How to Use Focus Groups in Marketing Research

Step by step instructions to Use Focus Groups in Marketing Research Center gatherings are a type of subjective examination that is generally utilized in item showcasing and advertising research, however it is a mainstream technique inside human science too. During a center gathering, a gathering of people typically 6-12 individuals is united in a space to take part in a guided conversation of a theme. Lets state youre starting an examination venture on the notoriety of Apple items. Maybe you need to direct inside and out meetings with Apple shoppers, however before doing that, you need to discover what sorts of inquiries and themes will work in a meeting, and furthermore check whether purchasers may raise points that you wouldnt think to remember for your rundown of inquiries. A center gathering would be an extraordinary alternative for you to talk coolly with Apple buyers about what they like and dont like about the companys items, and how they utilize the items in their lives. The members of a spotlight bunch are chosen dependent on their pertinence and relationship to the subject under examination. They are not commonly picked through thorough, likelihood testing techniques, which implies that they don't factually speak to any significant populace. Or maybe, members are picked through verbal, promoting, orâ snowball inspecting, contingent upon the kind of individual and qualities the scientist is hoping to incorporate. Preferences of Focus Groups There are numerous preferences of a center gathering: As a socially situated exploration strategy, it catches genuine information in a social setting.It is flexible.It has high face legitimacy, implying that it estimates what it is proposed to measure.It creates fast results.It costs little to conduct.Group elements regularly bring out parts of the theme or uncover data about the subject that might not have been foreseen by the analyst or risen up out of individual meetings. Drawbacks of Focus Groups On the drawback: The analyst has less command over the meeting than the person does in individual interviews.Data can here and there be hard to analyze.Moderators require certain skills.Differences between gatherings can be troublesome.Groups can frequently be hard to pull together.The conversation must be led in a favorable domain. Fundamental Steps In Conducting a Focus Group Some fundamental advances ought to be included when directing a center gathering, from planning to information examination. Planning For the Focus Group: Distinguish the fundamental goal of the concentrate group.Carefully build up your center gathering questions. Your center gathering should commonly last 1 to 1/2â hours, which is typically sufficient opportunity to cover 5 or 6 questions.Call likely members to welcome them to the gathering. Center gatherings for the most part comprise of six to 12 members who have some comparative trademark (e.g., age gathering, status in a program, and so on.). Select members who are probably going to take part in conversations and who don’t all know each other.Send a subsequent greeting with a proposed plan, inquiries up for conversation, and time/area details.Three days before the center gathering, call every member to help them to remember the gathering. Arranging the Session: Timetable a period that is advantageous for the vast majority. Plan the center gathering to take somewhere in the range of 1 and 1/2 hours. Noon or dinnertime is typically a decent an ideal opportunity for individuals, and on the off chance that you serve food, they are bound to attend.Find a decent setting, for example, a gathering room, with great wind stream and lighting. Arrange the room with the goal that all individuals can see one another. Give informal IDs just as rewards. In the event that your center gathering is at lunch or dinnertime, make certain to give food as well.Set some guidelines for the members that help encourage support and keep the meeting moving along fittingly. For instance 1. Remain concentrated regarding the matter/question, 2. Prop the energy of the discussion up, and 3. Get conclusion on each question.Make a plan for the center gathering. Think about the accompanying: Welcome, audit of plan, survey of the objective of the gathering, audit of standard pro cedures, presentations, questions and replies, and wrap up.Don’t depend on your memory for data shared at the center gathering. Plan to record the meeting with either a sound or video recorder. In the event that this isn’t conceivable, include a co-facilitator who takes great notes. Encouraging the Session: Present yourself and your co-facilitator, in the event that you have one.Explain your need and explanation behind account the center gathering discussion.Carry out the agenda.Carefully word each question to the gathering. Prior to a gathering conversation, permit everybody a couple of moments to deliberately record their reactions or answers. At that point, encourage conversation around the responses to each address, one at a time.After the conversation of each question, reflect back to the gathering an outline of what you simply heard. In the event that you have a note-taker/co-facilitator, the individual in question may do this.Ensure even investment among the gathering. In the event that a couple of individuals are ruling the discussion, at that point approach others. Likewise, consider a round-table methodology wherein you go one way around the table, offering every individual an opportunity to response the question.Close the meeting by expressing gratitude toward the members and revealing to them that they will get a duplicate of the report created because of the conversation. Following the Session: Check that the sound or video recorder worked all through the whole meeting (in the event that one was used).Make any extra notes on your composed notes that you need.Write down any perceptions you made during the meeting, for example, the idea of investment in the gathering, any astonishments of the meeting, where and when the meeting was held, and so forth. Updatedâ by Nicki Lisa Cole, Ph.D.

Counterterrorism and Information Systems Your protection versus your Research Paper - 1

Counterterrorism and Information Systems Your insurance versus your privileges - Research Paper Example The war towards fear based oppression has never been a smooth way, subsequently various moral issues must be broken. A nation is constantly torn by the problem of either shielding its residents from psychological oppression by utilization of data innovation to take care of them with expected information to assist them with battling fear mongering and the protected privileges of people to have their own privileges. It is obvious that a cool headed choice in such a case is essential as this is a moral issue and one that can cause issues whenever played with. Essential data in regards to people’s lives is typically meddled with during the time spent counterterrorism. For example, the legislature typically utilizes individual databases to separate data about specific individuals thus penetrating their sacred individual rights. Confronted with an extreme choice on breaking its established command to shield its residents from psychological oppressors and ensuring their privileges, some way or another requires a legitimate choice on whether counterterrorism utilization of data innovation is moral There as a rule such huge numbers of ways which the administration can battle fear mongering without meddling with the individual privileges of their people. This can include sending spies to fear monger zones, of which it has not been fruitful as they in the end get found and tough discipline directed to them. Another option in contrast to the legislature battling psychological warfare will be through battling along with different nations to guarantee that the pioneers and the offenders financing them are kept. In handy sense, these has been one unimaginable illicit relationship since a large portion of the fear monger bunches typically live secluded from everything and have sees all over when troopers come to assault them. Another elective that can be utilized to battle fear mongering might be through thorough checks and racial profiling of people from nations inclined to harbor psychological militant,

