tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28329097702752337412024-03-13T13:03:45.495-07:00Write a reflection paperEditing College EssaysLawrence Webberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15313206287305224370noreply@blogger.comBlogger37125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2832909770275233741.post-21648647134205958992020-08-26T19:45:00.001-07:002020-08-26T19:45:09.047-07:00JURNAL 4 + 5 ( Marketing subject ) Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 wordsJURNAL 4 + 5 ( Marketing subject ) - Assignment Example The new 2010 GLK is situated as a moderate and dependable SUV in the financial circumstance that everybody faces. The socioeconomics of the city offer the best crowd for the SUV as the populationsââ¬â¢ age, salary are the characteristics that the Mercedes-Benz 2010 GLK positions to target. The Denver Post is the most perused paper in Denver. By putting the notice in Denver Post, the organization wishes to focus on all the youthful just as grown-up females and guys who wish to drive moderate vehicles in style. The 2010 GLK is being publicized not by the Mercedes-Benz showrooms however by a retail/utilized vehicles merchant called Murray Motor Imports. The promotion is high contrast and uses basic strong composing style giving a lot of detail of the vehicle as could be expected under the circumstances. The highly contrasting promotion is normally seen by the perusers as dull and exhausting. The composing style of the promotion utilizes one textual style with various text dimensions which is plain not alluring. The notice has one 2010 GLK picture with a striking slogan. The ad is level with no dynamic highlights and no situation that could best speak to the SUV. No logo of the Mercedes-Benz organization or the Murray Motor Imports has been utilized aside from the name of the last organization. The commercial is essentially positioned to present the new SUV at the most minimal rates that the organization brings to the table in rivalry with other retail vehicle outlets in the zone. The target of the ad is to pull in the expected clients to the showroom with the goal that they can come and examine the new SUV. So as to grab the eye of target crowd, Murray Motor Imports is offering different special offers, for example, a free test drive. What's more, the organization is offering an alluring lease rate to bait in clients. Another offer utilized by the organization to pull in the clients is a fortunate draw for a shopping binge. All these promoting offers are intended to the intended interest group of 2010 GLK Lawrence Webberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15313206287305224370noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2832909770275233741.post-62488058229420862632020-08-22T09:19:00.001-07:002020-08-22T09:19:13.210-07:00Ryanair Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 wordsRyanair - Essay Example Watchman proposes that a firm ought to follow either separation procedure or cost-initiative. They don't present a crucial vision however they keep on being the biggest minimal effort pioneer in the European air industry (Box and Byus 2007). This requires a flat out commitment to minimal effort execution in each component of the worth chain. Along these lines, they have brisk door turnarounds, non-association activities, their pay plans are as execution based motivating forces, and they fly to auxiliary air terminals which also brings about cost reserve funds. They have been fruitful so far in light of the fact that they could go up against the convention transporters as buyers have become cost cognizant. They can keep up value bit of leeway and they get a large portion of their appointments on the web. They recreated the South West Airline model of offering ââ¬Å"no frillsâ⬠benefits and concentrated on the most value touchy section (Leavy 2003). Is Ryanairââ¬â¢s methodolog y practical? Ryanairââ¬â¢s procedure has gotten faulty because of the effect of cost investment funds in each capacity. This can be better comprehended through natural investigation. Michael Porter has built up a lot of devices and structure for natural investigation. ... Efficient The economy of Europe in general is steady and the control of Euro as the basic money adds to dependability. The shoppers in Europe too are steady so by and large the conservative factor has low effect on the business. Nonetheless, outside Europe the market is lacking and these economies are temperamental. Also, the monetary emergency has affected all minimal effort transporters since 2008 which debris incited tough activities from the ease bearers (Dunn 2009). Social The carrier business relies upon the changing purchaser request. Ryanair could succeed so far due to the value cognizance of the customers. In any case, purchaser socioeconomics continue changing and the aircraft must be perceptive of the changing buyer inclination. Indeed, even a little value distinction can change the outlook of the most steadfast shopper. Subsequently the social factor has a high effect. Innovative The mechanical factor has a low effect on the grounds that Ryanair has put resources into nor malized however most recent airplanes. Be that as it may, they don't utilize innovation in worker relations or in client relationship the executives. Legitimate This has a high effect as they have been charged by the EU for accepting unlawful endowments for its base air terminal (Oââ¬â¢Higgins 2005). Its site likewise had a few purchaser objections which incited the carrier to close down the site (Oââ¬â¢Higgins 2005). The aircraft was additionally in a debate against the British Airports Authority (BAA) for supposed restraining infrastructure maltreatment over fuel demands. Ecological This has a high effect on the grounds that ââ¬Ëclimate assurance chargeââ¬â¢ has been exacted against the carrier. Visit arrivals and take-off on short-pull flights have high effect on the earth (Oââ¬â¢Leary 2007). PESTLE Evaluation The outer ecological examination proposes low effect Lawrence Webberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15313206287305224370noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2832909770275233741.post-77106710529804535132020-08-21T06:37:00.003-07:002020-08-21T06:37:49.449-07:00CP6 Sales Process Optimization with Velocify - Podcast with Nick Hedges CP6 Sales Process Optimization with Velocify - Podcast with Nick Hedges INTRODUCTIONMartin: Hi, today we are here with Nick from Velocify. Hi Nick, who are you and what do you do?Nick: Hi, very nice to meet you. Yes, I am Nick Hedges. I am the CEO and Head of Velocify, which is a software service company based in Los Angeles, California.BUSINESS MODEL OF VELOCIFYMartin: Great what does your business model look like? What type of value proposition are you offering?Nick: Yes, thanks for asking. We are in the sales solution category. So what does that mean? Well, our software helps salespeople. It sits in a gap that exists between marketing automation and CRM. Marketing automation is really great at helping marketers generate leads and highly qualified leads at that. The CRM is really good at recording sales information, but the missing piece is what do the sales people actually do with leads when they are generated in marketing so that they have outcomes to record in the CRM.That is where Velocify comes in. We, essentially, very simply, make sure that ever y lead that an organization generates goes to the best possible sale person who is going to have the best conversations, and the best interactions with the company they are talking with. Then we make sure that this sales person knows what they should be working on at any point in time. What is the most important activity that I can undertake right at this very moment and on which lead? So it prioritizes a sales persons day to day in a way they can be incredibly effective at what they do and sort of the optimal process from the engagement perspective of every single lead that comes in and every single company that they want to prospect in to.So that is our business model and luckily we find that there is an awful lot of sales teams whom almost every sales team needs help in this area. Its been a good place to set up a business.Martin: Great. Nick, I understand that you are helping companies (small business size) to work on their leads in an optimized way. Are you also helping them to create even more leads and how do you do that?Nick: Yes, we do that to certain extent. If you look at our client base it runs across the gamut, from some relatively small businesses to some of the biggest companies in the US. Smaller installations probably a sales team would be Im guessing around 3 to 4 people. Our largest installation is 3 to 4 thousand people on the sales team using our product. So within that, people are definitely using our product to be successful to the needs that are coming in, but they are also being successful using our product to do prospecting.A big area currently within many sales teams is sales development. A group of individuals whose role is to take accounts with the company wants to get into. Companies inspire to sell to and then find the appropriate people within that organization to influence and convince that there is value in order to getting the sales done. One of the tools that we have is a social prospecting tool that enables you to discover who the right people are within an organization by looking at data that exists online at various different places. And then, we have the ability to really orchestrate the engagement strategy with these contacts so you are sending to them the right emails, youre making the appropriate phone calls, and you have all of that data available so that you know a bit about that prospect. For instance, you know for sure what their sales manager is. You know what their telephone number is. You also know some of the things about how they have been interacting with your website, what they are doing online, whether they are tweeting on twitter, whether they are putting information on other social networks, etc. So that you got the basis of information for a productive conversation given that you are effectively cold-calling a lot of those prospects.Martin: On your website I saw that you have a tiered pricing model on a per salesperson base so to speak. Do you also have something like a modular ki nd of pricing for different modules that you are offering to your client base?Nick: We do it to a certain extent. Although what we try and do is we package our product in editions within bundles of functionality that we think people should have together. What we use to do probably for the first ten years of our existence that has only changed a year ago, we had pricing that was highly modular. In other words, it was a menu of things that you could add. We found that lead to a lot of dissatisfaction amongst our customers because every time they wanted a new feature there was an additional cost that they had to justify within their organization. We decided to go away from that to a more bundled product offering. What we found is that has increased customer satisfaction quite a lot, because they are not initially having to go back to whoever makes decisions about what the company spends to add new features. It also means that they use more of our products. The things that they wont sig n up for on day one that we know will be valuable to people. They are bundled into editions.So, today we have simplified pricing. We have two product lines and within the product lines, there are free editions for each one of those. You have six options basically.Martin: Okay, Nick with Velocify you are trying to help other sales organizations to close more leads. How is your sales pipeline working and what role is Velocify playing in this as well?Nick: Yes, we obviously use our own products. What we try and do is be the archetypal sales organization that we can sight to our customers when we are recommending best practices. Everything we learn about sales in our thousands of consulting engagements when we increment our system at our clients we try and bring back to our sales organization.We have a pretty sophisticated sales organization structure and we have a pretty sophisticated sales process. All of it relies on Velocify being the kind of glue between all the other systems. We h ave a field sales team that works on the biggest enterprise opportunities that we go after. We have a big inside sales team that works on slightly smaller deals and also goes sales development. The sales development department is fairly big as well which has folks to do cold-calling, prospecting, or whatever you want it to describe it as and lead response. In other words, making sure they call leads when they are generated as quickly as possible and in order to have a human qualifier whether that is going to be a good opportunity for a sales person to work or not.As a consequence of having those things and having an optimized process, we have pretty outstanding conversion rates now within our sales team. What we also try to do within our sales organization is use what we call a sales laboratory. What I mean by that is there are huge numbers of different sale technologies that are being founded at the moment. What we try and do is have Velocify connected to as many of those different capabilities as possible, so that we can see how effective they are. So that way we can make appropriate recommendations to our customers as we are often being trusted by the sales leader about how they should put up their entire sales process that automatically what other technologies they should be using.Martin: Nick, what do you think, what are the more efficient and effective customer acquisition channels?Nick: The most efficient for sure is a referral. What I think is that a lot of people dont realize is how important customer happiness is. If I was to give someone one tip about how to run a great company it would look after your customers. It sounds obvious, but if you really, really delight your customers and that is something we are very focused on at Velocify in a very deep way. Everyone will tell you: Yes, we look after our customer, but it is something that is deeply ingrained in the culture here. If you do that your revenue impact is really significant.One, because it b ecomes easier to expand within your existing customer base.Two, but probably more importantly, you will get referrals from your customer base of people that they know.Those will be the best form of leads that you will ever get, because A, your customers probably already sold the person they are introducing to you. Two, it is going to be an appropriately use case because the customer understands the product well and they will affect that particular lead for you.So referrals without a doubt are something we treat like gold at Velocify, because its just very high converting and it can be a great fit, loyal, and stay with us for a long time which is the perfect customer. I would say those are the best channels.Martin: Nick, what would you say is the competitive advantage of Velocify over its competitors?Nick: There are a couple of things and there is a lot of sales technologies out there. What the majority of them do is something very specific so they focus on just emailing for just sen ding contracts, or just being a dialer. As a consequence, a lot of sales leaders are left with this belief that they need a stack of technologies in order to undertake the job of sales and that is just not true.Velocify and maybe one or two other companies are universal solutions. In other words, we have telephony, we have email, we have text, we also have all the components required to do things like sales process optimization. We also have the capabilities to reward and incent people in the appropriate way to get the right behaviors. Some people call it gamification, we actually call it rewardification at Velocify, because we approach gamification in a differentiated way than any other player out there.I would say that the major benefit from our perspective is the universal solution where you dont need a whole set of other capabilities.Martin: When you think about scaling the company do you perceive some specific type of advantage of having economies of scale? For example, when I am thinking about really having most of the data and really putting some kind of machine learning on it so your recommendations for who should work a lead are becoming much more valuable. Do you think about your business like that?Nick: For sure, as I said one of the key things that we do is to optimize the sales process for our customers. We have the benefit of having implemented our solution with over 5,000 sales organizations. We have seen not only how those sale organizations have approached the optimization of their sales process, but we have seen the outcomes. We have seen what works and what doesnt work at a very kind of data granular way. We are able to use those learnings to re-optimize the sales process of every customer that comes to us. That makes us incredibly effective in its just knowledge that you cant gain overnight. There is billions and billions of transactions that have gone through our systems. So it is a very rich set of data.I think we also have the benefit th at unlike a lot of other companies were genuinely a platform that works extremely well for customers that sell to consumers and also for businesses that sell to businesses where really no one has the expertise and the knowledge of what the valuable learnings for either side are. For instance, we know what is the most effective sales process for a company selling to consumers, but we also know aspect that businesses sell to businesses can learn from it and vice versa. A lot of proprietary knowledge and data that we have picked up over the years that seemed helpful.I think there are other significant economies of scale as well, practically when you are selling to large businesses. Large businesses are typically looking at how robust your technology infrastructure is, how big the company is and how likely it will be in business for the next several years. Now that we have been around for 10 or 11 years that is something that is a lot easier when the company was 2 years old. That is som ething that entrepreneurs have to be very clever at navigating around if their ambition is to sell to large enterprises.Martin: If there is something like a lock-in effect once an organization buys into your product and you learn where to send the lead to then there is something like a lock-in effect. Does this imply that in your sales process that in the beginning maybe you are offering 3 month free trial period to get this kind of knowledge and get more customers on board? Only start the pricing then or does you pricing from the first day onwards?Nick: Though it is interesting, you are definitely very perceptive about our product in the stickiness of it. Some of the ways we think about it. However, we are not big fans off doing pilots for periods of time. The reason is this, our product is pretty transformational to a sales organization provided that they take it seriously up front. It is not a huge implementation, but it does require thought and effort from a sales organization t hat is putting it in place for us to bring the appropriate dates and technique, but for the sales organization think about the nuances of their organization that mean certain things within the sales process that should be different from any other company.What we found is that if we offer free pilots there is no value in free. It means that the cooperation and interest level of the sale leaders that are implementing the solution as a lot less. They tend to be less effective than they should be during that pilot. We dont really do that.But what we do is what I call land and expand. It is a key part of our strategy. We know that we can get a team of five people within a large organization using our product and taking it seriously they will see huge gains and very quickly we will expand. An example of that is I met with a client last week. About a year ago they had just over a hundred people on our platform, which is not a big implementation, but its not a small one either. As it stands right now, they have been so successful with those folks that they have expanded to a contract to over 2,000 sales people on our platform. That has been say every month that we are adding another 100 sales people as they see the results with another third. Rather than doing pilots we love to do kind of prove our value and then expand out within an organization if we can do.What you say about the stickiness of the product or lock-in as you put it is absolutely right. Once you have optimized your sales process and seen the results that the platform like Velocify gives you its something that you are not going to get rid of typically.Martin: Great, one thing that I was wondering is about your pricing strategy. When I look at it on your website and your pitch on why a customer should sign up you stated something like, you will do twice the amount of leads or 188% more call time, or something like this. You only charge like higher double digit dollars, per month, per user. If I would be having a sales person and he was getting me twice as much revenue with your software I would expect a much higher monthly fee. The question from me would be, is your pricing really value based, is it based more like competitors in the market, or something like a cost approach?Nick: Its not cost approach really, but it is definitely market-based. When we tell and demonstrate the results that we anticipate our clients will get from our product based on what every other client achieves. There is a little bit of reluctance to fully believe that is going to be the case for our customers. The pricing that we offer is more based on how much they are paying for the CRM, the marketing automation system and so on. What we know typical budgets look like. When they implement our system and they get those results, the return on their investments as our pricing is astronomically positive for our clients. They tend to be very happy, but they have to see the results before they get there.What we us e to do interestingly enough, is a guarantee. We use to say if you dont get X percent improvement in conversion and Y percent improvement in qualification we will give you your money back after 3 months. Now we still believe as we did then that there is no question they will get those results. The problem we found with the money back guarantee was not that we ever had to pay it back. There was not one instance of us paying it back, but trying to assess the baseline of information became very difficult. It slowed down the sales and led to a lot of time delay from getting customers on our platform in the first place. What I mean by this, that is, that they sent so many of the organizations that we dealt with simply didnt know exactly what their qualification rate and conversion rate were on their leads. Without that, you cant really demonstrate that you have improved things. It becomes much more of an intuitive. We will bring in more revenue than we have ever had, rather than specific percentage and improvement.That probably dropped the guarantee, but philosophically I will tell people often, I guarantee that you will get these results. If you dont give me a call and we will talk about it and I am willing to let you out of your contract, because I know that you are going to get the results that we have talked about.Martin: What do you think while we are currently the biggest threats for Velocify?Nick: Well, I think there is always a threat to the company that you dont know about that is being built by some clever ambitious guys in someones back room right? I know there is always the threat that someone is going to innovate faster than we can. My challenge there is to make sure that we keep a startup mindset, however large, we grow. Anyway, that part requires continuously hiring new people with new ideas. Its about structuring teams so they have autonomy. Its about encouraging and rewarding new ideas even when they fail. It is tough to compete with early stage st art-ups from an innovation perspective. That is something as an entrepreneur when eventually you come to do something new I will be more thoughtful about how I use that as my competitive advantage. How I really beat people by continuously being innovative rather than trying to beat them on the things that you cant win on when you are a tiny company.I would say that is one thing, Id say the other threats are we sit between some big technologies. We sit in between marketing automation and customer relationship management, and generate a huge amount of value between the two. Given that we sit between two systems, it is not conceivable that marketing automation will become much more sophisticated about how they approach. What we do with CRM is trying to come up and do what we do. We feel that we have significant knowledge and significant data that neither of those two sides has. It would take them a long time to build it, but its not inconceivable that they could being single minded abo ut trying to go after our market and that would be a threat.I think one of the threats is that we are continuously thinking about what people refer to as the war for talent. We know that we have to be an incredibly employee friendly company somewhere people can really make a fantastic impact on their careers because at the end of the day a technology company dies the moment they are unable to hire the best people and retain them as well. A threat is always that there are technology companies out there with a lot of competition for the best people. Not continuing to be one of the best places to work would be a threat. It is something we invest a lot of time in. We were recognized by GlassDoor or we were recognized last year by GlassDoor as one of the top 25 companies in the country to work for etc. It would be a threat if we stopped being that because this business is all about people nothing else.Martin: Nick, Velocify is based in Los Angeles and you have briefly touched on start-up s mainly coming from Silicon Valley. Do you perceive your location to be an advantage or a disadvantage and in what type of sense?Nick: Both actually. I think its, first of all, Los Angeles isnt in the middle of nowhere. Right, so its a big city and have a vibrant technology industry and people call it Silicon Beach. A lot of big technology companies and there is a lot of start-ups here. It is really quite different from what it used to be when I turned up 12 years ago when I turned up to Los Angeles.Its a good ecosystem. Its not as expensive as Silicon Valley to live in, which is very appealing to people. We have a better lifestyle in terms of the weather is better, for sure. I will never tell people that Los Angles is a place that you get a lot more work balance because the reality is the fast growing technology companies do require an immense amount of effort and you are competing with companies from all around the world. You cant come to a successful technology company expecting to be able to work a low number of hours etc. It is a wonderful place to live in Los Angeles when you are not at work. So we think we have those advantages in terms of attracting people. Its close enough to Silicon Valley that raising money and those kind of things isnt an issue.But Id say that the disadvantage of being here is that a lot of the very best engineers are based in Silicon Valley. Particularly when it comes to software as a service and enterprise software. Although we are changing that its still for a company that aspires to have the very best people in the industry working for them, we continuously trying to pull people down from Silicon Valley, which is more of a challenge than if we were based in Silicon Valley.Id say the final thing is Silicon Valley can be a bit of a communication bubble. If you want to be covered by certain technology graphs and so on, it is sometimes more of a challenge if you are not based in San Francisco or Silicon Valley, because those parti cular journalists tend to be a little bit more focused on their doorstep than anywhere else. That can be a little bit of a challenge with being a Los Angeles based company, but only at margins. We get quite a lot of interest in this because of what we are achieving despite our location.ADVICE FROM NICK HEDGESMartin: Nick, before you joined Velocify you started your own company. Now I would be very interested in your major learnings over the years so what are the dos and donts of starting and growing a company.Nick: Yes, the first company that I founded was back at the end of the 90s, December 99 I think when I started my first start-up. That was right at the peak of dot-com, literally at the peak. A couple of months later we had the dot com crash. But we persevered through it and 3 years later the company went public. The company is based in the UK so it worked out.The things that I learned back then were hugely valuable for my role now at Velocify, because I knew very little when I first started.The first thing that I found was that was you dont need to be the most knowledgeable person about every aspect of business to be a successful entrepreneur. A lot of people that I met over the years, particularly, when I went to Harvard business school to do my MBA in between founding my first company and working at where I am now. A lot of people felt like they had to build up this long career of various different accomplishments and understand business inside out to be a successful entrepreneur. I founded my first endeavor when I was, I think I founded the company when I was like 25, that is really not the case. The most important thing is that you are determined and passionate about what you do. In fact in some ways the more you learn in business, the less effective you become as an entrepreneur because you see more obstacles. The beauty of being an entrepreneur is you have the passion and the determination that you dont even see the obstacles. As a consequence, you run straight through them when other people would stop and ponder about them. That is something that I have taken with me throughout my career journey is -everything is possible. If someone is telling you there is an obstacle, just ignore it and run through because you will probably get to the other side.I think the other thing I learned in my earliest tech start-up is to listen to my customer really carefully. So carefully that you are listening to the things that they are not saying. What I mean by that is, my first start-up would have been much more successful had we have sold one particular company. There was a multinational massive company that if we had signed up we would have really transformed the business. It was part of the business plan that we would sell this company and we never ended up doing that. We never ended up getting this particular organization as a customer of ours. Although I think we did a very good job of listening and meeting with that customer we didnt q uite listen carefully enough. We didnt ask all the right question whether they would really do somethings because there were certain things they couldnt disclose. To be more specific what my company did we were a platform for soft commodities. What we allowed was big companies and small companies to acquire things like tea, coffee, sugar, etc. at lower prices than they could get by going directly out into the market and using brokers and so on, which is what they had to do. What we found was we didnt listen carefully. What we hadnt really thought through was that the very biggest company in that market didnt necessarily want to buy at the cheapest price. They wanted that they possibly could if that meant that everyone else could buy at that low price. The game for them was being able to buy at a price that was lower than anyone else could buy because when their economies