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Definition of terrorism
Definition of terrorism.
Terrorism can be described as unlawful use of violence or force against property or people to provoke any group of people, government or any audience due to differences in politics of the parties involved. The major causes of terrorism includes poverty, high unemployment rate of the youths and failure to resolve national and ethnic aspirations,(Tilly 2006, 166). It can also be linked with ignorance and despair of the people involved in causing the terror attacks. Other people argue that terrorism is usually as a result of bad governance systems whereby the “failed states violate human rights and creates conditions for terrorism,”(Buolden, 2004). Terrorism is nowadays a major threat to many countries and their citizens. In his campaigns, the U.S presidential candidate John McCain has come up with various strategies he will employ to ensure that terrorism is minimized globally if he is elected the next president of America.
Homeland security.
Homeland security act refers to a bill that was enacted in a congress by “the senates and the house of representatives of the united states of America” and was given a short title of “homeland security act of 2002.” This act established a department which aims at the protection of the wellbeing of the American citizens. This department is headed by a secretary of homeland security who is appointed by the president. The secretary has full control and authority over this department and all the activities under this department. The president also appoints the other key officials that ensure smooth and effective running of this department. Its main responsibility is to minimize terrorism cases and their effects to the American citizens. It aims at preventing terrorist attacks to the Americans and any losses that may occur as a result of the attacks. This department also ensures that the American borders are secure hence cannot be attacked from the borders. It also collects any information associated with terrorism or their operations and intentions and make thorough analysis to protect the general infrastructure of America. It is also prepared on the measures it can take and apply in response to any emergency that may arise. This department also coordinates with the rest of departments in government and non-governmental organizations that are concerned with ensuring that the Americans are safe from any terrorist attacks. It is also prepared to deal with any other function that comes it way and handle it in a good manner for the benefit of Americans.
The presidential candidate John McCain is said to be the one who fought for the establishment of this department in the aftermath of 9/11. Due to his long service in the American government and the navy as an officer with a unique record of military service, he has adequate knowledge on the threats facing the Americans when terrorism is concerned. He has seen many terrorist attacks on the Americans in their country and in other foreign countries. He promises to ensure that quality intelligence has been employed in his governance that will deal with terrorists from their ‘grass roots’ by uncovering them and their practices. This will be achieved by having better spies in his government. He will ensure that the important infrastructure and the boarders are well protected against attack. He promises to look in to it that his government has the capability of responding and recovering from any terrorist attack as soon as possible.
Defense spending.
For there to be successful defense and fight on terrorism, America requires a strong military background that will be enhanced by the government. On top of giving the forces the best training in the world, military leadership and technology requires to be enhanced for the forces to ensure protection of Americans. This means that the government has to spend a lot on the military budget to meet these fundamentals. John McCain has an effective plan regarding the spending of the funds meant for defense. He plans to reform the defense procurement to enhance its good and faithful spending. He plans to have a wise budgeting for the defense and a close scrutiny of its expenditure to avoid misuse of the funds and ensuring the availability of the resources for the defense’s efficiency. He feels that through ensuring the defense’s funds are spent in the right manner, it will ensure they have enough resources to deal with cases of terrorism for the benefit of Americans, national defense and the military personell. Having served the military, he also understands the risks facing the military and has promised to ensure that they and their families, get full support of the country.
Increasing military forces in terrorist countries.
In the fight against terrorism, a large number of highly trained military personell is essential to the country of America. This is to ensure that they are enjoying protection in their country or even outside the country. Since America has deployed some of its military forces to the terrorist countries such as Iraq and Afghanistan, it means that troops defending the country are few. According to McCain, for the challenges of security to be appropriately achieved, the size of the armed forces must be enlarged. He says that by increasing the forces, it will be a step forward to the global war on terrorism. He also adds that the army and the marines are the most important ones to increase in numbers to ensure protection from any attacks. He adds that since the American armies face dangerous operations in various parts of the world, they require to be highly modernized in terms of weapons and and the training they get. This is to ensure that they succeed in the global fight against terrorism.
