Alcoholism as the Plot Builder of Fitzgerald’s The Beautiful and Damned Essay

To echo Fitzgerald’s postulation of Antony Patch’s messed up life, â€Å"†¦As winter approached it seemed that a sort of madness seized upon Anthony. He awoke in the morning so nervous that Gloria could feel him trembling in the bed before he could muster enough vitality to stumble into the pantry for a drink. He was intolerable now except under the influence of liquor, and as he seemed to decay and coarsen under her eyes, Gloria’s soul and body shrank away from him†¦CITATION Fit02 p 111 l 1033 (Fitzgerald, 2002, p. 111)† This is a depiction of a desperate man’s life that has turned to alcohol after experiencing multiple frustrations in life all through his adulthood and a wife who is drawn away from him for this reason. How Antony Patch’s character is molded and developed in the novel is just but a reflection of the messed lives of many uber-rich adults who were lucky enough to be born in rich families but ended up blowing up lifet ime opportunities in wasteful escapades of lavish spending during the excessive drinking and partying Jazz Era of the 1920s. Ideally, The Beautiful and Damned is about Anthony Patch who is married Gloria Gilbert and they are hypnotized with the party life. They lead an extravagant life where they enjoy throwing and attending parties which eventually develops to a habit of drinking o a daily basis. Such was the life of Anthony Patch who had mastered the art of laziness leading a valueless life only eager for his grandfather to pass on so as to inherit his multimillion fortunes .Patch’s drinking habits were picked while at school in Princeton where his initial life was tied around books but due to peer influence channeled through his schoolmates who thought of him as being dull and a hopeless romantic, he besought to drinking just like the rest of his peers and vowed to explore the world and party using his family fortune. At some point in life, Anthony Patch is enrolled into Camp Hooker during the war years but he proves to be mentally disoriented as he spends his days in the camp getting drunk and t o cap it all picked up a mistress. Though the move of enrolled into Camp Hooker is considered as a patriotic one, his friends at the camp are another worthless lot who gratify and support his drinking tendencies by indulging in the same with him. His drinking trysts make him a favorite among his camp buddies for he is treated respect for the incessant parties he throws while at camp thus putting to light contemptibility and stupidity of his friends CITATION Mau22 l 1033 (Maunsell, 1922). Patch then meets Gloria Gilbert who beauty is impeccable and he is quickly swept off is feet as he vows to pursue his romantic desires to his life’s death with Gloria. Gloria herself is a replica of Antony for her dogma is satisfaction of worldly pleasures as she selflessly puts it herself, â€Å"If I wanted anything, I’d take it†¦ I can’t be bothered resisting things I want†¦ (Fitzgerald, 2002, p. 235)† It is with the same creed that she detests her husband’s inability to continuously sustain her lavish and innumerable cocktails. Just like everyone else, this couple turns to alcoholism to camouflage their life frustrations to the extent that Anthony cannot do without a taste of the bottle described in Gloria’s own words, â€Å"Oh no, he doesn’t show it anymore unless he can hardly stand up, and  he talks alright till he gets excited. He talks much  better than he does when he’s sober. But he’s been sitting here all day drinking-except for the time it took him to walk the corner for a newspaper†¦ (Fitzgerald, 2002, p. 398)† This entry at towards the end of the novel shows how despicable and dependable Antony patch’s life has been on alcohol after missing out on his grandfather’s fortune and the same being directed towards a servant. Perhaps, Patch’s party and drinking habits were fueled by the fact that he was heir to a rich empire built by his rather strict disciplinarian grandfather who gave no room to unvalued morals. An event where he walks into one of Gloria and Antony’s raucous wild party at their apartment is a representation of his disgust and vilification for irresponsible behavior. His body language and events that transpire after this speaks volumes about his disciplinary antics; at the party, he stares at a white-faced Antony with disgust and in disbelief and utters five denouncing words to the young man in front of him, â€Å"†¦Well go back to Suttleworth..(Fitzgerald, 2002, p. 235)† The mood in the mood is all somber, both Gloria and Patch are frightened by Cross Patch’s presence but he silently walks out of the room after his works. Repercussions that follow are that gets disinherited of his grandfather’s fortune and it is directed towards a servant. They co ntest the decision after his grandfather’s passing but it only makes them more miserable as they entrenched deeper into alcoholism to drown their sorrows. The Damned and beautiful closes as tragic story of an individual who had it all but wasted the opportunity through lavish parties and alcoholism to end up in a wheel chair by age thirty three. References   Fitzgerald, F. S. (2002). The Beautiful and The Damned . New York : Simon & Schuster . Maunsell, F. L. (1922, March 5). Latest Works of Fiction: The Beautiful and The Damned . Retrieved October 11, 2014, from The New York Times : http://www.nytimes.com/books/00/12/24/specials/fitzgerald-damned.html Source document

Invictus Essay

Invictus a movie that touches on a lot of issues Nelson Mandela and the South African people faced as a nation. Nelson Mandela was faced with bringing a nation separated due to racial segregation and he accomplished this goal by helping the South African rugby team win the world cup. This movie can be closely related with our class because Nelson Mandela is one of the greatest leaders of all time and too see how he implemented his leadership to help the Rugby is just a fragment to what he actually accomplished. Throughout this movie you can go think about what we learned in class its goes hand and hand. To give a complete analysis to this movie from the prospective of Nelson Mandela being a leader in the sports world in this essay I will explain the different styles of leadership Nelson Mandela implemented, group dynamics, communication, managing difficulties, issues of diversity. All of these where present in this movie and a direct correlation to how Nelson Mandela was a leader in sports. In this movie Nelson Mandela wasn’t the only called upon to be a leader in sports South African rugby Captain Francois Pienaar also played a major role a leading his rugby team through a very difficult season to becoming a great team and family. Without the help of Francois Pienaar I don’t feel as if Nelson Mandela’s plan to unite the nation would have went so smooth. Throughout the movie Nelson Mandela used a couple of different styles of leadership, this shows to be a great leader you have to mix and match different leadership styles. In Mandela’s case being the president of South Africa in the mist of segregation you have to appeal and lead many different types of people, some of the groups don’t respond like the others forcing him to differ from his nitch of democratic leadership. To reach the different kinds of groups he realized he would have to be stern sometimes and be more of a autocratic leader. Nelson Mandela being a South African native faced a very hard decision when he walked into a rally by some of the black population who were against the name of the rugby team and felt very strongly about changing it. Mandela being the leader he was realized the Springbok name was sacred to the Africana (white population) and to bring the nation together the name had to stay. After this decision was clear to  Mandela to keep the Sp ringbok name based off the knowledge he gained while being incarcerated he knew that he was a minority and it would be tuff to get voted. Thus he implemented autocratic leadership style walked into the rally gave them all the background information on the name then told his follower the name will stay. Mandela knew what he was doing would be good in the long run but still asked for the support of his followers and of the rally he had one person that was on his side. Throughout the movie he also was forced to inhibit the Laissez-Faire leadership style against his own will. Bringing a nation together can sometimes become overwhelming and with his strenuous schedule Mandela overworked himself to the point he blacked out. After his accident he was forced to relax and take a back seat for a couple of days. For the period of his recovery he was helpless and had to go with the flow being forced into the laissez-faire leadership style. Nelson Mandela middle name should be democratic, that is how strongly he embraces this leadership style. He just wanted everyone in South Africa to be equal and get along, while trying to accomplish this he took different ideas from co-workers and people of South Africa. A recurring theme in the movie is Nelson Mandela’s wise words to his followers and friends at the most opportune times bringing encouragement, support, wisdom and comfortably. In the beginning of the movie he steps into his presidential chambers where all of the workers were at and began to give them a speech, most of these workers were Africana’s from the previous South African president. Now here comes this black political guy fresh from jail into the presidents office, so most of these workers didn’t plan on staying and didn’t believe in Mandela. He gives them a speech with great compassion and knowledge treated all of them as equals and ends the speech with â€Å" if you guys stay you would be doing me and your country a great service†. Mandela gave all his workers the opportunity to leave but after his great speech he didn’t lose not one worker, this give you and example how strong and powerful his words could be. Communication in my eyes is 10 percent verbal and 90 percent non-verbal, a person can say all the right things but if they don’t give eye contact and have bad body language it can automatically negate everything they just said. Africana’s were really hard on Mandela but he continuously gave them reasons to love and respect him,  when he went to the first Springbok game a fan throw a can at Mandela that barley missed him but he didn’t even flinch. That fan wanted nothing more than for Mandela to react and get out of character but Mandela just ignored it showing them his mental strength. Its easy for a person to react by it takes a real leader to preserve them selves and ignore ignorance. Nelson Mandela was forced to manage difficulties through the whole movie trying to evolve his nation to bring blacks and whites together, enlighten people including his own daughter and help the Springbok win the world cup. What I learned from Mandela about managing difficulties is that sometimes you don’t have to automatically attack the problem head on and sometimes you should just relax and let things fall into place by making strategic moves. When Mandela knew what was best for the nation he made a group of very smart decisions to bring the rugby team back to relevancy and their winning culture. The best example of this was making the Springboks do clinics in near by villages. By inviting Francois Pienaar to tea he installed these values and coached him up to be a better leader to his team so he can also manage difficulties he was going to be facing. Francois Pienaar was faced with manage this difficult team that was ok with losing and not being connected to the rest of th e South Africans. Pienaar followed in Mandela’s footsteps and introduce the team to new things little by little, such as learning the national anthem, bring them to the prison to see what Mandela and others went through. Invictus in a nutshell is about the issue of diversity in South Africa and how a pride for their national team can unite a country. Mandela was facing the issue of diversity his whole life and even spent a period of his life behind bars to fight for it. From his first day in office as the president he had to face the issue of diversity by having a majority of his office workers being white and not knowing if they where going to stay, but thankfully for his enhanced commination skills he persuaded them to stay. Another character that was forced with great issue of diversity was Chester being the only black player on the Springboks had to be tough on him and his team mates fro example when they did the clinics all the kids flocked to Chester and ignored his teammates. Francois Pienaar was faced with issues of  diversity as well like when he tried to teach the players the national anthem by the were very closed at first due to the complexity of the different languages of the black Sou th Africans. In conclusion Invictus was great movie showcasing the leadership of Nelson Mandela and Francois Pienaar both in very different situations but faced with some of the same issues. Mandela was faced with bring the nation together and Pienaar was faced with bring the Springboks together that was like a little nation in its own. The rugby team was like a little nation due to different races, conflicting ideas, and stubbornness to change their ways. Every team is like that and to manage that you have to be a leader in recreational settings to bring a team together and be successful. This movie taught me a couple of life lesson that I will inhibit to my everyday life and pass on to other such ass make strategic moves, really think before making any moves. 1 smart decision is better than 2 dumb reactions.

