Management Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Management - Assignment Example Managing performance is an ongoing activity that involves identification of performance measures, implementation of the performance management system, evaluation of performance outcomes and provision of feedback for improvement purposes (Kammerer, 2009). Importance of measures of organizational and managerial performance of Mid Staffordshire Hospital Trust Organisational performance measures assess how well the organisation contributes to the attainment of its vision, mission and strategic goals. Managerial performance measures focus on how well the management plans, organises and allocates limited resources in an efficient and effective manner towards the attainment of organisational goals (Kammerer, 2009). Measures of organisational and managerial performance are importance since they enable the organization to meet the demands of external accountability and foster strong sense of internal accountability. Measures of performance provide the basis of implementing organisational stra tegies through identifying the expected performance goals. The measures allow for collaboration through integrating the objectives of the organisation with the key performance indicators (Kammerer, 2009). ... The measures will enable Mid Staffordshire NHS hospital to improve communication with external stakeholders such as suppliers of medical equipment and government regulatory agencies. The measures of performance justify expenditure and costs in the organisation through ensuring cost-effectiveness and identifying the value for money committed towards improvement of organisational processes (Niven, 2005). Advantages and disadvantages of using balanced scorecard approach to organizational and managerial performance Balanced scorecard was developed by Robert Kaplan in early 1990s, but has certain advantages and disadvantages as a measure of both organizational and managerial performance. Balanced scorecard translates the mission and business strategy in to a comprehensive set of performance measures that cater for the overall organization. In addition, the performance measurement tool acts as a communication tool since it outlines the employee expectations and aims at ensuring periodic ev aluation of the performance standards (Christensen, 2008). According to Daft (2010), the tool integrates both short-term and long-term measures of performance and forms the basis of employee compensation. Ideally, balanced scorecard offers an advantage as performance management system since it breaks down strategic measures to the bottom level units such as department, clinical units, and individual staff within the organization. Balanced scorecard enhances creativity and innovation in the organisation through continuous learning and growth opportunities for the staff and improvement of the processes (Ginter, Duncan & Swayne, 2013). Lastly, the performance management tool leads to unique competitive advantage through improved decision-making and improved processes in the entire

Executive summary Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Executive summary - Essay Example Wal-Mart is sociologist’s organization, this is because it employs three main theoretical perspectives which offer them sociologists paradigms of the way the organization influences people and how people influence organization. Each perspective exceptionally conceptualizes organization, human behavior and social forces. This includes the symbolic interactions perspective, the conflict perspective and functionalist perspective. The symbolic interactionist perspective also referred to has symbolic interactionism, directs Wal-Mart to consider the details of every days’ life and symbols, their meaning, and how people interacts with one another (Schein, 2004). The functionalist perspective also known as functions, each organizational aspect is interdependent and contributes to organization’s functioning as a whole. Functionalists believes that organization held together by cohesion, social consensus in which all members of the organization agree upon, and together work to achieve, the best for organization as a whole. Finally, the conflict perspective which prevents organization in a varied light than the symbolic interactions and fuctionist (Schein, 1990). Schein’s defines culture to be consisting of a range of levels from overt outside cultural manifestation to the deep underlying assumptions driving organization action. Wal-Mart in reference to Schein’s cultural model, artifacts are the visible processes and structures, espoused values and beliefs to the Wal-Mart goals, strategies and philosophies not forgetting underlying assumptions to the unconscious beliefs, thoughts, perceptions and individual feeling in the organization. This model helps in demonstrating the significance of culture to the organization since it unites or isolate people (Schein, 2004). Leadership styles are ways, approaches and the manner of implementing plans, providing direction and motivating individuals. The major leadership styles include authoritarian or autocratic,

Marketing Segmentation Essay Example for Free

Marketing Segmentation Essay Market segmentation is the process of dividing up a market into more-or-less homogenous subsets for which it is possible to create different value propositions. At the end of the process the company can decide which segment(s) it wants to serve. If it chooses, each segment can be served with a different value proposition and managed in a different way. Market segmentation processes can be used during CPM for two main purposes. They can be used to segment potential markets to identify which customers to acquire, and to cluster current customers with a view to offering differentiated value propositions supported by different relationship management strategies. In this discussion we’ll focus on the application of market segmentation processes to identify which customers to acquire. What distinguishes market segmentation for this CRM purpose is its very clear focus on customer value. The outcome of the process should be the identification of the value potential of each identified segment. Companies will want to identify and target customers that can generate profit in the future: these will be those customers that the company and its network are better placed to serve and satisfy than their competitors. Market segmentation in many companies is highly intuitive. The marketing team will develop profiles of customer groups based upon their insight and experience. This is then used to guide the development of marketing strategies across the segments. In a CRM context, market segmentation is highly data dependent. The data might be generated internally or sourced externally. Internal data from marketing, sales and finance records are ofte n enhanced with additional data from external sources such as marketing research companies, partner organizations in the company’s network and data specialists (see Figure 5.2 ). The market segmentation process can be broken down into a number of steps: 1. identify the business you are in 2. identify relevant segmentation variables 3. analyse the market using these variables 4. assess the value of the market segments 5. select target market(s) to serve. Sales forecasting: Slide #6 (p. 136-8) The second discipline that can be used for CPM is sales forecasting. One major issue commonly facing companies that conduct CPM is that the data available for clustering customers takes a historical or, at best, present day view. The data identifies those customers who have been, or presently are, important for sales, profit or other strategic reasons. If management believes the future will be the same as the past, this presents no problem. However, if the business environment is changeable, this does present a problem. Because CPMs goal is to identify those customers that will be strategically important in the future, sales forecasting can be a useful discipline. Sales forecasting, some pessimists argue, is a waste of time, because the business environment is rapidly changing and unpredictable. Major world events such as terrorist attacks, war, drought and market-based changes, such as new products from competitors or high visibility promotional campaigns, can make any sales forecas ts invalid. There are a number of sales forecasting techniques that can be applied, providing useful information for CPM. These techniques, which fall into three major groups, are appropriate for different circumstances. ââ€"  qualitative methods: customer surveys sales team estimates ââ€"  time-series methods: moving average exponential smoothing time-series decomposition ââ€"  causal methods: leading indicators regression models. Qualitative methods are probably the most widely used forecasting methods. Customer surveys ask consumers or purchasing officers to give an opinion on what they are likely to buy in the forecasting period. This makes sense when customers forward-plan their purchasing. Data can be obtained by inserting a question into a customer satisfaction survey. For example, ‘In the next six months are you likely to buy more, the same or less from us than in the  current period? ’ And, ‘If more, or less, what volume do you expect to buy from us? ’ Sometimes, third party organizations such as industry associations or trans-industry groups such as the Chamber of Commerce or the Institute of Directors collect data that indicate future buying intentions or proxies for intention, such as business confidence. Sales team estimates can be useful when salespeople have built close