Liz Claiborne: Leadership Analysis Essay

Liz Claiborne was a revolutionary in the fashion industry. She overcame failures in her childhood and early adulthood to become a leader in the business world. Determined to find her place in the fashion world, she wanted to a design company with her own vision. She wanted to empower her customers with quality clothing at an affordable price. In 1976, Liz Claiborne, along with partners Art Ortenberg and Leonard Boxer, created Liz Claiborne, Incorporated. As a designer she was programmed to be task oriented. Because she was task oriented, her leadership skills main weakness in her leadership style. Nevertheless, because she was a role model and supporter of career driven woman, Liz predominantly portrays the transformational leadership style. Liz was able to create a company and a vision that moved milestones for women in the professional world and created higher standards for the fashion industry. The company made $2 million in sales its first year and went public in 1981. (need cita tion-Fortune 500?) Liz Claiborne, Inc. became the first company founded by a woman to make the Fortune 500 in 1986. (need citation-Fortune 500?) II. Biography Anne Elisabeth Jane â€Å"Liz† Claiborne was born March 31, 1929 in Brussels. Her parents were descendents of Louisiana ancestry. Liz was the youngest of three. The family returned to New Orleans in 1939 at the beginning of World War II. Years later, the family relocated to New Jersey. Liz attended primary and secondary schooling, only reaching her sophomore year. When she was teen, Liz was inspired by an art history teacher. (Ortenberg, page 25-27) A man of the times, Liz’s father did not encourage her education. He did, however, approve of her ambition for art. He deemed it â€Å"a proper activity for a woman.† (Ortenberg, page 27) With her father’s approval, she immersed herself into the art world. Liz Claiborne won the Harper’s Bazaar design contest the year of 1949. The prize included a trip to Paris for ten days. After a year in France studying art, Liz returned to America. (Ortenberg, page 28) Soon after, on a trip with her parents, she announced her choice to begin a fashion designing career in New York. Without emotion, her father handed Liz a fifty dollar bill and her suitcase. He wished her, â€Å"Good luck,† got back into the car, and drove off. (Ortenberg, page 30) Liz did not speak to her father for another twenties years. Determined to find her way, Liz worked the Harper Bazaar opportunity and landed a job interview. Although she did not get the job, she did get a date and later on married the interviewer, Ben Schultz. Liz’s marriage was short lived with Ben, but did produce her only son Alex. Through the next handful of years, Liz worked through her apprenticeship and raised Alex. Liz Claiborne was becoming the women she would later design for, a career driven woman. One year after Alex was born; Liz met her future husband Art Ortenberg. Art was department head of the dress department at Juniorite, a junior sportswear company. Liz was a new designer. Liz and Art were both currently married. When the company found out about the affair, Art was fired. Liz stood by Art and quit. The two began a relationship that led to marriage in July of 1957. Art Ortenberg and Liz Claiborne were married for forty-nine years. (Ortenberg, page 245-247) Over the next fifteen years, Liz Claiborne waited patiently to pursue her dreams fully until her son was able to support himself. She had found job security as a designer at Youth Guild for those fifteen years. In 1975, Liz passed on an opportunity to break off and develop Youth Guild separate from its mother company, Jonathan Logan. She new it was time to begin a design company with her own vision. In the seventies, the working woman was making a name for herself. Liz was there to dress her. Liz Claiborne, whom was also career driven, understood what her customer needed. As a woman, she new the daily insecurities females face. She wanted to empower her customers with quality clothing at an affordable price. In 1976, Liz Claiborne, along with partners Art Ortenberg and Leonard Boxer, created Liz Claiborne, Incorporated. Liz would head the design team, Art would be in charge of operations, and Leonard would work the production side. In the beginning, Liz was the salesperson for the company. Looking for feedback, Liz would present merchandise and sketches to potential and experienced buyers. She wanted the truth. She found it: price. (Ortenberg, page 247-251) The foundation of Liz Claiborne, Inc. would be created upon the idea of comfortable, easy-to-match separates. Although a simple concept â€Å"women should not have to spend a fortune to look good,† (Hayes) the notion revolutionized the way woman presented themselves in the workplace. The company made $2 million in sales its first year and went public in 1981. (need citation-Fortune 500?) Liz Claiborne, Inc. became the first company founded by a woman to make the Fortune 500 in 1986. (need citation-Fortune 500?) Liz Claiborne had her own sense of design, but she also had her own theories on management style. Liz emphasized equality in the workforce. According to Hayes, she thought with the team in mind and fostered their enthusiasm. (Hayes) Liz was also geared to teach techniques. She loved to teach through demonstrating. She thought of her work force as family. She believed good teachers and good programs involved good parents. According to Ortenberg, Liz and Art thought of themselves as the parents of the company. (Ortenberg page 37) Towards the end of her reign in 1989, Liz felt she was too far away from the actual process and could not make accurate management decisions. Therefore, she resigned as manager in 1989. Liz Claiborne was highly regarded in the fashion industry. Her success was marked in 1990 and 1991 with many awards and recognitions, including induction into the U.S. Business Hall of Fame and the Marketing Hall of Fame. She also received an honorary doctorate from the Rhode Island School of Design. (Ortenberg page 145-152) According to Ortenberg, this was the â€Å"highest point of Liz’s professional life.† (Ortenberg page 147) In her life after the company, Liz was an avid conversationalist. She took part in and donated too many wildlife-conservation groups. To date, Liz and Art’s foundation has given away $40 million to wildlife grants. (Johnson) In 2007, Anne Elisabeth Jane â€Å"Liz† Claiborne, fashion icon and industry revolutionary, lost her ten year battle to cancer. Following her death, she was awarded a plaque on the Fashion Walk of Hall of Fame in 2008. Liz was a leader that understood the beauty behind the design of her clothes. More importantly, Liz Claiborne understood the beauty behind the design of life and the people we share it with. III. Analysis of Leadership Liz Claiborne had her own sense of design, but she also had her own theories on management style. In the following section, the leadership approaches Liz Claiborne used will be discussed. In addition, the least descriptive and the most descriptive theory will be outlined and supported. A. Skills Approach The skills approach is the idea leadership is based upon capabilities that can be learned and developed. The skills based concept describes what a leader does. Skills are important because leaders must be able to communicate their vision and effectively accumulate and structure information to facilitate problem solving and performance. Mumford, Campion and Morgeson (2007) examine leadership based on cognitive, interpersonal, business, and strategic skill. In addition to the four capabilities, different levels of management require different levels of skill. For example, upper level management positions require more strategy skills than lower level management. (Kalargyrou) As Liz took an upper-level position of power within the company, she grew out of her task oriented comfort zone. Liz thought as a designer, â€Å"The further one removes oneself from the actual work, the less value one adds to that work.† (Ortenberg, page 151) Towards the end of her management days, Liz had come to a point where she was not gaining more knowledge and developing herself as strategic partner. The company was developing into a new environment around her. It was not the family size that she had once known. When she realized the weakness in her leadership approach, she retired from the upper level management position at the company. B. Style Approach Leadership can be separated into two types of leadership behaviors: task behaviors and relationship behaviors. Task behavior focuses on the production factor of the organization. Task behaviors are also concerned with the technical aspect of how duties are performed. Relationship behavior is geared towards the social awareness of the organization. It is the concern for the people of the organization. By combining different levels of each of the styles, various leadership styles can be formed. In The Relationship Between Paternalistic and Leadership and Organizational Commitment: Investigating the Role of Climate Regarding Ethics, the geru takes in a chela that is helpless and dependent. The guru recognizes it is his goal to nurture and develop the chela into a confident teacher. He encourages the chela to ask questions. By empowering the chela, the guru leads his disciple to success. Much like the guru, Liz Claiborne took on a nurturing and guiding role within in company. In this aspect, Liz takes on a paternalistic/maternalistic view of leadership. She considered her team a family, where she and Art Ortenberg were the parents. (Ortenberg) Liz encouraged her team to ask questions and lent her experience to help develop them into better designers. Liz used task behaviors to teach her subordinates and relationship behaviors to cultivate a learning and family-like environment. C. Contingency To effective lead subordinates, a leader must have the appropriate styles contingent upon the situation. The effectiveness is dependent upon the leader’s style and how it interacts in situations that are favorable to the leader. (Cruz, Nunez & Pinheiro) Leaders are primarily motivated by the tasks and relationships. Fiedler’s theory takes those motivations and applies them to situational variables. (Cruz, Nunez & Pinheiro) Three key components to the Least Preferred Coworker Scale (LPC) are the leaders/members relationship, the task structure, and the position of authority. (Cruz, Nunez & Pinheiro) Liz Claiborne had close relationships with her subordinates when she first started up the company. She had hired Nancy, a pattern maker. Nancy respected and had confidence in Liz’s position. Liz was the only designer at the time and had full control over the task structure in the beginning. Liz had maximum influence over her company. Therefore, she was task oriented and had a low LPC. As her company grew and her lack of control over the design process diminished, Liz Claiborne should have molded herself into a stronger, relationship-oriented leader. Because she did not adjust her leadership style based on the situation and of the company and what it need for growth, Liz Claiborne was not as an efficient leader towards the end of her time as CEO of Liz Claiborne, Inc. An important stressor is that the contingency theory allows for a leader not to be effective in all situations. (Northouse 2007) Liz was more efficient she was working in a one-on-one, task oriented environment. When Liz was taken away from a task oriented environment, she lost the structure that made her the career woman she started out as. D. Transformational Leadership Transformational leadership is a process between the leader and follower. Leaders motivate followers to strive to a higher level of achievement. In doing so, the follower is transformed. The first component of transformational leadership (TFL) is idealized influence. (Phipps, Prieto, Verma) Liz Claiborne inspired women through her leadership. She was a role model that many women could look up to. The second component of TFL is inspirational motivation. (Phipps) Liz had fought through adversity growing up and had still com out on top. She wanted to empower woman through clothing. Being designers and customers, many of her followers believed in her vision. The third component of transformational leadership is intellectual stimulation. (Phipps) According to Hayes, she always encourages employees to challenge themselves. Liz would conduct weekly meetings to spark new ideas. She loved to teach, and in doing so encouraged the promotion of many female designers. (Hayes) The fourth and final component of TFL is individualized consideration. Liz individualized the followers’ needs and would focus on their personal development. She loved to teach, and in doing so encouraged the promotion of many female designers. Was a transformational leader in and out of the business. Transformational leadership is most descriptive of Liz’s leadership style. She used transformational leadership in her company to promote organizational performance and employee motivation. She met upheld the standards of the components of the theory. It is the author’s belief that the transformational leadership approach Liz Claiborne took with the company led to her success as a business leader. IV. Conclusions Liz Claiborne’s determination and life experiences as an early adult and child helped shape her into a great business leader. Thanks to the encouragement in the development of her love and eye for art, she had the drive to follow her dreams to be a fashion designer. Struggling to reach the top as a single mother, made her a great leader because she could later on relate to her demographic of consumers and the followers she would one day lead in her company. Liz had her leadership ups-and-downs in the latter part of her management, but she knew when she was out of her scope. As a strong and determined woman, Liz Claiborne’s legacy will live on in the fashion industry as a leader who transformed the industry of women’s fashion design.

