Shouldice Hospital, Ltd. Case

Starting as a small hospital, the Shouldice Hospital has had a rather long history since the end of the Second World War. And At the time of his death in 1965, the founder Dr. Shouldice’s longtime associate, Dr. Nicholas Obney was named surgeon-in-chief and chairman of the board of Shouldice Hospital Limited and under his leadership, the volume of activity continued to increase, reaching a total of 6,850 operations in the 1982 calendar year. And primaries represented approximately 82% of all hernias operations performed at Shouldice in 1982.It has been very successful. And now it tries to meet people’s needs and make this as good a place to work as possible. It has been a comfortable place for patients to stay. During their stay, patients were encouraged to take advantage of the opportunity to explore the premises and make new friends. Also, it has been a nice place for doctors who teach each other, encourage a group effort, have regular working hours and own desirable salary. Furthermore, the facility and administration here is very humanized for both patients and staff.As a result, patients are attracted to the hospital by its reasonable rates. Shouldice Hospital has specialized in hernia surgery (the Shouldice method) and is able to provide patients with low risk, low recurrence, and peace of mind. Shouldice achieves outstanding results as a low price and at high profit because everything done by the hospital is designed to maximize the difference between perceived quality and the value of the service provided to the patients on one hand and the cost of providing the service on the other. They do this by carefully screening patients.Patients are active participants in the service delivery process as presented with the utensils to prep themselves for surgery. The avoidance of general anesthetics allows a wide range of involvement of patients. The staff is freed from much of the disagreeable workload due to part-time positions. The cost of housek eeping, laundry, and food is also minimized. The clinic structures hospital jobs that involve more counseling and positive interaction with the patients. Shouldice Hospital is different from other hospitals in that Patients do not feel that they are staying in a hospital.It is Shouldice’s intentions to make its patients feel as if they are taking a vacation. When patients arrive to the clinic, typically they join up with 30 to 34 other patients and their friends and families in the waiting room. Patients with similar jobs, backgrounds, or interests are assigned to the same room to help the patients establish relationships and become more comfortable. The facility is also designed so that patients have to interact and walk around. There are no televisions are telephones in the patients’ rooms.This gives the patients the opportunity to tour the facility, visit each other’s rooms, lounging in the Florida room, and making use of the light recreational facilities. Sh ouldice Hospital uses a focus strategy. The Hospital’s market focus is on a narrow segment of potential patients who have a hernia and the patients are predominantly male, older in age, and essentially in good health. The hospital has knowledge of the large target market, as there were 600,000 such operations in the United States in 1979. Shouldice uses an internal market strategy.Shouldice’s doctors are dedicated to quality of the Shouldice method. The doctors are after several years at Shouldice must decide if this is something they want to do for the rest of their lives because eventually they will lose touch with other medical disciplines. Few elect to leave. Nurses at the facility are people oriented and work to assist patients as well as they can. The Staff is flexible and team oriented. Shouldice implements a sharing policy where the employees are paid a part of the profit in addition to their fixed salaries.This sharing is done based on their contribution towar ds the success of the firm. This entices them to work hard and put in more efforts. From the management point of view, they have given their staff a lesser work load and weekends off. This makes it able for the staff to spend more time with their families and keeps them content with their jobs. After discussion, our group has four suggestions for Shouldice Hospital in terms of their problem. First, author mentions that there are some people realize that they don’t have hernias when they talk to doctor in hospital.Therefore, hospital can increase its capacity by reduce this kind of error. Our group suggests that hospital should improve its questionnaire to make sure consumer can totally understand the questions. If there are some uncertainties in the questionnaire, nurses or doctors should call individual to make sure he/she has certain external types of abdominal hernias. Secondly, we think that Shouldice Hospital should not operate on Saturday. Even through Saturday operatio n can increase capacity by 20%, it is hard to control the operation quality. As O’Dell said† On the other hand, I'm oncerned about this talk of Saturday operations. We are already getting good utilization of this facility. And if we expand further, it will be very difficult to maintain the same kind of working relationships and attitudes. Already there are rumors floating around among the staff about it. And the staff is not pleased. † Right now, Shouldice hospital is much more efficient and effective than other hospital. We believe they make excellent utilization of their resource. Therefore, Saturday operation may cause some overload on hospital’s capacity which will jeopardize the current process flow.Thirdly, we believe that offers similar opportunities such as eye surgery is not a good idea. The reason is that the business bottleneck of Shouldice Hospital is the capacity of process rather than the demand in market. So, they should focus on how to impro ve the capacity to service more patients. Moreover, offering other surgery may harm their professional image in hernias area. Hence, our group suggests that they just stay on the hernias field and try to extent capacity. Fourth, we strongly suggest that Shouldice Hospital should build another hospital in the United States.Nowadays, 42% of their patients are come from the United States. Round-trip fares for travel to Toronto from various major cities in the North American continent ranged from roughly $200 to $600, as compare that the total operation fee including hospital is just around $1000. So the travel cost becomes a big financial burden for patients. Hence, open a new hospital in American will dramatically reduce the travel cost for customers and expand business. There are two big issue concerns with the new hospital, where to open and how to operate.Our group proposes that Shouldice Hospital should conduct a marketing research to find out where their current American patient come from and the transportation for some big city in United States to decide where to invest new hospital. About the operation of new hospital, quality control is the most important issue to maintain our brand reputation. They should relocate some experienced doctor from Toronto to American to train and direct the local doctor. Moreover, they should utilize the successful process flow into the new hospital and make some change by considering the difference culture and condition.Finally, Shouldice Hospital should be marketing their service, while the main strategy of marketing is to clarify where is hospital and what kind of operation is truly theirs. Because there are many individuals or institution on the market want to attract customers by using our brand image. But, the quality of their service is not very good. This phenomenon will jeopardize our brand image and destroy our reputation. It is the responsibility of hospital to help people distinguish the fake one. Our group belie ves that some marketing activity will well-build hospital’s brand image and help them success in the long-term.

