Bob Knowlton Case analysis Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Bob Knowlton analysis - Case Study Example Knowlton felt threatened because Fester was quick to spot problems, knew about things that he had barely studied at the lab, and could single handedly solve huge problems- some of which had been abandoned long time back. Fester was intelligent, confident and secure but what Bob failed to see was that he was a poor team player. How Fester Threatened Knowlton: From day one, Fester made it clear that he had immense knowledge. He told Knowlton he could tell what his project was about by simply looking at the graphs. Knowlton was quick to acknowledge this when he met Jerrold the next day. Fester was introduced to other members of the team and went right ahead to tell Link, the mathematician, what he was doing wrong. Fester challenged the group thinking, believing it only led to mediocrity. Knowlton had always believed in group-thinking and Fester had suddenly come up with solutions single handedly which made Knowlton question the efficacy of group thinking. Fester would often come up with analysis and scientific knowledge that Knowlton was unaware of. Instead of helping Knowlton understand what he was talking about, Fester would enthusiastically go on explaining his theories expecting everyone to already know what he was talking about. This gave him a superior status while everyone else felt inferior to him. During one meeting, he challenged Link's way of thinking and offered solution to a problem that Link had long abandoned feeling that it could not be solved. Fester also pointed out the weaknesses in various experiments and experimenting method and claimed that if this method were followed, resulted would be inconclusive. Fester's... This paper presents Bob Knowlton’s strengths. Bob Knowlton had been working with Simmons Laboratories for two years and had been made project head only recently. He was a leader whom people loved and respected. He had a good relationship with company’s head, Mr. Jerrold. He was a capable leader who would enjoy developing relationships with others and encouraged group thinking. He felt that while there were some problems that could not be solved by group thinking, in most cases, the ideas that emerged from such an approach were helpful. Knowlton had been promoted when he had accidentally stumbled on the idea of photon reactor. Knowlton was hardworking and enjoyed staying late in the office. This helped him find some quiet time to think over various problems and to assess project’s progress. He was a man with a traditional yet highly admired style of leadership. The paper also demonstrated Knowlton’s mistake. Knowlton was felt so threatened by Fester that he totally blinded himself to his obvious flaws. Had Knowlton been more secure and sure of himself, he would have talked to Jerrold and pointed those flaws. It would have then become easier to see that Fester could never replace Knowlton as the leader because Knowlton was a true team player- a key trait of a good leader and a pre-requisite for becoming a leader in the first place. Bob Knowlton should have focused on his own strengths as a leader. He already knew that he couldn’t possibly know about everything but he was a good leader who could use his people’s strengths to his advantage.

E Business Integration Systems Of Alibaba

E Business Integration Systems Of Alibaba Alibaba.com is commonly quoted among the leading 5 websites in the world. Other 5 websites which are competing in the same race are Amazon, Yahoo, eBay as well as AOL, with the help of domestic as well as international media. Hence, in other words, www.alibaba.com is a top rated business-to-business (B2B) as well as business-to-consumer (B2C) website. The e-business integration system of this website, in general, needs such a tactic, which has a touching appeal in order to produce prompt action. Hence, principally for an expensive products or assistance, this website is required to offer superior depth of information to the customers (both buyers as well as suppliers) in order to assist them in their assessment of this business. This website is useful for both buyers as well as sellers. Hence, one can buy as well as sell products also. This website is basically an English-language website as English is the only language which can be understood by whole world. So, there is no geographical challenge for this website to seek attention of customers. It primarily serves small as well as Medium-Sized Enterprises or in short SME, in the worldwide trade community, and hence, around 1 million users have registered themselves to this site from more than 200 countries as well as territories. Over 300,000 visitors go through this site every s ingle day, among which maximum users are global buyers as well as importers who are looking for trading with traders in China as well as other foremost manufacturing nations all over the world. Hence, the primary customers for this website are Suppliers, Exporters, Manufacturers as well as Importers. Problem Statement As www.alibaba.com is a website on a broader perspective, millions and trillions of customers go through it and trade accordingly. Now, the main problems while designing this website which needs to be solved are following: The website must be user friendly, so that it should not be problem for a buyer or a seller to navigate the site and work accordingly. Not everyone is well versed with internet technology; hence, its really important to make a comfortable website with not very complicated language. but, on the same hand, the website should be attractive enough to appeal visitors to go through it. Secondly, its a normal tendency that customers usually like to inspect the merchandise before purchase; hence, they can assume that they are at advanced threat of fraud as they are not able to inspect the product and services physically. There is one more risk of making purchase with the help of stolen credit cards or any other counterfeit refutation of the online purchase. Hence, this website needs to be more reliable and secured from customers perspective. Third problem area is that Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) encryption is a must to be used for secured transaction otherwise not a single buyer as well as supplier will want to use their credit card for this purpose. SSL is a technique which usually solves the difficulty of credit cards which, many times, got disconnected in delivery between the customer and the business. A lot of hackers are there to hack the transaction in between; hence, SSL should be compulsorily used in order to avoid Identity theft. Thus, computer security is really a major concern, now days, for both merchants as well as e-commerce service providers, who install countermeasures like, firewalls as well as anti-virus software, which is essential for protecting the network. Phishing is one more danger, where customers are fooled by thinking that they are trading with retailer of good reputation, while, they are actually manipulated to feed confidential information to such a system which is controlled by malicious parties. Hence, website needs to be secured enough to avoid the circumstances of Phishing. One more problem area is privacy. No one wants to share their personal and confidential information with third party or over unsecured network because of risk; hence, registration must be very confidential and secured. Even, a lot of consumers do not like spam and telemarketing also, which can lead to providing contact data to any online