Do Schools Kill Creativity Essay

When we were children growing up our imaginations run wild. As we would play on the playground, building friendships, and solve problems that show us things in a different way. Even though everybody talents are pushed away others believe that the public education system is wrong. I was told to summarize the video on â€Å"Do Schools Kill Creativity† by Sir Ken Robinson. As he talks in the video I do agree with some of the ideas. In the video â€Å"Do Schools Kill Creativity† by Sir Ken Robinson, he mentions how the public education system are crushing the children’s talents. He also mentions how classes are being cut such as drama and music. Due to those classes, are not that important, such as your typical math and English classes. Having creativity in are education system helps are children become who they are as an adult. I agree that math and English classes are more important, but I don’t agree we should just cut everything else out. Are children need to be able to express themselves in other activities. Not all children are the best in school, but giving them the other activities will help them let steam off, keep them active and enjoy going to school. Not all talents are being famous in something, but people are talented in their major subjects such as English, math, history, etc. As Robinson states in the video that a simple college degree is not worth much anymore. Jobs are wanting future and current employees to go back to a university to get a higher degree; such as university philosophers. Jobs are wanting to see how far employees will go into school. Before the 1900’s we barely had an education system, but our whole system has been dictating since the system has adapted. Our education is unpredictable on what to  expect. I agree that our education is not worth as much like it used to be when, it had just begun. Having more education is pushing us to reach a higher goal. It may take longer, but its helping us to become a better person for the future. It also prepared us for what is to come. Things are changing more and more every month it never stays the same. Look at this example: Pluto use to be a planet now Pluto is just nearly a star. How do you explain this? In the talk â€Å"Do Schools Kill Creativity† Robinson says â€Å"if your never wrong you will never come up with anything original, if your not prepared to be wrong.† (Robinson, 2007) Our kids now are even more exquisite then when we were kids, we use to tell our kids not to draw and to go to school to learn. Now we are telling them to push harder to achieve their goals and get an education. I do agree our kids are being pushed harder, but its showing how creative they can be. In the end this is going to help them become something. Telling kids that you’re going to take out drama and music, is only going to make them stop trying. Our kids should be pushed more now than ever with the harder curriculum in the public schools. Also letting the kids have more creativity in certain classes like drama and music, which may be where the children show most of their creativity and talents. These kids have so much competition for what their learning and making of themselves. As Sir Ken Robinson has made a lot of great points on creativity, education, and children talents, our education level is higher than it has ever been. I do believe our education is more important when dealing with core classes such as math and English, but you shouldn’t punish the kids and take out their time to be creative and show their talent. So what if these kids are pushed a little harder in the education system they may see who they will become in the future. Are education system is dictating the knowledge of the students and are wrong for taking the creative classes out of the schools. References Robinson Sir, Ken: Do Schools Kill Creativity (Jan. 6, 2007) Retrieved: July 15, 2014 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iG9CE55wbtY

Othello Mini Essay

One of the key messages that Shakespeare conveys in this story, is that the language people use indicates their character and that the words people use often say more about themselves than the people of which they are speaking. In the play, Othello speech is consistently eloquent which adds to the idea that he is a dignified man with impressive etiquette. Contrariwise, Ago is fluent in the language of profanity and refers to Othello as a â€Å"Barbara horse† and a â€Å"Moor†.Ordering is also abrasive to Othello, calling him â€Å"thick lips. † It is only appropriate that they use such hateful and oftentimes annalistic language, as it truly reflects their nature. The words the antagonists use are typically shallow and superficial ND do not say anything about Othello personality, whilst the positive words – said by Desman and the Duke – used to describe Othello grant a superior indication of the type of person he is, as they speak of his behavior and overall temperament.In the story, Desman is the epitome of fairness and goodwill: a polar opposite to Ago and Ordering. She sees â€Å"Othello visage in his mind,† which entails that she looks beyond his physical appearance and Its connotations and sees his â€Å"honors and valiant parts†. Similarly, the Duke believes Othello to be a noble man, and confronts Barbarian of his prejudging: â€Å"If virtue no delighted beauty lack, your son-in- law is more fair than black†.These words prove that Othello is much more than the color of his skin, and that any judgments based on his appearance should be deemed invalid, as race is a social construct and people's attributes are in no way related to the color of their skin. Shakespearean tale of Othello shows the injustice behind racial prejudice and how the entire concept is flawed. Sago's and Rodeo's animosity tells us more about them than it does about Othello, as the vulgarity of their words reflects their true person a.Ago calls Othello a â€Å"devil† however there is no reasoning or proof behind this cruel statement, thus rendering it baseless. Oppositely, we know Adhesion's kind words to be true, as they are inspired by her time spent with Othello. Shakespeare has used the political and social views of the sixteenth century Venetian people, to comment on the unfairness of discrimination on the bases of race, and how appearance doesn't define character. Othello is proof that one can be elegant, respectable and well-mannered in spite Of the negative connotations that race tends to allow.

Nurse Practitioners who have had a spanish for health care Research Proposal

Nurse Practitioners who have had a spanish for health care practitioners course will provide better subjective and objective ass - Research Proposal Example Contextually, it has emerged as a vital point of consideration for professionals to obtain differentiated advantages and attain better growth opportunities in the global context. Based on a similar notion, in nursing, language or rather the linguistic skills possessed by the nurses are determined as an important and beneficial attribute when aiming at better patient satisfaction (American College of Physicians, 2009). In today’s society, it is quite essential that what is transmitted by the nurse is effectively comprehended by the patients through effective communication. The role of communication in nursing profession is one of the significant aspects, where recent studies have depicted that many educated nurses face challenge to take care of the patients according to their requirements fundamentally because of linguistic barriers (Allen & Dip, 2007). Stating precisely, language skills play a significant role in the nursing profession which is quite essential in order to faci litate superior treatment to patients belonging from different ethnicity or cultural background. This enables the nurses to understand the needs of the patients more effectively as well as comprehend the information related to the healthcare with minimum chances of misinterpretation from the patients’ end. ... Statement of the Problem Based on the significance of language skills among nurses, the problem to be examined in this study will emphasise that whether nurse practitioners who have obtained the course of Spanish language will facilitate better treatment for the Spanish patients in comparison to those practitioners who do not possess Spanish language skills. The philosophy behind the identified problem or research issue has been based on the belief that communicating in similar language is likely to facilitate effective communication process between the nurse and the patient, confirming better quality healthcare services. In the present scenario of globalization, language has apparently emerged as an essential skill for the nurse practitioners owing to the fact that they need to handle patients belonging to different cultures and linguistic backgrounds. Thus, the research issue in concern denotes that a practitioner who does not have the knowledge of Spanish language will not able to provide necessary care to the Spanish patients. Significance of the Problem for Nursing and Health The problems concerning the communication skills of the nurse practitioners can be observed as quite crucial in the present day context. From a generalized perspective, it can be affirmed that nurses who do not have the knowledge of a particular language will not be able to deliver superior quality care to an individual who belongs to that particular linguistic background. Based on this assumption, this study will attempt to emphasize upon the communication gap resulting because of the linguistic differences existing between nurse practitioners and the patients in the modern day global healthcare sector. Hence, focusing upon the

Plan Development for a Major Health Care Facility Essay

Plan Development for a Major Health Care Facility - Essay Example The main aim of business plan is to oversee the implementation of a project based on good decision making, proper planning procedures and methods that eventually will lead to full completion of a project to all parties’ satisfaction. This paper is aimed at establishing a business plan for a major health care facility to its full functionality. The actual project here is a business plan of a major health care facility. For a successful completion of the project, there are many considerations, obstacles as well as opportunities that all have to be looked at before and during the project implementation. Unlike other projects, health care facility requires special attention due to the nature of its work hence it needs more expertise in its project planning. The plan should put in consideration many factors among them; that healthcare facilities depends on continues operations with no tolerance to disruptions, in terms of its construction it will require unique waste streams since chemicals might be involved within its wastes, there is need for provision of intense energy and water use within its surroundings due to the nature of the activities within the healthcare, there should be provision for infection control which should be unique on its own and lastly but not least, indoor air circulation is of importance and hence should be considered in the business plan for healthcare project. These special specifications differentiate a healthcare plan to that of a normal business plan. Any project that is to be consisted within a healthcare facility should fully be planed for and evaluated before its implementation. Existing research has shown that in a period of about last five years, there indeed has been an increase in healthcare projects development to almost 50% as compared to the previous years. This rapid increase has mainly been attributed to the need for new and developing technological innovations in the healthcare sector, aging populations as well as fa cilities, the need for new standards of care and a considerate reimbursement and financing environment. All these have contributed to the witnessed introductions of various projects to the health sector. This intern has brought the need to come up with business plans so as to attain the healthcare objectives with less challenges. The market analysis has shown that indeed there is more need for effective service integration and healthcare management especially for new enrollees within the healthcare sector. This is attributed to the fact that majority of new enrollees are soon to be non-disabled adults and this is a critical fact to the health sector since it’s worth noting that the disabled and dually eligible populations are much more costly and hence stand to benefit more from effective healthcare system. Market analysis has shown that there has been a high rise in the resent years of various special cases in the health sector that indeed have called for business plans to h elp in projects integrations in the health sector. Such like programs include; perinatal conditions that have played a big role in maternal and child health care, Chronic conditions, smoking complications and obesity among others. These complex health matters have brought about the need for establishment of more healthcare facilities and this has called for the need for project planning since healthcare

Global Marketing Coursework Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Global Marketing - Coursework Example Firstly, a company has a better brand presence all over the world, since parts of the world are familiarized with its products; bring rich long term dividends (Chung, 1996, p.2). Secondly, the need to reach out to better markets is fulfilled, allowing the company to recover from losses incurred in lower markets. The main disadvantages of global expansion and e-commerce are not many. The most difficult part of the expansion is the high degree of market risk that comes into the reports and the reduced ROI that hits the investments during the initial years. The most important challenges that any company faces while global expansion includes developing a daunting localization strategy that does not fail in spite of local competitors in new markets, and the challenge of overcoming product launches which fail in rich markets, only because of lack of customization or local features. When Apollo Inc decided to expand its products into the toy markets in Asia and Europe, it had to decide on a great deal of customization to be able to create a same degree of appeal amongst buyers in the new markets. Established in 1912, Apollo Inc had to work it up the US markets the hard way. Their offerings initially failed to match up with the predominance of Disneyland and the Barbie franchisees. In order to get over these existing competitions, Apollo had to concentrate on toy items that were bought by boys. These included cycles, helicopters, and sports gear that helped school going kids and teenagers make the most of their boyish adventures. In order to succeed in global expansion, Apollo Inc has to measure up all the toy offerings that the new markets have. Barbie already has a worldwide presence wile Disneyland products and mimics are not to be found outside US. So, in countries of Canada and Europe, Apollo can hope to succeed in its expansion strategy. With a multi-national strategy going

