Regional Tourism in Australia Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Regional Tourism in Australia - Essay Example The conference will also include two regional site visits - Blue Mountains and Jenolan Caves and Sydney Harbour Sun set- two of the most beautiful and exciting sights of Sydney. The conference sessions and social events will surely provide you with opportunities to interact and make relationship with many dignitaries in and around Australia. The most enchanting feature of the conference is that one day session will be dedicated exclusively for Workshop. We hope all of you will join us with pleasure for the beautiful, informative and exciting conference - an event that will provide you with the opportunity to discover the new challenges in the tourism industry The Commission's Conference on Regional Tourism is one of the largest and unforgettable gatherings of tourism industry participants and leaders. Over the last few years, the conference has been witnessing the presence of a surprising number of participants. A number of informative and inspiring activities such as seminars, networking opportunities, workshops, enjoyable and productive games etc have increased the value of the conference. Throughout the conference held over the years, the participants include a wide variety of people with diverse backgrounds such as destination management experts, destination advertisement agencies, regional tourism promoting associations, publishing firms, technology suppliers, accommodation providers, and various media agencies and companies. Besides, academic stakeholders such as students, researchers from colleges and universities also take part in the conference Conference Venue Crowne Plaza Hotel at Darling Harbour, Sydney is the finest and most appropriate place for a conference that accommodates people in the range of 500 to 750 from different walks of life. Therefore, this hotel was fixed as the venue of the conference. The hotel is enriched with and known for its vast spaces and rooms of different types to accommodate people with different status and designations. The conferences or conventions of various sizes and budgets are being undertaken largely at this hotel. The management claims special attractions at the hotel and they assure all such facilities and amenities shall be provided to all participants irrespective of the type of room reserved. Some of these world class amenities include wireless high-speed Internet access in lobby, well-equipped fitness center, swimming pool etc. Conference Objective The ultimate objective of this year's Commission's Conference on Tourism is to provide a supporting and cooperative platform that encourage sharing of plans, ideas, and opinions, discuss common problems and concerns of stakeholders, and fosters the network of relationships among various participants. Furthermore, the program aims to assist in the development of rural and regional tourism across the various regions of Australia. Specifically, the conference tries to address the various needs of the many diverse stakeholders and segments of the regional tourism sector in Australia. The following are the key purposes for which the conference is proposed to be held: To encourage people interest of eco tourism and regional tourism as a means of earning foreign exchange To assist and contribute to the long term economic growth by giving

Politics Coursework Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Politics Coursework - Essay Example One area of international law that has been consistently difficult to gain acceptance, enforcement and compliance with its agreed standards has been that of human rights. Although a clear international statement of human rights has been enshrined for over half a century within the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, passed by the United Nations in 1948, there remains a relativist undercurrent with respect to how various governments interpret and apply human rights standards. Since 9/11, the concept of human rights has become even more nebulous as states that had been the leading champions of international human rights have begun to compromise their commitment to such ideals in deference to their national security. This paper will discuss the importance and limitations of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It will trace the history of the Declaration, discuss how it has been interpreted and applied over the decades since its adoption, and consider the ways in which modern global issues pose challenges to its spirit and premise. The difficulty of achieving uniform global human rights protections, particularly in an era heavily influenced by basic security and defense concerns, vividly illustrates the more general challenge of enforcing international law among sovereign states. The UnivPost War Human Rights The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is one of the earliest, and arguably most important, achievements of the United Nations. It very much reflects the international revulsion that came in the wake of the atrocities of World War II. The experience of the holocaust was a wakeup call, whereby the people of the world became keenly aware of what humans are capable of doing to one another. In a sense, the holocaust represented the rock bottom consequence of previous failures of the international community to come together in the spirit of promoting peace and human rights. Thus, an atmosphere of atonement and a desire to correct the obvious failures of prior international law to protect the most basic human dignities permeated the effort to implement the Declaration. Such post war attitudes clearly echo throughout the Declaration, particularly in the preamble. In fact, the very first two clauses of the preamble directly refer to the barbarity of which humans had been proven capable: "Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world . . . Whereas disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind, and the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people" (Anonymous, 2006, para. 2 and 3). Without a doubt, the framers of the Declaration clearly sought to address the atrocities of the holocaust head on. According to the American Ambassador to Lebanon, Jeffrey D. Feltman, "The drafters of the Declaration were able to draw inspira tion from heroic efforts in the post-war period to assert the primacy of human rights and the dignity of individuals" (Ambassador Feltman speaks at the 56th anniversary, 2006, para. 3). The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was far more than a reaction to a particularly dark

Rhetorical Analysis on Ads in Magazines Essay Example for Free

Rhetorical Analysis on Ads in Magazines Essay Magazines are gaining in popularity nowadays as a tool not only to provide information, but also to advertise ads on products that are available on the market. Since magazines gain readers with different kinds of interest, what are the rhetorical strategies used by advertisers to market similar products to different target audiences of similar culture? Capturing the target audiences’ attention requires understanding about the audiences which open new avenues for many strategies to be used by advertisers to advertise an ad in order to make sure that the ad can actually capture the target audience. To describe or analyze the strategies used by advertisers, a variety of analytical tools, such as determining who the target audience is, describing the details in the ad, studying the Aristotelian appeals used by the advertisers, and also the angle of vision involved in the ad are needed to examine these strategies. Describing the details on an ad could be a good starting point to begin the analysis. Kraft ad for its Macaroni Cheese in Oct 2009 issue of Good Housekeeping magazine shows a girl standing on her right feet, with a smile carved on her face and an umbrella in her left hand. Beyond her are two boxes of macaroni and cheese of the same size, one of Store Brand and another one of Kraft, sitting right next to each other with the Kraft’s splashing a massive amount of cheese out of the box. What appears right above the bottom line, with all letters capitalized, is â€Å"KRAFT HAS MORE CHEESE THAN THOSE OTHER GUYS. SO GO FOR THE CHEESIEST† and with a bigger font right above it, is â€Å"THE MAC WITH MORE CHEESE†. Emphasis is on the color of the Kraft macaroni, the splashes