the number of workers 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 out of the question to get consistent and clear view on corporations’ actions and operations. Of course, the problem was not completely due to poor managerial performance, all the departments of the corporation were involved in the ruining corporate ethical values and principles, but executives and managing directors bear important obligation for the absence of corporate culture, clear accountability and transparence of the company. If operations management worked properly, in it is full force, and if it was given possibleness to work in such a way, there could be a prospect of escaping the tragedy. Enron Corp brief history Enron Corporation was one of the greatest global energy, services and commodities company. Before it filed bankruptcy beneath 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 formulated from merely delivering energy to brokering energy futures contracts on deregulated energy markets. In 1994, the company started to trade electricity, and in 1995, it entered European energy market. By the middle 2001, Enron applied regarding 30,000 people internationally (McLEan, Elkind,2003). Questionable accounting methods and proficiencies provided Enron with possibleness to be listed as seventh greatest United States company and was expected to dominate the market which the company nearly devised in the communications, weather and power securities (Bryce, 2002). But rather the corporation became the biggest corporate failure in the global history and an example of well-planned and institutionalized corporate fraud. Enron became wealthy due to it is pioneering syndication and advertising of power and communications bandwidth services and peril 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 marketing site, making Enron e-commerce company. In 2000, the reported revenues of the company made $101 billion. It had stakes in closely 30,000 miles of gas pipelines, either owned or accessed 15,000 miles of fiber-optic network and had stakes in international 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 goal to be attained of securing contacts in South and Central America, Philippines and Africa. The Enron was blamed to use it is 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 biggest 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 unexampled event in the global financial world. Enron’s precipitation was definitive when it was found out that a significant part of it is profits resulted from deals with so-called special-purpose entities, fixed cooperative relationship underneath control of Enron. It resulted in the possibleness of not reporting numerous of the company’s losses in it is financial statements. The final plan of Enron’s bankruptcy included creation of three new businesses which would be spun off the company. The reorganization procedure 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 cash to be applied for the repayment of the debts, while Prisma Energy International and Portland General Electric must 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 significance in the quality performance of the company, in particular that of operations management, it is necessary to outline the main functions of operations management and affect it will have to have of functioning of the organization. The indispensable task of operations management is effective transformation of inputs into “desired outputs” of the company (Shafer, 1997). The outputs are traditionally understood in formulating and profit-making context within the organizations. But not so long ago it has been recognized that operations management is a discipline which is not fixed with such narrow functions; it may be deployed in practically any area where the establishment aims at achieving it is goals intended to be attained (Barnett, 1996). For instance, non-profit or public spheres have to learn to optimize their internal operations and processes in the circumstance of fixed resources; service companies come to conclusion that by reappraising their deliverance procedure they may revolutionize and significantly improve their approach to manufacturing companies and their marketplace. Robin Wood (2001) gives the example of such operations management significance in Daewoo company, which understood that it may specialize and discern it is product by adding definitive bundle of gains to it is product which includes further and added supporting services. Operations sector is the heart of these changes that are made by leading companies to improve their performance and increase client base. The survival of mercantile company depends on capacity of the establishment to focus and shape it is operational resources to meet the expected values of it is stakeholders: customers, workers and shareholders, indicated in organizational system (Russel, 1995) . Irrespective of economic spheres the company operates in, the capacity 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 keep out of the way of the circumstance of working beneath constraints and have to perceive their capablenesses and constraints to provide significant inputs into strategic decision-making procedure involving further resources of the organization. Operations managing directors in the organizations are not empowered to make strategic decisions, but they play important role in shaping the organization’s system and bestow to the strategic thinking ( Pasternack, Viscio, 1998). Operations managers will have to be capable to translate strategic aims and goals intended to be attained into clear operational goals intended to be attained and actions and to implement, design and improve the productions of the company themselves and the processes of their