Qualitative Case Study Reserach Project Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Qualitative Case Study Reserach Project - Essay Example The University of London needs to develop an approach that will aid in attracting students from the Middle East and North Africa regions. A large number of students, especially the Chinese, carry out their studies abroad. So, it is quite crucial for the University of London to carry out a market analysis and understand some of the reasons of students’ option for this university over the Regents College London. Crucial perspectives worth consideration include an analysis of driving forces that make students decide where to go for their higher studies. Crucially with such information the University of London will in a better way be able to develop the best ways to market their courses in the most efficient and effective manner. This plan governing how the research is to be conducted to arrive to the final report addressing the research constitutes a number of sections. Included are all the steps required to arrive to a comprehensive coverage of the study question with the durati on of time required for each step specified to allow better time management. Research question What factors might influence the Middle East and North Africa student to choose UCL, University of London over Regents College London? Background Studies have indicated that there are higher chances for a student from Middle East and North Africa to decide to join the University of London for their higher studies as compared to the Regents College London. Most importantly, there is need to identify factors that lead to this kind of decision by the students. Therefore, qualitative data will be needed in order to provide a better understanding of the reasons and factors behind the decision made by students in preference of the University of London (Fidel 2007, p.77). In line with the collection of this data it is quite crucial to note that in the United Kingdom universities as well as colleges are developing ways of meeting the increased demand for certain courses by students from the Middle East and North Africa. Chinese students as already identified form the biggest percentage of students in London. It is thus advisable to focus on some aspects of this group and know what factors shape their decisions on which university to join. Over the years, the University of London has increased the number of courses which seem to attract the Chinese students. These courses based on the culture of the Chinese, their language as well as their interaction with the business world have created a good reputation for this university. However, there is still the need of in-depth analysis to be carried to ensure that this university maintains a competitive edge against other universities, especially the Regents College University. Purpose The research will be required to comprehensively address the question under study through the application of the selected tools and methodology. This will aid in obtaining adequate findings of factors that shape decisions of students to resort to join particular university, hence bearing a substantial amount of usefulness in the developing of marketing strategies by the University of London. Conduct In order to get the right responses that address the research question there is need to ensure that the informants are Chinese students. This means that a visit will have to be conducted to the

How service delivery can be improved through better project management Dissertation

How service delivery can be improved through better project management - Dissertation Example It gives people opportunity to share their experiences which can be assessed for further modifications in service delivery system. Through project management, the available resources can be used effectively by team members sharing their knowledge and innovative ideas (Project management course). The accessibility of project management team to the current information enables them to identify the existing problems and demands of the customers. This up-to-date knowledge would facilitate them to assess the success of the service delivery. The quality of service delivery depends on the extent to which the customer needs are satisfied; hence the better management with leadership skills can organise the process of service delivery in a better way (123eng.com). There may be times when a better-quality product fails to sustain in the market due to poor service delivery. Thus it is very necessary that the service delivery has to be managed by a well-organized and efficient management. Communic ation is one of the key factors that determine the success of service delivery.

A study of War and Military History, 1867 to the Present Essay

A study of War and Military History, 1867 to the Present - Essay Example With its large expanse of land mass covering North America, right above the United States, proved to be of strategic importance for the British. Trade between Canada and the main British isle was usually undeterred by the vast Atlantic Ocean, and such supply routes were usually left undisturbed for the most part. On the social and political situation, the Canadians were mostly North American colonists who remained loyal to British imperial rule and also composed of colonists from the United States who maintained their allegiance with the British rule. This group of Canadians formed the majority of Canada’s society and usually held a strong voice with regards to the colonial affairs. On the other hand, there were also the French speaking Canadians who were mostly from the domain of Quebec and Montreal. The French Canadians were formerly French Empire colonists during the 16th and 17th century who were conquered by the British by the end of the French-Indian War. The fact that F rench Canadians were usually not treated with much respect as that of the English Canadians, French Canadians most of the time took the polar opposite with regards to political opinion. When the outbreak of the First World War happened in Europe, it was first thought that the British Empire would not be involved in the war which at first was thought to be merely involved between the Austria-Hungary against Serbia. But when Germany entered the war, in the side of Austria-Hungary, Great Britain decided to enter the war against what would later be known as the Central Powers, namely the German Empire and the Austro-Hungarian Empire, to prevent the German Empire from expanding its imperial influence. Canada was involved in this armed struggle across its borders since it had its obligations as a colony of the British Empire. Prior to all this, Canada had a large standing militia force, yet a small regular army and an even smaller navy. Sam Hughes, the Minister of Militia and Defense during that time, was tasked to raise enough soldiers for the war in Europe to complement the British forces around the Western Front. For this to be done, volunteers of men were needed to be implemented to enlist enough manpower to be of potential support for the war efforts. Many joined in the hundreds of thousands, becoming known as the Canadian Expeditionary Force. Canadians were known to serve well and with distinction. They were notable in their involvement in major battles such as the Battles of Ypres, Somme, Vimy Ridge, Passchendaele and the Hundred Days offensive. Canadian Corps were considered as fine soldiers, being highly motivated and dogged. But as the war dragged on and losses were mounting high on the British and its Commonwealth forces, it came to the point that conscription would be needed. After the Battle of Somme, in which casualties on both sides of the belligerents where high, there was a great demand to reinforce the forces in the Western Front. Because of the terrible amount of casualties as the battles raged on the trenches in the Western front with no clear or decisive victory in sight, the number of volunteers of Canadians drastically dropped . This eventually caused conscription to be seen as a necessary measure for the Canadian government to pass the act of conscription. By this period, the government Canada decided to pass the act of conscription. Opinions about conscription in Canada during the First World War were divided distinctly between the

Graduate Schools Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Graduate Schools - Research Paper Example This essay stresses that graduate schools equip students to think with a high degree of open-mindedness. Graduates are not fixed in their thinking. They are open to debates and are quite flexible with respect to decision making. They are able to recognize and assess situations critically, make assumptions, implications and practical consequences of their actions. Accordingly, they act after assessing situations with sharp and open minds. This paper makes a conclusion that graduates also master great communication, human relations and communication skills. They go through intensive theoretical and practical learning that transforms them into useful assets in the society. They are relied upon to figure out solutions to complex problems at individual, group and societal levels. This is because the graduate schools have equipped them with knowledge and skills to solve such complex problems. Think tanks in virtually all fields of knowledge come from graduate schools. Whether in the field of medicine, technology, religion, humanities and social sciences, the leading brains are produced from the graduate schools. Strategic global thinkers with diversified knowledge and skills come from these graduate schools. From the foregoing, graduate schools play very significant roles towards the growth and development of the society. They contribute to research and development in economics, politics, social sciences, cultural aspects and religion. The society needs graduate schools to do research, enhance global competition and build a very vibrant economy

Criticize the attached research Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Effect of Supervisors Beliefs on the Supervision System in Turkish Primary Schools - Essay Example If the research reveals something more than what the previous researchers have revealed, then the research can be called as successful. Otherwise, it remains just an experiment with no new insights on the topic. Similarly, the research on the ‘beliefs of supervisors in primary schools of Turkey’ revealed nothing new about the research topic. After reading the article, the reader feels that the researchers should have widened the scope of the participants and the subject matter if they were to learn something more than what is already available in the existing literature on the topic. It feels as if something was missing in the research and makes the reader feel that the study was incomplete. The Positive Aspects Of The Research The authors have done an excellent job in giving the background of the research. The authors have beautifully explained why the research is being conducted and how the beliefs of the supervisors play an important role in the performance and develo pment of the educational organizations in Turkey. According to the research by Sullivan and Glanz (2005), the supervision beliefs of supervisors influence not only their behavior and approach towards work but also their language and communication pattern. Hence, understanding their beliefs about supervision becomes an important thing. According to the authors, the main aim of the research is to know the core of the supervision. As beliefs of human being determine the â€Å"views and perceptions† of the job they are doing, it is important to know what work method they believe in so as to understand their drive and motivation behind their performance at work. The authors have very successfully explained the reason behind undertaking the research and how the research results are going to impact the overall function of supervision in the primary schools of Turkey. Moreover, the sample strength of the research of 300 primary school supervisors was also a positive point of the rese arch. Also, the research was based on the classification of beliefs of supervision by Sullivan and Glanz (2005). They have classified beliefs of supervision in two categories, i.e. ‘bureaucratic supervisory beliefs’ and ‘democratic supervisory beliefs’. The authors have explained how these beliefs affect the communication between supervisors and teachers, and the job satisfaction of the teachers.  