How to Design and Execute a Backlinking Strategy that Works

How to Design and Execute a Backlinking Strategy that Works SEO professionals have many strategies available to them to increase the visibility of their websites/pages in search, including content and inbound marketing, proper use of meta data, and backlinking strategy. The latter is one of the more prevalent methods of building search engine visibility, but it is often misunderstood and/or misapplied. Backlinking is key to white hat, gray hat, and black hat strategies, and indeed, speaks to the heart of how search engines index and evaluate websites.No matter what set of strategies an SEO professional eventually settles on, nor whether they are handling SEO in-house or outsourcing it, it is important to understand what backlinking is and how can it affect SERP and other measures of SEO success. © Shutterstock.com | Rawpixel.comIn this article, we will cover 1) what backlinking is and how it affects SEO; 2) inorganic vs. organic backlinking; 3) designing a backlinking strategy that works; and 4) notes on executing your backlinking strategy.WHAT IS BACKLINKING AND HOW DOES IT AFFECT SEO?Backlinking is the process of obtaining links to one’s website in order to improve overall search visibility. Moz, a leading software firm identifies three types of backlinks:Natural Links: Others give these links to websites without any action taken by the website’s owners. For example, a newspaper reports on a corporation and includes a link in on their website to the corporation’s website.Outreach Links: Outreach links are those that SEO practitioners try to obtain through direct action. These are the basis of many backlinking strategies.Self-Created Links: These are links that SEO practitioners can place on third-party websites for SEO purposes.Fundamentally, search engines use prog rams called spiders or crawlers, which travel from link to link online, indexing and evaluating what they find. Using proprietary ranking algorithms, these programs assess the popularity and relevance of websites and webpages on a continuous basis.Early on in search history, crawler algorithms assumed that the more linking to a particular website, the more popular that website must be. This led to SEO practitioners employing a variety of tactics to garner a large number of links to their webpage. In many cases, these links were low quality â€" stemming from irrelevant sites. In some cases, SEO practitioners created new websites designed for no other purpose than to provide links to the websites the SEO practitioners were trying to promote.The major search engines grew wise to this and incorporated an emphasis on the quality of links, as well as natural links (see below). Today the exact degree to which the quality and quantity of backlinks affects SERP is unknown. However, search en gines have publicly stated that backlinks do matter quite a bit.When assessing backlink quality, search engines consider:RelevanceThis refers to how often the site itself earns (or SEO practitioners obtain for it) new backlinks, as well as the variety and quality of the sites from which the backlinks stem. More value is assigned to the rate of natural backlinks obtained than outreach or self-created backlinks.Trust rankOne aspect of search engine algorithms is the capacity to “trust” certain domains with histories of not harboring spam. How a website domain ranks as far as a search engine’s trust system is an important part of link quality assessment.Anchor textAnchor text refers to text that a URL displays other than its web address. These internal links can heighten the visibility of particular webpages and even websites.Link neighborhoodSearch engines assess not just the domains linking to a site but where those domains themselves link to. In this way, they can better asses s the quality of the backlink, and in turn make a determination about the quality of the site.Local/topic-specific link popularityAlong with link neighborhood, crawlers assess how popular a link is within its “neighborhood” of links related by topic, and by common location. SEO practitioners can optimize branded keywords in links and push sharable link-enriched content to increase their popularity.Overall link popularityFundamentally, websites that are more popular are always going to enjoy more natural links than those that do not. Once search engines weed out spam links and unnatural links, they do assess the quantity of backlinks a website has.Social distributionCrawlers also assess the distribution of links shared on social networks. These links are not treated the same as backlinks for ranking purposes by the major search engines, as it is simply too easy to generate them. However, search engines do pay attention to how widely branded keywords, content and links are shared on these networks.INORGANIC VS. ORGANIC BACKLINKINGAll backlinks a firm tries to obtain should be diverse, authoritative, and relevant. Firms and websites may develop organic backlinks through the course of natural operations, such as publishing content or PR activities. These are known as organic backlinks (what Moz refers to as natural backlinks).Firms may also obtain backlinks from link exchanges and purchases, from a variety of sites that are not necessarily a fit for your content/website. These are known as inorganic backlinks. These can be either outreach or self-created links. These typically have less value than organic backlinks in search assessments of website popularity and relevance.Search engines occasionally modify their algorithms to penalize those websites with high numbers of inorganic backlinks. For example, in 2011, Google released Google Panda â€" an update to its search algorithm designed specifically to diminish the search visibility of low-content, low-quality websites. Many sites designed solely for SEO purposes, such as link directories, suffered a steep decline in their search rankings. Others that used a number of black hat strategies, such as duplicate content, saw similar declines.Obtaining organic backlinks takes time, but the results of this strategy are sustainable over time. Websites with large quantities of organic backlinks are largely immunized from updates like Panda.DESIGNING A BACKLINKING STRATEGY THAT WORKSThe basis of a good backlinking strategy is a good content marketing strategy. SEO practitioners should strive to produce content that others share and distribute, as well as to which they create backlinks. This white hat strategy, known as content marketing, is the best way to create backlinks over time. A highly effective subset of content marketing â€" inbound marketing â€" involves the development of content that drives traffic back to the website through backlinks. While inbound marketing is used more directly for increasing traffic than increasing a website’s position in search engine results, search engines do also evaluate overall traffic in website SEO assessments. Moreover, increased traffic can increase the likelihood of a website obtaining natural backlinks from users.To design and execute a strong content marketing strategy, SEO practitioners should involve marketers and copywriters to create a steady stream of compelling and current content aligned with both the firm’s brand standards and SEO goals. These content developer should create a content roadmap, a document that outlines what, when, and how content is to be created. Content should be developed that can generate enough interest to elicit organic backlinks, as well as that incorporates backlinks in the content itself. The marketers and SEO practitioners should consider both the channel’s marketing ROI and SEO ROI, and schedule content distribution to not only achieve marketing goals but also SEO trends as well.Public re lations (PR) can greatly enhance SEO efforts. PR involves increasing the public profile of a firm in both offline and online media channels. PR professionals are looking to get the firm’s product mentioned in The New York Times and other major news outlets, industry publications, major blogs, and everywhere else that is feasible. SEO practitioners should incorporate their organization’s PR departments into SEO efforts, because PR practitioners can become a great source of outreach and self-created backlinks. Their efforts can also increase the likelihood of the organization obtaining organic backlinks Great sources of PR-related backlinks include:Help A Reporter Out (HARO)This free service connects reporters in need of quick expert commentary with agency and in-house PR professionals. PR professionals can work to ensure that the reporters provide a relevant backlink to their organization’s website.Press release syndicationMany press release syndication services, such as PRWeb or PRNewswire, can provide a great source of backlinks (and, of course, PR). Syndication allows the press release to live on a number of websites, providing backlinks from a variety of different domains, without the content creator being penalized for duplicate content.Guest blog postsThis provides a great way to increase a brand’s exposure and build credibility, as well as generate a solid backlink. The higher the visibility of the blog, the better the quality of the backlink.Co-sponsored/branded events/initiativesMicrosites used to promote co-sponsored events and/or initiatives can provide a strong source of backlinks. While these sites themselves may not have the time to develop high search rank on their own, if they are on subdomains of well-established domain names, they (and by extension backlinks stemming from them) may be assessed highly in terms of quality.Social network profilesMany social network profiles proffer nofollow links only, to prevent their abuse for SEO uses. Dofollow backlinks can be obtained from the social media profiles of YouTube, HubPages, WordPress, Blogger, Tumblr, Reddit, and LinkedIn.Online review sitesProduct/service testimonials on third-party consumer reporting sites can provide a good source of quality backlinks (and good PR, assuming a well-reviewed product/service).Link DirectoriesOnce the go-to source for backlinks, link directories â€" webpages that aggregate and categorize links for SEO purposes, no longer hold the same SEO boost they once did. These sources of unnatural links however can help only if those are televant link directories.TestimonialsSEO practitioners can send product reviews to firms for use on their websites and include a backlink. Many firms will add the testimonial, complete with backlink, just to show off consumer appreciation of their product.Website feedback sitesWebsites that provide feedback on the design or layout of other websites can be a good, easy source of dofollow links.InfographicsInfog raphics are a very popular source of content, often making up the entirety of blog posts. Consider tapping marketing/research/PR to create infographics on current topics, post them, share them, or offer them to third-parties. Make sure to embed a backlink.These are just some of the ways to incorporate backlinking strategies into a solid content marketing plan. Once a firm has planned and begun to execute its content strategy, they must regularly assess the impact of published and distributed content on overall SEO (using an analytics program like Web Analytics), and course-correct if/where necessary. Just as channels and content were determined by looking at both marketing and SEO goals, adjustments should be made with marketing goals in mind as well.Depending on one’s SEO goals, practitioners may need to improve website visibility quickly. Black hat and gray hat approaches may ramp up a website’s search engine rankings relatively quickly. Many of these techniques incorporate so me aspects of backlinking. For example, SEO practitioners can create what are known as link pyramids â€" which are websites solely designed to provide backlinks to other sites. Hidden links â€" backlinks that are invisible to humans, can be placed on link pyramids, and doorway pages â€" pages solely designed to redirect visitors to other pages, as well as in widgets. For practitioners with a sizable budget, buying competitor websites to either delete them or provide a source of backlinks, may be an option. Nevertheless, practitioners may suffer significant decreases in ranking, and even be delisted, for excessive use of these techniques.NOTES ON EXECUTING YOUR BACKLINKING STRATEGYWhether one chooses white hat, gray hat, or black hat SEO strategies, SEO practitioners should consider a few fundamental things when designing and executing a backlinking strategy.Properly oversee SEO vendorsWhen obtaining the services of a third-party firm to design and execute SEO strategies, a firm shou ld have a clear idea of how the firm will execute the plan. The firm, not the vendor will suffer any punitive measures proffered by search engines (not to mention potentially be liable for damages, should the firm implement illegal black hat tactics). Understand that firms guaranteeing high organic rankings are likely either overselling themselves or do not understand SEO.Consistently add backlinks over timeSudden spikes in backlinks signal to search engines that a website’s owners purchased backlinks. This may lead to the purchasing organization’s website being penalized.Optimize anchor tags with keyword rich contentThese internal links can have a significant SEO impact on internal webpages. However, don’t overdo this. Doing though, even inadvertently, will be read by most search engines as black hat SEO, and may net penalties.Obtain backlinks from a variety of relevant sourcesIf all backlinks stem from one or two sources, search engines assume that the website in question is not relevant.Don’t forget socialMany SEO practitioners only think of backlinking strategies as relates to the major search engines. Social networks have their own search engines, some of them quite robust. YouTube’s search engine, for example, is more heavily searched than Yahoo. Backlinking on social networks that offer no follow links should be assessed in terms of potential for growing and increasing traffic both to branded social channels and to the corporate website, which itself is assessed by search engines for SEO purposes. Backlinks should also be added wherever possible on socially sharable content.There’s more to SEOBacklinking is just one of many strategies, and should be used just as judiciously as the others.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Hstorical Cost Accounting

