Essays on The Firm

Kudler Fine Food is a firm and a premier gourmet grocery store that was establish in 1998 by Kathy Kudler, and has a vision of serving savvy shoppers that are seeking for the finest meat, produce, wine and cheese (Anderson, 2009). The social responsibility of Kudler Fine Food is also an important instrument connecting farmers and the firm. Whenever possible, the firm buys local produce from organic farmers. Moreover, the local homeless shelters benefit from the firm by getting free items that are still in good for healthy (Mayo-Smith, 1899). The diversity of the firm is ...

The latest annual report for the Amazon.com, Inc. was released on 14th December, 2010 and covers 2009 financial year. The year officially ended or dates 31st December 2009. The report is titled ‘2009 Annual Report’ and begins with a brief statement addressed to its shareholders. Like the last thirteen annual reports since the year 1997, the report contains a brief statement as a letter directed to the firm’s shareowners which bears a signature of the firm’s founder: Jeffrey P. Bezos. The statement also shows an executive post of Chief Executive Officer (C.E.O) being held by the mentioned Amazon.com founder. Both statements are countersigned by the C.E.O (Amazon.com, 2010).

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Introduction

West Park Services is a ranching organization that has about 30,000 animals and about 500 employees. The employees are in different categories and they enjoy different privileges depending on their level of employment in the organization. The employees’ categories range from farm attendants, Support staff, Administrators, Managers and the Chief Executive officer. For a very long period of time, operations in the firm have been manual. This has led to low level of production as the firm cannot compete effectively with other competitors who have their operations computerized.

One of the major challenges facing the firm is ...

Introduction

Computer Aided Design (CAD) involves the use of computers in the construction industry to perform design jobs. ICT is widely used in the construction industry due to the several advantages that it has over the manual applications. Information technology involves the use of hardware, software and liveware that work together in order to store, retrieve and manipulate data in a computer system. The main purpose of an IT system is to process data and give out the results as information. Information technology is very useful in the day to day activities of human life. ICT is being utilized ...

Executive summary

Luxury Resort

The luxury resort is a restaurant offering pregnancy packages for expectant woman who are almost delivering. It was established two decades ago and it is for baby moon vacation. The services offered in the SPA luxury resort is prenatal massaging treatments, which are part of the romantic package to make them feel appreciated before delivering. The target market is wide because it aims at expanding to all parts of the world. Its first operations or services were started in Northern America and Europe (Kotler & Armstrong, 2010, 56).

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Description of Business

“Magical Healthy Goodies” is a home-based business, selling low-calorie healthy cookies, cakes, and pastries. Business objectives, which are specific clearly defined targets, are the following: starting from December 2010, to increase sales twice by the end of February 2011, and achieve sales of $15 000 in the following 6 months. In order to do this, sole proprietor of the business Ms. Fatmah Hemdan will hire one personal assistant Ms. Alyaa Mohamed, who will be helping with orders, deliveries, and overall management. The business will use social media marketing, namely Facebook group, to promote their products. Social media activities will include updating the group, inviting new friends, and sending email invitations to join the group and purchase the products.

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The Body shop is among the largest firms dealing with personal care products. This firm was first established in the United Kingdom by Anita Roddick who became the chairperson in partnership with her husband, Gordon Roddick. These two individuals had a common goal of using only natural ingredients, supporting fair trade and refusing to test their products on animals. In addition, the founders were determined to ensure that they complied with the international human rights issues. This shop was established in 1976 but became public in 1985.

The body shop is inspired ...

Introduction The company was incepted in 1991 and had an original focus on the licensing of existing exclusive rights, research and development. They are today one of the leaders in the field of plastic injection. The company uses HRIS systems for its Human Resource duties. The HRIS system has not been very effective in handling the increased number of employees in the company and the increased number of activities performed in the company. [1] New HR software is required in the company so as to help improve the services of the company. The new HR software to be introduced ...