Dr. Henry Jekyll (and Mr.Hyde) was born in to a society of morality, respectability and religion Essay Example for Free

Dr. Henry Jekyll (and Mr.Hyde) was born in to a society of morality, respectability and religion Essay Dr. Henry Jekyll was born in to a society of morality, respectability and religion. It was believed that progress could only be made if everyone was self-disciplined and moralistic. Authors such as Samuel Smiles wrote Self-Help guides. All this was aimed to help the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. In an age of stern, industrious hypocrites, respect was everything to the upper and middle classes. People denied themselves alcohol, gambling and prostitution to gain the respect of others. Jekyll refers to these denied as pleasures. People lived without these pleasures but soon began to wonder what they were missing. This brought about the slum adventurers. These were middle and upper class men who wanted to keep the respect of their society but, through anonymity, still indulge in the pleasures the poor slums had to offer. They would work by day in their offices and at night would journey down to the alleys of the slums. A person such as Mr Utterson, a London lawyer who does not wish to indulge in pleasures is of a vicarious nature. It is noticed that though he enjoyed the theatre, [he] had not crossed the doors of one in twenty years. It is this vicariousness that helps him solve the case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Utterson is the opposite of Jekyll in the way that Utterson keeps the respectability of the Victorian society, whereas Jekyll rebels. The rebellious nature of Jekyll leads him to discover how to transform his appearance. Dr. Lanyon, a respectable conventional doctor of Victorian society frowns on Jekyll mostly secret work, which he refers to as unscientific balderdash. In the beginning it is difficult for us to feel sympathy for Dr. Jekyll: he is acting by his own conscience. At this current stage, he is in no way addicted to Mr. Hyde. Even the sight of Mr. Hyde pale and dwarfish who gave the impression of deformity but with no nameable malformation, according to Mr. Utterson, who had taken a loathing to my gentleman at first sight, should have forced Jekyll to recognise that Hyde was evil. It is very difficult to feel sympathy for Jekyll after we are told about when Hyde trampled calmly over a young girls body. Normally after this event anyone else would have ceased his transformation into Hyde. But Jekyll starts to become addicted to taking the drugs (as with modern addictions) and continues to turn into Hyde even after trampling the girl. As if trampling the girl was not a big enough deterrent Hyde brutally murders Sir Danvers Carew. Jekyll, knowing what had happened, easily accepts it and shifts the blame to Hyde. He shows this in Dr Jekylls full statement of the case, it was Hyde, after all, and Hyde alone that is guilty. The ease at which he accepts this and shifts the blame could almost be inhuman. But after he discovers that he begins to change into Hyde spontaneously, without the drug we see he is very self centred and selfish, I must have stared upon it half a minuteI rushed to the mirror my blood was something exquisitely thin and icy. Even though Jekyll is selfish about this, not mentioning what a terrible thing that he made now controls. We can feel some sympathy for knowing that he is trapped and at anytime Hyde might emerge over which Jekyll has no control. Alternatively we can have sympathy for a man that failed to have foreseen what would happen and stopped the process as soon as possible. But he continued to satisfy his need for the pleasures which otherwise eluded him. It is also very difficult to feel sorry for someone who knows and remembers what happens, but does not take action to prevent it. My two natures had memory in common. Surely the memories of the girl and Carew should be painful enough to force any sane and humane person to put a stop to Hydes actions. Hyde goes into hiding after Carews murder in fear of being hung, should he be caught. This removes a lot of the sympathy we may otherwise feel towards Jekyll at this point, as yet again he shows signs of being selfish and putting himself before everyone else. Some of this sympathy is regained when he is in hiding, he begins to show genuine remorse for Carews death. In the statement of the case, Jekyll finally admits to Hydes evil by saying It was no longer the fear of the gallows, it was the horror of being Hyde that racked me. This shows that Jekyll has become altruistic. Jekyll has now begun to put himself after everyone. He now excepts the he must not let Hyde free again for fear of him committing more evil. It is now we finally begin to feel sympathy and start to respect Jekyll for trying to put a stop to Hyde. Finally Jekyll commits suicide to save the world from the terror and evil Hyde could unleash. This gains him the greatest respect and sympathy. He took his life to save others from the extreme evil he had inadvertently created. He finally takes ultimate responsibility and puts a stop to Hyde. In conclusion I think that Jekyll was a victim of Victorian society where respect was everything. In some parts it is hard to offer our sympathy but his final act was one that one must respect and offer sympathy for the pain Jekyll went through. As we have seen restricting things from people can only bring out the bad side of them, as Jekyll explains, My devil had been long caged, he came out roaring. Personal freedom is one of our greatest assets and one we take very much for granted.

