16 Substitutes for Because or Because Of

16 Substitutes for Because or Because Of 16 Substitutes for â€Å"Because† or â€Å"Because Of† 16 Substitutes for â€Å"Because† or â€Å"Because Of† By Mark Nichol Many words or phrases can be used to set up an explanation. The most common is because (or â€Å"because of†), but others have their uses. Here are alternatives and a discussion of their uses and their merits. 1. As: As is a direct synonym for because (for example, â€Å"He opted not to go see the movie, as it had gotten poor reviews†), but it’s inferior. 2. As a result of: This phrase is a substitute for â€Å"because of,† not because, as in â€Å"As a result of his intervention, the case was reopened and they were ultimately exonerated.† 3. As long as: This informal equivalent of because is used to express the thought that given that one thing is occurring or will occur or is true, another is possible, in such statements as â€Å"As long as you’re going, could you pick some things up for me?† 4. Being as (or being as how or being that): This phrase has the same sense and the same formality as â€Å"as long as.† 5. Considering that: This phrase is essentially identical in meaning to â€Å"as long as† and â€Å"being as† and its variants. 6. Due to: Like â€Å"as a result of,† â€Å"due to† is a preposition, rather than a conjunction like because, and is used in place not of because alone but instead of â€Å"because of.† It applies specifically to an explanation of why something occurred or will or will not occur, as in â€Å"Due to the large number of applications, we cannot respond individually to each applicant.† 7. For: This substitute for because is reserved for poetic usage, as in â€Å"Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.† 8. Inasmuch as: This phrase is a very formal equivalent of because, as in â€Å"Inasmuch as his account has been discredited, I wouldn’t believe anything else he says.† 9. In view of the fact that: This phrase is identical in sense to â€Å"inasmuch as.† 10. Now that: This phrase informally connotes cause and effect, as in â€Å"Now that you’re here, we can proceed.† 11. Out of: This phrase applies to explanations of emotion or feeling for example, â€Å"She asked out of compassion† or â€Å"Out of spite, I refrained from passing the message along.† 12. Owing to: This phrase is equivalent to â€Å"due to†; the two choices are more formal than â€Å"because of.† 13. Seeing that: This phrase is identical to â€Å"considering that.† 14. Since: This alternative to because is informal and is considered inferior because since primarily refers to elapsed time and the usage might be confused, as in â€Å"Since it had rained, we didn’t need to water the garden†; the reader might not realize until reading the second half of the sentence that the sense is causal rather than temporal. 15. Thanks to: This equivalent of â€Å"because of,† despite the wording, can apply to either a positive or a negative outcome; â€Å"Thanks to your meddling, we’re receiving much unwanted attention† demonstrates the latter sense. 16. Through: Through is a preposition; it takes the place of â€Å"because of,† as in â€Å"Through the efforts of these charities, the city’s homeless services have been reinstated.† Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Expressions category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:How to Format a UK Business LetterExpanded and Extended6 Foreign Expressions You Should Know

AndAlso and OrElse VB.NET Basic Logical Operators

AndAlso and OrElse VB.NET Basic Logical Operators VB.NET features two logical operators that help make your programming ... well ... more logical. The new operators are AndAlso and OrElse and they add a lot to the old And and Or operators. Whats New AndAlso and OrElse have some properties that enhance your code in ways that previous VB versions couldnt match. They offer advantages in two general categories: You can avoid executing part of a logical expression to avoid problems.You can optimize code by not executing any more of a compound expression than required. AndAlso and OrElse are pretty much like And and Or except that they will short circuit an expression once the outcome is guaranteed. Example Suppose youre coding a test of a calculation result like this: The if expression generates a divide by zero error in VB 6 because Value3 is zero. (But see the Quick Tip on divide by zero for more on that.) It could be that the cases that result in Value3 being zero are very rare and only occur when youre enjoying a vacation a thousand miles away so you can be called back to fix the program in an emergency mode. (Hey! It happens!) Lets recode the program as a .NET program using AndAlso and see what happens. After changing And to AndAlso, the program works! The reason is that the last part of the compound If condition- (value 2 \ value3)- is never actually executed. When you use AndAlso, VB.NET knows that the expression cant succeed once it is determined that the first part of the condition- a is not greater than Value1- is false. So VB.NET stops evaluating the expression right there. A similar example could be constructed using OrElse. This analysis also suggests how you can add some efficiency to your code by arranging a compound logical expression correctly. If you place the expression that is most likely to be false in the leftmost position when using AndAlso, you can prevent execution cycles from being used to evaluate the rightmost expression. In a single test, it wouldnt make enough difference to be worth even thinking about. But if your test is inside a loop of some kind and is executed zillions of times, it could make a big difference. Knowing about these two new VB .NET logical operators can help you avoid very subtle errors or achieve subtle efficiencies.

TD 4 MGT- 412 Employee Benefits Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

TD 4 MGT- 412 Employee Benefits - Essay Example Tom Baker & Jonathan Simon combine the ideas of different authors and present them in the form of a book to deal with the changing culture of insurance and organizational responsibility. The commentaries presented in this book discusses the significant changes in insurance including the expansion of the social insurance sector, advanced social security program, then formation of programs such as Medicaid, Medicare, and natural disaster insurance, (Baker & Simon, 2002). The Employee Benefits Law Report (2015), it reveals a serious debate about Obamacare and questioning the functionality of Affordable Care Act. The American Supreme Court determined a case between King v. Burwell, that raised the issue the composition of the terminologies in the body of ACA imply that subsidies payable by the state to cover the cost of health care are only obtainable to those living in the U.S and have formed their healthcare exchanges. The plaintiff’s arguments were that the subsidies should not be given to citizens who have established their medical care exchanges. The concern, in this case, is the millions of Americans would lose medical cover if they lose the right to the subsidies. Mchugh, R. (2015). Employee Benefits Law Report | Reporting on Recent Trends and Developments Affecting Employee Benefits. Employeebenefitslawreport.com. Retrieved 5 April 2015, from