Global Warming Outline Essay

Pierre de Fermat was born in Beaumont-de-Lomagne, France in August of 1601 and died in 1665. He is considered to be one of the greatest mathematicians of the seventeenth century. Fermat is considered to be one of the ‘fathers’ of analytic geometry. Fermat along with Blaise Pascal is also considered to be one of the founders of probability theory. Fermat also made contributions in the field of optics and provided a law on light travel and made wrote a few papers about calculus well before Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibniz were actually born.Fermat’s most important work was done in the development of modern number theory which was one of his favorite areas in math. He is best remembered for his number theory, in particular for Fermat’s Last Theorem. This theorem states that: xn + yn = zn has no non-zero integer solutions for x, y and z when n is greater than 2. Fermat almost certainly wrote the marginal note around 1630, when he first studied Diophantus’s Arithmetic. It may well be that Fermat realized that his prove was wrong, however, since all his other theorems were stated and restated in challenge problems that Fermat sent to other mathematicians. Although the special cases of n = 3 and n = 4 were issued as challenges the general theorem was never mentioned again by Fermat. In fact in all the mathematical work left by Fermat there is only one proof. Fermat proves that the area of a right trangle cannot be a square. See more: what is essay format Meaning that a rational triangle cannot be a rational square. In symbols, there do not exist integers x, y, z with x2 + y2 = z2 such that xy/2 is a square. From this it is easy to deduce the n = 4 case of Fermat’s theorem. The proof of Fermat’s Last Theorem marks the end of a mathematical era. Since all of the tools which were brought to bear on the problem still had to be invented in the time of Fermat. Judging by the tenacity with which the problem wa for so long, Fermat’s alleged proof seems likely to have been illusionary. This conclusion is further supported by the fact that Fermat searched for proofs for the cases and , which would have been superfluous had he actually been in possession of a general proof.

Abnormal Psychology: Abnormality

1) Abnormality is defined from an average where common behaviour is defined as â€Å"normal† and rare behaviour is defined as abnormal. These characteristics can be shown and placed on a scale â€Å"graph† that would reveal how common their score is in comparison to everyone else. There are problems deciding how rare behaviour has to be to be considered abnormal, phobias could be defined as normal as they affect a lot of the population. Different cultures have different definitions of being abnormal. Something that is rare to use might be defined as normal to a different culture. Statistical infrequency is a way to define events that are more or less common, this frequency is represented with a curve the most common events are the high part of this curve and the less common are the lowest part of the curve. The most infrequent occurrences are considered abnormal and statistically infrequent; these are events that occur rarely. In some situations statistical infrequency is used to define mental retardation, but statistical infrequency doesn’t focus on the bad points only, abnormal behaviour isn’t always undesirable e. . being better at sports, genius’s. Using statistical infrequency means we are unable to distinguish the good and bad abnormalities. 2) The diagnostic term for the patient is schizophrenia the doctor will evaluate the patient and ask about symptoms, medical history, and see if theres anything physically wrong with the patient. There are no tests to identify mental illnesses, the doctor would send the patient for tests to rule out any other illnesses first. If theres nothing physically wrong and the symptoms persist the doctor may refer the patient to a psychiatrist these people are trained for treating mental illnesses. These trained people use a specially designed interview to evaluate the person, they also see how the person is within themselves and socially, and watch the persons attitude and behaviour, the doctor would ask if they have Hallucinations,Delusions If extremely bizarre, they would see if their speech is Disorganised They can usually diagnose a mental disorder based on these factors. Doctors may misdiagnose patients suffering with schizophrenia symptoms, the patient may be embarrassed about being diagnosed with this condition so may not tell the doctor about hallucinations or any other disturbing behaviour, its difficult to diagnose schizophrenia with it being a mental disorder an may be diagnosed as another mental condition. 3) Discuss evidence that schizophrenia has a biological cause. Twin studies show that they have a higher concordance rates than dizypotic twins. The closer the relative the higher the concordance . Biological causes schizophrenia Our genes are involved with the inheritance or development of schizophrenia, multiple chromosomes are transmitted to people in generations and are later diagnosed with schizophria, there is a 70% chance of inheriting schizophrenia. Evidence shows that identical twins do not develop schizophrenia, i resent study shows that 28% of twins have a chance of developing schizophrenia if the other twin already has it. Stress can cause episopes of schizophrenia, there are also other factors like poverty, poor diet, ill health, drug use. Researchers have found that people suffering from schizophrenia tend to have been born in winter. There are no definite causes of schizophrenia. Chemotherapy is used to treat chemical imbalance’s in the brain, its changes the way the brain and body works. 4) Discuss the role of the family in the causation of schizophrenia. The double bind theory states that schizophrenia is a abnormal patter n in family communication, a person is given mutually contradictory signals by another person, this places the person in an arkward situation causing conflict. Liem et al compared communication patterns within the family with an without a schizophrenia, there was evidence that families process a role in relapse of schizophrenia patients following stabilisation. Familys hign in critgicism, hostility lead to more relapse, the double bind theory is a distressing communication within the family, the use of confusion makes it difficult to respond or to resist conflict. 5) Evaluate the effectiveness of cognitive therapy for schizophrenia, and discuss problems in assessing its effectiveness. This treatment is increasingly popular this has good success rates for epression, OCD, eating disorders and anxiety, its less effective with schizophrenia and dipolar depression. It works by the way we think at attitudes that influence our behaviour, irrational thinking is seen to be the cause of the mental disorders; it also works by changing the way the client thinks. This therapy has fewer side effects than any other treatments, this is a long term strategy but could make the patient worse if it doesn’t work and it’s not a quick recovery process. People could give up on this treatment feeling it’s not working because it takes a long time.