of scale. We just didnt think it through, because we didnt ask the right questions. Nowadays, when we have the st rategic initiative to go off to certain clients, I am incredibly focused on and spending time, really, truly, understanding where the value is for the customer. Brainstorming the things that they cannot tell us because it is inappropriate to tell us, but that we can figure out by other things that they told us. That was a big learning for us or a big learning for me in my first start-up.Martin: Great, very interesting, Nick. Yes, thank you so much for sharing your insights and learnings. Thank you very much for helping other sales organizations in becoming more effective. Thank you so much.Nick: Your welcome. Very nice talking with you.Martin: ThanksTHANKS FOR LISTENING! Welcome to the sixth episode of our podcast!You can download the podcast to your computer or listen to it here on the blog. Click here to subscribe in iTunes. INTRODUCTIONMartin: Hi, today we are here with Nick from Velocify. Hi Nick, who are you and what do you do?Nick: Hi, very nice to meet you. Yes, I am Nick Hedges. I am the CEO and Head of Velocify, which is a software service company based in Los Angeles, California.BUSINESS MODEL OF VELOCIFYMartin: Great what does your business model look like? What type of value proposition are you offering?Nick: Yes, thanks for asking. We are in the sales solution category. So what does that mean? Well, our software helps salespeople. It sits in a gap that exists between marketing automation and CRM. Marketing automation is really great at helping marketers generate leads and highly qualified leads at that. The CRM is really good at recording sales information, but the missing piece is what do the sales people actually do with leads when they are generated in marketing so that they have outcomes to record in the CRM.That is where Velocify comes in. We, essentially, very simply, make sure that ever y lead that an organization generates goes to the best possible sale person who is going to have the best conversations, and the best interactions with the company they are talking with. Then we make sure that this sales person knows what they should be working on at any point in time. What is the most important activity that I can undertake right at this very moment and on which lead? So it prioritizes a sales persons day to day in a way they can be incredibly effective at what they do and sort of the optimal process from the engagement perspective of every single lead that comes in and every single company that they want to prospect in to.So that is our business model and luckily we find that there is an awful lot of sales teams whom almost every sales team needs help in this area. Its been a good place to set up a business.Martin: Great. Nick, I understand that you are helping companies (small business size) to work on their leads in an optimized way. Are you also helping them to create even more leads and how do you do that?Nick: Yes, we do that to certain extent. If you look at our client base it runs across the gamut, from some relatively small businesses to some of the biggest companies in the US. Smaller installations probably a sales team would be Im guessing around 3 to 4 people. Our largest installation is 3 to 4 thousand people on the sales team using our product. So within that, people are definitely using our product to be successful to the needs that are coming in, but they are also being successful using our product to do prospecting.A big area currently within many sales teams is sales development. A group of individuals whose role is to take accounts with the company wants to get into. Companies inspire to sell to and then find the appropriate people within that organization to influence and convince that there is value in order to getting the sales done. One of the tools that we have is a social prospecting tool that enables you to discover who the right people are within an organization by looking at data that exists online at various different places. And then, we have the ability to really orchestrate the engagement strategy with these contacts so you are sending to them the right emails, youre making the appropriate phone calls, and you have all of that data available so that you know a bit about that prospect. For instance, you know for sure what their sales manager is. You know what their telephone number is. You also know some of the things about how they have been interacting with your website, what they are doing online, whether they are tweeting on twitter, whether they are putting information on other social networks, etc. So that you got the basis of information for a productive conversation given that you are effectively cold-calling a lot of those prospects.Martin: On your website I saw that you have a tiered pricing model on a per salesperson base so to speak. Do you also have something like a modular ki nd of pricing for different modules that you are offering to your client base?Nick: We do it to a certain extent. Although what we try and do is we package our product in editions within bundles of functionality that we think people should have together. What we use to do probably for the first ten years of our existence that has only changed a year ago, we had pricing that was highly modular. In other words, it was a menu of things that you could add. We found that lead to a lot of dissatisfaction amongst our customers because every time they wanted a new feature there was an additional cost that they had to justify within their organization. We decided to go away from that to a more bundled product offering. What we found is that has increased customer satisfaction quite a lot, because they are not initially having to go back to whoever makes decisions about what the company spends to add new features. It also means that they use more of our products. The things that they wont sig n up for on day one that we know will be valuable to people. They are bundled into editions.So, today we have simplified pricing. We have two product lines and within the product lines, there are free editions for each one of those. You have six options basically.Martin: Okay, Nick with Velocify you are trying to help other sales organizations to close more leads. How is your sales pipeline working and what role is Velocify playing in this as well?Nick: Yes, we obviously use our own products. What we try and do is be the archetypal sales organization that we can sight to our customers when we are recommending best practices. Everything we learn about sales in our thousands of consulting engagements when we increment our system at our clients we try and bring back to our sales organization.We have a pretty sophisticated sales organization structure and we have a pretty sophisticated sales process. All of it relies on Velocify being the kind of glue between all the other systems. We h ave a field sales team that works on the biggest enterprise opportunities that we go after. We have a big inside sales team that works on slightly smaller deals and also goes sales development. The sales development department is fairly big as well which has folks to do cold-calling, prospecting, or whatever you want it to describe it as and lead response. In other words, making sure they call leads when they are generated as quickly as possible and in order to have a human qualifier whether that is going to be a good opportunity for a sales person to work or not.As a consequence of having those things and having an optimized process, we have pretty outstanding conversion rates now within our sales team. What we also try to do within our sales organization is use what we call a sales laboratory. What I mean by that is there are huge numbers of different sale technologies that are being founded at the moment. What we try and do is have Velocify connected to as many of those different capabilities as possible, so that we can see how effective they are. So that way we can make appropriate recommendations to our customers as we are often being trusted by the sales leader about how they should put up their entire sales process that automatically what other technologies they should be using.Martin: Nick, what do you think, what are the more efficient and effective customer acquisition channels?Nick: The most efficient for sure is a referral. What I think is that a lot of people dont realize is how important customer happiness is. If I was to give someone one tip about how to run a great company it would look after your customers. It sounds obvious, but if you really, really delight your customers and that is something we are very focused on at Velocify in a very deep way. Everyone will tell you: Yes, we look after our customer, but it is something that is deeply ingrained in the culture here. If you do that your revenue impact is really significant.One, because it b ecomes easier to expand within your existing customer base.Two, but probably more importantly, you will get referrals from your customer base of people that they know.Those will be the best form of leads that you will ever get, because A, your customers probably already sold the person they are introducing to you. Two, it is going to be an appropriately use case because the customer understands the product well and they will affect that particular lead for you.So referrals without a doubt are something we treat like gold at Velocify, because its just very high converting and it can be a great fit, loyal, and stay with us for a long time which is the perfect customer. I would say those are the best channels.Martin: Nick, what would you say is the competitive advantage of Velocify over its competitors?Nick: There are a couple of things and there is a lot of sales technologies out there. What the majority of them do is something very specific so they focus on just emailing for just sen ding contracts, or just being a dialer. As a consequence, a lot of sales leaders are left with this belief that they need a stack of technologies in order to undertake the job of sales and that is just not true.Velocify and maybe one or two other companies are universal solutions. In other words, we have telephony, we have email, we have text, we also have all the components required to do things like sales process optimization. We also have the capabilities to reward and incent people in the appropriate way to get the right behaviors. Some people call it gamification, we actually call it rewardification at Velocify, because we approach gamification in a differentiated way than any other player out there.I would say that the major benefit from our perspective is the universal solution where you dont need a whole set of other capabilities.Martin: When you think about scaling the company do you perceive some specific type of advantage of having economies of scale? For example, when I am thinking about really having most of the data and really putting some kind of machine learning on it so your recommendations for who should work a lead are becoming much more valuable. Do you think about your business like that?Nick: For sure, as I said one of the key things that we do is to optimize the sales process for our customers. We have the benefit of having implemented our solution with over 5,000 sales organizations. We have seen not only how those sale organizations have approached the optimization of their sales process, but we have seen the outcomes. We have seen what works and what doesnt work at a very kind of data granular way. We are able to use those learnings to re-optimize the sales process of every customer that comes to us. That makes us incredibly effective in its just knowledge that you cant gain overnight. There is billions and billions of transactions that have gone through our systems. So it is a very rich set of data.I think we also have the benefit th at unlike a lot of other companies were genuinely a platform that works extremely well for customers that sell to consumers and also for businesses that sell to businesses where really no one has the expertise and the knowledge of what the valuable learnings for either side are. For instance, we know what is the most effective sales process for a company selling to consumers, but we also know aspect that businesses sell to businesses can learn from it and vice versa. A lot of proprietary knowledge and data that we have picked up over the years that seemed helpful.I think there are other significant economies of scale as well, practically when you are selling to large businesses. Large businesses are typically looking at how robust your technology infrastructure is, how big the company is and how likely it will be in business for the next several years. Now that we have been around for 10 or 11 years that is something that is a lot easier when the company was 2 years old. That is som ething that entrepreneurs have to be very clever at navigating around if their ambition is to sell to large enterprises.Martin: If there is something like a lock-in effect once an organization buys into your product and you learn where to send the lead to then there is something like a lock-in effect. Does this imply that in your sales process that in the beginning maybe you are offering 3 month free trial period to get this kind of knowledge and get more customers on board? Only start the pricing then or does you pricing from the first day onwards?Nick: Though it is interesting, you are definitely very perceptive about our product in the stickiness of it. Some of the ways we think about it. However, we are not big fans off doing pilots for periods of time. The reason is this, our product is pretty transformational to a sales organization provided that they take it seriously up front. It is not a huge implementation, but it does require thought and effort from a sales organization t hat is putting it in place for us to bring the appropriate dates and technique, but for the sales organization think about the nuances of their organization that mean certain things within the sales process that should be different from any other company.What we found is that if we offer free pilots there is no value in free. It means that the cooperation and interest level of the sale leaders that are implementing the solution as a lot less. They tend to be less effective than they should be during that pilot. We dont really do that.But what we do is what I call land and expand. It is a key part of our strategy. We know that we can get a team of five people within a large organization using our product and taking it seriously they will see huge gains and very quickly we will expand. An example of that is I met with a client last week. About a year ago they had just over a hundred people on our platform, which is not a big implementation, but its not a small one either. As it stands right now, they have been so successful with those folks that they have expanded to a contract to over 2,000 sales people on our platform. That has been say every month that we are adding another 100 sales people as they see the results with another third. Rather than doing pilots we love to do kind of prove our value and then expand out within an organization if we can do.What you say about the stickiness of the product or lock-in as you put it is absolutely right. Once you have optimized your sales process and seen the results that the platform like Velocify gives you its something that you are not going to get rid of typically.Martin: Great, one thing that I was wondering is about your pricing strategy. When I look at it on your website and your pitch on why a customer should sign up you stated something like, you will do twice the amount of leads or 188% more call time, or something like this. You only charge like higher double digit dollars, per month, per user. If I would be having a sales person and he was getting me twice as much revenue with your software I would expect a much higher monthly fee. The question from me would be, is your pricing really value based, is it based more like competitors in the market, or something like a cost approach?Nick: Its not cost approach really, but it is definitely market-based. When we tell and demonstrate the results that we anticipate our clients will get from our product based on what every other client achieves. There is a little bit of reluctance to fully believe that is going to be the case for our customers. The pricing that we offer is more based on how much they are paying for the CRM, the marketing automation system and so on. What we know typical budgets look like. When they implement our system and they get those results, the return on their investments as our pricing is astronomically positive for our clients. They tend to be very happy, but they have to see the results before they get there.What we us e to do interestingly enough, is a guarantee. We use to say if you dont get X percent improvement in conversion and Y percent improvement in qualification we will give you your money back after 3 months. Now we still believe as we did then that there is no question they will get those results. The problem we found with the money back guarantee was not that we ever had to pay it back. There was not one instance of us paying it back, but trying to assess the baseline of information became very difficult. It slowed down the sales and led to a lot of time delay from getting customers on our platform in the first place. What I mean by this, that is, that they sent so many of the organizations that we dealt with simply didnt know exactly what their qualification rate and conversion rate were on their leads. Without that, you cant really demonstrate that you have improved things. It becomes much more of an intuitive. We will bring in more revenue than we have ever had, rather than specific percentage and improvement.That probably dropped the guarantee, but philosophically I will tell people often, I guarantee that you will get these results. If you dont give me a call and we will talk about it and I am willing to let you out of your contract, because I know that you are going to get the results that we have talked about.Martin: What do you think while we are currently the biggest threats for Velocify?Nick: Well, I think there is always a threat to the company that you dont know about that is being built by some clever ambitious guys in someones back room right? I know there is always the threat that someone is going to innovate faster than we can. My challenge there is to make sure that we keep a startup mindset, however large, we grow. Anyway, that part requires continuously hiring new people with new ideas. Its about structuring teams so they have autonomy. Its about encouraging and rewarding new ideas even when they fail. It is tough to compete with early stage st art-ups from an innovation perspective. That is something as an entrepreneur when eventually you come to do something new I will be more thoughtful about how I use that as my competitive advantage. How I really beat people by continuously being innovative rather than trying to beat them on the things that you cant win on when you are a tiny company.I would say that is one thing, Id say the other threats are we sit between some big technologies. We sit in between marketing automation and customer relationship management, and generate a huge amount of value between the two. Given that we sit between two systems, it is not conceivable that marketing automation will become much more sophisticated about how they approach. What we do with CRM is trying to come up and do what we do. We feel that we have significant knowledge and significant data that neither of those two sides has. It would take them a long time to build it, but its not inconceivable that they could being single minded abo ut trying to go after our market and that would be a threat.I think one of the threats is that we are continuously thinking about what people refer to as the war for talent. We know that we have to be an incredibly employee friendly company somewhere people can really make a fantastic impact on their careers because at the end of the day a technology company dies the moment they are unable to hire the best people and retain them as well. A threat is always that there are technology companies out there with a lot of competition for the best people. Not continuing to be one of the best places to work would be a threat. It is something we invest a lot of time in. We were recognized by GlassDoor or we were recognized last year by GlassDoor as one of the top 25 companies in the country to work for etc. It would be a threat if we stopped being that because this business is all about people nothing else.Martin: Nick, Velocify is based in Los Angeles and you have briefly touched on start-up s mainly coming from Silicon Valley. Do you perceive your location to be an advantage or a disadvantage and in what type of sense?Nick: Both actually. I think its, first of all, Los Angeles isnt in the middle of nowhere. Right, so its a big city and have a vibrant technology industry and people call it Silicon Beach. A lot of big technology companies and there is a lot of start-ups here. It is really quite different from what it used to be when I turned up 12 years ago when I turned up to Los Angeles.Its a good ecosystem. Its not as expensive as Silicon Valley to live in, which is very appealing to people. We have a better lifestyle in terms of the weather is better, for sure. I will never tell people that Los Angles is a place that you get a lot more work balance because the reality is the fast growing technology companies do require an immense amount of effort and you are competing with companies from all around the world. You cant come to a successful technology company expecting to be able to work a low number of hours etc. It is a wonderful place to live in Los Angeles when you are not at work. So we think we have those advantages in terms of attracting people. Its close enough to Silicon Valley that raising money and those kind of things isnt an issue.But Id say that the disadvantage of being here is that a lot of the very best engineers are based in Silicon Valley. Particularly when it comes to software as a service and enterprise software. Although we are changing that its still for a company that aspires to have the very best people in the industry working for them, we continuously trying to pull people down from Silicon Valley, which is more of a challenge than if we were based in Silicon Valley.Id say the final thing is Silicon Valley can be a bit of a communication bubble. If you want to be covered by certain technology graphs and so on, it is sometimes more of a challenge if you are not based in San Francisco or Silicon Valley, because those parti cular journalists tend to be a little bit more focused on their doorstep than anywhere else. That can be a little bit of a challenge with being a Los Angeles based company, but only at margins. We get quite a lot of interest in this because of what we are achieving despite our location.ADVICE FROM NICK HEDGESMartin: Nick, before you joined Velocify you started your own company. Now I would be very interested in your major learnings over the years so what are the dos and donts of starting and growing a company.Nick: Yes, the first company that I founded was back at the end of the 90s, December 99 I think when I started my first start-up. That was right at the peak of dot-com, literally at the peak. A couple of months later we had the dot com crash. But we persevered through it and 3 years later the company went public. The company is based in the UK so it worked out.The things that I learned back then were hugely valuable for my role now at Velocify, because I knew very little when I first started.The first thing that I found was that was you dont need to be the most knowledgeable person about every aspect of business to be a successful entrepreneur. A lot of people that I met over the years, particularly, when I went to Harvard business school to do my MBA in between founding my first company and working at where I am now. A lot of people felt like they had to build up this long career of various different accomplishments and understand business inside out to be a successful entrepreneur. I founded my first endeavor when I was, I think I founded the company when I was like 25, that is really not the case. The most important thing is that you are determined and passionate about what you do. In fact in some ways the more you learn in business, the less effective you become as an entrepreneur because you see more obstacles. The beauty of being an entrepreneur is you have the passion and the determination that you dont even see the obstacles. As a consequence, you run straight through them when other people would stop and ponder about them. That is something that I have taken with me throughout my career journey is -everything is possible. If someone is telling you there is an obstacle, just ignore it and run through because you will probably get to the other side.I think the other thing I learned in my earliest tech start-up is to listen to my customer really carefully. So carefully that you are listening to the things that they are not saying. What I mean by that is, my first start-up would have been much more successful had we have sold one particular company. There was a multinational massive company that if we had signed up we would have really transformed the business. It was part of the business plan that we would sell this company and we never ended up doing that. We never ended up getting this particular organization as a customer of ours. Although I think we did a very good job of listening and meeting with that customer we didnt q uite listen carefully enough. We didnt ask all the right question whether they would really do somethings because there were certain things they couldnt disclose. To be more specific what my company did we were a platform for soft commodities. What we allowed was big companies and small companies to acquire things like tea, coffee, sugar, etc. at lower prices than they could get by going directly out into the market and using brokers and so on, which is what they had to do. What we found was we didnt listen carefully. What we hadnt really thought through was that the very biggest company in that market didnt necessarily want to buy at the cheapest price. They wanted that they possibly could if that meant that everyone else could buy at that low price. The game for them was being able to buy at a price that was lower than anyone else could buy because when their economies of scale. We just didnt think it through, because we didnt ask the right questions. Nowadays, when we have the st rategic initiative to go off to certain clients, I am incredibly focused on and spending time, really, truly, understanding where the value is for the customer. Brainstorming the things that they cannot tell us because it is inappropriate to tell us, but that we can figure out by other things that they told us. That was a big learning for us or a big learning for me in my first start-up.Martin: Great, very interesting, Nick. Yes, thank you so much for sharing your insights and learnings. Thank you very much for helping other sales organizations in becoming more effective. Thank you so much.Nick: Your welcome. Very nice talking with you.Martin: ThanksTHANKS FOR LISTENING!Thanks so much for joining our sixth podcast episode!Have some feedback youâd like to share? Leave a note in the comment section below! If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see at the bottom of the post.Also, please leave an honest review for The Cleverism Podcast on iTunes or on SoundCloud. Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and greatly appreciated! They do matter in the rankings of the show, and we read each and every one of them.Special thanks to Nick for joining me this week. Until next time! Lawrence Webberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15313206287305224370noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2832909770275233741.post-5006164188916050812020-08-21T06:37:00.001-07:002020-08-21T06:37:48.539-07:00CP6 Sales Process Optimization with Velocify - Podcast with Nick Hedges CP6 Sales Process Optimization with Velocify - Podcast with Nick Hedges INTRODUCTIONMartin: Hi, today we are here with Nick from Velocify. Hi Nick, who are you and what do you do?Nick: Hi, very nice to meet you. Yes, I am Nick Hedges. I am the CEO and Head of Velocify, which is a software service company based in Los Angeles, California.BUSINESS MODEL OF VELOCIFYMartin: Great what does your business model look like? What type of value proposition are you offering?Nick: Yes, thanks for asking. We are in the sales solution category. So what does that mean? Well, our software helps salespeople. It sits in a gap that exists between marketing automation and CRM. Marketing automation is really great at helping marketers generate leads and highly qualified leads at that. The CRM is really good at recording sales information, but the missing piece is what do the sales people actually do with leads when they are generated in marketing so that they have outcomes to record in the CRM.That is where Velocify comes in. We, essentially, very simply, make sure that ever y lead that an organization generates goes to the best possible sale person who is going to have the best conversations, and the best interactions with the company they are talking with. Then we make sure that this sales person knows what they should be working on at any point in time. What is the most important activity that I can undertake right at this very moment and on which lead? So it prioritizes a sales persons day to day in a way they can be incredibly effective at what they do and sort of the optimal process from the engagement perspective of every single lead that comes in and every single company that they want to prospect in to.So that is our business model and luckily we find that there is an awful lot of sales teams whom almost every sales team needs help in this area. Its been a good place to set up a business.Martin: Great. Nick, I understand that you are helping companies (small business size) to work on their leads in an optimized way. Are you also helping them to create even more leads and how do you do that?Nick: Yes, we do that to certain extent. If you look at our client base it runs across the gamut, from some relatively small businesses to some of the biggest companies in the US. Smaller installations probably a sales team would be Im guessing around 3 to 4 people. Our largest installation is 3 to 4 thousand people on the sales team using our product. So within that, people are definitely using our product to be successful to the needs that are coming in, but they are also being successful using our product to do prospecting.A big area currently within many sales teams is sales development. A group of individuals whose role is to take accounts with the company wants to get into. Companies inspire to sell to and then find the appropriate people within that organization to influence and convince that there is value in order to getting the sales done. One of the tools that we have is a social prospecting tool that enables you to discover who the right people are within an organization by looking at data that exists online at various different places. And then, we have the ability to really orchestrate the engagement strategy with these contacts so you are sending to them the right emails, youre making the appropriate phone calls, and you have all of that data available so that you know a bit about that prospect. For instance, you know for sure what their sales manager is. You know what their telephone number is. You also know some of the things about how they have been interacting with your website, what they are doing online, whether they are tweeting on twitter, whether they are putting information on other social networks, etc. So that you got the basis of information for a productive conversation given that you are effectively cold-calling a lot of those prospects.Martin: On your website I saw that you have a tiered pricing model on a per salesperson base so to speak. Do you also have something like a modular ki nd of pricing for different modules that you are offering to your client base?Nick: We do it to a certain extent. Although what we try and do is we package our product in editions within bundles of functionality that we think people should have together. What we use to do probably for the first ten years of our existence that has only changed a year ago, we had pricing that was highly modular. In other words, it was a menu of things that you could add. We found that lead to a lot of dissatisfaction amongst our customers because every time they wanted a new feature there was an additional cost that they had to justify within their organization. We decided to go away from that to a more bundled product offering. What we found is that has increased customer satisfaction quite a lot, because they are not initially having to go back to whoever makes decisions about what the company spends to add new features. It also means that they use more of our products. The things that they wont sig n up for on day one that we know will be valuable to people. They are bundled into editions.So, today we have simplified pricing. We have two product lines and within the product lines, there are free editions for each one of those. You have six options basically.Martin: Okay, Nick with Velocify you are trying to help other sales organizations to close more leads. How is your sales pipeline working and what role is Velocify playing in this as well?Nick: Yes, we obviously use our own products. What we try and do is be the archetypal sales organization that we can sight to our customers when we are recommending best practices. Everything we learn about sales in our thousands of consulting engagements when we increment our system at our clients we try and bring back to our sales organization.We have a pretty sophisticated sales organization structure and we have a pretty sophisticated sales process. All of it relies on Velocify being the kind of glue between all the other systems. We h ave a field sales team that works on the biggest enterprise opportunities that we go after. We have a big inside sales team that works on slightly smaller deals and also goes sales development. The sales development department is fairly big as well which has folks to do cold-calling, prospecting, or whatever you want it to describe it as and lead response. In other words, making sure they call leads when they are generated as quickly as possible and in order to have a human qualifier whether that is going to be a good opportunity for a sales person to work or not.As a consequence of having those things and having an optimized process, we have pretty outstanding conversion rates now within our sales team. What we also try to do within our sales organization is use what we call a sales laboratory. What I mean by that is there are huge numbers of different sale technologies that are being founded at the moment. What we try and do is have Velocify connected to as many of those different capabilities as possible, so that we can see how effective they are. So that way we can make appropriate recommendations to our customers as we are often being trusted by the sales leader about how they should put up their entire sales process that automatically what other technologies they should be using.Martin: Nick, what do you think, what are the more efficient and effective customer acquisition channels?Nick: The most efficient for sure is a referral. What I think is that a lot of people dont realize is how important customer happiness is. If I was to give someone one tip about how to run a great company it would look after your customers. It sounds obvious, but if you really, really delight your customers and that is something we are very focused on at Velocify in a very deep way. Everyone will tell you: Yes, we look after our customer, but it is something that is deeply ingrained in the culture here. If you do that your revenue impact is really significant.One, because it b ecomes easier to expand within your existing customer base.Two, but probably more importantly, you will get referrals from your customer base of people that they know.Those will be the best form of leads that you will ever get, because A, your customers probably already sold the person they are introducing to you. Two, it is going to be an appropriately use case because the customer understands the product well and they will affect that particular lead for you.So referrals without a doubt are something we treat like gold at Velocify, because its just very high converting and it can be a great fit, loyal, and stay with us for a long time which is the perfect customer. I would say those are the best channels.Martin: Nick, what would you say is the competitive advantage of Velocify over its competitors?Nick: There are a couple of things and there is a lot of sales technologies out there. What the majority of them do is something very specific so they focus on just emailing for just sen ding contracts, or just being a dialer. As a consequence, a lot of sales leaders are left with this belief that they need a stack of technologies in order to undertake the job of sales and that is just not true.Velocify and maybe one or two other companies are universal solutions. In other words, we have telephony, we have email, we have text, we also have all the components required to do things like sales process optimization. We also have the capabilities to reward and incent people in the appropriate way to get the right behaviors. Some people call it gamification, we actually call it rewardification at Velocify, because we approach gamification in a differentiated way than any other player out there.I would say that the major benefit from our perspective is the universal solution where you dont need a whole set of other capabilities.Martin: When you think about scaling the company do you perceive some specific type of advantage of having economies of scale? For example, when I am thinking about really having most of the data and really putting some kind of machine learning on it so your recommendations for who should work a lead are becoming much more valuable. Do you think about your business like that?Nick: For sure, as I said one of the key things that we do is to optimize the sales process for our customers. We have the benefit of having implemented our solution with over 5,000 sales organizations. We have seen not only how those sale organizations have approached the optimization of their sales process, but we have seen the outcomes. We have seen what works and what doesnt work at a very kind of data granular way. We are able to use those learnings to re-optimize the sales process of every customer that comes to us. That makes us incredibly effective in its just knowledge that you cant gain overnight. There is billions and billions of transactions that have gone through our systems. So it is a very rich set of data.I think we also have the benefit th at unlike a lot of other companies were genuinely a platform that works extremely well for customers that sell to consumers and also for businesses that sell to businesses where really no one has the expertise and the knowledge of what the valuable learnings for either side are. For instance, we know what is the most effective sales process for a company selling to consumers, but we also know aspect that businesses sell to businesses can learn from it and vice versa. A lot of proprietary knowledge and data that we have picked up over the years that seemed helpful.I think there are other significant economies of scale as well, practically when you are selling to large businesses. Large businesses are typically looking at how robust your technology infrastructure is, how big the company is and how likely it will be in business for the next several years. Now that we have been around for 10 or 11 years that is something that is a lot easier when the company was 2 years old. That is som ething that entrepreneurs have to be very clever at navigating around if their ambition is to sell to large enterprises.Martin: If there is something like a lock-in effect once an organization buys into your product and you learn where to send the lead to then there is something like a lock-in effect. Does this imply that in your sales process that in the beginning maybe you are offering 3 month free trial period to get this kind of knowledge and get more customers on board? Only start the pricing then or does you pricing from the first day onwards?Nick: Though it is interesting, you are definitely very perceptive about our product in the stickiness of it. Some of the ways we think about it. However, we are not big fans off doing pilots for periods of time. The reason is this, our product is pretty transformational to a sales organization provided that they take it seriously up front. It is not a huge implementation, but it does require thought and effort from a sales organization t hat is putting it in place for us to bring the appropriate dates and technique, but for the sales organization think about the nuances of their organization that mean certain things within the sales process that should be different from any other company.What we found is that if we offer free pilots there is no value in free. It means that the cooperation and interest level of the sale leaders that are implementing the solution as a lot less. They tend to be less effective than they should be during that pilot. We dont really do that.But what we do is what I call land and expand. It is a key part of our strategy. We know that we can get a team of five people within a large organization using our product and taking it seriously they will see huge gains and very quickly we will expand. An example of that is I met with a client last week. About a year ago they had just over a hundred people on our platform, which is not a big implementation, but its not a small one either. As it stands right now, they have been so successful with those folks that they have expanded to a contract to over 2,000 sales people on our platform. That has been say every month that we are adding another 100 sales people as they see the results with another third. Rather than doing pilots we love to do kind of prove our value and then expand out within an organization if we can do.What you say about the stickiness of the product or lock-in as you put it is absolutely right. Once you have optimized your sales process and seen the results that the platform like Velocify gives you its something that you are not going to get rid of typically.Martin: Great, one thing that I was wondering is about your pricing strategy. When I look at it on your website and your pitch on why a customer should sign up you stated something like, you will do twice the amount of leads or 188% more call time, or something like this. You only charge like higher double digit dollars, per month, per user. If I would be having a sales person and he was getting me twice as much revenue with your software I would expect a much higher monthly fee. The question from me would be, is your pricing really value based, is it based more like competitors in the market, or something like a cost approach?Nick: Its not cost approach really, but it is definitely market-based. When we tell and demonstrate the results that we anticipate our clients will get from our product based on what every other client achieves. There is a little bit of reluctance to fully believe that is going to be the case for our customers. The pricing that we offer is more based on how much they are paying for the CRM, the marketing automation system and so on. What we know typical budgets look like. When they implement our system and they get those results, the return on their investments as our pricing is astronomically positive for our clients. They tend to be very happy, but they have to see the results before they get there.What we us e to do interestingly enough, is a guarantee. We use to say if you dont get X percent improvement in conversion and Y percent improvement in qualification we will give you your money back after 3 months. Now we still believe as we did then that there is no question they will get those results. The problem we found with the money back guarantee was not that we ever had to pay it back. There was not one instance of us paying it back, but trying to assess the baseline of information became very difficult. It slowed down the sales and led to a lot of time delay from getting customers on our platform in the first place. What I mean by this, that is, that they sent so many of the organizations that we dealt with simply didnt know exactly what their qualification rate and conversion rate were on their leads. Without that, you cant really demonstrate that you have improved things. It becomes much more of an intuitive. We will bring in more revenue than we have ever had, rather than specific percentage and improvement.That probably dropped the guarantee, but philosophically I will tell people often, I guarantee that you will get these results. If you dont give me a call and we will talk about it and I am willing to let you out of your contract, because I know that you are going to get the results that we have talked about.Martin: What do you think while we are currently the biggest threats for Velocify?Nick: Well, I think there is always a threat to the company that you dont know about that is being built by some clever ambitious guys in someones back room right? I know there is always the threat that someone is going to innovate faster than we can. My challenge there is to make sure that we keep a startup mindset, however large, we grow. Anyway, that part requires continuously hiring new people with new ideas. Its about structuring teams so they have autonomy. Its about encouraging and rewarding new ideas even when they fail. It is tough to compete with early stage st art-ups from an innovation perspective. That is something as an entrepreneur when eventually you come to do something new I will be more thoughtful about how I use that as my competitive advantage. How I really beat people by continuously being innovative rather than trying to beat them on the things that you cant win on when you are a tiny company.I would say that is one thing, Id say the other threats are we sit between some big technologies. We sit in between marketing automation and customer relationship management, and generate a huge amount of value between the two. Given that we sit between two systems, it is not conceivable that marketing automation will become much more sophisticated about how they approach. What we do with CRM is trying to come up and do what we do. We feel that we have significant knowledge and significant data that neither of those two sides has. It would take them a long time to build it, but its not inconceivable that they could being single minded abo ut trying to go after our market and that would be a threat.I think one of the threats is that we are continuously thinking about what people refer to as the war for talent. We know that we have to be an incredibly employee friendly company somewhere people can really make a fantastic impact on their careers because at the end of the day a technology company dies the moment they are unable to hire the best people and retain them as well. A threat is always that there are technology companies out there with a lot of competition for the best people. Not continuing to be one of the best places to work would be a threat. It is something we invest a lot of time in. We were recognized by GlassDoor or we were recognized last year by GlassDoor as one of the top 25 companies in the country to work for etc. It would be a threat if we stopped being that because this business is all about people nothing else.Martin: Nick, Velocify is based in Los Angeles and you have briefly touched on start-up s mainly coming from Silicon Valley. Do you perceive your location to be an advantage or a disadvantage and in what type of sense?Nick: Both actually. I think its, first of all, Los Angeles isnt in the middle of nowhere. Right, so its a big city and have a vibrant technology industry and people call it Silicon Beach. A lot of big technology companies and there is a lot of start-ups here. It is really quite different from what it used to be when I turned up 12 years ago when I turned up to Los Angeles.Its a good ecosystem. Its not as expensive as Silicon Valley to live in, which is very appealing to people. We have a better lifestyle in terms of the weather is better, for sure. I will never tell people that Los Angles is a place that you get a lot more work balance because the reality is the fast growing technology companies do require an immense amount of effort and you are competing with companies from all around the world. You cant come to a successful technology company expecting to be able to work a low number of hours etc. It is a wonderful place to live in Los Angeles when you are not at work. So we think we have those advantages in terms of attracting people. Its close enough to Silicon Valley that raising money and those kind of things isnt an issue.But Id say that the disadvantage of being here is that a lot of the very best engineers are based in Silicon Valley. Particularly when it comes to software as a service and enterprise software. Although we are changing that its still for a company that aspires to have the very best people in the industry working for them, we continuously trying to pull people down from Silicon Valley, which is more of a challenge than if we were based in Silicon Valley.Id say the final thing is Silicon Valley can be a bit of a communication bubble. If you want to be covered by certain technology graphs and so on, it is sometimes more of a challenge if you are not based in San Francisco or Silicon Valley, because those parti cular journalists tend to be a little bit more focused on their doorstep than anywhere else. That can be a little bit of a challenge with being a Los Angeles based company, but only at margins. We get quite a lot of interest in this because of what we are achieving despite our location.ADVICE FROM NICK HEDGESMartin: Nick, before you joined Velocify you started your own company. Now I would be very interested in your major learnings over the years so what are the dos and donts of starting and growing a company.Nick: Yes, the first company that I founded was back at the end of the 90s, December 99 I think when I started my first start-up. That was right at the peak of dot-com, literally at the peak. A couple of months later we had the dot com crash. But we persevered through it and 3 years later the company went public. The company is based in the UK so it worked out.The things that I learned back then were hugely valuable for my role now at Velocify, because I knew very little when I first started.The first thing that I found was that was you dont need to be the most knowledgeable person about every aspect of business to be a successful entrepreneur. A lot of people that I met over the years, particularly, when I went to Harvard business school to do my MBA in between founding my first company and working at where I am now. A lot of people felt like they had to build up this long career of various different accomplishments and understand business inside out to be a successful entrepreneur. I founded my first endeavor when I was, I think I founded the company when I was like 25, that is really not the case. The most important thing is that you are determined and passionate about what you do. In fact in some ways the more you learn in business, the less effective you become as an entrepreneur because you see more obstacles. The beauty of being an entrepreneur is you have the passion and the determination that you dont even see the obstacles. As a consequence, you run straight through them when other people would stop and ponder about them. That is something that I have taken with me throughout my career journey is -everything is possible. If someone is telling you there is an obstacle, just ignore it and run through because you will probably get to the other side.I think the other thing I learned in my earliest tech start-up is to listen to my customer really carefully. So carefully that you are listening to the things that they are not saying. What I mean by that is, my first start-up would have been much more successful had we have sold one particular company. There was a multinational massive company that if we had signed up we would have really transformed the business. It was part of the business plan that we would sell this company and we never ended up doing that. We never ended up getting this particular organization as a customer of ours. Although I think we did a very good job of listening and meeting with that customer we didnt q uite listen carefully enough. We didnt ask all the right question whether they would really do somethings because there were certain things they couldnt disclose. To be more specific what my company did we were a platform for soft commodities. What we allowed was big companies and small companies to acquire things like tea, coffee, sugar, etc. at lower prices than they could get by going directly out into the market and using brokers and so on, which is what they had to do. What we found was we didnt listen carefully. What we hadnt really thought through was that the very biggest company in that market didnt necessarily want to buy at the cheapest price. They wanted that they possibly could if that meant that everyone else could buy at that low price. The game for them was being able to buy at a price that was lower than anyone else could buy because when their economies of scale. We just didnt think it through, because we didnt ask the right questions. Nowadays, when we have the st rategic initiative to go off to certain clients, I am incredibly focused on and spending time, really, truly, understanding where the value is for the customer. Brainstorming the things that they cannot tell us because it is inappropriate to tell us, but that we can figure out by other things that they told us. That was a big learning for us or a big learning for me in my first start-up.Martin: Great, very interesting, Nick. Yes, thank you so much for sharing your insights and learnings. Thank you very much for helping other sales organizations in becoming more effective. Thank you so much.Nick: Your welcome. Very nice talking with you.Martin: ThanksTHANKS FOR LISTENING! Welcome to the sixth episode of our podcast!You can download the podcast to your computer or listen to it here on the blog. Click here to subscribe in iTunes. INTRODUCTIONMartin: Hi, today we are here with Nick from Velocify. Hi Nick, who are you and what do you do?Nick: Hi, very nice to meet you. Yes, I am Nick Hedges. I am the CEO and Head of Velocify, which is a software service company based in Los Angeles, California.BUSINESS MODEL OF VELOCIFYMartin: Great what does your business model look like? What type of value proposition are you offering?Nick: Yes, thanks for asking. We are in the sales solution category. So what does that mean? Well, our software helps salespeople. It sits in a gap that exists between marketing automation and CRM. Marketing automation is really great at helping marketers generate leads and highly qualified leads at that. The CRM is really good at recording sales information, but the missing piece is what do the sales people actually do with leads when they are generated in marketing so that they have outcomes to record in the CRM.That is where Velocify comes in. We, essentially, very simply, make sure that ever y lead that an organization generates goes to the best possible sale person who is going to have the best conversations, and the best interactions with the company they are talking with. Then we make sure that this sales person knows what they should be working on at any point in time. What is the most important activity that I can undertake right at this very moment and on which lead? So it prioritizes a sales persons day to day in a way they can be incredibly effective at what they do and sort of the optimal process from the engagement perspective of every single lead that comes in and every single company that they want to prospect in to.So that is our business model and luckily we find that there is an awful lot of sales teams whom almost every sales team needs help in this area. Its been a good place to set up a business.Martin: Great. Nick, I understand that you are helping companies (small business size) to work on their leads in an optimized way. Are you also helping them to create even more leads and how do you do that?Nick: Yes, we do that to certain extent. If you look at our client base it runs across the gamut, from some relatively small businesses to some of the biggest companies in the US. Smaller installations probably a sales team would be Im guessing around 3 to 4 people. Our largest installation is 3 to 4 thousand people on the sales team using our product. So within that, people are definitely using our product to be successful to the needs that are coming in, but they are also being successful using our product to do prospecting.A big area currently within many sales teams is sales development. A group of individuals whose role is to take accounts with the company wants to get into. Companies inspire to sell to and then find the appropriate people within that organization to influence and convince that there is value in order to getting the sales done. One of the tools that we have is a social prospecting tool that enables you to discover who the right people are within an organization by looking at data that exists online at various different places. And then, we have the ability to really orchestrate the engagement strategy with these contacts so you are sending to them the right emails, youre making the appropriate phone calls, and you have all of that data available so that you know a bit about that prospect. For instance, you know for sure what their sales manager is. You know what their telephone number is. You also know some of the things about how they have been interacting with your website, what they are doing online, whether they are tweeting on twitter, whether they are putting information on other social networks, etc. So that you got the basis of information for a productive conversation given that you are effectively cold-calling a lot of those prospects.Martin: On your website I saw that you have a tiered pricing model on a per salesperson base so to speak. Do you also have something like a modular ki nd of pricing for different modules that you are offering to your client base?Nick: We do it to a certain extent. Although what we try and do is we package our product in editions within bundles of functionality that we think people should have together. What we use to do probably for the first ten years of our existence that has only changed a year ago, we had pricing that was highly modular. In other words, it was a menu of things that you could add. We found that lead to a lot of dissatisfaction amongst our customers because every time they wanted a new feature there was an additional cost that they had to justify within their organization. We decided to go away from that to a more bundled product offering. What we found is that has increased customer satisfaction quite a lot, because they are not initially having to go back to whoever makes decisions about what the company spends to add new features. It also means that they use more of our products. The things that they wont sig n up for on day one that we know will be valuable to people. They are bundled into editions.So, today we have simplified pricing. We have two product lines and within the product lines, there are free editions for each one of those. You have six options basically.Martin: Okay, Nick with Velocify you are trying to help other sales organizations to close more leads. How is your sales pipeline working and what role is Velocify playing in this as well?Nick: Yes, we obviously use our own products. What we try and do is be the archetypal sales organization that we can sight to our customers when we are recommending best practices. Everything we learn about sales in our thousands of consulting engagements when we increment our system at our clients we try and bring back to our sales organization.We have a pretty sophisticated sales organization structure and we have a pretty sophisticated sales process. All of it relies on Velocify being the kind of glue between all the other systems. We h ave a field sales team that works on the biggest enterprise opportunities that we go after. We have a big inside sales team that works on slightly smaller deals and also goes sales development. The sales development department is fairly big as well which has folks to do cold-calling, prospecting, or whatever you want it to describe it as and lead response. In other words, making sure they call leads when they are generated as quickly as possible and in order to have a human qualifier whether that is going to be a good opportunity for a sales person to work or not.As a consequence of having those things and having an optimized process, we have pretty outstanding conversion rates now within our sales team. What we also try to do within our sales organization is use what we call a sales laboratory. What I mean by that is there are huge numbers of different sale technologies that are being founded at the moment. What we try and do is have Velocify connected to as many of those different capabilities as possible, so that we can see how effective they are. So that way we can make appropriate recommendations to our customers as we are often being trusted by the sales leader about how they should put up their entire sales process that automatically what other technologies they should be using.Martin: Nick, what do you think, what are the more efficient and effective customer acquisition channels?Nick: The most efficient for sure is a referral. What I think is that a lot of people dont realize is how important customer happiness is. If I was to give someone one tip about how to run a great company it would look after your customers. It sounds obvious, but if you really, really delight your customers and that is something we are very focused on at Velocify in a very deep way. Everyone will tell you: Yes, we look after our customer, but it is something that is deeply ingrained in the culture here. If you do that your revenue impact is really significant.One, because it b ecomes easier to expand within your existing customer base.Two, but probably more importantly, you will get referrals from your customer base of people that they know.Those will be the best form of leads that you will ever get, because A, your customers probably already sold the person they are introducing to you. Two, it is going to be an appropriately use case because the customer understands the product well and they will affect that particular lead for you.So referrals without a doubt are something we treat like gold at Velocify, because its just very high converting and it can be a great fit, loyal, and stay with us for a long time which is the perfect customer. I would say those are the best channels.Martin: Nick, what would you say is the competitive advantage of Velocify over its competitors?Nick: There are a couple of things and there is a lot of sales technologies out there. What the majority of them do is something very specific so they focus on just emailing for just sen ding contracts, or just being a dialer. As a consequence, a lot of sales leaders are left with this belief that they need a stack of technologies in order to undertake the job of sales and that is just not true.Velocify and maybe one or two other companies are universal solutions. In other words, we have telephony, we have email, we