Brand Audit Proposal Essays

Brand Audit Proposal Essays Brand Audit Proposal Paper Brand Audit Proposal Paper The objective of Davits Tea brand audit is to evaluate and relate the theoretical approaches with practical market research and mainly to come to know about the inventory and exploratory expects of the brand. The behavioral and psychological nature of the brand equity will be analyzed and the current position of the brand in industry will be examined. We would like to study and research the brand effectiveness, strategy, positioning, customers perception, and further testify the brand in a multidimensional perspective. Marketing and Business Environment Davits Tea is the first Canadian-based tea company, established by David Seal, a young passionate entrepreneur gaggers to bring the happiness taste of life to people through the consumption of tea. Davits primary functional vision is to provide consumers with a high quality tea developed by its own tea expertise. The company builds its very own brand equity and engagement with customers by delivering a sense of belonging and connecting people who are willing to share their tea experiences together in the brand community. Its first store was successfully launched in 2008 on Queen Street, a metropolitan area in Toronto, Ontario. Traditionally, existing tea consumers re limited to experience a small and narrowed market where not many selection of tea was offered. However, Davits Tea has taken the leading stance in the industry by breaking the traditional concept of tea, informing tea alone possesses an indefinite potential to be developed and grown. In Davits Tea store, customers are offered with over 1 50 types of flavored tea from all over the world. It also differentiates itself from other tea brands such as Tavern from Cataracts and Tim Horrors by providing variety of seasonal tea collections and the Tea of Month, which can be easily made at home, office, and anywhere you want. Unlike Cataracts where tea and coffee sold are consumed on the spot, Davits Tea uniquely sells every supplies needed for tea and also shows how easy and fun it is to make tea with people at your own place. By doing so, people have a chance to be more exposed and dissolved into the tea culture with various people in their daily life. However, back in 2008, investing in the tea industry was considered as a risky move for many beverage companies. According to Statistics of Canada, both tea and coffee industry where most weight is heavily put on represents 1. % of the value of sales of food and beverage goods manufactured. The consumption of tea both in Canada and internationally was lower by far relative to the coffee consumption. Coffee alone generated the revenue more than $1 billion per year whereas tea served just above than 500 million in 2007. The gap between tea and coffee industry seemed to be significant and definite at that time. However, currently in Canada, intensive competition has been rising among beverage brands and retail stores as the consumers preferences and tastes had shifted toward products that enable healthy lifestyle. Tea is a profitable commodity. Store footprints are usually small, while mark-ups and profit margins are high, ranging from 50% to 70%. More businesses attempt to enter the industry to expand the business scale. For example, Tavern, a tea specialty acquired by Cataracts aggressively positioned its products in response to the competition. Stores across America feature Opera Chaw Tea which is personally blended and developed by Opera Winfred, a world renowned and influential TV show host, writer and publisher, to capture more potential customers in beverage industry. In addition, Tavern plans to expand its tea buss news around the world by launching more tea stores every year. Current challenges and untapped opportunities for brand equity Current Challenges Davits Tea has achieved many successful milestones and developed its own competitive advantages over other competing companies. However, there are still some weaknesses and challenges that Davits Tea is facing at the moment. Although there are various challenges for Davits Tea, the biggest four challenges for Davits Tea are 1) its unique but limited operational system 2) heavy training expense due to a high turnover rate 3) difficulty in upturning customers in some countries with a strong coffee preference culture and 4) its limited marketing strategy. Firstly, Davits Tea is famous for owning its unique operation system. The management team of Davits Tea itself operates all the stores in Canada and SACS; there are no franchise opportunity unlike Cataracts, Tim Horrors and Chaw Time. This system may be advantageous for them because the company is able to control every elements starting from location selection to recruitment process, however, this is one of the biggest challenges the Davits Tea is facing. This operational system is time-consuming and it engages resources inefficiently. There would be some limitations to the numbers of shops to open and earning investments from outer company if Davits Tea continues to hold back the franchise opportunities. Consequently, this will decrease the brand awareness and customers accessibility of Davits tea. Secondly, Davits Tea is suffering from the huge employee training expenses due to a high staffs turnover rate. Many workers quit the job due to high expectation from the company compared to their low compensation system and low promotion opportunities. Even though the Davits Tea has high petition for friendly and kind customer service, their employees experiences would create the negative impression upon brands image through word of mouth or posting negative reviews on online if those employees complaints do not resolved. It took 2 times more expenses to train employees to be tea expert compare with training programs from their competitors, but once the employees decide to leave the position, the value resources will be mostly wasted. Third, some countries have strong coffee culture; Most of the North American and European countries like America, Canada, Brazil, Italy, Norway had been influenced by coffee for hundreds of years. The Davits Tea is only serving hundreds of various teas on their menu if so the Davits Tea will miss out a large amount of customers or markets who prefer coffee more than tea. Even though the interest on tea is increasing, the countries culture is hard to change just because