Negotiating for a Borderless World Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

Negotiating for a Borderless World - Essay Example It has bridged the gap of highly industrialized countries with the least developed ones, which allowed the specialization of skills and the use of comparative advantage, a theory popularized by David Ricardo. In this competitive arena of global players, it is very essential to know how to negotiate and make a sustainable partnership. Negotiation skills are a must to survive. The following paragraphs will tackle the different concepts of negotiations and how it is being used in trade and politics. As discussed in class, negotiations are made for many reasons: to divide resources, to create something new and to resolve any conflict among parties. Negotiations always involve at least two parties, a conflict that needs to be resolved, and a give and take process. Negotiations must end up with an agreement and must depend on each other in order to achieve this. This interdependence relationship can produce two outcomes: zero-sum and non-zero-sum. Zero-sum happens when there is a winner and a loser, while non-zero-sum is a situation where the parties involved get mutual benefits. In 2001, the Doha Round declaration paved a way for the creation of mandates on the negotiation of a variety of trade issues by the Trade Negotiations Committee (WTO, 2001). They formed two negotiating groups, market access, and WTO rules. The negotiating group on market access is concerned in the liberalization of non-agricultural goods, while the negotiating group for WTO rules was concerned on subjects like the Anti-dumping and subsidies agreement plus provisions on regional trade agreements. Negotiations are present in bodies such as agriculture, services, geographical indications, dispute settlement understanding, environment and on outstanding implementation issues. There are six principles the committee has to adhere in their negotiations.

Do Animals Have the Right to be Free Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Do Animals Have the Right to be Free - Essay Example What did human do today? They use mice in laboratories for experimentation – they will electrify them, or they will do whatever to satisfy their studies or assumptions about the welfare of human beings. Non-humans are â€Å"means† to save human beings, is that justifiable? Is that fair enough to let them suffer and die just to save us? For some reason, we will insist that our lives are more valuable than those of the mice and cats, but it's not good enough to let them suffer to death. A cat has injected a chemical just to prove something, the poor animal suffers – can we also let human suffer like that? Therefore, what's my idea about animal liberation? Animals should be treated just like us. Even it's inevitable to consider them as food and kill them for that purpose, but we would take extra consideration about their â€Å"suffering† in the long run. Experimentation and tortures of animals should be banned in all places with very few exemptions. Their suf fering somehow means life to us – in case of medical practices, yet, let's put some limitations. It's not really good to see this practice so â€Å"common†, and even medicals students commonly do this as a habitual practice. Can we at least abide a just law for animals? Factory farm animals, for instance, are like machines and robots, they are confined, they are deprived of anything as if they are simply machines that produce food for us. Did you ever realize why chicken have wings? Because they are designed to be flying animals.

Appreciation Of Ringgit Malaysia Marketing Essay

Appreciation Of Ringgit Malaysia Marketing Essay The Appreciation of Ringgit Malaysia seminar is expect to be held between 20th to 21st December 2010 addressed the appreciation of ringgit effect on exports in Malaysia. Specifically, it will bring together a dynamic group of economists, futurists, academicians and students from public as well as private sector and government to look into the future and explore ideas about the appreciation of currency or exchange rate in ways that might challenge Malaysia. This executive summary provides an overview of the judgments, insights and implications for the seminar. Objectives This seminar aimed at promoting the monetary value of ringgit Malaysia by providing experts and academicians from within our country concerned an opportunity to share knowledge and experiences and to review challenges of the ringgit appreciation in Malaysia, and to have in-depth discussions on the role and prospects of this issue. In particular, by exchanging views and sharing the most updated information on exchange rate, it aimed at strengthening against most of the worlds major currencies and thereby contributing to the nations ambition to be a high-income economy. The seminar is also intended to provide an opportunity for the Malaysian citizens to understand the status and the challenges of the appreciation of ringgit on exports. Potential Participants This seminar would be of great interest especially to economists, financial analyst, international businessman, universities students, academicians and other communities as well. Mission and Vision Statements Mission To increase knowledge about currencies. To anticipate currency devaluation or appreciation and impacts on business world. To understand the exchange or conversion cycles for local and foreign currencies. Vision Educate the society on the importance of appreciation in ringgit. To encourage the society to look at the development of managing money and wealth. To promote an understanding on how major organizations such as the IMF are influenced by monetary transactions. To provide a better understanding on exchange rate in our country. Educate the society on the impact of appreciation and devaluation of ringgit on exports and imports. Event Team The Appreciation of Ringgit Malaysia event organising members include the following groups: What will be members role(s) in the proposed event? Director He as the director will be the primary decision-maker in our event plans. His responsibilities are to manage all his other group members ensure the member are carrying out their responsibilities in their respective roles, consult lecturer for advice and suggestion as well as to maintain order in our group. Secretary Preparing letters and log reports meetings are the responsibilities. This also includes tallying with the leaders of promotion, decoration and designing and treasurer in the purpose of recording the details in every respective role. Not forgetting, they also help in preparing letters, typing out drafts of event proposal and report, booking for the events venue and drop down selected ideas in every meeting. Treasurer This division will be in charge of the financial of the event, accounts, budget limitation and allocations. The primary task is creating a budget cost of the materials and applications with its pricing, original cost and etc. They also need to plan for fund raising, in charge of sponsorship matters and do help in publicity and promotion tasks. Design Technical Info The main task is to design the fonts, background, slogan, and events image as well as compressing the contents of our events massage besides estimating the precise size of the flyers, booklet and etc. They also help the leader in their decision making and present finalize ideas of design to the rest of members. Publicity and Promotion Promotion tasks are divided among the members in the same division and responsible in planning the promotion strategy to publicize our event, with the team title Appreciation of Malaysian Ringgit efficiently. Plus, they also collaborate with the leader about the decoration and designing and also design and technical info members to discuss on how to widen our publicity range within and outside the campus. Exhibition term For the exhibition, we will prepare a storyboard, drama or video for audience to enjoy seeing the facts and figures about the economy in Malaysia, especially from the aspect of worldwide money currency. Through the storyboard, drama or video, we will inform audience about Ringgit Malaysia, the important of stabilizing our money currency and the relation between Ringgit Malaysia and countrys export. We will be persuaded audience to support our Malaysia product through the storyboard, drama or video too. By using the method of drawing, we will show the story about how the Ringgit Malaysia can be strengthen and what its effect on our export in our country. When there is an appreciation in RM, product of Malaysia will increase the price and will reduce the local raw material cost. In addition, this will help to increase our nations export and income. So, we will use some industries and other countries as an example to make the story more interesting. Beside, through the video, we will show some picture and explain what causes the RM to appreciate or depreciate. Factors that causing a nations currency to appreciate or depreciate include: Relative product prices Monetary policy Inflation rate differences Income changes Secondly, we will exhibit the information of Ringgit Malaysia appreciation by doing the introduction to intro the Malaysians currency. The ringgit is the official currency in Malaysia which is often known as the Malaysian dollar. The Malaysian dollar or ringgit is subdivided into 100 sens, which are known as cents in foreign markets. For the example, The Ringgit Malaysia (RM) is one of Asias best performing currencies, which in 2010 has appreciated by 6% against the US dollar, 19% against the euro and 16% against the British pound. There were several factors that contributed to the stellar performance of the ringgit. Amongst them are Malaysias better than expected economic recovery, the central banks monetary tightening policies, the New Economic Model (NEM), and speculation on revaluation of Chinas Yuan, coupled with speculative funds inflow into Malaysias financial system. The currencys strength isnt likely to affect exporters, as Europes sovereign debt crisis may increase capital flows to Asia, and inter-Asia trade is expected to keep Malaysias exports at healthy growth levels. Malaysias exports to Europe make up some 10% of its total exports. Thirdly, we will exhibit the information about our seminar and the comparison advantages and disadvantages. The Pros and Cons of Stronger Ringgit Pros: Encourages the import of capital goods, which contribute to the innovation and automation of industries in the country. Improves the living standards of the people by increasing their purchasing power through cheaper imports and lower inflationary pressure. Cons: A stronger ringgit could pose challenges to the exporters of this export-dependent Malaysia, such as palm oil companies. The stronger ringgit usually trims the refinery margins as crude palm oil feedstock for refined products is priced in the currency. Any wild swings in the ringgit hurt refiners: For every 100 basis point appreciation in the ringgit, refining margins fall by US$2-US$4 a tonne. For example, if the ringgit keeps strengthening, where previously you would collect 3.2 for every US dollar you earn, now you get only 3.1. Information is very important in seminar to develop awareness about the theme of the seminar among audience. We will prepare accurate information in exhibition from Internet, survey, book, journal, and even Malaysia economic annual report. Advantages and disadvantages will clearly state in the exhibition and the information should be in bilingual, such as Malay and English. We will also consider on international students as audience too. Furthermore, the factors that cause Ringgit Malaysia to appreciate will be exhibit in the exhibition. We will collect the information from latest news or from others resources. All the information about the factors will be state clearly in the exhibition. Besides that, the comparison of the currency and different types of graph about the Ringgit Malaysia and exports of the products will be well prepared in the exhibition too. The information that we are prepared is due to these current years. The comparison of the currency within others country will be shown too. The countries that we will be compare such as US or China. The graph such as comparison of currency with others country, comparison of exports products, comparison of the latest years for currency will be shown too. For the exports of the products, we will be deciding to put example for palm oil or furniture. There are many types of graph will be shown during the exhibition. These aspects also consider as important information for audience to understand our main theme. Also, we will be taking the information through Internet, survey, book, journal and economic annual report. Committees in the exhibition are responsible to deliver a clear message to audience. Good interpretati ons will really helps the audience to understand the theme that we intend to deliver for them. Lastly, through the teamwork among the committee and the accurate and clear information in the exhibition, we will successfully organize the seminar and message will be well delivered for the audience. Potential speakers to be invite Prof. Dr. Mohd. Nazari Bin Ismail Professor Department of Business Strategy Policy Faculty of Business and Accountancy Universiti Malaya. Associate Prof. Dr. Fatimah Binti Kari Associate Professor Department of Economics Faculty of Economics and Admistration Universiti Malaya. Dato Mukhriz Bin Tun Dr. Mahathir Minister of International Trade and Industry Malaysia. Promotional and Publicity Strategies Internet Using social network as a main promotional tool to provide seminar information to promote and educate the targeted audiences regarding our topics of exhibition and seminar. Facebook Blogspot Twitter MMU Portal Newspaper Reporters will be invited to the seminar and before the seminar conduct to promote the seminar in aim to target public audiences. Interview session between the speakers and reporters will be conduct after / before the seminar. The Star The Sun MMU Nexus Promotion Booth Booth will be open before the week of seminar and exhibition to capture the attendance of MMU students and lecturers toward our seminar and exhibition. Members on duty will introduce to the public regarding the seminar and exhibition. Class Publicity CLC concourse FBL Lobby Selling Souvenirs (key chain, T-Shirt, and etc) Flyers Changing the computer background wallpaper to the seminar and exhibition wallpaper to promote the exhibition and seminar. (to be confirm later) Co-operation with lecturers Cooperate and encourage FBL lecturers to post an announcement regarding our exhibition and seminars. Lecturers may encourage students to attend and take as class attendance. SAPS point will be provide to those who attend the seminars. Take Attendance SAPS Point MMLS Invite higher education institutions Invite STPM students, or higher education institutions in Melaka to the exhibition and seminar. Stamford Collage Secondary Schools in Melaka Invite Vendors Invite Vendors to participate on the exhibition and seminar to selling their products. Part of the profit are encourage donate to the event. Fund Raising Due to Christmas is around the corner, we have planned to sell goody packs in our campus. Our goody pack includes sweet and chocolate. We can promote it through distribute flyers, so that all students will know goody pack is available for sale here. We may sell RM4-5 per one goody pack which price is reasonable and affordable for all students. We may sell the couple T-shirts. The couple T-shirts and the goody packs will be a good match for the students. They may wear it to celebrate for the Christmas and the sweets and chocolates will be the presents for their partners. We are planning to raise fund in the restaurant or cafà © by providing the services there. We can be the part time waiters or waitresses. The earning we get will be the funds for the projects. We will also try to ask the owner to contribute the earning for one particular day to be our funds. We have planned to sell fruits such as guava, papaya, and watermelon inside or outside the campus. Believe that, there are many students are like to eat fruit in such a torrid weather. So we may sell Rm1.50-2.00, which is affordable for them.