have text, we also have all the components required to do things like sales process optimization. We also have the capabilities to reward and incent people in the appropriate way to get the right behaviors. Some people call it gamification, we actually call it rewardification at Velocify, because we approach gamification in a differentiated way than any other player out there.I would say that the major benefit from our perspective is the universal solution where you dont need a whole set of other capabilities.Martin: When you think about scaling the company do you perceive some specific type of advantage of having economies of scale? For example, when I am thinking about really having most of the data and really putting some kind of machine learning on it so your recommendations for who should work a lead are becoming much more valuable. Do you think about your business like that?Nick: For sure, as I said one of the key things that we do is to optimize the sales process for our customers. We have the benefit of having implemented our solution with over 5,000 sales organizations. We have seen not only how those sale organizations have approached the optimization of their sales process, but we have seen the outcomes. We have seen what works and what doesnt work at a very kind of data granular way. We are able to use those learnings to re-optimize the sales process of every customer that comes to us. That makes us incredibly effective in its just knowledge that you cant gain overnight. There is billions and billions of transactions that have gone through our systems. So it is a very rich set of data.I think we also have the benefit th at unlike a lot of other companies were genuinely a platform that works extremely well for customers that sell to consumers and also for businesses that sell to businesses where really no one has the expertise and the knowledge of what the valuable learnings for either side are. For instance, we know what is the most effective sales process for a company selling to consumers, but we also know aspect that businesses sell to businesses can learn from it and vice versa. A lot of proprietary knowledge and data that we have picked up over the years that seemed helpful.I think there are other significant economies of scale as well, practically when you are selling to large businesses. Large businesses are typically looking at how robust your technology infrastructure is, how big the company is and how likely it will be in business for the next several years. Now that we have been around for 10 or 11 years that is something that is a lot easier when the company was 2 years old. That is som ething that entrepreneurs have to be very clever at navigating around if their ambition is to sell to large enterprises.Martin: If there is something like a lock-in effect once an organization buys into your product and you learn where to send the lead to then there is something like a lock-in effect. Does this imply that in your sales process that in the beginning maybe you are offering 3 month free trial period to get this kind of knowledge and get more customers on board? Only start the pricing then or does you pricing from the first day onwards?Nick: Though it is interesting, you are definitely very perceptive about our product in the stickiness of it. Some of the ways we think about it. However, we are not big fans off doing pilots for periods of time. The reason is this, our product is pretty transformational to a sales organization provided that they take it seriously up front. It is not a huge implementation, but it does require thought and effort from a sales organization t hat is putting it in place for us to bring the appropriate dates and technique, but for the sales organization think about the nuances of their organization that mean certain things within the sales process that should be different from any other company.What we found is that if we offer free pilots there is no value in free. It means that the cooperation and interest level of the sale leaders that are implementing the solution as a lot less. They tend to be less effective than they should be during that pilot. We dont really do that.But what we do is what I call land and expand. It is a key part of our strategy. We know that we can get a team of five people within a large organization using our product and taking it seriously they will see huge gains and very quickly we will expand. An example of that is I met with a client last week. About a year ago they had just over a hundred people on our platform, which is not a big implementation, but its not a small one either. As it stands right now, they have been so successful with those folks that they have expanded to a contract to over 2,000 sales people on our platform. That has been say every month that we are adding another 100 sales people as they see the results with another third. Rather than doing pilots we love to do kind of prove our value and then expand out within an organization if we can do.What you say about the stickiness of the product or lock-in as you put it is absolutely right. Once you have optimized your sales process and seen the results that the platform like Velocify gives you its something that you are not going to get rid of typically.Martin: Great, one thing that I was wondering is about your pricing strategy. When I look at it on your website and your pitch on why a customer should sign up you stated something like, you will do twice the amount of leads or 188% more call time, or something like this. You only charge like higher double digit dollars, per month, per user. If I would be having a sales person and he was getting me twice as much revenue with your software I would expect a much higher monthly fee. The question from me would be, is your pricing really value based, is it based more like competitors in the market, or something like a cost approach?Nick: Its not cost approach really, but it is definitely market-based. When we tell and demonstrate the results that we anticipate our clients will get from our product based on what every other client achieves. There is a little bit of reluctance to fully believe that is going to be the case for our customers. The pricing that we offer is more based on how much they are paying for the CRM, the marketing automation system and so on. What we know typical budgets look like. When they implement our system and they get those results, the return on their investments as our pricing is astronomically positive for our clients. They tend to be very happy, but they have to see the results before they get there.What we us e to do interestingly enough, is a guarantee. We use to say if you dont get X percent improvement in conversion and Y percent improvement in qualification we will give you your money back after 3 months. Now we still believe as we did then that there is no question they will get those results. The problem we found with the money back guarantee was not that we ever had to pay it back. There was not one instance of us paying it back, but trying to assess the baseline of information became very difficult. It slowed down the sales and led to a lot of time delay from getting customers on our platform in the first place. What I mean by this, that is, that they sent so many of the organizations that we dealt with simply didnt know exactly what their qualification rate and conversion rate were on their leads. Without that, you cant really demonstrate that you have improved things. It becomes much more of an intuitive. We will bring in more revenue than we have ever had, rather than specific percentage and improvement.That probably dropped the guarantee, but philosophically I will tell people often, I guarantee that you will get these results. If you dont give me a call and we will talk about it and I am willing to let you out of your contract, because I know that you are going to get the results that we have talked about.Martin: What do you think while we are currently the biggest threats for Velocify?Nick: Well, I think there is always a threat to the company that you dont know about that is being built by some clever ambitious guys in someones back room right? I know there is always the threat that someone is going to innovate faster than we can. My challenge there is to make sure that we keep a startup mindset, however large, we grow. Anyway, that part requires continuously hiring new people with new ideas. Its about structuring teams so they have autonomy. Its about encouraging and rewarding new ideas even when they fail. It is tough to compete with early stage st art-ups from an innovation perspective. That is something as an entrepreneur when eventually you come to do something new I will be more thoughtful about how I use that as my competitive advantage. How I really beat people by continuously being innovative rather than trying to beat them on the things that you cant win on when you are a tiny company.I would say that is one thing, Id say the other threats are we sit between some big technologies. We sit in between marketing automation and customer relationship management, and generate a huge amount of value between the two. Given that we sit between two systems, it is not conceivable that marketing automation will become much more sophisticated about how they approach. What we do with CRM is trying to come up and do what we do. We feel that we have significant knowledge and significant data that neither of those two sides has. It would take them a long time to build it, but its not inconceivable that they could being single minded abo ut trying to go after our market and that would be a threat.I think one of the threats is that we are continuously thinking about what people refer to as the war for talent. We know that we have to be an incredibly employee friendly company somewhere people can really make a fantastic impact on their careers because at the end of the day a technology company dies the moment they are unable to hire the best people and retain them as well. A threat is always that there are technology companies out there with a lot of competition for the best people. Not continuing to be one of the best places to work would be a threat. It is something we invest a lot of time in. We were recognized by GlassDoor or we were recognized last year by GlassDoor as one of the top 25 companies in the country to work for etc. It would be a threat if we stopped being that because this business is all about people nothing else.Martin: Nick, Velocify is based in Los Angeles and you have briefly touched on start-up s mainly coming from Silicon Valley. Do you perceive your location to be an advantage or a disadvantage and in what type of sense?Nick: Both actually. I think its, first of all, Los Angeles isnt in the middle of nowhere. Right, so its a big city and have a vibrant technology industry and people call it Silicon Beach. A lot of big technology companies and there is a lot of start-ups here. It is really quite different from what it used to be when I turned up 12 years ago when I turned up to Los Angeles.Its a good ecosystem. Its not as expensive as Silicon Valley to live in, which is very appealing to people. We have a better lifestyle in terms of the weather is better, for sure. I will never tell people that Los Angles is a place that you get a lot more work balance because the reality is the fast growing technology companies do require an immense amount of effort and you are competing with companies from all around the world. You cant come to a successful technology company expecting to be able to work a low number of hours etc. It is a wonderful place to live in Los Angeles when you are not at work. So we think we have those advantages in terms of attracting people. Its close enough to Silicon Valley that raising money and those kind of things isnt an issue.But Id say that the disadvantage of being here is that a lot of the very best engineers are based in Silicon Valley. Particularly when it comes to software as a service and enterprise software. Although we are changing that its still for a company that aspires to have the very best people in the industry working for them, we continuously trying to pull people down from Silicon Valley, which is more of a challenge than if we were based in Silicon Valley.Id say the final thing is Silicon Valley can be a bit of a communication bubble. If you want to be covered by certain technology graphs and so on, it is sometimes more of a challenge if you are not based in San Francisco or Silicon Valley, because those parti cular journalists tend to be a little bit more focused on their doorstep than anywhere else. That can be a little bit of a challenge with being a Los Angeles based company, but only at margins. We get quite a lot of interest in this because of what we are achieving despite our location.ADVICE FROM NICK HEDGESMartin: Nick, before you joined Velocify you started your own company. Now I would be very interested in your major learnings over the years so what are the dos and donts of starting and growing a company.Nick: Yes, the first company that I founded was back at the end of the 90s, December 99 I think when I started my first start-up. That was right at the peak of dot-com, literally at the peak. A couple of months later we had the dot com crash. But we persevered through it and 3 years later the company went public. The company is based in the UK so it worked out.The things that I learned back then were hugely valuable for my role now at Velocify, because I knew very little when I first started.The first thing that I found was that was you dont need to be the most knowledgeable person about every aspect of business to be a successful entrepreneur. A lot of people that I met over the years, particularly, when I went to Harvard business school to do my MBA in between founding my first company and working at where I am now. A lot of people felt like they had to build up this long career of various different accomplishments and understand business inside out to be a successful entrepreneur. I founded my first endeavor when I was, I think I founded the company when I was like 25, that is really not the case. The most important thing is that you are determined and passionate about what you do. In fact in some ways the more you learn in business, the less effective you become as an entrepreneur because you see more obstacles. The beauty of being an entrepreneur is you have the passion and the determination that you dont even see the obstacles. As a consequence, you run straight through them when other people would stop and ponder about them. That is something that I have taken with me throughout my career journey is -everything is possible. If someone is telling you there is an obstacle, just ignore it and run through because you will probably get to the other side.I think the other thing I learned in my earliest tech start-up is to listen to my customer really carefully. So carefully that you are listening to the things that they are not saying. What I mean by that is, my first start-up would have been much more successful had we have sold one particular company. There was a multinational massive company that if we had signed up we would have really transformed the business. It was part of the business plan that we would sell this company and we never ended up doing that. We never ended up getting this particular organization as a customer of ours. Although I think we did a very good job of listening and meeting with that customer we didnt q uite listen carefully enough. We didnt ask all the right question whether they would really do somethings because there were certain things they couldnt disclose. To be more specific what my company did we were a platform for soft commodities. What we allowed was big companies and small companies to acquire things like tea, coffee, sugar, etc. at lower prices than they could get by going directly out into the market and using brokers and so on, which is what they had to do. What we found was we didnt listen carefully. What we hadnt really thought through was that the very biggest company in that market didnt necessarily want to buy at the cheapest price. They wanted that they possibly could if that meant that everyone else could buy at that low price. The game for them was being able to buy at a price that was lower than anyone else could buy because when their economies of scale. We just didnt think it through, because we didnt ask the right questions. Nowadays, when we have the st rategic initiative to go off to certain clients, I am incredibly focused on and spending time, really, truly, understanding where the value is for the customer. Brainstorming the things that they cannot tell us because it is inappropriate to tell us, but that we can figure out by other things that they told us. That was a big learning for us or a big learning for me in my first start-up.Martin: Great, very interesting, Nick. Yes, thank you so much for sharing your insights and learnings. Thank you very much for helping other sales organizations in becoming more effective. Thank you so much.Nick: Your welcome. Very nice talking with you.Martin: ThanksTHANKS FOR LISTENING!Thanks so much for joining our sixth podcast episode!Have some feedback youâd like to share? Leave a note in the comment section below! If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see at the bottom of the post.Also, please leave an honest review for The Cleverism Podcast on iTunes or on SoundCloud. Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and greatly appreciated! They do matter in the rankings of the show, and we read each and every one of them.Special thanks to Nick for joining me this week. Until next time! Lawrence Webberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15313206287305224370noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2832909770275233741.post-89666605438138247422020-05-24T21:08:00.001-07:002020-05-24T21:08:02.711-07:00Analysis Of The Students Wife By Raymond Carver - 1060 Words On the first read of The Studentââ¬â¢s Wife by Raymond Carver, it seems this is a story of a man who is trying to sleep and a woman who is simply nagging. This short essay will convey the depth and significance of both trying to sleep and nagging. The text is only effective in the third person omniscient perspective. Carver utilizes, through perspective and clever language, the ability to see into the mind of each character at specific times. The reader sees and hears what is required to be heard and who is required to be seen and heard from. The story title is the first impression given by the story: a woman who is the wife of a student. Nan is not much more than a housewife, or so it seems in the beginning. To begin with, the role ofâ⬠¦show more contentâ⬠¦After waking up from the interruption of no longer being read to, Nan wants a sandwich. Mike doesnââ¬â¢t reply and pretends to sleep, becoming an ostrichââ¬â I canââ¬â¢t see you, you canââ¬â¢t see me. Mike opens his eyes to reveal a wide-eyed Nan to which he asks ââ¬Å"ââ¬â¢Canââ¬â¢t you go to sleep Nan?ââ¬â¢ he said, very solemnlyâ⬠. The role of language is imperative; the text must move forward and continue to give the impression that Mike is not acknowledging Nanââ¬â¢s persistent yearning to be acknowledged. The story utilizes the omniscient perspective, perhaps most effectively after Nan asks Mike if he remembers the time they had gone away for a weekend after getting married. ââ¬Å"I rememberâ⬠Mike says, but in reality ââ¬Å"He did not remember well, he thought. What he did remember was loud half-baked ideas about life and art, and he did not want to remember that.â⬠Mike makes it clear he doesnââ¬â¢t want to remember the story by telling Nan ââ¬Å"That was a long time ago.â⬠The text is stylized in such a way that the story tells the reader that Mike does not want to remember Nanââ¬â¢s story twice without giving the impression of repetition. From Nanââ¬â¢s perspective, we see that she wishes to get information out of Mike, no matter how arbitrary. But, Nan gives Mike the impression that she is ready to fall asleep by saying ââ¬Å"Just hold me and get me off to sleep. I canââ¬â¢t go to sleep.â⬠The language used declares that all Mike must do is hold Nan and she will be off to sleep. Shortly Lawrence Webberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15313206287305224370noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2832909770275233741.post-40463484149585127562020-05-14T04:06:00.001-07:002020-05-14T04:06:06.443-07:00Essay on Sir Gawain and the Green Knight - 804 Words Sir Gawain Essay In Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Sir Gawain continuously proves his knightly virtues and code of honor. Chivalry includes bravery, honor, and courtesy. He proves that he is in fact a quot;realquot; Knight. He shows his bravery by shying away from nothing and no one. He proves his honor and courtesy to everyone he meets by showing respect to all whether he receives it back or not. #9;Sir Gawain shows his bravery the first moment he has the chance to, when the Green Knight enters King Arthurs Court. The Green Knight taunts with quot;Anyone with the nerve to try it, take this ax, here. Hurry, Im waiting! Take it and keep it, my gift forever, And give me a well-aimed stroke, and agree to accept anotherâ⬠¦show more contentâ⬠¦Gawain courteously asks for shelter and tells the castles court of his crusade. The king of this court says that he knew of the Green Knight and his chapel and told Gawain it was very close. Gawain pleased, made merry with the king. The king liked him very much and made an agreement with Gawain. Gawain would prove his honor to this agreement that the king proposed, quot; Whatever I earn in the woods will be yours, whatever you win in exchange will be mine.quot; (II, 1106) While in the castle Gawain would receive kisses from the lady of the castle, the kings wife an in loyalty and honor to the king and the agreement he would give the king his kisses that he received in exchange. #9;Sir Gawain is very courteous in all he does especially while in the company of the king. He is tempted daily by the kings wife. The lady would be aggressive for Gawains love yet still giving all control of the situation to Gawain for him to make the mistakes. The lady flirtatiously says, quot; Youre far too strong to accept a Ãâno- if anyone were boorish enough to deny you.quot; (III, 1496) Gawain shakes off the ladies temptations yet still gives her everything she asks for in a courteous polite manner. quot;And Gawain was so gracefully evasive that he seemed always polite, and nothing happened but happiness.quot; (III, 1551) Everyday, when the king would come home Gawain would exchange what he received, kisses, for the kings earnings of his dailyShow MoreRelatedSir Gawain And The Green Knight1359 Words à |à 6 PagesIn the poem ââ¬Å"Sir Gawain and The Green Knight,â⬠a protagonist emerges depicting an Arthurian knight named Sir Gawain. Sir Gawain, King Arthurââ¬â¢s nephew, takes initiative by accepting the challenge requested by the Green Knight in place of his uncle. He undergoes a perilous adventure, seeking for the Green Knight to receive the final blow. Although Sir Gawain is not viewed as a hero for his military accomplishments, he is, however, viewed as a heroic figure by the Knights at the Round Table for hisRead MoreSir Gawain And The Green Knight862 Words à |à 4 PagesIn Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, by an unknown author referred to as the ââ¬Å"Pearl Poet,â⬠we are introduced to Sir Gawain. Gawain is a knight of the Round Table and he is also the nephew of King Arthur. A s a knight, Gawain is expected to possess and abide by many chivalrous facets. Throughout the poem he portrays many of the qualities a knight should possess, such as bravery, courtesy, and honor among others. Because of his ability to possess these virtues even when tempted to stray away from themRead MoreSir Gawain and the Green Knight1100 Words à |à 5 PagesThe poem of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight compares a super natural creature to nature. The mystery of the poem is ironic to the anonymous author. The story dates back into the fourteenth century, but no one knows who originally wrote the poem. This unknown author explains in the poem of Sir Gawain not knowing of the location of the Green Chapel and or who the Green Knight really is. This keeps the reader entertained with the suspicion of not knowing. The author then does not give his name orRead MoreSir Gawain And The Green Knight Essay1687 Words à |à 7 PagesSir Gawain and the Green Knight contains ambiguity and iron y that make it interesting to read and teach. Gawainââ¬â¢s conflict arose when he accepted the girdle that could protect him and when he lied to his host, severing fellowship with the lord for courtesy with the lady. By utilizing a social reconstructionist philosophy of teaching that emphasizes personal beliefs and ethics, a teacher will help the students establish their identities and learn to appreciate classic literature. Sir Gawain and theRead MoreSir Gawain And The Green Knight1514 Words à |à 7 PagesSir Gawain and the Green Knight is an epic poem written in the mid to late fourteenth century by an unknown author. Throughout the tale, Sir Gawain, a Knight at the Round Table in Camelot, is presented with many hardships, the first being a challenge on Christmas by a man in which, ââ¬Å"Everything about him was an elegant greenâ⬠(161). This ââ¬Å"Green Knightâ⬠challenged someone in Camelot to accept his game which they will chop off his head with his axe and th e Green Knight will do the same to the playerRead MoreSir Gawain And The Green Knight1335 Words à |à 6 PagesSir Gawain: The Ironic Knight Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is a tale of the utmost irony in which Sir Gawain, the most loyal and courteous of all of King Arthurââ¬â¢s knights, fails utterly to be loyal and courteous to his king, his host, his vows, and his God. In each case, Sir Gawain not only fails to perform well, but performs particularly poorly, especially in the case of his relationship with God. Ultimately, Sir Gawain chooses magic over faith, and by doing so, shows his ironic nature as aRead MoreSir Gawain And The Green Knight906 Words à |à 4 Pagesusually the latter. In Sir Gawain and the Green Knight we see Sir Bertilak go off to hunt three very specific animals as a game with Sir Gawain. They agree that ââ¬Å"what ever [Bertilak catches] in the wood shall become [Sir Gawainââ¬â¢s], and what ever mishap comes [Sir Gawainââ¬â¢s] way will be given to [Bertilak] in exchange.â⬠(Sir Gawainâ⬠¦, ln 1105-1007). In this deal we slowly see Gawain loose his honor as paralleled with Sir B ertilakââ¬â¢s hunt. The first animal that is hunted by the knight is a deer, while thisRead MoreSir Gawain And The Green Knight Essay1521 Words à |à 7 PagesFall 16 Donnelly Many years ago, knights were expected to form a certain type of relationship with their king, this relationship was otherwise known as fealty. Fealty is a knightââ¬â¢s sworn loyalty to their king (in other words a loyal relationship should be formed between the two). The use of this relationship is shown in the poem called ââ¬Å"Sir Gawain and the Green Knightâ⬠( the author is unknown). This poem has a classic quest type of formula, with a knight receiving a challenge and then going outRead MoreSir Gawain And The Green Knight1455 Words à |à 6 PagesHowever, for Gawain in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight temptation existed around every corner while he was playing the game of the Green Knight. Temptation existed every day and each day it existed in a new way. Gawain never knew what was coming his way throughout the grand scheme of the game, but one thing was for certain he was being tested. Without his reliance religious faith and dedication to his reputation, Gawain wo uld not have been able to make it through the game of the Green Knight alive andRead MoreSir Gawain And The Green Knight Essay1020 Words à |à 5 PagesBoth Sir Gawain, from ââ¬Å"Sir Gawain and the Green Knightâ⬠translated by Marie Borroff, and Beowulf, from Beowulf translated by Burton Raffel, serve as heroes in different times of Medieval English Literature. Many of the basic principles that describe heroes in Medieval Literature are seen in both of these characters even though they were written in different times. There are distinct similarities, differences, and also a progression of what the hero was in English literature, between Sir Gawain and Lawrence Webberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15313206287305224370noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2832909770275233741.post-28459222168247374662020-05-06T14:43:00.001-07:002020-05-06T14:43:20.490-07:00Comparison of Maslowââ¬â¢s Hierarchy of Needs with Skinners... Comparison of Maslowââ¬â¢s Hierarchy of Needs with Skinners Behaviorist Theory Typing Template for APA Papers: A Sample of Proper APA Fifth Edition Formatting Deborah DiBerardino Grand Canyon University: Educational Psychology EDU 313N Amy Wilkinson August 5, 2012 Comparison of Maslowââ¬â¢s Hierarchy of Needs with Skinners Behaviorist Theory The definition of motivation according to Dictionary.com is: ââ¬Å"The reason or reasons one has for acting or behaving in a particular way; the general desire or willingness of someone to do something.â⬠Where it gets confusing is in the reason for behaving a certain way. What is it that causes a person to perform a task? Is it something that comes from deep inside of the person or isâ⬠¦show more contentâ⬠¦Once that need is fulfilled there is no need for the behavior. The criticism for Maslowââ¬â¢s theory is that measurement of satisfaction of needs is impossible and whether people have been devoid of basic needs, it does not stop them from the pursuit of self-actualization. (Heylighen, Francis (1992) A Cognitive-systemic Reconstruction of Maslowââ¬â¢s Theory of Self-Actualization. P[47]). Skinnerââ¬â¢s Behaviorist Theory In comparison, B.F. Skinnerââ¬â¢s theory is based on operant conditioning which is a system that is based on rewarding and punishing behavior. Through this type of system an association is derived from the consequences of the behavior. Behave well, receive positive consequences, behave badly, and receive negative consequences. Unlike Maslow, Skinner did not take into consideration internal needs; he believed in only looking at the external cause of the behavior. In his opinion it was a matter of positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, extinction and punishment to explain behavior. Skinner believed positive reinforcement strengthened behavior. You completed a task that was required you receive a reward for it. The reward could take any form such as a piece a candy to a bonus for a job well done. Negative reinforcement also strengthened behavior in reverse. This entails removing a sanctioned or a penalty once the behavior has changed. For example, a parent has taken away aShow MoreRelatedThe Learning Theories of Skineer, Brunner and Maslow.4710 Words à |à 19 PagesA DISCUSSION ON THE LEARNING THEORIES OF SKINNER, BRUNER AND MASLOW AND THEIR IMPACT ON EDUCATION AND MY FUTURE TEACHING PRACTICE. ASSIGNMENT 1: GTP In reviewing the process of learning theories a definition of learning would appear to be a fundamental focus point from which to initiate discussion. Without the knowledge of how we learn, how are we to understand its importance for learners and their abilities to grasp the information being given? This definition of learning implies three objectives: Read MoreAbsenteeism Complete Version for 4th Year High School Student4590 Words à |à 19 Pagesin school and community. d. Communityââ¬â It may also significant to the local government unit, religious, school and political organization, since through this study, they may be enlightened to the fact that these children needs guidance counseling and this problem needs a major attention and cooperation to deal with. e. Children ââ¬â This study may help children to understand more their friends, colleagues, etc., who are suffering from this kind of situation. They may be enlightened to adviceRead MoreHuman Behavior and the Socil Environment7216 Words à |à 29 Pagesenvironment as contributors to human problems. Human behavior is complex and the Social Work profession is broad, which is evident by supporting theories as presented by experts on Human Behavior. These theories support human growth and development as well as the overall functioning of the individual in the midst of social service delivery. Almost all these theories come out of a socio-historical context and are value-laden. After birth a child quickly realizes that resources for his survival come fromRead MoreIntroduction to Motivation16686 Words à |à 67 Pagesfor our dreams to come true, we need to have fire in our belly ,the true hunger for success. The story doesnââ¬â¢t end here; circumstances are rarely favourable for working on desires and then we need motivation to drive us to right path.Motivation may be explicit or may be sometimes implicit. Motivation may be internal or may be external. World is changing proportionately with rapid changing needs of individuals, Business which is very much dependent on consumerââ¬â¢s need, has to therefore cope up withRead MorePsychology14463 Words à |à 58 PagesBasic Human Needs 1 Running head: BASIC HUMAN NEEDS Basic Human Needs Thane S. Pittman and Kate R. Zeigler Colby College DRAFT Chapter to appear in Kruglanski, A., Higgins, E. (2006), Social Psychology: A handbook of basic principles, 2nd Edition. New York: Guilford Publications Thane S. Pittman and Kate R. Zeigler Department of Psychology 5550 Mayflower Hill Colby College Waterville, ME 04901 207-859-5557 tpittman@colby.edu Basic Human Needs Basic Human Needs It is vainRead MorePsychology Workbook Essay22836 Words à |à 92 Pagesmental processes (pp. 7-8)? | | Key Terms scientific method -A self-correcting process for asking questions and observing natures answers; relies on collecting data, generating a theory to explain, producing testable hypothesis based on the theory and then testing those hypotheses empirically. Exercises 1. What is the main purpose of the scientific method? The scientific method proves or disproves competing ideas. Scientists make carefulRead MoreStephen P. Robbins Timothy A. Judge (2011) Organizational Behaviour 15th Edition New Jersey: Prentice Hall393164 Words à |à 1573 Pages91 4 Emotions and Moods 97 What Are Emotions and Moods? 