Differences Between Laptop and Netbook

What are the Difference between Laptop and Netbook? So what is the difference between laptop and netbook? A laptop (also called a notebook) is computer which has been designed to be made portable, featuring a screen hinged to a keyboard. A laptop includes a battery for portable power and a touchpad instead of a mouse for input. Mini laptops (also called a netbook, subnotebook or ultraportables) take these ideas further still, creating a new market above handheld computers, smartphones and personal digital assistants.The primary characteristic of these are smaller size and weight, which are pretty similar to the average diary, as well as costing less than a standard laptop with prices starting at around ? 150, an excellent solution during the credit crunch! Mini laptops aren't as powerful as bigger notebook computers, and lack the power for big, demanding programs as well as an optical disc drive – so no CDs or DVDs. None the less, connectivity is a central focus for netbooks. Internet downloads are quickly catching up on hard media products, so perhaps it's not such a loss.In short, the difference between laptop and netbook is a netbook is smaller, lighter, cheaper (on the whole) and simpler. New mini laptops are expected to sell in the region of 5. 2 million units by the end of 2008, 8 million during 2009 and up to 50 million by 2012 – a ten fold growth. Industry analysts are torn whether or not subnotebooks will cannibalize the laptop market, some suggesting that a mere 10% market share will be taken. However, in this economic downturn, people will always look for cheaper products and with mini laptops available from ? 150-200, perhaps there is a big market after all.So is it game over for the standard laptop and pc? Unlikely; whilst mini laptops can perform dozens of tasks to identical or similar standard of larger computers, they will (for the time being) be limited by battery size, processing power and storage space, the difference between la ptop and netbook is pronounced enough not to make the former obsolete. Furthermore, when using a computer over a prolonged period of time, it would make sense to use a bigger screen and a faster processor of a desktop replacement laptop or a PC, particularly for demanding programs' such as games.And finally, similarly priced but laptops, of varying quality, are available for around ? 200-300 leading some industry analysts to believe that the consumer focus will be on functionality and not merely size and weight. At the opposite end of the spectrum, mobile phone manufacturers and providers are tapping into the netbook market with the Samsung NC10, LG X110 and Carphone Warehouse launching the Webbook – a branded laptop made by Elonex. Vodafone has linked arms with Dell with its Inspiron Mini 9, offering 3G mobile broadband contracts. Orange have followed suit with by cosying up with Asus and the Eee PC 901.

Segmentation, Target Market Selection and Positioning Practice in Automotive Industry