of the world trend has changed. Lastly, the Davits Tea marketing is too heavily relied on social media. According to research, Davits Tea is spending a lot of money and time on social media marketing such as replying to every single customers tweet or hiring more staffs in social media marketing department. However, if they continue to approach customers only with social media marketing then their target customers would be very limited to youth people and they would be hard to raise their brand awareness. They should consider other marketing tools to raise brand awareness not solely with social media. Opportunities for Brand Equity Regarding challenges the Davits Tea is currently facing, there are some opportunities the Davits Tea could increase their brand equity and reinforce the challenges they are facing. First, they can create some products to be sold at wholesale markets such as Metro, Lowbrows, Cost and etc. Brand trials and experiences are important in order to raise the brand equity. In order to do so, Davits tea could produce some products designed for wholesale sale, enabling to increase customers accessibility, trial and raise its brand awareness. If the customers have enjoyed the purchased products from the wholesale market than there are high possibilities this would lead to brand preference and visit of retail store nearby. Secondly, there are a lot of markets left for Davits Tea, especially, Global markets such as Asia or Europe. Under strong preference of coffee in European countries, there are increasing interests on decaffeinated products such as tea due to health concerns. Davits Tea could open online orders for other countries as well in order to approach new customers who are willing to buy Davits Tea products in other countries. Furthermore, Davits Tea can be more active on promoting its brand by advertising or using other various marketing methods. As it has been discussed above, marketing of Davits Tea is heavily relied on social media. However, in order to reach various customers and to raise its brand awareness, it should give a shot on other marketing strategies. For example, it could hang up the poster on the ETC wall just like Tim Horrors to allow more potential customers to recognize. Also, it can use Youth videos to introduce an easier way to make a tea at home, or release more an articles regarding the tea industry and their company on magazines/ newspaper. SOOT Analysis Drivers of current brand equity Davits Tea has strong brand equity, created with its uniqueness, favorable and strong factors of the brand. Subconsciously, customer, company and competitors could create brand equity. Positioning and identifying is a first step to build brand equity. Davits tea was first opened in 2008. Currently, they have opened about 120 stores in North America, and be;en the years of 2012 to 2014, they have opened about 40 more stores. The increasing number of stores builds the awareness of Davits Tea by providing easily accessing availability to the consumers. Davits Tea is focusing on sales of specializing in tea and tea related products. Since tea is recognized for healthy beverage that involves relaxation feelings, which is the opposite of coffee or energy drinks, the consumption of tea is growing in a fast rate and about 84% of the population consumes tea every year. Tea is the 2nd most consumed beverage in the world, and the annual sales of tea is estimated to $423 million from annual grocery sales, and $760 million from annual food service sales. Since the consumers purchasing of tea is increasing, their interest towards Davits Tea have also increased. By positioning and identifying its brand, Davits Tea became one of the most recognized teashop in Canada. Furthermore, there are various articles about the massive expansion and innovative corporate structure of Davits tea. This became an unofficial advertisement, and built credibility by distancing itself from rival rand. One of the unofficial advertising examples is that, Melanie Barbaric, the Events Community Relations manager of Davits tea, gave a Davits tea package with hand written note to Opera Winfred. With no expectation at all, this also has brought an amazing effect of advertising in Davits tea. Opera have posted the picture on her Mainstream, where she has more than 1. 3 million followers, and 32,377 people have liked her photo. Nevertheless, she mentioned about how she favors Davits tea on O Magazine. One small gift to a famous person has raised the huge awareness of Davits tea, and since Opera is a celebrity with enormous credibility image, Davits tea also gained the reputation of credibility. Davits tea frequently releases new flavors with over 1 50 variety kinds of selections from all around the world. They have their own style and design, and special collections for holidays and other special occasions (e. G. Christmas Collections, Summer and Winter teas, and Cold fighting teas). Since Davits tea are reputed for its innovative design, the collections gives imagery of perfect gift for people and individuals themselves. Moreover, the unique names of different kinds (e. G. The Skinny, Happy Kampuchea and Read My Lips) gave various positive feelings to people and established brand equity. Potential Drivers of Future Brand Equity Davits tea has created its brand equity by informing customers about their position and brand identity, and gave credibility with positive feelings about its brand. However, they need new and innovative strategies to harden its brand equity. Recently, Agriculture Canada Food Trends Study predicted that in year 2020, the tea consumption would increase to 40%. Louise Robbery, the president of Tea Association of Canada mentioned that one of the factor f the raise of consumption is due to the retiring of baby boomers, who are concerned about their health, and will likely be drinking more tea at home. Therefore, One of the strategies that Davits tea should use is to increase the number of stores, which will give location benefit to consumers. Moreover, Davits tea should use advertising marking to raise its reputation. TO Create a TV commercial, they need to hire an advertising company or a celebrity. Hiring a recognizable celebrity costs about $kick-$300 and making advertising costs more additional. Since Davits tea is still a small brand with mall budget, they should make a campaign video to promote. One of the examples is the smooth Valentines Day video of Wilkinson Sword Shaver Company. This theme of the video is that a man should shave on valentine day, because it is not a day to irritate a lady. It cost small budget to make a video, but have raised more than 1,700,000 views on Youth. A campaign video that shows how healthy it is to drink a tea or the free trade of Davits tea could be an effective and meaningful future driver to building its brand equity. Today, due to cheap and easy access of smart phones, the number of smartened users has reached about 1. 