Gainesboro Machine Tools Corporation Essay Example for Free

Gainesboro Machine Tools Corporation Essay Kendle International Inc. We looked at the competitive landscape and, based on what was happening, knew we were either going to sell Kendle, grow or disappear. It was May 1997, and Candace Kendle, the chairman and chief executive officer of Kendle International Inc. (Kendle), and her husband Christopher C. Bergen, the president and chief operating officer, were reviewing the strategic options for their Cincinnati, Ohio based company. Kendle, a business they had founded over 15 years previously, conducted clinical trials for pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies to test the safety and efficacy of their new drugs. The company had grown successfully to $13 million of sales and had attracted significant business from major pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies. Kendle was competing, however, with several larger contract research organizations (CRO), many of which had an international presence that allowed them to do clinical studies outside the United States and gave them an advantage when competing for major projects. To compete more effectively, Candace and Chris had embarked on a plan to grow through acquisition, particularly internationally, and to finance this growth through a public offering of equity. Toward this end, by the spring of 1997 Kendle had lined up two potential European acquisitions—U-Gene, a CRO in the Netherlands with 1996 sales of $12.5 million, and gmi, a Germanbased CRO with $7 million in sales. To finance these acquisitions, Kendle had worked out possible debt financing with Nationsbank and was working with two investment banks on an Initial Public Offering (IPO) that would repay the bank debt if successful and provide the equity base for future acquisitions. It was now time to decide whether to go ahead with the full program of two acquisitions, a large debt financing and an equity issue. Kendle History Candace and Chris met in 1979 while working at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Candace had received her doctorate in pharmacy from the University of Cincinnati, then taught in North Carolina and Pennsylvania. Her scientific specialty was virology. At the Children’s Hospital, Candace was serving as the director of pharmacy, working as an investigator on a study of an antiviral drug for the pharmaceutical company Burroughs Wellcome. Chris, a Wharton MBA, was a senior administrator at the hospital. Research Associate Indra A. Reinbergs prepared this case under the supervision of Professors Dwight B. Crane and Paul W. Marshall as the basis for class discussion rather than to illustrate either effective or ineffective handling of an administrative situation. Copyright  © 2000 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. To order copies or request permission to reproduce materials, call 1-800-545-7685, write Harvard Business School Publishing, Boston, MA 02163, or go to http://www.hbsp.harvard.edu. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, used in a spreadsheet, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the permission of Harvard Business School. 1 Looking for something new, Candace and Chris began to discuss the idea of going into business together. One day in early 1981 Candace received an unexpected visit from a new physician, replacing the usual medical monitor for her project with Burroughs Wellcome. This physician was a pioneer in the  contract clinical research business. As he described how his business worked, Candace became more and more intrigued. When he left that day, she immediately called Chris and said, â€Å"I’ve got a business idea!† The concept was to set up a small research consulting firm that would take on outsourced research and development (RD) work on a contract basis from large pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies. Based on the positive response she received from potential clients, Candace left her job at the hospital in June 1981 and Chris left his job in December 1981. Kendle International Inc. was incorporated in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1981, with Candace taking 55% of the shares, and Chris 45%. Candace had strong ties to the Cincinnati area. Her grandfather, a coal miner, had moved there from Appalachia, and the clan had grown to about 140 members, including Candace’s two sons from a previous marriage. By January 1982, Candace and Chris were working from Candace’s parents’ home. Kendle started as a small company with a few contracts, and business grew slowly through referrals from professional colleagues. Kendle suffered the usual bumps of a start-up business, particularly in the late 1980s when it suffered a loss for two years and ran up $1 million in bank debt on a $250,000 line of credit. Afraid that its bank would call the loan, the company went through a bankruptcy scare. Fortunately, Kendle succeeded in attracting business from a new client, the pharmaceutical company G.D. Searle Co. (Searle). By the early 1990s, the company was turned around and it generated annual sales of about $2.5 million. Candace and Chris were married in 1991. The Pharmaceutical Lifecycle The clinical research process was influenced by government regulations that required drugs to pass through a series of steps before they could be marketed for public use. In the United States, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulated pharmaceuticals. To receive FDA approval, a drug had to meet safety and efficacy standards for a specific indication (medical diagnosis). A drug for hypertension, for example, would have to lower blood pressure by a certain statistically significant amount without  producing unacceptable side effects. The entire FDA approval process could take from 8 to 15 years and involve several thousand patients.1 After a pharmaceutical company discovered a new drug and completed pre-clinical testing on animals in the laboratory, an Investigational New Drug application was filed with the FDA. The drug then passed through three phases of clinical testing on humans. Before beginning each subsequent phase, the drug company had to submit additional regulatory information to the FDA. Phase I Phase I studies were primarily concerned with assessing the drugs safety. This initial phase of testing in humans was done in a small number of healthy volunteers (20 to 100), such as students, who were usually paid for participation. Phase II Once Phase I testing had proven the drug’s safety, Phase II tested its efficacy in a small number of patients (100 to 300) with the medical diagnosis. It was specifically designed to determine the likely effective dose in patients. Phase III In a Phase III study, the drug was tested on a larger patient population (1,000 to 3,000) at multiple clinical sites. The purpose was to provide a more thorough understanding of the drugs effectiveness, benefits, and the range of possible adverse reactions. Most Phase II and Phase III studies were blinded studies in which some patients received the experimental drug, while control groups received a placebo or an already approved drug. Once a Phase III study was successfully completed, a pharmaceutical company requested FDA approval for marketing the drug by filing a New Drug Application, which averaged about 100,000 pages. †¢ 200-033 Phase IV Post-marketing testing (of at least 300 patients per trial) was sometimes conducted for high-risk drugs to catch serious side effects (liver toxicity) and monitor them for long-term effectiveness and cost-effectiveness. The pharmaceutical companies traditionally designed and conducted their own clinical trials. They selected the research sites and recruited investigators to conduct the trials of the new drug. Investigators were often medical school professors at teaching hospitals, but they could also be professional investigators who conducted clinical trials at dedicated centers or occasionally regular physicians who ran trials, particularly Phase IV trials, out of their private practices. These investigators then recruited patients, sometimes with the help of the pharmaceutical company, to participate in the study. After patients were recruited, there was a considerable amount of data collection by the investigators, monitoring of the process and data retrieval by the pharmaceutical company, and analysis of the data to determine whether the statistical criteria for safety and efficacy were met. Finally, there was the complicated process of compiling the data and preparing the long report for the FDA. The Contract Research Business In the 1970s, large pharmaceutical concerns in the United States began to look for ways to outsource their clinical testing work as their RD budgets grew. At the beginning, contract research was a small cottage industry and the work was awarded on a piecemeal basis. As Chris recalled, â€Å"For years, there had been companies conducting animal testing and Phase I, but there was no one managing the entire research and development process. The acronym ‘CRO’ (contract research organization) did not exist, pharmaceutical companies gave out only small contracts, and did not have much confidence in for-profit research managers.† The growth of the CRO industry was stimulated by pricing pressures on drug companies that led them to try to transfer the fixed costs of clinical research into a variable cost through outsourcing. As Chris described, The general problem that drug companies face is balancing a variable workload with a fixed workforce. The problem is that you don’t know when the guy in the white lab coat will come running down the hall, beaker in hand, shouting, ‘Eureka, I’ve got it, it’s going to cure disease X’. When he does that, you know your workload is going to spike. Your workload is impacted by the rate of discovery, the number of projects killed in vitro and, subsequent to that, how many studies get cancelled due to safety or efficacy problems in human testing. Pure CROs like Kendle derived their income solely from the outsourced portion of the RD budget of pharmaceutical clients. In theory, any part of the clinical testing process could be outsourced. While most pre-clinical discovery was conducted in-house by drug companies, the trend in the 1990s was for CROs to receive contracts to manage the entire clinical research piece, especially 3 Phases II and III. The whole process was an incredible race against time, as every day for which FDA approval was delayed could cost the pharmaceutical client over $1 million in lost revenues. Pharmaceutical contracts ranged in duration from a few months to several years. For multi-year contracts involving clinical trials, a portion of the contract fee was paid at the time the trial was initiated, with the balance of the contract fee payable in installments over the trial duration, as performance-based milestones (investigator recruitment, patient enrollment, delivery of databases) were completed. Contracts were bid by CROs on a fixed-price basis, and the research was a labor-intensive business. The contract bids depended on careful estimation of the hourly labor rates and the number of hours each activity would take. The estimation process involved statistical algorithms, which took into account the length of the study, frequency and length of site visits, the number of sites involved, the number of patients involved, and the number of pages per report form. A premium would be added for more complicated therapeutic testing. As the chief financial officer Tim Mooney described the business, The way that Kendle makes money is like any professional service firm—We focus on maximizing labor utilization, especially at the operational level. We assume a 65% to 70% utilization rate, so profit margins are higher if we have a higher utilization rate of personnel. We have the same assumed profit margin on all levels of people, but we can charge higher rates for contracts where we have specific therapeutic expertise that is in demand. Margins can also be higher on some large projects when we can share overhead costs across more sites. The business of contract research entailed several types of business risk. With contracts running at an average of $1 million for companies of Kendle’s size, client dependence was a major risk. Project cancellation by the client and â€Å"change orders† to reduce project costs were also increasingly frequent in the CRO industry, as healthcare cost pressures intensified. On the other hand, product liability for medical risks was borne by the pharmaceutical company. Competition in the 1990s By the mid-1990s, contract research had evolved into a full-service industry, recognized by both the pharmaceutical/biotech industries and the financial community. In 1995, worldwide spending on RD by pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies was estimated at $35 billion, with $22 billion spent on the type of drug development work that CROs could do. Of the $22 billion, only $4.6 billion was outsourced to CROs in 1995. While RD spending by pharmaceutical companies was growing at 10% a year, CROs were growing at twice that rate.2 Specialized CROs could manage increasingly complex drug trials—in the previous decade, the number of procedures per trial and average number of patients per trial had doubled—far more efficiently than their pharmaceutical clients.3 Kendle participated in this growth in clinical research. Its net revenues grew 425% from $2.5 million in 1992 to $13 million in 1996. From a loss of $495,000 in 1992, its net income rose to $1.1 million by 1996. By 1996, Kendle had conducted clinical trials for 12 of the world’s 20 largest pharmaceutical companies. Kendle’s three largest clients were G.D. Searle, Procter Gamble, and Amgen, which generated 48%, 19%, and 13% of Kendles 1996 revenues, respectively. (See Exhibits 1 and 2 for Kendle’s income statements and balance sheets.) 2 J.C. Bradford Co., analyst report, January 15, 1998, pp. 5-6. 