Thursday, September 26, 2019

MIS in Local Government Education Centers within East Africa Dissertation

MIS in Local Government Education Centers within East Africa - Dissertation Example The report will also, question, whether the MIS only enforces the administrative managerial role – towards domination and reinforcement of operational power relations. The faltering conclusion is that an MIS, throughout its development and changing attributes, is extolled with the interests and values of the delivery of education services, which is to happen within the operational power structure. Keywords: MIS, Giddens’ structuration theory, Actor-network theory, institutional theory, power relations, organizational practice. Introduction This paper goes over some of the basic considerations from an area study on the progression, as well as usage of an administration info process (MIS) in Department of education, as well as learning institutions in the Town of Arusha, Tanzania. The study question is: Does an artifact like an MIS, when proposed and also put into utilization, contribute to the production of a new practice that makes things achievable, to regulate in an a ssorted and more desirable method the trouble of integration? Or does the MIS system – just enhance the ability of the management control, to prevail over others as well as correctly just reinforce the being present power relations? In this paper I am reviewing these inquiries by focusing on the changes that have developed during the development method. From 1989 to 1993, I worked as an inner expert at the administrative level, at this association. I had studied theoretical literature concerning the way decision processes at the public industry unravel as well as presently I had the chance to experience and contemplate, just what took place in practice. I learned a great deal pertaining to practical organizational complications as well as exactly how they are regulated in this context. I experienced the well recognized, but for me, interested gap in between what transpires in practice and how we believe, act, and write as well as speak when making conclusions.1 Through this p aper, I shall discuss, as well as evaluate such a gap by focusing on a project that has definitely created a computer-based supervision data system. There has actually been a massive gap in between the goals, deals and also activities taken by the management supervision that initiated the venture, as well as what was in fact happening in practice. This paper documents a complicated process with unanticipated troubles and also outcomes. There seems to be a reason in this process that accords with what Scott (1992) has certainly identified a logical view focusing on lucid targets and also the formal organizational framework as the ways to achieve them. This is not interesting in the context of the management level of the company. This level is placed between the grass-roots degree where the solutions are delivered as well as the political level where the formal and also legitimate right to choose is positioned. It belongs to the normative framework that the administrative authority ne eds to cope with issues of performance and also usefulness. From this viewpoint the focus on transparent targets and formalized ways is easy to understand.2 However, it appears that this kind of incorporated rationality is an ideal that has a tendency that constrains all the players. It is an important part of the organizational process and has an impact on what can legitimately be reviewed. This

Wednesday, September 25, 2019

Dose family structure affect education more than income Essay

Dose family structure affect education more than income - Essay Example Comparative to income, the structure of the family has more influence on the way an individual performs academically. The structure of the family from which a child comes matters a lot to their performance in school. That is because of the various strains and stress levels present in the different family structures. Some of the family structures that may be under consideration include traditional nuclear families where both parents are present, single mother families, single father families and families headed by grandparents. All these family types impact academic performance differently depending on the issues the children face at home. Research shows that children from traditional nuclear families perform better academically as compared to those from the other family structures. That may be because their parents are more involved in their academic activities and expect more from them (Ginther and Pollak 3). The children from such families experience lower levels of stress, if any and the parents allocate more time and financial support to them (Pong and Thompson 683). They also provide parental guidance and direction thus boosting their academic performance. Single parent families bring about several challenges to children growing up in those families. Some of the problems facing such children include lack of attention, lack of motivation and assurance as well as appreciation, which may cause stress to them. That affects their academic achievements. A comparison to children from stable, traditional nuclear families shows that these children from single parent families tend to have lower educational attainment (Ginther and Pollak 6). The different classifications of single parent families also show different levels of academic achievement among children. Children from female-headed single parent families tend to record better

