...Data is the raw facts and statistics collected during the operation of a business whereas Information is the data that is accurate, timely and interpreted and presented for a specific context (Swinburne Online 2014 Week 1). In a business context, this easily interpreted information allows the business to make informed decisions. Using the data to learn about the customers and their behaviours is a key factor to creating and building strong customer relationships and gaining a competitive advantage (Hillard 2010). Living in the information age, where an infinite number of facts are available to anyone with access to the Internet (Baltzan et al. 2010), it is imperative that a business model has a system in place to utilise all the data and information gathered from their customers to help expand their business. While many companies have found ways to collect data, it is data transformation; using the data to drive strategic change, that proves the most difficult (Hillard 2010). Increasingly in today’s day and age, customers are demanding communication and highly personalised service. Amazon is an excellent example of a company that is instrumental in using its collected data in marketing itself as a more efficient and more effective business. Amazon’s mission statement is “to be Earth's most customer-centric company" (Amazon 2014), and progressing from a Web site that sold books to an e-commerce that sells nearly everything, they are doing just that. Asides from tracking customer...
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...Task 1 (e-business) Customer Service takes variety of forms based on the nature of the business and the target market. Electronic business applies to both business to business (B to B) and business to consumer (B to C) organization. B to B are two businesses that work together for the selling and buying of goods and services like a manufacturer serving components on line. Business to business purchasing process is a structured process involving complex decision-making and procedures. Each organization has its purchasing process for B to B. 1.1 Purchasing process for business to business Identifying need or problem Developing product specification sspecs+++++ss+++++++specification++++++++ Searching for prod/supplier Evaluating products and supplier Placing an order Evaluating products and supplier performance performance Follow up on purchase B to C organization. Selling goods and services to customers like Amazon.com serve the customers directly. Amazon Retailer Customer In business to customers, the purchasing process is as follows: B to C buying process Identifying need Looking for information Checking for alternatives Purchase decision Post purchase evaluation Business-to-business (B2B) B2B describes commerce transactions between businesses, such as between a manufacturer and a wholesaler, or between a wholesaler and a retailer. Business-to-consumer (B2C) B2C (sometimes also called Business-to-Customer) describes activities of businesses...
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...Volunteering – The personal benefits Prewriting – For Prewriting this essay, I chose to use brainstorming. I wrote a list of what I felt the benefits of volunteering were as well as different things about volunteering and then used them to create my essay. Draft Are you bored with your life? Do you feel that you want to do something new or more for your community? Volunteering can be a great way for you to meet new people, get involved with your community and feel good. When you volunteer, whether it’s helping others or volunteering on a project or program, what you are doing will benefit an individual person or many people. Volunteering can be a short or long term situation, but whichever you choose, you should make sure that you are able to commit to the time involved. I volunteer at my church. The program that I volunteer in is called Friendship Ministry. With volunteering for the Friendship Ministry, I share God’s love with people who have impairments and help them become an active member of God’s family. Each mentor is assigned a “friend” that they will develop a relationship with. We sit with our friends and have lunch with them and play activities and sing with them while teaching them that we were all made special and are God’s family. We do this the third Sunday of each month. Each mentor interacts with their friends differently, but makes them feel special. I developed a special relationship with my friend Susan. She lives in a group home run by the state...
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...Business Foundations, Assignment #2 Marketing and Social Media/ Financial Management Part One 1. One of the key roles of social media from a marketing management perspective, is to introduce their products and brands to customers (brand awareness), as well as getting customers involved on a long- term basis with their products (brand engagement). Social media marketing is different from traditional marketing because it allows companies to assess the effectiveness of their promotion efforts (return on investment) by considering consumers motivation to use social media, and then measuring the investments customers make engaging with the company/ product. Loyalty programs and rewards are also marketed in a different way using social media. Marketers are able to use apps and web- based platforms in order to allow customers to earn loyalty rewards, and share their consumer habits with others, which encourages brand loyalty and brand recognition. 2. The main objectives of promotion are to make consumers aware of products, inform them about products, make them like the products, and make them purchase the products. Companies are able to use social media to rapidly market their products and services to consumers. They are able to advertise to a large amount of people, in a short amount of time. Social media marketing also allows companies to focus their marketing on specific groups or demographics by using the consumers selfidentified interests in order to market...