of cheese, the girl’s boots, and the umbrella, as they stunningly boast the same magnificent orange color, unlike the one that is being used on the macaroni of the Store Brand. Sunchips came up with an ad in May 2010 issue of Women’s Health magazine on page 109. The focus in the ad is on a lady with a black hair and brown skin smiling as she is about to make her bite on a chip that she is holding. Right above her head is a sentence saying â€Å"THERE ARE MANY WAYS TO HELP THE PLANET. HARVEST CHEDDAR IS ONE†. Few steps beyond the lady, happily playing with the fresh water of in the river, are two kids. There is even rock face by the river’s edge with 4 people on it watching the kids. Nothing can beat the feel of having river water flows through our fingers and touches our body as we immerse ourselves in the water. It is amazing of how the water never stops flowing, not even a single second. SUNCHIPS claims that such beauty of nature can be sustain with the use of its plant-made bags that is compostable. Happiness is possible as we can enjoy every single bite of the chips and at the same time, taking care of the nature. Such joy can be seen on the face of the lady that is about to make her bite. Determining who the target audience is should be the next step after describing the details in the ad. Kraft appeared in the Good Housekeeping magazine, targeting middle class and a wide range of age of married women that care about the health of the their family, interested in learning home cooking for the family and care about environment. An article on â€Å"Cook like a Chef† provided some interesting food for the family and how to make it. This article is targeting married women in the middle class who would like to learn how to cook some interesting meal that is affordable for the family. Dixie Ultra came up with an ad showing a picture of a family happily having breakfast by using their paper plates. This ad targets on those who care about the environment. Fresh Step came up with an ad for its product, which is a healthy food for cats. This ad is clearly targeting those who care about the health for the family by promoting a healthy product for pets in the family. It is clear that based on the evidences found in the magazine, the advertiser for the ad for Kraft is basically targeting a wife and a mother that puts family above all else. The ad for Sunchips appeared in Women’s Health magazine, which targets middle-aged up to old women with middle-class income that care about staying in a healthy lifestyle as a consumer. â€Å"Run Less / Lose More†, an article in the magazine provided the information on how do women, ranges from middle-age up to old, lose fat in order to obtain a healthy and nice looking body. Another article that showed the reason for this type of target audience is â€Å"Lose your Fear of Lifting†, which gave some encouragement to women to get a perfect bodyline. The magazine came up with an ad, â€Å"Metabolic Max Program† by Jenny Craig that showed the target audience is those in pursuit of healthy lifestyle and at the same time concern about how much they will have to spend on such program. Another ad showed a lineup of affordable branded cosmetics products for the women. This ad is targeting middle class women that care about their beauty appearances. Different from the ad for Kraft, the advertiser for Sunchips’ ad targets any women, whether married or not, that put physical appearance and health as the top priorities in their life. Now that the details in the ads and the target audience have been figured out, making way for rhetorical analysis for both ads is needed to show how the strategies used by the advertisers to connect the details in the ads with the target audience and how do they give impacts to the audience. In order to attract the targeted audience, Kraft uses a strategy called pathos, one of the Aristotelian appeals, on its ad. The use of orange color in high contrast tends to attract the targeted audience as it can show the amount and quality of cheese that is being used to make the product. Cheese is well known for its delicious taste and good for the health, so this detail will surely attract the target audience, as they would want to choose a delicious and healthy food for the family. A picture of a girl standing on one leg with joy also brings the same strategy. The emotion that is being expressed by the girl tends to catch the targeted audience’s attention because they would definitely want to see their children having the same emotion. These two strategies tend to be related to pathos because they are attracting the audience’s emotions and values. The same strategy, pathos, is being used by Sunchips in order to steal the targeted audience’s attention. Pathos can be seen through the use of a picture of a lady that is about to make her bite on the chips. Such pleasant smile showed by the lady can attract the audience by creating a desire of having the same smile among the audience. Besides pathos, logos is also being used in the ad too. The message in the ad, about what are the bags of the chips made off, gives a clear reason to the targeted audience. For the consumers that care about their health, they will definitely give attention to this message because it helps them maintain a clean environment. Living in a clean environment is another way of having a healthy lifestyle. In this ad, the strategy of delivering emotions to the targeted consumers shows pathos. Logos can be seen by the reasons showed in the ad for the targeted consumers. Another strategy for the rhetorical analysis is the angle of vision, which is the use of important details to be focused on and the omitting of other details that may distract the audiences’ attention, is being involved in the ad too. For Kraft ad, the advertisers focuses on the massive amount of cheese spilling out from the box that contains Kraft’s macaroni and cheese product. The reason why the advertisers did this is because that they wanted to show how large is the amount of cheese present in the product. The advertisers include a text that suggests the macaroni product of Kraft has more cheese and a picture of a girl that is happily standing on one leg, for the audiences to focus on. The angle of vision presents in these details attracts the target audience by showing the quantity of the cheese and how appetizing the Kraft’s macaroni and cheese is. These would probably be the things that the target audience would want to focus on when it comes to choosing f ood that their kids will enjoy. However, there is a scientific detail that the advertisers try to omit from the audiences which is the ingredients used to make the product. Since the target audience wants healthy food for their families, this detail is being omitted because without doing so, the ingredients will show how unhealthy the food is. The advertisers for Sunchips ad focus on the image of a lady that is smiling while holding a chip on her hand and the use of the beautiful scene of a riverbank beyond the lady. Such beautiful smile of the lady and how wonderful is the environment shown in the ad are as if that the secrets lie behind the chips. This would attract the target audience as they would want to see such beauty in themselves. The same detail as in the Kraft ad, which is the nutritional information, is being omitted from the audiences because of not healthy. This is done because the advertisers know that the targeted audiences care about health in their life. The rhetorical strategies used by advertisers to advertise an ad are simply not just strategies. They are a step-by-step method to deliver the message in the ad to the target audiences; from determining whom the target audiences for the ad are, to how to give an impact to those audiences by using Aristotelian appeals and angle of vision in the ad to so that the target audiences could get a clear picture on what is being delivered by the ad. Analyzing the strategies used to deliver what the advertisers wanted to through the ad could actually open up new avenues on how to communicate with the audiences through an ad by just connecting the details available in the ad. In fact, it is not only helpful to gain audiences for an ad, but also to gain readers for our writing work. Works Cited Sunchips. Advertisement. Womens Health May 2010: 109. Print. Kraft Macaroni and Cheese. Advertisement. Good Housekeeping Oct. 2009: 108. Print.

