drugs and alcohol on college students Essay

Drugs and alcohol, do they have a significant impact on the lives of college students or just the ones that fall short to the influence? There is a major problem with students using and abusing these substances, not only does it have negative effects on the user, but on the user’s friends and family as well. A lot of drugs and alcohol become easily available to college students over the course of their college years. What can be done to help prevent students from abusing drugs and alcohol? Overall, drugs and alcohol do have a serious effect on the lives of college students. In college it is extremely hard for some students to have self-control. According to the article, â€Å"Alcohol and Drug abuse†, a study indicated that 90% of students admitted to have consumed an alcoholic beverage in college, while 50% of the students also admitted to smoking marijuana. These statistics show that most students will be around drugs or alcohol at one point during their experience. Additionally, One of the many reasons that students drink or do drugs is because it is their first taste of freedom away from home. Not to mention, no parents on their back, no rules, and you can go â€Å"home† (dormitory, apartment, house, etc†¦) anytime you want, why would a teen not take full advantage of this opportunity? That is one of the main issues and students do not know how to say the word as simple as no sometimes. Not only do students get hooked on this kind of behavior but also could potentially take it too far. Some say drinking is a stress reliever from school, work, or even personal problems. Furthermore, alcohol, as well as drugs, are very addictive and can cause many problems for one down the road. At least once a month, half of the college students in America drink or abuse drugs. A conducted survey showed around 22% of students have a higher rate abusing substances compared to the general public. Nonetheless, these students claimed they use drugs to help forget about problems and help relax  and reduce stress. Since 2005, the students that claim they abuse marijuana has more than doubled, but the amount of students that claim to use alcohol has stayed average. (insert info). This sort of behavior very rarely stems from the choice made of a single individual but is mostly influenced by peer pressuring friends as a way to fit in. Alcoholism does have an effect on the social lives of students. Some say â€Å"you are who your friends are†, in some aspects they are right. The friends chosen to spend the days with throughout college do have a significant role in a lifetime. Whatever their decisions may be, could influence the person one strives to be. The influence others can make in life seems daring and unbelievable. Research states that students Frat houses and sororities also have an impact on drinking habits developed throughout college.  Greek life can be a big part of ones college experience. Membership in fraternities or sororities may play a part in drinking in college. Greek life does play a part throughout campus by typically throwing open house parties and social gatherings including none greek life students. Statistics show that greek members do more drinking than regular students and is also known as â€Å"the greek effect†. However, this does not mean that these same developed habits will stay with them following the college years. They say after students graduate and leave the college atmosphere that their studies do suggest a decrease in drinking. Once they leave they are not involved in a socially acceptable atmosphere for heavy drinking and partying. Greek life or not, drinking still raises a concern for college students. Drugs and alcohol are huge concerns across the United States. A Harvard University study showed that underage students who drink are more likely to over abuse their tolerance level compared to twenty-one year olds, which is also the legal drinking age in America. It is unbelievably easy to access alcohol for many underage students and could be a reason to why they turn to drinking. Some could even argue that alcohol is the biggest gateway drug. A study from the University of Florida explains why they believe alcohol is  a bigger gateway drug than marijuana. The study showed that substance use begins with the most sociably acceptable drugs, being alcohol and tobacco, then proceeds to marijuana use and lastly on to other illegal, harder drugs, like cocaine. Furthermore, students who used alcohol exhibited a significantly greater likelihood up to sixteen times of illicit and licit substance use. Alcohol is what’s being put on a pedestal, so students seek it out. When majority of students drink, they binge drink. This is one of the worst ways to consume alcohol and have harsh side effects. Campuses do not realize how harmful this is to the student body and mind. There should be more programs to raise awareness and inform students of the effects of alcohol abuse. If peers, professors or other influential members of the community see a problem within a student they should be able to refer them to counseling and seek proper help needed. Peers do play an influential role in pressuring others to party and do drugs, especially roommates. Male students that consumed alcohol or abused drugs in high school that came to college and became roommates with another male that was similar to them in high school could have negative effects on each other and are probable to increase their consumption into college. Female students were found to not be as pressured by their roommates and were more probable to carry on their individual high school ways throughout college. Drinking alcohol as a young adult will more than double the chances of neurotoxicity and cause harmful cognitive effects as oppose to people that start drinking later in life. Almost every community in America is affected by underage drinking. Every year the statisitics of how young kids will start to drink increases. Children from the ages of twelve to seventeen that first encounter alcohol has increased by over one million in a span of five years. (The neurocognitive effects of alcohol on adolescents and college students). Here are many consequences to extreme drinking. Every year there are on average 1,825 deaths from injuries and car accidents caused by people  driving while intoxicated. (insert info). Assault and sexual assault chances also increase when alcohol is thrown into the equation. Studies show how poorly students perform on exams, papers, and also how far they fall behind because of acquired drinking habits. 19% of students fall into the category of alcohol dependence.

Protecting the Global Environment Essay

1.Introduction Population growth is one of the major environmental issues today. Some people argue, that rapidly growing population is not only problem and humans will not destroy life-support system on which we all depend. Contrary some argue that growing population is a key driver factor of environmental destruction. The purpose of this research project is to explain the main arguments of both sides and to recommend possible action in order to face with most important problems. Many countries see contradictory the problem of population growth. Those country with relatively low population growth but high rates of consumption said that the population is a main problem. On the other hand countries with low level of consumption but high birth rates said that the consumption is a main problem. http://priven.com/popsprawl.html This debate is one of the main issues in modern view of environment, so which policy we should apply? Should we try to reduce population growth or consumption, or perhaps both? 2.Human population History According to Cunningham (2000) for a most of human history, population growth was very slow. Many studies of hunting and gathering societies show that the total world population wasn’t more than a few million people before innovation of agriculture and the domestication of animals around 10,000 years ago. The bigger and more secure food supply results in human population to growth, reaching perhaps 50 million people (b.c). Moreover, some historical evidence and description suggest that only about 300 million people were living at the time of Christ. During the Middle Age, many diseases and wars held world population. The main reasons were lack of hygiene and life condition and as consequence made human life short and uncertain. During the most destructive disease, plaque that took many lives between 1348 and 1350, it is estimated that at least one-third of European population perished. At the end of last great plague, there ware about 600 million people on the earth. After 1600 human population increase rapidly and in 1800 reach one billion. It took a century and a half more to reach the 1950 figure of 2.5 billion. But in a post World War II period the  populations was doubled in less than forty years, and exceed 5 billion. By the year 2000 world population had passed six billion. Today we are facing with a human population explosion, in other words every second approximately four or five children are born somewhere on the earth and in the same second two other people die. This means that we have increasing by an average of 250,000 in human population per day, which is equivalent of another Switzerland every 30 days, and a new China every 30 years. (www.nyo.unep.org/action/Text/06-t.htm) When we discussed population growth we must consider that 90% of the projected growth come from undeveloped or currently developed nations of Asia, Africa and Latin America. In these developing countries there are a number of socio-economic realities that lead women to have more children. In economies that depend on family or communal agriculture, children are an economic assets: they provide a valuable labour and the cost of rising them are very low. Many communities around the world still have limited access on adequate health care facilities, which often result in a high infant mortality rates and low life expectancy. When family lose, on average one in tree or four children they usually chose to have as many as it possible in order to maximize the number of children that will survive. On the other hand in developed countries where there are fewer educational and carrier opportunities, there tends to be earlier marriage and child – bearing. In some countries woman often start having babies when they are 15 years old, which result in more children per couple 3. Limiting population as a central strategy in protecting environment The debate about whether human population growth is a fundamental cause of ecological problems and whether limiting population should be a central strategy in protecting the environment has long historical roots. The rapid growing of population led the British classical economist Thomas Malthus in 1798 to write Essay on the Principle of Population as it affects the Future Improvement of Society. (Harris, 2001) He warned that the human  races will excide productivity capacity, leading to food crisis and poverty. History has proved Malthusian hypothesis wrong His predictions were undetermined by technological improvement. On the other hand, if we consider a more sophisticated variation, the argument that a growing human population and economy system will eventually outrun its biophysical support system, we can see that the debate has strong current relevance. Authors such as Paul and Anne Ehrlich published The population Bomb (1968) and later The population explosion (1990) warned that continuing population growth could overcome all the benefits of modern science and economic growth and result in devastated and miserable planet. This Neo-Malthusians point of view achieved more attention and provides the strong point in debate on population growth. According to this approach a limiting population growth would be result in solving many environmental problems however result vary a lot, depending on which country or which type of damage we are looking at. According to the Harrison (1994) the case of Madagascar shows clear links between growing population and land degradation. Madagascar’s forests have been reduced to a narrowing strip along the eastern escarpment. Of the original forest cover 27.6 million acres; only 18.8 acres remained in 1950. Today the number of acres forest is only 9.4 acres, which means that habitat for the island’s unique wild life has been halved in just forty years. Another example, which shows the process at work, is one village, Ambodiaviavy, near Ranomafana. Fifty years ago the whole area was dense forest. After French colonials burned down the old village, eight families came in Ambodiaviavy in 1947. At firstly they formed only valley bottoms, which they easily irrigated from the stream running down from the top of hills. There was no shortage on land and each family took as much of land as they were capable of working. After forty-tree years number of families grew to thirty-six but all-cultivable lands was occupied, so they started to clear forest, today they two-thirds of the way to the hilltop. Quite simply, more people on a planet will mean more resource to support them.  ·See level are arising It is not surprising that many criminologists are now warning that a massive  global climate shift is underway and the main reason are human activities, especially the burning of fossil fuel. Problems like erosion, acid rain or global warning sometimes we do not even know where they are happening until they are far advanced, as in a case of ozone hole. Many scientists predict that thermal expansion of seawater and melting of glaciers and polar ice will result to a metre rise in a see level over a next 100 years. One billion people may be at risk from a one-metre rise in a see level; many in the poorest countries while many of the low-lying Pacific and Indian Ocean nations may disappear. The thousand glaciers in east Himalayas have disappeared over the last century, 92% of Kenya’s largest glacier has gone over the same interval, Artic sea-ice has thinned 40% in the last 30 years, and the Greenland ice-sheet has thinned 6 metres since 1992. www.population.org.an/pressrm/newsle t/nl200212.pdf One of the most threatening possibilities is that a massive inflow of cold fresh water from the Artic will halt the Gulf Stream, which drives much of the global ocean circulation. As a consequence this would cause Europe to freeze while the rest of the world sweltered. Rather than wait for global crisis dictates that we should take an action now. However, most analysts accept that increasing population places extra stress on the environment and resources, and there is broad agreement that limiting population is necessary. But how is to be accomplished? According to the Harris (2001) most well known example of this is China’s â€Å"one-child† family policy. Birth rates can fall rapidly, however especially woman reach higher level of education, literacy, and take benefit from employment opportunities. Significant voluntary reduction of birth rates in many East Asian countries as well in the state of Kerala in India has resulted from higher levels of basic education, health care, and job security.  ·Taking action to address population growth There are many solutions that can be adopted in order to slow high growth population rates, done both by individual and community. Firstly help to develop awareness in the community, so that everyone can understands the impact of population growth on the environment. Second, respond to the media. Take action immediately to reports and comments about environmental  problems and make links between population growth and environmental issue and development issue. Thirdly, support family planning initiatives, in order to inform people more about this program and to let them know the benefits that effective family planning could have for their community and the whole global environment. Another step could be encouraging all levels of government support (both expertise and founds). And finally develop special program for women that create more opportunities for them to enter, re- enter or stay it the workforce, especially in undeveloped countries. 4. Population growth: opposing factor According to Harrison (1994) socialist from William Cobbett to Karl Marx attacked Malthus’s arguments that population growth need immediate limit. U. S. land reformer Henry George in Progress and poverty (1879) that a huge U. S. population growth had surged side by side with a huge increase in prosperity. Economist Julian Simmon see moderate population growth not a problem at all. Instead of limiting population, more people mean more brain to think up more solutions. † There is no meaningful limit to our capacity to keep growing forever. † he wrote in 1981 in the Ultimate Resource. There can be benefits as wall as disadvantages in large human population. According to the Cunningham (2000) more people mean larger markets, more workers and continuing scale of mass production. Large number of people also means more intelligence and enterprise to overcome problems such as pollution or resource limitation. Human creativity and intelligence can create new resource by sub stituting new materials for old materials. Technology will discover practically limitless new or replacement resources, that pollution will be controlled by technology. While population’s growth rates are definitely an issue, the size of human population is not the only determinant on the impact on the environment. The impact of people on their environment is not only in their number but also in their location in biosphere theirs level on consumption of energy and materials, and the technology used to attain a given standard of living. Mahatma Gandhi said 50 years ago that there is enough for everyone’s need, but not enough for everyone greed. According to the Alan Durning of the Worldwatch Institute, population acts as a multiplayer. Therefore, the total human impact on the  global environment can be reduced by the moderating consumption. For example, industrialized nations, home of 22 % of the world’s population, consume 60% of the world’s food, 70 % of its energy and 85 % of its wood. They generate almost three- quarters off all carbon dioxide emission, which make them the main causes of most of the ozone depletion. (Hartman, 1994). Moreover, there are numerous countries where governments use inappropriate incentives for a food production, such as excessive subsidies may result from poor policy planning.  ·Taking community action to address Unsustainable Consumption Many different actions can be implement in order to promote the concept of sustainable consumption. One of the actions is to help build awareness. Every individuals, organization and community can help aiming to change attitudes and behavioural toward environmental sound product selection and lifestyle choice. It can be operate an environmental awareness program, which explore links between local production, consumption and environment, while motivating people to change their own behaviour. Another step is work with schools and the media in order to inform future generation. Also to promote green- consumption, encouraging people to purchase â€Å"environmentally-sound† product whenever they are available. 5. Conclusion: There are many reasons that population growth has direct impact on environment. But which strategy we should choose in order to face with this problem? In the face of such uncertainty, we must ask what is at stake in the risky we chose to take. If the pessimist views of limits on the Earth turn out to be correct, the horror and misery that would unfold as a result of continued population growth. On the other hand, if optimists turn out to be correct, there will be many generations ahead in which a gift of life can be extended to additional billions. It is obvious that we need more than one strategy for dealing with growth. Therefore, solving a planet’s ecological crisis is not just about a having small families. Consumers also need to take responsibilities. It also should take into account the long-term effect  of those action could have on ecosystem at both local and global levels. References: Aaron org. (1999) Population Growth and Sprawl. [On line] Available from: http://www.priven.com/popsprawl.html Accessed: 17.11.2002 AESP, December 2000 Population: The neglected Element in the Greenhouse Debate [On line] Available from: http://www.population.org.an/pressrm/newslet/nl200012.pdf Accessed: 15.11.2002 Cunningham and Saigo, Environmental Science, Global Concern, McGraw Hull, 7th edition, 2002 p. 137-158 Harris M. J. (2001) Population and Environment. [on line] Available from: http://www.esig.ucar.edu/kuob/text.html Accessed: 17.11.2002. Goldford D.T. Taking sides: Clashing views on controversial Environmental issues, Dushkin/McGraw-Hill, 8th edition, 1999.

