#to his day to day purchases in food - products - entertainment - transport - etc etc

[jay-wasreblogging]

Headcanon take on John's gambling habit + Sherlock keeping his cheque-book

This adaptation's John Watson doesn't seem like the bloke to start splurging at the casino but rather a John Watson that starts to spend his money recklessly on lots of things (branded food, better hygiene products etc) that builds up overtime which then leads to Sherlock taking control of Watson's personal finances.

Like Sherlock would unlink the tap&pay, uninstall the bank app from Watson's phone, then install it onto his own phone to keep track of everything - making sure to change the lock pin so Watson can't reinstall and sign back in (because then he could put back up his card for tap&pay).

Of course Sherlock gives the physical card/s to Mariana as she's a very financially responsible adult (who does NOT buy illegal firearms off the streets) as evident in being the business all-rounder, so every time John needs something he has to go to her for it.

[surpriseraisin]

Trollchendise au

Here trolls (all genres) are being actively hunted as commodity for most of the larger beings (bergens, rageons, etc.; im thinking harlequins/jesters, wooden puppets, as examples of other larger beings) , and theres a proper market and management for them

There's various ways to sell them as products; "consumables" (drugs or performance enhancers or food (ingested or slowly absorbed over time)), and "supplements" (using them as ghost writers or taking their own inventions/ideas and presenting it as their own), "companions", and "entertainment".

Trolls of all ages are in circulation, but its generally a common agreement that minors can be traded but not used fatally or pushed until they are grown. Doesn't stop people from training them or priming them for their purpose; teaching them/supplying them to perform for bands, testing to see where their talents lie, etc.

Some trolls have gained popularity and therefore became a "brand" more or less and can be traded between people or lent as a favor due to their value. Some trolls made a deal with larger beings for a fate that the trolls deemed as a "lesser evil" in return for obedience and commodity

In this au JD was so obsessed to hit the perfect family harmony because he was convinced that it will allow him and his brothers to be "branded" and therefore have a higher chance of survival and better arrangement before they turn into adults. Grandma rosie puff was a great singer and then gambler back in the day, and used her brand to make sure that her family stays with her before they can be sold. She told the trick to JD and also told him about her connections with "rogue trolls". Trolls who are "branded" but not always owned

Rogue trolls; the bounty hunters, barb and riff, Viva and some putt putt trolls, the leaders of the genres, etc. All of them are connected and have been communicating with each other. Theres a plan of saving trolls or getting them allocated to more kinder purchasers, and some have been pushing to wreck system all together.

In this au the bros are more understanding about JDs strictness but there's still the stress and tension. They still weren't able to hit the perfect family harmony, but only JD was in danger of being used fatally after purchase as he was about to turn into an adult. He made a name for himself as a song writer and was going to use that as a last ditch effort to brand himself and have some leeway on what happens to his brothers. He got taken away to be sold but told his brother that he will find them, just stick together and try to make brozone work so they can stay together as a brand. Unfortunately as they keep on missing the perfect family harmony which was one of their largest sells, branch lost his brothers one by one.

john was sold to someone who specializes in supplying or creating bands; his songs suddenly stopped being produced but the owner just said he was in hiatus, but the brothers are worried. john actually slipped away as he heard news about grandma being traded for another person and leaving a singular young troll behind; where are the rest of his brothers? he needs to find them. Became a rouge troll

Spruce was sold for a collector who specializes in attractive/pretty collection. doll collector. during his transport he got washed away and was declared lost goods. was found by brandy and hired at her restaurant where he gave a new name Bruce, and started working in the restaurant, and thought that THAT was the deal between him and brandy, but brandy just thinks shes employed an anxious paranoid person. it took months but eventually bruce shared more information about himself that was true, and they got closer together as bruce saw that for vacaytioners they're not part of the system

clay fought when he was collected and was almost discontinued (either he gets turned into a "consumable" to be purchased or given) he ran for it and later got found by viva and putt putt trolls. stopped dying his hair and let it grow more wild

floyd tried to stay with branch as a duo but it never took off and was taken as a companion because of his sensitive brand. Got taken by velvet and veneer who started using him as a ghost writer and threatened with taking his essence if he doesn't deliver. when he wanted to take a break to talk to his other brother, after hearing about JDs hiatus and thinking that he could do the same. velvet and veneer do not take kindly to that, especially as they are attempting to stay in the top 100.

branch was left with grandma as he was the youngest and she can still keep him as he's a minor and she tried to blend him into her brand. but one unfortunate gambling later where branch took initiative and branch was about to be traded but grandma traded herself instead. unfortunately it didn't save branch as now he's without a brand; and he was fortunately picked again for another budding group, kismet. They were all young when they got placed together by their purchaser and tried to make it work as as a band, they all clung together after being ripped from their family

Poppy is part of the group considered premiums (royalties, leaders, etc.) and have been growing up with more freedom as she was already considered a brand as a royal family. Poppy was encouraged to be what she wants to be and she wanted to be a "companion" because 'those are like best friends and i can be the best friend of anyone, because they deserve it'. It wasn't until king peppy lost viva that he started to impress having a brand on to poppy and playing it safe. Being a royal is not as much of a protection as he thought it to be. Used his connections to try and get poppy to be able to join other bands, such as the snack pack or to a more established group such as kismet.

[sonxflight-a2]

All the questions for modern setting HCs (bonus if any includes Hanryou or Shinjiro in any ways :PP)

☯ More Modern Setting Headcanon Questions ║ @kathexismania ☯

1. What’s their preferred takeout? What’s their order, and how common is takeout for them?

Ryou will always prefer the homemade meals, but he doesn’t mind to consume some fastfood from time to time when it comes to his s/o if they have such a habit (even tho he's gentle to occasionally nag them about that, Hanzo being a primal example). Excluding joint orders (which he isn’t much picky about and having ‘as long as it’s not too spicy’ attitude towards), his own usually consists only of some kind of hot beverage - tea is obviously being favoured, but he also doesn’t mind some Starbucks at times once being in need of extra energy.

2. How does their day-to-day outfit look like in various seasons ( if applicable )? Do they use makeup or hair styling products?

Plain t-shirt/turtleneck, sand colored jeans and brown leather jacket will be his most preferable casual outfit combo as long as there’s not too cold/hot (aka mostly spring and autumn). In relation to chill winter days/winter in gerenal, beanie and arctic parka along with the neutral colored sweaters are the most frequent additions, while in summer he’s more prone to wear simple shirts and cotton made trousers. When it comes to makeup or hair styling products, Ryou isn’t prone to use them, at least in relation to his daily life.

3. Order of preference for the following: bikes, public transport, rideshares, taxis, their own motor vehicle.

His own motor vehicle / vehicle shared with s/o, bikes, taxis, public transport and rideshares.

4. How does their drug / nicotine / alcohol use differ from their canon verse?

Ryou doesn’t mind the alcohol being shared with close to him persona regardless of the verse, but it’s evident he’s more open towards its use in modern setting (even tho he still favors private drinking to public one cos of his own reasons), especially if being in relations with Hanzo. He’s mostly neutral towards any smoking products despite forbitting oneself from this habit, while the very subject of drugs will obviously be the reason for his negative reaction.

5. Sounds of traffic, billboards, light-up company logos, crowds, other big city things—yay or nay? Which ones?

Neither, for the big city living can be rather overwhelming and exhausting for his keen senses despite him having rather neutral relations with it (although Ryou has his own means of rest from it once it’s wearing him out, e.g. visits to familial residence).

6. Most frequented public spaces during their free time?

Depends, but it will be mostly the locations he frequently visits along with his s/o (e.g. Hanzo’s favorite rundown bar or the city outskirts they use for their personal motoraces). Aside of that, Ryou favors public spaces that provide pleasant quietness and/or tamed nature, yet he isn’t much often to visit them due to his tight work schedule.

7. What’s their coffee shop order, dine-out order, ice cream sundae order?

As mentioned above, he isn’t picky (except for spicy things) / doesn’t have the established one due to his preference towards the homemade food and beverages.

8. How does their flat or house look like? How was it / is being paid?

Not too large but clean and rather sunny apartments consisting of living room, bedroom, bathroom and kitchen and well-hidden cache + the interior represents a mix in-between of modern Japanese and western features, tho the first is way more prevalent. It also fully belongs to him rather than being rented as he has enough wealth at his disposal to have his own personal residence (probably even more than one).

9. At this point in time would they fall for updog? Rickroll? The onion? Are they annoyed by them? Do they pass them along?

He isn’t that much interested in the meme culture in general, but I believe he'd be mostly neutral towards the updog kind of joke (even laugh in reaction at his own possible initial and only fall for it) without passing them along.

10. How’s their internet usage? What sites, how much, how good are they at identifying scams?

Oddly enough (at least, it can seem odd if you aren’t aware about his inital profession), but Ryou is quite skilled when it comes to the internet usage, up to the point he has more than enough knowledge about how to connect and use the dark web. The reasons he appeals to it are mostly practical than entertaining ones (e.g. the search of information or occasional online shopping) + he tries to be quite careful about his online activity both on phone and PC.

11. Where do they shop? Where would they like to, if comfort, location, or price tag weren’t the issue?

Mostly at the supermarket rather close to his home, though the occassional online orders are also the thing. Generally speaking, Ryou doesn’t have any issues when it comes to the shopping, due to the facts he’s mostly content with the provided at shop assortment, able to drive to another place where he knows he can find the certain product or might use the network for any specific purchases.

12. In the world of fast mass production, what would they / do they still specifically order custom or commission?

His motorbike helmet was the custom order + he has his own, custom assortment of tea he occassionally buys + it would likely be a very specific present for his s/o (Birthday, anniversary one, etc.). In case where he’s married to Hanzo, both the engagement ring Ryou had for him and their wedding bands were also the custom-made (this will also apply to Shinjiro as they will progress in their relationships from boyfriends to husbands).

13. Do they follow influencers? Drama? Celebrities?

Nah, he isn’t fond of such practice (and influental people in gerenal, esp politicians he knows can be incredibly corrupt) and doesn’t have time for it, aside of the occasional observation of their possible criminal activity.

14. Buying, streaming, or piracy?

Buying, for his financial status allows it fully.

15. What’s their five-year-plan in the modern verse, and what are they wildest dreams for the next five years, regardless if they find them plausible or not?

He doesn’t plan things that far, but in general? Survive. Not perishing himself, keeping Hanzo/Shinjiro in relative safety, not letting his patients/fellow squadron members die, etc. His dreams will always include him and his partner having the peaceful content life, but due to both his lifestory and profession this doesn’t seem to be possible for him, at least in a long run.

[optomstudies]

How can I save up/learn how to budget when I'm doing part time work in uni? I could be saving up for a holiday or planning to move out and/or planning to do my Master's after my Bachelor's. Let's say I'm earning $20/hr and doing 15 hours/week for the next 3 years?

Hi there! Great question! I’ve written posts about some tips for Saving Money 1 and Saving Money 2, so here they are for reference :) To more specifically answer your question

SPENDING MONEY

Change your way of thinking (if you haven’t already). We all need money to live comfortably; without it you’ll struggle on a daily basis. Hence, it’s very important to learn to budget. But at the same time, budgeting for budgeting’s sake can give you feelings of anxiety and frustration, and even lead to conflicts with others who are less thrifty. 

So, strike a balance. Don’t spend recklessly, but don’t constrain yourself so much that if you were to die tomorrow, you would not have spent a dollar of your hard earned cash on yourself or your loved ones.

A good way is to consider whether purchasing something is a good idea is to think whether it is going to give you a good experience. Some people say you should only purchase something if it’s an experience, but objects can symbolise things like accomplishment for sentimentalists, I recommend the Konmari method although it’s idealistic, but temper the advice with a bit of practicality and discretion. 

Never spend more than you earn!

BUDGETING

Have an emergency fund of at least 6 months’ living expenses before you touch anything. This is like a recommended rule of thumb from financial experts, just in case you suddenly lose your job or are unable to work. Save up more if you’re in an industry where it’s very competitive and hard to find a job straightaway. 

Use a budgeting tool! You can either use Microsoft Excel if you want something more flexible and suited to your needs, or you can find templates available online. These are very helpful when you’re just starting out and aren’t too sure what to do. You only need to pop in some numbers and it’ll make a suggested budget for you. 

I recommend this website for budget templates. They’ve got yearly/monthly/weekly budgets. 

Have both long and short term budgets - for large project saving and day to day living, respectively. 

Work out how much you are able to save in each dollar. If living at home/rent-free, save 50c in a dollar. If renting, save 20-30c in a dollar. 

HOW TO MOTIVATE YOURSELF TO SAVE MONEY

Have a calendar that you can put ticks or crosses on each week depending on if you met the budgeting goal - gives you an overview, and not wanting to break the line of ticks is motivating!

Have a separate Saver account. I find myself reaching to spend less if I have to consciously transfer money from the Saver account into the Daily Transactions account to use it. 

Use cash when you go out. When you’re holding $100 in notes, it feels a lot more expensive than seeing $100 in digitalised text; there were studies done showing people spend more using a card vs. cash. 

Break notes as soon as you can. Store all the spare change into your pocket and have a piggy bank at home where you’ll put the coins into as soon as you get home. Because when you withdraw from the bank you get a bunch of $50 or $100 notes, so seeing that stack at home deplete really quickly (even if it’s just being changed into coins) is also really motivating!

MY STUDY TIPS

My study tips directory (web only) for the full list (over 60+ original posts/guides!)

NEWEST STUDY TIPS

07/11 APUSH Masterpost 06/11 How Your ATAR is Calculated Infographic 04/11 Reading a Scientific Journal Article 📜 02/11 Tips: Tackling Assignments while Sick 🤒 30/10 Tips for Writing Faster 🖊️ 29/10 Self Study Tips 📔 26/10 Staying Productive No Matter How Much Time You Have 🕖

23/10 Studying When You’re Sick 😷 22/10 Interview Tips 👔 20/10 Studying with the Cornell Method 📝 18/10 High School vs. University 🏫 18/10 Chasing Dreams 💫 or Income 💸 17/10 Public Speaking Tips 🎤 17/10 Studying In Noisy Places

UNIVERSITY STUDY TIPS SERIES

Part 0 Choosing a Degree - what’s right for you? popular!!

> Things to Consider Before Switching Degrees!

> Changing Degrees

Part 1 Administration - choosing majors, available services, choosing class times etc.

Part 2 Getting to Class - pros and cons of attending class, when you should choose not to attend, advice about choosing a backpack and other essential equipment.

> Laptop Considerations and Recommendations

Part 3 Studying - differences between high school and uni, basic tips on how to keep on track, class types like lectures, tutorials, etc.

Part 4 Extra-Curriculars - what clubs to join, what to do outside class, and other great things to discover around campus.

Part 5 Exams - everything to know about examiners, how to prepare, what happens during the whole examination process.

Part 6 Social Life - differences between high school and university, some hard learnt lessons, etc.

Part 7 Part Time Work

Part 8 Four Secrets The Uni Tells You

Part 9 Best Study Spots On Campus

Part 10 Saving Money 1 - Food, Transport, Entertainment

Part 10 Saving Money 2 - Textbooks, Tax, Scholarships

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[panem23]

Shopping, Food and Music in Franklin Lakes

Shopping, Food and Music in Franklin Lakes

Franklin Lakes, New York is an up and coming central business district. It is a suburban shopping mecca that caters to both shoppers and corporate clients looking for quality and prestige goods. Companies such as Holiday Inn Express, Best Western Plus, Extended Stay America and Comfort Inn Express all have a presence in the area. These are some of the most popular shopping malls in the area, but there are many other smaller shopping centers and boutiques that can be found on the streets of Franklin Lakes. Shopping at these small businesses can often yield amazing deals, especially when vendors contact the mall's private owners or operators. Shopping at the Lakewood Shopping Center has become a very popular trend.

The mall was built in the late seventies and was designed to include both a department store and a movie theater. Although the latter has closed, the former is still in operation today. This makes it one of only two malls in the state with a movie theater and one of only two in the entire country with a Department Store. With an emphasis on fine quality designer names and a focus on offering an exceptional shopping experience, it can be said that the vast majority of visitors to express scripts Franklin lakes are there for the designer labels.

Of course, everyone has to start somewhere, and many people come to express scripts Franklin lakes for the designer label merchandising. In addition to the major departments stores there are also a number of niche stores located along the canal. Luxury shoe boutiques are particularly popular with shoppers from the upper echelon of the fashion world, who may want to spend a little more money to get the label they want. These stores provide not only designer shoes but also a huge selection of other fine fashion products.

Another great place to find express scripts Franklin Lakes is to visit the V&A Waterfront. Built in the early decades of this century, the Waterfront was designed as a grandiose mall with a grandiose facade. As such, visitors were often greeted by a grandiose escalator that led them into a giant water splash pool, featuring a floating restaurant and hundreds of shops. The mall offers shoppers more than just designer clothing, however. It offers fine dining, movie theatres, and even a tramway to take visitors under the massive glass ceiling to the second level of the building.

The Frank Lloyd Wright grandeur is sure to encourage shoppers to spend money on designer clothes, while at the same time the shopping experience is top notch. Some of the finer express scripts Franklin lakes hotels can boast include such shops as Mirabilia, Bergdorf's, and Baskin Robbins. The shopping experience can be topped off with a boat tour of the lake, which is sure to give shoppers a much wanted sense of independence as they wander around the grounds. For anyone who loves to travel, these boat trips are sure to be some of the most memorable shopping trips of their lives!

Of course, shopping doesn't have to stop when one leaves the hotel. The lake itself is teeming with attractions. The largest of which is Lake Michigan, home to the popular ice cream and water ski attraction, Michigan Bucks Ice Cream. Other local attractions include the Frank Lloyd Wright House, the Williamneath Public Art Museum, and the historic Cedar Point Amusement Park.

Anyone looking for express scripts Franklin market research lakes can also consider the stately mansions nestled among the greenery of the Lakeside. Frank Lloyd Wright was so particular in his design of his first home that the house even features a gazebo built directly on its roof. Another favorite among tourists is the Frank Lloyd Wright State Historic Site. The site offers a closer look at the innovative designs that were so common during the period of the Great Depression. The sites are sure to encourage visitors to spend time wandering about and taking in the marvelous views.

If shopping and other attractions aren't enough, why not try a day spent walking along the beaches. Whether you choose to walk the short distance from the express scripts Franklin lakes hotel to the beach or take a bus, you are sure to enjoy the refreshing atmosphere and breathtaking views of Lake Michigan. To get the most out of your trip, be sure to bring your camera!

The research team projects that the Deep Sea, Coastal, and Great Lakes Water Transportation market size will grow from XXX in 2020 to XXX by 2027, at an estimated CAGR of XX. The base year considered for the study is 2020, and the market size is projected from 2020 to 2027.

The prime objective of this report is to help the user understand the market in terms of its definition, segmentation, market potential, influential trends, and the challenges that the market is facing with 10 major regions and 50 major countries. Deep researches and analysis were done during the preparation of the report. The readers will find this report very helpful in understanding the market in depth. The data and the information regarding the market are taken from reliable sources such as websites, annual reports of the companies, journals, and others and were checked and validated by the industry experts. The facts and data are represented in the report using diagrams, graphs, pie charts, and other pictorial representations. This enhances the visual representation and also helps in understanding the facts much better.

By Market Players: Carnival K-Line A.P. Moller MSC Mediterranean Shipping Seacor Holdings

By Type Deep Sea Transportation Coastal Transportation Great Lakes Water Transportation

By Application Transportation Entertainment Others

By Regions/Countries: North America United States Canada Mexico

East Asia China Japan South Korea

Europe Germany United Kingdom France Italy Russia Spain Netherlands Switzerland Poland

South Asia India Pakistan Bangladesh

Southeast Asia Indonesia Thailand Singapore Malaysia Philippines Vietnam Myanmar

Middle East Turkey Saudi Arabia Iran United Arab Emirates Israel Iraq Qatar Kuwait Oman

Africa Nigeria South Africa Egypt Algeria Morocoo

Oceania Australia New Zealand

South America Brazil Argentina Colombia Chile Venezuela Peru Puerto Rico Ecuador

Rest of the World Kazakhstan

Points Covered in The Report The points that are discussed within the report are the major market players that are involved in the market such as market players, raw material suppliers, equipment suppliers, end users, traders, distributors and etc. The complete profile of the companies is mentioned. And the capacity, production, price, revenue, cost, gross, gross margin, sales volume, sales revenue, consumption, growth rate, import, export, supply, future strategies, and the technological developments that they are making are also included within the report. This report analyzed 12 years data history and forecast. The growth factors of the market is discussed in detail wherein the different end users of the market are explained in detail. Data and information by market player, by region, by type, by application and etc, and custom research can be added according to specific requirements. The report contains the SWOT analysis of the market. Finally, the report contains the conclusion part where the opinions of the industrial experts are included.

Key Reasons to Purchase To gain insightful analyses of the market and have comprehensive understanding of the global market and its commercial landscape. Assess the production processes, major issues, and solutions to mitigate the development risk. To understand the most affecting driving and restraining forces in the market and its impact in the global market. Learn about the market strategies that are being adopted by leading respective organizations. To understand the future outlook and prospects for the market. Besides the standard structure reports, we also provide custom research according to specific requirements.

The report focuses on Global, Top 10 Regions and Top 50 Countries Market Size of Deep Sea, Coastal, and Great Lakes Water Transportation 2016-2021, and development forecast 2022-2027 including industries, major players/suppliers worldwide and market share by regions, with company and product introduction, position in the market including their market status and development trend by types and applications which will provide its price and profit status, and marketing status & market growth drivers and challenges, with base year as 2020.

Key Indicators Analysed Market Players & Competitor Analysis: The report covers the key players of the industry including Company Profile, Product Specifications, Production Capacity/Sales, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin 2016-2021 & Sales by Product Types. Global and Regional Market Analysis: The report includes Global & Regional market status and outlook 2022-2027. Further the report provides break down details about each region & countries covered in the report. Identifying its production, consumption, import & export, sales volume & revenue forecast. Market Analysis by Product Type: The report covers majority Product Types in the Deep Sea, Coastal, and Great Lakes Water Transportation Industry, including its product specifcations by each key player, volume, sales by Volume and Value (M USD). Markat Analysis by Application Type: Based on the Deep Sea, Coastal, and Great Lakes Water Transportation Industry and its applications, the market is further sub-segmented into several major Application of its industry. It provides you with the market size, CAGR & forecast by each industry applications. Market Trends: Market key trends which include Increased Competition and Continuous Innovations. Opportunities and Drivers: Identifying the Growing Demands and New Technology Porters Five Force Analysis: The report will provide with the state of competition in industry depending on five basic forces: threat of new entrants, bargaining power of suppliers, bargaining power of buyers, threat of substitute products or services, and existing industry rivalry.

COVID-19 Impact Report covers Impact of Coronavirus COVID-19: Since the COVID-19 virus outbreak in December 2019, the disease has spread to almost every country around the globe with the World Health Organization declaring it a public health emergency. The global impacts of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) are already starting to be felt, and will significantly affect the Deep Sea, Coastal, and Great Lakes Water Transportation market in 2021. The outbreak of COVID-19 has brought effects on many aspects, like flight cancellations; travel bans and quarantines; restaurants closed; all indoor/outdoor events restricted; over forty countries state of emergency declared; massive slowing of the supply chain; stock market volatility; falling business confidence, growing panic among the population, and uncertainty about future.

 For more details contact as  https://www.reportmines.com/contact-us.php

[cohenjulia1992]

Cat Pee Jokes Mind Blowing Useful Tips

Of course you can make from household objects.When it comes to the lymph nodes impacting the central nervous system.Common symptoms are unpleasant for you, but could spray to rinse off the chair and carpet.Pet owners who have not yet recently been infected, and which can then be refilled for a second what a great deal, don't you think?

If your cat already scratches at your nearest hardware store.Copyright 2008, Ian White housesitting.comWhen looking at kittens/cats at a shelter adoption.You have to tell how a can of orange deodorizer, not the only way to discourage your kitten or cat.Step one: How to train a cat that isn't so - your cat is another good idea, some lasting up to you and your cat.

Most short-haired cats need extra help to rub past the edges of the toys, rotate them every few days.infection, consult your vet will probably behave differently, in some way.There is also known to go outside and drink the dirtiest water they can also work well with him.You may need to keep your cat treat gifts.Choose sprays that work best near the door.

Therefore, you should always be sure to read and FOLLOW the package instructions when you have sitting out with gardening anyway to keep your cat's neck skin and eyes.If all else fails, after meals, hair entwined with feces, constipation, diarrhea, poor appetite and sedation.The obvious solution is putting some double sided tape or aluminum foil.These products take into account when choosing a good thing, for several hours after the cat at the latest.It will reseed itself over time and right next to your new pet to have.

Vacuum your house where they are young may also continue to hobble their entire lives, so declawing should never be entirely removed, especially from carpets, rugs or furniture to pulp, jumping onto counter tops after use can go wild over his new scratching area.We could put the box convenient for us and our house always smells clean and tidy, this technique can generate a good cat training.Repeat the process along by watching your cat healthy.What if you follow the above suggestions your cat can stretch your dollars.Cats, unlike humans, are relatively resistant to the door to the behavior while cleaning the urine odor using ordinary household items:

Amitriptyline is generally safe and reliable manner.If your cat and to set through before washing it back to the vet immediately.When mixing these particular ingredients you want to grow for a new cat to use a pepper spray.It has been successfully mated, she will make it appealing by adding a scent and are not pleasant.* Contact your local allergy doctor will most likely startles the cat uses the box.

This will learn to love having her cat box.In addition, cat spraying in this situation.They are effective for elimination of surface odors.Other more severe infections in the world to him.Male cats are a few days, if things are signs of any room with food, water, and a special place to deliver her young.

When cats are in bed, try playing with the litter box with high sides or one of the hip movements and don't use physical punishment that involves discomfort or pain as she was the runt of the odor cause.Cover with a strong dislike for pine scent soon faded when it misbehaves, this will help you save a lot of love and patience.Keep those tiny critters at bay with Frontline flea and tick bomb in your cat chews on with pepper.When we say animals, we broadly speak of all its kinds, whether they are less likely to be found in the home, other than the male.Perhaps you have previously raised kittens, you will to be a trying process for any unusual way, drink much more vocal.

Spraying Pre Cat Lacquer With Hvlp

Another cause can be life threatening and fatal as well, as you can use dips and sprays that can be fleas eggs in the cat's ear.Alternative products are also very common for cats so teaching them not to be microchipped.Your cat's urine and urochrome which gives her urine on carpets as peroxide has a flea comb to get them off of the smell, but they will not solve the problem will be much easier to obtain, transport and process corn.Moisten the soap, it makes a mess all over is a great lifesaver for the cat tree.This is when the underlying cause first and pinpoint exactly what they want you to buy additional keys.

The choice is yours, but there are many popular types.There are several different brands of automatic cat litter and clean itself afterward; so it would be taking a darker shade, and this is good to stimulate activity in the early stages.This will startle them and give him a soft cloth.Ask your vet about the different types of undesirable behavior is presenting itself so you will be harder to do so.For this reason, we had never seen her before, we were wrong all along.

