Composing Topic Sentences Practice Exercises

Commonly appearing at (or near) the beginning of a paragraph, a topic sentence expresses the main idea of a paragraph. What usually follows a topic sentence are a number of supporting sentences that develop the main idea with specific details. This exercise offers practice in creating topic sentences that will attract the interest of your readers. Each passage below is lacking a topic sentence but contains a series of sentences with specific examples of a single character trait: patiencea frightful imaginationa love of reading Your job is to complete each paragraph by creating an imaginative topic sentence that both identifies the particular character trait and creates enough interest to keep us reading. The possibilities, of course, are limitless. Nonetheless, when youre done, you may want to compare the topic sentences you have created with the ones originally composed by the student authors. 1. Patience For example, recently I began taking my two-year-old dog to obedience school. After four weeks of lessons and practice, she has learned to follow only three commands--sit, stand, and lie down--and even those she often gets confused. Frustrating (and costly) as this is, I continue to work with her every day. After dog school, my grandmother and I sometimes go grocery shopping. Inching along those aisles, elbowed by hundreds of fellow customers, backtracking to pick up forgotten items, and standing in the endless line at the checkout, I could easily grow frustrated and cranky. But through years of trying times, I have learned to keep my temper in check. Finally, after putting away the groceries, I might go out to a movie with my fiance, to whom I have been engaged for three years. Layoffs, extra jobs, and problems at home have forced us to postpone our wedding date several times. Still, my patience has enabled me to cancel and reschedule our wedding plans again and again without fuss, fights, or tears. 2. A Frightful Imagination For instance, when I was in kindergarten, I dreamed that my sister killed people with a television antenna and disposed of their bodies in the woods across the street from my house. For three weeks after that dream, I stayed with my grandparents until they finally convinced me that my sister was harmless. Not long afterward, my grandfather died, and that sparked new fears. I was so terrified that his ghost would visit me that I put two brooms across the doorway of my bedroom at night. Fortunately, my little trick worked. He never came back. More recently, I was terribly frightened after staying up late one night to watch The Ring. I lay awake until dawn clutching my cell phone, ready to ring 911 the moment that spooky little girl stepped out of my TV. Just thinking about it now gives me goosebumps. 3. Love of Reading When I was a young girl, I would make a tent out of my blankets and read Nancy Drew mysteries late into the night. I still read cereal boxes at the breakfast table, newspapers while I am stopped at red lights, and gossip magazines while waiting in line at the supermarket. In fact, Im a very talented reader. For example, Ive mastered the art of talking on the phone while simultaneously reading Dean Koontz or Stephen King. But what I read doesnt matter all that much. In a pinch, Ill read junk mail, an old warranty, a furniture tag (DO NOT REMOVE UNDER PENALTY OF LAW), or even, if Im extremely desperate, a chapter or two in a textbook. Example Topic Sentences My life may be a box full of frustrations, but learning how to overcome them has given me the gift of patience.My family is convinced that I inherited my imagination from Edgar Allan Poe.I envy you terribly because at this very moment youre doing what I have always loved doing more than anything else: youre  reading.

The War And Plato s Symposium, And The Man Discussed

In two very different works we see two equally different portrayals of the same man; these differences are informed by the author’s purpose, the genre of the work, and the effects of the depiction upon the rest of the specific work. These works are of course Thucydides’, The History of the Peloponnesian War and Plato’s Symposium, and the man discussed is the Athenian giant, Alcibiades of the Alcmaeonidae. The authors, of course, have their own aims and reasons for writing their works, Plato, writing an allegory on love likely to defend his teacher Socrates, and Thucydides, to inform on what he believes to be the most significant war in history. The genres of the works being philosophy and history respectively also affects the rhetoric of Alcibiades’ speech; as well as his greater portrayals in the works. It is important to note the differences in the depictions as they are significant not only to understanding the literary merit of the works, but also furt hering the knowledge with respect to the author’s motives and the state of higher opinion on a maverick of a man in the late 5th and early 4th Centuries BC in Athens. The first significant variance one must note between the author’s works is the rhetoric and aims of the speeches Alcibiades makes in the two works. In Plato’s Symposium all the major characters are at a dinner party and are giving speeches about eros, the Greek concept of love, and there is quite an awkward relationship squabble occurring between Socrates andShow MoreRelated Exploring Love in Shakespeare’s Sonnets Essay4114 Words   |  17 PagesIn Plato’s Symposium, the discussion on the nature of love between Socrates and his companions in the house of Agathon clearly discerns key ideas that Shakespeare uses in the sonnets. Beauty, youth, and love are all topics of discussion in the conversations, and Plato’s ideas show up again and again when the sonnets are explored. In Symposium, Aristophanes gives a detailed description of a time when humans were not in their present physical form (Plato 353). His tale posits that the original formRead MoreDr. Einstein And Sigmund Freud Essay1852 Words   |  8 Pagesshared between Einstein and Freud discussed the psychoanalytical aspect of war and how human character, flaw and greed affect the causes and effects of war. Einstein reached out to Freud after the First World War, as requested to do so by the International Institute of Intellectual Cooperation (IIIC), to discuss what he called a subject â€Å"calculated to serve the common interest of the League of Nations and of intellectual life.† His central argument surrounds wars between nations, international affairsRead MoreThe Evil of Politics and the Ethics of Evil10364 Words   |  42 PagesThe Evil of Politics and the Ethics of Evil Author(s): Hans J. Morgenthau Source: Ethics, Vol. 56, No. 1 (Oct., 1945), pp. 1-18 Published by: The University of Chicago Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2988705 Accessed: 21/09/2010 06:43 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTORs Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTORs Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained priorRead MoreEssay on the Role of Women in Ancient Greece14417 Words   |  58 Pagesthose holding political power.† See Ticchi and Vindigni (2003) for a model of endogenous constitutions, and Aghion et al. (2004) on endogenous political institutions. 8 Sparta was very democratic—for its citizens—by the standards of the time. As discussed later in this paper, all Spartan men went through the same educational system, spent adulthood as full-time soldiers, ate in military mess halls, owned estates in Messenia, and were expected to marry and have children. Indeed, the Spartans referredRead MoreMultiple Intelligences Seminar and Workshop14464 Words   |  58 Pagesteachers and school administrators. In addition to writing many more books and articles on multiple intelligences theory, Gardner has served as a consultant to a variety of school districts. The multiple intelligences movement now includes publishers, symposiums, Web sites, how-to manuals, educational consultants who consider themselves M.I. specialists, as well as a number of critics. Howard Gardner and others have revised and expanded the theory Howard Gardner, formulator of the theory, continues

Police Roles and Functions Free Essays

Police Department Roles and Function CJA/214 Police Department Roles and Function In this paper the principal roles and functions of police organizations and their roles as it applies to the law will be identified. Secondly, the description of various types of police agencies at the local, state, federal level, and the roles and functions of each will be discussed. In addition, the role and function of patrol will be explained. We will write a custom essay sample on Police Roles and Functions or any similar topic only for you Order Now The principal roles and function of police organizations The principal role of police organizations can be narrowed down to different services that they provide. Protecting and serving the local community and their civil rights, traffic control, to uphold and enforce the law, and to encourage respecting the law. As we identify the function of the police organization we can say that each organization function helps to prevent crime and keep communities safe. The municipal police deals with serious crimes in big and small cities and asked to provide a wide variety of emergency services. Description of various types of police agencies at the Local, State and Federal Levels As previously discussed, there are three levels of law enforcement agencies being covered, Local, State and Federal. The Local level is made of three organization Municipal Police, County Police, County Sheriff, County Coroner/Medical Examiner and some states still use Constables today. Let’s briefly review each one. Municipal police play a more complex role than any other law enforcement agency due to serving in our cities. Big and small cities represent the most complex environments when it comes to diversity. With that being said, city police carry the heaviest responsibility for dealing with serious crime, which is not concentrated evenly. They are also responsible for difficult order maintenance problems as well as asked and expected to provide a wide range of emergency services (Walker Katz 2011). A County Police officer is essentially a municipal police officer that operates on a county-wide basis but do not have non-law enforcement roles of the county sheriff. There focus is on patrolling and criminal investigations. On the other hand, County Sheriff has a unique role as they serve all three components to the criminal justice system: law enforcement, courts and corrections (Walker Katz 2011). Under these components they patrol, investigate crimes, process and serve subpoenas, provide security in courtrooms and last but not lease maintain county jails. The County Coroner also called the Medical Examiner falls under the law enforcement because they investigate death scenes, conduct autopsies and determine cause of violent and unexpected deaths (Walker Katz2011). Constables were still used, are usually found in a County court system where they are responsible for serving warrants and subpoenas, transporting prisoners, and providing security for district judges. They also work with county commissioners to post delinquent tax notices and assist attorneys in serving divorce papers (Walker Katz 2011). State police and Highway patrol fall under the State Level. They both provide a variety of law enforcement services. In terms of patrol, state police have concurrent or shared responsibility with local police agencies. In about half of the states, the state police or highway patrol agency has the primary responsibility for enforcing traffic laws on the main highways (Walker Katz2011). State police manage traffic and emergency incidents and minimize exposure of the public to unsafe conditions resulting from emergency incidents and highway impediments. Furthermore state police prevent loss of life, injuries, property damage, and protect public and state assets (CHP 2012). The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) is one of several law enforcement organizations under the federal umbrella. The DEA is to enforce the controlled substances laws and regulations of the United States and bring to the criminal and civil justice system of the United States (DEA 2012), and primarily dedicated to reducing the supply of illegal drugs to residents in the United States (Walker Katz 2011). One of the missions and responsibilities of the DEA is the management of national drug intelligence program that aids with federal, state, local, and foreign officials to collect various intelligence drug information (DEA 2012). The role and function of patrol With law enforcement officer the role and function of patrol can take on many descriptions. At times while on patrol an officer can be called upon to be a service provider, a crime fighter or a social worker. Secondly, traffic flow and collision reduction can be one of the many functions that allow an officer to take up different roles while on duty (Heath Karen, 2012). Conclusion In conclusion local, state and federal law enforcement agencies are the key to protecting our country. From the municipal police officer who is responding to a 911 call or a federal agent making a major illegal drug bust, each duty is very different but essential to enforcing our laws. Without law enforcement agencies in the United States and throughout the world, there’d be no one to â€Å"protect and serve† leading to total chaos. Reference Walker, S. , Katz, C. M. (2011). The Police in America. An introduction (7th ed. ). Retrieved from The University of Phoenix Collection database. CHP (2012) The California Highway Patrol, Retrieved from http://www. chp. ca. gov/html/mission. html Drug Enforcement Administration (2012) About Us, Our Mission Retrieved from http://www. justice. gov/dea/ HG Global Legal Resources (1999-2012) Control Substances Law Retrieved from http://www. hg. org/control. html How to cite Police Roles and Functions, Papers

