Benchmarking in the Investment and Banking Sector

Benchmarking involves comparing a business operations and performance ranking of a company or industry with top performers from other industries. Factors weighed include quality, time, and value. After benchmarking a company or the industry players need to improve from learning by doing things effectively and efficiently.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Benchmarking in the Investment and Banking Sector specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More My industry is the investment and banking sector. Over the years the investment and banking sector has been hit hard by many challenges which have threatened to tear the industry, even to an extent leading to the winding up of some of the industry players. The most recent scandals were pyramid schemes and scrupulous deals that have seen consumers loose their lifetime investments. Also banks have been hit by the global economic downturn which saw the closure of several banking halls. This has seen lose of consumer confidence in the industry. Many customers are trading cautiously in, scared of succumbing to any scandals. The industry needs put in place measures that regulate the investment companies or associations to avoid arise of any loopholes in the industry which could expose investors to any kind of threat of their funds. The industry should improve the customers’ confidence by offering secured means of investing and guaranteeing adequate returns (McNair, Kathleen Leibfried, 2004) The industry is vulnerable to changes in the market and needs to insulate itself from rapid changes occurring in the market, to ensure that their operations are not interrupted by changes in the market. For example, the global economic downturn saw the industry players affected adversely leading to negative effects in the market. Comparing the investment and banking industry with manufacturing industry, the manufacturing industry seems more dynamic and can absorb shock in the market easily. The management team in the banking sector should to identify the top companies or industries, where they undertake related processes, and compare the results of those targeted to its own performance to study how well the others fair and how they attain that (Damelio 1995).Advertising Looking for essay on business economics? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More For a company to appreciate the effectiveness and ineffectiveness of a particular benchmark in use, it has to look at how the practitioners of benchmarking have achieved their goals, the costs incurred or saved by the practice and the organizations insight of the process. Through benchmarking an organization can increase significantly on its supply-chain efficiency. Therefore organizations that use the benchmark techniques in their supply chains by comparing its performance against that of its competitors have typically reduced their expenses by 81 percen t. Thus those who use applicable bench marks have spent less on logistics of doing business than the median. In addition, applicable benchmarking has provided an upper advantage to companies in the market place. Also bench marking has resulted in an organization taking up other practices that result in improvement of operations such as use of, TQM, tactical planning and reengineering of their products (Pike, Neale, 2006). However there are adverse effects that may result in a company while it is benchmarking. If bench marking is poorly introduced and executed in an organization, it can result in waste of the organization’s financial and economic resources which would negatively affect its profitability at the end of the period. Therefore, though a company may introduce benchmarking in its operations it may result in negative results if not implemented in the right way making them very ineffective and costly on organization (CAMP 2006). Reference list Camp, R.C. (2006). Bench marking: The Search for Industry Best Practices That Lead to Superior Performance. MA: Productivity Press. McNair, C. J., Kathleen, H. Leibfried, H. (2004). Benchmarking: A Tool for Continuous Improvement. New York: John Wiley Sons. Damelio, R. (1995). The Basics of Benchmarking. MA: Productivity Press.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Benchmarking in the Investment and Banking Sector specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More Pike, R. Neale, B. 2006. Corporate finance and investment: decisions strategies. New York: Financial Times Prentice Hall. This essay on Benchmarking in the Investment and Banking Sector was written and submitted by user Kayleigh Larsen to help you with your own studies. You are free to use it for research and reference purposes in order to write your own paper; however, you must cite it accordingly. You can donate your paper here.

