Price Quotes and Pricing Decisions Applied Problems Assignment

Price Quotes and Pricing Decisions Applied Problems - Assignment Example Jessica is a famous actress and her name is common in most households. She may even have a cult like following meaning everything she endorses will be popular with the masses, this factor can make penetration pricing successful. The products they are dealing with are basic consumer products used in the house hold on a daily basis. Penetration pricing would set of a â€Å"price war" enabling them to market a product at the price that is the  lowest in comparison with all competitors.   Though the price is lower that the value of the product, it will draw in new customers to try the products The products that the â€Å"Honest Company† deals in are in a growing market as the population is more demanding and knowledgeable requiring more quality cleaning items, more nutritious food stuffs etc. hence penetration pricing is recommended. Penetration pricing can prevent competitors from cutting into your market at lower price points. If your upfront price is low and your product or service is of reasonable quality, the burden falls on other providers to justify higher prices on similar offerings Yes they will continue to make profits in the long term. The Honest Company will be able to enter the five different markets faster using penetration pricing as potential customers will venture to try the product. This will in turn grow their market share and generate economic profits based on this market share even in the long term. Penetration pricing also creates high stock turnover throughout the  distribution channel which will result in economic profits and increased enthusiasm and support in the supply chain for the product in the long term. No they will not continue to make profits. It is argued against penetration pricing in that in the long term penetration pricing establishes long term price expectations for the  product, and image preconceptions for the  brand  and company. This makes it difficult to

Robert Herrick- To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time , Andrew Marvell- Essay

Robert Herrick- To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time , Andrew Marvell- To His Coy Mistress , John Donne- The Flea - Essay Example Any person that has delivered or been on the receiving end of a statement such as, â€Å"C’mon babe, it’s the Prom! We aren’t ever going to have another night like this again,† understands where Herrick is coming from. He is urging the ladies not to reject him now because there is only so much time for really good loving. The poems from Marvell and Donne take different approaches to the theme. Marvell is telling his mistress that she can stop playing shy because he knows she wants to be with him. Donne seems to be trying to elicit sympathy from his lover by wondering how you could –gasp- reject moi? Coupled closely to this theme of the lost moment or the tragedy of unrequited love seems to be the notion that the man was to be the aggressor in matters of the heart, seeking to gain the favor or displeasure, of the woman. I really loved the Herrick poem. He is such a subtle gentleman on the one hand and a playboy on the other. He is clearly using a tac tic that only works on the inexperienced (thus the Virgins in the title) but he does it so well, one can almost be sure of the outcome.

Hand Foot and Mouth Disease Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Hand Foot and Mouth Disease - Essay Example HFMD is very often confused with foot and mouth disease but foot and mouth disease is predominant in cattle and sheep. This disease is also found in swine and it is also known as hoof and mouth disease. It is very important not to confuse between these two diseases. There are various symptoms with which the HFMD starts. The most common symptom is fever and loss of appetite. Sore throat is another symptom of this disease but fever is the most common of all the symptoms. This disease is basically caused because of the entero virus genus. This is a communicable disease and spreads when an infected person comes in contact with a healthy person. The virus spreads through contact like handshake etc. HFMD is mutually exclusive to human beings and the disease does not spread either from or to animals. To the dismay of many people who are affected with this disease, it is found that there is no specific treatment for this disease. The following part of the paper will discuss the preventive me asures and the possible treatment of this disease. When a person gets fever and is feared to have this disease, it is best to reduce the fever first and this can be done by taking antibiotics. The affected people often experience pain in this disease but this can also be dealt with by taking appropriate medicines like ibuprofen, or other over-the-counter pain relievers.

