Facing challenges of change at British Airways

Facing challenges of change at British Airways Airline business is a difficult company. It has been well-known in the direction of being the mainly economical company in all over the world. Marketing executive must also be ready for action on the way to manage through the challenges of this variety of business. British Airways is one of the market influential within the airlines industry in U.K. The corporation has it huge opportunity. The airline is dedicated towards quality-service. In count, it has its aggressive advantages. British Airways has enormous opportunity of increasing and getting better of its services. In this we discuss about the various challenges of change faced by the British Airways and in what way it is approaching the procedure of change. Introduction: British Airways is one of the leading airlines in the world. This case traces the airlines history and discusses the process of turnaround during the 1980s under the leadership of Lord King and Colin Marshall.   The case also discusses the subsequent turbulent period under CEO Bob Ayling and the challenges faced, including recession, competition, terrorism and the Gulf war. The case closes with an outline of the tasks ahead of the incumbent CEO Rod Eddington. The case can be used to illustrate the importance of leadership in bringing about cultural change. Challenges faced by British Airways: The economic conditions that prevailed throughout 2009/10 were the most severe they have ever encountered. As a result of the worst recession for 60 years, their industry has faced a series of permanent structural changes that have drastically reduced their revenues in the short term and have permanently changed the economics of running a premium airline. These problems are in themselves formidable. But, in addition, British Airways faced a list of daunting challenges of its own. These included the need to: à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢ Raise finance at a time of continuing crisis in the debt markets; à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢ Radically reduce their historic cost base; à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢ Change working practices; à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢ Complete their planned merger with Iberia; à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢ Win an acceptable anti-trust agreement to cooperate with American Airlines and Iberia on North Atlantic routes; and à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢ Tackle their  £3.7 billion pensions deficit successfully. Twelve months on, they can feel satisfied that on every one of these issues, they have either tackled or made significant progress in overcoming the challenges they faced. Permanent change They entered the recession financially strong and with their fleet replacement plans fully financed to 2013. In August 2009, they successfully raised  £350 million through a convertible bond issue, providing them with the finance to keep investing in their business and maintain their focthem on excellent service as the recession runs its course. Over the year they reduced their unit costs by 6.5 per cent. Their fuel bill fell by nearly  £600 million, accounting for a large element of this decrease. Unit costs excluding fuel also fell by 1.8 per cent. This was truly a remarkable achievement. It is hard enough to cut costs when capacity is rising; to do so when capacity is in sharp decline is very difficult indeed. Their cost base is now far more competitive, meaning they are well placed to achieve more profitable growth in the future. They successfully carried the majority of their workforce with them in making changes to working practices, including their pilots and engineers. A number of staff have left the Company on voluntary terms. They have succeeded in introducing permanent cost reductions across the airline, including reductions in crew complements. Regrettably, these changes were met by unjustified strike action by Unites cabin crew branch. BASSA misrepresented the Companys position to its members, failed to represent the views of the majority of cabin crew and has been intent on a confrontation with the airline. The vast majority of their employees recognise the need for permanent change and have shown great commitment to British Airways during this difficult year. Their relationship w ith Iberia is very strong and they have now signed a merger agreement that they know will bring real benefits to their respective customers and shareholders and protect the brands of the two airlines. If remaining technicalities are successfully dealt with, as they fully expect, the merger should be concluded by the end of 2010. Similarly, all the signs are that they can win anti-trust immunity from the THEM Department of Transportation along with regulatory approval from the EU competition authorities, to operate a joint business with American Airlines and Iberia over the North Atlantic. When in place they will be able to operate on equal terms with Skyteam and Star Alliance that already enjoy immunity. Their agreement will mean more competition not less, and greater choice for travellers on these busy routes. Finally, they are progressing with negotiations to agree a way to fund their  £3.7 billion pension deficits that satisfies the Trustees and