Reflection report Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

Reflection report - Essay Example The lifeline of an organization has a close link with the organizational ability and power to innovate and re-innovate in order to keep the competitive advantage valid in the long run. The companies have to ensure that they find fresh streams of revenue on a regular basis so that they can keep their sales volume steady and intact over the passage of time (Badelt & Weiss, 1990). The companies have to deal with traditional and conventional needs and wants of the customers in a new and inventive way. In the language of marketing, one can say that modern companies require fulfilling expectations of the customers by innovating in terms of finding new ways to satisfy them. The featured company did not innovate on an operational level, but they took their offering to a new level by making a tough and difficult decision of going global when the odds against them were simply overwhelming to say the least. The company made a bold strategic choice of performing international market development (Auger, Burke, Devinney, & Louviere, 2003). The choice was valid, but it was risky, and that helped the company regarding tapping into the latent sources of revenue worldwide (Baron & Tang, 2011). The research effort lifted various sort of data and information about the company through running internet search, and the net profit remained significant in the year of 2011. The abovementioned annual period was lucrative in nature because the company started to reap benefits and results of the decision that involved taking the business to the global level (Elenkov, Judge, & Wright, 2005). The domestic markets were not generating sufficient returns, and therefore, the company had to innovate with reference to establishment of international outlets. The company was manufacturing sports and excursion goods, but they were not able to crunch significant corporate success in the opening years. Besides, the company was operating since 1892, and they decided that they did not have

The Watergate Scandal Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

The Watergate Scandal - Essay Example Soon things got worse forcing President Nixon to step down from office as President of the United States. Apart from resignation of President Nixon on August 1972, the scandal also led to the indictment, trial and imprisonment of 43 accomplices most of whom were administration official of President Nixon2. This paper will explore the Watergate Scandal from the buildup, the scandal, the end, and the aftermath. The Watergate scandal is said to have originated from the hostile political environment of the 1960s general elections3. This is attributed to the fact that by 1972 when President Richard Nixon was seeking for his reelection as president of the United States as republican candidate, the country was already deeply divided internally as a result of the Vietnam War of 1955to 1975. Because of the harsh political environment, Nixon and his henchmen found it prudent to employ forceful campaign tactics in order to be able to sabotage his opponent, particularly his challenger Gerald For d, the then democratic candidate4. The aggressive campaign strategies used by Nixon and his advisers included what later emerged as an illegal spying. This is after the evidence gathered at the scene revealed that some member of Nixon’s re-election committee (CREEP) broke into Watergate building, the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee on May 1972 stealing copies of confidential documents and then bugged the phones in the office. Mark Feldstein reveals that despite having stolen the DNC’s top-secret document, the wiretaps stolen could not work properly forcing the burglars to return to Watergate headquarters on 17 June of the same year.5 However, this time round the burglars came with new microphone, but before they could break in, one of the security guard called Frank Willis saw a piece of tape wrapped on the locker of the door leading into the stairwell. Willis quickly removed the tape oblivious of water was happening. However, since he suspected that something was a mess, he rushed to the telephone and called the Metropolitan Police who came to Watergate few minutes later and began conducting a thorough search in the building6. It is then that the police realized that all the doors leading to stairwell of the sixth floor had been taped in a similar manner7. Investigation also revealed that the Democratic National Committee had rented the entire sixth floor. The police officers then began moving from one office to the next in the entire sixth floor with arsenals drawn8. No soon had they entered the offices Stanley Grieg, of Deputy Party Chairman than a man came out from his hiding place and surrendered to the officers pleading not to be shot. Subsequent searches led to the arrest of five men in the offices all wearing surgical gloves and business suits. A team of investigators learnt that the main purpose for the break-in by the burglars was to bug Lawrence O’Brien, the DNC chairman’s offices and get files related t o their campaign strategy that might help republicans in the forthcoming presidential elections9. Investigators also found out that the burglars had all booked suits fictitiously at the Watergate Hotel. The police officers also conducted a search in their rooms and in DNC offices in which $5,000 numbered as $100 bills was found plus

Pro & Cons of Social Media Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Pro & Cons of Social Media - Assignment Example equires an individual to set business objectives, establish important performance indicators that relate to the objectives and create performance targets to evaluate success. The second stage of the social media measurement process is the definition phase. It requires an individual to make an outline showing how social media platforms could be supplemented to attain a brand target and interact with them to achieve the objectives. Design, is the third phase of the social measurement process. It involves laying out appropriate venues and specific tactics for the brand that will help in establishing an active social media presence. Deployment is the fourth stage and it entails the program implementation and launch, which ensures that accurate data is collected and the program is launched appropriately. Optimization is the final phase of the social media measurement process. It seeks to look at performance drivers and identify opportunities that can assist in adjusting the program for be tter results (Murdough 94). The reach of social media refers to the amount of traffic or the number of people that are accessing the social media platform. It involves monitoring the number of mentions and the characteristics of the authors. Some authors have more influence on social media, therefore, being able to promote the brand effectively when they mention it. Other authors have less influence (Bernhardt, Darren & Amanda 137). Therefore, it is important for the key authors to mention the brand as it will generate more comments and discussions that will promote it. Messages are transmitted across different social media platforms such as Facebook, twitter and MySpace in different ways. Facebook, blogs and discussion forums have room for comments that can be viewed by customers and prospects, therefore, promoting the brand. On the other hand, Twitter offers tweets that can easily be seen by prospect customers when an author promotes the brand (Murdough 95). According to Chris