5 billion users. Play store is the smart phone application store of Samsung. In the Play store, the application for Cataracts reached 5 million downloaded, while the application for Tavern reached 50 thousand downloaded. Cataracts smart phone application personalizes by each customers, and has an everyday promotion that if a frequent purchasing customer buys 12 cups of coffee, they get free drink. Howard Schultz, the CEO of Cataracts said that there are more than 7 million mobile transaction is in the stores each week. Since more number of people use different smart phones from other companies, creating a rationalized smart phone application could also help building its awareness and efficiency. Lastly, customers are sensitive about personalization. The brand that could satisfy this factor could create loyal customer, who loves the brand and uses the brand as identifier of themselves. Coca Cola had Share a coke campaign that grew sales for the first time in 10 years. This campaign was writing 250 most popular names on each bottle of coke, and this campaign created the personalized feelings to the consumers with their names on the bottle. Benchmarking this idea, creating tea names with popular names could create a belonging feeling to consumers by personalizing. Data collection methods Data Collection and marketing research is one of the most crucial processes that links the customers and end users to the marketer through information which used to identify and define marketing opportunity while generating, evaluating and refining marketing performances as a brand. The goal of the research and data collection is to identify and assess how changing elements of marketing mix and brand equity impact customer behavior and perception, thus, it is very important to learn and audit a brand from customers perspectives and responses. We plan to conduct a mixed- methodology approach in both qualitative and quantitative research to collect data on the brand audit to make sure both subjective and objective opinions are valued in the data collecting process. Qualitative Research Qualitative Research is an in-depth exploration of what people think, feel, or do, and most importantly, the reason behind the purchasing action. We believe its very helpful to understand the brand performance when customers could have opportunity to talk about their unique experiences with the brand and therefore we propose 2 methods: focus group and depth interview. . Focus groups In focus groups, we will be the moderator uses a scripted series of questions and topics to lead a discussion among a group of people. The advantage of using a focus group is that we could get more subjective response other than a yes or no answer and it will be beneficial for us to further integrate customers responses into analysis. We would like to take a neutr al stance and subjectively ask questions such as please describe your experience when shopping at Davits Tea or How do you feel about the brand? To give people more freedom to discuss both positive and negative opinion towards the brand. In order to get a more relevant and balanced result, we would like to conduct at least 3 groups of people (with around 5-7 people in each group) from age 15-60 and we expect the targeted participants would have various demographic backgrounds: gender, occupation, spending habits, disposable income, Tea/coffee drinking routine, etc. 2. Depth Interviews Depth Interview is another method we would like to use by interviewing people with unstructured and open-ended questions. We would like to conduct an interview in a more intimate environment or via telephone since it allows participants to talk more openly and be more comfortable to give arsenal opinions. The results might not be 100% statistically re opinion may not represent a large enough segment Of the POLL Nevertheless, focus groups and interviews yield valuable insight customer attitudes. Quantitative Research Since the qualitative research might not provide absolute stasis findings, we therefore decided to conduct quantitative research analysis to determine the result. We plan to use a structured quo with mostly closed questions that allow respondents to select it from given list of possible responses. We would distribute sues both online survey resources and printed version to fill out. We excel to report the findings with statistics, tables, and graphs. 1. We would like to use snowball sampling strategy by asking rest participants to pass along a survey link to relevant others, or visa locations where the target market is likely to congregate. We WAC pass the survey through social network like Faceable to ask fan and people online to fill out the question. We will use accessible free online survey programs like surveyings. Com, Zimmerman, Monkey. Also, in order to gather more responses, we plan to go around campus or library/coffee shop to ask people take 2 mini out while waiting for elevator, etc. Please see possible survey IQ Appendix 1. 2. Quantitative Observation Individual responses to surveys and focus groups are sometime from peoples actual behavior, and therefore, we plan to use q observation method to observe some customers purchasing be stores, at work, or other reachable locations. We would like to o customers behavior in Davits Tea and their competitors (suit by examining how customer making the order at different store Davits Tea has very different and unique way to make the order have a traditional menu displayed any where in store, instead, t tea boxes placed on the wall with special names for customers I fore making the purchasing decision. We will observe and cool customers knowledge about the brand and further integrate to Other possible tools to manage data Since The Rotten School of Management maintains a site license: and students to use the Qualities Research Suite, we would like advantage of this system and use it to apply on some of data c methods.