meets their requirement that they will not have to increase their contribution to the schemes in the short term. Whilst the valuation has been agreed with the Trustees, it is currently under review by the Pensions Regulator. If they can keep the schemes open for existing members it will be a significant achievement and one that has eluded many other businesses in recent years. I hope you can see how huge an agenda of change they have tackled. In that sense, 2009/10 was a year of great achievement. Financial results Their progress is all the more remarkable at a time when all their principal business customers changed their travel olicies at the same time, turning their back on premium shorthaul travel and reducing their revenues by  £1 billion. Against that backdrop, they recorded another year of heavy losses in their business. They recorded their biggest ever half year loss of  £292 million. Early and far-reaching action on costs began to show through in the second half of the year and they were even able to post a small operating profit in the third quarter. For the year as a whole their pre-tax losses stood at  £531 million compared with a loss of  £401 million in the preceding year. They cannot afford to lose sight of the scale of their losses in the last two years, even though they came on the back of record profits in 2007/08. Their business simply will not survive long term unless they stop losing money on this scale. Dividends and executive pay The programme of change they are pursuing in the business is all about making sure they have the resources to deliver outstanding service to their customers, secure and rewarding employment to their staff and strong returns to their shareholders. Given the state of their market they have frozen pay across the airline for two years. They have once again decided it would be inappropriate to pay a dividend or executive or staff cash bonuses. Customer focus Their primary focthem must remain on their customers no matter how severe the economic conditions they face. The customer is at the very heart of their plans to build an efficient global premium airline and to achieve lasting and sustainable profitability for this business. During the year, they continued to outperform in their punctuality scores, not just at Terminal 5, but across the network. Maintaining that record has involved some magnificent work by people right across the business and they take immense pride in their achievements. Their customer service scores remain strong despite significant operational disruption. An industry in transition Consolidation will be a growing theme for their industry for the foreseeable future and they are pleased with their own progress in building new partnerships and alliances. But progress on liberalising the global industry remains painfully slow, nowhere more so than in the recent protracted Open Skies negotiations between the THEM and Europe. They had hoped that the conclusion of the EU-THEM second stage negotiations would have resulted in the immediate removal of THEM restrictions on ownership and control and the protectionist Fly America policy. Unfortunately, instead of the ambitious agreement that had been promised by both sides that would have acted as a template for further global liberalisation across other trading blocs, they have ended up with an agreement that fails to deliver a truly open market for aviation. This represents a missed opportunity to create a healthier and more efficient industry for the future. Indeed, the only hope for progress may lie in moving the issue to a more powerful arena such as the Trans Atlantic Economic Council where Europe could offer wider trade concessions, i n sectors such as agriculture, in return for progress on air transport. These restrictive ownership and control requirements that prevent cross-border airline mergers, need to be consigned to the history books and fast. Only then will they see the true benefits that normalisation of the industry can achieve as is already the case with other sectors of the global economy. Climate change As a company they have led the way in searching for real and radical ways to tackle climate change. Not only have they set ourselves industry-leading targets to cut their own emissions, they are also strong advocates of carbon trading and believe aviation should be part of a global emissions trading scheme. The Climate Change Summit in Copenhagen in December presented the industry with an ideal opportunity to come together and make this a reality. For many reasons the outcome from the summit was disappointing not least as no reference was made to the airline industry. However, it is clear the governments of the world recognise the airline industry is taking a responsible position and is indeed ahead of its regulators in wanting to tackle climate change. The industry continues to work closely together to develop and promote its position. Its now down to the regulators and Governments to show commitment to the industry and to allow them to play their full part in contributing to the gl obal reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. Economic outlook The worst of the recession seems to be over. Unemployment in the UK, for example, seems to have peaked and at lower levels than had been feared. In their own business, February saw them record the first increase in premium traffic