Epic Hero Comparison(Beowulf and The hobbit) Essay

An epic hero is a larger than life character who has legendary skill and prowess. An epic hero has to perform heroic deeds. An epic hero is thought of having traditional charm and charisma. He has very strong ethics morals and a code of conduct. The epic hero is always thought of as a male as the tradition of the epic hero originated in the Anglo Saxon culture which was a male dominant society. A perfect example of an epic hero is Beowulf. He kills Grendel, Grendel’s mother, and the dragon all of which are heroic deeds that no one else was able or willing to take on. The foes that Beowulf fought were all beyond human strength and capabilities and required superhuman abilities to bring down. In Bilbo’s case he takes down the spider by himself and tries to face up to challenges that he would normally never have done in his comfortable hobbit home. This shows a hero putting the need of the many against the need of the few. The heroic tradition in literature has definitely moved from epic heroes, the creation of larger-than-life characters that had legendary strength and physical characteristics, to the move towards anti-heroes, which particularly developed in the 20th and 21st centuries, with the focus on leading protagonists who lack certain heroic qualities such as idealism courage and generosity. In both stories, the concept of vengeance is the first to appear. In Beowulf, vengeance is what drives the entire plot of the poem, as one action is carried out in response to a former action – to seek vengeance for a prior wrong. It is Beowulf, introduced as a strong, powerful character from the start, whose own heroic code compels him to seek vengeance against Grendel for deeds the monster committed against Hrothgar. Beowulf himself is an epic hero who even before arriving at Herot has already built for himself a tremendous reputation that goes before him and is based on acts that no mere mortal could accomplish or achieve. He arrives at Herot as a fully formed character. When considering Beowulf as a character, it is clear that his exploits and fame confirm his as a character whose strength is certainly out of this world, and more powerful than any other character alive today. This shows he is definitely a hero in the epic hero tradition. Bilbo by contrast starts the novel as a quiet, peaceful and unadventurous hobbit that sometimes goes through periods where he wonders what on earth he is doing on this adventure with dwarves and a wizard. Bilbo is called upon to do more than he imagines himself capable of. He does not like to travel, preferring the safety of his hobbit-hole, but he has inherited a streak of adventurousness from his mother’s side, the Tooks. His adventurous Took side and his comfort-loving Baggins side are in conflict throughout much of the story. It is clear from his early attempts to sneak up on enemies, such as with the trolls that he has a lot to learn and his early failures show that he is much more of a dynamic character than Beowulf is in the way that he learns heroism and courage and refines his skills as time goes by. Near the beginning of their journey, Bilbo was quite vulnerable to the dangers and was frequently rescued by the others. As the adventure continues and Bilbo shows his worth and value first in the Misty Mountains and then secondly with the Elves and then finally the spiders, Bilbo becomes a hero in his own right. As he progressed through the quest, he went on his own little adventures which helped him become braver and wiser. Bilbo willingly forfeits his own claim to the treasure in order to secure peace. Bilbo shows himself to not just be a hero in terms of his skills and qualities but a hero in his character as well which is something arguably that Beowulf does not show as he seems to risk his own life against the dragon knowing that his death would be disastrous for his own people. Finally, his heroic status is secured when he delivers the Arkenstone of Thrain to the Elvenking and Bard in order to secure a peace between the dwarves and the elves and humans.

Applying Theories to the real world cases Case Study

Applying Theories to the real world cases - Case Study Example Criminal behavior is largely seen to be learned behavior. It is also influenced by peer pressure, institutional breakdown, social environment and financial difficulties. It is through appropriate measures that the vice will be addressed appropriately. Implementing stringent punitive measures coupled with proper policy frameworks and legislations will go a long way in addressing the warring problems associated with criminality. Criminality offends the standards and values that characterize a civilized society that believes in the right to life. in his study on criminology, Abrahams (2015) observes that men consitute the highest percentage of prisoners in many nations around the world. According to the International Centre for Prison Studies, the global percentage of women in prisons constitutes about 4.3 percent. Abrahams (2015) alleges that men are likely to engage in criminal activities compared to women. While women engage in crminal activities, the gap between the two genders requires an assessment on the factors that contribute to higher criminal behavior in men. Men engage in minor offences, white collar crimes, murder and riots, among others. some of the contributors highlighted by the author include lack of education, delinguent behaviors, street gangs, peer influences, and financial difficulties, among others. Male criminality has for a long period overshadowed female criminality. However, the author argues that female criminality has been on the rise. The incidences and significance of female criminality are mini mal with some going unnoticed. Nowadays, female crime patterns have changed with offenses such as drug trafficking, white-collar crimes and violent robbery reported among women. Male criminals operate in well-connected groups that have deep connection with the authorities, thus making it hard for them to be combated. Their actions threaten the social order in a society. In Britain, for instance, Abrahams

Recent International Contribution on Climate change Essay

Recent International Contribution on Climate change - Essay Example Global warming has lead to significant climate change around the world due to the unchecked human activities and the consequences of the global warming can be observed in very many ways; there is glacial melting in the world highest known mountains. The glacial melting is caused by the rise in the global temperature to the extent that the bonds holding the water molecules in a solid state are weakened allowing the ice to flow down the slope. Sporadic weather and climatic have also characterized the global climatic change leading o varied agricultural yields as well as extinction of indigenous flora and fauna. Global warming thus is perceived by the environmental experts to worsen in the future if the necessary mitigation measures are not taken in the most opportune time possible. The effect of the global warming in climate change has attracted the attention of the international bodies and several conventions have been held to find a lasting solution in ending human activities that accelerates global warming. In the conventions, some of the factors that have been singled as the major contributors of the global warming include, industrial emissions in the industrialized countries coupled with wanton clearing of the natural forests in the developing countries. All these activities contribute to the accumulation of the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, a recipe for global warming.

Impression Evidence Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Impression Evidence - Essay Example It includes fingerprints, footwear impressions, tire impressions, bite marks, firearms and tool marks. Bare foot impression, tire impression and footwear impression evidences are very little used forms of evidence and often overlooked. This is basically due to lack of an aggressive attitude for the detection and recovery of this evidence. Impression evidence differs according to the surface on which impression are put down. The differences can make collection, presentation, identification and analysis of impression evidence difficult. Generally, impression evidence is produced when object or stamped or pressed against one another, which allow the object to retain and transfer characteristic from one another. It can be divided in to two categories. i.e. two dimensional and three-dimensional. While the former has measurement of the width and length, the latter has three measurements; length, depth and width. Finger print impression is an impression of the friction ridges of any or all parts of the finger. Friction ridges are â€Å"the hairless parts of the body--the inner surfaces of the hands and the soles of the feet--are covered with patterns formed by raised ridges of skin known as friction or papillary ridges.† (Hunter, Ian). Finger print identification is also called dactyloscopy. It is the process of analyzing questioned and non friction skin ridge impression from palms, fingers and toes to determine whether the impressions are from the same finger, toe or palm. (Ashbaugh, David R. (1991). Vol . 41). No two finger or palm prints are identical due to the flexibility of friction ridge. Finger print identification finds out whether two friction ridge impressions are originated from the same finger or palm or toe or sole or not. Latent print is the accidental impression left by friction ridge skin on a surface. Chemical, Electronics and physical processing methods allow

Five- Year Report for Tesco PLC Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Five- Year Report for Tesco PLC - Essay Example The revenues declined in the year 2011 to a extend of 14% with respect to the previous year due to hike in prices of the UK market where the core business of the company lies and the 2012 showed stable growth by offsetting the fall in profits in the UK markets by its international business. Tesco plc emerged as a prominent figure in the turn of the 21st century .In the years to come Tesco is continuously striving for its expansion efforts in its core business in UK, retail services, international operations and operations in non food business. Till the period 2004 the company has gone for massive expansion plans. The company’s growth trajectory has been exceptionally been good over the years. Business Model of Tesco Tesco has evolved as an eminent player in the market over the last five years. It is basically because of the expertise it possesses in capital, human and financial area which can be harnessed across different geographical boundaries trough its sound business model . Figure 1: Business model of Tesco (Source: Tesco PLC, 2013, p.25) Tesco PCL’s way of creating and delivering value to its customers and associated group is rather simple but yet very effective. Its core business activities in a nutshell can be summarized as buying, moving and selling of products and services to its customers and also making use of the customer’s perspective to provide better value to its customers. The core activities are explained below. The company constantly interacts with its customers through focus groups, ongoing research trackers and social networking sites to take in customer feedback with regards to the pros and cons of its available products. These valuable suggestions from customers are incorporated through adding further value to these products such that the customers can derive greater benefits. It offers to its customers a great range of products and through its broad range of supply chain it makes its products available in UK and Europ e etc with much ease. The company through its vast network of distribution channel and advanced technological system is making the right kind of products available to its customers at the right time. This is achieved through making a proper forecast of customer’s needs through detailed models which takes into consideration of variables like seasonality, weather forecast and the responsiveness of the customers to the promotional efforts. Secondly, its ordering system updates itself on real time basis such that it can quickly replenish its supply stores with the right kind of products at the right time. Whether it is store or online shopping or both Tesco is acknowledged to have delivered greatest shopping experience. Its loyalty schemes, multi-format approach to the stores network ranging from large Extra stores to Metro and Express Convenience stores have made its selling a divine experience for its customers. Due to these core competencies of the company in offering value to its customers it stands out in comparison to its competitor as it market ratings suggest being the first rank holder in UK, first and second position in all markets of Asia except China and