Forecasting Inventory Needs For Home Depot Stores Nationwide Commerce Essay

Forecasting Inventory Needs For Home Depot Stores Nationwide Commerce Essay Forecasting is one of the most important aspects of any business that wants to maintain its competitive advantage. The Home Depot uses the gross national product (GNP) to forecast its demand for inventory. Due to the current state of the housing market, The Home Depot is finding it difficult to properly forecast inventory stocks resulting in a surplus of unsold goods and missed sales opportunities due to lack of other merchandise This paper will briefly describe some of the different techniques and methods used to forecast. There will be two courses of actions (COAs) developed. One will be recommended over the other and an implementation plan will be presented. Forecasting Inventory Needs for Home Depot Stores Nationwide Introduction The Home Depot is a multi-international organization with brick-and-mortar stores in the United States, Canada, Mexico, and China. The current state of the United States economy has been detrimental to many organizations. The Home Depot bases its inventory needs on the housing market. Recently the housing market has been fluctuating in an unpredictable manner. This becomes a concern for organizations that base their inventory needs on it. Improper inventory stocks can be a detriment whether it is overstocked or under stock. If inventory is under stocked organizations may lose potential business to competitors due to an inability to keep up with demand. Overstock causes an issue with costs associated with storage of unsold merchandise and can tie up much needed capital. Problem Statement Due to the current state of the housing market, The Home Depot is finding it difficult to properly forecast inventory stocks resulting in a surplus of unsold goods and missed sales opportunities due to lack of other merchandise. NOTE: BACKGROUND CONTENT SHOULD BE THE LITERATURE REVIEW. LIT REVIEW CONTENT SHOULD BE THE BACKGROUND. IM NOT SEEING MANY OF THE MANAGEMENT TOPICS INTEGRATED INTO EITHER SECTION. YOU MENTIONED SEVERAL OF THE TOPICS JUST AS YOU STARTED THE LIT REVIEW, BUT YOU ONLY MENTIONED THEM THIS IS NOT GOOD ENOUGH. YOU HAVE TO WRITE SOMETHING ABOUT THEM THAT WOULD BRING VALUE TO THE SUBJECT OF YOU PAPER. Background A forecast is a statement about the future. Many businesses use forecasting in an effort to squeeze every last drop of profit out of a situation. The Home Depot, for example, bases sales forecast on mortgage refinancing rates. Usually the smaller rates are at any given time in history will equate to higher sales. There are many different uses of forecast. Forecast can be used for accounting, finance, human resources, marketing, management information systems, operations, and product or service design to name a few. While forecasts are instrumental to an organizations financial future they are rarely perfect due to the randomness of the variables involved. The accuracy of forecasts themselves decrease as the time horizon of forecast increases. For example, the Home Depot can forecast sales for this year more accurately than they can for next year. There are many different elements of the forecast that would be considered good. In order for a forecast to be considered good the forecast would have to be timely, reliable, accurate, meaningful, and easy to use. According to Stevenson, there are two main uses for forecasts. The first is to assist managers with planning the system and the second is to assist them plan the use of the system (Stevenson, 2001). What is meant by planning the system is just that. It is a means to plan the system that involves long-range plans such as what products or services to offer as well as what equipment to buy and where to build facilities and things of that nature. According to Stevenson, planning the use of the system generally refers to the short-range and intermediate range which typically involves things such as planning the budget, scheduling, short-term goals, the needs of the investor, inventory, etc. Forecasting for business goes far beyond just forecasting the demand of products and services. It also includes being able to predict profits, revenue, availability of raw materials and many other variables. The Home Depot, being a home improvements store, must also be able to predict things such as th e housing market. There are certain features that are common to all of the different forecasting techniques. One of the main commonalities of forecasting is that no one has a crystal ball, and no one can see into the future; therefore forecasts are far from perfect. No one can predict precisely how often a large number of related factors will impinge upon the variable in question, this, and the presence of randomness, preclude a perfect forecast (Stevenson, 2001). Another commonality to all forecasting techniques is that forecast accuracy will become less accurate as time moves on, an example of this is given above, due to the fact that forecasting errors for group items will have a canceling effect upon themselves. For example, the Home Depot can forecast the sales goals of a particular department better than the sales goal of an individual product. According to Stevenson (2001) six basic steps are involved in the forecasting process shown in Table 1. Note: I would put these steps in a Table. Label it Table 1. Paraphrase the content. Step One Determine the purpose of forecast (Stevenson, 2001). One must know the reason behind forecasting in the first place. If a person is forecasting how many individuals will show up to a bake sale as opposed to how many pallets of shingles need to be urgent in order to facilitate demand at any given time, knowing the purpose will justify the level of accuracy that is necessary. Step Two Establish a time horizon (Stevenson, 2001). One must have a time horizon in their forecast, one must also realize that the accuracy of the forecast will diminish as the time horizon increases. Step Three Choose a forecasting technique (Stevenson, 2001). Once again there are numerous amounts of forecasting techniques that are being used today. It is extremely important for the forecaster to choose one that will best suit the needs of the forecast. Step Four Gather and analyze relevant data (Stevenson, 2001). Before beginning any daunting task one must gather all relevant information that one needs in order to put it all together and make sense of it. In this stage the forecaster must also identify any assumptions that are made while preparing using forecast. Step Five Prepare the forecast (Stevenson, 2001). In this step one would use whichever technique that was decided in order to prepare the forecast for monitoring. Step Six Monitor the forecast (Stevenson, 2001). The forecast is similar to that of any automated program and therefore will need to be monitored. The reason that the forecast needs to be monitored is because it is not performing in the way that it should be, the forecaster needs to go back re-examine the data and make any relevant changes in order to keep the forecast on the straight and narrow path. If the forecast is not performing in a satisfactory manner certain assumptions couldve been overlooked or completely wrong. In either case the forecaster must then prepare a revised forecast Literature Review Inventory management is one of the key issues faced by managers that deal with seasonal products. It is important to understand how product forecasting has been previously used. As technology advances and globalization continues to be on the rise, keeping up with supply and demand becomes a challenge. Businesses need to learn how to create a supply chain advantage. In this section demand forecasting, demand learning, and product lifecycle forecasting methods will be discussed. Six rules for effective forecasting will also be included. Demand Forecast According to Huang, Chang, and Chou (2006), the first step in finding precise demand forecast is to collect and organize complete and applicable historical demand data for any given product. Demand of this nature can be issued daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly depending on the time within the planning window. The process of modeling demand and determining demand