Terrorism and Morality Essay -- September 11 Terrorism Essays

Terrorism and Morality      Ã‚   In the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks of 2001 and the U.S. military action in Afghanistan, moral questions have arisen. This essay will consider such questions.    Many Church leaders and leading thinkers in the United States have strongly defended the U.S. use of military force in the wake of Sept. 11. Yet outside the States the talk is less about just-war and more about economic and social inequalities. The first and overriding inequality Americans face at the moment is this one: The real murderers, the architects of these murders, are alive and determined to kill again, while the murder victims have been robbed of their lives, their futures, their hopes, dreams and families. More than 5,000 innocent people died at the hands of extremist killers in a single day in September(CNN), and others continue to die through what appears to be bioterrorism(Bio).    Americans see this more clearly, and feel it more keenly, than outsiders because Americans are directly engaged as the target of the violence. Outsiders are not, so their perspective is predictably different.    I think that reminders of the social and economic inequalities in the world serve an important purpose. But no government can keep its legitimacy if it fails to defend its people. The injustices in the world can never be used to "contextualize" or excuse mass murder. And the United States is by no means the only source of the world ´s social and economic inequalities. America bears heavier moral obligations for its actions because of its prosperity and power, but in the Muslim countries and throughout the Third World, rulers have consistently exploited their own people, with or without Western involvement. Sin isn ´t a... ...ht to a life without fear. The irony, of course, is that hundreds of thousands of Arab-Americans are actually Christians whose families often came to the United States to escape economic discrimination and religious intimidation in the Muslim countries of the Middle East.    I believe that despite our flaws and sins, Americans are a good people -- and also a great people. We have a chance in the United States to show the world that Christians, Jews, Muslims and people of other faiths and no faith can live together in mutual respect and peace. Whether Americans today have the character to accomplish that goal remains to be seen. It has to be proven again in every new generation.    SOURCES CITED:    Bioterrorism Articles. http://pubs.ama-assn.org/bioterr.html    CNN Online News. http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2001/memorial/      

