The Scarlet Letter Essay

â€Å"It is human nature to want patterns, standards, and a structure of behavior. A pattern to conform to is a kind of shelter. † This quote can be considered valid or invalid depending on the person who is reading the quote. Whether it is someone like the Puritans in the Scarlet Letter who believes that life should be lived in a strict manner, or whether it is someone who cannot stand a uniform life, there will be never a time when everyone accepts or denies this quote.People feel safe and confident when they are given standards or expectations. This gives them reassurance that they are living their lives the right way. For an example, in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel, The Scarlet Letter, the townspeople look down upon Hester Prynne because of the crime she committed. Hester Prynne broke a law which reinforced the bystander’s confidence on how they were living their lives. This causes the townspeople to feel safe and protected so they decide to mock and taunt Hes ter to make themselves feel stronger.People also conform to live their lives in a strict manner because sometimes they just need guidance. After Hester was released from prison, she decided to live her life helping the poor and elderly. Hester does this because she is lost and does not know how to live her life anymore after she strayed off the strict path the Puritans were suppose to follow. Although many may find happiness in a habitual lifestyle, many other people may find happiness in a carefree life. Living a life without patterns or standards can help greatly in a positive way.Living an unpredictable life allows the person to be able to experience many different things that will teach them how to be insightful and decide right from wrong. In The Scarlet Letter, Hester commits adultery which is deviating from the path a Puritan is suppose to take. But because of what she did, she was able to give birth to her daughter who she loves so much, find the man she truly loves, and see the hidden darkness that was buried deep within Roger Chillingworth’s heart. Because she decided to stray from the path a puritan is suppose to take, her life turned out for the better.In the quote,† It is human nature to want patterns, standards, and a structure of behavior. A pattern to conform to is a kind of shelter†, it has become clear that depending on the reader, whether they are someone who likes a unchanging lifestyle, or whether they are someone who enjoys experiencing something new every day, it is up to them to decide if they feel safe to agree or disagree to this quote. No matter if the reader chooses to disagree or agree to the quote, both choices come with negative and positives outcomes.

Future Trends in Health Care Essay

Clinical decisions reflect the electronic world we live in more than ever. The electronic health record (EHR) is quickly replacing the traditional paper chart. In the United States by the 2014, medical records will be converted to an EHR. Medical records were converted over a ten- year period in the United Kingdom from traditional charting to EHR. The electronic age is here and with it new terminology. Electronic Health (E-health) describes many topics from the EHR to several systems and new subspecialties. Telemedicine has grown to include many activities within the electronic realm. The Internet and external delivery sources are quickly gaining favor for follow up care and rural medicine visits. Patients’ no longer have to wait or drive far distances to see their physician they can simply go to an outpatient clinic and visit the physician via videoconference using SKPE like technology. Internet/Electronic Communication as an External Delivery Source The estimates state that about eight billion people can access some form of electronic communication network across the globe. The estimation of this global access is the ability to investigate and research any health condition by symptom or chief complaint. The user simply inputs his or her perceived diagnosis and several choices are displayed in most search engines such as GOOGLE or BING. The programming used today does not even require that the spelling is correct because of the built in spell check feature. The electronic/computer age has brought with it many advantages that ten years ago were impossible. The ability to research as many topics/symptoms once performed at the library can be done at home. The Internet/e-communication has revolutionized both personal and professional fact-finding missions. E-health is quickly replacing both the research and word of mouth referrals. Going online and asking a question provide all the  physicians in the area as well as what type of specialist to visit. Blogs have replaced word of mouth. The impact is clear e-health is here to stay. Nomenclature depends on the type of patient care activities described. EHR is a universal and global term. Programs that support clinical decision-making can include: * Computerized provider (or physician) entry (CPOE) systems used by clinicians to enter, modify, review and, communicate orders, and return results for laboratory tests, x-ray images and referrals. * E-prescribing – clinical information systems used to enter, modify, review, and output, or communicate medication prescriptions. * Computerized decision support systems – (CDSS) used in the context of eHealth technologies, clinical information systems that integrate clinical and demographic patient information to provide support for decision making by clinicians. * Picture Archiving Computer System – (PACS) used radiology to store data and x-ray images. â€Å"The widespread availability of medical information on the internet and its effects on health care has exponentially increased over the last decade† (Black, et. al, 2011, p. 9). The impact of e-health has changed the landscape of health care. The growth has ushered in a new way for providers to communicate and educate patients. Instead of handouts concerning particular disease processes the provider can give the technologically clever patient the information by directing him or her to the website. Safe and effective instructions are the responsibility of the provider so investigation and verification for accuracy is important. Impact of Distance Delivery on Health Care Distance to the clinic or hospital is a concern for patients in rural areas. The convenience of participating in an e-health visit is beneficial. â€Å"On-line, computer-assisted communication between patients and physicians promises to replace a substantial amount of care now delivered in person† (Kassirer, 1995, p. 52). The prediction of Dr. Kasssirer is true today telemedicine, is on the rise. Large scale acceptance of e-medicine is yet to be realized. The backbone of American healthcare the physician office visit is under construction with the advent of e-Health. The patient is more in control of their health care than any time in history â€Å"ideally, responsibility for decisions could be shared by the patient and the physician, with the patient playing a substantial part† (Kassirer, 1995, p.  52). Transformative power is evident in this fundamental shift in thinking throughout the health care community. Communication Issues and Health care today Medical and scientific data is available to both the physician and the patient through the use of the Internet. †The Internet is clearly the modern vehicle with the potential to improve information dissemination and perhaps change the way health care is delivered† (Podichetty, et. al, p. 274). Smart phone and device technology is accessed and often used throughout the course of the day by both the physician and patient. Electronic interactions have replaced many of the traditional forms of communication. The move toward electronic exchanges between health care providers is becoming a common occurrence. Web-based medical resources are accessed by the patient and the physician equally. â€Å"Over 90% of physicians use the internet to research clinical issues† (Podichetty, et, al, p. 274). Researching can occur at the bedside with direct collaboration with the patient. The ability to understand and explain multiple disease processes is achieved through the interactive technology advances of today. Impact of Communication Techniques in the Future The future of healthcare communication and current trends are evolving as rapidly as technology will allow. Technological advances are occurring so rapidly that the health care environment will continue to evolve and invent new forms of communication techniques over the next five years. â€Å"Information and communications technology will play a key role in delivering health care in the future† (Dumiak, 2011, p. 328). Standards are changing within the cultural landscape of e-health. As the environment changes so too will the standards and regulations of telemedicine. As the landscape continues to change â€Å"there is cultural and historical resistance to heavy centralization of record-keeping and privacy concerns about the potential intrusion of government or business into sensitive personal documents† (Dumiak, 2011, p. 328). Soon we will be able to provide our complete medical history and medications through the use of a master patient record that updates in real time. The cloud is already offering â€Å"a place to remotely store and access gigantic sets of experimental data† (Dumiak, 2011, p. 329). The logical  transition to electronic documents is on the horizon. In conclusion, the future of centralized electronic records is on the horizon. The landscape will continue to evolve and shape itself around the acceptance of new technologies and ways to communicate medical information. As the evolution continues the legal and ethical considerations will mirror that of technological advancement â€Å"work is still under way to establish standards and rules on how to send information to the central system† (Dumiak, 2011, p. 329). The future will determine a set of standards for e-Health technologies. The technology exists but can health care can keep up with the future needs of the patient. References Biscup, R.S., Booher, J., & Podichetty, V.K. (2006). Assessment of Internet Use and Effects among Health Care Professionals: A Cross Sectional Survey. Postgrad Medicine, 8(2), 274-279. Black, A.D., Car, J., & Pagliari, C., Anandan, C., Cresswell, K., Bokun, T., McKinstry, B., Procter, R., Majeed, A., Sheikh, A., (2011, January). The Impact of E-Health on the Quality and Safety of Health Care: A Systematic Overview. Plos Medicine, 8(1), 1-16. Dumiak, M. (2012, September). E-Health’s Future Frontiers. Bull World Health Organization, 328-329. Kassirer, J.P. (1995, January). The Next Transformation in the Delivery of Health Care. The New England Journal of Medicine, 332(1), 52-54.

