British Airways Analysing Financial And Non Financial Indicators Tourism Essay

British Airways Analysing Financial And Non Financial Indicators Tourism Essay British Airways is considered as one of the largest international airlines of United Kingdom. British airways Plc and many other subsidiaries companies make the whole British Airways group. Currently, British Airways(BA) covers more than 550 destinations. According to the data of the year 2008/09, more than 34 million passengers have travelled through British Airways. British airways main business operating hub location is Londons Heathrow airport which serves the company with large geographical area. British Airways is also listed in stock exchange of London.. (Company Information, n.d.).The following report will analyse and then evaluates both the indicators of the British Airways ie, financial as well as non-financial by making it compare with the performance of other company, which is Dubai based named as Emirates Airlines. Talking about Emirates Airlines, being launched in 1985 and since then shown the signs as of one of the fastest growing airlines of the worlds airline industr y. Currently, the company covers more than 100 different destinations throughout the world. (The Emirates Group, 2009). Further in the report the evaluation of the performance of both these companies is being done by using ratio analysis and there will also be discussion about the financial performance trend analysis of both the companies in the last few years. This report will also look at the managerial and non financial challenges faced by both of these companies using SWOT analysis, and then talking about the challenges and solutions for those challenges. The last section of this report will discuss and analyses the comment by John Rishton due to adoption of IFRS and also look at the differences between IFRS and US GAAP. Section B The following paragraphs will cover the changes and the financial pressures recently faced by the airline sector. According to keynote report, Factors like increase in the prices of oil during first half of 2008 which seriously affected the operating costs of airlines, then the impact of global recession made the condition even worse as affecting the number of passengers and thus decreased the demand for air travel globally. In response the different airlines companies have abandoned those routes which were unprofitable and also cut down the un-necessary costs. In such a difficult phase of the airline sector, the companies must understand that how its customers are rephrasing value and their reaction in the period of recession, instead of cutting down on the budget which they have planned for the market research. Now we will discuss specifically about the British airways and Emirates airlines, also will consider the different financial and managerial challenges that are faced by the above two companies. SWOT analysis is used as tool to clarify the difference between the both the airlines. SWOT analysis Strengths British airways made a strong brand identity as United Kingdoms leading airlines because of trust and loyalty being showed by its customers. Strong brand identity also brought advantages of economies of scale. There is being a new subsidiary launched by British airways named as, Open Skies, which offers only business class for the traffic between U.S and major European countries. British airways has got huge capacity for its air planes because of its main operating base hub ie, at Heathrow airport and With the proposed merger with Iberia, British airways is aiming to become second largest airline company after Air France of Europe. British airways offers different loyalty programmes for its customers as to make sure the again travel from their airlines only. On the other side Emirates airline has made its brand strong in the marketplace using different advertisements and many sponsorships. One of the main strengths of emirates airline is having its focus on diversified market and the entrance into the cargo shipping proved very beneficial for the company. Emirates airline has made its corporate culture by listening and identifying the needs of its customer. Emirates also has low cost, which is around 30% less than its European competitors. With the opening of emirates terminal 3 at Dubai international airport recently and the continuous ability to renew with improvement in the service gives the emirates airline the strength edge over its competitors. Tim Clark who is the president of emirates airline, stated that the past results of the airlines have exceeded above expectations despite of the increase in jet fuel prices for emirates airlines from US$1.68 upto US$2.78 per gallon by the end of the year. Weakness With the opening of new terminal 5 at Heathrow airport by the British airways, the company faced problems with training of staff, which led in flights being cancelled, complains of missing luggage. Moreover the rising fuel prices led to increase in ticket prices. The slowdown of both the UK and US economies has affected British Airways as the company has become very vulnerable to financial instability. The bankruptcies in the US banking sector decreased the number of premium booking passengers in British airways heavily. The route of Heathrow and New York is having huge traffic of passengers and forms an important part of British airways earning. Therefore, the drop in the bookings of premium class affected the profitability of the company. British airways also suffered from increased in non fuel costs like from staff and the landing charges. For emirates airlines, there is some weakness also associated with it, like it is not being successful in all of its diversification and approaches, which has emerged as a weakness of the company. Analysts have blamed the company for too much emphasizing on high end acquisitions and diversifications in spite of getting the type of results from such decisions. As U.S is a major market for the airline industry and emirates airline does not cater to many places in the U.S., which is also a weakness for the company. Opportunities If British airways will fully acquire the Iberia airlines with currently 13% share, then it will be in the list of the worlds biggest airlines having approximated combined stock market capitalisation worth of EUR 5.5 billion. There is an opportunity for the British airways to expand more in emerging markets like Middle East Region, India, and China. Another opportunity for British Airways is to now improve the operating conditions of its terminal 5 at Heathrow airport. The company should focus on minimum cost of travelling to fulfil customer needs. With the increase of fuel efficient aircrafts of British airways it can minimize the environmental damage, as protection of environment is emerged as an important issue throughout the world. The company