Sampling and Data Collection Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Sampling and Data Collection - Assignment Example A research problem where probability sampling is appropriate is in a study of effects of brand modification on a product’s popularity. The research problem targets a diversified population by such factors as age, income, levels of education, and area of residence. Significance of sub-populations, within the factors, may further vary and a representative sample that also factors relative significance of the sub-populations requires a stratified random sampling approach. The population is in the case divided into the subgroups and each group allocated a probability of sampling a participant. Random sampling is a method of obtaining a sample, based on unrestricted probability sampling approach, while random selection is an approach to allocating sampled research participants to different groups in a study (Black, 1999; Christensen, Johnson, and Turner, 2011). Random assignment is important in experimental research situations in which participants are to be assigned to treatment and control

Analysis of selfridges and john lewis Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Analysis of selfridges and john lewis - Essay Example es of this particular brief analysis, the author will instead focus upon the issue of logistics with reference to two distinct and historically dynamic British retailers; Selfridges and John Lewis accordingly, the analysis will focus upon the way in which logistics for these two firms have shifted and changed over the years; allowing them to continue to be a dynamic and powerful force within the retail market as well as to remain relevant with the consumer. Ultimately, this continued business acumen that both of these stores have been able to elicit within the consumer market has propagated a level of consumer loyalty and expectation that the logistical strength of these two firms rivals or exceeds any of their closest competition. Therefore, the focus of this analysis will not only be based upon seeking to define the logistical challenges and tactics that have morphed over the years, as represented by Selfridges and John Lewis, it will also be concentric upon discussing the way in w hich strong logistical choices and growth based upon logistical challenges is an effective tool for listening consumer loyalty and generating further levels of profitability and success. Analyzing both Selfridges and John Lewis as retailers reveals the fact that similar evolutions in logistics have been evidenced over the recent past. Most recently, a shift has been evidenced with respect to the global supply chain and the means by which globalization has impacted both of these firms. Prior to an era of globalization, the majority of the goods and/or products that were available at either of these retail locations were domestically produced (Jiao, & Liu, 2014). Moreover, the majority of these domestically produced goods were oftentimes shift from a relatively close distance to the store in question. Although it is true that international trade existed for hundreds of years prior to either of these stores establishing themselves on London’s high Street, the approach to which these

Financial Statements analysis on the basis of total comprehensive i

Financial Statements analysis on the basis of total comprehensive i As the main objective of the financial statements to reflect the economic value of a company in order external users make useful economic decision, and due to the last shocking breakthroughs in the financial system, IASB recently has worked on developing high quality set of accounting standers; International financial reporting standards (IFRS). IFRS transition has break out in 90 countries, though other countries are following. Concerning the European Union, The EU has required IFRS for the groups listed on European stock market (EU Regulation 1606/2002).The new set of standers as any new standers being introduced- has some effects on the financial reporting issues. This study is a literature review of prior studies focusing on the effect of the comprehensive income introduced by IFRS on the financial analysis, specifically one financial technique; ratio analysis. This study is presenting prior studies starting with a literature review in chapter one which is an overview of the com prehensives income discussing the definition of the comprehensive income then examines the pros and cons of the comprehensive income. Chapter two is a literature review where of the financial analysis definition and financial analysis techniques, focusing on ratio analysis technique as the most common technique being used, and as it used part of this study. Chapter three is including the main hypothesis and the core issue of the research of the effect of the comprehensive income on the financial ratios. While Chapter four is a practical example examining the hypothesis mentioned in the previous chapter. Time was one of the major limitations of this study, lack of sufficient data was a second, many studies have examined the effect of IFRS adoption, but few has gone beyond and studied its effects on key financial ratios, where none has clearly stated the direct impact of the comprehensive income on the key financial ratios. This study is an attempt to study this effect. Chapter 1: comprehensive income statement overview 1.1. Definition and Presentation of comprehensive income statement Many studies has declared that Income statement thought to be the most important statements in the financial statements. For inventors; the past income is the most important base for the future predictions and expectation for the cash flows, and so for expecting the share price and dividends. While creditors view the income statement as the borrowers ability to generate future cash flows to fulfill their financial obligations. Yet the comprehensive income statement drove its importance from the income statement importance. Comprehensive income is not a new concept; it was first introduced by FASB in 1985 in its Framework as the change in equity of a business enterprise during a period from transactions and other events and circumstances from nonowner sources. Later it was introduced in the Statement of Financial Accounting Standards (SFAS) No. 130, Reporting Comprehensive Income, issued by FASB in 1997, as: the change in equity [net assets] of a business enterprise during a period from transactions and other events and circumstances from nonowner sources. It includes all changes in equity during a period except those resulting from investments by owners and distributions to owners. Comprehensive income statement includes the traditional net income plus all revenues, expenses, gains and losses recognized during the period, refereed as other comprehensive income, where other comprehensive income shall be classified separately into foreign currency items, minimum pension liability adjustments, and unrealized gains and losses on certain investments in debt and equity securities. Additional classifications or additional items within current classifications may result from future accounting standards. ((SFAS) No. 130,Para 17,1997). Under IFRS comprehensive income definition has not been changed, but IFRS has modified the rules of income presentation; due to the former rules regarding the classification of other comprehensive income, where these rules has been criticized as some of other comprehensive income items have been recorded in the equity section, while others in the profit and loss statement and others were not recognized at all. A second major reason was the importance recognizing the realized and unrealized gains and losses that might continue into the future as the excepted cash flows in the futures as they are the main drive for share price. IFRS approach of income presentation a mixture of previous income reporting and fair value concept and is being applied on unrealized gains and losses meeting certain criteria. Regards the presentation of the comprehensive income statement under IAS 1, profit or loss are recognized plus other comprehensive income items, where the income statement has changed from net profit and loss to profit and loss. Entities are allowed to use the most suitable name to describe the totals as long as it give the right meaning, though IAS uses different terms, like total comprehensive income, or profit or loss. Regarding the presentation of comprehensive income, entities are allowed to choose between the presentation of a single statement, or tow statements where an income statement is including all items of profit and loss, and the second statement shows other comprehensive income items (IAS 1.81). Under IAS 1, all income and expenses should be recognized in the profit and loss, unless there is an exception (AS 1.88), under (IAS 1.89) some of items need to be recognized under other comprehensive income. IAS has as well identified the items of other comprehensive income, as the following: Changes in revaluation surplus (IAS 16 property, plant and equipment and IAS 38 intangible assets ) Actuarial gains and losses on defined benefit plans recognized in accordance with (IAS 19 employees benefit ) Gains and losses arising from translating the financial statements of a foreign operation (IAS 21 The Effects of Changes in Foreign Exchange Rates) Gains and losses on re-measuring available-for-sale financial assets (IAS 39 Financial Instruments: Recognition and Measurement) The effective