FIXED-PRICING CONTRACTING Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

FIXED-PRICING CONTRACTING - Essay Example labor and materials. Therefore, by using these indices the profitability and going concern of small businesses is shield from fluctuating economic conditions. Thus, when there are serious doubts about the economic environment’s stability for prices of labor and materials used by small contracting firms during the period of performance of contract, it is eminent all pre-defined contingencies subject to fluctuations are measured and determined (Stanberry, 2012). Therefore, the fixed-price contracts EPA are the most appropriate type of contacts for small businesses not enjoying any economies of scale and having the desire to grow and expand in a hostile environment where rivalry between firms for the limited market share is intense. Thus, small business owners can take advantage of favorable economic conditions to make supernormal profits when price adjusts upward by negotiating high terms for the ceiling of contract price and negotiating low base level prices during adverse economic

Educational Sector in the Great Britain Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Educational Sector in the Great Britain - Essay Example On the face of it, everything is fine in the educational sector in the UK especially in its schooling system but a deeper study of its curriculum raises questions about its efficacy and influence it would have on the future professionals of the Great Britain. The ever increasing gap between academic theories taught at schools and their applicability in practical and professional life poses a great question mark over their usefulness in making up the future citizens of the country. Already it has reached a threatening stage where the native British youth have been lagging behind in taking up professional careers when compared to their counterparts of Asian origin in the UK. Lucinda Platt of the University of Essex, using the data from the UK's Office for National Statistics, has recently disclosed that young people of ethnic minority families in Britain, particularly Indian working class families, have been claiming a larger cake in professional and managerial roles in the country. According to Platt, 56 percent of The theory and practice of education is directly linked to the growth of practical knowledge among the wealth of students. It would also have its impact on the effective or ineffective utilisation of youth power for the sake of the country and society. The design and development of curriculum, pupils and educational management, teaching methods, prioritising the subjects, inculcation of necessary creative and imaginary skills among the student community are all part and parcel of the theory and practice of education. Among these, curriculum and its related affairs play a major role in consolidating the pieces of knowledge gained by the students. When one deeply thinks of the ongoing schooling curriculum in the country, one tends to note that unfortunately it is not creative oriented but purely pro-academic. Most of the UK schools have been following the teaching of academic subjects colleted from various sources while no importance is being accorded to supplement the theoretical kno wledge with practical proficiency. Practical knowledge is used to find solutions to problems plaguing the society. In the absence of this end objective, there is no meaning to pursue any kind of education. Mary Warnock, acclaimed educationist and researcher, strongly feels that education and teaching should above all aim to stimulate and engage the imaginative skills of the students. As far back as 1973, 3 Warnock, in her research paper 'Towards a Definition of Quality in Education', had suggested that it would be better for students to leave their schools with a profound knowledge of one important subject rather than shallow knowledge of several topics (Mary Warnock, Para 6).What a visionary statement it was! The singular meaning of her statement, applicable even in present days, is not very difficult to understand. She was thoroughly of the view that students should not be subjected with formal acquaintance of several subjects as it would not give them

Finding the Exception Essay Example for Free

Finding the Exception Essay â€Å"I remember riding my bike to school every day and seeing those two men working on their bicycles in their garage, little did I know that they would be the founders of the Trek Bicycle Corporation.† My mother told this to me a few months back when we were reminiscing on the good ol days. Waterloo, one of the smallest towns I have ever been too, is home to the success of French history. Its Trek bicycles are now the Tour de France winning frames that brought Lance Armstrong his victories and brought the midwest its spotlight on making the first American bike frames to win the worlds most prestigious bicycle race. By 1984, Trek was at its peak and sales were around $20,000 with approximately fifty thousand Treks being sold in the United States (Burke, 2012). However â€Å"Trek had grown arrogant, and the problems were starting to show† (Burke, 2012). Within business success lies problems and for this company the early years presented many because Trek did not like the bicycle retailers that they were dealing with, they had no brand strategy, and they had no money to advertise It seems that the most successful businesses start with the passion of at least one person. For Trek it was the vision of Richard Burke and Bevel Hogg. Burke was a former accountant that took interest in investments. Hogg was the owner of a Midwestern chain of bicycle stores. While Burke spent 15 years perfecting his business skills with Roth Corporation in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Hogg was growing tired of the retail business while keeping his heart with bicycles. Burke had a passion for outdoor recreation which drove him toward the bicycle market. During a meeting between the two men in 1975 when they sought to solve the issue of foreign made product. Their main competitor at the time was Schwinn bu this company dominated the specialty retail market but their bikes were Japanese made. Burke and Hogg wanted to sell American-made product for the same specialty. The company began as a five-person operation in a barn and is now a globally oriented company with distribution in 65 countries and over 1500 