should also see an interest of customers towards new places and develop new routes wherever possible. On the other hand for emirates airline the opportunity lies in which, it can use its well developed infrastructure business to go into the new emerging markets where internet adoption is not very well developed. Same as for the British airways, there is also an opportunity for emirates to introduce new routes by observing the interest of customers. As also Dubai and the middle-east region is more advancing for tourism and commercial purpose enables emirates airline to grow. Emirate airline does no pay income tax so this also gives a tax benefit to it. This saves around $250 million of money per year. Also due to close proximity of Dubai from Indian and Pakistan gives a chance to the airline to access hugely available cheap labour. The benefit of cheap labour in the emirates airline can be seen from the figure as from the total operating budget of the company, the cost of labour accounts upto 18% which is very less as compared to Lufthansa airline having 27% and united airlines with 2 9% of cost of labour. Threats The current threat to British airways is from current economic slowed down, increased fuel prices and weaker pound. The global recession has severely affected air transportation. The travel and tourism industry is moving towards including more green practices. There is pressure from European Union on all the airlines companies to limit carbon emissions Across EU. After the events of 11 September 2001, the security measures have been more tighten by the airline companies. There is also strong competition from low cost airlines, cruise and rail transport that constitutes a bigger share in travel market. Low cost carriers are increasingly looking for new routes for customers with affordable ticket price. Another matter of concern for British Airways is the trade union power. The trade union already did many strikes in august 2004 and 2005. Cost of fuel is also can be at risk as the political situation in Iraq is supporting the rise of oil prices, which will result in add up of another à ‚ £100 million to the cost of British Airways. Whereas, there is severe threat on emirates airlines also from its competitors naming Qatar airways and Etihad airways. Due to political instability in middle-east could lead to have a negative impact on emirate airline. Although the cargo commercial and passenger segments of emirates airlines have managed to achieve their targets, but increasing oil prices affected last quarter net income. As more desire of commodity trading affected oil prices due to brokers were not revealing the actual figure of shortage of raw material. 4 Challenges: There are some of the challenges still left out to be tackle by the BA at the time of developing its climate change programme. As the company operate in environment which is uncertain and political environment is just a part of whole environment but it gives challenges like of changing climate. BA has taken various initiatives to face solved these challenges right from developing in-depth understanding on how to face these challenges, keeping debate with government and asking for their cooperation. (British Airways SWOT Analysis, 2006). BA had to face many threats from competition besides the security threats like after the incidence of 9/11 terrorist attack, as its been considered as amongst the world most profit making airlines so for them to lead the industry the competition becomes more stiff for that they not only have to face threats like escalating fuel cost but also have to operate with low cost. BA has been helped by keymetric with 2006 transformational online programs to save nearly about 38 millions. Operating profit has gone down to 80 percent which shows sheer and utmost decrease due to the weak customer confidence and thus reducing the traffic volumes. Challenges are mainly face due to the so many cost which has become hot air balloon and going high, if busted will not beneficial for the company. The cost balloon include so many costs like right from fuel cost, employee cost, cost of engineering, landing fees and besides this, also includes more operations costs due to delay in shifting to terminal 5 like, cargo handling costs, trucking charges, cost of ground equipments, IT and strong euro rate etc. Whereas, Emirates airlines firstly penetrated the market by launching it s routes to the places in west Africa like in Nigeria and Ghana altogether. To sustain in to the market and feel the presence in these two countries there is also a challenge to be able to handle many multilingual issues and the problems with double byte sites. As emirates is present internationally, to manag e its data which is globally spread through internet, the company took the decision of spreading out SDL Tridions content for management solution. With such a decision enabled the Emirates, to cater to wider and variety of audience. As now the customers from all over the world can access to common information available to them. (Simon, 2007) Solution: Aviation industry requires huge sums of investment to operate and it adds risk to the return as well. The main money source of income for firms is shareholder. BA secures its position in the world aviation through focusing its aim towards its prospective shareholders and product betterment with handing cost efficiently. BA aims to achieve unique culture in airline by focussing towards customer and their requirements. BA believes that, differentiating their strategy from their competitors will bring the huge market. After being loosed the battle in to the business class which has been collapsed, after their position has been taken over by Silver Jet Airlines as a business class leader. But after this move in the aviation industry, British Airways took some good decisions like purchasing of Lavion Paris Airline, which was a quiet successful for BA. British Airways is always prepared to the change according to the environment and that alo shows in their course of planned action. BA has released the Terminal 5 which was going through good functioning with 6 million passengers (Marzouqi, N.D.). Emirates on the other hand, had find out a niche for itself as a route for success and not in the way of following others. Unlike BA, emirates was not very much affected by 9/11 incident and also with decline of profit levels, seat factors the company managers didnt shake and through their belief in their company and dedication took them out in such a crisis situation and thus, they were remained profitable. Whereas, other airlines were reducing and laying off their workforce so as to cut down the cost but, emirates didnt do this and their unique working paid off. (Sull, 2005)

EA Games