Private International Law (Conflicts of Law) Problem Question Essay

Private International Law (Conflicts of Law) Problem Question - Essay Example It could be argued that because Chris has an office in London, the English jurisdiction applies in this case. This is because he is a domicile member. He rents the office not on temporary but permanent basis. In this case, English jurisdiction applies because Companies Act 2006 states that England can sue overseas companies if one of the parties in the case has offices located in England.1 The traditional rules govern foreign enterprises in this case. What is more, they are derived from Article 5(5). Companies Act 2006 also applies in this case; because Bratwurst GmbH and Havana entered into a contract, and was to sell some of their products in England; the England laws, therefore, govern the whole enterprise as well.2 The foreign company is this case has set shop in England as well, therefore the case can be determined by the English jurisdiction. Havana has the option of depending on the Companies Act. They have a right to do business in any place within the English Jurisdiction. Whether the company is legally registered in England or not, English courts have jurisdiction because Chris is involved and he has offices in London, England. An important law, CPR 6 states that whether a business takes a few days or the England is a market for the commodities produced; the English jurisdiction shall apply.3 In this case, the complainant, Havana, has lenient choices. The fact that in the original agreement the Spanish jurisdiction would apply is overridden. Naturally, English jurisdiction would have failed to apply because the complainant is not from England. However, he is allowed by law to request for an English jurisdiction. Despite the fact that both parties agreed to have a Spanish jurisdiction, the English jurisdiction still applies because the agreement was just mutual (oral). There was no written and legally binding agreement. Forum nonconvenience allows the claimant (Havana) the right to choose where he thinks it is convenient to have

Green Building Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

Green Building - Research Paper Example Without appropriate accommodation, the performance of the student may deteriorate due to varying factors an example being health. Most of the buildings in the city are pre-modern and thus the importance of giving or rather outlining a new design in which a building can get remodeled through. The contemporary world is faced with numerous problems one of them being pollution, it is important to go through a green design that can assist the students in having a conducive living environment while still the design maintaining environmental preservation which is effective for the community around. Client and Mentor In choosing of the means to reconstruct with regard to the client’s precision, it is important to understand the setting of the area. In the provided setting, looking out for all the environmental impacts comes in handy. The building is located in a busy location with a lot of traffic. It is thus important to understand that the cars passing by the building do not spend a lot of time at the location because the ground is rather weak. It is a requirement that the building uses rather tough tiles and the most recommended is the ceramic tiles. The client in this case is the expected occupant and since they are students, it is important to ensure that the building is not very complicated but just ideal. For an ideal contemporary building, it is important to use Ceramic. Ceramic is harder than stone and hence effective enough to use in places with clay soil and having many people around. In the making of such buildings, it is important to ensure that there is minimal use of space while still providing satisfactory area for people to use. The surrounding environment to the building should not have any building around it and should provide ample space for some form of field with grass. Grass is necessary seeing as the ground beneath is clay provides a rather smooth setting and environment for growth. Moreover, research has shown that having chemicals sprayed over the grass eventually leads to the clay soil beneath the foundation of the building stronger and can assist during the rainy season (Vasil, 2009, 77). Clearly, having ample grass space is not an aspect to conform to because it is a town setting but leaving space for it nevertheless is advisable in the setting. The mentor who i s the architect in this case should ensure that they pick the right type of soil for the job. Clay soil is strong and provides a great support for the foundation and the basement. This is from the way its particles join to form one large compact Substance. This substance leaves no space for air and thus makes it even harder. However, during the dry periods, the soil gets wet and the particles, having not supported themselves alone, end up breaking into pieces. This consequently has the building developing cracks and eventually falling to the ground, which is a hazard needless to state. Below is an example of a building in the initial stages of construction just before the pouring of concrete. An inspector is a vital mentor in the analysis of the already set foundation for the building. Most precisely an engineer ought to observe the already set foundation for the determination of the stability position that the building will have. Failure to analyze this may lead to the contractors and the builders carrying on with their work with no idea whatsoever of the sensitivity of the issue (Pearon, 2011, 102). The surveyor then comes in after this stage and determines the kind of footing to put depending on the type of building that the owner requires. In this case, a green building would require a rather high footing provided the soil formation and characteristics at the area. This is also

Organisational Change Management Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2750 words

Organisational Change Management - Essay Example However, as a result of improved technology large number of employees has lost their jobs thus resulting to low household incomes and reduced purchasing power (Thompson and Strickland, 1987). It is important to note that while managers are focused at making changes that will improve the productivity of their firms, employees are not always supporting the changes. Thus, it is the duty of the managers to ensure that their employees are aware of the changes and that they are well informed of the implications of the changes in their organization. This paper critically evaluates the implications of changes that have occurred in D2. Definition D2 is a car manufacturing company based in France. In its effort to attain a high level of profitability, the company has embarked on product innovation, expanding its investment as well as improving the performance of its employees. Changes in economic environment that were as a result of recent economic downturn are major causes of adjustments in t he demand for the company products. Despite the competitive position that the company has achieved, it is struggling to survive. It is on this bases that the company executive board has embarked on an urgent change in its operations. Another notable aspect that makes the company to initiate change is to reduce costs of operations. According to Cooperrider and Dan (2001), high costs of production as well as increased marketing expenses are major causes of reduction in profit. In this regard, companies that are focused at minimizing their costs must make initiatives to change their mode of operations. The need for expanding the production capacity is another key issue that has influenced changes in D2. Despite efforts by managers to ensure that the top management team is aware of the changes, some senior managers have not been informed about the new developments. This may cause resistance since those managers have not been involved in the processes (Weiner, 2000). Taking into consider ation the changes in the Didcot branch, employee’s resistance may also be experienced once the plant is closed. As depicted by the executive board, the closure of Didcot will result to loss of employment for majority of the employees working in the plant. Similarly, there will be less chances of redeploying the employees to other branches in Spain and France. Considering their significant contribution to the company and their efforts to meet the corporate objectives, managers and other employees in the Didcot plant will trigger resistance that may jeopardize the operations of the company (Bramble, 1996). One of the key strategies that the company has adopted in order to attract and maintain customers is product development. Based on the need to relocate its production engineers from Didcot to Blois, the company will also experience a resistance from the engineers who will be reluctant to emulate the change. However, this will not be experienced for a long time since the compa ny has taken initiatives to employ its production engineers thus creating a feeling of job security among the workers. Discovery Changes within an organization such as D2 can be effected in the areas of technology, business location and management among others. My choice for resistance to change is based on the significant negative implications that it can bring to a firm if not effectively addressed by the management team. Based on

Amazon Metrics Essay Example for Free

Amazon Metrics Essay As a thumb in on-line shopping industry, Amazon surely owned massive competitive advantages. Amazon believes the main competitive factors in its market segments included ‘selection, price, availability, convenience, information, discovery, brand recognition, personalized services, accessibility, customer service, reliability, speed of fulfillment, ease of use, and ability to adapt to changing conditions, as well as our customers’ overall experience and trust in transactions with us and facilitated by us on behalf of third-party sellers’. And there is large number of technologies used to support these diverse advantages, which compared with its competitors are different. First, Look inside a current textbook on software architecture, and you’ll find few patterns that we don’t apply at Amazon. We use high-performance transactions systems, complex rendering and object cashing, workflow and queuing systems, business intelligence and data analytics, machine learning and pattern recognition, neural networks and probabilistic decision making, and a wide variety of other technologies. In other words, Amazon always keep its technologies are the lasted ones. That is also help to operating business, such as deal with the orders, tracking shipping information, customer services, more effective and efficient. Second, Amazon pays more attention to their customers with their unique technologies. Round (2004) notes that Amazon focus on customer satisfaction metrics. Each site is closely monitored with standard service avail-ability monitoring (for example, using Keynote or Mercury Interactive) site availability and download speed. We use a set of applications for accepting and validating customer orders, placing and tracking orders with suppliers, managing and assigning inventory to customer orders, and ensuring proper shipment of products to customers. All these purposes are came true by a transaction-processing system. There is also an automated e-mail measurement and optimization system. This measure would give big contribution to promote available inventory. There is a good cycle from the system to promotion. Amazon tries their best to give personalized services. Web pages tailored to individual preferences, such as recommendations and notifications; 1-Click technology; secure payment systems; image uploads; searching on our websites as well as the internet; browsing; and the ability to view selected interior pages and citations, and search the entire contents of many of the Book’ and ‘Search Inside the Book’ features. Third, to further provide a comfortable shopping environment for customers, Amazon makes many attempts. A company like Amazon could (and did) record every move a visitor made, every last click and twitch of the mouse. In time, the work of editorial reviews, such as Marcus, was marginalized since Amazon found that the majority of visitors used the search tools rather than read editorial. At the last, Amazon devotes itself to improve and innovation constant. Providing the latest and effective technology to guide all stakeholders, such as third parties, as well. As Amazon explains in SEC (2005): using primarily our own proprietary technologies, as well as technology licensed from third parties, we have implemented numerous features and functionality that simplify and improve the customer shopping experience, enable third parties to sell on our platform, and facilitate our fulfillment and customer service operations. And the Amazon retail platform enables other retailers to sell products online using the Amazon user interface and infrastructure through their ‘Syndicated Stores’ programme. Above all, these creative and maturity technology enhanced Amazon’s core capability while competed with other rivals.

