Nike Case Study

1. A decision to retain an in-house arm of agency Weiden & Kennedy by Nike exemplify the concept of organizational design by allowing Nike use the agency’s creative designers to focus solely on Nike work, giving them un-parallel access to executives, researchers and anyone else who might provide Nike advertisers with their next inspiration for marketing greatness before listening to any other organization.Having the agency in the building is having them at their disposal at anytime they need them and also the agency will have to consider them first incase of any new ad or good idea discovered by the agency or when Nike needs to salvage a problem with the help of the agency. Thus, the agency at their finger-tips serves great advantages for not only trouble shooting. 2. I believe the organic design of Nike helped in posing the sweatshop labor problem Nike faced. Using a flat structure helps get a lot of work in a short time but none-the-less can cause a lot of trouble as seen in Nike.With a more highly bureaucratic structure, also known as Mechanistic design, practices will be closely monitored to prevent such problems from arising. In a centralized design with many rules and procedures which have to be followed, a clear-cut division of labor and narrow spans of control and formal coordination, the higher management/ board of directors will be very well informed on what is happening in the organization at each and every level. Though organic design has more personal coordination a more strict coordination will help in preventing such issues.For example, if Nike had a tight structure, they would have a predictable goal, centralized authority on whom to report directly to, many rules and procedures they must abide by, a narrow span of control so as to control their workers/management’s practices, everyone has his/her specialized task, and formal and impersonal coordinator. Having this sort of clear division of labor and coordination helps keep the man agement well informed and they would have known and remedied the sweatshop labor before the allegations surfaced.Nike would have known the right factories to outsource to instead of using factories that fail to meet their standards. 3. Fig. 1 shows what Nike network structure looks like, Mark Parker (CEO) reports to the Board of Directors and in return almost every manager/worker reports directly to him when the need arises. Nike is a divisional company but retains some functional departments as well. The brands Nike sells comprise many of the divisions of the company.Apparel for Nike brand, Converse, and Jordan brands are examples of some divisions created around specific products. Functional departments such as Nike design and investor relations are also part of Nike’s organizational structure. Nike‘s vertical structure includes CEO Mark Parker and a board of directors chaired by co-founder Phil Knight. Although Nike has functional divisions and divisions based on spe cific products it is not a matrix organization. In a matrix organization, employees report to a functional and divisional manage.At Nike, employees report to the divisional manager and the president of each division reports directly to the CEO. Nike’s continued product innovation and successful marketing are due to the combination of functional and divisional organization using an operations department to insure communication between divisions. There is division of labor but it is not clearly identified. With a more pronounced division of labor and levels of direct supervision Nike can improve its business thereby staying ahead of competition like Adidas.The bulk of divisions reporting to Mark Parker can be cut down introducing more managers to report to in other to lessen the workload on him. Having more layers can help ease the workload and also the more levels reported to will enable more ideas to be shared. A lower manager can have important ideas that will be welcomed by Mark Parker and Board of Directors but cutting such a manager from the line of report will render him unaware of the situation and not able to share his ideas, which may potentially be just the perfect solution to the situation.No doubt he flat structure makes work faster and workers feel more involved in a project, but it’s not always the best because once a project goes wrong, salvaging it is not impossible but it is hard and more time consuming to investigate than in a mechanistic bureaucratic structure. REFERENCE Schermerhorn, John R.. Management. 11th ed. Hoboken, N. J. :Wiley; 2010 Nike Case Study Profile: Nike is a cooperation which sells clothing, footwear, sportswear, and sport equipment. Through many retail stores and various distributors, the company sells products to more than 170 countries including the USA, Europe, Middle East, Africa and Asia Pacific (Datamonitor, 2012). Nike is headquartered in Beaverton, Oregon, USA; it is the top supplier of athletic shoes and apparel and is one of the top manufacturers of sports equipment, with revenue in excess of $20. 862 million in FY ended May, 2011 (Datamonitor, 2012).Based on geography regions, revenues are generated by Nike through six main regions: North America accounted for 42. 1% of sales, followed by Western Europe (21. 1%), Emerging Markets (15. 2%), Greater China (11. 5%), Central and East Europe (5. 7%); and Japan (4. 3%) (Datamonitor, 2012). Also, Nike is facing with strong competition from Adidas at present. According to James (2012), Nike has 18% market share of the United Kingdom’s markets while Adidas ha s only 15%. Origins and Key Developments According to Datamonitor (2012), Nike was established in 1964 by Phil Knight and Bill Bowerman.At the beginning, Nike was known as Blue Ribbon Sports which sold Tiger shoes. At that time, Knight shook hand with the Onitsuka Co in Japan in order to mass-produce products. In 1971, Knight and Bowerman planned to change their company from a footwear distributor to a company designs and manufactures athletic shoes. The name â€Å"Nike† was created in 1972 and the brand mark was designed by a student at Portland State University. The mid-1980s was a period of transition when Nike had made a wrong aerobics boom calculation which gave chances for other competitors to develop their businesses.Fortunately, in 1985, new ideas in a signature shoe for National Basketball Association from Michael Jordan helped Nike improve their performance. By the end of the 1980s, Nike has finished their IPO and became a publicly traded company. At this time, Nike focused on advertising to attract more customers and differentiate themselves from competitors. The 1990s saw the rapid expansion of Nike since there are many Nike’s stores around the US and internationally. By the middle of the 1990s, Nike concentrated on sponsorship to make the company become well-known.In 2000, Nike created a new innovation called â€Å"Nike Shox† and focused on the â€Å"Secret Tournament† marketing campaign in 2002. They are continuing to focus on innovative and marketing to differentiate themselves from competitors (Nike, 2012). SWOT Analysis According to Datamonitor (2012), the first of three Nike’s strengths is the market position with strong brand equity. The company became the leader in most of sport’s product segmentation. As a result, their global footwear market share increases from 14% in 2006 to 16% in 2009 (Datamonitor, 2012). In 2011, Nike’s brand value achieved $14. 28 million (Forbes, 2011). Secondly, Dat amonitor (2012) pointed out that Nike concentrates on technical innovation and cooperates with other famous companies to create a new range of products. The company is carrying out research to give advisories to athletic, coaches and trainers on effective designs, light materials and develops functions of products. Furthermore, Nike has built the relationship with Apple and has created a product for Apple’s users called Nike+ GPS. Nike+ GPS lets users track their pace, distance, time and calories-burned through their Iphone or Ipod (Nike, 2012).Consequently, many Apple’s users buy Nike footwear to discover this function on their devices. Finally, Nike has a world-wide distribution channel. They sell their products by means of Nike-owned stores and a mix of independent distributors and licenses around the world. In term of weaknesses, Nike depends too much on third party manufacturers in Asia, such as: vietnam, China, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Turkey and Indonesia to decreas e the costs of production (Datamonitor, 2012). As a result, Nike has not much control of the product quality.For example, Renonvpilaw (2005) reports that Nike took back about 9,000 units of Nike Get-Go and Little Get-Go children’s athletic shoes which were produced in Indonesia in 2005. Thus, this event makes some impacts on Nike’s image. Nike also has some opportunities to develop the business. First of all, the development of India’s economics within the remove restriction on foreign investment from government make India becomes an attractive market for foreign companies. Datamonitor (2012) shows that the footwear market in India increased 9. 2% and achieved at $4,104. million in 2009. Another opportunity is the rapid development of the global footwear market. According to Datamonitor (2012), the global footwear market rose by 2. 6% and reached $196. 3 billion in 2009 and will achieve $230. 8 billion in 2014. The main threats that Nike is dealing with are the intense competition from Adidas in the international market. Moreover, in the US market, the company has to face cheaper imported footwear from Asia; especially China. It will have some effect on the price of Nike’s products and influence revenues of the company.In addition, according to BBC News (2009), there are about 8,000 pairs of counterfeit sports shoes from China imported to UK per month. It affects not only Nike’s revenues but also the image of company. Evaluation In spite of depending too much on third parties, there is evidence that Nike will try to tighten management in third party factories. Nike will reinforce inspectors and send them to different factories on the world (BBC News, 2008). These staff will ensure the product is produced following the right standards. Beside that, there are signs which show that Nike will develop well in India.According to Nike (2012), Nike wrested the rights to become the official kit sponsor for the India cricket team from 2010 to 2015. By this way, they will become famous in India since Indian is a crazy cricket fan. For another, in order to maintain the market leader position, it depends on Nike’s ability to increase innovation and sponsorship to compete with Adidas. Lee and Aiken (2010:250) report that Nike will investigate into High School League in Taiwan to develop a long term relationship between a company and young customer public events.Thus, Nike will continue to get feedback as well as works on research projects directly with customers, to get experiences in order to innovate their products (Ramaswamy, 2008:11). Finally, Nike will establish the relationship with the police in some countries to avoid counterfeit goods. In Croatia, Nike and Police cooperate together to find out counterfeit goods (Williamette Week, 2011). To summarize, Nike will has chances to develop the company if they continue to maintain the market leader position in term of innovation, taking advantage of sponsorsh ip and having solutions to prevent the development of counterfeit goods.Bibliography BBC News (2009), Fake shoes valued at ? 1m seized, [Online], Available from: http://news. bbc. co. uk/1/hi/england/suffolk/7976876. stm [assessed 7 May 2012]. BBC News (2008), Gap and Nike: No Sweat? , [Online], Available from: http://news. bbc. co. uk/1/hi/programmes/panorama/970385. stm [assessed 7 May 2012]. Datamonitor (2012), Nike Inc: Company Profile, [Online], Available from: www. datamonitor. com [assessed 2 May 2012]. Forbes (2011), The World's Top Sports Brands, [Online], Available from: http://www. forbes. om/2010/02/03/most-powerful-sports-names-tiger-woods-nike-cmo-network-sports-brands. html [assessed 6 May 2012]. James, H. (2011), London 2012 Olympics: Adidas aims to beat Nike into second place at Games, [Online], Available from: http://www. telegraph. co. uk/finance/london-olympics-business/8545104/London-2012-Olympics-Adidas-aims-to-beat-Nike-into-second-place-at-Games. html [assess ed 6 May 2012]. Lee, C. and Aiken, K. (2010), Changing brand associations in Taiwan: Nike's sponsorship of high-school basketball, Journal of Sponsorship, Vol. 3, May, pp. 50. Nike (2011), Annual Report, [Online], Available from: http://investors. nikeinc. com/Investors/Financial-Reports-and-Filings/Annual-Reports/default. aspx [assessed 4 May 2012]. Nike (2011), History & Heritage, [Online], Available from: http://nikeinc. com/pages/history-heritage#tab6-tab [assessed 3 May 2012]. Nike (2012), Nike celebrates India’s cricket team with elite holiday collection, [Online], Available from: http://nikeinc. com/news/nike-celebrates-indias-cricket-team-with-elite-holiday-collection [accessed 4 May 2012]. Ramaswamy, V. 2008), Co-creating value through customers' experiences: the Nike case, Strategy ; Leadership Journal, Vol. 36, pp. 11. Renonvpilaw (2005), NIKE Recall of Children's Athletic Shoes, [Online], Available from: http://renonvpilaw. com/picontent/products/recalls/product. php? id=76 [assessed 3 May 2012]. Williamette Week (2011), NIKE REPRESENTATIVE DESCRIBES COUNTERFEIT GOODS SMUGGLING IN CROATIA, [Online], Available from: http://wweek. com/portland/article-18471-nike-representative-describes-counterfeit-goods-smuggling-in-croatia. html [assessed 7 May 2012]. Nike Case Study 1. A decision to retain an in-house arm of agency Weiden & Kennedy by Nike exemplify the concept of organizational design by allowing Nike use the agency’s creative designers to focus solely on Nike work, giving them un-parallel access to executives, researchers and anyone else who might provide Nike advertisers with their next inspiration for marketing greatness before listening to any other organization.Having the agency in the building is having them at their disposal at anytime they need them and also the agency will have to consider them first incase of any new ad or good idea discovered by the agency or when Nike needs to salvage a problem with the help of the agency. Thus, the agency at their finger-tips serves great advantages for not only trouble shooting. 2. I believe the organic design of Nike helped in posing the sweatshop labor problem Nike faced. Using a flat structure helps get a lot of work in a short time but none-the-less can cause a lot of trouble as seen in Nike.With a more highly bureaucratic structure, also known as Mechanistic design, practices will be closely monitored to prevent such problems from arising. In a centralized design with many rules and procedures which have to be followed, a clear-cut division of labor and narrow spans of control and formal coordination, the higher management/ board of directors will be very well informed on what is happening in the organization at each and every level. Though organic design has more personal coordination a more strict coordination will help in preventing such issues.For example, if Nike had a tight structure, they would have a predictable goal, centralized authority on whom to report directly to, many rules and procedures they must abide by, a narrow span of control so as to control their workers/management’s practices, everyone has his/her specialized task, and formal and impersonal coordinator. Having this sort of clear division of labor and coordination helps keep the man agement well informed and they would have known and remedied the sweatshop labor before the allegations surfaced.Nike would have known the right factories to outsource to instead of using factories that fail to meet their standards. 3. Fig. 1 shows what Nike network structure looks like, Mark Parker (CEO) reports to the Board of Directors and in return almost every manager/worker reports directly to him when the need arises. Nike is a divisional company but retains some functional departments as well. The brands Nike sells comprise many of the divisions of the company.Apparel for Nike brand, Converse, and Jordan brands are examples of some divisions created around specific products. Functional departments such as Nike design and investor relations are also part of Nike’s organizational structure. Nike‘s vertical structure includes CEO Mark Parker and a board of directors chaired by co-founder Phil Knight. Although Nike has functional divisions and divisions based on spe cific products it is not a matrix organization. In a matrix organization, employees report to a functional and divisional manage.At Nike, employees report to the divisional manager and the president of each division reports directly to the CEO. Nike’s continued product innovation and successful marketing are due to the combination of functional and divisional organization using an operations department to insure communication between divisions. There is division of labor but it is not clearly identified. With a more pronounced division of labor and levels of direct supervision Nike can improve its business thereby staying ahead of competition like Adidas.The bulk of divisions reporting to Mark Parker can be cut down introducing more managers to report to in other to lessen the workload on him. Having more layers can help ease the workload and also the more levels reported to will enable more ideas to be shared. A lower manager can have important ideas that will be welcomed by Mark Parker and Board of Directors but cutting such a manager from the line of report will render him unaware of the situation and not able to share his ideas, which may potentially be just the perfect solution to the situation.No doubt he flat structure makes work faster and workers feel more involved in a project, but it’s not always the best because once a project goes wrong, salvaging it is not impossible but it is hard and more time consuming to investigate than in a mechanistic bureaucratic structure. REFERENCE Schermerhorn, John R.. Management. 11th ed. Hoboken, N. J. :Wiley; 2010 Nike Case Study 1. A decision to retain an in-house arm of agency Weiden & Kennedy by Nike exemplify the concept of organizational design by allowing Nike use the agency’s creative designers to focus solely on Nike work, giving them un-parallel access to executives, researchers and anyone else who might provide Nike advertisers with their next inspiration for marketing greatness before listening to any other organization.Having the agency in the building is having them at their disposal at anytime they need them and also the agency will have to consider them first incase of any new ad or good idea discovered by the agency or when Nike needs to salvage a problem with the help of the agency. Thus, the agency at their finger-tips serves great advantages for not only trouble shooting. 2. I believe the organic design of Nike helped in posing the sweatshop labor problem Nike faced. Using a flat structure helps get a lot of work in a short time but none-the-less can cause a lot of trouble as seen in Nike.With a more highly bureaucratic structure, also known as Mechanistic design, practices will be closely monitored to prevent such problems from arising. In a centralized design with many rules and procedures which have to be followed, a clear-cut division of labor and narrow spans of control and formal coordination, the higher management/ board of directors will be very well informed on what is happening in the organization at each and every level. Though organic design has more personal coordination a more strict coordination will help in preventing such issues.For example, if Nike had a tight structure, they would have a predictable goal, centralized authority on whom to report directly to, many rules and procedures they must abide by, a narrow span of control so as to control their workers/management’s practices, everyone has his/her specialized task, and formal and impersonal coordinator. Having this sort of clear division of labor and coordination helps keep the man agement well informed and they would have known and remedied the sweatshop labor before the allegations surfaced.Nike would have known the right factories to outsource to instead of using factories that fail to meet their standards. 3. Fig. 1 shows what Nike network structure looks like, Mark Parker (CEO) reports to the Board of Directors and in return almost every manager/worker reports directly to him when the need arises. Nike is a divisional company but retains some functional departments as well. The brands Nike sells comprise many of the divisions of the company.Apparel for Nike brand, Converse, and Jordan brands are examples of some divisions created around specific products. Functional departments such as Nike design and investor relations are also part of Nike’s organizational structure. Nike‘s vertical structure includes CEO Mark Parker and a board of directors chaired by co-founder Phil Knight. Although Nike has functional divisions and divisions based on spe cific products it is not a matrix organization. In a matrix organization, employees report to a functional and divisional manage.At Nike, employees report to the divisional manager and the president of each division reports directly to the CEO. Nike’s continued product innovation and successful marketing are due to the combination of functional and divisional organization using an operations department to insure communication between divisions. There is division of labor but it is not clearly identified. With a more pronounced division of labor and levels of direct supervision Nike can improve its business thereby staying ahead of competition like Adidas.The bulk of divisions reporting to Mark Parker can be cut down introducing more managers to report to in other to lessen the workload on him. Having more layers can help ease the workload and also the more levels reported to will enable more ideas to be shared. A lower manager can have important ideas that will be welcomed by Mark Parker and Board of Directors but cutting such a manager from the line of report will render him unaware of the situation and not able to share his ideas, which may potentially be just the perfect solution to the situation.No doubt he flat structure makes work faster and workers feel more involved in a project, but it’s not always the best because once a project goes wrong, salvaging it is not impossible but it is hard and more time consuming to investigate than in a mechanistic bureaucratic structure. REFERENCE Schermerhorn, John R.. Management. 11th ed. Hoboken, N. J. :Wiley; 2010