Analysis Of The Apple Inc. Activity Research Paper

Analysis Of The Apple Inc. Activity - Research Paper Example Apart from various other services, Apple Inc. specializes in a number of products. These include the mobile phone technology enabled mobile mobiles. It was Apple's I-phone 3.0 that introduced a totally new concept. Since then Apple Inc. has introduced a large number of developments time to time and at present, it stands at I-Phone 6. Apart from the mobile phone, Apple Inc. provides products such as I-Pad, I-Pod, Mac Book, desktop computers, and other similar gadgets that are top of the list in the market. All these major developments came about towards the early part of the 21st century where the touch phones were introduced and later on the cell phones became further sleek.Apple Inc. has its own operating system in the name of I.O.S. Apple’s I.O.S and OS-X is device specific and can be operated and installed in only the Apple devices that are aforementioned. Apple Tunes, Play store and I-Tunes, I-Book, I Cloud are few of the major software services and applications that are c ommonly in use. The online store of Apple Inc. finds thousands of downloads daily.Apple Inc's mention without the mention of Steve Jobs will be incomplete. It will be safe to say that the present day Apple Inc. is the product and gift of Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs was the man behind the ideas of I-Phone, I-Pad and many other novels and unique products and services. Steve Jobs served as the C.E.O of the company for the considerable time and brought about steps and actions with him that made Apple Inc. the market front runner.

Roman-like about Romanesque architecture Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Roman-like about Romanesque architecture - Essay Example Medieval Christian basilicas incorporated many new inventions, however, including â€Å"the outstanding engineering achievement of the stone vault† (Stalley: 1999, p. 130). The Romans and early Christian architects had managed to construct groin and barrel vaulting, but they were usually very small. They had used wood to cover the vast basilica spaces. Romanesque masons worked out techniques to apply this feature to huge stone buildings. Romanesque vaults were made of â€Å"rubble or roughly dressed masonry, which called for a liberal supply of mortar.† (Stalley, 1999, p. 130) This material was both thick and heavy, and was held together by compression. The forces involved in this caused the walls to buckle, and so builders had to make the walls very thick and strong, and support them with the use of external buttresses. In Italy there was a tendency to construct basilicas with a lot of columns, largely due to the availability of antique Roman columns (Clapham: 1946, p. 30). Better engineering techniques allowed the addition of windows in areas not subject to stress, and in Germany the basic basilica form was enhanced with, arches, side rooms, and towers and turrets as well to accommodate various kinds of smaller scale Christian activity alongside the massive public space for high festivals.

The Economic Boom in Qatar, UAE & Saudi Arabia Research Paper

The Economic Boom in Qatar, UAE & Saudi Arabia - Research Paper Example Even though the recent political developments in the Middle Easter countries like Egypt, Libya etc are causing some impacts in these three countries, nobody expect a political instability in these countries because of the higher level of standard of living in these countries compared to that in other neighboring countries. Dubai, one of the prominent emirates of UAE faced some financial problems recently; however, Abu Dhabi was able to lift Dubai from the recent financial crisis. In other words, different emirates in UAE are helping each other when any of them face trouble which is the major reason why United Arab Emirates was able to develop properly. Business is the major revenue source of UAE. Saudi Arabia on the other hand is blessed with immense oil resources and their economy is highly dependent on the oil revenues. Qatar has revenues from oil resources, tourism, marine products etc. This paper analyses the economic booms in these three Middle Easter countries; Qatar, UAE and S audi Arabia. The Economic Boom in Qatar Qatar is one of the prominent Middle Eastern countries which have diverse ranges of revenue sources. While most of the other gulf countries rely heavily on oil revenues for economic development, Qatar is blessed with oil resources, marine products, tourism, real estate revenues etc. According to the 2010 statistics, Qatar’s GDP real growth rate is 19.4% compared to 9.5% in 2009 and 11.7% 2008 (Qatar GDP - Real Growth Rate) (See Appendix for more details). It is evident from the above statistics that the GDP growth doubled in year 2010 compared to that in year 2009. Perhaps, no other country in the world has ever recorded such phenomenal growth rates over a year period of time. Oil and gas account for more than 50% of GDP, roughly 85% of export earnings, and 70% of government revenues. Oil and gas have made Qatar the second highest per-capita income country. Proved oil reserves of 15 billion barrels should enable continued output at curr ent levels for 37 years (Qatar Population) Oil resources are nonrenewable energy sources. It is exhausting day by day because of over exploitation and increase in the number of automobile vehicles which make use of oil resources. In other words, the demand for oil resources is going to be increased in the coming years. Qatar is one country which has higher oil stocks at present. In short, Qatar’s economic progress may not be affected at least for another thirty or forty years of time because of their oil stocks. Business, tourism and marine products are some other revenue sources for Qatar. Qatar’s coastal areas are blessed with some rare species of fishes. About 150 different species of fishes were recorded in the seacoast of Qatar. â€Å"Sweet lips, emperors and snappers, goatfish, shark, groupers, barracudas, thread fins, lizard fish and rabbit fish† etc are some of the rare fish species available in the sea coast of Qatar (Qatar, 2005) Qatar has a wide coast al area and historically, fishing is one of the major revenue sources for the Qataris. Another reason for the economic boom in Qatar is the development of good educational practices. Qatar is doing everything possible to give good education to its people. They realized that educated people are one of the major pillars upon which a country can develop. Many American, Canadian and British universities are operating in Qatar.