The Crucible Essay Example for Free

The Crucible Essay The Crucible is a story of the many wrongs that come from the town of Salem during 1692. The power that is brought fourth through revenge, deceit, paranoia, and sheer naive ness, is enough to turn the town of Salem, Massachusetts upside down. It results with the death of twenty innocent people and the jailing of hundreds more. The surge of power through the young women of Salem, who had never tasted power before complied with the struggle between good and evil are two main points in the play. Abigail Williams is the main instigator in all of the play. She is the ringleader of all the young women in Salem. The minute she feels or sees a â€Å"spirit† all the other girls miraculously see and feel them too. Abigail has her eyes set on John Proctor and uses the witch-hunt to take his wife out of play. She discovers that with her new found power all she has to do is accuse someone and they can be condemned. Her hatred for Goody Proctor is evident as in her quote to Rev. Parris, â€Å" She hates me, uncle for I would not be her slave. It’s a bitter woman, a lying, cold, sniveling woman, and I will not work for such a woman! (Act 1 PG 11) The power behind the girls accusations is amazingly large, through all their spectral evidence that was taken for by Danforth and Hathorne. â€Å"I tell you straight, Mister—I have seen marvels in this court. I have seen people choked before my eyes by spirits; I have seen them struck by pins and slashed by daggers. I have until this moment not the slightest reason to suspect that the children may be deceiving me. † (Act 3 PG 84) The power these girls got from the court is a monster that is ever present throughout this play. However along with power comes something much worse which is evil. During the correspondence of the Salem Witch Trials there is a presence of a struggle between good and evil the power of the Puritan Lord and the Devil. Some characters including Danforth and Hathorne who believe they are working on behalf of their lord are actually indeed considered two evils of this play, along with the main instigator, Abigail. â€Å"And mark this. Let either of you breathe a word, or the edge of a word, about the other things, and I will come to you in the black of some terrible night and I will bring a pointy reckoning that will shudder you. And you know I can do it; I saw Indians smash my dear parents’ heads on their pillow next to mine, and I have seen some reddish work done at night, and I can make you wish you had never seen the sun go down! † (Act 1 PG 19) Abigail is a true work of evil in this play. She decides to go after Goody Proctor who is a pure Christian woman. Even her husband John Proctor knows that his wrongful misleading with Abigail shouldn’t be brought down upon Elizabeth. â€Å"My wife will never die for me! I will bring your guts into your mouth but that goodness will not die for me! (Act 2 PG 76) Between John Proctor, Elizabeth Proctor, Rev. Hale, and Mary Warren there is a force of good to go against the evil of this play. Even though Mary Warren had originally been accusing people and faking illness in the court, half way through she has a change of heart. She discovers the effect that the other girl’s accusations are having on her town and want to stop it before Goody P roctor is hanged an innocent woman. Just as Rev. Hale was all about witchcraft at the beginning but by the end he had denoused the trials and only stayed to try and save John. Which he wouldn’t succeed at. The struggle is one that is readily very unfair. By the end of the play it is evident that in a way Evil has conquered good. It was an unfair battle, with the high-ranking judges and power of Abby’s words against the farmers and uneducated townspeople of Salem. The Crucible is a teaching of how power gives people a sort of evil and how evil can easily conquer good. These are demonstrated throughout the play. As a message to us all of what power can do in the wrong hands.

History of Social Psychology

History of Social Psychology Social psychology as a discipline began towards the end of the 1900s when scientists began to carry out experiments to measure human behaviours. According to Kassin et al (2013: 6), â€Å"social psychology is the scientific study of how individuals think, feel, and behave in a social context†. This definition brings an important aspect of social psychology, which is different from the other artistic and humanistic attempts that try to understand human behaviour, in that the discipline itself is a science. It systematically observe, describe and measure the thoughts, feelings, and behaviours of human beings as pointed out by Kruglanski and Stroebe, (2011). Another definition that was given by Gordon Allport (1954) cited in Hewstone et al (2012: 5) defined social psychology as â€Å"the attempt to understand and explain how the thoughts, feelings and behaviours of individuals are influenced by the actual, imagined or implied presence of other human beings†. Although the d efinition can be argued based on the two perspectives of critical and experimental social psychology, Allport (1954) tried to bring out the notion that much of behaviour is influenced by social roles and cultural norms. However it still remains that the two perspectives of critical and experimental social psychology have divided opinions, ‘are antagonistic and cannot be integrated’ as pointed out by Rogers (2011). Social Psychology began in the 19th Century in America with an early experiment on behavior by Triplett (1898). In this experiment that took place in the early years, Triplett studied individual’s behavior when placed in competition with others and he used cyclist to study the behaviors. It was from the results of this study that, carefully controlled experiments began as pointed out by Kassin et al (2013). The next decades which were dubbed the Coming of Age, saw the continued refinement of the discipline with Lewin (1936) developing strategies and studies that focused more on the dynamic interactions that existed between people. In one of his studies, Lewin (1946) looked at the influence that situational variables have on person variables. The relationship between the two led him to conclude that behavior of a person at any given time is influenced by both his/her characteristics and the social situation they find themselves in. Other studies that took place around this time focused on the issues of conformity (Sherif 1936). However it was during the period of rapid expansion between the period of 1949-1969 that saw experiments obedience (Milgram 1974) and the prison experiments (Zimbardo et al, 1973) that really demonstrated the power of the social setting. Also as this field was an evolving field, it was not long before it was embroiled by crises and reassessment based on the different approaches to understanding human behavior by the different Social Psychologists. One of the most fundamental contestation in the field was the demand for the field to become more relevant to target societies of study. Such lack of relevance is what made Fishbein (1997: 77-91) to comment that â€Å"accusations of engaging in experiments that are trivial and lacking originality have been often labelled against the field of Social Psychology†. It was more like researchers were developing studies to pursue their own gains at the expense of finding solutions to real life problems affecting people something that led to the â€Å"emergence of crisis of confidence† in experimental social psychology as pointed out by Elms (1975). It was therefore the development of such and other crises that brought about the two perspectives of critical and experi mental Social Psychology, with different scholars and researchers aligning themselves to the perspective they believed to be the perspective that best study and explain human behaviour. Most of the researchers that carried out experiments believed in the experimental field of Social Psychology that had led the way in the development of the field before the emergency of the critical social psychology side of the field. There was a strong belief in them that the only way to gain valid knowledge about social phenomena, processes and events is by using scientific methods something the critical followers disagreed with. The critical followers believed that science is not the only way to get knowledge especially when it comes to Social Psychology. The experimental followers further believed that the knowledge gained was ideologically neutral. This position stood in sharp contrast with the critical followers who believed that all knowledge, whether experimental or critical, was inherently positioned ideologically as pointed by Rodgers (2003: 11). The last of the elements that stood in between the two perspectives was to do with the experimental side believing in the social world being separate from the individual acting within it. This was at odds with the critical followers who believed that the social world is shaped by the people through their interactions with each other. Therefore it is the difference in these elements that has led to the two camps to be at parallel with each other when it come to Social Psychology and its study on human behaviour. Early experimentalist believed in the objectivity and neutrality that quantitative research methods in Social Psychology brought to their research methods. This believe came about because of the traits associated with quantitative research that there is always a quest for objectivity and distance between the research and his test subjects something that led to the avoidance of bias (Bryman, 2001). However the main problem that arose from the use of such quantitative methods was on the generalizability of the results to all similar situations and settings something that was refuted by critical thinkers. Mkhize (2004: 25) commented that, â€Å"in the quest to emulate the natural sciences that psychologists construed their discipline as an objective, value-free and universal science and in so doing considered issues to do with culture as an impediment†. There was also a belief with the critical scholars that the experimental approach under modernism that assumed science is capabl e of discovering the real things and real happenings out there in the world was flawed. Critical scholars believe that knowledge is constructed and not simply discovered through science and the knowledge discovered through science was biased and based on what the scientists choose to observe, interpret and tell as observed and found. Therefore it was the denying of the modernism approach under the experimental perspective that led to the postmodernism approach and the emergence of the critical thinkers. The critical thinkers had their commitment in social justice ideology that sought to gain knowledge from all social groups regardless of background and social standing. Their approach used qualitative methods that sought to better understand human behaviour without being objective. The approaches were mainly more on the inter-relationship of the individual and their particular social context they live in whilst recognising the boarder social structures in order to understand meanings of certain situations as pointed out by Gough and McFadden (2001). This was a clear move away from the quantitative experimental approach that relied on white middle class American students for their experiments which they later generalised to cover all in the social setting. Although they did not wholly disagreed with all the knowled ge discovered through scientific means, they pointed to instances where scientific knowledge was not useful. For example, critical thinkers pointed to â€Å"many diseases of modern life such as chronic fatigue syndrome that could not be diagnosed through scientific tests because they are socially and culturally constructed, defined and experienced† as pointed out by Rogers (2003). Reference List Kassin, S., Fein, S. and Markus, H. (2013). Social Psychology, 9th edition. Published by Cengage Learning. Bryman, A. 2001). Social Research Methods. Oxford, Oxford University Press. Kruglanski, A., Stroebe, W. (2011). Handbook of the history of social psychology. Philadelphia, PA: Psychology Press. Triplett, N. (1898). The Dynamogenic factors in Pacemaking and competition. American Journal of Psychology, 9(4), 507–533. Sherif, M. (1936). The psychology of social norms. New York, NY: Harper Row. Milgram, S. (1974). Obedience to authority: An experimental view. New York, NY: Harper Row. Haney, C., Banks, C., Zimbardo, P. (1973). Interpersonal dynamics in a simulated prison. International Journal of Criminology and Penology, 1, 69–87. Fishbein, M. (1997). Predicting, understanding and changing socially relevant behaviours: Lessons learned. In McGarty, C. and Haslam, S.A. (eds). The message of Social Psychology. (pp 77-91) Oxford: Blackwell. Hewstone, M., Stroebe, W and Jonas, K. (2012). An Introduction to Social Psychology: An Introduction to Social Psychology, Wolfgang Stroebe Volume 17 of BPS Textbooks in Psychology. Published by John Wiley and Sons. Rogers, S. W. (2011). Social Psychology. Published by McGraw-Hill International. Rogers, S. W. (2003). Social Psychology: Experimental and Critical Approaches. Open University Press Maidenhead Philadelphia Elms, A. C. (1975). Cited in Faye, C. American social psychology: Examining the contours of the 1970s crisis. Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences (2011), doi: 10.1016/j.shpsc.2011.11.010 accessed via http://lchc.ucsd.edu/MCA/Mail/xmcamail.2012_04.dir/pdfQIRyaPOkWx.pdf on 19/11/2014 Lewin, K. (2008) [1946]. Resolving social conflicts Field theory in social science. Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association. Mkhize, N., 2004, ‘Psychology: An African Perspective’, in D. Hook, ed., Critical Psychology, Landsdowne: University of Cape Town Press. Gough, B., and McFadden, M. (2001). Critical social psychology: An introduction. London: Palgrave.