Unit:

Solution to the Question

When fixed price is 1,000,000

Number of workers= 50,000

Workers daily wage=80

Other variable cost= 400,000

Therefore Total variable cost= (50000*80) + 400, 000

=4,400,000

Units of Output per day=200,000

Therefore, Average Variable Cost=4,400,000 / 200,000

=22

Average total cost= (4,400,000+1,000,000) /200,000

=27

Work productivity= 200, 000 / 50,000

=4 When the fixed price ...

AQA Business Studies Unit 1

Question 1

(a). What is meant by the term random sample?

A sample is an item chosen from the total population, which is being studied. Therefore, a random sample is the number chosen, and it involves components that are unpredictable. This is selection of a few items to represent the entire population. The sample chosen does not represent the population from which it was drawn. This was an estimate done through survey and information from franchisors, which Tom estimated that it would be about 77000 customers in the first year according to his ...

Abstract

Several accounting principle have been put in place to ensure that the financial statement presented to users are free and fair. The principle of consistency ensures financial statements are prepared using the same principle year after year. Materiality concept ensures that only valuable information is included in financial statement. Principle of disclosure ensures that all valuable information is included in preparation of financial statement. Then the principle of conservatism makes sure that losses are recorded when foreseen while profits must be earned before recording. The fixed asset register keeps eye on all fixed assets of a firm. The ...

Equal Employment Opportunity and Affirmative Action

Equal employment opportunity (EEO) refers to the exemption of employees from workplace discrimination on basis of race, sex, marital status, disability, age and even transgender. EEO rights are affirmed by the federal and state fair employment laws. It is the obligation of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and its states counterparts to enforce the EEO rights. The principle behind EEO is that every employment seeking individual should have the same access to working opportunities. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics projections, the fastest rate of increase among workers, from ...

ANALYSIS TOOLS

Owners of businesses are always looking for the best ways to make their business decisions. Accounting information is one of the tools that can be of great help to business managers in making decisions concerning the operations of the business (Bragg, 2011). In accounting, analysis refers to the assessment of the profitability, viability and stability of a business. These assessments are carried out by professionals in the accounting arm of the business; they prepare reports using ratios that make use of the information acquired from the financial statements and other reports of the company. These are then ...

For a successful business there need to be strategic plans so as to offer quality products or services to the market and be the best among other competitors. For airlines, segmentation, targeting and positioning are the major factors considered. They first look out to what kind of customers exist, which one among the many are they going to serve and finally implement segmentation and maximize on products or eservices for that segment that they have chosen. Segmentation entails determining what kinds of consumers with diverse needs exist. In the airline industry, some customers demand speed and recital, while a ...

How to Retain Top Talent

In today’s fast-paced and constantly changing workplaces, the need to attract and retain top talents is by the day becoming the only option for firms trim down costs and at the same time not jeopardize revenue. Top talent retention becomes the only means by which a company can make such a sensitive decision which is of vital strategic importance as far as human resource is concerned. However, the top talent pool shrinking, which in turn increases the competition by firms, a competition that is even worsened by the disparity in the ...

Assignment One of interpersonal managerial roles developed by Mintzberg is the role of a figurehead, an individual who holds a majorly ceremonial role and carries out tasks like signing legal documents and greeting visitors. The figurehead holds no real decision making powers and can be exemplified by a ceremonial non executive director in an organization. Leadership is another of the roles, and it involves carrying out of all the conventional management roles of directing, controlling and staffing. An example of this role is a chief executive officer who is in an overall supervisory position and directs all the operations ...

Abstract The trade off theory advocates that the management consider the trade off between the benefits resulting from tax shields verses costs, such as bankruptcy costs, interest costs and agency costs among others. The ability of management to obtain external financing is determined by size of company, profitability, opportunities for growth among other factors. The trade off theory indicates that the management gears at obtaining all the benefits associated with external financing. The M and M theory (1963) has the argument that changing the capital structure may not make the share holder any better off. The contradiction of the ...