Ebay Market Share

How to dominate the online auction market Jeffrey Phillips †¢ Brian Somok †¢ Xiaoke Zheng Executive Summary Background eBay Inc history: September 1995: funded as a sole proprietorship. May 1996: incorporated in California. April 1998: reincorporated in Delaware. September 1998: completion of initial public offering October 2002: acquired PayPal Product Online Auction: Every day, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, millions of people from all over the world go shopping at online auctions. This is not an exaggeration – eBay, with a 76% share of the auction site market, reports 42. million users and a growth factor of 100% per Year Porter’s Five Forces Analysis Rivalry Rivalry is very intense. Yahoo had to give up Japan and Australia online auction sites in 2003 because of low margin in this market even if Yahoo made great investment in these two sites beforehand. Number of firms Online auction firms: www. eBay. com, www. overstock. com, www. ubid. c om, www. yahoo. com, www. amazon. com, www. CQout. com, www. bidville. com, etc. The large number of firms in this market reflects the intense competition among those sites. Margin profit is decreased to a relatively low level. Bay could still survive because of its scale of economy and good reputation. However, eBay’s growth in 2004 was much smaller than in 2003. Shareholders put much pressure on eBay, and eBay had to readjust its pricing on varied services on the short run in order to satisfy people’s short term expectation. However, he is risking his long term revenue and reputation. Fixed costs Essentially, fixed costs on online auction market are rather low: purchasing programming technology patents, web, administration, credit, accounting, staff, and daily operations. Product differentiation Differentiation depends on how the transaction is performed. There is not too much difference among different online auction companies in web processing efficiency and shipping efficiency, but eBay is more convenient than others, due to their lengthy expertise in the market. eBay differentiated itself by integrating PayPal payment system, which is famous for its security, cheap rate and network utility. eBay offers a cheap transaction fee rate, as well. It has greatest number of users by far, which offers excellent network utility. Amazon used to be a substitute product provider. However, since 1999 Amazon added auction module in its business. eBay likewise encroached on Amazon’s niche by adopting fixed price functions like â€Å"buy it now† button and purchasing www. half. com. eBay and Amazon have been less different and therefore rivalry has increased a little. However, there is still an obvious gap between them in terms of business model and software development. Amazon built its reputation with high-end users. It has a friendly and succinct transaction interface, which offers superior product mix. Amazon is utilizing Porter’s value strategy and has not changed this for years. On the other hand, eBay is a large community of small buyers and sellers who deal with single-item transactions at negotiable prices. It has a created cost advantage by scale of economy. Most goods traded on eBay are secondhand, and eBay’s inventory changes more rapidly than Amazon’s. eBay is actually taking Porter’s cost strategy. Different business models result in different financial performance. eBay generated $441 million profits in 2003 on $2. 17 billion revenue compared with Amazon's much smaller $35 million profit on far more revenue — $5. 3 billion. eBay has a more liquid and efficient financial structure. Besides, these two companies are both valued by their own network/community. Most customers don’t switch between auction and fixed price retail very often partly because they are rooted in the community culture of either network. They don’t have incentives to change their current method of transaction if it is satisfactory. Different business models and different networks are enough to place these two companies in different niches without too much rivalry. Barriers of New Entrants New entrants seize every opportunity to expand their market share. eBay still has a dominant market share of online auction. His reputation is a sweeping force in maintaining his good performance. However, eBay has to be cautious in every marketing decision. His mistakes will be taken advantage by these new comers. For example, www. bidville. com , an online auction site, recently experienced a dramatic increase in new member registration after eBay announced they would raise their listing fees for sellers. eBay took a prompt response by resuming the listing fee back to the original level. eBay didn’t win anything in this price adjustment and readjustment, but eroded his reputation. Essentially in this online auction market, whoever has the most name recognition, wins the game. Right now, Bidville’s disadvantage in name recognition puts Bidville out as a possible alternative to eBay’s market space temporarily. eBay should think about more to maintain his name recognition on the long run. Patents eBay does not hold any key patented technology. A new entrant could easily emulate eBay’s interface. High cost of entry eBay’s most effective barriers are its large network and credible reputation. It is rather difficult for a new entrant to build a new network starting with no users. We can verify this by how new air ticketing companies grow. ) The only way to start a network from a reasonable size is to derive an online auction market from an existing online website company which already has a network, just as Yahoo and Amazon did. A new entrant must also demonstrate creditability and capability to customers and payment providers (credit car d, PayPal, eWallet, etc. ). New entrants must prove their guarantees of efficient and safe transactions, to both buyers and sellers. Why would buyers and sellers bother to switch from a sound existing online auction site to a new one? Incentives to switch include discounts, coupons, accumulative reimbursement like frequent miles, complements from other services an entrant or their cooperating company offers, and higher-quality service in terms of timely and elegant shipping. All of these are trivial but not necessarily effective sales methods. Effectiveness depends on a comprehensive sales strategy which is based on keen insight of business dynamics and human group dynamics. It is hard for a new entrant to find an experienced strategist, and even if it does, there is still no guarantee to gain market share. This market is basically first-mover dominant. Furthermore, it is unlikely for payment companies like credit card companies or other electronic payment providers to support a new entrant, because profitability is unclear. The revenue for successful new entrants will be low at the beginning and stable on the long run. However, expenses will be extremely high at the beginning. A new company rarely survives within a short term unless it has a very generous percentage of leverage or a large amount of venture capital, and leverage is only available for public companies. Therefore, a new entrant can likely only be an existing company that operates in other markets. It should either be sufficiently self-funded or have a very strong, persuasive income statement and business plan to prove liquidity and gain leverage. Since the internet bubble, venture capitalists are very cautious in investing in IT companies, especially Business-to-Customers or Business-to-Business ecommerce companies. (Check the performance of eBay during and after internet bubbles. ) Essentially, the scale of economy is very obvious in the online auction market. The value of an online network is proportional to the number of users squared. The scale of economy will naturally lead to a monopoly. A new entrant should either license a fraud prevention system or employ a third-party payment platform company that already integrates fraud prevention system in its service. Brand loyalty First of all, eBay has been operating in this market since the beginning of e-commerce. A lot of e-commerce companies have failed since the internet bubble. eBay has successfully survived because of the convenience and simplicity of its service. It has gained popularity and built loyalty among customers. It has a secure identity system, and every user has a record of past transactions. eBay has a sound rating system for every buyer and seller to establish credibility amongst the users. eBay’s user accounts work like passports of their personal credit and reliability. Most customers of eBay are long-term users; therefore, they will not attempt fraud in their transactions. If they do, their rating suffers. All customers tend to trust each other because transactions are transparent to the 3rd party supervisor, eBay. eBay has successfully turned their online auction site into a community which has a cohesive culture. Photos of items to be sold greatly enhance the community value and establish amiability and trust between sellers and buyers. (eBay’s success has influenced Amazon to adopt a similar policy in its online transactions recently. ) New entrants are competing against a community as well as a company. It is rather difficult to build a new culture and a new community. There might be some other specialized auction niches available, but eBay offers nearly any product available. For example, eBay has online auctions for cars. However, since cars are large purchases, people tend to be cautious in purchasing them. They must inspect the cars in person, and the buyers and sellers tend to haggle in person. Online auctions don’t seem conducive to the secondhand car market. As one would expect, eBay doesn’t have much revenue from car transactions, and any other online car auction websites are not likely to generate high revenues. Such specialized auction markets have uncertain viability. In the example of a car transaction, there are two types of creditability involved. One is buyers’ trust of eBay: Will eBay protect the buyers’ privacy? The other is buyers’ trust of sellers: Will sellers defraud the buyers or exaggerate the quality of their cars? Shipping is also a major cost in this transaction. Most buyers obviously favor in-person transactions. There is little market space for online auction providers. In fact, there are free online bulletin boards that provide used car sale information. They make it difficult for paid online car auctions to exist at all. Mostly, the viability of such specialized auction markets is doubtful. Therefore, there is limited chance for new entrants. Substitute Products The most important merit of fixed-price online retail is that a buyer does not have to wait for an auction to end. It is appealing to shoppers who prefer straightforward sales. They value their time more than the small price change. It is basically a tradeoff between time and price. Since online auction and fixed online retail target people with different personalities, these two products essentially don’t conflict with each other. eBay expanded its market by adding fixed-price features to its online transactions, such as â€Å"Buy It Now†. Half. com is a fixed price online retail web site which is owned by eBay. This shows that eBay is flexible in its business model. On the other hand, Amazon, a traditional online fixed-price retail web site, launched its auction feature in 1999. Here, fixed-price retail acts somewhat like a complement. However, it is a complement only when a company is involved in both types of sales. It is especially beneficial for the company’s network utility. eBay expanded its community (network) by adding fixed price retail feature, as Amazon did by adding auctions. Both of them successfully combined these two functions together, which merged these two markets into one, and gave customers greater convenience by allowing them to decide which way to purchase goods impromptu. However, there is less differentiation between eBay and Amazon. Traditional retail is more prevalent when the buyer must check the product in person or shipping is difficult or expensive. eBay has had to build a strong creditability by making sure all the descriptions of online items to be sold are precise, complete and correct. Without this reliability, customers would switch to traditional retail stores. For those goods which are hard to price without observation, eBay cannot supplant traditional retail. This is particularly true for specialized items such as cars, jewelries, and plastic surgeries, all of which have too many details to be taken care of online. Online transactions seem impossible for these goods. The switching cost from online auction to traditional retail or fixed-price online is essentially high. For fixed-price online, sellers have to pay the storage fee for Amazon’s storage plant. For traditional retail, sellers have to pay for the storage fee and shelf rental fee. These extra fees, which are switching costs, are enough to discourage single item sellers, who are main customer category of eBay, to switch. Buyer Power Customer’s price sensitivity Online auctions don’t charge sellers for storage of their goods. Fixed-price sites might charge sellers for storage. Traditional retailers incur overhead costs. Sellers have incentives to sell via online auction. On the other hand, online auctions mainly deal with unpackaged new products or secondhand products. Most buyers of such products are familiar with eBay, so sellers are more prone to sell via online auction. Buyer bargaining power is weakened. Customer’s negotiating power As I analyzed above, eBay is a large network of small buyers and sellers who mainly deal with single-item sales. A seller generally sells one item to one buyer on eBay, so eBay has high prices and high margins when providing services for many buyers and sellers. Online auction site, recently experienced a dramatic increase in new member registration after eBay announced they would raise their listing fees for sellers. eBay took a prompt response by resuming the listing fee back to the original level. eBay didn’t win anything in this price adjustment and readjustment, but eroded his reputation. Essentially in this online auction market, whoever has the most name recognition, wins the game. Right now, Bidville’s disadvantage in name recognition puts Bidville out as a possible alternative to eBay’s market space temporarily. Bay should think about more to maintain his name recognition on the long run. Patents eBay does not hold any key patented technology. A new entrant could easily emulate eBay’s interface. Buyer Power Customer’s price sensitivity Online auctions don’t charge sellers for storage of their goods. Fixed-price sites might charge sellers for storage. Traditional retailers incur overhead cost s. Sellers have incentives to sell via online auction. On the other hand, online auctions mainly deal with unpackaged new products or secondhand products. Most buyers of such products are familiar with eBay, so sellers re more prone to sell via online auction. Buyer bargaining power is weakened. Customer’s negotiating power As I analyzed above, eBay is a large network of small buyers and sellers who mainly deal with single-item sales. A seller generally sells one item to one buyer on eBay, so eBay has high prices and high margins when providing services for many buyers and sellers. Supplier Power Suppliers to eBay offer technology patent, legal support for intellectual property, and fraud prevention systems. eBay has great pressure to prevent fraud, since its reputation is at stake. Buyers and sellers care about very much about their security. Online auction fraud in 2004 made up 16% of all consumer complaints last year, and 48% in the subset of internet-related complaints, topping the list. eBay has 0. 