Tuesday, September 24, 2019

Response Paper on On Being an Atheist, by H. J. McCloskey From a Essay

Response Paper on On Being an Atheist, by H. J. McCloskey From a Christian Viewpoint - Essay Example While to some this position on face value may seem to have credibility, a careful analysis of the theories from a Christian perspective shows his arguments lacking. The first thing that strikes is McCloskey’s choice of beginning his discourse with a usual and chronically pleading argument that would appear to make sense and put the entire onus of â€Å"believing† or of â€Å"faith† on a human need to want to believe, rather than a spiritual analysis of why we do. McCloskey puts forth that many theists take the position that â€Å"atheism is a cold, comfortless position,†1, and quotes one Christian as saying, â€Å"It’s harder if you don’t believe in God.† 2 McCloskey’s argument, which he extracts totally from this position, is a tired one at best, tied to a humanistic era [the 1960s] that overly promoted, at the exclusion of the spiritual founded in the intellectual, the concept of science, be it the science of human psychology or otherwise. â€Å"Proof† is the buzzword, a strange choice since proof of this overriding human need to feel comfortable in an uncomfortable world has neve r been proven, but is itself founded on the â€Å"discoveries† suggested by psychologists and sociologists and hardly based in solid scientific irrefutable fact. Much of McCloskey’s so called scientific approach falls far short of anything resembling proof. Consider McCloskey’s cosmological argument as examined by Privette (2009). â€Å"McCloskey argued that the cosmological argument was an argument from the existence of the world, as we know it.    He stated that believing in an uncaused first cause of the universe is a problem because nothing about our universe forces us to that conclusion.†3 I agree with Privette and would use the following argument, as she has, with a few of my own thoughts added on the concept of contingencies. If

Monday, September 23, 2019

Staffing Organizations-Part 2 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Staffing Organizations-Part 2 - Essay Example The Gourmet Coffee Shop is a small organization and does not have the budget or staff to run its own staffing purposes and? therefore? an outside recruitment group can give the coffee shop with a full level of service? For example these agencies can help in advertising, identifying recruitment needs, along with background checks, examining the references of candidates etc. Using external recruitment agencies can be a little expensive, but on the other hand? it is the most sensible decision for company that does not have its own recruitment purpose. A recruitment financial plan will be formulated, which would include the staffing price, equipment and supplies cost along with salaries and benefits. After the recruiting and organizing period is complete, the next strategy of the coffee shop will be to choose â€Å"targeted versus open recruitment†, as the business is seeking particular individuals with certain, skills, knowledge, capacity and other features. Utilizing the open re cruitment method will entail a high quantity of candidates making the selection procedure exceptionally difficult. 2. Create a Communication Message (Realistic, Brand or Targeted) to Attract Applicants to the Open Position. When creating a communication message, it needs to be focused on being attractive and appealing to the target applicants. The main goal here is to capture the attention of potential applicants. Once this is achieved, the next step is to maintain their attention. This stage consists of the communication medium and message notifying the vacancy of jobs. â€Å"The   communication   process   consists   of   a   message   being   sent   and   received.  The message maybe verbal or non-verbal.   The   same   basic   principles   apply   whether   humans,   animals,   other   forms of   life,   or   combinations   of   these   are   involved† (The Communication Process, n.d. par.1). The message can be reali stic, targeted or branded. The medium for distribution can be a job posting, potential supervisors and peers? and extra written documents. These messages have to be expressed through some medium to the recipient. It is necessary that this message should be recognized by the recipient in the same meaning as intended by the sender. He or she must react in a time structure. Therefore, the communication is a two way method and is incomplete without a feedback from the receiver to the correspondent on how well the message is decoded by him. 3. Select the Communication Medium for the Recruitment Effort and Explain why that Method was Chosen Over Others. Communication can happen through several mediums. These mediums are assembled into four main types, which are verbal, written, visual communications and nonverbal. Whereas a number of mediums of communication, for instance talking, are much clearer than others, such as body language, every medium is significant for communication among peop le. In this case the select physical media. Physical media refers to a channel where the individual who is talking can be heard and seen by the viewers. The entire point here is to be capable of not only hearing the messages but also to watching and interpreting the body language. This does not require being two-way channels. In certain conditions the receiver expects physical communication. â€Å"If a message is perceived as important to the receiver they expect to hear it live from their

