Journal 9 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Journal 9 - Essay Example This narrative will demonstrate just how a positive change in training habits can cause a player to become a better soccer player. When I was young, I was always elated at getting the opportunity of kicking the ball around the back yard with my father. I would especially look forward to the weekend when after I had finished working on all my chores, my dad would always reward me by taking me out to the park to play soccer with my friends; and if there was a soccer match being played near our home, he always made sure that he bought the tickets knowing very well that I would be very happy to go and watch the match. My soccer playing skills were however quite poor and I would often be kept as a substitute wherever our school team was playing against another team. This at times caused me to be quite despondent and my parents would often try to encourage me to not give up as I could improve and become a much better player. One winter morning, a new family moved into our neighborhood and I was elated to learn that the family had a young man about eight years my senior by the name of Todd who was quite a skilled player. Due to our shared love for football, Todd and I quickly became friends and one day while we were kicking a ball around his back yard, Todd promised that he would help me get good at the game. Admittedly, I had always loathed playing but loved playing however; Todd was quite the taskmaster when it came to coaching me. He would often cause me to do extensive workouts before even touching the ball arguing that I needed to first be physically fit. He took me through a lot of ball dribbling workouts and my game started to slowly improve. I watched a lot of training videos and was pleasantly surprised when with time; I discovered that I could now be able to dribble circles around my father. All this time while I was intensively training, I had so far never really been afforded the opportunity of finally getting to play for

Evaluate WHS management systems Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words - 1

Evaluate WHS management systems - Assignment Example That means that employees should be safe from accident and injury. A Work Health and Safety Management System addresses work health and safety within an organization and manage its implementation. Australia as other countries measures its performance of health and safety using compensation claims and developing its health and safety strategy. However, much of legitimate claims are never made because employees do not know about their rights or whether their injury and illness are work-related, besides, workers are afraid to make a claim at all. In such a case, health and safety performance data enables organizations and the entire countries to track dangerous influence of certain occupations and industries on health and safety of their people and make improvement if needed. There is evidence that speaks on the effectiveness of Workplace Health and Safety Management Systems to be dependent upon the level of their implementation, where a more integrated approach is aimed to make the regulation and local co-operation work more efficient for improvement of work environment (Bohle & Quinlan, 2000). In this case, the success of a WHS management system requires high commitment from all levels and functions within a certain organization. Thus, Work Health and Safety Act 2011 No. 10 (2015) provides a balanced and nationally constant framework that secures health and safety of employees and their working places. Work Health and Safety Regulation 2011 (2015) gives practical guidance about the requirements of the Workplace Health and Safety. Besides, Safe Work Australia agency was also created to coordinate and develop national policy and strategies to provide safer work conditions (Archer, Borthwick, Travers and Ruschena, 2014). Australian Hardware organization, committed to the quality provision of hardware, homewares, garden and building supplies across Australia is among the

Understanding Change Management In Nursing Leaders Nursing Essay

Understanding Change Management In Nursing Leaders Nursing Essay Leadership is defined as influencing people to achieve a purpose or set of goals, but differentiating it from management causes confusion in many instances (Tappen, Weiss and Whitehead, 2004; Senior and Fleming, 2006; Robbins, Judge and Sanghi, 2009). Leaders can be managers but not all managers can be effective leaders, making leadership an important aspect of effective management (Tappen, Weiss and Whitehead, 2004). Several attempts have been made over the years to explain the characteristics of an effective leader. Trait, behavioural/style, situational-contingency and transformational theories are some of the theories that have been proposed to explain these characteristics (Yoder-Wise, 2003; Tappen, Weiss and Whitehead, 2004; Senior and Fleming, 2006). Goleman (2000) also used competencies of emotional intelligence (self-awareness, self-management, social awareness and social skills) to explain these characteristics. Nevertheless, none of these theories seem to adequately explain the characteristics that make an individual an effective leader. Yoder-Wise (2003) recognises followership as attitudes exhibited by individuals that the leader comes into contact with and explains that followers collaborate and act with the leader. Mahoney (2001) states that all nurses must acquire leadership skills since nursing leadership ranges from the staff nurse caring for a patient to a nurse in charge of a hospital. Nurses in clinical leadership positions collaborate with other leaders in the healthcare system to promote positive change (Touati et al., 2006). However, Antrobus and Kitson (1999) criticise nursing leadership for its lack of external focus (socio-political impact on health policies). They recommend that, in addition to the knowledge on issues related to nursing practice, potential leaders of nursing should familiarise themselves with social and health policies, management and research. Sutherland and Dodd (2008) identify that a lot of changes are occurring within the healthcare system, driving the need for leadership development. As a clinical leader in the making, a sound understanding of strategies for change management would prepare me as an effective leader. This is a reflective essay on how I set up a personal development plan to gain much insight on strategies for change management. The reflection is guided by Gibbss reflective cycle (1988 cited by Jasper, 2003). Although Cotton (2001) sees reflective practice in nursing as a problem, Durgahee (1996) identifies that nurses are able to perfect their actions when they examine their experiences through reflection and, consequently, become conscious of how different elements of care inform total professional nursing practice. The essay begins with a brief introduction of my background, and a description of issues that led me to focus on change management strategies in my personal development plan. It, then, follows with a reflection on strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats that I have and how these would influence my career in the future. The plan is presented, beginning with my learning objective and actions that I hope to take to meet my learning objective. The literature is then reviewed, followed by an appraisal of my organisation and how I plan to implement change. The last section describes my progress. Professional Background I graduated with a BSc. Nursing degree from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) in Ghana in 2008. I practised at the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH), also in Ghana, as a general nurse for one year before enrolling at the University of Nottingham for MSc. Advanced Nursing. My responsibilities, as stated by the Ghana Health Service (2005), are to: Assess care needs of patients, develop and implement plans of nursing care accordingly Formulate, initiate and revise patient care as condition warrants Participate in ward rounds Allocate tasks based on skill of staff Supervise staff and students in the ward Evaluate nursing care and ensure continuity of care In the third year of my undergraduate course, I was one of three students selected for a twelve-week exchange programme in the United States of America. The goal was for us to experience healthcare system and nursing practice in the USA and effect positive changes in nursing and healthcare at KATH. Generally, students who participate in such programs develop themselves, learn differences between cultures, and are able to compare healthcare systems and nursing in the respective countries (Scholes and Moore, 2000; Button, Green, Tengnah et al, 2005). Judging from the exposure I had in the USA, I felt I could make a major impact on my colleagues upon my return. Exchange students, whether short-term (1 4 weeks) or long-term (more than 4 weeks), expect to have a positive influence upon their return to their home countries (Button et al, 2005; Carty et al, 2002). I developed myself, to an extent, as a result of participating in the exchange programme. This was confirmed by some of my colleagues. I, also, learnt some of the similarities and differences in culture, nursing practice and healthcare between the USA and Ghana. Notwithstanding, the overall purpose of having positive impact on my colleagues was not realised. I believe that lack of a strategy to effect the proposed changes as well as failure to collaborate with the other exchange students were the major reasons for the failure. I expect to develop a teaching package to delay the progression of chronic kidney disease among patients with diabetes as my Advanced Nursing Practice module project and implement it at KATH. I, also, hope to gain new ideas on patient care while I am in the United Kingdom. Upon my return to Ghana, I aspire to assume a nurse-educator role. This job would give me some influence over the training of nurses at KNUST and KATH. All these have led me to focus on change management in my personal development plan so as to make positive changes in nursing at KATH. I should be able to reflect on my strengths, weaknesses, any opportunities and threats that may influence my aspiration to effect some changes at KATH and Pearce (2007) suggests that using SWOT framework is a good way to do this. Therefore, using the SWOT analysis framework, I identified the following: Strengths I am committed to what I do I am good at motivating others I have good interpersonal skills I have good presentation skills Weaknesses I attempt to please everybody I am too lenient Opportunities I am studying with colleagues from different parts of the world I have other experience from abroad I am likely to become a nurse-educator at KNUST Threat Majority of the staff may see me as young and inexperienced to lead them Pearce (2007) suggests that once threats have been identified, there should be a way to handle them. By confidently demonstrating the experience gained, developing good interpersonal relationships and clearly presenting shared visions, majority of the staff are likely to collaborate with me (Martin, 2006). THE PLAN Learning Objective Needs assessment assists individuals to set clear learning objectives for their personal development plan (Holloway, 2000). Reflection on the exchange program reveals that I lack ideas on strategies and skills required to lead change within an organisation. Therefore, it is my primary objective to use this personal development plan to learn and develop strategies to lead change in the institution that I work in. Actions to Meet the Objective The Management Standards Centre (2004a) suggests that leaders must possess three kinds of knowledge and understanding to be able to lead change successfully. These are general knowledge and understanding (example is knowledge on models and methods for leading organisational change, their strengths as well as their weaknesses), sector-specific knowledge and understanding (example is knowledge on emerging developments in the health sector) and context-specific knowledge and understanding (example is knowledge on areas within the organisation that need change, with reasons and priorities). To lead change successfully, leaders must, also, be able to describe the change process within the organisation and how it affects the people within (Mott, 1996). Considering these, actions that I consider as appropriate for me to meet my objective are as follows; Review literature on change management within organisations; Perform an appraisal of the organisation that I work in; and Plan the implementation of the change. Main resources that are needed to undertake these actions are time and literature on leadership and change management within organisations. I should be able to achieve my objective within seven months and the outcome measure for me would be my ability to identify change management strategies that would best fit my organisational context. LITERATURE REVIEW Change Management within Organisations Change in organisations is inevitable (reactive) and desirable but, usually, complex and difficult to bring about (Sturdy and Grey, 2003; Bellman, 2003; Boshoff, 2005; Dzik-Jurasz, 2006). Yet, there are many a time when change is proactive (planned) organisations make changes due to opportunities that they have to improve the workplace or their output (Dzik-Jurasz, 2006), and is also described as innovation. Change is very vital for healthcare institutions that seek to deliver quality and patient-centred care to its clientele, and nursing leadership is regarded as a linchpin for such changes to be successful (Dzik-Jurasz, 2006; Sutherland and Dodd, 2008). As a nurse aspiring to be a clinical leader, understanding the processes of change is, therefore, indispensable. Pettigrew, McKee and Ferlie (1988) state that leaders of change should focus on the content, the process, the context of the change as well as the successful regulation of the relationship between the three. They explain content as the specific areas where the change is expected to occur, and processes as the activities, expected reactions and interactions between the groups that seek to bring about the change. Context, as they explain, refer to internal and external factors that have influence over activities within the organisation. Lewin (1951 cited by Senior and Fleming, 2006) identifies three stages; unfreezing, moving and refreezing. At the stage of unfreezing, problems, needs or opportunities for change are identified, and the stage where new strategies or ideas are implemented causes individuals within the organisation to experience the change (moving). Finally, the stage of refreezing is reached when the change has been well integrated into the organisation (Yoder-Wise, 2003; Boshoff, 2005). Tappen, Weiss and Whitehead (2004), also, identify that change process is in four phases; description of the change, planning the implementation of the change, implementing the change, and integrating the change. Change starts when awareness of the need for it is created and ends when a complete evaluation of its expected effects has been done after the implementation (ibid). Lewin (1951 cited by Baulcomb, 2003) states that change is associated with certain forces that either facilitate or resist it; success would result when the forces facilitating the change exceed those that are resisting it within the context. Personnel within the organisation may be one of such forces. People resist change on the grounds of their psychosocial needs, the appropriateness of the change and, also, how the change affects their position and power (Tappen, Weiss and Whitehead, 2004). Therefore, they should be taken into consideration and be actively involved in the change process (Boshoff, 2005). Bennis et al. (1985 cited by Bellman, 2003) identify three strategies of change and these are rational-empirical, power-coercive and normative-re-educative strategies. Rational-empirical and power-coercive strategies both use top-down approaches while normative-re-educative approach employs a bottom-up approach. Top-down approach involves senior management generating the idea, planning and directly implementing the change while the bottom-up approach directly indulges the employees in the change process (Ryan, 2008). However, Ryan (2008) adds that top-down strategy alone is not effective for managing change at all times although it is very common under transformational leadership. Other strategies are education and communication; participation and involvement; facilitation and support; negotiation and agreement; and manipulation, cooptation, and coercion; and, dependent on the situation, these strategies may be used alone or in combination (Kotter and Schlesinger, 1979 cited by Yoder -Wise, 2003). It appears that the kind of strategy used would influence how the content of the change would be communicated to the parties involved. Action research is another change strategy and the process is said to begin when change is considered necessary (Bellman, 2003). Relevant data is collected systematically and reported to individuals who must act on it, after which plans are collaboratively formulated and the necessary actions undertaken research and action combined (Senior and Fleming, 2006). The process is in five stages (diagnosis, analysis, feedback, action and evaluation) and is described as problem-focussed, and able to reduce staff resistance because of their active involvement in the process (Robbins, Judge and Sanghi, 2009). Organisational Appraisal Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH) is the second largest teaching hospital in Ghana, training many doctors, nurses and other paramedics in the Ashanti Region of Ghana. It is an autonomous service delivery agent under the Ministry of Health of Ghana (MOH, 2009a). In addition to training many of the health personnel in the Ashanti Region, many people within and outside the Ashanti Region seek healthcare there. As a result, provision of quality healthcare has always been the focus. An organisation that recognises the need for change, weighs costs and benefits, and plans for the change when the benefits outweigh the costs is ready for a change (Dalton and Gottlieb, 2003). KATH is, therefore, ready for change because some of its employees are sent overseas or to other parts of the country, whenever there is the need for a new skill or knowledge to be gained, to bring about a positive change within the hospital. This may be a factor that would facilitate my agenda to implement lead chan ge within the institution upon my return. However, Ghana, as a country is underdeveloped (CIA, 2008). Therefore, financial support, many a time, becomes a difficulty. Another challenge may be the fewer nursing staff. The Ministry of Health (2009b) estimates that there was a nurse-to-population ratio of 1:2024 in Ashanti Region and 1:1451 for the entire country in year 2007. Planning the Implementation of the Change This is the second stage of the change process, as was identified by Tappen, Weiss and Whitehead (2004), and it involves identifying possible resistant forces to the proposed change and identifying strategies to prevent or overcome them. The change strategies to adopt as well as how to communicate the need for change are considered at this stage (Management Standards Centre, 2004b). Bellman (2003) suggests that the normative-re-educative (bottom-up) strategy is suitable for changing practice within nursing. As it appears in my case, the need for change would be driven from bottom (an employee) to top (management) and is likely to be supported by the nurses since it is coming from their colleague. Nevertheless, others may resist the change because they might not see the need for it (Baulcomb, 2003). But Martin (2006) suggests that a clear presentation of the vision and need for change may cause a majority of the staff to support it. Flower and Guillaume (2002) suggest that unfreezing stakeholders of healthcare is a necessity to unfreezing the institution. Stakeholders at KATH for my project include the Director of Nursing Services (DNS), the Deputy Director of Nursing Services (DDNS) for the medical directorate, and the head of the diabetic clinic. When these key people are made to recognise the need for a change, then hospital management is likely to support the proposed change. In times like these when evidence-based practice is being advocated for (McEwen, 2007), I should be able to use evidence to justify the need for a change. I, therefore, plan to undertake a study that would compare the teaching package that I hope to introduce with the current approach used at KATH. If the new teaching package proves to be relatively successful, then majority of the staff are likely to appreciate the need for it. Progress Reflecting on the exchange program, I realise that the idea of bringing about change in practice was not clearly communicated. None of the processes of change, as has been identified now, were known at that time neither was there a strategy or a plan for the change. Some changes are unsuccessful because they are not clearly defined (Tappen, Weiss and Whitehead, 2004) and that is exactly what happened. Although I am still working on developing the teaching package that may be different from what is already present at KATH, I now realise that its purpose and effectiveness should be well communicated to other colleagues and management before the idea would be supported. I have discussed my ideas with the Director of Nursing Service of KATH and the Deputy Director of Nursing Services for the medical directorate and both of them seem excited about my idea. However, I have come to understand that all kinds of change are likely to face some form of resistance from the people (Baulcomb, 2003; Tappen, Weiss and Whitehead, 2004). I therefore, hope to apply the normative-re-educative (bottom-up) strategy because it has been identified as suitable for changing practice within nursing (Bellman2003). I also believe that such a strategy would let my colleagues feel actively involved in the change process and, hence, support it. Moreover, I hope to gain new insights from my visits to some hospitals and my interactions with some specialist nurses while developing the project. I, therefore, hope to modify my plans and strategies, when the need arises, in order to become an effective change agent within my organisation. Conclusion Personal development plans assist individuals to focus on specific needs and steps to take to achieve their objectives (Floodgate and Nixon, 1994). This essay has assisted me to reflect on my practice and roles as a leader. Whenever there is reflection, there must be a change in perspective (Atkins and Murphy, 1993). Development of change management strategies was identified as my learning objective. Actions to meet this objective were identified and pursued. Gibbss reflective cycle (1988) was used as a guide. Consequently, I have become familiar with different strategies that could be employed to effect and lead change successfully, and plans to implement these in my institution have been proposed, although they are subject to change when new insights are gained.