forecasts is as follows: à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦demand data, demand analysis, demand forecast model, perimeter estimation, demand simulation, demand forecast, and expected demand (Huang et al, 2006). There are two aspects of forecasting that are vital. The first is the expected level of demand, the second is the degree of accuracy that can be assigned to a forecast. Demand Learning Demand learning is one of the inventory models that has received considerable attention in the literature. Herbert Scarf is one of the first authors to incorporate demand learning in an inventory modeling context. In his literature, Bayes Solution of the Statistical Inventory Problem, he developed an interesting inventory model that uses observed demand information and a current stock level together in the decision process. It is his assumption that demand is generated from an exponential class of distributions, and a collaboration of prior distributions are used for the unknown parameters (Scarf, 1958). For seasonal demand forecasting a Quick Response policy was adopted by many manufacturers. This procedure was developed in an effort to reduce a manufacturers production time to respond to orders in a timelier manner so that forecast can be improved by collecting more information about the future demand. Suri (2004) studied the Quick Response policy extensively. According to his lite rature, there are four core concepts of quick response manufacturing: The Power of Time, Organizational Structure, Understanding and Exploiting System Dynamics, and Enterprise-wide Unified Strategy. Product Lifecycle Forecasting Method Burruss (2002) describes the product lifecycle forecasting method. He used this method to propose a way to more accurately forecast products with high uncertainty and a short lifecycle. According to Burruss, a short lifecycle ranges anywhere from 9 months to 18 months. According to the literature, products forecasted using this method, should have well defined lifecycle phases from introduction to maturity and then to end-of-life, a high demand spike during the introduction phase, which is then followed by a gradual downward leveling off during maturity, and a steep end-of-life drop-off that is usually caused by planned product rollovers (Burruss, 2002). Six Rules for Effective Forecasting Paul Saffo describes the difference between prediction and forecasting. He says that prediction deals with future certainty while forecasting looks at how events in the present are influential to the possible changes in direction (Saffo, 2007). In his literature he describes six simple rules for effective forecasting that managers should observe as they develop forecasting policies (Saffo, 2007). The first rule is to define a cone of uncertainty. According to the literature, the cone of uncertainty is used to help managers exercise strategic judgment. The most important part of the cone of uncertainty is defining its breadth, which is a measure of overall uncertainty (Saffo, 2007). The second rule is to look for the S-curve. Saffo explains that change does not usually follow a straight line. It is important to see and identify an S-curve pattern once it begins (Saffo, 2007). Rule three is to embrace the things that do not fit. A successful forecaster will be able to look to the left of an S-curve inflection point and notice indicators of what is to come. However, sometimes there are items to the left of the S-curve inflection point that simply do not fit. It is the job of the forecaster to recognize those items and adjust the forecast appropriately. The fourth rule is to hold strong opinions weakly. Here, Saffo is saying that one of the largest mistakes a forecaster will make is to rely on one piece of information, which at the time seems extremely strong due to the fact that it reinforces the conclusion that the forecaster had previously. According to the literature, more weak information, bits and pieces, put together is more trustworthy than a single source of strong information. Rule five says look back twice as far as you look forward. This rule is a continuation of rules two and three. One must know ones history before they can effectively expect future outcomes. One of the hardest parts of looking in history is to know when it does not fit. Rule six, the last rule, is to know when not to make a forecast. There are certain times when forecasting is easy and sometimes when it is just not possible. Saffo uses the dot com bubble of the 1990s as an example of this rule. Forecasters suggested that at the time that old rules did not apply when in fact they were extremely prevalent and the old economic imperatives bursts the dot com bubble (Saffo, 2007). Discussion As stated above there are many different types of forecasting methods that may be used. Moon and Mentzer (2004) describe a time series technique as only looking at patterns of the history of actual sales. The time series technique will look and determine whether the patterns that are prevalent at the time can be projected into the future. This will be the basis of the forecast. All time series techniques examine one or more of four time series patterns, which include level, trend, seasonality, and noise (Moon Mentzer, 2004). Research by Moon and Mentzer (2004) suggest that the level is a horizontal sales history, or what the sales pattern would be if there were no trend, seasonality, or noise. Most forecasters use the level as the starting point for the time series and look at the other patterns later. In Figure 1 that follows, the data follows a horizontal pattern around mean. Figure 1. Title (Note: All tables and figures must carry a number and a title. This does not mean anything because you gave no legend. What is the X axis? What is the Y axis? What do the numbers represent. ) The way the line moves up and down as sales increase or decrease or curve or remain a straight line is what is considered the trend. Most businesses will prefer a trend that is always increasing; however, this is usually not the case. The trend is essentially the bread-and-butter of any forecast. It allows forecasters to be able to determine what is working and what is not, and present this information to management in an effort to mitigate future loss. In Figure 2 that follows, the data is progressively increasing which shows a trend. Note: So trends are based on data? You never really said that. Here you have to introduce Figure 2 and title it. You cannot just stick a graphic in and say nothing about it. Figure 2. Title (Note: You need to include a legend.) Seasonality is described by Moon and Mentzer (2004) as a repeating pattern of sales increases and decreases that occurs within a one-year period or less. For example, the Home Depot experiences high sales every fall for snow blowers, high sales of lawnmowers during the spring, and high sales every summer for air-conditioners. The pattern of these high sales during those periods within the year typically repeat themselves every year and therefore, the seasonality line can be seen as a regular pattern. Figure 3 that follows represents a seasonal pattern. The data exhibits a regularly repeating pattern. (Note: Same comment. You need to title and provide a legend.) Figure 3. Title Noise is the unexplained phenomena that occurs in forecasts. These phenomena usually seem unexplainable until a regression analysis or similar has been conducted. For example if the Home Depot were to have high sales of lawnmowers in the winter months, that would be considered noise. The high sales of lawnmowers can be explained possibly by global warming (unusually warm weather in the winter months), a fire sale of lawnmowers during these months, or some other explanation. The fact is that high sales of that product are unusual and have not happened consistently in the past years and therefore is considered noise. The Figure 4 shows how noise would appear on a chart. There is an inconsistency in the pattern. Figure 4. Title Insert Legend Management Concepts There are many different techniques and approaches when it comes to management. However while dealing with a forecast, managers are faced with more decision-making attributes. In order for any organization to be successful it all starts with being able to properly