The Airline Industry Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

The Airline Industry - Case Study Example (Berg, 2008). This achievement is indeed remarkable against the backdrop of escalating fuel prices, rising operating coats and fierce competition in the airlines industry, either leaving many airline companies to close shop, or seek mergers and strategic alliances with larger airlines, to save themselves from virtual extinction. Business strategy in terms of quick, short and multiple entry and departures from secondary airports, or short haul flights, which not only add to revenues but also cut downs operating costs and saves fuel dramatically. Larger airlines are committed to long haul services, especially over global skies, which, economically speaking, freezes revenues and incurred large burn-out of fuel. When a comparative analysis of short flights and long hauls are made, it is seen that the former serves profits and revenues more loyally and conscientiously than the latter. It is necessary for a no frill airlines like South West to work "with new schedule planning tools and processes and fleet flexibility," so that Southwest are " well-positioned to respond to a rapidly changing environment and have the flexibility to adjust our flight schedule, as necessary, to eliminate unproductive flying." (Berg, 2008). The Company has entered into understanding for hedging 80% of estimated fuel needs with values assigned being approx. $ 61 /barrel. Based on this, the present market value of fuel derivatives for 3Q 2008 to 2012 works out to around $4.3B, taking into account the conspicuous hike in fuel prices in recent years. The table shown below takes into account the futures hedging transactions scripted for forecast 2008 through 2011. Serial Year Derivatives contract as percentage of fuel consumptionAver Barrel Crude price US$ 1. 4Q. '08 80% of fuel consumption58 2. 2009 70% of fuel consumption66 3. 2010 40% of fuel consumption 81 4. 2011 20% of fuel consumption 77 5. 2012 20% of fuel consumption 76 (Berg, 2008). The future of airlines is dependent upon American economy: The airlines industry in the US depends heavily upon the state of economic health prevailing in the country. This is because the predominance of good economy translates into greater economic activities, which could encourage air travel for business. In the present context, the world economy, and particularly, US is in a state of flux. Privatization of airlines had its share of economic prosperity, but is not without challenges. As a result of open skies policies, many small airlines companies came into the field, and more significantly, upturned the business prospects of large, established players, whose heavy overheads, spiraling operating costs and high ticketing structure resulted in unmitigated disasters.. Smaller, leaner and low cost airlines companies, with just the minimum infrastructure necessary, provided much better service at much lower costs. Larger companies were forced to merge or close operations. Moreover, it is also seen that the airlines industry in the US are highl y concentrated, with 90% of the revenues generated from just "the