Editorial - Letter to the Editor :: Editorial Newspaper Article Letter

Dear Editor, C. S. explains in his article â€Å"The Daily We,† the experiences that bring closeness in people that share a common identity. An experience that brings the knowledge of this is the recent freshman orientation that happened this past weekend. This brought closeness with all of the incoming students and warmth to be welcomed into the Dayton community. â€Å"The Daily We,† applies to this experience as a tool to understand the past weekend as complete fun. Throughout, the beautiful sunny day of August 28, upperclassmen helped new students put away their belongings. As time went on before even entering my room, I met many new faces and met many new friends. All day the upperclassmen sold t-shirts, lemonade and drinks and other memorabilia in front of the three freshman dorms. Rudy’s Fly Buy, a student store was right in front of Marycrest selling memorabilia. The day was very much complete. By midday I was very much packed into the room. After meeting my roommate, a friend who I met over summer classes, I knew right away this was going to be great year. All day, the experience was fun and exciting. Using the new student’s orientation as an example to â€Å"The Daily We,† I figured that it made the most sense to the closeness of people coming together as one. The first day will remain a memory in my mind. When I was apart of the orientation, the excitement grew, I felt happy, and the impact became a big part of my college experience. The first thoughts that came across my mind when I entered my room was this is my home for the next nine months, I am going to be sharing the bathroom with my whole wing, I am independent, and I am going to not have people telling me, â€Å"You have this due when?† or â€Å"You have to go to class?† This decision is your own. Your parents are not with you. You don’t have your dad or mom looking over your shoulder. Editorial - Letter to the Editor :: Editorial Newspaper Article Letter Dear Editor, C. S. explains in his article â€Å"The Daily We,† the experiences that bring closeness in people that share a common identity. An experience that brings the knowledge of this is the recent freshman orientation that happened this past weekend. This brought closeness with all of the incoming students and warmth to be welcomed into the Dayton community. â€Å"The Daily We,† applies to this experience as a tool to understand the past weekend as complete fun. Throughout, the beautiful sunny day of August 28, upperclassmen helped new students put away their belongings. As time went on before even entering my room, I met many new faces and met many new friends. All day the upperclassmen sold t-shirts, lemonade and drinks and other memorabilia in front of the three freshman dorms. Rudy’s Fly Buy, a student store was right in front of Marycrest selling memorabilia. The day was very much complete. By midday I was very much packed into the room. After meeting my roommate, a friend who I met over summer classes, I knew right away this was going to be great year. All day, the experience was fun and exciting. Using the new student’s orientation as an example to â€Å"The Daily We,† I figured that it made the most sense to the closeness of people coming together as one. The first day will remain a memory in my mind. When I was apart of the orientation, the excitement grew, I felt happy, and the impact became a big part of my college experience. The first thoughts that came across my mind when I entered my room was this is my home for the next nine months, I am going to be sharing the bathroom with my whole wing, I am independent, and I am going to not have people telling me, â€Å"You have this due when?† or â€Å"You have to go to class?† This decision is your own. Your parents are not with you. You don’t have your dad or mom looking over your shoulder.

