Dear Board of Directors Essay Example for Free

Dear Board of Directors Essay Upon implementing a Broad Differentiation strategy, Andrews Company desired to have highly demanded products in each of the market segments, hold the majority market share compared to our competitors and increase the value of our firm by the year 2021. We believed that this strategy could get us to that point and we have successfully done so. The start up of Andrews Company proved to be more difficult than anticipated due to high costs in marketing and RD, investing in automation of sensors and due to our decision to take out most of our loans in the early stages of our product, leading to negative profits for the first two years. However, Broad Differentiation lucratively brought Andrews market share up to 30.93% outweighing the competition (Exhibit 1). Andrews Company will continue to implement this strategy with the goal to hold high demand, continue cutting costs with total quality management initiatives and by reevaluating our capacity and production issues, which will be discussed throughout the course of our analysis. Research and Development Proper allocation of funds towards research and development proved to be of high importance, allowing customers to have access to better-quality products. Andrews Company effectively adjusted each product to their proper ideal spot on the perceptual map by using the segment centers and ideal spot offsets annually. This allowed Andrews to gain optimal market demand, leading to us being able to charge a higher price than competitors later on, thus obtain higher profit among other initiatives. Our high demand was essential in offsetting the costs associated with investing in marketing and promotional budgets, buy/sell capacity and automation of products. Marketing By investing insistently in promo and sales in all the market segments, we were able to increase accessibility and market demand. It was Andrews’s goal to have our products be in the minds of customers of all types and charge a premium for our excellent designs. Another advantage Andrews had over our competitors was that we forecasted at our potential market share, rather than our actual, based on the presumption our customers will be loyal to our brand and we would continue to invest in marketing expenditures. Once we feel comfortable that we hold enough market share, we can then start to cut costs in this department. Finances Monitoring spending and Andrews finances was perhaps the most vital part of our success. In the earlier years of our company we took out large quantities of long-term debt to help finance investment in automation and lowering the cost of producing sensors. Each year Andrews experienced a steep increase in sales, while variable costs gradually increased (Exhibit 2). The extra debt we took out early on we believe to have assisted with the dramatic increase in profits each year (Exhibit 3). One thing Andrews could have done to also assist with the increase in profits was to issue stock, which would have helped raise more capital to invest in capacity capabilities. However, we felt that issuing stock would have diluted the price. We successfully raised our stock price to $281.95 by the end of 2021 (Exhibit 4). A 723% increase from the start of 2014. Production A barrier for further success of Andrews Company was production versus capacity. While production was upwards of 18,000+, capacity only resulted in roughly 11,000. Each year we gradually invested more and more in automation and capacity due to our rising profits, which allowed us to improve our margins (Exhibit 5). We should have properly invested in capacity in the earlier rounds to help bridge the gap between capacity and production. However, Andrews’s strategy was to focus on correctly adjusting our products on the perceptual map to their ideal spots and we planned to never invest so much so that this could not happen. TQM and Human Resources In 2017, Andrews met labor demands and we paid our employees a higher rate than competitors. This tactic was able to put some of the other employees in competitive firms to go on strike for several days, resulting in a higher market share and a better reputation among customers and potential employees. Andrews also spent money each year on training employees for a maximum of 80 hour and recruiting spend of about $4.5 million each year, increasing our productivity index to 129.9% by the end of 2021. At the beginning of 2016, Andrews made an executive decision to invest in total quality management. Of a budget of $4 million, we allotted $1.5 million in 2016 and 2017, then another $600 thousand in 2018. After this amount was spent, we would have seen diminishing returns and opted to cap out at $3.6 million. The substantial investment allowed us to reduce labor and material costs, while increasing demand, thus allowing us to steadily increase profits each year, especially during this three-year span when competitors did not spend enough in TQM. The Future of Andrews Andrews Company will continue to use its method of broad differentiation in the upcoming years and plans to issue stock in order to help with investing in capacity issues that we’ve had in the past. We will continue to spend on marketing, research and development and compensating our employees adequately in order to keep our high market share. Distinguishing our products will continue to be of the utmost importance, offering clientele a superior design. Appendix