delivery. They have to recognise how changes integrated to external components influence the operation and how changes in one aspect of the operating scheme influence other aspects. Also, operations managers need to know how technical changes affect organization’s capability of delivery, and to incorporate their determinations into strategic procedure (Peters, Waterman, 1982). Therefore, the heart of operations thinking includes the capacity to think dynamically and systematically throughout time and space (Miller, 1998). Besides conventional tasks of operation management, new perspectives and goals intended to be attained emerge connected with the emergence of new trends and developments of operations management, such as total quality management, shop floor control, global supply chain management, developing planning software, and others. Total quality management has become one of the most primary developments of the operations management. The quest for higher level of merchandise and services quality is caused by the globalization of markets, on the one hand, and increasing litigation over service or product failure. The kinship amidst quality and market share performance is doubtless. Those firms that fail to comprehend the issue of quality find themselves on the bottom of their industry hierarchy. A substantial share of the obligation for quality standards rests on the operations manager. Global supply chain management is another very primary factor of operations management. The world economy is getting more global than ever. Looking for lower production costs, more flexibleness and local peril reduction, companies are seeking to outsource and fabricate services and productions on global scale (Heizer, 2004). Operation managers are responsible for fulfilling the task. Project management is yet another task of the operations management department. Operation managers bear obligation for a lot of projects which range from substantial capital projects to specific ones such as installation of new selective information system. Effectively managing projects involves feeling of satisfaction and deliverance them in timely manner and within the budget (Stevens, 2001). In a word, operations management is important element of the organization, since it fulfills a good deal of primary functions of the company. Operations manager handles every day running and functioning of the organization. The significance of poor managerial performance for the collapse of Enron Corporation Now it is necessary to find out and make an analyzation of whether operations management of Enron Corp performed all the functions cited above and what was the quality of their activity. The Enron did have operations management department, which, according to their official source, fulfilled the following functions: setup accounts and notify utilities, agency agreement from customer, verify the format of invoice, setup invoice info transfer, test algorithms of invoice and file transfer to the customer, determine the reporting requirements of the client (Enron Energy Services, 2000). As it is seen from the source, the functions of very operations management section are very limited. There are other management departments which carry out the functions of operations management stated above: operations facility management, commodity management, energy asset management, financial operations, and capital management. Though, most of functions performed by these departments, according to the source, are rigorously executive and lack integration, systematic vision, responsibility, control and originative aspect. Besides fixed scope of functions assigned to operations management in Enron Corporation, another necessary point worries the quality of their performance and overall corporate culture and atmosphere invented within corporation. As it was brought up above, ideally, the functions of operations management include creating ethic values, integrity, competence and clear accountability within the organization. Enron’s management failed to comply with these tasks. Read the full version of this article here.
84 of 86 people found the following review helpful. Despite the horrible artwork on the cover, this DVD set is by far one of the best 2-disk special editions I have ever seen. The movie is presented in its original widescreen cinemascope glory with sparkling menus, tons of extras, a tour of the castle, and a bonus movie. If it only had a concept art gallery, I would put it all the way up there with the Disney Platinum Editions. The first disk makes use of a map of Anya’s journal to Paris as the main menu integrated with clips from the movie. It also has something the Disney DVDs have been lagging on lately–a commentary. A commentary, no doubt, with Don Bloth and Gary Goldman, the two masterminds behind this film and many other animated masterpieces. Aside from that, the first disk also contains bonus features on how to draw four of the main characters in the movie. Now, most “how” to draw features start out with a perfect drawing of a character and then show three steps, each with perfectly matching lines and expect you to do exactly the same thing, which is simply ridiculous. This one was different, though. Don Bluth hosted four beautiful art sessions talking very realistically about how real artists do it, from 6B pencils to kneaded erasers to the fact that it’s okay to make mistakes. He went through the process step by step and amazingly, his drawings looked very sketchy and none looked exactly like the character he was drawing. I thought this was wonderful because it teaches that not all drawings come out perfect at first and even the best artists don’t just sit down, put their pencil to the paper, and have a perfect