Night World : Black Dawn Chapter 8

What are you doing?† he repeated ferociously.His grip was hurting her. â€Å"I'm throwing the water bag down there,† Maggiesaid. But she was thinking, He's so strong. Stronger than anybody I've ever met. He could break mywrist without even trying. â€Å"I know that! Why?† â€Å"Because it's easier than carrying it down in myteeth,† Maggie said. But that wasn't the real reason,of course. The truth was that she needed to get temptation out of the way. She was so thirsty thatit was a kind of madness, and she was afraid ofwhat she would do if she held onto this cool, sloshing water bag much longer. He was staring at her with those startling eyes,as if he were trying to pryhis way into her brain.And Maggie had the odd feeling that he'd succeeded, at least far enough that he knew the real reason she was doing this. â€Å"You are an idiot,† he said slowly, with cold wonder. â€Å"You should listen to your body; it's telling youwhat it needs. You can't ignore thirst. You can'tdeny it.† â€Å"Yes, you can,† Maggie said flatly. Her wrist wasgoing numb. If this went on, she was going to dropthe bag involuntarily, and in the wrong place. â€Å"You can't,† he said, somehow making the wordsinto an angry hiss. â€Å"I should know.† Then he showed her his teeth. Maggie should have been prepared. Jeanne had told her. Vampires and witches and shapeshifters, she'd said. And Sylvia was a witch,and Bern had been a shapeshifter. This boy was a vampire. The strange thing was that, unlike Bern, he didn'tget uglier when he changed. His face seemed palerand finer, like something chiseled in ice. His goldeneyes burned brighter, framed by lashes that lookedeven blacker in contrast. His pupils opened and seemed to hold a darkness that could swallow aperson up. But it was the mouth that had changed the most.It looked even more willful, disdainful, and sullen-and it was drawn up into a sneer to displaythe fangs. Impressive fangs. Long, translucent white, tapering into delicate points. Shaped like a cat's canines,with a sheen on them like jewels. Not yellowing tusks like Bern's, but delicate instruments of death. What amazed Maggie was that although helooked completely different from anything she'd seen before, completely abnormal, he also lookedcompletely natural. This was another kind of creature, just like a human or a bear, with as muchright to live as either of them. Which didn't mean she wasn't scared. But shewas frightened in a new way, a way ready for action. She was ready to fight, if fighting became necessary. She'd already changed that much since entering this valley: fear now made her not panicked buthyper alert. If I have to defend myself I need both hands.And it's better not to let him see I'm scared. â€Å"Maybe you can't ignore your kind of thirst,† shesaid, and was pleased that her voice didn't wobble.†But I'm fine. Except that you're hurting my wrist. Can you please let go?† For just an instant, the brilliant yellow eyesflared even brighter, and she wondered if he wasgoing to attack her. But then his eyelids lowered,black lashes veiling the brightness. He let go ofher wrist. Maggie's arm sagged,and the leather bagdropped from her suddenly nerveless fingers. It landed safely at her feet. She rubbed her hand. And didn't look up a moment later, when he saidwith a kind of quiet hostility, â€Å"Aren't you afraidof me?† â€Å"Yes.† It was true. And it wasn't just because hewas a vampire or because he had a power thatcould send blue death twenty feet away. It was because of him, of the way he was. He was scary enough in and of himself. â€Å"But what good is it, being afraid?† Maggie said,still rubbing her hand. â€Å"If you're going to try tohurt me,IT fight back. And so far, you haven't triedto hurt me. You've only helped me.† â€Å"I told you, I didn't do it for you.And you'll neversurvive if you keep on being insane like this.† â€Å"Insane like what?† Now she did look up, to seethat his eyes were burning dark gold and his fangswere gone. His mouth simply looked scornful and aristocratic. â€Å"Trusting people,† he said, as if it should havebeen obvious. â€Å"Taking care of people. Don't youknow that only the strong ones make it? Weak people are deadweightand if you try to help them, they'll drag you down with them.† Maggie had an answer for that. â€Å"Cady isn'tweak,† she said flatly. â€Å"She's sickShe'll get betterif she gets the chance. And if we don't take care ofeach other, what's going to happen to all of us?† He looked exasperated, and for a few minutesthey stared at each other in mutual frustration. Then Maggie bent and picked up the bag again.†I'd better give it to her now. I'll bring your can teen back.† â€Å"Wait.† His voice was abrupt and cold, unfriendly. But this time he didn't grab her.†What?† â€Å"Follow me.† He gave the order briefly andturned without pausing to see if she obeyed. It wasclear that he expectedpeople to obey him, withoutquestions. â€Å"Bring the bag,† he said, without lookingover his shoulder. Maggie hesitated an instant, glancing down atCady. But the hollow was protected by the overhanging boulders; Cady would be all right there for a few minutes. She followed the boy. The narrow path that wound around the mountain was rough and primitive, interrupted by bands of broken, razor-sharpslate. She had to pick her way carefully aroundthem. In front of her, the boy turned toward the rocksuddenly and disappeared. When Maggie caught up, she saw the cave. The entrance was small, hardly more than acrack, and even Maggie had to stoop and go in sideways. But inside it opened into a snug littleenclosure that smelled of dampness and cool rock. Almost no light filtered in from the outsideworld. Maggie blinked, trying to adjust to the neardarkness, when there was a sound like a match strike and a smell of sulphur. A tiny flame was born, and Maggie saw the boy lighting some kindof crude stone lamp that had been carved out ofthe cave wall itself. He glanced back at her and his eyes flashed gold. But Maggie was gasping, looking around her.The light of the little flame threw a mass of shifting, confusing shadows everywhere, but it alsopicked out threads of sparkling quartz in the rock.The small cave had become a place of enchantment. Andatthe boy's feet was something that glitteredsilver. In the hush of the still air, Maggie couldhear the liquid, bell-like sound of water dripping. â€Å"It'sa pool,† the boy said. â€Å"Spring fed. The watees cold, but it's good. Water .Something like pure lust overcame Maggie. She took three steps forward, ignoring the boy completely, and then her legs collapsed.Shecupped a hand in the pool, felt the coolness encompass it to the wrist, and brought it out asif shewere holding liquid diamond in her palm. She'd never tasted anything asgood as that water. No Coke she'd drunk on the hottest day of summer could compare with it. It ran through herdry mouth and down her parched throatand then it seemed to spread all through her, sparklingthrough her body, soothing and reviving her. A sort of crystal clearness entered her brain. She drankand drank in a state of pure bliss. And then, when she was in the even more blissfulstate of being not thirsty anymore, she plunged the leather bag under the surface to fill it. â€Å"What's that for?† But there was a certain resignation in the boy's voice. â€Å"Cady. I have to get back to her.† Maggie sat backon her heels and looked at him. The light dancedand flickered around him, glinting bronze off hisdark hair, casting half his face in shadow. â€Å"Thank you,† she said, quietly, but in a voice thatshook slightly. â€Å"I think you probably saved mylife again.† â€Å"You were really thirsty.† â€Å"Yeah.† She stood up. â€Å"But when you thought there wasn't enoughwater, you were going to give it to her.† He couldn'tseem to get over the concept. â€Å"Yeah† â€Å"Even if it meant you dying?† â€Å"I didn't die,† Maggie pointed out. â€Å"And I wasn'tplanning to. Butyeah, I guess, if there wasn't anyother choice.† She saw him staring at her in utterbewilderment. â€Å"I took responsibility for her,† shesaid, trying to explain. â€Å"It's like when you take ina cat, or-or it's like being a queen or something.If you say you're going to be responsible for your subjects, you are. You owe them afterward.† Something glimmered in his golden eyes, just fora moment. It could have been a dagger point ofanger or just a spark of astonishment. There wasa silence. â€Å"It's not thatweird, people taking care of each other,† Maggie said, looking at his shadowed face. â€Å"Doesn't anybody do it here?† He gave a short laugh. â€Å"Hardly,† he said dryly.†The nobles know how to take care of themselves.And the slaves have to fight each other to survive.† He added abruptly, â€Å"All of which you should know.But of course you're not from here. You're fromOutside.† â€Å"I didn't know if you knew about Outside,† Mag gie said. â€Å"There isn't supposed to be any contact. Therewasn't for about five hundred years. But whenmy-when the old king died, they opened the pass,again and started bringing in slaves from the outside world. New blood.† He said it simply andmatter-of-factly. Mountain men, Maggie thought. For years there had been rumors about the Cascades, about menwho lived in hidden places among the glaciers andpreyed on climbers. Men or monsters. There were always hikers who claimed to have seen Bigfoot. And maybe they had-or maybe they'd seen ashapeshifter like Bern. â€Å"And you think that's okay,† she said out loud.†Grabbing people from the outside world and dragging them in here to be slaves.† â€Å"Notpeople.Humans.Humansarevermin;they're not intelligent.† He said it in that same dispassionate tone, looking right at her. â€Å"Are you crazy?†Maggie's fists were clenched; herhead was lowered. Stomping time. She glared upat him through narrowed lashes. â€Å"You're talking to a human right now. Am I intelligent or not?† â€Å"You're a slave without any manners,† he saidcurtly. â€Å"And the law says I could kill you for the way you'retalkingto me.† His voice was so cold, so arrogant†¦but Maggiewas starting not to believe it. That couldn't be all there was to him. Becausehe was the boy in her dream. The gentle, compassionate boy who'd looked ather with a flame of love behind his yellow eyes,and who'd held her with such tender intensity, hisheart beating against hers, his breath on her cheek. That boy had been real-and even if it didn't makeany sense, Maggie was somehow certain of it. And no matter how cold and arrogant this one seemed, they had to be part of each other. It didn't make her less afraid of this one, exactly.But it made her more determined to ignore herfear. â€Å"In my dream,† she said deliberately, advancinga step on him, â€Å"you cared about at least onehuman. You wanted to take care of me.† â€Å"You shouldn't even be allowedto dream aboutme,† he said. His voice wasas tense and grim asever, but as Maggie got closer to him, looking directly up into his face, he did something that amazed her. He fell back a step. â€Å"Why not? Because I'm a slave? I'm a person.† She took another step forward, still looking at him challengingly. â€Å"And I don't believe that you're asbad as you say you are. I think I saw what youwere really like in my dream.† â€Å"You're crazy,† he said. He didn't back up anyfarther, there was nowhere left to go. But his wholebody was taut. â€Å"Why should I want to take care of you?† he added in a cold and contemptuous voice.†What's so special about you?† It was a good question, and for a moment Maggie was shaken. Tears sprang to her eyes. â€Å"I don't know,† she said honestly. â€Å"I'm nobodyspecial. There isn'tany reason for you to care aboutme. But it doesn't matter. You saved my life whenBern was going to kill me, and you gave me waterwhen you knew I needed it. You can talk all youwant, but those are the facts. Maybe you just care about everybody, underneath. Or-â€Å" She never finished the last sentence. As she had been speaking to him, she was doingsomething she always did, that was instinctive to.,her when she felt some strong emotion. She had done it with P.J. and with Jeanne and with Cady. She reached out toward him. And although shewas only dimly aware that he was pulling his handsback to avoid her, she adjusted automatically,catching his wrists†¦. And that was when she lost her voice and whatshe was saying flew out of her head. Because something happened. Something that she couldn't ex plain, that was stranger than secret kingdoms orvampires or witchcraft. It happened justas her fingers closed on hishands. It was the first time they had touched like that, bare skin to bare skin. When he had grabbed her wrist before, her jacket sleeve had been in be tween them. It started as an almost painful jolt, a pulsatingthrill that zigged up her arm and then sweptthrough her body. Maggie gasped, but somehowshe couldn't let go of his hand. Like someone beingelectrocuted, she was frozen in place. The blue fire, she thought wildly. He's doing thesame thing to me that he did to Bern. But the next instant she knew that he wasn't. This wasn't the savage energy that had killed Bern, and it wasn't anything the boy was doing to her. Itwas something being done to both of them, by some incredibly powerful source outside either of them. And it was trying †¦ to open a channel. Thatwas the only way Maggie could describe it. It was blazing a path open in her mind, and connectingit to his. She feltas if she had turned around and unexpectedly found herself facing another person's soul.A soul that was hanging there, without protection,already in helpless communication with hers. It was by far the most intense thing that hadever happened to her. Maggie gasped again, seeingstars, and then her legs melted and she fellforward He caught her, but he couldn't stand up either.Maggie knew that as well as she knew what wasgoing on in her own body. He sank to his knees, holding her. What are you doing to me? It was a thought, but it wasn't Maggie's. It washis. I don't know †¦I'm not doing it †¦ I don't understand!Maggie had no idea how to send herthoughts to another person. But she didn't need to,it was simply happening. A pure line of communication had been opened between them. It was afierce and terrible thing, a bit like being fused together by a bolt of lightning, but it was also so wonderful that Maggie's entire skin was prickling and her mind was hushed with awe. She felt as if she'd been lifted into some new andwonderful place that most people never even saw. The air around her seemed to quiver with invisible wings. This is how people are supposed to be,shethought. Joined like this. Open to each other. Withnothing hidden and no stupid walls between them. A thought came back at her, sharp and quickasa hammer strike. No! It was so cold, so full of rejection, that for a moment Maggie was taken aback. But then she sensedwhat else was behind it. Anger†¦ and fear. He was afraid of this, andof her. He felt invaded. Exposed. Well, I do, too,Maggie said mentally. It wasn'tthat she wasn't afraid. It was that her fear was irrelevant. The force that held them was so much morepowerful than either of them, so immeasurably ancient, that fear was natural but not important. The same light shone through each of them, strippingaway their shields, making them transparent toeach other. It's all right for you. Because you don't have any thing to be ashamed of!The thought flashed by so quickly that Maggie wasn't even sure she hadheard it. What do you mean?she thought. Wait †¦ Delos. That was his name. Delos Redfern. She knew itnow, as unquestionably as she knew the names ofher own family. She realized, too, as a matter of minor importance, an afterthought, that he was a prince. A vampire prince who'd been born to rule this secret kingdom, as the Redfern family had ruled it for centuries. The old king was your father,she said to him. And he died three years ago, when you were fourteen. You've been ruling ever since. He was pulling away from her mentally, trying tobreak the contact between them. It's none of your business, he snarled. Please wait,Maggie said. But as she chased after him mentally, trying to catch him, to help him,something shocking and new happened, like a second bolt of lightning.

