Addressing International Legal and Ethical Issues Simulation Summary Essay

Conducting international business can be a profitable endeavor but requires a lot of tact and strategy. In international business legal issues may arise but must be resolved in order to retain the relationship. This problem includes but is not limited to changes in legislation, clashes of interest, ethical dilemmas, cultural and ethical differences. When entering into an agreement with another country legal agreements must be drafted to protect the company interest. Consideration must be made of the countries culture and ethical differences. The process of sublicensing can be positive for CadMex. However, the process consumes an incredible amount of time and money. Sublicensing could also violate the non-disclosure agreement. Local customs in laws can conflict with in organizations customs in laws when operating abroad. When this occurs the laws that were specified in the contract should prevail unless there is a CIGS (contracts for the international sale of goods) which is been used by default. See more: Experiment on polytropic process Essay When issues arise alternative dispute resolution (ADR) can be used it is a means for resolving disputes between parties outside of the judicial process using one of four techniques mediation, arbitration, negotiation, or collaborative law. Mediation is the use of a neutral party to resolve the dispute between two or more parties. Arbitration is the resolving of a dispute between parties through the use of an agreed upon party. Negotiation is when the parties have a mutual discussion and arrangement of terms of an agreement. Domestic issues are usually easier to resolve then international issues. Domestic issues do not require the same strategy or consideration does international issues. Domestically the laws are the same but international laws vary from country to country. Contract terms must be defined very explicitly. Sensitivity must be developed and exercised to accommodate local cultures and customs. Laws must also be clearly defined as you leaving as they are part of what can lead your business to success or failure. Addressing International Legal and Ethical Issues Simulation Summary Essay * What are the issues involved in resolving legal disputes in international transactions? All contracts that deal with outside countries must be able to have some type of legal implementation (Melvin, 2011). There has to be some type of enforcement on the contract or it may never be resolved. * What are some practical considerations of taking legal action against a foreign business partner based in another country? According to (Melvin 2011); a country can stop all transactions from that business if they file lawsuit on that country. The law of other countries must be taken into consideration when dealing in foreign business. The United States laws are only upheld within the United States borders and may not be respected in a foreign country. Contracts are only binding if they have the backing of the law in whatever county or countries they are made in. See more: Strategic Management Process Essay * What factors could work against CadMex’s decision to grant sublicensing agreements? Sublicensing agreements comes into play when the organization has too many of them and does not fully incorporate sub-paragraphs. This leaves the organization up for lawsuits if any of the contracted workers do something wrong and also makes the main organization fully liable for any damages. Even workers within the sublicensing can sue a business formed within the sublicensing agreement (Melvin, 2011). * When the local customs and laws conflict with the customs and laws of an organization operating abroad, which should prevail? Explain why. Situations should be handles on a one on one basis. Sometimes special considerations need to be taken to accommodate certain employees due to religious beliefs. In such cases the local laws should prevail in order to prevent a costly and drawn out lawsuit with employee unions. Negotiating and coming to an accord amongst the two would be the best option as well as revising company policy to cater to local customs and laws without losing essentials to company policy. * How would you compare the issues in this simulation to the domestic legal issues discussed in your Week One readings? How should companies resolve domestic and international issues differently? The issues in the simulation are faced in the United Stated everyday by many corporations. The Human resource department of each company is designed to handle such problems when and should they arise. Domestic issues are resolved easier than international issues because they are resolved according to the law of the United States. However when in international waters a corporation (even if it is American) must adhere to the laws of the country it is conducting business in. Litigation and alternative dispute resolution options will apply.

“Of Mice and Men”: Naturalism Essay

Naturalism is a very intense style of literature that an author can use. With naturalism, the author is trying to convey knowledge acquired through the senses and experiences they them selves have been through. In the novel of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck, he portrays elements of naturalism through his very own sights and experiences. During the depression John Steinbeck got a first hand dose of what it meant to deal with sordid aspects of life. Just like his book, he portrays his accounts using highly realistic settings, and brutal characters with foul mouths that deal with depressing issues of life. In the real world things happen, but in the world of Mice and Men, nothing ever seems to happen the way the characters hope. Steinbeck wanted his characters to be brutal and fail to achieve their goals they worked so hard to get. He wanted the characters to have foul mouths and have bleak views of what life really is. As said from the genre paper of naturalism â€Å"Characters in naturalistic literature are trapped by their heredity and environment and end in failure.† Dealing with vast emotions and massive challenges, characters like George and Lennie in the novel, ended in failure because of their brutal surroundings. If Curly’s wife never intervened with Lennie after he killed the young pup, then she would not have ever died. Lennie was only driven by his basic urge to touch soft things. † Lennie’s big fingers fell to stroking her hair. â€Å"Don’t you mess it up,† she said.†Ã¢â‚¬ ( Steinbeck 91 ). Steinbeck really placed the characters with brutal settings among brutal characters. The setting of the book is highly realistic and greatly portrays what the time period truly represented. Steinbeck, once a migrant worker too, lived the experience of his literature. He knew exactly what the environment should be like too and what it shouldn’t. â€Å"Chapters one and six take place by the river, two and three in the bunkhouse, four and five in the barn.† All of these setting are settings you would not likely find through out our time period but in the life of a lonely migrant worker. It is quit creditable for Steinbeck to instinctively return to the earlier forms of literature of drama, epic and parable. His use of literary devices to describe his settings are remarkable. â€Å" A few miles south of Soledad the Salinas River drops in close to the hillside bank and runs deep and green.  The water is warm too, for it has slipped twinkling over the yellow sands in the sunlight before reaching the narrow pool.†(Steinbeck 1). Steinbeck is not making just plain ordinary descriptions of this scene-setting, but is revealing a sense of freedom and joy before tragedy and hate that’s burred farther along the book from the sordid aspects of life. Dealing with dirty aspects of life was all just another part of naturalism in Steinbeck’s scheme. He wanted the reader to greatly feel the depression and madness their society had to endure. He wanted the reader to end the book sick to the core from the gruesome dream that was crushed with just one accidental murder, and one gunshot to the head. â€Å"And George raised the gun and studied it, and he brought the muzzle of it close to the back of Lennie’s head. The hand shook violently, but his face set and his hand studied. He pulled the trigger.† (Steinbeck 106 ). This was already evident to some of the characters in the book. Crook’s for instance, foreshadowed what would happen later on to people with dreams. â€Å"†I never seen a guy really do it,† he said † I seen some guys nearly crazy with loneliness for land, but ever’ time a whore house or a blackjack game took what it takes.†Ã¢â‚¬ (76). This book really showed that fate is eminent and no matter how you try or what you do, something will always try to stand in your way. Naturalism is portrayed in the novel of Mice and Men through the author’s own sights and experiences. Just like his book, Steinbeck emulates his life experiences with highly realistic settings, and brutal characters with foul mouths that deal with depressing issues of life. Steinbeck truly pushed beyond the limits of standard writing, and showed us a side of good and evil like never before.

Australian Economy Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Australian Economy - Assignment Example The government, on the other hand, utilizes fiscal policies to ensure the economy grows at stable rates. The Reserve Bank and the government have ensured stability in the economy of Australia using fiscal and monetary policies since November 2011. The fiscal policy is in form of taxation and government spending; while the monetary regulation is in form of the cash rate and open market operations. The government and the Reserve Bank have succeeded in stabilizing prices and economic growth through the policies. The bodies have not managed to achieve full employment and balance of payment. Performance of the Australian Government and the Reserve Bank in running the economy from November 2011 to November 2013 Price Stability Price stability is achieved when the annual rate of inflation in a country is zero. However, it is hard for a country to achieve a zero rate of inflation because of price and wage rigidities. Price and wage rigidities refer to those charges that do not decrease below certain levels, for example, salaries of executive officers in organizations. The Reserve Bank of Australia set an inflation target of two to three percent (Reserve Bank of Australia, 2013); after taking into account price rigidities in the economy in 2010. Other countries that target the same figure include Hungary, Mexico, Spain, Japan, and Canada among others. This means that the rate that Australia set is favorable and it is widely accepted in the world. The Reserve Bank set the low inflation rate target to avoid the undesirable consequences of high rates of price instability, which include uncertainty, unfair distribution of wealth, and increasing tax benefits for businesses (Reserve Bank of Australia, 2013). These effects, consequently lead to low annual economic growth rate. The bank has managed to maintain the target inflation rate since November 2011. Year January -March April-June July-September October-December Annual 2013 2.5% 2.4% 2012 1.6% 1.2% 2% 2.2% 1.7% 2011 3.3% 3.5% 3.4% 3% 3.3% Quarterly inflation rates since January 2011. (http://www.rateinflation.com/inflation-rate/australia-historical-inflation-rate) The above figures show the rates of inflation in Australia since January 2011. The study, however, aims at determining the average rates from November 2011 to 2013. These include all the quarters of 2013 and 2012, and the last section of 2011 whose rate was 3%. The rate has remained within the 2-3% range in all the relevant quarters of the study. This means that the Reserve Bank has managed to stabilize prices in the country by use of monetary policies. Unemployment Unemployment is the inability of a qualified person to fail to secure a job at the prevailing wage rates. The unemployed people are willing to take jobs at the given wage rates, but they fail to find jobs in the market. Unemployment leads to undesirable consequences in the economy, for example, it lowers the per capita income, increases dependency, and leads to theft and prosti tution among others. The government and the Reserve Bank have failed to ensure low rates of unemployment in the country since 2011 because of the instability of some sectors in the economy. Long term unemployment has remained above 5% in the country since October 2011; whereas the velocity was below that amount before this period (Chua, 2013). This means that the management of unemployment has been inefficient, and this pulls down the economic growth