portion of gains and losses on hedging instruments in a cash flow hedge (IAS 39 Financial Instruments: Recognition and Measurement). Under (IAS 1.82), the minimum items should be included in the comprehensive income are: Revenues Finance costs Share of the profit or loss of associates and joint ventures accounted for using the equity method Tax expense Amounts from the discontinued operation include : the post-tax profit or loss and the post-tax gain or loss recognized on the disposal of the assets or disposal group(s) Profit or loss Each component of other comprehensive income classified by nature Share of the other comprehensive income of associates and joint ventures accounted for using the equity method Total comprehensive income Under (IAS 1.83) these items must also be disclosed in the statement of comprehensive income as allocations for the period: Profit or loss for the period attributable to non-controlling interests and owners of the parent Total comprehensive income attributable to non-controlling interests and owners of the parent Under (IAS 1.85) additional line items may be needed to fairly present the entitys results of operations. Under (IAS 1.87) No items may be presented in the statement of comprehensive income (or in the income statement, if separately presented) or in the notes as extraordinary items. Under (IAS 1.95) certain items must be disclosed separately either in the statement of comprehensive income or in the notes, if material, including: Write-downs of inventories to net realizable value or of property, plant and equipment to recoverable amount, as well as reversals of such write-downs Restructurings of the activities of an entity and reversals of any provisions for the costs of restructuring Disposals of items of property, plant and equipment Disposals of investments Discontinuing operations Litigation settlements Other reversals of provisions Under (IAS 1.99) expenses should be recognized either by nature or by function if an entity categorizes by function, and then additional information on the nature of expenses must be disclosed (IAS 1.104). Pros and cons of Comprehensive income : According to prior studies, Investors has the ability to process financial information regardless its location, giving this, the location of the comprehensive income will not affect the quality of information interrupted by investors. On the contrary, policy makers believe it matters, as they think the performance statement presentation is more transparent presentation as comprehensive income serves as better measurement for firm performance, where it includes all changes in net assets. The immediate recognition and direct reporting of comprehensive income items would transparently present all income flows in one statement in a timely manner, though it can be costly to some companies in certain industries (e.g. insurance industry) as they might try to hide their earning management. Another argued advantage, is comprehensive income shows value creation process and forces managers to consider external factors that affect firm value, not just internal operating ones. On the other hand, as comprehensive income contains a number of passing items possible as future events, this might cause noise and uncertainty and affect decision making process because users may take significant time to sort out temporary or irrelevant components. Following this point, proposing that comprehensive income includes irrelevant components can reduce the ability to uncover long-run performance. Chapter 2: Financial analysis overview 2.1. Definition of financial analysis and methods Though IFRS was discussed to be the one is giving more comprehensive information, it dose not include all the financial information needed to reach an excellent financial analysis. Financial statements are the source of information that present the economic value of a company to the external users. Several articles and books has defined the Financial analysis as to combine financial statement, financial notes, with other information, to evaluated the past, current, and future performance and financial position of company for the purpose of making investment, credit, and other economics decision. Financial Analysis is concerned with risk factors that might affect the future performance of a certain company. Financial analysis is concerned with different aspects of the company, in general financial analysis deals with profitability (ability to generate profit from delivering good and services), cash- flow generating ability (ability to generate cash inflows exceed cash outflows), liquidity (the ability to meet short term obligation), and solvency (the ability to meet long term obligation). In order to conduct a full, comprehensive analysis, analyst must collect information concerning economy, industry, competitors, company itself. This external information can be found as economics statistics, industry reports, and trade publication. The company provides the internal part of the information which includes the financial statements, and press releases. Financial analysis is not only about financial data which is the core of the financial analysis and provided in the four major financial statements, that provide the historical and current information; is it about the non-financial data which provide the future information. Regarding the financial data, can be founded in the four major statements: income statement, balance sheet, statement of cash flow, statement of changes in owners equity. The income statement shows how much revenue the company generating during certain period and what its cost incurred. Income statement can be referred as profit and loss and its prepared on consolidated basis. Revenues, operating income, net income, and earning per share can be driven from the income statement. The balance sheet or as recently knows as the statement of financial position, shows the current financial position of the company by showing company resource (Assets), and what it owes (liability) at a specific point in time.While the (owners equity) shows the excess of assets over the liabilities, analysts could use the information stated in the statement of financial position to answer question regarding improvements concerning liquidity, and solvency, and give the statues of the company compared to its peers in the same industry. The cash flow statement classifies the cash flows into of three sections: operating activities which include items determines net income as well as day to day transactions. While investing activities includes the acquisition and disposals of long term assets. The last section is financing activities which contain activities related to obtaining or repaying capital. Cash flow statement provides information related to performance and financial position. While income statement provides the necessary information regarding the company ability to generate profit, cash flow statement provides information regarding the ability of the company to generate cash flow from running the business itself. Statement of changes in owners equity knows as statement of shareholders equity, reports the changes in the owners investments in the business, and it helps analysts in understanding the changes in the financial position. Beside the four major statements, financial notes and supplementary schedules, managements discussion and analysis, and auditors reports, provide a quite good set of extra information for further analysis. Financial analysis should be well defined as it could be preformed for different reasons and purposes. Different categories require different financial techniques, but for any purpose data must be gathered and analyzed, and all examining the company ability of generating cash and grow earnings. But as for different focuses, different techniques are used. For example, the most tow common categories are the equity analysis and the credit analysis. Equity analysis is usually preformed by the owner, and focuses on growth while the credit analysis is preformed by the creditors (banker or bond holder) and concentrates on risks associated. Defining the purpose of the financial analysis is the most important and first step in effective financial analysis as it defines the necessary financial techniques that should be used, and thus defines the type and amount of data to be collected. After defining the purpose of the financial analysis, a suitable technique should be chosen to deliver the purpose of the focus. To reach the best results, a mixture of calculations and interruptions is required. For example, it is not enough just to calculate the financial ratios, further investigation explaining the reasons behind each ratio, what each ratio means, comparing the ratios with other competitors, might give a comprehensive picture. A comparison is a must in a good evaluation, compare the company with other competitors in the industry is (common size analysis), while evaluate the company through time called (trend analysis), and (ratio analysis) is to express certain number to another in which answers some important question about the true financial position. Common size analysis is to compare a total financial statement usually income statement, balance sheet, cash flow statement in relation to base like revenues or total assets. Common size analysis for the balance sheet includes: horizontal and vertical common size analysis, where horizontal common size analysis is to compare the increase or decrease in balance sheet items to previous