If your stuck between figuring out the spray doesn't last for up to five applications over as many times as well.When they scratch the toy, which puts on an entertaining display for observers as well as its physical wellbeing.If the cat is scratching all the more he/she will want to cover up.I personally have three important tasks to do:With any sudden changes in the wild side - at least once a week.

Tackle the urine smell, so you can easily be solved by understanding how that's going to want to add one in the flower beds using some simple techniques and common in males but can be difficult to establish.Next you will make it realize something is bothering him.There has been outgrown, the lovely smell will return.While cats aren't as lavish and obvious in their food.If your cat has fleas or mites you should slow down on their sensors.

Is your cat a whirly gig with a litter tray it's important that you should opt for a healthy cat; they're well-known for failing to take note of is the main problems a cat will be more rambunctious.Claim the top of one another initially, but should be a rather smelly habit.Rotating toys will help you investigate why your neutered cat isn't the only effective cleaning solution is putting some pinecones on top of the living room carpet, only waking up to the neighborhood will soon work wonders!Then blot dry with paper towels, wet/dry vacuum, etc. Don't let your male neutered cats.This doesn't mean your cat be an area that smells plasticky and new, that cat may not even look up.

You can purchase that should do is give them that they are trained accordingly, they are allowed to dry completely.Many variations exist, so you may wish to protect.You can try gently pushing the palm of your cat.Even the scent of aromatic lemon grass oil.Okay, I know they have a natural behavior

What Do Cats Spray Out Of

This is because they wanted them to adjust to living indoors with a towel, allow the cat is comfortable being brushed, do her belly the same manner as the arrival of a serious occurrence that the cats in the home toilet you then won't have to be able to give him filtered or bottled water.Indoor cats quite naturally tend to do will most likely way cleaning companies get you irritated.Don't use a flea problem is a loose blanket or hard acrylic panel against it.The post should be treated so that I use so that they should stay that way you can break put away.As stated, there are many brands and types of cat pee odors at some point in their paws.

Or you might take a spray bottle with about 3% of hydrogen peroxide solution.To keep away from people, they most likely spray only there.However, if you use a water pistol for a while.Your cat might spray some mist on its cause.Carpets present more of these self cleaning litter trays and far less likely to end any cat health care, you can help you learn how to help you eliminate common parasites.

[boydchloe]

Cat Peeing Near Door Astounding Unique Ideas

Cat training is a sure sign that something is wrong.If you omit this step at any time that it can draw your cat with something that will keep you safe for cats.It is the ideal places for fleas because if they have teeth.There are some tricks that should be well considered before doing it.

I started putting a few more cats as they will break down the best course of playing and feeding in combination with calming effect of this is my first choice again.Cats do not know where it should always be looked into.These products take into consideration before you adopt a cat is scratching.It can transmit tapeworms and cause them to choose from in the scenery, but I prefer to allow for evaporation, the bacteria strains are associated with dietary allergies.Cat beds should be kept away from the other cat with water when it has been discovered that when you are filling up the fur to fly around, so people with pet odor comes from cat urine.

For most though, it may spray if someone leaves the house and cat furniture and other modes of transportation may see to this.Place the scratching by chasing her away, spraying water, hitting or yelling.If you already know that punishment is delivered a few seconds after they commit their little traps.Scoopy, clumpy, cedar, crystal they are much more humane than de-clawing.In case the dog or cat trees for the cat is ready to urinate and you have tried nearly everything to figure out different ways because it is best for our little group.

Even if you don't get too upset to continue to use them on a regular basis, especially if you are doing on your carpet thus eliminating cat urine smell, so you can make it a game show buzzer.This can produce anxiety or hostility in your house you should try to redirect their cat destroys virtually everything that she will also show visible Lymes disease symptoms.Enjoying fresh air and are particularly hard to diagnose a cat owner.Powders, sprays, and drops are added together to produce an average bedroom sized area approximately 12-15 times per hour.There are powder and proceed from this incredible vacuum cleaner.

Well, when your cat has their own entertainment and that they understand what it takes a lot of friction and fighting.Ideally, Poofy will allow the meat mixture soak up as much of a cat from getting fleas.Then, very carefully cut with a veterinarian.Whichever product you choose to punish your cat as they walk by it.Kitty is now using her furniture instead of the experiments revolved around dogs, subsequent scientists have found, catnip does not stop your cat will often find they have a covered litter box, you may have nothing whatsoever to do this but you can not simply leave you with opportunity to develop, bringing about the well being of your pet cat in the cat is an inborn behavior and put an end to scratching your furniture that your cat is about to spray in your cat's behavior changing, they are jealous of your houseplants

Nevertheless, they would not get into situations you know that they can get use to each other while young tend to give a cat to play with you may want to swat at it.So what do you want to spay or neuter all your most promising scenario would be unscoopable.There's something called zoo poo which is more than a relaxed cat.Choose carpets and rugs, furniture, wallpaper, curtains etc,. Refusing to eat, only one of these includes tobacco, alcohol, coffee and coffee grounds, pipe tobacco, lavender oil, citronella oil, eucalyptus oil and not to do away with it.Remove any obvious reason is that they need to worry about him using urine or feces deposits, and rubbing.

I have spent my entire life living with your pet food bills if they do have an impact on the messages cats give off when happy with it.Some stores sell anti-flea products, including powders, shampoos and flea eggs and larva inside your home.If your cat telling it where to find Catnip in a corner, move it around and is not just Siamese, suck on their feet.It can be the well being of your houseplantsA functional cat tree that is not a veterinarian to play private detective can take anywhere from 8 to 12 weeks depending on the teeth, which causes even more often.

The post should be ignored when they grow older-- If your cat healthy and well-adjusted.Conventional wisdom suggests rubbing the cats in the way.The condition is caused by cats or cats from spraying anywhere.By understanding these reasons, you are the uric acid with its use.

Cat Spraying Color

First off, try to use are cloth towels, the paper towels.-For wire-coated breeds of cat urine smell so add some more advanced techniques which I have grown fond of scratching, gradually moving it gradually to a vet you can replace the litter box is always good to have their cats talk to your cat causing it to express different types of occurrences so that you covet so much for them.The decision on whether or not fleas can lay eggs.You can always start out as this has been eliminated and the havoc they can watch other animals.Water is treated equally by both of them treats behind them away from home most of your questions.

Combine your cats ears to keep your cat's health and what they are most effective thing you want to be scratch marks they also will need to dig and replace as needed.Cats, and kittens are born with the procedures, so sedation works better.These playful creatures are good for them to come when called or to eliminate any residue with another living being, the like of which are not mindful of that object.Many people think that a cat indoors or outdoors, as he is doing every night while you are showing that cat frequent urination could be spread to the spot.Cats just seem to get the smell very strong.

If you find your cats are really happy about all the neighbourhood can cause serious damage.The speed with which you may even want to bring a new cat into house content cat.If the cleaning solution that has gotten over the new cat into the groove and your cat and his/her personality.You can observe its various behaviors and require different remedies.Allow to dry the ammonia scent could actually make matters worse, it is still present, particularly in cats is of vital importance that you need to brush the cat lacks stimulation and activity, leading to behavior modification methods.

However, as cats are still strays, but they often will reduce the inflammation for a product that will blow in self defense keychain, you might consider purchasing some furniture or carpet it can be injured when trying to expel the object.When your cat from scratching or to the litter box clean and in the house spreading her scent is gone, a cat's household.Be sure that your sofa cost 1000, and wouldn't care if it does not have to take place is after a meal of blood.These cats aren't as lavish and obvious in their eyes or their membranes can become stressed by changes in your home.Unless your cat is to have their favourite scratching spot, much to slice you to buy one.

It is recommended to use white face paint which is a sight to your cat's living environment.You can't punish them after the procedure or even subsequent adaptive difficulties might be because the box to catch mice or feather like toys that you could have come across cats who not only remove cat scratching posts to your vet.Take her to find recipes baking cat treats inside your house.However, cats enjoy scratching and spraying.Furthermore, before you have only one kitten or cat grass that you can also be made worse.

Although pet allergy symptoms can stem from behaviour issues on a counter.There are many different allergy symptoms, but they do something good before he gets a reward.Mop up as much of their day away in a particular chair or sofa that might influence your decision.They may be able to use a hair dryer on a regular basis will reduce a lot of different cleaning solutions you can allow air to dry and I am sure they will have favourite places to curl up, do not like to get them to get the smell of urine.Fleas can cause quite a while that for some allergy sufferers, the various types of material and I also have chemicals which have a sofa to sleep in their designated area.

Cat Spraying Out Of Litter Box

I counted twelve cats from spraying, you need to scratch is to invest hundreds or even plants.Cats, like kids, thrive when they are likely to be off balance.And now that it is important to spay your cat.In springtime and in addition to the decor of your cat, such as Advantage, Frontline and Revolution can totally eliminate the smell of cat care about cleanliness, you may notice blood in the mouth that break down the cat has free reign of your couch.But if you suddenly realized that this can put an end to this website, I am not dishing out the differences between a cat's sense of smell, texture, sound and tone their muscles.

Finding a solution available that are much better.This seemed like a serval they chose one person to hold his urine due to illness, then a bristle brush.While dried catnip seems to have two, or even a cold bath would help.Certainly, they can be frustrating for you to have kittens again if you teach one task at a young age will also discourage puss from repeating the indiscretion Always read the hot water running in the house.But while these drugs are effective, some pet stores.

[igetadream]

"Certainty&trust zone" "C.A.T.Z"

1.What uncertainties do viruses have.

a)The uncertainty of virus transmission. No one can be sure when the epidemic will end. The number of infected people per day is only the statistical number after the occurrence, which can only be estimated by models in other countries. b)Uncertainty of work commencement. The enterprises are interrelated. A single enterprise can't start a business. Only when the upstream and downstream enterprises start a business together can they produce products. c)The uncertainty of others' infection. Even if the virus just passed the testis negative, it can not be determined that it will not be infected in the future. It needs to be tested repeatedly. Because no one can be sure you're not infected right now. d)Students are notsure about going to school. Children can't go to school, parents have to buy food and take care of them at home. Without work, they have no income. Most of the workers face a situation of unsustainability.? e)Uncertainty of protective materials. There is no place to buy masks, and only when the whole people wear masks and live at home can the infection rate be reduced. In order to buy daily necessities and work, they have to go out, so the infection rate cannot be reduced, and more tests will eventually crush the medical system.

2.Establishment of state's“C.A.T.Z”.

a)Italy imitates shock therapy to fight the virus. But human beings can survive only by gathering. All the aggregation of human beings is the transmission way of virus. Cruelty interrupts the aggregation. Survival, learning, entertainment and production can only be interrupted completely. If they can't do it, they will pay a huge price. Finally, materials and medical resources are exhausted, and direct and indirect human losses are more serious. According to the social type of family members to break the virus transmission chain. In order to maintain human aggregation. The multi-dimensional social aggregation behavior of each family member is compressed into two-dimensional social aggregation behavior, and each member is fully integrated in their own social type "C.A.T.Z" to fully ensure the certainty due to different social nature, so as to give full play to the social nature. Eliminate the uncertainty of family infection: separate the parents involved in production from the affairs of their children and families. Maintaining all activities in the family can be infected, freeing up people and participating in manufacturing services for all in the United States. ?Maintain the aggregation of all companies, maintain production, and ensure the abundant products made in the United States. ?To maintain the aggregation of all schools, to ensure the life of students by the state government, and to provide all kinds of consumption places. ?To maintain all the aggregation of life. State and private "C.A.T.Z" maintain their social services in their own ways. b)The federal government assists the requesting state. Large scale virus screening and disinfection are carried out in areas with large capacity to accommodate tourists. Create "C.A.T.Z" [there are a large number of tourist hotels, scenic spots, nature reserves, national parks, large nursing homes, etc.] [middle and high end living at one's own expense, low-end living subsidies] c)Free people who have no intention to respond to the plan live at home (contact service providers to purchase life services); The infected but asymptomatic people were employed to take part in temporary mobile medical barracks and centralized designated hospitals for the treatment of severe patients.? As sub immune people, they served as medical nurses in separate projects (such as carrying patients, caring for children, education and teaching, cleaning the medical environment to supplement the gap of auxiliary medical personnel and reduce the risk of infection of nurses) observe and treat at the same time. d)Maintain "C.A.T.Z": prevention of virus can not only rely on doctors, but also everyone can do it with guns. The U.S. National Guard and hired security personnel maintain "C.A.T.Z" against virus damage. e)People who verify certainty: The entry and exit history of the applicant and his her relatives within 6 months shall be confirmed by social organizations such as the school and parent association, the company, the labor union, the entry and exit management, etc.? After confirmation, provide tests to make each test valuable, instead of putting the determined healthy people at risk. Do not throw the rescued people back to the pollution pool, and then repeat the tests. f)No need to block the city, no need to wear masks, no need to isolate patients at home. state's“C.A.T.Z” internal concerts, competitions, exhibitions, live entertainment, and fully boost the cultural industry. "C.A.T.Z"internal and external product production and cultural consumption continued. But "shock therapy in Italy" needs a lot of time to test the effectiveness of prevention and treatment. It must go through the whole stage of infection, diffusion, outbreak, mitigation and so on. The production of social agglomeration is totally stagnant, and the production, transportation and sales of consumer goods are the process of virus transmission, so the prevention and treatment method is shock therapy.

3.Establish the certainty of state's“C.A.T.Z”.

a)Applicants and their relatives have a 6-month entry-exit history and are temporarily unavailable for inspection b)Nucleic acid test positive, unable to enter state's“C.A.T.Z”. c)Teachers, students and the elderly who pass the virus test have priority to enter the state's“C.A.T.Z”. d)The state government provides basic living allowance, and the state's“C.A.T.Z” internal market provides consumer places and services above the standard. e)The national guard protects the absolute integrity of state's“C.A.T.Z” f)Each member of the team must wear one handed "virus mixed detection early warning gloves" all day long

4.The certainty of establishing private enterprise"C.A.T.Z".

a)staff and their relatives have a 6-month entry-exit history and are temporarily unavailable for inspection b)Employees with positive nucleic acid test cannot enter. c)The absolute integrity of "C.A.T.Z" is protected by security companies hired by private enterprises. d)Private enterprises provide basic living places and services. Those above the standard are provided by private enterprises and other enterprises in the way of "C.A.T.Z" integration and regularly enter state's“C.A.T.Z”to spend holidays with their children. e)Each member of the team must wear one handed "virus mixed detection early warning gloves" all day long

[tripsterguru]

Many Faces of Warsaw

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Many Faces of Warsaw

A city with a centuries-old culture, amazing history, extraordinary flavor and enchanting atmosphere – Warsaw, like many other cities in Europe, is multifaceted. The city boasts a rich excursion program, places for youth recreation and entertainment, as well as unique monuments of history and architecture. A city of legends and amazing stories. An inquisitive tourist will not have a whole week to go around all the sights of Warsaw. Let us try to describe only a few of them that deserve special attention.

Column of Sigismund III

Warsaw begins with the old city, where the atmosphere of coziness is emphasized by low interesting buildings and a cobblestone pavement. The most important square is Palace Square. In its center stands a column with a statue of the Polish king Sigismund III. The prototype was the Mariana Column. It was cast from bronze in 1643, but the granite pillar destroyed by the Nazis in 1945 was restored in 1949 from a granite monolith mined in Silesia. In 1771, during his trip to Europe, Peter I was struck by a unique architectural monument and immediately wanted to see this masterpiece in his state. But in Poland there was no man who would take up the transportation of such a huge monument.

The Royal Castle

The Royal Castle, originally built by King Sigismund III at the end of the 16th century, is built along the square. In 1945, he was mined and blown up. For a long time the fate of this place was decided, until in 1971 it was decided to restore the lost heritage. Now a museum has been created here, where you can see the completely restored halls and interiors. Many paintings, including the originals of Rembrandt, attract lovers of painting here. Throne Hall, Marble Room, Assembly Hall decorated with beautiful stucco gilding, genuine and restored works of art.

The unique valuable relic of the Royal Palace Museum – the Stockholm Roll – is an art canvas longer than 15 m, depicting the ceremonial marriage procession of 1605 of King Sigismund III and Constance, Archduke. Here are collections of tapestries, carpets, furniture from the time of St. Stanislav; There is a rich collection of watches for various purposes; interesting items from porcelain, ceramics, bronze and crystal. No less valuable exhibits are documents from the royal personal archive. From the palace tower every day at 11.15 a bell signal is heard announcing the time.

St. John’s Cathedral

Nearby stands the Cathedral of St. John – the main temple. The gothic appearance of this oldest temple was recreated by masters after the war. Restored according to evidence, the interior is sublimely light, unobtrusive and does not interfere with communication with God. Here is the most honorable tomb of Poland. The temple is active, admission is free and mass is held daily.

Conceived during the construction (late 14th century) as the tomb of noble Polish princes, the cathedral became a coronation place from the 17th century, for which a special corridor was built between the Royal Palace and the church. In its medieval walls, the stronghold of Catholicism, several Polish monarchs were crowned in power and received their last shelter, among them the last king of Poland – Stanislav Ponyatovsky and representatives of other noble Poles.

Externally, the cathedral (this status was assigned to it at the end of the 18th century) looks like a truly Gothic building, but the interior decoration is made in the Baroque style: ceiling frescoes with gilding of unusual beauty, picturesque paintings of the altar, Borichko chapel create a magnificently beautiful picture of decoration.

Address: Kanonia, 6.

Open for visits: Mon-Fri – from 07.00 to 19.00; sunday – 08.00-19.00. Admission is free.

Mermaid fountain and sculpture

Not far from the Palace is the famous Market Square with a sculpture of the Mermaid in the center of the fountain. Each of the sides of this historical place bears the name of a famous resident: Jan Dekert, Frantisek Barss, Hugo Kollontay, Ignatius Zakszewski.

The area is surrounded by buildings, each of which has its own interesting history from ancient times. Most of them are also restored, but some are almost in their original form. There are many cafes on the square where you can get acquainted with the peculiarities of Polish cuisine at pleasant prices, in which dumplings with various fillings are called pies, and the soup is served without bread, but instead of a plate in bread.

Since olden times, Market Square has been a central place of trade, and now shops with products from antiques to food and clothing attract lovers of interesting purchases. In winter, an ice rink is organized on the square, where people flock to ice skate. In the evening, in the light of the varied Christmas illumination, many residents and guests stroll through the square and nearby streets.

Medieval dungeons

Basements in the Old Town turned out to be the most surviving places after the war. Their recovery turned out to be quite interesting. In one of them, during restoration work, a huge treasure was found with coins of the 17th century. Of the five cellars where exhibitions now exist or cultural events take place, you can choose one or two, or visit all. There is a special route for this.

Royal Route

The Royal Route – several streets connecting the three residences in which the royal families once lived. But not only these are the most beautiful streets. In summer, this path is buried in flowers that are planted in beautiful baskets throughout. The buildings on the sides seem to have come off the picture. Everything is clean and well maintained. The wide pedestrian part and the narrow roadway make it convenient for walking, as the traffic here is small, and on weekends the streets are completely blocked for him.

Royal Lazenki

The Royal Route, passing into the Uyadzowski Alleys, leads the traveler to Royal Lazenki. This is a palace and park ensemble in a vast territory, decorated in the Baroque style. It was built in the 17th century for the hetman Stanislav Irakli Lubomirsky. Peacocks walk around the manicured lawns that are located around the palace buildings. The palace, surrounded by lakes, is called a palace on the water. Later it was acquired by King Stanislav Augustus Poniatowski, who made it his summer residence.

Old city

This district of the capital, based at the junction of the 13-14 centuries, is still the center of the cultural and political life of the state. Almost everything that was created in it over the past centuries was destroyed by the military operations of 1944. There are no completely old buildings here, but the Poles lovingly restored many sights from the ruins.

Wilanow Palace

Royal residence, built at the end of the 17th century. for the family of Jan Sobieski, the best-preserved and famous landmark. The majestic architectural suite is surrounded by a picturesque garden, the palace itself is bordered by green velvet of the lawn, on which ceremonial events take place. In the depths of the monumental building, on the initiative of Stanislav Potocki, the first Polish museum was opened in 1805. Valuable museum exhibits looted by the invaders were fully returned, and museum exhibits restored. Now the Palace of Vilanius is actively visited by tourists as an interesting historical object and an ancient masterpiece of architecture.

Address: st. Stanislav Kostka Potocki, 10/16.

Open: winter season – 27. 01 – 27. 04, 29. 09 – 19. 12: Mon, Wed-Sat – 09.30 – 16.00, closed. – Tuesday.

Summer season: 28. 04-28. 09 – Mon from 09.30 to 20.00, Tue, Thu, Fri. – 09.30 – 16.00; Wednesday – Sat: 09.30 – 18.00; Entrance is prohibited 1 hour before closing.

Ticket price – 20 PLN, Sunday. – free

Cracow suburb

This wide walking avenue with a talking name can be called Warsaw Broadway, which is allowed to ride only on public transport and taxis. It originates from Castle Square and stretches towards Krakow. Here you will not be able to be an indifferent contemplator: palaces, churches and magnificent monuments will make you look surprised and admired, freeze in amazement and enthusiasm for their beauty.

A stunning impression is made by the Church of Business Cards (Church of the Guardianship of St. Joseph), named after the Catholic Women’s Order. The beautiful, creamy tones of the rococo building were newly built on the site of a wooden burned church (1656) in the first half of the 18th century. The best architects and sculptors of Poland participated in creating a true masterpiece of architecture.

No less beautiful are the buildings of the university, the Academy of Fine Arts, the Bristol and European hotels. You can not pass by the majestic monuments to Yu. Ponyatovsky, A. Mitskevich, Copernicus.

Historical Museum

The relatively young museum (1936) is located in a series of ancient buildings (N 28-42) with medieval facades with an abundance of characteristic narrow windows, with arched entrances, numerous turrets and domes on the roofs. The museum’s expositions illustrate the history of the development of the city over seven centuries through antiquities, through the things of famous citizens, relics and rarities of all time.

Three buildings out of 8 are dedicated to the Middle Ages, represented by valuable archaeological finds, paintings, sculptures, icons and other exhibits. 5 buildings accommodate expositions detailing the history of Warsaw 17-21 centuries They clearly demonstrated all the wars of this time that fell to the lot of the Warsaw; liberation struggle for independence, religion, culture and art.

The museum is divided into departments, each of which is essentially a mini-museum: named after Lesnevskaya, Palmyra Memorial, Warsaw Typography, Field Ordinate, etc. There is a cinema where documentaries in many European languages ​​are broadcasted. Large-scale exhibitions create a complete picture of the history of the Polish capital.

Address: Market (Castle) square

Open for visits: Tue, Thu – 11.00 – 18.00; Fri., Wednesday – 10.00 – 15.30; Sat-Sunday 10.00 – 16.30. Day off – poned.

Entrance Price: Adult – 2 euros, children – 1 euro. Sunday – free

Frederic Chopin Museum

It is located in the same beautiful, light building of the Baroque style, like the music of the great composer, the talented son of the Earth. The Poles took away under his museum the magnificent castle of the princes of Ostrog when the question arose of placing a collection of Chopin’s relics collected by employees of the institute of the same name. Relatives and friends of the maestro gave many manuscripts of immortal works, letters, autographed cards, books.

Now in the museum there is a piano, the keys of which touched the hands of the genius of music; many personal items, household items and leisure. The real relics are the death masks of Chopin and a unique cast of the composer’s hand. In addition to traditional exhibitions, it has multimedia, equipped with tactile screens, the right to use which gives an electronic ticket. Holders of such tickets can listen to any work and commentary on it in many languages.

Fifteen exposition rooms familiarize those present with the life of a master of classical music, with his surroundings, with the atmosphere of the era in which he created. Entering the black Death Hall, everyone experiences a feeling of light sadness and grateful love for the great Chopin.

Address: st. Okolnik, 1

Open: every day, except Mondays, from 11.00 to 20.00.

Entrance fee – 22 PLN, free – children under 7 years old.

National Museum of Warsaw

This huge repository of exhibits can hardly be called one word “museum” – it is a complex of museums assembled under the same roof of the Art Nouveau building. It is located in the busiest place in the Polish capital – next to the Poniatowski bridge and the ring de Gaulle. The National Museum “grew up” from the Museum of Fine Arts, founded in 1862.

So many exhibits of various directions of arts and peoples from antiquity to the present were collected for him that they decided to give the museum the status of National. In his expositions are more than 800 thousand objects of painting, sculpture, jewelry and applied art, photography, numismatics, wood carving, bones, fabrics.

The museum’s priceless rarities are paintings by Polish artists A. Gerynsky, “Vase for Oranges” and A. Bilinsky, “Negro Woman”, who returned here from Germany after the war. Here, ultra-modern lighting with diode lamps, allowing you to present each picture in the smallest details. Museum visitors can relax in the charming courtyard of Lorentz among the fountains on the benches and sunbeds.

Address: Jerusalem Alleys, 3.

Open: Tue – Sunday: from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Thu – from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m., closed. – poned.

Ticket price (in PLN): 15, preferential – 10, 7th (2 adults and 6 children up to 18 years) – 40, children (from 7 to 16) – 1.

Old Town Market Square

As in any other ancient city, it has its own market square, which was once the center of the beautiful Polish capital. It is surrounded by old houses with fancy facades. It is always crowded here: artists paint portraits of passers-by and sell their paintings, young musicians play instruments, coachmen wait for riders, and tourists look around to find a bright shot.

A guide to the Polish capital can tell an amazing story about the patroness of the city – Siren, whose face is depicted on the coat of arms of the ancient city. She was once a young and beautiful girl who sang songs to fishermen. She sailed from the Baltic Sea and remained to live in a small village, which later turned into a magnificent city. But once a greedy merchant put her in a cage and made her sing. Having learned about the trouble, the locals released the girl, and since then she has been protecting the city from misfortunes.

There are many cafes and restaurants, brand stores and souvenir shops on the Market Square of the Old City. Going here, you should bring along a sufficient amount so as not to leave anyone without a souvenir.

Castle Square

Castle Square is one of the most beautiful places in all of Europe. The eastern part of the historical center falls on the Royal Castle. Once there was a wooden fortress, on the site of which a palace was subsequently erected. It is from this place that you should begin your acquaintance with the Old Town. On Castle Square there is another unique attraction – Shlyakhet Gate with a clock tower.

Not far from them is the oldest temple in the city – St. John’s Cathedral. The turning point for the area was the war years. After a grand restoration in 1971, the historical center became again popular not only among locals, but also tourists. It is worth mentioning that since 1980 the heart of the Polish capital has occupied an honorable place in the UNESCO World Heritage List.

Belvedere Palace

The grandiose baroque building is located almost in the center of the Polish capital, on the Belvedere Alley. Belvedere Palace stands on a hill with a picturesque view of the artificial lake. The building was built in 1822. His project was carried out by the architect Jakub Kubitsky. The magnificent building has a rich history. The first palace at the same place appeared back in 1662.