SEGMENTATION, TARGET MARKET SELECTION AND POSITIONING (STP) PRACTICE in AUTOMOTIVE INDUSTRY | Marketing Management| | CONTENTS GENERAL INFORMATION2 OVERVIEW OF THE INDUSTRY2 PROCESS OF SEGMENTATION6 Demographic Features7 Age Factor7 Gender Factor7 Income Factor8 CHOICE OF TARGET MARKET9 Five Patterns of Target Market Selection9 Single-Segment Concentration9 Selective Specialization9 Product Specialization9 Market Specialization10 Full Market Coverage10 POSITIONING10 Perceptual Maps11 Value Map12 APPENDIX (TABLES)13 SOURCES18 SEGMENTATION, TARGET MARKET SELECTION AND POSITIONING PRACTICE IN AUTOMOTIVE INDUSTRY GENERAL INFORMATIONCompanies cannot connect with all customers in large, broad, or diverse markets. But they can divide such markets into groups of consumers or segments with distinct needs and wants. A company then needs to identify which market segments it can serve effectively. This decision requires a keen understanding of consumer behaviour and careful strategic thinking. T o develop the best marketing plans, managers need to understand what makes each segment unique and different [1]. Companies, instead of scattering their marketing efforts, are focusing on these consumers they have the greatest chance of satisfying.Contrast of mass marketing, nowadays, marketers 1) Identify and profile distinct groups of buyers who differ in their needs and preferences (market segmentation), 2) Select one or more market segments to enter (market targeting), 3) For each target segment, establish and communicate the distinctive benefit(s) of the company’s market offering (market positioning) [1]. OVERVIEW OF THE INDUSTRY Motor vehicles are the products that includes a motor and are used to carry goods or passengers; they are manufactured according to some specific regulations and includes four or more wheels.The industry that manufactures these products is called â€Å"automotive main industry†. On the other hand, â€Å"automotive subsidiary industry â⠂¬  manufactures parts, modules and systems for the companies which produces vehicles. â€Å"Automotive Industry† is the sum of these two industries [2]. In this paper I’ll focus on the â€Å"automotive main industry†. The main products in this industry are automobile (personal car), bus, midibus, minibus, truck, pick-up and tractors. Table 1 shows the players of the automotive industry in Turkey.As shown in Table 1, we can see that automotive industry is very big in Turkey and data in hand shows that it is one of the first three industries in Turkey. Turkey became one of the biggest production area of the big automotive manufacturers on the world. Custom Union Agreement (1996) was one of the milestones for Turkey’s automotive industry. After this agreement, exportation has increased. In 1967, Turkey’s â€Å"local† automobile called â€Å"Anadol† was manufactured. With the begining of industrialization and developments in trade in Tu rkey, tradesman needed pick-ups.Then Otosan began to produce Anadol pick-ups. In 1971, because of the increasing interest in automobiles in Turkey, Renault branded automobiles began to be produced. Because of Turkey’s geographic conditions, like wide rural areas, Renault automobile, which was convenient for these conditions became very popular in Turkey [2]. Parallel to the improvements in automotive industry, the distribution channels of it also improved. At first, only â€Å" made in Turkey † vehicles was distributed in this network, but after 1996, imported vehicles also took place in the distribution network.Until the 1980s, the selling and after sales services were provided in small galleries, but then the service began to be provided in auto-plazas. After the 1990s, in Turkey, including multi-national companies in this industry, modern management ideas, quality, human resources management, production process, continuous development ideas, research & developme nt, marketing channels, customer demand analysis, lean-production, team work, production without stock, 6-sigma and just in time production ideas took place in automotive industry [2].Table 2 shows the Automotive Vehicles Park in Turkey and Table 3 shows the Motor Vehicles by Types and Provinces for the year 2007. As shown in Table 3, the province involves the biggest number of motor vehicles is Istanbul, and an interesting data is â€Å"the number of personal cars in Istanbul is bigger than the total amount of motor vehicles of each province†!!! Another interesting data is â€Å"the number of trucks in S? rnak, different from other provinces, is 5 times bigger than the number of personal cars!!!After the year 2001, the variety of products manufactured in Turkey increased. Technology, qualified human resources and globalization made it necessary to produce various products. In general, it was an obligation for Turkey’s automotive industry to use modern technology, to produce according to scale economy principles, and to be competetive in price and quality in international market. As a result, product diversification has emerged. In 2001 economic crisis, the capacity usage in production decreased until 29%, but today it is almost 86% [2].In 1993 exportation / production rate was 2%, but with the decrease in demand by the effect of exchange rates and economic crisis, manufacturers headed towards mostly exporting their products to other countries. In 2007 exportation / production rate was 73%, as a result [2] (see Table 4 in appendix). High rivalry in global automotive industry causes good improvements in technology. Every year new and advanced models are being produced. These models have high standards and customers prefer these models. Especially after 1997, importation from Germany has increased because of the exchange rate of Mark was under the inflation rate [2].In 2001 economic crisis, exchange rates was high and then importation began to dec rease. Despite the increase in manufacturing in Turkey, about 57% of the Turkey automotive industry provides its products by importation. As shown in Table 5, Renault, Tofas and Ford have bigger market-share in Turkey. Renault and Tofas has mostly personal cars-share and on the other hand Ford has mostly pickups-share in Turkey. When buses are considered, Mercedes has the biggest share. By July 2008, 55 kinds of brand are being sold in Turkey [2]. Improvements in technology made it necessary to merge for different companies in order to compete in market.As a result of these merges, quality and competitiveness increased. The leader manufacturer of * Personal cars is Oyak – Renault * Pick –ups is Ford Otosan * Trucks is Mercedes Benz Turk * Buses is Mercedes Benz Turk * Minibuses is Ford Otosan * Midibuses is Karsan * Tractors is Turk Traktor in Turkey. The leader exporters are Ford, Oyak – Renault, Tofas and Toyota in Turkey. The most profitable companies are For d, Oyak – Renault, Mercedes and Tofas in Turkey (According to Turkey’s ISO-500 report)[3]. In Turkey’s exportation list top-10, there are 4 automotive companies that show us the impotance of automotive industry for Turkey’s economy.Let’s look at from the global view: * World Motor Vehicle Production : Japan is leader, Turkey is not bad, but 10% of Japan. * World Commercial Vehicles Production : Turkey is in a competitive position but the leader is United States. * World Light Commercial Vehicles Production : Turkey is in a good position(in Europe, one of the two leaders). * World Personal Cars Production: Turkey’s share is only 0,1% in the world. Leader is Japan. * World Heavy Trucks Production: China is the leader. Turkey is not good enough. * World Buses Production : Russia and Turkey are leaders in Europe.China, India, Brasil and US are the leaders worldwide. PROCESS OF SEGMENTATION Almost 100 years passed after Henry Ford had said that à ¢â‚¬Å"all automobiles must be black† and produced Model-T. Now there is a very competitive environment in automotive industry and understanding customer needs, expectations and forecasting demands are very important factors. Market segmentation is one of the strategies to be competitive in this industry as I told before. General Market Segmentation Activities are as follows: 1) Define the market to be segmented (automotive products buyers, individual consumers or business buyers, or both). ) Decide how to segment (geographic, demographic, psychographic, behavioral segmentation) 3) Form segments 4) Finer segmentation strategies 5) Strategic analysis of segments, if needed turn to #1. Target marketing involves breaking a market into segments and then concentrating your marketing efforts on one or a few key segments. Target marketing makes the promotion, pricing, conception and distribution of ideas/goods/services easier and more cost effective. It provides a FOCUS as Porter advi ced as one of the marketing strategies.It also provides Porter’s other strategy of being the COST LEADER. According to the Kotler and Keller’s book, steps in segmentation process are: 1) Needs- Based Segmentation 2) Segment Identification (demographic, behavioral .. distinctives) 3) Segment Attractiveness (market growth, access) 4) Segment Profitability 5) Segment Positioning (Create value – proposition and product-price positioning strategy) 6) Segment â€Å"Acid Test† (test the attractiveness of each segment’s positioning strategy) 7) Marketing –Mix Strategy( Product, Price, Promotion and Place aspects) [1].In automotive industry, companies generally segment the market according to demographic features (age, income, gender, family size, social class etc. )[4]. Demographic Features Age Factor In US, automobile buyers are mostly under age 25. For example Mazda has developed its MX-3 model, having shiny colours for ages around 20 and has deve loped its 929 model for middle aged people segment. From their advertisements, we can understand what the target segment is. A Japanese company has seen that the population’s average age is getting higher and targeted the segment of these old people.It manufactures an automobile which can detect the loss of attention of the driver. Toyota has maintained a simple radio system to Carry model for old people. General Motors placed a display which has big bright letters/numbers in front of the fore-glass of car for old people. But sometimes targeting may not be stable after segmenting according to age. For instance, Ford firstly manufactured Mustang model for youngs prefering low priced sportive automobile; but then they saw that this model is bought by all age groups of people. Gender Factor Women take place in working life more than before.So the target market structure changes day by day. Increasing income of a working woman and the quick time of city life the consumption behav iour changes and also total demand increases. Automobile manufacturers develop strategies according to this new market. An investigation made in US, states that woman spends lots of money for automobiles and they have a strong effect (80%) for buying a new car and their car-ownership percentage is 49%. Toyota observed that 60% of car owners of Toyota is woman. An interesting example of Volvo is: â€Å"A woman- team of Volvo has created a concept car designed only for women in 2004.It has many properties especially for shopping-hungry women. It has a motor that sends message to the service-center when the maintenance time comes. It has wide doors opening up and down, which makes it easy to get on and off with shopping packages†. In Turkey, the woman-effect can be seen in automobiles easily. In the wide spread of automatic gear in automobiles, there is an obvious woman effect. The automobiles having child security systems draws interest of woman. An investigation made by IBS Ma rketing Research company shows that a high percentage of woman prefences for an automobile is safety properties [4].If this is provided, then women prefer small automobiles. Income Factor The motor power, accessories, chassis of an automobile shows its class. The class of an automobile affects its price. People whose incomes are higher, prefers good quality, safety, performance and comfortable models. The most expensive cars are class E and F. For example Porche, BMW, Mercedes, Jaguar, Ferrari, Bugatti, Lamborghini are among the most expensive cars in the world. B and C class automobiles are for people having intermediate level of income. There are lots of kinds of automobile in these classes branded Toyota, Opel, Renault etc.This segment of cars has the biggest percentage of sales. Some companies by modifying the car’s function and equipments, targets low-income market segment. Only for this reason, Opel has manufactured a low-cost model for its China market. Toyota Yaris is one of the economic models. Dacia company also targeted the low-income market segment with its cheap automobiles [4]. Other segmenting variables, may be used in automotive industry are: * Geographic (country, climate, state, nation†¦ ) * Psychographic (lifestyle, activities, interests, opinions, personality, core values†¦ * Behavioral (occasions, benefits, loyalty status, buyer-readiness†¦ ) Market segments must rate favorably on five key criteria: 1) measurable (the size, purchasing power etc. ), 2) substantial (large and profitable), 3) accessible, 4) differentiable (distinguishable segments respond differently), 5) actionable [1]. CHOICE OF TARGET MARKET How well does a potential segment score on the five criteria mentioned above? Does a potential segment have characteristics that make it generally attractive, such as size, growth, profitability, scale economies, and low risk?Does investing in the segment make sense given the firm’s objectives, competencies , and resources? These questions should be asked before selecting the target market. The firm must look at two factors: 1) the segment’s overall attractiveness, and 2) the company’s objectives and resources [1]. Five Patterns of Target Market Selection Single-Segment Concentration Volkswagen concentrates on the small-car market and Porche on the sports car market. Through concentrated marketing, the firm gains a strong knowledge of the segment’s needs and achieves a strong market presence. However, there are risks.A particular market segment can turn sour or a competitor may invade the segment. For these reasons, many automotive companies prefer to operate in more than one segment. A benefit of this is a company carrying fixed costs (sales force, store outlets) can add products to absorb and share some costs. Selective Specialization A firm selects a number of segments, each promises to be a moneymaker. This multisegment strategy has the advantage of diversifyin g the firm’s risk. For example Mercedes selects premium segment (Sedan model) and young and alone consumer segment (Smart model).Product Specialization The firm makes a certain product that it sells to several different market segments. For example small cars are manufactured for different market segments such as young/alone consumers and small families living in crowded cities. Market Specialization The firm concentrates on serving many needs of a particular customer group. In automotive industry there is no such example that sells of all its products only to one kind of segment. For example an automotive company doesn’t produce for only old people or doesn’t produce for only high-income people.In order to compete in the industry they also have different product lines serving other segments too. However, Turk Traktor may be an exception, because it produces tractors for people dealing with agriculture. But this must not be considered as one segment. It also inc ludes more than one segments inside, such as high income and low income customers. Let’s remember that a segment must have five key criteria. These two segments do not have the same characteristics and responds differently to different marketing-mix elements (price, place, promotion and product).Full Market Coverage The firm attempts to serve all customer groups with all the products they might need. Only very large firms such as General Motors can undertake a full market strategy. Large firms can cover a whole market in two ways: through undifferentiated and differentiated marketing [1]. Undifferentiated or mass marketing is the result of the decision to aim its resources at the entire market with one particular product. For example Turk Traktor has a narrow product line that keeps down the costs of production, marketing research, advertising and product management.As a result, Turk Traktor, owned by Koc Holding, is one of the fastest growing companies in Turkey [5]. In diff erentiated marketing, the firm operates in several market segments and designs different products for each. In automotive industry, we can say that all automobile manufacturers aim several market segments such as high and low incomed, young and old, looking for comfort or usableness, women and men etc. POSITIONING Positioning is the act of designing the company’s offering and image to occupy a distinctive place in the minds of the target market [1].Positioning is a managerial activity using marketing instruments, mainly promotional and communicational, to influence costumers’ perceptions and to secure a clear and distinctive place in their minds [6]. For an example of value proposition, see Table 6. The starting point for brand positioning is to determine â€Å"category membership†-the products or sets of products with which a brand competes and which function as close substitutes. To determine the proper competitive frame of reference, marketers need to underst and consumer behavior and the consideration sets consumers use in making brand choices.Then marketers must define the appropriate points-of-difference (PODs) and points-of-parity (POPs) (necessary conditions which should be included for brand choice) associations. POD of Lexus is quality. POP of BMW is performance and luxury with respect to performance cars and luxury cars. Because BMW positioned the brand as the only automobile that offered â€Å"both† luxury and performance [1]. Perceptual Maps Perceptual maps provide a visual picture of the positioning activity. They help you understand what consumers think about your and competitors’ brand and help you build an effective marketing strategy [7].One of the most important issues in producing perceptual maps is defining the proper range of competitive products. It has been found that perceptual maps of direct substitutes may better support positioning decisions. So, in an investigation made on Hungary automotive indust ry in 1997, they decided to include â€Å"only direct substitutes† from the medium and lower medium-sized car market in this country instead of â€Å"all† cars. As a result, after the surveys they made on consumers, the perceptual map was like that in the figure. The survey results in value-price relationship says that customers donot simply buy on price, they buy on value [6].So it is very important for an automotive company to position itself correctly. Value Map The analytical framework of the value-price relationship is often called the value-map. The horizontal axis of the value map quantifies the perceived benefits that a product provides to the customers, while the vertical axis represents the perceived price. Positions on the value equivalence line represent a balance between the value and price perceptions of a product. As seen in figure, Skoda and Lada have the value disadvantage and arenot positioned well in consumers’ minds.It is more difficult for m arketers to change perceptions than the physical features of the product [6]. APPENDIX (TABLES) Table 1: Players of the industry in Turkey (Sorted according to the ISO 500 list increasing row number) [3]: 2009 row number| Company| 3| FORD OTOMOTIV SANAYI A. S. | 5| TOFAS TURK OTOMOBIL FABRIKASI A. S. | 6| OYAK-RENAULT OTOMOBIL FABRIKALARI A. S. | 13| TOYOTA OTOMOTIV SANAYI TURKIYE A. S. | 22| MERCEDES-BENZ TURK A. S. | 43| HYUNDAI ASSAN OTOMOTIV SAN. VE TIC. A. S. | 71| MAN TURKIYE A. S. | 84| TURK TRAKTOR VE ZIRAAT MAKINELERI A. S. | 8| BMC SANAYI VE TICARET A. S. | 100| HONDA TURKIYE A. S. | 123| TEMSA GLOBAL SANAYI VE TIC. A. S| 134| OTOKAR OTOBUS KAROSERI SANAYI A. S. | 162| KARSAN OTOMOTIV SANAYII VE TICARET A. S. | 293| ANADOLU ISUZU OTOMOTIV SANAYI VE TIC. A. S. | Table 2: Automotive Vehicles Park in Turkey: Years| Personal Car| Truck| Pick-Up| Minibus| Bus| Tractor| Total| 1963| 72. 034| 49. 356| 30. 739| 7. 543| 11. 726| 50. 844| 222. 242| 1996| 3. 274. 156| 453. 796| 442. 788| 182. 694| 94. 978| 988. 142| 5. 436. 554| 2007| 6. 472. 156| 729. 202| 1. 890. 459| 372. 601| 189. 128| 1. 327. 334| 10. 80. 880| Table 3: Motor Vehicles by Types and Provinces for the year 2007 Provinces| Personal Car| Minibus| Bus| Pick up| Truck| Total| Agr? | 7. 513| 1. 945| 214| 2. 779| 2. 275| 14. 726| Ankara| 820. 355| 24. 777| 14. 922| 149. 602| 58. 797| 1. 068. 453| Bal? kesir| 103. 987| 4. 584| 3. 737| 35. 208| 11. 125| 158. 641| Diyarbak? r| 28. 864| 5. 253| 821| 11. 252| 6. 235| 52. 425| Gumushane| 4. 587| 1. 028| 116| 1. 805| 1. 151| 8. 687| Istanbul| 1. 711. 773| 63. 816| 49. 640| 447. 530| 130. 790| 2. 403. 549| Izmir| 457. 791| 14. 487| 15. 357| 150. 132| 36. 511| 674. 78| Mersin| 123. 253| 5. 679| 5. 047| 49. 872| 22. 059| 205. 910| S? rnak| 3. 326| 706| 50| 2. 085| 15. 961| 22. 128| Source: Turkey Statistics Foundation Table 4: Table5: Table 5 continued: Table 6: Example of Value Proposition [1]: Company and Product| Target Customers| Benefits| Price| Value Pr oposition| Volvo (station vagon)| Safety-conscious â€Å"upscale† families| Durability and safety| 20 % premium| The safest, most durable wagon in which your family can ride. | SOURCES 1. Marketing Management, P. Kotler & K. L. Keller, 13th ed. , Prentice Hall 2. Istanbul Ticaret Odas?Otomotiv Sektor Raporu, F. Karbuz & A. Silahc? & E. Cal? skan,2008 3. Otomotiv Sanayi Dernegi, Turkiye’nin 500 Buyuk Sanayi Kurulusu Icinde Otomotiv Sanayi Raporu, Temmuz 2010 4. Otomobil Sektorunde Uygulanan Onemli Demografik Bolumlendirme Kriterleri, Yrd. Doc. Dr. Bulent Bayraktar, 2005 5. http://www. turktraktor. com. tr 6. Segmenting the Hungarian automobile market brand using perceptual and value mapping, G. Rekettye & J. Liu, Journal of Targeting, Measurement and Analysis for Marketing, Oct 2000 7. http://hausmanmarketresearch. org/256/how-to-build-perceptual-maps/