Sunday, September 22, 2019

Eassy HR Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Eassy HR - Essay Example Hiring decisions are the possible final opinions that can be adopted in a hiring process. They are culminating possibilities from the hiring process that involves recruiting and selection processes of potential employees. The hiring decisions that I might witness in functional areas, manufacturing and accounting areas, include appointment of freshly recruited employee, renewal, or extension of an employee’s contract, promotion of an employee, or dismissal of a particular employee or recruit for an alternative. The decisions largely rely on the job specifications, job design, and the qualities that are demonstrated by the recruits in any of the possible hiring cases. A consideration of the expected roles of a potential employee, potentials of the recruit and the organization’s job design is for example essential in determining the ability of the recruit to adapt to the organization’s structure and culture. Consequently, making the hiring decisions should rely on t he management’s informed opinion based on the recruit’s past data from previous employers that allows for both human resource forecasting and quantitative forecasting of the recruits’ abilities. The resultant opinions of the hiring panel are then deliberated upon and a final decision is made on whom to hire for the subject position (Castillo and McAniff, p. 64). There exist varieties of strategies that can be used to recruit applicants into an organization’s human resource. Examples of the most currently used recruitment strategies include job postings, application of the print media, mail recruitment, recruitment through personal contact and recruitment from an organization’s interns. Job postings may be the traditional posting of job opportunities at a strategic place such as public notice boards or may be electronic on listing agencies’ websites and may be geographically target specific or may be universal. Recruitment through the media is however, regional

