How Volvo Evolve in the Changing Market

BK 3037 Strategic Marketing Question 1: PESTEL Answer: Political One of the macro-environment factors which influencing Volvo’s strategy is the large taxation toward automotive trade by the government. Government is putting in place taxation structures that penalize large cars, with large CO2 emission. According to the case, Volvo’s biggest seller was its XC range, now being particularly successful in America, where big cars typically equated to big success. This government acts is encouraging consumers to move to hybrid or fuel efficient cars from big cars because the selling price of big cars would be more expensive when governments impose larger taxation on large vehicles. Consequently, the demand for big cars would drop significantly as consumers would prefer smaller cars due to high price sensitivity level and benefits gained from the government on smaller cars (Yoon and Tran, 2011). Therefore, large taxation on large cars will affect the sales and revenues of Volvo who mostly sells big cars. Legal The enforcement of US government toward the safer initiatives for automobile industry has challenged most of the automobile manufacturer which included Volvo. Therefore recently, Volvo invested heavily in safety research and development; its Goteberg Safety centre is world-renowned. Hence, Rudall (2011) emphasizes that the cost per unit of car has increased as research and development require a lot of experiments and tests to assure the performance. Besides that, research and development in new products involves a risk of whether the consumers will like the new features that have been added to the new or existing product. The more Volvo invests in research and development, the less cash flow they have in hand, thereby affecting the smooth running of daily operations. Economic Oil is the major ingredient in the production of tires. According to Li and Zhao (2011), increase in oil prices means that the cost to make the tires also increases. These tire production affects the Volvo as the increase in the price in tire production affects their profit margin. Additionally, rising commodity prices also affects Volvo’s strategy as 1 BK 3037 Strategic Marketing he raw materials for automotive industry are basically rubber and steel. Since, the prices of these commodities have gone up; Volvo would have to spend more money to purchase the auto component to make the entire cars. The higher the price Volvo purchases these commodities, the higher the selling price that Volvo would have to charge their customers. If they were to transfer the cost to their customers, there is a possibility that customers would shift to Volvo’s competitors as customers are very price sensitive (Lee and Cheong, 2011). Hence, the sales and profits of Volvo will decline and they might lose market share. Moreover, with the rising price of oil in the American market, sales and revenues of Volvo has dropped dramatically because their main business comes from fuel grueling SUV’s. With the increasing fuel prices, the trend has shifted from bulky cars to smaller and fuel efficient cars, thus, Volvo will be faced with many competitors such as Toyota while dealing with satisfying their customer demand (Hilmola, 2011), and hence, it affects the profit margins of Volvo. Moreover, increased oil prices is affecting the type of vehicles demanded by the customer and the way those vehicles are designed. According to Xia and Tang (2011), since there is a big shift from SUVs to fuel efficient or hybrid cars due to the rise of fuel prices, the problem of manufacturing overcapacity has incurred, where supply is more than demand, thereby, sharply dropping the SUV price. Additionally, when Volvo lowers down the selling price of SUVs, the profit margins of each car will become smaller, as their selling price might just be sufficient to cover the total cost of the production. Besides, when supply is more than demand, they would need more space or bigger warehouse to store the cars, and hence, higher cost of storage would incurred. Consequently, it forces Volvo to change their strategy to produce fuel efficient cars instead of SUVs. Environmental Furthermore, the community realizes that the transportation sector is becoming increasingly linked to environmental problems. With a technology relying heavily on the combustion of hydrocarbons, notably with the internal combustion engine, the impacts of transportation over environmental systems has increased with motorization (Bernon, et al. 2011). According to case study, Volvo’s main strategy is to produce SUVs but the consumers are engaging with environmental concerns where they are 2 BK 3037 Strategic Marketing demanding from fuel-efficient cars that release less pollution and absorb lesser fuel. Hence, this forces Volvo to offer Flexi-Fuel (combination of Petrol and Ethanol) in certain geographic mark ets in order to catch up the latest trend. Due to this reason, Volvo has to spend vast amount of money to purchase new raw materials and develop the technology to produce fuel-efficient cars to meet the current demand. Under such conditions maintaining market share and customers is difficult as the selling price needs to be lower to beat the competition, thereby, forcing Volvo to absorb the production costs (Needles, et al. , 2010). Social On the other hand, the changing social culture is affecting Volvo’s strategy as well. There are declining birth rates in Europe, smaller families and more couples choosing to remain childless. This demographic change has influenced Volvo significantly as their main product, SUVs, as it is suited well for big-size families. However, due to the increase of nuclear families consumers are willing to purchase smaller cars because of their small family size and smaller cars consume less petrol, thus it saves cost (Gwartney, et al. , 2008). In addition, many cars on the road today are used by just single occupants, commuting to work. Hence, the socio-cultural changes affect Volvo business strategy as the demand for SUVs is declining but demand for smaller and fuel-efficient cars is increasing. Besides that, they have to invest a big amount of money to do research and development for fuel-efficient cars in order to compete with Toyota for market share. Baumol and Blinder (2011) emphasizes that heavy R&D will lead Volvo to incur higher cost of production and profit margin will decline as they cannot sell the cars at a high price since to their competitor (Toyota) is offering reasonable price for fuel-efficient cars. Technological Technological factor plays an important role in automotive industry because consumers always demand for better and higher quality technologies in their cars so that the technologies can help consumers to save petrol, bring greater convenience to them, and ensure their safety (Hage, 2011). Based on the case study, Volvo took the first step as the pioneers of the safety cage, crumble zones, side-impact protection, antilock brakes, whiplash protection, and airbags. As the first mover, Volvo is able to 3 BK 3037 Strategic Marketing enjoy great profits before their competitors come out with the similar technologies but with lower prices or better quality (Aswathappa, 2005). Hence, Volvo would have to invest heavier in R&D to develop innovative technologies that create the safest most exciting car experience to customers. Additionally, Volvo also needs to invest in R&D for fuel-efficient cars as it is the current of the market. If Volvo fails to produce hybrid or fuel-efficient cars with a reasonable price, they will lose market share due to competitors are offering customers with the demanded products (fuel-efficient cars) (Schwartz, et al. , 2010). Heavy R&D is required from Volvo and at the same time they cannot charge higher prices, and hence, the profit margin of Volvo will be smaller. 4 BK 3037 Strategic Marketing Question 2: Five Forces framework Answer: Five Forces framework included the bargaining power of supplier and buyer, threat of substitute, threat of new entrants and power of rivalry. Any changes from any of the forces will bring huge impact to an industry. As the world is going to global, competition arise and it make the five forces framework even more competitive and it affect the global automobile market directly. Bargaining power of buyer Bargaining power of buyer are referring to the negotiation power or influencing power of the buyers toward the prices charge by a company (Jones and Hill, 2010), the buyer of the automobile company may refer to the end user of the automobile. As year by year, there are more and more new players joining the market of automobile. One of the reason contributes to high bargaining power of buyer is low switching (Jones and Hill, 2010). As times past, there are more and more players join to the automobile industry. For example, U. S’s automobile market shares which used to dominate by the Big Three (Ford Motor Company (Ford), General Motors Corporation (GM) and DaimlerChrysler (DC)) had been taken over by foreign brands such as Honda, Toyota and Mitsubishi in 2005 (Gopal, n. d. ). Hence, this provides larger range of choices for the consumers and this makes the buyers have high bargaining power toward the industry. Since there are more choices in the market, consumers’ dependency toward the particular brands will decrease, as the product does not fulfil the customers’ expectation, they might switch to another brand with low or even non switching cost. For example, as according to research, the sale of new car in U. S market has increase, as people are willing to pay for better quality cars (Gopal, n. d. ). The world now is moving to the environmental friendly site, thus, most of the automobile firms are facing challenge by switching their focus from big car, large engine to fuel-efficient engine. Beside, due to the availability of information, buyers nowadays are more educated and they are very concerning about the effect of the automobile to the environment and this has relatively increase their bargaining power as buyer. For example, there are more than 100 type of motor magazine in the market 5 BK 3037 Strategic Marketing which provides reliable and sufficient information for consumers (Gopal, n. d). Since the switching cost of the buyers is low due to the fierce competition, buyers’ brand loyalties have decrease. Bargaining power of supplier Bargaining power of supplier is referring to the negotiation power of the supplier for the business which may include supplier of human resource, supplier of raw material, and other outsourcing partners (Jones and Hill, 2010). For the auto component supply industry, the bargaining powers of suppliers are relatively low, as there are many available suppliers of raw materials in the market, the switching cost of the cars manufacturer to other suppliers are low or even none. For example, large automobile manufacturers such as GM, Ford and Toyota have strong bargaining power as they always purchase the raw material in large quantities (Jones and Hill, 2010). The sizes of auto components are typically small (Ahmadjian and Lincoln, 1997), meanwhile the big players are able to use the threat of manufacturing a component themselves rather than buying it from auto component suppliers to played off suppliers against each other, forcing them to lower down the price and increase the quality (Ahmadjian and Lincoln, 1997). Hence, we can say that the bargaining powers of auto component suppliers are relatively low. Unlike air line industry, which the air line are highly depend toward the suppliers, automobile manufacturers such as Toyota, Honda or Volvo, it has own research and development department (R&D) which helps in exploring all the latest technology. It contributes in lowering down the dependency toward the suppliers as suppliers merely involve in supplying raw material instead of important technologies as like Boeing (air plane manufacturer) and other air line. Hence, in short, the bargaining powers of suppliers are relative low as the low dependency toward the suppliers and the