Operation management Essay

a) Introduction The company that our group chose to study is City of Dreams Macau (COD), which is located in Macau Cotai coherent highway. COD is a diversified entertainment resort, which contains a rich set of entertainment, grand hotel accommodation, international cuisine, internationally renowned brands as well as casino. Luckily, we found a manager in entertainment and progress department of this company to help us conduct an interview. The information of this manager are as follows: Manager name: Huà ¡ dà ¬ Telephone number: 66884314 Position: Theatre Director Main responsibilities: All ticketing and frontline day-to-day operation of Atrium, Dancing Water, Hard Rock pool party, The Junyue MMA boxing matches, CUBIC ticketing and TABOO. COD’s corporate goal, as stated by Lawrence Ho, is to become the tourist resort that makes Asian and even the global tourists to have multi-day stay, and to consolidate Macau as Asia’s leading leisure and tourism center. COD locate in one of the most competitive area in Taipa, Macau. There are several entertainment resort hotels, such as Venetian, Sands Cotai Central, Galaxy Macau these competitors. COD has to keep its competitiveness to fight with them. So COD provides with some entertainments (like the house of Dancing Water, Dragon treasure, etc.) to attract the customers to come to COD to achieve corporate goal. In order to improve staff quality, entertainment and progress department also cooperate with HR department to offer training program to staff. Staffs can go for training as long as they are available. In corporate positioning, COD believes that it takes the advantage of providing something different than other competitors by implementing the differentiation strategy, for example, offering Dancing Water, Atrium to customers. COD also has high requirement on the  entertainment activities they offered. In the past, COD once thought of opening a cinema. However, COD thinks cinema is not very high-end and it will low the elegance of COD, so COD rejects the consideration at last. b) Current Operations The current operation is to provide above entertainments to customers and make sure that the entertainment activities go smoothly. The manager has to measure ticketing and frontline workings keep running. In the ticketing, the manager said COD provide 60~70%‘s ticket for internet sell, and the rest of the ticket will provide to the agent like travel agencies, these agencies will sell the tickets to the group customers. The manager said COD won’t overbook the ticket to get the maximum profit, because their shows are unique, and they care more about the quality rather than the quantity. They have to take-care some special needs person, providing convenience to them. COD tries to get a balance between making profit and remaining service quality. Show cancellation & Compensation COD sometimes face problems of show cancellation of Dancing Water and receive complaints from customers. Also, there may have some mistakes on the daily operation, so the customers will not satisfy the services and have complaint with COD. For the compensation part, COD build a compensation standard to deal with customer complains. The general approach is to take the customer complaint at first place, for example, ticket refund. However, if the compensation exceeds the company’s standard, then COD will take company’s benefit at the first place (e.g. some customers will ask for airplane tickets refund and it will be transferred to higher level manager to determine the compensation level). Also, COD’s management group will have meeting every week to discuss complaint affairs and try to analyze whether it is due to guests vexatious or they have some shortcomings. If they think that they are not doing well, then they will think of ways and make improvement. Decentralization Instead of centralization, COD tends to have decentralization because they believe that this is more effective. COD depend on staffs to help monitor  the operations of entertainment activities, so manager do not need to deliberately spend efforts on ensuring the operation of activity is smooth and they can focus on the overall operations. Staffs can directly go to their supervisor when they encounter problems. Also, manager will assign some employees who are in higher position to help monitor the lower level employees’ performance, as well as daily operation of activity. Supervisors directly ask the higher level staffs about the problems on work(e.g. do small circle of people exist and is there any employee they find that is difficult to get along with others ) in order to get a respectively good understanding about what’s going on of daily operation. Reward system There is no reward system implementing now for the staff performance. According to the interview, there was a reward system before, employee who performs well will get free coupons of restaurants in COD, concert tickets, shopping tickets, or dancing water tickets, etc. as a bonus. However, it was cancelled due to the inefficiency. In the past, company let employees to vote for the best employee, and it causes problem that employees will vote to their friends, instead of having an evaluation about who is the best employee. COD think that it cannot reflect the truth and is meaningless. Therefore, COD now cancel the reward system and use the money to hold department activities, e.g. BBQ or order take-away for all employees in the department. Training COD use decentralization to let employees help maintain the current operations. Employees have to handle problems met by them. Therefore, training is an important way to ensure staffs’ quality and performance. The manager said the COD do very well in staff training, COD provides many training courses to the staffs to improve their work quality and skills. In usual time, they will post a form that includes all the training courses available along with corresponding time schedule, staffs can decide which training course to participate in accordance with their working time. COD will try to accommodate staffs’ working time to provide training courses. If it is not possible to arrange the suitable time for the staffs, regular work should be taken in the first place. Staffs can join the training course  after finishing the work. In most of the time, COD won’t enforce the staffs to participate training courses, staffs participate these training course voluntary. But there are some training courses that are compulsory to every staff according to COD’s requirement. For example, in the future, COD will open a new show in CUBIC, and COD will arrange each employee to watch the â€Å"CUBIC† show at least once. So the staffs will know about the show and what is the process of the show. c) Opportunity of improvement Decentralization Although it is a good idea to let all employees help monitor the daily operations of activities, so manager can focus more on the overall operations, there also some drawbacks caused by decentralization. According to the current operations, employees report to manager directly if they find problems on daily operations. It raises possible problems like: (1) The quality of work may be poor because there is no clear responsibility assigned to specific employee. The monitoring work conducted by employees may not be efficient. If there are problems that employees failed to recognize, manager may not know, because employees’ reporting is the only way for manager to get detail daily operating information from employees, it affects the operation activity in the short run if the problem is not negligible. (2) No regular meeting is required for manager and employees to exchange information. Regular meeting is an important way for reporting, if there is no such a meeting, employees are not encouraged to raise problems they found. They may first try to solve the problem when they find it, instead of reporting to their manager. Therefore, some problems may be hided and it causes bigger problems if the problem is crucial to the organization. Moreover, employees may not have a very good understanding of the company’s strategy and may make inappropriate decisions without fully understanding the big picture. Reward system No reward system is implemented in current operations due to the former unsuccessful reward system. Employees’ individual performance is not linked with reward. Employees may be less motivated. Show cancellation In the interview, we asked the COD manager â€Å"What the most difficult problem that you had faced.† The COD manager answered us is the show cancellation, which is a big problem for an entertainment resort. We can find some news about COD canceled the show. According to the news, COD suddenly cancel three shows of the â€Å"house of Dancing Water†. There are a lot of audiences already booked the tickets in a few days ago, they received message from COD about the show cancel after they arrived Macau. This thing disturbs their plan. COD claim they need to cancel the shows because of the technical problems, and they will return the ticket fees, but they won’t compensate the other loss, so audiences feel angry and disappointed with COD. This thing will hurt the image and reputation of COD, it can decrease customers that want to come to COD to watch the show, and decrease the profit. d) Solution Decentralization 1) Manager should provide training to staffs in order to strengthen their awareness of responsibility. Manager may also provide some guideline to staffs about what they should do if they encounter problems. Moreover, instead of fully depending on staff reporting, manager may take time to supervise daily operation if needed. 2) Hold regular meetings for information exchange. With regular meetings, employees will have formal way to express their opinions or problems they found, so problems can be improved or solved in a more efficient way. Reward system According to the interview, the former reward system is based on the vote of employees among each other, and this would easily cause about inequity. We recommend that COD may develop a reward system for a trial using different voting method. Instead of basing on the vote among employees, the department should create a criterion chart for all the employees to be monitored by the supervisor. Once the employee performs great in some area, she/he will get a point in that part. The final score is the cumulative score of every part. At the end of one period, the entire criterion chart should present the  degree of performance of the employees, which could be the grounds to decide which employee to get the rewards. See whether employees’ performance have improved under implementing the new reward system by making evaluation from period to period. If the result is good, then company should consider implementing a reward system in order to encourage employees for better performance in the long-run. This kind of solution will eliminate some bias of the evaluation. Not basing on the evaluation among employees, monitored by supervisor will be more just to use the reward system. Show cancellation We think out some suggestions for the COD to solve this problem. (1) Develop a contingency plans. The staffs of COD must make advance notice about the show cancellation message to the customers, and then arrange the customers to return the tickets, getting back the fees. This can mitigate the dissatisfaction of customers and reduce other unnecessary loss. However, sometimes we cannot expect accidents, which are some aspects we cannot control, and it is hard to tell the customers early. (2) Second, open the other facilities of the hotel. Customers come to COD to enjoy the service and entertainment, and if I was one of them, I don’t want just go back home because of the cancellation of the shows I want to watch. So COD can open some facilities to these customers to ensure they still have an awesome experience in COD. For instance, Venetian has the In the other hand, COD can give these customers equivalent coupons, and they can spend some time in COD, and use these coupons to buy anything in the hotel. Of course, this method needs the cooperation among many involved departments. (3) And the last is to prepare a backup show. If a show has to be cancelled, customers can choose to watch the backup show. But not every customer wants to watch another show because they come for shows that they want to watch, and the cost of backup show is not cheap. Therefore, customers can also ask for refund and buy the ticket next time with a discount. e) Implementation After communicating the suggestions we made for the manager, he said that implementing our solution to the company right now was not practical. Their  decisions need to be made based on some professional analysis. However, he listened to our solution and gave his own comments about the effect of those solutions: For the decentralization part, he thinks holding regular meetings is one of the possible way for staffs to raise problems they found, but managers always need to manage so many things and may not have enough time to do that. For the reward system part, we suggested that to build a new reward system using different voting method. However, according to the manager, biases also exist if using this method. However, there will be two potential problems: 1 There is a grey area between just and unjust, and once the supervisor decides the reward, it’s complicated to say the manager will be definitely just to everyone. The bias might exist still; 2 The supervisor has many things to deal with; there might be some overlook in employees’ performance, which will be hard to monitor all the aspects. For the show cancellation part, sometimes advance announcement is not possible because of the suddenly occurred error. In other way, COD should consider the cost problem if they want to satisfy customers by providing them equivalent coupons. The cost problem also exists in the back-up show suggestion. Conclusion After the interview, we can get some information about the operations of the entertainment fields in the COD. In the daily operations, it depends on the staffs to maintain the operations and solve the problems. COD also provides some training courses for staffs to participate, but these training courses are optional, which means not every staff has enough skills to handle the difficult level operation problems. One of the COD’s selling points is its wonderful shows, these shows attract a lot of people to come. But sometimes, because of some reasons, COD have to cancel the show, which means they need some good back up plans to appease the angry of customers, and try to decrease the loss. COD is a big entertainment resort hotel in Macau. From the interview, we can find out that COD actually do a good job in its operation.