years. Vertical common size analysis involves dividing each item in the same period total assets to come with a percentage, in the case of analyzing the income statement, items usually are divided by revenues. Trend analysis involves comparison of the financial statement of an entity over time, trend analysis usually provide information about the historical performance and growth. Cross sectional analysis compare a specific measurement of a company with the same measurement for another company. The use of graphs and analytical tools could facilities the comparison and highlight the most important facts that the analyst wants to communicate with the management. Statistics like regression analysis are used in more complicated situation where more precise information needed. Ratio analysis is one of the most famous techniques in the financial analysis where it provides information about the relationships and expectations between the financial accounts. Certain issues should be in mind while conducting ratio analysis; as mentioned before computing the ratio itself is not enough for providing a comprehensive picture about the financial performance, it only indicating what certain issues are but not explaining why they are happening, therefore further investigation going beyond the numbers is required, in compliance with full compression overtime, competitors, and industry. Second issue would be to choose the relevant ratios as ratios used for different purpose and providing certain financial information; for example ROA is an indicator of profitability, where current ratio provides information regards liquidity. Different accounting policies can misrepresent ratios; therefore adjustments across different financial statements for different companies are req uired for a meaningful analysis. There are about five main types of financial ratios; profitability, activity, liquidity, solvency, valuation ratios. Profitability ratio is measure the companys ability to generate profit from its resources, the most famous ratios in this category are: return on assets (ROA) and return on equity (ROE). While activity ratios measure how efficient the company in managing the day to day activities, inventory turnover is one example of the ratios used under this category. Third type is liquidity ratios where it deals with the company ability in meeting short term obligations, can be expressed in current ratio, while solvency ratios deals with long term obligation, debt to asset is one example of solvency ratios. Valuations ratios are used to asses the company equity, P/E ratio is used for this purpose. Ratios could be driven from the financial statements of the company or from specialized websites as Bloomberg, as these kinds of websites provide easy access to the historical data. Ratio analysis drove its importance from the information that might provide, as it gives an insight to the historical, current and future performance of the company. Though ratio analysis has its own limitation when it deals with a company operates in different industries, as the comparison become more difficult then. Another limitation would be the use of different accounting methods as comparison would be difficult unless adjustments are made, for example one company might consider account for its inventories under the FIFO method while the other account for it under the LIFO method. Using IFRS might overcome these differences if applied. 2.2. The affect of IFRS as new accounting standard on financial Ratios Financial statements are determined by business strategy, industry, and economics and affected by those as well. The difficulty of understanding the financial statements depending in the accounting procedures and polices chosen by top management. Changes in time frames, company structure, accounting methods and estimates in the company can affect the true economic value of an entity and might affect the financial analysis and thus reflect a distorted image of the company. One of the most trends that might affect the financial analysis is changing of the accounting standers, as different accounting standers might use different methods. IFRS as a new set of international accounting standers has some effects, as the adoption process is costly, complex, Although IFRS believed to improve transparency and comparability of financial statements. Besides these effects IFRS has effect on the financial statements. To understand the effects of IFRS, one should understand the major differences between IFRS standers and local GAAP standers. Several studies will be mentioned in this section, which will clarify the effect of IFRS adoption in Europe. According to Impact of International Financial Reporting Standard Adoption on key financial ratio, which has studied the effect of IFRS adaption on Europe continent represented by Finland; major differences in IFRS and Domestic accounting standers were found in the following areas: for employee benefits obligations (IAS 19), it is required to be measure at present value, where in countries like (Belgium, Denmark, Finland) such rules are do not exist, and in countries like (e.g. Austria and Germany) calculations follow tax regulations. Concerning deferred tax (IAS 12), a deferred tax liability should be recognized for all taxable temporary differences, where in countries like (Greece, Luxembourg) rules concerning the treatment of deferred tax are missing, and in countries like (France, Germany) the deferred tax is be calculated on the basis of timing differences rather than temporary differences. In addition, deferred tax assets are not required to be recognized (Austria, Belgium) , while IAS 12 requires a deferred tax asset to be recognized for all deductible temporary differences to the extent that is probable that the deductible temporary difference can be utilized . For intangible assets (IAS 38), state that an asset can be recognized when it will probably generate future benefits and when the cost of the asset can be reliably measured. For this reason, research expenditures cannot be capitalized. However, in many countries like (Germany, Italy, and Spain) research costs are allowed to be capitalized. Moreover, countries like (Finland) emphasize capitalization of development expenditures. Construction contracts (IAS 11), requires the costs and revenues of construction contracts to be recognized on a stage of completion basis, compared to countered like (Finland, Greece), recognition by the stage of completion is optional. Inventories (IAS 2), requires inventory to be measured at the lower of cost and net realizable value, (Austria, Portugal and Spain) allows inventories to be measured at the replacement cost instead of net realizable value. Moreover, according to (Germany, Luxembourg), inventories can be valued without the production overheads, IAS 2 requires inventory to be valued at full cost. The major difference is that IFRS requires that assets impairments (IAS 36), most financial instruments (IAS 39), biological assets (IAS41), tangible and intangible fixed assets that have been acquired in a business combination (IFRS 3), pension assets (IAS 19) and share-based payment liabilities (IFRS 2) and investment property and property, plant and equipment (IAS 16) after initial recognition to be measured at fair value. On the contrary accounting practices in continental European countries have been based on historical costs but required downward valuations for permanent impairments of long-term assets. Beside fair value, depreciation of assets in accordance with continental European countries differs from that required by IFRS. As IFRS has put large weight on the presenting balance sheets at fair value, therefore it requires assets with definite useful life to be depreciated or amortized periodically and assets with indefinite useful life to be assed for impairment. However, the continental European countries also require assets with indefinite useful life to be amortized. Therefore, while IFRS requires goodwill to be assessed annually for impairment, continental European countries requires goodwill to be amortized systematically (Finland, France) or allows goodwill to be deducted immediately against equity (Germany, Greece). The study has also indicates the impact of these changes on the accounting figures. The study has indicating that the adoption of fair value accounting will probably increase the balance sheet items, and as the impairment accounting rules of continental European countries differ from those of IFRS these differences could lead to different accounting figures. As a consequence, the impact of fair value accounting adoption on accounting figures is also an empirical question since it is impossible to predict the exact impact of the adoption on accounting figures. Other studies where more specific and handled one country by itself. One of the studies titles Adoption of IFRS in Spain: Effect on the comparability and relevance of financial reporting has indicated the effect of IFRS implementation on the balance sheet, as one of the study results has indicated that on the liability side, important differences were found due to the change of debt valuation rules and a new direction for consolidation. While the major difference in the equity side was due to direct adjustments and to the indirect effect of the adjustments. Fixed assets and inventories were the only items that did not change significantly as fixed assets were valued under traditional valuation method (acquisition cost). The reason behind insignificant