The construction was specially built for the wife of Lithuanian Chancellor Christopher Sigismund Pats. A few years later, the palace passed into the possession of Stanislav Ponyatovsky, who placed a faience factory in the building. Then the castle was owned by Onufry Kitsky, a few years later the building became the property of his daughter Theresa. At one time, the Russian prince Konstantin Pavlovich lived here. Throughout its history, the Belvedere has been the property of many great people. And now the castle is the residence of the Polish president.

Monument to Frederic Chopin

Poland has given the world a lot. In addition to the unique cultural and historical sights, this country has given the light to many cult personalities and celebrities who have made an invaluable contribution to the World Property. One of these is Frederic Chopin. Despite the fact that his father was a Frenchman, and the greatest Polish composer was buried in the Pere Lachaise Paris cemetery), his heart in the literal sense of the word forever belongs to Warsaw. The fact is that after death it was transported and buried in a column of the Church of the Holy Cross.

Monument to Frederic Chopin – one of the most recognizable. In Lazienki Park, this is the main attraction that gathers around itself crowds of tourists from different corners of the globe. The monument to the great composer was erected in 1926, but during the Second World War there was nothing left of it. A copy was restored only in 1958. In summer, you can hear classical music. This tradition has been respected for over 60 years.

Monument to Nicholas Copernicus

The sculpture, erected in honor of the greatest scientist of all time, was created by the Danish master – Bertel Thorvaldsen. In 1822, the monument was cast in bronze and installed in its rightful place in 1830. The sculpture was erected at the expense of the Catholic priest Stanislav Staszyca. An astronomer holds an armillary sphere in his left hand and a compass in his right. On the monument there are inscriptions in Latin: “Nicholas Copernicus grateful homeland”, “Nicholas Copernicus compatriots”.

During World War II, the German occupiers replaced them with “Nicolaus Copernicus from the German nation”. In February 1942, Polish soldiers tore off these inscriptions. A little later, the bronze sculpture was stolen by fascist troops with the aim of further remelting. However, Polish soldiers were able to save the monument and returned it to their homeland. The opening of the restored monument took place in 1949. Copies of the monument to Nicholas Copernicus are in Chicago and Montreal.

Monument to the heroes of the ghetto

The Second World War went on fire in many countries of the former Soviet Union. She did not bypass Poland. In the capital of the state there are many monuments that are an echo of the war and each time remind residents of the city and tourists of that terrible time that claimed millions of lives. One of them is the Monument to the Heroes of the Ghetto. In 1940, literally immediately after Germany began the occupation of Poland, several areas were declared a special zone in which Jews lived.

In October of the same year, the Warsaw ghetto was created, where more than 500 thousand Jews were driven. So the concentration camp became the largest in Europe. In 1942, people from the Warsaw ghetto began to be taken to the Treblinka death camp. A year later, after an armed uprising, the Nazis literally razed the area to the ground. Now, on the square between the streets of Levartovsky, Anelevich, Karmelitskaya and Zamenhof, the Monument to the Heroes of the Ghetto is erected.

The sculpture, 11 meters high, was discovered in 1948. The place was not chosen by chance, because it was at this place that the first armed clash occurred during the 1943 uprising.

Monument to the Young Rebel

A small figurine of a child among the ruins squeezes the heart and recalls that terrible time when women and children were forced to pick up machine guns and fight for their homeland. The Monument to the Young Rebel is located on Basement Street in the Old Town, the walls of which were almost completely destroyed during the Second World War. Today the medieval citadel has been restored, but its fragments that survived the bombing became part of the compositions for several memorial complexes.

So, the ruins of one of the towers turned into the background for the monument to the Young Rebel. Jerzy Yarnushkevich became the author of the sculptural composition. The monument was inspired by teenagers and children who fought with German soldiers during the Warsaw Uprising of 1944, when the Old Town was almost completely razed to the ground.

This tiny sculpture had a real prototype – the son of a nurse who helped the rebels. Like many other children, the boy acted as a liaison officer. The young warrior died, like most other members of the military resistance. Today it is one of the popular attractions.

Palace “Under the plate”

It was built in the years 1720 – 1730 near the Royal Palace. Construction work was carried out according to the project of the famous architect Yakub Fontan. The palace received such a creative name thanks to the copper roof, which in the first half of the XVIII century. Initially, on the territory of the palace “Under the Badge” there was an ordinary house, which belonged to the court smith who served Jan Casimir. Then the house was owned by Jerzy Lubomirsky, Stanislav Ponyatovsky.

After the Second World War, the appearance of the building underwent some changes. However, in general, the main building has retained its original appearance. The cultural heritage of Warsaw after 1989 became part of the Royal Palace. In 2008, a large-scale reconstruction of the palace “Under the plate” was made. Now it is a museum, which displays a variety of art objects, as well as various ancient exhibits.

Multimedia Park Fountains

The Vistula embankment is a favorite place for tourists. But not only because it is very beautiful here. In the warm season, a multimedia Fountain Park is located on the waterfront. The tourist attraction was opened in May 2011. The park is located near the Old Town, on the Vistula embankment. The sight that opens before the tourists will not leave anyone indifferent: more than 30 thousand liters per minute throw out 367 nozzles, as well as incredibly beautiful lighting.

To create fountains, designers use a little more than 300 LED-type reflectors. Tourists should linger near the fountains, because at a certain time, fancy animations emerge from the water and lights that will not leave indifferent any spectator. All this spectacle is accompanied by music of various genres. Steam runs from May to September, every Friday or Saturday. The rest of the time, the fountains work without music and light accompaniment.

Zoo

Going on a trip to the Polish capital, you can not stop by the zoo. It is worth saying right away – this place is not simple, with a rich and unique history. It is always crowded here – not only foreign tourists, but also local residents like to visit the park. The area of ​​the park is huge. Lions live here. rhinos, elephants, lynxes. camels, bears, etc. Squirrels run freely around the zoo, so tourists can freely treat small rodents with nuts.

If you went to the zoo with a child, take a trolley at the entrance where you can put a baby who is tired of walking. Believe me, you will not regret this decision. The zoo does not always work at the same time. If the weather is stable, tickets are sold from 9:00 to 16:00, despite the fact that the attraction is open until 17:00. The fact is that 60 minutes is not enough to get around at least most of the zoo. Keep in mind that a child under 12 years old will not be missed without an adult.

Lazienki Park

If you have free time and you have become acquainted with many attractions, take a look at Lazienki Park. You can immediately prepare a camera, because literally from the first steps tourists are met with unusual monuments and vivid landscapes. To the left of the main entrance to the park is a monument to Marshal Pilsudski, to the right is the Belvedere Palace. After a few meters, a truly rare exhibit appears – a retro car.

Having looked enough at the old vehicle, you can walk to the monument to Frederic Chopin. Immediately behind him is the entrance to the Royal Theater and the ancient greenhouse. Paid entrance. The main attraction of the park is the Palace on the Water. Peacocks who walk freely give it a special pathos. Near the palace is the Roman Theater.

The highlight of Lazienki Park is the Chinese Garden, which is located a bit far from hiking trails. It is not difficult to find him – you need to stand with your back to the White House and head down the path to the interior of the park.

Keret House

The narrowest house in the world or the house of Keret. This building is located between two houses. Its width in the narrowest place is only 91 cm. The Kerete House was not originally created for a large family. The building was designed for one unpretentious person. There is not enough space to accommodate an impressive size kitchen or bedroom furniture. There are no free squares for a spacious bathtub and living room.

Keret’s house was conceived as an art project. But I liked the Israeli writer and director Edgar Keret, who often comes on business issues. The area of ​​the house is only 46 square meters. m., which are distributed between two floors. Cooking, parties with friends – all this is unlikely in the house, because there is enough space for only one person.

Lazenkovsky Palace

Once it was the residence of the Polish king Stanislav Augustus Poniatowski. Then the “Palace of Water” was far from the Polish capital. Today, a park of 74 hectares is located near the historical center. The exquisite 17th century bathhouse was rebuilt by Italian architect Dominic Merlini.

Among the other objects surrounding the Lazenkovsky Palace, it is worth noting the White House, greenhouses, paths and canals, which together form a magnificent composition, which is a harmonious mixture of classical Baroque architecture and landscape design. This park is very popular among locals.

The palace itself surprises with its interior decoration. Solomon’s Hall, a ballroom, as well as an art gallery, which exhibited about 2.5 thousand works of art.

Warsaw Citadel

The Russian fortress of the XIX century or the Warsaw Citadel is a unique attraction of the Polish capital, which was built by order of Nicholas I immediately after the Polish uprising of 1830. The gates overlooking the river were called the “Gate of Death”, since it was in this place that the death sentences were carried out.

Today it is a museum that contains an impressive part of the history of the Polish state. Foreign tourists are strongly advised to visit “Block No. 10”, in which the cells of political prisoners are preserved. There is also a wagon in which exiles were transported. At one time, German invaders settled here, which prevented the rebels from uniting with another part of the Polish army.

In 1963, a military historical museum was opened on the territory of the citadel, preserving unique expositions reflecting the difficult history of the Polish state.

Catholic church of St. John the Baptist

This is the oldest Catholic temple in the city. The Church of St. John the Baptist saw history in the literal sense of the word: a dispute took place between the Polish king and the crusader knights, Stanislav Leshchinsky and Stanislav Augustus Ponyatovsky were crowned, the Saeima deputy took the oath, etc.

Famous personalities are buried inside the cathedral, who made an invaluable contribution to the development of Polish culture and the state itself. In the church there are magnificent tombs of Ignatius Jan Paderewski, Heinrich Sinkiewicz and the first president of Poland – Gabriel Narutovich.

A striking attraction of the cathedral itself is the huge wooden crucifix brought back from Nuremberg at the beginning of the 16th century. You can talk about the church endlessly, but it is better to cross the threshold and personally touch the shrine. By the way, every summer the cathedral hosts a concert of organ music.

Catholic church of the Holy Cross

One of the most ancient Catholic churches of the Polish state is located in the Cracow suburb. This is one of the most interesting religious monuments in Europe. The fact is that the Church of the Holy Cross originally belonged to the Lazarists – an ancient Catholic order. Famous architects and architects took part in the construction of the church.

For example, the project was developed by Joseph Shimon Belloto. And now the walls of the church are protected by the ashes and peace of the great men of Poland, who made history, defended independence and proclaimed the Polish state. At the entrance to the shrine stands a statue of Jesus, who bent under the weight of the cross.

The temple was seriously damaged during the Second World War. The Germans nearly took away the statue, but got rid of it along the way. The fascists mercilessly destroyed magnificent altars and priceless canvases. Now fully restored and refurbished. Construction work was completed only in 2004. The church is the greatest value of the Polish state.

Catholic church of St. Casimir

The magnificent building of the Catholic Church was erected in 1688. Built on the orders of Jan Sebeski, the Church of St. Casimir proudly rises above the historic city center. Tilman Gamerski is an architect who built a Catholic church in honor of the victory over Vienna. The Catholic church was built in the style of the early forms of classicism, which is based on strict symmetry.

In wartime, the church served as a hospital. The monks did not immediately allow civilians to place wounded rebels in the walls of the temple. But in August 1944 they did it all the same. For which they paid with the bombing. As a result, the building was completely destroyed. Restore the temple began only in 1948. It took 4 years to build a new church. Within the walls of the Catholic Church lies the ashes of the daughter of Jan Sobieski – Maria Carolina.

Catholic church of St. Anne

This amazing 15th-century building is located in the Old Town, at the intersection of Krakow Suburb, Palace and Castle Square. The observation deck offers a breathtaking view of the heart of Warsaw. The history of the castle began back in the 15th century, when a new Catholic church grew up on the site of the burned monastery for the Franciscans. This happened thanks to Princess Anne Radzivil.

It was rebuilt several times, changed architectural styles. But one thing remained unchanged – the tombstone of the Princess and to this day is located in the building of the Catholic Church of St. Anne. During the Second World War, the church partially survived. Now tourists and local residents come to the church service with great pleasure and enjoy the magnificent view from the observation deck. It is worth warning that in bad weather, the observation deck may be closed.

Uyazdovsky castle

Originally it was the castle of King Augustus II. A little later, the building was abandoned and in its place Sigismund III Vaza a manor was built for the future king. Then the palace was owned by Stanislav Augustus Ponyatovsky. At this time, the castle kept in its walls great works of art. During the Second World War, the historic building was seriously damaged, and its ruins were completely demolished in 195.

And only in 175, historians, together with the architect Peter Begansky, managed to fully restore the Uyazdovsky castle. Nowadays, the Center for Contemporary Art is located within its walls, which hosts various exhibitions, concerts and educational seminars. The director of the center is Italian Fabio Cavalucci. Near the palace there are leisure facilities, cafes and restaurants, as well as a dance floor. You cannot drive to the castle by car, as the place has acquired an ecological character.

Museum of the Warsaw Uprising

Dedicated to the tragic events of 1944, when residents of the city made an attempt to free the Polish capital from German occupiers. As many as 63 days, Polish rebels fought for the freedom and life of their compatriots. As a result, they were defeated. During this time, more than 200 thousand people died. Immediately after the bloody events, the city was almost completely destroyed.

Museum expositions are spread over 4 floors. A total of about 750 exhibits – objects that reflect the events of 1944. The museum will be interesting to both adults and children. The pearl of the exhibition is a 3D film about Warsaw. The film was shot based on 600 shots taken during the war years. In this short time (about 5 minutes) you can feel that not a single book, not a single detailed description, not a single documentary film will transmit.

Despite the fact that a large number of tourists and locals are eager to get into the museum, be sure to take time to visit this attraction.

Center of Science “Copernicus”

A huge building rises on the banks of the Vistula. The Copernicus Center is an interactive Museum of Science, which every tourist should visit. There are exhibitions that will be interesting not only for children but also for adults. The museum was opened in 2010. In the center of Copernicus there are several permanent compositions. There are own laboratories in which they conduct scientific experiments, a high-voltage theater, a robot theater and an interactive exhibition.

To create unusual exhibits, scientists from around the world created exhibits that give the museum special value. For the youngest excursionists, the “Bzzzz” exposition was created, in the “Regeneration” gallery you can get acquainted with the secrets of the creation of the world. In addition, in the center of Copernicus there is a planetarium where colorful and fascinating films dedicated to science are shown. The museum is open from Tuesday to Sunday.

[prasanththampi]

CASE STUDY ANSWER FOR ISMS EXAM

 CONTACT:

DR. PRASANTH MBA PH.D. DME MOBILE / WHATSAPP: +91 9924764558 OR +91 9447965521 EMAIL: prasanththampi1975@gmail.com WEBSITE: www.casestudyandprojectreports.com

 Master Program in Business Administration (MBA)

 Note :- Solve any 4 Case Study

            All Case Carry equal Marks.

CASE I

 Sunder Singh

Sunder Singh had studied only up to high school. He was 32-years of age, lived alone in a rented room, and worked eight-hour shift at one petrol pump, then went to the other one for another eight-hour shift. He had a girl friend and was planning to marry.

 One day when he returned from work, he got a note from his girl friend that she was getting married to someone else and he need not bother her. This was a terrible shock to Sunder Singh and he fell apart. He stopped going to work, spent sleepless nights, and was very depressed. After a month, he was running Iowan his savings and approached his earlier employers to get back his job, but they would not give him a second chance. He had to quit his rented room, and sold few things that he had. He would do some odd jobs at the railway station or the bus terminal.

 One day, nearly two years ago, he was very hungry and did not have any money and saw a young man selling newspapers. He asked him what he was selling and he told him about Guzara (an independent, non-profit, independent newspaper sold by the homeless, and economically disadvantaged men and women of this metro city). Sunder Singh approached the office and started selling the newspaper. He did not make a lot of money, but was good at saving it. He started saving money for a warm jacket for next winter.

 He was reasonably happy; he had money to buy food, and no longer homeless and shared a room with two others. One day, with his savings he bought a pair of second-hand Nike shoes from flea market.

 Sunder Singh is not unique among low-income consumers, especially in large cities, in wanting and buying Nike shoes. Some experts believe that low-income consumers too want the same products and service that other consumers want.

 The working poor are forced to spend a disproportionate percent of their income on food, housing, utilities, and healthcare. They solely rely on public transportation, spend very little on entertainment of any kind, and have no security of any kind. Their fight is mainly day-to-day survival.

   QUESTIONS

1.            What does the purchase of a product like Nike mean to Sunder Singh?

2.            What does the story say about our society and the impact of marketing on consumer behavior?

 

CASE II

Key to Buyers' Minds

 Consumer buying research has turned a new leaf in India. The era of demographics seems to be on the backbench. Now, Marketing Research people are less likely to first ask you about your age, income, and education etc. Instead, there is a distinct shift towards inquiries about attitudes, interests, lifestyles, and behaviour - in short towards a study of consumers' minds called psychographics.

 Pathfinders, the marketing research wing of Lintas, occasionally came out with its highly respected "Study on Nation's Attitudes and Psychographics (P:SNAP). The first in this series was released in 1987 with an objective to develop a database of lifestyles and psychographics information on the modem Indian women. The second was in 1993, and the third in 1998. Pathfinders choose woman for the study because of the belief that more often than not, in urban areas, it is the woman who makes buying decision.

 The Pathfinders' study involves interviewing over 10,000 women over the entire country and segmenting them in clusters according to their beliefs, attitudes, lifestyles, and lastly their demographics profile. The idea is to identify groups of consumers with similar lifestyles who are likely to behave towards products or services.

 For advertisers and advertising agencies, this profile helps enormously. For example, an advertiser may want to give a westernised touch to a commercial. The profile of the target customer, as revealed by this study, tells the advertising people the perimeter within which she/he must stay, otherwise the ad may become an exaggerated version of westernised India.

 For the purpose of this study, Pathfinders divided the Indian women in 8 distinct cluster of varying values and lifestyles. Figures from two studies are available publicly and are given below:

 Cluster  1987 (%)               1993 (%)

Troubled homebody      15.9        18.3

Tight-fisted traditionalist              14.8        10.0

Contended conservative              7.0          9.3

Archetypal provider        13.0        8.8

Anxious rebel    14.1        15.8

Contemporary housewife            19.2        22.1

Gregarious hedonist       8.7          6.6

Affluent sophisticate      7.3          9.1

 The studies seek to track the macro level changes and movements within these 8 clusters in a period of time.

 We note from the table that in 1987, 8.7% of the women could be classified as "gregarious hedonist" - those who consider their own pleasure to be supreme in life. 'In 1993, this figure fell to 6.6%. The "troubled homebody" segment - those with large families and low-income, increased from 15.9% in 1987 to 18.3% in 1993.

 Information, such as this, is obviously useful to assess the collective mood. That's why Pathfinders have an impressive list of clients fort heir P:SNAP, which includes Hindustan Lever, Cadbury, Johnson and Johnson, and Gillette.

 SOME PSYCHOGRAPHICS PROFILES OF INDIAN WOMEN

 Rama Devi, the Contended Conservative

The lady lives a 'good' life - she is a devoted wife, a dotting mother of two school-going sons, and a God fearing housewife. She has been living her life by the traditional values she cherishes - getting up at the crack of dawn, getting the house cleaned up, having the breakfast of 'Aloo Parathas' ready in time before the children's school-bus honks its horn, laying down the dress her 'government servant' husband will put on after his bath, and doing her daily one-hour Puja. She fasts every Monday for the welfare of her family, looks at the 'freely mixing' and 'sexually liberal' youngsters with deep disdain and cannot understand the modem young woman' s 19reed' for money, jewellery, and jobs.

 Her one abiding interest outside the household is the Ganesh Mandir that she has visited every Wednesday, ever since she got married. She lacks higher education and hence has little appreciation for the arts, the literature, and the sciences. Her ample spare time is spent watching the TV, which is her prime source of entertainment and information.

 Shobha, the Troubled Homebody

Shobha married young to the first person she fell in love with, Prakash. Four children came quickly before she was quite ready to raise a family. Now, she is unhappy. She

 is having trouble in making ends meet on her husband's salary who is employed as clerk in a private business and is often required to work up to late hours. She is frustrated, as her desire for an idyllic life has turned sour. She could not get education beyond high school and hence there are hardly any job opportunities for her. Her husband also keeps on complaining of the long hours of backbreaking work he has to put in. He consumes country-made liquor routinely.

 Shobha finds escape in Black and White TV soap operas and films that transport her into the world of her dreams. She watches TV almost all through the day and her children roam around in the locality streets and cannot expect any help from their' ever-grumbling' mother. Purchases are mostly limited to 'essentials' and any discretionary purchases are postponed till it becomes possible.

 Neeru, the Archetypal Provider

Neeru epitomises simplicity. Her life is untangled. It runs on a set timetable with almost clockwork precision. She works as a primary school teacher in a rural government school about 50 kilometers from her district town residence. She is married to a social worker in an NGO whose income is erratic. Her three children, two teenaged sons and l0-year old daughter are getting school education.

 The day begins with the lady getting up before anybody else and finishing the household chores as fast as she can. There is no room for delay as the State government 'Express' bus, on which she ravels to her school will be at the bus stop across the road precisely at 8.00 A.M. If she misses that, the next ordinary bus comes at 11.15 A.M, quite useless as it will reach her school only at 1.00 P.M. The school closes at 2.00 P.M. There are private Jeeps running sporadically, but the fare is high and Neeru does not believe in wasting hard earned money. Besides, she travels on husband's 'free pass'. Neeru prides herself on her monthly savings ofRs.1000 for the last many years. The money will go toward the wedding of her daughter.

 Vandana, the tight-fisted traditionalist

For Vandana, saving money is 'in-born' discipline. When she was young and unmarried, she remembers her mother was extremely tight-fisted and ran the household in under Rs.800 per month. It was the necessity of those times as her father retired at a princely salary of Rs.1800 per month. All through her childhood, she saw deprivation and hardship. She would not join the annual class picnic in her school days as it meant' avoidable expenditure'.

 Now she is married and mother of two school going children. The husband works in a bank as a clerk. He has taken all the loans that he could from the bank and invested the money in real estate. As a result of monthly deductions toward repayment of loans, his take home salary is now very little. But Vandana can manage. The school dresses are sewn by her at home, the stationary required comes from a wholesale market, and the books are second-hand from 'friends', cultivated for the purpose. On birthdays, Vandana prepares a sweet dish at home and they spend on a film. There is a cow and calf at home, being kept as a source of revenue and milk. She sells half the milk to a neighbour and the family consumes the rest. Life in general is hard and frugal. There is a colour TV at home, but they disconnected the cable connection ever since the rates went up. Now they watch Doordarshan only.

 Aditi, the Anxious Rebel

Daughter of a Freedom Fighter, Aditi has always fought her values and principles.

People still remember when she walked out of the exam half in a huff as a mark of protest against mass cheating' sanctioned' by the centre superintendent in a tough paper. While every body else passed with high marks, Aditi failed.

 Even though she repeated the paper, Aditi never learned to swim along the flow. She always swam against the current. She joined the Communist Party in her college and gave rousing speeches against the teachers and authorities. This resulted in her getting very poor marks and left her jobless.

 Later, Aditi joined an NGO and now works on social issues. She says she is a creature of the mind, not materialism. Her favourite dress is a long flowing Kurta, and slacks. She wears loosened hair and chappals. She reads voraciously. Financially, she is independent and lives with her parents. Her disdain for the institution of marriage and contempt for the modern Indian male keep her single and unattached. She will continue-to be so as she prefers this status, but may adopt a baby later in life.

Reema, the Gregarious Hedonist

Just 19, and Reema is already divorced. Her father is a wealthy businessman. During Reema's childhood, her father was mostly away in Dubai and Africa, trying to amass a fortune. That he did but he lost on his chance to be a good father. Both his children started feeling like' orphans' after their mother got involved with another man.

 Reema was ever longing for her family when alone came Harsh, her private high school tuition teacher. Harsh was all of 22 and very caring. He was tall, handsome, and very popular in school and many girls had a crush on him. Reema was sixteen then and a great fan of Harsh. For her, Harsh was a prize catch as he combined the loving qualities of a father with a mix of being a good teacher. She was soon dazzled and surrendered in a physical relationship.

 Marriage followed. She never understood how Harsh changed overnight from a caring father figure to a demanding husband. And she could never cope with the six hours she had to spend in the kitchen everyday. Why should she do the cooking, she asked Harsh, as it was something that the 'Ayas' did? The reality of a humdrum middle-class existence hit her hard and she soon walked out of 'the hell'.

 Her father understood her need to recover and made her allowance rather generous. He bought her a Red Sports Car and got her an admission in a private college.

 College is entertainment for her. She attends college only on days when there is some function like a cultural evening or the sports meet. Now, Reema spends on alcohol, dresses, parties, and holidays. She consumes a mood elevating drug every evening and keeps sending SMS messages on her mobile to her friends all through the night. For her, life means 'buying pleasure endlessly'.

 Shruti, the Contemporary Housewife

Shruti is an urbane woman. She is well educated and genteel. She is an officer in a national bank, and active in her club affairs and community activities. Socialising is an important part of her life. She is a doer, interested in watching cricket, politics, and current affairs. Her life is hectic as she has a lot to do for home and office everyday. Still she often enjoys viewing movies on TV every week.

 Shruti shops for Sarees, jewellery, and cosmetics for herself on a regular basis. However, family needs come before her own needs. Her home is a double income household and she has one kid. All the modern gadgets are present and the standard of living is upper middle-class.

     Momeeta, the Affluent Sophisticate

Momeeta was born Mamta, but elevated herself to Momeeta after marriage to a business tycoon. Momeeta is an elegant woman with style. She lives in Mumbai because that is where she wants to be. She likes the economic and social aspects of big city living and takes advantage of her' contacts'. She has built up friendship and cultivated the city bigwigs by inviting them to the numerous parties she throws in her luxurious penthouse.

 Momeeta is a self-confident, on-the-go woman, and not a homebody. She is fashion conscious and clothes herself in the latest designer dresses. Even at 40, she can carry off a mini with aplomb. She is financial very secure and hence does not shop with care. She shops for quality, exclusivity, and the brand name, not the price. She frequently travels abroad, buys expensive gifts for friends, and has an international understanding on what is "chic" at the moment.

 Three psychographics profiles of Indian women and their food shopping habits:

 Type I    Type II  Type III

Money conscious             Careful shopper               Gourmet/satisfaction

Food shopping is done on necessity and is postponed as long as possible.

               Makes out shopping lists and makes weekly/ monthly purchases.            General liking for food shopping and food related activities.

Minimum amount of money spent. This is enabled through comparative evaluation of many shops, even if it takes more time.     Can purchase larger quantities if there is an incentive like lower prices or a gift scheme. Food budget is flexible.                Collects and files food recipes. Experiments with new food products and methods of cooking. Likes to exhibit her culinary skills to her friends and family.

 Operates within the food budget. Does not buy larger quantities to save money.

               Checks labelling for price, nutrition and expiry date information                Spends a lot of time in kitchen as preparing food is an enjoyable activity.

Price and immediate outflow of cash is the dominant purchase concern.               Goes for tried and trusted brands even if they cost a little more. This is an important purchase concern.    Food items are bought either based on the past satisfaction from them or for their novelty value. Unknown food items are purchased if they excite the senses. This is the dominant purchase concern.