Human Trafficking Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Human Trafficking - Essay Example This incorporates both males and females, innocent human beings that are unsuspecting. It is important to note that there is a distinct group of individuals associated with the alleged human trafficking and smuggling.   This is the so-called organized crime that befalls other individuals of unsuspecting nature.The above issue has become a great concern to the European States, which are now on a lookout to smother the crime. For instance, the States have at length laid prominence on cooperation in matters pertaining to criminology. Particularly, they have formed European organizations in the regions that work together with these other international organizations, which include United Nations Office of High Commissioner for Human Rights International, and Organization for Migrations. In order to understand these instances at depth, it is essential to be acquainted with the implication of the frequently used words; these include human trafficking and smuggling.Defining TraffickingHuma n trafficking is a human right matter. It defines human trafficking as unlawful trade of human beings for using them in slavery, moneymaking sexual abuse and compulsory labor. It also entails other current ways and forms of servant hood and abuse of the rights of people in using them as goods of trade for profit making. In practice and principle, trafficking can be both internal, meaning involving acts of within a country and the other kind of trafficking that is not necessarily the case., is one that involves illegal border crossing and transnational trafficking trade2. Looking at the same definitions of trafficking in depth, it uses a principle and practice that distinguishes it from smuggling in a broader way. As seen above, trafficking is seemingly legal since it is not by any means transitional. Again, it lacks illegal border crossing. This means that the individual victims that face human trafficking do not have problems in crossing the border getting in or out of Europe. It is painful to note that sufferers of human trafficking are portrayed as commodities owned by other individuals. These individuals owning them pay for their transport expenses that see them into or out of the European States and its borders. What stands out in this is that they are still denied their rights to, freely, move about, no wonder the States have come out to suppress this. Defining Smuggling Smuggling involves prohibited border-crossing and transnational unauthorized trade. In human beings, it is obtaining monetary or personal benefits through individuals by transporting them to another country without legal authorization. It is human miss-treatment involving agreed immigration and sheltering of noncitizens for the purpose of misuse of the entrants for achieving a gain. Furthermore, human smuggling is defined as a crime of transnational transportation of noncitizens of a State for a criminal gain. Most cases in smuggling involve personal acceptance of victim to be immigrated illegally. This makes illegal entrants more like customers who compensate for the services offered by the smuggler. It ends once the party being illegally reinstated to another country

Whether or not legislation should legalize marijuana for personal use Essay - 1

Whether or not legislation should legalize marijuana for personal use in Arizona - Essay Example Demands of making marijuana legal and authorized are against the health majors and ways to safeguard the physical wellness. By making the marijuana legal, the price will get declined terribly resulting in greater use of the drug. Altered state, the RAND Corporation has made a report that determined the possible outcomes in case of making the marijuana legal (RAND, 2012). According to the report, the cost of marijuana will crash rapidly that will ultimately force the addictives to consume it in greater quantity. It is the illicit nature of the drugs that has kept the prices of drugs to a higher slot. The use of drug is highly dependable on the availability of money, for the young children it is a good factor to make them away from the drug by remaining it non-affordable. The consumption of the items that have been declared as illegal such as tobacco and alcohol has left behind the marijuana use (Lowinson 1393). Thus, giving a clear signal that making things legal can enhance the availability and it gets acceptable by the majority. It can be clearly evident in the case of highly restricted prescription drugs like oxycontin, the drug became far more easily reachable then before resulting in inappropriate use. Although, the high restrictiveness was there to prevent all such acts. The revenue generated by the tax could be counterbalance by the social costs these legalize products put on the society. The social cost of alcohol and tobacco is much greater than the tax and other revenue it produce. In 2007, the tax collected by the federal excise was determined to be as $9 billion; however, only $5.5 billion was collected. On the other hand, $185 billion was the total social cost resulted from the alcohol and tobacco regarding health problems, criminal cases, lack of potency at workspace and other issues (The White House, 2013). The collected tax

Compare two Human Resource Information System (HRIS) software Term Paper

Compare two Human Resource Information System (HRIS) software - Term Paper Example In some cases, it also takes care of expenses and reimbursements for the employees. This module takes input from the time and attendance for the employee attendance, compensation management and employee information database. Time & Attendance – This module involves implementation of shift management, time-sheets, leave quota management, and leave approval/rejection. In an advanced system, this is integrated with attendance tracking systems like biometric or punch cards. Performance Management – This module is used to measure the performance of all the employees in the organization. The performance management system is linked to the learning management system to identify appropriate learning courses in order to improve the performance. Learning management – This module is made to ensure that the employees are continuously learning. This module enables the organization to have a defined learning catalogue and employees to register for learning in order to learn new skills or add to the existing one. Employee and HR Self-service – This is a web based portal that ensures that all the employees and HR can access their authorized area of the HRIS over web. An employee or an HR can log into the portal and carry out her activities from the system over web. There are a large number of HRIS available in the market. The market is led by SAP and Oracle PeopleSoft for the larger companies. For small and medium sized firms, there are various other solutions. People-Trak HRMS and BambooHR Software are key players in this market. Most of the HRIS now are available in a SaaS model, where the customer is not required to install anything, not procure any hardware and does not have to make any significant capital investments. This analysis compares the two systems. People-trak HRMS is a product of Technical Difference, Inc. which is involved in developing HR software for the last 20 years. People-track is their most widely used HR system. The

Pressing Environmental Issues in Manitoba Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Pressing Environmental Issues in Manitoba - Essay Example Manitoba’s mining industry is currently worth over $2.5 billion with peat, zinc, silver, gold, copper, platinum, cobalt and nickel being the major metal products of this sector. Mining has however been a major threat to terrestrial biodiversity in Manitoba through land conversions and pollution (Wellington, 1997). A key environmental concern in mining has always centered on the rehabilitation of old, orphaned mines which consist of steep excavations, shafts and exploration trenches. Despite mining being a key revenue generator for Manitoba’s government, public safety has been compromised after abandoned mines are left unattended since such mines pose a threat to local communities living nearby. The Mine Closure Regulation which was approved in 1999 led to the establishment of The Orphaned and Abandoned Mines Program (OAMS) mandated to deal with such mines by sealing them using Otto Bayer’s Polyurethane foam (PUF) technology (Priscu et al, 2009). Many of these aba ndoned sites are situated within the Precambrian Shield which has massive gold deposits. Provincial Parks, aquatic life and areas with dense vegetation have not been spared due to discovery of more valuable metal deposits under them which eventually results in encroachment by the mining industry. Industry plays a major part in Manitoba’s development. However, hazardous waste mainly originates from Manitoba’s industries and exhibit a variety of harmful radiological, corrosive, bio hazardous, explosive and toxic properties.

Report nokia company from 2003 -2008 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Report nokia company from 2003 -2008 - Essay Example Importance is given to teamwork and mutual respect (Nokia-b, 2010). In the beginning of 2008 the company announced a new â€Å"company structure†. It aims at aligning the opportunities in the company with future growth prospects. Nokia also plans to increase the efficiency of the working ways across the company. According to the Articles of the company and Finnish Companies Act the management and control of the company is divided between the company shareholders, the Board of Directors,, President and Group Executive Board headed by the CEO. The Board gives decisions relating to the activities of the Group including crucial investment decisions, approval of plans and divestments. The Group Executive Board of the company is in charge of managing company operations (Nokia-c, 2010). The competitors of the company are LM Ericsson Telephone Company, Motorola Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. Nokia has the highest market capitalization out of all the above mentioned competitors. In terms of sales the company ranks first among its competitors. Nokia has operations across China, Finland, India and Germany. In these countries the company offers Networks Technology. Nokia offers â€Å"mobile devices and technology† services in China, Brazil, Great Britain, Finland, India, Hungary, Mexico, South Korea and Romania (Nokia-d, 2010). The devices unit of the company is in charge of managing and developing its mobile services portfolio. Nokia Siemens Network offers fixed network infrastructure, wireless, networks and communications service platforms and professional services to service providers and operators. NAVTEQ is a major provider of â€Å"digital map data† for mobile navigation devices, internet based applications and business & government solutions. The map data of NAVTEQ is a significant part of the map services of Nokia which provide downloadable maps and voice-based navigation (Nokia-f, 2009). The vision of the company is based on the