Change is part of organizational growth and survival in our modern global economy. If an organization is going to grow and survive, it needs more than traditional strategic business plans. One of the principal drivers of competition is technological advancements. Company’s can develop a strong competitive advantage through the strategic use of information technology. This white paper will discuss information technology (IT) concepts that have successfully been utilized by other organizations. The purpose is to benchmark how other companies have successfully implemented information technology and how SaveWithUS can conceptualize these strategies. The focus of IT is not just on the internal applications or computer systems that reside on the network; rather the focus is the strategic approach that information systems can have to support the business plans, goals, and objectives of the organization. Ultimately, a strategic approach to information technology should improve a company’s competitive advantage, business intelligence, reduce costs, increase margin, streamline business processes speed, accuracy, and reliability, communication, data based decision making, and increase overall customer value (Mickler, 2008). Many start-up companies develop a business plan but rely heavily on their own experience when it comes to business decision making rather than facts that an existing company would use. As the company grows, mistakes become more costly, they will rely more and more in information to base sound decisions. SaveWithUS is at the juncture where business decisions need to be based on facts not guesses. To remain competitive and profitable, SaveWithUS needs to reduce costs of merchandise manufactured and products purchased for resale. Technology has changed the way information is captured, stored, processed, analyzed, distributed, communicated; and the organizational infrastructure which is used to reduce costs, increase profits, and gain a competitive advantage. The effective use of information technology requires an organization and cultural change. The most important component in the change equation is making the decision to change. If resistance to change permeates, this will lead to the breakdown and irrelevancy of what was once a strong organization (CTU Online, 2008). Change is forever part of business sustainability. Understanding the external business environment can improve the strategic approach that an organization should adopt in a competitive market. A highly competitive environment includes multiple firms targeting he same market to win the same business. The external environment has forces which business must contend with for survival. Michal Porter has devised a five forces model that focus on these external pressures. The five pressures are 1) rivalry among existing competition, 2) threats of substitute products, 3) bargaining power of suppliers, 4) bargaining power of channels and end users, 5) barriers to entry. This model can be very helpful to think of competition in its broadest sense which suggests areas for competitive posture. Porter’s five-force’s model provides the framework to judge an organizations position and analyze a business level strategy which will describe how an organization competes in the marketplace (Frenzel & Frenzel, 2004). These are just a few reasons why information technology is the critical infrastructure of any organization. The case study referenced herein is Electronic Arts (EA), the leading independent video game publishing company, producing popular titles such as The Sims, Madden NFL, and Medal of Honor. They also publish games based on Hollywood franchises such as the Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, and The Godfather. Nestled in Silicon Valley, Electronic Arts is a very successful organization with more than 50 best-sellers that sold more than a million copies each. Many people would believe that Electronic Art’s is a video game development company which base its success from the rich talent pool of creative people, artists, animators, programmers, and technicians. This is a highly competitive industry and getting more competitive every year with a fickle customer base. EA has competitors such as Activision, Take-Two, and Vivendi Games which all sell strong in the marketplace. It would be reasonable to assume they also have a highly talented staff of developers and creative artists. EA is successful because they are the model of a stellar management company. According to EA president and COO John Riccitiello, â€Å"EA pulls it off by honing the way that it develops and markets games: by thinking of its products as emotional, cinematic experiences, not toys. † Electronic Arts is in the business of delivering a total entertainment experience. The company built its creativity on a foundation of management discipline (Salter, 2007). EA understands the completive landscape and performs extensive due diligence. Riccitiello has stated, â€Å"We often know more about the feature set of our competition's products than our competition does. † Electronic Arts recognizes that gaining a competitive advantage will not materialize because of slicker graphics, audio, or better storylines than the competition; consumers expect these features to improve over time and that is part of the gaming industry. EA knows that the high-tech imagery features they develop today will only be copied tomorrow which will not provide long-term advantage. EA has strong competitive intelligence, forecasting, budgeting, timing, and methodical project management disciplines. EA uses information technology to store financial data, sales data, important customer data, competitive data, and offer access to share this information across business units. EA has the discipline of sharing best practices and technologies using intranet libraries. This enables data to become more accurate and to be shared or broadcast faster through a more reliable means (Mickler, 2008). An e-business strategy can be defined as the electronic means of internal and external communications for an organization. Internally, employees can use a private intranet to share information, facilitate knowledge dissemination, management reporting, collaborate with business partners, sales promotions, and competitive intelligence, all of these features and more can be used with the development of an intranet. EA is diligent to understand their customers. They know that what is real to their consumers is what is on TV. Electronic Arts believes in gaining better understanding of their audience through the use of focus groups. These are non-EA groups of gamers and EA takes their recommendations seriously to the point they will do a complete rewrite. Traditionally, the gaming industry is male dominated. Industry demographics suggest the target audience is male between the ages of 16 and 24. EA wants to expand their market beyond the typical gaming demographics. However, EA proceeds with caution not to lose