Saturday, September 21, 2019

Compare and discuss contrast Essay Example for Free

Compare and discuss contrast Essay 1. Launched non-complete version of their website. Consumers get very annoyed when the e-commerce website they are trying to shop does not work. In software related commerce, one of the biggest complaints from users is insufficient testing for bugs before marketing to the public. 2. Annoying pop-up windows and Cumbersome Interface The multiple pop-ups further slowed down user download times and took away the sense of user control. When making a purchase most consumers prefer to make their own decision without pressure from pushy salesmen. From personal experience, most consumers prefer to seek out information as needed instead of having it pop up in another window. 3. Miss Boo, Shopping Assistant This virtual shopping assistant seemed crazy. Why did Miss Boo say Tie me up, tie me down in a shoe that looks like its been attacked? This irrational verbiage symbolized the dementia in design that was systemic in the website. When the company icon/mascot says irrational things it reduces consumer confidence in the products and services provided in the website. 4. Usability In Boo.com case, there was a big disconnection between the bandwidth required to run the website multimedia and actual bandwidth of average consumers. Consumers simply did not have the bandwidth to shop at Boo. com, or the right program (Macromedia Flash) to load the images. People were not ready for the excessive graphics, movies, audio, and video. * Unable to alter customer buying behavior Boo. com was unable to attract customers in large numbers, nor was it able to generate a sufficient level of repeat customer from the small number of clients that did use its services. Few people are happy to buy clothes without first trying them on, which represented a fundamental problem for Boo. D. What could Boo. com have done differently that might made it a success? * Technology First Solutions The technology that was supposed to power Boo. com did not work. As with everything else, the concept for its Web site was extraordinarily ambitious, with complex global distribution and multiple currencies and dazzling interactive features. And it was to have been built from scratch, something the technology team came to realize was difficult, if not impossible. Management spending was unprecedented for a dot. com. By the time the site was supposed to go live in May 1999, Boo. com had run up a $600,000 bill from Hill Knowlton, the companys public relations firm, mostly for setting up lunches with fashion editors for the founders. Hill Knowlton threatened to stop working for Boo. com because the firm was not paid on time. Ms. Leander, a former Elite model who was also Boo. coms marketing chief, hired Roman Coppola, Francis Ford Coppolas son, to direct the companys TV ads, featuring nerdy young people in urban chic clothing, which were part of a $42 million campaign for the big introduction. That included $25 million worth of advertising in magazines, newspapers, and billboards. Many employees said they received a mobile phone, a Palm hand-held device and an American Express card. Salaries were high for a dot-com on the make. III. Compare and discuss contrast between Staples. com Boo. com Usability It has been obvious from day one on the Web that what people want is fast downloading, information rich websites. Speed is a critical factor that drives Web usage. When people come to a website they are invariably looking for information. They dont want to hang around. They dont want to be left waiting. The best website is the one that gets them the right content fastest. In general, usability was a big issue for Boo. Consumers did not have the bandwidth to shop at Boo. com, or the right program (Macromedia Flash) to load the images. During then, the common folk were not ready for the excessive graphics, movies, audio, and video. Also, the annoyance of Miss Boo, their online helper, also detracted people from shopping at Boo. com. As more problems arose, Boo forgot about their customers. Staples. com has not committed the same mistake. It has built a portal based on what customer wants, content rich and fast downloading. This was clearly indicated by Staples. com portal recent won of a prestigious award for best business-to-business site from MIMC, the Massachusetts Interactive Media Council. (www. boston. internet. com/news/article. php/494001).   Convenience Feedback from customer commented that Boo web site was very complicated to navigate through, which meant that it was very difficult to make comparisons between the different brands that were stocked. According to Mori (2000) the ability to find product information and to compare prices is a very attractive feature for Internet shoppers. The Staples. com web site on the other hand has been designed for usability, reduced clicks, time-saving navigational tools, and personalized time-saving features for quick access. * Interaction Interaction is the means of relationship-building with individual customers by providing timely pre-sales information and excellent after-sales support. Boo. com has no strategy of building up customer relationship. The company suffered from very low rates of customer retention. Staples. com offers tremendous online resources that provide personalized, right time customer information. When you place an order, Staples encourages you to sign up for e-mail reminders, which will be sent to you BEFORE you run out. Once you receive the e-mail you can access Staples. com directly, buy what you need and your new supplies will be on their way. Product matchmaker- products are listed specific to the customer personal equipment. Plus, order history and a favorite shopping basket will keep track of items that are continuously purchased for fast checkout! This strategy clearly scored a big plus in term of building good relationship with their customer. * Brand Image For any new start up, making itself known is a big challenge. In Boo. com case, it spent relentlessly to create it brand image. The management committed $25 million to an advertising budget, a huge sum for a start-up. The company chose to advertise in expensive but trendy fashion magazines such as Vanity Fair as well as on cable television and the Internet. Staples. com has an easier path for it inherited the brand name from its parent company Staples Inc. * Vision or Strategy The creators Boo. com had a great vision, but failed to support that with a good strategy. First, the company had failed to consider potential competition from its main competitors who have strong brand name such as Lands End, and Nordstrom. Second, it is evident that little market research was done as Boo. com strived to sell a good (clothing) that was hard to sell on the Internet. As for most shoppers, they prefer to touch, feel, and try on clothes before buying it. Third, they failed to consider their resources as they launched their websites simultaneously in several countries. Staples. com has both a vision and good strategy. It has established a vision of creating outstanding customer service through a great Web experience. With this vision, it laid the strategy foundation that the key to online success and increased market share was to make its e-commerce site as usable as possible. Staples wanted the site to be customer-driven: to support customer needs in an easy-to-use, intuitive way. Conclusion There would be various reasons for failure in EC such as lack of funding, incorrect revenue model, and so much more, but typically, no business model should ever ignore the golden rule customer satisfaction. Strategic planning clarifies what an EC project should do or focus on with respect to the companys mission and the given business environment. To start or to survive companies must learn from the lesson of others failure and successful stories. Appendix A: Critical Success factors (Extract from: http://www. e-bc. ca/) Critical Success Factor Definition Competitive Advantage 1. Convenience The usability of the web site for the purpose for which it was designed: for example, to assist, buying or selling, to find information, to track a process. Users find it easy to carry out the process, so they are more likely to use the site and return to it. 2. Brand Image The ability to build up a brand name for the e-commerce business, and its products and services, using online and offline brand-building techniques. The more awareness a business can generate for its site, the greater the volume of traffic and potential for sales. 3. Interaction The means of relationship-building with individual customers by providing timely pre-sales information and excellent after-sales support. The business builds up a critical mass of loyal customers. Reference: 1. e-business infrastructure: Lessons from failure, Computer Finance, Dec 2000, p11 2. Mack, Ann M. , Stayin Alive, Adweek Eastern Edition, 06/12/2000, Vol. 41 Issue 24, p68 3. Turban, Efraim, King, David. , Lee. , Warkentin, Merill. , Chung, H. Michael. (2002) Electronic Commerce 2002: A Mangerial Perspective, Prentice Hall.  http://www.hostelworld.com/

