Operations Strategy Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 5000 words

Operations Strategy - Case Study Example In fact, empirical evidence shows us that realized strategy tends to be about 10-30 percent of intended strategy. What really determines strategy is the "patterns of decisions that emerge from individual managers adapting to changing external circumstances and the ways in which the intended strategy was interpreted." What is Apple's mission and strategy today' Apple's mission is to deliver a highly innovative and superior solution to a customer's personal computing needs. Apple's present day competitive strategy is a return to differentiation. Key elements to this strategy are an emphasis on design, service, branding through advertising, and quality. Drivers needed to attain these objectives are through the firm's unique marketing abilities, engineering skills, creativity, and R& D (Apple Computer, 2005). Although the company has excelled in delivery and order processing, it still has yet to prove its operational efficiency. Therein lies Apple's principal weakness. In the past, Apple has failed to reconcile the added cost of differentiation with operational efficiencies in production and distribution. Apple has also shown competencies in building brand reputation and generating buzz for its products. Their marketing campaigns have been successful and remain a value added activity. Financially, the company remains liquid with substantial cash reserves and is not highly leveraged in debt (Apple Financial, 2006). Apple's differentiation strategy is uniquely aligned with the changing dynamics of the industry. Firstly, Apple owns the only viable alternative to a "Wintel" machine. All other major computer manufacturers are only slightly differentiated because they are forced to conform to the "Wintel" standards of an Intel chip and Microsoft operating system. They are limited to differentiating themselves based on accessibility, service, and marketing. Apple has successfully differentiated itself as the only viable alternative to the PC standard. The two major forces that have affected market share loss are the misconception that Apple computers are incompatible with available software for Wintel machines and buying one will result in losses in functionality. This can be overcome with aggressive marketing campaigns in which Apple has demonstrated value added competencies. The second major factor contributing to Apple loss in market share is the unmatched price erosion from the PC market. Apple has failed to narrow the gap because of its operational inefficiencies. If Apple can narrow this price gap and overcome the negative software perception, it will undoubtedly regain market share (Bateman - Snell 2004). Internal Analysis Mission, Long-Range Objectives, Current Strategy, and Performance Between the years of 1980 and 2001, Apple slid along a turbulent slope of declining market share and profit erosion where it lost its leadership position and now lags as a market follower with a mere 3% total market share. Apple's inability to defend its market share and leadership status can be directly attributed to one general, yet prevailing driver. Throughout this fleeting tenure, Apple lacked a clear mission and competitive strategy that drove the value creating activities of the firm (FEI 2006). Apple began with the mission to "change the world through technology." More specifically, the company sought

Chinese Communist Party in the Civil War in 1949 Essay Example for Free

Chinese Communist Party in the Civil War in 1949 Essay The Chinese Civil War, which lasted from 1927 to 1949, was a civil war in China which the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) overthrew the Guomindang (GMD) . As the CCP had always been inferior to the GMD in many aspects, many were shocked and startled by the Communists victory; although numerous factors show that the Communists victory was almost inevitable. This essay will examine the factors that lead to the Communists victory, which includes ideology, economic, political, social, military, foreign issues, and personalities of the leaders. One of the major advantages of the CCP can be seen in their social aspects and the support of peasants, which were the vast majority of people. They owned limited amount of land, had high rents, low productivity, were in dept and many lived on the edge of starvation. In addition, having peasant support for the CCP can supply with food resources. Therefore, Mao understood the first goal he had to achieve was the support from peasants. First, he set up peasant unions of Hunan from 1925-27, then in 1838-45 when Chiang had their attention focused on the Japanese Invasion, Mao and the CCP went to the rural areas, where the peasants were grateful for the way the soldiers behaved and helped the people. Then, the political leaders confiscated land from the landowners and redistributed it to landless people; lastly, they were given rights to vote for village leaders. By doing all this, the once enslaved and exploited people of china gained faith and freedom established the myth that only the Red Army was the true protector of China. In contrast, the GMD had no strong support from the peasants; and most of them felt no connection to the government. The GMD had no party organization helping the struggling provinces, and after the split of GMD and CCP in 1927, the support of common people was very low . On the military