Applying Lean Logistics to Scm

Applying Lean Logistics to SCM The system of interconnected businesses used to push a product from supplier to consumer is defined as a supply chain. Supply chain management (SCM)[1] focuses on managing the supply chain in an effort to improve the quality and time it requires to manufacture a product. The marriage of lean production and supply chain management creates lean supply chain management, which provides a much leaner and more economical supply chain for the product to flow through. Much uncertainty about what supply chain management entails is present in today’s society.Many people treat supply chain management as being synonymous with logistics, which is the management of the flow of goods from the origin to the consumers. However, supply chain management encompasses much more than the purchasing or management of goods to the consumer. Supply chain management is the combination of art and science that goes into improving the way your company finds the raw components it needs to make a product or service and deliver it to customers. The following are five basic components of SCM. [2]The concept of Supply Chain Management is based on two core ideas. The first is that practically every product that reaches an end user represents the cumulative effort of multiple organizations. These organizations are referred to collectively as the supply chain. The second idea is that while supply chains have existed for a long time, most organizations have only paid attention to what was happening within their â€Å"four walls. † Few businesses understood, much less managed, the entire chain of activities that ultimately delivered products to the final customer.The result was disjointed and often ineffective supply chains. Supply chain management, then, is the active management of supply chain activities to maximize customer value and achieve a sustainable competitive advantage. It represents a conscious effort by the supply chain firms to develop and run supply chains in the most effective and efficient ways possible. Supply chain activities cover everything from product development, sourcing, production, and logistics, as well as the information systems needed to coordinate these activities.Lean is how a properly designed and operated supply chain should function. A lean supply chain process has been streamlined to reduce and eliminate waste or non-value added activities to the total supply chain flow and to the products moving within the supply chain. Waste can be measured in time, inventory and unnecessary costs. Value added activities are those that contribute to efficiently placing the final product at the customer. The supply chain and the inventory contained in the chain should flow. Any activity that stops the flow should create value.Any activity that touches inventory should create value. Supply chains gain waste and non-value added activities for many reasons, both internal to the company and external. Regaining the lean supply chain may mean addressing many of the same issues that created the problems of extra and unneeded time, inventory and costs. The ideal approach is to design the perfect supply chain and fit your company’s operation onto it. Supply chain management is meant to reduce excess inventory in the supply chain. A supply chain should be demand driven.It is built on the pull approach of customers pulling inventory, not with suppliers pushing inventory. Excess inventory reflects the additional time with the supply chain operation. So the perfect supply chain would be lean with removing wasteful time and inventory. A supply chain, with the pull, flows back from deliveries to the store or to the customer warehouse back through to purchase orders placed on suppliers. Anything that delays or impedes this flow must be analyzed as a potential non-value added activity.To develop a lean supply chain, firms should: understand lean is an ongoing, continuous improvement approach as compare d to business process reengineering which can be viewed as a one-time change, build a multi-discipline team for the project-one that understands lean supply chain management, analyze the total supply chain process, not just the outbound part or just the inbound part, calculate the risks of the lean supply chain, rationalize the process, improve the process to drive change.Lean supply chain management is not about â€Å"fixing† what someone else is doing wrong. It is about identifying and eliminating waste as measured in time, inventory and cost across the complete supply chain. This requires continuous effort and improvement. ———————– [1] http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Supply_chain_management [2] http://www. cio. com/article/40940/Supply_Chain_Management_Definition_and_Solutions

7 Top Tips for International Students

If you’re an International Student, then you know that studying abroad isn’t one big holiday. It can be daunting to move away from your friends and family, and sometimes your language! It can be a culture shock moving to another place, but at the same time an amazing experience. Here are 7 essential tips that might help some of you during the unique and exciting experience of being an international student: 1. Learn the language. You’d think that going from one English speaking country to another meant no language barrier, rightWrong! The more you can speak like a local the more you’ll blend in and the easier university work will be – even if it’s the same language. Additionally, many international students who do not speak English as a first language can really struggle when it comes to writing their essays in English. If you feel like you need help or support making sure your English is correct, then our site Proofreading Services can help.2. Explore!Not only is walking great exercise for mind and body but it is also one of the best ways to learn about your new environment. Stay safe and find a walking partner if you can. Walk from your campus to the city centre and back again. Take in every sight, sound and smell. 3. Ask visitors to bring a taste of home when they come to see you. Make sure that when family & friends came to visit they bring all the foods and things that you’ve been missing – you might be surprised to find that the taste of a familiar food will help hugely if you feel homesick. 4. Being a foreigner will make you unique. Your classmates will be interested in how you grew up, where you’ve been and even learning your language. Make the most of standing out by offering a unique perspective and fresh outlook. 5. Make friends with your classmates Living in a new country can be lonely. Fortunately, international students have it easy when it comes to making friends as there are instant buddies to be made right there in the lecture room. Turn around, smile, introduce yourself and say where you’re from. That’s all it takes to build lifelong friendships. 6. Take a lot of photos. Memories are great. But images capture a moment so it can be relived forever. Even better, add a soundtrack made up of local hits so you can smile every time THAT song comes on. 7. Be fearless. You’ve not travelled all that way to hide in a corner! Make the most of every single second. You may have family and friends who can’t wait to hear about your adventures; give them something to really be proud of you about. It’s not always easy to be brave, however, so if you feel like you need some support then please contact our site – we are here to help!

Marketing Myopia Essay Example

Marketing Myopia Essay Example Marketing Myopia Paper Marketing Myopia Paper Marketing Management I Assignment 1 Marketing Myopia Myopia refers to nearsightedness or shortsightedness. Marketing myopia refers to the myopia shrouding the vision of certain companies or industries. It occurs when the company/industry focuses mainly on selling its products and services, instead of paying attention to the needs of the consumers. They concentrate their efforts on selling, instead of marketing their product. They tend to ignore the adage, â€Å"the Customer is King†, which more often than not results in disastrous consequences. The concept of Marketing Myopia is applicable to Indian companies as well. Many Indian companies historically have failed to define their purpose from the consumers’ point of view. These firms have focused more on producing their goods and services and then finding customers to sell them to, instead of getting to know the consumers’ needs and then producing goods to meet those needs. The situation was made worse by the licensing era and closed Indian economy till 1991, which led to little competition for firms. This resulted in customers having to buy products of only those companies, which created a high demand for their products. One Indian company that suffered from marketing myopia and paid a heavy price for it is Hindustan Motors (HM). It was founded in 1942 by Mr. B. M. Birla, and was the producer of the Ambassador and the Contessa cars. Hindustan Motors: The History The Ambassador began production in 1958, and was based on the Morris Oxford, a British car. It was an extremely popular car in the Indian market for several decades. It had a constantly growing market, initially due to the prestige associated with the car, and later due to the growing affluence of the population, and was helped by the fact that its only rival till 1983 was the Premier Padmini. There was a long waiting period to acquire an Ambassador, and the company was reaping huge profits, without having to focus on consumer needs. Also, Hindustan Motors did not invest money in RD and did not try to improve its cars’ features. . There was a ready market for their product, and they just had to produce their car for it to be sold. 983: Maruti Suzuki enters the market However, the situation changed n 1983, with the introduction of the Maruti 800 by Maruti Suzuki. Consumers now had another car to choose from, and the 800 was like a breath of fresh air in the Indian automobile industry. It ate into a huge chunk of the Ambassador’s market share, as Indians now preferred this feature-packed family car. Hindustan Motors did take some init iative to ward off the threat posed by the Maruti 800 by launching its own luxury car, the Contessa, in 1983. It included a number of high-end features, and was targeted at affluent buyers looking for a luxury option. In addition, HM were also helped by the fact that the Ambassador was the only Indian car with a Diesel variant. During that time, the difference between the price of Petrol and Diesel was significant, and a lot of price-sensitive consumers preferred it to the 800. Due to its spacious size, it also became a popular choice amongst taxi operators. Lastly, a very significant market for the Ambassador was the Government. It was the first choice for most bureaucrats, and the Government accounted for over 16% of the total sales. These factors combined to mitigate the effect of the introduction of the Maruti 800 in the Indian market. 1991: The beginning of the end In 1991, the Indian economy was liberalized, and the Indian markets were opened for Foreign Direct Investment. In due course, a number of new automobile companies entered the market, and the consumers had a lot of options to choose from. The pursuers now became the pursued, and foreign companies supplied better cars at cheaper prices. These cars were packed with features, and the parents companies put in efforts to market their products in a new market. All these factors were missing in the Ambassador and the Contessa, and the money-wielding consumers gladly shifted base to other brands. Where Hindustan Motors lost the plot As discussed by Theodore Levitt, Hindustan Motors made the grave error of taking its customers for granted. They were under the belief that their growth was assured by an expanding and more affluent population, and belief that there is no competitive substitute for the car industry. These conditions were coupled with the fact that the Indian economy pre-liberalization did not have major rivals for them within the industry, and that the Ambassador was the vehicle of choice for Government officials. Over the course of 5 decades, the Ambassador was never changed drastically. There were only cosmetic changes made to the car, and from 1958 till 2000, only 3 upgrades were made. The company never tried to keep up with the changing market environment by varying the looks of its cars, or offering better features that might attract customers by choice and not due to a lack of choice. Hindustan Motors also made the surprising decision of not varying their price to increase sales. Currently, the price of the Ambassador starts at Rs. 4. 2 lakhs, which is sufficient to buy a feature-packed and trendier sedan offered by other companies. There are also several hatchbacks being made available to the consumers at cheaper prices. Hence, even today, the company is not focusing on the needs of the Indian consumer, who are sensitive to price, mileage, features and status. Hindustan Motors has also been dealt a huge blow by the shifting of allegiance on the part of the taxi operators, and Government officials. Government officials started shifting to better and safer cars ever since Atal Bihari Vajpayee started using a BMW 7-Series Sedan as his official car as Prime Minister. HM has lost a huge chunk of its customers, since they failed to focus on their needs, and adapt accordingly. They could have leveraged on their history of being the unofficial car provider to the Indian Government by coming up with new models that would satisfy their needs. Taxi operators have also moved on to the Tata Indica and Toyota Innovas to provide better service to their consumers. They stopped production of the Contessa in 2002 following low demand, and it seems like the Ambassador will be going down the same path soon at this rate. The decision by HM to continue production of the Ambassador and not invest in RD to launch a new car has been a surprising one. That being said, one positive step that HM has taken has been to enter into a Joint Venture with Mitsubishi in 1998 in India. However, in our opinion, the Mitsubishi brand is more apparent to the consumers, and most people do not know about the JV. Hence, Hindustan Motors have failed to respond to the consumer needs and market changes. Globally, cars like the Toyota Corolla, Volkswagen Beetle, Buick Regal have been in the market for decades, and have adapted to the customer and industry demands to have strong sales figures even today. Closer to home, the Maruti 800 also managed to attract new customers over the years by keeping itself relevant in the market. Hindustan Motors have unfortunately been unable to capitalize on their brand value, and the automobile giant of yesteryears has now been reduced to a miserable entity in the current car market.