Friday, September 20, 2019

Causes of Success at the Port of Savannah

Causes of Success at the Port of Savannah Erica Pearson Economic Geography The Port of Savannah is a vital attribute to Georgia’s economy and development throughout the years. But in the past recent years, its success has skyrocketed. The Port of Savannah is the fastest growing and increasingly the most important port on the east coast. The Port of Savannah specializes in the handling of container, reefer break bulk and roe roe cargoes. The Port of Savannah serves over 300 ports in about 150 different countries. The port has an import ratio of about 44.1% and an export ratio of about 55.9%, with about 88% container, about 6% general cargo, and about 6% bulk. Savannahs growth rate has it continuing to be the fastest growing port for all the major ports in the United States of America. Also, it is about three percentage points faster than the next fastest growing port. It continues to hold the fourth spot for ports in the United States. This is intriguing to me, what has caused the port of savannah to become so successful? Through my research I have fi gure out that it comes down to two things: Georgia Port Authority and the Savannah Economic Development Agency, and the construction of the Crossroads Business Park. This topic is interesting to me because starting in the fall of 2015, I will be interning at the World Trade Center in Savannah. The World Trade Center of Savannah is a member of the World Trade Center Association. The World Trade Center Association is an international business association with more than 320 offices in nearly 100 countries and more than one million associated businesses. The World Trade Center of Savannah has been a member since 2011. The better knowledge I have about the past and future development of the port of savannah and how it relates to the development to Savannah, Georgia, the United States, and the world; the better I will do at my job position. Before we talk about the port of Savannahs development, it is best to explain what the port of Savannah is. The Port of Savannah is a port located on theSavannah Riverin Georgia. The Port of Savannah is an important industrial seaport. Savannahs port has long been vital to the citys economy, and it an important port for exporting goods manufacture in the southeastern United States. The Port of Savannah is the fourth-largest and fastest growing U.S. container port. It has a convenient single-terminal design with two on-terminal Class 1 rail services, CSX and Norfolk Southern. It moves about 20 percent of the East Coast’s overseas containers. The port contains over 50 piers which are designed for multiple purposes, while others are specialized for specific types of cargo. To keep the Savannah port growing, future plans call for the deepening of the harbor. The first big contributor to the success of the port of Savannah is the Georgia Ports Authority. The port of Savannah is owned by the Georgia Ports Authority. The Georgia Ports Authority is the administrative agency of the U.S. state of Georgia that oversees the development, maintenance and operation of two seaports and two inland ports in the state. The Georgia Ports Authority was established in 1945 and is currently headquartered in Savannah, which hosts the vast majority of Georgias sea-based trade. In addition to trade, the Georgia Ports Authority seeks to protect the environment of coastal Georgia and to help improve the development of industry in the state. The port of savannah has become an important economic attribute along the east coast. Up to the 1990s, the port used to be dominantly focused on exports such as paper and chemicals. Savannah was a relatively small container portwith a small traffic load. The Georgia Port Authority has the responsibility to promote port and r egional development. They make strategies devised to increase container imports and promote Savannah as an economic hotspot of the south east. All this growth was because of three major trends: The first concern was demographic and commercial changes. This has attracted cargo that was usually transported through the north Atlantic ports of the East Coast. The second concern is investments in port infrastructures. This allows the port to provide additional capacity and shorter transit times. The third concern was investment in real estate and lower labor costs. This would enable Savannah to position themselves as an attractive place for companies to investment in warehousing and distribution. The logistics set up of Savannah was developed to give commercial opportunities to the inland areas. The biggest inland opportunity includes the Piedmont Atlantic region, this was helped developed by the Georgia Ports Authority. The Piedmont Atlantic region is areas like Atlanta, Charlotte, and etc. This area has a population of around 15 million. This populations and developments have been related number of logistics zones around the port. These zones were built because a set of advantages of the area. This is mostly related to the availability of land, short drayage distances, effective use of container assets and supply chain considerations. Savannah is a great example of the effect of