Product Design - analysis of the XBox 360 Essay Example for Free

Product Design analysis of the XBox 360 Essay Introduction: The reason that I have chosen the Xbox as the item to do this project on is because of the following reasons. * It has several add-ons which can be used and are used on a constant basis * I am an Xbox owner myself and know its pros and cons and know a severe amount about it. Along with these reasons the Xbox 360 has an expandable memory for music and photos. On the Xbox you can save games to the hard drive which comes in very handy if your and gets scratched this is how you resolve it without having to buy a new game. The expandable memory on these consoles depends on the type of Xbox bought. For example the elite console has an expandable memory up to 250 GB. This 250 GB is for also watching and recording sky on just like the new sky plus box. You can record movies and keep on your hard drive to watch again and again. Aesthetics: The Xbox aesthetics are different depending on which version you buy. The Arcade and Premium versions of the Xbox 360 are very similar with a smooth rectangular shape with rounded edges and a big circular button in the centre with small green lights surrounding it. One is black (Premium) and one is white (Arcade) in colour with some green and silver areas throughout. The arcade is the cheaper of the two as it doesnt have the same attachments and variety of facilities that the elite has but is more well known as the colour of the Xbox as being white as it is the most often bought. Although they each have a regular colour, people are able to buy any of hundreds of different covers which you can put on easily by yourself. Durability: The Xbox 360 console is not very durable. Beware of letting it fall as it will most definitely smash. Also beware of even letting it tip over as it may not break but it will break whatever game is inside it at the time it falls. This is called laser marks or scratches and is the problem that I had referred to earlier. Although the console cannot survive drops, the controller can survive the occasional drop. Consumer/ Users: The main consumers and users of the Xbox 360 are probably teenagers from about 13- 16. Although these are the most frequent users and buyers of the console, many grown men also buy the console. The Xbox 360 doesnt appeal to most men but some are very keen on it. The users are also nearly always male as not many girls would find the Xbox interesting or even fun to use. Modifications: There are very few modifications that can be made to the Xbox 360. The first modification I would make to the console would be to do with the durability. I would make it so that it would not break with a slight fall. Another modification I would make would be to the heat given off from the console as it gives off an enormous amount. This could be resolved solved by inventing a fan used via a USB port on the back to keep it discreet. Thirdly the weight of the console is colossal weight weighing 3.5 kilograms which makes it highly importable. Safety: The Xbox 360 is extremely safe. It has rounded edges so that it is safe for little children who may hurt themselves. One unsafe feature of the console would be the heat outlet which could burn someone if they put their hand on it or even worse, start a fire if it is left on for too long. Secondly as mentioned before the weight of the console if it were to fall on a small child it would do serious damage or may even kill the child. Ergonomics: The Xbox 360 is designed to stand up straight on a flat surface. It is made to suit this environment. It can also be sat down flat but it takes up a larger surface area. The Xbox 360 controller is shaped perfectly to fit your hands and the headset that comes with it is designed to fit over any shaped or sized head. Also the microphone on the headset comes with an adjustable piee between the ear and the mouth allowing it to be adjusted to reach your mouth. Cost: The Xbox 360 when it first came out about 2 years ago cost around à ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½200 for the arcade version, à ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½250 for premium version and, à ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½320 for the elite version. Since then the prices have come down quite a bit with the current prices at around; à ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½130-140, à ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½190-200, à ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½250-260; depending on where you buy. It is well worth the money and you will get plenty of use out of it. Environment and Location: The Xbox 360 should be held in an open environment away from any water or liquid. It should be located quite high off the ground out of the reach of small children. It should also have room behind it do allow the fan to blow the hot air out without overheating. Size and Weight: The Xbox 360 is not that bid for the amount of components Involved in the making of it. It is around 1 foot tall, about 4 inches thick and around 8 inches wide. It is terribly heavy for a console and very awkward to move. Specifica tions: * Plays all Xbox 360 titles. * Wireless control with rumble * Xbox LIVE * 60GB hard drive * Multimedia compatible * Standard or HD graphics * Free and Premium downloadable game and entertainment content. * Support for DVD-video, DVD-ROM, CD-ROM and MP3 CD * Customizable face plates (picture below) * 3 USB2.0 ports * Support for 4 wireless controllers * Removable 60GB drive * Wi-Fi ready Conclusion: The Xbox 360 looks good and is a nice and attractive shape. It doesnt have the best durability but nothing to worry about. There are very few modifications that could be made to it. It is safe and perfectly designed in every aspect of the console. It is quite large and heavy but is definitely worth the money. Overall in my opinion the Xbox is a great buy for anyone, young or old. Anyone who buys it will have great fun and get plenty of use out of it.

