Major Trading Partners, Demographics, and System of Governance between Annotated Bibliography

Major Trading Partners, Demographics, and System of Governance between the US and Canada - Annotated Bibliography Example By the end of 2009, the US government had exported about $1.6 trillion worth of goods and services to ten major trading partners of the world. The main exports from the US are capital goods which account for over 49% of the total exports. Industrial supplies account for about 26% while consumer goods account for 15% of the exports. Agricultural products like cereals account for about 9% of the total exports. The major trading nations that purchase goods and services from the US are, in descending order; Canada, Mexico, China and Japan.   Surprisingly, the US has its greatest importer of goods in its closest neighbor, Canada. Apart from Canada, other world top trading partners of the US are China, Mexico, Japan, Germany, UK, South Korea, France, Taiwan, Netherlands, Brazil, Italy, Singapore, Malaysia, and Ireland. Canada, China, Mexico, Japan, and Germany are the top suppliers of imports to the US. Canada’s top three trading partners cut across many continents. In North America, US is Canada’s main partner while in Asia and the Far East, China is the major trading partner of Canada. Mexico is the major trading partner of Canada from the South American region. The US is Canada’s major trading partner. It affects Canada through trade, tourism, technology, history, and culture. There are distinguishing factors that have made the US stand out as being the lead actor in Canada’s trade operations. These factors are physical, economic, political and social. From 2005 to 2010, the US has remained as the best trading partner with Canada in terms of exporting goods and services. The United Kingdom and Japan complete the number 2 and number 3 slots. For example, in 20005, the export value of the US in Canada was over 368,000 million dollars. These standards have been maintained over the years. The US also remains as the greatest importer of goods of Canadian origin.

Assessing Benchmarking Efforts Coursework Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Assessing Benchmarking Efforts - Coursework Example Benchmarking enables companies to identify the most successful strategies used by other similar companies, and then adopt appropriate strategies and measures to make their own programs more resourceful (Hinton et.al 2000, p. 53). For purposes of this study, we will examine the benchmarking initiatives adopted Xerox, one of the worlds top copier companies, through its Leadership through Quality program. We will consequently discusses the concept of benchmarking and its implementation in various processes including a customer satisfaction at Xerox and explore how the company presently uses benchmarks to align with international standards and lastly highlight the extent to which the existing benchmarks align with existing organizational goals. For Xerox Company, benchmarking came from a susceptible competitive crisis form Japanese and U.S competitors. According to analysts, the management failed to present the company a strategic trend. Xerox’s operating cost (and as a result, the prices of its products) was high and its products were of comparatively lesser quality compared to its competitors. The company suffered from its very centralized decision-making processes as well and because of this, return on assets dropped significantly to less than 8% and the copiers’ market share dropped sharply. The CEO David Kearns began emphasizing cutting of manufacturing costs and gave a new quality control by launching the Leadership Through Quality.’ Through this quality program, Xerox executed the benchmarking program. These incentives played a fundamental role in pulling the company out of crisis in future. Xerox even developed to become one of the greatest examples of the successful benchmarking implementation (McNair and Leibfried 1992, p.20). Xerox initiated a Customer Satisfaction Measurement System that incorporates customer research and benchmarking