Biographical Sketch

Growing up in the United States has always been both challenging and equally interesting. Born over twenty years ago, I am one person who can be described as having a serious approach towards important issues in life. Issues and events that have come to build who I am today. I have always been a big dreamer and all my efforts have been geared towards fulfilling these dreams. The greater the dream, the more the challenge and effort employed to accomplish it. As a kid, I grew up in a neighborhood inhabited by people of diverse cultures and background.My early childhood studies were uneventful and as far as I can recall I have never had a problem with bad grades. This excellent performance trend would further be continued in my high school days clipping a number of awards. This good performance in my academics, I can attribute to a good family background. My parents are staunch Christians who religiously believe in imparting the best values and life to their children. Although this stri ctness may at times have cost me a few good times with my friends, I don’t complain much as I can see where it has led me.They brought me up as a self-motivated and independent minded person and these qualities I continue to apply in my life up to date. It is this independence and hard work that would lead me to acquire a job in a grocery store, where out of a belief in diligence and work ethics, I would be promoted to a manager after a record one year. Later after the store was closed, I was to secure a job as a clerk in the local post office, a post that I still hold today and run concurrently with my studies. I have also acquired strong interpersonal skills that have seen me expand my social network.My ability to converse in both Polish and English is my strong point as it has enabled me to extend my interactions beyond borders. My love for knowledge is the main driving force behind my enrolment in education programs and as they say, the sky is the limit. Abraham Lincoln o nce said â€Å" And in the end, it is not the years in your life that count, it’s the life in your years† (Jone J. L. , 2006) I have also vowed to make the best out of this life Reference Jone Johnson Lewis, 2006. Life Quotes from wisdom quotas. Quotations to inspire and challenge. Retrieved on 14/11/07 from http://www. wisdomquotes. com/cat-life. html Biographical Sketch On the outside, I appear as a typical plain teenager who had already learned to cope with and comfortable living the life of an American youth. After coming to this nation four years ago, I can truly say that I have already adopted some of the local culture and tradition. My interaction with fellow teenagers has made me less discriminatory and more open-minded to ideas I previously considered unacceptable. I am now more confident in speaking English even though it is not my native tongue.My stay in the US has acquainted me with people who have freed me from my idealism to become more realistic and unbiased without compromising my moral standards. Amidst all these changes, inside me is still that person who came from Poland four years to pursue my dream. I am still that same person who is determined and committed to life-long learning both inside the four-walls of the classroom and through my social interactions.I still see this university as a venue to cultivate my skills and broaden my knowledge with my peers acting as enhancers and motivators. I still believe that aside from enriching my academic knowledge through the theoretical concepts that I am discovering in class, maturity and development of character are still the most important lessons that I am acquiring. I am very much motivated to excel in the career path that I chose and this motivation will nurture my passion.Some things might have changed after four years of staying here. Yet, I am still aware of the fact that even though I speak English fluently, I still think in Polish. Even though I am already used to having burgers and fries during meals, I will still have a craving for the native delicacies. However, one this has never changed—my passion for learning and my yearning to become the best person that I can be through moral development.

Evaluate and Improve Own Performance in a Business Environment Essay

1.1 Explain the purpose and benefits of continuously improving own performance in a business environment. This improves the quality of my work which in turn proves that I am capable of further responsibility. More experience and responsibility could be useful in gaining future job roles. 1.2 Explain the purpose and value of encouraging and accepting feedback from others. The purpose of feedback is to let me know what I am doing is correct or indeed incorrect as the case may be sometimes. It’s as useful to know you are doing things well and in the fashion expected as well as the areas that require amendment or improvement. 1.3 Describe ways of evaluating own work. I regularly ask my line manager and the managers for whom I administrate for feedback regarding my work performance. Also although I find it hard to self critique I try to note my own weaknesses and improve upon them, seeking training if necessary. 1.4 Explain the purpose and benefits of trying out possible improvements to own work. It is important to test out all possible improvements to make sure the method I finally choose to do the task in hand is the best and most appropriate. 1.5 Evaluate how learning and development can improve own work, benefit organisations, and further own career. Learning and development will improve my own work as it brings new skills to light and should give me a better understanding of what I am doing. Through picking up new skills, I could realise I am better able to do a job I previously felt under-qualified for, thus identifying new career options both internally and externally. It could benefit CitySprint as it means that I am better qualified and should have a better understanding of my job role. 1.6 Compare possible career progression routes. I believe the standard progression route from my current career, would be towards a senior admin role, and then eventually a management position. However having previously managed people I know this is not my forte’ so I would probably look at extending and improving the skills I have learnt in Excel, Access and our own reporting software and consider some kind of sidestep into the Business Analysis team. 1.7 Describe possible development opportunities. After completing my level 3 in Business and Administration I can possibly look for an internal move within CitySprint or externally at jobs in various sectors where they need administrators, ultimately a move to a new job, where I can best use my skills, talents and capabilities. So by developing my skills I can look at possible interesting careers and sectors that I might be interested in and develop my opportunities in securing a new position. 1.8 Justify the value of developing a learning plan. A learning plan is a way for me to set individual targets and record achievements. It helps me to keep on the path towards where I want to be in my life and my career. The reason for making a plan is to help me to be further in charge of of my future, by reminding me what I have learned and achieved. Creating my plan will help me develop more confidence in my ability to tackle new things. 2.1 Encourage and accept feedback from other people – Claire, Chrissie. 2.2 Evaluate own work and use feedback from others to identify areas for improvement. 2.3 Identify changes in ways of working needed to improve work performance. 2.4 Complete work tasks using changed ways of working. 2.5 Evaluate work completed and changed ways of working for improvements and effectiveness. 3.1 Evaluate own performance and identify where further learning and development will improve own work. 3.2 Agree and develop a learning plan to improve own work performance, that meets own needs. 3.3 Follow a learning plan for improvement to own work. 3.4 Review progress against learning plan and make updates for improving own work and further learning. Evidence supplied for section 2 and 3 in feedback and PDP printed.

Leadrship Development and business Ethics Coursework - 2

Leadrship Development and business Ethics - Coursework Example Therefore, in order to mitigate the issue of malnutrition, WEP took varied types of initiatives such as concentration over the issue malnutrition in the year 2009 as well as high attention on the purchase of the products in 2008. These programs or initiatives are taken by WEP in order to reduce the negative impacts of malnutrition from the developing countries that may decrease the rate of deaths. Therefore, it might be clearly stated that as the issue of malnutrition took place due to lack of inappropriate nutrients in food materials, so it is also considered as an ethical one. However, in order to reduce the negative impacts of the ethical issue, discussed above numerous world famous companies such as Kraft Foods, Unilever and DSM joined hands with WEP in the program (Project laser Beam). The prime cause behind such type of cooperation of these above mentioned organizations is to offer hygienic foods materials. Hygienic food materials and clean drinking water may comprise of high in-tech of varied types of nutrients that might prove effective in reducing the rate of malnutrition from the developing countries to a considerable extent. However, in order to offer highly nutrient food materials, the organization of WEP also tried to produce best quality of plants. Only then, the program of WEP might become successful in offering best quality of products to the malnutrition children in various villages in the entire globe. Hence such type of holistic approach might also prove worthy in reducing the effects of HIV/Aids and TB from the malnutrition children in t he developing countries. Other than this, effective health-care programs are also offered to the children and women in schools and villages in order to improve their level of awareness over hygiene and cleanliness. By doing so, the rate of deaths might get reduced resulting in

4) Discuss in relation to Michel de Certeaus idea that everyday life Essay

4) Discuss in relation to Michel de Certeaus idea that everyday life is said to exist between the lines - Essay Example Since these movements are habitual and unconscious, I could not remember and felt that it was impossible to remember - so that if I had dusted it and forgot - that is, had acted unconsciously, then it was the same as if I had not. If some conscious person had been watching, then the fact could be established. If, however, no one was looking, or looking on unconsciously, if the whole complex lives of many people go on unconsciously, then such lives are as if they had never been.† (Leo Tolstoys Diary, 1897, cited in Art As Technique by Victor Schklovsky, 1897) In this naà ¯ve narrative manner, Tolstoy has described the complexity in the working of the unconscious. But a closer look can tell us that it is more about the ‘habitual’ task that the individual is not conscious of. After the initial failure to remember the individual also feel that it is impossible to remember. The expression that the failure to remember that he has done the act is tantamount to the fact that he has not done it. The last sentence is more emphatic about the necessity of recording the act done. Three questions can be taken from the quote in order to read a hypertext that the observation appears to relate to. Is the implication of the last sentence serves as a metaphor, which links it to post-modernist doubt in the traditional representation of reality? If habit is responsible for the facile recognition of the inability to be conscious of something, then under what circumstances is the habit formed? How is the production (dusting) of the individual to be accounted? One of the central methodological issues to the theorists of cross-cultural studies is how to relate and conceptualize the existence of the everyday life that is always at odds with the archival representation of life. The heterogeneity of experiences is the unavoidable constituent of every day and the theorists of cross-cultural studies and comparative ethics must rely on heterology in order to

Love & Friendship text analysis Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Love & Friendship text analysis - Essay Example To her, Robbie is a sex-crazed maniac who is out to hurt her sister. Her accusation lands Robbie a jail-term. However, with age she comes to terms with her mistake and leads her life wishing for atonement, and this makes her writes to the end. All the events in the novel can be attributed to the failure of the older generation. Therefore, this paper shall seek to explain the extent to which the older generation’s failure contributed to the events of the story. The novel centers on the youth and adolescents facing challenges as a result of their parents’ failures. For instance, Briony’s cousins’ Lola, Pierrot, and Jackson visit the Tallis’s home for summer since their parents, Cecil Quincey and Hermoine are having problems in their marriage. They are giving their parents time to work out their differences and probably revert back their idea of having a divorce. It is during this visit that Lola gets raped and Robbie is accused of the crime. Chances are high that if Lola’s parents were in a healthy relationship, then they could have not visited the Tallis’s home during summer since they could be spending time together as a family. On the other hand, if they had not visited Tallis’s home, then Lola could have not been raped and Robbie could not have been sent to prison. The Talli’s family members are not happy as a family since their parents are not always there for them. Jack Tallis, the head of the family is always in London working and does not get time to visit or spend quality time with his family. McEwan asserts, â€Å"†¦and the old man is staying in town. He might come later† (48). The whole household misses his presence, and everything that goes wrong is attributed to the fact that he is not around. Briony explains that her father’s presence always changed the family’s atmosphere. She asserts, â€Å"Whenever he was around, the house settled on a fixed point† (McEwan 122). In as much as he spent his time at home in the library

HR Training Class Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

HR Training Class - Term Paper Example This is a serious consideration based on the current trend of decreasing sales. Customers are moving to new retail store departments to avoid our long and slow moving queues. The new employees will undergo training in product placement and arrangement within our outlet. This should be able to encourage placing common commodities at easily reachable spots while less demanded goods at distant yet strategic locations. This encourages the ease of shopping and time saving for our customers (Besharov & Cottingham 2011). The product knowledge gap is another factor and has been our undoing for some time. This was enhanced by the high staff turnover and we lost our best employees to the competitors. The new training will emphasize familiarity not only with our products/ services, but an emphasis will be laid upon our staff knowledge of mission, goals, objectives and vision. This will provide a sense of direction and responsibility in the workforce. Reducing the knowledge gap is necessary in e nsuring our employees assist customers in decision making at the store. Customer care would be nothing if we do not take advantage as an organization. The training intends to benefit from employees who are able to carry out opportunity sales thus encouraging customers to spend while increasing our sale turnover. The final consideration is in terms of conflict resolution. The training will equip our employees with the skills necessary in handling all manners of contentious issues related to customer experiences. Over the last year we have paid for damages and lawsuits in a variety of cases thus experienced a substantial reduction in our net income. We intend to control such negligent cases. The overall aim of the training is to enhance full dedication to work by the employees in an environment that supports, encourages and rewards their effort. During the training some interventions will be established to intensify the employees’ performance including effective team building,

Foreign STEM Graduate Students Should Indeed Be Given Green Cards Essay

Foreign STEM Graduate Students Should Indeed Be Given Green Cards - Essay Example According to the article â€Å"Senators introduce immigration reform to increase STEM visas† the writer discusses a bill by a bipartisan group of senators, who want to modernize the STEM visa awarding system and increase the number of students awarded. They argue that legal migration is not only good for developing science and technology but it also creates employment making it good the economic growth in the long run (Cox). To illustrate this, the writer quotes, Rubio and Hatch who estimated that while over 120,000 jobs in computer engineering are created each year, less than 40,000 students graduate in the field in the same period. He argues that while it might seem unpatriotic to hire outsiders for the many jobs, it is the more logical choice since the vacancies are mostly in the private sector, as such; the choice is either America brings in engineers from outside or the firms will be forced to relocate abroad. He also claims that removing the cap on the number of STEM stu dents who can be given visas will encourage American students to apply for the program because they former will facilitate educational improvements. The points made herein are very practical and realistic, ultimately, restricting the entry of STEM students will force private firms to relocate in search of labor since the few in America will be insufficient and likely expensive. Secondly, the article by Rodney Adkin emphasizes the need for America to increase the number of STEM professionals, he decries the fact that only 5 per cent of the workers in America are employed in science and engineering. Ironically this field is responsible for around 50 % of the economy, the sites, Sequoia; a supercomputer developed by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, with an extraordinary computing power, and which is the work of STEM professionals. For America to make such progress in a larger scale, it critical that students are motivated to pursue the STEM subjects, this can be done by creating and maintaining enthusiasm for science among school children from an early age. Like the first article, the writer is convinced that America cannot be competitive on the global and even local market without an investment in STEM professionals, their methods of achieving an increase in STEM however differ. Adkins solutions include motivating children and ensuring that women and minority groups are encouraged to get into the programs, these solution albeit workable are long term and do not prove direct solutions in the near future. He does, however, mention that students from countries like China and Japan mostly study the STEM courses; this strengthens the assertion of the first article that we need to make use of foreign students by allowing them to live and work in the states. That way, with more professionals, the children Adkins wants to be inspired will have more mentors, and the foreign nationals will set the pace for Americas wishing to join the field in posterity.  