Final report Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Final report - Essay Example The target audiences of the kit is both children and adults. To facilitate the programming of the kit, a programming language referred to as NXT has been developed by LEGO. This programming language gives everyone the ability to possess full control of the Lego Mindstorm Kit (Valk). The use of this programming language if efficient even for people who lack programming language skills. This project is aimed at constructing a programming a robot that has the ability to pick balls from the ground, carry the ball for at least one meter following a black line drawn on the ground and place the ball in a container 0.50 metres high. A LEGOÂ ® MINDSTORMSÂ ® NXT 2.0 kit will be utilized in building and programing the robot. The choice of this kit among other robotics platform was very carefully chosen due to various reasons. The kit fulfilled several requirements. This requirements are; it has an architecture which has made able to be programmed efficiently at different complexity levels. Moreover, the kit is exploitable at many levels of complexity. And finally, it’s simple yet equipped with robust functionality which are expandable. The equipment also has several advantages which include very short start – up time, the setup process does not involve electrical wiring, among other advantages. Lego Mindstorm NXT, which is a kit used to program robots, is dated back to 2001 when it was released by LEGO (Nguyen). The kit is advantageous over other robotic programming kits since it has the ability to interact efficiently with the outside world by use of input and output sensors. Moreover, Lego Mindstorm platform has the powerful ability to support a wide variety of sensors which include the EOPD sensors, the compass sensors, the Acceleration sensors, the Gyroscope sensors among many others. With this sensors, the developed robot is able to harvest signals from the environment in order to carry out the predefined tasks. To

Revolutionary China- chinese history Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Revolutionary China- chinese history - Essay Example The situation in China changed dramatically after the civil war victory of Mao Tse-tung in 1949, which led to the fleeing of the government of Republic of China (ROC) led by Chiang Kaishek and the Kuomintang (KMT) to Taiwan. This led to the United States to continue its recognition of the ROC government based in Taiwan as both regimes that is the government in Taiwan and the Peoples Republic of China based in mainland fought for legitimacy. This paper seeks to discuss the implications of the recognition of the CCP government in PRC and the GMD in Taiwan in the period 1952 by the United States and whether there is need to change that position. China since 1921 and its Relations with Taiwan After the end of the Qing dynasty, China had undergone several periods of trials and tribulations which it wanted to overcome in the shortest time possible. In 1928, the Kuomintang (KMT), which had ruled China, got into constant conflict with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) that made governance al most impossible. The Kuomintang was later defeated and retreated to Taiwan after it had made several political, economical and military missteps. As at the year 1934, Chiang Kai-shek, the Nationalist leader in collaboration with Song Meiling had called for China to carry out a â€Å"New Life Movement which aimed at the promotion of a regular life guided by four principles and virtues namely ritual or decorum, rightness or duty, integrity or honesty and the sense of shame†.1 These were aimed at promoting morality, dealing with people in their human affairs and whoever violated the rules would fail in the society and they were meant for the prosperity of the nation. According to 2 the new life movement was initiated after Generalissimo realized that military conquest of the community alone would not be enough to remedy the psychological damage that the communist rule had caused. â€Å"†¦communism crushed the spirit people in addition to robbing them or material thingsâ₠¬ . The rules were also meant to instill discipline and social order amongst the members of the society at any moment of the life of the citizens as contained in the â€Å"Essentials of the New Life Movement speech in 1934 by Chiang Kai-shek. The principles were frequently criticized owing to the fact that there was hardly any food, let alone patience for people to exercise them. However, in defense of the movement Meiling argues that â€Å"†¦ if everyone from the highest official to the lowest wheel barrow man would conscientiously practice these principles in everyday life, there would be food for all†3 of the rules. Shih-wei, had argued along similar lines as he saw the communist movement as an embodiment of inequality where the ranking members in the â€Å"rankles† society got more food than they needed, but the lower cadres were given the basic minimum. Ironically, whenever they were asked if they had eaten â€Å"†¦ Party members are expected to lead the rest in a chorus of ‘Yes, we’re full!’†.4 In addition, Chen Xuezhao became sympathetic to the Communist Party after her return to China and found china was faced with deepening national crisis â€Å"†¦ Chen was formally accepted in the year 1945†.5 In her work â€Å"Wandering through the Liberated Zones†, Chen shows her allegiance to the CCP and was published on the eve of the Communist victory. Further, in her

Pensions and Redundancy Pay Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Pensions and Redundancy Pay - Essay Example The agenda of these consultations will include ways of avoiding redundancies or reducing the numbers affected, as well as disclosure of "the reasons for the redundanciesthe numbers and descriptions of those affectedthe proposed method of selecting those to be made redundanthow any redundancy payments better than the legal minimum will be worked out" (Trades Union Congress). Note that because in the first phase of redundancies 100 or more employees are likely to be made redundant over a period of 90 days or less, consultation must last at least 90 days. In the second phase of redundancies, if "20 to 99 employees to be made redundant over a period of 90 days or less, consultation must last at least 30 days" (Trades Union Congress). Concerning the company pension plan, the company will maintain pension plan commitments as previously defined. This is important for staff being made redundant and also for staff who remain with the company who see their pension rights being maintained. To achieve new lower staff levels, any staff over retirement age will be asked to retire. The company should however be aware of recommendations to "give a right to employees to request postponing retirement beyond 65 and a duty for the employer to consider these requests" (Confederation of British Industry). The company will propose that for redundancy pay the legal minimum is the preferred solution because it allows remaining jobs to be preserved. Also and for the reasons already mentioned, a "last-in, first-out" policy will be applied. Besides being consistent with the loyalty demonstrated by long-serving employees, the financial impact to the company will be minimised if redundancies are made to employees who joined the company more recently and who are typically younger. In particular, notice periods will be shorter and any negative effects on remaining staff minimised. Redundancy pay will be calculated to take account of length of service and current rate of pay and according to the legal minimum. This will be done with the financial department. The legal minimum for an employee who is made redundant will depend on the length of service, age and current pay of the employee concerned. The calculation is as follows: for employees over 41, for each complete year of employment after their 41st birthday, but before the age of 65, one and a half week's pay for employees aged 22-40, for each complete year of employment after their 22nd birthday, but before the age of 41, one week's pay for employees aged 18-21: for each complete year of employment while they were either 18, 19, 20 or 21, half a week's pay. These rules apply for employees with over two years of service with the company within a maximum of 20 years of service and pay levels up to a current weekly limit of 310 (Department for Business Enterprise & Regulatory Reform - BERR). The company should note that some organisations choose to offer more redundancy pay (World Bank) and should be prepared to justify its position in this case. Employees should note that no income tax is payable on a statutory redundancy payment. Pensions maintained with the company as deferrable pensions will be paid as an annuity rather than as a lump sum

Market segmentation report Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Market segmentation report - Assignment Example Basically, demography deals with issues such as age, gender, life style, family, level of income, race, religion, level of education, occupation as well as nationality among others Strydom 2. On the other hand, psychographic segmentation divides the market into different groups based on social class, lifestyle or personality characteristics Kotler 3. Organizations benefit from segmenting the market in many ways. The firm is able to target the market so that it can serve it best. The firm is also able to position the product so that it can be easily accessible to the targeted audiences. Thirdly, the firm can also be in a position to gain a competitive advantage by virtue of delivering valuable products to the customers. Income- Middle class people can afford to buy pizza in most cases and they are the targeted audiences by the marketers. These people enjoy hanging around with their peers especially in fast food restaurants. Occupation- the young working class people in most cases prefer to buy their food from exquisite fast food restaurants. The young working class people do not want to cook food at home so they just go to fast food restaurants. Personality- other people’s preference of food are shaped by their personalities. Some people view themselves with high self esteem and they want to maintain this status by visiting up market restaurants. This is a form of identity creation in the society. Source:

Discussion 5 Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 2

Discussion 5 - Assignment Example Your book Chapters 8 and 9 discuss several ways to test the soundness of an argument. Now it is your turn to apply the tests. Go to a website that provides political opinion, such as the Huffington Post. Find a brief article that contains a clear argument. Evaluate the argument for its soundness. Link the article at the end of your response by copying its Web address. Answer: The author highlights the point that congress needs a pay raise so people who arent wealthy can serve by referring to a series of arguments by Rep. Alcee Hasting, such as â€Å"the current system doesnt offer enough incentives for less-affluent citizens to enter public service†. The aforementioned argument with unstated premises can be converted into the following syllogism: Testing the statements for validity by Venn diagram and rules method indicates that the argument is logically valid. However, the evidence presented in support of the premises is rather vague and ambiguous. The annual salary of Congress members is much higher than the median household income in United States. The truth in the prediction that, â€Å"20 years out, the only people that will be able to serve in this institution will be people who are wealthy†, is untestable and probably fallacious. In support of the claim, only three staff members had left and that too ‘suspiciously’. The argument is valid logically, but it lacks soundness because of weak and vague evidence in support of the claims (Valencia, 2015; Moore & Parker, 2015). Valencia, J. (2015, May 19). Rep. Alcee Hastings: Congress needs a pay raise so people who arent wealthy can serve. The Huffington Post. Retrieved from