Customer relationship management Essay

Abstract Purpose – This paper aims to provide insights into the development and management of a customer community, informing product innovation and engaging customers in co-creation of a consumption experience. Design/methodology/approach – A review of the state of current knowledge about co-production, co-creation and customer communities is followed by discussion of the case study methodology. The case history of a leading player in the UK and international â€Å"sportkiting† market focuses on product innovation and customer-community development. Discussion re? ects in more detail on the lessons from the case for application of the principles in practice. Findings – The case company’s innovative product development strategy provides the catalyst for co-creation of a customer experience. Its marketing actions extend beyond product development and innovation to actively co-creating experiences with customers, fostering a sense of community among users, facilitating communication within that community, acting on the feedback, and continuously developing and maintaining the community relationship. Research limitations/implications – The company’s marketing strategy can be summed up as â€Å"customer community leadership†. This paradigm proposes a new role for businesses in sectors where there is a potential to develop and engage communities. It provides a context for the effective facilitation of customer knowledge management, within which marketing intelligence plays a signi? cant role. The ? ndings offer scope for further research into the nature of this phenomenon and its relevance to co-creation in other industry sectors, and into numerous aspects of the processes and impacts associated with customer communities. Originality/value – The case contributes to the literature of co-creation, demonstrating how it has been achieved through a marketing strategy and marketing mix in a particular customer community. Keywords Customer relations, Innovation, Relationship marketing, Leadership Paper type Case study Marketing Intelligence & Planning Vol. 25 No. 2, 2007 pp. 136-146 q Emerald Group Publishing Limited 0263-4503 DOI 10. 1108/02634500710737924 Introduction. The increased complexity, globalization and knowledge-intensity of marketplaces require all businesses to make better use of their technological, organizational and marketing competences in order to survive. Contemporary organizations in highly competitive and highly innovative markets must be able to build market share quickly, by delivering fast, high quality, innovative solutions. The changing organisational environment has driven interest in organisational learning and knowledge management (Drucker, 1993; Prusak, 1997). Many studies have con? rmed customer knowledge as one of the most important knowledge bases for an organisation (Bennett and Gabriel, 1999; Chase, 1997), and there is a considerable interest in the potential of â€Å"co-production† and â€Å"co-creation† either individually or in community contexts, to enhance innovation and business performance (Gibbert et al. , 2002). Focus on the engagement of customers in organizational learning, innovation and knowledge processes heralds the dawn of a new paradigm of marketing intelligence in  which data and information are not simply gathered into databases and distilled to inform management decision making, but rather marketing intelligence is embedded in dynamic co-creation processes that involve customers as partners rather than subjects. Through a case study analysis and critique of a leading manufacturer of kiteboarding equipment, this paper seeks to provide insights into the engagement and management of a customer community, to inform product innovation and to engage customers in co-creation of a sporting experience. The case contributes to the literature of co-creation and speci?cally to the way in which communities can be enlisted in the co-creation of experiences. It begins with a literature review, outlining the state of current knowledge on co-production and co-creation and on customer communities, followed by a description of the case study methodology. A pro? le of the company, with particular reference to its product development and community development follows leads to re? ection in detail on the contribution from this case. Finally, conclusions and recommendations provide a summary of the issues. The concept of â€Å"customer community leadership† is proposed, and agendas for further research identi? ed. Literature review This section draws together current knowledge on two key themes: co-creation, or co-production, and customer communities. Research on both of these themes ? ts broadly within the paradigm or philosophy of relationship marketing. As the main plank of a marketing strategy, relationship marketing aims to build long term, mutually satisfying relations with customers, suppliers and distributors with the key objective of earning and retaining their long-term preference, loyalty and business (Foss and Stone, 2001; Peck et al., 1999; Buttle, 1996; Massey et al. , 2001). In discussing the absence of a consensus on the term relationship marketing, and on the appropriateness of the term, other authors have suggested that a focus on interactions and networks of interactions between businesses and their customers might be more meaningful (Healy et al. , 2001; Zoliewski, 2004). The concepts of co-production and customer communities both focus on interactions. Communities, in particular, involve networks of interactions. The theme of interaction between customers and organizations in product and service innovation is developed in the literature on co-production. Prahalad and Ramaswamy (2000) suggest that companies have to recognise that the customer is becoming a partner in creating value, and need to learn how to harness customer competences. One aspect of this will be the engagement of customers in co-creating personal experiences. The body of work on co-creation and co-production has grown in recent years. Kristensson et al. (2004) have examined the bene? Ts of involving users in suggesting new product ideas, ? nding that ordinary users created signi? cantly more original and valuable ideas than professional developers, whilst professional developers and advanced users created more easily reliable ideas. At a more modest level of customer engagement, Salomo et al. (2003) found that customer orientation in innovation projects (not necessarily, in this case, customer engagement) had a positive in? uence on NPD success and that the impact increased with the degree of product innovativeness. Similarly, Hsieh and Chen (2005) showed that new product development performance can be enhanced by interacting with users, and capitalising on user-knowledge management competences. Matthing et al. (2004) suggest that the Customer community and co-creation 137 MIP 25,2 138 value of customer involvement in new service development resides in the opportunity to facilitate proactive learning about the customer, and to understand and anticipate latent customer needs. Lilien et al. (2002) suggest that user contribution to the idea generation process is optimised through the careful selection of â€Å"lead users† to participate in the process. Dahlsten (2004) discusses customer involvement in the case of a product development project at Volvo Cars, which allowed the project management team to acquire an understanding of the customer through â€Å"customer presence†. A study comparing the sources of product and process innovation in large and small technology-based ? rms found that product developers in SMEs valued customers, co-workers, marketing and journals more highly, whilst suppliers were particularly valued by large ? rms (Bommer and Jalajas, 2004). Co-creation might be viewed as an aspect of customer-knowledge competence, the processes that generate knowledge about speci? c customers (Campbell, 2003). Gibbert et al. (2002, p. 460) describe customer knowledge management as a process in which organisations seek to â€Å"know what their customers know† and de? ne it as: . . . the strategic process by which cutting-edge companies emancipate their customers from passive recipients of products and services, to empowerment as knowledge partners. CKM is about gaining, sharing, and expanding the knowledge residing in customers, to both customer and corporate bene? It is thus concerned with an understanding of how to elicit and leverage knowledge from customers. Their emphasis on interacting with customers and co-production, extending to co-learning, lifts the focus from collecting data and information in order to learn about customers to learn with customers. They discuss ? ve different styles of customer knowledge management, including â€Å"prosumerism† where the customer acts as co-producer, and â€Å"communities of creation† in which groups of people work together, have shared interests, and want to jointly create and share knowledge. The focus of co-production research is often on product innovation and new product development, with some contributions relating to service development (Matthing et al. , 2004). However, Prahalad and Ramaswamy (2003), suggest a future in which the locus of innovation and co-production will shift from products and services to â€Å"experience environments†. This suggestion aligns with other proposals that the â€Å"experience marketing† era is on the horizon, and that it is becoming increasingly important for businesses to respond to the needs of the experience consumer (Li and Wei, 2004). Co-creation may take place in the context of customer communities. There is a considerable literature on customer clubs (Butscher, 2002; Gustafsson et al. , 2004; Stauss et al. , 2001) and loyalty schemes (Bolton et al. , 2000; Mauri, 2003; Passingham, 1998; Worthington, 2000). Only a small sub-group of such clubs and schemes can properly be described as customer communities, however, which should at the very least exhibit C2C interaction. To convincingly justify the use of â€Å"community† they should furthermore share a culture with norms, values and identity, and mutual interests and objectives. Fan clubs, interest clubs, and software user groups may constitute customer communities. Butscher (2002) identi? es the Kawasaki Riders Club, The Volkswagen Club, and Swatch The Club as examples which might be described as customer communities. On the other hand, loyalty schemes such as Tesco Clubcard, American Express, Airmiles, and Marriot Rewards are focussed on the B2C dimension of relationship marketing, and do little to cultivate or in? uence C2C interactions. Therefore, whilst they may be able to identify a relatively stable group of users, they have not created a community. One context in which there has been more discussion of customer communities is the virtual environment (Armstrong and Hagel, 1996). Some loyalty schemes use this channel to support C2C interaction. Virtual customer communities enable organizations to establish distributed innovation models that involve varied customer roles in new product development (Nambisan, 2002; Pitta and Fowler, 2005). Nambisan (2002) suggests that the design of virtual customer environments needs to consider interaction patterns, knowledge creation, customer motivation, and integration of the virtual customer community with the new product development team. Dholakia et al. (2004) explore the impact of group norms and social identity on participation in consumer communities. The wider literature on virtual communities and their role in learning and knowledge creation is also substantial, and may have perspectives to offer on the role of virtual communities in innovation (Hall and Graham, 2004; Davenport and Hall, 2002; Wenger, 2000). In conclusion, the themes of co-creation and customer communities have been identi? ed as important in the literature, but there remains a scope for considerable further work, speci?  cally relating to: . co-creation of experiences; Customer communities that exist in both physical and virtual space; and . the mechanisms and processes through which organizations can engage customer communities, as opposed to individual members of those communities, in co-creation. Methodology Case studies are a valuable way of looking at the world around us, and asking how or why questions (Yin, 1994). The case study design adopted in this paper may be described as a holistic single case design. Typically, single case designs are appropriate when the exercise has something special to reveal that might act as a point of departure for challenging received wisdom, prior theoretical perspectives and untested assumptions. A specialist in sporting kite technology was chosen as the basis for the case analysis in this paper for four reasons in particular, as follows: (1) The stated mission of Flexifoil International is to: â€Å"provide our customers with the ultimate Kitesports experience† (www.? exifoil. com/company). (2) Flexifoil has been consistently committed to product innovation. (3) Flexifoil works with customers and proactively builds customer communities to support customer engagement in co-creation of the kiting experience. (4) The active and extensive participation of one of the authors in the kiting community formed the basis for an in-depth understanding of the community building and co-creation processes observed. Company pro? le: Flexifoil International Through product innovation, the company seeks to design and develop the highest performance products, with new designs and products that support new kite-based Customer community and co-creation 139 MIP. 25,2 sporting experiences and events. Flexifoil build both their own customer community and the kite boarding community in general through customer service, distribution networks, sponsorship and promotion of the sports for which their products are used. They provide opportunities for the kite sporting community to interact, online and in other ways. Their community is thus built through B2B, C2B and C2C relationships and channels. 