Opportunities and risks of FDI in China Dissertation

Opportunities and risks of FDI in China - Dissertation Example ...........................11 Discussions†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦....................................................15 Conclusions†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦..†¦.†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.16 Recommendations†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.17 Bibliography†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.19 Appendices†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚ ¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦22 Abstract Over the last twenty years or so, Foreign Direct Investment in China has been successful. It started with a base of approximately nineteen million dollars in 1990 and by 1999; the stock of FDI had risen to three hundred billion dollars. China is the leading country among all developing countries in terms of FDI stock. Its FDI consists of Greenfield investment. Initially, the stock of FDI in China originated from Asia among other parts of the developing world. FDI has varying meanings when it comes to its application in different social and political grounds. For instance, in china, the notion of FDI has positive and negatives impacts depending on geographical locations of individuals, cultural beliefs and area of operation (private or public sector). Since 1980s, China has been gro uped among the countries that have been able to reap the benefits of FDI. For instance, in the past two decades or so, China’s economic growth rate has been increasing as the economy tries to move from the command economy to a market-based economy. This growth rate has been made possible by trade liberalization that has been ongoing across the globe. Introduction China is a Middle East country that has undergone a rapid economic growth rate in the recent past. In the past decade the economy has been experiencing a positive economic growth rate estimated at 12%. In conjunction with the economic growth rate, the government has decided to engage itself in numerous developmental activities for instance, infrastructure building, development of the financial sector, and technological advancement. The rate of growth has so far been stable and it is expected to remain the same in the foreseeable future. China has not been left behind in terms of FDI and it is actually among the count ries in the world that have managed to keep pace with the changes in the global world. However, Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) is a concept and a phenomenon that has gone beyond economies boundaries to encompass socio-cultural and political aspects. According to Fiss and Hirsch (2005), FDI in Chinese context means, â€Å"the emergence of capitalism, democratization, or globalization is marked by discursive struggles over their social and cultural impacts, and the outcome of these struggles may facilitate or impede the transformation’s widespread acceptance† p29. There are several research studies that have been conducted on FDI in china but very little have been done on the opportunities and risks experienced by FDI in the Chinese economy. The research activities have mainly focused on the stocks of FDI in general and have not actually done much in relation to how this is affected by the social and economic stability in