Marketing Management Marketing Plan of Asda

Marketing Management Marketing Plan of Asda Introduction Marking planning is one of the main functions of marketing department of an organization (Kotler, 2003). This coursework will focus on marketing strategy and plan of ASDA. The main points of discussion in this coursework are internal and external analysis, SWOT analysis, market targeting and marketing mix. Vision Statement of Asda According to Asda (2009) the main aim of the organization is to serve the customers by offering them lower prices and giving their customers respect for which they deserve. They want to achieve this goal through their staff called colleagues. They are developing their skills. So they can satisfy their customers expectation and make their visit to store more pleasant and joyful. Situation Analysis When an organization works in the competitive market, it has two main types of environment. Internal Environment External Environment To formulate, implement and execute a successful marketing strategy, ASDA management and marketing decision makers have to understand these two types of environments. (ASDA, 2009) Internal Environment The internal environment of an organization is inside of organization. Most of the processes and procedures working in the organization are part of internal environment of organization. Internal environment of an organization contains most of the controllable variables (Sadler and Craig, (2003). Following are the main elements of internal environment of ASDA. Employees The employees of an organization are most important part of organization as they participate in almost all the processes and produces of the organization. Even highly technological intensive organizations, the role of human resources is extremely important to get optimal benefit from that technology. The human resources of ASDA are 150000 of which 90000 are casual and remaining 60000 are full time. The company is managing casual and part timers to save the employees expenses. The marketing employees of organization include customer relation staff, people who work in general market and do surveys to collect market data and executives and managers work in the head office. (ASDA, 2009) Products ASDA is selling large range of products and services to their organization. Before its merger with the Wal-Mart the organization was under performing. As soon as they get the specialized help for their parent company, they started to grow. As a result, in 2003 they have taken over Sainsburys. They are selling their customers grocery, clothes, electronic products and many other type of products through their store based retailing and online retailing. In the online business, customers can get access to the store through ASDA website. The goods are delivered next day to customers at their door step. They are also providing financial services through their stores and website. (ASDA, 2009) Communication Communication within the organization and with the external world is mostly done through company own services. They are using modern technology for this purpose as well to establish social networking and get benefit for the experience and information of other. The internal structure is well defined and all the members know who is reporting to whom. For marketing communication same channels of communication are used. The market research data, different sort of analysis are available to all the people working in organization at the central local on services. (ASDA, 2009) External environment Markets ASDA is occupying 16% of United Kingdom Retail market. Out of these 16% nearly 50.30% people are visiting to their favorite stores everyday and nearly 14.60% people are visit the store two or three times daily. In the busy cities, the organization is continuously losing their customers base due to congestion in the cities. It takes time to go to ASDA and buy the goods. People prefer the corner shop for buying the product of casual use. (ASDA, 2009) Competitive Environment The UK market is very mature market and all the key players in the retail industry have their constant market share. It is very hard to increase the market share. To increase the market share organization has to spend more on the marketing expenses. The cost of marketing campaign is also reducing the profit margin of the owners/shareholders. Same is the problem for the marketing personnel of ASDA. (ASDA, 2009) Economic environment UK and whole world is passing through a world worse economic depression. This economic depression has reduced the purchasing power of the people. Same time it is hard for the organization to get access to the financial resources for their development projects. The per capital income is reducing due to reduction in per capital income. Organizations are facing more pressure from the government in terms of tax as their national deficient are increasing in larger extent. The United Kingdom recently has national deficient nearly 63% of their total GDP. This also has limited the organization marketing activities. They are cutting down the expenses and adopting more pessimistic approach. Though credit crisis has less impact on the retail industry like ASDA, Tesco as they are selling the products of basic needs but still economic impact is visible in their different marketing and business activities. (ASDA, 2009) Social and cultural environment The most of operations of ASDA are in United Kingdom. The society of UK is multicultural society. Keeping the nature of society in mind, ASDA marketing people do not ignore this fact. They have good range of products for different type of people belonging to different countries, religions and cultures. They are serving such customers in their world food department. (ASDA, 2009) Hitt, et al (2008) critically examined that the life style of the people in United Kingdom has changed in during last two decades. They prefer to buy bulk of goods from their favourite stores. This gives them benefit of time saving and less hassle. This also has developed the loyalty culture. The marketers are trying to understand the changing in thinking and taste of people and developing products to satisfy their changed needs. Political and legal environment The government of United Kingdom is thinking about out of town policy for the supermarket. This is negative for the supermarket and they will lose significant part of their sales due to this reason. The people will not come to store for the casual products. The control over the inflection is also function of government. The government of United Kingdom have taken number of quantitative measures after credit crisis. These enable the government to keep rate of inflation under 3%. Fiscal policy, monitory policy, employment policy or taxes are main part of government of United Kingdom. (Hitt, et al 2008) Technological environment Technology is used in many functions of business but use of technology in the marketing is really getting more importance. Marketing data is flowing from marketing personnel working in the field in real time basis. ASDA marketing personnel are using modern tools like mobile computer terminal at different places. The data generated by these machines straightaway comes to the central location. These tools are also helping the marketing managers to analyze the marketing data and give analytical reports. (ASDA, 2009) SWOT analysis Strengths ASDA is well known brand. Their financial strength is also higher due to support of their parent country. They have improved their managerial skills and developed number of best practices which they get from Mal-Mart. The organization is adopting lower price strategy which is best tool to attract more customers in current economic environment. (Lee and Lin, 2008) Weaknesses ASDA is lacking in smaller stores while their competitor Tesco is getting huge sum of money for smaller stores. It is not possible for the company to build bigger stores at shorter distance. The market share of ASDA is constant from number of years. This shows that there is no growth opportunity for the organization in future if conditions remain same. (Lee and Lin, 2008) Opportunities The organization has greater chances to diversify their business to India, China and other emerging economies. There are number of smaller and local chains which are struggling. ASDA can take over these stores and re-structure them to increase their customer base. (Lee and Lin, 2008) Threats the obvious threat of ASDA is its close competitor Sainsburys. If economy goes in further recession then organization is not in the position to reduce further prices as they are selling already at lower prices. (Lee and Lin, 2008) Marketing Objectives The main objective of ASDA is to provide more modern services to their customer. They are aiming to increase their customer base by provision of better services, adding more products in their product range and lastly the development of new channels of distribution. (ASDA, 2009) Through, more control over the prices, they have reduced their cost while quality of services is same. The 30% of the queues have been reduced due to application of more advanced technology at the checkouts. In this way they are willing the customer satisfaction. The organization is successfully implemented the policy of lower prices successfully. They want to carry on executing same policy in future. (ASDA, 2009) Target markets According to ASDA, (2009) The organization is targeting almost all the segments of UK society. However most general customers of ASDA are women of age 20s and 30s. These women buy the goods of day to day use for themselves and their families. The second group of market segment of ASDA are males. They also buy for themselves or for their families. It is showing that marketing campaign of ASDA is not specified on a particular group. Marketing Mix Strategies Product strategies ASDA is enabling their customers to go get access to their favourite products at the cheaper prices. In addition, they are also offering the customers to give their valuable suggestion for the better product development. When new products are launched they are encouraging their customer to participate in the product launching ceremony. When customers get such a care and freedom of suggestion then probability to get loyal is much more. ASDA is giving option to their customers that the person will come with the brightest ideas will get 5% of first year saving. (ASDA, 2009) Pricing strategies The organization is mainly focusing on the lower prices of their products. They are successfully running this policy from last 12 years. However during this time they could only win 0.50% market share from Tesco. (ASDA, 2009) Promotion strategies ASDA marketing people are always curious to adopt new and innovative promotional techniques. They are offering their customers like two for two pound, one for 1.99 and similarly many other techniques. The roll back tags of ASDA are visible to every visitor. The stores are instructed to display reduced price products in front of store so these can catch the attention of customers immediately when they enter into store. (ASDA, 2009) Distribution strategies ASDA have 25 bigger depots national wide scattered around at different strategic locations. In 2008, ASDA came into contract with Gazelle Company Limited who took the responsibility of management of its warehouse and its international marketing. ASDA stores also have their own production and manufacturing stores. (ASDA, 2009) Conclusion The marketing strategy of ASDA is successful especially inspiring the customers through their lower prices strategy. However, more innovation and new ideas are needed to catch the market leader Tesco. They should develop the team of marketing people who take care of their customers at more professional basis. More they will get success to make the customer loyal more they will grab the market share.