01% fraud rate of all transactions, but these isolated incidents receive wide media coverage, which discourages many potential customers. eBay is still improving its fraud prevention system. The fraud prevention system is launched by Microsoft Inc. and Visa International Inc. As this system is necessary to eBay, it has little leverage to negotiate a better price. Many online retail systems need fraud prevention system, but there is only one supplier in the market. It has great bargaining power. Complements PayPal, as an online payment solution, is a good complement of eBay’s online auction business. PayPal is a neutral intermediary based on the financial infrastructure of bank accounts and credit cards, supported by a proprietary fraud prevention system. Transactions on PayPal are of low risk to both sellers and buyers. PayPal accepts money from the buyer in one of the three ways. Charging the buyer’s credit card Debiting the buyer’s checking account Charging from the buyer’s PayPal account. The buyer can always send check to his/her PayPal account. Then PayPal will email the seller about the payment made by the buyer. The seller will receive money in one of the three ways. The seller might have his own PayPal account. The payment will directly transfer to his/her account. The seller might receive a check from PayPal. PayPal directly deposits the payment into the seller’s checking account. Buyers care about security. Buyers’ credit card numbers are only shown to PayPal. That is safer than online payment directly by credit card. Buyers also care about the cost. For transactions between PayPal customers, there's no transaction fee. PayPal makes money on the float – when customers’ money sits in their account, PayPal is collecting interest on it. Customers generally don’t care about the interest that PayPal collects on their deposits. Customers also care about ease of use. PayPal is one of the simplest services for online transactions. All a buyer has to do is to provide his/her name, e-mail address, credit card information, and billing address. For business accounts on PayPal, merchants are charged a 2. 2% discount rate + 30 cents on the transaction. It is better than the rate charged by merchant banks for accepting credit cards, in most cases. eBay Micro Strategies Increase brand recognition Expand the auction market by introducing PayPal to more online auction markets Credit card companies charge more for Internet-enabled merchant accounts (the accounts the merchants need to accept credit card payments on the Internet), because of the high cost to main security. Therefore, credit cards become too expensive for smaller purchases. PayPal might negotiate with credit card companies for smaller fees for their subscribers. They can cooperate to share the market in the following way: Merchant accounts on PayPal will be charged less by credit companies than those on other online payment platforms. Therefore it can increase the number of small purchases on eBay auction. Nowadays, credit cards are the primary means of purchasing air tickets and recording frequent flier miles. eBay should enter the air ticketing markets. It definitely can offer the same service with PayPal. PayPal should cooperate with more airlines and online ticketing websites. If they can integrate PayPal into ticket sales websites, eBay will have a huge potential market in air ticketing and also increase its network utility. eBay should acquire a greater online auction market share by educating online customers that PayPal is the online currency. Yahoo’s wallet failed in the online marketplace. It was not easy to establish their own online payment platform, partly because the online payment concept goes against Yahoo’s traditional business model. PayPal should make use of its competitive advantage and offer Yahoo and other websites its specialized solutions. Perfect its proprietary fraud prevention system, which is essential to its success. eBay should let its customers, cooperative online transaction sites, online airline ticketing sites, and credit card companies all feel that transactions through eBay will lower their costs and be more valuable. Bay should cooperate with shipping companies, and make its online transactions more lucrative eBay should work with Phish Report Network and other anti-phishing organizations more efficiently in order to prevent fake online auction sites taking its market share and damaging the whole market’s reputation eBay should work with software developers to improve the s ecurity, efficiency, and adaptability of its database. eBay should convince customers that there is no intentional bidding up behavior involved in its online auction practice Develop real name feature for customers. Put some restrictions on new sellers in expensive merchandise transaction or large volume sale until they have a good track record. Expand to international market, decrease national boundary barriers in terms of payment (credit card/PayPal) and shipping. Cooperate with local equivalent companies or localize by itself. Mediate between buyers and seller at Security Center. Respect both sides’ privacy. Solve conflicts in conservative way. Don’t take risk of eBay’s reputation. eBay Today eBay is the world’s foremost online marketplace. Through reliable customer service, efficient information exchange, and by utilizing the latest technology, eBay has created an auction-based market community of an efficiency unheard of prior to the internet revolution. Competitive Advantage eBay has used its first-mover advantage to establish itself as the most reliable and, more importantly, largest auction house on or off the internet. In 2003 alone, more than 30 million people exchanged over $20 billion. Due to the size and diversity of its user base, eBay is able to offer a wider selection of merchandise than any online retailer. This is made feasible by the virtual nature of eBay’s market: sellers can market obscure items to a global market as easily as and more cheaply than they could put an ad in their local paper. Famous for matching buyers and sellers across the world with the most extreme items, eBay has developed incalculable value in its brand name. eBay has become a household word synonymous with an eclectic online marketplace. eBay comes to the mind of any buyer looking for that rare or rarely-cheap item; any seller hoping to get rid of practically anything knows a buyer is lurking somewhere on eBay. The site has become an easily identifiable rallying point akin to a popular dance club on a global scale: everyone who’s anyone is there—and everyone else too. eBay’s Macro Strategy eBay seeks to maintain a high level of consumer patronage by capitalizing on its unique positioning as an internet marketplace. Globalization. Since eBay is a virtual marketplace, eBay can establish language localized sites in other countries that have access eBay’s full auction database. Since the seller handles the shipping details, each seller may determine the extent to which they enter the global market. Bay has already expanded into 150 countries around the world. International transactions require little additional bookkeeping cost while their benefit to the consumer is enormous: every buyer and seller has access to the largest market possible. Communication By allowing buyers and sellers to meet and communicate online, eBay is able to minimize the costs of remote market research and individual exchanges of information across states and borders. This interplay is essential to mutually amicable transactions on which eBay is based. To encourage fair transactions eBay provides an efficient feedback system to allow buyers and sellers to benefit from collective experience, giving customers a strong social incentive to honor each transaction. Integration Through its acquisition of PayPal eBay gained not only market share, but also vertical integration key to its long-term success. By embracing the payment method most commonly used on its site rather than forcing an unpopular one on its user base, eBay has not only retained the existing PayPal user base but expanded to those consumers previously unsure of which method to use. In 2003 there were 40 million PayPal accounts—almost twice as many as the previous year—and these customers transferred $12 billion across 38 countries. Diversification In addition to normal auction bidding, eBay now offers a Buy-it-Now option. Sellers set fixed maximum prices at which the auction will close before it begins. This attracts auction-wary consumers from other e-commerce sites outside of the strict auction market and effectively competes with amazon. com and froogle. com for fixed-price transactions. By allowing independent sellers to maintain storefronts online, eBay seeks to extend its position to include an even wider range of transactions, thus not only broadening its appeal but securing ties to more conservative consumer bases. The Future of eBay Industry Trends What originally began as a small industry of auctions for collectibles has mushroomed into a behemoth encompassing individual sellers, small businesses, and large retailers. The e-commerce industry is constantly growing, and many businesses rely on the reputation of eBay or one of their competitors to sell their products. As the market grows, a wider demographic range of consumers will be purchasing an increasing number of products online. For example, teenagers are the target consumers of very recent products such as cell phone ring tones and games, many of which are available exclusively online. As such varied consumer groups are emerging in the online market, there is more room for differentiation; perhaps some niches are being created. Therefore, the barriers to entry will decrease as the market expands. Competitive Trends eBay has a solid foothold as the canonical online auction site. They have a niche as an enormous community with an extremely high success rate of matching buyers and sellers. eBay is distinguished by its availability of single, used, and/or rare items, and for its floating prices. They are adequately differentiated from their competitors, and they possess roughly 70% of the online auction market share. However, due to the relatively low switching costs and entry barriers inherent in a web market, eBay must continue to be rather defensive of their position, against current competition and potential new entrants. Current Competitors Amazon and Yahoo Auctions are the main competitors of eBay. Ubid. com has 14% of the market share, but they have a different niche than eBay by appealing to business-to-consumer transaction. Amazon may pose a threat to eBay’s utter dominance; they are consistently bringing retailers into e-commerce. However, this comes with a great burden. Whereas eBay has virtually no overhead, Amazon needs to store and move vast quantities of inventory. Currently, Amazon’s revenues are considerably greater than eBay’s (about twice as much), but their costs are so high that eBay’s annual profits are roughly ten times Amazon’s. Alternatively, Amazon might choose to expand its auction operations, trying to nudge eBay from its niche. Amazon would have to establish a network, a community, on the scale of eBay’s in order to challenge them directly. Although this could be time consuming and costly to implement, focusing on transactions in which they are merely the broker and bear no cost could greatly increase their long-term profits. Yahoo poses little threat to eBay. While they theoretically have potential for growth similar to Amazon, they lack Amazon’s reputation. They also lack the cost-free transactions in which eBay luxuriates. New Entrants Online auctioning doesn’t have high costs of entry, especially the way eBay operates: All a new entrant needs is merchant software; there is no need for warehouses or expensive machinery. However, many companies have tried to enter this lucrative market and have failed. New entry is difficult because eBay has an enormous community, which gives tremendous network value to both buyers and sellers. Any entrant would have to build up a network from scratch. Conceivably, if a new company entered a niche market, e. g. uctions of teenage clothing and cell phone accessories, they could survive, but such a market would likely be too small to gain any measurable market share. Alternately, a website that already has a large community would be able to enter more easily. For example, Craig’s List has a network of millions of users, who rely on it for matching them up with people who can fulfill their sp ecific needs. It would be simple enough to add an auction section to the site, and take advantage of this existing network to compete with eBay. Froogle, a new service from Google, may forever change the way online shopping is done. While it currently is a beta version, it looks to be a promising engine for online shoppers to quickly search nearly all online stores for the products they desire. While Froogle isn’t an entrant to the online auction market (yet), it is certainly the beginning of a powerful new substitute service. Froogle may be very dangerous to eBay for many reasons. Google already has a huge network of search-users and advertisers. If vendors (especially specialized vendors, as many on eBay are) can set up their own online stores and be found for free on Froogle, they have less of a reason to pay eBay for its high access. Bay certainly still has a lot going for it, (security and reputation) but may soon find its network challenged by Froogle users. eBay’s Response eBay recently started Business. eBay, a new business-to-business online auction that spans all sectors, from mining to farming. eBay is aware that they may need to accommodate larger retailers in order to grow, and to chal lenge Amazon’s growth in this direction. If Amazon decides to challenge eBay’s community appeal, then eBay must block this attempt any way they can. A simple method would be to start a price war. Bay’s costs are so negligible compared to Amazon’s that Amazon could not possibly survive a price war. EBay could almost give away auctions to sellers, whereas this sort of competition would bankrupt Amazon. If a new entrant emerges, eBay’s best bet is to rely on the value of their community. Even a company trying to enter into a niche market would have a difficult time building a network large enough to attract eBay customers. In the rare case of an established community site entering into online auctioning, eBay should engage in a price war if they believe this site’s community is comparable to theirs. Bay is famous for their extreme efficiency, and any entrant would likely be somewhat inefficient due to their inexperience. eBay’s best resp onse to Froogle is to assert their security and reputation to their users: If you buy from eBay, you know you will have a safe and fraud-free transaction, especially if you pay with PayPal. On the other hand, if someone buys from an online shop found on Froogle, he has no idea how reliable the vendor is, or if his credit card information will be safe. If buyers are reluctant to engage in potentially insecure transactions outside of eBay, buyers and sellers alike will continue to complete their transactions through eBay. Summary eBay virtually monopolizes the online auction market, due to their large network value, extremely low costs, reputation for security, and efficient operations. When confronted with competition, eBay either relies on its community niche, or buys out the competition (i. e. Half. com and PayPal). They have created a market where entry is very difficult, and competitors are relatively powerless, particularly given the threat of a price war. These advantages should ensure eBay’s continued domination of online auctions in the future. However, they should court larger retailers, as Amazon has, to expedite their growth. eBay is likely to stay the leading online auctioneer for quite some time, as long as they remain adaptable to the ever-dynamic online market. eBay has proven to be a successful chameleon in the past, making lucrative acquisitions and modifying its business model, depending on the state of the online market. As long as eBay continues to aggressively maintain its community and reputation of security, it will dominate the online auction market. References 1. Crockett, Roger O. â€Å"No Plastic? No Problem. † BusinessWeek | online. . October 23, 2000. 2. â€Å"eBay 2003 Annual Report. † . 3. Hof, Rob. â€Å"Meet eBay’s Auctioneer-in-Chief. † BusinessWeek online. . May 29, 2003. 4. Hof, Robert D. â€Å"The eBay Economy. † BusinessWeek | online. . August 25, 2005. 5. Lewis, Marilyn. â€Å"eBay and Amazon. † webservicespipeline. . December 22, 2004. 6. Perez, Juan Carlos. â€Å"Online auction providers grapple with fraud. † Computerworld. . Februrary 17, 2005. 7. Roberts, Paul. â€Å"Microsoft, eBay, Visa form Phish Report Network. † Computerworld. . February 14, 2005