The feasibility of different techniques for providing fresh water to Research Paper

The feasibility of different techniques for providing fresh water to arid regions of the world - Research Paper Example To make matters worse, the little water received in these areas is usually not safe for domestic, agriculture and commercial use and there an urgent need to provide fresh water. To do so, policy makers explore various fresh water provision techniques as discussed in subsequent sections of this report. 2.0 Fresh water provision techniques In endeavors to provide fresh water to the arid regions of the world, different techniques are employed that include ground water drilling, desalinization and piping techniques. These techniques often vary from those employed in areas where precipitation is high. Therefore, climatic conditions in arid regions dictate to a large extent what technique(s) is most appropriate. Key issues in water provision and water resource management which dictate appropriate techniques will include availability of adequate supply, conservation measures, cost effectiveness, pricing and sustainability. 2.1 Ground Water Drilling Technique Ground water is normally obtaine d from aquifers through drilling and piping the water to the surface for various uses. This technique involves identification of areas in arid regions that have sufficient and quality underground water for agriculture, domestic and commercial use. The technique is more preferred to its low cost of establishment compared to other techniques like desalination. To ensure sustainable use of underground water, policy makers and regulatory authorities establishes water databases through registration of wells and their yields, documenting water composition, control of drilling in all phases and regular monitoring of water table and changes in salinity. However, the challenge with this technique is that over time demand for fresh water has increased both socially and economically requiring more wells to be dug. For example, over the last 3 decades, demand for water within the United Arab Emirates and other Gulf states which are often classified as arid regions, was estimated to increase fro m 4,250Mm3/ year in 1980 to 35,395Mm3/ year by 2010 (Alsharhan et al 2001, 277). Therefore, this means that governments in arid regions have to drill more wells or explore alternative fresh water supply techniques. This water supply technique faces various challenges relating to quality and sustainability. One, underground water may contain dissolved solid substances whose value is above the established norm. Establishing these levels require sophisticated technology which is costly and often not at the disposal of most governments in arid regions. Where levels are higher than the benchmark standard, such wells have to be closed or alternative technologies to reduce the hazardous effects of these particles employed (California Environmental Protection Agency 1995, 5). For example, high fluoride levels are common in arid regions where fluoride levels have to be reduced to the World Health Organization (WHO) to reduce effects of tooth decay and bone weakening. In addition, underground water

The Management Challenges of Facebook as a Platform Case Study

The Management Challenges of Facebook as a Platform - Case Study Example Thus developers prefer Facebook to write the application than on MySpace. Facebook has a unique application area which offers and promotes the different applications from the developers. To strengthen this idea Facebook introduced the viral injection of News Feed which automatically spread the application once it was installed by a user. This competitive asset of Facebook spread the applications like wildfire resulting to which many developers are attracted towards the site for the easiest way to spread their applications to the users. Soon with this new concept, Facebook was considered as a platform for the small group software developers all over the world. Scrabulous is a Facebook application developed by two brothers Rajat & Jayant Agarwalla from Kolkata, India. It’s a Scrabble clone which allows the user to play online by inviting friends or other users. The application was a huge success for the developer and was awarded as the PC Worlds 100 best products in the year 2008 earning around $ 25,000 per month from the advertising. But since the two brothers don’t have the copyright for Scrabble legally they are forced by many players in the market like Electronic Arts and Real Networks to stop their application due to copyright issue and supported Scrabble to create an online version for the game to compete to take the place for Scrabulous. With over 140 new applications added each day almost 95 percent of the users have installed at least one application. To name a few Mafia Wars and Firm Villa is the most popular of all which attracted millions of customer each day for its uniqueness in designing and interesting social g aming technique generating about $ 600 million annually. The Facebook platform provided this shortcut path for success for the developer.

Full case study analysis of a company (Apple) Essay Example for Free

Full case study analysis of a company (Apple) Essay Locating the company in its environment. This is where you set the scene and so you should Offer a brief overview of the company (from your own research or the case material provided). Put the company in its context, which will be international or global. At this point you will start to use the various analytical tools available to tell me about the environmental opportunities and constraints operating on the company and its industry. PESTEL is the usual device employed. You should also analyze the characteristics of the industry and business in which the company has to compete and here you should employ the 5 Forces of Competition analysis carried out in some analytical depth. Note: You could emerge from this first analysis with a PARTIAL SWOT, which is drawing out the opportunities and threats facing the firm. After having analyzed the company’s environment, the focus moves to the company itself by conducting an internal analysis where the objective is to identify the capabilities and resources developed by the company. This will be carried out through the application of some well tried analytical instruments, such as the value chain, the threshold and distinctive resources and competencies framework and the VRIO framework. Note: You should be able by now to complete the above SWOT analysis by identifying the strengths and weaknesses of the company. Finally, you should now be able to define the competitive position of the company in relation to the Generic Strategy chosen. Part two: The selection of strategic options You should emerge from this Phase with an inquiry based view of your company’s level of business success and what it must do to sustain that success and continuously improve. Which are the main options for growth? To answer this question you can refer to the Ansoff Matrix and – if the company is part of a larger diversified corporation to the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) Matrix. Somewhere in this phase you will need to appraise the company’s financial state of health using well-established measures of efficiency and profitability. But please take note that we do not cover finance in our twelve weeks together but my expectation is that your studies in corporate finance (Financial Accounting and Management) should equip you to include a commentary on Apple financial predicament. Part three: Your strategic solutions for the company’s ongoing health Now that you have derived a picture of your Company’s state of health, can it be improved—what medicine can you offer? So, phase/part three is about Strategic options for the future. There could be many but which strategic option/s would you recommend and why? Are you happy that your choices are derived from your systematic analysis of the company at Phases one and two? Are they feasible? Can they be resourced? Can they be implemented and sustained?