140 Product development Until the early 1970s, a kite had for hundreds of years been a piece of fabric controlled with one or two lines, designed to be hand-?own in windy conditions. What is now Flexifoil International started when two English university students effectively â€Å"invented† the two-line power kite by producing the ? rst to be sold commercially. Two larger kites with the evocative names â€Å"Pro Team 8† and â€Å"Super 10† established Flexifoil’s market position, and enabled the company to enter upon a period of innovation and experimentation that explored a range of different potential applications for power kites. Some of their innovations were successful, others less so, such as three-wheeled buggies designed to be pulled by a power kite or traction kite. The successful developments in materials and design technology by Flexifoil and its followers allowed this basic product to support today such diverse activities as kite boarding (water-based), snow kiting, kite land boarding, buggying, recreational power kiting, and sportkiting (â€Å"traditional† kiting). The company’s own product range now comprises: power kites, recreational kites, traction kites, and water re-launchable kites; buggies and boards; lines and control gear; and miscellaneous accessories such as clothing. Following the launch of a web site, with associated forums in which enthusiasts could meet and exchange ideas, Flexifoil’s sales increased by around 25 per cent each year between 1999 and 2004. Innovation continued, with the development of water-based kiting or kitesur? ng, and later kites for land boarding and snow kiting. Over the last thirty years, the company had thus effectively created a market, and maintained leadership in its particular niche, by means not only of product innovation but also engagement with and cultivation of a power-boarding community. Community development Distribution. The community development process begins with the company’s distribution network of authorised retail outlets. Initially, those were mainly windsur? ng and sur? ng shops, but more recently specialised kiting shops have entered the market. Signi? cantly for Flexifoil, some of those have developed into â€Å"kitesports centres† where customers can â€Å"? y before they buy†. At three Premier Kite Sports Centres, the most comprehensive Flexifoil range is available for trial in an environment characterised by knowledgeable staff and extensive facilities in a good location; activity training is also on offer. A smaller range of Flexifoil kites is sold through high street shops. The company also moves the product to market through training schools, academies and university kite clubs, to whom equipment is available at discounted rates or even free of charge if the outlet becomes an of? cial Flexifoil training centre. In addition to these bricks-and-mortar outlets, the company transacts a signi? cant proportion of its retail sales through internet distributors. It also sells spare parts,  branded clothing and a selection of promotional merchandise via Flexifoildirect. com, but restricts distribution of core products to distributors who can offer a full after-sales service. The objective of the company’s distribution strategy is to build, support and maintain an effective customer community. Promotion and marketing communication. The main platform of Flexifoil’s promotional programme is to communicate their commitment to after-sales support, and their ambition to maintain good relationships with both customers and dealer outlets. This strategy, in turn, generates positive word-of-mouth communication, and often act as a channel for customer feedback that can inform future product innovation and development. In pursuit of that objective, Flexifoil make extensive use of specialised advertising media, including every kite magazine in circulation, often running double-page spreads. A branded display stand for Flexifoil product catalogues is distributed to every dealer. To keep the brand at the centre of the kitesporting world, the company sponsors a team of kite boarders who compete around the world. The promotional mix thus embraces advertising, publicity, sales promotion and point-of-sale. Flexifoil furthermore use their web site and its forums proactively to develop the UK kiting community, especially pre-launch. Previews of new kites provoke discussion in the forums, and a level of interest that builds up over months of anticipation and typically generates high sales volumes immediately on the release of the product. This online communication channel brings customers together to exchange experiences, and sell equipment to each other. The company lays claim to the largest online kiting community, of nearly 7,000 members. The variety of forums available to its members specialise in the full range of sportkiting activities. The clear aim of the marketing communications strategy is, like the distribution strategy, to create a community of interest rather than one based simply on transaction. Discussion This discussion will draw out two themes from the case study analysis: co-creation, and customer communities. The study contributes a perspective on the co-creation of experiences, which  is a central element in the emerging paradigm of experience marketing. By continuing engagement with their customer community, the subject company has been able not only to gather feedback on the experiences associated with the use of its products, but also to add to them by offering opportunities, in both the real and virtual environments for customer to enjoy interactions with others who share their interests. It monitors and enhances the experience through the same channels. Whilst product innovation is stepwise, the dialogue and interaction with customers on which that innovation is based is continuous. This is not â€Å"co-production† in the sense that the term is used in new product development contexts, but rather in the service context, where the term refers to the fact that customers have a hand in the development of their own service experience. Nevertheless, experience â€Å"co-creation† in this case, embeds product innovation. The impact of this approach to co-creation is dif? cult to disentangle from the impact of other business and marketing actions. The signi? cant increase in sales in the years since the launch of the web site could be taken as one indicator, but it  Customer community and co-creation 141 MIP 25,2 142 is important to acknowledge the spiral nature of the community creation process. This increase in sales will have expanded the community, and probably also have intensi? ed customers’ engagement with the experiences that community members co-create with the company. The case also contributes some insights on the nature of customer communities. Though the company does ask customers to register their product and thereby collects personal contact details, it does not operate a customer community, club or loyalty scheme. Rather, the innovative and interesting products act as a catalyst for community creation through the medium of the â€Å"experiences† they deliver. The customer community comprises those who have participated in those experiences, enjoyed them, and wish to develop the interaction. Customers work in partnership with the company to build excitement and develop skill, and by sharing the experiences with others, add to the totality of the customer community. The company has taken a number of actions to facilitate this process, including working with distributors, sponsorship, engagement in events, training courses, and an interactive web site. Speci? cally, their approach to communication with their customers is sophisticated. The common view of marketing communications as a one-way transmission is replaced by a marketing communications strategy designed to build and reinforce the company’s position as a leader of a community. Traditional channels such as advertising, sponsorship, and even brand building are only elements in a complex web or network of marketing communications activities, involving C2C and B2B as well as B2C relationships. The company communicates directly with its customers, but also provides contexts which encourage them to â€Å"talk† among themselves. In addition, the marketing communications effort is â€Å"pushed† through distributors, not just in terms of the traditional advertising and branding, but also through the selection of distributors that can offer appropriate support and advice. These actors in the system have a role in welcoming new members into the community. They are supported in doing so by the existing on-line community, and various company-sponsored events at which members are encouraged to gather. The customer community has built gradually as the business has grown. As new products have been added to the product range to support new sports, new sub-communities have formed around them. The process of community development goes hand in hand with product development. Conclusions and recommendations The entrepreneurs behind Flexifoil International have simultaneously created a sport, and an associated sporting community. The company is clear that its mission as not simply to develop and distribute the best products but rather to deliver the most exciting kiting experience. This case study has demonstrates that the entire marketing mix is focussed not on transactions, or even relationship building, but rather on community creation. That community includes both consumers and dealers. Product innovation, distribution and promotion are tightly coupled with community creation. Community building is not just about increasing membership, or even about the engagement of members with the community, but focuses on the creation of a level of mutuality in which there is ongoing dialogue between community members and the company. Flexifoil has neither annexed an existing community, nor do they â€Å"own† one, although they do manage a virtual space through which the community can interact. Rather, their product innovation and the experiences that their product range provides have the potential to act as the catalyst for the community, whilst sponsorship, engagement in events, and the virtual space all facilitate the enhancement of the experience for community members. Other companies compete with Flexifoil for leadership of the power kiting community, both rival manufacturers and others keen to enhance the sportkiting experience. Many of these have web sites through which they seek to capture an online community. For example, one casts itself as â€Å"the kite ? yer’s portal to the internet† offering links to kite manufacturers and kite stores in the USA and Canada, to other power kiting web sites, to other kite ? yer sites, kite teams and clubs, and to magazines and newsgroups. Another claims to be â€Å"the online community that brings ? yers together† and a third promotes itself as â€Å"the internet magazine for kiters†. All offer different services and bene? ts to their customers, but for some, their engagement with the sport kiting community will be restricted to virtual space. Though Flexifoil has a strong brand presence as a manufacturer, it needs to encourage members to participate with it in â€Å"co-creation† if it is to deliver on its mission of providing customers with the ultimate kite sports experience. The approach to marketing strategy described in this case study can aptly be described as customer community leadership. By leading the sport kiting community, but not owning it, Flexifoil has created a community that will buy their products, co-create kiting experiences, provide insights that can inform innovation in the product, the experience and the community innovation, look forward to the next product release, and mutually enhance community members’ experiences of the company’s products and services. Embedded in this approach to community leadership are a number of more traditional marketing actions, such as new product development, advertising, and commitment to after-sales support. The distribution channels are designed to offer the support and training that is likely to enhance sport kiting experiences, but also to build relationships with dealers, and to bring sports kiters together. This is supplemented by opportunities for interaction in virtual space. Community development is achieved through a network of relationship-building actions, at the heart of which are enjoyable and shareable sports kiting experiences. Through community leadership, the company has created a context in which customers are thus from being passive recipients of products and services, and empowered as knowledge partners (Gibbert et al., 2002). In other words, it has thereby created a context that facilitates the processes of customer knowledge management. This is an approach to marketing intelligence and decision making embedded in dynamic co-creation processes that involve customers as partners. It is worth noting that the term â€Å"customer community leadership† can have two different meanings in practice. First, it may mean leadership of a community, in the sense of making it work, setting its direction, and participating in the shaping of experiences of community members. In this context, the focus is on factors such as member engagement, culture, norms, identity and community viability, in terms of the value delivered to all parties. Second, it can describe an avenue to market leadership, in which the business performance of an organisation over the longer term is de? ned and determined by the extent to which its leadership of a community of potential customers, or its power and capacity to lead, is greater than that of its competitors. Customer community and co-creation 143 MIP 25,2 144 In taking the development of the concept of customer community leadership forward, it will be important to explore the different styles and approaches that are and can be adopted by different ? rms and organizations. Given that another essential of successful leadership is followers, an important phenomenon for further study is the nature of â€Å"followership† in this context. This case study has focussed on the actions and strategies adopted by one business to build and bene? t from a customer community and to engage customers in the co-creation of an experience. In addition, it has demonstrated how both online and real-world communities can be enlisted to contribute to building the experience. There is a scope for considerable further study of the processes associated with the co-creation of the experience, and the details of how communities operate. Such research needs both to cover a wider range of organizations and business sectors, and to examine in more detail aspects of communities, co-creation and customer knowledge management. Some potential areas of investigation are: . Perceptions and views of different stakeholders as to the impact of the community and the contributions of different parties in the co-creation of the experience. . The pro? le of such customer communities in terms of loyalty, retention and customer lifetime value, including comparisons between online and real-world communities. . Community processes, including models of key processes of in? uence, knowledge and learning, identi? cation and role of â€Å"node† members, and the role of celebrity voices and endorsement. . The marketing actions that contribute to the cultivation of effective co-creation communities. References Armstrong, A. G. and Hagel, J. (1996), â€Å"The real value of online communities†, Harvard Business Review, Vol. 74, pp. 134-40. Bennett, R. and Gabriel, H. I. (1999), â€Å"Organisational factors and knowledge management within large marketing departments: an empirical study†, Journal of Knowledge Management, Vol. 3 No. 3, pp. 212-25. Bolton, R. N. , Kannan, P. K. and Bramlett, M. D. (2000), â€Å"Implications of loyalty program membership and services experience for customer retention and value†, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Vol. 28 No. 1, pp. 95-108. Bommer, M. and Jalajas, D. S. (2004), â€Å"Innovation sources of large and small technology-based ? rms†, IEEE Transactions of Engineering Management, Vol. 51 No. 1, pp. 13-18. Butscher, S. A. (2002), Customer Loyalty Programmes and Clubs, 2nd ed. , Gower, Aldershot. Buttle, F. (1996), Relationship Marketing: Theory and Practice, Paul Chapman, London. Campbell, A. J. (2003), â€Å"Creating customer knowledge competence: managing customer relationship management programs strategically†, Industrial Marketing Management, Vol. 32 No. 5, pp. 375-83. Chase, R. L. (1997), â€Å"The knowledge-based organization: an international survey†, Journal of Knowledge Management, Vol. 1 No. 1, pp. 38-49. Dahlsten, F. (2004), â€Å"Hollywood wives revisited: a study of customer involvement in the XC90 project at Volvo Cars†, European Journal of Management, Vol. 7 No. 2, pp. 141-9. Davenport, E. and Hall, H. (2002), â€Å"Organizational knowledge and communities of practice†, Annual Review of Information Science and Technology, Vol. 36, pp. 171-227. Dholakia, U. M. , Bagozzi, R. P. and Pearo, L. K. (2004), â€Å"A social in? uence model of consumer participation in network- and small-group-based virtual communities†, International Journal of Research in Marketing, Vol. 21, pp.241-63. Drucker, P. F. (1993), Post-capitalist Society, Butterworth-Heinemann, Oxford. Foss, B. and Stone, M. (2001), Successful Customer Relationship Marketing, Kogan Page, London. Gibbert, M. , Leibold, M. and Probst, G. (2002), â€Å"Five styles of customer knowledge management, and how smart companies use them to create value†, European Management Journal, Vol. 20 No. 5, pp. 459-69. Gustafsson, A. , Roos, I. and Edvardsson, B. (2004), â€Å"Customer clubs in a relationship perspective: a telecom case†, Managing Service Quality, Vol. 14 Nos 2/3, pp. 157-68. Hall, H. and Graham, D.(2004), â€Å"Creation and recreation: motivating collaboration to generate knowledge capital in online communities†, International Journal of Information Management, Vol. 24, pp. 235-46. Healy, M. , Hastings, K. , Brown, L. and Gardiner, M. (2001), â€Å"The old, the new and the complicated – a trilogy of marketing relationships†, European Journal of Marketing, Vol. 35 Nos 1/2, pp. 182-93. Hsieh, L. F. and Chen, S. K. (2005), â€Å"Incorporating voice of the consumer: does it really work? †, Industrial Management & Data Systems, Vol. 105 Nos 5/6, pp. 769-85. Kristensson, P. , Gustafsson, A. and Archer, T. (2004), â€Å"Harnessing the creative.

