Sourcing Decisions of Arts and Media Organizations Essay

Sourcing Decisions of Arts and Media Organizations - Essay Example Likewise, the process of fund raising and donations has rather become a commercial activity that not only has resulted in more and more charity events but has also created a market within that is funded by such large organizations. The amalgamation of social services and media and arts has been an eminent result. Hence the market for sponsorships has thrived. These can be seen by the famous charity events by BBC and FOX news (Dan 2011). Thus, activities like fundraising, donations and sponsorships are of strategic importance to such organizations which is why sourcing decisions are of integral importance to not only a firm’s financial standing but also to its public relations. It has no become a necessity to get the charity events sponsored or to sponsor a charity event for that matter, as it adds to the reputation and good will of the company. Likewise, firms involved in fundraising are evaluated on the basis of their participation in social activities and on this has become marketing an essential marketing tactics to broaden their customer base and reach of the brand. Fundraising events or sponsorships act as a contact point for several untapped markets and increases brand loyalty of the existing customer base (Pope 2010). Therefore, sourcing decisions are imperative. ... These may include the extended reach of its brand awareness, the objective to increase its brand exposure by having logos placed on the event’s advertisements or simply the motif of profit maximization. These objectives might sometimes conflict with the objective of the firm especially if the event is a charity event (Pope 2010). In that case both the parties will aim for different incentives thus the marketer must provide more substance than just logo pasting. Moreover, the commercial benefit of the sponsor may often be in direct conflict with the firm’s strategic goals. Hence rounds are negotiations are often common when sourcing decisions are made which however incur much costs for the firm (Simmons 2006). Therefore, the most crucial step is the decision to choose from the various candidates. A firm must choose the sponsor who is the best fit with the company’s strategic goals as well as its public image. The Consumer Involvement theory suggests that consumers make purchase decisions based on the level of involvement they have with the brand and includes the aspects of consumer behaviour like amount of time spent on choosing the product or service, research about the specific product or service, asking friends and family etc. therefore, like the advertisements and promotions, sponsorships should be based on such considerations (Krohmer 2011). Given the nature of arts and media products and services, which are high involvement decision making processes involving emotion rather than rational, the sponsorship should be based on consumers’ preferences of the emotional brands that they associate themselves. Hence if an organization is unable to identify the purchase decisions of its