since August 2008. But recovery is precariothem and it would be foolish to assume they are out of the woods yet. The new UK Government will be forced to make some very unpopular decisions in the weeks and months ahead. Tackling the deficit remains the biggest priority. The new coalition Government plans to make immediate cuts in the deficit, they believe this threatens real dangers, not least that increased taxes and hasty spending cuts could throttle consumer confidence and trigger a double dip recession. It is vital that the UK develops a credible, measured plan to reduce the deficit, spelling out the reductions that are needed and the timescale in which they will be achieved. With election grandstanding now out of the way, this must be a priority for the new administration. A tremendothem effort Its been an immensely difficult year for my colleagues across the business and I want to thank them for the tremendous work they have done. The spirit theyve shown in supporting the business through one of its most difficult periods has been unbelievable. Its involved a lot of hard work and considerable personal sacrifices. Their prospects Their own recovery depends very much on how fast the general economy returns to growth. They remain cautiothem on that. They expect the climb out of recession to be a relatively slow one. However, I am convinced that the work they have done over the last 18 months to restructure their cost base and the progress they have made on the challenges they faced at the start of 2009/10, mean they are a far more resilient business today. That means they can be confident about surviving through further economic uncertainty. More importantly, it means they will be in a position to achieve higher levels of sustainable profitability when conditions improve. That is very good news for their customers, their staff and their shareholders. Approaches for the variothem challenges faced by the British Airways: One of the significant ways to distinguish one airline from another is in terms of the quality of its decisions. They use operational systems to run the business and business intelligence, delivered by Business Objects query and reporting tools, to manage it. British Airways Improves Customer Relationship Management and Maximises Revenues with Information Delivered by Business Objects The airline market is fiercely competitive with strong demand for lucrative business traveller routes due to capacity restrictions at major European airports and low cost entrants offering cheaper flights for the leisure passenger. Leading UK airline British Airways, is underpinning its strategic operations with business intelligence (BI) delivered by Business Objects solutions. British Airways use BUSINESSOBJECTSà ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¾Ã‚ ¢, the integrated query, reporting and online analytical processing tool (OLAP) to access, analyse and share information stored in British Airways data warehouse. British Airways is also currently in the process of extending the decision making process worldwide via WEBINTELLIGENCE ®, the internet BI solution from Business Objects. Strategic Decision Making British Airways is one of the worlds most successful airlines, carrying over 48 million passengers a year. Peter Blundell, Knowledge Strategy Manager, British Airways, says One of the significant ways to distinguish one airline from another is in terms of the quality of its decisions. They use operational systems to run the business and business intelligence, delivered by Business Objects query and reporting tools, to manage it. BUSINESS OBJECTS is used throughout British Airways, with dozens of applications taking information from a central data warehouse. These cover all aspects of the business from CRM applications supporting the frequent flyer programme, through yield management and revenue analysis to catering supply chain management. Blundell explains, With BUSINESS OBJECTS they have been able to provide any line manager with the capability to assess relevant business information without requiring an army of data specialists. British Airways primary challenge is to make the airline as a whole and each route profitable. This is complicated since the company is unable to change product offerings very quickly. With the capacity restrictions in many airports, routes have to be negotiated and published some six months in advance. BUSINESS OBJECTS supports their long term planning, analysing the number of flights per day, routes and aircraft types that are most appropriate, says Blundell. This drives their negotiation for capacity constrained routes. Maximising Yield Every airline has to achieve a balance between availability of higher priced business seats and filling the flight with cheaper leisure fares. British Airways is using BUSINESS OBJECTS to analyse customer behavitheir and flight sales to maximise yield on each route. The business and leisure traveller have very different needs, with the business traveller looking for frequency of flights, punctuality and good customer service, while the leisure traveller is looking for value for money. Customer service also provides an area of differentiation. British Airways promotional activity tailors offers based on customer preferences and travel history. The costs the market will bear are different on each route, at different times of the day