Kelly Services Essay

Kelly Services Inc This case is really focusing on the issue of a company that needs to consider taking on debt. Kelly Services Inc. is going through a period were they are going through some major expansion. With major expansion needs the urge to find investors. When you find investors you need to take on debt, the good thing about debt is you are able to generate profit without having to put a dollar down. So if the debt increases, yes he will be leveraged, but through the company leveraging it gives it the opportunity to generate more of a return in the long run. It says the pay out ratio is 28 percent. For the cases of Olsten and Volt, you can see that Olsten has no debt. Having no debt means the returns you are going to receive are going to be a lot lower For instance Olsten has 0 debt financing and as you can see there returns are the lowest of the three companies. On the other hand Kelly also has 0 debt but there forecasting for growth is a lot lower then Volt the reason being because they do not have the financing to take on investments that can grow their company in the future. On the other hand when you look into Volt’s statements they have the highest debt with still good net worth, but it has the highest level of growth for future advancement. So what this shows is a company that has the highest leverage won’t only have a good return on investment it will also show a favorable path for growth within the future. Another interesting thing to look at is the return on sales. Even though Volt put up a negative figure for one of it’s terms for sales it still had a relatively high net worth. This can mainly be attributed to the way they leveraged their by taking on debt. His lesson on business leverage in law school was wrong. Reason being if you leverage your firm you are able to get a higher return on investment just like anything else. Leveraging your firm takes on risk and the more risk you take on the higher the return you will receive. Another beneficial factor of leveraging your firm is being able to invest investors money instead of your  own. So when you make profit you are making your profit off of not your own risk, but the risk that someone else was taking to put into your company. So through leveraging you are minimizing your risk for potentially having the greatest return. Through the data that was given it really put me on the fence whether taking on leverage was a beneficial thing or not. There is data that is going to back up both claims, but I think being leveraged definitely outweighs being unlevered. You can really understand this through Volt’s company’s information because it shows that you can show a net worth being positive even having negative figures on return on sales return on assets return on capital and return on equity.

Appendix

Looking at the Graph, we are able to project a potential incremental growth of demand versus supply. Incremental is based on the following criteria. 1. Total local market population of the business location 2. Minimum Minimal projected average sales of 35-50 units per day for SIX days to cater a potential market population of 1,000 people. 3. A six month projection with a Incremental boost In sales for the first quarter to the 4th month and a plateau projection at the 5th month onwards subject to business performance review.In order for us to come up with a price point data, we decided to follow the price point signaled by the Stir Fry Noodle kiosks in Greater Metro Manila. This is to eradicate any possible price adjustments in the future should we wish to grow the business further by offering franchising opportunities to other entrepreneurs who wish to franchise our start up business. We also believe that the Stir Fry noodle kiosks have already undergone an extensive survey on an af fordable price point for the Stir Fry Noodles considering this will be the first of Its kind In Dave Doctors College canteen.We will be offering a variety of promotions identified on specific occasions as well as seasons to ensure a steady flow of client interest and repeat purchases. Timeliness will also be created with regard to marketing activities to further ensure the implementation as well as the executing and viability of success for each and every marketing activity done. Initial activities and strategies would be below the line marketing strategies considering that we have a very minimal budget and funds for marketing activities.Some of these would be the following: Price promotion On the opening day we will create a single day promotion or opening salvo promotion f 50% off for the first 100 customers. This Is to ensure we will create a stir during opening day and ensuring that we will be able to reach a maximum number of clientele who would be satisfied with our product an d spread by word of mouth our business. Vouchers and coupons We would be selling out discounted vouchers or coupons at 50% lesser price than the standard price point. The objective of doing this is to maximize the number of people who redeem them.Gifts with purchase (Pick a prize event) We would give customers something extra or get the chance to win something extra . E. An additional simoom or a free drink when they buy one or more stir fry noodles. And finally in this day and age of technology and social media, we will ensure that our social media presence is engaging as well as intriguing enough to gain a number of followers thereby ensuring us a potential captured market who would not only be our potential customers but a potential business partner In the near future.At the onset of the business we will initially focus on serving and delivering the quality and standards we wish to impart on our immediate clientele. Of course we ill not discount the power of clients who wish to t aste our product thus once we have established a proper process flow and operational system, we will expand our branches to other areas such as the following: Overland transport terminals Bazaar Areas Exhibit and Booth Activities Schools and or Universities Malls Business Hubs And wherever we deem there is enough flow of consumer traffic as well as including delivery and packed meals to our service.In ensuring that this will increase our sales and profitability we will therefore have to add more machinery such as our own emissary / kitchen to cater to these expansions and services. For deliveries, we will initially be accepting deliveries in the 1 kilometer radius and increase our capacity as well as delivery fleet detrimental on the demand generated. A dedicated mobile number for the three networks will be provided and sooner or later a SMS auto capturing and relaying system similarly used by R. A.Ha Taxi services will be used to ensure that no orders will be forgotten and that eff iciency as well as timeliness of the deliveries will be ensured. Product Identification HO-MAIM GOAD Stir Fry Noodles is a food cart that offers stir fried noodles mixed with a variety of condiments, sauces and mixtures that the customer can freely choose based on their very own palate complimented with their own choice of dim sum (sis- mat). The customer simply has to mix in their preferred sauces and may choose to experiment mix matching these sauces and condiments to suit their taste topped by their selected choice of dumdums.Dumdums choices will either be pork, chicken, beef, shrimp and crab. Beverages such as mineral water and the local stag's Goldman mix ill also be available for consumption as these will complement the taste of the Stir- fry noodles. Should the customer wish to have a pre-concocted sauce then a menu of the specific pre concocted sauce will be provided of which they will mix in with Strength No existing competitors in the immediate vicinity to up to approximat ely meters from business location.Multiple condiments and sauces complement ones creative imagination in coming up with their own personal flavor and taste A full and affordable meal complete with the basics such as carbohydrates and protein acquirement of the human body. Affordable pricing for a sumptuous meal complete with sanitary and quality set standards. Weakness Start up business without any existing process and operational flows. Needs resources for the accumulation and procurement of raw materials and main ingredients.No procedural flow chart on product preparation and standardization. Lack of training for potential manpower employment. Lack of initial capitalization and funding resource. Opportunities Big room for expansion considering there is no other competitor with the same concept in the local region. Marginal room for error considering the startup location of the business will be established in a lesser populated area thereby increasing chances of improving process f lows and preparation standardization.

Native American Essay Essay

?From as early as before the time of the arrival of the European settlers, Native Americans have suffered tremendously. The establishment of the early English colonies and the future creation of the American nation impacted the lives and destiny of the Native American people extremely. One example of this is the Trail of Tears, an event which brought lots of people sadness and grief. Another example is the loss of their land, something which exceptionally changed the lives and destiny of the Native Americans. The last example is diseases, something that the Native Americans caught very often. In summary, the creation of the early English colonies and the future formation of the American nation impacted the lives of Native American people more than one will ever know everything about. To begin with, the English colonies and the American nation at the time forced the Native Americans through something everyone now knows as â€Å"The Trail of Tears. † This â€Å"trail† was a forced relocation of the Native Americans to another land the U. S. had provided. Although they were forced to make the agreement, some thought it was a good opportunity to start a new life and grow new crops. It was nothing like that at all. The majority of the Native Americans died of starvation, diseases, and because many did not have any shoes on their feet and were walking through snow, they also died of the cold. The Trail of Tears took place due to the Indian Removal Act passed by President Andrew Jackson in 1830. For years prior to the act, many disputes had taken place over land the Native Americans resided on. A previous law made it impossible for Native Americans to technically own land in the United States, then giving Jackson the ability to force them to relocate. Overall, the â€Å"Trail of Tears† is one of the many examples of how the English colonies and the American nation impacted the lives of the Native Americans greatly. Second, the creation of the early English colonies and the future formation of the American nation caused loss of Native American land. Even after the Indian Removal Act and the â€Å"Trail of Tears† caused the Native Americans to relocate to another land, the English colonies and the American nation took their relocated land too. Also, before that, a little after the Indian Removal Act, a law that authorized him to negotiate with the Native Americans for their removal in exchange for their homelands. All in all, the Native Americans suffered lots of land loss due to the American nation taking it away for them as they did not want Native Americans on their land. Lastly, the creation of the early English colonies and the future formation of the American nation caused the Native Americans to catch many diseases. This resulted in many deaths and a great amount of suffering, not only for themselves, but for their family members as well. Many of the diseases, such as smallpox, measles, and mumps, were of European origin, and Native Americans exhibited little immunity because they had no previous exposure to those diseases. Even though the European settlers caused these diseases, the Americans were also to blame because they came after the Europeans â€Å"discovered† the land. Many deaths occurred because of smallpox in particular but other diseases as well. In summation, the creation of the early English colonies and the future formation of the American nation caused the Native Americans to catch diseases, resulting in many deaths and losses. In conclusion, the creation of the early English colonies and the future formation of the American nation caused the Native American people great losses and many deaths in their tribes. One example is the Trail of Tears, an event which made the Native Americans relocate to another land. Another example is the loss of their land, something which the American nation could just not stop doing to them. The last example is diseases, something that the Native Americans caught very often, causing many deaths and lots of suffering. The creation of the early English colonies and the future formation of the American nation impacted the lives of Native American people to extreme measures.

