Project Portfolio Management Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Project Portfolio Management - Research Paper Example It is the duty of the executives to regularly look after the complete portfolio as well as programs, determine the significance of the project, allotment of the funds, staging the start of the new project and thus continuously monitor its progress (Wisconsin School of Business, 2011). Automotive Industry Apart from housing, the most significant possession for an America is the motor vehicles. One of the biggest automotive industries in the global economy has been recognized as the US automotive industry. None other sectors or industries have been argued to generate the business as much as the US manufacturing industry does and thus it is the US automotive industry that plays a vital role in the GDP structure of the economy. The productivity of the automotive industry in the US has been higher in comparison to other industries and thus there has been significant growth in the level of output with the pace of time (McAlinden, 2003). Company The company chosen for the study is Mercedes which was established by Gottlieb Daimler together with Carl Benz in the year 1886. Presently, the entity is operating under the parent company as Daimler AG which is one of the leading automobile companies in the global market (Daimler, 2011). Mission Statement and Strategies The mission of Mercedes Benz is to demonstrate the purpose of the company in clear stated terms. The company is committed to provide excellent services thus establishing value for its brands, dealers as well as customers. The company’s mission is to assist in the overall success of its parent company Daimler and further to create numerous opportunities for its employees. Notably, Mercedes-Benz has been successful at achieving higher profitability and market position in the year 2010. The company aims at making the future mobility less risky as well as sustainable. The activities performed by them are completely focused upon the needs of the customers. Therefore, they tend to inspire the customers with p remium automobiles featuring proper design, perceived value, reliability as well as comfort. It provides its customers with the commercial cars that are competitive. The company also provides service packages in order to delight its customers (Daimler, 2010). SBU Mission and Strategies It is to be mentioned that the strategic business unit (SBU) is different from other business segments that is engaged with serving an external market whereby the management is capable of conducting planning in relation to products and services. SBUs have their particular strategies as well as objectives related to their sole purposes. It has been observed from the annual report that there are four main classifications of the DaimlerChrysler AG such as DaimlerChrysler Services, Commercial Vehicles Division, Mercedes Car Group and Chrysler Group. There are three different SBUs of Mercedes Benz such as passenger cars, trucks and buses and vans. The mission of each of the SBUs at Mercedes Benz is to beco me the most successful manufacturer of the car in both premium as well as luxury segment. Its portfolios also include cars that make use of hybridization and locally emission-free electric engines (UBS Paris Auto Show Investor Conference, 2010). Organization Structure of Mercedes Benz The CEO

Sophists and Socrates Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Sophists and Socrates - Essay Example Protagoras' law - the person is a measure of all things - better than anything characterizes the changes in people's interests. New issues have been first of all appeared in the minds of persons, which acted mainly in Athens as teachers of all sciences and arts, which are required for active participation in public life, in the minds of sophists. The last are already not independent thinkers separated from each other, trying to understand the world and its development. They represent a new estate, which being engaged in training to eloquence and using logic arguments as arts, naturally in this business was supervised not with a pure aspiration to get the truth, but aspiration to shine and win in verbal dispute. Characteristic for this philosophy, dictated to sophists by conditions surrounding them and their position in life, are empiric-skeptical (with respect to questions of theoretical value) and utilitarian-egoistical (with respect to questions of practical actions) points of view . The content and volume of our knowledge are entirely defined by our own sensual perceptions. Such perceptions, being subjectively changeable, cannot make valid knowledge at all. Also our activity is always defined by minute needs. Therefore truth is what seems true to an individual; everything is good that serves a person's benefit. Against this doctrine of sophists acts Socrates. Being engaged in training not as a favorable employment favorable, but similarly to thinkers of previous time, investigating questions on sense and value of things from pure aspiration to knowledge and collecting around him pupils by means of excitation a free interest to these questions, he first of all has entered struggle against the egoistic-utilitarian tendency of sophists, as completely harmful. But certainly Socrates also was a person of his time. A person for him, as well as for sophists, a measure of things, and at discussion of separate questions of practical life, he also recognizes natural motives following from individual interests. But for his world outlook are characteristic not these private interests, but organic laws, which he considers significant for all human acts, and owing to which the specified concrete reasons of utility get other meaning. The contrast between Socrates and sophists lays not in the fact that So crates does not consider utility as a motive for acts: human will by its nature already is directed to some purpose, and this purpose, as well to Socrates opinion, not concerning whether it is useful to others, in any case, it is useful to the acting person, as this person aspires to its realization.One of the basic distinctions of Socrates from sophists consists in the fact that as a criterion at an estimation of people's acts for Socrates serves the question, by what motives is defined the decision made by an individual answering the question what is useful and that is harmful. Under the theory of sophists these motives, as well as human knowledge, are subjectively changeable; their scale is a individual desire and consequently in the general, is just a time egoistical benefit. As opposed to it, Socrates proclaims, that there is some objective knowledge, and