Employment tribunal Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Employment tribunal - Essay Example According to statistics released by the Employment Tribunals Service, the claims accepted by tribunals in 2006 totaled 115,039. This figure showed a great improvement from the previous year when only 86,181 claims had been accepted. Of the claims that were accepted in 2006, 18% of them got a successful full hearing. The rest were withdrawn, settled, disposed of or unsuccessful. The tribunals passed an average award for unfair dismissal cases of 8,679 pounds. For successful discrimination cases, the average award was set at between 5,540 and 9020 pounds. A total of 867 decisions made by Employment tribunals were later appealed, of which only 298 cases were allowed. The rest were either withdrawn or dismissed (Edge, 2008). These statistics clearly indicate that although the tribunals were formed to help employees and employers solve any disputes among themselves in an amicable manner, it has not been an easy task to carry out this duty (Selwyn, 2006). One of the main issues that have b een hampering the effectiveness of the employment Tribunals in the UK is lack of independence. There are normally too many vested interests within the tribunals themselves. It is quite common to find some employers or their lawyers influencing tribunal proceedings so as to get the outcome they want.

Organization Study Project Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Organization Study Project - Research Paper Example Due to our expertise in water and sanitation as a researcher, we were called by the organization to study the loop holes of the organization and also to carry out the assessment of the ongoing running project by the NGO. The NGO was running the project of installing hand pumps for the Afghan refugees which is the largest Afghan refugee’s camp in Pakistan, located in Haripur. Due to this team work and collaboration, it was quiet easy to sort out the locations from where the water sample was to be taken because the NGO already knew the sites, so we just needed to travel along with them and take out the water sample from different areas and bring them back to our university. Before going for field work, we had a group discussion with the community mobilizer of the NGO, he told us about the situation and conditions of the project and about the success of the project. The NGO was recently working on phase 2 of the project, and in phase 1 it provided the hand pumps and the flush toi lets to the community. Recently in the phase 2 they were covering two union councils of the Haripur in which 18 hand pumps was the target. First twenty years, this NGO served afghan refugee community (which is the highest community of Afghans in Pakistan located in Haripur). This NGO developed a water user association in which they provides the community management skills to the people and the aim is to develop linkage of the local people with the authorities. For this task of the provision of the hand pumps and the flush toilets, the NGO worked as a community need based assessment and started to work, employing the local people for the physical force, and also taken 20 percent share from the local people. Since 8-9 months the activities has been ceased but management team is still there to monitor. To make the investment sustainable the NGO links the organization to the government. It worked on the basis of gross root institutional development which is directly proportional to the development. The NGO also made the district health board for the local community. The NGO also conducted health and hygiene sessions for the local awareness and community management skills training program. The community mobilization process included the need assessment, realization, and conceptualization. In the management skill training involved the process of consultation, gain and confidence and future vision. FIELD ANALYSIS: During the field analysis, we collected the sample from the water sources and put them in the labeled glass bottles and keep the lid tight. The sample bottles were pre sterilized to avoid the contamination. As the precautionary measure it was important that to close the bottle lids as soon as the water was put in the bottle, this was to avoid the air contamination in the samples and it was done according to the precautionary measures. SURVEY SITES: There were 18 different sampling sites from where the water sample was required to be collected. But due to la ck of time we collected the water samples from ten different sites. All the water sampling sites were located in two union councils. WATERSAMPLING: The water sample was collected and kept in a bag that was specially designed to keep the water sample cool. Each water sample consisted of 50 ml sample. Also each water sample was labeled with a black marker followed by the name of the area and the

A childs education is increasingly dependent on the wealth and wishes Essay

A childs education is increasingly dependent on the wealth and wishes of their parents, rather than the ability of pupils themselves. Discuss - Essay Example It is true that a child’s education is increasingly dependent on the wealth and wishes of their parents, rather than the ability of pupils themselves? How accessible is education in the United Kingdom? What sorts of conflicts does the inaccessibility of education produce? These questions and many more will be addressed and applied to this holistic analysis of education in the United Kingdom. Education is supposed to be meritocratic in nature and the means through which people break through the cumbersome social barriers of class and privilege. Is it true that education is meritocratic and based upon the notion that education allows people to advance, progress and move forward in life? A basic premise of the sociology of education is that it promotes greater equality and is based upon merit and equal opportunity for all. The expansion of education in the past two hundred years in the United Kingdom remains an incredible advance which has purportedly increased social equality to the betterment of society. Less than one hundred years ago, the educational institutions of this country were effectively closed to women, ethnic minorities and a whole host of other groups. Incredibly, educational opportunities were denied to more than 50% of the population for centuries. The sociology of education emphatically argues that public schooling and universal education promotes social equality, social cohesion and is characterised by opportunities for progress and social growth. A fundamental underpinning of the sociology of education is that it is meritoocratically based and that it promotes great equlaity. Now that educational access has expanded across this country, is it true that education promotes social equality and is based upon the merits of individual students? According to scholars Persell & Cookson in their study of