current customers that do not want to see dumbed down products. When making complex decisions on marketing strategies and tactics, it is important look at hard data to in decision making. Information technology can provide the means of using marketing intelligence, trends, economic data, competitive market data, technological, demographics, government sources, and cultural and social information to provide a solid foundation upon from which to draw (Salter, 2007). Using e-business strategies such as customer relationship management (CRM) tools can identify important customer data to develop products and service specific to their needs, wants, and desires. The result of their data was a game titled the SIMS which attracts customers of all ages, thus developing new markets with different set of wants, needs, and desires. In addition, e-business is a means to reduce customer and supplier expenses, meet customer and supplier needs in a defect-free manner, and improve the speed in which these functions can take place. Knowledge management tools are processes the organization will employ to collect, store, analyze, and distribute information. Information technology offers data mining technique which are the convergence of technologies that provide computations to make sense of all the information stored (Frenzel & Frenzel, 2004). The maturity of an information system in an organization can have a direct effect on the speed, accuracy, and reliability of its data processing. Information technology can eliminate the manual logging of paperwork, eradicate human error and increase speed, accuracy and reliability of the information stored (Mickler, 2008). Some of the mundane tasks can become completely automated through bar code scanners and other technology which will reduce labor costs, increase accuracy of data, and induce inventory cost controls (Mickler, 2008). I addition, information technology can improve the manufacturing process while meeting customer demands and reduce costs. In an effort to accurately control inventory costs, SaveWithUS should consider Just-In-Time (JIT) manufacturing and including technology to help reduce costs. JIT does not use the conventional ways of producing products with large batch sizes at high volumes. The JIT philosophy is where machine operators produce only the items needed, when it is requested, and on time. Information technology also plays a vital role in measuring the return on investment for these new processes (Frenzel & Frenzel, 2004). Computer inventory management systems can control and coordinate delivery of raw materials or components from suppliers with production schedule, thereby minimizing inventory carrying costs. It is absurd to realize management can not track the percentage of repeat business, the accuracy of the expense of manufacturing costs, and sales goods of sold (CTU Online, 2008). The objective of SaveWithUS needs to be the development of a realistic business strategy that has full support of top management, established clear goals, development of long-term customer relationships, and provides maximum value. Bringing quality value to the customer is vital in the competitive and global business world. A competitive advantage is achieved when an organization has integrated information technology in the business activities with the value chain more cost-effectively than the competition. The goal of a business is to sell their products and services and keep customers buying in the future by means of adding value. Customers exchange something of value, such as money, for the products and services an organization produces. Strategic planning allows an organization to recognize how the customer sees the value of a company’s product or service and helps better position their goods in the market to make a profit (Frenzel & Frenzel, 2004). Strategic plans will use resources of people, money, facilities, and technical capabilities that are required in order to achieve the goals and objectives. The goal of information technology is to support these efforts and add value of speed, accuracy, and reliability (Mickler, 2008). In the games industry, success, novelty, and great innovative designs do not automatically mean that a company will enjoy long-term success. In fact, the annals of the gaming publishing industry is eroded with once triumphant companies that currently are no longer existence. It takes a distinct mixture of success and business savvy to stay afloat and competitive. This review is hypothetical, created solely to fulfill course task requirements. The review of and title of an article depicts Electronic Arts (from now EA) as â€Å"Playing to Win†, the fact is that they are indeed playing the business game to win. EA is one of the world's foremost reliant interactive software developing and publishing company. Since its inception, EA has garnered more than 700 awards for outstanding software in the U. S. and Europe. According to their own on-line career opportunity web site EA(2010) they say that EA markets its products worldwide under four brand logos and has over 33 product franchises that have reached more than a million unit sales worldwide. We will discuss more about their target market audiences in the next two sections. EA see themselves as a company that provides a product to it's target market that appeals in the sense of interactive cinematic gaming experience. According to Salter (2002) Computer and video games are a bigger business than the movies, and the biggest force in games is Electronic Arts a company whose blockbuster titles dazzle millions of customers and generate billions of dollars in sales. As the world leaders in interactive entertainment we can say that EA's most important competitive advantage is the fact they have lasted 20 years in the business and has gathered enough experience to leverage heritage into the entertainment gaming industry. Their other advantage is that they allow their 12 developing studios innovation freedom while impressing the discipline to meet deadlines. This means that it's not all about gaming but also about planning, and management having a good business plan in place and a good vision is certainly a good competitive advantage. This is corroborated by Rabin (2010) when he says that the business plan developed was visionary and had three key elements: first, that the creative talent at the company would be treated like artists, involved in the marketing, and generally revered more than at other companies in the industry; second, that they would develop proprietary tools and technology that would enable them to quickly develop their titles cross-platform; and third, that they would handle the distribution to stores. Their primary target market (audience) is the users of advanced entertainment systems. The customary gamers are males in between the ages 16-through 24 year of ages. EA