and week and depend on the level of competition on that route. BUSINESSOBJECTS enables them to better understand booking and customer profiles and use that information to maximise yield on each flight by creating the right promotional offer to each customer group. British Airways Leads Punctuality League Two of the most successful BUSINESS OBJECTS applications have addressed punctuality and baggage handling. Analysing sources of delay, by type, route and reason has enabled British Airways to significantly improve its position in the punctuality league of European airlines. For business passengers, punctuality and efficient baggage handling are critical factors that drive the choice of airline. British Airways wanted to improve its punctuality and BUSINESS OBJECTS was part of that solution. By analysing any problems with BUSINESS OBJECTS they have become one of the top rated European airlines for punctuality. A similar analysis using BUSINESS OBJECTS to look at baggage handling enabled the company to highlight reasons for baggage failing to connect with the right flight. While there was time for passengers to make the connection it was not always possible for their luggage to make the same journey. They have overcome that problem and significantly improved our baggage handling as a re sult, says Blundell. Worldwide Business Intelligence Having created a business intelligence infrastructure that is underpinning decision making throughout the British Airways head office, the company is now looking to broaden its user base from one thousand to potentially ten thousand worldwide via its intranet. Blundell explains, They plan to use Business Objects WEBINTELLIGENCE internet BI solution to deliver the business intelligence functionality they have developed to airports and offices around the world. By leveraging the intranet and WEBINTELLIGENCE, they can deliver key business information in a cost effective manner. Using WEBINTELLIGENCE, British Airways will be able to provide local managers with secure access to the local information pertinent to their operation, underpinning the drive to maximise revenue and market share and minimise costs across specific routes. Blundell explains, British Airways business goal is to broaden the decision making ability by providing pertinent information. Empowering people to make decisions on behalf of the company leads to better customer relationships. By making information available via the intranet they can ensure improved consistent customer service worldwide. By analysing any problems with BUSINESS OBJECTS e have become one of the top rated European airlines for punctuality. Conclusion: British Airways remains cautiously optimistic about its future prospects. However, it is certain that considerably more work lies ahead if the airline is to succeed. The FSAS plan incorporated by BA resulted in considerable cost savings, and divestments also raised funds to pay off debt. The goal of the FSAS plan was to achieve a 10% operating margin and hence more recent cost cuts and job loses have been made by Willie Walsh order to accomplish this.

Assignment-I International Business

ALLIANCE BUSINESS SCHOOL SUBJECT- GLOBAL DIMENSIONS OF INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS ASSIGNMENT NO. -1 DATE: 02/03/11 SUBMITTED TO: Prof. M V NARASIMHAN SUBMITTED BY: Akshay Shah Answer: 1 IMPACT OF POLITICAL TURMOIL IN EGYPT ON GLOBAL BUSINESS: Political turbulence in Egypt in casting a poll on world financial markets driving up the prices of crude oil & food and creating new risks for the shaky world economy in the months ahead. Following are the impacts of political turmoil in Egypt on global business: †¢Oil prices reached last week their highest 110 dollar per barrel of raw oil since 2008 & investors sold off both stocks and bonds of many developing nations, particularly in the middle east. †¢ The turbulence on financial markets shows how political upheaval in one place- first Tunisia, now Egypt- can set off hard to predict reverberations around the world, possibly undermining the global economic recovery. †¢ Investors are most concerned that other Muslim nations, particu larly those of autocratic leadership & vast oil reserves, will soon see their ruling regimes threatened as well. International organizations also trying to monitor more urgent concerns, what’s going on in Egypt has again reminded world that the world economy is not out of the woods & that things we do not anticipate can have a significant negative effect on global markets & risk sentiment. †¢ Because of political & business instability in Egypt- lead with the problems with foreign receipts & currency. †¢ Economist & Investors all around the world have fear that political developments could disrupt oil exports from Saudi Arabia or other oil reserved nations. †¢The greatest threat for global economy- absent a spread of popular revolt to other nations in the middle east or beyond – is the disruption of shopping through the Suez Canal. †¢ In forthcoming days, it will be challenge for government to keep the political stability in Egypt, for smooth busine ss functioning throughout the world & controlling oil prices which are on their peak. Answer 2: IMPORTANCE OF PROPERTY RIGHTS IN GLOBAL BUSINESS ECONOMY: In a legal sense, term property refers to a resource over which an individual or business holds a legal title; that