threat of switching to other suppliers always work as a strong bargaining tool for the automobile manufacturers. Threat of Substitution This refers to the product of different businesses or industry that can satisfy similar customer needs (Jones and Hill, 2010). For automobile industry, due to the increasing 6 BK 3037 Strategic Marketing number of public transport and other way of transportation, the demand toward automobile has gone down. For example, as according to research, nowadays people might choose to take public transport as their daily transport instead of own private car due to cost and environmental issues (Eboli and Mazzulla, 2008). Beside as government is placing pressure toward the environmental issue, public transports are being well develop day by day (Eboli and Mazzulla, 2008), and it actually decrease the dependency of owing a private car. In addition, as the social-culture has changed, people nowadays are reluctant to give birth and hence it decreases the willingness of consumer to own a car. As according to research, the birth rate of developed countries such as Japan, Korea and State are relatively low and it actually affected the several industries and this included automobile industry (Powell and Hendricks, 2009). In this case we can justify that only small part of the automobile industry are highly affected by the substitution, however, for those luxury brands such as Volvo, BMW or Audi, their target markets are hardly affect by the improvement toward the public transport (Svensson and Wagner, 2011). In short, the threat of substitution toward the automobile industry is not high as it merely affected those below middle-income. Threat of New entrant New entrant may refer to potential competitors that are not currently competing in an industry but have the capability to do so if they choose so (Jones and Hill, 2010). As refer back to the case, the automobile industry has facing increasing deregulation; this had broken down the entry barrier for new entrance. For example, Volvo needs to compete with not only the local market players but also the Asia market player such as Toyota since there entry barrier of foreign brands to the local market had been broken down. As more new entrance coming into the market, the switching cost of the consumer from one brand to another brand is even lower than before (Che and Seethu, 2008). Hence, there deregulation may affect partly of the industry but not whole. Firstly, setting up a new automobile manufacturing company requires huge capital injection which decreases the willingness of new player to enter the industry. This may due to the high risk of huge capital injection and hence potential companies dare not to grab the opportunity. Beside there are already few strong players in the automobile manufacturer industry such as GM, Ford, Toyota and Honda, which have 7 BK 3037 Strategic Marketing already gain certain economic of scale in term of buying large quantity of auto components (Xia and Tang, 2011), and this had build barrier of entry for potential players. In short, the threat of new entrant is low as it is high risk business. Rivalry among established companies It refers to the current struggle between companies in an industry to gain market share from each other (Jones and Hill, 2010). For automobile industry, the rivalry is intensified due to the high exit cost and the industry demand. As mentioned earlier, the set up cost of an automobile manufacturer is relatively high and hence this has created exit barrier. Hence, even the business of an automobile manufacturer is bad; it will still lock into the industry where overall demand is static or declining (Jones and Hill, 2010). For example, GM, had struggled in the industry for more than 8 years due to declined sale, because of the high exit cost, it had been locked within the industry (Terlep, 2011). Besides, the declining demand from customers as mentioned earlier had contributed to intensify the rivalry as well. As consumers are reluctant to buy a new car due to environmental issue or declining birthrate, it actually forcing the automobile manufacturers to play off against each other for larger market shares (Eboli and Mazzulla, 2008). Hence, we can conclude that the rivalry among the established companies of automobile industry is intensified due to the declining demand and high exit cost. 8 BK 3037 Strategic Marketing Question 3: Answer: There are many different brands of vehicles. As to stand with one foot crossed in front of the other competitors, Volvo has adopted the focused differentiation strategy (Dinitzen, 2010). A focused differentiation strategy is aimed at a niche group of customers with unique tastes (Schermerhorn, 2010). The cars produced by Volvo are targeted at a niche market of safety conscious upscale families. These upscale buyers of Volvo are those who value Volvo's reputation for durability, and are willing to pay high dollars for this Swedish brand of luxury. Volvo has differentiated their cars by adding additional features that are not available on other cars. Their cars are known as extremely safe cars for families due to the design, which its innovation in car safety enhancements, being pioneers of the safety cage, crumble zones, side-impact protection, antilock brakes, whiplash protection, and airbags, as stated in the case. One primary means of differentiating Volvo’s cars is through its research and development department to produce cars model that exude quality, performance and safety which emphasize on creating luxury automotive brand for family sector. This can be seen from the case that the model of XC90 is well-designed with a large SUV and the price range from ? 33,000 to ? 54,000. However, Volvo continually develops and adds new features that increase values to customers. Some recent innovation of Volvo’s that differentiates their products is Volvo’s sporty hatchback S30 which the engine and brake system of the S30 is designed differently from any compact executive hatch class cars in existence and is destined to compete against high-end versions of VW’s Golf. This shows Volvo attempted to broaden their target market by attracting younger drivers to their car marque (The Sydney Morning Herald, 2007) and Volvo sees their future as delivering safe, premium and exciting driving suitable for families. At the same time, Volvo has reached a level of maturity, by providing a better balance between sportiness and comfort, and also achieved high level of safety. Besides using focus differentiation strategy, Volvo should use differentiation strategy with a little of expansion strategy. A differentiation strategy depends on developing resources that set the company’s offer apart in a way that is meaningful and difficult 9 BK 3037 Strategic Marketing to duplicate (Lowy and Hood, 2004). This can be achieved through keeping ahead of competition, satisfying customer’s wants and also expectations better than business rivals (Moynihan and Titley, 2001). Volvo’s cars consist of those attractive features which meet customers' exact demands in terms of passenger comfort, driving safety and total economy. This enables Volvo to sell their cars at a premium price and satisfy the unique needs or preferences of customers (Hills and Jones, 2007). Furthermore, people are becoming more conscious about what they are buying, and are more environmentally and safety conscious too in today’s trends (Aarts, 2010). This means that quality work is a crucial part of all areas in their global organisation from product development and design to purchasing, manufacturing, sales and service. Therefore, Volvo should expand their products and focus on product innovation that developing product features that customer value to prevent eroding the current market and increase overall sales and profits (Hunt, 2003). This is to ensure that in case the existing market for the type of product that Volvo offers is already saturated and there are convenient ties to other product types. This strategy helps reduce overall business risk by offering products in a variety of customer categories. With this, Volvo may build up a brand name that evokes the feeling of safety and luxury in an expanding market base. The uniqueness of Volvo may insulate the company from competitive rivalry and reduce customer sensitivity toward price increases. Consequently, these will increasingly affluent public and they will become more famous and trusting of automotive industry. 10 BK 3037 Strategic Marketing Reference List Aarts, L. (2010) Feeding People. United Kingdom: Academy Press. Aswathappa, A. (2005) International Business. nd ed. New Delhi: Tata McGraw-Hill Education. Baumol, W. J. and Blinder, A. S. (2011) Economics: Principles and Policy. 12th eds. Ohio: Cengage Learning. Bernon, M. , Rossi, S. and Cullen, J. (2011) ‘Retail reverse logistics: A call and grounding framework for research’, International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management, Vol. 41, No. 5, pp. 484-510. Dinitzen, H. B. (2010) Organisational Theory: A Practical Approach. Denmark: Hans Reitzels Forlag. Eboli, L. and Mazzulla, G. (2008) ‘Willingness to pay of public transport users for improvement in service quality’, European Transport. Vol. 38, No. 1, pp. 107-118. Gwartney, J. D. , Stroup, R. L. , Sobel, R. S. and MacPherson, D. (2008) Economics: Private and Public Choice. 12th eds. Ohio: Cengage Learning. Hage, J. (2011) Restoring the Innovation Edge: Driving the Evolution of Science and Technology. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Hills, C. W. L. and Jones, G. R. (2007) Strategic management: an integrated approach. USA: Cengage Learning. Hilmola, O. P. (2011) ‘Benchmarking efficiency of public passenger transport in larger cities’, Benchmarking: An International Journal, Vol. 18, No. 1, pp. 23-41. Hunt, B. 2003) The Timid Corporation: Why Business is Terrified of Taking Risk. England: John Wiley and Sons. Jones, G. and Hill, C. (2010) Theory of Strategic Management. 9th eds. South-Western Cengage Learning. Lee, K. H. and Cheong, I. M. (2011) ‘Measuring a carbon footprint and environmental practice: The case of Hyundai Motors Co. (HMC)’, Industrial Management & Data Systems, Vol. 111, No. 6, pp. 961-978. Li, Z. and Zhao, H. (2011) ‘Not all demand oil shocks are alike: Disentangling demand oild shocks in the crude oil market’, Journal of Chinese Economic and Foreign Trade Studies, Vol. , No. 1, pp. 28-44. Lowy, A. and Hood, P. (2004) The power of the 2Ãâ€"2 matrix: using 2Ãâ€"2 thinking to solve business problems and make better decisions. United States: John Wiley and Sons. 11 BK 3037 Strategic Marketing Moynihan, D. and Titley, B. (2001) Advanced business. New York: Oxford University Press. Needles, B. E. , Powers, M. and Crosson, S. V. (2010) Financial and Managerial Accounting. 9th eds. Ohio: Cengage Learning. Powell, J. and Hendricks, J. (2009) The Welfare State in Post-Industrial Society: A Global Perspective. London: Springer. Rudall, B. H. (2011) ‘Research and development: Current impact and future potential’, Kybernetes, Vol. 40, No. 3/4, pp. 581-584. Schermerhorn, J. R. (2010) Management. United States: John Wiley and Sons. Schwartz, R. A. , Carew, M. G. and Maksimenko, T. (2010) Micro Markets: A Market Structure Approach to Microeconomic Analysis. Hoboken: John Wiley and Sons. Svensson, G. and Wagner, B. (2011) ‘Transformative business sustainability: Multilayer model and network of e-footprint sources’, European Business Review, Vol. 23, No. 4, pp. 334-352. The Sydney Morning Herald. 2007) Smallest, cheapest Volvo targets younger customers. [Online]. Available from: http://www. smh. com. au/news/news/new-targetmarket-forvolvo/2007/03/20/1174153023503. html%20Achieved%2013%20July%202011 [Accessed 13th July 2011]. Xia, Y. and Tang, L. P. Thomas. (2011) ‘Sustainability in supply chain management: Suggestions for the auto industry’, Management Decision, Vol. 49, No. 4, pp. 4955 12. Yoon, K. and Tran, T. V. (2011) ‘Capturing consumer heterogeneity in loyalty evolution patterns’, Management Research Review, Vol. 34, No. 6, pp. 649-662. 12