differences in the inventory was that Spanish usually didnt apply LIFO method which is not permitted under IFRS. IFRS adoption in Europe: the case of Germany, has stated that IFRS adoption has resulted in higher retained earning in the first year of IFRS adaption because of the conservative approach of the German GAAP (HGB). The study has also indicated that IFRS effects vary with the industry:à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ in the chemical and pharmaceutical industry effects on non-current assets and liabilities were relatively more important, whereas in the fashion industry the effects were mostly on working capital While IFRS Adoption and Financial Statement Effects: The UK Case, has indicated that the IFRS implantation has a positive affect on the financial performance and post. IFRS implementation for the company as profitability and growth attend to be higher under IFRS. It also indicated that IFRS as high quality standers has reduced risk and improved the credibility and the borrowing bargain power of firms. It also stated that: à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦IFRS adoption is likely to introduce volatility in income statement and balance sheet figures. Despite the higher volatility, adopters interest cover ratio has not been adversely affected, implying that IFRS adoption would not lead to debt covenant violation or financial distress à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ Chapter 3: The Impact of Comprehensive income on the financial ratios As mentioned earlier the impact of IFRS on accounting figures differs with the country that IFRS is applied in, as different countries have different accounting standers, different impacts resulted. In this section a comparison between US GAAP and IFRS will be mentioned as Deutsche bank (the particle example) mentioned later was using US GAAP. First differences of reporting comprehensive income under IFRS and different accounting standers will be mentioned followed by differences of reporting comprehensive income under IFRS and US GAAP. In the study titled Comprehensive income in Europe: valuation, prediction and conservative issues, has argued that the concept of comprehensive income does not recognize different income concepts in different industry or different firms. And financial analyst has taken into consideration these limitations and used total and unrealized asset valuations and foreign exchange to fill in the gabs. In the study titled analyzing brokers expertise: did analysts fully anticipate the impact of IFRS adoption on earnings? The European evidence Has reached to a conclusion that à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦analysts were not able to correctly anticipate the effect of IFRS adoption on earnings, forecast errors being significantly associated with differences in earnings changes resulting from the compliance with the new financial reporting standardsà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦. While in Adoption of IFRS in Spain: Effect on the comparability and relevance of financial reporting the study has studied IFRS effects on the income statement. Major differences were found due to major differences between Spanish GAAP (SAS) or IFRS in classifying revenues and expenses for example the classification of RD expenses. Another difference is the treatment of extraordinary income, as certain extraordinary items under (SAS) were classified as operating income under IFRS reclassify under (SAS) as operating income under IFRS. The study has indicated those Cash, solvency and indebtedness ratios, as well as the return on assets and returns on equity, has varied significantly as a result of the changes in the balance sheet and income statement. In Effects Of Comprehensive Income On ROE In A Context Of Crisis: Empirical Evidence For IBEX-35 Listed Companies (2004-2008), when calculating ROE under comprehensive income compared to ROE calculated under net income, statistically significant differences were founded, which means that ROE calculated under comprehensive income, shows the market impact much more clearly and thus provide better information for users and particularly for investors. The study has also indicated that comprehensive income is an alternative measurements of corporate performance and is much more in tune with the market reality than the traditional net income. According to IAS plus report which was issued by Deloitte in 2004, the major differences between IFRS and US GAAP are listed here: As in IAS 1(reporting comprehensive income) IFRS requires the statement of changes in equity. The total of comprehensive income is permitted but not required. And define Comprehensive income as the net income plus gains and losses that are recognized directly in equity rather than in net income. While in the US GAAP requires the presentation of the total comprehensive income. Gains and losses can be presented in the income statement, statement of comprehensive income, or statement of changes in equity. Under IFRS Extraordinary items is prohibited while in US GAAP Extraordinary items are permitted but restricted to infrequent, unusual, and rare items that affect profit and loss. This act by IFRS increase transparency and limit manipulation. And that would lead to an increase in the reported income and therefore might have a significant effect of the financ ial ratios dealing with profitability. Dealing with inventory IAS2, LIFO method under IFRS is prohibited while under US GAAP is permitted. When using LIFO revaluation for inventory needed, this could result in major tax liabilities. For property, plant, and equipment (IAS 16), under IFRS revalued amount or historical cost might be used where revalued amount is fair value at date of revaluation less subsequent accumulated depreciation and impairment losses where under US GAAP it is generally required to use historical cost. Which lead to increase in book values under IFRS. Chapter 4: Practical example (the case of the Deutsche bank) In Deutsche bank transition report, (Transition Report,2006 IFRS Comparatives), The Deutsche bank net income under IFRS was à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬ 6,070 million for the year ended December 31, 2006, an increase of à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬ 84 million compared with à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬ 5,986 million under U.S. GAAP. While shareholders equity under IFRS was à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬ 32,666 million, a decrease of à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬ 142 million as at December 31, 2006 compared to U.S. GAAP, according to the transition report. Conducting small ratio analysis limited only to the three major profitably ratios, a res

Reality is Like A Dream in Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been by

Reality is Like A Dream in Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been by Joyce Carol Oates Joyce Carol Oates intrigues readers in her fictional piece â€Å"Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been† by examining the life of a fifteen year old girl. She is beautiful, and her name is Connie. Oates lets the reader know that â€Å"everything about her [Connie] had two sides to it, one for home, and one for anywhere but home (27). When Connie goes out, she acts and dresses more mature than she probably should. However, when she is at home, she spends the majority of her time absorbed with daydreams â€Å"about the boys she met†(28). This daydreaming behavior is observable to the reader throughout the story. From theories about dreams, theories about subconscious thought, and the clues that Oates provides, the reader is lead to believe that Connie’s experience with Arnold Friend is a nightmare used to awaken her to the consequences that her behavior could result in. Have you ever experienced a dream or a nightmare that seemed like reality? Most people in the world today would say that they have. Although this realistic dream experience does not occur often, when it does, clear distinctions are hard to make between the dream and reality. Theories exist that explain dreams as our subconscious thoughts delving into our minds to make us reflect upon feelings or experiences that we neglect in life when awake. Connie often flirts with her feelings about sexual encounters. In fact, Larry Rubin believes that â€Å"Connie’s intense desire for a sexual experience runs head long into her innate fear of having such an experience† (58). Connie’s tendency to eventually dismiss these fears forces the reader to make the connection between her experience wit... ...tomy between reality and dreams quite well throughout her piece. She provides the reader with two ways to experience the story: either as reality or as reality that turns into a nightmare. This dichotomy that Oates creates â€Å"allows the reader to escape this story, and allows this story to end† (Hurley 374). The end of the story shows Connie entering the new world of experience, and Oates wants the reader to sense her fear. Oates intricately provides the reader with clues that help see why Connie’s experience with Arnold is just a nightmare. She also allows the reader to see how this nightmare is meant to scare Connie into making the realization that her decisions have consequences. I hope that anyone reading this learns from Connie that not everything we do is good for us, and we have to think about the consequences of our actions, whether good or bad, before we act.