Advertising consumption

Advertising consumption Introduction: With the rapid development of technology, the way people advertise and consume has changed gradually. In the other words, technology is increasing the capacity and practices of consumption and providing more platforms for advertising. Some people argue that it might lead to weak social organisation and solidarity, however, the influence of technology on peoples daily life is inevitable. Take online shopping for example, it is magnificently affecting the traditional consumption habits. More and more consumers are getting used to purchasing online instead of high street shopping. This essay is going to observe how technology has expanded the scope of advertising and the spaces of consumption practices in terms of online shopping. Besides, critical evaluation will be carried out to verify the accuracy and effectiveness of the observation. Analysis: Holt D. (1995) pointed out that the act of consuming is a varied and effortful accomplishment underdetermined by the characteristics of the object. Any products can be typically consumed in a range of different ways by different consumers. Therefore, it is essential to analyse how online shopping is influencing the consumption practices of consumers. Consumption Practices: First of all, online shopping brings us a convenient, fast and time-saving consuming atmosphere, and this is considered to be the major concern of middle class who work eight hours in average, and they dont have much time to spend on shopping. Hence, they treat time like gold, and wish to buy everything they want as short as a few minutes. In traditional shopping pattern, consumers need to spend a large number of energy and time on selecting and comparing various goods in different high street stores. The information about the products often vary due to the misinterpretation of salesmen. Besides, there are always restricts of time and place. Take Newcastle city centre for example, most shops on Northumberland Street close before six oclock. People who work until six will not be able to do any shopping during the weekdays, and the people who live in suburbs where there is no shopping centre nearby will have to waste an hour or more on the way to city centre and back. Online shopping perfectly solves the problem. Shopping can be easily completed within a couple of clicks in anytime and anywhere as long as the customers have internet access. Itunes is a successful online software and platform that provides consumers a convenient way to buy their favourite music. Sometimes, people dont wan to buy the whole album. Instead, theyd like to listen to some specific tracks by different artists. Itune totally satisfy these consumers by offering download of every single track of various artists with a little amount of expenses, and it is really time-saving just a couple of clicks, then the track will be downloaded automatically and ready in a flash of time( depends on the speed of Internet service providers). Secondly, the advantage of online shopping on products price is obvious to obtain, and price is always the most important factor for consumers to consider. Online sales compared to traditional stores, it doesnt require any physical store. Besides, online sales are able to contact directly with upstream suppliers and ask them to send the products to customers when necessary. Hence, no self-storage facilities will be used to store goods so that the cost of logistics and storages can be minimised. In the other words, the total cost of online sales is much lower than the average cost of physical store sales. In addition, online bidding is getting more and more popular as consumers can get the products in an unbelievably low price from time to time. A typical example of online bidding is ebay. Therefore, the retail price online is relatively lower than traditional physical stores, which will be expected to attract more customers. Special promotion or sale will be another reason to shop online. For instance, there is 20% student discount occasionally throughout catalogues on the official website of Topshop/Topman when the customers make the purchase online, meanwhile there is only 10% discount in store for students, and this also reflects the advantage of online shopping on price. After all, no people are willing to pay more for something that is exactly the same. In addition, online shopping provides consumers more comfortable and pleasant shopping atmosphere. During the process of shopping, some consumers require the feelings of pleasure rather than the products themselves, and many of them have experienced various attitudes from different salesmen in physical stores. Those salesmen usually approach customers with smile when they step in the stores and recommend a number of products to the customers when browsing the shop, However, the smile on their faces will fade away with time as the customers dont show any interest on the products they recommend. Most consumers will not be pleased by the way the salesmen persuade them to make the purchase, instead, they want to shop in a Comfortable and pleasant mood. In contrast, those who have shopped online will find consumption via online shopping is a lot easier. They are always free to click on the products they are interested and able to compare different products as often as they want. Besides, they can make the purchase, save the products for later or leave the products without the interference from salesmen by simply clicking on the web pages. Take ASOS for example, customers can quickly find the clothes they want by narrowing down the search results. Besides, these clothes can be displayed in 360 degree, and can be even viewed by real models catwalk what can hardly be seen in physical stores. Furthermore, online shopping brings a customised products consuming platform for the customers who have special requirements. More and more products need to meet the consumers imagination to meet the needs of individual consumers with the development of society. The choices by consumers may no longer be practicalness of the products, but more needs to reflect the values of their own. How to make the products innovative and stimulate curiosity of consumer has become a crucial problem the product developer must consider. Many products sold in online stores can not be found in any physical shopping malls or stores. These unique products usually emphasis on trendy and interesting . They are customised to meet the requirements of every single customers. In online stores, costumers can find a range of special products which are beyond our imagination, from nails to laptops, from furnitures to clothes, every product involved in our daily life can be customised meet peoples needs. For instance, customers will be able to customise their laptop, mobile phone and even gaming consoles by altering their colours on a website called Colourware. There is a wide range of colours to choose and the front, trim or back of your digital devices can even be altered in different colours. Moreover, The prices of these luxury products in the traditional physical stores are relatively more expensive than online boutiques. Online shopping brings the opportunities to get famous brand products with a reasonable price for those label lovers who can not afford the price. As mentioned before, price is the most important factor that consumers should consider. For these people who need to purchase luxury products to show their status and prestige, they think certain products with famous brand will improve the quality of life, and reflects the social status at the same time. There is also another way to satisfy customers vanity, if they can afford these luxury products neither online nor in store : rent them. They dont need spend a lot on these famous labels as better solution is going to save them a great amount of money. In a website called Rent Luxury Bags ,customers can find most luxury bags theyve been dreaming of, and they can rent these bags in a reasonable price. Additionally, these bags can be rent from four week up to a year. Last but not least, all customers are able to put their personal belongings online and sell or trade them as second hand products. In the other word, everything can be commodity as long as the demand of these products exists. Take E-bay for example, millions of second hand products are updated everyday on this online trading platform. Sometimes, it is the only way to get the products when the brand new one is no longer in stock. Advertising: As more and more consumers are getting used to online shopping, advertising is also transforming from offline to online. A great number of online shopping websites are cooperating with social network websites,search engines and email service providers such as Facebook, Twitter, Google, Bing, Hotmail etc in order to maximise the online exposure. When searching a keyword on search engine, all the hyperlinks of relevant products will be listed on the first page of search results, and all the relevant websites who have paid advertising fees to the search engine will be popped up on the advertisement column. Similarly, a range of products with hyperlinks will be recommended on your profile page of Facebook or Twitter according to users search history. To put it in different words, advertisement of online shopping websites can be seen everywhere once you get online. The individual owners of small websites are mainly making money through the website advertising alliance. the form of