Analytical Report - Acquisition as a Growth Strategy Essay

Analytical Report - Acquisition as a Growth Strategy - Essay Example Apart from continuous development of products and services, there are several strategies for organisations in order to achieve growth quickly. One such strategy is acquisition strategy which is often considered as the exclusive province of business for large organisations. Growth by using acquisition strategy is quicker and a less risky proposition compared to other strategies such as increasing the market or sales. Moreover, acquisition provides organisations with numerous benefits such as easier funding, complete managerial control and higher economies of scale (Mustafa & Horan, 2010). The advantages of expansion through acquisition is not merely restricted to marketing, but also expanded for attaining several other advantages such as easier finance, lower risk and increased product portfolio. The paper will analyse the acquisition strategy of Virgin Money by using techniques such as SWOT analysis, PESTEL analysis and Ansoff Matrix. Furthermore, the paper will also define the other alternatives which might be pursued by Virgin Money as a growth strategy. The paper will also recommend how Virgin Money can build a sustainable advantage by using the four cornerstones of â€Å"competence based strategic management†. Task1 Critical Analysis of Acquisition Strategy of Virgin Money In November, 2011, Virgin Money had acquired a British bank named Northern Rock which was critically affected by the mortgage crisis. This acquisition would help Virgin Money to expand its business reach in the UK banking market (Anderson, 2011). SWOT Analysis of Acquisition Strategy of Virgin Money Strengths The acquisition of Northern Rock by Virgin Money will provide easy integration of all facilities provided by Northern Rock and will have positive impact on the growth of Virgin Money. The acquisition strategy can ensure Virgin Money to make a strong presence in the banking industry of the UK. Virgin Money has the capability to incorporate acquisition with fewer disturbances an d it will provide great advantage not only to Virgin Money but also to the complete Virgin Group, because the acquisition will help to provide financial support to other Virgin Group businesses. In banking industry, it is significant for a company to constantly improve the distribution of their products. Through acquisition of Northern Rock, Virgin Money can definitely increase and improve services such as internet banking, retail banking and other facilities. Therefore, the acquisition can provide excellent growth prospects for Virgin Money in the banking business of the UK. The other advantage of Virgin Money due to the acquisition of Northern Rock is the increased source of income. Through acquisition, Virgin Money can inevitably acquire the client base of Northern Rock which can provide immediate income from them. Besides, the acquisition will also help to gain experienced employees from Northern Rock, which will make much easier for Virgin Money to implement new strategies whic h can be feasible for

Answering 8 Questions Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 4000 words

Answering 8 Questions - Research Paper Example By the time, I learnt this course in this semester I gained elucidated concepts regarding this topic. To my understanding, Labor market is a platform where the demand and supply of labor takes place. Supply consists of workers who are willing to get employed and demand refers to the employer side, who decide what type of labor is required at what price. The way labor market and product market interact with each other is very interesting. There is a dual role of both Labor market and Organizations. Labors are simultaneously suppliers of labors as well as they create demand for the products that organizations produce. They income that is earned from the labor markets by workers is used in consuming goods and services offered by the organizations. On the other hand, organizations create employment opportunities for labors and they also create products to meet the demand of consumers/labors. In this way, the cycle continues. Unemployment leads to less spending which eventually contracts the demand in the product market. Labor market is not like spot market, where there are large numbers of buyers and sellers exist. And sellers switch to other similar goods for a minute saving in cost. In contrast to that, in labor market, both employees and employers pursue for long term relationships. Normally, when price of hiring labor is high, organizations do not employ more labor. On the other hand, in order to attract more labors organizations increase the price to bring in more labor. In reality, the situation is not as simple as it is simply indicated in demand and supply of labor. Employers are reluctant to increase the wage rate for labor as it increase the overall cost of production. Internal labor market refers to that labor market in which a firm hires and places candidates on a certain vacancy from utilizing the internal sources of the organization. The advantage of this type of labor market is that it doesn’t incur

My story of growth and development Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

My story of growth and development - Essay Example I have memories of the best years of my life in school. It was my home away from home. Some of my classmates were my best buddies and I could relate to them in spite of some embarrassing situations I found myself in at school. Situations such as bunking class one day and freaking out all alone and getting into a fistfight with another student. However, these were isolated incidents. Other than these, the times in school were eventful with good happenings such as the annual drama, elocution contest and school elections.On the whole, I had a good background, except some problematic situation at home. My father and mother did not see eye to eye and spent most of their time quarrelling with each other. This did not augur well for the family and it did have a profound effect on my own views about raising a family.I hail from a conservative family background. Due to my father’s occupation and also because of lack of schools in my neighbourhood, I had to frequently change schools in the early years as my family moved from one city to another during my childhood formative years, that is, up to the time, I was ten years of age.My father was a storekeeper and worked overseas up to the time I was six years of age. When he returned and found a job locally, we found that there was no school in the vicinity, and had to shift to another city about a hundred kilometres away from my father’s place of work.I found this arrangement quite suitable as I dreaded the sight of my father.... We were in the new city for one year and returned to the city where my father worked when someone started a new school here. However, the teaching standards were not to the desired level, and I had to return to the school in the same city I was earlier. I remained in this school for the rest of my school years and completed high school here. The end of my school years coincided with my father's retirement. We shifted to a cosmopolitan city where I found a job and also continued to do my college. I chose the arts stream as I always had fascination for literature. My years in college were not as carefree as my time in school. I had responsibilities. I had to pay my college fees and also give part of my income to my mother. I worked for a small automobile company where they manufactured mirrors for automobiles. It was a part time job, and I had enough time to attend college lectures and cover up the lessons on my own later on. The remuneration was not to my expectation but it was modest and I had some money left over to use as out of pocket expenses after paying my fees and giving some money to my mother. This was not entirely due to my salary as I was also receiving financial assistance from a church group in the neighborhood whom I had befriended (Growth and Development). In the meantime, my father returned to the city where he had worked previously. He could not adjust to the working conditions in the new place and also the situation at home was turning bad to worse for him. The children were growing up and challenging him when he picked fights with my mother. We could do without him. He returned to his earlier abode where he stayed till his