aspects, the CCP was disadvantaged in the number of arm forces. In 1945, the GMD had 5 million troops, while the CCP only and 1.25 troops. However, there are a few points which can turn this into an advantage. Firstly, they made use of guerilla warfare, which is extremely suitable for small troops to travel swiftly, change position; be precise and alert. Secondly, the communists selected high quality troops and trained them strictly with strong discipline. Lastly, the communists had similar  lifestyles between the leaders and soldiers, and with the peasant support, they sustained high morale within the Red Army. With all these advantages, we can see that in 1930-1931 Chiang Kai-shek sent 3 military expeditions to exterminate the Red Army, facing an army of 300000, the CCP defeated them all . Here, we can see how effective the guerrilla warfare is in facing a large amount of troops. In contrast, the GMD had huge troops and modern weapons . However, the GMD troops did not have strategies against the light armed and swift troops of the CCP. Moreover, because the life between the leaders and the soldiers had too much difference, they had low morale and did not have the full heart to fight for the GMD. In terms of economic aspects of the CCP, and they did not have a lot of expenses due to the guerilla warfare tactics, and the people can self-supply themselves with food, as they were all peasants. In contrast for the GMD, 65% of the states budget was met by currency expansion and only 10% by taxes . Therefore, they were highly dependent on foreign aids of the US. The constant depreciation of the value of paper currency undermined in particular the morale in all jobs that were dependent upon the payment of salaries, including troops, officers and civilian officials. Their tolerance was limited and led to widespread corruption. In terms of political aspects, the CCP had made a lot of errors and had escaped destruction by a hairs breadth, but they had an extraordinary resilience, refused to give up and learned from their mistakes . In 1927 after the failure of the autumn harvest uprising and retreated to Jinggang Shan, he noticed needed to win the hearts of the peasants; therefore, he adapted the Marxist theory and incorporated it into the peasants . Then, as he retreated with the remaining troops, he set his base in the Jinggang shan mountains where nationalists were far. Here, it shows that Mao learned from his mistakes. Furthermore in 1936 during the Japanese invasion, Mao forced the GMD to unite with them to defend the country, and here, we can also see that Mao truly cared for his country and did not just want power. In contrast, the GMD did not truly care for China. Firstly, the GMDs support came from the wealthy city classes and landowners, which was a small population of China. Lastly, the GMD lacked passion and never learned from  their mistakes, for example, in the final battle in 1948, when they were advised to concentrate his forces on the Huai River. The foreign issues were also a crucial point in the victory of the communists. During the Japanese invasions in 1937, the GMD, who were supposed to be in charge of china, conserved his forces for the inevitable civil war, and pinned their hopes of interventions of foreign powers to defeat Japan . Moreover, as the GMD is dealing with the Japanese invasions, it gave chance to the CCP to gain popularity, strengthen their armies, and give them time to expand in general. By 1945, party membership gained from 100,000 to 1.2 millionOther factors such as the ideology and the personalities of the Mao and Chiang played an important role in the victory of the Communists. In the ideology of communism by Marx, they were just supposed spread communism, but later, it was adapted by Mao to suit chinas conditions, focused on the peasantry as the main revolutionary force, instead of the workers. Meanwhile, the Nationalists did not remain to their original ideology, which was the three principles peoples livelihood, democracy and nationalism. For example, when Chiang gave the warlords a position in the government to develop urban areas, he ignored peoples livelihood. During the Japanese invasion, he ignored nationalism by relying on foreign aid, and in 1932, he ignored democracy by suppressing the media, books, and the press. Gradually, the GMD lost support and the people favored the Communists. In conclusion, the Communists victory was due to the peasant support, political organization, and their use of military tactics in guerilla warfare. Also, the nationalists incapability of governing, corruptions not remaining to the original ideology, and the lack of passion, leads to the downfall of the GMD. In addition to the foreign issues, the Japan invasions, the Communists truly won not only by forcing the GMD out of china physically, but winning the peoples hearts and minds. At last, the country with the largest population, China, is finally painted red. References Chinese Civil War 1946-1949. (2000., December 16). Wars of the World. Retrieved September 26, 2007, from http://www.onwar.com/aced/chrono/c1900s/yr45/fchina1946.htmElegant, R. S. (1972). Mao vs. Chiang: The Battle for China, 1925-1949. New York: A Thistle Book. Lescot, P. (2004). Before Mao (S. Rendall, Trans.). 10 East 53rd Street, NewYour, NY10022, USA: HarperCollins Publishers. (Original work published 1999)Marrin, A. (1989). Mao Tse-Tung and His China. 375 Hudson Street, New York 10014, USA: Puffin Group. Meins, B. (n.d.). Chinese history: The Chinese Civil War of 1927-1950 . In Helium where knowledge grows. Retrieved September 26, 2007, from Helium Web site: http://www.helium.com/tm/346350/chinese-civil-happen-momentShowalter, D. (2005, April). Decisive Encounters: The Chinese Civil War, 1946-1950. Retrieved September 26, 2007, from LookSmart Web site: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3686/is_200504/ai_n14681639Wood, J., McManus, A. (1998). China Revolutionary Leadership (L. Day, Ed.). 6 Ride Way, Albany, Auckland, NewZealand: Macmillan Publishers. (Original work published 1998)