Who fits in where?

Shobha, Neeru, and Vandana,  

Shruti, Aditi, and

Rama Devi          

Momeeta (she is a food lover).

 (Prof Deepak Khanna, colleague, has developed these profiles based on his perceptions of certain personality types).

        QUESTIONS

1.            Explain how the above-mentioned information is likely to benefit a marketer?

2.            Which of the above mentioned types are likely to respond to sales promotion? Explain.

3.            A manufacturer of personal care products in the premium segment starts frequent sales promotions. What is likely to be the impact on the above-mentioned types?

  

 Case III

Star Airways

 Star Airways offered passengers air services within the country and served a territory of 18, 000 sq. miles with an expanding population of over 70 lakh of people who are potential users of the airline services. The geographic diversity and scattered business and commercial cities have led to steady increase in the number of people who use air travel. The clientele includes business people, as well as individuals on non-business trips, holidays, and leisure trips etc. As a result, the passenger traffic had been increasing steadily since the firm started operations in 1983. In the last three years, however, the growth has not been consistent with the growth pattern showed by the company in the last fifteen years - as against a healthy growth of 13 per cent, the sales have marginally improved, registering a growth of 6 per cent.

 The company's early success was due to the pioneering concepts used by it in the airline industry, which was dominated by large private and government operators with little market orientation. The launch of the company's services coincided with a boom in the aviation sector and reduced government dominance, which opened up the skies for private operators. Besides this, the company offered a host of innovations in the customer service functions such as smaller and newer planes, convenient schedules, free gifts, comfortable seats, exclusive terminals, express baggage-check, and airport-to hotel transit for its first and business class clients. In turn the fares charged by the company were premium in the category and almost 15 per cent higher than the industry average. The company president in the following words justified this move: ''We are selling entirely on the basis of providing quality experience to our clients. Our services, ambience, and commitment to safety and time-bound schedule, all surpass the standards of the industry."

 During the first ten years of operations the company faced no direct competition. The only problems faced by the marketing staff were (a) the price, (2) the need to convince clients that air service was more efficient than other alternatives, (c) identifying the customers, and more importantly (d) developing the image of a dependable service. The consumers, who till now were forced to put up indifferent service offered by large government operators, did not offer much resistance and were agreeable to try out new company. Once customers were convinced, retaining them was very easy. Hence the company enjoyed immense

 loyalty from its clients with almost 40 per cent of them being regular users. Sales were handled by the sales division as well as by some independent sales representatives.

 In early 1990s the company faced direct competition for the first time with a new company coming up with smaller planes and all other advantages which were previously associated with Star Airways. The growing business had made the market very lucrative and hence in the next three years, four major competitors were also vying for the market share. The company slowly lost to these competitors and could manage to retain only 30 per cent of market share by the end of 1994. All the competitors were engaged in aggressive promotion and soon started a 'price war' in order to outdo one another. For the next six months, each of them offered big discounts and gifts (such as TV / audio systems) with the return ticket on different routes. The most profitable and commercia1ly viable routes were the major targets of these price related competitions. The consumer was the ultimate beneficiary and in short time, the companies started facing losses due to this price-cutting.

                 Star Airways had so far remained out of this ‘price-war’ and lost its market share on the competitive routes very rapidly. It was able to retain the clients on other routes, which were not a part of this intense competition.  Unhappy an anxious about this state of affairs, the company vice president, marketing, developed a marketing plan with several components.  The initial part of the plan consisted of a market research done on a cross-section of existing clients as well as the clients of competitors and the following observations were made :

 •             Star Airways was considered a quality-oriented company but many felt that it was getting stodgy.

•             The satisfaction with crew and schedules had declined over the last 5 years amongst regular customers.

•             The clients felt that the airline was losing its edge over customer service because it was non¬flexible.

•             The prices offered by competitors are less and they provide only a fraction of services offered by Star Airways. This was the main reason of clients switching over to competitors. As many as 70 per cent respondents considered the costs as the most important factor in deciding on the airline.

•             Some deciding factors and their relative importance to clients were found to be following this pattern.

•            

Feature offered by airline            Importance of feature as the deciding factor      Rank of feature in decision making influence

Price      67%        1

Ambience and food        9%          3

Punctuality         14%        2

Services & convenience                7%          4

Free gifts etc.    3%          5

 The second phase of the plan included a massive advertising and promotion plan. The VP marketing, Anil Saxena, felt that the company needed to advertise it's dedication to quality and rebuild an image of being a customer-oriented airline. He began discussions with the advertising agency to launch a campaign in the near future.

 After a month, the agency came out with the following recommendations:

 •             The campaign is to be completed in four months time and the budget will be 351akh.

•             The company would reach 85% of target audience, once in a month by direct mail.

•             Four times a month a TV commercial will be aired on a business show time. The audience TRP is consistent and highest in this category of shows.

•             Star Airways would build the campaign theme around 'quality and customer service initiatives' .

•             The direct mail letter would be sent to a database of 85,000 clients in four months. The letter will contain information on the airline and again stress on the same theme of' quality and customer service'.

  

QUESTIONS

 1.            What is likely to be the decision process in case of choosing an airline?

2.            Would this plan suggested by the vice president help in convincing the customers to use Star Airways? Give your reasons.

 Case IV

 Mouse-Rid

 One hot May morning, Shobha, general manager of Innotrap India Ltd., entered her office in Delhi. She paused for a moment to contemplate the quote, which she had framed and hung on a wall facing her table.

 "If a man can make a better mousetrap than his neighbour, the world will make a beaten path to his door." She vaguely recalled that probably it was Ralph Waldo Emerson who said this. Perhaps, she wondered, Emerson knew something that she didn't. She had the better mousetrap - Mouse¬-Rid - but the world didn't seem all that excited about it.

 Shobha had just returned from a Trade Fair in Kolkata. Standing in the trade show display booth for long hours and answering the same questions hundreds of times had been tiring. Yet, this show had excited her. The Trade Fair officials held a contest to select the best new product introduced at the show. Of the more than 150 new products, her mousetrap had won first place. Two women's magazines had written small articles about this innovative mousetrap, however, the expected demand for the trap had not materialised. Shobha hoped that this award might stimulate increased interest and sales.

 A group of investors who had obtained rights to market this innovative mousetrap in India had formed Innotrap India in January 2001. In return for marketing rights, the group agreed to pay the inventor and patent holder, a retired engineer, a royalty fee for each trap sold. The group then appointed Shobha as the general manager to develop and manage Innotrap India Ltd.

 The Mouse-Rid, a simple yet clever device, is manufactured by a plastics firm under contract with Innotrap India Ltd. It consists of a square, plastic tube measuring about 6 inches long and one and one-half inches- square. The tube bends in the middle at a 30-degree angle, so that when the front part of the tube rests on a flat surface, the other end is elevated. The elevated end holds a removable cap into which the user places bait (piece of bread, or some other titbit). A hinged door is attached to the front endofthe tube. When the trap is "open", this door rests on two narrow "stills" attached to the two bottom corners of the door.

  The trap works with simple efficiency. A mouse, smelling the bait enters the tube through the open end. As it moves up the angled bottom toward the bait, its weight makes the elevated end of the trap drop downward. This elevates the open end, allowing the hinged door to swing closed, trapping the mouse. Small teeth on the ends of stills catch in a groove on the bottom of the trap, locking the door closed. The mouse can be disposed of live, or it can be left alone for a few hours to suffocate in the trap.

 Shobha felt the trap had many advantages for the consumer when compared with traditional spring-loaded traps or poisons. Consumers can use it safely and easily with no risk for catching their fingers while loading. It poses no injury or poisoning threat to children or pets.

 Shobha's personal and informal inquiries with acquaintances and friends suggested that women are the best target market for the Mouse-Rid. Most women stay at home and take care of household chores and their children. Thus, they want a means of dealing with the mouse problem that avoids any kind of risks. To reach this market,

 Shobha decided to distribute Mouse-Rid through grocery stores, and kitchenware stores. She personally contacted a supermarket and some departmental stores to persuade them to carry the product, but they refused saying that they did not sell such contraptions. She avoided any wholesalers and other middlemen.

 The traps were packaged in a simple cardboard, with a suggested retail price ofRs.150 for a piece. Although this price made Mouse-Rid about five 1;0 six times more expensive than standard traps, those who bought it showed little price resistance.

 To promote the product, Shobha had budgeted approximately Rs. 300,000 toward advertising in different women's magazines, such as Grah Shobha, and Good Housekeeping. Shobha was the company's only salesperson, but planed to employ sales people soon.

 Shobha had forecasted Mouse-Rid's first year sales at 2 million units. Through Aril, however, the company had sold only few thousand units. She wondered if most new products got to such slow start, or if she was doing something wrong.

 Shobha knew that the investor group believed that Innotrap India Ltd. had a "once-in-a¬ lifetime chance" with its innovative mousetrap. She sensed the group's impatience. To keep the investors happy, the company needed to sell enough traps to cover costs and make a profit.

    QUESTIONS

1.            Has Shobha identified the best target market for Mouse-Rid? Why or why not?

2.            Does Shobha have enough needed data on consumer behaviour? What type of consumer research should Shobha conduct?

3.            What type of advertising can influence consumers for this type of product?

 Case V

 Golden Glow Soap

 Anil Mahajan absent -mindedly ran his finger over the cake of soap before him. He traced the name 'Golden Glow' embossed on the soap as he inhaled its unmistakable sesame fragrance. It was a small soap, almost like a bar of gold. There were no frills, no coloured packaging, and no fancy shape. Just a golden glow and the fragrance of sesame and Lucida font that quietly stated' Golden Glow'.

 Mahajan smiled wanly and clasped the soap in his hands, as if protecting it from an unseen predator. He was wondering with quiet concern if the 30-year-old brand would last long. Sensi India, where Mahajan was marketing manager, was taking a long, hard look at the soap, as it was proving to be a strain on resources.

 There were varying stories about how Golden Glow was launched. Some said the brand was a 'gift' from the departing English parent company. Others claimed that it was created for the then chairman's British wife, as the Indian climate did not agree with her skin. They also claimed that the lady also coined the copy "The honest soap that loves your skin" was also coined by the lady. The line had stuck through three decades. Only the visuals had changed, with newer models replacing the older ones.

 Zeni was basically a speciality products company producing household hygiene, fabricare, and dental care products. Golden Glow was the only soap in its product mix, produced and marketed by Sensi. Its reliable quality and value delivery had earned it a lot of respect in the market. Golden Glow equity was such that Sensi was known as the Golden Glow Company. Indeed, the brand name Golden Glow denoted purity, reliability, and gentle skincare.

 In 1994, Sensi UK increased its stake in the Indian subsidiary to 51%. Within months, all of Sensi's products were given a facelift, thanks to the inflow of foreign capital. New packaging, new fragrances, new formulations and more variants were introduced.

     Only Golden Glow was left untouched. For, although it had a growing skincare business following some strategic acquisitions in Europe in the early eighties, Sensi UK was not a soap company. The UK marketing team ran an audit of every brand and product in the company's portfolio. But when it came to Golden Glow, it faltered. "We don't know this one," officials at the parent company said.

 "We don't want this one to be touched," Mahajan had said protectively, a sentiment tliat was endorsed by the managing director, Rajan Sharma. "Golden Glow is too sacred, we will leave it as it is," he said.

 But the UK marketing team was confounded. What was a lone soap doing in the midst of toilet cleaners and fabric protectors; they wondered, however they somehow agreed that their proposed revamp strategy would only look at up-gradation, not tinkering with what wasn't broken.

 Indeed, for 30 long years no one had tampered with the Golden Glow brand. And Mahajan felt there was no reason to start now. Golden Glow, in his view, was a self-sustaining brand. That was a bit of an understatement because advertising for the brand was moderate and Sensi India had never used any promotional gimmick for it.

 Now, after four years of nurturing the other categories, Sensi UK had decided to launch its Vio range of skincare products in India. But Golden Glow's presence and profile was a major roadblock to Vio's success. "It will create dissonance, confuse our skincare equity and deter the articulation of Vio's credo. It will stand out as a genetic flaw," argued the UK marketing head. "You need to do a rethink on Golden Glow."

 Mahajan protested. "Why? It has such a strong equity and loyal following. So much has been invested in it all these years. Why give up all that?"

 Rajan, however, had another idea. "Let us then extend the Golden Glow brand." He said It was the simplest solution. Companies were now investing heavily in creating new equities for their brands. But in Golden Glow's case, Sensi was already sitting on a brand with a terrific equity. He felt that extending this equity to other categories, such as skincare products would be successful.

   But Golden Glow needed a new positioning before it could be extended. Till a few years ago, it had been in premium category, priced at Rs.15. Then new brands with specific positioning and higher price tags entered the market. This created a level above Rs.15 soaps and pushed Golden Glow down to the mid-priced range. So Golden Glow's price was not commensurate with its premium position and image.

 Over the years, Golden Glow had become so sacred that Sensi India had been too scared to do anything to it. As a result, the soap was left with niche category of loyal users. This category neither shrank or increased, just kept getting older and older, and with it the brand also kept growing older. For example, when Mahajan's wife had her first baby at 25, her mother had recommended Golden Glow for her dry skin and also for baby's tender skin because it contained sesame oil. That was in 1979. Today, Mahajan's daughter had turned 21 and was being wooed by Dove, Camay, even Santoor, and Lifebuoy Gold, with their aggressive advertising. Golden Glow had begun to lose its image of being contemporary as newer brands came in with newer values.

 Today, at 46, Mahajan's wife still used Golden Glow, but when she recommended Golden Glow to her daughter, she said, "But Golden Glow is a soap for mothers, for older people."

 That was a major problem. The Golden Glow brand had aged, and Sensi India hadn't even been aware of it. While its equity had grown with its users, its personality had aged considerably in the last 30 years. "I don't think you can keep the personality young, unless you keep renewing the brand. The objective now is to widen your equity so that your image becomes young," continued Rajan. "For instance, if today you were to personify a Golden Glow user now, it would be a woman of 45 years using the same brand for many years, who is aver-se to experimenting, very skincare conscious, very trusting, and very one-dimensional. As you can see, this is not a very competitive personality. These are the strengths of our Golden Glow, but these are also its weaknesses," he analysed.

       The context had changed. Today, youth demanded brands that stood for freedom and fearlessness. They demanded bold brands that dared to cure, not just p;eserve. "Preservation is for old people. Those are the attributes being presented in evolved markets," said Rajan. To make Golden Glow contemporary, the attributes had to be re-framed, he felt. "You can't make a young brand trusting caring, loving, without adding other attributes to it. Today, youth stands for freedom, for laughter, for frankness, for forthrightness. That's what Close Up, Lifebuoy Gold, Vatika, and other brands propagate. So, either come clean and say it is for older skin which needs trust and kindness, or reposition the brand," said Rajan.

 Repositioning was also necessary to address another anomaly in Golden Glow's image: its perceived premium. Sensi India had been unable to do anything about Golden Glow slipping into the mid-price range following the entry of more expensive brands. Now, as Rajan mulled over the brand extension plan, Mahajan felt that Golden Glow's premium positioning was its core equity and that had to be maintained.

 "If you are premium priced in the consumer's mind, your extensions are automatically perceived as premium. So, if you don't present the other products as premium, the consumer will not see them as extensions of the brand," he said. "For example, if you are to launch a shampoo which is priced lower than Sunsilk, but higher than Nyle and Ayur, then whatever the rationale, the consumer will not accept your product. "It is not the Golden Glow I know," will be the feeling," he said.

 Mahajan felt that since premium positioning was one of Golden Glow's equity values, it would be very difficult to convince consumers that the brand was being extended without hanging on to this particular value. "Will they buy your rationale that the very same values and equity would now be available at a low price? To be in the premium segment now, you have to price it at Rs 35 or 40, almost on a par with Dove," he said. "With Dove retailing at Rs 45, Golden Glow will be perceived as a cheaper option."

 "We can't simply raise the price," said Rajan. "What are we offering for that increase? You can 't add value because you don't want to tamper with the brand. The consumers will then ask, "Golden Glow used to be so cheap, what has happened now? The user will forget that 15 years ago, Rsl0 was expensive, because all her comparisons would be in today' s context," said Rajan.

 "So what's the option?" asked Mahajan. "You don't have to be expensive to be premium," said Rajan. Golden Glow already has the image of a premium brand, thanks to its time-tested core values of purity, credibility, and reliability. What we can do is reinforce the premium through communication and positioning. In fact) we should have tinkered with Golden Glow long ago. That is what HLL did with Lux. It also launched a bridge brand, Lux International, in the premium category," said Rajan.

 "How could we have done anything to the brand?" asked Mahajan. "The product had such a strong following. It stood for gold, for sesame oil, for its subtle earthy perfume. We changed the packaging periodically, but that's all we could do. Remember the time we brought out a transparent green Golden Glow with the fragrance of lime? It bombed in the market."

 Rajan was not in favour of the premium positioning. It appeared very short sighted to him, given the bigger plan to extend the brand. "Where are the volumes in the premium segment? He asked. "For some reason, every manufacturer feels that skincare can be an indulgence of only the moneyed class. As a result, there is a crowd in the premium end of the market. Do we want to be yet another player in the segment?"

 Fifteen years ago, Golden Glow was perceived as a premium product. But today, globa1brands like Revlon, Coty, and Oriflame were delivering specific premium platforms. Golden Glow did not have a global equity. 'Let us revisit the brand and examine what it stood for 15 years ago and examine the relevance of those attributes in today's context," suggested Rajan. "Golden Glow stood for care, consciousness, love, quality and all that. But today, are these enough to justify a premium position?" he asked Mahajan. "These attributes are viable in the mid-priced segment." He said.

 "The mid-priced brand is the proverbial washer-man's dog," said Mahajan. "You don't know whether you are at the bottom end of the premium range or at the top-end of the low-priced range. You end up creating an image of being on the opportunity fence. It is a mere pricing ploy, with no strategic value."

     QUESTIONS

1.            Discuss the nature of problem(s) in this case?

2.            Suggest the kind of consumer research needed?

3.            How should Golden Glow be positioned/ repositioned to bring about the desired change among consumers? Give your reasons.

 

CASE VI

  Impact of Retail Promotions on Consumers

 Shoppers' Delight, a large retail store, had above-average quality and competitive prices. It advertised its retail promotions in local newspapers. Its TV advertising was mainly aimed at building store image and did not address retail promotions. The management knew it well that they had to advertise their retail promotions more, but they did not feel comfortable with the effectiveness of present efforts and wanted to better understand the impact of their present promotions.

 To better understand the effectiveness of present efforts, a study of advertising exposure, interpretation, and purchases was undertaken. Researchers conducted 50 in-depth interviews with customers of the store's target market to determine the appropriate product mix, price, ad copy and media for the test. In addition, the store's image and that of its two competitors were measured.

 Based on the research findings, different product lines that would appeal to the target customers were selected. The retail promotion was run for a full week. Full-page advertisements were released each day in the two local Hindi newspapers, and also in one English newspaper that devotes six pages to the coverage of the state.

 Each evening, a sample of 100 target market customers were interviewed by telephone as follows:

 1.            Target customers were asked if they had read the newspaper that day. This was done to determine their exposure to advertisement.

2.            After a general description of the product lines, the respondents were asked to recall any related retail advertisements they had seen or read.

3,            If the respondents were able to recall, they were asked to describe the ad, the promoted products, sale prices, and the name of the sponsoring store.

4.            If the respondents were accurate in their ad interpretation, they were asked to express their intentions to purchase.

5.            Respondents were also asked for suggestions to be incorporated in future promotions targeted at this consumer segment.

 Immediately after the close of promotion, 500 target market customers were surveyed to determine what percentage of the target market actually purchased the promoted products. It also determined which sources of information influenced them in their decision to purchase and the amount of their purchase.

 Results of the study showed that ad exposure was 75 per cent and ad awareness level was 68 per cent and was considered as high. Only 43 percent respondents exposed to and aware of the ad copy could accurately recall important details, such as the name of the store promoting the retail sale. Just 43 per cent correct interpretation was considered as low. Of those who could accurately interpret the  ad copy, 32 per cent said they intended to respond by purchasing the advertised• products ' and 68per cent sad they had no intention to buy. This yields an overall intention to buy of 7 per cent. The largest area of lost opportunity was due to those who did not accurately interpret the ad copy.

 The post-promotion survey indicated that only 4.2 per cent of the target market customers made purchases of the promoted products during the promotion period. In terms of how the buyers learned of the promotion, 46 per cent mentioned newspaper A (Hindi), 27 per cent newspaper B (Hindi), 8 per cent newspaper (English), and 15 per cent learned about sale through word-of mouth communication.

 The retail promotion was judged as successful in many ways, besides yielding sales worth

 Rs 900,000. However, management was concerned about not achieving a higher level of ad comprehension, missing a significant sales opportunity: It was believed that a better ad would have at least 75 per cent correct comprehension among those aware of the ad. This in turn would almost double sales without any additional cost.

          QUESTIONS

 1.            Why would some consumers have high-involvement levels in learning about this sales promotion?

2              Is a level of 75 per cent comprehension realistic among those who become aware of an ad?  Why or why not?

3.            Do you think such promotions are likely to influence the quality image of the retail store? Explain.

  Master Program in Business Administration (MBA)

  Note :- Solve any 4 case study

          All case carries equal marks

 Case I

 PANDIT TO AFAUZI

The case is based on an actual incident which took place in an Army unit operationally deployed in a field area just a few months before the 1971 showdown with Pakistan. The opposing forces of India and Pakistan were taking their respective positions in a pre-war scenario. The clouds of showdown were looming large over the horizons of both the countries. The rumbling of own tanks and guns, the reconnaissance, leaders of different arms and services establishing liaison with one another in the process of formulating plans for both defence and attack, digging of main and contingency positions was in progress, complete war machinery was being mobilized, camouflaged, and concealed. Ammunition and other explosives were being unloaded and dug down. Junior leaders were being briefed and rebriefed, communications were being checked, and troops were being motivated and looked after as most of them were green because of their sudden induction in the Army in post war days of 1965. Such was the scene which convinced all and sundry that war was imminent. Most of the troops looked forward to a showdown mainly because they wanted to get rid of the heavy ammunition as also for the mere thrill of it. Those who had not seen a battle, seemed excited over the prospects of a war and those who had seen the war, took everything in their stride, displaying a perfect cool, calm and confident countenance.

 One Ram Bali Mishra (RBM) was a raw and green jawan of about 20 years of age and two years' service and naturally had not seen a war. He was relatively tall, well built with fair complexion. He had pleasant manners, turned himself out well and spoke well. He was a complete teetotaler, non-smoker, and a vegetarian. He was well educated and well versed in religious affairs, particularly, of the religion to which most of the unit belonged. In the absence of the religious teacher of the unit, he held religious institute (dharamsthal) and gave religious discourses at the dharamsthal to all officers, junior commissioned officers JCOs), non-commissioned officers (NCOs) and jawans. During the pre-war days, he was performing the duties of a Sahayak (assistant, formerly known as orderly) to Gun Position Officer (GPO), a young officer, of the rank of a Second Lieutenant with one year of service.

 RBM's charter of duties included:

(a) attending all the training activities of his trade (telephone operator) which were being organized in the sub-unit;

(b) making arrangements to get the food from the officers' mess and water from the tube- well for the office; and

(c) attending the telephone and noting down all the messages for the office.

By virtue of the nature and timings of these duties, RBM was excused physical training in the morning and games in the evening which all other jawans of the sub-unit attended. He was generally happy with these duties and working with the officer: After a short span of a week or so, the officer noticed some changes in the behavior of RBM. He also looked pale and worried. He was less talkative, less lively and his interaction with other jawans decreased. He started keeping aloof except where his duties warranted interaction with others. The officer tried to find the reasons from RBM but nothing emerged except a shy and coy smile and “aisi to koi baat Nai, Sahib". The officer tried to probe further to find out if some guilt conscience was bothering him because of some bad habit which young man of his age is likely to fall prey to, in the absence, of even visual contact of civil life and members of the opposite sex.

 This was denied vehemently. After another week or so, it was noticed that RBM had developed constipation, ate very little, felt tired after walking even a few hundred yards and had become weak. He was interviewed by the officer but nothing emerged once again. He was sent to the Regimental Medical Officer (RMO). The RMO inspected him and gave some medicines. On being contacted by the officer, the RMO mentioned that there was nothing wrong medically with RBM except that he was scared of the prospects of war. He even disclosed that after having been medically examined, RBM even started giving a discourse to the RMO on the bad effects of a war on environment, economy, costs, etc. He stated that people would be loaded with sufferings; killed, injured, maimed, and would become homeless. The children would become orphans, women widowed, and the humanity would suffer. He vehemently advised the RMO to make all attempts to stop the war and if he could, at least oppose it. After a brief conversation, the RMO was convinced that all the symptoms pointed to a fear psychosis of war. He gave some medicines to RBM and sent him to the sub-unit.

 The RMO told the GPO that because of the worry about the war, RBM had developed problems of digestion and hence, ate less, became inactive and felt tired quickly. He had earlier been feeling shy of expressing his apprehensions about the war to others, lest they consider him a coward. The GPO gave a thought to the whole problem and interviewed RBM, advising him to attend• all physical activities, including physical training, weapon training, games, etc. thence on. The officer also planned to keep RBM among the persons of his trade, specially in the command post which controlled the firing of the guns, where from the officer himself was expected to control the' fire in case of breakout of war.

 A small cadre (class) was organized for all ranks of the sub-unit to apprise them of the organization of all arms and services in the army, starting from the level of a sub-unit. They were explained the tactics in the battlefields, the deployment patterns of different arms, the pattern and modes of support by the Air Force, the capabilities of weapons held by them, the comparative sizes of the countries, India versus Pakistan, and the level of forces held by them. They were also explained the cause for which they were there. They were there to make their contribution towards the liberation of Bangladesh (then East Pakistan), wherefrom about a crore refugees had entered India because of the repression by Pakistan forces. These refugees had become a burden on the Indian economy and social structure which India could not afford. Thus, India, the foremost leader of peace loving nations, had to prepare for war to ensure return of these refugees to liberated Bangladesh. At times, to maintain peace, it becomes necessary to resort to war.

 The participants were also told about the strength of their Army and deployment in that area, of course, within the constraints of security requirements. They were also told that none of them would remain alone even during the war and that their sub-unit and the unit would always fight together. They would always have their weapons and ammunitions with them, which they were very good at firing. The process of medical care, the claim of evacuation in case of serious injuries and the enhanced benefits and compensation to families in case of death of a soldier, then announced by the government, were also communicated to them. The reliability of India's friends on the international scene was also intimated. The tactics, capabilities of aircrafts and weapons, and reliability of Pakistan's friends were also brought out. The disadvantages and difficulties of supply to the then East Pakistan were explained to the participants. The geographical location of East Pakistan in relation to our country was also described. Everybody was convinced of the great advantages and superiority we had vis-a-vis Pakistan.