has continue to expand and move their traditional demographics As the market expands, their enthusiasts is to figure out how to publish products for people who are not the within the traditional demographic model. The fact is that EA's present their content to a wide general audience appealing to all key demographic market segments by logically brainstorming their products as an emotional experience, How do they create an emotional experience? The emotional experience is created through offering their target markets a highly targeted campaign contributing the opportunity for the user to interact with the game. It's a simple but very radical idea in which the users is part of the cinematic experience, therefore the user does not see the game as a toy but as an appealing realistic experience. Currently, their specific target market audience comprises a wide general range of users utilizing advance game consoles, personal computer system, video game consoles such as Nintendo, Play Station, Play Stations, and numerous others. Let's clarify one thing about game publishing companies. They are exactly just that â€Å"Publishers† , they don't consider themselves to be developers. The game entertainment publishing arena is quite busy and extremely competitive. Beside having fun and playing games it takes discipline to be creativity and code award winning games. This is a fact that is corroborated by Salter (2010) when he writes that it takes a tough company to make entertaining games. Salter quotes the president and COO of â€Å"The forgotten aspect of creativity is discipline,† beside discipline it takes a good development team and a good project manager with a sense of scheduling, creating buzz about the product through a hard core marketing campaign. Everything centers around information technology especially the discipline of methodically managing their projects, their information technology systems play a large aspect of their success through regimented collaborative best practices across their an intranet library. In closing in my opinion what makes Electronic Arts a potential winner is their ability to take ingenious people who are highly motivated and talented and create excessive amounts of value. Electronic Arts Inc. (EA), headquartered in Redwood City, California, is the world’s leading interactive entertainment software company. Founded in 1982, the Company develops, publishes, and distributes interactive software worldwide for video game systems, personal computers, cellular handsets and the Internet. Electronic Arts markets its products under four brand names: EA SPORTSâ„ ¢, EAâ„ ¢, EA SPORTS Freestyle â„ ¢ and POGOâ„ ¢. In fiscal 2008, EA posted GAAP net revenue of $3. 67 billion and had 27 titles that sold more than one million copies. We were tasked to improve the functionality of the site, both technically and visually. The technical aspects of keeping up with ncreased user demands and features and facilities offered by the site were all dealt with to everyone’s satisfaction. It was felt that the site architecture and the user experience still left room for improvement, and we have lots to offer to fill this need. It was also important to ensure that the CRM and frontend complimented one another visually. Above all, we wanted the access site to offer an equivalent experience to the Flash site, rather than an alternative one. Our reputation as designers with flair for translating a company’s brand onto their website and for creating great user experiences got us this project. We were given the responsibility of revamping the entire site to reflect the brand of the company. Creating a site that was easily scalable and low on maintenance was also one of the primary requirements. We made the site made very light and the download speeds were reduced substantially. Only a few colors were used through most of the site, and two other colours were used where some differentiation was needed. Style sheets were created to keep the vast amount of content consistent visually. A clean, slightly serious and professional look was given to the entire site.

Comprehensive Immigration Reform Essay

Over time, the United States Immigration system has undergone a myriad of comprehensive reforms which have proven to greatly impact the composition of its population. Though it is unclear whether these specific policies were products of theoretical assumptions, such as those associated with a country’s economic stature, the social norms of the time period, or further contributory factors such as the existing political landscape, the issue of immigration has continued to remain problematic in the 21st century and requires a structured approach. Preceding the current Obama administration and previous Bush administrations of the early 2000s, relatively recent major reforms were made to the U.S. immigration system through the passage of bills beginning in 1986 under the Immigration Reform and Control Act, in 1990 under the Immigration Act, and in the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (Bodvarsson and Van den Berg, 368). Each of these legislative bi lls proposes different sets of provisions which include, to some degree, address comprehensive immigration reform. However, the policy strategy to include these broader reforms on recent immigration legislation have largely failed to emerge from beyond the preliminary procedures of Congress as a result of strong opposition by today’s lawmakers. More specifically, the notable policy trend in contemporary immigration legislation involves the heavy emphasis on border enforcement as the principal solution to the issue as a whole. The comprehensive processes that were once established through the legislative bills of the 1980’s and 90’s, such as the family reunification programs, legal amnesty clauses, and population ceilings, are now largely absent from the one-dimensional enforcement system utilized today. It is within the scope of this philosophical shift that has elicited the question of why the most recently implemented immigration policies have been limited to the expansion of border enforcement mandates, while preceding legislative reforms aimed to embrace a somewhat broader framework that addressed additional issues beyond enforcement? More importantly, is strictly focusing and funding border enforcement programs the most economically feasible solution in comparison to alternative methods? In order to reach an appropriate conclusion to the questions raised by the current trend, it is required that an extensive evaluation and comparison of the fiscal budgets of recent policies be conducted, in addition to an examination of the overall efficiency and  effectiveness of those policies by analyzing annually recorded statistics. Also, a thorough understanding of the overall complexities and interconnectedness of these policies with other prominent issues