is a resource that it owns.Resource include land, building, equipment, capital, minerals rights, business and intellectual property. Property Rights refer to the bundle of legal rights over the use to which a resource is put and over the use made of any income that may be derived from that resource. Property Rights are important in the global business economy because:†¢ The philosophy behind protecting property rights in the global business economy, as it is reward to the originator of a new invention, books, musical record, clothes design, restaurant chain and the like; for his or her idea & effort.Such property rights are very important stimulus to innovation and creative work. They provide An incentive for peo ple to search for novel ways of doing things and they reward creativity. e. g. – Consider an innovation in automobile industry; say a use of non conventional fuel to be used in all kinds of vehicles with maximum efficiency and low cost of fuel. This gives automobile firms an incentive to undertake the expensive, difficult and time consuming basic research required to generate new fuel. (It can cost $800 million in R & D and take 10 years to set a new fuel in the market) Also economic evidences suggests that high levels of corruption i. e. theft of property rights significantly reduce the foreign direct investment, level of international trade, & economic growth rate in a country. By siphoning off profits corrupts politicians & bureaucrats reduce the returns to business investment and hence reduce the incentive of both domestic and foreign businesses to invest in that country. Because of all the above reasons explained it is important to protect property rights to benefit inno vator, consumers and to promote healthy competition.The protection of intellectual property rights differ greatly from country to country. While Many countries have straight intellectual property regulations on their books. Now, 188 countries are members of the â€Å"World Intellectual Property Organization†, all of whom have signed international treaties designed to protect intellectual property. Answer: 3 CULTURE AT WORK PLACE BY GEERT HOEFSTEDE: Of considerable importance for an international business with operations in different countries is a how a society’s culture affects the values found in the workplace.Probably the most famous study of how culture relates to values in the workplace was undertaken by ‘Geert Hoefstede’. As a part of his ob as a psychologist working for IBM, Hoefstede collected data on employee attitudes and values for more than 1,00,000 individuals from 1967 to 1973. This data enabled him to compare dimensions of culture across 40 countries Hoefstede isolated into 4 dimensions:†¢ Hoefstede’s ‘Power Distance’ dimension focussed on how a society deals with the fact That people are unequal in physical & intellectual capabilities.According to Hoefstede, high power distance cultures were found in countries that let inequalities grow over time into inequalities of power & wealth. †¢ The ‘Individualism versus Collectivism’ dimension focussed on the relationship between The individual and his or her fellows. Individualistic societies, the ties between individuals were loose and individual achievement and freedom were highly valued. In societies where collectivism was emphasized; the ties between individuals were tight. †¢Hoefstede’s ‘Uncertainty Avoidance Dimension’ measured the extent to which different cultures socialized their members into accepting ambiguous situations & forecasting uncertainty. Members of high uncertainty avoidance cultures plac ed a premium on job security, career patterns, retirement benefits and so on. Lower uncertainty avoidance cultures were characterized by a greater readiness to take risks & less emotional resistance to change. †¢ Hoefstede’s ‘Masculinity versus Feminity’ dimensions looked at the relationship between gender & work roles.In masculine cultures, sex roles were sharply differentiated and traditional â€Å"Masculine Values†, such as achievement & effective exercise of power, determined culture ideals. In Feminine cultures sex roles are sharply distinguished, the little differentiation was made between men & women in the same job. Hoefstede created on index score for each of these 4 dimensions that ranged from 0 to 100 And scored high individualism, high power distance, high uncertainty avoidance, & high Masculinity. He averaged the score for all employees from a given country: . g. : Power distance 1) Britain 2) Canada 3) US 4) India 5) Indonesia 6) Mexico 35 39 40 77 78 81 Uncertainty 35 48 46 40 48 82 Individualism Masculinity 89 80 91 48 14 30 From the above table it shows, western nations such as US, Canada, Britain scores High on the individualism scale & low on the power distance scale. At the other extreme are a group of Latin America (Mexico) and Asia (India, Indonesia) that emphasize collectivism over individualism and score high on their power distance scale. 66 52 62 56 46 69

White Collar Crime