NO Mandatory Community Service for Students! Essay -- Argumentative Pe

NO Mandatory Community Service for Students! Community service: What a wonderful opportunity for students! A chance for our younger citizens to learn responsibility, experience the satisfaction that comes with helping others and to acquire new skills. Right? Well, that depends who you're talking to. Slip the word "mandatory" behind community service, as school districts in Maryland, Washington, D.C., and hundreds of others have done, and "opportunity" takes a new twist. Opportunity for who? For the students, or for the communities that can now capitalize on students' free labor? (Martin, pg. 13) More than two decades ago, President Nixon ended the military draft. Now a new and more menacing form of enlistment is threatening our school systems. This enlistment I am speaking of is that we are forcing "community service" to be a requirement for high school graduation. Compulsory service programs, already functioning in many communities, typically giving students four years to complete, say, 60 hours of labor. The students must not receive any payment. They can choose whether to serve the elderly, or the poor, or the disabled, so long as they serve others rather than themselves. The penalty for dodging this new draft is simple: no diploma. In Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, angry parents and students took the local school board to court, arguing that such a mandatory service program for high school students imposed the kind ...

Unappropriate Tv Shows for Children

Unappropriate Television Shows Abstract Children are being influenced by television shows on a daily basis. Some children are watching inappropriate television shows such as SpongeBob, Fish Hooks, Family Guy, South Park, Ed, Edd, Eddy, Scooby-Doo, Boondocks and etc. These shows can affect children as they grow up in many ways such as using profanity, violent and aggressive behavior, poor school performance and watch too much television may cause a slight obesity. There are many educational television shows that are best for child to watch such as Barney, Blue’s Clue, Dora the Explorer and etc.Parent should also limit the amount of time children spend watching television. Monkey see, Monkey do Has your child ever said something to you and you were thinking, where did they get that from? Have the television shows that he or she watches daily ever come to your mind? Your child could be watching a television show that models inappropriate behaviors. I have experienced my nephew be ing influenced by SpongeBob and Family Guy. Recently, he was watching an episode and SpongeBob was calling himself and everybody an â€Å"idiot boy†, so my nephew began to call his mother and himself an â€Å"idiot†.He also started hitting himself on the forehead and saying he is stupid, which he also got from watching SpongeBob Square Pants. Research shows that children of the age two through ten should be playing sports, interacting with their peers or doing more gross motor activities. There are many ways television can affect children as they grow up such as watching television and video game that may influence kids between the age of two through ten by using profanity, violent and aggressive behavior, poor school performance and watch too much television may cause a slight obesity.It’s not so much that kids have changed, but the world is changing around them. Every day, children are being influenced by the world around them, and television is taking a big p art in it. Television programming is teaching children to do the things the show is displaying. A known saying is â€Å"Monkey see monkey do. † Suppose a child was saying inappropriate things and they were thinking it was fine to say it, because they didn’t know the real meaning of it. They also think they can say it because SpongeBob can.Now, you are left with no reason to tell them why they should not say it. The television shows that children are watching are influencing them to do the things they do, say the things they are saying, and try to have the same image as them. There are many different sources that can influence and or teach kids inappropriate actions such as video games, music videos, hearing things from adults but mainly television shows. Some television shows that are not appropriate are SpongeBob, Fish Hooks, Family Guy, South Park, Ed, Edd, Eddy, Scooby-Doo, Boondocks and etc.Parents may think that SpongeBob can be the best television show to watch, but at times SpongeBob can be inappropriate in many ways such as calling everyone an idiot, doing a wrong action by hitting his forehead calling his self â€Å"stupid†, and blanking out profanity. Also, Scooby Doo sometimes may scare children by having scary creature and monsters. Some television characters often depict risky behaviors such as drinking, smoking, and reinforce gender roles and racial stereotypes (How TV Affect Your Child).Most of these shows are mainly for entertainment and not for education so while kids are watching television they are just laughing when they really should be running to tell someone what they have learned while watching the show. There are a lot of educational shows on television that teaches kids valuable skills, such as their alphabet, and also counting. Those shows include Dora the Explorer, The Wiggles, Barney, Blue’s Clues, Sesame Street, Go Diego Go are extremely helpful in many ways. Barney is a very great show to watch.It is a show that teaches kids to show respect to an adult and it also teaches you to have manners. Blue’s Clues is also a great source because they teach kids to identify patterns and the opposites from two objects. Television shows have a powerful impact on young viewers in our society. When does it all start? More than 98 percent of homes in America have at least one television, and 25 percent of all households purchase a new model each year, according to the Consumer Electronics Association (Television can harm children literally).Some children were sat in front of the television to get their attention, sometime to fall asleep, to calm down or stop them from crying. Parents usually sit babies in front of the television so they can finish home chores. Parents may start having them watch television at the age of eight to ten months. Normally, there is not an affect or impact on babies. As they start to grow older and also smarter young children of one to three years of age start t o love to watch television show. Also, television starts to become a child’s daily routine and they start to have a favorite television show and character.As they get to be the age of five to seven and are enrolled in some schooling and they start to watch every television show and they start to want every item or merchandise with their favorite television show or characters. From the age of eight to ten, their television shows starts to become a lot more inappropriate and they no longer watch SpongeBob, Family Guy, or South Park. They may start to play video games which may also influence bad images and language. Our youth are also exposed to violent words, music, and images every day and it should be stopped. But how? How is there such a big impact on them just because of watching television?Television can affect learning and school performance if it interferes with the time kids need for activities crucial to healthy mental and physical development. Some shows (SpongeBob) teaches that it is fine to commit an inappropriate action because there will not be a punishment and kids feel that if they do the same thing as their favorite character from the program who committed the crime they will be a hero. Researchers have identified three potential responses to media violence in children: increase fear, desensitization to real life violence, and increase aggressive behavior.It may desensitve kids so much they think it is okay and no big deal for somebody to be hit or to hit someone in the head with a hammer. Kids who view violent acts are more likely to show aggressive behavior, but also fear that the world is scary and that everyday something bad will happen. Scary-looking things like grotesque monsters especially frighten children aged two to seven. Telling them that the images aren’t real does not help because kids under age eight can’t always tell the difference between fantasy and reality (Television and Children).When watching a televis ion shows usually every episode has a bad situation or a lot of drama in it so kids will start to have that mind frame that things will happen to them just like on the show. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommends that kids under two years old not watch any television and that those older than two watch no more than one to two hours a day of quality (How TV Affect Your Child). Children who watch too much television don’t get as much physical activity and do not explore new activity, according to Family Education Network.Television viewing has been linked to violent or aggressive behavior, sleep problems, substance abuse, poor school performance, and obesity (How TV Affect Your Child). Most children who watch the inappropriate shows are most likely to hit their playmates and argue. This issue of violent which media have the greatest impact on many people only on television many children today may be more influences by video games and computers games. There are many things parents can do for their child to help them do well in school and also not be addicted to television.Children that is too young to enroll into preschool yet spend a lot of time out of the day watching television, playing outside, or sleeping. While watching television, they should watch educational shows that may broaden their knowledge to be ready for preschool. Some educational television shows can be very helpful in many ways. Some programs combine entertainment and education to help children learn to identify characters, shapes, colors, sequence numbers, and phonics skills. Active parents should set limits, participate, monitor, analyze, and be good leaders.Parents can set many of limits in the child’s life but when watching television it is very good to set limits on how long they can watch television and what shows they can watch. Some parents do not always participate with their children. When a child is watching television, the parents should watch the show wi th them, sing alone, and interact with the show. Parents should always monitor what their child is watching. Before you allow your child to watch a show; the parent should watch a couple episode of the show and give it an approval. Every child looks up to their parents and to do or be just like them.Parents should always watch what they say or do because your child could be over listening to what you are saying and do or say that same thing that they heard their parents displaying. Parents should ask their children what are they watching and what the show is about. When your child is studying or having family meals and are not paying attention it is best to turn the television off. As much as possible encourage your kids to be involved in hobbies, sports, and peers with proper guidance, your child can learn to use television in a healthy and positive way.TV viewing is probably replacing activities in your child’s s life that you would rather have them do things such as playin g with friends, being physically active, getting fresh air, reading, playing imaginatively, doing homework, doing chores (Television and Children). Television is not always a negative influence to young viewers, there is strong evidence that children’s shows that were developed to teach educational and social skills which can help children learn well.Educational shows will expand a child knowledge but not only are they getting entertainment but they are learning their numbers, recognizing letters, and valuable skills. Sometime it is good to get some entertainment when watching television. What a child learns during his young years may affect his childhood and their older years. There are many ways such as watching television, video game, hearing what other adults may say that may influence kids bat the age of two through ten by television programming. Young children are easily influenced by the media.Children will soon find a favorite character then start to look up to them a s a hero or a role model. If that character is displaying an inappropriate behavior the child will soon imitate the character action. The goal is to keep young children active, in shape, and to have great school performance. Works Cited Anonymous. â€Å"An annotated bibliography: Television can harm children – Literally. † The Consumer’s Medical Journal Issue 94 (2006): 15. Points of View Reference Center. Web. 26 Jan. 2012. . The article give statics, give advice from Pediatricians on what parents should do when children love to always watch TV. Pediatricians at the at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas reviewed a year’s worth of emergency department cases of children who had been injured by TV sets toppling over, usually because of a climbing toddler or because someone accidentally knocked over the set.More than 98 percent of homes in America have at least one television, and 25 percent of all households purchase a new model e ach year, according to the Consumer Electronics Association. Adults need to be better educated about television’s potential harm, not just the content or programming but the physical danger of falling sets. Boyse, Kyla, and Brad Bushman. â€Å"Television and Children. † University of Michigan Health System. Regents of the University of Michigan, Aug. 2010. Web. 19 Jan. 2012. .The article examines the effect of children when watching too much TV. It explains how it affects your child’s brain development, the aggressive and violent behavior. It also show how TV can scare children, affect they school performance, and affect their health. TV viewing is probably replacing activities in your child’s s life that you would rather have them do (things like playing with friends, being physically active, getting fresh air, reading, playing imaginatively, doing homework, doing chores. An average American child will see 200,000 violent acts and 16,000 murders on TV by age 18.Scary-looking things like grotesque monsters especially frighten children aged two to seven. Telling them that the images aren’t real does not help because kids under age eight can’t always tell the difference between fantasy and reality. Dowshen, Steven. â€Å"How TV Affect Your Child. † KidsHealth. The Nemour Foundation, Oct. 2011. Web. 19 Jan. 2012. . The article discusses how you child is being influenced by television. This article gives parent advice on how parents should control who they view on TV and how long they should watch TV.Some TV shows a lot of violence, risky behavior, obesity, and the article also give some ways to practice good TV habits. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommends that kids under 2 years old not watch any TV and that those older than 2 watch no more than 1 to 2 hours a day of quality programming. Fields-Meyers, T, et al. â€Å"Kids out of Control. † Points of View Reference Center. EBSCO, 2004. Web. 26 Jan. 2012. This article gives information on what different family how experience well raising a child who loves watching inappropriate television shows.