Deaf History and Culture Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Deaf History and Culture - Essay Example At the age of nineteen months, Helen Keller was diagnosed as a case of â€Å"acute congestion of the stomach and the brain†. This short term attack of illness left her deaf and blind. Helen proved to be a quite an intelligent child. By the age of seven, she had invented sixty different signs to communicate with her family. Helen’s education career began when her mother took her to a specialist doctor for advice. Actually she was inspired by hearing about another child who was deaf but completed her education successfully. The doctor referred her to the local expert, Alexander Graham Bell. Bell was working for the deaf children at that time. Alexander Graham Bell told Helen’s parents about the institute where that child had got education. It was called the Perkins Institute for the Blind, located in South Boston. Helen was brought there. One of the former students of the school, named Anne Sullivan was designated as Helen’s teacher. She was blind herself an d had got education from the same institute. Anne proved to be a very hard working teacher. After a good effort of about three years, Helen learnt the names of many familiar things. The next step was to speak. Anne taught her to speak using the Tadoma method (touching the lips and throat of others as they speak). Helen continued her education starting from Perkins Institute, then Wright-Humason School for the Deaf, Horace Mann School for the Deaf, The Cambridge School for Young Ladies and finally, the Rad Cliffe College in 1900 becoming the first deaf and blind person to graduate from the college.

