Evaluation of a Playoff System for Bowl Games Essay

Introduction   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Bowl games are designed as the culminating event between colleges that topped in their division during the regular college football season. Begun in 1902, the first bowl game between Michigan and Stanford was concocted to arouse interest in the Tournament of the Roses and to generate greater tourist interest and, subsequently, more income. With Stanford’s defeat, the tournament was put on hold and was resumed in 1916, but it was not until 1923 that its was held at the newly-built stadium called the Rose Bowl, thus the contest was called the Rose Bowl game. Subsequent bowl games organized took the â€Å"Bowl† moniker as a testament to the success of the Rose Bowl games. (â€Å"College bowl games†) Source:BSC Conference at Wikipedia from   http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/53/BCS_Map.PNG There are many bowl games formed since then. Some are one-shot deals, others considered â€Å"toilet† bowls, denoting less than successful plays by participating colleges, notably the 1983 bout between Michigan and Michigan State and the 1987 match-up between Kansas and Kansas State. (â€Å"Bowl game†) Currently there are four major bowl games that host the Bowl Championship Series in turns: the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California; the Orange Bowl in Miami, Florida; the Sugar Bowl in New Orleans; and the Fiesta Bowl in Arizona. The games are normally played from mid-December until mid January.   These are the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) bowls, while 27 other bowl games are considered non-BCS bowls. (â€Å"Bowl game†; Bowl Championship Series)   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   This paper will evaluate the possible application of the play-off system on college bowl games and the impact on non-BSC bowl games. NFL Playoffs system for Bowl Games   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The National Football League (NFL) play-off is the elimination round of currently the 6 top teams from the American Football Conference and the National Football Conference. Each conference produce four division champions seeded 1 to 4, and two wildcard qualifiers, seeded 5 and 6. The teams play within their divisions to determine the Division Playoff winners who will then compete against their opposite number in the Super Bowl. (NFL Playoffs)   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The BCS was formalized in 1998 when it replaced the Bowl Alliance as the ultimate face-off in the bowl games. Two teams are selected from the top teams from the NCAA Division I-A bowl game conferences, which are the Atlantic Coast Conference, Big 12 Conference, Big East Conference, Big Ten Conference, Pacific Ten Conference and the Southeastern Conference. Colleges which are not part of these conferences and independent schools are not barred from the selection process but the chances of being selected for the coveted two slots were small because of the system of ranking employed in bowl games for the National Championship game. (â€Å"BCS conference†)   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   There is an ongoing debate regarding the system of ranking in bowl games, which will eventually determine which two teams will play in the National Championship game. There are claims that the system, based on coach polls, computer-constructed polls, strength of schedule (win/loss ratio) and losses, was not equitable, too complicated, and produced ambiguous results. Polling produced issues of bias in ranking towards bowls associated with BCS conferences, leaving non-BCS conferences out of the running. Moreover, it is asserted that the absence of a playoff discriminates against teams that have lower ranking even though actual games win/loss ratio for the season should have guaranteed at least a fighting chance to compete in the National Championship. (Bowl Championship Series) Compared to the head-to-head match-up that prevails in the NFL playoffs, it would seem logical to go down the path of the tried and tested. Winners of the NFL playoffs are undisputed with no messy rankings to confuse the issue of which team was the best. However, one can argue that the motivations behind the NFL and bowl games are completely different. Bowl games are college football games, providing training for athletes after the football season that otherwise would not happen. This is the reason why many coaches encourage them. Bowl games are considered more as a source of entertainment for football fans post season in hopefully congenial surroundings. (Nelson)   Of course, the organizers were impelled by more pecuniary motives.    Currently, the major bowl game conferences generate more than US$100 million a year in sponsorship and media cdontracts, even more if the proposed new system, where a fifth bowl will be included, is implemented. (â€Å"Six conferences retain automatic bids†) However, for many colleges, especially non-BCS ones, the main purpose of the games remains.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The playoff system works for the NFL, but for bowl games it would alter the whole complexion of the sport. Because of the way the rankings are determined, each of the games in the regular college football season assumes equal importance. The win/loss ratio will not guarantee top place because the system of averaging, the polls and losses can bring the ranking down even with just one botched game. A playoff system would discourage teams from playing all out in all the games because the chances of a top contending team being pulled down by one game is not going to happen.   Ã‚   Moreover, a playoff system would encourage college teams to reserve their best plays and strategies for the all important match-up at the end of the season.   (Willson)   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   There have been some suggestions for the improvement of the bowl game ranking system by its combination with some characteristics of the playoff. Giles asserts that the BCS system is useful in determining the top college teams during the regular season; it is only when it comes to the top two teams that they run into issues. With this in mind, it is suggested that at the end of the season, the top 8 teams would selected based on existing BCS eligibility requirements for the National Championship game. Automatic berths based on conference would be eliminated, giving a fair chance for all colleges to compete. It would discard the one-team-per-conference rule but retain the hosting of the event among the Rose, Fiesta, Orange and Sugar Bowls. Elimination rounds among the 8 teams will eventually lead to semi-finals that would determine which two teams will go on to the National Championships.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   It sounds reasonable but it might just exacerbate the situation because it presumes that the ranking system in the bowl games is reliable, which, as stated earlier, it is not. This is the whole point of the controversies surrounding the bowl games. Using the present ranking system will most probably result in the same BCS and traditional teams being chosen as the eight teams contending for the playoffs, so the inequity will still exist. Conclusion   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   It would seem that implementing an NFL play-off system in bowl games would result in an unwelcome shift in the general motivation behind the game.   It also appears it would not greatly improve the chances of non-BSC bowl games in being represented in the BSC and the National Championship in its current state. For the 27 non-BSC and independent bowl games that continue to play, the rationale behind bowl games does not require affirmation from the BSC. Bowl games are essentially a chance for college students to enjoy the chance to see competing colleges compete against each other after the end of the season. It provides relief from academic pursuits inspires student loyalty towards the learning institution and provides additional public exposure for aspiring athletes. Coaches encourage it as a means for additional training for the next season and communities benefit from it by encouraging tourists. Bowl games will continue to be enjoyed, with varying degrees of financial success, by those who count: the players, their fans, the community and the colleges Works cited â€Å"Bowl game.† Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 5 Jan 2007, 04:06 UTC. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 21 Jan 2007 . â€Å"NFL playoffs.† Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 17 Jan 2007, 23:51 UTC. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 21 Jan 2007 . Nelson, Loren. â€Å"Are college football bowl games meaningless?† NCTimes.com. 16 December 2006. 23 January 2007 Alder, James. â€Å"BCS vs. Playoff System.† About.com. 2007. 24 January 2007 Giles, Alex. â€Å"The proposed marriage of the BCS and a playoff format.† About.com. 19 November 2002. 23 January 2007 Willson, Charlie. â€Å"Playoffs vs. Bowl Games: College Season Too Good to Change.† MindSpring. 2007. 24 January 2007 â€Å"College bowl games.† Hickoksports.com. 26 November 2006. 24 January 2007 â€Å"Six conferences retain automatic bids.† Associated Press. 1 March 2004. 23 January 2007 â€Å"Bowl Championship Series.† Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 20 Jan 2007, 23:00 UTC. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 24 Jan 2007 . â€Å"BCS conference.† Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 9 Jan 2007, 16:41 UTC. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 24 Jan 2007 .   

Bartolome de las Casas’s Destruction of the Indies Essay

Bartolomà © de las Casas was a Spanish historian and a social reformer who was writing in the 16th century, during the time of the Spanish occupation of the Indies. In A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies, Casas provides a scathing commentary on the cruelty exercised by the Spanish colonizers on the natives of Hispaniola—as well as explain the aims that motivated this behavior. The account acts as not only an observation on the practices of the colonizers, but is also a reflection of the imperial policies of the Spanish Empire. Through writing A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies, Casas aims at bringing the Spanish Crown’s attention to the atrocities committed by the citizens of the empire on the natives. In keeping with that aim, he utilizes a rhetoric that seeks to arouse the sympathy of his readers towards the natives and a sense of horror over how they are being treated. Right from the beginning of the account, in the preface, he paints an i mage of the natives as being simple, and harmless. He describes them as, â€Å"the simplest people in the world†¦they are without malice or guilt†¦never quarrelsome or belligerent or boisterous, they harbour no grudges†¦indeed the notions of revenge, rancour and hatred are quite foreign to them†. In contrast to that, he describes the Spaniards as â€Å"ravening wolves† who fell upon the natives like â€Å"tigers or savage lions who had not eaten meat for days .â€Å" Casas sets up a comparison between the helplessness of the natives and the savagery of the Spaniards, and this comparison holds throughout the document. Examples of this comparison are in the frequent accounts he gives of the before and after native population levels once the Spanish occupy an area—â€Å"when the Spanish first journeyed here, the indigenous population of the island of Hispaniola stood at some three million; today only two hundred survive† or â€Å"not a living soul remains today on any of the islands of the Bahamas.† Casas uses concrete numbers in describing the decline in the population level, in the number deaths—he does this as a means of stressing the official nature of the document, to lend it a sense authority. These numbers also help in giving his reade rs a very clear idea of the terrifying extent of the Spanish cruelty. He enumerates the different ways through which the locals are being exterminated, which gives a fair idea of the general colonial practices in the Indies— through â€Å"forcible expatriation†, â€Å"unjust†¦tyrannical war,† working the natives to the  point of death—Casas gives an example of a man who worked the natives under him so hard that within a month, out of three hundred, only thirty survived. More importantly, Casas reveals the motives behind the widespread cruelty as being simple, materialistic greed. He explains that the greed for the gold that the natives have is the driving force behind the actions of the Spanish. The one instance that effectively reflects this fanatical greed is of the local lord who makes an offering of nine thousand castilians to the Spanish and is still seized and tortured for more gold—â€Å"tying him in a sitting position to a stake set in the ground, lit a fire under his outstretched feet to induce him to hand over yet more gold†¦when he produced no further gold, they carried on until all the marrow ran out through the soles of his feet.† What is worth noting is that Casas when first talking about this greed, refers to the Spanish as Christians—â€Å"the reason the Christians have murdered on such a vast scale and killed anyone and everyone in their way is purely and simply greed.† Casas obviously uses the term â€Å"Christian† ironically to draw attention to the un-Christian behavior that the Spanish are displaying in the colonies. Casas was the Bishop of Chiapas. He was a clerical man, and so his primary concern was the un-Christian activities that were taking place in the colonies. He exclaims that the colonizers have â€Å"little concern over their [natives] souls as for their bodies, all the millions that have perished, having gone to their deaths with no knowledge of God.† This clearly defines exactly what A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies as a text is—it is not a text that is arguing for equal rights, it is instead a text that shows the priorities and concerns of a man living under the Spanish Empire at the time. Casas views the natives not as people equal to the Spaniards, but as potential Christians. He describes them as being, â€Å"innocent and pure in mind and have a lively intelligence, all of which makes them particularly receptive to learning and understanding the truths of our Catholic faith and to being instructed in virtue.† Casas is outraged because the Spanish policy of â€Å"conversion a nd saving of souls as first priority† was not being followed. Instead, it was being used as an excuse—â€Å"The gulf that yawns between theory and practice has meant that, in fact, the’ local people have been presented with an ultimatum: either they adopt the Christian religion and swear allegiance to the Crown of Castile, or they will find themselves faced with  military action.† He describes how the Spanish would unnecessarily pillage an area, but would essentially be within their legal rights as they would make sure that they presented the natives with the royal ultimatum. Casas’ account is a good reflection of the general imperial policy of expansion of the Spanish Empire. The Spanish Empire used religion as a tool to further its aims—the Spanish Inquisition, for example, was established in 1478 by Catholic Monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella as a way of increasing their political authority via religion and to suppress any tension that may arise from social and cultural differences. While the activities of the colonizers wasn’t the same as the inquisition, as Casas points out, the Spanish in the colonies were using religion in a similar way. Therefore, Casas’A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies gives important insight into the practices of the Spanish Empire. It also presents an interesting perspective from someone who is a part and within the empire—who is aware and recognizes the malpractices of the Crown and more importantly, is attempting to do something to put a stop to it. It’s also important that the way he goes about this, is through literature—it shows us the importance of the written word in the process of trying to affect a change. Though Casas’ sentiment in the account might not be a common one at the time, it does signal a rising awareness of the moral blindness displayed in the activities of the empires/colonies. Works Cited Bartolomà © de las Casas, A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies, trans. Nigel Griffin (London: Penguin Classics, 2004), 9-37. Bartolomà © de las Casas, â€Å"Bartolomà © de las Casas,† in Norton Anthology of American Literature, ed. Nina Bayme and Robert S. Levine. (New York: WW Norton & Co, 2012), 38.