A summary of Amazon’s business Essay Example for Free

A summary of Amazon’s business Essay I’ve used Amazon in my books for over 10 years now since many companies, from startups and small businesses to large international businesses, can learn from their focus on the customer and the approach of using technology and analysis to improve results. It consistently outperforms other companies in its ACSI customer satisfaction rating too. I aim to keep the case study up-to-date for readers of the books and Smart Insights readers who may be interested. In it we look at Amazon’s background, revenue model and sources for the latest business results. I recommend anyone studying Amazon checks the latest Amazon revenue and business strategies from their SEC filings / Investor relations. The annual filings to give a great summary of eBay business and revenue models. A good summary of the latest business model initiatives is available in this Amazon annual report summary for 2011. For Q4, 2010: North America segment sales, representing the Company’s U.S. and Canadian sites, were $7.21 billion, up 45% from fourth quarter 2009. International segment sales, representing the Company’s U.K., German, Japanese, French, Chinese and new Italian sites, were $5.74 billion, up 26% from fourth quarter 2009. Excluding the unfavorable impact from year-over-year changes in foreign exchange rates throughout the quarter, sales grew 29%. Amazon has come a long way since it launched in 1995: From: and it’s offices†¦ to it’s current Seattle headquarters: Amazon performs exceptionally efficiently measured against revenue per visitor, which is one of the key measures for any commercial website, whether it’s a media site, search engine, social network or a transactional retailer or offers travel or financial services. Of course profit per user would be quite different due to the significantly lower costs of other .coms like Facebook and Google. Note: SEC is the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) which is a government agency for which companies have to submit an open evaluation of their business models and marketplace conditions. Further Amazon case information This case study created by FaberNovel â€Å"Amazon.com: The Hidden Empire† one of five â€Å"Most Favorited† slideshows and one of the five â€Å"Most Popular Technology Presentations† of 2011. Recommended: Amazon Case Study Context Why a case study on Amazon? Surely everyone knows about who Amazon are and what they do? Yes, well that’s maybe true, but this case goes beyond the surface toreview some of the ‘insider secrets’ of Amazon’s success. Like eBay, Amazon.com was born in 1995. The name reflected the vision of Jeff Bezos, to produce a large scale phenomenon like the Amazon river. This ambition has proved justified since just 8 years later, Amazon passed the $5 billion sales mark – it took Wal-Mart 20 years to achieve this. By 2008 Amazon was a global brand with other 76 million active customers accounts and order fulfillment to more than 200 countries. Despite this volume of sales, at December 31, 2007 Amazon employed approximately 17,000 full-time and part-time employees. In September 2007, it launched Amazon MP3, a la carte DRM-free MP3 music downloads, which now includes over 3.1 million songs from more than 270,000 artists. Amazon Vision strategy In their 2008 SEC filing, Amazon describe the vision of their business as to: â€Å"Relentlessly focus on customer experience by offering our customers low prices, convenience, and a wide selection of merchandise.† The vision is still to offer â€Å"Earth’s biggest selection and to be Earth’s most customer-centric company. Consider how these core marketing messages summarising the Amazon online value proposition are communicated both on-site and through offline communications. Of course, achieving customer loyalty and repeat purchases has been key to Amazon’s success. Many dot-coms failed because they succeeded in achieving awareness, but not loyalty. Amazon achieved both. In their SEC filing they stress how they seek to achieve this. They say: â€Å"We work to earn repeat purchases by providing easy-to-use functionality, fast and reliable fulfillment, timely customer service, feature rich content, and a trusted transaction environment. Key features of our websites include editorial and customer reviews;  manufacturer product information; Web pages tailored to individual preferences, such as recommendations and notifications; 1-Click ® technology; secure payment systems; image uploads; searching on our websites as well as the Internet; browsing; and the ability to view selected interior pages and citations, and search the entire contents of many of the books we offer with our â€Å"Look Inside the Book† and â€Å"Search Inside the Book† features. Our community of online customers also creates feature-rich content, including product reviews, online recommendation lists, wish lists, buying guides, and wedding and baby registries.† In practice, as is the practice for many online retailers, the lowest prices are for the most popular products, with less popular products commanding higher prices and a greater margin for Amazon. Free shipping offers are used to encourage increase in basket size since customers have to spend over a certain amount to receive free shipping. The level at which free-shipping is set is critical to profitability and Amazon has changed it as competition has changed and for promotional reasons. Amazon communicate the fulfillment promise in several ways including presentation of latest inventory availability information, delivery date estimates, and options for expedited delivery, as well as delivery shipment notifications and update facilities. This focus on customer has translated to excellence in service with the 2004 American Customer Satisfaction Index giving Amazon.com a score of 88 which was at the time, the highest customer satisfaction score ever recorded in any service industry, online or offline. Round (2004) notes that Amazon focuses on customer satisfaction metrics. Each site is closely monitored with standard service availability monitoring (for example, using Keynote or Mercury Interactive) site availability and download speed. Interestingly it also monitors per minute site revenue upper/lower bounds – Round describes an alarm system rather like a power plant where if revenue on a site falls below $10,000 per minute, alarms go off! There are also internal performance service-level-agreements for web services where T% of the time, different pages must return in X seconds. 2011 update on vision and importance of technology According to founder and CEO, Jeff Bezos, technology is very important to supporting this focus on the customer. In their 2010 Annual Report (Amazon,  2011) he said: â€Å"Look inside a current textbook on software architecture, and you’ll find few patterns that we don’t apply at Amazon. We use high-performance transactions systems, complex rendering and object caching, workflow and queuing systems, business intelligence and data analytics, machine learning and pattern recognition, neural networks and probabilistic decision making, and a wide variety of other techniques.And while many of our systems are based on the latest in computer science research, this often hasn’t been sufficient: our architects and engineers have had to advance research in directions that no academic had yet taken. Many of the problems we face have no textbook solutions, and so we — happily — invent new approaches†Ã¢â‚¬ ¦ All the effort we put into technology might not matter that much if we kept technology off to the side in some sort of RD department, but we don’t take that approach. Technology infuses all of our teams, all of our processes, our decision-making, and our approach to innovation in each of our businesses. It