Essay Sample on Henry Ford The Key Data to Know

Essay Sample on Henry Ford The Key Data to Know Henry Ford was one of the first American industrialists. He is best known for his revolutionary achievements in the automobile industry. His love for automobiles started at the age of sixteen. But before that, he was just another small-town farmer. The Ford farm was located near Dearborn, Michigan. It was here Henry Ford was born, on July 20,1863. He went to local district schools like the rest of the children from his town. In 1880 Henry became a machinists apprentice in Detroit, where he learned the basics. Then only two years later Ford became a certified machinist, but returned to the family farm. 1888 to 1899 he was a mechanical engineer, and later chief engineer, with the Edison Illuminating Company. Ford married in 1891 and he and his bride, Clara Bryant, left the farm in Michigan and moved to Detroit. His life prospered in Detroit and with the birth of his daughter Edsel, in 1893, many people believed he should get a job that was more stable than trying to build cars. Most believed they were simple toys and would never replace the horse-drawn carriage. Then on the morning of June 4, 1896 Henry finished his first ever car, which became known as the Quadricycle. He took it for a drive around his block as many people stared. It was only big enough for him, even though his wife was excited about taking a ride in the horseless carriage. Soon she would get the experience, when he made the seat bigger and took to car out to his parents home. Finally having his work taken seriously, Henry formed the Ford Motor Company in 1903. Before his first year was up of owning the company the first Model A appeared on the market in Detroit. This would lead to many publicity events and even a law suit with the ALAM over the Selden Patent, which he eventually won. Then in 1908 he brought out the extremely popular the Model T. By 1912 Ford had many new ideas on ways In 1913 Ford began using the same parts and assembly-line techniques in his plant. Even though Ford did not come up with the idea or was the first to us assembly-line ideas, he was mainly responsible for their general adoption and for the following great development of American industry and the raising of the American standard of living. Around early 1914 this improvement, even though it greatly increased production, had resulted in a monthly labor earnings of 40 to 60 percent in his factory, mostly because of the unpleasant dullness of assembly-line work and repeated increases in the production quotas assigned to workers. Ford met this trouble by increasing his workers pay from what the normal manual laborer was making, $2.50, to $5. This increased stability in his labor force and a large decrease in operating costs. These factors, along with the huge increase in output made possible by new hi-tech methods, led to a doubling in company profits in two years. They went from $30 million in 1914 to $60 million in 1916. In 1927 the Model T was discontinued for a newer up-to-date version of the Model A. The company ended up selling almost 15 million cars. But in the next few years Ford’s leadership of the American car industry (as the largest producer and seller) dropped with his trouble of introducing a new car every year which had now become normal in the car business. During the 1930s Ford adopted the policy of the yearly changeover, but his company was unable to regain the position it had held before. From 1937 to 1941, the Ford company was the only major manufacturer of automobiles in the Detroit area that did not have any labor union as the collective bargaining spokesperson of employees. There were hearings in front of the National Labor Relations Board Ford in which Ford was found guilty of repeated violations of the National Labor Relations Act. The findings against him were upheld on appeal to the federal courts. Ford was forced to make a standard labor contract after a successful strike by the workers at his main plant at River Rouge, Michigan, in April 1941. In early 1941 the government granted Ford contracts which stated he was, at first, to manufacture parts for bombers and at one point an entire airplane. He then started the construction of a large plant at Willow Run, Michigan. His plant was a success, as it manufactured more than 8000 planes by the end of WW1. Henry Ford had many other accomplishments other than just that of cars. He went on peace ship to try to help stop WW1, was nominated for U.S. senator from Michigan, but he was defeated. In the next year he built the Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit which cost nearly 7.5 million. In 1919 he became the publisher of a weekly journal called the Dearborn Independent. Ford was forced to retire from the active work of his many enterprises in 1945. He died two years later on April 7,1947 of stroke. Most of Ford’s fortune, estimated to have been between $500 to $700 million, went to the Ford Motor Company and started the nonprofit organization called the Ford Foundation.

7 Step Guide to Making Your LinkedIn Profile Perfect [Infographic]

7 Step Guide to Making Your LinkedIn Profile Perfect [Infographic] You likely know that in order to find a job, it’s pretty much mandatory you have a LinkedIn profile. But navigating the ins and outs of the site can often lead to so much confusion that you throw your hands up, enter the bare minimum, and hope for the best. Don’t do that! Really- don’t squander the awesome opportunity gives you to create a brag sheet that will get you noticed. If you have no idea where and how to begin, check out this infographic by Leisurejobs  for a step-by-step primer on how to make the most of your LinkedIn profile and all it has to offer.

Summary and Analysis Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Summary and Analysis - Essay Example To be more specific on which particular rape, the writer of the review on the books by two Japanese authors target the involvement of the Japanese military personnel in the rape of the women from the countries that they were able to occupy during the Second World War; Nanking included. The writer’s review on the perspectives given by two authors had brought about different points of views concerning the main topic that is aimed to be discussed: the rape of women by the Japanese military during World War II. As much as Nanking is not the main focus for rape as the chosen source, the article provides a different perspective of the topic on rape. Wakabayashi makes use of the start of his review with a question as to whether the activist scholarship that shows support of the litigation be the best form of justice that has long been due to the victims of the rape in the era of wars (223). The writer then starts to speak of the perspective of the Japanese writers with concerns to the common topic at

Sources of Finance Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Sources of Finance - Assignment Example The author of the paper states that ordinary shares are issued to the owners of a company. They have a nominal or 'face' value, typically of $1 or 50 cents. The market value of a quoted company's shares bears no relationship to their nominal value, except that when ordinary shares are issued for cash, the issue price must be equal to or be more than the nominal value of the shares.  "Deferred ordinary shares are a form of ordinary shares, which are entitled to a dividend only after a certain date or if profits rise above a certain amount. Voting rights might also differ from those attached to other ordinary shares.  "Preference shares have a fixed percentage dividend before any dividend is paid to the ordinary shareholders. As with ordinary shares, a preference dividend can only be paid if sufficient distributable profits are available, although with 'cumulative' preference shares the right to an unpaid dividend is carried forward to later years. The arrears of dividend on cumula tive preference shares must be paid before any dividend is paid to the ordinary shareholders.  "Loan stock has a nominal value, which is the debt owed by the company, and interest is paid at a stated "coupon yield" on this amount. For example, if a company issues 10% loan stocky the coupon yield will be 10% of the nominal value of the stock, so that $100 of stock will receive $10 interest each year. The rate quoted is the gross rate, before tax.  "Debentures are a form of loan stock, legally defined as the written acknowledgment of a debt incurred by a company, normally containing provisions about the payment of interest and the eventual repayment of capital. "Loan stock and debentures will often be secured. Security may take the form of either a fixed charge or a floating charge. "For any company, the amount of earnings retained within the business has a direct impact on the number of dividends. Profit re-invested as retained earnings are profit that could have been paid as a d ividend.  

Baroque Music Play List Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Baroque Music Play List - Term Paper Example Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart- Ave Verum Corpus: While we listen to it, we can feel a great and rare angelic beauty making its way to our hearts. It makes the listeners feel blessed and calm. Mozart was a prolific and influential  composer of the  Classical era. He composed over 600  works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of  symphonic, chamber, piano,  operatic, and  choral  music. He is among the most enduringly popular of  classical  composers. Mozart showed prodigious ability from his earliest childhood in  Salzburg. Already competent on  keyboard  and  violin, he composed from the age of five and performed before European royalty. Antonio Lotti- Crucifixus : This is a magnificent , high quality music made for vocal performance. I chose this for I was amazed by its contrapuntal techniques and variety of voices. Lotti produced masses, cantatas, madrigals and around thirty operas and instrumental music. His work is thought to be the bridge between the established baroque and emerging Classical styles.

History of Media and technology Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3250 words

History of Media and technology - Research Paper Example Developments in technology has changed the process of production and editing of newspapers more than 10 years ago. As a result, the newspapers and magazines have virtually disappeared from the scene hence creating the concept of print with no paper. This process began with the onset of online (internet) journalism. People’s computer screens are replacing the newspaper and magazine prints. Currently, millions of people are moving towards internet in order to search for information, and to put their knowledge at work. They no longer wait for the newspaper vendor in the morning. Recently, people only require to log in to the internet to get most recent news, more information, and views including a chance to comment and make his/her views know to the rest of the world. Publishers are realizing the need for incorporating internet in the form of media, and as a medium for disseminating news instantaneously to the people seeking for information across the globe (Ginnekan 65). The human race is essentially characterized by its appetite to in invent, and the acts of invention have marked the upward surge for media revolution. As each generation cross the threshold of the media driven society, the term new media is relative to the time and the experience of their time. The journalists and readers born in the early 1980s had little experience of digital media, and the new media of their time is the obsolete or the traditional media of the current generation. The aim of this research paper to create a contemporary understanding of new technology and to give the readers the context of how new media(internet) and print media have transformed as a result of technological changes, and their effect to the society’s culture. The answer on sustaining and accelerating media improvement over time solely, lies in the feedback cycle between how-knowledge and what-knowledge. After the year 1450, there was an increase in discovery-type information. For instance,

The Racial and Gendered Messages in Henry Robert's Paintings Essay

The Racial and Gendered Messages in Henry Robert's Paintings - Essay Example The paper "The Racial and Gendered Messages in Henry Robert's Paintings" will discuss a few of his portraits both in the context of his writings about race and also in terms of the racialised critical responses these works received. Within this narrative two major issues arise in terms of Henri's portrait production. This is not to say that Henri never painted images of non-white youthful men. There are a few, particularly before 1905 when he painted his friends and relatives. But after 1906 these portraits are rare and when looking at his portraits en masse it becomes apparent that he was not interested in non-white men of his own age.These images of non-white children and women in a study of white masculinity, communicate how Henri framed both whiteness and manhood. Race and gender exist in dialectics, black informing the construction of white, female instructing male, and vice versa. I think it was not a coincidence that Henri painted so few portraits of white men, and instead foc used his attentions on racial and ethnic minorities. The white man, for Henri, could not be represented, for as he wrote, something had been lost in "the race"- white manhood was unstable, faltering. What he could paint instead was the boundaries of whiteness and the boundaries of manliness. As such, his portraits of non-white sitters become instructive, notifying the viewer of the distinctions between races and between genders. These numerous portraits then become a sort of reverse self-portrait.; Henri looked into each of his sitter's eyes and saw what he was not. This interpretation of the way Henri's portraits functioned is then reflected in the contemporary criticism that the portraits received. As stated before, these works were some of the most successful of Henri's career and indeed resuscitated his reputation after the eclipse of modernism and the Armory Show. Critics were for the most part enthusiastic about his portraits, but beyond that their comments reveal that the rac ial and gendered messages he encoded in the paintings were not lost on the audience. His paintings of African Americans,