A Look At Rapunzel English Literature Essay

A Look At Rapunzel English Literature Essay There was a man and his wife who wanted a child for many years. They lived next to a witch, who had a garden that was surrounded by a wall. The wife wanted some lettuce so bad that her husband agreed to sneak into the witch’s garden and get some. The witch caught the man and made a deal with him. He could take the lettuce but when they had a child the witch would get the baby. When the couple had a baby the witch came and took the girl and called her Rapunzel. The witch put her into a high tower that did not have a door. It only had a small window at the top. The witch would come every morning and climb up Rapunzel’s hair to get into the tower. One day a Prince came by and heard Rapunzel’s song. He watched the witch and learned how to get into the tower. Later he climbed into the tower on Rapunzel’s hair. They became friends and decided to get married. The witch found out and cut off Rapunzel’s hair and took her to a desert. When the Prince came th e witch was waiting for him. The Prince fell into a thorn bush and he became blinded by the thorns. He wandered around for years until he found Rapunzel. Her tears fell into the Prince’s eyes and he was able to see again. They returned to his castle and were married. Discription This segment in the magazine shows how the media and society has downgraded us to the extent were don’t try to communicate to someone verbally or by a making quick phone call. Instead we resort to emailing or texting messages or paragraph conversations which go on for hours. This is leading us to loose our social roles in society and become to technologically dependent for our every entire daily needs. Abdullahi M Farah Rapunzel Are You Online? Day 1 Prince @ 4:01 â€Å"Hi I just seen you on facebook and I can’t lie to you, your singing is amazing† Rapunzel @ 4:26 â€Å"Thank you so much, I didn’t think that a lot of people noticed à ¯Ã‚ Ã…   â€Å" Prince @ 4:39  "np, I bet you parents are proud to have such a beautiful and talented daughter judging from you picture† Rapunzel 5: 09 â€Å"I would hope so but i’ve never reallyà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ it’s a long story† Weeks later Prince @ 6:01 â€Å"Is it clear to come to your base gurl† Rapunzel @ 6:01 † The witch is getting up all in my face with dem poison apple sand things, she wont let me just chill but anyways xoxoxo I miss you so much

Revenue Strategy Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Revenue Strategy - Essay Example With its Corporate head quarters in Bentonville Arkansas, Wal-Mart operates 99 distribution centers and transport offices in USA to service the operations of its 5,246 Wal-Mart stores out of which 1,587 are located internationally. Over 138 million customers per week are catered to by Wal-Mart stores across the world. 82% of American households have made at least one purchase at Wal-Mart during an annum. Such sustained performance over the years have been driven by a series of well crafted business strategies, which are targeted at generating revenue and profitability through the Wal-Mart operations as well as providing the company with significant competitive advantage over its rivals. At the heart of Wal-Mart’s revenue generation strategy lies the focus on attracting new customers and retaining existing ones by offering value that is unparrelel to what its competitiors are offering. Its marketing campaigns are firmly hinged on the slogan, â€Å"everyday low prices† where the company offers certain products at 25-30% less than the normal market prices. With its massive operation volumes the company enjoys economies of scales, that are translated in to low prices, which in turn is used as the main revenue generation tool. The company also pressurize its supply chain in to cutting costs and improving their own productivity so that low prices can be secured at supply cha in level, and passed on to customers while maintaining Wal-Mart’s profitability. The company has utilized many channels to reach different customer segments by differentiating its stores formats and product range to suit locations and different communities. Wal-Mart stores fall in to 5 categories as Wal-Mart Discount Stores, Wal-Mart Super centers, Wal-Mart Neighborhood Market, Sams Club and Wal-Mart International. The company also operates Wal-Mart Online Store to capitalize from the increasing popularity of Internet

Nietzsche and Freud Views on Religion Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3750 words

Nietzsche and Freud Views on Religion - Essay Example Interestingly, though the great German philosopher Nietzsche and Freud both hold on the concept of something beyond the premises of religion, something that may or may not have the comfort of illusion., the two maestros had a difference of opinion on some basic levels. Nietzsche offers a strong criticism against religion, morality, and philosophy by using a blend of Enlightenment-inspired criticism and anti-Enlightenment attack on the life-negating aspects of modern culture. In Freud’s study of the idea of Positivist origin, he broadly defines the causes and purpose of religion in three works, â€Å"Future of an Illusion†, â€Å"Civilization and Its Discontents† and â€Å"Moses and Monotheism†. He analyses the origin of the religions and flaunts the psychological debate regarding its cultural significance to mankind. To Freud, religion is a vital par of the processes of traditional civilization. He emphasizes on the premises of man’s latent and primordial feelings and tries giving voices to those socially unsanctified wishes by trying to provide solutions to these repressed instinctual desires. Thus, religion is held as an illusion that can be compared to the definition of illusion provided by Marx (Communist Manifesto2, in his idea of false consciousness guiding the proletariats) that makes him remark that religion is the opium of the people3. Similar to Marx's assertion, Freud4 shows that religion is a function of the believers' inherent conviction of his faith and cannot be empirically or rationally justified. In his book, "The Future of an Illusion", he says that God is the paternalistic Christian God formed by the primitive human mind, in an effort to explain things beyond its ken and to rebuff the horrors that may arise due to ignorancy Freud also believes that from childhood, a traditional version of Christianity is infused within individuals, and which leads to an easy process of assimilation into our social and national consciousness of a culture. He also points out that this inculcation is so deep-rooted that things are never questioned and carry on as traditional knowledge. This hegemony, or social conditioning, continues even upon attaining maturity from where the religious illusions becomes prone to asserting a kind of social and psychological dogmatism, that suppresses questioning and doubt, and we retain that childish version of religion, even in becoming adults with acute powers of reasoning of rationality. Freud's answer does not lie in renouncing God, but rather, to grow up and switch to Logos, the god of Reason. In scientific terms, he only suggests a form of displacement reaction, only for what he considers a replacement of the bad by the better. Similar to Sartre's bad faith, and in line to the existe ntialist philosophists, renunciation, as according to Freud is impossible. Freud's explains Christianity from the loci of a patriarchal and phallic society, in which the father is a central figure (hence, his analysis of the subconscious as creating a father/protector god, someone to be both loved and feared). Thus, he propounds that the idea of religion emanates from the ardent wishes that lie latent within our subconscious and our neurotic selves: "Religion would thus be the universal obsessional neurosis of humanity; like the obsessional neurosis of children, it arose out of the Oedipus complex, out of the relation to the father. [Consequently] a turning-away from religion is bound to occur with the fatal inevitability of a process of growth" (Freud, 1927, chapter-VIII) In his analysis of religion in Chapter IV, Freud positions the human subjectivity at the centre of his theory. He analyses the urges of a

Contract Law Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Contract Law - Essay Example Since Standard Contracts display an inherent certainty, they leave no scope for ambiguity. The Supplier who has made the Standard Contract (Employers, Banks, Investors and other such people) can impose their own clauses. They impose their own clauses and are adamant about any proposed change by the client. What makes provisions in agreements â€Å"standard† is the failure of the client to negotiate them and the willingness of those artists to accept such an off-putting reply that something is â€Å"standard.† ( IVAN HOFFMAN, B.A., J.D.) There are of course many provisions that should be included in any thorough agreement even though many of those provisions and their internal components remain fully negotiable. But at the very least, money points, royalties, advances, reserves should be considered as fully fair game in all deals. Other agreed terms, whilst not mandatory, have been subject to agreement between the negotiating parties nationally and should not therefore n eed amending in any way at local level. There are only a small number of terms which will be particular to each practice and which will need to be tailored to reflect the agreement. In the present scenario there is precious little that the client can do. There are not too many legal instruments could be provided to the client against the supplier, who has prepared the Standard Contract. As a rule, the standard conditions are valid in most circumstances.

The Devil Wears Prada Media Analysis Movie Review

The Devil Wears Prada Media Analysis - Movie Review Example Andrea knows nothing about fashion and people at the magazine makes fun of her. Throughout the film, her sense of style changes and she becomes a true fashionista. But as everything comes with a price, her relationships with friends and boyfriend starts falling apart. At the end of the movie, Andy understands that life is made of hard choices and she needs to go after what she wants. This movie represents the fashion industry as a world full of narcissistic and shallow people. An example is the way that everyone at Runway Magazine starts treating Andy differently when she decides to dress â€Å"accordingly†. She became respected by Emily, the first Assistant, and only after the makeover that she started to get thinks right that Miranda asked her. The fact is that the movie emphasizes the change of her behavior on the fact that she gave in into the fashion world, but the truth is that she changed her perspective and decided to have a positive attitude towards the things she needed to do. To create this high fashion atmosphere, the use of costuming is indispensable. As Stutesman would argue, â€Å"[costume] must express something far beyond the outfit: the costume designer must use clothes to create basic movie elements† (Stutesman 20). If the right clothes were not used, then the movie would not make as much sense, or it would not make the same impact as it did when it first came out.

Skills and Strengths of a Nutritionists Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Skills and Strengths of a Nutritionists - Essay Example Service orientation is the third skill that is necessary for any nutritionist (Anthony, 2006). Whereas employment is based on how much is offered for the position, it is equally necessary for one to be motivated by the desire to serve that the hunger to gain wealth. A needier place is the hospital where the patients feel helpless and their life lies deeply on your hand to serve them without having to consider what you get out of it. As a nutritionist is such a setting, one should be actively looking for a way to offer help to other people. My driving force has always been the desire to serve others and not the gains associated with my service. This skill suits me for a hospital where I will be in a better position to help others who are in need. Fourth is time management which involves managing both one's time and that of others. A chain of activities occurs in a hospital which calls for the need to properly manage one's time so that one does not inconvenience others. A proper time s chedule should be laid down and be followed strictly to improve the efficiency of service. Speaking is also a necessary strength in this practice (Proper, 2009). This skill enables one to convey information to others by talking to them. Speaking to people gives one a platform to convince them to do what is right. In speaking, a nutritionist is able to give advice to both the medical professionals, patients and their families. I have demonstrated a proven ability to effectively communicate verbally to people.