merchant. Objective This research intend to develop as well as design a website with inbuilt e-commerce techniques, such as, B-2-C (Business-to-Consumers) as well as B-2-B (Business-to-Business) features meant for efficient marketing approaches. Moreover, there are few more specific objectives while designing this site, as well. First is to build up such a system which must permit a process of monitoring in order to maintain database interactivity. Second objective is to create such a data-driven application where the contents of the web can be reorganized dynamically. Furthermore, last but not the least objective is to provide as well as improve all the product information and allocation for Alibaba.com. Summary Alibaba.com is one of the global leaders in the world of e-commerce for small scale business organizations as well as flagship corporations of Alibaba Group. This website offers internet as well as Web-related services to customers all over the world. The services provided by this website are selling different products to its customers. As this website is designed on the principle of Business to Business (B2B) and Business to Customer (B2C), both, buyers as well as suppliers are its customers. Based on the experience along with expertise in both business-to-consumer and business-to-business sales, this business organization believe that it can offer a unique as well as superior service to its customers across the whole world, in comparison to what is currently available. The development of this project is based on the phases of System development Life Cycle. All the problem areas have been identified and hence, a user-friendly website has been created. These phases of development will emphasize most of the aspects of this system and the business. Planning Planning is something which is very important for any organization to do as it will help in organizing things in a planned manner. We can be successful in what we are doing if proper planning is done. We need to understand the purpose of planning the things. This will help in going in the right path. There are many important things which have to be taken care when planning for a task. Planning a website is again the most important thing as it is used by the users of the organization. This is something which has to be taken care seriously. Proper planning will lead to the success of the company. It is always advisable to design a website with the help of experienced people. There are two main steps in planning for a task. Project intention: This is something which helps in understanding the importance of the project. The value of the project should be known properly. Our final intention of creating a website is to increase the revenue of the company. Website should be planned in such a way that it is user friendly. Users should be able to use the website and should get the required information from it. Website planning is an important task and should be taken seriously. Details about the company should be included. Search options should be very friendly. This will help in navigating properly across the site. We should design the website in such a way that customer can get all the information that they are looking out for. We should look into minimizing the work and should think of saving money. Website should be designed in such a way that customers are visited quite often and can be impressed with the websites information. This will increase the number of users and also helps in increasing the revenu e of the company. Project management: Project management is very important as it will help in understanding the requirements. We should be very careful when designing the website. We should a proper planning of how to create the website. Care should be taken that the size of the website should be enough to get into it as it may slow down which will in turn increase customers frustration. Designed website should be virus free which will increase customers visit and also will ensure that the website is safe enough to use. There are many other things which also have to be taken care and are the color, design and the font size. Color used to design the website should be light and should not involve many colors. On the other side we should also make it look attractive. Font size should be normal so that we can easily follow. We should try to create something different on the website which will attract customers and can increase our revenue. Competition is very high in this modern generation. So we should m ake the difference to tolerate our competitors. We should ensure that the language is English as most of the customers across the globe can access the website. In this way a planned website can be created successfully with all the latest features. Analysis, including descriptions of the requirements or projected features of the Web site by highlighting integration issues The analysis phase describes all the possible necessities of this website in order to develop it. Requirements are basically the collection of functionalities as well as constraints which the end-user must expect from the site and as alibaba.com has both buyers and suppliers as the customer, it really need a well designed integration of selling and busying over the secured mode. These requirements are collected from the customer by means of discussion. It is really very important to take customers suggestion as end of the day our goal is to satisfy our customers. We should be able to analyze what is the problem, where are we lagging behind, what are the improvements to be made, etc. In this way, many things can be sorted. Analyzing the current situation and working accordingly will help in overcoming the barriers. We should be capable to analyze the situation. These requirements are examined in order to check the validity as well as the possibility of incorporating them in the system which is to be developed. At last, a document providing requirement specification is developed that will serve the intention of guiding principle for the forthcoming phases of model. This website has been designed on the basis of waterfall model under the processes of System Development Life Cycle. The requirement specifications which are included for the purpose of development of website are: proficiency in copy writing, conventional graphics, high-resolution images, consultation regarding website architecture, reasonable web hosting along with the service of active 24X7 customer supports for the domains, domain registration, hosting as well as other services. This site also requires various development services including ordinary B2C functionalities, such as e-commerce solutions as well as video integration. More features like online catalogs, integrated convincing client demonstrational videos or testimonial videos, and many others, can appeal visitors to view and trade through this website. Local Search as well as Ranking Services may also assist in dominating the presence of local market. This site will also offer various other services like pay-per click services in support of Google Adwords, MSN advertisement Center and Yahoo Search promotion, consulting advertising over the internet, in addition to entire program management in order to get the majority for the budget. Diagram1: Project Management technique While every project has different set of requirements as well as challenges as per the project specification, there are several milestones and considerations, which are common in every project. In broader perspective, a 5 stage strategy is developed. These phases comprise of all the