Developing Professional Practice Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Developing Professional Practice - Essay Example The new large scale retailers took three forms: department stores, co-operative societies and multiple chains (Jenkins, Johnson and Watson, 1997, p.1). It is estimated to boost in size by 15% in the next five years. UK retail industry contributes towards the 8% of the UK’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), which involves mounting success of UK retailers overseas and the growth of e-commerce which accomplishes far beyond borders of United Kingdom. It also accounted for 4.5 million part-time and full-time equivalent jobs (Hillingdon, 2012, p.1). Hypermarkets like Asda and Tesco are proficient to capture wide customer base due to their diversified offerings. Along with Asda and Tesco, Morrison and Sainsbury’s also accounted for a market share of more than 80% of retail food sales in the United Kingdom. Travis Perkins Plc operates as a builder’s merchant and home improvement retailer in the United Kingdom. It is a leading company in the builders’ merchant and home improvement markets and is the largest supplier of building materials in the United Kingdom. ... This report will focus on the core structural elements of the retail industry and the main challenges currently facing by the retail industry in the United Kingdom. Core Structural Elements The core structural element of the Retail industry in the United Kingdom comprises of the key players who have captured a broad customer base because of their diversified offerings. To name a few, these were Tesco, Asda, Travis Perkins plc, J Sainsbury plc, Co-operative Group Ltd, Marks & Spencer Group plc and HMV Group plc. There are also recent developments experienced in the retail industry and because of such developments the UK retailers are considered to be the largest retailers in the world. Key Stakeholders In United Kingdom, the key players in the retail sector were Tesco plc, Asda, Travis Perkins plc, J Sainsbury plc, Co-operative Group Ltd, Marks & Spencer Group plc and HMV Group plc. Tesco plc is an international supermarket chain based in United Kingdom. It has acquired first position in UK retail market. The core purpose of the company is to create value for the customers in order to receive their lifetime loyalty. It is the largest British retailer by both domestic market share and global sales. The main product of the company includes financial services, groceries, life insurance and telecom. Their strategies involve looking after employees of the company so that they can serve the customers in a better way. It accounts for 42.8 billion pounds in terms of revenue and 2,480 million pound in terms of trading profit (Annual Report, 2012, p.1). Travis Perkins plc operates as a builder’s merchant and home improvement retailer in the United Kingdom. The purpose for the existence of Travis Perkins is to create wealth for the

Compare and contrast the various diagramming techniques used in UML2.0 Essay

Compare and contrast the various diagramming techniques used in UML2.0 - Essay Example UML2.0 is a version of Unified modeling Language which is was develops to use graphic notations and modeling techniques to develop various visual models that are built and applied within systems to facilitate business activities. This paper gives a critical analysis, discussion and comparison of the various diagramming techniques and how they are used within UML2.0 to design and model systems. The various diagraming techniques are explained through illustrations or examples to demonstrate their similarities and differences. There are two major categories of diagrams in the UML2.0 system design and modeling techniques. These are structure and behavior diagrams which represent structural information and behavior of systems respectively. In each of the two major UML2.0 diagraming techniques are seven diagrams which represent various aspects of systems. Therefore, there is a total of fourteen diagrams which are used in the design and modeling techniques of UML2.0. Figure 1 below represen ts an overview of the two categories of diagrams which the UML2.0 design and modeling techniques employs to develop visual systems2. Figure 1: UML2.0 Diagramming All the diagrams under structural diagraming techniques of UML2.0 are similar in the fact that they all represent structural information. ... However, four of the behavior diagrams are used to depict the interactions which exist among different systems. The common similarity of the UML diagrams in system design and modeling is the elements which they contain. In UML2.0 based design and modeling, the elements of a system are depicted in the diagram in defining the structure and model of the system as a whole3. The elements which are composed in the UML2.0 diagramming include actors, business activities, business processes, UML statements, database schemas, software components and logical components. Each of the elements of UML2.0 diagramming plays different roles in communicating the structure and design of the system model. In addition the diagrams within the UML.0 diagramming are basically used to visualize what the system will look like in real application after it has been constructed or installed. Through these diagrams, the required modifications to systems are explained and designed. This is because of the common fea ture of UML2.0 diagramming which ensures that standards are used to specify the details of design and structure of various systems. The diagrams used in UML2.0 mediated system design and modeling are aimed at ensuring the efficiency and effectiveness of systems is ascertained before they are actually built or constructed. The diagrams used in UML2.0 mediated system design and modeling are also similar in the fact that they combine different techniques in achieving the desired design and models of systems. The techniques which are employed by the UML2.0 diagraming techniques include data and business modeling. Entity relationship diagrams are specifically employed in data modeling within the

To what extent did Britain experience a 'cultural revolution' in the Essay

To what extent did Britain experience a 'cultural revolution' in the 1960s - Essay Example The Acts of parliament led to divorce, homosexuality and abortion thus declining the social standards. For instance, National Health Service Act of 1967 allowed for the local authorities to provide free contraceptive pills to women thus leading to secular Britain. The sixties is considered a period when the old framework of morality, authority and discipline in the society disintegrated and led to disrespect of law and order, decline in family values and tuneful music (Moore-Gilbert 1992). The Cultural Revolution was characterized by youthful culture, idealism. Protests, triumph of Afro-American models, changes in sexual behaviours such as gay liberation, and the emergence of new music. It is evident that Swinging Sixties changed British moral standards from Christian based virtues to more secular virtues due to legalisation of homosexuality and abortion (Sandbrook 2007). The technological development in music production technologies led to new music genres such as hard rock and new dressing styles that included unkempt long hair, afro hairstyle and sideburns. Premarital sex and commercialisation of pornography and nudity in television advertisements later led to emergency of sexually transmitted diseases, abortions and high divorce rates (Ferris 1993). The Cultural Revolution was evident in new dressing styles. Some fashion trends include new hairstyles like the beatle boots and mop-top haircut. The hippie movement also introduced bell-bottom jeans, paisley prints and batik fabrics that were common with the youth. In addition, mini-skirts were introduced and bikini family featured in the beach party film in 1963 (Marr 2008). Men also introduced new hairstyles that included crew cut, flattop hairstyle and longer parted hairstyles with sideburns. African women preferred the afro while other mainstream hairstyles included chignon hairstyle, twiggy and beehive hairdos (Marwick 1998). In my opinion, it is evident that the Cultural Revolution led to new fashion desi gns and fashion consciousness among British youth. The youthful population wanted casual wear that displayed their identity of being cool and trendy thus replicating with anti-social behaviours like drug abuse (Marr 2008). The Cultural Revolution is evident in the music industry. In the 1950s, Britain relied entirely on American music but Beatles ventured in American market in 1960s thus making Britain a centre of fashion and music. Many youths admired Beatlemania as pop music erupted with energy thus leading to cultural shifts. The Rolling stones band utilized sexy drawl and feminine pout that drew huge crowds to music concerts. Another striking aspect of the music was unkempt style and wild wear clothing. New music stars such as Cilla Black, Adam Faith and Cliff Richard emerged during the Cultural Revolution. The Zombies, the Animals and Dusty Springfield mainly used protest music that combined new fashion trends and youthful culture thus appealing to the US audience (Moore-Gilber t 1992). In addition, psychedelic music was common in order to enhance the experiences of hallucinogenic drugs while the traditional progressive folk bands shifted to rock and pop music (Sandbrook 2007). Heavy metal music started to gain audience in later 1960s and become popular in the next decade. Carnaby Street in London was