web advertising alliance was invented by Amazon in 1996. The advertising mode of Amazon advertising alliance is CPS (cost per sell), which means the amount of advertising income will depend on the actual sale figures on the online shopping website. With the moderate acceptance and recognition of CPS advertising mode by consumers , online shopping advertising has gradually become the major advertising method, and the revenue of online shopping advertising is increasing in a magnificent speed . More and more sites have been dug to a online shopping advertising market in order to get a share of this new market. There have been a range of online shopping advertising-based mode to promote different sites. Since online shopping has a large number of users, these owners of small websites also gained sustained, reliable and stable income. Cash back websites are becoming popular among online shopping consumers. Once the users make successful purchases through the links provided by the cash back websites, the online shopping websites offer these cash back websites all or part of the sales commission in the form of cash or points to users. The main advantages of cash back websites in one word is cheaper, as they save more money for the consumers, and the maximum savings may be up to 30%. This is a better way for those consumers who make the purchases online regularly. More importantly, these cash back websites are promoting more than 3000 retailers toward consumers at the same time. The most successful example in UK is Quidco. It is obvious to notice the online retailers on the frontpage of Quidco, such as play.com ebay, orange and so on. As consumers browse Quidco to find the cash back deal for their favourite products, the products on other online retailers have also been browsed. In addition, price comparison websites are another essential way to promote online retailers. A number of relevant products will be picked from different online retailers and listed from lowest price to highest price for the consumers to choose once the keyword is typed in. Price Grabber can be taken as the representative of these websites, and any products from appliances to wines can be search and compared in order to find the cheapest products for customers. Simultaneously, the online retailers who sell cheaper products will be exposed to more customers. It is also a practical online shopping advertising mode that offers users an alternative shopping experience. Furthermore, professional online shopping navigation sites are born to promote various online retailers or physical shops and focus on a certain area such as books, restaurants or travels. These websites publish free of coupons, offers, discounts , promotions, free shipping, and other shopping information about some specific websites or shops regularly. They are capable of gathering a large number of online retailers and physical stores and reorganize them in different categories. The updated information about these retailers can be spreaded to potential customers. These potential customers can reach the product or service pages they are interested in by simply clicking the links the navigation sites provide, and it saves a lot of time for the consumers. These professional navigation sites are practical online shopping advertising mode, and they provide a simple, easy, clear way to shop online. For instance, My Voucher Codes provide a wide range of promotional codes, e-vouchers or discount codes , which will offer consumers a discount or money off the listed retail price of many goods, at a variety of different online UK retailers. Moreover, online retailers can be exposed via products review sites. This type of sites mainly focus on film, television, books or restaurants, and guide users to make a purchase through the comment on a particular commodity by other consumers. The interaction between customers on these sites are relatively strong, and it will provoke potential customers to buy the products online shopping customers via the feedbacks from other users in order to achieve the promotion. Students will be expected to be the largest group of potential users of this kind of site. Evaluation: April 2009, the European Commission in Brussels hosted the first summit of European consumers, the them of the meeting is the opportunities and challenges in digital age. A copy of Euros statistics on online shopping was released during the meeting. These data were from family, personal use of information and communication technology survey in twenty seven European countries. According to the statistics on Euro Online Shopping Industry Report(2009), about one-third of customers in European countries have the experience of making the purchase online in 2008, the most popular consumptions online are tourism and clothing . In 2008, the individual consumers between the ages of 16-74, about 32% of the purchase or order through the network are personal goods or services. In recent years, the proportion of individuals online shopping steady growth (in 2004 was 20% in 2006 to 26%, 30% in 2007.) Basically speaking, all EU member showed a growth in online shopping. The majority of the 27 European countries, the most frequent consumer groups in online shopping is 25-34 years (representing the number of age 47%), while in Malta, Slovenia, Slovakia and Bulgaria, age group of online shopping is 16-24 years old. In the 16-24 years old and 35-44 year-olds, online shopping is increasing moderately, the percentage is as high as 41% and 40%. In the 45-54 year-old ,55-64-year-old 65-74 years old, the online shopping rate gradually decreased, respectively, 31%, 20% and 9%. In 2008, the most products and services consumed online are travel and holiday products (14% of individual consumers have purchased or ordered such products in the past 12 months), followed by clothing and sporting goods (13%) Books and magazines (12%), household items or event tickets (both 11%), film and music products (9%), electronic products (8%). In Denmark, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Germany, Sweden and Finland, more than half of consumers conducted online shopping. 16-74 year-olds, over 59% of the Danish people have the experience of online shopping, meanwhile in UK is 57%, 56% in the Netherlands, Germany and were 53% in Sweden , 51% in Finland. Among European Union countries, travel clothing and sporting goods occupy the highest proportion in Finland, these two were 31% and 27%, the highest proportion in purchasing of books and magazines is in Luxembourg (29%), purchase rate of home supplies and the highest proportion of electronic products in Germany were 26% and 18%, the highest percentage of purchase event tickets is in Denmark (28%), purchase products, movies and the United Kingdom occupies the highest proportion of music purchase (24%). Based on the online shopping statistics in the UK for November 2009 and February 2010 quarter (Harris G, 2010), the top ten e-commerce sites for that quarter are: Amazon.co.uk, Argos, Play.com, Apple Computer, Amazon.com, Tesco, Marks Spencer, John Lewis, Next and Easyjet. Among these sites above, most of them have been massively exposed via a range of online shopping advertising. The more these online retailers promote, the more customers will be. Besides, the comments about their products on product review sites are mainly positive, and this will have the influence on potential customers decision making. For those companies who have physical stores like Tesco, Marks Spencer or John Lewis, online shops have increased their share in online shopping industry, and customers now can enjoy the products from them anywhere and anytime. Although these companies have been existing for years, a number of customers would still like to purchase their products in an alternative and convenient way. According to the analysis by Redfern A. (2007), the UK online advertising industry has spent over  £2,015.8 billion pounds for the full year of 2006, occupied approximately 11.4% share of the UK advertising industry. This indicates the growth of online shopping advertising is affecting advertising industry and motivate more companies to establish online shops and promote their products in an alternative way. Besides,  £30.2 billion pounds have been spent online during 2006, and 19.7 million people are used to shop online in the UK, spending shopping basket of  £652 each in the past couple of months in average. It is assumed that by the end of 2011, 32 million domestic consumers will start their first shopping online, and the value of commodities they purchase online will be around 52 billion pounds in 2011. Hence, the amount customers spend online will be expected to double in five years, and more people will be persuaded to make the purchase online by the regular consumers who have been doing online shopping for a long time. Conclusion: In conclusion, technology did expanded the scope of advertising and the spaces of consumption practices. It is changing peoples life in every possible way, and is challenging traditional advertising and consumption practices. The revolution of shopping from physical stores to online retailers is inevitably taking place, and choices for online shopping advertising is moderately increasing. It is expected that more consumers will start shopping online and dont need to spend great amount of time on searching for the products they are interested in the future. On the contrary, these products will be able to find the consumers via online shopping advertising.