An Evaluation of the Effectiveness of Premiums Promotion, Limited

Qing Lu 2111573 10 weeks Business M. Sc. International Business Permission given to use this project Word Count: 2824 An Evaluation of the Effectiveness of Premiums Promotion, Limited- time Discount and Loyalty Card Promotion—Based on Product Life Cycle 31 August 2012 Abstract In recent years, sales promotion tactics are extensively used to achieve different marketing targets.The aim of this project is to analyze the effectiveness of premiums promotion, limited-time discount and loyalty card promotion according to the marketing targets in the first three phases of product life cycle, which can help companies maximize the effects of sales promotion. The specific marketing targets in the first three stages of product life cycle are discussed and the effective sales promotion tactics are analyzed, based on a rich literature about sales promotion.The potential risks in the implementation process need to be taken into account and the possible solutions are proposed to help companie s reduce the unnecessary losses. This may be of interest to marketers, which intend to enhance the competitiveness of companies.   List of references Introduction As the competitive pressure on market increases, the studies on product life cycle are paid more and more attention by marketers in recent years. On one hand, product life cycle can direct companies to set the clear marketing target in each phase. On the other hand, it can help marketers select the effective sales promotion tactics to achieve each marketing target.The selection of sales promotion strategies in each stage of product life cycle seems to be of considerable importance in achieving different marketing targets. The study by Yeshin (2006) suggests that premiums promotion, limited-time discount and loyalty card promotion play marked roles in the first three stages of product. Moreover, it appears to be necessary for marketers to set the marketing targets in different stages of product life cycle, to select the e ffective means of sales promotion, and to be aware of possible solutions for dealing with potential risks.As Kotler and Armstrong (2001) point out, companies can induce customers to know, to use and to be loyal for their products by the effective means of sales promotion, even if customers may have different buying habits, product preference and purchase motivation. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the effectiveness of premiums promotion, limited-time promotion and loyalty card promotion according to the three marketing targets in the first three phases of product life cycles, which tends to help companies expand new product awareness, increase market share and maintain customer loyalty. Features nd marketing targets of the first three stages of product life cycle will first be presented. The reasons for the effectiveness of the three marketing tactics mentioned above will then be analyzed, with a focus on the three corresponding marketing targets. The limitations and the pos sible solutions will finally be discussed to help firms reduce the potential risks. 1. Features and Marketing Targets of Product Life Cycle When a new product is launched into market, it will go through four stages of product life cycle, which are introduction, growth, maturity, and decline (Kotler and Armstrong 2001).The first three stages, however, may be the optimal period at which the effect of sales promotion can be maximized. Therefore, features of the first three stages and the corresponding marketing targets will be discussed in the following subsections. 1. 1 Introduction stage Introduction stage refers to a period at which new products are first introduced into market (Ibid). In this phase, the growth of sales tends to be slow because much time and money need to be invested to attract the resellers, to inform customers of new products, and to encourage the trial (Ibid).In other words, customer demand for new products should be aroused in the introduction stage. As Bhasin ( 2011) points out, marketers should induce customers to accept new products, thus inspiriting their desires for these products. As a result, the marketing target in introduction stage appears to maximize new products awareness and to stimulate customers to try out new products. 1. 2 Growth stage Growth stage refers to a period at which new products are widely recognized in the market, and more and more customers are willing to follow their innovators (Kotler and Armstrong 2001).The market share is likely to be quickly expanded in this stage as long as marketers attempt to form a purchasing trend. According to the illustration by Bhasin (2011), growth stage offers the appropriate opportunity to markers to occupy more market share due to the high growth rate of sales. Hence, the marketing target in this phase should be to quickly boost sales volume, so as to create a customer trend that more new customers could be attracted to follow. 1. 3 Maturity stageIt is widely agreed that sales i n the maturity stage continue to grow at a relatively slow rate until it reaches the peak, which means the number of customers seems to maintain relatively stable (Kotler and Armstrong 2001, Janotta 2012). There is far less agreement, however, about customers’ purchasing behaviors in this phase. Yeshin (2006) concludes that it may be a competitive period in which the existing customers are likely to buy other brands. In fact, competitive products are likely to flood into the marketplace in the maturity stage, providing more options for customers.Thus, if the effective measures are not taken, companies would lose a portion of market share. Likewise, Bhasin (2011) also illustrates that fierce market competition probably occurs in the maturity stage because some competitors tend to drive down the prices under the cost, in order to draw the attention of customers. Namely, the risk of brand switching in this phase seems to be high, so the marketing target should be set to retain c ustomer loyalty.In conclusion, the first three stages of product life cycle have their own features, so different marketing targets need to be set in different phases: new products awareness should be expanded in the introduction stage, sales volume should be quickly boosted in the growth stage, and customer loyalty should be maintained in the maturity stage. Then, effective sales promotion tactics will be analyzed in the next chapter, according to the marketing targets in the three phases. 2. Analysis of the Three Sales Promotion Tactics 2. 1 Premiums promotion for new product awarenessPremiums promotion refers to free products or free services that can be obtained by customers in addition to the main purchase (Yeshin 2006). Gift promotion plays an important role in new product introduction. First of all, free gifts as incentives can encourage customers to try out new products as well as inform customers about new demand. For example, 200,000 Quattro for Women razors were given out as free gifts in American by Schick, which allowed Quattro to receive the recognition of most female customers (Pride and Ferrell, 2010).It seems that free gifts are effective to stimulate customers to generate interest in new products. Yeshin (2006), however, argues that premiums promotion may reduce the value of brand due to the possible hazard caused by the free gifts in the product contents. For example, in order to attract children, small toys are often inserted into snakes as premiums, which are likely to arouse the controversy about food security, thereby resulting in brand crises. Nevertheless, premiums still contribute to expand new products awareness.Pride and Ferrell (2010) illustrates that the Promotion Marketing Association’s Product Sampling Council, according to an investigation, showed that 92%of participators in this survey indicated that free samples motivated their trials for new products. Besides, the free experience as a kind of intangible gifts could al low customers experience multi-value such as relational, emotional and behavioral value, which increases brand popularity and affinity. As a case in point, the customers who buy the new item in Burger King could watch the latest Star Wars film for free (Yeshin 2006).Not only did the famous film expand the new item awareness, but also increased customers’ affection for Burger King. In fact, the reason why premiums promotion has a great appeal to customers tends to be that it gets hold of customers’ mentalities. According to the study by Yeshin (2006), customers usually get used to regarding themselves as the weaker end of the deal, so the free products or services as the compensatory gifts can incentivize customers. Consequently, premiums as incentives can benefit to expand new products awareness in the introduction stage. 2. 2 Limited-time promotion for quick boost to salesA promotional deadline is set for customers to ensure that the volume of sales can be boosted as soon as possible, which is called limited-time promotion (Reid and Bojanic 2010). The advantage of limited-time discount lies in a short-term surge in sales, which enables companies to rapidly grab market share in the growth phase. Limited-time discount seems to create a sense of excitement and competition and a tense atmosphere. Customers tend to be attracted by excitement that limited-time discount create. Or rather, what customers love may not be products themselves but the sense of getting a good deal.Kolb (2005) also indicates that even the customers with high wages like to feel that they are smart in this way. In addition, as this kind of discount is temporary, which will restore regular prices soon, it creates a threat to customers, aiming at stimulating them to make immediate purchase (Gaffney and Francis, 2009). Such a threat appears to take effect on rapidly increasing sales. According to Reid and Bojanic (2010), Marriott International, Hyatt Hotels and Resorts, and Hilton gave discounts to customers on weekends as so to quickly boost the volume of sale, which had gotten great success.Hence, if limited-time discount is used in the growth stage, market share can be quickly expanded by increasing sales in the short term. 2. 3 Loyalty card for customer loyalty Loyalty card is used to earn points for purchasing certain products or shopping at certain retailers. When customers collect enough points, these can be exchanged for money, goods or other offers (Kotler and Armstrong 2001). One of the main functions of loyalty card is to maintain the long-term relationship between customers and brands. It motivates customers to keep buying products with fixed brand, thus strengthening customers’ brand loyalty.A study by Lancaster and Massingham (2011) shows that Tesco owed its success in becoming the largest grocery supermarket retailer in Britain to introduction of loyalty card, since loyalty card was used to reward regular purchase, thus enhancing consum er loyalty to Tesco. Furthermore, loyalty card is felt to be effective in analyzing purchasing behaviors of the existing customers and directing enterprises to improve the operation of businesses, which thus benefits to build long-lasting relationship with existing customers.As Humby, Hunt and Phillips (2007) conclude, shopping habits, brand preference and economic capability of certain customer groups can be analyzed through loyalty card data, which contribute to firms to adjust marketing strategy. As a matter of fact, most marketers concern about customer loyalty in the maturity stage in that many competitive brands have piled into the market, which may lead customers to switch other brands.Liljenwall(2004) points out that it is difficult to be loyal for most products that customers purchase, even though many of them have brand preference for commodities. Indeed, they attempt to seek the best one by constantly changing brands. However, it seems that loyalty card reduces the risks of brand switching by offering discounts for regular purchases. When facing to different brands with same quality, customers usually would like to purchase fixed brand in return for discount. That is to say, loyalty card promotion can effectively maintain customer loyalty in the maturity stage.In conclusion, the three sales promotion tactics are effectively used to help companies to achieve the marketing targets in different phases: premiums promotion expands new products awareness in the introduction stage since this way could induce consumers to try out new items; limited-time promotion probably helps companies increase market share in the growth stage through boosting the volume of sales as soon as possible; loyalty card seems to be effective to maintain customer loyalty in the maturity stage because marketers would like to provide discount or gifts in return for regular purchase.Nonetheless, some potential risks may occur in the implementation. In order to maximize the effects o f sales promotion on different phases of product life cycle, limitations and possible solutions of the three means of sales promotion will be discussed in the next main section. 3. Limitations and Possible Solutions 3. 1 Risks of premiums promotion There seems to be two limitations in premiums promotion. First, it is difficult for marketers to ensure that premiums or free samples are attractive enough to their target customers (Ace 2002).In the introduction stage, new products usually need to be widely aware, so if premiums cannot arouse customers’ interest, marketers may lose chances to convince customers to try out their new products. Second, the cost of premiums and the value that customers perceive should be balanced. As Yeshin (2006) illustrates, the low-cost premiums may be perceived as low quality, thus reducing the brand value of new products themselves, whereas free gifts with high quality often cost much.Hence, it is felt to be difficult for marketers to forecast th e perceived value of premiums and to ensure that premiums can enhance new products reputation. 3. 2 Risks of limited-time discount Two possible limitations should be taken into account when limited-time discount is implemented. First, overusing limited-time discount probably shakes consumers’ decision for instant purchase in that they get used to waiting for discounts (Hendershot-Hurd 2007). As most customers are waiting for discount, it seems possible that the growth rate of sales becomes low in the growth stage.Second, if the time interval between the end of a limited-time discount and the start of the next limited-time discount is short, the perceived value of products may be reduced (Devlin, Ennew, McKechnie, and Smith 2007). In other words, Customers may regard the promotional price as the actual value. As a result, once restoring the original price, products may become unacceptable. 3. 3 Risks of loyalty card promotion The security of personal data caused by loyalty car ds may lead to customer dissatisfaction (Janotta 2012).For example, customers probably regard loyalty cards as source of spamming, thereby refusing to use loyalty card; they may also feel that individual privacy is offended, which could directly decrease customer satisfaction and destroy customer loyalty; if rewards cannot satisfy customers, they are likely to lose interest in loyalty card. As Janotta (2012) concludes, loyalty card system often disappoints consumers because of unattractive rewards, harsh requirements for exchange, and time and place limit. 3. 4 Possible solutionsWith regard to the limitations above, the possible solutions are proposed by Yeshin (2006) and Kotler and Armstrong (2001) as follow: * A small quantity of premiums should be first used at the beginning of introduction stage for market test, and a mass of premiums or free samples should be then used to expand new products popularity. * Time limited discount should be reasonably used and the promotion cycle s hould be identified by market investigation * Integrated promotion replacing single promotion should be used to stimulate customers in the first three stages of product life cycle.These possible solutions enable companies to reduce the risks in the implementation, thereby avoiding the unnecessary losses. All in all, the risks of sales promotions should be considered by marketers. First, low attractiveness and low perceived value of premiums could reduce the interest of customers in new products. Second, overuse and short cycle of limited-time promotion tend to compel companies to cut prices in that customers may overly relay on discount and reject to purchase at the original price.Third, the invasion of privacy caused by loyalty cards can result in decreasing customer satisfaction since customers could feel to be offended. Furthermore, in terms of possible solutions, early market test on a small scale enables companies to adjust promotion strategies, appropriate promotion cycle prob ably stimulate customers to make instant purchase decision, and integrated promotion mode could make better use of the advantages of sales promotion and compensate for the disadvantages of each other. Conclusion Sales promotion tactics seems to be of considerable importance in achieving different marketing targets.This paper analyzed the effectiveness of three sales promotion tactics according to the three marketing targets mentioned above. First, premiums could encourage customers to try out new products, which are beneficial to expand new products popularity in the introduction stage. Second, limited-time promotion is used to increase sales as sons as possible, eventually occupying more market share in the growth stage. Third, loyalty card has great advantage in keeping long-term relationship with existing customers, which could reduce the risk of brand switching in the maturity stage by rewarding regular purchase.Nevertheless, it seems to be inevitable that the three sales promot ion strategies have limitations. First of all, the quality and attractiveness of free gifts may directly influence the perceived values of new products. Furthermore, limited-time discount may stop products from restoring the original prices since customers prefer to wait for discounting. Finally, even if companies may obtain useful information about customers through analyses of loyalty card data, customer satisfaction is probably reduced due to the invasion of individual privacy.The possible solutions can be summarized as market test on a small scale, appropriate promotion cycle, and integrated promotion mode, which could reduce the risks above and maximize the effects of sales promotion. In discussing process in premiums promotion, limited-time discount and loyalty card promotion, it was conclude that the three tactics of promotion can be effective to help companies achieve the marketing targets in the first three phases, based on a rich literature about sales promotion.However, i t should be noted that a detailed analysis of other tactics of sales promotion realizing different marketing targets is not involved in this paper and future work could be done in this area. This would mainly focus on online marketing and could help marketers enhance the competitiveness of online marketing by appropriate strategies of sales promotion.References Ace, C. (2002) Effective Promotional Planning for e-Business. Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann Devlin, J. , Ennew, C. ,McKechnie, S. , and Smith, A. (2007) ‘A study of time limited price promotions’. Journal of Product & Brand Management 16 (4), 280 – 285 Gaffney, S. and Francis, C. (2009) Honesty Sells: How to Make More Money and Increase Business Profits. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons Humby, C. , Hunt, T. , and Phillips, T. (2007) Scoring Points: How Tesco Continues to Win Customer Loyalty. London: Kogan Page Hendershot-Hurd, K. (2007) Beyond the Niche: Essential Tools You Need to Create Marketing Mess ages that  Deliver Results. Swindon: Acuminate Janotta, S. (2012) Loyalty Cards in the Apparel Retail Industry. Munich: Grin Verlag Kolb, B. M. (2005) Marketing for Cultural Organizations. London: Thomson Learning Kotler, P. and Armstrong, G. (2001) Principles of Marketing. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall Lancaster, G. and Massingham, L. (2011) Essentials of MarketingManagement. Abingdon: Routledge Liljenwall, R. (2004) The Power of Point-of-Purchase Advertising: Marketing At Retail. Washington, DC: Point-Of-Purchase Advertising International   Pride, W. M. and Ferrell, O. C. (2010) Marketing. Stamford: Cengage Learning Reid, R. , D. and Bojanic, D. , C. (2010) Hospitality Marketing Management. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons Yeshin, T. (2006) Sales Promotion. London: Thomson Learning