Strategic Integrated Marketing Communications †MyAssignmenthelp

Question: Discuss about the Strategic Integrated Marketing Communications. Answer: Introduction In the present scenario, efficient management of strategies and plans has become vital for the success of businesses(Aghazadeh, 2015). Strategic management can be defined as the process of planning, implementation, monitoring, evaluation of various policies and plans to accomplish the goals and objectives of an organization. Further, strategic management is considered as a continuous process and companies are required to carry out changes in process and strategies at regular intervals. The present report is based on Edwards and Co. which is one of the most famous salon located in Melbourne. The company offers various types of hair salon related services to all its customers and clients. This study explores detailed internal and external environmental analysis of Edwards and Co. Apart from this; the competitor analysis of selected business enterprise is also mentioned in the present study. Edwards and Co. is very popular in Australia, and the business has its presence in different locations of the country. Further, the company was founded 11 years ago by Jaye Edwards who was a freelancer hairstylist(Co, 2017). Edwards was having no money when he moved to Sydney, and he was looking forward to developing a modern and satisfactory hair salon in the country. The mission of Edwards and Co. is To be truly creative hair agency by providing personalized services to customers and tailor-made education to other hair salons. The corporate objectives of Edwards and Co. are mentioned below as: 1) To provide best salon services in Australia through a network of freelance hairstylists and colorists. 2) To provide salon education to other hair salons in Australia in terms of technique, business and people. 3) To expand operations in other beautiful locations of Australia Regarding brand identity, it can be expressed that Edwards and Co. are presently operating in the five different locations within the country and all these salon shops operate under a single brand name. The selected business enterprise has developed an efficient network of qualified and skilled freelancer stylists. Apart from this, Edwards and Co. brand mantra is to develop and operate as hair agency which is entirely creative and innovative. The key product and service offered by Edwards and Co. include hair salon services such as hair styling, weeding, makeup, etc. In addition to this, it also provides educational services to other salons located in the country(Armstrong, Kotler, Harker, Brennan, 2015). Here, the brand emphasizes on providing consultancy and knowledge to other business regarding how to achieve operational efficiency and run a successful salon. Edwards and Co. assists other companies in skill development of other salons operating within Australia. To sustain in the highly competitive marketplace, Edwards and Co. carries out changes in its products and services at regular intervals according to the changing need and demand of customers. The scope of the marketing plan is that it will help the company to carry out analysis of its internal and external environment(Baker, Marketing strategy and management, 2014). The plan is also going to support in developing potential business and marketing strategies which will result in attracting more and more customers. The marketing plan is going to assist in creating demand among people in the market and will also help in getting a competitive advantage. The internal resources of the selected business enterprise can be termed as highly efficient and professional. For example, the human resources include freelancer stylist who renders various types of services to the people in the market. It can be expressed that training and development programs at regular intervals are carried out by Edwards and Co. to enhance skill set and knowledge base of the freelancers(Baker Saren, Marketing theory: a student text., 2016). The company also has adequate finance available for various activities such as expansion, business operations, and aggressive marketing. Edwards and Co. management and operational capabilities are also effective as the company can acquire higher degree of customer satisfaction by delivering fast, satisfactory and accurate services to all clients. The key strength of internal resources lies within their management capabilities which are quite capable. On the other side of this, the weakness of internal resources is that the company is available with a limited number of human and financial resources. This gap acts as a hurdle regarding achieving higher growth rate. Products and services Services linked with Haircut, Styling, Hair Colour, highlighting, bleach, keratin, make-up, styling, Services-Education for other hair salons, renting of salon space are being offered by Edwards and Co. The core strength of these services is that they are highly creative and innovative(Chernev, 2014). On the other hand, weakness can be termed as lack of permanent workers as the staff members are working on the freelancer basis. It restricts the company to accomplish its long term objectives of acquiring high market share and growth. Price The pricing strategy which has been adopted by Edwards and Co. can be termed as high price strategy. For example the business charges -$100-$250, Hair color- Re growth-$110-$150Short-$130-$180. The strength of this pricing strategy is that it has helped the business to earn satisfactory profits. On the contrary(Frow, Nenonen, Payne, Storbacka, 2015), high price strategy results in restricting people in middle and low-income group to make use of Edwards and Co. services, and this can be termed as the major weakness of the selected strategy. Place The Company is offering services to customers through stores located in five different areas of Australia. The stores are located in Melbourne, Alexandria, Budds Beach, Byron Bay and Surry hills. Promotion It can be stated that promotion of products and services offered by Edwards and Co. is not so much useful. The company is making use of some in-house promotional techniques, and this has supported in managing the cost of operations(David David, 2017). However, it can be argued that promotion techniques used by Edwards and Co. is ineffective and this is a major weakness which needs to be overcome. The business can emphasize on making use of modern marketing tools such as social media and emails to create awareness among people in the market. Apart from this, techniques such as offering discounts and loyalty cards can also be taken into consideration to attract more customers and enhance the volume of profitability(Galliers Leidner, 2014). External environmental analysis This tool represents the range of factors that influences business operations and it is required for the business to comply with such factors so as to operate efficiently in the market. Several factors are present that affects operations of Edwards and Co and they are discussed below: Political factor: It is one of the most significant factors which involve the government laws and regulations that influence business operations(Greene Walls, 2015). The changing government laws and regulations for businesses can directly influence the activities of Edward Co. Further, the new scheme has been introduced associated with loans for small scale businesses and this is effective enough in meeting with the financial requirement of the companies. With the help of youth centre new instruction programs have been developed for beauty cultural field(Hollensen, 2015). Apart from this, the political parties have imposed high taxes for companies that have adversely affected the salon businesses operating in the market. Huge taxes are applicable on the branded cosmetic products that influences the overall operations carried out by the business. Economic factor: At present the economic condition of Australia is sound and this has positively affected the purchasing power of people in the society. People prefer to spend more on cosmetics and other form of products that are offered in the salon(Kitchen Burgmann, 2015). Therefore, it is beneficial for the Edward Co to increase price of its products where customer can easily afford the products and in turn profit margin of the business can be easily enhanced with the help of this. Social factor: This factor is associated with change in frequent taste and requirement of the target market. New types of hairstyles are present in the market due to which Edward Co has to modify its product range so as to meet with the expectation of the target market. Therefore, it is necessary for Edward Co to meet the social requirement of the customers with the motive to enhance overall performance in the market and this in turn can act as development tool for the enterprise(Liebl, 2015). Technological: For hair dressing and performing other type of salon activities modern tools are required to be undertaken with the help of which effective services can be delivered to the target market. At present modern tools are used by the business for rendering salon service and adoption of more advanced tools can surely be beneficial for the business and it can allow in satisfying need of target market in efficient manner(Kumar, Sharma, Gupta, 2017). Legal: Various legal laws are present that can influence the business operations of Edward and Co in every possible manner. Further, cleanness and safety measures are required to be taken where the company has to ensure that its internal workplace is clean and it can be utilized for delivering proper service to the customers (Percy, 2014). Apart from this, safety measures are required to be taken through which accidents can be avoided at the time of delivering salon services. Proper disposal of the chemical waste is required and proper license has to be taken from the recognized authority. Environmental: This factor is associated with the environmental laws that Salon Company is required to follow. Business is required to adopt proper disposal technique with the help of which it is possible to reduce the environmental burden(McDonald Wilson, 2016). Apart from this, government has introduced some regulations that companies are required to follow so that their adverse impact on surroundings can be reduced to extent. So, in this way these are some of the external factors that can influence the overall activities of Edward and Co directly. It is required to deal with every factor efficiently so that business operations can be carried out efficiently. Shift in marketing activity For smooth functioning of business operations it is required for the Edward and Co to influence the market activities. The market when small business operates is competitive and various businesses are operating in the market that are offering same type of salon services in the market such as hair dressing, wedding styling, hair colour, highlighting bleach, education services to different salon, renting salon space for photo shoot etc(Milichovsky Simberova, 2015). Overall the taste and requirement of the target market keeps on changing on continuous basis due to which the marketing activities are required to be influenced. Possible future and current opportunities and threats In near future several opportunities are present with Edward Co that business can grab easily for enhancing market performance. Further, the main opportunity present is rising demand for various type of salon services in the market where it is possible for the business to modify its existing range of services through adoption of latest tools in the market(Musarra, Robson, Katsikeas, 2016). Apart from this, the main threat that can influence business performance is competition where other salons are present in the market that are also offering same type of service. So these are some of the opportunities and threats that can influence business activity. Detailed competitor analysis The market where Edwards and Co operates is competitive and various players are already operating in the market. The main competitors of company are Organika Hair Tremayne Xiang Hair Spada Toni Guy Name of organization Product/service offered Benefits Xiang Hair Hair products that involve LOreal professional paris, Kerastase paris, American crew, Kevin Murphy The benefit associated with purchasing Xiang product is that all the products are branded that can easily encourage the purchase behaviour of the target market. Tremayne Hair treatment, Manicures Pedicures, express facials and waxing tinting, skin consultation, laser hair reduction, makeup, eyelash extensions etc The service range of Temayne is very wide and they are of high quality. The key benefit associated with service of the company is that it provides value for money experience to the customers Spada Haircuts, Hair color and styling, Keratin treatment, Tape human hair extensions All the services of Spada are of high quality and this is the main benefit associated with purchasing product of the company. On the other hand, product range of Edward and Co contains all the essential attributes such as high quality, value for money experience, wide range of products etc. Generally, all the Salons are operating on smaller basis and due to this reason market share of all the businesses is not possible(Payne Frow, 2013). Therefore, it directly provides competitive edge to the business in every possible manner and in turn the desired goals of the firm can be accomplished efficiently keeping in view the business aim. Overall competitor analysis has shown that products and services of firm are more superior as compared with other businesses. SWOT analysis Strengths Providing customized educational services to other beauty salons in the country Online and offline operations Creative hair services Weakness Variation in prices Staff members are freelancers Opportunities Expansion in other areas of the country Hiring full time employees Increasing online promotion Threats Intense competition Unavailability of freelancer in peak seasons From the mentioned-above table, it has been analyzed that the major strength of the company lies within its customized educational services(Peppard Ward, 2016). The services are getting more and more popular with the passage of time and are helping Edwards and Co. to increase its sales and profits. Furthermore, it also offers products/services through online and offline mediums, and this makes the entire shopping very convenient for customers. However, variations in prices and freelancer staff members can be termed as the major weakness of the brand. Sometimes freelancers are not available, and the company is not able to deliver services to all its customers (Percy Elliott, 2016). On the contrary, Edwards and Co. have opportunity to expand its operations by hiring full-time employees. The business can also emphasize on increase the marketing activities through online mediums. At present, the salon and hairstyling industry has become highly intense, and this can be termed as the major threat for Edwards and Co. It has created obstacles for the brand regarding attracting more customers and increasing profits. Detailed customer analysis Market segmentation can be defined as the process in which entire market is divided into different categories, and people with same buying behaviour are clubbed together. Further, market segmentation is important because it provides clear directions to companies in the accomplishment of business objectives and goals(Rosenbaum-Elliott, Percy, Pervan, 2015). The target market of Edwards and Co. includes women in Australia, and at the same time, it has also targeted salons in the country which seeks for enhancing technical education in the industry. The segmentation has been carried out by demographic variables where the brand has targeted people in middle and higher income group. Individuals who need the beautiful salon spaces of Edwards and Co. for photo shoot media event etc. are also targeted by the selected business enterprise. The targeted market is served with high quality and innovative services linked with hair styling, make up and wedding styling. Regarding transitions and exchange, it can be asserted that Edwards and Co. offer different services regarding hair styling, make up and wedding styling and in turn, it charges a certain amount from the customers(Slater, 2015). Women can be termed as the primary market segment of the company, and the secondary market segment includes other salons located in the country. The services are purchased from online and offline modes. The company is required to focus on carrying out market research to identify the changing need and demand of people in the market. The reason behind buying the services offered by Edwards and Co. is that it helps in the makeover of people and changes their looks. On the other side of this, businesses buy the services of the selected company to enhance their overall operational efficiencies and become more productive. Another reason behind purchasing the services offered by Edwards and Co. is to increase the volume of sales and profitability. The key opportunities present in front of selected company is that it can reduce its prices and attract new market segment which includes people who fall into the category of middle and lower income group(West, Ford, Ibrahim, 2015). Apart from this, the business is presently targeting only women and therefore, in future it can also introduce products and services for the male in the country. Facilities linked with salon and spa can be added to enhance to its existing customer base and market share. However, the critical future threat is going to be the changing demand of people in the market. The changes in demographic variables such as the decline in women of age group 20-45 which is the primary target market for Edwards and Co. can also affect the business operations of the company(Yu, 2014). Conclusion From the above report, it can be concluded that Edwards and Co. are required to focus on making use of online marketing practices. Furthermore, promotion of services can be carried out on social media and through emails to attract customers. On the other hand, it can be inferred that in future, Edwards and Co. has opportunity to target new customers such as males to achieve higher growth. Apart from this, staff members on the permanent basis can be hired instead of freelancers to deal with the major threats and carry out the smooth flow of business practices. References Aghazadeh, H. (2015). Strategic marketing management: Achieving superior business performance through intelligent marketing strategy. . Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences , 125-134. Armstrong, G., Kotler, P., Harker, M., Brennan, R. (2015). Marketing: an introduction. London : Pearson Education. Baker, M. J. (2014). Marketing strategy and management. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Baker, M. J., Saren, M. (2016). Marketing theory: a student text. California: Sage. Chernev, A. (2014). Strategic marketing management. Michigan: Cerebellum Press. Co, E. A. (2017, August 29). About Us. Retrieved August 29, 2017, from Edwards And Co: https://edwardsandco.com.au/ David, M. E., David, F. R. (2017). Are key marketing topics adequately covered in strategic management?. Journal of Strategic Marketing , 405-417. Frow, P., Nenonen, S., Payne, A., Storbacka, K. (2015). Managing co?creation design: A strategic approach to innovation. British Journal of Management , 463-483. Galliers, R. D., Leidner, D. E. (2014). Strategic information management: challenges and strategies in managing information systems. . Abingdon: Routledge. Greene, W. E., Walls, G. D. (2015). Strategic Planning: The Customer Concept and Corporate Survival. In Proceedings of the 1983 Academy of Marketing Science (AMS) Annual Conference. Cham: Springer, Cham. Hollensen, S. (2015). Marketing management: A relationship approach. London: Pearson Education. Kitchen, P. J., Burgmann, I. (2015). Integrated marketing communication: Making it work at a strategic level. Journal of Business Strategy , 34-39. Kumar, V., Sharma, A., Gupta, S. (2017). Accessing the influence of strategic marketing research on generating impact: moderating roles of models, journals, and estimation approaches. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science , 164-185. Liebl, F. (2015). Knowledge management for strategic marketing. In Assessing the different roles of marketing theory and practice in the jaws of economic uncertainty. Cham: Springer, Cham. McDonald, M., Wilson, H. (2016). Marketing Plans: How to prepare them, how to profit from them. Ner Jersey: John Wiley Sons. Milichovsky, F., Simberova, I. (2015). Marketing effectiveness: Metrics for effective strategic marketing. Engineering Economics , 211-219. Musarra, G., Robson, M. J., Katsikeas, C. S. (2016). The influence of desire for control on monitoring decisions and performance outcomes in strategic alliances. Industrial Marketing Management , 10-21. Payne, A., Frow, P. (2013). Strategic customer management: Integrating relationship marketing and CRM. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Peppard, J., Ward, J. (2016). The strategic management of information systems: Building a digital strategy. New Jersey: John Wiley Sons. Percy, L. (2014). Strategic integrated marketing communications. Abingdon: Routledge. Percy, L., Elliott, R. H. (2016). Strategic advertising management. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Rosenbaum-Elliott, R., Percy, L., Pervan, S. (2015). Strategic brand management. United States: Oxford University Press, USA. Slater, S. P. (2015). The Tasks of Strategic Market Management: The Role of Marketing. In Proceedings of the 1989 Academy of Marketing Science (AMS) Annual Conference . Cham: Springer, Cham. West, D. C., Ford, J., Ibrahim, E. (2015). Strategic marketing: creating competitive advantage. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Yu, Y. K. (2014). Strategic Marketing Business Portfolio Management through Formation of Business Areas in it. Business Inform , 350-355.