picture magically appear. The only thing I didn’t like about this feature was that you had to click Continue after each step or it would just stay paused. The other main feature on the disk was a singalong track containing songs from various older 20th Century Fox movies and hosted by a girl claiming to be Anastasia, but sounding nothing like her older or younger voices. The funny thing is, most of the songs on this track had absolutely nothing to do with Anastasia. In fact, I was surprised they expected kids to buy this DVD and know about these old movies such as Young Frankenstein, Shirley Temple, and many others including songs from the other newly rereleased animated Fox “Family Fun Edition” DVD, Fern Gully. Despite having little to do with the film, this 45-minute singalong track felt complete enough to sell on its own without any other attachments so it was a very hearty feature. The second disk had the must unenthusiastic narrator I have ever heard in my life. Never the less, the disk’s menu is a beautiful CGI tour of the Romanov palace. Each shelf contained objects that the real Anastasia might have had along with a description of their use and place in history. Some objects turned out to be games and others were more bonus features. The meat of the disk was a 45-minute documentary about the making of the film. It was very nice to hear from all the voice artists and other people involved, but the best part came from Don Bluth and Gary Goldman’s commentary. Those two men always know exactly what to say! Their honest, straightforward, and down to earth nature really made this DVD a gem to own. They have no intention of playing down to a young audience and are clearly very passionate about what they do. It was always wonderful to hear their insights on the movie and the art of animation in general and they really made this set worthwhile. Among the other features on the disk were a music video of Aaliyah’s rendition of “Journey to the Past,” a trivia game with questions that were not too easy, but not too hard about the film, and a virtual paper doll of Anastasia. There was also a multi-language reel of “Journey to the Past” and “Once Upon a December,” preceeded by a list of phonetic letters. The “karoake” section of the reel was extremely tedious because it would first show Anya singing a line in one language, followed by two girls who were being used as examples of how phonetic letters are pronounced repeating that line, then the line was played without singing so “you” could sing it in that language, and then Anya would sing it one more time and these four cuts would repeat for every line in the song in every different language. Fortunately you also have the option of just watching the multi-language song reel by itself without the girls or karaoke versions. Now we come to the icing on the cake. Not only do you get the movie Anastasia in this set, but you also get its spin-off film, Bartok the Magnificent, absolutely free! This 60-minute film is too long to be a short, but too short to be a movie and isn’t really worth buying by itself. However, considering that it’s free, it’s quite a worthwhile bonus feature indeed! With a unique story, original musical numbers, and everyone’s favorite pink and white bat, it’s sure to entertain for at least one sitting even if you never want to watch it again after that. The movie has nothing to do with Anastasia, but instead involves Bartok trying to rescue the kidnapped prince of Moscow. There are unfortunately no cameos of anyone else in Anastasia, but nevertheless, it’s a cute flick. At $10 on Amazon, this DVD is an absolute steal and anyone in their right mind should grab it the first chance they get. Not only do you get a gorgeous and expertly crafted film, but you also get a SingAlong movie, a second spin-off movie, games, historical references, and beautifully insightful commentary from the ever-devoted, ever-friendly Don Bluth and Gary Goldman. The princess Anastasia has truly returned to her rightful throne. The only reason I did not give this item 5 stars is because of the cover art. 21 of 22 people found the following review helpful. A great cast of voices, including Meg Ryan (Anastasia), John Cusack (Dimitri), Kelsey Grammer (Vladimir), Christopher Lloyd (Rasputin), and Angela Lansbury as Anastasia’s beloved grandmother add depth to an enchanting film. Anastasia wants to leave Russia for Paris because the necklace she wears has the inscription, “Together in Paris,” which she is sure holds the key to her journey to discover who she is and where she belongs. Dimitri and Vladimir plan to pass her off as the real Anastasia for the reward in exchange for her visa out of Russia. The banter between Anastasia and Dimitri masks a growing attraction, of course, and when Dimitri discovers before she does that she really is Anastasia he knows he must step aside. Complicating matters is the evil Rasputin, who has placed a curse on her family and sold his soul to destroy them. His little fruit bat, Bratok (Hank Azaria), is a very funny creation and turns out to be not so evil at all. The story is peppered throughout with great songs, including “Journey to the Past” and the haunting “Once Upon a December.” Anastasia is warm and involving, separating it from other animated films. When Anya discovers she really is Anastasia, it is bittersweet, as she now must choose between her past and her future. Love may conquer all, but not if the evil Rasputin has his way. This is a heartfelt and funny animated feature you’ll want to own and watch over and over. This particular edition comes with lots of extras for hours of family fun. Don’t miss this one. 7 of 7 people found the following review helpful. |
Beautifully crafted DVD!
Once Upon a December