...1. Answer: The United States service sector is currently expanding according to the Non-Manufacturing Index (NMI) found at ISM Report on Business and by analyzing recent US GDP and inflation rates. Per the report, the NMI is registered at 54 % in January 2014. With an NMI greater than 50% we can conclude NMI is expanding. A comparison of NMI over the last 12 months shows an average of 54.6% and a median of 54.5%, also confirming the assumption of expansion. Non-Manufacturing Business Activity Index shows a two percent increase since December and the New Orders Index increased half a percent indicating business expenditures are expanding. The Employment Index, another important economic indicator of growth, also increased year over year. In addition to these factors, the Supplier Deliveries Index indicated slower deliveries compared with December 2013. This is a normal trend during after- holiday period. Non-Manufacturing Inventories Index, Prices Index, Non-Manufacturing Inventory Sentiment Index have increased, further providing evidence of economic expansion. Even with all the positive indications of expansion, Backlog of Orders Index, Imports Index and New Export Orders Index demonstrated contraction. Now let’s talk about US GDP growth for the last few years: in 2012 GDP demonstrated 2.8 % increase, in 2013 GDP increased 1.9%. GDP is important factor which represents economy growth trend and should be considered along with inflation rates. Inflation has shown...
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...1. Describe Village Volvo’s service package. To answer the question we must first identify what a service package is. The service package is defined as a bundle of goods and services that is provided in some environment. It consists of these 5 features: Supporting facility, Facilitating goods, Information, Explicit and Implicit services. All these features are experienced by the customer and form his/her perception of the service. Village Volvo is a company located in a new steel structured building (Butler building) in the suburbs. Since it is not centrally located, a shuttle service couple times a day is considered. The building consists of four workstations, an office, storage room and well equipped waiting area that provides comfortable chairs, light refreshments, TV and reading materials and. This area is used almost exclusively by clients who come in during the drop in time to make them comfortable while waiting. The physical presence of recourse that must be in place before a service can be offered falls under the first requirement of service package – supporting facility. Village Volvo represents two former authorized Volvo dealers that combined their 22 years of experience, training, reputation and satisfied customers to create one independent operation. The company provides a repair service on out of warranty Volvo vehicles at a reasonable cost. Their approach is a little different than you would find at your local dealer. They created a specific time of...
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...Case Study: Village Volvo CASE 2.1 Shahrzad 20121014 Zahra 20121016 Index • Introduction about Village Volvo • Village Volvo’s Service Package • Distinctive characteristic of Service firm • Characterize Nature of Service act • Characterize Relationship customers • Characterize Customization and judgment • Characterize Nature of demand and supply • Characterize Method of service delivery • Village Volvo back-office management • Village Volvo Versa Volvo Dealers • Conclusion Introduction about Village Volvo and their mission statement The mission of the Village Volvo is to profit from the sale of automobiles, parts and services. They are seeking to achieve this by creating an environment for their customers of comfort, reliance and respect. This environment will be formed by the continued emphasis on employee satisfaction, which leads to greater efficiency and productivity through employee retention. They aim their employees to establish a daily goal of anticipating and satisfying the customers’ needs in order to build a relationship-based business, which develops an ever-growing customer base. 1. Describe Village Volvo service package. Village Volvo provides quality repair at a reasonable cost for out of warranty Volvos. Car owners can visit for Routine Services such as tune-ups and oil change or for diagnosis and repairing specific problems in an estimated time. They have CCVD which is Custom...
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...Information Technology (IT) and E-commerce in general as well as in selected industry. For this report, the selected industry is Volvo. The applications of information technology and changes in supply chain using e-logistics are discussed elaborately in this report. This report also clearly draws about the supply chain strategy used in Volvo. In addition, use of electronic commerce is well discussed followed by the uncertainties faced by the Volvo and the overcoming of uncertainty by Volvo. This report ends up with the conclusion. TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION 3 APPLICATIONS OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY 3 APPLICATIONS OF ELECTRONIC COMMERCE 4 BENEFITS OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY IN SUPPLY CHAIN 5 LITREATURE REVIEW ON INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY 6 CHANGES IN SUPPLY CHAIN USING E-LOGISTICS 7 ABOUT VOLVO 8 SUPPLY CHAIN STRATEGY OF VOLVO 9 APPLICATION OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY IN VOLVO 11 APPLICATION OF E-COMMERCE IN...