the development of the logistics cluster can be on the local economy. For instance, Georgia has developed a significant export market of its poultry industry, which is carried in refrigerated containers. As such, this attracted large refrigerated warehouse facilities around Savannah, which accounts for 40% of American poultry exports. An important characteristic of the port’s traffic that has a notable impact is the balance between import and export cargo. For instance, while 1.43 million TEU of cargo were imported in 2013, 1.60 million TEU were exported. Maritime shipping companies find port of Savannah a good choice because there are many inbound and outbound ships and products needed to be moved. Therefore there is a lot of container rotation opportunities between inbound and outbound products and ships. Savanah also has the status of being a Foreign Trade Zone. This was helped obtained by the Georgia Ports Authority. The status of being a Foreign Trade Zone offers several operational advantages. Importers have the advantage to delay payments on their imports until they are leaving the Foreign Trade Zone and on their way to the stores or regional distribution centers. Savannah was granted Foreign Trade Zone status in 1984. The problem of space for logistics in the Savannah area now has change from a problem of under supply to now a problem of oversupply. This is for various reasons: there is the substantial growth of the logistics sector which has attracted new investments, the large areas of land that could be found near the port is not as vast as before, etc. Currently the Georgia Ports Authority is concerned about draft issues in the Savannah harbor. But the Georgia Port Authority is still anticipating a doubling of its traffic to 6 million TEUs within a 10 year range at the Port of Savannah This is particularly because of the expansion of the Panama Canal and the dredging of the Savannah harbor. They will expand it from its current depth of 42 feet to an expected depth of 47 feet. This requires several modifications of the existing terminal facilities, particularly the Garden City Container terminal. However, the overall setup should remain relatively similar. If these traffic projections actually are true, it will likely lead to a stage of additional development of logistics and manufacturing zones because the existing ones can’t handle that capacity level The second big contributor is the Savannah Economic Development Authority. The Savannah Economic Development Authority is an independently funded organization who works to support the economic development in Savannah and the local surrounding areas. It helps companies who are interested in relocating or expanding their offices to the Savannah area. One of the biggest contributions that the Savannah Economic Development Authority made was the construction of the Crossroads Business Park. The Crossroads Business Park is owned by the Savannah Economic Development Authority. The Crossroads Business Park was designed in 1988. It was the first logistic zones to be established in the port of Savannah area. But, it didn’t being operations until 1991. The Crossroads Business Park became the example zone as a business model and a development pattern that was copied to construct other zones in the port of Savannah area. The Crossroads Business Park is 1,661 acres facility. Inside there i s about 2.7 million square feet of warehousing space located directly adjacent to Interstate 95 within the City of Savannah. It is about 6 miles away from the Garden City Container Terminal, which is the main intermodal facility of the Port of Savannah. The Crossroads Business Park was made to help the first major distribution centers in the Savannah metropolitan area. The three things they help with are inbound retail, manufacturing, and education. Its main focus about inbound retail concerns, like breaking down the cargo to individual shipments that are being sent to regional distribution centers. When it comes to manufacturing concerns the only significant manufacturer is Gulfstream Aerospace Corporation, a company that makes jets, and they have facilities in the Crossroads Business Park. The third concern which is education, to help combat the need of skills demand, particularly engineering needs, two campuses have been opened, Savannah Technical College and Georgia Institute of Technology. The development of the Crossroads Business Park, which was made by the Savannah Economic Development Authority, was made because there was no place around to provide adequate logistics space for large freight distribution companies. In 1986, the Savannah Economic Development Authority was trying to make contacts with two large companies who were interested in putting a location in the Savannah area. However, during that time period, savannah did not have the set up for such large corporations, and the two offers fell through. Around that same time the Georgia Port Authority was telling people that due to plans to expand and the expected increase in container traffic, there would be a shortage of land to make distribution centers. But there was an urgent need to find other ways to help deal with the shortage of land, the Savannah