Cultural Shows in Atlanta Personal Statement Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

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Essay on the poem The Nymphs Reply Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

On the poem The Nymphs Reply - Essay Example Critical review of the poet tribulations in personal life, perhaps helps shade light on the biographical analysis of the poem. Raleigh life marriage life was controversial and later on in his pursuit for power. He wrote a poem at a time he had a secret marriage with Elizabeth Throckmorton, who was the royal court member in around 1592 (Muller and John 256). At the time of Queen Elizabeth, such marriage was not allowed and thus she ordered for execution of Raleigh. Many poets believe that it was through this reply that informed of his inner feelings and disillusion about love. He had been subjected to a forceful separation after the queen ordered the couple held at separate cells. Full of imagery, the poem represents a bitter feeling of isolation and solitude. Raleigh poem depicts his disappointment that love would be at its best at younger age. In the most intelligent manner, he was able to win the queens heart earlier in life, and he had loyal lucrative commissions. He used this time to reflect on the love, time and how life fades easily. However, the controversial marriage in 1592 made him jailed, and he wrote a reply poem. The life of this poet cannot be separated from the bibliographical analysis of his work. Argues that his poems reflected his personal experience and views on the place of love and time. Evidently, he uses imagery to display his disappointment during his love journey, his forced separation from a woman he ever loved and thus, finds it impossible to enjoy love after the rightful time (Lehman 21). In his reply poem he says " Soon break, soon wither soon forgotten," this line help demystify the historical disappointment and personal despair that informed the selection of words. Besides, he says "But could youth last, and love still breed" meaning, youthful age was the best to make love work to its best (Muller and John 257). At later years, he expresses doubts of the possibility of the shepherd finding his love

Treatment of Adult Mentally Ill Offenders Research Paper

Treatment of Adult Mentally Ill Offenders - Research Paper Example   Besides, the number of inmates has tripled in the last threes decades with the notion that jails and prisons in the U.S have been converted to new mental hospitals. In recent research, an infamous prison in the state registered 33.8 % inmates who are mentally ill as per psychiatric diagnosis with chronic mental illness registering a higher rate as compared to non-chronic mental illnesses. Among all offenders in prison, depression, substance use disorders and anxiety or panic disorders are the three most common categories of diagnoses (Langan & David, 2002). â€Å"In the movie, The New Asylums by Miri Navasky & Karen O’Connor (2005), today there are over 500,000 mentally ill people who are held in jails and prison throughout America, 10 times the 50,000 that remain in the mental hospitals, although, most part of this movie shows higher percent of male inmates as compared to female inmates, numerous scenes of mentally ill people are common in the streets throughout America. According to Fred Cohen, Prison Mental Health Consultant, those who are mentally ill in the streets end up going to mental hospitals. ... Treatment in Prison All over the world and more so in the United States of America, there have been differing theories that concern the treatment that is given to prisoners as well as the services that should be provided to them in the current penal system (Langan & David,2002). In any criminal system, there are simple choices of the verdict that are given to the convicts; they are either reformative or punitive. The main aim of any reform system is to take criminals and ensuring that they are helped to move past the issues they have at hand. Punitive treatment entails the use of physical pain and torture as punishment for committing crimes. In fact, United States has been described as a punitive nation. Langan & David, 2002 argues that the main goal of the punitive system is to ensure that criminals see and understand that participating in crimes is not worth at all. A good example of a punitive method to offenders is by taking them to boot camps. Booty camps are governmental correc tional and penal systems that are predominant in the United States. Having modeled to resemble the armed forces recruit training camps, these programs are based on distress incarcerations that have military techniques. Offenders get punishment such as stocking although it has been scalped off in the recent past. In essence, critics say that these kinds of programs serve only to frustrate the offenders and do not make much distinction in their lives as is intended apart from having them pay for their crimes in harsh ways. In addition, most of the sentences that are given to these offenders cannot be easily reduced even if the offenders show sign of improvement or change. Rehabilitative penalty simply means re-enabling or making fit again prisoners to enable them to rejoin society.  Ã‚  

Aviation Mechanic Ethical Issues Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

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Write an essay on globalisation of trade related to economic

Write an on globalisation of trade related to economic globalisation - Essay Example Among the many movements, globalisation had and is also having a major impact on the people worldwide. Globalisation literally means the transformation of local phenomena into a global one. Globalisation is a practice of interacting and mixing or assimilation among people, companies and governments of different countries whose significant feature is international industrial and financial business structure. Globalisation may be thought of as the widening, deepening and speeding up of worldwide interconnectedness in all aspects of contemporary social life, from the cultural to the criminal, the financial to the spiritually. More formally, globalisation can be categorized as a process that embodies a transformation in the spatial organization of social relations and transactions (Wiley, Nandi & Shahidullah 1998, p. 21). Hyperglobalism conceive globalisation as a new age of economic integration that is characterized by open trade, global financial flows as well as multinational corporations. Hyperglobalism is driven by capitalism, communications and transportation technology, integration into one world market and it is increasingly eroding state power and legitimacy. Howe ver another perspective is, in the past few years, more and more people have been complaining that the new liberty in the form of globalisation have gone too far, giving rise to a hypercapitalism (Roberts and Hite 2007, p.263). Probably the largest body of opinion - and one that spans the entire politico-ideological spectrum - consists of what might be called the hyper-globalists, who argue that we live in a borderless world in which the national is no longer relevant (Dickens 2008, p. 6). The so said social relations and transactions are assessed in terms of their extensitivity, intensitivity, velocity and impact and the rate at which they generate transcontinental or interregional flow and networks of activity, interaction and exercise of power. The purpose of this study is

Rewards Managemnet of Adidas Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Rewards Managemnet of Adidas - Essay Example Introduction Adidas is a manufacturer of sports apparel and is consists of a Reebok company. Adidas was founded by Adi Dassler’s Whose aim was to ensure that every athlete with the necessary equipment (Adidas Group, 2010). The company was started in 1920 when Adi Dassler’s made the first shoe for sporting activity. Adidas has realized tremendous growth and has expanded because of their products that are preferred because of their quality and design .Adidas produces products like watches, shirts, bags and other sports related clothes (Adidas Group, 2010). The company has its products distributed across the globe and their brand is one of the most preferred by sport fans and players. In terms of employees, the company has a total of 42541 according to 2010 results and about 14250 working in Adidas headquarters (Adidas Group, 2010). The largest number of employees are the retailers. The FIFA games are a major source of success to the company. During such admired and renown ed sports, the company realizes a high turnover in their products hence more profits. The different products of the company have also been very instrumental in the reduction in fluctuations in return. As a sportswear manufacturer, Adidas main customer segments are the sports fan and other teams that prefer their clothes and other playing instruments (Adidas Group, 2010). ... The organization workers remuneration should reflect their value to the company. Reward management is therefore concerned with formulating, implementing, and reviewing of the employee reward system to ensure that the employees efforts are recognized in the attainment of the organizations goals (Redfern, 2009). Employees reward system should motivate the employees in offering their services to the organization. It is therefore an indispensable segment of management that must be closely monitored by the organization in their effort to ensure organizations success (Geoff & Druker, 2005). Human resource academicians have therefore developed an interest in the study of reward systems and have developed theories to explain the need why organizations should develop effective reward systems. One such reason why employees should be rewarded is to motivate employees and involve them in the distribution of the returns of the organization (Blyton & Turnbull, 1992). Purpose of a Reward System Org anizations reward their employees in order to attract the right employees for the right jobs at the right time (Heneman, 2002). Reward system is also maintained for the purpose of retaining the employees of the organizations by recognizing their efforts and contribution in the work place. Finally, employees will also be rewarded for the purpose of motivating the employees in order for them to do their maximum in the attainment of organizational objectives (Grant, 1990). These three are the primary reasons as to why employers will reward their workers. According to Shields (2007) other reasons why employees are rewarded and that form the essential characteristics of a good reward system include: Need fulfillment i.e. the employees reward should be