employees worldwide. What made the Trek bicycle so unique? Their mission was and still is simple, build the best bikes in the world. The frame sets were handmade from steel. The style was adopted from a European brazing style with its own American flavor. Tim Issac, an early frame engineer, said that a Trek bicycle could be identified without any paint on it. The company was blessed with the right designers and tolling infrastructure to use exactly the right materials to create such unique frame sets. The company had successfully found a way to distinguish itself. â€Å"In order to succeed, you cannot just sell any brand; you need to produce something special† (Burke, 2012, p. 4). Once this is established its time to settle on a distribution channel to ensure customers are being reached. At the time, Penn Cycle, outside of Minneapolis, Minnesota was Treks dealer. What attracted this dealer to Trek was that not only did this bicycle manufacturer provide lightweight, advanced bicycles, but they were also made in the United States. Market shares were quickly gaining from the Japanese and European competitors and the company was gaining dealers from Madison to San Francisco and sales had grown to over $1,000,000. After expanding the facility to allow for assembly lines and paint factories, reshaping the entire business, the company was able to hire its first true sales representatives and there in lies its customer service foundation. In 1981, sales doubles and again in 1982. In 1983, the company was already building additions to the factory. The business growth inspired a movements on the West Coast in corporations like Gary Fisher. Then in 1985, sales were over $20,000,000 But, as with any fast lane growth, Trek was facing a net loss for the second year straight. The totals sales in 1984 did not meet expectations and quality control was lacking which angered retailers. The assembly line was built but   it seemed as thought the company didnt know how to keep it moving forward. On top of that the turn over rate was lacking. John Burke, the son of Richard Burke, who worked for his fathers business remembers writing orders and them showing up at the customer two weeks later but yet having other orders written on prior sales call that still were not arriving to the customers (Burke, 2012, p. 10). The quality in the company was deteriorating. There were paint problems, frames were out of alignment, credits that were promised were not going through, etc. â€Å"I worked hard and sold a lot of product but the problems from the home office kept mounting† (Burke, 2012). Retailers were becoming more and more upset which pushed Trek even harder and the company was falling apart. Customer services makes or brakes a company in the retail world and Treks mission was to make every customer happy. It was up to their customer service department to bring this company back up and that is exactly what John Burke did. He knew that they needed to regain their focus, and that he needed to take a more active role in the companies day-to-day operations. A lot of options were being faced which included closing the operation and liquidating the business, sell the company, or turn it around. â€Å"We decided to roll up our sleeves and get it done (Burke, 2012). There is one method in business that seems to always prevail and that is the back-to-basics approach. Build a quality product, at a competitive value, that can be delivered on time while maintaining a positive work environment for customers and employees. Most importantly, deliver profit. The company first needed to start shipping orders on the same day. Cross training is always an excellent tool and this was a perfect opportunity for the business-suited employees to start putting their hand in on the factory work. The factory would get backed up and so the office workers would go into the warehouse and make sure that orders were fulfilled. Saturdays may seem like a day of rest for some but for Trek to succeed it had to require work on the weekends. Not only were deadlines met but lousy product needed to stop making it out the door. This truly shows the customer that their needs are  being met no matter what it takes. Organizational buying process is such an important business practice. With the many years of developed partnerships Trek has established, the company now has suppliers around the world that allow the fulfillment of demands of the product line. In the 1980s, when Trek was struggling, they were overlooking one very important aspect of their customer relationships-what is the actual value of their product? They were not going to their buyers and simply asking if they could help them find a vendor based on the value they were proposing. One a vendor is found there is some research that is to be done as well. Does this vendor have good history? Who has worked with them in the past? Is there opportunity to save some money in the mean time? Reliable quality product is what businesses thrive on. Any product that is overpriced needs to be discontinued and new products need to be developed that hit the right price points. â€Å"When potential suppliers are identified, theyre evaluated on four criteria: quality, delivery, capability, price, and environmental impact of their production process† (Kerin, 2005). In an industry such as bicycle production, the operational approach to management is essential. This approach is dedicated to improving efficiency, cutting waste, and improving quality (Kreitner Cassidy, 2011). By staying in line with business ethics, the manager of Trek would have put more energy into building better product so that it would support the challenges faced today such as limited mobility, issues with the environment, and now more than ever, issues with health. Essentially the bike must work well. If the name Trek is one it then there is quality behind it and this quality needs to be adhered to in the warehouse during production. At the time, Trek probably could not have seen that the bicycle would become the simple solution to all of these things but just as we embrace the availability of such innovation, managers of any business should be at least two steps ahead as to almost predict the future, therefore focusing on sustaining the reputable quality product that the c ompany originated from. In 1988, Trek introduced the Model 1200 aluminum road bike. This was the turning point for the company. This was true quality at a