relationships with their customers. A key account management team might be well placed to generate s everal individual forecasts from the team membership. These can be averaged or weighted in some way that reflects the estimator’s closeness to the customer. Account managers for Dyno Nobel, a supplier of commercial explosives for the mining and quarrying industries, are so close to their customers that they are able to forecast sales two to three years ahead. Operational CRM systems support the qualitative sales forecasting methods, in particular sales team estimates. The CRM system takes into account the value of the sale, the probability of closing the sale and the anticipated period to closure. Many CRM systems also allow management to adjust the estimates of their sales team members, to allow for overly optimistic or pessimistic salespeople. Time-series approaches take historical data and extrapolate them forward in a linear or curvilinear trend. This approach makes sense when there are historical sales data, and the assumption can be safely made that the future will reflect the past. The moving average method is the simplest of these. This takes sales in a number of previous periods and averages them. The averaging process reduces o r eliminates random variation. The moving average is computed on successive periods of data, moving on one period at a time, as in Figure 5.10 . Moving averages based on different periods can be calculated on historic data to generate an accurate method. A variation is to weight the more recent periods more heavily. The rationale is that more recent periods are better predictors. In producing  an estimate for year 2009 in Figure 5.10 , one could weight the previous four years’ sales performance by 0.4, 0.3, 0.2, and 0.1, respectively, to reach an estimate. This would generate a forecast of 5461. This approach is called exponential smoothing. The decomposition method is applied when there is evidence of cyclical or seasonal patterns in the historical data. The method attempts to separate out four components of the time series: trend factor,  cyclical factor, seasonal factor and random factor. The trend factor is the longterm direction of the trend after the other three elements are removed. The cyclical factor represents regular long-term recurrent influences on sales; seasonal influences generally occur within annual cycles. It is sometimes possible to predict sales using leading indicators. A leading indicator is some contemporary activity or event that indicates that another activity or event will happen in the future. At a macro level, for example, housing starts are good predictors of future sales of kitchen furniture. At a micro level, when a credit card customer calls into a contact centre to ask about the current rate of interest, this is a strong indicator that the customer will switch to another supplier in the future. Regression models work by employing data on a number of predictor variables to estimate future demand. The variable being predicted is called the dependent variable; the variables being used as predictors are called independent variables. For example, if you wanted to predict demand for cars (the dependent variable) you might use data on population size, average disposable income, average car price for the category being predicted and average fuel price (the independent variables). The regression equation can be tested and validated on historical data before being adopted. New predictor variables can be substituted or added to see if they improve the accuracy of the forecast. This can be a useful approach for predicting demand from a segment. Activity-Based Costing: Slide #7 (p. 138-40) Customer Acquisition costs Terms of Trade Customer service costs Working capital costs Activity-based costing The third discipline that is useful for CPM is activity-based costing. Many companies, particularly those in a B2B context, can trace revenues to customers. In a B2C environment, it is usually only possible to trace revenues to identifiable customers if the company operates a billing system requiring customer details, or a membership scheme such as a customer club, store-card or a loyalty programme. In a B2B context, revenues can be tracked in the sales and accounts databases. Costs are an entirely different matter. Because the goal of CPM is to cluster customers according to their strategic value, it is desirable to be able to identify which customers are, or will be, profitable. Clearly, if a company is to understand customer profitability, it has to be able to trace costs, as well as revenues, to customers. Costs do vary from customer to customer. Some customers are very costly to acquire and serve, others are not. There can be considerable variance across the customer base within several categories of cost: ââ€"  customer acquisition costs : some customers require considerable sales effort to move them from prospect to fi rst-time customer status: more sales calls, visits to reference customer sites, free samples, engineering advice, guarantees that switching costs will be met by the vendor ââ€"  terms of trade : price discounts, advertising and promotion support, slotting allowances (cash paid to retailers for shelf space), extended invoice due dates ââ€"  customer service costs : han dling queries, claims and complaints, demands on salespeople and contact centre, small order sizes, high order frequency, just-in-time delivery, part load shipments, breaking bulk for delivery to multiple sites ââ€"  working capital costs : carrying inventory for the customer, cost of credit. Traditional product-based or general ledger costing systems do not provide this type of detail, and do not enable companies to estimate customer profitability. Product costing systems track material, labour and energy costs to products, often comparing actual to standard costs. They do not, however, cover the customer-facing activities of marketing, sales and service. General ledger costing systems do track costs across all parts of the business, but are normally too highly aggregated to establish which customers or segments are responsible for generating those costs. Activity-based costing (ABC) is an approach to costing that splits costs into two groups: volume-based costs and order-related costs. Volume based (product-related) costs are variable against the size of the order, but fixed per unit for any order and any customer. Material and direct labour costs are examples. Order-related (customer-related) costs vary according to the product and process requirements of each particular customer. Imagine two retail customers, each purchasing the same volumes of product from a manufacturer. Customer 1 makes no product or process demands. The sales revenue is $5000; the gross margin for the vendor is $1000. Customer 2 is a different story: customized  product, special overprinted outer packaging, just-in-time delivery to three sites, provision of point-of-sale material, sale or return conditions and discounted price. Not only that, but Customer 2 spends a lot of time agreeing these terms and conditions with a salesperson who has had to call three times before closing the sale. The sales revenue is $5000, but after accounting for product and process costs to meet the demands of this particular customer, the margin retained by the vendor is $250. Other things being equal, Customer 1 is four times as valuable as Customer 2. Whereas conventional cost accounti ng practices report what was spent, ABC reports what the money was spent doing. Whereas the conventional general ledger approach to costing identifies resource costs such as payroll, equipment and materials, the ABC approach shows what was being done when these costs were incurred. Figure 5.11 shows how an ABC view of costs in an insurance company’s claims processing department gives an entirely different picture to the traditional view. ABC gives the manager of the claims-processing department a much clearer idea of which activities create cost. The next question from a CPM perspective is ‘ which customers create the activity? ’ Put another way, which customers are the cost drivers? If you were to examine the activity cost item ‘ Analyse claims: $121 000 ’ , and find that 80 per cent of the claims were made by drivers under the age of 20, you’d have a clear understanding of the customer group that was creating that activity cost for the business. CRM needs ABC because of its overriding goal of generating profitable relationships with customers. Unless there is a costing system in place to trace costs to customers, CRM will find it very difficult to deliver on a promise of improved customer profitability. Overall, ABC serves customer portfolio management in a number of ways: 1. when combined with revenue figures, it tells you the absolute and relative levels of profit generated by eac h customer, segment or cohort 2. it guides you towards actions that can be taken to return customers to profit 3. it helps prioritize and direct customer acquisition, retention and development strategies 4. it helps establish whether customization and other forms of value creation for customers pay off. ABC sometimes justifies management’s confidence in the Pareto principle, otherwise known as the 80:20 rule. This rule suggests that  80 per cent of profits come from 20 per cent of customers. ABC tells you which customers fall into the important 20 per cent. Research generally supports the 80: 0 rule. For example, one report from Coopers and Lybrand found that, in the retail industry, the top 4 per cent of customers account for 29 per cent of profits, the next 26 per cent