manage not only personnel, but also the other aspects of the business. In the military, soldiers are taught to lead by example. They are taught very early on to Be, Know, Do. Be the individual that you want your soldiers to be, know all of the required information before presenting it to a subordinate, and do what is morally and ethically right at all times regardless of the situation in which one might find themselves (Hesselbein Shinseki, 2004). You need a citation for this information. Not sure the military example is relevant. Li (2007) describes supply change management as a set of synchronized decisions and activities utilized to efficiently integrate suppliers, manufacturers, warehouses, transporters, retailers, and customers so that the right product or service is distributed in the right quantities, to the right locations, and at the right time, in order to minimize system wide costs while satisfying customer service level requirements. The Home Depot is an industry that ranks inventory in the top five business costs. Oversupply and undersupply of inventory at any given moment could have an extremely detrimental impact on the corporation. Establishing the right amount of product through effective forecasting will ensure that the Home Depot has the products customers need when they want them. This will also mitigate the overstock costs for storage of unsold goods. Economic Environment The current economic environment in the United States is bleak to say the least. As of the writing of this paper there is a high unemployment rate of 7.9% and a slow growth of the United States economy. Growth in the previous year has been at an extremely slow pace. Home sales directly impact inventory needs of the Home Depot. Total sales of homes in the United States have declined 1.7 percent since August of 2012 (realestateabc.com, 2012). Figure 5 shows . . . Figure 5. Title What year? You need to state the year. If home sales continue to decline it could mean that mortgage rates will increase. Increase in mortgage rates would mean that home improvement stores such as the Home Depot would take the brunt of the impact in the hike of the rate. Improvement in the economic environment is crucial for retailers like Home Depot (Steverman, 2009).. The housing bust in the United States hit the Home Depot hard. Due to the state of the economy, the Home Depot had reduced the square footage growth plans in an effort to improve free cash flow and provide strong returns for the company. (Home Depot, 2012). In 2009, the company was forced to exit its EXPO, THD Design Center., Yardbirds, and HD Bath businesses in an effort to focus solely on the brick-and-mortar stores (Home Depot, 2012). According to the five-year summary of financial and operating results of the Home Depot, the company is slowly regaining its previous financial success. Its total net sales are still lower in 2011 than they were in 2007. However, the trend indicates that the company is poised to regain its momentum and bring sales back to what they were previously. Table 1 is a five-year summary of The Home Depots financial and operating results. Table 1. Title Quantitative Tools and Techniques There are many different tools and techniques that are commonly used to support business decision-making. Arguably, decision trees are one of the best tools to assist managers in choosing between several courses of actions. Decision trees take information directly from the managers and allows them to see the outcomes of different courses they might take. According to Mind Tools, there are five steps to creating a decision tree, as shown in Table 2. The first step is to draw a decision tree. This will be the outline to which the manager would fill in the information related to each course of action. Second step will be to evaluate the decision tree. In this step the manager would decide which options have the greatest worth (Mind Tools, n.d.). The third step would be to calculate the values in the tree. Mind Tools suggest to start on the right-hand side of the tree and work backwards to the left. The fourth step is to calculate the value of uncertain outcome nodes. When calculating th e value of uncertain outcomes, one would do this by multiplying the value of the outcomes by their profitability. The total for that node of the tree is the total of these values (Mind Tools, n.d.). The fifth step of creating a decision tree is calculating the value of the decision nodes. In this step managers will have to write down the cost of each option and then subtract the cost from outcome that would give managers a value that represents the benefit of that particular decision. Figure 6 is an example of a decision tree that was retrieved from the Mind Tools website. (Note: It should be Figure 6, not Figure 4) Figure 6. Marketing Concepts As a home improvement warehouse store, the Home Depots customer base are the average do-it-yourselfers, do it for me, and professionals. The Home Depots competition not only includes big-name stores like Lowes but the local hardware stores. The Home Depot uses multiple social media outlets such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. On these sites they reach out to customers through videos depicting how easy it is to do-it-yourself with the right tools and support from the store. They bring customers into the store by hosting how-to seminars. They do these things in an effort to increase brand loyalty, interaction with customers, and customers comfort level when doing projects on their own. In this day and age there are many outlets that companies can utilize an effort to reach maximum customer base. Chantal Tode (2012) wrote an article on how Home Depot decided to do an iPad app in an effort to integrate a customer experience that would get them more involved in home decor. Home Depot launched the Home Depot Style Guide Spring 2012 app around mid-March (Tode, 2012). This iPad application for the Home Depot has proven to be a huge success. The Home Depot will attempt to optimize Home Depot.com in an effort to provide iPad users with the best experience. Matt Jones, general manager of mobile for HomeDepot.com, Atlanta, Georgia said it has outperformed our expectations in terms of downloads, page views per visit and time spent in the app (Tode, 2012). Global View of Business Marketing. Success in international markets depends on a number of different things. When thinking about marketing for an international organization one must consider the wants and needs of that particular market. What works in Houston may not be the same in China. The Home Depot entered Chinas market in 2006. Unfortunately, the company did not do due diligence and study what the market demanded in that country. The Home Depot attempted to market in China the same way as it did in the United States. As a result the Home Depot will close the last of the seven stores in that country. Further research shows that the market in China is more of a do it for me culture (Burkitt, 2012), in part due to cheap labor and the fact that most individuals live in apartments. This means they have less need for items such as lumber and gardening tools. The closing of the stores will cost the Home Depot approximately $160 million after-tax in the third quarter 2012 (Burkitt, 2012). The Home Depot has a YouTube channel dedicated to Spanish speaking customers. This is a strategic marketing plan that should assist the Home Depot with its Spanish-speaking customers and improve its brand with. Management. Same comment as above. International management is one of the key things that brings success when working in a global economy. It is important to understand the culture of the country in which the business will operate. The Home Depot has stores in Canada, Mexico, . Canadian business is improving performance in the fourth quarter (Home Depot, 2012). Mexican business has 33 consecutive quarters of positive comp growth (Home Depot, 2012). Economic and Business Operations. Same comment as above about format. As previously discussed, the Home Depots economic and business operations are going quite well in the international market with the exception of China. The international businesses are operated similarly to those based in the United States. Nextels for the Home Depot outside