Essay on Food as a Control Mechanism in Handmaids Tale :: Handmaids Tale Essays

Food as a Control Mechanism in Handmaid's Tale      Food traditionally represents comfort, security, and family. We recall the traditional concept of comfort food and the large family dinners in Norman Rockwell's piece Freedom from Want. However, for many, food is also a serious, and potentially damaging, method of control. Anorexia nervosa and bulimia are classic examples of psychological syndromes, related to control, that express themselves with eating disorders. Prisoners of war are denied food as the most basic method of torture and control. Like all humans, Offred, the main character of Margaret Atwood's Handmaid's Tale, finds that food is a central and important feature of life. Food has many meanings in the novel, nourishment, fertility, and luxury; however, this paper will focus on food as a control mechanism of Gilead's government. First, page 11 in the novel introduces tokens,à ® which are the method of payment for food in Gilead. Tokens do not have any writing on them at all, only basic pictures. Here it is important to recognize that handmaids, and all respectable women, in Gilead are not allowed to read. Gilead has biblical mandate for this rule, without doubt, yet the most significant aspect of the rule is its use as a control mechanism. Women are denied the power of knowledge, and hopefully, from the government's perspective, women will eventually lose all ability to gain any knowledge that is not fed to them. We see this same idea expressed on pages 25 and 27 when Offred described the storefronts. All the stores, but specifically the food markets, no longer have written names and signs. The names of these stores are all expressed using rudimentary pictures. As an example, a wooden sign with three eggs, a bee, and a cow indicates Milk and Honey. There is further significance of the tokens mentioned above. Because handmaids must use these tokens to purchase food, they have no choice or free will regarding food at this stage. The food they pick up at the store will be based purely on the tokens that have been given to them, they will hand these tokens to a man behind the counter, and he will hand her the food. It is very simple and extremely passive. The limitation of free will using tokens is expounded upon when Offred realizes that Milk and Honey has oranges, a rare luxury. Offred is longing for one of these fruits yet cannot have it because she doesn't have a token for it (25).

Today, the status of gold mining

Gold mining is the extraction of gold from the formation of gold-rich process. There area variety of techniques can be mined from the formation of the gold, the most primitive way is gold, then after Gold Separation Equipment Sieving. Currently on industrial multi- purified gold cyanide, but cyanide toxic, and therefore are developing new gold extraction reagents. Gold mining major ways: open pit gold mining can be divided into two and underground mining to underground mining based.Suitable for open-pit mining in general and micro-fine gold placer mining. Placer gold mining has two mining and artificial gold mining ship, the former is used in eluvial zone and the presence of a large number of coarse gravel riverbed areas to dig for gold richer artificial horizon for the purpose. General dug placer exists only in some small profitable ore, ore grade of 0. 02 g / m3 can be more profitable.Some gold mining river boat is larger, more stable gold grade gold layer, artificial profits or di fficult to dig a large gold mining company under the gold mining area to the way large-scale mining, gold mining ship costs are normally up millions of dollars, and therefore requires a ood gold mining operation area. Underground mining is the main way Chinese gold mining, because most of the Chinese gold deposit is concealed, semi-concealed orebody, requires the use of open hole ways to mine gold In South Africa, the world's most advanced gold mining straight hole to a depth of 3,000 meters.Since gold buried deep underground, sulphide mineral-based gold mining requires a higher ore grade, simple alternative minimum sulphide ore industry requirements in 2 grams / ton, mined at an average grade of 4 g / ton to profit . Depending on the complexity of he gold grade of ore types and optional other associated minerals may be, no useful elements of high muddy high arsenic sulfide gold ore is required to reach a favorable 7-10 g / t mined before.As other major minerals associated minerals, such as zinc, copper associated grade often in one gram / ton, only in the case of other minerals as a companion to profitable mining. With the development of science and technology, gold mining equipment and Gold Separation Equipment are in constant innovation, I believe that one day in the near gold mining will become much easier.