International Financial Markets Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

International Financial Markets - Essay Example Reasons for this trend are the fiscal stimulus packages, nationalization of private-sector debt, and reduction in tax revenues (Nelson, 2012). While government securities are considered close to risk-free, there have however been worries in 2010 that U.S. municipal bonds may default because of lack of liquidity, a fear which proved unfounded (MeritWealth, 2011). When the government requires high levels of borrowing, it tends to raise the yield on its bonds in order to attract investors. In a low interest environment, high-yield bonds become attractive to investors because the present value of high-yielding bonds makes the bonds more valuable when traded in the open market. However, by increasing the yield on its bonds the government crowds out private business and credit tends to become more costly – that is, added risk premiums increase interest rates over that offered by the government, discouraging private borrowers from resorting to bond financing because of the higher def ault risk involved. The result is a credit crunch that reduces funding to business and slows down productive activity, eventually causing downsizing, lay-offs and company closures. The central bank resorts to quantitative easing to introduce liquidity in the economy to spur nominal spending; this is done by purchasing financial assets from the private sector. The new central bank money used to pay for the assets increases the money held by banks and increases the level of deposits held by private parties. Quantitative easing is seen to help restore the inflation rate to positive levels when the economy is too weak that deflation (negative inflation) threatens to set in (Benford, et al, 2009). As for other developments, retail bond trading (lower-denominated bonds offered to individual investors) is seen as the better alternative to institutional bond trading. Retail had been growing when institutional was shrinking in the past crisis, due to its lower risk (Kite, 2008). Furthermore, emerging market dollar bond issuance has surged to $100 billion in 2012, as investment funds found safer markets in emerging economies little affected by the subprime financial crisis (Natarajan, 2012). Another alternative is sukuk bonds, which are Islamic financial instruments resembling conventional bonds but, consistent with Shariah law, are not debt instruments and do not pay interest. Instead, sukuk are ownership investments representing â€Å"legal/beneficial interest in specified tangible assets and/or services and/or projects.† Sukuk investments yield pre-determined returns, and specifies profit-and-loss sharing between fund user and provider (Adam & Thomas, 2004, p. 54-55). Contingent convertible bonds, also known as CoCo bonds, are a novel way by which banks may raise capital. These are bonds that automatically convert to equity when a particular trigger takes place, such as when the issuer needs money (Pietersz, 2012; . The CoCo mechanism quickly converts temporar y capital (debt capital, which must be paid back) to permanent capital (equity, which however tends to dilute shareholdings). As for the future of securitisation, there is still a great need for developing securities which businesses resort to for hedging and risk management. However, new regulations have been adopted to ensure that the

Position on the conroversial subject of poverty Essay

Position on the conroversial subject of poverty - Essay Example When a person lives in poverty he often does not have enough money to provide himself and his family with the basic human needs which include food, shelter, and medicine. The biggest victims of the poverty dilemma are children. Children are innocent by standards that are suffering. In a lot of countries across the world adults are exploiting children by forcing them to work. There are nearly 250 million children who are child laborers. The United States is not exempt from the war against poverty. There are nearly 44 million children on food stamps in the United States which accounts for 21% of the children population of the nation (Snyder, 2011). The high cost of living in the United States is one of the reasons a lot children and adults are living in poverty. The continents that are suffering the most from poverty are Africa and Asia. The overpopulation in Asia is one the reasons that this ethnic group is suffering so much from poverty. The root of the poverty problem is income disc repancy. The poorest 40 percent of the world’s population accounts for 5 percent of global income, while the richest 20 percent accounts for three-quarters of world income (Globalissues, 2013). Something has to be done in order to create a better balance of the global wealth. Another major issue associated with poverty is that the governments across the world do not have sufficient resources to help their citizens. The majority of the global wealth is in the hands of corporations. Approximately 40% of the global wealth is owned by a tightly-knit cluster of 147 entities (Doctorow, 2011). These companies along with the other millions of businesses across the world have to become more proactive in the fight against poverty. The United Nations has to step in and impose solutions that will effectively change the course of history in order to eradicate poverty forever. A potential solution that the U.N. can implement is to create a special tax with the purpose of using that money s olely to provide financial aid to poor people in need. The tax would be imposed on corporations whose annual net income surpasses $1 million per year. Corporations that move millions of dollars can afford to pay that special tax without hurting the financial performance of the firm or adversely affecting its shareholders. The special tax to be imposed by the U.N should be 2.5% of net income. There has to be a better coordinated effort in order to fight poverty worldwide. A lot of nonprofit organizations such as Feed the Children are doing a wonderful job of fighting hunger and poverty worldwide. A group of consortiums must be establish in which the leaders of non-profit organizations in different countries meet at least once a month in order to discuss the efforts of each entity so that better coordination can be establish by these entities. Every citizen in the world must become more actively involved in this tough battle. Donating $10 a month by people that are part of the middle class would make a huge difference in the lives of poor people. The fight against poverty is an issue that affects everyone. Any person that is working can fall on hard times if they lose their job and poverty can become a reality for them. Entrepreneurs must keep applying innovation in order to create new jobs that will help poor people get out of poverty. The proposed special 2.5% by the U.N. is a major tactic that would have a huge impact in helping eradicate

Proposal Plan Essay Example for Free

Proposal Plan Essay The purpose for the organization Walgreens is to stay put in a dynamic, self-motivated and energetic business environment. Walgreens is a successful business looking to progress overall presentation and place the company for potential expansion. In order for this to follow through, a total rewards program needs to be created. The incentives and compensation plan must connect with the goals of the organization. A solid rewards program will build motivation in the work place. As the text states, â€Å"The notions that rewards are means to motivate employees assuming that the rewards are distributed fairly. Rewards seem to be part of many different perspectives in motivation (Helsley, 2013). The most important part is the employees in this organization, and sadly the motivation is not up to par. Employees who lack motivation, insinuates that employees are not receiving proper rewards. Instead of management focusing on only one specific part of a department, they should rather work together towards a solid vision for the business. Presently, there is room for opportunity, to actually analyze the Human Resource Management system and see which problems which are leading employees to show lack of motivation. Through various researches, employees and outside sources, especially Human Capital Consulting organizations, believe that financial compensation is lower than market value. Employees do also not comprehend how pay interlinks with job performance. 20011 to 20012 surveys show that employees think that pay connects to seniority (Pulakos, 2004). Adding to standard compensation, individual rewards are not well connected to performance. For example, departments like Research Development and sales focus the transaction force and rarely see any return. The lack of proper positioning for financial compensation and work performance is causing confusion and affecting the motivational problems. Walgreens needs to acknowledge that employee’s views need to be considered. This is the reason why the distance in understanding between the employees and the business needs to be fixed. Alterations to financial compensation can be expensive. The consultant from Human Capital Consulting the reward and compensation system needs to be fully reformed. The total cost of the reward system alterations are about $165,000. Since the business has been dealing with sales declining an investment of that sort would put the organization at a high risk (Walgreens Co. , 2013). Even though the company has to cope with that expense the organization has the chance to better compete in the market and reduce the risk of losing employees to other businesses due to financial compensation formats. This problem can be resolved if the management team at Walgreens takes into consideration the cause of external competition. Key objectives to consider are to make certain that the pay is enough to attract and sustain employees. If employees do not see that their pay is competitive compared to what other organizations are giving for the same type of work, then that might cause for the employee to leave. Even though employee motivation and financial compensation are viewed as big problems for Walgreens, the business’ ability to form attraction and support career enhancement has been dwindling. The problems can be caused by the lack of Human Resource Management in the business strategic human capital management, with a failure by leadership to form a successful culture that aids the business objectives. As the business sets itself straight and alters its strategy, it will be vital to effectively train employees and make certain that they are set for the challenges that come their way. Sadly, motivation issues are harming the business and may affect the strategic changes. Examples of the weak culture and employee development are seen in the Research Development and sales parts of the organization. Each section contributes to the success of the business but receives rarely any recognition, whether it is pay or just an overall recognition. Walgreens has the chance to brace the culture and form a complete employee development system that supports the enterprises vision and goals for the future. To add to this the business has the ability to explore other areas aside from the financial compensation to augment employee motivation and job satisfaction. Executing a career development system will not be enough for long-term enhancements. Management at Walgreens will need to center on building situations that practice career development (Walgreens Co. , 2013). Employees at Walgreens have different interests. These interests can include financial compensation, career enhancement or development, strong and effective communication and of course support from the management team. Employees have the right to be rewarded fairly and be acknowledged for their efforts and hard work to the organization. To add to this, employees have the right to be included in the organizations culture instead of being part of teams that are divided up. This usually leads to a lack of direction. Employees crave cooperation, a challenging working environment and dedication. Thats why effective end state goals would be to make certain that employee motivation is being measured effectively. Also, form career development plans and spot out important achievements within the business. Not only employee motivation should be worked on, but also set up a comprehensive rewards system. The reward system will give employees the chance to take charge of their reward as well as form a spot to market benefits that pertain to Walgreen employees. An internal web application should be created by HR (Walgreens Co. , 2012). The system will center on benefits administration, cross-function team goal management, and incentive rewards tracking systems. Employees will have the option of reviewing their benefits and make alterations on their time. Also, managers will be able to appraise the improvement and donations made by cross-functional teams. Sales statistics will also be part of the reward system to keep track of sales performance. Overall, Walgreens needs to restructure its employee compensation program. This means that the organization needs to first acknowledge that employee motivation is low. From there, increase it, by rewarding employees for a job well done. Acknowledging them in front of their employees and even bonuses will be nice. Flexible schedule is so important. Basically, re-evaluating everything to make certain that employees are feeling valued.