Crisis in Darfur- Current affairs Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Crisis in Darfur- Current affairs - Essay Example In keeping with the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), the number of peacekeepers is on the rise at Darfur. The two sides of the conflict are: the Sudanese Military and the Janjaweed on one side and some rebel groups like the Sudan Liberation Movement and the Justice and Equality Movement on the other. The ethnic non-Arab land tilling groups appoints the later two parties. We have ample proof and information to say that the Sudanese government is helping the Janjaweed and the militia, especially in terms of funds. The desertification of the land by the cutting of trees, drought and problem of excess population have in fact made the problem intense and is one of the factors responsible for the conflict. The nomads, in order to feed their cattle are taking them towards the southern region occupied by the farming groups of Black Americans. The government of Sudan has been involved in the war but has been curbing the figures of death as well as evidence. However according to the US Holocaust Museum, the figures exceed 1 lakh. Around 2.5 millions have been displaced due to the war. These are not mere figures but human lives! We have therefore termed this as the genocide although the United Nations does not agree with the term. In the year 2007, the Sudanese government was accused by UN for participatign in the genocide and the gross violations in Darfur. The President of Sudan has been charged by three accusations of genocide, five accusations of crimes against humanity and two cases of murder by the International Criminal Court. Because eof ethnicity the president is accused to have planned the destruction of three tribal groups in Darfur. This is one of the reasons why Sudan looks upon the UN forces and the peacekeepers as foreign invaders. The blame is on America for following this interventionist policy with respect to the foreign nations. (Walker and

Compliance in Marketing Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Compliance in Marketing - Essay Example In such business interrelations, customers are required to act according to the regulations given by a service provider. In this business service providers and customers do not meet face to face and they, therefore, interact actively or passively through media. Examples of such businesses include education, banking services, health services like weight losses rules among others. In this kind of business interactions, lack of customers to adhere to regulations means failure. This business innovation has been faced with criticism by various individuals. There are issues that rise up concerning methods of sampling, data collections, and analysis. While some scholars agree with these methods, some others do not agree with them. Works done by Dellande and Nyer; Dellande; Gilly and Graham as well as the work of Kasabov and Warlow are examples of some works that have published about Customer Compliance Business Methods (CCBM). Analysis of these works reveals different issues of concern abou t methods of data sampling, data collection and analysis. In this work, I will review articles by the above authors to show strengths and weaknesses of their methods of data acquisition, synthesis and presentation. Part 2 Critical Evaluation of Articles Research work is considered well done when it ensures validity and reliability. Data also should be collected within ethical bounds. This means that it would be important to put into consideration values of the people studied (Al-Aidaros, Idris, and Shamsudin, 2011). Automated Marketing and the Growth of ‘Customer Compliance’ Businesses by Kasabov and Warlow In this article, the author presents a study of Customer Compliance Model in which he argues that members of the society are expected to receive services without question. In that way, this article does not offer a chance for a customer to suggest anything about a service they receive. This article presents a kind of service delivery that is totally automated (Kasabo v and Warlow, 2009, p.31-32). As a method of data collection, this is not viable because of dynamics that are represented by different people. This method lacks the ability to handle broad problem area. This is an aspect that any research should represent for problem solving (Nouri, n.d, p.7). Access of information presented during service delivery cannot be well sampled because the method does not offer any chance of study of distribution. To be able to sample, direct contact is essential (Business Conduct, 2012). Less people are able to access automated data that would reduce reliability of data, which may by any means be obtained in a research of this nature. Automation of service makes it difficult for sampling (Greener, 2008, p.47). In giving analysis of information obtained in an automated service delivery, as advanced by Kasabov and Warlow, there are possibilities of biases. This is because some of the data obtained cannot be validated because it is based on poorly sampled so urces. It makes it difficult to generalise information. This method does not give a careful consideration of ethics. First, because service providers do not request customers to respond to services provided using their views. Second, because service providers always implement their innovation without considering the views of customers (Bryman and Bell, 2007, p.143). Gaining Compliance and Losing Weight: The Role of the Service Provider in Health Care Services by Stephanie Dellande, Mary C. Gilly, and John L. Graham This article describes a research that was done through use of questionnaires, direct participation, analysis of secondary sources of data and in-depth interviews. These were used as methods of data

Choose a modern day situation Essay Example for Free

Choose a modern day situation Essay In this lesson, we were some preparation work to prepare us for our historical improvisation piece. We had the choice of two tasks, 1. Choose a famous event from history and create an improvised piece which details this event, or 2. Choose a modern day situation (e. g. at school, a party, a mealtime etc. ) and create a short improvisation showing this. THEN choose a period of time between 1850 and 1960 and re-enact the same scene, as you think it may have happened at the time. Our group decided to choose the second task, and we all decided that doing a piece set in 1960 would be very interesting. When we had chosen the time our piece was to be set in, the majority of our group wanted to set our piece in a party, but Kayleigh wanted to perform a piece set in a school, and the rest of the group all agreed that this was an excellent idea, and could turn out some interesting differences between the 60s and todays school environment. Donna didnt really want to base our performance in the sixties but eventually the group managed to talk her round to our way of thinking, and Donna was quite happy to perform with us. I decided to go home, and research everything I could about the sixties, so that next drama lesson, we would have plenty of information with which to make our piece historically accurate. I have placed the information I collected behind this page, to show that our group have researched and used all resources available to us in order to enhance our performance. In the meantime, for the remainder of the lesson we decide to write a very basic scene plan, for our preparation performance. We couldnt make a prop and costume list, as we hadnt properly researched the time period our performance was set in, but we all agreed to bring in some props and costumes we thought would be appropriate for the piece, and when I brought the research in, we would choose the best from the selection we had brought to the lesson. Scene Plan Scene One Kayleigh is playing the teacher, and as we walk into the 1960 classroom, she invites us all in to sit down with a warm smile. We gave her a smile, to show how friendly a place school was back then, and how friendly the teacher was herself. Then the pupils sit down and the teacher asks them what they would like to do. We thought this was a good way to show the different teaching styles in use at the time, and how different their lessons were to ours, having no set curriculum, and being given the responsibility to choose for themselves what they want to do instead of just being told. The children tell her they would like to protest against war, and the teacher, being supportive of their ideas, and valuing their opinions, gets out her guitar, with which to accompany the protest chant. The girls sit and start to repeat the word peace over and over again, whilst swaying in unison. In mid-sway the girls freeze, and I get up and explain a bit about school in the sixties, and the main differences with today. Then we all walk off stage. Scene Two Kayleigh walks on stage closely followed by the kids. She sits behind a desk, and starts to read the register. I thought it was important to have a desk for the teacher, to show how nowadays teachers use their desks as a barrier between them and the pupils, almost using them to segregate themselves fro the kids, whereas in the sixties, the teachers wanted the kids to feel happy and welcome, and didnt want this barrier between them and the children. The kids attitudes are visible from the very second the walk in the door, I thought it was a good way to use movement to show how the kids feel about being forced into coming to school, and doing work they dont want to do. This is their way of rebelling, in the sixties, they rebelled to, only in the sixties, the teachers helped them. These days, the kids are rebelling against the teachers. The kids just generally give the teacher a load of attitude then we all walk off stage. I thought it was really important to show the two different ways kids then, and kids now, have of rebelling against things, and the way that the hippies used the faculty as a medium for protest, using them to send their message, whereas in this decade, kids just rebel against teachers. It was now the end of the lesson but I knew exactly what I had to research for our performance next lesson, I decided to research hippies, and the political and social background of our chosen date. This meant researching important events and getting an insight into what people were like in the sixties, how they behaved, how they reacted to scandal such as teenage pregnancy, and other social taboos, to help us play the parts convincingly. Also I wanted to find out what motivated the flower power generation to become as big as it did, and what was the reason behind their morals and ethics. I also wanted to find out a little about the music that was playing at the time, and how that was influencing people. My research is displayed over the next few pages of my notebook. The information I collected was very interesting to read, and I accumulated enough to give us a really good idea of how people in the 1960s dressed and more importantly, how they behaved. 13th March This was the lesson that we had to perform our preparation piece in. I was slightly nervous, as I knew another group were also doing the 1960s, and I didnt want our group to be shadowed by their performance, or for it to seem like we had copied them, because all of our ideas had been original and completely uninfluenced by anything they had done, but apart from that, I wasnt nervous of performing at all. We were the first group to perform, and it all went reasonably well, except some unexpected laughing due to lack of rehearsal time. I thought the characters could have been more developed, and it could have been longer, but since it was only a rehearsal piece, this didnt really matter. The other groups came up with some brilliant ideas too, one did a remaking of a scene from the Krays, a film about some London gangsters, infamous for its violent content. This was really good, and had a humourous element at the end, to relieve the tension of the scene slightly. Another group did a news report on the sinking of the Titanic and I found this to be entertaining and informative, at the same time. The other group who did a 1960 hippie setting were really good too, I liked the way they sang, and used drugs, to show that drugs were socially acceptable in those days. When we had finished watching everyone elses preparation performance, it was the end of the lesson, but I felt that the preparation work was very useful in preparing me for the historical task we were soon to begin. It really got me thinking about the different ways we could present information to an audience, and made me consider all the possible ideas we had already been forming about our piece. 20th March When we came into the lesson today, we were given a sheet, clarifying, what was expected of us of our GCSE Drama Historical piece. My rewrite of the sheet can be seen overleaf. The sheet is displayed on the adjacent page. When we all had time to examine the sheet properly, we could not decide which task to choose, so we made a brainstorm on the period of time we were allowed to use for our piece, 1859-1960. We were glad that the time period was so large, as it gave us a lot of events in history to portray. When we had made our brainstorm, we were still no nearer to agreeing on an idea or time period to show in our piece, so we each chose a time period we felt would be interesting to show, and we went to the library to research our individual subjects. Kelly and Teresa wanted to research Rock and Roll and the fifties and Kayleigh and Donna wanted to research hippies. The rest of the group didnt really want to do another piece on hippies, as our preparation piece had focussed on this, but, we did not wish to dismiss any ideas at this time, and so we were all quite happy to research our individual topics. Dora was slightly stuck for ideas on which era she should research, so I suggested the Victorian era, as it covered a wide range of events, within the time bracket we were given, and could be very interesting to look into. I myself decided to research the 1930s, the invention of television, and the broadcasting debut of the BBC, (British Broadcasting Corporation). My research is displayed over the next few pages. 21st March This lesson, the group was still very much divided into two groups, Dora, Me, Kelly and Teresa, who wanted to perform a piece about the rock n roll era of the 1950s, and Donna and Kayleigh, who still wanted to do a play about hippies, and more specifically, hippies in school, which the rest of us seriously objected to, seeing as it was exactly the same as our preparation work. Then Kelly came up with the idea of spanning different decades, and showing one idea, either schools, or parties, throughout the 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s and 1960. I came up with the idea of everyone sharing the responsibilities equally, and each person having a scene to write up, and design themselves. Then Kayleigh was concerned about the amount of work each person would have to do, so I came up with the idea that if the person in charge of the scene wanted to, they could speak to the audience instead of acting, and this would tie our performance in with both the comparison, and theatre in education tasks we were given, and presenting different scenes in different formats would improve our performance, and make it more interesting for the audience. We decided Teresa would write the 30s scene, Kelly the 20s, Donna and Kayleigh the year 1960, and Dora the thirties. I decide to take the fortys scene, as I thought it would have been really interesting to show the jubilation of the British population at the end of the second world war. Then I said I thought it would be really good idea to have each person who designed the scene, to come to the front at the end, and speak to the audience directly about their scene, the main differences from those days to the present time, and that this would also be a good way to give the other actors time to change before the next scene starts. I thought this would also be a good way to fill in some time too, as with six people in our group our plays ideal length would be about twenty minutes. I thought splitting the scenes up this way would be a great way to get everyone to put their own thoughts and style into the piece, and let everyone each have their individual inputs, and be able to perform one piece of our performance their way. I also thought it would be a really good way to add more variety to our piece, and hold the attention of our audience better than a less creatively structured piece would. We had still not decided on the theme our scenes would have, schools or parties, so we all agreed to go home, and really think about our reasons for our preferences, and think about which idea was the more original and creative. We also decided to seriously think about which would be more interesting for our audience to watch. The research I found about the 1940s, can be found over the next few pages of my notebook. 27th March Today, we were still disagreeing on what the main focus of our performance should be. Kayleigh and Donna still wanted to write our scenes around a school format, and the rest of us still wanted to have the main feature of each part of our performance be a party, or be about a party. When our drama teacher came over to check on our progress, she suggested, if it was causing so much trouble within the group, that we split into a four and a two, with Kayleigh and Donna forming their own group together, but we all decided that this would not be a good idea, as Kayleigh and Donna didnt want to be on their own, trying to create a totally new piece in a reduced time period, and we didnt really want to lose two of our group, and the people who were writing the last scene of our performance, so Donna and Kayleigh agreed to base our performance around parties and not schools. I wanted to use parties, because there is more opportunity to show difference in costume, and behaviour throughout the different decades, than there is in schools. Then for the rest of the lesson, we concentrated on developing a presentation to show to the rest of the class. Each person read out their thoughts on their scene, and how they intended it to develop into the final piece we were to perform. We got some interesting feedback on the subject, mainly, that in order to make my scene/s historically accurate, I needed to do more research on street parties in particular, not just the forties in general. Also, Mark had an interesting suggestion, he suggested that instead of having people get changed while the writer of the last scene speaks to the audience, we have just three people in one scene, and three in the next, however, this is up to the individual who creates the scene, as she will decide how many characters she needs in her part of the performance. At the end of the lesson, we decided to think about the different ideas suggested to us by the rest of the class, and we all agreed to think of some ideas for our scenes for tomorrows lesson.