Hume vs Kant Causality Essay Example for Free

Hume vs Kant Causality Essay Humes ultimate goal in his philosophic endeavors was to undermine abstruse Philosophy. By focusing on the aspect of reason, Hume shows there are limitations to philosophy. Since he did not know the limits, he proposed to use reason to the best of his ability, but when he came to a boundary, that was the limit. He conjectured that we must study reason to find out what is beyond the capability of reason. Hume began his first examination if the mind by classifying its contents as Perceptions. Here therefore [he divided] all the perceptions of the mind into two classes or species. (27) First, Impressions represented an image of something that portrayed an immediate relationship. Secondly, there were thoughts and ideas, which constituted the less vivid impressions. For example, the recalling of a memory. From this distinction, Hume decreed that all ideas had origin within impressions. From the distinction of perceptions, Hume created his ? microscope in order to trace all ideas back to impressions. He did this to search for the limits. If an idea could not be traced back to its impression, it was too abstruse. Hume separated the objects of human reason into two categories. First, the relation of ideas, which represented all that is ? a priori. Secondly, he created the category of matters of fact. Matters of fact made up the ? a posteriori piece of the spectrum of reason. Matters of fact are contingent, meaning they could be otherwise. In order to go beyond the objects of human reason, Hume proposed that reasoning was based upon cause and effect. Causal relations help us to know things beyond our page 2 immediate vicinity. All of our knowledge is based on experience. Therefore, we need experience to come to causal relationships of the world and experience constant conjunction. Hume stated that he shall venture to affirm, as a general proposition which admits no exception, that the knowledge of this relation is not in any instance, attained by reasonings ? a priori, but arises entirely from experience. (42) Unfortunately, our experience of constant conjunction only tells us about the past. Rationally, that is all it tells us. We can expect the effect to follow the cause, but it is not a sufficient basis to assume the effect will come from the cause in the future. These things are contingent- they could be different. The connection between these two propositions is not intuitive? it is always inferred. (480) Hume asserted that the future will resemble the past. This is the assumption underlying all our ideas of causality. If the future does not resemble the past, then all our reason based on cause and effect will crumble. When Hume proposed questions such as Is there any more intelligible proposition then to affirm that all trees will flourish in December and January, and will decay in May and June? (49), Hume demonstrates that it is not a relation of ideas that future will resemble the past; it is possible that the course of nature will change. Therefore, what happens in the future is neither a relation of ideas, nor a matter of fact. It is impossible, therefore, that any arguments from experience can prove this resemblance of past to future, since all these arguments are founded on the supposition of that resemblance. (51) Now Hume proposed that all inferences come from custom, not reasoning. Through custom or habits, we have become accustomed to expect an effect to follow a page 3 cause. This is not a rational argument. This argument centers on the theory of constant conjunction, which does not fall under either fork of reason. All inferences from experience, therefore, are effects of custom, not reasoning. (57) Hume analyzed the idea of causality by emphasizing the three demands that can be verified through observation. First he argued the aspect of constant conjunction. In this aspect, the cause and effect must be spatially and constantly existent. Secondly, he asserted that it must have temporal priority, in that, the cause had to precede the effect. Lastly, the event must have a necessary connection- we must develop an understanding of why a cause produces a certain effect. Humes critique of causation is that we cannot see it, we must infer it. For example, two billiard balls, one moving toward the next demonstrate temporal priority because one ball is moving first. Secondly, constant conjunction occurs because the balls exist together spatially and constantly. But, there is no necessary reason why this happens. Hume asserted that we can imagine a world in which the effect would be different. He then concluded that we cant get an impression of a necessary connection, we can only experience constant conjunction and temporal priority. Experience only teaches us how one event constantly follows another, without instructing us in the secret connection which binds them together. (77) We therefore conclude that reason is a limited faculty and that we have no reason to trust our common methods of argument or to think that our usual analogies and probabilities have any authority. (83) In conclusion, Hume asserted that since we do not have any impression of necessary connections, it is our expectation that believes the effect will follow the cause. page 4 The appearance of a cause always conveys the mind, by a customary transition, to the idea of the effect. (87) Since we are trained to expect the impression of necessary connection, the idea of it comes from our minds. Therefore, our belief in necessary connections of the universe is based on a rational facts. Immanuel Kant, a philosopher after Hume, sets out to reform metaphysics. Kant believed that if Hume was right, metaphysics would be impossible. But, Kant was unwilling to surrender to Humes skeptical argument, so Kant sets out to do a critique in order to explore the possibilities and reform metaphysics. Kant begins his critique searching for ? a priori knowledge within philosophy. Kant began to search for the ? a priori principles that were rationally deductible in order to explain why we perceive the things we cannot perceive. Kant believed that the only way that we could get to things necessary and universal was through ? a priori. Kant found that the concept of the connection of cause and effect was by no means the only concept by which the understanding thinks the connection of things ? a priori, but rather that metaphysics consists altogether of such concepts. (8) Kant began to examine pure ? a priori reason by establishing his critique. He stated that there are boundaries and contents. He set out to find what is inside the limitations and what is outside. Kant examined the three bodies of knowledge: math, physical science and metaphysics. Kant said that science must have necessity and universality. This places math and science within reason. Kant first divided judgement into two kinds of knowledge- analytic and synthetic. In the Prolegomena, Kant criticized Hume for having regarded mathematical judgements as analytic. Had he realized that page 5 they were synthetic, Hume would have been able to conclude that some synthetic judgements can be made ? a prior. Kant concluded that math and science fell under ? a priori synthetic judgements. This gives us universality, but it also tells us something. For Kant, knowledge must be necessary and universal qualities must come from ? a priori synthetic judgements. They have to tell us something we dont know, something completely independent of experience. This idea of Kants, completely contradicts Hume. Hume had asserted that anything based on empirical facts had no necessity, and therefore was contingent. Hume also stated that empirical facts couldnt give us universality either, because we cant know future will resemble the past. Kant stated that all Humes beliefs centered upon the fact that nothing but experience could furnish us with such connections. (24) For Hume, all science was empirical, and we could only know what happened so far. In contrast, for Kant, he said that scientific laws claim necessity and universality. It is only from ? a priori that we get universality and necessity. Kant then continued his critique to decipher if metaphysics is possible. Kant separated the faculties of the mind and the way it thinks into three distinctive categories. First, he stated that math was exhibited through intuition. The forms of intuition were ? a priori and had two capacities. First, intuition gave us space and time through pure intuition, and sensory data through empirical intuition. Then, Kant set up a metaphysical distinction between numena and phenomena. Numena represents the things in themselves, while phenomena represents the things for us. In this dichotomy we have no page 6 access to numena. The only way we can get to things outside us is through intuition, but intuition has these forms. This shows our limitations. Mathematics is not applicable to numena. We can have mathematical knowledge of phenomena. From this we can infer we have inter-subjective knowledge. Kant has given us universal and necessary knowledge in the phenomenal realm. Kant points out that the error may arise owing to an illusion, in which [he proclaim] to be universally valid what is merely a subjective condition of the intuition of thing and certain only of all objects of senses, namely for all possible experience. (39) Kant has just suggested that the error and base for all metaphysics is not distinguishing between phenomena and numena. Finally, Kant explained that everything is a distinction of phenomena and numena. We receive necessity and universality through this distinction and also from the projection that phenomena comes from certain ? a priori aspects. Therefore, the future will resemble the past, because we make it resemble the past. Kant used understanding, the second faculty of the mind to explain causality. As the understanding stands in need of categories for experience, reason contains in itself the source of ideas. (76) The function of understanding is thinking, and thinking must use concepts to be an objective thought. The presence of this objective thought verifies its actuality. Therefore, causality, for Kant, was the way in which mind puts together experiences to understand them. Kant found many problems within Humes account. Through his endeavors to prove that metaphysics is possible, and his analyzing of causality, Kant solved the problems he saw within Humes account. Specifically, in the Prolegomena, Kant stated page 7 that Hume justly maintains that we cannot comprehend by reason the possibility of causality. (57) Kant also attacked Humes ideas by describing Humes treatment of the concept of causality to be a bastard of the imagination, impregnated by experience. (5) Kant succeeded in re- establishing the objectivity of causality, a task that Hume had rejected as impossible.

