Introduction Of Decision Making And Creativity Business Essay

Introduction Of Decision Making And Creativity Business Essay Decisions are the options made from two or more alternatives. McShane and Von Glinow (2010) defined that Decision making is a process of making choices among one or more alternatives with the intention of moving toward some desired state of affairs. Effective decision making involves identifying, selecting and applying the best alternatives. People need to use all available resources to predict the outcome of each option and based on the outcome to choose the best alternatives for the particular situation. In the real world, people usually do not follow the rational model to make decision because there are many undefined problem and ambiguous alternatives. For example, people usually simply find an acceptable solution to solve the problem rather than find the most suitable one. Hence, some decision makers probably make decision based on bounded rationality, emotion and intuition. Framing and heuristics are the judgments shortcuts that people used to simplify the decisions. Anchoring and adjustment, availability and representative are the three types of heuristics. People can make choices more effectively by systematically assessing alternatives. Scenario planning is a method that used to forecast possible future. Scenario planning can helps to make the best future decisions before they occur. Furthermore, people can evaluate decisions in an effective way such as find systematic sources, establish a present level to abandon the project, minimize escalation of commitment and involve several people in the decision evaluation process. In addition, some leaders or company also involve their employees in decision making. Leaders and company have limited ideas or knowledge to make the best decision. Thus, they need to rely on employees to solve the problem in a more effective way as employees may have more innovative and multiple alternatives. Improvements on decision quality, defining problem more quickly, better solutions generated are the benefits of employee involvement. McShane and Von Glinow (2010) defined that Creativity is the development of original ideas that make a socially recognized contribution. Creativity also is the process of creating unique ideas or products that are useful to the organizations. Creativity allows and encourages people to think out of the box, which produce innovative and unique ideas for a particular task. Preparation, incubation, insight and verification are the phases of the creative process. Preparation means studying the information and skills that related to the problem. Incubation assists divergent thinking which means reframing the problem in a distinctive way and creates different approaches to the problem. Insight refers to the ideas in a vague form. The idea is worked into a realistic form in the verification phases. Organizational factors such as freedom, resources, learning orientation, organizational support and more will affect the creativity ideas. It is also means that a comfortable and supportive work environment will helps the employees to improve and produce creative and unique ideas. Besides, redefine problem, associative play and cross pollination are the activities that use to encourage creativity. Lastly, creativity in decision making can be said that looking for the novel and unique ideas which the elements in the ideas are previously unseen. Background of NIKE, Inc. NIKE, Inc. is the world leader in athletic apparel, footwear, equipment and accessories. To bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete in the world is the mission of Nike. Converse, Inc., Nike Golf, Hurley International, LLC and Cole Haan are Nikes wholly owned subsidiaries. (NIKE, Inc., 2011) Bill Bowerman and Phil Knight have met each other in 1957. In 1962, both of them have become partner and form Blue Ribbon Sports. They pledged $1000 and place order of 300 pairs of shoes in 1964. The first Blue Ribbon Sports retail store opened in Santa Monica, California in 1966. Bowerman and Knight have design and manufacture their own brands of athletic shoes. In 1972, the new Nike line of footwear was introduced and Field Trials were held in Eugene, Oregon. Blue Ribbon Sports was later changed to NIKE, Inc. in 1978. Nike Air Technology in Tailwind running shoes was born in 1979. In 1980, Nike becomes a publicly traded company. Nike had lost their position as industry leader in the middle of 1980. In 1987, Nike designed to regain the industry leader by using marketing and advertising campaign and differentiate Nike from its competitors. Nike build reputation by create inspiring ads with Just Do It as slogan in 1988. In 1990 to 1999, Nike had signed several individual players and national teams around the world and began to design footwear and apparel for golf and soccer. Now, Nike has continued to expand its business to China and become the official sponsor of the National Football League (NFL). 2.0 Content Decision making is a process of selecting from one or more alternatives with the purpose of moving toward some desired state of affairs. Moreover, decision making is a process that decision maker need to make choice from the available option or alternatives in order to achieve the organization goal or to arrive at a solution for a given problem. Decision plays an important role in the organization. If the decision maker does the wrong decision, it will influence the company productivity and profit. Therefore, the decision maker needs to do the rational choice decision. And decision maker can follow the rational choice decision process and do the right decision. First step is identifying the problem or opportunity. Decision maker needs to identify the problem or opportunity before do any decision. Problem is the gap between what is and what have to be. For example, there is a labor practices problem occurred in Nike as stated in Nike first Corporate Responsibility Report, after Nike identify and evaluate its problem and then they came