98 The Basic Emotions 100 â⬠¢ The Basic Moods: Positive and Negative Affect 100 â⬠¢ The Function of Emotions 102 â⬠¢ Sources of Emotions and Moods 103 Emotional Labor 108 Affective Events Theory 110 Emotional Intelligence 112 The Case for EI 113 â⬠¢ The Case Against EI 114 â⬠¢ Emotion Regulation 115 OB Applications of Emotions and Moods 115 Selection 116 â⬠¢ Decision Making 116 â⬠¢ Creativity 116 â⬠¢ Motivation 117 â⬠¢ Leadership 117 â⬠¢ Negotiation 117 Lawrence Webberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15313206287305224370noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2832909770275233741.post-77650054670494973212020-05-05T15:53:00.001-07:002020-05-05T15:53:09.942-07:00Cultural Anthropology Exam Study Guide free essay sample Lucy- a Australopithecus fossil, found in Ethiopia Lewis Henry Morgan- supporter of evolutionism/uni-lineal evolution, came up with the hierarchy of cultures (savagery, barbarism, civilization) * Napoleon Chagnon- studied the Yanamamo, was banned from the villages by the governments and Catholic church for misrepresenting the people * Carol Stack- studied ââ¬Å"fictive kinâ⬠in African American communities. Nisa- a member of the ! Kung San peoples of the Kalahari desert, studied by Marjorie Shostak * Karl Marx- supported conflict theory, which says societies are held together by power/strife * Julian Steward- developed the concept and method of cultural ecology (the study of human adaptations to social and physical environments) * Marjorie Shostak- wrote about the ! Kung San people from the Kalahari desert (! Nisa) * Leslie White-said the most important aspect of human culture is the use of symbolic systemsCulture- a peopleââ¬â¢s total way of life that is learned within the culture and shared within the society * Artifacts- objects made or altered by human hands Cultural consultant/key informants- choosing someone in the community to work with and get connections from (someone who is respected and in the know) * Naturalized concepts- deeply embedded ideas about how the world should operate, are viewed as normal and natural Cultural models- * Fieldwork- the hallmark of the discipline, anthropologists try to establish a rapport, have to follow the AAA code of ethics * Ethnography- the documentation of a single culture * Ethnology- comparative study of cultures Physical/biological anthropology- one of the 4 subfields of anthropology, the study of humans as biological beings, includes primatologists, paleoanthropologists, and forensic anthropologists * Archaeology- one of the 4 subfields of anthropology, the study of human remains of past cultures * Linguistics- one of the 4 subfields of anthropology, the history and structure of language and its social aspects * Ethno-linguistics- study the relationship between a language and its culture * Socio-linguistics- study how context and status impact language and its usage (nonverbal communication and silent language) * Cultural knowledge- knowledge about prevailing social norms, practices, beliefs, and values in a culture * Participant observation- going into a culture and experiencing it through emic eyes * Emic- seeing the culture as a member of that culture * Etic- scientific and objective study of a society and its practices * Ethnocentrism- judging another based on oneââ¬â¢s own cultural standards and views (ex. We will write a custom essay sample on Cultural Anthropology Exam Study Guide or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Gross, nasty) * Cultural relativism- understanding cultural traits from within the context of the culture * Cultural ecology- is the study of human adaptations to social and physical environments * Cultural universals- common human features (food, family, education, beauty, etc. ) * Attributes- the size, color, shape, purpose, material, etc of an artifact * 3pââ¬â¢s- * Power- ability to get what you want over the objections of others * Prestige- your social honor/reputation, ex. honorifics * Property- material wealth and other resources, ex. Cows or money * Anthropological theories- a framework to generate hypotheses that explain various aspects of the culture. Empiricism- challenged evolutionism, direct observation and objective description are important for understanding culture * 4. Functionalism/structural functionalism- Says societies are giant physical organisms held together by cultural traits * 5. Conflict theory- Says societies are held together by power/strife (the haves vs. the have-nots) * Eco-facts- remains of plants and animals that can be found near living sites * Heterogeneous culture- members have few shared traits * Homogeneous culture- members have many shared traits * AAA (American Anthropological Association)- governs fieldwork, anthropologists must: * Respect subjects, both human and animal * Respect the environment Respect the discipline Get informed consent * Transparency- let people know what your goal is * Just compensation * First do no harm * Culture shock- all the feelings one has when exposed to a new environment (culture) * Enculturation- Learning oneââ¬â¢s culture from infancy or while growing up in the culture * Socialization- learning how to fit in your culture, it is a lifelong process since culture constantly changes * Life shock- Sudden unexpected experience; Can lead to fainting, hysteria, and puking * Field techniques- includes participant observation, interviews (formal and informal), and life history * Field anthropology- anthropologists who do fieldwork Applied anthropology- refers to the application of the method and theory of anthropology to the analysis and solution of practical problems * Rapport- a harmonious relationship with the people you are studying * Life histories- getting someoneââ¬â¢s life story to understand them better * Polyphony of voices- getting many opinions and stories when doing fieldwork * Cultural symbols- Things that represent ideas and concepts to people in a culture * Cultural consensus- getting an accurate description of what really happens in a culture from many people in that culture * Taboo- behaviors or actions that are prohibited in a culture * Components of culture: cognitive (what we think), behavioral (what we do), and material (our artifacts) Lawrence Webberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15313206287305224370noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2832909770275233741.post-18923056962588019672020-04-05T12:43:00.001-07:002020-04-05T12:43:02.606-07:00CET 2510 - Introduction to Sustainability Name _ Essays CET 2510 - Introduction to Sustainability Name : _______________ What year was the first Earth Day celebrated? 1970 When did the international green building movement start ? Late 1970's Describe what BREEAM is. The worlds oldest established method of assessing, rating, and certifying the degree of sustainability in buildings. What were the 7 principles of sustainable construction that the CIB came up with in 1994? (7pts) reduce-Reduce resource consumptionreuse-Reuse resourcesrecycle-Use recyclable resourcesnature-Protect naturetoxins-Eliminate toxinseconomics-Apply life-cycle costingquality-Focus on quality What are the three major forces propelling the shift to high performance buildings? (3 pts) a.)There is an Increased demand for buildings that are resource-efficient b.)Building location is a key factor in reducing energy consumption because transportation energy can amount to 2 times the operational energy of the building. c.)Climate Change Sustainable construction focuses on three main areas, what are they? (3 pts) a.)Ecological b.)Social c.)Economic Define Sustainable development. (5 pts) Economic development that is conducted without depletion of natural resources. What does the term "green building" mean? the planning, design, construction, and operations of buildings with several central, foremost considerations: energy use, water use, indoor environmental quality, material section and the buildings effects on its site. What is Biomimicry? Bio-mimicry is the design and production of materials, structures, and systems that are modeled on biological entities and processes. Describe the characteristics of a high performance building? By greening our built environment the green building industry can deliver on large-scale economic priorities such as climate change mitigation, energy security, resource conservation and job creation, long-term resilience and quality of life. What is precautionary principle ? (5 pts) the principle that the introduction of a new product or process whose ultimate effects are disputed or unknown should be resisted What does LEED stand for? Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design What does USGBC stand for? United States Green Building Council. 14) What are the Hannover Principles? (5 pts) The Hannover Principles are a set of statements that encourage the design professionals to take sustainability into consideration for their project What are the 5 golden rules for ecodesign ? (5 pts) 1-Don't use toxic substances and arrange closed loops for necessary but toxic ones.2-Minimize energy and resource consumption in production and transport 3-Minimize energy and resource consumption in the usage phase, especially for products with most significant environmental aspects in the usage phase.4-Promote repair and upgrading, especially for system dependent products.5-Promote long life, especially for products with most significant environmental aspects out of usage phase Why does global population growth affect global warming? (15 pts)The higher the populations, the higher the demand on our natural resources (oil, gas, coal) is for energy. The more energy we are using, especially oil and creating plastics and other items that produce greenhouse gasses, the more the earths temperature will rise. What is Green Globes? Green Globes is an online assessment protocol, rating system, and guidance for green building design, operation and management. Describe Net Zero Energy'. (5pts) net zero energy is in homes that produce enough energy to full fill its own share What is the key factor in reducing energy consumption? (5 pts) reducing the need/demand for energy Who was R. Buck minster Fuller ? he was a 20th century green inventor Describe Embodied Energy'. (5 pts) Embodied energy is the total energy required for the extraction, processing, manufacture and delivery of building materials to the building site. True or False: In the High growth sun belt and western regions of the United States, the demand for water in these regions threatens to rapidly outstrip the natural supply, even in normal, drought free conditions. True Who was "America's first green architect"? Rick Cook Under LEED Sustainable Sites', how many points can be earned in this category and what is the prerequisite? (5 pts) Construction Activity Pollution Prevention-26 points Under LEED Water Efficiency' (WE), there are three areas of credit and one prerequisite, name them and indicate their available points. (5 pts) -Water-Efficient Landscaping-Water Use Reduction 20%-Water Use Reduction-Innovative Wastewater Technologies Under LEED, what does EA stand for and how many points are possible? (3 pts) energy and atmosphere- 35 points How many prerequisites are there for EA? 3 prerequisites- Fundamental Commissioning of Building energy Systems, Minimum Energy Performance, Lawrence Webberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15313206287305224370noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2832909770275233741.post-68523955638558409782020-03-08T19:01:00.001-07:002020-03-08T19:01:03.524-07:00Blaxplotation films essaysBlaxplotation films essays Scene 1: Outside a ticket box office in a suburban movie theater in 1967. About a dozen white couples patiently wait in line to purchase tickets to the progressive new film, Guess Whos Coming to Dinner by Stanley Kramer. Camera then focuses on a movie poster, which portrays Sidney Poitier amongst an all white cast smiling contently. As the decade of the 1960s came to a close, America was in the midst of a radical social, political, and artistic movement. Students were rising, women were fighting for equality, and for the first time in history, the voice of the countrys African-American community was beginning to be heard. The Black Nationalist Movement delivered empowering messages of a need for black power, unity and representation. An artistic response to this political and social uprising emerged in the form of black popular musical acts, and soon spread to the world of cinema. The Blaxploitation film had arrived. The Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s was supposed to end institutional racism in American society and allow the African American community to obtain social, economic, and political equality, yet; the majority of the black community was still trapped in inner-city ghettos which offered few employment opportunities and crowded living conditions. These ghettos harbored one of the fastest growing populations in the country, which were becoming more and more discontent with the pace at which the supposed progress of the Civil Rights Movement was making. Out of the unrest that was brewing in these urban ghettos arose a new wave of racial consciousness called Black Power. Black Power represented both a conclusion to the decades Civil Rights Movement and a reaction against the racism that had persisted despite the efforts of the black activists during the 60s. Political leaders such as the Malcolm X, adapted the term as a repr... Lawrence Webberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15313206287305224370noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2832909770275233741.post-6510322787494040122020-02-21T09:28:00.001-08:002020-02-21T09:28:02.502-08:00Psychology Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 4Psychology - Essay Example The second theory deals with the ideal that successful relationships must be grown and developed. Through various surveys, including those done in past experiments, Knee reveals that the most successful relationships come from those where the belief of destiny is present. Belief in destiny also includes believing that there is only one person for everyone and that love can be at first sight. When individuals act on this, they are doing so out of intuition, or destiny. Numerous surveys were implemented that measured destiny and growth beliefs. These surveys looked into aspects that varied from dating behavior to whether or not a person can change themselves or their relationship. Another important characteristic that was measured was how individuals coped to stressful events in the relationship. The surveys were used to measure beliefs in both destiny and growth. After the results had been gathered and analyzed, it was determined that more successful relationships come from beliefs of destiny because these individuals believe that they have no control in the course of the relationship. They do not try to make a relationship work, which can cause further stress. Lawrence Webberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15313206287305224370noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2832909770275233741.post-73152650257892036042020-02-05T07:04:00.001-08:002020-02-05T07:04:03.575-08:00Online learning and cultural issues Research PaperOnline learning and cultural issues - Research Paper Example Also effect sizes were found to be larger for studies that had the online instruction as collaborative or instructor-directed, as compared to those where online learners worked independently. Student learning outcomes were least impacted in the way in which various studies conducted online learning. Across various content and learner types, the effectiveness of the approaches of learning online appears to be massive. Another research of experimental and semi-experimental studies that compares various types of online learning standards report that candidate learning is usually comparable in both distance learning and face to face learning if a study compares a mixture of both to purely online conditions. It also concludes that objects such as video feed or online tests do not seem to impact the amount that students tend to learn in online classes. Online learning can be made effective by giving students control of their interactions with media and requesting for learner interaction as well. When a couple of students group together to learn online, support techniques such as guiding queries usually impact the way students interact, but does not influence the amount they learn (Means, et al., 2010). There were about half a dozen studies conducted from 1989-2004 that actually met the criteria for experimental validation to compare online and traditional courses. Based on this, the National Survey of Student Engagement research concluded that online learners have deeper approaches to learning as compared to classroom-based learners and they also claim to have experienced better use of polished thinking skills, combine thinking process and reflective learning (Susan and Allison, 2009). Another study describes strategies to build and maintain online learning communities. They suggest the effectiveness of setting aims, tasks and their results, role of an instructor, enhancing social comfort and scaffolding. The issues they addressed were cultural and individual differe nces, verbalization, and intimidation of technical skills to operate and interact online. They conclude by suggesting not to expect a radical change overnight to address the issues but further research on overcoming the issues from both the instructorââ¬â¢s end and the learnersââ¬â¢ end (Ruth and Wing, 2002). Applications: There are many applications in use today for e-learning. They all emphasize in providing the qualities that would provide ease in communication and to bridge gaps between the student and teacher by employing effective techniques. eFront is the most widely used as it provides features to instructors as creating and managing lectures via visual content editors that support images, video and sound. It also provides a file sharing space which is organized by a file manager. It also provides the flexibility to assign assignments and generate surveys. Another tool is Moodle and its popularity is attributed to the fact that it is open source. Apart from course mana gement features, it provides support for chat between teachers and students. Dokeos is a tool that provides video conferencing capability along with chat and course management features. Claroline is the only tool to be translated in 35 other languages. It Lawrence Webberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15313206287305224370noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2832909770275233741.post-87377524836805125362020-01-28T03:28:00.001-08:002020-01-28T03:28:04.608-08:00Elasticity Of Demand And Economics Decision Making Economics EssayElasticity Of Demand And Economics Decision Making Economics Essay Extent or degree to which a demand or supply curve reacts to the change in price is called elasticity of that curve. This nature of curve varies with different nature of products means if a product is essential then change in price does not effect much on demand. On the other hand less essential product are quite sensitive to the price changes because opportunity cost of buying those product become too high. A good or service is said to be highly elastic if slight change in price leads to a sharp changes in quantity demanded or supplied. There are lots of products in the market which are not needed in our routine life. And a good or service is said to be highly inelastic if changes in price doesnt effect much on the quantity demanded or supplied. These are those product or services which are very much essential to our daily life. Price Elasticity of Demand It is defined as the percentage change in quantity demanded to the percentage change in price for a particular product or service. Demand is said to be elastic if change in price leads to a higher change in demand, in that case Price Elasticity of Demand (PED) would be more than one i.e PED > 1 P P D D Elastic demand PED>1 Q Perfectly Elastic Q Goods which comes under elastic category tend to have following characteristics They are luxury goods. They are very expensive like sports cars. Goods bought frequently. Goods with many substitutes in market. Price Inelasticity of Demand: Demand is said to be inelastic if the percentage change in price doesnt affect much on the demand of a product i.e. PED P P Inelastic demand PED Goods which come under inelastic category tend to have following characteristics: They are necessities. People are use to them means they are addictives like wine cigarettes. They have no or very few substitutes like petrol. They cost a small percentage of income and bought infrequently. In the short demand is usually more inelastic because it takes time to find alternatives. We can say if the price of chocolate increased demand would be inelastic as there is no alternatives, however if the price of mercury increased there are close substitutes in the form of other chocolates. Therefore demand would be more elastic. In broad there are three factors influencing the demands price elasticity: The availability of substitutes: This is the most important factor influencing the elasticity of a good or service. In general speaking more the substitutes the more elastic the demand will be. Income available to spend on goods: This factor affecting demand elasticity refers to the total a person can spend on a particular good or service. Now suppose price of orange juice goes up from $2 to $3 and the income remains the same. So the income that is available to spend on orange juice which is say $12 is enough for only 4 cans rather than 6. In other words consumer is forced to reduce his demand of orange juice. So if there is increase in price and at the same time no increase in available amount for that good or service then there will be elastic reaction in demand. Therefore demand will be sensitive to a change in price if there is no change in income. Time: Another important factor is time. If price of cigarettes goes up by 15%, a smoker with very few substitute start buying on daily basis instead of buying for a week or so. This suggests that tobacco is inelastic because change of price will not have a considerable influence on the quantity demanded. However if the smoker finds difficult to spend extra 15% and begins to get rid off smoking, the price elasticity of cigarettes for that consumer become elastic in long run. Market Structure: Every market has his own features on which it works or behaves. There are few features which we should consider while determining the market structure as First of all we should know the awareness of consumer about the market. We should know how knowledgeable our customers are. We should know how many firms are doing the same business; it tells us the extent of competition we are supposed to face. What type of product we are dealing with, whether it is coming in the category of necessary product or in the category of luxury product. Whether the entry in the market is easy or difficult and same is the case with leaving the market. Based upon these factors we decide whether the market is perfectly competitive or imperfectly competitive. In a perfectly competitive market there is no entry and exit barrier, we can enter or exit at any point of time from the market. Also in perfectly competitive market product is homogenous and there are large number of buyers and sellers. While in imperfectly competitive market there are very few buyers and sellers, very difficult to enter into and exit the market and at the same time there is monopoly of product. Market Structure of Airline Industry: Market structure which suits to Airline Industry is oligopoly market. In this type of market there are only 2-3 firms who dominate the market. Advertisement and marketing is very important in such type of markets. As there are very few firms, they know each other very well. They know strategies of each other. So they always consider their competitors, while making price strategies, because they just cant set the prices by themselves. They have to consider the pricing of their competitors as well. Although when one firm has a dominant position in the market the oligopoly may experience a price leadership. Firm having lower market share may forced to follow the pricing policy of dominant firm. As large amount of fixed cost is involved in this type of market so entry as well as exit is very difficult. There are basically three major theories about the oligopoly of pricing as under: These firms collaborate to charge the unique price and at the same time unique profit. These firms compete on price so that price as well as the profit will remain same as in competitive market. These firms had the price and profit in between of perfectly competitive and monopoly markets. Market Structure Seller Entry Barrier Buyer entry Barrier Number of Seller Number of Buyers Perfect competition No No Many many Oligopoly Yes No Very few many Monopoly Yes No Only one many Table for different market structure Yield Management: The basic concept of yield management is to provide right service to right person at the right price on right time. (Kimes, 1989: Weatherford and Bodily 1992). Now in case of Airline Industry we can define yield management as generating maximum revenue per seat by keeping customer satisfied. We can do this by applying different policies. As in every industry, customer is very important in this industry. Customer is paying quite an amount to get the services of this type of industry. So we have to take a very good care of customer as well. We have to provide good service right from the booking of ticket to leaving off the plane. The strategic points of yield management are four Cs namely, calendar, capacity, clock and cost and they all bound together with another C i.e. customer. Singapore Airlines is a great example of this. They take a great care of their customers. They keep data of each and every passenger travel with them. They not only provide excellent service but also maintain good and caring relations with customers. Firms compete for market share and demand from customers in many ways. We differentiate these ways into two major subheads i.e. Price Competition and Non-price Competition. We are considering New Zealand Airline Industry as an example Price Competition: Price competition involves increasing the demand by discounted the price. We increase our business in different ways as under: We can provide discounted tickets in the off seasons. We can provide ticket through some scheme like buy one ticket and get 50% discount on purchase of another ticket. This would definitely attract customers and at the same time would increase the revenue. Because there is no use of flying with vacant seat, its better to have customers with discounted tickets. We can also start pre booking scheme especially for our off season. We can launch scheme like discount on ticket booked 1-2 months before. This would enable us to know how much customer we have in our off season and we can make our further strategy according to that. If we still have very few bookings then we can offer some gifts, holiday package or so on booking to boom our sale. We can introduce new packages with our tickets. We can collaborate with few hotels to provide a complete holidays package to family, newly married couples teenagers. We can provide one way free travel, means a person can pay for one way and get the ticket for return as well. This will increase the revenue and at the same time enable us to get few loyal customers. Non- Price Competition: This is the focus on other strategies to increase the market share. There are various strategies which comes under this category as Advertisement and marketing is the major strategy which comes under this category. As there is huge investment involve in this type of industry so we want to get super normal profit out of this. Advertisement plays an important role in achieving this. We advertise and market our product or service in such a way that it put significant impact on customer. On line booking is another value added service. We can book our ticket from home and get our seat confirmed. This would help customer to make his plan well in advance and at the same time it is hassle free. This would enable them to get rid off agents as well as long queue. And apart from this it is 24 hours service. Locality card or points given to every customer, who keeps on adding and customer, will get a prize on reaching certain points. This enable customer to interest for his next trip from same airline. Lawrence Webberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15313206287305224370noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2832909770275233741.post-303069905759753332020-01-19T23:52:00.001-08:002020-01-19T23:52:03.329-08:00Blue Hotel :: essays research papers The Blue Hotel Steven Crane is not one of the most liked authors in the world. He tends to become to engulfed in the scenery around the action that is taking place rather than the action itself. When watching the movie, cannot experience this description since it is given to them. Details are very important for the readers because if the reader cannot see the same thing that the writer sees then the reader might lose interest in the story. In the story ââ¬Å"The Blue Hotel,â⬠Crane uses his excellent setting and character description along with the physical, emotional, and intellectual responses of people under extreme pressure and the betrayal and guilt he shows between the characters to help the reader better understand the story or poem. Crane shows these characteristics in almost everything he writes. In ââ¬Å"The Blue Hotel,â⬠Crane does an excellent job of describing the setting to you in every way possible. For example in the beginning of the story ââ¬Å"The Blue Hotel,â⬠he says ââ¬Å"the hotel was painted a light blue, a shade that is on the legs of a kind of heron, causing the bird to declare its position against any background.