Monday, January 27, 2020

The operations and competitive advantage of Tesco

The operations and competitive advantage of Tesco Brand marketing Nowadays, companies are most likely selling their brands before their product. Tesco which has a strong brand image with good quality, faith worthy goods that represent excellent value, the product and service development have also been significantly rebuild and providing better management of product lifecycles and more efficient delivery of wide ranges of products to customers. Tesco continuous innovation, efficient operations and strategic expansion has effectively become the largest and most successful retailers. In order to continue increase customers shopping experience, Tesco further improve their operational efficiency through adding new products,  new services and other capabilities. As Tesco is working on expanding to new areas, and store format, product mix and service characteristics and other factors will begin on the IT system architecture, legacy systems and business partners to assess the implementation of these plans in order to determine what the core and which mee t all the requirements of the system most.   Therefore, Tesco distinctly gained the core strategic advantage. Tesco is also very successful according to customer loyalty due to its loyalty cards system and its general approach to customizing services to the needs of every customer. Customer loyalty is the commitment to customers  loyal  to brands, stores, manufacturers, suppliers,  retailers and consumers. One of  the key factors  that Tesco  is so  favored by the market  which  the service  in its  series of loyal customers  and  to consolidate  as the  full  implementation of  consumer-oriented, comprehensive  care  services to  a single point of  access  mechanisms.This is truly evident in terms of incredible growth of on-line sales where the company has a strong platform to further develop this revenue stream. After considering the fact nowadays majority of people have less time for shopping, Tesco employed this on-line systems and now became the biggest online supermarket. Price and promotions The key to Tescos achieved competitive advantage is the development of retail low prices, high quality and experienced customer service has led to profit growth. With their years of experience and dominance in the market in providing retail products and service, this promotes the corporate image of Tesco to potential customers as one of trustworthiness and quality. They also gained competitive advantage of the organization is their ability to maintain market leadership in the UK even after the entrance of multinational companies in the same line of business with better technologies and more market scope. Value Chain Analysis The value chain approach introduced by Porter (1985) is for managers thinking about resources and systems which identify the key activities to provide competitive advantage for a company to maximize the value while minimizing costs. It is the contribution of each part in the overall added value of the business is made (Lynch, 2003).  In order to conduct the value chain analysis, it includes primary activities and support activities. The value chain of Tesco has been demonstrated in the following diagram: Inbound logistics These are placed at the first stage of the value chain and provide the earliest opportunity to create value. Hence, the elements of this stage include incoming materials, storage of goods, distributing the inputs to the product and service ensure that has been delivered on time and undamaged. Tesco tries to achieve and maintain the level of consumer choice in store as gained a benefit of low costs from its suppliers due to it has a leading market position, in the meantime, constantly upgrading the ordering system and in-store processes improves the efficiency of its distribution system as well as provides a great opportunity to minimize costs unfairly incurred by the company, therefore the cost of losses are not passed on to the consumer. Operations The core operations of Tesco is concerned with creating products or services which activities are service orientated. This involves machining, packing, maintaining the shelves and also replenishing the stock. Aiming of creating more appropriate and accurate ordering systems, thus diminish waste and improve availability of products with put into the right store. (Tesco.com) According to Tesco (2010), in order to gain future competitive advantage, the company has invested over  £76 million for their digital program which is the third generation ERP solution. Due to the introduction of this system, Tesco has gained an increased in profitability  £550 million during 2009 alone. Outbound logistics The third stage in the chain is concerned with location, opening hours, and queuing systems and also delivering of the product or service to the customer. According to the implementation of the trolley service that enable convenience for customers quicker to access therefore become more efficiently than other competitors. Home delivery service also could be achieved adding value in Tesco by saving customer time. Marketing and Sales At this stage which is about the promotion and advertising applies to products and services which inform and attract costumers. The Tesco Clubcard gives the offer of extra bonus points on certain products providing loyalty to customers. Promoting further discounts dissuade the customers from switching over to their competitors. Moreover, Tesco has introduced Greener Living Scheme therefore environmentally friendly products may also bring advantage of adding value for customers that buying those products could really help the environment. Services This is concerned with additional service improving or maintaining the product such as installation, repair and after-sales service. http://www.formjetinnovations.com/clients_Tesco_project.php Technology development This area of value chain considers technology with research and development relates to raw materials or components inputs and then goes pass the operational processes using IT forecasting and ordering the right amount of stock at the right time into each store to improve delivery and at last outputs to the customer. According to Tesco (2010), improving on-shelf availability, predicting how weather affect sales and reducing depot stockholding anticipate customer needs.