Introduction

Many companies engage in corporate social responsibility engaging in charitable acts. There has been focused attention on this topic. Milton Friedman suggested that corporate social responsibility applies only to the shareholders of the company. Other parties should not be considered. The managers should only concentrate on maximising shareholder’s wealth and ensure the firm constantly makes profits. This concept goes against the widely held view that a company should practice social responsibility to several stakeholders such as the customers, employees, suppliers and the local communities. The concept proposed by Milton is known as the Shareholder Concept of social ...

Introduction

To illustrate the various aspects of business ethics and religious perspectives, a study was carried out in a CPA firm. This company is owned by Myron D. Solomon who is a CPA and he was interviewed for purposes of this study. This is a small firm located along Dundee Road, Buffalo Grove, Illinois. His firm provides accounting services for small and medium sized companies. It is estimated that his business revenue is less than $ 500,000 annually. Myron D Solomon does not employ full time employees. He shares office space and employ with two other ...

Strategic management is an emerging issue in the field of management. It incorporates science into the management of the firm. It is essential in the contemporary dynamic environment of the organization. Failure to incorporate it in the management of the firm can adversely affect the firm. Globalization is rapidly affecting the environment in which businesses operate in. As such, due to the globalization, survival of the business organization is essential. This can effectively be achieved through strategic management. As such failure to incorporate strategic management in the organization will lead to a failure of the business.

Dynamism in the ...

Abstract

Management has the power to select either hard or soft dimension in HRM. The management choice is based on that management purely depends on whether the management emphasis is placed on the employees or the firms resources. Soft dimension seeks to let workers grow over time through coaching them it is based on McGregor theory Y. On the other hand hard dimension is based on McGregor X. In reality management borrows from both dimension so as to make labor policies human and applicable. Flexibility in the work place is geared at making workers more productive. Several ...

a) Gross Profit Margin = ( Sales - Cost of Goods Sold) / Sales * 100 - as it is expressed as a percentage

Net Profit Margin = (Sales – COGS – Operating Expenses) / Sales

i. Gross Profit margin for 2008 ...

Welshwheels might consider focusing their build-up efforts on direct mail and internet sales. Getting into business is relatively easier in an e-commerce environment. Unfortunately, staying in business may be more difficult. Easy access means increased competition causing business to operate with very thin profit margins. Thus, for Welshwheels to be profitable, it must maintain high sales volumes, which in turn means developing and maintaining a big and loyal customer base. Attracting customers and transforming them into repeat buyers is the key profitability. Electronic commerce involves purchasing and selling of commodities ...

During classifications, entities are to use inputs for measuring fair value according to the three level hierarchies. We start from the highest then moving to the next until we get one which is available. The three levels used are:

Level 1: Level 1 inputs are quoted prices (unadjusted) in active markets for identical assets or liabilities that the reporting entity has the ability to access at the measurement date.

Level 2: Level 2 inputs are inputs other than quoted prices included within Level 1 that are observable for the asset or liability, either directly or indirectly. Level 2 inputs ...

The modern world is a global village where information exchange and information processing are of paramount importance. Companies are linked to their customers and suppliers by numerous information networks, the ever-expanding internet being a major player in the industry. Thus, information processing is a way to view organizations and their designs. Both information systems and individuals possess a capacity to process information, but this capacity, however, is not unlimited and the scarcity of information-handling ability is an essential feature for the organization’ ...

Management and leadership are two distinct things that are often confused to mean the same thing, in an organization these two aspects are complementary and necessary for a successful business enterprise. Business management entails planning and organizing business capital and human resources with aim of attaining the company’s goals and objectives. Management involves planning, staffing, directing and organizing the available human, financial, natural and technological resources. Leadership is a process through an individual influences others towards achieving a common target; it involves embarking on human emotions and charisma to motivate their followers. Good leadership provides an enabling environment ...