Causes and Effects of Discrimination

You are retarded! is one of many harmful phrases of discrimination. People act without thinking, and sometimes say things that hurt others. Discrimination happens when you or someone else treat someone unfairly. For example, making fun of their skin color, their appearance, culture, language, age, etc. The outcome of discrimination has its causes and effects. Welcome to the world of discrimination. A girl and a boy just broke up on the girls birthday. Tears ran down the girls face as the boy walked away. Two days later, the boy got a new girlfriend. It turns out that the new girlfriend was a very good friend of the ex-girlfriend. Jealousy took control of the old girlfriend, and hurtful actions attempted. This is one example of discrimination. Basically, the ex-girlfriend got jealous of the new couple, and overreacted by hurting her friend. Many people do silly things without thinking, and end up doing the wrong thing. Sometimes the effect could be good, and sometimes bad, in this case, its bad. This time, things get a little out of control One day, a boy at the age of thirteen thought of himself as an invisible person. Every time he asked a question, talked to a girl he likes, or try to get in a conversation with his family, they ignored him. He just couldnt handle it anymore and decided to commit suicide. Eventually this will happen when people have something bad in them that will take control of their entire life. You will one day in your life experience a time when you feel ignored. You will want to do something to yourself like suicide, but thats not always the answer. This shows another example of discrimination. School makes us smart, so use your knowledge and handle the situation maturely. A girl at the age of eighteen is doing poorly in school. Her parents are very strict about it and abuse her when she isn’t trying. Evidently, she is trying but her parents don’t approve of these kinds of grades. The answer that rolls around the parents’ head is â€Å"abuse her†. The girl is sad, lonely, and mad. She runs away and takes all violent things with her. Her anger takes control and murders homeless people. Look, read, and remember this crime. It is another great, but sad discrimination. Teenagers are hard to deal with as they age, but only they choose what they think is right, and don’t listen to what their parents think. That’s why we have parents in the world, to help us with what is right so we don’t grow up to be a criminal. As you can see, all these stories are examples of discrimination. It’s a very harmful thing to people once you think about it. If you discriminate someone in a really bad way, you have a heart of a criminal. I’m sure no one wants that. We need to over think our decisions before we take action. If everyone cared, and nobody cried, if everyone loved, and nobody lied, if everyone shared a nd swallowed their pride, then we’d see a day when nobody died.

Strategic Analysis on Toyota Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 4250 words

Strategic Analysis on Toyota - Assignment Example The paper tells that the history of Toyota can be traced back to humble beginnings in 1930 as a research initiative into gasoline-powered engines at Toyoda Automatic Loom Works, before the registration of Toyota Motor Corporation Ltd. in 1937. The company’s timeline is characterised by major breakthroughs involving careful business partnerships with other players in the car industry and launch of activities into foreign markets. The first formal exports were to the USA in 1957. The company then entered with Hino Motors Ltd. in 1966 and Daihatsu Motor Co. in 1967, before launching the very successful Lexus brand in the USA. Production in the UK began in 1992, and the company saw the launch of the world’s first mass produced hybrid car, the Prius. Production in France began in 2001, with Toyota entering Formula 1 in 2002. Recent highlights include the introduction of the Lexus in Japan in 2005 and establishment of a strategic direction for the firm towards industry leader ship into the future. Toyota has grown into a giant global car maker, surviving a decade of poor performance by the industry to continually post profits and growth nearly all the time. In 2010, the company was ranked first in terms of units moved (8,557,351) and thus market share (11%). The latest figures however indicate that the company has fallen into third place behind GM and Volkswagen especially following the recent devastating earthquake in Japan. (Business Week 2011). Company Purpose Through analysis of Toyota’s vision, mission, objectives and company principles it is possible to gain important insight on Toyota’s current position in the global market and the strategic direction the company is taking. The company’s global vision is to â€Å"lead the way to the future of mobility, enriching lives around the world with the safest and most responsible way of moving people† (Toyota-global.com 2011). The company bases this vision on commitment to quali ty, high innovativeness and respect for the earth. From the company’s vision, it is clear that Toyota seeks to be the industry leader way into the future. The company’s mission statement is â€Å"To sustain profitable growth by providing the best possible customer experience and dealer support† (Toyota-global.com 2011). The mission and vision statements reveal that the company’s current and future are pegged on sustainability, quality and customer satisfaction. The management at Toyota has generated a set of principles that have brought the company the success it now enjoys, and still look to work with these principles into the future. These guiding principles involve honouring every nations law in order to be a good global corporate citizen, respecting customs and cultures of the different peoples around the globe, production of cleans and safe products, production of outstanding products through innovative technology, fostering individual creativity and teamwork through an appropriately enabling corporate culture, harmonious growth

Virigina Henderson Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Virigina Henderson - Research Paper Example To facilitate patient care, the paper employs Virginia Henderson’s nursing theory as a profession. The theory of Henderson is significant in nursing profession and it states that nursing is rooted from the needs of human beings (Sitzman and Eichelberger, 2010). This theory is relevant to the personal philosophy of nursing practices because it deals with the role of nursing practice of helping patients to restore or improve their health. The purpose of the research project is to draw one’s attention into the subject of nursing philosophy thoughtfully in order to create awareness of the significance of nursing education. Personal Philosophy The personal philosophy of nursing is to promote the well-being of patients and facilitating patient care; thus improving the quality of life of human beings. The professional values and characteristics that are reflected in the personal philosophy are personal values which should play significant roles in the professionalization of nu rsing with an aim of improving the quality of patients. Therefore, one of the qualities reflected in the personal philosophy is nursing philosophy of superior leadership, which guides one’s actions, behaviors and thoughts; thus, these philosophies are influenced by internal and external forces. One can change who he or she is by simply changing his or her philosophy of leadership with an aim of delivering the best quality of services within the nursing spectrum. The major meta-paradigm concept of nursing as it is incorporated in the personal philosophy involves person, environment, health and nursing practices. First, the concept of the personal philosophy describes a person as an individual and a community who receives health care; thus, their needs should be met. Secondly, it takes into considerations the surrounding environment and this is where the concept emphasizes the need to keep the environment clean and safe in order to improve the health status of human beings. Thi rdly, the concept also focuses the health issues and this is where it emphasizes on the need for maintaining a healthy living through educating the public on the importance of living a healthy life. Lastly, the concept focuses on nursing practices of facilitating a patient care and improving the well-being of patients through proper treatment; thus improving the quality of human beings. Nursing Theorist Nursing care takes varied forms and sometimes it is the function of the nurse to offer proper medication in order to enable the patient to feel physically well. It is also the ability to improve or maintain the health of an individual or perform varied activities that contributes to the health of an individual. For many decades, nurses have made significant efforts of defining nursing; thus from these efforts, varied nursing theories have been developed. One of the nursing theorists is that one which was developed by Virginia Henderson who was also named as Florence Nightingale, the first nursing theorists to note that nursing knowledge is separate and distinctive from therapeutic knowledge (George, 2011). Virginia Henderson’s Nursing theory focused on offering fresh air, proper nutrition, light, maintaining cleanliness in the surrounding environment. In this theory, the domain of nursing describes the subject of nursing profession, concepts, its values and beliefs, as well as, offers the means through which the nurses can promote the health of clients across the spectrum. The maj

Mao Zedong Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Mao Zedong - Essay Example He used the communist ideology as a rallying point for the Chinese people and prevailed against Chiang Kai-Shek in the Chinese Civil War. Although China became more insular in the early years, it was able under Mao's leadership to gain a greater degree of political and economic independence. It would never again become a colony of foreign powers, it would decide its own internal affairs, and it would begin the political process of reclaiming lost territories such as Macau and Hong Kong. It is hard to argue that Mao's unification of China, and his role in reestablishing sovereignty and political independence, were not beneficial for China and the Chinese people. Despite these superficial achievements, however, the methods employed by Mao to achieve certain goals have been heavily criticized. From 1958-1960, for example, Mao spearheaded a national economic campaign designed to transform a predominantly agrarian Chinese economy into a more modernized industrial economy. He called this the Great Leap Forward and it has been judged an utter failure by historians.