Wolff-Parkinson-White Syndrome: Causes and Treatment

Wolff-Parkinson-White Syndrome: Causes and Treatment Overview In a normal heart, the electrical impulses that signal the heart to beat only flow in one pathway, which begins in the sinoatrial node, or SA node, located in the right atrium. When the SA node fires, the single is spread through the right and left atria causing the chambers to contract. The impulses then travel through the atrioventricular node, AV node, which is the bridge that allows the impulses to flow from atria to the ventricles. The AV node slows down the electrical signal before sending it to the ventricles. This slight delay allows the ventricles to fill with blood. When electrical impulses reach the muscles of the ventricles, they contract, causing them to pump blood either to the lungs or to the rest of the body. When the electrical signal reaches the ventricles, the chamber them to contract. In wolf-Parkinson-white syndrome, also known as WPW, an extra conduction pathway to the ventricles reaches the chambers quicker the normal. This is because impulses travel through the extra pathway as well as the normal AV node system. The impulses travel in a circular pattern. This circular pattern causing the heart to beat unusually beating patterns called arrhythmia. The arrhythmias are conserved an electrical abnormalities called pre-excitation syndromes, and they are in many forms. In Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, the most common form of arrhythmia is known as paroxysmal supraventricular tachycardia. Many people with WPW also experience atrial fibrillation, an irregular rapid heart rhythm. Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome is present at birth, but the first symptoms often first appear in teens. WPW is one of the most common causes of fast heart rate in infants and children. The syndrome affects about 1 to 3 people in 1,000 people worldwide, but many do not everyone experience symptoms. IN China 70 percent of cases of abnormal heart, rhythm is due to WPW. The extra electrical pathway in the heart doesnt necessarily cause a fast heartbeat. However, this condition makes it possible for other processes to increase the heartbeat, including: Looped electrical impulses, Disorganized electrical impulses Looped electrical impulses. The problem with a fast heartbeat usually occurs in Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome because electrical impulses travel down one pathway and up the other one, creating a loop of signals. This condition, called AV reentrant tachycardia, sends impulses to the ventricles at a very rapid rate. The ventricles, as a result, pump very quickly. Disorganized electrical impulses. If electrical impulses dont begin correctly in the right atrium, they may travel across the atria in a disorganized way, causing them to beat very quickly and out of step with each other. This condition is called atrial fibrillation. These disorganized signals also increase the pumping rate of the ventricles to some extent. If theres an extra electrical pathway, as with Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, the ventricles can beat even faster. The ventricles dont have time to fill up with blood and dont pump enough blood to the body. This less common condition can be life-threatening. History In 1930, Wolff, Parkinson and White described a distinct electrocardiograph (ECG) pattern in healthy young people with short bursts of tachycardia. In 1933, other doctors noted the reason for this irregular rhythm was a faster passage of impulses traveling through the ventricles. In 1944, doctors confirmed the presence of extra pathways. Causes The extra electrical pathway of Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome is present at birth. Little known to why the extra pathway delopes, but can be caused by sporadic occurrence, and is linked abnormal gene and inheritance, which accounts for a small a small percentage of cases. In most cases, the cause of Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome is unknown. Most of WPW occurs randomly in the general population, occurring in about 0.1 to 3.1 per 1,000 persons. men have a higher incidence of WPW than women do, for uknown reasons A small percentage of Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome is caused by a mutation of the PRKAG2 gene. The mutation of the gene is also linked to hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, a form of heart disease that enlarges and weakens the cardiac muscle of the left ventricle. The PRKAG2 gene codes for a protein that is part of the AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) enzyme. AMPK is believed to be involved in the development of the heart before birth, as well helps mangae the energy demands within the heart. Researchers are uncertain how PRKAG2 mutations lead to the development of WPW, but is due to the altered activity of AMP-activated protein kinase in the heart. It is unclear if the changes cause overactivate enzyme or reduce enyme activity. It is know though that the AMPK mutation allows glycogen to build up abnormally within cardiac muscle, as well as being related to changes in the regulation ion channels in the heart, which play critical roles in maintaining the hearts normal rhythm. Most cases of Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome occur in people with no apparent family history of the condition, and accounts for only a small percentage of all cases of this condition. The inheritory disorder typically has an autosomal dominant pattern of inheritance. Some cases of WPW are inherited. Parents who have accessory pathways may pass them on to their children. Research has indicated that incidence of preexcitation in first-degree relatives could be as high as 5.5 per 1,000 persons. About 7 to 20 percent of patients with WPW also have congenital defects within the heart. Symptoms The extra connection in the heart, called an accessory pathway, that allows electrical signals to bypass the atrioventricular node and move from the atria to the ventricles faster than usual. The accessory pathway also can transmit electrical impulses abnormally from the ventricles back to the atria, causing an additional contraction of the atria, leading to an abnormally fast heartbeat, called tachycardia and other arrhythmias. About 80 percent of people with symptoms first have them between the ages of 11 and 50. Complications of Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome can occur at any age, although some individuals born with an accessory pathway in the heart never experience any health problems associated with the condition. Resulting symptoms of the arrhythmias are dizziness, a sensation of fluttering or pounding in the chest called palpitations, shortness of breath, fainting, and rarely associated with cardiac arrest and sudden death. Some people have WPW without any symptoms at all. The most common arrhythmia associated with Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome is called paroxysmal supraventricular tachycardia. A person experiencin an tachycardia episode will have heart rate greater than 230 beats per minute and normal blood pressure. An episode of a tachycardia begin suddenly and last for a few seconds or several hours, and often happen during exercise. Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome often occurs with other structural abnormalities of the heart or underlying heart disease. The most common heart defect associated with the condition is Ebstein anomaly, which affects the valve that allows blood to flow from the right atrium to the right ventricle (the tricuspid valve). Additionally, Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome can be a component of several other genetic syndromes, including hypokalemic periodic paralysis (a condition that causes episodes of extreme muscle weakness), Pompe disease (a disorder characterized by the storage of excess glycogen), and tuberous sclerosis (a condition that results in the growth of noncancerous tumors in many parts of the body). Treatments Treatments for WPW depends on the type , frequency, and associated symptoms of the arrhythmias experienced. tachycardia may correct itself, but often needs treatment. The goal of treatments for Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome is to slow a fast heart rate when it occurs and prevent future episodes. Ways to slow your heartbeat include: Vagal maneuvers. Medications, and surgerys. Whether a person will be treated with medication or with an ablation procedure depends on several factors. These include the severity and frequency of symptoms, risk for future arrhythmias and patient preference. Vagal maneuvers affect the vagus nerve, which is the same nerve that regulate heartbeats, and is usally the first treatment tried. Vagal maneuvers, which include coughing, bearing down as if you are having a bowel movement, and putting an icepack on your face, are often performed during an episode of a fast heartbeat. These actions sometimes resulting in slowed conduction of electrical impulses through the AV node. If vagal maneuvers do not stop the fast heartbeat, often medicine is needed. Often an injection of an anti-arrhythmic medication, such as adenosine, or pill versions of drugs, such as flecainide (Tambocor) or propafenone (Rythmol), may be percribed to be taken in response to episode of a fast heartbeat that doesnt respond to vagal maneuvers. Anti-arrhythmic medications may prevent a fast heart rate all together when taken regularly. Medications are usually given to people who experience frequent arrhythmias who cannot, or do not want to undergo surgery. In people with WPW, whose heart rate can not be controlled with medications, ablation can improve symptoms and cure the abnormal arrhythmias. The most common procedure used to interrupt the abnormal pathway is radiofrequency, also known as or catheter ablation. This procedure involves inserting a catheter in an incision in the groin area and running the catheter to the heart area. Electrodes at the catheter tips are heated to damage (ablate) the extra electrical pathway and prevent it from sending electrical signals. When the catheter reaches the heart, the extra electrical pathway is destroyed using radiofrequency. This procedure is highly effective with a success rate for the procedure ranges between 85 95%, and complications which can include heart injury or infection are uncommon. Successful ablation ends the need for medication. Another procedure done to elevate the symptoms of Wolff-parkinson-white syndrome is cardioversion. cardioversion is a procedure where a shock is delivered to your heart through paddles or patches on your chest. The current affects the electrical impulses in your heart and restores a normal rhythm. Its typically used when maneuvers and medications arent effective. When all other forms of treatments have not worked open-heart surgery is almost 100 percent. However, because radiofrequency catheter ablation is almost as effective and less invasive, surgery for Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome is now rare. However, surgery is usually done only if the patient must have surgery for other reasons. Social implications A person with WPW have several Social implications they must deal with. Since Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome often occurs with other structural abnormalities of the heart or underlying heart disease, a person monitor there heart health carefully. In Addition to this several other genetic syndromes, including hypokalemic periodic paralysis (a condition that causes episodes of extreme muscle weakness), Pompe disease (a disorder characterized by the storage of excess glycogen), and tuberous sclerosis (a condition that results in the growth of noncancerous tumors in many parts of the body) must be monitored. Common day substances of Caffeine, Tobacco, Alcohol, and Pseudoephedrine which can contribute tachycardia episoides. This makes the person monitor there exposure to these substances and avoid places of smoking if tobacco causes symptoms. With the relatively new ohio smoking ban helps eliminate this social issue with smoking. References http://www.americanheart.org/presenter.jhtml?identifier=4785 http://www.medicinenet.com/wolff-parkinson-white_syndrome/page2.htm http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/000151.htm http://my.clevelandclinic.org/heart/disorders/electric/wpw.aspx http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/wolff-parkinson-white-syndrome/ds00923

Female Genital Mutilation Essays -- Exploratory Essays Research Papers

  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  I decided to do this paper in an effort to try and become less ethnocentric and find an appreciation of cultural practices which were not of my own.   I feel I have found a deeper appreciation for many African cultural practices, but my research of African culture has exposed me to many practices that seem inhumane and barbaric. One cultural practice that I just cannot bring myself to agree with is the treatment and oppression of African women by men. Through my studies on Female Genital Mutilation, I had hoped to find a valid explanation for this procedure that is so frequently being done to women and female children.   Instead, I found something deep within myself that wishes this mutilation would come to an end.   Allow me to provide you with the facts.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Female Genital Mutilation, sometimes also referred to as femal circumcision, is a surgical modification of the female genitalia.   Ther are four forms of female genital mutilation.   The first is called Mild Sunna.   It is the removal of the prepuce of the clitoris.   It is comparable to male circumcision when the foreskin is removed from the penis.   Next there is the Modified Sunna which is the partial or total removal of the body of the clitoris.   Then you have the Clitoridectomy or Excision.   This is the removal of all or part of the clitoris as well as all or part of the labia minora.   Lastly, there is Infibulation or Pharaonic circumcision.   This consists of a clitoridectomy and the removal of the labia minora and also the inner layers of the labia majora.   The raw edges of the vulva are then sewn together with catgut or brought together by use of thorns.   A small sliver of wood or straw is often then inserted into the vagina to prevent complete occlusion and to ... ... Nearly one hundred fifty million females have undergone this procedure and it is estimated that each year 2 million individuals are still at risk.   I am hoping that this information will grab at the hearts of others and educate readers on the facts of Female Genital Mutilation.   With that, I devote this to my sisters in Africa in hopes that this violation will one day come to an end. Works Cited 1.   Do They Hear You When You Cry.   Fauziya Kassindja. 1998 2.   Female Genital Mutilation. American College of Obstetrics and Gynecologists Committee Opinion. Number 151. Jan. 2003 3.   Female Genital Mutilation.   Council of Scientific Affairs.   American Medical Association.   JAMA Dec. 2000. Vol.274. No. 21 4.   Infibulation in the Horn of Africa. Guy Pieters M.D. Albert B. Lowentels M.D.   New York State Journal of Medicine. April 2001. Vol. 77. Number 6. pgs.729-731

To Save a Life is not an Option :: Essays Papers

To Save a Life is not an Option As America has progressed through the years, its citizens have grown more and more conscientious about their health and safety, and through science and technology have designed many things to be safer and increase health for little money. Laws have been passed so that health may be maintained and in many cases it is cheaper to live a healthy lifestyle rather than an unhealthy one. Cigarettes put deep holes in pockets, and fines keep people from not wearing their seatbelt, yet despite the low cost of many safety advances made for automobiles, consumers are still forced to pay more for safety features in cars. With the low cost of manufacturing and installing safety features such as anti-lock brakes and side airbags, safety features should no longer be an option on automobiles, but standards. Over 9,000 deaths are caused by side impact passenger vehicle accidents in America every year. (IIHS) Crash tests conducted by the institute have shown great potential for side airbags, especially for protection in smaller vehicles being hit from the side by larger vehicles such as SUVs which are becoming very popular these days. â€Å"Side airbags that include head protection are reducing deaths by about 45 percent among drivers of passenger cars struck on the near (driver) side,† claims the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. The effectiveness of head protecting side airbags is a 53% reduction in risk of two-vehicle accidents and an estimated 74% reduction when a smaller vehicle is struck in the side by a larger vehicle. Without side airbags, the is no protection for a passenger’s head from protruding objects such as trees, poles or other vehicles causing far more deaths or permanent injury than if the head were protected. (IIHS) Side airbags are available on 40 percent of 2003 model passenger vehicles, 16 percent on which they are optional. (IIHS) The option of side airbags for different manufacturers varies in cost; for Chevrolet it is a $400 option, for Ford it is a $300 option and for Honda it is a $250 option. Using the Chevrolet Malibu as an example as a side airbag optional vehicle, side crash tests show much better results for the Malibu with side airbags. On a scale of 1-4, 4 being the best, in a side collision test, the Malibu with side airbags received a 3 while the Malibu without side airbags received a 1.

Schizophrenia :: essays research papers

Positive Symptoms and Negative Symptoms of schizophrenia. Discuss at least two of each and the difference between positive and negative symptoms. Positive symptoms reflect an excess or distortion of normal functioning. Positive symptoms include delusions (false beliefs), hallucinations (false perceptions), and severely disorganized thought processes, speech, and behavior. A delusion is a false belief that persists in spite of compelling contradictory evidence. The delusional person ignores any evidence that contradicts his erroneous beliefs, and often becomes preoccupied with them. Schizophrenic delusions are often so convincing that they can provoke inappropriate or bizarre behavior. Delusional thinking may lead the dangerous behaviors. Hallucinations are false or distorted perceptions that seem vividly real. The content of hallucinations is often tied to the person’s delusional beliefs. The content of hallucinations and delusions may also be influenced by culture and religiosity. Negative symptoms reflect an absence or reduction of normal functions, such as greatly reduced motivation, emotional expressiveness, or spee ch. One commonly seen negative symptom is referred to as flat affect or affective flattening. Regardless of the situation, the person responds in an emotionally â€Å"flat† way, showing a dramatic reduction in emotional responsiveness and facial expressions. Speech is slow and monotonous, lacking normal vocal inflictions. A closely related negative symptom is alogia, or greatly reduction production of speech. In alogia, verbal responses are limited to brief, empty comments. What neurotransmitter is mentioned as contributing to schizophrenic symptoms? How do drug treatments alter this neurotransmitter’s level? What are some of the problems with these drug treatments? According to the dopamine hypothesis, schizophrenia is related to excessive activity of dopamine in the brain. Antipsychotic drugs, such as Haldol, Throazine, and Stelazine, reduce or block dopamine activity in the brain. These drugs reduce schizophrenic symptoms in many people. Amphetamines and cocaine enhance dopamine activity and can produce schizophrenic-like symptoms in normal adults or increase symptoms in people who already have schizophrenia. Not all schizophrenics experiences a reduction of symptoms in response to the antipsychotic drugs that reduce dopamine activity. The problem with these drugs are that these drugs reduce some but not all schizophrenic symptoms. Discuss one aspect of schizophrenia that you didn’t know about before, or one aspect that you found particularly interesting and why. One aspect of schizophrenia that especially surprised me was not only how many people it effects and how many are at risk, but how much at risk people are these days. Also, that the fault of schizophrenia lies mostly within the male.

