Wednesday, November 27, 2019
Marketing Blog Example
Marketing Blog Example Marketing Blog – Article Example Pricing Strategy Pricing Strategy Given the different demographic characteristics of consumers in the market, marketers are normally faced with difficult situations when they want to make prices for every consumer in the market. For this reason, there is a high tendency by the marketers to group consumers into different segments using the different consumer characteristics, hence coming up with different segments of customers, sometimes known as market segments (Salin, 2012). After a market has been divided I to different segments, there is need to differentiate the products into different forms and sizes that will meet the needs of different market segments. This therefore calls for product differentiation to fit every consumer’s needs. Differentiation makes products to be in different forms and sizes, hence, different prices will apply. In real life, Coca Cola products in the city centers are normally sold in big sizes of containers such as of 10liters, 5 liters, or 2 liters . However, in the remote villages, one will only find these products being sold in small sizes such us in 1 liter, 500ml, 300ml or even smaller quantities. This phenomenon does not just happen by chance, but through critical pricing strategies by marketing managers. Marketing managers have divided the market into segments and identified that consumers in the city centers have a lot of disposable income, hence purchase in bigger quantities. However, the consumers in the villages may be having no or little income, hence can only be able to purchase in smaller quantities. These differences in quantities also have differences in prices tied to them. ReferenceSalin. (2012). Pricing Strategy. Economic Times , 1-2.
Saturday, November 23, 2019
Profile of Pakistans ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence)
Profile of Pakistan's ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence) Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) is the country’s largest of its five intelligence services. It is a controversial, sometimes rogue organization that Benazir Bhutto, the late Pakistani prime minister, once termed a â€Å"state within a state†for its tendency to operate outside of the Pakistani government’s control and at cross-purposes with American anti-terror policy in South Asia. The International Business Times ranked the ISI as the top intelligence agency in the world in 2011. How the ISI Became so Powerful The ISI became that â€Å"state within a state†only after 1979, largely thanks to billions of dollars in American and Saudi aid and armament covertly channeled exclusively through the ISI to the mujahideen of Afghanistan to fight the Soviet occupation of that country in the 1980s. Muhammad Zia ul-Haq, Pakistans military dictator from 1977-1988 and the countrys first Islamist leader, had positioned himself as the indispensable ally of American interests against Soviet expansion in South Asia and the ISI as the indispensable clearinghouse through which all aid and armament would flow. Zia, not the CIA, decided what insurgent groups got what. The arrangement was to have far-reaching implications the CIA didnt foresee, making Zia and the ISI the unlikely (and, in retrospect, disastrous) hinge of U.S. policy in South Asia. The ISI’s Complicity With the Taliban For their part, Pakistan’s leaders- Zia, Bhutto and Pervez Musharraf among them- seldom hesitated to use the ISI’s double-dealing skills to their advantage. That’s especially true regarding Pakistan’s relationship with the Taliban, which the ISI helped create in the mid-1990s and subsequently finance, arm and keep in business as a hedge against India’s influence in Afghanistan. Either directly or indirectly, the ISI has never stopped supporting the Taliban, even after 2001 when Pakistan ostensibly became an ally of the United States in the war on al-Qaeda and the Taliban. â€Å"Thus,†British-Pakistani journalist Ahmad Rashid wrote in Descent Into Chaos, Rashid’s analysis of the failed American mission in South Asia between 2001 and 2008, â€Å"even as some ISI officers were helping U.S. officers locate Taliban targets for U.S. bombers [in 2002], other ISI officers were pumping in fresh armaments to the Taliban. On the Afghan side of the border, [Northern Alliance] intelligence operatives compiled lists of the arriving ISI trucks and handed them to the CIA.