up with ways to resolve the problem. Nike decided to increase training for both managers and employees in order to improve the productivity, reduce labor turnover and less sick leave. The decision made involved all level of the organization where the top management make the decision and the subo rdinates need to collaborate to achieve the companys goal. However the possible disadvantage of Nike to increase training for their current employees is that it can become very stressful to their employee. When an employee is stressed, their job performance goes down. Over-training in the workplace can be a waste of valuable resources such as training materials, hire or promote individuals to train their employees, and also need to pay for both the trainers and the trainees. During the extensive training sessions, employees may become bored and lose interest in what they are learning. Once an employee loses interest, much of the information being taught will not be retained and this will waste the employee time (Robertson). According to NIKE, Inc. (2011), Poor conceived overtime and sick leave policies can reduce employees work performance. If Nike does not regulate contracted overseas factories with overtime levels that are both required by local labor and health authorities, it can attract complaints from human rights organization as well as causing undue health problems to employees which can affect their work performance (Answers.com, 2012). Sick leave is a form of employment benefit in the form of paid time off for illness. However, Nike intends to increase productivity by initiating an Attendance incentives policy which encourage employees to attend for work but this may send the wrong message to the employees that attending to work even while they are sick would earn them credits. This can cause an employee to feel pressured to if they want to take sick leave even when they are seriously ill, which could result in significant health damage and increased health care costs for the company (Smith, 2013). Second step is choosing the best decision process. Decision process include programmed and non-programmed. Programmed is a decision that made in routine, repetitive, frequent decision and highly structured environment. In this decision making, they allow to set up a rule, policies and procedure to follow. In this decision making, they can follow standard operating procedures because of the highly structured environment. For example, to improve daily productivity, Nike has implemented lean manufacturing which is the foundation of how Nike enhances sustainable manufacturing. Lean manufacturing is a system and continuous enhancement that target to deliver the highest quality product while reducing waste. Lean manufacturing can empower workers and teams. A significant increase in satisfaction of workers in factories is found after lean manufacturing is implemented. The problem facing by Nike when implemented lean manufacturing is hard to get support from their employees to follow and take orders. This can sometimes be difficult to attain as some employees who is resistive to changes. Lean manufacturing system requires a complete overhaul of manufacturing systems that may cause personality clashes, stress and refusal by employees who prefer old ways of doing things especially the older employees. Thus, it possibly will cause conflict among others in the work group. Lean manufacturing training is a constant ongoing process, and when first starting out it will takes a lot of time and effort on everyones part (Manufacturing Info, 2010). The time investment required to implement lean manufacturing system throughout Nike is one of the drawback. Successful implementation requires the participation and support from employees throughout the company to guarantee that the cells integrate well with one another (Deiterich, 2013). Due to lean manufacturing system are dependent on supplier efficiency, any interruption in the supply chain on production can be a problem that negatively affects customers. Delays in delivery can cause long-lasting marketing problems that hard to overcome and may cause problem of customer dissatisfaction (Wood, 2013). On the other hand, non-programmed decision is unique decision that requires a custom made solution. In this decision making, they mostly deal with unstructured environment and incomplete information. This decision making cannot set up a rule, policies and procedure to follow because this decision making is infrequent decision and unstructured environment. To solve the non-programmed situation, Nike have spent more than 15 years to deal with the contract factories on the issues of worker rights and protections, wages, living conditions for workers and the environmental impacts of manufacturing processes. Nike is setting high expectations for workers, providing training and tools to help factories to meet those expectations and accessing their performance. This approach able to create baseline standards, improved oversight and helped factories to move beyond compliance. In this case, certain issues continue to arise. Issues such as overtime, working hours and associated wages have made up the majority of violations found by audits of apparel, footwear and equipment factories. Nike spends a lot of time and resources to deal with these types of issues in the factories that are poor performing, while having less time to engage with the factories that are high performance. Therefore, Nike have evolved their approach to build relationships with contract factories and developed a new manufacturing vision (NIKE, Inc., 2011). Third step is developed and identify alternatives. After identify the problem or opportunity, they need to do the research. For example, they need to find the solution that can solve the problem they have already identified. After this step, they need to choose the best alternative among one or more alternatives. Next step is implement choice. They can implement the choice in the problem or opportunity. Evaluate choice is the last step, which