Edward Scissorhands Question Sheet

Discussion Questions on Edward Scissorhands As you watch the movie you will need to take notes to answer these questions. The purpose of this film is to get you ready for the next role we will look at in depth which is that of the artistic designer. You need to consider the needs of the director and work with set designers, costuming and other professionals in the film industry for this job. I would like a rough copy of your answers to these questions to be given to the teacher at the end of Friday’s class. 1. a The entire neighborhood is constructed, describe the colors used in the neighborhood scenes? . b What could be the desired effect in this use of color? 2. As the woman drives up to the haunted house there is background music playing. What is the desired effect of this music? Describe two other places in the film where the soundtrack or film score affected your viewing of that scene. 3. How does the costuming set the main character, Edward apart from the other community members and why do you think Edward is meant to be so visually different? How does this help the actor portray his role? 4. What is Tim Burton (Director) saying about the nature of conformity in this film?How does he use color and visual imagery to drive home this point? 5. Is Edward a tragic figure? Why or why not based on the outcome of the film. 6. What are some of the highlights, twists and turns of the story? Create a brief treatment for this film and hypothetically cast the roles of three characters in the film. Explain why you choose them for these roles. 7. Research online what people Tim Burton consistently works with for his productions and list three here. Discuss why creatively this might be important for a Director.

Financial Issues for Financing SMEs in Pakistan Essay

The small and medium sector enterprises are considered an impetus to economic growth in any country since these enterprises are mostly labour intensive and they tend to boost the employment more than any other sector. The government of Pakistan has identified the SME sector as one of the leading sectors along with agriculture and construction that can generate employment and contribute to overall economic growth. This sector in Pakistan contributes over 30 percent of the gross domestic product, 25 percent in export earnings, and 35 percent in manufacturing value addition. As per industry reports there are approximately 3. 2 million economic establishments across the country of which the SME sector contributes to 90 percent of all private enterprises employing almost 78 percent of the non-agricultural labour force. The sustained growth of this sector in Pakistan is restrained by a number of factors that include shortage of skills, inadequate leadership and management qualities, scarcity of capital goods, lack of structured data on the sector, resistance to change and difficulties in marketing products. But the biggest challenge facing the SME sector in Pakistan is the lack of adequate financing facilities. The limited access to credit has impaired the growth of this sector considerably. The banks are averse to taking risks in extending finance to the small and medium enterprises. The larger corporations face no such difficulty since the financing institutions have minimized risk due to their larger scales of operation and higher credibility in the market. The SME sectors are unable to provide adequate collateral in addition to the lack of adequate technical and managerial know-how that may affect the profitability of the business venture. For the purpose of this study the researcher has identified three prominent areas that influence the credit lending policy of financing institutions to the SME sector in Pakistan. These are political, legal and economic challenges facing the financial institutions. Statement of Objectives The Pakistan economy comprises mainly of the SMEs as suggested by the recent statistics outlined in the previous section. However, the sector suffers from a number of weaknesses that have constrained its development to its full potential. The SME sector does not have adequate access to finance from the formal sectors like large private banking corporations and financial institutions. They have to rely mainly on the credit facilities from the informal sector. The research paper intends to analyse the SME sector in Pakistan with emphasis on its growth over the past few years, the impact of this sector on the overall economic development, and the policy adopted by the government of Pakistan towards the sustainable growth of this sector. It will highlight the role of major financing institutions like International Finance Corporation, Asian Development Bank, and the State Bank of Pakistan to boost the SME sector in the country. The paper will aim to provide answers to discussion objectives raised by study of the financial strategies of the funding institutions – the challenges and risk implications of financing small and medium enterprises. The objectives identified are summarised below: †¢ What are the factors that contribute to the overall financing of businesses in Pakistan? †¢ How does the political and legal environment affect the credit lending policy of the financial institutions in Pakistan? †¢ What strategies and policies are being adopted by the government of Pakistan to combat these issues? The paper proposes to analyse the economic, legal and political environment factors that simulates the lending policy of the financing institutions in Pakistan. The study identifies the lack of proper regulatory environment that restricts the banks’ operations in terms of providing finance to the borrower. The high rate of failures of business enterprises due to slumps in the market; institutional malpractices, political upheavals and damaging acts by the labour unions have presented huge risks for the credit lending institutions. In addition to insufficient and low quality production to meet demands of local and international markets, deficit in balance of payments, and increasing unemployment have increased the risk potential for the SME sector. Research Methodology The research paper will comprehensively review the SME sector in Pakistan highlighting the market statistics, trends and policies affecting the credit availability. The study will focus on the major points tabulated below: †¢ Research on the background of SMEs in Pakistan †¢ Identify the various sources of finance available for the small and medium enterprises †¢ Analyse the political, economic and legal environment factors that influence the industry segment. †¢ Research the implications of these factors on the credit lending policy of the financial institutions. †¢ Analyse the steps taken by the government in the past few years towards meeting these challenges. †¢ Analyse the roles of the financial and regulatory bodies in the growth and development of the SME sector. †¢ Provide recommendations to the SME policy within the scope of the study objectives. The paper will also discuss the SME policy that is being followed by the Government of Pakistan through its regulating body the Small and Medium Enterprise Development Authority (SMEDA). The SME policy adopted in the past laid over-emphasis on the industrial and manufacturing activities with little focus on the service sectors. The schemes designed for small enterprise development lacked focus and did not address the core issues of enterprise development and employment growth. Political manipulation and interference led to accrual of bad loans for banks and loss of public funds. Overall they contributed little to economic growth and did very little for the employment issues. These were some of the past initiatives that led to a cautious approach by the banks and financial institutions while lending credit to the small and medium enterprises in Pakistan. Recent years have seen a significant swing in the policy of the Pakistan government towards the development and growth of this sector. The Small and Medium Enterprises Development Authority was established to boost the development of SMEs and monitor their interests with an eye to encourage and facilitate the growth of such enterprises. The paper will analyse the role of SMEDA in the past few years, the initiatives taken and the policy changes that made an impact on the SME sector. The research will evaluate the steps taken by this regulatory body to counter the challenges posed by the political, economic and legal environment to the financing of the SME sector. â€Å"The most significant step taken by the Government of Pakistan for the development of SMEs was the establishment of the Small and Medium Enterprise Bank (SME bank) to arrange for speedy financial assistance. † (Kaiser H. Naseem, the president of SME bank in an interview to PAGE). In addition to the setting up of the SME bank, Pakistan witnessed impressive changes in the SME financing sector. Global institutions like International Finance Corporation (IFC) are playing a major role in aiding the SME sector in Pakistan. It is observed by these institutions that the country needs to provide a conducive and enabling environment for SMEs to operate. They require support and assistance in order to achieve their maximum potential. Organisations like SMEDA can play a critical role in business development process, advisory support, and managerial training of SMEs. The commercial banks and financing institutions need to develop dedicated segment for servicing the SMEs. The banking institutions based on Islamic principles are providing interest free financial assistance to this sector. Based on such facts the research will outline the policies and recommendations that will help in structuring the financing of the small and medium enterprises. The research will be based on various journals, Internet articles, and textbooks related to the Small and Medium Enterprise sector in Pakistan. Explanation of Research Design The research will be based on two principal source types – qualitative and quantitative research. Data collection method: Qualitative research comprising of interviews and data gathered from other sources. The research employs data gathered from the SMEs in Pakistan taken from online resources and printed materials in the form of journals, newspaper articles and textbooks. Quantitative research that constitutes of statistical data collected from financial institutions. The study will be based on the statistical data of finance to SME sector in Pakistan collected for the past five years. This data will assist in analysing the financing trends in the recent years and help in projecting growth trends in the sector. Data processing and analysis: The outcome of the research conducted on the subject matter from various sources mentioned above will be written as a descriptive conclusion of the study conducted. The processed statistical data will be presented as graphs and pie charts for better understanding. Validity, reliability and limitations: As the information collected from various journals, newspaper reports and articles reflect the current market trend; the analysis based on the findings will be accurate and reliable. Timetable of research activities: Appendices The study will make use of facts and figures available from the published reports of State Bank of Pakistan, World Bank, Asian Development Bank, International Finance Corporation, SME Bank of Pakistan, SMEDA and other journals released by the government of Pakistan on the subject matter. References: 1. SME led Economic Growth – Creating Jobs and Reducing Poverty, Ministry of Industries, Production and Special Initiatives, Government of Pakistan – http://www. smeda. org/downloads/smepolicy2007. pdf – accessed on 2nd March 2008 2. Country overview – Pakistan, International Finance Corporation – http://ifcln001. worldbank. org/ifcext/mena. nsf/Content/Pakistan – accessed on 2nd March 2008 3. SME Sector Development (Program Loan): Pakistan, Asian Development Bank – http://www. adb. org/Documents/PIDs/34327013. asp – accessed on 2nd March 2008 4. Finance and Markets – SME Bank to play pivotal role, An interview with Kaiser H. Naseem, President SME Bank – http://www. pakistaneconomist. com/issue2002/issue5/f&m. htm – accessed on 2nd March 2008 5. SME Financing: Issues and Strategies, Ishrat Hussain – http://www. sbp. org. pk/about/speech/financial_sector/2005/SME_Financing_10_May_05. pdf – accessed on 2nd March 2008 6. SME Policy Development – Small and Medium Enterprise Development Authority – http://www. smeda. org/projects/SME-policy-development. html – accessed on 2nd March 2008 7. SME Sector, SME Bank – http://www. smebank. org/SME%20Sector. htm – accessed on 2nd March 2008 8. SME Financing: State Bank of Pakistan – http://www. sbp. org. pk/sme/index. htm – accessed on 2nd March 2008 9. President’s Address to SME Financing and Strategic Conference – http://presidentofpakistan. gov. pk/FilesSpeeches%5CPolicy%5C510200583259PMSME. pdf – accessed on 2nd March 2008 10. Pakistan announced SME policy for higher growth – http://developing8. org/page/news/17/8/2007/pakistan_announced_sme_policy_for_higher_growth – accessed on 2nd March 2008

Is horror a good movie genre for children Essay

Is horror a good movie genre for children - Essay Example The need is to understand that horror can have long-lasting effects on the minds of the young ones and it is best advisable to keep them away from such shocks. It must be understood here that the horror movies produced to date have been very direct as concerns to the viewers, children here specifically. These movies have instilled a sense of ‘what will happen next’ regime within their minds. Some of them cannot even watch such movies whilst being alone. They need company in order to avoid the horror element of such flicks. Some of them start weeping and shouting in the middle of a horrific scene, thus adding to the mental agony of such a genre of movie viewing. It must be comprehended here that horror movies depict violence, manslaughter, killing, blood and nasty language. The scenes are utterly disdainful for the young audiences, since the effects are abysmal to state the least (Tamborini, 1996). The impact of such elements on the human mind is serious and when one discusses the same for the sake of children, there could be drastic issues for them, left, right and center. These children suffer trouble whilst sleeping while th ey also get scared in a dark room or whenever they are alone. Their confidence takes a very wrong turn and this essentially makes them feel very scared at the end of the day. The need is to have proper training and education imparted by the parents and/or guardians. Their help and assistance could mean wonders for these children who should be told that these flicks are a part of the world of fiction and nothing else at all. One should believe that horror is indeed not a good genre for children since these children go through a lot when it comes to understanding the after effects of watching horror flicks. They get scared, have severe fear within their ranks and stop meeting people who they consider closely resembling one of the evils shown in the horror movies. They also like to