Coffee and Starbucks Essay Example for Free

Coffee and Starbucks Essay Abstract Starbucks opened its first location in Seattles Pike Place Market in 1971. Now Chairman Howard Schultz joined Starbucks in 1982 as Director of Marketing. Schultz visited Italy and noticed the popularity of espresso bars there. He thought this would be a great idea in the Seattle area and convinced Starbucks to open a coffee shop in downtown. Schultz founded his own coffee company and acquired Starbucks name and assets from its founders in 1987. The company had just 17 stores but would soon grow quickly and went public in 1992. Starbucks popularity soared as it opened coffee shops within Barnes and Noble bookstores. It also provided coffee for United Airlines and shops in Starwood hotels. The companys focus on quality and commitment to social causes and the community have made it one of the worlds most admired businesses. Starbucks made the cutting-edge step of having its second Corporate Social Responsibility Annual Report verified by an outside auditor, so readers can be assured the facts and figures it presents are accurate. One of the revealing statistics in the report is that Starbucks purchased 74 percent of its green coffee at outright negotiated prices, independent of depressed commodity prices in 2002, up from just 12 percent in 2001. Starbucks also paid an average of $1. 20 per pound at a time when coffee was trading on the commodity market for $. 40 to $. 50 per pound. The end result: higher income for farmers, which translates to a better quality of life for farmers. Introduction: Starbucks began 36 years ago as a single store in Seattles Pikes Place Market, and today is the worlds leading retailer, roaster and brand of specialty coffee. The company has experienced extraordinary growth: its number of stores has more than doubled in the past ten years, with close to 6,000 coffeehouses in over 27 international markets. More than 19 million customers visit a Starbucks coffeehouse each week. When Starbucks considered its ambitious expansion plans for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, executives knew that the location they chose for their new roasting plant and support centre would be critical to their success. In fact, the decision was so important that the company spent close to three years looking at various sites across Europe and the International market. Main discussion: 1. Starbucks product’s competitive priorities As we know the competitive priorities is operating advantages that a firm’s processes must possess to outperform its competitors. In this part, we are going to define each possible competitive priorities of Starbucks for operation process as cost, quality, time and flexibility †¢Cost: Market indicators show a potential trouble for the entire coffee industry as a whole, namely the rising cost of coffee beans and farmer’s tendency to switch to other profitable crops. First, rising cost means lower profit margins. Second, the fact that farmers are switching to more lucrative crops such as vegetables, fruits, and even illegal crops foreshadows the scarce supply of coffee beans. Hopefully Starbucks’ competitive prices for its coffee subcontractors are lucrative enough to retain and deter its suppliers away from abandoning the coffee production. Economic trends should not influence. Starbucks pricing strategy greatly, because gourmet coffee, or any other coffee, is measured on quality and availability, and not so much on price. Furthermore, in times of economic downturn, the business is actually performing better, since people are fixated on the idea that if we cannot afford something as grandeur as a new car, then at least we would treat ourselves to a nice cup of coffee. Hence, economic trends should not greatly influence the performance of coffee sales. †¢Quality -high performance design for quality control, Starbucks has a specialized process for roasting the perfect coffee bean. It is implemented with the roaster determining by sight, smell, hearing, and computer, if the beans are perfectly done. Additionally, the colour of the beans is tested in an Agtron blood-cell analyzer. If the sample is deemed imperfect in any of these processes, the whole batch is discarded. Starbucks’ departmental systems are organized into functional and production divisions such as Supply Chain Operations, Human Resources, Accounting, etc Starbucks employs approximately 15,000 individuals to operate its retail stores and regional offices, and 1,600 individuals to work on administrative, sales, real estate, direct response, roasting, and warehousing operations. -consistent quality: measurement of quality products and services that keep customer’s retention. Its competitive strategy is to rapidly expand to a market and dominate it completely before moving on. In the process, it hopes that these rapid expansions would create a higher barrier to entry, discourage competitors from expanding, and eventually acquires weak competitors who wants to exit. †¢Time: three competitive priorities deal with time fast delivery time, on-time delivery and development speed. -fast delivery time: starbucks saves costumers’ time by offering self-service to the costumers. -On-time, delivery by processing orders in efficient time, which guarantees no costumer delay on service. -development speed starbucks’ consumers have tried its product, but not through advertisement, but through promotions such as gifts introducing new products to the market. †¢Flexibility: the customization of starbucks has the ability to satisfy the unique needs of costumers by changing products and services designs. Starbucks volume flexibility is accelerating the rate of production quickly to handle large fluctuation in demand because of the unique service to the costumers. 2. Starbucks critical analysis, services and manufacturing strategies In order to identify the critical analysis of the company services and manufacturing strategies we will start analysing the corporate strategy as it follows: †¢Goals The Companys goal is to establish Starbucks as the most recognized and respected brand in the world. To achieve this goal, the Company plans to continue to rapidly expand its retail operations, grow its specialty sales and other operations, and selectively pursue opportunities to leverage the Starbucks brand through the introduction of new products and the development of new distribution channels. , as well as: -Provide a great work environment and treat each other with respect and dignity. Embrace diversity as an essential component in the way we do business. Apply the highest standards to the purchasing, roasting and fresh delivery of our coffee. Develop enthusiastically satisfied customers all of the time. Contribute positively to our communities and our environment. Recognize that profitability is essential to our future success. †¢Core competencies: starbucks considers the unique resources and strengths when formulating strategy as workforce, facilities, market and financial, and system and technology as they follow: †¢ Culture and employees who support values and missions of the organization, who have a stake in the performance of the company. ? Market domination in the U. S, allowing economies of scale, creating high barrier to entry, and impeding competitors’ growth incentive. ? Sufficient return on equity, which means proper management of company’s resources †¢Low supplier’s and customer’s power, and low influence from economic trends †¢Quality product and customer service, established brand name Environmental responses ?Economics Trends – Market indicators shows a potential trouble for the entire coffee industry as a whole, namely the rising cost of coffee beans and farmer’s tendency to switch to other profitable crops. First, rising.