The Settling of the Frontier (US History) Assignment

The Settling of the Frontier (US History) - Assignment Example He fought well during the American Civil War and also helped win the Battle of Washita over the Cheyenne. Six years later, in the year 1874, he helped tap gold in the Black Hills and two years later led a force against the Sioux uprising. By the age of 23, he was promoted to the rank of Brigadier-general. â€Å"He was a brave warrior and died a brave man.† (Low Dog, a Sioux warrior). The frontier period was one of the most important phases of American history that lead to the westward expansion of the country through the colonization of the Great West and ended in a war between the states. â€Å"We are great, and rapidly, I was about to say fearfully growing!† (Calhoun, 1817). Hollywood has chosen to glorify and thus distort this period from 1862-1900 as this most â€Å"rapid and effective period Americanization was also the meeting point between savagery and civilization.† (Frederick J. Turner, 2006). To portray the rejection of England in a new light and glorify the victory of America and its success in the double transformation of the society, Hollywood decided who the heroes and who the villains were and projected the frontier period as a pseudo reality. Its nature and mentality is akin to that of the frontier

Reflection on Therapeutic Interaction Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Reflection on Therapeutic Interaction - Essay Example On this perspective, it is thus imperative for nurses to deliver the right practices to enable achievement of appropriate results. These positive outcomes benefit both the nurse and the patient (Kaptchuk 2008). Nursing therapeutic practice is a highly engaging exercise that demands exclusive attention from the nurse (Donaldson 2010). Nursing is also an emotional exercise that involves exchange of emotions and feeling to be able to draw sympathy and empathy since it is a comforting exercise. After the exercise, it is imperative that nurses develop a sense of reflection to enable theme develop improvements in consequent practices. In this regard, while reflecting on a recent therapeutic care I had on a sixty five year old patient, Marylyn Morrison, who had just undergone replacement surgery of the hipbone, I developed a reflective exercise made an evaluation of the steps involved in the care practice and their implications in nursing as a practice. The reflection would then enable futu re achievement of better outcomes (Smith 2011). Unconditional acceptance As a professional nurse, one is bound to give complete acceptance, not based on any condition such as race, sex or ideology, granted to the patient. In this reflection, it came to my realization that when such acceptance is given to the patient, the same is reciprocated from the patient and thus confidence develops in the patient (Lombard 2011). Such confidence leads to development of mutual trust and thus fosters a faster healing process. In this reflection, Marylyn was hesitant to open up at first but upon realization that the therapeutic care was unconditional, she developed faith and within the duration patient-oriented care was administered to this patient, effective psychological and physical healing processes were achieved at a fast pace; beyond expectations (Thompson 2010.). The learning experience attained from the therapeutic care delivered brought a wider scope of understanding of acceptance that nee ds to be given to a patient despite some conditions that might be considered slightly out of the ordinary. In her special case, the patient had very complicated social sense of acceptance and was resistant to nursing acceptance. However, relentless unconditional acceptance changed the situation at some point during the delivery exercise. Mitchell and Cormack (2008) argue that acceptance is not easily achieved even if given free of charge. Individual differences account for different reactions to situations. Introverts feel better off staying alone under normal conditions. Due to their solitude nature, they find it hard to accept new social circles in their lives. ON the same note, they also find it hard to open up during therapeutic delivery exercise (Maciocia 2010). While the patient continually showed signs of rejection towards the therapist during the early stages of care, persistent and convincing acceptance given to the patient helped change the situation. After three weeks of the nursing care exercise, the patient learned how to give appropriate response to the unconditional acceptance give during the care. She learned to voluntarily accept in return and thus eased the process of the care exercise. This was a great lesson since acceptance cannot be compelled on an individual. Therefore, unconditional acceptance may take time to be effective but with patience in situations such as the case above,

No topic 1 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

No topic 1 - Essay Example inees through journal writing but there are other researchers who have shown that journal writing cannot assess how the practitioners will stop during an activity to frame the problem according to their past experiences and observations. Judging trainees through journal writing can impact their writing so it is not an effective assessment technique. However, reflective writing still is a great assessment mechanism in which the medical educators assess the writing both qualitatively and quantitatively and find out if the trainees have used reflective process in analyzing and solving a clinical problem by linking their knowledge with what should be done. Educators can assess whether trainees have tried to synthesize the information in the reflective process and have considered all perspectives to the solution. They can also assess whether the trainees have explored options other than what is needed or have made assumptions but do not know how to apply them. Thus, this way the educators can assess the trainees through the reflective

Netflix Business Risks Essay Example for Free

Netflix Business Risks Essay For a low monthly price Netflix allows their customers not only to streamline videos on their mobile devices and computers but also choose from a wide variety of DVD’s. This allows for the consumer to watch as much which is beneficial for someone that has a busy schedule and would like to go back and catch up where they left off. As with every business there are risks associated with the everyday operations and I will go into detail as to what the risks are that Netflix has encountered. Business Risk I was a Netflix customer back in 2010 and I was pleased with the low monthly rate associated with a Netflix membership. This option was wonderful with a houseful of children that had different likes in what they watched everyone was pleased. As I carefully monitored my monthly bank statements the low price was at a constant rate up until the middle of July 2011. My monthly fee of $8.50 went up to $16.00 which nearly doubled. More than doubled. I made the honest mistake of not taking into consideration the economic downturn and what risks were associated with such a good deal. As the saying goes, if it is too good to be true it must be. With a household of 7 I had to outweigh the pros and cons of paying an additional $8.00 a month. While comparing the previous membership price along with the new membership price there was no return on the company’s part. I was still able to view movies via streaming online as well as DVD’s in the mail. So why did the the price jump? Pogue (2011) states, â€Å"This, as you can imagine, is not a popular decision. This isn’t a cost-of-living increase. This isn’t inflation. It’s a 60 percent overnight price increase — that gives you nothing new in return.† Not only was I the only irate customer. Netflix felt this chain of reaction across the globe, the consequence of a 60% price increased caused Netflix to lose 800,000 customers in their third quarter. Operational Risks Netflix’s Chief Executive Office Reed Hastings made the decision in splitting Netflix into two separate companies. One of the companies will be specifically for streaming movies on demand and the other company will be called Qwikster specifically for the DVD business. Blodget (2011) states, â€Å"And we can also certainly understand why, from the companys perspective, it makes sense to split the DVD and streaming businesses into two separate companies: Theyre different businesses, with different cost structures and different delivery, marketing, licensing, and management challenges, and they will be easier to run better if theyre managed separately.† Split in Two. It only makes sense to create two companies that would help them focus on their main objective. Since Qwikster will be for the dvd section library they have to take into consideration the costs of shipping out a dvd, the quantity of inventory in the warehouse as well as inventory turnover. Online streaming does not the same costs associated since the consumer is just a click away from watching at their convenience. Consumers are sometimes forced in choosing the DVD’s because as I have experienced myself some of the older and newer versions of movies are not available to stream online. For example, Willow was an all-time favorite of mine during my childhood, while checking the streaming library I came across the movie but once I had clicked on the title it showed it was only available via DVD. I have a very bad habit in returning the Netflix dvd given there are no additional shipping costs associated with the dvd, but the downfall for Netflix is that there is one less dvd out in the world and the inventory won’t be replenished until I return this movie. Financial Risk Netflix domestic online streaming has a committed amount of customers while domestic dvd are hit the worst. Netflix membership plans include $8.00 a month for unlimited streaming, for an additional $8.00 more a month customers can add unlimited DVD’s, and if the consumer is interested in Blu-ray disks then they would add an additional $2.00 on top of dvd price bringing it up to $10.00 for Blu-ray’s. Hurley (2012) states, â€Å"Nevertheless, gross, operating, and net income margins have been sliding steadily and substantially for several years. Moreover, Netflix continues to rely on subscriptions to its DVD’s-by-mail service to prop up net income. Although management officially altered corporate strategy to place emphasis  on streaming services rather than DVD-by-mail services and there are more than twice as many streaming subscriptions as by-mail subscriptions.† Strong Force. In December 2012 it was announced that both Disney (DIS) and Netflix (NFLX) announced a deal that would allow Disney shows and movies to be available to only Netflix’s subscribers. The result of this announcement resulted in Netflix stock rise to 15%. This is great news for consumers like me who is a Disney fanatic, now I will have a reason to stay with Netflix so that I can watch Disney movies with an unlimited amount of time. Conclusion When the price increase occurred back in 2011, I did cancel my membership because I was still feeling the economic downturn in my household. I would rather use that $18.00 towards filling up my gas tank rather than watch TV, in my eyes needs are more important than wants in my household. In mid-2012 I had a career change that resulted in a higher income. I now had a little extra play money to apply to a want that I once had and since Netflix allowed my children to be satisfied and allowed for some quiet time on my end, I went ahead and renewed my subscription. Being on Netflix for a few months I can say that I was extremely stoked when the announcement of Disney and Netflix working together. References Blodget, H. (2011). With all respect to Reed Hastings, the Netflix-Qwikster split bad for customers. Retrieved from http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/respect-reed-hastings-netflix-qwikster-split-bad-customers-160148340.html Hurley, D. (2012). Could Netflix bounce in 2013? Retrieved from http://www.wealthlift.com/blog/netflix-bounce-2013/ Pogue, D. (2011). Why Netflix raised its prices. Retrieved from http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/14/why-netflix-raised-its-prices/