Buffer, acid and base Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Buffer, acid and base - Research Paper Example A strong battery acid has less than one pH while a strong base has such as drain cleaner has about 14 pH (Lynnette, 2009). On the other side pOH is a measure of the concentration of hydroxide ions, alkalinity or OH-. It measures the basicity of a solution according to the dictionary of Chemistry. pOH is not measured independently rather it is derived from pH. The difference between the two can be described as pH means the H+ ion concentration which indicates the acidic nature of compound while pOH means the concentration of OH- ion which indicates the basic nature of the compound. The following equation will help us to know about both pH and pOH that how they make a 14 point scale for measuring the alkalinity/basicity or acidity of a substance. In the human body, all fluids are aqueous. It is a solvent that is only present in water. That means all body fluids have pH value either narrow or wide range. Scientific researches claim that the pH range of blood should be slightly basic i.e. from 7.35-7.45. If the range sees drastic change, it is very likely to cause illness or death as so much acidity and basicity is injurious for health. The Arrhenius definition for acids states that acids produce hydrogen ions in aqueous solutions or when they are added to water. Acids release Hydrogen ion (H+). An acid reacts with magnesium, zinc or aluminum and forms hydrogen (H2(g)). It also reacts with such compounds that contain CO32-Â  and carbon dioxide and water is produced. Acids can corrode metals, eat them away to weaken. Acids are so powerful that they can conduct electricity. They are found in car batteries that are so powerful to run the car. An acid turns the litmus paper into red. It is sour in nature and found in many natural fruits and vegetables e.g. lemons have citric acid. In a laboratory, it is very dangerous to taste acid. In kitchens, we find vinegar, a type of acid. It is acetic acid that gives vinegar a sour taste (Lynnette,

Paper on Language Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Paper on Language - Essay Example Another more recent definition of language is given by Michael Holiday. According to him: "Language is a range of possibilities, an open-ended set of options in behavior that are available to the individual in his existence as social man. The context of culture is the environment of any particular selection that is made from within them ... The context of culture defines the potential, the range of possibilities that are open. The actual choice among these possibilities takes place within a given context of situation." This definition is much more encompassing as it highlights that language is not just through the use of vocal or oral symbols but a range of possibilities. Man communicates through speech, writing, and still other means are introduced in this digital age. A human also engage in non-verbal communication through his actions and entire behavior. Holiday also asserts that language can only fully understood in the context of the culture of the speaker or his lexicon. Lexicon is defined as the "knowledge of that the speaker has about a language." This includes information about the form and meaning of the words and phrases, lexical categorization, the appropriate usage of words, relationship between words and phrases, and categories of words and phrases. b. Evaluate the key features of language. The understanding of language can be acquired by evaluating its key features (Design features of Language 2007). 1. Duality of patterning is a basic principle in human language. This feature of language provides an economic way for human beings to create an infinite set of linguistic units. It should be noted that the individual sounds comprising language is meaningless in themselves. Yet, these sounds can be combined together in other to become produce an infinite number of "meaningful utterances." 2. Displacement refers to the unique sense of time in human beings. As opposed to animals, humans have the ability to separate the past from the future and can talk about these time spheres. 3. Open-endedness describes the ability of humans to add new words to the current set of words. This is illustrated by the words which are coined according to our new experiences and innovations which augment, enhance, and even modify our language. 4. Arbitrariness refers to the lack of "natural or essential relationship" between to the words and the objects they refer to. This also highlights that the meaning of the words are constructed through social conventions. 5. Vocal-auditory channel is the feature of human language which sets it apart from animals. Human's communication is through the ears and the mouth and not through other channels like nose or eyes. c. Describe the four levels of language structure and processing. There are four levels of language structure and processing namely, grammar, logic, semantics, and general semantics. Grammar relations refer to the words to words relationship within a sentence without considering the relation of each sentence to another. Logic takes a step further by looking at the statement to statement relationships by evaluating subjects and predicates in an

Leap motion Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Leap motion - Essay Example Before developing Leap Motion, Holz and Buckwald first developed a small device that resembled an iPod with an end that can be plugged into the USB port of a computer and enhance motion detection so that â€Å"the exact movements of individual fingers and rotations of the wrist can be accurately detected and processed with no latency† (Spiegelmock 2013). Leap Motion itself is 80mm long and 12.7mm wide and connects to the computer or Mac allowing a person to interact with the computer via simple hand movements. In other words, Leap Motion is a sensor that identifies each of an individual’s movement and changes them into a specific action. â€Å"Leap Motion constitutes of two LEDs and three infrared cameras that analyze al the movements of the hand† (Design, User Experience, and Usability, User Experience Design for Diverse Interaction Platforms and Environments 2012). In analyzing the movement of the hand, the device covers a radius of 1 meter. Its accuracy is also very high; it is 1/100th. Leap Motion has the potential to detect fingers, hands as well as pencils by coming up with a 3D environment. Although it works like a mouse, Leap Motion does not in any way aim at replacing the keyboard and the mouse. It is an additional tool aimed to improve the user experience as well as interaction with the computer. The use of Leap Motion in any computer calls for some things. It detects on the type of the operator system that a computer should have. For instance, the device works best and only in the computers installed with Windows 7, 8 or Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard. The hardware of the computer also plays a very significant role. â€Å"Leap Motion only works in computers with either AMD Phenom (tm) II or Intel  ®core (TM) i3, i5, i7 processor, and with a 2GB of RAM† (Spiegelmock 2013). Additionally, the computer needs to have an internet connection in addition to a

Health and wellness Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 1

Health and wellness - Essay Example When a person has control over a situation, the stress impact is significantly less. I believe I have control over many responses to stressors in my lifestyle. I can choose to be explosive and highly emotional or examine the situation as a mature individual with a practical lens. My emotional responses to stressors are generally very soft and the test revealed I am a cool responder who manages to cope well in the face of stressful situation. It is a rare occasion, and depends on the severity of the scenario, that I would have an explosive outburst or internalize strong emotional responses. I believe I am well-balanced when handling situations, especially when they are out of my span of control. Basic breathing exercises can assist a person in calming down when getting ready to explode in the face of high stress scenarios. People do not want to listen to suggestions because they lack emotional intelligence and self-awareness and often allow their emotions to take over without looking at the situation rationally. Regulating emotional responses takes time and practice. When emotions are powerful, they want to get rid of these negative feelings so they choose to be inefficient and unhealthy by allowing their charged emotions to take over. It is a form of psychological release that is not healthy, but a product of immature

Adjustment Letter Case Study Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Adjustment Letter Case Study - Assignment Example Late delivery may adversely affect the stakeholders in case the Hesse decides to withdraw their account. However, their long-term relationship may favour restoration of good will. The letter will address the acceptance of the company to refund the fee of $3200. Acceptance of the return will help address the primary demand of Hesse. It will send an apology due to late delivery and poor communication to the Hesse. It will also include an explanation for failure to pick goods as agreed and provide a future solution in case of similar incidents. The cause of the late delivery resulted from communication failure. Thus, the new quality control measure will make sure of an efficient communication system. Effective communication system will ensure in case of nay changes in company Hesse, and other customers get information. In addition, the service will work even on holiday days to make sure communication flows well. Physical environmental factors. For example, the break in on Coastal Moves resulted to disabled of access cards and loss of company laptops with some access codes. Disabling of access cards gave the company a setback in line of communication. Thus, this will help in justifying an apology to

Finance, planning and budgeting of construction of houses in urban Essay

Finance, planning and budgeting of construction of houses in urban areas - Essay Example Furthermore, it represents my own opinions and not necessarily those of the University. Signed __________________ Date _________________ Abstract In this study we try to explore the concept of â€Å"Finance, planning and budgeting of construction of houses in urban areas† in a holistic context. The main focus of the research is on â€Å"Construction of the houses† and its relation with â€Å"Urban Areas†. The research also analyzes the difficulties faced by the â€Å"Construction of Houses† and tries to gauge its effect in â€Å"Urban Cities†. This study focuses on the planning and budgeting for the construction of houses in the urban cities. The major requirements and the barriers are also defined and discussed. Table of Contents Acknowledgement ii DECLARATION iii Abstract iv CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1 Background of the research 1 Problem Statement 1 Aims and Objectives 1 Restrains Affecting the Thesis 2 Ethical Concern 2 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIE W 4 Sustainable urban development 4 Roadmap for sustainable development 5 Documentation for Planning and Integrated 7 Planning and Building Control 8 Sections of the work 10 Personal and Financial Programs 13 Main Controls 15 New Urbanism 17 CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY 19 Research Method 20 Research Instruments 20 Sampling 20 CHAPTER 4: DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS 21 Construction 21 Residential Houses: Constructional procedure 23 Quality features of the process 24 Quality features of the product 25 Aims and Rationale for Budgeting 26 Principles of Change with Impact on Budgeting 27 Leadership Challenges in Budgeting 27 Space Personalization 936w 28 Decorating Trends 28 Building a Home Construction Budget 550w 31 Statistics and Housing 33 Mortgage Economics 34 Government Policy 36 Housing Boom and Bust 39 Upcoming Research Prospects 42 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION 44 Analytical Conclusion 47 BIBLIOGRAPHY 48 Heather, S.  and  Bachelor, L. (2007) Housing boom over' as UK bank chaos grows, the obse rver (sep 2007) from http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2007/sep/16/houseprices.business 53 APPENDIX 59 Budgeting Cycle 59 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION Background of the research Urban development in this model is the possibility of a given population, meeting basic needs: food, health, education, employment, housing, culture. Urban development is to create a habitat in a harmonious environment, which respects the human rights of individuals, there is no overcrowding, abandoned children, beggars, pollution, crime or all these activities are minimal, that there is a reasonable and balance level of environment that respect the dignity of human ecology, safety and welfare. This can be achieved based on aligning the strategic planning of public interest and private interest. Urban development is sustainable with design and implementation of urban plans to support the ecological environment in the short, medium and long term, fulfilling the principles of equity, decentralism, provision of basic services throughout the country, generating jobs and consultation with social partners for development. Problem Statement One of the reasons for the urban chaos is that both authorities and citizens never respected urban planning. Urban law is an essential element of planning. To date a large number of standards that guide local development does not fully comply or abide with it. The law as part of the superstructure has been shown to be an instrument of change and renewal. Aims and Objectiv

Tacit Knowledge, Idiosyncratic Knowledge, Path Dependence Essay

Tacit Knowledge, Idiosyncratic Knowledge, Path Dependence - Essay Example In other words, tacit knowledge is hidden knowledge, as opposed to explicit knowledge, which is its opposite, woven into the very processes that some organizations have developed through the years, and woven into the very fabric of the way people carry out their work. It can be surmised that the more knowledge intensive the work is, the greater the role that tacit knowledge plays in making the products and delivering the services tied to that work. b. Idiosyncratic Knowledge As the name suggests, idiosyncratic knowledge is knowledge that is specific to one particular situation, organization, or group of people, and not available elsewhere. There are many kinds of idiosyncratic or specific knowledge for one kind of firm, and like tacit knowledge idiosyncratic knowledge is very much embedded into the very fabric of the organization and of the members of that organization, not easily surfaced and discovered, and very difficult to codify. As the name further suggests idiosyncratic knowledge is something very intimate, and something that cannot be had overnight, for one organization or firm. It is rather something that takes a long time to develop, and something that has to be born and bred in one organization from its daily operations, not easily ported and transferred to other organizations or groups. Moreover, the nature of the idiosyncratic knowledge and of its use has far-reaching implications for competitive advantage and the long-term viability and suc cess of organizations.