References
Charles, T. (2006) “HYPERLINK “http://books.google.co.ke/books?id=iHKXSvKXs3oC&pg=PA166&dq=causes+of+terrorism” Why?: [what happens when people give reasons… and why]” Publisher: Princeton University Press,(166)
Definition of terrorism (Critical Theory by Richard Jackson)
Definition of terrorism (Critical Theory by Richard Jackson)
Richard defines terrorism critically as an intentional and predetermined strategy of political violence, in which anybody including the states, individuals, or groups can use it for pursuing their personal interests (Jackson 2011). Similarly, those who apply terrorism can abandon it any time meaning terrorists can change from being violence users to peacemakers and good members of a state depending on the situation. Sometimes it is quite difficult to identify a terrorist in a country because of their changing nature. According to Jackson (2011) in his book” Terrorism”, terrorism has a political motivation and is quite different from some other forms of violence by some organized groups. The groups use violence either to extort money or just serial and mass killings of innocent individuals to terrify their targets.
The other difference between terrorism and the normal riots is that terrorism involves a predetermined thought and its execution is intentional. According to Jackson, terrorism is one form of political communication and the targets of the terror are the audiences to the violence and not the victims of violence (2011). Terrorism as a political communication chooses its victims in advance unlike the military war, whose aim is to weaken the enemies and make them unable to cause more harm as Jackson (2008) explains. Some countries may try to conceal their participation in the civilian-directed violence, and this should send an alert to the societies that they intend to intimidate. There could be some plans to get rid of their opponents from the political field (Jackson 2008). State terrorism can involve the direct killing of a union or the organizers to make it weak, cause fear or some intimidation to a union. Terrorism activities involve intentional actions to civilians, such as bombing public places to instill fear and intimidation to the opponents. According to Richard’s definition of terrorism, there is intentionality in those who engage in terror activities since they know that their actions will result in terror and intimidation (Jackson 2008). The other intention is to cause fear to the civilians by use of the crude weapons, such as the grenades, bombs, and torture. The main intention of using torture on their opponents is to terrify their supporters and make them lose faith in their preferred candidates. Richard disagrees with the other types of arguments that terrorism does not solely target the civilians. However, he agrees with Goodin that some actions allow the actors to have a claim of legitimacy for other forms of violence (Jackson & Sinclair 2012).
According to the critical definition of terrorism, terrorism must not portray a form of evil violence but should be a form of a political violence.In this case, the politicians play part in fueling the violence as observed by Jackson & Sinclair (2012). Before any counter-terrorist attack on the suspected terrorists, a country should first do investigations in their country to access the political situation and the possibility of the local politician being part of the terrorists. According to Jackson and Sinclair (2012), terrorism may take various forms, such as generic terrorism, in which the actor uses intimidation to force a government or a community to fulfill some political demands. An example is the violence attacks by the Al-Shabab terror group demanding the release of the Kenya Defense Forces in Somalia (KENYA: Deadly Attacks 2014). The other form may be religious terrorism that associates violence with religion (Jackson 2011), even when it has a political influence. Non-state terrorism involves the attacks of the civilians to submit with the aim of bringing a political change in a state or country. Finally, the state terrorism is the intimidation of the civilians to submit and is executed by a third party to instill fear in the cities (Jackson 2011).
Jackson and Sinclair (2012) observe that violence may target the police officers or the military, but it does not rule out the idea of terrorism even if it did not target the civilians. For example in Kenya, some terrorist targeted the police and the military camps, such as the one that happened in Mpeketoni attacks (KENYA: Deadly Attacks 2014). Here the terrorists attacked the police camp and burned their vehicles. According to Jackson (2011), terrorism may still involve activities such as the attack on enemy soldiers and their civilian audience even if it does not wholly target the military of that state. The other action that qualifies as terrorism is the use of the military chemical weapons, which may not be effective, are demoralizing, or simply using bombs on civilians (Jackson 2011). Some of the bombs may land on the areas that were not the actual areas of the terrorists’ targets, but still the action qualifies to be terrorism. The merits of adopting the above conception of terrorism are that it does not have any artificial or illogical limit to the nature of the actor. The definition does not limit the analysis to peace since the action of the actors in the war, where there is a concentration of the political violence (Jackson 2008). The definition of terrorism includes issues, such as the state terrorism, non-state terrorism, and the gender-based terrorism. (Jackson 2008). In most cases, researchers on terrorism focus mostly on the terrorism perpetrated by the Islamic group, such as the Al-Qaida and Al-Shabaab, as in the Kenyan case. The definition based on this view does not incorporate the violence caused by the political allies against their opponents. According to Richard, some of the terrorism scholars limit their definition of terrorism to conform with protect the interests of the Western powers, and the definitions do not focus on the political actors (Jackson 2008).