The type of information system designed above is a Transaction Processing system (TPS). A TPS collects, modifies, stores and even retrieves transactional data of an enterprise. It helps in the day to day operations of the organization. This is the basis in which the information system above is designed and as such it’s a TPS. The value of an information system to an enterprise is explained in the porter’s model. In it, an information system is supposed to support various activities in the firm. They are the operations, logistics whether in bound or out bound, marketing and ...

Executive summary

Unicord Public Limited Company PLC, was initiated in 1978 and its headquarters at Thailand. The organization was set up with the objective of processing seafood and its’ first attempt was to process tuna, a worldwide commodity that is consumed by many people. It specialized in manufacturing a wide variety of canned tuna and frozen seafood products and its’ factory was located in Samutsakhon. Unicord PLC was the main manufacturer, producer, and exporter of canned seafood in Thailand before it was taken over by Sea value Co. Ltd on 15 September 2005, at that time the production capacity of the company was 400 tones per day, and capital of 520 million baht. The success of the company was majorly as a result of its’ geographical location and its’ proximity to the prime fishing grounds and also because of committed staff who were labor cost effective and a strong top management skills. With continuous operation of the company, it diversified its’ products to include: pet food for worldwide markets, wholesale exporter of frozen shrimp, and the distributers in turn sold it to restaurants and institutions under private labels.

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Non profit campaign

Campaigns are usually the foundation of any successful event so it must be well plan and organized to achieve the targeted objectives. In this case, our objective is to build a good relationship with the community so that they accept the services and products of the new institution/college. Since this is a large architectural and engineering firm with a good public opinion, we collaborated with SurfAid International because this nonprofit organization has the power and the need to help promote local community developments. The initial program was a bit tricky because we had ...

Introduction

It is essential for management to consider the environmental forces that have affect business performance. The management has the role to identify the legal, political, socio-cultural, economic and technological factors that influence business in a particular market. These helps the management to make decisions on marketing strategies used in a given market, trace the economic trends to understand the economic condition in a given market, adapt the products to the market and comply with the legal requirements in that particular market. The management makes decisions that best suits the business in the context of the various environmental factors. ...

Describe some of the strategies that firms can use to overcome the challenges related to transportation infrastructure congestion.

Transportation infrastructure congestion is a serious problem that many firms have to endure. Besides reducing efficiency, congestion causes an increase in the cost of production through extra costs incurred through delays and time wasted. It is therefore essential for any firm keen on maximizing profits to come up with adequate measure to address the problems of transport infrastructure congestion. A firm needs to set up a mechanism that will ensure that goods are delivered ...

What it will take for Webvan to make returns

Webvan is a Foster City based grocery firm, which intends to start using an online business model to carry out its activities of supplying groceries to its customers more profitably. To make returns by using the new online business model, the company will have to take practical approaches to solve some of its problems that it had experienced by using the earlier business model. To make a return, the company will have to make sales higher than its break even point.

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Transportation is a crucial factor of production that impacts and determines considerably the final prices of commodities. Therefore, choosing an efficient and effective mode of transportation for given commodities is very vital. Considering that the final price of commodities should be fair and customer friendly, the need to adopt the cheapest yet effective mode of transportation arises. For Caster Guitars Company, the transportation of guitars from Mexico could be efficiently done using road transportation. The fact that there exists good and established infrastructure in Mexico makes this process better. Further, the general mode of road transportation is cheaper. Considering ...

Abstract

Over the last ten years, changes in organizational culture and globalization have impacted greatly on management of manufacturing and service organizations. Organization culture is formed by the behaviors, beliefs, values and norms practiced by members of an organization so as to align their individual and collective expectations with the objectives of the organization. This paper seeks to explain how these changes in these factors have made current management practices different from those practiced ten years ago.

Globalization has had immense effects on management. It has resulted in changes in the firm’s market and customer base and ...