Employee Retaintion

CONTENTS 1. INTRODUCTION 2. BRANDING 3. INTERNAL BRANDING 4. IMPORTANCE OF INTERNAL BRANDING 5. INTERNAL BRANDING TOOLS 6. INTERNAL BRANDING PROCESS 7. FACTOR OF SUCCESS AND FAILURE OF INTERNAL BRAND 8. ROLE OF HR IN INTERNAL BRAND 9. RESEARCH METHODOLGY 10) DATA ANALYSIS 11) FINDINGS 12) CONCLUSION 13) SUGGESTIONS 14) REFERNCES 15) QUESTIONNAIRE INTRODUCTION A company's branding strategy often has a large impact on the success or failure of a particular product.This is especially true for large, multi-national corporations because it effects how the consumer correlates a product with the manufacturer. Some large companies choose not to use the manufacturer name and/or logo on all their brands. Often, a company name is well-known within business circles but unfamiliar to the average consumer, in which case, dissonance can prevent consumers from recognizing the brand name.Other companies pick and chose which of their products will carry the corporate brand name A fundamental problem w ith regards to international branding is that firms currently do not pay enough attention to their employees' expertise regarding brand strategy . If a company is able to make a consumer look at a certain product for a fraction of a second longer than its competitors' products, the probability purchase intent increases significantly. Therefore, the way a company brands its products can have a direct link to the success of the product and the brand.This encouraging framework, however, does not mean that employee perceptions of the strategy will be positive; without which the performance of both the brand and the company will be hindered in a significant fashion. Therefore, there exists a need for research to be done regarding how employees feel about current and future brand strategies in order to maximize company potential. Due to the complexity of balancing proper brand strategies for multi-national enterprises, balancing which products should carry the manufacturer name and/or tra demark is an essential consideration.It is necessary, therefore, to look into studies to see if using a company's name on all products helped or hindered product sales. Effective utilization of international branding strategies takes into account whether stand alone brands need a corporate name to be successful, how sales will be affected by using corporate brand names, and what the benefits of adding a corporate name or logo would be compared to the potential costs.By exploring employee perceptions of these facets of international branding, we can determine if a multi-national firm's global image is a product of its employees' collective perceptions. The primary objective of this study is to examine the context of the relationship between the global image of the fast food industry and employee opinions of the firm's various branding strategies.The key independent variables are stand alone brands owned by fast food industry, effect of the company brand name on sales, benefits vs. co sts of using the company logo, and fast food industry current global image as a product of its employee's perception. BRANDING A brand is a â€Å"name, term, sign, symbol, or design, or a combination of them, intended to identify the goods and services of one seller or group of sellers and to differentiate them from those of competition† American Marketing Association definition .A strong brand has been found to be instrumental in the facilitation of numerous marketing goals including: improved brand loyalty, brand-based price premiums and higher margins, improved successful new product introductions, greater shareholder and stakeholder returns, and clear, valued and sustainable points of differentiation as well as the simplification of consumer decision making, the reduction of consumer risk, and the establishment of expectations. The role of perception in branding is therefore critical: The challenge for marketers in building a strong brand is ensuring that customers have t he ight type of experiences with products and services and their accompanying marketing programs so that the desired thoughts, feelings, images, beliefs, perceptions, opinions, and soon become linked to the brand . While branding initiatives most frequently focus on external stakeholders, internal marketing, employee branding and/or internal branding efforts establish systems/processes and consequent employee behaviors that are consistent with the external branding efforts.The terms employee branding and internal branding are essentially synonymous in the literature and internal marketing has also been used to describe these activities and programs. For the sake of parsimony, the term internal branding will be used throughout the remainder of the paper to describe these processes and outcomes. The concept of internal branding is not new to corporate America.Promoting the brand to employees, and educating them about brand values, is steadily growing in popularity among corporate gian ts such as Southwest , Standard Register, Cisco, Ernst & Young (Boone, 2000), BASF (Buss, 2002), Sears, BP, IBM, Nike and Miller Brewing (Mitchell, 2002). All are examples of firms that have realized the inherent power of an informed workforce committed to delivering the brand promise. Unfortunately, in many organizations there is a fundamental disconnect between the external and internal branding systems: Many companies do a brilliant job of advertising and marketing to customers.Then comes the hard part; delivering. While they put millions of dollars into marketing [external branding], most companies invest little to ensure that employees transform brand messages into reality in terms of the customer's experience. Its one thing to tell customers who you are and quite another to show them who you are. Employees have to be engaged to make the brand come alive. Therefore, the messages sent to employees about the brand are just as important as the ones sent to customer.Due to the subs tantial potential for synergy between internal and external branding initiatives, those in both the academic and business communities are devoting more of their time to the doctrine, all stress the importance of a coordinated internal and external branding program and the inherent benefits of marketing efforts that address not only the needs and wants of the target market, but the proper hiring, training, and motivation of those who must deliver the brand's promise. Within Hallmark, a group of internal managers is responsible for brand training and education.Hallmark has regular brand training sessions, a brand-based intranet site, internal publications, a speaker series, and even daily brand promise reminders on the start-up screens of employees' computers. Hallmark consistently focuses on conducting internal assessments of employees' perceptions of the brand with the intent of focusing on gaps between internal perceptions and marketplace perceptions. The value of a well-coordinate d program aimed at educating and training employees on the brand message and how to incorporate it in their work appears to be growing significantly.But the importance and specific role of the HR management department remains somewhat cloudy. Through a wide variety of HR plans, processes and actions, it is possible to make a tremendous impact on the branding success of an organization. While none of this constitutes a revelation – the role of HR in influencing branding (both externally and internally) has been recognized in isolated ways, ways that are certainly intuitive – the need for HR to be more comprehensive in its role to support branding efforts has not been recognized a great deal in the literature, nor has it been revealed in the actions of most HR professionals.The work of Gotsi and Wilson (2001) identifies what is necessary to close the gap between what an organization is saying to its external constituents and what is believed and practiced by internal con stituents. The respondents suggested that HR management practices such as recruitment policies, performance appraisal, and training need to be aligned with brand values to avoid sending conflicting messages.This study looks at the relationship between specific HR internal branding activities, the incorporation of the brand message into work activities and employee personal attitude toward the brand to determine the degree to which cross-functional synergy between internal and external branding initiatives is being realized in the business community. INTERNAL BRANDINGInternal branding is considered as a means to create powerful corporate brands. It assists the organization in aligning its internal process and corporate culture with those of the brand.Management and brand consultants have been key figures in providing valuable insights to the concept of internal branding. Little research has, however, been devoted to exploring the perceptions of the employees. As the concept underline s the role of services employees, their views may be important if management is to implement the most appropriate internal branding programmes. The objective of internal branding is to ensure that employees transform espoused brand messages into brand reality for customers and other stakeholders.A number of publications have identified that successful internal branding engenders employees' commitment to, identification with and loyalty to the brand. When employees internalize the brand values, they will consistently deliver on the brand promise across all contact points between the company and its stakeholders. To implement successful internal brand building, IM has been suggested as a key instrument. Although IM is regarded as an appropriate approach for communicating the brand internally, communication is not the sole method to ensure the success of the internal branding campaign.Machtiger remarked that one of the six pitfalls in internal branding is to rely largely on internal co mmunications (ICs). In fact, internal branding requires a broader integrative framework across corporate marketing, corporate management and corporate human resource management. Marketing functions as a link between communication, service and quality. Both service and quality could in part be enhanced by understanding techniques used by the HR function, as it is involved in developing the human asset to enhance the organization’s economic performance and its brand's success.If management can understand and orchestrate marketing and HR theories, it is argued that