Sunday, January 19, 2020

Capulet Character In Romeo and Juliet Essay

Capulet has had a dramatic change in character over the course of the book. At first, he would not dare see his young daughter get married yet. But he changed and decided that if she did not marry, she would be disowned. It is very confusing how this happens, because it is such a dramatic change in such a short period of time. At first, Capulet thinks that Juliet isn’t ready for marriage. For he believes that she is too young, innocent and immature. But saying o’er what I have said before. My child is yet a stranger in the world. She hath not seen the change of fourteen years. Let two more summers wither in their pride Ere we may think her ripe to be a bride. In this passage from Act I, Scene 2, Capulet tells Paris that his daughter is only thirteen years old, and not yet ready to be a bride. He tells him to wait two more summers until she’s fully ready to be wed. This shows the caring, fatherly side of Capulet. It shows through, because he is protecting his only child from escaping her childhood too early, and growing up too fast. He truly loves Juliet. Later in the story, in Act III, Scene 5, his point of view on this topic completely changes. He then concludes that if Juliet does not wed, she will be punished. â€Å"I’ll not wed,† â€Å"I cannot love,† â€Å"I am too young,† â€Å"I pray you, pardon me.†Ã¢â‚¬â€ But, an you will not wed, I’ll pardon you. Graze where you will, you shall not house with me. Look to ’t, think on ’t, I do not use to jest. Thursday is near. Lay hand on heart, advise. An you be mine, I’ll give you to my friend. An you be not, hang, beg, starve, die in the streets, Capulet mocked Juliet saying things that he agreed with in the past, and then threatened to throw her out on the streets if she did not marry. He went from a caring, protective father, to a father who didn’t care if his own daughter were to die. His mood change was drastic, and out of the blue. I don’t know exactly why his mood changed so suddenly, but I do know it happened, and it went downhill, not uphill. Capulet’s mood change was a big turning point in the book, because it triggered Friar’s new plan, which led to the death of the star-crossed lovers. He went from being loving, and sensitive, to brutal and irrational. He was not consistent and crossed his own words. Lord Capulet had a dramatic character change throughout the story regarding Juliet’s marriage, and it was not a good one.

