A Report On The Airline Industry - 1218 Words

Introduction The first scheduled commercial airline flight lasted only 23 minutes and had one passenger who paid $400 on January 1, 1914 according to www.ibtimes.com. The webpage goes on to say that on January 1, 2014, an estimated 8 million people flew on nearly 10,000 flights. This illustrates how far along the airline industry has come. We also now fly cargo by itself further proving how far the airline industry has come. The airline industry operates in various countries all over the world, and is in part responsible for the formation of an international economy. The airline industry alone is considered to be a key economic force in the world; in regards to the industry itself as well as the impact it has on other industries such as†¦show more content†¦The operations department makes sure to maintain aircraft safety as efficiently as possible. Operations department, also include the dispatchers who release flights after making sure it is safe to fly. According to AVjobs, â€Å"Maintenance accounts for approximately 11 percent of an airline’s employees and 10-15 percent of its operating expenses.† Maintenance department is responsible for maintaining the planes in proper working condition. Sales and marketing, according to AVjobs, â€Å"encompasses such activities as pricing, scheduling, advertising, ticket and cargo sales, reservations and customer service, including food ser vices.† What’s included in the reservation and ticketing department is pretty straightforward as it’s the tickets whether printed or electronic. Staff personnel include, â€Å"specialists in such fields as law, accounting, finance, employee relations and public relations. Their function is to support the work of the line personnel, so that the airline runs efficiently and earns a profit.† Avjobs says this about subcontractors, â€Å"While major airlines typically

Symptoms And Symptoms Of Alzheimer s Disease - 1642 Words

Abstract Alzheimer’s disease is a brain disorder when brain cells degenerate and die. Alzheimer’s dieses destroys the patient’s memory within time. The mental functions of the brain also get destroyed when a person gets Alzheimer’s. Alzheimer’s disease is most commonly seen when the patient is sixty to seventy years old. In this research paper the reader will learn about the signs and symptoms, causes, course of disease, outcome and secondary diagnosis, treatment, and prognosis and survival. Signs and Symptoms There are several different ways to tell if a person has or is getting Alzheimer’s disease. There are ten early signs and symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease. The first symptom is memory loss. Memory loss is the most common symptom. People with Alzheimer’s disease tend to forget new things, names, and dates of important events such as anniversaries or birthdates. Another thing that Alzheimer’s effects with memory is the short term part. This will make people with Alzheimer’s disease ask questions over and over again in anchors amount of time in between. The second symptom is having trouble to plan or solve problems, or completing familiar tasks at home. This is where it is hard for the people who have Alzheimer’s disease it is hard for them to do simple tasks such as cooking or following a recipe. Also, working with numbers such as paying the bills or balancing a checkbook. People with Alzheimer’s disease may a lso have trouble with doing the simpleShow MoreRelatedSymptoms And Symptoms Of Alzheimer s Disease930 Words   |  4 PagesAlzheimer’s Disease Kevin Arnold from the Wonder Years said â€Å"Memory is a way of holding on to the things you love, the things you are, and the things never want to lose.† Memories are the things that are upheld, whether good or bad, those memories are imprinted in the mind and cannot be taken away that is, until later in life. As one ages it is natural for some memories to fade. Loss of memories and brain function deficits that occur and are not from normal aging may indicate a person is sufferingRead MoreSymptoms And Symptoms Of Alzheimer s Disease3214 Words   |  13 Pages NEU ID: 001983161 Donepezil and other acetylcholinesterase inhibitors in Alzheimer’s disease Abstract: Alzheimer’s disease (AD), discovered by Dr. Alois Alzheimer in 1907, is the most common form of dementia. The early symptom of Alzheimer’s disease is having difficulty in remembering recent events. At the advanced stage, the signs and symptoms of AD include: memory loss, confusion, trouble concentrating, frustration, irritability difficulty in saying, difficultyRead MoreSymptoms And Symptoms Of Alzheimer s Disease2317 Words   |  10 Pagesthey age and the various experiences they go through. One of the most common diseases among older people is dementia. Among the different types of dementia, the most prevalent one is Alzheimer’s disease (AD). It is important to look at all of the signs and symptoms of each type of dementia to see which specific type best describes a person’s condition. There is one patient in particular, Betty, who has many signs and symptoms related to dementia. Betty is a 65-year old woman who has dementia runningRead MoreSy mptoms And Symptoms Of Alzheimer s Disease2374 Words   |  10 PagesAs a society, we are constantly faced with negative news about different diseases and genetic disorders. One genetic disorder that has affected the lives of many is, Alzheimer’s Disease. Alzheimer’s is the most common type of dementia that affects and causes problems with thinking, behavior and memory. Most of the time, symptoms of Alzheimer’s develop slowly and progress and worsen over time. Eventually the symptoms become severe enough that they begin to interfere with normal and daily tasksRead MoreSymptoms Of Alzheimer s Disease715 Words   |  3 PagesAlzheimer’s disease has long been considered as a irremediable illness for old people. According to the data collected by Alzheimer s Association(2016), the overall 5.4 million American suffers from Alzheimer s disease, and this population is growing in a certain rate for majority of this population aged 65 and up. Identify possib le Alzheimer’s symptom could be rather difficult because people are lack of the awareness of their implicit illness, which later contribute to the Alzheimer s disease. AlsoRead MoreSymptoms Of Alzheimer s Disease1006 Words   |  5 PagesAlzheimer s disease is a severe illness that affects the brain and leads to gradual memory loss, reduced intellectual ability and deterioration function of thinking. Alzheimer s disease (AD), the most common type of dementia, is a progressive neurological disorder that increasingly robs individuals of cognitive, behavioral, and functional skills (Demakis, 2007). The reason for the appearance this disease is a collection of disorders in the brain due to which its cells are dying partially. In theRead MoreSymptoms Of Alzheimer s Disease2043 Words   |  9 PagesAlzheimer’s disease. It took an emotional toll on me and my family members. I believe Alzheimer is much harder on me and my loved ones than on my grandfather; because he was un aware of what was going on. It’s painful watching my grandfather degrade and get worse each and every day. The worst thing is that he doesn’t even know who I am anymore. In this paper I will discuss certain risk factors, background of Alzheimer’s, Background of Alzheimer’s Alzheimer’s disease was first identifiedRead MoreSymptoms Of Alzheimer s Disease810 Words   |  4 PagesAlzheimer’s disease As the world becomes more happy and joyful, people haven’t stepped into the world of Alzheimer’s yet. Just imagine losing your ability to do normal things you do every day and then you can’t do them anymore. Alzheimer’s is a type of dementia that causes changes and differences in memory, behavior, and how the person’s brain works. The symptoms of Alzheimer’s worsen over time. (Alzheimer’s Association 2015). All of the family members will be affected if one person gets this disease. ThisRead MoreSymptoms And Symptoms Of Alzheimer s Disease1222 Words   |  5 PagesAbstract Alzheimer’s is a disease that attacks the brain and can result in brain death. This disease is chronic and lately a lot of elderly are being diagnosed with it. Alzheimer’s disease can be referred to as a silent killer because once a person gets the diagnosis, they will have it permanently. Alzheimer’s Patients have a decreased short-term memory; this can result with the onset of confusion. At times, families with loved ones that encounter this disease usually have to change their lifestyleRead MoreSymptoms And Symptoms Of Alzheimer s Disease1530 Words   |  7 Pages Hereditary Alzheimer’s Disease Introduction In the year 2015 5.3 million people in the US will have Alzheimer’s Disease. Alzheimer’s Disease, also known as Presenile and Senile Dementia can have a genetic or environmental basis. Alzheimer’s Disease is the most common form of a more general group of memory disorders known as dementia. What differentiates Alzheimer’s from Dementia is how quick the progression of symptoms is. Characterized by debilitating memory loss, confusion, comprehension and

Professional identity and career paper free essay sample

Professional identity has been defined as â€Å"the possession of a core set of values, beliefs and assumptions about the unique characteristics of one’s selected profession that differentiates it from other professions† (Weinrach, Thomas, Chan, 2001, p. 168). Professional identity is not acquired at once it is a process of one understanding the profession as it relates to trainings, a heritage of theories and an understanding techniques. Professional identity is the results of a developmental process that facilitates individuals to reach an understanding of their profession in conjunction with their own self-concepts, enabling them to articulate their role, philosophy, and approach to others within and outside of their chosen field (Brott Myers, 1999;Smith Robinson, 1995). The process of building a Professional identity should include building strong relationships with colleagues and mentors who are devoted to learning and teaching one another through continuing education by attending educational conferences and joining professional organizations. The key characteristics of a counselor can be summarized as; Patience – a counselor has to provide patience when interacting with clients during sessions because everyone moves at their own pace while in therapy. The need to release negative feelings and move forward towards positive change can vary by client. Good Listener – counselors spend a large amount of time listening to their client’s stories and feelings, as counselors you have to be comfortable with providing this time while reading between the lines. Compassionate your client should feel you care about them and have compassion for their issues. Although your life’s path may have been different compassion can result in a positive outcome. Nonjudgmental – while providing therapy a counselor will encounter many different types of people who will disclose their most intimate deep dark secrets which can include things such as criminal or sexual behavior. A counselor must communicate positive feel back while withholding judgments. When encountering people of different cultural backgrounds, Counselors must refrain from pushing their personal cultural view/values on them. The counseling process should take place in a safe and intimate environment. Research-Oriented – Research is an ongoing process it does not end upon completion of your degree it only begins. A counselor has to stay current on research in order to help their clients. Empathetic – A counselor should have the ability to share and understand the feelings of the clients. As a counselor you should be able to understand the situation from the client’s point of view in order to address the concerns effectively, being empathetic doesn’t mean you agree with a person it means you understand their point of view. A counselor should maintain objectivity when dealing with empathy because there is a thin line between helping the client and harming the counselor. Discrete A counselor has to provide confidentiality in order to gain the clients trust when disclosing their most intimate secrets. Encouraging – A large amount of clients seeking counseling are struggling with finding hope in their lives. It is the counselor’s primary job to instill hope when there is none. Self-Aware In order to have an effective therapeutic relationship a counselor should be aware of their own weakness, insecurities and fears. This will allow the counselor to keep his/her feelings out of the sessions. Authenticity It is very important that a counselor displays his/her true self when working with clients because they will not open up if they feel you are not being genuine. What positions professional positions Masters of Counselors graduates hold? Well, that can be a very broad spectrum that involves many different avenues of counseling. As a master’s of counselor graduate the duties can differ depending on what you specialized studies you may have. One of the professional positions that an individual with a Master’s degree in Counseling may hold is working as a school counselor whether it is grade school or high school they can provide counseling in the area of social, career, personal and educational issues. One of the main objectives of these counselors is to help students reach their full potentials. In the occupational outlook handbook it states that; they may also overlook programs for career education. More often than not, school counselor’s work toward assisting students with problems related to their social and academic life as well as other unique needs. (Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2010-11 Ed. ). A professional who holds a Master’s degree in counseling my also chose to have a career as a Vocational counselors. They may also be referred to as a career or employment counselors. These counselors offer counseling services in places other than the school setting. Their main objective is to help individuals with career choices, examine an educational background, employment history, skill and abilities, personalities and other aspects to help them. Additionally, career counselors may offer support services to people who have lost their jobs or experiencing career change issues (Baxter, 1997). Another career choice for an individual with a Master’s Degree in counseling may hold is a Rehabilitation counselor. This counselor assists people with social, personal and vocational issues resulting from disabilities such as people born with emotional and physical disabilities. A key part of a Rehabilitation counselor is to evaluation of the strengths and weaknesses of an individual, providing vocational and personal counseling and proving case management. The occupational handbook says that Rehabilitation counselors are often dedicated toward improving an individual’s potential to lead an independent life (Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2010-11 Ed. ). Mental health counseling is another opportunity that can be held by a Masters in counseling graduate. Their role as mental health counselors is to help individuals, groups and families who have emotional and mental health problems. The Mental health counselors deal with issues relating to anxiety, trauma, depression, substance abuse and addiction, and grief. They can also help in community outreach programs. Mental health counselors may work collaboratively with people mental health professionals like psychiatrists, psychiatric nurses, clinical social workers and even school counselors (Baxter, 1997). Masters in counseling graduates may also work as Family and Marriage therapists. They provide counseling to families, couples in a group or private setting In order to provide therapeutic measures for emotional and mental problems, therapists make use of family systems principles, theories and techniques. This helps in transformation of people’s behaviors and personal views as well as promoting communication among members of the family to prevent conflicts. Therefore marriage and therapist may work at group, individual, couple and family levels. Emphasis on understanding the symptoms portrayed by clients and their level of communication with different settings they are exposed to (Collison, 1996) Upon receiving my Masters of counseling degree I would like to pursue the career path of a Marriage and family Counselor in order to help struggling families who have disconnected due to emotional and social concerns. By taking this path I will have the opportunity to establish myself in the counseling community, build relationship with colleagues and work with a wide variety of people to gain experience and knowledge before I begin my private practice. Another path I would like to pursue after graduating with my Masters in counseling degree is a high school guidance counselor. Choosing this path will allow me the opportunity to work with the youth of today who are struggling with academia, social, emotional, and behavior issues. Masters of Counseling graduates can work in a large arena of settings because of the extensive amount of education and training they receive during their graduate studies. Upon receiving my graduate degree I would like to obtain a position as an onsite Therapist for a Group Home Facility. I choose this setting because I have worked closely as a Supervisor with Therapist in this setting and I see the potential to help these children help themselves. I have reviewed several career choices as a Masters of Counseling graduate and I also find working as a guidance counselor in a high school setting would be another way to help youth help themselves. In both of these setting in my opinion there is an opportunity to provide tool for young people to obtain in order for them to make positive changes in their lives. Counselors who hold a Master’s Degree in counseling may work in a variety of different settings which are determined by the chosen specialty counseling area. School counselors mainly provide support and counseling services in a school setting. They may either have designate offices or may opt to work in classrooms. Other counselors such as vocational, career, family therapist and rehabilitation counselors may work in the form of a private practice, day therapeutic programs, in hospital settings or organizations dealing with community health. Several counselors work in an office setting, where they can freely see and interact with clients. Most counselors may often be required to give their services in communities setting (Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2010-11 Ed. )