necessary phases of a Software Development Life Cycle or in short, called SDLC model. Requirement Analysis: Before start functioning on the project, an in-depth study of users requirements is needed to make the base or foundation of the website. Hence, this will assist in suggesting one of the best clarifications suiting the current requirements. Design: next phase is design phase which basically starts as soon as the project kicks-off. This phase describes the designs for the front-end along with robust and scalable application structure which includes the database design. This phase is one of the critical phases in the project since; entire application is going to be formed based on this framework. Development: As soon as the design is confirmed, reviewed as well as approved in the design phase, now the next stage is the development stage where application development starts utilizing the suitable programming languages based on the requirement of project. Various type of testing is done in this phase, such as unit testing, system testing as well as integration testing at various milestones of this B2C and B2B website development project in order to make sure an error free delivery to the end user. Devotion to various programming in addition to testing standards is stringently followed to make sure the quality of the code and performance. Implementation Support: Subsequent to the development phase where various coding and testing is completed, the next stage is the implementation and support stage. Here, the recently developed application is installed in the real server environment to check whether it is working as per the strategy or not. Hence, now, the application goes live. In this stage, support is also provided in order to keep the application forever on the go. Maintenance Promotion: The last stage is maintenance and promotion. As soon as any application goes alive, updates are necessary. It helps the application to get restructured as per the need of latest environment. Hence, any and all of these updates are accomplished as a component of maintenance work. Various marketing campaigns over the internet are also done in order to enhance the visibility of the business over the internet. Project initiation, management and control scenarios, including overall planning and role assignment to each member To initiate a project of alibaba.com, its really required to move on with several careful planning along with projecting. Initially, this business can reduce the cost; however, it will improve the situation, later on. Following are the five most important control scenarios, which this website has taken in consideration while designing it. First feature or scenario is its reliable hosting which comprises of more than 99.99% uptime. Second feature is its user-friendly appearance as well as feel. This appealing appearance is brought with the help of various professional designs or softwares having template storefront. Third attractive scenario is a gateway for secure payment, incorporated with the feature of shopping cart. Payment transaction is mandatory to be secured and encrypted; otherwise, no user will try this site. Fourth scenario of this website is to generate a merchant account. This account will help in accepting multiple mode of payment as different users can use different mode of payment in order to trade. Fifth most important feature is to store the contact information of the customer in order to smooth the progress of customer service as well as privacy policy. Locating a Niche Market in the world of Online Retail A lot of entrepreneurs, in todays time, already have a thought of what they want and are capable of selling over the internet. On the other hand, few of the entrepreneurs still do not know what to sell, however, are familiar with the opportunity and hence, are involved in the planning of initializing a retail business based on e-commerce. The preliminary phase of business planning is basically an opportunity in order to investigate numerous markets in addition to making sensible and realistic decision on which products or else, services are offering the maximum earning potential. A niche is really important while planning for a online retail as if you dont know what to sell and how to sell, then its not possible to sell products and services properly and run business. Hence, its really important to think about all the expenses linked with the product, together with its storage, import taxes, shipping or packaging, in order to obtain a practical projection of the expenditure of selling it. Projecting Sales, Costs and Profits in B2C E-Commerce Business Planning Financial projections play a very important role on the planning for business. However, this is also true that it is really impossible to enlighten at the planning phase how well the business will be going to perform. Still, market as well as competition research work as a support and permit entrepreneurs to formulate educated guesses that include various tools like, graphs or charts in this phase of business planning. Diagram 2: Detail Project Analysis with the help of graphs and charts This course of action is really very important. As, in todays world, B2C e-commerce companies like www.alibaba.com launch themselves very quickly over the internet, hence proper research and plan acts are really important to be performed as they work as an authenticity check. A lot of time it happens that a idea which seems one of the best idea from the theory perspective, does not make logic in the live, real environment, hence, its best to have few alternatives so that one can move on to the subsequent possible product. This alternative is basically sinking money into a failed business. Its a ray of hope to a dead business. Design Detailed feature of www.alibaba.com Design phase is the subsequent phase after the analysis phase in the system development life cycle model. Unlike analysis phase, where what needs to be done is decided, this phase implements the strategies of analysis phase and design the frame work of the website as shown below: Diagram 3: Screenshot of www.alibaba.com Diagram 4: Screen shot of www.alibaba.com The website of www.alibaba.com is very user friendly. As this site has the features of both B2B (Business-to Business) as well as B2C (Business to Consumer), buyers and sellers, both are its customers. One can buy various products and on the same time one can sell various products from here. Below are some key features of this website as per the SDLC approach: This site has a Buy feature. This tab is needed to be used when the user is planning to buy various products. This tab comprise of all the details which are needed while purchasing: newly added products (detail of fresh products), how to buy, safety and security center and last but not the least is the post buying leads. Second feature is the sell feature. This tab is used by the end user when its time to sell products. Hence, this tab is mainly used by suppliers who supply products. This tab comprises of all the details while selling products, such as, newly added buying leads, how to sell and display new products. Third key feature is the community tab. This tab is basically a support tab in order to help both buyers and sellers while dealing with their trade. It comprises of :Ask it, where one can ask any question regarding this site and the answer will be provided to them as soon as possible, forums, price watch which gives an idea on the prices of different products and trade shows. Fourth feature is the registration feature. As this website deals