Strategic Management Issues at British American Tabaco Essay

Strategic Management Issues at British American Tabaco - Essay Example The strategies chosen by the managers should be able to make the company achieve better performances. The process of strategic management is continuous. The process of strategic management is aimed at appraising industries and business that an organization is involved in. Strategic management appraises the environment that an organization is based in. The process of strategic management analyses the competitors by setting goals and objectives that will enable an organization to gain and maintain competitive advantage over its current and future competition. The strategic management process is concerned with environmental scanning, strategy formulation, strategy implementation and strategy evaluation. Environmental scanning is the process of availing information for strategic decision making purposes (Hit, et al 306). Information about the external and internal environment is collected, scrutinized and presented to the managers for strategic decision making. After the environment has been scanned the managers use the information presented to formulate the strategies. The formulation of a particular strategy is realized after reaching a consensus between managers on the best strategy to implement. The course of action chosen should best exploit the organization’s ability to accomplish organizational goals and objectives. ... The most famous brands of cigarettes that the company produces include lucky Strike, State Express 555, Kool, John Player Field, Rothmans, Dunhill, Viceroy, Benson & Hedges, Winfield, and Peter Stuyvesant. The major brands for the British American Tobacco that are produced in local markets include Embassy (Kenya),Jockey Club(Argentina),Wills(India), Xon(Uzbekistan), GPC(US), Ardath(Indonesia), North State(Finland), du Maurier (Canada), Stradbroke (Australia) among other brands. The company also produces other types of products such as cigars, cut tobacco and pipe tobacco. The company’s products are sold in major supermarkets, hotels, restaurants, bars, hotels, and duty free shops such as army barracks, convenience stores, tobacconists, and cafes. The British American Tobacco company has a strong presence in the world and hence holds a strong market share in the tobacco industry. The company has a robust position in the market as the demand for the tobacco products is high and continuous. BAT is thus assured of high sales volume and profits every year. The company has continued with its strategy to diversify its products market. Recently, the company is eying investing in China. The company has made sure that it is well rooted in major countries in the world. For instance, the company has strong roots in Western Europe, Eastern Europe and North America. To maintain its position in the market, BAT management has ensured that it remains the best buyer of tobacco leafs from the farmers. The main advantage of buying farmers produce at a reasonable price has ensured that the company is ahead in most countries over its competitors. BAT has offered many farmers an

Solar thermal heating systems for domestic use in the uk Dissertation

Solar thermal heating systems for domestic use in the uk - Dissertation Example In the case that solar power is useful in the United Kingdom, the cost of the installation will be put into context with the theoretical energy savings using the information from one British household. This information will be applied to thermal heating systems for use in central heating. In many countries, full solar electricity systems are not viable. In these cases, solar energy can still be utilised to lower the dependence on fossil fuels, and can be transformed into central heating or hot water. These systems do not generally rely on photovoltaic plates to convert the energy, as these are particularly expensive, but instead use one of two main systems: direct or indirect. These systems were tested in the course of this paper and were both found to be cost-effective and viable for the house in question in the United Kingdom. This was compared with the results from using photovoltaic plates to provide electricity to show the difference in benefits gained in the UK. Introduction So lar Power Solar power is one of the most popular renewable energy technologies available (Tiwari, 2002) and is gaining appreciation due to the increasing amount of emphasis on fossil fuels and how they affect the environment. Solar power relies on converting solar energy to usable fuel energy (Larson & West, 1996) generally for electricity. Solar power generally relies on the use of photovoltaic plates, which are essentially cells containing some photovoltaic material which can capture light from the sun and turn it into electricity. They rely on the photoelectric effect. Photovoltaic plates are generally made from silicon (DeWinter, 1990). Solar energy can be directed onto these plates at a greater intensity by using mirrors or lenses to reflect the sunlight onto them. Tracking devices can also be used. In this case, the photovoltaic plates are attached to a sensor mechanism, and can be moved automatically to face the direction in which they will capture most solar energy (Tiwari, 2002). One of the main problems with solar power is that it can only be used during sunlight, meaning that at night time or during dark weather there is no electricity from this method (Tiwari, 2002). To get around this, sunlight should be stored during peak hours for use at later points. There are many storage mechanisms available. One of these is the use of molten salts to store energy at high temperatures. These are a favoured storage type because they are low cost and have a high specific heat capacity (DeWinter, 1990). Another way of storing solar energy is to use rechargeable batteries. These must be of considerable size for use in public solar energy plants. Battery storage can also be used by people with domestic solar energy sources, and a measuring system is available that gives credit to homeowners that supply their excess electricity (Tiwari, 2002). The energy can also be stored in water using a hydroelectricity technique. A final method of storing energy is artificial p hotosynthesis, which relies on nanotechnology to stored the energy in chemical bonds, which can be broken to release the energy again. There are some new sources of solar energy that are being considered, although these are generally not applicable to domestic systems. One suggestion is that solar energy be captured in space. This has the benefit of not using any habitable land and does