of customers account for 55 per cent of profits and the remaining 70 per cent account for only 16 per cent of profits. Lifetime Value Estimation: Slide# 8 (p. 141-2) The fourth discipline that can be used for CPM is customer lifetime value (LTV) estimation, which was first introduced in Chapter 2. LTV is measured by computing the present day value of all net margins (gross margins less cost-to-serve) earned from a relationship with a customer, segment or cohort. LTV estimates provide important insights that guide companies in their customer management strategies. Clearly, companies want to protect and ring-fence their relationships with customers, segments or cohorts that will generate significant amounts of profit. Sunil Gupta and Donald Lehmann suggest that customer lifetime value can be computed as follows: Application of this formula means that you do not have to estimate customer tenure. As customer retention rate rises there is an automatic lift in customer tenure, as shown in Table 2.2 in Chapter 2. This formula can be adjusted to consider change in both future margins and retention rates either up or down, as described in Gupta and Lehmann’s book Managing Customers as Investments. The table can be used to assess the impact of a number of customer management strategies: what would be the impact of reducing cost-toserve by shifting customers to low-cost self-serve channels? What would be the result of cross-selling higher margin products? What would be the outcome of a loyalty programme designed to increase retention rate from 80 to 82 per cent? An important additional benefit of this LTV calculation is that it enables you to estimate a company’s value. For example, it has been computed that the LTV of the average US-based American Airlines customer is $166.94. American Airlines has 43.7 million such customers, yielding an estimated company value of $7.3 billion. Roland Rust and his co-researchers noted that, given the absence of international  passengers and freight considerations from this computation, it was remarkably close to the company’s market capitalization at the time their research was undertaken. Clustering (144): slide #9 Clustering techniques are used to find naturally occurring groupings within a dataset. As applied to customer data, these techniques generally function as follows: 1. Each customer is allocated to just one group. The customer possesses attributes that are more closely associated with that group than any other group. 2. Each group is relatively homogenous. 3. The groups collectively are very different from each other. In other words, clustering techniques generally try to maximize both within-group homogeneity and between-group heterogeneity. There are a number of clustering techniques, including CART (classification and regression trees) and CHAID (chi-square automatic interaction detection).7 Once statistically homogenous clusters have been formed they need to be interpreted. CRM strategists are often interested in the future behaviours of a customer: segment, cohort or individual. Customers ’ potential value is determined by their propensity to buy products in the future. Data miners can build predictive models by examining patterns and relationships within historic data. Predictive models can be generated to identify: 1. Which customer, segment or cohort is most likely to buy a given product? 2. Which customers are likely to default on payment? 3. Which customers are most likely to defect (churn)? Data analysts scour historic data looking for predictor and outcome variables. Then a model is built and validated on these historic data. When the model seems to work well on the historic data, it is run on contemporary data, where the predictor data are known but the outcome data are not. This is known as ‘ scoring ’ . Scores are answers to questions such as the propensity-to-buy, default and churn questions listed above. Predictive modelling is based on three assumptions, each of which may be true to a greater or lesser extent: 1. The past is a good predictor of the future †¦ BUT this may not be true. Sales of many products are cyclical or seasonal. Others have fashion or fad lifecycles. 2. The data are available †¦ BUT this may not be true. Data used to train the model may no longer be collected. Data may be too costly to collect, or may be in the wrong format. 3. Customer-related databases contain what you want to predict †¦ BUT this may not be true. The data may not be available. If you want to predict which customers are most likely to buy mortgage protection insurance, and you only have data on life policies, you will not be able to answer the question. Two tools that are used for predicting future behaviours are decision trees and neural networks. Decision trees (145): slide #9 Decision trees are so called because the graphical model output has the appearance of a branch structure. Decision trees work by analyzing a dataset to find the independent variable that, when used to split the population, results in nodes that are most different from each other with respect to the variable you are tying to predict. Figure 5.12 contains a set of data about five customers and their credit risk profile. We want to use the data in four of the fi ve columns to predict the risk rating in the fifth column. A decision tree can be constructed for this purpose. In decision tree analysis, Risk is in the ‘ dependent ’ column. This is also known as the target variable. The other four columns are independent columns. It is unlikely that the customer’s name is a predictor of Risk, so we will use the three other pieces of data as independent variables: debt, income and marital status. In the example, each of these is a simple categorical item, each of which only has two possible values (high or low; yes or no). The data from Figure 5.12 are represented in a different form in Figure 5.13 , in a way which lets you see which independent variable is best at predicting risk. As you examine the data, you will see that the best split is income (four instances highlighted in bold on the diagonal: two high income/good risk plus two low income/poor risk). Debt and marital status each s core three on their diagonals. Once a node is split, the same process is performed on each successive node, either until no further splits are possible or until you have reached a managerially useful model. The graphical output of this decision tree analysis is shown in Figure 5.14 . Each box is a node. Nodes are linked by branches. The top node is the root node. The data from the root node is split into two groups based on income. The right-hand, low income box, does not split any further because both low income customers are classified as poor credit risks. The left-hand, high-income box does split further, into married and not married customers. Neither of these split further because the one unmarried customer is a poor credit risk and the two remaining married customers are good credit risks. As a result of this process the company knows that customers who have the lowest credit risk will be high income and married. They will also note that debt, one of the variables inserted into the training model, did not perform well. It is not a predictor of creditworthiness. Decision trees that work with categorical data such as these are known as classification trees. When decision trees are applied to continuous data they are known as regression trees. Neural Networks (147): slide #9 Neural networks are another way of fitting a model to existing data for prediction purposes. The expression ‘ neural network ’ has its origins in the work of machine learning and artificial intelligence. Researchers in this field have tried to learn from the natural neural networks of living creatures. Neural networks can produce excellent predictions from large and complex datasets containing hundreds of interactive predictor variables, but the neural networks are neither easy to understand nor straightforward to use. Neural networks represent complex mathematical equations, with many summations, exponential functions and parameters. Like decision trees and clustering techniques, neural networks need to be trained to recognize patterns on sample datasets. Once trained, they can be used to predict customer behaviour from new data. They work well when there are many potential predictor variables, some of which are redundant. Case 5.2 Customer portfolio management at Tesco Tesco, the largest and most successful supermarket chain in the UK, has developed a CRM strategy that is the envy of many of its competitors. Principally a food retailer in a mature market that has grown little in the  last 20 years, Tesco realized that the only route to growth was taking market share from competitors. Consequently, the development of a CRM strategy was seen as imperative. In developing its CRM strategy, Tesco first analysed its customer base. It found that the top 100 customers were worth the same as the bottom 4000. It also found that the bottom 25 per cent of customers represented only 2 per cent of sales, and that the top 5 per cent of customers were responsible for 20 per cent of sales. The results of this analysis were used to segment Tesco’s customers and to develop its successful loyalty programmes. SWOT and PESTE (p. 154-5): slide# 10 SWOT is an acronym for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. SWOT analysis explores the internal environment (S and W) and the external environment (O and T) of a strategic business unit. The internal (SW) audit looks for strengths and weaknesses in the business functions of sales, marketing, manufacturing or operations, finance