Ban the School Uniform!

School Uniform. Who actually likes school uniform? Nobody. Nobody in their right mind wants to wear exactly the same clothes that hundreds of people are wearing at the same time, in the same place. Why do people wear school uniform? Because they have to. There is no law saying people have to wear school uniform, so who says you have to? Governors, head-teachers, your parents? They all say â€Å"wear your school uniform† And why? Because they were told to wear uniforms when they were at school. It's not because they like school uniform, or that they think it makes you look smart like they always tell you- it's because they want revenge. That's all. They just want to get their own back on their governors, their head-teachers, their parents. They just can't get over the way they were treated at school, the fact that they were made to wear school uniform. On average 90% of Britain's school children are FORCED to wear a school uniform. 90%. And this number is always increasing. Think how many people that is. Hundreds, thousands, millions of kids walking about dressed exactly the same, like identical robots. Also think how much time is wasted on the uniform. Going out and buying it. Time wasted by you getting dressed into the uniform with a thousand layers-the kind of layers that keeps you roasting in summer and does bugger all in the winter-, time wasted by parents washing the uniform and ironing it continuously. Don't forget the uniform has to be worn 5 days a week, so it's not just a case of wash it Saturday, iron it for Monday†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦it's more like wash it Tuesday, iron it Tuesday, wash it again Thursday, iron it Thursday and then wash it for Monday again on Saturday. It's a never ending cycle. Not only that, teacher's time is being wasted by having to CHECK that you wearing the goddamn thing. â€Å"Why haven't you got your tie on?† – The tie you can't even see â€Å"Why have you got your trainers on?† – What difference does it make what shoes you wear? Expensive time is being wasted on this pointless matter: time which could cost your child those marks to get a better exam level. Uniform are restrictive, and in a recent survey 99% of people feel uncomfortable in their uniform. This causes them to fidget and lose their concentration. Concentration which is already at a low level. Nothing bad can come out of banning school uniform. Nothing. People will argue that too much pressure will be put on parents to buy designer clothes for their children, but I disagree. Clothes that people own now would be worn and there was no pressure on buying these so there should be no pressure to buy new clothes. Pressure is already on parents to buy the school uniform so this is a pointless point. We have to ban the school uniform for people's individuality. If we don't people will dress exactly the same all their lives, until we become one world of uniform wearing, identical robots. It's been said that somewhere in the world there is someone who looks EXACTLY like you. Imagine if there were a billion people look exactly like you? So people, join me in saying â€Å"Ban the uniform, ban it now before it is too late!† In my speech I used: * Clusters of 3 * Repetition * Use of statistics * Addressing the reader * Repetition of powerful phrases * Point of the disadvantages of not agreeing * Rhetorical questions * Alliteration * Short, sharp sentences * Ending with the main slogan

Autobiography of a Face Essays

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Communication Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 14

Communication - Essay Example One very important area of communication where I feel need for personal improvement is oral and public communication. Oral and public communication forms a major part of our lives as the communication that takes place, majority of them takes place in oral form. Thus, it is very important to focus on this part of communication as it can really make or change our lives. There are many examples in our daily lives that can be linked to this type of communication. For instance, relationship manager in a bank is responsible for approaching the customers and develop relationship with them through this type of communication. Similarly, a lecturer in a university transfers most of the data to its students by communicating orally. A politician a leader or a reformer addresses the public by communicating with them orally. However, what if a manager is not able to communicate with the customers effectively because of poor oral and public communication skills, a lecturer fails to make his student understand the topic, or a politician fails to draw attention of the mob towards what he has to say? In order to avoid this scenario, we must focus on certain aspects that can make us better at oral and public communication. Following things should be kept in mind for oral communication: A speaker should always use appropriate volume level. It should not be too low so people have difficulty in listening to you and it should not be too high. The volume should be adjusted according to the situation as for instance, when addressing a mob speaker must be loud and clear so that he can effectively transfer his message. Similarly, if we are talking to a person who is standing near us then we should talk with a polite tone. The main goal should be to ensure that everyone understands what we want to say without straining their ear or by irritating them by speaking too loudly. The speaker should be assertive in what he has to say. For

Globalization and Regionalization As The Counteracting Forces Essay

Globalization and Regionalization As The Counteracting Forces - Essay Example Globalization is characterized by economies opening up their local markets for international firms, which then creates a global market ideally open to all countries and firms. On the other hand, through regionalization countries seek to form economic blocks primarily to create preferential treatment for their firms as regards access to each other’s market as well as resources. In essence, globalization and regionalization are forces that act in opposite directions. This paper will demonstrate that the origins and purposes of regionalization are too varied and distinct to be classified as parallel to the process of globalization. Globalization and regionalization: forces in conflict In the contemporary world, various world economies have been pursuing a number of market approaches in an effort to promote their economic growth (for less developed countries) or economic stability (for industrialized countries). Regionalization, or formation of regional trading blocks, has been am ong the major approaches aggressively pursued by countries across the world. The European Union, North Atlantic Free Trade Area (NAFTA) and Association of East Asia Nations (ASEAN) are classic examples of regional trade blocks. As noted earlier, regionalization process gives more focus on certain regions rather than the global economy in general. Regional blocs tend to minimize interactions between different parts of the world, particularly in terms of trade. They in effect tend to threaten the process of globalization. Countries within a regional trade block apply a number of mechanisms to effect preferential treatment of their fellow members, thus giving them a competitive edge over non-members. One of the most used mechanisms is discriminative tariffs. Others are government subsidies, and import quotas, technical assistance (Mucchielli, Buckley and Cordell, 1998). Regional trade blocs are among the most popular the regional integrations developments that have and continue to char acterize the modern world economy. Many countries have joined one or more regional blocks. In furthering their course, members of a regional trade block may go as far as taking such drastic measures as removing both tariff and non-trade barriers between the member states and thus offer complete and unrestricted access to each other’s market and productive resources (Kacowicz, 1998). Since regional blocks are more inclined towards implementation of policies that protects the state members from global competition, it tends to obstruct global trade liberalization. As a result, trade between members of a regional trade block and non-member states suffers significantly. This evidently discourages the process of globalization. Since globalization process is characterized by the move towards free trade and increased interdependence among different economies despite of regional differences, regionalization effectively becomes a powerful force that tend to move opposite to the directi on of globalization (Mucchielli, Buckley and Cordell, 1998). When punitive tariffs are imposed on imports from non-member states, the imported goods automatically become more expensive compared to similar goods from a trade partner within the regional trade block.