The benefits of paid parental leave

The benefits of paid parental leave In 2007, around 280 000 mothers gave birth in Australia and around 175 000 of these were working mothers who intend to work again. Consequently, there is a significant number of working mothers who require taking leave from work. There have been debates in Australia over a proposal of a statutory scheme that would offer paid parental leave to parents. The concern of paid parental leave has been significant because of the increasing womens part on jobs, family income sources and children carers. Womens participation in work has increased compared to the past. Female aged 25 to 34 years had increased from 45 to 70 per cent from 1978 to 2008 whereas mens participation in the same age range fell by 4 per cent (Commonwealth of Australia, p. 5.6). There are three proposed objectives for a paid parental leave, such as the wellbeing improvement of families, especially child and mothers health, associated with leave from work around the baby birth and secured financial during that period; enc ouragement of women to return to the workforce by the social welfare and tax system; and by the norms of community, having family time is the basic human rights for many people including fathers and the importance of caring and valuing children. This paper will discuss the major issues and models with regard to paid leave and the methods to assess these models. Paid parental leave provides benefits for parents, especially for mothers. From the mothers point of view, paid parental leave allows her to take a longer leave from job than she could otherwise have afforded and to enjoy extra financial assistance. However, problems arise with the paid parental leave. The first major issue is that the mothers attachment to the job might be deteriorated along with extended period a home; her skills will decline and as a result will create obstacles to her return (Commonwealth of Australia, p. 5.17). Moreover, the impacts of paid leave on labour market also broaden beyond parents too. For instance, paid leave affects employees wage rates and may discriminate against women because employers alert that female employees might have children in the future. There are incentives for discrimination on women if paid parental leave actually increases the costs to the employers. The absence of employee inflicts costs on employers, this may include leave administ ration costs, hiring and training replacement costs which will reduce the productivity level (Commonwealth of Australia, p. 24). However, on the employee side, the incentives to stay inside labour force and to choose occupation and employer are determined by the costs and benefits of these choices, which unnecessarily a monetary value. People outside the labour force get welfare transfers and benefits from untaxed work that they do, but they might be marginalized socially and economically. However, people inside the labour force get wages and benefits from parental leave and childcare rebates, but it might be difficult to balance between the importance of caring and working. The second issue of paid parental leave is concerned with the impact of paid generosity and leave duration. More generous payments increase the financial support for women and encourage them to return to work. On the other hand, greater generosity increases the length of leave from work. At some circumstances, the employment benefits are eroded by excessive absence from work which would reduce work skills and productivity. Moreover, female labour wages would increase slowly if female labour supply increases while demand is not following due to the paid parental leave (Commonwealth of Australia, p. 5.2). Employers might also reduce wage when excessive absence from work increases costs for employers. Therefore, the productivity, wages and female labour skills rises as long as the duration of leave is not excessively long. Third issue is the paid parental leave concerns with the equitably issue. In principle, paid leave should pay attention to the fairness in both horizontal and vertical dimensions (Commonwealth of Australia, p. 1.19). Horizontal equity refers to individuals and families in similar economic situations and being treated similarly whereas vertical equity refers to individuals and families in different economic situations and being treated in a different manner. However, equity is difficult to achieve in practice. People will be treated differently for different situations and it is inevitable. For instance, paying paid parental leave to working mothers may be seem as equitable but not equitable for women not working in the legal labour force. Replacement wages paid by employer seems to be more equitable for low income earners than a government-funded scheme that pays the minimum wage. Fourth major issue of paid leave in Australia is that only one-third of women labour force is eligible for the paid leave because women in Australia is highly segmented and in part-time employment, all of which are reducing females eligibility to paid leave (Baird, M., 2002). Fifth issue is the payment of parental leave. A payment equivalent to their minimum weekly income is