Comparing and Contrasting Economic Ideas Essay Example for Free

Comparing and Contrasting Economic Ideas Essay Introduction – As individual leaders in modern economic thinking and attitude, economists Milton Friedman and John Maynard Keynes was hailed and criticized by many different individuals and institutions because of their contribution to global economy attitudes as well as because of the sometimes very radical ways that the two required of economic leaders to resort to so that they can follow the economic model that either Friedman and Keynes designed. Both are right and wrong when it comes to understanding economy and providing a solution which can be used to unlock the mysteries of the changing economic dilemma that the world experiences which requires the input of economists. And during their time, Friedman and Keynes enjoyed the god-like loft from which they stood, one at a time, when the world was bowing to the economic thoughts that they made. Similarities: Friedman and Keynes economic thoughts meet in the middle While Friedmans and Keynes thoughts and focus on economics have inherent differences, some observers believe that the two economic ideas espoused by Friedman and Keynes also have some similarities. For one, the two economists and their ideas are in agreement when it comes to the stable growth rate of money supply and its role in fluctuation and employment[1]. Also, the two were inherently economist in inclination they stand on similar grounds even if it means digging and building that ground using different shovels and different strokes. Second, the economic ideas of the two individuals share the similar characterisitcs of being popular and widely used and regarded before the ensuing change in political landscape made the idea of obsolete and useless; for Keynes and his economic idea about the role of the state in economic leadership, the flowering of his idea came after the world, particularly the US, felt the squeeze to the economy after the two world wars and the occurrence of the Great Depression, his idea ultimately subsiding by the time the world came closer and closer to the 80s. For Friedman, his economic idea got its turn after it proved having the solution to the problem the Keynes model cannot answer, and after enjoying his moment in the spotlight for some years, the global crisis that engulfed the world pushed Friedman’s ideas closer and closer to the trash bin. Friedman and Keynes and their ideas share the similar pace when it comes to public acceptance, as well as the same characteristic that their ideas each are pets of US presidents; former US president Richard Nixon was a Keynesian while another former US president, Ronal Reagan implemented a Friedman approach in economics[2]. Another similarity in the economic idea of Friedman and Keynes is that their ideas allowed for the identification of an entity or institution or idea that was the reason for the failure of the economy. Take for example the Great Depression, for those adhering to the Keynesian belief in economics, they are inclined to believe that there is someone or something at fault why such occurrence happened, and that is the idea of free market. Friedman thinking will also lead the individual towards the same belief of having someone or something at fault, and that is the Federal Reserve, so far as Friedman economic thinking is concerned. Another similarity shared by Keynes and Friedman and their attack and pattern in developing economic thought and assuring the audience needed for the establishment of the popularity and acceptance of their particular economic thought is the manner by which their economic thoughts and ideas were built and spread around those who will either criticize or embrace it. Wood (1991) explained, â€Å"The most surprising aspect of Friedman’s achievements is that he has not to a greater extent earned the gratitude of the profession. To a large degree this is due to the sharply critical form in which he has presented his ideas.†[3] In his attacks on the positions of other he has at times tended to depart from the more careful and guarded way in which he typically presents his own results. This has assured him of a wide audience, because it is often easier to attract adherents to a revolution in thinking even a counter-revolution than to a less dramatic evolution of a hypothesis. This is a characteristic which Friedman shares with Keynes and explains why both have been at the same time highly controversial and highly successful in the development of economic thought. Economists in a head-on collision – Despite the similarities found in Friedman and Keynes and their thoughts and the pacing and social acceptance lifespan of their ideas, Friedman and Keynes and their ideas in economies are more accepted, criticized and reviewed because of how the two ideas find contrasting points against the other. They and their ideas have significant differences that they are described sometimes as the great polarizers of the economy and the economic belief and attitude. For Friedman, Keynes was incorrect about the idea of the state and its active role in dictating the economy. For Friedman, the more suitable solution is for the state to know that its role in the economy is focused on ensuring the growth of money supply. Friedman stressed the importance of monetary policy versus the idea of Keynes and the role of state spending. Friedman also challenged the manner by which Keynes explained the behavior of the consumer especially during the cases of inflation and the ensuing unemployment[4]. The Keynes-Friedman Showdown While it is understandable how there will be purely separate groups that support the thoughts of Keynes and the economic thinking of Friedman, there are instances that the two modern day economic thinkers figure in colossal showdowns (which is not of their doing, of course, but the doing of other people and institutions particularly award giving bodies that set out to identify who is the best between the two). An example of these instances is the during the time globally popular and highly respected weekly glossy magazine TIME undertook the task of naming the recipient of the Economist of the Century honor to wrap up the end of the twentieth century[5]. Skousen (2001) wrote about how the members of the selecting group were torn between Friedman and Keynes, and how Friedman ultimately bested Keynes despite the fact that some TIME magazine staff, including editor in chief Norman Pearlstine, believed that the award should go to Keynes. Pearlstine believed that the manner by which Keynes articulated the importance of free markets as well as the significance of the undue government intervention that will resort to the creation of danger in the economic landscape[6] is an important modern day economic idea that will benefit not just one country but the world, especially now that the world is experiencing global trade and economics. Cambridge University in 1970, during the time Friedman faced a highly partisan, pro Keynes crowd who rooted for their favorite Nicholas Kaldor which Friedman soundly defeated during the debate[7]. Some would say that the surprising Friedman win in that particular debate (which silenced the murmuring crowd of infidels) was due largely because of the absence of Keynes himself, but it may also point to the fact that Friedman and his economic ideals holds true in some aspects. Conclusion – Many scholars, critics, new economists, political analysts and historians until now continually debate about the similarities and differences of Keynes and Friedman and their economic ideas. More importantly, they debated about how each economist and each idea they gave to the world helped in shaping world economy as it is today. Some say that Milton was unlike Friedman, while some think they are the same. Some believe that Friedman was better than Keynes, while others feel otherwise. Others go to the extreme, considering that the two lived in an interconnected life, that one completes the other, as DeLong believes that Friedman was not a competitor to Keynes, but more of the man that completed Keynes[8]. The issues and points arising in the debate focused on the person and their ideas bring about immense complexity that the end is always hard to see, predict and achieve. But for the differences of Friedman and Keynes, it is no doubt that both economist contributed immensely in the field of economics, and because of that, they were showered not just with official honors but with very flattering commentaries by critics and observers. Mark Blaug was quoted by Skousen in his book as attributing to Friedman and his great ability for debating and fighting for his position in economic ideologies[9] that resulted to his earning the respect of even his most critical and previously unimpressed adversaries. Skousen (2001) believes that Friedman is the most famous economist alive, but he was quick to counter his proposition by reminding the readers that Friedman was not a giant at first in the circle of economic thinkers, owing largely to the fact that Friedman and his economic ideas (i.e. his monetarism beliefs) were heavily criticized early in his career as an economic thinker. [10]   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Truly, both Keynes and Friedman created such economic ideals that went to the extent that it became antagonistic with each other. But professionals knew that underneath it all, the more important thing to consider is the fact that the differences and similarities found in Keynes’ and Friedman’s works gave the world what it can used to manage changing economic difficulties. Works Cited: DeLong, J Bradford. â€Å"Friedman Completed Keynes.† Project Syndicate. 2006. 23 May 2008   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   www.project-syndicate.org. Heuser, Uwe Jean. â€Å"The Underrated Power of Economists.† Indymedia.org.uk. 28 June 2007.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   23 May 2008 http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/06/374612.html. Macesich, George. â€Å"World Economy at the Crossroads.† Greenwood Publishing Group,   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Incorporated, November 1997. Skousen, Mark. â€Å"The Making of Modern Economics: The Lives and Ideas of the Great   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Thinkers.† Sharpe, Me., Inc., March 2001. Wood, John Cunningham. â€Å"Milton Friedman: Critical Assessments† Vol. 14. Taylor   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Francis, Inc., August 1990. [1] Macesich, George. â€Å"World Economy at the Crossroads.† Greenwood Publishing Group,   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Incorporated, November 1997. p. 12. [2] Heuser, Uwe Jean. â€Å"The Underrated Power of Economists.† Indymedia.org.uk. 28 June 2007.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   23 May 2008 http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/06/374612.html. [3] Wood, John Cunningham. â€Å"Milton Friedman: Critical Assessments† Vol. 14. Taylor   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Francis, Inc., August 1990. p. 465. [4] Heuser, Uwe Jean. â€Å"The Underrated Power of Economists.† Indymedia.org.uk. 28 June 2007.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   23 May 2008 http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/06/374612.html. [5] Skousen, Mark. â€Å"The Making of Modern Economics: The Lives and Ideas of the Great   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Thinkers.† Sharpe, Me., Inc., March 2001. pg 379. [6] Ibid. [7] Skousen. pg 380. [8] DeLong, J Bradford. â€Å"Friedman Completed Keynes.† Project Syndicate. 2006. 23 May 2008   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   www.project-syndicate.org. http://webdiary.com.au/cms/?q=node/1757. [9] Skousen, p. 380 [10] Ibid.