How Mercedes Benz, a division of Daimler AG has applied its marketing Essay

How Mercedes Benz, a division of Daimler AG has applied its marketing mix in major global markets - Essay Example 4 Product: Quality, Quantity and Brand Consistency 4 Price: Profits 5 Promotion: Brand Awareness and PR 5 Summary of Mercedes Benz Marketing Mix 6 Defining Internationalization 7 Internationalization Process Theories 7 Internationalization Process Theory Applied by Mercedes Benz 8 COO EFFECT ON MERCEDES BENZ 9 Defining COO 9 Investigating Factors Affecting COO Effect 10 The relationship between Factors Affecting COO Effect and Mercedes Benz 12 CONCLUSION 13 REFERENCES 14 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY This report examines how Mercedes Benz, a division of Daimler AG has applied its marketing mix in major global markets, namely: the US, China, Germany and Western Europe. It looks into the internationalization process applied by the division; the factors affecting the COO Effect, and how these factors relate to Mercedes Benz. INTRODUCTION Mercedes Benz is a German located manufacturer of automobiles, which is currently a division of Daimler AG, which is the parent company of the Daimler Group. Daiml er AG is situated in Stuttgart, Germany and is involved in the advancement, construction and dissemination of cars, trucks and vans within Germany and the management of the Daimler Group. The Mercedes Benz division supplies products ranging from the first class small cars to the luxury vehicles of the Mercedes Benz brand. The main country of production of the Mercedes Benz brand is Germany, however; the division also has manufacturing plants in the United States, China, France, South Africa, India, Vietnam and Indonesia. This report analyses Mercedes Benz main objectives being: to determine the marketing mix strategy employed by the company in its international markets, to pinpoint the particular Internationalization Process Theory (IPT) that best describes the internationalization process undertaken by Mercedes and to analyze the extent to which the Country Of Origin (COO) effect affects the consumer perception of the Mercedes Benz brand. Background Information The Mercedes Benz fi rst came to be in the year 1886, when Gottlieb Daimler and Carl Benz, on the 29th of January applied to the Berlin patent office to have his vehicle with gas-engine propulsion patented. This marked the beginning of a new era in the automobile industry (Daimler report, 2011). In the year 2011, the company marked its 125th anniversary, since its beginning in the year 1886. This year was a successful year for the company as it was marked by several key events. The company premiered its new C-Class coupe at the Geneva motor show, where it was able to gain a uniquely sporty entry into the Mercedes coupe world; it presented its concept for the A-Class in Shanghai, which features the new Mercedes Benz design; it introduced a new truck brand into the Indian market, the BharatBenz; achieved greatly in its first quarter and made record earnings in its second quarter (Daimler report, 2011). Mercedes Benz: Goals and Aims The aim of the Daimler AG company is to play a revolutionary role in the o ngoing advancements in automobile mobility. The company is dedicated to making the mobility of future generations safe and sustainable; while focusing on their customer’s needs. Daimler AG seeks to stir its consumers with invigorating luxury automobiles, that are pioneers in their design, safety, comfort, perceived value, environment friendliness and dependability; competitive vehicles that are leaders in their respective competitive niches; extraordinary

The Racial and Gendered Messages in Henry Robert's Paintings Essay

The Racial and Gendered Messages in Henry Robert's Paintings - Essay Example The paper "The Racial and Gendered Messages in Henry Robert's Paintings" will discuss a few of his portraits both in the context of his writings about race and also in terms of the racialised critical responses these works received. Within this narrative two major issues arise in terms of Henri's portrait production. This is not to say that Henri never painted images of non-white youthful men. There are a few, particularly before 1905 when he painted his friends and relatives. But after 1906 these portraits are rare and when looking at his portraits en masse it becomes apparent that he was not interested in non-white men of his own age.These images of non-white children and women in a study of white masculinity, communicate how Henri framed both whiteness and manhood. Race and gender exist in dialectics, black informing the construction of white, female instructing male, and vice versa. I think it was not a coincidence that Henri painted so few portraits of white men, and instead foc used his attentions on racial and ethnic minorities. The white man, for Henri, could not be represented, for as he wrote, something had been lost in "the race"- white manhood was unstable, faltering. What he could paint instead was the boundaries of whiteness and the boundaries of manliness. As such, his portraits of non-white sitters become instructive, notifying the viewer of the distinctions between races and between genders. These numerous portraits then become a sort of reverse self-portrait.; Henri looked into each of his sitter's eyes and saw what he was not. This interpretation of the way Henri's portraits functioned is then reflected in the contemporary criticism that the portraits received. As stated before, these works were some of the most successful of Henri's career and indeed resuscitated his reputation after the eclipse of modernism and the Armory Show. Critics were for the most part enthusiastic about his portraits, but beyond that their comments reveal that the rac ial and gendered messages he encoded in the paintings were not lost on the audience. His paintings of African Americans,

Assess Whether Religious Experience Demonstrates the Existence of God Essay Example for Free