Memo for ABC Complete Kitchens Inc Essay Example for Free

Memo for ABC Complete Kitchens Inc Essay â€Å"Great organizations demand a high level of commitment by the people involved†- Bill Gates. Introduction Having the right man for the right job is imperative for corporate success. The person that installs the cabinetry for ABC Inc. is probably not the same person you want managing the financial responsibilities and obligations. Employees of ABC Complete Kitchens Inc. encompass a similar work ethic, professionalism and accountability however; their skills vary and need to be accommodated suitably within the company. Maintaining this level of expectation is imperative to achieve organizational success. Maturity, health, financial stability and the ability to compensate accordingly to current and long term fiscal challenges is the responsibility of the financial manager and within this organization or for ABC Inc. the Chief Financial Officer (CFO). The CFO assesses, directs, monitors, controls, develops strategies, plans for current and long term financial goals and most importantly determines the organizations investment decisions. The CFO and/or financial manager must â€Å"weigh the costs and benefits of all investments and projects and decide which of them qualify as good uses of the money† (Northcentral University, 2011. 7; 709). This is money invested by others as well as yourselves within this company. There are three main tasks financial managers are responsible for beyond applying management  standards to financial capital or income of this conglomerate. These consist of; making (preferably good) investment decisions, financial decisions and managing the company’s cash flow on a day to day and a long term basis. In order to stand behind these investment decisions, it is imperative to understand the terminology and processes within the financial systems development. Assets Assets are items of ownership that can be converted into cash or have an exchange value. They are investments this company has made. From an accounting point of view, assets can be divided further into two categories, current and long-term assets. Current assets are cash or other liquid items that can be turned into cash within one year. Marketable securities are short term, low risk investments such as, the current stock you hold and what it is worth or can be sold at. Accounts receivable are debts owed to this company by consumers for products and services provided already on credit. Inventories are assets comprised of raw materials such as cabinetry, sinks, and appliances including kitchens being currently installed that ABC Inc. still owns. There are other current assets that we will view on our balance sheet later on and they are mostly prepaid expenses and deferred assets as well as expenditures for future costs such as insurance, rent and interest. Intangible assets have no physical existence. These can include intellectual property or employees who attain knowledge and skill (NCU, 2011. 7:13). If the employee leaves to go to another organization, this is considered an intangible asset. Perception of the company within the community is important. Take for example the communities perception of the company. Wal-Mart and most recently Target with their credit card theft issue experienced intangible assets. Copyrights, patents and goodwill are also intangible assets. â€Å"Recently, I was asked if I was going to fire an employee who made a mistake that cost the company $600,000. No, I replied, I just spent $600,000 training him. Why would I want somebody to hire his experience?†-Thomas J. Watson (founder of IBM). Liabilities A liability is an obligation to creditors, an entity arising from past transactions, where the settlement can result in the transfer of assets,  services or other yielding of benefits in the future. They include any type of borrowing from persons or banks for improving on a business or increasing personal income. Liabilities of this company are duties or responsibilities that require settlement by future use of assets at or by a specific date, over a short or long time period or possibly on demand. Liabilities are categorized as current and long-term classification. Classifying liabilities as either current or long term will assist ABC Inc’s CFO assess if the risk of these liabilities will involve disbursement of cash or further company assets in the near or distant future. A current liability will be satisfied within one year. Diving deeper into the definition of current liabilities, a company also identifies them as debts that are expected to be taken care of with current assets or with the use of other current liabilities. Accounts payable are considered the total sum of monies or obligations owed to purveyors for goods and/or services purchased with credit. When accounts payable are paid off, it represents a negative cash flow for the company. Short-term debt otherwise known as notes payable is the reimbursement that will occur within the next year to satisfy a debt. Items that are known monies of the company that have not been paid such as the salary for employees or taxes and deferred or unearned profit that has been received for products that have not been distributed are classified within the current liability category (NCU, 2011. 7:23-24). Long-term liabilities are debts payable over a longer period of time and unlike current liabilities, extend beyond one year. Examples of these are long-term debts, a capitol lease and deferred taxes. Long-term debt involves the obligation of our company to compensate our providers for a period of time that extends beyond one year. Currently, ABC Inc’s long-term debt consists of the construction of buildings overseas as well as most of our products utilized in the assembly of the kitchens. A capitol lease is a contract that requires this organization to make scheduled payments in exchange for the use of a certain asset. An agreement is made between ABC Inc. and another proprietor to compensate for use of things such as equipment, the plant or property. ABC Inc. needs to bear this risk and act as if it is owned as a company asset. Deferred taxes are taxes this company owes but has yet to pay. They appear as a liability because eventually they will be paid for however currently the company has exceeded its financial  income. Owners Equity or Shareholders Equity Owners or shareholders equity is the ownerships interest in a corporation in the form of common or preferred stock. This amount is calculated and identified as shareholders equity, net worth or book value (Averkamp, 2013). The equity a company has is determined by taking the total assets and subtracting the total liabilities. Equity is the quantity of ABC Inc’s assets that you as shareholders own, as opposed to what the company borrowed. Owner’s equity is also classified as net worth or net assets; it’s your interest as owners in this company. Equity can be considered as the calculation of a company’s money that is left over if an asset were converted to cash and all of the current and long-term liabilities against it are paid. Equity is the stock this company and you as individuals possess, it is the value of the assets that you the proprietor actually own. Assets are equal to equity plus liabilities, thus indicating how much of the company’s asset s belong to or are owned and by whom. The Balance Sheet The balance or statement of financial position lists the company’s assets and liabilities, providing a model of the corporation’s financial position at any given time. The balance sheet summarizes the remainder of all the assets, liabilities and overall worth of a company’s accounts as of a specific date, usually the last day of the accounting period or the last day of the quarter or fiscal year (Thomsett, 2011). The fundamental accounting equation is; the sum of all asset account balances is equal to the sum of liabilities plus net worth accounts. It can at times be utilized and analyzed as an estimate of the liquidation worth of the corporation, aiding in foreseeing the value that would be left if the assets were bought and liabilities remunerated. A balance sheet must provide a fair and valid view of an organization’s state of affairs as well as abiding by the provisions of GAAP in its preparation. A balance sheet states: What assets the company owns How assets are paid for What the company owes or what they are liable for Amount left after satisfying their debts Balance Sheet Analysis and Current Ratio Analyzing the balance sheet assesses the company’s value, control and short term cash needs. The balance sheet is a quantitative summary of a company’s financial situation or condition at a specific point in time, including but not limited to assets, liabilities and net worth. The first part of a balance sheet shows all the productive assets a company owns, and the second part shows all the financing procedures, the liabilities and the shareholders equity. This is better seen from the table demonstrated on the next page. The asset accounts are added together, providing the total amount of the corporation’s properties prior to being decreased by debts and obligations. The balance sheet is comprised of assets and liabilities, each with similar sub-groups providing a final explanation of the balance sheet subsection for reference. The total of all liabilities plus net worth accounts is always equal to the total of all assets, WITHOUT EXCEPTION! â€Å"How is the balance accomplished? The sum of liabilities and net worth is always equal to the value of all asset accounts because of double-entry bookkeeping. Every entry has a debit and a credit and these are equal in value. They may also be thought of as a plus and a minus. At any time, the sum of all accounts in the corporate books will add up to zero, because debits and credits offset one another â€Å"(Thomsett, 2013). It is important to remember that creditors often compare a company’s current assets and current liabilities to evaluate whether or not the company has adequate working capital to endure their short-term financial needs. This comparison can be summarized in the company’s current ratio. The current ratio is the percentage of current assets in relation to their current liabilities. A higher current ratio gives the implication of the company experiencing less risk of a cash deficit in the near future (NCU, 2011. 7:727). The Income Statement The income statement shows the company’s net income or profitability during a specific period of time. The income statement can also be referred to as the profit and loss, or â€Å"PL† statement, and the net income is also referred to as the company’s earnings (NCU, 2011). The income statement is based on the accounting equation that; income equals revenue minus expenses which in turn illustrates the value of the owner’s equity as increasing or decreasing. The income statement analysis explains how the profitability of  the company relates to the company’s shares. Different ratios are used providing information on ABC Inc’s operation and worth (NCU, 2011). Conclusion This leaves us now analyzing not only the national but also the international fiscal aspects of ABC Complete Kitchens Incorporated. Generating sales overseas is taking this company to new heights within the business world. The income statement or statement of financial performance catalogs the company’s revenues and expenses. It is putting our name on the map while increasing profit, employment opportunities and as the Board of Directors; you are responsible for maintaining this stature. This position is not only exciting, it is manageable as well. As a project manager I foresee significant advancement within all of the departments. If everyone involved collaborates cohesively, communicates respectfully and complies with ABC Complete Kitchen Incorporated’s mission and vision, the finality will be a company that ultimately produces an exceptional product with complete customer and corporate satisfaction. References Averkamp, H. (2013). What is owners equity? Accounting Coach, LLC. Fort Atkinson, WI Retrieved from: http://www.accountingcoach.com/privacy-policy (2011). SKS 5000- Business strategies for organizational effectiveness within the global perspective. Pearson Learning Solutions ISBN: 9780558870447 (2013). List of key accounting terms and definitions. InvestorGuide Staff. Retrieved from: http://www.investorguide.com/article/13789/list-of-key-accounting- terms-and-definitions/ Thomsett, M., C. (2013). The balance sheet. Getting Started in Stock Investing and Trading Retrieved from: http://www.investorguide.com/article/12689/the-balance-sheet-ws/