is deeply integrated into everything we do†. The quote shows how applying new technologies is used to give Amazon a competitive edge. A good recent example of this is providing the infrastructure to deliver the Kindle â€Å"Whispersync† update to ebook readers. Amazon reported in 2011 that Amazon.com is now selling more Kindle books than paperback books. For every 100 paperback books Amazon has sold, the Company sold 115 Kindle books. Kindle apps are now available on Apple iOS, Android devices and on PCs as part of a â€Å"Buy Once, Read Anywhere† proposition which Amazon has developed. Amazon Customers Amazon defines what it refers to as three consumer sets customers, seller customers and developer customers. There are over 76 million customer accounts, but just 1.3 million active seller customers in it’s marketplaces and Amazon is seeking to increase this. Amazon is unusual for a retailer in that it identifies â€Å"developer customers† who use its Amazon Web Services, which provides access to technology infrastructure such as hosting that developers can use to develop their own web services. Members are also encouraged to join a loyalty programme, Amazon Prime, a fee-based membership program in which members receive free or discounted express shipping, in the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany and Japan. Competition In its SEC (2005) filing Amazon describes the environment for our products and services as ‘intensely competitive’. It views its main current and potential competitors as: 1) physical-world retailers, catalog retailers, publishers, vendors, distributors and manufacturers of our products, many of which possess significant brand awareness, sales volume, and customer bases, and some of which currently sell, or may sell, products or services through the Internet, mail order, or direct marketing; (2) Other online E-commerce sites; (3) A number of indirect competitors, including media companies, Web portals, comparison shopping websites, and Web search engines, either directly or in collaboration with other retailers; and (4) Companies that provide e-commerce services, including website development; third-party fulfillment and customer-service. It believes the main competitive factors in its market segments include â€Å"selection, price, availability, convenience, information, discovery, brand recognition, personalized services, accessibility, customer service, reliability, speed of fulfillment, ease of use, and ability to adapt to changing conditions, as well as our customers’ overall experience and trust in transactions with us and facilitated by us on behalf of third-party sellers†. For services offered to business and individual sellers, additional competitive factors include the quality of our services and tools, their ability to generate sales for third parties we serve, and the speed of pe rformance for our services. From Auctions to marketplaces Amazon auctions (known as zShops) were launched in March 1999, in large part as a response to the success of eBay. They were promoted heavily from the home page, category pages and individual product pages. Despite this, a year after its launch it had only achieved a 3.2% share of the online auction compared to 58% for eBay and it only declined from this point. Today, competitive prices of products are available through third-party sellers in the ‘Amazon Marketplace’ which are integrated within the standard product listings. The strategy to offer such an auction facility was initially driven by the need to compete with eBay, but now the strategy has been adjusted such that Amazon describe it as part of the approach of low-pricing. Although it might be thought that Amazon would lose out on  enabling its merchants to sell products at lower prices, in fact Amazon makes greater margin on these sales since merchants are charged a commission on each sale and it is the merchant who bears the cost of storing inventory and fulfilling the product to customers. As with eBay, Amazon is just facilitating the exchange of bits and bytes between buyers and sellers without the need to distribute physical products. Amazon Media sales You may have noticed that unlike some retailers, Amazon displays relevant Google text ads and banner ads from brands. This seems in conflict with the strategy of focus on experience since it leads to a more cluttered store. However in 2011 Amazon revealed that worldwide media sales accounted for approximately 17% of revenue! Amazon marketing Amazon does not reveal much about its marketing approach in its annual reports, but there seems to be a focus on online marketing channels. Amazon (2011) states â€Å"we direct customers to our websites primarily through a number of targeted online marketing channels, such as our Associates program, sponsored search, portal advertising, email marketing campaigns, and other initiatives†. These other initiatives may include outdoor and TV advertising, but they are not mentioned specifically. In this statement they also highlight the importance of customer loyalty tools. They say: â€Å"while costs associated with free shipping are not included in marketing expense, we view free shipping offers and Amazon Prime as effective worldwide marketing tools, and intend to continue offering them indefinitely†. How ‘The Culture of Metrics’ started A common theme in Amazon’s development is the drive to use a measured approach to all aspects of the business, beyond the finance. Marcus (2004) describes an occasion at a corporate ‘boot-camp’ in January 1997 when Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos ‘saw the light’. ‘At Amazon, we will have a Culture of Metrics’, he said while addressing his senior staff. He went on to explain how web-based business gave Amazon an ‘amazing window into human behaviour’. Marcus says: ‘Gone were the fuzzy approximations of focus groups, the anecdotal fudging and smoke blowing from the marketing department. A company  like Amazon could (and did) record every move a visitor made, every last click and twitch of the mouse. As the data piled up into virtual heaps, hummocks and mountain ranges, you could draw all sorts of conclusions about their chimerical nature, the consumer. In this sense, Amazon was not merely a store, but an immense repository of fact s. All we needed were the right equations to plug into them’. James Marcus then goes on to give a fascinating insight into a breakout group discussion of how Amazon could better use measures to improve its performance. Marcus was in the Bezos group, brainstorming customer-centric metrics. Marcus (2004) summarises the dialogue, led by Bezos: â€Å"First, we figure out which things we’d like to measure on the site†, he said. â€Å"For example, let’s say we want a metric for customer enjoyment. How could we calculate that?† â€Å"There was silence. Then somebody ventured: â€Å"How much time each customer spends on the site?† â€Å"Not specific enough†, Jeff said. â€Å"How about the average number of minutes each customer spends on the site per session† someone else suggested. â€Å"If that goes up, they’re having a blast†. â€Å"But how do we factor in purchase?† I [Marcus] said feeling proud of myself. â€Å"Is that a measure of enjoyment†? â€Å"I think we need to consider frequency of visits, too†, said a dark-haired woman I didn’t recognise. â€Å"Lot of folks are still accessing the web with those creepy-crawly modems. Four short visits from them might be just as good as one visit from a guy with a T-1. Maybe better’. â€Å"Good point†, Jeff said. â€Å"And anyway, enjoyment is just the start. In the end, we should be measuring customer ecstasy† It is interesting that Amazon was having this debate in about the elements of RFM analysis (described in Chapter 6 of Internet Marketing), 1997, after already having achieved $16 million of revenue in the previous year. Of course, this is a miniscule amount compared with today’s billions of dollar turnover. The important point was that this was the start of a focus on metrics which can be seen through the description of Matt Pounds work later in this case study. From human to software-based recommendations Amazon has developed internal tools to support this ‘Culture of Metrics’.  