Occupy Wall Street Movement Essays -- Political Science

Occupy Wall Street Movement If heavy student loan debt , soaring tuition fee, climbing taxes, plummeting financial aid, nose-diving employment opportunities, exacerbating inequality between common people and wealthy class, are some of the issues that infuriate you and lead you to blame government’s generous bailing out failed banks and other financial institutions then you cannot not know about Occupy Wall Street(OWS) movement. List all information you know about your subject Occupy Wall Street is one of the top 10 US protest movements inspired by popular revolts against authority in Egypt and Tunisia which finally led to toppling of their respective presidents. It began on 17th September 2011 in liberty square in Manhattan’s Financial District (occypywallst.org). As per Special news in Times Of India, OWS was initiated by Canadian Activist group, Adbusters. So far, this movement has spread over across 1500 cities globally and around 100 cities in US. According to Drake Benett, David Graeber is an anthropologist, who played a key role in transforming a small rally into global protest movement, this movement is in response to the common people’s frustrations and resentments with two important issues. The first issue is the influence of the corporates on government decision making system. The second issue is the way government treated debt issues of financial industry as opposed to individual borrowers as a consequence of financial crisis i n 2008.(Benett,†David Graeber-the Anti Leader of Occupy Wall Street, Oct,20011) According to the protesters, current dismal economic situation is a result of government bailing out the insolvent brokerage firms, banks and corporation in 2008. OWS has adopted the slogan; we are 99%. Paul... ...e a leader who is sensitive to issues and sensible enough to direct the movement to achieving its targeted goals and making us realize the dream of living in the utopian world! Works Cited Bennet, Drake. â€Å"David Graeber-The Anti-Leader Occupy Wall Street.† Business week. Bloomberg L.P, 26 Oct. 2011. Web. 19 Apr. 2012. Brenac, Sacha. â€Å"The Failures of Occupy Wall Street.† The Bullet. The Bullet, 25 Jan. 2012. Web. 19 Apr. 2012. Gray, Heather. â€Å"Occupy Wall Street vs Kingian Methods.† Positive Peace Warrior Network. N.p., 4 Oct. 2011. Web. 19 Apr. 2012. Krugman, Paul. â€Å"We Are the 99%.† New York Times. The New Yorks Time Co, 24 Nov. 2011. Web. 10 Apr. 2012. â€Å"99% vs 1%.† Times Of India. Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd, 1 Jan. 2012. Web. 19 Apr. 2012. Solomomn, Daniel. â€Å"Occupy Wall Street’s Failed Revolution.† PolicyMic. Mic Networks Inc., n.d. Web. 10 Apr. 2012.