Blue Tooth Technology Essay

Bluetooth is an open standard for speech and data transmission. Besides the applications for this new technology, e. g. the wireless connection between mobile station and terminal equipment, also the structure of the Bluetooth system architecture is presented. The set-up of so-called short-range ad hoc networks (piconets and scatternets) will be introduced. Bluetooth wireless technology is an open, accepted standard for wireless communication which means that Bluetooth electronic equipment can communicate as long as they are within approx. 10 meters of each other, making it possible to transfer data, speech, music or images without a physical connection. The mobile telephone manufacturer Ericsson invented Bluetooth technology, naming it after the Viking King Harald Bluetooth. Just as King Harald Bluetooth united Denmark and Norway, Bluetooth technology â€Å"unites† various types of electronic equipment to form a coherent whole. Ericsson formed the foundation for Bluetooth as early as 1994, but the standard was not ready for use until 1998. The first Bluetooth products came on the market in 2000. Today, Bluetooth technology can be found in all types of electronic equipment – including mobile phones, mobile headsets, PCs, keyboards, mouse devices, printers, GPS navigation units, video cameras and pocket PCs – and new products are emerging every day. Today, Bluetooth technology is an essential everyday tool to be found in a variety of electronic equipment. The technology makes it easy to transfer speech between a mobile phone and a headset, a mobile phone and a pocket computer or images from a digital video camera to a PC. Even though two Bluetooth units can find each other and be connected, because they both comply with the standard, it may not necessarily make sense for them to speak to each other. For instance, a Bluetooth mouse would not profit much from a connection with a digital camera, or a headset with a keyboard. The basic requirement for Bluetooth units to be able to communicate is that they are located within 10 meters of each other. That is the range of the Bluetooth radio waves – at least under the current standard. The study intents to (1) know the key features of Bluetooth technology; (2) evaluate Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) and its key role in maintaining specifications of the protocol, profiles, testing and qualification, interoperability and compatibility and; (3) how Bluetooth applies to wireless technology. II. Background As Bluetooth technology becomes more common, however, we will undoubtedly see CD players that send sound to amplifiers via Bluetooth, which then transfer the sound to speakers in the same way. A Bluetooth enabled pocket computer will automatically synchronise with a company’s diary and make sure that the day’s e-mails are ready to be read on the screen. And car radios will turn the music down and transfer the speech from a mobile phone when it rings (see â€Å"Bluetooth†. New Standard Encyclopedia, pp. 36-38). Moreover, the Bluetooth brand is now recognized worldwide on products with short range wireless communication capabilities. The brand is a label that is not a single company technology but is shared by many members of the Bluetooth SIG. The brand is applied to devices implementing the Bluetooth technology; even if it says little about the way the technology works (see â€Å"Bluetooth†. New Standard Encyclopedia, pp. 36-38). III. Discussion A. Features of Bluetooth Technology The logo for Bluetooth is based on Runes surrounding the legend of Harald Bluetooth. Bluetooth the technology is based on communications central to man’s own personal space. Fundamentally Bluetooth operates within the Industrial, Scientific and Medical (ISM) band at 2. 4 GHz. It is a short-range wireless communication standard defined as cable replacement for a Personal Area Network (PAN) (see â€Å"Bluetooth†. Grolier Encyclopedia of Knowledge, pp. 87-94). Figure 1 is the Bluetooth Logo. A cable replacement standard has been defined because cables limit mobility of the consumer; they are cumbersome to carry around, are easily lost or broken. Often connectors are prone to difficult to diagnose failures; or are proprietary. To counteract these limitations Bluetooth is designed to be light and portable. It can be embedded to take the riggers of physical knocks and shocks. It includes standards and protocols to make it mobile, robust, reliable and not limited to one manufacturer (see â€Å"Bluetooth†. Grolier Encyclopedia of Knowledge, pp. 87-94). The operating band also fits the goals of Bluetooth, imposing requirements as a cable replacement. The cost needs to be comparable with cable. Reductions can be achieved by operating in the licence free 2. 4 GHz ISM band, keeping backward compatibility wherever possible lowers the cost of ownership by avoiding upgrades and having a relaxed radio specification enables single chip integrated circuit solutions. It also needs to be as reliable and resilient as cable and cope with errors and degradation caused by interference. For mobile devices it must be compact, lightweight, low power and easy to use (see â€Å"Bluetooth†. Grolier Encyclopedia of Knowledge, pp. 87-94). A. 1 Frequency Hopping We have addressed the reasons for the Bluetooth without delving into the ‘nuts and bolts’ of the technology to discover how it operates. For the majority of countries the ISM band used by Bluetooth is available from 2. 40-2. 4835 GHz, although some countries impose restrictions. In this band Bluetooth uses Frequency Hopping Spread Spectrum (FHSS) techniques in order to improve its immunity from interference (see J. Bray and C. F. Sturman, Bluetooth: Connect Without Cables†, Prentice Hall). In unrestricted countries the radios hop in pseudo random sequences around all available channels, this equates to 79 RF channels with a channel spacing of 1 MHz. Starting at a base frequency of 2402 MHz then the frequency of the channels, f, can be expressed as: f =2402 + n MHz where, n, is the channel number with an integer value in the range of 0 to 78. In restricted countries a limited frequency hopping schemes with just 23 channels is used and is catered for in the Bluetooth specification. Both hopping schemes have a 1 MHz channel spacing making it possible to design a simple radio interface whereby the baseband only has to specify a channel number and the radio multiplies this up to the appropriate frequency offset (see J. Bray and C. F. Sturman, Bluetooth: Connect Without Cables†, Prentice Hall). In this FHSS scheme there are 1600 hops per second, which is a hop every 625  µs. Part of this hop timing is taken up by the guard time of 220  µs allowing the synthesizer time to settle. The frequency hopping implements time division multiplexing as shown in Figure 2. The basis of the scheme has the Master device transmitting in the first 625 us slot, k, and here the Slave receives. In the next slot k = 1 the Slave is permitted to transmit and the master listens (see J. Bray and C. F. Sturman, Bluetooth: Connect Without Cables†, Prentice Hall). Figure 2: Frequency Hopping, master and slave interact on corresponding slots The radio must be able to retune and stabilise on a new frequency within tight time constraints. This is pushed further when establishing a connection; the hop rate can be shortened to every 312. 5 us. As the radios are constantly hopping to different radio channels, this ensures that packets affected by interference on one channel can be retransmitted on a different frequency channel. To further enhance resilience both ARQ (Automatic Repeat reQuest) and FEC (Forward Error Correction) form part of the specification (see J. Bray and C. F. Sturman, Bluetooth: Connect Without Cables†, Prentice Hall). One drawback with the normal hop sequence is the time taken for production testing. Bluetooth ensures adequate frequency coverage with a test sequence allowing the radios to be tested at a faster rate (see J. Bray and C. F. Sturman, Bluetooth: Connect Without Cables†, Prentice Hall). A. 2 The Bluetooth SIG and Specifications If the success of Bluetooth is measured by its initial interest alone then its prominence has already been assured. Before products were on sale, hundreds of companies joined the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) and the Bluetooth brand became recognized worldwide. Before investigating the technology further it is appropriate to comment about the role played by the SIG, the administrative structure of which is outlined in Figure 3. With membership of the SIG nearing 2500 members it is only right to look at how the SIG works to promote, shape and define the specification and position Bluetooth in the market place. Positioning of the technology is important when you consider other wireless technologies that share the same ISM band, e. g. IEEE802. 11b, HomeRF and DECT. Differentiation is key in avoiding confusion of potential users.

Internet Freedom and Democracy

Internet Freedom and Democracy Recently people more aware about real democracy because technological developments and internet help people who access the internet simultaneously. Especially internet has a great contribition. Internet’s most important two features which are pure information and easy accessibility are gift from network developers to general public. Some believes that this intervention is very helpful for humanity and some others argues that internet will be a tool for mean and malevolent people such as terrorists,racist or pedophiles.Democracy’s most well known feature is being free as can as possible. Person who lives in democratic country can do what s/he wants to do without abusing the other people’s rights,feelings and freedoms. Accordingly on this definition , people can access to internet when they want. They can communicate with each other or surf on the internet and no one can stop users. Internet is a new way of promoting democracy. It is a new area that capable for keeping in touch with billions of people. It does not need to rest or it never dies. However this event depend on governments and authorities’ attitude towards the internet.As you imagine that, internet’s simplicity creates powerful interaction. This interaction ability leads billions of people’s attention. This interaction power and lots of people’s attention may cause a handicap for Authorities. Becouse of this great power States and Authorities want to control it. Thanks to the democracy, there is a obstacle for that. Our rights are saved by laws and governments can not inhibit our internet freedom. Let assume that all of the developing and developed countries are beindg governing with complete democracy.In this circumstance,a large amount of people can reach various imformation easily. Only one click on the mouse opens a door to the rest of the world. Jamie Metzl describes the internet as a quick and cheap way of exchanging the information. It is a great invention that people may gain information very fast and very easy. People can announce their voice and express their ideas. People may also express themselves without the internet but internet makes this process faster. Sharing ideas has become easier with internet. Because internet provides flow of informatin without any corruption or changes.For example (from Peter Brophy and Edward Helpin’s article), human rights organizations were challenging with authoritarian governments early 80’s but later internet usage has started to grow and they have gained adventage from internet. They published their articles and annunced their activities freely. In Peter Brophy and Edward Helpin’s article, Amnesty International which is an organization that protects human rights all over the world. In their Indonesia campaign , they used the online communication becouse government could not making intervention to that area.Day by day Indonesian peo ple have become more aware about their rights and resisted to government’s human rights abuses. Briefly , internet provides democratic rights for people. With internet’s contribitions people can understand the democracy in fast and easy way. Internet is such a great invention that it is easiest way to foster freedom. There is no militaristic pressure, police stick, or torture for readings, songs and idea expressions. It means that there is no this kind of scary affects for being free. People know that they can read, listen or say what they want with internet.This is the main reason for internet’s popularity. Completely democratic countries have been allowing flow of information for many years. Except democratic and liberal countries’ citizens, people couldn’t express themselves freely before the invention of the internet. For example; in Turkey, in early 80’s lots of author was imprisoned by military because of their ideologies and books. Al so military was burning ideological books. Even today Turkish citizens aren’t recognizing the complete freedom. However, it changed recently. Lately 90’s internet has become popular and there was no limitation for it.That interval was the pure freedom for internet users. It is a fact that, only way for spread of an idea is communication. Frequency, power and speed of communication are directly proportional with dissemination of idea or information. A user’s idea could be effective on the other user. Different thoughts could become an ideology at the internet. For example; a couple months ago Turkish government has started to applying safe-internet which is software for limiting the internet. Popular bloggers wrote articles about it and they raise awareness about this law.Firstly bloggers and a lot of users protest this issue on web but it didn’t be effective. After that bloggers planned a real protest at streets. They invited both internet users and civil public to strike this issue. Thousands of people responded this call and they protest that law because, government tried to abuse their internet freedom. However, some people argue that internet isn’t kind of a tool that helpful for democratic developments. In dictatorships and non-democratic countries internet doesn’t work properly while process of promoting the democracy.Censorship issue and authoritarian pressures prevent flow of information. Not only civil people use the internet. Governments have their own websites or blogs. Public’s internet is being limited with same technology by governments. Civilian programmers call that the Censor ware. There are lots of ways for blocking or limiting access to websites. Most well-known are Web filters which programmed by states’ programmers. Another one is blocking the website. Jonathan Strickland mentioned this issue in his article. For Strickland, Governments block access to the web pages they identify as un desirable.Undesirable means that the websites which criticizes the state’s ideology or contrary with government’s activities. As a result, these actions cause a counter belief for internet’s democracy foster power. In conclusion, many people believe that internet is accelerating the freedom and democracy in most of the countries. A few people disagreeing with that but generally thought of internet’s contributions to democracy is positive. Two main features of this technology are helping people which are fast and easy and fast accessibility and not corrupted information.

Stimulus Bill Article Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Stimulus Bill - Article Example it allowed the people to invest in the overall development of the society like in infrastructure, medical treatment issues, education and other basic needs of the people were addressed by this act. Further it took part in recycling of the energy too. The Act is based on a theory of economics which is called Keynesian Macroeconomic Theory. This theory suggests that when a recession strikes, the government should be modest and generous enough to put less money into the projects which are of private nature and likely to benefit the government and the state only, and start investing more on the things which will directly give relief and benefit to the general public. According to this theory, recession is not the time to secure your business or government, but to keep the public surviving and doing all which will keep them alive, happy and motivated to work or to get back to work. Although the Act seems to be a perfect package for the social welfare of the people, it was also criticized by some in terms of its very limited scope. They say that it covers less than one third of the spending. As it happens with every new thing presented, The view and recommendations of the economists about the act should also be discussed in order to get a better idea about the weaknesses and strengths. Some economista like Paul Krugman, Joseph Stiglitz, Larry Summers and Martin Feldstein have reservations about this act that it has a very small vision or it is an act with limited scope which does not benefit the sufficient number of people. They suggest that it should have been designed to encompass the larger wider population. Feldstein is generally in favour of such a package but questions the directness of this act on the investment on consumer spending. He says that this act should have been more direct on addressing the unemployment and the consumer spending. According to him some revision is needed in this act to make it more effective and beneficial. Krugman also says that it

Cost Accounting Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Cost Accounting - Case Study Example in the coordination of activities and functions within the corporate framework of the firm as well as helping administer each of the functional areas or activity centers of the company. The ability of internal managers to plan and control the activities within the company rely heavily upon the timeliness and quality of the financial and cost information provided by accounting. Cost accounting provides the necessary internal financial framework for management to plan and control the firm’s activities while providing feedback (Horngren & Foster & Datar). The concept of feedback refers to the ability of management to examine past decisions and financial performance in order to better formulate the companys strategy for the future. The three major functions of modern accounting systems are: To help internal management plan, control and make regular everyday decisions- This routine information helps managers better manage their firm resources, assist with strategic short and long term planning, and determining product/service cost or total costs by allocating the different direct and indirect expenses to the appropriate cost driver or activity. Non-routine internal reporting- There are many instances when a manager or internal decision maker needs to have specific internal financial information that is not normally reported under their standards accounting system which involve some new potential capital investment or activity. Financial external reporting to stakeholders- Investors, banks, government and other outside parties require information regarding the firms past financial performance and financial reporting provide the means for these parties to learn about the companys operations and overall financial performance. There are different approaches in modern cost accounting to help managers determine the total product service or service costs, as well as allocating expenses to the appropriate product or service within their business portfolio. The design of