Marcus (2004) describes how the ‘Creator Metrics’ tool shows content creators how well their product listings and product copy are working. For each content editor such as Marcus, it retrieves all recently posted documents including articles, interviews, booklists and features. For each one it then gives a conversion rate to sale plus the number of page views, adds (added to basket) and repels (content requested, but the back button then used). In time, the work of editorial reviewers such as Marcus was marginalised since Amazon found that the majority of visitors used the search tools rather than read editorial and they responded to the personalised recommendations as the matching technology improved (Marcus likens early recommendations techniques to ‘going shopping with the village idiot’). Experimentation and testing at Amazon The ‘Culture of Metrics’ also led to a test-driven approach to improving results at Amazon. Matt Round, speaking at E-metrics 2004 when he was director of personalisation at Amazon describes the philosophy as ‘Data Trumps Intuitions’. He explained how Amazon used to have a lot of arguments about which content and promotion should go on the all important home page or category pages. He described how every category VP wanted top-center and how the Friday meetings about placements for next week were getting ‘too long, too loud, and lacked performance data’. But today ‘automation replaces intuitions’ and real-time experimentation tests are always run to answer these questions since actual consumer behaviour is the best way to decide upon tactics. Marcus (2004) also notes that Amazon has a culture of experiments of which A/B tests are key components. Examples where A/B tests are used include new home page design, moving features around the page, different algorithms for recommendations, changing search relevance rankings. These involve testing a new treatment against a previous control for a limited time of a few days or a week. The system will randomly show one or more treatments to visitors and measure a range of parameters such as units sold and revenue by category (and total), session time, session length, etc. The new features will usually be launched if the desired metrics are statistically significantly better. Statistical tests are a challenge though as distributions are not normal (they have a large mass at zero for example of no purchase) There are other challenges since multiple  A/B tests are running every day and A/B tests may overlap and so conflict. There are also longer-term effects where some features are ‘cool’ for the first two weeks and the opposite effect where changing navigation may degrade performance temporarily. Amazon also finds that as its users evolve in their online experience the way they act online has changed. This means that Amazon has to constantly test and evolve its features. Amazon.com Technology It follows that the Amazon technology infrastructure must readily support this culture of experimentation and this can be difficult to achieved with standardised content management. Amazon has achieved its competitive advantage through developing its technology internally and with a significant investment in this which may not be available to other organisations without the right focus on the online channels. As Amazon explains in SEC (2005) ‘using primarily our own proprietary technologies, as well as technology licensed from third parties, we have implemented numerous features and functionality that simplify and improve the customer shopping experience, enable third parties to sell on our platform, and facilitate our fulfillment and customer service operations. Our current strategy is to focus our development efforts on continuous innovation by creating and enhancing the specialized, proprietary software that is unique to our business, and to license or acquire commercially-developed technology for other applications where available and appropriate. We continually invest in several areas of technology, including our seller platform; A9.com, our wholly-owned subsidiary focused on search technology on www.A9.com and other Amazon sites; web services; and digital initiatives.’ Round (2004) describes the technology approach as ‘distributed development and deployment’. Pages such as the home page have a number of content ‘pods’ or ‘slots’ which call web services for features. This makes it relatively easy to change the content in these pods and even change the location of the pods on-screen. Amazon uses a flowable or fluid page design unlike many sites which enables it to make the most of real-estate on-screen. Technology also supports more standard e-retail facilities. SEC (2005) states: ‘We use a set of applications for accepting and validating customer orders, placing and tracking orders with suppliers, managing and assigning inventory to customer  orders, and ensuring proper shipment of products to customers. Our transaction-processing systems handle millions of items, a number of different status inquiries, multiple shipping addresses, gift-wrapping requests, and multiple shipment methods. These systems allow the customer to choose whether to receive single or several shipments based on availability and to track the progress of each order. These applications also manage the process of accepting, authorizing, and charging customer credit cards.’ Data Driven Automation Round (2004) said that ‘Data is king at Amazon’. He gave many examples of data driven automation including customer channel preferences; managing the way content is displayed to different user types such as new releases and top-sellers, merchandising and recommendation (showing related products and promotions) and also advertising through paid search (automatic ad generation and bidding). The automated search advertising and bidding system for paid search has had a big impact at Amazon. Sponsored links initially done by humans, but this was unsustainable due to range of products at Amazon. The automated programme generates keywords, writes ad creative, determines best landing page, manages bids, measure conversion rates, profit per converted visitor and updates bids. Again the problem of volume is there, Matt Round described how the book ‘How to Make Love Like a Porn Star’ by Jenna Jameson received tens of thousands of clicks from pornography-related searches, but few actually purchased the book. So the update cycle must be quick to avoid large losses. There is also an automated email measurement and optimization system. The campaign calendar used to be manually managed with relatively weak measurement and it was costly to schedule and use. A new system: Automatically optimizes content to improve customer experience Avoids sending an e-mail campaign that has low clickthrough or high unsubscribe rate Includes inbox management (avoid sending multiple emails/week) Has growing library of automated email programs covering new releases and recommendations But there are challenges if promotions are too successful if inventory isn’t available. Your Recommendations Customers Who Bought X†¦, also bought Y is Amazon’s signature feature. Round  (2004) describes how Amazon relies on acquiring and then crunching a massive amount of data. Every purchase, every page viewed and every search is recorded. So there are now to new version, customers who shopped for X also shopped for†¦ and Customers who searched for X also bought†¦ They also have a system