Is White Collar Crime an Inside Job? Simply put, the point that Charles Ferguson is trying to get across in his documentary, The Inside Job is that economics is exactly that, it’s an inside job; with many elite employees involved. Economics is a profession, and at the end of the day, it all comes down to power, and the money being brought home by those at the top. Throughout the documentary Ferguson does an excellent job revealing the not so behind the scenes action, that many just don’t pick up on, due to the fact that companies police themselves.The documentary explains how it effects everyone, even those that are not directly involved or related. Those who are responsible for the financial meltdown in 2008, and the housing bubble are revealed, and an explanation is given as to why they are still in charge of the companies whose actions affected millions of people not only in The United States, but all over the world. Several different types of white collar crimes wer e committed leading up to the financial crisis, and several different companies were engaging in the large scale criminal activity.Financial deregulation is one of the main topics discussed in the documentary, and how financial institutions were given more freedom; thus making more risky investments with their depositors money, and seeing no consequences when these investments fell through. The documentary brings forward many thoughts about the types of white collar crime committed and how those that are guilty got away with it, how the victims were affected by the careless actions of the companies, as well as the reasons and motivation behind the crimes. The documentary stresses that this crisis was no accident, and that it was all caused by an out of control industry.Each crises causes more and more financial damage, while industries continue to make millions. While the documentary doesn’t once mention the term white collar crime, it doesn’t take much to realize that this was exactly what went on. â€Å"Not only have the vast majority of responsible parties not been convicted of any crime — they haven’t even been charged† (Andrew Leonard, 2012), the employees that destroyed their own companies, and caused crisis all over the world, walked away with all their money, and left millions of people without their savings.Defining White Collar Crime Defined by Edwin Sutherland(1949), white collar crime is â€Å"a crime committed by a person of respectability and high social status in the course of his occupation†. Countless types of white collar crime exist, many people not even being aware of them . It is strongly believed that white collar crime was the cause of the global financial crisis of 2008, which consisted mainly of mortgage, insurance, and security fraud. Marshall Clinard and Richard Quinney (1973) defined two types of white collar crime: occupational, and corporate.They defined occupational crime as being committ ed by individuals over the course of their occupation, mainly for personal gain, whereas corporate crime is committed by the corporations as a whole, the crime is planned and committed for the corporations financial gain. In The Inside Job, several types of white collar crime were committed, such as: laundering, cooking books, and defrauding customer’s money. Even though those who commit white collar crime are labeled as criminals, they often don’t fall under the typical stereotype that street criminals hold.Reducing the amount of white collar crime is something that is very important and there needs to be more attention toward it. The media definitely needs to focus more on white collar crime, as most news usually revolves around street crime, rather than revealing the crimes being committed by large corporations. A stronger punishment is needed to reduce white collar crime. Often, those who commit white collar crimes get off without jail, because they have the money to pay millions of dollars in fines. Increasing these fines drastically would not allow them to pay for their punishment. Victimization of White Collar CrimeVictimization of white collar crime is not something that is often heard of in the media. It’s not uncommon to turn on the news and see countless stories of the victims of murder and robbery, and well as drug related street crimes. But what about the victims of the crime that’s vastly underreported, and even more undetected? People who commit street crime are seen as more dangerous, and often receive a harsh punishment, because they generally have less money,therefore less power. One of the many reasons for the underreported incidences of white collar crime, is simply because there is less to show for it.It is estimated by the Canadian Securities Administration, that nearly 5% of adult Canadians have lost money to some type of investment fraud. White collar crime is often seen as less damaging than street crime, bu t in reality, victims of white collar crime do suffer from tremendous damages. Aside from the obvious financial loss, they are known to have struggles with psychological, emotional, and physical health (Kempa 2009). Numerous things can happen after people are affected by white collar crimes, such as possibly triggering them to commit street crimes, such as theft, in order to support their family after losing money.A close relationship is often built between the perpetrator and the victim, giving them the sense of trust, thus having them believe that no type of fraud could happen to them. As seen in the documentary, not just those directly involved are affected. When the Wall Street Stock Market crashed in 2008, other countries were also paying the price. Tens of millions of people were affected either directly or indirectly from the global economic crisis. With the