of the United States were $8 billion for fiscal year 2011 (Home Depot, 2012). Social, Cultural, and Behavioral Foundations of Human Enterprise The Home Depot is very involved in community outreach programs. They have an organization known as The Home Depot Foundation with a mission to ensure that every veteran has a place to call home (Home Depot Foundation, 2012). In 2011 this organization completed more than 1000 projects with more than 400 of them focused specifically on veterans. They worked on projects such as painting local schools, community gardens, and refurbishing needy familys homes while working with local nonprofit organizations. The Home Depot also helps when disaster relief is needed. They assist local governments and organizations by providing supplies and resources needed to clean up and rebuild neighborhoods. The organization also contributes $500,000 to the American Red Cross annual disaster giving program (Home Depot Foundation, 2012). Business and Economic Principles Organizations such as the Home Depot need to understand that basic business and economic principles are of the utmost importance. This paper has discussed many different business and economic principles to include demand, economies of scale, opportunity costs and exit strategies. Critical Thinking The Home Depot solves problems and makes decisions more quickly due to the development of common vocabulary that is used throughout the organization. It utilizes a cross functional relationship approach by mixing the different strengths of the creative, teamwork, and rational approach to problem solving. The Home Depot also empowers its employees to think critically by taking courses offered through the employee website to enhance current skills and learn new ones. They also provide web-based seminars to help their employees learn how to resolve problems efficiently and effectively when they occur. Elements of the Environment That Influence Management Activities This paper has already presented many of the elements that affect management. Elements such as economic conditions, competition, and international environment have been discussed. Other elements that affect management, especially in a home improvement environment, would be things such as weather and social environment. The weather plays a large role due because it directly impacts customer flow to the store. During seasons that involve multiple days of inclement weather, management must make the decision as to what hours the store will be open, what conditions would cause the store to close early, and what items should be brought to the front of the store in an effort to catch the eye of customers. The Home Depot is already answering the question to social environment. When society changes so should business, and the Home Depot has done just that. One can find the Home Depot on many social media outlets such as Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube. Courses of Action (COA) The Home Depot currently uses microeconomic data and economic theory to forecast the levels of demand for its products through the Gross National Product (GNP). The problem is that its demand is closely based on the housing market. As of late the housing market has been unpredictable and therefore the Home Depot should utilize a different forecasting technique. Below are two different COAs to take in consideration. Course of Action One The first course of action would be to implement the Delphi method to forcast inventory needs. This method is a combination of qualitative and quantitative processes that are derived from qualified experts opinions and are used to develop possible theories for the future. There are five steps in the Delphi method (Chong, Adnan, Zin, 2012). The first of his two identify the problem. Administrators will design questionnaires and evaluate total costs before starting the actual procedures. Upon completion of this step the expert selection will begin. Step two is actually selecting the experts. The actual size of the project that needs to be completed will be the determining factor as to how many experts will sit on the panel. The size of the panel actually depends on the budget allotted (Chong et al., 2012). The next step is to administer the questionnaire to the experts. In this step the members of the panel will draw conclusions from their own personal experiences and any other sort o f data or research that is available to them at the time (Chong et al., 2012). The fourth step is actually broken down into different parts. The first part will be to evaluate the responses that were generated from the original questionnaire. The responses that are evaluated from the first questionnaire are used by the director to develop more in-depth questions to be used in the second questionnaire. The second part of the fourth step is to redistribute the questionnaire with more focused questions in an organized list of the responses to these questions on the first questionnaire (Chong et al., 2012). The fifth step is to interpret the results. This final step will continue until all the experts said on the panel comes to a consensus (Chong et al., 2012). The reason this process works relatively well is because the experts are not together. This allows administrators to get a true consensus without prejudice or bias. Figure 7 shows how the Delphi method is used. Figure 7. Delphi Method. Course of Action Two The second course of action would be to implement the Holt-Winters Method for Seasonality Technique. This method utilizes the seasonality factor in order to account for seasonality associated with a product (Gelper, Fried, Croux, 2008). For example, the Home Depot sells many lawnmowers in the springtime and many air-conditioners when the temperature rises in the summer. This particular method needs to estimate three components of a forecasting equation (Gelper et al., 2008). The first component is the current level of sales. This component is achieved by removing noise and all seasonal aspects of the level. The second component is to use the current trend. This is the difference between the levels that are expected to happen between any two given seasons. The third is to add the seasonality. For example, if the Home Depot wanted to forecast sales for August and it is June, the following equalization could be utilized: [level (100) +2*trend (10)]*seasonal (1.4) = 128 units The Holt Winters method estimated that the current level is 100, the trend is five, and August has the seasonal index of 1.4. Figure 8 shows an example of the Holt Winters exponential smoothing. Figure 8. Holt Winters Exponential Smoothing. (Note: I see you have a legend on this one. Good) Recommendation Given the choices between the Delphi method and t

Henrik Isbens A Dolls House Essay -- A Dolls House Essays

Ibsen's "A Doll's House" In Ibsen’s â€Å"A Doll’s House†, in Act Two Scene 6, Nora’s deceptive behaviour and desperation reaches its climax due to the arrival of the letter. This is because the letter contains the means she used to get hold of the money. During the time when the play took place, society frowned upon women asserting themselves. Women were supposed to play the role in which they supported their husbands, took care of their children and made sure that everything around the house was perfect. Work, politics and decisions were left to the males. Nora broke the law and decided to borrow money to pay for her husband’s treatment. She did not borrow the money in the ‘right’ way instead she forged her father’s signature. By doing this, she not only broke the law but also stepped away from the role society had placed on her, being totally dependent on her husband. In this scene, she faces the truth in the letter. The person from whom she borrowed the money, Krogstad, wants payment on the loan. He also blackmails her about influencing Helmer to give him a better job at the bank and hence increase his position in society. This causes Nora to try to keep the letter away from her husband; but what is the significance of the letter and what does it mean to Nora? Possibly, this letter catalyses how Nora acts and how she thinks and she has been deceiving Helmer for the whole of their marriage. This included all sorts of deceptions. One thing that a good audience can recogn...