Representation of Masculinity in Die Hard 2 Essay

Representation of Masculinity in Die Hard 2 - Essay Example As such, this paper intends to analyze the representation of masculinity in one of the Die Hard films namely Die Hard 2 by drawing on Mulvey and Neale readings as well as discussion by Taster. Hegemonic masculinity associates with social dominance on one end. On the other, it involves physical prowess, sexual virility, and aggression (Rzepka and Horsley 2010: 61). These are potentially bewildering images of action heroes. With that in mind, it is interesting to note that this hegemonic ideal is not only hard to create, but also implausible to keep up with for the contemporary male. Therefore, this figure that depicts powerful masculinity may only exist or embody in legendary heroes, mythical figures, and probably a minute number of males within a society (West and Lay 2003: 27). Die Hard 2 is a story revolving around a cop who cites in New York and on fine day to Christmas, he visits his ‘distanced’ wife who lives in Los Angeles. Upon his arrival, he finds her and the re st of her work mates having a Christmas party at the same building where they work (Gates 2006: 35). Coincidentally, there happens to be some criminals posing as political terrorists who invade the building demanding for petty yet criminalist favors like release of war criminals jailed in one of the penitentiary facilities around America. John McLane works as a New York law enforcement officer. He stays far from his wife and have some unsolved issues which act as part of the reasons as to why they are no longer in goods terms (Rzepka and Horsley 2010: 89). He is a masculine male character with virile physical prowess and social dominance as well as high level of aggression. Post analysis of Hollywood presentation of male genres characterized Die Hard 2 as male driven action movie that the audience understands to be one of the most visually explosive films with a macho that portrays Hollywood genres (Milestone and Meyer 2012: 50). This is because of its spectacular sight and relevanc e of the hard male body set forth by the main character. Indeed, extant studies and research from with the some of the feminist film theories puts across clearly that the body masculinity of an action hero gives the preferential tone for an action narrative (Caroll 2003: 79). Analysis of Die Hard 2 highlights that movie directors construct action heroes like Bruce Willis exclusively via their physicality and the way they display their bodies form a vital ingredient of the visual effects or excess that they offer in the muscular action cinema (Gates 2006: 58). Several suggestions show that American action films strive hard and frequently at the expense of developing the narrative, to contrive situations or instances for displaying the body of an action hero. Ideally, extant literature that examines both the hegemonic male and the action hero routinely expound on issues such as sexuality, race, class, nationality, and above all the body (Bould 2005: 59). Despite his ageing body prowes s, most reviewers, and critics alike, received the Die Hard Series with a lot of zeal and plausible applauds. This is due to his ability to withstand physical assaults with his male hard body irrespective of age at that particular time (Berg 2002: 80). You should note that masculinity change must take place

Gay Adoption Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

Gay Adoption - Research Paper Example Now gay marriage seems to be becoming more acceptable according to a poll done by The Associated Press and the National Constitution Center. â€Å"Fifty-three percent of the 1,000 adults surveyed believe the government should give legal recognition to marriages between couples of the same sex . . . Forty-four percent were opposed† (CBS News). Gay adoption actually is legal in most states, but that does not stop some states and some adoption agencies making it difficult for same-sex couples to adopt. This is despite the large number—over half a million—children languishing in foster care ready and wanting to be adopted. Those in favor of allowing same-sex couples to adopt cite the high numbers of children in foster care needing forever homes. They also claim that it is discrimination not to allow gay couples who have been deemed suitable parents, and who can provide a loving and stable home, to adopt. The courts agreed with them and laws have recently been establi shed that prohibit discrimination against people based on sexual orientation. Because of these anti-discrimination laws, many states no longer allow adoption agencies to discriminate against a gay couple seeking to adopt a child based on the couple’s sexual orientation, but that argument has taken a 360 degree turn. Adoption agencies that oppose gay adoptions say that they are being discriminated against because of their religious beliefs. Some states refuse to recognize same-sex couples’ adoptions in other states. In the end, what has really occurred is a stubborn right-wing anti-gay faction in this country rejects any belief but their own and will not recognize the rights of same-sex couples to adopt children. They refuse to budge and use every tactic they can to promote their agenda even if it means harming children. Several religious adoption agencies have claimed that since they believe homosexuality is against the teaching of the bible, they should not be require d to place children in the homes of gay couples who wish to adopt them. Todd Flowerday says, â€Å"Historically the Catholic Church has invested a great deal of its charitable efforts in the care of orphaned children, but recently adoption has become a battleground for concerns about religious freedom.  The church is reluctant to place children with parents it deems inadequate—most prominently gay and lesbian couples—and these policies often run afoul of state antidiscrimination laws.  Rather than compromise, some Catholic agencies get out of the adoption business altogether† (Flowerday). That, however, has not affected the number of children being adopted. Many other adoption agencies, perfectly willing to follow the law and to continue to match children needing homes with parents who want them, have stepped in. But, another problem has arisen because of this issue. After a Catholic diocese in Rockford, Illinois dropped its state contract with the Illinois Department of Children and Family Service, three other dioceses sued to be exempt from the law that prohibits Catholic, or any other, adoption service from discriminating against gay and lesbian couples. In fact, these adoption agencies must assist these couples in their search for a child. With the injunction in place for who knows how long, the adoption agencies in those three dioceses can continue to deny same-sex couples their rights to adopt a child. What really bothers some people is that instead of thinking of the children as one would expect the Catholic Chur

The Deliberate-Emergent Strategy Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

The Deliberate-Emergent Strategy - Essay Example 260). Five years later, Mintzberg (1990) wrote a critique of the 'design school' generally associated with the Harvard Business School where Porter was a faculty member (Mintzberg was then a professor at Canada's McGill University). Before going into the essence of the discussions, a brief explanation is in order as to what Mintzberg meant when he distinguished these two methods - deliberate and emergent - of formulating strategy, also known as defining 'long-term' organisational objectives. Deliberate strategy is a method of formulating strategy following an over-all design dictated by top management that needs to be followed more or less strictly, whilst emergent strategy is a method of developing strategy following a trial and error approach based on general guidelines agreed on by everyone in the organisation (Mintzberg, 1990). Deliberate strategy is a 'top-down' approach, the product of what he called the 'design' or 'planning' school, whilst emergent strategy is its opposite, a process of 'learning by doing' that belongs to the 'learning' or 'emerging strategy' school. Taking up the challenge was Ansoff, one of the 'fathers' of strategic planning (1965), who felt alluded to. He countered with a defence (1991) of the 'design school' and a discussion and critique of Mintzberg's 'emerging strategy' school. Mintzberg responded (1991) by categorising an earlier Ansoff work (1987) as being part of the 'design school' and built upon the basic premises proposed by Andrews (1987). Although Mintzberg (1991) agreed that both emergent learning and deliberate planning are necessary for good strategy formulation, he defends his initial position that in a fast-changing world characterised by the rise of knowledge workers, learning organisations, and ever-shifting markets, the top-down deliberate strategy approach must be balanced by placing greater attention on emergent strategy techniques. Up next inside the ring was Goold (1992), a Boston Consulting Group (BCG) consultant who elaborated upon and defended his and BCG's role in Honda's development of a successful motorcycle strategy. He acknowledged the differences between the planning (deliberate) and learning (emergent) approaches but counselled that synthesis and collaboration, rather than conflict, are most appropriate for the continued development of the discipline, a view that Porter (1996) and Mintzberg (with Lampel, 1999) supported. A thorough study and analyses of the academic papers surrounding the debate would show that, in reality, there may be no grounds for conflict as the arguments proposed by both schools seem equally sound and reasonable. To better understand why, it would be necessary to develop a clear understanding (Johnson, Scholes, and Whittington, 2005) of strategy, strategy formulation, and strategic management and implementation (or execution). Strategy comes from the Greek word strategos meaning "art of the general" and implies its initial application in warfare (Watson, 1993, p. 26). Strategic planning involves knowing what to do in the future and is also called "long-range planning", but before an

Encouraging Career Exploration among Adolescents Essay

Encouraging Career Exploration among Adolescents - Essay Example Adolescent age varies depending on gender, with girls experiencing it at an earlier age than boys. It is the age where risk behaviors appear through experimentation among the youths. During the experience, both sexes get a ray of decisions and pressure from all the sides interfering with their choices. Based on this regards, various factors affect career exploration among the adolescent. To start, career choices remain guided by the nature of jobs in the later life. When young, children tend to make decisions on future jobs depending on inspiration from their surroundings. This, however, changes during the adolescent stage where people often look for ideal jobs. This gets influenced by economic and social contextual factors forcing them to occupy new occupational paths (Nilsson, Schmidt, & Meek, 2002). The remarked transition according to psychological expert Doctor Bandura is because of new perceptions brought by ranging choices caused by many factors. This is the stage where many p eople feel they want to do more than expected hence engaging in things which go against societal expectations. They filter jobs to come up with the ideal jobs; they want to shape their careers based on job appropriateness (Hobbs & Stoops, 2002). Career decision making is a process that should be completed right from high school; however, the adolescent stage calls for a revision showing career immaturity. Consequently, the inability to make decisions also contributes to poor career choice during the adolescent stage. This is because many people in the adolescent stage feel they have the whole world in front of them. Settling on careers, therefore, remains a difficult activity which requires guidance (Gardner & Steinberg, 2005). Subsequently, migration plays an influential factor in adolescent career decision making. For instance, out-migration of rural adults creates a function of ruralist hence creating a feeling of limited job opportunities. Students in the adolescent stage found in rural areas, therefore, have problems making career choices for fear of job insecurity. The conflicting dilemma experienced by the rural youths is faced by adolescent youths, with many youths unable to judge the difference between urban employment and rural places. In this regard, youths tend to make career decisions which see urban employment guided by high income and more opportunities (Lent, Brown, & Hackett, 2002). Adolescent youths, for instance, argue rural jobs pay peanuts, and so they make the wrong decision of moving to towns while, in the real sense, urban employment pays high but is accompanied with many expenses. Apart from decisions based on rural or urban locations, career choice among the adolescent also faces other barriers. This includes qualification as well as financial obstacles. For instance, many adolescent youths hope for grandiose dreams with some wishing to be doctors while some hoe to be engineers (Gardner & Steinberg, 2005). In as much as these are poss ible, many youths in the adolescent ages fail to acquire the qualification for such careers.