very competitive price. The original dollar amount was $500. Originally the company planned to sell 3,000 of these models but at the end of the year 12,000 were sold. This is when a business needs to reevaluate its retail margin. What goals are being made to improve the amount of retailers and what is the target date? Buyer centers then need to help the company find vendors to find the right place to sell new product. New strategic visions for new models and components builds a better business. Trek was learning, slowly but surely, that they needed to look at their own processes, understand how they make their product, how they source their product, and how they will continue to bring their product to the market and maybe at the end of the day, saving a dollar or two. How could Trek build bicycles that last longer, maybe even use recycles tires. Every business has room for improvement. Business owners should always be looking for ways to bring new technology and solutions into the marketplace. By 1996 Trek was now over $300 million in sales. At this point in the time the company was expanded in Europe to include Japan. However, when there is sunshine expect rain and when there is rain expect for sun. After Trek ramped up their budgets by 20 percent in 1996, 20% more product was to be produced. Sales forecasts were starting to get missed which left inventory levels shooting through the roof. The company was yet again out of balance. There were more bikes in inventory than sales. Every year bicycle products are expected to change, therefore this high inventory of product needed to be discounted heavily in order for sales to continue. This only hurts profit margins. Basically what happened was that Trek grew too big too fast. Just about an hour away form Waterloo is the Whitewater Trek manufacturing plant. When this plant was first opened in 1995, the goal seemed to still be manufacturing low-price point bikes. â€Å"We got out of 1996 making a profit, but the future was no longer bright, and storm clouds were on the horizon† (Burke, 2012). Then numbers continued to look worse and worse as the years went on. Finally in 1998, Tim Callahan was hired on to Trek to take over manufacturing. He turned over Trek manufacturing that essentially saved the business, yet another time. The concept of Kaizen, Japanese for â€Å"continuous improvement† was used first to turn the Trek factories around. â€Å"In the gift-that-keeps-on-giving department, we took Kaizen to our dealer network and it has continued to make an amazing difference to this day† (Burke, 2012). Businesses to do not There was one other thing that added to Treks new found momentum in success. Trek signed a sponsorship deal with the US Postal Service to sponsor a bike team. Thanks to Lance Armstrong, who had a good group of riders, Trek appeared in the 1999 Tour de France. Lances winnings gave Trek the opportunity to show up on the front of Sports Illustrated and The New York Times, as well as on the Letterman show (Burke, 2012). Business was great until the year 2006. Production needed a facelift. How do you keep a product backed for years by consumers by maintaining its quality and reputation? For consumers of Trek bicycles, there is customer loyalty. Just like with Apple computer or Smart phones. Why such dedication from the customer? Trek figure out that to continue this relationship they would not only have to continue to build quality bicycles-the best in the world but they would provide their customers with quality products at competitive value that would be delivered on time. Just as with Apple computers, the product continues to prove itself in quality, never leaving the customer unsatisfied. IF there is a problem for whatever reason, dedication to customer sanctification shines the most by fixing whatever issue there may be in a timely fashion. When Senior Burke fired the management team and asked John to move back to Wisconsin to run Treks customer service department, he learned the value of maintaining relationships with retailers and customers.

IQ and Success :: Sociology Racism Prejudice Essays

IQ and Success   Ã‚  Ã‚   Using data from a long-term survey, The Bell Curve purports to show that IQ is a far better predictor of adult success than childhood socioeconomic status. But the authors used an extremely limited number of social factors as the basis for their calculations. By taking into consideration a greater number of social factors (to make the study resemble a more complete picture of real life), sociologists have been able to show that social factors, not IQ, are a much better predictor of future success. In The Bell Curve, authors Herrnstein and Murray claim that a child's IQ is a far better predictor of future success than a child's initial socioeconomic status (or SES). For example, a white child raised in the bottom 5 percent of SES is eight times more likely to become poor than a child from the top 5 percent. But a white child whose IQ is in the bottom 5 percent is fifteen times more likely to become poor than a child whose IQ is in the top 5 percent. (1) Is this true? (Well, no -- but more on this below.) It does seems obvious that intelligence is important to succeed in life, but it also seems obvious that social factors play a large, if not larger, role. For example, the crushing economic disparity between North and South Korea has nothing to do with IQ differences, and everything to do with different social and economic policies. Even on a personal level, intelligence is only one of countless factors that contribute to success. Others include: Access to education Training opportunities Personality type Physical attractiveness Athletic ability Inheritance Nepotism Prejudice Social and business connections Knowing someone who is successful Lobbying Congress Business cycle trends Fads Inventions Discoveries Wars Speculation Gambling Miserliness Insider trading Unfair market practices And, last but not least, dumb luck -- being at the right place at the right time And these are just the adult factors -- there's a whole host of childhood factors as well, which follow below. How the rules of the game are constructed determines which of these factors becomes most important for winning and losing, and therefore which individuals have the most "merit." For example, we might think that those who play professional baseball have the most merit -- that is, they are the best players in the game.