Spanish Civil war guide to writing essay :: essays research papers

DARK RIVER DARK MOUNTAIN Our attention was suddenly caught by the activity near the shooters hut. A van had stopped and a group of men were lifting out a lot of equipment.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  I thought that the men must be here to open the cave, which had been closed for many years now. The men, with their equipment, headed for the cave. I knew that although they were experienced, it would be very hard to get into the entire cave, as it was through very small holes and gaps.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The Major, myself and a few other people walked behind the men, slowly. While walking, I thought of Marthe, being taken out of the cave after so many years. I saw Marthe in my head as if it was not many years ago. We finally reached the cave and everyone there gathered round to watch.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The men were ready to open the cave, my cave, or at least it used to be my cave. As they entered the cave, I remembered when I last saw and spoke to Marthe. As I was thinking of her, I also thought of when I touched her hand in the cave. Thinking of her so much quite upset me.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Suddenly I remembered Marthe’s secret. No one else knew, although they may have suspected, but Marthe was the spy and she used to help the foreign parachutists.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  I told the men that I had discovered the cave and that it would be easier if I showed them the way as I had been before and I was also a trained pot-holer.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  I entered the cave with the men behind me. We walked along silently until we got to the point where I had last touched Marthe. We all stopped and the men looked down to where Marthe was but no one could see very much. I put a torch on and pointed it down the gap to see the best way to get down. After a few minutes, I explained to the men what we should do and they started to tie ropes and prepare themselves. As the men went down, one by one, I, again, thought of Marthe. Finally, it was my turn to lower myself down through the cave. I went down very slowly. When I reached the bottom, I looked around and as I moved the light of my torch, I could hear bats flying around.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The men spread out looking for any signs of Marthe.