Journals free essay sample

This article published by EyeWitness to History provides background information on the Battle of Little Bighorn, including the causes and where the battle was font. It could be used as a basis to provide background information and to grasp an initial understanding of the Battle of Little Bighorn and the history behind it. -Hamlin Garland, General Cutters Last Fight as Seen by Two Moon, McClure Magazine, Volvo. 11, 1898, 443-448. Reprinted in Wayne Motion, De, Great Documents in American Indian History (New York: Peerage Publishers, 1973) This is a primary source, an eyewitness account of the actual Battle of Little Bighorn.This could be used to describe the fight and give a mental image into how violent it was. This source could provide a clear understanding of how the battle was fought. Week 20 #12 Write a reflection on the issue of whether or not John D. Rockefeller was a robber baron or not. Support your opinion with specific examples. We will write a custom essay sample on Journals or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Use the reading from Taking Sides as a guide. John D. Rockefeller could certainly be considered a robber baron due to the fact that, through bad contracts and tricky legislation, he took money from small businesses for his economic gain.A merchant in Nashville, Tennessee refused to buy from Standard Oil and, hysterically, his rates for shipping were doubled, then tripled; the man was being financially attacked by all industrial giants in order to force him into buying from Standard Oil. Rockefeller exploitation of workers and small businesses classifies him as robber baron, because he took from small businesses, already struggling to stay afloat, in order to make his large industry of petroleum thrive. Week 23 Read documents 1, 2, and 4. Respond to questions #6 #9 from doc. I Ill; respond to #7 from doc. IV. 6.In his Cross of Gold speech, how does Bryan (a Populist-Democrat) depict he Democratic party? What critique of his political opponents is implicit in Bryan(s speech? Bryan depicts the Democratic Party as a supporter of the common man and the fair party. The Democratic Party planned to make the middle and lower class prosperous, so that their prosperity would flow upward to all that depend on their goods. Bryan implicitly targets the fact that the Republican Party is in favor of the good standard, and they are in fear that the nation cannot adopt bimetallism because no other nation has adopted the system. Democrats come back with the response that, should America adopt metallic, other countries will follow and adopt the system as well. 9. In the Cross of Gold, how does Bryan depict the gold and the gold standard? How does he depict silver? Bryan depicts the gold standard as a system that will eventually lead to economic downfall. He states that you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold. The cross was represented as something that looks good on the surface, but in reality symbolizes much pain and horror. He depicts silver as the good balance, one that will keep the united States afloat, even through economic turmoil.He believes that if the U. S. Would adopt bimetallism, then the economy will prosper rather than crash like it would with the gold standard. 7. What is an allegory? In what sense is The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, a Populist allegory? An allegory is defined as a story, poem, or picture that can be interpreted to reveal a hidden meaning, typically a moral or political one. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is a Populist allegory in many aspects, one aspect being that it symbolizes the fight between adopting the good standard or returning to bimetallism.Dorothy, who symbolizes the common man and what is right follows the yellow brick road (symbolizing the gold standard) ND, ultimately, just runs into turmoil without really making any progress in order to return home to Kansas. It is not until she discovers the power of her silver slippers (symbolizing silver) that she makes her journey home. But, in order to get to where she wants, (this symbolizes the nation getting what it wants, which is economic prosperity) she must click her silver shoes on the yellow brick road.This symbolizes the idea of bimetallism, that through adopting the use of both silver and good coinage, the nations economy could prosper and get out of its economic depression. #13 How did farm discontent lead to the formation of the Populist party? List some of the goals of the populists and identify the leading populist figures. (From Chi. 21 ) The agricultural depression led farmers around the country to form alliances in order to, hopefully, raise capital, which often failed.The various alliances, although, could never form a national party for the presidential elections because they couldnt agree on tariff and federal land policy, railroad regulation, and financial reform. Their individual successes led a group of farm leaders in SST. Louis to form the Populist party to become a ice of the masses and of the common ground between the Democratic and Republican parties. Some of their main goals were to achieve the unlimited coinage of silver, democratic political reforms, the eight- hour working day, and immigration restriction.Leading populist figures were Tom Watson, Cockles Jerry Simpson, and Igniting Donnelly. 2/6/13 #14. Political scientists refer to the elections of 1894 and 1896 as realigning elections; they established the Republican Party as a majority party for a generation. What was the geographic basis of the Republican majority (see the Mapping e Past section)? How does that geography relate to the issues on which the elections of 1 894 and 1896 were fought? The Republican majority was based in the north, where industry flourished due to the gold standard.In contract, the southern agricultural economy suffered and wished to obtain bimetallism. Therefore, the northern republicans firmly fought against accepting a system of bimetallism and the presidents running in those elections for the Republican Party firmly disagreed with the system of bimetallism. 106. 1 . Why does Harlan consider laws requiring racial segregation to be violations of the freedom blacks had won during the Civil War? The Civil War was the cause of the formation of the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth amendment, initially.The laws requiring racial segregation were considered violations of blacks freedom because they were recognized as citizens of the United States and deserved to be treated the same as anyone else, no matter their skin color. Racial segregation undermined the idea Of every man created equal because African Americans were getting treated more poorly than those who were white and had traditionally been treated well. 2. What does Harlan mean by the phrase, our Constitution is coloring? He means that the founding fathers who wrote the Constitution wrote it based on the citizenship of the individual, not the race.The composers of this document composed it to give equal freedom to all citizens without regarding the color of their skin, whether it be black, white, brown, or yellow. 107. 1. What social conditions gave rise to the Memphis lynching? Racial segregation initially gave rise to the method of lynching in places such as Memphis. Other conditions included blacks who acted out and refused to accept their demeaning treatment from the whites. Those who sought to halogen the system were often targeted as victims of lynching. Specifically, the Memphis lynching of Moss, McDowell, and Stewart began over a small quarrel between a group of colored and white boys. After the lynching, the mob reasoned that the men had raped a group of white women to cover their tracks and give a reason as to why they would so brutally beat these otherwise seemingly innocent men. 2. What does Wells see as the contributions of the anticipating movement? 108. 1. What religious convictions inspire Hilliards crusade against liquor? Willard makes a point in his writing that men have a bigger voice than women in any session made in government.He says But let it be remembered that for every Christian man who has a voice in making and enforcing laws there are at least two Christian women who have no voice at all. The convictions that inspire Hilliards crusade against liquor are the effects that liquor has upon men and their relationships with their wives. Willard wishes for equality and fair treatment of women, and is aware that when men are under the influence, their judgment falters and wrong and rash decisions are made. 2. Why does Willard believe that women should enjoy the right to vote?Willard believes that women should enjoy the right to vote because they have little to no voice in the decisions of her household. Women were given the role of the caretaker, to both children and husband. They were not seen as an equal half to their husbands. Giving the right to vote to women would give them a small voice in a government that they would otherwise have no part in decision making. 116. 1. How does Ganger define free womanhood? She defines free womanhood as a woman having the choice of she should marry, therefore attempting to break the barrier and stereotype of imply an incubator.Women were often seen as child bearers and not much more. They were to keep the house clean, feed the children, bathe the children, all while the husband went and made the money to provide for his family. A free woman disregarded this stereotypical lifestyle and attempted to be free from social laws by choosing whom she wished to marry. 2. How does she believe access to birth control Will change womens lives? She believes that access to birth control will give women control over the one thing that is their main role in society and reproduction. Women have control ever one thing and one thing only during this time, and that is their body.Giving women access to birth control would empower women, having a positive effect on their mental health. Also, creating an access to birth control would help regulate and stabilize the population of the United States, preventing overpopulation which would inevitably lead to economic crisis. Week 25 #16. What role did women play in progressivism? How did their concerns shape the Progressive Era? During the Progressive Era, women had a major role of advocating for child labor and womens suffrage, while developing such organizations as the Young Womens Christian Association and the National Consumers League.

Ruth Bader Ginsberg essays

Ruth Bader Ginsberg essays Ruth Bader Ginsburg was born on March 15, 1933 in Brooklyn, New York. Her father, Nathan, was a furrier and her mother, Celia, had a strong passion for reading, language and love of books. Ruth had an older sister, Marilyn, who died of Meningitis. She attended James Madison High School, where she was a cheerleader, baton twirler, played the cello and was editor of the school paper. Graduating top of her class in grammar and high school, she went on to Cornell University, earning her bachelors in government. In 1954 she married Martin D. Ginsburg, now a professor of tax law at Georgetown University Law Center. They enrolled together in Harvard Law School. She then wrote material on sex-based discrimination after being personally discriminated against when she told her employer she was pregnant and received a three level pay decrease. Ruth then had two children: Jane C (a professor at Columbia Law School) and James S (a producer of Classical productions). After graduation, she served as a clerk for Federal District Judge Edward Palmieri and then became the second woman to join the faculty of Rutgers Law School. She tried many cases for the American Civil Liberties Union. On June 30, 1980, Ruth Bader Ginsburg was sworn into the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, after being nominated by President Jimmy Carter. There she served for thirteen years until August 10, 1993, when Judge Byron R. White resigned from the Supreme Court. Being nominated by Bill Clinton, she was approved by the senate with a vote of ninety-six to three. Ruth Bader Ginsburg was the second woman and first Jew ever admitted. Ruth Bader Ginsburg served many supreme court cases. One of her major ones was the Baker vs. General Motors Corp. in 1997. In this case Ronald Elwell worked fifteen years for GM. He was assigned to study GM vehicle performance, particularly concentrating on vehicular ...