Economic Order Quantity (EOQ) from first principles Essay

Explain the Economic Order Quantity (EOQ) from first principles. EOQ, or Economic Order Quantity, was developed by F. W. Harris in1913, even if R. H. Wilson is recognized for his early deeply analysis of the model. Harris’s original pape was disseminated; it actually was ignored for many years before its rediscovery in 1988. During this period, a lot misunderstanding developed over the origin of the EOQ model. The model is defined as the optimal quantity of orders that minimizes total variable costs required to order and hold inventory. The first part of the essay will explain the principles of the EOQ and gives an idea about how it works. Second part will sets out its advantages and disadvantages. EOQ is not a simple solution but an instrument, which enable the firm to determine the order size that will reduce the total inventory costs, by calculating an economic order quantity. It refers to the most favourable order volume that will result in the lowest total of order and carrying costs for an article of inventory given its expected usage, carrying costs and ordering cost. Thus, by dint of its principles, the EOQ tool can be used to form the quantity of inventory that the firm should order each month. Indeed, there are two categories of costs that need to be considered: ordering costs and carrying costs (also called holding costs) which must be defined. Holding cost, carrying cost is the cost associated with having inventory on hand. It is made up of the costs linked with the inventory investment and storage cost. For the use of the EOQ calculation, the cost must change based upon the quantity of inventory on hand in order to be included in carrying cost. In the EOQ formula, carrying cost is represented as the annual cost per average on hand inventory unit. The interest rate would be part of the carrying cost if a loan is required to pay for your inventory. If there are loans on other capital items, the use of the interest rate on those loans is possible since a reduction in inventory would free up money that could be used to pay these loans. If you are debt free you would need to determine how much you could make if the money was invested. Insurance costs are also a part of carrying cost since they are directly related to the total value of the inventory. If a payment of any taxes on the value of the inventory is necessary they would also be included. Mistakes in calculating storage costs are frequent in EOQ implementations. Generally, companies take all costs associated with the warehouse and divide it by the average inventory to determine a storage cost percentage for the EOQ calculation. This tends to include costs that are not directly affected by the inventory levels and does not compensate for storage characteristics. Carrying costs for the purpose of the EOQ calculation should only include costs that are variable based upon inventory levels. As to the ordering cost, it is associated with processing the order, by receipt and settlement of the suppliers bills. The marginal cost of the additional order can be appraised; its a fixed cost, independent of the size of the order. When the order quantity (Q) increases, the total ordering costs decrease while the total carrying costs increase. The economic order quantity, denoted by Q, is that value at which the total cost of both ordering and carrying will be minimized. The total cost curve reaches its minimum at the point of intersection between the ordering costs curve and the carrying costs line. The value of Q corresponding to it will be the economic order quantity Q. The EOQ formula can be used in order to improve the management of supply, even if there is any information concerning the costs. It can reduce the value of the average inventory for the same order load and decrease the order load for the same average inventory. The advantage of the EOQ formula is that it provides a baseline for getting the best deal. It helps you purchase what you are going to use and keeps you from over purchasing to get deals from vendors. The disadvantages are obvious if you have a high periodicity or seasonality to your consumption, or your usage is minimal. EOQ should only be applied to higher volume items that are worth inventorying; for example, using EOQ to order memory chips for a retail computer store can be detrimental since the demand can vary greatly and the risk that they will become obsolete is high. Knowing and understanding both historical and future demand, and maintaining a sane safety stock are the keys to use EOQ reliably. Furthermore, there should not have seasonality. Sources: internet: http://www.eoq.org/start.htmlhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_order_quantity