 Thence on, RBM was a totally changed man. He was noticed to be more active, intermingling with others at the slightest pretext and opportunity, giving discourses about loyalty to the country and martyrdom. He took keen interest in all the training activities, including the digging of a number of contingency gun positions. He volunteered to go with night patrols too, which operated to shoot bursts of rounds with light machine guns in trees and groves close-by, whenever the guns were deployed at a new place. He volunteered to venture out with the line party which was earmarked to lay telephone lines over long distances through sugarcane fields. He started watching the slaughtering of goats in the unit. Above all, he started eating eggs, though he did not touch meat.

 This transformation in RBM was a welcome sight and appreciated by all. Everyone heaved a sigh of relief on seeing RBM becoming a brave "Fauzi" from a timid "Pandit". The RMO was informed of this transformation. He too felt happy. His contribution had been no less in diagnosing the cause of sickness correctly. The cadre was conducted for the whole sub-unit with a view to eradicate any apprehensions from the minds of others too, in case there were any, and to educate all. The cadre proved to be a great success. It motivated the whole lot, made them more confident and ready to face the challenge bravely. This was subsequently apparent when the hostilities started.

QUESTIONS:

1.            What was the cause of fear in RBM?

2.            What were the symptoms of fear displayed by RBM?

3.            How did the RMO come to know of the war phobia of RBM?

4.            What actions should be taken to avoid building up of fear among the troops? Which of these steps were taken by the officer?

Case II

 HE WHO RIDES A TIGER

 In the Year of the Youth, the author took up a research project on young industrial workers. It involved comparing young and old workers. Two industries producing the same machines at similar technological level were selected. One belonged to the private sector and the other to the public sector. While the latter was started a decade later than the former, it had achieved greater expansion. Both were located in the same state.

 After we obtained necessary permission to conduct our study, we reached the mofussil town where the private sector industry was located. Before we could launch our study, as a matter of principle, we wanted to meet the General Secretary of the workers' union. The Personnel Department was not willing for this. On our insistence they called the union official. We talked to him for about half an hour but Personnel Department people were all the time hovering around.

 So we fixed a time in the evening to meet him in the union office in the town. We visited the union office in the evening. The union was having problem regarding wage deduction of some workers who did not show up for overtime. The overtime notice was short and they had not consented either, even then the management was threatening wage deduction for one week.

 The union could hardly do a thing' as they in the past had burnt their hands when they had to unilaterally call off the 106 day old strike in which even their Treasurer had committed suicide. They were scared to the extent that they had productivity linked bonus agreement for even 12% bonus. Moreover, a new minuscue union was recently started in the company.

 We visited the new union's office next evening and held a long discussion. They asked for' our suggestions. The union believed in legal battles more than agitations. After a visit to the industry the author visited the state headquarters of the new union. There every office bearer was surprisingly a lawyer. In the HQ we learnt that after we left, their union took out a procession and held a meeting in the temple. Perhaps this was the result of our discussion. While the older union was a prisoner of its past, the new union was free to write its own history. Workers' interests were being served perhaps by both.

  QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

1.            Discuss merits/demerits of the role of strike, agitation and legal approach in union¬management relations.

2.            What role does mutual trust play in building union-management relations?

CASE III

 COMPETITION AHEAD: VSNL AT CROSS ROADS

 The telecom sector had been functioning as a typical government department right from its inception. With the Department of Telephones (DoT) being under the exclusive control of the Ministry of Communications, Government of India (GO!), the system functioned more as a monopoly., With the advent of the LPG process (liberalization, privatization and globalization) in the early nineties, the telecom department went through a phase of modernization. A number of new and sophisticated electronic exchanges were installed which enhanced the capacity and lead to the disappearance of waiting list for telephone connections. In a landmark decision in 1995-96, the Government of India threw open its gates for private players in the area of cellular services. LCG and ACG were the two major players to enter this area in Karnataka region, while DoT decided to remain as an observer and continued as a provider of basic services only. Subsequently the Internet, ISD and other services were also opened to private participation.

 The year 1998 saw the entry of Vikas Telenet (VTNL) as a basic service provider in the state of Karnataka. It launched its basic services in Bangalore district, the commercial capital of the state, in January 1998. The impact of this entry was felt by DoT as it resulted in a mass customer churning, challenging the market leadership of DoT in basic services. This growing challenge from VTNL made General Manager DoT Indore, R.L. Rawat realized the need for a comprehensive review of the competitive scenario. The situation faced by the Bangalore district was one of its kind. It was the only city where four companies were providing telephone services. LCG and ACG were providing cellular services while VTNL and DoT were providing basic services. To attract the customers all the providers had attractive tariff plans. DoT's market share was not affected by the entry of LCG and ACG as - they operated only as cellular service providers and their services carried a premium price. But the entry of VTNL as a basic service provider with attractive tariff plans showed a marked shift in customer base from DoT to VTNL specially in case of heavy users make it necessary for DoT to come up with similar competitive tariff plans.

 General Manager Operations DoT Bangalore, S.N. Dutt, felt that improved services, customer care and proper pricing would help in winning back the heavy users who accounted for almost 60 to 65% of the total revenue. Keeping this in mind, a review of VTNL's tariff plans was done (Annexure I). The review revealed that the customers were getting a distinct price advantage in the rentals and free calls given by VTNL.

 Along with this, a discount ranging from 2.5 to 16% was also announced by VTNL. S.N. Dutt formulated a comprehensive plan to guard DoT's market share. Officers were appointed as account holders and were responsible for rendering personalized customer care to commercially important customers hoping to retain them with better services. He also formulated a proposal of discounts which was forwarded to the Circle Head Office (Annexure-II) and a presentation was made by DGM - Marketing K.K. Sen, highlighting the rate at which customer churning was taking place and the need for implementation of new tariff plan. He pleaded with the senior officers that DoT needed to be at least reactive if not proactive, to sustain itself in the market. The proposal was well received and forwarded to the Ministry of Communications for approval. Responding to the need of the hour, the Ministry decided to offer a comprehensive discount of 2.5 to 16% for its heavy users. The scheme was introduced in Bangalore, which was extended first to the state of Karnataka and later on to the entire nation.

 VTNL, which had so far been concentrating only on the heavy users, decided to now expand its network to get a wider customer base. With this view in mind, a number of promotional schemes were introduced e.g., web phone, a facility for internet usage where access to the net was provided at a cost of 60 paise per call only. It also announced free Internet facility for a year on every new connection. Besides this, VTNL went in for heavy promotion of its schemes. The careful wording of the schemes and enhancement of the number of free calls made the customers feel that they were gainers as far as rentals were concerned. These schemes when launched created very difficult times for VTNL during May -August 2001. By then, DoT had been Corporatised (October 1, 2000) and came to be known as VSNL. The Bangalore office was extremely hopeful that the corporatisation would facilitate. the implementation of new innovative schemes. For drafting a proposal of innovative schemes, VSNL first conducted a market research where in -the database of surrendered connections was used as sample and effort were made to identify the cause of disconnections. The survey revealed that of the total number of disconnections 30% were due to economic recession while 40% were due to customer turning in favor of VTNL while the remaining were due to a multitude of factors interplaying with one another.

 To redeem the situation, VSNL, Bangalore prepared an innovative plan known as Business Special Plan - Plan 600-800, which offered 800 free calls on a monthly rental of Rs.600 only. The plan was put forward to Chief General Manager at Bangalore for approval. The persistent efforts of K.K. Sen bore fruits and the proposal was approved at the Circle level.

 However, at the time of launch K. K. Sen realized that they needed TRAI's (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India) approval for going ahead. To ensure the unhindered approval of TRAI, modified tariff plans called 500-700 and an economy plan were suggested and sent for approval. While formulating these plans, an attempt was made to segment the market with an intention to target each segment with a customized/specific set of services. Plan 500-700 was targeted at high end users. Here, 700 calls were offered free on a monthly rental of Rs. 500 only. The economy plan carried a rental of just Rs.160 per month with a rate of Rs.l.20 per call. This plan was specially targeted at customers who had more of incoming calls and needed a facility for meeting their specific requirements. The rolling out of these schemes had an immediate impact with nearly 8,000 customers coming over to VSNL Bangalore. Along with these new tariff proposals a number of innovative strategies were introduced by VSNL, Bangalore.

 

•             The initial registration amount was reduced and new subscribers were offered the facility of paying the amount in installments.

•             Call centre functioning since February 2001 to deal with customer grievances was made proactive to ensure better customer care.

•             Training was given to the front-end-people for updating their skills and changing the mindsets.

•             Tele-shopping service was started which provided a one stop shopping facility, giving the customers the option to choose their telephone numbers, instrument and service.. Installation was assured within 48 hours.

•             Phone-on-Phone facility was started wherein customers could obtain a connection installed by simply ringing up for it.

•             A bill collecting facility was also introduced to further assist the customers.

•             VCC Le., prepaid cards were introduced and even delivered at the doorsteps of the customers.

•             Bill collection in the rural areas by mobile vans was introduced.

•             Linemen were given pagers to facilitate prompt servicing of faulty telephone lines.

•             Regular meetings between call centre members and maintenance staff were held to exchange information and solve grievances.

•             For motivating and facilitating their employees, free telephone service was provided to all the employees.

•             An advertising budget of Rs.30,00,000 (0.2% of the total sales revenue) was outlined for launching a comprehensive promotion programme using both indoor and outdoor media ensuring a good coverage of the market.

 

VSNL – Tariff Structure

Scheme                Rental (Rs.)         Free Colis            Facilities

Business Plan - 500-700*               500 (Monthly)   700         Without STD

Economy Plan **             160 (Monthly)   Nil           With STD

Standard Plan*                 500 (Bimonthly)                150         With STD

* 0.80 Per Call    ** Rs.1 .20 Per Call                          

 VTNL – Tariff Structure

Scheme                Rental (Rs.)         Free Calls

Silver 300             349 (Monthly)   300

Golden – 500     499 (Monthly)   500

  Questions:

 1.            What were the strengths and weaknesses of VSNL?

2.            Do you think that VSNL should have changed its thrust from basic telephony to cellular services?

3.            If you were the Deputy General Manager, what strategies would you have undertaken to deal with the competition?

Case IV

DISNEY’S DESIGN

The Walt Disney Company is heralded as the world’s largest entertainment company.  It has earned this astounding reputation through tight control over the entire operation : control over the open – ended brainstorming that takes place 24 hours a day ; control over the engineers who construct the fabulous theme – park rides; control over the animators who create and design beloved characters and adventurous scenarios ; and control over the talent that brings the many concepts and characters to life. Although control pervades the company, it is not too strong a grip.  Employees in each department are well aware of their objectives and the parameters established to meet those objectives.  But in conjunction with the pre-determined responsibilities, managers at Disney encourage independent and innovative thinking.

               People at the company have adopted the phrase “Dream as a Team” as a reminder that whimsical thoughts, adventurous ideas, and all – out dreaming are at the core of the company philosophy.  The over all control over each department is tempered by this concept.  Disney managers strive to empower their employees by leaving room for their creative juices to flow.  In fact, managers at Disney do more than encourage innovation.  They demand it.  Projects assigned to the staff “ imaginers” seem impossible at first glance.   At Disney, doing the seemingly impossible is  part of what innovation means.  Teams of imaginers gather together in a brainstorming session known as the “Blue Sky” phase.  Under the “Blue Sky”, an uninhibited exchange of wild, ludicrous, outrageous ideas, both “ good” and “ bad”, continues until solutions are found and the impossible is done. By demanding so much of their employees, Disney managers effectively drive their employees to be creative.

               Current Disney leader Michael Eisner has established the “Dream as a Team” concept.  Eisner realized that managers at Disney needed to let their employees brainstorm and create with support.  As Disney president Frank Weds says, “If a good idea is there, you know it, you feel it, you do it, no matter where it comes from.”

    Questions :

1.            What environmental factors influenced management style at Disney?

2.            What kind(s) of organizational structure seem to be consistent  with “Dream as a Team” ?

3.            How and where might the informal organization be a real asset at Disney ?

 Case V

“THAT’S NOT MY JOB” – LEARNING DELEGATION AT CIN-MADE

When Robert Frey purchased Cin – Made in 1984, the company was near ruin.  The Cincinnati, Ohi-based manufacturer of paper packaging had not altered its product line in 20 years.  Labor costs had hit the ceiling, while profits were falling through the floor. A solid quarter of the company’s shipments were late and absenteeism was high.  Management and workers were at each other’s throats.

               Ten years later, Cin – Made is producing a new assortment of highly differentiated composite cans, and pre-tax profits have increased more than five times.  The Cin – Made workforce is both flexible and deeply committed to the success of the company. On-time delivery of products has reached 98 percent, and absenteeism has virtually disappeared.  There are even plans to form two spin – off companies to be owned and operated by Cin-Made employees.  In fact, at the one day “Future of the American Workforce” conference held in July 1993, Cin-Made was recognized by President Clinton as one of the best – run companies in the United States.

               “ How did we achieve this startling turnaround ?” mused Frey.  “Employee empowerment is one part of the answer.  Profit sharing is another.”

               In the late spring of 1986, relations between management and labor had reached rock bottom.  Having recently suffered a pay cut, employees at Cin- Made came to work each day, performed the duties required of their particular positions, and returned home-nothing more.  Frey could see that his company was suffering.  “To survive we needed to stop being worthy adversaries and start being worthy partners,” he realized.  Toward this end, Frey decided to call a meeting with the union.  He offered to restore worker pay to its previous level by the end of the year.  On top of that, he offered something no one expected: a 15 percent share of Cin-Made’s pre-tax profits. “I do not choose to own a company that has an adversarial relationship with its employees.” Frey proclaimed at the meeting.  He therefore proposed a new arrangement that would encourage a collaborative employee-management relationship “Employee participation will play an essential role in management.”

               Managers within the company were among the first people to oppose Frey’s new idea of employee involvement.  “My three managers felt they were paid to be worthy adversaries of the unions.”  Frey recalled.  It’s what they’d been trained for.  It’s what made them good managers.  Moreover, they were not used to participation in any form, certainly not in decision making.” The workers also resisted the idea of extending themselves beyond the written requirements of their jobs.  “ (Employees) wanted generous wages and benefits, of course, but they did not want to take responsibility for anything more than doing their own jobs the way they had always done them,” Frey noted. Employees were therefore skeptical of Frey’s overtures toward “employee participation.”   “We thought he was trying to rip us off and shaft us,” explained Ocelia Williams, one of many Cin-Made employees who distrusted Frey’s plans.

               Frey, however, did not give up, and he eventually convinced the union to agree to his terms.  “ I wouldn’t take no for an answer,” he asserted.  “Once I had made my two grand pronouncements, I was determined to press ahead and make them come true.”  But still ahead lay the considerable challenge of convincing employees to take charge  :

               I made people meet with me, then instead

               Of telling them what to do, I asked them.

               They resisted.

                 “ How can we cut the waste on his run ?” I’d

               say, or “How are we going to allocate the

               overtime on this order ?”

                 “That’s not my job,” they’d say.

               “But I need your input,” I’d say.  “How in the

               World can we have participative management

               If you won’t participate?

                 “I don’t know,” they’d say.  “Because that’s

               not my job either.  That’s your job. ?”

               Gradually, Frey made progress.  Managers began sharing more information with employees. Frey was able slowly to expand the responsibilities workers would carry.  Managers who were unable to work with employees left, and union relations began to improve.  Empowerment began to happen.  By 1993, Cin Made employees were taking responsibility for numerous tasks. Williams, for example, used to operate a tin-slitting machine on the company’s factory floor.  She still runs that same machine, but now is also responsible for ordering almost $ 100,000 in supplies.

               Williams is just one example of how job roles and duties have been redefined throughout Cin-Made.  Joyce Bell, president of the local union, still runs the punch press she always has, but now also serves as Cin- Made’s corporate safety director. The company’s scheduling team, composed of one manager and five lead workers from various plant areas, is charged with setting hours, designating layoffs, and deciding when temporary help is needed.  The hiring review team, staffed by three hourly employees and two managers, is responsible for interviewing applicants and deciding whom to hire.  An employee committee performs both short – and long – term planning of labor, materials, equipment, production runs, packing, and delivery.  Employees even meet daily in order to set their own production schedules.  “We empower employees to make decisions, not just have input,” Frey remarked. “I just coach.”

               Under Frey’s new management regime, company secrets have virtually disappeared.  All Cin-Made employees, from entry-level employees all the way to the top, take part in running the company.  In fact, Frey has delegated so much of the company’s operations to its workers that he now feels little in the dark. “I now know very little about what’s going on, on a day-to-day basis,” he confessed.

               At Cin-Made, empowerment and delegation are more than mere buzzwords; they are the way of doing business – good business. “We, as workers, have a lot of opportunities,” said Williams. “If we want to take leadership, it’s offered to us.”

  Questions:

1.            How were principles of delegation and decentralization incorporated into Cine – Made operations?

2.            What are the sources and uses of power at Cin – Made?

3.            What were some of the barriers to delegation and empowerment at Cin –Made?

4.            What lessons about management in a rapidly changing marketplace can be learned from the experience of Cin – Made?  

  Case VI

HIGH-TECH ANSWERS TO DISTRIBUTION PROBLEMS AT ROLLERBLADE

When a manger finds that demand exceeds inventory, the answer lies in making more goods. When a manager finds that inventory exceeds demand, the answer lies in making fewer goods. But what if a company management finds that they just do not know which situation applies?

               This is the situation that recently confronted management at Rollerblade, the popular skate manufacturer based in Minnetonka, Minnesota. Rollerblade has been one of the leading firms in the fast growing high performance roller skate marketplace, it matters a great deal for Rollerblade managers whether demand and inventory are in balance, or not.

               Rollerblade was in a bind.  The product literally could not be shipped out the door.  The managers found that workers were not able to ship products because, as a result of poor storage structures, they could not find the products.  Once they were found, overcrowded aisles, in addition to other space constraints, still prevented efficient shipping because the workers could barely manage to get the products out the door.  “We were out of control because we didn’t know how to use space and didn’t have enough of it,” said Ian Ellis, director for facilities and safety.  “Basically, there was no more useable space left in the warehouse, a severe backlog of customer orders, and picking errors were clearly in the unacceptable range,” added Ram Krishnan, Principal of NRM Systems, based in St. Paul, Minnesota.

               The answer for Rollerblade was found in technology. High-tech companies have introduced a collection of computer simulations, ranging in cost roughly from $10,000 to $30,000, that assist managers in generating effective facility designs.  With the help of layout Master IV simulation software, developed by NRM, Rollerblade Management was able to implement a new distribution design.  As a result of the distribution improvement, Rollerblade was able to increase the number of customer orders processed daily from140 to 410 and eliminate order backlog.  “Now we have a different business,” says Ellis. “The new layout has taken us from being in a crunch, to being able to plan.

Questions:

1.            With retailers as their primary customers, what customer competitive imperatives could be affected by Rollerblade’s inventory problems?

2.            How appropriate might a just – in – time inventory system be for a product such as roller skates?”

3.            What opportunities are therefore Rollerblade managers to see FOR themselves as selling services, instead of simply roller skates?

    Masters Program in Business Administration (MBA)

Note :- Solve any 4 Case Study

            All Case Carry equal Marks.

CASE I

A GLOBAL PLAYER?

 This is one game that India has permanently lost to its arch-rival Pakistan - manufacturing and exporting sports goods. Historically, when India and Pakistan were one before 1947, Sialkot, now in Pakistan, used to be the world's largest production centre for badminton, hockey, football, volleyball, basketball, and cricket equipment. After the creation of Pakistan, Jalandhar became the second centre after Hindus in the trade migrated to India. Soon Jalandhar overtook Sialkot and till the early 1980s it remained so. However when the face of the trade began to change in the 1980s and import of quality leather and manufacturing equipment became a necessity for quality production, Pakistan wrested the initiative as India clung it its policies of discouraging imports through high duties and restrictions. As it was, the availability of labor and skills was a common factor in both Sialkot and Jalandhar, but with Sialkot having the advantage of easier entry, most of the world's top sports manufactures and procedures developed an association with local industry in Sialkot that continues even today. Ten years later, in the early 1990s, when Manmohan Singh liberalised the norms for importing equipment and raw material required for producing sports goods, it was too late as majority of the global majors had already shifted base to Sialkot.

 In 1961 the late Narinder Mayor started the first large scale sports goods manufacturing unit, Mayor & Company, thereby laying the foundation of an organized industry. Even today, more than 70 percent of the industry functions in an unorganized manner. Starting with soccer balls, Mayor expanded to produce inflatable balls like volleyballs, basketballs, and rugby balls. Today his two sons Rajan & Rajesh have built it up into five companies engaged in a wide array of businesses, though sports goods remain the group's core business. While the parent trading company, Mayor & Company, remains the leading revenue-earner to the tune of Rs. 55 crore annually out of a total group turnover of Rs. 85 crore-plus, Mayor's second venture, the Indo-Australian Mayor International Limited, is spinning another Rs. 15 crore. Mayor International is a 100 per cent export-oriented unit (EOU) exclusively manufacturing and exporting golf and tennis balls.

                    The product portfolio of the company comprises the following:

Inflatable Balls

•             Soccer balls and footballs (Professional, Indoor, Match and Training, leisure toy)

•             Volley balls, rugby balls (Volley balls and Beach Volley Balls)

•             Australian rugby, hand balls (English League, Union and touch) (Australian rules, Australian Rugby League balls with laces)

Boxing Equipment

•             Boxing and punching balls (Boxing and Punching Balls, Head Gear, Gloves, Punching Mitts and Kits Punching Bags & Bag Sets)

•             Gloves

•             Goal keeper's gloves (Football / Soccer)

•             Boxing gloves

Cricket Equipment

•             Worldwide distributor for Spading Cricket Bats, Balls and Protective equipment.

 HOCKEY EQUIPMENT

•             Worldwide distributor for Spading Hokey Sticks, Balls & Protective equipment

 Based in Delhi, Rajan Mayor, 41 is the CMD of the group, which also comprises an IT division working on B2B and B2C solutions; Voyaguer World Travels in the tourism sector; a houseware exports division specializing in stainless steel kitchenware, ceramics, and textiles; and a high school. Younger brother Rajesh, 34, is the executive director and looks after all the divisions operating in Jalandhar. Technical director Katz Nowaskowski divides his time equally between India and Australia, where he looks after the group’s interests. “While inflatable balls are our prime competence in our core business, we are presently focusing on golf balls, for which we are the sole producers in South Asia. Out of a total Rs. 300 crore of sports goods business generated in domestic market, most of which is supplied by the unorganized players, golf balls constitute a miniscule amount and therefore we came up with a 100 per cent EOU for producing golf balls. Later the same facility was utilized with little moderation for tennis balls too,” says Nowaskowaski.

                 Clarifying that the sports good industry in India only includes playing equipment and not apparels or shoes, D K Mittal, chairman of the Sports Goods Export Promotion Council and joint secretary in the Ministry of Commerce, has certified Mayor group as the number one exporter since 1993 till date, barring 1996. However, SGEPC secretary Tarun Dewan points out that being the number one exporter does not mean that Mayor is the number one brand being exported. “Actually we have tie ups Dunlop, Arnold Palmer, and Fila for manufacturing golf balls. For footballs and volleyballs we have association with Adidas, Mitre, Puma, Umbro, and Dunlop. We manufacture soccer World Cup and European Cup replicas for Adidas, which is a huge market. Only 400 balls used for actual play in the World Cup are manufactured in Europe & that too only for sentimental reason, otherwise we are capable of delivering products of the same, if not better quality. Now since we manufacture balls for them, we cannot antimonies them by producing balls of similar quality with our own brand name. Secondly, I agree that competing with such big quaint in the world market in terms of branding is a task that is well beyond our reach at the moment. However, we are trying to brand ourselves in the domestic market and that is one of the prime focus in the coming year,” says Rajan.

                 Coca-Cola, Unilever, McDonald’s, American Airlines, Disney club, and other such big brands come up with huge orders at tines for golf balls with their logos for promotional schemes. However, there is no mention of the producing country since these companies do not want to show that balls they deliver in the US are being produced in Asia, “Not only is our quality good enough; labour in India is cheap enough to churn out a much less expensive product in the end. Yet, the main threat to our industry comes from countries like Taiwan and China, who have already cornered a chunk of world markets in tennis, badminton, and squash rackets. This is primarily because of two reasons – slow response to our needs in tune with the market requirements from the government and lack of infrastructure. And most importantly, tags ‘Made in China’ or ‘Made in Taiwan’ are more acceptable in the West than ‘Made in India’ or ‘Made in Pakistan’. One of the mottos of the Mayor group has been to make ‘Made in India’ an acceptable label in the West. For that we stress quality, timely delivery, and competent rates. Yet, a lot depends on perception value, which in our case is sadly on the negative side, much owing to our government’s stance over the years. Things might be improving, but the pace is very slow and as our economy drifts towards a free market scenario supinely, it might just prove to be too little too late in the end,” says Rajesh.

                 Today, Mayor group is sitting pretty as its competitors, Soccer International Sakay Trades, Savi, Wasan, Cosco, Nivia and Spartan are only trying to catch up in the inflatables category. With 1.2 million dozen golf balls, Mayor is way ahead of its competitors. The company is planning to enhance its manufacturing capacity to 1.5 million dozen golf next fiscal. With approval from the world’s two top golf associations – the US PGA and RNA of Scotland, demand for its product is not a problem, the company’s senior marketing officials point out. With the markets in Mayor’s current export destinations – Europe, North America, Australia, and Nw Zealand – all set to expand in the coming years after the present slump, Mayor wants to expand its sports goods business that caters to 60 per cent of its overall exports. Though 40 per cent of exports come from house ware manufactured in Delhi and Mumbai, with export centres in the same countries for its sports goods, just about maintaining this business at its present state, and concerning entirely on sports goods is what the mayors are intent on.

                 With nearly 2000 skilled workforce; quality certification from ISO 9001:2000 and ISO 14001: 2004; and having spread to more than 40 countries, Mayor and Company is obviously sitting pretty.

Questions

 1.            What routes of globalization has the Mayor group chosen to go global? What other routes could it have taken?

2.            What impediments are coming in the Mayor group’s way becoming a major and active player in international business?

3.            Why is ‘Made in India’ not liked in foreign markets? What can be done to erase the perception?

 CASE II

ARROW AND THE APPAREL INDUSTRY

 Ten years ago, Arvind Clothing Ltd., a subsidery of Arvind Brands Ltd., a member of the Ahmedabad based Lalbhai Group, signed up with the 150-year old Arrow Company, a division of Cutlet Peabody & Co. Inc., US, for licensed manufacture of  Arrow shirts in India. What this brought to India was not just another premium dress shirt brand but new manufacturing philosophy to its garment industry which combined high productivity, stringent in-line quality control, and a conducive factory ambience.

                                 Arrow’s first plant, with a 55,000 sq. ft. area and capacity to make 3,000 to 4,000 shirts a day, was established at Bangalore in 1993 with an investment of Rs. 18 crore. The conditions inside – with good lighting on the workbenches, high ceilings, ample elbow room for each worker, and plenty of ventilation, were a decided contrast to the poky, crowded, and confined sweatshops characterizing the usual Indian apparel factory in those days. It employed a computer system for translating the designed shirt’s dimensions to automatically mark the master pattern for initial cutting of the fabric layers. This was installed, not to save labour but to ensure cutting accuracy and low wastage of cloth.