Experience The Arts Essay Example for Free

Experience The Arts Essay Art has a huge impact in making our lives endlessly rich. I cant imagine, only for a moment, a world without art in light of the fact that art have such an effect on design from our most loved features. Moreover, art invigorates distinctive parts of our brains to make us giggle or prompt us to uproar, with an entire range of feelings in the middle. Art also provides for us an approach to be inventive and convey what needs be. For some individuals, art is the whole reason they get up in the morning. You could say, art is something that makes us more mindful and balanced people. Then again, it is such an expansive piece of our regular lives that we might scarcely even stop to consider. Our shoes could be look as art, as well as our clothing. General all utilitarian configuration is art. Art normally includes correspondence. Ostensibly, specialists need individuals with whom they can impart their observations. At the point when Art and people associate, numerous conceivable outcomes emerge. As an admirer of the specialty of dance it has dependably been something I delighted in viewing or enjoyed as an adolescent. In spite of the fact that dance was a sublime past time I never feel in adoration with it until I encountered another manifestation of workmanship called praise dancing. Praise Dance is a type of formal or profound dance, it is a manifestation of move in which the attention is on love. Acclaim dance experts utilize their bodies to help express the expression and soul of God. Praise Dance is actually considered by numerous places of worship to be a satisfactory manifestation of Christian articulation, as well as being regularly utilized before  assemblies to make energizing and enthusiastic environments. In some cases praise dance can be a piece of a greater generation in which a whole story is told. Praise dance, rather than different manifestations of love move, is commonly performed to a much quicker and energetic music rhythm. The dancers express the music by waving their arms over their heads, applauding uncontrollably, influencing their bodies, and moving their heads to the mu sic. It can also be an interpretation of delight that uses the human body to extend, which are express with both their bodies and their confronts, illuminating their gathering of people with the delight they feel inside their souls. When praise dance is my presence my body would shivers; while tears role down my eyes, on the grounds that they were hitting the dance floor with such power, and the message they were yielding was compelling. Besides, the entertainers were serving and worshiping through move and welcoming the crowd to give love to the lord. Praise dance definitely have to be the most excellent critical experience of art I have ever felt on the grounds that it brought me into an alternate measurement, one where I had an otherworldly involvement with a higher force. Therefore, I will always cherish those moments, since it was truly the most true, genuine, and most alive experience I have had in my life. Praise dance is in fact extraordinary, enthusiasm and daring, for one self to express an unforgiving approach to acquire art it really bring out art in undiscovered spots. I am truly convinced and idealistic that praise dance will attract individuals in a great big form of art, which would inspires, encourages and uplifts humanity all around the world. Reference: Sporre, D. J. (2013). Reality Through the Arts (8th ed.). Retrieved from The University of Phoenix eBook Collection database. www.thepraisedancelife.com

Australia For Convicts During The British Domain History Essay

Australia For Convicts During The British Domain History Essay Australia is located in the Southern Hemisphere, and it occupies the major part of Oceania. Now it is a powerful and very developed country, with a position at the top of all the standards of life conditions, life expectancy, economy and in all the social aspects. But back in time, before Australia started as a great power in the world, it was under the Great Britain domain. This is because Australia was first discovered and conquered by the British captain James Cook in 1770, and it automatically passed to hands of the British Government. The purpose of this research paper is to show the importance and influence that had in the development of the country convicts being there during this period, when they impulsed both the economy and the population in the Colony, making it a very important part of territory for the British Kingdom. First the country will be studied before it was discovered by the English, and also in the expeditions made by the Dutch in the XVII Century. As an important fact, the James Cooks discovery will be mentioned and how it led to the British Conquest of the territory. After the conquest, will be treated the development in economical, social and political aspects of Australia as a part of the British Kingdom. At the end, the role of the convicts and how they played a very important part in the everyday life during this period will be treated, and how this helped to keep Australia and an economical active place for the Great Britain Government to have a benefit from the Colony. Its important to mention that this paper was made to highlight a fundamental fact that changed both countries, Australia and Great Britain, in their future as nations. Both were changed, one was conquered, but at the end the two nations obtained a great benefit from that period of time. Chapter I: Discovery of Australia and First Expeditions Here we will speak about the first expeditions and how the country was found by Europeans, and finally conquered to end up as a Colony from the Great Britain Empire by James Cook. The Dutch discoveries: Australia long before it was discovered by the English was inhabited by natives that came from Asia and had been there for over 40, 000 years. But it was until 1606 when Australia was first sighed by the Dutchman William Janszoon. He was the captain of the Duyfken, a Dutch ship, and he called the new land Terra Australis Incognita, meaning Unknown Southern Land. Between 1606 and 1770, an estimated 54 European ships from a range of nations made contact. Many of these were merchant ships from the Dutch East Indies Company and included the ships of Abel Tasman. Tasman charted parts of the north, west and south coasts of Australia which was then known as New Holland. James Cook and the British Conquest. James Cook was an Englishman, captain and navigator that discovered first for Great Britain the coast of Botany Bay in Australia, near what we now know as Sydney. This discovery was made in his ship called the Endeavour. So, when he arrived to this coast he claimed that land part of the Grate Britain Kingdom, under the name of King George III, during 22 August, 1770. And to this land he called New South Wales, a part that is still now called like that in the eastern part of the mainland. Chapter II: The development of the Colony In this chapter will be explained the history of the country during the period of the Conquest. First, the history in years and facts about the Colony, and then the convicts, how they worked, why they were taken there and which were their life conditions living in Australia. From 1770 to 1850 On 18 January 1788 the First Fleet arrived at Botany Bay, which Joseph Banks had declared suitable for a penal colony after he returned from a journey there in 1770. So, here we can figure out how the development went after the Colony was discovered and declared, and, for Great Britain to end up with the overpopulation in the convict system and the new territory, that was vast, big and suitable to be populated. Then, the establishment changed place from Botany Bay to Port Jackson in 1788. Port Jackson is now one of the most important ports in the greatest city in the country, Sydney. On Sydney Cove, there was raised first the flag of the British Empire in 26 January 1788. During the first years the fleets of convicts arrived and arrived to Australia, and until 1868, 162000 convicts were transported to the island. As the Australian Government Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts explains in its article: When the last shipment of convicts disembarked in Western Australia in 1868, the total number of transported convicts stood at around 162,000 men and women. They were transported here on 806 ships. The transportation of convicts to Australia ended at a time when the colonies population stood at around one million, compared to 30,000 in 1821. By the mid-1800s there were enough people here to take on the work, and enough people who needed the work. The colonies could therefore sustain themselves and continue to grow. The convicts had served their purpose. So we can see that the Colony had in great part convicts, the ones that were transported to do the hard work and start the development in the Colony, by creating all the infrastructure and industry that the Colony needed to perform a place like giving Great Britain the support and help to perform the trips from the Dominant Power to the Colony. Characteristics of the Australian Life As we can see in the letter written by Watkin Tench when he was in the Sydney Cove, there are pretty specific characteristics given during the Conquest, in the conditions of the inhabitants: The nautical part of the work is comprized in as few pages as possible. By the professional part of my readers this will be deemed judicious; and the rest will not, I believe, be dissatisfied at its brevity. I beg leave, however, to say of the astronomical calculations, that they may be depended on with the greatest degree of security, as they were communicated by an officer, who was furnished with instruments, and commissioned by the Board of Longitude, to make observations during the voyage, and in the southern hemisphere. There was knowledge of every kind back there; the Colony had knowledge in astronomy, Aeronautics, and all the areas of knowledge. But also there is a testimony of the Convicts, especially one that wrote this: We have to work from 14-18 hours a day, sometimes up to our knees in cold water, til we are ready to sink with fatigue The inhuman driver struck one, John Smith with a heavy thong. Here we can see the enormous differences between the two extreme poles of the society. The first testimony is from a captain that arrives to the Colony and performs the writing about the aspects of sciences and technological knowledge, meanwhile the second one is from one Convict that its practically treated like a slave, and they were forced to work (as said in the quote) from 14 to 18 hours a day, from sun to sun, in impoverished conditions. Chapter III. Role of the Convicts in the Life of Australia In this final chapter the life in Australia as a Convict Colony will be explained, from the way they lived until the deep changes they caused in the natural land that existed before their arrival. And also here will be discussed their benefits through the Colony as a whole, pushing it to be one of the most important, just behind India during that period of colonization from the Great Britain Empire Life Conditions As we saw in the second chapter, life conditions for convicts and non-convicts varied a lot during the colonisation. While one part of the population was concerned about science and technology developed there, the segregated ones were bad treated and practically slaves. We can see in this quote from Short Story of Australia there are several characteristics that were given according to the status people had in that place: Convicts were allowed to marry, and were in some instances assigned as servants to their own wives. In one notorious instance a convict transported for forgery was followed out from England by his own wife, who brought with her a considerable sum of money which the authorities had reason to believe represented the proceeds of robberies. She opened a shop in Sydney, and secured her own husband as her assigned servant. 70% of the convicts there were English and Welsh, 20% Irish and 5% Scottish, and the 6% remaining were from India, Canada, China and New Zealand. In that population there were also soldiers, who were being punished for crimes like insubordination or desertion. Governor Phillip, during his period in the Colonys Government, created this law that established that convicts were going to work according their skills, and will act as brick builders, carpenters, nurses, servants, cattlemen, shepherds and farmers. But if the convicts were educated they could get a job in an administrative organism, or work as record-keepers. If the convicts were woman, it was said that they were more useful as mother and housewives, so they took care of the children and from the houses. B. Convicts Contribution to the Colony The transportation of convicts to Australia ended at a time when the colonies population stood at around one million, compared to 30,000 in 1821. By the mid-1800s there were enough people here to take on the work, and enough people who needed the work. The colonies could therefore sustain themselves and continue to grow. The convicts had served their purpose. As expressed in this quote given by the Australian Department of Environment, Water, Heritage and Arts, a great part of the development of the Colony was given because of the Convict Labour, and how the planners in Australia managed to create a country where the force was given that people that being trapped in prisons would be useless. When the convicts passed the million in number the transportation stopped and the prisoners were useless to the colonies, which were allowed to continue with their development as a colony, yes but with all the infrastructure and potential to become a great power when it obtained the freedom from the Great Britain Empire. Australia is now a country pretty developed, and that is classified as an industrialized and first world country. The transportation ended up to New South Wales (the most developed part of the Colony) in 1 October 1850, when it was abolished. The convicts had freedom after they accomplished their mission. Some of them went as far as New Zealand, because the freedom was restricted and they were not allowed to return to their home in Great Britain, but also a lot of them stayed there for a fresh start, and continued to work there, getting new jobs. Conclusion. The purpose of this research paper was to prove that Australia is a place built by people not necessarily with a good record through the justice, but also people that at the end accomplished their job, to create a great nation and let it walk with its own feet. However, we can discuss and ask ourselves: Was all the conditions that were developed in the colony were appropriate or even worth at the end? We can say that it was necessary for the convicts to suffer a punishment, but we have to consider if that was the right one, or if the government was being cruel with them, treating them like slaves, with no rights and also with very poor life conditions.