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...Production line The factory of Renault Trucks Vénissieux assembles the 6-cylinder engine blocks of 9 and 11L, which are routed to Sweden where the business unit of five brands of the Volvo Group is installed. The “main” engines (engine block, cylinder head, crankshaft, camshaft and crankcase) are performed by the Volvo Group's business units while the supply of other parts (the circuits of oil, gas, electric ...) is from 680 external suppliers. The Engine of 9 and 11L of all the brands of Volvo Group operates in plant Vénissieux. The plant operates five days a week. The engine factory Vénissieux covers 10,000 m² and engine assembly operations are spread over two production lines, each 15 meters: the line ¾ and the line ¼. Each piece assembled has a serial and manufacturing number, which is common to all suppliers of Renault Trucks, to ensure the traceability of engines and to facilitate communication between the various stakeholders. This system of EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) also allows the company to gain speed. The causes of malfunction of an engine due to incorrect assemblage of the pieces can easily be identified and corrected in accordance with the Group's quality policy. Workers have 3 or 4 roles at the same time in the Assembly line. On the main assembly line, several robots are very important. These robots perform tasks in such quality that it would be impossible to assign this task to a human being. They are checking the robots work very often to make sure...
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...SPECIAL REPORT The Shakti Revolution How the world’s largest home-to-home operation is changing lives and stimulating economic activity in rural India BY GAVIN NEATH AND VIJAY SHARMA R O J A M M A I S A S I N G L E M OT H E R with two daughters living in Kurumurthy, a small rural village 150 kilometres south west of Hyderabad in Andhra Pradesh. Until five years ago she scraped an existence by working in her mother’s field, earning barely enough to live on herself, let alone bring up two children. Then her life changed beyond recognition. Today she earns around 650 rupees (US$16) a month, is widely recognized and respected in her community, and has become a role model for other women wanting to raise themselves out of poverty. What changed was a visit to her village by a representative from Hindustan Unilever and her decision to become a Project Shakti entrepreneur. Hindustan Unilever, the Indian arm of global consumer goods company Unilever, is one of India’s leading businesses, with an annual turnover of US$2.3 billion and a history in India stretching back a hundred years. It markets such well-known international brands as Lipton, Lifebuoy, Surf, Vim and Pond’s, as well as local brands, such as Kissan, Annapurna, Lakme and Wheel. Unilever has always held the firm belief that the private sector can contribute to social development by creating win-win solutions to social challenges through innovative strategies that meet both business and social objectives. It was this...
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...ILLUMINA ’11 PRESENTS “SWADES” We, the people MavericksAbhishake Dixit Animesh Ankit Dubey Ashish Gauba Paresh Adnani Saurav Labana Sudeep Shouche 1 TABLE OF CONTENTS Game Objectives.....................................................................................................................................3 Relevance of the Theme.........................................................................................................................4 The Plot…………........................................................................................................................................5 The Characters.............................................................................................................................. 6 The Game Structure .............................................................................................................................. 7 Scene I…………..........................................................................................................................................7 Scene II………….......................................................................................................................................7 Scene III…………....................................................................................................................................... 7 Information To Be Gathered............................................................................................................
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...solutions that Small Business Owners are seeking and the marketing efforts through our nation wide network of entrepreneurs that are seeking to move to a work/live environment that is provided by Officehomes™. Officehomes™ helps communities to build the “Social Capital” infrastructure needed to attract knowledge workers, and then helps the tenants take advantage of the cost efficiencies provide through the aggregation of PEOPLE, PRODUCTS, INFORMATION, SERVICE & SPACE. There are literally 100’s of companies and organizations that offer the parts that are needed to build a successful community. Officehomes™ brings all these parts together under one roof so that a critical mass of thought leaders can get the ball moving in your city, town, village or neighborhood. Thank you for your consideration, Craig Pravda, President LifestYle Brokers Inc. LifestYle Brokers Inc. designs and markets IDEAS that “Build Community and Strengthen Identity”. VANCOUVER, B.C. / NEW YORK, N.Y. W: (662) 634-0007 / C: (917) 913-0009 Feature Article: What Attracts Knowledge Workers To A Community? The challenge facing every community and region today is how to adapt to the new global economy that depends on knowledge, creativity, and innovation. “It is becoming increasingly clear that the key to a thriving innovation-based...