employees will better accept and internalize the brand values and align their attitudes and behavior, accordingly. This will result in the brand promise being delivered to the organization’s clients, providing it with customer satisfaction, customer preference and loyalty. ICs aim to influence employees' brand knowledge, attitudes and behaviors. The outcomes of ICs include employee commitment, shared vision, a service-minded approach, loyalty and satisfaction.While ICs operate with the current members inside the organization, the role of the HR department begins with selecting and recruiting the right prospects. With the rise of the concept of ‘person-organization fit', de Chernatony underlines the value congruence between the candidates, the organizations and the brand. As values are hard to change, staff recruitment based on the level of value congruence is sometimes more viable than emphasizing merely on their technical/operational skills. Then, training and development programmes are essential to enhance employee performance and to bring consistency to the xternal brand experience. Therefore, HR should be led by marketing and incorporate the brand concept into all employee development programmes. To maintain brand standards, an organization should reward employees accordingly. Effective reward and recognition schemes can enhance employee motivation and commitment. When the right employees are kept satisfied, the organization tends to retain the best people facilitating superior performance. Therefore, incorporating the wisdom from HR practitioners, ICs move beyond merely distributing brand information through media towards creating shared brand understanding.Although a number of publications have addressed how to implement a successful internal branding process, most of these insights have been acquired from a management's and brand consultant's perspective. Few studies have been done to unearth the perceptions of employees who are considered as the ‘internal customers. IMPORTANCE OF INTERNAL BRANDINGMany companies do a brilliant job of advertising and marketing to customers. Then comes the hard part: delivering. While they put millions of dollars into marketing, most companies invest little to ensure that employees transform brand messages into reality in terms of the customer's experience.Its one thing to tell customers who you are and quite anothe r to show them who you are. Employees have to be engaged to make the brand come alive. Therefore, the messages sent to employees about the brand are just as important as the ones sent to customers. EX- David Reyes-Guerra, associate director of brand management at Ernst ; Young, says internal branding plays a vital role in powerfully and accurately conveying the Ernst ; Young brand around the world. Reyes-Guerra's goal is to create 75,000 â€Å"brand ambassadors† who present a consistent, clear, professional image of a global firm.To that end, his department has set up The Branding Zone on the corporate intranet. â€Å"We felt that the intranet would be our best tool for establishing a global focus on branding,† The Branding Zone, launched in January of this year, is a central source for branding, marketing, and advertising information at Ernst & Young. It contains a threaded discussion area where people throughout the firm can access a topic and then pose a question to the global branding and marketing community. There is also an extranet for the company's outside agencies.The information on this extranet includes standards, fonts and logos, and material from advertising campaigns. By providing this information, the internal branding group insures that all marketing collateral-whether produced in house or by an agency-is consistent with the brand message. The Branding Zone has generated a significant level of interest inside the firm. In the first 90 days after it was launched, one presentation template was downloaded 9,000 times. A graphics standards manual on the site was downloaded 10,000 times. An image library garnered another 10,000 downloads of photography and advertising icons.Even though it's in its early stages, Reyes-Guerra anticipates that the site will have significant impact, including streamlining the entire design process by eliminating the need for extensive custom design of collateral materials. â€Å"A focus on internal brandi ng and the successful practice of digital brand management via Web site tools inspires collaboration and breeds integration,† Reyes-Guerra says. â€Å"It's very effective in breaking down barriers, creating synergies, and opening lines of communication-all of which are critical to success in today's business environment. INTERNAL BRANDING TOOLS| | | INTERNAL BRANDING PROCESS Employee branding is a process by which employees internalize the desired brand image and are motivated to project the image to customers and other organizational constituents. The messages employees take in and process influence * the extent to which they perceive their psychological contracts with the organization to be fulfilled * the degree to which they understand and are motivated to deliver the desired level of customer service In so doing, they drive the formation of the employee brand.The messages employees receive must be aligned with the employees ‘organizational experiences if the psycho logical contract is to be upheld. Therefore, the conscious development of organizational messages is the fundamental building block in this process. The messages must then be delivered through appropriate message sources. The following guidelines provide a starting point in this process: * Organizational messages should be carefully thought out and planned in much the same way mission and vision statements are thought out and planned. The organizational messages should reflect the organization’s mission and values. * Messages directed toward external constituencies must be in line with the messages sent to employees. * Messages directed toward external constituencies should be sent internally as well. * The design of recruitment and selection systems should incorporate messages that consistently and frequently reflect the brand and organizational image. * The compensation system should incorporate messages that consistently and frequently reflect the brand and organizational image.For instance, managers in organizations that value training must be held accountable when they fail to train and develop their employees. * Training and development systems should help managers and employees internalize their organization’s mission and values and help them understand how the mission and values pertain to their roles in their organization. This should enable them to more effectively articulate messages that consistently and frequently reflect the brand and organizational image. * Advertising and public relations systems should communicate messages that consistently and frequently reflect the brand and organizational image. Managers should be taught the importance of communicating messages that are consistent with their organization’s mission, vision, policies, and practices. * Performance management systems should address inconsistencies between practices and policies to minimize violations of employees’ psychological contracts. * Accurate and specific job previews should be given to new employees so that realistic expectations are incorporated into their psychological contracts. * Corporate culture (artifacts, patterns of behavior, management norms, values and beliefs, and assumptions) should reinforce the messages employees receive. Individual output should be measured and analyzed to determine if there are message-related problems at the departmental, divisional, or organizational levels. * Individual messages should be continually examined for consistency with other messages. * Message channels should be examined to ensure consistency of message delivery. * In the event that messages need to be changed or psychological contracts altered, organizations must take careful steps in rewriting the messages. * Measures should be used to assess outcomes such as customer retention, service quality, turnover, and employee satisfaction and performanceFACTORS OF FAILURE AND SUCCESS IN INTERNAL BRANDING Organization Factors in the organizational dimension are difficult to change or indeed influence at all, given the scope and intangibility of many of these factors. Thus, while culture has a large impact on internal branding programmes, awareness, rather than change of this culture, may be appropriate. However, cultural change may be necessary where there exists no fit between the prevailing culture and the objectives of the internal branding programme. Cross-functional coordination and cooperation have been suggested to reduce internal competition and departmentalized thinking.Information The effectiveness and overall success of internal branding programmes is dependent on an in-depth knowledge and understanding of the internal as well as the external environment of the organization. While market research provides such information , the measurement of target performances and collection of feedback from all organizational levels as well as from outside the organization enables management to assess the sui tability of the current programme to the and highlights any necessary changes to be made .Management This dimension is concerned with the degree and nature of visible support given by management to the internal branding programme. In order to be regarded as legitimate by the target audience, management has to lend its support to the programme, as well as visibly adhere to it. In fact, as internal branding is concerned with the corporate brand, responsibility for the internal branding effort should lie with the CEO of an organization, given that role's intensive association with the organization’s strategy and brand.It has been suggested in the literature that a multi-departmental approach may be most appropriate for internal branding, particularly with a view to the importance of the HR function. Also, the composition and management of brand teams has been mentioned as having an impact on internal branding programmes. Communication Information needs to be made available to ev eryone in the organization without exposing individuals to too much detail in order to avoid information overload. Likewise, messages should be internally and externally aligned to avoid confusion.Only where the objectives of the internal branding