in the public policy realm is required and must serve as a starting point in order to clearly establish the context of the existing public discourse on immigration. This gradual regression of the US immigration system can be understood by first examining some of the ways in which certain large-scale issues played a role in the federal government’s policymaking process during the turn of the 21st century. Migration Policy Institute analyst Marc R. Rosenblum discusses some of these issues in depth in his insightful piece titled, Understanding the Stalemate over Comprehensive Immigration Reform. As he points out, the months following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks demonstrate the ways in which the immigration system was, though indirectly, greatly effected by the efforts made by Congress and the President to take swift action, in which he reite rates in his words, â€Å"immigration processes and border controls immediately became a central topic of concern,† (4). This immediate response by the government led to a massive restructuring of the immigration system under new security and anti-terrorism policy measures. Any notion that these actions would essentially entail some comprehensive reforms would prove to only result in the passing of the Real ID Act in 2005 which only toughened regulations for immigrants trying to acquire a state driver’s license, and also did so only as an attachment to another unrelated measure (5). Other efforts by supporters of comprehensive immigration reform in both the House of Representatives and Senate would eventually fail to push forward any new legislation in 2006 and again in 2007 despite passing the Senate, but ultimately lose momentum for any chance to propose restructured visas or legalized amnesty after the abrupt economic decline of 2008 (6). Even more recent legislative efforts to renew comprehensive reforms by Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey in 2010, as well as by former Texas Representative Solomon Ortiz in 2009, died in Congress despite Ortiz’s CIR ASAP bill being referred to committees (loc.gov, 2012). Though Senator Menedez†™s bill was reintroduced in earlier of June 2011 to the current 112th Congress, the senate has only passed a total of 24 public laws this year (loc.gov, 2012). In contrast, enforcement based provisions as well as their monetary funding  requirements passed easily over the same period of time through bills such as the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 and the Secure Fence Act of 2006 (Rosenblum, 5). The legislative activities during these years present the very pattern that remains today. One that had ultimately began with the passing of the Homeland Security Act of 2002, where President George W. Bush authorized the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, which would eventually become the permanent cabinet department that federal border enforcement programs and immigration officials would operate under (Chishti et al, 2). In addition to his discussion on the policy agenda set forth by the 9/11 attacks, Rosenblum offers specific examples as to why the trend favoring the strict use of enforcement has continued and declares that within the field of immigration policy there is a strong bias which is, â€Å"in favor of enforcement rather than legalization or visa reform,† (10). He continues to then list three primary reasons for the existence of the bias noting of the cost-benefit advantages of migration enforcement, the procedural difficulties for drafting and enact ing new legislation, and its classification as an issue which is conveniently easy to support in the political arena (Rosenblum, 11). While Rosenblum’s examples summarize the most basic obstacles that have successfully defeated any efforts to formulate comprehensive reforms earlier in the decade, these same rationales have only continued on and remained consistent today, even under a newly elected President in Barack Obama. Given that the 2007 McCain-Kennedy bill marks perhaps the most legitimate effort at achieving comprehensive immigration reform in the 21st century, it seems as though the complexities of the legislative processes and strategic ploys utilized by the field’s major players have successfully prevented any changes to policy approach. However, it is also critical to note that Obama’s legislative agenda became focused with the sudden economic downturn shortly after taking office in 2008, as well as taking on other major legislation in addressing healthcare and insurance reform. The outline of these concerns can also be understood as a list of relatively new constraints upon compreh ensive immigration supporters, as there is a distinct contrast in the policy approaches between the 107th-112th congress and those with which preceded it. The earlier legislative bills which utilized comprehensive immigration measures, such as the Immigration Reform  and Control Act of 1986, were generally aimed to address and, if successful, rid some of the problems at which the immigration system faced at the time. However, it is also clear that by doing so these specific programs also helped to realign and improve the current system as a means to better establish the general trajectory and stable functionality of the system in the future. Though the extent to which programs were more or less effective is often debated, it is necessary to assume that the immigration system as a whole requires continuous adjustments appropriate for fulfilling, as writer Richard A. Boswell states, â€Å"the overall objective of immigration laws in the United States,† or more specifically to, â€Å"keep the flow of people into the country to a manageable level, while preserving the interests of family unity and the need for labor,† (Bosw ell, 204). While Boswell’s definition is by no means interpreted as federal law, the author’s statement essentially grasps the premise of immigration and two of its most pressing issues which remain at the core of the modern day discussion. As the congressional record of today’s policies in the greater the 21st century have shown, lawmakers have failed to properly preserve immigration by choosing to over pursue and implement a vast agenda of security measures which, have thus far proved only ineffective and highly inefficient in solving the field’s most glaring issues. The continued efforts to focus on enforcement and reestablish stricter policies have proceeded beyond necessity and have reached excessive levels of spending without producing adequate or proportional results. The statistical reports provided by the federal government reinforce these observations, as they largely reflect the emphasis of strict enforcement programs backed with high spending, particularly when evaluating the fiscal year budgets and recorded results for all active US immigration organizations. For example, dating