International Product Life Cycle Essay Example for Free

International Product Life Cycle Essay The international product life cycle (IPLC) theory, developed and verified by economists to explain trade in a context of comparative advantage, describes the diffusion process of an innovation across national boundaries. The life cycle begins when a developed country, having a new product to satisfy consumer needs, wants to exploit its technological breakthrough by selling abroad. Other advanced nations soon start up their own production facilities, and before long LDCs do the same Efficiency/comparative advantage shifts from developed countries to developing nations. Finally, advanced nations, no longer cost-effective, import products from their former customers. The moral of this process could be that an advanced nation becomes a victim of its own creation. IPLC theory has the potential to be a valuable framework for marketing planning on a multinational basis. In this section the IPLC is examined from the marketing perspective, and marketing implications for both innovators and initiators are discussed below. Stages and Characteristics There are five distinct stages (Stage 0 through Stage 4) in the IPLC. Table below shows the major characteristics of the IPLC stages, with the United States as the developer of the innovation in question. Exhibit shows three life-cycle curves for the same innovation: one for the initiating country (i. . , the United States in this instance), one for other advanced nations, and one for LDCs. For each curve, net export results when the curve is above the horizontal line; if under the horizontal line, net import results for that particular country. As the innovation moves through time, directions of all three curves change. Time is relative, because the time needed for a cycle to be completed varies from one kind of product to another.

Coca Cola Company Operations And Strategies Business Essay

Coca Cola Company Operations And Strategies Business Essay Coca Cola was invented by Doctor John Pemberton a pharmacist from Atlanta, Georgia in May, 1886. John Pemberton invented the Coca Cola formula in a three legged brass kettle in his backyard. The name was a suggestion given by John Pembertons bookkeeper Frank Robinson. The soft drink was first sold to the public at the soda fountain in Jacobs Pharmacy in Atlanta on May 8, 1886. About nine servings of the soft drink were sold each day. Sales for that first year added up to a total of about $50. But it cost John Pemberton over $70 in expanses, so the first year of sales were a loss. Until 1905, the soft drink, marketed as a tonic, contained extracts of cocaine as well as the caffeine-rich kola nut. In 1887, another Atlanta pharmacist and businessman, Asa Candler bought the formula for Coca Cola from inventor John Pemberton for $2,300. By the late 1890s, Coca Cola was one of Americas most popular fountain drinks, largely due to Candlers aggressive marketing of the product. With Asa Candl er, now at the helm, the Coca Cola Company increased syrup sales by over 40% between 1890 and 1900. On April 23, 1985, the trade secret New Coke formula was released. Today, products of the Company are consumed at the rate of more than one billion drinks per day. Now company produces more than 300 beverage brands. The corporate headquarters are in Atlanta, with local operations in over 200 countries around the world. More than 70 percent of the income comes from outside the U.S, but the real reason they are a truly global company is that the products meet the varied taste preferences of consumers everywhere. But the Company has several issues that influence its profits and position in the market. Such as still producing its Coca Cola Classic product, which contains high levels of sugar and caffeine which is negatively impact costumers health.   And it may reduce the demand for some of their products and impact customers trust or loyalty.    The second one is banned sales of Coke in its cafeteria by the Indian parliament. When coca cola was tested, it was found that it includes high concentrations of pesticides and insecticides, including lindane, DDT, malathion and chlorpyrifos. Some samples tested showed the presence of these toxins to be more than 30 times the standard allowed by the European Union. But the same drinks were found to be safe in US. The third issue is boycott against the companys using huge amount of water from the common groundwater source. And as a result of its operations the scarce water has been polluted by Coca Cola (case study Coca Colas strategy, www.thecoca-colacompany.com). Mission and Vision Statement Mission Statement Coca Cola Companys mission statement is to maximize shareowner value over time. In order to achieve this mission, they are creating value for their consumers, bottlers, and their communities. The Coca Cola Company creates value by executing comprehensive business strategies (mission vision values, (2009) www.thecoca-colacompany.com). Vision Statement To achieve sustainable growth, Coca cola has established a vision with clear goals: Profit: Maximizing return to shareholders; People: Creating great place to work where people are inspired to be the best they can be. Thomson, Gamble, and Strickland (2006) suggest that Coca Cola believes a reputation for workforce diversity makes recruiting employees easier (talented employees from diverse backgrounds often seek out such company); Portfolio: Bringing to the world a portfolio of beverage brands that anticipate and satisfy peoples desires and needs; Partners: Nurturing a winning network of partners and building mutual loyalty; Planet: Being a responsible global citizen that makes a difference (mission vision values, (2009) www.thecoca-colacompany.com). Companys Strategies Brand development Strategy. P.Kotler and K.L.Keller (2009) suggest that brands signal a certain level of quality so that satisfied buyers can easily choose the product again. So Coca Cola Company to far reach and to manage remaining in the limelight it created Brand development strategy. This strategy is effective as it has been able to construct, manage as well as maintain its brand image since yesteryears. As Kotler et. al., (2009) argue, brand loyalty provides predictability and security of demand for the company and creates barriers to entry that make it for other firms to enter the market. The brand loyalty is the instrumental in keeping up companys brand image. Over the years, Coca Cola has passed several tests of brand enhancement and the company makes it a point that the products under the banner Coca Cola continue to invade the minds of the consumers. It involves 4000 customers to test 20 brand attributes every month. With regard to the brand development of Coca Cola Zero, the company came out with an advertisement, which was quite different from the conventional ones. In this regard, (no calorie beverage), it has shelled out three types of products: Coca Cola Classic; Diet Coke; Coca Cola Zero. There are few experts who believe that when Coca Cola had the tag line of The Real Thing, it was really that but with the invention of various categories of coke, the real thing changes to many things, and the original flavor is usually lost. Hence, the brand building strategies should be such that it does not confuse people and is able to retain consumers despite the fact that several new non alcoholic beverage firms are on the (development strategy of Coca Cola, finance.mapsofworld.com). Business Intelligence Strategy. In order to know what consumers prefer it intends to use Information technology (IT) to monitor the pulse of its customers.  Ã‚   According to Information Week article titled Cokes RFID-Based Dispensers Redefine Business Intelligence, Coke plans to roll out the Freestyle drink dispenser nationwide which is taking the concept of customer choice to new heights, and the most interesting aspect is the technology its built on. According to Rainer and Turban (2009), business intelligence (BI) is applications and technologies for consolidating, analyzing and providing access to vast amounts of data to help users make better business and strategic decisions. Freestyle will become Cokes front-line robotic army for BI, sending massive amounts of consumption data back to the beverage companys Atlanta headquarters. The dispensers collect data on what customers are drinking and how much, and transmit that information each night over a private Verizon wireless net work to Cokes SAP data warehouse system in Atlanta. Unique byproduct of this BI enabled dispenser is that Coke can try out new flavors and get back almost real time feedback on the viability of its success.     With a competitive advantage like this, I think its a good idea Coke store its IT details to develop its recipe formula. Price strategy. Sometimes Coca Cola Company changes their product prices according to the season. Summer is supposed to be a good season for beverage industry in Pakistan. So in winter they reduce their prices to maintain their sales and profit. But normally they reduce the prices of their pet bottles or 1 litter glass bottle. Promotion strategy. They get or purchase shelves in big departmental stores and display their products in those shelves in that style which show their product clearer and more attractive for the consumers (Coca colas business intelligence strategy, www.itstrategyblog.com). SWOT Analysis Strengths: 1. Brand equity 2. Product distribution and worldwide network 3. Solid financial performance 4. One of the worlds most recognized brand. 5. Innovation Weaknesses: 1. Credit rating 2. Customer concentration, particularly in the US (Wal-Mart accounts for more than 10% of Coca Colas business in the US) 3. Does not enjoy the number one position in India, Pakistan. Opportunities: 1. Possible growing demand. 2. Expansion reaching all segments. 3. Globalization 4. Catering to Health Consciousness of People 5. Bottled water growth Threats: 1. Health Drinks Fruit Juice Companies 2. Key competitors (Pepsi, etc) 3. Commodity prices growth 4. Image perception in certain parts of the world (case study Coca Colas strategy, www.thecoca-colacompan). Driving Forces I think the first driving force for the company is customer demand. If there is no demand it is meaning in producing the product. So for the Coca Cola, driving force is customer demand. The second one is innovation. Nowadays companies have to be able to survive and grow in an ever-changing market. In order to achieve these they should systematically innovate and deliver new products.   According to Companys late 90s earnings growth of 15-20% per year, turned in three straight years of falling profits.   It was apparent that the market was changing  and for keeping up these changes, Coca-Cola had to move from a single core product to a total beverage company.   This was a major change because their past success was base on having one successful core product.  Now Coca-Cola offers nearly 400 different products in and is still dominating the beverage industry.   The third driving force is globalization. Todays big business takes place on a global scale, and Coca-Cola is no exception.   Technology is continually changing business, and these constant changes have been making it more feasible and profitable for businesses to expand their operations globally in order to serve all different types of diverse markets around the world.   Coca-Cola is taking advantage of the large revenue opportunities made possible by participating in a global market and now offers products in 200 countries around the world.   Issues In my opinion the main issue of the Coca Cola Company is still producing its Coca Cola Classic product, which contains high levels of sugar and caffeine is causing a recent uproar on our increasingly health-conscience world.   There is a possibility that obesity concerns may reduce demand for some of their products.   In addition, the most amounts of its products are selling in the schools so this puts the pressure on Coke to provide healthier alternatives to their drinks if they want to keep selling in schools. The next problem is the Indian parliament has banned the sale of Coke products in its cafeteria. The ban came as the result of tests, including those by the Indian government, which found high concentrations of pesticides and insecticides, including lindane, DDT, malathion and chlorpyrifos, in the colas, making them unfit for consumption. Some samples tested showed the presence of these toxins to be more than 30 times the standard allowed by the European Union. Tests of samples taken from the US of the same drinks were found to be safe. As we know water is rare resource and today one of the main problems of the world is water shortage. This creating the problems in most companys operations and Coca Cola is no exception. The Companys bottling operations are facing severe shortages of water as a result of the cola major sucking huge amounts of water from the common groundwater source. To add insult to injury, the scarce water that remains has been polluted by Coca-Cola as a result of its operations. It is resulting thousands of Indian people protesting against the company. Conclusion and recommendations Though Coca Cola is performing well and gaining trust of its consumers and obtaining new consumers trust every day, it should act even better to keep its current position in beverage industry and keep on growing. The Company should increase its shareholders wealth by increasing its sales and decreasing the costs which will result higher earnings and net profit. As conclusion of analysis I have done, I suggest the following recommendations for the Coca Cola Company: Today everything is rapidly changing and companies for surviving should go step by step with those changes. The innovation gives the company key advantage among its rivals. So Coca Cola Company can introduce a new product, which many people will want to try. Coca Cola needs to continuously strengthen its brand to maintain brand loyalty and differentiate itself from its competitors, in order to maintain its strong market position. Reason of not being popular in India is the utilization of rear water resources. This put negative effect on the brand image, because of cola plant water level in the area decreases which makes the resident life miserable. If the Company wants a number one position in India they have to follow following criteria: Environmental due diligence before acquiring land or starting projects; Environmental impact assessment before commencing operations; Ground water and environmental surveys before selecting sites. Another major asset to a company of this size and clout is maintaining continuity among the workforce.   This is essential to keep the company in a positive direction, accomplishing common goals and constantly setting new goals.  