For instance, during the cold war, most of the research on terrorism focused on the non-state groups but nowadays any research on terrorism has a focus on religious terrorism, especially Islam (Jackson 2011). The main disadvantage of such a focus is that it does not attempt to eliminate political violence experienced in several countries. Some forms of political violence are very oppressive to the civilians and supporters of the politicians’ enemies. The terrorism definition by Richard is advantageous over the other definitions, as it can help in offering protection to the marginalized groups that are vulnerable to the oppressive forms of violence, especially one fueled by the politicians. By adopting Richard’s definition of terrorism, it will be possible to delegitimize all kinds of violence towards the civilians more so during war times and ethnic clashes. During the war times and clashes, politicians take advantage of the war to fight their enemies and eliminate their opponents, who they think is a threat to their political seats (Jackson 2011). Through the application of this definition of terrorism, it is possible to delegitimize all forms violence directed against the civilians, especially in times of wars. The approach also holds the state responsible for some of the terrorist attacks in a country, which many scholars do not acknowledge as acts of terrorism. Jackson (2008) explains that state terrorism is one that leads to many civilian deaths and displacement of people in big numbers. The approach provides an avenue to scrutinize practices by the state, especially during counterterrorism attacks, as some of them may result to state terrorism. Failure to distinguish between the guilty and the innocent may lead to terrorism by the state if the military actions involve the use extreme force with the aim of demoralizing and intimidating the target civilians. An example of this scenario is the actions of the Kenyan military in Somalia in the “Operation Linda Nchi”. The Al Shabaab militia complained of extreme torture to their women and children (KENYA: Deadly Attacks 2014). Some of the actions the Somali people complained about were rape for their women and children by the Kenya Defense Forces and looting of their property.
The critical approach of defining terrorism by Richard provides a means to carry out an evaluation of the actions by any actors in conflict, to enhance the civilian security by reducing the amount of violence.
Richard advises the other Scholars to adopt a more meaningful definition of terrorism that will define all kinds of terrorism activities, such as political and religious terrorism. According to Jackson (2011), majority of scholars associate terrorism with Islam, which gives loopholes for politicians to carry out their attacks on the civilians. The main approaches to defining terrorism according to Jackson should be sensitive to the politics and the actions of the politicians during war times. The scholars wanting to define terrorism should do so independently and should not lean towards the geopolitical interest of the Western states to provide a meaningful approach to terrorism. The researchers should use the Western states overseas operations as examples and case studies when researching on terrorism, but should adhere to the research ethics (Jackson 2011). Some of the Western states use torture, rendition, or the community victimization when doing the counter–attacks, to enhance the security of human beings and reduce political biases. Richard’s definition does not leave room for more violence during the retaliatory attacks by the military. The other scholars do not acknowledge the participation of some states in terrorism activities, such as the use of extreme force on innocent civilians. He recognizes both the cultural and political actions that show some forms of violence and terrorism and does not support the operations by some Western states, in which they counter terrorism with more terrorism.
Richard tries to define terrorism by acknowledging and accepting the political issues to avoid the political bias and some of the limitations experienced by the use of the other approaches.
Definition of purchasing and supply management and the importance to the business world
Purchasing and Supply Management
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Definition of purchasing and supply management and the importance to the business world
Purchasing and supply management is a critical process in the implementation of projects or production of goods and services. No project or production process can take place without proper supply of the necessary recourses. Since purchase and supply management involve procurement and store keeping, it can be defined as the process of procurement, storage and monitoring of goods for sale in retail outlets, raw material for project development or raw materials, machineries and other supplies for industrial production of finished goods. The critical role purchasing and supply management plays in the accomplishment of organizational goals makes most organizations allocate it a whole department. The organizations employ purchasing and supply officers to lead these departments (Johnson, Leenders, & Flynn, 2010). A purchasing and supply officer coordinate the other staff the organization allocates to the department. Retail stores, particularly, find this department critical for monitoring the behaviors of their buyers and making sure that the store adequately stocks the goods the consumers buy frequently.
In most cases purchasing and supply management involve a range of activities that require efficient and effective skills (Johnson, Leenders, & Flynn, 2010). These include negotiating skill to negotiate with suppliers, manufacturers and wholesaler during the buying process. The purchase and supplies team should be able to work with market professionals and cost analysts when deciding what to by and what not to buy. For project implementation, this may minimize wastes and by ensuring that only what is necessary is purchased. On the other hand, retail stores are able to avoid stocking goods that will just sit on the shelves soaking in dust.