Definitions of Knowledge Essay -- Philosophy Papers

As Walker Percy explores the "dogfish" of perception and knowledge in his essay, "The Loss of the Creature," I wonder if he realizes how slippery and feisty the topic squirming on his desk is. Although anyone who has taken a guided tour will surely agree that the traditional tourist experience is necessarily divorced from that of a discoverer, the broad epistemological claims that Percy extracts from this scenario seem more complicated than Percy gives them credit, or space, for. When Percy suggests that an individual should aim to "extract the thing from the package," he insists that the individual seek out some solid bedrock beneath the surface of perception (519). In this statement, he implicitly calls the reader to believe that such bedrock exists and is accessible to humans, a controversial position in the postmodern world. By arguing that excavation towards a static and fixed "creature" is possible, Percy echoes the voice of Plato, who argues that humans should strive to know the essential "forms" lying beneath ephemeral existence. Plato and his mentor, Socrates, devised their theory of forms in large part to reconcile a constantly changing physical universe with the criterion of permanence inherent in the Greek definition of knowledge, an important problem for philosophers of the time, and still today. In other words, the Greeks, believing that only permanent and unchanging entities could truly be "known," needed a way to attain knowledge in light of a constantly changing natural world. With the forms, Plato provided a solution to this problem, saying that "beneath" the physical world a human perceives there exists a dimension of forms, or essences, which persist throughout time, independent of human perception but ... ...ans or dogfish. Like the physicist, they can benefit from recognizing elements of uncertainty inherent in the "creature." In a way, the postmodern knower is much like the man in Percy's essay, who takes the Grand Canyon bus tour as "an exercise in familiarity" (513). He intakes the same interpreted information as those who are on the level below him, yet he recognizes its limitations and understands what he sees all the more because of this awareness. Works Cited Heisenberg, Werner. Physics and Philosophy: The Revolution in Modern Science. New York: Harper & Row, 1958. Bartholomae, David and Anthony Petrosky, eds. Ways of Reading. 3rd Ed. New York: Bedford, 1995. Percy, Walker. "The Loss of the Creature." Bartholomae and Petrosky. 423-436. Tompkins, Jane. "'Indians:' Textualism, Morality and the Problem of History." Bartholomae and Petrosky. 584-601.

Dust Bowl :: essays research papers

  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Dust Bowl   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  When a dust bowl hits ground it’s like nightfall’s in seconds. You could not experience this type of feeling any where in less you were there at that moment. People were frantic. They thought it was the end of the world as they new it. People were coming down with mysterious illness. Both men, women and children were not sure if they would live the next day. This was the wrong time at the wrong place. Nobody could have known that this would have happened at this time. It was an act of god, people thought. They thought he was mad because farmers were plowing up the fields and steering up dust.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  In 1931 the best place in the United States to be a farmer was the Great Plains. Farmers were promoting the southwest, (Taxes) saying that when one would plow the dirt it looked like a sea of choc let, when they did not know of the endless drought that was ahead. In the 1920’s the tractor was invented to speed up the process of plowing. A horse could plow two to three acres a day. A tractor could plow fifty acres a day. That was a huge difference in a farms life style. He had more time to spend with family and to get other chores done. Dust would build up in the air but the rain was not falling. Breathing became difficult because dust was hitting nose, eyes, and mouth. Kids had to start warring dust masks to school. It was a requirement by the Red Cross. After a dust storm the plowed soil would be swiped away and you would find mounds and mounds of dirt off in the distance.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Kansas, Colorado, Okalahoma, and Texas were where the dusts storms were taking place. A resident of these states thought it was just a sudden hold up. But what they did not know is that this storm would last a decade. Dust was found everywhere. They would find dust in food water and creeping thought the windows at night.

Food Sanitation Essay -- Health, Food Production

Nevertheless, regardless of the training cooks receive in school or on the job, and in spite of the efforts of supervisors and managers to ensure safe food production in their kitchens, one frequently can find improper handling of food in commercial kitchens. (0) Nevertheless, regardless of the training cooks receive in school or on the job, and in spite of the efforts of supervisors and managers to ensure safe food production in their kitchens, one frequently can find improper handling of food in commercial kitchens. (0) Using the steel wool is a calculated risk, but the cooks faced an unpleasant choice: use steel wool and risk leaving steel residue or be written up for being too slow to prepare the food. (0) Using the steel wool is a calculated risk, but the cooks faced an unpleasant choice: use steel wool and risk leaving steel residue or be written up for being too slow to prepare the food. (0) On the one hand, the executive and sous chefs would be so fussy about hygiene rules that they'd fine a worker one dollar for coming to work unshaved, but then they would leave someone else the responsibility of cleaning up after they prepared a new plate for tasting or a special plate for an important guest. (0) I have no reason to believe that the practices I observed at this Florida hotel are in any way better or worse than practices common throughout the industry - except where management takes a strong hand in insisting on care and cleanliness in food handling. (0) On the one hand, the executive and sous chefs would be so fussy about hygiene rules that they'd fine a worker one dollar for coming to work unshaved, but then they would leave someone else the responsibility of cleaning up after they prepared a new plate for t... ...howed a 30-minute video that presented so much information so quickly that I felt no one could absorb it. (0) Also frustrating was the daily search for spray bottles, bleach to put in them, hand soap, paper towels, and properly sized latex disposable gloves. (0) Those hidden cutting boards were never brought to the washing room for daily thorough cleaning and sanitizing. (0) The executive chef was not a native English speaker, although his conversational English was good. (0) The saucier revealed his secret to me when I was faced with cleaning a tilt kettle after poaching 600 eggs. (0) No follow-up effort was made in the ensuing months to reinforce the lessons of the video. (0) I asked him how I could clean the dried, baked egg on the side of the kettle, and he replied, "Here, use this." Steel wool is efficient and effective for cleaning. (0) Food Sanitation Essay -- Health, Food Production Nevertheless, regardless of the training cooks receive in school or on the job, and in spite of the efforts of supervisors and managers to ensure safe food production in their kitchens, one frequently can find improper handling of food in commercial kitchens. (0) Nevertheless, regardless of the training cooks receive in school or on the job, and in spite of the efforts of supervisors and managers to ensure safe food production in their kitchens, one frequently can find improper handling of food in commercial kitchens. (0) Using the steel wool is a calculated risk, but the cooks faced an unpleasant choice: use steel wool and risk leaving steel residue or be written up for being too slow to prepare the food. (0) Using the steel wool is a calculated risk, but the cooks faced an unpleasant choice: use steel wool and risk leaving steel residue or be written up for being too slow to prepare the food. (0) On the one hand, the executive and sous chefs would be so fussy about hygiene rules that they'd fine a worker one dollar for coming to work unshaved, but then they would leave someone else the responsibility of cleaning up after they prepared a new plate for tasting or a special plate for an important guest. (0) I have no reason to believe that the practices I observed at this Florida hotel are in any way better or worse than practices common throughout the industry - except where management takes a strong hand in insisting on care and cleanliness in food handling. (0) On the one hand, the executive and sous chefs would be so fussy about hygiene rules that they'd fine a worker one dollar for coming to work unshaved, but then they would leave someone else the responsibility of cleaning up after they prepared a new plate for t... ...howed a 30-minute video that presented so much information so quickly that I felt no one could absorb it. (0) Also frustrating was the daily search for spray bottles, bleach to put in them, hand soap, paper towels, and properly sized latex disposable gloves. (0) Those hidden cutting boards were never brought to the washing room for daily thorough cleaning and sanitizing. (0) The executive chef was not a native English speaker, although his conversational English was good. (0) The saucier revealed his secret to me when I was faced with cleaning a tilt kettle after poaching 600 eggs. (0) No follow-up effort was made in the ensuing months to reinforce the lessons of the video. (0) I asked him how I could clean the dried, baked egg on the side of the kettle, and he replied, "Here, use this." Steel wool is efficient and effective for cleaning. (0)