Strategy Essay Example for Free

Strategy Essay The word strategy is derived from an ancient Greek word that means to guide or to move. For almost 40 years strategic planning is used as a formalized business process. However, majority of organizations still does not know how to do strategic planning effectively. Because of which most strategic plans fails to accomplish what it was developed for and have no effect on organization and its operations. Due to the recent studies and researches made, awareness has been created among large as well as small organizations towards the development of strategy for effectively achieving the objectives. Strategy is developed to formulate, implement and evaluate the decisions, which enables the organization to achieve its objectives. The success of companies such as Yahoo, eBay and Google are the example of pursuing a clear positioning-based or resource-based strategy with conviction and excelled by changing to keep in tune with the demands of shifting markets and flourishing despite of operating in markets previously considered difficult. The success of the above mentioned organizations also emphasized the need to develop a sound strategy in order to survive in the competitive business environment today. Strategy making determines the long term goals and objectives of the organization and adoption of a course of action to efffectively allocate the resources to achieve such goals and objective. In order to make this process of strategic development smooth and effective the commitment from highest organizational hierarchy is required and also the strategic-planning team should be composed of top-level managers who can represent the interests, concerns and opinion of all member of the organization. Failure to obtain senior management involved right from the start may lead to failure to obtain sufficient company resources for accomplishing task. It is strategy that enables a company to reach its maximum potential by adapting with its environment effectively and answers the three basic questions that every organization faces: What to do? For whom to do? How to do? The answer to above three questions are determined by a three phased strategy development process which involves assessment of situation, setting organization’s objectives and planning the details to achieve the objectives. Assessment involves performance of both external and internal situational analysis, self evaluation and competitor analysis at micro-environmental and macro-environmental level. All business decisions taken are based on organizational and personal values, therefore the strategy should be developed after analysing the organizational and personal values. It allows the strategy development team to have a broader view of organization and its functioning and also includes the analysis of organization’s structure and culture, operating philosophy , personal and organizational values and stake holders. This value assessment is also important because if the strategy plan is not based on the functioning of organization and any party in the organization feels that their values have been neglected they will not adopt the strategy and thus the potential benefits will not be obtained. Moreover, at this phase, an indept analysis of organization’s internal strengths and weaknesses alongwith the external opportunities and threats are made, which is also known as swot analysis. Understanding of strengths and weaknesses of organization’s resources allows the development team allocate the resources effectively and effeciently and enables them to strengthen the organizations resource base for future. Within the organization there are many key areas that need to be analyzed and addressed. It includes the identification of existing line of business as well as the unused resources, effectiveness of controls over the operations. The external investigation should be made towards current and future state of affairs of the competitors, suppliers, markets and customers, economic trends and regulatory bodies. Furthermore, analysis of competitors will enable the strategy development team to define the basis on which business will compete. Such competition depends on company’s capabilities, strengths, and weaknesses in market as compared to that of their competitors. According to Michael Porter, a Harvard Business School professor, competition within an industry is driven by five basic factors such as: Threat of new entrants that probably reduces the high profits, Threat of substitute products or services that can reduce the demand of the organizations product significantly, Bargaining power of suppliers can increase the cost of production, Bargaining power of buyers may force the organization to cut down the prices to maintain their market share and Rivalry among existing firms may result in wastage of resources. Porter also indicates that, in response to these five factors, competitive strategy can take one of the three generic forms: Focus, Differentiation and Cost leadership. The reason why strategic plans fail at this stage is failure of strategy development team to understand their customers that what their needs are and the reason why they buy and inadequate marketing research. Another reason for such failure is the inability of strategy development team or management to predict their competitor’s counter strategies such as price wars and fighting brands and actions taken by government in such circumstances [5]. The second phase of the strategy development process involves the setting of goals and objectives for the organization. Goals are the desired future state of organization , which are derived from from the vision and mission statements and are consistent with oranizational culture, ethics and regulatory requirements. Goals are quantifiable and are to be achieved within a specified time period, there should be no confusions regarding the goals and ideally there should be one well defined goal. Objectives are the short term intermediate/secondary goals that are achieved in order to achieve the primary goals. In order to set the objectives effectively objectives are needed to be categorized, prioritized, balanced, limited, quantified and must be challenging and attainable as well. In order to clarify what the management targets are strategy development team will categorize the objectives and targets will be based on the categories made. Some broad categories where an organization wishes to set their business strategy could be: Financial, Operations, Sales and Marketing, Human resource, Community. Financial objective may be set to measure profitability like: gross profit, operating profits or return on investments. Operational objectives might measure efficiency, productivity or cost reductions [7]. Sales and Marketing objectives may be in terms of sales volume, sales growth or market share. Human resource objectives might be the measure of employee benefits, employee satisfaction or employee turnover. Finallly the social or community objective might be the compliance with laws rearding environmental hazards, equal opportunity employment. The order in which managers generally prioritize their objectives is based on the hierarchy of objectives, that is it is the order in which they care about things. It is this behaviour that causes goal conflict between two different departments within an organization [12]. For example sales department want to maximize their profit and the usually achieve their targets by raising prices which is in conflict to the objectives of production department, therefore strategy development team must consider the objectives which are confliccting in nature and involve senior management of all departments in order to minimize goal conflict. There should be balance in setting goals, if more attention is given to particular areas only there will be a problem when communicating goals to people in organization. Those who are not considered in the objectives will be less motivated and for successful achievement of objectives efforts of all the people in organization is required. strategy development team should consider gaining the commitment of employees who might otherwise ask about their benefit. Further more, care is required for not setting to many objectives and quantification. Setting many objective results in wasting time when setting such many objectives and also shifts focus away from high prirority targets, which results in loss of resources. Objectives should be quantified, that is when objectives are accomplished it should be measurable in order to know whether they are successfully accomplished. More importantly, it should be clear to every one that how much effort is required which is measured when targets are achieved [3]. Quantifying objectives depends on the category of the objective, that is Financial, Sales and Marketing objectives are the easiest to quantify. Whereas, quantifying customer satisfaction is not possible in many cases although number of complaints can be counted or total defective products can be measured [14]. Finally, objective should be challenging and, at the same time, attainable. Strategy development team must know the capabilities of employees of the organization and this fact must be considered when objective is given to them. People in organization should understand that accomplishment of the objective requires that it should be done but such objective should be achievable. During this phase strategy plans fails because of over estimation of resource competence that the staff and other resources were unable to handle the new strategy or the required level of managerial skills were not developed. Coordination failure due to inadequate reporting or rigid organization structure is another reason for such failure. Another problem is failure to obtain employee commitment, when strategies are not properly explained to them or new strategy lack incentives given to the customer. The final phase is the implementation of strategic plan after which it is put to work for an organization. The success of the plan is the support of every member of the organization, which is possible due to the involvement of senior management from the beginning of strategy development process [4]. After acceptance, implementation of the strategic plan into daily activities increases the chances that others will do the same. Strategic plan can be implemented by allocating sufficient resources in the form of financial support, support should also be provided by the higher management personnel in the form of provision of company’s resources that are necessary, proper technical and technological support should be given for successful implementation of the developed strategy. Structure of the organization should be in accordance with the strategy that is; either there could be chain of command or cross-functional teams in the organization. Resposibilities should be assigned only to the individuals or groups that are qualified for that particular task or process. Each and every process should be controlled effectively which includes monitoring of results, comparing the results with the organization’s as well as industry standards, effective and efficient use of resources must be evaluated and required adjustments should be made to the processes in order to contol the variances. One tool available for this purpose is making GAP analysis to to identify the methods for closing the performance gap (variations). Such analysis must be done, without making it much complicated, by simply investigating the differences in achieved results and the the desired results. Feasibility of removing the deviations can be made by evaluating the answers of two questions that what is required to be done and what is not required to be done [8]. Thus for implementing such programs, required resources must be acquired, there should be proper process development and training anlog with their testing and documentation. One another way to successfully implement the strategic plan is advertising. The more the employees hear about the plan, its element and success along with the plan, the greater will be the possibility of adopting it as a part of daily work. It became more significant if the benefits offered are measurable [6]. A sound strategy development process should also prepare a contingency plan and the reason for such planning is to make a reactionary plan for unanticipated high impact events† [2]. Contingency plan identifies the indication that calls for the need to reevaluate the applicability and effectiveness of current strategy. In such events high level of monitoring must be and immediate action should be taken. The reason why strategic plans collapse is a definite redirection from the initial plan, primarily because, as the time passes by there is a major change in direction from the one, which was set at the initiation stage. Since the implementation is a key to proper supervision, not tracking the progress of plan and no accountability on non-compliance is another reason for such failure. One other reason of not successfully implementing the plan is failure to manage change, as strategy development team did not do proper planning, as there may be inadequate understanding of internal resistance to change and failure to understand the relationship between processes, technology and organization. Not making the contingency plan is also another reason for the failure to successful achievement of objective because; in case of unforeseen circumstances no body will be able to run the alternative procedures, which would have been available if contingency planning was done. In short strategy is developed to achieve the organization’s objective by formulating and implementing decisions. Strategy determines the long term objectives and goals and also allocates the resources more effectively. Involvement of senior management make process of strategy making more effective and smooth. Strategy making not only considers the three basic questions regarding the operations of organization but also give answer to these question. Strategy development process is a three phased process in which first the assessment of situation is made considering the environmental, internal and external challenges, then setting objectives by keeping in view the assessed circumstances and the requirements and then finally ways in which such objectives can be achieved by implementing the plans made by strategy department.