Performance Management Cycle Properties

Performance Management Cycle Properties The performance management cycle is a premiere technique used by many companies to guide their performance management system. It is regarded as a continuous, future oriented and participative system; as an ongoing cycle of criteria setting, monitoring, informal feedback from supervisors and peer, formal multisource assessment, diagnosis and review action planning and development resourcing (Bach1999; Williams 2002). The Performance Management cycle involves a continuous learning process as stated by Kaufman, R., Thiagarajan, S., MacGillis, P.1997 Performance is not a one shot process, it is ongoing. The continuous improvement and quality management process is vital. An organisations survival depends on it to be done correctly and consistently. Though the above authors identified that it is a continuous process Bach1999; Williams 2002 went on to say that it is far more than a simple process, there are many facets of this cycle. The Performance Management cycle comprises of planning, monitoring, developing, rating and rewarding and back to planning again Neely (1998), but on the other hand, many view performance management to be one step process of appraising the individual only, but as the following cycle explains there is more to performance management than appraising. This cycle provides a framework to help organisations and employees better manage the process of performance management which aids in the future success of the organisation. This research will analyse each aspect of this cycle to assess how it relates to the processes being used at AATT. Performance Management Cycle PLANNING The first step of this continuous cycle is to plan. Planning entails developing and setting performance objectives. Armstrong (2004:488) defines objectives as what organizations, functions, departments and individuals are expected to achieve over a period of time. It is important that company values and goals used as the basis for goal setting be understood and communicated to all employees and managers. Objectives, or goals, are the foundation for good performance. These objectives are used to provide a well thought-out approach to the achievement of the desired performance level for individuals and teams. Employees are usually involved in the planning process, this helps them understand their goals of the organization, what needs to be done; why it needs to be done and how well it should be done. Many companies involve their employees in the process so they can identify and understand the required behaviours. This enables the company to produce plans to meet the objectives of the company and enhance the knowledge, skills and competencies, also reinforcing desired behaviours. This was reinforced by Ducker (1954), He stated that the planning process typically done by senior managers should be prepared by all employee, they should partake in the strategic planning process which would give the employees a sense of ownership and responsibility to fulfil their objectives. Drucker (1954) also contradicted his statement by saying managers are responsible for achieving results. However the researcher is of the opinion that the planning phase should not be left to the managers alone as the employee are the lifeline of an organisation and careful planning and involvement of the employee will encourage them to work along their seniors to foster a successful company. An analysis will be conducted to identify whether this step currently is being enforced at AATT and if the result of this is clear and concise objectives. Monitoring Monitoring entails continuously measuring performance and its effectiveness in achieving the organisation set objectives in the planning process. It also allows the company to update and refine any current and future demands which may arise. This enables the organisation to stay on the right part. During the monitoring phase, its important to keep notes. Document both positive and negative performance issues, and make notes consistently throughout the performance management cycle. Specific instances should be looked at when employees meet and exceed expectations, and when they fall short of performance goals. These notes should be objective, job-related and accurate, focusing on behavior and void of personal option and emotion. Based on these findings the supervisor will be able to identify the employees strengths and shortcomings. The shortcomings are then addressed in the developmental stage of the performance cycle. Development At the development stage the developmental needs of the employee are assessed and addressed. This phase focuses on the improvement of current knowledge and skills and also on the development of new ones. This improvement is done via coaching; training and giving assignments that challenges the employee to take on more responsibility which improves their skills and ability. At This development stage many companies offer training and developmental opportunities to their employees but on the other hand some companies completely disregard this stage of the performance management cycle as they see it as the employees responsibility to further their development and also they avoid the costliness of training programs. The researcher will look at how AATT assess and implements this phase and the employees reactions to implemented training programs. Appraising This phase of the cycle is most synonymous with performance management. It is regularly regarded as the only step in performance management, though this is not the case. At this phase in the cycle the employee is assessed on their performance. When used correctly, performance appraisals can be powerful career development tool and help a company retain its current workforce by boosting performance and morale. According to Flippo (1984) performance appraisal is the systematic, periodic and an impartial rating of an employees excellence in the matters pertaining to his present job and his potential for a better job. As stated this phase enables the company to measure the employee performance and assess if they are meeting the objectives set out at the planning phase, it also allows the company to identify the employee weaknesses, strengthens, and opportunities for further development/ promotion. He also went on to point out that it should be unbiased, this is of great concern for many e mployees as they something feels that the evaluator is prejudiced and they cannot highlight their concerns. The following factors are critical for an effective performance appraisal, these are: proper documentation, Clear cut objectives and goals, Simple understandable evaluation format, evaluation technique, communication and feedback. Picket (2003 pp 237-240) states that the performance review continues in many organisations despite evidence that it has the potential to be one of the most effective management tools in the entire kit. However, according to Steers and Black (1994), performance appraisal is one of the most important and often one of the most mishandled aspects of management. This scenario is one of great concern considering the importance of the evaluator to the success of the appraisal process; Imundo (1993 p158) stated that it is an inherent responsibility of those in managerial positions to pass judgment on what employees do with respect to meeting job requirements. He went on to say While individual employees are responsible for their own performance, it is supervisors who should shoulder overall responsibility for the performance of the unit under their direction. In light of the above, in todays organisation many managers have little or no training concerning the evaluation of employees. As a result of this lack of training supervisors are not equipped to provide proper assessment and effective feedback. Therefore sometimes employees are left up to the own initiative to manage their department and personal performance. Recent studies suggest that organizations fail to conduct effective rigorous, skills-based training and rater training with their managers (Fink, and Longenecker, 1998). Torrington and Hall (1991) stressed that appraisers need training on how to appraise and how to conduct appraisal interviews. However, many organisations stray from this and they provide the manager with the appraisal forms and instructions on how to complete the form and the rating schemes. This procedure currently utilized by organisations underhands the appraisal process. However, Bacal (2001 p 201) states that: Performance appraisal isnt about the forms. The ultimate purpose of performance appraisal is to allow employees and managers to improve continuously and to remove barriers to job success, in other words, to make everyone better. Forms dont make people better, and are simply a way of recording basic information for later reference. If the focus is getting the forms done, without thought and effort, the whole process becomes at best a waste of time, and at worst, insulting. Bacal highlighted that the mundane process of form filling is not what an appraisal is all about, you have to look at the bigger picture which is the successful attainment of the organisations strategic objectives and the success of the organisation. There are many techniques and methods to performance appraisal such as the traditional methods and the Morden methods. These are highlighted below: Traditional Methods Description Morden methods Description ESSAY APPRAISAL METHOD BEHAVIORALLY ANCHORED RATING SCALES(BARS) STRAIGHT RANKING METHOD HUMAN RESOURCE ACCOUNTING METHOD PAIRED COMPARISON 360-Degree-Performance-Appraisal Method CRITICAL INCIDENTS METHODS Management By Objectives(MBO) Method FIELD REVIEW CHECKLIST METHOD GRAPHIC RATING SCALE FORCED DISTRIBUTION The researcher will assess the above methods and examine the different approaches and methodologies which relates to Performance Management at AATT. If these factors are adhered to, they assist the company in formulating strategies for the employee future promotion and rewards. Rewarding The final phase in the cycle is rewarding. At the rewarding phase, the employee or team is recognized and acknowledged with regards to their ability to attain the organisations set objectives in the planning phase. These rewards may be monetary, non-monetary, such as praising the employee for a job well done, and promotions. The researcher will assess if and how AATT determines reward. What Should organisations manage? The most widely recognized and implemented approach to measure performance is the Balanced Scorecard Approach. This is now widely used as a strategy development and execution tool .This approach was developed by Kaplan and Norton (1992, 1996), it provides a system of aligning business actions to the vision and strategy of the organization, improving internal and external communications, and monitoring organization performance against strategic goals it focuses on measurement and evaluation using criteria that will provide a balanced view rather than using only the financial criteria. The four perspectives which Kaplan and Norton recommended that managers assess their employees on are: The financial perspective -This perspective measures the financial outcomes of the organisation. These may include profits, new commercial business ventures or it can be result based. The customers perspective An organisation success depends on their customers, as such, this perspective measures the customers satisfaction and their perception of the organisation. The data collected allows the organisation to gauge if they are effectively satisfying their customers needs and if there is a need for further improvement. The internal business perspective This perspective focuses on the organizations critical internal operations which enable the organisation to attain customer satisfaction. It includes the infrastructure, long and short term goals and objectives, organisational procedures, and human resources. The innovation and learning perspective This perspective cover the organisations ability to innovate, learn, and improve. This links directly with the values of the organisation. For the Balanced scorecard approach to be effective the manager should have the capability to observe and take note of several instruments and measures concurrently. It is frequently stated that one of the main benefits of the Balanced Scorecard, is that is translates strategy into action. However, despite its popularity Norreklit (2003) questioned the existence of a causal relationship between the different perspectives, the fact that this system does not address the needs and wants of all the stakeholders of a company; and the lack of theory behind the scorecard concept. Notwithstanding this criticism the balance scorecard approach has proven to be an appropriate tool to address the organisation performance and if the four perspectives are properly assessed in the end the company and their stakeholders will benefit from their success. As part of this research the researcher will use this universally known model to assess the performance measurement system at AATT. Performance management as a motivational tool. Understand each individuals motivations and triggers can assist an organisation to motivate their employee to perform at their maximum potential. Performance management is constantly associated with theories of motivation. There are several written motivational theories in literature, with the most popular being; Taylor (1890, 1911) Scientific Management, Maslows (1954) needs hierarchy theory, Locke and Ladham (1968, 1990) goal setting theory, Herzbergs 1957 two-factors theory, and Vroom 1964 expectancy theory. Frederick Winslow Taylor (1890, 1911), put forward the idea that workers are motivated mainly by pay. His Theory of Scientific Management argued that workers do not naturally enjoy work and so need close supervision and control; therefore managers should break down production into a series of small tasks. Workers should then be given appropriate training and tools so they can work as efficiently as possible on one set task. Workers are then paid according to the number of items they produce in a set period of time- piece-rate pay. As a result workers are encouraged to work hard and maximise their productivity. However this approach became repetitive and insulting to the workers as they felt like they were being treated like human machines. This theory is often linked to Macgregors two fundamental approaches to managing people, theory X and theory Y, namely theory X which speaks to employees being self-serving, unwilling to take on responsibility and essentially only working for money. It follows an authoritarian management style. On the other hand theory Y speaks to a participative management style saying work is as natural as rest or play, without the threat of punishment people will work to pursue organizational objectives and people accept and seek out responsibility, which is what the performance management cycle is all about, including the employee in the process. Elton Mayo went against those theories saying that workers are not just concerned with money but could be better motivated by having their social needs met whilst at work. This factor was ignored by Taylor. Mayo introduced the Human Relation School of thought, which focused on managers actively communicating to their employees, and treating them as individuals who have meaningful opinions. His theory most aligns with the paternalistic management style and incorporates elements of the performance management cycle, whereby employees are encouraged to give their opinion and work alongside management. Abraham Maslow (1954) in conjunction with Frederick Herzberg 1957 introduced the Neo-Human Relations School in the 1950s, which focused on the psychological needs of employees. Maslow put forward a theory that there are five levels of human needs which employees need to have fulfilled at work. These are identified in the figure below. It is a bottom up approach, he identified that if certain need cannot be met the person will not be motivated to move on to the other level. Whereas, Hertzbergs two-factor theory are hygiene factors and motivator factors. Hygiene factors speak to the need for a business to avoid unpleasantness at work. If these factors are inadequate for employees, they therefore can cause discontent at work. Hygiene factors include: Company policies and administration Wages, salaries and other financial remuneration Quality of supervision Quality of inter-personal relations Working conditions Feelings of job security Motivator factors are based on the individual need for personal development. When they exist, motivator factors actively create job satisfaction. If they are effective, then they can motivate an individual to achieve above-average performance and effort. Motivator factors include: Status Opportunity for advancement Gaining recognition Responsibility Challenging / stimulating work Sense of personal achievement personal growth in a job There are similarities between Maslow (1954) and Frederick Herzberg theories; they both suggest that needs have to be satisfied for the employee to be motivated. However, Herzberg argues that only the higher levels of the Maslow Hierarchy (e.g. self-actualisation, esteem needs) act as a motivator. The remaining needs can only cause dissatisfaction if not addressed. (Motivation in theory n.d.) These motivational theories can be applied to a wide range of management functions, but these will be used by the researcher to fulfil her objective of determine the Performance Management process as it relates to the motivation of employees in the workplace and how it is implemented in the organization and the impact it has on the motivation of employees. This chapter outlined literature key to the researchers study of performance management as it relates to AATT. The following chapter will address the methodologies the researcher will utilize to ascertain her objectives. Drucker, P., The Practice of Management, Harper, New York, 1954; Heinemann, London, 1955; revised edn, Butterworth-Heinemann, 2007 The Economist Guide to Management Ideas and Gurus, by Tim Hindle Flippo, E. B. 1984. Personnel management. 6th Ed. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company. Steers, R.M. Black, J.S. 1994. Organizational behaviour. Ed. ke-5. New York: Harper Collins. Grote, R.C. Grote, D. 2002. The performance appraisal question and answer book: a survival guide for managers. AMACOM. Les Pickett, (2003) Transforming the annual fiasco, Industrial and Commercial Training, Vol. 35 Iss: 6, pp.237 240 Armstrong, M Baron, A 2005, Managing performance: Performance management in action. Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, London. Weiss, Tracey B., and Franklin Hartle, Reengineering Performance Management, Breakthroughs in Achieving Strategy Through People, St. Lucie Press, Boca Raton, 1997. Pg 3-6 Kaufman, R. (1997). A Strategic Planning Framework: Mega Planning. In Kaufman, R., Thiagarajan, S., MacGillis, P. (Editors), The Handbook for Performance Improvement. San Francisco, CA: Pfeiffer Co/Division of Jossey-Bass Laurence S. Fink, Clinton Oliver Longenecker, (1998) Training as a performance appraisal improvement strategy, Career Development International, Vol. 3 Iss: 6, pp.243 251 Douglas Maxx, Robert Bacall. 2001. Perfect Phrases for Performance Reviews 2/E. McGraw-Hill Professional p 201. Neely A., Adams C. and Kennerley M, (2002), The Performance Prism: The Scorecard for Measuring and Managing Business Success, London, UK: Financial Times Prentice Hall Norreklit, H. (2003), The Balanced Scorecard: What Is the Score? A Rhetorical Analysis of the Balanced Scorecard., Accounting, Organisations and Society, Vol. 28, No. 6, pp. 591. KAPLAN, R. S. and NORTON, D. P. 1992. The Balanced Scorecard: Measures that Drive Performance, Harvard Business Review, Jan-Feb, pp. 71-79. KAPLAN, R. S. and NORTON, D. P. 1996. Using the Balanced Scorecard as a Strategic Management System, Harvard Business Review, Jan-Feb pp 75 -85. HERZBERG, F. et al. 1957. The motivation to work. 2nd ed. New York LOCKE, E.A. 1968. Towards a Theory of Task Motivation and Incentives, Organisational Behaviour and Human Performance, Vol. 14, No.2, pp. 157-189. LOCKE, E.A. and LADHAM, G.P. 1990. A Theory of Goal setting and Task Performance, New York, NY: Prentice-Hall. MCCLELLAND, P. C. 1975. Causal explanation and model building in history, economics and the new economy. Ithaca; London : Cornell University Press. Maslow, Abraham (1954). Motivation and Personality. Harper and Row New York: VROOM, V.H. 1964. Work and Motivation., New York, NY: John Wiley. TAYLOR, F. W. 1890. The rise of scientific management. Madison; London : University of Wisconsin Press. TAYLOR, F. W., 1911. The principles of scientific management. London : Harper Brothers. http://tutor2u.net/business/people/motivation_theory_herzberg.asp motivation in theory Neely, A 1998, Measurement of business performance why, what and how, The Economist, London.