â⬠He does this type of depiction on every single thing he describes. Then in paragraph three he says, ââ¬Å"A little Irishman wore a heavy fur cap squeezed tightly down on his head. It caused his two red ears to stick out stiffly, as if they were made of tin.â⬠In the movie you are left with no dialogue and all you can do is witness what is being presented. In the end Crane even goes into an in depth description of the bitter cold snow outside. From his description the reader can imagine more chilling scenery than that one that can be created by Hollywood. Crane also does a good job of establishing his characters through one of his major themes; the physical, emotional, and intellectual responses of people under extreme pressure. Crane shows this in his characters to help the reader better understand what the character is going through. One example of this is when the Swede accuses Johnny of cheating in a card game. This offends Johnny and his emotional and physical reaction is to challenge the Swede to a fight. Crane stories consist of that moment when the characters confront the inescapable impasse of their situation, they are caught and boxed in by fate, and then nothing happens. Lawrence Webberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15313206287305224370noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2832909770275233741.post-38904538570128463302020-01-11T20:14:00.001-08:002020-01-11T20:14:04.527-08:00Porter Five Forces Assist an Organisation in Their Strategic PlanningHow does Porters Five Forces Model assist an organisation in their strategic planning? Before understanding ââ¬Å"howâ⬠we must know ââ¬Å"whatâ⬠Porters Five Forces model really is (Michael E. Porter, 2008). Company strive to secure a competitive advantage over their rivals, I mean who doesnââ¬â¢t want to be the best? Although the intensity of rivalry varies within each industry and these differences can be important in the development of strategy, but rather the five forces (Porter, 2008) being a strategy of any sort, it acts a framework in securing a strategy.The only time where strategy is irrelevant, would be when you have no competitors where ultimately the environment is a monopoly, or when you have a ton of money to throw around and waste. But having said that, it is not likely at all. Without framework, strategy will inevitably collapse, as they both come hand in hand. Thus a chain arises as the five forces (Porter, 2008) acts as a framework in assisting an or ganisation in their strategic planning, where strategic planning leads to a competitive advantage over their competitors which then leads to ultimate success of the company.Before proceeding to the question at hand on how Porters Five Forces can assist an organisation in their strategic planning, first we have to know two things, what are the Five Forces that Porter (2008) proposed, and ultimately what strategy really means? To ease this journey, letââ¬â¢s start with the Five Forces (Porter, 2008).Before any company enters a certain market, one must first analyse the competitive nature of the market, and this is exactly what the Five Forces (2008) aids to do, to provide a framework to determine the intensity of competition within an industry where three of the five competitive forces comes from an external sources, and the remainder coming from an internal sources. These external sources includes: Threat of potential entrants, threat of potential substitutes and rivalry of existi ng firms in the industry.Now these sources are external due to the fact that it is simply impossible to temper with. But what we can control, are the two internal sources: the bargaining power of suppliers, and the bargaining power of buyers. Being aware of the five forces can aid firms into identifying existence and the importance of each of the five forces, as well as the roles that each force plays into the success of the firms. The threat of potential entrants: Although it is possible for any company to enter and exit a market of their choice, each market has their own unique barriers to go in and out of.Therefore the essence of this force deals with the level of difficulty that a company can enter into an industry which will ultimately impact competition within the industry. Whenever a new company enters an industry, the competitive climate changes; it provides more alternatives to consumers, therefore reducing its attractiveness and the competition within the industry increase s as each company is trying to come out on top. As each industry have their own unique characteristics it allows them to build a barrier from other industries protecting them from profitability while restraining additional rivals from entering the market.These restraints and characteristics that industries create are referred to as barriers of entry. Barriers of entry are a characteristic acquired uniquely to each industry. It attempts to reduce the rate of entry of new companies which maintains the level of profitability for all current industry competitors, where if new companies enters the industry, the profit is shared amongst the original and the newly developed companies in the industry, ultimately decreasing overall profits of each company, which isnââ¬â¢t ideal.Conversely when profitability of an industry is high, companies will attempt to come into the industry to get a piece of the action, which then will eventually result in reducing profits due to the fact that it is divided up into more quarters. Where thereââ¬â¢s an entry, thereââ¬â¢s an exit, barriers to exit limits the ability of a firm to leave the market, meanwhile rivalries can worsen. So when barriers for entry and exits are high, it means that companies have a higher potential to make more profit and the opposite occurs when barriers are low.The threat of substitutes: where it refers to substitute product as those that are available in other industry which can also fulfil the need and want of the consumers. It can affect competition in an industry by placing an invisible ceiling on prices which companies within the industry can charge, due to the fact that if the cost of substitute is low then the consumers will tend to purchase substitutes, therefore limiting the prices that a company can place on certain items to gain maximum profit. For example, lemonade can be substituted for a soft drink.Generally, competitive pressures arising from substitute products increase as the relativ e price of substitute products declines and as consumer's switching costs decrease. The bargaining power of buyers is affected by the concentration and number of consumers, when buyer power is strong, they gain the power to choose between producers and ultimately equip themselves with bargaining power which then the producers will have to conform to in order to produce profit, under these conditions the buyer has the most influence in determining the price of products.Also when buyers have strong bargaining power in the exchange relationship, competition can be affected in several ways. Powerful buyers can bargain for lower prices, better product distribution, higher-quality products, as well as other factors that can create greater competition among companies. To minimise the power of buyers, companies can develop offers in which strong buyers cannot refuse, also, companies can choose to select buyers with less bargaining power.Similarly, the bargaining power of suppliers affects t he intensity of competition in an industry, for a production industry that produces goods, raw materials are needed which creates a buyer and supplier relationship between the industry and companies which produces the raw materials. Suppliers may be able to determine prices especially when there are a large number of suppliers, limited substitute raw materials, or increased switching costs. The bargaining power of suppliers is important to industry competition because suppliers can also affect the quality of exchange relationships.Competition may become more intense as powerful suppliers raise prices, reduce services, or reduce the quality of goods or services. In order to minimise the power of suppliers, industry tend to build win-win relationships with suppliers where both parties benefits from it or arrange to use multiple suppliers so if one supplier chooses to increase their prices, the company doesnââ¬â¢t get affected as much. Competition is also affected by the rivalry amo ng existing firms, which is usually considered as the most powerful of the five competitive forces.In most industries, business organizations are mutually dependent, industries that are concentrated versus fragmented; often display the highest level of rivalry. A competitive move by one company in pursuing an advantage over its rivals can be expected to have a noticeable effect on its competitors, and thus, may cause retaliation of other companies, for example, lowering prices, enhancing quality, adding features, providing services, extending warranties, and increasing advertising, placing themselves in a competitive advantage over the competitors.The nature of competition is often affected by a variety of factors, such as the size and number of competitors, demand changes for the industry's products, the specificity of assets within the industry, the presence of strong exit barriers, and the variety of competitors. These conditions will lead to a more challenging industry where com panies compete in, leading to price wars, advertising battles, and the addition of new products. So after going through the five forces, letââ¬â¢s take a look at what strategic planning really means.If we are going to have a good strategy, we must separate strategy from goals and objectives and other issues that managers often think about. Now most management practitioners make the mistake in defining strategy, a strategy is what unique position that we will be able to achieve, what our advantage is going to be at the end of the day as we take these steps accumulatively over time, how weââ¬â¢re going to be unique? How weââ¬â¢re going to have an advantage? How weââ¬â¢re going to sustain the advantage over time? Schermerhorn, Davidson, Poole, Simon, Woods, Chau, 2011). The steps we take arenââ¬â¢t a strategy, but somehow numerous companies make the mistake of fixating themselves on a particular action that an organisation want to approach, which then inevitably becomes their strategy but that usually leads to the downfall of the company simply because they do not know why theyââ¬â¢re doing it and when they should stop doing it. As we all know, every industry is different, therefore, there is no universal strategy that can apply to any business.But before proceeding, a company must understand their position and the industry that they are in and their circumstances in order to find a way of obtaining a competitive advantage over the competitors, where indefinitely delivering a unique value to the consumers which rivals cannot. As the five forces (Porter, 2001) suggests that being at a competitive advantage is the idealistic way of being on top, due to the fact that every industry has their own set of economics, the five forces (Porter, 2001) without a doubt acts as a framework to extract any necessary information needed to develop strategy to gain competitive advantage.The Five forces (Porter, 2001) help you home in on what is really causing prof itability, or in fact what is causing the trends of the significance and change of the industry. This powerful framework can prevent an organisation from getting tricked or trapped into the latest trends like the technological sensation, and really allowing organisations to focus solely on the underlying fundamentals. This can be applied to any industry whether if its production or a service, high tech or low tech, emerging or developed industries (Porter, 2001).With the framework at hand, it acts as a guide or even a tick off criteria sheet into strategic planning, how should we begin? The strategy formulating process will be pretty straight forward from here after deeply understanding the five forces which Porter (2001) proposed. The first step should be the analysis of the industry that a company is trying to get into, looking at the environment to tick off all of the 5 boxes one by one, evaluating what the industry looks like, how itââ¬â¢s been changing over time, and what ar e the drivers of competition (Schermerhorn et al, 2011).After a careful analyse the company is then required to under the dynamics as to where the industry is going, how the buyers and substituteââ¬â¢s entry level are evolving, and lastly how to position the company to gain a good profit. These are all extracted from the framework proposed by Porter (2001), although competition is sometimes looked at too narrowly, with careful analysis of the five forces (Porter, 2001) will ultimately position the company in a competitive advantage.Where a competitive advantage allows an organisation to deal with the market and environmental forces much better than its competitors (Ramon, 2012), to achieve this goal, the company needs to be at its best and better than the competitors who are trying to achieve the same goal in the same industry. Rather than a goal, competitive advantage is a position that a company wants to be in, a goal is to make the competitive advantage sustainable in spite of all the mockery of rivals, although achieving and sustaining it is a challenging task, but it will set concrete roots for the company in years to come.The implementation of strategic planning tools serves a variety of purposes in companies, including the clear definition of an organization's purpose and mission, and the establishment of a standard base from which progress can be measured and future actions can be planned. I-O psychologist Ramon E, Henson (2012) and Robert E, Ployhart (2012) although having disagreements in some parts of their papers, they ultimately come forward in reinforcing the importance of competitive advantage suggesting that I-O and strategy has been ââ¬Å"joined at hips for yearsâ⬠(Ramon, 2012), also suggesting hat I-O psychology should stray from the focus of individuals and start focusing more on the company as a whole as they have ââ¬Å"much to offerâ⬠in the understanding of competitive advantage (Ployhart, 2012). Furthermore, the strategic planning tools should communicate those goals and objectives to the organisation as a whole rather than just the ones involved in the strategic planning process (Oââ¬â¢Shannassy, 2003) to achieve a more efficient work flow. Throughout the centuries, countless strategic approaches has been formed and used and recycled, so why use Porterââ¬â¢s Five Forces (2008)?For example, strategy as simple rules Kathleen M. Eisenhardt, ; Donald N. Sull, (2001). It illustrates the success story of Yahoo! , along with other successful companies coming from an unattractive market. ââ¬Å"So how they did succeed? More generally, what are the sources of competitive advantage in high-velocity markets? What does strategy mean in the new economy? â⬠(Eisenhardt et al, 2001, p. 108). The key is none-other than strategy as simple rules, it targets market confusion and rides the magic carpet to see where or what it will journey into.Although it is indeed called ââ¬Å"simple rulesâ⬠, a rule still applies to it, as one Internet executive explained: ââ¬Å"I have a thousand opportunities a day; strategy is deciding which 50 to do. â⬠(Eisenhardt et al, 2001, p. 108). As it summarises and illustrates that simple rules is all about taking risks, its essence is to capture unanticipated opportunities for ultimate success. Although for companies like Yahoo! has gained huge success, simple rules (2001) cannot apply to any industry as the authors suggests (Eisenhardt et al, 2001).If the opportunity presents itself, for anyone to use simple rules (2001) as a stepping stone to success, without a doubt, one should take the opportunity, but an opportunity does not just come without any background knowledge of a particular industry, and this is where Porterââ¬â¢s Five Forces (2008) comes into play, as it provides a framework for careful analysis of the industry, by analysing the industry will allow you to grab hold of the opportunities that might come about. Despite the fact that there are numerous of strategies to obtain competitive advantage, Porters Five Forces (2008) acts as a basis of all these trategies, as it is a tick-off criteria sheet which allows a company to understand their position before even implementing any sort of action. It is important as companies strives for ultimate profitability, thus the importance of a company securing a competitive advantage over their competitors is key, as even I-O psychologists supports the important of competitive advantage and that it should be a ââ¬Å"department on its ownâ⬠(Ployhart, 2012). How to implement strategy and sustaining it is another question. Although Yahoo! nd some other companies has succeeded without the five forces (Porter, 2008), it is a dangerous and risky step, and for those who doesnââ¬â¢t have the resource to throw around, Porters Five Forces (2008) will not only act as a friend but mentor to the journey of success. Reference John R. Schermerhorn, Paul Davidson, David Poo le, Alan Simon, Peter woods ; So Ling Chau (2011). Management 4th Asia-Pacific Edition. Queensland, Australia: John Wiley ; Sons Australia, Ltd. Kathleen M. Eisenhardt, ; Donald N. Sull, (2001). Strategy as Simple Rules. Harvard Business Review,79(1), 106-116.Porter E. Michael. THE FIVE COMPETITIVE FORCES THAT SHAPE STRATEGY. Harvard Business Review, 00178012, Jan2008, Vol. 86, Issue 1. RAMON M. HENSON. Industrial-Organizational and Strategy Are Integrated in Practice! Industrial and Organizational Psychology, 5(2012), pp82-86. Robert E. Ployhart. From Possible to Probable: The Psychology of Competitive Advantage. Industrial and Organizational Psychology, 5 (2012), 120ââ¬â126. Tim Oââ¬â¢Shannassy, (2003). Modern Strategic management: Balancing Strategic Thinking and Strategic Planning for Internal and External Stakeholders. Singapore Management Review, 25(1), 53-67. Lawrence Webberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15313206287305224370noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2832909770275233741.post-7754221227736898852020-01-03T16:38:00.001-08:002020-01-03T16:38:03.858-08:00Is Identity Theft Or Having Credit Card Or Banking... As we have moved into an era where we are more and more dependent on the internet and cyber technology than we ever have been, it is almost natural for criminals to find a way to learn to exploit the information available. While there are some internet hackers and activists that utilize their skills to send a message or to push an agenda, there are many hackers and cyber criminals that utilize their skills illegally for monetary gain. Many of us have most of our bills and finances online, and we utilize the internet to track and manage these types of accounts. While there may be no way to revert to the days of paper accounting, the idea of identity theft or having credit card or banking information stolen has many people fearful of having their information on the internet. While there may be no guaranteed method of ensuring your information is completely protected, there are ways to make yourself much less vulnerable to these attacks. By educating oneself on the risks and vulnerabili ties associated with being on the internet and having so much information tied into it, you may be able to stay much safer. One of the first and most important things that everyone must do in order to avoid being a victim of cybercrime, is educating yourself of exactly what cybercrime is and the many ways it can manifest itself and affect you. Simply put, cybercrime is any type of crime that is perpetrated by the use of a computer or similar device and a network. One of the most common andShow MoreRelatedIdentity Theft Paper903 Words à |à 4 PagesIdentity Theft and Cards There is many of the America nation that says their identity canââ¬â¢t get stolen, but it can. There is even ways for your identity to be stolen with your credit cards now. Anyone can be the next victim of identity theft. That is why in this research I will tell you how you get identity theft and how to prevent identity theft, because most Americans never know it is happening. Americans need to allow themselves to come to know the cautions of identity theft. There areRead MoreQuestions On E Commerce Fraud1221 Words à |à 5 Pagesrelated function in order to present fraudulent solicitations, steal personal information, conduct fraudulent transactions, or transmit money from bank to bank or to other cyber criminals. Fraud is not exclusive to credit or debit cards and criminals have become more sophisticated in their usage of malware in order to take over online banking logins via consumersââ¬â¢ phones, tablets and computers. The stolen banking information is then used t o make fraudulent purchases online that is nearly untraceableRead MoreIdentity Theft : The Problem With Security1901 Words à |à 8 PagesIdentity Theft: The problem with security of who we are Identity theft is the talk of the day with many victims suffering from its dire consequences. It has the means to ruin an individual s life with being doubted in the near future when trying to accomplish anything that is credit and government related. It has sent many innocent people behind bars with accusations that are fraudulent and unnecessary. By a simple credit card number and social security number, the whole identity profile will beRead MoreE Commerce And Its Effects On The World Of Businesses Essay984 Words à |à 4 Pagessteps and having poor security can cause identity theft. Identity theft is not something new that has recently attracts peopleââ¬â¢s attention. The classic theft is ââ¬Å"petty thievesâ⬠, and criminals been doing this for centuries. ââ¬Å"Petty thievesâ⬠are the criminals that steal wallets and purses, and now modern days stealing credit cards and debut cards. They go on shopping to spend all the money in your wallet, purse, or credit card. Since the early 1990s the growing technology, a new wave of identity thievesRead MoreIdentity Crimes : As Common As Death And Taxes1099 Words à |à 5 PagesIdentity Crimes: As Common as Death and Taxes With the rise in the need for the convenience of online shopping and bill pay, identity theft has become a more prevalent issue around the world. Identity theft is a type of crime in which someone wrongfully obtains and uses another personââ¬â¢s personal data in some way that involves fraud of deception, typically for economic gain (Identity Theft). In 2009, approximately 13.9 million Americans were victims of some form of identity theft (Theoharis). StudiesRead MoreIdentity Theft Essay3006 Words à |à 13 PagesKevin Gardner Proposal Paper ENWR 102-G 4/25/2013 Identity theft is committed every day in the United States. This form of crime can be extremely serious and life changing. The amount of resources the United States puts toward the prevention of identity theft is just not enough. Identity theft can harm a personsââ¬â¢ entire life because of all the damage that the thief can cause in such a short amount of time. Identity theft is a threat to everybody and the world as a whole should be more awareRead MoreAre Credit Cards More Convenient Than Cash?1019 Words à |à 5 PagesAre Credit Cards More Convenient than Cash? Money is seen and used every day in the majority of countries around the world. The debate whether or not cash is better than credit is stronger than ever due to advancements in technology. So which one is better? The benefits of cash are that when used, one can physically see how much they are paying or earning. Credit cards are more convenient in terms catching theft; However both forms of money come in handy and are generally simple to track. Cash andRead MoreMgt 426 Week 2 Team Assignment1458 Words à |à 6 Pagesis identity theft. Identity theft can happen through the internet, ATM, emails, or even a phone. Identity theft can happen when any person(s) takes an individualââ¬â¢s information, such as their Social Security number, or even banking information for financial gain. ââ¬Å"Close to 100 million Americans have their personal information placed at risk of theft each year when records in databases are lost, stolen or accessed by unauthorized individualsâ⬠(Informat ion systems and technology, n.d.). Identity theftRead More Identity Theft Essay966 Words à |à 4 Pagesbaby food to prescription drugs on the internet and it will be delivered in a timely fashion to your front door. No line, no commute time, no annoying shoppers and no incompetent sales persons. Banking online is a recently developed convenience. How often do you forget to pay your bills? With online banking your bills are paid on time. You also have immediate access to your bank statements updated by the minute. It sounds almost too good to be true and it is, sort of. Just like in every aspectRead MoreHow Identity Theft Affect the Culture of Our Society5785 Words à |à 24 PagesHow Identity Theft Affect the Culture of our Society Sections I, II, III and IV Rodrekus Baskin DeVry University How Identity Fraud and Theft Impact the Culture of Our Society Section I Identity theft affects millions of Americans every day. Scam artists and hackers lay in wait for an unsuspecting person to get caught up their scheme through ignorance or naivety so they can take full advantage of their personal information to do as they desire with it. Problem is, it infiltrates Lawrence Webberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15313206287305224370noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2832909770275233741.post-44004618077824966662019-12-26T13:05:00.001-08:002019-12-26T13:05:03.252-08:00Two Party System DBQ Essay - 1047 Words Weatherspoon, Chloe APUSH, Period 9 December 1, 2014 Two Party System DBQ Despite the fact the founding fathers advised contrary to the establishment of political factions as the Constitution withstood the ratification process, a rift amongst men in President George Washingtonââ¬â¢s cabinet instituted the move toward the conception of political party. During the time period between 1791 and 1833, a two-party system had begun that demonstrated the philosophy of the Federalists and Democratic-Republicans. Although these two political groups were unyielding in their original ideas and beliefs, both had to change a few of their initial standpoints on numerous topics as they dealt with the truth of the government. Americaââ¬â¢s firstâ⬠¦show more contentâ⬠¦Jefferson was joined by James Madison leading the Democrat-Republicans, who believed power was in the hands of the states. On the other hand, as the country advanced and refined, it became known that the fixed views of the two political parties needed to be reasonable if the nation were to expand. Jefferson made the first action toward reconciliation and moderation of his political outlook with the Federalists by contributing a sense of peace in his First Inaugural Address (Doc. 3). Jefferson declared, ââ¬Å"We are all Republicans, we are all Federalists,â⬠signifying Americans are all in this society together and collectively make the world outstanding. Jefferson and his party had to further control their thinking when the chance to purchase the Louisiana Territory from France appeared in 1803 (Doc. 4). There was a lack of preparation in the Constitution for a president to buy more territory. However, the opportunity may have not continued to be accessible for a long amount of time, and Jefferson changed his own ââ¬Å"strict constructionâ⬠aspects and doubled the size of the United Stat es. In opposition to its preference, the United States became engaged in European affairs as the Napoleonic War was fought, interrupting with American shipping and trade. At last, the Untied States went to war with Great Britain to protect its right to ââ¬Å"freedom of the seas.â⬠Federalists, who were now out of power in the executive branch and a minority in theShow MoreRelated Federalists VS Jeffersoneans Essay710 Words à |à 3 Pagescorruption. Thomas Jefferson was the driving force behind the Democratic Republicans, who were the main opposition of the Federalists. Virtually disagreeing with the Federalists on every issue, he planned to make considerable amount of changes to the system once he came into power. That he did when he was inaugurated March 4, 1801. In his speech, he stressed the need for a government of limited powers, economy in the national administration, support of state governments in all their rights, acquiescenceRead MoreChina Relations DBQ Essay814 Words à |à 4 PagesNovember 14th, 2014 6th Period AP World History Chinese peasant and Communism DBQ: Between circa 1925 and circa 1950, the relations between the Chinese peasants and the Chinese Communist Party became out of hand due to the peasant rebellions/uprising groups present, the tension between Japan and the communist party, and most notable the mass reform during this time period. In 1927 the rising leader of the Chinese Communist party was acknowledging that soon the upsurge of peasant rebellion was soon, andRead MoreBoyer Dbq Teacher Guide10764 Words à |à 44 PagesUsing the DBQ Practice Questions from The Enduring Vision, Sixth Edition A Teachersââ¬â¢ Guide Ray Soderholm Minnetonka High School Minnetonka, Minnesota Using the DBQ Practice Questions from The Enduring Vision, 6th Edition A Teachersââ¬â¢ Guide This guide is intended to suggest some possible ways that students may organize essays related to the document-based questions in the Advanced Placement version of The Enduring Vision, 6th Edition, and to provide teachers with some information on each includedRead MoreDbq on Andrew Jackson Essay813 Words à |à 4 PagesDBQ ââ¬â Andrew Jackson Jacksonian Democrats believed that they were protecting individual liberty, political democracy, the equality of economic opportunity, and upholding the rights of the Constitution of the United States. In my opinion, the Jacksonians were, to some extent, guardians of the United States. However, the Jacksonians did have their flaws. When it came to protecting individual liberties, Jacksonians favored the white male population, but totally ignored others. They wanted toRead MoreEra of Good Feelings Dbq807 Words à |à 4 PagesEra of Good Feelings DBQ Question- The ââ¬Å"Era of Good Feelingsâ⬠was a time of increased patriotism and prosperity for America, but were there hidden debates on serious issues going on within the country during this very time period? The ââ¬Å"Era of Good Feelingsâ⬠was a time period that lasted from about 1815-1824, and in this era there was increased nationalism and prosperity for the country. Still though, there were very crucial issues being argued over in that very time period. 