they need to evaluate the choice or the decision outcomes. For example, whether the gap has narrowed or not or whether the problem have solved or not. Nike is doing well in identifying alternatives. To support the lean manufacturing system, Nike has provided resources to contract factories to support their transition such as training, coaching and technical assistance. This shows that Nike not only depends on the formal procedure like lean manufacturing but also finding other alternatives to improve the productivity. Although the contracted factory (owner and top level management personnel of factory) are being supported by Nike (monetary and other expertise resource), however, operational workers may not receive the fair amount of support from Nike and operational employees are sometimes not recognized as a valuable part of the business value chain. Some workers are unfairly compensated in return for their work and this can lead to a low self-esteem, lack of morale and reduced in productivity (Wilsey Lichtig). Problem identification challenges include perceptual defense, stakeholder framing, decisive leadership, mental models and solution-focused problems. Perceptual defense is ignoring information that threatens their self- concept. Stakeholder framing is stakeholder try to persuade decision maker that interest to problem or opportunity not important. Decisive leadership is decision maker do the decision making without enough analyzing the data. Mental model is an assumption and expectation that prevent people seeing unique problem or opportunity. Solution- focused problem is straight to the solution rather than do the investigation, analysis or identify the problem. Creativity is developing an original idea that makes a socially recognized contribution. Creativity in decision making can help the company solve the problem and get the new and useful alternatives. Creative work environment can motivating the work, encourage experimentation, tolerate mistakes, open communication and sufficient resources. Creative process model include four steps. First is preparation. They need to know the problem and do the preparation such as find the information or do the research or learn some skills that help in creative. Next is incubation. They put the problem aside but mind still working on the background. Third is insight. Suddenly they become aware of unique idea. They see or hear something and cause them suddenly to have a new idea. Last is verification. In this step, they need to evaluate their idea is good or not or benefit or costly for the company. Nike is playing well in creativity either in the shoes design or advertising. The shoes designer need to design the shoes to do three visual dialogues that are attract consumers with iconic design, clean and simple, engage them with craft that is holistic and catch them with the idea. The idea of barefoot shoes that designed by Nike is impressively creative. Nike concerns on the structure of the foot. They did pressure testing on the high-end athletes about what they are doing to make themselves better and also discover that they are usually training barefoot. That is the idea of barefoot shoes came from. Nevertheless, Nike also come out with interesting advertisement and won the Creativity Best 2012 as both the television and print categories is one of the years most innovative advertisers. Employee involvement is the degree to which employee influence how their work is organized and carried out. Different levels have different forms of involvement. In the lowest level, they do not know what problem is about in the company so they do not make the recommendation. In the middle level, they know what problem is happen in the company and they will provide the recommendation to do the decision making. In the highest level, they make the entire decision making process. They need to choose the best alternative among one or more alternatives and implement the choice and evaluate the choice. Higher employee involvement is better when the employees have relevant knowledge beyond leader and can help the leader solve the problem. Most employees would lack commitment if they do not involve. Company need encourage their employee involve in the situation because higher employee involvement means higher commitment of employee. Nike involved all levels of the organization in decision ma king. For instance, top managers determine their organizations goals, what products and services to provide. And middle and lower managers determine the production schedules, select new employees and other routine practices. The disadvantages of moderated employee involvement within an organizations decision making process are too many lines of communication and the potential for inconsistent decision making. When more employees have decision making ability, more communication is needed to make certain that decisions are consistent across the organization. This consistency is significantly important to brand recognition and consistency. Managers may need a long time to monitor decisions and activities with employee involvement to protect against negative consequences and to control the potential for chaos (Kokemuller). 