Complete the following information about the organization and products and/or services you will focus on as you develop a complete marketing plan throughout the course. You may need to do research to get answers to the questions below. Be sure the organization and offer you select will 1) remain interesting to you for the duration of the course, and 2) have sufficient information available for you to conduct research and make informed recommendations in your marketing plan.
Company Profile
Market Segmentation and Targeting
Situation and Company Analysis
Economic Environment
Discuss factors that affect your consumers’ purchasing power and spending patterns. What is the economic environment that you are operating in? Is it growth, recovery or recession? Will it be easy to find staff? What is the current interest rate i.e. is it increasing or decreasing? What is consumer confidence like?
Technical Environment
The technological environment changes rapidly. You need to make sure that you are aware of trends in your industry and other industries could affect your business. New technologies create new markets and can influence you, consumers and competitors. Industry environment What are the trends in your industry? Are there new entrants in the market? Has a substitute product been introduced? Are there changes in industry practices or new benchmarks to use?
Competitive Environment
How many competitors do you have? Who are the key competitors? What are the key selling points or competitive advantages of each one? What is your advantage over competitors? Is the market large enough to support you and competitors?
Political Environment
Consider the political environment for the areas that your business will trade and operate in. Is there a stable political system? Are there any licenses and regulations that you should be aware of? Do you need to win support to be able to operate?
SWOT Analysis
Instruction: Complete the table below with descriptive responses and explanation as you answer the questions below.
| Strengths | Weaknesses |
|
|
| Opportunities | Threats |
|
|
Mission, Objectives, and Goals
State the mission or business purpose: what the organization wants to achieve, in market-oriented terms. (Example: Disney’s mission could be, “We create happiness by providing the finest in entertainment for people of all ages.)
List 1–3 objectives that move the organization a step closer to achieving the mission. (Example: A Disney objective could be, “To be the most popular theme park for international visitors.”)
Convert objectives into specific marketing goals that are easy to measure and evaluate. (Example: Our goal is to increase the market share of international theme park visitors by 10% in the next two years.”)
In: Operations Management
Complete the following information about the organization and products and/or services you will focus on as you develop a complete marketing plan throughout the course. You may need to do research to get answers to the questions below. Be sure the organization and offer you select will 1) remain interesting to you for the duration of the course, and 2) have sufficient information available for you to conduct research and make informed recommendations in your marketing plan.
Company Profile
Market Segmentation and Targeting
Situation and Company Analysis
Economic Environment
Discuss factors that affect your consumers’ purchasing power and spending patterns. What is the economic environment that you are operating in? Is it growth, recovery or recession? Will it be easy to find staff? What is the current interest rate i.e. is it increasing or decreasing? What is consumer confidence like?
Technical Environment
The technological environment changes rapidly. You need to make sure that you are aware of trends in your industry and other industries could affect your business. New technologies create new markets and can influence you, consumers and competitors. Industry environment What are the trends in your industry? Are there new entrants in the market? Has a substitute product been introduced? Are there changes in industry practices or new benchmarks to use?
Competitive Environment
How many competitors do you have? Who are the key competitors? What are the key selling points or competitive advantages of each one? What is your advantage over competitors? Is the market large enough to support you and competitors?
Political Environment
Consider the political environment for the areas that your business will trade and operate in. Is there a stable political system? Are there any licenses and regulations that you should be aware of? Do you need to win support to be able to operate?
SWOT Analysis
Instruction: Complete the table below with descriptive responses and explanation as you answer the questions below.
| Strengths | Weaknesses |
|
|
| Opportunities | Threats |
|
|
Mission, Objectives, and Goals
State the mission or business purpose: what the organization wants to achieve, in market-oriented terms. (Example: Disney’s mission could be, “We create happiness by providing the finest in entertainment for people of all ages.)
List 1–3 objectives that move the organization a step closer to achieving the mission. (Example: A Disney objective could be, “To be the most popular theme park for international visitors.”)
Convert objectives into specific marketing goals that are easy to measure and evaluate. (Example: Our goal is to increase the market share of international theme park visitors by 10% in the next two years.”)