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...and concern for people - both now and in the future. This meant that if Shell wanted to stay in business, prosper and grow in the future, it had to find effective ways to incorporate the principles of sustainable development into its business practices - not as an option but as a necessity to survive. Shell reviewed all aspects of its activities in light of what it learned about sustainable development and society's changing expectations towards the behaviour of business. In 1997, Shell decided that, in parallel with its efforts at internal transformation, it would launch a new global, social investment effort that would concentrate on working with external partners to advance sustainable development worldwide. This decision ultimately led to the establishment of the Shell Foundation. Shell’s worldwide social investment initiative promotes sustainable development. Their main aim is to maximize benefit to the society and environment and to have integrity in their operations. The main aim is to maximize benefit to the society and environment and to have integrity in their operations. There are 6 main programs under the Shell Foundation namely: Aspire, Trading UP, Embarq, Breathing Space, Excelerate, and Climate Change ASPIRE: Through a long and close partnership with GroFin - a specialist business developer and financier - Shell Foundation helped pioneer a new business model specifically designed to service the Growth Finance sector. GroFin actively work with local...
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...charity and the public. 2. Major differenceS between 501 (C) (3)tax exempt organization and a 501(C)(7) tax-exempt organization is 501(3) consists of charitable, religious, scientific, literary, educational, testing for public safety and 501(7) consist of social and recreational clubs. Under 501(3) is the opportunity to apply for grants from foundations and government agency which often limit funding to public charities. 3. The NFP organizations that have to file form 990 are all not-for- profit organization except religious organizations and government NFP. Tax continues with gross receipts normally $50,000 or less per year will file a form 990-N e- postcard. Form 990 – EZ will be filed by tax exempt entities with annual gross receipts of between $50,000 and $200,000 and will less than$500,000 in total assets. Larger NFP organizations with file form 990. Private foundations, will prepare annual warm 990 – PF. 4. A private foundation is one that receives its support from a small number of individuals or corporations and investment income rather than from the public at large. It exists to make grants to public charities. Pvt. foundations file an annual form 990-PF and are subject to several excise tax:(1) failure to take certain actions (such as distribute a minimum amount to public charities),(2)for prohibited behavior(such as speculative investing, self-dealing transactions with...
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...A Microfinance MIS XBIS/219 A Microfinance MIS The Business Intelligence Reporting Tool (BIRT) is a software database program that allows maintenance Management System (MMS) reports to be displayed. BIRT is currently a software project within the Eclipse Foundation. The program was initially developed to allow application developers to effortlessly design and incorporate reports into Java-based applications. The ultimate goal of the software is to gather data from several locations, process the data, and present that information to end users (Eclipse Foundation, 2012). The example schema given is for a company called Classic Models which specializes in scale replicas of classic cars. The maintenance management system is a centralized database that provides information vital to a company. In this example, the database consists of eight tables which include offices, employees, customers, orders, order details, payments, products and product lines. BIRT has two key modules which include a visual report designer which creates reports and a runtime component which allows generated reports to be displayed by end users. In the example schema information is provided about sales offices which include contact information such as phone numbers and address. The employee database contains similar contact information as well as what office the employee currently works in, job title, and current manager. The customer...
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...The role of a business in this economy is a market that is a social arrangement that will allow buyers and sellers to discover information and complete voluntary exchanges of goods and their services. With the Commerce, it consists of trading something of the same value such as a good, service, information and or money between two entities. With the business, the management and coordination of the people and their resources to accomplish particular production goals, it is usually for the purpose of making a profit. For us to understand what an important role that a business plays in the economy and the influence on our standard of living, imagine a world in which you personally have to produce everything that we consume. For instance, we would have to grow our own food, sew our own clothes and build our own homes and furniture. It would be totally impossible to complete all of these activities on our own. Because business is present in our economy today, we are able to enjoy many more of the goods and the services that we would take for granted. For instance the food that we eat is either prepared by someone else of already picked for us and we buy it at a store, and our clothes someone has already made them. We just go shopping and buy them and our homes and furniture we go to the store and buy what couch we want and we go house shopping and pick out which one we want. Non- profit organizations are the organizations...