Organizational Behavior – Eden Mccallum

1. If you were a partner at Eden McCallum what would you do – grow or cut? If I were a partner at Eden McCallum I would cut. Eden McCallum was started during a great time where they had a smooth market entry and a keen business strategy. While their business strategy is still working to their advantage, poor market conditions continue to exist and many of the firm’s clients are starting to feel the economic pressure. The firm has already â€Å"faced increasing demands to cut fees. [ (Gardener & Eccles, 2009) ] This fact, coupled with the consultant’s fear of lack of security, indicates that Eden McCallum should consider making organizational changes that would support the concerns of both parties. According to the firm’s corporate vision on value, clients come first and consultants come second. [ (Gardener & Eccles, 2009) ] Eden McCallum should make sure that they stay in line with their corporate vision when making considerations to cut. They should focu s on cutting as many areas that do not directly affect the client and the consultant. I would recommend that they cut the part-time employees and the new staff members to start since it takes one to two years to learn the business. Another value of their corporate vision is to focus on the long term, and the short term will take care of itself. [ (Gardener & Eccles, 2009) ] Focusing on the long term for Eden McCallum would include keeping the Amsterdam office knowing that it â€Å"is on the cusp of breaking even† and knowing that if they did not they would be losing credibility within the market. (Gardener & Eccles, 2009) ] However, I believe that long term goals could hurt short term profits which will, in turn, hurt long term profits. According to the growth figures provided, Eden McCallum should look at reducing overhead; and limiting the number of partners to reduce salaries paid. 2. At the outset of the case, Advisory Board Member, Robert Harris, said, â€Å"One rarely regrets cutting too early or too deep. † Do you agree with Harris? Why or why not ? One rarely regrets cutting too early or too deep† is interpreted as the â€Å"better safe than sorry† approach. I agree with Harris under the circumstances presented to us in this case that it would be better to play it safe with the financials of the company becoming fragile. The goal of the firm should be to minimize loss. In an uncertain marketplace where factors such as the possibility of a double-dip recession, the partners should consider making cuts sooner than later and in more depth to minimize the sting. To make cutbacks sooner may be resisted by some partners, however, Harris’ point is that the company wouldn’t regret it because it did what was best for the company at that time. 3. Was the organizational structure at Eden McCallum appropriate? Do economic conditions factor into your answer? The organizational structure of Eden McCallum is appropriate for the size and type of organization it represented. Eden McCallum is a functional organization with its environmental change viewed as stable and its complexity as simple. Should environmental change be necessary, the simplicity of its structure will allow for a smoother implementation of the change. Its structure includes professional bureaucracy as clients have specialized needs and consultants offered specialized solutions due to the knowledge-based nature of their work. Eden McCallum has a cellular organizational form in that it the company itself is serves as a coordinator of the relationships between the clients and the business professionals known as consultants. Economic conditions are a factor because it could cause an organization to restructure itself as the supply and demand of the industry changes. Bibliography Gardener, H. K. , & Eccles, R. G. (2009). Eden McCallum: A Network-Based Consulting Firm (A). Boston: Harvard Business School Publishing.

Revenue allocation Essay

Revenue means income. Allocation means to divide. Revenue allocation is defined as the division of available resources within an organisation or company. At a broader level, it is the process of assigning a cost to the amount of services and products generated. Government revenue is obtained from taxes, licenses and fees and allocated to public facilities. Because of the current revenue allocation formula In Nigeria, though there is a great deal of wealth In the country from the oil Industry, 64% of the population lives below the poverty line. While the federal government akes over half of all the money In the Nigerian federal account, little has been done to promote welfare and development projects that would benefit the general public. According to the Nigerian Revenue Moblllzatlon Allocation and Fiscal Commission, a new revenue allocation formula Is In the works, but It remains to be seen If these measures are enough to remedy the problem. When Nigeria’s maverick CBN Governor recently In an Interview Justified the sadlstlc, sub-human and horrific terrorist activities going on In the North of Nigeria by attributing It to the fact that 011 evenue was being unfairly shared on the basis of derivation primarily instead of population which is the North’s competitive advantage, I was shocked that such a flawed argument could come from such a respected Nigerian whose controversial reform of the Nigerian banking sector has won him praises and awards locally and internationally. SLS traced the root cause of terrorism in the North to grinding poverty in the North which he claims was caused by Nigeria’s use of the derivation principle instead of population as the primary yardstick for allocating revenue among he states. He believes that this preference for the derivation principle has short- changed the North and disadvantaged it. I totally disagree with SLS and will articulate in this article my reasons for disagreeing with him and my suggestions on the way forward for Nigeria using history as a guide to arrive at what I believe is a Just solution that will be favourable to all.