In: Operations Management
An insurance company agrees to pay the promoter of a drag race $15000 if the race has to be canceled because of rain. If the company's actuary feels that a fair net premium for this risk is $2400, what does this tell us about his assessment of the probability that the race will have to be canceled because of rain? （Please indicate the formula and Explain each step in detail. Thank you.）
In: Statistics and Probability
Use google to search for VPN uses. Make a list of how a company that hires remote employees might us a VPN. What kinds of hardware and software do you need to run a VPN? List general steps to install and use a VPN. Describe security risks of using VPNs to a business. Submit your findings in a brief 250 word essay.
In: Computer Science
Please respond to the discussion post 1 and 2 in your own words: (Must respond to both)
Discussion post 1
Organize and review all your work-to-date. What stands out to you that is potentially of strategic relevance? Think in particular about how your organization is, or can be, or should be different!How will being (more) different in this way potentially create competitive advantages for the organization? Is this a matter of completely reinventing the organization or of enabling it to morph from what it is to something better in a manner that is realistic and doable?
Discussion Suggestion
In your interactions with your group members this session, you will want to compare and contrast the responses of your group members to this question to your own. Why may their perspectives be different from your own? Argue for or against the various positions taken by the group members here.
The one thing that stands out the most after doing research for the past six weeks on The Vitamin Shoppe is their reputation of their Health Enthusiasts. They already stand out from their competitors like GNC and BodyBuilding.com because these employees offer a more personal touch with each customer as opposed to someone just standing at a cash register to take your money. By implementing and promoting their health enthusiasts through their marketing and social media, I think they will have a definite competitive advantage over their competitors. People want to see that there are individuals out there who actually care about your goals and want to help you along the way. Building those relationships between the health enthusiasts and customers will ensure long-time loyalty to the brand and products.
A lot of the members in our group have all mentioned that the goal of The Vitamin Shoppe is to give every individual a unique experience when using their products. This is something we can all agree on is the most important as far as giving customers what they want. I think getting feedback and going through every individual’s journey and helping them along the way is what gives them this advantage over their competitors. As I scrolled through reviews on Indeed about working as a Health Enthusiast, I saw mostly great things and how rewarding of a job it was. When an employee feels confident and loves their job, it will show in how they give customer service. A lot of people also mentioned that they learned a lot of about nutrition, health, and everything in between which makes them a trusted person when it comes to selling these products. As stated by a current employee “The company requires taking short classes online on products and supplements throughout employment” (Indeed). This stands out from competitors as I have not found research stating other companies employees are to do these training classes.
Another thing that this company does that stands out from others is by holding “Share the Health” expos across the country every year. They offer free samples and have health enthusiasts there as well. As stated in the new releases, “Health Enthusiasts, who strive to be the most knowledgeable associates in the industry, will also be on-hand to help answer any product-related questions” (para. 1). This is a great promotion that will show off their reputation of their health enthusiast as well as bring attention to the company and their products. Events like this is what draws people into the company and allows the health enthusiasts to really work and help individuals who don’t know where to start.
I have also noticed a few members of the group have brought forward strong points about the company standing out because of their pricing on the products. This is definitely something that The Vitamin Shoppe has been known for but I have to personally argue that price doesn’t always bring in the customers. I would rather pay a little more for a product if I knew everything I had to know about it. I would choose to go to The Vitamin Shoppe because of their health enthusiasts and the trust I would have in them and getting the products at a lower cost is just an added bonus.
Discussion post 2
Choose the strategy or strategies that the organization should seek to implement going forward. Give a strong rationale for your choice
The strategies that the Vitamin Shoppe should seek to implement going forward are price, and promotion.
Price: The Vitamin Shoppe has great selection of quality products at a certain diverse price point. The company carries over 400 nationally branded kinds of products. A strategy that the company has is being able to sell lower cost alternatives to consumers who need a product but don’t want to purchase one at a certain price range. The company is able to retail other alternatives for consumers who want a specific type of product.