Survey on Traffic Pattern Discovery in Mobile Ad hoc Network

Survey on Traffic Pattern Discovery in Mobile Ad hoc Network Priyanka Sen Priti Saktel Abstract— Mobile Ad-hoc Network (MANET) is one of the networks of mobile routers that is self-configuring and connected by wireless links. Anonymity communication is one of the major issues in MANET. Though there are many anonymity enhancing techniques that have been proposed based on packet encryption to protect the communication anonymity of mobile ad hoc networks. There are still passive statistical traffic analysis attacks that can be vulnerable to MANET. The communication anonymity consists of two aspects: source/destination anonymity and end-to-end anonymity. In order to discover the communication pattern without decrypting the captured packets, this proposed system will be designed. The proposed system will first search the required node by using a heuristic approach. Then statistical traffic analysis will be performed to find the data transmission of the searched node to its neighboring nodes. After performing the statistical traffic analysis whether the search node is source or destination will be estimated. With the help of this estimation the traffic pattern will be discovered. The utility of this proposed system is basically in military environment. Keywords— Mobile Ad hoc Network (MANET), anonymity communication, statistical traffic analysis. I. Introduction Mobile ad hoc network (MANET) is a self configuring infrastructure less network of mobile devices connected by wireless network. It is one of the types of ad hoc network. Every device in MANET is independent to move. This results in changes of link of such device. Thus MANET is also known as an infrastructure less network. The devices that are present in the network must forward the traffic to other devices. In MANET each device must act as a router. The basic figure of a mobile ad hoc network can be illustrated in Fig 1. One of the critical issues of MANET is communication anonymity. Anonymity can be defined as the state in which identity of an object that performs the action is hidden. An anonymous communication system can be defined as a technology that hides the object identity. Communication anonymity [1] has two aspects: Source/destination anonymity and End-to-End relationship anonymity. In source/destination anonymity it is difficult to identify the sources or the destinations of the network flows while in end-to-end relationship anonymity it is difficult to identify the end to- end communication relations. In MANET communication anonymity has been proposed by anonymous routing protocols such as ANODR (ANonymous On-Demand Routing) [7], OLAR (On-demand Lightweight Anonymous Routing) [6]. All these anonymous routing protocols rely on packet encryption to hide the information from attackers. Still the passive attackers can eavesdrop on the wireless channel, intercept the transmission, and then perform traffic analysis attacks. Traffic analysis [10] is one of the types of passive attack in MANET. Traffic analysis is further subdivided into predecessor attack [8] and disclosure attack [9]. The following are the three nature of MANET due to which above approaches do not work well to analyze traffic in MANET: 1) Broadcasting nature: In wired networks point to point transmission can be easily applied to only one possible receiver. While in wireless network message is broadcasted to multiple receivers. 2) Ad hoc nature: Mobile node can be served as both source and destination. This can create confusion to determine the role of the node. 3) Mobile nature: Traffic analysis model do not consider the mobility of communication peers. This makes the communication among mobile node more complex. There is a need of such a technology which can analyze traffic without any interruption of the above three characteristics of MANET. This proposed system fulfills the need. The objective of this paper is to show that passive attackers can perform traffic analysis without the knowledge of the adversaries. This approach is required in military environment. The proposed system will perform statistical traffic analysis to discover the traffic pattern. This system will perform the point to point as well as end-to-end traffic analysis among receivers. Indirectly this calculation will provide probable source and destination of the network that will discover the hidden traffic pattern. Thus the adversaries will not be able to know about the traffic analysis. Fig. 1. Mobile Ad hoc Network The remaining paper is organized as follows: Section II describes the previous work. Section III presents the proposed work. Section IV describes the expected outcome of the proposed system. Lastly section V presents the conclusion. II. PREVIOUS WORK Yang Qin, Dijiang Huang and Bing Li [1], proposed that though there are many anonymous routing protocols and anonymous enhancing techniques available still mobile ad hoc network (MANET) is vulnerable to passive statistical traffic analysis attacks. The authors proposed a system called as Statistical Traffic Pattern Discovery System (STARS). A STAR is used to discover the hidden traffic pattern in MANET. The drawback of this proposed system is that no searching algorithm is applied to search the traffic free path. Douglas Kelly, Richard Raines, Rusty Baldwin, Michael Grimaila, and Barry Mullins [2], investigated on anonymity. For a user anonymity can be defined as using any services while keeping their identity hidden from an adversary. Anonymity help user to protect their data from attacks. Unidentifiability, Unlinkability, and Unobservability are the three properties of anonymity. Unidentifiability means the adversary is unable to determine one’s identity or action among similar ones. Unlinkability means the adversary is unable to relate messages or actions by observing the system. Unobservability means the adversary is unable to observe the presence of messages or action in the system. Since unobservability keeps the identity of messages or action secret it can be implied as anonymity. Unidentifiability is subdivided into sender anonymity (SA), receiver anonymity (RA), mutual anonymity (MA) and group anonymity (GA). Unlinkability is subdivided into location anonymity (LA), communicat ion anonymity (CA) and group communication anonymity (GCA). In order to discover the traffic pattern we have to work on unidentifiability property of anonymity and decrease the sender anonymity (SA) and receiver anonymity (RA). Lei Liu, Xiaolong Jin, Geyong Min, and Li Xu [3], proposed that in order to detect the attack in a network traffic intensity and packet number are the two important metrics. Lei et al. had designed an anomaly detection system. This anomaly detection system is used to detect the distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack in MANET. When traffic analysis is carried on MANET these two metrics are used to detect the DDoS attack. Similarly when traffic analysis will be carried on our proposed system data transmission will be considered as a parameter. We can conclude that data transmission will be an important factor whenever traffic analysis will be carried out, though the reason may be for detection of attack or for discovery of traffic pattern. Zhilin Zhang and Yu Zhang [4], introduced that control traffic plays an important role in route discovery in MANET. The characteristic that involve to carry out research on control traffic in MANET when on demand routing protocols are used include distribution of nodes’ control packet traffic, communication of control packets between nodes, rate of RREQ (route request) packets and the ratio of number of RREQ packets originating from one node to all RREQ packets relayed by this node. These characteristics of control traffic are affected by factors such as mobility, node density and data traffic. Thus theoretically we can determine that indirectly one of the factors of control traffic is data traffic. Hence we can conclude that control traffic will also play an important role in route discovery in our proposed system though the situation will be different. In our proposed system we will find traffic free path i.e. control traffic path so that it will be easy to find out the numb er of data packets transmitted to neighboring nodes. This will help us to discover route in our proposed system. Y. Liu, R. Zhang, J. Shi, and Y. Zhang [5] designed a novel algorithm called as traffic inference algorithm (TIA) which allows an adversary to infer the traffic pattern in MANET. This algorithm is based on the assumption that difference between data frames, routing frames and MAC control frames is visible to passive adversaries. Through these differences they can identify the point-to-point traffic using the MAC control frames, recognize the end-to-end traffic by tracing the routing frames and then find out the actual traffic pattern using the data frames. This algorithm is not a successful invention as it depends on the deterministic network behaviors. Stephen Dabideen and J.J. Garcia-Luna-Aceves [6], proposed that routing in MANET using depth first search (DFS) is feasible as well as efficient than breadth first search (BFS). The algorithm introduced is called as ordered walk search algorithm (OSA). The objective of this algorithm is to take advantage of the smaller time complexity of BFS and combine it with the low communication complexity of DFS in order to improve the efficiency of the search through the known path information. In order to demonstrate the effectiveness of OSA, ordered walk with learning (OWL) routing protocol has been presented which uses DFS to establish and repair paths from the source to the destination with minimum signaling overhead and fast convergence. The following are the advantages of DFS over BFS that had been investigated by Stephen et al. in MANET: (i) DFS require less overhead as compared to BFS. When large number of nodes is performing BFS, the routing TABLE 1 COMPARISON OF SEARCHING ALGORITHMS overhead can saturate the network making it difficult to deliver any packets. However DFS use only small network for routing. (ii) When BFS is used in a network, where there are multiple flows of search packets this situation can lead to increase the load on network and loss of packets. On the other hand as DFS involves only a small part of the network, thus this reduces the load in the network and results in less packet loss. A comparative study of searching algorithms is shown in TABLE I. From this table we conclude that DFS is better searching algorithm for MANET than BFS. III. PROPOSED WORK One of the characteristic of MANET is that all the nodes are hidden. This proposed system will unhide the nodes by using one of the searching algorithms. The searching algorithm chosen for searching the node will be depth first search (DFS). Source node will use DFS algorithm for traversing or searching the path in the network. Then statistical traffic pattern analysis will be performed on these searched nodes. This analysis will provide an estimation of the data transmitted to all the neighboring nodes of every searched node. We can discover the traffic pattern by using probability distribution. The working of each of the module is explained in detailed below. A. Searching node in MANET using depth first search. In this proposed system we are using DFS for routing decisions. When a node receives message for the first time, it sorts all its neighboring nodes according to their distance to destination and then uses that same order in DFS algorithm. It starts its searching from the source node and updates one hop neighbors. This search continues to reach traffic free path between source and destination node. As shown in Fig. 2, depth first search works on tree or graph. The Fig. 2 gives an example of DFS routing path for the following graph: The searching starts from root node A. It is assumed that the left edges are selected than the right edges. Each node remembers the last visiting nodes which help to backtrack and reach the last node to complete the traversing. From Fig. 2 the path will be: A, B, D, E, C, and F. B. Statistical traffic analysis of packets in MANET For point-to-point (one hop) traffic in a certain period, first build point-to-point traffic matrices such that each traffic Fig. 2. Depth First Search matrix only contains independent hop packets. There can be situation in which two packets captured at different time could be the same packet appearing at different location. In order to avoid a single point-to-point traffic matrix form containing two dependent packets time slicing technique is used. Time slice technique is technique in which the process is allowed to run in a preemptive multitasking system. This is called as the time slice or quantum. The scheduler runs once every time slice to choose the next process to run. In this proposed system a sequence of snapshots during a time interval constructs a slice represented by a traffic matrix. The traffic matrix is denoted by W. This traffic matrix will consists of traffic volume from one node to another. For example, Here 1 indicates that there is transmission of data (traffic volume) from node 1 to node 2 whereas 0 indicate that there is no transmission of data between the two nodes. C. Discovery of system The traffic matrix tell us the deduce point-to-point and end-to-end traffic volume between each pair of nodes. We need to discover the actual source or destination in order to discover the traffic pattern. Here probability distribution is used. Probability distribution calculates the probability of the data transmitted to neighboring node which provide an accurate estimation of a node as source or destination. This will help to discover the traffic pattern. The equation required for source probability distribution is The equation required for destination probability distribution is Fig.3. System Flow Diagram Where s’(i) is the source vector, N is number of nodes, r(i,j) is the accumulative traffic volume from node i to node j, d’(i) is the destination vector. In the Fig. 3, the flow of the proposed system is explained. When the system will start it will form a network. This network will consist of certain number of nodes. All the nodes will be browsed. In order to search the node a heuristic searching algorithm will be applied. If the required node is present then statistical traffic analysis will be performed on it. After performing statistical traffic analysis probability distribution will be applied to discover the traffic pattern. However, if the required node is not found then the system will stop and no further process will be carried out. IV. EXPECTED OUTCOME From the idea of the proposed system we are clear with two outcomes. The outcomes will be to discover traffic pattern in MANET and to find probability of point to point transmission among receivers. These two outcomes are discussed below. 1. Discovery of traffic pattern in MANET The first step to discover traffic pattern will be searching a node. Then using point-to-point traffic matrix and end-to-end traffic matrix a statistical traffic analysis will be performed. The parameter to be considered for traffic pattern discovery will be number of data transmitted. 2. Probability of point to point transmission among receivers is estimated Point-to-Point transmission can be estimated by point-to-point traffic matrix. This matrix will consists of traffic volume between each node at one hop distance. The calculated traffic matrix will be used to determine the probability of point to point transmission among receivers. V. CONCLUSION The proposed system will be an attacking system. As nodes are hidden in MANET a heuristic searching algorithm will be applied. This heuristic searching algorithm will be depth first search (DFS).This system will perform statistical traffic analysis to find the data transmission between one to one and one to many nodes. Probability of point to point transmission among receivers will be estimated by point-to-point traffic matrix. Then by calculating multihop traffic and performing probability distribution the traffic pattern will be discovered. This will provide an approximate traffic pattern with approximate source and destination in the network. The proposed system will reduce the issue of anonymous communication in mobile ad hoc network (MANET). REFERENCES Yang Qin, Dijiang Huang and Bing Li â€Å"STARS: A Statistical Traffic Pattern Discovery System for MANETs† IEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing, Vol. 11, No. 2, March/April 2014. Douglas Kelly, Richard Raines, Rusty Baldwin, Michael Grimaila, and Barry Mullins, â€Å"Exploring Extant and Emerging Issues in Anonymous Networks: A Taxonomy and Survey of Protocols and Metrics†, IEEE Communications Surveys Tutorials, Vol. 14, No. 2, Second Quarter 2012. Lei Liu, Xiaolong Jin, Geyong Min, and Li Xu, â€Å"Real-Time Diagnosis of Network Anomaly based on Statistical Traffic Analysis†, IEEE 11th International Conference on Trust, Security and Privacy in Computing and Communications, 2012. Zhilin Zhang and Yu Zhang, â€Å"Control Traffic Analysis of On-Demand Routing Protocol in Mobile Ad-hoc Networks†, IEEE Second International Conference on Networking and Distributed Computing, 2011 Y. Liu, R. Zhang, J. Shi, and Y. Zhang, â€Å"Traffic Inference in Anonymous MANETs,† Proc. IEEE Seventh Ann. Comm. Soc. Conf. Sensor Mesh and Ad Hoc Comm. and Networks, pp. 1-9, 2010. Stephen Dabideen and J.J. Garcia-Luna-Aceves, â€Å"OWL: Towards Scalable Routing In MANETs Using Depth-First Search On Demand†, IEEE 6th International Conference on Mobile Adhoc and Sensor Systems, Oct 2009. Y. Qin and D. Huang, â€Å"OLAR: On-Demand Lightweight Anonymous Routing in MANETs,† Proc.Fourth Int’l Conf. Mobile Computing and Ubiquitous Networking, pp. 72-79, 2008. J. Kong, X. Hong, and M. Gerla, â€Å"An Identity-Free and On- Demand Routing Scheme against Anonymity Threats in Mobile Ad Hoc Networks,† IEEE Trans. Mobile Computing, vol. 6, no. 8, pp.888-902, Aug. 2007. M. Wright, M. Adler, B. Levine, and C. Shields, â€Å"The Predecessor Attack: An Analysis of a Threat to Anonymous Communications Systems,† ACM Trans. Information and System Security, vol. 7, no. 4, pp. 489-522, 2004. G. Danezis, â€Å"Statistical Disclosure Attacks: Traffic Confirmation in Open Environments,† Proc. Security and Privacy in the Age of Uncertainty, vol. 122, pp. 421-426, 2003. J. Raymond, â€Å"Traffic Analysis: Protocols, Attacks, Design Issues, and Open Problems,† Proc. Int’l Workshop Designing Privacy Enhancing Technologies: Design Issues in Anonymity Unobservability, pp. 10-29, 2001.