codenamed ‘Goldbox’ which is a cross-sell and awareness raising tool. Items are discounted to encourage purchases in new categories! I have a more detailed article on Amazon personalisation / recommendation system He also describes the challenge of techniques for sifting patterns from noise (sensitivity filtering) and clothing and toy catalogues change frequently so recommendations become out of date. The main challenges though are the massive data size arising from millions of customers, millions of items and recommendations made in real time. Amazon Partnership strategy As Amazon grew, its share price growth enabled partnership or acquisition with a range of companies in different sectors. Marcus (2004) describes how Amazon partnered with Drugstore.com (pharmacy), Living.com (furniture), Pets.com (pet supplies), Wineshopper.com (wines), HomeGrocer.com (groceries), Sothebys.com (auctions) and Kozmo.com (urban home delivery). In most cases, Amazon purchased an equity stake in these partners, so that it would share in their prosperity. It also charged them fees for placements on the Amazon site to promote and drive traffic to their sites. Similarly, Amazon charged publishers for prime-position to promote books on its site which caused an initial hue-and-cry, but this abated when it was realised that paying for prominent placements was widespread in traditional booksellers and supermarkets. Many of these new online companies failed in 1999 and 2000, but Amazon had covered the potential for growth and was not pulled down by these partners, even though for some such as Pets.com it had an investment of 50%. Analysts sometimes refer to ‘Amazoning a sector’ meaning that one company becomes dominant in an online sector such as book retail such that it becomes very difficult for others to achieve market share. In addition to developing, communicating and delivering a very strong proposition, Amazon has been able to consolidate its strength in different sectors through its partnership arrangements and through using technology to facilitate product promotion and distribution via these partnerships. The Amazon retail platform enables other retailers to sell products online using  the Amazon user interface and infrastructure through their ‘Syndicated Stores’ programme. For example, in the UK, Waterstones (www.waterstones.co.uk) is one of the largest traditional bookstores. It found competition with online so expensive and challenging, that eventually it entered a partnership arrangement where Amazon markets and distributes its books online in return for a commission online. Similarly, in the US, Borders a large book retailer uses the Amazon merchant platform for distributing its products. Toy retailer Toys R’ Us have a similar arrangement. Such partnerships help Amazon extends its reach into the customer-base of other suppliers, and of course, customers who buy in one category such as books can be encouraged to purchase into other areas such as clothing or electronics. Another form of partnership referred to above is the Amazon Marketplace which enables Amazon customers and other retailers to sell their new and used books and other goods alongside the regular retail listings. A similar partnership approach is the Amazon ‘[emailprotected]’ program which enables third party merchants (typically larger than those who sell via the Amazon Marketplace) to sell their products via Amazon. Amazon earn fees either through fixed fees or sales commissions per-unit. This arrangement can help customers who get a wider choice of products from a range of suppliers with the convenience of purchasing them through a single checkout process. Finally, Amazon has also facilitated formation of partnerships with smaller companies through its affiliates programme. Internet legend records that Jeff Bezos, the creator of Amazon was chatting to someone at a cocktail party who wanted to sell books about divorce via her web site. Subsequently, Amazon.com launched its Associates Program in July 1996 and it is still going strong. Googling http://www.google.com/search?q=www.amazon.com+-site%3Awww.amazon.com for sites that link to the US site, shows over 4 million pages, many of which will be affiliates. Amazon does not use an affiliate network which would take commissions from sale, but thanks to the strength of its brand has developed its own affiliate programme. Amazon has created a tiered performance-based incentives to encourage affiliates to sell more Amazon products. Amazon Marketing communications In their SEC filings Amazon state that the aims of their communications  strategy are (unsurprisingly) to: Increase customer traffic to our websites Create awareness of our products and services Promote repeat purchases Develop incremental product and service revenue opportunities Strengthen and broaden the Amazon.com brand name. Amazon also believe that their most effective marketing communications are a consequence of their focus on continuously improving the customer experience. This then creates word-of-mouth promotion which is effective in acquiring new customers and may also encourage repeat customer visits. As well as this Marcus (2004) describes how Amazon used the personalisation enabled through technology to reach out to a difficult to reach market which Bezos originally called ‘the hard middle’. Bezos’s view was that it was easy to reach 10 people (you called them on the phone) or the ten million people who bought the most popular products (you placed a superbowl ad), but more difficult to reach those in between. The search facilities in the search engine and on the Amazon site, together with its product recommendation features meant that Amazon could connect its products with the interests of these people. Online advertising techniques include paid search marketing, interactive ads on portals, e-mail campaigns and search engine optimisation. These are automated as far as possible as described earlier in the case study. As previously mentioned, the affiliate programme is also important in driving visitors to Amazon and Amazon offers a wide range of methods of linking to its site to help improve conversion. For example, affiliates can use straight text links leading direct to a product page and they also offer a range of dynamic banners which feature different content such as books about Internet marketing or a search box.Amazon also use cooperative advertising arrangements, better known as ‘contra-deals’ with some vendors and other third parties. For example, a print advertisement in 2005 for a particular product such as a wireless router with a free wireless laptop card promotion will feature a specific Amazon URL in the ad. In product fulfilment packs, Amazon may include a leaflet for a non-competing online company such as Figleaves.com (lingerie) or Expedia (travel). In return, Amazon leaflets may be included in customer communications from the partner brands. Our Associates program directs customers to our websites by enabling independent websites to make millions of products available to their  audiences with fulfillment performed by us or third parties. We pay commissions to hundreds of thousands of participants in our Associates program when their customer referrals result in product sales. In addition, we offer everyday free shipping options worldwide and recently announced Amazon.com Prime in the U.S., our first membership program in which members receive free two-day shipping and discounted overnight shipping. Although marketing expenses do not include the costs of our free shipping or promotional offers, we view such offers as effective marketing tools. Marcus, J. (2004) Amazonia. Five years at the epicentre of the dot-com juggernaut, The New Press, New York, NY. Round, M. (2004) Presentation to E-metrics, London, May 2005. www.emetrics.org.