Halloween (1978) Movie analysis Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Halloween (1978) Movie analysis - Assignment Example l prove that the director deliberately depersonalized the antagonist to make him for frightening as well as designed mise in scene in a way that the viewer would know that something is missing and anticipate the danger. To begin with, one might note that when Laurie entered the room, she wanted to close the window. There was no particular reason to do so, other than some subconscious fear of Michael whom she recently saw. However, after she noticed that he was standing in her backyard, she immediately closed the window for a particular reason which is not to let him in. If one carefully analyzes the way she performed the action in question, one will be able to see that she was quite desperate and vulnerable. Indeed, a woman with her constitution can hardly oppose a man who is taller and stronger than her. Later in the movie she is shown fighting him and Laurie is able to overcome only due to some lucky hits that she makes. By far, the part when she noticed a strange figure in the backyard should be seen as a rather frightening one: the mask that he is wearing contributes to demonalization of the character. There are several explanations for it. On the one hand, when one looks at the backyard, one does not expect to see something extraordinary. That is why a presence of an unknown man in the very middle of it seems to be a real shock to her. Indeed, Michael is positioned on the front frame and occupies the majority of the space. In addition to that mask makes him look like the villain of the movie and becomes a symbol of taking away his humanity. That is why this particular image make Michael so frightening. One of the first impressions that the scene in the bedroom has on the viewer is the emptiness of the room. In spite of the fact that it looks as an ordinary room, mise en scene is organized in such a way that the audience understanding that something is clearly missing. Keeping in mind that Laurie saw Michael several times before walking into the house, it is

Office Art Memorandum Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Office Art Memorandum - Research Paper Example In addition to these impressionist works there are a number of seminal post-impressionist works. One major post-impressionist work is Henri Rousseau's 'Centennial of Independence'. Another significnat work is Vincent Van Gogh's 'Breton Women and Children.' The final post-impressionist work is Georges-Pierre Seurat's 'Evening, Honfleur.' 2. Van Gogh's 'the Night Cafe' features a cafe ostensibly at night. In the center of the cafe is an old type of pool table with a patron hovering near it. There are chains that surround the table. There are a number of lights in the room that emanate an orange and red-like color. The walls are depicted in a bright red and what appears to be a roof in bright green. Monet's 'Impression, Sunrise' is a slightly abstract depiction of a sunrise on a lake. The image implements lights blues and oranges to depict the sunrise. This sunrise blends seamlessly into the lake. The lake features an individual in a boat, with light signs of waves. Pissarro's 'Pont Boi eldieu in Rouen, Rainy Weather' features a river and a bridge. Individuals are crossing the brdige and and steam is emanating from a steamboat on the bridge. Henri Rousseau's 'Centennial of Independence' depicts a party-like atmosphere with individuals dancing in a celebratory way. Vincent Van Gogh's 'Breton Women and Children' depicts a number of nuns congregating and speaking together. The nuns are created in odd and oblong ways. Georges-Pierre Seurat's 'Evening, Honfleur' depicts a coast with a beach house nearby. 3. Van Gogh's 'The Night Cafe' is a significant work of art for a variety of reasons. Perhaps the most prominent reason that this work is considered significant is because of its use of vibrant colors. While obviously color were a prominent aspect of 19th century impressionism, the bright colors and technique implemented in this work foresee the future advent of expressionism (Gowing 2005, p. 201) Monet's 'Impression, Sunrise is significant for a variety of reasons. Per haps most prominently is the recognition that this image, despite using experimental techniques, is able to achieve a heightened realism; in this way the design elements are structured to reach the human visual cortex on a level that is not possible with more traditional painting techniques (Gowing 2005, p. 67). Pissarro's 'Pont Boieldieu in Rouen, Rainy Weather' is a significant work of art as it depicts the industrialization in the surrounding region from a fresh perspective (Gowing 2005, p. 93). Rousseau's 'Centennial of Independence' is a seminal work as it implemented cut and paste techniques that would later evolve in animation and Pop art methods in the 20th century (Rewald 1978, p. 34). Vincent Van Gogh's 'Breton Women and Children' is significant as it features a significant change in Van Gogh's style from the impressionist form, to a more post-impressionist style. Georges-Pierre Seurat's 'Evening, Honfleur' is significant as it implements the pointillist method of construc tion (Rewald 1978, p. 55). 4. This piece of art fits the corporate image because it is a highly contemplative piece. The table in the center of the room is indicative of a board room table, with the individual hovering nearby indicative of an employee considering the next project to take on. 'Impression, Sunrise' fits into the main spectrum of the organization as it depicts on early morning scene in a non-obtrusive way. In this way the painting could be featured in a morning break room or meeting room. Pissarro's 'Pont

Sherwin Williams (SHW0 Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Sherwin Williams (SHW0 - Research Paper Example There are various methods which have been postulated by scholars such as Gordon; Gordon postulated a growth model which is used to ascertain or estimate the value of stock in the future. In the Gordon growth model it is assumed that the company cash flows experiences constant growth t to perpetuity from the period immediately proceeding the valuation date. In the Gordon method the present value of the terminal benefit is then added to the summation of the present value of all project cash flows so as to arrive at the total value of stock (Stavans, 2007). The second approach to stock valuation in order to ascertain the total returns to the investor is the constant growth model. Using model it is assumed that earnings of the stock a constant growth, that is, dividend experience a constant which is usually ascertained from the growth in the earnings of the company then using a capitalization rate which is given by the difference between the company cost of equity and the growth. Then, the expected earning to the stock (then multiplied by one plus the growth rate) is divided by the capitalization rate so as to arrive at the total earnings attributed to the stock. Then, this figure is added to the current market so as to ascertain the total returns that would accrue to the investor at the end of the five year period. In order to achieve the objectives of this paper we will employ a hybrid of Gordon growth model so as to arrive at the total returns that the stocks of Sherwin Williams company. This method was adapted due to it is consideration of the time value of money concept. Moreover, this method is more efficient than the constant growth assumption method. Total present value of earnings = 8.3431 plus 86.00 assuming the market price of shares grows at the same rate like the dividend such that the market price per share at the end of five years will be 86 (1.11)5 = 145.57 the present value would be 145.57 x 0.5428 = 79.02. Therefore, the total return

Methods of Motivations (for minimum wage employees), Term Paper - 1

Methods of Motivations (for minimum wage employees), - Term Paper Example One of the most effect methods of motivation is use fair salaries and wages. The employees will always be motivated when they are paid high wages and salaries. The employer can increase the morale of the employees by paying them more than the other firms are paying their employees. The advantage of this method is that it very effective in increasing the morale of the employees. The disadvantage is that it increases the cost of production for the firm. The other monetary incentive is the pay of bonus. The employees will be motivated if the employers give bonus for the work done. In most cases, the higher the quality of work did the higher the bonus. Employees will always work hard to get bigger bonuses. The advantage is that the firm that gives bonus workers will always work extra hard to earn bonus. The other monetary incentive that is very effective is the overtime payment. Overtime payment is the payment made for workers who work extra hours besides the normal working hours. Monetary incentives will increase the morale of the workers. The advantage of this method is that workers will work extra hard to earn overtime payment. The disadvantage is that it increases the cost of production for the firm. Some of the benefits that firms can give to motivate its workers are the retirement plan-pension plan. Each worker would want to have this plan to get their money after they retire. Many employees will be motivated to works hard because the company offers those benefits like pension plan benefits. Allowances are very effective in motivation of employees. Firms give different allowances depending on the financial status of the firm. Some of the allowances include the medical allowances. Many employees will be motivated to works hard because the company offers those allowances like medical allowances. The medical allowance is the money that the firm is willing to pay for the

Big Problems in Chinese Popular Culture Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Big Problems in Chinese Popular Culture - Essay Example Moreover, bulk production tactics helped China to provide employment to thousands of Chinese people. Another interesting factor is that the one child policy implemented by China helped them to control the population growth up to certain extent. China’s economy is the largest in Asia it may become the largest in the world in the near future itself. Albert Keidel (2008) has pointed out that â€Å"China’s economy will surpass that of the United States by 2035 and be twice its size by mid- century† (Keidel). Amidst all these positives, it is a fact that unemployment problems in China is growing at a steady rate and the government failed to implement any effective measures to counter it. Unemployment rate in China is around 11% at present which is creating serious problems with access to housing, education, and basic social services. This paper analyses questions such as; How college graduates and peasant workers deal with unemployment in China; What advantages and disadvantages does each group hold and How do crime and corruption, along with social stability and mobility play a role in the PRC today etc. Even though the unemployment rates are coming down, it should be noted that more than 230 million people in China are still jobless. In other words, statistics are not providing the actual depth of the unemployment problems in China. â€Å"What confronts the young generation of today is structural unemployment, mostly resulting from a mismatch between the conditions and nature of jobs and the skills and expectations of the young generation† (Litao & Yanjie, p.i). The expectations of the current youths in China with respect to employment are high. Unlike the old generation, they are not ready to work in hard working labor sectors such as the construction fields or manufacturing sectors. They are looking for white collar jobs and it is difficult for the Chinese

Lord Burlington and William Kent - Chiswick House near London Research Paper

Lord Burlington and William Kent - Chiswick House near London - Research Paper Example This can be seen in Chiswick House, which is plainer and simpler in style than a Baroque building. The new belief in order and reason caused architects to draw up â€Å"rules† for good architecture and search for â€Å"good taste† in design (Curl 37). Buildings were designed using ideal geometric shapes such as the cube, rectangle and circle (Curl 40). This can be seen from the plan of the rooms at Chiswick House: there is a hexagonal (six-sided) hall in the centre, which is surrounded by square or rectangular rooms, and the whole building is shaped like a cube (the room plan is reproduced in Curl, 30). The eighteenth century saw important social changes. The monarchy and the church were declining in importance while the importance of the middle classes and the aristocracy was increasing (Black 269). A good example is the Earl of Burlington, the architect and owner of Chiswick House, who was an important patron of the arts and a private individual, not a royal. Aristocr ats were often landowners, and the eighteenth century was the great age of landscape gardening (Black 270). Chiswick House is surrounded by gardens, which were planned by Burlington’s assistant, William Kent. There was an increasing trend for aristocrats to go on a Grand Tour to Italy, to learn about ancient history and to collect works of art for their country houses (Black 293). Lord Burlington first visited Italy in 1714 and returned to Italy in 1719 to study buildings designed by Palladio, a great Renaissance architect. Chiswick House is modelled on Palladio’s Villa Rotonda, though it is not an exact copy. Chiswick House is smaller than the Villa Rotonda and it has a portico (with classical columns) on only one side of the building, while the Rotonda has porticos on all four sides (Steenbergen 131). Palladio and Burlington were both trying to recreate the villas of the ancient Romans. This may have had a political significance for Burlington, since he was a member of the British aristocracy, who modelled themselves on the â€Å"patricians† (aristocrats) of ancient Rome. Burlington did not actually live at Chiswick House: he used the building to display his art collection, hold concerts of music, and entertain his guests. The Enlightenment’s love of order and reason can be seen when we look at the front exterior of Chiswick House. The general effect is formal, symmetrical, and elegant. The stonework is quite plain. The only decoration is to be found in the elaborate (Corinthian) tops to the columns and the triangular tops to the two large windows. Two cleverly designed flights of steps lead up to the portico. The columns and the dome are important features of classical architecture. The interior of the house is much more colorful and elaborate, perhaps as a deliberate contrast to the rather plain exterior. Outside the house, at the bottom of the steps, there are statues of Palladio and Inigo Jones, who was the first English archi tect to design buildings in the Palladian style. This kind of symbolism continues inside the house. For example, the entrance to the central hall contains a bust of Augustus, who was the first Roman emperor. On the ceiling of the Blue Velvet Room there is a depiction of the goddess of architecture, and on the ceiling of the Green Velvet Room there is Mercury, god of commerce and the arts. The Chiswick House website suggests that Mercury could symbolise Burlington himself, a great patron of the arts. The use of symbolism extends into the gardens. There are statues of

Essay in hr Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Essay in hr - Assignment Example Studies conducted over the years have supported the argument that of the various factors that influence employee motivation and commitment at the workplace fairness and trust were ranked the highest. Although there is considerable debate and lack of consensus over the concept and appropriate definition employee engagement, there is hardly any disagreement or doubt over the issue of fairness and its relevance at the workplace. It has been clearly established by various researchers that along with adequate pay and opportunities the existence of fairness in the organisation and trust toward the management play a key role in gaining employee commitment and dedication. The psychological contract is a metaphorical representation of the various factors that help organisations in emphasising and exploring the key issues affecting their employees. It affords the management in addressing a range of issues faced by the employees and in devising effective plans to overcome the same. The fundamental objective of a psychological contract is to ensure that the management places more emphasis on the ‘people’ i.e., the employees as they are integral for organisational success and development. It also focuses on improving and enhancing the relationship between the employees and the management / organisation. The employees are integral to the success of any organisation and are instrumental in improving the profitability of the organisations. Hence various organisations include the element of ‘psychological contract’ as part of their strategic plans in order to help the organisations grow and prosper. It helps in the overall developmen t of the organisations and help in tapping the energies, creativity and knowledge offered by the employees (Truss, Soane, and Edwards, 2006). There has been a drastic change in the manner in which organizations operate and function. The attitude toward the employees has also