The Current Zynga Strategy Diamond Marketing Essay

The Current Zynga Strategy Diamond Marketing Essay Launched in 2007, Zynga has expanded its portfolio from exclusively Facebook API services to provide independent and multiplatform social gaming on personal computers, tablets and mobile devices (Zynga, p 1-2, 2013). However, less than a year after appearing on the stock exchange Zynga has fallen on hard times (Zynga, p 1, 2013). The challenge of satisfying evolving consumer needs and the microeconomic climate have severely impacted your bottom line. Your stock price has fallen over 70% and you have recorded net losses of nearly $53 million in Q3 2012 alone (Zynga, p 1, 2013). In order to stay relevant in todays market and return Zynga to the social gaming pioneer it once was, you must employ radical changes. I have identified four main challenges facing Zynga today. Firstly, Zynga is in the business of casual gaming with a social twist. But because casual games notoriously have the shortest life cycle it is hugely problematic that Zynga has neither innovated nor replicated successful games at the same rate that customers have grown tired of the available offerings. Secondly, Zynga does not have a sustainable source of revenue due to considerable customer churn. Cycling through customers and not generating repeat business is not a strategy for a freemium company. Thirdly, while Zynga is moving towards a more independent business model, the business was built on and still largely depends on Facebook. The close association between your corporations and your recent decision to sever ties with the social media giant has been negatively affecting your bottom line. Lastly, the corporate culture in place at Zynga thrives on imitation. Rather than being forward thinking and innovative, Zynga ha s enjoyed enormous success by mimicking already popular games and reverse engineering them for a simpler, social experience. Given these challenges I have developed a strategic recommendation to reinvent Zynga. Zynga must return to its original ambitions of being an independent social gaming giant and create a social gaming ecosystem unlike any other. By partnering with hardware manufacturers and developing a new operating system Zynga can not only reclaim its lost share of the social gaming market, but capture a population of consumers with unmet social gaming needs. With this innovative model, Zynga will once again demonstrate financial success. Goals and Objectives: The ultimate goal of my strategic recommendation is to revert Zyngas declining financial status and decreasing Monthly Average Users (MUAs). The new business model will pursue the goals upon which the company was founded upon: Reach, Retention and Revenue; however, these goals may only be achieved if Zynga remains true its original ambitions and strives for stable growth built on its own success, rather than piggybacking off the growth of another corporation. Contextual Analysis: Mark, you created Zynga to address an unrealized consumer need: socially integrated gaming. But while you correctly predicted that consumers wanted an immersive and integrated social gaming experience, as they do with most other tech experiences, you failed in your execution. The original customer reach, retention and revenue model aided the explosive growth you enjoyed in the past, but it did not create a foundation for your company to be further built on. You were too consumed with rapidly growing the company and collecting profits to see that strategically Zynga would have benefited from a slower, more premeditated climb to success. Your original ambitions to build an independent company were correct, yet instead you chose to piggyback off of the success of Facebook to catapult yourself into overnight, mass-market penetration. Accordingly, there are four challenges facing Zynga. Firstly, Zynga is in the business of casual gaming with a social twist. That is, simple games with uncomplicated, vibrant graphics and easy inputs and controls. Since casual games are not intimidating and easy to play, they appeal to a large audience (primarily [60%] a normally disinterested group of middle aged women). However, casual games notoriously have the shortest life cycle (Microsoft ). In fact, most estimates give casual games a 300 day life cycle (______). The gameplay in Zyngas games is particularly known for its simplicity (_____). Look at Farmville as an example. A users constant diligence and effort will ultimately be rewarded if they maintain their crops and animals (unless they choose to buy virtual currency with real currency to speed up the game). It is evident that there is hardly any skill component involved in casual gaming. Accordingly, game fatigue occurs relatively quickly. Your frequent introduction of new games is evidence that you understand this trend; ho wever, what you have not accounted for is that users become exhausted by the entire category of simple games. Once you have built a farm, city, mafia and castle using virtually indistinguishable principles, a similar game is less likely to be pleasing. This is especially true in a category of games that Zynga succeeds in: non goal-oriented games. That is games that have no definitive end or prize. It is hugely problematic that your company has neither innovated nor replicated successful games at the same rate that customers have grown tired of the available offerings. Cycling through customers and not generating repeat business is not a strategy. Secondly, you have neither a stable, nor sustainable source of revenue due to the previously discussed customer churn. Zynga operates on a freemium, free-to-play model. That is, the vast majority of your customers play your games for free while only a small portion of users constitute paying customers. Financial analysis reveals that over 83% of your revenue is generated by less than 3% of your customers. As such, Zynga faces grave financial risks if you lose the attention and enthusiasm of your core 3% of paying customers. Thirdly, while Zynga is moving towards a more independent business model, your business was built on and still largely depends on Facebook (Zynga 10-K, 2013). In 2012 86% of Zyngas revenue was from Facebook API services and revenues were down 20% from the prior year, while Facebook reported a 40% increase in gaming profit (Zynga, p , 2013) (Zynga 10-K, 2013). Note this discrepancy. Although the social nature of your games requires the use of a social network platform, Facebook is a social media monopolist. As such, you are buying and using services providing by a monopolist. This has severe financial implications for Zynga. When a company does not make considerable profits, it is not in Facebooks interest to charge a high transaction fee. Instead, Facebook encourages use of its services by maintaining low fees since the applications use increases the usage of Facebooks platform. However, if the company becomes financially successful, as Zynga did, Facebook begins to charge higher tra nsaction fees. This is standard microeconomics and a problem plaguing Zynga. Facebook is capitalizing on your success by taking over 30% of each transaction your games attract (Zynga, p , 2013). Additionally, the close association between your corporation and Facebook, as well as your recent decision to sever ties with the social media giant has been and will continue negatively affecting your bottom line. While costumers may recognize your games, your corporate brand has been dissolved and shadowed by Facebook. You should not have so closely associated Zynga with Facebook and so heavily relied on Facebook to grow your company. While Facebook will always have game developers to replace you, you will not always have the customer awareness you enjoyed on while using Facebooks API services. You are competing in an industry where you are highly replaceable and are at the mercy of your customers in your fight to stay relevant (Exhibit A). Lastly, the corporate culture in place at Zynga thrives on imitation. Zynga is present in the rapidly evolving industry of gaming in which technology is critical. Such an industry requires companies to be at the forefront of change and lead innovation. Normally companies employ sizeable RD teams that look to new game development (in your case to combat game fatigue and customer churn) as well as new distribution channels (in your case to combat the dependence on Facebook). You did genuinely pioneer social gaming, but that is where you stopped. While copying competitor games worked in the short term, it is not a sustainable strategy. You must refocus on innovation. Furthermore, this attitude blinded you to the importance of the smartphone as a new gaming platform. Only recently have you realized the potential of mobile games. Rather than being forward thinking and innovative, Zynga has enjoyed enormous success by mimicking already popular games and reverse engineering them for a simpl er, social experience. Strategic Options Alternatives: With regard to customer acquisition and retention, Pincus wondered whether Zynga should invest to improve its viral distribution model, or if the company needed to encourage users to connect with strangers who also happen to be Zynga game players. One of the unmet needs social media sites address is the desire to meet new people. Consumers enjoy being around like minded individuals and tend to seek out and gravitate to those who share similar interests and values. In most cases an individual has a set amount of friends in their social network that closely share their values, but not necessarily enough to satisfy their social needs. As such, it is in Zyngas best interest to encourage users to connect with strangers who also enjoy social gaming. Consumers would be attracted to the idea that they would be introduced to those most like them satisfying their social need. Furthermore, for Zynga the viral avenue is slowly disappearing since Facebook has amended its algorithm to limit game post viability to those who are not signed up for the Zynga services. Additionally, depending on a viral distribution model implies that there is a large enough customer base to promote to. Zyngas creation of an independent platform is a positive and progressive step, but you must remember that you will not have the same customer base that Facebook has, and it certainly will not attract 1 billion users overnight. With regard to product, Pincus debated whether he should invest primarily in evolving existing successful casual games, or if he should invest to expand Zynga into other markets, such as real money gambling and mid-core gaming. Zynga should invest in other markets. Social games have a very short life cycle and are becoming increasingly more expensive for Zynga to create and maintain. As such, Zynga should focus on investing and developing games that are more interactive, slightly more complex and retain customers for longer periods of time such as gambling games and mid-core games as these markets theoretically address the problems facing Zynga. With regard to corporate strategy, Pincus had to decide whether Zynga should continue to focus on being a content producer, or if it should focus on becoming a platform for hosting its own and 3rd party developers games. Zynga should not limit itself on content development as its only competency. You should begin building a platform or operating system or even venturing into hardware manufacturing in order to release yourself from the fetters of Facebook. In truth, this is the hardest strategy because it has the highest risk, but if properly implemented, it would also reap the great ROI as well as serve as the most long term option. Strategic Recommendation: Successful tech companies are those that do not just create products, services or experiences, but rather immerse their users into complete, closed ecosystems. Google, Amazon and Apple are three examples of lucrative companies that have enjoyed stable growth throughout the past decade of tumultuous technological uncertainty. They have fully integrated their consumers by enticing them to choose a digital lifestyle that is almost controlled by their gadgets and software. For instance, Google has vertically and horizontally integrated to provide social services (Google+) and created not one, but two platforms (Android and Chrome) available on a multitude of devices (computers, tablets, smartphones) to engage consumers on all levels. Apple has done the same with its iPhones, Macs and iPads and its OS. Amazon has the Kindle and Amazon Prime. In each company, consumer hardware is fully integrated with the other products and the platform/software addresses both known and unmet social needs. This occurs while the hardware and software provide the standard professional and personal solutions expected of computing devices. Even Facebook, your rival is making its foray into software and hardware integration with the release of its operating system: Home. Like Google, Apple and Amazon, Facebook will now have its own ecosystem to lock its users into. Creating an ecosystem employs the walled-garden concept where a company locks a consumer into its product by providing all the services necessary to address the consumer needs and effectively locks a consumer into the product. Zynga should follow lead and focus on creating a social gaming ecosystem with high walls (barriers to entry) by leaving the consumer facing high switching costs. The best way to create this ecosystem is by developing your own, independent platform and operating system and partnering with hardware manufacturers to deliver integrated devices to fanatical gamers. Implementation Plan Zynga should begin to secede from Facebook in a gradual 3 year plan. Each year you should refrain from renewing 1/3 of the games on the Facebook API service. Zynga should begin with the weakest performing games and gradually the best games to retain maximum customer awareness through the succession process. The goal will be to not only retain current Facebook customers and move them to Zynga.com, but also to generate enough buzz to secure to customers directly through Zynga.com. By slowly transitioning existing Facebook users to Zynga.com the customer base of your social network will grow and attract new users. Year One: Zynga should reach out to hardware manufacturers HTC is a great candidate to negotiate a contract and develop a smart phone and tablet adapted for Zynga games. Simultaneously, Zynga should begin developing the OS and gaming platform for the device. It is also important to reach out to retailers and wireless companies to secure subsidy contracts for the new device. It is also necessary for Zynga to pursue marketing and promotional partnerships with both the device manufacturer(s) and the wireless carrier(s) in order to split the cost of an aggressive marketing campaign. Year Two: During Q1 and Q2, Zynga should begin production and continue the marketing campaign. Zynga should also focus on developing a robust network of games to be deployed on its device. It would benefit Zynga to allow third party developer rights to innovate games for Zynga. In Q3 Zynga should begin selling the device. Year Three: Zynga should focus on a 10 month life cycle for its devices to stay relevant to consumers. As such, RD and production of the generation two Zynga device should take place during the middle of Q1 2016 and conclude at the end of Q2 2016. Sales of the gen 2 device should begin at the beginning of Q3 2016. Exhibit 1: Porters Five Forces: Competitive Rivalry High Zynga, Wooga, 5 Minutes, Playfish, Playdom, Kabam, Crowdstar, EA, among others. Power of Buyers Moderate to High Customers dictate the content and their needs change daily. Because there are so many alternate companies providing the same/similar services, game providers have to adapt to retain customers. Power of Suppliers Moderate to High While there are many game hosting platforms, few garner the attention of mass amounts of users. As such, the power of the supplier fluctuates based on its user base. Threat of New Entrants Very High The cost and time required to develop a social game is very low (single-digit millions and months) relative to the cost of developing a more traditional graphic-intense console game (tens of millions and years). This lower cost allows much smaller game developers to try their hand at developing the next big hit and has resulted in a proliferation of new competitors. Substitute Products Very High There are not only identical products out there by competitors, but also there are many substitute products: hardcore games, board games, tv, blogs, anything people use to pass the time. Exhibit 2: Current Zynga Strategy Diamond Arenas Casual gaming Vehicles exclusivity contracts, social platforms (mainly Facebook), early stages of their own social platform. Differentiators highly integrated social features. Economic Logic freemium business model. 97% of consumers receive free services while 3% of consumers pay to advance quickly through game and receive premium services. Monetization relies on 3 revenue streams, affiliate offers, virtual goods sales and advertizing Staging biweekly game updates. Release new games every ____.