Thrinaxodon Facts and Figures

Thrinaxodon Facts and Figures Although it wasnt quite as mammal-like as its close cousin, Cynognathus, Thrinaxodon was still a startlingly advanced reptile by early Triassic standards. Paleontologists believe this cynodont (a subgroup of the therapsids, or mammal-like reptiles, which preceded the dinosaurs and eventually evolved into the first true mammals) may have been covered in fur, and also may have possessed a moist, cat-like nose. Name: Thrinaxodon (Greek for trident tooth); pronounced thrie-NACK-so-donHabitat: Woodlands of southern Africa and AntarcticaHistorical Period: Early Triassic (250-245 million years ago)Size and Weight: About 20 inches long and a few poundsDiet: MeatDistinguishing Characteristics: Cat-like profile; quadrupedal posture; possibly fur and warm-blooded metabolism Completing the resemblance to modern tabbies, its possible that Thrinaxodon sported whiskers as well, which would have evolved in order to sense prey (and for all we know, this 250-million-year-old vertebrate was equipped with orange and black stripes). What paleontologists can say for sure is that Thrinaxodon was among the first vertebrates the body of which was divided into lumbar and thoracic segments (an important anatomical development, evolution-wise), and that it probably breathed with the aid of a diaphragm, yet another feature that didnt come fully into mammalian vogue until tens of millions of years later. Thrinaxodon Lived in Burrows We also have solid evidence that Thrinaxodon lived in burrows, which may have enabled this reptile to survive the Permian-Triassic Extinction Event, which wiped out most of the worlds terrestrial and marine animals and left the earth a smoking, inhospitable wasteland for the first few million years of the Triassic period. (Recently, a Thrinaxodon specimen was discovered curled up in its burrow alongside the prehistoric amphibian Broomistega; apparently, this latter creature crawled into the hole to recover from its wounds, and both occupants then drowned in a flash flood.) For nearly a century, Thrinaxodon was believed to be restricted to early Triassic South Africa, where its fossils have been discovered in abundance, along with those of other mammal-like reptiles (the type specimen was unearthed in 1894). In 1977, however, a nearly identical therapsid species was discovered in Antarctica, which sheds valuable light on the distribution of  the earths land masses at the start of the Mesozoic Era. And finally, heres a bit of showbiz trivia for you: Thrinaxodon, or at least a creature closely resembling Thrinaxodon, was featured in the very first episode of the BBC TV series Walking With Dinosaurs.

Wk9(31) Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Wk9(31) - Essay Example I asked him why he thought these things were not fair and I encouraged him to give it more meaning for him. 3. "It makes me feel very good". This is a phrase that many people say but that was difficult for my friend because he does not know how he feels most of the time. He has other health issues so I encouraged him to talk about how the other health issues relate to his use of medicinal marijuana. 4. "Youre kiddin me! " Another phrase like #1 but it is used when my friend wants to communicate a fact that he finds intriguing and at the same time amazing. He would say this in relationship to my requests about the legal ramifications of his using the marijuana. At the end of the conversation I paraphrased what he had said to make sure that I had all the "facts" correct. My friend said that he had a good conversation and was happy that he could help me with my school project. The difference between eliciting a comment and giving meaning to something a client says is best served by examples. When one is eliciting a comment from a client, the therapist is asking for more information about something specific. As an example, a client may be talking about their daughter and how they are angry with them. The therapist might ask, "so you are pretty upset with your daughter for [blank]". The client will most likely say something like, "yes, I am." This example shows how one might elicit a comment from a client. On the other hand, the therapist may state, "tell me more about that." In this way, the therapist is asking for more information about the reasons why this individual is so angry at their daughter and asking for a deeper meaning than, "because she wont listen to me". Ivey, Ivey, & Zalaquett (2010) suggest that when you use eliciting or reflection you are using whichever one is appropriate for the specific situation you are in (p. 324). When I would ask a client about the fact that she is upset with her daughter, I would

FOUNDATIONS FOR RESEARCH 2 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3500 words

FOUNDATIONS FOR RESEARCH 2 - Essay Example (2009), reducing anxiety in adults though the relaxation-breathing techniques has been used severally and proved through clinical trials as being effective in the production of good asthma outcomes. It is true that all research works aims at bridging a certain gap in information in less researched areas. In this case, more evidence will prove the importance of using such interventions in asthmatic children. The article was properly titled while the contents are in line with the title. This is proved by performing a search on the article using the key words like relaxation, breathing, asthma, trial, controlled etc. The research report abstract has enough information and readers can determine if the research has enough evidence to qualify it as being relevant. It is an overview which is visible since it is concise and brief and has all key findings articulated by the researcher. The abstract captures all key elements of the research work. In brief, the research abstract gives the resea rchers objectives which include evaluation of the effectiveness of combined self-management and relaxation breathing training for children with moderate-to-severe asthma compared to self-management-only training (Li-Chi Chiang et al. 2009), the research background, the methodology, the design, the sample and the results. A good abstract has to contain all the above as it summarizes the researchers assertions in a nutshell and makes it easier for many to understand the research work without flipping each page as Alasuutari, P. et al. (2008) puts it. An important part included here is the background part. This is key in any research work as it gives the information gap which forms a justification for the research. The authors start by first explaining Self-management programs, there use, when they have been used and their successes. Further, it gives perceptions towards their use and gives an indication that if used on children, then successes can be realized. At the end of the abstra ct, the researchers gives a summary of the findings from the analyzed data concluding that a combination of self-management and relaxation-breathing training can reduce anxiety, thus improving asthmatic children’s health. These results can serve as an evidence base for psychological nursing practice with asthmatic children (Li-Chi Chiang et al. 2009). In addition, the authors further gives the addition knowledge contributed to by the paper and the gap it attempts to fill, its relevance and its application and integration into the existing knowledge base. In the research study report, the independent variable were combined self-management and relaxation-breathing training for children and self-management-only training while the dependent variable was severity of asthma and are specified in the report abstract. In the study report, the researchers report that data on anxiety levels, self-perceived health status, asthma signs/symptoms, peak expiratory flow rate, and medication u se was collected. Here the independent variables are anxiety levels, self-perceived health status, peak expiratory flow rate, and medication use while the dependent variable is asthma signs/symptoms. Other important considerations made on the data included interaction effects among the two groups and research timelines. The impact of interactions at times is enormous such that its omission leads to un-biased results. It is always important to tell in

Cross-Cultural Differences Essay Example for Free

Cross-Cultural Differences Essay A central core in any cultural are its values. Values are independent standards where it is determined the differences of right and wrong, good and bad objectives. There are usually some shared values among all cultures; the contrast is the account of different perceptions between different cultures. Asian values have shown to be inter-related in that they view the individual belonging to a larger group or extended family with an expected well being of the group as a whole. To contrast this against American values of the self is that there is a personal expected importance of well being on the individual, emphasizing independence and self-initiative. Education seems to share a common aspect but there are some differential ideals between American and Asian values. Within the Asian culture their family core interactions being the fuel to move them through their individual life practices uses parenting as a fundamental aspect in pushing their children to work harder in their education; even overachieve. However, Americans might consider Asian parents to be overly dominating; there is an in-turn on exceptive goal that parent support their children as they can. Americans do see education as a key to social mobility and economic opportunity. Asians use education as a movement though family structures more profitable than the use of societal roles. Asian values can also be seen with strong dictation for their consideration of others; with benevolence and obligation that must be present to enforce relationships. Asian societies have a history to be hierarchical, in contrast to the American culture where there is a form of equality to an extent between teacher and student, peer to peer, and family members among themselves. The hierarchical relationships in Asian culture involve a lot of obligation that could be seen as domination with the expectation of responsibility and benevolence in return. Example being children in Asian culture obligated to follow guidelines set by their parents in a strict fashion at the expense of their own independence yet their parents with the returning expectation to raise support and educate them far in excess of what might be sought by American family standards. Reference: Asian-American educational achievements: A phenomenon in search of an explanation. Sue, Stanley; Okazaki, Sumie American Psychologist, Vol 45(8), Aug 1990, 913-920. doi: 10.1037/0003-066X.45.8.913 Fuligni, A. J., Tseng, V. and Lam, M. (1999), Attitudes toward Family Obligations among American Adolescents with Asian, Latin American, and European Backgrounds. Child Development.

Personal Writing: After casino :: essays research papers

Personal Writing: After "Casino" I was outside the movie theater waiting for my usually late friend Ryan to meet me there. I noticed two guys and a girl in the parking lot drinking beer. They seemed pretty drunk but I thought nothing of it as they walked into the theater. Finally Ryan arrived and we decided to see "Casino" a story about the mob in Las Vegas. After the movie we walked out and sat on Ryan's car to have a cigarette while we imitated the gangsters from the movie. I noticed one of the guys I had seen before the movie over by my car urinating on the bumper. Being in the mood that I was from the movie I confronted him by saying "hey, you f*#kin' pissin' on my car?" He denied it and pointed out that he had in fact missed the car, which was true. Just then his buddy from inside the car asks me if I have a problem. I say no I don't but I would if there was pee on my car. What? He says. I said it's cool, there's no pee on my car, it's pretty damn disrespectful to be pissin' on someone's car. And with that it was over I walked away with Ryan (who had joined me) back to his car. On the way over to his car I mentioned to him how I wouldn't have had that attitude with they guy if we hadn't seen that type of movie. I guess the fellow in the car still thought I had a problem because he pulled his truck up, got out, and got up in my face. What were you sayin' to your friend just now? You talkin' sh*t? Listen man, I said, it's cool, there's no pee on my car! Well I think you two still gots a problem over here. With that he proceeds to throw one of their empty beer bottles on the ground and then one at my car. We argue some more and then his friend gets up in Ryan's face. Just when I think this guy is calmed down he goes over to my car and pushes a shopping cart into the right rear quarter panel. By this time I had lost it, this guy was going down. I went to my car and started to get my baseball bat out from the back seat. I was ready to smash his brains in, or his car. They took off and headed out of the parking lot. Ryan yelled for me to chase them and I was ready.

Bus 421 Final

BUS 421 Final: Case Scenario #1 Thomas Edison State College October 2012 Emily Schemelia Executive Summary Case Scenario # 1 Given the increasing regulations of the Internet and email by the Government of China, recommend to the CEO of Google whether the company should continue to operate in China, the world’s fastest and among the largest growth markets. Google should definitely continue operations in China, even if it means limiting the amount of information that is disseminated to Google China.While filtering information is the opposite of everything Google stands for, Google can still disseminate information to the Chinese public while abiding by the information laws set up by the Chinese Government. The fact is that if Google doesn’t provide its information services to China, not only will a competitor step in and abode by the Chinese Government limitations on information, but the information that it would disseminate may be far less superior.Therefore, in the hope that the Chinese Government decrease its information limitations, Google should provide its service to China as China comprises over 1. 3 billion people and has the power of not only furthering Google, but the world as well. In my research, the point of discussion is whether Google should move out or not, and why or why not. In this paper I will be presenting issues in regards to the markets in China and the advantages that these markets have for Google in order to continue its operations.I will also discuss in the various challenges and problems that Google faces in China. Marketing in Chain: China is a very large country and the population of the country is also very large. China provides various business opportunities around the world and that Google is one of them. Many companies had taken the chance of venturing into the Chinese markets and most of them are making great progress. They are all there for the purpose of making sure that they achieve their targets to a higher leve l (Bracker, 2011).The Chinese markets are very unique and China has the ability to attract all different kinds of companies on a larger level. Because of this, there is a case that companies like Google, look forward to making sure that they penetrate the market in order to produce better outcomes, which also leads to a fast growth for the organization. The economy in China is doing well. China has in its recent years reached financial stability. This is due to the fact that there is a high level of domestic demand. Because of this, many companies around the world begin to invest in the Chinese market.China is also one of the fastest growing when it comes to Information Technology and has been able to attract companies such as Google and even Microsoft. It has been forecasted that the Internet industry in China is expected to increase at a rate of about ten percent within the next five years. This is great news because Google will be able to benefit. Advantages of Doing Business in China: As mentioned previously, there are many organizations around the whole world that perform their business in China. They do business in China due to the fact that China has a reliable market.It is also expected that the organizations doing business in China will continue to grow. Some advantages of doing business in China are that it is a major emerging market around the world. Also there are a lot of opportunities for organizations to invest in China for a longer period of time due to expanding of technology and resources. Another advantage is that there is cheap labor, which helps many companies succeed. With the availability of cheap labor can result in the reduction of cost for the companies that invest in Chain.Challenges of Working in China: Like any other country, there are some challenges associated when doing business in China. An organization intending on conducting business in China should consider various important things prior to moving forward in actually doing b usiness. If they do not consider certain things, then the company may be lead into trouble, which can endanger the companies investments. One major challenge in doing business in China is the difference in culture. Most Chinese people do not speak English, and the few that do have a very unique accent.Because of this, Google needs to be able to respect and try to hire employees who are familiar in this accent so that they will be able to communicate with people domestically. Another challenge in relation to conducting business in China is intense competition from domestic companies. In addition to this, a company should perform their activities in a manner that attracts the acceptance of its products by the customers in the domestic market. Based on when was mentioned above, it can be said that there is a definite case of certain challenges for foreign companies like Google in China.If success has to be achieved, then Google need to work against these challenges in a proper manner s o that Google can stay in China and wont be put in jeopardy. Decision to Continue Working in China: Putting all these factors into consideration, Google has to take a make a firm decision in whether they should continue to operate in China, or not. Google has to consider that there is huge growth in their markets and that even with the limitation on some information available, that they can still make progress in their growth. Because of this, Google should continue operating in Chine into the future (Weiss, 2008).Google needs to do a thorough review of the Chinese markets and take into consideration of all the financial implications associated with the potential of moving their business out of this market. The market in China is one of the strongest and largest in the world and if Google continues to operate in the country, then it is obvious that that they will have various benefits that will be available for its growth now as well as in the future. All the new progress being made in China will help Google to stay in the market. Though there are restrictions doesn’t mean that Google cannot operate in the country.Google has to consider the financial benefits it will gain if it decides to stay in the market. Taking this into consideration, Google should always continue its business on China. Google needs to expand its operations so that the benefits of China and its services can be appreciated to its full extent. Conclusion: In conclusion, Google should strongly consider continuing their business relationship with China. On the basis of the above discussion, it can be said that though there are various problems for Google in China, the financial benefits of working in China are much higher than if they were to move out.With all the factors to consider, Google should definitely continue its operations in China now and in the future. References Thompson, A. A, Peteraf, A. A. , Strickland, L. Gamble, E. J. ( 2012). Crafting and Executing Strategy: The Ques t for Competitive Advantage-Concepts and Cases 18th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill/Irwin. Bracker, H. (2011). Restrictions of Internet Provided Services in the People’s Republic of China: A Threat for Foreign Companies’ Internet Launch? GRIN Verlag.. Weiss, J. W. (2008). Business Ethics: A Stakeholder and Issues Management Approach. (5th ed. ). Cengage Learning.