Healthcare Interview Essay

Introduction This paper is based on a conducted interview of a licensed employee of Larkin Community Hospital. This paper will include an overview of Larkin Community Hospital. It will describe the targeted department, type of work conducted in this department, and specific information that makes it unique. Furthermore, this paper will describe all responsibilities in care and will consist of questions answered by the interviewee. Overview of Larkin Community Hospital Larkin Community Hospital severed as a general hospital for those patients who in need of surgical and medical care. Larking Community is a physician-owned, acute care in bed hospital accredited by Joint Commissions. In this facility, patients will have safest and compressive care at its best quality. This facility offers a variety of services which include bariatric care, cardiology, dental care, emergency care, family practice, memory disorders, occupational health, outpatient and inpatient care, podiatry and foot, pulmonary care, mental health, surgery, and healing. It accommodates residential patients who suffer from physical or mental disabilities. As part of the Graduate Medical Education Committee, it teaches healthcare professionals of all aspects of care by monitoring and reviewing all healthcare decisions. The hospital will also implement and implement policies to ensure regulatory compliance is in order in regards to residents. Targeted Department The targeted department is the section where patients need more assistance; this is what makes facility different from the rest. In this section, resident assistance is available all hours of the day. All of the employees are trained to provide adequate care. All resident aids are first aid and CPR certified. Resident aids are available to provide ambulatory care when need for the patient. Because more care is provided in this section, there are more resident aids on the floor to make certain that all needs are fulfilled. Interviewee The person been interviewed is Ira Agastein, a resident supervisor of Larkin Hospital Community. His responsibilities is to make sure that residents are getting appropriate care by performance evaluations, make certain residents receive their medication when needed, and handling complaints by patients or their families. Agastein is in charge of enforcing implications of action plans that are developed to improve operation efficiency. As the resident aid supervisor it is his responsibility to ensure that employees (resident aids and resident aid manager) carry out their assigned duties. This will guaranteed that the department continues to improve and continue to provide the best quality of care to the patients. Career Path When asked what about his career path was, Agastein said it was to become a resident aid supervisor. Agastein began his career working as a combat medic in the Army National Guard. After a few years, he went to medical school to earn his bachelor degree in psychology. He began working shortly after his commissioning in the Army. After working in this position for 5 years, he began to shadow the resident manager learning the responsibilities of this position. A few months afterwards, he was promoted to resident manager. He knew that he wanted to go further so he began to learn the responsibilities as a resident aid supervisor. When the position was available he applied in hopes of getting the job. Because of his years of experience and acquired knowledge he was given the position. Although it can be overbearing at times, Agastein seems to love his job very much. Educational Requirements What are the educational requirements for the position? Agastein replied that there are some requirements for education where he had obtained a bachelor degree to get this position, which he did for psychology. While he was in medical school, he had to understand mental behaviors and theories relating to children and young teens. He had to deal with families suffering domestic violence and substance abuse. Also he had to working with people coming from socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds. He needed to be able to withhold the knowledge of a resident supervisor, which got him in his current position today. Did your education adequately prepare you for your job? When asked this question Agastein said that without a doubt that his formal education in medical school had prepared him for this job. Since he had worked his way up through the ranks, from enlisted to commissioned he had seen all the aspects of leadership and he was well prepared to be put into a supervisor position. What would you say is the most important attribute for success in this position? Communication is the most important part of success in any position. Agastein said that from the janitor to the director if there is no communication everything will shut down and the business will not function. With his success in her current position he says that he has learned that throughout his entire career that communication was always what got his where he wanted to be. Another attribute that he attributes to his success is good old fashioned hard work. He says that he has always had to work hard and study a lot because good grades and success in education did not come as easy to him as it did for some of his colleagues. He had to study a lot and not sleep very much through medical school but he was able to pass in the top ten percent of his class. Hard work and dedication pays off well. Conclusion Ira Agastein a resident supervisor of Larkin Community Hospital, loves every aspect of his job and feels that he is right where he needs to be in his career path. He loves working with people and being able to make sure that they are all taken care of in a way that he says would make his grandfather proud. As a 18 year service veteran as a combat medic, he looks forward to retiring from the Army in the near future but he says he probably will never leave the health care field. He has done a lot of things in his 18 year career with the army and done other things, he has spent a lot of time on his education and says that here time in medical school was all worth it. Health care is something that he love and is very good at there is nothing else he would like to do more.