with genuine trade, fake peoples are not allowed to enter here. Thus, a proper registration is done here before buyers and sellers move inside to trade. This consists of a proper unique login id and password, which help in maintaining the secured environment. Fifth key feature is the search tab. This tab is also very different unlike other search engines. Here, various products can be searched out. Moreover, suppliers as well as buyers can search for different products for selling and buying purpose, separately. Searching can be done as per the geographical location also. The next key feature of www.alibaba.com is the ask it section. Here, both buyers and suppliers can ask any type of query related to dealing with this website. For example, a customer can ask a question like should he has to make payment before the delivery or after delivery, etc. this site consist of three sub features which means question can be related to trade, safe trading as well as finding different suppliers. Next feature is the price watch tab. This gives an idea of updates in the value of different currency, different product prices, etc. hence, while trading, customers do not have to go through other websites to check all this and they can get the updated information from here, only. Next feature is the success stories tab. This feature helps in providing success stories of this website. Its just a strategy to promote this website as customers definitely want to be aware of this, when they are trading here. Hence, they need not check various news sites in order to get the latest report. Each and every success story related to www.alibaba.com is available here. One more unique feature of this website is to provide a detail of products which are highly eye-catching. This tab is known as featured products. At present, which product is leading the market, can be known from here. This gives the customer an idea to go through them and buy as per their requirement. This feature is very similar to todays special in restaurants. Next feature is the advertisement section. This section advertises one of the best products of this e-commerce site. Last but not the least feature is the section from where one can easily surf all the details about the website, from company information, partners, to buying, selling, safety and support and other services as well as tools. Detailed description of features and functions of www.alibaba.com Alibaba.com is basically based on quite a few requirement frameworks that include strategic advertising branding, consultation for web designing, creation of professional contents, robust features of ecommerce, management in addition to administration of site, managed services, systems integration, as well as hosting. Below are the details of all the features as well as functions, which have been the part of the alibaba.com. Custom Site Design This feature include customized or traditional designed banner, navigation buttons or links, logo, site layout as well as color scheme as per the choice of the customer for the website. It basically works as per the customers need, requirement as well as choice. Second customized design is that the home page of www.alibaba.com must have various links, such as, view account, buyers and suppliers account login, , checkout page, shopping cart in addition to site map Management of various products Customized products are making entry and hence, get managed with the help of built-in merchant tools This website includes pages with unlimited number of grouping, sub-categories as well as detailed information related to products. Products are assigned to multiple different categories as well as sub-categories One more function of this website is to upload products in bulk or product feeding which means importing product details from other websites or databases by the help of files of XML data feed. Internal products can be searched with the help of various keyword related to products along with search query archiving. Technique for dynamic imaging is used which helps in enlarging image view, zooming image as well as multiple views of the image from front, side and back in order to provide most favorable user experience. Selection of Color swatch is done which allow end users to select from a variety of available colors. Notification for Out-of-stock is provided. This basically produce an out-of-stock notice on that page where the product detail is mentioned along with an anticipated in-stock date One more feature of this site is such that it can mark products as Unavailable. This means, products which have been removed from the catalog, although not from the database, are marked as, not available. Playback of video is also available to give attractive look to end-user. Videos related to any product can be uploaded on the site and played on the page of detailed product. Order Management Order editing can be done here, which means all the components of order can be edited. Searching for Order can be done which includes searching orders by the name of customer, corporation name, date, state, and order ID as well as order status. This business works on the principle of partial as well as back-order shipment which means shipping of in-stock items are done first and items which are out-of-stock are shipped later on. Order history is available which helps registered end users to view a catalog of formerly placed orders in addition to transferring selected orders to the online basket, known as shopping cart. Tracking of order status can also be done which means registered users are able to keep a eye on the condition of current orders as well as partially shipped orders. Shopping Cart Shopping cart is basically an online basket. Hence, a normal shopping cart or a drop-down is really needed and hence, designed. The customer can select among any of these two which appeared on the page where product detail is given in order to transfer the product to a shopping cart. The feature of this function is such that it can sum up all the items automatically inside the cart. Editing of shopping cart can also be done like consumers can delete items as well as update product items as per their requirement. Checkout Processing of instantaneous credit card permit order payment by majority of the credit card. Payment processing is done at the point of sale or for the duration of order fulfillment Order notification consumer get order confirmation along with order tracking number as well as shipping confirmation as soon as the order ships. Security SSL is used which means secured encrypted transport of order as well as credit card information is done. Secured HTTPS/SSL as well as password protected entry is done in order to enter to the admin section. Complete log-out capabilities is provided for site administrator as well as customer. Website is PCI compliant which means the servers are firewall protected. Numbers of credit card are no longer stored than necessary, susceptible data is encrypted in addition to restricted access. Audit logs are also created. Site Management Account management is done where site administrator has to login and revise the information related to customer account. Product management as well as order management is done. Pricing updates are provided which gives flexible interface for various price information related to all product items or for definite categories. Generation of sales reports for sales is done with the help of date, type of product, customer, location and order size, etc. Content management is done. Reviewing customer reviews, making those reviews on