justified if the objective is to assure their demand. However, full income payment is justified if the objective is to assure their social and economic independence (Frank, M., p.317). The final issue is regarding the funding source. There is an argument over which parties responsible to fund the leave as small employers cannot afford and thus women will be discriminated in work force. Australia has the lowest level of women labour force participation in the OECD (AEU Federal, p.2). If women labour force is declining, this will raise the inflation and reduce productivity and there will be a shortage of labour supply. Thus, women with paid leave tend to return to work than those without and will push-up the labour supply. To illustrate the paid parental leave, it is important to compare the different parental leave models in different countries. The Swedish parental leave system is seen to be a good model because of its commitment to developing equality between men and women and because of its generosity of payment. The Swedish allows parents a twelve-month of absence from work in regard to birth and parents either father or mother receive 90 per cent untaxed of their salary for their first nine months of leave (Allen, J.P., p.248). Whereas in Germany, parents are allowed to take leave for a shorter time of period only compared to Sweden because women in West Germ any have not entered the labour force as many as other industrialized countries. Only women are eligible to receive the leave payment and that also depends on their incomes. However, the United States is among the few industrialized countries that do not provide employment benefits, including sickness benefit, health insurance benefits, and paternal benefits. Therefore, to compare the equality issue between these three countries, the paid parental leave provided in Sweden and Germany helps female labour force to enter and remain at work, whereas female labour force tend to exit the labour force in the United States. Sweden is the most generous in paid parental leave and should be considered as a model in Australia whereas the U.S. fails to provide equality and support for parents and children. There are several models with regard to paid leave. First, 52 weeks paid parental leave starts with 26 weeks paid leave now, 39 by 2012 and 52 by 2016. Second, 26 weeks basic paid maternity and supporting parent leave as follows: (i) Basic Paid Maternity Leave (BPML) provision in which Australia should provide paid basic maternity leave of 24 weeks for all working women, and (ii) Basic Paid supporting Parent Leave (BPPL) provision in which Australia should provide basic paid partner leave of 2 weeks for all supporting partners. Third, the paid partner leave: use it or lose it in which partners who do not use their paid leave will not be able to reallocate it to mothers. This system induces fathers to take leave efficiently. Fourth, the existing paid maternity leave. Fifth, the basic payments through employers in which government provide payment similar to employers for employee and taxable. Payment through employers is desirable because all factors of employment will not be missed ou t. Sixth, the simultaneous leave in which parents can take leave simultaneously. Finally, the provision of rights to be protected from discrimination and the rights to return to work after their leave (Hill and Pocock, p.11). There are two methods to evaluate financial of paid leave and they have to be implemented simultaneously to provide the most effective paid leave policy. First, the income of financial contributor should not be affected. Second, the method should not create negative economic incentives. For example, an employer pays for his employees leave and financial method encourage the employer not to hire a female worker who would likely to take the leave (Frank, M., p.319). To summarize, paid parental leave is a system that provides benefits for mothers who give birth to achieve specific social and economic outcomes. There are three proposed objectives for a paid parental leave, such as the wellbeing improvement of families, especially child and mothers health, associated with leave from work around the baby birth and secured financial during that period; encouragement of women to return to the workforce by the social welfare and tax system; and by the norms of community, having family time is the basic human rights for many people including fathers and the importance of caring and valuing children. To help inducing the benefits of paid parental leave, it is necessary for financial assistance for mothers in order for them to spend time with their newborn babies, rather than just taking financial assistance, limit their leave and exit the labour force. The paid leave system has particular objectives that are valued differently to individual. In order to deliver those objectives efficiently, the system should provide incentives for mothers to increase the absence time from work to be with their child and to return and remain to the workforce. Parental leave would be a crucial system to encourage labour market efficiency and would represent the equality between men and women in the workforce.