Sociology: Notes on Social Dimensions of Crime

SOCIAL DIMENSIONS OF CRIME 1. AGE 2. SEX 3. ETHNICITY 4. SOCIAL CLASS Since the recession of the 1980s, employment rates for adolescents increase yearly and have an impact on the diminishment of youth crime The younger you are, the more prone you are to be a victim of victimization The older you get, the more you are prone for property crimes and less for physical crimes SOCIAL DIMENSIONS OF CRIME 1. AGE 2. SEX 3. ETHNICITY 4. SOCIAL CLASS MALES: Offenders are most likely to be male. They account for 80% of all criminal offences. 90% of all homicides, sexual assaults, and robbery crimes.And 78% of all property crimes (breaking & entering, theft). Since the 1960’s, we see an increase in female criminality. However, the specific crimes they engage in are different than the ones males engage in. (Credit card fraud, shoplifting) The feminization of poverty: we are seeing the high rise of poor, single mothers Men & Women have equal tendencies to be victimized by crimes†¦ the d ifference between the two is that they are more likely to be victimized by different crimes. They are not equally victimized to the same crimes. MEN: Assault, theftWOMEN: Sexual Assault SOCIAL DIMENSIONS OF CRIME 1. AGE 2. SEX 3. ETHNICITY 4. SOCIAL CLASS Big over presentation of aboriginal peoples in federal & provincial prisons. In general, aboriginals only make up 3% of Canada’s population, but 16% of Canada’s inmates. Howard Sapers noted that aboriginal people are mistreated (receive harsher treatment) by workers, prison guards, psychologists, and are more likely to be denied parole. They are also more likely to be sent to maximum security prisons. SOCIAL DIMENSIONS OF CRIME 1. AGE 2. SEX 3. ETHNICITY 4. SOCIAL CLASSToday’s social class, it doesn’t matter if youre rich or poor, all have equal tendencies to commit crimes. The difference is the type of crimes that the poor commit and the rich commit. Rich commit more sophisticated/organized crimes Poor commit more survival crimes (theft, If you make less than 15 thousand dollars a year, research shows that you’re more likely to be a target of a violent crime because youre probably living in the ghetto If you make more than 60 thousand dollars a year, research shows that youre more likely to get robbed, because you have more to rob.

netflix vs blockbuster case analysis

netflix vs blockbuster case analysis Free Online Research Papers Reed Hastings has already been a success for beginning new companies. He first made a name for himself by going public with Pure Software in 1995. After the development of this company he began to obtain several other companies and made Pure Software one of the 50 largest public software companies in the world by 1997 until they sold to Rational Software in 1997. From there Hastings moved on to others projects. He noticed that there was a demand for the ability to rent movies. With a large customer base he figured there was no question that his company could fail. Since the internet was booming, Hastings sensed the opportunity for online movie rentals. This began the only movie rental industry to a large audience. With one company becoming successful, it wouldn’t be but a matter of time before others began to catch on and begin to reap the benefits of someone else’s idea. Back in 1985, David cook wanted to fill a niche market just like Hastings. He wanted to load a market for customers who wanted to rent an assortment of VHS movies. By selling off his existing oil and gas software business, Cook subsidized the first store. By 1986, an initial public offering was started in order for the need to raise capital to fund further expansion. However, a harmful news article delayed this offering. Running into liquidity problems, Blockbuster had an ending result in a $3.2 million loss. In 1987 cook sold a one-third stake in the company to a group of investors. In conclusion, Cook was forced to turn over future control of the company, and eventually left the company. 2003 was the most interesting year for Blockbuster. The company placed a net loss of $845.2 million, which shifted Blockbuster to make some important decision for the company’s future. The five forces model is a tool used to diagnose the competitive pressure of the industry. From these five different areas of the market, this model evaluates the power and significance of each pressure. The strongest of the five forces comes from rivalry among competing sellers. Firms will use any resource or weapon available to gain a better position in the market. Many marketing experts say that rivalry refers to the jockeying of market share by firms. There are two main types of players in the video rental industry: Traditional renters, such as Blockbuster, who operate physical store locations, and mail-order renters such as Netflix. Competition for market share is brutal for the traditional renter. As this type of renter, Blockbuster has positioned itself with a profound fixed cost communications venture in retail store locations. Due to this high fixed cost, by spreading the cost over many rentals will be the only way Blockbuster can lower its average cost per item. As in a ny industry, if competition takes market share away from a company it is possible for the cost to increase. Blockbuster will eventually find itself competitively disadvantaged if this were to happen. Therefore, Blockbuster fiercely competes to maintain its market share. This can be seen via several recent Blockbuster promotions, most of which were aimed at the competition from Netflix. Tactics such as the Blockbuster game or movie pass, which is limitless game or movie rentals for a flat per month fee, were designed to come from the loss of market share. In order for Blockbuster to remain cost competitive overall, Blockbuster will regain some market share through these passes, even though they do not generate as much revenue as per rental fee. Mail order firms such as Netflix have a different cost structure in contrast to the traditional renter. Netflix’s distribution centers, inventory, and website maintenance are primarily Netflix’s fixed costs. These fixed costs in total are far lower than the fixed costs a chain such as Blockbuster acquires. In isolation, the fixed cost per rental element for Netflix is lower, and Netflix can reach a competitive average cost at much lower rental amount. This allows them to offer flat fee rentals, while maintaining a lucrative margin. In order to steer clear of rising cost average costs, Netflix may not need market share as desperately as Blockbuster. However, Blockbuster will be