Tescos Marketing and Expansion Strategy Analysis

Tescos Marketing and Expansion Strategy Analysis With contemporary society of fluctuating customer preferences, dynamic market, shifting competition, reforming government, advanced technologies, change in economies, and transforming demography, it is not questionable why companies need to establish new policies, workforce environment, and particularly business strategies. However, it is questionable on how, where, and in what way they are able to improve their strategy paradoxes in order to create a unique selling point or competitive advantages to be outstanding in today and future national and international business markets. Thus for any firm, setting up new strategies is a must and given. Thats why companies need to persistently be aligned with their surrounding environments, either by responding to outside situations, or by proactively forming the commerce that they are operating. Hence, the right and outstanding strategies will be made for the right time and situations. This essay will then discuss about strategies used by Tesco in participating more actively in the national and international market. However before going to Tescos strategies, lets take a look at what is strategy? and strategy characteristics. What is strategy? A strategy is the systematic plan of action and scopes of a business which is designed to achieve benefits for the business through its available configuration of resources within a competitive atmosphere, to meet the needs of consumers preferences and markets and as well as to satisfy shareholder expectations. Strategy Characteristics Strategy has three characteristics according to Wit, B, D Meyer, R (2005) process, content, and context. They are the most important distinction that can be recognised in daily-life strategic obstacle situation. Strategy Process: The process is to get involved with the strategy of who, how, and when how should or is, strategy be created, analyzed, invented, formulated, applied, shifted, and managed; who get involved; and when do the essential actions take place? Strategy Content: The result of the above process is the strategy content. In terms of a query, the strategy content is related to the strategy of what what should be or is the strategy for the corporation and its every single constituent unit? Strategy Context: The result of strategy content and strategy context is referred to strategy context. Talked in terms of a question, the context evolves with the strategy of where where are the strategies process and content embedded in a firm? II/. Tesco Summary Tesco is a public limited company and is the largest retailer in the U.K, while it is the third largest in the world. Tesco has roughly 4,000 stores in 14 countries. It was found by Jack Cohen in 1919. The company headquarter is in Delamere Road, Cheshunt, and Hertford shire, Britain. David Reid is Tesco chairman along with Sir Terry Leahy as a chief executive. The key goods of Tesco are customer products, Groceries, telecom, and financial services. The firm revenue is  £56.910bn in 2010 and its operating profit is  £3.457bn. History: The Coming to Life of Britains Largest Supermarket Tesco came to life in 1919 when Jack Cohen started selling surplus groceries from a stand and made his profit of  £1 from sales of  £4 on his first day. Five years later, 1924, Cohen established first brand of Tesco when he purchased a shipment of tea from a Mr T. E Stockwell and in 1929 Cohen opened Tesco stores flagship. In 1930 a headquarter and warehouse were built as the brand went on its rise, and two years later Tesco turned into a private limited firm. Tescos stock exchange with a share price of 25p was floated in 1947. The expansion of Tesco became stronger as it bought 70 Williams stores in the 1950s along with 200 Harrow stores and in the 1960s, 97 Charles Philips stores and Victor Value chain were purchased by Tesco. The Guinness Book of Records recorded a Tesco store in Leicester as the biggest store in Europe in 1961. The next 13 years, the first petrol stations of Tesco were launched and became the biggest independent petrol retailer in the U.K. By 1979 the Tescos sales reached  £1 billion and twice the amount to  £2 billion in three years. A Tescos slogan was launched in 1992 as every little helps, and followed Tesco Clubcard in 1995, which provided a competitive edge to overcome the UKs biggest food retailer, Sainsbury. And still in the 1990s, 24-hour service was introduced and long with the overseas expansion. A Tesco website, www.tesco.com, was launched in 2000 while it expanded its products rang like clothes, electrical and personal finance goods. In the next 4years, Tesco stepped into broadband market. And two years later, the company announced to run its business in the U.S under the name of Fresh and Easy. Moreover, on 23 February, 2008 the sales rose to  £51.8bn and pre-tax income increased to  £2.8bn. In the same year, Tesco became the only supermarket that was every single postcode area in the U.K when it purchased rival Somerfield stores on remote islands in Scotland. In 2009, www.tesco.com/clothes was introduced and Clubcard was re-launched to double up customers vouchers. Finally in 2010, the firm ran the worlds first zero-carbon supermarket in Ramsey, Cambridgeshire, and also the first Lifespace mall in China. Strategy According to Data Monitor, food retailing analysts stated that: The strategy of Sainsbury is far behind Tesco. Tesco has become a strong core and rapidly grew international stores in the U.K. Meanwhile, it developed good non-food sales, increased retailing services and took advantages of e-commerce effectively. The achievements of Tesco in the recent years have mainly come from the change to higher margin non-food merchandise, expanding overseas branches, and forming a strong UK key business. Low prices, cultivating consumer loyalty, providing a wide range of distinct store concepts and improving retailing services, like insurance and banking, were the companys main successes in competing with the rivals locally and internationally. Furthermore, the firm concentrates on non-food products, which has led to wondering whether it is fair to compare between other grocery shops and Tesco at all as it appears to have grown to be a consumer goods firm. On 22 October, 2002 Tesco chairman David Reid made the declaration in a conference held at the annual institute of Grocery Distribution that: You cannot save your way to prosperity. Growth is vital to shareholder, employees and suppliers. Growing investment is the heart of Tescos strategy. This asset does not simply come from investing back profit. In January 2004, Tescos new shares of 315m were placed to raise funds of  £773m. By doing do, the company was able to pay off the debenture. At the same year on March the company declared to make a joint venture with Topland, a property group, to release the money of  £650m from its UK property portfolio. However, Tescos credit was rated very low due to its borrowing money for expanding the company. Core UK Business From a Tescos preliminary statement of account in 2004, Tesco considers the below points: For a further investment is to improve price position. The total of  £140m in January 2006 is the most recent cost campaigns to improve the company position as Britains best value retailer. For instance, during a general price deflation in 2000, the deflation was between 2-3%, while Tesco was able to deflate the price nearly between 4-7%. During 2003 and 2004, 21 extra stores were opened, of which 13 were the expansions and the rest were new which gives a total of 83. Evidences show that customers love the Express stores, and the firm has increased share of convenience market to 5.9%. Tesco Express stores are the key to further and continued success as executives look to employ the street corner strategy by building more Express stores. The sparkling growth of the business has stemmed from the expense of competitors, particularly Safeway and Sainsbury. Their battle is to detain customers. And the other UK retailers just have no ability to challenge on both store structures and price. Suppliers, researchers, and farmers have mentioned a Tesco strategy that the company does not widely broadcast exploiting the companys monopoly (or to use a more precise terminology, oligopsony) position to decrease the price paid to suppliers. Thus, Tesco does not obtain profit from costumers, but also from suppliers. The Tesco Approach This is the final plank in the firms strategy To create value for our customers, to earn their lifetime loyalty. The two values of the company are: We treat people the way we like to be treated, and No one tries harder than we do for customers. Nevertheless, these two values are selectively applied to shareholder and consumers rather than smaller rivals and farmers. Major changes in lifestyle patterns are fundamental achievement of Tescos ongoing success. Tesco has taken advantage and responded to changes in lifestyle since the inception of the company over the 80 years. Those changes are: more women go into workplace, bigger disposable profit, the arrival of the weekly shop, fewer meal of family cook, and cheap food policy adopted after the Second World War by Britain. Tescos Strategy vs Porter Diamond Model Porter diamond model is an approach designed to get insightful of competitive position of a business in global markets. a/. Demand Conditions The demand factor with respect to production scale is one major issue in this theory. Generally, the productions scale relies on the needs and wants of consumers for the products or brands. In London, 70% of Tescos own brand is highly proffered and ordered by people due to the cheap price strategy of Tesco besides having finest quality in food items such as cake, bread and so on, and non-food products such as 14.95 euro of Tesco Ireland CD compared with over 20 euro of competitors HMV Ireland or Golden Discs selling the same goods. b/. Related and Supporting Industries The second competitive advantage of Tesco is that the firm has related industries that are competitive globally like Wal Mart, throughout advanced aspects like communication infrastructure, modern and skilled labour, and research facilities, and technological know-how. c/. Factor Endowments Tesco has fundamentally gained competitive edge through sophisticated labour and etc as mentioned in Related and Supporting Industries. Finance, insurance, digital services, entertainment services, broadband, phone, clothes, health and beauty, and media products are example of those competitive advantages. Moreover, a wide range of Tesco brand non-food products including Finest ranges and non-food Value are sold perfectly. Meanwhile the selling of these non-food goods is quite high in Ireland. CDs are the best instances which are the results of Tescos technological know-how, communication infrastructure, and research facilities. d/. Firm Strategy, Structure, and Rivalry Tesco has gained this fourth attribute to create unique selling point. Initially, Tescos superior technology of checkouts and stock control system has led the company to the success and expansion over the rivalries. Strategy: The growth of the company over the last two decades has been related to the strategic and image transformation. Its prior achievement is because of an approach, Pile it high, sell it cheap from Jack Cohen. The method was overtaken by the company during 1995. There are main reasons for the success like an inclusive offer and customer focus. In addition the company has another four-pronged method: non-food business, international, core UK business, and retailing services. Structure: The stores in the U.K have been separated into 6 formats based on their structure, which is differentiated by the stores size and range of goods sold. Tesco Extra: is chain of mostly out-of-town