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...Geographic Segmentation Given the fact that people living in urban areas demand more of high-tech product as compared to people in suburban area, geographically our product is more desirable in urban area than suburban area. In addition, the income level and population are both higher in urban area. Demographic Segmentation We could use multivariate demographic segmentation, which is to combine the age and education variables to segment their market for our product. Our target market could be the young people between 18 to 34 years old and with an education level of at least a tertiary studies. The reason to select this target market is that they are a very important part of today’s society and make up a huge percentage of population. In addition, current trends also shown that people who hold higher education qualifications will normally be employed in higher-skilled job. They earn higher income yet with lesser work time. Therefore they have more time for leisure and exercise at a higher price. As a result, this segment of market would be more profitable overall. Psychographic Segmentation People’s attitude towards buying our product is affect by their lifestyle. People who enjoy using our product are creative and fashion-follower. They like to try new things and described themselves as technologically sophisticated. On top of that, these people are high-end and tech-savvy, who is often a business user. They have grown up with computers, email, and instant...
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...Analysis on the Business Opportunities Article: A village in a million The article, “A village in a million” written by “The economist” on December 16th 2010, shows a great insight into the Indian culture, highlighting with it the job opportunities that are beginning to arise as the country modernizes and with it how long-held and deeply embedded traditions are on the verge of becoming extinct. Shahabpur is a small village located in eastern Uttar Pradesh, India. For centuries defined by its ancient ways and unique and diverse culture it is slowly being modernized. Shahabpur is located very close to the tracks and therefore not far from cities such as Mumbai. As the world progresses at a rapid rate coincidentally so does India. The farming in Shahabpur doesn’t bring in enough income, realising this many fathers send their children to work in factories in bigger cities, such as Mumbai furthermore many fathers are giving up their agricultural ways and moving towards factory work too, bringing in as much as 200rupees a day, twice what they can bring in back home. The business opportunities that arise from this vast movement to industrial work, is the opening of many more stores in Shahabpur bazaar and the increased exchange in money. As money comes in, Shahabpur is growing; three local schools have been set up, with more children being able to attend because of increased financial stability in the family. Parents are now realising the importance of education...
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...Many years ago three soldiers, hungry and weary of battle, came upon a small village. The villagers, suffering a meager harvest and the many years of war, quickly hid what little they had to eat and met the three at the village square, wringing their hands and bemoaning the lack of anything to eat. The soldiers spoke quietly among themselves and the first soldier then turned to the village elders. "Your tired fields have left you nothing to share, so we will share what little we have: the secret of how to make soup from stones." Naturally the villagers were intrigued and soon a fire was put to the town's greatest kettle as the soldiers dropped in three smooth stones. "Now this will be a fine soup", said the second soldier; "but a pinch of salt and some parsley would make it wonderful!" Up jumped a villager, crying "What luck! I've just remembered where some's been left!" And off she ran, returning with an apronful of parsley and a turnip. As the kettle boiled on, the memory of the village improved: soon barley, carrots, beef and cream had found their way into the great pot, and a cask of wine was rolled into the square as all sat down to feast. They ate and danced and sang well into the night, refreshed by the feast and their new-found friends. In the morning the three soldiers awoke to find the entire village standing before them. At their feet lay a satchel of the village's best breads and cheese. "You have given us the greatest of gifts: the secret of how to make...
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... ) *+ #, - CRITERIA FOR SELECTION OF VILLAGES CRITERIA FOR SL.NO SELECTION OF VILLAGE B A WEIGHTAGE FORMULA (MAXIMUM=5 POINTS) 1 2 3 4 5 C D E F G 1 BPL HH Intensity 10-20% 20-40% 40-60% 60-80% 80-100% 2 Remoteness (Distance from Dt. HQ) <20KM 20-40KM 40-60KM 60-80KM >80KM 3 Proximity to the RF (indicative of forest 800 mts-1 Km dependency) 600-800 mts 400-600 mts 200-400 mts 200 mts 4 Extent of natural resource base 10-20% degraded 20-40% degraded 40-60% degraded 60-80% degraded Maximum degraded with no tree cover 5 Proximity to DEF establishment for better assistance 3 Km 2-3KM 1-2KM 500mts-1KM 200-500 mts . )/• • • 0 * "+ 1 + Improve forest productivity to strengthen the natural resource base for communities. 1 • • • • ! # 2 3 + # Capacity building of Department of Environment and Forest (DEF) for improved service delivery. Preparation of IEC material Budgetary allocation: Rs 13. 45 crores ! ! & '( '4 5 2 7 6 + & 26 + & 6 8 6 + ! + + 0 * 8 0 " ; ! 9# % : 6 & 8! & 26 ; + ! & 0 ! $ ! + " + # ! + 8! < # # 9 8 ) * 3 " & 26 # SEQUENCING AND SCHEDULING OF THE PLANNING PROCESS FOR NARMIL SL. NO ACTIVITY Selection of the Districts B SUB-PROJECT PLANNING Kamrup Nagaon DFO, field staff, participated in the selection of the villages which is based on the criteria (section ???) and established willingness of the community SCHEDULE 15 villages PROJECT LEVEL PLANNING 1 Target Nodal...