Cross calture issuse in international business Essay

Cross calture issuse in international business - Essay Example Each group has slightly different opinion. The main step for business growth IKEA took is to hire non Chinese managers and Chinese co-workers. The cross culture issues in international business Influence of cultural differences between china and Europe on IKEA IKEA is an international company owned by non-governmental organization. IKEA is the abbreviation of Ingvar Kamprad Elmtaryd Agunnaryd. each term in its abbreviation has its own history. Ingvar Kamprad is the Swedish 17 year's old man who founded this company in 1943. this man was grown up in Elmtaryd and his home parish is in Agunnaryd. it is the world's largest retailer that designs and sell knock-down or flat pack furniture, home appliances and accessories. IKEA also launched a family mobile (Aug 8, 2008), a virtual mobile network running on T-mobiles. IKEA is known as one of the best company which does a lot for the third world. It built an image for the low price furniture but for the Chinese customers the case was opposit e when IKEA opened the first store in Shanghai, China (1998). Most of the Chinese likes to visit IKEA store but they mostly of them just wandered there and only few can by the items because of high prices. IKEA tried to low down their price but still their product became luxury for the Chinese customers. In the beginning IKEA had to face many challenges. For success in business it is much necessary to understand the cultural values of the country where you are setting your business. For IKEA, to achieve the strategy goal in china means to understand the culture and socio-economic conditions of china. In terms of culture and business practices, economical and political changes in china IKEA suffered with many ups and downs. The main issue for IKEA is to understand the environment and cultural difference which influence the Chinese customer's behavior. Hofstede's Cultural dimensions Geert Hofstede had done the influential work to demonstrate the cultural differences. He identified fiv e major dimensions along which cultural values vary: high vs. low power distance, individualism vs. collectivism, masculinity vs. femininity, and uncertainty avoidance vs. uncertainty acceptance and short-term vs. long-term orientation. Difference between china and Sweden culture In china culture dominant values in society are masculine. Caring of others and the quality of people and life are not so important but the importance is given to the assertiveness, acquisition of money and things. In china society muscularity, assertiveness and challenges are preferred over co-operation and good working relationship. Another important cultural trait of china is the high power distance. This means that the distance between subordinates and superiors in china is relatively high then west. We can consider it as a shape of narrow triangle in which the mangers placed on the apex while subordinates on the base. The management is not so common or in practice. This high power distance is basically roots from the imperial tradition in china. Until 1911, the emperors were given so high value that extremely they were called the sons of god. This resulted as an unequal relationship in the society. The subordinates are restricted to obey and owe their superiors in exchange for protection and consideration (Sriramesh, vercic, 2003, p 26). The local government institutions in china are powerful and mostly they operate on discretion. This is the main

Should the Electoral College still be in Place Research Paper

Should the Electoral College still be in Place - Research Paper Example Furthermore this particular thesis again would look back through history for examples where the electoral system on current values have failed to provide a decision based on the unanimous most popular votes achieved and hence appoint office a candidate who significantly does not hold the peoples ideology in running the country. Lastly we would succumb to the fact that prior to twentieth century the electoral system of electing the president was made by people who were the pioneers of their time and society while keeping in mind the common educational awareness in a single voter and how this method would cancel dysfunctional voting which may not be in the best interest of the United States. For matters concerning the voting system upheld by the Electoral College, there have been, for the past two centuries, excessive debates that primarily highlight the loop holes associated with this form of presidential selection. Firstly before jumping in to the jargon of as to why the Electoral Co llege of presidential elections deems a misfit in current society we would on first note take up to the fact that what practically is the Electoral system of voting that we all so often refer to. On theoretical counts the Electoral College system of voting to claim a new head of the state is a method in which electors from every state cast their votes on potential candidates that seek to become the next president so as such the electors hold the key of who becomes the new subsequent head of the state. The votes casted by the American citizens is only associated with the electors of their own state hence even though votes pertaining to a hundred percent favoring either the democrats or the republicans could only and fundamentally suffice for their own states electoral representatives (Glennon, Michael J. When Quarterly, 1992). The number of electoral reps that every state acquires is a directly proportional figure to the amount of people or residents residing in it and therefore the number of electoral reps in each state varies from one another. For instance Minnesota as being a relatively bigger state than Columbia has seven more electoral votes and hence stands to a 10 to 3 ratio in comparison. The total number of electoral votes situated is five hundred and thirty eight and hence to potentially win an election a candidate must receive more than or equal to two hundred and seventy uncontested votes and effectively claim a winning spot. The voting system in every state apart from Maine and Nebraska has a winner take all methodology on casting electoral votes as such if in any state the democratic or republic party get the majority votes then automatically the other residing votes which may not be in favor of the winning party would also be effectively transferred to the votes of the winning electoral reps. This particular policy has a major drawback concerning the fact that even though a candidate may win the most popular vote of the country it may eventually lose at the mercy of the Electoral college system. Again for instance the nominee from the democratic or republic party gets electoral votes from the majority of states but loses to small margins in larger ones

Confederate Constitution Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Confederate Constitution - Essay Example As such, before the point in time that Jefferson Davis was elected as President of the Confederacy, Cobb was the de-facto leader of the Confederacy and served as the executive power under whose signature the Confederate Constitution was able to be passed into law. With regards to the â€Å"why† question, this document served as a means of proclaiming a level of self determination, a la the much earlier Declaration of Independence that the founding fathers of the United States had penned. Moreover, it served to differentiate the means whereby the Confederate States sought to define the most important concepts of power and the relationship which the member components of their own union must relate to the central Confederate government. As such, the document specified that at any time and for any reason, the dissolution of a member state from such a confederacy was entirely possible and allowable under the legal terms in which the document was penned. Similarly, with regards to t he â€Å"where† question, the document was ratified in Montgomery Alabama. With regards to the key differentials that the document noted as compared to the United States Constitution, these were many and will be explained within the following bullet points: The preamble to the Confederate Constitution placed emphasis upon the fact that all signatory states were acting in their own sovereign and independent character. Establishes the 3/5’s compromise as the law of the land; thereby denoting that a slave can only be counted as 3/5’s of a person when determining the overall population total of each state. Provided the President of the Confederate States with the power of line item veto but reqruierd that once the president would use the veto power that... With regards to the â€Å"why† question, this document served as a means of proclaiming a level of self-determination, a la the much earlier Declaration of Independence that the founding fathers of the United States had penned. Moreover, it served to differentiate the means whereby the Confederate States sought to define the most important concepts of power and the relationship which the member components of their own union must relate to the central Confederate government. As such, the document specified that at any time and for any reason, the dissolution of a member state from such a confederacy was entirely possible and allowable under the legal terms in which the document was penned. Similarly, with regards to the â€Å"where† question, the document was ratified in Montgomery Alabama.With regards to the key differentials that the document noted as compared to the United States Constitution, these were many and will be explained in the following bullet points:ï  ¶ The preamble to the Confederate Constitution placed emphasis upon the fact that all signatory states were acting in their own sovereign and independent character.ï  ¶ Establishes the 3/5’s compromise as the law of the land; thereby denoting that a slave can only be counted as 3/5’s of a person when determining the overall population total of each state.ï  ¶ Provided the President of the Confederate States with the power of line item veto but required that once the president would use the veto power that the bill would then be resubmitted to both houses for a possible override.

Critically think about the drop in crime in the US at the end of the Essay

Critically think about the drop in crime in the US at the end of the nineties - Essay Example There was another hypothesis developed that the drop in crime rate was due to the introduction of the Three Strikes Law. This allocation provided that any felony criminal who was arrested on a third offence would be sentenced to life imprisonment (Rushefsky, 2007, 535). The first of the states to allot this was the State of Washington, subsequent steps to continue with this step taking place in Colorado, Arkansas, Nevada and so on. This practice has led to a general reduction in the rate of crime n the United States, with the year 2010 being the safest moments of all. With the homicide division having the lowest record of crime, there has been a decline in other divisions such as violent crimes, rape and robbery. (Press 2010, 135) In conclusion, there are two hypotheses describing the decline in the rate of crime in the United States. The introduction of the Three Strikes Law and the legalization of abortion have contributed to the decline in crime in the United States (Wilensky, 2002, 235). However, there has also been overall improvement in the administration of

Contemporary Exhibition Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Contemporary Exhibition - Essay Example According to the essay  Cindy Sherman is a fashionable master of the socially critical photography. Often, she features as a key picture in the â€Å"Pictures Generation.† Sherman’s focus in picture photography has always been to call into the question relating to the seductive and more oppressive influence of the media over personality and collective identities. She calls for her audience’s attention by powerful technology and maquillage that lies back of the countless images that circulate in an unremittingly public persevered in culture. Amongst the unsettling themes lying behind her extensive series of personal portraiture in numerous guises falls under the sexual desires and the domination of the fashioning of her self-identity by the means of self-deception.From this paper it is clear that Sherman’s ideas in photography lie in the long convention of self-portraiture and the theatrical role-playing in the field of art. She uses the camera and the ve ry tools used in everyday cinema, for example, makeup, stage scenery, and costumes. These help her to create an identity that recreates common illusions, or the iconic snapshots signifying numerous concepts. The concepts she fosters are like a public celebrity, sexual adventure, self-confidence, socially sanctioned, existential conditions, and ultimately, entertainment. Sherman’s photographic portraiture intensely emphasizes in the present although extending a long custom in arts that makes the audience reconsider certain common stereotypes as well as the cultural assumptions.   

Chinas Transition to a Market-oriented Economy Essay

Chinas Transition to a Market-oriented Economy - Essay Example This paper is one of the best examples of objective analysis of the macroeconomic situation in China through the recent years of macroeconomic transformation. Being the most populous country in the world, China set out to transform its economy from a centrally planned one to a market oriented one in 1978. This transformation came after the regime of Mao and is seen to take place in two stages: between 1979-1993 came the first stage and the second stage began in 1994 to presently. The two stages are primarily differentiated by the 1989 Student Movement. Multinational Corporations developed interest in China and, since it presented unique marketing issues and challenges. These MNCs anticipate the growth and expansion of these economies and have thus endeavored to expand their operations to them. The greatest challenge facing China’s transition is structural impediment existent within the economy particularly with state-owned enterprises and state-owned banks; where both have interrelated problems that the state continues to intervene in their investment decisions and capital allocation. The state sector has set up several state-owned enterprises with supposed policy loans from the state-owned banks to prevent bankruptcy. The Chinese government has directed large amounts of funds into infrastructure and other projects leaving the budget at deficit levels; all this in a bid to fuel economic growth. The transition has been riddled with corruption primarily in the central and regional governments as well as in the commercial sector. This has made it difficult to undertake relevant projects beneficial to the public and not specific individuals. Beijing officials have attempted to end this by running public anti-corruption campaigns and holding trials of senior party officials in public. Nonetheless, it has continued to exist and this has made the public averse to social reforms. This has created the problem of rising inequality and in turn an overpowering middle class; which results in a shrinking workforce

Learning Team Collaboration Worksheet Essay Example for Free

Learning Team Collaboration Worksheet Essay 1. What are the advantages of having diversity in a collaborative learning environment? The point of any collaboration is to bring together different ideas for one solution. By exchanging opinions, everyone can decide what works best for the group. When too many like minded people come together, they dole out the same product. If a group contains all organizers or thinkers, they might have a 10 page paper of all conflicting ideas because they couldn’t agree on one topic. History’s bloodiest events usually started with one group of likeminded people pushing their ideas onto the rest of the world. 2. How might factors such as learning and work styles affect your team’s collaboration? Having a diverse set of people in a group can only improve it. Thinkers can look at a topic from all sides, which can help a team anticipate arguments and have an answer ready. Givers can be the voice of reason, helping the group stay on task when an organizer or thinker is stuck on a non consequential detail. Adventurers think outside the box, they may come up with the topic itself or can be counted on to liven up a stale presentation. Organizers are decisive; choosing what information stays, what gets tossed, where it fits, and how to best unify a paper. Like Henry Ford’s assembly line, each person has a role that has to be met for the product to be finished. 3. How can critical thinking improve your team’s collaboration? Being in a team can generate original and creative ideas, making for an interesting project. Critical thinking is the research and facts to uphold those ideas. This involves finding credible sources with valid facts. This question is kicking my butt! I’ll get it eventually. 4. What are methods for improving team writing? Prewriting is the longest step in the writing process, involving the overall topic of a project and all the research. This is where a team can contribute ideas and opinions, and a rough draft is formed. After this process is finished, the actual writing should be simple. The second draft could be written by one person to ensure that it stays in one voice throughout the paper. Then the team can review the draft and make changes as needed.