placed at a price disadvantage if Netflix recognizes that it can steal enough market share away from them. Thus, this leads to intense competition and firm rivalry as well. Because the industry is stagnant, there are many other factors influencing firm rivalry in the video rental industry. The only real alternative for growth is to increase market share, since the size of the market is not expanding. This obviously intensifies competition. Furthermore, movie/game rentals are an extremely undifferentiated product. A rental from Blockbuster is exactly the same as a rental from Hollywood video or Netflix. There are little or no switching costs for consumers to move between firms. This strengthens price competition for consumers to gain market share. Finally, there are strong exit barriers for companies such as Blockbuster. As a result, Blockbuster will continue to match prices with Netflix or others as it struggles to survive, increasing the competition even more. Prior to the explosive growth of the internet in the late 90’s, a strong dispute could be made that there were high entry obstacles in the video rental industry which restricted competiti on. This would include the relatively large economies of scale required to operate retail locations which did not operate at a cost disadvantage relative to Blockbuster. Another entry barrier was the high brand loyalty enjoyed by Blockbuster, which was the place to go for movie rentals. Lastly, new firms would also face entry barriers in the form of needing to generate sufficient volume in order to gain access to revenue sharing agreements with the studios similar to those which blockbuster had in place. With the evolution of the internet, all of these factors changed. However, the retail location entry barrier disappeared as technology allowed companies such as Netflix to reach a nationwide audience without a physical appearance. Blockbuster had alienated many of its customers by not keeping enough copies of popular movies in stock, among other reasons mentioned prior. Therefore, the brand loyalty barrier was overcome mostly by chance. The barrier of needed to have enough volume to negotiate profit sharing agreements with studios simply became debatable. DVDs has replaced VHS, and DVDs were priced for retail sale less than $25.00, unlike VHS which was rental priced in the 70-90 range. This meant that Netflix did not have to negotiate revenue sharing like Blockbuster did in the days. As a result, competition has amplified further because there are now few entry barriers in this industry. Video rentals are bountiful with substitute products. This includes items such as pay-per-view , VOD, and streaming on-line videos. As these are all feasible alternatives, the threat of substitutes plays the role of yet another intensifier in delivering a nearly identical product. Suppliers in the video rental industry yield minimal power when addressing this force in Porter’s model. An input such as games and DVDS is nearly identical for all suppliers. As mentioned above, there is a wide availability presence of substitutes and also virtually no ability to price discriminate. These factors erode the supplier power while at the same time intensifying the position of buyers. Therefore, the dominant trend in the future will result in intense competition with falling prices because when all five forces are combined it will be apparent that firms will have a strong desire to compete on price within the video rental industry. It is important to analyze potential profitability with a firm using a SWOT analysis. First, Blockbuster will be analyzed internally and externally followed by strategic recommendations. Strengths of a company internally are very important when analyzing growth and potential profitability of a company in a given industry. Blockbuster has roughly 8,000 stores worldwide. Therefore, Blockbuster products have a huge distribution channel relative to all these locations. This in turn puts Blockbuster is a good position for distribution and access to the world. Over 2, 600 store locations are outside stores. This distribution available through Blockbuster also increases their bargaining power with studios. With the presence of movie stores, there is an added convenience for their mail-order and internet customers. Customers are able to return videos and rent new ones by mail and any store location. This requirement results in a valuable database that may be used for tracking who is rent ing and what they want to see or play. In turn, this allows Blockbuster to custom fit store inventories to the members each store serves. This enables Blockbuster to implement more effective marketing to its customers with such a strong database. All these locations have helped make the Blockbuster brand identical with movie and game rentals. Therefore, Blockbuster has various strengths including a strong brand loyalty with existing customers and still being the face of movie and game rentals. While analyzing the case it is believed that Blockbuster has many weaknesses in the industry. Because Blockbuster was the leader in this particular industry, it shifted heavily with them loosing money strengthening the intensity of rivalry. They tried to go online but couldn’t keep up with competition. Therefore, one strong weakness overall is upholding a store versus a warehouse. With all these weaknesses being profound it appears that Blockbuster has 3 vital weaknesses such as memberships, inventory, and availability. Because only members may rent from Blockbuster this weakness is perhaps true throughout most of the industry. It puts consumers into a position that they are forces to choose, which can result is many outcomes. Inventory is also a profound weakness. Because Blockbuster’s inventory is limited and stores have limited space it provides weak spot for new movie releases that are being released throughout the year. Stores must make the choice to bring in more new releases or eliminate older movies that are less frequently rented. As a result, this may put a strain on members who are looking for older movies or games that are hard to find forcing them to go to a competitor. Lastly, availability of movies is another obstacle Blockbuster needs to overcome. Consumers are in search of instant gratification today more than ever before. For example, if a movie comes to the mind of a consumer that they want to see they want it instantly. Therefore, if he/she cannot have it that day, then they may not rent. Blockbuster’s opportunities can be tackled to exploit their weaknesses within which in turn can be very beneficial