Exploring the Renaissance in England Essay -- British history, european

During the times 1400s and 1500s primarily in Italy, there was an essential change that encompassed all aspects of life. It is called a Renaissance. The word renaissance means rebirth and it was a response to adversities in middle ages. In Western European history Renaissance or rebirth marks a transition between the times of Medieval and modern era. It is also the beginning of the modern history. Religion is a dominant culture in itself and also a set of beliefs that represent the social order but with the beginning of the renaissance, people started to examine the nature, instead of focused on religious issues .The church was not the center of attention anymore. With Renaissance there is a concept accrued which is based on human and their feelings, it is encouraged people to explore and be more creative than it used to be. The English renaissance is a cultural and artistic movement in England from the 16th century to the17th century. Renaissance arrived England long after due to detention of the printing press. Thus, it became an impossible thing to encourage literacy and help to spread new ideas. The other reason of this detention might be linked with the idea that British people give less importance to their language. The changing of religion that is made by the king is the most significant occasion which shows Renaissance officially affected on England. With this variation, religion no longer ruled their lives. Apparently, that is the reason of why Renaissance arrived in England. When we looking at the period as a whole we can easily see that Renaissance embraces a series of differentiation include social, politic and artistic aspects of lives. During the renaissance in England, social life gained numerous advanc... ...ery professional. There was a new sense of fun occurred which was pointed to effect audience. Compared with the previous periods, we see that In Shakespeare’s time subject matters turned into more humanistic interest such as rhetoric logic. Thus, he had a significant effect on expansion of English vocabulary. I would want to conclude this brief essay on life in renaissance to say that, Renaissance became synonymous with the idea of â€Å"rebirth and it reflected the great changes in politics, society and artistic aspects of live. As a matter of fact, Elizabeth era left a remarkable impression that time in England, it came up with today’s world famous authors, artists, architects and composers. It is inevitable to say that Renaissance period in England reminds all people of the most significant moments around the world in terms of cultural and historical movements. Exploring the Renaissance in England Essay -- British history, european During the times 1400s and 1500s primarily in Italy, there was an essential change that encompassed all aspects of life. It is called a Renaissance. The word renaissance means rebirth and it was a response to adversities in middle ages. In Western European history Renaissance or rebirth marks a transition between the times of Medieval and modern era. It is also the beginning of the modern history. Religion is a dominant culture in itself and also a set of beliefs that represent the social order but with the beginning of the renaissance, people started to examine the nature, instead of focused on religious issues .The church was not the center of attention anymore. With Renaissance there is a concept accrued which is based on human and their feelings, it is encouraged people to explore and be more creative than it used to be. The English renaissance is a cultural and artistic movement in England from the 16th century to the17th century. Renaissance arrived England long after due to detention of the printing press. Thus, it became an impossible thing to encourage literacy and help to spread new ideas. The other reason of this detention might be linked with the idea that British people give less importance to their language. The changing of religion that is made by the king is the most significant occasion which shows Renaissance officially affected on England. With this variation, religion no longer ruled their lives. Apparently, that is the reason of why Renaissance arrived in England. When we looking at the period as a whole we can easily see that Renaissance embraces a series of differentiation include social, politic and artistic aspects of lives. During the renaissance in England, social life gained numerous advanc... ...ery professional. There was a new sense of fun occurred which was pointed to effect audience. Compared with the previous periods, we see that In Shakespeare’s time subject matters turned into more humanistic interest such as rhetoric logic. Thus, he had a significant effect on expansion of English vocabulary. I would want to conclude this brief essay on life in renaissance to say that, Renaissance became synonymous with the idea of â€Å"rebirth and it reflected the great changes in politics, society and artistic aspects of live. As a matter of fact, Elizabeth era left a remarkable impression that time in England, it came up with today’s world famous authors, artists, architects and composers. It is inevitable to say that Renaissance period in England reminds all people of the most significant moments around the world in terms of cultural and historical movements.

Platos Meno Essay -- essays research papers

Plato Meno   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  In Plato’s dialogue Socrates discusses ways in which virtue can be acquired with Meno. Three possibilities are confronted, first that virtue is innate within the human soul. The second suggests that virtue can be taught, and the third possibility is that virtue is a gift from the gods. These ways are debated by Socrates and Meno to a very broad conclusion.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Socrates poses the question that virtue may be innate within the human soul. This is to say that all people would have virtue within them, but it is only those who find it that can truly become virtuous. To prove the concept of innate understanding to Meno, Socrates, acquires the help of one of Meno’s slave boys to demonstrate. Socrates establishes that the boy has never been taught mathematical geometry and starts bombarding him with a series of questions on the physical properties of a square. First he asks the boy to multiply the square by two, and he succeeds. However, the boy fails when asked to divide the same square into two parts half the original size. By asking the boy a series of questions yet, never actually telling him the answers Socrates helps the slave to â€Å"recollect† the knowledge that is within him. Meno is of course astonished with this feat that Socrates maintains is simply a matter of recollection.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  This example given by Socrates, though obviously persuasive to Meno is somewhat unstable. It can be shown that Socrates manipulated the boy into recollecting the information by offering suggestive material within his questions. For example, if a person did not know the sum of the equation two plus two one could ask: if a person had two apples and someone else gave them two more would the person then not have four apples in total? A question was asked yet the information on how to perform the operation was directly given in the statement. Thus it can be reasoned that Socrates in a sense did teach the boy how to divide the square.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Following this demonstration Socrates poses a second idea that virtue may be taught. He begins by looking for teachers of virtue and comes up with four examples. The first is Themistocles who is agreed to be virtuous by the debaters and obviously a good teacher of his virtue. However the debaters also agre... ...finite preference to any of the possibilities that have been stated.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Now the question is would Socrates have maintained that ignorance is bliss based on his views of the possible ways of acquiring virtue? I would conclude that he would not see ignorance as bliss because Socrates believes that the truth is far greater than the unknowing. Throughout the dialogue Socrates and Meno journey to put aside their ignorance to come to the truth on how virtue is acquired and possibly more importantly what virtue is. Even though the path to truth has proved painful in that the two are more perplexed on the topic at the end of the dialogue then at the beginning Socrates would have seen this as the first step to achieving the truth. This of course is better than not achieving that step at all.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Socrates is ultimately concerned in finding the whole truth and would have defiantly preferred knowing some of the truth rather than being ignorant to it. Even though Socrates knew that the journey to reach the truth may be painful, ignorance would be far worse than a painful truth. Ultimately he knew that the way must be tried!