Oedipus Rex Essays (948 words) - Operas, Oedipus The King

Oedipus Rex Was it that the gods were poking at him like a goldfish in a small glass jar? Was Oedipus's life actually foretold by a prophet before he was ever conceived? Or was it mere happenstance that Oedipus's life had fallen perfectly in place with the words of that prophet? Did fate play a major role in the life of Oedipus Rex, or was it just coincidence? Ah, fate and coincidence, destiny of chance, two totally opposite concepts. Yet one may just be the largest determining factor of life. Which one determines the events of Oedipus Rex all depends upon the views of the reader. Both ideas are strongly established as the drama unfolds. The ironic thing about it however is that the evidence which proves one to be present also proves the second to be present, and visa-versa. Meaning, most of the facts which support one of the concepts, are also the facts that support the other concept. For example, before Oedipus was born, a prophet of the god Apollo told King Laius that he and Jocasta would bear a son who would, among other things, marry his mother. Hoping to avert this, the King and Queen asked one of the shepherds to take their son to a mountain and leave the baby to die. Oedipus did, in fact, not die that day. He grew up, and by some strange coincidence, or through fate married the woman who was years ago told by a prophet that she would marry her son child. This child being of course Oedipus. One might assume that the words of that prophet were destiny, they were the unconditional future and nothing could run from them. However, it may also appear that the baby, who was given up to die, survived and by some strange coincidence grew up and found a wife who just happens to be his mother. This is not the only ironic happening we see in the play. When Jocasta and King Laius were being told of the future they were also told that their first-born son would grow up and kill his father. This is perhaps the main reason they attempted murdering the boy. In order for the reader to understand how coincidental these situations are they must first understand a little of the story's plot. When Oedipus is born King Laius tells his wife to kill the boy. Jocasta, not being able to do it herself calls upon a shepherd to do it for her. The shepherd out of pity gives the infant to a slave from the Greek City of Cornith. Oedipus grows up in Cornith believing that he is the son of King Polybus and Queen Merope. One day Oedipus receives a message from a prophet which declared that he will kill his father and marry his mother. In fear of the prophecy he decides to leave Cornith, never to see his parents again. After leaving Cornith Oedipus kills an old man out of rage and continues on his way to Thebes. There he meets the monstrous being known as the sphinx. The Sphinx has a great power over the town of Thebes. This power can only be broken if a tricky riddle is solved. Oedipus solves the riddle and is hailed as savior of the city. He is appointed king and is granted marriage to the former Queen of Thebes. This Queen is the wife of the old man Oedipus killed early in his journey and is also the mother of the boy who was sent to Cornith. Oedipus is that boy, King Laius is the old man, Oedipus's father, and The Queen is Queen Jocasta, Oedipus's mother. After a few golden years as the king of Thebes, Oedipus must again save the city's people from a deadly plague. He believes that the solution or cure to this wild fire like affliction is finding the murderer of the former King Laius. Oedipus develops such rage for this killer that he will stop at almost nothing to find him. He states in his proclamation to Thebes: " As for the criminal, I pray to God- Whether it be a lurking thief, or one of a number- I pray that that man's life be consumed in evil and wretchedness And as for me, this curse applies no less If it should turn out that culprit is my guest here, Sharing my hearth. " Little does he know that this hatred is directed to himself. In his search for the killer he

The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga Essay Example

The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga Essay Example The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga Paper The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga Paper In society, the standard for success is extremely high and sometimes overwhelming. Everyone has the same goals, but not everyone has the means or the opportunity to reach them. In high school, specifically, times are hard. Students are treated like kids but expected to make adult decisions about their lives. To most people, including myself, being successful is having money and power. But being successful is being happy. That’s because most young people are not happy with the stress and pressure put on them by adults to be successful. Success should not be defined by an admission to college or by numbers, it should be defined by whether the person really gained something of value. Society’s standards for success are illustrated through many different platforms such as literature, movies, and everyday interactions. In some parts of the world, the idea of success is only fantasy because the system instills that the poor will always be poor and the rich will get richer. Balram, from Aravind Adiga’s The White Tiger, describes the government system in India as â€Å"a . Joke† because of the strict caste system. He was born into a poor family in a town that was nicknamed, â€Å"the darkness of India,† where he was surrounded by people who truly believes that they will never amount to anything. Most people in his hometown have only one standard of success: money. Balram is different because getting out of â€Å"the darkness† is what he considers successful. He celebrates wearing a uniform, rather than his old, raggedy clothes, and having a bed to sleep in, rather than sleeping on the streets. Although his uniform is old, and his bed is bug infested and dirty, he remains grateful. Balram knows that the only way he can move up in his society is to do something drastic, like killing his employer. It is evident that everyone is not granted the same opportunities simply because of where they live, or their ethnicity. For many years, America’

Critical Analysis of Lisbon Treaty Literature review

Critical Analysis of Lisbon Treaty - Literature review Example The Lisbon Treaty came out as the amendment of the existing EU treaties to address concerns of the group of countries and people, who had earlier rejected the constitution treaty, for the option of the retaining their national sovereignty. It was signed on 13 December 2007, by the EU leaders in Lisbon after thorough work out at intergovernmental conference, previously held in July the same year (Archick and Mix, 2010, p. 3). Lisbon treaty worked towards clarifying the responsibilities and the way forward for the EU, and clearly informing the society of its main objective as an institution. Most of the proposed plans intended to be approved in the constitution treaty were reflected in the Lisbon treaty. According to Archick and Mix, â€Å"analysts assessed that over 90% of the substance of the constitutional treaty had been preserved in the Lisbon Treaty† (2010, p. 3). In the treaty, issues of EU legal personality, which extend to emphasize the concept of individuals from EU me mber states to be EU citizen, are addressed as stated in article 8 of provisions on democratic principles in Lisbon treaty. It also paved way for changes in voting system to embrace Qualified Majority Voting (QMV) in effective decision making. Two extra posts exist created in the treaty for the permanent president of the European council and foreign policy post. The structural change in the EU commission altered the decision process of the EU council, giving new power to the European parliament, extending ECJ powers into home affairs and in return, affecting areas in judicial, human rights, and foreign policies (civitas.org.uk, 2011). The Lisbon treaty could have been effective much earlier, but some EU member states delayed the ratification of the treaty till 2009, when all the member states gave their approval. Democratic Deficit The European Union institutional structure has been accused of lacking proper procedure in decision making, which affects all member states once an issue is approved or rejected. Some countries and regions have no influence in the decisions made, which only end up being under the control of powerful states. The Lisbon treaty has been termed as one strategy in an attempt to cure democratic deficit in the European Union. However, even if the treaty has been ratified, some countries have done so in conditions that for some areas of application, they have an option to rely on their individual consent as a nation. According to Klenanc, democratic deficit occurs when the competence shifts from a national level to a supranational level, preventing smooth integration of the EU (2011, p. 14). The council of European Union and European commission, European parliament, European Central Bank, and European court of justice has been exercising specific powers, enough to block one group from being considered in reaching at a crucial decision. As a result, the institutions can be termed to lack accountability, and for some, the legitimacy as indivi dual member states. European Parliament before the Lisbon Treaty The European parliament has always been on evolution, seeking to strengthen its powers in several legislative areas. As many perceived it, it only began as a deliberative organ with few national members as delegates, but later recognized as the only European organ with