†Similar patterns continue to this day, especially on the Afghan-Pakistani border, where Taliban militants are believed often to be tipped off by ISI operatives of impending American military action. A Call for the ISI’s Dismantling As a report by the Defense Academy, a British Ministry of Defense think tank, concluded in 2006, â€Å"Indirectly, Pakistan [through the ISI] has been supporting terrorism and extremism- whether in London on 7/7 or in Afghanistan or Iraq.†The report called for the dismantling of the ISI. In July 2008, the Pakistani government attempted to bring the ISI under civilian rule. The decision was reversed within hours, thus underscoring the power of the ISI and the weakness of the civilian government. On paper (according to the Pakistani Constitution), the ISI is answerable to the prime minister. In reality, the ISI is officially and effectively a branch of the Pakistani military, itself a semi-autonomous institution that has either overthrown Pakistan’s civilian leadership or ruled over the country for most of its independence since 1947. Located in Islamabad, the ISI boasts a staff of tens of thousands, much of it army officers and enlisted men, but its reach is much more vast. It exercises that reach through retired ISI agents and militants under its influence or patronage- including the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and several extremists groups in Kashmir, the province Pakistan and India have been disputing for decades. The ISI’s Complicity With al-Qaeda â€Å"By the fall of 1998,†Steve Coll writes in Ghost Wars, a history of the CIA and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan since 1979, â€Å"CIA and other American intelligence reporting had documented many links between ISI, the Taliban, [Osama] bin Laden and other Islamic militants operating from Afghanistan. Classified American reporting showed that Pakistani intelligence maintained about eight stations inside Afghanistan, staffed by active ISI officers or retired officers on contract. CIA reporting showed that Pakistani intelligence officers at about the colonel level met with bin Laden or his representatives to coordinate access to training camps for volunteer fighters headed for Kashmir.†Pakistan’s Overriding Interests in South Asia The pattern reflected Pakistan’s agenda in the late 1990s, which has changed little in subsequent years: Bleed India in Kashmir and ensure Pakistani influence in Afghanistan, where Iran and India also compete for influence. Those are the controlling factors that explain Pakistan’s apparently schizophrenic relationship with the Taliban: bombing it in one place while propping it up in another. Should American and NATO forces withdraw from Afghanistan (just as American aid ended after the Soviet withdrawal from that country in 1988), Pakistan doesn’t want to find itself without a controlling hand there. Supporting the Taliban is Pakistan’s insurance policy against a repeat of American withdrawal at the end of the cold war. â€Å"Today,†Benazir Bhutto said in one of her last interviews in 2007, â€Å"its not just the intelligence services who were previously called a state within a state. Today, its the militants who are becoming yet another little state within the state, and this is leading some people to say that Pakistan is on the slippery slope of being called a failed state. But this is a crisis for Pakistan, that unless we deal with the extremists and the terrorists, our entire state could founder.†Pakistan’s successive governments, in large part through the ISI, created the now seemingly out-of-control conditions that prevail in Pakistan that enable the Taliban, al-Qaeda offshoot al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) and other militant groups to call the northwestern part of the country their sanctuary.