According to Johnson, Leenders, & Flynn (2010) inventory is yet another important component of purchasing and supply management. Inventory involves taking stock of what is available and what needs restocking. Inventory must be taken at regular intervals at the store or warehouse, and the recorded numbers compared with initial purchases and what need to be purchased. This helps to avoid wastage when making a new purchase of supplies. The people in charge must always research consumer behaviors to detect changes in their preference. They must also stay up to date with developments in the market. This ensure that the business offer the goods that consumers want to buy.
As stated earlier, purchasing and supply management team comprises of several people who are critical to its success. These include market researchers, pricing analysts, and marketing staff. All these must be informed of the consumer needs, and market trends to add value to the team. The team must strike agreements with suppliers and manufactures on various issues, including returning goods when they fail to sale.
Creation of a project supply, service, and material budget
Creating a project supply, service and material budge is one of the critical tasks handled by Purchasing and supply management team. It requires an intensive planning process that ensures that there is a steady supply of materials and other in puts for project implementations. The first step in this procedure it identifying what is necessary form the project. Projects plans always give details of what is necessary to accomplish specific tasks within the project, and the total amount of inputs necessary to complete the entire project. Therefore, the project plan is the guideline for determining what to purchase. This is the equivalent of determining exactly what customers what in a retail store.
Next, the team should distinguish between what will add value to the project and will only increase costs. Value comes from both goods/materials and actions. This means that the team should first decide on what material to purchase based on the project requirements. Third, the team should take the moist efficient way of supplying the materials at the project site. An example of this is visible in Toyota’s just in time approach (Chenoweth et al. 2012; Jones, & Cheshunt, 2002). Toyota only purchases the materials that are necessary for creation of its cars. Toyota orders and delivers materials to assembling plants exactly when they are needed. Choosing on the appropriate mean of delivery of material and service facilitates minimization of unnecessary costs such as warehousing.
Next the team should align purchase and delivery processes to ensure that materials get delivered without interruptions. This is a critical element of supply chain management. Warehousing can be used, but only to ensure a steady supply not to add costs. Therefore, the team should make plans to secure storage close to the project site to ensure materials are available when need. Since service can not be stored like materials in warehouses, the team should identify service providers at various stages of the project, contact them and inform them when they will be required. This is much cheaper than hiring a service provider to be available from start to the completion of the project even when their service have minimal impact or are only necessary at a specific stage during service implementation. Outsourcing can be helpful in securing service this kind of services.
Once all the above processes are done, the team should find appropriate suppliers who proved the best quality raw materials and the best prices. Other consideration that should be made include whether the supplier provide transportation and warehousing or not. If the chosen supplier does not provide transportation and warehousing service, the team should find a transport and a warehousing provider that will fit into the designed supply chain.
Finally, the team should create an inventory system to continually take stock of the available materials to ensure continued minimization of wastage in the subsequent purchases. Future purchases should also be made to deliver materials and services when they are needed.
Selecting the most qualified suppliers and strategies for negotiating prices
Supplier selection is a critical part of supplier management. According to Moser, (2006) it is important to select specific suppliers for the basic material needed for eh project. An agreement can be struck with such suppliers to supply material either to supply the material on short term of long term basis. Be deciding a supplier(s) it is necessary to conduct supplier analysis and take those who score highly. The analysis includes examination of critical components of suppliers. On a scale of 1 to 10, Pooler et al (2004) rate the components as follows:
Quality of product 9.7
Competitive prices 9.4
Delivery dependability 9.0
Service offered: technical and other 8.0
Total cost reduction assistance 7.7
New product and R&D ideas 6.2
Other information which however, has little significance to most buyers include
Financial strength 5.2
Geographical location 4.3
Reputation 4.2
Others 2.0
Using an appropriate supplier management system, the Purchasing and supply management team can compare the score of all probable supplier based on the project preferences.
Negotiation is a crucial process of communication between to parties regarding terms of engagement and so on. The best strategy for negotiation price is bargaining. Before embarking on bargaining the best price, the purchases team should first compare prices to determine the highest price and the lowest price in the market. After that, aim at buying materials at a lower price and contact a supplier with the chosen price. The team should not take “NO” for an answer but should be ready to walk away when it fails to get a fair price. The team should counter all the reason a supplier gives for not being able to lower prices. Just be because a supplier reject the initial offer, it does not mean that they can not reduce the prices. If the supplier, however, keeps the price high, the team should move on and try another supplier, unless they must, buy from the first supplier. The team should also negotiate for price reductions on subsequent purchases to ensure they get a fair and consistent price. Some suppliers may be reluctant to reduce price, but may willing lower them on subsequent purchases. The supply and management team can also use bidding. The use of bids allows suppliers to offer price and the team take the supplier who offer the best price, service package and quality.