The American Dream in Lorraine Hansberrys A Raisin in the Sun and Arth

Centuries ago, Americans were fighting for their freedom from Britain. Then, the American dream was to have freedom. To American then, being free and having their own individual country was enough. Up until a few decades ago, African Americans were fighting to have equal rights. They thought this was all they needed and they would be truly happy. Somewhere over the course of time; happiness had a new meaning for all Americans. Now material possessions are what it takes to be happy. The American dream is to be rich. A Raisin in the Sun, written by Lorraine Hansberry, and Death of a Salesman, written by Arthur Miller, both address the American Dream. Both plays discuss the desire for wealth and how the desire may lead to one’s downfall. However, each play is very different in addressing issues such as race and feminism. A Raisin in the Sun and Death of a Salesman have the same major theme of the American Dream, but address other issues differently along the way. A Raisin in the Sun is about an African American family in Chicago. Living in the same old broken down house is Lena Younger, who is the mother to both Beneatha and Walter, who also live in the house. Walter is married to Ruth and is the father of Travis. As the play begins, the family is about to inherit an insurance check for 10,000 dollars. This money comes from the death of Lena’s husband. Each member of the family wants to do something different with that money. Lena wants to buy a bigger house in a nicer area, and Ruth agrees with her. Beneatha wants the money to go to tuition for medical school. Walter wants to invest the money in a liquor store, so he can own the store, and become successful and rich. He is tired of just being a cab driver. However, Lena inten... ...e almost called Mr. Linder and made that deal with him when he found out that he lost the money, but his family was there to help him figure out that that would not be the right thing to do. On the other hand, Willy’s relationship with his family is what led him to suicide. The role of woman is also handled differently in the two plays, along with the role of age and race. The two plays had similar points, but were also quite different. Works Cited Cleage, Pearl. â€Å" Black Issues Book Review†. Playright’s Choice 3 (1995): 20- 23. Evans, Everett. â€Å"What’s Hot on Stage†. Houston Chronicle. 28 Oct 1994: Pgs 10- 12. Laban, Linda. â€Å"Raisin in the Sun Raisin’s in the Rounder†. Boston Globe. 5 Apr 2001: pgs 8-11. Hansberry, Lorraine. A Raisin in the Sun. New York: Penguin Books, 1992. Miller, Arthur. Death of a Salesman. New York: Penguin Books, 1949.

Knowledge acquisition Essay

Jegrins Insurance Company is one of the largest insurance companies. Jegrins Company is a group of six other companies that deal with life insurance, property insurance, insurance exchange, property insurance and management. Jerkins Insurance Company is one of the largest casualty or property insurers and has so many policies. It deals with life insurance, asset management and casualty and property Insurance. Insurance companies have to maintain a competitive advantage in order to ensure growth. Jergins is one of those insurance companies that need to maintain a competitive advantage. The company has a very stable financial condition, works towards superior targets hence attains the aim of providing superior services. The employees of Jegrins Insurance Company are a very committed group who work towards the success of the company and ensure that the company grows. Jegrins Company has policy holders too that always set specific targets to be met by the company. They either set long term targets or short term targets depending on what they want to accomplish, agents of the company work hard in order not only to meet these targets but also to exceed them as a challenge to their policy holders. This company uses all these to ensure growth in the market as well as maintaining a competitive advantage. The company uses the capitalization’s risk adjustment as one of the ways of ensuring growth. It has a unique solid operating performance system as well, that it makes use of and views this as very important in the growth of the company. Another design in place for the Jegrins Insurance Company is the availability of the regional market that is well established. The advantage of the regional market, the employees attitude towards working hard, the adjustment of risk capitalization and the policies of the company that have to be met, place the company in a very high class among other insurance companies and enables it maintain a competitive advantage apart from just company growth. There are other factors that contribute to the growth hence high rating of the Jegrins Insurance Company. These are factors such as improvements on technology which has enabled the company growth on performance and service offering, low operating costs, a solid income investment, an increased sophistication on pricing and a well organized and well mannered underwriting. Jegrins Company cannot only depend on the already mentioned factors to be successful and to maintain a competitive advantage. It has to look for knowledge and how to manage it for the benefit of the company. The company therefore tried to change or implement ways of getting knowledge which it realized was a very important factor in maintaining competitive advantage. The company realized that by gaining knowledge from outside about other companies or competitors, it would be better placed, and apart from that, internal knowledge was noticed as essential for the general growth of the company. The company manager therefore decided to implement knowledge strategies to use for the companies benefit and be well informed about competitive advantage issues. The knowledge strategy of a company is the approach the company gives to the knowledge capabilities and knowledge resources to the company’s strategy in order to achieve what the company targets are. A knowledge strategy enables the company to increase its knowledge in a specified area be it internal or external knowledge of a company. Companies choose from the knowledge sources which are either internal or external or can choose to use both. Jegrins Company decided on a knowledge strategy that uses both the internal knowledge sources and the external knowledge sources. Jegrins company internal knowledge sources are those that the employees have in their minds, that is, in their behaviors, the duties and procedures they conduct everyday, the company equipments and the software of the company that they handle. Jegrins internal knowledge sources also lay in the various documents that the company has, the databases and the on line repositories. The external knowledge sources that Jegrins decided to use are such as consultants, from brokers of knowledge, universities, publications, personal relations and from professional associations. Jegrins company manager found out that internal knowledge source could be used to prevent imitation by other companies and to maintain the required level of knowledge requirement for executing the company’s strategy and maintaining its current position. The manager then decided to go to an extent of looking for external knowledge sources to avoid being beaten by competitors since competitors too have knowledge levels. The company has to ensure the gap between the competitors level of knowledge is closed down to ensure it is not down and cannot