Destination Management Report On Singapore

Destination Management Report On Singapore Travel and tourism attention has the heading upon all sides in many countries especially due to the capability to emanate over-abundance for the economy. The industry is counted as the single of the many critical apparatus of income as well as foreign exchange. Travel as well as Tourism commercial operation especially emphasizes to magnetize the foreigners. There have been countless examples of tourism destinations around the universe that have been adversely impacted upon by tourism development. Tourism formulation formed upon the philosophies of sustainability has emerged as the single of the many extensive as well as supposed approaches. However, the tolerable proceed to tourism formulation hinges upon dual pass caveats firstly an extended turn of mixed stakeholder appearance in the tourism formulation routine is compulsory as well as secondly, the need for the vital course towards tourism formulation (Simpson, 2001). While Ritchie and Crouch (2000) explain that more destinations have been taking advantage of vital perspectives towards tourism development, Simpson (2001: 4) finds that although the concepts of stakeholder appearance as well as vital course have been at large permitted as profitable contributors to tolerable development, there have been no prior attempts to sign the border to that such considerations play their role in genuine universal tourism formulation processes. The foremost impending of this investigate is quite straightforward, to coop down the tourism planning and policy of the tourist destination. The literature is mainly focused on branding, financial and product development policies of the selected destination. Destination can be basically described as a place in which tourism is comparatively dominant business and the main economic activity that contributes to the local and national governments. The concept of destination management as a matter of fact is therefore a complex one since a particular place regarded as a destination may be covering a wide area like a metropolis, a region, a whole state or sometimes an entire nation for example the Caribbean Island. Ritchi Crouch (2003) indicated that running and administering places frequented by tourists is a vital component of being in charge of the effects and damages brought about by tourism. For example in tourist destinations like sub- Saharan Africa where game watching is the prominent tourist attraction, administration of such places is of essence in order to retain the natural environment where game animals live and to discourage unsustainable human activities as much as possible. Destination management is composed of adjudication and allocation of available space, issuing trading licenses for tour operators and hotel owners, developing and implementing operational policies, safeguarding the parks or the museums, drafting government and local support programs and undertaking related relevant activities or interventions that will help in advancing progresses and day to day running of visitors destinations and associated events. Roland Buck (2008) Indicated that the presence of power and authority over these places as may be represented by the county councils or national governments, not for profit bodies, special interest groups, the experts and scholars on environment and the home business council form what is known to be destination management society. A group composed of tourist operators, logistic firms, lodge and bistros, sites, game parks, museums and others form a majority portion that makes a destination. Another issue that should be taken into account is the means through which the marketing would be done. Most destinations use the internet and television. The promotions about the forth coming world cup in South Africa may be a good case study. It must be noted that management of a single destination is different from anothers because the requirements, size and the location of the area it covers and the number of interested parties may differ. Marketing is a commerce term which refers to actions taken by a business in order to satisfy its customers on a continued basis and achieving the sales projections it set out. Marketing is a deliberate step of actions that are taken by businesses which sell its goods and services in a market where competitors are many. Customers would always want to choose the best commodities of those available in the market. To create leverage over the competitors and to attract as well maintain a desirable market share, firms must integrate marketing into their operations. Destination marketing can therefore be defined as a conscious effort by tourism management institutions to sell a certain tourist attraction place or activities to prospective tourists, to meet their sales projections and maintain a sizable percentage of market share compared to other destinations. Several factors are considered when marketing a destination. For example, the target tourists must be identified, their needs taken into account, the competitors must be known, determining the fees and prices paid and so on. Pike (2004) indicated that several interest groups as well as governments, who depend on a given destination, are necessary for them to come together for the purpose of marketing it. They could achieve this by agreeing on standardizing the services they offer, contributing money for joint advertisements and improving the tourism facilities in and around the destination. However there is a concern by observers that these several parties have divergent interest in the sense that they collude to market the destination they operate from while also competing amongst themselves. A point that should be taken into account is that businesses in a tourist destination are the major contributors to marketing efforts while the authorities are concerned about managing the destinations. Destination planning can be defined as premeditated efforts by tourism businesses and authorities to arrange and prepare a tourist attraction place or activities with the aim of realizing order and harmony in their operations. According to Clare Turgut (2006) without a plan, there would be evident disorganization with regard to service delivery. It evidently acknowledged all over the world that it is necessary to employ the use of better alternatives in setting up as well as improving the tourist attraction places. This takes two dimensions. One is of offering the tourists an excellent value for money in the services provided. The second dimension takes into account the effects of human activity on the environment. It also involves the development and improvement of communication and transport networks around and within the destination together with connecting this business to supplementary cost effective industries. Furthermore, there is an aspect of working with and integrating the neighbouring group of residents. This is because the destination might be their ancestral land and of economic value by virtue of them working and living there. Adequate planning also checks unrestrained or illegal tourism. Singapore as a tourist destination Singapore is an international tourist destination with excellent basic and general infrastructure, a great range of activities, events and entertainment. It is regarded as a destination of family oriented, safe, modern, shopping paradise, plenty of sun and good food. It also features one of the most efficient airports in the world and a national airline with strong reputation for reliability and service (Wan T.W.D. Hui T.K. 2003). Singapore has a great potential to attract tourist, as it is a stopover for many other countries and considered as a tourist hub. The country has been ranked 5th in global competitiveness in 2009 by world economic forum, which reveals its management and marketing efficiency. Even though the country doesnt have an exclusive ministry for tourism, the political will and support for tourism industry is great. Singapore