The Development of Print Documents for Online Delivery Essay

The Development of Print Documents for Online Delivery - Essay Example The production and distribution of news and other information materials through the traditional communication channels such as print, radio and television require a gatekeeper, a metaphor used to describe the process of selecting which information is worth delivering to consumers. This is necessary not only because of limitations on space, airtime, transmission frequencies and commercial interests but also because of equally important considerations related to reliability and trustworthiness. The era of digital media changed the concept of the gatekeeper into the gate-watcher, as the role of professional journalists or communicators has been narrowed and individuals gained more power, with ordinary citizens acquiring an increasing level of credibility as source of legitimate news. The gatekeepers keep their role and still decide what is newsworthy but ordinary citizens now provide a wider variety of news sources, which are more community-oriented. This paper discusses communication t heory according to the socio-psychological perspective, which suggests that communication achieves its purpose if it considers the prevailing beliefs and attitudes of its intended audience. From the theoretical perspective, the research essay describes the methodology used in a content analysis designed to gather empirical evidence that would support or validate the theories, which finding was then analyzed for its relevance to this research. 2. Theoretical Perspective According to the socio-psychological tradition in communication theory, there is a relationship between communication stimuli, audience predisposition and opinion change. To succeed, journalists and communicators must look for the cause-and-effect relationships that could predict when a communication message will be received favorably by its audience or when it will be ignored (Vaughn, 2008). In this view, communication can be effective in influencing public attitudes and opinions if it considers the "who, what, whom and what-effect" questions of socio-psychological tradition, which are often asked when journalists and public relations practitioners want to change people's minds. The questions refer to the source and content of the message, audience characteristics, and the opinion change it has caused. On the source, the message sender must project expertise and trustworthiness while the content must be appealing and credibly argued. The "whom" phase should consider the personality and gullibility of the audience, while the what-effect question requires that communicators measure the attitude scales before and after delivery of the message. Thus, the editor who hears a reporter say that his mother loves him will tell the reporter skeptically: "Check that out - from at least two sources (Griffin, 2003)." The socio-psychological influences in communication forms the basis of this research. 3. Methodology This study uses the quantitative approach that gathers the primary and secondary data of research through the observation and direct communication methods. The observation method refers to our review of the literature, which gives special attention to such new communication platforms as gate-watcher

Smart Phone Uses by Health Professionals Presearch Methodology and Essay

Smart Phone Uses by Health Professionals Presearch Methodology and Procedures - Essay Example Due to the limitation of resources, the research will target small health organizations and individual health professionals. For the health organizations, we will target the senior-most manager we can reach and the average healthcare professional from the same organization. This will enable us to compare the feedback given by the parties so that we can analyze/validate the differences found (Creswell 10). For the individuals, we have decided to target as many individual health professionals as possible from the diverse organizations, departments and other institutions. This kind of diversity encourages diverse responses, thus enabling us to make a more solid conclusion as compared to limiting our participants. Procedure Our research question concentrates on the effectiveness of smart phone applications by health professionals. Since we are using the quantitative and the qualitative research methods, we settle to use the questionnaires, which fall under the quantitative method and the interviews, which fall under the qualitative method. We have prepared fifteen questions on the questionnaires. Most of the questions are open-ended questions so that we can allow the participants to be speculative. Such questions encourage personal opinions too. In order to allow comparison, most of the questions appearing in the questionnaires are in the interview form. ... a potential participant that, they were only supposed to answer a questionnaire that was only fifteen questions long, than telling one which is way above that number. Our target is to get at least three health providing organizations and one hundred health professionals. We will incorporate the top management in an organization so that they can convince the employees to take part. By using this approach, we will be able to get more participants as compared to convincing individuals to take part. Questionnaires will be sent to the participants through their emails, mails, text messages, hand deliveries or picking them up in a designated area at the workplace. These methods of issuance will allow the participants to give answers to the various questions, at their convenience. The questionnaires will be distributed one and a half months before the time they are expected to be submitted, to ensure that the participants gain ample time to answer the questions. The submission date will be stated one month before the due date of the research submission. This will give use adequate time to analyze the data collected. It will also give an allowance for late submissions. We are targeting doing as many one-on-one interviews as possible. We want to carry out the interviews to the top management of the organizations. Since most of the managers already asked to take part are not comfortable with recording the interview, we will write down the answers received from the interview questions. However, a lot of keenness will be involved in order to avoid distractions. We will also interview the health professionals. Interviews will either take place face to face or through the use of phones (landline or cell-phone). However, we want to have as many face-to-face interviews as possible

6lowpan Neighbor Discovery Protocol Computer Science Essay

6lowpan Neighbor Discovery Protocol Computer Science Essay The IPv6 over IEEE 802.15.4 has specified way how to carry IPv6 packets over IEEE 802.15.4 standardized devices and similar networks with the introduction of an adaptation header which comes before the IP header and just after MAC layer, a link in such a 6LoWPAN is characterized as lossy, with minimum power consumption, minimum data rate, small range, with many nodes saving energy with hibernating or deep sleep schedules. IEEE standards are based on low memory devices which has a limited MTU size keeping this under consideration we have to see how we can fit IPv6 address in that limited space we have and even UDP packets also which are used in our transmission. IPv6 already posses a big memory but in use of 6LoWPAN all the headers are compressed with special compression algorithm so that they can be fit in the limited space of IEEE standardized MTU. Compressing algorithm are bit different according to the use or according to the network topology, as 6LoWPAN support both ad hoc and st ar technically used as Mesh Under and Route Over. | Application Layer | | Transport Layer (TCP/UDP) | +-+ | Network ++ | | Layer | Routing | | | (IPv6) ++ | +-+ | 6LoWPAN Adaptation Layer | +-+ | IEEE 802.15.4 (MAC) | +-+ | IEEE 802.15.4 (PHY) | +-+ Figure X: New adaption layer introduces IEEE 802.15.4 has some several types of frames like beacon frames, MAC command frames, acknowledge frames and off course data frames also, IEEE standardize addressing mode also which are further described in this documents these are 2 basic i.e. 16-bit short addresses or a unique identifier and 64-bit unique addresses. A particular LoWPAN header will be like this after compressed field containing all the field like IEEE header Mesh header or if Route over is used depending on the network topology used then fragment header and in the end IPv6 compressed header. Figure X: Typical LoWPAN Header Stack Several compression methods are used or developed to keep the header compressed and fitted in limited amount of space and should be working according to the desired need, compression algorithm like gzip, deflate, ROHC but normally and best fit for this scenarios are the HC1 or HC2 compression header formats. They are predefined formats having their own formatting to represent data and data types [9]. This can best describe us how the header look like after all there field filled and necessary information saved for transmitting the packet from node to other may be in the LoWPAN or may be on other LoWPAN, this is only the structure defined and use by the LoWPAN nodes. Now we can consider a node which wanted to join a network and what necessary things will be needed and what processes it has to go through to final get his IPv6 address, as IPv6 has some standard predefined for normal Ethernet use like multicast as used in classic IPv6 Neighbor Discovery is not useable and desirable in such a wireless low-power, lossy network. Network discovery is just a simple procedure as defined in classical IPv6 to get the fresh node bind with the network. 6LoWPAN Neighbor Discovery (6LoWPAN-ND) is specially designed for LoWPAN networks which provides some basic operations of bootstrapping and other simple network operation, even they some advanced features includes claim and defends address generation and Extended LoWPAN over backbone links, while avoiding the flooding from multicast; this solution supports the use of both link-layer and LoWPAN-level Mesh Under and Route Over solutions. 6LoWPAN-ND design introduces a registration method over the radio edge of the network and proxy operation over the federating backhaul, this registration mechanism provides a examination similar to the Multicast Address Resolution Server (MARS) for a restricted purpose, and in a much simpler and generic way for those link scope multicasts is unavoidable, such as for Router Advertisements, optimizations may be used to optimize the distribution of the information in the LoWPAN. The new concept behind LoWPAN Whiteboard located at Edge Routers (ERs) is introduced which works as the cache to maintain he entries from the registration of nodes, which allows for Duplicate Address Detection for the entire LoWPAN. A new registration/confirmation message sequence is specified so that nodes can register themselves with their IPv6 addresses with an Edge Router. These white boards are the cache of edge routers contain all the information regarding the nodes which are registered with the LoWPAN wit h their unique IPv6 address and network prefixes. The Whiteboard uses soft bindings of nodes meaning the entries will be expires until particular time if not getting updates from nodes before the life time of registration of the nodes expires, thus nodes can send periodic registration messages in order to update their bindings with the edge routers and to keep the cache record updated which node was last updated and registered to which LoWPAN router range, changes in network topology and mobility between ERs and LoWPAN are supported and sometimes unreachability of routers can be detected in this way. This research also put an eye on the combination of an Extended LoWPAN with more than one edge router working in same LoWPAN sharing same backbone link (e.g. Ethernet) getting advantage of having a single IPv6 subnet. This allows nodes to keep the same IPv6 address throughout a large network if they move from the domain of one edge router to other and registers them with a new edge router which allows for easy communications and even ro uting among the same LoWPAN is easy with nodes over the backbone link and with other IPv6 hosts. Edge Routers backed by Ethernet link working on an edge of LoWPAN networks in this particular scenario one edge router will be maintaining or working as DHCPv6 server and other routers in his domain will be working as relaying router. A LoWPAN network typically uses two types of Layer 2 addresses à ¢Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬ for example 16-bit short addresses or a unique identifier and 64-bit unique addresses. Additionally, the available Layer 2 payload size with respect to payload we might need to use header compression as explained earlier and use a minimum payload on the order of less than 100 bytes. These network is lossy and battery-powered, and it does not support multicast capability at the link-layer, thus pretending multicast actions by both using broadcast or sending a number of unicast messages which are costly for the battery powered network and the low-processing capable nodes. Often these battery-powered nodes save energy by using sleep schedules and keeping themselves in sleep mode to save battery power; waking them up just to receive IPv6 signaling messages so that they can only be updated in our oneà ¢Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¾Ã‚ ¢s domain only is not useful on this case what nodes usually programmed as they will get themselves updated and the registration has a life time and if the node did not update himself before that the entry in the white board will be discarded, these nodes do schedule there sleep time but keeping the timer of registration a little longer then there sleeping time so usually they wake up before the cache entry expires, also they are not competent of processing RA for their neighbors efficiently. Sometimes due to the strong radio signal from a neighbor router or its own strength, a node may often move from one network to other network from one router to another without physically moving. Considering the above characteristics in a LoWPAN, and the IPv6 Neighbor Discovery basic requirement of his protocol, it was finalized that class ic ND protocol of IPv6 is not good to be used in LoWPAN so a little different protocol for LoWPAN has been designed as 6LoWPAN-specific ND. 4.1 6LoWPAN Neighbor Discovery Protocol Overview 6LoWPAN Neighbor Discovery optimizes with a mechanism which is on its own least yet very important for LoWPAN IPv6 operation. 6LoWPAN-ND defines a registration process which optimizing the node-router interface, this mechanism do not work on flooding which reduces link-local multicast frequency. 6LoWPAN-ND can work with non-transitive links also, the use of mesh-under and route-over techniques and makes no hypothesis about node synchronization. 6LoWPAN-ND is compatible so that they will be used with the link-layer mesh techniques, which improve the if not non-transitive characteristic nature of wireless links if they are used throughout the LoWPAN, this normally called Mesh Under topology which make the whole link IP layer as having a link-local scope making all the 6LoWPAN interfaces in the LoWPAN. This kind of LoWPAN is consisting of hosts and Edge Routers, this link still lossy, slow data rate, irregular behavior along with sleep mode. The non-transitive nature of the link can be overcome simply by using routing based on IP with in single domain of a LoWPAN, also called a Route over topology. Routing between all nodes in the LoWPAN is done by LoWPAN Routers in the LoWPAN. Mesh Under and Route Over techniques are not limited. 4.1.1 Bootstrapping A Host performs independent address auto configuration of its link-local unique and single t address for each LoWPAN interface from its EUI-64. The process of joining a LoWPAN is done either by listening of RA or either by sending a broadcast message of Router Solicitation (RS) and in return it will receive RA an acknowledgement message responses from local routers, there may be more than one router it a particular range. It mainly depending if a true prefix is advertised in the RA, the host will also form a positive global unique address with auto configuration, this is the point the node can choose more than onr router if its available to get himself registered its only if it have signals from more than one LoWPAN. After selecting the desired router the node will make some effort to first perform node registration and get itself bind with a router, registration is performed with a link-local Edge Router or LoWPAN Router by sending a unicast Node Registration (NR) message to it from host to router. It is more good to get yourself registered directly with an Edge Router, although all other routers with in a LoWPAN has capability to work as a relaying agent on the LoWPAN have the capability to relay NR/NC messages on behalf of a node. The NR contains the addresses of the node who wants to register. A node may also request a short address of 16 bit to be generated on its behalf when the Edge Router get a request of NR its replies either directly with a Node Confirmation (NC) message to the host or through the help of relaying router which is in between node and edge router, relaying routers only exist in Route Over configurations or network topology and in pure Mesh Under network topology and scena rio, configurations nodes are within link-local scope or range of an Edge Router. This NC message includes the set of unique addresses which will be updated and also made an entry in the Whiteboard and address will be bound to the ER the Host is now registered and can use the LoWPAN. 4.1.2 Basic operation The node is now ready to use and may send packets to any IPv6 address inside or outside the LoWPAN or over the internet every request for Next-hop will be sent to the predefined default router but only local address which will redirected to as they are present in local domain. The white board entries and binding table of LoWPAN Router must be renewed on every pre defined intervals as per advertised interval and the lifetime of the binding, the white board entry will be valid in till it expires and then the current entry will deleted from the routers cache. This is achieved by occasionally sending a new NR message when ever host changes his location from original LoWPAN to another LoWPAN or may be some change in network topology occurs or may be some certain router is no longer in reach then host have to get them registered again with the nearest available route. Host then starts the registration process with another router if the LoWPAN does not change for host its IPv6 addresses rem ain the same. Addresses bound or the entry in the Whiteboard must be remembered by the host and updated in order to keep the address. If the host moves to a different LoWPAN, the bootstrapping process is initiated again the host may be moved while he is sleeping mode. LoWPAN Routers at times send RAs to their neighbors in order to keep themselves and their neighbors updated. The Edge Router triggered the first RAs, and information from these RAs is included in the RAs of each further router where this RA travel, causing the information to be spread throughout the LoWPAN and to every router on it. 4.2 Address collision detection and resolution The address collision process can be carried out within the Edge Router if the Edge Router already has an entry in his cache for registration of a given address in his white board or over the Backbone Link using Duplicate Address Detection mechanism designed to clear the mess if more than one router are keeping the same entry of a node in there white board. For this case, a new ND option is introduced in the NS/NA messages from routers to carry additional information to resolve the conflicts in all over domain range if any duplicate identity is present; the Owner Interface Identifier Option is used in NS/NA messages to carry the added information necessary for the resolution of conflicts: Transaction ID, Owner Interface Identifier, and Owner Nonce. In any case generally, the Edge Router of LoWPAN is in charge of the resolution which is the same Edge Router that handles all the registration processes of the LoWPAN nodes. A conflict only occurs when a Node already registered and router again receives registration request making it a duplicated address over the same network for that node and an IPv6 address that is already registered with a different OII at the same or another Edge Router. The address collision is only occurred while one node may be in sleeping node or normally moves from one LoWPAN to another, when it receives new LoWPAN it will try to get himself registered to that new edge router or may be contact the relaying router to get himself registered. At that very moment it will be checked which router has the registration entry of this node or its new node for this LoWPAN. Mobility of the nodes with in a same subnet or within a single domain of a LoWPAN router subnet is supported it has least effects on entries on white board, as the node is with on domain of a router no extra registration is necessary making no duplication of addresses in an Extended LoWPAN, a LoWPAN Node may move around from one Edge router to a new Edge Router visibly and at any time. The protocol for this mobility detection is designed to differentiate the mobility and clear out the registration states or any duplication among routers white board. The node registration triggered by an Edge Router that processes usually takes over an existing registration present among his domain or maintained by a defendant Edge Router this decision to transfer the registration from an Edge Router to another edge router is made by the Edge Router that is processing a Node Registration message depending on its states for that particular registration and ND exchanges over the Backbone Link if we talk about extend LoWPAN. If the node is already registered on a backbone link or to any other router with in a LoWPAN the chances of getting conflicts occurs when getting the registration of the same node start by, the resolution of such conflict is overcome by using classic Duplicate Address Detection mechanism; ità ¢Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¾Ã‚ ¢s quite simple who claim and have proof of the nodes ownership will succeed. Once a node registration message received to an edge router, the Edge Router checks for the existing registration for that IPv6 address in its LoWPAN whiteboard. If the entry does not exist then the Edge Router concerns the address over the Backbone Link using duplicate address detection mechanism. The edge router who is defending the address when gets the DAD message will reply back to this message with an acknowledgment and with owner identifier otherwise if the message is timed out then the edge router who advertised the DAD message will accept the registration of this node. It will create an entry on its white board and update the node with a positive confirmation message. If some router claims the ownership of the replies with his owner identifier and when the edge router get this message it will check the owner identifier interface in the message and matches it with the entries in his white board. If its present then the address is duplicate and already present on the network, taking this on account the request for registration is discarded and duplicate address detection is successful completed his task. If there are by any chance two routers claims to be the owner then checking the owner identifiers and matching them with the OII present in NA message will be checked and who has the Transaction ID will be claimed as owner and other request will be discarded. The router who a loss the registration has to keep the entry in his white board till the time period of this registration is expires.