Heterogeneous Wireless Sensor Networks (HWSN) Management

Heterogeneous Wireless Sensor Networks (HWSN) Management A Key Management Establishment Scheme in Heterogeneous Wireless Sensor Networks (HWSN) Premamayudu B, Venkata rao K, and Suresh Varma P Abstract: Key management is the one of the fundamental requirement for securing the hierarchical wireless sensor networks (HWSN) and also prevents adversarial activities. This paper presents a new pairwise key management scheme using matrix for HWSNs. In HWSN, cluster headers are more powerful than cluster members in all the resources like power, storage, communication and processing data. This heterogeneity alleviates the overhead of cluster members during the key establishment. All the expensive computations can be given to cluster headers in the network. Compared with other popular key management schemes, our scheme has many advantages in consuming the resources. The experiment and analysis show that our scheme can maintain the full network connectivity, easy configuration management, neighbor cluster members directly establish pairwise keys during the communication and reduce storage overhead. Keywords: Pairwise key, Symmetric matrix, Heterogeneous Wireless Sensor Networks, Key establishment. 1. Introduction A wireless sensor networks build with a large number of sensors, which are equipped with batteries, sensing, communication unit, data processing and radio communication unit. At present any real time applications implementing on wireless sensor networks, like home automation, environment monitoring, military or security areas, targeting and target tracking systems, agriculture monitoring system and battlefield surveillance. However all the applications need protection in all the level of the sensor network. The wireless connectivity, the interaction among the sensor nodes, data gathering and query processing and physical protection. If the sensors are equipped with built-in tamper-resistance mechanisms, the memory chips are still suffering from various memory read-out vulnerabilities [1]. Key management is the mechanism to provide the security in all the levels of the wireless sensor networks. Since sensor nodes in WSNs have constrains in their computational power and memory capability and security. The solutions of traditional networks like computer networks, ad hoc networks, and wired networks are not suitable for WSNs. The goal of key management in WSNs is to solve the problem of creating, distributing and protecting those secret keys. Hence, the feasible and reliable techniques for key management and distribution of these keys are of major importance for the security in WSNs. The trusted server scheme [9] is not suitable for sensor networks because there is no trusted infrastructure in sensor networks. The self-enforcing scheme [10] is also not suitable due to the limited computation and energy resources of sensor nodes often make it undesirable to use public key algorithms, such as Diffie-Hellman key agreement. The third type of key agreement scheme is key pre-distribution. There exist a number of key predistribution schemes which do not depend on a priori deployment knowledge. A naive solution is to let all the nodes carry a master secret key. This scheme does not exhibit desirable network resilience: if one node is compromised, the security of the entire sensor network will be compromised. Another key pre-distribution scheme is to let each sensor carry N − 1 secret pairwise keys [3], each of which is known only to this sensor and one of the other N − 1 sensors (assuming N is the total number of sensors). The resilience of this scheme is per fect. But this scheme is impractical for sensors with an extremely limited amount of memory because N could be large. Moreover, adding new nodes to a pre-existing sensor network is difficult because the existing nodes do not have the new nodes’ keys. Eschenauer and Gligor [7], proposed a random key pre-distribution scheme each sensor node receives a random subset of keys from a large key space pool, to agree on a key for communication, two nodes find one common (shared) key within their subsets and use that key as their shared secret key. The problem with this scheme is that when we pick a large key pool, the connectivity of the sensor networks becomes low. In this paper, we will pick pairwise key pre-distribution scheme as the basic scheme and develop this scheme on the deployment model and show that knowledge regarding the sensor deployment can help us improve the performance of a pairwise key predistribution scheme. 2. Related Work The fundamental work is introduced by Blom, who proposed a KPS allowing any pair of nodes to establish pairwise key directly [12]. The set of keys generated from A.G in Blom’s Scheme as a key-space, Du et al.[13] improved Blom’s scheme using Vandermonde matrix G, and employing multiple key-space KPS. Nodes may be deployed following a pre-defined method in certain situations. In nodes deployment using pairplane [14], for example, sensors nodes are partitioned into a sequence of groups and dropped out of the pairplane sequentially as the airplane flies forward. It is easy to see that sensor groups that are dropped next to each other have a better chance to be close to each other after deployment. By exploiting deployment knowledge in such situations, Du et al. [14] extended Eschenauer-Gligor’s scheme and proposed a key management scheme. Du et al. further extended the scheme in [13] and proposed a new KPS using deployment knowledge [15]. Other relevant works include Eschenauer and Gligor’s random KPS [10], Chan et al.’s q-composite random KPS [11], etc. 3. Our Key Establishment Scheme in HWSNs 3.1. Network Model: There are three types of nodes in our key establishment scheme, namely Base Station (BS), Cluster Header (H-Sensor) and Cluster Member (L-Sensor). Base Station operated completely in secured environment. In the case of H-Sensor and L-Sensor are not operated in the secure area. If the sensor nodes are captured by adversaries, whole material can be accessible. We adopt the maximum energy cluster head (MECH) protocol for our network architecture [1]. As shown in Figure 1, in the MECH architecture, the sensors automatically organized into some clusters and act as two types of nodes in the network: cluster heads and cluster member nodes. In each cluster, one node as a H (H-Sensor) manages the it’s associated cluster and forward the information from member nodes to the base station (BS). MECH constructs clusters according to the radio signal range and the number of cluster nodes. The nodes distribution is more equally in all the clusters in the network. This distribution does not ex ceed a certain threshold. BS: Base Station H: Cluster Head L: Cluster Member Figure 1: Architecture of heterogeneous Sensor Networks 3.2. Assumptions (i) All nodes are static (ii) Each sensor has unique ID assigned by Base Station (iii) If a sensor is compromised, whole material in the node is accessible (iv)The Base Station can communicate with Cluster Heads 3.3. Basic Scheme Our scheme is completely variant form the Blom’s Scheme [12]. This scheme is completely modified in the way of usage and generating matrices. 3.3.1. System Setup There are N sensor nodes to be deployed in the network including Cluster Heads and Base Station, and ÃŽ » be the security parameter. Base Station selects N distinct key seeds s1,s2,†¦..,sN from the Finite Field GFq, where q is the prime number. Every seed si mapped with a identifier idi. Base Station generates a secret (ÃŽ »+1)Ãâ€"N matrix G G is a secret matrix in our scheme. It is compressed with selected seed from the Finite Field GFq. 3.3.2. Key pre-distribution (i) Base Station generates the secret symmetric matrix (ÃŽ »+1)Ãâ€"(ÃŽ »+1) form GFq, and Computes the public matrix A=(D.G) ­Ã‚ ­T. (ii) Base Station pre loads each key seed si and its identifier idi to the ith sensor node including Cluster Heads and also stores ith row from the matrix A. 3.3.3. Pairwise Key Establishment After deployment, each sensor node broadcast its key seed identifier idi to its neighbors. Any two neighbor nodes can establish pairwise keys directly. Let the ith node and the jth node want to establish a pairwise key to secure the communication channel. Calculation at ith node: The ith column of matrix G using its key seed si: (si,si2,†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.,siÃŽ »+1) And (aj1,aj2,†¦..,aj(ÃŽ »+1)) be the jth row of the matrix A, which loaded before deployment by BS. The ith node calculates the pairwise key with jth node denoted as kji. kij=(aj1,aj2,†¦..,aj(ÃŽ »+1)). (si,si2,†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.,siÃŽ »+1) kij= Calculation at jth node: The jth sensor node calculate the jth column of matrix G using its key seed sj: (sj,sj2,sj3,†¦..,sjÃŽ »+1) And (ai1,ai2,†¦..,ai(ÃŽ »+1)) be the ith row of matrix A, loaded by the BS. The jth node calculate the pairwise key kij as kij= It remains to show that kij=kij, because the matrix k=A.G is a symmetric matrix. i.e kij calculated by the cluster member i is same as kij calculated by cluster member j. The same process is applied for cluster heads to establish pairwise key between them to establish secure communication. 4. Implementation 4.1. Setup Phase Let the number of nodes in the network be 6(N=6), Secure Property ÃŽ »=3, prime number q=29 and 6 distinct key seeds {5, 8, 15, 4, 2, 17} 4.2. Key pre-distribution Secret Symmetric matrix (D), Secretly stored in the Base Station (BS). A=(D.G)T mod 29 A= Once Matrix A is calculated, Base Station pre loads key seed and a row from the matrix A into sensor node based on its identifier. The rows of matrix A represent the private keys of each node. 4.3. Key Generation Suppose consider two nodes, node 1 and node 5 wish to communicate with each other. Then node 1 and 4 need to calculate the shared secret key(pairwise key). In order to calculate the pairwise key, node 1 will multiply the assigned row A(1) which is from A and column G(4) which is calculated from the seed key value of node 4. The seed key values is broadcasted each other during shared key generation. Similarly node 4 multiplies its row A(4) with the seed key value of node 1. K1,4=2596 mod 29 =15 K4,1=156905 mod 29=15 It is observed that both nodes generate a common key and further communication between them will make use of the pairwise key. The matrix K represents as shown below has the symmetric nature, because of the matrix D. Hence any pair of nodes can have the common key such that Ki,j=Kj,i. K=(A.G) mod 29 5. Analysis 5.1. Local Connectivity Local connectivity addresses the size of key space between any neighbors. In our scheme, any pair of nodes can directly establish the shared key, under assumptions noted in the proposed scheme. Our scheme local connectivity is 1. 5.2. Resilience against node capture attacks Our scheme is providing ÃŽ »-security property to the network. If more than ÃŽ » nodes are compromised then only it is possible to calculate the keys of others, which means that to find the k symmetric matrix. Even ÃŽ »-1 nodes compromised, it not possible to predicate the other node key seed values. Our scheme achieves a high level of resilience against node capture attacks. 5.3. Computation Complexity Our scheme needs 2ÃŽ »+1 multiplication operations in the field of GFq: ÃŽ » multiplications to calculate a column of G matrix with given key seed and ÃŽ »+1 multiplication to calculate the inner product of corresponding row-column pairs. Pairwise key establishment between neighbor nodes requires 2ÃŽ »+1 multiplication operations. If the ÃŽ » value is large to protect the network, it increases the computational complexity. We have made analysis between our scheme and Blom’s scheme on the computations complexity. From Fig. 2 we can see computations effort for 6 nodes under different Finite Field (FGq) ranging from 0-50, 0-100, 0-150, 0-200, 0-250, 0-300, 0-350. The analysis carried out with the network size of 6 nodes and security property (ÃŽ ») 3. Figure 2. Computational Complexity for a Network with 6 nodes 5.4. Communication Complexity In pairwise key establishment phase, sensor nodes need to broadcast a key seed identifier idi. All the materials required to generate pairwise key are loaded in the sensor node before deployment. But other key establishment schemes should perform other phases to generate a shared key between neighbors like path key establishment, rekeying, and broadcasting row values from the public matrix A. It leads to more communication overhead. But in case of our scheme has very low communication overhead. Compare to space complexity, our scheme consuming little more space than other schemes [5,6]. The space complexity depends on the value of ÃŽ », if the ÃŽ » value is reasonably small, then space complexity is very similar to the other schemes. 6. Conclusion This paper presents the new pairwise key establishment scheme for heterogeneous wireless sensor network using the symmetric propriety of matrices. Our scheme achieves very light communication and computation complexity. The nature of heterogeneity made reasonable results in the analysis. In addition that, our scheme is updatable, scalable and secure against node capture attacks. References: [1] I. F. Akyildiz,W. Su, Y. Sankarasubramaniam, and E. Cayirci, 2002 ,â€Å"A survey on sensor networks,† IEEE Communications Magazine, vol. 40, no. 8, pp. 102–114,. [2] R. Blom, 1985, â€Å"An optimal class of symmetric key generation systems†, Advances in Cryptology, ser. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, T. Beth, N. Cot, and I. Ingemarsson, Eds. Springer Berlin / Heidelberg, vol. 209, pp. 335–338. [3] Wenliang Du et al., 2003, â€Å"A pairwise key pre-distribution scheme for wireless sensor networks†, ACM transactions. [4] B. Premamayudu, K. Venkata Rao, P. Suresh Verma, 2014, â€Å"A Novel pairwise Key Establishment and Management in Hierardical Wireless Sensor Networks (HESN) using matrix†, CT and Critical Infrastructure: Proceedings of the 48th Annual Convention of Computer Society of India- Vol I Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, Volume 248, pp. 425-432. [5] D. Liu, P. Ning, and R. Li., 2005, â€Å"Establishing pairwise keys in distributed sensor networks†, ACM Trans. Inf Syst. Secur., vol. 8, pp. 41-77. [6] A. Perrig, R. Szewczyk, V. Wen, D. Culler, and J.D., 2002, â€Å"Tygar. Spins: Security protocols for sensor networks†, Wireless Networks Journal (WINE). [7] L. Eschenauer and V. D. Gligor, 2002, â€Å"A key-management scheme for distributed sensor networks†, in Proceedings of the 9th ACM conference on Computer and communications security. [8] R. Blom, An Optimal Class Of Symmetric Key Generation Systems. Ericsson Radio Systems, Stockholm, Sweden. [9] B. C. Neuman and T. Tso, 1994, â€Å"Kerberos: An authentication service for computer networks†, IEEE Communications, vol. 32, no. 9, pp.33-38. [10] W. Diffie and M. E. Helllman, 1976, â€Å"New directions in cryptography†, IEEE Transactions on Information Theory, vol. 22, pp. 644-654. [11] H. Chan, A. Perrig, and D. X. Song, 2003, â€Å"Random key predistribution schemes for sensor networks,† in IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy. IEEE Computer Society, pp. 197–213. [12] R. Blom, 1985, â€Å"An optimal class of symmetric key generation systems,† in Advances in Cryptology, ser. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, T. Beth, N. Cot, and I. Ingemarsson, Eds. Springer Berlin /Heidelberg, vol. 209, pp. 335–338. [13] W. Du, J. Deng, Y. S. Han, P. K. Varshney, J. Katz, and A. Khalili, 2005, â€Å"A pairwise key predistribution scheme for wireless sensor networks,† ACM Trans. Inf. Syst. Secur., vol. 8, no. 2, pp. 228–258. [14] W. Du, J. Deng, Y. S. Han, S. Chen, and P. K. Varshney, 2004, â€Å"A key management scheme for wireless sensor networks using deployment knowledge,† in INFOCOM, pp. 586–597. [15] W. Du, J. Deng, Y. S. Han, and P. K. Varshney, , 2006, â€Å"A key predistribution scheme for sensor networks using deployment knowledge,† IEEE Trans. Dependable Sec. Comput., vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 62–77.