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So for years they try to avoided confrontation, butRead MoreWhat Made Non Violence Work1154 Words à |à 5 PagesNon-Violence Work? Background Essay The history of violence in the world is well documented. However it is also possible to use non-violence to bring about change. This DBQ will look at two countries where a non-violent movement was successful. Historic Context India and South Africa were two important nations on two different continents. But although they looked strong on the outside, each one suffered from a disease that threatened the health of the whole. For India, the disease wasRead MoreVietnam War : History And History1695 Words à |à 7 Pages http://www.scribd.com/doc/28238272/Vietnam-War-DBQ#scribd Throughout the 1960s and 1970s Americans became uneasy not only about the troubled position of the United States in world affairs, but also about the disorder wrought at home byforeign entanglements. Vietnam, either because of the searing war experience itself or because of the lessons Americans later drew from the experience, drastically altered society during the1960s and 1970s. The belief in the right to influence the internal affairsRead MoreDBQ #1 : Political, Social and Economic effects of the American Revolution2546 Words à |à 11 PagesPolitically the states became polar opposites than that of the political system they had previously been following; these new thoughts were radical compared to previous ones, this is shown in the new bill of rights, the constitution, the kentucky Virginia resolution/s. The social changes that took place, although there were few, often tended to have an underlying political aspect, such as the formation of the Federalist and Republican parti es. Economically, new invention became tools in aiding the new flourishing Lawrence Webberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15313206287305224370noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2832909770275233741.post-48584934136577983052019-12-18T08:54:00.001-08:002019-12-18T08:54:04.319-08:00U.s. Federal Criminal Investigation Essay - 1637 Words In 2015, U.S. federal prosecutors disclosed cases of corruption by officials and associates connected with FIFA, the governing body of association football, futsal and beach soccer. Near the end of May 2015, fourteen people were indicted in connection with an investigation led by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation Division (IRS-CI) into wire fraud, racketeering, and money laundering. The United States Attorney General simultaneously announced the unsealing of the indictments and the prior guilty pleas by four football executives and two corporations. The investigation mostly revolved around collusion between officials of continental football bodies CONMEBOL (South America) and CONCACAF (Caribbean, Central and North America), and sports marketing executives. The sports marketing executives were holders of media and marketing rights for high-profile international competitions including the Americas FIFA World Cup qualifying tournaments, and showpiece tournaments CONCACAF Gold Cup and Copa Amà ©rica. CONCACAF President Jeffrey Webb, also serving president of the Cayman Islands Football Association, was arrested in connection with the investigation, as were two sitting FIFA Executive Committee members: Eduardo Li of the Costa Rican Football Federation and Eugenio Figueredo, formerly of the Uruguayan Football Association, and former CONMEBOL President Nicolà ¡s Leoz. The investigation lasted several years,Show MoreRelatedHistory of the Fbi Essay726 Words à |à 3 PagesFBI The Federal Bureau of Investigation was founded in 1908 when the Attorney General appointed an anonymous force of 34 Special Agents to be investigators for the Department of Justice. Before that, the DOJ had to borrow Agents from the U.S. Secret Service. In 1909, the Special Agent Force was renamed the Bureau of Investigation, and after countless name changes, it became The Federal Bureau of Investigation in 1935. When the FBI was established, there werent an abundance of federal crimes, soRead MoreCja 314 Crime Data Comparison Essay1627 Words à |à 7 Pagesway of life. Over the last years, different areas of the United States have been affected by crime. The Federal Bureau of Investigation Uniform Crime Report (UCR) Program is a nationwide program that gathers statistical information from nearly 18,000 agencies that report criminal data on crimes that have been brought to their attention or reported voluntarily (The Federal Bureau of Investigation, n.d.). This instrument is useful for finding the rates of incidents, help determine what factors mightRead MoreThe Levels Of Law Enforcement1190 Words à |à 5 PagesSince the beginning years of American history and basically every other country has been kept safe by the police or police type department. In the United States, there are three levels of law enforcement, there is the Federal level, the State level, and the Local level. The levels o f law enforcement have various duties but most duties are very similar. Every day in the field is very different. The job can also be extremely stressful, and law enforcement professionals need specific training to succeedRead MoreDrug Control Essay1594 Words à |à 7 Pagessupervise the different federal drug law enforcement Agencies that neither violate individualsââ¬â¢ rights, nor leave criminals without punishment. The United States, in an effort to stop drug control, has created federal anti-narcotics laws, such as the Harrison Act of 1914 and its many amendments that were created by the government in an attempt to impede physicians from providing addicts with drugs, and to regulate drug trade. Although the Harrison Act was seen as a triumph of the criminal model over theRead MoreLaw Enforcement, US Military, and Terrorism923 Words à |à 4 PagesSection 4: Law Enforcement, U.S. Military, and Terrorism Law enforcement agencies at the federal level and the U.S. military play a significant role in preventing terrorism on a state, national, and global scale. Former Vice-President Dick Cheney comments, On the ground, the first responders and local police [are] the first line of defense and intelligence, followed by federal law enforcement, with our foreign intelligence and military forces on call (Melber). Through a collaboration of variousRead More The F.B.I. Essay1111 Words à |à 5 Pagesthrough the investigation of violations of federal criminal law; to protect the U.S. from foreign intelligence and terrorist activities; to provide leadership and law enforcement assistance to federal, state, local, and international agencies; and to perform these responsibilities in a manner that is responsive to the needs of the public and is faithful to the constitution of the U.S.: this is the mission of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The agency now known as the Federal Bureau of InvestigationRead MoreCourt Systems in China and the United States994 Words à |à 4 Pagesand territories and then the federal court system. Each states court system is unique, but most of them generally follow the same basic structure as the federal court system. The first level of court is the trial court. In the United States these are the U.S. District Courts. There are also a variety of trial-level courts with specialized purposes, such as tax courts and admiralty courts. The next level is the appellate court. At the federal level, these are the U.S. Courts of Appeal. These CourtsRead MoreThe Patriot Act, By George W. Bush Signed The Uniting And Strengthening America Act954 Words à |à 4 Pagescommunications. The goal of the act was to give federal and local agencies the power to monitor communications in order to prevent a terrorist attack. With the Patriot Act in effect, agencies could easily share information with each other w ithout any restrictions. While the original intent was to allow federal agencies to monitor communications networks, the wording granted local agencies the same power. The Patriot Act was used to conduct domestic criminal investigations as well as counterterrorism operationsRead MoreHistory Of Police. The United Statesââ¬â¢ Early Policing Was1265 Words à |à 6 PagesHistory of Police The United Statesââ¬â¢ early policing was rooted in the ancient system of British common law (Reppetto, 2010). The system depended heavily on watch groups and citizen volunteers. The U.S. has taken up a lot of initiatives to reform its system of policing since the 1960s. President Lyndon Johnson played an integral part to facilitate early reforms to policing. The primary functions of police in the US include law enforcement, protection of property, and limiting of civil disorder. PoliceRead MoreProsecution Of The International Civil Aviation Organization1519 Words à |à 7 PagesProsecution of Aviation Criminals Civil Accountability or Detriment to Public Safety Since the establishment of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) in 1944 and the United States (U.S.) National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) in 1967, safety of the flying public has been a top priority. To maintain safety, the ICAO member states and NTSB promulgate regulations and guidelines for aviation safety, and investigate aviation accidents separately from other civil or governmental agencies Lawrence Webberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15313206287305224370noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2832909770275233741.post-30008149723537639252019-12-10T05:37:00.001-08:002019-12-10T05:37:04.877-08:00Analysis and Design Of My Health Record System â⬠Free Samples Question: Discuss about the Analysis and Design Of My Health Record System. Answer: Introduction The Commonwealth Government of Australia is launching My Health Record system that is expected to provide a digital summary of the patients health record. The project aims at replacing the traditional system of managing and accessing the health records, both by the patients and the physician. A system to be built should be secured enough so that it prevents any unauthorized access to the information stored in the system. The vision document for the project evaluates the problem, capabilities and benefits of the new health record system (Jamoom et al., 2013). Problem The problem that is observed with the manual record keeping system is that there is a high chances of misplace of the records or its damage. Furthermore, it often becomes difficult for patients to remember their past medication details often resulting in giving out very less or improper information to the physician. This is one of the most significant problems associated with the manual record keeping system (DesRoches et al., 2013). The manual record keeping system for storing the health information of the patient takes up a lot of physical storage space and the management of the records becomes complex as well. It is not always possible for a physician to have a complete view of all the patients records as it is a time consuming works and involves a lot of paper work (Tom et al., 2012). Therefore, it is more preferable to have an electronic record keeping system as it will make the process of information fetching easier and will further increase the efficiency of the system. The ne w system is expected to reduce the rate of hospital admission and improving the patient care quality. The My Health Record system that is to be implemented will provide the patients, 24*7 access to the medication services thus reducing the rate of hospital admissions (Silow-Carroll, Edwards Rodin, 2012). Capabilities My Health Record system is an electronic record keeping which is capable of saving and transferring the patients health record digitally. This increases the accessibility of the health records and eliminates the need of managing the health records manually. Physicians can easily access the electronic record and the summary of a patients health information thus improving the quality of the heath care services provided. One of the striking features of the system is that, it can be accessed only by the person, the patient chooses to gives an access to his health information. Therefore, the system to be developed is completely secure and is capable to maintain the confidentiality of the patients health record (Bowman, 2013). The health summary feature of the system to be developed will be very beneficial for the physicians in suggesting a proper medication to the patient. The system is flexible for updating and modifying the health information system of a patient and this can be done onl y by the patient or after taking consent from the patient. My Health Record System is expected to solve a number of issues associated with the manual record keeping of the health information of the patients. Benefits The benefits of the system to be implemented are as follows- The new system will help in effective management of the patients health record. The summary feature of the application is expected to increase the efficiency of the health services provided to the patients, thereby reducing the number of cases of hospital admission (Wager et al., 2017). With the advent of technology, use of an electronic record keeping system is more convenient for both patient and the physicians. It reduces the hassle of manual record keeping and unnecessary paper work. With the implementation of this system, it will be possible for the patients to remain connected with the physicians 24*7. This will increase the quality of the healthcare services provided. Conclusion Therefore, from the discussion it can be deduced that the system to be implemented will be beneficial for both the students and the physicians. My Health Record system is expected to improve the patient care quality as the system will be providing a health summary option, which will help the physician to properly understand the medical conditions of the patients. Thus the system can be implemented as soon as possible. References Bowman, S. (2013). Impact of electronic health record systems on information integrity: quality and safety implications.Perspectives in Health Information Management,10(Fall). DesRoches, C. M., Charles, D., Furukawa, M. F., Joshi, M. S., Kralovec, P., Mostashari, F., ... Jha, A. K. (2013). Adoption of electronic health records grows rapidly, but fewer than half of US hospitals had at least a basic system in 2012.Health Affairs,32(8), 1478-1485. Jamoom, E., Beatty, P., Bercovitz, A., Woodwell, D., Palso, K., Rechtsteiner, E. (2013).Physician adoption of electronic health record systems: United States, 2011. US Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics. Silow-Carroll, S., Edwards, J. N., Rodin, D. (2012). Using electronic health records to improve quality and efficiency: the experiences of leading hospitals.Issue Brief (Commonw Fund),17(1), 40. Tom, J. O., Mangione-Smith, R., Solomon, C., Grossman, D. C. (2012). Integrated personal health record use: association with parent-reported care experiences.Pediatrics,130(1), e183-e190. Wager, K. A., Lee, F. W., Glaser, J. P. (2017).Health care information systems: a practical approach for health care management. John Wiley Sons. Lawrence Webberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15313206287305224370noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2832909770275233741.post-31244765768529995972019-12-02T17:19:00.001-08:002019-12-02T17:19:03.814-08:00Transformation of Simon Armitage poem Untitled Essay Example For Students Transformation of Simon Armitage poem Untitled Essay I am very bothered when I think of the bad things that I have done, especially when I was thirteen and at Moorly High School. It was one particular science lesson after registration. It all started off on a busy and hectic morning when I was preparing myself to go to school. Oh I gotta get ma bag, wheres ma bag? Need it for skool, socks wheres ma socks? I hate mornings. Bloomin useless. Simon come on love, you will be late for school. God I wish shed give me a rest. Always on my back, gor drivin me round the twist. Wheres ma socks cant find em, useless. We will write a custom essay on Transformation of Simon Armitage poem Untitled specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now Hurry Simon the bus is here, your going to miss it darling. Im not a flamin kid anymore. I am thirteen and she still treats me like a baby, Im grown up now when will she gimme a chance? Cos I can catch the bus by ma sen these days! I wish shed jus leave me alone. Ok bye love, have a nice day at school, stay out of trouble and watch your dinner money. Ill be home when you get in. Bye. Watever, like leave me alone! Man she jus dunt kno wen to giv up and I kno how to look after my dinner money. I hav learnt summit in my time at skool! Looking back now I can see how arrogant and horrible I was towards my mother. I really didnt appreciate at the time the amount she cared and did for me. She was just looking out for my best interests and trying to give me the best start in life that she possibly could. All I could do was insult her with very degrading and nasty unappreciative comments that she just did not deserve. I can see this now and how it has reflected in my life because I know for a fact I would not be in the same position today if my mum acted in any other way earlier in my life. Its bloomin freezing out ere, ma face is numb and my hands feel as cold as icicles I wish that stupid bus wud hurry up. Anymore of this and I wont be here much longer. Alright Simon didnt see you there. How long hav you been waiting? Peace and quite please! I hav jus woke up my eyes are shining, ears are buzzin Im flamin freezin and I dont want a loser like Colin speaking to me. Why isnt this stupid bus cumin? Im gunna go berserk. Are you ok Simon lad? You look terrible. I look terrible? Really? Its probably because I am freezin and I hav jus woken up. Any way its not as if you are the best lookin geezer in the World so shut it! Oh Thank God. Finally the bus is here. Its about time. At a 10 past bloomin 8, its ten minutes late. I am cold, tired, I wish I wa still in bed, comfortable, warm and snug. Wow better put my arm out or the stupid bus wont stop, silly idiot cant he see me? 45p lad? Have you brought your half fare pass? Cos Im gunna have to charge you full fare if you aint brought it. 90p then. In future lad bring ure pass cos you is gettin grown up and need a pass. I dont believe this, wat a looser! Can my day get any worse? What have I done to deserve this? First my Mums been bugging me, then this fat ugly plod on the bus asking for my half fare pass! Someone help! Lets jus hope the resta ma day is buzzin after this. I hope Jessica is in today cos that will certainly cheer me up. Hi Simon, youre looking awfully fine this morning, your hair is looking really nice, what have you done today that is different? Have you used a different gel or summat cos it looks really nice. You smell great too! Huh you dont have to tell me that ladies, I already know! I just wish Jessica thought the same about me, she is so nice its the best thing about skool, certainly betta than maths, English and geography . I would go out with her so bad. I can see it now-her by my side it wud be ace. That would be a perfect day. Heh, if only, keep dreaming boy. Yes, Jessica Armitage, my first true love. The hours I must have spent thinking of her and dreaming that we were together. I might have got some good grades in my exams if I had paid more attention to revising and doing my work. It seems silly now though but I really couldnt stop thinking about her and I would have done anything to be with her. Its the only real reason I went to school to see that gorgeous body and beautifully crafted face. .u199403287abc103032bfc8606f880c6f , .u199403287abc103032bfc8606f880c6f .postImageUrl , .u199403287abc103032bfc8606f880c6f .centered-text-area { min-height: 80px; position: relative; } .u199403287abc103032bfc8606f880c6f , .u199403287abc103032bfc8606f880c6f:hover , .u199403287abc103032bfc8606f880c6f:visited , .u199403287abc103032bfc8606f880c6f:active { border:0!important; } .u199403287abc103032bfc8606f880c6f .clearfix:after { content: ""; display: table; clear: both; } .u199403287abc103032bfc8606f880c6f { display: block; transition: background-color 250ms; webkit-transition: background-color 250ms; width: 100%; opacity: 1; transition: opacity 250ms; webkit-transition: opacity 250ms; background-color: #95A5A6; } .u199403287abc103032bfc8606f880c6f:active , .u199403287abc103032bfc8606f880c6f:hover { opacity: 1; transition: opacity 250ms; webkit-transition: opacity 250ms; background-color: #2C3E50; } .u199403287abc103032bfc8606f880c6f .centered-text-area { width: 100%; position: relative ; } .u199403287abc103032bfc8606f880c6f .ctaText { border-bottom: 0 solid #fff; color: #2980B9; font-size: 16px; font-weight: bold; margin: 0; padding: 0; text-decoration: underline; } .u199403287abc103032bfc8606f880c6f .postTitle { color: #FFFFFF; font-size: 16px; font-weight: 600; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 100%; } .u199403287abc103032bfc8606f880c6f .ctaButton { background-color: #7F8C8D!important; color: #2980B9; border: none; border-radius: 3px; box-shadow: none; font-size: 14px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 26px; moz-border-radius: 3px; text-align: center; text-decoration: none; text-shadow: none; width: 80px; min-height: 80px; background: url(https://artscolumbia.org/wp-content/plugins/intelly-related-posts/assets/images/simple-arrow.png)no-repeat; position: absolute; right: 0; top: 0; } .u199403287abc103032bfc8606f880c6f:hover .ctaButton { background-color: #34495E!important; } .u199403287abc103032bfc8606f880c6f .centered-text { display: table; height: 80px; padding-left : 18px; top: 0; } .u199403287abc103032bfc8606f880c6f .u199403287abc103032bfc8606f880c6f-content { display: table-cell; margin: 0; padding: 0; padding-right: 108px; position: relative; vertical-align: middle; width: 100%; } .u199403287abc103032bfc8606f880c6f:after { content: ""; display: block; clear: both; } READ: Judith Beveridge s Poetry EssayShe was some girl; only problem was that just about every other boy in the school had a liking for her too. Comical really! About time. Finally at school I thought we would never get here, the driver was going as slow as a snail. Dont they teach them how to put their foot down these days? It took twenty minutes to do a five minute bus ride. He must hav been goin about 20mph and thats even without fat Harry on the bus! Sometimes I would rather walk; it would probably be faster and I wouldnt hav to spend 90p to get here! Such a bad mornin I really hope the afternoon beats this. Crikey, better hurry up, the bell has gone. Need to get to tutor group, what a joy! Rodger Hilton? Yes Sir Jane Johnson Yes Sir Simon Armitage? Wheres Simon? Has anyone seen him? How stupid are teachers? Does he need some glasses? Why cant he see me? Im right in the middle of the class sat with Tom Redwood behind Jason and Carla and in front of Paul and Rodger. Its so simple. I wish teachers could be scrapped for robots. There well stupid, they cant call em selves humans, they are like aliens or summat. Oh there you are. Speak up in future please Simon Mr Smith, my form tutor was a strange and peculiar man. He never seemed to get any respect from the pupils. I had him for Geography and he had no control of the lessons. We never did any work as he was too bothered about getting everyone quiet. At the time that was good because I didnt too much like working but now it just seemed like a complete waste of time. Im surprised that he never got sacked, he was hopeless, smelt horrible and his breath smelt like something most commonly associated with a toilet. He was one of those teachers that all pupils have nightmares about. Oh no, Science with Mrs Carlton. I really hate the subject and I jus cant stand the teacher she is so nasty, evil and she always picks on me its reight harsh. Ive skived a couple of times to avoid it but I cant today cos we av got an experiment. The only good thing about this lesson is that Jessica is in it too so I get to see her for a full hour. Woow, Im late, better hurry up. Simon you are five minutes late! You knew that we had an important experiment today. Now take your coat off, put your lab jacket and goggles on and start the experiment with Lee. Come on, hurry up Simon. Great Ive wanted to do this lesson for ages. We get to use the Bunsen burners and some chemicals, great fun. The only bad thing is that I av to work with Lee. He is such a loser and Jessica will not be impressed cos Im working with him and he will cramp my style. She is working with Laura and they are opposite to us so jus play it cool and dont do anything dumb. Come on Simon lets get the stuff set up so we can start and get some cool results. I really want to show Mrs Carlton that my prediction was right; she might give me a green slip then. That will make forty for the year. My Mum will be so impressed. Hes so clever and annoying as he is always the first to have his hand up in class and always gets his homework in on time. I dont know how he does it. He is a complete Mummys boy. I bet she still baths him too. OK Simon I will set it all up. Just come over in two minutes to can turn on the Bunsen and we can then get started. See wat I mean, he is far too keen for my liking. He should be cool like me and play it easy. Then you might get a girl like Jessica. Who cares bout work when you hav good lookin birds like her to chase around. .u5c515a3ad406b665e511890f5abd2157 , .u5c515a3ad406b665e511890f5abd2157 .postImageUrl , .u5c515a3ad406b665e511890f5abd2157 .centered-text-area { min-height: 80px; position: relative; } .u5c515a3ad406b665e511890f5abd2157 , .u5c515a3ad406b665e511890f5abd2157:hover , .u5c515a3ad406b665e511890f5abd2157:visited , .u5c515a3ad406b665e511890f5abd2157:active { border:0!important; } .u5c515a3ad406b665e511890f5abd2157 .clearfix:after { content: ""; display: table; clear: both; } .u5c515a3ad406b665e511890f5abd2157 { display: block; transition: background-color 250ms; webkit-transition: background-color 250ms; width: 100%; opacity: 1; transition: opacity 250ms; webkit-transition: opacity 250ms; background-color: #95A5A6; } .u5c515a3ad406b665e511890f5abd2157:active , .u5c515a3ad406b665e511890f5abd2157:hover { opacity: 1; transition: opacity 250ms; webkit-transition: opacity 250ms; background-color: #2C3E50; } .u5c515a3ad406b665e511890f5abd2157 .centered-text-area { width: 100%; position: relative ; } .u5c515a3ad406b665e511890f5abd2157 .ctaText { border-bottom: 0 solid #fff; color: #2980B9; font-size: 16px; font-weight: bold; margin: 0; padding: 0; text-decoration: underline; } .u5c515a3ad406b665e511890f5abd2157 .postTitle { color: #FFFFFF; font-size: 16px; font-weight: 600; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 100%; } .u5c515a3ad406b665e511890f5abd2157 .ctaButton { background-color: #7F8C8D!important; color: #2980B9; border: none; border-radius: 3px; box-shadow: none; font-size: 14px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 26px; moz-border-radius: 3px; text-align: center; text-decoration: none; text-shadow: none; width: 80px; min-height: 80px; background: url(https://artscolumbia.org/wp-content/plugins/intelly-related-posts/assets/images/simple-arrow.png)no-repeat; position: absolute; right: 0; top: 0; } .u5c515a3ad406b665e511890f5abd2157:hover .ctaButton { background-color: #34495E!important; } .u5c515a3ad406b665e511890f5abd2157 .centered-text { display: table; height: 80px; padding-left : 18px; top: 0; } .u5c515a3ad406b665e511890f5abd2157 .u5c515a3ad406b665e511890f5abd2157-content { display: table-cell; margin: 0; padding: 0; padding-right: 108px; position: relative; vertical-align: middle; width: 100%; } .u5c515a3ad406b665e511890f5abd2157:after { content: ""; display: block; clear: both; } READ: Poems from other cultures and Traditions: Blessing by Imtiaz Dharker EssayWoo, there she is looking awfully fine. I was too lazy and laid back at school. I should have done more work instead of trying to stare up all the girls. I would have got some respectable exam results if I had put some more work in and gone to University to make a real go of my life. At the time I was more interested in drinking cans of White Lightening cider at the bus stop at the top of Rowley Lane with Tom and Dave rather than doing my Maths homework on multiple equations and long divisions. I suppose thats how it is when youre that age though. Hey Simon its all set up and ready to go. Lets start the experiment. I wonder how I could really impress her and make her like me? I jus wish I had the answer. How do lads like Jack and Tim get to spend so much time with her? Its not as if they are cool like me, they dont even wear designer clothes they r right binners. Simon are you coming? I really want her. Wat shall I do? Think, think! There must be something, Im so worked up about her and I jus need to let her kno, how though? Cmon Simon think please brain, I dont ask you to do much jus think, please jus this one time, I beg! I was very desperate I didnt really know what I felt. I think it was the combination of a few frustrating things. Firstly Lee was really annoying. He kept bothering me trying to make me do that experiment. Plus I had liked her for so long and really wanted to go out and it was getting to me. It was just a rush of blood I panicked. Ok I think I hav an idea. Wat if I made married her, that way she would be mine forever and would neva forget me, that would be a tru sign of love and affection. Now where shall I get a ring from that will never come off? This is so cool jus think me and Jessica finally together. If I use really hot burnin scissors and place the handle on her finger then that wud be show my life long love for her. I was crazy, I have no explanation for this, it was a ludicrous and mad idea that was very selfish and disrespectful of me. My hands are getting well tired from holding these scissors over this blazin Bunsen, I need em to be scortchin then we will be united and she will be my life long partner, this is wat I hav been dreamin of! I think they are hot enuff now. Where is she? Cant see her? Oh few shes there over by the bin sharpening her pencil all alone. How romantic this is perfect both of us will be together without anyone botherin us. Right lets walk up to her and giv her the ring. Arghhh! My finger, its hot someone please help! Help! Those are the last words I remember before been pushed up to the headmasters office by Mrs Carlton and a load of witnesses who were all fired to tell on my nasty doings in the class of 73. Soon after this I got expelled after Jessicas parents insisted that I was not fit to be at school. That science lesson was the last I saw of her but I still see pictures of her every time I think about my eventful school days. Every time I take my little boy into school I get the smell of branded skin ringing through my nose like the pollution blown out from an industrial tower. I can still imagine flashbacks of the lilac flames in the Bunsen Burner and the pain suffered because of a young innocent boy who was in love. Marked, the Doctors said, for eternity. I never got to say sorry, but at thirteen, it was my way of asking you to marry me. Lawrence Webberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15313206287305224370noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2832909770275233741.post-60497084476582415022019-11-27T05:20:00.001-08:002019-11-27T05:20:03.320-08:00buy custom Decisions in Paradise Business Scenario essaybuy custom Decisions in Paradise Business Scenario essay The company for which Nik works for is planning to establish a factory at Kava Island to produce sugar. The decision of setting up a sugar-processing factory has been arrived at after undertaking an assessment study of the raw material produced at Kava. The company, which Nik and Chris works for had earlier established that Kava Island is well endowed with production of sugarcane. The company was able to establish that there is not established sugar processing factory at Kava Island. Farmers at Kava sell their sugarcanes to intermediaries, who then export the sugarcanes to neighboring countries. Furthermore, the company has been able to establish that the intermediaries buy the sugarcanes at very low prices, to enable them make profits after deducting transportation and exportation costs. In the first part of paradise business scenario Nik and Chris had already identified the major issues facing their company. These issues include the need to establish strong presence at Kava, and th e need to develop