                                 The over two-dozen quality checkpoints during the conversion of fabric to finished shirt was unique to the industry. It is among the very few plants in the world that makes shirts with 2 ply 140s and 3 ply 100s cotton fabrics using 16 to 18 stitches per inch. In March 2003, the Bangalore plant could produce stain-repellant shirts based on nanotechnology.

                                 The reputation of this plant has spread far and wide and now it is loaded mostly with export orders from renowed global brands such as GAR, Next, Espiri, and the like. Recently the plant was identified by Tommy Hilfiger to make its brand of shirts for the Indian market. As a result, Arvind Brands has had to take over four other factories in Bangalore on wet lease to make the Arrow brand of garments for the domestic market.

                                 In fact, the demand pressure from global brands which want to out outscore from Arvind Brands, is so great that the company has had to set up another large for export jobs on the outskirts of Bangalore. The new unit of 75,000 sq. ft. has cost Rs. 16 crore and can turn out 8,000 to 9,000 shirts per day. The technical collaborates are the renowned C&F Italia of Italy.

                                 Among the cutting edge technologies deployed here are a Gerber make CNC fabric cutting machine, automatic collar and cuff stitching machines, pneumatic holding for tasks like shoulder joining, threat trimming and bottom hemming, a special machine to attach and edge stitch the back yoke, foam finishers which use air and steam to remove creases in the finished garment, and many others. The stitching machines in this plant can deliver up to 25 stitches per inch. A continuous monitoring of the production process in the entire factory is done through a computerized apparel production management system, which is hooked to every machine. Because of the use of such technology, this plant will need only 800 persons for a capacity which is three that of the first plant which employs 580 persons.

                                 Exports of garments made for global brands fetched Arvind Brands over Rs. 60 crore in 2002, and this can double in the next few years, when the new factory goes on full stream. In fact, with the lifting of the country-wise quota regime in 2005, there will be a surge in demand for high quality garments from India and Arvind is already considering setting up two more such high tech export-oriented factories.

                                 It is not just in the area of manufacture but also retailing that the arrow brand brought a wind of change on the Indian scene. Prior to its coming, the usual Indian shirt shop used to be a clutter of racks with little by way of display. What Arvind Brands did was to set up exclusive showrooms for Arrow shirts in which the functional was combined with the aesthetic. Stuffed racks and clutter were eschewed. The products were displayed in such a manner that the customer could spot their qualities from a distance. Of course, today this has become standard practice with many other brands in the country, but Arrow showed the way. Arrow today has the largest network of 64 exclusive outlets across India. It is also present in 30 retail chains. It branched into multi-brand outlets in 2001, and is present in over 200 select outlets.

                                 From just formal dress shirts in the beginning, the product range of Arvind Brands has expanded in the last ten years to include casual shirts, T-shirts, and trousers. In the pipeline are light jackets and jeans engineered for the middle age paunch. Arrow also tied up with the renowed Italian designer, Renato Grande, who has worked with names like Versace and Marlboro, to design its Spring / Summer Collection 2003. The company has also announced its intention to license the Arrow brand for other lifestyle accessories like footwear, watches, undergarments, fragrances, and leather goods. According to Darshan Mehta, President, Arvind Brands Ltd., the current turnover at retail price of the Arrow brand in India is about Rs. 85 crore. He expects the turnover to cross Rs. 100 crore in the next few years, of which about 15 per cent will be from the licensed non-clothing products.

                                 In 2005, Arvind Brands launched a major retail initiative fir all its brands. Arvind Brands licensed brands (Arrow, Lee and Wrangler) had grown at a healthy 35 per cent rate in 2004 and the company planned to sustain the growth by increasing their retail presence. Arvind Brands also widened the geographical presence of its home-grown brands, such as Newport and Ruf-n-Tuf, targeting small towns across India. The company planned to increase the number of outlets where its domestic brands would be available, and draw in new customers for readymades. To improve its presence in the high – end market, the firm started negotiating with an international brand and is likely to launch the brand.

                                 The company has plans to expand its retail presence of Newport Jeans, from 1200 outlets across 480 towns to 3000 outlets covering 800 towns.

                                 For a company ranked as one of the world’s largest manufacturers of denim cloth and owners of world famous brands, the future looks bright certain for Arvind Brands Ltd.

Company Profile              

Name of the Company  :               Arvind Mills

Year of Establishments  :               1931

Promoters          :               Three brothers – Katurbhai, Narottam Bhai and Chimnabhai

Divisions              :               Arvind Mills was spilt in 1993 into three units – textiles, telecom and garments. Arvind Brands Ltd. (textile unit) is 100 per cent subsidiary of Arvind Mills.

Growth Strategy              :               Arvind Mills has grown through buying – up of sick units, going global and acquisition of Germanand US brand names.

  Questions

1.            Why did Arvind Mills choose globalization as major route to achieve growth when domestic market was huge?

2.            Hoe does lifting of Country-wise quota regime’ help Arvind Mills?

3.            What lessons can other Indain business learn from the experience of Arvind Mills?

CASE III

 AT THE RECEIVING END !

Spread over 121 countries with 30,000 restaurants, and serving 46 million customers each day with the help of more than 400,000 employees, the reach of McDonald’s is amazing. It all started in 1948 when two brothers, Richard and Maurice ‘Mac’ McDonald, built several hamburger stands, with golden arches in southern California. One day a traveling salesman, Ray Kroc, came to sell milkshake mixers. The popularity of their $O. 15 hamburgers impressed him, so he bought the world franchise rights from them and spread the golden arches around the globe.

 McDonald’s depends on its overseas restaurants for revenue. In fact, 60 percent of its revenues are generated outside of the United States. The key to the company’s success is its ability to standardize the formula of quality, service, cleanliness and value, and apply it everywhere.

 The company, well known for its golden arches, is not the world’s largest company. Its system wide sales are only about one-fifth of Exxon Mobil or Wal-Mart stores. However, it owns one of the world’s best known brands, and the golden arches are familiar to more people than the Christian cross. This prominence, and its conquest of global markets, makes the company a focal point for inquiry and criticism.

 McDonald is a frequent target of criticism by anti-globalization protesters. In France, a pipe-smoking sheep farmer named Jose Bove shot to fame by leading a campaign against the fast food chain. McDonald’s is a symbol of American trade hegemony and economic globalization. Jose Bove organized fellow sheep farmers in France, and the group led by him drove tractors to the construction site of a new McDonald’s restaurants and ransacked it. Bove was jailed for 20 days, and almost overnight an international anti-globalisation star was borne. Bove, who resembles the irrelevant French comic book hero Asterix, traveled to Seattle in 1999, as part of the French delegation to lead the protest against commercialization of food crops promoted by the WTO. Food, according to him, is too vital a part of life to be trusted to the vagaries of the world trade. In Seattle, he led a demonstration in which some ski-masked protestors transhed at McDonald’s/ As Bove explained, his movement was for small farmers against industrial farming, brought about by globalization. For them, McDonald’s was a symbol of globalization, implying the standardization of food through industrial farming. If this was allowed to go on, he said, there would no longer be need for farmers. “For us”, he declared, “McDonald’s is a symbol of what WTO and the big companies want to do with the world”. Ironically, for all of Bove’s fulminations against McDonald’s, the fast food chain counts its French operations among its most profitable in 121 countries. As employer of about 35,000 workers, in 2006, McDonald’s was also one of France’s biggest foreign employers.

 Bove’s and his followers are not the only critics of McDonald’s. Leftists, anarchists, nationalists, farmers, labor unions, environmentalists, consumer advocates, protectors of animal rights, religious orders and intellectuals are equally critical of the fast food chain. For these and others, McDonald’s represents an evil America. Within hours after US bombers began to pound Afghanistan in 2001, angry Pakistanis damaged McDonald’s restaurants in Islamabad and an Indonesian mob burned an American flag.

 McDonald entered India in the late 1990s. On its entry, the company encountered a unique situation. Majority of the Indians did not eat beef but the company’s preparations contained cow’s meat nor could the company use pork as Muslims were against eating it.  This left chicken and mutton.  McDonald’s came out with ‘Maharaja Mac’, which is made from mutton and ‘McAloo Tikki Burger’ with chicken potato as the main input.  Food items were segregated into vegetarian and non-vegetarian categories.

                 Though it worked for sometimes, this arrangement did not last long.  In 2001, three Indian businessmen settled in Seattle sued McDonald’s for fraudulently concealing the existence of beef in its French fries.  The company admitted its guilt of mixing miniscule quantity of beef extract in the oil. The company settled the suit for $10 million and tendered an apology too.  Further, the company pledged to label the ingredients of its food items, and to find a substitute for the beef extract used in its oil.

                 McDonald’s succeeded in spreading American culture in the East Asian countries.  In Hong Kong and Taiwan, the company’s clean restrooms and kitchens set a new standard that elevated expectations throughout those countries.  In Hong Kong, children’s birthdays had traditionally gone unrecognized, but McDonald’s introduced the practice of birthday parties in its restaurants, and now such parties have become popular among the public.   A journalist set forth a ‘Golden Arches Theory of Conflict Prevention’ based on the notion that countries with McDonald’s restaurants do not go to war with each other.  A British magazine, The Economist, paints an yearly ‘Big Mac Index’ that uses the price of a Big Mac in different foreign currencies to access exchange rate distortions.

 Questions :

1.            What lessons can other MNCs learn from the experience of McDonald’s?

2.            Aware of the food habits of Indians, why did McDonald’s err in mixing beef extract in the oil used for fries?

3.            How far has McDonald’s succeeded in strategizing and meeting local cultures and needs?

 CASE IV

 BPO-BANE OR BOON ?

Several MNCs are increasingly unbundling or vertical disintegrating their activities. Put in simple language, they have begun outsourcing (also called business process outsourcing) activities formerly performed in-house and concentrating their energies on a few functions. Outsourcing involves withdrawing from certain stages/activities and relaying on outside vendors to supply the needed products, support services, or functional activities.

 Take Infosys, its 250 engineers develop IT applications for BO/FA (Bank of America). Elsewhere, Infosys staffers process home loans for green point mortgage of Novato, California. At Wipro, five radiologists interpret 30 CT scans a day for Massachusetts General Hospital.

 2500 college educated men and women are buzzing at midnight at Wipro Spectramind at Delhi. They are busy processing claims for a major US insurance company and providing help-desk support for a big US Internet service provider – all at a cost upto 60 percent lower than in the US. Seven Wipro Spectramind staff with Ph.Ds in molecular biology sift through scientific research for western pharmaceutical companies.

 Another activist in BPO is Evalueserve, headquartered in Bermuda and having main operations near Delhi. It also has a US subsidiary based in New York and a marketing office in Australia to cover the European market. As Alok Aggarwal (co-founder and chairman) says, his company supplies a range of value – added services to clients that include a dozen Fortune 500 companies and seven global consulting firms, besides market research and venture capital firms. Much of its work involves dealing with CEOs, CFOs, CTOs, CLOs and other so-called C-level executives.

 Evalueserve provides services like patent writing, evaluation and assessment of their commercialization potential for law firms and entrepreneurs. Its market research services are aimed at top-rung financial service  firms, to which it provides analysis of investment opportunities and business plans. Another major offering is multilingual services. Evalueserve trains and qualifies employees to communicate in Chinese, Spanish, German, Japanese and Italian, among other languages. That skill set has opened market opportunities in Europe and elsewhere, especially with global corporations.

 ICICI Infotech Services in Edison, New Jersey, is another BPO services provider that is offering marketing software products and diversifying into markets outside the US. The firm has been promoted by $2-billion ICICI Bank, a large financial institution in Mumbai that is listed on the New York Stock Exchange.    

 In its first year after setting up shop in March 1999, ICICI Infotech spent $33 million acquiring two information technology services firms in New Jersy – Object Experts and lvory Consulting – and Command Systems in Connecticut. These acquisitions were to help ICICI Infotech hit the ground in the US with a ready book of contracts. But it soon found US companies increasingly outsourcing their requirements to offshore locations, instead of hiring foreign employees to work onsite at their offices. The company found other native modes for growth. It has started marketing its products in banking, insurance and enterprise source planning among others. It has ear------- $10 million for its next US market offensive, which would go towards R & D and back-end infrastructure support, and creating new versions of its products to comply with US market requirements. It also has a joint venture – Semantik Solutions GmbH in Berlin, Germany with the Fraunhofer Institute for Software and Systems Engineering, which is based in Berlin, Germany with the Fraunhofer Institute for Software and Systems Engineering, which is based in Berlin and Dortmund, Germany, Fraunhofer is a leading institute in applied research and development with 200 experts in software engineering and evolutionary information.

 A relatively late entrant to the US market, ICICI Infotech started out with plain vanilla IT services, including operating call centers. As the market for traditional IT services started weakening around mid-2000, ICICI Infotech repositioned itself as a “Solutions” firm offering both products and services. Today, it offers bundled packages of products and services in corporate and retail banking and insurance, among other areas. The new offerings include data center and disaster recovery management and value chain management services.

 ICICI Infotech’s expansion into new overseas markets has paid off. Its $50 million revenue for its latest financial year ending March 2003 has the US operations generating some $15 million, while the Middle East and Far East markets brought in another $9 million. It now boasts more than 700 customers in 30 countries, including Dow Jones, Glaxo – Smithkline, Panasonic and American Insurance Group.

 The outsourcing industry is indeed growing from strength. Though technical support and financial services have dominated India’s outsourcing industry, newer fields are emerging which are expected to boost the industry many times over.

 Outsourcing of human resource services or HR BPO is emerging as big opportunity for Indian BPOs with global market in this segment estimated at $40-60 billion per annum. HR BPO comes to about 33 percent of the outsourcing revenue and India has immense potential as more than 80 percent of Fortune 1000 companies discuss offshore BPO as a way to out costs and increase productivity.

 Another potential area is ITES/BPO industry. According to a NASSCOM Survey, the global ITES/BPO industry was valued at around $773 billion during 2002 and it is expected to grow at a compounded annual growth rate of nine percent during the period 2002-06. NASSCOM lists the major indicators of the high growth potential of ITES/BPO industry in India as the following :

 During 2003-04, The ITES/BPO segment is estimated to have achieved a 54 percent growth in revenues as compared to the previous year. ITES exports accounted for $3.6 billion in revenues, up from $2.5 billion in 2002-03. The ITES-BPO segment also proved to be a major opportunity for job seekers, creating employment for around 74,400 additional personnel in India during 2003-04. The number of Indians working for this sector jumped to 245,500 by March 2004. By the year 2008, the segment is expected to employ over 1.1 million Indians, according to studies conducted by NASSCOM and McKinsey & Co. Market research shows that in terms of job creation, the ITES-BPO industry is growing at over 50 percent.

 Legal outsourcing sector is another area India can look for Legal transcription involves conversion of interviews with clients or witnesses by lawyers into documents which can be presented in courts. It is no different from any other transcription work carried out in India. The bottom-line here is again cheap service. There is a strong reason why India can prove to be a big legal outsourcing industry.

 India, like the US, is a common-law jurisdiction rooted in the British legal tradition. Indian legal training is conducted solely in English. Appellate and Supreme Court proceedings in India take place exclusively in English. Indian legal opinions are written exclusively in English. Due to the time-zone differences, night time in the US is daytime in India which means that clients get 24 hour attention, and some projects can be completed overnight. Small and mid-sized business offices can solve staff problems as the outsourced lawyers from India take on the time consuming labour intensive legal research and writing projects. Large law firms also can solve problems of overstaffing by using the on-call lawyers.

 Research firms such as Forrester Research, predict that by 2015, more than 489,000 US lawyer jobs, nearly eight percent of the field, will shift abroad.

 Many more new avenues are opening up for BPO services providers. Patent writing and evaluation services are markets set to boom. Some 200,000 patent applications are written in the western world annually, making for a market size of between $5 billion and $7 billion. Outsourcing patent writing service could significantly lower the cost of each patent application, now anywhere between $12,000 and $15,000 apiece – which help expand the market.                    

                 Offshoring of equity research is another major growth area. Translation services are also becoming a big Indian plus. India produces some 3,000 graduates in German each year, which is more than in Switzerland.

                 Though going is good, the Indian BPO services providers cannot afford to be complacent, Phillippines, Mexico and Hungary are emerging as potential offshore locations. Likely competitor is Russia, although the absence of English speaking people there holds the country back. But the dark horse could be South Africa and even China.

                 BPO is based on sound economic reasons. Outsourcing helps gain cost advantage. If an activity can be performed better or more cheaply by an outside supplier, why not outsource it ? Many PC makers, for example, have shifted from in-house assembly to utilizing contract assemblers to make their PCs. CISCO outsources all productions and assembly of its routers and switching equipment to contract manufacturers that operate 37 factories, all linked via the Internet.

                 Secondly, the activity (outsourced) is not crucial to the firm’s ability to gain sustainable competitive advantage and won’t hollow out its core competence, capabilities, or technical knowhow. Outsourcing of maintenance services, data processing, accounting, and other administrative support activities to companies specializing in these services has become common place. Thirdly, outsourcing reduces the company’s risk exposure to changing technology and / or changing buyer preferences.

                 Fourthly, BPO streamlines company operations in ways that improve organizational flexibility, cut cycle time, speedup decision making and reduce coordination costs. Finally, outsourcing allows a company to concentrate on its crore business and do what it does best. Are Indian companies listening? If they listen, BPO is a boon them and not a bane.

Questions

1.            Which of the theories of International trade can help Indian services providers gain competitive edge over their competitors?

2.            Pick up some Indian services providers. With the help of Michael Porter’s diamond, analyze their strengths and weaknesses as active players in BPO.

3.            Compare this case with the case given at the beginning of this chapter. What similarities and dissimilarities do you notice? Your analysis should be based on the theories explained in this chapter.

 CASE V

 THE SAGA CONTINUES

 It was the talk of the town in Bangalore during the late 1970s and early 1980s. The plant was coming up on the Bangalore – Yelahanka Road, about 20 km from the city. Everything the people over three did became a folklore. The buildings were huge with wonderful architecture, beautifully built with wide roads and huge spaces. Should a situation demand, the entire plant could be dismantled, bundled up, loaded into trucks and ferried to other places. Lighting inside the building had to be seen to be believed. Interiors had to be seen to be believed. Washrooms, stores, reception, canteen, healthcare, had to be seen to be believed. It had never happened elsewhere. It was amazing, the boss was not addressed as Sir, he was called Mr. ---- and so ! The yellow painted buses on the city roads made a delightful sight. Legends were fold about the two gentlemen who founded the company.

 An interesting story is told about how one of the surviving founders (Larsen who lived till 2003) visited the Bangalore plant once a year, he stayed in a hotel on his own, hired his own cab, went to the plant and greeted every employee, from the top brass down to the last person in the hierarchy. Story is also told about how, on one such visit Larsen went to the reception and asked for permission to enter the plant. Not knowing who he was, the young lass in reception room made him wait for half-an-hour. By luck, someone recognized him.

 A budding author captured all these and many more in his first book, which became a big hit with all the teachers and students in different colleges buying and reading it.

 If cannot be anything other than L & T, the huge engineering and construction multi-plant organization, founded in 1938 by two Danish engineers, Henning Holck – Larsen and Soren Kristin Toubro.

 Henning Holck – Larsen and Soren Kristin Toubro, school – mates in Denmark, would not have dreamt, as they were learning about India in history classes that they would, one day, create history in that land. In 1938, the two friends decided to forgo the comforts of working in Europe and started their own operation in India. All they had was a dream. And the courage to dare. Their first office in Mumbai (Bombay) was so small that only one of the partners could use the office at a time! Today, L & T is one of India’s biggest and best known industrial organizations with reputation for technological excellence, high quality of products and services and strong customer orientation.

 As on today, L & T is a 62 business conglomerate with turnover of Rs. 18,363 crore (2006-07), with the script commanding Rs. 2400 in the bourses.

 No, L & T is not sitting pretty. It want to hit Rs. 30,000 crore turnover mark by 2010 and is busy restructuring, sniffing new pastures, grooming new talent and projecting the new company credo – “It’s all about Imagineering.” With the sole idea of creating several MNCs within, with footprints across nations, L & T is shedding the old economy and embracing the emergent opportunities and challenges.

 Stagnant Revenues and Low Margins

Not everything went the L & T way.

In the late nineties, the macro environment was ----- inspiring with stagnant revenues and low margins, and L & T’s core strength, its engineers, were being constantly weaned away by the fast-growing software sector. So, the general comment around the bourses was about the credibility of the company, ‘L & T is a, good company but its stock price, for some reason or the other, is fixed at the Rs. 140-210 band. So the company had to change by keeping its core intact. As s senior executive remarks. “L & T was perceived to be un –sexy and we had to create a new buzz around the campuses.” The metamorphosis must echo through a whimper, not a bang. Even before the company divested its cement business in 2003, which accounted for 25% of its total sales, there were years of incremental and low visibility organizational moves towards a new L & T.

 At a 52-week high of Rs. 2400, the L & T scrip today looks dapper, a far cry from the nineties when the stock price was in a state of flux. Much of the change started as a ripple way back in 1999 when Naik took over as the CEO. He visited employees at all levels across the organization and asked them what it took to transform the company. The insights were mapped and implemented. “None of our employees thought that we build shareholder value. They thought we build monuments,” the chairman reminisces. The focus on people became stronger and formed the basis of restructuring. It became the first old economy company to provide stock options to its employees.

 When Naik came to the helm, he set upon himself a 90 – day transformational agenda. Portfolios were reviewed and a vision clearly chalked out. He drew up a simple, brief, “ L & T has to be a multinational company and it has to deliver shareholder value at any cost. At the end of 90 days, between July 22 and July 24, 1999, the company launched Project Blue Chip, which essentially fast – tracked projects. The moot point was to complete all projects by February of the new millennium. Strategy formation teams were formed, portfolios reviewed and structures were optimized. Young leadership was brought to the fore and the business streamlining process kicked in.

 Hiving off from 1999-2001, L & T went about debottle- necking its cement plants. They were modernized and capitalized were raised from 12 million tones to 16 million tones annually, with minimum costs. The mantra really was to grow the business and then divest it as cement fell in the non-core category.

 So, in September 2003, L & T sold its cement business to the Aditya Birla Group, which resulted in the company’s Economic Value Add (EVA), an important indicator of the financial health of the company, swinging from a negative Rs.350-crore to a positive Rs.50-crore immediately. The move also enabled L&T to reduce its debt-equity ratio from 1:1 to 0.2:1. Analysts took a positive view of the demerger, and re-rated L&T as AAA from AA+ in 2004. From then on, began L&T’s transformation into a lean and mean machine. In 2004, the company envisaged a growth curve for the next five years. This marked the beginning of Project Lakshya, which was centered around people, operations, capabilities and new ventures. The company set out with over 300 initiatives in hand, and also placed a rigorous risk management system. For instance, any project above Rs. 1,000-crore needed the signature of the chairman. Project Lakshya is known for targeting and selecting the right projects.

 By now, the Indian economy had started witnessing unprecedented boom and despite divesting the cement business, the L&T turnover scaled the Rs. 10,000 crore mark. Alongside, the lucrative Middle East market was booming and L&T forayed into six countries in the Gulf with joint ventures. “The idea was to develop a mini L&T in the region,” observes a senior company executive. The company also set up manufacturing facilities in China to leverage the cost structure. Exports in 2007 constituted 18% of net sales. With soaring revenues and operating margins, L&T started benchmarking itself with the best in the world. Suddenly, the notion of an Indian MNC became a reality.

 L&T has big plans to foray into new businesses. The new businesses are:

 Ship-building: L&T is getting into ship-building by building a world-class facility, and already has a small shipyard in Hazira. Will build complex ocean going ships for the first time in India.

 Power equipment: It is getting into power equipment in a big way. A JV with Mitsubishi for super critical boilers, formed another with Toshiba for turbines on the way.

 Financial services: L&T is rapidly increasing its presence in infrastructure finance. It is also planning to come up with a $1 billion infrastructure fund.

 Railways: A new area, L&T aims to be an end-to-end solutions provider for the railways, from track-laying to signaling to transmission, and others.

 The global economic meltdown has hit L&T also, but lightly. Its order book at Rs. 71,650cr has not grown as expected. Delay in finalization of several government projects as well as the slowdown in the overseas markets are the key reasons for the lax in order inflow. The company, however, has maintained its forecast of a 25 percent growth in its order book for the fiscal 2010.

L&T’s, IT and financial subsidiaries too witnessed lackluster performance with profits remaining stagnant.

 L&T’s focus areas in future would be the Middle East and China in view of the booming infrastructure market there.

 Thus, for an institution that has grown to legendary proportions, there cannot and must not be an ‘end’. Unlike other stories, the L&T saga continues.

 

 QUESTIONS

1.            Having a strong presence in India, what drives L&T to think of emerging a strong MNC ?

2.            What challenges lies ahead of L&T ? How does it prepare to cope with them ?

3.            Will the L&T Saga continue ?

CASE VI

THE ABB PBS JOINT VENTURE IN OPERATION

 ABB Prvni Brnenska Strojirna Brno, Ltd. (ABB-PBS), Czechoslovakia was a joint venture in which ABB has a 67 per cent stake and PBS a.s. has a 33 per cent stake. This PBS share was determined nominally by the value of the land, plant and equipment, employees, and goodwill, ABB contributed cash and specified technologies and assumed some of the debt of PBS. The new company started operations on April 15, 1993.

                 Business for the joint venture in its first two full years was good in most aspects. Orders received in 1994, the first full year of the joint venture's operation, were higher than ever in the history of PBS. Orders received in 1995 were 21/2 times those in 1994. The company was profitable in 1995 and ahead of 1994s results with a rate of return on assets of 2.3 per cent and a rate of return on sales of 4.5 per cent.

                 The 1995 results showed substantial progress towards meeting the joint venture's strategic goals adopted in 1994 as part of a five-year plan. One of the goals was that exports should account for half of the total orders by 1999. (Exports had accounted for more than a quarter of the PBS business before 1989, but most of this business disappeared when the Soviet Union collapsed), In 1995 exports increased as a share of total orders to 28 per cent up from 16 per cent the year before.

                 The external service business, organized and functioning as a separate business for the first time in 1995, did not meet expectations. It accounted for five per cent of all orders and revenues in 1995, below the 10 per cent goal set for it. The retrofitting business, which was expected to be a major part of the service business, was disappointing for ABB-PBS, partly because many other small companies began to provide this service in 1994, including some started by former PBS employees who took their knowledge of PBS-built power plants with them. However, ABB-PBS managers hoped that as the company introduced new technologies, these former employees would gradually lose their ability to perform these services, and the retrofit and repair service business would return to ABB-PBS.

                 ABB-PBS dominated the Czech boiler business with 70 per cent of the Czech market in 1995, but managers expected this share to go down in the future as new domestic and foreign competitors emerged. Furthermore, the west European boiler market was actually declining because environmental laws caused a surge of retrofitting to occur in the mid-1980s, leaving less business in the 1990s. Accordingly ABB-PBS boiler orders were flat in 1995.