Thursday, November 21, 2019
Cost Variance in Healthcare Organizations Research Paper
Cost Variance in Healthcare Organizations - Research Paper Example Like other healthcare organizations, the budget management in this healthcare organization is said to be underdeveloped. This is the reason why we have identified it for the analysis so that we can make possible recommendations. Strategies of Managing Budgets Within Forecast Managing budgets within forecasts is significant in revenue attainment and costs containment. However, ensuring that budgets remain within forecasts is not an easy task. Moreover, budget forecasts are not always accurate in terms of budgetary estimates they give. This makes designing of a strategic budgets management approach to be a necessity in healthcare organizations. In this healthcare organization, specific strategies exist for managing budgets within forecasts. These strategies vary both in their characteristics and in applicability. However, the majority of them are applicable in healthcare organizations like the one identified in this paper. One of the strategies that could be significant in managing bud gets within forecasts is the use of both quantitative and qualitative approaches during forecasting. According to Cole (2003), quantitative approach uses numeric data such as statistics and the accounting data to draw projections. Qualitative approach, on the other hand, uses explicit assumptions and individual judgments about the assumptions to draw conclusions (Cole, 2003). Combination of these two approaches, when looking for budget forecast estimates, assists in obtaining the most accurate and unbiased estimates. These estimates guide the actions taken to maintain the budget within the forecasts. As a result, the strategy could help in managing the budgets within forecasts. The interval which the forecast is based on is significant in obtaining accurate estimates from the forecast. Another strategy that could be adapted to manage budgets within forecasts is the use of small intervals when forecasting. The strategy can be implemented by use of a rolling forecast produced on a qua rterly basis to provide a full-year outlook (Dressler, 2004). An approach that uses short intervals like this one can promote obtaining of more accurate forecasts. Moreover, it can provide forecast estimates that could be obtained from within the large interval forecasts. This could greatly assist in managing budgets within forecasts, thus promoting operability of the organization. According to Cokins (2006), budgeting and financial planning are confusing to many organizations. As a result, many organizations in different industries find it difficult to integrate the two as organizational management. A strategy of employing budgeting together with financial planning in management of an organization is another strategy that could help in managing budgets within forecasts. Financial planning would assist in the drawing of accurate forecasts while budgeting would be assisting in maintaining the spending within the forecasts. However, for this to be achieved, these two aspects must be u sed in an integrated manner. Otherwise, they would not be able to supplement each other, thus failing to achieve their objectives. Expense Results With Budget Expectation Healthcare organizations have several expense results. Each of the results has its own budget expectation. Five of the most significant expense results of healthcare organizations such as the one identified in this paper are salary and wages expenses,
Wednesday, November 20, 2019
Uses Humourous tactics ( report ) Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words
Uses Humourous tactics ( report ) - Essay Example online advertisement for the brand Kohler, a manufacturer of household plumbing products, is being addressed for its successes or failures in areas of communications and persuasion. The advertisement being described depicts an attractive female plumber, who passes by a rather ordinary-looking young man on her way to take care of a plumbing problem in an adjacent building. As she passes, she smiles at the man who is delighted by what he sees and runs into his bathroom. Upon entering, in an attempt to make the toilet clogged, he begins pouring candles, rags, plastic flowers, plastic grooming product containers and even dog food into the toilet. To his amazement, the toilet fails to clog and he is obviously upset that he might never see the female plumber again as he cannot create a legitimate clog to beg for her services. The basic marketing communication model provided by Chitty et al. describes the process flow of attempting to send a singular message about a particular brand. Under this model, the source, in this case Kohler brand, seeks out a specific communication objective. The communication objective for Kohler is to express the quality, no-clog feature of their higher-end toilet products. This objective builds consumer awareness of this durability feature by creating a rather short message (advertisement) in order to persuade potential customers to favour Kohler brand over other models. The Chitty et al. communication model further reinforces the importance of selecting the proper media channel in order to deliver the message successfully. In this case, Kohler has chosen the on-air television advertisement and the Internet in order to create consumer interest or online buzz about the product. This model further describes the importance of understanding the proper audience to deliver the message, the target audience identified after segmentation of homogenous markets most likely to respond to the message. In this situation, the chosen receiver for the
