A World Player

According to Frank Appel, CEO of Deutsche Post DHL, within its Strategy 2015 framework, DHL will "become the logistics company for the world". In times of globalization and economic downturn, the effects of which can be felt in the entire logistics industry, this goal is an enormous challenge for DHL. In order to attain this goal, it is essential for DHL to create a closer linkage of its business areas, to slim down its processes and to put a stronger focus on the ever-changing needs of the customer. The objective of this book is to offer cost reduction solutions and give suggestions on how quality can be improved, which will distinguish DHL from its competitors while fulfilling the needs of the customer, i.e. "become the logistics company for the world". This book is divided into four sections. First, there is a synopsis of the history of DHL, as well as a description of its organizational and corporate structure and concludes with a comparison of the business segments of DHL with its main competitors. After that, the corporate strategy is analyzed: (1) its core competencies, (2) its mergers and acquisitions, (3) Ansoff, and (4) BCG/BCG II. The section concludes by examining which strategy could be appropriate for a successful future for DHL. The third section deals with the competitive strategy of DHL. Porter?s Five Forces are utilized to analyze the attractiveness of the industry, as well as its competitors, suppliers and customers. This is followed by an analysis of the appropriate strategy for DHL Logistics by means of the Generic Strategies according to Porter, the Hybrid Strategies, the TOWS and an evaluation of the strategic options. The next step will explain the appropriate processes for the strategy of the value chain. A Scenario 2020, which draws a picture of what the industry might look like in ten years, concludes this section. The final section will highlight the factors that can give DHL sustainable competitive advantages. The functional strategies are presented, the global key markets are analyzed and appropriate strategic alliances are examined. The author sets great value upon clear and interesting statements that ensure an easy understanding of the subject matter but at the same time facilitate a fast transfer into practice.

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Now a major motion picture directed by Steven Spielberg. “Enchanting . . . Willy Wonka meets The Matrix.”—USA Today • “As one adventure leads expertly to the next, time simply evaporates.”—Entertainment Weekly A world at stake. A quest for the ultimate prize. Are you ready? In the year 2045, reality is an ugly place. The only time Wade Watts really feels alive is when he’s jacked into the OASIS, a vast virtual world where most of humanity spends their days. When the eccentric creator of the OASIS dies, he leaves behind a series of fiendish puzzles, based on his obsession with the pop culture of decades past. Whoever is first to solve them will inherit his vast fortune—and control of the OASIS itself. Then Wade cracks the first clue. Suddenly he’s beset by rivals who’ll kill to take this prize. The race is on—and the only way to survive is to win. NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY Entertainment Weekly • San Francisco Chronicle • Village Voice • Chicago Sun-Times • iO9 • The AV Club “Delightful . . . the grown-up’s Harry Potter.”—HuffPost “An addictive read . . . part intergalactic scavenger hunt, part romance, and all heart.”—CNN “A most excellent ride . . . Cline stuffs his novel with a cornucopia of pop culture, as if to wink to the reader.”—Boston Globe “Ridiculously fun and large-hearted . . . Cline is that rare writer who can translate his own dorky enthusiasms into prose that’s both hilarious and compassionate.”—NPR “[A] fantastic page-turner . . . starts out like a simple bit of fun and winds up feeling like a rich and plausible picture of future friendships in a world not too distant from our own.”—iO9

SHORTLISTED FOR THE FINANCIAL TIMES & MCKINSEY 2020 BUSINESS BOOK OF THE YEAR One of Fortune Best Books of the Year One of Inc. Best Business Books of the Year One of The Times (UK) Best Business Books of the Year A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice From an Oxford economist, a visionary account of how technology will transform the world of work, and what we should do about it From mechanical looms to the combustion engine to the first computers, new technologies have always provoked panic about workers being replaced by machines. For centuries, such fears have been misplaced, and many economists maintain that they remain so today. But as Daniel Susskind demonstrates, this time really is different. Breakthroughs in artificial intelligence mean that all kinds of jobs are increasingly at risk. Drawing on almost a decade of research in the field, Susskind argues that machines no longer need to think like us in order to outperform us, as was once widely believed. As a result, more and more tasks that used to be far beyond the capability of computers – from diagnosing illnesses to drafting legal contracts, from writing news reports to composing music – are coming within their reach. The threat of technological unemployment is now real. This is not necessarily a bad thing, Susskind emphasizes. Technological progress could bring about unprecedented prosperity, solving one of humanity’s oldest problems: how to make sure that everyone has enough to live on. The challenges will be to distribute this prosperity fairly, to constrain the burgeoning power of Big Tech, and to provide meaning in a world where work is no longer the center of our lives. Perceptive, pragmatic, and ultimately hopeful, A World Without Work shows the way.