Strategies for Customer Satisfaction and Loyalty

Strategies for Customer Satisfaction and Loyalty Abstract This research aims at to provide the strategies which can be employed by company in order to establish customer satisfaction and customer loyalty by looking at the case of Thai square which is the famous Thai restaurant in London regarding to its reputation. Since customer relationship management is gaining more important to businesses. Many companies try to solve their problem by applying customer relationship management such as the motivation of staff , staff training , method of increasing customer satisfaction, how to gain customer loyalty. These factors can lead to building customer loyalty in the future. In the part of literature review will emphasize on the basis theories which are relevant to the customer relationship management. This research contains the motivation theory , staff training , customer satisfaction and customer loyalty. By achieving this research purpose , this research employs secondary and primary data. The primary data was acquired by a questionnaire survey which is the methodology of this research. Regarding to the questionnaire for staffs , there are 20 respondents who participated in this research as well as there are 100 respondents who walk into and eat at Thai square restaurant who responded to the questionnaire for customers. The sample size of this research is Thai square restaurant (Minories). To conduct this research researcher used both primary and secondary data achieved by self à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â‚¬Å" administered questionnaire. By analysing primary data from the questionnaire , the SPSS and Microsoft Office excel was used to achieve it. The statistical method was applied to analyse the result of this research. The results illustrate what factors could gain customer satisfaction , how successful the staff performance after being trained , how well staff can achieve companiesà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢ objectives. This research also provides recommendations for company and the further research so that company can improve the customer relationship management as well as can gain more customer loyalty in the future. Chapter 1 Introduction 1.1 Overview Nowadays, the consumer behaviour has been changed from the product centred stage to the customer cantered stage . Moreover, the customerà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s behaviour has been changing. Mudie Pirrie (2006 p.7 ). When they purchase product , they expect not only good product , quality and design but they also expect on service. Therefore, the service has been the significant reason in decision à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â‚¬Å" making process. Since many business have been trying to improve and develop their strategy in order to meet the customerà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s need rather than the products. All organisationà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s achievement has to give an important to the customers. Companies need to recognize all details of their customers such as the details about what customer need , who they are , what they buy, when and where they buy , how often and how much they spend. Moreover, companies have to evaluate approximately the customersà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢ behaviour in order to predict what customers will do in the future. In addition, companies should establish the database of their customer and profile so that they can keep contact and advertise new promotion. These has been the knowledge of company which have been assumed as the asset of company. The managing customer relationships strategies is the essential process. By emphasizing on customer relationship management , companies may increase their abilities in knowing what customers need. Moreover, customer relationship management can help companies to target potential customers and to cut unnecessary cost and gain higher return on investment. As the staff motivation and training is a part of the Human Resource Management. There is a connection between customer relationship management and Human Resource Management because customer relationship management relies on staffà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s effectiveness and moral. Customer relationship management focuses on customers. To satisfy them , companies need to develop their staffà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢ effectiveness and moral using motivation and training method. By doing so , companies may gain customer satisfaction and customer loyalty which are companiesà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢ objectives. Customer relationships management strategy has generally been companyà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s strategy in managing customer relationship so that companies can retain their customers and increase customersà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢ satisfaction and loyalty (Blazey 2006 p.136)(Kumar 2006 p. 156-157) Companies are focusing on customer retention , customer loyalty and customer satisfaction as a key management objectives. The one objective of customer relationship management is the advertising of customer loyalty .(Peppers Rogers 2004 p.12). The greatest benefit of customer service is customer loyalty (Tschohl Franzmeier 1996 p.20).Loyal customers are forcing organization changes.(Montano 2005 p.332)and can improve employee morale and productivity because customers respond positively to company. (Tschohl and Franzmeier 1996 p.20). The motivation for loyal customer based on better products, better service and better market value.(Montano 2005 p.332) . The manager is more likely to achieve improved levels of motivation(Nieto 2006 p.108) Companies have to motivate staff to participate in training process for improving staff performance so that they can achieve customer relationships management strategy. Organization tend to concentrate on performance management and rewards to elicit employee cooperation ,supporting the value management and employee relations in workforce. (Nieto 2006 p.108) 1.2 Aims and Objectives The objective of this research is to provide the strategies which can be employed by company in order to establish customer satisfaction and customer loyalty and to improve employeeà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s performance to achieve objective in the future. The objectives are that : 1. To evaluate the customer satisfaction which may lead to customer loyalty 2. To explain the relationship between motivation of staff and staff training as well as their effectiveness to improve customer service in order to satisfy customer 3. To establish the appropriate strategies for restaurants in terms of customer relationship management. 4. To give an advice for restaurant , staffs on how to improve their potential in providing so as to satisfy customer. 1.3 Organization background The Thai Square Restaurant Group was founded in 1996 when the first Thai Square opened in The Strand in central London. Thai square restaurant aims to maintain the leader status in the London market and sustainable growth of Thai restaurant market. The currently competition is intensive and the customerà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s behaviour have been changing very rapidly. Many competitors can soon gain the competitive advantage and also gain more market share eventually. The company creates challenges with authentic Thai food, fresh ingredients , excellent service as well as restaurantà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s design and decoration to be unique and different from the competitors. To address these challenges, the company need to provide a great service in order to gain customer satisfaction and loyalty. Thai square has planned to add value to the customers by capturing customer feedback received by telephone, e-mail, and establishing a knowledge base of problems and solutions. (Interview with resta urant manager of Thai square (Minories) According to the restaurant review, the customers choose Thai square restaurant because its decoration , quality of food and service however the price of food and drink in Thai square restaurant when compare to the competitors is quite high especially todayà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s economics is critic and the customersà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢ behaviour have been changing. They may choose to spent on food and drink which is not too expensive and value for money. Therefore, they will choose somewhere else which is cheaper even if it is not good as Thai square. The increasing competitors and changing consumer behaviour are forcing company to apply the managing customer relationships strategies such as customer loyalty , customer loyalty and customer service so as to meet customersà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢ need. Thai square uses the concept of managing customer relationships strategies to be the optimal solution for this case. (Interview with manager of Thai square (Minories)) In the case of Thai square restaurant, the company grew at a lower rate than last year (2008). Net profit declined by 23% from last year due to economic crisis. In addition, it is affected from changing consumer behaviour.The company applied the idea of customer relationship strategies to meet the customer satisfaction and consequently increase customer loyalty. 1.4 Research Structure The structure of research consists of 6 chapters is as follows; Chapter 1: Introduction This chapter contains aims and objectives of research , organization background which is a case study of this research as well as the structure of this research. Chapter 2: Literature review This chapter focus on all theory and strategies that relate to this research such as motivation theory , staff training , customer service , customer satisfaction and customer loyalty. Chapter 3: Methodology This chapter describe what methodology can be employed in research and what methodology which is applied by this research. This chapter also contains the objectives and goal of this research, research design , sampling method , data collection and data analysis technique as well as the validity of this research. Chapter 4: Data analysis This stage is using Microsoft office excel (Excel) and SPSS program to analyses questionnaireà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s data. As well as this process will be evaluated data into percentage and mean score in order to show result by bar chart and pie chart in next step. Bar chart and pie chart will help to easily understand the research topic in each questionnaire Chapter 5: Conclusion This chapter provide the conclusion of the questionnaire result is provided to answer the research aims and objectives. Chapter 6 : Recommendations This chapter provide some recommendations for company and its employee as well as further research. Chapter 2 Literature Review As a result of competitive business situation , many businesses need to pay attention to the new method in retaining and creating new customers. Customer loyalty lead to profitability. Companies should develop positive relationship with customers by increasing customer satisfaction. Since customer satisfaction has been an important to establish long à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â‚¬Å" term relationships which may result in customer loyalty and long à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â‚¬Å" run businesses. It is widely known that the cost of retaining an existing customer is much cheaper than attaining a new customer. In addition, increasing a customer loyalty may be achieved by the level of service which is delivered by company. Companies need to develop the quality of service by increasing responsiveness , fulfilling customerà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s needs as well as providing consistent service. In many business industries, customer satisfaction has been used as the guiding principle for developing customer relationship management strategies as well as organizing business activities. 2.1 Theories of Motivation 2.1.1 Introduction The motivation in work is à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“The processes by which people are enabled to and induced to choose to behave in particular ways (Stevens 2005 p.90). As a result, The motivation could be maintained and improved if it was related with a seek for the methods by the job performance and productivity of members 2.1.2 Need Based Theories The previous idea of human motivation was based on the concept of self-satisfaction which human tries to meet with the happiness and relieve and tries to avoid sadness and distress. However ,this statement, whilst being apparently rational, cannot clarify many ways of human behavior. For example, why do the volunteer charity workers offer their time and attempt for nothing? Why do amateur athletes exert such high levels of effort, whereas a hedonist would prefer to relax? Researchers started to understand that human has other needs and desires which cannot be given an explanation under such a restricted observation of human behavior as hedonism. Therefore, there is the basic principle of needs theories which human motivation is resulted from the absence of an important needs.(Argenti 2002 p.89) Figure 2.1: The Motivation Framework Source: Griffin, R.W. (2003), Fundamentals of Management- Core Concepts and Applications (3rd edn), Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston 2.1.3 Maslows Hierarchy of Needs Yeatts and Hyten (1998 p.62) regarded motivation as a continually changing desire to fulfill changing needs. Maslow supposed that human needs arose in a hierarchy of importance, that was called à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‹Å"prepotencyà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢. Only the motivators will play a role on the next stage of needs in the hierarchy. Therefore, the act as motivators would be ended when the stage of needs has been fulfilled and the person will pay directly the attention to the next stage of needs in the hierarchy. Maslowà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s hierarchy of needs is shown in Figure Physiological needs (Food, water, shelter) Safety needs (security, protection) Social needs (sense of belonging, Love) Esteem needs (status, self-esteem) Actualisation Needs (Self-development) Self- Figure 2.2: Maslowà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s Hierarchy of Needs 2.1.4 Motivation-Hygiene Theory The research observed the link between job satisfaction and productivity with 200 engineers and accountants. The research outcome was the motivation hygiene theory of Herzberg, which proposes that certain factors (intrinsic factors)can result in job satisfaction, while others (hygiene factors) can prevent from dissatisfaction but cannot stimulate satisfaction. Herzberg at el (1959 p.102). Intrinsic factors are factors which are inherent to the job, for instance , the satisfaction of the job itself as well as the recognition and development for success , the availability of chances for the responsibility. On the other hand , hygiene factors are relevant to the environment in which the job performance is achieved. The hygiene factors consist of working conditions , supervision and interpersonal relations , salary as well as the policy and administration of organization. Besides, the importance prerequisite factor , which is needed to influence humanà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s motivation, is regarded as the hygiene factors. The motivation factor would be able to proceed on the staff and establish job satisfaction and productivity if there were à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‹Å"goodà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢ hygiene factors which lead the staff to be in a form of à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‹Å"no dissatisfactionà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢. Consequently, to encourage staffs towards higher productivity, à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“while it is important to ensure that the hygiene factors are correct, the manager must manipulate the motivation by attending to job-content issues (e.g. job-enrichment)à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬? (Carson at el 1997 p.136). Job- enrichment entails redesigning jobs to make them more interesting and challenging by allowing provisions to be made for increased responsibility, creativity and autonomy. The Herzbergà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢ research has been criticized because of the research itself and the biased collection of sample (see Holloway 1991). Holloway (1991 p.1) stated that