Division Between Public And Private Writing Media Essay

Division Between Public And Private Writing Media Essay Rettberg states that the spread of literacy, circulation of written materials and the common practice of silent reading saw the emergence of the private sphere and practice of private writing as early as the 1500s. The private sphere fostered a solitary and private relationship between reader and book and established a clear divide between the inner personal life and public life in the community. Rettberg (2008) believes this altered relation to the written word helped to create a new private place for individuals to seek refuge. According to Schement Curtis (1995) private writing can be described as a personal narrative and is typically written as a form of self-expression to be read only by the author. Early forms of private writing include personal journals and diaries where authors recorded personal experiences and reflections without an audience in mind. This clear division between private and public writing began to shift as authors began approaching publicly accessible platfo rms to record stories. This presented opportunities to reach broader audiences and invited dialogue within the community, effectively contributing to the public sphere. The public sphere is a concept introduced by JuÃÅ'ˆrgen Habermas that describes an ideal democratic space for rational debate among informed and engaged citizens and extends to include written public materials intended for mass audiences (cited in Kellner, 2000). Originally public writing was not a personal narrative but informative news that would attract audiences and stimulate community debate. Early forms of public writing included printed newspaper articles and community newsletters. Today, magazines, shopping catalogues, academic papers and online blogs are all widely acknowledged as forms of public writing. Boeder (2005) argues that the global public sphere of today is largely influenced by the technology that underpins it: The technological infrastructure of communication networks is influencing the social structure of society; its development is closely related to the development of social structures in a process of interchange and mutual dependence These technologies and the more recent emergence of social media networks have aided the breakdown of the boundaries between private and public that were clear in the mid- and late twentieth century. Social networks such as Facebook and Twitter are fostering new forms of engagement which encourage dialogue and collaboration in public forums, decreasing the clear detachment between public and private writing. The Internet has facilitated constant, instantaneous and global communications (Boyd Ellison, 2007). Social networking services are not just allowing Internet users access to immediate information, social media is serving us access to the lives of friends or colleagues and encouraging users to contribute to online discussions and share private information. Social media sites are transforming online user behaviour and in the process Barnes (2012) believes social media is actively changing users expectations of what constitutes private and public writing. Social media functions by relying on its users to share personal information and data, therefore users personal contributions are fuelling the growth in private sharing of information over the Internet in a new era of public participation. The chief characteristics of participatory and social media is the breakdown in the division between producers and audience (Barna, 2009). This division was particularly clear in traditional mass media and has been largely erased, fostering a new culture built upon public participation. According to Barna (2009), advances in technology have allowed anyone with access to the Internet to be a producer of content. Participatory culture encourages people to share experiences and information for the purpose of news intended for mass audiences (public writing) or as a form of self-expression (traditionally termed private writing). Despite users still writing for both public and private outcomes, the division becomes blurred on the Internet given its public, indexed and network infrastructure. The uptake of social media paired with the emergence of a participatory culture means it is now virtually impossible to differentiate public and private writing (Là ¼ders, 2008). Debatin (2006) belie ves we are witnessing the dawn of a tightly woven global infosphere, a digitized networked panoptic sphere that leaves little space for unmonitored privacy. In the early modern era, the public sphere was a constitutive corollary of the private sphere. In the era of the info sphere, the public and private spheres become amalgamated, which results in public exploitation of private lives, increasing invasion of privacy, and continual diminishment of unmonitored privacy (Debatin (2006). The explosion of the info sphere can be seen through the sheer volume of uncensored and unmonitored content available today on any given topic. Similar to the paramount importance of print and literacy in the development and understanding of a public and private sphere as highlighted by Rettberg (2008), the development of an info sphere is underpinned by participatory media and networked technologies. The development of online social networks for traditional private writing such as a diary or journal, have facilitated a phenomenon known as blogging. Blogging is an activity that requires both reading and writing to an extent not present in earlier forms of writing (Rettberg, 2008). Rettberg (2008) states that blogging is evidence of the possibility of a form of literacy that is both private and public simultaneously: Bloggers read and write in the same space. You read other blogs and write comments. You write in your own blog, and read comments to your posts. The immediacy is even more apparent in instant messaging and micro media formats like Twitter. (Rettberg, 2008). The motivations of users writing a blog today may differ dramatically with blogs being used by businesses, organisations as well as individuals for a variety of purposes and audiences (McCullagh, 2008). According to Technorati (cited on Lomborg, 2009), blogs evolved as a platform for individuals writing for self-expression, sharing expertise and experiences and connecting with likeminded people, challenging the notion of traditional communities. Brake (cited in Lomborg, 2009), identified several key themes of weblogs communication: one-to-one, one-to-many, many-to-many and a communicative. The last pattern of communication (a communicative) is the type of blog Brake (cited in Lomborg, 2009) categorised as personal/lifeblog. In this instance, the intention of bloggers is purely for their own enjoyment and therapy not intended for audiences. However when personal writing is published on a blog platform it is instantly accessible to a global audience, essentially resulting in non-delibe rate public writing. The private versus public boundaries of social media spaces are unclear for users raising privacy and safety concerns for current and future generations. Vià ©gas (2005) research on teenagers on social media suggests there is a disconnect between the way users say they feel about the privacy settings of their blogs and how they react once they experience unanticipated consequences from a breach of privacy (section 4, para.15 ). Lenhart (2005) reports that 81 percent of parents and 79 percent of online teens report that teens are not cautious enough when giving out their personal information online. Some of the confusion about the public versus private space nature of social networks is associated with the sign-up and registration procedure. Sullivan (2005) believes sites such as Facebook who ask for personal details and set up requirements for membership tend to make young adopters of these technologies think it is safe to reveal private information online to a public networked audi ence. Boeder (2005) reiterates that social networking sites are creating new forms of social behaviour that blur the distinctions between public and private interactions and writing, causing confusion. Consequently users may use the update function on Facebook to write a very private update, as a form of self expression purely for their own intent and perhaps for that of close friends, without considering the far reaching global accessibility of their update. The update is then visible online not only to their network, but to the network of those who may comment or interact with the status, and indexed online infinitely. Facebook also quietens the reality during the sign up process that they offer the platform as a free tool for users by selling users personal information to advertisers (Horton, 2012). The future of writing in web based communications will ultimately result in the near total collapse of the division between private and public writing. The publicised aims of leading social media companies coupled with an increasing spread of network literacy globally will aid in the continued breakdown of this once well asserted division. Participatory media reposition, writing and reading will become more and more a social activity pursued in collaborative environments rather than solitary endeavours (Rheingold, 2007). This can already be seen in areas such as online education, with students collaborating through virtual communities and social networks, and education facilitators using platforms such as blogs and wikis for students to publish their work publicly on instead of lodging an assignment privately to the instructor only. Leading social networks which have facilitated many communicative shifts such as Facebook and Google have already taken steps to further diminish the pri vacy of their networks. During an interview with TechCrunch, Facebook CEO Zuckerberg revealed that he had taken an about face on privacy and argued that privacy was no longer a social norm (cited in Bosker, para.7). People have really gotten comfortable not only sharing more information and different kinds, but more openly and with more people, Zuckerberg said (cited in Bosker, para.7, 2010). That social norm is just something that has evolved over time (cited in Bosker, para. 8, 2010). Despite Zuckerbergs claims, others predict that social medias lack of respect for privacy boundaries may result in a backlash where users will disable their accounts to look for a more closed platform to connect with people they care about (Smith, 2012). In a recent school survey in the US (cited in Smith, 2012), it emerged that some students are opting out of Facebook of their own volition as a reaction against what they see as Face books privacy invasion and the problems Facebook use can cause for themselves and their peers (cited in Smith, 2012).Despite talks of a mass Facebook exodus, participation on social networks continues to grow and shows no signs of slowing. The future will be characterised by the continuing bridging between private and public, which as discussed, is currently visible in journalism, traditional mass produced media, blogs and other forms of participatory and social media. In conclusion, we are living through a second wave of literacy which is globally networked and largely underpinned by digital technologies. Todays blogging and other participatory media requires readers to be writers and writers to be readers simultaneously. This paper has examined both the emergence and almost complete collapse of private and public writing facilitated through the emergence of the Internet and social media coupled with a significant shift in user behaviour. While there is still a large element of solitude in reading and writing online, this paper has demonstrated the conversational and social aspects of this literacy increasing steadily and the implications for current and future generations. This is evident not only in online media such as blogging and social media, it is evident in all media and can also be seen in the way the general public participates in traditional media. This paper has highlighted writing on blogs and social media as particularly palpable sym ptoms of larger changes and discussed the risks involved with unclear boundaries around privacy on these platforms. Finally this paper has looked towards the future of web communications and the private and public sphere and suggested that whilst the collapse is most visible in online mainstream and social media, it will eventually occur across more and more channels as networked literacy spreads globally.

An Analysis Of Three Theories Of Personal Identity Philosophy Essay

An Analysis Of Three Theories Of Personal Identity Philosophy Essay Trying to define yourself is like trying to bite your own teeth Alan Watts. Personal Identity play its role as to define human with quality of its own which makes him or her a unique one. The identity of a person that is in question must be able to realize them, and he must be identified by other people. In short, what makes John unique from Felicia? Both internal (mind) and external (body) views are the two essential aspects that have to be differentiated by one. There are several general philosophical theories of this identity problem. Body theory, Soul theory and Conscious Theory will come to fit into the missing piece of the puzzle of personal identity. The body theory is one of the theories that define personal identity. It can be defined as when Person A has a personal identity if and only if they have the same body X. However, two problems can be found in this definition. Qualitatively, it is right to own the same body, but if changes happened to the body, can we still define that person as the same one? Everyones body is definitely different if we were to compare at the age of 60 and 4. Another problem popped out on the matter of body alteration. If Felicia becomes injured by a mine at war, and then her legs have to be amputated, is she not the same person, Felicia? Therefore, the definition of the theory is insufficient as the same body alteration is not accounted for. On the other hand, numerically, if a person lost his finger due to an accident, does that finger is counted as a different body? What if a scientist decided to use another persons DNA to clone another person with the exact same DNA? Two people with identical body surely cannot be the same person because they are still two different people with identical body. Both of them would be living totally different lives. Hence, in defining personal identity, the body theory by itself had failed to make it valid. The Soul theory will be the next common theory in defining personal identity. Similarly to the body theory: Person A has a personal identity if and only if they have the same soul. The idea became a lot more complicated when we are trying to define a rather controversial term soul. In the religion aspect, it is thought to be spirit of a person that passes through ones body into another realm (eg. Heaven or hell). However, it is still a mysterious phenomenon since there is no proof that can prove its existence. For instance, when a cloud changes to grayish puffy substance, we will still say, the cloud had turned gray. In short, we still recognized it as a cloud. It is just many souls in one body. Therefore, the soul theory is also not valid as it fails in that the definiens is insufficient to define personal identity.   The truest and most recognized philosophy theories about personal identity are the consciousness theory. However, this theory is interpreted differently in three ways: the experiential content, conscious self, and connected stream of consciousness theories. First on the list, the conscious self-theory: he or she is said to have personal identity if they have the same self-conscious. In another words, if there is a different conscious in two people, then both of them has personal identity. At first sight, it seems like a good theory to prove personal identity. It is analogous to Descartes cogito, I think therefore I am. Secondly, the consciousness of experiences theory is the common derivatives to the theory of consciousness. It is more easily known as the experiential content. This theory comes from the Lockes theory of having the mind blank, and accumulation from experiences. One is to have personal identity because only one person can experience at one finite space. We take twins f or instance. Although they have identical bodies, the moment they were born, they are already experiencing different moments. Therefore, both of them have personal identity because they experience different surroundings and see things in a different manner. The major problem is that we do not have the ability to remember every single experience in our life consciously. For instance, one can still tell another person what they have eaten three days ago but it is impossible for a person to tell another what they ate today after 10 years. In another example, one cannot be define as having different personal identity because they were drunk and acted like another person. In other words, because the human mind has failed to consciously remember every single moment of their lives, this theory eventually is invalid. The connected stream of consciousness will be the last theory about personal identity. With its definition of a persons identity is made out of a stream of connected conscious experiences, this theory eventually had solved the problem of human being unable to remember about their experience consciously. With this theory, we will still be the same person although we are unable to remember what we have done at the age of 4 when we are 60 years old. Generally with a finite mind, conscious is affiliated in a chronological pattern. In short, we will take the river as a metaphor. If you see a river flowing every day, you will not be looking at the same part of the river (representing body or experiences), however you will not be able to dispute that is not a river. Hence, let say the river is personal identity. This theory almost had it all right then. Thomas Reid which is also my preferred option to the idea of personal identity disagreed with Lockes memory theory by reducing it to absurdity. Lockes theory was criticized for a few irrelevancies. First of all, I strongly agree with what Reid hold on to. He thinks that personal identity should be determined with something that cannot be divided into parts indivisible but not by determining by operations. He, too, stated the main problem of Lockes is his ideas are of confusing proves of another thing with itself. Officer paradox was introduced by Reid at his attempt to Lockes theory to absurdity. A U.S. author, James Baldwin once quoted, An identity seemed like it has arrived by the way when a person faces and uses his experience. Assuming that we will not be able to put everything into a complete puzzle, we are left with one choice. Pluck a rose, separate the petals one by one which each petals represents one idea. Whatever came out at the end, it is you call by your very own intuition. Rà Ã‚ µfà Ã‚ µrà Ã‚ µnÑ Ãƒ Ã‚ µÃƒâ€˜Ã¢â‚¬ ¢