Plath’s Daddy - Plath as a Weak Feminist :: Feminism Feminist Women Criticism

Plath as a Weak Feminist in Daddy Plath's innate emptiness and emotional constraint comes , I believe, from her lack of male encouragement and her according need for domination. This streams from the untimely death of her father at 9. In this poem Plath alludes to her relationship to her father with an emphasis on his German background and identity. In this way she comments on him in contradicting terms, firstly, as a divine figure: "..A bag full of God", towering over her in a seemingly totalitarian way. She then transforms her implication with " No God, but a swatztika" a completely ironic comment in comparison to the first as Nazism is essentially pagan in its nature. The extended reference to the confusion of her father as Hitler is shown through indications of his "Mein Kampf look" and "neat moustache." Similarly, Plath confuses herself with the role of a Jew, symbolising the insecurity which lies within her subconsciousness, and the recognition which she has of her victimisation from men. This victimisation follows on with allusions to her marriage with Hughes, and the similarities Plath associated between her father and husband: "If I've killed one man, I've killed two--- The vampire who said he was you" Hughes himself acknowledged this confusion in his poem THE SHOT: "Your real target stood behind me Your Daddy The man with the smoking gun" This quote reinforces her father's role in Plath's eventual demise as it implies that the 'smoking gun' once shot Plath's bullet of fatality. Essentially this poem signifies Plath's weakness, and threatens her iconic stature as a feminist . Reacting against this common stereotype with which she is named, her poetry indicates a lack of stability and inner faith, excluding those who are bitter and entirely negative.

Business Administration Essay

1.1 Describe the different features of telephone systems and how to use them Telephone systems have many different functions eg: hold, transfer, ignore and making a call. Thousands of organisations use the telephone system as it is a reliable and easy way to contact clients and fellow colleagues. Putting a call on hold will allow you leave your work space to perhaps collect documents, ask colleagues some questions or find another colleague to deal with the call. Another function of the telephone is transferring calls, if a client calls the reception desk and asks for a colleague then you can transfer the call using the extension number. This is a fast an effective strategy as it allows you to transfer the call straight away, with no interruptions. Furthermore, another function of the telephone is the ability to ignore a call. Ignoring a phone call isn’t professional but sometimes it may occur, a blocked number may call and then you have the choice to either ignore it or answer. 1.2 Give reasons for identifying the purpose of a call before making it Identifying the purpose of the call allows you to prepare yourself before the call. Knowing and planning what you are going to say is an excellent strategy to have. Writing down all of the facts and having the right phone number to call is essential, being confident and knowing the purpose of the phone call is a great way to show that you are professional. If you don’t prepare yourself before a phone call it can come across unprofessional, saying words such as ‘erm’ and ‘like’ shows the recipient that you are unsure of the points you are trying to get across. 1.3 Describe different ways of obtaining the names and numbers of people that need to be contacted There are many different ways to obtain personal information such as the name of a client or their phone number. In working situations you can ask your Manager, HR, phone directory or even email the client. Human Resources will usually have a phone book or a business card holder that could have the clients name and number. Also your Manager should have a list of clients that they associate with, they can give you the name of the person you are trying to contact and a number. Furthermore, you can look in your organisations phone directory, they should have the client’s details in there, along with an email address or a phone number. 1.4 Describe how to use a telephone system to make contact with people inside and outside an 0rganisation Telephone systems are a great way for colleagues to communicate during working hours. Colleagues are able to transfer and divert calls to each other, or even take messages for each other. Also, it is a quick and easy way to get hold of other colleagues/people. Furthermore, you are able to contact clients and potential business partners via phone, it is a simple and effective manner of contacting someone that is virtually hassle free. If you try to call the client/colleague and they don’t answer, you can always leave a voice mail with them so they can contact you later on in the day/at a later date. 1.5 Explain the purpose of giving a positive image of self and own organisation It is important to present a positive image of you and your organisation to influence people in taking you seriously. This attracts the best workforce when employment opportunities arise in the organisation and the best clients when attracting business. All this translates into better returns and a higher profitability for the organisation. You are expected to present a positive image of yourself and your organisation because you will be able to: listen to and absorb the information that others are giving you, ask questions, when necessary, provide information to other people clearly and accurately, contribute to and allow others to contribute to, discussions, select and read written information that contains the information you need, communicate well in writing, establish good working relationships with other people. 1.6 Explain the purpose of summarising the outcomes of a telephone conversation before ending the call It is important to summarise the outcomes of a telephone conversation so that both parties agree on what has been said and there are no confusions, objectives are clean and the information is fresh in the mind for both parties to write down or relay to another call. You cannot see the recipient’s reactions during the conversation so a verbal confirmation of the outcomes is an essential way to know whether or not someone has misunderstood or has any qualms. 1.7 Describe how to identify problems and who to refer them to When a call comes into the office always take a name (full name if possible and preferably) and the company they are calling from, try and obtain from the caller either what the problem is. Pass the message along to relevant staff and see what information can be found to resolve the problem. If this is not possible try and locate a member of staff who can help from the information obtained from the caller eg: If there is a payment problem then transfer the phone call to Lauren, she will be able to help the caller with the problem. 1.8 Describe organisation structures and communication channels within an organisation Staff have a role, shared decision making, specialisation is possible. 1. Decisions pass down formal channels from managers to staff members. 2. Information flows up formal channels from staff to managers. 3. Entrepreneurial – decisions are made centrally 4. Matrix – staff with specific skills join project teams, each individual has a responsibility. 5. Independent – seen in professions where organisations provide support systems and little else Channels of communication- communication in organisations follow paths or channels. Communication between managers and subordinates is known as  vertical communication this is because the information flows up or down the hierarchy. Channels between departments or functions involve lateral communication. As well as formal channels of communication, information also passes through an organisation informally. Communication is not complete until feedback has been received. 1.1 Describe how to follow organisational procedures when making a telephone call Always introduce yourself including name and company you are calling from, if prior know request to talk to the member of staff/department you are calling for. If not explain why you are calling and request help on locating staff that can help. When connected have questions ready or know exactly what information is required. At end summarise call and recap information to check accuracy. 1.2 Explain how to report telephone system faults Being as exact as possible will help the fault be restored asap. Take notes such as; when did the problem first occur, how frequent is it happening, what conditions are occurring, can you restart or reset the equipment ect. Then once you have made a note of these problems/answers you can inform a member of staff of the fault and try contacting service providers for assistance.