and people management. It then looks cross-functionally for strengths and weaknesses in, for example, cross-functional processes (such as new product development) and organizational culture. The external (OT) audit analyses the macro- and micro-environments in which the customer operates. The macro-environment includes a number of broad conditions that might impact on a company. These conditions are identified by a PESTE analysis. PESTE is an acronym for political, economic, social, technological and environmental conditions. An analysis would try to pick out major conditions that impact on a business, as illustrated below: political environment : demand for international air travel contracted as worldwide political stability was reduced after September 11, 2001 economic environment : demand for mortgages falls when the economy enters recession. social environment : as a population ages, demand for healthcare and residential homes increase technological environment : as more households become owners of computers, demand for Internet banking increases environmental conditions : as customers become  more concerned about environmental quality, demand for more energy efficient products increases. The micro environmental part of the external (OT) audit examines relationships between a company and its immediate external stakeholders: customers, suppliers, business partners and investors. A CRM-oriented SWOT analysis would be searching for customers or potential customers that emerge well from the analysis. Th ese would be customers that: 1. possess relevant strengths to exploit the opportunities open to them 2. are overcoming weaknesses by partnering with other organizations to take advantage of opportunities 3. are investing in turning around the company to exploit the opportunities 4. are responding to external threats in their current markets by exploiting their strengths for diversification. Five forces The five-forces analysis was developed by Michael Porter. 17 He claimed that the profitability of an industry, as measured by its return on capital employed relative to its cost of capital, was determined by five sources of competitive pressure. These five sources include three horizontal and two vertical conditions. The horizontal conditions are: competition within the established businesses in the market competition from potential new entrants competition from potential substitutes. The vertical conditions reflect supply and demand chain considerations: the bargaining power of buyers  the bargaining power of suppliers.  Porter’s basic premise is that competitors in an industry will be more profitable if these five conditions are benign. For example, if buyers are very powerful, they can demand high levels of service and low prices, thus negatively influencing the profitability of the supplier. However, if barriers to entry are high, say because of large capital requirements or dominance of the market by very powerful brands, then current players will be relatively immune from new entrants and enjoy the possibility of better profits. Why would a CRM-strategist be interested in a five-forces evaluation of customers? Fundamentally, a financially healthy customer offers better potential for a supplier than a customer in financial  distress. The analysis points to different CRM solutions: 1. Customers in a profitable industry are more likely to be stable for the near-term, and are better placed to invest in opportunities for the future. They therefore have stronger value potential. These are customers with whom a supplier would want to build an exclusive and well-protected relationship. 2. Customers in a stressed industry might be looking for reduced cost inputs from its suppliers, or for other ways that they can add value to their offer to their own customers. A CRM-oriented supplier would be trying to find ways to serve this customer more effectively, perhaps by stripping out elements of the value proposition that are not critical, or by adding elements that enable the customer to compete more strongly. Strategically Significant Customers (157) slide #11 The goal of this entire analytical process is to cluster customers into groups so that differentiated value propositions and relationship management strategies can be applied. One outcome will be the identification of customers that will be strategically significant for the company’s future. We call these strategically significant customers (SSCs). There are several classes of SSC, as follows: 1. High future lifetime value customers : these customers will contribute significantly to the company’s profitability in the future. 2. High volume customers : these customers might not generate much profit, but they are strategically significant because of their absorption of fixed costs, and the economies of scale they generate to keep unit costs low. 3. Benchmark customers : these are customers that other customers follow. For example, Nippon Conlux supplies the hardware and software for Coca Cola’s vending operation. While they might not make much margin from that rela tionship, it has allowed them to gain access to many other markets. ‘ If we are good enough for Coke, we are good enough for you ’ , is the implied promise. Some IT companies create ‘ reference sites ’ at some of their more demanding customers. 4. Inspirations : these are customers who bring about improvement in the supplier’s business. They may identify new applications for a product, product improvements, or opportunities for cost reductions. They may complain loudly and make unreasonable demands, but in doing so, force change for the better. 5. Door  openers : these are customers that allow the supplier to gain access to a new market. This may be done for no initial profit, but with a view to proving credentials for further expansion. This may be particularly important if crossing cultural boundaries, say between west and east. One company, a Scandinavian processor of timber, has identified five major customer groups that are strategically signi ficant, as in Figure 5.22 . The Seven Core Customer Management Strategies (158-9) slide # 12 This sort of analysis pays off when it helps companies develop and implement differentiated CRM strategies for clusters of customers in the portfolio. There are several core customer management strategies: 1. Protect the relationship : this makes sense when the customer is strategically significant and attractive to competitors. We discuss the creation of exit barriers in our review of customer retention strategies in Chapter 9. 2. Re-engineer the relationship : in this case, the customer is currently unprofitable or less profitable than desired. However, the customer could be converted to profit if costs were trimmed from the relationship. This might mean reducing or automating service levels, or servicing customers through lower cost channels. In the banking industry, transaction processing costs, as a multiple of online processing costs are as follows. If Internet transaction processing has a unit cost of 1, an in-bank teller transaction costs 120 units, an ATM transaction costs 40, telephone costs 30 and PC banking costs 20. In other words, it is 120 times more expensive to conduct an in-bank transaction than the identical online transaction. Cost-reduction programmes have motivated banks to migrate their customers, or at least some segments of customers, to other lower cost channels. An Australian electricity company has found that its average annual margin per customer is $60. It costs $13 to serve a c ustomer who pays by credit card, but only 64 cents to service a direct debit customer. Each customer moved to the lower cost channel therefore produces a transaction cost saving of more than $12, which increases the average customer value by 20 per cent. Re-engineering a relationship requires a clear understanding of the activities that create costs in the relationship (see Case 5.3). 3. Enhance the relationship : like  the strategy above, the goal is to migrate the customer up the value ladder. In this case it is done not by re-engineering the relationship, but by increasing your share of customer spend on the category, and by identifying up-selling and cross-selling opportunities. 4. Harvest the relationship : when your share of wallet is stable, and you do not want to invest more resources in customer development, you may feel that the customer has reached maximum value. Under these conditions you may wish to harvest, that is, optimize cash flow from the customer with a view to using the cash generated to develop other customers. This may be particularly appealing if the customer is in a declining market, has a high cost-to-serve or has a high propensity-to-switch to competitors. 5. End the relationship : sacking customers is ge nerally anathema to sales and marketing people. However, when the customer shows no sign of making a significant contribution in the future it may be the best option.You can read about strategies for sacking customers in Chapter 9. 6. Win back the customer : sometimes customers take some or all of their business to other suppliers. If they are not strategically signifi cant, it may make sense to let them go. However, when the customer is important, you may need to develop and implement win back strategies. The starting point must be to understand why they took their business away. 7. Start a relationship : you’ve identified a prospect as having potential strategic significance for the future. You need to develop an acquisition plan to recruit the customer onto the value ladder. You can read about customer acquisition strategies in Chapter 8.