Strategies for Measuring Marketing

Strategies for Measuring Marketing â€Å"Conviction is the luxury of those sitting on the sidelines. For those of us who choose to play rather than watch, measurement is the compass that guides us through our mistakes.† Famous dialogue of movie A Beautiful Mind EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Business world has become very dynamic in current times. Technological advances are bringing changes in lifestyle of customers. It has generated necessity for introduction of new products in market or drastic changes in existing products so as to meet changing customer needs. It has made job of marketing department more challenging. Assessing customer needs, preferences, satisfaction and expectation level are few important domain, which marketing people has to handle at one hand. Whereas at the other hand, positioning product in market for particular customer segment and launching marketing scheme so as to enhance market share and profitability is other main area of working for marketing professionals. These twin tasks are very much essential for success of any business organization. There are other divisions also in almost every business unit like procurement, production, sales and marketing etc. Each one of these division contribute in making organization run profitability so as to meet the ultimate aim of establishing business i.e. maximizing profit of shareholders. Often there are discussions about contribution of individual departments in making organization successful and resources allotted to respective departments. Though, each and every department has its unique role to play in growth of business, few walk away with greater share of budget allocation while others have to manage their operations with lesser budgetary allocation. It has necessitated that work performance of each division should be measured in terms of revenue generation contribution. It will make budgetary allocation decision on more professional lines. It will also help individual divisions in measuring performance of various schemes and programs internally. It has been often observed that different work divisions allege for greater budget allocation to marketing division without rational but just on tall claims. Generally marketing professionals come to meetings without facts s and try to describe their achievements qualitatively. But finance division insists for factual position and achievement in terms of some well defined variable linking performance to financials. Though, marketing professionals have been found resisting this demand of finance professionals in general. But is has made a impact on general board room environment where marketing professionals are asked to bring in more credible feedback about their performance. But performance of marketing efforts cannot be measured simply as is the case of production or sales, where it is easy to make out every evening. So there is a need to first establish a performance metric for marketing, which may vary from one type of business to another type of business. But it is for sure tha t, once metric is established and performance evaluation for marketing starts, it will bring in more transparency, credibility, accountability and efficiency in marketing department operations. Each marketing efforts cost a lot in terms of manpower engaged and finances. A single slot of just few seconds in TV channel may cost thousands of dollars. So if company gets evaluation of its impact on sales, it may streamline its spending on it. Besides that few expensive media campaigns may be cut short or diverted so as to bring desired outcomes. A drastic shift in Coca Cola advertisement campaign to shift from costly family entertainment channel to some sport, movie and adventure channel was a result of one such marketing measurement campaign, which not only helped in saving lot of money, but gave better results also in terms of revenue generation. These measures help company in making budgetary allocations more professional and transparent, but are opposed by marketing professionals. It happens as they are made more accountable for expenditure. It necessitates involvement of change management professional also in the whole process. It has been observed that gradual changes supported with workshops and training programs are more likely to succeed then swift changes for marketing management adoption. Benefits of marketing measurement are immense, most prominent being smart use of scarce human financial resources. These can be deployed on schemes giving best returns rather than schemes of marginal success. It also helps in rev iewing performance of schemes at regular intervals and takes corrective action if required. So we find that marketing measurement is not only trend for present day business, but a necessity to make business more dynamic, result oriented and efficient. It helps in bringing in better coordination among various divisions so as to achieve business target of making organization more profitable. INTRODUCTION Gone are the days of stable and predictable business environment. Business world has become very dynamic with new technology playing greater role in our lives. (Kristy Sheppard .2009. Diversify your business to defy the downturn) World has turned in to a village, with the spread of internet and other related information technology far and wide in every part of the world. Communication and transportation is becoming easy and economic day by day. (Data monitor. 2009).It has opened new challenges and opportunities for the businesses all over the world. Companies are facing enhanced level of competition on account of newer options available to customers from other new entrants in market. At the same time companies are getting new opportunities in the form of newer markets. But either it is taking up competition with new entrants or approaching new markets, working of marketing professionals become of utmost importance. (James Walsh. 2009). What is the competitive position of company prod ucts with respect to rival companies, need to be analyzed so as to retain and increase present share. At the same time demography of new markets, customer needs and preferences also need to be investigated in details so as to bring in new products suiting customer needs in newer markets. It requires resources in terms of finances and manpower to be deployed so as to bring in positive outcomes out of whole marketing efforts. It is after some initial deliberation on the prevailing issues that funds are allotted so as to launch marketing campaigns in new markets and existing ones. But it can happen only in starting that funds can be allotted with a rough estimate reached on account of judgmental forecasting. But as time proceeds, it is desired that outcomes of previous and current expenditure is measured, before demand of more funds is put forward. It has been observed that divisions of work like sales, production, human resources and procurement etc. comes out with facts and s about p erformance outcomes leaving marketing division alone which depends solely on qualitative statements about their performance (Michelle 2005). Here comes the issue of measuring performance of marketing division functioning. Decisions regarding budgetary allocation to various business divisions must be very professional. Especially budgetary support to various marketing campaigns must be extended after getting the effectiveness measured in clear financial outcomes of these. In no case allocation should be extended on the basis of only qualitative explanation, tall claims not supported by any real time performance measurement. There is a need to not only measure performance, but it is also required that this measurement must be in terms of such variables, which can link up performance to financials. Operations of Coca Cola in Indian Territory are running in loss on account of smaller sales volume. To boost sales, company launched advertisement campaigns on prime entertainment TV channels. For months, these campaigns continued but sales did not pick up. It was only after few months that a survey was conducted to find out impact of these advertising campaigns. To shock of everybody in company, it came to notice, that actual consumer of Coca Cola, the youngsters, watch movie, sports and adventure channel more and les the news or family entertainment channels. It emphasizes the need of marketing measurement at regular intervals. If company were using marketing measurement at regular interval, this major drawback would have been detected at much earlier stage of campaign. Corrective steps at that stage would have resulted in saving lot of funds and streamlining marketing efforts so as to result in achieving required targets. Competition is increasing day by day and margins are shrinking, depleting finances in almost every business (Boston Consulting Group. Nov 2007). . As a result availability of funds has come down and there is emphasis on smart use of resources. In such a scenario, it becomes of utmost importance, that funds are used where they are not only needed most but are most productive also. It warrants that the mysterious world of marketing be mapped very carefully, schemes programs launched evaluated very systematically and free judgment be taken with rational so as to continue, strengthen or cut short designated programs. This will not only help in making smart use of resources, but also weed out less productive schemes and programs. Rudy Gulianui, former mayor of the Newyork, once said that whatever operations may be, if we do not measure, we cannot manage. Though his comments were more focused towards civic services, but these are equally applicable in business world. Management prime function is to control and direct the organization in right direction. But unless management gets feedback about various business activities I the form of performance evaluation, how can we expect them to give right direction as desired. So all these instances shows that measuring marketing is an essential activity which brings objectivity in functioning of marketing department but also prudent decision making of management. NEED FOR MEASURING MARKETING In everyday life, we see that that all the activities are directed towards some specific objectives. If we look at school children, performance of these is measured by way of examination at regular intervals. Performance of teachers are also measured by the way of results achieved so. Either it is civic authorities, policeman controlling traffic or the house keeping staff of the office, performance of everybody is measured and money spent of their functioning is accounted for. Then why the performance of the marketing professionals should not be put to measurement. There are efforts to determine economic order quantity for procurement department, machine utilization parameters in production floors as well as sales volume generated per sales personnel, then why should the marketing professionals not justify the funds spent in their operations and results achieved out of it. Once measuring marketing mechanism is put in place, it will clearly bring objectivity in the functioning of mark eting professionals and enhance level of accountability for them. Minimizing risk in the business operations is very important. But unless we generate expected results of various marketing activities, we may not be in a position to mark, various marketing activities on the basis of their expected returns (Tim Riesterer 1999). Once we start measuring output of various marketing moves, marketing vehicles and channels, it helps us in assessing the real output of each one. This way, it becomes comparatively lesser risky in starting new moves, as we are already aware of previous output of various constituent elements of a particular scheme to be launched. In measuring marketing mechanism, performance of various schemes is measured on continuous basis helping in controlling, modifying and changing course of action for various schemes. This way, it becomes easy to continuously monitor performance of select schemes and drop the programs not performing up to the mark and proving to be costly as compared to other schemes giving better returns. There remains divergent view all the time, in all possible areas of operations, if standards are not set so as to measure performance. It applies to marketing as well. If standards are not set, it will let senior level marketing professionals to look for many flimsy and personally convincing excuses to be put forward, as explanation for lesser impact of marketing programs. There are also chances that outcomes of various marketing schemes are mixed so as to show success of few programs for others also, where as not to indicate real poor performance for others. Measuring marketing mechanism let every scheme be monitored for real output of the concerned scheme only. It gives factual success rate of each and every marketing program in transparent way. Measuring marketing moves also reduces the chances of performance being misrepresented in terms other than those which represent true one. Once metric are decided for each specific type of program, it becomes less probable, that performance can be misrepresented. Once proper measurement takes place for each and every marketing initiative, it becomes more satisfying for the leadership as far as resource allocation and its utilization is concerned. (Demand Metric.2009.Measuring marketing governance maturity). Leadership takes decision regarding budgetary provisions on various facts and s generated out of measuring marketing campaigns. It also helps in midterm review of various marketing programs, especially those which are costly and whose success if critical for the growth of the organization. In todays business scenario, when business is so dynamic and competition so stiff, it is not possible for the companies to wait for long to get results of marketing moves. In such case, measuring marketing helps companies in evaluating the performance on continuous basis and taking corrective measures as and when required without waiting till the end of the marketing programs. It not only helps company in acquiring competitive edge over other rivals, but in making smart use of resources. Surveys conducted recently by various research bodies have found that companies practicing measuring marketing moves remain confident and clear about their budgetary allocations at various point of time. Their financial decisions remain more prudent and productive as compared to companies not adopting measuring marketing moves. It is also found that marketing operations became more transparent in due course of time since adoption of measuring marketing techniques. Surveys have also pointed out that top leadership became more confident and positive about their marketing division as every investment made is accounted for. Top leadership also feels confident that metrics chosen so gives performance of marketing team in terms of revenue parameters, which help top management in taking decision regarding investment more rationally without getting entangled in technicalities of marketing. SCHOOL OF THOUGHT FOR MEASURING MARKETING There are basically three schools of thought for measuring marketing concept. Fist one focuses on return on investment, where as second one focuses on brand equity being created out of adverting campaigns. The third and last one is the concept of considering customer information as asset. In the first school of thought investment in marketing is considered just like any other investment. How much return a marketing campaign will give justifies the investment made there. There is no long term gains considered here in this school of thought. There is very plain relationship of investment and return in particular campaign itself. No looking beyond the life of particularly targeted marketing move. Generating brand value or establishing a brand is not the concept over here. Measurement remains focused on just the return a particular campaign makes. Developing measuring marketing metric is most easy in this type of school of thought as performance has to be evaluated in terms of incrementa l revenue for every investment made in the marketing efforts. In the second school of thought, brand value has been given the prime focus. Here prime target of the marketing is considered as creating brand value and further value addition to it. It generally happens with the fast moving consumer goods companies that brands are established more prominently rather than anything else including products itself. Here products keep on changing over period of time as per consumer preferences and life style but brand remains the same. Here focus of marketing campaign remains on establishing brand value, which remains there for longer period of time, though the products may keep on changing. Developing measuring marketing metric is most difficult task in this domain. There is no consensus among industry experts as to what are the parameters, which help measure performance of marketing campaigns in the area of brand management. Otherwise also, brands value is not created for certain short period only. It is a long term process to create a brand which ben efits company over life time of the business. Third school of thought for measuring marketing is of consumer equity school. Here focus of the marketing activities remain on generating loyalty of the customer towards company by way of exploring consumer details and customizing services suitable to him. Telecom services and financial services are the most glaring example of this school of thought. Here focus remains on generating information of the customer so as the products can be customized to his needs. It is the information of the customer which helps in retaining him or enabling company in cross selling other allied products to customer. Developing measuring marketing metrics in this domain is comparatively easy as compared to brand equity school, but a bit tougher to return on investment school of measuring marketing concept. Brand equity school of thought proves to be most difficult challenge in developing measuring marketing campaigns. Though in present times, this school of thought has got limited applicability, but in c oming years, it is expected to gain not only popularity but enhanced level of applicability on account of increasing domain of customer centric services. INSTANCES OF DILEMMA FOR MARKETING PROFESSIONALS Whenever the issue of measuring marketing is raised and efforts are initiated so as to measure performance of the marketing programs, the most likely answer which comes is the focus being on creating brand and enhancing brand value. Measuring brand value, which is a part of the measuring marketing exercise, is not the job of marketing division, is the way, marketing people comes out generally. It is true also to some extent. Ultimately conducting surveys are not easy and is a reasonably costly affair. So companies, and especially marketing divisions, already in financial stress to meet the expenditure of currently running programs, try to avoid measuring marketing. It is true that measuring marketing do involves the process of survey and then finding out the enhancement in the value of brand as a result of marketing campaign. But dilemma here comes for spending fist to bring in efficiency, which may come for saving later. This dilemma f faced more in medium size companies where inves tment in marketing campaign is not huge, and conducting surveys to measure performance of marketing initiatives may cost a certain noticeable percentage of total budgetary provisions of marketing department as a whole. In case of smaller companies, measuring brand values through surveys or other applicable techniques may even cost re than creating it. As smaller companies have limited market, so while creating brand they look for targeted markets only. This allows them to create effective brand for themselves in limited market space and in particular segment to create brand in lesser cost. But if the go for measuring its effectiveness, the budget required may go well beyond original allotted for creating and establishing brand. There are many instances, when company do not benefit by being there, such as trade fairs and exhibitions etc. Company does not get many business leads from few of these exhibitions which may not be very focused or targeted. But even then, general business environment warrants, company presence in these exhibitions, so as to negate any possible rumors about company performance or financial health of company. These are few instances, where company has to invest in marketing moves, even if it knows that not much of return is there by going ahead with these marketing moves. All these exercises do cost company and expenses falls under the head of marketing division only, though the purpose served may be in larger interest of the company itself not the marketing side of the company only. So care, must be taken while putting in measuring marketing mechanism in place, so that these do not discourage some activities, which may not be translating in revenues in immediate times but are for lar ger interest of the organization. It is also a fact that in exhibitions, though company may bit get buying leads in immediate future, but it helps in generating