Assess Whether Religious Experience Demonstrates the Existence of God Essay

Emotion Recognition System for Affective Text

Emotion Recognition System for Affective Text K.Thendral, Dr.S.Chitrakala, S.P.Surendernath ABSTRACT: Mining social emotions deals with a new aspect for categorizing the document based on the emotions such as happy, sad, sympathy, etc., theyhelp online users to select related documents based on their emotional preferences. Aiming to find the connections between social emotions and affect terms and thus predict the social feeling from text content mechanically. Joint emotion-topic model by augmenting Latent Dirichlet Allocation with an additional layer for emotion modelling initially generates a group of latent topics from emotions, followed by generating affect terms from every topic. The techniques involved in this are emotion term model, topic model and emotion topic model. The emotion-topic model utilizes the complementary advantages of both emotion term model and topic model,and is not only effective in extracting the meaningful latent topics, but also improves the performance of social emotion prediction. Keywords – Affective Text,Emotion-topic model, Latent Dirichilet Allocation. 1. INTRODUCTION: An emotion is a Meta communicative pictorial representation of a facial expression which in the absence of body language and probably draw to serve a receiver’s attention to the tenor or temper of a sender’s nominal verbal communication, changing and improving its interpretation. It expresses-usually by means of punctuation marks – a person’s feelings or mood and can include numbers and letters. The interrelation of text and emotions has been a captivating topic for centuries. What makes people feel what they read? How is the writer’s emotion conveyed in a text? How can we write to communicate an emotional message more clearly? A number of researchers have attempted to obtain answers to these questions for a long time and there is an enormous amount of literature on techniques and devices for emotion detection. (Bloom, Garg, Argamon, 2007;) Two attempts to measure emotions are based on two different models: dimensional and categorical. In the categorical model emotions are labelled, say that a person is â€Å"happy† or â€Å"sad†and people get a sense of what others mean. In the dimensional model the representation is using multidimensional scaling (e.g. â€Å"pleasant-unpleasant†, â€Å"excitement†, and â€Å"yielding-resisting†). In the affective computing domain, supervised learning techniques are preferred due to strong performance. However, a challenge to using supervised techniques is the need for corpora with text that has been annotated with emotion labels. These are time consuming and expensive to produce. Unsupervised techniques do not have these requirements but are often less precise. 2. RELATED WORK Many methods have been proposed to mine emotions from the text and social networks. Affective text mining deals with mining emotions from affective words. SemEval introduced a task named â€Å"affective text† in 2007 [2], aiming to annotate short headline texts with a predefined list of emotions and/or polarity orientation (positive/negative).There is a large body of previous work on mining affective content from text documents, product reputation mining [10], customer opinionextraction/summarization[11], [12], and sentiment classification [13]. However, none of these studies explores the connection between social emotions and affective terms. An online system Mood Views has also been developed for tracking and searching emotion annotated blog posts [12], [13], [14], [15]. The posts are published with an indicator of the â€Å"current mood† of the blogger, at the time of posting the blog. Mood-Views is a platform for collecting, analyzing, and displaying aggregate moods in the blog space. Launched in mid-2005, Mood Views continuously collects these emotion indications, as well as the blog posts themselves, and provides a number of services. Despite the success of previous work on emotion prediction, existing approaches usually model documents under the â€Å"bag-of-word† assumption, so that the relationship across words is not taken into account. This also prevents us from further understanding the connections between emotions and contents in the topic level, because it is arguable that emotions should be linked to specificdocument topics. D.M. Blei, A.Y. Ng, and M.I. Jordan [8] proposed Latent Dirichlet Allocation generative probabilistic model for collections of discrete data such as text corpora. LDA is a three-level hierarchical Bayesian model, in which each item of a collection is modelled as a finite mixture over an underlying set of topics. Each topic is, in turn, modelled as an infinite mixture over an underlying set of topic probabilities. In the context of text modelling, the topic probabilities provide an explicit representation of a document. Joint latent topic model for text and citations [8].The Pairwise-Link-LDA model combines the ideas of LDA [4] and Mixed Membership Block Stochastic Models [1] and allows modelling arbitrary link structure. However, the model is computationally expensive, since it involves modelling the presence or absence of a citation (link) between every pair of documents. The second model solves this problem by assuming that the link structure is a bipartite graph. As the name indicates, Link-PLSA-LDA model combines the LDA and PLSA models into a single graphical model. I. Titov and R. McDonald [8] proposed statistical model which is able to discover corresponding topics in text and extract textual evidence from reviews supporting each of these aspect ratings – a fundamental problem in aspect-based sentiment summarization. Achieve high accuracy, without any labelled data except the user opinion ratings. Rosen-Zvi et al. [3] merged author factors with document generation to jointly estimate document contents as well as author interests. From the perspective of model generation, their author variable shares some similarity with the emotion variable in this model. The key difference lies in different sampling distributions. Their author variable is chosen uniformly from a set of authors while emotion variable is sampled from multinomial distributions by the emotions contributed by web users. 3. PROPOSED SYSTEM An online text collection D is associated with a vocabulary W,and a set of predefined emotions E. Comparing the extracted and optimized content with the already founded latent topics that relating to the extracted and optimized content with the already founded latent topics that relating to each emotion. Based on the result we are finding which emotion the particular content represents. Based on the user emotion requests the categorized content will display. Objective is to accurately model the connections between words and emotions, and improve the performance of its related tasks such as emotion prediction. Both the emotion –term model and emotion-topic model can be applied to emotion prediction by estimating their probability to evaluate their prediction performance.In this paper, proposing a joint emotion-topic model for social affective text mining, which introduces an additional layer of emotion modelling into Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA). Proposed model follows a three-step generation process for affective terms, which first generates an emotion from a document-specific emotional distribution, then generates a latent topic from a Multinomial distribution conditioned on emotions, and finally generates document terms from another Multinomial distribution based on latent topics. Because its exact inference is intractable, developing an approximate inference method based on Gibbs sampling. For social emotionprediction, the proposed model outperforms the emotion term model, term-based SVM model, and topic-based SVM model significantly. 3.1 EMOTION TERM MODEL Emotion-term model,follows the Naive Bayes method by assuming words are independently generated from social emotion labels. It generates each word wi of document d in two sampling steps, i.e., sample an emotion ei according to the emotion frequency count d, and sample a word wi given the emotion under the conditional probability P (w|e). The model parameters can be learned by maximum likelihood estimation. It can be formally derived based on the word and emotion frequency counts. To use the emotion-term models for predicting emotion on a new document d, apply the Bayes theorem (1)under the term independence assumption. P (e|d) = P(d|e) ÃŽ ± P (d | e) P(e)(1) P(d) where P(e) is the a priori probability of emotion e. It can again be calculated by maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) from the emotion distribution of the entire collection. 3.2 TOPIC MODEL Many topic models have been proposed and well-studied in previous work, of which, LDA [8] is one of the most successful models. LDA addresses the over fitting problem faced by other models like pLSI by introducing a Dirichlet prior over topics and words. Although LDA can only discover the topics from document and cannot bridge the connection between social emotion and affective text, for the ease of understanding in the following description, a simple review of LDA is here. In the first study of LDA, proposed a convexity-based variation inference method for inference and parameter estimation under LDA. P(zi=j|z-i,w)ÃŽ ± + ÃŽ ² + ÃŽ ± (2) + | W | ÃŽ ² +|Z| ÃŽ ± where n-i means the count that does not include the current assignment of zi, is the number of times word w has been assigned to topic j, and is the number of times a word from document d has been assigned to topic j. Fig.1. Proposed System Architecture 3.3 EMOTION TOPIC MODEL Emotion-term model simply treats terms individually and cannot discover the contextual information within the document. While topic model utilizes the contextual information within the documents, it fails to utilize the emotional distribution to guide the topic generation. In this paper, proposing a new approach called emotion topic model. The importance of this latent topic generation in the affective text mining is very much Likewise, different latent topics are discovered based on the emotions involved in it. Those latent topics should be collected together as a whole so that whenever needed it can be referred. After collecting each and every topic, it should be categorized on the basis of the different emotions such as love, happy, sad, sympathy, worry etc..They are used to select the document based on the preference assigned to the emotions. Relate the social emotions with an affective term that predict the emotions automatically from the text. After collecting and categorizing each latent topic based on different emotions, are stored to check with the extracted content. Then the topics are compared with the extracted content as a result of which it will generate topics and get processed. For each word the posterior distribution on emotion â€Å"Æ Ã¢â‚¬  and topic â€Å"z† based on the following conditional probabilities which can be derived by the following equations (3). P(Æ i=e|ÃŽ ³, Æ -i, z, w;ÃŽ ±,ÃŽ ²) ÃŽ ± ÃŽ ±+* ÃŽ ³ di,e(3) |z|ÃŽ ±+ÃŽ ³di,eà ªÃ… ¾Ã…’ Where e and z are the candidate emotion and topic for sampling.di D indicates the document from which current word wi is sampled.is the number of times topic z has been assigned to emotion e. 4. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS This section presents the experimental results on both joint emotion topic modelling and its application to emotion prediction .News articles were collected from the news portal and the input data’s are pre-processed to remove stem and stop words and perform tagging to extract the explicit words.Word frequency, document frequency were calculated. Emotion term model performs calculating word frequency and the emotion frequency count and the corresponding terms and emotion were obtained. (a) Topic modelling which generates set of topics for the input documentConsists of the word and associated topic. (b) Emotion topic model bridges the connection between words and the emotion with the associated topic. (c) The standard parameters which are used for experimental evaluation are precision,recall and accuracy.Precision is defined as number of retrieved relevant documents divided by total number of retrieved documents and the recall is the number of retrieved relevant document divided by total number of relevant documents in the database. Accuracy can be calculated as relevant document retrieved in top T returns divided by T. Precision = Number of retrieved relevant document Total number of retrieved documents Recall = Number of retrieved relevant document Total number of relevant documents Accuracy = Relevant documents retrieved in top T T (d) Emotion Distribution (e)Precision, recall and f-score Fig.2.(a)Emotion term model (b) Topic model (c) Emotion topic model(d) Emotion distribution(e)Precision, recall 5.CONCLUSION This paper, presents and analyse a new problem called social affective text mining, which aims to discover and model the connections between online documents and user-generated social emotions. To this end, proposing a new joint emotion-topic model by augmenting Latent Dirichlet Allocation with an intermediate layer for emotion modelling. Rather than emotion term model that treats each term in the document individually and LDA topic model that only utilizes the text co-occurrence information, emotion-topic model allows associating the terms and emotions via topics which is more flexible and has better modelling capability. REFERENCES [1] R. Cai, C. Zhang, C. Wang, L. Zhang,  Music Recommendation Using Emotional  Allocation,†Proc. 15th Int’l Conf. Multimedia, pp. 553-556, 2007. [2] C. Strapparava and R. Mihalcea,  Ã¢â‚¬Å"Semeval-2007 Task 14: Affective Text,†Ã‚  Proc. Fourth Int†¢fl Workshop Semantic  Evaluations (SemEval‘07), pp. 70-74, 2007. [3] C. Yang, K.H.-Y. Lin, and H.-H. Chen,  Ã¢â‚¬Å"Emotion Classification Using Web Blog  Corpora,† Proc. IEEE/WIC/ACM Int†¢fl  Conf. Web Intelligence (WI ‘07), pp. 275-  278, 2007. [4] C.O. Alm, D. Roth, and R. Sproat,  Ã¢â‚¬Å"Emotions from Text: Machine Learning for Text-Based Emotion Prediction,† Proc. Joint Conf. Human Language Technology and Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing (HLT/EMNLP ‘05), pp. 579- 586, 2005. [5] C. Strapparava and R. Mihalcea,  Ã¢â‚¬Å"Learning to Identify Emotions in Text,†Ã‚  Proc. 23rd Ann. ACM Symp. Applied  Computing (SAC ‘08), pp. 1556-1560,2008. [6] A. Esuli and F. Sebas,â€Å"Sentiwordnet: A Pub-Licly AvailableLexical Resource for Opinion Mining,Proc. Fifth Int’l Conf. Language Resourcesand Evaluation (LREC ‘06), 2006. [7] C. Strapparava and A. Valitutti,â€Å"Wordnet-Affect: An Affective Extension of Wordnet,†Proc. Fourth Int’l Conf. Language Resources and Evaluation  (LREC ‘04),2004.   [8] D.M. Blei, A.Y. Ng, and M.I. Jordan,  Ã¢â‚¬Å"Latent Dirichlet Allocation,† J. Machine  Learning Research, vol. 3, pp. 993-1022,  2003. [9] C.P. Robert and G. Casella, Monte Carlo Statistical Methods, seconded. Springer Publisher 2005. [10] Mihalcea, R. and Strapparava. C. (2006). â€Å"Learning to laugh (automatically)†: Computationalmodels for humour recognition. Computational Intelligence, 22(2), pages 126–142. [11] A.-M. Popescu and O. Etzioni, â€Å"Extracting Product Features and Opinions from Reviews,† Proc. Joint Conf. Human Language Technology and Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing (HLT/EMNLP ’05), pp. 339-346, 2005. [12] B. Pang, L. Lee, and S.Vaithyanathan, â€Å"Thumbs Up? Sentiment Classification Using Machine Learning Techniques,† Proc. Conf. Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing (EMNLP ’02), pp. 79-96, 2002. [13] M. Rosen-Zvi, T. Griffiths, M. Steyvers, and P. Smyth, â€Å"The Author-Topic Model for Authors and Documents,† Proc. 20th Conf. Uncertainty in Artificial Intelligence (UAI ’04), pp. 487-494, 2004. [14] Alm, C.O., Roth, D. and Sproat, R. (2005). â€Å"Emotions from text: machine learning for textbased emotion prediction†. In Proceedings of the Joint Conference on Human LanguageTechnology / Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing. [15] Mihalcea, R. and Liu, H. (2006). â€Å"A corpus-based approach to finding happiness†, in the AAAI Spring Symposium on Computational Approaches to Weblogs, Stanford, California, USA. [16] M. Hu and B. Liu, â€Å"Mining and Summarizing Customer Reviews,† Proc. 10th ACM SDIGKD Int’l Conf. Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining (SIGKDD ’04), pp. 168-177, 2004. [17] G. Mishne, K. Balog, M. de Rijke, and B. Ernsting, â€Å"Moodviews: Tracking and Searching Mood-Annotated Blog Posts,† Proc. Int’l AAAI Conf. Weblogs and Social Media (ICWSM ’07), 2007. [18] K. Balog and M. de Rijke, â€Å"How to Overcome Tiredness: Estimating Topic-Mood Associations,† Proc. Int’l AAAI Conf.Weblogs and Social Media (ICWSM ’07), 2007. [19] K. Balog, G. Mishne, and M. Rijke, â€Å"Why Are They Excited? Identifying and Explaining Spikes in Blog Mood Levels,† Proc. Ninth Conf. European Chapter of the Assoc. for Computational Linguistics (EACL ’06), 2006. [20] Mihalcea, R. and Liu, H. (2006). â€Å"A corpus-based approach to finding happiness†, in the AAAI Spring Symposium on Computational Approaches to Weblogs, Stanford, California, USA. [21] G. Mishne and M. de Rijke, â€Å"Capturing Global Mood Levels Using Blog Posts,† Proc. AAAI Spring Symp. Computational Approaches to Analysing Weblogs (AAAI-CAAW ’06), 2006. [22] I. Titov and R. McDonald, â€Å"A Joint Model of Text and Aspect Ratings for Sentiment Summarization,† Proc. 46th Ann. Meeting of the Assoc. for Computational Linguistics (ACL ’08), June 2008. [23] Mihalcea, R., Corley, C., Strapparava, C. (2006). Corpus-based and Knowledge-basedâ€Å"Measures of Text Semantic Similarity†. Paper presented at the Proceedings of theNational Conference on Artificial Intelligence. [24] Lichtenstein, A., Oehme, A., Kupschick, S., Jà ¼rgensohn, T. (2008). Comparing TwoEmotion Models for Deriving Affective States from Physiological Data. Affectand Emotion in Human Computer Interaction, 35-50. [25] H. Liu, T. Selker, and H. Lieberman, â€Å"Visualizing the AffectiveStructure of a Text Document,† Proc. CHI ’03 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems Conf., 2003. [22] T. Hofmann, â€Å"Probabilistic Latent Semantic Indexing,† Proc. 22ndAnn. Int’l ACM SIGIR Conf. Research and Development in Information  Retrieval (SIGIR ’99), 1999. [23] M. Rosen-Zvi, T. Griffiths, M. Steyvers, and P. Smyth, â€Å"The Author-Topic Model for Authors and Documents,† Proc. 20thConf. Uncertainty in Artificial Intelligence (UAI ’04), pp. 487-494,  2004. [25] X. Wang and A. McCallum, â€Å"Topic over Time: A Non-Markov Continuous-Time Model of Topical Trends,† Proc. 12th ACM SIGKDD Int’l Conf. Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining (SIGKDD ’06), pp. 424-433, 2006. Department of Computer Science and Engineering, K.S.R. College of Engineering (Autonomous), Tiruchengode-637215

Alcoholism and Angelas Ashes :: essays research papers

Alcoholism and Angela’s Ashes Alcoholism is one of the most common disorders in the world today. It is a disease, a sickness that harms the body and the mind in the most violent ways possible. The body is racked by a need to suffice its desire, and this leads addicts to do anything to get the alcohol into their systems. In Angela’s Ashes, alcoholism is a major theme, and becomes the destroyer of the families and loved ones that are involved. In Angela’s Ashes, the father Malachy is inflicted with the disease of alcoholism, and his need for the drink leads him to use his paycheck to buy alcohol instead of using it for the basic needs of his family. Countless times, Malachy’s alcoholism harms or gets in the way of his family. Not only this, but Malachy is blind to what his behavior is doing to his family. Because he does not use his money on food for his family, they are forced to beg and accept help from friends and strangers—and yet he is too proud to admit this. Repeated instances such as when he asked the RIAA person for enough money just for one pint—when the money was supposed to be for a cab to get he and his son back to the station without having to walk. Or even when his first child was born and he was too drunk for the hospital staff to interpret what he was saying he wanted to name his son. There are too many of the same repeated episodes—he gets a job, brings home money at fir st, then just stops altogether and uses it at the pub, he gets fired from his job, and his family is worse off now, they are forced to move or live off the kindness of others. It’s the same cycle over and over again. Lives are lost along the way—the innocents, the children. And still Malachy depends on the drink. He is a constant disappointment—and spirals the family deeper and deeper into poverty over the years, mainly because of his addiction. Alcoholism is a terrible disease that can happen to anyone, and the person might not even notice it until the addiction is at its worst. In Angela’s Ashes, Malachy’s alcoholism ruins his family’s chance for a happy life, and he doesn’t even seem to care, as long as he has his alcohol everything seems fine.