Exploration of Self in Matthew Arnolds The Buried Life Essay -- Arnol

Exploration of Self in Matthew Arnold's The Buried Life One of the modes of poetry theme and content was that of psychological exploration of self, as characterized by the poem "The Buried Life" by Matthew Arnold. Class structure and gender roles were vividly looked at in depth, "definitions of masculinity and femininity were earnestly contested throughout the period, with increasing sharp assaults on traditional roles..." (Longman, p. 1888). What it was to be a man (or woman) was frequently in question, and much of Victorian poetry addressed this. Arnold felt that, "literature must directly address the moral needs of readers." (Longman, p. 2017) He felt a need to instruct and educate society to a fuller understanding of its democratic goals. "The Buried Life" can be seen as man's struggle against society's forced class and gender roles. The poem speaks with an "I" point of view, something that was new for the Victorian era, yet which became an increasing mode throughout poetry. We know not who the "I" is in this poem, and I would doubt that it reflects the author himself. The character of this poem, right from the beginning feels a sadness that comes from the inner struggle between what society depicts as "should" and what a person really feels, "I feel a nameless sadness o'er me roll,/ yes, yes, we know that we can jest,/ we know we, we know that we can smile!/ But there's a something in this breast/ to which thy light words bring no rest." (3-7) There is the beginning sense here that he is starting to see conflict within himself, first characterized by his emotions. In the second stanza of the poem, nearly all the lines reflect the characters feeling of powerlessness to put a voice to this inner struggle, to be... ...coolness play upon his face,/ and an unwonted calm pervades his breast." (94-95) Freudian theory would call this poem a conflict between the pleasure principle "craves only pleasures...ignoring moral and sexual boundaries established by society" and the reality principle "that part of the psyche that recognizes the need for societal standards and regulations." (Bressler, p. 180) "The Buried Life" adequately portrays this inner struggle between the self and society, between was is felt and what is acceptable. I believe that is what Arnold was attempting, to enlighten his readers of this inner struggle and sense of self in a time when strong moral character was being questioned. WORDS CITED 1. Bressler, Charles. Literary Criticism. Prentice Hall, New Jersey, C. 1999 2. Longman Anthology of British Literature. Addison-Wesley Educational Publishers, C. 2000.

Calculation and Report of Wacc of Microsoft

Bonds Microsoft’s long-term debt is composed of eight long-term bonds. It also has two short-term bonds that mature this year and early next year. These bonds were neglected in this report. In this report the required return was calculated by using the coupon rates, market values, time until maturity, and tax rate. These values were all found on Microsoft’s 2012 financial statement. The weighted average cost of debt was then found through the multiplication of each bond’s required return and their corresponding bond weights.These bond weights were found through the multiplication of the quantity of bonds at each interest rate and the market value of each bond; this calculated value was then divided by the total amount of long-term debt, which gives the weights as a percent of the total debt. Microsoft’s total debt was calculated to be lkasdfjl;kasjdf, and the after-tax cost of debt was calculated to be asdfkl;safd. These are logical calculations, since the majority of Microsoft’s bonds do, in fact, have interest rates around 4%.Note, the interest on Microsoft’s bonds is incurred on a semi-annual basis and was calculated in this report on the same basis. Therefore, the semi-annual cost of debt would be half this value: 2%. Some other notes to consider in bond calculations are given below: Do we have any other notes to consider guys? Feel free to message me, and I’ll add them, or add them yourselves if you think there is anything else to include.

Competition Energy Drinks Essay

The beverage industry, like most food service industries in these economic times, faces many challenges. Not one company is excluded from the challenges of economic conditions, demographics, social and global forces, and regulatory, political, and legal factors. The global economic conditions affect the energy drink industry in many ways. This industry depends highly on the disposable income of its customers. People are very cautious with their money these days and if additional income does not exist to purchase these items, then the companies suffer. In recent projections, however, this does not seem to be the case. The global industry factors show a projected growth of $20 trillion in sales between 2009 and 2014, and demand for these alternative beverages is expected to increase globally as customer purchasing power increases. Social factors play an important part in the industry’s strategy, as well. With customers concerned with healthy lifestyles and exercise, the alternative beverage industry has increased sales in the last decade. Customers demanding low calorie, energy & vitamin-enhancing drinks turn to these types of beverages for their needs instead of carbonated soft drinks. Alternative drinks are consumed by a slim demographic. These products are generally used by young adults, college and high school students, athletes and exercise aficionados. Another branch of these drinks are the energy â€Å"shots,† which have become very popular in the last decade. With new legislation and changing regulations, it is very important for companies to stay abreast of all changes. There has been an increase in negative reports on what affects energy drinks have on people that use them, from high blood pressure to arrhythmia, which as forced some companies to include warning labels on their packaging. There is also a concern with the consumption of these drinks contributing to the obesity issue, many of these drinks contain high fructose corn syrup, and many additives that can contribute to weight gain if consumption is not limited. Competition is fierce in this industry; not only between the two biggest competitors, Coca-Cola Company and PepsiCo Inc., but also Red Bull GmbH, Hansen Natural Corporation and privately owned regional brands. The two major companies, Pepsi and Coca Cola, are strong competitors within the alternative beverage market and use both the introduction of new products as well as the introduction of existing products in new markets to increase sales. Pepsi has introduced several new products – Charge, Rebuild, and Defend – three new brands available to consumers interested in vitamin-enhanced drink alternatives. Pepsi has also recently agreed to distribute the â€Å"Rockstar† brand drinks in Canada and the United States. Coca-Cola Company’s strategy is to distribute their existing brands in the new markets of Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong and other Asia/Pacific countries. In order to compete with these two major companies, Red Bull relies on sponsorships and promotion as well as celebrity endorsements. By using advertising in this manner, Red Bull is able to use its slogans and logos in a variety of ways to get their name out into the public. Hansen Natural Corporation utilizes a different approach to boost sales. This company increased their package size and still maintained a competitive price compared to Red Bull. Like Red Bull, Hansen also uses celebrity promotion and sponsorship as a marketing tool. This is not to say that PepsiCo Inc. and Coca-Cola Company do not utilize this method of advertising, as they both spend billions on advertising promotions, celebrity, and sporting endorsements. The competitive edge in this case lies with PepsiCo Inc. , whose sales of energy and alternative beverages have surpassed its competitors in the past few years. New entrants are not a strong competitive pressure for this industry. The dominating companies are unsurpassed in their strong brand names and great distribution channels. The industry is fully saturated. These factors make it difficult for new companies to compete against them. Any new company wanting to get into this industry would face high capital start-up expenditures and would surely fail due to the high cost. Substitution of products is also an area where the competitive force is low. With brand loyalty, the market for substitution is very low. Consumers want the brands they are used and won’t accept substitution. Suppliers for the industry do not hold much competitive pressure either. Suppliers to this industry are bottling equipment manufactures and secondary packaging suppliers. The suppliers have little bargaining power, as the two major brands own their own bottling centers. As discussed earlier, changes in this industry’s long-term growth rate is a positive one. Growth is high in this market and is expected to continue to grow. One of the reasons for this is the increasing globalization. Coke is expanding its operations to be more global as are some of its competitors. The changing spectrum of the customer base is not really a factor here. Most of the demographic has not changed much since the introduction of these alternative beverages. Marketing and innovation has to continue to grow so that the company can grow. Regulatory influences and government policy changes are a huge factor in this industry. As the customers call for increased legislation and regulation of the ingredients, the companies have to make adjustments to their drink formulas, and this could prove costly if not monitored closely. Society is constantly changing and this industry needs to transition with these changes. By the introduction of new products and the re-tooling of existing products, all of the competitors can be successful. This industry has several success factors, product marketing, product differentiation, brand name, a strong distribution network and the ability to adapt to change. PepsiCo Inc. and Coca-Cola Company have strong aspects of all of these factors which is what has made both of them so successful. PepsiCo Inc.has branched into the food market as well as remaining in the soft drink and alternative beverage markets. Coke has had a similar strategy and relies heavily on their brand name and product recognition. All of the companies have unique and successful marketing techniques such as sponsorships, promotions, and celebrity endorsements. In order to achieve a successful strategic plan, a company needs to establish a group of people to discuss the goals and objectives of their company, sometimes called a task force. The task force should then decide what the company’s goals and objectives are. By drafting Mission and Vision statements, this task force can begin to convey their goals and objectives. Strategic planning is an on-going task for every company. When a plan is established the implementation and monitoring phases begin. To be successful a company should be constantly monitoring its goals and objectives and changing them when the need arises. With competition so high in this industry, a strong strategic plan is critical. In viewing these companies one can see that their plans are very strong. In order to continue to grow and compete in this market all companies need to look forward at the changing times, attitudes and cultures. All of the companies in this market, as with any market, need to maintain their competitive advantage and find new and different ways to achieve it. A comprehensive action plan needs to be put into place and reviewed often. By doing this all companies have a better chance at keeping their competitive advantage and enjoying better profits for their shareholders.