3.0 Recommendation The rational choice paradigm can make several assumptions about the human capacity to process information. One of assumptions which are decision makers can process information about all alternatives and their consequence but normally this is not possible to happen in reality. They only evaluate a few alternatives and some of the main outcomes of those alternatives as well as the Nike. There are some recommendations on how those assumptions that being used by Nike can be applied more effectively in the coming future. Postdecisional justification gives people an excessively optimistic evaluation of their decisions but in reality it will bring the objective feedback to the company. There are four main reasons which are self-justification, prospect theory effect, perceptual blinders and closing costs explained that why people poorly evaluated their decision outcomes. These reasons make escalation of commitment look irrational. The first recommendation for Nike is to minimize postdecisional justification and escalation of commitment. This will ensure that the people who made the original decision and people who later evaluate that decision are different. The self-justification effect can be minimized by this separation of roles due to the person responsible for evaluating the decision is not connected to the original decision. In addition, the Nike can publicly establish a preset level at which the decision is abandoned or reevaluated. It is similar to a stop-loss order in the stock market, whereby the stock is sold if it falls below a certain price. The problem with this solution is that the situations are always so complex. This is because it is very difficult to identify an appropriate point to abandon a project. The next suggestion for Nike is to looking for a source of systematic and clear feedback. For an example, the phenomenally large cost overruns at Scotlands new parliament building might have been smaller if let say the Scottish government had received less ambiguous or less distorted information from civil servants about the true cost of the project during the first few years. The escalation of commitment happened in Scotland because of they do not see the problems soon enough. Lastly, the Nike can try to improve their decision evaluation process by involving of more people in their own evaluation. Besides that, co-workers of Nike can continuously monitor each other and they might notice the problems sooner than someone working alone on the project. Employee involvement offers these and other benefits to the decision making process. So that, Nike can identify their problems, choose the best alternative and implement their decision with the knowledge and multiple perspectives of employees of company. Other than that, we recommend Nike to use Theory Y by Douglas McGregor (1960) to help their employees improve their working performance and distress due to over training. Theory Y emphasize on participative management style. This theory assumes that employees effort in work is as natural as play and work. They are self-motivated, enjoy their work a lot, self-direction and always seek for responsibility. Nike should motivate their potential employees and helps them to develop their skills and capacities. Appraisal method such as provide promotion opportunities to employees with good performance. Motivated employees are more willing to help organizations to achieve goals. According to Comms study (Puvanasvaran, A. P.), there are five best practiced components can be used to solve the problem of lean manufacturing which are environment change, leadership, culture, employee empowerment and communication. Nike should help the older employees to understand how lean manufacturing system work, try to communicate and share clear information with them so that they can understand their company goal. Nike can assign some employees to guide those employees who are not familiar with the process. Moreover, we also recommend Nike applies values drive behavior to motivate and handle the problem of operational workers who did not get their return fairly. The component of justice and fair guidance are needed. Nike managerial leaders should practice ethical behavior by locating organization resources fairly. Resources such as people, capital assets, money should treated and distribute fairly. They treat the workers equally by giving them the amount they deserved to get. Another component is love and kindness. Workers should be treated kindly. When their effort on the job is recognized, they will put more effort and contribute more to the organization. In such way, the operational workers will increase productivity and self-esteem. To solve the problems of inconsistent decision making, Nike should use appropriate team decision making strategy. Normally ideas of high status people or people who should loudest will get attention by other members. Therefore, we recommend Nike to use nominal group technique to solve prioritizing issues such as which resources are the best for company project. It is a technique where all the members brainstorm their ideas without interacting with each other and discuss one by once at the final stage. It is useful in providing effective framework in choosing best option or ranking priorities. 4.0 Conclusion McShane and Von Glinow (2010) defined that Decision making is a process of making choices among one or more alternatives with the intention of moving toward some desired state of affairs. People usually do not follow the rational model to make decision in the real world because there are many undefined problem and ambiguous alternatives. McShane and Von Glinow (2010) defined that Creativity is the development of original ideas that make a socially recognized contribution. Creativity allows and encourages people to think out of the box, which produce innovative and unique ideas for a particular task. NIKE, Inc. is the world leader in athletic apparel, footwear, equipment and accessories. They assist every athlete in developing motivation and creativity throughout the world with using and promoting their products and brand name. Decision making style of the founders of Nike, Bill Bowerman and Phil Knight has reflects the participative method in the company. Nike involved all levels of the organization in decision making. The employees who have relevant knowledge beyond leader and can help the leader solve the problem effectively. Furthermore, Nike is playing an important role in creativity which generates unique ideas or products that are valuable to the organizations. Neither in the product design nor advertising, Nike also has tried their best to exert unlimited creativity on it. The creative products and interesting advertisement that created by Nike has help them to produce sustained superior performance. Last, the integration of Nikes design, customer and marketing creates a strategy, which is effective and difficult for their competitors to imitate. Nike has provides clear objective and an environment, which promotes the development and sharing of innovative ideas throughout the world. (Total written words: 3785)