The New Deal :: essays research papers

In 1933 the new president, Franklin Roosevelt, brought an air of confidence and optimism that quickly rallied the people to the banner of his program, known as the New Deal. "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself," the president declared in his inaugural address to the nation. Perhaps he should have said the only thing we have to fear is complacency. What was truly unique about the New Deal was the speed with which it accomplished what previously had taken generations. However, many of the reforms were created in haste and weakly executed. And during the New Deal, public reproach and contention were never interrupted or suspended. When Roosevelt took the presidential oath, the banking and credit system of the nation was in a state of collapse. With astonishing speed the nation's banks were first closed and then reopened only if they were solvent. The administration adopted a policy of moderate currency inflation to start an upward movement in commodity prices and to afford some relief to debtors. New governmental agencies brought generous credit facilities to industry and agriculture. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) insured savings-bank deposits up to $5,000, and severe regulations were imposed upon the sale of securities on the stock exchange. In addition to aggressive legislation to corral the failing bank system FDR vigorously attacked unfair business practices. The National Recovery Administration (NRA), established in 1933 with the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA), attempted to end cut-throat competition by setting codes of fair competitive practice to generate more jobs and thus more buying. Although the NRA was welcomed initially, business complained bitterly of over-regulation as recovery began to take hold. The NRA was declared unconstitutional in 1935. By this time other policies were fostering recovery, and the government soon took the position that administered prices in certain lines of business were a severe drain on the national economy and a barrier to recovery. It was also during the New Deal that organized labor made greater gains than at any previous time in American history. NIRA had guaranteed to labor the right of collective bargaining (bargaining as a unit representing individual workers with industry), while not a new concept it was quite radical. Then in 1935 Congress passed the National Labor Relations Act, which defined unfair labor practices, gave workers the right to bargain through unions of their own choice and prohibited employers from interfering with union activities.

Do Men and Women Experience Pain Differently? :: Biology Essays Research Papers

Do Men and Women Experience Pain Differently? Pain has been an under-researched area of medicine, but today physicians are increasingly interested in the workings and treatment of various types of pain. In particular, a growing body of research exists on the different ways in which men and women may experience pain and the implications of these differences for medical treatment. Does the sex of an individual make a difference in their pain experience? Numerous researchers believe that women are more sensitive to pain than men, while others believe that the differences between the pain experiences of men and women are not significant. Over the course of my research I found that part of the problem in trying to answer the question lies in how scientists measure the pain experience of men and women. The difference in the pain experience of men and women is an understudied area because most previous studies of pain and its potential treatments have only used men or male animals. For scientists, using only males was simpler since women have reproductive hormone cycles that could complicate the studies. The implication of this, of course, is that sex differences in the experience of pain (and in many other aspects of health) has remained an understudied area. However, in 1993 President Clinton signed the NIH Revitalization Act, which requires the inclusion of women in NIH research. In 1996 the NIH formed a Pain Research Consortium, and in 1998 the NIH held a conference entitled "Gender and Pain" (1). At the NIH conference, some researchers argued that sex differences in pain are substantial and argued specifically that women are more sensitive to pain. For example, women report pain more often and also report it at higher levels than men. Additionally, when men and women are exposed to the same pain stimulus, women will say that they are in pain more quickly than men (1). However, others believe that sex differences in the experience of pain may not be so significant. The higher reported pain levels of women may be due more to gender socialization than to biological differences between men and women. For example, in most laboratory pain studies women report about twenty percent more pain than men (2). However, researchers at the University of Florida examined pain reporting of chronic pain patients in a clinical setting and found that women reported only three to ten percent more pain than men, a significantly smaller difference.

Fly Away Peter, David Malouf Essay

â€Å"Two little dickie birds, Sitting on a wall; One named Peter, One named Paul. Fly away Peter! Fly away Paul! Come Back Peter! Come Back Paul!† Traditional Throughout ‘Fly Away Peter’ Malouf utilises a variety of literary techniques such as contrast, Imagery, Symbolism and foreshadowing to portray ideas and themes. The title ‘Fly Away Peter’ makes reference to the traditional English nursery rhyme ‘Two Little Dickie Birds’. Moulaf utilises this nursery rhyme to make the connection between themes within ‘Fly Away Peter’ and everyday life. â€Å"Two little dickie birds, Sitting on a wall;† These opening lines of the nursery rhyme introduce two of the main ideas within the novel. The two birds talked about in the nursery rhyme are Peter and Paul. the birds and are a reference to the motif of birds seen throughout the book. The birds are used to symbolise the idea of life being a continuous cycle that carries on regardless of the situation, â€Å"even here, in the thick of the fighting, there were birds†. For Jim the birds symbolised normality and provided a â€Å"private reassurance†. This provided Jim with a sense of normality in the middle of ‘hell’. In the rhyme the wall symbolises the sanctuary. The sanctuary symbolises the ‘garden of Eden’ and Moulaf has used the sanctuary to contrast the war. This is introducing the idea of good versus evil. A variety of techniques are used to introduce the sanctuary. Being a poet, Moulaf has used long flowing descriptions utilising descriptive language such as â€Å"intensely blue† â€Å"tobacco brown† â€Å"flared† and â€Å"piano-wires singing†. These add an extra level to the understanding and the natural beauty of the sanctuary. The sanctuary is also used to introduce another theme of the novel, two planes of live. Within the first sentence Moulaf uses a narrator voice to introduce the setting of the novel. With the Use of Jim being a narrator Moulaf foreshadows the idea of there being two planes of life. â€Å"a clumsy shape had been lifting itself out of an invisible paddock†. The invisible paddock talked about in the first sentence is foreshadowing of the introduction of the two planes of life. Moulaf is also using symbolism. The â€Å"invisible paddock† symbolises the sky, and as later introduced the view from the sky is the second plane of life. Moulaf has used the lines; â€Å"One named Peter, One named Paul† to link the characters of the book to the religious views and ways of living in the 1960’s. In the 1750’s the rhyme ‘Two Little Dickie Birds’ talked of two birds names Jack and Gill, in the early 1900’s the names were changed to the disciples ‘Peter and Paul’. In ‘Fly away Peter’ Moulaf has used this link between the birds name to introduce the religious connections. The bird peter symbioses Jim and Paul symbolises Ashley in the context of ‘Fly away Peter’. Throughout the novel Moulaf uses the literary technique of narration to tell parts of the story. â€Å"The world Jim found himself in†¦Ã¢â‚¬  this narrator figure symbolises God. Jim and Ashley also symbolise angels. This references the first quote Moulaf placed in the front of the novel. The â€Å"divine creature† is an angel. Jim and Ashley are angels incarnated in a human form, and the ‘flying away’ is the time on earth and the coming back is the return to heaven. In the novel Jim dies from injuries sustained form a battle, and in this the cycle of his life is complete and he returns to heaven. The lines â€Å"Fly away peter, Fly away Paul† foreshadow Jim and Ashley going to fight in the war. The war is the complete contrast of the Sanctuary. The descriptive language used shows the contrast between the two locations. Moulaf describes the sanctuary using phrases such as â€Å"wooded country beyond† and â€Å"silvery scrub† in comparison to the description of the war; â€Å"The air was tormented† and â€Å"Deadly†. The war is over-run with rats, which are seen as creatures of evil, where as the sanctuary is full of birds which are  creatures of the sky. Moulaf also uses the cattle trucks to symbolise how the soldiers were treated. The trucks had a sign which read â€Å"eight horses or forty men† meaning the army treated the soldiers as if they were as replicable as cattle. The cattle trucks also took the cattle to the abattoir, likewise the cattle truck is taking the majority of the soldiers to their death. The rhyme itself is a cycle, the birds fly away and come back again â€Å"Come back Peter! Come back Paul!†. With the religious understanding and interpretation of the novel the coming back is returning to heaven, however the coming back can also be related to the quote at the beginning of the book, where it talks about â€Å"the stone will be our bed†, the returning is being buried in the earth. Moulaf introduces the theme of digging early in the novel, however this motif is used when Jim is dying. During war digging symbolises a grave, and after a long exposure to war Jim assumes digging has to be for a grave â€Å"a grave it must be†. During Jim’s stream of consciousness before his death he meets Clancy, the first hint that Jim has either passed on or is hallucinating. Clancy instructs Jim to dig, â€Å"That’s the style! Dig†. When you are buried you are returned to the earth, and hence returned to the stone. This is part of the continuous cycle of life. The lines â€Å"Come Back Peter! Come Back Paul!† foreshadow the ending of the novel and complete the cycle, which is one of the key themes Moulaf is portraying. Moulaf has used a variety of literary techniques such as contrast, Imagery, Symbolism and foreshadowing to portray ideas and themes throughout ‘Fly Away Peter’. Malouf focuses on the theme the continuous circle of life to illustrate the connection between the novel and life â€Å"the places, the stories of a life that was continuous elsewhere†.