Poca Snack

POCA SNACK – PEPSI CO Pepsi Co, established about 100 years ago, is the owner of the Poca brand and one of the largest companies in the world, having a significant variety of carbonated, non-carbonated beverages, salty sweet and gain-based snack and other food which are available in more than 200 countries. PepsiCo Vietnam was established in 1991 (IBC) under the form of a joint-venture company, and became owned wholly by foreign businessmen in 2000, with a great many investments and supports from PepsiCo Global.Along with the success of Lay’s snack brand name all over the world, PepsiCo is on the way to build a new snack brand, Poca, with a view to becoming popularly recognized in not only Vietnam but also overseas markets in the long run. Although Poca brand has been established in Vietnam nearly for four years, it is ranking now in the top three leading snack companies (The Market Newspaper 2008). Until now, Poca has 20 flavors with various package sizes from 10 to 60 g. Although Poca brand is now very popular and has had a large market share in the market for snack they still have some limitations.Firstly, as being a comparatively new entrant with recently launched products, Poca has to compete with a great number of big and long-standing well-known opponents, such as Oishi, Pringles, Kinh Do. Almost Vietnamese customers are used to those famous brands so they do not care much about Pepsi Co snack – Poca. Secondly, most people think that snack is unhealthy food. Therefore, many parents do not allow their child to eat snacks. Moreover, Poca also contain small amounts of cholesterol, animal fat, sodium which are well-known as unhealthy substances.Last but not least, natural factors such as water, soil or weather play a very important role in growing potatoes and wheat, so if there are some changes on one of them, it could effect to the productivity of the whole industry. In addition, each year Vietnam often face with many disasters such as storms or typhoons. Therefore, Poca sometimes faces shortage of main raw material and it leads to large amount of backlogs. There are some suggestions to deal with Poca brand’s limitations.Poca brand should intensify the natural nutrition such as anti-inflammatory, omega 3, aliphatic acid, and oleocanthal and minimize the unhealthy ingredients like cholesterol, animal fat, sodium and artificial substances. Besides, they can change the packing materials from plastics into Bio-Plastics packages – which automatically disintegrate into carbon dioxide, water, and biological substances under the natural condition. It will encourage people to buy Poca instead of other snack brand to protect the environment.Moreover, the whole industry has to be aware about the weather in Vietnam in order to avoid shortage of main raw material. They should have careful planning and well weather prediction. Furthermore, there should be more promotions to attract the customers. For example, the company sometimes holds parties or concerts with the performance of the brand’s representatives – famous stars, they can give out some discount programs to attract more consumers. Additionally, the company should increase more flavors for recent products.They should give out the surveys among their target customers to determine the favorite flavors for the upcoming products. As Poca develops new competitive and unique flavors, it can compete with other famous competitors such as Kinh Do Barkery or Bibica. INTRODUCTION . Saigon Cosmetics Corporation (SCC) is officially established in 01/01/1987 and became a share holding company in 01/01/2000. The company specializes in manufacturing and distributing perfume. Besides, the company also produces shampoo, shower gel and soap.Before 1990, the market of SCC is only local. In 1990, the first foreign markets were the Soviet Union and the Eastern European Bloc countries. Since then, the business has developed greatly, and now b een it is aiming for international markets such as the US and UK. In addition, the company completed and put into use a new factory of 18ha area at Cat Lai Industry zone, District 2, HCMC in 2004. , Miss Saigon Elegance is a high quality product of the company which has a unique shape of a Vietnamese girl wearing an â€Å"Ao dai† and a conical hat.Since the year 2007, SCC has started investing in new stores to sell its products. At present, SCC has 13 stores in all over Vietnam. Many of the stores are located in big department stores/supermarkets in Ho Chi Minh City – the most developed city of Vietnam. Moreover, there is a showroom in Phu My Hung – a new and wealthy district in HCMC. Besides, SCC products are also sold at other general retail shops. * The company aims to build its brand into a internationally competitive one, make it to the world-class level.This will face with tremendous difficulties as there are top brands in the world that has perfume produc t; e. g: Calvin Klein, Chanel, Cartier, Hugo Boss, Giorgio Armani, etc. Products at medium cost may make the customer wonder about the quality of the products as comparing to other brands of perfume. Vietnamese customers are in favor with foreign brands rather than the local brands. Perfume in general is luxury product, which are usually sold at high price. * To provide customers with high-quality products, the company imports materials from French.Moreover, the company is in associate with Liz Claiborne cosmetics for manufacturing technology and quality assurance counseling. Most of the materials for the products are imported. This results in import tax and transportation cost that cut down on the company’s profit. Access to raw materials is limited There are counterfeit products of Miss Saigon Elegance perfume that have been found in some South East Asian countries. This threatens to take over part of the company’s profit and harm the customers’ health and the refore, damage the brand image. Recruit skilled employees to make sure that products have good quality. Associate with other well-known brand such as Ponds to make a bundle of perfume and body care to attract more customers. ST strategies * Mass invest in promotion to get customers’ attention and increase sales. * Build up a good system to communicate with customers to keep them and attract new customers as well. | WT strategies * Diversify products to set different prices for different target customers. Try to promote the products in more areas with attractive advertisements. | SO strategies * Develop the company’s website for customers to be able to buy product online. * Research the market in Vietnam as well as foreign markets to improve the quality of the products to meet customers’ satisfaction. | WO strategies * Recruit skilled employees to make sure that products have good quality. * Associate with other well-known brand such as Ponds to make a bundle of perfume and body care to attract more customers. * Invest more in promotion for our products and try to have more customers from not only the market in Vietnam but also in other countries. * Maintain the relationship with the customers by building a good membership system which allows discount to customers who have silver and gold membership card. * Product Mix Pricing Strategies: SCC has many kinds of products which has different appropriate prices for the customers. The products range from average quality product to high quality product.This means that the company is using product line pricing to set different prices based on the different quality of the products * Price-Adjustment Strategies: * Psychological Pricing: because customers tend to judge a product’s quality based on the price – higher price means better quality – so we set a fairly high price that is compatible with the value of the products. * Product-bundle pricing: the product line of Miss Saigo n Elegance contains two kinds of fragrance: N1 and N2. When buying both fragrances, instead of paying 500,000VND, customers will have to pay 450,000 only.We suggest other bundles, for example, when buying a bottle of Miss Saigon Elegance (250,000VND) and Miss Vietnam (180,000VND), customers only have to pay 399,000VND instead of 430,000VND. * the company should have salespeople to push its products to the customers. With this strategy, word-of-mouth can be excellent in helping people recognize and remember the products as well as the company. * On occasions like Christmas Eve, Women’s Day, New Year, Company birthday etc. customers can have a small extra 5ml bottle of Cindy perfume when buying a 75ml Miss Saigon Elegance or 20% discount on all product. Poca Snack POCA SNACK – PEPSI CO Pepsi Co, established about 100 years ago, is the owner of the Poca brand and one of the largest companies in the world, having a significant variety of carbonated, non-carbonated beverages, salty sweet and gain-based snack and other food which are available in more than 200 countries. PepsiCo Vietnam was established in 1991 (IBC) under the form of a joint-venture company, and became owned wholly by foreign businessmen in 2000, with a great many investments and supports from PepsiCo Global.Along with the success of Lay’s snack brand name all over the world, PepsiCo is on the way to build a new snack brand, Poca, with a view to becoming popularly recognized in not only Vietnam but also overseas markets in the long run. Although Poca brand has been established in Vietnam nearly for four years, it is ranking now in the top three leading snack companies (The Market Newspaper 2008). Until now, Poca has 20 flavors with various package sizes from 10 to 60 g. Although Poca brand is now very popular and has had a large market share in the market for snack they still have some limitations.Firstly, as being a comparatively new entrant with recently launched products, Poca has to compete with a great number of big and long-standing well-known opponents, such as Oishi, Pringles, Kinh Do. Almost Vietnamese customers are used to those famous brands so they do not care much about Pepsi Co snack – Poca. Secondly, most people think that snack is unhealthy food. Therefore, many parents do not allow their child to eat snacks. Moreover, Poca also contain small amounts of cholesterol, animal fat, sodium which are well-known as unhealthy substances.Last but not least, natural factors such as water, soil or weather play a very important role in growing potatoes and wheat, so if there are some changes on one of them, it could effect to the productivity of the whole industry. In addition, each year Vietnam often face with many disasters such as storms or typhoons. Therefore, Poca sometimes faces shortage of main raw material and it leads to large amount of backlogs. There are some suggestions to deal with Poca brand’s limitations.Poca brand should intensify the natural nutrition such as anti-inflammatory, omega 3, aliphatic acid, and oleocanthal and minimize the unhealthy ingredients like cholesterol, animal fat, sodium and artificial substances. Besides, they can change the packing materials from plastics into Bio-Plastics packages – which automatically disintegrate into carbon dioxide, water, and biological substances under the natural condition. It will encourage people to buy Poca instead of other snack brand to protect the environment.Moreover, the whole industry has to be aware about the weather in Vietnam in order to avoid shortage of main raw material. They should have careful planning and well weather prediction. Furthermore, there should be more promotions to attract the customers. For example, the company sometimes holds parties or concerts with the performance of the brand’s representatives – famous stars, they can give out some discount programs to attract more consumers. Additionally, the company should increase more flavors for recent products.They should give out the surveys among their target customers to determine the favorite flavors for the upcoming products. As Poca develops new competitive and unique flavors, it can compete with other famous competitors such as Kinh Do Barkery or Bibica. INTRODUCTION . Saigon Cosmetics Corporation (SCC) is officially established in 01/01/1987 and became a share holding company in 01/01/2000. The company specializes in manufacturing and distributing perfume. Besides, the company also produces shampoo, shower gel and soap.Before 1990, the market of SCC is only local. In 1990, the first foreign markets were the Soviet Union and the Eastern European Bloc countries. Since then, the business has developed greatly, and now b een it is aiming for international markets such as the US and UK. In addition, the company completed and put into use a new factory of 18ha area at Cat Lai Industry zone, District 2, HCMC in 2004. , Miss Saigon Elegance is a high quality product of the company which has a unique shape of a Vietnamese girl wearing an â€Å"Ao dai† and a conical hat.Since the year 2007, SCC has started investing in new stores to sell its products. At present, SCC has 13 stores in all over Vietnam. Many of the stores are located in big department stores/supermarkets in Ho Chi Minh City – the most developed city of Vietnam. Moreover, there is a showroom in Phu My Hung – a new and wealthy district in HCMC. Besides, SCC products are also sold at other general retail shops. * The company aims to build its brand into a internationally competitive one, make it to the world-class level.This will face with tremendous difficulties as there are top brands in the world that has perfume produc t; e. g: Calvin Klein, Chanel, Cartier, Hugo Boss, Giorgio Armani, etc. Products at medium cost may make the customer wonder about the quality of the products as comparing to other brands of perfume. Vietnamese customers are in favor with foreign brands rather than the local brands. Perfume in general is luxury product, which are usually sold at high price. * To provide customers with high-quality products, the company imports materials from French.Moreover, the company is in associate with Liz Claiborne cosmetics for manufacturing technology and quality assurance counseling. Most of the materials for the products are imported. This results in import tax and transportation cost that cut down on the company’s profit. Access to raw materials is limited There are counterfeit products of Miss Saigon Elegance perfume that have been found in some South East Asian countries. This threatens to take over part of the company’s profit and harm the customers’ health and the refore, damage the brand image. Recruit skilled employees to make sure that products have good quality. Associate with other well-known brand such as Ponds to make a bundle of perfume and body care to attract more customers. ST strategies * Mass invest in promotion to get customers’ attention and increase sales. * Build up a good system to communicate with customers to keep them and attract new customers as well. | WT strategies * Diversify products to set different prices for different target customers. Try to promote the products in more areas with attractive advertisements. | SO strategies * Develop the company’s website for customers to be able to buy product online. * Research the market in Vietnam as well as foreign markets to improve the quality of the products to meet customers’ satisfaction. | WO strategies * Recruit skilled employees to make sure that products have good quality. * Associate with other well-known brand such as Ponds to make a bundle of perfume and body care to attract more customers. * Invest more in promotion for our products and try to have more customers from not only the market in Vietnam but also in other countries. * Maintain the relationship with the customers by building a good membership system which allows discount to customers who have silver and gold membership card. * Product Mix Pricing Strategies: SCC has many kinds of products which has different appropriate prices for the customers. The products range from average quality product to high quality product.This means that the company is using product line pricing to set different prices based on the different quality of the products * Price-Adjustment Strategies: * Psychological Pricing: because customers tend to judge a product’s quality based on the price – higher price means better quality – so we set a fairly high price that is compatible with the value of the products. * Product-bundle pricing: the product line of Miss Saigo n Elegance contains two kinds of fragrance: N1 and N2. When buying both fragrances, instead of paying 500,000VND, customers will have to pay 450,000 only.We suggest other bundles, for example, when buying a bottle of Miss Saigon Elegance (250,000VND) and Miss Vietnam (180,000VND), customers only have to pay 399,000VND instead of 430,000VND. * the company should have salespeople to push its products to the customers. With this strategy, word-of-mouth can be excellent in helping people recognize and remember the products as well as the company. * On occasions like Christmas Eve, Women’s Day, New Year, Company birthday etc. customers can have a small extra 5ml bottle of Cindy perfume when buying a 75ml Miss Saigon Elegance or 20% discount on all product.