Mun Unoosa – Topic: Space Junk – Country: Sweden

Jasmin Fashami 14 November 2012 United Nations Office on Outer Space Affairs Sweden Space Junk UNOOSA – Sweden A. Background of Topic 1. Space junk, also known  space debris and  space waste, is the collection of objects in  orbit  around  Earth  that were created by humans but no longer serve any useful purpose, which can consist of everything from old dead  satellites to explosion and collision fragments. These objects often overlap the trajectory of new space shuttles or satellites, which can cause a potential collision risk, damaging the equipment.Space junk presents a threat not only to space affairs, but also to matters here on earth; although most debris will burn up in the atmosphere, larger objects can reach the ground intact and present a risk. The ISS has had to repair numerous satellites and spaceships orbiting the earth due to the damage caused by space junk, causing them millions. Though the UNOOSA has published guidelines for nations to follow in h opes to reduce the amount of space junk, the UN still has many issues that need to be discussed and covered due to this growing problem. . Nations that are directly involved and affected by this issue include the USA, China, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, the Russian Federation, Ukraine, the UK, and others. 3. According to the U. S. military's Space Surveillance Network, there are roughly  22,000 pieces of orbital debris  larger than 4 inches currently in the outlying atmosphere, which include broken satellite parts and depleted rocket bodies. As these fragments travel through space, they pose collision risks to the ISS and the roughly 1,000 working satellites in orbit.Many incidents have already occurred, such as in February 2009, a U. S satellite was struck by a non-operational Russian satellite. The impact destroyed the two spacecraft and created large clouds of dust and debris. â€Å"If we continue, as we have, to use these very popular orbits in near-Earth space, th e density of debris and collision events will surely increase,† Marshall Kaplan, an orbital debris expert within the Space Department at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, told SPACE. com. Operational satellites will be destroyed at an alarming rate, and they cannot be replaced. We must prepare for this seemingly inevitable event,† Kaplan said. B. United Nations Involvement 1. Analysts first became aware of an emerging space debris problem in the early 1960s. However, February 2009 was when the UN first really got involved with this issue. The UNOOSA â€Å"called all Member States and international organizations to fully implement measures to curb space debris following the collision of an inactive Russian satellite with an operational one from the USA. This was the first major problem between countries regarding this issue. 2. Some organizations, committees, agencies, and NGOs that are involved with the growing issue include the United N ations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, the United Nations Office of Outer Space Affairs, the European Space Agency, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, and the  Inter-Agency Space Debris Coordination Committee. 3.Every year, the  COPUOS  invites Member States to submit reports on national research regarding space junk and problems of collisions with space junk. Though there is no international treaty mandating countries to minimize space debris,  in 2007, the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space published voluntary guidelines for nations to follow. The UNOOSA needs to continue to pass more guidelines and rules regarding space junk, and agencies like NASA to be more aware of the debris and the issues they are emitting.Many methods have been proposed to solve this problem, but in the end, the international community needs to step up and put forth more action before the issu e gets worse. C. Country Policy 1. Sweden has set up a wide-ranging space company that has 40 years' experience in helping space organizations, companies and research organizations gain access to space, called the SSC, or the Swedish Space Corporation. This company has researched and developed numerous resolutions to many space problems, such as space debris. . Sweden believes that space junk in Earth’s atmosphere is a growing problem and is working to stop the damage it is causing. 3. On March 19th, 2012, Sweden, through the SSC, launched the REDEMPTION Experiment at the REXUS/BEXUS Esa Educational Programme, which is realized under a mutual agreement between the German Aeroscope Center and the Swedish National Space Board. REDEMPTION stands for â€Å"Removal of Debris using Material with Phase Transition IONospherical tests;† it is currently a work in progress.In order to combat space debris and a possible, upcoming tragic event known as Kessler Syndrome, many resear ch groups are developing technologies able to shift space junk into a safety orbit using a newly redesigned foam. Unfortunately, at the moment, a realistic system has not yet been found. 4. Sweden is still continuing to work towards the REDEMPTION experiment, whose main goal is to propose a new system based on a spray foam that solidifies.This can be used as a link between satellites and debris and will have to work in space conditions – this will avoid future collision between debris and space equipment. Works Cited http://esa. int/SPECIALS/Space_Debris/SEMQHL05VQF_0. html http://redemptionteam. blogspot. com/p/about-redemption. html http://space. com/16289-space-junk-international-response. html http://sscspace. com/rexus-12 http://un. org/apps/news/story. asp? NewsID=29908&Cr=outer+space&Cr1#. ULGS8Ie7OSp

Understanding the War Poetry of Wilfred Owen Essays

Understanding the War Poetry of Wilfred Owen Essays Understanding the War Poetry of Wilfred Owen Essay Understanding the War Poetry of Wilfred Owen Essay Much can be learned about the historic and human impact of WI by studying the literary output from the era. Wilfred Owen (1893-1918) is considered one of the greatest war poets in the English language. He wrote out of personal experience of the physical, moral and psychological trauma FWIW in a time when most war poetry was romanticists and used as propaganda. In his poems Dulcet et Decorum est. and Anthem for Doomed Youth Owen dispels the Idea that dying for ones country Is a bole or rewarding act and recognizes the futile deaths of his young comrades and the suffering and sadness of those left behind. However, it is difficult for the reader to derive any meaning or appreciation from these poems without an understanding of the life and times of the author and text. Knowledge of Owens life and military service provide insight Into his thoughts, emotions and motivation for writing his poetry. Owen served as a 2nd lieutenant In France. One of his traumatizing experiences Included spending several days In a bomb crater trapped with the mangled corpse of a fellow officer while badly enclosed. This information gives Owens poetry credibility and evokes a horrifying realization in the reader that these graphic descriptions of warfare are not fabricated. For example, in Dulcet et Decorum Est Owen seems to look back on the events as a recurring nightmare. The poem details a gas attack on a band of exhausted soldiers, while one unfortunate man Is not swift enough to get his mask on and his companions are forced to watch him die slowly and agonizingly, unable to help. The poet masterfully uses first-person POP to bring the events to the audience n a personal level. In all my dreams, helpless before my sight, He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning. This literary technique, combined with the background information on Owens experiences, enhances the stark realism of the poem causing the reader to feel the emotions of the narrator of the poem. Owens Christian upbringing Is also evident In Anthem for Doomed Youth. Owen was raised as an Anglican of the evangelical school and was a devout believer In his youth. He also counted the Bible as one of the major influences on his poetry. This shows in Anthem in which he skillfully juxtaposes the glamour of trench warfare against the somber atmosphere of a church. These religious images: orisons, mockeries, prayers, bells, choirs, candles, holy glimmer, pall symbolism the sanctity of life. This, along with the futility of war, Is a recurring theme In Owens works. An understanding of the age in which a poem was written can reveal its purpose. For example, Owen wrote seeking to educate the populace of Britain of the tragedy and horror of war. This is because during the years of conflict, most war poetry was attrition and idealistic which heavily shaped the public perception of war as a glorious and honorable way to serve ones country.

5 Pairs of Compound Words, and How Theyre Compounded

5 Pairs of Compound Words, and How Theyre Compounded 5 Pairs of Compound Words, and How They’re Compounded 5 Pairs of Compound Words, and How They’re Compounded By Mark Nichol A while back, I wrote about compound words involving front and back, in and out, and up and down, and the bewildering variety of styles (open, hyphenated, and closed) for each group. Here are five more pairs of words to watch for when they’re used in compound phrases. 1. Light and Dark To be light-headed and to be lighthearted are not strictly analogous one is a physical sensation, and the other refers to an emotion (though it may result in a physical response) but they are both adjectives. So, why is one (and similar compounds like light-fingered and light-footed) hyphenated and the other closed? I confess I’m in the dark. But note that compounds beginning with dark are always open (â€Å"dark days† â€Å"dark horse,† â€Å"dark matter†). Most other noun compounds beginning with light (â€Å"light meter,† â€Å"light pen†) are open, but notice light-rail, which, like a few other compound nouns (mind-set, life-form), remain stubbornly hyphenated (though the meaning of light here differs; it’s akin to the definition in the previous paragraph). When the noun light is the last element of a compound, it’s always closed: candlelight, flashlight, searchlight. 2. Mind and Brain I’m going to go out of my mind. Why is one simpleminded yet single-minded? Is it because one is a presumably perpetual state that a person so designated has little or no control over, while the other is a personality trait? But compounds beginning rather than ending with mind generally obey these rules: open in noun compounds (with the previously noted exception of mind-set and the obscure mind-healer, as well as the jargony mindshare) and hyphenated in adjectival compounds such as mind-bending and mind-boggling). Brain, meanwhile, is almost always open (â€Å"brain trust,† â€Å"brain wave†); brain-dead is a rare exception. 3. Right and Wrong Compounds employing these words for practical or moral choices are generally open (â€Å"right angle,† â€Å"wrong side†), but phrasal adjectives with prepositions (right-of-way, right-to-work) are always hyphenated. 4. Right and Left Most compounds employing right or left as directions are open (noun phrases like â€Å"left wing,† adverbial phrases such as â€Å"right away†), but the phrasal adjectives left-handed and right-handed (also adverbs) are always hyphenated. 5. Smart and Dumb By now, you know not to expect logic in idiomatic phrases it’s â€Å"smart aleck† but smart-ass (or smart-mouth). Open phrasing, however, is preponderant for smart and dumb: â€Å"smart card,† â€Å"smart drug,† â€Å"dumb down,† â€Å"dumb show† (pantomime). Street-smart is hyphenated, but â€Å"street smarts† is open. Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Grammar category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:10 Rules for Writing Numbers and NumeralsThe Parts of a WordHow Do You Fare?

Future Economic Stagnation for Rich Countries Essay

Future Economic Stagnation for Rich Countries - Essay Example This essay demonstrates the huge gap between rich countries and developing countries and provides factors and reasons for possible future economic stagnation for rich countries. There used to be a time when there existed a few rich countries who dominated the world economy and their contribution to the global GDP was around two-third. This means that the rest of the world was under developed and had a falling economy rate. Later, the world faced some crisis which shook the rich countries’ economy and at the same time helped the developing countries to grow at a high pace. This led to the possibility of economic stagnation of the rich countries in near future. In the current scenario, globalization has worked in favor of developing economies. Several developing countries, majorly Asian economies, are growing at such a high pace that the gap between the rich and the developing countries has shortened big time. Reasons of the possible future economic stagnation are: Recent Western Recession, Insufficient Supply and Slow Recovery from Financial Crisis (2008-2009). First recommendations for avoiding future economic stagnationis Improving Short-Term Demand and Efficient Supply. No country can recover from the financial crises in a short time. Second recommendation is Boosting Medium-Term Growth. The third recommendation is Role of Government, that should also put their effort and think more logically regarding the ways of supporting the demand and making better the supply which can in return increase the productivity.