How a business can grow it’s customer base Essay

Coles Group Limited The Grocery industry is one of the most important industries in the Australian economy. The industry employs a big proportion of the workforce and is connected to many other industries in the economy environment. Supermarkets are one of the key players in the grocery industry providing around 70% of the value of the retail market for food and groceries. The  two major grocery chains – Woolworths and Coles – dominate with almost 70% market share of an industry valued at A$80+ billion. Over the past 5 years the sector has been witness of some significant developments. Dynamics were changed after new players like Costco entered the market and ALDI verified a rapid growth since its first appearance in 2001, making colossal to chase market shares by reviewing their campaigns. Some key statistics for the participants in the industry are presented in the Table 1 Table 1.1: Players in the grocery industry Retailer Market Share Woolworths 41.1% Coles / Bi-Lo 31.0% Other supermarkets ALDI 14.0% Speciality Foods / Franklin 7.1% Source: Coles Data, 2012 Coles is one of the two major supermarkets operating in Australia. In 1927 became property company and was launched on the Melbourne Stock Exchange; in 1985, Coles Myer Ltd.was established after a A$918 transaction. Myer was divided from the Coles Group to private equity interests in 2005, it has therefor not been part of the group since then. Westfarmers was founded in 1914, and in 1985 has been restructured to a public company and was listed on the ASX. Coles Supermarket is part of the Coles Group and subsidiary of Westfarmers for a total of: 749 full service supermarket retailer stores 792 liquor stores and 92 hotels 627 national fuel and convenience stores The reaserch conducted shows that Cole’s market share of 31% has not moved materially in recent years; is one of the successful supermarkets in Australia in terms of customer satisfaction, innovation in product strategy, marketing strategy, financial capability and strong work culture. To analyze the Global segmentation, we can consider the presence of Westfarmers  in New Zealand, but the nation largest employer remains committed to providing a satisfactory return to shareholders. The management of Coles supermarkets has not had many political barriers except the adherence to the sector’s rule and regulations. The slow growth uncertainity in the Australian economy poses a threat for thr retail players. The links between supermarket and fuel industries have been normalised. In response to concerns that cost of living pressures were affecting families, in 2008, the Australian Government commissioned the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission to review of the industry. In 2010, the Trade Practices Act was recast as the Competition and Consumer Act, with several competition policy amendments in recent years. Supermarkets themselves have developed new pricing and marketing strategies. In 2011 Coles partenered with WWF-Australia to improve the sustainability of the seafood supply chain and to educate consumers about sustainable choices. Coles has also adopted new technologies developing its online shopping facilities. It also invested to improve its supply chain and distribution system with significant impact in cost savings. Coles’s commitment to their Ethical Sourcing Policy, a wide range of products, great logistics and a strong brand image among its internal Strengths. Being an important presence in the market, its operating cost is overall high and its management presents Weaknesses. The possibility to seek new sales opportunity and cut cost through technology and the potential to increase the customer base presents only a few of the Opportunities that Coles may have. The uncertainity that Australian economy presents, the vulnerability to attack by the key competitors of the market are to be seen as external Threats. From 2012, Coles has a new pricing and marketing strategy called ‘Down Down’. This has been a high profile campaign designed to increase its company performance. Other supermarkets have their own pricing strategies to compete, including IGA’s with â€Å"Locked Down Low Prices† from July 2012 and Woolworths’s â€Å"everyday low prices†. Over the last four years, Coles sales have increased by $4.8 billion to around $24 billion. Coles have out-performed the supermarket sector overall over the last four years, market share has gone up slightly. Growth in revenue reflects changes in prices and volumes. On the face of it,  a campaign like ‘Down Down’ should have the effect of lowering prices and increasing volumes. To obtain an overall picture of the savings to consumers we aggregate the price movement during this period and calculate a savings figure – based on both old volumes and current volumes. We find that in 2011-12, the one-year savings of the price reductions during the ‘Down Down’ campaign (i.e. over the 18 months from January 2011) is between $1.05 billion and $1.19 billion. The midpoint is $1.12 billion. The benefits of scale are generated due to the large average store size and the ability centralise their procurement so that they obtain better terms. Overall, Coles finds that the larger its stores, the more efficient they are, as measured by costs per store size. On average, a store that is 1000m2 larger has costs that are 3% lower – reflecting the spread of a number of fixed or standard costs for a store that are incurred regardless of store size. Over the past four years, Coles have also increased the productivity of assets, part of these improvements come for the fact that Coles operates larger stores whilst keeping the number of stores relatively constant. In this period Coles have divested or closed almost 90 smaller and underperforming stores and has acquired