My Leadership Style Essay

I consider myself a democratic leader because I am relationship- and people-oriented. I believe that policies and decisions made in a group setting are best for all involved. Democratic leaders emphasize theme work and are willing to share responsibilities. I like to lead through cooperation, not by bossing around others. This means that I would seek to promote policies through group discussion, and place strong emphasis on teamwork. I believe that an effective manager not only encourages, but listens to input of the workers; an effective manager not only instructs the worker, but shows how the instruction should be carried out; the effective manager eliminates inspectors, and instead teaches the worker the value of doing their own inspection, fostering their own self-worth on the job and their part in making the company works. Effective leadership thus enhances job satisfaction, efficiency and work production (Huber, 2006). Leadership Theory I believe that I would be a good leader because I believe that all effective leaders recognize that their power to achieve organizational objectives comes from having a motived workforce who shares in the organization’s vision. In addition to my ability to establish clear visions and identifies ways to achieve goals, I am a people-oriented individual who believe that people perform at their best when the work that they do enables them to achieve their highest potentials both as human beings and as employees. This means that I do not take an authoritative approach to leading. Rather, I believe in empowering every employee. For these reasons my leadership style is best reflected in the transformational model of leadership. By  definition, a transformation leader is a â€Å"leader who motivates followers to perform to their full potential over time by influencing a change in perceptions and by providing a sense of direction. Transformational leaders use charisma, individualize d consideration, and intellectual stimulation to produce greater effort, effectiveness and satisfaction in followers† (Huber, 2006, p.19). According to Robins and Davidhizar (2007), health care organizations need to constantly evaluate individual nurse managers to promote transformational leadership qualities because positive transformational changes in nursing produce a beneficial trickle-down-effect health care delivery. Huber (2006) indicates that the transformational leadership concept is vital to the nursing practice because it promotes the development of a culture of excellence and that organizations with transformation leaders have traits such as â€Å"pride and satisfaction in the work, enthusiasm, team spirit, a sense of accomplishment, and satisfaction† (p.21). McGoldrick, Menschner and Pollock (2001) state that transformative learning helps nurses to change the way they think about themselves from a professional standpoint because transformative learning aims to refrain the thinking of the individual to self-reflection. Robins and Davidhizar (2007) found, for example, that employees who work with managers who lead in a positive and encouraging manner become more contented and satisfied with positions, which translates into increased patient satisfaction. This is due largely to the four main activities in which the transformational leader engage: establishing a vision, providing meaning for employees through the building of a social architecture, maintaining organizational trust and placing emphasis on the importance of building employee self-esteem (Huber, 2006). Assessing My Decision-Making and Problem-Solving Style Problem-solving/decision-making is a very important aspect of the leadership process. Sullivan and Decker (2005) point out that leaders must be able to use critical thinking skills effectively when making decisions or attempting to solve problems. This means, being able to make assumptions, interpret and evaluate data, explore alternatives, identify information, and analyze and question implications for each solution. When I am faced with a problem, I have a tendency to make decision based on my intuition and experience. For example, if I had a patient who was agitated and my care plan is not meeting  the needs of the patient, I would be tempted to solve the problem by asking for help from a supervisor or a coworker. In some cases, I would also rely on past experiences and try methods that I have used with other patients. On one occasion I had a patient who had a pressure ulcer and complained a lot about lying on her side. However, I could not allow the patient to lay on her back because it would make her condition worse. To solve this problem, I tried other methods such as distracting her through the television, talking, use a pillow or reading a story to get her to minimize and not focus on the discomfort. In some cases, I also engage in trial-and-error for some patients for whom the normal care procedure may be insufficient in achieving desired results. However, I also used an organized method to solve problems that do not require immediate action. For example, if I am having problems with a co-worker, I would define the problem, identify the source of the problem, and then choose a number of solutions that would best address the problem. For each solution, I would also assess the alternatives, the advantages/disadvantages of each solution and their short-term and long-term implications. Assessing My Ability to Set Priorities Setting priority is an important facet of everyday life, whether dealing with families, work or play. I believe that I am proficient in setting priorities because I set priorities based on whether the decisions I make will achieve the intended goals. For example, during my college years, I decided that it was crucial for me to work while attending school. While my larger goal is to earn a degree so that I can achieve upward mobility, my number one priority is to be efficient on the job and fulfil my work responsibilities. This means that if my school schedule should conflict with my job responsibilities, I would rather make the necessary change to my school schedule. This is because school is a long-term goal whereas my current employment facilitates that long-term goal by providing me with an income as well as experience that would enhance my future endeavors. Thus, one way that I set priorities is based