Women in Tickets Please are More Assertive than Those in Tony Kyters, The Arch Deceiver :: D.H. Lawrence Thomas Hardy Women Essays

Women in Tickets Please are More Assertive than Those in Tony Kyters, The Arch Deceiver 'Tickets Please' was written by D.H. Lawrence in the ending phase of World War One a time when women were beginning to realise that they were equal citizens to men and that they did not have to stay at the houses cooking for a loving husband. The protagonists of this short story are Annie a rather well build woman who has a way with the opposite sex and also knows fully well that she is feared as the ringleader of the pack of women that now haunt the tram tracks of the Midlands, and there is also John Thomas a somewhat good-looking man who - knowing that most men are off at helping in the war effort - realises that he has all the women at his back and call. John Thomas also enjoys his female attention and is really quiet a flirt. The women in 'Tickets Please' are feared by men of a bigger stature than themselves but why? This is because they have an aura around them that creates a sense of masculinity that comes with there job. On the other hand we have 'Tony Kytes, The Arch-Deceiver' written by Thomas Hardy the women are totally the opposite to the women mentioned above they bow low and are treated as second class citizens that are lower in the rankings of society than the all dominant male. They instantly follow Tony's commands to sit in the back of the wagon and never argue back. They seem fragile and weak, and eager to settle down and marry. One of the reasons for this dramatic change in character development is that both stories are set in different periods which significantly effects the women in the stories sense of pride in there sex. The girls in 'Tickets Please are 'fearless young hussies' compared to the women in 'Tony Kytes, The Arch-Deceiver' who wouldn't dare answer back to a male. 'Tony Kytes' women are portrayed as dainty, neat, fragile, light hearted women who have no real reason to be on the face of the earth apart from creating more males. The reason they is portrayed in this way is due to the periods that they are set in. One as mentioned above is in World war 1, and the other was in the early 18th Century. These periods are totally different as one is in the face of total war and the other is in the peaceful reign of queen Victoria. In World War One women took on new responsibilities which meant that the had to