Outline the main changes in Western Latin Christendom between AD 910 and 1085 Essays

Outline the main changes in Western Latin Christendom between AD 910 and 1085 Essays Outline the main changes in Western Latin Christendom between AD 910 and 1085 Essay Outline the main changes in Western Latin Christendom between AD 910 and 1085 Essay The 10th and 11th Centuries contained some of the most important changes in Western Latin Christendom in its existence. These changes have left the Church and Europe more recognisable as the establishments we know today. The most obvious of these were the reform movements in the later part of the 10th and 11th Centuries, which climaxed under Leo IX and Gregory V11. There were also several equally important but subtly different changes which contributed to the greater part of this reform. An example of this is the evangelical revival that leads to a growth in religious life, and a cleansing of the Church which climaxed in the Orthodox Schism, and the investiture contest between the Pope and the Emperor of Germany.The reform movements of the 10h and 11th Centuries sought out a moral reform whereby lay rulers would appoint good men as priests and Bishops, who would in turn hasten the reform. The movements also aimed to stop corruption in the Church, especially th e sin of simony, which was the purchasing or selling of sacred things, e.g. Holy orders. At around 1000 AD the Church was predominantly governed by lay people, who built the Churches or monasteries on their land, and consequently felt that they had the right to appoint the next priest or abbot, this became known as lay investiture, and in this sense the Church became privatised. This posed a series of problems for the Church, the most serious of which were revenues, as the revenues that it should have been receiving were going back to the families who owned the land, rather than back to the Church.Subsequently religious communities were loosing out as this lose of revenues meant that there was a decline in the qualities of their lives, and so undermined the idea of religious life, and as a further consequences there were increasing cases of simony and married priests. The result of these problems was that by the 10th century many priests, monks, and nuns were not happy, and this led to a series of reform movements, through several different communities and people.The first stage of this reform was found at the monastery of Cluny in France. Founded in 910AD Cluny was a reformed Benedictine monastery. The monks tried to revive the liturgical life of the order, concentrating on the divine office and the arts e.g. plainsong. Cluny became the centre of a series of smaller monasteries, and started the first real monastic order. As a result of this, the Abbot of Cluny was exceptionally powerful and was able to influence the rest of the Christendom in a very monastic way, the Abbots of Cluny especially took a strong stance against married priests and simony.Around the year 1000 there was a strong evangelical revival, this was based on the general belief that in the year 1000 Christ would come again. The result of this was a surge in the revival of the Church, and a strong determination to return to the purity of the early Church, this led to a rapid growth in monaster ies and several new orders of monks emerged most notably the Carthusians. There were two main fronts for this revival.The first was through the work of individuals such as Peter Damain, and Romauld of Ravenna. These were two very influential figures in the 10th and 11th Centuries. Damain was described as: A reformer of clerical laxity and a champion of eremitical and ascetic discipline.1 He had exceptional knowledge of canon law and was used by the Pope as a legate on several occasions. He wrote a book on his predecessor Romauld of Ravenna who was a hermit monk and another highly influential figure: You would think that he (Romauld) was trying to turn the whole world and to involve the entire Church in his project of monastic reform2 Romauld went on to found the Camaldolese order of hermit monks.Another approach to the reform was through Canon law, this was the study of collections of early laws that described how the Catholic Church should be governed. The largest of these collecti ons was owned by Burchard of Worms, and was called the decretum. The idea of Canon law attracted great interest as they suggested that in the past the Church had governed itself, and so provided support to the reformers over the issue of Lay investiture It was later used by the Pope and the reformers as a way of giving theological support to their arguments over Sacred Kings.At the beginning of the reform movements both the Pope and the emperor worked together, in 1012 Henry II appointed Pope Benedict VIII; and they worked well together to reform the Church. This worked because they could reinforce the reform, as Henry was able to back up the Popes decrees in his own kingdom. In 1046 however, there was a new problem, and at the Synod of Sutri the new Emperor Henry III had to resolve another Papal dispute, this time he appointed his own Pope Clement II, Clement however dies quickly and Henry appoints Leo IX. Leo had a strong personality and lots of energy; he is convinced that God se nt him to route out simony. He held 11 reforming councils in 5 Years, the first, which was