Dante Alighieri Essay -- Poet Poetry Dante Biographies Essays

Dante Alighieri Dante Alighieri was the first and best Italian poet and wrote mainly on love and religion. His Divine Comedy is considered the greatest book of the last millennium. George Steiner said, "Dante’s totality of poet form and philosophic thought, of local universality and language, remains unrivaled. At a time where the notion of culture and of European culture in particular, is somewhat in doubt, Dante is the sovereign underwriter. His are the solutions beyond logic† (Twito 5). On June 5, 1265 Dante was born Durante Alighieri, Dante was a nickname, in Florence, Italy. His family was of decayed nobility with some pretensions to power (Giles 1). He was taught the classics and scholastic Christian literature, and wrote much poetry when he was young, consisting mainly of love lyrics in the style of Guido Guinizelli and Guido Cavalcanti. This style that used poetical art not only to speak about love, but to celebrate it, he called Stilnovo which means â€Å"new style† (Giles 2). He fell in love with a woman named Beatrice, who was also called Bice di Folco Portinarti by some, whom he met only twice in 1274 and 1283 at the age of nine and eighteen respectively. His love was a transformation of courtly love popularized by the Provencal literature of minstrels, troubadours, and the such. To Dante, Beatrice symbolized divine grace and supreme beauty. He wrote La Vita Nuova about her, and she was his guide through Purgatory in La Divina Commedia (Auerbach 1). Because Beatrice died in 1290, Dante married Gemma di Manetto Donati even though he didn’t completely love her. They had between three and seven children together (Giles 1). Dante, who was in the Guelph party, was deeply involved in the issues and events of his day, which reflected in his writing. He was a member of the Florentine cavalry that routed the Ghibellines at Campaldio in 1289. In 1300 he became one of the six priors, or governors, of Florence (Mojana 56). At the beginning of the thirteenth century, political life was factionalized into the Ghibellines, who represented the old imperial aristocracy, and the Guelphs, a party that was originally bourgeois and looked to the pope as a political power rather than a spiritual leader. At the beginning of the 14th century, the Guelphs held most councils in Italy. The Guelfi split into two groups, t... ...s to understand or accept† (Benfell 7). 1 Dante’s life spanned the troubled years of the late Middle Ages. He influenced Longfellow, Tennyson, Victor Hugo, and T.S. Elliot (Benfell 15). Dante’s vision was born not so much from a literary intent as from an authentic experience of action and thought, illuminated in a moment of grace. Along with William Shakespeare, he is one of the towering figures of western literature (Cooksey 35). Works Cited Auerbach, Erich. â€Å"Dante Alighieri.† Grolier Encyclopedia Online 11 Oct 2000 Available: http://go.grolier.com Benfell, V. Stanley. â€Å"Prophetic Madness: The Bible in Inferno.† MLIV Jan 1995: v110 n1 p195 Online Internet Oct 00 Available: http://rac.galegroup.com/itar/infomark/199/241.htm Cooksey, Tina. â€Å"The Divine Comedy: Hell, Purgatory, Heaven.† Library Journal 1Sep. 1997: 181-183 Giles, Mary E. â€Å"Dante Alighieri.† Great Thinkers of the Western World 1999 ed. Lansing, Richard H. â€Å"Dante Alighieri.† World Book 1999 ed. Mojana, Beeky M. â€Å"Dante† Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia. 1987 ed. Twito, Dao Dante Alighieri on the Web 8 May 1997 Online Internet 9 Oct 2000 Available: http://www.geocities.com/1kurio/

Maneka gandhi Essay

The main issues before the court in this case were as follows; -whether right to go abroad is a part of right to personal liberty nder Article 21 . Whether the Passport Act prescribes a ‘procedure’ as required by Article 21 before depriving a person from the right guaranteed under the said Article. -Whether section 10(3) (c) of the Passport Act is violative of Article 14, 19(1) (a) and 21 of the constitution. -Whether the impugned order of the regional passport officer is in contravention of the principles of natural Justice. The Supreme Court in this case reiterated the proposition that the fundamental rights under the constitution of India are not mutually exclusive but are interrelated. According to Justice K. lyer, ‘a fundamental right is not an island in itself. The expression â€Å"personal liberty’ in Article 21 was interpreted broadly to engulf a variety of rights within itself. The court further observed that the fundamental rights should be interpreted in such a manner so as to expand its reach and ambit rather than to concentrate its meaning and content by Judicial construction. Article 21 provides that no person shall be deprived of his life or personal liberty except in accordance with procedure established by law but that does not mean that a mere semblance of procedure rovided by law will satisfy the Article , the procedure should be Just , fair and reasonable. The principles of natural Justice are implicit in Article 21 and hence the statutory law must not condemn anyone unheard. A reasonable opportunity of defense or hearing should be given to the person before affecting him, and in the absence of which the law will be an arbitrary one. One of the significant interpretation in this case is the discovery of inter connections between Article 14, 19 and 21 . Thus a law which prescribes a procedure for depriving a person of â€Å"personal as o ul II t t tl the requirements otA 14 and 19 also. Moreover the ‘procedure established by law’ as required under Article 21 must satisfy the test of reasonableness in order to conform with Article 14. Justice Krishna lyer in this case observed that, â€Å"the spirit of man is at the root of Article 21†, â€Å"personal liberty makes for the worth of the human person† and â€Å"travel makes liberty worthwhile†. The court finally held that the right to travel and go outside the country is included in the right to personal liberty guaranteed under Article 21 . Section 10(3) (c) of the Passport Act is not violative of Article 21 as it is implied in the provision that the principles of natural justice would be applicable in the exercise of the power of impounding a passport . The defect of the order was removed and the order was passed in accordance with procedure established by law. The hon’ble Supreme Court in this case laid down a number of other propositions which made the right to life’ or ‘personal liberty more meaningful. Maneka Gandhi case has a great significance in the development of Constitutional law of India.

“Red Velvet Dress” by Naomi Shihab Nye Essay

In the short story â€Å"Red Velvet Dress† by Naomi Shihab Nye, Lena is a girl with a father who is Arab. This story really made me think about what it would be like to just be sitting at home when someone comes up to me and asks me questions about my family. I think that it would make me feel quite uncomfortable, such as it made Lena in the story. Although I have never been asked if there was a â€Å"Japanese† in my house or an â€Å"Irish†. This story made me think of a time that my mother picked up the phone and a total stranger started talking in Japanese to her. Everyone in my family was freaked out that someone who didn’t ever knew us would know that huge detail about my mother. I would think that’s how Lena felt when those two children that she had never seen before, let alone talked to, suddenly knew this part of her and her family that some of her friends didn’t even know. It almost seems as if total strangers would know that about y ou, then what else would they know? Would they know that I have an older sister? Would they know that some of my cousins are in the army? I suppose I would react the same way that Lena did, just close the door in his or her face after saying, no there is no person like that here. My favorite part of the story though is when Lena confesses to her father that she lied to those children at the door, and he forgave her. The kindly man even said that it might be fun sometime to give the children a show if they ever came back. I think this shows a lot about his character, how he seems to be jolly, forgiving, and definitely not one to hold a grudge against someone else. Also in the way that Lena describes him, her father seems like a hard workingman, yet a man that always has time for his family, such as throwing the ball around with Lena’s little brother. Altogether, I loved this story about a girl named Lena and her family.