Discover how the explosions in data analytics, AI, and digital communication are benefiting sports and sports fans around the world In Sports and Technology Have The Power To Change The World: Driving Positive Change Through The Use of Data and AI, the Director of Microsoft Sports, Jon Flynn, delivers an insightful new take on the transformative power of sport and its ability to unite people, break down barriers, and generate positive change. The author explains the critical role that technology has played in growing the impact of sporting events and enabling social change while fostering community improvement. In the book, you’ll explore many of the ways in which sports, enabled by new tech, have made significant contributions to society and promoted individual development, health, and wellbeing. You’ll also find: Discussions of green technologies and climate and sustainability initiatives linked to sport, with a case study about the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics Explorations of the impact of advanced data analytics, with a case study focusing on the 2013 NBA Final matchup between the Miami Heat and the San Antonio Spurs How sport scientists are optimizing player performance Perfect for anyone interested in the intersection of sport, society, and technology, Sports and Technology Have The Power To Change The World is an easy to read and endlessly fascinating look at how the unique combination of athletics and tech makes the world a better place.

This volume puts forth an original theoretical framework, the ludonarrative model, for studying video games which foregrounds the empirical study of the player experience. The book provides a comprehensive introduction to and description of the model, which draws on theoretical frameworks from multimodal discourse analysis, game studies, and social semiotics, and its development out of participant observation and qualitative interviews from the empirical study of a group of players. The volume then applies this approach to shed light on how players’ experiences in a game influence how they understand and make use of game components in order to progress its narrative. The book concludes with a frame by frame analysis of a popular game to demonstrate the model’s principles in action and its subsequent broader applicability to analyzing video game interaction and design. Offering a new way forward for video game research, this volume is key reading for students and scholars in multimodality, discourse analysis, game studies, interactive storytelling, and new media.

Soccer Brain - from Dan Abrahams - teaches coaches to train players to compete with confidence, with commitment, with intelligence, and as part of a team.

A spirited and incisive survey of economic geography, A World Made for Money begins with the author stopped at a red light in Norman, Oklahoma. Observing the landscape of drugstores and banks, and for that matter the stoplight and roads themselves, Bret Wallach observes, “Everything I see has been built to make money” or, at the very least, to facilitate making money. This, he argues, is a global phenomenon that nonetheless has occurred only within the past hundred years or so. Although guidebooks and culture brokers often disparage these landscapes of commerce, Wallach—recipient of a MacArthur “genius grant”—argues that we would do well to pay them close attention. A World Made for Money provides a compelling, condensed tour of our world. From Silicon Valley to Sri Lanka, from post-Soviet Russia to post-apartheid South Africa, Wallach looks at how human beings are buying, manufacturing, working, growing and shipping food, and accessing the natural resources to fuel it all. These essential facets of daily life, propelled by the profit motive, represent a transnational force shaping our surroundings and environment in ways that may not always be beautiful (or even healthy) but that are fundamental to understanding how the world works in the twenty-first century. Wallach examines the relationship between acquisitiveness and landscape, reveals surprising contradictions and nuances, and provides fresh perspective on politically charged topics such as sprawl, deindustrialization, and agribusiness.

Documenting a black professor's account of his own professional experience, this study describes what it feels like to be a nonwhite academic in one of the "big three" disciplines in the humanities--English, history, and philosophy. Challenging the notion that today's Canadian universities have successfully addressed the issues of diversity, this argument warns that if professors of color cannot see academia as a liberal bastion, it can only be even more forbidding for students of color. Demonstrating how integration policies are manipulated when it comes to hiring visible minorities in the university, this reference highlights aspects such as merit that are commonly used to deny employment. Positing that institutions should deliver on their stated policies instead of hiding behind formalities, this emboldened examination will surprise those inside and outside of the academic field.