Sunday, November 17, 2019
Trust Builders in a Sales Person Essay Example for Free
Trust Builders in a Sales Person Essay Trust is the binding force of great relationships. This leads to greater cooperation and better solutions, especially in sales and customer service situations. When trust increases, communication is more effective and understanding in enhanced. Since most people won’t buy from someone they don’t trust, building and maintaining a strong bond of trust is essential for developing long term customer satisfaction and loyalty. Customers believe in getting the best and feeling comfortable with what they have received. Having a long term customer takes more than good customer service. Sales representatives of any company need to have the â€Å"trust-builders†characteristics to help them build strong relationships with clients. In the end this will help the overall profitability of the company. The first characteristic is expertise; this is the extent to which a salesperson possesses relevant knowledge and capability to get the job done right. An example is Digicel, their sales persons are well trained and equipped with relevant information and knowledge of their prices and sale promotions. Customers can ask a salesperson about a promotion and when the customer research for themselves, it is accurate. This builds trust, when a salesperson shows competence and knowledge. This has pushed Digicel to be the top efficient service provider of telecommunication in Jamaica. Second characteristic is dependability; this is the extent to which a salesperson consistently and predictably follows through on commitments he/she makes to others. Digicel sales practices indicates this when they offer free nights promotion to customers. This promotion was always offered once a customer puts on two hundred dollars before 9pm. This allows customers to depend on what Digicel said they would deliver. Candor is the third characteristic of a trust-builder type; it is the extent to which a salesperson is honest and upfront with others, especially with regard to issues/factors that may impact those others. Digicel portraits this by allowing their sales personnel or customer care agent to tell customer the truth when they are having technical problems, they even go as far as sending out texts to inform and apologise for the disruptions. The fourth trust-builder type is customer orientation; this is the extent to which a salesperson values and protects the interests of his/her customers. Digicel trained their salespersons to show empathy while adding value and giving back to the customer’s community and even their lives. Encouraging rebuilding of schools, community centers and developing public areas push customers to trust and build long term relationship with Digicel. The fifth trust-builder is likeability; this is the affection customers have towards you. There are many factors that contribute to how likeable you are as a person, but in the context of relationships with your customers, these factors encompass courtesy, respect, remembering names and key facts, treating each customer as special, and being interested in them and their lives. Digicel depicts this in their advertisements and when a sale agent is speaking to you. They ensured Jamaican culture and people are portrayed in their ads. They also ensure high quality service by asking for your name and throughout the conversation they refer to you by your name.
Friday, November 15, 2019
Differences in Absentees in the Workplace between Smokers and Non-smokers :: essays research papers
The unit of observations were random samples of twenty-five various employees divided into two distinct, independent populations, smokers and non-smokers. Then data on their absences from work for the previous year were obtained and used in this statistical inference. Because of a strong association between smoking and ill-health, it is generally accepted that smokers miss more work than their non-smoking counterparts. Does the smoker miss more work than the non-smoker? Data from these random samples were used to draw a conclusion†¦. SMOKERSDATA **VERSUS**DEFINITION NON-SMOKERSTABLE           Unit of Observation: Smoking and Non-Smoking Employees     Variable Name:      Definition:      Unit of Measurement:      Data Source: Smoker      Employee      Days Absent in Past Year      http://lad.org/issues/4/horizon.html;      Smokes           July 11, 2000                Non-Smoker      Employee Does      Days Absent in Past Year      http://lad.org/issues/4/horizon.html;      NOT Smoke           July 11, 2000 RANDOMDATA SAMPLESLISTING                                    Smokers:     Absentees:          Non-Smokers:     Absentees:          Employee 1     10          Employee 1     5          Employee 2     8          Employee 2     9          Employee 3     18          Employee 3     2          Employee 4     8          Employee 4     10          Employee 5     11          Employee 5     12          Employee 6     17          Employee 6     11          Employee 7     19          Employee 7     6          Employee 8     21          Employee 8     9          Employee 9     16          Employee 9     12          Employee 10     2          Employee 10     8          Employee 11     4          Employee 11     4          Employee 12     12          Employee 12     7          Employee 13     11          Employee 13     13          Employee 14     6          Employee 14     6          Employee 15     9          Employee 15     7          Employee 16     13          Employee 16     11          Employee 17     24          Employee 17     10          Employee 18     15          Employee 