Strategic Plan of Shangri-La Hotel

Table of Contents 1. 0Introduction2 2. 0Strategic Plan3 3. 0Describe mission statement, strategic goals and corporate strategies for a hotel4 3. 1Mission Statement4 3. 2Strategic Goals6 3. 3Corporate Strategies7 3. 3. 1Shangri-La Care 1: Shangri-La Hospitality from Caring People9 3. 3. 2Shangri-La Care 2: Delighting Customers9 3. 3. 3Shangri-La Care 3: Recover to Gain Loyalty9 3. 3. 4Shangri-La Care 4:  Take Ownership10 4. 0SWOT chart for the Shangri-La Hotel11 5. 0Conclusion14 6. 0Reference15 1. 0 Introduction Our group have chosen Shangri La as our topic of discussion for our report writing.Shangri La is a cooperation that has a lot of hotels and resorts in the whole wide world. The name of ‘Shangri La’ was actually from a novel published in 1933 named, ‘Lost Horizon’ written by James Hilton. In present days, the name ‘Shangri La’ has become famous in the worldwide. In 1971, Shangri La has its own deluxe hotel in Singapore. After that, Shang ri La had grew into a huge cooperation which own 72 hotels and resorts in different countries, such as, Asia Pacific, North America, the Middle East, Europe and yet Shangri La is planning to develop more hotels in different countries.Besides that, Shangri La has two Asia’s most prestigious recreational clubs, that is, the Aberdeen Marina Club in Hong Kong, and the Xili Golf and Country Club in Shenzhen. Furthermore, Shangri La’s always follow Asian Hospitality as their unique hospitality to treat their customer. In order to compete with other hotels and resorts, Shangri La had emphasized on hospitality towards their customer. The main thing that makes Shangri La being successful and being different from the other hotels and resorts is offering high level of Asian standards of hospitality and caring for people.Therefore, Shangri La hotels and resorts will care for each and every customer. They will make sure that every customer will satisfied with their services. Shangr i La search for trendsetters and professionals to serve their customer and to achieve the goal, that is, to make sure every customer has great experience once they stay in the hotels and resorts. Strategic planning is critical to business success. Different from classic business planning, the strategic variety involves vision, mission and outside-of-the-box thinking.Strategic planning describes where you want your company to go, not necessarily how you're going to get there. However, like all other â€Å"travel plans,† without knowing where you want to go, creating details on how to arrive are meaningless. Strategic planning defines the â€Å"where† that your company is heading. In order for a business to be successful, there needs to be a roadmap for success. A strategic plan helps to provide direction and focus for all employees. It points to specific results that are to be achieved and establishes a course of action for achieving them.A strategic plan also helps the various work units within an organization to align themselves with common goals. Building a strategic plan is not difficult. It will take some thought and some feedback from customers and others, but businesses should be routinely garnering feedback from appropriate constituent groups on an on-going basis. The process of developing a strategic plan should be rewarding for all involved and usually helps develop stronger communications between members of the planning team. Once developed, the key to making the plan work is a commitment to seeing it through and sound implementation.Many businesses have developed strategic plans only to put them on a shelf to gather dust. Managers need a well-developed strategic plan in order to effectively establish expectations for their employees. Without a plan, expectations are developed in a void and there is little or no alignment with common goals. A good strategic plan looks out 2 to 5 years and describes clearly how the business will grow and prosper over that planning horizon. 2. 0 Strategic Plan 3. 0 Describe mission statement, strategic goals and corporate strategies for a hotel 4. Mission Statement In 2010, Shangri-La Hotels and Resorts had more than seventy hotels and 40,000 employees, with a vision to double within five years, all while maintaining their unique culture of high quality caring and hospitality. In recent years, the hotel chain has won almost every global award, including Asia’s best hotel brand for business and vacation, best luxury hotel chain (Asia Money), best business hotel brand in Asia Pacific (Business Traveler) and top five best overseas hotel (Observer and Guardian) (Marquardt 2011).Shangri-La has a powerful vision for its employees as well as its guests. Employee learning and development is an integral role in Shangri-La and is part of the company’s mission, which states that its aim includes â€Å"enabling all employees to achieve their personal and professional growth. â₠¬  Eng Leong Tan, Director for HR notes, â€Å"We seek to be the first choice employer among hospitality workers. We are committed to providing an environment in which employees can learn and grow.It is not enough just to pay well and offer good benefits. Growth opportunities are equally important, especially to younger employees† (Marquardt 2011). Shangri-La’s hotel mission statement we envision a community of responsible and educated citizens who are environmentally conscious, practice social responsibility in their daily lives and inspire others to do the same. We commit to operating in an economically, socially and environmentally responsible manner whilst balancing the interest of diverse stakeholders (Lincoln 2007).We strive to be a leader in corporate citizenship and sustainable development, caring for our employees and customers, seeking to enrich the quality of life for the communities in which we do business and serving as good stewards of society and the en vironment (Shangri-La Asia Limited 2010). â€Å"To delight our guests every time by creating engaging experiences straight from our hearts†. Again the same, they want to delight their quests, but as there is a low traffic of guests, it is self explanatory that they are not fulfilling the needs of their guests.According to their mission they want to differentiate them with others by providing the guests a feeling of home and interacting but for that they need customers, without that they can’t do anything (Kumar Swain 2011). 4. 2 Strategic Goals Shangri-La Hotel is a facility of services which provide places to stay for customers around the world. It is known as a hotel or a resort for consumers to relax or  even have a  vacation at  the hotel. Shangri-La Hotel is a  much known hotel in Singapore  because it was founded there itself. Shangri-La Hotel has provided a hotel for business traveler.Therefore, it has made another target of business in its management. With these targets, the company has proven to be the world’s best finest hotel in management and services. This hotel has also been situated in Malaysia itself, which have also become a finest hotel for business travelers and also travelers around the world and locally. Therefore, with these achievements, we have decided to make a research about the company itself and prove of its facility that satisfies us as a customer (Shangri-La International Hotel Management Ltd. 2012).Great hotels are made by great employees, not by crystal chandeliers or expensive carpets. This strongly held belief at Shangri-La Hotels and Resorts translates to a firm commitment to employee development. Such dedication will be increasingly important as the group’s workforce grows from 37,000 to nearly 60,000 by 2013 (Shangri-La International Hotel Management Ltd. 2012). The process begins with careful selection staff are â€Å"hired for attitude, trained for skills† providing a fertile f oundation for the Shangri-La philosophies to be embraced.Shangri-La then invests heavily in training perhaps more than any other hotel group with intensive, ongoing coaching for all staff at 68 hotels and resorts. The group then retains its high caliber staff by creating an environment whereby employees may achieve their personal and career goals. Shangri-La has one of the lowest staff turnover rate in the industry (Shangri-La International Hotel Management Ltd. 2012). 4. 3 Corporate Strategies Shangri-La Care the group’s defining feature is its exceptional and warm hospitality, as defined by its philosophy Shangri-La hospitality from caring people.All staff undergoes the â€Å"Shangri-La Care† training programme within six months of joining the group. The programme is designed to develop a consistent Shangri-La style of service to deliver a superior guest experience and build brand loyalty. Respect, courtesy, sincerity, helpfulness and humility are all core values of the training. Under the umbrella theme â€Å"Shangri-La Care the Shangri-La Way† the programme is divided into four modules: Shangri-La Care 1 – â€Å"Shangri-La hospitality from caring people†, Shangri-La Care 2 – â€Å"Delighting customers†, Shangri-La Care 3 – â€Å"Recover to gain loyalty† and Shangri-La Care 4 – â€Å"Taking ownership. The four modules of Shangri-La Care focus on the group’s mission: Delighting customers each and every time, part of Shangri-La’s guiding principles (Mohd  Rizal 2007). Shangri-La Care is a living culture within the group, strongly supported by top management and continuously cascaded through the organization. All hotels are required to allocate a specific budget for people training and development and the hotels’ general managers are responsible for ensuring the all the allocated funds are spent year after year.Below is Shangri-La Care Modules that line out what servi ce personnel do and how to serve their customers should best (Shangri-La International Hotel Management Ltd. 2012). 4. 4. 1 Shangri-La Care 1: Shangri-La Hospitality from Caring People First of all, addresses how to make the guests feel special and important by focusing on the five core values of Shangri-La Hospitality: Respect, Humility, Courtesy, Helpfulness and Sincerity. It also imbues  the value of  Ã¢â‚¬ËœPride without Arrogance’ as the service  hallmark (Mohd  Rizal 2007). . 4. 2 Shangri-La Care 2: Delighting Customers Focuses on the importance of guest loyalty and how it can only be achieved by delighting the guests not just the first time but every single time. Employees must be guest obsessed, doing more for guests by ‘going the extra mile', being flexible and never  saying no, anticipating and responding quickly, and recognizing the guest's individual needs (Mohd  Rizal 2007). 4. 4. 3 Shangri-La Care 3: Recover to Gain Loyalty High lights the impo rtance of recovery when a mistake is made.When recovery is done well, it may be an opportunity to gain further commitment and loyalty but if there is no or poor recovery the lifetime value of the guest is lost in addition to at least 25 others who may hear of the incident through word of mouth. The module teaches the five steps to recovery – Listen, Apologize, Fix the Problem, Delight – the Extra Mile and Follow Up (Mohd  Rizal 2007). 4. 4. 4 Shangri-La Care 4:  Take Ownership Finally, addresses the importance of our employees taking ownership to show care for the customers, colleagues and company.The driver of ownership is  Ã¢â‚¬Å"SELF†, which means S (Show commitment), E (Eager to take initiative), L (Lead ourselves) and F (Filled with  passion). This module attempts to create in the employee’s the mind-set to live in an environment that is  filled with  Care for  guests, Compassion for colleagues and  Pride in the  company (Mohd  Riz al 2007). 4. 0 SWOT chart for the Shangri-La Hotel Strengths| Weaknesses| 1) Shangri-La Hotel is regarded as one of the world’s best management hotel.It includes Shangri-La Hotel and Traders Hotels. 2) Shangri-La Hotel manages to train well employees who are able to provide better quality services to customers. 3) Shangri-La owns strong capital and service that helps it earn good reputation and consumer loyalty. 4) Shangri-La Hotel the uniqueness of interior design of the hotel rooms, lobby, dining cafe and state of the art facilities has been able to attract customer’s intention. It also has been on the luxury of facilities, which can make customers feel comfortable. ) Improved the existing electronic Best Practice process to ensure company-wide benchmarking where ideas with potential for global implementation are highlighted. The most valuable Best Practice recognition was created and is awarded on an annual basis. | 1) Senior executives approaching retirement with n o clear recognizable successor. 2) Problems in recruiting employees to work at the resorts. 3) Shangri-La is very famous in Asia but not in the other continents. So it is hard to attract those customers. ) Losing market share to rivals and higher overall unit costs relative to rivals 5) Unattractive compensation packages. Thus, failure to understand culture differences. | Opportunities| Threats| 1) Relatively safe and peaceful business environment. No natural disaster around the Hotel location, no riots, no terrorist attack, without violent protest or demonstration. 2) The resort hotel is located in a unique island with beautiful beaches and clear water ideal for snorkeling and living activities. 3) Shangri-La has opportunities to attract more ustomers. And then it can improve its fame all around the world. 4) The income of residents continued to rise, according to Maslow’s theory of the level demand, when the people’s living standards up to a certain extent, they hope to meet spiritual needs. Hotel facilities will attract customers’ so the hotel consumption of the people will continue to increase. 5) Increase presences in Asia and also relaxed travel restrictions. | 1) Aggressive fishing activities have been carried out nearby the island lately and it has caused unduly pollution as a result. ) There are many existing and newly built island resorts in the Asia-Pacific region. 3) The competitors are strong. There are lots kinds of hotels, so Shangri-La does not have tremendous competitiveness. 4) Restrictions on travel. 5) Increase in the cost of labor and current economic situation. | SWOT analysis can be defined as â€Å"a critical assessment of the strengths and weaknesses, opportunities and treats in relation to the internal and environment factors affecting an entity in order to establish its condition prior to the preparation of the long term plan. In addition, strengths and weaknesses analysis involves looking at the particular stre ngths and weaknesses of the organization itself and itself and its products/services range. It is an internal appraisal. An analysis of opportunities and threats is concerned with profit making opportunities in the business environment and with identified threats such as falling demand, government legislation and new competition etc. Therefore it is an external appraisal. 5. 0 Reference ) Online Business Advisor, 2006, (Why is Strategic Planning important), viewed 23 February 2012, Available from: http://www. onlinebusadv. com/? PAGE=171 2) David Ingram, D 2012 (Why is the Implementation of projects important to strategic Planning and the Project Manager) viewed 23 February 2012, Available from: http://smallbusiness. chron. com/implementation-projects-important-strategic-planning-project-manager-18215. html 3) Shangri-La 2012, (International Hotel Management Ltd. ) viewed 23 February 2012, Available from: http://www. shangri-la. com/en/corporate/aboutus/overview 4) Strategic Plan of Shangri-La Hotel Table of Contents 1. 