the clerical and production workers à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‹Å"did not produce the accounts he was seeking, he didnà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢t sample themà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢. Goldthorpe et al (1968 p.11) suggests that other types of employee (such as assembly-line workers) may indeed view work in the way expressed by scientific management and be primarily motivated by financial incentives. A case of workers being primarily motivated by what Herzberg regards as a hygiene factor. The important point to be made from the criticism of Herzberg and from the work of Goldthorpe et al. is that no one theory, be it human relations or scientific management, is likely to apply universally. Different socio-economic groups appear to attach different meanings or have different orientations towards and work (Parker 1972 p.200). While different group s of people may have different attitudes towards work, they are also likely to react differently towards management policies. A model of worker motivation should therefore be able to differentiate between different types of worker and treat the wants, expectations and attitudes towards work as à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‹Å"culturally determined variables, not psychological constantsà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢ (Goldthorpe 1968 p.178). As a result of the differences of each staff , company should apply a motivation policy so as to encourage an individual behavior and characteristic of its staff. To motivate people with different need and different characteristics is difficult but it would be rewarding and challenging. It can be said that hope is the magic component of motivation. The motivation factors help staffs to do a better job and to increase productivity(Steinberg 1976 p.123) ( Kamin 2002 p.87). The theorists propose that there are four strongest motivation factors which are the achievement : feeing personnel accomplishment for having done a job well , the recognition : being recognized for doing your job well ; for example , being complimented by your boss and receiving an award , the participation : being involved in your work ; having some responsibility for making decisions and the growth : having the opportunity for challenge in the job, such as the chance to learn skills and knowledge. (Kamin 2002 p.87). Manager not only should translate attitude and knowledge into action but also recognize that people have diverse motivations for asking to join a team (Nieto 2006 p.56).Therefore , manager should to be understand in how theories and models can be translated into useful practices (Currie and Procter 2003 p.14) in next step on training and practica l skill Motivation Factors Achievement The work itself Recognition Responsibility Growth Advancement Satisfaction No Satisfaction Hygiene Factors Supervision Company policy Relationship with supervisor Working conditions Salary Relationship with peers Status Security Dissatisfaction No dissatisfaction Figure 2.3: Motivation-Hygiene theory 2.2 Training 2.2.1 Definition of training Training has been defined as the planned activities on the part of an organization to increase job knowledge ,skills or to modify the attitudes and social behavior of the members in ways consistent with the goals of the organization and the requirements of the job (Robin 2003 p.1219)(Anderson and Neil 2001 p.280) Development has been defined as any attempt to improve managerial effectiveness through a planned and deliberate learning process . Methods of training needs / analysis needs. (Wilson 2005 p.149) Job analysis. Job description. Interview with the job holder. Interview with the manager / supervisor. Performance objective. Analysis of competencies. Reasons for training Poor performance and /or productivity. A change in working methods. Introduction of a new technology or equipment requiring new /different skills. Changed or new product range ,after sales etc; Replacement of employees who have been promoted or transferred, and training the employees who are all promoted and replaced. To improve workplace safety.(Ferris, et al 1995 p.154) 2.2.2 Training Methods 2.2.2.1 Attitude training An attitude training is an individualà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s characteristic way of doing or responding to a object or a situation. It is based on the experience and leads to certain behavior or the expression of certain opinions. 2.2.2.2 Methods of attitude training On the job experience placing the trainee within a group whose attitudes are thought to be appropriate .This socialization process tends to produce the desired attitude in the trainee. On the job training :This may involve à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“Shadowingà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬? or being attached to a senior employee who has the desired attitudes and personal qualities to influence the employee .(Bohlander 2001 p.235) On the job counseling à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‹Å"s senior member of the organization with the desired qualities and attitudes is appointed as the mentor to the employee. Off the job training :A group of employees engage on case study activity intended to emphasize relevant and desirable attitudes. Off the job exercises : Role-playing exercises. 2.3 Customer service The small companies should emphasize on creating positive relationships with their customers. Customers with positive dealings with companies are likely to be loyal. There are three fundamental idea which lead to the focus on delivering an outstanding customer service. Firstly, the high level of customer service increases customer satisfaction. Secondly, customer satisfaction leads to customer loyalty. Thirdly, small companies have a possibility in delivering greater customer service than large companies. From those three fundamental idea , it can be concluded that by not concentrating on customer service may endanger the achievement of customer satisfaction and customer loyalty. (Longenecker 2005 p.289) In general , good customer service is to meet customersà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢ expectations by giving the importance and value to them. Their experience in companiesà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢ service will decide that not only they want to continue doing the business with companies but also what will they give a word of mouth about companiesà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢ service. The good customer service is decided by customers who is given the service. As each customer has different needs and expectations. Therefore, companies need to designed service for individual customers. 2.3.1 Why customer service is important There are a research shows that when employees have a poor view of customer service , this will result in high turnover in companies. Therefore, to increase the quality of service could lead to increase employee retention and customer loyalty. Some people would like to do good work. They may lack skills and so they appear unmotivated, or they may be job-hopping because they have not found work environment that support their talents. By giving the support and training as well as service environment which focus on customer staffs could have tools they need to give customers what they want and deserve. (Kamin 2006 p.1) In addition ,training is important part to improve quality. Good staffs understand that training is crucial for being successful on the job and for future career opportunity. 2.3.2. The value of good service Service is important to customers as well as it is important for business development. The aim of companies by creating more value for customers is to retain customer to their companies. Everyone in companies should help to build value as well as their jobs aim at serving customers. When everyone understand their role in serving customers, there will be the results which are creating goodwill and increasing companiesà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢ reputation , decreasing in the case of poor quality , improving the chances of cross à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â‚¬Å"selling and up à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â‚¬Å" selling , gaining in the number of customer retention , reducing employee turnover , making more profit , establishing the goal and performance measure , having competitive advantages and being differences from competitors.(Zemke and Wood 1999 p.12) 2.3.3 How to provide good customer service Most customers have common expectations. They need companies to deliver an outstanding service , solve and realize their problems as well as make an apology if anything went wrong. To determine customer satisfaction companies need to meet their customerà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s needs. Moreover, there are some methods which could help to build customer satisfaction. Firstly , companies should give the attention to customers all the time. Secondly, companies have to listen to customers in the way of understanding what they really need.( Aguilar and Stokes 1995 p.3-7) 2.4. Customer Loyalty As the purpose of increasing profit by continually satisfying customerà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s need becomes more prevalent, the significance of meeting customers satisfaction and increasing their loyalty becomes more important in the competitive business (Disney 1999 p.491). As a result, business owner who want to be successful in the long term should encourage customers visits and make more sales. Good business owner have known and understood this situation well and devoted much of their consideration to ongoing and increasing sales through a variety of marketing activities. Business owner of subtle products should do the same for supporting competitive advantages( Disney 1999 p.491)(GrÃÆ' ¶nroos 1990 p.3). Moreover , since the need of focusing marketing attempt on maintaining existing customers grow to be the principle of marketers (GrÃÆ' ¶nroos 1990 p.3), the topic of customer loyalty, which aim to increase the regularity of a customers behavior and the possibility of cross-selling, has been received more consideration recently (Buttle and Burton 2002 p.217; Dick and Basu 1994 p.99). In this part, the customer loyalty, the different types of loyalty, characteristic of service and service loyalty and the benefits which companies may gain by increasing customer loyalty, plus the related factors which may affect customer loyalty, will be discussed. 2.4.1 The Origin and Meaning of Customer Loyalty The first approach is that loyalty is a surrogate of retention; in other words, a customer who keep on buying one product or service is a loyal customer. However, the second approach regards customer loyalty as a mental conception with an affective or attitudinal component, which could in fact reflect the essence of retention ( Buttle and Burton 2002 p.217;Ennew and Binks 1996 p.219). Loyalty is unlike repeat buying behavior; loyalty includes an attitudinal component which should firstly come to mind before repurchasing products or services (Buttle and Burton 2002 p.217; Dick and Basu 1994 p.99). Therefore , loyalty is a state of being faithful and honest to a particular product or service, and proving such faithfulness and honesty. On the other hand ,repeating purchase only represents frequent occurrence of the purchasing behavior which persists in a given period of time. The meaning of loyalty and repurchase have common characteristics because of the frequency of use increasing when there is a high level of loyalty (Liddy 2000 p.351). Consequently, frequent customer should not be regarded as loyal customer because frequent customer possibly purchases product or service from several different companies. Moreover, customers purchasing behavior could be changed by different situational factors. Buttle and Burton (2002 p.217) stated a characterization of loyalty from a companys head of customer relationship division: Its about having had experiences of things that you feel are important. Putting it in personal terms, you build loyalty to your friends through personal experiences youve shared. Customer loyalty really is like friendship (p. 218). This argument implied that although many customers may carry on to purchase with particular sellers, they could be unfaithful to the product or service sellers. Hence, by explaining the knowledge of customer loyalty, many attempts has been dedicated to classify the different types of customer loyalty. Moreover, to understand the differences between customer loyalty to goods and services as well as the typologies and the origins of customer loyalty, the benefits that businesses could obtain from increasing customer loyalty have been suggested by many authors. With the knowledge of both the characteristics of service loyalty and the promising benefits received from increasing customer loyalty as well as the importance of retaining existing customers could be obtained. 2.5 Customer Satisfaction Generally , most customers do not criticize about their dissatisfying experiences of product or service. However , they could change to another sellers ( Boshoff 1999 p.236). If the seller cannot offer what customer want, there are many other different sellers which provide similar products or services in the market. To sum up, sellers who want to attract or retain customers have to meet customers needs and satisfaction (Oliver 1998 p.14 ). Customer satisfaction has become increasingly to sellerà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s attention during the past decades. Nevertheless, customer satisfaction has been one of the most unquestionable theory of the modern management field (Oliver 1996 p.11-12 ). The idea of customers satisfaction have a clear, reasonable concept. Moreover, it is commonly understood that customer satisfaction could lead to customer loyalty as well as result in higher future profit(Oliver 1996 p.11-12). In many business industries, customer satisfaction has been used as the guiding principle for developing CRM strategies as well as organizing business activities. However, customer satisfaction should not be an objective by itself. Customer satisfaction should be employed as a method for developing the companys performance (Martensen et al. 2000 p.544-53). A number of empirical researches have revealed a relation between customer satisfaction, customer loyalty, and the economic performance of a company while customer satisfaction has been evaluated in different ways, for example, stock market value, added market value and return on investment (Anderson et al. 1994 p.53-66 ; Eklof et al. 1999 p.514-22). On the other hand, the topic about the background of customer satisfaction, the relationship between customer satisfaction and customer loyalty as well as customers post-purchase behavior are presently arguable. To understand the idea of satisfaction undoubtedly and realize the benefits of customer satisfaction, relation between customer satisfaction and related matter are the main significance in this study. 2.5.1 Definition of Satisfaction Customer satisfaction has developed into one of the main purposes for business since the 1990s. Johnson and Fornell (1991 p.267-86) termed satisfaction as a general assessment of customerà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s purchasing and consuming experience. In a few years later, Oliver (1996 p.11-12) provided the recognized definition of satisfaction, which he stated to be linkage with the theoretical and empirical evidence to date: Satisfaction is the consumers fulfillment response. It is a judgment that a product or service feature, or the product or service itself, provides (or is providing) a pleasurable level of consumption-relate fulfillment, including levels of under or over-fulfillment( p. 13). As a result of the importance of satisfaction, many businesses initiate to assign their job to evaluate how satisfied their customers are and to observe how satisfaction ratings affect customer retention and their profit (Bolton 1998 p.45-65). 2.5.2 Importance of Customer Satisfaction In 1990s, there was a prevalent knowledge that satisfaction ratings has been in fact a process to reach strategic purposes, for example, customer retention which is understood to have an effect on companies profits directly (Jones and Sasser 1995 p.88-101). To concentrate on increasing satisfaction is necessary since satisfied customers have more potential to come back the same shop or repurchase the same product or service (Reichheld 1996). Furthermore, customer satisfaction is regarded as condition for customer retention and loyalty, and apparently it is important to understand economic target such as market share, return on investment and profitability(Hackl and Westlund 2000 p.820-25).