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...Founding Leaders Leadership Contemporary Business Thomas Middleton Dr. Dingman BUS 508 April 19, 2012 Profit Oriented Sam Walton was born in Springfield Missouri during the great depression to Thomas Gibson Walton and Nan Walton. At an early age he had understand the value of a dollar, because during he great depression the kids in the house hold also had to provide what they could to the family income, which Sam did buy delivering newspapers. Sam Walton delivered newspapers from the time he was 5 until he graduated college. The four major influences in his life were, his mother whom educated them and stressed education to their children in-order for them to succeed. His dad whom taught young Sam Walton about the value of a dollar. And the two most important influences in Sam’s life were L.S. Robson Sam’s father-n-law whom was a successful businessman himself taught Sam how to set up businesses within a family organization using different types of business entities such as partnerships and enterprises having their children be the board members and executives within the partnerships, which pays off huge in the later years as far as the success of Wal-Mart. The last influential person whom shaped Sam Walton into the shrewd businessman with the don’t quit attitude was a gentlemen by the name of John Dunham whom was the owner of the rival store in the small town of Newport, Arkansas where young Sam bought...
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...The Madoff investment scandal broke in December 2008, when former NASDAQ Chairman Bernard Madoff admitted that the wealth management arm of his business was an elaborate Ponzi scheme. Madoff founded the Wall Street firm Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC in 1960, and was its Chairman until his arrest.[1][2][3] At his firm he employed his brother Peter as Senior Managing Director and Chief Compliance Officer (Peter has since been sentenced to 10 years in prison), Peter's daughter Shana Madoff as the firm's rules and compliance officer and attorney, and his sons Andrew and Mark (Mark committed suicide by hanging exactly two years after his father's arrest). Alerted by his sons, federal authorities arrested Madoff on December 11, 2008. On March 12, 2009, Madoff pleaded guilty to 11 federal crimes and admitted to operating the largest private Ponzi scheme in history.[4][5] On June 29, 2009, he was sentenced to 150 years in prison with restitution of $17 billion. According to the original federal charges, Madoff said that his firm had "liabilities of approximately US$50 billion".[6][7] Prosecutors estimated the size of the fraud to be $64.8 billion, based on the amounts in the accounts of Madoff's 4,800 clients as of November 30, 2008.[4][8][9] Ignoring opportunity costs and taxes paid on fictitious profits, half of Madoff's direct investors lost no money.[10] It is also the largest accounting fraud in American history. Investigators have determined others were involved...
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...life expectancies. However, all men had one dream, to make America a better place. From oil pipelines to windows operating systems, these men truly did create things that changed the lives of all Americans for the better. They are the unspoken heroes. Not of war or battle, but of ingenuity, hard work and of sound mind. These are America’s Wealthy. Findings John D Rockefeller was born on July 8, 1836. He began with humble beginnings and is a perfect definition of a rags to riches dream that many Americans that try to live by. His life at home was somewhat shaky. His father was never at home very much because he was a traveling salesmen who sold elixirs. In his early teens his family moved to a suburb of Cleveland, there he took a 10 week business course that would help him later in his life as the richest man in America. His first job was with a bookkeeper at a commission firm. He excelled at keeping track of transportation cost. His first salary was $50, but he wanted more much more, he said that he wanted to make $100,000 and live for 100 years. Rockefeller opened his first oil refinery in 1870, and called it the world renowned Standard Oil Company. He eventually started a monopoly that cut out the middle man by having it sent on rail cars and wagons that took it to the local markets, this cut...