How to Get a Merit Scholarship 6-Step Guide

How to Get a Merit Scholarship 6-Step Guide SAT / ACT Prep Online Guides and Tips If you’re looking for a way to fund your college education, you should definitely check out merit scholarships. They’re especially great options for high-achieving students who may not qualify for much need-based financial aid. The best part of getting a merit scholarship is, of course, that you’re essentially getting free money for school.But how to get a merit scholarship can still be confusing and overwhelming. In this post, I’ll explain what defines a merit scholarship before going into both where you can find them and how you can get them. At the end, you’ll find a list of some of the top merit awardsavailable - this way, you can get a head start on getting that cash. What's a Merit Scholarship? Merit scholarships are financial awards that are meant to help students pay for school. They’re one of the best forms of financial aid because they’re free money that you never have to pay back, often with few to no strings attached. Let's answer some of themost common questions that come up aboutthese awards. How Do Scholarship Organizations Define Merit? Many merit scholarships look for students with impressive academic achievements.Others focus on community service, sports prowess, professional/business experience, leadership skills, or artistic talent. The most prestigious scholarships tend to go to students who stand out in several different areas. It's important to note that, although mostmerit scholarships are awarded primarily based on merit, many take financial need into account. Financial need qualifications (if applicable) will vary based on the scholarship. If you don't think you'll qualify for much need-based aid, you'll want to focus your energy on pure merit-based awards. Are Merit Scholarships Hard to Get? This will obviously vary based on the scholarship. In general, the bigger the award, the more serious the competition for the money. Merit-based scholarships are often difficult to get in the sense that they require dedicated, long-term, impressive performance in order to stand out as an applicant. For example, if you want to apply for a scholarship based on GPA, you will have had tomaintain a high GPA since the beginning of high school in order to be a competitive applicant. In another sense, thesescholarships may be less difficult than other awards because you might not have to do anythingâ€Å"extra† in order to qualify (if you're already a meritorious student, that is). How to Find Merit Scholarships There are two major sources of merit scholarships: private organizations and colleges/universities themselves. The way you’d go about finding (and applying) for thesescholarships depends on their source. Step 1 of the scholarship app process: figuring out where all these awards are hiding Merit Scholarships Offered Through Private Organizations Some of the most well-known (and most generous) merit awardsare offered through private and nonprofit organizations. The mission of many of these organizations is to provide financial assistance to high-achieving students who also demonstrate financial need. As such, it may be tough to find pure merit-based awards from these sources. To look for merit-based awards, you might want to start with these guides to the country’s top scholarships. Then, you can move on to looking for less competitive local awards. You can also do your own research by Googling scholarships based on your specific interests, skills, or activities. If you're into debate, for example, you might search for "debate scholarships," "debate merit scholarships," or even "debate scholarship [specific school name]." Merit Scholarships Offered Through Schools It’s often easier to find pure merit-based scholarships through schools than it is to find them through private or nonprofit organizations. Schools sometimes offer merit-based awards in order to attract competitive applicants. In order to get your hands on these merit awards, often all you have to do is apply to the school. You’ll automatically be considered for awards once you submit your college application. Colleges and universities often look at the following criteria when awarding merit scholarships (keep in mind that the specifics of these criteria vary widely by school): High school GPA Standardized test scores (SAT and/or ACT) Class rank SportsScholarships Talented athletes can get a ton of merit scholarship money (regardless of financial need), but the process is usually more complicated than just submitting a college app.If you’re looking for merit awards based on your sports performance, you’ll have to go through the proper channels, i.e. you’ll have to be in touch with coaches and/or be formally recruited. Your award will depend on the school’s merit scholarship policies and how much they want you as an athlete.Learn more about how college recruitment works. A Small Caveat Not all schools offer merit scholarships - many top private schools, for example, only offer need-based financial aid.If you’re looking specifically for schools that offer generous merit awards that aren’t dependent on financial need, you should check out our guide to schools with top scholarship programsor our guide to schools that offer full-ride scholarships- just be mindful when it comes to discriminating between need-based and merit-based aid. Want to build the best possible college application and financial aid package? We can help. PrepScholar Admissions is the world's best admissions consulting service. We combine world-class admissions counselors with our data-driven, proprietary admissions strategies. We've overseen thousands of students get into their top choice schools, from state colleges to the Ivy League. We know what kinds of students colleges want to admit. We want to get you admitted to your dream schools. Learn more about PrepScholar Admissions to maximize your chance of getting in. How to Geta Merit Scholarship Ready to get started seeking out your own scholarship money? Here are all thesteps you should take if you want to optimize your chances of winning a merit award. Step 1: Start Early AsI mentioned before, you have to be in it for the long haul if you hope to qualify for some of the more competitive merit awards. Many merit awards will ask for transcripts, records, ordocumentation going back to your freshman year of high school.You don’t have to be perfect - your later high school years will matter more than your freshman or even sophomore year - but you do needto demonstrate a pattern of consistent high-achievement or consistent improvement. This will be important if you hope to come across as a compelling applicant. Step 2: Choose Your Focus Even if you're a young high school student, it's prudent to start thinkingabout what sort of scholarships make the most sense for you.What kindof merit award are you most likely to qualify for? Are you gunning to be a top student, a star athlete, a community service expert, or some combination? Unless you’re a true stand-out performer in another space, I’d encourage you to focus on your academics before expending energy on other pursuits. It's relatively easy to qualify for merit-based awards at many collegesif you have a strong GPA and/or test scores. You can be a great debater or have hundreds of community service hours under your belt, but if your grades are underwhelming, you’ll likely hurt both your college admissions and scholarship chances. Merit awardsare pretty useless if you can’t use them at the schools you want. The more you can narrow in on a type of target scholarship, the more successful you'll be. Step 3: Be Proactive AsI mentioned earlier, it’s important for you to consistently demonstrate that you’re a high-achieving student (or athlete, or volunteer) in order to be competitive for a merit award. This means you’re responsible for tackling any weaknesses in your performance before they become bigger problems. To be proactive, you can: See teachers and coaches for extra help on assignments or problem areas. Meet with your guidance or college counselor regularly (perhaps once a quarter) to check in about college plans, grades, career goals, etc. This may also serve you well if you need letters of rec from your counselors later forscholarship applications. Step 4: Have an ACT/SAT Prep Plan Standardized test grades are often a big part of qualifying for merit scholarships. The earlier you start laying out a plan for preparing and taking either the ACT or the SAT, the better off you’ll be. To start formulating a plan, check out these guides: Should you take the ACT or the SAT? How long should you study for the ACT or theSAT? ACT/SAT test dates and study plans How to get a perfect score on the ACT or the SAT Step 5: Find "Good Fit" Scholarships Not all of the scholarships that you’ll be interested in will necessarily be good fits, even if you technically meet all of the eligibility criteria. Applying to scholarships won’t be the only thing on your mind when you're putting together these apps, so it’s important to use your time efficiently when selecting scholarships. You could technically submit an infinite number of apps, but you’d likely be wasting your time. You don't want to just apply for one or two awards - applying to scholarships is still a numbers game - so aim for 8-10 applications. Think of it like you think of applying to colleges: select a few â€Å"reach,† a few â€Å"safety,† and a few â€Å"target† scholarships.Use your strengths(e.g. academics, sports, community service) to select scholarships for fit (and eliminate scholarships that aren't worth your time). For example, if you’re top of your class but only played JV-level sports, you might not be the best applicant for a scholar-athlete award. If a scholarship isn't a natural fit, you'll likely be wasting your time. Step 6: Submit Polished Applications Just like with your college applications, you only have one chance to make a good impression when you apply for merit scholarships (especially when it comes to themost competitive awards, where scholarship committees have to process thousands of apps). If possible, start putting together a tentative list of scholarships as early as your freshman year. This may seem a little too proactive, but keep in mind that many of the top scholarships are due late junior-early senior year. This early research will also help you stay on track to meet eligibility qualifications. Start seriously thinking about your apps about four months before their due dates. This gives you time to ask forletters of recommendation(if applicable). It also gives you a chance to get feedback on drafts of essays. Finally, have 2-3 trusted people look over your apps before submission to check for clarity, typos, or missing information.Don’t wait until the actual deadline to submit your application - you never know when you might run into technical issues that could prevent submission. It's best to schedule submission 3-5 days before theofficial due date. What Are the Top Merit Scholarships? If you're eager tobegin researchingmerit awards, the following scholarshipsare a good place to start. You’ll find a list of some of the biggest pure merit scholarships, in addition to a list of merit + financial need-based scholarships. For more comprehensive lists of top scholarship programs, check out our guides to the best scholarships available for high school juniors and seniors. Pure Merit Awards National Merit Scholarship Coca-Cola Scholarship Ronald McDonald Scholarships Merit + Financial Need Awards Gates Millennium Horatio Alger Scholarship Program Jackie Robinson’s Foundation Scholarship Program Engebretson Foundation Scholarship Jack Kent Cook Foundation College Scholarship Program Elks National Foundation Most Valuable Student Competition What's Next? One of the hardest parts of searching for scholarships is that there isn't one centralized, reliable source of information on available awards. To help make the search a bit easier, we've put together several guides on various types of award programs. If you're interested in other merit-based awards, read about guaranteed scholarships based on ACT/SAT scores. Looking for scholarship apps that won't interfere with school or extracurriculars? Check out our guide to the 12 easiest scholarship applications. Finally, if looming college bills are getting to be a bit overwhelming, read more about how to get a full ride scholarship and how to apply for financial aid. Want to improve your SAT score by 160 points or your ACT score by 4 points?We've written a guide for each test about the top 5 strategies you must be using to have a shot at improving your score. Download it for free now:

Strategic Assignment Essays

Strategic Assignment Essays Strategic Assignment Essay Strategic Assignment Essay ARGOS| STRTEGIC PLANNING AND IMPLEMENTATION AND STRATEGIC MARKETING MANAGEMENT | Assignment| KEHUL KAVAIYA 7/22/2010 | Edexcel Level 7 BTEC Postgraduate Advanced Diploma Management Studies ASSESSMENT ACTIVITY: UNIT No: 04 17 UNIT NAME: Strategic Planning and Implementation Strategic Marketing Management By: KEHULKUMAR NAROTTAMDAS KAVAIYA Student ID: STUD-7266 Company: Argos Limited Type| Public| Industry| Retailer| Founded| 1973| Head Office| Milton Keynes, England, UK| Key People| Oliver Stocken (Chairman)| Type of Product| Consumer Goods| Owner| Home Retail Group Plc. | Web site| www. argos. co. uk| Revenue| ? 4. 3bn (2009)| Index * Task 1 (a) * INTRODUCTION Argos is one of the largest general merchandise non-food retail chains, with yearly revenue of over ? 4. 3bn (2009) and biggest catalogue chains in Europe and third in the world. Argos has more than 730 stores across the UK and Republic of Ireland. Argos sells general goods and home products via 730 stores, online and over the telephone. Customer can select superior range through 18000 great value products from the Argos. About Argos Richard Tompkins was launched the company in 1973 as a Green Shield Stamps in the U K. The Green Shield Stamps catalogue shops rebranded as Argos starting in July 1973. The first 17 stores started straightway on July 21, 1973. â€Å"Customer could buy products from Green Shield Stamps with cash rather than savings stamps† Argos came up with this idea. Argos established with bringing ? 1million and 1000 staff member in running a week of November, 1973. Argos was launched first catalogue with 4700 products across 250 pages. BAT Industries bought Argos worth ? 32 million in 1979. In June 1980 the company started 1st Elizabeth Duke jewellery boutique in Bristol and company was Britain’s 4th largest jewellery retailer in 1981. The company was listed in the stoke exchange with 203. p opening share price. The company was accumulated by GUS plc (Great Universal Stores Plc) in April 1990 and after that Home Retail Group which was demerged from GUS Plc in October 2006. Now Argos owned by Home Retail Group Plc. From January, 2010 opening new Argos Stores and stores also going to take new identify. * Argos made 130 million customers dealing in las t year and 26% dealing made from online internet. * Argos has biggest catalogue marketing strategy in non-food consumer merchandises. * 18million people have Argos catalogue at home at any time. * Argos is first group position in house wares market. Argos owner HRG Plc has nearly ? 9. 2bn market size in house wares market. One of the prime reason for chosen this company is, â€Å"Argos has different type of marketing like marketing via catalogue, online and over telephone and way of they provide to customer best value for money†. I like that they provide convenient way for customer to shop. Argos stores style is different in high street. This is a good opportunity for me to learn about this company. (b) * Strategic planning â€Å"Strategic planning is process of identify mission, vision and goals and create best steps for achieving goals and objective. In any successful business it’s very important to plan for future in all sorts of way, and organisation mission, vision and objective should be set for the future. Planning is very important tools for getting success in the future of a business. Main purpose of strategic planning to create the goals for an organisation and flow the steps for achieve this goals. Whic h goals should priorities for an organisation and flow steps day to day for achieving its goals. Develop Strategic plan: An organisation needs to find out and collect information on many aspects of the business. This process will concern internal and external audit of the organisation. The internal audit defines an organisation strength and weaknesses. The external audit defines the PEST analysis of and an organisation. (Andy, Alex and Judith n. d. , p. 299) Internal Audit: Organisation needs to analyse people (turnover of labour, Motivation, absenteeism, productivity), operation management (Stock control, delivery, productivity, delivery), marketing (Sales, Advertising, sales staff performance), financial department (variance and budget, profitability, Cash flow, Investment appraisal in an internal audit. A business needs identify its strengths and weaknesses in their competitor’s relation across the entire of the business. The aim of audit provide the perfect information about every particular department and if possible very good to use the accounting or statistical data for the information. External Auditing: A business needs to analyse external areas such as Political, Economic issue, Social issue, Technological change, Competition, Culture, Ethics, Environment and Pressure group. External auditing is very important for all business. All business needs to PEST analyse for getting success in future. Government authorization polices in health and safety, taxation and competition, and employment are all affect to employers and businesses. The influence of government is ascending into new location of the business environment like environmental and ethical issue. Currency value, rate of interest, unemployment, and economical changes is playing their role on getting success in the business. The business needs to be aware of changing environment. Argos mission statement is identifying customers and meeting their needs. This statement clearly state that Argos needs to deeply PEST analyse for reach to the goal. c) * Strategy by Framework Strategy is the way of the achieving goals. Argos developing strategy framework: The strategic process helps a firms to understand more about its status of strategic position and organisation can know about business environment, customers needs and requirement, organisation can find new option which is consider for success, and the way of develop compet ences meet to organisational goals and objective. By this strategic Argos looks to match its own objective for development and growth with reality of the business environment because every organisation needs to be realistic. Main for part of organisation is most important to develop its strategic such as, awareness, planning, development, and management result. Awareness: Organisation needs to examine market and competitive realities and also examine internal and external business environment. Organisation must identify the major opportunities. Organisation must have to do SWOT analysis for examine the market and competitive realities. Planning: Planning is very important to get success in the business. Organisations should make the planning behind every objective such as Short term and long term planning, strategic planning, organisational and optional planning, epartmental goals, and communicate strategy. Development: Argos developing strategic depends on marketing process because Argos is not Manufacture Company. To increase Operating performance and growth, Argos using workforce development, increasing productive and sales, sating of goals, plans and action and management development. Results of Mana gement: For Organisation is getting the expected results from the market, management of Argos taking meeting for review of performance. (d) * Strategic Models The five force of models behind the success of organisation which is Potential, bargaining power of suppliers, bargaining power of buyers, the threat of substitutes of services, and the threat of new entrants. Potential Entrants: The threat of new entrants is the defined the Organisation brand loyalty, absolute coast advantages, and the switching costs and also government regulation. Argos this force is qualitatively and ideally factors of Argos but its make very expensive to enter in the industry. Main key step for developing strategy it’s concerned with the company mission, vision, and others objective. The step is the developing realistic vision for the organisation. Organisation mission indicates it’s the goals and activities. Strategic planning Models: Strategic planning is the process to establish major objective on what organisation will accomplish in the future. Organisation to make selection of forces of models on what organisation will do and what organisation will not do. The main reason to do strategic planning, improving the performance, solving major issues at a macro level, and communicate to each other’s what is the major factor. A good strategic planning helps to find critical performance issue, organisation capability, to cover sufficient time period to reduce the gap of performance. Models are: Internal assessment depends on assets resources, culture, people, system and partnership and suppliers. And external assessment depends on marketplace, trends, technology, and economic cycles. And the internal and external assessment depends on SWOT analysis. SWOT Analysis of ARGOS * Task 2 (a) * Marketing Strategies Argos marketing strategy particularly plan of marketing which designed to meet customer’s needs and requirements with based on clear goals. Strategy and tactics of Argos will enable to achieve those goals and others objective. Current, developing strategy is concerned with the match between the external environment and internal capability of the organisation. Organisations are often embossed with externally or internally to examine their position of strategy within business industry or place of market. The first stage market research enables to identify the most important marketing mix. And the marketing mix should consist of the four ‘p’, which is the right product, sold with right price, in the right place and using the most suitable promotion technique. Customers can find product from over 18000 products in Argos catalogue. Current markets have an improving concentration by an organisation on the needs and wants of consumers. The culture changing at Argos, its management decided they need to change the extended marketing mix to increasing the consumer’s experience. Argos products price is always low and more selection of products with less hassle. Argos management team wanted to create on these values and develop the marketing mix to improving organisation sales and profits. Argos changed its logo in 1998 and after that its sales and profits increased. Argos market research was seen as a boring and stuffy. The firm has used advertising to appeal to its different market segment and Argos segmentation its market not only in terms of age and gender (demographic) but also in terms in people’s brand awareness. (b) * Stakeholders of Argos Stakeholder mines â€Å"an individual or group with an interest in the success of an organization in delivering intended results and maintaining the viability of the organizations products and services. Stakeholders influence programs, products, and services†. Argos responsible and accountable to a high range of stake holders: * Share holders Customers * Suppliers * NGO’s * Community groups * Opinion formers Share Holders: Argos one of the main stake holders is its shareholders. Shareholders is legally own share of stoke (one or more) in an organisation. Argos owner Home Retail group’s investment is very high behind the people and technology. Number of individuals shareholder s percentage is very high (86. 58%) and the corporate shareholders percentage is very low (13. 42%), that is main reason is the share holders is the very important stake holders for Argos. A more trusted brand leading to stronger stake holders especially share holders and customers. Shareholders manage to risk effectively. Employees: Argos highly skilled workforce is also one of the most important stake holders. Currently, Argos has more than 33000 members of staff. Argos high street style is not like a show room. The stores are mainly focused to directly employee for an example customer service. Customers: A customer is very important stakeholders for all organisations. As per last year Argos made 130million transactions. Argos serving more than 2. 5 million customers a week, so that is the biggest stakeholders for Argos. (c) * How stake holders have contribute the development Big firm have many kind of stake holder group such as internal stakeholders (Employee) and external stakeholders (government) as outside of the business it is necessary to identifying and balance the need and expectations of group of stakeholders. Balancing needs of all stakeholders is important for big retail chain, like Argos. Share holders: Shareholders choose the board of director and board of director create the business strategy. In Argos, share holders are the main part because Home Retail Group is owner of Argos and also owner of the Homebas. Share holders are main part of its investment. Argos main development strategy is the investment behind the people and technology. Capital requirement, reward from share of the profit this different according to share per person. Employee: Employee is one of the main internal stakeholders for every big organisation. Argos is catalogue based company in UK market. Argos has consistently stated that, its workforce is very important. Argos manager and supervisor have high level training and development is the core requirement and needs to long range success in retail industry. Employees are very important to making changes in the work. Customers: Argos main aim is to provide better service and the increasing the customer’s satisfaction. ‘Customers is the God‘this sentences is not wrong. Without the customers any company can’t develop its business. For batter business organisation needs to create good relationship. * Increasing the sales and profitability through the better timing by fulfil needs based historic trends. * Increasing Cross selling of the others products. * Easy to identify that, which customers are profitable and which customers are not profitable. All stake holder in very important for development of organisation and meet goal in the future. d) * Senior management of an organisation gain commitment to its strategies and the implementation of these from its employees Organisation requires a direction for its development. The employees who manage the business providing the direction and taking responsibility for making decision and good business are a high skill. Argos main key objective are customers satisfaction, increase profitability, growth of fleet, and employment development. Gaining employee commitment: There many different senior management style for gain commitment from their employee. This depend how leader communicate with the employee for example, Argos operating â€Å"open door policy’. This helps to everybody within the company to have direct contact with senior manager. Senior managers have implementation very good management and practices. Get promises from employee. Managers have to maintain positive employee relation. Manager can get commitment by making a planner meeting, special occasions, and the place of work more fun place (but make sure that is time for joy, celebration or play) and Making outdoor activities by organisation. Making rewards by each individual performance. Manages should helping dealing with stress of painful period. Manager should show to employee that manager believe in the benefits of consultation. As manager demonstrate organisation commitment to employee’s involvement in the health and safety. Organisation need train manager, supervisor and health and safety employee together. * Task 3 (a) * Layman’s language define the term: Vision, mission statement, objectives and value Mission definition: The declaration of the organisation core aim or purpose and focus which is remains unchanged. Different business practises and strategies may frequently be altered to take to changes circumstances. What a firm is way is exists its reason for being define mission statement of a firm. Firm’s possible mission statement is written declaration of the purpose concerned with highest priorities of a company or individual. Vision Definition: The picture of your company in the future or more that means vision and firms inspiration the framework for all your strategic planning. Vision statement means one of the terms, which are using widely. Vision should have realistic, credible, attractive and in future achievable. Objectives Definition: Goals that a firm create for itself for future sales, profitability, or return on investment define the organisation objective. An organisation or individual desire or dream or needed result to be achieved by particularly in time. Values: The corporate mission, strategy, governance, culture, communication, corporation, decision process, decision system, performance management process and reward processes, this are all values for an organisation. The greatest potential of any organisation are created by a commitment