The Life Cycle Of Hannah Bailey - 1751 Words

Background Hannah Bailey is a young, wild, and carefree teenager from a small town called Warsaw, Indiana. She attends Warsaw Community High School and she likes music, art, and photography. Majority of the students at the school are Caucasian and most of them are in cliques, relationships, and are somewhat popular. People call Hannah weird and say that she does not fit in with everyone. She wants to go to college in California to study film. Hannah lives with her grandmother because her mother suffers from depression and is not in the home, and her father works out of town in Ohio. Hannah’s boyfriend, Joel, is also a big part of her life. She spends a lot of her time with him. For Hannah, Erik Erikson’s Psychosocial Development Theory can be used to help explain her adolescent life. Theoretical Foundation Erik Erikson created eight stages in psychosocial development that are categorized as crises that a person will experiences at some period during the life cycle (Steinberg, 2014). In Hannah’s case, she is experiencing the fifth and sixth stage of psychosocial development. The fifth stage is Identity vs. Identity Diffusion. In this stage, adolescents are trying to discover a sense of identity (Steinberg, 2014). As an adolescent matures, he or she starts to realize and think about their place in society. For example, they start to reflect on how people view them and the different opportunities they have for their future. In order for adolescents to develop a sense ofShow MoreRelatedHsc General Math Textbook with Answers153542 Words   |  615 Pages Enter this formula. Fill down the contents of E6 to E8 using this formula for E5. Change the interest rate from 8% to 10%. Change the time period from 20 years to 15 years. Bailey buys a TV for $1800. He pays it off monthly over 2 years at a flat interest rate of 12.5% per annum. a How many months will it take Bailey to pay for the TV? b What is the interest charged for the 2 years? c How much per month will he pay? Give your answer to the nearest cent. Mitchell approached a bank for a businessRead MoreStephen P. Robbins Timothy A. Judge (2011) Organizational Behaviour 15th Edition New Jersey: Prentice Hall393164 Words   |  1573 PagesGlobalization 16 †¢ Managing Workforce Diversity 18 †¢ Improving Customer Service 18 †¢ Improving People Skills 19 †¢ Stimulating Innovation and Change 20 †¢ Coping with â€Å"Temporariness† 20 †¢ Working in Networked Organizations 20 †¢ Helping Employees Balance Work–Life Conflicts 21 †¢ Creating a Positive Work Environment 22 †¢ Improving Ethical Behavior 22 Coming Attractions: Developing an OB Model 23 An Overview 23 †¢ Inputs 24 †¢ Processes 25 â⠂¬ ¢ Outcomes 25 Summary and Implications for Managers 30 S A L Self-Assessment