programme are in line with the overall business objectives and properly translated to the target audience is a programme capable of achieving its intended outcome. The effectiveness of communication depends on constant reinforcement on one hand, and adaptation to internal and external changes on the other. Strategy Alignment should exist between all strategies and programmes employed by an organization, including the fit between the internal (or external) brand and the objectives of the business.Conflict between these will reduce the appeal and believability of the brand and greatly reduce a program me’s effectiveness. Further aspects under this dimension include scheduling the most suitable timing and budget the programme. Staff Re cruiting, motivating and rewarding staff are all aspects that can influence the readiness among employees to adopt a new or altered strategic direction with respect to the internal brand. Consequently, like the organizational dimension, the staff dimension addresses the most favorable preconditions for internal branding as well as techniques capable of further enhancing the effectiveness of the programme.Likewise, this dimension highlights the importance of gaining not only leadership support, but also the support of employees at all levels, since they constitute the largest audience for the internal branding programme. Internal branding is deemed most effective where the programme has been designed in participation with employees. Education Out of the previous six dimensions arises the need for a seventh concerned with the education of staff and management to prevent some of the failures that may occur during internal branding programmes as a result of ignorance and flawed preconce ptions.Thus, this dimension calls for the identification of such beliefs, attitudes, and mental models through market research and constituency assessments and their alignment with organizational objectives and policies through education. ROLE OF HR IN INTERNAL BRANDING The degree of HR involvement in internal branding was evaluated using the mean of the five-item measure presented in diagram The measure's mean of 3. 31 on a six-point scale (1 – strongly agree; 6 – strongly disagree) does not indicate a strong degree of HR involvement in internal branding activities.In fact, fully one-fifth of the respondents generally or strongly disagreed that brand value training is provide or that the knowledge is used in staffing decisions. More than 30 percent generally or strongly disagreed that annual performance reviews or departmental plans consider the brand values. It is apparent that HR is not heavily involved in the internal branding process, and/or that internal branding is not considered a high priority function at most American firms.When asked who within the company delivers the brand message, more than two-thirds (68 percent) of respondents indicated it was top management, followed by marketing personnel (35 percent), the immediate supervisor (27 percent), and human resources (16 percent). Since respondents were able to check more than one response, it is apparent that in many cases more than one individual in the company delivers the brand message, and the involvement of HR could be stronger. Incorporation of the brand message into work activities The incorporation of the brand message into work activities is not particularly strong.With an overall mean of 2. 68 on a six point scale (1 – strongly agree; 6 – strongly disagree), it appears that American professionals do not emphasize the integration their firm's brand message into their general work activities, at least at the level one might expect given recent accounts in business and academic literature. Personal involvement in the brand Respondents' attitude toward the company brand was stronger than may have been suspected by the human resource involvement and the incorporation of the brand message into work activities. The measure's mean of 2. 4 on a six-point scale illustrates a relatively strong respondent attitude toward their respective brands, and possible opportunity for furthering the development of incorporation the brand in work activities. Relationship between HR involvement in internal branding and the incorporation of the brand message into work activities and personal involvement in the brand While perceived HR involvement in internal brandingand the incorporation of the brand message into work activities appears moderate at best within US businesses, there is a relatively strong relationship between the means of the two variables.As the findings in Table IV indicate, the relationship between mean HR involvements in internal branding and mea n incorporation of the brand message as well as the relationship between mean HR involvements in internal branding and mean personal attitude toward the brand are significantly correlated. In other words, respondents who perceived a stronger involvement of the HR function in internal branding were more likely to incorporate the brand message in work activities and/or had a more positive personal attitude toward the brand.HR involvement in internal branding and the incorporation of the brand message into specific work activities Not only does a strong relationship exist between mean HR involvements in internal branding and mean incorporation of the brand message, but a relatively strong relationship also exists between mean HR involvement and each of the specific work activities tested. In each case a significant, positive relationship can be found, as well as possible opportunity for enhance brand integration among American professionals.RESEARCH METHODOLGY Data Collection:- There a re two main sources for collecting data. These are: 1. Primary Data 2. Secondary Data 1. Primary Data: The primary data was collected in the form of questionnaire from employees of various industries like IT industry, Hotel industry etc. 2. Secondary Data: The secondary data was to be collected from reference books, journals, magazines, and newspapers and through internet. The research instrument was Questionnaire.SAMPLE SIZE: The sample size for the questionnaire was 50 employees. SAMPLE METHOD: Simple random method of sampling. The limitation of the study was:- * The area covered was only pune city. * There was the lack of diversification within each sample, and the relatively low total sample size employed. * The respondents may be biased or influenced by some other factors. DATA ANALYSIS 1) Did your organization carry out induction program? YES| NO| 80%| 20%|Through this graph we have tried to show that 80% of the organizations carry out the induction program whereas 20% of the organizations do not carry out the induction program. 2) Did in induction program you cover Employee branding? YES| NO| 80%| 20%| In the second graph we have tried to figure out how many organization in induction program cover the employee branding technique and the result was that 80% of the organization mainly It industry do cover the employee branding technique whereas 20%of the industry do not cover it. ) Which technique do you use for employee branding? Mentoring| Presentation| Apprenticeship| Other| 30%| 20%| 30%| 20%| In these graph we have tried to find out which method do they use to tell them about their brands they use various method like mentoring where only 30% of them use it then other is mentoring where only 20% only use it other apprenticeship where only 30% use it and there are other method which only 20% of the organization use it. ) Do you have any other employee branding program for existing employee? YES| NO| 10%| 90%| Through this graph we have tried to figure out how many organization uses any other employee branding program for their existing employee the result was that 10% says they do have where they send their employee for training for some limited amount of time to brush up their knowledge and 90% says they do not have. 5) What is the best way to approach employee branding? EMPLYOEE | CUSTOMER| 50%| 50%|In this we try to find out who is the best way to approach Employee branding and we come to know that marketers should look at employees as an internal market, where the objective is to make them feel valued and give them a sense of belonging because this is a basic human need. But equally staff should be viewed as another vehicle to communicate and manifest the brand. 6) Who should take charge of employee branding? TOP LEVEL| HR DEPARTMENT| MARKETING DEPARTMENT| OTHER| 40%| 40%| 10%| 10% |In this we try to find out who has the main responsibility of conveying the employee branding and the result was it is not whole-sole responsibil ity of one department it is the responsibility of all the department. 7) How do you communicate internal branding? MEETINGS| SPONSORING | NARRATING STORY| OTHERS| 20%| 40%| 10%| 30%| Through we try to find out what is the best way to communicate your brand to people because brand is at the centre of the organization that why organization uses meetings, narrating events to tell them about their brands. ) What are the ways you use to make them interested in the brands? TV-ADS| SPONSORING| INTERNET| OTHERS| 40%| 30%| 20%| 10%| In this we have shown which are the best medium to communicate about our brand we have seen TV-ads , internet ,organizing events were the best way to communicate about it because it attract lot of attention of the customers. 9) How do you monitor the success of your internal brand? SETTING TARGET| CLIENT ASSESSMENT| OTHERS| 40%| 40%| 20%|In this we have tried to figure out that how they monitor the success of their brand because sometime it become benchmarking ex ercise to try to see if anything is becoming problematic so they set target and sometime they do client assessment test where they interviewed 50 people from client organization. 