Poverty Elimination by NGOs

Poverty Elimination by NGOs Assessing NGOs performance in poverty reduction is a difficult task. However, it is worth learning from other observations conducted on NGO performance in alleviating poverty NGOs have increased the scale on the type of roles they play. In this contemporary time, NGOs are tremendously working, and helping government, institutions, and the rural poor in the fight against poverty in Sub-Saharan African, which was their traditional role during the World Wars. Although NGOs are appraised for their tremendous work, other scholars have opined that they do not see their essence due to the fact that many have fallen below expectations. In this Chapter, however, researchers task is to review the literature of other scholarly works as it relate to NGOs roles in poverty alleviation. Desai (2005) has mentioned that NGOs have an important role to play in supporting women, men and households, community groups, civil society groups and expected that they can meet the welfare. She accounted some role and functions for NGOs, such as counseling and support service, awareness raising and advocacy, legal aid and microfinance. These services help the people to achieve their ability, skill and knowledge, and take control over their own lives and finally become empowered and self-reliance. I agree with the author, because if a project like microfinance is enforced, the living standard of people will be improved. This evidence will be seen in the next chapter. Strom quits (2002) has also noted three major functions for NGOs such as (service delivery (e.g. relief, welfare, basic skills); educational provision (e.g. basic skills and often critical analysis of social environments); and public policy advocacy as this is the case with NGOs in Sub-Saharan Africa. Baccaro (2001), in his writing depicted how particular NGOs with a definite mission statements can promote the organization and empowerment of the poor, particularly poor women, through a combination of micro-credit, awareness-raising, training for group members which is capacity building and other social services, with an aim to reduce poverty among societies. NGOs general aim is to alleviate poverty through activities that promote capacity building and self-reliance. Langran (2002) has mentioned that NGOs through capacity building help to sustain community development assist government in the provision of basic social amenities. NGOs are often created in order to expand the capacities of people and government there by breaching the gap of poverty (Korten 1990). NGOs are praised for promoting community self-reliance and empowerment through supporting community-based groups and relying on participatory processes (Korten 1990; Clark 1991; Friedmann 1992; Fowler 1993; Edwards and Hulme 1994; Salamon 1994).In Sub-Saharan Africa for instance where survival for daily bread is a major hurdle, NGOs have been seen as liberators of human suffering the evidence is in Sierra Leone were sixty percent of citizens survival dependent upon donors. Sustainable development, on the other hand, has emerged over the past few decades as an important paradigm for poverty alleviation. As Bradshaw and Winn (2000) have noted, sustainability is rooted largely in an environmental approach, particularly in the industrialized countries. But, the goal of sustainable development is to find a balance between three pillars social, economic and environmental of communities (Sneddon 2000). Hibbard and Tang (2004) in their study in Vietnam have noted the importance of NGOs roles in sustainable community development. One of the roles was that NGOs balance the social, economic and environmental factors in promoting sustainable development. Another important role of NGO that they discovered was decentralization of the central government which helps the local communities to acquire more power in order to make their own decisions. As in the case of Sierra Leone where civil society groups and other NGOs like MERLIN, Caritas and CRS, have succeeded in winning bills for decentralization in the Health ministry. But, sometimes the local communities lack specialists to do professional work and resources that are important for the particular projects. In this situation, NGO assists local staff with drafting sustainable development plans that are functional under the umbrella of a central government policy. Finally, they concluded that poverty alleviation is process-oriented, and it requires extensive community participation and relies on network to share resources, knowledge and expertise. From the literatures, it could be summarized that NGOs play an important function in fighting poverty via promoting sustainable community development. Sustainable community development emphasizes on a balance between environmental concerns and development objectives, while simultaneously enhancing local social relationships. Sustainable communities meet the economic needs of their residents, enhance and protect the environment, and promote more human local societies (Bridger and Luloff 1997). Through the functions of providing microfinance, initiating capacity building and self -reliance, peace building projects, relief services during emergencies, NGOs could bridge the gap of poverty in Sub-Saharan African. Below are the reviews of NGOs roles, functions and strategies they used to fight poverty. 2.1- NGOs MICROFINANCE ROLE A STRATEGY FOR POVERTY ALLEVIATION Microfinance is another important sector that NGOs have fully ultilised in reaching out to the poor. Their roles in this sector, has immensely contributed to alleviating poverty among the poor. The purpose of using microfinance to alleviate poverty is as a result of what role microfinance can play and what impact it created on the beneficiaries. Microfinance has a very important role to play in development according to proponents of microfinance. In the 1990s, scholars have increasingly referred to microfinance as an effective means of poverty reduction (Rekha 1995; Cerven and Ghazanfar 1999; Pankhurst and Johnston 1999). The microfinance has long existed in Africa, but saw it decline when government established banking institutions took over Oxaal and Baden (1997). The World Bank found, in 1998, that the poorest 48% of Bangladeshi families with access to microcredit from Grameen Bank rose above the poverty line. In Peoples Republic of China (PRC), for instance, microfinance programs have helped lift 150 million people out of poverty since 1990 (UNHDR, 2005). Similarly in, in Ghana, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Liberia, MkNelly and Dunford (1998) Mansaray (1998-99), found that microcredit beneficiaries increased their income by $36, compared with $18 for nonclients. Clients of microfinance generally shifted from irregular, low-paid daily jobs to more secured employment in India (Simanowitz, 2003) and Bangladesh (Zaman, 2000). Otero (1999, p.10) illustrates the various ways in which microfinance, at its core combats poverty. She states that microfinance creates access to productive capital for the poor, which together with human capital, addressed through education and training, and social capital, achieved through local organization building, enables people to move out of poverty (1999). By providing material capital to a poor person, their sense of dignity is strengthened and this can help to empower the person to participate in the economy and society (Otero, 1999). The aim of microfinance according to Otero (1999) is not just about providing capital to the poor to combat poverty on an individual level, it also has a role at an institutional level. It seeks to create institutions that deliver financial services to the poor, who are continuously ignored by the formal banking sector. Mayoux (2000) and Cheston and Khan (2002) have pointed out the importance of microfinance in empowerment, particularly women empowerment. Microfinance is defined as efforts to improve the access to loans and to saving services for poor people (Shreiner2001). UNCDF (2001) states that studies have shown that microfinance plays key roles in development. It is currently being promoted as a key development strategy for promoting poverty eradication and economic empowerment. It has the potential to effectively address material poverty, the physical deprivation of goods and services and the income to attain them by granting financial services to households who are not supported by the formal banking sector (Sheraton 2004). Microcredit programs provide small loans and savings opportunities to those who have traditionally been excluded from commercial financial services. As a development inclusion strategy, adopted by NGOs through the provision of funds to both locally established groups and government and private institutions, microfinance programs emphasize womens economic contribution as a way to increase overall financial efficiency within national