be out done at any time. Jegrins also creates new knowledge to keep in pace and to maintain a competitive advantage position. This extra knowledge, the manager feels is very important since the company will be better placed that the other companies. The company exploits knowledge to keep pace by looking for more information that is relevant. Jegrins insurance Company Internal knowledge management and knowledge acquisition: Without a knowledge strategy, the success of a company can be jeopardized. The company has since implemented a strategy of knowledge acquisition. This strategy has various processes that the company follows. The knowledge of the company since it was initiated was made available to the company employees for them to get to know more about the company. In knowledge management, employees are very important. Jegrins encourages its employees to get the information about the company and perform there duties on the basis of knowledge that they have gained. Internal knowledge is based on the employee knowledge, about their experiences, the soft ware in the company and other company documents. Since the company already had these, it was easy for the manager to go through this step of knowledge acquisition because the employees already had knowledge about the company, the software and had experiences in vast areas of the company. On the basis that this is a large company that provides services to other members and has so many policies, Jegrins has a lot to be termed as internal knowledge. It is therefore an important task to take a long term plan to ensure knowledge acquisition is not stopped after a short time but is continued over a long period of time. Jegrins made this decision just based on the nature of the business or company that does not go for days then close down. The manager decided on long term plans to avoid failure during operations in the future. Apart from the company knowledge that was readily available, the manager still implemented ways to encourage the employees to share the experiences they had and other organizational issues as a way to improve the company’s operational system. By this he encouraged learning through experience hence acquiring more useful knowledge to what his targets of the company are knowledge. External sources of knowledge: Jegrins acquires knowledge too from the external environment as has been stated. It gets information from consultants about the company’s operation steps whenever the manager feels there is a point where consultation is required. The company has evolved to an extent of looking at the other company’s successful methods and learning about them for the benefit of the company and to bridge the gap between the competitor and the company itself. When the company manager does this, he realizes that the other companies do not have more knowledge than the company does, and therefore are at almost the same level of knowledge and not left out yet the company still ranks above the competitors. This he realizes is important in maintaining a competitive advantage since knowledge about other companies is available to him and he knows the steps to make to avoid problems or going down the competitive advantage. The manager also involves the company in looking for information about the environment to which the company operates apart from the competitors’ information. The market is very important to the management of the company since the basis of the company being set up is to provide services to a specified market. Jegrins manager encourages research on the market for the advantage of the company. This though has been the company norm even before the manager decided on taking to knowledge strategy since it offered a lot of information about the steps to be followed for the success of the company. The manager realized that there was need for a strategy or method to be used to acquire just more information relevant for development. This kind of information gaining was meant for the purpose of just keeping in pace with others or being ahead of them which would be to the advantage of the company. The company therefore looked for external sources of information from universities, publications about the successful insurance companies, and other related information professional sources. Jegrins Information distribution: The manager of Jegrins Insurance Company adopted a system in the company that stored valuable information in an order that could be easily retrieved for reference. He also adopted the system of allowing information to be shared among the employees depending on the ranks and area of work so that when an employee does not accept an issue, he/she can explain it to others, discussed and a conclusion made. All these steps the manager considers as a good knowledge management strategy that has shown great success to the company after implementation. After knowledge acquisition, distribution, interpretation and general storage, the company’s knowledge management can be discussed. The manager so far has used this strategy to manage the company knowledge and is able to realize some bit by bit improvements from the previous level in which the company was before. The company though was at a high level, the manager had intentions of improvement and not just sticking to one level forever that may fall down in one time. The manager decided therefore to implement the knowledge management strategy to improve company performance and maintain competitive advantage. In all the knowledge management procedures, the manager had to take time to make sure that strategic knowledge creation is correctly done. He had to make the short term decisions in some cases and long term decision in others to make sure that there is a balance. This is because in some cases like the maintenance of the competitive advantage by the company, the manager had to decide on long term strategy since the future of the company has to be considered. After implementing a knowledge management strategy, the company has come to realize that knowledge is the key issue in the basis of competition. The company is always aware of any competitor steps that are relevant for the company in order not to be beaten by the competitor. Additional knowledge places the company at a higher class since more improvements have been made based on the acquired knowledge. Internal knowledge proved to be very advantageous to the company since it made the employees share the ideas out of the strategy that the manager created that allowed them to share ideas on the companies operations and make corrections and improvements where it was necessary. The result of these steps by the manager was tremendous, easy maintenance of the competitive advantage, noticeable growth, and increased class when compared to other companies and just being informed in terms of knowledge. It was success for Jegrins. Jegrins manager feels that knowledge strategies that suit respective companies are one of the ways to maintain competitive advantage in insurance companies since knowledge is the basis of competition and improvement. According to Jegrins’ manager, when the company has knowledge from the external environment, there are very high chances of improvement and maintaining a competitive advantage. Internal knowledge also contributes to the improvement and competitive advantage too since the main subject here is the employees and the employees have a big role to play in the company. They are the one who run it through their routine duties and experiences.