Got Milk? Essay -- Advertising Media Advertisements Essays

Got Milk? In the fast paced world of today, advertisers have to keep up with the times. One of the best ways they do this is through the Got Milk ads. Milk is a part of everyday life and the advertisers for Milk show this through modern tactics and popular celebrities. By putting familiar faces on magazine ads and using interesting T.V. commercials, companies sell their products. The ways in which they sell the products is not by just stating that their product is good, they appeal to the human emotions, ethics and most of all what is logical. There are many ad campaigns out there that strongly target one area, such as your emotions, but the Got Milk advertisers campaign has all three of these factors. To begin with, each ad is placed in a certain magazine based on who the reader will be, for instance, a 17-year-old girl is going to be reading Seventeen, not Maxim. When I looked through one of my Seventeen magazines I found a Got Milk ad with Britney Spears in tight clothing standing next to a little girl in a ballet costume. Above the little girl’s head was a statement that said Grow Up. This ad tries to appeal to a person’s logical side. At the bottom of the ad is written, â€Å" 15% of your height is added during your teen years and milk can help make the most of it.† A seventeen year old girl looks at this ad and is tempted to look just like her, so not only is this ad logical it also appeals to a girl’s emotional side. You would not find this ad in a car magazine for older men. Ad companies are not just trying to sell you a product they are trying to sell you the image of their product. It is not just magazine companies that try to get people to buy their product by appealing to emotions, logic and ethics, the pr... ...information posted about the company have a copyright from The National Milk Processor Promotion Board. When we see an ad campaign we know who the company is and exactly what they are selling. We have already seen how different tactics that companies use appeal greatly to ones emotions and ethics but exactly how logical is it? We never consider who is telling us that milk is good. People believe buying milk is right because the ads continuously state that it is good. The campaign for milk appeals to people’s emotions, ethics and their logic, it works because, people continue to buy milk. There are so many ads for milk out there that people just see them and believe that milk is right for them because it says so. People will continue living like this, buying the product without really knowing who sells it because it works, they get money for it and we get milk. Got Milk? Essay -- Advertising Media Advertisements Essays Got Milk? In the fast paced world of today, advertisers have to keep up with the times. One of the best ways they do this is through the Got Milk ads. Milk is a part of everyday life and the advertisers for Milk show this through modern tactics and popular celebrities. By putting familiar faces on magazine ads and using interesting T.V. commercials, companies sell their products. The ways in which they sell the products is not by just stating that their product is good, they appeal to the human emotions, ethics and most of all what is logical. There are many ad campaigns out there that strongly target one area, such as your emotions, but the Got Milk advertisers campaign has all three of these factors. To begin with, each ad is placed in a certain magazine based on who the reader will be, for instance, a 17-year-old girl is going to be reading Seventeen, not Maxim. When I looked through one of my Seventeen magazines I found a Got Milk ad with Britney Spears in tight clothing standing next to a little girl in a ballet costume. Above the little girl’s head was a statement that said Grow Up. This ad tries to appeal to a person’s logical side. At the bottom of the ad is written, â€Å" 15% of your height is added during your teen years and milk can help make the most of it.† A seventeen year old girl looks at this ad and is tempted to look just like her, so not only is this ad logical it also appeals to a girl’s emotional side. You would not find this ad in a car magazine for older men. Ad companies are not just trying to sell you a product they are trying to sell you the image of their product. It is not just magazine companies that try to get people to buy their product by appealing to emotions, logic and ethics, the pr... ...information posted about the company have a copyright from The National Milk Processor Promotion Board. When we see an ad campaign we know who the company is and exactly what they are selling. We have already seen how different tactics that companies use appeal greatly to ones emotions and ethics but exactly how logical is it? We never consider who is telling us that milk is good. People believe buying milk is right because the ads continuously state that it is good. The campaign for milk appeals to people’s emotions, ethics and their logic, it works because, people continue to buy milk. There are so many ads for milk out there that people just see them and believe that milk is right for them because it says so. People will continue living like this, buying the product without really knowing who sells it because it works, they get money for it and we get milk.

The Free Will/Determinism Paradox Essay -- Free will Decisions Determi

The Free Will/Determinism Paradox Most of us humans, I would guess, prefer to think we have free will. That is, we prefer to think we are able to make choices or decisions based upon our own unique volitions. Such thought appeals to our vanities. If we make â€Å"good† choices and decisions, our self-esteem is elevated, and this gives us pleasure. On the other hand, most of our knowledge leads us in the direction of believing the universe’s functions are deterministic. That is, our knowledge tells us that choice is not necessary to our description of the universe. Events occur as a result of the events which preceeded them. For example, if we strike the cue-ball properly, the 8-ball will be knocked into the billiard table pocket which we intended. We have developed a paradox in our thinking. How can we have free will and the remainder of the universe be deterministic? Our attempts at resolution have been primarily religion oriented. This resolution presumes that we humans are special within the universe. The devine creator gave us free will. Simple as that! The downside of such resolution is that it is not based upon knowledge. It is faith. We might argue that it is an a priori principle. However, this position is tenuous since none of our observation or data support this principle. The logical resolution is to postulate that we do not possess free will. Rather, we have the impression of free will because we do not know all the factors and events which determine our choices or decisions. Therefore, in the presence of inadequate knowledge, we have an illusion of free will, but with more knowledge we would be able to see the determinism in our actions. Another attempt at resolution of the free will/determinism paradox has evolved from the incorporation of probability theory into modern physics. Probability theory is based upon the concept that outcomes of events can be confined within a set of possible outcomes. Further, knowing the characteristics of the set of possible outcomes allows us to make predictions as to what the most probable outcomes will be. Thus, modern physical theories may be thought of as a blend of free will with determinism. A specific event outcome is not determined, but the outcome of many such events (the set of possible outcomes) is determined. For example, we cannot say when a specific radioactive molecule will decay, but w... ...ity is analogous to defining the characteristics of randomness even though true randomness does not exist. So what are some of the characteristics of free will? I believe the principal characteristic of free will is that whatever choices or decisions we make, these choices or decisions should be dependent upon the character or state of our individual being. That is, I make choices or decisions based upon who I am. My choices or decisions are not random, nor are they the direct result of someone else’s being. This is achieved in a determined universe, not an undetermined universe. In a determined universe, I am the product of all events which I or my ancestors have experienced. I am a unique being and my choices or decisions are the result of who I am! Thus, I have the principal characteristic of free will even though the universe is determined. In conclusion, the real paradox of free will/determinism is that free will can exist only in a determined universe. In order to exercise our free will, our actions must have the potential to effect the outcome of events. Our actions cannot effect an event outcome unless there is a cause-effect relationship. Cause-effect is determinism.