experienced visitor arrivals of 10.1 million and tourism receipts of 15.2 billion in 2008 and the government is targeting triple tourism receipts by 2015. Singapore tourism board Singapore tourism board is the supreme destination management organisation (DMO) for tourism in Singapore which have four divisions namely tourism marketing, corporate services, tourism business and regional marketing, under ministry of industry and trade. Apart from tourism promotion, STB also performs the role of economic development for tourism industry. The mission of STB is to ensure the position of tourism as a key economic pillar of the country through well thought out strategy in collaboration with public and private sector stakeholders. STB also strives for exciting and innovative experience for the visitors in close partnership with small and medium enterprises. The key focus areas of STB are enhancing position of Singapore as a leading convention and exhibition city in Asia, developing the country as a leading Asian leisure destination and establishing Singapore as service centre of Asia. According to the Singapore tourism board act, the functions of the management include: Promotion and development of Singapore as a tourist destination Advice the government on matters regarding tourism Maximise the contribution of tourism sector to the national economy. Regulation functions of tourism enterprises Develop new tourism products Develop destination marketing campaigns Encourage investments in tourism infrastructure Tourism policies DMO of Singapore is well aware of the total system definition of the country as a tourist destination since its independence, which is evident from well defined, efficient and dynamic tourism policies. The management of tourism in Singapore has undergone assorted changes over decades and the current tourism strategies are based on three focuses; elevating its position as leading exhibition and convention city in Asia with strong and dynamic business environment, leading Asian leisure destination, and the service centre of Asia. The embracing cause of opposite policies as good as strategies directed during compelling and championing tourism in Singapore has been theme to socio mercantile changes upon an internal as well as tellurian fronts. A deeper bargain of issues regarding tourism growth in Singapore necessitates an examination of a behind belligerent of these hurdles as they describe to sold amicable mercantile as good as domestic conditions of Singapore. Singapore tourism board has sought to be variable to changes in a wider socio mercantile environment. Tourism policies as well as strategies have to illustrate mostly corresponded to tellurian forces conversion trends in tourism as well as mercantile growth and responded to internal factors such as becoming different amicable conditions in a city state. Branding marketing strategy The dramatic improvement in Singapores technology has lead to a shift in its brand strategy where it was initially known as instant Asia since its independence in 1965. After a period of time, Singapore tourism board has deployed the brand Uniquely Singapore (government of Singapore 2006) to showcase the identity of the country, which has now evolved as yoursingapore. Different ministries and statutory bodies of Singapore are marketing the country with different brands using different images. For this reason, Singapore has an umbrella positioning exercise in place to coordinate the efforts of different agencies and statutory bodies. STB has derived well thought out strategies to communicate the brand image to all domestic and overseas stakeholders and of course the potential travellers. Singapore has recognised the potential value of the brands and has well addressed the matter by employing professional marketing methods and strategies. It also realises the potential of mega events in promoting the brand and is doing the best to attract such events to the country in conjunction with the government (for example, formulae one race and youth Olympics). Initiatives have also been taken to boost up the brand image through media and technology which could bring about a great positive impact to the countrys reputation. STB communicates the brand yoursingapore through its 18 overseas offices and various media like advertising, photography, brochures, online initiatives and also the film industry (film in Singapore scheme). The website www.yoursingapore.com delivers a new experience that no other tourism destinations are currently offering. STB gives equal importance to brand awareness by travellers as well as residents and several initiatives has been taken in macro and micro level to address this. It also claims that the brand is globally well known which is apparent from awareness and recall among the target markets. A few surveys have ranked Singapores brand among the top in terms of all roundedness, consistency, economic environment and supremacy. STB is also striving to associate the brand with positive aspects like place of opportunity, creativity, research and development. Since the size of the country is smaller, its comparatively easy for STB to represent the country in a holistic way without a dilemma of which one to focus on. Singapore sees branding as a platform for marketing, advertising and public relations efforts of the country. Realising the fact that Singapore is already advanced in landscape and technology, the marketing focus has shifted from hard aspects to soft aspects like lifestyle, visitor experience and innovative tourism products and services. This is evident from a number of new tourism developmental strategies implemented to achieve the vision of tourism sector to be a leading economic development agency in tourism, known for partnership, innovation and excellence. The above said strategies include promotion and encouragement of diversity, experimentation, innovation, high level of customer service, IT oriented business frame, strategic alliance and so on which underpins the destination vision. The country is well addressing the issue of transforming the old mindset of international audience and market the current reality as a dynamic and culturally vivacious city. Singapore is also an example of glocalisation (Foley M. et.al 2006) by increasingly differentiating visitors, by invention of consumer traditions in terms of marketing. Product / Facility development strategy With the image of a high tech city, tourism products and services of Singapore has always been revolving around technology, regardless of the fact that the adoption of technology in tourism sector is comparatively low. The product and service development in tourism, hospitality and retail sector is being differentiated with the 10 year master plan of technology namely intelligent nation 2015 (iN2015). iN2015 is a master strategy to maximise the use of technology in all economic sectors including tourism across Singapore. iWealth is another management policy under iN2015, seeks to strengthen Singapore as a wealth management centre. It also promote investments and product development to enable better risk management and timely market of innovative products and services. With a clear pragmatic vision of tourism and hospitality industry, the strategies are concentrated on three main areas. In the first strategy, the outlook has gone beyond visitor experience to superior visitor experience with seamless and personalised service. The two programmes under this strategy are digital concierge and speedy registration for visitors. The second strategy focuses on improving industry efficiency by adopting more technology and supply chain integration, where as the third policy ponder on evolution of new ideas utilising technology in the tourism industry. The funding for instigating technology in tourism is well taken care by the government with a scheme called tourism technology fund of S$10 million, which is a catalyst for iN2015 to transform the tourism industry and sustain long term. In addition, STB is