ENVIRONMENTAL AUDITING AND MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS Essay

ENVIRONMENTAL AUDITING AND MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS - Essay Example In addition, the essay will discuss into details three basic aspects of sustainability and the role of companies in addressing all these three aspects, including the CSR practices as they relate to the organization. The benefits and limitations of using EMS are also discussed at length and ways of identifying and improving social impacts of companies, after which it will establish sustainability indicators when using EMS as well as outlining CSR and sustainability standards. Moreover, the essay gives a detailed discussion on matters relating to shareholder theory in CSR and standardization. Task 1 Suppliers’ Environmental Performance In essence, suppliers’ environmental performance is important to a company adopting an EMS, whether certified or not because of a number of ways. The suppliers form part of the external environment in a company, thus their contribution has significant influence in running a company. Suppliers’ power comes into play when they demand t hat retailers pay a given amount of money for the supplied goods. Lack of compliance from the side of the retailer means the supplier will not provide the goods. Taking Tesco Company as an example, the entity has an advantage over the small stores as most people tend to do all their shopping in large stores and supermarkets. This enables Tesco to have the ability to dictate the price suppliers will sell goods as failure to comply on the part of suppliers will leave them with no market to supply their goods. According to Rigby, the government needs to increase protection for suppliers and reduce their exploitation by large supermarkets (24). Tesco has a range of its own product which gives it power to fully dictate their price since it does not have to wait for suppliers to provide the goods. These products have strengthened the company’s profits and increase its competitive advantage. In 2007, the company sales were ?42,633.4 million with a 21.9% growth rate in sales (Rigby 4 4). The suppliers’ environmental assessment fits within an EMS in a number of ways. For example, it promotes ethics and cordial relationships among different suppliers who might be transacting business with the company. In an organization, ethical behavior is imperative because it plays an integral role in helping it achieves the desired environmental management system. It also forms the culture of the organization and fosters the relationship between the stakeholders. Importantly, the analysis of the organizational ethical human behavior is very essential in making ethical managerial decisions, bearing in mind the need for consistency to the international principles of running the affairs of the company. In addition, ethical human behavior presents the dynamic relations, which the company could apply to realize its vision and mission based on the outlined objectives. Therefore, ethical human behavior comprises the fundamental aspects that the people in the organization shoul d adopt in delivering better management services to the potential customers and other stakeholders. Those aspects are core when making ethical decisions about the code of behavior expected from leaders. The value of a comprehensive code of conduct to guide organizational activities is vested in the spirit of the leaders to exercise the organizational culture. As a leader, one of the primary responsibilities is to help shape a culture of

Literary research paper on The Things They Carried by Tim OBrien Essay

Literary research paper on The Things They Carried by Tim OBrien - Essay Example This paper is a reflection of the literary analysis and in depth meanings of the characters and the circumstances they were thrust into. A number of famous stories make up the confines of the pages of this book – these include characters that keep reappearing every now and then. Each and every character is a justification towards some or the other feeling that every man suffers in his lifetime. For example, the main protagonist, Tim, is a soldier who finally admits that he was responsible for the death of Kiowa, tries to explain to others, and believes that not everything is explicable. This book is an amalgamation of the kind of experiences he shared with other soldiers. Jimmy Cross is a lieutenant and the platoon leader in the short story of the same title as the main book, The Things They Carried, and is also blamed for the death of Kiowa, a devout religious Christian soldier. Ted Lavender is one of the first to die in the book; he was a soldier with true grit but smoked ma rijuana and contained a great amount of anxiousness regarding what would happen next in the War. (Rafferty, Rebecca) The Things They Carried is a story full of symbolism; in this particular tale, O’Brien has marked a very vivid description of all the objects that the various soldiers carry with them. Incidentally, all these objects help the reader to understand the kind of people the soldiers are and the kind of relationship they share with others around them. He has written about Lavender’s obsession with tranquilizers and marijuana, Dobbins’ need to carry his girlfriend’s pantyhose around his neck as well as his extra rations, and Kiowa carrying a copy of the New Testament at all times. All this imagery helps to provide a stark understanding to the reader as per the needs and priorities of the soldiers. O’Brien has also described the kind of burden each man carries on his shoulders in the form of memories from their personal lives, for example, t he lieutenant’s obsession with Martha back home leaves him feeling very disgruntled and regretful. These thoughts eventually leave him questioning and wondering about Martha’s virginity and this eventually leads to distractions and death He also carried maps and compasses, giving a picture of the true leader that he was, always looking out for his soldiers. (Department) Physical objects like machine guns, M-16 rifles, grenade launchers and tents help to depict the harsh reality they were surviving in. Thus, with the use of these physical objects that the soldiers require during their stay in the War, the author has tried to explain the kind of dilemma they were being made to choose between – fantasy and reality. Cross begins to question himself for the death of Lavender and wonders whether or not it was his fault and negligence towards his duty because of his dark fantasizing about Martha that led him astray. (Moore, Julie) A literal meaning of the title and the background that the soldiers are in, the story speaks of a cross join between love and war. It tries to reflect, with the use of the everyday objects that each of the soldiers used (that made up their personalities) how it was unconditional but one sided love for someone that gave way to waging another war. This is a transition from Cross’

Forum post 7 Coursework Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 1

Forum post 7 - Coursework Example The law dictates that everything, whether done in public or in private, must be done in ways that respect the laws of the land. Wearing veils should happen in both public and private. However, some families refuse to let some of the things that must be done in public translate in their private lives. Marjane’s grandmother, for instance, takes off her veil in private. Marjane thinks patriotism doesn’t necessarily mean not allowing even a bit of the western culture. Young people are made to participate in wars and lose their lives in the end, and it’s thought to be the ultimate way to express patriotism and one’s love for Iran. Her culture, God and family view justice and patriotism not as a way of blindly defending one’s country even if it means losing lives/shedding blood for it (Jones 2012) There is the perception that the western ideals are a direct opposite of what is acceptable in Iran. There are cultural clashes between the east and the west. The west has a different perspective of veiling. The western fashion is slowly getting embraced by a section of the Iranian women who start to refuse wearing veils. Marjane’s parents want her to leave Iran because they feel there is no way for her to live her life to the fullest while there. According to them, she can only do that in Europe. As an independent woman, she only gets the freedom to do as she pleases in

A typed report concerning Herman Melville's overall style, typical Essay

A typed report concerning Herman Melville's overall style, typical subjects, influences, etc incorporating specific references to works - Essay Example Melville shows his criticism of the rich Dives who prospers at the expense of orphans at the end of Chapter Two. Melville’s narrator, Ishmael says; ‘Now, that Lazarus should lie stranded there on the curbstone before the door of Dives, this is more wonderful than that an iceberg should be moored to one of the Moluccas. Yet Dives himself, he too lives like a Czar in an ice palace made of frozen sighs, and being a president of a temperance society, he only drinks the tepid tears of orphans.’ Melville incorporated stage directions in his character’s monologues. These helpful directions are in brackets. For example, Ishmael narrates this in Chapter Two; ‘Euroclydon! says old Dives, in his red silken wrapper- (he had a redder one afterwards) pooh, pooh!’ The narrator has long soliloquies in order to explain to the reader what is happening. Melville’s Bartleby the Scrivener is his famous short story because it deals with Existentialist and Absurdist elements. The character Bartleby works for his lawyer boss. Initially he is hardworking but he changes when he stops working but stays around the office doing nothing. The lawyer tries to help him but Bartleby refuses to cooperate when he answers all requests with; ‘I prefer not to.’ Eventually, Bartleby is imprisoned for being a nuisance to society and he slowly starves himself to death because he prefers not to eat. Bartleby demonstrates his Existentialist unique position as a responsible individual who makes his own choices. Melville incorporates his philosophies of anti-rationalism and anti-empiricism into Bartleby. Melville wanted this work to have absurdist ideas so he made Bartleby behave in absurd ways. Melville’s poem, John Marr And Other Sailors, speaks to the reader in a direct manner which is typical of Melville’s style of narration that he used in his novel and short story. His philosophies of anti-rationalism

Work Experience Report Essay Example for Free

Work Experience Report Essay After I finished my AS level exams, I knew I wanted to do chemical engineering, so I asked my dad to get me a place where I can learn a little about it and luckily my dad knew Mr. Manoj Shah who is the owner of Osho Chemical Industries Ltd. So I went there on the 03/12/2012 to get some experience. I met the product development manager Mr. Harish Tolia who guided us throughout and took care of us while we were there. DAY 1 On this day, we were introduced to the work place. We were shown the whole industry and given a brief discussion on what we were going to learn on the next few days. DAY 2 We started off with simple formulations. We did the formulations of tea as it is an everyday use. So we learnt how each ingredient is used and the way its quantity used is very important for the taste, quality and pricing. After looking at tea, we looked at other examples and did some analysis on how some variations in quantity affect the end product. DAY 3 We looked at processes on this day. We learnt how each ingredient is processed. But we stuck to the tea example. We discussed its process. Like we start with boiling the water, then adding the tea leaves (making sure how strong you want it), then masala and then sugar according to the taste preference and then pouring it in the cup. Then we went around the industry looking at different processes. Like for the mosquito killer (moss-kill) we saw how the dough was made into rings and then packed in small packets, then boxes. Also saw how liquids were processed. This was done through computer so it was all automatic. DAY 4 On this day we looked at the equipments. We saw different types of stirrers (single and double mixers), ones used for powder. Then we also looked at their custom made mixers that stir both upwards and downwards forcing them to be mixed very thoroughly. Apart from mixers, we saw how each equipment plays a role in the processing. Conveyor belts help to move the processed item to the next station. (e.g. One equipment pours the liquid in the container, the next covers the container with a cap, the next places a label around it, then a box is used to put all the containers in one and the lorry is then used to transport the goods to their location.

The Alternate Bibliotherapy for Frankenstein’s Monster Essay Example for Free

The Alternate Bibliotherapy for Frankenstein’s Monster Essay The Alternate Bibliotherapy for Frankenstein’s Monster The technique of bibliotherapy is one that can be very beneficial to those struggling with personal identity and confidence issues. It has also been a proven way to aid depressed individuals back to mental stability. But in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, the Creature ends up with a poor collection of â€Å"helpful† content. He stumbles upon three works: Goethe’s Sorrows of Werter, Plutarch’s Lives, and Milton’s Paradise Lost. Upon reading these books, the Creature forms a predisposition against his creator Victor and the rest of society who have rejected him. In The Sorrows of Werter, it tells of a man who strives to win the heart of a married friend but later ends up taking his own life in sorrow and loneliness. The happening that the monster got a hold of this work is just as detrimental to dropping a match into a container of gasoline. This very novel was infamous for driving hundreds of Europeans to ending their own lives after reading this. Which supports the reason why the Creature ends up taking his own life. A more reasonable choice for the Creature to read would be one of the self-help genre. Despite the time period of this story, this type of literature would be most beneficial to a depressed individual, especially when lacking any sense of direction or leading. Books such as Stop Worrying and Start Living or The End of Rejection would give the monster incite on how to overcome the feeling of rejection and abandonment. Although some see these works as hoaxes, it would be a far more constructive influence then Goethe’s. The purpose of Plutarch’s classic work Parallel Lives was to plant qualities within the reader’s mind. Many believe this is how the monster gains a conscience shown in the conclusion of the story. But Plutarch expounds on battles and bloodshed, which reflected a negative effect on the Creature’s mindset. If the monster were seeking to find ethics and morals, it should have read and studied God’s Word. His Scripture is a foundational and fundamental basis for all of human morality and a divine instruction that every person, or monster, must comprehend to understand the meaning of life and love. Reflecting on Milton’s Paradise Lost, one could conclude that the Creature has simply taken the wrong point of view. It associates itself with the character of Satan, obviously an unfavorable connection. If only the monster could view the story with the same outlook that Adam had in the end when faced with the revelation of Christ’s pardon as a future sacrifice. Notwithstanding the expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise, Adam still found hope in the redemption God’s Son would bring in the future to mankind. I would still recommend that the Creature read this work the understanding of Christ’s love and sacrifice in the end despite the unfolding of deception and transgressions. This may enable the Creature to grasp the concept of forgiveness and express it toward its negligent creator. With these various choices in literary works, both modern and classic, one would be able to alter the character of the Creature and even the entirety of the story. Thus going to show the fate of the monster finding the original three works ignited the initial fury and vengeance, which drove the Creature on a vendetta throughout the tragic story.