to their company. Moving on with the SWOT analysis, opportunities are very vital to a firm. Blockbuster has many opportunities that can be foreseen for the future. One of the most important opportunities that Blockbuster has encountered is transforming the movie rental business through its mail order system. There are many competitors in the industry such as Red Box and DVD play kiosks that people may rent with a credit card for one dollar a night with no membership required. As a result, these kiosks have provided a strong opportunity for Blockbuster. Blockbuster can still penetrate this market with its own DVD kiosks by capitalizing on its own name. Blockbuster can also use its bargaining control as an industry giant to bargain rights to provide PPV streaming of video, music and games. Also, the use of digital media allows Blockbuster to offer a larger selection of films, music and games while potentially reducing its physical inventory. Therefore, as a result, it will allow Blockbuster to offer l egal instant gratification to consumers, which is very important for an industry to realize and capitalize on. There are many threats that could be imposed on Blockbuster is this vigorous competitive industry. As well as any other industry change in technology and shifting consumer preferences is an ongoing threat. Due to new technology and marketing practices, new policy and procedure awareness will be the main driving force of a company’s success, and in turn, how well one adapts and adopts is vital. With other companies offering different service, Blockbuster has encountered immense competition within this industry. For example, Movie Gallery which provides the same features and attributes as Blockbuster and the powerful Netflix. Netflix proposes flat rate rentals by mail and online streaming. Consequently, movie stores and distribution is slowly moving towards a direct model where consumers can access movies on demand. Some other important threats are that consumers can still buy movies or choose to go out and do other things. Blockbuster is also more expensive due to their busin ess model. Therefore, if Blockbuster wants to stay afloat in this highly competitive industry they will have to alter some aspects within their model. There are many strategic recommendations that Blockbuster can benefit from. The first recommendation for Blockbuster would be to close some of their locations within close proximity of each other. This level of overlapping coverage may be unnecessary. This would provide an alternative to reducing operations expense and ultimately fixed store costs would go down. Furthermore, Blockbuster should not focus most of their attention on their stores. They will not keep up in the ever changing industry trends in technology and peoples preferences. Blockbuster also got rid of late fees with is good for consumers but bad for revenues. With that said, they reversed it, which reversed their strategy. In addition, Blockbuster should put rentals online that are no longer available in stores. This would answer one of the problems of them not having a deep stock of movies for people that want to view older movies. Blockbuster could also partner with other retailers such as giant eagle. This woul d reduce their fixed costs and enable them to benefit by gaining access to the grocer’s customers, opening up cross-promoting opportunities which could drive additional revenues. Another important recommendation Blockbuster could consider is having a better marketing strategy. If a costumer isn’t aware that a specific channel exists, then there is virtually no change they will use it. Blockbuster could open the door to many ideas and implement to improve brand awareness while maintaining their market share. For standing locations, a loyalty program can be designed. All of these marketing ideas will provide Blockbuster to achieve the utmost effectiveness. To sum up all these recommendations, as more people become accustomed to the alternative methods of video purchase, Blockbuster will need to meet the consumer’s needs where they want to do business. By designing a strong database of viewing customer preferences, they could have a potential marketing tool. Therefore, an effective marketing tool would help to ensure and maintain a aggressive edge in this ever changing industry. Moving away from the traditional renter, the mail-order industry will now be evaluated. Netflix is the world’s largest movie rental service with over 6.3 million members and a deep collection of many movies. There are known for both their excellent customer service and their convenient and user-friendly interface on their award winning website. New technology has enabled Netflix to provide high quality streaming videos directly to their subscriber’s computers. Netflix has entered the VOD market, providing them to maintain their superior position. By entering this powerful market, Netflix will be able to differentiate itself from its competitors, and reduce the likelihood of price competition. In the long run, after movie streaming has increased to become popular, Netflix can separate the DVD rental and streaming movie services, offering different plans. Therefore, the SWOT analysis will be analyzed to foresee how profitable Netflix is and will become. Netflix has a lot of strengths making them the leader in this industry. The number one strength for Netflix is having a strong competitive advantage. The advantage is the first mover advantage in online rental. Netflix also by chance had great entry timing. They entered the market for DVD rentals at a time when there were few other competitors, allowing them to establish their brand name and image for providing a unique service. Netflix was the first to offer DVD rental by mail and this allowed them to offer a greater variety of DVDs to consumers. Therefore, the early entry of Netflix has allowed it to maintain a high market share in the DVD industry and have strong brand recognition by being a first mover. Netflix also has high customer satisfaction, which is the stem of a successful company. Without customers, a company does not exist. Netflix is smart because they understood the weakness of competitors. They understood what irritated many video rental store customers: late fees. W hile costumers rush to return the movie on a certain day this may impose late fees comparable to the price of the rental. In turn, Netflix provides no due dates, late or cancellation fees. Because Netflix enables the customer to keep the DVD as long as they want, this provides freedom to return the movie at ones convenience. Another