on the importance of activities, tasks or responsibilities. I also set priorities based on the time-sensitiveness of the task. Because I set priorities based on the utility of the task, action or event to my short-term and long-term goals, I tend to rely more on strategy than on emotions when prioritizing. However, I  am able to modify my plans based on extenuating circumstances. Refining a plan, for example, may become necessary when an earlier plan does not go as intended. I am therefore open to reassessing my plans and making revisions to make them more effective and goal-oriented. Assessing My Delegation Skills Sullivan and Decker (2005) define delegation as a â€Å"process by which responsibility and authority for performing a task (function, activity, or decision), is transferred to another individual who accepts that authority and responsibility† (p.144). Delegating a task is an indication to the other person that you are placing your confidence in him or her regarding their competence and trustworthiness to effectively perform the task. When I am about to delegate a task to someone there are a number of questions that I ask myself. These include: what is the task to be delegated? What is the complexity or simplicity of the task? How much decision making is involved in completing the task? I possess excellent critical thinking skills and is able to analyze information effectively. For this reason I believe that I am good at delegating task. I usually consider the individual experience with the specific issue, the individual’s background with similar tasks, the personâ€℠¢s reliability and on-task behavior as well as the emotional maturity required for the task. Assessing my Communication Skills To facilitate team work in the transformational leadership setting, it is important to have an effective communication system that provides complete and accurate exchange of information that guides decision (Conrad & Poole, 2005). Tate (2005) observes that to be proactive, the leader needs to use clear language when interacting with coworkers and knowing how to listen to others, including staff and patients (Tate, 2005). Tomey (2004) indicates that communication is a process which involves giving and receiving information through verbal exchanges, gestures, writing, and the use of technology. I consider myself to be fairly competent in the area of communication. For example, I have good interpersonal communication skills. I can read body language, facial expression and can use these modes of communication to get desired results. I am also competent in oral and written communication. I am able to articulate my ideas and have sufficient vocabulary to have meaningful exchanges with others. I am also good at  making others understand my stance on certain issues. I am also able to use technology such as a computer and a phone to communicate. For example, I can send e-mails, use an online chat room, send a text message. Assessing my Conflict Resolution Style According to Sullivan and Decker (2005), conflict management is a time consuming and difficult process. To resolve conflicts, management has to listen to both sides of the issues and identify compatible solutions. Based on this assessment, I believe that I possess good conflict resolution skills since I am always willing to listen to others’ position before reacting. I am also good at negotiating. Sullivan and Decker (2005) indicate that the purpose of negotiation is to achieve agreement. My desire to avoid confrontations that can be distracting and unproductive, provides with a keen sense of looking for common grounds on which people can find agreement. Also, I emphasize the importance of diversity when dealing with others so that people can understand that having different ideas or ways of thinking does not have to cause conflicts. As a result my key strategy is to use collaboration in which I encourage others to find ways of working together to achieve shared goals. Identifying Strengths and Weaknesses / Plan of Action Two areas in which I consider myself to be proficient or competent are decision-making/problem solving and delegation. However, I have deficits in the area of communication and conflict resolution. In the area of communication, I have difficulty in the transmission of the message due to having a strong accent which makes my speech difficult to understand at times. To address this issue, I will see a speech therapist to assist me with pronunciation and speech rate. This is very important because a leader has to work in a fast-paced multidisciplinary healthcare environment that requires others to quickly understand what he or she has to say. In the area of conflict resolution, I tend to take the â€Å"flight into fantasy† approach, which involves thinking about something else in order to be protected from stress. The consequence of this is that it does not address the needs of the parties. To overcome this problem, I will try to incorporate the confrontation approach. This approach allows the leader to deal with the  issue and put it to rest (Sullivan and Decker, 2005). As a democratic leader ,I will effectively seek to bring together the synergy of my subbordinates in order to achieve our specific objectives.It is imperative that as a leader I strive to approach my leadership style in a comprehensive and transformational manner.My decision making will aplly critical thinking skills in order to solve problem.Priority setting,goal delegations and conflict resolution are pertinent to my leadership style and objective. References Conrad, C. & Poole, M.S. (2005). Strategic Organizational Communication in a Global Community (6th ed.). Belmont, CA: Thomson Wadsworth. Huber, D.L. (2006). Leadership and Nursing Care Management (3rd ed.). Pennsylvania: Saunders Elsevier. McGoldrick, T.B., Menschner, E.F. & Pollock, M.L. (2001). Nurturing the transformation from staff nurse to leader. Holistic Nursing Practice (16)1, 16-20. Sullivan, E.J. & Decker, P.J. (2005). Effective Leadership & Management in Nursing (6th ed.). New Jersey: Pearson Education, Inc. Tate, C.W. (2005). Leadership in Nursing. New York: Churchill Livingstone. Tomey, A.M. (2004). Guide to Nursing Management and Leadership (7th ed). St. Louis, Missouri: Mosby.

The Effects Of Sustainable Packaging On Consumer Purchasing

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