sudden drop of employment in America, budgets of those families also decreased drastically, thus buying less in order t o save money.This cutback caused several large companies in China to cease their production; causing over 10 million to lose their job. As heard in The Inside Job, Dominique Strauss-Kahn states that â€Å"at the end of the day, the poorest, as always, pay the most†. As mentioned earlier, the employees of the large corporations committing the crimes go home with their hundreds of thousands of dollars, and those affected in poorer countries, are left with nothing. People with money have power, power that can often get them out of situations that many others are not be able to. Self-Control Theory and White Collar CrimeThe self-control theory argues that all crime stems from the problem of low self control. (Hirschi & Gottfredson, 1987). This low self control causes people to act impulsively and spontaneously, value risk and adventure, and care more about themselves than they do others. As stated in The Inside Job, Jonathan Alpert, therapist to many Wall Street exclusives, says that they’re â€Å"risk takers, and impulsive. It’s part of their behaviour, it’s part of their personality†¦ there's just a blatant disregard for the impact that their actions might have on society, on family†.Many of those that commit white collar crimes are often seen as having the need to control, being charismatic and narcissistic, as well as having a fear of losing their power and their position. Greed is often a primary motivator for white collar criminals. As heard in The Inside Job, â€Å"the bankers showered money on themselves, each other, and their friends†, they lived a wealthy and luxurious life; living in penthouse suites on Park Avenue, owning numerous vacation homes in the Hampton’s, flying around the world in private jets.Living such a wealthy and elite lifestyle, â€Å"it’s quite typical for the guys to go out, to go to strip bars, to use drugs. I see a lot of cocaine use, a lot of use of prostitution†¦ A lot of people feel that they need to really participate in that behavior to make it, to get promoted, to get recognized. † (Alpert, 2010). It’s quite clear that the main motivation behind many of those involved in committing white collar crimes, usually comes down to the power they hold, and most importantly, the money in their pockets. White Collar vs. Street CrimeThose who commit street crime are often given a harsher punishment and a more negative reputation than those who commit white collar crimes. In reality, the two types of criminals are not that different, even though their methods of crime are unalike. Should there be different punishment or sentences for those who commit fraud or embezzlement, compared to those who distribute illegal drugs? People with a higher status and more money and power often tend to get a lighter sentence, as both the money and power can often get them out of situations, but this isn’t fair.White collar crimes generally effect people more than street crime. As seen in The Inside Job, the crimes committed by a few large corporations, caused millions of people to lose copious amounts of money, as well as their jobs. A main distinction that can often separate those who commit white collar crime, and those who commit street crime, is their level of education. Many people seen in The Inside Job were those who had graduated, or even worked at respected universities. They were often well educated in economics and business, so they knew every last detail of what they were working with.White collar criminals are often known have a desire for control, causing them to engage in corporate crime, hoping to gain power. The financial crisis of 2008 that affected millions of people, causing tremendous losses of both jobs and money, is something that will be around to haunt people for years. Their victims are left to suffer, while the employees of the large corporations walk away with all their money. The people who commi t such white collar crimes are selfish, and only care about their own power and money.Even years after the crisis, news is still floating around, and people are still questioning why the corporations and their employees aren’t seeing punishment. The criminals that commit these large scale crimes, are being treated differently than those that commit street crimes, they get away with no punishment, and continue working, in time committing the same crimes over again. Reference List Barkan, S. E. Criminology: a sociological understanding. (5th ed. ). Pearson. Croall , H. (2001). Understanding white collar crime. Buckingham, England: McGraw Hill. Ferguson, C. (Director) (2010). The inside job [DVD]. Kempa, M. (2009).Combating white collar crime in canada: Serving victim needs and market integrity. (University of Ottawa). Leonard, A. (2012, May 18). Corporate criminals gone wild. Retrieved from http://www. salon. com/2012/05/18/corporate_criminals_gone_wild/ Morgenson, G. & Story, L. ,(2011, July 7). As wall st. polices itself, prosecutors use softer approach. New York Times. Retrieved from http://www. nytimes. com/2011/07/08/business/in-shift-federal-prosecutors-are-lenient-as-companies-break-the-law. html? _r=2=1=wisenberg=cse& Watt, R. (2012). University students’ propensity towards white-collar versus street crime. (University of Guelph).

Intermediate Level Syllabus Outline ESL