Crime And The Process Of Solving Crimes Criminology Essay

Crime And The Process Of Solving Crimes Criminology Essay Crime analysis is a systematic process that investigators go through to help solve crimes that are similar to one another by location and specific details about the certain crime committed. Crime analysis helps to solve crimes because if the same person is committing the same crime over and over again, it is easier for law enforcement to recognize where the criminal is going to strike next. There are three different approaches to crime analysis and these are tactical crime analysis, strategic, and administrative. In todays Criminal Justice world, there are thousands of criminal that do the same crime over and over again and do the exact same thing every single time. To help solve these crimes there is an up and coming field in Criminal Justice that helps solve these crimes and it is called Crime Analysis. Crime analysis is the examination and studying of crime patterns in certain locations that will aid in the identifying and prosecution of the suspects. There are three ways to determine crime analysis and they are tactical, strategic, and administrative. Crime analysts are always busy in what they do because they have to keep up with the current trends and patterns of crime to determine when the next crime will occur and stop it from happening. This paper will discuss the process of which crime analysts go through, as well as the three different types of crime analysis, how it will help the future of police departments by predicting when the next crime is about to occur, and this paper will also discuss the jobs in this up and coming field of crime analysis. The process of figuring out numerous crime trends and similarities in a given location can be quite difficult at times. Therefore, there is a series of steps that a crime analyst runs through to try and determine the patterns of the same crime happening every night or every weekend in a close diameter of one another. In the first process, that is when the data is all collected from other sources by gathering the crime details, eyewitness reports, and as well as the police operations. With all of the information, it gets entered into numerous databases so other municipal police organizations can recover the information if the same crime is occurring in their neighborhood as well. In the second process, the analyst sits down and actually recovers all of the information and tries to put crimes together through patterns, trends, and the location of where the crime occurred. In this process the analyst will determine the who, what, when, where, and how, of the crimes being committed so they can conclude specific details to the police officers to keep an eye on certain people and/or locations. With the specific details of certain crimes that could be linked to one another, that is when the information is put on bulletins throughout the different departments. Then after this, the administration is contacted and the police will also inform the public as well. By informing the public of a murderer in the community for example, people will be more alert to certain people who look suspicious and the public can also watch out more when the police officers cannot. The next step in crime analysis is most likely the most important step for police departments and their employees. At this step of the process, the crime analyst has a lot of information about specific re-occurrences of a crime in an area. With that information the crime analyst will brainstorm different ideas to help seize the suspect while the suspect is committing the same crime again through the crime analyst studying. They do this by surveillance of the area, decoys or traps that the criminal will get themselves carried into, or if the department is able to, by putting more police officers in that area to stop the crime from happening again. The last step of this process is to study all of the facts and eyewitness reports to stop that specific crime from occurring in that area ever again. There are three different ways that crime analyst can go about to determine crime trends and similarities in a specific situation. The three are tactical, strategic, and administrative. Crime Analysis supports a number of department functions including patrol deployment, special operations, and tactical units, investigations, planning and research, crime prevention, and administrative services (budgeting and program planning)(Gottlieb, 1994, Pg. #1). When the crime analyst comes across an upcoming trend in a community there are numerous factors to affect the crime from taking place. Some of these factors include, but not limited to, is the overall geographical location of where the crimes are being committed, such as the poverty level of the community, the population, and as well as cultural factors such as religious characteristics. Other geographical factors include the climate of the community, for example during the Winter months of New York, the crime rates may decrease in resul t to the colder weather. In contrast to the warmer months of Summer, the crime rates will increase due to more people on the streets. One of the biggest factors to studying crime analysis is the effective strength of the police department and their employees. If the communitys police administration is not as effective and harsh punishments, the criminals will suppose that they can get away with anything they want to do. Another important factor is how the citizens of the community react to the crimes being committed because if they are concerned with the crime problems occurring, then they will not be a part of the Neighborhood Watch when the police officers are not there 24/7 to monitor the streets. Tactical crime analysis is the most concerned type of crime analysis because it deals with the worst of the worst crimes that is an immediate threat to the public, such as murder, rape, robbery, and burglary. The crime analyst will put together the trends by eyewitness accounts, the weapon used, the suspects physical description, and many other similarities to put into account for determining the suspect of the crimes committed. Then during this type of crime analysis the police officers will be more alert to certain people who resemble the suspects description and the administration will have more police officers in that particular area to stop the crime from occurring again. At the tactical level of crime analysis it also includes identifying suspects and linking the crimes together. In this phase is where the information that was processed in the strategic step is now being used to solve the crimes that have been happening over and over again in one particular area. The tactical a nalysis is most useful towards the investigators and patrol officers so they can keep an open eye out for suspicious activity in a certain area with specific problem that has been happening. At the tactical level of analysis they also use information for outside agencies to aid them in finding the suspects. The use of outside information from other agencies is very useful in crime analysis because if the same crime is happening in another county or state, the crime analyst can link the crimes together by similarities of the who, what, when, where, and how of the crimes committed. The Crime Analysis Unit in the city of Tempe, Arizona said that, Tactical information links offender and modus operandi information from a number of offenses in an attempt to provide investigative leads, help solve crime, and clear cases after apprehension and arrests (Wong, 2009, Pg. #1). Without the tactical analysis the crimes that have been re-occurring in an area would not be able to be solved as quick ly if it were not for this very important step in crime analysis. The next type of crime analysis is the strategic analysis. Strategic crime analysis is the study of crime problems and other police-oriented issues to determine long-term patterns of activity as well as to evaluate police responses and organizational procedures (Boba, 2005. Pg. #15). Strategic analysis main concern is to seek solutions to on-going crime problems in a certain location. They do this by gathering all of the information of trends, suspects, and crime and link them together to make a result of the similarities of the crimes committed. The strategic analyst gathers information together to find unusual crime trends and police reports from all different seasons to see if there are any similarities with the suspects physical description and the crimes committed. They also match the demands for police officers in a certain location. If the crime level is very high they will conduct more officers on foot and also in patrol cars to try and eliminate the problems before they turn into more larger and more dangerous crimes. The strategic analyst will also decrease the number of officers in a certain location if the crime statistics show that there is not many crimes being committed there, they will move some of those officers to where the help is really needed. The last type of studying crime analysis is called administrative crime analysis. The administrative crime analysis main goal is to relate the information that has been made in the previous step and relay that information to the police chief and other administrative level officers, and as well as the community because they need to be informed if there is a serious crime issue in their neighborhood. They like to inform the public about crime patterns because the Neighborhood Watch is the polices best way to collect information such as the physical description of the suspect. The administrative analysis will also inform the local schools around the community to have a look-out of suspicious activities happening around the school. They also need to keep the police officers from each shift informed of the new information gathered day by day so if some information has been changed recently they will be fully up to date with the information of the crime patterns and suspects in that partic ular area. A lot of the administrative analysts job is to put all of the information gathered into databases so not only can their jurisdiction have the information, but all of the surrounding jurisdictions and states as well. They will also make reports of their crime statistics in their community to the Uniform Crime Reports to the Federal Bureau of Investigations every month and every year to make statistics about the Part I and Part II offenses in their community and relate them to other agencies in their state and other states as well. With all of the information gathered at this type of crime analysis, the administrative analysis also goes out to the public and performs speeches and presentations on the crime reports to the police administration, including the Chief, Lieutenants, Captains, and others. They can also make speeches to the citizens of the community and other agencies as well. The reasoning for the speeches and presentations is for the economic sense of the crime analysis agency because that is how they receive grants through governmental funding or from the community funding money to the crime analysis agency. After the crime analyst studies and looks over the information of crime trends in their community, it is time to try and solve the crimes committed and also to try and stop other crimes from happening. A very good way to determine crime trends is by using a Geographic Information System (GIS) to be used in crime mapping. The GIS overlaps other databases around the community to get more information for the crime trends by getting useful information from other community information such as the pawnshops for burglaries. Another positive attribute to the GIS is that anyone with the Internet can see where most of the serious crimes are occurring in a particular community. For example, if a family with small children is looking to move and they find out that there is an inclination of sex offenders or rape in that community, they will know beforehand. An excellent website that shows the different crime trends in a community is www.spotcrime.com. The tactical crime analyst is the form of crime analysis that mostly uses the crime mapping for their information that they have collected. By using crime maps they can discover the crime trends that are not as noticeable that are just collected through crime reports. The crime maps examine a specific location and mark where the crimes have been committed and if there is any similarities between all of the crimes committed. The maps also help the police officers formulate strategies to aid in the detainment of the suspects. One very effective way they also solve crimes through crime mapping is call Problem-Oriented Policing or POP. POP is a police strategy that involved the identification and analysis of specific crime trends and problems that puts the community in disarray. POP and crime analysis go hand-in-hand because POP looks at the repeated incidents in the same community with related similarities with the crimes and that the crimes are harmful to both the police and the commun ity as well. Although POP and crime analysis is not completely the same, the big different between the two is that POP is trying to figure out the problems in the community by solving the crimes more quickly and effectiveness. While crime analyst goes in depth with their information and they look at crime trends as a whole and not as one problem in a community. Although many cases might not have a lot of information for the crime analyst to look over and attempt to solve the case, there is another obstacle to overcome and that is the time in which is takes scientist to study the amounts of evidence that is collected at the crime scene. Some other obstacles that they must overcome is because of the CSI Effect. This effect is because of the CSI drama series that every case has substantial amount of evidence and at the end of the show, there is always someone guilty. This is not the case in real life, the crime analyst has to go through every single piece of evidence thoroughly and this may take days, weeks, months, or even years to get all of the facts correct. Although this may seem like a very easy job to acquire, it is not that easy all of the time. When the crime analyst sends out evidence to be tested for suspects, this process could take a very long time due to the enormous amount of other evidence from thousands of other cases that is needed to be tested for numerous reasons. From the Nebraska State Crime Lab, the Forensic scientist stated that, In 2009, the DNA section worked 251 cases with 347 assignments that included 1,800 pieces of evidence, she said. In February of this year, the lab had six casework DNA analysts, two of whom were in training, and one database analyst(Kindschuh). This example just goes to show that with the large amounts of evidence being sent to crime labs all around the country and the lack of personnel and employees; it will be difficult to solve these crime patterns in a timely fashion. Because of this problem, it may take crime analysis many years to figure out the crime patterns for one particular city, if this city is a very large one. For smaller towns and cities, it may be easier to collect and test evidence because there might not be as much evidence that is needed for testing. So, the job performance of a crime analyst can become very difficult at times for waiting on evidence to come back from the lab to solve crimes. But the best part of being a crime analyst is the after effect of solving crimes that have been tormenting a specific area for a long period of time and being able to put the criminal behind bars for their wrongful acts. Since crime analysis is an up-and-coming field in the Criminal Justice system, there is a lot of schooling and training courses that have to be met before becoming a crime analyst. Not all departments hire crime analyst to do their in-depth process on the trends of crimes in their community, due to the size of their department or jurisdiction. Some jurisdictions are too small to coordinate and run such a wealthy and demanding field of criminal justice; so most of the crime analysis jobs are in major metropolitan areas where the population is large and there is large and there is a large amount of crime occurring to determine different trends to go along with the suspects. Although some of the large agencies that have crime analyst, most of them are not sworn in officers, the majority of them now are sworn in civilians that do not need all of the requirements that a sworn in officer would need. Since almost every agency has their own rules and restrictions to whom they hire, there is a general amount of similarities between them with schooling and the minimum requirements. To become a crime analyst they need at least a four-year degree or Bachelors Degree majoring in Criminal Justice, Statistics, Business, Public Administration, or any other field closely related to these. With all of the schooling requirements set, they will also need to have a Department of Justice Crime Analysis Certificate. Another requirement is at least two years minimum of operational experience in any criminal justice setting. After all of the experience in schooling, the training, the courses, and the completion of the certificate and required hours the crime analyst can start searching for an occupation. Indeed.com reports that the average salary for crime analysis is $57,000. Our research found that crime analyst salaries range from $28,000 to well over $66,000 a year depending on experience, education, location, and related factors (Legal-Criminal-Justice-Schools, Pg. #1). The amount of salary someone earns is all determined on how much schooling and experience someone has who wants to become a crime analyst. Obviously the more schooling and more experience someone has to offer, the better chances of getting a job and the more salary pay they will earn in their department. This paper discussed the up-and-coming field in the Criminal Justice system known as crime analysis. Crime analysis is a very useful strategy in a large metropolitan area to determine trends and similarities in crimes that have been occurring every day, or every week. The crimes that have been committed might have committed at the same time of day or night, with the same weapon, or stolen a specific item from parked cars in a mall parking lot. With just that information the crime analyst can conclude that they need to have more patrol officers at the mall at a certain time of day to determine who has been breaking into the cars and stealing those specific items and why. The use of crime maps is a very distinctive and descriptive way of determining crime trends because instead of just looking at crime reports, it is clearly stated on a map of the community. The crime analysis unit is made up of three different sections and they do their own part in cracking down the individual or indi viduals that have been troubling the neighborhood. The three sections are the tactical unit, the strategic unit, and the administrative unit. In the tactical unit their main goal is to gather up as much information as possible to settle on a time, place, and hopefully a suspect of the re-occurring crimes. The strategic unit is using the information from the tactical unit and putting it into perspective and figuring out where the police officers need to be increased or decreased in numbers in a large community. The administrative unit sends out all of the information to their own department as well as the surrounding agencies and also to the Uniform Crime Reports for the FBI. In conclusion, without the crime analysis unit in large jurisdictions, it would be very difficult to determine the crime trends in a community and prosecute the criminals for their wrongful actions. Reference Page: Ainsworth, Peter F. Offender Profiling and Crime Analysis. Devon: Willan, 2001. Print. Boba, Rachel. Crime Analysis and Crime Mapping. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage Publications, 2005. Print. Boba, Rachel. Guidelines to Implement and Evaluate Crime Analysis and Mapping in Law Enforcement Agencies. October 2000. Community Oriented Policing Services: U.S. Department of Justice. http://www.cops.usdoj.gov/files/RIC/Publications/guidelinesimplementevalcrimeam.pdf Bruce, Christopher W. What is Crime Analysis? Massachusetts Association of Crime Analysis. http://www.macrimeanalysts.com/articles/whatiscrimeanalysis.pdf DAddario, Francis James. Loss Prevention through Crime Analysis. Boston: Butterworths, 1989. Print. Dempsey, Caitlin. GIS Lounge and DM Geographies. 2008. California. http://gislounge.com/crime-mapping-and-analysis/ Flowers, R.B. (1989). Demographics and Criminality: The Characteristics of Crime in America. Greenwood Press: Westport, CT. Goldsmith, Victor. Analyzing Crime Patterns: Frontiers of Practice. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage Publications, 2000. Print. Gottlieb, S., Arenberg, S., and Singh, R. (1994). Crime Analysis: From First Report to Final Arrest. Alpha Publishing: Montclair, CA. Kindschuh, Hilary. Real-life Crime Analysis not like TV, Local Experts Say. Posted April 21, 2010. http://journalstar.com/news/local/article_a71319dc-4cbd-11df-b1bd-001cc4c03286.html Legal Criminal Justice Schools. http://www.legal-criminal-justice-schools.com/ Morris, J. (1986). Crime Analysis Charting. Palmer Enterprises: Orangevale, CA. Peterson, Marilyn B. Applications in Criminal Analysis: a Sourcebook. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1998. Print. Vann, Irvin B., and G. David. Garson. Crime Mapping: New Tools for Law Enforcement. New York: P. Lang, 2003. Print. Wong, Theresa. Crime Analysis Unit. 2009. Tempe, Arizona. http://www.tempe.gov/CAU/about_ca.htm

