Radiant Reminiscence...

I had a great time expressing my thoughts in this very wonderful activity given by Sir Jan in our BA 180.1 class. Even though before, I have been already blogging, I really enjoyed doing it once more, especially now that people are more interested with what I share. Yes, by default, I am a shareperson, and I am very enthusiastic is sharing to people what I really know, although it may not be too sufficient to be called a sharing. :D

My class blog, Proclamation 180.1 (Mar-ITech Law) has been a great instrument for me to actually see what I am really up to in my future life. EVen though I am up to logical arguments and more of quantitative analysis, I enjoyed having a part of my education the knowledge of information technology. Through my class blog, I learned a lot of ideas from my classmates. I really had fun going back to the times when I was making blogs, for information. =)

I am going to use my wordpress to continue the blogging (I just hope I can still do it in the future; anyway, if I really wanted to continue it, then I must place time on it.). Here's the link of my wordpress blog (for those who are interested):

http://radiantreminiscence.wordpress.com

Although my wordpress won't be so objective as my class blog since I will be placing mixed entries here (academic, scholarly, emotional aspects of life, experiences, etc.), I want to continue my hobby of sitting in front of my laptop, and actually typing in the words that randomly come in my mind, eventually forming it into an entry. =)

Thank you all guys!

-Agbayani, James Edward C.-
March 19, 2010

Chess- The Game of Life and Death

Chess, known to be the game of fate, is surely to have the most direct, legal response to players. Using their own set of chess pieces ranging from the highest in position (the king) to the lowest position (the pawn), the only objective of the game is to "checkmate" (place into a situation wherein the "king" of a player cannot do any legal move where it could escape against the defenses of the opposing party) his or her opponent. Same with the other player, the same objective go too. It is rare for players to actually eliminate all the pieces of his or her opponent, because each player is trying to checkmate their opponent as fast as they could. One of the most famous chess moves that I have encountered is the four-move strategy (also known to be the Scholar's mate), where the game will be finished with only four moves.

But then, for every chess game, there comes an official, underlying custom that I have been so careful of- the TOUCH-MOVE momentum. You touch a certain piece, and move it to its next destination. After doing it, a player cannot change the piece that he or she moved, and he or she cannot anymore change the place of the piece upon moving it to a tile. That is why utmost concentration, tactics, strategy, and assurance must be present. One correct move shall save you from defeat, but, one wrong move...

... shall BRING YOU TO A TOTAL DEFEAT.

For every action that businessmen do, they consider a lot of factors before doing a single plan of action. For as long as they are concerned, they are checking every branch and every corner of a decision made, so as not to bring the effects into a long-term situation. It is much better if it were only a short-term movement, but considering it to be a long-term movement, any wrong move shall mean, disaster or death. Utmost care and systematic process of decision making shall make a difference when it comes to managing a business and eventually placing it to the right spot.

The presence of technological changes, the emergence of new means of communication, the improvement of information systems, and the uprising of a new goal in business made drastic changes in the mindset of businessmen. These have improved the way they manage their businesses. With information technology continuing to improve to the best that it can to be able to bring the best out of it, almost the only problem of businesses is competiton among firms who also use the same strategy. There is an assurance that these firms shall succeed; it is only through implementation of their strategies, shall define the difference among all of them.

Like in the game of chess, every move is thought of very intensively. It doesn't matter whether it takes you a long time before moving a chess piece, than moving it as fast as you can without ever thinking where to go, or what the opponent might do as a strategy in response to your action. A move shall change everything, either for the benefit or for the worse.

BA 180.1 has thought me to take time to make strategies before placing them into action. Although it may be tedious since time is running, taking a short-term decline will be much better than taking a long-term negative impact. It is much better to lose 10 employees to cut costs than lose a billion dollars just to push through with production. Also, BA 180.1 has given me a thought that decisions made are to be slow yet sure, because, one wrong move done hastily may bring the whole effort into trash.

Like chess, the world of business is surely an exciting yet a threatening part of the career. I am excited to actually see what the world of business is.

-Agbayani, James Edward C.-
March 19, 2010

Time Compression (BA 181 vs. TIME)...

"I never thought that what my teachers were saying about the lessons they where teaching would be applied to my real-life situation. Indeed, they were true that I can ACTUALLY apply them."

Before, I never thought that what my teachers were teaching were actually true, since they only explain WHAT this concept means. They do not explain or show HOW this concept works in different situations, most preferably to real-life situations.

AND I PROVED MYSELF TO BE WRONG.

Here's my experience which actually gave me a realization that I was wrong.

Yes. It is already March 11, 2010. I looked at my wallclock, and it is 1:30 in the morning.