Action Plan for Developing Discovery Skills

Action Plan for Developing Discovery Skills Eunice Joy Gajjala Introduction Covey, S. R. (2004, p. 171). With people, little things are big thing. In some people, Innovation comes by birth. Some develop their innovative skills by learning and practicing. If they get the enough support from their family and friends, they would become the supervisors of the company and make it a huge success with their innovative skills. Five skills make the innovators unique from others. Ordinary people must acquire these skills to become creative. Associating Observing Questioning Networking Experimenting Action Plan An individual can become an innovative person by developing the following the below guidelines Reviewing Priorities Assess your Discovery skills Identify a compelling innovative challenge Practice your discovery skills Get a coach Before undergoing any task, first, we must assign the priorities for the tasks that we must complete on time. There are things which need to be met by giving high priority with respect to time, and there are things that can be delayed. We must plan, analyze, execute and implement them as per the strategies to achieve the goal. After assigning the priorities, we must work on strengths and weakness of our delivery and discovery skills. Later, we must work on the task in which we are facing challenges. This may be a personal challenge or an innovative challenge. Make a plan to practice the discovery skills to become innovative After choosing the challenges, we must work hard on the problems. Practice all the five discovery skills to overcome the problem. The first step for practicing is questioning. Try to improve the questioning skills Questions storming activities. Later identify the strongest skill that you possess and practice it. A coach or a mentor would always be helpful to motivate us in developing the discovery skills. Ethical Impact Back Biting is the issue that impacts the organization. Employees will reveal the secrets of one organization to the other one which is known as the internal threat to the company. It usually occurs due to the dissatisfaction in the current organization. This kind of behavior is usually resolved by broadening the emotional intelligence and by making the employees follow the ethical culture of the company. Ethical Framework Covey, S. R. (2004, p.348), I suggest three ways to develop spiritual intelligence: first, integrity-being true to ones highest values, convictions and conscience, and having a connection with the Infinite; second, meaning-having a sense of contribution to people and to causes; and third, voice-aligning our work with our unique talents or gifts, and our sense of calling. To overcome the ethical issue of back biting, spiritual intelligence has to be build up in the employees. Managers have to involve in this process. We can avoid the internal threats to the company by building up the emotional intelligence in the current employees. As said by Covey, we can develop the spiritual intelligence by integrity, meaning and voice aligning. Developing Discovery skills in Next Generation Technology is developing day by day, so as the innovation. Consider, Mark Zuckerberg, he used to sit on the last bench in his schooling, he was not soo studious, but even then now he became the CEO of the worlds number one social networking site, i.e., Facebook. He achieved this position with his innovative and discovery skills. It is the responsibility of the adults to improve the discovery skills in the children. The above diagram represents the leading innovation of a person with others. We must encourage the next generation through the developing as well as the risk-taking skills.   Ã‚   Sawhney, M. (2016, para. 1), A company can innovate along any of 12 different dimensions with respect to its (1) offerings, (2) platform, (3) solutions, (4) customers, (5) customer experience, (6) value capture, (7) processes, (8) organization, (9) supply chain, (10) presence, (11) networking, and (12) brand. A company can choose many ways to innovate. Each organization follows its strategies and policies to innovate. My Dyer-Discovery and Delivery Skills This table represents my Dyer-Discovery and Delivery Skills, The discovery skills are 38 and the delivery skills are 39. I almost possess equal discovery and delivery skills. Conclusion Dyer, J., Gregersen, H., Christensen, C. M. (2011, p. 221). Innovative leaders know innovation doesnt just happen, but requires a significant time commitment. Along with the five discovery skills, we must also possess the time commitment to become innovative. Observing the things and challenging the tough tasks by taking the risks are the common commitments of the innovative people. One most develop these skills by following the questioning strategy to become innovative. References    Sawhney, M. (2016). 12 Different Ways for Companies to Innovate. Retrieved February 27, 2017, from https://hbr.org/product/12-different-ways-for-companies-to-innovate/SMR207-PDF-ENG Covey, S. R. (2005). The 8th habit: From effectiveness to greatness. New York, NY: Free Press. {ISBN: 9780743287937} Dyer, J., Gregersen, H., Christensen, C. M. (2011). The innovators DNA: Mastering the five skills of disruptive innovators. Boston, MA: Harvard Business Review Press. {ISBN: 9781422134818}