10) To what extent do employees understand what their organization brand represents? At 20%| At 50%| At 70%| 70% or above| 10%| 40%| 30%| 20%| In this we have tried to find out how much employees of an organization understand their brand so we have try to present in the form of numeric form FINDINGSIn general, the majority of participants were able to articulate (in varying degrees) what their organization’s brand represents In relation to the way in which employees acquire organizational knowledge for the purpose of carrying out their roles and responsibilities, the results revealed three strong themes, that is, training, customer/market information and work environment (co-workers). The employees devoid of brand knowledge are unable to transform the brand vision into the brand reality evidence pres ented here suggests that there is still an inconsistent practitioner approach to the provision of employee-relevant brand information.This is somewhat surprising, given that it is apparent from the comments provided by the participants who lacked customer or market information that employee satisfaction and their ability to successfully carry out their roles and responsibilities is adversely impacted. Despite the speed with which business decisions need to be made today in order to remain competitive, individuals within organizations are still not being given the support and skills they feel are necessary for them to respond effectively to the business challenges of today. CONCLUSIONIt could be concluded that employee branding is becoming the concept or mantra of today's business world. Employee branding helps the companies to have better perspective of their consumers and motivate the employees as well. The brand interpretation in the mind of customer is very important. At the end of the day, how the brand is positioned in the minds of the consumers is heavily dependent on company's employees. Investment in an organization’s human capital is a precursor for subsequent organizational success, especially in such a competitive global market.While conceptually this appears to be a reasonable assumption, the empirical evidence is limited to the validation of the link between employee satisfaction and customer loyalty. In particular, internal brand management has been identified as a means to engender such outcomes (eg organizational success and employee satisfaction) and yet there appears to be limited understanding as to the impact of such efforts from an employee perspective. Without such insight, attainment of a desired level of employee satisfaction could be considered synonymous to ‘flying blind'.Furthermore, it becomes increasingly challenging to justify such an internal investment without evidence of the impact such an investment has on the org anization as manifested in employee attitude and behavior. SUGGESTIONS * Cultivate a culture that reinforces your Brand Contract and encourage employees to â€Å"live the brand† * Measure the effectiveness of your internal branding strategy to maximize the ROI on your internal branding initiatives * Insist that senior management models brand-focused behavior and cultural values. * Set communication alignment goals (are you even measuring the effectiveness of your internal communication. Make positive examples of employee behavior that represents your values, mission, brand and business strategy. * Reward employees for demonstrating their commitment to your brand contract and values. * Show daily how commitment to mission and values is the touchstone that drives your decisions. * Harness the entire creativity of every employee in bringing the brand to life. * Involve all departments in branding, not just marketing – HR, operations, customer support, development, finance , and more. REFERENCES BOOKS AND JOURNALS * Aurand, T. W. , L. Gorchels and T. R.Bishop (2005), ‘Human resource management's role in internal btanding: an opportunity for cross-functional brand message synergy', Journal of Product and Brand Management, vol. 14, no. 3, pp. 163-9. * Bak, C. A. , L. H. Vogt, W. R. George and I. R. Greentree (1994), ‘Management by team: an innovative tool for running a service organization through internal marketing', Journal of Services Marketing, vol. 8, no. 1, pp. 37-47. * Ballantyne, D. (1997), ‘Internal networks for internal marketing', Journal of Marketing Management, vol. 13, no. 5, July, pp. 343-66. * Barnes, B. R. , M. T. Fox and D.S. Morris (2004), ‘Exploring the linkage between internal marketing, relationship marketing and service quality: a case study of a consulting organization', Total Quality Management, vol. 15, nos. 5/6, pp. 593-601. * Beagrie, S. (2003), ‘How to †¦ influence employee behavior through internal marketing', Personnel Today, August, p. 35- * Bergstrom, A. , D. Blumenthal and S. Crothers (2002), ‘Why internal branding matters: the case of Saab', Corporate Reputation Review, vol. 5, nos. 2/3, Fall, pp. 133-42. * Berry, L. L. (1981), ‘The employee as customer', Journal of Retail Banking, vol. , pp. 25-8. * Berry, L. L. , M. C. Burke and J. S. Hensel (1976), ‘Improving retailer capability for effective consumerism response', Journal of Retailing, vol. 52, no. 3, Fall, pp. 3-15. * Berry, L. L. and A. Parasuraman (1992), ‘Services marketing starts from within', Marketing Management, vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 24-34. * Bowen, D. E. and E. E. Lawler III (1992), ‘the empowerment of service workers: what, why, how, and when', Sloan Management Review, vol. 33, no. 3, spring, pp. 31-9. INTERNET SITES www. google. com www. philipkotler. com www. Shrm. org www. wikipedia. com QUESTIONNAIRE ) Did your organization carry out induction program? Yes No 2) Did i n induction program you cover employee branding techniques? Yes No 3) Which techniques do you use for employee branding? Mentoring Presentation Apprenticeship Other 4) Do you have any other employee branding program for existing employee? Yes No 5) What is the best way to approach employee branding? Employees Customer 6) Who should take charge of employee branding?Top level Hr department Marketing department other 7) How do you communicate internal brands to people? Meetings nsor sponsoring narrating story Other 8) What are the ways you use to make them interested in the brand? TV-ads Sponsoring Internet Other 9) How do you monitor the success of your internal brand? Setting targets client Assessment Other 10) To what extent do employees understand their organization brand represent? At 20% At 50% A At 70% 70% or above

Evaluate The Circumstances In Which Pluralism Will Develop Essay

Pluralism is a system of government that allows and encourages public participation so the state can satisfy the needs of the people. This is achieved through a multitude of organisations, such as pressure groups, trade unions, environmentalists and civil rights activists, seeking to influence the making of laws and policies. It ensures that power is dispersed rather than concentrated within a select few and enables minority groups to voice their opinion. If Pluralism is to develop, it can’t be possible for a single group to dominate. Political force exerted by one group will be counteracted by equal and opposite political force exerted by other groups. For that reason, there are multiple centres of power and authority, as opposed to one where the state controls people’s actions. This encourages political participation as everyone can exercise influence over decision makers. An example of this would be Medieval Europe where the Monarchy and Church were co-equal rulers in their different spheres. In democracies, people vote for representatives and in the UK, MPs have this role. If the majority don’t like what their representatives are doing, they can vote them out of office at elections. This means representatives have to act in a way which satisfies the majority. But our electoral system often produces representatives who are unrepresentative because only those voters who voted for the winner are represented by their member of parliament. Another problem is that this system doesn’t allow voters to influence specific issues. Therefore people then join interest groups such as pressure groups. These are a vital for the growth of a pluralist political system. Robert Dahl saw that pluralism responded to a high degree of industrialization. Therefore it’s highly unlikely that a pluralistic democracy would be seen in developing nations, where people are undernourished, uneducated and illiterate and as a result unable to participate. The aim of pluralism is to set limits on the power of the rulers over the community. This is achieved by agreeing certain rights and liberties which the rulers can’t infringe. Therefore there is a requirement for checks and balances to occur on the relationship between the state and the individual to allow pluralism to develop. Freedom of association is a necessary condition of political pluralism so that opposition is able to occur within the public domain of the media. This is usually prohibited in totalitarian states, as seen under Hitler’s regime when he banned trade unions and suspended the right to assemble. When individuals are given that freedom though, they tend to form into groups. These are needed to assert individual interests and in turn acquire political power. This could be used to change a governmental policy in a way that advances the interests of the group’s members. Therefore, while a single individual is basically powerless when it comes to changing state policy, the coming together of several individuals presents a more challenging contender. The pluralistic political model is one in which groups are used as a means to vindicate the interests of its members rather than dominate other groups as the latter encourages tyranny. Citizens are therefore organised into a variety of interest groups that must bargain with each other for the influence over government. This competition between groups is precisely what ensures that the key characteristic is maintained – no group dominates as power is openly competed for. In order for Pluralism to grow, the state must act as a mediator in the political process when responding to the demands of all segments of society and distributing policies in such a way that all of the groups have some influence on government strategy. Ideally the government should intervene to help the weaker groups and that they consider alternatives in order to meet national interests. This means that the people within society need to be open-minded and show tolerance towards the ideas of others. In conclusion, there are many basic conditions necessary for pluralism to develop, including fundamental freedoms such as free speech, a free media and fair elections. Yet the key requirements appear to be a genuine toleration of other people’s beliefs and interests, as well as the ability to form into groups such as trade unions and pressure groups which stand for all the different interests of the population. The collective power of these associations representing different interests provides a counter to the tyranny of the state and that of the majority.