hypermarkets. Tesco Hypermarket: is a superstore with a combination of a department store and a supermarket, which gives a very big retail facility with a broad range of goods in one roof. Tesco Metro: is a store that has size between Tesco Express and Tesco stores. The store generally is located on high streets of small town and city centre with typical size of 12,000 square feet. Tesco Express: is a store that is neighbourhood convenience store. It has chiefly food with higher-margin goods owing to the lack of economic scale. Tesco One Shop: is a Tesco only format in Britain which has no the name of Tesco in its name and consists of some of the smallest stores. Tesco Homeplus: is a non-food store. Rivalry: Tesco has Asda, Safeway, and Sainsbury as its domestic competitor. However, these rivals allow Tesco to be a better international challenger since the firm runs the business internationally. Case Study: Tesco in Pakistan Before entering its market in Pakistan, Tesco has used an environmental scanning technique to examine Pakistan information for strategic purposes. First of all, a Tesco study has shown that Pakistan has a high per-capita income which they are able to afford products from Tesco, and so it assists to rise in the employment rate. Meanwhile, the national GDP rate is 5.8%. Thus, people would prefer to purchase various products under one roof in affordable price when they get monthly salaries. Plus, Pakistan is an Islamic country which permits the retailer to sell excluding only alcoholic products that are banned legally. The country political environment is favourable since the rise of Tesco will help the government to raise tax revenue and the intervention of the government will assist the company to process effectively. For Pakistani culture, it offers Tesco a good demand condition as Pakistani people are influenced to get work done as soon as possible, so the Tesco takes the advantage to offer a wide range of products such as grocery, clothing and etc under one roof. The most benefit thing for Tesco is that there is only competitor in Pakistan, Metro which has small market share. Therefore, Tesco has an opportunity to obtain more shares because Tesco will aim all income levels of consumers. Finally, Tesco has chosen a strategy called Greenfield strategy (a strategy that is to enter new market without the help from local business) since the company doesnt need help from local firms as it has only one competitor with small share in the hand. More importantly, the adoption of Greenfield is because the Tesco needs to begin from scratch in Pakistan. For marketing, Tesco would adapt pull strategy, a strategy that spends highly on advertising and customer promotion to build demand and loyalty of customers on a product. Lastly, Tesco chooses two type of financing: 70% from equity financing and 30% from debt financing. Tescos strategy vs Global Strategy The growth and strength of Tesco do not depend only on real within the United Kingdom, but also internationally. When local opportunities have turned less, the company started its expansion over global like the other giant retailers. The rapid gains over Central Europe and Asia and a considerable market share have come from its effective strategy. The main solution to success of Tesco is to lie in its global strategy, in which the company mixes global management in many areas and domestic responsiveness. Tescos tactic generally is to purchase an existing retail chain, or an important share of one, and transform it to subsidiary of Tesco. After that, the company can start the usual strategies by aggressively competing price, undercutting local businesses, selling petrol, creating Clubcard to build customer loyalty, opening 24 hours service and so forth. For its international stores, Tesco prefers large hypermarkets since it is easier to obtain planning permission for these stores in most countries than in the UK. These hypermarkets concentrate on non-food products. According to David Hughes, professor of agribusiness and food marketing, claims that: Retailers from rich countries look for five characteristics in countries high population growth, big population, consumers levels of GDP edging per capita, high growth of income, and poor supermarket presence. With these five characteristics, giant retailers would step their businesses into those countries. Thats why Tesco focuses its expansion to Ex-Soviet nations and South East Asia rather than going to West Europe countires. Case Study: Tesco in Thailand In 1998 Tesco stepped into Thailand by purchasing a great amount of stoke in the Thai-owned Lotus chain of convenience locations. And Thailand was the first south-east Asian country that Tesco ran its business in a large scale, and 31% of Thai market had been captured by Tesco by the end of 2002. Moreover, Tesco Express stores are attached to Exxon Mobil petrol stations. During 2004, the retailer plans to capture the remaining stake in Tesco Lotus. Tesco wanted to point out that it would be sourcing produce domestically, generally gaining the domestic economy, and providing local people jobs. The company also plans to help Thailand local suppliers to access local and global markets, and sell to multinational companies by offering them to develop and improve their service and quality standard. As usual technique, Tesco is very proud of its price cutting technique in South East Asia. There is slogan from Tesco: Like in the UK and Europe, we perform price campaigns to distribute to invincible value for our customers. This seems like declaring a war of opening hour and prices and the local retailers cannot possibly challenge with Tesco strategies. However, Tescos main competitors are not local retailers, but international retailers such as Carrefour and Wal-Mart, and domestic ones that suffer as a result of simply collateral damage. III/. Recommendations The strategies implemented by Tesco both local and international strategies work effectively in competing the local and global markets. For local business, Tesco seems to have a very higher strategy compared to Asda, Safeway, Sainsbury, and other biggest retailers in the UK. Its main four strategies are: non-food approach, retailing services, international strategy, and a strong UK core business. However, its international markets still seem to have troubles as a Tescos bitter experience in France (business collapse). Moreover, the company have too many corporate crime and global activities on the countries it is operating. For example, in Thailand, Tesco was taken to court as it exploited suppliers. It was found guilty on charging slotting fees to carry producers goods, charging suppliers fee of entry, advertising costs and goods show costs, and displaying own-brand items close to similar branded items. If we go to Ireland, we will see that Tesco has been fined by the country govern ment over below cost price selling products which the company tried to undercut other traders. In addition, it has been fined for selling certain goods at a lower in the UK than in Ireland. Plus, Tesco workers in Ireland, in 2001, went on strike due to under payment. Tescos workers received $4.85 per hour, while the union stated 20p to 25p lower than salaries paid by Tesco rivals. Hence, in order to compete with the world largest retailer, Wal-Mart, and to participate more actively in international markets, Tesco needs to improve the poor areas such as the dependence on the UK grocery market, high fossil fuel cost needed to use in transportation network and etc. Suggestion: To improve those poor areas, Tesco should improve market development strategy and product development. Strategic Alliances and Join Developments (Market Development Strategy): By expanding its international markets, Tesco should choose options of global alliances with local markets. This can be considered as a strategy of improvement and can be formed to take advantage current competence and resources. When forming partnerships or joint ventures, Tesco is able to gain and extend its local knowledge and operating expertise of the partner, meanwhile it can include its own supply chain, goods improvement and stores performing skills to distribute a better shopping experience to consumers. By doing so, it can obtain a bigger economic scale and bigger presence of market. Diversification (Product Development): According to schools and Johnson (2003), business environmental changes may create demand for new products and services, while the matrix of Ansoff recommends that a product development strategy needs to be carefully thought by management of a firm, if they want to develop new products for the existing markets. Thus, Tescos expansion and diversification of products mix, the company has to implement internal improvement when new products are built. Moreover, Tesco needs to consider the relation between portfolio diversity and the rationale of the corporate strategy. Thus, Tesco is able to introduce new product lines followed by changes of needs and wants of customers. But this may need more concentration on RD, guiding to additional expense. Supermarket industry understands overcapacity and innovative goods and services that are being the main competitive edge. Thus, a Tescos key driver for product development is innovation. Tesco, for instance, has many formats of stores in the UK and each format is to provide different convenience to shoppers. Therefore, Tesco can create portfolio of different formats for international markets like Far Eastern and Eastern Europe whose stores are hypermarket. By doing so, Tesco can develop the uniqueness of value added which lead to command a premium price. Plus, Technological management of innovations is related to decision-making, so Tesco must exploit the internal powers and reduce internal weaknesses to accomplish sustained unique selling point. IV/. Conclusion Strategies implemented by Tesco are very successful in terms of both national and international strategies. With its effective business strategies such as the Tesco approach, pile it high, sell it cheap, global strategy and etc, they have turned Tesco into the biggest retailer in the UK by overtaking Asda, Sainsbury and other giant retailers, and also made Tesco to become the worlds third largest retailer after Wal-Mart and Carrefour. For the local challenge, Tesco has competitive advantage over all retailers in the UK. Its four outstanding strategies are: non-food approach, retailing services, international strategy, and a strong UK core business. However, to challenge the world number one and number two retailers, Wal-Mart and Carrefour, and to attend more actively in international markets are troubles to challenge. Thus, Tesco needs to reform and improve its poor business strategies and areas. In order to improve those weaknesses, two solutions are suggested: Strategic Alliances and Join Developments (Market Development Strategy) and Diversification (Production Development). Book References: Mintzberg, H, Lampel, J, Quinn, J, B Ghoshal, S (2003) The Strategy Process. 4th ed. New Jersey: Pearson Education, Inc. Sadler, P (2003) Strategic Management. 2nd ed. Great Britain The United States: Kogan Page Limited. Wit, B, D Meyer ,R (2005) Strategy Synthesis. 2nd ed. London: Thomson Learning. Web References: Recruitment and Selection. [Internet] Available from [Accessed 04 February, 20100] A History of Tesco: The Rise of Britains Biggest Supermarket. [Internet] Available from [Accessed 04 February, 2011] Shoaib, R Final Project of Business Policy. [Internet] Available from [Accessed 04 February, 2011] Our History. [Internet] Available from [Accessed 05 February, 2011] (2005) Tesco Case. [Internet] Available from [Accessed 05 February, 2011] (2004) Tesco. [Internet] Available from [Accessed 05 February, 2011] Strategic Planning: Tesco. [Internet] Available from [Accessed 05 February, 2011]