Marketing techniques Essay

Introduction The businesses and products I chose happened to be, Nike and their Mercurial football boots, and Sony and their PS3 gaming console. I chose these products because I think they are both reasonably diverse, and in their time, both these products have experienced a range of sections within the product life cycle. For example, due to Nike’s football boots having to be constantly refreshed and renewed due to high competition, they have experienced, each sector, a number of times. In contrast, the Sony and their PS3 have also experienced similar experiences. For example, due to this specific console being one of the most successful and exclusive gaming consoles of all time, the overall competition has been reasonably low, and due to this, this certain product has seen the product life cycle at a very different perspective by experiencing each sector at a much slower rate. Product The diagram presented above dictates the process in which businesses go through, when marketing. Every business will follow this strategy when they advertise and market a product in order to gain the most sales, and to generate a substantial amount of profit. For example, the first stage of this Product Life Cycle is the Development. This stage entitles a business to conjure up a selected idea, in which they will later hope to produce as a product and then sell. The development stage is where the business will discover the blue prints of their product and how they will later market it. In other words, the development stage provides a foundation for the selected product as it will be built as a prototype to be later sold to the public in order to increase sales and profits. This certain stage is very secretive within any organisation. Other businesses do not want to let their competitors have knowledge of what they’re producing, in case they steal and release the idea before, a nd generate a mass of publicity, sales and profits. The next stage is referred to as the introduction stage; this is  where the business launches its completed product for the first time. This certain sector is vital as it will later determine how successful the product is, and whether it should be develop further. Within the Introduction stage, sales begin to grow slowly if the product begins to generate publicity, this is usually due to the lack of knowledge people have about your product, and it is also due to the lack of advertising. However, a business may not want to advertise straight away, as they may waste money on advertising a product that their piers may not essentially want or need. Therefore, business tend to use the certain advertising scheme, known as informative advertising, this includes small processes in which a business can build their products reputation or publicity. If this section of the product life cycle is successful, businesses can later develop on their products, thus enabling them to create further marketing schemes, beneficial to them, in regards to their sales, profits and annual turnover. The next stage within the Product life cycle is, Growth. This is where a business’s product begins to increase in sales, rapidly. This is due to increased demands, and the fact that all the business’s persuasive marketing schemes are working, thus increasing sales and profits. The growth sector within this product life cycle basically classifies how successful a business is, by being within the growth sector; this indicates that the business’s product is successful and popular. The fourth and pen ultimate stage is known as the Maturity stage. This is where a selected product, created by a business begins to sustain profits, and generate sales slowly. This stage takes place after the growth stage, due to many factors such as an increase in product competition due to the publicity of your product, as well as an increase in advertising due to businesses trying to sustain the success of their product. After this stage, comes the final stage, or otherwise known as the Decline. This stage entails a business’s product to begin to drop in sales, reduce in publicity and popularity, it begins to lose its appeal and competition becomes stiffer and bigger, therefore fewer units are sold. At this stage, advertising is either halted or completely stopped, and possibly the production of the item may decrease in activity in order to retain money and boost the production on other marketing schemes/ideas. Brand: Nike, Inc. Nike, Inc or Nike is a very popular and successful business that originated  in the early 70s. This business firstly began, known as Blue Ribbon Sports in 1964, however, 7 years later saw them changing their name into what we know them today as; Nike Inc. This organisation specialises in sports apparel and accessories. This sport based business sells items within sports such as Football, Rugby, Golf, Basketball, Cricket, tennis, athletics and pretty much every other sport. However, I feel they are extremely notorious for their very professional and popular football boots. For example, Nike have earned international success and have worked with the likes of Ronaldinho, Ronaldo, Cristiano Ronaldo, Didier Drogba, Neymar, Zlatan Ibrahimović, Mario Balotelli, Wesley Sneijder, Wayne Rooney and Landon Donovan in regards to promoting their Football related range of goods. However, in regards to my product, Nike has formed many advertising schemes with players such as Zlatan Ibrahimovià „‡ (left) and Cristiano Ronaldo (right). Product: Nike Mercurial Vapor This certain product is a very popular and renowned piece of sports apparel. This certain product is linked with football, as they are, a selected type of football boot. This variation of football boot comes in many shapes and sizes, this enables the product to appeal to all different, acquired tastes, and overall this will help the brand Nike Inc, reach out and attract customers. However, my reasoning for choosing this brand would be its placement within the product life cycle, due to increased and increasing competition, businesses such as Nike Inc have to constantly refresh and renew their produce, in order to maintain customers and as a business become more appealing and modern/stylish. Therefore, I believe these products fluctuate between growth and Maturity, for example, due to the competition, new boots are brought out every couple of months or year, this causes older boots, and their predecessors to be regarded as â€Å"old†, â€Å"boring† or â€Å"out of fashion†. Therefore, each boot only has a selected amount of time, until the next big style or football boot gets released. Like I mentioned before, I believe this product is mainly situated within the growth sector, as each boot only obtains a selected amount of time to succeed and become appealing, until the next brand gets released; therefore, it’s time to mature and become a cemented item is limited. Brand: Sony Corporation Sony Corporation, or Sony, is a very successful and popular Japanese multinational corporation that specialises in electronics, game systems and game entertainment. Sony is one of the leading providers of game entertainment in today’s society; they have produced some iconic titles/products like the PS1, the PS2, the PS3 and its most recent addition, the next generation of console, known as the PS4. These gaming, entertainment systems have altered and revolutionised the way we play virtual games, and they have truly made their mark on gadget history. Sony is a Japanese business that began in 1946, its name, at the time stood as Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo, however, since 1958, this iconic brand has been referred to as Sony. Product: Sony, Play station 3 The product I will be using during this task will be Sony’s, award winning creation/product, known as the PS3. I believe this product has been very, very successful, and I think I it will be an ideal product to evaluate and analyse. For example, seeing as this certain console is one of few gaming entertainment systems to be released in the modern era, the competition is reasonably low, therefore, its time during the product life cycle has sustained and gradually evolved into being a product within the Maturity sector. However, due to recent events, a new range of console appeared, formed by the same brand; Sony. This new range of gaming console is referred to as, the next generation of gaming entertainment, and this specific console is known as the Sony PS4. This PS4 was released into stores and gaming retailers on such dates as the 15th of November 2013 (for North American Citizens), the 29th of November 2013 (for European Citizens) and 22nd February 2014 (for Asian Citizens); and as of March 2nd 2014, this product has already sold as many units as 6 million worldwide. Because of this, the Sony PS3 will eventually fall into the declining sector within the product life cycle, due to decreasing demand, decreasing popularity and a decrease in advertising and production. This certain factor is one prominent reason why I have chosen this product to feature within my coursework. Promotion The promotional process within a business is where an organisation would advertise a selected product to either inform existing customers of new modifications to their products, or to advertise a new product they have just created and finished. The methods and messages business use when displaying their products are very important, as it can overall determine the outcome/success of the product. For example, businesses want to sustain and attract new and existing customers by using persuasive and informative promotional materials, and if their promotional schemes do not achieve this substantial amount of money can be lost, thus negatively affecting the business and potentially damaging the business. There are many forms and ways in which business can promote their products for example: Advertising – Through TV, radio, magazines, newspapers, internet Direct selling – directly approaching and â€Å"targeting† customers, e.g. public speakers, telesales, door salesmen Direct Marketing – Leaflets, mailshots, emails Point-of-sale – selling point stands, free samples, vouchers, offers Incentives – loyalty cards, bonus points or point systems i.e. these exist on many crisp and cereal selling brands Public Relations – Ensuring the organisations name is well known and grown or growing publicity. Catchy slogans, and brand names or e.g. sponsorships like Nike’s Cristiano Ronaldo sponsorship deals Sales Promotion – special offers, deals, sales to attract customers All these ways are commonly used by business in order to boost the publicity and overall speculation on their product, as every business needs to achieve a certain amount of customers, in order to generate profit. As well as these promotional ideas/methods, businesses also use certain features like AIDA. This stands for (A) Attraction, (I) Interest, (D) Desire, (A) Action. This diagram is used to represent a customer’s approach to reviewing a product. For example, when seeing a advert that appeals to them, these (potential) future customers will have a mental review of the product, and over a period of time, this AIDA process should unravel and take its formation. This is a process in which many businesses follow, in regards to promoting and releasing their product/ideas so they can identify what techniques to use, when advertising and promoting their products. For example, firstly comes the Attraction of the product, businesses want to represent their newly formed product as a new revolutionary item that will  benefit someone in every way, where it’s needed. Therefore, business will present their item as â€Å"cool†, â€Å"modern† and highly â€Å"anticipated† despite it’s not even released yet. This is in order to obtain the focus of customers and to gain their attention to their product. The success rate in which businesses do this will determine how many people will feel encouraged to buy your product, an increase of this will overall benefit the business and generate them with increase/grown profits. Secondly comes Interest, this is where business aim to achieve the focus and publicity of their product . Because of this, businesses want people/customers to gain an interest to their product, they want people to feel they need and have to purchase it. If a business successes within this stage, this could impact the business in a number of positive ways. For example, an increased amount of people interested within your product could mean, an increase in profits, and this will most certainly benefit a business. Businesses do this by containing people within their adverts or promotional materials looking happy with the product, or featuring famous figures in order to promote how stylish a product can be. Like I briefly mentioned, businesses want customers to feel the need to have their product, this stage is referred to as the Desire stage, this is where business feature many promotional materials in order to obtain the attention of customers and make them feel the need to want to buy and purchase their product. Again businesses can do this through featuring famous figures like Cristiano Ronaldo in order to promote their new product. By doing this, many fans of these famous figures may feel desired into purchasing the product as they deem it as stylish or maybe they just feel loyal to the role model/celebrity who promoted it. Finally features the stage/section known as Action. This the physical side to this AIDA cycle, for example Action is where the customer/reviewer will eventually purchase the good and use it/consume it for its purpose. Within this cycle, businesses don’t really have to do anything more at this stage, the customer has bought their product, all the business can do now is wait and assume the certain client has grown fond of their product, thus potentially forming them into an existing customer/loyal consumer. What are the promotional techniques used by your businesses? Within the two businesses I have chosen, there are multiple promotional techniques. Within the paragraphs displayed below, I will present this and eventually outline their strengths,  weaknesses, and comparison with compe titors and their differences. Nike Inc, Mercurial Vapor: For this selected product, I found many promotional schemes, however, I commonly found promotional processes within the advertising side of promotion, and these TV advertisements included famous footballers like Cristiano Ronaldo and Zlatan Ibrahimović in order to boost the attraction of their product as well as the desirability. For example, some screen shots/links of the adverts collected: Advertisements: Cristiano Ronaldo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWVYwppLPdE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mdgTR5ZyDs Zlatan Ibrahimović: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqVk1FHYeFY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SBnk3lKzzg Strengths: Within