Jwellery Industry in India

THE JEWEL INDUSTRY OF INDIA WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO GITANJALI INTRODUCTION INDIAN JEWELLERY INDUSTRY India is a leading player in the global gems and jewellery market. The gems and jewellery industry occupies an important position in the Indian economy. It is a leading foreign exchange earner, as well as one of the fastest growing industries in the country. The two major segments of the sector in India are gold jewellery and diamonds. Gold jewellery forms around 80 per cent of the Indian jewellery market, with the balance comprising fabricated studded jewellery that includes diamond studded as well as gemstone studded jewellery. The Indian gems and jewellery industry is competitive in the world market due to its low cost of production and the availability of skilled labour. In addition, the industry has set up a worldwide distribution network, of more than 3,000offices for the promotion and marketing of Indian diamonds. The sector is expected to register a compound annual growth of (CAGR) of 13% during 2011-13, according to a report â€Å"Indian Gems and Jwellery Market Forecast 2013†. (By research firm RNCOS). MICHAEL PORTER’S 5 FORCE MODEL FOR JEWELLERY INDUSTRY INTER- FIRM RIVALRY- HIGH There are two types of rivalry. 1) Inside India & (2) Outside India. †¢Large presence of unorganized sector. 0. 2 Million Gold jewellers and over 8,000 Diamond jewellers †¢International rivals Such as, China †¢Threat from producing nation like S. A. & Russia. BARGAINING POWER OF SUPPLIERS – MEDIUM In jewellery industry the suppliers are S. A. , UAE, Australia, US, Congo, Botswana, Russia , DTC. †¢Few Alternatives of cutting & polishing. †¢Skilled labour †¢Bargaining power of India is enhanced because India is largest consumer of gold jewellery. BARGAING POWER OF BUYERS- LOW Divided in two types 1. Domestic buyers & . Foreign buyers †¢As investment (Demand increase) †¢Bargaining power of Indian exporter is high because Majority of the world's rough diamond production is cut and polished in India THREAT OF SUBSITUTES- LOW Substitutes are Real assets, Stock market, ; Bank deposits ; Mutual fund investment and other types of jewellery like imitation Jewellery, bagasra jewellery, stone jewellery etc. †¢Second preferred investment behind bank deposits †¢Status and standard of living increase so demand is increasing at High rate BARRIERS TO ENTRY- LOW TO MEDIUM * Low capital requirement Government subsidy * EXIM policy ; government’s rules ; regulations are high * Skilled manpower is essential * Advanced technology required. GITANJ ALI | | | | | Vision To emerge as a jeweller of choice, in terms of quality, style and surpass all levels of customer satisfaction. Mission To assimilate the expertise of trained personnel and state-of the art machinery, so as to nothing, but the best. Values Are Integrity, Solidarity, Credibility and Perfection. The Gitanjali Group which was established in 1966, and is one of the earliest diamond houses in India. By 1968, it was accorded a ‘Sight† by the Diamond Trading Company Ltd. London and Gitanjali became one of the first Sight holders in India. It has received over 50 National and Council awards from the Ministry of Commerce for outstanding exports. It is one of the leading diamond exporting companies in India. Presently, Gitanjali Group has highly modernized diamond cutting and polishing facilities in India. The group strengthens its core business of loose diamonds with international association. Internationally, business patterns of the diamond industry. The Group has positioned itself to manufacture and promote diamonds as well as studded jewellery right up to the retail level. Gitanjali Group one of the leading integrated diamond ; Jewellery manufactures ; Retailers in India with turnover of Rs 3467 Cores. The Company has strong brands such as: * ASMI Asmi was launched in 2002 by the Diamond Trading Corporation. All the years the brand has been endorsed by various actresses such as Kajol, Parizad Zorabian ; Mandira Bedi. All these women epitomize the different strengths that an Asmi woman is identified with fire – spirited, goal oriented ; with an inner fire. NAKSHATRA Nakshatra is one of India’s most reputed diamond jewellery brands, achieving an iconic status within three years of its launch in 2000. Today, it is a leading diamond jewellery brand, patronized by women of fashion in almost all segments of society. * SANGINI Sangini is a high profile brand launched by the Diamond Trading Company, and Spectrum Jewellery , a joint venture between the Gitanjali Group and Sanghavi Exports, promotes the brand in India. * DIYA DIYA is the distilled essence of the Gitanjali Group’s four-decade long engagement with jewellery. It is the first B2B diamond jewellery brand for manufacturers and the trade. It offers exquisite designs, selected after a rigorous India-wide survey of 6,300 women – some of which are already acknowledged classics. * BEZEL Bezel is a watch store from the stable of the Gitanjali group products includes watches and writing instruments. Brand mix will include GLL brands ; brands from outside. * WORLD OF SILVER It has been conceptualized for offering silver gifts in various product categories like Home decor, Office Utility, Bar Sets, Table ware, Devotional Collections and Artefacts. It range of International Brands , Greggio from Italy and Frazer ; Haws from UK, offering best of the brand value and perceived value   while making gifting a lifestyle statement. It caters to the high end, up market ; value conscious niche cliental. * GILI Gili’s brand identity is to ‘Embrace the Gili way of easy elegance’. The Brand characteristics are Stylish, Contemporary, Extrovert, Enthusiastic and Self-made. And its Design concept is easy to wear, highly contemporary and trendy designs * D’DAMAS D'damas India Jewellery is a joint venture between Gitanjali Group and Dubai-based Damas based in  Mumbai. It has a presence in 159 towns and cities across  India. It main area of business is manufacturing and marketing of gold, diamond, silver, platinum branded jewellery's in  India. It has six sub brands – Lamhe, Glitterati, Vivaaha, DER, Solitaire and Saumya. It is also only international brand in  India. D'Damas India also used as manufacturing base and will export jewelleries to markets like Saudi Arabia, Japan, US and Europe markets. * MAYA GOLD MAYA is the brand from the Gitanjali Gold Collection specifically aimed at the Indian wedding market and similar festivities and traditional occasions for gift-giving, especially from parents to daughters. Lucera, Calgaro, Rivaaz, Kashvi, Stefan Hafner, Ezee Diamonds, Aakanksha, Rosato, Shuddhi, Parineeta, Sagaee and Menz are some other brands which sell its products in India through its vast network of 1,250 outlets including outlets in host stores. In fact, five of the top six brands in the Indian market are owned or managed by Gitanjali. These brands manifest the significance of the group in the Indian Jewellery retailing market. Additionally, the Company operates 143 retail Jewellery stores located across the United States through the acquisitions of Samuel Jewellers and Roger Jewellers. Activities undertaken by Gitanjali:- * Sourcing and Trading of Rough Diamonds * Diamond Manufacturing * Distribution and Trading of Polished & Cut Diamonds * Jewellery Manufacturing and Exports * Jewellery Sourcing (Local & International Markets) * Manufacturing Branded Jewellery * Retailing Branded Jewellery OBJECTIVES * The main objective of this term paper is to understand the value chain and its strategic distribution presence of GITANJALI in India. * To conduct a market survey in order to know the 1) Consumer perception about jewellery. 2) Brand awareness of various brands in jewellery market. 3) Parameters which the consumer considers while buying jewellery. * To critically examine the company and the environment by conducting the SWOT and PORTER’S 5 FORCE ANALYSIS. * To analyze and evaluate the financial performance of GITANJALI over the years. To highlight the CSR initiatives and the CORPORATE GOVERNANCE taken up by GITANJALI to uplift the society. * To study about the aggressive retail strategy and its growing focus on International and Domestic Reatail. SWOT ANALYSIS OF GITANJALI STRENGHTS †¢Large integrated diamond & jewellery player and having an international presence. †¢Pioneers of branded jewellery in India. †¢Strong marketing & distribution network. S trong retail presence in India and in U. S. 112 distributors and 1246 outlets in India and 143 outlets in U. S. Strong brand equity and broad product range Such as, Gili, Asmi, Nakshatra, Sangini, D’damas, Vivaaha, Maya, Giantti, Desire, Samuels etc. †¢Visionary leadership (Acquiring Nakshatra, Samuels, Rogers etc. ) †¢Expanding manufacturing capabilities in Mumbai and at special economic zone in Surat to address increasing demand. †¢Net Worth is 3,460. 37 million Rs. So we can say that it is financially very strong company. †¢Sight holder status with DTC through a promoter group company. †¢Highly skilled, qualified and motivated employee. WEAKNESSES †¢There may be conflicts of interest between them and certain of their Promoter group companies. As the major raw material requirements need to be imported, companies normally stock huge quantities of inventory resulting high inventory carrying costs. †¢Technology is less improved compared to Ch ina and Thailand’s company. OPPORTUNITIES †¢New markets in Europe & Latin America. †¢Growing demand in South Asian & Far East countries. †¢Industry moving from a phase of consolidation. †¢Expansion possibilities in lifestyle and luxury products in India like watches, leather goods, Platinum jewellery because increasing disposable income of people. THREATS †¢International Competition:-China, Sri Lanka and Thailand’s entry in small diamond jewellery. †¢Increase in the price of Gold & Diamonds. †¢Other local competitors. According to the data 97% jewellery sales are by family jewellers. †¢Threat from producing nation like S. A. & Russia. VALUE CHAIN OF GITANJALI * Sourcing and Trading of Rough Diamonds * Diamond Manufacturing * Distribution and Trading of Polished & Cut Diamonds * Jewellery Manufacturing and Exports * Jewellery Sourcing (Local & International Markets) Manufacturing Branded Jewellery * Retailing Branded Jewellery DISTRIBUTION AND RETAIL STRATEGY OF GITANJALI GITANJALI RETAIL BUSINESS * Gitanjali has strong retail presence in the world’s largest markets for jewellery. Retail business is a major Contributor in Gitanjali’s revenue. Gitanjali has over 2000 plus retail outlet across India and in the process of expansion in tier II and III cities to cater to new segment of the cu stomer. * USA is a largest jewellery consuming country and 45% of worldwide diamond jewellery sales are made in the United States. In FY 2007-08, Gitanjali made a strategic acquisition in USA, including Samuels and Rogers, and now has about 137 stores in Centre and across USA, being expanded to 200 stores in the near future. * Samuels and Rogers of Gitanjali are the 8th largest branded jewellery retail chain in US. * Gitanjali’s integrated supply chain business model has given an advantage to survive and post profit despite of US recession. * Gitanjali retail business has spread through all channels and in all geographies, across all the market segments * Net Profit has gone up because of shift in market from wholesale to retail. | | * | RETAIL EXPANSION STRATEGY IN INDIA * The Changing Socio – economic factors in India created a clear opportunity in Lifestyle and Luxury markets in India. These changes in retail environment have created opportunity for establishment of modern retail formats. Keeping this in view Gitanjali has embarked on an aggressive domestic retail expansion plan. * Gitanjaliâ₠¬â„¢s strategy is to increase the market share of various brands and its positioning in the market. Strategy is to generate demand for branded diamond jewellery in the future. Flagship product brands of the company are able to convert themselves into retail brands. * The group has introduced many promising brands to its bouquet. The new collection includes World of Solitaire, World of Silver, ME Solitaire, Maya, Gitanjali Menz, Maya Bridal, Bezel and many more. | * Gitanjali notable innovation has been its dramatic breakthrough from the confines of traditional distribution of jewellery and launching of mass distribution through variety of channels. By passing the old world of neighborhoods proprietary jewellery stores, it brought its new world branded jewellery into the world of super stores and department stores, dedicated jewellery marts and chain stores supported by international certifications of scientifically tested purity and authenticity. * Gitanjali is even marketing its br anded jewellery directly by mail order catalogue Gitanjali placed its jewellery brands right into the context of the new consumer’s shopping environment of new and global branded personal goods and accessories. Gitanjali supported its brand with high-visibility positional branding in both mass and local up-market media. With this multi – tiered mobilization of formats, Gitanjali is well placed to advance and realize its vision of global leadership. GITANJALI FINANCIAL PERFORMANCE The Company is making conscientious efforts in addressing the large market opportunities that exist in the Diamond Segment both in India and abroad. India, China, Israel and Belgium are the leading players in the diamond cutting and polishing industry. India accounts for 60% of the global polished diamonds in value terms, 80% in caratage and 90% in pieces. TURNOVERS & PROFITS During the end of the financial year March 31, 2009 the sales and other income increased from 26,549. 08 Million to Rs. 26,940. 64 Million. The net profit before tax stood at Rs. 1,307. 20 million as against Rs. 1,486. 75 million in the previous year. The net profit after tax stood at Rs. 1,267. 69 million as against Rs. 1,381. 55 million in the previous year. FINANCIAL REVIEW Gitanjali Gems consolidated results of operations for the year ended March 31, 2009 include business and operations of the various subsidiaries/joint ventures. The company has achieved overall sales growth for the year ended March 31, 2009 of about 5% compared to last year. The gross revenue from diamond segment has decreased by 10% whereas the gross revenue from jewellery segment has substantially increased by 24% and thus the ratio of diamond and jewellery in the sales mix accordingly has improved more favourably towards jewellery from 55:45 last year to 47:53 for the year ended March 31, 2009. HIGHLIGHTS FOR THE YEAR 2010| * | * Jewellery Sales turnover increased by 60% to 1,098 cr. in FY10| * | * EBIDTA gone up by 44% to 102 cr. in FY10| * | * Operating Profit registered a growth of 51%, stood at 91 cr. | * | * PAT of FY10 stood at 41 cr. registering an increase of 39%| * | * Gems and Jewellery Sales volume grown to 1812 cr. reported a growth of 63%| NINE MONTHS FY10 vs. NINE MON THS  FY09 * Jewellery Sales turnover increased by  43%  to  Rs. 2703 cr. as compared to  Rs. 892 cr. in nine months period FY09 * EBIDTA gone up by  37%  to  Rs. 307 cr. from  Rs. 223 cr. in nine months period FY09 * PAT of nine months period FY10 stood at  Rs. 139 cr. as compared to Rs 120 cr. in nine months period FY09 registering an increase of  16% * Operating Profit of nine months period FY10 stood at  Rs. 283 cr. as compared to  Rs 201 cr. in nine months period FY09, registering an increase of  41% GITANJALI CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILTY (CSR) INITIATIVES AND CORPORATE GOVERNANCE HUMAN RESOURCES The Company believes investing in people through creating an environment where people are valued as individuals and are given equal opportunities for achieving professional and personal goals. The Company’s focus on development of Special Economic Zones includes huge employment opportunities and the Company already initiated through setting up training centre in SEZ Hyderabad which has a capacity to train more than 1,500 workers in diamond and jewellery manufacturing. CORPORATE GOVERNANCE The Company’s philosophy of Corporate Governance is based on preserving core values and ethical business conduct, commitment to maximize shareholder alue on a continuous basis while looking after the welfare of all the stakeholders which is primary responsibility of the Board of Directors, Management and employees. The Compliance of clause 49 of the listing agreement has undoubtedly raised the standard of Corporate Governance in India. However, regulatory directives and enforcement wil l not be sufficient to create a best in class transparent organisation. The corporate governance philosophy is based on the following principles: * Satisfy the spirit of the law and not just the letter of the law. Be transparent and maintain a high degree of disclosure levels. * Continuously innovate and adapt the Corporate Governance * Practices so as to meet new demands and tap new opportunities. * Comply with the laws in all the countries in which we operate. * Management is the trustee of the shareholders’ capital and not the owner. CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY The CSR initiative under the name Sambhav brings together the different social programs that Gitanjali has been associated with over the years. These are programs in the fields of education, health, providing employment to PWDs. It focuses on integrating all of them and other different initiatives like Saksham, Saakshar, Sujyot and Sneh. The focus will be both on strengthening the existing programs as well as developing new ones too. It further aims to take this CSR initiative to new heights and is in the process of channelizing all their strengths and efforts to form a strong CSR team within the company to encourage and promote a wide range of social welfare activities internally or in partnering with other NGOs and government bodies. SOME ACTIVITIES UNDERTAKEN BY GITANJALI Rose day celebration for cancer patients | Gitanjali Gems Limited supported Cancer Patients Aid Association (CPAA)   in its celebration of  The rose day  Ã¢â‚¬â€œ a  day to make a difference in the lives of cancer patients. CPAA reaches out to cancer patients through medicines, counselling, research and rehabilitation. | | * Special rakhies by special children Gitanjali gems continues to support to ADAPT (spastic society) by orga nizing a sale booth of their products at Gitanjali gems Marol office  on 11th Aug 2011,  on the eve of Rakshabandhan. We repeated the achievements of last year by motivating and appreciating the efforts of these specially abled children by having sale of products close to  Rs 10000/-. The staff was extremely enthusiastic and extended their support through 100% participation. * Presentation on ‘Diabetes awareness and healthy life style’ Today Diabetes is one of the fastest growing lifestyle disease, with Indians   being the largest population affected by it. A presentation on diabetes awareness and healthy life style was organized on 25th July 2011 at  Transmission house ,Marol , for the benefit of the employees . It indicated the causes , symptoms ,prevention and cure for diabetes. A full house attendance showed the concern most of us have about this booming disease. | * Lecture on ‘The damaging effects of tobacco’ at Gemplus| | | As a part of SAMBHAV , CSR initiative ,  Ã¢â‚¬Å"The Damaging Effects of Tobacco† were highlighted at a presentation made under the Tobacco Intervention Initiative (TII) program of the Indian Dental Association (IDA) for the staff and workers of   Gem plus ,Gitanjali Gems, Mumbai   on 11th June 2011 by Miss. Tejal Rajgor. Tobacco leads to heart and blood vessel disease, heart attack, chest pain, sudden cardiac death, stroke, peripheral vascular disease (Gangrene of legs) plus it is also   responsible for cancer of various parts of the body like mouth, throat, lungs, stomach, kidney, bladder etc. Gitanjali Gem’s staff members felt that there was an urgent need for more prohibition of tobacco usage and this won’t happen until there is a public outcry, so meetings like these are designed to generate awareness in the hope of making the come community forward to request change.