Eulogy for my Loving Mother :: essays research papers

Good afternoon, let me just start by saying that the kindness, support, friendship, and love extended to me and my family during this difficult time has really touched my heart- we are sincerely appreciative! During the last moments of my mother’s life she was surrounded by loved ones, as she slowly slipped away into the morning with grace and peace. I can’t begin to express how hard it is for me to stand here before you and give my last respects to my loving mother - name here. From the biography that was handed out you can recall that during the her early years in the united states she studied and worked in New York where she met and married my dad, the love of her life. They spent the rest of their days loyal and in love with one another. Unfortunately, one day my father passed away with cancer at a young age. My dad was the one who suffered the most, but my mom suffered right along with him. She felt powerless, and for my mom- powerlessness turned in to guilt and grief, a painful distress she lived with on a daily basis for the next six years. When he died part of her died! Life for her was never the same again. I was not able to completely understand her loss- until now†¦ Throughout my life my mom has always been selfless and generous- especially when it came to her children and grandchildren†¦ ever putting her self last! SHE WAS MY EVERYTHING†¦ Unlike my sister, I was the one that gave my parents their grey hair†¦ It took me longer than most to mature, and the truth is- that’s putting it mildly. Yet through all the ups and downs, and all the times I would end up disappointing her expectations of me, one thing NEVER changed and that was her belief in me†¦ because of her unconditional love I am the person that I am today†¦ her reassurance and patience made all the difference. Because of her active involvement in my life and Eileen’s she became known to our friends as â€Å"Mama†. Where ever we would go- she would go with us, that’s just the way it was†¦ she got so close to our friends that they formed their own friendship with her.

Ghost Story of the Motel Murders :: Ghost Stories Urban Legends

Prophetic Dreams of the Motel Murders This particular ghost story was told to me by one of the members of my gymnastics troupe. We had become friends over the course of the season, and she was telling me this story in an informal setting in my dorm room on a Friday night. She is twenty years old and grew up in a very conservative Catholic family in New Jersey. Later on, as I attempted to find more people who would have heard a similar story, I ran into another friend who had heard a variation of the same plot. This was a Jewish Caucasian male, nineteen years old, who grew up in North Carolina. He told me this story as we were eating lunch at a sandwich place in College Park: Back home, a couple of students from some other school came to Rowan [University] to visit some friends from high school or just party. Two of the people that came were dating and they got in a big fight. They didn’t want to have to sleep together at their friend’s dorm, so the guy went to stay at a local hotel to think things over. In the middle of the night, the girl had this horrible dream that her boyfriend was crying out for help because the owner of the hotel was trying to kill him. The dream was really horrifying so the girl woke up in sweat but then realized it was just a dream and went back to bed. But then she saw another dream where her boyfriend was yelling at her to call the police because he had just been killed by the owner and his body is hidden in white van. So the girl got her friends together and went over to the hotel to see what was going on. She didn’t find him in the room he checked into, so she called the cops, and when they came she point ed out the only van in the parking lot. Sure enough the guy’s body was in there all bloody. And this is a variation of the same story: A couple of guys from some frat back home were traveling away to some Greek chapter meeting. They were all supposed to stay at the same motel, but they didn’t coordinate it very well and two guys had to stay at a different motel than the rest of the frat. So then one guy had this dream that the two in a different motel were being chased by the manager and he was trying to kill them.

Picasso :: essays research papers

1881: Pablo Ruiz Picasso was born on October 25, 1881, in Malaga, Spain, Son of Jose Ruiz Blasco, an art teacher (1838-1913) and Maria Picasso Lupez (1855- 1939) 1884: Birth of the first sister, Dolores (Lola) 1887: Birth of the second sister, Concepcion (Conchita) 1888 / 89: Started painting tutored by his father. 1891: Translated La Coruà ±a, where his father worked as an art teacher. The death of his sister Conchita. 1892: Enters school of Bella's Arts in La Coruà ±a. His father taught him. 1895:He was an Advanced student of the Barcelona Academy of the fine arts from the age of 14 , He experimented in his youth with hardly all of the avant-garde styles current at the turn of the century, an early demonstration of his life long ability to assimilate aesthetic ideas and to work in a variety of styles. He painted " Girl with bear feet" (Paris) 1897: He transferred to Madrid for advance training ; but he was an unimpressed by his tuition, and spent a great deal of time in Cafes and brothers. 1898 : He won a gold medal for " Customs of Aragon" , which was exhibited in his native town. He painted " Gypsy girl on the beach" 1901: Known as the " Blue period" because of the blue tonality of Picasso’s paintings were a time of frequent change of residence between Barcelona and Paris. During this period he would spend his days in Paris. Studying the master works at the Louvers and his nights enjoying the company of fellow artist at cabarets like the Lapin Agile. 1903: In works such as the old guitarist ( 1903;art institute, Chicago) he created evocative portrayals of blind, impoverished, or despairing people in a predominantly blue palette. His use of blue as a motif was apparently derived from the symbolic importance of that color in the contemporary romantic writings of Maurice Maeterlinck and Oscar Wilde, whose work often derived its force from the depiction of madness or illness. 1904: Picasso entered into a relationship with Fernande Oliver, who inspired many of his pre-cubist works, such as the painting " woman with Loaves" End of the Blue Period. 1905: Marked a radical changing color and mood for Picasso. He became fascinated with the acrobat, clowns and wondering families of the circus worlds. He started to paint. in subtle pinks and grays, often highlighted with brighter tones. This was known as his "Rose period"