0Introduction2 2. 0Strategic Plan3 3. 0Describe mission statement, strategic goals and corporate strategies for a hotel4 3. 1Mission Statement4 3. 2Strategic Goals6 3. 3Corporate Strategies7 3. 3. 1Shangri-La Care 1: Shangri-La Hospitality from Caring People9 3. 3. 2Shangri-La Care 2: Delighting Customers9 3. 3. 3Shangri-La Care 3: Recover to Gain Loyalty9 3. 3. 4Shangri-La Care 4:  Take Ownership10 4. 0SWOT chart for the Shangri-La Hotel11 5. 0Conclusion14 6. 0Reference15 1. 0 Introduction Our group have chosen Shangri La as our topic of discussion for our report writing.Shangri La is a cooperation that has a lot of hotels and resorts in the whole wide world. The name of ‘Shangri La’ was actually from a novel published in 1933 named, ‘Lost Horizon’ written by James Hilton. In present days, the name ‘Shangri La’ has become famous in the worldwide. In 1971, Shangri La has its own deluxe hotel in Singapore. After that, Shang ri La had grew into a huge cooperation which own 72 hotels and resorts in different countries, such as, Asia Pacific, North America, the Middle East, Europe and yet Shangri La is planning to develop more hotels in different countries.Besides that, Shangri La has two Asia’s most prestigious recreational clubs, that is, the Aberdeen Marina Club in Hong Kong, and the Xili Golf and Country Club in Shenzhen. Furthermore, Shangri La’s always follow Asian Hospitality as their unique hospitality to treat their customer. In order to compete with other hotels and resorts, Shangri La had emphasized on hospitality towards their customer. The main thing that makes Shangri La being successful and being different from the other hotels and resorts is offering high level of Asian standards of hospitality and caring for people.Therefore, Shangri La hotels and resorts will care for each and every customer. They will make sure that every customer will satisfied with their services. Shangr i La search for trendsetters and professionals to serve their customer and to achieve the goal, that is, to make sure every customer has great experience once they stay in the hotels and resorts. Strategic planning is critical to business success. Different from classic business planning, the strategic variety involves vision, mission and outside-of-the-box thinking.Strategic planning describes where you want your company to go, not necessarily how you're going to get there. However, like all other â€Å"travel plans,† without knowing where you want to go, creating details on how to arrive are meaningless. Strategic planning defines the â€Å"where† that your company is heading. In order for a business to be successful, there needs to be a roadmap for success. A strategic plan helps to provide direction and focus for all employees. It points to specific results that are to be achieved and establishes a course of action for achieving them.A strategic plan also helps the various work units within an organization to align themselves with common goals. Building a strategic plan is not difficult. It will take some thought and some feedback from customers and others, but businesses should be routinely garnering feedback from appropriate constituent groups on an on-going basis. The process of developing a strategic plan should be rewarding for all involved and usually helps develop stronger communications between members of the planning team. Once developed, the key to making the plan work is a commitment to seeing it through and sound implementation.Many businesses have developed strategic plans only to put them on a shelf to gather dust. Managers need a well-developed strategic plan in order to effectively establish expectations for their employees. Without a plan, expectations are developed in a void and there is little or no alignment with common goals. A good strategic plan looks out 2 to 5 years and describes clearly how the business will grow and prosper over that planning horizon. 2. 0 Strategic Plan 3. 0 Describe mission statement, strategic goals and corporate strategies for a hotel 4. Mission Statement In 2010, Shangri-La Hotels and Resorts had more than seventy hotels and 40,000 employees, with a vision to double within five years, all while maintaining their unique culture of high quality caring and hospitality. In recent years, the hotel chain has won almost every global award, including Asia’s best hotel brand for business and vacation, best luxury hotel chain (Asia Money), best business hotel brand in Asia Pacific (Business Traveler) and top five best overseas hotel (Observer and Guardian) (Marquardt 2011).Shangri-La has a powerful vision for its employees as well as its guests. Employee learning and development is an integral role in Shangri-La and is part of the company’s mission, which states that its aim includes â€Å"enabling all employees to achieve their personal and professional growth. â₠¬  Eng Leong Tan, Director for HR notes, â€Å"We seek to be the first choice employer among hospitality workers. We are committed to providing an environment in which employees can learn and grow.It is not enough just to pay well and offer good benefits. Growth opportunities are equally important, especially to younger employees† (Marquardt 2011). Shangri-La’s hotel mission statement we envision a community of responsible and educated citizens who are environmentally conscious, practice social responsibility in their daily lives and inspire others to do the same. We commit to operating in an economically, socially and environmentally responsible manner whilst balancing the interest of diverse stakeholders (Lincoln 2007).We strive to be a leader in corporate citizenship and sustainable development, caring for our employees and customers, seeking to enrich the quality of life for the communities in which we do business and serving as good stewards of society and the en vironment (Shangri-La Asia Limited 2010). â€Å"To delight our guests every time by creating engaging experiences straight from our hearts†. Again the same, they want to delight their quests, but as there is a low traffic of guests, it is self explanatory that they are not fulfilling the needs of their guests.According to their mission they want to differentiate them with others by providing the guests a feeling of home and interacting but for that they need customers, without that they can’t do anything (Kumar Swain 2011). 4. 2 Strategic Goals Shangri-La Hotel is a facility of services which provide places to stay for customers around the world. It is known as a hotel or a resort for consumers to relax or  even have a  vacation at  the hotel. Shangri-La Hotel is a  much known hotel in Singapore  because it was founded there itself. Shangri-La Hotel has provided a hotel for business traveler.Therefore, it has made another target of business in its management. With these targets, the company has proven to be the world’s best finest hotel in management and services. This hotel has also been situated in Malaysia itself, which have also become a finest hotel for business travelers and also travelers around the world and locally. Therefore, with these achievements, we have decided to make a research about the company itself and prove of its facility that satisfies us as a customer (Shangri-La International Hotel Management Ltd. 2012).Great hotels are made by great employees, not by crystal chandeliers or expensive carpets. This strongly held belief at Shangri-La Hotels and Resorts translates to a firm commitment to employee development. Such dedication will be increasingly important as the group’s workforce grows from 37,000 to nearly 60,000 by 2013 (Shangri-La International Hotel Management Ltd. 2012). The process begins with careful selection staff are â€Å"hired for attitude, trained for skills† providing a fertile f oundation for the Shangri-La philosophies to be embraced.Shangri-La then invests heavily in training perhaps more than any other hotel group with intensive, ongoing coaching for all staff at 68 hotels and resorts. The group then retains its high caliber staff by creating an environment whereby employees may achieve their personal and career goals. Shangri-La has one of the lowest staff turnover rate in the industry (Shangri-La International Hotel Management Ltd. 2012). 4. 3 Corporate Strategies Shangri-La Care the group’s defining feature is its exceptional and warm hospitality, as defined by its philosophy Shangri-La hospitality from caring people.All staff undergoes the â€Å"Shangri-La Care† training programme within six months of joining the group. The programme is designed to develop a consistent Shangri-La style of service to deliver a superior guest experience and build brand loyalty. Respect, courtesy, sincerity, helpfulness and humility are all core values of the training. Under the umbrella theme â€Å"Shangri-La Care the Shangri-La Way† the programme is divided into four modules: Shangri-La Care 1 – â€Å"Shangri-La hospitality from caring people†, Shangri-La Care 2 – â€Å"Delighting customers†, Shangri-La Care 3 – â€Å"Recover to gain loyalty† and Shangri-La Care 4 – â€Å"Taking ownership. The four modules of Shangri-La Care focus on the group’s mission: Delighting customers each and every time, part of Shangri-La’s guiding principles (Mohd  Rizal 2007). Shangri-La Care is a living culture within the group, strongly supported by top management and continuously cascaded through the organization. All hotels are required to allocate a specific budget for people training and development and the hotels’ general managers are responsible for ensuring the all the allocated funds are spent year after year.Below is Shangri-La Care Modules that line out what servi ce personnel do and how to serve their customers should best (Shangri-La International Hotel Management Ltd. 2012). 4. 4. 1 Shangri-La Care 1: Shangri-La Hospitality from Caring People First of all, addresses how to make the guests feel special and important by focusing on the five core values of Shangri-La Hospitality: Respect, Humility, Courtesy, Helpfulness and Sincerity. It also imbues  the value of  Ã¢â‚¬ËœPride without Arrogance’ as the service  hallmark (Mohd  Rizal 2007). . 4. 2 Shangri-La Care 2: Delighting Customers Focuses on the importance of guest loyalty and how it can only be achieved by delighting the guests not just the first time but every single time. Employees must be guest obsessed, doing more for guests by ‘going the extra mile', being flexible and never  saying no, anticipating and responding quickly, and recognizing the guest's individual needs (Mohd  Rizal 2007). 4. 4. 3 Shangri-La Care 3: Recover to Gain Loyalty High lights the impo rtance of recovery when a mistake is made.When recovery is done well, it may be an opportunity to gain further commitment and loyalty but if there is no or poor recovery the lifetime value of the guest is lost in addition to at least 25 others who may hear of the incident through word of mouth. The module teaches the five steps to recovery – Listen, Apologize, Fix the Problem, Delight – the Extra Mile and Follow Up (Mohd  Rizal 2007). 4. 4. 4 Shangri-La Care 4:  Take Ownership Finally, addresses the importance of our employees taking ownership to show care for the customers, colleagues and company.The driver of ownership is  Ã¢â‚¬Å"SELF†, which means S (Show commitment), E (Eager to take initiative), L (Lead ourselves) and F (Filled with  passion). This module attempts to create in the employee’s the mind-set to live in an environment that is  filled with  Care for  guests, Compassion for colleagues and  Pride in the  company (Mohd  Riz al 2007). 4. 0 SWOT chart for the Shangri-La Hotel Strengths| Weaknesses| 1) Shangri-La Hotel is regarded as one of the world’s best management hotel.It includes Shangri-La Hotel and Traders Hotels. 2) Shangri-La Hotel manages to train well employees who are able to provide better quality services to customers. 3) Shangri-La owns strong capital and service that helps it earn good reputation and consumer loyalty. 4) Shangri-La Hotel the uniqueness of interior design of the hotel rooms, lobby, dining cafe and state of the art facilities has been able to attract customer’s intention. It also has been on the luxury of facilities, which can make customers feel comfortable. ) Improved the existing electronic Best Practice process to ensure company-wide benchmarking where ideas with potential for global implementation are highlighted. The most valuable Best Practice recognition was created and is awarded on an annual basis. | 1) Senior executives approaching retirement with n o clear recognizable successor. 2) Problems in recruiting employees to work at the resorts. 3) Shangri-La is very famous in Asia but not in the other continents. So it is hard to attract those customers. ) Losing market share to rivals and higher overall unit costs relative to rivals 5) Unattractive compensation packages. Thus, failure to understand culture differences. | Opportunities| Threats| 1) Relatively safe and peaceful business environment. No natural disaster around the Hotel location, no riots, no terrorist attack, without violent protest or demonstration. 2) The resort hotel is located in a unique island with beautiful beaches and clear water ideal for snorkeling and living activities. 3) Shangri-La has opportunities to attract more ustomers. And then it can improve its fame all around the world. 4) The income of residents continued to rise, according to Maslow’s theory of the level demand, when the people’s living standards up to a certain extent, they hope to meet spiritual needs. Hotel facilities will attract customers’ so the hotel consumption of the people will continue to increase. 5) Increase presences in Asia and also relaxed travel restrictions. | 1) Aggressive fishing activities have been carried out nearby the island lately and it has caused unduly pollution as a result. ) There are many existing and newly built island resorts in the Asia-Pacific region. 3) The competitors are strong. There are lots kinds of hotels, so Shangri-La does not have tremendous competitiveness. 4) Restrictions on travel. 5) Increase in the cost of labor and current economic situation. | SWOT analysis can be defined as â€Å"a critical assessment of the strengths and weaknesses, opportunities and treats in relation to the internal and environment factors affecting an entity in order to establish its condition prior to the preparation of the long term plan. In addition, strengths and weaknesses analysis involves looking at the particular stre ngths and weaknesses of the organization itself and itself and its products/services range. It is an internal appraisal. An analysis of opportunities and threats is concerned with profit making opportunities in the business environment and with identified threats such as falling demand, government legislation and new competition etc. Therefore it is an external appraisal. 5. 0 Reference ) Online Business Advisor, 2006, (Why is Strategic Planning important), viewed 23 February 2012, Available from: http://www. onlinebusadv. com/? PAGE=171 2) David Ingram, D 2012 (Why is the Implementation of projects important to strategic Planning and the Project Manager) viewed 23 February 2012, Available from: http://smallbusiness. chron. com/implementation-projects-important-strategic-planning-project-manager-18215. html 3) Shangri-La 2012, (International Hotel Management Ltd. ) viewed 23 February 2012, Available from: http://www. shangri-la. com/en/corporate/aboutus/overview 4)