Advantages and Disadvantages of Hstorical Cost Accounting Advantages and disadvantages of historical cost accounting, alternatives to historical cost accounting 2.1 Introduction Accounting concepts and conventions as used in accountancy are the rules and guidelines by which the accountant lives. The historical cost accounting convention is an accounting technique that values an asset for balance sheet purposes at the price paid for the asset at the time of its acquisition. The historical cost accounting is the situation in which accountants record revenue, expenditure and asset acquisition and disposal at historical cost: that is, the actual amounts of money, or money s worth, received or paid to complete the transaction.†¦show more content†¦How is historical accounting better than alternatives? Quite clearly the several limitations and flaws of the traditional historical costs method have been highlighted and picked upon from time to time. Still historical costs are the standard form of accounting due to its unique features and conventions that make it better than most available alternatives. One of the main resources why historic accounting even though flawed forms the basis of our traditional accounting model is because accountants are reluctant to price the assets at current market value. Over the years number of cases relating to accounting malpractice and creative accounting have been exposed that have made accounting bodies reluctant from using current values which directly effect the share prices. Accountants have to guard the integrity of their data against internal modifications. The use of current cost or exit price opens the door to manipulation of these numbers. The alternative measures for measuring and reporting assets provide management with considerable discretion and opportunities to influence the value of assets reported. Critics admit that the possibility of manipulation exits, but the profession can formulate rules on how current values are to be ascertained. Under historical cost accounting there is no room for manipulation and the data

What the In-Crowd Wont Tell You About Macbeth Essay Topics

What the In-Crowd Won't Tell You About Macbeth Essay Topics Believe it or not writing the essay is really the simplest aspect of the practice. Writing services can either supply you with great advice in writing a specific essay that may appear mind-boggling, or else they can lead you through the procedure of writing it all on your own. The moment the writer is appointed, they begin working on your essay in line with the requirements you have specified in your purchase. For essay writing ideas and controversial topics, students may use a number of the ones in the subsequent list. Lady Macbeth s identity in the beginning indicates that she's a person who is loving. Even ambition for power may be great thing. There's even a theory a man such as him did not exist in any respect. The tragic hero recognizes her or his flaw, however there's nothing that could be done in order to avert tragedy. Getting the Best Macbeth Essay Topics Essay on Macbeth characters are rather popular with students. Shakespeare's Macbeth is stuffed with engaging designs, which means that your long-term future thesis impression is decided by the main you elect for. Thus, start looking for Macbeth essay examples and think of the potential topics which you can pick. Now, you've got to go for Macbeth essay examples as these provides you with a practical hint of what it is you are predicted to write about. Macbeth states he has not thought about them in any way. Below, Macbeth is now going nuts. Macbeth is among the most famed tragedies by Shakespeare. Macbeth is regarded as a tragic hero. You are able to receive all sorts of quality Macbeth essay examples from our site. Macbeth becomes much more outraged and yell at everyone while in the region and he starts to scream. On the flip side, Lady Macbeth has a more passionate means of examining the advantages and disadvantages of killing Duncan. Macbeth becomes increasingly more furious and he starts to yell and shout at eve ryone inside the place. Due to their predictions, Macbeth murders many folks. Macbeth knows that Duncan is a sort king and excellent man. Macbeth still appears to feel that the future holds peace because of his reign. Fate, on the flip side, is fixed. Observing the conventions of tragedy, a lot of the characters become corrupted somehow, and, by the close of the play, each one of the corrupt characters have to be eliminated so that Denmark can once more be set right. Using Macbeth Essay Topics An argumentative essay is a sort of essay that presents arguments about either side of a problem. Whenever you have the task to write Macbeth essays for the very first time, there isn't any doubt that you won't know where to begin and the way to begin. In any case, your conclusion needs to be somewhat precise and laconic. A great conclusion can summarize the principal points of the essay in a couple of sentences. As soon as you finish your essay you are a lot more familiar about yo ur essay and its the ideal time to go for a last title. The debut of your essay is likely to include your thesis statement. Least a single topic on your own, however, you give it was. If you'd like, we can also suggest a couple of essay topics you might think about working on. Of course, when you have very little writing experience you've got to find essay examples on Shakespeare's Macbeth to make certain you learn essay writing ABC. On the flip side, if you opt to purchase this essay from us, we could supply you an excellent writer and an even greater essay. It is crucial to realize that this is an essay that is more than merely a literary bit of writing. Unlike in different essays, writing narrative essays enable the writer to use a very first person point of view as it is based on personal experiences. The Macbeth Essay Topics Chronicles Authoring an essay on Shakespeare may perhaps be uncomfortable, for the large part given that it is going to involve important attention, notwithstanding the complicated terms of his takes on. When you're through with the brief description, then it's time for suitable analysis and interpretation of the things you merely read. These topics are able to help you concentrate on the topic of conscience and its role fo r unique characters. Utilize plot info and other elements of the play to support this thesis. The important point to remember about business essays is they need to present content that's pertinent to the total subject, and your arguments are supported by underlying facts, references and examples. You shouldn't utilize somebody else's thesis, but writers developing an interpretation often touch upon a wide range of ideas they do not explore in much depth. Meticulous research is necessary to find the facts right. Secondly, globalization gives opportunities to lower labor expenses and production expenses.

Ethics on Walt Disney Free Essays

According to an article from The New York Times, on May 9, 2012 The Walt Disney Company’s profits had grown up to 21% at Disney’s Cable TV gains and a surge in Resorts Business. Thanks to climbing ad sales and subscription fees at ESPN, another cable channel like ABCfamily has also helped the Walt Disney Company. Its quarterly profit 21% To $1. We will write a custom essay sample on Ethics on Walt Disney or any similar topic only for you Order Now 14 billion dollars. The article started off by stating that Disney’s financial reported a Growth on retail sales report. In addition an operating income at Walt Disney Company Park and Resorts Surged 53% to $222 million dollars. A reason for this division growth was that they had high spenders. Which meant they wasted money on Disney’s products and not only that but there attendance increased on almost all there resorts worldwide. Just like in Tokyo an increase in spending up to 5%. This is ethical, because it shows that the resorts must be doing well that means people are going and spending their money even with this recession. Besides this there is an issue that Disney’s studios faced after filming the movie John Carter but they had a solution. After they had lost money from that movie they also had losses from media networks. Because As the result that they were working on their interactive media. Aside from their losses, Disney reported earnings per share of 58 cents for the quarter. Up to 18% from 49 cents a year earlier. Not only had that but Analyst expected Earnings per share of 56 cents. In the other hand there was revenue 6% to $9. 6 billion. This shows that it was am improvement for Walt Disney they do there accountings in an Ethical manner. Another good ethics of Walt Disney is there television portfolio, since they have a variety of studios. They manage different channels like sports and family channels that helps them set apart from there competition. ESPN is by the largest contributor to Disney’s overall probability. â€Å"Quite well positioned to remain the pre-eminent sports brand,† said Disney Chairman Robert I. Iger. This statement shows that ESPN is doing a good job as it should and shows that not only that. But ESPN is still growing with their subscribers and fees. Lastly in the article, it states that since the release of the movie Marvel Inc. The movie has recorded the biggest opening. â€Å"It’s a great illustration of why we like Marvel Inc. o much. † Said Mr. Iger. In my opinion I think the Walt Disney Company is very successful. They have been around the business for quite a while. Not only that but they made products and films that are worth value. Great film from back in the days and still going on now. The Walt Disney Company hires employees and trains them to their best abili ty which not many companies do. They require safety and have their business standards set well. Just how their profits have increased. That’s shows their doing a well ethical job. They may not be perfect but they sure have accounting set well in their business. Because the fact that if they didn’t Walt Disney would be as well-known. Their resorts wouldn’t be considered one of the happiest places on earth. This Article states the ethical manner that Walt Disney has done yet they had issues but still they overcome them just like how ethical companies should. The Walt Disney Company hasn’t been affected in a huge drastic way that other companies have been affected. But yet I think that is example that an ethical company leads and that is Walt Disney. REFERENCE http://query. nytimes. com/gst/fullpage. html? res=9C01EFD9133AF93AA35756C0A9649D8B63ref=brooksbarnes How to cite Ethics on Walt Disney, Papers