this set of Nike commercials, I thought the real strengths and positive aspects had to be the way in which they want people to perceive their products. For example, within each advert/promotional technique, they indicate how their style of football boot could change the way in which you perform, and how it can alter your abilities. For example, within the Cristiano Ronaldo adverts, it depicts Ronaldo, running through a whole team, easily with such pace, the advert then finished with the simple statement of: Be fast. Be Mercurial. This would indicate to customers that their special brand of football boot could enhance their abilities and the way they perform on the football pitch. For many football fans, and aspiring football players, these factors may be very important and this may encourage them to buy the item as they desire the certain traits these products supposedly provide. This is also a good way of advertising, because when people purchase this variation of football bo ot, it’s another way of advertising, however it’s free. For example, potential customers may see other people wearing the advertised boots, and this may cause them to feel jealous due to them knowing what the boots supposedly provide trait wise, as well as the fact, their favourite footballer may be the cover of that  certain brand, therefore they could feel further experiences of jealousy. This factor is very important because, in modern day football, the competitiveness between aspiring players may be extremely high, therefore each player wants/needs a certain factor such as new boots that may pose them with an â€Å"advantage† over everybody else/their opponents. Overall this will encourage more people to purchase Nike’s product as the certain products may feel increasingly desired, thus potentially increasing their profits and reputation. I also feel strength of these advertisements is the involvement/featuring of worldwide known sports figures like Cristiano Ronaldo and Zlatan Ibrahimović. Many young people interested within sports and football idolize over certain role models like these players, therefore, when these people see the Nike adverts featuring them, they feel obliged to purchase the certain piece of sports apparel in a way of supporting their role model. Therefore, Nike can use this to their advantage by exploiting how these players â€Å"benefit† from their products, and how it will reflect on their customers. For example, many fans and expiring footballers may feel, that wearing the same football boot as Cristiano Ronaldo or Zlatan Ibrahimović will grant them with their abilities and skill. Because of this, Nike’s advertisements can easily attract more customers by featuring these great athletes, thus potentially boosting their profits due to increased attraction and desirability. Weaknesses: Within these adverts, I felt it was very hard to find a significant weakness; however, I came to the conclusion of their adverts potentially degrading people. For example, due to the adverts representing how football players could be boosted/enhanced by the certain football boot, certain people who may desire the item, however can’t afford it may feel, when they play football, they do not have enough skill or power when on the pitch in comparison to people wearing these advertised boots. Because of this, many people may feel degraded, and they may also feel potentially weaker as a footballer, and this could potentially have a negative effect on Nike due to some people possibly feeling depressed about their abilities when being reminded of their products and their brand faces like Ronaldo and Zlatan Ibrahimović. Therefore, Nike may suffer some reductions in customers,  therefore a decrease in overall profits. Comparisons with competitors: When comparing to competitors, I believe Nike is probably at the best stage, I believe Nike is at the top of their game. For example, I think the way in which these commercials are conducted, represent these products with style, professionalism, power, speed, agility, and skill, precision. Because of this, I believe Nike’s target audience has been expanded for example, due to the professionalism and smart appearance of these products and their commercials, elder customers may also be enticed to purchase the products, as well as young, aspiring players. I also feel Nike made the correct choice when choosing players like Cristiano Ronaldo when advertising their products. For example, over the past couple of years, Ronaldo has accomplished many individual and joint awards and has successfully earned his place as the one of the best, if not the Best player in the world. Because of this, more people may have been enticed to buy Nike’s products, thus potentially booting their profits and overall reputation. Sony, Play Station 3: Again, with this certain product, I found Sony Corporation used many promotional techniques in order to advertise their product, especially within television, posters and billboards. For example: Links: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YyTlxHwuPZY – Long Live Play Michael https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqkNPcUMffU – PS3 Baby Commercial Strengths: Within these Sony, PS3 commercials/promotional material, I found that theses commercials had many aspects about them that were positive. One of these was the engagement to the audience a special individuals that are avid console gamers. For example, within the Long Live Play commercial, a group of gaming characters formed in order to celebrate the background character known as Michael who controlled their stories, as he PLAYED their games. I believe this is a positive effect as certain people may recognise these gaming characters, therefore they already obtain some variation of emotional  attachment to them, because of this, more people may be attracted to Sony’s products. For example, by seeing characters from certain games they have played may trigger many good memories of these people playing these games when they were younger. Because of this, they may feel encouraged to buy the console in order to recap on old memories, because of this, and increased amount of people buying Sony’s products will mean, and increased amount of profits, thus benefitting Sony in a number of ways. Another strength could be the suspense during the commercial. For example, the Long Live Play commercial depicts a group of characters speaking and celebrating about this person called Michael, however, customers watching the commercial don’t’ actually get told who this Michael is and why he’s important until the very end. I believe this is a very good promotional technique as this may cause customers having to watch the entire commercial as they are curious to whom Michael is, and by that time, they are drawn in and notified of the brand â€Å"Sony – PS3†. This suspense could ideally cause more people to remember the commercial, and overall these factors could increase the amount of people wh o will buy Sony’s products, thus increasing their profits further. Weakness: In comparison to the Nike commercials, I felt there were more negatives within these certain promotional methods, especially within the first commercial I watch, the PS3 baby commercial. I feel there were certain negative, such as how vague the promotional method was, for example, I don’t feel and can’t seem to analyse any form of message or purpose into why Sony depicted a baby doll, glancing at their product and making a series of different noises. If anything I believed this certain commercial was quite weird, and if I were to watch this commercial, my initial reaction would probably deter me from buying this product,, as I found little about the product itself, and the way I think the commercial was conducted was very strange and dysfunctional. I believe this would overall be a negative effect in regards to Sony. For example, if people are deterred from buying you product, due to your commercial, this could result in reduced sales and ultimately a decrease in your a nnual turnover. I also find, within the Long Live Play commercial, if you were new to gaming and unaware of some of the figures within the production, the advert wouldn’t really appeal to you,  therefore the way Sony aimed to increased sales through this promotional method may not work as well as hoped. For example, how do you expect to connect with some of the characters when you’re un aware of their story/history? Ultimately this could affect the turnover and sales created through this product and it could mean less people may purchase Sony’s products, thus potentially affecting their profits. However, in relevance to my last point, it could also be perceived as a positive, for example, if some people are unaware of certain characters, this may leave them questioning their purpose, and why they’re there. Because of this, people unaware of this information may feel the need to purchase a games console and some related game titles in order to find understand why certain characters were within the commercial. Due to this, businesses like Sony who sell gaming systems may receive increased sales due to people new to games, and are searching for a correct platform to play on. Overall this would positively affect Sony as sales may increase, as well as profits, thus benefiting the company economically. In comparison to their competitors I feel Sony don’t feel the need to input as much effort into their advertisements. They seem to focus on sales promotions within shop windows like Game or Game Station. I also feel Sony withdraw from increased advertising as it costs money, and they seem to find leaving their customers without that many details, It might give them an increased chance in regards to buying the console as the negative effects of the product may be unknown until purchased, this is beneficial to Sony as again, more sales mare be generated, thus a potential increase in profits. Pricing Strategies Used Pricing strategies is another word for the structure, and how businesses decide to sell their goods, and depending on these products, the type of pricing may change. Nike, Mercurial Vapor: The first pricing strategy I think Nike use in regards to this specific product happens to be the strategy known as Promotional Pricing. This is where businesses provide offers, and sales on their certain products. And in Nike’s case I believe this is exactly what they do, for example, considering the competition for this variation of product is very high, businesses like Nike have to constantly circulate new products and new Mercurial Football  boots, otherwise, their competitors will receive the upper hand and potentially an increase in customers due to less competition and other competitors not releasing new, updated stock. So, businesses like Nike release new stock/products like Mercurial Football boots in order to maintain their customers interest, therefore a majority of their older stock falls into the category of sales, deals and special offers. For Example: For example, Nike cut down this special type of Mercurial Football boot down from  £55.00 to  £43.00, a  £12.00 price decrease. Nike also follows the pricing strategy of Price Skimming. For example, when Nike first releases a new rendition of the Nike Mercurial Football boot, the price is initially, extremely high. I believe they do this because they know people would pay so much, just to stay up to date and modern in regards to the latest range, I also believe they do this because they know they are going to later decrease the price, therefore they initially sell their products at an extremely high price, just to take advantage of the limited time it’s going to be that price for to ensure they may generate a major profit per unit, thus potentially increasing their sales and overall increasing their profits. For example: The screen shot displayed above represents how much Nike initially release their Mercurial Vapor range at, later this price will decrease as new boot ranges will circulate, and this certain style will eventually go decrease in fashion/popularity. Sony, Play Station 3: The Sony PS3 has been around for around for around 7 – 8 years now, therefore the pricing strategies Sony used may or may not have changed during the products long lasting existence. Over that period of time, the Sony PS3 has been altered, re-mastered and perfected, therefore the pricing has obviously had to be changed, and considering the release of the new PS4, the Sony PS3 price has probably fluctuated at an even greater scale. One of the price  strategies the Sony PS3 withheld was, Price Skimming. Sony needed and has used this strategy due to the products huge market life. In order to generate and receive the most sales/turnover, Sony needed to keep the price as high as they could until something like the PS4 appeared. For example, since its release, the Sony PS3 has maintained a price between  £400 –  £150, therefore within that 8 year product life bracket, Sony has only cut the pricing down from around  £250, and like I mentioned before, Sony did this in o rder to generate the highest amount of sales/turnover in order to sustain a substantial amount of profit. Sony have also used the pricing strategy known as promotional pricing, for example, since Sony and their consoles involve features such as buyable accessories and games, Sony seem to release the occasional deal which involves a mix of a variety of games, certain gaming related accessories and obviously, the console itself. These deals appeal to many people as they receive the highly anticipated console as well as many other beneficial features. However, businesses like Sony use these added features in order to boost people’s encouragements as they believe the deal is better than it actually is. This is beneficial to the business as it overall could result into increased sales/profits due to deal prices and bundles potentially being sold for more than the individual console. This then leads me on to my next and final pricing technique, for example, business use the pricing strategy known as Psychological pricing. This is where businesses sell products at a price to deceive customers and trick them into thinking it’s cheaper than what it really amounts to. For example, many businesses sell items ending in 00.99, this is due to it seeming like it’s much cheaper than the price following it, for example, people feel they’ve received a great deal off an item for  £19.99 instead of it being  £20.00, despite it’s one penny less, your eyes deceive you and it seems to look like a much smaller number/price. For example, in regards to Sony, their PS3 has been usually sold at a price ending within 00.99 in order to trick and deceive people, thus causing Sony, to generate an increased amount of money, thus boosting sales and potentially enlarging the business’s profit. For example: As you can see, this certain retailer has applied this strategy on order to generate a increase