economies. This is because in Sub-Saharan Africa, as whole women are said to be bread winners and care takers of their families. It should be noted that women are always at mercy regarding social misshapes .According to Cheston and Khan (2002), one of the most popular forms of economic empowerment for women is microfinance, which provides credit for poor women who are usually excluded from formal credit institutions. This issue of gender discrimination in the microfinance sector have been researched and debated by donor agencies, NGOs, feminists, and activists (Johnson and Rogaly 1997; Razavi 1997; Kabeer 1999; Mayoux 2001; Mahmud 2003). However, underneath these shared concerns lie three fundamentally different approaches to microfinance: financial sustainability, feminist empowerment, and poverty alleviation. All three microfinance approaches have different goals coupled with varied perspectives on how to incorporate gender into microfinance policy and programs (Mayoux 2000). The microfinance empowers women by putting capital in their hands and allowing them to earn an independent income and contribute financially to their households and communities. This economic empowerment is expected to generate increased self-esteem, respect, and other forms of empowerment for women beneficiaries. Some evidence show that microfinance would empower women in some domains such as increased participation in decision making, more equitable status of women in the family and community, increased political power and rights, and increased self-esteem (Cheston and Kuhn 2002). Well-being as an output of microfinance not only covers the economic indicators, but also other indicators such as community education, environment, recreation and accessibility to social services. It is related to the quality of life (Asnarulkhadi 2002). In order to gain economic sustainability, NGOs through microfinance help the communities to reduce poverty, create jobs, and promote income generation. In the developing countries, sustainability is linked more closely to issues of poverty and the gross inequalities of power and resources (Hamnett and Hassan 2003). This is due to the fact that in the Third World countries like sub-Saharan Africa, the ecological system, climate, sometimes conflicts with the socio-economic needs of local people who depend on a local ecosystem for their survival (Nygren 2000). In contrast, in the developed countries, as Bradshaw and Winn (2000) have noted, more priority is given on environmental aspect of sustainable development. Despite the importance attached to microfinance as an effective tool for poverty alleviation, yet it cannot be over ruled that this sector do have many problems. This has even led some scholars to doubt it usefulness, there by suggesting that NGOs still need to do more to reach out to the poor. Littlefield, Murduch and Hashemi (2003), Simanowitz and Brody (2004) and the IMF (2005) have commented on the critical role of microfinance in achieving the Millennium Development Goals. Simanowitz and Brody (2004, p.1) state, Microfinance is a key strategy in reaching the MDGs and in building global financial systems that meet the needs of the most poor people. Littlefield, Murduch and Hashemi (2003) state microfinance is a critical contextual factor with strong impact on the achievements of the MDGsà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦microfinance is unique among development interventions: it can deliver social benefits on an ongoing, permanent basis and on a large scale. Referring to various case studies, they show how microfinance has played a role in eradicating poverty, promoting education, improving health and empowering women (2003). However, other scholars are not enthusiastic about the role of microfinance in development because of it lapses, and it is important to realize that microfinance is not a all done strategy when it comes to fighting poverty. Hulme and Mosley (1996), while acknowledging the role microfinance can have in helping to reduce poverty, concluded from their research on microfinance that most contemporary schemes are less effective than they might be (1996, p.134). They state that microfinance is not a total solution for poverty-alleviation and that in some cases the poorest people have been made worse-off by microfinance. Wright (2000,p.6) states that much of the skepticism of MFIs stems from the argument that microfinance projects fail to reach the poorest, generally have a limited effect on incomeà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦drive women into greater dependence on their husbands and fail to provide additional services desperately needed by the poor. In addition, Wright says that many development practitioners not only find microfinance inadequate, but that it actually diverts funding from more pressing or important interventions such as health and education (2000, p.6). As argued by Navajas et al (2000), there is a danger that microfinance may siphon funds from other projects that might help the poor more. They state that governments and donors should know whether the poor gain more from microfinance, than from more health care or food aid for example. Therefore, there is a need for all involved in microfinance and development to ascertain what exactly has been the impact of microfinance in combating poverty. Considerable debate remains about the effectiveness of microfinance as a tool for directly reducing poverty, and about the characteristics of the people it benefits (Chowdhury, Mosley and Simanowitz, 2004). Sinha (1998) argues that it is notoriously difficult to measure the impact of microfinance programmes on poverty. 2.2. NGOs CAPACITY BUILDING ROLE A STRATEGY FOR POVERTY ALLEVIATION Capacity building is another NGOs strategy and role that helps to bridge a gap between the haves and have not in society. Capacity building is an approach to development that builds independence. It can be: A means to an end, where the purpose is for others to take on programs. Is a process, where the capacity building strategies are routinely incorporated as an important element of effective practice (NSW Health 2001). Langran (2002) has defined capacity building as the ability of one group (NGOs) to strengthen the development abilities of another group (local communities) through education, skill training and organizational support. Capacity building is a strategy used to develop not a set of pre-determined activities. There is no single way to the build capacity of an individual or groups of individuals. Although experience tells us that there is a need to work across the key action areas, practitioners approach each situation separately to identify pre-existing capacities and develop strategies particular to a program or organization, in its time and place. Before beginning to build capacity within programs, practitioners need to identify pre-existing capacities such as skills, structures, partnerships and resources. Frankish (2003) has counted a number of dimensions for community capacity including financial capacity (resources, opportunities and knowledge), human resources (skills, motivations, confidence, and relational abilities and trust) and social resources (networks, participation structures, shared trust and bonding). UNDP (1997-2009) has introduced capacity building as the process by which individuals, groups, and organizations increase their abilities to first, perform core functions, solve problems, define and achieve objectives; and second, understand and deal with their development needs in a broad context and in a sustainable manner. NGOs, through the provision of education, skills and knowledge, develop the capacity of community towards achieving sustainable development. In fact, NGOs act as a capacity builder to help the communities to develop the resources, building awareness, motivating to participation in project and finally improving the quality of communitys lives. Inger Ulleberg (2009) has supported the view that NGOs play important role through the provision of skills for the rural poor. He has maintained that through capacity building, NGOs have been able to reach the poor, and has contributed to the development of the beneficiaries through skills training, the given of technical advice, exchange of experiences, research and policy advice which is key to todays development. Through the case study of Afghanistan NGOs, it suggested that these areas of interest have yielded fruit for the intended beneficiaries. The activities have usually strengthened the skills of individuals, as it was intended but have not always succeeded in improving the effectiveness of the ministries and other organizations where those individuals are working. This according to Kpaka (2007) considered it as a failure on the part of the implementers because of improper allocation of stratetigies and argues that they failed because of poor planning and poor implementation strategy. 