Emergency Preparedness Essay

Role of Public Health Personnel During the Franklin County disaster, there were numerous individuals that participated in the disaster response. Each member had a specific role in the Public Health Team. The Community Health Nurse was crucial in the efforts to assure that the residents of Franklin County were safe and their houses were repaired from the damages caused by the storm. By going door-to-door to asking questions from a prepared survey, the Community Health Nurse was able to better evaluate the needs of the residents and assess the level of coping that was necessary and report back to the team in order to rally support in order to mend the damage of the storm. Later the Community Health Nurse was able to provide support by offering assistance by phone through the disaster hotline, to support the residents and offer guidance of whom to contact for further assistance in matters that need to be attended further by individuals with certain specialties. Chain of Command In the Franklin County crisis, the team put an Emergency Operations Plan in place to establish a clear line of people in the chain of command. At the top of the chain of command was the County Emergency Manager as the Commander, followed by the Operations Chief, Logistics Chief, Financial and Administrative Chief and lastly the Planning and Intelligence Chief. While the Commander has his hands full he delegated responsibility to the Operations Chief to oversee the responsibilities of the Medical and Health Branch Director, the Community Service Branch Director, the Fire Branch Director, the Law Enforcement Director and the Public Works Director. The Public Health Group was supervised by the Medical Health Director. The Planning, Operations, Logistics, and Finance and Administrative Chiefs all reported to the Incident Commander. All tiers worked hard together to communicate the needs that needed to be accomplished in order to keep the residents safe during the Franklin County disaster. Resources During the door-to-door visits that the Community Health Nurse conducted, different scenarios presented that required outside resources the nurse was unable to complete herself. In order to meet the needs of the residents the  Community Health Nurse used her resources of Environmental Health Specialist for the first household she visited, in order to assist in the cleanup of a spill. For the second household the nurse was able to suggest a nearby shelter that could help the family with their needs until a visit from a social service worker could be set up. With the third family who spoke Spanish only, the nurse was able to use her limited communication to provide information for cleanup after the disaster. The nurse can also plan for an interpreter to join her on her next visit to provide more thorough details. And lastly for the fourth resident, the nurse was able to plan for him to evacuate to a shelter in order for him to obtain his blood pressure medication. The Community Health Nurse was able to use resources provided by the community of Franklin County in order to meet the needs of all the residents she visited. Actions of Community Health Nurse Although the Community Health Nurse was able to use appropriate resource to help the residents, she was faced with emergency situations prior to her being able to use those resources. In the first house the nurse encounter a potential chemical spill and had to advise the resident not to attempt to clean it up prior to inspection from a specialist to avoid being expose to toxins. The second household was in crisis following the disaster; the nurse was able to calm the mother down by providing support to the desperate parents by assuring that social services would make a visit soon in order to find way to reduce the families stress. At the third house, although the nurse was faced with language barriers, she was able to provide knowledge through pamphlets to educate the family about potential exposure due to their poorly ventilated house. And at the last house the nurse was able to assess the resident for hypertension and arrange for him to get his blood pressure medication at a local shelter nearby. Throughout all the home visits, the nurse was able to remain calm in order to provide all the residents reassurance in their time of crisis. Coping with Aftermath In the first house the nurse was able to help the resident cope with his basement flooding and chemical spill in his shed by providing adequate information regarding chemical spills and cleanup techniques. The nurse was also able to reassure the resident by arranging for a visit from the Environmental Health Specialist to evaluate the chemical spill. By doing this the stress and concern was lightened for the resident. In the second house, the stress level was high for the parents. The nurse was able to provide supplies for the infant and suggest evacuation for the family while their power remains to be out. In order to move on from this disaster the nurse arranged a visit from social services to provide support in order to cope with their stressful time. At the third household the nurse was able to keep the residents safe by providing information about keeping water and dietary needs safe. This calmed their fears of keeping their family safe and healthy in their home. For the last house, the nurse was able to assess the man’s blood pressure immediately to assure him good health and alleviate his stress level. She was able to further lessening his stress by getting the man to a safe shelter in order to get his blood pressure medications in order. Techniques To further the support during the door-to-door visits the nurse could have offered to help put together volunteers to help the resident with the basement cleanup in order to move out any heavy object in order to remove the stagnant water. In the second house, the nurse could have also offered to arrange childcare for a few hours in order for the parents to complete necessary tasks or receive a mental break to lessen their stress level. The nurse could have immediately retrieved a translator for the third house to immediately alleviate stress of the residents. An in the last house, the nurse could have arranged for the resident to have daily blood pressure checks for the following week to assure that the blood pressure regiment was successfully in order. Preparation of Nurses Luckily the small community of Franklin County was able to pull their resources together in order to provide adequate care and safety for their residents. Similar steps would need to be taken if this similar situation were to happen in a larger affected area. Similar chain of commands would need to be put into place immediately in order to delegate tasks to those in supportive roles. It would proactive to have these roles in place for the local, state and federal agencies. Preparations can be made with education of preparedness of protocols and training for any given crisis. Having the hospitals and local shelters aware of policies to put into place at the first sign of disaster will make the initial hours of the disaster more manageable. In order to lessen the anxiety of the communities, constant communication about preparation and evacuation plans is necessary in order to be able to work as a team when disaster strikes.

Biography of John Lee Love, Black Inventor

Biography of John Lee Love, Black Inventor John Lee Love (Sept. 26, 1889?–Dec. 26, 1931) was a black inventor who developed the portable pencil sharpener, which he patented in 1897. Not much is known about his life, but he is remembered for two inventions, the other being a plasterers hawk, which works much like an artists palette for a plasterer or mason. In the pantheon of African-American inventors, Love is remembered for devising small things to make life easier. Fast Facts: John Lee Love Known For: Inventor of the Love pencil sharpenerBorn: Sept. 26, 1889? in Fall River, MassachusettsDied: Dec. 26, 1931 Charlotte, North Carolina Early Life John Lee Love is believed to have been born on Sept. 26, 1889, though another account lists his birth year as sometime between 1865 and 1877 during Reconstruction, which would have put his place of birth in the South. Not much else is known about Loves early days, including whether he had any formal schooling or what prompted him to tinker with and improve certain everyday objects. We do know that he worked almost his entire life as a carpenter in Fall River, Massachusetts and that he patented his first invention, an improved plasterers hawk, on July 9, 1895 (U.S. Patent No. 542,419). First Invention The plasterers hawk traditionally had been a flat, square wooden board, about 9 inches long on each side, with a handle- basically, a post-like grip- that is perpendicular to the board and attached to its bottom. By putting the plaster, mortar, or, later, stucco on top of the board, the plasterer or mason could access it quickly and easily with the tool being used to apply it. The new design functioned much like an artists palette. As a carpenter, Love was likely well acquainted with the use of plaster and mortar. He believed that the hawks in use at the time were too bulky to be portable. His innovation was to design a hawk with a detachable handle and a foldable board made of aluminum, which must have been a lot easier to clean than wood. Portable Pencil Sharpener Another of Loves inventions, and one better known than the plasterers hawk, had a much wider impact. It was the simple, portable pencil sharpener, the predecessor of the small plastic device that has been used by schoolchildren, teachers, college students, engineers, accountants, and artists the world over. Prior to the invention of the pencil sharpener, a knife was the most common instrument used to sharpen pencils, which have been around in one form or another since Roman times (although pencils werent mass-produced in a form familiar to us until 1662 in  Nuremberg, Germany). But whittling a point on a pencil was a time-consuming process, and pencils were becoming more and more popular. The solution soon hit the market in the form of the worlds first mechanical pencil sharpener, invented by  Parisian mathematician Bernard Lassimone  on Oct. 20, 1828 (French patent number 2444). Loves reworking of Lassimones device seems intuitive now, but it was revolutionary at the time. Basically, the new model was portable and included a compartment to capture the shavings. The Massachusetts carpenter  applied for a patent for what he called his improved device  in 1897, and it was approved  on Nov. 23, 1897 (U.S. Patent No. 594,114). His design didnt look much like todays portable sharpeners, but it worked by a similar principle. The pencil was inserted into a conical sheath and was moved in a circle, causing the sheath and the blade inside it to rotate around the pencil, sharpening it. Instead of turning the pencil against the blade, as with todays portable sharpeners, the blade was turned against the pencil by the circular motion. Love wrote in his patent application that his sharpener could  also be designed in a more ornate fashion to be used as a desk ornament or paperweight. It eventually became known as the Love Sharpener, and his principle has been in continuous use since he introduced it. Legacy We dont know how many more inventions Love could have given the world. Love  died, along with nine other passengers, on Dec. 26, 1931,  when the car they were riding in collided with a train near Charlotte, North Carolina. But his ideas left the world a more efficient place. Sources John Lee Love  Biography: Inventor. Biography.com.John Lee Love: Inventor of the Portable Pencil Sharpener. KentagePage.com.Pencil Patents: John Lee Love’s Portable Pencil Sharpener. Pencils.com.