Promotion: Currently, the Vitamin Shoppe is able to advertise through different type of health magazines and through its own website, www.vitaminshoppe.com. Additionally, the company connects with a third-party banner advertisement that shows on other websites. It ends up showing up on the right side of the website that consumers are viewing. This third-party banner helps the company grow by being able to click on the ad that is being displayed on a different website to go directly to the Vitamin Shoppes website. Vitamin Shoppe is able to hand out coupons and rewards to all new and existing customers. It helps bring more traffic into the stores and also have a stronger relationship with customers. Rewards make consumers always want to come back.
Be very clear by both stating the strategies the company should go forward with (new and current strategies) and the current strategies they company should discontinue.
The strategies that the Vitamin Shoppe should go forward with are having a wide range of products with different alternatives so consumers are able to purchase what they need at a lower cost. Any product that is not being sold in a great amount should be discontinued and off the shelves so other great products are able to come in and be tried out. However, advertisement is being more viewed on other websites and social media. Vitamin Shoppe should consider being sponsored on the most used social media applications that way it can help draw more customers attention. Rewards and coupons are a great to grab customers into their doors. When customers see a great coupon, they have a better chance of wanting to walk into that store to spend their money. Magazines and newspaper are rarely being used as often as they were before. The Vitamin Shoppe should consider discontinuing the ads that are being placed on paper and focus more on digital advertisement.
In: Operations Management
Economic Concept: There are substitutes for Everything...even Labor! Economic Concept: Unintended Consequences! Seattle Aims at McDonald’s, Hits Workers A $15 minimum wage changes the basic labor-market bargain between the fast-food industry and its workers.
A $15 minimum wage changes the basic labor-market bargain between the fast-food industry and its workers.
By Holman W. Jenkins, Jr.
June 30, 2017 3:42 p.m. ET
By now you have read 15 articles on the Seattle minimum-wage fiasco. Since the city boosted its local minimum from $9.47 in 2014 to $13 last year (on its way to $15), a detailed investigation by University of Washington economists finds that beneficiaries actually saw their incomes fall by a net $125 a month because employers cut their hours.
When the price of something goes up, buyers demand less of it. This law of economics, like any law, some will always find inconvenient. But here’s the rest of the story.
The impetus came from people who don’t actually earn the minimum wage—labor-union leaders and think-tankers and activist organizations. The Service Employees International Union, as it has been happy to tell anyone, including a writer for the Atlantic Monthly two years ago, was already plowing $30 million into the “fight for $15” even though virtually all the hoped-for benefits would go to nonmembers.
There was even pushback from various union locals. Was this really a good use of our dues when most members already earn well above the minimum and have other priorities?
As the union also was not shy about noting, the real target was a very specific company, McDonald’s (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site. , which SEIU dreams of organizing despite the historically unwelcoming nature of franchise-based industries.
How a $15 minimum leads toward this halcyon day was never exactly spelled out, but here’s the answer: $15 would be used to change the basic labor-market bargain implied between the fast-food industry and its workers. Fifteen dollars an hour amounts to $31,200 a year and hardly a princely living. But you start adding mandated benefits and think about two-income households, and now you’re talking about a job that will sustain a different kind of life strategy than a Golden Arches job will today.
Organizers look fondly to Denmark, where a McDonald’s line worker receives $41,000 a year and five weeks of paid vacation. As the Atlantic put it two years ago, “Unionizing workers at McDonald’s and other fast-food chains might be a long shot, but if it succeeds, it might help lift a million or more workers into the middle class (or at least into the lower middle class) and create a model for low-wage workers in other industries.”
This sounds pretty but is misleading in a fundamental way. The workers a McDonald’s franchise would hire at $15 an hour are different from those it would hire at $8.29, the average earned by a fast-food worker today.
Costs would go up. The industry would likely shrink, it would likely replace workers with automation, but it would still create jobs at $15 an hour for people whose productivity can justify $15 an hour. The people who work at McDonald’s today, typically, would already be earning $15 an hour somewhere else if their productivity could justify $15 an hour.
Everybody needs to start somewhere, including the unskilled and those who lack a work history. Some need a job that doesn’t demand much of them. They have other obligations. They accept less pay to maximize flexibility and freedom from responsibility. They don’t plan to make a career of it. The fast-food industry in America is built on such people.