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...Personal Responsibility and College Success Mohammad Obeidat GEN/200 Ms Diane Miller-DeSoto March 19th, 2012 Personal Responsibility and College Success “I believe that every right implies a responsibility; every opportunity an obligation; every possession, a duty.” – John D. Rockefeller Personal Responsibility is being responsible for your actions, forecasting all possible consequences and implications of those actions, along with taking care of your family and friends, being held accountable for your tasks, setting a number of reasonable objectives and developing a proper action plan to work towards achieving those objectives, being able to respond in a reasonable and adult like behavior to any unexpected event that might occurs. The connection between Personal Responsibilities and College Success is embedded deep within our day-to-day lives. As a student, it must be taken into consideration that a person's actions have consequences directly related to his/her future, which can be somewhat intimidating if we think about it. This is why people plan; planning can set a track for people to achieve their goals, the responsibility lies within the ability to follow the right track. Here is where the Time Monitor/Time Plan Process adds much needed value. For me, I have noticed some factors that affect my daily planning routine; I consider all of them personal responsibilities. Family is the first and most important factor, for example, in a random case of...
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...What is social entrepreneurship? The animation is made to explain the concept of social entrepreneurship to the general public and raise awareness of the importance of this type of business.... Social entrepreneurship is the attempt to draw upon business techniques to find solutions to social problems.This concept may be applied to a variety of organizations with different sizes, aims, and beliefs. Conventional entrepreneurs typically measure performance in profit and return, but social entrepreneurs also take into account a positive return to society. Social entrepreneurship typically attempts to further broad social, cultural, and environmental goals is often associated with the voluntary sector. At times, profit also may be a consideration for certain companies or other social enterprises. There are continuing arguments over precisely who counts as a social entrepreneur. Thus far, there has been no consensus on the definition of social entrepreneurship, so many different sorts of fields and disciplines are associated with social entrepreneurship. Philanthropists, social activists, environmentalists, and other socially oriented practitioners are referred to as social entrepreneurs. For a clearer definition of what social entrepreneurship entails, it is necessary to set the function of social entrepreneurship apart from other socially oriented activities and identify the boundaries within which social entrepreneurs operate.[4] Some have advocated restricting the term...
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...circumventing its security system”. (Wikipedia) This report will take a look at both the pro’s and con’s of hiring such a person as a security consultant for a business. Over the years there have been countless heated debates as to whether or not doing such would be considered ethical. One of the pro’s of hiring a former hacker to work as a security consultant is that they know all of the tricks of the trade. They have studied and paid great attention to many different techniques and how to apply them to reach the goals set forth to get the job done. Because they were at one time in that mindset, they know what other hackers would be doing and thinking in order to try to breech the companies’ security. (Posey, Brien) Another plus of hiring a hacker is that many of them will work for a substantially less salary than will someone who went to college and paid a pretty penny for their education. Hackers seem to truly love what they do; it can sometimes be considered an addiction. Usually money is not the key motivating factor for hardcore hackers. (Shinder, Deb) There are a couple of negatives when hiring a former hacker as a security consultant. The most obvious negative factor of course is the issue of trust. Of course this may be considered an opinion, but it is a major decision to make when owning a successful business. Many things could potentially be breeched by the hacker therefore leading to bankruptcy of the company, and identity theft of the companies customers, just...
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...Part 1 1. How could a business use information technology to increase switching costs and lock in its customers and suppliers? a. A useful investment in information technology can make customers and supplies more dependent on the use of innovative information systems. This allows the customer or supplier to become more reluctant to pay the cost in time, effort, and inconvenience that it would take to change to the competitor. Also, the relationship the business has with its consumers will deter them from leaving. 2. How could a business leverage its investment in information technology to build strategic IT capabilities that serve as a barrier to new entrants into its markets? b. By investing in more advanced computer-based info system to improve the overall efficiency, businesses will be able to develop newer products or services that could have not otherwise been possible without the information technology capabilities available. Also, by increasing the possible complexity of information technology, the business can often discourage other companies from entering the same market 3. How could a business use Internet technologies to form a virtual company or become an agile competitor? c. In order to form a virtual company, the business most form well developed internets, intranets, and extranets in order to affectively link the people, their assets, and ideas. In order to become more of an agile competitor, the business must follow the four basic...
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