Project Report On Brand HP Commerce Essay

Project Report On Brand HP Commerce Essay IT is forging ahead in the country and a wave of optimism continues to wash the industry current market scenarios present a perfect opportunity for IT industry. The Indian IT industry has been competing till now on its ability to reverse engineer the products, that are produced by international companies offer years of research to sale them at cheaper prices however the Indian IT companies have to develop their capacity in basic research to produce original molecules. Compton established in 1993, is a strong teaming of 45 IT professionals and prosperity for its customers. To make lives smoother with latest breakthrough in technology, enabling our customers to perform day to day jobs with speed and spending time saved on more important aspects of business or life. Compton is premium business partner for HP-Compaq and main focus as been to bring new technologies to Homes and Offices. HP Premium Business Partner is a rare status in HP. We have successfully finished several turnkey projects encompassing hardware, software and training on complete solutions Our main product line is PCs, Laptops, Palmtops, Projectors, Printers, Scanners, Laser Printer, Plotter, All in ones, TFT screens, Digital Solutions, PC Maintenance, Networking, Intranet Solutions. Compton specializes in bringing complete IT solutions to our customers. Let our customer be a mid-size corporate, or a SOHO user or a home user we try to go beyond customers expectations. Our service backup facility and well trained team is our main strength. Compton as a team thrives to reach out to our customers through our distribution channel. We wish to take our services globally with unwavering commitment to customer satisfaction. We wish to move forward with strong base of values, values that keep interest of our internal and external customers first without compromise. CONTENT:- Topics Page no. INTRODUCTION 6 1.1 HISTORY 6 OBJECTIVE 7 2.1 PRIMARY OBJECTIVE 7 2.2 OTHER OBJECTIVES 7 2.3 FOCUS 7 2.4 CULTURE FOLLOWED 9 2.5 DIVERSITY 9 2.6 AD CAMPAIGNS 9 RESEARCH METHODOLOGIES 12 HP CORPORATE MARKETING 12 SIGNIFICANCE OF BRAND HP 12 MADE FOR INDIA MARKETING 13 PRODUCT LINE OF HP 14 CONCLUSION 15 RFERENCE 16 INTRODUCTION The Hewlett-Packard Company (NYSE: HPQ) commonly known as HP is an American multinational computer hardware, software firm and is considered as one of the largest Information Technology corporation headquartered in Palo Alto, California, United States. It provides products, technologies, software, solutions and services to consumers, small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) and large enterprises, including customers in the government, health and education sectors. HP is the worlds leading PC manufacturer. It specializes in developing and manufacturing computing, data storage, and networking hardware, designing software and delivering services. HP also has strong services and consulting business around its products and partner products. HISTORY:- HP was founded on January 1, 1939 as a manufacturer of test and measurement instruments by Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard who graduated with degrees in electrical engineering from Stanford University in 1935. The company originated in a garage in nearby Palo Alto during a fellowship they had with a past professor, Frederick Terman at Stanford during the Great Depression. Terman was considered a mentor to them in forming Hewlett-Packard. In 1939, Packard and Hewlett established Hewlett-Packard (HP) in Packards garage with an initial capital investment of US$538. Hewlett and Packard tossed a coin to decide whether the company they founded would be called Hewlett-Packard or Packard-Hewlett, Packard won the coin toss but named their manufacturing enterprise the Hewlett-Packard Company. HP incorporated on August 18, 1947, and went public on November 6, 1957. Their first product was a precision audio oscillator, the Model HP200A. Their innovation was the use of a small night-light bulb as a temperature dependent resistor in a critical portion of the circuit. This allowed them to sell the Model 200A for $54.40 when competitors were selling less stable oscillators for over $200. The Model 200 series of generators continued until at least 1972 as the 200AB, still tube-based but improved in design through the years. At 33 years, it was perhaps the longest-selling basic electronic design of all time. One of the companys earliest customers was Walt Disney Productions, which bought eight Model 200B oscillators (at $71.50 each) for use in certifying the Fantasound surround sound systems installed in theaters for the movie Fantasia. OBJECTIVE Primary Objectives:- To find out the attributes that enhance the customer value by providing better service to them and know how to motivate the more people towards IT. The Project required carrying out the comparative study of prices across Brands and Models also to carry out another comparative study of Margins of Dealers and Wholesalers. This would be done by finding out the Market Operating Price at which they are making deals and the volume of discounts offered by them. Then apart from studying the dealers a study of consumer buying behaviors was also required for the specific brands. This was done by making comparative study of HP along with other brands, in terms of consumer preference. Also dealers perspectives about the brand are also to be considered along with this the effect of prices on brand preference of the models. In the research we also tried to study consumer behavior for all the brands and also the dealers perception about the market of Home PCs, Laptops, Printers, PSC, Scanner, and TFT. For this Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning of various brands on recall, believability, association, final purchase. Other Objectives:- à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢ To know the brand recall by customers. à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢ To know the reason why people prefer HP (Hewlett-Packard) brand. à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢ To increase the sales volume. à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢ To give the customer satisfaction and also get the references from them. à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢ To know which factor is important for customer before buying any IT product. à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢ To illicit suggestion for better positioning for HP product. Focus:- The company was originally rather unfocused, working on a wide range of electronic products for industry and even agriculture. Eventually they elected to focus on high-quality electronic test and measurement equipment. Throughout the 1940s to well into the 1990s the company focused on making signal generators, voltmeters, oscilloscopes, counters, and other test equipment. Their distinguishing feature was pushing the limits of measurement range and accuracy. For instance, almost every HP voltmeter or signal generator has one or more extra clicks of its knobs than its competitors. HP voltmeter or ammeters would measure down and up an extra 10 to 100 times the units of other meters. Although there were good reasons why competing meters stopped at 1 volt full scale, HP engineers figured out ways of extending the range of their equipment by a considerable amount. They also focused on extreme accuracy and stability, leading to a wide range of very accurate, precise, and stable frequency co unters, voltmeters, thermometers, and time standards. During the sixties and seventies:- HP is recognized as the symbolic founder of Silicon Valley, although it did not actively investigate semiconductor devices until a few years after the Traitorous Eight had abandoned William Shockley to create Fairchild Semiconductor in 1957. Hewlett-Packards HP Associates division, established around 1960, developed semiconductor devices primarily for internal use. Instruments and calculators were some of the products using these devices. HP is acknowledged by wired magazine as the producer of the worlds first personal computer, in 1968, the Hewlett-Packard 9100A. HP called it a desktop calculator because, as Bill Hewlett said, If we had called it a computer, it would have been rejected by our customers computer gurus because it didnt look like an IBM. We therefore decided to call it a calculator and all such nonsense disappeared. An engineering triumph at the time, the logic circuit was produced without any integrated circuits; the assembly of the CPU having been entirely executed in discrete components. With CRT readout, magnetic card storage, and printer the price was around $5000. The company earned global respect for a variety of products. They introduced the worlds first handheld scientific electronic calculator in 1972 (the HP-35), the first handheld programmable in 1974 (the HP-65), the first alphanumeric, programmable, expandable in 1979 (the HP-41C), and the first symbolic and graphing calculator HP-28C. Like their scientific and business calculators, their oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, and other measurement instruments have a reputation for sturdiness and usability (the latter products are now part of spin-off Agilents product line). The companys design philosophy in this period was summarized as design for the guy at the next bench. In the eighties and beyond:- In 1984, HP introduced both inkjet and laser printers for the desktop. Along with its scanner product line, these have later been developed into successful multifunction products, the most significant being single-unit printer/scanner/copier/fax machines. The print mechanisms in HPs tremendously popular LaserJet line of laser printers depend almost entirely on Canons components (print engines), which in turn use technology developed by Xerox. HP develops the hardware, firmware, and software that convert data into dots for the mechanism to print. In 1987, the Palo Alto garage where Hewlett and Packard started their business was designated as a California State historical landmark. In the 1990s, HP expanded their computer product line, which initially had been targeted at university, research, and business customers, to reach consumers. Later in the decade HP opened hpshopping.com as an independent subsidiary to sell online, direct to consumers; the store was rebranded HP Home Home Office Store in 2005. HP also grew through acquisitions, buying Apollo Computer in 1989, Convex Computer in 1995, and Compaq in 2002. Compaq itself had bought Tandem Computers in 1997 (which had been started by ex-HP employees), and Digital Equipment Corporation in 1998. Following this strategy HP became a major player in desktops, laptops, and servers for many different markets. Culture followed:- The founders, known to friends and employees alike as Bill and Dave, developed a unique management style that has come to be known as the HP Way. In Bills words, the HP Way is a core ideology . . . [that] includes a deep respect for the individual, a dedication to affordable quality and reliability, a commitment to community responsibility, and a view that the company exists to make technical contributions for the advancement and welfare of humanity. Diversity:- Hewlett-Packard received a 100% rating on the Corporate Equality Index released by the Human Rights Campaign starting in 2003, the second year of the report. In addition, the company was named one of the 100 Best Companies for Working Mothers in 2004 by Working Mothers magazine. Hewlett-Packard is also involved in the NEPAD e-school program to provide all schools in Africa with computers and internet access. Ad campaigns:- Hewlett-Packard has used a number of innovative commercials to sell its products. Like You + HP: digital photography. A television ad campaign for Hewlett-Packards digital photography (titled You + HP: digital photography) has been noted for its simple special effects and choice of music. It won Campaign of the Year from Adweek magazine in 2004. Songs used in You + HP Campaign: à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢ Picture Book by The Kinks à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢ Out of the Picture by The Robins à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢ Pictures of You by The Cure à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢ The Rainbow by The Apples in Stereo à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢ Across