3 The Economist, â€Å"Survey of the Pharmaceutical Industry,† February 21, 1998, p. 4.200-033 The contract research industry was very fragmented, with hundreds of CROs worldwide. In the 1990s, in response to the increased outsourcing of pharmaceutical RD, and a demand for global trials, consolidation among the CROs began. A few key players emerged and went public, creating a new industry for Wall Street to watch. Many CRO start-ups were founded by former drug company executives who decided to form their own operations. After a period of internal growth, some of the start-ups began growing through a financial â€Å"roll-up† strategy. An industry publication listed 18 top players in North America, with total contract research revenues of $1.7 billion. The top five public companies, ranked by 1996 revenues, were Quintiles Transnational Corp. ($537.6 million), Covance Inc. ($494.8 million), Pharmaceutical Product Development Inc ($152.3 million), ClinTrials Research Inc. ($93.5 million), and Parexel International Corp. ($88 million).4 (See Exhibit 3 for recent sales and pr ofit data on CROs.) With its talent pool of scientists at the Research Triangle and U.S. headquarters of the pharmaceutical giants Glaxo and Burroughs Wellcome (later merged as Glaxo Wellcome), the state of North Carolina quickly became the center of the burgeoning CRO industry. Two of the â€Å"big five† companies, Quintiles and Pharmaceutical Product Development, were started there by academic colleagues of Candace’s. Quintiles Transnational was considered to be the †gold standard of the industry.† Quintiles was founded in 1982 by Dennis Gillings, a British biostatistician who had worked at Hoechst and was a professor at the University of North Carolina, where Candace completed her postdoctoral work. After raising $39 million in a 1994 IPO, Quintiles went on an acquisition spree, adding other professional service businesses. For example, the firm provided sales and marketing services to support the launch of new drug products. By the end of 1996, Quintiles was the worldâ€⠄¢s largest CRO, with 7,000 employees in 56 offices in 20 countries. A typical clinical study managed by Quintiles was conducted at 160 sites in 12 countries, involving 10,000 patients. Quintiles was more diversified than many of its CRO competitors, with about 65% of revenues derived from the  core CRO business and 35% from other services.5 Pharmaceutical Product Development (PPD) was founded in 1989 by Fred Eshelman, a colleague of Candace’s from the postdoctoral program in pharmacy. Like the founder of Quintiles, Eshelman had worked in drug research for several pharmaceutical firms, including Glaxo and Beecham. PPD’s revenues jumped 500% between 1990 and 1994, based on such work as multi-year contracts for AIDS research for the National Institutes of Health. PPD conducted a successful IPO in March 1996, with its stock jumping from $18 per share to $25.50 per share on the first day of trading. PPD bought a U.K. Phase I facility in November 1995, and in September 19 96 merged with another leading CRO. Their combined net revenues exceeded $200 million. Kendle at the Crossroads To Candace and Chris, it was clear that certain competitive capabilities were necessary for companies of Kendle’s size to compete successfully with the major CROs: therapeutic expertise (in specific medical areas) broad range of services (pharmaceutical companies wanted to work with fewer CROs, with each offering a wide range of services across multiple phases of the RD process); integrated clinical data management (the ability to efficiently collect, edit and analyze data from thousands of patients with various clinical conditions from many geographically dispersed sites); 4 â€Å"Annual Report: Leading CROs,† RD Directions, September 1997, pp. 28+. 5 William Blair Co. LLC analyst report, Quintiles Transnational Corp., June 20, 1997, p. 3. international, multi-jurisdictional presence (to speed up drug approval, tests were being launched in several countries at once); With the exception of international presence, Candace and Chris felt comfortable with their ability to meet these criteria. Kendle’s staff had scientific expertise in multiple therapeutic areas, including cardiovascular, central nervous system, gastrointestinal, immunology, oncology, respiratory, skeletal disease and inflammation. The company also had broad capabilities, including management of studies in Phases II through Phase IV. It did not consider the absence of Phase I capabilities to be an issue, since this activity was quite separate. (See Exhibit 4 for a comparison of CRO geographical locations.) To build an integrated clinical data management capability, Chris had directed the development of TrialWare ®, a proprietary software system that allowed global data collection and processing and the integration of clinical data with clients’ in-house data management systems. TrialWare ® consisted of several modules including a database management system that greatly reduced study start-up costs and time by standardizing database design and utilizing scanned image technology to facilitate the design of data entry screens, the point-and-click application of edits from a pre-programmed library, and workflow management (parallel processing). Other modules included a system that coded medical history, medication and adverse event data and a touch-tone telephone system that was used for patient  randomization, just-in-time drug supply and collection of real-time enrollment data. Against the backdrop of a changing industry, Candace and Chris felt the need to develop additional business skills and focus Kendle’s strategy. To clarify their management roles, Candace and Chris switched their existing responsibilities. Chris pointed out, â€Å"Candace became CEO as we realized that her focus was long-range and I took over as Chief Operating Officer to focus on the short-range. In addition, the marketing strength of our competitors was propelling them further and further ahead of Kendle. Candace brought her science background and entrepreneurial skills, while I brought my management. The problem was that we were relatively weak in sales and marketing.† To broaden their skills, Candace went off in 1991 to the Owner/President Management Program (OPM), an executive education program run by Harvard Business School for three weeks a year over three years. Chris followed her to OPM in 1994. After completing the OPM program, Candace assessed the situation, We have to be big enough relative to our competitors to take on large, international projects. When Searle was looking for CROs for international work, all we could do was possibly subcontract it out to small shops. In contrast, Quintiles had six overseas offices of its own. Furthermore, when Searle calls and says, ‘I just got off the phone, Quintiles will cut their price by a million dollars,’ if you’re too small, you’re not going to be able to respond to that. Candace and Chris realized that Kendle could not grow fast enough internally to keep up with its peers and did not have the cash for acquisitions. They entertained the thought of selling Kendle, and were approached several times about a sale. But by nature, they were a competitive, athletic couple. Chris got up to play squash every morning at 7 AM, and Candace was an avid rower, recently winning a gold medal in a Cincinnati regatta. Perhaps not surprisingly, Candace and Chris decided to grow the firm and take it public rather than sell. As Candace described their motivation, â€Å"We were not driven to be a public company as such, but primarily to be bigger, and for this, we  needed public financing to succeed in the new competitive landscape. The whole target was not to let the big guys get too far out ahead of us.† Preparations for Growth By 1994, Kendle had grown to $4.4 million in revenues. Candace, the driving force throughout the IPO process, sought advice from an old college friend, a well-known Cincinnati businessman. He advised her, â€Å"before you go public, practice being a public company.† Candace therefore formulated a plan for Kendle to go public in 1999. Kendle began hiring key managers to build up functional units. Between 1994 and February 1997, new directors of clinical data management, information technology, biostatistics, finance, mergers and acquisitions, regulatory affairs, and human resources were hired. As Chris described, â€Å"the plan was to put this infrastructure in place to look and act like a public company— communications, IT, finance. The idea was hire at the top and they’ll fill in their organization.† Many of these new managers had previously worked together at other companies. To prepare for Wall Street scrutiny, Kendle began issuing internal quarterly fi nancial statements and sharing them with employees in an open-book management style. Candace and Chris tried to make the growing number of employees feel like â€Å"part of the family† in other ways, too. The Kendle â€Å"photo gallery† displayed professional portraits of employees with their favorite hobbies. In 1995 Chris led the development of a corporate mission statement and a document on strategic plans that was shared with all employees. Kendle was organized in a matrix fashion (see Exhibit 5 for organizational chart). Each department was treated as a strategic business unit (SBU) with a director who established standards and carried profit responsibility. At the same time, each research contract was managed by a project manager who assembled a team from across the various SBUs. Clinical trials involved five functional SBUs at Kendle: 1. Regulatory Affairs recruited investigators, helped them with FDA registration forms, and obtained approval from ethics boards. Regulatory Affairs maintained a database of 5,000 investigators. 2. Clinical Monitoring sent clinical research associates (CRA) out to the testing sites (every 4 to 6 weeks) to enforce Good Clinical Practice regulations. The CRAs were typically young, single health care professionals who spent a significant amount of their time on the road. The CRA would collect data from investigators, resolve queries generated by Clinical Data Management, and promote patient enrollment. 3. Clinical Data Management produced a â€Å"locked† database that could be submitted to the FDA. Data from case report forms were input into a computer system and â€Å"cleaned† through a manual review of the forms and an automated check of the databases. The challenge was to lock a database quickly while maintaining data quality. 4. Biostatistics would â€Å"unblind† the locked database and analyze it to determine if the data confirmed that the test results met the criteria for safety and efficacy. Biostatistics also defined the scope of new studies. 5. Medical Writing generated â€Å"the truckload of paper submitted to the FDA† for a New Drug Application, including a statistical analysis, a clinical assessment, preclinical and clinical data, a description of the manufacturing process, and the supporting patient documentation. 1996: The Celebrexâ„ ¢ Study, Filing Preparations, and European acquisitions 1996 was a busy year for Candace, Chris, and Kendle’s new management team. They simultaneously began conducting a major drug study, working with underwriters on IPO preparations, and looking for overseas acquisition targets. In 1996 Kendle managed 62 clinical studies at 4,100 sites involving approximately 20,000 patients. Celebrexâ„ ¢ Study In January 1996, Kendle began working on a major drug called Celebrexâ„ ¢ (celecoxib). Its client Searle was engaged in a neck-and-neck race with Merck, the largest U.S. drug company, to be the first to market a COX-2 inhibitor. A COX-2 inhibitor was a new type of anti-inflammatory drug that promised low incidence of bleeding ulcers in long-term, high-dosage users such as arthritis patients. The Searle-Merck race was closely followed in the business press. Searle awarded the international portion of the Celebrexâ„ ¢ contract to another CRO, since Kendle only had facilities for testing in the United States. However, Kendle did win the contract to conduct all the U.S. Phase II and III trials. The Celebrexâ„ ¢ contract was a â€Å"huge feather in our cap,† recalled the chief financial officer. â€Å"In order to beat Merck, we worked very hard and kept compressing the timelines.† To head the Celebrexâ„ ¢ project, Kendle hired Bill Sietsema, PhD, as assistant director of clinical research. A therapeutic expert in skeletal diseases and inflammation, Sietsema had worked at Proctor Gamble for 12 years. While Sietsema served as overall program director, Chris acted as the operational project manager, meeting with his Searle counterpart in Chicago on a monthly basis. In early 1997, Kendle also set up a new regional office in Chicago, close to Searle headquarters. For Kendle, the Celebrexâ„ ¢ project was a chance to â€Å"show what we could do and to develop a reputation as a leader in the field of skeletal disease and inflammation.† Kendle actively helped investigators recruit arthritis patients, running television advertisements, directing interested volunteers to a call center. Three hundred  investigators enrolled over 10,000 patients, producing over one million pages of case report forms. Most importantly, through close integration of information systems with Searle, Kendle was able to beat an industry standard. Instead of taking the typical six months to one year, the time span between the last patient in Phase II and the first in Phase III, which began in June 1996, was only 22 days. Preparation for SEC Filing By the time the Celebrexâ„ ¢ program rolled around, Candace and Chris felt that they might have to go public earlier than intended because of the competitive landscape. The new chief financial officer, Tim Mooney, took a leading role in the preparations. Prior to joining Kendle in May 1996, Mooney had worked as CFO at The Future Now, Inc., a computer reseller and Hook-SupeRx, a retail drugstore chain. At Kendle, Mooney replaced the controller with an audit manager from Coopers Lybrand to beef up his staff. Mooney also led the building of many of the other financially related departments at Kendle. To act as the lead underwriters on the IPO, in August 1996 Mooney chose two regional investment banks, Chicago-based William Blair Company, L.L.C., which had handled the 1995 IPO of Kendle’s competitor Parexel, and Wessels, Arnold Henderson from Minneapolis. William Blair began putting Kendle through the paces of preparing to file a preliminary prospectus with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The process of going public generally took from 60 to 180 days. One of the key steps in the process was the conversion of Kendle from a subchapter corporation to a C corporation at the time of the IPO. (Subchapter S corporations were entities with 35 or fewer shareholders that were treated like partnerships for tax purposes. Corporate income tax was passed through tax-free to the owners who then paid personal income taxes due.) U-Gene In October 1996 Mooney hired Tony Forcellini, a former colleague, as director of mergers and acquisitions (MA). Tony had worked at Arthur Andersen in the tax department, and then as a treasurer at Hook-SupeRx with Mooney. The search for European acquisition targets was mainly conducted by Candace and Tony Forcellini, with back-up support by Tim Mooney and Chris. All the while, Chris and Bill Sietsema were working away on the Celebrexâ„ ¢ program. Forcellini’s first decision was easy—whether to pursue an offering memorandum that landed on his desk shortly after he arrived. The company for sale was U-Gene Research B.V. (U-Gene), a CRO based in Utrecht, the Netherlands. U-Gene was represented by Technomark Consulting Services Ltd. (Technomark), a London-based consulting firm uniquely specializing in the healthcare industry. Technomark had an extensive database on European CROs and was primarily in the business of matching its pharmaceutical company clients’ trial s with appropriate European CROs, but it also had a small investment banking division. U-Gene, a full-service CRO, was an attractive target for Kendle. The venture capitalist owners were actively looking for buyers. With a 38-bed Phase I facility in Utrecht and regional offices in the United Kingdom and Italy, U-Gene could increase both Kendle’s service offering and geographic presence. Since its founding in 1986, U-Gene had served more than 100 clients, including 19 of the worlds largest pharmaceutical companies. In 1996, U-Gene participated in 115 studies at approximately 500 sites involving approximately 4,700 patients and recorded net revenues of $12.5 million, a 37% increase over the prior year, and operating profit of $1.3 million, a 47% increase over the prior year. Because of its U.K. and Italian offices, U-Gene viewed itself as on the way to becoming a pan-European CRO.  (See Exhibit 6 for U-Gene financial statements.) With momentum building, in November 1996, Forcellini seized upon U-Gene as Kendle’s possible entry into Europe and submitted a bid, offering cash and private stock. Unfortunately, Kendle lost out on this bid to a competitor, Collaborative Clinical Research, Inc, as U-Gene’s owners either wanted a full cash deal or stock from a public company. Collaborative was a competitor slightly larger than Kendle ($25.7 million in revenues) that had gone public in June 1996 and had established a software partnership with IBM. Although it had access to investigators outside the United States, Collaborative also viewed U-Gene as the establishment of a European presence. On February 12, 1997 Collaborative announced that it had signed a letter of intent to acquire U-Gene in exchange for 1.75 million newly issued shares. While this put Kendle out of the picture, the prospects of a deal were not completely killed. On the same day, February 12, 1997, Collaborative also announced that its first-quarter 1997 earnings would be significantly below expectations. On the next day, on analyst speculation that a major client contract had been lost, their stock fell by 27.3%, closing at $9.00.6 This put Collaborative’s UGene deal in jeopardy. Underwriter Concerns About two weeks after Collaborative’s announcement, on February 25, 1997, another CRO, ClinTrials, also suffered a drop in stock price. ClinTrials’ stock lost more than half its market value,  dropping 59%, to $9.50 per share. The fall began when an analyst from Wessels Arnold downgraded the ClinTrials stock to â€Å"hold† from â€Å"buy,† citing a number of key management departures, and continued after ClinTrials announced that its first-quarter earnings would be half its year-earlier profit. The reason for the unexpected earnings decline was the cancellation of five projects totaling $37 million, with the possibility of even lower earnings due to an unresolved project dispute with a client.7 ClinTrials’ negative performance began to affect other CRO stocks, including that of Quintiles.8 With client concentration an issue in ClinTrials’ stock performance, William Blair developed doubts about the timing of Kendle’s IPO. Although Kendle was close to filing its preliminary prospectus, on the day after ClinTrial’s stock dropped, William Blair analysts had a meeting with Kendle’s management and told them that they had decided to withdraw as lead underwriters in the IPO. Candace was resolved to keep going. She said, â€Å"There’s no way out of the concentration issue. We can’t buy our way out of it, because we can’t do MA deals until we have a public currency, and every day Searle is bringing us more work, we won’t tell them no.† She then asked Mooney to find new investment bankers, and he thought, â€Å"what am I going to do now?† Hoping for a lead, Mooney called up a former security analyst from Wessels Arnold who had gone to work at Lehman Bros. Although Kendle was smaller than Lehman’s usual clients, Lehman agreed to underwrite Kendle’s IPO, with the reassurance that â€Å"we think we can sell through the client concentration issue.† After an agreement with New York-based Lehman was reached, Mooney searched for a regional firm because, as he decided, â€Å"I didn’t want two New York-size egos. J.C. Bradford, based in Nashville, Tennessee, had a good reputation in the industry, and struck us as a nice regional bank. They were more retail-oriented than institutional-oriented, so they wouldn’t directly be competing with Lehman in types of clientele.† Bradford had managed the IPO of the first large CRO to go public (ClinTrials, in 1993) and Lehman had led the IPO of PPD in January 1996. Gmi and U-Gene revisited At the same time, Forcellini was moving ahead on the acquisition search. In January 1997 he tasked Technomark with using its CRO database to generate a list of possible European acquisition targets that met the following criteria: â€Å"ideally a CRO with United Kingdom headquarters; $5 million to $7 million in revenues; no Searle business; certain types of therapeutic expertise; strong in phases II through IV; and certain country locations.† The initial list had 50 European CROs, which Kendle narrowed down to 14 prospects. Technomark then contacted these 14 prospects to sound out their willingness to sell, bringing the number down to five candidates: three CROs in Germany, two in the United Kingdom, and one in the Netherlands (not U-Gene). To assess the prospects, Kendle used information from Technomark on comparable MA deals. Candace and Tony Forcellini then traveled around Europe for a week visiting the five companies. They decided to further pursue two companies: a small, 15-person monitoring organization in the United Kingdom and one in Germany. The U.K. prospect was quickly discarded because of an aggressive asking price and accounting problems. Kendle then moved on to the German target, a company named gmi. Its full name was GMI Gesellschaft fur Angewandte Mathematik und Informatik mbH. Founded in 1983, gmi provided a full range of Phase II to IV services. gmi had conducted trials in Austria, the United Kingdom, Switzerland and France, among other countries, and had experience in health economic studies and 7 â€Å"ClinTrials Predicts Sharply Lower Profit: Shares Plunge 59%†, The Wall Street Journal, February 26, 1997, p. B3. 8 David Ranii, â€Å"Investors avoiding Quintiles,† The News Observer, Raleigh, NC, February 27, 1997, p. C8. professional training programs. In 1996, gmi participated in 119 studies at multiple sites and recorded net revenues of $7 million, a 32% increase over the prior year, and operating profit of $1.4 million, a 16% increase over the prior year. At March 31, 1997, gmis backlog was approximately $9.6 million. gmi considered itself to be especially good at Phase III trials. (See Exhibit 7 for gmi financial statements.) While Candace and Forcellini were narrowing down European targets, Mooney was hunting for cash. In February 1997 Kendle met at a special lunch with its existing bankers, Star Bank (later renamed Firstar), in Cincinnati. Mooney recalled the conversation vividly: â€Å"After Candace and Chris described their plans, Star Bank’s CEO made a proposal, ‘If you keep Kendle a private company and avoid the hassles of being public, we’ll lend you the money you need for acquisitions.’† With the financing in hand, Candace and Forcellini visited gmi in Munich. While gmi’s owners were willing to talk, they did not have much interest in selling. As Mooney described it, â€Å"gmi was a classic case of having grown to a certain size, had a comfortable level of income, but weren’t interested in putting in the professional systems to grow beyond that level.† After several conversations in March, it was not clear that Kendle and gmi’s owners w ould be able to reach a mutually agreeable price. At this point in early April 1997, the possibility of U-Gene as an acquisition candidate heated up. After the U-Gene deal with Collaborative Research began to collapse, Kendle had initiated a carefully structured inquiry about U-Gene’s interest in renewed discussions. This inquiry led to further discussions and a request in April for Kendle to meet in Frankfurt to try to reach an agreement. With the gmi deal in doubt, Kendle agreed to try to reach closure with U-Gene. After some discussion, both sides agreed on a price of 30 million Dutch guilders, or about US$15.6 million, $14 million of which would be paid in cash, and the remaining $1.6 million would be in the form of a promissory note payable to the selling shareholders.  U-Gene wanted to complete the transaction within the next several weeks, so it would have to be financed at least initially by borrowings. Even if Kendle went ahead with an IPO, the equity financing would not be completed until the end of the summer. Discussions with gmi continued through this period since Kendle was confident about its ability to obtain financing from Star Bank. Ultimately, Kendle’s team was able to agree upon a price with gmi. The owners were willing to accept a price of 19.5 million Deutsche marks, or about US$12.3 million, with at least $9.5 million in cash. They would accept shares for the remaining $2.8 million, if Kendle successfully completed an IPO. The owners were willing to hold off the deal until the IPO issue was resolved. Closing the Deals and IPO Decision To complete both the U-Gene and gmi deals, Kendle would need to borrow about $25 million to $28 million, so financing became critical. Mooney went back to Star Bank to take the bankers up on their promise. He described their reaction: â€Å"Star Bank said they couldn’t lend $28 million to a company that only has $1 million in equity. Nobody did that. They might be willing to finance one acquisition, with the help of other banks, but there was no way that they would provide $28 million.† Mooney was quite angry, but had no choice but to look for other sources of financing. He first tried to get bridge financing from Lehman and Bradford, but they refused, saying that they had â€Å"gotten killed on such deals in the 1980s.† There was also a possibility of financing from First Chicago Bank, but this did not materialize. Finally, in late April 1997, Mooney contacted NationsBank, N.A., which was headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina and provided banking services to the CRO industry. Nationsbank expressed interest, but only in a large deal. Even $28 million was a small amount to Nationsbank. In 11  a few short weeks, Nationsbank ended up structuring a $30 million credit for Kendle, consisting of a $20 million, three-year revolving credit line and $10 million in five-year, subordinated notes. The interest rate on the credit line was tied to a money market base rate plus 0.50% (currently totaling 6.2%), and the subordinated debt carried a 12% rate. †So NationsBank stepped up in a pretty big way. They could have ended up with Kendle as a private company, with $30 million in debt.† Because of the risk, Nationsbank would also take warrants giving the bank the right to purchase 4% of Kendle’s equity, or up to 10% if the IPO was delayed and Kendle had to borrow the full amount to do both acquisitions. Lehman Brothers was confident about an IPO. The underwriters felt Kendle could raise $39 million to $40 million at a price between $12 and $14 per share, and that Candace and Chris could sell some of their shares as well. Premier Research Worldwide Ltd., a CRO with $15.2 million in 1996 revenues, had raised $46.75 million from its recent IPO in February 1997. Kendle felt they had a much better track record than Premier. Kendle now faced some difficult decisions. It could do the full program, including both acquisitions, taking the $30 million Nationsbank deal, and planning for an IPO in late summer. The successful acquisitions of gmi and U-Gene would establish Kendle as the sixth largest CRO in Europe, based on total revenues, and one of only four large CROs able to offer clients the full range of Phase I through Phase IV clinical trials in Europe. The pricing on the two acquisitions of 8 to 10 times EBITDA seemed in line with recent CRO deals (see Exhibit 8). And, once the IPO was completed, Kendle would have both a cash cushion and stock as a currency to help finance future growth and acquisitions. Assuming an IPO of 3 million new shares at a price of $13.00, Kendle would have a cash position of about $14 million and no debt in the capital structure. (See Exhibits 9 and 10 for pro forma  income statements and balance sheets showing the impact of the acquisitions and the IPO.) A related issue was how many of their shares Candace and Chris should sell if an IPO were done. Their current thinking was to sell 600,000 shares. Thus, a total of 3.6 million shares would be for sale at the time of the IPO, including a primary offering of 3 million shares and a secondary offering of 600,000 shares. This sale would reduce holdings controlled by Candace and Chris from 3.65 million shares (83.1% of the shares currently outstanding) to 3.05 million shares (43.4% of the new total outstanding). Doing the full IPO and acquisition program, however, was unprecedented among Kendle’s peers. â€Å"Nobody does this combination all at once—an IPO, senior- and sub-debt financing, and MA deals,† as Mooney described the situation. Furthermore, the stock prices of public CROs had been falling since last February (see Exhibits 11 and 12 for stock market valuation and price information). If Kendle bought into the full program and the market crashed or the IPO was unsuccessful, the company would have almost $30 million of debt on its books with a very modest equity base. Perhaps it would be better to do just the U-Gene acquisition and use Star Bank to finance it. After completing this acquisition, it could then pursue the IPO. This approach was safer, but of course Kendle might miss the IPO window and miss the opportunity to acquire the second company. Indeed, instead of discouraging Kendle from doing an IPO, the fall in CRO stock prices might be taken as a signal tha t Kendle should forge ahead before the window closed completely.