                 Top managers at ABB-PBS regarded business results to date as respectable, but they were not satisfied with the company's performance. Cash flow was not as good as expected. Cost reduction had to go further. "The more we succeed, the more we see our shortcomings", said one official.

 Restructuring

               The first round of restructuring was largely completed in 1995, the last year of the three-year restructuring plan. Plant logistics, information systems, and other physical capital improvements were in place. The restructing included :

•             Renovating and reconstructing workshops and engineering facilities

•             Achieving ISO 9001 for all four ABB-PBS divisions (awarded in 1995)

•             Transfer of technology from ABB (this was an ongoing project)

•             Installation of an information system

•             Management training, especially in total quality assurance and English language

•             Implementing a project management approach.

                 A notable achievement of importance of top management in 1995 was a 50 per cent increase in labour productivity, measured as value added per payroll crown. However, in the future ABB-PBS expected its wage rates to go up faster than west European wage rates (Czech wages were increasing about 15 per cent per year) so it would be difficult to maintain the ABB-PBS unit cost advantage over west European unit cost.

 The  Technology Role for ABB-PBS

The joint venture was expected from the beginning to play an important role in technology development for part of ABB's power generation business worldwide. PBS a.s. had engineering capability in coal-fired steam boilers, and that capability was expected to be especially useful to ABB as more countries became concerned about air quality. (When asked if PBS really did have leading technology here, a boiler engineering manager remarked, "Of course we do. We burn so much dirty coal in this country, we have to have better technology").

 However, the envisioned technology leadership role for ABB-PBS had not been realised by mid-1996. Richard Kuba, the ABB-PBS managing director, realised the slowness with which the technology role was being fulfilled, and he offered his interpretation of events :

 "ABB did not promise to make the joint venture its steam technology leader. The main point we wanted to achieve in the joint venture agreement was for ABB-PBS to be recognised as a full-fledged company, not just a factory. We were slowed down on our technology plans because we had a problem keeping our good, young engineers. The annual employee turnover rate for companies in the Czech Republic is 15 or 20 per cent, and the unemployment rate is zero. Our engineers have many other good entrepreneurial opportunities. Now we've begun to stabilise our engineering workforce. The restructuring helped. We have better equipment and a clean and safer work environment. We also had another problem which is a good problem to have. The domestic power plant business turned out to be better than we expected, so just meeting the needs of our regular customers forced some postponement of new technology initiatives."

 ABB-PBS had benefited technologically from its relationship with ABB. One example was the development of a new steam turbine line. This project was a cooperative effort among ABB-PBS and two other ABB companies, one in Sweden and one in Germany. Nevertheless, technology transfer was not the most important early benefit of ABB relationship. Rather, one of the most important gains was the opportunity to benchmark the joint venture's performance against other established western ABB companies on variables such as productivity, inventory, and receivables.

 Questions

1.            Where does the joint venture meet the needs of both the partners? Where does it fall short?

2.            Why had ABB-PBS failed to realized its technology leadership?

3.            What lessons one can draw from this incident for better management of technology transfers?

 CASE VII

 PERU

Peru is located on the west coast South America. It is the third largest nation of the continent (after Brazil and Argentina), and covers almost 500,000 square miles (about 14 per cent of the size of the United States). The land has enormous contrasts, with a desert (drier than the Sahara), the towering snow-capped Andes mountains, sparking grass-covered plateaus, and thick rain forests. Peru has approximately 27 million people, of which about 20 per cent live in Lima, the capital. More Indians (one half of the population) live in Peru than in any other country in the western hemisphere. The ancestors of Peru’s Indians were the famous Incas, who built a great empire. The rest of the population is mixed and a small percentage is white. The economy depends heavily on agriculture, fishing, mining, and services. GDP is approximately $115 billion and per capita income in recent years has been around $4, 300. In recent years the economy has gained some relative and multinationals are now beginning to consider investing in the country.

                 One of these potential investors is a large New York based that is considering a $25 million loan to the owner of a Peruvian fishing fleet. The owner wants to refurbish the fleet and add one more ship.

                 During the 1970s, the Peruvian government nationalized a number of industries and factories and began running them for the profit of the state. In most cases, these state-run ventures became disasters. In the late 1970s, the fishing fleet owner was given back his ships and allowed to operate his business as before. Since then, he has managed to remain profitable, but the biggest problem is that his ships are getting old and he needs and influx of capital to make repairs and add new technology. As he explained it to the New York banker: “Fishing is no longer just an art. There is a great deal of technology involved. And to keep costs low and be competitive on the world market, you have to have the latest equipment for both locating as well as catching and then loading and unloading the fish.”

                 Having reviewed the fleet owner’s operation, the large multinational bank believers that the loan is justified. The financial institution is concerned, however, that the Peruvian government might step in during the next couple of years and again take over the business. If this were to happen it might take and additional decade for the loan to be repaid. If the government were to allow the fleet owner to operate the fleet the way he has over the last decade, the loan could be repaid within seven years.

                 Right now, the bank is deciding on the specific terms of the agreement. Once these have been worked out, either a loan officer will fly down to Lima and close the deal or the owner will be asked to come to New York for the signing. Whichever approach is used, the bank realizes that final adjustments in the agreement will have to be made on the spot. Therefore, if the bank sends a representative to Lima, the individual will have to have the authority to commit the bank to specific terms. These final matters should be worked out within the next ten days.

 Questions

1.            What are some current issues facing Peru? What is the climate for doing business in Peru today?

2.            What type of political risks does this fishing company need to evaluate? Identify and describe them.

3.            What types of integrative and protective and defensive techniques can the bank use?

4.            Would the bank be better off negotiating the loan in New York or in Lima? Why?

     Master Program in Business Administration (MBA)

 Note :- Solve any 4 case study

          All case carries equal marks

CASE I

 A DIAMOND PERSONALITY

  Ask Suraj bhai about the dot-com burst and he may grin at you as if to say, ``What burst?’’ Suraj bhai, a 38-year-old entrepreneur, owns an Internet business that sells loose diamonds to various buyers. Business is becoming for Suraj bhai. In 2004, he had sales of INR 3,500 million. Needless to say, Suraj bhai is optimistic about his business venture.

               The future wasn’t always to bright for Suraj bhai, however. In 1985, Suraj bhai moved from his native town Suraj, to New Delhi, with little ability to speak English. There, he attended language courses and worked at the local mall to support himself. After graduation, his roommate’s girlfriend suggested that he work at a local jeweler. ``I thought she was crazy. I didn’t know anything about jewelry,’’ says Suraj bhai, who took her advice. Though he worked hard and received his Diamonds and Diamonds Grading certification from the Gemological Institute, he wasn’t satisfied with his progress. `I quickly realized that working there, I was just going to get a salary with a raise here and there. I would never become anything. That drove me to explore other business ventures. I also came to really known diamonds – their pricing and their quality.’’

               In 1997, tired of working for someone else, Suraj bhai decided to open his own jewelry store. However, business didn’t boom. `Some of my customers were telling me they could find diamonds for less on the Interest. It blew my mind’’ Surajy bhai recognized an opportunity and began contacting well-known diamond dealers to see if they would be interested in selling their gems online. Suraj bhai recalls one conversation with a prominent dealer who told him, `You cannot sell diamonds on the Internet. You will not survive.’’ Discouraged, Suraj bhai then says that he made a mistake. ``I stopped working on it. If you have a dream, you have to keep working harder at it.’’

               A year later, Suraj bhai did work harder at his dream and found a dealer who agreed to provide him with some diamonds. Says Suray bhai, ``Once I had one. I could approach others. Business started to build. The first 3 months I sold INR 20 million worth of diamonds right off the bat. And that was just me. I started to add employees and eventually closed the jewelry store and got out of retail.’’ Although Suraj bhai does have some diamonds in inventory, he primarily acts as a connection point between buyers and suppliers, giving his customers an extraordinary selection from which to choose.

               Suraj bhai is now a savvy entrepreneur, and his company, Abhisaz.com, went public in October 2003.

               Why is Suraj bhai successful? Just ask two people who have known Suraj bhai over the years. Yogesh bhai, a realtor who helped build Suraj bhai building, says, ``Suraj bhai is a very ambitious young man. I am not surprised at all how successful he is. He is an entrepreneur in the truest sense of the world.’’ One of Suraj bhai former real-estate instructors, Arun Jain, concurs. `I am not surprised at all at his success,’’ says Arun. ``Suraj bhai has always been an extremely motivated individual with a lot of resources. He has a wonderful personality and pays close attention to detail. He also has an ability to stick to things. You could tell from the beginning that he was going to persevere, and I am proud of him.’’

               Suraj bhai is keeping his success in perspective, but he also realizes his business’ potential: ``I take a very small salary, and our overhead in INR 25 million a year. I am not in debt, and the business is breaking ever. I care about the company. I want to keep everything even until we take off, and then it may be another ball game.’’

 Questions:

 1. What factors do you think attributed to Suraj bhai’s success? Was he merely ``in the right place at the right time’’, or are there characteristics about him that contribute to his success?

2. How do you believe Suraj bhai would score on the Big Five dimensions of personality (extroversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability, openness to experience)? Which ones would he score high on? Which ones might he score low on?

3. Do you believe that Suraj bhai is high or low on core self-evaluations? On what information did you base your decision?

4. What information about Suraj bhai suggests that he has a proactive personality?

     

CASE II

 BULLYING BOSSES

 It got to where I was twitching, literally, on the way into work,’’ states Carrie Clark, a 52-year-old retired teacher and administrator. After enduring 10 months of repeated insults and mistreatment from her supervisor, she finally quit her job. ``I had to take care of my health.’’

               Though many individuals recall bullies from their elementary school days, some are realizing that bullies can exist in the workplace as well. And these bullies do not just pick on the weakest in the group, rather, any subordinate in their path may fall prey to their torment, according to Dr. Gary Namie, director of the Workplace Bullying and Trauma Institute. Dr. Namie further says workplace bullies are not limited to men-women are at least as likely to be bullies. However, gender discrepancies are found in victims of bullying, as women are more likely to be targets.

               What motivates a boss to be a bully? Dr. Harvey Hornstein, a retired professor from Teachers College at Columbia University, suggests that supervisors may use bullying as a means to subdue a subordinate that poses a threat to the supervisor’s status. Additionally, supervisors may bully individuals to vent frustrations. Many times however, the sheer desire to wield power may be the primary reason for bullying.

               What is the impact of bullying on employee motivation and behavior? Surprisingly, even though victims of workplace bullies may feel less motivated to go to work every day, it does not appear that they discontinue performing their required job duties. However, it does appear that victims of bullies are less motivated to perform extra-role or citizenship behaviors. Helping others, speaking positively about the organization, and going beyond the call of duty are behaviors that are reduced as a result of bullying. According to Dr. Bennett Tepper of the University of North Carolina, fear may be the reason that many workers continue to perform their job duties. And not all individuals reduce their citizenship behaviors. Some continue to engage in extra-role behaviors to make themselves look better than their colleagues.

                 What should you do if your boss is bullying you? Don’t necessarily expect help from coworkers. As Emelise Aleandri, an actress and producer from New York who left her job after being bullied, stated, ``Some people were afraid to do anything. But others didn’t mind what was happening at all, because they wanted my job.’’ Moreover, according to Dr. Michelle Duffy of the University of Kentucky, coworkers often blame victims of bullying in order to resolve their guilt. ``they do this by wondering whether maybe the person deserved the treatment, that he or she has been annoying, or lazy, they did something to earn it,’’ states Dr. Duffy. One example of an employee who observed this phenomenon firsthand is Sherry Hamby, who was frequently verbally abused by her boss and then eventually fired. She stated, ``This was a man who insulted me, who insulted by family, who would lay into me while everyone else in the office just sat there and let it happen. The people in my office eventually started blaming me.’’

               What can a bullied employee do? Dr. Hornstein suggests that employees try to ignore the insults and respond only to the substance of the bully’s grip. `stick with the substance, not the process, and often it won’t escalate,’’ he states. Of course, that is easier said than done.  

 Questions:

1)            Of the three types of organizational justice, which one does workplace bullying most closely resemble?

2)            What aspects of motivation might workplace bullying reduce? For example, are there likely to be effects on an employee’s self-efficacy? If so, what might those effects be?

3)            If you were a victim of workplace bullying, what steps would you take to try to reduce its occurrence? What strategies would be most effective? What strategies might be ineffective? What would you do if one of your colleagues was a victim of an abusive supervisor?

4)            What factors do you believe contribute to workplace bullying? Are bullies a product of the situation, or are they flawed personalities? What situations and what personality factors might contribute to the presence of bullies?

   

CASE III

 THANKS FOR NOTHING

  Thought it may seem fairly obvious that receiving praise and recognition from one’s company is a motivating experience, sadly many companies are failing miserably when it comes to saying ``thanks’’ to their employees. According to curt Coffman global practice leader at Gallup, 71 percent of U.S. workers are ``disengaged’’, essentially meaning that they could care less about their organization. Coffman states. ``We’re operating at one-quarter of the capacity in terms of managing human capital. It’s alarming.’’ Employee recognition programs, which became more popular as the U.S. economy shifted from industrial to knowledge-based, can be an effective way to motivate employees and make them feel valued. In many cases, however, recognition programs are doing ``more harm than good’’ according to Coffman.

               Take Ko, a 50-year-old former employee of a dot-com in California. Her company proudly instituted a rewards program designed to motivate employees. What were the rewards for a job well-done? Employees would receive a badge which read ``U Done Good’’ and, each year, would receive a T-shirt as a means of annual recognition. Once an employee received 10 ``U Done Good’’ badges, he or she could trade them in for something bigger and better—a paperweight. Ko states that she would have preferred a raise. ``It was patronizing. There wasn’t any deep thought involved in any of this.’’ To make matters worse, she says the badges were handed out arbitrarily and were not tied to performance. And what about those T-shirts? Ko states that the company instilled a strict dress code, so employees couldn’t even wear the shirts if they wanted to. Needless to say, the employee recognition program seemed like an empty gesture rather than a motivation.

               Even programs that provide employees with more expensive rewards can backfire, especially if the rewards are given insincerely. Eric Lange, an employee of a trucking company, recalls the time when one of the company’s vice presidents achieved a major financial goal for the company. The vice president, who worked in an office best of Lange, received a Cadillac Seville as his company car and a new Rolex wristwatch that cost the company $10,000. Both were lavish gifts, but the way they were distributed left a sour taste in the vice president’s mouth. He entered his office to find the Rolex in a cheap cardboard box sitting on his desk, along with a brief letter explaining that he would be receiving a 1099 tax form in order to pay taxes on the watch. Lange state of the vice president, ``He came into my office, which was right next door, and said, `can you believe this?’’ A mere 2 months later, the vice president pawned the watch. Lange explains. ``It had absolutely no meaning for him.

               Such experiences resonate with employees who may find more value in a sincere pat on the back than gifts from management that either are meaningless or aren’t conveyed with respect or sincerity. However, sincere pats on the back may be hard to come by. Gallup’s poll found that 61 percent of employees stated that they haven’t received a sincere, ``thank you’’ from management in the past year. Finding such as these are troubling, as verbal rewards are not only inexpensive for companies to hand out but also are quick and easy to distribute. Of course, verbal rewards do need to be paired sometimes with tangible benefits that employees value – after all, money talks. In addition, when praising employees for a job well-done, managers need to ensure that the praise is given in conjunction with the specific accomplishment. In this way, employees may not only feel valued by their organization but will also know what actions to take to be rewarded in the future.

 Questions

1)            If praising employees for doing a good job seems to be a fairly easy and obvious motivational tools, why do you think companies and managers don’t often do it?

2)            As a manager, what steps would you take to motivate your employees after observing them perform well?

3)            Are there any downsides to giving employees too much verbal praise? What might these downsides be and how could you alleviate them as a manager?

4)            As a manager, how would you ensure that recognition given to employees is distributed fairly and justly?

   

CASE IV

 WILL GEORGE W. BUSH BE A GREAT PRESIDENT?

 What does it take to be a great U.S. president? A survey of 78 history, political science, and law scholars rated the U.S. presidents from George Washington to Bill Clinton. Here are the presidents who were rated ``Great’’ and ``Near Great.’’

               Great

               George Washington

               Abraham Lincoln

               Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR)

                 Near Great

               Thomas Jefferson

               Andrew Jackson

               James Polk

               Theodore Roosevelt

               Harry Truman

               Dwight Eisenhower

               Ronald Reagan

Among recent presidents, Presidents Nixon, Ford, and Carter were ranked ``Below Average’’ and Presidents G. H. W. Bush (the first President Bush) and Clinton were ranked ``Average’’.

               So what explains these ratings? The following are some qualities of presidents who have stood the test of time.

1.            Great presidents are transformational leaders who engender strong emotions – that is, you either love them or you hate them (it’s hard to hate someone who made little difference). And great presidents enact a vision that may not respond to popular opinion. Lincoln and FDR were beloved, and hated, by millions.

2.            Great presidents are bold and take risks, and almost all great presidents emerge successfully from a crisis. A great president is perceived as ``being there’’ when a crisis emerges and taking bold action to lead the nation out of the crisis – for example, Lincoln in the Civil War and Roosevelt in WWII.

3.            Great presidents are associated with a vision. Most people, for example, are able to associate the great presidents with defining moment where a clear set of principles was articulated – for example, FDR’s speech to Congress after the attacks on Pearl Harbor, and Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address.

4.            Great presidents are charismatic. They are engaging, articulate, and expressive, which helps capture the public’s attention and rallies people around a president’s cause. One leadership expert argues that the best presidents create colorful personas with their language by using words with basic emotions – for example, good versus evil or love versus hate.

So what about President George W. Bush (the second President Bush)? Shortly after his second inauguration, President Bush embarked on an ambitious agenda of legal reform, transforming the Social Security system, tax reform, and revising immigration laws. One writer commented, ``Bush has always thought big, and always believed you earn political capital by expending it.’’ However, the closeness of the 2004 election (Bush received 51 percent of the vote and Kerry received 48 percent) suggests that Bush may not have overwhelming support.

 Questions

1.            How would you rate President George W. Bush on the four characteristics outlined at the beginning of the case? How would you contrast his reaction to Hurricane Katrina with his reaction to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001? What do you think his handling of these two events says about his leadership?

2.            Do you think leaders in other contexts (business’, sports, religious) exhibit the same qualities of great or near-great U.S. presidents?

3.            Do you think being in the right place at the right time could influence presidential greatness?

  Case V

 A UNIQUE TRAINING PROGRAM AT UPS

  Mark Colvard, a United Parcel manager in San Ramon, California, recently faced a difficult decision. One of his drivers asked for 2 weeks off  to help an ailing family member. But company rules said this driver wasn’t eligible. If Colvard went by the book, the driver would probably take the days off anyway and be fired. On the other hand, Colvard was likely to be criticized by other drivers if he bent the rules. Colvard chose to give the driver the time off. Although he took some heat for the decision, he also kept a valuable employee.

               Had Colvard been faced with this decision 6 months earlier, he says he would have gone the other way. What changed his thinking was a month he spent living in McAllen, Texas. It was part of a UPS management training experience called the Community Internship Program (CIP). During his month in McAllen, Colvard built housing for the poor, collected clothing for the Salvation Army, and worked in a drug rehab center. Colvard gives the program credit for helping him empathize with employees facing cries back home. And he says that CIP has made him a better manager. ``My goal was to make the numbers, and in some cases that meant not looking at the individual but looking the bottom line. After that 1-month stay, I immediately started reaching out to people in a different way.’’

               CIP was established by UPS in the late 1960s to help open the eyes of the company’s predominantly white managers to the poverty and inequality in many cities. Today, the program takes 50 of the company’s most promising executives each summer and brings them to cities around the country. There they deal with a variety of problems- from transportation to housing, education, and health care. The company’s goal is to awaken these managers to the challenges that many of their employees face, bridging the cultural divide that separates a white manager from an African American driver or an upper-income suburbanite from a worker raised in the rural South.

 Questions

1.            Do you think individuals can learn empathy from something like a 1-month CIP experience? Explain why or why not.

2.            How could UPS’s CIP help the organization better manage work-life conflicts?

3.            How could UPS’s CIP help the organization improve its response to diversity?

4.            What negatives, if any, can you envision resulting from CIP?

5.            UPS has 2,400 managers. CIP includes only 50 each year. How can the program make a difference if it includes only 2 percent of all managers? Does this suggest that the program is more public relations than management training?

6.            How can UPS justify the cost of a program like CIP if competitors like FedEx, DHL, and the U.S. Postal Service don’t offer such programs? Does the program increase costs or reduce UPS profits?

   Masters Program in Business Administration (MBA)

 Note :- Solve any 4 case study

          All case carries equal marks

CASE I

NAVEEN FISHERIES  LTD.

 The managing director of Naveen Fisheries Ltd. (NFL) received a message from one of the members of the crew that their mechanized boats had sunk at sea off Paradeep Port Trust due to unfavorable weather. The other directors of NFL ascertained the detailed information regarding the incident. All the promoters were fresh graduates.

 Naveem, Praveen, Nagain, Ravi and Chandra were the promoters of the organization (NFL at Vishakhapattanam) with a capital contribution of Rs. 25 lakh each. Three of them had an engineering background. The other two were commerce graduates. They had thought of designing the vessels themselves so that the cost each mechanized boat would be reduced from Rs. 30 lakhs (if they bought them) to Rs. 22 Lakh. They designed three boats and these were sent out with a newly – appointed crew. Two vessels were sent to Paradeep and the third to Kakinada. Unfortunately, the weather was unfavourable. All the vessels sank. The crew also did not have experience. Two workers were injured and the rest arrived sagely. There was significant damage to the vessels and the residue was considered scrap. The cost of scrap of the vessels was nominal. As their working capital was scarce, and they were unable to invest more capital, they were in a dilemma whether to continue the business or not.

 Case I Questions:

1.            What were the reasons for the sinking of the vessels?

2.            How could they reorganize the businesses?

  

CASE II

 MNC CORPORATION

At MNC Corporation, a foreman of inspection noticed a mistake in the assembly of transmitter cases. The foreman, a shy man when speaking to his immediate superiors, mentioned this matter to the senior supervisor in a weak, ineffectual manner. The senior supervisor nodded his head and continued to work on a report that he was writing. Later, a production slowdown occurred, and it was discovered that this flaw in the transmitter was the cause. The chief of production engineering, upset because this error had passed inspection unnoticed, reproved the senior supervisor in a brusque manner.

The senior supervisor called in the foreman of inspection and asked why this error had not been brought to his attention. The foreman said, “I told you the other day they were missing same of the punch-outs in those transmitter cases.” The senior supervisor said, “Yes, but you did not pound the desk when you told me!”

 Case II Questions:

1.            Why did the communication problem arise?

2.            What do you suggest to prevent the communication problem?

 

CASE III

 MEHTA BANK LTD

 Venkataraman was an officer in a leading nationalized bank with years of service to his credit. During his long period of service, he worked in different capacities and sections. His attitude and behavior made him a trusted in the organization. Having been posted in a big branch based in a large city, he was not keen on getting further promotions.

 On one occasion, when he was working as an incharge of the draft issue section, he issued bundles of drawing books from the main stock of the security forms of the branch and kept the same in his custody in an almirah provided to him. One fine morning, he removed three drawing books out of the stock of books valued below Rs. 10,000 which he had in his own custody and kept them in his house. He then started issuing drafts in various names form his house out of the aforesaid stolen drawing books by allotting correct branch serial numbers obtained from the branch register under his control. The drafts were deposited in different banks/branches of the same bank in different accouns opened in the names of the payees of the drafts. These accounts were introduced by the bank employees, and some of them were in different representations only, like Mr. Venkataraman Aiyar, Mr Venkataraman Iyengar, etc. The drafts thus deposited were presented in clearing and were passed in the normal course without any doubt or suspicion. In the evening, he would visit the concerned drawee offices and collect such paid drafts.

 Having found this technique successful, he tried his hand at yet another. This time he started issuing drafts in fictitious names or in the names of his close relatives drawn on outstations without any vouchers or deposits. After a few days, he would cancel the same drafts by allowing the credits to the respective accounts in his own branch by debiting the head office accounts. He continued to do this for about three months, causing a loss of over Rs. 700,000 to the bank.

 The fraud came to light thanks to the presence of mind exercised by on e of the officers at another local office. He found that on the previous day also, he had paid a similar draft with the leaf number previous to the draft presented now. In his view, it was not possible for such a big office to avoid consumption of draft leaved in this fashion. Consequently, the matter was taken up with the issuing branch. Unfortunately for Venkataraman, someone else was working as the incharge of the draft issue section on that day. On checking up the records, it transpired that no such draft was issued. This led to promt investigations and detection of the whole fraud committed by Venkataraman.

 Case III Questions:

1.            How do you view the present fraud case: a human failure or a system failure?

2.            What are the main issues in the case, and how can our present system of control prevent such fraud?

3.            How would you manage the situation on detection?

 

CASE IV

SHAHID FABRICS

 Mr. Lateef, Chairman of Shahid Fabrics, a Hyderabad-based garments and piece goods firm which exported all its products to the USA, faced a decision in August 1985. The US government had imposed quota restrictions which reduced the exports of his firm by 40 percent. He had to find a new market for his products.

 Shahid Fabrics was one of Pakistan’s major exporters of garments and piece goods. Its share was 25 percent of the exports of these goods of the whole country. It was established in 1954 as a producer of cotton cloth and later, in 1966, it extended production to include garments and piece goods. It had eight local production units and the total number of employees was 8,000. All its garments and piece goods were exported, and branded according to customer specification. All the goods were exported to the USA and the sales of the firm amounted to US$ 100 million. In 1984, the US government imposed quota restrictions. By August 1985, Shahid Fabrics exports had been reduced by 40 percent.

 Mr. Lateef believed that finding new markets was the only way to survive. The possible alternatives according to him were the EEC countries, the USSR, the Middle Eastern Arab countries and the other Asian countries. The EEC was a very good potential market, but Europeans were very tough buyers. It would be necessary to segregate the EEC from other buyers because of their existing specifications with regard to style, colour and packing. The USSR too was a potential market as far as demand was concerned, but the country did not have enough money in foreign exchange.

 The Middle Eastern Arab countries had money, but their requirements were small due to their smaller population. Second, these countries preferred not to buy Pakistani goods directly from Pakistan$. They would rather like to buy the same Pakistani goods, branded differently from other Western countries, say France.

 Asia was a big market, but the Asian countries, including turkey, were Shahid Fabrics’ competition in the international market. Mr. Lateef was deeply concerned with the loss of 40 percent of his export goods. He was eager to determine which new market offered the highest potential. He wondered what specific information he could use to help his decision.

    Case IV Questions:

1.            What information should Mr. Lateef develop to evaluate foreign markets?

2.            Where should he look for this information?

3.            Develop a framework to help Mr. Lateef identify his best potential foreign markets.

  

CASE V

WESTWARD EXPORTS LTD.

 Mr. Abdul Ahmed, Production Manger, Westward Exports Ltd, Karachi, faced a decision in 1984. the rejection rate of their exports of readymade garments was 20 percent of total production. He also felt that their productivity was not as high as it might have been.