What Challenges Do You Think the Company Faced in Changing Theculture Essay Example

What Challenges Do You Think the Company Faced in Changing Theculture? Paper What challenges do you think the company faced in changing theculture? Every organization has a culture which is a set of beliefs, values andstandard that set the quality for how employees are to act, how work is to bedone, and what image to represent to the world. The Ritz-Carlton has a strong culture whereas others are less welldefined. Ritz-Carlton motto â€Å"We are Ladies and Gentlemen serving Ladiesand Gentlemen. According to Simon Cooper, the President and Chief  Operating Officer of Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company, LLC, they chose the mottobecause they don’t want their employees to think of themselves as a servile;their employees might not have the wealth, knowledge or education of their  guest but they do have the same values. Cooper added culture keeps thecompany functioning at high levels, while keeping it profitable and enabling itto win awards; Ritz-Carlton culture is about the relentless and unremittingdesire to deliver world class service. However, Ritz-Carlton may be faced asubstantial challenges if the culture has change. Here are some of thechallenges: Research When corporate culture no longer supports the business strategy, change isneeded. Ritz-Carlton may needs to do a lot of research to find out why exactlyculture change is necessary for them. Besides of that, they also need to avoidthe negative effect which may affect employees’ job performance. Employment Employees might affected by the change of the culture. For instance, their  employees might not be work efficiently and may have a negative attitude. We will write a custom essay sample on What Challenges Do You Think the Company Faced in Changing Theculture? specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now We will write a custom essay sample on What Challenges Do You Think the Company Faced in Changing Theculture? specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer We will write a custom essay sample on What Challenges Do You Think the Company Faced in Changing Theculture? specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer Furthermore, employees afraid that they might have to do things that theyhave never done before or even lose the jobs because of the culture changewhich is the most powerful restraining force. Ritz-Carlton does not ‘hire’employees; they ‘select’ new members for the Ritz-Carlton team. Ritz-Carltonselects candidates by looking at their attitudes and values, instead of skillsand experience. If candidates have years of experience but do not fit in withthe strong service culture, they are simply not selected. Organizational Performance Organizational performance mainly affected by its culture, so there isnecessary to change when the culture is no longer support the businessstrategy. Before doing so, Ritz-Carlton should analyse, identify and developthe organisations capacity for changing the culture to prevent the possibility of  image spoiled. [pic][pic][pic] [pic][pic][pic][pic][pic][pic][pic][pic][pic] Period of Time Changing of organisational culture is an on-going and never ending processwhich may take years of time to implement and feel the full benefits. Therefore, changing the culture may be tedious for Ritz-Carlton. What is the Ritz-Carlton doing to maintain this new culture? Company culture plays an important role in maintaining a cultivatingenvironment for employees which in turn helps company to be at lead in their  businesses. As a company grow, its cultural values are refined andstrengthened. Every organization has its own unique culture or value set. Theculture of the organization is typically created unconsciously, based on thevalues of the top management or the founders of an organization. According to Cooper, a great employee culture comes from their ladiesand gentlemen as they call their employees, being fully engaged in Ritz-Carlton business. One of the things they try to do is to marry-up their guestengagement and employee engagement which mean they searching for andfinding the evidence that a great employee results in a great guestexperience. To maintain this new culture, Ritz-Carlton has empowered their  employees. There are a few of strategies that Ritz-Carlton used to maintainthis new culture: Living the Service Values Every manager and front line employee will carries a trifold pocket card thatbears the title ‘Gold Standards’ but is referred to as the ‘Credo Card’. The‘Credo Card’ stated of 12 service value guidelines which intended to helpthem in create the mystique to attract luxury travellers. The Ritz-Carlton is notalone in create the rules and guidelines to keep employees focused oncompany values, however the Ritz-Carlton does stand apart in how itreinforces the values with every employees, every day. Define and Refine This principle is emphasizes the importance of defining the experience youwant customer to have with your employees and explores how to refine theexperience based on what is relevant to your customers. Each day every Ritz-Carlton around the world, employees from each department will gather tohave 15 minutes of meeting known as ‘line-up’. This daily line-up is to reviewthe guest experience, resolve issues, and discuss the way to improve theservice. Rewards Ritz-Carlton motivating and rewarding their employees, who have exceededtheir expectations, surpassed the highest goal with The Ritz-Carlton IncentiveAwards. Furthermore, managers give out the Gold Standard Coupons tothose employees who are ‘caught’ meeting the hotel standards for quality. These coupons can be exchanged for weekend accommodations at the hotel [pic][pic][pic][pic] [pic][pic] or merchandise in the hotel’s gift shop. Every quarter, a Five-Star EmployeeAward is granted; with the winner receiving a five-night stay for two at a Ritz-Carlton anywhere in the world, along with round-trip tickets for two andUS$500 allowance. Empowered through Trust The Ritz-Carlton trusts their employees and provides them a better workplaceso that they come to work with a smiley face and provide excellent customer  service. Deliver WOW Stories have the power which motivate, influence and reinforce the company’svision, culture and values. In the line-up, someone will read the ‘WOW’ storiesof the day. The same story is shared across hotels in 21 countries, for  example a housekeeper will hear the same story as a waiter in Hong Kong. ? There is one family staying at the Ritz-Carlton of Bali, had carried aspecialized eggs and milk for their son who suffered from foodallergies. Upon arrival, they found that the eggs had broken and themilk had soured. Managers and dining staff searched the town butcould not find the appropriate items. However, the executive chef  remembered that there is a stall in Singapore which selling theproducts. So he called his mother-in-law, asked her to buy the productsand fly to Bali to deliver to them, which she willing to do. In the above case, the Bali is intended to reinforce the service values of No. 7which is â€Å"use team work to meet individual needs of our guest†. Provide Training Employees who join Ritz-Carlton will have two days of nothing but trainingabout Ritz-Carlton. Employees will have two days of orientation whichincludes meals and restaurants and training in meeting rooms, they aretreated like a guest. After that, they will receive 30 days of training from acertified trainer from the department. On day 21, new employees are asked togive the management feedback on how they can improve their trainingprogram for future training and recertification. Additionally, every employeewill get a minimum 130 hours of training every year which spans training for  their department, company culture, language and computer skills. Besides of  that, every employee will also go through annual recertification after they passwritten test, role play and interviews on culture and skill.

Latin Words and Expressions in English

Latin Words and Expressions in English Why Learn About Latin Words and Expressions in English?: Some excellent reasons you might want to know more about Latin words and expressions in English are: Youre studying for a vocabulary/admissions test.Youre a non-native English speaker puzzled by the vocabulary.Youre developing a character for a novel.You need a new word for a specific technical purpose.You are a stickler for language purity and dont want to create a hybrid word inadvertently. [See this polyamory t-shirt for more information.] The Latin Connection With English: Its confusing to hear that English doesnt come from Latin because there are so many Latin words and expressions in English, but vocabulary is not enough to make one language the daughter language of another. Romance languages, including French, Italian, and Spanish, come from Latin, an important sub-branch of the Italic branch of the Indo-European tree. The Romance languages are sometimes called daughter languages of Latin. English is a Germanic language, not a Romance or Italic language. The Germanic languages are on a different branch from the Italic. Just because our English language doesnt come from Latin doesnt mean all our words have a Germanic origin. Clearly, some words and expressions are Latin, like ad hoc. Others, e.g., habitat, circulate so freely that were not aware theyre Latin. Some came into English when Francophone Normans invaded Britain in 1066. Others, borrowed from Latin, have been modified. Latin TranslationA Biography of LatinThe Spread of LatinIndo-European Languages Latin Words in English: There are many Latin words in English. Some are more obvious than others because they are italicized. Others are used with nothing to set them apart as imported from Latin. You may not even be aware theyre Latin, like veto or etc. Latin Words in EnglishMore Latin Words in EnglishLatin Adjectives in EnglishLatin and Greek Geometry TermsLatin Religious Words in English Latin Words Incorporated in English Words: In addition to what we call borrowing (although there is no plan to return the borrowed words), Latin is used to form English words. Often English words contain a Latin word as a prefix. These Latin words are most often Latin prepositions. Many Latin words come into English with the preposition already attached to the verb. Sometimes the ending is changed to suit the needs of English; for instance, the verb may be converted to a noun. English Words With Latin PrepositionsGreek and Latin Prefixes and Suffixes For English WordsLatin Color WordsBorrowed Words Latin Sayings in English: Some of these sayings are familiar in translation; others in their original Latin (or Greek). Most of them are profound and worth remembering (in either the classical or modern language). Latin Sayings in EnglishAncient Proverbs in Pictures More - Words and Ideas: Words and Ideas, edited by William J. Dominik, contains word-building techniques for those who want to learn how to combine bits of Latin or Greek to form proper words in English or for those interested in the meaning of those word components. Latin Grammar in English: Since English doesnt come from Latin it follows that the internal structure or grammar of English is different from Latin. But English grammar as it is taught in classes on grammar is based on Latin grammar. As a result, some official rules make limited or no sense. One that is familiar, in its violation, from the Star Trek series, is the rule against a split infinitive. The Star Trek sentence contains the split infinitive to boldly go. Such a construction simply cant happen in Latin, but is obviously easy to do in English, and it works. See William Harris on how we wound up with the Latin grammar albatross.