Animals for testing the safety of products Research Paper

Animals for testing the safety of products - Research Paper Example An example of Merck, otherwise known as MSD in areas other than USA and Canada, which is a healthcare company known for its research-driven work in pharmaceuticals. Merck came up with a painkiller known as Vioxx and had it approved by the Food and Drugs Administration (F.D.A) basing their approval on clinical trials carried out on animals that indicated the drug was safe. This was despite the fact that previous trials had shown that the drug increased the possibility of heart ailments. The drug was intended for painful menstrual cramps, acute pain and osteoarthritis and in the five year period that it was available, it was responsible for 88,000 to 139,000 heart attacks. This was later explained by the fact that common conditions affecting humans such as diabetes, hypertension and heart ailments are not common with animals. What researchers such as Merck do is simulate these conditions in animals ("Animal Testing Not Reliable† 19).   Opponents of product testing on animals ha ve raised issue with the fact that there are alternatives to animals for the purposes of testing and experimentations. For example, in vitro models that are available commercially and can be reconstructed in three-dimension have been identified as being alternative to animals for toxicology tests in biomedical research. These models are adoptable where tests are carried out to find out the safety of drugs on human organs especially since three-dimension models make it possible to have internal organ models.... This was despite the fact that previous trials had shown that the drug increased the possibility of heart ailments. The drug was intended for painful menstrual cramps, acute pain and osteoarthritis and in the five year period that it was available, it was responsible for 88,000 to 139,000 heart attacks. This was later explained by the fact that common conditions affecting humans such as diabetes, hypertension and heart ailments are not common with animals. What researchers such as Merck do is simulate these conditions in animals ("Animal Testing Not Reliable† 19). Opponents of product testing on animals have raised issue with the fact that there are alternatives to animals for the purposes of testing and experimentations. For example, in vitro models that are available commercially and can be reconstructed in three-dimension have been identified as being alternative to animals for toxicology tests in biomedical research. These models are adoptable where tests are carried out to find out the safety of drugs on human organs especially since three-dimension models make it possible to have internal organ models (Liebsch et al 842-843). There are in vitro tests as well that can be used in place of the Draize test used to measure irritability where one of these tests is applicable to a number of toiletries and cosmetics where the test product is put in with a synthetic fusion that replicates the human eye specifically the living cornea. Following a matching of color gradations, potential irritability is scored and this signifies molecular effects on the tissue (Beatrice 28). Additionally, the deontological view holds that animal interests similar to human interests are not subject to moral weighing.

Business proposal Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words - 1

Business proposal - Assignment Example The company records low unit sales and lags behind Volkswagen AG and BMW in China. The stiff competition has to overall underperformance in China. The aim of this proposal is to look at the challenge facing the company and how they can be solved. It targets prospective investors and luxury automobile dealers who are willing to explore business opportunities in order to meet their goals. The audience needs to be concerned because any threat to the downfall of the Mercedes-Benz will affect them. Because the Mercedes-Benz defines class, prestige and luxury, its fall in the market will translate to lose of status and class and profit to the targeted audience. In order to Increase Unit sales and beat the stiff competition, Mercedes-Benz should first carry out research on consumer tastes and preferences to establish their needs. The findings will lead to the second solution of investing on new models. Adjusting its organization structure to be more flexible is yet another solution to the p roblem. A flexible structure ought to be established because it supports quick decision making and newer models will lead to increased market share hence beating the competition. The proposal also gives a solution of developing a cohesive strategy of targeting areas that highly populated with high class persons. Such audience have the capacity of buying the Mercedes-Benz which is likely to boost its sales. Despite having achieved high record sales of 1.46 million cars globally last year, the Daimler’s Mercedes-Benz car faces a lot of stiff competition from the Germany rivals and small cars who are still leading in terms of profitability, unit sales and appeal especially to the younger generation (Acquisdata snapshot 50). The major root of the challenge facing the Mercedes-Benz stems from the China market where it records under-performance. The China market is a vital market to pay attention to because it of its high