Economic Development Authority decided to take matters into their own hands. The first thing they needed to consider was location. It then contacted develope rs who might be interested in developing the location. However, global and national developers were not interested in developing logistics areas in Savannah because the port traffic was less than 500,000 TEUs and Savannah was not known as a logistics hub. Many developers thought that the risk was perceived to be too high. The Savannah Economic Development Authority then decided to develop the land on its own. The land around Savannah is about 60% of wetlands. This caused development and environmental issues on the locations and structure of the logistics zones in the area. Due to this issue, the Crossroads Business Park became the first logistics park in the United States of America to be developed over a large wetland area. After a very complex process, the Savannah Economic Development Authority received a permit to develop land on the Crossroads Business Park location. But, because of the wetlands, there is a very strict rules that companies had to abide by to ensure that they would not damage the wetlands. The Savannah Economic Development Authority offered packages to companies who located at the Crossroads Business Park. They made it so the land was completely ready for companies wanting to construct, and made it so that construction was faster than anywhere else and access to the infrastructure. For example, in 2000 Dollar Tree was able to begin construction of its distribution cen ter 30 days after the deal with the Savannah Economic Development Authority was made. This was a great advantage for Crossroads Business Park compared to other logistic zones, they were faster and had more infrastructure to offer. The great infrastructure accessibility advantages of the Crossroads Business Park was its proximity to I95, Garden city container terminal, two railroads, and the Savannah airport. The Crossroads Business Park gave direct access to I95 by a specifically built highway interchange. I95 is the most important highway on the East Coast and is a great advantage for companies’ road accessibility to national markets. It also gives companies’ access to I16, which takes you to Atlanta. The Crossroads Business Park is within 6 miles of the Garden City Container terminal, the main container terminal of the port of Savannah. The port handled 2.9 million TEUs in 2011. It has two near dock rail terminals nearby, one owned by CSX and the other by Norfolk Sou thern. They transited 235,000 TEUs in 2007, about 9% of the ports traffic. Crossroads Business Park is connected by rail and remain an option for users. Although not a huge advantage, the Savannah Hilton Head International Airport is located nearby. It is a medium sized airport that handled 1.6 million passengers and 8,400 tons of cargo in 2011. Another advantage not necessarily just in the Savannah area, but in Georgia as a whole is that the state of Georgia allows gross vehicle weights of 80,000 pounds and up to 100,000 pounds if you get special permits and equipment. In summary, the Georgia Ports Authority and the Savannah Economic Development Authority were the biggest contributors to the rapid success of the port of Savannah. Without their efforts, the port would not being doing so well. The port wouldn’t have the land for companies’ distribution centers without the Savannah economic development authority investing in the location sites and legally getting the permission to build on the wetlands. Without the Georgia Ports Authority, the infrastructure of the port of savannah area wouldn’t be as advanced as it is today. Savannah success began when the Savannah Economic Development Authority built tons of distribution warehouse complexes, initially with no tenants. But now, the distribution warehouse network around the port includes warehouses for retailers such as Target Corp., Home Depot Inc., Family Dollar Stores Inc., as well as cold storage for chickens. Which Georgia is the world’s biggest exporter for now. The a uthority of the Georgia Ports Authority got the port of Savannah where it is today. Together, the Georgia Port Authority and the Savannah Economic Development Authority put Savannah on top and to be the city and port to watch in these upcoming years. Works Cited About SEDA | Helping Businesses. About SEDA | Helping Businesses. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 June 2015. Military. Port of Savannah. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 June 2015. More than 9,700 Feet of Contiguous Berth Space. Georgia Ports Authority Home. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 June 2015. Port of Savannah. CBRE. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 June 2015. Port of Savannah Fourth-busiest, Fastest-growing in the U.S. Atlanta Business Chronicle. Widgets RSS. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 June 2015. Rodrigue, Jean-Paul. The Port of Savannah Logistics Cluster. The Port of Savannah Logistics Cluster. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 June 2015. Savannah Surges as Major Port for Imports on U.S. Growth. Bloomberg.com. Bloomberg, n.d. Web. 18 June 2015.