Customer Service and Retention in Fast Food Industry

Customer Service and Retention in Fast Food Industry Abstract This study investigates the relationship between dining attributes, customer satisfaction and customers retention in the fast food industry. In short this research paper is to describe analyze why customers come back to the same restaurant when there are several options available to them. What influence their decisions? This research has brought out how to gain customer retention to the services and the factors that influence the customer retention. For this research qualitative approach is used. Data collection method is questionnaire and interviews to clarify what is their real mean of filling the options; sample size of 100 consumers from different fast food restaurant has been taken randomly on the basis of convenience sampling. Results obtained from the statistical analysis corroborate using the optimal regression as a statistical tool which shows that research can be used by marketers especially by the managers of the restaurants for better understanding, and assessing what in fluences customer how they behave and why they come back to the restaurant. Managers can also use our findings to increase the retention rates by adjusting relevant service elements of the restaurants. 1. INTRODUCTION 1.1 INTRODUCTION Eating is observably a daily action and necessity for all human beings. Depending on individuals reason for eating at restaurants, individual intentionally or instinctively assess a multifarious set of attributes ahead of choosing a restaurant. The significance involved to these restaurant attributes is ultimately evaluated in the customers mind, leading to a decision of purchasing. Some factors, like age, company and even social division come into take part in to amplify these attributes as the customer makes a decision of dining (Johnson and Champaner, 2004). The restaurant industry has undoubtedly not been free from either augmented competition or from increasing customer expectations regarding quality. In the greatly competitive food industry, large operators chain have a propensity to gain competitive gain in the course of cost leadership, likely only due to standardization and economies of scale beginning from large market shares, while smaller, independent restaurants on the other hand endeavor to gain benefit through differentiation (Lowenstein, 1995). Branding keeps on gaining importance in the marketing of restaurants services and marketers have spent lot of money to create and give support to brand images. This have seen in the marketing of strong and well defined brands like Mc Donalds and Kfc fast food restaurants which attracts the customer through their marketing , service and by making brand loyal customers of their products. This increases the retention rate due to satisfied and loyal customer. Particularly, there is lot more to discern about customers perceive restaurant brands and the comparative weight these links get during purchase decision as there is lot more to discern about customers perceive restaurant brands and the comparative weight these links get during purchase decision. According to the Kaplan and Norton (2001) the importance of the perceived quality in order to get the retention effect in restaurant industry is always considered as a main element to retain in the customers and the business. The main reaso n behind that in this industry entry barrier are usually low and any one can easily enter due to investment required that is not on the higher side. So the point is that when ever consumer is satisfy from the arrangement by the management, the quality of the food provided by the staff members with the positive attitude than this result in increasing the loyalty towards the particular restaurant and increases the retention intensions of the customers. 1.2 Purpose of the study The purpose of study fold in two parts: one suggests that how important is dining attributes in term of Re-patronage intentions and second part suggest the customer satisfaction which leads Re-patronage intentions in restaurants. The role of dining attributes and customer satisfaction is very important for knowing the customer intentions, would they will visit to that restaurants again or not. There has been a strong support for the espousal of consumer retention in restaurants as one of the key performance indicators. It has found that there is a high association between customer retention and the profit earn by the industries. The fragmentation of media choices and the active nature of the marketplace, tied with an enlarged number of additional demanding and prosperous consumers, brought bigger challenges to marketing practitioners in keeping hold of their regular customers. Customer satisfaction is regularly used as a sign of whether customers will come back to a restaurant that shows the customer retention. Whereas there is no agreement of a satisfied customers repeat visit, it is nearly certain that a not satisfied customer will not return. The majority of the preceding customer satisfaction researches are mentioned in the literature that has pay attention on recognizing the resource of customer contentment such as characteristic and attributes and on determining useful ways to establish consumers desires, wants and needs. On the other hand, significant dissimilarity comes out in the level of specify of the characteristic investigated. 1.3 Research Objectives To identify the process to gain customer retention to the services and what are the factors that influence the customer retention. The primary problem is to identify the customer retention in the detail that includes factors of dining attributes and customer satisfaction in context to food restaurant industry. Thus these factors leads to consumer behavior and customer revisit the restaurant. 1.4 Research Methodology This study find out the relationship between dining attributes, customer satisfaction and customers Re patronage intentions and this execute particularly in restaurant industry, how customers decide to revisit the restaurant and what are those factors which influences the customer for returning back to restaurants again and again. To find these reasons we used quantitative approach for this research. The constructed instrument was pre-tested, where 5 to 6 sample questionnaire to be filled, to know if there are any problem with the instrument and therefore it was simple to understand and figure out the questions or not. Through pre-testing it was found that all respondents felt at ease in responding and instrument was interested to them. Instrument:All the information is collected through a questionnaire containing closed ended, structured and unstructured questions. This method was chosen primarily due to ease in handling and recording information. Procedure:The research study is conducted to examine the outcomes and responses of our sample targeted (Local Industry) in order to conclude the impact of customer service on customer retention. Sample size: 100 2. LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Literature review Whether human live to eat or eat to live, food always plays a fundamental role in the lives of human being. The significance of foodstuff cannot be overstated from the physiological viewpoint; food gives us sustenance; while on the other hand from a psychological point of view food is classified as a basic need. Food can also characterize a product used to describe self-actualization. Therefore, individual can quarrel that above and beyond provided that nourishment food plays a variety of roles together at individual and group level. Edifice brands have become a key focus of restaurant managers. Furthermore, restaurant managers are relating brand management theories and practices which have done so far, and lots of restaurants are redesigning their business missions to imitate branding orientation rather than they go for product orientation. There is also an influence of brand recall on consumers intensions in choosing a restaurant for dining due to the different discount offers through different mediums of advertising that mostly include the below the line activities that makes restaurants brands that diminish the perceived risk of pay for the food and also indicate the quality of the product that creates their willingness to make wider positive word of mouth, recommendations, and complaint intention (Lowenstein, 1995) In our research we find that since the last few years the trend of dinning out and fast food restaurants has been increasing with the increasing rate. Now you will find (at least one) fast food restaurant in every society, whether it is high profile or low profile people society. The culture has always significant impact on the societys emerging trends. It is also observed though people dont consider fast food a healthy meal, yet they go for it over again. Due to availability of too many options to the customers, their behavior is more towards variety seeking instead of going for one meal second time. Especially the Pakistani youth seems that they are fond of entertainment and they find only fast food restaurants the best to be visited whenever they go for entertainment (Syed Kamran, 2010) The food industry is highly aggressive and customers have also become more demanding due to sufficient knowledge and information they have about the different trends in restaurant industry which causes increase the significance of effective marketing strategies to get the competitive advantage in order to understand the wants and needs of the customers (Bateson and Hoffman, 1999) Numerous Fast Food restaurants are paying attention in studying, assessing and implementing the marketing strategies with the aim of gaining maximum market share of customers and improving customer retention in analysis of the advantageous effects on the monetary performance for the organization. Customer satisfaction, contentment, quality of the service, excellence and retention are global matter that influences all organizations. This increases in the restaurant business revenue as well and this increases the word of mouth publicity (Almanza and Jaffe, 1994). Evaluating quality awareness and price elasticity related to quality, suggested that buyers are generally steady in their evaluations of quality. The results of their study showed that there was a strong association between a products attributes and the quality perceptions of the customers. It was found that tangible quality has a bigger circumlocutory effect than the straight effect indicates from a theoretical point of view; affect was a fractional mediator, facilitating the association among tangible quality and behavior. The consequences of well-situated parking must not be the lost upon restaurant management. Often the cost of attaining parking near to a restaurant is sighted as a non-revenue generating expenditure. This specifies the value of given that well-located parking along with the direct consequence it has on consumer intentions to patronize a restaurant (Lasser and Winsor, 2000). In customers mind when there is no defect in the overall dining service, then they consider the quality of the food is good enough for them (Bitner, 1992). Quality is all about eliminating internal failures that means all shortcomings before the product leaves from the factory and the external failures are the defects after usage of the product (Eileen and Berry, 2007). In Early research and study efforts in measuring and defining quality were mainly centered in the tangible goods, whereas the apparently more complicated services products was ignored. Products quality was conventionally correlated to the technical stipulation of products, with the most description of quality coming up from the manufacturing goods sector where excellence and quality control has inward drawn out awareness and research. Quantifying service quality is a difficult task because the idea of service quality is intrinsically insubstantial in nature and complicated to define (Kincaid, 2009) Branding and its orientation have been wicker strongly into the contemporary act of consumption in restaurants. Undeniably, the previous century will be considered as the century of brands in marketing (Johnson and Champaner, 2004) Researchers have acknowledged customer satisfaction, service quality and the loyalty to be similarly important for marketers, because they are responsible for determining dining satisfaction, and they must know the important of dining that must position restaurant functions competitively in the current and future marketplace (Kaplan and Norton, 2001). Customer satisfaction and the quality of food have long been acknowledged as a essential function for success and endurance in competitive marketplace that have been connected to consumer behavioral intentions as purchase and loyalty intention, their willingness to widen positive word of mouth, recommendation, and complaint intention (Olsen, 2002). Purchase behavior of the consumer in restaurants can be pretentious by the surroundings in different ways. Researcher consider atmosphere, which is an attention-building medium that can make restaurant inkling. The centre of attention is based on the collective possessions of those clues on customers idiosyncratic through design, sound, motion, and color. Customers are delimited by true rock and roll memorabilia (Supphellen 2000). The indication of Service in selecting by means of restaurant services, customers frequently act like detectives as they investigate for information and standardize their opinions into a set of mind-set regarding the resultant service. For example, the whole thing about the dining attributes of a restaurant or cafà © starts from the dining table potential communicate to the customers, with the table top used, if practical sign concern the technical excellence of the service, mainly concerning to whether the service is carry out proficiently. The research also highlighted that customers who pay for high quality foodstuffs also had a low acceptance for deviations from predictable quality. In the Fast food restaurant perspective, this entails that customers who want superior dining quality are more sensitive to quality fluctuations and possibly will be less price sensitive but, for example in relation to the relative higher pricing of the menu items and marketing strategies that put together the quality image of the restaurant, ambience and service. The concept of service quality comprises the tangible and intangible fundamentals most essential to consumers. Service quality has been related to customer satisfaction, contentment and loyalty as well as the business performance, success and profitability (Raajpoot, 2002) Fundamentals such as surface and texture, smell, color, sound, and texture inducing intuitive reactions in restaurant atmosphere that persuades purchase likelihood known as the mechanical clues (Eileen and Berry, 2007) Food and drink quality is an imperative dining attributes to diners representing restaurant management should certify an aggressive quality control agenda is in place to make sure food and drink quality must maintained The convenience of location includes the parking space, seating availability in the restaurant; the nearness to roof-tops like peoples residence, hotels, and motels is significant for the accomplishment of restaurants all through the dinner mealtime duration. The significance of the physical excellence raise of foodstuff and service and convenience to restaurant administration is to facilitate these constructs that have an affirmative association with influence which is completely linked with customer intentions to retention a restaurant. The objective of most restaurants is to obtain and maintain customers; restaurant administration organized with the information get that will be better prepared to accomplish their aim. There is a intense deficient in understanding about dining satisfaction and pleasure and post-dining behavioral intentions in the customer literature reviewed studied so far away, and up till now, according to the literature allude to, aspects concerning to customer satisfaction and return customer are elementary when put together business and marketing strategies of the organization. Professed service quality may perhaps be improved if customers are support with the mauve list and bill of fare and if a worker responds suitably to a customers asked for quick service. Customer always feel admire and important if they get the best service and respect from the overall management of the restaurant specially from the behavior of the front line staff that increases the comfort level of customers and at the same time makes them brand loyal to that particular restaurant. The impacts of customer satisfaction on customer retention are bringing into being to be momentous and positive. Specially, the customer satisfaction will influence the re customer retention intentions (Reece, 1999) Customer satisfaction is vital to the restaurant management for the reason that it is normally assumed to be a noteworthy determinant of replicate sales, customer loyalty and affirmative word of mouth. The more pleased the customers, the larger are their retention. Another attention-grabbing finding was that a products higher volume rate like for instance, fast food restaurants resulted in a lower sensitivity side to quality. This shows that management of restaurants must segment the market based on the food usage rate includes the repeat purchase of the particular item and quality preferred (Jochen and Rachel, 2000). The previous research shows the effect of physical quality construct on behavioral intentions for restaurant consumer and finds that influence is a strong moderator between tangible quality constructs and behavioral intentions when cognition affect actions archetype is applied to the restaurant location. One more factor for the customer retention which really brings customers back is that the customer likes to have a positive attitude of employee throughout the dining as a support for the disputation that employee approach is strongly linked with customer satisfaction. Ease and the location of the restaurant is also considerable and also the other factor influence customers to select that particular restaurant which satisfy their needs and wants regarding quality of the food and the restaurant environment. This leads in the increase of the retention rate and the loyalty of the customers towards that restaurant diners have an effect on restaurant (Bateson and Hoffman, 1999) It is suggested that commonly and normally used indicators of customer satisfaction comprise repeat customer behavior, brand loyalty and reliability and at last word of mouth recommendation (Lowenstein, 1995) In case of large restaurants franchised group, this kind of relative study and positioning might be important. Besides, while the performance of anyone of the outlet can impinge on the reputation of a whole network, identifying and recuperating those outlets that have a delicate association in the series can be vital. Valuable curriculum in marketing, human resource and man oeuvre be capable also be learnt as of those outlets where service exceeds or meets expectations of the customers (Kuo and Kao, 1999). The one of the fact is that business like restaurants is considered as a low credibility service and that is one of the reason that quality of the services are complicated to prove until consumers revisit the restaurant. Furthermore, the service quality that customers come across may be dissimilar apiece time they visit that particular restaurant, thus persuading the level of contentment and ultimately upsetting their retention intentions. There may possibly be a countervailing competitive consequence to enhance in product differentiation. Revelation of restaurant sanitation grades may serve up to decrease search costs for customers. Positive completion always ends in setting new ideas and innovation in the mind of the management of the management that makes them superior and differentiated in the industry in between the existing market players (Kaplan and Norton, 2001) Both service value and customer retention is extensively acknowledged as practices of repurchase intentions. Though, it is understood that restaurant possessor would like to identify the strongest influence on retention intentions. A recent study divulges that customer satisfaction is the better predictor of intention comparing to service quality to repurchase. Increasing trend in retention is always due to service quality which is provided by the management to the customers and at the same time customer should be satisfied. Any of the factor missing may cause the decrease in loyalty of the customer towards that particular restaurant and customers are unwilling to re-visit for dining to the same restaurant. In researches, results found that managing for most select customer satisfaction necessitates so as to satisfaction statistics be used in previous researches advise implement the positioning strategies with the intention of helping a business whittle a niche. Each restaurant has its own strategies to get the competitive edge in the market. Such information is able to facilitate to modify the restaurant service so that it congregates the desires of the target market segment. Supporting a firms competitive benefit and enduring productivity and profitability possibly will better rely on the incorporation of customer satisfaction into the service organizations strategies and operations that helps the restaurant management to look their positions in the long run completion in the industry (Olsen, 2002) In some countries like Germany, there is a system of Grade cards according to the quality differentiation in restaurants what decrease the expenditure of learning whether an individual restaurant has high-quality hygiene, and possibly will give confidence to customers to go to restaurants they want or else would not have. This may perhaps encourage competition among restaurants, by making customers not as much of incarcerated to any particular restaurants providing inducement for lesser prices, improved food quality, or better hygiene quality food provided and if this result is there, still amongst restaurants with the identical sanitation quality ranking, compulsory revelation may cause lesser prices or enhanced food quality (Johnson and Champaner, 2004). In Chinese and French restaurants, customer view of service quality by the side of all proportions drop short of customers expectations, even though an evaluation of the unprejudiced quality scores shows that the French restaurant is nearer to summiting the prospect of its consumers along all extent of service quality than in the Chinese business. It is evident that compassion and consistency are the two extents which plunge the largest part of below customer prospect inside the French restaurant As a meaning- generating medium, the environment gives discriminative motivation to buyers that facilitate them to identify a restaurants divergences as a source for select that restaurant. For instance, snowy white linen tablecloths, the soft lighting, and crystal chandeliers of a chic restaurant communicate the level of service and a kind of food to customers that create a fine-dining experience (Palmer and Neill, 2003). 