Vanity Presses

Vanity Presses The world would be glorious indeed if authors could write then hand off the manuscript to an entity that published the book, put it out there, and made it sell. Wed come up from our deep mental state of storytelling, occasionally check on statistics, cash the checks, and create to our hearts content. We wouldnt have to do social media every day. No speaking in public. No guest blogging. No shaking hands with bookstore owners or cold-calling book clubs in hopes of being selected for one of its 2016 choices. But an author isnt allowed to just write. He is if he doesnt care how many books sell, but if he isnt writing to be read, why is he writing at all? Here lately, Ive had a rash of requests from frustrated new authors. Way more than usual. They state they have a publisher who believes in their work, and for their investment of $3,000, $4,000, even $9,000, their book would be everywhere . . . even on Amazon! So, lets define a vanity press for those of you who are not sure how to avoid these people who will take your money and not care whether you sold your first child into slavery to do it. 1) They offer an entire turnkey program so you dont have to worry . . . for a four-figure fee. 2) They try to sell you a marketing package. Sorry, but you are the marketer. And bookstores know these vanity presses and dont want to read those pretty marketing publications that supposedly go out to an eager world of book buyers. 3) The price on your book is higher than the norm. How do you know this? Because you have done your homework and look in the bookstores or on Amazon to see what the norm is. Twenty dollars for a romance paperback isnt the norm. 4) They offer payment plans. 5) Their websites talk more about how to publish than about the books that have been highly successful. Their business is selling publishing packages, not books, unless they are selling those books to hungry authors. The reader is not the focus of their business. Most of you know to avoid vanity presses. There are too many other ways to publish in which you have more control and make far more money, but like anything in publishing, you have to do the promotion. If you write a book for family and friends and dont care about how books are made or sold, then vanity press publishing might be the answer. But the next time you are in the bookstore, take a list of vanity presses with you . . . and let me know how many of their books you see on the shelves.

The Influence of Globalization as Exampled through the Silk Road Essay

The Influence of Globalization as Exampled through the Silk Road - Essay Example The roads also provided routes for conquest and violence, reorganizing boundaries. While there was a brief period of conquest such as the Mongolian invasion, during the 13th century the majority of exchange along the Silk Road was peaceful. The Silk Road provided a pathway for journeys that can be compared to today’s globalization as the distribution of information and commerce becomes a part of a system of interactions between nations. The Silk Road was the method of creating international trade before the notion of sea travel took over as a means towards expanding resource opportunities. Through international trade, a population has the potential to acquire luxury items from a distance through trade with other centers of population. The Silk Road created a connection between nations, spanning Europe in the Mediterranean Sea area, through Persia and into China and Korea, and then down into the Java area, back through India, Arabia, down to Somalia, and then back up through Eg ypt, using water routes that were not too far from destinations and the shoreline. Christian discusses the vast number of roles, such as teachers, pilgrims as well as merchants that occurred through the existence of the large numbers of trade opportunities within the ancient and medieval worlds. The trade routes provided for a complete and complex world that interconnected the African and Asian worlds with Europe, creating a great deal of technological development and influence.1 Despite modern contexts of understanding about the divisions between the West and the East, with a disconnected idea about Africa as a part of the development of Western society, these trade routes created deep influences and a great amount of world development that would eventually affect the New World as it was developed in the second millennia. Palmyra and Petra, as an example, were centers of art which flowed into the lower regions of Europe, influencing the development of artistic motifs in the West. A s well, the concept of coins for trade was developed in Anatolia, which spread through the Silk Road worlds, including the Mediterranean. There were a great number of types of items that were traded along these routes of trade, but the reason that they were called the ‘Silk Road’ is because of the rich resources of silk that were available. Silk was developed at a very early time period within Asia and became a highly valued commodity for trade. Patterned silks are available from the regions of Persia and India from the 6th century, located in tombs that archaeologists have retrieved and been able to examine for the methods of weaving. Chinese silks are not readily available for modern study and are known primarily through literary referencing from that time period.2 Many of the problems with studying the ancient world is that so much is dependent upon reports, rather than through physical and tangible evidence. Because many nations appeared to have mastered the creatio n of silk fabric after the 6th century, it is likely that increases in trade occurred after that time, allowing samples and the technology to be transferred throughout the region.3 There are a great number of examples that explain the value of silk. There is little evidence that India held it as a valued commodity, but a great number of examples that show that China believed it to have great value. Xinru

Deliberate and Emergent Strategies Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Deliberate and Emergent Strategies - Essay Example he business, emergent strategies are formed with the inherent belief that things will change in an unexpected manner and therefore, any strategy formed is destined to fail. Comparing the two, emergent strategy is more realistic and conservative compared to the deliberate strategy, which is more optimistic and long-sighted. The fact that emergent strategy provides a relatively pessimistic view of realization of the plans does not mean that planning is inherently purposeless. Instead, emergent strategy encourages the parties involved in strategic planning to prioritize their efforts and focus upon achievement of the short-term goals rather than the long-term goals as the future is uncertain. Emergent strategies might help with a future planning process by identifying milestones in the near future, and working out ways to achieve them. The potential consequences of ignoring emergent strategies would be misuse and wastage of time, efforts, and resources. The strategic plans that took so much time and effort making might never realize and even worse, the short-term plans or intermediate milestones would not be