a method of giving back to the community of Kava. The mission of the company at Kava will be, to be a world class company through production of high quality sugar, and making positive economic and social impacts to the people of Kava. Nik and Chris have already identified suitable decision-making techniques that they will employ in identifying the solutions to the issues identified. One of these decision-making techniques is PMI (plus, minus, and interesting) technique (Waldron, 2010). PMI decision-making technique is a refined method of making decisions, which was developed by Edward de Bono from the T-Chart (pros-cons) technique. In this technique, the decision maker(s) list/lists the entire plus (good ideas) of a given alternative/course of action. Then, the minuses (bad points) of the same alternative are listed. Finally, all the interesting points of an alternative are listed. Interesting points are those ideas of a given alternative that are neither good nor bad, uncertain points, or areas of curiosity. This technique will allow Nik and Chris (the decision makers) to explore various alternatives/corses of action outside the context of judgment (without evaluating the negative and positive aspects of an alter native) (Waldron, 2010). After evaluating all the available courses of action, Nik and Chris will then identify the courses of action, which have less negative aspects, more positive aspects, and moderate interesting aspects. Alternatively, Nik and Chris can use the T-Chart technique to identify the solutions. T-chart technique entails developing orderly, graphic representations of all courses of action/possible solutions to a problem (Harris, 1998). Every graph consists of a list of all possible pros and cons of the available courses of action/possible solutions. This technique ensures that both the positive and negative aspects of all the possible solutions to a problem are taken into account. T-Chart technique is almost similar to PMI technique. It can therefore be suitable to evaluate complex courses of actions, whose interesting aspects cannot be identified easily and within a short period. Therefore, Nik and Chris will use PMI and T-Chart decision-making techniques to identify the most suitable solutions to the issues identified in part one of paradise business scenario. One of the possible solutions already identified by Nik and Chris, which will help their company to establish a strong presence at Kava, is offering higher prices to sugarcane farmers than what the intermediaries in the region are currently offering. Since the farmers are currently being paid poorly for their produce, offering higher prices for the same quantity of produce will encourage the farmers to start selling their sugarcanes to the company. This is one of the positive aspects of this possible solution. Another positive aspect of this possible solution is that it will encourage more farmers to produce sugarcane. Consequently, the company will have greater supply of raw materials, hence increasing its production capacity. However, this course of action is likely to affect the relationship between the company and business players at Kava Island. This is because if the farmers decide to sell their produce to the company, enttrepreneurs and investors at Kava are likely to face bus iness closure. Another possible solution is to offer farmers incentives such as subsidized inputs or farming loans. In return, the company will require the farmers who will receive the incentives to supply their produce to the companys factory once they mature. The positive aspect of this course of action is that the company will assist farmers at Kava who do not practice sugarcane farming due to lack of capital, to starting engaging in sugarcane farming, hence providing a means of livelihood. In fact, this course of action will be a very feasible solution to the second issue identified in part one (developing a method of giving back to Kava community). However, the interesting aspect of this course of action is that it will affect production of other products such as coffee and bananas. Although the company will be assisting farmers who are not financial capable of practicing sugarcane production, coffee and banana traders may experience low business activities as farmers shift from production of coffee and bananas to production of sugarcane. Other possible solutions include employing people of Kava in the factory, and engaging in numerous corporate social responsibilities such as improving education and transport infrastructures, and supporting individuals infected with HIV/AIDs. These solutions will all contribute towards establishment of a strong presence at Kava as well as giving back to the community of Kava. By applying the PMI and T-Chart decision-making techniques, Nik and Chris will be able to identify the possible courses of action, whose positive aspects outweigh the negative aspects, both to the company and to the people of Kava. The lesser the number of negative aspects and interesting factors in a given course of action, the high the level of feasibility (Harris, 1998). Therefore, after evaluating all the possible solutions using either PMI or T-Chart techniques, it is advisable that Nik and Chris select the courses of action with greater number of positive aspects than negative aspects. Buy custom Decisions in Paradise Business Scenario essay Lawrence Webberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15313206287305224370noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2832909770275233741.post-2112349012236263632019-11-23T12:54:00.001-08:002019-11-23T12:54:04.124-08:00Major Events That Led to the American RevolutionMajor Events That Led to the American Revolution The American Revolution was a war between the 13 British Colonies in North America and Great Britain. It lasted fromà April 19, 1775, toà Sept. 3, 1783, a little over 8 years, and resulted in independence for the colonies.à Timeline of the War The following timeline discusses the events that led to the American Revolution,à beginning with the end of the French and Indian War in 1763. It follows the thread of increasingly unpopular British policies against the American colonies until the colonists objections and actions led to open hostility. The war itself would last from 1775 with the Battles of Lexington and Concord until the official end of hostilities in February 1783. The Treaty of Paris was later signed in September of the same year. 1763 February 10 - The Treaty of Paris ends the French and Indian War. After the war, the British continue to fight a number of Indian rebellions including one led by Chief Pontiac of the Ottawa Indians. The financially draining war combined with the increased military presence for protection will be the impetus for many future taxes and actions of the British government against the colonies.October 7 - The Proclamation of 1763 is signed forbidding settlement west of the Appalachian Mountains. This area is to be set aside and governed as Indian territory. 1764 April 5 - Grenville Acts pass parliament. These include a number of acts aimed at raising revenue to pay for the French and Indian War debts along with the cost of administering the new territories granted at the end of the war. They also include measures to increase the efficiency of the American custom system. The most objectionable part was the Sugar Act, known in England as the American Revenue Act. It increased duties on items ranging from sugar to coffee to textiles.April 19 - The Currency Act passes Parliament, prohibiting the colonies from issuing legal tender paper money.May 24 - Boston town meeting protesting the Grenville measures. James Otis first discusses the complaint of taxation without representation and calls for the colonies to unite.June 12-13 - Massachusetts House of Representatives creates a Committee of Correspondence to communicate with the other colonies about their grievances.August - Boston merchants begin a policy of nonimportation of British luxury goods as a form of protest against the British economic policies. This later spreads to other colonies. 1765 March 22 - The Stamp Act passes parliament. It is the first direct tax on the colonies. The purpose of the tax is to help pay for the British military stationed in America. This act is met with greater resistance and the cry against taxation without representation increases.March 24 - The Quartering Act goes into effect in the colonies requiring residents to provide housing for British troops stationed in America.May 29 - Patrick Henry begins the discussion of the Virginia Resolutions asserting the right that only Virginia has the right to tax itself. The House of Burgesses adopts some of his less radical statements including the right to self-government.July - Sons of Liberty organizations are founded in towns across the colonies in order to fight against the stamp agents, often with outright violence.October 7-25 - Stamp Act Congress occurs in New York City. It includes representatives from Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Is land, and South Carolina. Petition against the Stamp Act is created to be delivered to King George III. November 1 - The Stamp Act goes into effect and all business is basically stopped as colonists refuse to use the stamps. 1766 February 13 - Benjamin Franklin testifies before Parliament about the Stamp Act and warns that if the military is used to enforce it, this could lead to open rebellion.March 18 - The Stamp Act is repealed. However, the Declaratory Act is passed which gives the British government the power to legislate any laws of the colonies without restriction.December 15 - The New York Assembly continues to fight against the Quartering Act, refusing to allocate any funds for housing the soldiers. The crown suspends the legislature on December 19th. 1767 June 29 - Townshend Acts pass parliament introducing a number of external taxes including duties on items like paper, glass, and tea. Additional infrastructure is set up to ensure enforcement in America.October 28 - Boston decides to reinstate nonimportation of British goods in response to the Townshend Acts.December 2 - John Dickinson publishes Letters From a Farmer in Pennsylvania to the Inhabitants of the British Colonies explaining the issues with British actions to tax the colonies. It is highly influential. 1768 February 11 - Samuel Adams sends a letter with the approval of the Massachusetts Assembly arguing against the Townshend Acts. It is later protested by the British government.April - An increasing number of legislative assemblies support Samuel Adams letter.June - After a confrontation over Customs violations, John Hancocks ship Liberty is seized in Boston. Customs officials are threatened with violence and escape to Castle William in Boston Harbor. They send out a request for help from British troops.September 28 - British warships arrive to help support the customs officials in Boston Harbor.October 1 - Two British regiments arrive in Boston to maintain order and enforce customs laws. 1769 March - A growing number of key merchants support nonimportation of goods listed in the Townshend Acts.May 7 - George Washington presents nonimportation resolutions to the Virginia House of Burgesses. Proclamations are sent out from Patrick Henry and Richard Henry Lee to King George III.May 18 - After the Virginia House of Burgesses is dissolved, the delegates including George Washington meet at the Raleigh Tavern in Williamsburg to endorse the nonimportation agreement. 1770 March 5 - Boston Massacre occurs killing five colonists and injuring six. This is used as a propaganda piece against the British military.April 12 - English crown partially repeals the Townshend Acts except for the duties on tea. 1771 July - Virginia becomes the last colony to abandon the nonimportation pact after the repeal of the Townshend Acts. 1772 June 9 - The British customs vessel Gaspee is attacked off the coast of Rhode Island. The men are set ashore and the boat is burned.September 2 - The English crown offers a reward for the capture of those who burnt the Gaspee. The offenders are to be sent to England for trial which upsets many colonists as it violates self-rule.November 2 - A Boston town meeting led by Samuel Adams results in a 21-member committee of correspondence to coordinate with other Massachusetts towns against the threat to self-rule. 1773 May 10 - The Tea Act goes into effect, retaining the import tax on tea and giving the East India Company the ability to undersell colonial merchants.December 16 - The Boston Tea Party occurs. After months of growing consternation with the Tea Act, a group of Boston activists dressed as Mohawk Indians and boarded tea ships anchored in Boston Harbor in order to dump 342 casks of tea into the water. 1774 February - All colonies except North Carolina and Pennsylvania have created committees of correspondence.March 31 - The Coercive Acts pass parliament. One of these is the Boston Port Bill which does not allow any shipping except for military supplies and other approved cargo to go through the port until the customs duties and the cost of the Tea Party are paid for.May 13 - General Thomas Gage, the commander of all British forces in the American colonies, arrives in Boston with four regiments of troops.May 20 - Additional Coercive Acts are passed. The Quebec Act is termed intolerable as it in part the southern boundary of Canada is extended into areas claimed by Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Virginia.May 26 - Virginia House of Burgesses is dissolved.June 2 - A revised and more onerous Quartering Act is passed.September 1 - General Gage seizes the Massachusetts Colonys arsenal at Charlestown.September 5 - The First Continental Congress meets with 56 delegates in Carpenters Hall in Ph iladelphia. September 17 - The Suffolk Resolves are issued in Massachusetts urging that the Coercive Acts are unconstitutional.October 14 - The First Continental Congress adopts a Declaration and Resolves against the Coercive Acts, the Quebec Acts, the Quartering of troops, and other objectionable British actions. These resolutions include the rights of the colonists including that of life, liberty, and property.October 20 - A Continental Association is adopted to coordinate nonimportation policies.November 30 - Thomas Paine moves to America.December 14 - Massachusetts militiamen attack the British arsenal at Fort William and Mary in Portsmouth after being warned of a plan to station troops there. 1775 January 19 - The Declarations and Resolves are presented to parliament.February 9 - Massachusetts is declared in a state of rebellion.February 27 - Parliament accepts a conciliatory plan, removing many of the taxes and other issues brought up by the colonists.March 23 - Patrick Henry gives his famous Give me liberty or give me death, speech at the Virginia Convention.March 30 - The crown endorses the New England Restraining Act that does not allow for trade with countries other than England and also bans fishing in the North Atlantic.April 14 - General, now Governor, Gage in Massachusetts is ordered to use any force necessary to apply all British acts and to stop any buildup of a colonial militia.April 18-19 - Considered by many to be the beginning of the actual American Revolution, the Battles of Lexington and Concord begin with the British heading to destroy a colonial arms depot in Concord Massachusetts. Lawrence Webberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15313206287305224370noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2832909770275233741.post-76097372616390151982019-11-21T05:02:00.001-08:002019-11-21T05:02:12.041-08:00Intercultural encounters Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 wordsIntercultural encounters - Assignment Example differently to such encounters of cultural difference for instance some people may accept such cultural difference, others may reject while other may make the adaption (Gert et al., 2002). Communication and lingo is one of the mainly common intercultural encounters that a person is likely to face in the world today. Smiling for example is a non-verbal gesture of communication use in the world. However, a smile is often misinterpreted because it has different meanings in different cultures. In the Angolan culture, for instance a smile is used as a friendly gesture of welcoming another person. A smile in Asian cultures may often be used to signify discomfort, confusion, or even embarrassment. In some cultures, a smile is only for family and friends for instance in Germany. A smile in the Middle East has a significant difference from other parts of the world especially a smile from a woman to a man. Such a smile may mean sexual attraction (Deardorff, 2009). Different cultures have different interpretation of a particular aspect of life. Smiling for instance is a communication gesture that may be applicable across the world. Nonetheless, different cultures apply and interpret a smile differently. It is therefore important for a person to understand cultural interpretation and meaning of different aspects otherwise a risk of misinterpretation is very likely. It is obvious that different cultures conflict in a number of ways for instance a smile from a woman to a man in the Garman culture may signify friendship while in the Middle East it signifies a completely different thing and that is sexual attraction (Gert et al.,2002). The conflict and culture is indeed applicable in the day-to-day encounters of an individual particularly with the aspect of globalization and the world becoming a global village. One of my life experience regarding conflict and cultural differences was in Japan. Japanese interpret a smile as a sign of discomfort or confusion while people from Lawrence Webberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15313206287305224370noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2832909770275233741.post-9477065407296933372019-11-20T00:49:00.001-08:002019-11-20T00:49:04.261-08:00Finance Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 13Finance - Essay Example In addition, a low current assets ratio could be an indicator towards efforts for additional resources that can empower an organization towards greater plowed back profits and the decreasing trend in the ratio for Coca-Cola, contrary to that of Pepsi, could therefore indicate the companyââ¬â¢s focus on expanding its equity base. Similarly, it could be an indicator of other partiesââ¬â¢ confidence in the organizationââ¬â¢s short-term stability, which can be inferenced on stability in the end to induce confidence in investing in the company (Debarshi, 2011). Comparative analysis of the two companiesââ¬â¢ profitability ratios is another basis of my decision to prefer Coca-Cola to Pepsi for investment. Coca-Cola posted higher return on assets ratio and this is an indicator of better management potentials to utilize assets effectively for profit generation. Re-investing the generated profit then promises better equity and assets position for Coca Cola than for Pepsi. Higher return on asset for Coca-Cola also supports the position that the company is making good use of its liabilities to empower itself and therefore undermines potential risks in the observed low current ratio. Another reason, based on return on asset ratio, is the ratioââ¬â¢s trend for Coca-Cola and Pepsi over the past three consecutive accounting periods. While the ratio for Pepsi has been reducing and therefore indicating gradual loss of efficiency in asset management towards profitability, Coca Colaââ¬â¢s ratio has an increasing trend over the period. This means that the Coca-Cola promises better assets management in its future accounting periods towards sustainability. Consequently, Coca-Cola offers less risk on investment, in the end, compared to Pepsi. Even though return on equity has been decreasing for Coca-Cola and was lower than the corresponding ratio for Pepsi in 2012, this could be because of retained income that Lawrence Webberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15313206287305224370noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2832909770275233741.post-84610452108698974652019-11-17T13:20:00.001-08:002019-11-17T13:20:07.142-08:00Comparing and Contrasting Economic Ideas Essay Example for Free Comparing and Contrasting Economic Ideas Essay Introduction ââ¬â As individual leaders in modern economic thinking and attitude, economists Milton Friedman and John Maynard Keynes was hailed and criticized by many different individuals and institutions because of their contribution to global economy attitudes as well as because of the sometimes very radical ways that the two required of economic leaders to resort to so that they can follow the economic model that either Friedman and Keynes designed. Both are right and wrong when it comes to understanding economy and providing a solution which can be used to unlock the mysteries of the changing economic dilemma that the world experiences which requires the input of economists. And during their time, Friedman and Keynes enjoyed the god-like loft from which they stood, one at a time, when the world was bowing to the economic thoughts that they made. Similarities: Friedman and Keynes economic thoughts meet in the middle While Friedmans and Keynes thoughts and focus on economics have inherent differences, some observers believe that the two economic ideas espoused by Friedman and Keynes also have some similarities. For one, the two economists and their ideas are in agreement when it comes to the stable growth rate of money supply and its role in fluctuation and employment[1]. Also, the two were inherently economist in inclination they stand on similar grounds even if it means digging and building that ground using different shovels and different strokes. Second, the economic ideas of the two individuals share the similar characterisitcs of being popular and widely used and regarded before the ensuing change in political landscape made the idea of obsolete and useless; for Keynes and his economic idea about the role of the state in economic leadership, the flowering of his idea came after the world, particularly the US, felt the squeeze to the economy after the two world wars and the occurrence of the Great Depression, his idea ultimately subsiding by the time the world came closer and closer to the 80s. For Friedman, his economic idea got its turn after it proved having the solution to the problem the Keynes model cannot answer, and after enjoying his moment in the spotlight for some years, the global crisis that engulfed the world pushed Friedmanââ¬â¢s ideas closer and closer to the trash bin. Friedman and Keynes and their ideas share the similar pace when it comes to public acceptance, as well as the same characteristic that their ideas each are pets of US presidents; former US president Richard Nixon was a Keynesian while another former US president, Ronal Reagan implemented a Friedman approach in economics[2]. Another similarity in the economic idea of Friedman and Keynes is that their ideas allowed for the identification of an entity or institution or idea that was the reason for the failure of the economy. Take for example the Great Depression, for those adhering to the Keynesian belief in economics, they are inclined to believe that there is someone or something at fault why such occurrence happened, and that is the idea of free market. Friedman thinking will also lead the individual towards the same belief of having someone or something at fault, and that is the Federal Reserve, so far as Friedman economic thinking is concerned. Another similarity shared by Keynes and Friedman and their attack and pattern in developing economic thought and assuring the audience needed for the establishment of the popularity and acceptance of their particular economic thought is the manner by which their economic thoughts and ideas were built and spread around those who will either criticize or embrace it. Wood (1991) explained, ââ¬Å"The most surprising aspect of Friedmanââ¬â¢s achievements is that he has not to a greater extent earned the gratitude of the profession. To a large degree this is due to the sharply critical form in which he has presented his ideas.â⬠[3] In his attacks on the positions of other he has at times tended to depart from the more careful and guarded way in which he typically presents his own results. This has assured him of a wide audience, because it is often easier to attract adherents to a revolution in thinking even a counter-revolution than to a less dramatic evolution of a hypothesis. This is a characteristic which Friedman shares with Keynes and explains why both have been at the same time highly controversial and highly successful in the development of economic thought. Economists in a head-on collision ââ¬â Despite the similarities found in Friedman and Keynes and their thoughts and the pacing and social acceptance lifespan of their ideas, Friedman and Keynes and their ideas in economies are more accepted, criticized and reviewed because of how the two ideas find contrasting points against the other. They and their ideas have significant differences that they are described sometimes as the great polarizers of the economy and the economic belief and attitude. For Friedman, Keynes was incorrect about the idea of the state and its active role in dictating the economy. For Friedman, the more suitable solution is for the state to know that its role in the economy is focused on ensuring the growth of money supply. Friedman stressed the importance of monetary policy versus the idea of Keynes and the role of state spending. Friedman also challenged the manner by which Keynes explained the behavior of the consumer especially during the cases of inflation and the ensuing unemployment[4]. The Keynes-Friedman Showdown While it is understandable how there will be purely separate groups that support the thoughts of Keynes and the economic thinking of Friedman, there are instances that the two modern day economic thinkers figure in colossal showdowns (which is not of their doing, of course, but the doing of other people and institutions particularly award giving bodies that set out to identify who is the best between the two). An example of these instances is the during the time globally popular and highly respected weekly glossy magazine TIME undertook the task of naming the recipient of the Economist of the Century honor to wrap up the end of the twentieth century[5]. Skousen (2001) wrote about how the members of the selecting group were torn between Friedman and Keynes, and how Friedman ultimately bested Keynes despite the fact that some TIME magazine staff, including editor in chief Norman Pearlstine, believed that the award should go to Keynes. Pearlstine believed that the manner by which Keynes articulated the importance of free markets as well as the significance of the undue government intervention that will resort to the creation of danger in the economic landscape[6] is an important modern day economic idea that will benefit not just one country but the world, especially now that the world is experiencing global trade and economics. Cambridge University in 1970, during the time Friedman faced a highly partisan, pro Keynes crowd who rooted for their favorite Nicholas Kaldor which Friedman soundly defeated during the debate[7]. Some would say that the surprising Friedman win in that particular debate (which silenced the murmuring crowd of infidels) was due largely because of the absence of Keynes himself, but it may also point to the fact that Friedman and his economic ideals holds true in some aspects. Conclusion ââ¬â Many scholars, critics, new economists, political analysts and historians until now continually debate about the similarities and differences of Keynes and Friedman and their economic ideas. More importantly, they debated about how each economist and each idea they gave to the world helped in shaping world economy as it is today. Some say that Milton was unlike Friedman, while some think they are the same. Some believe that Friedman was better than Keynes, while others feel otherwise. Others go to the extreme, considering that the two lived in an interconnected life, that one completes the other, as DeLong believes that Friedman was not a competitor to Keynes, but more of the man that completed Keynes[8]. The issues and points arising in the debate focused on the person and their ideas bring about immense complexity that the end is always hard to see, predict and achieve. But for the differences of Friedman and Keynes, it is no doubt that both economist contributed immensely in the field of economics, and because of that, they were showered not just with official honors but with very flattering commentaries by critics and observers. Mark Blaug was quoted by Skousen in his book as attributing to Friedman and his great ability for debating and fighting for his position in economic ideologies[9] that resulted to his earning the respect of even his most critical and previously unimpressed adversaries. Skousen (2001) believes that Friedman is the most famous economist alive, but he was quick to counter his proposition by reminding the readers that Friedman was not a giant at first in the circle of economic thinkers, owing largely to the fact that Friedman and his economic ideas (i.e. his monetarism beliefs) were heavily criticized early in his career as an economic thinker. [10] à à à à à à Truly, both Keynes and Friedman created such economic ideals that went to the extent that it became antagonistic with each other. But professionals knew that underneath it all, the more important thing to consider is the fact that the differences and similarities found in Keynesââ¬â¢ and Friedmanââ¬â¢s works gave the world what it can used to manage changing economic difficulties. Works Cited: DeLong, J Bradford. ââ¬Å"Friedman Completed Keynes.â⬠Project Syndicate. 2006. 23 May 2008 à à à à à à à à à à à www.project-syndicate.org. Heuser, Uwe Jean. ââ¬Å"The Underrated Power of Economists.â⬠Indymedia.org.uk. 28 June 2007. à à à à à à à à à à à 23 May 2008 http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/06/374612.html. Macesich, George. ââ¬Å"World Economy at the Crossroads.â⬠Greenwood Publishing Group, à à à à à à à à à à à Incorporated, November 1997. Skousen, Mark. ââ¬Å"The Making of Modern Economics: The Lives and Ideas of the Great à à à à à à à à à à à Thinkers.â⬠Sharpe, Me., Inc., March 2001. Wood, John Cunningham. ââ¬Å"Milton Friedman: Critical Assessmentsâ⬠Vol. 14. Taylor à à à à à à à à à à à Francis, Inc., August 1990. [1] Macesich, George. ââ¬Å"World Economy at the Crossroads.â⬠Greenwood Publishing Group, à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à Incorporated, November 1997. p. 12. [2] Heuser, Uwe Jean. ââ¬Å"The Underrated Power of Economists.â⬠Indymedia.org.uk. 28 June 2007. à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à 23 May 2008 http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/06/374612.html. [3] Wood, John Cunningham. ââ¬Å"Milton Friedman: Critical Assessmentsâ⬠Vol. 14. Taylor à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à Francis, Inc., August 1990. p. 465. [4] Heuser, Uwe Jean. ââ¬Å"The Underrated Power of Economists.â⬠Indymedia.org.uk. 28 June 2007. à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à 23 May 2008 http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/06/374612.html. [5] Skousen, Mark. ââ¬Å"The Making of Modern Economics: The Lives and Ideas of the Great à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à Thinkers.â⬠Sharpe, Me., Inc., March 2001. pg 379. [6] Ibid. [7] Skousen. pg 380. [8] DeLong, J Bradford. ââ¬Å"Friedman Completed Keynes.â⬠Project Syndicate. 2006. 23 May 2008 à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à www.project-syndicate.org. http://webdiary.com.au/cms/?q=node/1757. [9] Skousen, p. 380 [10] Ibid. Lawrence Webberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15313206287305224370noreply@blogger.com0