A Survey Fatigue Monitoring System

A Survey Fatigue Monitoring System Abstract: This is a fatigue detection system implemented in smartphone. This system will detect the drowsiness of the driver while he is driving. And if the reverie is detected by the system then it will generate an alert. In this the parameters are blinking of eyes, mouth yawning and head shaking. Head shaking is the new parameter which is used in this system. These parameters are calculated to identify drivers weariness. The Canny Active Contour method is used for detecting yawning and the Harr-like technique is used for detecting face and eye blinking. INTRODUCTION Now a days because of the reverie and fatigue of the drivers daily the huge amount of accidents are occurs which becomes the reason of deaths, injuries, etc. For preventing accidents it is essential to monitor the fatigue and vigilance level. With the help of various active safety systems we can monitor the fatigue of driver, drowsiness of the driver, traffic on the roads, the vehicle and the F providing alerts to the driver. Using a statistically anthropometric face model the important facial points are automatically detected [2007]. Many researchers have focused on drivers behavioral measures using various techniques such as visual based detection and Physiological detection. For face detection the Adaboost algorithm is used [2016]. Optic nurve fatigue correspondingly causes the eye blinking when the driver goes in state of reverie. Fatigue and distraction detection can be observed by head orientation and head shaking is used only for fatigue detection. Table1: Summary of the face detection techniques Algorithm OrTechnique Description Neural network based face detection Neural network based system examines small windows of an image and choses whether each window contains a face. Hidden Markov Models Method It deals with images which have variation in facial expression as well as orientation and also different lightning. Fisherface Method It considers the ratio between the variation of one person and that of another person. Eigenface Method It works with differences between face images, rather than with single face images. Adaboost boosting algorithm It improves the classification accuracy. It works with two inputs training dataset and set of features (classification function) . Haar-like technique It focuses on only image intensities such as the RGB pixel values of each and every pixel of image. Feature Base Face Detection It is more accurate and it uses low execution time. Geometric Base Face Detection It is effective approach and easy to implement. To detect the face the Gravity Center Template method is used. Also for detecting the mouth corner Gray Protection and Gabor Wavelets technique is used. LDA technique is used for yawning. For detecting the lips motion features Spatial Fuzzy C-means clustering (s-FCM) method is used. Also for the face detection skin color texture are used. For identifying color shape we can use the color values like RGB, YCbCR and HSV and so on. Tracking algorithm is used to Face detection. Based on face detection Kalman Filter Motion Tracking algorithm is used. RELATED WORK : A DROWSINESS AND POINT OF ATTENTION MONITORING SYSTEM FOR DRIVER VIGILANCE Jorge Batista [1] proposed a system which represents a framework which combines a robust feature location of face with face modeling having elliptical shape to measure the drowsiness and fatigue of driver in 2007. The solution works with the two parameters that are computation of eyelid movements and attention of head point. By using statistically anthropometric face model it detect the facial points automatically. It is one of the advantage in this paper. The measures the features of human face, it is calculated by anthropometry models and it deals with the biological area. But the disadvantage of this system is that the parameters used for detecting the vigilance level of driver are not sufficient, the parameters such as yawning should be considered for detecting the drowsiness. DRIVER DROWSINESS MONITORING BASED ON YAWNING DETECTION Shabnam Abtahi, Behnoosh Hariri, Shervin Shirmohammadi [2] proposed a system for monitoring and detecting drivers drowsiness in 2011. For identifying drivers fatigue and drowsiness it can detect the various techniques like yawning, eye tiredness, eye movement, face tracking and drowsiness monitoring. The use of existing systems that monitor a vigilance level of drivers is important to prevent road accidents. Some of the main warning signs that can be measured or identified as indications of driver fatigue are : daydreaming while on the road driving over the center line, yawning , feeling impatient, feeling reacting slowly, heavy eyes, sleepy face, blinking of eyes and motion of lips. For the purpose of the detection of the face region using the difference among two images. Drivers yawn is then tracked on the bases of the distance between the midpoint of nostrils and the chin uses Gravity-Center template to track the face. Detection of mouth corners we can use grey projection and Gabor wavelets. Finally to detect yawning LDA is applied to classify feature vectors. Then, through spatial fuzzy c-means (s-FCM) clustering a mouth window is extracted from the face region, in which lips are tracked. The advantage of the existing system is that yawning detection system is newly included which is not present in previous system. Also it recognizes face by using the face color and texture. The color shape can be recognize by RGB, YCbCR and HSV [2]. A METHOD OF DETECTING DRIVER DROWSINESS STATE BASED ON MULTI-FEATURES OF FACE Ping Wang and Lin Shen [3] proposed a system to detect face region because of its high correct rate the AdaBoost algorithm is used in 2012. So then the final solution found is that the exact positions of drivers eyes and mouth are placed depending upon their geometric features respectively. Not only the technique of PATECP (Percentage And Time that Eyelids Cover the Pupils) and PATMIO (Percentage And Time  that Mouth Is Open)   but also the new judging rules and techniques are used to find out whether the driver is drowsy or not. The actual tests with current driving videos represents that our technique of detecting drivers drowsiness is based on eye as well as mouth features makes the conditions of detecting the drivers reverie state wider and most accurate. Finally, in short in the format of summary this existing paper represents the working of facial reverie state, state tracking, formatting, region location and AdaBoost algorithm are used. The advantage of this system is that it is well and high accurate system and without influence from light. AN EFFICIENT SYSTEM TO IDENTIFY USER ATTENTIVENESS BASED ON FATIGUE DETECTION Syed Imran Ali, Dr. Prashant Singh, Sameer Jain [4] proposed a user alertness identification system which is based on fatique detection in 2014. In this system the web camera continuously captures images of the subject. By using efficient image processing techniques it focuses on lips and eyes to monitor their behavior. It firstly captures the image that is input RGB image and convert it into gray image. By using erosion and dilation techniques the gray image is converted into blur image. The Sobel edge detection filter algorithm is used to find the edges of blur image. After detecting the face, this image is cut into two halves eyes part and mouth part. Again the first halve i.e. eye part image is cut into two parts left eye part and right eye part. If the drowsiness is detected in these images then it generates alert. The advantages of this system are that it works efficiently with even in the presence of different illumination sources background , also it is light weight and it requires less CPU execution time. Fig 1. Flowchart of the system FEER Drivers vigilance monitoring Ismail Shaykha, Ahmad Menkara, Michel Nahas, Milad Ghantous [5] propsed a Non-Intrusive Facial Expression and Emotional Recognition for Drivers vigilance monitoring. In this system, using an integrated camera with on-board processor face features such as eyes and mouth are detected and quickly analyzed. Firstly the facial detection is done using Adaboost boosting algorithm. After that the various features are extracted. The eye analysis and mouth analysis is done. The analysis is done and based on that analysis the decision is taken. The main advantage of this system is that it is able to distinguish between normal eye blinking and beginning of sleepiness and complete sleep. The disadvantage of this system is that it requires an integrated camera. A SMARTPHONE-BASED DRIVER FATIGUE DETECTION USING FUSION OF MULTIPLE REAL-TIME FACIAL FEATURES Yantao Qiao, Kai Zeng, Lina Xu and Xiaoyu Yin [6] proposed a fatigue monitoring system which focuses on fusion of information, it is implemented and designed in smartphone. The drivers fatigueness indicators are eye blinking, head nodding and yawning are detected. The face and eye blinks are detected by using Harr-like technique. And the mouth yawning is detected by using Canny Active Contour method. In this system the new parameter is added for detecting the fatigue is head nodding i.e. head shaking. The main advantage of this system is that it uses smart phone for detecting the fatigue of driver for preventing him from accidents and does not require other equipments such as camera. COMPARISON : All the methods that are used for detection of drowsiness has different approaches. The methods differ from each other such that different methods uses different algorithms, tools and techniques for detection of drowsiness. The various algorithm used for the detection of drowsiness are shown Table1: Summary of the face detection techniques. Harr-like technique is used for the face and eye blinks detection. And for the mouth yawning detection Canny Active Contour method is used. By using this techniques the various facial features can captured to detect the reverie of driver. The main advantage of this system is that it does not require other equipments such as camera. So by surveying all these systems we can conclude that the A SMARTPHONE-BASED DRIVER FATIGUE DETECTION USING FUSION OF MULTIPLE REAL approach can be considered as advantageous. CONCLUSION : In this way we have surveyed few techniques which are used for driver fatigue detection. Some of the technique or algorithm uses single facial feature to detect the fatigue of driver and prevent from accidents. From above mentioned approaches the last approach is having addition features to detect fatigue of driver. We can use the various facial features to detect drivers drowsiness such as eye detection, face detection, yawning, head shaking. This approach is more advantageous in sense that it uses a new concept that is head shaking for the detection of driver fatigue because of these it will easily found the drowsiness of a driver. This system is based on smart phone so there is no need of other equipments. REFERENCES 1] Jorge Batista, A Drowsiness and Point of Attention Monitoring System for Driver Vigilance in Proceedings of the IEEE Intelligent Transportation Systems Conference Seattle, WA, USA, Sept. 30 Oct. 3, 2007. 2] Shabnam Abtahi, Behnoosh Hariri, Shervin Shirnohammadi , Driver Drowsinss Monitoring Based on Yawning Detection in Distributed Collaborative Virtual Environment Reasarch Laboratory University Of Ottawa, Canada- 2011. 3] Ping Wang, Lin Shen, A Method of Detecting Driver Drowsiness State Based on Multi-features of Face in Proceedings of the 5th International Congress on Image and Signal Processing (CISP 2012) 2012. 4] Syed Imran Ali, Dr.Prashant Singh,   Sameer Jain, An Efficient System to Identify User Attentiveness Based on Fatigue Detection 2014. 5] Ismail Shaykha, Ahmad Menkara, Michel Nahas, Milad Ghantous, FEER: Non-Intrusive Facial Expression and Emotional Recognition For Drivers Vigilance Monitoring   in Proceedings 57th International Symposium ELMAR-2015, 28-30 September 2015, Zadar, Croatia. 6] Yantao Qiao, Kai Zeng, Lina Xu, Xiaoyu Yin, A Smartphone-Based Driver Fatigue Detection Using Fusion of Multiple Real-Time Facial Features in Proceedings 13th IEEE Annual Consumer Communications Networking Conference (CCNC) 2016

Fire on the Home Front - The Possessive :: Possessive Essays

Fire on the Home Front - The Possessive  Ã‚        Ã‚  Ã‚   General Douglas Macarthur said that "the best time to meet the threat [of war] is in the beginning. It is easier to put out a fire in the beginning when it is small than after it has become a roaring blaze" (qtd. in Urofsky, part 9). The mother in Sharon Olds' "The Possessive" undoubtedly feels the same way. War is a terrible time between two or more nations that fight to part from each other or for some other reason; nations fight over property rights and independence. In "The Possessive," Olds uses powerful images of war, such as helmets, blades, and fires to show how her daughter is similar to a warring country that has pulled away from her.    Sharon Olds states "In her bright helmet / she looks at me as if across a great distance" (Olds, 506). The helmet exemplifies the imagery that Olds uses to show the warlike tone in her poem. In modern day wars people see pictures of Cruise missiles and Stealth Bombers on CNN. However, when asked what they envision when they think about war, some will talk about guns, knives, helmets, and fires. As Olds talks about her daughter, she realizes that there is an impending battle yet to come. This battle, too, will be about possession. When her daughter sits in the barber's chair, Olds realizes that her daughter will soon reach her teens. The teenage years are a time when parents battle over cars, boys, and other rights with there children. The children and parents will fight over haircutting rights. As Olds reports, her daughter "has been to the barber, that knife grinder, / and had the edge of her hair sharpened" (506). Knife grinding and sharp objects are another image of war. Soldiers must be sure that their instruments are perfectly sharp if they want to win the war. The first time Olds things about the upcoming battle occurs during the warlike image of the haircut. These first warlike images set the tone of the rest of the piece.    The most vivid and important warlike image that Olds uses in "The Possessive" is the image of fire. The fire imagery appears more than once in the piece. Olds writes that "Distant fires can be / glimpsed in the resin light of her eyes" (506).

Cannibalism ? A Cultural, Psychopathic, And Survival Approach (speech

Introduction I. Imagine our class as a rugby team and Mrs. Edwards as our coach as we were flying over the Himalayas for a tournament until our plane suddenly crashes. A. Although we’re most of us survived, we barely have any food to live on. B. Would we have to resort to cannibalism? II. Cannibalism can be defined as any animal or human that eats their own kind. A. But for the sake of my speech, we will focus on humans. B. I know that you may be thinking how on earth I arrived to this topic or whether or not to hang around me but I consider cannibalism to be an interesting topic. III. There are various ways cannibalism has been regarded today. A. Cannibalism has been regarded as a strong aspect of pre-historical cultures around the world. B. Cannibalism has been a prevailing conflict in today’s moral society. C. Cannibalism has also been used as a means of survival. IV. Although I haven’t eaten anyone†¦yet, I have consulted various databases for my topic. A. I have printed information off reliable websites. B. I have delved into two books by other enthused cannibal experts. C. I have also used Ebsco to find current articles on this hot topic. V. Today I will present you my information in a topical format which is divided into subtopics. A. We will first see how cannibalism has been prevalent in historical cultures. B. We will then examine modern day cannibalism as justification for psychopathic actions. C. And finally, we will see how cannibalism has been used as a means of survival. (Transition: Let us first look at cannibalism’s influence in prehistoric cultures.) Body I. Cannibalism has etched its mark in many cultures around the world. A. The oldest evidence of cannibalism among Neanderthals was found in sites in the French cave Ardeche in southeastern France. 1. &nbs... ...al!† I simply hope you are now more informed on how cannibalism played roles in culture, modern-day psychopaths, and as a â€Å"justified† means of survival. II. Because if you were stuck in plane crash in the Himalayas, would you resort to cannibalism? <div class="sub-title">Bibliography Books Sanday, Peggy Reeves. Divine Hunger: Cannibalism as a Cultural System. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 1986. Lindenbaum, Shirley. Kuru Sorcery: Disease and Danger in the New Guinea Highlands. Palo Alto, CA: Mayfield Publishing Company, 1979. Articles Wong, Kathleen; Couzin, Jennifer. â€Å"French Couisine That Was Not For the Queasy.† U.S. News & World Report 11 Oct. 1999: 39. Internet Sources Goldman, Amy. â€Å"Case Studies: Jeffrey Dahmer.† 28 Nov. 1999 [last revision]. < <a href="http://www.serialkillers.net/cases/dahmer.html">http://www.serialkillers.net/cases/dahmer.html > 28 Nov. 1999. Brockman, Jason; McDanal, Erin. â€Å"Colorado State Archives: Alfred Packer.† 13 Sept 2000 [last updated]. < <a href="http://www.archives.state.co.us/packer.html">http://www.archives.state.co.us/packer.html > 1996.