Reflective Statement

Introduction This project involved creating a strategic report covering all aspects of the operation of the Walt Disney Group. The report entailed drawing on a relatively broad analysis of the workings of the Walt Disney Group, with each member of the team contributing certain parts of the report, before then coming together to undertake an overall analysis. This reflective statement looks at how I personally worked within the team and any areas that I feel I could improve upon, in the future. The reflective statement will also describe the way in which I worked within the team to assist others and how we dealt with any conflicts which occurred, during the length of the project. Individual Contribution I was personally responsible for specific aspects of the actual research and for writing up the project. At the outset, we sat down with the team to allocate certain areas of work, with a view to meeting regularly to combine our findings and to ensure that the report, as a whole, read as if it were one voice. As the project involved some form of strategic analysis, I was particularly concerned that if each individual simply worked on their own section, it would not come together as a sensible whole (Forsyth, 2009). I personally felt that I took the lead, when it came to communicating amongst the team and also when ensuring that we met up regularly to discuss progress. I myself as one of the other team members took the lead in arranging these meetings. Whilst this was successful, initially, we soon found that other members of the team were not responding to the suggestion of meetings and were not sending their own work in good time, thus creating difficulties amongst the team and also making it harder for me as an individual to complete my element of the project (Boud & Walker 1993) If I were to undertake the project again, I would ensure that, from the outset, much greater emphasis was placed on setting out the full scope of each individual’s work assignment, as it quickly became apparent that each individual within the team was relying on others to undertake their part of the report. Therefore, when one individual was failing to keep pace with the rest of the team, this created a much greater problem than simply one person not â€Å"pulling their weight†. As a relatively strong individual, I would personally put myself forward as more of a co-ordinator, at the outset, to ensure that this lack of cohesion did not happen in future (Jarboe & Witteman, 1996). When we encountered difficulties at the end of the project, with one individual not being available in the few days prior to the deadline, I took on another section of the writing in order to ensure that we were then able to meet the deadline, something which put me under increased personal pressure. Based on the problems that we were having, at that point in time, it was the only reasonable solution available; however, better team management, at an earlier stage when it became apparent that some individuals were not going to make the deadline would have prevented such a high level of personal pressure and this additional workload could then have been spread more evenly. Working with Others and Resolving Conflicts As noted above, it became apparent, as the project progressed, that there were certain key individuals within the team who were becoming increasingly unresponsive to setting up meeting times and were not presenting their work when requested. This could have put the entire project in jeopardy and was exacerbated when one individual was not available at all, in the few days prior to the deadline. The fact that some of the key individuals were not responding to requests for meetings or submitting their work on-time became apparent midway through the project. Yet, action was not positively taken by myself and the other organising team members who were still responding until just a few days before the deadline (Coleman, 2011). Effectively, our approach to dealing with this matter was to ignore it and simply continue with our own activities, something which potentially jeopardised the project in its entirety. With a project of this nature, merely ignoring conflict was not an option. Furthermore, although regular negotiations were attempted by suggesting meeting times, communication between team members had already broken down. In reality, this conflict could have been resolved, at the outset, before any difficulties emerged, by setting out a team leader who was going to be responsible for keeping everybody on track and ensuring that the meetings took place as arranged. As soon as it became apparent that the timeframe for the project was not being kept, the appointed team leader could then have taken a more aggressive stance to ensure that such failings did not jeopardise the overall project. It was arguably this failure that was instrumental in creating a last-minute panic and rush. Individual Improvement for the Future Bearing all of this in mind, I feel that my own areas for improvement, in the future would be to take a much more active stance, in terms of project management, from the outset (Schon 1996). I would also ensure that all team members complied with the timeframes set out. I became personally aware that there were difficulties with communication and timeframe, at a relatively early stage, yet I largely chose to ignore this in the hope that matters would improve of their own accord. This approach led to me personally being put under considerable pressure, towards the end of the project and, as such, my own individual performance was not as good as it could have been, particularly with the last section of the project being rushed, over a period of 2 to 3 days. I therefore feel that I could have improved my own personal performance by taking a much more active role in project management. This would enable me to ensure that each individual was working within the timeframe and I was not requ ired to rush during the last few days of the project, potentially sacrificing the quality of the work. References Boud D & Walker D (1993) Barriers to Reflection on Experience. In Boud D,. Cohen R & Walker D. Using Experience for Learning. Buckingham: Society for Research into Higher Education & Open University Press. Coleman, P (2011). The Five Percent: Finding Solutions to Seemingly Impossible Conflicts. Public Affairs. New York, p.26 Forsyth, D. R. (2009). Group dynamics (5th ed.). Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks/Cole. Jarboe, S. C., & Witteman, H. R. (1996). Intragroup conflict management in task-oriented groups: The influence of problem sources and problem analysis. Small Group Research, 27, 316–338. Schon D. (1996). From Technical Rationality to Reflection in Action, In: Edwards, R., Hanson, A., and P Raggatt (eds) Boundaries of Adult Learning, London, Routledge.

New Deal

The intention of stabilizing the economic capability of a nation is the most significant goal of any leader. However, with President Franklin Roosevelt’s strategy to uk/pros-and-cons-of-fdrs-brainchild-the-new-deal/">implement the New Deal, the nation was not really able to achieve sustainability for a long term. Roosevelt’s main intention was to expand the government’s power to help the sectors which were affected by the great depression. It is true that the federal capability was able to increase its power but with a corresponding irreversible cost. Because of such expansion, additional federal segments were constructed which comprised of what was called the â€Å"alphabet agencies† as stated in Wikipedia. Most of these agencies were not really significant in providing safety measures for people who were directly experiencing economic upheaval. Even the Supreme Court ruled out that a number of those federal offices were constructed unconstitutionally. A number of such departments just contributed to the imperfect allocation of federal funds which greatly affected the national budgetary allowance. A huge portion of wasted money was used for non-performing departments which could have saved the general public some more social welfare funds. One main proof of such wastes is the reduction of these agencies to only a few ones which can still be recognized today. Some of the largest remaining departments still in operation are the Security and Exchange Commission and the Social Security System. These agencies have direct impacts to the public since the former provides registrations for businesses while the latter intends to provide financial and welfare securities for each individual. The New Deal’s bargaining approach in controlling the money supply and the economy in general did not really provided the three R goals-relief, recovery and reform. People were not really relieved from the problematic economic downturn due to misallocation of funds. Recovery was not actually achieved due to the global effects of the Wall Street Crash in 1929. Lastly, reform only produced additional problems in managing the federal government due to the establishment of satellite departments which complicated the governing process. References Wikipedia. 2008. New Deal. Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved January 16, 2008 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Deal.

Y is history important

History is important to us because it is the heritage that shaped the world we live in today. What we do today will be part of history in the future. It Is mainly important because it helps us to understand the world, and how It became what we see today. It can help us to solve problems that we face today by seeing the solutions that were tried In the past. We must learn from mistakes that were made before us, so that we do not repeat them. So that you can help to avoid petting Its mistakes.History Is Important as It covers a huge spectrum of human satellites Including arts- literature, architecture, politics, painting and many others. We have to consider our past to build our future because we learn from our past mistakes. We learn to Improve by learning from past mistakes-Through history we learn about our culture,traditional and moral values. It's Important to learn about out country's history because history always repeats Itself. So, when history does repeat Itself, we have a be tter understanding on how to resolve it. For example, we can get ideas on how to help our economy by looking back at the Great Depression. Also, so to learn how superior your country is over other countries and races of people prompting extermination. It's important to learn about out country's history because history always repeats itself. Also, when history does repeat itself, we have a people prompting extermination.

Eth 316 Individual Assignment Week 1 Essay

Utilitarianism is a theory that suggests that an action is morally right when that action produces more total utility for the group than any other alternative.aka The greatest good for the greatest number pg 153 Deontology is a moral theory that emphasizes one’s duty to do a particular action just because the action, itself, is inherently right and not through any other sorts of calculations—such as the consequences of the action. Because of this nonconsequentialist bent, deontology is often contrasted with utilitarianism that defines the right action in term of its ability to bring about the greatest aggregate utility. In contradistinction to utilitarianism, deontology will recommend an action based upon principle.â€Å"Principle† is justified through an understanding of the structure of action, the nature of reason, and the operation of the will.The result is a moral command to act that does not justify itself by calculating consequences. Virtue ethics is also sometimes called agent-based or character ethics. It takes the viewpoint that in living your life you should try to cultivate excellence in all that you do and all that others do.These excellences or virtues are both moral and nonmoral. Through conscious training, for example, an athlete can achieve excellence in a sport (nonmoral example). In the same way a person can achieve moral excellence, as well. The way these habits are developed and the sort of community that nurtures them are all under the umbrella of virtue ethics.

Submit a soft copy through the safeassign icon created in the Black Assignment

Submit a soft copy through the safeassign icon created in the Black Board - Assignment Example The quick ratio is calculated by dividing the sum of cash and receivables by current liabilities. Unlike the current ratio, the quick ratio ignores inventories and other current assets that may have doubtful liquidity. A satisfactory quick ratio, depending on the history of collecting debts is 1:1. The quick ratio of Ooredoo is (20,203,819/23,531,834) = 0.86 while that of Vodafone is (172,166/1,004,395) = 0.17. Creditors concentrate on the working capital as it deals more with cash flows. Working capital is the difference between current assets and current liabilities. Most banks tie loan approvals on a company’s minimum working capital requirement. The working for Ooredoo is (28,361,079-23,531,834) = 4,829,245 while that of Vodafone is (425,302-1,004,395) = -579,093. The leverage ratio shows the extent to which a company relies on debt to keep operating. Creditors such as banks and suppliers are more concerned by this ratio. Leverage ratio is calculated by dividing total liabilities by the net worth of the company. The higher the ratio the more risky it becomes to extend credit to the company. The leverage for Ooredoo Company is (23,531,834/97,415,655) = 0.24 while that of Vodafone is (1,795,200/7,753,696) = 0.23. The gross profit ratio is calculated by dividing gross profits by net sales. Different industries have a standard guideline of the gross profit ratio with which companies can compare their specific numbers. Companies need to keep track of the trend of the gross profit ratio and ensure it does not deviate away from the target. The gross profit ratio for Ooredoo Company is (3,895,146/33,851,340) = 0.12 while that of Vodafone is (343,586/1,431,670) = 0.24. The return on assets ratio indicates how a company efficiently utilizes its assets. This ratio is calculated by dividing net profits by total assets. Bankers and investors calculate this ratio by dividing net pre-tax profit by total assets.

The argument Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words - 4

The argument - Essay Example On the one hand, it is rather necessary to consider increasing the minimum age of a driving license holder from 16 to 17. This is because this action can significantly reduce the number of accidents in the roads. According to various researchers, numerous accidents are attributed by the young drivers on the roads. This is a clear indication that raising the minimum age of obtaining a driving license to 17 years would immensely lead to a reduction of the road accidents (Jacobs 29). In fact, the young drivers are usually inexperienced and under-developed cognitively hence, as teenagers they have a higher probability of being involved in automobile accidents. These young drivers should also be involved in more hours of practice with the licensed drivers in order to prevent the countless deaths that are caused by accidents. From a mathematical perspective, the raise in the minimum age would amount to less road users. This clearly asserts that the numerous road accidents will also be decreased substantially. According to various psychologists, the mindset of most young drivers is not fully mature until when the individual hits the 20’s. Thus, increasing the minimum age of the drivers can be considered as a vast step in improving road safety. Statistics assert that most of the road users in numerous countries are approximately ages 16 to 24 (Jacobs 32). The lack of experience and responsibility in this age group has led to a radical change in road transportation. This is because most of these individuals are faced with the dangers of reckless driving, drinking under the influence of drugs among other conditions. Most of the individuals in this age group are victims of drug abuse, which affects road safety. For example, when such individuals drive under the influence of drugs, there is a high probability that they can cause accidents. This endangers the lives of other innocent road users including the pedestrians and other motorists who

Research Paper Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words - 1

Research Paper - Essay Example As the world continue to apply information technology in various sectors such as banking, education, trade and entertainment, intellectual property issues have become even more complicated. This has led to the formulation of a new set of laws known as cyber laws. Consequently, cyber crimes are defined as any form of malpractice that involves tampering with computer based resources, cyber fraud, cyber based intimidation, and computer hackings are some of the major cyber crimes. These laws are incorporated in the information technology act, 2000. It is difficult to implement intellectual property rights without proper cyber laws and legislation. Intellectual property Patents A patent is a legal document that is issued by the federal government to an inventor. The document gives the owner exclusive rights of reproducing or participating in his innovation without threats from other developers. The right is meant to promote creativity and innovation in various industries2. Moreover, paten t rights allow members of the public to disclose innovations and other forms of technological advances in their respective industries3. Laws meant to protect intellectual property under patents have been criticized for certain ambiguities. This has necessitated constant reviews to make the required adjustments. Thus, suitable legislations should have clear definitions on patents and the extent to which patents can be applied. Furthermore, suitable legislation should set limits beyond which the legislations are considered to be violated. This is to safeguard innovators and other property developers from accusations of intellectual property theft. Trademarks Trademarks are quality assurance symbols and information used to identify the quality of a product. Ideally, trademarks are business items that are meant to protect manufacturers and traders. Tirade marks have often been accused of promoting monopoly trade, which may be harmful to the economy. This is because they promote the sale and continuity of popular products while they inconvenience inexperienced entrepreneurs. Trademarks are also used as sources of standards for a particular products and services. Copyrights Copyrights are constitutional property rights, which grant rightful owner, creators, or authors of certain material exclusive rights over their production and distribution. Copyrights provisions are meant to promote innovation and useful arts by offering incentives and protection to their owners. Ideally, copyrights protect intangible and original works including music, research, books, photographs, films, and computer software. Copyright is a collection of rights that include; the right to reproduce copyrighted material, rights to derive additional work, rights to distribution and public display. Each of these rights is protected under the information Technology Act of 2000. Cyber crime A cyber crime is regarded as any crime or offense that violates The Information Technology Act 2000. This rede finition leaves out major issues and provisions that threaten activities in the real world. Moreover, cyber laws conflicts with freedom of information and cyber space. Certainly, cyber laws cannot work in isolation and they require adequate collaboration with other supportive or related laws. For example, a person who is accused of sending intimidating massages over the internet will be charged with criminal intimidation provisions that are contained in the common laws4. Further, a person

Module 12 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 2

Module 12 - Essay Example Our friendship therefore was weakened and others emerged. Nevertheless, high school was totally a new environment. New friends came up and I had t make hook ups with new friends. All those we could share the same classes, same units and dorms became my intimate friends. Specifically, my closest friends were my classmates whom we shared cubes and classes. As the days passed by, and approached choice of future careers, friends changed as well. Those whom we shared common ideas before had unique careers hence different units pursue. Hence I found new friends too. When we finished high school, we got different grades, and we joined different universities and colleges to pursue different careers. Everybody went on his way to pursue his/her career. This weakened further the friendship and other new friends sprout up. From my middle school till now, friends have changed. My first friends and my current friends are totally different. From the dynamics of friendship, it is evident that friendship change very often and it is rare to get a long lasting friend whom you start from pre-school to university. Friends are subject to choice of careers in life and line of profession. Those whom you share things in common become your closest friends and those whom you have nothing much to share are distant automatically. Maintaining alive friendship is not easy. It is volatile and more often it has rewards and punishments. Indeed to appreciate somebody’s strengths and weaknesses calls for sacrifice. In essence, people have different personalities and to accept them to influence your life is challenging. According to social exchange theory, friendship is driven by decisions. Both parties are responsible for one another and entirely depend on each other. However, costs and rewards associate with decisions made. Usually, I dedicate my precious time to my friends. This time we could use to chat and implement constructive ideas

Scott Joplin Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 1

Scott Joplin - Essay Example The exact details of Scott Joplin's birth are uncertain, but he was born probably in Linden Texas, between June 1, 1867 and mid-January 1868. He had five siblings, among which he was the second child. His parents were Florence Givins and Giles Joplin. When he was still a very young child his family moved to Texarkana, where his mother cleaned homes for a living. Because of his mother's work he was able to delve into music, and eventually his mother bought him a piano. His talent was noticed by a German music teacher, Julius Weiss, who decided to teach him for free. His experience with Weiss probably spurred him on his musical career. He went to George R. Smith College in Sedalia, where he studied composition. Around 1891 Joplin was in a minstrel troupe, and by 1895 he was in New York, selling some songs. In 1894 he moved to Sedalia, where he worked as a pianist in various places, including gentlemen's clubs.