the Universe by The Beatles Acquisitions:- Data Systems, Inc. A small 5-person company called Data Systems, Inc. Owned by a chemical manufacturer, Union Carbide, who failed in their diversification efforts, HP bought the group and this helped to launch the HP 2116A in 1966. A computer designed to automate the collection and processing of data from the companys test and measurement devices, it marked HPs entry into the growing computer industry. Apollo In 1989, HP Acquired Apollo computer for $476 million. HP was able to achieve a growth in market share after the merger; with the market at the time valued at $4.1 billion and the fastest-growing area of the market. VeriFone On April 23, 1997, HP announced plans to acquire VeriFone, the leading provider of card-swipe terminals on retail countertops to approve purchases, in a $1.18 billion stock swap. On May 10, 2001, Gores Technology Group acquired VeriFone from HP. Bluestone On January 18, 2001, HP acquired Bluestone Software, Inc., a leading provider of B2B, B2C, and wireless open platform solutions. Indigo On March 22, 2002, HP acquired Indigo N.V., a leader in digital offset color printing systems. Compaq On May 3, 2002, Hewlett-Packard merged with Compaq Computer Corporation, a controversial move intended to make the company the personal computing leader. The merger opposition was led by Walter Hewlett, son of HP founder William Hewlett. Snapfish On April 15, 2005, HP acquired Snapfish, a leading online photo service based in San Francisco, California, USA. AppIQ In October of 2005, Hewlett-Packard acquired the private company AppIQ (short for Application IQ). The company was founded in 2001 by Ash Ashutosh and David Chang, and offered several digital storage solutions. The company had employed up to 235 people by June 2005. OuterBay On February 7, 2006, HP agreed to acquire OuterBay, a leading provider of archiving software for enterprise applications and databases. OuterBay is headquartered in Cupertino, California, USA, with offices in the US, UK, and India. Silverwire On June 6, 2006, HP announced it was acquiring Silverwire Holding AG, a commercial digital photography solutions and software provider with a strong presence in the retail photo market. Silverwire is headquartered in Zug, Switzerland. Mercury Interactive On July 25, 2006, HP announced plans to acquire Mercury Interactive (MERQ.PK), a company that provides Business Technology Optimization software (i.e. software that helps a company govern, develop and maintain its technology stack). This acquisition is expected to occur in Q4 2006 and will result in an HP software business of around $2 billion. VoodooPC On September 28, 2006, HP announced it will expand its presence in the gaming market by acquiring VoodooPC, a maker of high-performance gaming, luxury, and entertainment PCs based in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. This acquisition is expected to close by November 2006. Competitors:- Major competitors of HP in the computer business include Apple Computer, Dell, Gateway, Lenovo (Purchased IBMs Non-server Personal Computer Business), Sony and Toshiba. Major competitors of HP in the server business include Sun Microsystems, IBM and Dell. Major competitors of HP in the printer business include Brother, Canon, Epson, Lexmark and Dell (who rebrands and repackages Lexmark products) Outsourcing:- In 1994, HP decided to outsource its manufacturing to third-party vendors and oversea countries to lower costs and raise profits. Today, desktop computers are assembled in Guadalajara, Mexico where HP employs approximately 1,500 workers. Notebook computers are assembled in China from third-party vendors. Servers and workstations are still assembled in the United States. In 2003, HP had 140,000 employees worldwide. Under HPs current restructuring program, HP began reducing its workforce to lower its costs. By 2006, HP experienced a record profit of $1.5 billion in just one quarter. RESEARCH METHODOLOGIES MARKETING STRATEGY HP Corporate Marketing:- HP is a company unlike any other. They serve everyone from consumers to small and mid-sized businesses to enterprises to public sector customers with an extensive portfolio of market leading solutions specifically designed to meet the needs of each customer segment. They focus on helping people apply technology in meaningful ways to their businesses, personal lives and communities. Their annual RD investment of nearly $4 billion fuels the invention of products, solutions and new technologies, to serve customers better and enter new markets. They produce an average of 11 patents a day worldwide. In addition to the RD and innovation in their product and services groups, HP labs provides a central research function for the company focused on inventing new technologies to improve the customers lives, change markets and create business opportunities. Source: Technology Business Research, Inc., Oct. 26, 2004 Millions of people around the world use HP technology every day. They are largest consumer IT company, the worlds largest SMB IT company and leading enterprise IT company. For more than 100 million cell phone subscribers, it is HP software that identifies them when they turn on their own phones and allows them to place calls. HP powers 100 of the worlds stock and commodity exchanges, including the NEW YORK STOCK EXCHANGE and 14 of the worlds largest trading markets. In response to customer needs and the changing market conditions, they have built a portfolio unequaled in the industry. HP technology now ranges from consumer handled devices all the way to some of the worlds largest and most powerful supercomputer installations. Their strategy is to offer products, services and solutions that are high tech, low cost and deliver the best customer experience. They have dynamic, powerful team of 150,000 employees for the fiscal year that ended Oct 31, 2005 HP has corporate headquarters in Palo Alto, California. HP has a significant in all market they serve:- Consumer Our consumer business has leadership in handhelds, notebooks, printers and cameras focused on delivering simple, rewarding experience to millions of customers. Small and Medium Business Working with local reseller partners, HP serves business customers worldwide to provide specialized expertise, a complete portfolio of products, solutions and services. They have market- leading positions in datacenter and office computing, and the imaging and printing market. Enterprise The enterprise segment draws from Hips full portfolio of products, services and solutions. We collaborate with large customers to build an Adaptive Enterprise helping them achieve more simplicity, agility and value across their organization. We are No. 1 or No. 2 in all three server based operating environments, and we hold top positions in enterprise storage and IT services management. Public sector, health education With more than 60 years of experience serving the technology needs of the public sector, HP brings the full breadth of its portfolio and alliances to help governments, educators, healthcare providers and others working in the public interest to lower their costs, increase efficiencies and serve their citizens, businesses and government agencies better. Their Key Words Doing well by doing good As proud as they are of their capabilities, they are equally proud of their people, standards and values, and deep commitment to global citizenship. Since our first year in business in 1939, HP has given back to communities through philanthropic donations of money, equipment and time. While the scale and reach of business have changed in 66 years. The challenge is to continue to shape the impact of corporations as a constructive force, using our heritage and our actions as tool for doing so. Made for India Marketing:- Brands and Marketing were traditionally dominated by the US, Germany and Japan. In Interbrands global brand scorecard, 14 of the top 20 global brands are US brands (HP is 12 by the way). Consulting firms, advertising agencies and market intelligence companies were primarily based in these countries. Product marketers worked in those three countries; they catered to the local customer needs and created products for those markets that would be then exported with little differentiation to the rest of the world. I was in Bangalore, India recently and I was struck by how much this could become the model of the past. I recommend reading Goldman Sachs excellent economic paper -Dreaming with BRICs: The Path to 2050. The report predicted in 2003 that in less than 40 years, the BRICs economies (Brazil, India, China, Russia) together could be larger than the G6 (top 6 economies in the world) in US dollar terms. By 2025, they could account for over half the size of the G6. Of the current G6, only the US and Japan may be among the six largest economies in US dollar terms in 2050. The recent trends and stats from the BRIC countries indicate that this prediction is accelerating and things may happen sooner. Products will need to be developed specifically for the customer needs in those countries, campaigns will be tailored to local tastes and Marketing will happen increasingly first in those markets and then get exported to the rest of the world, even for US brands. Nokia, which is the only company in the top 20 brands that is not based in any of the three countries, is a great example of this trend (Nokia is based in Finland). Nokia started operations in India in 1995. In 2005, India is among the top 5 markets for Nokia worldwide. Nokia has developed major efforts in adapting its products and advertising to the specificities and tastes of the Indian market: 1998- Indian ringtone 2000- First Hindi User Interface 2002 -First Hindi text input -2003- First Made for India phone (Nokia 1100) 2004 -Hindi SMS campaign 2005 -Local User interface in additional local languages If you consider the forecasts of the Goldman Sachs report, India and China will represent soon 2 of the top 3 markets for most technology products. This will have significant consequences on marketing resource strategies as these markets evolve from low cost offshoring tactics to local strategic marketing talent hiring. This clearly highlights the imperative to re-think the core competencies of US-based Marketing and evolve marketers skills accordingly. Product line of HP:- HP has ventured into various products in different categories. Some of them are as follows 1 Printer:- 5 Desktop computers:- 1.1 LaserJet printers (color and monochrome) 5.1 Compaq Presario Desktop 1.2 ColorJet printers 5.2 HP Pavilion 1.3 Officejet All-in-one printers 1.8 Designjet Printers 6 Plotters 1.9 Deskjet printers 7 Pocket calculators 2 Digital Cameras:- 2.1 Original line 8 Blade Systems 2.2 HP E-series 2.3 HP M-series 9 Personal notebooks 2.4 HP R-series 9.1 Pavilion notebooks 9.2 Compaq Presario 3 Scanners:- 9.3 HP Mini 3.1 Scanjet series 3.2 Film scanners 10 Workstations 4 Mobile phones 11 Servers CONCLUSION The Indian I.T. market currently appears to be at a crossroads, where I.T.marketers are attempting to change the customer perceptions of their brands in the specific buying motivations appear to be replacing generalities. This meanwhile is quite unlike the west where buyers consider, aesthetics, comfort and safety, not necessarily in that order. Before finalizing a purchase. Its smarter to think about emotions and attitudes if marketers are to do a better job of marrying what are HP offers to the consumers image of the offerings. The mindset of the Indian Consumer is such that he is delighted if he buys the pen, a little cheaper than his neighbour. Things are, however, a slowly changing and customers at the upper end of market are now ready pay more for more. I hope that this approach will soon enter the new era, may be not with the same intensity. Success will largely determine to the extent a company can differentiate itself in terms of intangibles that grow with the product. In 1973 HP becomes the first US company to institute the flexible working hours or flex time. Under the program, HP employees can begin work at any time during a two hour period and leave after completing an 8 hrs. workday. The purpose, as explained by Bill, is to gain more time for family leisure, conduct personal business, and avoid traffic jams or to satisfy other individual needs. HP introduces the first electronic calculator to print Japanese characters. The model 9810 desktop calculators are marketed in Japan by Yokogawa Hewlett-Packard.

