Conseco Company Analysis Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Conseco Company Analysis - Research Paper Example The subsidiaries of the company provide life insurances, annuity and other products related to health insurance. The independent agents and the direct advertisements to the customers are used to distribute the products of the organization. The company acquired the Lincoln Income Life Insurance Company in 1986. The company purchased the GreenTree Financial in 1998 which was the largest financier for mobile homes. The objective of the company was to diversify into the financial services (Company Briefs, 2003). In the later part of the same year, the company purchased Colonial Penn, a life insurance company. The company got included in the Chapter 11 reorganization in 2001. GreenTree financial services were divested in the reorganization process and the company under consideration is now solely focusing on the insurance industry (Conseco, 2012). Industry Structure The production of economic goods as well as services within an economy is known as the industry. An industry can be classifi ed into three sectors namely primary, secondary and tertiary. One can also classify industries on the basis of size, raw materials and the ownership of the business. Primary industries involve direct extraction of the resources from the Earth while the secondary industries involves in the processing products delivered by the primary industries. The last type of industry is mainly involved in the provision of services. The firms dealing with the management, investment decisions as well as lending of money processes operates in the financial industry. The financial institutions can actually make money as their business. They are not engaged in selling physical products but offer financial services and fiscal expertise. The markets where no participants have the potential to have the market power selling a homogeneous product are regarded as competitive market. The number of the firms as well as size distribution of the firms within an industry is referred by the term â€Å"industry s tructure†. There may be ‘n’ number of firms. If there are large firms present in an industry there is lack of coordination among them. Therefore, the degree of competition rises with the presence of large number of firms within the industry. The size distribution of the firms is important from the business as well as the public point of view. If the size of the participating firms is small compared with the size of the industry, then the industry is said to be fragmented and otherwise consolidated (Jain, 2002). A form of market where the industry is dominated by small number of sellers is called oligopoly. Each oligopolist is aware of the market conditions as few sellers are present in the market. The decision of one firm can influence or are influenced by other firms. The responses of the participants of the market are taken into account in the strategic planning process by the oligopolists (Mang, 2011, p. 1). Competition in oligopolistic market can give rise to different outcomes. An oligopoly can maximize its profits by producing at the level where marginal revenue equals marginal costs (Krcilkova, n.d, p. 10). Monopolistic competition along with oligopoly constitutes the structure of imperfect competition. Firms that are imperfectly competitive offer many products. All wealth that fulfills the wants of consumers constitutes the wealth of a nation. Therefore, the aim behind expanding wealth is broadening the choices of the consumers is terms of quality, quantity

NASA General Aviation Propulsion (GAP) Diesel Engine Research Paper

NASA General Aviation Propulsion (GAP) Diesel Engine - Research Paper Example NASA’s General Aviation Propulsion (GAP), started in the 2000, is one of the programs that have pioneered to revolutionize the aviation industry and transform the development of engines of future. The aim of the program is to develop an innovative engine which ushers in affordability, comfort and reduced cost for the aviation industry. The new engine is to reduce noise and vibrations and load on pilot for monitoring the plane, thereby adding greater comforts to the passengers. The aim of the paper is to discuss on GAP programme implications in the aviation industry and describe the working and usage of two engines developed as a part of the project. The paper also analyzes the challenges faced during the development and aviation industry in general. The advantages of new engines in terms of cost and efficiency have been dealt in detail in the paper. The new programme has been developed by NASA in collaboration with Advanced General Aviation Transport Experiment (AGATE). The GAP engine runs on 200 HP, liquid cooled, two stroked engine that runs on jet fuel. The engine is expected to cost half the price of conventional engines of 200 HP. This would make the new engines a major success in terms of fuel efficiency by reduction in the dependency for leaded gasoline thereby improving maintenance, passenger comfort and ease of use. Teledyne Continental Motors, Aerosance Cirrus Design, Hartzell Propeller, Lancair and Mod Works together partnered with NASA to develop diesel engine, an advanced piston engine. Although being heavy diesel engines are the reliable engines which combine technologically advanced construction coupled with two stroke engine. The GAP diesel engines offers noise and vibration free facility to the passengers with low speed propellers, feasible technology to use. With less than one-fourth of fuel consumption as compared to the current engines, the new GAP engines offer reliability, comfort, and greater control over the design and process