Proponents like to argue that employers, especially in the fast-food business, actually benefit from an increased minimum. It enables them to attract a more dedicated, productive employee. But why shouldn’t employers be left to make this trade-off themselves? And what about the people who won’t get hired at $15 and lose the benefit of a fast-food opportunity that is one of the easiest, quickest jobs to land in America?
When President Obama joined the fight in 2015, he argued that a full-time job should be able to support a family. This sounded pretty too, but was a way of saying that jobs that won’t support a family shouldn’t exist, and people whose productivity won’t support a family shouldn’t have jobs.
This is curious. Many countries that set a minimum wage, including the U.S., also set subminimum wages for teenagers, trainees, probationary hires, certain categories of disabled persons, etc. Having both a minimum and subminimum is hard to reconcile logically: Low-paying jobs shouldn’t exist, except some people need low-paying jobs, so they should exist. This concession to reality, in fact, shows not all minimum-wage advocates are economic scofflaws.
SEIU signed off on the “fight for $15” as part of a convoluted scheme to bring unionization to McDonald’s. As all would admit privately, the idea was always pie in the sky. But union leaders have to spend their members’ dues on something, or members might get the idea they don’t need to keep paying dues.
Now SEIU’s spending priorities have been changing again. Lately the leadership has arguably rediscovered its first love, electoral politics, not organizing. The union has let it be known that the “fight for $15” will be scaled back to free up funds to fight the 2018 congressional elections and 2020 presidential race. No doubt the Seattle study and all the attention it’s getting in the media make the decision even easier.
Appeared in the July 1, 2017, print edition.
Read, analyze and comment
In: Economics
Read, analyze, and comments:
Economic Concept: There are substitutes for Everything...even Labor!
Economic Concept: Unintended Consequences!
Seattle Aims at McDonald’s, Hits Workers
A $15 minimum wage changes the basic labor-market bargain between the fast-food industry and its workers.
By Holman W. Jenkins, Jr.
June 30, 2017 3:42 p.m. ET
By now you have read 15 articles on the Seattle minimum-wage fiasco. Since the city boosted its local minimum from $9.47 in 2014 to $13 last year (on its way to $15), a detailed investigation by University of Washington economists finds that beneficiaries actually saw their incomes fall by a net $125 a month because employers cut their hours.
When the price of something goes up, buyers demand less of it. This law of economics, like any law, some will always find inconvenient. But here’s the rest of the story.
The impetus came from people who don’t actually earn the minimum wage—labor-union leaders and think-tankers and activist organizations. The Service Employees International Union, as it has been happy to tell anyone, including a writer for the Atlantic Monthly two years ago, was already plowing $30 million into the “fight for $15” even though virtually all the hoped-for benefits would go to nonmembers.
There was even pushback from various union locals. Was this really a good use of our dues when most members already earn well above the minimum and have other priorities?
As the union also was not shy about noting, the real target was a very specific company, McDonald’s (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site. , which SEIU dreams of organizing despite the historically unwelcoming nature of franchise-based industries.
How a $15 minimum leads toward this halcyon day was never exactly spelled out, but here’s the answer: $15 would be used to change the basic labor-market bargain implied between the fast-food industry and its workers. Fifteen dollars an hour amounts to $31,200 a year and hardly a princely living. But you start adding mandated benefits and think about two-income households, and now you’re talking about a job that will sustain a different kind of life strategy than a Golden Arches job will today.
Organizers look fondly to Denmark, where a McDonald’s line worker receives $41,000 a year and five weeks of paid vacation. As the Atlantic put it two years ago, “Unionizing workers at McDonald’s and other fast-food chains might be a long shot, but if it succeeds, it might help lift a million or more workers into the middle class (or at least into the lower middle class) and create a model for low-wage workers in other industries.”
This sounds pretty but is misleading in a fundamental way. The workers a McDonald’s franchise would hire at $15 an hour are different from those it would hire at $8.29, the average earned by a fast-food worker today.
Costs would go up. The industry would likely shrink, it would likely replace workers with automation, but it would still create jobs at $15 an hour for people whose productivity can justify $15 an hour. The people who work at McDonald’s today, typically, would already be earning $15 an hour somewhere else if their productivity could justify $15 an hour.