to high corporate values. (b) * Vision and Mission statement of Argos and Its Strategy Develop Mission statement and others Objective: Argos mission statement is: â€Å"Argos Provide their customers with the best value for money through the most convenient shopping experience†. Argos main purpose is identifying the customers and meeting their needs. Marketing department of Argos providing the goods and services that customers want. In future Argos wants to improve their services and best way to find out customer’s needs. Argos offers to consumers, via multi channel approaching to shopping: * Customers can reserve products from home either online or by phone to get their products from stores. * Customers can look over the catalogues and stock availability in stores. Collect goods and pay for that in stores. * Customers can select products from the online catalogue via web site and either order for home delivery or take goods from stores. * Customers can order any products from the catalogue for home delivery by the telephone. Argos vision: Argos vision is to build around its commitment to giving good choice, high value and convenience, with their passion for its customers at the core. Argos giving its customers lots of selection within such easy reach such as customers shopping in stores, online, via phone and via text, by check and reserve. Argos aim to have stores and buying points within easy reach all of its customers and expand its reneges of products to provide its customers with lots of selection as customers wants in all of products ranges. Argos always believes in â€Å"organisation is control its own destiny†. Argos main vision is the embodiment of this belief. (c) * Cultural and ethical value of Argos Argos culture is the beliefs and values that are shared over the firm. Currently it is very difficult to define to ensure the firm’s culture reflect its strategy and focus on the consumers. One of the key factors of the new approach has been to changing the culture of corporate at the company (Argos) and make and environment within the organisation that values. Argos provide its employees, job training, career development opportunities and satisfaction reward for better performance to achieve cultural change. Argos management team created its culture: * Believes in winning * Believes that change is important and necessary * Seek new opportunities * Encourages co operation This all values very important part of to increasing the organisation’s competitiveness via innovation and via working effectively in team. Argos’ new management created its new cultural values: The company talked its staff to create good workforce, who were able to improve. Argos customer service provides an experience that is very friendly, efficient and hassle free to its customers. Team work of organisation’s employee leads to good co-operation and sharing of best practice because Argos giving ownership opportunity for decision so that solve problem themselves. Employee respecting to each others because of that employee feel they are contributing. Culture of competitive will to win because of that everyone is aiming to increase and succeed. The company employee commitment is very high, which was company found in 2003. (d) * Critical success factor of Argos Argos and many more retail company facing the problem of serious challenge due to rapidly change in condition of market, improving global competition hrough fuelled, expectation of high performance via consumers and market, and also including technology. The retail industry growth is significantly due to technology innovation, through adopting management techniques of supplier’s chain, modular layouts, re-engineering processes, and involvement of employees. Critical success factor: Critical succ ess factor indicate highly accountable non profit firms. There some critical success factors are as under, balanced approach is requirement to ensure all of critical success factors contribute to firm’s culture. Technology Support: If organisation don’t have perfect technology, for an example geographical IT so that critical success factors for that organisation. The effective technology is most important for future successes and to meet the organisational goals. Some Argos technology is not proper, like ticket machine. Stakeholders: To create unnecessary dialogue with critical stakeholders that affect to negative to the organisation. For an example, Argos some stakeholders is engaged. Strategic leadership: Organisation is going to right direction and also organisation has clear and realistic goal. For an example, Argos some objective is not for development, like two time catalogue creating for customers. IT Governance: The committee of promotion chaired via PM (Prime Minister) guides and mediates the admin branches, which is directly, affect to the market. Program management based on performance: Organisation can regularly evaluate the perfect measure of performance? Right measure of performance is very difficult. Shared ownership with the employee: Company’s members of staffs have clearly and perfectly promised to achieve organisational goals. * Task 4 (a) * Strategy of Argos A strategy is a way to a firm puts into practice to get particular and objective. There are all sorts of general strategies that a firm might employ, like expanding into new market of countries. Currently, Argos’ one of the strategy is growth. From different kind of way company can be achieve growth, like opening new branches of stores, improving the ranges of products, website improvement, and increasing profitability and revenue. The strategy of Argos involving maintaining the loyalty of existing consumers: There is high number of customers, who wants to buy products directly from the Argos. Advertising through the media and on the television is very effective way to attracting people. Argos provides its customers ‘value for money’. The Argos management and administrative will be concerned with managing its system and security. Argos is the part of HRG (Home Retail Group). HRG won the Retail week Retail technology of the year award in 2008 for its project of supply chain (RACO). Argos growth record is very strong. Economic Climate: Argos has five stores in Mumbai (India) and a telephoning and online ordering service that are doing in conjunction with hyper city, with its Indian retail partner. The company said that it had completed a reward into its Indian stores combined venture and had decided not to proceed. This decision to discontinue the trial following the just for two years period of development has been kept mutually by the company and its partner. (b) * Changing in Organisation Environment Argos is highest public services trade union in UK, Such as: * 33000 Employees * 730 branches * 130million customers * Headquarters in England Argos performs many different roles for its customers. Argos changes its environment from these main public services. External environment is ncluding in changes in organisation’s environment. External environment * Social factor: Argos changing its demography, like changing patterns of population, lifestyle and behaviour and customers shopping patterns. * Legal factor: Any new laws and application of the laws that might affect a firm. * Economic factors: variable in economy that affect the demand for services and goods, which is may change environment, for an example changing in the interest rates. * Political factors: Changes arising from government initiatives or policy, which also effect to changing environment. Technological factor: The influence of changing technologies on business processes and products. The changing work company work environment An employee in latest technology would clock in and out of work. A device of mechanical recorded the start and end time for every each employee. The old type of work based on morning 9. 00 to 5. 00 evening working day and they were paid weekly based (hourly rate given). Currently situations are more women working, in general and live longer. (c) * Major functional area of Argos Main four functional are in the firm such as Marketing, HRM (human resource management), finance, and operation management. This are all functional areas are very important for an organisation. Every functional area is need strategic thinking for future. A form need to create strategy decision and keep the strategy in action. The long term direction is concerned with the strategic management of a whole firm, the different functional areas relationships and strategy implementation in a firm. Every firms working perfectly with necessary departments, such as Marketing: Marketing is very important department for Argos and all organisations. Marketing department of Argos involves a range of process affecting with finding what the customers wants, and then providing it. The marketing mix 4ps is key elements of Argos marketing strategy and Market research to find out consumers requirement. Market research via quality and quantity research involves meeting customers’ needs. Finance: Main function of finance department are providing financial support for business and operational planning to get success in future, providing the day to day financial services to its staff and department. The financial department responsible for creating a balance sheet and profit and loss account provides management information, book keeping procedures, management of wages and others. Human Resource management: HR department is very important department for all organisations. Main purpose of the HR department to attract and retain employees by all activities and ensure performance of the employees at the highest level possible to meet’s organisational goals. Human resource management responsibilities are establishing develop methods, and evaluate practices. HRM decision directly affect to the employ people, who working for the firm. (d) * Major functional areas can development the organisation The main aim of functional areas of to ensure that every important activities of business are carried out efficiently. Marketing: The marketing department is most important functional area because sales and marketing will be concerned with business objective and, achieving targets, new market developing and increasing sales. Organisation can improve its sales, brand image, finance condition by marketing. Marketing playing most important part in company’s development because marketing is designed to achieve profitable sales. Marketing is involving the use of stronger tool to manipulate the decision of individuals and of other organisation. Argos cannot development without its marketing department because firm based on catalogue. Finance: Finance is very necessary for running the organisation regularly. Finance has very close relation with marketing and operational management. Argos can increase capital via finance, generating high revenue. This are all parts of developing the organisation. Finance is very important for day to day activities within the organisation. Argos finance capacities is very high so we can say Argos’ finance department and finance is very important for developing its. Human resource management: Human resource is also one of the important functional areas within the business. HR are the workforce that work for a firm. Argos has more than 33000 employees. in the case of Argos, employee is very important for increase the sales, customers services, to achieve the goals and objective within the organisation. This all functional areas are very important for development of Argos. * Task 5 (a) * Strategy Implementation Implementation means consist of securing resources, a firm these resources and directing the using of these resources within and outside the firms. Strategy implementation define, which strategy chosen by organisation so that strategy put in to action. Strategy implementation timetable can develop certain way such as: Strategic focus: Argos business has changed substantially in the last four years. At time of the recession, as this changing result, the company was getting nearly double percentage increasing in the earning but the dividend was reduced by 21%. Argos also offers venture advisory services. Argos focus the on public sector and big corporate in the London. Assessment: Organisation evidence of competence is based on place of work activity and aim to reflect attainment within the firm. Organisation assessment assesses the achievement of standard occupational. Organisation needs to assess skilled of its workforce. Change planning and implementation: Make the business readiness planning and take into consideration such as development capability, migration data, development of technology, training and activities and activates of business require to integrate new possesses and jobs into the business environment. Organisation need to ensure that perspective on business on how the new one technically capacity will be delivered to the business. (b) * Implementation Time table 2005| 2006| 2007| 2008| 2009| Benchmark screening | 7. 9| 6. 0| 6. 1| 6. 7| 5. 1| Satellite system | -| - | | | | Process of employee atThe time of Christmas nearly Double. In each years| 18000| 23000| 26000| 29000| 33000| Profit of bench mark OperatingIn million| 320| 297| 325| 376| 304| Trends of revenue sales declinedOf 4. 8% in last years| 8. 8%| 7. 7%| 7,8%| 8. 7%| 7. 1%| Number of line in the A rgos catalogue In each years Product in total| 13500| 17100| 16700| 18500| 18900| | | | | | | Market size of Argos (? bn)For products of home environment| 9. | 8. 1| 9. 1| 11. 2| 13. 5| General merchandise (? bn)| 6. 2| 5. 5| 6. 6| 10. 1| 16. 4| (c) * Implementation Argos implementation define inter communication and buy in, aligning structure and people, developing new resources. Organisation people have to understand what the strategy implemented and how affect them and using their skill and quality to help getting implementation strategy. The company internal people understand and know the implementation strategy, organisation also necessary to align structures and people make sure the happening strategy. For examples products A and product B implementation, organisation needs to evacuate the both products and the go through step by step. Model of strategy Implementation: every organisation to adapt to change by model of developing of particular structure, objective, control, integration, and incentives for strategy implementing. Strategic changes: understanding of strategy implementation changes again forces and way to overcome necessary changes and implement change. Strategy implementation and HR: HR polices and strategy both together needs to implement. Controls and incentives: the way to motivate and control of performance involve methods of get effective coordination. (d) * Important of Implementation The implementation is easy and also implementation is more important than ideas because all start-up different makeup. Evaluation, monitoring and implementation process is very important for the organisation. Organisation need to access the problem, predict impact, implement, evaluate the performance and monitor. Every new scheme provides opportunity for learning from experience, and increase their understanding of performance and policy tool. The strategy implementation part of the business planning deals with important part of the business. The Argos set up working group to oversee the setting up of the new people benefit. Market research show the consumers wants one thing more than anything. Argos refocused and adapted its old help point services to provide all others help services. * Conclusion: Staff planning is vital if firm is to meet its future demands for employee. Argos needs to have people with the right trained and experienced to support its development and growth. By trends examining in the macro environment it is possible to identify market opportunities and perfect products. BIBLIOGRAPHY Book 1. ANDY MOTTERSHEAD, ALEX GRANT, and JUDITH KELT (2009) OCR Business studies for a2 2009. UK: Hodder Education. WWW 2. ARGOS (01/04/2005) Student Pack [WWW] Argos Limited. Available from: argos. co. uk/wcsstore/argos/en_US/images/StudentPack. pdf 3. ARGOS (n. d. ) Graduate careers [WWW] Argos Careers. Available from: https://secure. argoscareers. com/r2/graduate/index. html 4. CATALOGUE DEALS (n. d. ) Argos brief History [WWW] Catalogue Deals. Available from: catalogue-deals. co. uk/argos. aspx [Accessed 16/07/2010] 5. HOME RETAIL GROUP FINANCIAL DEPARTMENT (01/04/2009) Annual report 2009 [WWW] Home Retail Group. Available from: homeretailgroup. com/ar/2009/_downloads/HRG_Annual_Report_2009. pdf 6. THE TIMES 100(n. d. ) Marketing Mix of Argos [WWW] Thetimes100. Available from: thetimes100. co. uk/downloads/argos/argos_9_full. pdf 7. THE TIMES 100 (n. d. ) Argos mission statement [WWW] Thetimes100. Available from: thetimes100. co. uk/downloads/argos/argos_10_2. doc