The Human Muscular System Essay -- Science Biology

The Human Muscular System The human muscular system is made up of over 600 connecting muscles. All of the muscles work together in sync to make your body move in inumerable different ways. None of the body systems can work without muscles and your muscles can't work without your other body systems so that means that all of your body systems need each other to work and make your body function correctly. Your muscles need protein, nutrients, and oxygen to move and work. Then the circulatory system carries those essential particles to your muscles from the digestive and respiratory systems. That is when your circulatory system carries the leftover waste back to the original systems to be discharged from your body. Your nervous system runs the whole show by telling your different systems to make this whole process happen. Muscles Your muscles are made up of body tissue which consists of very very small fibers which make up your muscles and you also have ligaments which help your muscles move in the right way. Each of your muscles are responsible for their own special job. All of your muscles contract to provide motion when the brain sends a signal through the nervous system which are stimulants. These stimulants tell your muscles to move your arms, legs and other muscles move your eyelids and they all work in sync to make you walk and talk. There are some muscles in which you have no control over like the muscles in your internal organs like your heart, sto...

Bronchitis :: essays research papers fc

Bronchitis is an INFLAMMATION of the membrane that lines the air passages, or, bronchial tubes, of the LUNGS and results in the narrowing of these air passages. This disorder may be of either an acute or chronic type. Irritation of mucus-producing glands within the membrane results in the production of excess bronchial secretions. The main symptoms of bronchitis are cough and increased expectoration of sputum, with or without associated wheezing and shortness of breath. Acute bronchitis is usually caused by infection by one of the many viruses that cause the common COLD or INFLUENZA and is frequently associated with MEASLES. The patient may suffer from additional symptoms, such as chest discomfort, fever, and aching, that are characteristic of these diseases. WHOOPING COUGH is a form of severe bronchitis caused by the bacterium Hemophilus pertussis. Treatment of a pure viral infection is directed toward the relief of symptoms, but frequently secondary infections by bacteria complicate the condition. In such a case the patient's sputum may turn from white to yellow (purulent, or pus containing), and treatment with various antibiotics is recommended. Acute chemical bronchitis may be caused by the inhalation of irritating fumes, such as smoke, chlorine, ammonia, and ozone. Chronic bronchitis results from prolonged irritation of the bronchial membrane, causing cough and the excessive secretion of mucus for extended periods. By far the most common cause of chronic bronchitis is cigarette SMOKING, but air pollution and industrial fume and dust inhalation are also important irritants. Patients with chronic bronchitis are subject to recurrent infections with H. influenzae and pneumococci. Pulmonary EMPHYSEMA often coexists, and over a long period of time the patient may suffer from