or built almost 90 larger, more productive stores. Sales generated from every square metre of selling floor area have increased almost 20%. While sales revenue has increased by 25%, total selling floor area has increased by 4.5%. Private labels are unbranded products purchased by supermarkets and then sold as their own products. Typically, these products are che aper than branded products because of limited marketing activities. Historically, private brands had an image of being quite avarage, targeting the most price-sensitive consumer; these days they are increasing thought of as an equal-quality, lower-price alternative. According to Coles’s data on ranging and space allocation decisions, Coles brand products are treated in the same manner as proprietary brand products. In many cases Coles brand products are located together with similar brands and less shelf space than proprietary brands. Coles periodically reviews if their brand is over/under represented by examining the quantity they sell relative to the space on the shelves. Private labels have been a matter of policy discussion: critics have asserted that they are part of a strategy to dominate the supply chain, thus reducing the viability of branded products. Table 1.2: White bread 650 Retail Prices Margin above COGS Coles Smart Buy White bread 650g $1.00 1% Wonder White Bread Wholemeal Plus Iron 700g $3.31 5.4% Table 1.3: Eggs 12 Pack 700gr Retail Price Margin above COGS Coles Eggs Free Range 12 Pack 700gr $4.04 24.5% Farmpride Eggs Free Range 12 Pack 700g $5.44 20% ï ¿ ¼Ã¯ ¿ ¼Ã¯ ¿ ¼Ã¯ ¿ ¼Ã¯ ¿ ¼Ã¯ ¿ ¼Ã¯ ¿ ¼Ã¯ ¿ ¼Ã¯ ¿ ¼Ã¯ ¿ ¼ Source: Coles Data We analyze the margins for branded and private label products, following the Tables 1.2 and 1.3. For the white bread the branded product yields greater margins for Coles – for Eggs, the opposite. This suggests it is unlikely that Coles systematically achieves higher margins on its own products and directly encourages consumers not to buy branded products. According to Macquarie, Coles and Woolworths hold 72% of the Australian grocery market. The concentration of competition has made the rivalry palpable, penetrating deep into consumers mind. â€Å"Our customers want good honest food which is fresh, available and affordable†, says Simon McDowell, marketing director of Coles. Woolworths upholds those same values: â€Å"We want our customers to trust us to deliver best quality food and the best value every time they visit one of our stores,† said Lizzy Ryley, GM marketing at Woolworts. The five main players in the Australian retail food industry have vastly differen t approaches. Woolworths and Coles have well-known and similar business models, and command the lion’s share of the domestic food and liquor market due to their long history in Australia. Woolworths is commonly perceived to be more ‘premium’ while Coles promises  low prices, but in reality the experiences offered by both are incredibly similar. Beneath all the taglines and promotional strategies , the mandates of both Woolies and Coles are based on two things: fresh food and value for money. Aldi, like Costco, operates in the eastern states and sells private label (Aldi-branded) groceries, electronics and everyday household goods like bathroom taps. IGA operate small-scale, privately owned, stores across the country specialising in everyday groceries and liquors. In terms of size, Aldi’s 305 stores (March figure) are believed to generate in excess of $5 billion, Costco generated $612 million in 2012/13, while Woolworths reported sales of $58 billion and Coles $36 billion in the 2012/13 financial year. IGA sales data couldn’t be found as they are private companies, however Metcash (ASX: MTS) supplies IGA stores and reported revenue of $13 billion in 2012/13. Therefore, as a rough estimate it can be assumed that Aldi, Costco and IGA account for between 15% and 20% of the Australian food and liquor market. To make the Company a more effective organisation and in order to maximazie the shareholders value, I would focus on increasing staff productivity as well as motivation, not to mention the emphasis of maintaining or increasing profit margins where possible; developing the ‘Down Down’ campaigne and lowering the average prices by a further 1.9% . I would enfasise Exploiting the presence if Westfarmers in New Zealand, I would try an international market penetration and the trading environment. Following a comprehensive reform program that began in the mid-80s, the New Zealand economy is now largely deregulated, and more internationally competitive. Food prices rose 0.6 percent in April 2014, and were up 1.5 percent on a year earlier, Statistics New Zealand declare. The monthly rise follows a 0.3 percent fall in March, and a 1.0 percent fall in February. Niche products and Australia’s reputation for product safety can help the company with the penetration.   I would try and finalize the acquisition of EziBuy, a leading direct retailer of apparel and homewares in Australia and New Zealand, so it will act as a launch pad for our next phase of growth but most importantly it would represent a stop for the expansion of Woolworths into the country. Last but not least I would continue investing in important environmental projects and partnerships to further reduce the impact on the environment and I would also improve efficiencies within the  supply chains, reducing gas emissions across the overall business. In the future I would develop a marketing campaigne based on our recycling and sustainable efforts and we will continue to work on ways to both reduce the waste and increase the level of recycling in our stores. References http://finance.ninemsn.com.au/newsbusiness http://www.deloitte.com http://www.stats.govt.nz http://www.austrade.gov.au/Export/Export-Markets http://www.woolworthslimited.com.au https://www.coles.com.au http://www.euromonitor.com ABARES, 2011, ‘Agricultural commodity statistics 2011.’ King, Matthew, 2012, ‘One shopping basket, four supermarkets, who wins?’ Wesfarmers, 2012, ‘Annual Report 2012’.

What is Crime?