Market Search in Turkey Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Market Search in Turkey - Essay Example   From the research undertaken, Sabra Hummus sells at different prices depending on the quantity and the ingredients. For instance, a seven-ounce Sabra roasted red paper hummus sells at 36. 75 dollars and contains 12 sachets. A seventeen-ounce Sabra Classic hummus sells at 4.49 dollars. A ten-ounce Sabra hummus with Roasted Pine nuts sells at 4.99 dollars (Sabra Hummus). From the market analysis, the client base is focused on receiving value for the amounts spent on any product. To capture, the needs of the student population that has minimal disposable income, Sabra should focus on repackaging its products into smaller quantities. This would enable it to have products that sell at highest $ 4.5, which is an amount of money that most students can expand on a snack. The quantity will play a vital role, especially when targeting the student population. Sabra should undertake all cost-cutting measures, especially when manufacturing the low quantity products. For instance, where possib le, the plastic contains may be replaced by well-branded polythene wrappings which would reduce the cost significantly. Sabra can subsequently pass on the cost reductions to the consumer by lowering prices. Since the organization is largely targeting the student population and the middle class, who constitute a large proportion of the consumers, it cannot charge excessive prices. For instance, it will charge lower prices in universities due to the low level of disposable incomes among the student population.  

Final Project Reflective Paper - Team Beta Assignment

Final Project Reflective Paper - Team Beta - Assignment Example Consequently, it is a suitable platform for human resource managers to evaluate their progress and effect adjustment in their human resource management strategies. Management Introduction While implementing projects in new environments, any organization will require to strategize on how to manage its resources including the human labour in an effort to penetrate the market and compete with the external and internal market forces. The human labour is a crucial element of any business, and its management and effective utilization has a direct impact on the organization’s success. The productivity of human labour in all the phases of project implementation lies on the shoulders of the organizational managers. The role of human resource manager in an organization is to recruit, train, monitor, evaluate and motivate the employees during the project implementation process. The performance of an organization will depend on its ability to exercise effective organization behavior and s kills while managing teamwork among the role players within the system. To do this, a company will require to conduct a SWOT analysis as a strategy of re-evaluating its effectiveness in gathering its strengths, neutralizing its threats and weaknesses and grasping its opportunities presented in the environment. Effective team management and organizational behavior are the basic elements that the human resource management must possess in order to survive in the diverse market. Just like any other organization, Team Beta has faced the challenge of managing the team players during the implementation of its performance based scenario planning project. To maintain teamwork within the four members who have a variant cultural background is a credit worth effort that requires effective management skills that can stand the tests of a harsh project environment. The purpose of this article is engage in a critical reflective practice that Brookfield (1998) terms as an effective procedure to chec k the success of any team leader at each stage of a project. Organizational Behaviors and Skills Required in a Successful 21st-Century Organizational transformation is an element of business that an organization cannot ignore in the 21st century. With the proliferation of technology the barriers of business boundaries have become a thing of the past and the world has condensed into a small village. This is a century that has been dominated by trade globalization and extension of business boundaries to feature international business markets (Kreitman, 1997). These changes have had a great impact on trade and organizations are under the pressure to readjust their organizational behavior to suit diversified business environments that are characterized with unpredictable market forces. In team management, it is important to adopt a behavior that suits the modern approach of team management. One challenge that arises team management is the understanding of the available labour force, its management and motivation of the role players. Global diversity management advocates that team leaders provide opportunities for each employee to grow and develop within the organizations that they work in. It requires that the organization takes

ndividual Assignment Ethics Reflection Paper Essay Example for Free

ndividual Assignment Ethics Reflection Paper Essay Business Ethics and Social Responsibility Resources: Ethics Awareness Inventory and Ethical Choices in the Workplace assessments Use the Ethics Awareness Inventory and Ethical Choices in the Workplace assessments to revisityour personal and professional values. Write a paper of no more than 1,050-words in which you do the following: †¢ Explain the role of ethics and social responsibility in developing a strategic plan,considering stakeholder needs. †¢ Explain how your ethical perspective has evolved throughout the program. Format your paper according to APA standards. General Questions General General Questions Take the Ethics Awareness Inventory and Ethical Choices in the Workplace assessments to assess your values. Write a paper between 600 to 700 words in which you do the following: Explain the role of ethics and social responsibility in developing a strategic plan, considering stakeholder needs. Explain how your ethical perspective has evolved throughout the program. Format your paper consistent with APA guidelines. Click the Assignment Files tab to submit your assignment. If you cant settle on a major in your first year, then take a couple core classes for any major you are considering. Youll learn about each field thoroughly this way. When you are ready to choose, youll have the credits you need for that major, plus the minors as well. This file of STR 581 Week 1 Individual Assignment Ethics Reflection Paper comprises: Business Ethics and Social Responsibility Resources: Ethics Awareness Inventory and Ethical Choices in the Workplace assessments Use the Ethics Awareness Inventory and Ethical Choices in the Workplace a Follow the link to get tutorial https://bitly.com/1wyRSFq If you cant settle on a major in your first year, then take a couple core classes for any major you are considering. Youll learn about each field thoroughly this way. When you are ready to choose, youll have the credits you need for that major, plus the minors as well. General Questions General General Questions Take the Ethics Awareness Inventory and Ethical Choices in the Workplace assessments to assess your values. Write a paper between 600 to 700 words in which you do the following: Explain the role of ethics and social responsibility in developing a strategic plan, considering stakeholder needs. Explain how your ethical perspective has evolved throughout the program. Format your paper consistent with APA guidelines. Click the Assignment Files tab to submit your assignment.

Concept of time Essay Example for Free

Concept of time Essay Time seemed to be an important aspect that influences the well-being of the elderly in the study. Time consciousness cannot be ignored when one considers the subjective experience of well-being among the institutionalized aged. The finding showed that many of them had a keen awareness of time or awareness of the present. According to their administrators, a few of them felt the urgency to make the best use of the remaining time in their life: to get closer to God and to prepare for a ‘good death. ’ The studies done by Butler Lewis (1972); Butler et 292 al. (1998); Sue Sue (1999); and Knight (1996) found that there is an obvious concern with time when it is clear that the remaining days are running short among the aged. The development of a sense of immediacy, of the here-and-now, of present-ness -all these aid in the evolution of a sense of enjoyment and tranquility which ultimately are decisive elements of well-being. The findings of the study exemplified this awareness of time/time consciousness among the institutionalized aged and that it has endowed them with a sense of urgency and purpose in the ‘evening’ of their lives. It could also be presumed that these two aspects of well-being, the concept time and attitude toward death are closely related. Attitude towards Death The elderly in Gladys Spellman viewed the existential problem of death and dying in different spirit. While some of them had a positive attitude toward death and looked at death as a natural transition from this life to a better life and have reconciled with this inevitable reality. Trust in God’s compassion and mercy and the expectation of heavenly reward, growing closer to God in prayer seemed to help those elderly who said they were at ease with the thought of death. Faith and spirituality change death from an ending to a new beginning of a new existence for Christians (Moberg, 2001). Accepting old age and death meaningfully makes life happier. Fear or acceptance of death is closely related to general satisfaction or well-being. When life is lived to the full, death becomes a fulfillment, a completion (Moberg, 2001). The following words of the elderly were shared with one of the administrators. â€Å"I’ve done my job. My mission is over. I have no worries about the future†¦He will take care†¦and I’m ready for final surrender/exit. † There were others who tried to put on a brave front to show that they were not afraid to die. A third category avoided talking about death, reasoning that it was not yet time for them to think about death as they felt there was plenty time left for such things. Those who avoided thinking about death and those who did not fear death but only feared ‘pain of death’ must be coping with the unrecognized fear of death. As Atchley (1997) puts it, although death is generally accepted with little fear among older people, it is only reasonable to assume that there are some who really fear death. Their trust in God’s mercy and hope in eternal reward probably help them cope with this fear.