Simple Mail Transfer Protocol Computer Science Essay

Simple Mail Transfer Protocol Computer Science Essay Electronic mail as known as email is a function of sending and received message over the internet. Basically, protocol is a standard method use by sender or recipient to transmit information. It can also be explain by to deal with email, sender or recipient must access to mail server by a mail client to exchange information by using variety of protocol such as SMTP, POP and MIME. 1.2 Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) SMTP is only use to send email, but not received email. SMTP provides a set of code that allow server to break up the email message to different parts of categories that can understand by the server and Its a kind of simplify the communication between server and email. For users, they can see the interface of their email software when writing an email message, but once the message has been send out on the internet, everything is change into string of text that can understand by the server. This string of text is separated by numbers and code words that used to identify the purpose of each section and SMTP provides these codes to let email server understand what they means. SMTP also can set up communication rules between the servers. For example, server can identify themselves and will announce what communication they are trying to perform and the other server will authorize and identify the operation, if something went wrong, the receiving server may reply an error message. The greater advantages of SMTP are simplicity and trustworthy. SMTP provides the simplest form of sending an email address between various computer and network. Users only need to enter recipients email address and type in email message to send and the email will go through a simple process from the SMTP to exchange server for the recipients computer. Since the SMTP is simple, email message can be sent quickly and easily. In addition, SMTP is trustworthy because when the outgoing message is not successfully sent, SMTP will keep trying to re-send the same email message until its successful. Since SMTP was created in the early of 1980s. SMTP was build according to basic concept of server communication, because of that SMTP consists of several disadvantages. In those days, Internet was only use by very close community that generally trusted each other, that cause SMTP has lax security holes. For example, it is easy to send email message with fake sender address. This also cause many email-based viruses spread over the internet. Although there have been improve has been made, but it can still cause problems. Most servers these days actually use an updated version of SMTP called Extended Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (ESMTP) that allow to sends pictures or music file through their email program. 1.3 Post Office Protocol (POP) Post Office Protocol (POP) is used to retrieve email from a central base where the email stored and designed to support offline email processing. When the email is delivered to the server, a remote email client will periodically download the messages from the server and filter them into appropriate users folder. Once the email has been received from the client, the message will be permanently deleted from the email server. One of the advantages of POP is once the email message is sent to the client, the message can be read immediately whether user is connected to the internet or not. Furthermore, POP is a very popular email protocol that all email clients can support it. There is a disadvantage of POP is inadequate for the mobile user. Because of email message is downloaded to recipient PC, the user will only able to access the message from one PC. According to this, POP may cause hazel and inconvenient for user to read message only from one PC. Diagram 1: POP email system 1.4 Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME) MIME allows user to transfer image, sound, and program as non-text email format attachment in email across the internet. MIME was introduced to improve SMTP in order to send message other than ASCII characters through web client and web server. Now, MIME provides the following extension to email: Non-text attachment such as video, images, audios and other multimedia messages. Send multiple objects within a single message. Write header information in non-ASCII character sets. Write text with unlimited length. Character sets other than US-ACSII. Nowadays, almost every mail is transmitted using MIME format through SMTP. Content type that defined by MIME also benefits Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) and other communication protocol in email transmission function. As MIME can support character sets other than 7-bit ASCII, languages based on other alphabets can be display correctly presented in a basic email. In turn, SMTP that only support 7-bit ASCII has the limit of languages display that only suitable for writing in English and other small number of language. Moreover, MIME allows user to send other type of information such as images, sounds videos and software program which was not possible to do so in earlier time. In additional, to identify the true nature of a file that is being used in transmission, MIME provides header information to client who received the transmission and selects the protocol to transmit data according to the header. Furthermore, to ensure non-text attachments will be transferred successfully with maximum protection, MIME used Base64 encoding to encode the non-text information into text when email transfer. Overall, these all explain the advantages of MIME bring to email user nowadays. Not surprisingly, there have been a numbers or disadvantage of MIME. For example, the encoding process of MIME may somehow increase the complexity of gateways because a 7-bit world has to encode 8-bit message. Furthermore, a multipart message could lead to passing same data to decode several time. Nevertheless, it now has to pass only the lower-level parts to encode rather than whole message to reduce troublesome. 2.0 How to apply the SMTP and MIME with ASP.NET 2.1 Requirements to use SMTP and MIME The following is the requirements to develop ASP.NET applications. The .NET Framework 2.0 A code-authoring environment A web server, such as Internet Information Services (IIS), and permission to write files to web server. To send email using SMTP server, fsocketopen function need to be enabled. Furthermore, Outgoing Traffic to port 25 by default or whichever port that use to connect to SMTP server must be allowed. Lastly, there must be a valid SMTP server to send email. If one of the above is not successful, errors message such as No connection, Unauthorized and Timed Out will be displayed. REQUIREMENT OF MIME 2.2 Steps on how to create apply and configure SMTP and MIME in ASP.NET project. 2.2.1 SMTP Open up the default.aspx code window from the project, and examine the code used to send an email. Include three imports in default.aspx to run the project and send email message. The application uses the System.Net.Mail libraries to format and send STMP based email message. Declare the variables used to contain information used in sending email. Code send buttons Click event handler, this handler capture users inputs from the page and assign to related variables, then format the message using the variable content. Server and port setting are extracted from the AppSettings contain in web.config file.

Lenovo Case Analysis Essay

Competing at a global scale requires profound brand equity. Lenovo is a well-known brand in China (as Legend) but it cannot become a global technology giant like Dell or Hewlett-Packard, by merely acquiring the Personal Systems Division of IBM, whose products are popular across the world. Normally, the key challenge in establishing global brands lies in devising the manner in which a company can position its brands in customers’ mindsets, while taking into account global competition that comes from national and international suppliers (Wright, Millman & Martin, 2007, p. 139). Lenovo has to engage in intelligent marketing to attract consumers and make itself a force to reckon with in the global personal computer industry. According to the case study, the global PC industry is highly competitive with the leading performers being Dell, HP, Lenovo and its IBM acquisition, and Acer and Fujistu-Siemens among other corporations and vendors locked in tight competition (Quelch & Knoop, 2006, p. 2-3). Therefore, Lenovo has a daunting task to create brand equity to thrive at a global scale. The Key Issues The issue that Lenovo is principally dealing with is how it can effectively enter into the global market, where it is not only struggling against the competition, but is also dogged by an incredulous market. On the surface, the deal between Lenovo and IBM seems to give the former a platform for success due to the complementary nature of the operations of the two firms and because the deal facilitates the expansion of Lenovo’s operations from China and Asia to over 138 countries in the world, where IBM is established (Quelch & Knoop, 2006, p. 6). However, in a marketing research that the company conducts among 4,000 IBM customers, the concerns raised are that the innovation, quality, and service and support are going to be negatively impacted by the takeover of IBM brands by Lenovo (Quelch & Knoop, 2006, p. 9). The grievances held by the consumers are a major undoing to Lenovo’s attempts to create strong brand equity. The criticism shows that the customers harbor negative brand knowledge about Lenovo. Brand knowledge consists of brand awareness and brand image (Wright et al., 2007, p. 140).  