3. FAST FOOD INDUSTRY 3.1 Introduction Fast foodis one of the worlds largest growing food types which are growing with an increasing rate. The term Fast Food refers to many items that can be prepared and served quickly usually outside the home. While any meal with low preparation time can be considered to be fast food, typically the term refers to food sold in a restaurant or store which is rapidly prepared and served to the customer in a packaged form to dine out, take out or take away. A typical fast food meal in the United States generally consists of fries, a burger and a soft drink. 3.2 Customer Preferences People pick fast foods because its easy. They could just go to McDonalds, Mr. Burger or KFC and order a burger or sandwich with fries and soft drink, rather than spending hours in the kitchen for cooking food. Another reason would be if they work for long hours, while they come back to home, they could just stop at the drive through and order something to eat. Through this they can save their time to get rest. When an individual is rushing for next appointment after lunch or work, it is more convenient to pack fast food. 3.3 Significance of Service Elements We believe that customer service elements have huge impact on customer retention. Many researchers have closely analyzed all the service elements of several service providers. But in our research we have tried to cover and analyze all the service elements of Karachis famous multinational and local restaurants. Researchers urge all service providers to pay attention towards all of the above service elements in order to improve and enhance the level of service quality.Poor service quality leads to switching intentions of the customer. To satisfy customer the restaurants service elements should be more competent or should have an edge over competitors. 3.4 Brand Perception When customers think or hear about any product or restaurant they start building perception about the brand. Sometimes it is based on observation or may be on the pat experience whether it is negative or positive. Most common methods of forming perception about brand are Past experience Interaction with sales staff or employees Word of mouth (colleagues or friends) Advertising Reviews by reputable sources Some researchers call brand image and brand perception are the two sides of a coin; brand image is how company want you to see them where as brand perception means how you see to the company. In our research we believe that in Karachi people are very brand consciouses the impact of brand over people is very huge and their replies to our questions were little biased. 3.5 Strategies for Retention In this chapter some theories are presented in the context of customer retention which was not discussed in the previous part, because these cannot be analyzed within our practical research. These studies are important part of the customers retention problem and can be used for advance researches. n this chapter some theories are presented in the context of customer retention which was not discussed in the previous part, because these cannot be analyzed within our practical research. These studies are important part of the customers retention problem and can be used for advance researches. The research of Fruchter and Zhang (2004) examine strategic use of targeted promotion for gaining and retention of customers. Authors stress that selection of strategy: defensive targeted promotions for retention and repulsive promotions for acquisition depend on market share of a company. Fruchter and Zhang 2004 highlighted that for companies with larger marketplace share offense promotions targeted on learning generate little knock on gross sales than defensive promotions. Therefore, researchers state that if market share of firm increases it should spend more on customer retention; if market share of firm decreases it should spend more on customer acquisition. This research highlights when marketers should put emphasize on retention or acquisition but it does not provide keeping increase strategies and reasons for keeping. (Fruchter and Zhang, 2004) Hogan, Lemon and Libai (2003) discuss changes of the customers value during the product life cycle. Authors stress the value of retained customer and impact of the lost customer on companys ability (Hogan, Lemon and Libai, 2003). Kumar (1999) highlights that relationship oriented service firms have higher level of trust and more repeated service encounters with their clients, therefore, such firms get higher level of ability and lower expenses over time. Desai and Mahajan (1998)argue that feeling based attitudes appeal to fillings wishes emotions etc. can takings component in a strategic part in small indefinite amount brands to obtain develop and retain customers. 4. CUSTOMER SERVICE AND CUSTOMER RETENTION 4.1 Introduction For more than last couple of decades customer satisfaction is extensively discussed subject in different research areas like consumer behavior and marketing research. Since the mid-1970s many annual conferences on customer satisfaction were held, with proceedings being published since 1981 in the â€Å"Journal of Customer Satisfaction, Dissatisfaction, and Complaining Behavior.† During the past couple of decades more than 1300 articles have been published to discuss and understand customer satisfaction. In recent era, customer satisfaction has gained new attention. Now it has been shifted from transactional marketing to relationship marketing , which refers â€Å"to all marketing activities directed towards establishing, developing, and maintaining successful relational exchange† (Morgan Hunt, 1994, p 22). The key to retention is satisfaction of the customer and it has been treated as the necessary premise in many publications and research articles. The link between satisfaction and the long-term retention of customers is developed by scholars and marketing practitioners in a rather categorical way, and is therefore treated as the starting point, rather than the core question of the analysis. â€Å"The assumption that satisfaction/dissatisfaction meaningfully affect on repurchase behavior underlies most of the study in this area of inquiry†. Consequently, only a few researchers have investigated the nature and to which degree the relationship between satisfaction and retention exist. The number of studies in this area can be classified into three groups. Most of the researchers use monetary data as dependent variables, such as revenues or profit. In this procedure the investigation of the satisfaction-retention relation considerably limited for two reasons. First, the aggregation of data renders any analysis on the individual customer level impossible. Second, revenues and pro ¬Ã‚ t are determined by a large amount of variables, which in addition are highly correlated. Therefore, a suitable assessment of the relationship investigated here seems barely accomplishable with this research design. A second group of studies on an individual level utilizes repurchase intentions of customers to investigate the link between satisfaction and retention (Bitner, 1990; Oliver, 1980; Oliver Bearden, 1985; Oliver Swan, 1989). This approach is also accompanied by two main limitations. Because satisfaction values and intention measures are usually obtained through the same q uestionnaire, the data are inherently correlated. This may lead to an Customer Service and Retention in Fast Food Industry Customer Service and Retention in Fast Food Industry Abstract This study investigates the relationship between dining attributes, customer satisfaction and customers retention in the fast food industry. In short this research paper is to describe analyze why customers come back to the same restaurant when there are several options available to them. What influence their decisions? This research has brought out how to gain customer retention to the services and the factors that influence the customer retention. For this research qualitative approach is used. Data collection method is questionnaire and interviews to clarify what is their real mean of filling the options; sample size of 100 consumers from different fast food restaurant has been taken randomly on the basis of convenience sampling. Results obtained from the statistical analysis corroborate using the optimal regression as a statistical tool which shows that research can be used by marketers especially by the managers of the restaurants for better understanding, and assessing what in fluences customer how they behave and why they come back to the restaurant. Managers can also use our findings to increase the retention rates by adjusting relevant service elements of the restaurants. 1. INTRODUCTION 1.1 INTRODUCTION Eating is observably a daily action and necessity for all human beings. Depending on individuals reason for eating at restaurants, individual intentionally or instinctively assess a multifarious set of attributes ahead of choosing a restaurant. The significance involved to these restaurant attributes is ultimately evaluated in the customers mind, leading to a decision of purchasing. Some factors, like age, company and even social division come into take part in to amplify these attributes as the customer makes a decision of dining (Johnson and Champaner, 2004). The restaurant industry has undoubtedly not been free from either augmented competition or from increasing customer expectations regarding quality. In the greatly competitive food industry, large operators chain have a propensity to gain competitive gain in the course of cost leadership, likely only due to standardization and economies of scale beginning from large market shares, while smaller, independent restaurants on the other hand endeavor to gain benefit through differentiation (Lowenstein, 1995). Branding keeps on gaining importance in the marketing of restaurants services and marketers have spent lot of money to create and give support to brand images. This have seen in the marketing of strong and well defined brands like Mc Donalds and Kfc fast food restaurants which attracts the customer through their marketing , service and by making brand loyal customers of their products. This increases the retention rate due to satisfied and loyal customer. Particularly, there is lot more to discern about customers perceive restaurant brands and the comparative weight these links get during purchase decision as there is lot more to discern about customers perceive restaurant brands and the comparative weight these links get during purchase decision. According to the Kaplan and Norton (2001) the importance of the perceived quality in order to get the retention effect in restaurant industry is always considered as a main element to retain in the customers and the business. The main reaso n behind that in this industry entry barrier are usually low and any one can easily enter due to investment required that is not on the higher side. So the point is that when ever consumer is satisfy from the arrangement by the management, the quality of the food provided by the staff members with the positive attitude than this result in increasing the loyalty towards the particular restaurant and increases the retention intensions of the customers. 1.2 Purpose of the study The purpose of study fold in two parts: one suggests that how important is dining attributes in term of Re-patronage intentions and second part suggest the customer satisfaction which leads Re-patronage intentions in restaurants. The role of dining attributes and customer satisfaction is very important for knowing the customer intentions, would they will visit to that restaurants again or not. There has been a strong support for the espousal of consumer retention in restaurants as one of the key performance indicators. It has found that there is a high association between customer retention and the profit earn by the industries. The fragmentation of media choices and the active nature of the marketplace, tied with an enlarged number of additional demanding and prosperous consumers, brought bigger challenges to marketing practitioners in keeping hold of their regular customers. Customer satisfaction is regularly used as a sign of whether customers will come back to a restaurant that shows the customer retention. Whereas there is no agreement of a satisfied customers repeat visit, it is nearly certain that a not satisfied customer will not return. The majority of the preceding customer satisfaction researches are mentioned in the literature that has pay attention on recognizing the resource of customer contentment such as characteristic and attributes and on determining useful ways to establish consumers desires, wants and needs. On the other hand, significant dissimilarity comes out in the level of specify of the characteristic investigated. 1.3 Research Objectives To identify the process to gain customer retention to the services and what are the factors that influence the customer retention. The primary problem is to identify the customer retention in the detail that includes factors of dining attributes and customer satisfaction in context to food restaurant industry. Thus these factors leads to consumer behavior and customer revisit the restaurant. 1.4 Research Methodology This study find out the relationship between dining attributes, customer satisfaction and customers Re patronage intentions and this execute particularly in restaurant industry, how customers decide to revisit the restaurant and what are those factors which influences the customer for returning back to restaurants again and again. To find these reasons we used quantitative approach for this research. The constructed instrument was pre-tested, where 5 to 6 sample questionnaire to be filled, to know if there are any problem with the instrument and therefore it was simple to understand and figure out the questions or not. Through pre-testing it was found that all respondents felt at ease in responding and instrument was interested to them. Instrument:All the information is collected through a questionnaire containing closed ended, structured and unstructured questions. This method was chosen primarily due to ease in handling and recording information. Procedure:The research study is conducted to examine the outcomes and responses of our sample targeted (Local Industry) in order to conclude the impact of customer service on customer retention. Sample size: 100 2. LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Literature review Whether human live to eat or eat to live, food always plays a fundamental role in the lives of human being. The significance of foodstuff cannot be overstated from the physiological viewpoint; food gives us sustenance; while on the other hand from a psychological point of view food is classified as a basic need. Food can also characterize a product used to describe self-actualization. Therefore, individual can quarrel that above and beyond provided that nourishment food plays a variety of roles together at individual and group level. Edifice brands have become a key focus of restaurant managers. Furthermore, restaurant managers are relating brand management theories and practices which have done so far, and lots of restaurants are redesigning their business missions to imitate branding orientation rather than they go for product orientation. There is also an influence of brand recall on consumers intensions in choosing a restaurant for dining due to the different discount offers through different mediums of advertising that mostly include the below the line activities that makes restaurants brands that diminish the perceived risk of pay for the food and also indicate the quality of the product that creates their willingness to make wider positive word of mouth, recommendations, and complaint intention (Lowenstein, 1995) In our research we find that since the last few years the trend of dinning out and fast food restaurants has been increasing with the increasing rate. Now you will find (at least one) fast food restaurant in every society, whether it is high profile or low profile people society. The culture has always significant impact on the societys emerging trends. It is also observed though people dont consider fast food a healthy meal, yet they go for it over again. Due to availability of too many options to the customers, their behavior is more towards variety seeking instead of going for one meal second time. Especially the Pakistani youth seems that they are fond of entertainment and they find only fast food restaurants the best to be visited whenever they go for entertainment (Syed Kamran, 2010) The food industry is highly aggressive and customers have also become more demanding due to sufficient knowledge and information they have about the different trends in restaurant industry which causes increase the significance of effective marketing strategies to get the competitive advantage in order to understand the wants and needs of the customers (Bateson and Hoffman, 1999) Numerous Fast Food restaurants are paying attention in studying, assessing and implementing the marketing strategies with the aim of gaining maximum market share of customers and improving customer retention in analysis of the advantageous effects on the monetary performance for the organization. Customer satisfaction, contentment, quality of the service, excellence and retention are global matter that influences all organizations. This increases in the restaurant business revenue as well and this increases the word of mouth publicity (Almanza and Jaffe, 1994). Evaluating quality awareness and price elasticity related to