The Oxford English dictionary defines crime as â€Å"an act punishable by law, as being forbidden by statute or injurious to the public welfare, an evil act; an offence, a sin, -an act can only be considered a crime when identified as such by law. An act was defined a crime in the old testament with the creation of the Ten Commandments. This was when it was literally set into stone that numerous acts became a crime against God, the first rules of the world.Crimes are now defined as crimes with the help of the legal system and certain pieces of legislature and cannot always necessarily be traced back to the Ten Commandments. Crime now has abundant definitions, the most obvious being crime as criminal law violation. The Hg Worldwide Legal Directories website delineates criminal law as encompassing, ‘the rules and statutes written by Congress and state legislators dealing with any criminal activity that causes harm to the general public, with penalties.’ Therefore to viola te criminal law, the individual would be engaging in behaviour that is prohibited by the criminal law. However it has recently become extremely difficult to determine what is now perceived as a crime.Crime has no universal or objective existence but is relative to the subjective contingencies of social and historical circumstance, this is crime as historical intervention. For example, causing death of another individual, whether by neglect or with full intention is a crime, however it is almost justifiable and on many occasions heroic when practised in warfare. This is reiterated with the recent poaching ban, poaching only became criminalised through the convergence of new class and power interests in the 18th Century. James Treadwell argues this point as a criminologist and indicates that specific acts that were once socially acceptable are now becoming criminalised, ‘crime is not static or fixed, it constantly changes.Things that once were not criminalised become so, such as paedophiles ‘grooming’ victims on the internet. . .similarly, activities, which were illegal, may become legal, such as consenting homosexual behaviour between men’. These arguments make it hard to define what crime is as the ‘rules’ of crime are ever-changing. The BBC published an online article that illustrates the extent to which crime is uneasily defined, ‘a hundred years ago you could buy opium and cocaine over the counter at Harrods. Acts which are perfectly legal here may be serious crimes in other countries and vice versa.’ To help us understand what makes a crime a crime, Cesare Lombroso, an Italian criminologist introduced to the idea of positivism, the social reaction to classicism.Classicism is the theory that the punishment for a crime should reflect the severity of said crime. This concept was developed during the transition from feudalism to capitalism and is a strong believer that each individual chooses whether to commi t a crime or not as every person is raised in society that outlines the difference between right and wrong. The criticism for this concept is argued that at what age do you become criminally responsible, for example the horrific act of the two young boys that committed a severe crime when kidnapping and torturing Jamie Bulger.The boys were eleven at the time, therefore as children they unfortunately served half the period of time that an adult would have if they had committed this crime due to the legal system believing they were not fully responsible as they had been raised in broken homes. The contrasting theory to this is that of Positivism, the scientific approach to crime. This concept developed by Lombroso attempts to look at the genetic or biological explanation for a criminal gene. This concept is harshly criticised as many members of the public deem this as treating criminality as an illness.Lombroso published a book in which he makes sever references to the concept of posi tivism and argues that people are wrong to fear that, ‘positivism encourages communistic ideas and even worse criminal behaviour’. This became the birth of criminology. Treadwell discusses Lombroso’s work and informs us that his work is still being studied to the modern day, ‘Lombroso’s work could be placed under the heading of biological criminology, investigations of the causes of criminality using more sophisticated research methods. . .have continued to be developed in the twentieth century’.Tim Newburn wrote that Edwin Sutherland defined criminology as, ‘the study of the making of laws, the breaking of laws, and of society’s reaction to the breaking of laws’. Crime can also be defined as social harm. For example, we ask the question are tobacco companies selling harmful products that are in turn, effectively killing us, murderers. Is this a crime? This is known as the crime of violation to human rights, therefore a fur ther definition could be health and safety issues in the workplace. This is reiterated when we discuss ‘white collar crime’.We struggle to define crime as crime is an act  that breaches the criminal law, however many of the people we put in charge of running our countries or deciding these criminal laws are in fact themselves committing crimes. If this is so, why are these crimes socially acceptable? The offences of these crimes tend to be ‘invisible’ or painfully difficult to trace. They are often committed by persons of high social status and respectability therefore they find it easier to evade persecution. ‘White collar crime’ is often broken down into, embezzlement, breaches of health and safety and environmental crimes. Bhopal was identified as one of the worst industrial ‘accidents’ this world had witnessed.The 1984 incident that killed 8000 people instantly and injuring a further 200’000 was believed an accident du e to the lethal gases leaking from Union Carbide’s pesticide factory. For 20 years after this tragedy, an estimated 30 people a month were believed to have died from lung disease, brain damage, cancer, all linking to the gas leak of 1984. This accident was contested in court yet the people involved have yet to receive a settlement fee and not one person was held responsible for this mass homicide. Newburn records Bhopal as a crime and a ‘major industrial disaster’ in his book as he files it under the heading, ‘environmental crime’. This helps us to define crime as a class issue due to crimes of the powerful having greater potential to cause more harm than crimes of the less powerful.Newburn furthermore analyses hidden crimes within criminology, ‘Criminology has been regularly, roundly and rightly criticised for this preoccupation: a concern with the crimes of the powerless rather than the powerful, with the ‘crimes of the streets’ rather than the ‘crimes of the suites’. The Marxist concept of this is crime as an ideological censure, that acts would only be defined a crime when in the interest of the ruling classes at that period of time. These crimes remain hidden for various reasons. The diffusion of responsibility means that is extremely difficult to legally and morally identify a persecutor, secondly a lot of the crimes the general public hear about are in the media and corporate crime simply does not sell. Media coverage creates moral panic and fear of ‘crime’.To define crime we often look