Customer Relationship Management of Lloyds Banking

Customer Relationship Management of Lloyds Banking 1.0 INTRODUCTION This chapter provides the brief introduction of research. Furthermore, it also discusses the aims, objectives of the research questions and scope of the study. 1.1 TOPIC OF THE RESEARCH Customer Relationship Management of Lloyds Banking Group PLC; A Critical Evaluation 1.2 INTRODUCTION TO RESEARCH Peter Drucker said, â€Å"The purpose of a business is to create customers†. Customer Relationship Management can be the single strongest weapon we have as manage to ensure that customers become and remain loyal. Customer Relationship Management, or CRM, is an essential part of modern business management. CRM concerns the relation between the organisation and its customers. Customers are the lifeblood of any company be it a global corporation with thousands of employees and a multi-billion turnover, or a sole trader with a handful of regular customers. CRM is the same in principle for both examples. Globalization and technology improvements have pushed companies into hard competition. In this new era organisations are targeting on managing customer relationships, mainly customer satisfaction, in order to maximize revenues (Constantinos 2003). Today, marketing is not just developing, delivering and selling; it is shifting towards developing and maintaining equally long term relationships with customers (Buttle, 1996). This new business values is called relationship marketing (RM), which has involved significant interest both from marketing academics and practitioners (Gronroos, 1994). The Greek philosopher, Epictetus said that â€Å"what concern me is not the way things are, but rather the way people think things are† (Szwarch, 2005, p.3). The concepts of consumer satisfaction were depending on the thinking of consumer. Research suggests that customer satisfaction, basic concept of relationship marketing, is important in achieving and retaining competitive advantage. Research studies have discovered that retaining current customers is much less expensive than attracting new customers (Desatnick, 1988; Stone et al., 1996; Bitran and Mondschein, 1997; Chattopadhyay, 2001; Massey et al., 2001). The best way to retain customers is to keep them satisfied, a number of studies have shown that customer satisfaction can guide to brand loyalty, repurchases intention and repeat sales (Day, 1984; Swan and Oliver, 1989; Oliver, 1999). Customer retention, in turn, seems to be related to profitability (Oliver, 1999). Relationship marketing is becoming significant in financial services (Zineldin, 1995). If a bank develops and sustains a solid relationship with its customers, its competitors cannot easily replace them and so this relationship provides for a continued competitive advantage (Gilbert, 2003). Moriarty et al. (1983) has suggested relationship concept in the banking sector which states that banks can increase their profits by maximising the profitability of the total customer relationship over time, instead of looking for to get more profit from any single transaction. Perrien et al. (1992) observed severe competitive pressures that forces financial institution to restructure their marketing strategies by developing into long-term relationship with customers. And banking industry purely related to financial services, which needs to create the trust among the people. This research is exploratory in nature and design. The data which is collected is going to be mostly primary data collected from the relevant persons within the bank. The data has gathered from the face to face interviews with the help of structured and semi-structured questionnaire with those persons. The above describe interviews has last 40 (fourty) to 45 (fourty five) minutes (approx). On the other hand the researcher has decided to collect primary data from random interviews of Lloyds Banking Groups customers. Sample size is around 200 customers and of structured questionnaire. But of course this research paper has relied on reviewing the various secondary data available from various researches such as books, magazines, website, previous research and publication etc. The collected data has been analysed by graphs, table and pi chart drawn from Microsoft excel. 1.3 AIM OF THE RESEARCH The aim of the research is to study why CRM is important in bank, how the CRM works in banks and also the effectiveness of Lloyds Banking Group in obtaining long term customer relationship, customer loyalty, and customer satisfaction by the use of CRM. And also suggest feasible recommendations to Lloyds Banking Group to increase the customer satisfaction and market share by the effective use of CRM. 1.4 OBJECTIVES OF THE RESEARCH The followings are the objectives of this research; To study how critically practised in Lloyds Banking Group Analysis the data mining process of Lloyds Banking Group To find out how the bank segments their customers To analysis how the bank retaining their customers To find out how does the bank measure customer Life Time Value To verify the relationship between the customers and the Lloyds Banking Group 1.5 SCOPE OF THE STUDY The scope of the study and research work has limited to Lloyds Banking Group only. This chosen level of aspects has stayed at large in the study so that it can be studied well and analyzed thoroughly to get a deeper understanding. Trying to cover too much ground may lead to a very superficial and confused analysis and may involve long time duration to complete the project work or report. Therefore a specified and narrow down approach with Lloyds Banking Group and an evaluation of its success has comprised with the researc 2.0 LITERATURE REVIEW This chapter contains a review of literature relevant to the research. This literature review deals with, about CRM, the history and goals of an integrated banking CRM, the technological factor of CRM, the process cycle in banks, data warehouse technology, data mining process, how to analysis the data, customer segmentation process, communication strategies of bank to the customers etc. 2.1 CUSTOMER RELATIONSIP MANAGEMENT Existing research states that ‘relationships are the base to the successful development and edition of new business viewpoint, though business have taken care of relationships with their customers for many centuries (Gronroos, 1994). Sheth and Parvathiyar, (1995) said that relationships demand much more than mere transactions. Rather, they symbolize strategic and tactical issues based on a new philosophical move that geared in the direction of long-term organisation survival. According to Storbacka, (1994) relationship marketing got popular in 1990s but it has a long history under different names. In its starting, one-to-one marketing appeared in the mid 1990s, which transformed into Customer Relationship Management. Parvatiyar and Sheth gave a static definition of CRM. â€Å"Customer Relationship Management is a comprehensive strategy and process of acquiring, retaining and partnering with selective customers to create superior value for the company and the customer† (Parvatiyar and Sheth 2000, p.6) â€Å"What criteria determine who â€Å"How can we acquire this customer will be our most profitable in the most efficient and effective customers?† way?† â€Å"How can we increase the â€Å"How can we keep this customer loyalty and the profitability for as long as possible?† Of this customer?† 2.2 THE HISTORY AND GOALS OF AN INTEGRATED BANKING CRM According to Puccinelli (1999) the financial services industry as entering a new era where personal attention is decreasing because the institutions are using technology to replace human contact in many application areas. Sherif, 2002 advocated that, now global changes brought new trends, directions and new ways of doing business, which also brought new challenges and opportunities to financial institutions. In order to complete with newly increasing competitive pressures, financial institutions must recognize the need of balancing their performance by achieving their strategic goals and meeting continues volatile customer needs requirements. Different ways must be analyzed to meet customer needs. Foss said that banks are highly focusing on CRM for the last five years that is expected to continue. According to Peter (1998) and Chablo (1999) the main goals of an effective integrated CRM solution in the banking sector are to enable financial institutes to; a) Widen customer relationship through acquiring new customers, identifying and targeting new segments and expanding in new markets. b) Lengthen the existing relationship developing longer term relationships, increasing perceived value of products and introducing new products and c) Deepen the relationship with customers initiating the cross selling and up selling opportunities, understanding the propensity of different customer segments to purchase and increase sales. The implementation if CRM system in a bank helps the business organisation to obtain a complete picture of their existing customers, design both customer-oriented and market-driven financial products and services, as well as implement extensive and reliable financial marketing research and efficient campaigns, to achieve and enhance customer loyalty and profitability. The above goals can be achieved through the seamless integration of information technology solutions and business objectives at every process of the bank business that affects the customer. 2.3 THE PHASES OF CRM The main phases of CRM are as follows; 1. Customer selection or Segmentation According to Dave Chaffey (2009), customer selection defining the types of customers that a company will market to. It means identifying different groups of customers for which to develop offerings and to target during acquisition, retention and extension. Different ways of segmenting customers by value and by their detailed lifecycle with the customer are reviewed. Many companies are now only proactively marketing to favoured customers. Seth Godin (1999), says â€Å"Focus on share of customer, not market share fire 70 per cent customers and watch your profits go up!† According to Efraim Turban (2008), the most sophisticated segmentation and targeting schemes for extension of customers are often used by banks, which have full customer information and acquire history data as they search for to boost Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) through encouraging increased use of products overtime. The segmentation approach used by banks is based on five main basics which in result are covered on top of each other. The amount of options used, and therefore the complexity of approach, will depend on resources obtainable, opportunities, capabilities and technology afforded by catalog. i. Identify customer lifecycle groups When guests use online services then they basically pass those seven or more stages. The organisations have clear these segments and establish the CRM infrastructure to categories customers in this manner; then they deliver focused messages, whichever by modified web messaging or by e-mails that are triggered routinely because of various rules. First-time guests recognized by a cookie placed on their PC. When guests registered, they are tracked through the residual stages. The customers who have purchased one or more products are one particular important group. The key challenge is for a company to encourage a customer to shift from the first product to the second and then go on. Explicit offers can be try to push customer for further products. In the same way, when customers turn into an inactive then the customer required follow-up. ii. Identify customer profit characteristics This is a conventional segmentation which is based on the nature of customer. For Business 2 Business Companies it includes sex, age and geography. It includes volume of the organisation and the type of sector or application, the organisation operates in. iii. Identify behaviour in response and purchase As shown in 2.2 through analysis of data base when customer progress through the lifecycle, company is capable to build up a detail reaction and buy history which judges the details of frequency, recency, group of product buy and monetary value. This approach is known as ‘RFM (Recency, Frequency, Monetary value) analysis. iv. Identify multi-channel behaviour In spite of of the eagerness of the company for online channels, various customers are chosen for using online channels and others customers are chosen conventional channels. This is, to an extent, be indicated by RFM and response examination since customers with a preference for an online channel is more reactive and make more use online. Customer who likes online channels is focused mostly by online communications such as e-mail, but when customer like conventional channels is focused by conventional communications such as direct mail or phone. This is known as ‘right-channelling. v. Tone and style preference In a same way to channel liking, customers are respond in their own way to various types of message. Some customers like rational application, in that time a detailed e-mail may work best. On the other hand some customers are preferred an emotional appeal. Companies are test for this in customers or conclude it using profit description and response performance and then expand various inventive treatments consequently. 2. Customer acquisition Processes used to add new customer. According to Turban (2008), customer acquisition refers to marketing activities intended to form relationship with new customers while reducing acquisition cost and targeting high-value customers. Service value and selecting the right path for various customers are essential at this stage and during the lifecycle. The conventional manner to customer acquisition include a marketing manager developing a blend of mass marketing (billboards, magazine advertisements etc.) and direct marketing (mail, telephone, etc.) campaigns based on their knowledge of the particular customer base that was being focussed. Marketing campaign trying to pressure new customers to buy a particular type of diapers, the mass marketing ads might be determined in parenting magazines. The advertisements could also be positioned in more conventional publications whose readership demographics were alike to those of new parents. Customer acquisition is comparatively similar to mass marketing. A marketing manager selects the demographics that they are involved in and after that works with a data vendor to obtain lists of buyers who meet those features. The data vendors have large database holding millions of eventual customers that can be segment based on explicit demographic criteria. The idea of â€Å"similar demographics† has conventionally been an art rather than a science. Usually there are not hard-and-fast systems about whether two groups of buyers share the similar features. Most of the segmentation that took place in conventional direct marketing involves hunches on the division of the marketing professional. 3. Customer retention Dafe Chaffey 2009 said that customer retention refers to the marketing actions taken by a company to keep its current customers. Identifying applicable offerings based on their personal needs and complete position in the customer lifecycle (e.g. purchase value or number) is key. Customer retention strategy aims to keep a high percentage of valuable customers and a customer development strategy aims to boost the value of those retained customer to the organisation. Customer retention is based on customer loyalty. And customer loyalty is the point to which a customer will continue with a specific brand or vendor. Customer acquisition to retain and extend create long-term customer relationship. We need to calculate customer satisfaction, as satisfaction drives loyalty and loyalty drives profitability. This relationship is exposed below; The marketers aim is to push customers up the curve towards the affection zone. But the majority are not in that zone. Marketers must understand to achieve retention,why customers defers or are indifferent. 4. Customer extension This technique is encouraging customers to increase their involvement with a company. According to Turban 2008, customer extension is increasing the range of products that a customer buys from an organisation. Sometime it is referred ‘customer development. Increasing the lifetime value (CLV) of a customer is the main objective of customer extension by encouraging cross-sell. For example a customer of Egg credit card may be offered the loan or a deposit account. There are many of customer extension technique for CRM as follows; Re-sell: same type of products to existing customers-particular vital in some Business 2 Business background as re-buys or modified re-buys. Cross-sell: sell extra products which may be closely related to the original buy. Up-sell: this is mean, selling more expensive products. Reactivation: Customers who have purchased for some time or have lapsed can be encouraged to buy again. Referrals: generating sells from recommendation from existing customers. 2.4 CUSTOMER LIFETIME VALUE MODELLING Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) is also an important theory and practise of CRM. But the calculation of CLV is not straightforward. There are so many company, they do not calculate it. According to Dave Chaffey (2009) â€Å"Lifetime value is the total net benefits that a customer or group of customers will provide a company over their total relationship with the company†. CLV is based on estimating the income and costs related with each customer over a phase of time and then calculating the net present value in present monetary terms using a discount rate value applied over the stage. Efraim Turban (2006) said there is various scale of complexity in calculating LTC. Those are exposed in 2.6. Option 1 is a realistic way or estimated proxy for future LTV, but the true LTV is the future value of the customer at individual level. CLV modelling at a segment level 4 is crucial within marketing since it answers the question; How much can I afford to invest in acquiring a new customer? Lifetime value analysis helps marketers to: Create the true value of a companys customer base Recognize and compare crucial target segment Calculate the effectiveness of another customer retention strategy Plan and calculate investment in customer acquisition programmes Make decisions about product and offers 2.7 gives an example of how LTV can be used to develop a CRM strategy for different customer groups. There are 4 (four) main types of customers are indicated by their present and future value as bronze, silver, gold and platinum. Separate customers groupings (circles) are recognized according to their current value (as indicated by current profitability) and future value as indicated by CLV calculation. Every group will have a customer segmentation based on their demographics. Therefore this is used for customer selection. Within the four main value groupings, there are various strategies are developed for various customer groups. Few bronze customers such as group A and B practically do not have development potential and are usually unprofitable, therefore the objective is to reduce costs in communications and if they do not stay as customers this is acceptable. Some bronze customers like group C may have potential for growth; therefore for group C the strategy is to extend their purchases. Silver customers are focused with customer extension offer and gold customers are extended. Platinum customers are the best customers; therefore the communication is very important with these customers. 2.5 THE TECHNOLOGICAL FACTORS OF CRM According to Davenport and Short, (1990); Porter, (1987) ‘information technology is an enabler to thoroughly redesign business process to achieve improvements in organisational performance. ‘Information Technology help helps a business process by facilitating changes to job practices and establishing new techniques to link a customer with organisations, suppliers and stakeholders (Hammer and Champy, 1993). Eckerson and Watson (2000) advocated that ‘CRM take full advantage of technology to collect and analyze data on customer patters, expand predictive models, interpret customer behaviour, proper respond with communications, and deliver product and service to individual customers. By using technology a company can create a 360 degree view of customers to find out from past interactions to optimize future ones. Peppard (2000) said that ‘the leading factors in CRM development is improvement in network infrastructure, client/server computing, and business intelligence applications. CRM collect, store, maintain and distribute customer knowledge all over the organisation. The effectual management of information has a vital role to play in CRM. In the case of calculating customer lifetime value, consolidated view, product tailoring and service innovation, the information is essential. Along with data warehouses, enterprise resource planning (ERP) system and the internet are the central infrastructures to CRM applications. Fickel (1999) said ‘CRM applications link front office (e.g. marketing, sales and customer service) and back office (e.g. financial, logistics, operations and human resources) functions with the companys customer touch point. A companys touch point is â€Å"all of the communication, human and physical interactions your customers experience during their relationship lifecycle with your organisation. Whether an ad, Web site, sales person, store or office, touch points are important because customers from perceptions of your organisation and brand based on their cumulative experiences† (Source; http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/4508.imc at 16/10/2009 on 15:25) According to Eckerson and Watson (2000), ‘CRM integrated touch points is something like a common view of the customer. A separate information systems controlled these touch points. 