Best SAT Math Prep Books (2019) Expert Reviews

Best SAT Math Prep Books (2019) Expert Reviews SAT / ACT Prep Online Guides and Tips While there are many differentSAT prep books, they all have one thing in common: they allclaim to be the best. How canyou figure outwhich one will actually helpyou succeed on the SAT? This guide will give you myrecommendations for the best prep books for theMath section of the SAT.Some of these books are best for strategies and thinking through the problems, while others are best for practice problems. A few are geared toward top scorers, while somewill help you improve a low score fast. Before delving into the list, I have to make one disclaimer: Disclaimer Everyone's learning styles and motivation levels are unique. Thus, I don't believe there's a one-size-fits-all book out there that will help everyone equally. While these recommendations should help a lot of students, they can't necessarily account for everyone's individual differences. That's why I'm a huge proponent of PrepScholar's online method of test prep. It diagnoses your strengths and weaknesses and customizes the test prep for you and your schedule. Because of this high level of personalization, it's very effective forhelping students study efficiently and make big leaps in their SAT scores. That being said, prep books can be very helpful in reviewing material and giving you practice with hundreds of sample SAT questions. It's great that you're already starting to break your test prep down by section by focusing specifically on math. Since the best representation of SAT questions come from the test makers themselves, I'll start this list with College Board's The Official SAT Study Guide. There are some pros and cons to this book, but perhaps the biggest con is that you can find these same eight practice tests for free online!Read on to decide whether or not this book would be helpful to you. The College Board's Official SAT Study Guide Price:About $19 Pros When it comes to the SAT, the best sample questions come directly from the test makers themselves.College Board's The Official SAT Study Guideincludes eight real practice tests with official answer explanations. Since College Board makes and administers the SAT, thisbook contains the best representation of the real test. However, and this is an important point, College Board has also released PDFs of every chapter and practice test in the book on its website!As part of its efforts toward greater transparency and equalizing access to test prep, College Board has published its practice tests and offered free resources via Khan Academy. The College Boardbook's main strength is its official SAT questions, since they are the very best practice material. Beyond the practice tests, the book's greatest strengths are its review of the overall test structure and format, its presentation of math concepts, and its description of the new essay. Since the SAT is a written test, it's a good idea to have hard copies of practice tests to gain practice in the most authentic way.Whether this means buying this book or printing out the free tests yourself is up to you. College Board's real questions will get you familiar with how questions are worded, how they're arranged, and other patterns of the SAT. You'll gain practice with the new structure, which gives you a 65-minute Reading section, 35-minute Writing section, and two math sections. The eight full-length practice tests add upto 24 hours of prep or 32 hours if you include the essay section. Cons While College Board's official questions are helpful and effective practice, their answer explanations are not as detailed as they could be. They explain the answer choices but don't give you much information about how to approach and think through the question. Since there are a limited number of officialpractice tests, you might choose to stagger each one throughout your prep as a way to measure your progress and evaluate your approach. The tests could be best used as measuring posts; College Board's official material won't help you as much as some other options in terms of learning and test-taking strategies. Overall, you should familiarize yourself with the material in this book, since it contains the most accurate practice questions compared to any other source. Whether you choose to do so with a hard copy of the book or via College Board's website (for free) is a matter of personal preference. Now that you know where and how to locate official College Board practice problems, let's discuss the best math prep books, starting with the best book for content instruction. Best SAT Math Prep Book for Instruction Steve Warner's SAT MathSeries Price:About $30 Pros Steve Warner offers several SAT math books. The best one for content instruction isNew SAT Math Problems, but you can also find workbooks geared towards students in certain scoring levels. New SAT Math Problems is one of the best books out there for content review and instruction. He discusses the new areas emphasized on the test:Problem Solving and Data Analysis, Heart of Algebra, Geometry and Trigonometry, and Passport to Advanced Math. The book arranges concepts and their corresponding practice problems in level of difficulty, from Level 1 up to Level 4. This organizationby level, rather than problem type, is useful, as it allows you to integrate skills and ensure you don't leave out any important concepts. It also lets students focus on the difficulty level that will help them most improve their scores, with students scoring around a 600 advised to focus on Levels 2 through 4 and students aiming for 700+ directed to the Level 4 and 5 problems. The lessons are carefully crafted and paired with practice problems to test your understanding. The questions are realistic and come with detailed explanations, which often go overa few different approaches (unlike College Board's single approach explanations). These explanations allow you to carefullyunderstand your mistakes while learning how to approach a similar question the next time. Cons One major con to this book is simply its restricted length. Compared to Steve Warner's multiple-issue series on the math section of the old SAT, his currentbooks don'trepresent the same scope of material that was so useful to students at all different scoring levels. Not only will future additions be helpful, but they will ideally break down the concepts into even smaller components. This book is a good start, but students who want to review concepts would be best served with a detailed and specific breakdown of each and every one. If you're using this book, you may want to consult other resources to ensure that you've filled in every gapin knowledge for the SAT. Finally, the New SAT Math Problemsbook may not contain a sufficient number of practice problems for your prep. Its strength lies in content instruction and review with practice problems interspersed by concept and difficulty level. If you're looking for a large set of practice problems to test your knowledge, then the next book on this list would be a better resource. Best SAT Math Books for Practice Questions Dr. Jang's SAT 800 Math Workbook for the New SAT Price:About $25 Pros If you're looking for math practice problems, you'll find over 1,500 in Dr. Jang's Math Workbook for the New SAT. This book discusses math topics and concepts, but its real strength lies in the sheer number of practice problems. Since timing yourself, answering questions, and analyzing your mistakes is a key part of your preparation, this book could be a very effective study tool. The practice problems throughout the book are arranged by difficulty level, so if you've got a certain question type mastered then you can challenge yourself with harder ones. Additionally, Dr. Jang's Math Workbook has a diagnostic test at the beginning and 10 sample tests that you can take under test-like conditions. Not only are the practice questions abundant, but they are realistic. You'll find the addition of trigonometry, and the questions will be marked as non-calculator and calculator. This book is well customized to the concepts, format, and rules of the SAT. Cons As mentioned above, this book is most useful for its abundance of practice problems. It's less ideal for students looking for thorough content review. It also is not the best source of test-taking strategies, like time management. Furthermore, its answer explanations are not all that varied, so you won't gain a ton of insight into different approaches you could use to solve a problem. Dr. Jang's Math Workbook is useful for students at all levels, but you'd probably want to supplement it with a book that provided more in-depth instruction, strategies, and explanations. While the above books cater to students at various scoring levels, the two books below are best for strong math students aiming for top scores. Barron's Math Workbook Price:About $12 Pros Barron's Math Workbook has hundreds of practice SAT math questions, all with detailed answer explanations. The questions are divided by content area and concept, so you can learn about a specific skill and then drill with relevant problems. In addition to all of the practice questions, there are two full-length practice tests at the end of the book. You'll also get some test-taking tips, but the real strength of the book lies in its abundance of practice questions. Cons Students have noted some typos and spelling errors in Barron's, as if the company rushed to get the book to print without thorough copyediting first. It doesn't seem to have substantial mistakes, but these little typos can be distracting, especially as you're going through the detail-oriented work of SAT prep. As a traditional SAT book, it's written in astraightforward style that can get a bit dry and boring. If you're looking for a more engaging, personable, or funny writing style, you won't find it in Barron's. Of course, since the book is more of a workbook full of practice questions, you should look elsewhere for in-depth lessons and content review. Best SAT Math Books for High Scorers PWN the SAT Math Guide Price:About $29 Pros PWN the SAT is geared towards highly achieving, motivated students aiming for a top score in SAT Math. The book is written in an engaging, irreverent style,which helps students stay engaged with the material. It's divided into five categories: Techniques, Heart of Algebra, Passport to Advanced Math, Problem Solving and Data Analysis, and Additional Topics in Math. The book breaks down each SAT Math category into its component concepts. It has realistic practice problems that are designated as either "Calculator" or "No calculator" to help you get ready for both question types. Each chapter also provides a list of official questions of a certain type to help you drill specific skills. Finally, you can register on the PWN SAT website to get bonus material, as well as watch video answer explanations that walk you through practice problems, step by step. Cons The main con of PWN the SAT Math Guide is that its target audience is limited. It