I slept for a few hours. I woke up and looked at my wallclock. Oh no! It's already 5:30!


This day was great, because I am planning for an unexpected surprise (now, this thing is redundant, since surprises are unexpected, but this surprise, I think, is assumed to be expected). I am from Antipolo, and now, I have to go to UP to surprisingly watch my friend's English 12 play! Approximately, I go to school an hour before the class starts. But in this case, it's almost an hour before her class starts, and I haven't prepapred yet!


THE FOLLOWING SECTIONS OF THIS ENTRY ARE WHAT I REALLY THOUGHT OF, USING QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS!


SCENARIO: There is no assurance on whether they will perform first or last. According to her, every group must have a performance of at most 10 minutes. The class starts at 7:10, and ends at approximately 8:15 or 8:30. Therefore, considering that there must be 10 minutes of performance, assume that the class will start at 7:00 and ends at 8:30. There would surely be 9 groups to present, but placing it to the real sense would place you to think that there might only be 8 or 7 groups.


PLAN: I am leaving our place at 6:20. That would be 40 minutes before the anticipated time of the start of her class. Since I would almost have traveled for an hour, then my expected arrival will be at 7:20, and either the second group is currently performing or the third group is starting to perform. The only way for me to shorten the time constraint is for me to reduce a few number of minutes to my activities, and take the shortest route from our house to UP.


Also, since I plan this to be a surprise, I have prepared a text message to send her at 7:00 AM, just to show that I can't come, but in the course of the plan, by 7:00, I have already left the house.


OBJECTIVE: Reach the site, secretly watch my friend's group performance, and surprise her as a contradiction of the message I sent, since it's a surprise. =)

I was so happy that I have developed a simple plan like this one. Thinking of the extremes, considering delays, meeting expectations, and a lot more. I know that in the work environment, I might be doing a lot of analyzing costs, time constraints, opportunities, optimality, and the like. Yes, it's not easy, but I have realized that taking it step by step will actually give you results rather than flooding a plan with all of the things that you wanted to achieve and avoiding constraints. I know that in the professional world, my plan wouldn't work at all, but the analysis might work.

I am happy because I was able to actually see that what I am studying in school is very important. Without learning these concepts, I know that I may not have met my objective. It might sound crazy, but it's very helpful.

THE RESULT:
1. I was able to reach the site at around 7:19, and it is ONE MINUTE EARLIER than my anticipated time of arrival!
2. Her group was the second group to perform. Although I wasn't able to start the performance, I could say, I have seen the majority of the play, and I watched it without being noticed by my friend, but soon, I was spotted. =)
3. She was surprised to see me because she knew I won't be able to reach. Well, it's because of the message I sent. NOW, IT'S A SURPRISE, not only to her, but also to me. :D

It was a though battle with time! Since I cannot control it, I controlled HOW it controlls the world.

(The story contains my real-life application of our BA 181 concepts- specifically on the SHORTEST ROUTE TECHNIQUE, and the CRITICAL PATH METHOD [CPM].)

-Agbayani, James Edward C.-
March 11, 2010

The Enterprise Application- Virtual Mode

Last Saturday, we had a discussion on Enterprise Applications in business. The software tackled by these Enterprise Applications are very interesting in such a way that it can not just be applied on businesses, but also approximately on our everyday lives (although we don't use computers to compute for the total money that we are going to use for our everyday lives). Similar to the business process improvements, enterprise applications are the software counterpart of the business strategies.

As I analyzed the whole process of the Enterprise Application Software, it consists of the Customer Relationship Management, Supply Chain Management, and the Enterprise Resource Planning. Reading through it would leave you a lot of questions regarding these items since you can't have on your personal computer a software complexly designed for business purposes. You can't actually see these software into action without going in a company and actually using it, but doing so may alter the whole performance of a firm, since only trained professionals are allowed to touch it.

Since Sir Jan Pabellon has given us an idea on how these systems work on a business by comparing it to strategy games such as Starcraft and the like, I seriously tried applying them to my Red Alert 3: Uprising, just to see if the enterprise application would fit a comparison regarding the system and the strategy game. Yahoo!

So here's what I did to see the enterprise application in action in a virtual mode. AND IT DID WORK.

1. Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)

Having a business for the first time of operations is comparable to having a simple base without any support from other structures, like this!

You have only a small portion of the battlefield as your "OWN" space. Moreover, you only have a limited amount of resources to use to expand (40000 dollars in this case).

As usual, businesses start to expand when they have collected information on how to establish foundations on their branches. They tend to expand and acquire more structures to increase efficiency and profitability. Of course, it will take time before they can upgrade their equipment and eventually, develop their site from a single structure to this!