Saturday, January 11, 2020

Phantom Time Theory Essay

There are a few German scholars who believe that a 300 year time period was just written in the history books, without actually existing. The gap in history has been coined the Phantom Time Theory or Phantom Time Hypothesis. Although it is not a very widely accepted theory, there is a fair amount of evidence to back it up. Time itself has very many definitions, the historical records of the time don’t coincide, and astronomy and dendrochronology can’t definitively prove the theory wrong. What exactly is time? One of time’s many definitions is â€Å"the system of those sequential relations that any event has to any other, as past, present, or future; indefinite and continuous duration regarded as that in which events succeed one another,† (Time 784) Basically, this means the order of events occurred in relation to each other. Since there are numerous other definitions time is very subjective and who is to say that time even really exists. Different countries have different calendars and started counting years at other various times. For example, the Islam calendar started in the year we know as 622 AD. Niemitz asks â€Å"How was it possible to insert this phantom time into history? †(8), which has no easy answers. One might respond in a way as to say that we made a mistake when changing from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar. If that were to be the case, then how would it have been a 300 year oversight? Maybe, the switch in calendars may just be a small part of the problem; could it have been the start of the falsified history? If so, then where else could the gap have come from? Most of the historical documents of the time seem to have either been falsified or just don’t exist. For example, Heribert Illig believes â€Å"†¦Charlemagne was a fictional character,† (Bellows 1). If Charlemagne was a made-up figure in history, than what else has been made up about that era? Maybe all of it has been fictionalized by some mass conspirators, or maybe certain documents of the time have just been translated incorrectly and certain historical feats did not actually happen. Also, there are large gaps in historical documents like â€Å"†¦the doctrine of faith, especially the gap in the evolution of theory and meaning of purgatory†¦,† (Bellows 3). With gaps in historical documents like this, it leaves a doubt in the mind of anybody that ponders the existence of this time period. If there are gaps in historical documents like this, then maybe there are gaps in the history itself, as well. John states in his narrative that â€Å"Often, historiography just consisted of archiving anything at all†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (John 5). So, maybe most of the history as we think we know is nothing but false assumptions. But, this whole theory is built on the word maybe. Other scholars might give Illig more respect for his findings if he could come up with more specific answers that tell both sides of the story. Astronomy is neutral, for the most part, when it comes to the Phantom Time Theory. For example, Beaufort writes â€Å"Ultimate evidence against Illig’s hypothesis, based solely on historical solar eclipses can possibly not be found,† (Beaufort 25). So, if solar eclipses can’t prove the theory wrong, then what can? Methods like Dendrochronology, carbon dating, might hold the answer. Unfortunately, â€Å"Despite of calibration a high degree†¦antique period typically up to +/-150 years,† (Beaufort 26). This leaves us once again with no definitive answer on the validity of the hypothesis. At the moment, there is no scientific way to prove the theory valid or invalid, but maybe, some day in the near or possibly distant future, there will be a way to accurately pinpoint the dates when certain historical events happened to put this talk of the theory being a â€Å"conspiracy† to bed. 300 years of our history may just have been thought up in someone’s head and written in the history books, or maybe it is true. There are a few things for certain though: time is very subjective and we could be living in any time period imaginable, depending on when you start counting years. Some historical documentation of the era has been proven to be forged, so we can never distinguish what has actually happened in history and what some writer of a history book just made it up. Lastly, astronomy and dendrochronology don’t give a definitive answer to the questions of when exactly these historical events happened. So, maybe this theory is just some wild thought a few German scholars had, but maybe, in the coming years more and more evidence to prove the theory valid may come out and these crazy scholars would look like geniuses.

Thursday, January 2, 2020

Obesity On The Rise Of Obesity - 1756 Words

Obesity on the Rise Obesity is a fast growing epidemic in America. According to the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey in 2009-2010, more than 66 percent of adults are considered overweight, and more than 33 percent are considered obese (Overweight and Obesity Statistics). There are many different factors that cause obesity, including poor nutrition, inactivity, health conditions, heredity, and the environment. Problems that arise due to obesity are costly. Society’s view on meal time and food is changing. Obesity is becoming more prevalent in today’s society. The best way to solve this rising epidemic is by taking action and living a healthier lifestyle. Obesity is linked to many contributing factors. One large factor is a lack of energy balance, which happens when you bring in more energy than your body uses. With the rise of fast food restaurants over the past decades, Americans are eating more and more calories every day. When you eat and drink more calories than you burn each day, over time, you will gain weight (What Causes Overweight and Obesity?). Another factor is having an inactive lifestyle. Electronics have taken over the time people used to spend doing physical activities. People spend hours in front of their TVs, computers, smart phones, and use their cars to go everywhere. If you were to ask your parents, or even grandparents what life was like when they were young, they won’t tell you they spent it in front of a screen or in the seat of a car.Show MoreRelatedThe Rise Of Obesity And Obesity Essay2014 Words   |  9 PagesDuring 2011-2014, over one-third of adults in America had obesity (Ogden, et al. 1). Politicians and tax researchers have come up with a plan to reduce the prevalence of obesity, by implementing an excise tax on items containing an excessive amount sugars. 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