profile of the prospective customers in near future. How many people are visiting company exhibition stall, of what age group and with what income level are some crucial questions about demography, which can be answered by collecting data over here. Processing of this data and subsequent business intelligence developed helps marketing division in taking strategic moves, which may be of crucial business importance. So though these exhibitions may not be turning in to revenue generation, but proves to be of utility in other way for marketing people. Measuring marketing mechanism may rate these activities as low profile as these are not directly related to revenue generation but are oriented for long term planning and strategy. So there is a need to take care for this situation, while developing measuring marketing metrics in organization. It is often argued that not many people respond to the e-mails sent to them asking their feedback about marketing related areas. But the point here is that it does not cost heavy to do online marketing related survey. Besides that a lot many people can be sent e-mails at comparatively less cost. Out of this, if even a fraction of people respond to e-mail campaign, it gives fair idea about the opinion of concerned people. If care is taken is selecting the sample frame carefully, it can lead to generation of very useful information for the further marketing programs. Here stress should be that sampling of the whole sampling population should be done with care that statistical parameters are satisfied so as to give accurate representation of target market. Another area of dilemma comes from business analysts side. It is for sure and well established that business analyst do affect the fortunes of company to some extent. They also help leave their impact on some high profile clients, who may be of importance for the company. But main issue raised here is that, it may not happen in immediate time, that analyst meet effect the business. Sometimes it also becomes difficult that which client has been referred by business analyst at at what point of time. So it makes more difficult to measure the net impact of business analyst meet. So there comes a stage of dilemma for marketing professionals, as to what extent these meets are successful in affecting business of company and in turn the growth of revenue. We find that in all these cases, company faces a situation of dilemma so as to either adopt the measuring marketing for above mentioned situation or go ahead with traditionally accepted norms practices. But it has been argued all the time by measuring marketing people that measuring or generating some estimate is always better than not to have even a rough estimate of impact, which marketing programs leaves behind. Measuring marketing opens a scope where a selection among the various marketing options can be made more rationally logically based upon facts s rather than just on the views of professionals. It also opens scope for midterm review of expensive marketing campaigns and related corrective actions, which can be taken to avoid big failures or less impressive results at last. Measuring marketing mechanism just ensures lightning up the mysterious world of marketing and its impact on companys fortune. ELEMENTS TO MEASURE OF MARKETING PERFORMANCE There are various parameters to measure the effectiveness of the marketing programs. One of the most important parameters which show the performance of marketing programs is sales and resultant revenue generated out of it. Prime target of any business establishment is to generate profits, which is possible only when sales are there. Net result of marketing campaigns should come in the form of sales. This is one of the most important parameter to measure effectiveness of marketing programs in immediate future. Other important parameter is generation of leads for sales to take place. It may be that products of company are not very much competitive, cost wise and value these offer to consumer. But if a marketing campaign is able to generate quality leads, we can safely say that marketing campaign is serving the basic purpose for which it was launched. But sales leads so generated must be of potential that if followed seriously then can be converted to actual sales. Especially the exhibi tions, workshops and seminars are the events , performance of which can be measured effectively by way of focusing on the leads generated so. Sometimes we find that company has very specific business objectives to be served. In such cases to measure performance of marketing operations, specific parameters related to these objectives are taken in to consideration while developing metrics. But one almost universal goal for any business organization is to get returns of the investment made in it. So, one very objective measurement for performance can be finding out return on the investment made on marketing programs. There have also been seen that out of some mass media campaign, there comes lot of leads for products and services offered by company. But how many of these leads actually get converted to sales reflect, the performance of marketing team. It is also true for business ventures that it is not the volume of total profit, but in essence the profitability of organization, which matters most. Smart investment is the most sought after feature of today business world. So is the marketing efforts resulted in enhancing profitability of organization as a whole, is one such parameter for measuring performance and effectiveness of various marketing programs. Conducting surveys so as to find out awareness about company products and services can also help in measuring performance of marketing programs focused on generating brand value. It is also very important for marketing division to make reach of company in media, which help generate awareness about company in general public. Sales to cost efficiency are another important parameter, which can form the basis to evaluate the overall performance of the companys marketing programs. Stock prices are also taken as a measure of effectiveness of marketing programs, though not directly. Among all the parameters mentioned above, few have high degree of correlation with marketing performance whereas other parameters have comparatively lower degree of correlation with marketing programs performance. Marketing related data is generated at every stage of customer engagement cycle. This data becomes very voluminous for companies having larger customer base. But not all the data generated is useful and serves the purpose of measuring marketing. There is need to segregate data and categories in such a way, that it can be used effectively and logical inferences about marketing activities can be drawn out of it. In each area of marketing, there are few parameters which can be used to measure performance. For each area, certain parameters are selected to develop metrics. Basically whole marketing exercise can be divided in following domains of activities. Establishing brand identity and enhancing brand value on continuous basis. Product and services marketing management Public relationship of the company Developing business in newer and unexplored areas Various advertisement campaigns Product promotion through various events resulting in leads generation. Making company website popular, attractive and rich in features Managing sales operations Managing customer relationship. Brand Management Important variables which can be used to measure performance of marketing performance in this domain are as brand equity, brand awareness, brand preference, brand image and brand loyalty. It becomes imperative that measuring marketing exercise should try to pick up right variables, which reflect true performance of the brand management team in marketing department. Each area of brand management can be evaluated by specific variable, which correlate to enhanced brand value. Product Marketing Manager Products and services of the company are most important and pivotal link between customer and company. It is products and services, around which whole business is woven. It becomes of utmost importance that product design is done in such a way, that it meets customer requirement completely. Pricing of the products and services should also be kept at a level which gives customer satisfaction for the needs fulfilled by these. It is prime job of the marketing division that it keeps track of the customer preferences and needs arising out of changing lifestyle of consumer on account of technological advances and other developments. Marketing departments are supposed to keep close track of the level of customer satisfaction. Various important domain, in which marketing team is supposed to work here are like customer satisfaction, market share, price sensitivity, overall sales and sales by various channels. Public Relations Management Managing public relations is another important domain for marketing division. Especially the lifestyle of customers has become fast and it is observed that company image do affect buying decisions. So it becomes more important that customers are made to receive good image of the company as well as its products and services through various public relations programs. Various parameters which can be used to measure effectiveness of the marketing department in this domain are like media mentions, size of audiences for each of such happening, number of interviews conducted on reputed media channels and nature of these occurrences. All these may happen in different media channels like print media, television or magazine etc. But care has to taken as which media channel is popular and effective in targeted population. Elements of reputation and popularity of the channel, in which company is getting mention, should be taken in to consideration. Important point is that channel is popular and reputed among the targeted audience. As a survey found that coca cola was focusing on popular family entertainment channels for public relations management, but it was found later that English movie channel and sports channel were more popular among targeted youngsters forming major customer base. So while forming metric for measuring marketing, care must be taken so as to include all these factors. Business Development Division Business development division helps company in exploring possibilities of business opportunities in newer areas. Few important functional areas, where performance can be measured are as follows. How many new business partners have been added so as to develop business in new areas? Out of new business partners added, how many actively participated in dev Strategies for Measuring Marketing Strategies for Measuring Marketing â€Å"Conviction is the luxury of those sitting on the sidelines. For those of us who choose to play rather than watch, measurement is the compass that guides us through our mistakes.† Famous dialogue of movie A Beautiful Mind EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Business world has become very dynamic in current times. Technological advances are bringing changes in lifestyle of customers. It has generated necessity for introduction of new products in market or drastic changes in existing products so as to meet changing customer needs. It has made job of marketing department more challenging. Assessing customer needs, preferences, satisfaction and expectation level are few important domain, which marketing people has to handle at one hand. Whereas at the other hand, positioning product in market for particular customer segment and launching marketing scheme so as to enhance market share and profitability is other main area of working for marketing professionals. These twin tasks are very much essential for success of any business organization. There are other divisions also in almost every business unit like procurement, production, sales and marketing etc. Each one of these division contribute in making organization run profitability so as to meet the ultimate aim of establishing business i.e. maximizing profit of shareholders. Often there are discussions about contribution of individual departments in making organization successful and resources allotted to respective departments. Though, each and every department has its unique role to play in growth of business, few walk away with greater share of budget allocation while others have to manage their operations with lesser budgetary allocation. It has necessitated that work performance of each division should be measured in terms of revenue generation contribution. It will make budgetary allocation decision on more professional lines. It will also help individual divisions in measuring performance of various schemes and programs internally. It has been often observed that different work divisions allege for greater budget allocation to marketing division without rational but just on tall claims. Generally marketing professionals come to meetings without facts s and try to describe their achievements qualitatively. But finance division insists for factual position and achievement in terms of some well defined variable linking performance to financials. Though, marketing professionals have been found resisting this demand of finance professionals in general. But is has made a impact on general board room environment where marketing professionals are asked to bring in more credible feedback about their performance. But performance of marketing efforts cannot be measured simply as is the case of production or sales, where it is easy to make out every evening. So there is a need to first establish a performance metric for marketing, which may vary from one type of business to another type of business. But it is for sure tha t, once metric is established and performance evaluation for marketing starts, it will bring in more transparency, credibility, accountability and efficiency in marketing department operations. Each marketing efforts cost a lot in terms of manpower engaged and finances. A single slot of just few seconds in TV channel may cost thousands of dollars. So if company gets evaluation of its impact on sales, it may streamline its spending on it. Besides that few expensive media campaigns may be cut short or diverted so as to bring desired outcomes. A drastic shift in Coca Cola advertisement campaign to shift from costly family entertainment channel to some sport, movie and adventure channel was a result of one such marketing measurement campaign, which not only helped in saving lot of money, but gave better results also in terms of revenue generation. These measures help company in making budgetary allocations more professional and transparent, but are opposed by marketing professionals. It happens as they are made more accountable for expenditure. It necessitates involvement of change management professional also in the whole process. It has been observed that gradual changes supported with workshops and training programs are more likely to succeed then swift changes for marketing management adoption. Benefits of marketing measurement are immense, most prominent being smart use of scarce human financial resources. These can be deployed on schemes giving best returns rather than schemes of marginal success. It also helps in rev iewing performance of schemes at regular intervals and takes corrective action if required. So we find that marketing measurement is not only trend for present day business, but a necessity to make business more dynamic, result oriented and efficient. It helps in bringing in better coordination among various divisions so as to achieve business target of making organization more profitable. INTRODUCTION Gone are the days of stable and predictable business environment. Business world has become very dynamic with new technology playing greater role in our lives. (Kristy Sheppard .2009. Diversify your business to defy the downturn) World has turned in to a village, with the spread of internet and other related information technology far and wide in every part of the world. Communication and transportation is becoming easy and economic day by day. (Data monitor. 2009).It has opened new challenges and opportunities for the businesses all over the world. Companies are facing enhanced level of competition on account of newer options available to customers from other new entrants in market. At the same time companies are getting new opportunities in the form of newer markets. But either it is taking up competition with new entrants or approaching new markets, working of marketing professionals become of utmost importance. (James Walsh. 2009). What is the competitive position of company prod ucts with respect to rival companies, need to be analyzed so as to retain and increase present share. At the same time demography of new markets, customer needs and preferences also need to be investigated in details so as to bring in new products suiting customer needs in newer markets. It requires resources in terms of finances and manpower to be deployed so as to bring in positive outcomes out of whole marketing efforts. It is after some initial deliberation on the prevailing issues that funds are allotted so as to launch marketing campaigns in new markets and existing ones. But it can happen only in starting that funds can be allotted with a rough estimate reached on account of judgmental forecasting. But as time proceeds, it is desired that outcomes of previous and current expenditure is measured, before demand of more funds is put forward. It has been observed that divisions of work like sales, production, human resources and procurement etc. comes out with facts and s about p erformance outcomes leaving marketing division alone which depends solely on qualitative statements about their performance (Michelle 2005). Here comes the issue of measuring performance of marketing division functioning. Decisions regarding budgetary allocation to various business divisions must be very professional. Especially budgetary support to various marketing campaigns must be extended after getting the effectiveness measured in clear financial outcomes of these. In no case allocation should be extended on the basis of only qualitative explanation, tall claims not supported by any real time performance measurement. There is a need to not only measure performance, but it is also required that this measurement must be in terms of such variables, which can link up performance to financials. Operations of Coca Cola in Indian Territory are running in loss on account of smaller sales volume. To boost sales, company launched advertisement campaigns on prime entertainment TV channels. For months, these campaigns continued but sales did not pick up. It was only after few months that a survey was conducted to find out impact of these advertising campaigns. To shock of everybody in company, it came to notice, that actual consumer of Coca Cola, the youngsters, watch movie, sports and adventure channel more and les the news or family entertainment channels. It emphasizes the need of marketing measurement at regular intervals. If company were using marketing measurement at regular interval, this major drawback would have been detected at much earlier stage of campaign. Corrective steps at that stage would have resulted in saving lot of funds and streamlining marketing efforts so as to result in achieving required targets. Competition is increasing day by day and margins are shrinking, depleting finances in almost every business (Boston Consulting Group. Nov 2007). . As a result availability of funds has come down and there is emphasis on smart use of resources. In such a scenario, it becomes of utmost importance, that funds are used where they are not only needed most but are most productive also. It warrants that the mysterious world of marketing be mapped very carefully, schemes programs launched evaluated very systematically and free judgment be taken with rational so as to continue, strengthen or cut short designated programs. This will not only help in making smart use of resources, but also weed out less productive schemes and programs. Rudy Gulianui, former mayor of the Newyork, once said that whatever operations may be, if we do not measure, we cannot manage. Though his comments were more focused towards civic services, but these are equally applicable in business world. Management prime function is to control and direct the organization in right direction. But unless management gets feedback about various business activities I the form of performance evaluation, how can we expect them to give right direction as desired. So all these instances shows that measuring marketing is an essential activity which brings objectivity in functioning of marketing department but also prudent decision making of management. NEED FOR MEASURING MARKETING In everyday life, we see that that all the activities are directed towards some specific objectives. If we look at school children, performance of these is measured by way of examination at regular intervals. Performance of teachers are also measured by the way of results achieved so. Either it is civic authorities, policeman controlling traffic or the house keeping staff of the office, performance of everybody is measured and money spent of their functioning is accounted for. Then why