Marketing Principles Assignment Essay

Introduction For this coursework assignment I will demonstrate that I required a good knowledge and understanding of the concepts and process of marketing by carrying out the task given. This will be showed with examples of theory applicable to a company of my choosing. For this task examples will be related to Apple Inc. organization. Incorporated in January 1977 as Apple Computer, Inc. todays Apple Inc. designs, produces and markets media and mobile communication devices, personal computers, portable media players and sells a variety of related software. Apple’s products and services include the iPad tablet computer, iPhone handset, Mac computer and iPod music mp3 player, the iOS and OS X operating systems. The company also sells and delivers music, movies, books and applications using the iTunes Store and Mac App Store. The company headquarters are located in Cupertino, California, USA. Worldwide there are 390 Apple retail stores with reported revenue in 2012 of $36.0 billion. Marketing wise the company is been voted many times as the winner of CMO Survey Award for Marketing Excellence. Apple’s three points marketing philosophy namely Empathy, Focus and Impute have made it possible for the company to become one of the world’s most valuable brands. Task 1 Task 1a. According to the American Marketing Association (October 2007) marketing is defined as â€Å" the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large. The CMA – Canadian Marketing Association defines marketing as â€Å" a set of business practices designed to plan for and present an organization’s products or services in ways that build effective customer relationships.† The Chartered Institute of Marketing defines marketing as â€Å" the management process responsible for identifying, anticipating and satisfying customer requirements profitably† â€Å"Broadly defined, marketing is asocial and managerial process by which companies create value for customers and build strong customer relationships in order to capture value from customers in return† (Hasell, 2012) These definitions show the importance of management in marketing and how important is for a business to know the consumers needs and wants. These definitions also show the importance of communicating a message to create the awareness that would create monetary value in return. The management process of identifying, anticipating and satisfying the consumers’ needs and wants it’s called a marketing process. This process is made of four steps: 1. Analyze the company situation 2. Develop a marketing strategy 3. Make decisions in terms of marketing mix 4. And how to implement and control the marketing strategy. Examples of Apple Inc. marketing process: -Apple is using SWOT and PEST models to analyze the company situation. -Apple is targeting more the middle upper income professionals. -Apple builds up anticipation before launching a product. -Apple included a customer service phone number in the iPhone phone book for customer direct contact with Apple in case of technical problems. Task 1b. There are a few marketing concepts that an organizations can adapt. Each one of these concepts has advantages and disadvantages. These marketing concepts are: Product related – is when a company could focus on perfecting a product  and its quality. The disadvantage for being product orientated is that a company can lose site of what consumer may want and need when focusing on creating one perfect product. Production related – a company could focus on the mass production of a product. The advantage for being production-orientated is that a production line in place could bring more profit because of the low cost on producing the same product. Although low costs are possible because customers have different needs, changing the line for a different product it’s costly. Sales related – a company could try to focus on selling what it produces. The disadvantage is that the company does not know what the customers’ needs are. Market related – a company could focus on customer needs before developing a product. The disadvantage is that information could be obtained from customers who do not know what they need. With so much interest on what the customer needs, the product development can be overlooked. Societal related – a company could focus on the natural and social environment and the customer needs The disadvantage of being societal orientated is that it is rarely possible to satisfy all customers’ needs and stakeholders. The first three marketing concepts, product, production and sales, are focusing on the product. The last two concepts, market and sales, focus on the consumer. Although they all are focus differentiated, all five concepts have one single goal in common and that is to make profit. Market orientation is about collecting and dissemination of information from customers. Apple Inc. has adopted the market concept together with product orientation. Having adopted both orientation with emphasis on quality and future customers needs it allowed the organization to anticipate the need for a new product, set higher prices and make more profit. But being marketing orientated it is costly. A company has to invest in the development of the product, market research, in surveys, databases, analysts and product changes. Although it is costly to be marketing orientated there are benefits for adopting this concept. For example: – The Apple’s iPhone is at his fifth generation. Introduced in 2007, it was a product of innovation and market research. The development of the product took three years and with the collaboration between Apple and Cingular Wireless is  estimated to have cost $150 millions. According to Forbes magazine (08/2012) â€Å"†¦something that didn’t exist five years ago, has higher sales than everything Microsoft has to offer. More than Windows, Office, Xbox, Bing, Windows Phone, and every other product that Microsoft has created since 1975. In the quarter ended March 31, 2012, iPhone had sales of $22.7 billion; Microsoft Corporation, $17.4 billion.† Task 2 Task 2a. A business organization marketing decisions are influenced by macro and the micro environmental factors. Businesses can cover the inside factors with a SWOT model analysis and the external factors can be assessed by doing a PEST model analysis. The advantage of doing these analyses is the identification of opportunities and knowing where the organization is at that moment. Apple Inc. 2013 SWOT analysis: – Strengths: brand reputation and own retail stores. Combined with a strong financial performance and innovative capabilities Apple can be first on the market satisfying new customer’s needs. – Weaknesses. Apple products have higher prices. Conscious people my find them to expensive and competitors can take advantage of this factor. Recent changes in management could lead to misunderstandings between Apple In. departments and could slow down the process of making marketing mix decisions for the 4 Ps (product, price, place and promotion). – Opportunities. High demand for the iPhone 5 and the iPad products and the growth of tablet and smartphone markets. Competition mistakes like the Microsoft introduction of Vista software. Apple took full advantages of how bad was the Vista program having PC users downgrading back to XP and migrating to Apple. This can best be seen in the â€Å"I am a Mac I am a PC† ads (2006-2008). – Threats. New competitors like the Huawei in the UK phone market. Strong dollar will affect exports. Apple Inc. macro environment is analyzed using the PEST model (political, economical, social and technological). These are factors that the organization has little or no control over them and can either support or  hinder Apple’s marketing decisions. For example, in the case of the political factors a tax increase usually means a price increase. This will reduce the purchasing power of the consumer and subsequently reduce profits. Recession is an economical factor. The consumer buying confidence is usually low and high priced Apple products are seen more as a commodity than a necessity. Task 2b. Satisfying customers by treating them alike is rarely possible because they have different needs. Segmentation is about understanding and satisfying these needs by separating consumers in groups with the same needs. One of the advantages of segmentation is that the organization can position the product better within a chosen segment. Poorly done segmentation can group customers in the wrong segment. The bases for segmentation are demographic, geographic, psychographic, behavioristic and geo-demographic. Some of the characteristics for demographic segmentation are sex, age, income, and education. Geographic segmentation is based on the location of potential customers. Psychographic is based on customers’ personality and lifestyles. Behavioral segmentation is based on the consumers’ actions. Geo-demographic is a combination of the geographical and demographical segments. There are three types of targeting methods and these are: Undifferentiated – for all publics Concentrated – focus on a specific group Differentiated – for different group types To recommend segmentation criteria and targeting methods for two different products I chose Apple’s iPod and the iPhone. For both products Apple Inc. should pursue the demographic and psychographic segmentation criteria. This will allow the organization to separate and target consumers based on the amount of money they have to spend and on what they would like to spend. – For the iPod (mp3 music player) Apple should pursue the concentrated method. This will allow them to focus on those customers who like to listen to music  on the go, organize songs and ultimately buy music for the iPod with the help of additional music platform like the iTunes. – For the iPhone, Apple should pursue the undifferentiated method. With so many different features the iPhone can be used by anyone for personal and business use. Task 2c. Buyer behavior affects how organizations market their products. Cultural, Social, Personal and Psychological are the four major factors influencing buyers’ behavior. To appeal consumers’ preferences, marketing mix strategies are developed by the organizations for the target market. Positioning is a strategy with what an organization can influence the buyer behavior. The strategy could include product use, product user, price, quality, product features, product class, competitors, benefits and cultural symbol. Apple Inc. products are perceived as high priced products with some buyers’ perception of them as over priced products. To counteract this perception Apple should reposition the iPod and the iPhone products using a strategy emphasizing products use, quality, performance and features. Task 3 Task 3a. To have sustainable competitive advantages Apple Inc. products development start with generating ideas. For example, the development of the iPhone product started with the idea of interacting with a computer without a keyboard. Usually a company can have many ideas for a product and screening them is necessary. Apple Inc. screens them through evaluations on the bases like the market needs, costs and resources. Apple market research concluded that the iPhone will have no competition for its features and the benefit will out way the cost of development. The next step of the product development was the physical transformation of the concept. Testing of the Apple products is done within the company using the employees. Normally companies test their new products with consumers but Apple prefers this type of testing because of the need of keeping the product features a secret from the competitors. After the evaluation of new ideas from the employees the iPhone was produced for the market. Task 3b. To make products available to the consumers Apple Inc. has three choices of distributions: 1) Selling directly to consumers. This channel of distribution is advantageous and a preference for Apple In. for the opportunities arising from interacting directly with the customer. Apple has their own retail stores with knowledgeable sales people who can make it very convenient for a customer to buy Apple products. Another way is selling directly through their website. Both options can be advantageously used for market research for better anticipation of new customer needs. 