or off, are done here. User Engagement Customer account registration is done. Account information can be viewed. Customers can login to go through and update various and can check status of the order. Onsite blogging- end users can put their comment on various blog posts. Onsite product reviews can be done which means customers may rate as well as share their personal experiences regarding any product. Social media optimization in addition to integration provides link to social media sites such as Digg and Reddit, and on the other hand, two-way incorporation with different social networking sites such as Facebook as well as Twitter. Testing Diagram 5: Testing Testing is one of the important parts of designing and development of web based application for the reason that this application all the time works as a multi-user system along with limitations of bandwidth. Few of the common testing are integration testing, Scalability testing, Stress testing, resolution testing, load testing as well as cross-browser compatibility testing. Testing is a broader term which basically divided into two parts: automated testing and manual testing. Both of these testing can be performed without any failure. For instance, its really essential to test the speed of uploading of graphics, in order to calculate this loading time, as they plays a very important role in the appearance of any website. In todays time, there are a lot of testing tools available over the internet which assist testers to test the web applications. After complete of all the short step-by-step testing, a final testing is necessary. This testing will be done in a live environment. Hence, the basic policy is that as soon as the site is uploaded, there must be a complete testing. Various Inputs to the phase of testing A website, supporting documents, Requirement specifications, Technical specifications, along with Technical documents Various outputs of the phase of Testing Complete Website, Reports on testing, Error logs, recurrent interaction along with developers as well as designers Promotion This stage of system development life cycle is applicable only for websites. This phase consist of preparing Meta tags, steady analysis in addition to suggesting the URL to various search engines as well as directories. Its generally an ongoing process because the different strategies of search engine usually changes quite often. Hence, one of the ideal policies for submission will be to submit the website URLs once in every two months. Moreover, if the end user is willing, paid submissions as well as paid click can also be performed with extra cost. Various Inputs to the phase of promotion A website along with content, Mails from client notifying the competitors Few Output to the phase of promotion Site submission is done along with essential Meta tags. Maintenance and Updating All the e-commerce websites like www.alibaba.com basically require frequent updates in order to look fresh and adjust with any situation. Hence, a need for analysis is there so that application can be well maintained as well as all the phases of life cycle must get revised. Bug or error fixes are also done throughout the period of maintenance. As soon as the website is functional, ongoing promotion, content management and updating, technical maintenance, reports for website visit, mentoring as well as staff training are considered necessary on a normal basis depending on the intricacies of the website as well as the needs within the business organization. Various Inputs to Maintenance along with Updating Site or the application, Content as well as functions which are needed to be modernized, Reports for Re-Analysis Various Outputs to Maintenance along with Updating An Updated application, Various supporting documents developed to

Industry anlysis of Retail Grocery Industry Essay -- essays research p

Industry Analysis   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  In order to analyze an industry, it is important to determine where it is in the industry lifecycle. During the 1970’s and 1980’s the retail grocery industry was expanding at a phenomenal rate. Throughout this boom period, the number of large grocery stores was rising and forcing the existing† Mom and Pop† grocery stores out of the industry.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  In the early 1990’s, the retail grocery industry began leaving the growth stage and entered the maturity stage in the industry lifecycle. This was caused by increased market saturation and slowing growth rates. Between 1995 and 1996 the growth rates were the lowest they had been in the past twenty years. The main reason for this was the vast number of grocery stores that had been built in growth stage and the emergence of new grocery retail formats such as warehouse clubs and dollar stores. This increased competition forced firms to compete with each other for the same customers by lowering prices.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Enter WalMart. Walmart was not even in the grocery industry in the early 1990’s but through excellent supply chain management and extremely low everyday prices have forced their way as one of the dominant players in the retail grocery industry. Industry surveys indicate that the five largest chains (WalMart, Kroger, Costco, Albertsons, and Safeway) accounted for approximately 37.5% of total sales in 2002.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The 1990’s were an important time because of the arrival of new technologies that would change the retail grocery industry. Scanners, Elcetronic Data Interchanges, and the internet have all sped up and lowered the costs of business operations. WalMart was one of the early adopters of this technology and had a competitive advantage over its competitors. New technologies being pioneered now include self-serve checkouts, RFID’s, and kiosks, they will all eventually change how we shop at grocery stores today.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Walmart’s arrival as the largest grocer in North America has caused quite a stir in the retail grocery industry. Walmart’s low prices have caused an industry–wide obsession with consolidation. Many firms are cutting costs any chance they can, forcing some firms to move upmarket. â€Å"The traditional supermarket concept no longer has a profitable future in most ... ...lay a part in the consumer’s decision but in the end eggs from one store are the same as eggs from another store. The consumer can also compare prices from various stores to get the best deal on their groceries. Supplier Power   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Supplier power has been pretty high in the past because grocery stores had very few options of where they could get their goods and had even less of a say of how much to pay for these goods. Recently WalMart has started to change the balance of power away from the supplier. By being so large and having the power of making or breaking a product based solely o if WalMart carries it they can demand certain prices. Another way to combat high supplier power is to introduce private label brands. For example Giant eagle carries its own brand of peas it is not as dependable of its pea suppliers as it was before carrying their own brand. Some suppliers have decided to try and regain power by merging with other suppliers such as Gillette/Proctor & Gamble and Phillip Morris/Kraft. It appears that after a long time of high supplier power the playing field is starting to level itself off and it appears this will continue into the future.