Business Ethics Essay -- essays research papers

Running Head: Business Ethics Business Ethics name school The modern theory of the firm, which is central to finance and corporate law, views the corporation as a of contracts among the various corporate constituencies. Upon this foundation, finance theory and corporate law postulate shareholder wealth as the objective of the firm. Research in business ethics has largely ignored this contracts theory of the firm except to reject the financial-legal model as normatively inadequate. Philosophers generally bring philosophical theories of ethics to bear on problems of business, and they regard the contractual theory of the firm primarily as a subject for criticism using the resources of philosophical ethics. In particular, stakeholder theory, which stresses the importance of all groups that affect or are affected by a firm, has been proposed as a more adequate theory of the firm for studying business ethics. An important benefit of business ethics research conducted within such a framework would be a narrowing of the gulf between business ethics and the fields of financial economics and corporate law. Business ethics is widely dismissed as irrelevant by researchers in these fields because of its failure to recognize the existing financial and legal structures of the corporation, which are built largely on a contractual foundation. Hence, a common framework could increase the relevance of business ethics research and create a mutually beneficial dialogue. As a framework for identifying and analyzing many common business ethics problems, the contractual theory focuses our attention on the need to provide adequate safeguards for each constituency's interests. Corporate governance is concerned primarily with protecting shareholder interests, in part because the special contracting problems of shareholders are best met by the residual claims that the law of corporate governance creates. The comparative neglect of other constituencies in corporate law is not a matter of concern as long as their interests are adequately protected in some way. How the interests of each constituency are protected--whether by means of corporate governance structures or other means--is a matter of what works best in practice. Before we can devise means for protecting the interests of each ... ...act but on the efficacy of the actual claims of the group in question. Business ethics problems can be identified mainly as wrongful harms, misallocations, and misappropriations. These categories are commonly employed in economics, finance, and corporate law in the analysis of various kinds of problems, which are usually attributed to market failures, imperfect contracting, and other causes. However, many of these other kinds of problems arise from larger economic and political forces that would affect any theory of the firm. References Kenneth E. Goodpaster, "Business Ethics and Stakeholder Analysis," Business Ethics Quarterly, 1 (2001), 53-73; Allen Kaufman, Lawrence Zacharias, and Marvin Karson, Managers vs. Owners: The Struggle for Corporate Control in American Democracy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995. Alderson, A. and Kakabadse, A., (1994), 'Business Ethics and Irish Management: A Cross-Cultural Study', European Management Journal, Volume 12, Number 4, December, pp. 432-441. Abelson, R. and Nielson, K., (2003), 'The History of Ethics', in Edwards, P. (Ed.), Encyclopaedia of Ethics, Macmillan, New York, pp. 81-116. Business Ethics Essay -- essays research papers Running Head: Business Ethics Business Ethics name school The modern theory of the firm, which is central to finance and corporate law, views the corporation as a of contracts among the various corporate constituencies. Upon this foundation, finance theory and corporate law postulate shareholder wealth as the objective of the firm. Research in business ethics has largely ignored this contracts theory of the firm except to reject the financial-legal model as normatively inadequate. Philosophers generally bring philosophical theories of ethics to bear on problems of business, and they regard the contractual theory of the firm primarily as a subject for criticism using the resources of philosophical ethics. In particular, stakeholder theory, which stresses the importance of all groups that affect or are affected by a firm, has been proposed as a more adequate theory of the firm for studying business ethics. An important benefit of business ethics research conducted within such a framework would be a narrowing of the gulf between business ethics and the fields of financial economics and corporate law. Business ethics is widely dismissed as irrelevant by researchers in these fields because of its failure to recognize the existing financial and legal structures of the corporation, which are built largely on a contractual foundation. Hence, a common framework could increase the relevance of business ethics research and create a mutually beneficial dialogue. As a framework for identifying and analyzing many common business ethics problems, the contractual theory focuses our attention on the need to provide adequate safeguards for each constituency's interests. Corporate governance is concerned primarily with protecting shareholder interests, in part because the special contracting problems of shareholders are best met by the residual claims that the law of corporate governance creates. The comparative neglect of other constituencies in corporate law is not a matter of concern as long as their interests are adequately protected in some way. How the interests of each constituency are protected--whether by means of corporate governance structures or other means--is a matter of what works best in practice. Before we can devise means for protecting the interests of each ... ...act but on the efficacy of the actual claims of the group in question. Business ethics problems can be identified mainly as wrongful harms, misallocations, and misappropriations. These categories are commonly employed in economics, finance, and corporate law in the analysis of various kinds of problems, which are usually attributed to market failures, imperfect contracting, and other causes. However, many of these other kinds of problems arise from larger economic and political forces that would affect any theory of the firm. References Kenneth E. Goodpaster, "Business Ethics and Stakeholder Analysis," Business Ethics Quarterly, 1 (2001), 53-73; Allen Kaufman, Lawrence Zacharias, and Marvin Karson, Managers vs. Owners: The Struggle for Corporate Control in American Democracy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995. Alderson, A. and Kakabadse, A., (1994), 'Business Ethics and Irish Management: A Cross-Cultural Study', European Management Journal, Volume 12, Number 4, December, pp. 432-441. Abelson, R. and Nielson, K., (2003), 'The History of Ethics', in Edwards, P. (Ed.), Encyclopaedia of Ethics, Macmillan, New York, pp. 81-116.

The Life Of Edgar Allen Poe :: essays research papers

The Life of Edgar Allen Poe Edgar Allen Poe, the greatest American teller of mystery and suspense tales in the 19th century was a tormented artist. He struggled to become the accomplished author he is known as today. Poe is now acclaimed as one of America's greatest writers, but in his own unhappy lifetime, he struggled to make ends meet. When he was 17, Poe entered the University of Virginia. Allan, his step father, gave Poe only a small allowance, and the young man soon began owing money. He gambled and ran into greater debt. By the end of the year he owed 2,500 dollars. He was nervous and unstable, and he began to drink. Despite his frequenting liquor, he could never hold it well. He would easily become ill from the alcohol. Allan angrily withdrew Poe from school, and a few months later Poe left home. For the next four years Poe struggled to earn a living as a writer. He returned to Mrs. Clemm's home and submitted stories to magazines. His first success came in 1833, when he entered a short-story contest and won a prize of 50 dollars for the story "MS. Found in a Bottle." By 1835 he was the editor of the Southern Literary Messenger. He married his cousin Virginia, who was only 13, and Mrs. Clemm stayed with the couple. The Poes had no children. This success would not last. Poe's stories, poems, and criticism in the magazine, The Southern Literary Messenger soon attracted attention, and he looked for wider opportunities, not a good choice. From 1837 to 1839 he tried free-lance writing in New York City and Philadelphia but earned very little. Again he tried editing. His work was praised, but he was still paid little. His efforts to organize his own magazine were unsuccessful. For the next two years he turned again to free-lance writing.

Shipping

This has Included the level of effort and costs associated with several courses of actions. I have also considered our obligations both legally and morally to our customer and our future customer. Our business has always held Itself and Its products to the highest quality standards and our customers in turn have rewarded us with continued trust and business. Our reputation and image should be a considering factor with any course of action that we take. I have carefully considered possible options and have identified three viable capabilities which would keep our reputation intact and provide the service our customers have come to expect.We can remake the whistle in question and repackage the entire collection; remove the whistle and ship the collection with a replacement of similar or higher value from our catalogue; keep the whistle Included but add a separate replacement of similar or even higher value with Instructions to discard the whistle and replace. Any solution should ensure the utmost customer satisfaction and provide our customers with the care and consideration, not to mention value, our customers rely on when they chose our company. It is also important to try to minimize the cost and effort required to remedy.This will not only minimize financial impact to the company but will help ensure we can remedial quickly in order to fulfill our shipments on time. All three have advantages and disadvantages which I will elaborate. The first option, remake the whistle in question and repackage the entire collection, has the advantage of providing our customer with exactly what they ordered and thus not Jeopardize the relationship we have In place. It would however be a significant undertaking as we would experience a great amount of labor for the remunerate and unpacking and repacking of the product.Legally and ethically there would be no issues but the financial impact of this approach would be about The second option, remove the whistle and replace with an item from our catalogue of equal value would allow us to utilize stock on hand and ship quickly. If the customer requests, we can ship the remade whistle at a later date. This option would remove the ethical and potentially legal concerns of shipping an unsafe reduce and if the customer accepts the replacement without requesting the shipping of the whistles to follow, would be significantly less costly than remaking the whistles in urgency to meet the shipping deadline.However, by substituting the whistle, even offering to ship the replacements at a later date, our reputation of accurate and timely shipping may be compromised with this customer. The third option, keep the whistle included but add a separate replacement of similar or even higher value with instructions to discard the whistle would save costs f remunerate and additional shipping. The schools could keep or discard the whistles as the whistle would pass any safety issues in South America.This would eliminate any legal concerns and would provide the best value to the customer and lowest cost to the company. However, knowing that these would not pass safety levels in the U. S. I feel that this would be highly unadvisable. If the schools chose to keep the whistles there could be resulting health issues to the children. My recommendation would be to proceed with the first option, to remake the whistle and repackage immediately. Although it is the most costly to the company upfront, the loss of reputation or customer faith would prove more costly in the long run.Our company prides itself on delivering to the highest levels. Compromised quality or orders the customer may feel are incomplete could damage the relationship and potentially future business. Additionally, any solution that may allow the tainted whistles in the hands of children could result in a more serious lack of confidence in our company. Our company is built on providing for educational and safe experiences for children worldwide. Anyth ing less would be unethical.In order to get in front of future issues of this type I recommend that we put in place a formal notification and escalation process for concerns of toy safety. We should clearly spell out what each employee is responsible to do and how the company will respond. If we consider potential issues before they occur and address the remediation it will remove any chance that we will be pressured into a fast and poor choice which may have long term impact to our company or our customers. I also recommend that we formalize the company ideals into a code of conduct that is available for our employees and customers.An excellent example that addresses responsibility to all stakeholders internally and externally is the code of conduct for the Matter Company. The Matter Company code of conduct addresses legal and ethical concerns and how to respond if there are concerns. (Matter Inc. , 2011) The Matter code of conduct removes any cloud of Judgment in a tough situation by addressing the concerns of the company, its stakeholders and its customers. It provides a clear explanation of the need and is easily understood. It includes core assign and play to grow.It also includes a value statement â€Å"act with unwavering integrity' that makes the company's emphasis on ethics to be paramount. The code of conduct addresses the responsibilities of all employees and additional responsibilities of leaders to be role models. In addition it spells out the consequences that should be expected if the code of conduct is not adhered. I strongly suggest that we develop a complete code of conduct such as this that will provide a guideline for the company and its employees for any future events as well as the day to day expectations.