Everybody needs to start somewhere, including the unskilled and those who lack a work history. Some need a job that doesn’t demand much of them. They have other obligations. They accept less pay to maximize flexibility and freedom from responsibility. They don’t plan to make a career of it. The fast-food industry in America is built on such people.
Proponents like to argue that employers, especially in the fast-food business, actually benefit from an increased minimum. It enables them to attract a more dedicated, productive employee. But why shouldn’t employers be left to make this trade-off themselves? And what about the people who won’t get hired at $15 and lose the benefit of a fast-food opportunity that is one of the easiest, quickest jobs to land in America?
When President Obama joined the fight in 2015, he argued that a full-time job should be able to support a family. This sounded pretty too, but was a way of saying that jobs that won’t support a family shouldn’t exist, and people whose productivity won’t support a family shouldn’t have jobs.
This is curious. Many countries that set a minimum wage, including the U.S., also set subminimum wages for teenagers, trainees, probationary hires, certain categories of disabled persons, etc. Having both a minimum and subminimum is hard to reconcile logically: Low-paying jobs shouldn’t exist, except some people need low-paying jobs, so they should exist. This concession to reality, in fact, shows not all minimum-wage advocates are economic scofflaws.
SEIU signed off on the “fight for $15” as part of a convoluted scheme to bring unionization to McDonald’s. As all would admit privately, the idea was always pie in the sky. But union leaders have to spend their members’ dues on something, or members might get the idea they don’t need to keep paying dues.
Now SEIU’s spending priorities have been changing again. Lately the leadership has arguably rediscovered its first love, electoral politics, not organizing. The union has let it be known that the “fight for $15” will be scaled back to free up funds to fight the 2018 congressional elections and 2020 presidential race. No doubt the Seattle study and all the attention it’s getting in the media make the decision even easier.
Appeared in the July 1, 2017, print edition.
In: Economics
In: Economics
The Williams Company, a U.S.-based company, owns 100% of a European Subsidiary (ES). The investment in ES totals $10 million (euros 13.5 million) as of the end of Year 1. This represents an initial investment of $6 million and retained earnings of $4 million. The Currency Translation Adjustment (CTA) account included in Other Comprehensive Income (OCI) totals $1 million (loss) at the end of Year 1.
During Year 2, Williams decided to sell 25% of ES to the Tremont Company, an unrelated U.S.-based Company for $15 million in cash. The closing date of the transaction is June 30 of Year 2. Earnings of ES for the six months of Year 2 are $1 million and there was an additional increase of $200,000 in the CTA during the first six months of Year 2. No dividends have been paid by ES to Williams.
Instructions:
In: Accounting
A small but growing manufacturer of business class network routers. They produce two main types of routers, Model A and the more expensive variant, Model B. The company has a capacity of producing 500 Model A routers per month and currently produces 300 routers of that type every month. The routers are sold to small computer stores.
The company’s expenses are given below.
What are the contribution margin and the contribution rate [round to a full number]?
What is the break-even point in units? At their current level of production, how many units above or below the break-even point is company working at? How much profit per month would be earned at the current level of production? At the current level of production what percent of capacity is utilized?
What is the BE volume as a percent of current production [use the rounded number of BE units]? What is the BE volume as a percent of capacity [use the rounded number of BE units]?
Company has decided to increase its production from the current 300 routers per month to 425 routers per month, while at the same time lowering its selling price to $85. How would this change the company’s profit? A chain store wants to purchase additional routers from company on a regular basis. To meet the new demand, company expanded their facility by renting additional space. This increased their total fixed cost by 30% and doubled their capacity to 1200 units. company wants to break-even at 25% of this new capacity. What is the lowest price they can charge per router and still break-even?
Expenses are unit price is provided below.
please provide details. Thank You.
| Lease | 1650 | per month |
| Salaries | 1050 | per month |
| Other Expenses | 850 | per month |
| Materials | 6 | per unit |
| Labour | 8 | per unit |
| Sell Price | 115 | per unit |
In: Accounting