Marketing Analysis of Tesco

Marketing Analysis of Tesco 1.ORGANIZATIONS ORIENTATION An organization orientation depends upon the marketing concept and the market orientations, which are the foundations of strategic marketing. Marketing concept exists on the fusion of all marketing activities. When they are combined, the company can achieve higher profitability (Hooley 2008: 6, 7). Tesco has developed a strategic customer relationship management which builds and keeps a valued customer awareness and powerful brand engagement. Its position in UK is strengthened by overtaking Sainsbury in 1995 and by its online home grocery service (Jobber 2010:583). 2. MARKET SEGMENTATION, POSITIONING, TARGET MARKETING Market segmentation is the process of understanding the characteristics and demand of different individuals. Tesco gather customer information from the loyalty card scheme and identifies their purchasing habits and behaviour patterns, which are used for segmenting customers based on their needs. Customers are grouped based on their similarities. With this information, Tesco introduced different clubs like the kids club, the food club, the baby and toddler club, Healthy living Club. Market segments are chosen for targeting and a marketing mix strategy is selected for that target market (Jobber 2010:262,584).To develop an effective strategic marketing there should be an upstanding positioning of product and services in the market. Positioning is an iterative and vital process in retail marketing. The main goal of positioning is to develop and maintain a remarkable place in the market for the company and its product. Positioning starts with the product (Kalafatis 2000).Nevertheless, Tes co has a brand image and they are proud of its brand value ( Martenson 2007).Keys to successful positioning is clarity, consistency, competitiveness and credibility. Repositioning is carried out when customer needs or target market changes. Repositioning strategies include image repositioning, product repositioning, intangible repositioning, tangible repositioning (Jobber 2010:285,288). 3. MARKET ORIENTATION Marketing orientation is achieved by marketing concept (Blois 2000: 21). It is defined as all the departments working together to develop and understand customers current and future needs and to meet them to keep the customers satisfied (Hooley 2008: 8). The elements of market orientation include Customer orientation, Competitor orientation, and inter functional orientation. 4. CUSTOMER ORIENTATION Marketing oriented companies are primarily focused on customers. They get the needs and problems of their customers and find a better solution for them (Blois 2000: 22). Tesco strategy is based on loyalty card scheme and gets information about individual customers and their different needs. The club card helps the customers to save their money when they accumulate points in the card. Club card can be used at any Tescos partners (Jobber 2010:583). Tescos objectives and guidelines are aimed directly at customer satisfaction and it is assessed regularly (Hooley 2008: 11). Customer orientation depends on the employee performance. It results in positive outcomes of the company. It determines the relationship quality of the organization and relationship quality highly depends upon the company loyalty (Macintosh 2007). 5. COMPETITOR ORIENTATION The organization should identify the short-term and a long-term capability of the competitors. A deep understanding of the competition is needed. For Tesco the competitive positioning applies at the level of the companies. In UK the leading grocery retailing competitors include Tesco, Sainsburys and Asda (Hooley 2008: 208).We need to understand the competitors profit sources, position in the market, marketing strategies (Best 2004: 7).Tesco collects information about the activities and conduct regular benchmarking against the competitor offerings (Hooley 2008: 12). 6. LONG-TERM PROFIT FOCUS This is the ultimate objective of all the business. The main objectives of Tesco are to be a successful international retailer, to be strong in non-food as in the food business, to open more stores across the world. The International strategy of Tesco requires a long-term approach (Tesco PLC 2009).The decisions of Tesco are guided by long- term plans rather than short -term benefits (Hooley 2008: 12). 7. INTERFUNCTIONAL COORDINATION Interfunctional coordination concerns with the coordination of all company resources to create a value for target customers. To create an impenetrable competitive position, we have to rely on the coordinated efforts of various functions and people within the organizations. Cross-functional relationship plays a decisive role (Hooley 2008: 12). Tesco has a dedicated team approach to develop and deliver market-based customer solutions (Best 2004: 48).They work together and support each other to serve customer .The financial and management department work closely with the operators of the retailer world. Commercial departments make decisions to deliver best products at best possible prices. Corporate purchasing departments work with suppliers. The graduates in Tesco strive to generate revenue. Distribution team works to deliver products in the right time to different stores. The effective systems IT department improve online shopping for customers and they raise the contacts between vari ous business areas to streamline the entire processes. The marketing team of Tesco works with customers to understand their needs and current trends. The property and engineering department do all the support works of the stores (Hooley 2008: 12). 8. ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE Marketing orientation can be described as a variety of organizational culture that places the highest priority to establish and maintain the best customer value while considering the interests of stakeholders like investors, employees, suppliers (Blois 2000: 21). The core purpose of Tesco is to create value for customers to earn their lifetime loyalty (Tesco PLC 2009). All the staffs work like a team .They gives respect each other and treat customers in a way they feel satisfied. Face to face meetings, trips are conducted and Staffs are rewarded for their work they do. They offer discounts and benefits for the staffs also provide more salaries, training, flexible working hours and health and safety measures are observed as compared to other retailers. Tesco welcomes all people regardless of age, sex, ethnicity etc. Human rights policies are applied to all members (Tesco PLC 2009). Store Loyalty is the output of customer satisfaction and customers will visit the store regularly. All e mployees understand their responsibilities to create satisfied customers (Martenson 2007). 9. TESCO STRATEGIES Tesco has a well-established strategy for their business success. About 70% of the trading and profit is from UK. They are the market leaders in markets outside UK. They have four different store formats like Express, Metro, Superstore, Extra and one trial format Home plus, for non-food and clothing. As an international retailer, they mainly focus on the local customer needs and understand them. They make sure the board appeal. They have various own brands of superior quality to customers to compliment their style of living. Tesco looks after the people working with them (Tesco PLC 2009). Market Corporate responsibility is an opening for growth. The values are the no one tries harder for customers and treat people how they want to be treated (Tesco PLC 2009). The Tesco steering wheel represents performance and is a strategy-driving tool. (Tesco PLC 2009). A sale in non-food is a key part of the strategy. They provide with the best quality and price. Tescos non-food includes electrical, home entertainment, clothing, health and beauty, stationery, bookshop and soft furnishings, seasonal goods, opticians and pharmacies (Tesco PLC 2009). In retailing services, Tesco offers more to the customers. Tesco personal finance has products from credit cards to insurance. Online grocery shopping is made effortless with Tesco.com. Tesco Telecoms offers a wide range of services from mobile network, home phone service, internet access and an internet phone service (Tesco PLC 2009). The Success of Tesco depends on trust and satisfaction of the customers. Overall, Tesco has a strong marketing orientation and compelling marketing strategies which results in the customer satisfaction and the higher levels of profitability. Every Little Helps Tesco to be a market leader (Tesco PLC 2009). 10. COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE As Armstrong (2005) defined, competitive advantage is the advantage over competitors obtained by providing better value to customer. It is important to company who wants to win the customers and establish a profitable relationship with them (Armstrong Kotler, 2005). Before the organisation is choosing the right competitive advantage on which to build up its competitive strategies it must analyze the industry environment normally by using the porters 5 forces analysis. 11. Porters Five Forces Analysis Introduced by Michael Porter in 1979, Porters 5 Forces is a powerful tool to analyse the attractiveness of an industry. This framework involves a relationship between competitors within an industry, potential competitors, suppliers, buyers. It helps management to understand both the strength of the current competitive position, and the strength of a position organization want to be. (Michael Porter, 2008) A diagram below shows the Porters 5 forces clearly. 12. Threat of New Entry: As porter said the ability of people who newly enter your market might affect your power. If the barrier to entry the market is low and your have little protection for current position, then the new competitors can easily enter the market and weaken your position. (Michael Porter, 2008). In terms of new entrants Tesco does not have much threat because of the high barriers for new comer to entry into the supermarket industry. According to the TNS (Taylor Nelson Sofres, the leading market research group) data Tesco occupies over one third of grocery market share in UK, and is along with Asda, Saintsburys, Morrisons become the big four which has hold over 68% of UK overall grocery market. This strong solid position makes Tesco the market leader and giant in UK supermarket industry. Due to the massive market share has been hold by the big four, the barriers for new entrants are obviously quite high. It is hard for new retailer to obtain the market share and challenge the existing powerfu l player such as Tesco. In addition, another high barrier for new entrants is the supermarket industry needs huge capital and personnel involved but needs long time to get the return. Therefore, there are high barrier for new retailers entry into the existing supermarket industry dominated by big four. Thus, if Tesco sustains its strong position in the market it will have less threat from new entrants. 13. The power of buyer: According to Porter the buyers have the power to drive price down. Small number of buyers and powerful buyers for a company can likely having greater power on driving the price (Michael Porter, 2008). Generally say, in supermarket industry there is little bargain power for buyers with supermarket because all the prices are fixed price. Moreover, the bigger number of consumers will reduce the power of buyers. Therefore, it is little power of buyers to Tesco due to huge number of customers and little bargain power of buyers in this industry. However, customers can still switch buying from one supermarket to another by many factors. First, the price is the primary factor determinates customers buying activities. In this respect, Tescos strategy is based on its cost advantages. The organization aims to be the best value retailer. Tesco stated its price has been cut by 17% between 2000 and 2006; even facing the higher energy price challenge during the recent recession Tescos price has bee n dropped down by 1.8% last year. Second, due to the differentiation of product is little in the supermarket industry; customers can switch buying easily, thus, to attract and keep customers is relying on their loyalty to the store. Tescos report claims it has the UK number one loyalty card scheme and it has over 13 millions active Clubcard holders. Overall, the power of buyer is little to Tesco and Tesco has big advantages on low price and customer loyalty. 14. Power of suppliers Porter said the suppliers also have power to drive up the price. The power of driven is determined by the number and the strength of suppliers. To the Britain biggest grocery supermarket Tesco, the power of supplier is very little because Tesco has vast numbers of supplier across overall markets. The overwhelming market power of Tesco makes suppliers have no bargain power to it; instead, some of suppliers rely on Tesco. As a buyer Tesco has huge demand and great power to the supplier. However, Tesco also relys on their suppliers to achieve its objectives, without those suppliers Tesco could not deliver best value goods to the customers. Therefore, Tesco has established the long term constructive partnership with suppliers. According to Tescos report, it has over 1,500 suppliers who have been working with Tesco for five years or more. Based on a survey taken in 2008 by Tesco, there were over 90% of UK suppliers thought Tesco was trustworthy. Moreover, Tesco also provide the opportunit ies to small producers and local suppliers. For example, Tesco has opened five new regional buying offices around Britain and hosted regional road shows to attract and increase the number of local suppliers for selling their goods through Tesco. As the result, the small suppliers get more business opportunities meanwhile they help Tesco getting hundreds of new lines into stores. In sum, Tesco has little threat from power of supplier and company achieved its objectives by establishing the trustable partnership with suppliers. 15. The Threat of substitutes Porter introduced this threat as the other industry or business has the ability to substitute you and attract your customers. Although Tesco has head position in the supermarket industry, somehow, the substitutes still exist. For example, eating-out is a substitute to buying food from supermarket. However, a recent survey by analyst Buckingham Research has found that 75% of British families will stay at home during the recession rather than eating out. Under recession, the threat of eating-out to supermarket is less than ever. Another substitute worth to be considered is the online shopping. Nowadays, as the technology growing fast the online shopping becomes easy and trendy. However, it can not completely substitute the real life shopping especially for the food purchase. The technical problem, delivery problem and communication problem may bother people to buy online. Moreover, the real life shopping is also a part of social life to most of people, which would be simply substitute by clicking screen. In sum, the threat of substitute to Tesco is higher than buyer, supplier and new entrant. 16. The Threat of Competitive Rivalry: This threat comes from the competitors and also is affected by the new entry, substitute, power of buyer and supplier. The threat of competitive rivalry to Tesco is high although it is the largest grocery supermarket in UK. Asda, Sainsburys and Morrison are the three main competitors of Tesco. These three companies also have big portion of market share and compete with Tesco through price, product and promotions. The competition between the main grocery supermarkets remains fierce. Tesco has been reported that the market share has been losing and dipping in UK market since 2009 by many main Medias such as Times, BBC news and Guardian. Reports said according to the last figures of 2009 Tescos market share dropped from 31.3% to 30.7% of UK grocery sales. Meanwhile, Asdas market share rose to 17 % from 16.7 % and Morrisons went up to 12.1% from 11.7 %. TNS reported against the UK grocery sales rise 6%, Tescos sales rose 4% which below the market growth. However, Morrisons and Asda were all found beyond the growth of the market, seeing sales rise 9.7% and 7.2%. Moreover, the discounter supermarkets Aldi and Lidl also compete with Tesco as consumer cut back on spending during the recession. In addition, TNS also claimed that Waitrose, the John Lewis-own supermarket as the up-market grocer is fast growing in grocery market. On the other hand, because Tesco also set foot in non-food industry there are so many competitors such as Shell, BP, Amazon, O2, etc. To sum up, Tesco has highly threat from many competitors in both food and non-food industry. Therefore, Tesco must take its competitive advantages to prevent from threats of competitors. 17. Competitive Advantage of Tesco Through the porters 5 forces analysis the competitive advantages of Tesco can be outlined. First, the significant market power is the big advantage of Tesco. The great market power makes Tesco is able to put up barrier to new entrants and weaken the power of buyer and supplier; it also gives Tesco ability to beat the competitors. Second, namely cost advantage, the big economic scale enables Tesco to reduce the cost at extremely low level and thereby providing the low price to customers. Third, diversification makes Tesco has a further advantage to win the market because Tesco expands the broad markets such as financing, telecom and retail service rather than just food market and spread its business worldwide. To sum up, if Tesco follows its competitive strategy by aware of the threats and competitive advantages, it will keep the strong position in the industry and beat its competitors. 18. MARKETING MIX Firstly, the term Marketing Mix was widely adopted after Neil H. Boren published his article The Concept of the Marketing Mix in 1964, where he described marketing managers as a mixer of ingredients. The ingredients in Borens marketing mix included product, planning, pricing, packaging, branding, distribution channels, personal selling, advertising, promotions, display, servicing, physical handling, fact finding and analysis. Which was later grouped into four categories by E. Jerome McCarthy, today know as the 4Ps of marketing, shown below However, some people argue that along with the Marketing Mix 4 Ps concept, we should add another 2 Ps, which are people and packaging. 19. PRODUCT It is rare to discuss price without the presence of a product and to enable us understand the link between Price and Product. Kotler Armstrong (2006) define a product as anything that can be presented to a consumer for attention, acquisition, use, or consumption that might satisfy a want or need. They further define a consumer product as the product bought by the final consumer for personal consumption. According to Ferrell (2005), the product is the core of the marketing mix strategy in which retailers can offer consumers symbolic and experiential attributes to differentiate products from competitors. However, it is also concerned with what the product means to the consumer. Product is about quality, design, features, brand name and sizes (Borden, 1984). Wulf et.al. (2005) found that private label products could offer even better quality than national brands but at a lower price. The domestic competitor reacts to the intensifying price competition by engaging in selective price cha nges. A product is a physical good, service, idea, person, or place that is capable of offering tangible and intangible attributes that individuals or organizations regard as so necessary, worthwhile or satisfying that they are prepared to exchange money, patronage or some other unit of value to acquire it. (Blythe 2007) Core products: Core Products are the core benefit that is being sought by the consumer by buying the product, like the cheaper call rates and ease of recharge top up available to Tesco Mobile customers. Actual /Tangible products: Actual Products are all the tangible features/benefits that are associated with the core product such as its features or design, level of quality, packaging, size. There is no clear distinction between a pure tangible product and a service. The Tescos give away deals for the new 3G i-phone deal Augmented products: are the intangible features/benefits associated with the core actual product such as the branding, warrantees, delivery, guarantee, and after sales service. Tesco mobile, for example, is a tangible product, but it often comes with a warranty and software updates. A firmsproduct line refers to the variety of similar commodities that the firm holds, Tesco for example, makes a large range of inter-related goods, Many of Tesco stores stock over 40,000 product lines. Even a Tesco Express stores stock a choice of well over 2,000 lines. ProductDepthrefers to the variety of commodities offered within each product line. Tesco stores stock : Healthy Living products, Free From products for people with food allergies and intolerances, Special healthy Kids snacks and Organic product lines and the recent announcement by the Tescobank CEO Benny Higgins of plans to launch an assault on the mortgage market by the end of 2010, hoping to take advantage of the current problems in the sector. Targeted at providingTescocustomers with financial advice, car and home insurance credit cards, mortgages and current accounts.