will help top scorers with strong math skills, but it won't be as accessible to students who struggle with math. If you're looking for foundational knowledge, then PWN the SAT isn't the book for you. It won't be the best resource to raise low math scores. Rather, it's better to bring already strong scores into the top percentiles. Dr. John Chung's SAT Math: 60 Perfect Tips and 15 Complete Tests Price:About $39 Pros As compared to College Board's four practice tests, 15 is certainly an improvement! Dr. Chung's SAT Math book is one of the most comprehensive currently out there in terms of content and practice questions in one place. This book is best for strong math students and top scorers. It doesn't go over the fundamentals and assumes its readers have a stable foundation in math concepts. It advertises itself as "designed for students to get a perfect score" and provides useful examples and practice questions to this end. The 60 "perfect tips" are brief descriptions of concepts, like linear function, exponents, transformations, and average speeds, paired with a few examples and practice problems to reinforce your understanding. Cons First, because there aren't a lot of copes available anymore, this book can be quite expensive. Additionally, Dr. Chung does not give you much in the way of review, lessons, or concept reinforcement. The book mostly assumes you have a strong foundation in math.It's a "no-frills" kind of book that essentially looks like a list of practice problems; you won't find much in the way of introduction or narrative. It's not a book you can fully rely on for your test prep, and it's probably not the best one to start out with, either. Some students have also noted some typos in Dr. Chung'svarious editions, as if the books wererushed to publication without proofreading for all the errors. While it's great that this bookhas so many practice questions, it seems like there may besome careless mistakes throughout the material. Finally, this book is not particularly descriptive of the changes to the SAT. It contains relevant practice problems, but it doesn't go into detail about new skills and question types or even the new structure. Make sure to familiarize yourself with the changes, like the addition of trigonometry and non-calculator questions, outside of this book. The 150 Hardest SAT Math Problems Reincarnated for the New SAT Price:About $10 Pros The 150 Hardest SAT Math Problems Reincarnated for the New SATwas designed for the "A+ student who wants to go from 700 to a perfect score" and doesn't want to waste her time on "fodder problems." This book collected the trickiest questions that most students missed over the last ten years of SAT administrations. According to the author, he "reincarnated" these questions in the format of the new SAT. These questions are useful for top scorers who want to make sure they understand fundamental concepts of algebra, geometry, and numbers and how to apply them to the most challenging question types. At the same time, this book has some major weaknesses that you should understand before purchasing a copy. Cons The author maintains that his problems have been "reincarnated" to fit the redesigned test, but he doesn't seem to have changed much beyond reducing the answer choices from five to four. He does include some non-calculator questions, but other than that the author downplays the major changes that were madeto the SAT in early 2016. For instance, he includes numbers, algebra, and geometry, but no trigonometry. He also provides little explanation of the new SAT's focus on real-world word problems and scenarios. Since the math section is the one that changed the least on the SAT, these recycled problems from SATs past will still help you prepare. At the same time, make sure you're aware of the changes that are being made and supplement these questions with ones more specific to the redesigned SAT. Finally, these next two books are useful for the average math student who wants to shore up her foundation in the fundamentals or can only dedicate a limited amount of time to studying. Best SAT Math Books for Low Scorers If you're planning to devote only a few hours to studying for the math SAT, these books should give you a general overview and introduction to the concepts you need to know. However, if you are taking a more active approach to your test prep, then these are the books you should probably avoid. They're not so helpful for trulyin-depth understanding and preparation. Kaplan Price:About $12 Pros Kaplan's SAT Math Prep Bookis a traditional prep book that reviews concepts and provides corresponding practice sets. It includes new concepts, like trigonometry, and has 16 practice sets and over 250 practice problems. Kaplan's book also breaks down the new format and structure of the SAT Math section, while many other books do not. It's a useful tool for learning about the new SAT, reviewing 16 key concepts, and trying out practice problems. Cons Kaplan's practice questions tend not to be the best written. They're not always realistic or phrased in the same way that the SAT is.In the beginning of this guide, I emphasized the importance of taking official College Board tests, since they're the best representation of the questions you'll get on test day. Kaplan's questions usually represent the other end of this spectrum, because they don't always resemble actual SAT questions. Doingwell on the SAT math is not just about understanding the concepts, but also about understanding the SAT and being able to apply those concepts to the SAT's uniquely worded questions. Without this practice, you won't be asprepared as you could be for the SAT's unique phrasing and tricks. Doing well is also about strategy.Kaplan has some strategies, but they're not that helpful for breaking away from a score of around 600. Kaplan gives a basic overview, but it's not the most helpful resources for students looking to make a large score improvements or understand the material in depth. A second book for students who are not planning to do all that muchSAT prep is Bob Miller's SAT Math for the Clueless. Bob Miller's SAT Math for the Clueless: The Easiest and Quickest Way to Prepare for the New SAT Math Section Price:About $6 Pros While I'm not a big fan of the title, Bob Miller's SAT Math for the Cluelessbook delivers what it says it will - an easy and quick way to prepare for the SAT. It provides a mix of material for the current SAT and theredesigned SAT. While Dr. Chung's Math Workbook is spare, Bob Miller's book has funny and accessible introductions. If you find it hard to focus on math without some humor, you might find this book more engaging (a useful characteristic when you're self-studying with books). Cons Bob Miller's SAT Math focuses more on strategies, techniques, and introductory review than on practice questions. It also lacks an in-depth description of changes being made to the SAT, and it doesn't incorporate the more advanced math problems. This book is really just for the self-described "clueless" math students who want a brief, accessible review. Perhaps it will spark your motivation to move onto better study guides with more comprehensive SAT preparation. So there you have it, my recommendations for instruction, practice problems, high scorers, and low scorers. There are pros and cons of each, and hopefully there will be books of ever higher quality published over the next few months. One challenge that all the above booksshare is the self-discipline that required tostudyfrom them.You'll have to set your own schedule, score your own tests, and learn via reading and writing, rather than incorporating visual or auditory approaches. With these considerations in mind, is solely studying for the SAT from books the best option for you as a learner? Is Studying From Books the Best Option for You? While books used to be the main test prep method for the SAT, now there are lots of other approaches. This gives you a lot more choice in finding a method that fits best with your math level, study style, and goals, not to mention how much money you're able and willing to spend on SAT prep. Books can be affordable, but as you can see from the pros and cons mentioned above, you probably want to use more than one book to truly prepare. This can add up to hundreds of dollars. As more and more test prep companies focus their attention online, you might have to go online to find answers, answer explanations, and other supplementary materials. This could divide your attention while still leaving it up to you to spend a long time scoring your own tests. Books can be very comprehensive and informative, but you'll only access all theinformation you need with the self-discipline to take time to study and learn from your mistakes. PrepScholar's method of online test prepfor the new SAT attempts to address and make up for these weaknesses in a number of ways. One, it's an all-in-one program that incorporates the best practices from all these books, while also customizing the test prep based on what you already know and what you need to study further. It addresses the accountability and self-discipline issue by planning our your study schedule for you in the way that's been proven to be most effective. It also takes away the time-waster of self scoring, since it will give you instant feedback on your performance.On a similar note, you can visually see your progress, how far you've gone in the material and how much you have to left to conquer. By incorporating the "pros" of every test prep book - high-quality questions, comprehensive explanations, diagnostic tests, and expert test-taking strategies - and making up for the cons with personalized motivators and progress reports, PrepScholar is an affordable, accessible, and highly effective method of convenient online prep for the new SAT. Just as you should diagnose your strengths and weaknesses to best prepare for the SAT, you'd be smart to reflect on your learning style and what method of test prep, whether through books or online, will best meet your needs and allow you to excel on all sections of the SAT. What's Next? Are you aiming for perfection? This perfect SAT scorer describes all the strategies and techniques he used to achieve a full score on the SAT, and what exactly you need to do to reach that perfect score. Besides studying, planning exactly when you're going to take the SAT is also a key consideration for maximizing your performance. Read all about when you should take the SAT as you design your schedule. Perhaps you've noticed that theSAT is looking a lot like the ACT these days. If you're deciding which test to take, check out our detailed comparison of the SAT and the ACT. Want to learn more about the SAT but tired of reading blog articles? Then you'll love our free, SAT prep livestreams. Designed and led by PrepScholar SAT experts, these live video events are a great resource for students and parents looking to learn more about the SAT and SAT prep. Click on the button below to register for one of our livestreams today!