quality, suggested that buyers are generally steady in their evaluations of quality. The results of their study showed that there was a strong association between a products attributes and the quality perceptions of the customers. It was found that tangible quality has a bigger circumlocutory effect than the straight effect indicates from a theoretical point of view; affect was a fractional mediator, facilitating the association among tangible quality and behavior. The consequences of well-situated parking must not be the lost upon restaurant management. Often the cost of attaining parking near to a restaurant is sighted as a non-revenue generating expenditure. This specifies the value of given that well-located parking along with the direct consequence it has on consumer intentions to patronize a restaurant (Lasser and Winsor, 2000). In customers mind when there is no defect in the overall dining service, then they consider the quality of the food is good enough for them (Bitner, 1992). Quality is all about eliminating internal failures that means all shortcomings before the product leaves from the factory and the external failures are the defects after usage of the product (Eileen and Berry, 2007). In Early research and study efforts in measuring and defining quality were mainly centered in the tangible goods, whereas the apparently more complicated services products was ignored. Products quality was conventionally correlated to the technical stipulation of products, with the most description of quality coming up from the manufacturing goods sector where excellence and quality control has inward drawn out awareness and research. Quantifying service quality is a difficult task because the idea of service quality is intrinsically insubstantial in nature and complicated to define (Kincaid, 2009) Branding and its orientation have been wicker strongly into the contemporary act of consumption in restaurants. Undeniably, the previous century will be considered as the century of brands in marketing (Johnson and Champaner, 2004) Researchers have acknowledged customer satisfaction, service quality and the loyalty to be similarly important for marketers, because they are responsible for determining dining satisfaction, and they must know the important of dining that must position restaurant functions competitively in the current and future marketplace (Kaplan and Norton, 2001). Customer satisfaction and the quality of food have long been acknowledged as a essential function for success and endurance in competitive marketplace that have been connected to consumer behavioral intentions as purchase and loyalty intention, their willingness to widen positive word of mouth, recommendation, and complaint intention (Olsen, 2002). Purchase behavior of the consumer in restaurants can be pretentious by the surroundings in different ways. Researcher consider atmosphere, which is an attention-building medium that can make restaurant inkling. The centre of attention is based on the collective possessions of those clues on customers idiosyncratic through design, sound, motion, and color. Customers are delimited by true rock and roll memorabilia (Supphellen 2000). The indication of Service in selecting by means of restaurant services, customers frequently act like detectives as they investigate for information and standardize their opinions into a set of mind-set regarding the resultant service. For example, the whole thing about the dining attributes of a restaurant or cafà © starts from the dining table potential communicate to the customers, with the table top used, if practical sign concern the technical excellence of the service, mainly concerning to whether the service is carry out proficiently. The research also highlighted that customers who pay for high quality foodstuffs also had a low acceptance for deviations from predictable quality. In the Fast food restaurant perspective, this entails that customers who want superior dining quality are more sensitive to quality fluctuations and possibly will be less price sensitive but, for example in relation to the relative higher pricing of the menu items and marketing strategies that put together the quality image of the restaurant, ambience and service. The concept of service quality comprises the tangible and intangible fundamentals most essential to consumers. Service quality has been related to customer satisfaction, contentment and loyalty as well as the business performance, success and profitability (Raajpoot, 2002) Fundamentals such as surface and texture, smell, color, sound, and texture inducing intuitive reactions in restaurant atmosphere that persuades purchase likelihood known as the mechanical clues (Eileen and Berry, 2007) Food and drink quality is an imperative dining attributes to diners representing restaurant management should certify an aggressive quality control agenda is in place to make sure food and drink quality must maintained The convenience of location includes the parking space, seating availability in the restaurant; the nearness to roof-tops like peoples residence, hotels, and motels is significant for the accomplishment of restaurants all through the dinner mealtime duration. The significance of the physical excellence raise of foodstuff and service and convenience to restaurant administration is to facilitate these constructs that have an affirmative association with influence which is completely linked with customer intentions to retention a restaurant. The objective of most restaurants is to obtain and maintain customers; restaurant administration organized with the information get that will be better prepared to accomplish their aim. There is a intense deficient in understanding about dining satisfaction and pleasure and post-dining behavioral intentions in the customer literature reviewed studied so far away, and up till now, according to the literature allude to, aspects concerning to customer satisfaction and return customer are elementary when put together business and marketing strategies of the organization. Professed service quality may perhaps be improved if customers are support with the mauve list and bill of fare and if a worker responds suitably to a customers asked for quick service. Customer always feel admire and important if they get the best service and respect from the overall management of the restaurant specially from the behavior of the front line staff that increases the comfort level of customers and at the same time makes them brand loyal to that particular restaurant. The impacts of customer satisfaction on customer retention are bringing into being to be momentous and positive. Specially, the customer satisfaction will influence the re customer retention intentions (Reece, 1999) Customer satisfaction is vital to the restaurant management for the reason that it is normally assumed to be a noteworthy determinant of replicate sales, customer loyalty and affirmative word of mouth. The more pleased the customers, the larger are their retention. Another attention-grabbing finding was that a products higher volume rate like for instance, fast food restaurants resulted in a lower sensitivity side to quality. This shows that management of restaurants must segment the market based on the food usage rate includes the repeat purchase of the particular item and quality preferred (Jochen and Rachel, 2000). The previous research shows the effect of physical quality construct on behavioral intentions for restaurant consumer and finds that influence is a strong moderator between tangible quality constructs and behavioral intentions when cognition affect actions archetype is applied to the restaurant location. One more factor for the customer retention which really brings customers back is that the customer likes to have a positive attitude of employee throughout the dining as a support for the disputation that employee approach is strongly linked with customer satisfaction. Ease and the location of the restaurant is also considerable and also the other factor influence customers to select that particular restaurant which satisfy their needs and wants regarding quality of the food and the restaurant environment. This leads in the increase of the retention rate and the loyalty of the customers towards that restaurant diners have an effect on restaurant (Bateson and Hoffman, 1999) It is suggested that commonly and normally used indicators of customer satisfaction comprise repeat customer behavior, brand loyalty and reliability and at last word of mouth recommendation (Lowenstein, 1995) In case of large restaurants franchised group, this kind of relative study and positioning might be important. Besides, while the performance of anyone of the outlet can impinge on the reputation of a whole network, identifying and recuperating those outlets that have a delicate association in the series can be vital. Valuable curriculum in marketing, human resource and man oeuvre be capable also be learnt as of those outlets where service exceeds or meets expectations of the customers (Kuo and Kao, 1999). The one of the fact is that business like restaurants is considered as a low credibility service and that is one of the reason that quality of the services are complicated to prove until consumers revisit the restaurant. Furthermore, the service quality that customers come across may be dissimilar apiece time they visit that particular restaurant, thus persuading the level of contentment and ultimately upsetting their retention intentions. There may possibly be a countervailing competitive consequence to enhance in product differentiation. Revelation of restaurant sanitation grades may serve up to decrease search costs for customers. Positive completion always ends in setting new ideas and innovation in the mind of the management of the management that makes them superior and differentiated in the industry in between the existing market players (Kaplan and Norton, 2001) Both service value and customer retention is extensively acknowledged as practices of repurchase intentions. Though, it is understood that restaurant possessor would like to identify the strongest influence on retention intentions. A recent study divulges that customer satisfaction is the better predictor of intention comparing to service quality to repurchase. Increasing trend in retention is always due to service quality which is provided by the management to the customers and at the same time customer should be satisfied. Any of the factor missing may cause the decrease in loyalty of the customer towards that particular restaurant and customers are unwilling to re-visit for dining to the same restaurant. In researches, results found that managing for most select customer satisfaction necessitates so as to satisfaction statistics be used in previous researches advise implement the positioning strategies with the intention of helping a business whittle a niche. Each restaurant has its own strategies to get the competitive edge in the market. Such information is able to facilitate to modify the restaurant service so that it congregates the desires of the target market segment. Supporting a firms competitive benefit and enduring productivity and profitability possibly will better rely on the incorporation of customer satisfaction into the service organizations strategies and operations that helps the restaurant management to look their positions in the long run completion in the industry (Olsen, 2002) In some countries like Germany, there is a system of Grade cards according to the quality differentiation in restaurants what decrease the expenditure of learning whether an individual restaurant has high-quality hygiene, and possibly will give confidence to customers to go to restaurants they want or else would not have. This may perhaps encourage competition among restaurants, by making customers not as much of incarcerated to any particular restaurants providing inducement for lesser prices, improved food quality, or better hygiene quality food provided and if this result is there, still amongst restaurants with the identical sanitation quality ranking, compulsory revelation may cause lesser prices or enhanced food quality (Johnson and Champaner, 2004). In Chinese and French restaurants, customer view of service quality by the side of all proportions drop short of customers expectations, even though an evaluation of the unprejudiced quality scores shows that the French restaurant is nearer to summiting the prospect of its consumers along all extent of service quality than in the Chinese business. It is evident that compassion and consistency are the two extents which plunge the largest part of below customer prospect inside the French restaurant As a meaning- generating medium, the environment gives discriminative motivation to buyers that facilitate them to identify a restaurants divergences as a source for select that restaurant. For instance, snowy white linen tablecloths, the soft lighting, and crystal chandeliers of a chic restaurant communicate the level of service and a kind of food to customers that create a fine-dining experience (Palmer and Neill, 2003). 3. FAST FOOD INDUSTRY 3.1 Introduction Fast foodis one of the worlds largest growing food types which are growing with an increasing rate. The term Fast Food refers to many items that can be prepared and served quickly usually outside the home. While any meal with low preparation time can be considered to be fast food, typically the term refers to food sold in a restaurant or store which is rapidly prepared and served to the customer in a packaged form to dine out, take out or take away. A typical fast food meal in the United States generally consists of fries, a burger and a soft drink. 3.2 Customer Preferences People pick fast foods because its easy. They could just go to McDonalds, Mr. Burger or KFC and order a burger or sandwich with fries and soft drink, rather than spending hours in the kitchen for cooking food. Another reason would be if they work for long hours, while they come back to home, they could just stop at the drive through and order something to eat. Through this they can save their time to get rest. When an individual is rushing for next appointment after lunch or work, it is more convenient to pack fast food. 3.3 Significance of Service Elements We believe that customer service elements have huge impact on customer retention. Many researchers have closely analyzed all the service elements of several service providers. But in our research we have tried to cover and analyze all the service elements of Karachis famous multinational and local restaurants. Researchers urge all service providers to pay attention towards all of the above service elements in order to improve and enhance the level of service quality.Poor service quality leads to switching intentions of the customer. To satisfy customer the restaurants service elements should be more competent or should have an edge over competitors. 3.4 Brand Perception When customers think or hear about any product or restaurant they start building perception about the brand. Sometimes it is based on observation or may be on the pat experience whether it is negative or positive. Most common methods of forming perception about brand are Past experience Interaction with sales staff or employees Word of mouth (colleagues or friends) Advertising Reviews by reputable sources Some researchers call brand image and brand perception are the two sides of a coin; brand image is how company want you to see them where as brand perception means how you see to the company. In our research we believe that in Karachi people are very brand consciouses the impact of brand over people is very huge and their replies to our questions were little biased. 3.5 Strategies for Retention In this chapter some theories are presented in the context of customer retention which was not discussed in the previous part, because these cannot be analyzed within our practical research. These studies are important part of the customers retention problem and can be used for advance researches. n this chapter some theories are presented in the context of customer retention which was not discussed in the previous part, because these cannot be analyzed within our practical research. These studies are important part of the customers retention problem and can be used for advance researches. The research of Fruchter and Zhang (2004) examine strategic use of targeted promotion for gaining and retention of customers. Authors stress that selection of strategy: defensive targeted promotions for retention and repulsive promotions for acquisition depend on market share of a company. Fruchter and Zhang 2004 highlighted that for companies with larger marketplace share offense promotions targeted on learning generate little knock on gross sales than defensive promotions. Therefore, researchers state that if market share of firm increases it should spend more on customer retention; if market share of firm decreases it should spend more on customer acquisition. This research highlights when marketers should put emphasize on retention or acquisition but it does not provide keeping increase strategies and reasons for keeping. (Fruchter and Zhang, 2004) Hogan, Lemon and Libai (2003) discuss changes of the customers value during the product life cycle. Authors stress the value of retained customer and impact of the lost customer on companys ability (Hogan, Lemon and Libai, 2003). Kumar (1999) highlights that relationship oriented service firms have higher level of trust and more repeated service encounters with their clients, therefore, such firms get higher level of ability and lower expenses over time. Desai and Mahajan (1998)argue that feeling based attitudes appeal to fillings wishes emotions etc. can takings component in a strategic part in small indefinite amount brands to obtain develop and retain customers. 4. CUSTOMER SERVICE AND CUSTOMER RETENTION 4.1 Introduction For more than last couple of decades customer satisfaction is extensively discussed subject in different research areas like consumer behavior and marketing research. Since the mid-1970s many annual conferences on customer satisfaction were held, with proceedings being published since 1981 in the â€Å"Journal of Customer Satisfaction, Dissatisfaction, and Complaining Behavior.† During the past couple of decades more than 1300 articles have been published to discuss and understand customer satisfaction. In recent era, customer satisfaction has gained new attention. Now it has been shifted from transactional marketing to relationship marketing , which refers â€Å"to all marketing activities directed towards establishing, developing, and maintaining successful relational exchange† (Morgan Hunt, 1994, p 22). The key to retention is satisfaction of the customer and it has been treated as the necessary premise in many publications and research articles. The link between satisfaction and the long-term retention of customers is developed by scholars and marketing practitioners in a rather categorical way, and is therefore treated as the starting point, rather than the core question of the analysis. â€Å"The assumption that satisfaction/dissatisfaction meaningfully affect on repurchase behavior underlies most of the study in this area of inquiry†. Consequently, only a few researchers have investigated the nature and to which degree the relationship between satisfaction and retention exist. The number of studies in this area can be classified into three groups. Most of the researchers use monetary data as dependent variables, such as revenues or profit. In this procedure the investigation of the satisfaction-retention relation considerably limited for two reasons. First, the aggregation of data renders any analysis on the individual customer level impossible. Second, revenues and pro ¬Ã‚ t are determined by a large amount of variables, which in addition are highly correlated. Therefore, a suitable assessment of the relationship investigated here seems barely accomplishable with this research design. A second group of studies on an individual level utilizes repurchase intentions of customers to investigate the link between satisfaction and retention (Bitner, 1990; Oliver, 1980; Oliver Bearden, 1985; Oliver Swan, 1989). This approach is also accompanied by two main limitations. Because satisfaction values and intention measures are usually obtained through the same q uestionnaire, the data are inherently correlated. This may lead to an