Normally, brand knowledge determines the directions that the brand takes and, in turn, this influences the decision that marketers take in creating a brand promise, which entails informing the public about the positive essence of the brand and its purpose (Kotler, 2012, p. 115). The competition must be addressed seriously through a brand promise, with strong product dimensions. A brand’s dimensions differentiate an offering from other offerings that are aimed at satisfying the same need by either emphasizing on product performance by introducing functional, rational, or tangible differences or by emphasizing the symbolic, emotional, or intangible factors (Kotler, 2012, p. 114). Lenovo has the chance to utilize the brand equity creation process that emphasizes on the product performance in the phase of introducing itself into the global market, while intending to rely on the latter dimension in the long run. Brand equity is created by thoroughly satisfying the presence, relevance, performance, advantage, and bonding dimensions, in an increasing order of importance (Kotler, 2012, p. 116). Profound consumer loyalty is achieved after the firm attains a market share. Companies acquire a share of the heart and a share of the mind of customers by being authentic and genuine, aspects, which lead to higher, market share and profitability (Kotler, 2012, p. 135). As much as the chief marketing officer of Lenovo states that branding is a business issue rather than a marketing issue, the brand is a matter of the perception created by product’s substance and marketers’ efforts. Alternative Courses of Action The courses of action that can be taken by Lenovo include establishing a master brand, a house of brands, synergy approach, or the strategy referred commonly as Lexus/Toyota. First, the master brand strategy can be useful for creating a brand equity for Lenovo on a worldwide scale, but there are fears that the ThinkPad influence may be lost if this strategy is adopted. Second, the house of brands approach can enable the firm to establish many brands at once, but it is expensive to market the different brands. Third, the synergy approach will let the company have Lenovo as a master brand, while the ThinkPad shall be regarded as a superior sub-brand. Fourth, under the Toyota/Lexus strategy, a premium line of ThinkPad brands are established alongside basic Lenovo brands (Quelch & Knoop, 2006, p. 9). Evaluation of  the Alternative Courses of Action The course of action that the company should choose has to address the global market conditions, while also upholding Lenovo’s desire to compete internationally. To gauge the conditions in this market environment, the company engages in extensive marketing research. The research comes in handy in helping the company to make well-informed decisions, to understand the marketplace, and most importantly, to learn about customer satisfaction and the value of goods on offer. In addition, the advantages of the primary data collected are that the respondents pinpoint their challenges concerning the use of personal computers in business, give voice to current concerns, and enable the firm to gauge the needs in different nations. The master brand option is challenging to Lenovo since the market regards it as untrustworthy. The high level of dishonesty with which Chinese firms are regarded in the rest of the world is a major detractor to the success of this strategy (Quelch & Knoop, 2006, p. 8). If this approach is chosen, building favorable brand knowledge would not be an easy thing for Lenovo, in spite of having the reputable ThinkPad brand at its disposal. The ThinkPad acquisition doubtlessly makes Lenovo have a comparative advantage in the global scope. The ThinkPad has already won a lot of accolades for design and engineering innovations since it was introduced in 1992, with some of its superior qualities being power, portability, and wireless networking (Quelch & Knoop, 2006, p. 6). The marketers in Lenovo must therefore create positive brand knowledge if they choose this option. Failure to achieve this means that even the premium ThinkPad brand shall be thought of as an inferior product by consumers. The house of brands option would make the company incur a lot of expenses in the marketing function, without necessarily achieving the desirable sales of any of the brands. The company’s CMO concedes that this strategy cannot succeed since the company had limited resources at the time (Quelch & Knoop, 2006, p. 9). House-of-brands has brands that are independent, which are somewhat endorsed by the organizational brand (Rajagopal & Sanchez, 2004, p. 238). However, the reputation of the Lenovo as an organization in the international market is not favorable at this juncture hence it cannot promote brands effectively. The synergy approach, which entails a master brand getting recognition  partially due to a superior sub-brand, would require investments to jointly build the Lenovo and the ThinkPad brands (Quelch & Knoop, 2006, p. 9). The ThinkPad sub-brand would be expected to be a co-driver in the success of Lenovo. The shortcoming of this approach is that the association might taint the image of the prestigious brand if the brands do not have comparable qualities (Aaker & Joachimsthaler, 2000, p. 15). Clearly, ruining of the ThinkPad brand will certainly end up undoing the entry of Lenovo into the global market. The Toyota/Lexus strategy will force Lenovo to establish luxury and mass market brands separately. This strategy will entail implementation of dissociated brands, with each expected to perform well within its segment. However, under the global environment into which the firm is entering, creation of a mass product is not feasible. The use of PCs has become ubiquitous and consumers are looking for enhanced innovation, better quality and reliability, tighter security, and better design (Quelch & Knoop, 2006, p. 10). To offer customers the desired product, the firm was supposed to invest in enhancing computer products, rather than producing low quality cheap products. As a result, this strategy can make the company lose its core business. After considering all the branding strategy options, Lenovo managers should appropriately consider the category membership under competitive frame of reference. Category membership refers to the products with which a brand competes and which are close substitutes to it (Kotler, 2012, p. 130). The managers should to establish points of differences that would make the company have a competitive edge. At the present, Lenovo pursues a legacy of customer focus, innovation, and dependability (Quelch & Knoop, 2006, p. 7). These aspects have a potential of making make the products it offers distinctive and superior in comparison to competitors in the global market. The focus of the company should be on long-term holistic performance of its products. A well established brand value drives brand loyalty among customers, making the company to enjoy security of demand, making it hard for new competitors to enter the market, and making the customers willing to pay a higher prices for the offering (Kotler, 2012, p. 114). The Best Course of Action According to the facts presented in the case, the adoption of Lenovo as a master brand is the best course of action. Though this alternative is risky,  it is worthy because of the ultimate good image it would create for all the brands on offer at a global scale. Making Lenovo a master brand helps to make the core products of the company to the entire world. Master or family branding is where a family brand is associated with several brand extensions. The use of the company’s brand name across the entire products’ range lowers development costs and boosts sales if the corporate image is associated with innovativeness, expertise, and reliability, which are factors that influence consumer evaluations directly (Kotler, 2012, p. 123). The company actually chooses to use this strategy with great level of ingenuity. The first global advertising campaign is signed off with â€Å"ThinkPad,† the second campaign emphasizes that Lenovo is doing better than IBM by improving the ThinkPad, while the third campaign stresses that the Lenovo master brand represents innovation (Quelch & Knoop, 2006, p. 10). Introduction of brand extension is facilitated under the master brand. New products that are introduced as brand extensions often succeed because the customers’ expectations of the new product are based on their knowledge about the parent brand and how relevant they find the information (Kotler, 2012, p. 123). Any product sold under an umbrella of a brand name develops an identity out of the customers’ perceptions of the product, the marketing activity, word-of-mouth marketing, and the individual psychological set of customers (Wright, et al., 2007, p. 140). In effect, corporate brand endorsement in the international markets reassures consumers and is an integrating force, which unifies different brand identities on a global scale (Rajagopal & Sanchez, 2004, 246). Assurance that consumers benefit from the product is vital for successful marketing. Moreover, brand equity is leveraged in a new context if the master brand makes the product more appealing to customers and its positive associations are relevant and appropriate (Aaker & Joachimsthaler, 2000, p. 18). With the master brand strategy in place, continuous success of the Lenovo brand and its extensions is guaranteed. References Aaker, D. A. & Joachimsthaler, E. (2000). The brand relationship spectrum: The key to the brand architecture challenge. California Management Review, 42(4), 8-23. Kotler, Philip. (2012). A Framework for Marketing Management, P. Kotler and K. L. Keller (Ed). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson education Inc. Quelch, J. & Knoop, C. (2006). Lenovo: Building a global brand. Harvard Business School. Rajagopal & Sanchez, R. (2004). Conceptual analysis of brand architecture and relationships within product categories. Brand Management, 11(3), 233–247. Wright, L. T. Millman, C. & Martin, L. M. (2007). Research issues in building brand equity and global brands in the pc market. Journal of Marketing Management, 23(1-2), 137-155.