Corbusier essays

Corbusier essays Corbusier, like many other architects of his time, had an extreme desire to create a perfect architecture. He claims that the one example of perfect architecture has been built, but it was built 2400 years ago: The Parthenon. He felt that if every building was evolved, designed, and constructed in such a way as the automobile was, that all buildings would resemble the Parthenon in esthetics and functionality. Although most of the pictures that Corbusier used in this chapter were without in-depth descriptions, the message he was trying to convey was quite evident. For the most part, the photos were in order of oldest to newest, showing the changes from each period. Many of the cars had a similar appearance, but the reason for that is because thats what the standard of the time called for. Each year something would change, but once one manufacturer altered their design, all the other followed. This is exactly why he feels that we need to develop a standard in architecture. All car manufacturers compete against each other in order to see who can construct the best vehicle. They are able to do this because they set a standard very early in the existence of the automobile. If architects and contractors were able to set a standard for building types, they would be able to work towards perfection. They would have a base that they could work off of, allowing them to pay much more attention to detail, as seen in the Parthenon, as well as in high-end sports and luxury cars. He wants for people to pay as much attention to buildings and their ornament as they do with the construction and precision of automobiles and the components that they are comprised of. I think one of the main reasons Corbusier uses the automobile, as well as airplanes and liners, as examples for comparison, is because they are common forms that are seen in everyday life. The fact that they are objects that everyone is comfortable with allows the readers to ...

Filipino Biologist Angel Alcala and Artifical Coral Reefs

Filipino Biologist Angel Alcala and Artifical Coral Reefs Angel Alcal has more than thirty years of experience in tropical marine resource conservationa. Angel Alcala is considered a world class authority in ecology and biogeography of amphibians and reptiles, and is behind the invention of artifical coral reefs to be used for fisheries in Southeast Asia. Angel Alcala is the Director of the Angelo King Center for Research and Environmental Management. Angel Alcala - Degrees: Undergraduate degree Silliman UniversityPh.D. Stanford University Angel Alcala - Awards: 1994 - The Field Museum Founders Council Award of Merit for contributions to environmental biologyMagsaysay Award for Public ServicePew Fellowship in Marine Conservation Work with Philippine Amphibians Reptiles: Angel Alcala has done the most comprehensive studies on Philippine amphibians and reptiles, and minor studies on birds and mammals. His research done between 1954 to 1999 lead to the addition of fifty new species of amphibians and reptiles.

Assignemnt Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words - 1

Assignemnt - Essay Example In the last few decades, the development of location based service has accompanied the growth of mobile telecommunications. Location based services such as global positioning satellite systems offer many benefits to consumers, but raise issues pertaining to privacy, trust and justice. Socially responsible telecommunication firms should develop policies to safeguard data and build trust (Chen et al., 2008). There has been a need to be able to exchange information within firms, partners, and customers. The four layers of the value chain include network operators, system integrators, assemblers, and sub-assemblers. E-commence initiatives influence process and relational innovations through collaboration. The use of collaborative electronic tools can strengthen business relationships, and trigger information visibility. In a business-to-business e-commerce environment, tighter long-term relationships between tiers of stakeholders are vital to the success of products or services. Generally, e-commerce is associated with sales and procurement activities. However, in this case it goes beyond to collaborative product development, forecasting, production planning, and management of inventory (Cassivi et al., 2005). Human capital of higher quality can enable firms to increase the range of various activities, and enhance their abilities to increase returns. According to Wei et al. (2009), the competitive edge of firms in today’s economy stems from â€Å"difficult to replicate† knowledge assets, and manner of deployment. The contemporary economy is knowledge based and requires direct engagement for the generation of knowledge. The knowledge economy emphasizes on human talents that organizations can harness, and developing those abilities. Participating in the evolving global networks requires building capabilities for competitiveness. The real value of organizations depends on ideas, insights and information that employees

Assignment 6 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Assignment 6 - Essay Example At their back are puppeteers, a representation of establishments who are casting shadows on the wall, where the prisoners can now experience the actual form of reality. They are inherently mistaken for reality. This is because the puppeteers behind the prisoners are using objects to cast shadows in front of the prisoners who are cannot turn back their heads as a form of reality to them. The prisoner is forced to face the fire after being released and the objects that to him once dictated reality to him, now show forms of reality that is accepted. This development indicates that what is perceived to be reality ever since we are born is untrue based on the grounds of imperfect interpretations or reflections of reality (Gaarder 81). This Allegory is a representation of a complex model in which we travel in our lives to reach the understanding of realty. The progress in the development of human represents our own path to finish the awareness in which the realty and the false will reach. The story presents a special view in which reality plays in our lives, and how a person understands. The mankind is stuck in the cave through their own ignorance, believing that what is before them is reality. They do not seek the knowledge of their senses, but instead look beyond their senses to find the underlying causes of things. Rene Descartes presented the idea that, he could not trust his senses and all he thought to be existing should be doubted. He gave three examples to his skepticism. First, is the deception of the senses as they deceive him, the deception of a dream which he termed as false experiences, and lastly the deception of God as an evil demon that is able to trick him as to what he experienced is real. Although many philosophers have found skeptical arguments as false, I think the dreaming argument can stand out to be real. It discredits sensory beliefs. So the dream argument is skeptical. For example, one may lie in bed and get