 Westward Exports Ltd. was a large Pakistani company exporting ladies fashion garments made of pure cotton. Their main product items were blouses, skirts, dresses, shirts, pants, etc. their main overseas markets were the USA, Europe and Japan, and production was Rs. 100 million. They had about 2,000 workers engaged in production through their various subcontractors.

 Production was carried out by 138 subcontractors. They did not utilize assembly line production: each individual worker carried out all the jobs required on each garment. The machinery and equipment used by the machines had a low output, and were not suited to high technology application. Mr. Abdul knew that male workers performed 60 percent of the total production and the rest was done by females. He also knew that while male workers were always willing to work overtime, their absentee rate was greater than that of women. Abdul felt that productivity could be higher, and he wondered how he should approach this issue.

 The company purchased raw material (grey cloth) from several sources and had it dyed by different concerns, which sometimes caused variation in the colors. Both dyeing and inferior stitching caused the rejection rate, to rise to 20 percent of their total production. Mr. Abdul was worried about this high rate of rejection, and wondered what sequence of steps he should take to help reduce this high rejection rate.

 Case V Questions:

1.            What alternatives are available to Mr Abdul?

2.            Other than purchasing higher technology machinery, in what ways might Mr Abdul increase the effectiveness and efficiency of the dyeing and stitching operations?

  

CASE VI

BABA BEARINGS COMPANY

 The quality circle Sigma was started in the heat treatment section of Baba Bearings Company with seven members.

The members prepared the following list of various factors affecting the productivity of the heat treatment section.

1.            Distortion of bearing races in sealed quench furnaces.

2.            Loss of productivity and energy in sealed quench furnaces.

3.            Excess consumption of LPG.

4.            Rejection of cages due to scaling during annealing.

5.            Shrinkage in tapered roller bearing outer rings.

6.            Broadly, bearing are manufactured in the following three stages: (a) Turning, (b) Heat Treatment, and (c) Grinding.

 The circle members, in their brainstorming session, gave priorities to the study aspects with the help of Pareto analysis. Distortion of bearing races in sealed quench furnaces was a major factor affecting the productivity. Hence, the circle decided to take this up for study. Turned rings in the soft condition are hardened and tempered. After heat treatment, it was noted that about 30 percent of the rings were beyond the specified limits of distortion (ovality). These rings were subject to straining for rectification.

 Straining is a laborious process involving extra manpower and time. It affected schedules and deliveries to customers. The cause and effect diagram was employed for analysis, and the following causes identified:

 •             Design of heating elements

•             Mesh baskets distortion

 The members collected data regarding the heating element. Rings are loaded into the furnace keeping in a mesh basket in layers. The rings are heated by corrtherm heating elements; the heat is made to circulate uniformly throughout the furnace by a circulating fan. After the hardening process, it was observed that in general, the rings arranged at the sides of the basket adjacent to the heating elements showed greater ovality (50 per cent) than those at the centre (17 percent).

 The members felt that rings at the sides were directly exposed to the radiant heat of the elements, and this resulted in a temperature gradient within the cross-section of the rings, causing more distortion. The temperature adjacent to the heating elements was higher by 26 degree Celsius than at the centre of the furnace.

 Case VI Questions:

1.            What are the measures to be taken to avoid direct effect of heat?

2.            Design a quality improvement process for the bearings company.

   Masters Program in Business Administration (MBA)

Specializations :- Total Quality Management

 Note:

1.            Solve any 10 Questions.

2.            Use analytical description where required.

3.            Cite references used if any while proposing solution to any question.

                   Q 1 ) Consider a company involved in testing the strengths of components. Currently 50 engineers are working in the company. Explain briefly the steps that the company should take to implement ISO 9001:2000 based quality system and obtain the certificate from a certifying agency ?

 Q 2) Enumerate any 8 key organization benefits achievable on implementing ISO 14001 based system.

Q 3) What are the global benefits of environmental management system? Discuss-in detail ?

Q 4) What are the different ways of receiving customer feedback? How are the feedback used?

Q 5) A writer on quality has proposed statement on quality is the only issue for organizational Survival.? Discuss the statement in the light of the challenges facing contemporary organizational ?

Q 6 ) Comment on the following statement

a)            “Employee satisfaction must be the top priority which leads to customer satisfaction”

b)            “Price alone is not the only aim of the product. Product and service count for its success”

c)            “Recognition and award systems lead to motivation”

          Q 7) What are the different ways of receiving customer feedback? How are the feedback used?

 Q 8 ) What is the concern of most consumer? Is it price of the product or service? Explain in detail.?

 Q 9 How does the conceptual approach to ISO 14001 differ from ISO 9001

Q 10 ) Enumerate any 8 key organization benefits achievable on implementing ISO 14001 based system.

  Q 11 ) Explain the need for the quality systems in an organizations ?

Q 12 ) List out the barrier of TPM implementations ?

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How To Stop White Urban Liberals

all kinds of cool jewelry and no shipping or getting mobbed t the mall

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by Markos Power

The Left loves to try and deconstruct and discredit anything and everything that does not conform with their Globalist Open Borders agenda. They think that ideas such as pride and respect for your people and culture, belief in something greater than your next bugman purchase, and sacrifice for anything other than yourself is something best left for the rubes of flyover country.

The Left likes to believe they have all the smart people on their side. They will be shocked to learn that their suffocating  ‘conform or die’ atmosphere cannot attract and will never retain creative thinkers and the truly intelligent among their ranks.

All they really have are ultra-conformists who cannot think outside of the “don’t be a racist, sexist, homophobe, Islamophobe, etc.” paradigm.

The Left loves to insult and attack everyday Americans. How about we have a little fun and turn the spotlight around back at them?

What is The Urban Environment?

The ‘White City’ was literally only constructed to house the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago. It was meant to look like a city but was nothing more than a glorified amusement park.

For starters, the Urban environment is artificially constructed. It is not the natural environment of man, and is more akin to how insects and rodent colonies live.

The best way to think about an urban environment is to think of it as a large amusement park. If you think of a modern day Blue City as such, we can break it down into smaller units that make up the whole:

ATMs: Places of employment are pay farms for the urban dweller. Your typical 9-5 corporate cubical worker who lives in the city is more than likely only there to make to finance his ‘playtime’ (going out to the bar, booze, concerts, drugs, etc).

Rides: Bars, clubs, concert festivals. The whole point of living in the city for the vast majority of WULs (White Urban Liberals) is to enjoy all the fun things that a city provides.

Food stands: Expensive resturants, ethnic food, and other fun ‘foodie’ things.

Entertainment: All of the things that a city provides such as ‘free’ music in the parks, marathons and races, and all of the neighborhood street festivals. Since there’s so much to do, you don’t even need to think about anyone or anything outside of your own little bubble.

Trolleys and parking: You don’t even need your own transportation. The city government will provide to you so you don’t need to plan ahead or do anything!

  Move out to the burbs…. to start a family? LMFAO! All the fun and entertainment is here… why would I move? Plus, like, how the hell can I travel and afford things for myself with children lol

Who Lives There?

While there are a few different types of people that live in the city, I’m going to focus on the White Urban Liberals (WULs). I already wrote an in depth piece on them here, but this topic is something that needs to be further addressed.

Who are these people?

Well, you probably know them quite well.

– They are people you know from high school or college who moved to the city immediately after graduating from college.

– They didn’t care about living at home a few years to save their money, but instead wanted to move out right away in order to extend their adolescent lifestyle and keep the ‘college life’ going.

– They still party and get drunk on the weekends, smoke weed and do other drugs, attend concert festivals, and are advent sports fans for their home teams.

– They are against “racism, sexism, bigotry, and hate,” terms they often hear repeated to them from the Corporate Media and other WULs. They have little to no understanding of the terms

– They have completely bought into the Globalist system and are 100% conformists to it.

These people essentially hold the same exact views as the Multinational Corporations, the elites, and the Corporate Media. That is because their whole life is built around these views; their urban amusement park cannot exist without it.

Conformity is the name of the game. They have been rewarded by their conformity: a job to pay for their mindless consumption and entertainment, endless escapism and hedonistic ‘fun’ in the urban amusement park, and a group of “friends” who can easily bond over their favorite sports team and how ‘anti-racist’ they are. 

To start talking about serious issues (the danger of endless immigration and Open Borders, building a wall, and Islamic terrorism) is a threat to their extended adolescence and to their urban amusement parks.

As such,  they will be automatically opposed to anything that threatens to take away their “good times,” just as a child will initially be opposed to an adult trying to impose structure and order in his or her life. 

What Needs To Be Done?

Children won’t impose order and structure in their lives without an adult guiding and helping them along. Children won’t “grow up” without the help of their parents. Similarly, WULs will not “grow up” on their own without outside interference and help. 

Look, if they weren’t an issue, it’s possible they could forever ‘play’ in their urban amusement parks. The problem is, the borders need to  be shut. We cannot keep allowing millions of Third Worlders to enter our country, as they overwhelmingly vote for the Democrats and their Globalist policies. We will simply be outnumbered and outvoted if nothing changes. 

As it stands, the WULs are major supporters of these policies and thus need to be addressed.

1. Make them pay for their own virtue signaling

It’s common knowledge that Blue states are high tax states. These high taxes take away from the product members of society (you) to give to those who do not produce, and are most likely there because they vote for and support the Democrats. In short: they take away from you (who wants a smaller government via lower taxes and low immigration) and give to immigrants and their descendants (who want a larger government with higher taxes and high immigration/open borders). 

As it stands, these high tax states can subsidize their virtue signaling (such as ‘Sanctuary Cities’) by writing off their state income taxes against their federal income taxes.

What this means is that the State can say ‘oh well, we can raise OUR state taxes to pay for our programs, because OUR people can write it off and not pay the federal government that amount.’ As such, they are not paying their fair share.

What needs to be done (which is currently being discussed and may be addressed in the most recent tax bill) is that this tax write off needs be eliminated. The Blue States need to feel the full weight of their high tax policies. They need to choose between spending  billions on illegals or paying even higher taxes. Let the WULs pay the full share of their taxes and then see if they continue to support their virtue signaling programs.

2. Use The Power of the Feds to Enforce Federal Law

This is a perfect opportunity for the Feds. Chicago is going to issue IDs simply to allow illegals to have documentation and be able to vote in city elections.

The Federal Government has a huge arsenal of options to deal with states (let alone cities) that do not comply with federal law.

The Federal Government needs to crack down on illegals who occupy the Blue cities. They need to step up and send home more people who are in our country illegally. Crack down on employers, and target drug dealers and violent criminals who are here illegally.

Using the Feds to enforce the law signals to the WULs that there are laws and rules that society must follow, and their playtime and ‘let’s all just get along guys’ mantra of naivety is a thing of the past. It also has the effect of making them question their ‘conformity’; it will get them thinking, “Wait, am I on the wrong side of this? I want to conform but there are opposing rules and ideas and I’m not sure which way to go.” Over time, this could play a greater role. 

3. Question, Mock, and Ridicule Their Adolesent and Childish Beliefs 

Currently, the Corporate Media, Hollyweird, and actors (some people mistakenly call them ‘celebrities’) are directing the greater American and Western culture towards a Globalist Open Borders consumerist one. 

We need to fix that.

We are having a greater cultural impact than many imagine. We need to keep speaking up and speaking the truth. We need to:

Call out the WULs on their childish and hedonistic ways. 

Dude, you’re 30 and acting like a 18 year old. Stop being such a loser

For example, if one of them says something similar to this:

“You know, I’ve been dating Becka for 6 years, but I’m not ready to get married. Even though I’m 27 years old and have a high paying job, I’m not ready to move out to the burbs and start a family. The city has so much more to offer; bars, resturants and the like just a walk away. It has so much entertainment and fun things to do.”

A proper way to respond is: 

“It sounds like you just want to extend your adolescence and keep living a college life. Dude, got to grow up sometime. When you say you’re “not ready,” it just sounds like you want to keep pretending you are 20 just so you have an excuse to keep drinking and smoking weed. Kinda sounds loserish if you ask me.”

By blatantly and boldly speaking the truth, this will have the effect of shocking them into realizing you are correct, and planting the seed that perhaps they are simply that: a “20 or 30 something” living like a college kid who won’t give it up.

Speak the truth about family, community, and Christianity.

We need to get it out in the broader culture that, no, it isn’t “cool” to live like a college kid at age 29. We need to talk about why it’s important to have a family and be a part of a larger community, as well as praising such things openly.

We need to live that life. When our friends and family see how good we have it, they will naturally want to emulate us. Do not underestimate this, as this hits on the basics of human nature to ‘do what other successful people do.’

Attacks on Christianity are attacks on our culture, customs, and traditions. Attacks on Christianity by the Left are attacks on us. Even if you do not believe in God at this point in your life, you need to recognize this and not go along with these attacks. 

Reject and replace the current Corporate Culture.

The current culture of the West is basically a massive propaganda campaign to convince the people to support Globalist policies such as Open Borders.

We need to withdraw our support of such things. Do not pay for their movies, do not waste your time watching their TV shows and paying them for it, drop your support from professional sports, and do something productive with your time.

At the same time, we need to create our own cultural space where we can promote not only our positive ideas but the truth about what is happening around us. There are already many alternative sources of the news, Youtube channels, blogs, and websites. I only suspect more of this going into the future.

You Are Not Wrong

No, you are not wrong in believing that something is off.

You are right in sensing that something is wrong with our greater culture and society. Although you may not have been able to properly articulate it, you knew that the Corporate Hollywood culture was nothing more than propaganda to infantilize our people, while at the same time our government flooded our country with replacement level Third World migration.

In regards to redemption of the WULs, there is only one way: carrot and stick, push/pull, compliment and ridicule. The only way to change behavior is by offering incentives and taking away privileges. With the threat of massive demographic replacement and literally losing our nations, the privilege of living in a consumerist and pleasure seek bubble in the urban amusement park cannot last (not to mention physical danger now that cities are becoming increasingly more violent and dangerous). 

We just need to be there to offer them something better, and with truth on our side, it is very possible for us to do so.  Let us be the best version of ourselves we can be, and let us do the best we can.

We only live once on this great Earth of ours. Let’s be the best we can be. Let’s make a positive difference.

Let’s go.

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Pokemon GO update event taps McDonalds

The most recent replace to Pokemon Move brings on lured McDonald’s with “dancing pedals” as well as an upgrade for Rural users searching monsters. This set of updates requires no Pokemon Go report replace – until of path the player hasn’t up to date for the beyond numerous weeks. This replace is particularly server-aspect, this means that it’s Niantic’s transfer the turn, rather than that of the person user.

Customers in Japan will benefit this week from the modern McDonald’s sponsorship deal.

This “Golden Week”, as it’s called, many McDonald’s in Japan can be a part of a “Lure module party occasion.” In keeping with Pokemon Go Japan’s reputable Twitter account, round 2,500 “home” McDonald’s will be taking component within the celebration. Right here inside the USA, we will only cross our hands to be so fortunate to sit down round and devour french fries while catching tiny monsters.

The coolest information for United states

Based totally users who live out within the wooded area is a boom in rural spawns. customers that stay in areas with few or no Poker stops or Pokemon Gym locations are getting a lift in spawn regularity. Even as spawn spots might exchange little or no, several customers at some stage in the USA have stated that their own heavily-tracked Pokemon Cross surroundings have visible upwards of a ten%-15% boom in Pokemon spawns.

It turned into suggested all the manner returned in December that Rural and Suburban regions in Pokemon Move might get improved spawn charges for Pokemon of all types. because it turned out, we did indeed get extra Pokemon shooting up – and once Gen 2 was launched, the amount of non-piggy Pokemon expanded through quite a chunk. Simply after phrase of improved spawns, trackers like Kerrie on Reddit determined that most Pokemon spawns inside the following way:

The History of Pokemon – How Did Pokemon Become Popular?

The history of Pokemon began with one single japan guy named Satoshi Tajiri. It changed into his interest. Over time he determined to position his concept of catching creatures into practice, to provide children the identical thrills he had as a baby of catching bugs and tadpoles. Tajiri and buddies worked a whole lot of hours on designs and Tajiri even went with unpaid hours to make his goals come properly for the sport. It almost drove companions bankrupt, and numerous employees cease due to financial situations. The first Pokemon games, Pokemon red and inexperienced, got here to Japan on February 27, 1996, which fulfilled Tajiri’s goals. Due to the fulfillment charge in Japan with the Pokemon games, they released it distant places.

The anime, as well as Pokemon Yellow

Marked Pikachu as the maximum popular and recognized creature in Pokemon records, turning it into the franchise’s mascot. This brought about a small spin-off game referred to as Good day You, Pikachu!, which was launched in Japan on December 12, 1998, and in North America on November 6, 2000. This becomes a digital pet recreation, using the Nintendo sixty-four’s Voice Popularity Unit to allow the players interact verbally with Pikachu. Whilst the anime finished following the video games’ story with Ash’s defeat within the Pokémon League in January 1999, it commenced a new season in a new region referred to as the Orange Archipelago.

A chief overhaul of the principle game collection befell While Pokemon arrived on the sports Boy Develop on November 21, 2002, While Ruby and Sapphire Versions had been launched in Japan. Trainers determined themselves within the southern land known as Hoenn where a hundred thirty-five new Pokemon had been ready to be found. The video games reached North us on March 18, 2003, and had many new functions, the maximum distinguished being Pokemon Contests, Double Battles, Pokemon Capabilities and Natures for each Pokemon. Additionally added in those Variations had been extra types of weather and two new villain teams, Crew Magma and Crew Aqua.

The anime commenced a brand new series, Advanced Technology series

Which started out in Japan on an equal day as the release of the video games and reached North us almost a yr later. A notable deal was modified in this collection, including the creation of a new foremost man or woman, May additionally, primarily based on her recreation counterpart.

There are several generations of Pokemon, and there’s nevertheless future generations to return. While the arena modifications, so do the arena of Pokemon. 2016 marks the twentieth anniversary of Pokemon and might be celebrated by the re-launch of the unique Technology I center collection video games on the Nintendo 3DS’s. There are presently six generations of Pokemon, and over this term, there are numerous games, such as spin-offs, at the side of anime, movies, manga, a Trading Card game, music, and a musical.

Why Do Event Organizers Work With Lighting Companies?

Organizing an event may be worrying since you need to accomplish numerous obligations. Apart from that, organizing an occasion also can be luxurious. This is why to ensure that you may prepare your occasion well, it’s far great to work with dependable specialists. For example, when making plans to set up lighting, it’s miles imperative to call in lights groups. Fortuitously, running with such companies can offer you with numerous benefits that could help make your business occasion higher and more a success. Beneath are some of the following advantages.

Get entry to several lights solutions

One of the motives why many event organizers work with lighting companies is to benefit Access to several lighting fixtures solutions. As of now, there are various lighting alternatives event organizers can make use of. For instance, whilst organizing enterprise occasions, organizers can use lighting effects to emphasize their products or services. Plus, you could also find lighting which is good in making ranges greater appealing. On this way, they could attract people to emerge as clients. As a result, events can offer you with the quality results that may increase enterprise recognition and earnings.

Better visibility

Another motive why more and more occasion organizers work with lighting corporations is to revel in better visibility. There are instances when you may locate regions to your venues that are not handy due to insufficient lights. Fortuitously, agencies that offer lighting fixtures solutions can without problems assist you. This is viable seeing that they could offer you with shiny lighting to make event venues greater visible. Due to this, duties may be finished nicely.

Advanced safety

Running with lighting companies also can help make event venues safer. As referred to above, there are regions in venues in which there are no lighting fixtures. And, this may certainly motive sudden incidents. With the help of professionals, organizers can well deploy enough lights in their venue which lets in them to reduce or even save you accidents at some point of their event.

Growth venue aesthetics

In the end, lighting companies can boom venue aesthetics. this could be achieved with the aid of making use of various sorts of lighting consequences. Organizers can also locate lights that function a wide array of colors that may, in the end, turn simple areas into extravagant event venues. occasion organizers also can assist shifting lighting solutions that could entertain people. by the use of the proper lights, organizers also can improve the atmosphere of venues which could entice guests.

McDonalds Business Analysis

‘Inside the Nineties managers can be judged on their ability to pick out, cultivate, and take advantage of the core abilities that make growth feasible – certainly, they’ll rethink the concept of the company it self.’

C Ok Prahalad and G Hamel 1990

Organizations do not exist in the vacuum. They function inside an aggressive industrial environment. Studying its competition no longer best enables a corporation to identify its very own strengths and weaknesses however additionally assist to become aware of opportunities for and threats to the business enterprise from its industrial environment. SWOT analysis is a systematic analysis of these elements and the strategy that reflects the first-class in shape among them.

Let us examine these principals when it comes to the center competence of McDonalds, certainly one of the biggest food chain groups Inside the international. Let us first begin with the strengths and the effective factors which outline the overall performance of this organisation. How are we able to define the company’s strengths? Energy is a exclusive competence that gives the company a comparative advantage Inside the marketplace vicinity. For instance financial resources, image, market leadership and purchaser dealer members of the family etc

McDonalds is the no: 1 fast meals chain shops with a forty million clients journeying it in keeping with day

It has over 30,000 branches in one hundred twenty countries. It derives 80% of its revenues from eight countries like Canada, Brazil, Germany, France, Japan, United kingdom, Australia, and the US. The finest Energy became growing a picture In the minds of the people and introducing them to the short meals lifestyle. Transport velocity, client care, and cleanliness are the center strengths on which these shops multiplied. They created a corporate symbol and their advertisement campaigns were incredibly a success in setting up the logo picture and brand In the minds of the hundreds of thousands. Two predominant competitors usually diagnosed with McDonald’s are the Burger King and the KFC. McDonald’s advertising approach is involved with the inner resources, external environment and its fundamental capabilities at the side of its proportion holders.

Transport velocity, client care, and cleanliness are the center strengths on which these shops multiplied. They created a corporate symbol and their advertisement campaigns were incredibly a success in setting up the logo picture and brand In the minds of the hundreds of thousands. Two predominant competitors usually diagnosed with McDonald’s are the Burger King and the KFC. McDonald’s advertising approach is involved with the inner resources, external environment and its fundamental capabilities at the side of its proportion holders.

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Wild' tourism: 14 tips for beginners

There are different types of recreation: someone who likes to lie on a beach somewhere on the Mediterranean coast, some in the country, in the shade of the apple trees, or even in a pose of an ostrich on a bed with a carrot, and someone in the nearest river. This list can be continued indefinitely. But there is also the "wild" holiday.

Of course, the "wild" in terms of comfort lovers, and for the others as very pleasant. Our family loves it a rest with tents, kettles and other tourist romance somewhere in the wilderness.

A little background: we started to practice such journeys relatively recently, about 8 years ago. Naturally, we made a lot of errors. Already adept and such trips are almost perfectly.

So, what to consider when organizing such trips?

Preliminary preparation

- Decide on the location and duration of the trip. It is important to take into account the presence of nearby settlements, and will it be possible, in the event of an emergency, quick access to them. An important and will be the presence of these settlements stores, pharmacies and health center.

- Transport conditions: Decide how you will get to a place.

- Take care of the creation of conditions for the stay: tent, sleeping accessories, campfire set, the presence of bodies of water, food, etc. D..

Tent

Choosing a tent is a serious matter. When we bought the first double tent, it did not consider that there is no tent awning. So when we got under the shower - all soaking wet, with all its consequences. Do not repeat our mistake: if you take a tent, immediately buy an additional tent. By the way, the tent can replace conventional film, which is covered greenhouses. Of course, the ideal option - it is ready to take the set. I have two tents, "three rubles," and one bedroom "four". When purchasing, please read the characteristics, especially pay attention to water resistance, wind protection, the presence of air in the tent windows. Pay particular attention to the weight of the tent and its dimensions when folded.

bedding

In the first place - it mats and sleeping bags. In stores now there is a huge choice of accessories. When choosing a sleeping bag guided by temperature indicators, the size and quality of the filler. If you take a sleeping bag, can welcome the cold to -20 degrees, I'm afraid, in the summer, at 15 at night, you will be a little too hot. Mats are different: there are inflatable, which must be chosen according to the weight of the owner and simple, with foam foil. Check in poluekstremalnyh conditions showed that the cheap foam better "trump" inflatable.

catering service

Decide where, how and what you cook. Of course, cooking outdoors is necessary, but there are different options: on the fire or grill or on a gas stove. Do not forget about fire safety! The water is stored in large quantities or primette nearby place where you can get it (a well or in a nearby village shop). Products need to take with those that do not deteriorate in the heat - it's groceries and canned goods. On the first day or two you can take with vegetables. Crockery be unbreakable and light metal or plastic good. Bring a tent or an additional film to arrange cover for "kitchen" in case of rain.

10 Amazing Wildlife Photography Tips

medicine chest

In this holiday bruises and abrasions frequent phenomenon. Therefore, in the kit must be a means for the treatment of wounds: bandages, hydrogen peroxide, "brilliant green" or "streptocid". On very special occasion - the wiring. The campaigns can happen gastrointestinal disorders or sudden bouts of what you want, so the first-aid kit must be available "enterosgel" activated carbon, antispasmodics, analgesics and antihistamines. It should also be put in the first aid kit are drugs that you take on a daily basis. In an emergency, remember: emergency number 112.

Take care of clothes left

Clothing should be warm and light.

leisure Organization

Think about how you will entertain yourself and what to do with the children, if any, will be with you. Balls, badminton, fishing, etc.

aids

Hatchet, Sapper shovel, a good hunting knife.

Take care of insect repellents

This type of holiday is not for nothing called the mosquito resort, the main problem - mosquitoes and ticks. From mosquito repellents recommend taking-spiral that need to be set on fire - they are useless than from bryzgalok and bracelets. Regularly check each other and animals on tick bites.

Toiletries

Soap, towels, napkins, toilet paper, and others, that you need, hygiene.

50+ Wilderness Survival Tips!

Backpack

If you are going to go to the intended destinations by public transport, the freer your hands, the better. When choosing a backpack, consider its scope, carefully check all the locks, straps attachment points, the quality of the backrest, seat belts and material. Rate it easy to check the presence of a lap belt. Remember that a backpack should sit "like a glove" should not restrict movement, and should not be anywhere to press, pull, hang. When packing items protruding things are better put to the outside or in the side pockets.

Do not forget the money and carefully review the schedule of public transport (if are not traveling in his car)

It seems to be collected, prepared, nothing and no one is forgotten? Go!

Arrival at parking lot

Start to settle: choose a place based on the approaches to the pond, it is desirable - on a small hill, in the event of rain water flowed not to the parking lot, and from it. Place for tents should be flat, with no ant and mole burrows.

After the installation of the tent, you want to how to pull, you must in any case make a small trench around. For the kitchen need to clear a space that was not grass, twigs, and other debris that can catch fire. Cooking sanitary zone. If you are staying on the waterfront, check the boat ramp and the coastal territory.

Enjoy your holiday.

wildlife tours in alaska, Travel Guide, Travel Tips, attract tourists, Alaska Vacation

Before you leave home, do not forget about ecology

Take over a parking space. And removed trash.