18     18          Employee 19     14          Employee 19     20          Employee 20     3          Employee 20     4          Employee 21     0          Employee 21     10          Employee 22     9          Employee 22     2          Employee 23     11          Employee 23     8          Employee 24     19          Employee 24     5          Employee 25     10          Employee 25     10          Mean:     11.6          Mean:     8.76          Standard Deviation:     6.110100927          Standard Deviation:     4.352011029          Variances:     37.33333333          Variances:     18.94                                   SOURCE: http://lad.org/issues/News/4/horizon.html; July 11, 2000 STATISTICAL ANALYSISOUTPUT F-Test Two-Sample for Variances               Smokers      Non-Smokers Mean     11.6     8.76 Standard Deviation     6.110100927     4.352011029 Variance     37.33333333     18.94 Observations     25     25 df     24     24 F     1.971136924     P(F F Critical one-tail     1.983757159                                             t-Test: Two-Sample Assuming Equal Variances               Smokers     Non-Smokers Mean     11.6     8.76 Variance     37.33333333     18.94 Observations     25     25 Pooled Variance     28.13666667     Hypothesized Mean Difference     0     df     48     t Stat     1.892940764     P(T t Critical one-tail     1.677224191     P(T t Critical two-tail     2.01063358               CAN WE ACCEPT THESTATISTICAL NULL HYPOTHESISANALYSIS      The data source used in this inference was found through a search engine, http://www.google.com. After hours of surfing the web and grueling through mounds of data I used two of the random samples found at http://lad.org/issues/News/horizon.html. For this statistical inference, the question was whether the means were truly different or could they have been samples from the same population. To do draw a conclusion, we must first assume normal distribution. We must also set the null hypothesis to m1 - m2 = 0. And per this assignment we must set the a-level at .05 and the hypothesis alternative to m1 - m2  ¹ 0; thus requiring a two-tailed test. The random samples have a mean of 11.6 days absent for the smoker and 8.76 days absent for the non-smoker. All of my calculations were done using the data analysis tool in Excel but can be done manually with given equations: Sample Mean ( ):      n = sample size The variances of each sample are 37.33333333 for the smoking population and 18.94 for the non-smoking population. Their standard deviations are 6.
Tuesday, November 12, 2019
Chinese Civilization
The brilliant culture of the Chinese empire definitely had many contributions that are still being used in the world today. China's first civilization, like the other civilizations in the past, developed along a great river which was a great factor to the rise of this civilization is called the Yellow River. It begins in the mountains of western China and forms a huge look as It flows 3,000 to the Yellow river. The Yellow river regularly overflows In its banks and leaves rich soil which was a great contribution for the success of this civilization.However, spite the achievements and contributions, disastrous floods were common. According to the legend, the Ixia (Hiss) dynasty was started about 2,000 B. C. By You, a great hero. It was said that he was supposedly able to device a way to control the flooding waters in the Yellow River so that the farmers could still live in the valley. What if no one had discovered a way to control the flooding? Would there still have been a Chinese civ ilization or would it have led to its downfall at an instant?Many dynasties emerged in China each with different rulers and a mix of unity ND disunity, lawlessness, war, violence, and prosperity. The early rules of these dynasties were thought to be â€Å"sons of heaven†who were given the â€Å"mandate of heaven†which the approval of the gods to rule as long as they ruled well. According to tradition, the Ixia rulers were so cruel and abused their power which Is why they lost their mandate of heaven to the Shank dynasty.Based on the dynasties, many of the early rulers controlled small states near the Yellow river but Influenced a larger area. Also, many dynasties were at constant war with neighboring people, corruption as rampant, people were forced to pay high taxes and natural disasters and calamities were the main causes for the downfall of many dynasties. There were many contributions and important developments in society during the Chinese civilization. These in cluded tools and weapons made from stone, bone, and wood.Bronze was made into objects used by rulers and priests in religious rituals and ceremonies. Agriculture, technology, trade, and transportation all were undergoing changes at that time. Metalworkers learned how to make sturdy plows and sharp weapons. Canals for shipping were built (which shows the importance of he Yellow river In trade), and irrigation systems were developed. Also, in order to protect themselves, the Chinese constructed the Great Wall during the SQL dynasty but eventually killed many people.Furthermore, many new Ideas such as the knowledge of iron working, domestication of animals, horseback riding, and nomadic In addition to that, a teaching that developed during those periods was Confucianism. It developed from the teachings of the Confucius who was considered the greatest philosopher and teacher. He was concerned with questions of ethics and morality in terms of politics. According to Confucius, each person had a specific place in society and certain duties and responsibilities to fulfill.
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