2.3.NGOs ROLES OF SELF-RELIANCE AND SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT A STRATEGY FOR POVERTY ALLEVIATION Self-reliance is another strategy that affects sustainable community development. Effective community development sits on the foundation of self-reliance. The concept of self-reliance is strategically situated within the essence of community development and is related to other concepts like mutual-help, self-help, participation of the indigenous people and rural progress. Self-reliance encourages the necessity for people to use local initiatives, their abilities and their own possessions to improve their condition. Fonchingong and Fonjong (2002) have pointed out that self-reliance is increasingly being adopted as modus operandi for community development. Therefore, to attain self-reliance, NGOs and community groups must discover their own potential and look for ways to innovatively develop such discovered potential to use as sources of wealth for the development of the community (Ife and Tesoriero 2006). Motivating and mobilizing people to be self-reliant and to participate in development activities become an important objective of the NGOs. According to Kelly (1992), self-reliance means that the people rely on their own resources and are independent of funds sourced outside the community. Self-reliant strategy relies on the willingness and ability of the local people to depend on their own available resources and technology which they can control and manage. A self-reliant strategy requires the optional use of all available human, natural and technological resources (Agere 1982). Although dependence on the state maybe desirable in the short term, it should not be a long term objective, because the aim of the community development must ultimately be self-reliance. Mansaray (1982) has maintained that reliance on external resources will lead to the loss of autonomy and independence of the community, therefore communities should be bound to carry out autonomous programmes. This according to him, autonomous communities can flourish only in the absence of such external dependency. According to Korten (1990), the second strategy of the NGOs focuses on developing the capacities of the people to better meet their own needs through self-reliant local action. In the second generation strategy, Korten (1990) mentioned that the local inertia is the heart of problem in a village or community. There is a potential energy in a community but remains inactive because of the inertia of tradition, isolation and lack of education. But this unwillingness on the part of the local beneficiaries can be broken through the intervention of an outside change agent, who supposedly are to be NGOs, whose role is to who help the community realize its potentials through education, organization, consciousness raising, small loans and the introduction of simple new technologies. It is the stress on local self-reliance, with the intent that benefits will be sustained by community self-help action beyond the period of NGO assistance (Korten 1990). Therefore, NGOs, through the strategy of self-reliance, has facilitated sustainable development of the community through its participation in the community actives, project sponsorship, monitoring and evaluation processes. 2.4. NGOS PEACE BUILDING ROLE A STRATEGY FOR POVERTY FOR POVERTY ALLEVIATION NGOs roles are extended to peace building in Africa. The crucial role played by NGOs in the restoration of peace in war affected zones, is one seen as important. Many African countries have witnessed war and are still going through the trauma of war. Countries like Sierra Leone, Liberia, Angola, Somalia and many are witnesses of NGOs intervention in peace building. From the evidence of the current conflict in Afghanistan, Richard Barajas, Rachel Howard, Andrew Miner Jeff Sartin, Karina Silver (2000), have maintained that NGOs can play peace building roles. The presence of NGOs in Afghanistan according to them have led to the restoration of fair peace as their propagation of the human rights law, and their involvement in the disarmament, demobilization and reintegration programmes, is fostering cooperation among the warlords. I am in total agreement with them. The role of Peace Wing in Sierra Leone, for instance, justify the effectiveness of peace building NGOs through their organizat ional strategies which was able to bring the rebels out of the bush and negotiating between the government and war factions to negotiate a peace talk rather using guns and bullets to cease war. 2.5. NGOs HUMANITARIAN ASSISTANCE/RELIEF SERVICES ROLES FOR POVERTY ALLEVIATION The provision of food and non-food items during emergency periods and war time and other disasters periods, often see NGOs functions as important one. The provision of these items is short run but very significance in alleviating poverty. According to Kpaka (2007), humanitarian assistance is a fastest means to fight poverty and ensure sustainability in todays society. During emergency period, governments are unable to settle their displaced and refugee population, because of inadequacies of resources. As a result of the shortcoming of the government, the issue of NGOs influx into a country becomes unquestionable Kpaka (2007). Conflict and other disasters that occurred in society always left a strong poverty bench mark. During these conflicting periods, lives, properties, and physical infrastructures, diseases, and other hazardous issues are left as strong legacy in our society. To remedy these legacies, Humanitarian NGOs have different strategies to implement their relief programmes. Generally, the roles of NGOs are still debatable as many sees their roles as positive and others sees these roles as not proper. It has been noted that, NGO contributions in poverty reduction are limited. Edwards Hulme (1995:6) stated that it is difficult to find general evidence that NGOs are close to the poor. There is growing evidence that in terms of poverty reduction, NGOs do not perform as effectively as had been usually assumed by many agencies. More specific evidence is provided by Riddell and Robinson (1995) who conducted a case study on sixteen NGOs undertaken in four countries in Asia and Africa. They found that while NGO projects reach the poor people, they tend not to reach down to the very poorest. NGO projects also tend to be small scale. The total numbers assisted are also small. Furthermore, it is also rare for NGO projects to be financially self sufficient. Finally, although NGOs execute a number of very imaginative projects, many of them appear to be unwilling to innovate in certain areas or activities. Therefore, because of these limitations, the roles of NGOs in alleviating poverty cannot be exaggerated. 2.6. CONCLUTION The literature established the important roles played by of NGOs in the fight against poverty through micro-finance, capacity building, self-reliance, peace building, sustainable community development, and empowerment especially womens empowerment all aiming at poverty alleviation. NGOs through the micro-finance help members of community to access jobs, income-generation and improve economic situation there by alleviating poverty from the poor. And then they would become empowered economically. NGOs developed the capacities of community such as skills, abilities, knowledge, assets and motivates the community to participate in the project to improve the quality of their lives. NGOs act as capacity builders that help the community to achieve the empowerment particularly individual empowerment. Since the philosophy of community development is independent from any outside agents, thus the community must rely on their own resources. NGOs do assist the community to discover their potentials and also mobilize community to be self-reliant. Therefore, the final outcome of community development is the independence of the community from external agents in formulating its agenda and managing its affairs. This process involves capacity building, where people get involved in human capital training, transferring of authority from donor to recipient and receive supports from stakeholders (World Bank group 1999). When people become fully empowered, they are able to contribute toward sustainable development (Lyons et al. 2001). Therefore, NGOs through some programs and functions, such as microfinance, capacity building and self-reliance help community to be empowered, and finally contribute towards sustainable community development. However, though many dont see a need for NGOs in the fight against poverty alleviation in Sub-Saharan Africa, I strongly believed that presence in black Africa is importance. Their strategies and approaches they use to fight this disease is one that should not be neglected. Having looked into all the literature NGOs, in the next chapter, researcher will be discussing the strategies adopted by some NGOs in the fight against poverty.