The benefits and costs of outsourcing, and the growth pattern of outsourcing
When organizations decide to focus on their core a competency, most of their attention gets focused on are that generate a competitive advantages over competitors. The organizations focus on what directly serves their customers. As a result, they start to buy services that were initially provided internally by their employees. This is outsources. Costs are critical when outsource and the firm must consider whether it is more effective to outsource a service to develop the service internally. The cost analysis of these two alternatives is critical.
According to Pooler (2004) outsourcing can yield huge savings through both employment and benefit costs reduction, and economies of scale. Companies give their permanent employees almost equal benefits. Getting an outside provide reduces the benefits cost a company can incur, and also the outsourced service is not permanent thus the company only pays when using it. In this case, the only actual labor need is paid for when a company purchases a service. This generates great flexibility during low and high demand periods and minimizes service cost. The fact that suppliers or service provider is likely to be a specialist in a specific field increases the efficiency with which a company can improve it performance through outsourcing.
Outsourcing is on the increase. Many firms and companies are adopting it due to its cost efficiency. Outsourcing is expanding since most companies are assigning labor intensive task to service providers and concentrating on their main line of operations. For instance, most companies are increasingly outsourcing tasks such as creation of software codes in India. This trend is not likely to change since companies continue to minimize cost through seeking inexpensive material and labor and preferable utilize them at the source to minimize cots of transportation.
Benchmark organizations in purchasing and supply management
There are several companies and organization that are exemplary in purchasing and supply management. Toyota identified suppliers and developed long term relationships with suppliers. After identifying suppliers, the company focused on supplier development. This enhanced supplier competences and performance. The main competence of this approach are the ability to manage business with individual suppliers, ability to evaluate and influence the performance of suppliers, involvement of suppliers in product design, recruitment of highly skilled personnel , development of personnel to have a thorough knowledge of suppliers and facilitation of dialogue with suppliers. Toyota also employed total quality management and a lean system of supply chain. The balance and efficiency was achieve through realizing operational efficiency, ensuring steady movement through the supply chain, managing inconsistencies to minimize costs and continuously improve quality, and ensuring transparency and continuous learning.
Tesco too, having learnt from Toyota came up with an impressive supply chain management approach (Jones & Cheshunt, 2002). The retail store introduced POS scanning, centralized distribution, centralized automated ordering automated control of warehouses and EDI with its major suppliers. This increased its efficiency and capacity. According to Jones & Cheshunt (2002) Tesco borrowed the following Toyota values:
Identification of what the customers want
Differentiation between action the bright about value and those that only increase costs
Align value creation steps to ensure product movement is uninterrupted
Only transported what is needed so that nothing stays on the shelves from long and gets spoiled
Consistently reconfigure value stream to eliminate interruptions and increase responsiveness
Tesco mapped its traditional value streams, developed new value streams that flow and forged close relationships with suppliers.
Conclusion
Purchasing and supply management is an important factor in success of businesses and projects. It involves a number of activities such us inventory management, negotiating with suppliers and manufactures. Due to the critical nature of purchasing and supply management it is wise to dedicate the whole process top specific department or team. The team creates the buying procedure to buy material and service. Outsource can also be employed to buy material and services. Outsourcing helps to minimize costs and increase efficiency. Companies like Toyota and Tesco have the best example of Purchasing and supply management systems developed according to their needs.
References
Chenoweth, M. E. et al. (2012). Best Practices in Supplier Relationship Management and Their Early Implementation in the Air Force Materiel Command. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation.
Johnson, P. F., Leenders, M. R., & Flynn, A. E. (2010). Purchasing and Supply Management (14th ed.). Boston: McGraw-Hill Irwin
Jones, D. T., & Cheshunt, P. C. (2002). Creating a Customer-Driven Supply Chain. ERC Journal 2(2) p28-37
Moser, Roger. (2006). Strategic purchasing and supply management a strategy-based selection of suppliers. Wiesbaden Dt. Univ.-Verl.
Pooler, V. H. et al. (2004). Global purchasing and supply management. Boston, Mass.: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Stolle, Michael. (2007). From purchasing to supply management a study of the benefits and critical factors of evolution to best practice. Wiesbaden Gabler.