back to 1990 the United States Border Patrol had a fiscal year budget totaling the amount of $262,647. Since then, their budget has dramatically increased by 1,251 percent given their reported 2011 fiscal year budget of $3,549,295 (CBP.gov, 2012). For their parenting agency, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the budget also grew from $5.9 billion in 2003 to $11.8 billion in 2011 (DHS.gov, 2012). The newly created Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency also experienced a budget increase over time, from $3.3 billion to $5.7 billion in 2011 and  peaking at $6 billion in 2009 (DHS.gov, 2012). The examination of the data also revealed an unlikely detail, depicting no drop or reduction in enforcement spending despite the economic downturn during the fiscal year of 2008, nor afterward in 2009 (DHS, 2012). Although the funding for enforcement continues to steadily increase, the immigration system remains largely cost-ineffective. In an article published by the Immigration Policy Center, estimates calculated by the National Immigration Forum stated that costs to detain a single person under the ICE agency amount to $166 per day, and also require over five million dollars in daily operating costs to detain 33,400 people in more than 250 facilities (immigrationpolicy.org, 2012). The article also reported that, â€Å"In 2009 and 2010, over half of detainees did not have criminal records,† and that â€Å"Traffic offenses account for nearly 20 percent of those who did,† (immigrationpolicy.org, 2012). The statistics listed in the article suggest a clear pattern of inefficiency that takes place at a micro level on a day-to-day basis. Although it is hardly sufficient to utilize these numbers as the fundamental basis against the use of heavy enforcement in immigration, an examination of the fiscal issues and its greater impacts at the macro level represent many more problems. Given that the increased spen ding on enforcement programs aim to essentially reduce the overall unauthorized immigrant population in the United States and prevent further illegal entry into the country, statistics provided by research studies suggest that the coveted outcomes do no match the actual results. When looking at the Department of Homeland Security’s annual population estimates for the unauthorized immigrant the number was reported to be 11,510,000 for the year 2011 which grew in comparison to the 10,790,000 estimated for 2010 (dhs.gov, 2012). Though there are immediate concerns given the data limitations which distort the overall accuracy of the estimates made by the DHS, the unauthorized immigrant population living in the United States has thus far grown significantly from the 8.5 million as detailed by the department back in the year 2000 and into the double digits during the new decade (dhs.gov, 2012). Those who strongly support the strategy of strict enforcement, such as Jessica M. Vaughan of Immigration Daily, expected quite the opposite of what the current statistics have measured. In her article, Vaughan anticipates that through strict enforcement tactics such as attrition, immigration enforcement should then  greatly improve to being both â€Å"faster and ch eaper,† (cis.org, 2012). Also, she offers a prediction that the strategy could, â€Å"reduce the illegal population from its current 11.5 million to 5.6 million in a period of five years, a 51 percent reduction,† (cis.org, 2012). Considering the scope of these outcomes and the results of the actual data producing statistics not even remotely close indicate that the current enforcement programs are ineffective, but continue to experience budget growth. Still, in the simple context of theoretical presumptions, heightened security measures and the overall approach of adopting strict immigration laws should ideally yield the capacity to generate a mass reduction in the unauthorized immigrant population over time, and provide greater collective protection against the most dangerous criminals and/or terrorists that are considered threats to the United States. However, another alarming statistic mentioned by immigrant attorney Tara Magner from an analysis done by Syracuse University research proves the liabi lity of these assumptions at which, â€Å"It found that less than 0.01% of arrests of noncitizens by Homeland Security agents were terrorist related,† (Magner, 3). With the steady growth of enforcement budgets continuing at the forefront of US immigration policy, one can conclude that the current system is in desperate need of more cost-efficient and highly beneficial reforms. Another key aspect at which the current US immigration system affects is the national economy. For example, author Raul Hinojosa-Ojeda uses a general equilibrium model in his research to help calculate and project the economic outcomes of alternative immigration reforms (Hinojosa-Ojeda, 177). Under his first alternative scenario, which calls for the creation of, â€Å"a pathway to legal status for unauthorized immigrants in the United States and establishes flexible limits on permanent and temporary immigration,† his research estimates a yearly increase in the nation’s Gross Domestic Product by .84 percent, or $1.5 trillion dollars over a full decade (177). This alternative alone holds more positive benefits for an already struggling economy by primarily improving wages and productivity but also by increasing small-business formation, home ownership, and greater household investment in education (187). In a second setting, Hinojosa-Ojeda analyzes the effects of a temporary worker program and concludes that the U.S. GDP would increase  annually by a slightly less .44 percent, totaling an additional $792 billion over a 10-year span (177). While comparatively not the optimal scenario between the two, establishing a temporary worker program remains on the table when constructing a partisan bill in Congress. Also, an extreme third option proposing mass deportation is for the most part an unrealistic policy approach and widely unpopular on both sides of the issue but nevertheless, â€Å"serves as an extreme or boundary case against which we can evaluate the other two scenarios,† as articulated by the author. (188) When closely examining the first scenario and its greater effects, however, the comprehensive reforms also add close to $1.2 trillion dollars in consumption and more than $250 billion in investment, while also generating additional tax revenues of $4.5 to $5.4 billion dollars, numbers that can sustain new jobs at a range between 750,000 to 900,000 (189). It is then made clear that the benefits of comprehensive reforms exceed those brought forth by a temporary workers program or a mass deportation and is thus the most favorable option, despite any difficulties it may have in becoming a bipartisan political acquisition that successfully reaches a vote in Congress.