Introduction

The term Artificial Intelligence (AI) refers to a technology whereby intelligent agents are studied and created (Poole and Mackworth 9). In this case an intelligent agent is a structure that senses its surroundings and acts in such a manner as to maximise its chances of success. The origin of AI was in 1956 where John McCarthy described it as a science of creating thinking machines (intelligent machines). The technology comprises of eight different areas that are currently researched on and are wide in their own rights. The fields are: expert systems; decision support and planning; speech recognition; natural ...

Introduction

Improving the declining Profits at Kitchen Appliances US.com The sales of kitchen appliances at Kitchen Appliances R ...

Question 1

The terminology business cycle is used to denote the fluctuations in the economy in production or any other economic activities over a given period of time. These fluctuations occur around a long-term expansion trend and often involve changes over time between periods of high and vigorous growth and periods of relative stagnation (Tvede, 2006, p 7). The components of a business cycle include boom, recession and recovery. Boom refers to the economic period where businesses are experiencing large sales which results in high profit margins. During this period, the levels of employment are relatively high (Freiber, J. & ...

1) What do the terms "program planning" and "delivery and outcome management" mean to you in the context of strategic planning? Program planning involves identification of program need and capacity. It also involves planning for resource allocation and use and also preparing to respond to critical issues. In order to have the information required for program planning, a long term strategic planning process needs to be undertaken. Program planning is a very vital aspect in an organization’s financial status as it helps in giving a detail schedule of activities. (Mintzberg 2005)

Delivery management is an approach for ensuring ...

Course of action on the issue of employee lay-off

It is my proposition that the company should reduce the number of employees to be laid off from 10% to a lower figure so as not to affect the company’s future ability to attract talent, to prevent a decrease in employee morale and to prevent giving a bad customer image. The lay off number can be reduced by making an across the board pay cut and offering unpaid vacations as a cost cutting measure and ...

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Business activities range from small-scale, medium, and large-scale businesses. In the current world, almost everyone looks forward to starting up a business. Businesses opportunities are so many, and they come at different times of the year. Some are worth investing at certain times while others are not. For this reason, there is a need to be prepared for the right opportunity. The greatest impediment why some just get an opportunity, but due to financial constraints, they set aside. Capital is what many people lack thus fail to progress in the business field. People with potential can venture into business ...

Strategy for sustainable competitive advantage

Every organization’s corporate strategies are focused at developing a sustainable competitive advantage that will allow the company to continuously maintain and improve the enterprise’s competitiveness in the industry it is in. This enables the organization to stand strong despite competition or saturation of the market over a long time. An organization’s competitive advantage is said to exist if customers perceive the firm’s product or as superiors or better than that of its competitors. There are various sources of competitive advantage in organization. These sources revolve around an organization ...

According to Nordenstreng, Christians, Glasser and Mcquail, the role of the media can be argued within the frameworks of five paradigms (qtd. in Fourie 202). The five paradigms are; Liberal-individualistic paradigm, Social responsibility paradigm, Critical Paradigm, Administrative Paradigm and lastly Cultural Negotiation Paradigm (Fourie 202). Liberal-individualistic paradigm emphasises that the pertinent role of the media is to uphold democracy. This can be achieved through fighting for individual liberty and minimal media control by the state. Social Paradigm maintains that the media should strive towards societal development in terms of information and education. In other words, this paradigm emphasises the ...

Introduction

While at my early level of education I had a compelling drive within that one day I be one of the accommodation service providers in the country. Hospitality entails a lot of dealing with people which even made it more interesting and appealing to me. On completing my university education I was immediately absorbed in one of the leading hotel service providers in the country, Hilton Hotel. I encountered and dealt with several people of different walks. This gave me experience enough, and after working with Hilton Hotel for five years, I decided to quit my job and start my own business. Right now I have started my own Hospitality business in the name of Downtown Café situated along one of the major highway and sandwiched between the Nairobi National park and Nairobi University in the city. My business mainly provides restaurant services. In proper management of a business, the following are the key areas I would like to identify my business with: ...