held in 1949 in Rome aimed to Route out simony. Another held in Reims asked 20 Bishops and 40 Abbots to declare whether they were guilty of simony. All the bishops who didnt turn up were deposed. Several other reforming councils were held e.g. At Poitiers they agree that Priests and deacons should not live with women, and at Ingelheim they agreed that laymen could not expel or appoint clergy.Leo IX however had a serious problem in South Italy; the Normans had invaded and were encroaching into Papal land. Leo IX planned to stand up to them but at the battle of Civilate in 1053 he suffers a humiliating defeat and was captured, he is finally released; however he is a broken man. In 1054 he holds another reforming council in South Italy; this however causes an argument with the Byzantines who also owned a large area of Southern Italy. At this time there are strong tensions between Latins and the G reeks, they disagreed over the role of the Papacy and the Holy Spirit. In 1054 this argument got out of hand, and eventually Cardinal Humbert was sent to Byzantium to excommunicate the Patriarch of Constantinople, who in turn excommunicated the Pope this was the beginning of the East-West Schism. Leo dies shortly afterwards, and soon after Henry III also dies leaving behind a 6 month old son to rule.The reformers see this as an opportunity to get rid of lay investiture; this was particularly attacked by Cardinal Humbert who called for an end to lay domination as it caused moral and financial abuses among clergy. The next three Popes tried to push forward the idea that Christendom should be ruled by the Papacy. In 1959 Pope Nicholas II issued a precedent saying the new pope was to be elected through a College of Cardinals, this eliminated the power of the German King. When Henry IV claimed the crown in 1071 he found himself in a much weaker position than his father had left him. In 1 072 there was a disputed election, Pope Alexander II backed one side Henry IV backed the other, each side saw the balance of power and neither side was prepared to back down, however before the dispute could be settled Alexander died, and Gregory VII was elected Pope.Gregory was a devoted man who was devoted to St Peters rights, and held the view that Peters Church would be the mother of all churches. He was however a very controversial figure, 26 German bishops and the German emperor agreed that Gregory was not Pope but a false monk3 and called on him to resign. Gregory however intensified his campaign on for moral reform challenging the idea of Sacred Kingship saying that the clergy should be elected. He called on the lay people not to accept ministry from those known to be guilty of Simony or sexual acts. In 1075 he forbade the clergy to accept investiture into office from a layman, he put his ideas into pamphlets which he sent round Christendom, however his opponents simply dest royed them. In 1076 Gregory excommunicated Henry IV for trying to dispose of a Synod of imperial bishops, the result of this was that Henry IV could not function and a rebellion broke out. In January 1077 Henry went to see the Pope in Italy dressed only in his nightshirt to beg reconciliation. Gregory granted it, however he reserved the right to judge Henry at a later date. After this Henry soon regained power, and in 1080 a new conflict broke out, this time when Henry was excommunicated he simply seized Rome and the pope was forced to flee south with the Normans where he died in 1085.Even though Henry elected a Pope: Clement III the papacy had broken away from lay control. The Reformers elected their own popes who were accepted by the rest of the Church. Henry struggled to regain control but failed, eventually it came to a compromise, the King agreed not to invest in the Papacy; however the king was allowed to be present in the elections of Bishops and Abbots. In Europe the Lay rul ers power over the Church was limited but not abolished.The result of this reform was clear, within society there was a shift towards the Church, and the attack on the sacred kingship was successful. The prestige of the Papacy increased dramatically, however the papal victory appeared more complete within the Church. The pope made a series of declarations known as the dictatus papae which outlined the main development of the Church over the next two centuries. The Reformers made a new vision of the Church in which the Clergy were separated from the hierarchal chain that stretched from God to humanity. The reform however was not just for Kings and Popes, many ordinary citizens were forced to make religious choices, which were made more difficult in that for as long as people could remember anointed Kings had ruled the church, but were held in the balance, because the Pope had a more powerful theological argument based on Canon Law.In the end the reforms added a new level of tension a nd a new dimension of a new level of life which we can still see in Christendom today. The position of the Pope became much more similar to the view we have of him today, and the Church got rid of the idea of Sacred Kingship which would be brought up in Britain at a later date under Henry VIII. The Reformers had successfully brought the Church out of a difficult moral situation and created a modern yet classical opinion of the Church, and started many traditions which are still around today.