strength Netflix incurs is its Award winning website. Their website allows predicting what movies one would want based on their previous rental history. It also enables Netflix to plan future rentals and allow customers to rate movies that they have previously rented. This proves to show that Netflix has a large selection at affordable pricing that may not be offered in stores such as Blockbuster. Blockbusters total access is probably the best thing that ever happened to Netflix, providing plentiful opportunities. Even though a few years ago Blockbuster jumped into a brutal price war with Netflix trying to swipe their customers away, it did Netflix a favor. It provided them with several opportunities. The total access pitch of returning DVDs to a physical store got immediate flow, but backfired. Dozens of Blockbuster movies were being pirated, enabling customers to make copies before returning them. Even though Netflix is highly successful, they also incur weaknesses. Netflix often has trouble providing enough copies of new popular movies. As a result, a main cause of customer dissatisfaction is Netflix’s inability to completely satisfy the initial rush for a new movie. However, the company knows that it would be unprofitable in the long run to buy more copies just to serve the rush when a movie first becomes available because the copies will not be rented with nearly a s much frequency soon after the rush. Netflix also doesn’t have a direct connection to any movie studios so it must purchase its entire media through the consumer market. As Netflix integrated the streaming industry it has comparatively small movie availability to stream. One big disadvantage Netflix has encountered is that customers have to wait for the next movie to arrive in their mailbox. By the time the subscriber receives the movie, he or she may no longer be in the mood to see it. This may enable the costumer to leave their home and go and rent a movie. Another disadvantage with mail-order rentals is the lack of control of DVD return time since customers have control of the movie for as long as they want. The DVDs can also arrive scratched or broken during the mailing process. One opportunity that Netflix could foresee is product line expansion such as video games. They could also expand downloadable movie offerings and print third party advertisements on their mail-order envelopes. Lastly, the can expand on partnerships and technology providers. The clearest threat to Netflix is Blockbuster and other established rental businesses. Beyond this, costumer’s satisfaction is the only aspect of this business that can make or break a company. Netflix also many not be able to retain enough of the market to survive if they were to lose its wholesome, reliable image. Also, bigger companies such as Apple could impose a potential harm to Netflix. There are bigger competitors in the streaming and video market and Netflix is less suite d to compete with hardware innovations because it has little or no experience in this area. Just like Blockbuster, Netflix has threats of people going out and buying DVDs and also going out and doing other things. Also, Netflix has DVD competition from Red Box and Blockbuster and the everlasting staying power of DVDs. Some strategic recommendations for Netflix are they should continue to market their services effectively. Their subscriber base will grow steadily and will be able to collect more personalized data. Netflix should also suggest t make its streaming services available under a separate subscription plan of its own. Also Netflix should increase their streaming video library since they are in strong competition. Netflix should also continue to reach to the less technological savvy consumers. This will provide an advantage over other firms in the future of this rising market. 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Friends Essays

Friends Essays Friends Essay Friends Essay Name: Course Instructor: Date: : Friends Introduction â€Å"A friend is someone you like who likes you and with whom you share a positive chemical reaction† (Yager 11). This relationship could be a long or a short one depending on the period the friendship has lasted. Friendships are formed in the family, in school, at the workplace and other social places. The conditions that lead to the formation of friendship differ from happy situations to traumatic situations like accidents. It is said that human beings cannot survive without friends in their lives, everyone has friends in one or way or another. Sometimes friendships are developed without the knowledge of the ones involved. People have friends for different purposes in their lives. There are those whose friendships last, and there are those whose friendships are momentary. Given by these diverse purposes, friends can be divided into different categories. Yager gives these three categories as â€Å"casual, close and best† (11). Discussion A casual friend is one with whom a person does not have close ties or any level of intimacy. There is some of undefined trust between casual friends and most often, they have shared interests. This friendship is most common in the workplace. This is because casual friends in the workplace only have work-related discussions. This friendship is also convenient for colleagues in the workplace because it does not require any emotional attachment as the other types of friendships do. Most people consider casual friendships shallow in terms of knowing details about each other. For example, two colleagues from the same office can develop a casual friendship for the benefit of helping each other with work-related assignments and contracts. This friendship is also convenient in situations where they both do not want to be lonesome at the office. Casual friendships at the office are formed so that the working environment is warm and welcoming. In the organizational structure of businesses, there are cases of high-ranking administrative officers who consider their juniors as their casual friends. This means that they can talk about work issues and sometimes discuss how their families are doing without getting into details. This helps in the formation and implementation of rules, regulations and strategies for the overall improvement of the organization’s productivity. It also enhances better working relationships at the office. McCall et al say, â€Å"The generalized character of friendship creates a note of equality. It has a leveling influence not only among friends but among all others drawn together with the same congregation† (97). This means that sometimes