Management†Change Essay

Change is important to people because the world and most of the people are changing. If people do not take attention of it and refuse to change, they will be eliminated by the world. People who are fear or hesitate to change must try to step out and start to change now. People can overcome their fear of change by 3 steps; first, they must find out and confront the issues that cause them afraid of change. Then, keep your mind to think the opportunities instead of threat. After that, move on against the fear. In addition, managers must be patient to people in order for people have enough time to make any adjustment for them to adapt new things successfully. Listen to employees and counsels them with ease. To be succeeding in change, managers have to take a lot of issues into consideration. It may be hard for managers to implement change, but here are some suggestions to managers to implement change successfully. First of all, managers should have a good planning of change before they carry out. Queensland government (n. ) pointed out that successfully managing the complexity of change is virtually impossible without a robust plan that is supported by strong project management. Planning is help manager to be aware of what they want to achieve and how they going to achieve it. Secondly, managers should encourage participate. When anticipating making a change, get the team members who will be affected by that change involved early on, find out what make them afraid of change and find out the way to overcome their fear to support change (Stark, 2010). The key to change is to let go the fear—Rosanne Cash (Rick, 2011). To let go people’s fear, managers should often remind people that they are a team and nobody is alone. Managers should also let people understand clearly why they need to change; many people will resist change unless they see that the change is urgently needed and remind them the positive consequences of being change. Then, managers must be able to listen to people’s suggestion. When managers want to apply change, they should not only announce to the people. When managers intending to introduce change, the planning process should involve input from the workforce on the best way to implement the change. People ill be far more committed to the change if they see that their perceptions have been considered and with a sense of ‘ownership’ over ideas and concepts, they will embrace the change with open arms (Future prospect, n. d). Beside that, managers have to monitor the progress over time and make adjustment as necessary (Hamlin, 2011). Managers must make sur e that all the activities are helping the team change effectively otherwise, it is wasting time for people to put so much effort on activities that are not helping them to change. It will make people feel tired for changing and then lose the interest and motivation to involve in change. mployees’ right and control (Davidson et al. , 2009, p. 38). If managers change without consider politic, it may lead people hesitate of change. Thus, causes failure in change. Most of the authors agree that management is connected to another field, because in order for a manager to has a good management. Manager must understand from environment to human resources. Not only those fields which are mentioned above need to be considered, managers also need to consider about the philosophy, psychology and also anthropology According to American Society of Mechanical Engineers (Karmarkar, 2012, p. 1), â€Å"Management is the art and science of preparing, organizing and directing human efforts to c ontrol the forces and utilize the material of nature for the benefit of men. † It is consider as science because management problems can be approached in ways that are rational, logical, objective and systematic. Then, it also called as art because although managers try to be scientific as possible but they must make decision and solve problems on the basis of intuition, experience, instinct and personal insights (Davidson, Simon, Woods, Griffin, 2009, p. 21). Thus, people hesitate of change is not an issue that warrants examination only in the study of management, it also in science and art field. Management science has to learn from other fields in order to understand of what people do and why they do it. One of the fields can management learn from is Sociology (Management’s connection to other field of study for principles of management, 2008). Sociology is the study of people in relationship to their fellow human beings (Robbins et al. , 2011, p. 16). The problem of sociology that link to managers is the society changes such as globalisation and cultural diversity. During the days organisation is changing towards globalization, people who are lack of confidence to change in order to compete with others will hesitate to change. Further, different culture have different attitude in their work. For an example, traditional Chinese will think that changing company bring them risk or uncertainty. In general, managers mostly need to understand the affect of social forces in any consideration of management in that society (Davidson et al. , 2009, p. 37). Further, managers have to look into economics. Economics is concerned with the allocation and distribution of scarce resources (Robbins et al. , 2011, p. 16). Economic system and economic conditions are associated in management. During bad economic conditions such as economy recession or depression, most of the people are not dare to involve in any change because they will worry that they loss what they already hold in hand in this suffer period. Thus, managers have to look into the economic condition of that period to determine whether change can be done at that particular period and have an effective result in change. In addition, the relevant field with management is political science. Political are the government institutions, attitudes and policies that affect business (Davidson et al. , 2009, p. 37). Specific topics concern to political scientists include structuring of conflict, allocating power and manipulating power for individual self interest (Robbins et al. , 2011, p. 16). Government nowadays is increasing aware to organisation’s moral and legal responsibility, this forces affect management theory in planning, organisational design, Robert F. Kennedy once said, â€Å"About twenty percent of the people are against any change. † (Stark, 2010) Why people are so afraid of change? By reading the text, the reason that individuals dislike to change is because it will replaces the known with uncertainty, it requires people to do things out of habit, people fear of losing, disagreement with the necessity to change and limited tolerance for change (Robbins, DeCenzo, Coulter, Woods, 2011, p. 193). Besides all these causes, there are more reason about why individuals dislike or afraid of change. First of all, an individual may against towards all new things (Frank Calberg Service, 2007). For an example an individual maybe complaining or refuse to learn new things. People who dislike learning or accepting new knowledge will give a lot of excuse to escape changing by saying that they have no time, no money to pay to attend courses or training (Redman, 2012). Secondly, people are self doubt (Pratt, 2012). Usually people who are self doubt mostly named themselves not good enough, not smart enough, boring, unattractive, and unlikeable, self doubt can lead them to get defensive (Fox, Sokol, 2009). People who are in self doubt situation will defense themselves do not do others thing that they never try before because they don’t have enough confidence to change (Exposing fear of change, 2011). Further, individuals who are fear of change may because they afraid the bad experience in the past repeat in their life (Radwan, 2012). Individuals who had tried to change in their past but obtained a traumatic experience of change that haunts them will affect them feel so afraid of changing. However, Dr Swaim (2011) argued that people do not afraid of change. He claimed that if people afraid of change then how to explain that there is a big changes in election victory of a little known junior senator form Illinious, Barack Hussein Obama, whose 2007based on the slogan â€Å"change we can believe in†. In addition, a psychologist and life coach Dr Suzy Green (n. d) also argued that most of the people find change is scary is just an excuse. She also claimed that individual makes excuse is because they has low confident or failure in past of changing. Secondly, old habits of individuals is ingrained and it is hard to shake off the behaviors that been developed for a long time, she explained that the excuses people make when they are not ready to tackle their behaviors need to be turned around. The movie of The Queen focuses on individual’s change and it pointed out that change request individual to give up the comfortable ways of thinking and acting. Further, comfort zone is the external environment tends to be placid or at least changes are slow or predictable and it has the ability to change (Jarret, 2009, p. 44). In another word, individual is required to give up the habits they used to be in daily life. For individual to leave their comfort zone is sounds scary to them because it will make them feel anxious (Pawlik-Kienlen, 2007). Individual will feel anxious because they afraid of failure, afraid of new things, fear of criticism and fear of discomfort (O’Callahan, 2012). In addition, Jeffery Schwartz and Sharon Begley in the article claimed that it is hard near the core of brain if habits that a person form by training and experience. Further, brain use intense energy in processing new material, this process enquiry brain to work hard to match new material. Chris Berdik (2012) agrees by saying that evaluating every new experience in detail would be tough on our brains and it would hog energy and attention that could be better used elsewhere. Furthermore, accept new things require forming new connections within the brain, which results in greater conscious effort and attention on our part People need to do their work by writing down everything but nowadays everyone is using a computer or laptop to help them finish all theirs works without any delays. Further, nowadays more companies are trying to be globalisation instead of doing business within own country to earn more profit and individual who working in that particular company gets higher salary and maybe get a chance to fly. All these changes to people in an organisation are easily to be seen and it seems like bringing them a lot of benefits. So, is it can be concluded that changing is easy to be achieved for an individual and they love to change without any hesitate? It cannot be judged shallowly, we have to look deep inside before making a conclusion. A deeper discussion will be presented in the following literary works.