Augustan Poetic Tradition Essay -- The Outlaw Seamus Heaney Poetry Ess

Augustan Poetic Tradition "I do not in fact see how poetry can survive as a category of human consciousness if it does not put poetic considerations first—expressive considerations, that is, based upon its own genetic laws which spring into operation at the moment of lyric conception." —Seamus Heaney, "The Indefatigable Hoof-taps" (1988) Seamus Heaney, the 1995 Nobel laureate, is one of the most widely read and celebrated poets now writing in English. He is also one of the most traditional. Over a decade ago, Ronald Tamplin summed up Heaney's achievement and his relation to the literary tradition in a judgment that remains sound today: "In many ways he is not an innovative poet. He has not recast radically the habitual language of poetry. He has not challenged our preconceptions with a new poetic form nor has he led us into the recognition of new rhythms and metres. Instead he has worked with what was to hand and brought to it great powers of expression and art as well as a significant subject matter" (Tamplin 1). At the same time, Sidney Burris was making a similar point: "Readers of his verse must continually remind themselves that Heaney, perhaps more so than most other contemporary poets, is a deeply literary poet, one whose consolations often lie in the invigorating strains of the poetic tradition itself" (Burri s ix). For Heaney, those strains are primarily formal. "I rhyme / To see myself, to set the darkness echoing," Heaney writes in "Personal Helicon," the final poem in his first collection, Death of a Naturalist (1966). Although rhyme here signifies, more generally, writing in verse, whether rhymed or free, Heaney is certainly drawn to rhyme and closed forms. He is especially partial to rhymed tr... ... Wilson. "The Poetry of Seamus Heaney." Critical Quarterly 16 (Spring 1974): 35-48. Fussell, Paul. Samuel Johnson and the Life of Writing. New York: W. W. Norton, 1971. Girard, Rene. Violence and the Sacred. Translated by Patrick Gregory. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1977. Heaney, Seamus. Poems 1965 - 1975. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1980. ____________. Preoccupations: Selected Prose 1968 - 1978. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1980. O'Neill, Charles L. "Violence and the Sacred in Seamus Heaney's North." In Seamus Heaney: The Shaping Spirit. Edited by Catharine Malloy and Phyllis Carey. Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1996: 91-105. Parker, Michael. Seamus Heaney: The Making of the Poet. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1993. Tamplin, Ronald. Seamus Heaney. Milton Keynes: Open University Press, 1989.

Little Bee Essay -- Literary Analysis, Chris Cleve

Little Bee, by Chris Cleve, is a novel that explores unthinkable evil, but simultaneously celebrates its characters in their ability to transcend all that weighs them down, including their pasts, their secrets, and their flaws. For the character of Little Bee, identity is inescapably tied to ethnicity, nationality, gender, race, and class. A representative passage of the book that explores Little Bee’s point of view (both its unceasing optimism and stark realism) occurs in the final chapter: Little Bee is awoken from a good dream, and then comes the ominous first sentence, â€Å"There is a moment when you wake up from dreaming in the hot sun, a moment outside time when you do not know what you are† (Cleave 258). Little Bee is questioning her identity at just the moment when she should be most sure of it. Because Little Bee has been seeking a home, a family, and belonging, and has seemingly found it, the reader realizes that it is still uncertain. Still there is hop e: Little Bee is hampered by the weight of her past; yet she is a character that has proven she can overcome the boundaries of her identity and change her station in life. The book as alternates between the points of view of Sarah and Little Bee, though this section is told in Little Bee’s voice. It is critical that the final chapter be her perspective, given that the so much of the book deals with the lack of western knowledge of people like Little Bee, the silence regarding their stories, and the healing power of storytelling. The most significant element of voice in this passage is the tonal shift between its two paragraphs. In the first paragraph, Little Bee is coming out of her dream and the narration is reminiscent of that half-awake state. The second paragra... ...ned. She will stay herself, â€Å"as the shape-changing magic of dreams whispers back into the roar of the ocean† (Cleave 259). It is a foreshadowing of her final decision. She does not choose to flee or fight, but instead to surrender herself for the sake of Charlie, because he is young and will continue the dream for her. The reader takes from Little Bee the idea that identity is fluid and one’s own self-perception can be a tool of transcendence. Little Bee’s circumstances require that she reinvents herself from village girl, to refugee, to member of an upper-class British family. Because of her brain, her language, and her imagination, she cannot be marginalized, even though she must succumb to evil. To the reader, Little Bee will remain as free as the wind and as peaceful as the undisturbed sand, because she has offered her voice and her story as testimony.

Communication Trends

Delver Business communication plays a vital role in my day-to-day work activities as a hairstylist in someone else's salon. For the most part, I use electronic communicating options like the smartened, multimedia messages, email, and instant messages. Communicating effectively with my clientele by keeping these lines of communication open is what I depend on to keep track of my clients and they can keep track of me.I use my smartened as the sole source of communicating with my clients. They can call me during a certain time frame, they can request appointments, through email and text, and they can always request their appointment times over my voice mail. Once my clientele make contact with me, I then set there appointment right to my calendars. I use my smartened as my PDA, to take credit card payments and I can send my clients a receipt of their payments through text messaging or email.This trend in business communication has helped me cut back on buying office supplies and appoint ment books. I am more organized with my scheduling and I keep better track of my finances. Portable media players, and Pad's, and social media have become the backbone of the Cosmetology field. Most hair stylists and salons can be found over the internet. We can order our products over the internet, and even do personal tutorials over the internet.The beauty industry has taken well to the latest software technology. The software has allowed salon owners to run their entire salon using communication technology; this is a huge milestone for hairdressers and salon owners. Most hairdressers, who are independent contractors, can operate their business inside someone else's salon, pay the necessary payments and fees for the space and ammunition with their clientele on a one-on-one basis.Stylists can also showcase their skills and the styles they can do by posting them on their personal business websites, on social media, and they can shoot live videos that can be accessible to a large num ber of viewers. These forms of business communication is allowing hairstylists on all levels to be aspiring entrepreneurs and this wave of independent entrepreneurship is sending a strong message that entails being in cosmetology now means you are in a profession that is innovative with style trends but also innovative with business communications.