Objectives And General Principles Of Mergers Finance Essay - Free Essay Example

Sample details Pages: 8 Words: 2345 Downloads: 5 Date added: 2017/06/26 Category Finance Essay Type Research paper Did you like this example? The panel of mergers and takeovers was established in 1968, in U.K, and since then has worked as an administrating body of the city code on mergers and takeovers. The fundamental objective of this body is to ensure that all the shareholders are treated fairly, on an equal basis, in cases of mergers and takeovers. The panel of takeovers and mergers is a chief body in U.K who acts as a regulator on these issues. Don’t waste time! Our writers will create an original "Objectives And General Principles Of Mergers Finance Essay" essay for you Create order The pillars/ proposition on which the code rests are: Equal treatment of all the shareholders belonging to the same class of shares. Basically, this proposition ensures the fair treatment of all the shareholders involved To enable the shareholders to make the best decision for themselves, the code ensures that they have timely information which is accurate and relevant, and may influence shareholder decision for their best interest The code also ensures that true market mechanisms are the only reflective of the prices of the security and no artificial factor affects them i.e. no false markets The board will not take any decision without prior knowledge of the shareholders. General principles The six general principles are the pillars on which the code rests upon. These general principles are basically the statements of good standards of commercial behavior. Besides, the general principles are further branched out into 38 rules, which are elaborated by their respective notes. The notes serve both to expand and explain the respective rule. The following figure highlights some of the vital rules of the code: rrrr.bmp  [1]  Adapted from General principles and rules, the Takeover Panel. Economic reasons for acquisitions and mergers Reasons There may be many motives behind the merger or acquisitions of companies. Each company may have its own set of unique reasons for going for either merger or acquisition. However, the reasons that may be common to all cases include: One possible reason behind merger or acquisition may be the consolidation of markets. The products most firms today are similar in nature, differentiated only to slight extents. The merger or acquisition may be a possible option in face of competing markets that would reduce the number of firms competing in the market and make them more consolidated. Merger or acquisition is a quick way of increasing the capacity of the firm. In addition, the acquired or merged firm both is from the same industry, and therefore would have similar expertise. No costs are incurred on training or obtaining machinery etc. Mergers and acquisitions also present the advantage of decreasing long run average cost as it begins to realize the economies of scale due to larg e scale production. A firm may feel that a gap exists in its existing portfolio and it is not catering fully to the market needs. A firm may sometimes want to counter a decline in sales of one industry by acquiring a firm in another industry. A firm may also wish to counter seasonal trends. All this can be achieved through mergers and acquisitions. A firm may merge with, or acquire another firm in a different industry, or selling products that the firms existing portfolio lacks. Another motive behind mergers and acquisitions is the forward and backward integration, towards the distribution channels, or backwards towards the sources of raw materials. In both cases, the motive is to have a stronger hold on the stages of the value chain, and may also be to restrict the supply to competing firms. Firms may also wish to have a greater access to technology, skills or sources of finances. The amalgamated firms of course have more vistas of opportunity when they operate as a single entity. Tax aversion may be another motive. Most countries laws levy more tax on idle cash than on operating businesses/assets. A merger or acquisition would not only enhance the operations of a firm and provide more sources of income, but would also provide tax exemptions. Reasons why expected economic benefits may not be achieved The potential advantages of mergers and acquisitions presented above may not offer the same benefits to all the stakeholders, and therefore a conflict of interest may not lead to benefit of all. The mergers and acquisitions are mostly from the organizations perspective, seeing only its economic gain, and therefore may overlook other stakeholders such as the customers and employees. One issue that must be addressed is that whether the management will be able to run both businesses simultaneously. Also, there remains a question whether the combined entity will be a as efficient as the two businesses operating independently. The clash of organizational cultures, structure and design further aggravate the problem and the economic benefits may not materialize. The change in the work environment, management and employee behavior might stop the firm from gaining the desired benefits. The firm must, therefore, try to arrive at a compromise which addresses the interests of all stakeholders. To sum up, the probable reasons which might stop the merger or acquisition to deliver the economic benefits that the firm may be expecting are: Human factor Difference in cultures Lack of integration Transition carried out without regarding employees sensitivity Lack of productivity due to unhappy workforce The company must have an integration plan in place for the post-merger or post- acquisition situation, to smoothly lead the transition from being a single entity to a combined one. Failure to incorporate an integration plan may cause the potential benefits of the amalgamation to transform into drawbacks and losses. To say in a nut shell, any decision to carry out a merger or acquisition should consider not only the legal and financial implications, but also the human consequences the effect of the deal upon the two companies managers and employees. It is upon them, ultimately, that the fate of the newly-merged company will depend. Part II Long term funding options available for unquoted Small and Medium Business Enterprises, and discuss the advantages and disadvantages of these funding options The following figure shows the long term funding options available to small and medium business enterprises: Type of funding Advantages Disadvantages Internal funds No accountability to third party Flexibility since there are no payment terms Credit score ratings are not affected Limited sources of finance Unlimited liability Loans bigger amounts can be borrowed Lower interest rates than overdrafts Regular repayments help to forecast cashflow Less flexible than compared to overdraft Inability to pay during designated time leads to further financial problems Overdrafts Borrowed amounts is flexible within limits Interest paid only on borrowed amounts Easy availability in time of need Quick and good source of cash backup Cannot be used for large borrowing Higher interest rates than loans Bank can ask for repayment anytime Overdrafts are secured against assets, and therefore put assets at stake in case of non payment Leasing and hire purchase arrangements Medium term funding regular nature helps plan cash flows payments are fixed, and therefore easy to plan payments Hire purchase and leasing agreements are long term commitments Variable rate payments makes it difficult to plan Stock market equity and corporate bond issues Source of cash flows finances can usually be kept for an indefinite period A Company can raise more capital than it could borrow. No repayment of principle amount Loss of Control Responsibility to shareholders for dividend payments Asset Disclosure Risk of takeover by rivals Dilution of value Venture capital or private equity Funding is restricted to the business project Venture capitalists can bring important skills, links and knowledge to your business. Venture capitalist can aid with secisionmaking and strategy In case of growth and profitability, further funding can be provided by the same investors Raising equity finance is time consuming and costly Have to provide info to potential investors Loss of decision making power Asset-based finance such as factoring and invoice discounting Small companies can usually get more cash more quickly than they could from a traditional bank loan. Asset-based lenders and factors offer a variety of services that encompass accounts receivable processing, collections and invoicing. Using assets to raise money causes profits cut. Part III Arguments for and against foregoing distribution of dividends and investing the funds saved The dividend policy always has some tradeoffs. Sometimes paying dividends means retaining little from the income. Conversely, as proposed by the director, not paying the dividends means that the profit is retained and invested. This means a lesser reliance on externally generated funds. The tradeoff should be made keeping in mind the firms objectives, whether paying dividends to the shareholders is more important, or whether investment would be more beneficial in long run.The two cases are a tradeoff between shareholders receiving dividend in short run, and the value of their stock increasing due to the investment. The residual dividend theory states that dividends should only be paid when there are residual earnings after investment purpose. However, if the shareholders are not happy with the no-payment policy, they may sell their shares to obtain an income. The arguments against the nonpayment of dividend are that shareholders are not usually pleased when they are not pa id dividends. However, if it is communicated to them that the income would then be used to finance investments projects, they might as well support the nonpayment as the investment ultimately improves the value of the firm and its shares. According to the corporate document repository  [2]  , the major reasons for using retained earnings to finance new investments, rather than to pay higher dividends and then raise new equity for the new investments, are as follows: The management of many companies believes that retained earnings are funds which do not cost anything, although this is not true. However, it is true that the use of retained earnings as a source of funds does not lead to a payment of cash. (Basic finance for marketers, 1997) The dividend policy of the company is in practice determined by the directors. From their standpoint, retained earnings are an attractive source of finance because investment projects can be undertaken without involving either the share holders or any outsiders. (Basic finance for marketers, 1997) The use of retained earnings as opposed to new shares or debentures avoids issue costs. (Basic finance for marketers, 1997) The use of retained earnings avoids the possibility of a change in control resulting from an issue of new shares. (Basic finance for marketers, 1997) Alternatives to cash dividends Dividend may be paid out in the form of stocks, and therefore is not a true dividend as it is not paid out in cash. This has the effect of diluting the share value by increasing the number of outstanding shares. Dividend reinvestment policy, DRIP, is another alternative to cash dividends. DRIP gives shareholders a chance to reinvest the money they would receive as cash dividend into additional shares of stock. DRIP is attractive as shareholders do not have to pay brokerage commission on stock purchase. Spin off shares are also referred to as property dividends in which a corporation gives out some valuable property to shareholders instead of cash dividends. The spin off shares may be shares of a subsidiary that the company owns. Past trends show that mostly spin offs are better than the parent company in terms of performance, and hence shareholders are better off. Shareholders may go for a no-dividend or low-dividend policy when it is communicated to them that for companys health and stock price, they may have to forgo cash dividends. Advantages and disadvantages of share repurchases, i.e. a company purchasing its own shares. Share repurchases reduce the number of outstanding shares of a company, thereby giving the shares a larger ownership in the company. The advantages and disadvantages of share repurchases are as follows: Advantages There is no additional tax imposed on share repurchases, and therefore it is a good way to increase the capital of shareholders. The equity/ownership of the shareholders increases and this means a greater potential of profits and dividends on shares. The share repurchases basically reduce the number of outstanding shares of the company. This is favorable as it reduces the dilution of the shares. Share repurchases reduce the number of outstanding shares. This means that a greater proportion of companys retained earnings are attributable to each outstanding share. Therefore, the EPS(earning per share) increases. Share repurchases reduces the fear from the corporate raiders. Undervalued shares of a profitable company are very attractive to companies seeking to acquire that company. Share repurchases, in effect, reduces this risk as the company repurchases its own shares. Furthermore, the future profit from these shares also goes to the company itself. Share repurchase may give out a positive signal to the public, as they may think management is repurchasing the shares because it thinks it is undervalued. Income received from share repurchases is the capital gain for a company. The repurchased stock can be resold to raise money when needed. Stock repurchases provide an internal investment opportunity to the corporation. If a firm wants to alter its capital structure, stock repurchase is an available option. Buybacks also has the advantage of eliminating minority group of stockholders. Also, it reduces the costs incurred by the firms in servicing small stockholders. Disadvantages There is an opportunity cost for every decision made by businesses today. The money used in buying back of shares could have been invested to a more optimal use, which perhaps would generate return on assets. Different financial metrics have different results of share repurchases. A buy back could result in a higher debt ratio. If the stock buybacks are issued to the companys management, the number of outstanding shares would remain the same and therefore no positive impact on EPS. If the public perceives that company is buying back its shares because it does not have any investment opportunity, this may be unfavorable for the company. Firm may have to pay penalties if the regulatory authorities such as the IRS think that buyback was to avoid taxes. A firm may end up paying a higher price for its own share if it has to bid up the prices of the shares.

Jesus Christ and Functionalist and Conflict Theory Essay

Jesus Christ sought to improve the individual, the component of society, and as result, his teaching ideally aims to advance the well-being of society as a whole. The four Gospels and the book of Acts thoroughly demonstrate the extensive sociological knowledge that was present in Jesus’ teaching. His message facilitates personal reform, rather than change in the social structure alone. Although Jesus establishes the church as a social institution, he does so, only after a number of individuals become his followers. Jesus teaches that society should be orderly. In order to understand his approach, one must first understand the functionalist theory. He conveys his message with a common language that is appropriate to the situation,†¦show more content†¦Although one may claim Jesus was a strict functionalist, his focus was more on the divine order, expressed in unity, love, communion, and oneness, rather than a caste-like system. By eradicating the individual personal ills that damage society, Jesus helped increase the body of knowledge that promotes societal harmony. His main opposition was from the Pharisees, Sadducees, teachers of the Law of Moses, and the Chief Priests, who mistook his efforts of teaching the people as a threat to their prestigious social positions. The class disparity is evident pervasively throughout the four gospels and Acts, a vivid example being the death of John the Baptist whom Herod beheaded. When John spoke out against Herod’s immoral behavior, Herod used his higher social position and authority to suppress John’s voice and as a result murdered him. John’s limited social mobility and high status consistency forced him to suffer the consequences of his actions, while Herod’s murder went unpunished by the Roman officials. Social position therefore played a significant role in influencing the lives of ordinary individuals living in the New Testament times. 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