Macro-Environment Analysis of Italy and 12 C Frameworks

Executive summary The assignment starts with an introduction and Macro-environment analysis of Italy and 12 C frameworks. Macro environment is based on economic factors, social cultural forces, political and technological things that affect the organisation inside. It is important for a company to identify the possible political risk s in the country. Political risk is based on changes in the political environment that may have a direct impact on business.The political factors have influence on the tax that the business has to paid, the currency of the country and the business procedures that need to be carried out in order to be able to open a business in Italy. The economic factors are indicative of the economic stability of the country and are based on the GDP, the global rank of doing business, the influence of tourism. The social environment includes the cultural differences between Italy and the US and is based on people behaviour, the capacity to pay and the employment recruit ment process.The report shows that people have changed their habits and life style to lower-cost activities as a result of the recession. The technology factors describe the advantages of using e –marketing. The clothes/apparel market is analysed. This is an important factor as it shows who the main leaders in the market are. Porter Five Forces Module helps to identify the competition based on potential entrants, buyers power, substitutes, suppliers and competitive rivalry. The second part describes the principal challenges that the Italian market presents to the company in selling its products.The third part is about the possible entry module for Forever 21. The entry module is often selected according to the organisational development. The final part is about the marketing mix and the elements that Forever 21 needs to adapt to. List of contents page Executive summary 2 List of contents 3 Introduction 4Geographical area 4 Political factors 4-5 Economic factors 5-6 Soci al environment factors 7 Technologies factors 8-9 Foster five forces 9 Task 2 9-10 Task 3 Module entry 10-11 Task 4 Marketing mix 10-11 Bibliography 12-13 Appendix 1: Starting a business in Italy 14 Appendix 2: Business procedures 14 Appendix 3: Country comparison 14 Graph 1 Europe retail industry segment 2009 14 Graph 2 Italy Apparel industry 15 Appendix 4 Hofsteade module of culture 15 Appendix 5 Advertising media in Italy 16 Introduction Forever 21 is a fashion shop which is aimed at the 16-to 35-year-olds. The target customers are the teenagers and the young adults. The company is specialised in the retailing of clothes, footwear and accessories for women. Forever 21 is looking to open a store in Italy.To be able to do this it needs to analyse the Italian market. The use of macro environment analysis and 12 C framework will help the business decide whether or not to open a store there. Geographical area Italy has an important geo-political location. It is situated in South -Central Europe. To the North it borders with France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia, which means easy access in terms of doing business with these countries. It is a member of Europe Union (BBC article country profile 2011). Forever 21 can use ship vessels or air transportation to transfer their products to Italy. Political factors The Prime Minister of the country is Silvio Berlusconi.The current government of Silvio Berlusconi has a majority in Parliament, which makes it possible for him to carry out a number of reform measures and make the main decisions for the country (Data Monitor 2011). Developing close ties with theUS The Italian government has been co-operating with the US in the formulation of defense, security and peace-keeping policies. This shows that these two countries enjoy good relations. This is an advantage for Forever 21 because this company originally came from the US , so that it shouldn’t be a problem for an US Company to open a store in Italy. Curr ency The currency that is used in Italy is the Euro.This mean as that it wouldn’t be difficult for the company to exchange US dollars into Euros because Forever 21 has already had experience in this aspect in Dublin. There are various policies that need to be followed in order to sell apparel in Italy. The foreign investment laws of Italy are similar to those of other EU countries ( Datamonitor 2011). So it shouldn’t be a problem for a foreign company from any of the EU member countries to operate a business there. Taxes VAT is another important factor that any business has to face. VAT is indirect taxation which is collected for the government by the seller who is able to add percentage to the basic price of the product.Italian value-added tax (VAT) is at a standard rate of 20% which is applied on the sales value of all goods (Economic Watch 2011). VAT is payable by all manufacturers, wholesalers, retailers and most service and transport businesses. Contractual obliga tion These are the procedures that need to be observed in order to start a business in Italy. The normal commission that needs to be paid is a deposit of 25% of the amounts contributed in cash with a bank. The other thing is to pay a government grant tax to the post Office which costs 310 euro and finally register online with the Register of Enterprises. Appendix 1 shows that Italy is ranked on 68-th place in starting a business.Appendix 2 shows the business procedures, times and days that have to be observed. Economic factors Since 2008, the country has been under the influence of the global recession. The economic record shows a negative growth rate of -1%. The recession has had a negative impact on the country by declining exports and reducing consumer spending. In 2010, the economy showed some signs of recovery based on the GDP growing at a rate of 0. 6 compared to -1% in 2008. In 2011, the economy expects to rise by 1 % ( Datamonitor 2011). Appendix 3 shows that Italy is ranked on 8-th place with relation to GDP. â€Å"The Economy Set to Go from Worse to Bad†. This means the economy doing well, it has managed to recover after the recession.Italy has been playing a significant role in the world economy and is one of the founding members of the EU community. It is the seventh largest economy in the world and the fourth in Europe in terms of GDP, which stood at $1. 11 trillion in 2009 (Datamonitor 2011). This can serve as evidence that the country has a good economic stability. The World Economic Forum (WEF) and the Global Competitiveness Report for 2010/2011 ranked Italy 48th out of 139 countries. As a world seventh largest economy, located within the European Union, there is a strong competition for a market share in all Italian industries and service sectors. This means it could be difficult for Forever 21 to deal with the high competition.The World Bank’s Doing Business Report 2011 ranked Italy 80th out of 183 countries. This shows that the re are good conditions for doing business there. The high ranking includes the legal environment for businesses and the easy way that a business may be formed and operated in the country. Tourim The country’s main economic sectors are tourism, fashion, motor vehicles and food. Tourism is one of the fastest growing and profitable sectors of the country: with 43. 7  million international tourist arrivals and total receipts estimated at $42. 7  billion, Italy is the fourth highest tourism earner and the fifth most visited country in the world (BBC country report 2011). This makes tourism a big contributor to Italy’s economy.This intensive tourism is an advantage for Forever21 because tourists could be some of their customers, taking into consideration that lower-price items are offered by the company. If the company attracts tourists as buyers, this will facilitate its popularity because more people may hear about this brand and thus make it easily recognised around t he world. The Italian economy is separated into a developed industrial North, dominated by private companies and a less developed South. Italy's northern region is the richest and one of the most expensive in Europe, while the southern region is known as the â€Å"Mezzogiorno†, where there is high unemployment. This means it may benefit the company if it opens a store in the southern parts.This will create job opportunities for unemployed people and the costs of operating the business should be less expensive in this area (World Fact Book 2011). It is very important for a business to carefully choose the location because on it will depend how profitable and successful this business can be in future. Comparatively high tax The tax rates in Italy are very high. The local tax rate is 3. 9%, this making the effective tax rate 31. 4% which is higher than the other EU countries where the average is 25. 04% ( Datamonitor 2011). This means that when the company opens a store in Italy it will have to pay higher taxes than in other EU countries. Social and environment factors CultureCulture has an important impact on how effectively the organisation operates and has an important implication as to employee motivation. Culture can differ from business to business. Failures can increase significantly when dealing with people whose values, beliefs, customs and first language are different from your own (Hoecklin 1995). However, if a company can manage amidst different cultural environments, this could lead to innovative business practices faster and provide tangible benefits which can be used competitively. It is important for Forever 21 to identify the cultural differences between the US and Italy in order to be successful with the business. Hofsteade 1995 module helps to analyse the differences based onPower Distance, Long Term Orientation, Individualism, Masculinity and Uncertainty Avoidance. In Appendix 4, it is shown that the US have high rank on Individualism, which means that in a business perspective an organisation is not expected to look after its employees – rather the employees are expected to defend their own interests. Italy has a high rank on Uncertainty avoidance, which means that Italians are less risk-taking people. These are some aspects that are specific for the Italian culture. The official language that is spoken there is Italian. It will be difficult to start a business in Italy if you don’t know the Italian language (Hofsteade1984).According to Lewis analysis, the saying ’’Time is money† is not a popular phrase in Italy. They do not make business decisions quickly, they do take their time. All foreign businesses should be aware of the fact that it could take longer time before they come to a decision. Italy has developed a reputation for producing high quality luxury goods. Fashion and fashion designs are trademarks of Italy. Therefore, in the business world, good clothes are a signature of success (Hofsteade 1984). This is based on consumer behavior analysis. That brand loyalty exists is a fact. This shows that Forever21 clothes may not be very successful in the Italian market.However, the recession has affected the consumer habits, as the Italian economy has been slow to recover and the unemployment rate continued to rise from 6. 2% in 2007 to 8. 4% in 2010. Appendix 3 shows that the country takes the 98-th place in terms of high unemployment and that there is 1. 4% inflation. Opening a store there would create job opportunities. Capacity to pay Italians have adapted their habits and lifestyles to lower-cost activities during the economic downturn, which benefited supermarkets or hypermarkets (The World Fact Book 20110). In 2010, consumers became more price sensitive, in both the grocery and non-grocery channels. This is an example of switching costs, it means consumers are able to transfer their customs to new players.Employment recruitment process Hiring employ ees in Italy must be taken into account before starting a business. You must enter into a contract under the Italian Labor Law and employees enjoy extensive rights. If you buy an existing business, you may be required to take on existing staff who cannot be dismissed, otherwise high redundancy compensation have to be paid. It’s very expensive to hire employees, because, in addition to salaries, you must pay an additional amount of around 50% in social security contributions, 13 and possibly 14 months’ salary, five or six weeks paid annual holiday, plus pay for public holidays, sickness, maternity (Datamonitor 2011).This shows that hiring employees in Italy will be more expensive than in the other EU countries in which Forever 21 has already opened stores. Technologies Internet retailing experienced the highest value growth of all retail channels in 2010. A significant proportion of sales shifted from store-based to Internet retailing. The main underlying reason for thi s was that the Internet is still considered as a low-price retail channel, based on fact that Internet retailing enjoys the lowest travel and transport cost, and allows price comparisons between many competitors (Euromonitor 2010). The benefit of using e-marketing in selling goods and services online allows you to enter the global market and is saving you money in terms of overhead charges (Gaudin 2002).A well designed website with friendly pages may persuade users. Forever 21. com is an example of a well designed web-site. It is divided into various sections, according to the items that the company sells, such as shoes, dresses, featured items, sales, accessories, etc. This makes it easy and quick for customers to find what they are looking for (Forever21). Choices It is important for the company to analyse the clothes market for this will help the business identify how risky it may be to open a store there. The retail industry includes all menswear, women’s wear and childre n wear such as: tops, underwear, coach, jeans, jackets, dresses and skirts for girls.Graph1 shows that Italy holds 17. 4% of the clothes market. This grants the country the second place in Europe in the retail industry, after Germany which has 19. 5%. The European apparel industry is an important economic factor, based on trade, employment, investment and revenue all over the world (Dtamonitor 2010). Concentration – Market value Women’s wear is the largest segment of the apparel retail industry in Italy, accounting for 54. 9% of the market value in comparison with men’s wear, which has 31. 