(MINTEL 2009). Products often go through alife cycle.Initially, at the introduction stage a product is launched. Since the product is not well known and is usually expensive (e.g. the , as). Eventually, many products reach agrowthphase where sales increases dramatically. More firms enter with their models of the product, sometimes with added innovations. Unfortunately, the product reaches amaturitystage where little growth is sighted. For example, in the UK, almost every household has at least one stereo sound system. Some products may also reach adeclinestage, usually because the product is swapped for something better. For example, CDplayers experienced declining sales as more consumers switched to MP3 players and i-pods. Ansoff Theory is a series of suggested growth strategies that set the direction for the business plan. illustrated below Market Penetration: here the business strategy focuses on selling existing products in existing markets.This strategy aims at four major objectives: Maintaining the market share of current products Securing growth market Dominance Drive out competitors with support of an aggressive promotional campaign and favorable price strategy Increase product usage by existing customers e.g. With the Tesco Loyalty Club card scheme. Market Development: here the business strategy seeks to sell its existing product into a new market. The various approaches to this include: New geographical markets e.g.- exporting Tesco UK products to the Express shops in Ireland and Malaysia New Product Dimension or Packaging New Distributional channel Implementing different pricing policies for different markets segments Product Development: refers to a growth strategy where new products are initiated in existing markets. This often requires development of new competencies in the case of Tesco Bank and its new job vacancies for competencies in the financial sector. Diversification points to the growth strategy where a business markets a new commodity in a new market. Unfortunately, for this strategy to be adopted a clear objective of its advantages should be explored and risk assessments carried out seeing as the business may have little or no experience in the new area. Roughly one quarter of Tescos sales, was own label. Many leading retailing companies have substantial grocery interests. Of the top 25 companies in 1978, 22 were involved in groceries retailing, of which 10 can be considered leading firms in the groceries sector [Akehurst, 1983: 169, Table 5] 20. Price : Price refers to the value assigned to something by the seller to something purchased, offered for sale, to a buyer as their willingness to pay for the product and services delivered (Gilbert 1999). Price is the only element in the marketing mix that is revenue generating- all of the others are costs. It should therefore, be used as an active instrument of strategy in the major areas of marketing decision making. Pricing in the international setting is more complicated than in the domestic market, because of factors such as government influence and additional costs (Becker and Thorelli 1980). The price of an item is an important influence on the value of sales made. In theory, price is really determined by the discovery of what customers perceive is the value of the item on sale. Recent research has shown that demand-based pricing is associated with higher retailer gross margins; whereas past price dependence is associated with, lower retailer gross margins (Nijs, Srinivasan, and Pau wels 2007). There are a number of pricing policies used by Tesco today, which include: 21. Market-led Pricing: also known as competitive pricing, this simply accepts the price which competitors are charging for a product and then price its product at the same level or slightly lower in order to gain some advantage over competitors. Significantly found in markets where there is close competitors. For a company like TESCO it is important to monitor other competitors and in order to maintain customer loyalty against discounters, the adoption of a more aggressive pricing strategy was launch by the advent of budget private label ranges and backed up by advertising focusing on price comparisons. Despite challenges due to rising energy prices, but with innovations such as the reusable plastic trays, which was introduced in the fresh food areas have helped make savings these savings are pass on to customers. According to the OFT this led to a fall in real food price between 2000-2005.as shown below 22. Cost-Based Pricing: also known as cost plus Pricing, involves working out the businesss total fixed and variable costs and then adding a percentage of profit. Here the business has to consider the total number of items that it plans to produce and sell. The big advantage of cost-based pricing for TESCO is that the company is guaranteed to make a profit on its sales since it has covered its costs. However, in operating cost-based pricing it is very important to be aware of competitors price. However, this poses a threat when businesses are unable to sell the expected quantity of the product, perhaps because competitors are offering the same goods at a lower price. 23. Price wars In a competitive market such as grocery market, businesses sometimes engage in price wars in which prices of some goods are slashed to a very low price in order to secure sales. Price wars swamped grocery retailers, as the switch to private labels from branded packaged food continued to gather pace. For instance, Tesco and ASDA propose freezing of tax on some products at 15% despite an increase in rates to 17.5%(MMR 2010) This is risky because advantages gained are short-lived and rival, businesses tend to respond by slashing prices even further. If pursued long enough, price wars would cut profits seriously and in the end, only customers benefits by the low prices. 24. PENETRATION PRICING 25. ECONOMY PRICING: Stores such as TESCO, which allegedly charge the lowest prices, attract many consumers based on this conception alone (Peter Donnely, 2007). Among retail stores, the pricing strategy has become the fundamental point, as they need to compete in terms of pricing to lure more customers. Berman (1996) added that among the pricing policies which are of major concern to retail store outlets are the High-Low Pricing and Every Day Low Pricing (EDLP) strategies. This is sighted in operators who have significant economies of scale and buying power (Gilbert 1999). 26. VALUE PRICING This ensues where external factors such as the recession or increased competition forces companies to provide VALUE product and services to retain sales, they are especially important to families on a budget and have made a significant contribution to making healthy food accessible to all. Tesco now has in store 95 fresh fruit and vegetable value lines, and are working with the Pre-School Learning Alliance to help parents and children in some of the UKs most deprived areas make healthier choices. Value pricing may have a negative impact on the profit margin of the company (tesco.com N.D). 27. GEOGRAPHICAL PRICING This is evident where there are variations in price and demand in different parts of the world. TESCOs prices are a little higher in some town centre and neighbourhood stores because of higher overhead costs (mainly rents and rates). These costs are spread over a smaller volume of sales, and can only be recovered by charging prices that are, on average, higher. Example was when Tesco first moved into Ireland the products it sold was more expensive than they were in their UK stores (Irish Times 1998). This was because the UK suppliers were charging the Ireland stores more than they were charging the UK stores. This triggered some conspiracies and allegiances between key stakeholders in the industry resulting in a widespread anti-Tesco campaign (Poole and Clark 2002). In Conclusion Pricing a product too high or too low could mean a loss of sales for the organization. Therefore, appropriate pricing strategies and policies should be put in place for the various market segments, to ensure 28. PROMOTION Significant P in Marketing Mix 4P (Product, Price, Promotion and Place). Although the 4P characterization has led to widespread use of the term promotion for describing communications with prospects and customers, the term marketing communications is preferred by most marketing practitioners as well as by many educators. Consider that we may want to use marketing communications to refer to the collection of advertising, sales promotions, public relations, event marketing, and other communication devices. Promotion is considered as Sales Promotion (Shimp 2007). Marketing Communication is used by organisations to communicate with customers with respect to their product offerings. In this sense, Marketing Communication is one side of the communication process with customers. Market research, in which suppliers seek to elicit information on consumer requirements from consumers, is the complementary component of the communication process. The following summarises this very simply: (Rowley 1998). According to Rowley (1998) producer should communicate to reach the customers and in turn should listen to the customers needs and requirements to enhance the product and service. Tesco proudly announced that one of the reasons to its Success is listening to their Customers and its suppliers. Tesco has adopted multiple qualitative research techniques to reach their customers such as focus groups, accompanied shops, home visits to collect the feedback and respond quickly with corrective measures. Modestly they say, Its simple we listen and respond, providing customers with Marketing Analysis of Tesco Marketing Analysis of Tesco 1.ORGANIZATIONS ORIENTATION An organization orientation depends upon the marketing concept and the market orientations, which are the foundations of strategic marketing. Marketing concept exists on the fusion of all marketing activities. When they are combined, the company can achieve higher profitability (Hooley 2008: 6, 7). Tesco has developed a strategic customer relationship management which builds and keeps a valued customer awareness and powerful brand engagement. Its position in UK is strengthened by overtaking Sainsbury in 1995 and by its online home grocery service (Jobber 2010:583). 2. MARKET SEGMENTATION, POSITIONING, TARGET MARKETING Market segmentation is the process of understanding the characteristics and demand of different individuals. Tesco gather customer information from the loyalty card scheme and identifies their purchasing habits and behaviour patterns, which are used for segmenting customers based on their needs. Customers are grouped based on their similarities. With this information, Tesco introduced different clubs like the kids club, the food club, the baby and toddler club, Healthy living Club. Market segments are chosen for targeting and a marketing mix strategy is selected for that target market (Jobber 2010:262,584).To develop an effective strategic marketing there should be an upstanding positioning of product and services in the market. Positioning is an iterative and vital process in retail marketing. The main goal of positioning is to develop and maintain a remarkable place in the market for the company and its product. Positioning starts with the product (Kalafatis 2000).Nevertheless, Tes co has a brand image and they are proud of its brand value ( Martenson 2007).Keys to successful positioning is clarity, consistency, competitiveness and credibility. Repositioning is carried out when customer needs or target market changes. Repositioning strategies include image repositioning, product repositioning, intangible repositioning, tangible repositioning (Jobber 2010:285,288). 3. MARKET ORIENTATION Marketing orientation is achieved by marketing concept (Blois 2000: 21). It is defined as all the departments working together to develop and understand customers current and future needs and to meet them to keep the customers satisfied (Hooley 2008: 8). The elements of market orientation include Customer orientation, Competitor orientation, and inter functional orientation. 4. CUSTOMER ORIENTATION Marketing oriented companies are primarily focused on customers. They get the needs and problems of their customers and find a better solution for them (Blois 2000: 22). Tesco strategy is based on loyalty card scheme and gets information about individual customers and their different needs. The club card helps the customers to save their money when they accumulate points in the card. Club card can be used at any Tescos partners (Jobber 2010:583). Tescos objectives and guidelines are aimed directly at customer satisfaction and it is assessed regularly (Hooley 2008: 11). Customer orientation depends on the employee performance. It results in positive outcomes of the company. It determines the relationship quality of the organization and relationship quality highly depends upon the company loyalty (Macintosh 2007). 5. COMPETITOR ORIENTATION The organization should identify the short-term and a long-term capability of the competitors. A deep understanding of the competition is needed. For Tesco the competitive positioning applies at the level of the companies. In UK the leading grocery retailing competitors include Tesco, Sainsburys and Asda (Hooley 2008: 208).We need to understand the competitors profit sources, position in the market, marketing strategies (Best 2004: 7).Tesco collects information about the activities and conduct regular benchmarking against the competitor offerings (Hooley 2008: 12). 6. LONG-TERM PROFIT FOCUS This is the ultimate objective of all the business. The main objectives of Tesco are to be a successful international retailer, to be strong in non-food as in the food business, to open more stores across the world. The International strategy of Tesco requires a long-term approach (Tesco PLC 2009).The decisions of Tesco are guided by long- term plans rather than short -term benefits (Hooley 2008: 12). 7. INTERFUNCTIONAL COORDINATION Interfunctional coordination concerns with the coordination of all company resources to create a value for target customers. To create an impenetrable competitive position, we have to rely on the coordinated efforts of various functions and people within the organizations. Cross-functional relationship plays a decisive role (Hooley 2008: 12). Tesco has a dedicated team approach to develop and deliver market-based customer solutions (Best 2004: 48).They work together and support each other to serve customer .The financial and management department work closely with the operators of the retailer world. Commercial departments make decisions to deliver best products at best possible prices. Corporate purchasing departments work with suppliers. The graduates in Tesco strive to generate revenue. Distribution team works to deliver products in the right time to different stores. The effective systems IT department improve online shopping for customers and they raise the contacts between vari ous business areas to streamline the entire processes. The marketing team of Tesco works with customers to understand their needs and current trends. The property and engineering department do all the support works of the stores (Hooley 2008: 12). 8. ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE Marketing orientation can be described as a variety of organizational culture that places the highest priority to establish and maintain the best customer value while considering the interests of stakeholders like investors, employees, suppliers (Blois 2000: 21). The core purpose of Tesco is to create value for customers to earn their lifetime loyalty (Tesco PLC 2009). All the staffs work like a team .They gives respect each other and treat customers in a way they feel satisfied. Face to face meetings, trips are conducted and Staffs are rewarded for their work they do. They offer discounts and benefits for the staffs also provide more salaries, training, flexible working hours and health and safety measures are observed as compared to other retailers. Tesco welcomes all people regardless of age, sex, ethnicity etc. Human rights policies are applied to all members (Tesco PLC 2009). Store Loyalty is the output of customer satisfaction and customers will visit the store regularly. All e mployees understand their responsibilities to create satisfied customers (Martenson 2007). 9. TESCO STRATEGIES Tesco has a well-established strategy for their business success. About 70% of the trading and profit is from UK. They are the market leaders in markets outside UK. They have four different store formats like Express, Metro, Superstore, Extra and one trial format Home plus, for non-food and clothing. As an international retailer, they mainly focus on the local customer needs and understand them. They make sure the board appeal. They have various own brands of superior quality to customers to compliment their style of living. Tesco looks after the people working with them (Tesco PLC 2009). Market Corporate responsibility is an opening for growth. The values are the no one tries harder for customers and treat people how they want to be treated (Tesco PLC 2009). The Tesco steering wheel represents performance and is a strategy-driving tool. (Tesco PLC 2009). A sale in non-food is a key part of the strategy. They provide with the best quality and price. Tescos non-food includes electrical, home entertainment, clothing, health and beauty, stationery, bookshop and soft furnishings, seasonal goods, opticians and pharmacies (Tesco PLC 2009). In retailing services, Tesco offers more to the customers. Tesco personal finance has products from credit cards to insurance. Online grocery shopping is made effortless with Tesco.com. Tesco Telecoms offers a wide range of services from mobile network, home phone service, internet access and an internet phone service (Tesco PLC 2009). The Success of Tesco depends on trust and satisfaction of the customers. Overall, Tesco has a strong marketing orientation and compelling marketing strategies which results in the customer satisfaction and the higher levels of profitability. Every Little Helps Tesco to be a market leader (Tesco PLC 2009). 10. COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE As Armstrong (2005) defined, competitive advantage is the advantage over competitors obtained by providing better value to customer. It is important to company who wants to win the customers and establish a profitable relationship with them (Armstrong Kotler, 2005). Before the organisation is choosing the right competitive advantage on which to build up its competitive strategies it must analyze the industry environment normally by using the porters 5 forces analysis. 11. Porters Five Forces Analysis Introduced by Michael Porter in 1979, Porters 5 Forces is a powerful tool to analyse the attractiveness of an industry. This framework involves a relationship between competitors within an industry, potential competitors, suppliers, buyers. It helps management to understand both the strength of the current competitive position, and the strength of a position organization want to be. (Michael Porter, 2008) A diagram below shows the Porters 5 forces clearly. 12. Threat of New Entry: As porter said the ability of people who newly enter your market might affect your power. If the barrier to entry the market is low and your have little protection for current position, then the new competitors can easily enter the market and weaken your position. (Michael Porter, 2008). In terms of new entrants Tesco does not have much threat because of the high barriers for new comer to entry into the supermarket industry. According to the TNS (Taylor Nelson Sofres, the leading market research group) data Tesco occupies over one third of grocery market share in UK, and is along with Asda, Saintsburys, Morrisons become the big four which has hold over 68% of UK overall grocery market. This strong solid position makes Tesco the market leader and giant in UK supermarket industry. Due to the massive market share has been hold by the big four, the barriers for new entrants are obviously quite high. It is hard for new retailer to obtain the market share and challenge the existing powerfu l player such as Tesco. In addition, another high barrier for new entrants is the supermarket industry needs huge capital and personnel involved but needs long time to get the return. Therefore, there are high barrier for new retailers entry into the existing supermarket industry dominated by big four. Thus, if Tesco sustains its strong position in the market it will have less threat from new entrants. 