Making Habits

We want from our target market to make a habit of eating their meals in our restaurants. If we are able to reach them, this will help us to grow at the end of the first year. In addition to this, we have another objective which is to decrease the number of people who are not aware and people who are resisting to not purchase our goods. In this case, we are planning to encourage them to taste our products and take their opinions about them to adjust our goods according to their needs and wants. Stressing our competitive advantage to our target customers is our another goal which makes them loyal to our restaurants.Identify the marketing segment for the product and explain why this segment was selected. Because we are producing healthy fast foods for different diet programs, mass marketing does not fit our marketing strategy. Therefore we segment the market based on Demographics. For example, if gender is taken into consideration, woman and man should take different amount of calories per day in order to carry on their daily activities. Besides, amount of calories are taken by young people, adults, and elderly people changes as well according to their heights, weights, and activity levels.Therefore when our customers come to our restaurants, they should be able to find a food that best fits their diet in order to be satisfied. Moreover, we also segment the market based on geographic as well. In this case, we are planning to run our business in United States because there is a high demand for healthy foods since people want to live healthy and longer. Discuss the target market and why these customers will be targeted. We segmented market according to people’s ages and genders. We decided to target people whose ages are between 18 and 64 or more and tried to figure out the market size.According to US and World Population Clocks in the US Census Bureau web page, there are 309,092,421 people living in America now. Again, according to the report posted on US Census Bureau, Meyer (2001) stated that people whose age is under 18 is 26 percent, people whose age is between 18 and 64 is 62 percent and people whose age is more than 64 is 12 percent of US population. So if we assume that the percentage of people whose ages are between 18 and 64 or more remain unchanged from 2000 to 2010, the total population of young people, adults and elderly people is now 228,728,319. 62%+12%=74%, 309,092,421? 74%). Moreover, if we assume that 50 percent of this amount is woman and 50 percent of it man. So we have 114,364,159 men and 114,364,159 women whose ages are between 18 and 64 or more. This is a huge number and it seems that targeting this segment is profitable. Furthermore, this market size can grow in the future because in 2000 the total US population was approximately 281 million according to US Census Bureau 2000 report. (Meyer 2001). Today, as I mentioned above it is nearly 309 million. Conduct a SWOT (strength, weakness, opportunities and treats analysis for company.One of our strengths is offering healthy foods. Our menu contains foods that they are rich in terms of protein, vitamins, mineral etc. which play an important role in the structure of human body. Secondly, while we are preparing our menu, we consult nutritionists about the ingredients, the types to enhance the variety and cooking techniques. In addition to this, our customers can benefit from the dietician service on every Mondays, and Fridays between 1-5pm. They can ask their questions and have a chance to take medical support. Moreover, we are using organic and fresh foods while we are cooking and these vegetables and ruits are produced and picked diligently. This is also one of our strengths that help us to meet our customers’ expectations. Unfortunately, we have also some weaknesses as well. One of the most important weaknesses of our healthy fast food restaurant is our prices. To produce organic vegetables and fruits is very costly. Therefore this is reflected in prices of those kinds of products. Because organic foods are crucial ingredients of our foods, we also have to reflect the prices of vegetables and fruits to our food prices in order to make profit.In addition to this, because we do not offer any unhealthy foods such as fried chicken, fried potato, hamburger etc. our foods may not fit the people’s tastes. Beside our strengths and weaknesses, we have also some opportunities coming from macro environment. Firstly, people love eating in Unites States and they like to know about different and new foods. In addition to this, United States is the best place to run a fast food restaurant because of being a home country of fast food industry. Secondly, number of obese people is increasing day by day in United States because of overeating fast foods.Since these kinds of meals are unhealthy and they can cause serious health problems, this makes people more conscious while they are making decision about food choices. Therefore they tend to eat more healthy foods. Thirdly, organic food industry is growing in Unites States and people tend to consume organic foods because of being healthful compared to regular vegetables and fruits. Furthermore, number one fast food chains such as McDonald’s, Burger King, etc. do not offer rich healthy meals alternative to unhealthy ones. In this case, consumers are in pursuit of healthy food restaurants.Lastly, in United States technology is advanced a lot to prepare fast and healthy foods. This leads fast food restaurants to work more efficient. We also have some threats caused by macro environment as well. For example, people may not have enough purchasing power to buy healthy foods. In this case unhealthy foods seems cheaper to them. Therefore they may tend to prefer unhealthy fast food restaurants. Besides, organic foods are expensive. As a result, restaurants that are not using organic foods