Compare the Effectiveness of Different Leadership Styles

Compare the Effectiveness of Different Leadership Styles Leadership is an important topic that will always attract attention due to its importance in shaping the fortunes of organizations around the world. Leadership is defined as the process of influencing others to understand and agree about what needs to be done and how to do it, and the process of facilitating individual and collective efforts to accomplish shared objectives (Yukl, 2010:26). This suggests that for effective leadership to take place there must be communication and understanding between the leader and his followers. The definition suggests that leadership is a two-way process that influences both individual and organizational performance (Mullins, 2010:373). Due to the complex and different nature of organizations, different frameworks and leadership theories have been developed to analyze approaches to leadership in the organizational setting. There are three main styles of leadership, which are the democratic style where the focus of power lies more with the group and not solely with the leader, the authoritarian style where the focus of power lies solely with the leader/manager and the laissez-faire style where the leader observes group member are working on their own (Mullins, 2010:381). The need for these three leadership styles may differ according to the situation. In dealing with an organization in crisis an authoritative style of leadership may be preferable. According to the contingency theories, there is no one particular leadership style for every situation. In the modern industrial organizations where innovation is key and employee involvement in organizational activities is important, the democratic style of leadership can be most effective. In this style of leadership the employees have a greater say in decision-making process and policy determination (Mullins, 2010:381). An evidence of this is the automobile industry; Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn was able to achieve results by focusing on sharing ideas with employees and getting feedback through communication. From the leadership and managerial framework there are various leadership and management approaches (Mullins, 2010:376). These approaches include the qualities traits approach, functional approach, situational approach, transactional, transformational approach or inspirational approach. These different approaches can be applied to different organizations because each organization has its own individual character, culture and identity (Mullins, 2010:78). The transactional leadership approach can be effective in organizations where operations are carried out according structured rules and principles. This leadership approach would fit as it is based on authority within bureaucratic structures of organizations (Mullins, 2010:391). This leadership approach to organization like banks or government bodies where the focus is mainly task oriented. References Centre of Management Research (2003) The Turnaround Specialist [online] available from [20th March, 2011] Laurie J. Mullins (2010). Management and Organisational Behaviour 9th edn. England: Pearson Education Limited. Yukl, G (2010). Leadership in Organisations, 7th edn. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson-Prentice Hall Blog 2 Current leadership research and how it can help overcome resistance to change The leadership challenge model of Jimmy kouzes and Barry Posner can be used to address some of the issues of change in todays business environment. Kouzes and Posners leadership challenge model presents five practices of exemplary leadership; Model the way, inspire a shared vision, challenge the process, enable others to act and encourage the heart. Model the way: In modeling the way leaders clarify the values that will guide, find their own voice to clearly articulate their values and set their own personal standard of excellence as an example for others to follow. Inspire a shared vision: leaders should dream of exciting possibilities by envisioning a bright future and fostering this same vision for all his followers. Challenge the process: leaders should look for innovative ways to improve or grow their organization by defying the status quo. Enable others to act: leaders should encourage collaboration and build teams based on trust. By doing that they make it possible for their employees to work better. Encourage the heart: leaders should recognize and honor the contribution of every follower/employee. This model can be used in used in handling situations where resistance to change occurs in organizations. An example of this where a manager exhibited some aspects of this five models was the TI automotive case study in unit 6. Tim Kuppler was tasked with improving the corporate culture and bottom line of the HVAC unit of TIs North American business. Kuppler found out the employees were unclear about their mission and ready to embrace change. Kuppler demonstrated the inspiring a shared vision aspect of the Kouzes and Posner model through unfreezing of the situation and a communicating with employee to have an understanding of the situation to make handles of the situation properly and propose a vision moving forward. Kuppler challenged the process through bringing innovative ways to implement change. He introduced involvement meetings and created business teams, which were not part of the companies practice before. This also demonstrate enabling others to act as it fostered collaboration and made it possible for the employees to good work. Kuppler finally refreezes the situation leaving the employees with an empowered corporate culture. References Kouzes, J. Posner, B. Z., (2008) The Leadership Challenge, 4th Edition, Jossey-Bass Moodle (2010) M005LON-Leading in a Changing World-1011JAN [online] available from [ 22nd March,2011] Blog 3 Key tensions in leadership The business environment is constantly changing; forces like globalization, increasing business competition and innovation are changing the landscape of the business world. These factors provide challenges and tensions that leaders/managers are expected to identify and handle through effective leadership and management. Globalization presents challenges for leadership; organizations now employ people from different cultural backgrounds with different values and beliefs. People perception of authority could vary according to their cultural background and experiences (Mullins, 2010:401). The level of power distance people accept varies and can be linked to their nationality, people from countries like china accept a high power distance while people from most European countries don not a high power distance. Leaders/ managers with a workforce comprising of people from these countries have be aware of that. The situational leadership approach can apply here where the leader bases his/style and behaviour according the situational forces. Tannenbaum and Schmidt suggested three main forces: Forces in the manager, forces in the subordinate and forces in the environment (Mullins, 2010:383). Leading virtual teams is also another challenge for leaders/managers where communication is through electronic sources (Mullins, 2010:834). The lack of face-to-face contact with members, geographical separation, time difference and cultural difference of team members makes leading virtual teams a challenging task. Leaders of theses teams require different range of skills. Position power has little or no effect in these leading virtual teams. Golemans leadership styles will style will work effectively which are the visionary, coaching, affiliative, democratic, pace-setter and commanding. According to Goleman effective leaders rely on more than one leadership style (Goleman cited in Mullins, 2010:399). The leader of virtual teams with a combination of the styles will be effective. The leader can use the democratic style to foster interaction between through encouraging employee involvement, use the visionary style to create a long-term vision for the group and use the affiliative style to create harmony in the work group. In dealing with crisis management in organizations, where urgent action is needed to address the problem, an authoritarian leadership style might be preferable. According to Brennen an authoritarian style of leadership is suitable in situations of crisis or emergency where immediate action needs to be taken (Educational Administration and Supervision, nd). Goleman also stated that authoritative style might be over bearing at times, it can be effective (Goleman cited in Mullins, 2010:399). In order to effectively bring organizational change, it is important for a leader to understand factors that cause resistance to change in the individuals or the organization. This was seen in the TI automotive case study mentioned in my second blog. Tim Kuppler was able to implement the strategic change needed in the company after Identifying cause of resistance to change in the employees. The employees were hesitant to embrace the change process because other Managers tried to implement change but didnt succeed. References Moodle (2010) M005LON-Leading in a Changing World-1011 JAN [online] available from [ 22nd March,2011] Laurie J. Mullins (2010). Management and Organisational Behaviour 9th edn. England: Pearson Education Limited. Educational Administration and supervision (nd) Leadership styles [online] available from http://www.soencouragement.org/leadership-styles.htm [25th March 2011] Blog 4 Ethical issues of leadership and how leadership behavior and ethics impacts behavior and perception of followers Due to the influence powerful leaders can have on the fate of a company and lives of their followers there is a growing interest in the ethical aspects of leadership (Yulk, 2010:329). Declining public trust in business and public leaders is also fueling interest in the ethical aspects of leadership (Kouzes and Posner, 1993 cited in Yulk, 2010:329). Interest in ethical leadership is growing as leaders now face issues of corporate social responsibility (CSR). A leaders behavior toward corporate social responsibility can be a shareholder view. Leaders with this view influence their followers in order to maximize profits with in the boundaries of environmental law (Sternburg 1994). Leaders behavior has an impact on the behavior of his followers, Leaders can influence followers into crimes of obedience by making unethical practices appear to be legitimate (Beu Buckley, 2004; Hinrichs, 2007 cited in Yulk, 2010:329). Accordng to Yukl, ethical behavior of leaders can be determined by either situational influences or individual determinants. Situational influences factors like organizational culture or formal reward system can support ethical or unethical behavior by leaders. An example of this is the case of Enron, their reward system called the rank and yank prompted top executives and managers to engage in unethical practices to gain rewards or maintain employment. This behavior manifested down to their employees. My leadership goal and aspiration after completing my MBA program is to work in the oil and gas industry in Nigeria and become a leading player in the industry. To achieve this goal I have to improve my leadership capabilities and the MBA program is a platform for me to work on it. I received encouraging feedback for my peers though they were areas I need to work on to improve a leader. The feedback highlighted my leaderships as high emotional intelligence, self-confidence, good interpersonal skills and ability to adapt. These qualities will come in handy in the demanding oil industry. To improve as a leader I would have to adopt different leadership styles, as stated by Goleman that the most effective leaders rely on more than one style (Mullins, 2010:399). By having different styles I will be able to adapt to different situations and use the style that fits the situation best.

The Democratic Party is Out of Touch with America :: Essays Papers

The Democratic Party is Out of Touch with America Major realignments have taken place in American political history. After the Great Depression, the Democratic Party gained significant amounts of political clout. Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) won the Presidency right after the onset of the depression, and his party gained significant amount of seats in both houses of Congress. The primary reason for the Democratic emergence into the dominant political party of the time was FDR’s New Deal, which created many jobs for individuals who were without. Many would argue that the New Deal was the primary reason for the United States fighting out of the depression. At the time, the Democratic Party was the party in favor of small and limited government, but due to the crisis facing the nation, FDR lead the party towards a stronger national government with far reaching powers. However, the most recent realignment took place during the election of 2000. Starting with the election of 2000, America realized that the Democratic Party was out of touch with the majority of America. Due in large part to Bill Clinton’s infidelities, America was in need for a strong leader, who was morally just. George W. Bush seemed like the man to accomplish the countries yearning for a moral, strong willed leader. Though Bush lost the popular election, he won the Electoral College (Limbaugh). Many Democrats at the time were saying that this flew in the face of democracy and sought to abolish the Electoral College. However, I’ve been given the analogy that the Presidential Election is like the World Series. One team can win the first game by 20 runs, but lose the next four games by one run per game. Even though the team that lost the series it is still possible to score more runs than the winning in the games played. Bush sought to lower taxes on Americans, much like Reagan and Kennedy. When looking at a map of the counties won by Bush in 2000, one begins to see an overwhelming majority of the country supported George Bush, not Al Gore. The counties won by Al Gore were more densely populated and were in greater need for government subsidies. The counties won by Bush wanted to keep more of their hard earned money, and not have to pay for someone else to get services that they themselves might not be able to afford.

An Unexpected Message from Our Past :: Barker Regeneration Essays

"An Unexpected Message from Our Past" Who decides that being different is a trait to be looked down upon? In the late 19th century, it was the English Parliament with the passage of the Criminal Law Amendment Bill, specifically outlawing all forms of male homosexual expression. This law, combined with the already negative attitude surrounding the gay community before and after World War I, implied that homosexuality was something to be ridiculed and scorned. This trend unfortunately continues yet over a century later. Pat Baker's Regeneration, starting on page 54 and continuing throughout the novel, repeatedly uses a non-fictional character, Siegfried Sassoon, to exhibit the unnecessary hurt that homosexuals experienced throughout history, an angle that was often neglected when homosexuals were discussed one hundred years ago. Regeneration displays the conflict that many homosexuals are tormented by when deciding whether to live for themselves and their personal needs or whether to conform in order to blend in with socie ty. In the late 19th century, the purity movement was well underway in England. Serious efforts made by those involved in legislation were creating "a climate where immorality could be tackled seriously" (Mort 114). With the passage of the Criminal Law Amendment Bill in 1885, the first steps were taken toward an "improved moral climate in the country" (Mort 129). While this new law included some positive improvements such as elevating the age of sexual consent for women from 13 to 16, a surprising addition was made just before the final vote was taken in Parliament. Henry Labouchere, a liberal in the House of Commons, introduced a clause "outlawing all forms of male homosexual contact" (Mort 129). The public embraced the addition and the "general negative attitude toward homosexuality" continued to grow with the law on its biased side as well (Robb 57). Ten years later, circumstances for homosexual males continued to look grim. On May 25, 1895, Oscar Wilde, a renowned playwright, was found guilty of engaging in homosexual activity and sentenced to the maximum punishment allowed: imprisonment for two years with hard labor. The judge, disgusted with Wilde, declared, "People who can do these things must be dead to all sense of shame," and he deemed the sentence inapt for such a vial criminal (Barger). In the years following, little change was made to ease the growing tension. When Edward Carpenter published his book The Intermediate Sex in 1909, he encouraged the acceptance and understanding of people with different sexual preferences and practices than those who found themselves in the majority.