2.8 demonstrates the relationship between customer touch point with back and front office operations Peppers and Rogres, (1999) said ‘In many companies, CRM is just a technology solution that extends divide databases and sales force automation tools to link sales and marketing functions in order to develop targeting efforts. On the other hand some organisations consider CRM as a tool that is exclusively designed for one-to-one relationship. According to Goldenberg (2000) ‘CRM is not just a technology applications for sales, marketing and service, but when CRM fully and successfully implemented, customer-driven, a cross-functional, technology-integrated business process management strategy that improves relationships and encompasses the whole organisation. 2.6 DATA WAREHOUSE TECHNOLOGY According to Watson (2000) ‘data warehouse is a tools of information technology management that helps business decision makers to instant access of information of customer data throughout the organisation by combining all database and operational systems like sales and transaction, human resource, inventory, purchasing, financial and marketing system. Data warehouse pull out, clean, convert and manage large volumes of data from various systems and creating a historical record of all customer. Data warehousing technology is the most crucial part of CRM because it makes CRM possible. Shepard et al. (1998) said ‘a better understanding of customer behaviour is possible because data warehousing technology consolidates correlates and convert customer data into customer intelligence. Understanding of customers and their purchase patterns can improve information related to customer service interactions, billing and account status, back orders, product returns, product shipment, and internal operating cost. The capacity of a data warehouse to store hundreds and thousands of gigabytes of data make an analysis feasible as well as immediate. Organisational benefits with a data warehouse are as follows; exact and faster access of information bad and duplicate data eliminate by quality data and filtering customer profiling and retention modelling it calculate total present value and estimate future value of every customer it gives detail report 2.7 DATA MINING TECHNOLOGY Peppers and Rogres, (1999) said that ‘the first analytical step of data mining is to describe the data. Data mining summarize its statistical attributes like standard deviations and means, visually review it by use of charts and graphs and distributes the value of the field in our data. But alone data description can not provide an action plan. We have to build a predictive model based on patterns determined from known results and after that we have to test the model on result outside the original sample. An ideal model should never be confused with reality, but it is useful guide to understanding our businesses. According to Eckerson and Watson (2000) ‘we can use data mining for both classification and regression problems. In first problem we can predict what type something will fall into. In second problems we are predicting a number like probability that a person will respond to an offer. In CRM process, data mining is often used to allocate a score to a particular customer. Data mining is also often using to recognize a set of characteristics, which is called profile. Data mining segments customers in to groups with similar behaviour like purchasing a particular product. 2.8 THE CRM PROCESS CYCLE IN BANKS Pound (2000) said that exploration and alteration process should be done by the banks on basis of customer information captured; this shows the full value of CRM initiatives. Banks set up a closed CRM cycle with the help of an integrated CRM solution, which composed of a set of continuous iterative process. It manages the whole customer related process for bank, analysing customer profile, customer data and life time value, which is helping to making marketing decision and optimizing the execution of marketing campaigns, customer service strategies and sales strategies across various channels during the bank. According to Professor Constantin Zopounidis (2002) CRM process cycle is based on a generic business view. It presents a continuous improvement of value between customers and banks across touch points. The main stages are as follows; Customer data collection Customer data analysis Marketing strategy and action programs Back-office Data External Data Touch-Point Data Pound 2000 said that ‘recent banking data sources are extremely heterogeneous. Geographic information is dispersed due to continual acquisitions, mergers and reorganizations. For example a bank might use web site, ATMs, e-mail, sales, call centres and marketing automation applications that must be integrated in a unified environment of CRM banking. An effective multi-channels customer interface will not be possible without a centrally integrated warehouse driving the entire CRM process cycle. This should be update real time. The historical data should be recorded by it, which is used to create propensity models and customer life time value models to recognize past behaviour and action in order to take future marketing strategy. 2.9 CUSTOMER DATA COLLECTION Kristin Anderson Carol Kerr (2002), said that in banking transaction system data such as (e.g. Checking, Credit, Savings) are frequently organised around accounts, channels, products and other alike transactional concepts. This limits the bank ability on identifying the total relationship and unique customers. An Integrated CRM is a major goal it consolidates these â€Å"information islands† and separate solution, which forms an open cross-bank system from all executives, business area department officers and branch employees, shares the identical customer information. Integrated banking CRM structure can be obtained from this necessary basis of data supply. Operation (contact) sources: Chou, Chou 2000, said the customer communication touch-point (ATM, Branch, Call-Centre, Internet-Banking, Mobile banking, personal contact, etc.) Internal sources: Professor Constantion Zopounidis (2000) said internal sources that are the available information island, data bases and product oriented systems from other banks such as (Cards, Deposits, Investments, and loans etc.), Marketing campaign response, meta-data analysis and reliable data mining results. External Sources: Professor Constanin Zopounidis 2002, said marketing researches that of external sources, infomediaries etc. Providing geo-demographic, psycho-graphic data and lifestyle, these can help to improve customer images 2.11 CUSTOMER DATA ANALYSIS Heygate (1998), said Simple and sophisticated data analysis techniques are required for deriving the valuable customer insight from the data collected in a central customer warehouse. More advance data analytics includes OLAP (Online Analytical Processing) mining techniques and tools, these extracts applicable patterns or trends in the data. According to Lawer (2000), key incorporated customer management insights provided by customer data analysis are customer segmentation/differentiation, concentration and distribution of customers value; share of purchases/profits, analysis of strategies that widen/lengthen/deepen customer relationship. Hawkes 2000, advocated customer data analysis enables the recognition of customers profit and customers preferences for definite bank product and services, indicates the most suitable channels to reach the customers, and assesses the profitability and life time value of every personality. Additionally, Delto 1998 said that the future manners of the consumers can be predicted by analysing their past behaviour. Customer statistics, profit and segmentation are the main amount produced of the analysis stage feeding the marketing strategy planning and completing process. Having easily accessible information to marketing makes the difference between a winning campaign and a failure. 2.12 MARKETING STRATEGY AND PROGRAMES Kristin Anderson and Carol Kerr 2002 advocated captured results and data of customer analysis support marketers to route marketing messages, processes and strategies. True values of data of Lloyd TSB are discovered by tools and process for marketing decision making, marketing decision making and CRM initiatives and campaign are deployed from converted information to customer knowledge. Goal of marketing automation within CRM are which personalise and optimizes each customer contact from planning, execution, monitoring marketing strategies and action programmes. Bryan Foss 2003 said it is critical for bank CRM not only to extract their data source to uncover patterns and insight but also to operationalise the system through the bank performance to turn the customer knowledge into importance creating achievement. Merlin Stone 2003 advocated the grades from advertising and CRM activities and strategies continue the process knowledge acquisition enhancing the on-going assessment of marketing data intelligence, closing the feed-back loop. Hence, the final element of CRM process cycle is the valuation of the results of campaign driven by marketing data intelligence. It is crucial to measure performance and feed result back into the centre customer data warehouse, in order to convey Customer Relationship Management of Lloyds Banking Customer Relationship Management of Lloyds Banking 1.0 INTRODUCTION This chapter provides the brief introduction of research. Furthermore, it also discusses the aims, objectives of the research questions and scope of the study. 1.1 TOPIC OF THE RESEARCH Customer Relationship Management of Lloyds Banking Group PLC; A Critical Evaluation 1.2 INTRODUCTION TO RESEARCH Peter Drucker said, â€Å"The purpose of a business is to create customers†. Customer Relationship Management can be the single strongest weapon we have as manage to ensure that customers become and remain loyal. Customer Relationship Management, or CRM, is an essential part of modern business management. CRM concerns the relation between the organisation and its customers. Customers are the lifeblood of any company be it a global corporation with thousands of employees and a multi-billion turnover, or a sole trader with a handful of regular customers. CRM is the same in principle for both examples. Globalization and technology improvements have pushed companies into hard competition. In this new era organisations are targeting on managing customer relationships, mainly customer satisfaction, in order to maximize revenues (Constantinos 2003). Today, marketing is not just developing, delivering and selling; it is shifting towards developing and maintaining equally long term relationships with customers (Buttle, 1996). This new business values is called relationship marketing (RM), which has involved significant interest both from marketing academics and practitioners (Gronroos, 1994). The Greek philosopher, Epictetus said that â€Å"what concern me is not the way things are, but rather the way people think things are† (Szwarch, 2005, p.3). The concepts of consumer satisfaction were depending on the thinking of consumer. Research suggests that customer satisfaction, basic concept of relationship marketing, is important in achieving and retaining competitive advantage. Research studies have discovered that retaining current customers is much less expensive than attracting new customers (Desatnick, 1988; Stone et al., 1996; Bitran and Mondschein, 1997; Chattopadhyay, 2001; Massey et al., 2001). The best way to retain customers is to keep them satisfied, a number of studies have shown that customer satisfaction can guide to brand loyalty, repurchases intention and repeat sales (Day, 1984; Swan and Oliver, 1989; Oliver, 1999). Customer retention, in turn, seems to be related to profitability (Oliver, 1999). Relationship marketing is becoming significant in financial services (Zineldin, 1995). If a bank develops and sustains a solid relationship with its customers, its competitors cannot easily replace them and so this relationship provides for a continued competitive advantage (Gilbert, 2003). Moriarty et al. (1983) has suggested relationship concept in the banking sector which states that banks can increase their profits by maximising the profitability of the total customer relationship over time, instead of looking for to get more profit from any single transaction. Perrien et al. (1992) observed severe competitive pressures that forces financial institution to restructure their marketing strategies by developing into long-term relationship with customers. And banking industry purely related to financial services, which needs to create the trust among the people. This research is exploratory in nature and design. The data which is collected is going to be mostly primary data collected from the relevant persons within the bank. The data has gathered from the face to face interviews with the help of structured and semi-structured questionnaire with those persons. The above describe interviews has last 40 (fourty) to 45 (fourty five) minutes (approx). On the other hand the researcher has decided to collect primary data from random interviews of Lloyds Banking Groups customers. Sample size is around 200 customers and of structured questionnaire. But of course this research paper has relied on reviewing the various secondary data available from various researches such as books, magazines, website, previous research and publication etc. The collected data has been analysed by graphs, table and pi chart drawn from Microsoft excel. 1.3 AIM OF THE RESEARCH The aim of the research is to study why CRM is important in bank, how the CRM works in banks and also the effectiveness of Lloyds Banking Group in obtaining long term customer relationship, customer loyalty, and customer satisfaction by the use of CRM. And also suggest feasible recommendations to Lloyds Banking Group to increase the customer satisfaction and market share by the effective use of CRM. 1.4 OBJECTIVES OF THE RESEARCH The followings are the objectives of this research; To study how critically practised in Lloyds Banking Group Analysis the data mining process of Lloyds Banking Group To find out how the bank segments their customers To analysis how the bank retaining their customers To find out how does the bank measure customer Life Time Value To verify the relationship between the customers and the Lloyds Banking Group 1.5 SCOPE OF THE STUDY The scope of the study and research work has limited to Lloyds Banking Group only. This chosen level of aspects has stayed at large in the study so that it can be studied well and analyzed thoroughly to get a deeper understanding. Trying to cover too much ground may lead to a very superficial and confused analysis and may involve long time duration to complete the project work or report. Therefore a specified and narrow down approach with Lloyds Banking Group and an evaluation of its success has comprised with the researc 2.0 LITERATURE REVIEW This chapter contains a review of literature relevant to the research. This literature review deals with, about CRM, the history and goals of an integrated banking CRM, the technological factor of CRM, the process cycle in banks, data warehouse technology, data mining process, how to analysis the data, customer segmentation process, communication strategies of bank to the customers etc. 2.1 CUSTOMER RELATIONSIP MANAGEMENT Existing research states that ‘relationships are the base to the successful development and edition of new business viewpoint, though business have taken care of relationships with their customers for many centuries (Gronroos, 1994). Sheth and Parvathiyar, (1995) said that relationships demand much more than mere transactions. Rather, they symbolize strategic and tactical issues based on a new philosophical move that geared in the direction of long-term organisation survival. According to Storbacka, (1994) relationship marketing got popular in 1990s but it has a long history under different names. In its starting, one-to-one marketing appeared in the mid 1990s, which transformed into Customer Relationship Management. Parvatiyar and Sheth gave a static definition of CRM. â€Å"Customer Relationship Management is a comprehensive strategy and process of acquiring, retaining and partnering with selective customers to create superior value for the company and the customer† (Parvatiyar and Sheth 2000, p.6) â€Å"What criteria determine who â€Å"How can we acquire this customer will be our most profitable in the most efficient and effective customers?† way?† â€Å"How can we increase the â€Å"How can we keep this customer loyalty and the profitability for as long as possible?† Of this customer?† 2.2 THE HISTORY AND GOALS OF AN INTEGRATED BANKING CRM According to Puccinelli (1999) the financial services industry as entering a new era where personal attention is decreasing because the institutions are using technology to replace human contact in many application areas. Sherif, 2002 advocated that, now global changes brought new trends, directions and new ways of doing business, which also brought new challenges and opportunities to financial institutions. In order to complete with newly increasing competitive pressures, financial institutions must recognize the need of balancing their performance by achieving their strategic goals and meeting continues volatile customer needs requirements. Different ways must be analyzed to meet customer needs. Foss said that banks are highly focusing on CRM for the last five years that is expected to continue. According to Peter (1998) and Chablo (1999) the main goals of an effective integrated CRM solution in the banking sector are to enable financial institutes to; a) Widen customer relationship through acquiring new customers, identifying and targeting new segments and expanding in new markets. b) Lengthen the existing relationship developing longer term relationships, increasing perceived value of products and introducing new products and c) Deepen the relationship with customers initiating the cross selling and up selling opportunities, understanding the propensity of different customer segments to purchase and increase sales. The implementation if CRM system in a bank helps the business organisation to obtain a complete picture of their existing customers, design both customer-oriented and market-driven financial products and services, as well as implement extensive and reliable financial marketing research and efficient campaigns, to achieve and enhance customer loyalty and profitability. The above goals can be achieved through the seamless integration of information technology solutions and business objectives at every process of the bank business that affects the customer. 2.3 THE PHASES OF CRM The main phases of CRM are as follows; 1. Customer selection or Segmentation According to Dave Chaffey (2009), customer selection defining the types of customers that a company will market to. It means identifying different groups of customers for which to develop offerings and to target during acquisition, retention and extension. Different ways of segmenting customers by value and by their detailed lifecycle with the customer are reviewed. Many companies are now only proactively marketing to favoured customers. Seth Godin (1999), says â€Å"Focus on share of customer, not market share fire 70 per cent customers and watch your profits go up!