we meet friends through existing friends, this connection denoting that we are all equal because we are connected by the same friendship network. Most times this connection results to the formation of casual friendships. These casual friends will not develop any intimacy. However, there will be some level of trust between them created by the equality. Second, a close friend is one around whom one feels comfortable enough to share their sincere and cherished secrets. The difference between a close friend and a casual friend is the level of intimacy. In a close friendship, the level of intimacy is higher than that which exists in a casual friendship. It is said that everybody has close friends, and the number of close friends one can accommodate is less than six. It is virtually impossible to have more than six close friends because one cannot maintain this large number. Spencer Pahl adds â€Å"as commitment increases, we also find a growing sense that close friends are people who accept and affirm who you re† (71). The commitment in close friends is not evident in casual friends because the level to which close friends like each other is also far above the ground. Close friendships are common among students in school, children at the playground and in some cases workmates. In school, the students develop close friendships among themselves because they spend a lot of time together. This time spent together, in school and at home, creates the environment for familiarity and develops attachments to one another. At the playground, as young as they may see, children have preferences about whom they want to play with. This preference makes them spend more time with some children more than others, thus developing close friendship ties amongst themselves. Most of these close friendships are adopted by their parents as students and children visit each other in their homes. The parents pick up the bond that exists between their children and develop one of their own. At the workplace, there are few cases of close friendships. These cases are of those who have known each other since childhood, or they went to the same school, therefore, their friendship has lasted a long time. Close friends provide someone with a sense of comfort especially in times of need. Close friends are always there when they are needed. Depending on the number of close friends an individual has, their availability will differ. There are those who are within reach and those who live far away. Maintaining close friendships is not easy because constant communication and home visits are paramount. Research has shown that, in very rare scenarios, close friendships are developed among family members. It is advisable to have dependable close friends, especially when needed them the most. A best friend is defined by Yager as one who â€Å"will have all the criteria required to be a close friend, but with the additional distinction of being the premier friend† (12). This means that a best friend has surpassed the casual and close friend level. Best friends are the ones with whom we share problems, who know us extremely well and are always there for us no matter the situation. It is considered to have numerous casual friends, less than six close friends but only one best friend. This friendship grows over the years and usually starts during adolescence, in college, after college, before and after marriage. Those who consider themselves best friends are people who have known each other for a long time and have seen each other through good and bad times. The bond that best friends share is extremely tight. Moreover, when they fall out, one of two things might happen; they might reconcile, or become lifelong enemies. Best friends share everything and are always together. Best friends carry out their activities together, and their families automatically become friends due to this bond. The trust existent in best friend is almost impossible to breach because they are committed to each other. Once best friends break up, it becomes difficult for them to trust other people again. There are several examples of best friends in the society. It is presumed that girls are more likely to develop best friend ties with each than boys are. This is because girls are known to have more emotional attachment to their friends than boys do. The result of this is that one will find more female best friends than males ones. Female childhood friends are more likely to grow up to become best friends than male childhood friends are. This bond will only be maintained if they do not fall out. Distance does not mater to best friends, as there is constant communication over the phone or email ad they try to be there for each other during memorable occasions like weddings and graduations. Best friendship is described as a complete kind of friendship by Aristotle Irwin when they say, â€Å"complete friendship is the friendship of good people similar in virtue; for they wish goods in the same way to each other† (122). This friendship is that of complete selflessness and affection towards each other. A best friend has to be ready to sacrifice and compromise for the sake of the other, and they must wish nothing but the best for one another. Different situation test the level of commitment between best friends like a joyous celebration or the death of a loved one. Whether best friends will be there for one another or not, will prove their love and affection to each other and commitment to their friendship. Conclusion Everybody needs a friend, whether we know it or not. The presence of friends makes life bearable. It is important to make casual friend in the workplace and neighborhoods, to have close friends on whom we can depend in times of grief and to have a best friend that will walk through life with us. The choice of friends is unlimited; it can be anyone from your colleague in the office, a member of your family or your spouse. Once the friendship is formed, it has to be maintained and nurtured by all parties involved. It is also necessary to note that there are good friend and bad friends therefore careful selection needs to be made. Work cited Aristotle, and J A. Giles. Nicomechean Ethics. London: J. Cornish, 1870. Print. McCall, George J. Friendship as a Social Institution. New Brunswick, N.J: Transaction Publishers, 2011. Print. Spencer, Liz, and R E. Pahl. Rethinking Friendship: Hidden Solidarities Today. Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press, 2006. Print. Yager, Jan. When Friendship Hurts: How to Deal with Friends Who Betray, Abandon, or Wound You. New York: Fireside Book, 2002. Print.