13. The power of buyer: According to Porter the buyers have the power to drive price down. Small number of buyers and powerful buyers for a company can likely having greater power on driving the price (Michael Porter, 2008). Generally say, in supermarket industry there is little bargain power for buyers with supermarket because all the prices are fixed price. Moreover, the bigger number of consumers will reduce the power of buyers. Therefore, it is little power of buyers to Tesco due to huge number of customers and little bargain power of buyers in this industry. However, customers can still switch buying from one supermarket to another by many factors. First, the price is the primary factor determinates customers buying activities. In this respect, Tescos strategy is based on its cost advantages. The organization aims to be the best value retailer. Tesco stated its price has been cut by 17% between 2000 and 2006; even facing the higher energy price challenge during the recent recession Tescos price has bee n dropped down by 1.8% last year. Second, due to the differentiation of product is little in the supermarket industry; customers can switch buying easily, thus, to attract and keep customers is relying on their loyalty to the store. Tescos report claims it has the UK number one loyalty card scheme and it has over 13 millions active Clubcard holders. Overall, the power of buyer is little to Tesco and Tesco has big advantages on low price and customer loyalty. 14. Power of suppliers Porter said the suppliers also have power to drive up the price. The power of driven is determined by the number and the strength of suppliers. To the Britain biggest grocery supermarket Tesco, the power of supplier is very little because Tesco has vast numbers of supplier across overall markets. The overwhelming market power of Tesco makes suppliers have no bargain power to it; instead, some of suppliers rely on Tesco. As a buyer Tesco has huge demand and great power to the supplier. However, Tesco also relys on their suppliers to achieve its objectives, without those suppliers Tesco could not deliver best value goods to the customers. Therefore, Tesco has established the long term constructive partnership with suppliers. According to Tescos report, it has over 1,500 suppliers who have been working with Tesco for five years or more. Based on a survey taken in 2008 by Tesco, there were over 90% of UK suppliers thought Tesco was trustworthy. Moreover, Tesco also provide the opportunit ies to small producers and local suppliers. For example, Tesco has opened five new regional buying offices around Britain and hosted regional road shows to attract and increase the number of local suppliers for selling their goods through Tesco. As the result, the small suppliers get more business opportunities meanwhile they help Tesco getting hundreds of new lines into stores. In sum, Tesco has little threat from power of supplier and company achieved its objectives by establishing the trustable partnership with suppliers. 15. The Threat of substitutes Porter introduced this threat as the other industry or business has the ability to substitute you and attract your customers. Although Tesco has head position in the supermarket industry, somehow, the substitutes still exist. For example, eating-out is a substitute to buying food from supermarket. However, a recent survey by analyst Buckingham Research has found that 75% of British families will stay at home during the recession rather than eating out. Under recession, the threat of eating-out to supermarket is less than ever. Another substitute worth to be considered is the online shopping. Nowadays, as the technology growing fast the online shopping becomes easy and trendy. However, it can not completely substitute the real life shopping especially for the food purchase. The technical problem, delivery problem and communication problem may bother people to buy online. Moreover, the real life shopping is also a part of social life to most of people, which would be simply substitute by clicking screen. In sum, the threat of substitute to Tesco is higher than buyer, supplier and new entrant. 16. The Threat of Competitive Rivalry: This threat comes from the competitors and also is affected by the new entry, substitute, power of buyer and supplier. The threat of competitive rivalry to Tesco is high although it is the largest grocery supermarket in UK. Asda, Sainsburys and Morrison are the three main competitors of Tesco. These three companies also have big portion of market share and compete with Tesco through price, product and promotions. The competition between the main grocery supermarkets remains fierce. Tesco has been reported that the market share has been losing and dipping in UK market since 2009 by many main Medias such as Times, BBC news and Guardian. Reports said according to the last figures of 2009 Tescos market share dropped from 31.3% to 30.7% of UK grocery sales. Meanwhile, Asdas market share rose to 17 % from 16.7 % and Morrisons went up to 12.1% from 11.7 %. TNS reported against the UK grocery sales rise 6%, Tescos sales rose 4% which below the market growth. However, Morrisons and Asda were all found beyond the growth of the market, seeing sales rise 9.7% and 7.2%. Moreover, the discounter supermarkets Aldi and Lidl also compete with Tesco as consumer cut back on spending during the recession. In addition, TNS also claimed that Waitrose, the John Lewis-own supermarket as the up-market grocer is fast growing in grocery market. On the other hand, because Tesco also set foot in non-food industry there are so many competitors such as Shell, BP, Amazon, O2, etc. To sum up, Tesco has highly threat from many competitors in both food and non-food industry. Therefore, Tesco must take its competitive advantages to prevent from threats of competitors. 17. Competitive Advantage of Tesco Through the porters 5 forces analysis the competitive advantages of Tesco can be outlined. First, the significant market power is the big advantage of Tesco. The great market power makes Tesco is able to put up barrier to new entrants and weaken the power of buyer and supplier; it also gives Tesco ability to beat the competitors. Second, namely cost advantage, the big economic scale enables Tesco to reduce the cost at extremely low level and thereby providing the low price to customers. Third, diversification makes Tesco has a further advantage to win the market because Tesco expands the broad markets such as financing, telecom and retail service rather than just food market and spread its business worldwide. To sum up, if Tesco follows its competitive strategy by aware of the threats and competitive advantages, it will keep the strong position in the industry and beat its competitors. 18. MARKETING MIX Firstly, the term Marketing Mix was widely adopted after Neil H. Boren published his article The Concept of the Marketing Mix in 1964, where he described marketing managers as a mixer of ingredients. The ingredients in Borens marketing mix included product, planning, pricing, packaging, branding, distribution channels, personal selling, advertising, promotions, display, servicing, physical handling, fact finding and analysis. Which was later grouped into four categories by E. Jerome McCarthy, today know as the 4Ps of marketing, shown below However, some people argue that along with the Marketing Mix 4 Ps concept, we should add another 2 Ps, which are people and packaging. 19. PRODUCT It is rare to discuss price without the presence of a product and to enable us understand the link between Price and Product. Kotler Armstrong (2006) define a product as anything that can be presented to a consumer for attention, acquisition, use, or consumption that might satisfy a want or need. They further define a consumer product as the product bought by the final consumer for personal consumption. According to Ferrell (2005), the product is the core of the marketing mix strategy in which retailers can offer consumers symbolic and experiential attributes to differentiate products from competitors. However, it is also concerned with what the product means to the consumer. Product is about quality, design, features, brand name and sizes (Borden, 1984). Wulf et.al. (2005) found that private label products could offer even better quality than national brands but at a lower price. The domestic competitor reacts to the intensifying price competition by engaging in selective price cha nges. A product is a physical good, service, idea, person, or place that is capable of offering tangible and intangible attributes that individuals or organizations regard as so necessary, worthwhile or satisfying that they are prepared to exchange money, patronage or some other unit of value to acquire it. (Blythe 2007) Core products: Core Products are the core benefit that is being sought by the consumer by buying the product, like the cheaper call rates and ease of recharge top up available to Tesco Mobile customers. Actual /Tangible products: Actual Products are all the tangible features/benefits that are associated with the core product such as its features or design, level of quality, packaging, size. There is no clear distinction between a pure tangible product and a service. The Tescos give away deals for the new 3G i-phone deal Augmented products: are the intangible features/benefits associated with the core actual product such as the branding, warrantees, delivery, guarantee, and after sales service. Tesco mobile, for example, is a tangible product, but it often comes with a warranty and software updates. A firmsproduct line refers to the variety of similar commodities that the firm holds, Tesco for example, makes a large range of inter-related goods, Many of Tesco stores stock over 40,000 product lines. Even a Tesco Express stores stock a choice of well over 2,000 lines. ProductDepthrefers to the variety of commodities offered within each product line. Tesco stores stock : Healthy Living products, Free From products for people with food allergies and intolerances, Special healthy Kids snacks and Organic product lines and the recent announcement by the Tescobank CEO Benny Higgins of plans to launch an assault on the mortgage market by the end of 2010, hoping to take advantage of the current problems in the sector. Targeted at providingTescocustomers with financial advice, car and home insurance credit cards, mortgages and current accounts.(MINTEL 2009). Products often go through alife cycle.Initially, at the introduction stage a product is launched. Since the product is not well known and is usually expensive (e.g. the , as). Eventually, many products reach agrowthphase where sales increases dramatically. More firms enter with their models of the product, sometimes with added innovations. Unfortunately, the product reaches amaturitystage where little growth is sighted. For example, in the UK, almost every household has at least one stereo sound system. Some products may also reach adeclinestage, usually because the product is swapped for something better. For example, CDplayers experienced declining sales as more consumers switched to MP3 players and i-pods. Ansoff Theory is a series of suggested growth strategies that set the direction for the business plan. illustrated below Market Penetration: here the business strategy focuses on selling existing products in existing markets.This strategy aims at four major objectives: Maintaining the market share of current products Securing growth market Dominance Drive out competitors with support of an aggressive promotional campaign and favorable price strategy Increase product usage by existing customers e.g. With the Tesco Loyalty Club card scheme. Market Development: here the business strategy seeks to sell its existing product into a new market. The various approaches to this include: New geographical markets e.g.- exporting Tesco UK products to the Express shops in Ireland and Malaysia New Product Dimension or Packaging New Distributional channel Implementing different pricing policies for different markets segments Product Development: refers to a growth strategy where new products are initiated in existing markets. This often requires development of new competencies in the case of Tesco Bank and its new job vacancies for competencies in the financial sector. Diversification points to the growth strategy where a business markets a new commodity in a new market. Unfortunately, for this strategy to be adopted a clear objective of its advantages should be explored and risk assessments carried out seeing as the business may have little or no experience in the new area. Roughly one quarter of Tescos sales, was own label. Many leading retailing companies have substantial grocery interests. Of the top 25 companies in 1978, 22 were involved in groceries retailing, of which 10 can be considered leading firms in the groceries sector [Akehurst, 1983: 169, Table 5] 20. Price : Price refers to the value assigned to something by the seller to something purchased, offered for sale, to a buyer as their willingness to pay for the product and services delivered (Gilbert 1999). Price is the only element in the marketing mix that is revenue generating- all of the others are costs. It should therefore, be used as an active instrument of strategy in the major areas of marketing decision making. Pricing in the international setting is more complicated than in the domestic market, because of factors such as government influence and additional costs (Becker and Thorelli 1980). The price of an item is an important influence on the value of sales made. In theory, price is really determined by the discovery of what customers perceive is the value of the item on sale. Recent research has shown that demand-based pricing is associated with higher retailer gross margins; whereas past price dependence is associated with, lower retailer gross margins (Nijs, Srinivasan, and Pau wels 2007). There are a number of pricing policies used by Tesco today, which include: 21. Market-led Pricing: also known as competitive pricing, this simply accepts the price which competitors are charging for a product and then price its product at the same level or slightly lower in order to gain some advantage over competitors. Significantly found in markets where there is close competitors. For a company like TESCO it is important to monitor other competitors and in order to maintain customer loyalty against discounters, the adoption of a more aggressive pricing strategy was launch by the advent of budget private label ranges and backed up by advertising focusing on price comparisons. Despite challenges due to rising energy prices, but with innovations such as the reusable plastic trays, which was introduced in the fresh food areas have helped make savings these savings are pass on to customers. According to the OFT this led to a fall in real food price between 2000-2005.as shown below 22. Cost-Based Pricing: also known as cost plus Pricing, involves working out the businesss total fixed and variable costs and then adding a percentage of profit. Here the business has to consider the total number of items that it plans to produce and sell. The big advantage of cost-based pricing for TESCO is that the company is guaranteed to make a profit on its sales since it has covered its costs. However, in operating cost-based pricing it is very important to be aware of competitors price. However, this poses a threat when businesses are unable to sell the expected quantity of the product, perhaps because competitors are offering the same goods at a lower price. 23. Price wars In a competitive market such as grocery market, businesses sometimes engage in price wars in which prices of some goods are slashed to a very low price in order to secure sales. Price wars swamped grocery retailers, as the switch to private labels from branded packaged food continued to gather pace. For instance, Tesco and ASDA propose freezing of tax on some products at 15% despite an increase in rates to 17.5%(MMR 2010) This is risky because advantages gained are short-lived and rival, businesses tend to respond by slashing prices even further. If pursued long enough, price wars would cut profits seriously and in the end, only customers benefits by the low prices. 24. PENETRATION PRICING 25. ECONOMY PRICING: Stores such as TESCO, which allegedly charge the lowest prices, attract many consumers based on this conception alone (Peter Donnely, 2007). Among retail stores, the pricing strategy has become the fundamental point, as they need to compete in terms of pricing to lure more customers. Berman (1996) added that among the pricing policies which are of major concern to retail store outlets are the High-Low Pricing and Every Day Low Pricing (EDLP) strategies. This is sighted in operators who have significant economies of scale and buying power (Gilbert 1999). 26. VALUE PRICING This ensues where external factors such as the recession or increased competition forces companies to provide VALUE product and services to retain sales, they are especially important to families on a budget and have made a significant contribution to making healthy food accessible to all. Tesco now has in store 95 fresh fruit and vegetable value lines, and are working with the Pre-School Learning Alliance to help parents and children in some of the UKs most deprived areas make healthier choices. Value pricing may have a negative impact on the profit margin of the company (tesco.com N.D). 27. GEOGRAPHICAL PRICING This is evident where there are variations in price and demand in different parts of the world. TESCOs prices are a little higher in some town centre and neighbourhood stores because of higher overhead costs (mainly rents and rates). These costs are spread over a smaller volume of sales, and can only be recovered by charging prices that are, on average, higher. Example was when Tesco first moved into Ireland the products it sold was more expensive than they were in their UK stores (Irish Times 1998). This was because the UK suppliers were charging the Ireland stores more than they were charging the UK stores. This triggered some conspiracies and allegiances between key stakeholders in the industry resulting in a widespread anti-Tesco campaign (Poole and Clark 2002). In Conclusion Pricing a product too high or too low could mean a loss of sales for the organization. Therefore, appropriate pricing strategies and policies should be put in place for the various market segments, to ensure 28. PROMOTION Significant P in Marketing Mix 4P (Product, Price, Promotion and Place). Although the 4P characterization has led to widespread use of the term promotion for describing communications with prospects and customers, the term marketing communications is preferred by most marketing practitioners as well as by many educators. Consider that we may want to use marketing communications to refer to the collection of advertising, sales promotions, public relations, event marketing, and other communication devices. Promotion is considered as Sales Promotion (Shimp 2007). Marketing Communication is used by organisations to communicate with customers with respect to their product offerings. In this sense, Marketing Communication is one side of the communication process with customers. Market research, in which suppliers seek to elicit information on consumer requirements from consumers, is the complementary component of the communication process. The following summarises this very simply: (Rowley 1998). According to Rowley (1998) producer should communicate to reach the customers and in turn should listen to the customers needs and requirements to enhance the product and service. Tesco proudly announced that one of the reasons to its Success is listening to their Customers and its suppliers. Tesco has adopted multiple qualitative research techniques to reach their customers such as focus groups, accompanied shops, home visits to collect the feedback and respond quickly with corrective measures. Modestly they say, Its simple we listen and respond, providing customers with