Americas War on Drugs Essay -- Illicit Drugs

Throughout history, Americans have fought many enemies that threaten the safety of our great Nation and provided aid and resources to our partnering countries in their time of despair. However, the consequences were substantial, countless brave men and women lost their lives defending the freedom of Americans. Today American’s fight a different kind of war; it is a war without a clear enemy or end in sight. Today, America fights a War on Drugs. In the early 1970s, the War on Drugs was still relatively new and drug smuggling continued, going virtually unimpeded through the U.S. northern border (Stout 34). For over 40 years, the War on Drugs (implemented by former President Richard Nixon) had cost the United States an estimated one trillion dollars, for what is believed to be nothing more than an â€Å"objective to stomp out growing social discontent in the country† (Stout 38). However, by this time, the drug demand had increased significantly throughout the United States and many drug smugglers were beginning to create smaller organizations throughout Mexico, breaking all ties with the larger organizations. Furthermore, cash flow from drug sales wasn’t enough and other methods for obtaining quick money were used to subsidize their income, such as; kidding napping for large ransoms, prostitution and auto theft. With criminal activity escalading, President Nixon then created the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) in 1973 to declare an, â€Å"all-out global war on the drug menace† (Martin 226). Although, drug production and smuggling was an essential way of life for many Hispanics throughout Mexico, the United States continued to provide financial and military aid throughout decades of uncertainty. Additionally, these actions resulted ... ...s." Latin Trade (English) 17.2 (2009): 22. MasterFILE Premier. Web. 18 Apr. 2012. Campos, Isaac. "In Search Of Real Reform: Lessons From Mexico's Long History Of Drug Prohibition." NACLA Report On The Americas 44.3 (2011): 14-18. Academic Search Premier. Web. 18 Apr. 2012. Kellner, Tomas, and Francesco Pipitone. "Inside Mexico's Drug War." World Policy Journal 27.1 (2010): 29-37. Academic Search Premier. Web. 18 Apr. 2012. Martin, William. "Texas High Ways." Texas Monthly 37.10 (2009): 148. MAS Ultra - School Edition. Web. 18 Apr. 2012. Martin, William. "Texas High Ways." Texas Monthly 37.10 (2009): 148. MAS Ultra School Edition. Web. 18 Apr. 2012. Stout, Robert Joe. "Do The United States And Mexico Really Want The Drug War To Succeed?." Monthly Review: An Independent Socialist Magazine 63.8 (2012): 34. Points of View Reference Center. Web. 18 Apr. 2012.

Challenges faced by the Allies in their Germany Advance

The establishment of empires and the countries that exist today was not an easy undertaking. There were always battles associated with this, and this led to bloodshed and destruction of cities. The world has always had incidences of wars, which most of the times are initiated by the strong countries, as they try to win the smaller ones. From the colonization battles to the wars like the First and Second World Wars, there have always been defeats and conquests. Even the strongest leaders have at times surrendered because of the extremes of the war. However, those who win are also affected, as their conquest is most of the times associated with several difficulties. The advancing of the allies into Germany in 1945 will be discussed with close reference to the scale and the nature of the problems that they faced. The crossing of the Rhine The Allies had targeted Germany after they conquered in the Battle of the Bulge. All the citizens were aware that once the Allies set foot in Germany, it would be the end of war. However, the Allies faced great challenges from some fanatical Nazis; Hitler included. Throughout the second and third months of 1945, there was a great battle by the allies in a bid to pass the Siegfried lane. They were faced with a great problem because the Germans had set up antitank fortifications, artillery and pillboxes which stretched from the western German border. This was quite a big hindrance to the allies as they sought for the best way to enter Germany. Additionally, this was an area which was always manned by old men and young boys, so that they could ensure that no enemy passed that point. Since time immemorial, the allies had not had the ability to pass through the Siegfried Line because of these hindrances. However they managed to conquer this small town in 1945 through the use of gasoline aids (World War II, 2010). When they set in, they advanced to Cologne, which was considered as the major German city. However, they were faced with a challenge because the US Army commander referred to as General Dwight D. Eisenhower gave orders to the allied forces to instead advance towards Ruhr. This is after he had realized that if Berlin was captured, then the industrial machine of Germany could be destroyed. There was a conflict between the leaders because the desire of Churchill was for the allies to overcome Berlin, but Eisenhower ordered the Allies to advance towards the Ruhr after crossing the Rhine (World War II, 2010). Crossing the Rhine for the Allies was quite an achievement because for the past one hundred and forty years before this time, there is no single group which had successfully crossed it. Hitler considered the Rhine as one of the important symbols of Germany. The only time the Rhine was crossed successfully was during the times of Napoleon, in 1805. This is because all the people who tried to do so would be shot down (World War II, 2010). However, the allies succeeded crossing the Rhine, amidst the challenges, because all the bridges had been blown up to restrict their advance. This also happened before they managed to capture Cologne city. This was indeed a great challenge. They had to cross the Rhine on special bridge units, which were often segregated. They also went ahead and constructed a bridge whose depth was twelve miles and thirty five miles width. Even though they managed, all these crossings were most of the times on fire, which was lit by the German forces. All this happened before March 23, 1945 (World War II, 2010). The Allies had set up an undertaking referred to as Operation Varsity which took place in 1945. It was considered as the last operation of the allies in Europe, and although the allies conquered, they were still faced with challenges. The Germans had prepared themselves as there were anti aircrafts units which were set strategically against the allies. All the bridges were blown up again, and Hitler was unable to restrict the allies who had settled in the west. The Red army had targeted Berlin, and it set forth to the West (World War II, 2010). Blitzkrieg Since time immemorial, Germany had always been known for using the trick known as ‘Blitzkrieg’. This was also referred to as the lightning war. This was an operation which involved the constant use of mass planes which would be ordered to break through the defenses of the enemy on a very close range. The enemy could not be allowed at any moment to invade Germany. Ordinarily, the German forces would successfully surround the opposing troops, where they would be forced to surrender (USHMM, 2010). This trick had proved effective since in the previous years, Germany had defeated Poland, Belgium, France and the Netherlands. However, they had never managed to defeat Great Britain. The allied forces also faced the same challenge, as the Germans tried to oppose their entrance to their territory. However, the allied forces managed to cross the Rhine, and consequently, the Nazi Germany surrendered (USHMM, 2010). When the war had advanced, it reached a point where the Germans felt defeated and they were therefore looking for ways in which they could surrender. This was indeed what the allies wanted. However, it was not an easy task, as there was a major challenge. There were so many deaths associated with the march. The last important German unit, which was referred to as Army Group B has all its men surrender, which totaled to two hundred thousand on April 24. The Germans were trying their best to ensure that the refugees were not a distraction so that they could surrender to the Allies from the west. Therefore, there was a delay in the Germans surrendering as most of the refugees refused to give way (World War II, 2007). German secret dealings The allied forces were constantly attacked by the refugees. There were guards who were assigned so as to force the people to move away from the fighting ground. However, most of the refugees resisted the orders and as a result, there were so many deaths which resulted. The guards continued to kill these people secretly (World War II, 2007). There was the collaboration of the allies and the Russians on the concentration camps. However, they faced another challenge as the Germans had tried to conceal their crime by hiding the bodies of the people who had been killed. They were presented with very horrific facts, as there were very many corpses which had been piled in a large heap. This revealed how the Germans had continued killing the people. In one of the camps, referred to as the Ohrdruf Concentration Camp, all the civilians of this place were ordered by Eisenhower to see what used to happen in secret. This proved a great challenge to the Allies because they had to first search for all the guards that were hiding in all their ranks (World War II, 2007) As a result, the Gestapo officers and the guards realized that their dirty dealings had been revealed by the Allies. Therefore, they tried all they could so as to escape. However, most of them, including some Nazis of the high ranks were captured as they were escaping. Some of these included Fritz Von Papen, Herman Goering, and Albert Speer. There had looted art treasures which were later discovered. Additionally, there were very many hidden caches of jewelry and gold which were found in all parts of Germany. These had been stripped off from different countries and had been sent to Germany (World War II, 2007) Persecution of collaborators All the German leaders who tried to make secret alliances with the allies were persecuted and this was another problem that the allies encountered. One of these leaders was Heinrich Himmler, who tried to make a separate armistice with the allies from the west. However, he was too unfortunate because as soon as Hitler realized this, he ordered his soldiers to execute him. Additionally, Goering also tried to do the same, and even tried to take over from Hitler, but did not succeed. Therefore, the allies were in constant wrangle with Hitler as he never allowed any of his men to collaborate with them. All the same, this did not prevent the allies from excelling (World War II, 2007) When the then U. S. President, Franklin D. Roosevelt died Hitler had hopes, that this would affect the operations of the allies. However, this was not the case, as the allies continued with their resolve, unaffected by anything. As a result, Hitler became a very depressed man, and vowed to fight the allies the best he could. He started by ensuring that the sewers were flooded, in a bid to stop both the Russian and the Western allies to continue their advance in Germany. The allies were constantly threatened by his actions. However, his efforts proved fruitless because most of the people who were wounded and killed were the refugees. He set battles by moving trapped or nonexistent armies. All the commanders that defied his orders were executed. Even though he tried all this, the Allies still won the battle, and the Nazis surrendered (World War II, 2007). Conclusion Though the allies were faced with great challenges as they tried to invade Germany, they successfully won. However, they were constantly faced with the German attacks through the tricks that it had used over the years so as to defend itself from its enemies. Some of the leaders of the German armies collaborated with the allies so that they could defeat Hitler and his forces. Eventually, the might of the Allies only left Hitler a depress man, who even chose his successor before he committed suicide. References USHMM. (2010).World War II in Europe. Retrieved from http://www.ushmm.org/outreach/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007681 World War II. (2007).The German surrender April 25-May8, 1945. Retrieved from http://worldwar2database.com/html/germanysurrender.htm World War II. (2010). Crossing the Rhine. Retrieved from   http://worldwar2database.com/html/rhine.htm