to the media to decipher their reaction on a specific incident. However, although crime consumes an enormous amount of media space as both entertainment and news, concepts of crime are mediated by profit margins. Due to only crimes that are considered to grasp the attention of the general  public being reported, this effects what we as an individual define as a crime. Treadwell argues that, à ¢â‚¬Ëœmost media institutions seek to attract as wide an audience as possible to maximise their profits. . .to attract and retain audiences media products have to entertain, be dramatic or exciting, and sometimes cause outright shock’. Therefore as crime is seemingly a troubling aspect of our life this would seem the most appropriate topic to cover.Treadwell labels this concept, ‘newsworthiness’. He goes on to discuss that, ‘Today, crime stories are increasingly selected and ‘produced as media events on the basis of their visual . . . as well as their lexical-verbal . . . potential’. There is a vivid and highly complex relationship between the media and the criminal justice system. A further more obvious way in which we can define crime is by the Home Office statistics. The Home Office websites defines themselves as, ‘the lead government department for immigration and passports, drugs policy, crime, counter-terrorism and police’. T he two main methods of collecting the criminal data that feature in the Home Office are victim surveys and statistics recorded by the police force. However, only particular offences, ‘serious crimes’ are reported by the police to the Home Office statistics, not the summary offences that are heard in the Courts.Police are also under the instruction to record every allegation they hear and many police officers do not believe a number of allegations or there may be a lack of evidence and many times the victims decide to not press charges therefore they see it unfit to record it as a ‘crime’. Furthermore a crime is only a crime when ‘officially’ recorded and since most victims do not report crimes there is a ‘dark figure’ of crime that remains unknown. The reasons to why victims fail to report their crimes can be broken down into three categories: embarrassment, unworthiness and failure to realise. If a victim has been sexually abused or raped they may fail to report this as they may be overwhelmed with a feeling of embarrassment or in certain religious cultures it may bring shame upon a family.Some victims also feel the nature of their crime isn’t worthy of police time, such as rowdy neighbours or petty theft. Finally, if a person is a victim of identity theft, nine times out of ten they fail to realise and therefore have nothing to report. In conclusion, a crime only seemingly exists when society perceive it as a crime or a great reaction to an act therefore labels it as one. An act is  often acceptable until labelled as morally wrong by a social group.At some time or another, some society somewhere has defined almost all forms of behaviour that we now call ‘criminal’ as desirable for the functioning of that society, (Williams (1964:46)), this would be crime as a violation of moral codes. In the BBC article written by Mark Easton, he reiterates that, ‘one cultures crime is another cu ltures social norm’. This concept is crime as a social construct. In 1963 Becker created the ‘Labelling Theory’ which illustrated that crime is dependent upon social reaction and that the societal consensus is regularly challenged.At the beginning of my essay I provided the Oxford dictionary definition for crime and after studying the wide range of criminal concepts I have reached the conclusion that there is no right or wrong answer to define crime. The dictionary defines crime as punishable by law yet also defines crime as a sin. A person will be prosecuted for an act that does not abide by the legislation set up by the criminal justice system, however an individual may go to church to repent a sin that is only deemed as a crime within their religious culture.Crime will forever be surrounded by questions of social order, it will always be contested and people will always wonder how it can be perceived due to the fact that society’s vision of crime change s with the growth and development of society. Crime is elusive, contested and an ever moving concept that is tied to our social processes.

Analysis of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.s I Have A Dream...

On August 28, 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered one of the most famous speeches of all time to an audience of more than 200,000 civil rights supporters on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. In his, â€Å"I have a dream† speech, King addressed his encouragement of white and black people working together to achieve racial peace and harmony. He especially wanted to teach the young blacks that equality could be gained through the use of non-violence. The main reason King used nonviolence was to create a situation so different from the usual, that it will open the door to negotiations of desegregation and equal opportunity. King also urged African Americans to never forget their dreams and†¦show more content†¦Since segregation was taking place, Martin Luther King Jr. stood up for what he believed in. He said that the African Americans weren’t free and weren’t treated equal, as he thought they should be. He specifically stated, â€Å"There will be n either rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights.† Martin Luther King Jr. felt the same as many other African Americans, hoping that someday all the racism will disappear and the people doing the racism will realize that everyone should get a chance at being treated equally. Martin Luther King Jr. also drew attention to the fact African Americans were also included in the promises of the American Constitution that all people were created equal. The black people had been slaves on cotton plantations and had been victims of police brutality too long. They had helped in the creation of America by constructing and modeling the buildings the white man used to make money. And when the black man tried to cash in his check at the bank of justice, it had been returned and marked, insufficient funds. There had been insufficient funds for equal education, equal employment, equal housing, and equal participation in every aspect of American life. Most importantly,Show MoreRelatedRhetorical Analysis of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.s I Have A Dream Speech915 Words   |  4 Pages Dr. Martin Luther King delivered his I Have a Dream speech to the thousands of African Americans who had marched on Washington, D.C. at the height of the Civil Rights Movement. The date of the speech was August 28, 1963, but it is one that will live for generations. Of course his purpose was to convince his audience on several fronts: he sought to persuade the black community to stand up for the rights afforded them under the Constitution, and he also sought to Read MoreThe Fight for Freedom1312 Words   |  6 Pageslate 1950’s though the 1960’s, however; Tricia Andryszewski informs her readers that Black Americans had been working for change since before the civil war, but mainly beyond. 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