BASF

BASF has managed to focus its efforts on non-cyclical products to broaden its market base and increase the company’s growth potential globally.   The diversification and innovative technologies used by BASF has enabled it to sustain a large market presence, particularly in the non-cyclical product areas such as vitamins, crop protection, petrochemicals and plastics and fibers. In the past, vitamin companies were involved in a scandal with price fixing.   The scandal resulted in a loss in the market for all natural vitamins and many pharmaceutical products.   When BASF took over American Cyanamid the companies were able to produce herbicides that were competitive in price and betterment of crops.   Using this new process enabled BASF to get a jump on the vitamin competitors because the company was offering modified crops that were resilient against plant diseases, mildew and other harmful environmental factors. With the higher yielding plants, BASF is able to derive natural and quality ingredients needed to produce the vitamins and other pharmaceutical products.   Global competitors such as Roche have been challenged and no longer can claim the majority of the market with BASF’s innovative technologies as the new competition. In addition to the takeover of Cyanamid, BASF also took over the vitamin business from Takeda.   With the takeover, BASF has managed to capture the markets in Europe, North American and Asia.   Plans are being integrated for BASF to eventually takeover the pharmaceutical division of Takeda.   With the proposed changes, BASF could potentially corner the market on pharmacy drugs to compliment its already strong market presence for the vitamin industry. With growth and innovative technologies, BASF has been able to increase its market value for the vitamins and pharmaceuticals while decreasing the operating costs for the products.   This change in growth instills an even stronger presence in the market place for BASF.   Many of the primary ingredients that go into vitamins and nutritional supplements are produced by BASF thus reducing cost and making the company yield higher volumes of the products. In addition to crop protection, pharmaceutical plans and vitamin mergers, BASF has also focused its attention on the sale of petrochemicals.   BASF merged as a very strong market force for its colorants and finished products used in the automotive industry.   In this division of BASF record sells were achieved and anticipated to only increase in the following months and years.  Ã‚  Ã‚   BASF colors are of lasting quality and used as the primary protective coating for car dealers.   In addition, petrochemicals created by BASF have been used as safe and environmental friendly cleaning agents. Complimenting the development of environmentally friendly and easily disposable petrochemicals, BASF has used its innovative technologies to capture a wide range of the plastics and fibers market.   Many of BASF plastic and fibers are used as household products as well as in major companies.   Many of the plastic and fiber products manufactured by BASF are used for safe and quality packaging materials.   BASF focuses its efforts on producing plastics and fibers that are cost efficient to use for packaging materials as well as biodegradable has given BASF a jump on the market competitors for this part of the global market. As BASF continues to expand its resources into producing innovative and environmental friendly products, BASF is sure to do nothing but grow as a company.   Instead of focusing its investments and technologies strictly in one area, the company’s diversity enables BASF to obtain a substantial amount of profits in its non-cyclical parts of its operations. The company’s growth has been boosted tremendously.   The protection of crops, vitamin and pharmacy mergers, marketing of petrochemicals and increased environmentally friendly plastics and fibers has enabled BASF to not only be a diversified but also a competitive global company within the market place.

African Studies ( Role-Playing Assignment ) Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

African Studies ( Role-Playing ) - Assignment Example We used to sell our produce in the market and it was a good life. Eventually we ran out of food in our village and I decided that the chance to provide adequate nourishment for the little ones was to leave Somalia. I trekked all the way across the border with my wife, my elderly father and my children. We live in a white tent which is situated in long neat row of similar tents. In the cold season we cover it with colored cloth to add insulation. The Kenyan government has provided fresh water for us, and I go to the food distribution center every morning where we receive rations for the day. The camp is well organized, and operates like a small town, with its own leaders as well as our traditional elders. (Horst, 2006, p. 79) It is hard sometimes to keep the children amused, because there is very little to do. At least my I have some work to do, because I am part of a project to gather firewood for the refugees in the camp. (Loescher and Milner, 2005, p. 164) The pay is very low, but it helps. I am trying to save some money but it is very difficult because we need it when one of the children gets sick. Last month we heard that there was some trouble back in Somalia when violence broke out over food rations, and some soldiers killed and injured refugees when things got out of hand. (The Guardian Newspaper, August 5, 2011). This makes us too scared to go home, but we still have hope and pray to Allah that one day we will return to our homeland. Raghavan, Sudarsan. (September 7, 2011) Somalia’s biggest famine in decades claiming the smallest victims first. Washington Post, Available online at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/africa/inside-a-mogadishu-hospital-a-struggle-to-treat-the-smallest-victims-of-famine/2011/09/06/gIQAgwnn8J_story.html The Guardian Newspaper (August 10, 2011) Somalia famine refugees killed in looting at Mogadishu aid camp. Available online at:

Nursing career Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2750 words

Nursing career - Essay Example The roles of the different nursing specialties fall under either clinical or non-clinical practices. A nurse educator can perform is required to engage in both clinical and non-clinical practices. Despite the main role of a nurse educator being facilitation of the learning process, curriculum development, research, and inculcating professionalism among the learners, they are obliged to have clinical practice skills in order to guide the students on clinical practice effectively. Contrary to a nurse educator, a nurse informaticist’s roles are inclined more to the non-clinical practice; therefore, their clinical experience is limited. In the same way, a nurse administrator is not directly involved in clinical practices since their main role is coordination of the nursing practices in a healthcare setup such as staff management. The nurse practitioners are directly involved in clinical duties. A nurse practitioner plays a pivotal role in protection of health, health promotion, di sease prevention, treatment, and the provision of primary care to the patients. Despite the differential roles taken up by the different professionals, Rhodes, Morris, and Lazenby (2011) have observed that it is obligatory for all nursing professionals to be caring and knowledgeable. Â  Despite the differences among the nursing professionals with advanced practice, a number of similarities exist. All the specialties in nursing are required to adhere to professional ethics at all times in the execution of their duties.

Marketing Research Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

Marketing Research - Essay Example The Market Research Society of UK gives the definition as: 'the collection and analysis of data from a sample of individuals or organizations relating to their characteristics, behavior, attitudes, opinions or possessions. It includes all forms of marketing and social research such as consumer and industrial surveys, psychological investigations, observational and panel studies (MRS, 1994) 1. Exploratory Design: This is used to discover the general nature of a problem and variables associated with it. It helps in formulating of relevant hypotheses. This uses primary techniques like focus groups, in-depth interviews and observational studies and also uses secondary data, non-probability samples, case analysis and subjective analysis of the resultant data. They are generally qualitative in nature. 2. Descriptive Design: They focus on the accurate description of the variables under consideration. They use questionnaires and surveys. They are used for determining consumer profile and their product usage studies, price and attitude surveys, sales analysis, media research etc. They are quantitative in nature. 3. Causal Designs: They try to establish the nature of relationship between two or more variables under investigation. The direction of the Causal link is very important. The example of their uses may be measuring the effectiveness of advertisement in terms of sales or study of price elasticity of demand etc. Marketing Research Process: The Marketing Research Process can be divided in the following stages: 1. Define the Problem: The first and most crucial stage of the process is defining the problem and providing the necessary information to the Research team which will help them prepare a proper design plan. This stage helps the organization to assess its current position, to define its information needs and to prepare it to make informed decisions about its future. The information provided helps the market researchers with in-depth understanding of the situation. It is important for the market researcher to interview the staff commissioning the study and any other persons who can shed some light on the situation. This helps in forming the Market Research questions, which will lead to forming sub questions. The success of the research depends solely on understanding the problem and defining the questions and sub-questions for which answers are sought by the research. For our case of Hobbit's Choice the basic problem identified is the feasibility of a fine, upscale restaurant featuring the finest entrees, drinks, and desserts in an elegant atmosphere. 2. Decide Research Plan: At this stage the researchers decide in which category his research should fall into. In our case the Hobbit's choice, we have to first find out whether the research will fall into Qualitative or Quantitiative category. In Quantitative category the research is designed to elicit

Costa coffee Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Costa coffee - Essay Example Costa coffee Since coffee retailers in the UK largely depend on coffee producing economies therefore, governments of coffee producing economies also influence the operations of coffee shops in UK. For example, Venezuela was the largest coffee exports however, because of government price controls; growers consider growing coffee as not an economically viable option (BBC, 2010). UK government with the support of members of coffee associations is struggling to support the producers of coffee such as through farm certifications, direct-buying initiatives and quality improvement which supports the farmers to improve their position and long term sustainability (British Coffee Association). Economic Population of UK has grown over 60 million people and in 2006, the total population was 60.6 million as compared to 55.9 million in 1971. Moreover, it has been estimated that people above 65 years old will be more in number as compared to individuals below 16 by 2021. Poverty reduction has become an importan t target for UK and government has been able to lift 2.4 million people out of poverty including 800,000 children and government aims to halve child poverty by 2010 and eliminate poverty by 2020. Economic problems faced by coffee producing economies influence the coffee companies in UK because most of the companies are acquiring coffee from these economies. For example, Uganda farmers are facing increasing level of pests and diseases and extremely harsh weather conditions (Butler, 2011). Around 70 percent of the world’s coffee is grown on area less than 10 hectares and most of the famers, out of 25 million in 50 developing economies that produce coffee, sell coffee in small quantities to local traders, manufacturers or exporters. The manufacturers of Coffee in UK are buying green beans from international trading houses or exporters. However, Government of UK is encouraging the companies to buy coffee direct from the famers to access best quality coffee in the long term (Briti sh Coffee Association). Social Consumers are asking for fair deals from suppliers at coffee shops and according to a Concerned Consumer Index Survey, 54 percent of the participants have showed that coffee shops should consider social issues ahead of environmental issues such as treating workers in plantation fairly (Gibbons, 2010). UK Fair trade market has grown from ?493 million in 2007 to ?712.6 million in 2008 and according to survey 72 percent of people are aware that they can buy coffee through fair trade certification. In the period of six months, 36 percent of the people have bought coffee through fair trade and the trend of buying coffee through fair trader is further boosting (Mortimer, 2010). More than 60 million cups of coffee are consumed on average in the UK in one day (British Coffee Association, 2011). The coffee culture is continuously increasing in UK however, because of the economic downturn; consumers in the UK were giving preference to drink coffee at homes rathe r than at coffee shops (Euromonitor, 2011). Consumers in UK are more focusing on taste and quality of coffee and the increasing consumption of coffee at homes is evident from increasing household penetration of coffee pod machines (Euromonitor, 2011). Technological Between 2002 and 2005, the UK internet sales to households have increased by