also looking forward for huge projects like worlds best shopping complex in orchard road and iconic resorts to improve tourism attractions. Financial policy The tourism industry in Singapore has got a great level of political will and support which consequently lead to sound economic policies for developing and sustaining tourism growth. Tourism industry in Singapore is funded 100% through STB, by the government, from hotel room night taxes, (SRI international 1999) which is 4.6% of the total government expenditure. Apart from this STB also receives funds from private sector for joint ventures. STB is a spearhead for tourism development in close collaboration with public and private sectors to adapt a comprehensive and holistic approach to build a strong economic policy to derive greater economic growth. The abolition of its long standing prohibition of gambling and casinos by the government resulted in huge increase in visitor arrivals and subsequently larger economic growth. As such, liberalisation and long-short term incentives in the transport industry have lead Singapore to emerge as a marine and aviation hub in Asia. STB in association with the government has come up with various economic policies to assist areas like investment promotion, product and industry development, financial grants and tax incentives to further develop Singapore as a tourist destination and sustain the economic growth. The economic policies are as follows; Tourism development assistance scheme (TDAS) to accelerate the pace of tourism development in Singapore. Double tax deduction for inbound tourism promotion and local trade exhibitions to encourage private sector to market Singapore in local and overseas trade fairs and exhibitions. Investment allowance scheme for flagship concepts to promote investments in small and medium enterprises and entertainment. Concessionary tax rate for mega events to attract event organisers to stage Singapore for mega events. Film in Singapore scheme (FSS) to encourage and attract film makers to shoot in Singapore (Consider the positive image created for Newzealand through the film lord of the rings). BE in Singapore incentive scheme to promote and expand business events in Singapore. Assessment of strategies Branding positioning The branding strategy of Singapore largely influences the way they want their target market and the tourism industry as a whole to view the country in terms of tourist attractions just as the way it should be according to Ritchie and Crouch (2003). YourSingapore differentiates Singapores worth tender from which of competitors; ensuring Singapore stays applicable as well as constrained to todays travellers, as code equity as well as code recall impact visitor arrivals as well as tourism receipts. YourSingapore is an innovative judgment which focuses upon personalisation as well as an aberration of Singapore and knowledge to any visitor. It uses a smart platform, www.yoursingapore.com, to simply capacitate travellers to renovate their preferred Singapore experience into reality. Yoursingapores digital approach in branding/positioning, blogging, social media monitoring, and travel e-commerce can aggressively enhance pre-experience selection, such as identification, differentiation, anti cipation, expectation and re assurance, while promising truth in the advertising policy as Crouch and Ritchie recommends. Consolidation and reinforcement of post -experience recollection is also successfully accomplished by the brand image of Singapore with its efficient communication network. The idea of brand umbrella also helps STB to consolidate the efforts of different agencies in Singapore to market it and at the same time coordinating and enhancing the status of the whole community. While the brand images position the destination among the target markets, the policy of changing the brand names by Singapore from instant Asia to Uniquely Singapore and further to yoursingapore is to be scanned for what impacts it brings about in the mind of tourists around the globe. STBs Assistant chief executive of marketing Ken Low justifies the policy that a brands life span is not more than seven years. But it should be considered that many other brand campaigns have been in action for decades and still efficient. Product / Facility development This stage of planning phase of singapore could be considered as efficient and effective as they are well directed towards two themes out of three, prescribed by Crouch Ritchie such as facility planning for competent destination, new and innovative event development for tourism attractions enhancement. However, strategies for expanding and strengthening STB through memberships are not detectable in the tourism policy context of Singapore. It can be seen that the nature of Singapore tourism policies is governing the tourism sector solely by public sector with limited private sector participation, which is indeed competent. iN2015 would be a great advantage for tourism products and service development in Singapore considering the current unprofessional operations in a major part of food and retail sector which often results in creating undesired visitor interpretations. The project is expected to provide the individual tourists with satisfying and challenging experiences to a great extend. Financial resource strategy The rapid growth of industries reveals the efficiency of economic policies of Singapore ever since it is independent and when it comes to the new era policies for tourism economy, the constant increase in tourism receipts which reached S$15 billion in 2008 divulges its effectiveness. As recommended by Ritchie and crouch (2003) and Tourism Working Group, aggressive strategies are developed to attract global players for investment promotion, thus raising more capital through taxes from private sector for tourism growth. Investment allowance scheme, BE in Singapore scheme, and concessionary tax rates along with free trade policy are a few examples of these policies. These are key financial policies to increase tax returns with other supplementing strategies, considering that tourism industry in Singapore is 100% funded by the government through taxes from the tourism business itself. There are no visible policies of raising debt and equity capital or direct funding from private sector w hich is not much necessary for Singapore with greater business investments from foreign and private sector. Apart from public funding, STB also aims to encourage investments from private sector for infrastructure development and joint tourism promotional campaigns. In contrast, Singapore has a mix of well defined public and private sector funding policies, which is an ideal model of financial resource policy. The cost effectiveness of policies like tax deduction and non tax incentives on offer is, however, open to question. Conclusion From the analysis and assessment, it is evident that Singapore has a proactive approach which tries to achieve a vivacious tourism destination through forward planning, timely interventions, policy and infrastructural development. Whereas, the positive outcomes of destination development may be attributed to integration, flexibility and strong aspiration of the policy and strategy. The involvement of the government in tourism has been positive and likely to be continued so. Most policies of STB and government seem to serve the tourism practitioners better, rather than policy makers. This is a key component of policies in order to encourage practitioners to implement theoretical policies into practice. Success of Singapore as a sustainable and competent tourism destination depends mostly upon the effectiveness and efficiency of policy and planning, as far as Singapore tourism board is examined. The balanced brand strategy of Singapore positions itself in its niche markets, whereas, marketing, product development and financial policies acts as a catalyst to boost up tourism receipts at the same time, sustainably competing in the international tourism market.