the performance of the marketing professionals should not be put to measurement. There are efforts to determine economic order quantity for procurement department, machine utilization parameters in production floors as well as sales volume generated per sales personnel, then why should the marketing professionals not justify the funds spent in their operations and results achieved out of it. Once measuring marketing mechanism is put in place, it will clearly bring objectivity in the functioning of mark eting professionals and enhance level of accountability for them. Minimizing risk in the business operations is very important. But unless we generate expected results of various marketing activities, we may not be in a position to mark, various marketing activities on the basis of their expected returns (Tim Riesterer 1999). Once we start measuring output of various marketing moves, marketing vehicles and channels, it helps us in assessing the real output of each one. This way, it becomes comparatively lesser risky in starting new moves, as we are already aware of previous output of various constituent elements of a particular scheme to be launched. In measuring marketing mechanism, performance of various schemes is measured on continuous basis helping in controlling, modifying and changing course of action for various schemes. This way, it becomes easy to continuously monitor performance of select schemes and drop the programs not performing up to the mark and proving to be costly as compared to other schemes giving better returns. There remains divergent view all the time, in all possible areas of operations, if standards are not set so as to measure performance. It applies to marketing as well. If standards are not set, it will let senior level marketing professionals to look for many flimsy and personally convincing excuses to be put forward, as explanation for lesser impact of marketing programs. There are also chances that outcomes of various marketing schemes are mixed so as to show success of few programs for others also, where as not to indicate real poor performance for others. Measuring marketing mechanism let every scheme be monitored for real output of the concerned scheme only. It gives factual success rate of each and every marketing program in transparent way. Measuring marketing moves also reduces the chances of performance being misrepresented in terms other than those which represent true one. Once metric are decided for each specific type of program, it becomes less probable, that performance can be misrepresented. Once proper measurement takes place for each and every marketing initiative, it becomes more satisfying for the leadership as far as resource allocation and its utilization is concerned. (Demand Metric.2009.Measuring marketing governance maturity). Leadership takes decision regarding budgetary provisions on various facts and s generated out of measuring marketing campaigns. It also helps in midterm review of various marketing programs, especially those which are costly and whose success if critical for the growth of the organization. In todays business scenario, when business is so dynamic and competition so stiff, it is not possible for the companies to wait for long to get results of marketing moves. In such case, measuring marketing helps companies in evaluating the performance on continuous basis and taking corrective measures as and when required without waiting till the end of the marketing programs. It not only helps company in acquiring competitive edge over other rivals, but in making smart use of resources. Surveys conducted recently by various research bodies have found that companies practicing measuring marketing moves remain confident and clear about their budgetary allocations at various point of time. Their financial decisions remain more prudent and productive as compared to companies not adopting measuring marketing moves. It is also found that marketing operations became more transparent in due course of time since adoption of measuring marketing techniques. Surveys have also pointed out that top leadership became more confident and positive about their marketing division as every investment made is accounted for. Top leadership also feels confident that metrics chosen so gives performance of marketing team in terms of revenue parameters, which help top management in taking decision regarding investment more rationally without getting entangled in technicalities of marketing. SCHOOL OF THOUGHT FOR MEASURING MARKETING There are basically three schools of thought for measuring marketing concept. Fist one focuses on return on investment, where as second one focuses on brand equity being created out of adverting campaigns. The third and last one is the concept of considering customer information as asset. In the first school of thought investment in marketing is considered just like any other investment. How much return a marketing campaign will give justifies the investment made there. There is no long term gains considered here in this school of thought. There is very plain relationship of investment and return in particular campaign itself. No looking beyond the life of particularly targeted marketing move. Generating brand value or establishing a brand is not the concept over here. Measurement remains focused on just the return a particular campaign makes. Developing measuring marketing metric is most easy in this type of school of thought as performance has to be evaluated in terms of incrementa l revenue for every investment made in the marketing efforts. In the second school of thought, brand value has been given the prime focus. Here prime target of the marketing is considered as creating brand value and further value addition to it. It generally happens with the fast moving consumer goods companies that brands are established more prominently rather than anything else including products itself. Here products keep on changing over period of time as per consumer preferences and life style but brand remains the same. Here focus of marketing campaign remains on establishing brand value, which remains there for longer period of time, though the products may keep on changing. Developing measuring marketing metric is most difficult task in this domain. There is no consensus among industry experts as to what are the parameters, which help measure performance of marketing campaigns in the area of brand management. Otherwise also, brands value is not created for certain short period only. It is a long term process to create a brand which ben efits company over life time of the business. Third school of thought for measuring marketing is of consumer equity school. Here focus of the marketing activities remain on generating loyalty of the customer towards company by way of exploring consumer details and customizing services suitable to him. Telecom services and financial services are the most glaring example of this school of thought. Here focus remains on generating information of the customer so as the products can be customized to his needs. It is the information of the customer which helps in retaining him or enabling company in cross selling other allied products to customer. Developing measuring marketing metrics in this domain is comparatively easy as compared to brand equity school, but a bit tougher to return on investment school of measuring marketing concept. Brand equity school of thought proves to be most difficult challenge in developing measuring marketing campaigns. Though in present times, this school of thought has got limited applicability, but in c oming years, it is expected to gain not only popularity but enhanced level of applicability on account of increasing domain of customer centric services. INSTANCES OF DILEMMA FOR MARKETING PROFESSIONALS Whenever the issue of measuring marketing is raised and efforts are initiated so as to measure performance of the marketing programs, the most likely answer which comes is the focus being on creating brand and enhancing brand value. Measuring brand value, which is a part of the measuring marketing exercise, is not the job of marketing division, is the way, marketing people comes out generally. It is true also to some extent. Ultimately conducting surveys are not easy and is a reasonably costly affair. So companies, and especially marketing divisions, already in financial stress to meet the expenditure of currently running programs, try to avoid measuring marketing. It is true that measuring marketing do involves the process of survey and then finding out the enhancement in the value of brand as a result of marketing campaign. But dilemma here comes for spending fist to bring in efficiency, which may come for saving later. This dilemma f faced more in medium size companies where inves tment in marketing campaign is not huge, and conducting surveys to measure performance of marketing initiatives may cost a certain noticeable percentage of total budgetary provisions of marketing department as a whole. In case of smaller companies, measuring brand values through surveys or other applicable techniques may even cost re than creating it. As smaller companies have limited market, so while creating brand they look for targeted markets only. This allows them to create effective brand for themselves in limited market space and in particular segment to create brand in lesser cost. But if the go for measuring its effectiveness, the budget required may go well beyond original allotted for creating and establishing brand. There are many instances, when company do not benefit by being there, such as trade fairs and exhibitions etc. Company does not get many business leads from few of these exhibitions which may not be very focused or targeted. But even then, general business environment warrants, company presence in these exhibitions, so as to negate any possible rumors about company performance or financial health of company. These are few instances, where company has to invest in marketing moves, even if it knows that not much of return is there by going ahead with these marketing moves. All these exercises do cost company and expenses falls under the head of marketing division only, though the purpose served may be in larger interest of the company itself not the marketing side of the company only. So care, must be taken while putting in measuring marketing mechanism in place, so that these do not discourage some activities, which may not be translating in revenues in immediate times but are for lar ger interest of the organization. It is also a fact that in exhibitions, though company may bit get buying leads in immediate future, but it helps in generating profile of the prospective customers in near future. How many people are visiting company exhibition stall, of what age group and with what income level are some crucial questions about demography, which can be answered by collecting data over here. Processing of this data and subsequent business intelligence developed helps marketing division in taking strategic moves, which may be of crucial business importance. So though these exhibitions may not be turning in to revenue generation, but proves to be of utility in other way for marketing people. Measuring marketing mechanism may rate these activities as low profile as these are not directly related to revenue generation but are oriented for long term planning and strategy. So there is a need to take care for this situation, while developing measuring marketing metrics in organization. It is often argued that not many people respond to the e-mails sent to them asking their feedback about marketing related areas. But the point here is that it does not cost heavy to do online marketing related survey. Besides that a lot many people can be sent e-mails at comparatively less cost. Out of this, if even a fraction of people respond to e-mail campaign, it gives fair idea about the opinion of concerned people. If care is taken is selecting the sample frame carefully, it can lead to generation of very useful information for the further marketing programs. Here stress should be that sampling of the whole sampling population should be done with care that statistical parameters are satisfied so as to give accurate representation of target market. Another area of dilemma comes from business analysts side. It is for sure and well established that business analyst do affect the fortunes of company to some extent. They also help leave their impact on some high profile clients, who may be of importance for the company. But main issue raised here is that, it may not happen in immediate time, that analyst meet effect the business. Sometimes it also becomes difficult that which client has been referred by business analyst at at what point of time. So it makes more difficult to measure the net impact of business analyst meet. So there comes a stage of dilemma for marketing professionals, as to what extent these meets are successful in affecting business of company and in turn the growth of revenue. We find that in all these cases, company faces a situation of dilemma so as to either adopt the measuring marketing for above mentioned situation or go ahead with traditionally accepted norms practices. But it has been argued all the time by measuring marketing people that measuring or generating some estimate is always better than not to have even a rough estimate of impact, which marketing programs leaves behind. Measuring marketing opens a scope where a selection among the various marketing options can be made more rationally logically based upon facts s rather than just on the views of professionals. It also opens scope for midterm review of expensive marketing campaigns and related corrective actions, which can be taken to avoid big failures or less impressive results at last. Measuring marketing mechanism just ensures lightning up the mysterious world of marketing and its impact on companys fortune. ELEMENTS TO MEASURE OF MARKETING PERFORMANCE There are various parameters to measure the effectiveness of the marketing programs. One of the most important parameters which show the performance of marketing programs is sales and resultant revenue generated out of it. Prime target of any business establishment is to generate profits, which is possible only when sales are there. Net result of marketing campaigns should come in the form of sales. This is one of the most important parameter to measure effectiveness of marketing programs in immediate future. Other important parameter is generation of leads for sales to take place. It may be that products of company are not very much competitive, cost wise and value these offer to consumer. But if a marketing campaign is able to generate quality leads, we can safely say that marketing campaign is serving the basic purpose for which it was launched. But sales leads so generated must be of potential that if followed seriously then can be converted to actual sales. Especially the exhibi tions, workshops and seminars are the events , performance of which can be measured effectively by way of focusing on the leads generated so. Sometimes we find that company has very specific business objectives to be served. In such cases to measure performance of marketing operations, specific parameters related to these objectives are taken in to consideration while developing metrics. But one almost universal goal for any business organization is to get returns of the investment made in it. So, one very objective measurement for performance can be finding out return on the investment made on marketing programs. There have also been seen that out of some mass media campaign, there comes lot of leads for products and services offered by company. But how many of these leads actually get converted to sales reflect, the performance of marketing team. It is also true for business ventures that it is not the volume of total profit, but in essence the profitability of organization, which matters most. Smart investment is the most sought after feature of today business world. So is the marketing efforts resulted in enhancing profitability of organization as a whole, is one such parameter for measuring performance and effectiveness of various marketing programs. Conducting surveys so as to find out awareness about company products and services can also help in measuring performance of marketing programs focused on generating brand value. It is also very important for marketing division to make reach of company in media, which help generate awareness about company in general public. Sales to cost efficiency are another important parameter, which can form the basis to evaluate the overall performance of the companys marketing programs. Stock prices are also taken as a measure of effectiveness of marketing programs, though not directly. Among all the parameters mentioned above, few have high degree of correlation with marketing performance whereas other parameters have comparatively lower degree of correlation with marketing programs performance. Marketing related data is generated at every stage of customer engagement cycle. This data becomes very voluminous for companies having larger customer base. But not all the data generated is useful and serves the purpose of measuring marketing. There is need to segregate data and categories in such a way, that it can be used effectively and logical inferences about marketing activities can be drawn out of it. In each area of marketing, there are few parameters which can be used to measure performance. For each area, certain parameters are selected to develop metrics. Basically whole marketing exercise can be divided in following domains of activities. Establishing brand identity and enhancing brand value on continuous basis. Product and services marketing management Public relationship of the company Developing business in newer and unexplored areas Various advertisement campaigns Product promotion through various events resulting in leads generation. Making company website popular, attractive and rich in features Managing sales operations Managing customer relationship. Brand Management Important variables which can be used to measure performance of marketing performance in this domain are as brand equity, brand awareness, brand preference, brand image and brand loyalty. It becomes imperative that measuring marketing exercise should try to pick up right variables, which reflect true performance of the brand management team in marketing department. Each area of brand management can be evaluated by specific variable, which correlate to enhanced brand value. Product Marketing Manager Products and services of the company are most important and pivotal link between customer and company. It is products and services, around which whole business is woven. It becomes of utmost importance that product design is done in such a way, that it meets customer requirement completely. Pricing of the products and services should also be kept at a level which gives customer satisfaction for the needs fulfilled by these. It is prime job of the marketing division that it keeps track of the customer preferences and needs arising out of changing lifestyle of consumer on account of technological advances and other developments. Marketing departments are supposed to keep close track of the level of customer satisfaction. Various important domain, in which marketing team is supposed to work here are like customer satisfaction, market share, price sensitivity, overall sales and sales by various channels. Public Relations Management Managing public relations is another important domain for marketing division. Especially the lifestyle of customers has become fast and it is observed that company image do affect buying decisions. So it becomes more important that customers are made to receive good image of the company as well as its products and services through various public relations programs. Various parameters which can be used to measure effectiveness of the marketing department in this domain are like media mentions, size of audiences for each of such happening, number of interviews conducted on reputed media channels and nature of these occurrences. All these may happen in different media channels like print media, television or magazine etc. But care has to taken as which media channel is popular and effective in targeted population. Elements of reputation and popularity of the channel, in which company is getting mention, should be taken in to consideration. Important point is that channel is popular and reputed among the targeted audience. As a survey found that coca cola was focusing on popular family entertainment channels for public relations management, but it was found later that English movie channel and sports channel were more popular among targeted youngsters forming major customer base. So while forming metric for measuring marketing, care must be taken so as to include all these factors. Business Development Division Business development division helps company in exploring possibilities of business opportunities in newer areas. Few important functional areas, where performance can be measured are as follows. How many new business partners have been added so as to develop business in new areas? Out of new business partners added, how many actively participated in dev