2) The second channel of distribution is selling the products through retailers. The advantage this channel provides is the promotion getting through retail advertisements. Many retail stores will place Apple products separately from the competitors in plain view for a customer to see it first and also use Apple products more for store advertisements. 3) This channel is selling through the wholesalers and retailers and is the least advantageous. For the last two channels (2 and 3) the disadvantage for Apple is that in both cases if the chain is disrupted, Apple products will not reach the customers. Task 3c. One of the most important elements of the marketing mix is Pricing. Pricing generates turnover for the organizations. The other 3P’s elements in the marketing mix are costs for the organizations. A number of pricing strategies can be adopted by an organization. For this task I have chosen to discuss three of them for their advantages and disadvantages. 1. Cost based price strategy is when a company sets prices based on the cost of the other 3P’s. The advantage of choosing this strategy is that because it’s the most realistic and the mark up its easier to set before the final pricing decision.. The disadvantage is that in a volatile industry where costs are always changing no set price can be set and the mark up is the final pricing decision. 2. Competition based price strategy is where a company can set a lower, the same or a higher price in comparison with competitors. The advantage is that a competitive lower price can be set to attract potential  customers. This strategy disadvantage is that it is unknown the production cost of the competitors and the company may operate at a loss. 3. Customer based pricing strategy is used when a company determines the price based on what is believed consumers are prepared to pay. The advantage of this strategy is that the price satisfies the customer price preference. The disadvantages with this strategy are that customers might give false impressions and the cost of production is knot known by them hence the company might run at a loss. Customer based pricing strategies are: Penetration Pricing – launching a low price product to increase market share Price Skimming – charging a higher price to maximize profits Loss leaders – a price set low to attract and encourage customers purchasing other products Predatory Pricing – setting a low price deliberately to restrict or prevent competition (in UK this type of price setting is illegal) Psychological Pricing – making the product believed to be cheaper than it really is. (Instead of  £1.00 it set at  £0.99) Apple Inc. uses the price skimming strategy. This strategy works for them because the company segments and target customers more effectively. The advantages with price skimming are that it creates the impression of prestige around Apple products and also in case of setting the price to high it could be lower easily. It also offers an insight on what the customers are willing to pay. Although this strategy has its advantages, in the computing and smartphone industry Apple has many competitors now and price skimming might be risky with the next product introduction. Consumers have many choices now and price preference is lower. Because of changes in consumers price preferences Apple Inc. should pursue the use of penetration pricing strategy in to attract new customers and increase the market share. Although the market share will increase the risk is that it is possible to still make lower profits. Task 3d. Promotion is one of the 4P’s and comprises of sales promotions, advertising, direct marketing, personal selling and public relations. These five elements make the promotion mix and are also known as the marketing communication elements. The usage of all five elements at one time is known as Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC). To achieve and maintain long-term customer relationships Apple uses components from the IMC and the AIDA (attention, interest, desire, action) concepts. Advertisements and promotions are used to capture the consumer attention, his interest and desire to own an Apple product. Public relation is used to deal directly with customers about product issues. Apple uses direct marketing by emailing marketing messages on Valentines Day or Christmas to registered customers. Personal selling is used in Apple retail stores. Personnel can also inform customers about the products they inquiring about. One of the Apple sales promotions is â€Å" Buy a Mac and get a free iPod Touch†. Apple Inc. interest is to maximize the company impact on the consumer for maximum profits and the IMC concept is a very important tool in the company marketing strategy. Task 4 Task 4a. Known as the Four P’s, the traditional marketing mix basic elements are Product, Price, Place and Promotion. The mix of these four elements done right will result in meeting its marketing objectives for a company and satisfy its customers. Factors like marketing is far more customers orientated now and in developed countries the service sector dominates the economic activity have contributed to the addition of new Ps to the traditional marketing mix. The additional three Ps are Physical Evidence, Process and People and together with the four basic elements make the 7Ps of the Extended Marketing Mix. To understand the relevance of the extended marketing mix to service marketing first one must understand the characteristics of service. There are five characteristics of service marketing and these are: 1. Intangibility – services cannot be seen, taste and feel before they are bought. 2. Inseparability – a service is produced and consumed at the same time. 3. Perishability – a product can be stored for future use whereas a service cannot. 4. Variability – service standard  will vary because of people. 5. Ownership – in comparison with a product a service can only be used and not owned. In service marketing the service is the Product and is intangible. Marketing Price, like product is also invisible. Place is where the service is consumed and unlike a product where it is found in retail stores, a service is found in accommodation places such as the hotels, restaurants, airplanes. Service Promotions can be an extension of the original service. For example a hotel may offer an extra night stay, discount prices for other services found within the hotel or outside but the original price offer is still the same. What is seen during the consumption of service is referred to as the Physical Evidence. Consumers expect a good standard and presentation of the environment where the service is consumed and businesses will focus on the quality layout presentation. How the service is carried out or delivered is the Process. In many cases process is associated with customer service. In the transport industry often carriers do lack on the quality of it because of delays that may or may not have to do with the employees. The employees are the People and final element in the extended marketing mix and are the ones delivering the service. The extended marketing mix its relevant to all businesses that give priority in meeting the needs of customers and its more particular relevant to the service industry. Task 4b. The seven marketing mix variables are highlighted above. The traditional 4Ps are for product marketing and all 7Ps are for service marketing. Two segments of interest for this task are the hotels in hospitality industry for their lodging services and the airlines in the industry of transport for their transport services. In the hotel industry, in terms of process and physical evidence, a regular room is provided for customer accommodation and the customer may have to pay extra for other services like a massage or a drink at the hotel bar. In terms of process apart from regular room cleaning sheets and towels and concierge services a customer will not get much else for his money. In comparison the business customer will experience something totally different. A Business may reserve the entire hotel or the best room with the best view, 24-hour room service, free access to the spa and other things considered luxurious. Although the product sold is the same for both C and B, because of additional services and a differentiated process, it differs and the price is usually the first one to tell which one is which. In the airline industry, businesses provide transportation in the economy class and the business class. In the economy class in terms of physical layout, after the journey some customers wished they left their legs at home and kids never existed. Whereas in the business class, a customer can park his car, watch his favorite movie while drinking champagne. Again the product has not changed because customers in the economy and business class are moved from point A to point B with the same airplane in the same amount of time. The understanding is that businesses can afford to pay more when it comes to buying services and airlines will charge more for extra. Task 4c. Globalization and Unions between different countries around the world have made it possible for national businesses to enter international markets. When entering the international markets businesses could find many opportunities but the challenges are different and on a higher scale than the ones faced in a domestic market. Domestic marketing is the production, promotion, distribution and sale of goods and services nationally while international marketing is the same but for customers needs in a global market. In the last quarter of 2012, domestically, Apple Inc. revenue accounted for 40 per cent with 60 per cent revenue from the international markets (Niu, 2013). 40 per cent revenue for Apple means that it dominates in the domestic market. This is possible for Apple because the company has to deal with only one set of customers on which it can concentrate more effectively. Other factors contributing to this positive revenue are that Apple uses of the same policies and strategies and requires lesser financial resources. The other sixty per cent revenue for Apple, thinking in term of global it is small revenue for the company. This has to do with the fact that international marketing is more complex and more risky. It requires more financial resources than domestic marketing. Internationally, Apple  Inc. has to deal with different markets, different languages and different types of consumers with different tastes. In countries with laws and regulations of their own, for Apple it is more challenging and requires more commitment from the company in applying the marketing principles. Conclusion In this coursework assignment I tried to my best abilities to demonstrate that I acquired a good knowledge and understanding of marketing principles by applying the theory to Apple Inc. by carrying out the tasks given for the assignment. Overall my understanding now is that marketing is with us every day, next to us and even in us people. Consciously or subconsciously we are marketing ourselves as individuals every day to others. Marketing has an impact on everything and it cannot be avoided. For businesses, marketing is a strategic war plan for getting peoples attention to maximize profits. In this war business tend to aim at peoples emotions. Marketing is a discipline and is defined by social participation. But the most important thing learned I believe is that consumers’ needs and wants are always changing and marketing needs to change accordingly. References American Marketing Association. (2007). Definition of Marketing. Available: http://www.marketingpower.com/AboutAMA/Pages/DefinitionofMarketing.aspx. Last accessed 16th May 2013. Apple. (2013). Apple Info. Available: http://www.apple.com/about/. Last accessed 12th Jul 2013. Apple Press. (2012). Apple Reports Fourth Quarter Results. Available: http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2012/10/25Apple-Reports-Fourth-Quarter-Results.html. Last accessed 12th Jul 2013 Campbell, M. (2012). Apple to open up to 35 new retail stores in 2013. Available: http://appleinsider.com/articles/12/10/31/up-to-35-new-apple-stores-set-to-open-in-2013. Last accessed 11 Jul 2013. Canadian Marketing Association. (n/a). Definition of Marketing. Available:

Marketing Evaluation

MARKETING PLAN EVALUATION WORKSHEETS Your task is to describe and evaluate the marketing plan of an automobile brand and model of your choice. For the marketing aspect of your evaluation focus on a particular model not the whole company: for example consider the Chevrolet Camaro, not GM as a whole. For the situation analysis you will need to consider more than just specific model, i. e. what is the situation of GM as a whole and how is this impacting the marketing of your particular model. You focus should be primarily Canada while recognizing that for the situation analysis especially, there may be issues globally (e. . world economy) that will be relevant. These worksheets are designed to assist you in your project. Worksheets are a useful tool because they help to ensure that important information is not omitted from your evaluation. Answering the questions on these worksheets will enable you to: 1. Organize and structure the data and information you collect during the situation a nalysis. 2. Use this information to better understand your firm's strengths and weaknesses and to recognize the opportunities and threats that exist in the marketing environment. 3. Identify if goals and objectives that capitalize on strengths. . Identify if a marketing strategy that creates competitive advantages. 5. Identify and critique a plan for implementing the marketing strategy. By downloading these worksheets in an electronic format, you will be able to change the outline or add additional information that is relevant to your situation. Remember that there is no one best way to organize an evaluation of a marketing plan. The outline was designed to provide an analytical framework and to be flexible enough to accommodate the unique characteristics of the company you are reviewing.It is possible that not everything in the worksheets will apply equally to your company. You could start by reviewing Figure 2. 6, the overview of the marketing planning process found on page 62 of the text. You should also review Table 2. 2 and appendix 2 of your text. As you complete the worksheets, you should refer back to the text of the chapters as suggested throughout. In completing the situation analysis section, be sure to be as comprehensive as possible. The viability of your analysis depends on how well you have identified all of the relevant environmental issues.Likewise, as you complete the analysis, you should be accurate and realistic about the firm's characteristics. Do not attribute strengths to the firm that it does really does not possess. Being accurate also goes for your listing of weaknesses. I. Executive Summary The executive summary is a synopsis of the overall evaluation. The executive summary is easier to write if you do it last, after you have written the entire evaluation . Include a description of the product, the target market, and the need for it in the market. You should give an overview of the main points of your evaluation.Most importantly, kee p in mind that this is your opportunity to sell your marketing plan and entice your audience to read the details of the report. Company Description and Input from Corporate Strategies (pp. 45 – 54) Include a description of the company’s recent history and successes and touch briefly upon the strategy for the organization as a whole. This may include elements such as: Mission Corporate objectives Strategic Business Unit (SBU) objectives (Figure 2. 1 on page 46 illustrates the stages in formulating a strategy for the company as a whole. )III. Situation Analysis A situation analysis considers the internal circumstances of the organization or product, the external environment, competitive activity, and characteristics of the customer that may be relevant to the marketing plan. A situation analysis includes: †¢ Internal analysis †¢ Environmental analysis †¢ Customer analysis †¢ Competitive analysis A. Internal Analysis Review of marketing goals and objec tives Identify the firm's current marketing goals and objectives. State whether these goals and objectives are: Consistent with the firm's missionConsistent with recent changes in the marketing or customer environments Leading to expected performance outcomes (sales volume, market share, profitability, awareness, brand preference) Review of current marketing performance Describe the firm's current performance compared to other firms in the industry. Is the performance of the industry as a whole improving or declining? Why? If the firm's performance is declining, what is the most likely cause (e. g. , environmental changes, flawed strategy, poor implementation)?Review of current and anticipated organizational resources Describe the current state of the firm's organizational resources (e. g. , financial, capital, human, experience, relationships with key suppliers or customers). How are the levels of these resources likely to change in the future? If resource levels are expected to ch ange: How can the firm leverage additional resources to meet customer needs better than competitors? How can the firm compensate for future constraints on its resources? Review of current and anticipated cultural and structural issuesIn terms of marketing strategy development and implementation, describe the positive and negative aspects of the current and anticipated culture of the firm. Examples could include: The firm's overall customer orientation (or lack thereof) The firm's emphasis on short-term vs. long-term planning Willingness of the culture to embrace change Internal politics and power struggles The overall position and importance of the marketing function Changes in key executive positions General employee satisfaction and morale B. Environmental AnalysisReview Chapter 4 Economic Growth and Stability Identify the general economic conditions of the country, region, province, and local area in which the firm operates: Political, Legal, and Regulatory Issues Identify any po litical activities that affect the firm or the industry: Changes in elected officials (domestic or foreign) Industry (lobbying) groups Consumer groups Changes in Technology Identify ways that changing technology has affected the firm's customers: Identify ways that changing technology has affected the way the firm or the industry operatesIdentify current technologies that the firm is not using to the fullest potential: Identify future technologies that may increase the risk of product obsolescence: Sociocultural Trends Identify changes in society's demographics and values that will affect the firm or the industry (if this becomes too broad, focus on the firm's target customers): Explain the changes that shifting demographics and values will have on the firm's: Identify any problems or opportunities that may be created by changes in the cultural diversity of the firm's customers and employees:Identify any ecological issues (pollution, recycling, energy conservation) that the firm or industry is facing: Identify the ethical and social responsibility issues that the firm or industry is facing: C. Customer Analysis Review Chapters 6 & 7 There are seven general questions that marketers should ask about their customers: 1. Who are our actual and potential customers? 2. Why do they buy our product? 3. Why do others not buy our product? 4. Where do our customers buy our product? 5. How do they buy it? 6. When do they buy it? 7. What do they do with our product?Who are the firm's current and potential customers? Describe the important identifying characteristics of the firm's current and potential customers: Demographic Geographic Psychographic Product usage Identify the important players in the purchase process for the firm's products: Purchasers (actual act of purchase) Users (actual product user) Influencers (influence the decision, make recommendations) Financial responsibility (who pays the bill? ) What do customers do with the firm's products? Where do customers purchase the firm's products?Identify any trends in purchase patterns across these outlets (e. g. , how e-commerce has, or could, change the way the firm's products are purchased). When do customers purchase the firm's products? Factors under the firm's control Factors not under the firm's control Why (and how) do customers select the firm's products? Describe the basic benefits provided by the firm's products relative to competing products: Describe the degree to which customers' needs are being fulfilled by the firm's products relative to competing products: Describe how customers' needs are expected to change in the future.Describe the relative importance of transactional (short, one-time) vs. relational (long-term, ongoing) exchange processes when customers make a purchase: Why do potential customers not purchase the firm's products? After answering these seven questions, then you can look at segmentation and positioning analysis (see p. 267 for positioning analysis and position ing maps). D. Competitive Analysis (pp. 121-12,; 295, 387) Identify the firm's major competitors (brand, product, generic) Identify the characteristics of the firm's major competitors: List any potential (future) competitors not identified in the preceding.IV. SWOT Analysis: The previous analyses should have uncovered the essential elements for a SWOT analysis. This is essentially a summary of the previous findings, and its format may shed further light on the current company situation (pp. 62 – 63; see Blackboard â€Å"Things to consider for a SWOT and PESTEL analysis; also review concepts from Comm 101). A. Strengths Strength 1: _________________________________________________________ How does this strength enable the firm to meet customers' needs? Does this strength make the firm different from (better than) its competitors? Repeat as needed to develop a complete list of strengths) B. Weaknesses Weakness 1: ________________________________________________________ How doe s this weakness prevent the firm from meeting customers' needs? Does this weakness make the firm different from (worse than) its competitors? (Repeat as needed to develop a complete list of weaknesses) C. Opportunities Opportunity 1: _______________________________________________________ How is this opportunity related to serving customers' needs? How can the firm capitalize on this opportunity in the short- and long-term? Repeat as needed to develop a complete list of opportunities) D. Threats Threat 1: ___________________________________________________________ How is this threat related to serving customers' needs? How can the firm prevent this threat from limiting its capabilities in the short- and long-term? (Repeat as needed to develop a complete list of threats) F. Matching, Converting, Minimizing, and Avoiding Strategies Describe ways that the firm does or can match its strengths to its opportunities to create capabilities in serving customers' needs.Does the firm convert i ts weaknesses into strengths or its threats into opportunities? If not, how can the firm minimize or avoid its weaknesses and threats? Does the firm possess any major liabilities (unconverted weaknesses that match unconverted threats) or limitations (unconverted weaknesses or threats that match opportunities)? If so, are these liabilities and limitations obvious to customers? Can the firm do anything about its liabilities or limitations, especially those that impact the firm's ability to serve customers' needs? V.Marketing Objectives and Strategies: from your analysis, what do you infer as the company’s marketing objectives? A. Marketing Goal A: __________________________________________________ Objective A1: ______________________________________________________ Be as specific as you’re able. Objective A2: ______________________________________________________ Be as specific as you’re able. B. Marketing Goal B: __________________________________________________ Objective B1: ______________________________________________________ Be as specific as you’re able.Objective B2: ______________________________________________________ Be as specific as you’re able. (Repeat as needed to develop a complete list of goals and objectives) VI. Marketing Strategies: based on your observations of the company activity, what are the marketing strategies being pursued? A. Primary Target Market and Marketing Mix (pp. 106-109) Primary target market: ________________________________________________ Review Chapter 7 This target's primary need: Identifying characteristics (demographics, geography, psychographics): Purchasing/shopping habits and preferences:Consumption/disposition characteristics: Product: _______________________________________________ Review Chapters 8 & 9 Major features and benefits: Sustainable competitive advantage: Differentiation / positioning strategy: Brand name and packaging: Customer service strategy: Complementary product s: Pricing: ________________________________________________ Review Chapter 10 Pricing objectives: Description of per unit costs: Discount/markdown policy: Distribution: ____________________________________________ Review Chapter 11 General supply chain strategy: Intermediaries and channels to be used:Elements of customer convenience: Promotion: _____________________________________________ Review Chapters 12 & 13 General IMC strategy: IMC objectives and budget: Elements of the advertising/publicity strategy: Elements of the personal selling strategy: Elements of trade sales promotion (push) strategy: Elements of consumer sales promotion (pull) strategy: Elements of the sponsorship strategy: B. Is there a Secondary Target Market? If so, repeat the above analysis VII. Marketing Implementation A. Structural Issues What organizational structure is being used to implement the marketing strategy:Describe any changes to the firm's structure needed to implement the marketing strategy (e. g . , add/delete positions, change lines of authority, change reporting relationships). B. Tactical Marketing Activities: what is the company doing specifically to implement the strategy that you have identified? |Specific Tactical Activities | | | |Product Activities | | | |1. |2. | |3. | | | |Pricing Activities | | | |1. | |2. | |3. | | | |Distribution Activities | | | |1. | |2. | |3. | | |IMC Activities | | | |1. | |2. | |3. | VIII. Evaluation and Control A. Formal Marketing Control Describe the types and levels of formal control mechanisms that should be used to ensure the implementation of the marketing plan. Summary and Conclusions Write approximately one to three paragraphs summarizing your analysis and providing a broad overview of the key actions recommended.