within each unit sold. This will overall benefit Sony as  more money will be generated within their company, causing them to receive a positive cash flow. Place Nike: Nike is business that specialises within sports apparel and sports related accessories, therefore you will find most Nike goods within common Sports retailers. For example, popular European stores like Sports Direct, JD sports and the Nike shop will supply these related goods as they are all featured within the same business sector – Sporting and Leisure activities. These products produced by Nike are supplied within these stores as Nike is a multinational brand, and it’s becoming increasingly popular, therefore, over the past couple of years, the demand for Nike produce, such as Mercurial Football boots has increased. Because of this, businesses like Sports Direct and JD sports want to sell their goods as Nike will cause them to generate increased profits due to increase popularity of Nike products and increasing demand for the certain stock, supplied by Nike. This is beneficial to both stores, for example, Nike will receive money through the selected stores Nike stock sales as a percentage of this money will be generated and transacted to them, as long as Nike provide these businesses with suitable and updated stock. The only negative I can picture could be the certain percentage of the money Nike might receive, for example, this percentage may be quite low, and therefore it might actually negatively affect Nike as they may spend more money manufacturing and transporting the goods than what they receive in return. Sony, Play station 3: Since Sony and their PS3 is categorized as a gaming entertainment system, the stores that usually sell this product are gaming retailers like, Game, HMV, Game station, and CEX, however, since PS3 became a worldwide product, they have gradually been sold within basic superstores like Tesco, Wall mart, Sainsbury’s, Morrison’s, ASDA and Waitrose. Again, due to the products speculation and overall success, these businesses decided to get in touch with Sony and sell their produce (PS3) as they were certain its success will provide them with increased sales, and overall profits. Many businesses like  Tesco also bought the stock in order for more people to enter their stores, fro example, by increased amounts of people entering a Tesco in search for a PS3, they may buy a certain drink or product provided by Tesco, and because of this Tesco and other superstores selling the PS3 may have also generated increased product/stock sales and well as potential increased profits. Much like the positive effect presented above this will also overall benefit Sony, as an increased amount of businesses wanting to sell their produce, will mean an increase in funding and overall boost in the finances within the organisation as more money will be externally inserted within the company. The only negative again could possibly be an insufficient amount of money to compensate for the immense amount of demands from businesses wanting to sell Sony’s products, however their funding/money should cover it, thus evading this problem and providing Sony with no real negative issue in regards to this problem. Evaluate the marketing techniques used by a selected business Nike: After evaluating and analysing Nike and their Mercurial Vapor football boots, I have resulted in a conclusion, and have formatted my final opinion, on their way of marketing. I personally believe Nike used very smart and successful marketing strategies, as the popularity of their business represents how they have globally attracted people to their brands, and sports apparel. For example, in regards to their Product, I believe the way they’ve dealt with the growing/fast competition really functions well within their business. For example, Nike has adapted and became accustom to bringing out and releasing new products, like football boots every couple of months/year in order to sustain the interest of their customers and target audience. For example, they need to sustain each of their products like the Mercurial Football boots within the growing sector in regards to the product life cycle, until the next brand or style of boot gets released. Without these certain functions, and Nike standardized approach, I doubt the business would be as successful as it has been over the past few years, this certain function has certainly helped Nike achieve success, sales and profits; and these are all very beneficial features within an organisation. Due to these factors, I also believe Nike has breached its customers’ expectations; they have released consistent and fashionable products, much  like the rapid production and competition of football boots, and they are definitely one of the best within their selected sector of Sports and Leisure apparel/equipment. This is why I believe Nike could be regarded as one of the best, if not the best football boot producers/retailers within the world, and I believe they are definitely one of the feared businesses, in regards to their competitors like Adidas, Puma, Umbro, Sondico and Warrior. Secondly, I believe Nike’s Promotional sector is also very effective, for example, as I mentioned previously, I believe the way Nike advertise and present their products is very professional, stylish and smart in regards to their appearance. And because if this, I believe Nike’s target audience is expanded, for example, by appealing to an increased amount of people, Nike’s football boot sales may increase, therefore Nike may even result in an increase within profits; thus benefiting the business further. I also believe Nike conducted their sponsors very professionally and successfully as well. For example, Nike and their range of football boots obtain sponsorship deals with players like Zlatan Ibrahimović and the two time Ballon d’Or winner; Cristiano Ronaldo. I believe these deals have secured Nike’s success, for example, due to players like Ronaldo promoting their produce, an increase amount of people have been encouraged to buy their products , like the Mercurial football boots; thus boosting their sales, revenue and overall, profits. Again, in comparison to their competitors, I believe Nike are the best in their business sector. For example, the way they’ve conducted each commercial, poster or other promotional source, they do it with certain features that I feel provides them with an edge in regards to attracting and generated desiring customers.  Within Nike, I feel their pricing strategies were extremely good / beneficial to the organisation, and I believe, there isn’t any other form of strategy that I would follow, in terms of generating sales, and ultimately profits. For example, I believe the strategies they used were very good, in regards to their products, and how it will function with their target audience/customers. For example, one of the pricing strategies they used was, promotional pricing, this is where business sell their goods by offering certain deals and sales and cutting down the price in order to attract and generate an increased amount of customers. I believe it was  convenient for a business like Nike to use this certain strategy, as the football boot market is very competitive, and new boots will have to be released every couple of months/ year. Because of this, it’s only right if they cut down the price on their other goods by introducing sales, offers and other forms of promotional pricing, in order to attract more customers, and potentially increase sales/profits. Another form of Promotional pricing that Nike conduct is the strategy known as Price skimming. This is where businesses initially release their item at a very high price; however, as it progresses through the product life cycle, this price tends to decrease in order to benefit the business and customers by producing potentially more sales, thus more profits, as well as a cheaper price, therefore increasingly affordable. Again in Nike’s case, this is mainly due to the strong, competitive market. For example, new products like Mercurial football boot s will have to be released, therefore the stock referred to as the old stock will slowly come down in price as new products and goods get released. This will benefit Nike as the cheaper prices could attract more customers, because of this, Nike could face an overall sales increase, and this sales increase could eventually lead to the increase in Nike’s profits. Nike could improve the sales of this by promoting these reductions in such things as Television Adverts or posters, combined with popular retail stores such as Sports Direct. By promoting these reduced offers, more people within their target audience may feel interested to purchase their products, due to this Nike’s sales and overall profit may lead to an increase. Within these advertisements further deals with popular sports personalities such as Cristiano Ronaldo could take place; further promoting these reduced products, ultimately leading to more people having a desire or wanting for these items, resulting in an increase in Nike’s sales and profits. I believe the way Nike sells their produce, like their Mercurial Vapors is very convenient and bene ficial to the organisation. Therefore I believe these certain pricing strategies are very effective and this specific range of marketing techniques are very successful in terms of generating the business with increased sales and overall increased profits. Nike has overcome their competitors by formulating certain schemes to override their opponents and receive increased customers, sales and profits. Like I mentioned previously, to strengthen this, Nike could promote their discounted and reduced prices  even more. For example, since a new style or variation of their products such as Football boots are renewed monthly in order to maintain a controlling position within the Market, a vast amount of their old products are slightly forgotten about in regards to customers and their target audience. Therefore I think it would be highly beneficial to Nike if they compensated more for the promotion of their older products with reduced prices as it could overall increase the sales of their business, and ultimately lead to increase publicity. More people would be interested to purchase these promoted items with reduced prices, creating a larger attraction to the Company (Nike) and its products, either new or old. Further promotional materials with sports personalities would also help solidify their position, as certain sporting figures may attract a larger audience to their business, increasing the publicity and knowledge of their products; this would be highly beneficial to Nike as it may result in increased sales, ultimately leading to an increase within profits, further benefiting the organisation. However, if I had to make one improvement I would say the pace at which the company skims the prices off its products. For example, many times I have been looking at popular football boots and noticed how the prices are extraordinarily high. For example, popular football boots promoted by famous athletes sometimes cost over  £200. For children, and sometimes adults, this type of money to compensate is nearly impossible, or considered a â€Å"waste†. This high price may result in push factors for people in search for the adequate balance I regards to sporting goods such as football boots, people will look for price, fitting and appearance; and if the price is high, it may deter people from purchasing it, ultimately reducing Nike’s sales, potentially leading to a decrease in profits. By increasing the rate at which these products are reduced, and shortening the period they are sold at a very high price for, more people may be attracted to buying and using the product, thus promoting the business’s content furthermore, and ultimately leading to an increase in profits due to increased customers and sales. Lastly, within the marketing sector, comes the section known as Place. This basically refers to where the products are actually sold. For example, for Nike this is the common sports retailers like Sports Direct, JD sports and  more. This encourages greater sales as the product is widely available. For example, it would be common to provide businesses who have generated success, prior to you letting them sell your specific items. Therefore, it was only beneficial for businesses like Nike to sell their good to businesses like Sports Direct who are very successful and have generated an array of customers in search for products like Nike’s Mercurial football boots. This will benefit them as the business’s success could potentially mean, more people might purchase Nike’s products, like their Mercurial Vapors, therefore Nike would benefit as they could potentially result in an increase within profits, and sales. Another way Nike may be able to improve the promotion and success of their sporting related goods could be the increase in personal customization, for example, many people buy and purchase products such as football boots to stand out within their selected sport, by allowing your customers to personalize a product, catered to their wants and desires will enable an increased level of individuality. For example, this customisation technique may allow people to feature their own personal initials and colour combinations on their selected Nike products. Also, this certain function should not only be introduced via the internet, but also via located outlets. This would enable people and customers to receive a visual on how their selected product would appear. Certain physical features such as a wider Nike product customisation would potentially lead an increased amount of customers, for example, like I mentioned previously, within their selected sports, people want to stand out, in order t o attract attention or an increased chance of remembrance. Therefore, by allowing people to customize their personal products whether it is tops, shoes, boots, shorts or even tennis rackets, a wider audience may be attracted. Ultimately this may increase Nike’s sales, leading to an increase in their overall profits. The only recommendation for Nike, in my opinion would be if they were to provide more promotional pricing methods in order to prevent certain items falling into a decline, for example, due to the high competition within the market in regards to football boots, they have to release new boots, every couple of months, therefore the â€Å"older† boots decline in price and popularity quickly. In order to prevent this, I think Nike should increase the amounts of offers within their football boot range; this will potentially increase sales and even boost profits as an  increased amount of people would be encouraged to purchase Nike’s products due to the falling/cheaper prices. Again this will benefit the business as more money could be generated, and this could possibly mean Nike may sell more, thus increasing their overall sales.