Indian Consumer Buying Behaviour in the UK

Indian Consumer Buying Behaviour in the UK 1. Introduction This dissertation provide an overview of research topic on Indian consumer buying behavior in UK, first part outline aims and objective of the dissertation and followed by the motivation and study carried. Outline of structure of the dissertation and limitation are presented. 1.1 Aims and Objectives The aim of the dissertation is to understand and identify the social, cultural, buying behaviour characteristics of Indian community in UK. The research carried out primary and secondary research associated with Indian community and shows the linked between the ethnic consumer behaviour connections with market. What are the consumer buying behaviour characteristics of Indian Community in the UK†? Objective The objective of the dissertation is to focus and study on buying behavior of the Indian Community living in UK. To determine identify categories associated with Indian and their age characteristics. The article, literature, journal covers cultural, ethnical issues, historical issues of Indian identify integrating it with the personally studies. The method used on the basis of quantifiable observation for statistical analysis and philosophical interpretive research method to support Questionnaires are used to analyses the primary data. The findings reveal personal, ethnical, buying pattern and cultural characteristics relevant for identifying Indians consumer behavior. The conclusions are made for the implications of this identity need to be taken into account by the UK marketers or business market for new segment to target. 1.2 Motivations behind the Dissertation The Indians are part of a multicultural UK society, they make a significant cultural and consumer force Ref 35 (Fletcher, 2003). They are increasing in size, purchasing power and geographic concentration, giving â€Å"marketers a unique opportunity to modify their marketing strategies in the pursuit of increased market share and profitability† Ref 27 (Lindridge and Dibb, 2003). Due to increase in ethnic population and cultural diversity which represent many opportunity and threats to the markets hence marketer has to acknowledge the change in market by understanding the ethnic diversity Ref 35. Total in UK around 29% organization dont target ethnic market while 47% do target but were not effective in strategies due to lack of understanding and information about the Indian community in UK. Ref 27 (Lindridge and Dibb, 2003 cited: Fulford, 2001). Since UK represent multiethnic society, consisting of a diverse mix of culture and languages, there generates to understand the buying behaviors of all the elements which effects the business to fulfill marketing knowledge as the for the satisfaction of customer needs and wants Ref 28 (Chudry and Pallister, 2002)(Ref 25). This report will be focusing on the consumer buying behaviors characteristics of the Indians community in UK. 1.4 Limitations of the study The limitation of the study are that there has not been enough research done on the cultural characteristics of Indian Consumer Behaviour therefore there is no previous more studies carried out to judge the topic further. The Empirical Side of the Research has been hindered due to the fact that there is only one researcher, which made difficult to gather substantial studies and sample of Indian Community for quantitative research which have been omitted due to lack of manpower and time. 2. Literature Review Consumer Behaviour According to Philip Kotler consumer behavior as â€Å"the buying behavior of final consumer- individual and households who buys goods and services for personal consumption†, all to this it is directly related to market created by Consumer which varies in income, age, education level and taste across the world tremendously. They buy incredible variety of services and products which diverse consumer connection with each other with other element of the world (Ref 1). Today consumers have many choices to select a product as compared to ten or fifteen year before. Business growth depends on loyal customer or repeat purchase because they are satisfied with product variety/ services which they have received which bring consumer into the stores. Lot of marketing efforts is played to bring consumer to the stores, normally consumer assumes marketing as advertising and selling which is flow of goods from producers to customer. Marketing has great influence on fast moving consumer goods t hrough range of activities includes promotion, market research, advertising etc. Evaluation and monitoring of customer is also an important and one method of evaluation is by completing marketing research. Ref 7 (Woodruffe 1995 149, 163-4) According to Adrian Palmer Business Philosophy, marketing puts customers at the centre point of all the organizations which reflects the basic values to understand and response to customer necessity and needs to search constantly for new market opportunities. (Ref 22) There are three major components of marketing by Narver and Slater (1990) Customer Orientation, Competitor Orientation and Interfunctional Co-ordination. Customer Orientation understands its target buyers, Competitor Orientation focus on customer and its competitors police and strategy, while Interfunctional Co-ordination which futile marketing manager to develop the marketing plans to creating value, delivering promise made to customer and integrates its human and physical resources effectively and adapts them to meet customer needs. Marketing key concepts depends on customers, needs, value, exchange and market. Marketing Environment According Kotler â€Å"The actors and forces outside marketing that affect marketing ability to develop and maintain successful transaction with its target customer.† As per Environment markets depends to two major environment micro and macro environment but basically here we will be dealing with Macro Environment with explores border concepts of consumer behavior. Macro Environment consists of larges societal forces like demographic, cultural, economical, natural, political and technological. UK which is huge market with varied customers which are widely scattered hence we have to focus on specific Indian Consumer segment. According to Kotler Segment marketing is an â€Å"isolating broad segments that make up a market and adapting the marketing to match the needs of one or more segments†.(Ref 1,2). For marketer to target the entire consumer with same marketing style and approach doesnt satisfy to all customer where are many customer are dissatisfi ed or there need are fulfilled, hence here opportunity arise fro the company for specific segment. As per data and statistics Marketer has to go for niche marketing to target specific segment. According to Kotler Niche Marketing is Focusing or sub segment or niches with distinctive traits that may seek a special combination of benefits.(Ref 1,2). Hence in this project we will be focusing on Indian consumer with total UK consumer hence below gives the Geographical, Cultural, Political, Technological and Economical consumer patterns as compared to total UK Consumer. Geographically Indian Consumer In UK According to Kotler Demography or Geographical shows the study of human population in terms of size, density, location, age, gender, race occupation.(Ref1) Its very important because its gives marketers major interest it involve people, and people make up markets, as Indian Consumer geographical location is given below. Geographical Distribution of Minority Religions Mainly In London Percentage of each religion living in London, April 2001, GB Percentage of each religion living in London, April 2001, GB http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=956 (Ref 39) Families with dependent children: by ethnic group and family type, April 2001, UK Families with dependent http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=956 Total International Migration (TIM) to/from the UK 1991-2004 Total International Migration (TIM) to/from the UK 1991-2004 According to recent survey by Government in 2004, around 223,000 more people migrated to UK than migrated abroad, as its higher migration than estimat e before in 1991. Migration from New Commonwealth has increased by 45 percent between 2003 and 2004 within this group, net in migration from Asian was risen from 38,000 to 54000 in 2003, 2004 respectively. Ref 39 Net migration by country of last or next residence (1995-2004) Net migration by country of last or next residence (1995-2004) The demographic characterized of ethnic population in Britain is complex, As 97 percent of Britains non white population live in England, where most of the Indian lives in England and major cities of Scotland, approximately 53 percent of Indian lives in the south east and a further 30 percent in the midlands. Recently due to new Government laws implementation in Scotland the increase of Asian community are raising in great major cities like Edinburgh and Glasgow .Ref 39 Social, Cultural and Economic characteristics of the Ethnic population Culture can be defined as a â€Å"unique pattern of shared meanings that characterized a society and distinguish it from other societies. It is passed down from generation to generation and has been described as a societys ‘personality † Ref 21 (Wells and Prensky, 1996). Culture should be viewed as a â€Å"complex bundle of independent variables that can be attributed to behaviour† Ref 27. Culture plays an important part in the identification of an ethnic group, as ethnic groups are â€Å"those human groups that entertain a subjective belief in their common descent because similarities of physical type or of custom or both, or because of memories of colonization and immigration† Ref 27 i.e. culture. According to Kotler the cultural environment is made up of institution and other forces that affect the societys basic values, perceptions, preference and behavior. Every consumer grows in specific environment which gives some beliefs, values, inheritance, family structure, reference characteristics which reflects in him.(Ref 1) Culture is forever evolving â€Å"synthesizing old ideas with new ones† Ref 20 (Solomon, 2004). All cultures are different, but there are four dimensions that are in all cultures: 1. Power distance: how relationships form when difference in power is perceived. 2. Uncertainty: â€Å"the degree to which people feel threatened by ambiguous situations and have beliefs and institutions that help them to avoid this uncertainty† Ref20 3. Masculinity/femininity: how clear are the sex roles? 4. Individualism: cultures differ on how individualist (importance attached to personal goals) or collectivist (people lower their personal goals for the group) they may be Ref 20. 2.3.2.1 Components of Culture The components of culture are a useful tool for marketers as they can use appropriate marketing communications to associate the product with the consumers values. Values â€Å"Values are the underlying beliefs about the appropriate ways the members of a culture should act, think, and feel† Ref21, these values are: i. Somewhat stable; ii. Somewhat general iii. â€Å"Fairly widely accepted as a guide to culturally appropriate behaviour and therefore as a ‘standard of desirable and undesirable beliefs, attitudes and behaviour† (CIM, 1993).Ref 23 Norms and Customs Norms are the rules of values on how to behave or not behave; individuals may or may not accept these norms Ref 9 (Antonides and van Raaij, 1998). â€Å"Crescive† norms are norms that are rooted in a culture (Ref 20). â€Å"Crescive† norms can also be perceived as a custom, which are the â€Å"established patterns of behaviour adopted within the society or community. They regulate and regularize social practices and define which behaviours are acceptable† (Rice, 1997) Ref 16. Williams (1981) identified four forms of customs or what Le Vine (1997) calls ‘ostensible markers from the least to the most serious enforced:Ref 19,26 Myths Myths are tales that exemplify one or more of the shared values of a culture by describing a person, event, or idea that symbolizes values (Wells and Prensky, 1996) Ref 21. Myths serve four interconnected functions in a culture: Ref 19 1. Metaphysical: explains the origin of life 2. Cosmological: all the components of the universe is part of one picture 3. Sociological: the maintaining of social order through a social code 4. Psychological: the providing of models for personal behaviour Ref 20(Solomon, 2004) Rituals a. â€Å"A ritual is a set of interrelated patterns of behaviour that have a symbolic meaning† (Ref 21), ritualized behavior is formal and ceremonial such as marriage ceremonies and religious services (CIM, 1993). Ritualistic behaviour is an individual behavior that is made into a ritual such as shaving and getting up at a certain time in the morning Ref 19 (Schiffman and Kanuk, 2003). Sacred and Profane Consumption * Sacred consumption involves items and events that are not part of ordinary activities and are treated as such, example, religious ceremonies (Ref 20). * Profane Consumption involves ordinary, everyday items and events (Ref 20) * Sacred Events when consumers activities take on special status, it can be anything from public events, sports events or holidays, as they occupy sacred time and space for the consumer Ref 20 (Solomon, 2004). Material Artefacts Material artefacts are possessions that have a special significance to members of a culture. Artefacts obtain their special significance due to the role they play in myths, customs, and rituals. Artefacts can be everyday products that have symbolic meanings, which give them special status in culture, such as red roses for Valentines Day Ref 21. Indian have different rituals, customer,myths which relates each other, due to help of British Government Indian enjoy major big Indian Festival like Diwali, Dusshera etc in UK, as festival times seems to major shopping and expenditure time of Indian , majority of Indian community still does major investment, buying or moving on special festive period or religious occasion then usual day due to long traditional belief from ancient time. Gold purchasing and wearing is one of the passion in Indian customer , Women during festive period used to buy gold and diamonds which is one of the major segment for marketer to target the ethnic community during festive period. Language and Symbols Language makes the learning and sharing of culture possible (CIM, 1993), without a common language, a shared understanding would cease to exist, which will lead to the extinction of a culture Ref 19. Symbols are an important aspect of language; they can be verbal or non-verbal (CIM, 1993). Verbal symbols include television and magazine advertisement, whilst non-verbal symbols are s, shapes and colours Ref 19. Symbols can carry a number of different meanings and have different interpretations to many people; these interpretations can be unique to one culture. India have a diverse culture with more 24 different language, having Hindi has national language, majority of Indian in UK use Hindi or English as communication language in community. According to Journal of Consumer Behaviour, Britain ethnic minority population was around 5.5 percent with spending power of L 10 Bn in 1998 which has increased drastically, whereas the population of Indian are increasing faster than Caucasian which leads increase in buying power. Many companies has started targeting ethnic group eg. Jaguar started sponsorship events of Indian Bollywood Mega Mela in London of 3 days. Indian culture are great lovers of music and art from ancient times, ancient history have shown deep interest in this field which has contributed in formation of Bollywood industry, world largest film industry in the world, which influence billion of people in India through cultural aspects and Behaviour. Before Bollywood industry was popular only in east but now every year its increase 18 % market globally with 3.6 billion global audience which higher than Hollywood which has only 2.5 billion global audience, Indian community which migrated and living in UK cannot distract from viewing Bollywood movies and channels Which has created a huge market for Indian viewer of Asian channels and Bollywood movies in UK market. As per recent survey by BBC more than 70% of British Asian homes twice the national average the Telewest, sky or cable tv at home where viewing two third of Asian viewer are made of Asian interest channels featuring dramas, Bollywood music of back home and movies. Also s urveyed revealed that majority of ethnic population have their own mobile, DVD and internet at home. Majority Indian women back in India has highly soap addicts drama , survey carried out shown that 71% percent ethnic community made a point of watching soap as compared to 56% of white woman. Leader in broadcaster were Zee TV and Star which was just a new comer in UK around 4 year before but in his second year of launch he had 90,000 strong customer of ethnic community because Star TV is one of Indian Top Channel with 42 million subscribers which show cultural inheritance in UK which has high growth rate. Some of provider like Telewest understood the consumer Behaviour of ethnic community and launch Asian Channel Package which was cheaper than individual channel and wholesome package which attracted number of customer toward him. Ref 31, 32, 33 2.3.2.2 Subcultures For a marketer culture may come across as too broad a subject, as it embraces whole societies (CIM, 1993), therefore, to make life much easier a marketer could subdivide a culture into distinct subcultures. A subculture can then be defined as groups of people within a society that share common experiences and beliefs, which distinguishes them from other groups (Ref 20). An individual can belong to a number of subcultures and these subcultures can play a crucial role in defining the extended self (Ref 20) . Rice (1997) suggests that there are five prime subcultures: Geography; Religion; Age; Gender and Ethnicity.(Ref 16) Indian with has diverse culture with varied religion, India has many sub religion which makes sub culture or sub group like Sikh religion which has same characteristics and belief like Hindu, . While Indian Muslims used to differ in culture, tradition and belief which can be a new sub culture. As under studies and my knowledge India used to be male dominant society from long time, still majority of Indian women in India used to housewife and male used to earn but in recent 20 years women in India used to work and way ahead but still male dominant the heavy purchase like home, car, investment, buying while female dominant male in purchase of household, home maintenance, buying food etc which reflect same in UK. 2.3.2.3 Acculturation Acculturation is the â€Å"process of movement and adaptation to one countrys environment by a person from another country† (Ref 20); this process is the learning of the host countries language, myths, values, customs and rituals (Wells and Prensky, 1996) Ref 21. There is also the opposite affect of acculturation which is enculturation that is the â€Å"process of learning ones native cultural values† Ref 21. (Ref 9) Antonides and van Raaij (1998) call this the process of socialization with the culture being transferred from the older to the younger generation through family, religious groups, schools and other agents. Ref 9 Acculturation agents can align with the culture of origin or the culture of immigration in Fig. 1.3 shows how well an individual responds to the agents depends on their individual differences, these responses thus affect the acculturation process such as; movement which is the physical movement from one location to another; there is then the need for the translation of social rules in the host country; and this leads to the adaptation process by the consumer, on how much do they align with the host nation. The acculturation outcomes are either to assimilate with the host nation, by adopting their values; maintain practices from culture of origin; or just segregate completely from the host nation, by only buying goods from people from their culture. Many Indian migrated from India have cultural Behaviour of back country as well they kindly start adopting the British culture , hence year after year they have 20-30 percent of British culture which has replaced some of the Indian culture, Majority Indian in back country used to religious more but after migrating they become less religious , dont concern more than usual, also majority of Indian in back country use to Vegetarian and keep to avoid Liquor but after several years in UK they used to eat majority on Non Vegetarian food except religion prohibition of eating beef (Hindu and Sikh) and pork(Muslims) and start drinking more than usual, the back country they used to leave in joint family and have strong family structure , which has little bit change in coming year, the new generation British Indian or Indian leaving from long time use to leave separately than joint family , get separate from parents and leave independently but still have strong bondage with family which shows m ixed culture of Indian and British. According Sinha (1969) and Mandelbaum (1970) study indicated that the Indian families are of dominant concern for most Indians. Individuals within the family are instilled with collectivist cultural values of duty, interdependence, obedience, reliability and sacrifice for the group (Triandis, 1989; Triandis et al., 1993). In contrast, individualistic cultures encourage detachment from the family unit and greater individuality (Halman, 1996). It is British Indians relationship with their family that may be a major cultural determinant upon their buyer behavior. The family units influence, within the collectivist-individualistic context noted earlier, therefore, will be assessed through three buyer behavior areas: use of possessions to enhance social status, materialism and reference group use. Family structure and Reference Group According to Journal of Consumer Behaviour , Ethnic Indian Community have family dominant concern for most Indian, individuals within the family has distinct collectivist value of culture, duty, obedience, interdependence, sacrifice and reliability where in contrast Britishs Causcaucian are detached and great individuality. This relationship bondage within the family structure has major cultural determinant upon their buying Behaviour. As per Journal Indian Immigrant are more concerned with possessions than people, inferring and have a materialistic Behaviour which is other way on British Community. Ref 30 A reference group is â€Å"any person or group that serves as a point of comparison for an individual in forming either general or specific values, attitudes, or a specific guide for behavior† (Ref 19), these groups can be real or imagined (Ref 20). Reference groups can be influential as they can be â€Å"informative, utilitarian, and value-expressive† (Ref 20). Normative reference groups influence general values or behavior, whereas comparative reference groups are benchmarks for specific attitudes or behavior (Ref 19). Factors that affect reference groups influence on consumers may include: * Information and experience: an individual who has knowledge of a product/service is less likely to be influence by a group * Credibility, attractiveness, and power of the reference group: these groups can induce consumer attitude and behavior change, as they are seen as trustworthy and knowledgeable * Conspicuousness of the product: reference groups influence varies according to whether the product visually conspicuous (one that stands out) or verbally conspicuous (a product can be easily described) (Ref 19) There are several types of reference groups that can be defined as either ‘aspirational (successful business people sportsmen or celebrities) or ‘membership (groups that an individual can identify with) groups (Solomon, 2004)Ref 20. Some of these reference groups are: * Friendship groups: they are informal groups and are the most influential group when it comes to the purchase decision * Shopping groups: they are made-up of family or friends, this function can be referred to as purchase pals * Work groups: because of the amount of time people spend at work, the work group can be a major influence (Ref 19) According to Green the family structure favored by Indian community which have traditional family structure and contrary to it, as the new generation has different attitudes towards family structure across the generation in Indian families. The family structure favored by Indian groups varies enormously It is clearly important for marketers to be aware of these divergent trends since they will have important implications for advertising and promotional activities directed towards the various ethnic groups (Green, 1999). According to Journal of Consumer Behaviour, due to collectivist culture of Indian which are affected by external perceptions, then reference group selection may be determined by the need of gain recognition of the familys reputation, majority British Indian seek recognition from these reference group, secondly work colleagues and friends have greater collectivist power of culture. Ref 30 Age profile of minority groups According to Journal Dawn Burton (Ref 24) Age profile plays an important role in minority group, one of the most significant features of the Indian population is its younger age as compared to white indigenous population. According to data 1990, 48 percent of the ethnic minority population was under 24 years of age in 1999 compared with 31 percent of the white population. Indian group had 41 percent of individual in this age group, As a study in US marketer have recognized that younger age profile of minority group is having an important impact on consumer behaviors . T he studied show that Indian Minorities community have higher percentage of card ownership, ATM usages, use cards for withdraw cash and more likely purchase goods and service with cards than the white population Ref 26(Texas Banking, 1999) hence Indian community has similar culture expectation like in Britain . Ref 24,26. Economic and Social Characteristics Economic Environment consists of factors which affects the consumer purchasing power and spending patterns, According to Adrian Palmer for â€Å"marketer its hard to appreciate fully the cultural values of a society, attitudes to specific product changes through time and at any one time between different groups†. â€Å"Like in Home market specially UK, company should understand the processes of gradual changes and be prepared to satisfy the changing needs of consumer† (Ref 22). As a new challenges for marketing are posed by the diverse cultural tradition of ethnic minorities. According to Journal Dawn Burton issues can be addressed our social and economic factor, the issues holds religion, household income and family structure. Before targeting a specific segment its important level of income and expenditure, the superiority of Indian groups over the white category is party accounted for the higher proportion of pensioner households in the white indigenous population.(R ef 24) The PSI survey is useful in this respect since it categorizes the proportion of members of different ethnic groups in various income brackets. The ethnic Indian and White Population were on a par but there are significant proportions of high earners in the Indian, Indian population in UK are at high earning capacity with high saving as compared to White or any other community Ref 32. They have strong purchasing power. According recent publication in newspaper, out of 10 richest people of UK five are from Indian origin, hence from this statistics one can imagine how far Indian are economical strong in UK, world 3 richest and UK Top richest person Mr. Laksmi Mittal belong to India, majority of Indian living in UK are economical sound and having high saving then the normal British consumer, due to which they have strong buying power Ref 35, Ref 40 According to International Journal of Entrepreneurship, majority of Indian community in UK runs small scale business, in transition which are lining into owing large scale, profitable, enterprise has not the attracted investment but attention of media and research , nearly of half of independent shops in Britain in 1990 were own by Ethnic Asian entrepreneur which have high scale of Indian, in which have around 300 millionaire 1990 which have increased to 500 or more today, whereas they are 2 percent of working age population in Britain , contributing towards wealth creating by employment which is greater in size. According to Modood in 1997 the average weekly earning of Indian exceeds those of White population In Britain. Ref 30,33 As Success of the Asian Business in Britain likes in their cultural characteristics which have high encourage thrift, hard and reliance on family lab our. There are major cultural facts like mechanisms of self help, family controlled business, informal source, local ethnic community market which builds the business to new ladder. A enterprenuser who makes productive use of the community like cheap family labor, finance within community, cultural values, niche marketing to satisfy the demands of their own community for ethnic product which have huge population to fulfill. Ref 30 Ethnic business has asserted the success due to sense of developing from small to large scale business, due to ability of branch out from ethnic enclave economy. According social aspect, Indian community have strong social education belief, around 60 percent have done bachelors degree or higher qualification which impact on growth in business and employment.Ref 30,33 Technological According Kotler Technological environment is a Force that create new technologies, creating new product and market opportunities. Today every second or day a new technology hits the market which Technological point of Indian Consumer In UK have hardly any in-depth studies, but Study by PSI (see Table IV).showed the individual about their ownership of a range of consumer durables, as compared to white population. In comparison Indian community has higher ownerships of some items like micro-ovens, video recorder, computer, washing machine etc than other community hence the market looks immense for specific Indian Segment. Indian community have higher eagerness toward technology aspects specially for household purchase , also one of the studies said that Car market has began specific target towards Indian consumer due to there high tech power consumer attitude and affording capacity. In UK, most of Indian community gives first preference to buy Mercedes rather than any other car due to its royal status, which similar concept previous back in India. As India is becoming a global hub for IT, greater increase in Internet User and IT becoming a way to cheaper communication to India most of the Indian prefer to buy computer or high tech things to get connected. According to The Guardian majority of Indian were more likely to have own mobiles phone, dvd, household durables, internet at home than white population in UK. Ref 32,33 Lifestyle Lifestyle segments are measured through the use of A.I.O. (Activities, Interests, and Opinions) rating statements. It measures peoples activities in terms of how they live their lives; their interests on what is important to the consumer; their opinions on themselves and social/cultural issues; as well as demographic descriptors such as age, education, income, etc. Ref 36 (Plummer, 1974) Ref 11 (Brassington and Pettitt, 2003). Table 1.1 lists elements,