charge lower prices to their meals compared to restaurants that use those kinds of egetables and fruits. Moreover, eating hamburger, fried potato, fried chicken, cheese burger, etc. can seem more attractive to customers. Therefore customers may prefer places that offer those foods. Describe the market position for your product and service When we are positioning our product, the quality and the price are taken into consideration and we compared our product with the one that is produced by our competitors. In the fast food market, we have many competitors; however our number one and well known competitors are McDonalds, Burger King, Subway, Taco Bell, Wendy’s and others.In figure one, circles which are depicted closely represent our competitors and the upper circle represents our fast food company. The competitors’ circles are depicted closely because they are perceived more or less the same by consumers. For example, their menus and prices are more or less the same. They are using nearly same strategies. For instance, both Burger King and McDonalds have the dollar menus. Although our competitors offer some kinds of healthy foods such as salads, grilled chicken, etc. they are still selling unhealthy foods. On the other hand, our company’s number one strength is always serving healthy foods to our customers. Besides, we are offering free dietician service for our customers. Our customers can ask their questions and get a customized service. In light of these facts, our product quality is high relative to our competitors. price X’s Healthy Fast Food Restaurant Low qualityHigh quality Our competitors Figure 1 Perceptual Map In addition to our product quality, our products’ prices are also higher than the average prices as well. Because organic foods’ prices are high, we have to reflect this to our prices.According to figure 1 it can be seen that our competitors dominate us in terms of prices. However, we also dominate them in terms of product quality as well. Recommendations Service is an intangible product and X’s Healthy Fast Food Restaurants are producing both tangible product (i. e. food) and intangible product (i. e. dietician service). In service industry customer satisfaction is very important. If a company satisfies their customer’s needs and wants, they become loyal.Therefore management should know whether their customers are happy with the service provided or not. This is the case that X’s Healthy Fast Food Restaurant can be face with. Therefore we should do some surveys to measure the satisfaction level of our customers about the service quality. There are many tools to do this. For example, Winner (2004) stated that â€Å"One of the most popular approaches to measuring service quality is the SERVQUAL instrument† (p. 418). In this type of questionnaire there are several questions that measure the quality of service.If we put servqual surveys on customers’ table and request to fill them after they finish their meal we can measure the satisfaction level of our customers by looking the results and this helps us to improve our service quality. Because service is an intangible product, customers may not know what they are buying until they buy. One author said that â€Å"†¦the service provider’s task is to make the service tangible in one or more ways† (Kotler 1999 p. 648). In this case, we should find some ways to make our product tangible.For example, if we give importance to keep our restaurants clean, our customers may think that we prepare our foods diligently. Providing a qualified and quick service can be another way to make our product tangible. If consumers see how we deliver our service quickly, they always prefer us. ReferencesKotler, P. (1999). Principles of marketing. New Jersey: PrenticeHall Winner, S. R. (2004). Marketing management: New Jersey Pearson PrenticeHall Meyer, J. (2001). Age:2000. US Census Bureau. Retrieved April 8, 2010 from http://www. census. gov/prod/2001pubs/c2kbr01-12. pdf

Faith and Man: A Literature Essay

In our history and our society we heard of stories of great men and women who pass through difficult times of their lives and were able to overcome and came up victorious. This made us to draw inspiration from them. People admired their courage and the strength they possess to surpass the tests in their lives. What could have driven this people to continue and press on with their lives? Is it because they are just extraordinary people that can do even impossible things or is it because of having a character full of faith? It is interesting to discover the role or relation of faith to man. Can man live without faith? What is faith and how do we explain it? Faith means believing that you have tremendous power to do exceptional things and to overcome hardships. Man plus his faith will guarantee that he will survive. Where is this faith really coming from? Inspiring Literature Helen Keller’s The Story of My Life illustrates an example of how a person with physical defects can raise above all her problems and became one of the respected lecturer and social activists of America. Helen Keller quoted that â€Å"Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence.† This word signifies that Helen Keller believed in the power of faith which is also related to optimism, hope and confidence. If people look at Helen Keller’s life it may seem impossible for her to make significant contributions in society as her deafness and blindness was a real challenge. But because of her insurmountable faith she was able to succeed in life. Emily Dickinson in her poem entitled My Faith Is Larger than the Hill had this first line which says â€Å"M y Faith is larger than the Hills, so when the Hills decay, My Faith must take the Purple Wheel, to show the Sun the way†. This would mean that her faith is much higher than the hills around her and no matter how negative things are, there is a ray of hope waiting for her and could change the situation because she holds on to her faith. Grace Under Fire: Letters Of Faith In Times Of War by Andrew Carroll was a collection of war letters about the faith of the   US troops and their families in the midst of danger it said: â€Å"We are now encamped right in the midst of tall mountains which would look very strange to you they look like they reach clear up into the sky These days the mountains are now covered with ripe whortleberries which are very nice the people bring them to our camp & we buy them & our Irishman that cooks for us makes pies for us† Faith Can Move Mountains by Helen Downey is all about how a family increased their faith when Sara survived a major accident in her life. One line goes said that:† A tragic event happened before Sara’s parents opened their eyes to that word called ‘Faith’. Conclusion Faith is something that people must develop in their selves. Faith comes from your belief that some invisible force may take control to help you survive the difficult situation. It is always thinking that everything will turn out right. It also pertains in having faith in God and his divine intervention in our lives. Having faith means having hope. A number of literatures were written on how people have used their faith in times of troubles and difficulties. They are written to encourage everyone undergoing hard times in their lives. It really showed the power of faith for us to do things which seem impossible. Maybe if we don’t have faith everything around us will turn negative, there will be no literature ever written to inspire us and no literature to encourage us. Therefore faith is a gift from above that can empower and save us from all life’s challenges and difficulties. Work Cited Downey, Helen.† Faith Can Move Mountains† 21 July, 2009

The Scarlet Letter - The Goals of Life essays

The Scarlet Letter - The Goals of Life essays Take a creepy old mad man, and a reverend who wont confess his devil-like sin, mix in a little psychology, and mind games, and you get The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne. As this story goes, Hester Prynne has committed an evil sin, and must wear a red A on her chest for the rest of her life. Later, Hawthorne introduces her husband, Roger Chillingworth who finds out about her evil sin, and is ready to take revenge to the person who committed this act of adultery. Then, we find the towns minister, Dimmesdale, in a poor state of being, so Chillingworth becomes his doctor, and soon finds out that his real ailment is that hes committed a sin. The mind games between Dimmesdale and Chillingworth continue, until Dimmesdale steps up, and admits his sin. On that spot, Dimmesdale dies. The most fascinating part of the book is the time in which Chillingworth is playing mind games with Dimmesdale. Even more fascinating are the characters themselves. While it seems that Dimmesdale and Chil lingworth are two separate characters, both with different goals, they have several things in common with each other. Dimmesdale and Chillingworth are two different, yet interesting characters. Dimmesdale is a younger reverend of the town that everyone looks up to. Also, Dimmesdale... [is like] a coward (Kestner, 2), because of his weakness against confessing his sin, and his guilt, his prison, festered inside him until he started to physically deteriorate (Kestner, 2). On the other hand, Chillingworth was Dimmesdales physician, and had a remarkable way of healing people. Even though he could have used his healing powers for good, throughout the book, Chillingworth is described by the townspeople, and Hesters daughter, Pearl as the black man (the devil), and that Chillingworth is plotting against Dimmesdale. Hawthorne makes Chillingworth out to be a monster (Brayton...

The Beneficial Effects of Exercise on Mood Improvement essays

The Beneficial Effects of Exercise on Mood Improvement essays Research conducted in the past investigating the relationship between exercise and mood has revealed that there is a possible relationship between exercise... and mood...(Berger and Owen, 1998, p. 611). In research conducted by Harte and Eifert (1995), test subjects generally reported feeling less anxious, depressed, angry, hostile and fatigued after their exercise session. Further research conducted by Berger and Owen obtained that different levels of exercise intensity were associated with mood benefits. Moreover, Mack, Huddleston and Dutler (2000) reported that being involved in light physical activity did not result in negative mood... (p. 913). This suggested that exercise might have a positive association with mood. Overall most of the studies concluded that physical activity is associated with beneficial mood changes. Thus one may assume that there quite possibly exist a relationship between exercise and mood. Previous research conducted by Berger and Owen hypothesized that there was an optimal exercise association with mood benefits (p.613). Moreover, their results showed that the test subjects did indeed report feeling better after exercising (p.614). In an effort to further understand whether this occurrence of mood enhancement due to exercise continues to be apparent, both an experimental and a correlation design will be used to carry out research concerning exercise and mood. The experiment designed to conduct this research will investigate the beneficial mood changes associated with exercise, whereas the correlation design will focus on the relationship between exercise and mood. Thus the general hypothesis of this study is that there will generally be an increase in positive mood in relation with exercise. Experiment This experiment will be designed to investigate if there exists a direct cause and effect relationship between exercise and mood enhancement. It is expected that exposure to dai...