Nurses’ Perceptions Of A Pressure Ulcer Prevention Care

Nurses’ perceptions of a pressure ulcer prevention care bundle: a qualitative descriptive study Critically ill patients are at increased risk for pressure ulcers. Hospital -acquired Pressure ulcers are serious clinical complications and that can lead to increased length of stay, pain, infection and potentially death. Nurses have the primary role in the pressure ulcer prevention. The study assessed nurses’ perceptions of the usefulness and impact of a pressure ulcer prevention care bundle intervention on clinical practice. So it is imperative to understanding nurses’ assessments of interventions when interpreting results and translating evidence into practice. Background of the study The efficacy of the pressure ulcer prevention care bundle†¦show more content†¦Pressure ulcer prevention has been the nursing worry for many years. Florence Nightingale in 1859 wrote, â€Å"If he has a bedsore, it’s generally not the fault of the disease, but of the nursing† (Nightingale, F). People may think pressure ulcers associated with poor nursing care. Prevention of pressure ulcers is a multidisciplinary responsibility; however, nurses have a primary role. Patient participation in prevention of pressure ulcers (pup) care has been shown to result in improved patient safety and satisfaction with care ((Weingart, S.N., Zhu, J., Chiappetta, L., Stuver, S.O., Schneider, E.C., Epstein, A.M. 2011). Purpose of the study includes the nurses and patients partnering together with prevention of pressure ulcers (pup) may be an effective strategy for reducing pressure ulcers (PU) among at-risk individuals. So the research team developed a pressure ulcer prevention ca re bundle (PUPCB) targeted at both patients and nurses, encouraging patient participation in PUP care with three simple evidence-based messages: 1) Keep moving; 2) Look after your skin; and 3) Eat a healthy diet. Messages were provided to patients with a poster, brochure and DVD. Nurses had training regarding how to be companion with patients in pressure ulcer prevention (Roberts et al. 2016). The INTACT trial showed a significant reduction in pressure ulcers (PU) incidence in the intervention group at the hospital (cluster) level, but this difference was not significant at theShow MoreRelatedLink Cause Effect And Prevention Of Pressure Ulcers1647 Words   |  7 PagesA pressure ulcer is an area of skin with unrelieved pressure resulting in ischemia, cell death, and necrotic tissue. The constant external pressure or rubbing that exceeds the arterial capillary pressure (32 mm Hg) and impairs local normal blood flow to tissue for an extended period, results in pressure ulcer (Brunner and Smeltzer, 2013). According to National Pressure Ulcer Advisory Panel, 2014, pressure ulcers are a major burden to the society, as it approaches $11 billion annually, with a costRead MoreQualitative Research Article On Pressure Ulcers980 Words   |  4 Pagesresearch article on pressure ulcers. Qualitative Article The qualitative research article selected for critique is the study by Athlin et al. (2009), with the title of, â€Å"Factors of importance to the development of pressure ulcers in the care trajectory: perceptions of hospital and community care nurses†. This study looked at contributing factors promoting the growth or relapse of pressure ulcers, and how the nurses working in hospitals or group care, comprehend them in the care trajectory. ProblemRead MoreNursing Research Critique1185 Words   |  5 PagesConsiderations Introduction A pressure ulcer is a localized injury to the skin and/ or underlying tissue usually over a bony prominence, as a result of pressure or pressure in combination with shear and/ or friction. (National Pressure Ulcer Advisory Panel, 2007). It is essential to give education to the patients, family, care givers and health care providers to decrease the pressure ulcer rate. Multiple study about pressure ulcer revealed that pressure ulcer causes significant harm to the patientsRead MoreEssay on Evidence Based Information on Pressure Ulcers831 Words   |  4 PagesNURS-4001-5 Res/ Scholarship Evid-Based Practice April 21, 2013 Pressure Ulcers are very serious, but common occurrences in healthcare in our older patients today. Millions of dollars are spent daily to prevent this occurrence. The purpose of this paper is to educate on the evidence based nursing practice surrounding pressure ulcers. 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There are many risk factors for pressure ulceration; however, most concerning patient factorsRead MoreThe Healthy Skin Project Was Initiated As A Result Of Increasing Cost For The Treatment And Diagnosis Of Pressure962 Words   |  4 Pagesresult of increasing cost for the treatment and diagnosis of pressure ulcers. The number of patients needing hospitalization and health care for this condition was rising by a large and alarming rate. Another need for this study came into play as a health care priority when in 2008 the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services stopped honoring payment for many types of hospital- acquired conditions, one being pressure ulcers. Pressure ulcers are often a clinical complication condition that can becomeRead MoreThe Clinical Setting That Nurses Have Be Aware Of And Be Educated On Preventing And Treating Essay1224 Words   |  5 PagesThere are many issues in the clinical setting that nurses have to be aware of and be educated on preventing and treating. 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