7% ( Datamoninor 2010) – see Graph 2. This means women buy more clothes than men do. This is a good factor for Forever 21 because their products are not targeted at men.The retail industries in Italy have declined in 2008 and are expected to recover over 2011 (Datamonitor 2010 ). This is a result from the recession – as consumers’ incomes fail, they have l ess money to spend on clothes than before. There will be a growing demand for discount apparel retail stores that provide low-cost output fashion. Porter five forces module can help identify the degree of competition based on potential entrants, buyers power, substitutes, suppliers and competitive rivalry. This analysis will reduce the risk of high competition by identifying the competitors strategies for the future. Forever21 can apply some of these strategies and use them in their own business. SuppliersKey suppliers in this industry are clothing manufacturers and wholesalers, with retailers able to source from both. There is a risk of choosing low chain supplier such as it may not be able to deal with changes in demand, industry, changing in fashion as well. Substitutes While there are no substitutes for women’s wear, they are alternatives to retail. These include buying directly from manufacturers as opposed to the conventional distribution chain, something which is facil itated by the growth of online sales. All major women’s wear retailers now have their own online store so many people prefer to buy products online. This has increased the buyers power on the market (Dunning 2008).This is a good factor because Forever 21 has their own website where people can shop online. Retail The retailer strategy is based on price by providing low-cost products during the recession period. This is their strategy, to recognise the price sensitivity of their target customers and compete on price selling clothes as cheap as possible and as other suppliers. Buyers All buyers are individual consumers who have different styles and preferences. Buyer behaviour plays an important role for customer choice based on different factors such as: home-made clothing, different colours, brand loyalty, price , designer label, quality, supply reliability, fashion, culture, believes, friends and family influence.Competitors These are some of the main players in the retail in dustries in Italy that will have a direct influence to Forever21 in terms of price, similar target audience and products. These companies also have their own web-sites where customers are able to shop online. These are famous brands companies that sell quality clothes for the young audience. H&M Strengths H&M is a retailer which is targeting its products at women, men, teenagers and children. The company offers national brands and private label merchandise in many categories, including cosmetics, accessories and footwear. H&M operated 1,738 stores in 33 countries in November 2008.H&M adopted the concept of regional grouping with purchases and distributes the merchandise to a region. Their strategies involved transferring the central design, buying, logistics and stock-keeping functions to the new company. The company also has its own web-site where customers are able to shop online, to see what’s new in a store, compare prices, etc. Weaknesses: There is a high competition as companies such as TopShop, Bershka and Terranova are famous brands that sell similar products on the Italian market and are based on fashion, quality price and the same target audience. The weaknesses for Forever 21 will be the same. Strengths: Industria S. A. s created from various different companies, including Zara, Bershka, Pull and Bear, Massimo Dutti, Stradivarius. All of these companies have a similar culture. All of them are in the clothes industry. However, these companies don’t have a direct competition between each other because their product style is differs from one another. Breshka clothes are cheap and their audience is the 16-to-25-year age group. Zara is more specialised in the young professionals group. Zara is present in 73 countries, with a network of 1,341 stores located in major cities. Bershka sales format has 626 stores in 41 countries. Bershka stores are large and spacious. All of these companies produce quality clothes and follow the latest trends in fashion (Mintel 2011). Task 2The analysis of the retail clothes industry on Italy shows that it will be advantageous for the company to open a store there. The key elements of the research are the strong economic stability of the country, the high tourism, the technologies factors and the place that the Italian market for clothes occupies in Europe. The country has managed to recover from the big recession since 2008. This is an advantage for any foreign business that would like to invest in Italy. There are good conditions of doing business there. The market value shows that the women dominate in the clothes market. The women retail market has 61. 3% of the total market by selling clothes and accessories (Datamonitor 2010). There is a monopolistic competition within the clothes retailers.This means many firms sell products that are similar but not identical based on brand, quality, designer†¦ The environment factors show that consumers have adapted their lifestyle to discount retailers. It will be an advantage for the country to have a retailer of non-designer women’s wear, especially for customers with lower disposable incomes. The good relations between the US and Italy also plays an important role for opening a business in Italy. The Italian government has played an important role in the industry by attracting foreign investments to the country through low-barriers entry. It is said in the report that the government uses similar restrictions as are used in Europe.The Italian government welcomes foreign investments in most industries especially when they create jobs. All factors show that it will be challenging for the company to open a store in Italy and adapt to the Italian culture. But then, isn’t doing a business a challenge in itself! Task 3 – Module entry International Franchising is the possible module entry to Italy that is appropriate for the company based on all factors described in the report. The Franchising method wil l be easy to transfer to foreign locations. The licensing agreement and franchising agreement are put on formal contract with typical terms. ’’ Franchising is a method of distributing goods and services by licensing a business idea or concept to another. ’ (Amerilawyer 2011) International Franchising is a faster form of international business. A firm sells limited rights to the use of its brand name to a foreign firm in return for a sum payment and share of 50% of the profits. There are a lot of advantages of using the franchise. The Franchise can establish a well know product and operating system, good reputation, support services and it can expand internationally. The Franchise will reduce the risk and cost of module entry and easier time securing financing because the Franchisor typically has an established trademark and good marketplace experience. These are the reasons why Forever 21 should take it into consideration.The franchise also involves some local m arket customs and culture from the host country (Griffin and Pustay 2010). However, there are some disadvantages of the franchising agreement such as the profit needs to be shared, there is dependence on the licensee as to how to sell the products including policies, potential loss of control of manufacturing and marketing. The Franchisor controls any advertising conducted by the Franchisee. Task 4 – Marketing Mix The Marketing Mix includes Product, Price, Promotion and Place. In order to achieve their marketing objectives, Forever 21 needs to have a strategy that includes different elements – the various parts of the marketing mix. ProductClothes normally have short life cycle based on seasonal factors and fashion. The brand is very successful and well known in the US. However, it will be new for the Italian market. It may take a long time for the company to create a strong brand name there. According to Lynch 1994, it will take it at least five years to establish a b rand and short-term reimbursement should not be expected. The brand is an important part of any business because this is the thing that makes the products different from the competitors’ and are easy to be recognised as a design and a way to an established product position in the market. This makes it easy to buy or sell products.A strong brand speaks about the function and charter of the product and helps consumers decide whether this is their kind of product, specially when new and untried products are considered. Creating brand loyalty and creating something special to consumers mind makes it difficult for the competitors to â€Å"touch it† (Brassington and Pettitt 2007). The Italian culture shows that quality plays an important part in the consumer behavior in Italy. It will be an advantage for the company to improve the quality of its products in the first stage and, on the next stage it may increase the price so that it may compete on the Italian market with othe r companies. Using sales advisor will be another advantage which could make more people prefer to go shopping in the Forever 21 stores. PricingPricing is an important part of the Marketing Mix because it is a balance between serving to customer’s needs and wants and serving the needs of the organisation to cover its costs of manufacturing, marketing and making a profit. The company is famous with the fact that it produces clothes that are not expensive and many people can afford them. The environment factors show that consumers in Italy are prepared to pay more but to wear quality clothes. The company has to come with pricing strategies to increase the price of the products and create better quality or to keep the same as it is now. The choice of a launch price should take into account the future plans for the pricing and positioning of the product. Penetration pricing is one of the possible price strategies that Forever 21 may use.Penetration pricing is used when entering a big market for a short period of time and then the organisation may price aggressively below the existing competition. However, this method could be a risky strategy because it could establish a poor quality brand image. The latter may lead to a situation where it will be difficult to raise the price (Brassington and Petitt 2007). The company may consider using 20% discounts for students because their target audience is based on young people. This will surely attract more customers. Promotion The power of the media has a big influence on building a brand. Brand advertising may increase the buyer power. These are some of the leading media groups in Italy: Mediaset is one of the leading commercial television operators with 32. % of the Italian media; Gruppo Editoriale L'Espresso has 14. 0%. These companies are concentrated on publishing, radio, advertising, internet businesses and national television, newspapers and magazines (Datamonitor 2011). Appendix 5 shows that people in Italy a re more influenced by the TV adverts and newspapers. This means it will be a good idea if Forever 21 uses TV commercials to advertise the opening of the new store in Italy. However, this is the most expensive method and will cost a lot of money to the business. Using online advertising will help the company attract the right audience by using Facebook, Yahoo! and MSN because these web-pages are part of everyday life of the young people. PlaceThe company has to decide in which part of Italy it would be feasible to locate the store, in the North or the South. Most businesses are located in the northern region. However the company has to find a big place with an average area of 5,000 sq. m. This will be very expensive in the North and could be difficult for the company to afford it. For this reason, the company may open an out- of- town store, which would be cheaper than the town centre location and also could offer a big parking facility for the customers. A product sold out- of- town is likely to be cheaper than in a store located in the town centre. Bibliography Amerilawyer(2011)Franchise agreement (Internet)Available from: http://www. amerilawyer. om/agreements/agreementindex/assetpurchase/franchise. htm Access on 17 April 2011 Brassington,F and Pettitt,S(2007)Essential of Marketing:, 2nd edition Personal Education Limited april,p242 Datamonitor (2009) Europe retail industry segment (Internet) Available from www. Datamonitor. om Access on 15 April 2011 Datamonitor(2010) Italy apparel retail industry(Internet )Available from www,Datamonitor. com Access on 15 April 2011 Datamonitor(2011) Italy Country analysis report In-depth PESTLE Insights(Internet)Available from www. Datamonitor. com Access on 16 April 2011 Doing Business( 2011) Italy making a difference for entrepreneurs (Internet )Available from http://www. doingbusiness. rg/~/media/fpdkm/doing%20business/documents/profiles/country/db11/ita. pdf Access on 13 April 2011 Dunning, J. H. , Lundan, S. M. (2008) Multinational Enterprises and the Global Economy 2nd edition, Edward Elgar: Cheltenham Hoecklin L. (1995) Managing Cultural Differences. Stage for Competitive Advantage. addison-Wesley Publishers Hofsteade G. (1984) Culture’s Consequences: International Differences in Work Related Values. Beverly Hills, California: Sage Publications Gaudin,S. (2002)’The Site of No Return’, (Internet) Available from www. cyberatlas. internet. com Access on 5 January 2011 Griffin W and Pustay. W( 2010)International business Global Edition 6th edition Personal EducationEconomic watch (2011) Value Added tax, (Internet) Available from http://www. economywatch. com/business-and-economy/italy. html Access on 10 April 2011 European country( 2011) Italy (internet)Available from http://europa. eu/abc/european_countries/eu_members/italy/ Access on 11 April 2011 Euromonitor International( 2011) Retailing in Italy Available from http://www. euromonitor. com/retailing-in-italy/report Access on 14 April 2011 International VAT service(2011) Italian VAT (Internet)Available from http://www. tmf-vat. com/vat/italian-vat. html Access on 12 April 2011 Lynch ,R(1994)European Business Strategies: The European and Global Strategies of Europe’s Top Companies,Kogan pageMintel Global Market navigator (2010) Italy – Advertising: Market segmentation by value (Internet)Available at www. Mintel. com Access on 17/04/2011 The world bank doing business (2011) Ease of Doing Business in Italy (Internet) Available from http://www. doingbusiness. org/ExploreEconomies/? economyid=96 Access on 10 April 2011 Worldwide tax (2011) Italy VAT ant other tax (Internet)Available from http://www. worldwide-tax. com/italy/ita_other. asp Access on 13 April 2011 The world fact book (2011)Europe Italy( Internet)Available from https://www. cia. gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/it. html Access on 15April 2011 Appendix 1Start a business |Doing Business 2011 rank | |Starting a busi ness |68 | |Register property |95 | |Getting credit |89 | |Paying taxes |128 | (Doing business 2011) Appendix2 Business procedures |Procedure number |6 |days |6 | |Cost of income per capital |18. 5% | |Paid minimum capital |10. 1% | Appendix 3 Country Comparison |Rate2010 |Country comparison | |GPD 1. 1 |8 | |Unemployment rate 8. |98 | |Public debit 118. 1% |8 | |Inflation1. 4% |36 | Graph1 . Europe retail industry segment 2009 [pic](Datamonitor 2009) Graph 2 Italy apparel retail industry [pic] (apparel retail in Italy Datamonitor 2010) Appendix 4 Hofsteade module of culture differences [pic] Appendix 5 Advertising media [pic] (Mintel Global Market Navigator 2010) Segment 2009 (m EUR)