† According to Efraim Turban (2008), the most sophisticated segmentation and targeting schemes for extension of customers are often used by banks, which have full customer information and acquire history data as they search for to boost Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) through encouraging increased use of products overtime. The segmentation approach used by banks is based on five main basics which in result are covered on top of each other. The amount of options used, and therefore the complexity of approach, will depend on resources obtainable, opportunities, capabilities and technology afforded by catalog. i. Identify customer lifecycle groups When guests use online services then they basically pass those seven or more stages. The organisations have clear these segments and establish the CRM infrastructure to categories customers in this manner; then they deliver focused messages, whichever by modified web messaging or by e-mails that are triggered routinely because of various rules. First-time guests recognized by a cookie placed on their PC. When guests registered, they are tracked through the residual stages. The customers who have purchased one or more products are one particular important group. The key challenge is for a company to encourage a customer to shift from the first product to the second and then go on. Explicit offers can be try to push customer for further products. In the same way, when customers turn into an inactive then the customer required follow-up. ii. Identify customer profit characteristics This is a conventional segmentation which is based on the nature of customer. For Business 2 Business Companies it includes sex, age and geography. It includes volume of the organisation and the type of sector or application, the organisation operates in. iii. Identify behaviour in response and purchase As shown in 2.2 through analysis of data base when customer progress through the lifecycle, company is capable to build up a detail reaction and buy history which judges the details of frequency, recency, group of product buy and monetary value. This approach is known as ‘RFM (Recency, Frequency, Monetary value) analysis. iv. Identify multi-channel behaviour In spite of of the eagerness of the company for online channels, various customers are chosen for using online channels and others customers are chosen conventional channels. This is, to an extent, be indicated by RFM and response examination since customers with a preference for an online channel is more reactive and make more use online. Customer who likes online channels is focused mostly by online communications such as e-mail, but when customer like conventional channels is focused by conventional communications such as direct mail or phone. This is known as ‘right-channelling. v. Tone and style preference In a same way to channel liking, customers are respond in their own way to various types of message. Some customers like rational application, in that time a detailed e-mail may work best. On the other hand some customers are preferred an emotional appeal. Companies are test for this in customers or conclude it using profit description and response performance and then expand various inventive treatments consequently. 2. Customer acquisition Processes used to add new customer. According to Turban (2008), customer acquisition refers to marketing activities intended to form relationship with new customers while reducing acquisition cost and targeting high-value customers. Service value and selecting the right path for various customers are essential at this stage and during the lifecycle. The conventional manner to customer acquisition include a marketing manager developing a blend of mass marketing (billboards, magazine advertisements etc.) and direct marketing (mail, telephone, etc.) campaigns based on their knowledge of the particular customer base that was being focussed. Marketing campaign trying to pressure new customers to buy a particular type of diapers, the mass marketing ads might be determined in parenting magazines. The advertisements could also be positioned in more conventional publications whose readership demographics were alike to those of new parents. Customer acquisition is comparatively similar to mass marketing. A marketing manager selects the demographics that they are involved in and after that works with a data vendor to obtain lists of buyers who meet those features. The data vendors have large database holding millions of eventual customers that can be segment based on explicit demographic criteria. The idea of â€Å"similar demographics† has conventionally been an art rather than a science. Usually there are not hard-and-fast systems about whether two groups of buyers share the similar features. Most of the segmentation that took place in conventional direct marketing involves hunches on the division of the marketing professional. 3. Customer retention Dafe Chaffey 2009 said that customer retention refers to the marketing actions taken by a company to keep its current customers. Identifying applicable offerings based on their personal needs and complete position in the customer lifecycle (e.g. purchase value or number) is key. Customer retention strategy aims to keep a high percentage of valuable customers and a customer development strategy aims to boost the value of those retained customer to the organisation. Customer retention is based on customer loyalty. And customer loyalty is the point to which a customer will continue with a specific brand or vendor. Customer acquisition to retain and extend create long-term customer relationship. We need to calculate customer satisfaction, as satisfaction drives loyalty and loyalty drives profitability. This relationship is exposed below; The marketers aim is to push customers up the curve towards the affection zone. But the majority are not in that zone. Marketers must understand to achieve retention,why customers defers or are indifferent. 4. Customer extension This technique is encouraging customers to increase their involvement with a company. According to Turban 2008, customer extension is increasing the range of products that a customer buys from an organisation. Sometime it is referred ‘customer development. Increasing the lifetime value (CLV) of a customer is the main objective of customer extension by encouraging cross-sell. For example a customer of Egg credit card may be offered the loan or a deposit account. There are many of customer extension technique for CRM as follows; Re-sell: same type of products to existing customers-particular vital in some Business 2 Business background as re-buys or modified re-buys. Cross-sell: sell extra products which may be closely related to the original buy. Up-sell: this is mean, selling more expensive products. Reactivation: Customers who have purchased for some time or have lapsed can be encouraged to buy again. Referrals: generating sells from recommendation from existing customers. 2.4 CUSTOMER LIFETIME VALUE MODELLING Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) is also an important theory and practise of CRM. But the calculation of CLV is not straightforward. There are so many company, they do not calculate it. According to Dave Chaffey (2009) â€Å"Lifetime value is the total net benefits that a customer or group of customers will provide a company over their total relationship with the company†. CLV is based on estimating the income and costs related with each customer over a phase of time and then calculating the net present value in present monetary terms using a discount rate value applied over the stage. Efraim Turban (2006) said there is various scale of complexity in calculating LTC. Those are exposed in 2.6. Option 1 is a realistic way or estimated proxy for future LTV, but the true LTV is the future value of the customer at individual level. CLV modelling at a segment level 4 is crucial within marketing since it answers the question; How much can I afford to invest in acquiring a new customer? Lifetime value analysis helps marketers to: Create the true value of a companys customer base Recognize and compare crucial target segment Calculate the effectiveness of another customer retention strategy Plan and calculate investment in customer acquisition programmes Make decisions about product and offers 2.7 gives an example of how LTV can be used to develop a CRM strategy for different customer groups. There are 4 (four) main types of customers are indicated by their present and future value as bronze, silver, gold and platinum. Separate customers groupings (circles) are recognized according to their current value (as indicated by current profitability) and future value as indicated by CLV calculation. Every group will have a customer segmentation based on their demographics. Therefore this is used for customer selection. Within the four main value groupings, there are various strategies are developed for various customer groups. Few bronze customers such as group A and B practically do not have development potential and are usually unprofitable, therefore the objective is to reduce costs in communications and if they do not stay as customers this is acceptable. Some bronze customers like group C may have potential for growth; therefore for group C the strategy is to extend their purchases. Silver customers are focused with customer extension offer and gold customers are extended. Platinum customers are the best customers; therefore the communication is very important with these customers. 2.5 THE TECHNOLOGICAL FACTORS OF CRM According to Davenport and Short, (1990); Porter, (1987) ‘information technology is an enabler to thoroughly redesign business process to achieve improvements in organisational performance. ‘Information Technology help helps a business process by facilitating changes to job practices and establishing new techniques to link a customer with organisations, suppliers and stakeholders (Hammer and Champy, 1993). Eckerson and Watson (2000) advocated that ‘CRM take full advantage of technology to collect and analyze data on customer patters, expand predictive models, interpret customer behaviour, proper respond with communications, and deliver product and service to individual customers. By using technology a company can create a 360 degree view of customers to find out from past interactions to optimize future ones. Peppard (2000) said that ‘the leading factors in CRM development is improvement in network infrastructure, client/server computing, and business intelligence applications. CRM collect, store, maintain and distribute customer knowledge all over the organisation. The effectual management of information has a vital role to play in CRM. In the case of calculating customer lifetime value, consolidated view, product tailoring and service innovation, the information is essential. Along with data warehouses, enterprise resource planning (ERP) system and the internet are the central infrastructures to CRM applications. Fickel (1999) said ‘CRM applications link front office (e.g. marketing, sales and customer service) and back office (e.g. financial, logistics, operations and human resources) functions with the companys customer touch point. A companys touch point is â€Å"all of the communication, human and physical interactions your customers experience during their relationship lifecycle with your organisation. Whether an ad, Web site, sales person, store or office, touch points are important because customers from perceptions of your organisation and brand based on their cumulative experiences† (Source; http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/4508.imc at 16/10/2009 on 15:25) According to Eckerson and Watson (2000), ‘CRM integrated touch points is something like a common view of the customer. A separate information systems controlled these touch points. 2.8 demonstrates the relationship between customer touch point with back and front office operations Peppers and Rogres, (1999) said ‘In many companies, CRM is just a technology solution that extends divide databases and sales force automation tools to link sales and marketing functions in order to develop targeting efforts. On the other hand some organisations consider CRM as a tool that is exclusively designed for one-to-one relationship. According to Goldenberg (2000) ‘CRM is not just a technology applications for sales, marketing and service, but when CRM fully and successfully implemented, customer-driven, a cross-functional, technology-integrated business process management strategy that improves relationships and encompasses the whole organisation. 2.6 DATA WAREHOUSE TECHNOLOGY According to Watson (2000) ‘data warehouse is a tools of information technology management that helps business decision makers to instant access of information of customer data throughout the organisation by combining all database and operational systems like sales and transaction, human resource, inventory, purchasing, financial and marketing system. Data warehouse pull out, clean, convert and manage large volumes of data from various systems and creating a historical record of all customer. Data warehousing technology is the most crucial part of CRM because it makes CRM possible. Shepard et al. (1998) said ‘a better understanding of customer behaviour is possible because data warehousing technology consolidates correlates and convert customer data into customer intelligence. Understanding of customers and their purchase patterns can improve information related to customer service interactions, billing and account status, back orders, product returns, product shipment, and internal operating cost. The capacity of a data warehouse to store hundreds and thousands of gigabytes of data make an analysis feasible as well as immediate. Organisational benefits with a data warehouse are as follows; exact and faster access of information bad and duplicate data eliminate by quality data and filtering customer profiling and retention modelling it calculate total present value and estimate future value of every customer it gives detail report 2.7 DATA MINING TECHNOLOGY Peppers and Rogres, (1999) said that ‘the first analytical step of data mining is to describe the data. Data mining summarize its statistical attributes like standard deviations and means, visually review it by use of charts and graphs and distributes the value of the field in our data. But alone data description can not provide an action plan. We have to build a predictive model based on patterns determined from known results and after that we have to test the model on result outside the original sample. An ideal model should never be confused with reality, but it is useful guide to understanding our businesses. According to Eckerson and Watson (2000) ‘we can use data mining for both classification and regression problems. In first problem we can predict what type something will fall into. In second problems we are predicting a number like probability that a person will respond to an offer. In CRM process, data mining is often used to allocate a score to a particular customer. Data mining is also often using to recognize a set of characteristics, which is called profile. Data mining segments customers in to groups with similar behaviour like purchasing a particular product. 2.8 THE CRM PROCESS CYCLE IN BANKS Pound (2000) said that exploration and alteration process should be done by the banks on basis of customer information captured; this shows the full value of CRM initiatives. Banks set up a closed CRM cycle with the help of an integrated CRM solution, which composed of a set of continuous iterative process. It manages the whole customer related process for bank, analysing customer profile, customer data and life time value, which is helping to making marketing decision and optimizing the execution of marketing campaigns, customer service strategies and sales strategies across various channels during the bank. According to Professor Constantin Zopounidis (2002) CRM process cycle is based on a generic business view. It presents a continuous improvement of value between customers and banks across touch points. The main stages are as follows; Customer data collection Customer data analysis Marketing strategy and action programs Back-office Data External Data Touch-Point Data Pound 2000 said that ‘recent banking data sources are extremely heterogeneous. Geographic information is dispersed due to continual acquisitions, mergers and reorganizations. For example a bank might use web site, ATMs, e-mail, sales, call centres and marketing automation applications that must be integrated in a unified environment of CRM banking. An effective multi-channels customer interface will not be possible without a centrally integrated warehouse driving the entire CRM process cycle. This should be update real time. The historical data should be recorded by it, which is used to create propensity models and customer life time value models to recognize past behaviour and action in order to take future marketing strategy. 2.9 CUSTOMER DATA COLLECTION Kristin Anderson Carol Kerr (2002), said that in banking transaction system data such as (e.g. Checking, Credit, Savings) are frequently organised around accounts, channels, products and other alike transactional concepts. This limits the bank ability on identifying the total relationship and unique customers. An Integrated CRM is a major goal it consolidates these â€Å"information islands† and separate solution, which forms an open cross-bank system from all executives, business area department officers and branch employees, shares the identical customer information. Integrated banking CRM structure can be obtained from this necessary basis of data supply. Operation (contact) sources: Chou, Chou 2000, said the customer communication touch-point (ATM, Branch, Call-Centre, Internet-Banking, Mobile banking, personal contact, etc.) Internal sources: Professor Constantion Zopounidis (2000) said internal sources that are the available information island, data bases and product oriented systems from other banks such as (Cards, Deposits, Investments, and loans etc.), Marketing campaign response, meta-data analysis and reliable data mining results. External Sources: Professor Constanin Zopounidis 2002, said marketing researches that of external sources, infomediaries etc. Providing geo-demographic, psycho-graphic data and lifestyle, these can help to improve customer images 2.11 CUSTOMER DATA ANALYSIS Heygate (1998), said Simple and sophisticated data analysis techniques are required for deriving the valuable customer insight from the data collected in a central customer warehouse. More advance data analytics includes OLAP (Online Analytical Processing) mining techniques and tools, these extracts applicable patterns or trends in the data. According to Lawer (2000), key incorporated customer management insights provided by customer data analysis are customer segmentation/differentiation, concentration and distribution of customers value; share of purchases/profits, analysis of strategies that widen/lengthen/deepen customer relationship. Hawkes 2000, advocated customer data analysis enables the recognition of customers profit and customers preferences for definite bank product and services, indicates the most suitable channels to reach the customers, and assesses the profitability and life time value of every personality. Additionally, Delto 1998 said that the future manners of the consumers can be predicted by analysing their past behaviour. Customer statistics, profit and segmentation are the main amount produced of the analysis stage feeding the marketing strategy planning and completing process. Having easily accessible information to marketing makes the difference between a winning campaign and a failure. 2.12 MARKETING STRATEGY AND PROGRAMES Kristin Anderson and Carol Kerr 2002 advocated captured results and data of customer analysis support marketers to route marketing messages, processes and strategies. True values of data of Lloyd TSB are discovered by tools and process for marketing decision making, marketing decision making and CRM initiatives and campaign are deployed from converted information to customer knowledge. Goal of marketing automation within CRM are which personalise and optimizes each customer contact from planning, execution, monitoring marketing strategies and action programmes. Bryan Foss 2003 said it is critical for bank CRM not only to extract their data source to uncover patterns and insight but also to operationalise the system through the bank performance to turn the customer knowledge into importance creating achievement. Merlin Stone 2003 advocated the grades from advertising and CRM activities and strategies continue the process knowledge acquisition enhancing the on-going assessment of marketing data intelligence, closing the feed-back loop. Hence, the final element of CRM process cycle is the valuation of the results of campaign driven by marketing data intelligence. It is crucial to measure performance and feed result back into the centre customer data warehouse, in order to convey