No Fixed Address :: essays research papers

  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  No Fixed Address   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  In Aritha Van Herk’s â€Å"No Fixed Address†, one key symbol surfaces many times. The main character’s name is Arachne, which means spider, and sets the reader up to understand the central symbol in the novel—the spider web. The reader sees several other instances of webs showing up throughout the novel. Arachne’s dependence on the road and her random driving is another form of web in â€Å"No Fixed Address†. To tie in Arachne’s driving with webs, we see Thomas’s maps as webs of sorts. The most important web that Arachne is seen to weave is that perverbial web of lies—a person can never escape from that web. In the end, Arachne is indeed caught in her own web, and in the end, she is caught in it.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Arachne, in mythological terms, is the master weaver; the women who pitted herself against a god and lost, thus being turned into a spider. Arachne Mantea is much the same. She is constantly putting herself into categories that she doesn’t belong in. Much of her life, Arachne was certain that she was adopted. Her family seems to be poor, but Arachne could not fit herself into that social class. When she finally meets a family that is of a rich class, she realizes whole-heartedly that she doesn’t belong to that class either. Arachne seems to belong nowhere, almost as if she belongs to that race in the heavenlies—this is her first and most fatal lie. When Arachne ceases to belong to any particular group, she becomes capable of anything. Cheating, stealing, and killing are no longer beneath her. If she doesn’t belong where she is anyway, Arachne doesn’t need to remember her past; she doesn’t need to cope with the things that have happened to her. Thus, Arachne forms lies of denial concerning her past and present actions. She represses the memories of a painful youth, while believing that her whoring around will never catch up with her. She begins to live a lie, and one that eventually gets her. Other aspects of her life mirror the level of lie that she is living. The manner in which she drives shows us more than any other.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  When Arachne is merely lying to herself, we see her driving in a relatively small area, and very predictably so. She drives a bus, and in doing so, Arachne has a defined route.

Ikea Invades America

IKEA has definitely made great strides since coming to America in 1985. The case study points at many areas where idea has made huge impacts on the American furniture retail industry. Looking at Exhibit 1 you can see steady growth in sales, Exhibit 3 shows the United States as the third largest buyer of IKEA’s goods, Exhibit 4 shows the Unites States as having the second most number of IKEA outlets in the world and Exhibit 8 shows them as being 14 in sales in America. Looking around at my friends places there is definitely tons of things bought at IKEA.While all these statistics show a very successful movement into the United States for IKEA I feel that there could be some obstacles IKEA could encounter in the future. As it said in the case study generally IKEA’s products don’t last more than a couple of years and that normally don’t have the endurance to survive a move to a new apartment. With how American’s historically purchase furniture, â€Å" change their spouse as often as their dining room table, about 1. 5 times in a lifetime. † (Moon, 2004), this would seem at odds with the type of product that IKEA offers.The idea that you have to assemble the furniture yourself is something that would seem to turn a large percentage of Americans away from buying an IKEA product. I personally have found some of the things I have bought from IKEA to be very challenging to put together. Another aspect of IKEA is their lack of product depth; it seems that a lack of selection would hurt IKEA in the American market. Outside of these differences in what IKEA has and American tastes there is a lot that IKEA has done very well with in America. IKEA seems to have established itself as the low price leader in the minds of most consumers.As we find ourselves in a time of economic downturn and everybody seems to be trying to save a little here and there that is huge for a retailer. The childcare aspect of the retail outlets is a huge plus to get families to come shopping and buy from you. If you can drop the kids off to play and you end up getting your shopping done in half the time I would have taken if your kids were with you than is a major factor in where you decide to shop. The restaurant in the store is great and the menu items they offer are unique the setting they offer them in.I can remember my parents saying â€Å"let’s go to IKEA and get some Swedish meatballs. † Also the idea that you can walk away with what you bought that day leaves the consumer with a sense of satisfaction that next day delivery doesn’t achieve. Solutions to some of the problems seem to be easily attainable. When looking at the issue of durability you would say that many of their customers don’t go to IKEA to buy a product that lasts generations, so conveying to their customers that they shouldn’t expect to be buying a product that you can hand down to your children would help.The idea that consumers in this generation solve problems by just buying a new product to replace the broken one really helps externally to solve that problem. IKEA could offer an group like â€Å"geek squad† to consumers, for an extra charge, that would bring the product to your home and assemble it could help to attract â€Å"lazy† Americans who don’t want to assemble the furniture themselves. Ultimately the consumers that they market to don’t need any changes to what IKEA does. IKEA provides the experience of buying what is perceived to be a high quality product for an affordable price.It would seem the IKEA experience is something that people line up to do and it seems to be a very successful model for IKEA. I wouldn’t recommend any changes to what IKEA does. Why would you change something that is working so well? Overall IKEA seems to have done a very good job in creating a sector where they can carve out a profit. You are always going to have price conscious consum ers looking for something that looks nice and is affordable and IKEA can offer people that hands down. Ikea Invades America 1. What factors account for the success of IKEA? Three factors account for IKEA’s success in the furniture retailing industry: First, their Scandinavian designs are simple but unique. In the past, IKEA’s designs were functional at best, ugly at worst (Moon, 2004). The company had gradually but deliberately adopted a more distinct design aesthetic (Moon, 2004). Second, IKEA is cost efficient. As back as 1956, IKEA began testing flat packages. IKEA designs products so that they can be packed flat and then, customers can assemble the furniture, thus reducing costs.It also creates extra storage space and the capability of shipping more items, while labor costs are reduced and transport damages are avoided (Moon, 2004). Third, their product strategy provides IKEA with a competitive advantage. IKEA has a product strategy council that establishes product priorities and a product developer that uses â€Å"the matrix† to set targets for their retail prices, that are usual ly 30-40% lower than its competitors (Moon, 2004). 2. What do you think of the company’s product strategy and product range? Do you agree with the matrix approach described in Figure B of the case?What is most important about IKEA’s product strategy and product range is their matrix, which is simple enough, yet very useful at creating market opportunities. The matrix also creates a way of accepting or declining a product, manufacturer, or designer, thus cutting costs (Moon, 2004). 3. Despite its success, there are many downsides to shopping at IKEA. What are some of the downsides? IKEA’s vision statement in Figure C of the case describes how the company seeks to build a partnership with its customers. What do you think of the vision statement?Probably the most important downside is the life span of the furniture. When you shop at IKEA, you know that their furniture would not last more than a couple of years (if you are lucky). Another downside is that the custom er has to assemble the furniture themselves. IKEA does not offer an assembly service as many other furniture stores and this can be troublesome. As for their vision statement, it seems a little too far out. The company wants to create a long lasting relationship with its customers, but many of them will not come back for more. This is due, as explained above, because the ustomer has to assembly the furniture with the help of instructions that sometimes can be hard to follow for the beginner. The company should implement an assembly team, for those that may need that extra help. 4. IKEA plans to grow in the United States by 50 stores in operation by 2013 which is an indication of how optimistic the company is about the viability of its value proposition in this country. Do you think IKEA is being overly optimistic in its growth plans? How would you improve IKEA’s value proposition to make it even more attractive to Americans? 0 stores by 2013 do not seem to be an overly optimi stic number. By opening more stores, the company will be reaching more customers, will be closer to existing ones, and will be in the minds of more people. I would also say that Americans have a long history of purchasing products that last, so placing more attention to durability can help the company. They can also offer more services, better customer service for their stores, and easier to find merchandise (their system may say that a chair is found on section 4, when in reality, the chair is in another section). 5.To achieve the kind of growth IKEA is hoping for, should the company change its product strategy? If so, in what way (s)? What about its product range–are there limitations to the matrix approach? Should the company expand its product lineup to include a greater number of styles and price points? In what other ways should the company change its product lineup? I believe that their strategy has been working for a while and its core should not be changed. The produ ct matrix does not specifically state what qualifies a product as a high, medium, or low price, there can be percentages applied for the price ranges (Moon, 2004).Subcategories can be added to the matrix. The company can expand its product lineup to include a greater number of styles and price points, thus providing the company with complete reports to help them gain advantage over their competitors. 6. If you had to predict, what do you think IKEA’s value proposition and product lineup will look like in 10 years? In ten years, their value proposition can encompass more services to buyers after their purchases. They have to keep with new trends in the industry as well as more products for its customers. 7. Some industry observers have suggested IKEA open a umber of smaller, satellite stores across the United States in shopping malls, strip malls, etc. offering a limited range of IKEA products. These IKEA â€Å"lite† stores would give the consumers who do not have acces s the full-size IKEA stores the opportunity to experience the brand. In addition, consumers who live near a full-size IKEA store could use these smaller stores to make minor purchases such as mugs or dishes as opposed to an entire living room. Do you agree with the idea? Why or why not? The idea of opening smaller or satellite stores across the US can help IKEA to reach more customers.Some customers live in areas where the closes IKEA store is miles away, and these smaller stores can be of great convenience to them and more profits for the company. Some items, as the Ticka alarm clock and clothes hangers (Moon, 2004) are items that are used daily by households and that if offered in more places, the revenues for the company should go up. Both parties will benefit from this idea. 8. Toyota, Nissan, BMW, Honda, and other automobile companies have built manufacturing plants in the United States. IKEA imports all of its furniture from sources outside the United States.Does IKEA have a r esponsibility to add the manufacturing of furniture in the United States, assuming its store expansion takes place? IKEA does not have the responsibility to add manufacturing of furniture here in the United States, but it is an idea that will benefit not only the company and its customers (by having lower prices for production and thus, for the final product) but also will generate much needed jobs. 9. People are used to buying furniture that lasts a long time. Do you think it is ethical for IKEA to sell furniture that doesn’t last a long time?What if the customer of IKEA is not aware of the position IKEA takes that furniture is not forever? Should they make the customer aware that their furniture is not intended to last a long time? I do not believe that it is unethical to sell lower quality products, if the price matches what you are paying for. Most consumers are aware that if they pay low prices, the quality is going to be compromised. IKEA can include on their product in structions a prediction of the life span of it, reducing the risk of being looked as cheap and of bad quality.