Firms have a limited amount of resources to manage to be able to bring it to this condition. Enterprise Resource Planning actually helps a firm to manage its costs and resources. Similar to the notion of "maiximze proft and minimize costs", ERP serves as a financial system that checks and places expenses to the most optimal position. By this, the firm is able to maximize the use of its limited resources, like in this situation, wherein I was able to use the 40,000 dollars to construct this base with some dangerous units.

2. Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

Competition is surely evident, because there would not be only one firm who will take the market. There will be other markets who want a share in the market.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is another thing that must be given focus. Similar to Total Quality Management wherein "quality is a must", CRM focuses on customer relations, manager-employee connections, and coordination among development teams. No single manager can replace the job of a hundred employees. The manager and the employee must have cooperation for them to form development teams, and through these teams, shall the implementation be executed.

(if the units you control in a competition are well coordinated and well-combined, you can bring out the best of their abilities in any situation).

At first, the implementation may create big lags in the operation of the firm, but in the long run, it will surely show the benefits, although constant training is needed since a new system will create updates, thus, creating new processes which employees must know. If constant training, coordination, cooperation, and communication are present, then there is a big probability for a firm to actually withstand backtracks.

3. Supply Chain Management (SCM)

The resources a firm has are not fixed. It declines as the firm uses more and more of the resources for its expansion. The firm may acquire resources by investment, or by getting them from suppliers. The Supply Chain Management (SCM) carries them. It checks the chain of suppliers that a firm holds. Not all resources of a firm come from itself. It must acquire and reacquire resources to expand, and get a share of the market. Of course, market competition is different from a competition where countries or forces will fire bullets, missiles and even devastating weapons- a scenario similar to this!

Yes, we can't avoid competition to come in real-life situations. Sometimes, firms decide to collude and cooperate to be able to get a large share of the market. Smaller firms, on the other had, do not get a share in the market economy because of larger firms. All of these enterprise software, when properly implemented, will surely bring a firm to an efficient, profitable state. The only negative thing, is that implementing these software application programs are very costly and it requires a lot of effort.

Enterprise Application Software really helps a business perform its operations swiftly and accurately. It replaces a large amount of labor which makes work more efficient and at the same time, it can place more labor on a development team with the presence of these software. Although like what I said, implementing these kinds of software will surely be costly and expensinve, it it is well-maintained, it can create a large impact on the performance of the firm.

For sure, it is like a strategy game. I have clearly seen how it logically works (although it is NOT exact since you don't acquire units to destroy others.) But one thing is sure; with the best strategy and the best software implementation and maintenance, every firm would be victorious in overcoming difficult challenges. Like in a strategy game, if your units have good coordination, if you are planning and not doing a blitzkrieg, if you can manage your resources properly, and if you can acquire more from suppliers and sources, you're surely be VICTORIOUS...

-Agbayani, James Edward C.-
March 9, 2010

Business Process Improvements

So this is it. I finally went through one of the deadliest weekends of my college life. Imagine: having your Econ 100.2 third exam, and having the BA 180.1 report at the same weekend? That's surely a hard thing to manage. But luckily, Paeng, Cindy, Meredith and I were able to get through with this weekend. We successfully finished reporting! But then, even though the reporting was done, our topic, Business Process Improvements, had made a great impact in my life. Even though I'm not yet a manager of a company (maybe in the future, I'll have my own. :D), having a time to learn all of these concepts regarding the different strategies made me think about how to run a company.

These business process improvements have made a great impact in the course of a business. I believe that without these strategies, businesses might run from everyone's perspective, destroying a certain united perspective. Imagine if a business was run by different people, all of them working alone and through their own perspectives. The business would surely go into nothing, since there are a lot of concepts being viewed in the whole process. Whether it is TQM (Total Quality Management), Six Sigma, ISO, or the BPR (Business Process Re-engineering), what matters most is the relationship existing among the managers, employees, and the customers. These business process improvements won't be possible without these established relationships among them.

"QUALITY IS A MUST". This is what I think, forms the foundation of having a stabilized and established business strategy.

But, I never realized if having all strategies working in a business still be possible, since every strategy implemented will surely have different bases for their implementation. For example, TQM focuses on employer-employee relationship, Six Sigma focuses on processes, ISO focuses on quality standards, and BPR focuses on revising these strategies in accordance with adjustments. One thing is for sure: every strategy implemented in a business will surely bring success if cooperation among the factors is observed.

-Agbayani, James Edward C.-

(Sir! Would it be possible for strategies like TQM, ISO, SIx Sigma, and BPR to be implemented at the same time? Thank you Sir!)