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...had no problem raising money and these pumps were installed in various villages. Although it seemed like a great idea to many, it turns out these devices were underutilized in these villages. In fact, it almost became a chore to operate, as kids did not want to play with them. This was a prime example of development ideas that grow to failure due to lack of understanding with the developing area. In the late 90’s, MIT Economics professor Michael Kramer worked in Kenya to distribute textbooks. However, through a controlled study experiment, he found that this had little to no effect on overall academic performance on students there. Kramer hypothesized that academic struggles were not caused by problems within the classroom, but outside of it. He came up with a project to eradicate stomach worms within children. The project was successful – absence rates fell by 25%, kids got taller, and friends/families got healthier. When testing these children later, they had more education and higher salaries. This was also much more cost efficient than the textbook distribution project. There was a 60-1 ratio between bump in lifetime wages to cost of treatment for kids on the deworming project. Kramer founded the NGO, Deworm the World. The eradication of stomach worms in children took place around the world in developing countries. However, questions arose as to whether something that worked within a small village will also scale within nations and continents. A controlled study showed...
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...Jamaal James International Marketing Case 2-2: Fair and Lovely Just as tanning plays a huge role in most of the Western countries; in India Skin lightening treatments are becoming increasingly popular. The Indian people perceive fairer complexion females to be more dominant and respected. Therefore skin-lightening treatments became a huge industry which was dominated by Fair & Lovely from Hindustan Lever Ltd (HLL). They were responsible for 90 percent of the market shares until CavinKare Ltd launched Fairever, which grew and gained 15 percent shares in the market. Wanting to regain their dominance in the market HLL decided to put out their new campaign ads which to the All India Women’s Democratic Association (AIWDA) basically conveyed the message that “if she is not fair in color, she won’t get married or wont get promoted.” This of course created a huge problem in India, which forced HLL to switch their campaign strategies and pay more respect to the women of India and their culture. 1. I think it is very clear to say that HLL was ethical in most of its campaign to sell its’ product. The country and culture has had a huge demand for skin lightening treatments for a long time; HLL has done nothing wrong but tried to give the people what they truly desire. Many women think that their skin tone will define them as a woman in society, therefore they are willing to seek any means to acquire what they believe is the perfect skin tone. HLL saw a great opportunity, took...
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...Name: Oladeji Oluwatomisin Student number: 999929323 Course code: GGR 207 Instructor: Dr. Jason Cooke September 29th 2014 Topic: What is a City? There are various ways to define a city either it be from a historical, contemporary, administrative or economic viewpoint. For the purpose of this analysis, a city is defined as a large permanent settlement, which is usually dense and highly populated relative to rural villages and towns, and they are made up of heterogeneous people. As recently as a hundred years ago, only 2 in 10 people lived in cities, but now we have 54% of the world population living in cities or urban areas. The history of cities date back to the time hunter-gatherers roamed the earth. After a few years, this led to semi permanent settlements, and with the invention of irrigation, this led to specialization of other areas and the development of cities as settlements became permanent. As more jobs and opportunities became available in cities, people from the villages moved to the cities, and this accounts for the dense characteristic of most cities. The first cities are thought to have started around 3500BC in lower Mesopotamia after the Neolithic revolution or the agricultural revolution, as agriculture is believed to be a pre requisite for city development. Urbanism can be described as the way cities grow or develop. There are various characteristics of a city; some include population size and density, social stratification, economic production...
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